2820. HAPPY NEW YEAR

Best wishes to all of you. Your company last year was very satisfying.

Ladies, I face a search. What next? I finished my original task and it put me out of business. I drifted away from reader interest. I went too far for everyone but me. It took ten years to complete my objective, but no one wanted the end result. So now I drift.

I know how my doing right for me ended up wrong for others, but that’s okay. I’m quite satisfied with myself.

First day of the year, and I ponder if anything is left in me that others might use in the battle of the sexes. I’m searching for a major theme if there is one.

Some ladies claim they learn easily from my responses to readers’ comments. So your questions are invited.

In the meantime I’ve settled in on one subject that should be of significant interest to readers. At least I’ll try to make it that way.

The subject is: Love is never enough. It’s next, and I view it playing for quite a while.

2749. Essentials of Successful Marriage — 02 War of the Sexes

I recently recognized a severe problem connected with my explanations, reader understanding, and women relating with men. Let me re-frame the relationship picture. For clarity in the future, I use more precise definitions of the War of the Sexes and the Battle of the Sexes (tomorrow).

The War of the Sexes is men against women, true. Individuals of both sexes are born to get their way, so competition is a universal motivator. Yet, the dominant sex is reluctant to give away the privileges of dominance. Consequently, women far too easily fall victim to masculine disregard, disrespect, and even maltreatment except they find a better way to handle one man’s dominance.

It’s the immovable object of male dominance versus the irresistible force of attractive females. That picture needs further development.

Men are individualistic and have the physical and mental ability to force women if they wish. Viewing that as threatening, women cooperate more and try to bond together to overcome male dominance. It’s not their best strategy to admit that dominance exists.

The irresistible force of women comes not from their banding together but the opposite. Immovable objects are vulnerable to unique female beauty, independent mystery and charm of individual females, and their willingness to respect a man for who he is, what he does, and what he can brag about and promise for her future. It’s a job for each individual woman on her own.

It arises out of the irresistible attractiveness in the eyes of men that encourages one of them to become moveable—that is, more civilized, tamed, and accepting of one woman’s expectations in order to have her as his own. Consequently, unless each exploits her attractiveness to the best of her ability, she becomes less irresistible and less appealing to a man seeking a permanent mate.

It amounts to this. The war is each individual woman versus all men. Neither all nor many men can satisfy her. She only needs one but has to screen many and perhaps fight some to find one good enough for her standards and expectations. She has to be able to govern their relationship, which means she has to earn his  trust, which only arises out of his respect earned early in their relationship.

Therefore, until one man finds her the dream of his life, all those others make up a parade of passers-by. She’s on her own with whatever irresistible attractions she can generate. Other women are more competition than helpers; their advice is not based on her expectations, hopes, and dreams but their own as they apply it to her life. Her own judgments are paramount, and the greater her self-gratitude, the stronger and more dependable her decisions for her.

Neither individually nor gender-wide as feminists try to make it, women can’t overpower their dominant mate. They may think or assume they have, but it isn’t reality; men can invent surprises, if they don’t already have some developed. In their heart of hearts, they refuse to lose to a weaker person in the normal course of events. She has to make their relationship unique and above normal in his eyes, so that he loses interest in always getting his way with her. He prefers to please her more than dominate her.

She can do it. Women are born with special abilities that men lack. She was born to get her way, and she’s all alone in getting it with one man. She was also born with all the ability needed to achieve it. Self-gratitude for courage to stand up to get her way; the respectful, respectable, and honorable intentions within her heart and manner; and the necessary skills, talent, and expertise to govern their relationship successfully.

When women try to outcompete dominant men, they fail over the long run. Consequently, she’s better with another strategy. Women are born able to outwit, outsmart, and outmaneuver the dominance in one man—not the man but his dominant ways that are vulnerable to his being bought off. Provided, that is, if no one else knows about it, or it appears he’s giving of himself rather than being defeated.

Each woman’s war continues daily until she isolates one man to join her in the Battle of the Sexes, one on one. Her female armor shines virtuously with mystery, modesty, and monogamous promise. Maybe more, but at least one man finds her attractive enough that his self-interest to have her exceeds his natural urge for first-time sex together.

Her lasso is around his neck, and she never threw it. He took her attractive bait as he continues to enjoy the self-promise of exploiting his conqueror’s ability and ambition of bedding her. The immovable object yields to the irresistible force.

So much for handling male dominance. It’s won in the war between one woman and all men. In her self-development as a female, she refuses to recognize it in light of her irresistibility and ability to park dominance off in the corner of her relationships.

Dominance is out of the picture. The Battle of the Sexes is one-on-one and enables an independent woman to use her irresistible force to make her likeability as potential mate as attractive as her best appearance.

2645. Strategy for Courtship — 01: Introduction

Dating and courtship can be defined and described many ways. The battle of the sexes revolves around both sexes being born to get their way with the other. I write about the version that empowers and enables girls and women to get their way and make guys appreciate the feminine way.

This is the major battle. Whoever gets their way—the guy to achieve conquest without future obligation, or the gal to achieve marriage without yielding—wins. When the guy wins, the gal may or may not win depending on his decision before conquest. She can end up as keeper, booty, or disposable.

I write about courtship without sharing sex. If you find no interest in dating and courting that way, you may still uncover in what follows some insight into why gals should not relinquish courtship governance to guys. Example: Feminine qualities are admired by men as virtues. Her greatest virtue is possession without use of sexual assets. The more and better she withholds them, the more and better a man respects and admires her. A man’s love is founded on respect of a woman, and so keeping her legs crossed earns a guy’s respect, admiration, and whatever love he develops associating with her. With legs crossed, women can get their way. With legs apart, guys don’t bond as women expect, and gals lose their courtship supremacy.

Men are motivated two ways. When they can’t conquer a gal, they can get serious and even dedicate themselves to chasing her until she yields. The longer he pursues her, the more he invests himself with actions that program his heart in her favor, and men don’t easily walk away from lengthy investments.

When gals yield the first time, that guy is free to chase others. It’s not her or her fault, it’s his nature to conquer every attractive female that will have him.

A woman is best served by this courtship strategy: He chases and wins her without access to her sexual assets until they marry. It may not always play out that way, given the pressures of passion and pleasures of sex. The longer it plays out that way, however, the greater his investment of himself in her interests. By far, it’s the superior strategy by which the superior gender can handle the dominant gender and promote the female’s  self-interest.

Why is that? Because a man changes dramatically as the result of conquest. It’s not her fault but his two sex-drive nature. All she did was yield out of love, wish to satisfy him, and hope he would bond. He doesn’t bond, he admires and satisfies himself with accomplishment, and her risk skyrockets of doing without him.

Hardwired this way from birth, conquest releases him from chasing her, and he becomes free to chase another. He may dispose of her as inadequate for him. Or, he might choose to stay with her, if she has earned enough of his respect and interest for proceeding together as either booty or for long-range mating.

While not a popular strategy today, the one I propose above flooded the social marketplace back in the day when most men sought to marry and settle down with a good woman. We can’t turn back the clock, but the foundation of men seeking to marry a good woman is founded on the respect a woman earns by possessing a great virtue and withholding it until a man invests himself sufficiently to step up and meet her expectations.

If a woman can’t learn to get her way in courtship, she’s short of what it takes to get her way in marriage, where men want little to do with managing the domestic side of living together.

While not nearly as impressive as crossed legs for shaping manly attitudes, women are blessed with characteristics that generate attractive and feminine attitudes for men. It’s next.

2632 — Universal Motivators: The Grand Design

Again, pardon the hubris for presuming to know what God intended. But this is the conclusion I draw from how humans have acted and reacted over the millennia.

This seems to be the grand design, the original model. Men are motivated to spread their seed. Mothers are motivated to raise their children. Readers are motivated to read something else.

Men have little or no incentive to love or be loved by only one woman. Depositors of seed favor moving on and have little natural interest in helping with kids. However, females possess a unique relationship expertise that persuades one man of choice to let one woman of choice get her way.

Spreading being easier than raising kids, women seek fathers to help ease female burdens. They use love as primary method and find cooperation more valuable than competition. Consequently, women give up getting their way in the present in order to bless their future with a man’s presence—but they eventually learn a major exception exists.

Thus, the battle of the sexes organizes, begins, and continues.

2243. FEMININE

Surfercajun at 2239 inquired about feminine. Here’s my response.

We’re talking about men, so surprise, surprise. Feminine is not who or what she is, it’s who and what men perceive her to be. Which means she is whoever and whatever his curiosity, imagination, and conscious thought make her out to be. It makes sense but why do I mention it talking to women?

To make this point: Whoever and whatever you think you are, however beautiful, great, and praise-worthy you may be to yourself and those who know you, you’re still just a sexually available female to all men until you prove otherwise to each and every man who wants to bed you. Insensitive and tactless, perhaps I am, so forgive me. I’m on track to make a connected point.

Feminine is the totality of the female creature that serves to hold a man permanently. Not beauty, not sexual attractiveness, not career greatness, not laudable behavior. Feminine is most important because it includes the others in the male mind. Too simplified, perhaps, but I continue on track to the next point.

Feminine is complex to females but simple to males who visualize it in mind and heart; of course every man is different. Consequently, there are no perfect attributes that make a woman feminine. There are only attributes aimed at turning on masculine curiosity, imagination, and conscious thought that most likely generate the maximum interest in you out of every man. The more men attracted to you, then the merrier for you. It provides you with the greatest number of opportunities to find AND KEEP the man of your dreams. The more feminine you appear to each man, the more likely the man of your dreams will crave to spend his life with you. Men compete; the more one man wants you the more the next one does too. It’s up to women to make that last sentence mean HER more than sex.

Three main characteristics appeal to men. Feminine mystique, female modesty, and monogamous spirit. When her other features, traits, and behaviors emphasize those three, she shows up as very feminine to the greatest number of men. Examples follow of what each characteristic consists of in the eyes of men.

Feminine mystique. She’s so short of being totally understandable it’s not worth his effort to try; she’s acceptable as is. (Exaggerated, yes, but men don’t have to understand their woman nearly as much as women have to understand their man).

She’s an enigma, not the least bit of a male thinker. Unpredictable about even the smallest things. Composed when she should be upset. Upset when composure is called for. Independent on matters about which she should be dependent and vice versa. Curious when uncalled for because whatever was the matter is now resolved. Dumb about the simplest and surprisingly knowledgeable about the complicated. Surprisingly adroit when she needs to be, but not afraid to admit being uninformed.

Expresses her pride through mothering and nurturing and not through trying to outdo him. Doesn’t show off even when she deserves to do so. Can love even those whom she doesn’t respect. Can admire a man’s strength and learn to support or rely on it even after it fails him. Can forgive easily (he forgets to ask or notice if she can forget).

Can out-compete the toughest people but chooses to outwit and outsmart rather than out-fight. No one’s too big for her. She’s feisty but it’s a rare occasion when she shows it, because she’s so well respected even by fairly important people.

She isn’t hesitant; in fact she’s pleased to inspire him with a new hint of mystery. It prompts him to think. Why is a woman so willing to do what this wise woman recommends as part of being feminine. Superslaviswife suggests that women exhibit “An openness to new experiences and places that tells him she can accommodate him in her life. And an eagerness to share those experiences with him and be a part of his life.”

Female modesty. Under the guise of modesty, she controls her life according to her best interest. She looks and acts modestly, which means attractively with minimal attention to sexual features and the absence of sexually suggestive behavior. Fashionable and classy attractiveness signify that she’s unique, which is a logical step toward fascination.

Modesty is her most significant weapon of defense against masculine intrusions in her life. Such as, time to ponder elsewhere (powder room), break away from excess passion, turn a blind eye to offensive behavior, flee or slap someone when her sensibilities are threatened, and justify not explaining herself or complaining about others.

Modesty enables her to evade having to defend or protect her values, standards, and expectations. Thus, she can leave men thinking they have won whatever mental battle just transpired; she defers to him when he wouldn’t defer to her, which effectively steals his victory and adds further mystery to her. She’d rather retreat now and gain advantage for next time.

Monogamous spirit. His woman’s physical infidelity is the greatest assault on a man’s dignity, self-respect, respect of other men, and sense of significance. Every evaluation of a marriage candidate’s character, features, and behaviors is done with this thought top of mind: Will she be faithful to me? Until he proves YES to himself, he is unlikely to propose.

Consequently, a boyfriend’s interests and interrogations spotlight everything connected with her future faithfulness. Her appearance, emotion, behavior, and sexual history hold clues for his detection. When he’s not working on the subject directly, his subconscious mind is alert to things that might even hint at future unfaithfulness. Notice this, he’s not looking for signs of fidelity but infidelity. He accepts faithful based on lack of evidence to suggest unfaithful.

The feminine woman’s attitude includes support and clear thinking about monogamy, marriage, trust, respect, commitment, and devotion. It can easily shape his thinking to her advantage. Her support and promise of love means little for his assessing her for being faithful to him. It’s too easy for her to fall in love with someone else or have one still lingering in her heart. Men are not all that trusting of love and its promises.

Feminine. The truly feminine woman—if men were so inclined but they’re not—would regularly receive from every man she encounters compliments about subjects other than sex. Because men are so disinclined to compliment a woman unless they want something, women have to compliment themselves about their femininity (mirror time, anyone?), belief in themselves, and confidence they are doing right for themselves. With that foundation, women can much more easily attract good men and then weed out those who act in ways contrary to their self-interest. The Marrying Man likes to lurk until he spots the likeliest of candidates for his taste. I submit to you that femininity is his greatest magnet.

1834. Sex Difference Redux—Part 82: Conquering Men III

Theme: How to neutralize a man’s natural urge to conquer sexually attractive females that he’s not yet conquered!

Regarding sexual fidelity, the sexes are quite different. The female nature can’t accept being less than a man’s first and most obvious love; she defines his love mostly from his words and her biases about his actions. Her man’s sexual infidelity doesn’t necessarily end their relationship. Hope remains that he’s ‘recoverable’ for the sake of relationship longevity. She bases relationship decisions on the intensity of his emotional connection with someone else compared to her. If his emotional connection with another woman exceeds his bonds with her, then she’s lost out to a competitive sister female for the most promising regard and affection of her man. Their relationship becomes terminal, but women are blessed with an immense capability of rationalizing a man’s love to favor her. Consequently, if he cheats, she wants to talk.

If she cheats, he wants to walk. A man can’t or won’t tolerate cheating by a woman to whom he’s committed much less devoted. Her cheating overwhelms him as a man. It does unacceptable and irreparable-by-her damage to his sense of significance. Any admiration she previously claimed or showed him vaporizes and she loses value as a woman and all the promise she earned for both his present and future.

Women have a deeply embedded natural urge. They expect to be conquered by one man and have it symbolize ritual passage to lifetime bonding with him as father for their children. However, in testing the waters of reality, women fall prey to several conquerors, because men don’t see conquest as ritual passage and bonding. Rather, men have a deeply embedded natural urge to conquer sexually attractive females they haven’t previously conquered.

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Consequently, the real battle of the sexes shapes up like this. Men are continually exposed to sexually attractive females who deliberately heighten their appearance as sex objects. Men can imagine sex, yes, but it doesn’t result in emotional connections—aka bonding. Women to a fault that undermines their interest think that men are like women. Not so, and women often provoke rather than discourage sexual escapades by their man.

At sight of sexually attractive females, boys and immature men imagine their studly performance and pass on (or stop to hit). Mature men entertain thoughts of having sex. Thoughts about sex may enter husband’s mind but usually pass on because of superior obligations. Husbands appreciate female beauty and pay far less attention particularly when their marriage rests on solid ground. Moreover and more important for women, such exposure to female attractiveness doesn’t have bonding effects on men. Women can see an attractive man and start the bonding process imaginatively; they can imagine love at first sight (although actually it’s not). At first sight, men don’t start bonding through their imagination, although they start the bonding process when they fall in love at first sight. (First sight’s another story at #1760.)

What women can do at first sight, it takes extended time for men to duplicate. Here’s the real threat to wives. Husband is repeatedly exposed for lengthy periods to a woman—sex or no sex involved—that makes his wife appear wanting. Competitively the wife loses in the battle of attractiveness as physical, mental, and compatible companion. She loses in the magnetic attractions of sex, likeability, mutual respect, mutual trust, admiration of him, as object of his curiosity, as stimulant (and not demander) of his imagination to accomplish things, and as admirer of who he is in life and what he is to her.

He feels better about himself around her than around his wife. Given that we all do what makes us feel good about ourselves, he finds more time and opportunity to spend time away from wife. Such exposure causes him to—much as women do—bond through his imagination until he conquers her. After that, deeper bonding fades and his interest broadens once again, perhaps even to primarily favor wife.

The starting theme at top is this: How to neutralize a man’s natural urge to conquer sexually attractive females that he’s not yet conquered! I suggest three steps:

• Disregard and forget his wandering eyes. Hunter-conquerors are naturally attracted to moving objects. Be offended for courtesy purposes only when his eyes linger longer than a glance. His thoughts may be sexual, but they take nothing away from you. Express that you’re offended but don’t make a sexual matter of it. For example, “What does she have that I don’t? What do I lack that she doesn’t?” and do it smilingly, friendly, and purposely avoid anger and revenge. He will likely feel forced to explain something that he can’t describe well without offending you, so after a few such incidents he will gently and slowly change his habit away from staring (but not glancing at moving objects).
• Even if married for 25 years, you remain in competition with sister females. If you don’t worry about keeping husband’s emotional connection, you’re a fool. If you do worry, you need a makeover in physical attractiveness at least and conscientious review of these things: your success in bed, your likeability as steady companion, mutual respect and trust*, your admiration of him, you as object of his curiosity, you as deserver of his pleasing you, and you as stimulant of his imagination to accomplish things to earn female admiration. (If there is another woman, forget her. Work on yourself.)
• Trust, trust, and trust that he knows what’s best for him and your relationship. If he has nothing of you to live up to, he’ll too easily fall for your competitor. If he has an opportunity to cheat, only disappointing you or himself will make him retreat from it.

The sexes are vastly different regarding explosive issues that surround sex and fidelity. Wives especially benefit by allowing for natural inclinations in husband and taking advantage of principles that tend to discourage unfaithfulness. No one can do it perfectly, but odds favor success when she has a plan to prevent rather than a plan for how she will recover or immediately toss him down the drain.

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*Depicted beautifully in Victorian stories, such as Masterpiece’s current Downton Abbey and the earlier Upstairs Downstairs. Notice that the characters demonstrate this back and forth cause and effect between people: Trust earns respect, which returns as trust, which amplifies further respect, which builds greater trust. The result is less offense, antipathy, and unlikeable people and more respectable and likeable characters. Of course its fiction, but the playwrights copy beneficial principles of the well-civilized life.

1542. Friendly Reminders — #23

• One’s attitude reflects what’s in their heart. In the battle of the sexes, rejection by an assertive lady merely means no score. Ridicule does not flow from it, so she gains value. Rejection aggressively expressed with a feminist flavor transmits ridicule. This ranks next to insignificance as a man’s greatest fear with a woman. It shifts him into fight mode to restore his dignity. Her value plummets.
• She decides when to yield. He hopes sooner, but the greater his investment of Self—shared emotions, time, effort, money—the greater her value to him.
• Hunks, jocks, and dreamy guys tend to be like this: Unconditional respect for the female gender is low or non-existent. He wasn’t expected in the teens to treat females respectfully, and so it’s not embedded in his psyche. Consequently, her personal qualities mean little other than her likeability for companionship. He tires of her easily, however, because the next hottie appears more exciting and companionable.
• As Emerson said: The world turns on hope. Her relationships always spin, plunge, and soar on hope. Virtual virginity shifts a man’s life from hope for sex to hope for her.
• A woman’s personal strategy of virtual virginity should not be disclosed to those that know her. It works much better as private commitment to Self and potential conquerors one-on-one.

1357. Three Strikes and He’s Out — Batter Up!

I encounter a very impressive person, attractive woman, and happy wife. She complains of the worsening of family life. She claims that men act irresponsibly, abandon wife and kids, and generally pursue all manner of masculine habits except those that provide and protect their families. I agreed until she blamed men. Women have been doing that for decades. It doesn’t make women right, it just keeps them from understanding what actually happens in the battle of the sexes.

I disagreed with the lady about blaming men. We only chatted briefly and I responded inadequately. For over three years I’ve been describing female malpractice that causes such unmanly behavior. I stick by my guns. This is what I should have said.

Family turmoil and separation are more the result of wives driving husbands away than husbands acting unreasonably. Wives put pressures on husbands that make them rebel. Wives become different women than the girlfriends their husbands married. Men figure they can do better with someone else. But then, later with another woman, they find themselves under the same pressures. So, the practice spreads of men abandoning their familes.

For example, a man marries with at least these three expectations: She’ll always be attractive in my eyes. She’ll always be likeable in my eyes. She’ll be great at harmonizing our home and life together. His expectations are based on her girlfriend/fiancé/early bride persona. After romantic love fades in a year or two, if not sooner, she changes into another person, someone he would not have married.

What he expects out of their marriage, she delivers in another form and not necessarily a form that he can accept. Tomorrow’s post 1358 describes him as the batter, her as pitcher, and their marriage summarized in husband’s final at-bat.