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.

Cult of the Cubicle

The lockdowns associated with the 2020 pandemic widely revealed something that some people had already discovered:

Thanks to technology, many office jobs can now be done entirely or almost entirely from home, or some other "remote" location.

Some employers embraced this for the long term, significantly reducing the office space their company leased or owns.

Others, steeped in what I'll call the Cult of the Cubicle, have been trying to get everyone back into their cubicles, or even worse, their "open" workstations.

If responsibilities can be handled through telephones and computing devices (smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, etc.), they can be done through "telework" or remotely. Presentations done on screens can be presented and experiences remotely. Meetings can be done remotely. Trainings can be done remotely.

There are tasks, there are personalities, there are home situations which make it preferable for some people to work in the common office. Some collaborations are going to be better that way.

But for others, why not let them work from home/remotely full-time, permanently, if that is what they want? Either they can do quality work at the quantity needed or they can't. If they can, what is the problem? I can't think of any except for a desire to have a feeling of control over people.

Commuting has costs and risks. For many people, their residence and their employer aren't going to be close, or the commute is going to be slow and stressful even if the physical distance isn't all that far. In the greater Los Angeles area, it isn't unusual for people to have commutes that are over an hour one way, and that's without an accident that stops a commuter train, or closes lanes on a freeway or tollway. The saving grace for people in those commutes is usually radio, podcasts, or audiobooks, or they might do phone calls as they move slowly along the roadways.

But that's about the employee's quality of life. How does allowing more people to work work "from home" more of the time benefit employers? There are many ways. In no particular order:

The Marriage Seller Pivot

 

 

 

 

 

 

People who try to convince men to marry (marriage sellers) quite often do a pivot.

They usually start their sales pitch appealing to your own self-interest. They say things like:

Married men earn more money

Married men are healthier

Married men live longer

Married men are happier

Married men have more and better sex

But when those of us who know better point out:

• Married men are also taller, meaning that marriage didn't cause men to be richer, healthier, live longer, be happier, have more and better sex, and get taller. Rather, women are far more likely to marry and stay married to men who earn more, are healthier, are happier, more sexually compatible, and taller.
  
• "Married" men are being compared as a group to all "unmarred" men, which consists of diverse groups, including divorced men and men who can't attract a wife (because they are sick, poor, unhappy, etc.) The stats marriage sellers are trying to use to show marrying benefits men never separate out intentionally unmarried men for comparison, many of whom are wealthier, healthier, happier, and having more, better, and more diverse sex than most husbands.
• Over half of everything a married man earns/owns legally belongs to his wife, who can take it away at any time for any reason, and 80 percent of spending decisions in a marriage are made by a wife, often to buy things a man doesn't want and won't use, so my unmarried counterpart only has to earn 51 percent of what I do to be better off than me.
  
• Men have often been conditioned to think they are losers if not married, or that complaining about their marriage is a sin or negative confession, and thus might say they are happy (if husbands) and unhappy (if still looking for a wife) as a result.

...marriage sellers will often pivot. They might try an ad hominem attack, call you bitter, ungrateful (if you're married), selfish, loser, immature, incel, misogynist, or even say marriage isn't a bed of roses for women either (which is an odd way to try to sell it).

The more careful ones, though, will pivot from "You'll be so much better off!" to "You have an obligation to get married." They don't lead with the obligation/duty approach because they know it isn't nearly as appealing as the first approach. With the "obligation" approach, they say things like:

Marriage is good for society
Marriage matures men
The Lord wants you to get married

Those are largely circular arguments or, like the first set, involve supposed correlation rather than demonstrable causation in the direction from marriage to positive outcome. If someone asserts something like "marriage is good for society," ask them to explain how. They'll probably say something about fatherless kids being a problem on society. But if you will not create children and then abandon them, where is the issue? They might say that it's better for a woman to have a husband than depend on government. But those aren't the only options. How about teaching and encouraging women to be truly independent?

There simply is no general Biblical command to marry that applies to every man today, especially not to get a bad contract from a secular state or engage in the common behaviors of today's social concept of marriage. Yes, the Lord, according to the Bible, doesn't want you trying to steal away another man's  wife from him, so don't do that. Getting married certainly doesn't stop that! Notice the Bible doesn't tell you what steps to take to be married, as in "Do X, Y, and Z, and then you'll be married." That seems kind of like an important thing to be left out if everyone is supposed to marry.

Prager University even tried to teach viewers that married men are sexier.

Pay attention if you hear someone who effectively dismantles the claims of a marriage seller that married men are better off, and you might notice the marriage seller try a pivot.

Stay free, men.

When To Involve Cops With Family

Your family member might be, or is, breaking the law, or is out of control with a mental breakdown or rage.

Do you call the the police?

That depends.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Your call will be recorded. Your location, name, voice, and what you say will be in the possession of a government agency and might be subject to release to the public.
• If police respond, they will be armed.
• If police respond, they might search you, your vehicle, your residence, etc.
• They might arrest someone, including you.
• They might end up using force, including deadly force.
• Assume everything will be audio and video recorded, but you won’t have access to the recordings, or they might be made public. 
• If the person cited or arrested is your spouse or dependent, that is going to have negative consequences and repercussions for you, including financial. 

Involving law enforcement should be a last resort, if any resort at all.

I thought about this when Dr. Laura told a caller to call the police on her husband, to get him stopped for potentially driving under the influence.

Nobody should drive impaired. The caller didn’t know for sure her husband was impaired. Dr. Laura certainly didn’t know. And it’s no skin off her nose if some caller ends up in a terrible situation. Her net worth is in the millions. She has no dependents. She can afford legal fees, fines, etc. Many of her callers can’t.

If someone is a danger to you, your children, or other dependents, it’s best to be financially and legally separated from them as well as physically. Involving the police when you’re still going to be legally connected is usually a very bad idea.

Of course, if you or someone else is facing imminent, serious harm or deadly violence, and you can’t get away or get the others away and can’t neutralize the aggressors yourself, an emergency call might be in order. But it has to be very serious.

I grew up with a respect for police and an optimistic view of police. But let’s think logically here. It’s a job. For any job, you’re beholden to your boss more than anyone else. You may think police work for you, but their boss is their chain of command. Law enforcement personnel are primarily there for the bidding of government; to enforce laws, not to be of service to you. It’s great if police have provided a service to you, but that’s not their primary goal.

People are flawed. Some are corrupt. Most people are looking out for their own interests. This includes cops.

Bullies, power trippers, sadists, sociopaths, and psychopaths exist. Nothing stops them from becoming cops.

You don’t know all laws. You can easily be breaking a law without even knowing it. Even if you aren’t, a cop has the ability to arrest you if they can fill out the paperwork. 

In general, cops, like any other job, are there for themselves, maybe for their family, too. For most jobs, someone being there for themselves isn’t a problem. But cops are armed, can take you to jail, and can initiate actions leading to your criminal prosecution, which can result in fines and prison sentences. They’re backed by unions, laws, policies, and courts. Some became cops because of family tradition. Some just needed a job. Some want power over others.

I imagine some originally got into law enforcement to help people. And sometimes cops perform heroic deeds. That doesn’t mean you should be quick to involve cops in a family matter.

You shouldn’t participate in crime nor enable it (assuming we’re not talking about unjust laws). You shouldn’t allow anyone to steal from you, threaten you, or assault you or innocent people, especially those for whom you have responsibility. Proactive protection and reactive defense are important. There are things you can do, such as getting away from the aggressor, or taking someone in for a psych hold, without being quick to involve cops.

Once cops are involved, there can be serious consequences, including for you. Involving cops should be the last resort.

Like so many other things, this less of a problem for free men; men who live alone and aren’t responsible for others. 

What Makes You Think You'll Succeed At What Better Men Failed?

If you are heading for, or even just "open to" marriage, consider that many admirable, smart men have been divorced. Some multiple times. Men you personally know. Men you know about.

Why have they been divorced?

Here are the options:

1) They picked wrong.
2) They didn't treat their wife right.
3) During the marriage, their wife suffered from a trauma or illness that caused her to become the wrong wife.
4) The present system itself is deeply problematic.
5) More than one of the above.

If these good men picked wrong, what makes you think you will pick better or are picking better?

If these good men didn't treat their wife right, what makes you think you will be better at how you do marriage?

There are traumas/illnesses that are unavoidable. So, even if you pick right and treat right, you can still end up being miserably married or divorced.

If the present system is deeply problematic, that's the system into which you'd be marrying. What is that system? 1) Family law and courts transfer money and power away from you, to a woman, and reward bad behavior and women for divorce. 2) Socialization doesn't prepare women to be good wives and discourages them from being good wives. 3) Misandrist culture emasculates men and punishes them for being husbands and fathers.

Again, what makes you think you're going to beat the system? What makes you think you're going to succeed at what so many better men failed?

There's a lot about Dennis Prager I admire, and he seems to have a great grasp on human behavior and human nature and most of the dynamics between men and women, and his first marriage was, statistically, started when it had a good chance of lasting (he was in his late twenties or into his thirties, not some immature 19 year-old). And yet, that marriage didn't last and his second marriage didn't last either. He'd tell you to do what he did, and get married a third time, because it is inconceivable to him that men should learn to thrive on their own, because he formed, very early in his life, an emotional fixation on men being husbands.

Today, in the twenty-first century, men can thrive being free. There is no good reason for most men to sign a terrible state marriage contract. The contract is of no benefit to most men, and you can live a great, happy, fulfilled life without it. So why take on the risks and obligations of something at which so many better men have failed?

This isn't like technological development, in which knowledge accumulates. Human nature, if it is evolving, doesn't evolve fast enough to mean that what men want has changed in the last few thousand years. So, this isn't like "I can build a better rocket." The social aspects of marriage involve dealing with a woman. Female nature, like male nature, hasn't changed much, but the socialization of women has, and not in a way that supports lasting, happy marriages. When that is paired with the fact that our current legal system and current culture will empower a wife to ruin your life, it is arrogance or delusion to see that some great men haven't had lasting, happy marriages - in fact most men who have married have failed marriages - but think you are going to succeed at it.

Why take that risk, when you can get everything you need and want in life without doing so?

Stay free, guys.

As always, you are welcome to comment below. It would be especially interesting to hear about good men you know who have had a failed marriage, or how you thought you could do better and you found out otherwise.

Why Aren't You Married?

[I'm bumping up this entry because it is as relevant as ever. I noticed that I indicated that things go well in my marriage some of the time. "Well" is a relative term. If you would have described to me the "good" time in my marriage now before I married, I wouldn't have married.]

Even when things are going well in my marriage, I’m not one of those married guys who thinks everyone should be married. Unless someone has a baby on the way, it irritates me when I see someone pressuring someone else to get married. [My thinking on this has changed.]

Whether you are officially on a marriage strike or you have decided marriage is not for you, the fact remains that most people will get married at some time in their life, and so many people assume everyone wants to get married. Whether from relatives or coworkers or women who want you to buy them drinks, or fellow religious congregants, guys get to hear it over and over again: "Why aren't you married?"

If you are a Free Man or part of Men Going Their Own Way, or you are a marriage striker, or have simply decided marriage is not for you, what works as a good reply to this annoying question? Being married, I don’t use these, of course, but let's look at a few possible replies. Please comment with any good ones you have, too.

Here are six responses, getting progressively more provocative (I keep in mind that casual sex is no loner discouraged in our culture):

Defending Your Decision Not to Have (More ) Children

Being a Free Man can be entirely ethical and moral. In fact, Free Men are morally superior to most husbands.

But what about when someone claims you you have an obligation to have (more) children? (This is usually paired with "...so you need to get married.") The claim that you have an obligation to have children is usually some variation of "Society needs children to continue."

That's true. Without new children, society would eventually end.

Also...

Society needs abundant, clean, freshwater to continue. Does that mean you are obligated to drill wells or be a waterworks engineer?

Society needs food to continue. Are you obligated to even have a single fruit or vegetable growing in a garden?

While there are homesteaders who do farm and have wells and also have lots of children, I can't think of anyone who has even attempted to make the argument that every person is obligated to produce freshwater or grow agricultural commodities.

Society needs people working. You can work more if you're not parenting. But you're under no obligation to do more than it takes to provide for yourself, plus a little more for giving, if you are able to do so. (The giving is mostly to help those who truly aren't able.) You have no obligation to have children. Other people will make children. That's clear.

You might choose to stay in a religion or cult that tells you that in order to be a member, you need to try to make children. You might choose to marry someone you know is expecting to have and raise children. Then you'd be obligated, unless you left. But there's no blanket obligation.

We have to do something in order to have children. Our default status is to be childfree.

Then there is another attempt that goes something like, "Children are like flowers. How can you have too many? I like my children."

That's good for them, as long as one of the older ones doesn't molest the younger ones and then the family goes on a "reality" show that ignores that. Children are people. You know people you like a lot, and people you don't like, maybe even people you can't stand. The same can be true of children. And people who generally don't like a lot of people probably aren't going to like having to raise people. Childfree people can pick the people they have in their life. Parents are pretty much stuck with their child, who could be a sociopath.

There is no blanket obligation to have children. For many people, it is irresponsible for them to do so. Get a vasectomy, guys.

Selling Marriage Because of Claimed Correlations

Marriage sellers claim that the problem with declining marriage rates include, among other things:

• Married men live longer
• Marriage matures people, especially men
• Unmarried women are dependent on government
• Unmarried women push destructive ideas
• Married people are more likely to own homes
• Married people are more likely to have more children
  

Assuming marriage does help men to live longer, and that's not certain, the longevity isn't the result of signing a terrible state contract or having a ceremony. It would be because of nagging to go the the doctor, and perhaps receiving care. But these things can be done without marriage. Why not cut out the "middle man"?

Likewise, women can be taught to avoid government dependence without making her dependent on a husband. Cut out the middle man!

As far as maturity, but men and women can be encouraged to be mature without marriage. There are great, mature people who never married. So if you're concerned about maturity, figure out how to encourage people to mature even if they're not married.

If unmarried women push destructive ideas (a claim of Dennis Prager), perhaps it was their tendency to do so that have caused her to avoid marrying or caused others to avoid marrying her?

Married people are more likely to own a home because they're stuck. They don't have the freedom to move when they'd like. What's the alternative to married people owning the homes? Investors? So what's the difference to society? Someone's going to own the homes, and the owner has an incentive to take care of it.

I'm not opposed to there being more children, but what's really going on here? I've written about this already.

People are less likely to marry when they see that marriage won't improve their life. Fewer people are seeing marriage as worth it.

If you want people to behave a certain way, you just might have to encourage those behaviors directly, instead of counting on marriage to make people behave as you prefer.

Be Thankful For Being Free

If' you're a Free Man, count that as one of the thing for which to be thankful as we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

All over the country, men, many of whom are beaten dogs, are spending a day or multiple days with people they can't stand because they were foolish enough to marry, propose marriage, live with a woman, or be "in a relationship" with a woman. In addition, many of these men have even paid for flights, hotel rooms, and other expenses to facilitate this.

Don't let that happen to you!

If you're in the USA, you should have already taken evasive action. If you're not in the USA, take evasive action before the next holiday!

Be thankful for being a Free Man, and stay a Free Man, and help other men stay free.

Are you free? Are you a beaten dog? Or, are you still blissfully delusional in your marriage, relationship, or desire to be in one? Whichever is the case, feel free to comment below to tell us about it.

"Is It OK For Spouse to Withhold Sex?"

Someone came here by that search. [This entry is bumped up because it is still relevant.]

It used to be cultural and legally understood in this country that sex and marriage went hand-in-hand, so to speak. We can go all the way back to the Puritans, and if a wife told her friends her husband wasn't giving it to her as often as he should, word would inevitably get to other men in the community and that guy would be confronted. Withholding can be seen as a form of cheating. You're cheating your spouse out of something they should have.

Up until recent times, this concept of sex and marriage being necessarily intertwined continued. Unrelated men and women had no right to live together or even share a hotel room together, and in some places could be prosecuted for doing so. Marriages could be considered null if they were never "consummated" with intercourse. Husbands could rape their wives without violating a law, because her body, or at least her sexuality, belonged to him (and his to her... people forget that part). Adultery was grounds for divorce and could impact the outcome of the divorce. Affair partners can still, in a few places, be successfully sued by the scorned spouse for "alienation of affection". To this day, when a married person is a plaintiff in a lawsuit, their spouse can join in, depending, claiming a loss of consortium (less or no sex because of wrongs done to the spouse by the entity being sued).

The question about whether it is OK for a spouse to withhold sex has to be addressed to someone, though.

The Dr. Laura Program Isn’t Therapy

Many people think of Dr. Laura as a psychologist or "shrink." She was a trained, licensed therapist with a private practice. But she has far, far more experience as a radio talk show host (and author, columnist, etc.)

Something both callers, to, and listeners of, The Dr. Laura Program should remember is that she's almost never doing therapy on the program.

Aside from selling advertising and subscriptions, the program primarily exists for Dr. Laura to teach her opinions to the audience. She has said so. The reason she's doing this on the radio rather than in private practice is that she is reaching a mass audience.

Sometimes - even often - callers are helped, but that’s not the top priority. Indeed, she often tells callers she can’t help them, even when she sometimes can. There are the rare occasions she leads the caller through something therapeutic, but otherwise the program is not therapy. Far more often, though, the callers are there to serve as a warning to listeners.

Listeners range from unquestioning sycophants to perpetual critics who “hate listen.” Somewhere in the mix are gawkers who do the audio equivalent of staring as if looking at a train wreck. Some consider Dr. Laura a shock jock: focusing on where she disagrees with the caller, yelling, constantly interrupting callers even after she asked them a question and they were starting to answer- and often chastising the caller for "talking over" her, pounding on a desk with her gavel or fist while frequently employing words and phrases like “humping,” “unpaid whore,” "piece of s---," and “limp d—-.” But she insists what she’s doing is a program to help people, not a show.

She’s there to give her set of teachings I’ve collected together and called The Dr. Laura Plan, and make negative examples out of anyone who didn’t follow it. There's a lot about the plan that is great. But Dr. Laura who often mentions it's better to start children in Kindergarten at age six, questions why someone is still living at home at age 18 (6 + 13 years of school = Age 19). Her advice about when to marry and saving sex for marriage means faithful followers will reach about age 30 before they first have sex. And the world would rapidly depopulate if people only married and had children under her blessing.

Something listeners must keep in mind is that it's one thing for callers to agree to her advice during their call, but it can be a far different thing for them to follow through and live it out, especially when it involves radically changing their life or stopping sex in a relationship that's been established as sexual. Also, Dr. Laura controls the microphone. Letters claiming her advice didn't work (or, that she didn't understand the caller but jumped to conclusions) aren't going to make it onto the program, and if a caller somehow manages to make it through and get a "bad review" onto the air, she can say they didn't actually follow her advice, and then prevent them from saying any more.

Control is very important to Dr. Laura, and she will control the program in order to deliver and reinforce her message. That extends to what kind of situation someone can call about. Notice that, as common as it is today for parents, grandparents, etc. to struggle with a teen or young adult claiming to be transgender or nonbinary, you will never hear a call on her program pertaining to that. Clearly, she doesn't allow such calls, and has told her screeners not to let them through. She hasn't mentioned this to the audience.

So, you're not going to get therapy on the Dr. Laura Program unless she has the time, wants to give it you, it can be done over the phone, and it would be applicable to your particular situation. You are far more likely to be cited as a positive or negative example to listeners, which is the real reason you can call her toll-free.

She can still help you about certain things if you call, though, and if you listen you can get much insight into human behavior and relationships.

Want More People to Marry?

Want more people to marry, or marry early enough to have (more) children together inside the marriage?

Marriage must have something men want they can't get for less risk and cost otherwise, and men have to know about it. Marriage must be distinguished from nonmarriage in a positive way, legally and/or culturally. I'm not talking about misleading use of statistics. I'm talking about it actually being better. Two lesbians can marry, and two gay men can marry. Why would most heterosexual men want to do it? What makes it special? You can't tell a man that marriage is something special between a man and a woman if two women can do it without a man. You can't even say it is something special between two people, because historically, polygamy has existed in many cultures around the world. But maybe it can be made better, to the point more men want to marry women.

How can marriage be made better?

There are at least three major things it will take to make marriage appealing to men. Let's consider them.

November Requires Evasive Meneuvers For American Men

 

Free Men, hopefully you didn't spend your Halloween catering to a woman.

If you haven't done so already, you need to start implementing your holiday game plan. Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day are on their way.

There are two main considerations for you:

1) Dealing with family and "friends" who will be asking you (or pestering you) about your status as a free man. You now how it goes. "When are you going to get married?" Questions like that.

2) Avoiding spending those special days with a woman who wants to take away your status as Free Man, or will be expecting you to spend a lot of time, money, and effort on her.

Don't do something foolish and start thinking there is "the one" to whom you should hand over your freedom. Don't be so ignorant, delusional, or masochistic that you're thinking you want to be exclusive with a woman.

Cause and Effect - Rejecting Your Man

Ladies, if you're married or in a relationship with a man in which you are expecting sexual exclusivity, it is important for you to know something in case you haven't picked up on it before or nobody else has told you yet.

If your man has a libido, and you sexually reject him, that rejection will usually have unpleasant consequences unless the rejection is very rare. What counts as "rejection?" It can range from repeatedly delaying or declining some form or all forms of sex to refusing to try things in which he's expressed interest. Rejection includes him not even bothering to ask/try because he has good reason to believe he'll be shot down. It also includes letting yourself go to the point he loses attraction.

The consequences are likely to be one or more of the following, in no particular order:

1. He will be less motivated to do things for you. This ranges from chores you want done that he doesn't care much about to anniversary celebrations, vacations, and expensive gifts.
   
   
2. He will be less open with you about his feelings, desires, fantasies, and thoughts.
   
   
3. He will cut back on other forms of affection and intimacy. This might mean spending less time with you, less touch, fewer compliments, etc.
   
   
4. He will be irritable, grumpy, or snarky.
   
   
5. He will occupy himself or numb the pain with substances (food, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, etc.) or more hobbies/more time on hobbies that don't involve you.
   
   
6. He will masturbate (more), and that masturbation will be likely to involve porn (visual and written), videos and images of exes or other people he knows, memories and fantasies of exes, fantasies of other people, etc.
   
   
7. He will get it elsewhere.
   
1. Ongoing affairs
2. Flings
3. Hookups/One night stands/Booty calls
4. Sex worker
5. Sexting/Video chat/chats/online forums/apps
    
8. He will leave.
   

He might not think "Because she won't do this, I'm going to do that." Maybe he will, maybe it will just be what happens without him actually thinking it through. I'm not saying these things are all right or justified. Nor am I saying you should do things you don't want to do. I'm not denying some men behave this way even if you're a great lover. I'm simply informing you of reality: men react in these ways to sexual rejection by a woman they expect to be their lover. Don't expect he'll warn you about these things ahead of time or tell you after the fact, even if you ask him directly. What's his incentive to tell you?

You might not care. You might have things the way you want them. But you're most likely delusional if you think there is no consequence you don't like when you reject him.
 
If you can't handle this, it might be a good idea not to ask for, or agree to, a supposedly exclusive relationship. Or, resolve to be a good, enthusiastic, available lover to him, because if you've picked a good man and you treat him right, he's not going to leave or go elsewhere, and he will do what he can to meet your needs and desires.

What Do I Mean By Free Men?

I like using the term "Free Men."

What do I mean by that?

For the purposes of this blog and related communications, Free Men are men who are free of legal and financial entanglements with women.

Ideally, they are also free of social bondage to women and do not have any dependent children, especially not children over which a woman has any parental rights. 

A Free Man is, at the very least:

• Unmarried
  
  
• Residing independently from women
  
  
• Without legal or financial obligations with women, such as a cosign for a loan or account, co-ownership of property or anything else of significant value, a mortgage or rental agreement, paying child support, paying alimony or palimony. A woman should not have access to your home or finances; she should not be on a lease or rental agreement with you and should have no ownership rights over any home you own. You should never impregnate a woman or donate sperm or in any way look after or pay for her child (such as with a single mother who wants to be your "friend" or girlfriend.)
  
  
• Unrestrained by any agreement to exclusivity with a woman

Usually, he's also going to be childfree.

The Sight of Human Skin Doesn't Harm Human Brains

Cathy Reisenwitz has a video and an excellent written commentary about adult media.

A 2020 study showed that ~70% of people watch low amounts of porn with no discernible negative ramifications. Around a quarter of people watch a lot of porn with no measurable downside. And around ~5% of people watch a lot of porn, and it seems to cause or exacerbate problems for them.

Five percent. You can find five percent of people for whom watching a lot of sports is problematic. The problem isn't what they're watching. Compulsive/problematic media viewing is a symptom of a problem. Porn isn't the problem.

Problematic porn consumers are more likely than average to show symptoms of hypersexuality, depression, boredom, and low self-esteem. They’re likely not getting their basic psychological needs met.

They have problems. And they watch porn. Porn isn't the cause.

And this study builds on other research showing that feeling guilty about watching porn is a high predictor of having a “porn addiction.”

"Porn addiction" isn't a scientific term. It's a term used by salespeople and the people they've duped, and people who are trying to shift blame for their problems.

In fact, another study showed that men who look at porn more often who are in relationships have more sex with their partners. Women who look at porn more often have more partnered sex whether or not they’re in relationship, have better sex, and have more sexual flexibility.

Antiporn crusaders count viewing porn itself as misogyny and violence against women, so of course they dispute these findings.

Porn use is associated with decreases in violence against women. Men who look at more porn are actually less sexist than men who look at less of it.

This sort of thing never dissuades the antiporn crusaders. 

Every study I’m aware of that purports to show that porn is harmful either: 

1. Fails to correct for the fact that people who feel ashamed of themselves for watching porn are far more likely to report “problematic” porn use, regardless of how much they watch or how it’s otherwise impacting their lives

2. Misrepresents MRI results to show spurious findings

3. Fails to establish causation. People already at risk of becoming sexual abusers are more likely to watch a lot of violent porn. But there’s no evidence that watching a lot of violent porn causes the average person to be more likely to perpetrate sexual violence. In fact, there’s a lot of evidence in the opposite direction.

4. Mislabels porn

5. Is otherwise shown to be faulty. 

 

When you hear of studies that claim to show adult media as physically or mentally harmful, you should keep in mind that there is an abundance and extreme variety of porn, so studies focusing on one particular kind may not be indicative of anything else. Also, such studies usually don't control for masturbation. There's also the very basic consideration that apparent correlation doesn't establish causation.

There are many studies on "both sides," but most people can't sort through the details of studies. Think carefully. Porn is, usually, depictions of nudity and sexuality. Do you really think depictions of human beings in their natural state or engaged in reproductive behavior would be physically or mentally harmful to the observer? How exactly would that make any sense from either a naturalistic, evolutionary perspective, or if you believe in some form of Divine creationism? Wouldn't that mean having sex with your spouse with the lights on would be harmful?

Reisenwitz's commentary is definitely worth a read, and touches on religion. I note that Jesus is never quoted as telling any woman to cover up. Instead, He told his followers to pluck out their own eye or cut off their own hand if they have a problem. Antiporn crusaders claim to be concerned about abuse of women and children but many of them never say one word about churches where women and children have been raped. What do you think Jesus finds more disturbing: an erotic performance on video, or a member of the clergy raping a congregant?

Dennis Prager talks about panics pushed by the Left. These antiporn crusades are a panic pushed largely from the Right (and also from the Left by certain misandrists).

What is Running Game?

I'm not talking about sprinting.

Running Game is a way of dealing with women that reduces costs and risks while increasing sexual or personal success.

Running game works because of how women are.

A man who is experienced and skilled at running game will have just about as much sex/affection/company as he wants without spending a lot of time, money, and effort getting it.

Please note that running game is not about assault. It relies on consent.

Running game is how men become David and avoid being Rick.

Men who run game might be seen as jerks, bad boys, a--holes, cads, players, unreliable, aloof, arrogant, immature, users, selfish etc. None of that matters, because men who are running game keep their dating life separate from their professional life and the rest of their private life, and they get what they want. It's fine for a woman to hate him if he's already gotten what he wanted from her.

Running game can share some tactics with "pick up artistry," but the goal of running game isn't to try to find a girlfriend or wife, just a woman to date, and usually, multiple women, so that he has options any night of the week. Running game doesn't mean a man will get every woman he wants, but part of running game helps him to quickly sort out, and stop seeing, the women who aren't going to have sex with him, or at least won't have sex with him unless he spends a lot of time, money, and effort on her. These women don't need to be wife material because running game includes avoiding marriage. These don't need to be women the man would want to introduce to his family, friends, or co-workers because he's not going to be doing that. They don't need to be accomplished or smart or even kind. They just have to turn him on, be willing to have sex, or whatever else it is he really wants, and not have certain red flags.

Running game often goes against what men and boys are told about women.

But it works.

I explain how in subsequent posts, most of which have the "running game" tag.

Why Romance Doesn’t Cure Dead Bedrooms

 

When a husband complains about a dead bedroom, chances are he will get advice telling him to be more romantic. Usually, he’s already doing that, or doing it in so far as his wife allows.

Sadly, it usually won’t cure a dead bedroom.

That’s because the reason she is rejecting or sexually starving him isn’t because of a lack of romance.

What does romancing a woman do?

• It signals his interest.
• It signals his willingness to back up his interest with effort and investment.
• It’s one of many ways to create a bond.

A husband has already done those things on an ongoing basis in extremely significant ways.

This isn’t to say a husband shouldn’t romance his wife. If she wants romance, he should romance her. Because spouses should do certain things for and with each other because the other spouse enjoys that.

A wife isn’t rejecting her husband because of his lack of interest, effort/investment, or bonding. If he didn’t have interest, she wouldn’t have the opportunity to reject him!

She’s rejecting him either because she already has a bond with him and figures she doesn’t need to please him anymore or she is trying to severe their bond. She is sabotaging their relationship. What she wants matters, what he wants doesn’t. She’s exerting control. Her motivations to have sex with him are outweighed, in her mind, by reasons to avoid sex with him, no matter how irrational her thinking. 

Some women deny this because they have a high drive. They insist the husband must be a terrible lover. But many women don’t have a high drive, at least not most of the time. There are husbands who are very romantic and great lovers and are still rejected so that they are having sex infrequently if at all. The average husband is more than willing to do what a wife tells or shows him she needs sexually. But she does have to tell him (sweetly/kindly) or show him.

This is not about women who have some condition or injury that has them in a lot of pain. Of course there are certain things they won’t be doing or won’t be doing often. This is referring to women who, for example, collect and store resentments and decide to punish their husband even if he’s a good man. Nobody’s perfect, and as that record of mistakes or wrongs gets longer and longer, his sex life suffers.

Sometimes, a husband and wife in a dead bedroom might have sex after romance. But generally, romancing a rejecting wife will not cure a dead bedroom. Nor will it that the husband takes on more of the chores.

It’s just one of many reasons more men are joining the marriage strike.

When Marriage Sellers Say Married Men Live Longer

"Married men live longer."

Wow, that sure looks like strong reason to marry, right?

But... as usual, the realities behind the statistics being used to sell marriage to men can tell a different story.

1) Women are more likely to marry and stay married to healthier and wealthier men. Guess what? Healthier and wealthier men tend to live longer. If a couple is living together but she won't marry him because he's ill, then again, he's counted as "unmarried."

2) Divorced men are usually counted as "unmarried." If a man gets ill and his wife divorces him and he dies, he is counted as "unmarried." The suicide rate for divorced men is high, too. What if, instead, those men had learned to be happy without ever marrying?

3) Men who die young are far less likely to have married. What ages are the statistics counting? If they are counting "men 16 years of age and older," that means any unmarried guy who died at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 can skew the statistics in comparison to the fact that most men who live 40 or more years will have married. To put it simply, if you look at 10 guys who died before age 40 and 10 guys who died in their 70s or 80s, chances are, the older guys were married. It doesn't necessarily mean that marrying kept them alive longer or that the men who died younger died younger because they didn't marry.

Do you see how the statistics might not be making a clear indication that marrying causes a man to live longer?

It is possible that having a woman in his life who nags him to go to the doctor can keep a man alive longer. That's a reasonable consideration. But a woman can do that for a man without a terrible state contract. In fact, I urge men I'm not married to and I will never marry to go their doctors. More people should do that, instead of telling a man to sign a terrible state contract because it might appear to be correlated to longevity.

Finally, even if it could be definitively proven that marrying does, in fact, extend a man's life, let's consider what that would mean. It would mean that he trades decades of freedom, peace, quiet, control over his own finances and life, and everything else about life that Free Men enjoy that the average husband doesn't, for mere months or a couple of more years of convalescence, when he might not even remember who he is or be able to feed or wipe himself. Consider that carefully, guys.

Indeed, the stats are likely turning out as they do because an elderly man’s wife was there to call for help when he collapsed. So he lives a few months longer. If you really want to live longer in that condition, guys, technology can now monitor you and summon help, for much less cost than a wife.

Hey, what about women? Oh, what do you know - married women don't live as long as unmarried women. Shouldn't men avoid being selfish by avoiding marriage, since it appears to rob women of life?

Will Dennis Prager Ever Do Something Constructive About Marriage Rates?

 

I don’t know of a more obsessed marriage seller who doesn’t directly make money off of weddings (as far as I know) than radio talk show host, author, and columnist Dennis Prager. 

When he’s hosting his radio show, it seems like more often than not, he’ll throw in at least a comment, if not a whole hour, trying to convince people to marry. A brief comment might be asserting men exist to be a walking ATM and butler for a woman (not the way he words it, but what he’s saying) or lamenting that younger generations don’t share his affection for marriage.

He’ll state the fact that more Americans under the age of 40 have never been married than ever before, in a way that makes it clear he expects his audience to take such news as shocking and tragic.

He has repeatedly said it’s better for a person to have married and divorced than have never married.

This obsession of his appears, based on his own words, to have its origin in him noticing as early as he could remember how husbands in his religious congregation got to wear a shawl. He cites that a common Jewish prayer for a newborn/infant is for them to someday marry. (When that prayer originated, marriage was almost a completely different thing than it is today.)

It’s to the point I suspect his support for religion is based on its encouragement of marriage, rather than his support for marriage emanating from his religious faith. He probably asks in his head in reaction to any bit of news, “Will this encourage or discourage marriage?”

He’s very proud that there are people who tell him they married because of his selling of marriage. Maybe they did? Or maybe they would have married otherwise. But he’ll never tell you if someone who said they married because of him later says it was the biggest mistake they ever made, if they’d even tell him. Statistically it’s almost a certainty that listeners who’ve bought into his marriage sales pitches have subsequently divorced.

But again, he doesn’t see divorcing as a problem. He sees marriage like a job. People are obligated to get a job, but they can leave a job or fire an employee who isn’t fulfilling their roles.

Other things people should keep in mind as he does his sales pitch:

• He’s been divorced twice. He doesn’t see the divorce the same way many of his devoutly religious listeners do.
• He doesn’t think people should avoid marrying someone with prior children (Dr. Laura constantly preaches against bringing your new lover around your minor children, and I agree with her)
• He thinks wives shouldn’t let mood be the sole factor in determining when they have sex with their husband; many people consider that advocating marital rape.
• He’s wealthy. He lives in one of the most expensive cities in the Los Angeles area. He has a national radio show. He’s a paid speaker and pitchman.
• He doesn’t eat home cooked (at his home) meals. Everything he eats wasn’t prepared by his current wife or a cook they hired; rather, it’s almost always from a restaurant. Very few of his listeners can live like that.
• He travels a lot, so it isn’t like he’s having to go home and deal with a spouse at home day in and day out.
• When he was growing up, his married father had a subscription to Playboy. This wasn’t a hidden thing. Dennis resolved not to marry a woman who couldn’t accept male sexual nature, which Dennis has made clear includes accepting that husbands enjoy looking at other women, whereas many of his listeners think that’s akin to adultery.
• Speaking of adultery, he doesn’t think cheating should automatically end the marriage (I agree, but many of his listeners don’t).

As with anyone else, Dennis telling people they should marry isn’t going to reverse the trend of a decrease in marriages. Dennis needs to have an eloquent marriage strike proponent on his program to address what’s really going on and why. Things have to change before the marriage rate will increase consistently again. Prager U doesn’t have a single video advocating for changes to family law; it has multiple videos trying to fool men into signing a terrible state contract.

Click the tags below for more context.  

Why Do Women Have Sex?

Despite what certain activists and college professors say, men and women are different, and some of the significant differences are inborn. So the answer to "Why do women have sex?" isn't the same as the answer to "Why do men have sex?" We have different reasons, and even the reasons that sound the same can be different when prioritization or emphasis is considered.

Each reason only applies to some women. Some women who have sex have many reasons to have sex, some only a few or one.

I'm not a woman. This list is based on what women have said and done, and what I know about biology and sociology. If you know additional reasons, especially if you're a woman, tell me in the comments and maybe they will be added (you can also mention in the comment whether or not you want the comment published). This list is in no particular order.

Entitlement

 
We have been told many times things like:

A man who has paid for a series of expensive, romantic dates isn't entitled to sex.

Husbands aren't entitled to sex.

Awesome, faithful husbands who are romantic and make their wife's life wonderful and much less stressful aren't entitled to sex.

Can't we all see that? Nobody is entitled to sex.

And, in the very same way...

Nobody is entitled to be heard.

Nobody is entitled to attention.

Nobody is entitled to romance.

Nobody is entitled to being treated to dinner.

Nobody is entitled to someone else's earnings.

Nobody is entitled to someone's else's residence.

Nobody is entitled to someone making sure they are safe.

Nobody is entitled to a ring.

Nobody is entitled to a wedding.

Right?

"You'd better listen if you want sex."

Not if he runs game!