A non-trivial part of my “image problem” with much of the manosphere is that I refuse to trash women. And a certain amount of trashing women in this space is a tribal boundary marker. There’s actually a couple of good faith reasons for this. 1. The hate is a signal to angry young men—we’re on your side. You’ve been dismissed as toxic and villainized as the dregs of society. We’re a group not afraid to hit back against those that are hitting you. 2. The manosphere was also an attempt to create a male-only space in a world where male-only spaces were being rooted out. And so one way to keep the girls out was to have a language that put them off so much that they stayed clear. The best-kept secret of the red pill world is that the most committed guys don’t actually hate women at all. 3. Civility has been weaponized against men in many settings to get them to fold on things they should hold firm. To buck the cultural faux pas against trashing women is a flex to show we aren't exploitable. There’s a problem though. It attracts a swarm of orbiters who take the toxicity at face value and buy it in earnest. And they do themselves plenty of harm in the process and become useless at dating. I think I’d have to change surprisingly little about my messaging to satisfy the gatekeepers. A pinch of incense: “Sometimes a guy is married to a real shit wife, a total bitch, and he needs to tell her that he didn’t sign up for celibacy and she needs to shape up or ship out.” Then I’d be a fine upstanding member of the red pill adjacent identify-as-Christian relationship twitter community. So why don’t I? Because I find that, with the guys I coach, the “shit wife” assumption about their wives is pure poison and does not move them nearer to their goals on any front. I absolutely urge men to stand up to bad behavior from their wives and enforce standards in their relationships. But that has to be done on the foundation of extreme ownership—of building his own frame first, regardless of her response. Femininity is inherently responsive, and though the wife has a contribution to make, the husband MUST take the first step of the dance. With many guys that come to me, any hint of a chance to put the ball back in her court will be seized on with both hands. Furthermore, there’s a huge number of women languishing in marriages like dry feminine ground without masculine rain, because he’s not taking ownership. I feel for them, because many of them are truly stuck. A man can often reignite the fire of a relationship almost single-handedly; a good woman can often be as kind and patient as she can and it has zero pull on her passive man. Once the man has gotten his own house in order (and I don’t mean just “doing more” but truly living in his own frame, doing what he thinks is best unapologetically and not chasing her validation), I’m much cooler with “come to Jesus” conversations with his wife as part of the larger context of leadership. But even then, any hint of complaining or entitlement will work against him. “You agreed,” or “the Bible says,” has far less pull than, “this is what I want to have happen.” Resentment and bitterness holds men back. Pragmatism and assertiveness moves them forward. Generic denunciations of “shit wives” don’t serve these goals. And I think many apparently “shit wives” are waiting for the masculine catalyst they need to get out of the rut they’re in. I’d estimate 80/20. Some are beyond saving; most aren’t. So I simply refuse to say it. I’ll trash feminism all day long, but I will not bitch about women. Thus I have image problems with the tribe. And I may be ultimately cast out. But there are benefits. In expressing this red pill knowledge of intersexual dynamics without the bitter edge, I’ve found that conversations with women open up that would be completely closed otherwise (And yes, I’m aware, “watch what they do,” but there is STILL value in talking to them, guys). I say things to full-on feminists that would rally against these concepts in the manosphere, but they listen to me when I say it—simply because I’m confident, curious, and not a dick to them. And that’s crucial to my mission of bringing this message to the churches—as we all know, often an unfortunately feminized space. This practice also passes another tribal boundary marker in a different tribe: civilized society. It is not traditionally considered masculine to trash women—at all. That’s not the triumph of the longhouse. It’s Christian Civilization. For this work to have the impact I want it to have, it needs to break out of edgelord containment and impact the rank-and-file in the pews.