Adapt or Be Irrelevant

A pitfall of conservatism is when a conservative fails to deal with the reality that things have changed.

I'm not bashing conservatives. Most people would probably classify me as a conservative if I described most of my political and social positions. Obvious exceptions you might have noticed if you've read other entries on this blog is that I warn most men not to marry and I think professional antiporn crusaders are misleading people for personal gain.

I recognize that the truth is the truth regardless of the culture or what is in fashion.

And a truth that conservatives need to deal with is that some things change and if you're going to be effective, you need to meet people where they are.

Let's bring this into the world, to where the rubber meets the road.

Example: State marriage licenses. They are issued to same-sex couples and that's not going to change, unless states cease issuing marriage licenses entirely. Most conservatives have conceded this. Some still appear to be devoting their resources to trying to reverse this shift.

Two talk radio hosts to which I listen via paid podcast subscription, both of whom I think do a lot of good for people, demonstrate the problem with not accepting change.

Dr. Laura, despite what people might think who only know her through what other people say, has always held some positions that go against conservative consensus.

However, she usually refuses to help callers who are cohabitating outside of legal marriage. She usually won't help them with the problem or concern that's coming up within their relationship as it is. Instead, she tells them to either move out or go to the courthouse and get married ASAP. Very few of the callers are going to do either, and dismissing them with that won't help them in their marriage (if they do marry) or interpersonal relationships with each other or others if they do move out from each other.

I am generally against "shacking up" myself. However, most people who marry these days lived together before they did, just like Dr. Laura and her late husband. It's perfectly valid for her to explain why she now opposes shacking up (as long as she doesn't rely on statistics in a misleading way), and she can still do that. But the callers, and a wide swatch of her audience, will benefit more if she deals with things as they are. There are several other examples I could cite when it comes to the Dr. Laura Program.

I don't know of anything more foundational to how Dennis Prager views life and talks/writes about life than the notion that men and women should marry and raise children together, and that it is man's lot in life to financially support a woman. He is so convinced of this he constantly urges men and women to order their life around this. If they aren't married now, they should be actively seeking to marry, including if they've been divorced multiple times. If the Lord Almighty were to part the clouds and boom from the skies with a command to someone walking alongside Dennis that they shouldn't marry, Dennis just might go atheist.

Even though he acknowledges the severe problems with family law and courts, he still urges people to subject themselves to them. He needs to accept that we no longer live in small farming villages on family farms our entire life and don't need to birth our own farm hands. Men and women can both thrive living "alone" or without marriage.

Antiporn crusaders write and talk like scientists who aren't in their tank can't research and network, and that people can't check things out for themselves now. Their claims from forty-plus years ago like porn rots brains and turns people into serial killers are easily debunked now, but they still try to use those scare tactics. Porn isn't going away.

Life has changed, and tactics and positions need to change with it, or someone becomes ineffective.

Dr. Laura Asked If Men Are Idiots for Marrying

On her Tuesday, March 22, 2022 program, Dr. Laura read part of something from Jordan Gray found at Good Men Project. It was titled "I Used To Think That Men Who Got Married Were Idiots."

I used to think that men who got married were idiots.

Or, if they weren’t idiots, they were at least undesirable enough that they just had to settle for whoever chose them… because why else would you tie yourself to someone for life if the reason weren’t that you didn’t have any other romantic options?

I mean, seriously… getting married??

Okay so… you get a couple of months of hot sex, in exchange for a lifetime of indentured servitude to someone who eventually takes you for granted and sees you as a walking wallet and then stops having sex with you and makes jokes with her friends about what a dumbass you are? And that’s if you even manage to stay together… because what’s even more likely is that she eventually leaves you, takes the kids, and steals half of your life savings in the process.

Who in their right mind would sign up for such a thing?

Didn’t these guys realize that, if you really break down the benefits of marriage into their fundamental components, you could hire out all of these needs for way less money than what your lifestyle of snotty nosed kids and inevitable divorce would cost you?

And I’m not speaking hyperbolically here!

Here, I’ll prove it to you…

You could hire someone to come to your house to do a deep clean every other week for, depending on the size of your house, let’s say $200/month.

You don’t want to cook for yourself? Okay, you could hire a meal prepping service who could make your lunches and dinners (you can fend for yourself with a super simple breakfast) for $2,000/month.

Okay, cooking and cleaning are taken care of for less than the cost of your mortgage payment… what’s left? Oh right, the big one. Sex!

Depending on how fancy you are and the legality of sex work in your local area, you could see a sex worker every week for the rest of your life and spend no more than $1-2,000 per month on that expense.

So if you tally up the monthly costs of outsourcing predictable, guaranteed, high-quality cooking, cleaning, and sex… you’re looking at no more than $50,000 per year in total expenses. Now, that might sound like a lot to some in the short-term… but if you compare that to the average cost of raising children, and the amount of money you’ll inevitably have to shell out in your divorce, this is an absolute bargain.

That's where she stopped reading. She took calls from men after that, asking them "Are men idiots for getting married?" At first, she wanted calls from married men, but she had trouble getting enough calls, so she took them from any men (who passed the screeners). The thing is, Dr. Laura promotes marriage. When she deviates from her program's usual format for things like this, she wants a specific answer. It isn't really her trying to give people time to say whatever they want. She will deny anything that goes against her point.

Gray's essay was pretty good up until that point. I waited for her to go back to finish reading the piece, but she never did. Let's see why.

Unpaid?

"When someone is selling something, they don't like it when other people sell the same or similar product or service for much less." - Me [This entry has been bumped up.]

On Dr. Laura's Thursday, June 18, 2020 show, she took a call from a woman who has had a boyfriend for three years and she called about the possibility of talking marriage. Dr. Laura asked her if they were having sex. Of course the answer was yes. Dr. Laura called her an unpaid whore, which is a term she tends to apply to shackups, which the caller noted because they weren't living together. Dr. Laura went on to say that women like the caller are "giving men sex for nothing."  (I may be conflating the call with another one from the same episode, during which a man challenged the wisdom of marrying without having lived together.)

Aren't they giving each other company and sex? What exactly is he getting out of the relationship that she is isn't?

Again, we see the principle that men are expected to pay for sex, or that women don't enjoy sex.

And, we have no idea what bills of hers he's paying, or what gifts he's giving her. If he's taking her to nice dinners and paying for her vacations, entertainment, recreation, etc., then she is getting paid.

Dr. Laura brought up the white wedding dress and how it's not fair for women who aren't virgins to wear them. Except the truth about white wedding dresses says otherwise.

One Reason You're Not Husband Material

Guys, I often write about how there isn't suitable, compatible wife material for you to marry. But another reason you should avoid marriage (or at least, a reason you can tell others when they ask you why you're not married) is that you aren't husband material. This isn't an insult, mind you.

Below is a list put together through listening to Dr. Laura for many years. She is very pro-marriage and used to do marriage and family therapy.

If a woman is looking for a man to be a husband and father to her children, this is the kind of employment he must have. This is just about his job. This doesn't even cover all of the other qualities he must have. If you don't have a job like this, you're not (first) husband material, and so you shouldn't marry. (And, if you don't marry during the child-raising years, then you're not going to be marriage material later on, because you didn't marry earlier, which means you're not the type to commit to marriage.)

A (first) husband has to have a job that, in no particular order...

Marriage Material Men

As anyone who has skimmed through this blog can tell, I'm a huge fan of the Dr. Laura Program and the hostess herself. As such, I listen to every minute of the show and thus I think I've discerned what she would consider the basic requirements of marriage-material men; in other words, what she tells her female callers to look for when it comes to finding a husband.

In no particular order, here they are:


1) He is 28-35 years of age. That might slip down to 27 and slip up to 38 or so, but guys in their earlier 20s are not considered marriage material and men in their 40s or older who have never been married (see below) aren't married because either they really don't want to be or there is some serious flaw with them. Now, she doesn't oppose people remarrying when their children are grown and there is a prenup to protect those adult children and they meet all of the other criteria. However, the focus of this entry is on first marriages.


2) He is the same age or slightly older than the woman.

3) He has no minor children and has never been married before (with the possible exception of widowers). Even if he doesn't have kids, having been married before makes things more complicated and can make divorce more likely. Remember, we're talking about guys in their late 20s and early 30s.

4) He is done with his education and training.

5) He is not in debt.

6) He doesn't abuse substances and is physically and mentally healthy.

7) He doesn't play video games and has no Facebook or social media account.

8) He is Alpha, not weak, and not a momma's boy nor does he allow a problematic mother (or anyone else) to control or negatively impact his life.

9) He earns enough to be the sole support of wife and children in a nuclear family home without others (and he wants to), to pay for private school or homeschooling plus activities, to pay lawyers to "go to war," to pay to care for elderly or disabled relatives to have the care they need, to pay for you both to avoid ever being burdens on your children, and many other things.

10) He has a job that pays as much as described in #9 and is steady, stable, and secure, and yet it doesn't require moves, frequent travel, semi/pseudo-social situations with women, working/commuting long or odd hours or extra/odd days that would intrude into family time, communicating outside of work hours, nor has dangerous conditions, and will allow him to be home for dinner every night.

11) He has a compatible religious background to the woman. Saying "neither one of us is very religious" doesn't count if the religions are in conflict. For example, Jewish (non-Messianic) and Catholic. This is only a must if there is a possibility, however slight, of having children.

12) He is otherwise fundamentally compatible with the woman (major goals, raising children, personalities, etc.)

13) He is willing and able to be completely monogamous for life (no threesomes, swinging, swapping, group sex, polyamory) and would never ask the wife to have sex where others might see nor to watch others have sex in-person.

14) The woman is strongly attracted to him, including physically.

15) There are no red flags in addition to anything covered above, including things that would be red flags if they happened more often or on a larger scale. (You can't come back later say, "It wasn't this bad!")

I personally disagree with #7. I think it is simply something she didn't grow up with and she has an unreasonable bias against such technology. Otherwise, I think these are very good rules for a woman looking for a husband.

In today's world, the combination of #9 and #10 is increasingly rare, especially fitting into the criteria of #1. However, since the priority is family and children, these are necessary things. This is why she frequently gets female callers who say that they "have to" work, or whose husbands aren't home enough or the right hours/days, or whose (potential) husband is older. But remember - "everyone", deep down, wants to be with someone.

UPDATE: It has become painfully apparent with COVID-19 shutdowns that #10 is exceedingly rare in the sense that very few jobs are secure, steady, and stable. They can be removed by government fiat at any time.

One Way to Warn More Men

If you identify at all with MGTOW or agree with me that most men should stay Free Men (avoiding legal/financial entanglements with women) or at least avoid marriage, one way to get our messages out to more men is to use established platforms, such as online discussions, comments sections, and call-in shows (like talk radio).

Getting a single sentence broadcast can help change lives for the better. If you can red-pill just one man or boy listening, it makes a positive difference. Any show doing an hour or whatever of "open lines" or allowing “talk back” of messages recorded using their app (no set topic) is an opportunity, but especially shows or spaces talking about relationships, dating, family, or marriage.

I wrote an extensive open letter to Dennis Prager, but I'd never call in to his show, for reasons, but you might be able to [at this time, he’s not doing live shows other than tsking some questions from paid subscribers on occasion]. Although I'll be using Dennis Prager and Dr. Laura as examples, you can adapt these tactics to any call-in show, preferably one that puts "live" calls on the air. Note that Dennis Prager does live question and answer chats on Facebook [he did.. he might resume as he recovers from his spinal injury] and Dr. Laura's show has a Facebook page where she allows comments and discussions on things she posts, which are often about relationships and marriage. You can adapt these messages for any forum, social media, or comments area. 

Vows Vary

Dr. Laura read a letter at the end of the Wednesday, May 13, 2020 show from the wife of a caller. The wife explained that her husband had called claiming that there were sexual problems in the relationship. The letter writer explained, because he never said so during the call, that her husband had been trying to get her to have sex with other men. (There is a whole fetish or two about that.) [This entry has been bumped up.]

Dr. Laura again talked about "breaking vows".

Boundaries

Dr. Laura mocks callers who use the word "boundaries." She says "Boundaries are what keep cattle in one place." This despite her own program's buffer featuring her talking about "retreading a tire" when she is in no way referring to dealing with an actual tire.

Less frequently, she'll say that boundaries don't stop other people from doing anything.

While she might dismiss "boundaries" as "psychobabble," it's a frequently used (often correctly) and understood term.

When someone "has boundaries," it isn't about controlling what other people do. Rather, it is all about what the person who articulates the boundary (whether only in their own mind, or voicing it to others) will tolerate, and how they will react if the boundary is violated.

Let's consider an example.

Joe decides he has a boundary that he will not allow his sister to criticize him for being a free man. At a family gathering, his sister bashes him for being unmarried. Joe politely excuses himself and leaves early.

Did the boundary stop his sister? No, but Joe didn't stick around for more abuse. That was setting and using a boundary.

Let's consider another example, one that Dr. Laura can really get behind.

Jenny establishes a boundary that her difficult mother can't stay with Jenny, her husband, and their kids. Rather, her mother can stay in a nice nearby hotel when she visits. Jenny's mother asks, "When I come for the visit next month, how about I stay with you?"

Jenny says, "Sorry to disappoint you, mom, but we need our privacy. That hotel chain you like has a nice hotel just a couple of miles away." That was setting and using a boundary.

Dr. Laura tells her callers and listeners to use boundaries all of the time. She just doesn't use the actual word. She has boundaries. For example, she will not argue or debate anything she says on her program.

Boundaries are wonderful things. I urge my readers to set boundaries:

• Don't marry
• Don't date women with minor children
• Don't date coworkers
• Don't date virgins
• Don't take unnecessary DNA tests
• Don't donate sperm
  
• Don't socialize at work
• Don't let the women you're dating know where you really live, work, or what your real name is
• Don't buy expensive gifts for the women you're dating
• Don't loan anyone money you can't afford to lose forever
• Don't pass up a better job out of what you'd call loyalty to a boss or employer 

All of those are boundaries, and I encourage people to have many more. Most people should have their own additional boundaries depending on what they want and what bothers them.

Boundaries are not requirements for OTHER people. They are something YOU put in place for YOURSELF. "If X, I will Y."

Put the Shackle Back On

On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, the Dr. Laura Program ran a call in the third hour that I'm almost certain was a repeat or was recorded off-air. Both are regular elements of the program.

The call was with a husband and wife. The husband had just left the wife within the last few days.

The focus of the call became the husband's claim that he left so he could do what he wanted to do. It sounded like he wanted to golf, fish, and certain other similar things.

Dr. Laura kept hounding him with "Why can't you do it while you're married to her?"

Then Dr. Laura said that she did what she wanted to do while married to her late husband. Note: Dr. Laura usually will not allow callers to compare themselves to her or ask what she'd personally do, but she often compares herself to the caller.

But there was a problem with that.

The caller was the husband. Dr. Laura was a wife. Dr. Laura usually notes significant differences between men and women, husbands and wives, and their power within marriage. In her marriage specifically, she had the fame and was a high income earner. She was also a trained psychotherapist. And for the last how many years of the marriage, Dr. Laura was in much better health and shape than her husband. OF COURSE SHE DID WHAT SHE WANTED.

A husband has little power other than to leave, and for most husbands, leaving still doesn't restore all of his power, and the courts will order the husband to spend a significant amount of his life earning money for his ex.

Many husbands can't do what they want because most wives have an extensive list of things (written or not) for the husband to do that occupies his time and energy, and if he doesn't do them or even if he does and his wife doesn't like what he wants to do with his leftover time, she can make his life a living Hell.

She can get hostile and bitchy. She can bitch at him and nag him, including while he's trying to sleep (that one is especially fun, I know from experience). She can shut down all affection. She can get him kicked out of his own home. She can spend him into debt. She can destroy his belongings. There's worse.

She urged the husband to go back to his wife, saying he can do what he wants to do and still be married. Yet, if he had already been doing what he wanted to do Dr. Laura might have gotten a call from the wife and told the wife she was married to a selfish man who didn't want to be married or that she "doesn't have a marriage."

It sounded to me like Dr. Laura was trying to prevent the wife from being a divorced woman at an age she would have slim pickings for a new husband. The call wasn't anywhere near long enough to get a good idea of what has really been going on in the marriage. Dr. Laura may have known due to a letter or what was discussed or sent back and forth prior to the call, but the listeners didn't.

Another Reason For Men to Avoid the Marriage Track

 

Guys, there are many reasons almost none of you are husband material and you should reorient your thinking and efforts away from finding a wife.

I’m adding another one I just heard Dr. Laura give. She has long said men shouldn’t use social media. But recently, relevant to when I’m writing this, she has also said “liking” pictures of women in swimsuits disqualifies you. That’s what she told a young woman who was dating a guy for about half a year.

Heed what she says, guys.

Spend your time, money, and energy doing other than looking for a wife. Want female companionship? Run game. 

Yet Another Example of Why Men Should Avoid Marrying

Every once in a while, the mask slips.

January 4, 2022, this, screencapped below in case it disappears, was posted on the Dr. Laura Program official Facebook page. [This entry has been bumped up.]



Many women commented on it, about how men need to jump through more hoops in order to get sex from their woman.

Typical right? We hear and read that all of the time.

About 24 hours later, this was posted on the very same Facebook page, again, screencapped below in case it goes away.



How can this be reconciled with the first post? Simple! Tell the boyfriends to stop doing so much for her. Right??? I mean, then her sexual desire will be reduced. Right???

The men had fun with this one, commenting on this second posting:




Dr. Laura does monitor and comment on her program's official Facebook page (unlike Twitter, which she doesn't personally check), so it will be interesting to see if she responds to this, deletes something (including some comments from men), or what.

There is a larger point here than two apparently contradictory posts on the same page in about a 24-hour span.

It is that many (most?) women DO NOT need ANYTHING in order to be sexual. The proof is in how women behave, often from first dates (or hookups without even going on a date), all the way until their wedding or the birth of a child. The proof is in affairs. The woman in the second post doesn't need her boyfriend to jump through hoops. She wants sex with them.

A BIG tell is single mothers. If she was able to have sex with him plenty when they were dating, even though she had LESS help around the house, and then he marries her and thus is doing more than before they were married, and the sex dwindles, that shows "he needs to do more" is dung. (Don't date or marry single mothers, though, guys.)

The only way "Hey, husband, you need to jump through more hoops" is true is if he needs to do more because she is now less attracted to him because of age and/or marriage, and if that is common, then it is all the more reason for men to STAY FREE and date women who are more attracted, or go into monk mode.

None of this is to say men who've been ignorant, delusional, desperate, or masochistic enough to marry shouldn't contribute around the home or shouldn't romance their wife. Rather, this is to again demonstrate an inconsistency between what woman (and marriage sellers) say, and how women actually behave.

See something I wrote before about this topic.

Two Calls in the Same Hour of Dr. Laura

I found the proximity of these two calls especially interesting. To be clear, they might not have actually been handled mere minutes apart, as the presentation of the program would imply, because 1) Dr. Laura does take some calls off-air, to be recorded for use in the program, and 2) previously aired calls are rerun. And both of these things happen unannounced, letting listeners believe this is all happening live.

May 13, 2025, Hour 2.

“Diane” called, age 70, married 37 years. We’re never told how old her husband is; we’re left to assume he’s about the same age.

In the last year, her husband has said he “doesn’t like” their sex life, it’s “too traditional”, and he’s “much more kinky”, wants “more exciting sex” and wants a girlfriend on the outside of their marriage.

Diane suggested she could do “some of” the things he wants to do, but since he knows she isn’t into it, he doesn’t want it with her. He doesn’t think it’s natural for her.

“He wants acknowledgment from another woman.”

Dr. Laura asked Diane if she’s willing to stay married to someone who’ll have sex outside of the marriage.

Diane was unsure, but of course Dr. Laura pushed for a decision. She does this even though it would be easy to give Diane both advice for staying as well as advice for if she is going to leave.

Dr Laura said that, if all this time of being married, they hadn’t done anything kinky, then it would be out of his nature, too.

Huh??? That’s dung. He could have very well struggled to contain his desires and feelings for 37-plus years. Dr. Laura knows that! But she just wants to beat up on the guy.

Dr. Laura goes on to say he’s at a point in his life he just wants to go out to play, and this is why men go to a prostitute or watch porn; so they don’t have to satisfy a woman.

Where did she get that? There was no indication from the call the caller isn’t satisfied, that her husband doesn’t want to satisfy her, and that he won’t want to satisfy any other woman he’s with. But Dr. Laura repeated it. She hasn’t talked with the husband at all and yet she made this assertion. The husband even said he wanted someone who was into it, so at least his claim is that he cares about the woman’s enjoyment.

Diane said her husband wants S & M.

She also said he’s been a good husband.

Dr. Laura, who has deemed many men who’ve done all sorts of things “good husbands” overall, said “Good husbands are not defined by the behaviors you just described to me.” First, no, Diane was referring to other behaviors. If she had tried describing all of those good husband behaviors at the start of the call or at any other time, Dr. Laura would have stopped her, perhaps with the uberannoying “WOO HOO!!! WOO HOO!! Diane’s husband has treated her well for decades, apparently. Two, talking about his desires isn’t being a good husband? No, if you maintain he’s just supposed to never talk with his wife about his desires. But isn’t it better he talked about his true feelings with his wife instead of simply sneaking out to cheat, hiding it from her?

Diane said she is “torn” because otherwise she loves the marriage. Kudos for Dr. Laura for not going on a long side rant about the word “torn.” I guess she was too focused on badmouthing Diane’s husband.

“Why do you want to stay with a guy who doesn’t want to sexually fulfill you and make love, he wants sicko sex?” Who said he doesn’t want to fulfill her? This is a contrarian assertion by Dr. Laura.

Diane said he says he wants to make love with her and have crazy sex otherwise.

In an attempt to distract the listeners from the fact she’d been messing up, Dr . Laura pivoted to saying she feels sorry for the caller for even debating it. That’s something Dr. Laura does when she’s losing - pivots to disapproval and shaming. She’s the great Dr. Laura, so her feeling differently from the caller is supposed to either change the caller’s position or make the caller feel lowly.

Dr. Laura called it a fact that Diane’s husband going to bring home STDs. See, since it’s “not a religious show,” it’s hard for Dr. Laura to say what exactly would be wrong with this arrangement if Diane was OK with it. Her husband could have had a vasectomy and “I’m Dr. Laura, and I don’t like it” doesn’t seem to be working, so the STD card gets played.

The problem with that is: This isn’t secret. He’s talking with his wife about it. There have been studies showing that people who are upfront about these things are LESS likely to spread STDs, because they get tested regularly and take precautions.

Then Dr. Laura mocked the idea that Diane’s husband would be able to separate out making love with her and getting kinky with someone else. What does that even mean? That he’d still try to get his wife to do S & M? I highly doubt that. Most men are very good at compartmentalization. Dr. Laura knows this! But she ditched that in an attempt to convince Diane and listeners that, somehow, it would be a problem. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. The alternative is guaranteed to be a problem: he’s either going to leave or be resentful.

Dr. Laura continued by asserting the caller won’t be horny for her husband. How does Dr. Laura know? On the contrary, maybe the caller would get off on it?

When Dr. Laura said women Diane’s age want to maintain the nest, the caller elaborated on that and mentioned being alone. Dr. Laura said “you’re never alone” because of friends, family, activities, etc. Um, what does she tell people who don’t want to marry? “You’ll be alone.” 

Case in point, she went on to say that the husband’s other lovers won’t care to be there when he’s dying (right after calling him a “sh!t” and “creepy.”) Yet again, Dr. Laura doesn’t know that. It happens more often than she’d ever want to admit: a lover who isn’t their spouse and never was a spouse being there as a husband is dying. I can think of someone I knew in such a situation, off the top of my head. I know Dr. Laura, instead of admitting she is asserting something that might not be true, would pivot to calling that strange or disrespectful. And who’s to say his wife will be there when he’s dying? She might die before or she might have divorced him for reasons unrelated to his desires.

Dr. Laura asks if she knew he was into S & M while dating. Diane said she knew he was into “kinky stuff like threesomes.”

Dr. Laura likened it to knowingly marrying a serial killer. I mean really. A guy wanting some sexual adventure has her thinking about murder. Oooookaaay.

Dr. Laura went on with her often-repeated “this is why I do this on radio, so that other women will be warned.” Right, that’s it. Not at all that it pays much more and if she’s in a room with a client/patient she can’t mute them, put them on hold, or hang up on them.

For sure, ladies, don’t marry a man who’d ever want a threesome, or sex with another woman, or an open marriage, or swinging, or BDSM, or whatever. (Spoiler: Almost all men who don’t have a low libido want at least one thing you’d find a turnoff or unacceptable, and even if he genuinely doesn’t at age 28, he might at age 48 or 68. So be sure to avoid this by never marrying.)

Society doesn’t say Diane’s husband’s desires are wrong. Some religions say they’re wrong. But again, the program “isn’t a religious program.” Most of society would say it’d be wrong for him to pursue his desires without his wife’s permission or at least making sure she is informed. Most of society would support him divorcing her to pursue his desires, or never having married.

Do with that reality what you will.

Dr. Laura has made it clear over the decades she is completely opposed to anything but monogamy in marriage. I can’t ever recall her articulating why, though, other than “you took vows to forsake all others,” which isn’t always true. However, I’m certain she has praised callers, letter writers, and others who’ve have been polyamorous, or swingers, or in an open marriage, or have done threesomes, or some other similar things: she just didn’t know the person she was praising had experience with those things, because it wasn’t the topic at hand.

*****

The other call during the same hour was from “Benjamin.”

Benjamin was married for 25 years and he and his wife were both virgins when they married.

He said their sexual relationship had been “tenuous” throughout their marriage because his libido is much more active than hers.

Dr. Laura didn’t jump in and point out that it’s normal for husbands to want sex more often than their wife, so he continued, saying three or four years ago, he said to his wife that had he known they’d be fighting back and forth about this he doesn’t know he would have entered into the relationship.

Notice that this is another example of how men are NOT supposed to be honest or share their feelings. They’re supposed to just shut up and keep being a butler and bank account.

Dr. Laura asked him about watching sex scenes in movies and whether he was doing all of the really exciting things the male characters were doing. Huh??? What does she think the characters are doing in these movies? And she knows they’re fiction, right?

Ben didn’t really say. He probably had no clue what she was talking about: romantic dinner? Passionate kisses? Sneaking out in the morning?

He said for him it was a matter of frequency and satisfaction.

Apparently based just on that, Dr. Laura said “Well that made you a crappy lover.” A good lover is primarily concerned with her satisfaction, not yours.

Uh, he didn’t say only his satisfaction. Also, what if Ben’s wife is a lesbian, or into a kink? Dr. Laura didn’t know anything relevant, unless Ben wrote a letter, in which case that should have been mentioned. Notice she didn’t tell the other caller, Diane, to be focused on her husband’s satisfaction.

Dr. Laura then went on to say the wife likely didn’t know much about her own body, even though the opposite could be true: she might have masturbated a lot before marriage to avoid having sex; she might be masturbating a lot now.

Dr. Laura went on to tell Ben that “probably you’re terrible at it and she has never gained an appreciation for it.”

Poor Ben. He has no way of knowing if he’s bad at it. For Dr. Laura to quickly assert that based on next to nothing is not OK. It’s a common tactic women use against men who say their marital sex life isn’t good. It’s been used against me. Except I know from experience that isn’t the problem. Dr. Laura KNOWS there are many wives who don’t have the same libido she apparently had (which had her doing things she now pretends never happened); many wives aren’t sexually attracted to their husbands. She wrote an entire book that’s mostly about that!!!

Anyway, she went on to tell Ben he and his wife should go to a sex therapist together.

Hmm. I’m guessing Ben and his wife were VERY religious and might still be. What are the odds they’re going to go to a sex therapist?

Dr. Laura continued, saying “Or you’re going to be divorced.”

What is she basing that on? It’s been 25 years. They made it this far. She then asserted again that Ben is a bad lover and turned his wife off. She wants to send him a “tape” of the conversation to play for his wife. Oh, no. No no no.

Now, it’s possible Ben is a bad lover. Sex is a learned skill, and he hasn’t had much opportunity to learn. But it’s also possible his wife simply has little interest in having sex with him or anyone else at all, and it has nothing to do with anything he did or didn’t do. She might have what Dr. Laura would call “trowma” or maybe she has hangups.

Poor Ben. He’s likely never going to experience a good sex life.

Well, there you have it. Two more examples among countless examples of why it’s better to avoid marriage in the first place.

. 

A Change in Perspective

At the opening of her Wednesday, January 18. 2023 program, Dr. Laura read something written by a man with the title of  "All The Wrong Reasons I Pursued Love with Women Why I'm Changing Now".

Here's what it said:

*****
I was taking women out because I lacked the confidence to say no.

I had a fear that if I didn't spend a lot of money or time on them they wouldn't want me or see me.

I was using dating to get my needs met. Sometimes I was just horny and needed some fun or relief, but I wouldn't communicate that.

I felt that nobody would give me that, so ultimately I would end up paying for an expensive date out and about, listening to her babble on and on, and buying her gifts.

I also had a belief that my value was tied to my wealth.

I also learned that when I was horny and not having sex, I wasn't able to think clearly anymore.

It no longer became about enjoying life, but about ego. Will she stay with me? Am I good enough for her?

I never asked myself if I was enjoying these relationships.

I also learned that I could do and have what I wanted without giving up so much of my time, money, and freedom.

We have a tendency to spend and do tasks to keep a woman because of fear, and this is something I wanted to challenge.

I want to see what it is like to stop paying costs I didn't have to, and trust I will have a better life if I learn to limit my dates and learn to enjoy my own company.

And I have a feeling that will be much more rewarding than I can imagine.

I've also learned that my hard work and resulting earnings are sacred. I want to keep control over my wealth.

I will no longer take women on lavish dates who don't want to have the kind of fun with me that I like.

Staying free has helped me develop my own set of beliefs and flourishing into someone I can respect.
*****

Just kidding. That's not what it said. Everything above does have an analogy to the sentences Dr. Laura read. But what she read was from something written by a woman and the title was "All the Wrong Reasons I Slept with Men Before and Why I’m Changing Now." Dr. Laura DID NOT cite on the air where the essay was posted and who wrote it. Instead, she was very limited in what she actually read from the essay, even removing important phrases from some sentences.

Dr. Laura left out the parts about how this involved supposedly Buddhist meditation, from someone raised as a Southern Baptist, and how this person doesn't believe in a need for get a state license for marriage, nor for marriage to be permanent; check in frequently to see if the relationship should continue. What we have here is a woman who rode the carousel. And now that she's older, her hormones are changing, and the men she can attract aren't as high in their social status, she's basically saying she's only going to have sex if she feels an emotional connection, rather than just for recreation. She can still go through many men per year, but she's going to pretend it's much more profound than what she was doing before.

I'm not faulting a single woman for thinking she's going to put more meaning behind when she has sex. But let's be clear about what's going on here, and what Dr. Laura did with the text.

And what we have another example showing that men can get young women with no strings attached and little time, money, and effort spent by running game.

Who Is Right About Staying Together For the Kids - Dr. Laura or Dennis Prager?

Dr. Laura's priority is the well-being of minor children. She has experience as a marriage and family therapist, although she's far more experienced as a radio talk show host and author dealing with family problems, moral dilemmas, values, ethics, and more.

Absent actual abuse, she tells married parents who want to divorce to wait until the youngest child is 18 years old, up and out of the home. Her reasoning is that this avoids breaking up the child's home and bringing chaos into their lives while they are minors.

Dennis Prager, who says people should divorce instead of living in misery, says that it can be worse for the children to be in their (adult) late teens or early twenties and then have their parents split, because then the now-grown children think of their family life as fake or a lie, and they can still get extremely upset about the divorce.

It should be noted that Dennis Prager, who has no formal experience as a marriage and family therapist and has written much less on parenting/family and spends fewer talk show hours discussing those issues, has had more children than Dr. Laura and one more divorce than her (Dr. Laura was not a mother when her first marriage ended).

It's one of the things I would very much like to hear these two radio talk show host veterans discuss directly. I doubt that will ever happen since their shows aren't part of the same company. Also, because Dr. Laura refuses to argue/debate on her show, and my guess is that would also include any other show as well (this is probably one big reason she didn’t appear anyone else's show for many years, except for one on the same channel as hers - on which she doesn't argue.)

Unlike either of them, I would advocate most people avoid this question entirely by not marrying.

A False Dichotomy

Dr. Laura asserts the following dichotomy to her callers and her audience:

• Marriage means, among other things, having a state contract, making vows, living together, sharing finances, sexual exclusivity in complete privacy. Otherwise, it isn't marriage.
  
  
• Those things aren't part of dating, especially long-term dating, or living together without a state license (shacking up). There are no obligations and there are no agreements, such as an agreement to sexual exclusivity.

According to her, romantic relationships are either marriage as she defines it, or, if two years or fewer old, are mutually agreed to be on the way to marriage, or they are aren't worthwhile and there are no rules.

She's allowed to say what she wants on her program. But she can't dictate this for anyone else. The dichotomy she presents does not describe reality.

There are married people who don't have a state license, never had a ceremony, keep separate finances, spend substantial periods of time apart, and/or aren't sexually exclusive. They use the terms "husband" and "wife," treat each other as spouses as far as doing things together and generally putting each other first and caring for each other, are recognized as spouses by the people around them, and might even be recognized as married by the state.

There are unmarried people who have been together for years, live together, share finances, and/or have agreed to sexual exclusivity. The people around them recognize that they are a couple and respect their agreements.

These things are happening every day. Millions of people do these things. This is going on, whether I like it or not and whether anyone else likes it or not. And for the record, I'm generally against, in most cases, agreeing to an ongoing exclusive relationship, living together, or marrying.

A state-licensed marriage isn't the only personal relationship with rules. Friendships usually have rules. So do most unmarried romances. Commitment is in behavior. The state license isn't a commitment to do anything other than have the spouse who earns more pay the other.

If she's going to deny a caller's reality, the reality they've been living, the caller should probably consider getting advice from another source.