BUCK writes:

An entry at VFR discusses and links to an article by Daniel Greenfield in which he discusses a possible way to restore America through by limiting immigration, cultural secession and by properly marshaling the forces of traditionalist demographics. Greenfield discusses how the Amish and Chassidic Jews successfully segregate their culture from others with little friction. He mentions a Chassidic community that was visited by Oprah that had no idea who she was. I found the video.

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ELLEN writes:

I wanted to bring up yet another cultural problem that women in the workforce have created in our society: The awkwardness of dealing with “stay-at-home dads.” When my child becomes friends with someone, it’s nice to have a play date. I can have a little grown-up time with the mother; they can run around and be kids with their friends. The problem with stay-at-home dads is that suddenly you as a married woman are expected to spend time alone with a married man, and everyone has to pretend like this is okay. It’s not appropriate and I believe it can lead to improper relationships. Read More »

FITZGERALD writes:

This post at What Women Never Hear is spot on, especially these first few paragraphs:

[Men and women] differ in so many ways. Women seek emotional fulfillment and they go after it. Men expect sexual fulfillment but they also expect not to have to work hard for it. They will work hard to conquer a woman but not work hard for sex with her afterward. Read More »

HERE ARE more interesting comments from readers regarding “Game,” which many readers say is a nihilistic, anti-Christian, hedonistic form of manipulation of women. There is no question that it often is. We are all agreed on that. However, one reader adds another impassioned defense of Game and advocates a Christian interpretation of it that rejects hedonism and recognizes the moral responsibility of both men and women in marriage. 

Mark Richardson writes:

Youngfogey wrote that “the core of Game is manly virtue.” I have to disagree with him on this.

What Game teaches is that women are sexually hypergamous, meaning that they will be attracted to men who demonstrate higher value (DHV). You demonstrate higher value as a man by adopting an attitude of “amused mastery” and by learning how to fend off the “beta tests” sent your way by women. You are supposed to assume that, as the one having higher value, it will be the woman who will want to be with you, rather than you employing romantic supplication to try to win her over.

There are other techniques as well (e.g. “contrast game”) and advice on how to present yourself. That’s the kind of discussion that tends to dominate at Game sites, rather than a focus on manly virtues.

It’s true that Game teaches that men will do better if they show masculine self-confidence, but I haven’t known it to venture much further than this.

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YOUNGFOGEY writes:

It seems to me that a portion of your readers have fallen into some common misconceptions about Game.

First, as I wrote, at the core of Game is acting like a man. That means being aggressive, that means having a plan, that means pursuing what you desire, living with honor and, I think (as a reflection of my Christianity), protecting the weak and, if you can find a woman who deserves it, providing for a wife and children. In this way, the core of Game is manly virtue. The thing about virtues is that they are not natural. They must be practiced, put on from the outside in. So, of course there is a tension between authenticity and the practice of any virtue. To say that Game is manipulative simply because it involves the practice of virtues that are immediately present seems more than a little unfair. Read More »

A READER writes:

Dear Professor Wood, 

Thank you for your teaching. Your site shows the young generation of women and men, my nieces and nephews and the children of my friends, a path which they see rarely on campus or on the job. One young man whom you influenced was recently baptized (Eastern Orthodox) at age thirty. 

You have written much about divorce, especially when children are involved, but I have not seen the following situation addressed. What is a man to do who was married while young to a woman who became increasingly feminist and refused to give him children for years, and continues to refuse to do so? What should we, his friends and relatives, encourage him to do (having already encouraged her to change her heart)? I might add that she is angry, bitter, spiteful and treats him with contempt. At this point, he still wants to have children, but no longer trusts her as a wife or mother. 

Were they Catholic, an annulment might have been in order (or would it not?), but they are not.

 Sincerely Yours,

A grateful reader

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BRETT STEVENS, at the website Amerika, argues that the loss of chastity as a social ideal is part of a larger denigration of hierarchy. As such, it is connected to economic decline of the middle class. He writes:

Do we want each sexual act to have meaning, or should we remove context? Do we want a nation of equally impoverished middle classes, or a hierarchy? These questions are eternal because they are mathematical, not human, in origin.

Fitzgerald writes:

I was glancing through some of your older posts and found this entry on unfaithful women. I wanted to offer a few comments on the remark by a woman reader who said women have been forced to put up with male infidelity for eons.This is, sadly, very naive. While it may be true that men are more apt to cheat than women, it is not true that it’s the rare woman who cheats. This is a form of the same lie that says women don’t have sex drives, good girls don’t, women want commitment and use sex to get love… blah, blah, blah. Balderdash.

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A reader takes strong exception to my advice to a woman who feels her husband is not manly. Laurence Butler, in his comments in the previous post, writes to the woman:

If the leadership role has been temporarily vacated, you had better step in lest your children grow up to imitate a stoic but sorrowful mother doting on an unimpressive father. I think it’s totally appropriate for you to tell him you are dissatisfied with his behavior, with his composure, and with his unwillingness to supply the manly presence you fell in love with and pledged to spend the rest of your life with. If he ‘wishes’ for you to leave him alone and let him keep his femininity, I think you have an obligation to the both of you to not respect that wish. This isn’t to recommend incessant nagging or anything, but woman in her highest role, the heroines in the great plays remembered throughout history, did not sit idly by and watch their lord’s mind, body, and manor decay from the foundation while she put up nice curtains. Too frequently now are the women who allowed this, or worse those who encouraged the emasculation of men/the masculation of women, being reenacted by posterity.

Dear Thinking Housewife,

Men are not taught how to be men nowadays. What can I do about the fact that my husband is such a girl?

Regards,                                                                                  

Anonymous (in an unspecified location)

Dear Anonymous,

I’m sorry, Anonymous, this question makes me mad. Not mad at you, but mad at this. In many ways, the debate over marriage is over, isn’t it? Women are already married to women. And, men are already married to men.

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Hannon writes:

Thank you for the excellent entry [on female sexuality.] I would like your thoughts on one aspect of this subject, which you allude to here:

“They simply do not know what lies behind the glowing facade of young women. Women are weak and impressionable. The fun times are momentary. Simple happiness of the sort that was common for women just 50 years ago eludes them.”

I believe very few men are disposed to “know” the hearts of women, or visa-versa. That is how things should be and ever have been I suppose, though we try to decipher the signs as a matter of habit. One sign or symptom that I have always found frustrating is the posturing young women often engage in that can be described as sullen, even seemingly contemptuous at times. This often strikes me as a terrible poison in the system, a trait that would be absent in a more healthy society. It seems to be most elaborated in the more intense urban environments and its expression is more acute as one moves up the scale of generally recognized beauty, facial beauty in particular. I have seen the same effects in urban centres in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where vanity is just as in vogue as anyplace in the West.

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