Think about it.

The people we idolize and idealize are those who are in positions of power or authority. Our heroes are athletes, politician, movie stars and musicians.
We grew up being told that we could be astronauts, or the President. There was something unique and special and we can do anything we want. Any and all of us could be CEO’s if we put our minds to it.

And since we were all told we were capable of everything, then clearly the only reason we don’t achieve that same level of success is because we either were lazy and didn’t work hard enough or we were a victim of the system/another person.

If you did achieve those goals then it was either because you worked harder than everyone else or you got lucky/stepped on toes to get to the top.
We function in a paradigm that places all value on where we sit in our social hierarchy. And so we see two opposite and direct responses to this “blank-slate” view of the world.

On the one hand you have the libertarian mindset – a man’s successes and failures are the direct result of his own effort and labor. A man born in a third-world country, if given the same opportunity and expending the same amount of effort, can accomplish the same thing as a man born in the wealthy class of a first-world nation.

And on the other hand is the attempt to completely obliterate any sense of hierarchy at all – we are all equal and the only way another person gets ahead is by exploiting those around him. There are no inherent differences between men and women, races, levels of intelligence or physical capabilities. A four-foot Irish man could be an NBA star if the NBA would just abolish all those pesky rules that prevent him from being able to score as well as the rest of the men.

Both of these world views are inherently flawed in that they place all of a person’s value on their hierarchal standing. It’s no wonder modern women are consciously discontent to have their husbands be the head of the household notwithstanding the biological and spiritual inclination to do so.

It’s no wonder that modern men sacrifice time with their families or having families at all just to climb the social and career ladder a couple of rungs higher.
But God doesn’t value us in a hierarchal manner. Even after the final judgment has happened, he will love his Terrestrial children as much as the Celestial.

Just like in the parable of the talents, God cares more about what we do with our circumstances, not how much we have initially or finally end up with. My parents used to tell me they be happy with my getting C’s on my report cards if that were the result of effort and hard work, but even A’s don’t matter if I didn’t have to work for them.

God is a god of order. He established his Church with a hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean He loves Noah more than He loves you. He established the family with a hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean He loves men more than He loves women.

The sooner we abandon the hierarchy as value paradigm, the happier we can be with the outcomes and the more we can respect ourselves even if we’re not the top of the food chain.

For the average woman this turns into gaining weight, wearing less stylish clothing, chopping her hair short and generally letting her appearance her pleasantness and the appearance of her house go.

Her husband responds by being less sexually interested, less inclined to make decisions himself and less willing to keep his own life ordered and tidy.

For the average man this means gaining weight, losing his sense of adventure and generally falling into an agreeable/deferential state of mind instead of maintaining his own identity, goals and pursuits.

His wife responds by being less sexually interested, more of a nag and less inclined to keep up in her own responsibilities.
Hence we see the fat wife and the sloppy husband.

Letting yourself go in and of itself is not work. However, what it does is create tension and contention within the relationship. This works two ways.
First is the most obvious. Husband is less satisfied with his wife because she’s let herself go or wife is less satisfied with husband for the same reason. Either or both become resentful to some extent and the bond between the two is damaged. Because the bond is damaged tension and contention increase. But, because the bond is only damaged and not entirely gone, both are still concerned with the welfare of the relationship and the happiness of their spouse. Essentially it leads to arguments.

The other way in which it creates tension is that both spouses know they are capable of better. As much as we will try to rationalize ourselves out of it, we are not happy when we are stagnant, and we are even more miserable when we’re digressing. The resentment a husband feels for a fat, sloppy wife is nothing compared to the disgust she feels herself. The disrespect a wife shows to her henpecked husband has no comparison with the shame he feels inside for allowing himself to be mothered by his spouse.

Spiritually, emotionally and relationally this creates work. The most discouraging thing is that it is not productive work. The guilty parties who have to work are putting in effort to get back to a point where they were when they first got married. It’s walking up the down escalator.

So the better alternative is to see marriage as a continuation of the dating process. It’s still a lot of work, but it’s productive work. Inertia is working for you instead of against. A wife who maintains her appearance, her pleasantness and her home will have an easier time making her husband and herself happy than the woman who’s let things go and has to climb back to square one. A husband who continues to lead, stay in shape, pursue external hobbies and goals and be a man of respect will find it easier to increase his results relative to his effort than the one who has no sense of self or respect from his family.
Marriage is work either way, what’s up to us is whether or not it will be productive, rewarding and progressive work or the alternative.

Athol does himself a disservice by titling the book “Married Man Sex Life.” Yes I know it’s the name of the blog and the brand he’s given himself but the principles he teaches are well beyond just getting some action from your wife.

While many in the manosphere have argued that marriage is largely or entirely a sexual contract, there are those of us who have other needs that our wives can meet. We want children, respect, companionship, trust, affection, safety and familiarity.

For many men who don’t know how to improve themselves, these righteous desires can be twisted and used against them. Their children undermine them, they garner no respect from family or coworkers, the companionship of a wife becomes that of a shrew, trust turns into blame and guilt, affection is completely cut off and safety and familiarity become contempt or monotony.

The plan Athol lays out in his book will help men become someone worthy of the respect, family and sex they want. It doesn’t guarantee how others will respond to the new man; but it does give him the tools to improve and become someone deserving of those qualities.

On top of his advice, Athol writes in a manner that takes a lot of the venom and vitriol out of the mansosphere/Game/anti-feminism blogs. There is an eyes-wide-open exposure to the weaknesses and strengths of both men and women, but it is approached with the attitude of this being natural programming and not something that should be resented or cured. Men can work on themselves and women can work on themselves.

Be warned that much of the content is explicit. Although the concepts are valid for more than just marriage or sex, this is not a book I would recommend to a young LDS man about to go to college or who has started dating. However I do think it is a great read for newlyweds.

All in all, this was a great read. Athol takes concepts and ideas that have existed on both his blog and others and presents them in a palatable way to those who aren’t quite ready to swallow the red pill but want to test the water first. It will open eyes and improve relationships.

I’m extremely guilty of this one. I have an idea of how the world should be. It seems fair and objective. When people don’t live up to that – whether at work or my personal life – I vent about it and get frustrated.

A perfect example for me and most of the men in my life is road rage. I hate driving home from work and want it to take as little time as possible. So if I’m delayed because someone is too slow in one lane or isn’t paying attention when the light turns green, it really sets me off. Logically I know that it really only adds three minutes to my commute, at a maximum. But the fact that someone isn’t driving the way I expect them to instantly triggers frustration. It’s annoying.

I get why men complain. It’s pretty easy actually. By drawing attention to our circumstances we make ourselves look more masculine and tough by surmounting them or enduring them well.

When you were a boy you probably sprained your ankle. No one could see any physical damage and you probably limped around a little bit more and a little bit longer than you really had to. You made a bigger deal out of it than it really was because it drew people’s attention to you and (hopefully) made them respect you more for your massive amounts of strength and endurance in overcoming the sprained-ankle trial.

On the other hand, you probably got stitches once too. But – since this was a very visible and noticeable wound – you acted like it was no big deal. Rather than drawing attention to it, you deflected attention away from it, brushed it off, made jokes, tried to change the subject, whatever. The goal was the same, you wanted people to admire and respect your masculine ability to overcome.

It makes a pretty simple formula

Visible distress = brush it off and prove I’m tough

Invisible distress = make it visible and prove I’m tough

This is also why babies cry, stop to look around if anyone is looking, and then start crying again if someone is.

As adults we really haven’t grown out of this, we’re just more subtle about it. The irony is that most people recognize it on a subconscious level. If you’re complaining about being slammed at work, people think you can’t handle it. Even if it is a workload worth empathy, they still think less of you instead of more because you’re whining about it.

It means you’ll have to sacrifice some recognition from other people. Not everyone is going to know about the day you had to cover the noon rush on your own, or the time you stubbed your toe really, really ( I mean really) hard in the door. But the short-term sacrifice will pay off in the long run. It’s better to be known as the man who does his job without complaint than the spoiled boy who has to gripe about everything.

Obviously this doesn’t mean you bend over and take any injustice because you’re supposed to be a man about it. If things are within your control to change, or bad things happen on a periodic basis instead of a single event, then you want to draw attention to it. Speak to the person who can make the change or make the change yourself and move on.

But when it comes to those little setbacks that everyone experiences, just grit your teeth and endure it well. No one wants to be around a whiner.

In my few months of reading all the articles posted I have yet to find one that hasn’t made me laugh out loud at my desk. The predictability, the doctrinal inconsistency, the self justification, all of it can be too much to handle at times. Normally I will just read, have a chuckle and then move on with my life; but today’s article was too ironic to pass up without a response.

Nat Kelly starts off a woefully sad and depressing story about an immigrant woman being “harassed” on the bus and the inherent lack of white knights there to protect her. Every paragraph in this post is rife with either blatant contradictions or serious hypocrisy. I wonder how they don’t see it.

On the bus, I took a seat behind a man sitting by himself. During the ride, I noticed his face plastered against the window, and his stare riveted to the sidewalk outside. I paid no attention to it until I started hearing him utter phrases like, “Oh helloooo Mommy!” under his breath. He was using the bus ride as a voyeuristic opportunity to ogle every woman who happened to be on the sidewalk.

But then another man got on. He walked past me and I didn’t think anything of him, too wrapped up in being disgusted at the pervert in front of me.

Don’t you love that the liberal/feminist culture of tolerance only extends so far? They’re as fanatical in their intolerance of others’ intolerance as they accuse the rest of the world of being. What’s the difference between a systemic intolerance of intolerance or a systemic intolerance of anything else? Besides, I thought a good liberal or feminist was supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt. Kelly certainly doesn’t wax thoughtful about whether or not the “pervert” (love the shaming language) was mentally handicapped or anything like that. She immediately jumps to the conclusion that he is a vile sexual offender based solely on her limited perception of the comments he’s muttering to himself. Hello pot meet kettle.

Then I hear him muttering something, across the aisle and 2 rows back.

“Are you from another country? Which one? Are you from China? The Philippines?”

I glance back to see that he has sat down right next to the woman I spoke to at the bus stop, despite the bus being nearly empty. He was talking to her in a low tone, getting as close to her as possible. Everything about the woman’s body language was at red alert. Her entire body was turned towards the window, her eyes wide open, her mouth in an angry, nervous straight line.

“Are you from Taiwan? Thailand?”

He lowered his voice even further and spoke so I couldn’t hear. I could see her alarm visibly rising.

My stop was only 3 blocks away. I didn’t know what to do. My first impulse was to say, “Dude, leave her alone, go sit somewhere else, you jerk.” But I had no idea how he would react. I had no idea if he was mentally stable, or if he would lash out and hurt one of us.

Based on what she tells in her story it sounds like the man would have been annoying – maybe even a bit creepy – but certainly not a predator. There was nothing either implicitly or explicitly sexual or threatening in the way he was acting. In fact, I’m willing to guess the exchange wouldn’t have even registered on her radar if the man had sat down next to another white man and start asking him what state he was from. She most likely would have written him off as crazy and left it at that. The fact that it was an immigrant woman he was talking to makes for the double victimization; and there’s nothing SWPL’s love more than seeing, pitying and writing about victims – real or perceived. The woman may have been genuinely afraid but why doesn’t Kelly condemn her for that? Why not call her out for being judgmental and impatient of a man who most likely has a screw or two lose? Isn’t he also a child of God who deserves mercy and understanding? Oh wait over at FMH, God’s love is only for women and minorities.

All of her perceived thoughts of equity and you go girlness aside, Kelly decides to remedy her man problem by approaching… wait for it… yes you guessed it… another man. Steinem and the sisterhood would be so proud. Not only just a man, but a male authority figure. And why aren’t there more women bus drivers anyway. It’s the patriarchy trying to keep the womenz down.

I walked up to the driver and said, “Hey, the guy in the white hat is-”

“Yeah, I know, I’m watching him. He rides all the time, kinda kooky.”

Well would you look at that. The man of the situation – even if he is just a lowly bus driver – is aware of his domain. Not only does he see what’s going on at that immediate point in time, but he’s paid enough attention to his little corner of responsibility in the past that he recognizes the passenger for the kook he is. It’s great to see the inherent virtue in a man who owns his domain and is aware of potential problems or hazards within his sphere of influence.

I love that when the bus driver tells Kelly the passenger is a bit kooky, it doesn’t call her to a sincere repentance for being so quick to judge, rather it just escalates her own perception of him being “weird” and therefore undesirable and less worthy in the eyes of the Lord. The same thing she’s accusing him of feeling towards the immigrant woman. You can’t make crap like this up.

Meanwhile, the woman stood up to move. (Duh, Natalie! Why didn’t you address her and offer her a seat by you!) The man stayed right where he was, blocking her access to the aisle. The driver yelled at him several times to get up and let her move, and he slowly swung his legs out so she could shimmy by.

I got off the bus and turned back towards it. There she was, staring determinedly out the window, now on the other side, face full of fear and hatred. I made eye contact with her briefly, and tried to give some sort of expressive smile – expressive of support, anger, disgust, love, solidarity. Oh, if looks could heal.

In fairness to the author and the article, when the passenger refused to let the woman out of her seat, he crossed a line and should have been called down for it. Thankfully the bus driver – in all his masculine glory – was there and able to do so. Some would accuse him of white knighting for the woman, but he really was doing his job and keeping control in his domain. Good on the driver.

How great that Kelly laments her inability to express – through a mere smile – her sense of solidarity with the immigrant woman. “If looks could heal” is a load of tripe. I’m sure the immigrant woman would also appreciate Kelly’s “look of solidarity” as she’s being robbed or raped because it would show that women stand together and they hate hate hate all the evil in the world. The narcissism and laziness expressed in Kelly’s solution to the woman’s “problem” are extremely sad and extremely telling. Why get your hands dirty solving a problem when you can pat yourself on your moral back by empathizing with the victim? The latter is safer and you still get to feel self-righteous about your condemnation of evil.

She goes on to bemoan the objectification of women (without acknowledging that it is primarily perpetrated by other women), the vilification of immigrants (even though the immigrant woman also was being judgmental and closed-minded about the man who sat down next to her), and the failure to finally be in the liberal utopia wherein all people of all creeds, colors and sexes are exactly the same (when Mormon doctrine specifically outlines that the world will become increasingly more evil and dystopic until the Second Coming of Christ).

She complains about the physical differences between men and women without recognizing that they always have and always will exist. The only reason women didn’t feel as in danger in the past was because there were other men who were willing and able to defend an innocent woman from a predator. And that’s the real irony, in her attempt to create a feminist utopia, Kelly and her sisterhood have succeeded in making the world a more dangerous, more miserable place for women. One where men no longer step up to protect a strange woman out of a fear of their own propensity for violence, apathy for the plight of another human being, belief that women and men are inherently the same (no man would step in if it were another man being harassed on the bus), and an understanding of the high likelihood that the woman they saved would immediately resent them for doing so.

Feminism, multiculturalism and liberalism are what create the unironic inconsistency of Kelly’s view of the world. This is the society these ideologies have created.

If you were to ask most men and most women what qualities they found attractive in the opposite sex, odds are they would all be fairly similar: attractive, smart, funny, compassionate, fair, responsible etc. These are all pretty generic. The primary difference in attractors for men and women is the order of priority in which each attribute is placed.

Most people have primary, secondary and tertiary attractors. Most men have the same attributes in the same category. If a man has to choose between a woman meeting his primary attractors and his secondary or tertiary, he’ll take the primary. It’s why the stereotype of men marrying hot bimbos exists. Your average, good man doesn’t want to marry an idiot. But he’ll take someone who’s physically attractive over someone who’s smart if he had to choose only one attribute. Men can rationally try to deny that, and even marry someone who’s smart without being gorgeous, but they will be more attracted to a woman’s looks than her brains.

So if a woman wants to net the best possible man she can, she obviously needs to develop and emphasize as many attractors as possible. However, with women being finite and limited creatures, they can’t develop and magnify them all, so a girl would be much better served to enhance her primary attractors over anything else.

So which attributes fall into which category? This is open for a little bit of discussion and interpretation, but here’s a fairly basic breakdown of what men prioritize in their women.

Primary Attractors

1. Physical Beauty – Society can try to argue this away all they want but both men and women judge and evaluate other people by how physically attractive they are. Sex sells for a reason. Gorgeous women marry successful men for a reason. Even your average girl is going to be attractive when she’s at the peak of her sexual market value (SMV). Men won’t approach or develop an interest in a girl who isn’t physically going to turn him on.

2. Likeability – It doesn’t matter how hot, smart, talented or spiritual a woman is if she’s a wretch. This holds even more true if she’s sharply critical of her man. Nags and bitches have their stigmas for a reason. No one wants to be around them. For the most part, they don’t even want to be around themselves. Their negativity is a drain. Marriage is hard enough that you don’t want to feel like you have to compensate for your wife being a jerk to everyone around her.

3. Companionship – I’ve hit on this point before but men want to be with companions, not competitors. When we are looking for a woman to date and marry, we want someone who we know will be in our corner. Men are validated when a woman respects them. There is little that conveys more respect than someone who is willing to be on your team and trust you to be the team captain. And, just like in sports, most team captains take the role and the responsibility of that role very seriously.

4. Shared Goals –No one wants a project wife. There needs to be a shared goal between spouses. Being on the same page about God, religion, school, child-rearing, philosophical ideals and politics are all important. These shared goals may not be a biological attractor, but they are still key in helping a man determine if a woman is worth pursuing.

Secondary Attractors

1. Intelligence – It’s obvious that someone who can carry an adult conversation and function on their own in the world is attractive. However, this is a secondary attractor because a woman can still be a good wife and a good mother without being able to discuss economic crises and motivations behind rebellions in the Middle East.

2. Adaptability – Life doesn’t go according to plan. When it doesn’t, it’s a relief and a support to be with someone who can roll with the punches and still keep her optimism.

3. Confidence – Many would argue that this should be and is a primary attractor. I can see it going either way. A healthy sense of confidence is definitely attractive, but a humble woman is much more appealing than a narcissist.

4. History – The more a woman is ideal in her primary attractors, the more likely a man is to forgive a less-than-ideal history. (The irony is that most women who embody the above attractors don’t tend to have bad histories). The more history a woman has, the more developed her primary attractors have to be and vice versa.

Tertiary Attractors

1. Cleanliness – This isn’t referring to personal hygiene (see physical beauty) but organization and housekeeping abilities. A man will settle for a woman who sucks at laundry if she’s hot, nice and shares his goals. That’s what maids and kids are for.

2. Career Success – Yes this is only a tertiary attractor. And a woman’s career success is really only attractive if it’s indicative of other positive attributes. A successful lawyer who clawed and slept her way to the top is not going to draw quality men, even if she is the state’s Attorney General.

3. Raw Talent – Things like playing the piano, singing, athleticism, dancing and other talents or hobbies fall into this category. Are they attractive? Sure. But are they crucial? Nope. I don’t know of too many men who would refuse to date or marry a perfect woman who couldn’t carry a tune. They’re supplementary but not crucial.

Now obviously this isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive list – especially when it comes to secondary and tertiary attractors. I – for example – found myself very attracted to a girl the other day because she used the proper spelling of “too” in a note she had written me. It’s not something that would seal or break a deal, but it’s a positive in her favor.

So what is the point of all this? Essentially it’s to tell the women who read my blog that it doesn’t do you any good to try to project your primary attractors onto men themselves. We are attracting to attributes that are very different, and that’s the way it should be. If you’re having a hard time getting the quality of man you want, start improving your primaries and move your way down from there.

Recently Erin Ann McBride wrote an article called, “How the Sexual Revolution Killed the Common Date.” Essentially the premise is that men are no longer worth women’s time and don’t have to be because they can turn to video games and porn instead of pursuing, dating and marrying the real deal. Top-tier women are left alone and childless because the men won’t “man up” and give women the lives they feel they deserve.

Her first point is that men used to have to work to find a good woman. However, she makes no reference to the fact that women used to have to work to be worthy of a good man. The underlying assumption is that women are inherently more valuable than men and men had to work hard and prove themselves worthy of the brides they sought. The irony of her premise is that it is now harder than ever for a man to find and marry a good woman. Too many women, even those in the Church, have turned into narcissistic harpies who want to have their cake and eat it too. She believes that the sexual revolution has made women more valuable to men when it has done the exact opposite – it has turned them into our competitors. Any man worth his salt and who is the type of man who can and wants to lead a home will choose a submissive and feminine woman over the solipsism that is so prevalent today.

To her credit, she goes on to accurately point out that men have it harder than they used to. 80% of the jobs lost in the “Great Recession” have belonged to men. More women are graduating from college than men and – in larger, urban areas – the pay gap has actually reversed and young, college-educated women are actually earning more than their male peers. While McBride accurately recognizes the bleakness of what men have to look forward to, she fails to empathize with men and instead blames them for not stepping up even further. For someone who is an advocate for gender equality, she places an unfair amount of blame on the rougher sex.

She also erroneously credits the shift in power of relationships to a surplus of women in the world. What she doesn’t acknowledge is that the sexual revolution essentially encouraged women to give up their power, not a demographic shift. A woman’s power has always been in her sexuality. Throughout patriarchal society men have had authority and women have had power. The scriptures and other historical texts are rife with examples of the kind of influence women could wield by virtue of their femininity and their sexuality. Sampson lost his life to the influence of a woman. Wars were started as a result of the influence of Helen of Troy. King David lost his exaltation after being tempted by Batsheba. All these women lived in “oppressive” patriarchal cultures and had no authority in the world of men; however the power they did have has been discussed through the ages.

The damage of the sexual revolution was not in the shift of numbers from men to women but in the loss of a woman’s influence. What man will pay for the cow if he can get the milk for free? What fool would legally bind himself to the contract of marriage when he already reaps the benefits without the obligations (or when family courts and divorce laws are stacked immensely against him). Women didn’t lose the upper hand in relationships because they decreased in number, they did because they ceased to value their greatest asset and sought authority without responsibility.

Another error McBride makes is in what she believes a man will find attractive. In retelling her experience of a singles’ ward activity, she hyperbolically says that all the women there were, “attractive, talented women. Each of them successful, accomplished and enjoyable to be with.” What McBride does is project what she finds attractive in men onto men themselves and assumes that a man will also find that attractive in a woman. When it comes to choosing a mate, a man’s criteria has very little to do with how successful or talented a woman is. Of course men appreciate this in anyone but it is an appreciation made of out respect – not of desire. A man does not want a competitor and he certainly does not want someone who is the same as he is. As men, we seek companions. I believe that bears repeating – men want women who are equal as companions not who are equal as competitors. If a good woman wants to attract the right kind of man she needs to be physically attractive, sweet, submissive and devoted to God and family. That’s it. Women would be better served working on what really makes them attractive to men than climbing the corporate ladder in an attempt to impress their peers.

McBride also complains about the settling conundrum women can find themselves in:

“Women are stuck with a difficult decision. Do they just take the first man that comes along, afraid of not getting picked for the team? Or worse, never getting picked for the team? Even if that man is not what she was hoping for? Or does she stick it out, waiting for a man to be her equal? Which is a lot like waiting for the chupacabra some days.

Will the men ever step up their game? Will men actually ever work hard to find a woman and woo her again? I’m guessing no. We’ve progressed too far. Maybe it will happen in an other generation, but it won’t happen for my generation. Men have no need to step up their game, when there is always another woman to meet around the corner.”

While women are left with the difficult position of being the pursued instead of the pursuer, this does not make every woman a catch. Women lament night and day, “Where are all the good men?” but very rarely take the time to ask if they are a good woman. The brave few who do are falsely buoyed up by their family and the sisterhood and consistently told that any man would be lucky to have them. The modern American woman (yes even the Mormon American woman) has a very false and inflated sense of her value. She has been told time and time again that she is a special snowflake and a daughter of God so she deserves the best of men out there. Even within the realms of the Church, women are rarely criticized or given hard lessons like the men, but are told to not be so hard on themselves, and give themselves some credit. For anecdotal evidence, visit a Relief Society and then an Elder’s Quorum in the same ward, the contrast is striking.

If these women were really as desperate to find a good husband and as righteous as they’d like us to believe they are, they would be seeking doctrinal and scriptural evidence of the type of woman they need to be in order to attract the right man. The problem is that those scriptures and doctrines are antithetical to the sexual revolution and make anyone over the age of 60 very uncomfortable. God’s view of marriage is very clearly outlined in both ancient and modern scripture. It is not politically correct and it does not make men and women interchangeable in their roles in both a marriage and a family. Women of the Church would be better served making themselves conform to the doctrine than trying to make the doctrines conform to their post-modern selves.

As her final point McBride blames the omnipresent Mormon bogeyman – porn. Is porn a problem? Absolutely it is. Is there every a justification for looking at it? No there is not. Are men actively seeking to replace real, loving women in their lives with the cheap thrills and false expectations of porn? Not hardly. Pornography can offer only part of the benefits that come from a mutually fulfilling relationship. Men are visual creatures and are sexually aroused by a woman’s form. While porn may offer sexual stimulation and satisfaction it does not provide men with companionship. It does not give them women they can love and trust. It does not give them mothers who will righteously raise their children. It is pointless to tell men that porn is a cheap substitute because any man who has struggled with it already knows this. Porn is no more satisfying to a man’s long-term relationship goals than a chick flick is to a woman.

And speaking of chick flicks, it’s funny that McBride bemoans the casual conversations about visual porn but then casually references her own experience with emotional porn. Modern movies and TV are created for women to give them the same satisfaction that a man gets from visual pornography. The goal may not be physical but it is a cheap simulation of what reality can offer and does establish a very false expectation of what a relationship is like. Women who demand their husbands be Mr. Darcy or McDreamy have no more false expectations of love and marriage than men who want to marry good girls who are Jenna Jameson in bed.

There are great men out there and there are great women out there. The funny thing is they seem to find each other. The young, pretty girl who is married at an early age to an older, more successful man does not have to be an anomaly. Women who won’t date good men because they are too busily pursuing their careers or because the good men don’t have a higher social status are no better than the men who won’t go out with a girl because it’s safer and easier to just stay home and play Halo. Women like McBride who can’t find the right men are usually a pretty good match for the men in their vicinity. The problem is they think they’re better.

Of course McBride’s conclusion is to blame it on men. In this misandric culture and world, it’s everyone’s option to blame it on the men. She paints herself and her sisters as victims of men who didn’t adequately adjust to the sexual revolution rather than decrying the men and women who allowed the sexual revolution to happen. I’ll blame a man as much as anyone else when he deserves it and I have no qualms about showing a woman where her faults and weaknesses lie as well. After all, isn’t that equality?

HT LDSAlpha