Breaking Beta: The Challenge Accepted

One of the things I didn't anticipate about starting a Manosphere blog was the number of chicks I'd meet.

One of my readers is the growing number of women I call Red Pill Wives.  For those of you in the hairer parts of the Manosphere, the MGTOW, MRA, PUA, and Puerarchy in particular, the idea of women in the Manosphere is abhorrent or laughable, I remind you that there are plenty of women just as pissed off and disgusted at the present intergender situation as you are, and are seeking resolution.  So in the interest of good faith and positive growth, I ask that you chillthefuckout about their motivations and such.  I mean it.  I'm invoking the Patriarchy card, here. Don't make me stop this car.

Red Pill Wives are women who are desperate for the kind of ALPHA in their marriage that impels most EPL divorces.  They love the men in their life - or devoutly want to find a man to put into their life to love.  They are the Real Deal.  And they are just as confused as we are over all of these issues, but theyare making a real good-faith effort at trying to figure them out.  I'm not saying they're perfect little Stepford wives, either.  They're real women with real issues and real problems, and they fuck up ALL the time.  Just ask them.  They are mothers and ex-wives and veterans and some of them have been as abused by feminism as we have.

But they learn from their mistakes, share their results, and encourage us to be the manly, masculine men we aspire to be.   They aren't shoving us up on a pedestal . . . but I don't think they would mind it too much if I referred to them as the "Manosphere's Cheerleading Squad".

Among the newest of these ladies who blog is a reader of mine who just began her blog, Motivational Heirarchy, with essentially a challenge:

 Can you guys in the Manosphere knock off the chick-bashing a few minutes and tell us how to encourage our dudes to ALPHA up?  Pretty Please?  Because our BETA men need some guidance on issues of confident, positive masculinity and a few words of wisdom might, y'know, give them a good solid shove in the right ALPHA direction?  

And she asked really nicely, so I told her I would.

Consider this a plea on the order of Leia's hologram: "Help me, Manosphere, you're my only hope!" and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

I've started a book on it, already.  Indeed, I want to build the ultimate guide to Breaking your Beta, with suggestions of how specifically a devoted woman can help get her man more manly.  I've already mentioned the importance of knowing how to Extend an Invitation as part of your girl game, and if anyone needs advice on practical humpiness, feel free to write.  But there seems to be more a woman can do to get her man to lead without directly telling him.  That's Solomon's Dilemma -/if your woman has to ask you to take charge, then she's the one initiating and you're just doing what she says, so it doesn't really count.

But you can't just up and decide one day you can go from buttery-soft Beta to lean, hard Alpha.  It takes work, it takes time, it takes patience, and it takes a Plan.  I personally recommend Athol Kay's Male Action Plan.  If you're new to the concept of the Red Pill, Athol's books, blog, and forum are the Muppet Labs of the Married Manosphere.  The forum in particular is generating quite a community of people who are more or less in the same boat: trying to save their marriages without paying a fortune to the divorce industry.

If you need remedial assistance, then read Married Man Sex Life Primer first, which outlines the concept of Game and Married Game, as well as giving the most comprehensive and meaningful Sex Ed a dude will ever get. It's the Introductory Dose of the Red Pill that you need, and it will help you begin down the road of the MAP.  It will be strangely like having superpowers for a while.  Seriously, if we knew this shit in high school, we'd be . . . well, thinking far more pleasantly about high school.  Also commonly recommended is Robert Glover's No More Mister Nice Guy.

We'll likely explore all sorts of methods of getting your dude to Alpha up, but there is one thing you have to understand, right at the outset: the Red Pill is a personal, not political response to the issues of a twenty-first century, post-industrial, post-feminist marriage, and if all of this sounds scary to you because it goes against everything you've been told . . . well, you're going to have to re-examine some of your personal sacred cows and decide if you think political consistency and what your college roommate thinks about you is more important than your marriage.

Think really, really hard about that one before you go down this road with us, because once you take the Red Pill, well, there are things you can't unsee.  Things you can't unlearn.  You will be forever changed, even if you reject it utterly.

But if you want to strive for a happier marital life and get your dude to break his indecisive, limp-ass response to life, then start reading.  And check back here periodically.  This blog is also a laboratory of sorts, and even if you find the politics wonky, the practical advice on Married Game will be worth the effort, I think.  We all work too hard at our marriages to give up lightly.  The advantage of the Red Pill marriage is that it's relatively cheap.  All it takes is a couple of bucks for some cheap e-books, some sort of gym membership, and a willingness to dare a challenge to your preconceptions.  Pretty much for the price of a single marriage counseling session you can re-learn what it is to be husband and wife.

But here's a few caveats about how this is going to play out:

YMMV: everyone's situation is different, and no one plan works for everyone.  What you are doing is collecting information that you may or may not use in your own Marriage Action Plan, which you can think of as an outgrowth of your personal Male Action Plan.  That's the thing that starts to get rid of the Beta.  But like sex advice, only about 30% of it is likely to stick solidly enough to be of use.  That's fine.  Your Mileage May Vary means you take what you need and leave the rest, no regrets and no worries.

Implicit in Breaking Beta is the redemption of you or your man's masculinity.  And while you think you know what masculinity is, ladies, I'm afraid we're the experts on this stuff.  Listening to women for advice about how to be men is how we got here.  I know you think you're helping when you make valuable suggestions, but there are large parts of Breaking Beta that are going to have to be your man's responsibility alone.  He will either fail or he will lead.

If he fails, there are things you can do.  If he succeeds, there are things you will have to do.  But don't offer him helpful advice on Man Things unless he directly solicits your perspective.  And even then, it's a perfectly reasonable thing for you to decide, "You know, that's really outside of my feminine comfort zone.  I have every faith in your ability to figure it out though."

The path toward redeeming his ALPHA masculine profile is going to involve a lot of things you will initially feel uncomfortable with.  That's fine.  The stuff you are comfortable with is the stuff that's fucking up your marriage.  You need to be willing to change your approach, or you can't expect results.  And you have to be willing to discard your rationalizations and risk trying something new.  It's hard, just ask the Red Pill Wives out there.  But that's why we're all here.  Our failures are the laboratory, that is where we learn.  Share what you find works, and what doesn't.  It adds to the over-all data pool.  But you can't have illusions.

The Red Pill, at it's core concept, means that you have to perceive your world how it actually is, not cloaked in the subtle exaggerations  rationalizations, and outright lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about our failures.  Like telling your dentist "I brush and floss twice a day" when you know damn well you remember to brush your teeth maybe every other day if you're lucky.  The only one you're fooling you.  You feel guilty, you rationalize it so it won't be your fault.  Man or woman, when you take the Red Pill, you have to own up to the fact that, yeah, it really is my fault.  Accountability is key.  

Sometimes you have to be able to stare your dentist in the eye and say "I don't floss.  I hate flossing.  I know I should floss, but I don't, and I can't think of a damn thing that will motivate me, so we should really find some other way or just stop talking about it."  It's like that.

Along the way you or your dude are going to experience friction as you find your way.  It's expected and normal.  As a dude, for example, you may have to learn to embrace what it is to be Strong, the way our grandfathers were strong when they jumped out of leaky boats to storm a beach or strong the way they were when everything in the world saw Man as either predator or prey.  You Must Get Stronger.  No excuses.  That could mean working out, that could mean adjusting your diet, and that could mean being assertive in ways that make you uncomfortable.

Some ladies may be put-off by the crudity of the our approach.  "Why can't you guys work out your stuff without all the name calling and homophobic stuff?" is a common complaint.  But the fact is, men need profanity in their lives in order to become men.  It is part of our social networking system, a means of establishing dominance and hierarchy   We don't compare shoes, we talk about our junk and how that fucking moron needs to drop the Nice Guy shit and bend his woman over his knee.  Profanity is male subtextual language. Try not to faint.

"Swearing like a sailor" or "Cussing like a trooper" are apt phrases because both the military and the maritime vocations were almost exclusively the province of Men, built on Male values and Masculine principals.  So was hunting.  Therefore you can consider a scalding command of invective to be an implicitly male style of communication.

We know how this stuff works, you don't.  Cutting out the cussing and crude metaphors doesn't help.  It hurts.  Our verbal abuse is how we learn to toughen up, detach, and objectify things, and that is going to be part of the process.  If you have to pretend not to have heard something that sounded horrifyingly misogynistic or sexist or homophobic, well, that's how dudes talk and the focus of the Red Pill is getting dudes back on track.  Deal with it.  When men talk to other men, this is our language, like it or not.  We can't change it just to please your sensibilities.

Because that's what got us here in the first place.

Some would argue that the goal should be "building a better BETA".  That is, a Nice Guy six days a week and then Conan on Saturday night.  The problem is, you cannot convincingly fake ALPHA over time.  Your presentation eventually has to be assumed, and you can't pussy-out about it. If your milquetoast husband suddenly tried to give you a spanking and be dominant one night, out of the blue, you might not laugh . . . but you wouldn't be convinced, either.

 Let's be clear, we don't want to build a better BETA because regardless of how nice that sounds masculinity doesn't work that way.  If you want your dude ALPHA, then you have to work ALPHA.  You can cultivate plenty of great, comfort-building BETA skills and emotional support and still be a bad-ass.  You just have to be the bad ass first, or it doesn't work.  If you truly want a Leading Man, the only way to get one is to let him be masculine, in all of its ugly glory.  Despite what you think, you'll be happier that way.  Promise.

And dudes, you men who have found your way here and are considering the Red Pill Marriage seriously, you're going to have to escape your comfort zone.  A lot.  Do dangerous things and think dangerous thoughts.  Develop self-discipline and social mastery.  Learn about a lot of shit you never thought you'd think was worth learning.  Go to the damn gym even when you don't feel like it . . . because dedication and resolve are sexy and discipline, the art of doing stuff we don't want to do, is hard.

Betas, you're going to have to tell your woman NO and be able to handle the consequences.  You may have to tell your woman off, even, if things get out of hand but we'll teach you how to deal with that.  You may even have to tell your mother NO or tell her off or otherwise push back against the women in your life so that you may have the space to cultivate your masculinity.

You can't do that with just your wife.  This process involves cultivating solid relationships with other men, establishing masculine zones where feminine proprieties are ignored.  Such places seem alluring to you ladies, because it feels like that's where we hide all the Macho.  You have an almost irresistable desire to invade, to listen in, to overhear and inject yourself into the equation in such Man Caves.  Some of you may even wonder why you can't hang out there as well.  It seems like so much fun!

And it is.  Because there are no women there.

That's not a misogynistic statement, that's a Red Pill Fact.  Men need zones of exclusive masculinity the same way you need feminine spaces, and while your suspicions about what we're talking about are normal, they are also immaterial.  Men need the company of other men to first be initiated into the culture of the mature masculine, and then periodically it needs to be refreshed with our dudes.  When we do invite you in, consider it a rare privilege and treat it with the respect it deserves.

Which brings me to the issue of respect.  That's a big one.  You wanna know why we have this bumper crop of Betas on the market?  Part of it is disrespect.  Women in general have developed an active disrespect of the culture of masculinity as "silly" or "antiquated" or "obsolete", and tend to ridicule masculine memes.  That's part of the problem.

The Betas of the world have a hard time respecting themselves because they get little respect from the women in their personal lives.  Mothers, sisters, teachers, girlfriends, all his life he's had women with the "Boys are stupid! Throw rocks at them!" mentality of our popular culture, where husbands are portrayed as bumbling fools and incompetent without female attention and guidance.  When women disrespect masculine memes, that detracts from our ability to find strength in them.  We're struggling against forty years of such disrespect, and it has taken a toll.  You want to know why the Manosphere seems so soaked in misogyny?  Being equated to rapists for having a penis or being called "creepy" or even ridiculed for our desire to be men sucks, and after a while it will piss you off.  

That brings me to the Anger issue.  There is a common complaint among women that the Manosphere is an angry place, and if everyone would just stop being so angry and talk to each other in a reasonable fashion, maybe it wouldn't be and we'd all get along or something.

Stop it.  Stop disrespecting our legitimate anger.  Yes, our anger makes you uncomfortable -- that doesn't mean we aren't entitled to it.  Male anger doesn't make you less secure.  Yes, anger can lead to violence.  But usually it doesn't.  Men get angry, and sometimes we get angry at you for damn good reasons.  Part of the Red Pill process is letting your man get angry without berating him or warning him to back off.  Unless you are feeling physically threatened, the mere fact your dude is PISSED OFF, perhaps about you, is a healthy sign that things are working.

Being asked to suppress our anger has been one of the prime motivators toward BETAhood.  Being told "Don't be mad!" or "Don't get mad about this," or "I'm not going to talk to you if you're angry" or otherwise suggesting that our anger isn't a perfectly legitimate and understandable emotion that needs to be expressed, not suppressed, is disrespectful of our masculinity.  Next time you want to "cool" your dude down and convince him not to be mad . . . Stop.  Bite your lip.  Do not say a word.  Stand there and experience the righteous fury of his anger, because as painful as that might be, it has to happen if you want this to work.

Anger is part of our masculine power.  It's where the ALPHA comes from, our ability to generate huge amounts of emotional energy - say, enough to attack a saber-toothed tiger single-handedly or run into a burning building.  We need our anger and we need our detachment and our objectivity, otherwise we would not have the capacity to consciously slay another human being.  For the last 100,000 years that's what we've needed to do to survive, and just because it's inconvenient and hurts your feelings, we need to be able to express our anger to your face and have you just sit there and accept it without judgement or criticism.  We have the right to be angry, and if you want your man to ALPHA up, you have to let him.

There's more you can do.  Don't hang around women to trash-talk men.  Don't hang around women who abuse and disrespect their own men.  Hit the gym yourself, if you need to or want to encourage him.

And be pretty.

Wow, I almost heard that groan it was so loud.

But yeah, we want you to be pretty.  Not obsesses about your body parts and constantly ask us for affirmation and then demand that we don't know what we're talking about.  We don't want to be your fashion or makeup consultant.  We don't want to give you advice about shoes.  We don't want you to put on makeup all week for work and then slob out on the weekends because that's your 'me' time.  In actuality, that's your 'we' time, and when you sit around in sweats and complain about how much effort it takes to do all that stuff, you kill the ALPHA.

You want a more masculine man?  Be a more feminine woman.  Don't try to make your husband your "best friend", unless you fuck your best friends.  Don't think that it's "just him", and he won't mind if you go in jeans and a t-shirt.  Don't think that he finds your casual attitude and "earthy" functionality of your wardrobe impressive.  Don't include him in the intimate discussions of your menstrual cycle without cause.  Don't ask him his opinion on someone's relationship.  Don't treat him like a girlfriend, in other words, because he's a fucking man.  Your husband.

Wear skirts.  Try to be pretty.  Try to be alluring.  It helps.  When the women in our lives make that effort to be feminine, it makes us want to make a greater effort to be masculine.  Sex helps, of course, so quit using it as leverage.

The fact is that you cannot compel a man to ALPHA up.  But you can impel him: make conditions as ripe as possible, extend invitations, accept his leadership when it is given and give him respect and honor in return.  Learn to cede control to him . . . and responsibility to him.  Don't treat him like another child.  He's your husband.  If you demonstrate that you expect his leadership, then that will impel him towards leading.

There's a lot to this, and I'll be returning to it more in the future.  But I've accepted the challenge.  I want to help the Betas out there revolt against their programming and start acting like the real men both they and their wives want them to be.  Learn to be real men from other men, and learn what that means.

It's not the same thing as the prefeminist, preindustrial masculinity, of course, as market conditions have changed dramatically.  But it is a masculinity forged pragmatically, and with a little more forethought than our grandfather's masculinity.  Its a masculinity that takes into account the essential differences in post-industrial culture and adjusts accordingly.  Its a masculinity that looks not for equality with femininity, but equilibrium.

I guess I should get started.

HOUSEKEEPING!

I've been writing like mad for weeks now, had a really nasty week-long Noravirus outbreak at Stately Ironwood Manor, and I'm in the middle of two different catalogs and a package.  Plus I'm trying to finish a couple of books.  Therefore I haven't been doing much blog houskeeping lately, and it shows.  I do want to call your attention to a couple of things:

Ian wrote another book.  It's called Playground Rules, and it is essentially a collection of my blog postings regarding male and female socialization patterns.  Longtime readers of the blog have probably read most of it already, but if you're looking for a good guide for someone to navigate the Female Social Matrix, this is a great place to start.

I also want to call your attention to the tab at the top of the page listing Revolt of the Goddesses.  It's a mythopoetic attempt to chronicle the issues of feminism and masculinity.  It features the Greek gods, so think of it as a kind of political Percy Jackson.  This was actually part of the Manosphere book until Athol quite rightly pointed out "A bunch of dudes reading about masculinity don't want to read about goddesses! (duh!). I couldn't really argue with that, so I took it out and put it up here because, well, I wrote the damn thing and someone might like to read it.  I'm a fiction writer at heart.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned, and let's help the whole country ALPHA UP!