Personally, I've read dozens of his articles from his blog posts (as well as many comments from reviewers/Internet users), and according to one reviewer, his books are partly compiled from them. So while not having the bigger picture, can we say that his (generally quite long and convoluted) articles reflect what he says in his books, and can we have a general grasp of his views based on those (I'm not talking about social media stuff, or taking a paragraph out of context)?
I get what you're saying Tim (and Joe), and I think it's good if his books help some disenfranchised men understand relationship dynamics, or prevent them from committing suicide, or motivate them to improve themselves so as to become better men (confident, self-assured and so on).
While what he describes may seem like a revelation for some, we've already have this kind of information available in France for years, with authors like Alain Soral (who, while he says some truths, is kind of a caricature of an 'Alpha' man, and with him, you really have to sort the wheat from the chaff) or Eric Zemmour (more interesting and more serious than Soral). Maybe the information Tomasi provides is needed right now in a specific context: in North America, for American men, as a counterbalance to the hysterical feminist hysteria. I say "in North America" because this may partly be a cultural issue. One of the reasons it seems so over the top to me is that we still have fairly traditional gender roles in France (especially in rural areas) which, as a Latin country, is rather 'macho-like', and while the anti-male propaganda is also seeping everywhere including here, this over-feminization of men/the feminine imperative taking over is not really something I can observe in my day-to-day life, nor something I could personally see around me/experience while growing up.
As I haven't read the books, I'm not gonna engage in a debate over its merits, yet I just have a few questions regarding some points Tomasi makes on his blog, and some of the advice he gives, because I find all this very confusing:
He does describe things and makes observations, OK. People will do what they will with that knowledge according to their own profile or aims in life. OK too. But my previous comment about not having a moral standpoint is that he does give advice to men about how to conduct themselves with women, so it's not just scientific observation/description of dynamics. For ie, this:
Wait for it?
To sum up, he advises men in general (not only young men entering the "market" and needing experience) not to bother with a woman who refuses to have sex with them within the first 3 dates. It's all there written in black and white, so I don't think you need the context of his 3 books to understand the gist of it.
So what's up with advising men seeking "interactions" with women to basically behave like jerks (or have I been taken in by the feminine imperative here, whatever the hell that means?
).
That's a piece of advice that strongly clashes with some of the material promoted on this very forum on the "must read" book list.
For ie, Sandra Brown's books Women who love psychos and How to spot a dangerous man before you get involved. For Sandra, a man behaving like this would qualify as a sexual predator/dangerous man, and should be avoided like the plague. I agree.
So in light of this, context or no context, you can see why I'm experiencing some cognitive dissonance.
Tomasi is also
anti-marriage/anti-monogamy" (unlike JBP), which he sees as part of the feminine imperative:
After 16 years of marriage I can honestly say
there are no appreciable advantages (outside of raising children) that a man cannot enjoy single that he can married. That’s not meant to be pessimistic, but rather a caution to emphasize how important it is to disabuse yourselves of this AFC, romanticized, marriage-as-goal mentality. It’s also not to say marriage is never worth it – just that
marriage is complete advantage for women with negligible, if any, benefit for men. Marriage will either make a man’s life or destroy his life; enter into thinking about it like this and you’ll make a better decision. Is this person deserving of what I provide?
Women will NEVER, even in the best of marriages, fully appreciate the sacrifices a man has to make in order to fulfill his commitment of marriage. Entering into a life-long binding commitment of fidelity that offers a man very little appreciable advantage, and knowing the totality of the risk he’s assuming in accepting that sacrifice will never be fully understood or appreciated by the woman he marries.
This information can seem shocking, offending and so on, but is it really TRUE? I have no answer, I'm just asking questions.
Sure, we can point out that Tomassi is merely describing dynamics/how it works, "do what you will, I'm just the messenger" and all that, yet I'm wondering (based on the dozens of comments on his blog) how many "redpillers" will be able to sort the wheat from the chaff, and how many will go all B/W thinking, victimhood mentality (whining about how it's all women's faults - yes, that's what I've read in many comments on his blog… ), which is exactly what the radical feminists are doing wrt men/it's all patriarchy's fault, etc? Just some questions that are not unreasonable, I think.
I've read an
article about the whole Men's right's movement/RedPillers/Pick-up artists (as the author points out, the line beween those 3 is sometimes blurry) that seems rather balanced (though the title is crappy, and misleading). While the author recognizes there's truth to what Tomassi and other prominent figures in this movement say, he is pointing out some of the flaws in the RedPill ideology (and it IS an ideology… though again, I'm not discarding the usefulness or validity of Tomasi's work in the current context, and how it can help some men):
Women, ruled by a “hindbrain”, are driven by a sense of hypergamy to find the most uber-sexy, domineering man, an Alpha, over wimpy Betas, most of the other men because, as Xpat puts it, “Men believe that love matters for the sake of it. Women love opportunistically.” This is a major part of their ideology, Rollo Tomassi (pen-name for the blogger at the Rational Male), makes it his 6th Iron Rule (he has 9), “Women are utterly incapable of loving a man in the way that a man expects to be loved.”
A translation: “Women are only capable of loving men conditionally, that is, if it benefits them.” Now, as with nearly all the best lies this one has a grain of truth to it. Hypergamy is a real thing, it is the desire of a (heterosexual) woman to select as a mate/spouse the highest quality man available with the man's quality hinging on a variety of traits. This can be proven by scientific studies and common sense.
The Pick-up Artists twists this, producing blog posts headlined "Hypergamy Doesn't Care", providing examples of the things Hypergamy doesn't care about:
—"Hypergamy doesn’t care how great a Father you are to your kids."
—"Hypergamy doesn’t care how great a guy you are for adopting the children she had with other men."
—"Hypergamy doesn’t care about how well you do your part of the household chores."
And so on.
The interesting thing is that, according to every bit of available knowledge of science's understanding of hypergamy... THESE ARE EXACTLY THE THINGS IT DOES CARE ABOUT YOU THICK-HEADED NUMBSKULL!!! They want a man who will be a great father, a great husband, who is caring, who is supportive, but tough enough to not be driven to a mess of tears by the smallest problems. Basically, they want a man. But, this is their world view.
About hypergamy, here's an interesting observation, maybe worth pondering, in the comments section to the above article:
I'm of South Asian descent. Its interesting to note that the origins of the term "hypergamy" stem from what the British Imperialists saw in India during their unfortunate rule there: the discouragement of daughters from marrying men beneath them on the social strata.
The elders had the wisdom and foresight to encourage hypergamy, knowing fully well that the tendency of "love" is to be blind. Thinking in terms of long term benefit for all family members, rather than just the short term fun-feelings of one or two young, naive individuals, they discouraged hypogamy and encouraged hypergamy in the young women.
So its the exact OPPOSITE of what these MRA bozos are proposing. If left without encouragement, young, naive women are likely to marry any clown that she feels "in love" with. Same goes for young, naive men. The elders in our culture encourage young people to think for long-term benefit rather than short-term enjoyment.
And:
if you look up the definition of "hypergamy" once of the first uses of the word was by the British Raj to describe the marriage system of India wherein parents discouraged their daughters from marrying men below them on the social strata. The wise elders knew that young people are largely influenced by hormones and young women might marry any ol' slacker they feel "in love" with. To prevent such a tragedy, the parents encouraged their daughters to engage in hypergamy, or at least equigamy, via arranged marriage.
So hypergamy is a positive thing. MRA's interpretation of it is negative, and is in act hypOgamy, not hypERgamy.
Hypergamy is a force for good that needs to be cultivated over and above a natural, blind sort of love,
I'm gonna stop here. This discussion certainly gives some food for thought.
