Red Pill, Temporary-MGTOW, and Your Path

It has been my goal, if not one of my primary missions in life, to bring the very, working best of Self-help materials to men who need it.  As I have confessed in great detail, my desire to heal and become, as many in the manosphere say, “the best version of myself,” has come at the end of a lifetime of pain and Anti-masculine abuse (my term).  This abuse has come in the form of being force-fed The Feminine Imperative by an Oedipal Mother, the exclusively female-led Government Education (Indoctrination) System, as well as popular culture and the media at large.  To top matters off, I had the fortune of having a narcissistic and self-absorbed father, who would rather humiliate and emotionally belittle me than take me to a baseball game.

Boo-hoo, poor me.  Guess I’ll go eat worms.

Self-pity or seeking consolation from others is not the goal of my work.  As the old saying goes, “within every adversity comes a gift,” and I do indeed feel gifted, as I continue to study the work of so many great authors in this field, I feel the rush of exhilaration that comes only with discovering, and taking ownership of one’s own manhood.  

The One Path to Manhood

The is only One Path to Manhood, and it involves embracing a lifestyle of CANEI, “Constant And Never-Ending Improvement.”  Many of my readers have asked me how they might experience Male Initiation if they were denied this experience in their childhood, as I and so many men have.  Self-initiation into manhood would involve a form of self-parenting.  You must ask yourself “how might a positive, masculine, alpha-based father figure initiate me into manhood?”  To answer this question, he would provide for you a successive series of positive challenges that would develop competency and abilities in you, so as to add to your own resources of ability and enable you to better compete in the world, and the sexual marketplace on the whole.

So, One Path to Manhood – what does it mean?  It means that every woman on earth is attracted to a man who is physically stronger than she is, and therefore every many should begin weight training immediately.  “But I’m a skinny 120-pound nerd,” you say.  The One Path to Manhood responds, “So get some weight-gainer and a personal trainer.”  “But I’m 100 lbs overweight,” you say.”  The One Path to Manhood responds, “So go on a low-carb diet and get a personal trainer.”  The process is the process, and the One Path is the One Path.  As you can see, whether you are a shredded model of male physique with sub-10% body fat, or a morbidly obese forty-something, The Path and the process is the same.

Therefore, if you have an internalized belief that, “it would be impossible for anyone like me to become a millionaire,” this should in no way be leveraged as an excuse for not improving your socioeconomic condition.  There are many means of self-study, LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) being one that I chiefly advocate, that can easily afford a man a skill-set that can earn him a six-figure job or more, should he dedicate himself to his regular practice.

Relationships with Women & The Major Point of Confusion

Now, alas – a major point of confusion.  Obviously, putting on 20 lbs of muscle, or adding $100k to your net worth, or buying your first Porsche will improve your ability to attract women for your own pleasure, may your desire be for casual sex or a steady relationship.  With this marked increase in your own sexual market value, comes a dire warning from the great Rollo Tomassi, to summarize, once a man improves himself to the best of his abilities, and adopts the corresponding Red-pill characteristics, he may be tempted to simply use his newfound Alpha traits as a means of pursuing his internalized Blue-pill agenda.  Namely, once he secures who he perceives to be his “dream girl,” he will let himself go, discontinue the regimen of self-improvement and burden-of-performance that previously endeared him to his spouse, and mistakenly believe that she is “the one,” loves him for unsubstantiated “loves me for me, unconditionally” fairytale reasons, and ultimately finds himself on the receiving end of heartbreak or (worse still) shackled to a sexless and controlling bitch.

For men who are recovering from their blue-pill addiction and other forms of Anti-masculine Abuse, determining a proper course of action which will better facilitate their own mental/emotional wellness, as well as their sexual prospects, will become a major point of confusion.  Many of these men, myself included, have fallen prey to a sense of paralysis-by-analysis, or confusion-induced depression that can come from an overwhelm of Red-pill information and conflicting ideologies.

The Great “Red Pill” Debate

We have, at least on a very general level, three competing definitions of what constitutes the “Red Pill” or “Red Pill Awareness.”  Borrowing from the iconic film, The Matrix, the analogy of “Taking the Red Pill,” means that a person must undergo a certain degree of pain and initiation if he is to know the ultimate truth about a subject.  Conversely “The Blue Pill” serves to represent a person’s temptation to fall back into a life of ignorance and the alleged comfort and degree of false-certainty and security that a life of “ignorance and bliss” affords him.

1. The MRA/Trad-con Red Pill.

This is a Mens’-rights focused philosophy that seeks to educate and advocate a pro-male perspective.  The MRA “Red Pill” can best be summarized by Cassie Jaye’s film by the same name, The Red Pill.  The MRA/Trad-con focused definition of The Red Pill involves awakening people to the truth that feminism is a hate movement, the inequities of marriage, divorce law and child custody, as well as popular social-justice movements that are apt to frame men as perpetrators and women as victims.  The MRA/Trad-con themed “Red Pill” serves to educate men and women as the trappings of feminism and the inequities in today’s anti-male public education system.  While there are many valuable truths to be had from this movement, it all-too-often becomes a form of inverse-victimology.  “No it is we, the MEN who are the REAL victims here!”  While this may be true, it does little to offer men a real solution beyond this victimology-status.  In adopting an MRA-themed ideology, we join women, SJW’s and the rest of the victimologically-inclined Left in the global race-to-the bottom for the ultimate Victim-in-chief Grand Prize.

2. The Tomassi Red Pill

Popularized by The Rational Male blog and foundational Series of Books, The Tomassi Red Pill defines The Red Pill as simply a matter of accepting the truth about male and female natures in a way that is reliably observable and demonstrable.  It is the most unabashedly scientific of the bunch.  In that manner, it serves as (in Tomassi’s own words), “a Praxeology,” which describes the theory behind human sexual dynamics.  The Rational Male does not completely avoid suggested courses of action or means by which a man can avoid damaging interactions with women, or falling back into his Blue Pill ways.  To Tomassi, “Blue Pill” ideology is meant in the purest of forms, to simply accept falsehood as reality.  A “Blue Pill” male will adopt a feminine-centric value system as “truth” simply because society at large (The Matrix) expects it of him.  A Blue Pill male may believe his wife or girlfriend is his “soul mate.”  This internalized belief system may drive him toward suicide if she were to leave him, or take him to the cleaners in divorce court.  The Tomassi school of thought will still embrace concerns brought up by the MRA or even the MGTOW communities if they are pertinent to men’s issues on the whole, but it does not regard any prescriptive course of action as “Red Pill.”

The great libertarian scholar Tom Woods can help us better understand the difference between Praxeology and Ideology.  He stresses that libertarianism and Lugwig Von Mises’ praxeology have nothing to do with one another.  Mises simply defined an observed in Human Action: A Treatise On Economics, that humans tended to dynamically create value, and faired better under free market systems rather than centralized systems of control, such as communism and socialism.  The “therefore,” which is the domain of ideology and advocacy, would be to adopt a stance which advocates maximum human liberty in all capacities, ergo, “libertarianism.”  One does not necessarily prescribe the other, but the “therefore” in the form of a prescribed course of action is a suitable, and logical conclusion.  If our value systems align with the truth – which is what any praxeology aims to uncover, then we have arrived at an ideology.

The Tomassi school does not prescribe a “therefore,” as in, “therefore get married while leveraging Red Pill awareness,” or “go MGTOW because it is just not worth it,” or “move to Southeast Asia where your SMV will be higher,” but any and all of these ideological conclusions could be reached after studying Tomassi’s work.

3. The MGTOW Red Pill

Men Going Their Own Way is a defined ideology which offers a prescriptive course of action, which is that a man should focus on himself, embrace a life of solitude (or “True Forced Loneliness” as it is so-branded), invest in himself and his own interests, and ultimately avoid relationships with women altogether.  MGTOW is enthusiastically evangelized by its supporters.  The most notable personalities in this movement are Turd-flinging Monkey, Sandman, Barbarossa, Stardusk, Howard Dare, and Spetznaz. A MGTOW is said to have “taken the Red Pill” when he has realized that women are a complete waste of time, money and emotional effort, and have embraced MGTOW as the one and only true means if a man is to survive and thrive in the modern world.  MGTOW philosophers borrow from both schools of thought mentioned previously.  “Men get raped in court, therefore don’t get married,” on the MRA-side.  They also borrow from the Tomassi-school, “Women are hypergamous,” and then inject their own solution, “therefore avoid women at all costs.”

MGTOW is the most unapologizing and religious of the three Red Pill definitions.  “If a man hopes for a steady relationship with a women, he is Blue Pill by definition,” so-says MGTOW.  Similarly, a man who is on-the-fence about women, but has embraced most of the realities about them, or is holding out for a good woman, is said to be “Purple Pill.”  This is intended to be a derogatory term in which a man blends the colors, Red and Blue, to form some kind of half-assed schema in his own head.  Please note that this is not to be confused with the Tomassi School’s definition of “Purple Pill,” which simply means that a man has not fully accepted the truth about intersexual dynamics.  By the Tomassi definition, a man could be said to be “Purple Pill” if he accepts the fact women are hypergamous, yet labels his latest girlfriend as “The One.”

Conflicting Prescriptions for Men in Relationships

Corresponding with these three distinct notions of what the “Red Pill” term means within the manosphere, we have four general definitions of what should constitute Masculine Behavior:

1. MRA/Trad-con School. “Man up, quit the porn and get married.”  This ideology has been advocated by such notable personalities as Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Dave Ramsey, Jordan Peterson and Gavin McInnes.  This ideology aims to restore the greatness of the bygone era of traditional Americana: housewives, alpha-dads and the 2.5 kids.  The personalities in this space are justifiably critical of social-justice leftism and feminism, and the havoc that these leftist ideologies have waged on men, culture, the family, and civilization in general.  Their prescription for men is to simply live in accordance with the Trad-con ideal, no matter how often it fails or how horribly the marriage institution is rigged against us.  “Man up and do it anyway.”  In so doing, these men are quick to advocate beta behavior, calling it “your responsibility” and layer male servitude to their wives an admirable form of self-sacrifice.  Because their ideology is deeply rooted in Judeo-christian ideology, Trad-cons are unempathetic to the sexual needs of men are quick to adopt feminine value structures when they find themselves in the position to shame a man for “sleeping around” or leaving his sexless marriage.
2. Tomassi School.  This includes Mr. Tomassi himself, Black Label Logic, Richard Cooper, Rian Stone and others.  As his aim is to be more objective and scientific in his findings, Rollo Tomassi does not prescribe a course of action, and so he seems to find prescriptive lifestyles advocated by Trad-cons and MGTOWs to be equally distasteful.  His Red Man Group is comprised of advocates in this space – they stress the importance of Red Pill awareness and means by which men can improve their SMV, without falling prey to the feminist-set hazards of the dating world.  Tomassi is critical of MGTOW because (in my estimation) forgoing relationships with women entirely would necessitate a denial of our own imperatives as men.  As men, we are hard-wired to have sex with as many fertile (“hot and beautiful”) women as possible, until such time as we want to settle down and become more exclusive in our later years – essentially trading excitement for long-term relationship security.
3. The PUA/Game School.  Pick-up Artistry looks to serve our needs as men by helping us get laid as often as possible.  We are to use PUA-skills to get laid, or to find a future girlfriend or mother of your children, the PUA’s don’t care either way.  Roosh V, RSD, Neil Strauss, and many, many more.  I have expressed my distaste for Pickup-artistry and Game here.  In summary, I believe that men should not waste their valuable time and effort going to social gatherings for the exclusive purpose of “picking up on women,” but rather seek to optimize themselves within their own social groups, such that they are perceived as alphas by the women they are in contact with.
4. MGTOW School.  In the strictest of definitions of what makes a MGTOW a MGTOW is that he has sworn-off relationships with women entirely and for life.  On the milder end, they might date in an unattached way, or have sex with the occasional prostitute.  On the more “hardcore” end of the spectrum, MGTOW “go monk” and avert their eyes to the female form entirely.  Even the well-known MGTOW Turd-flinging Monkey has gotten flak from other MGTOW’s because he has sex with a sex doll, and in so doing, is “worshipping the female form.”  I think that one of the reasons why MGTOW-advocates must be so forceful in their ideology is precisely because the idea of having a nice relationship with a woman is something that men are not wanting or willing to surrender so easily.

“Man-up and give up on women,” is the MGTOW-message, given as a sharp contrast to the PUA-message of, “man up and get laid!” as well as to the Trad-con prescription, “man-up and get married!

So, what is a man to do? 

I sincerely hope that, in your confusion, you can find some compassion for yourself.  The modern sexual landscape is a confusing place for men, and all of these conflicting definitions of what constitute the Truth (Red Pill), as well as a prescribed course of lifestyle and action, are equally confusing.

“MGTOW for Now,” Cuts Through the Confusion

I will now offer a course of action for men who are struggling in this space.  For this, I will undoubtedly make myself a target from the MGTOW community especially, who see anything less than a 100% committed lifestyle that is devoid of women to be milquetoast, half-assed, blasphemous and “Purple-pillish” at best.  In this manner, MGTOW has simply become another religion: complete with its own angels, devils, abstentions and blasphemies.

I’ll ignore all that, and in the spirit of unabashed honesty and self-expression, press forward.  “MGTOW for Now,” gives you the opportunity to step back and take a break from the Sexual Marketplace.  You should not feel forced to submit to any one lifestyle “for life” simply because a few hard-nosed MGTOW advocates demand that all men do so.  All that I am advocating is that you stop pursuing women for a time.  How long?  Until you feel powerful and confident enough in your own SMV in order to do so.  Many may scoff at this idea of “MGTOW for Now,” but most of us have been there – usually after a bad breakup.  A common (and mean-spirited) criticism of MGTOW is that most MGTOW are unsuccessful with women anyway, are incels (involuntary celibates), and so have created the illusion of “choice” only in their own heads.  However the difference between going MGTOW and being a depressed incel lies exclusively in the effort involved and one’s internal frame of mind.  A MGTOW no longer seeks to exert himself in the sexual marketplace and instead chooses to focus on himself, his own self-care and his own hobbies and interests.  A pure incel will resent the idea of being an incel and will continue to go at great lengths to fix his predicament.

I would like to extend an empathetic word to you, that you are free to try out any lifestyle and see how it works for you, for as long as you need it, without feeling pressured to commit yourself to it for the rest of your life.  MGTOW kingpin Turd-flinging Monkey has effectively stated that his “relationship” with a sex doll is “the best that it gets.”  In an interview with The Red Man Group, Rollo Tomassi likened TFM’s “relationship” with a piece of thermoplastic elastomer with Tom Hank’s “relationship” with Wilson the volleyball in the film Cast Away.

In doing this, TFM has – perhaps unknowingly – succumbed to the exact same kind of postmodernism in exactly the same way as the social justice warriors have.  SJW’s claim that “gender is a social construct,” and if a man were to identify as a woman and a call himself “transgender,” then in every sense of the term, he is a woman.  TFM claims to have a “relationship” with a mannequin, which is an impossibility, because “relationships” are only possible between human beings.  If you want to bang a sex doll because you’re feeling the need, fine – but when we start using terms like “her” and “my wife” or “my girlfriend” to describe an inanimate object, we are going down a very slippery slope, indeed!

There is something disturbing, if not merely sad about a grown man who has given up on women to this degree of severity.  My issue is not that some men, like TFM, choose to label a mannequin as their “imaginary friend” and live in complete sexual isolation if they choose to.  My issue is simply that this is given as the gold standard for how men are to survive and thrive in the world, as “the best that it gets” with all of the religious fervor that is typical of MGTOW-advocates on Youtube.

All I’m saying is take a breath, step back, and stop it with all of the dating apps, bars and clubs up FOR NOW.  Stop going to bars and clubs hoping to get laid – just step back, read The Rational Male and reevaluate.  Pick-up artistry is not a solution for those of us that have been conditioned to need women for our own sense self-esteem and self-worth.  For a man who is recovering from a latent Oedipus Complex, or other forms of Anti-masculine Abuse, indulging in regular pick-up artistry is the worst thing he can possibly do.  “All I need is a woman, and then I’ll be okay,” is essentially the root of his problem, by engaging in pick-up artistry, or by desperately searching for a future girlfriend on Plenty of Fish, Match or Tinder, he is looking for a “fix” to his already pronounced emotional addiction.  He is sad and lonely, and attributes his feelings to his lack of companionship.  In truth, he should focus on the root of his emotions on their own – why is he so miserable by himself?  Where are his interests and hobbies?  What would he do with himself if he didn’t find a partner for a year or more?  Why is his self-esteem so low?  These questions must be answered and it is the responsibility of every man to root them out within himself.  If you have chronically low self-esteem, and you do find your “ideal mate,” how would you feel if she ended up leaving you?  Would you be willing to walk away if things were to turn south, or would you stick it out because you feared being alone?

One good thing about MGTOW, is that it forces men to face these challenges.  MGTOW asks, “how would you build a life that you are proud of and happy with, without relying on women?”  That is a sincere and worthwhile question to ask, and so I will regard MGTOW as a worthwhile exercise.  No, I am not willing or wanting to emphatically state that I am “done” with relationships with women altogether.  But I do believe in periods of MGTOW refreshment, which we can leverage to better strengthen and get in touch with our own mental-point of origin, our own purpose and our own values.

“MGTOW for Now” as a Solution to Involuntary Celibacy

Beyond simply giving yourself a period of reflection and refreshment, a MGTOW period can give you time to assess and reinvest in your own SMV. What drew me to my own “MGTOW for Now” period, was the extreme culture-shock in the current sexual marketplace that hit me after my eight-year relationship ended. During the time I was with her, Tinder, Instagram and Snapchat had been invented, and quickly became daily attention-getting mechanisms that women everywhere use to inflate their own perceived SMV.  I re-entered to find a sexual marketplace that didn’t care too much about my 6-figure salary or the fact that I was still decent-looking at 39 years old. The smartphone era has opened the sexual marketplace up for women, and in so doing, has empowered them to optimize their hypergamy on a global scale.

Recent studies have now proven that the sexual activity in young men is at an all-time low. As this trend continues, I predict that a man having readily available sexual partners will be a luxury item, like driving a Lamborghini or living in a mansion.  PUA’s would stress the importance of “game” and simply assert that you need to improve your personal style, communication habits or approach-methods in order to compensate for women’s ever-escalating and increasingly ruthless standards.

My “MGTOW for Now” methodology accepts the fact that a “game” is no fun to play if you are not winning at it. Once upon a time, if you approached a woman in a bar or at a club, you might be a great prospect for her, and at the very least she might take the time to get to know you, because her social circles of available bachelors were naturally limited. Today, when you cold-approach a woman, she mentally catalogs you away with the two-dozen other men on Instagram who commented on her latest selfie that she took that day.  Women today do not openly reject, but instead prefer to say “yes,” exchange phone numbers with you, and then block or “ghost” you later.  It is very difficult for men to get a reliable picture of their own success-level.

A MGTOW period will allow you to better assess your current SMV and develop a long-term strategy for improving it before you enter the sexual marketplace again, should you choose to. In doing so, you realize that “game” will be a lot more fun when you have more power in it. When you have more power, women become fun again. What if you could regularly go home with women who are 2-3 points higher on the SMV scale than you are currently used to? What if you knew that you could get a new girlfriend whenever your relationship with your currently girlfriend started to go south?  Would you stick it out through her abuse, or would you trade-up?

By in large, pure-MGTOW is a response to a feeling of powerlessness in the sexual marketplace. Given the conditions that I outlined above, this position of powerlessness may very well be the case and could be perfectly justified. However, if you enjoy the idea of having a pleasant relationship with a woman one day, then you must develop a long-term strategy that will place the ball firmly back in your court.

I can hear the objections in my head:

“Wait a second. Are you saying that I should effectively drop-out of the game, get a personal trainer and change my diet, and then use this MGTOW-phase to get six-pack abs, and then re-entire the sexual marketplace at that time.”

And to that I ask, “Why not?!”

“Are you saying that I should reinvest in my skills, or work on my career, to the point where I can afford to buy a porsche, and then use that porsche to pick up women?”

And to that I ask, “Why not?!’

“Are you saying that I should take a MGTOW-period so that I can get my head together, read a bunch of Rollo Tomassi books and de-Blue-Pill myself, such that I understand the true nature of women and what my Blue-Pill life has done to me thus far?”

Again, I answer with a resounding “And why the HELL not?!”

MGTOW is a harsh and demanding ideology, that has within it a lexicon that is designed to shame and ridicule those people who take a “halfway” approach. The “MGTOW for Now” methodology that I advocate will, undoubtedly be labelled as “Purple Pill,” and when I do ultimately find a good girlfriend that I want to commit myself to, I will be labelled “Blue Pill” for simply have gotten back into a relationship with a (dreaded) woman (gasp!).

It is unfortunate that men like us, who have endured so much Anti-masculine abuse as it is, must again find ourselves at the hands of it by those who claim to have our best interest at heart. If “give up on women” sounds like a defeatist philosophy, that’s because it is!  If you have any of these “male pains,” such as suffering in the sexual marketplace, or having been whipped by a woman, the one-size-fits-all MGTOW advice is simply to “take the Red Pill and give up on women.”

If you are looking to an alternative, please know that Rollo Tomassi’s work does not define “The Red Pill” in this way.  As I outlined above, the Tomassi School does not use the terms “Red Pill,” “Blue Pill,” and “Purple Pill” in the same manner or to mean the same things that MGTOW do.  Rather, as Morpheus told Neo, it only offers you the truth, nothing more. I find it refreshing that the members of The Red Man Group still find women to be an enjoyable and worthwhile pursuit, even in marriage, despite how wretched the intersexual climate is today.

So, maybe I am diluting the MGTOW waters by leveraging it in this way. I am well-aware that MGTOW is intended to be a permanent lifestyle change, and that anything less is considered “weakness” by its most ardent proponents. Bruce Lee adopted a philosophy of “use what works, eliminate what doesn’t,” and it is in that spirit of Jeet-Kune-Do that I am trying to find real, helpful solutions here.

If you’re fed up with the relentless abuse that hours of attempted pick-up artistry has given you, or you are tired of losing at the game, or you are just plain sick of the modern woman and her relentless B.S., I think that a period of “to hell with women” is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle and an attitude to have for the time-being. Your MGTOW period need not have a predetermined time frame. But like in most things in life, I tend to see red-flags when anyone evangelizes a permanent, one-size-fits-all lifestyle for men.  If you are black-and-blue from your interactions with women, and the “game” is paying off for you only in the form of wasted time and exhaustion, it should come as a relief to you that you can, and should, be able to take a break until such time as you get your head together, and discover for yourself methods in which you can WIN at the game.