Part four of a seven-part series. Read the first part, Man and Woman (on sex and gender), here, the second part, Love, Sex and Excitement (on our loveless world), here. and the third part, on emotion and habit, here.
Approaching Woman
Man moves and woman is moved. Man looks and woman is looked at. Man leads and woman is led. Naturally, there are exceptions, because nature delights in breaking rules and upsetting expectations, thank God, but a man who cannot lead is as unhappy as a woman who insists on being in charge.
Man’s authority is primarily in the public or manifest realm. Privately, primally, he is following her heart. Not her emotions, and certainly not her will, but the strange quality of her innermost, which is, like his own, one with the music. If he is dancing to that tune, she will gladly follow him to the edge of doom.
Just as a man who cannot lead is unhappy, so a society, one such such as ours, in which men no longer publicly lead (or must do so through force), is also unhappy. The great dance breaks down, and everyone has to do their own thing (or rather, everyone has to do their own thing, and so the dance breaks down).
The first step in the dance is for a man to approach a woman. This could be a literal approach, talking to a woman on the bus, for example, or it could be asking a girl out that you already know, at work or at college. In either case, he approaches her. If he waits for her to approach him, he’ll attract unhappy women.
Most men, being repressed cowards, use tactics and techniques to approach women (chiefly the cowardly tactic of not approaching them at all). He will be nice and polite for example and attempt to wriggle his way into her interest by being a friendly friend. This, to his deep dismay, never works.
Or he will ask hundreds of questions. Or he will manoeuvrer himself into being useful. Or he will boast and try and win her with his credentials. Or he’ll try to buy her with his fame or his money. Or he will engineer time alone with her and sidle up to her and sort of hope that perhaps she sort of gets the message.
Some women, very few, but some, will be taken in by such crude or feeble tactics. Others might be desperate and ignore his clumsiness in exchange for his attention. It might even be possible that, underneath his fearful faffing, she perceives a man of character. But this is unlikely. Most likely, he’s just a child.
Man fails with women because he does not understand that she does not evaluate him mentally, but physically. She senses, in her body, that he is bluffing, that he is concealing his desire for her by being polite (or, if he is particularly immature trying to conceal his fear and hatred of her by being obnoxious).
A woman is essentially a Reichian therapist,1 able to intuitively detect, through her physical awareness of the tensions in his face and in his body, that a man’s psyche is locked up. She can rarely articulate quite what part of his self is imprisoned or why, but her intuitive guesses are often miraculously accurate.
Naturally, I am speaking of a conscious woman here, and women do tend to be more conscious than men; but most women are unconscious, slaves to their emotions and only able to evaluate men in terms of those emotions; which usually comes down to a crude assessment of how much power he has.
That said, she is less attached to her evaluations than he is. Ask her what kind of man she goes for, and although she might offer a horrifying exemplar of caricatured masculinity as an ideal; she is usually willing to give up this ideal in the presence of a man with presence.
This is why extremely ugly men can do so amazingly well with women. She says she wants a square jaw, thick hair, nice hands, wide shoulders and so on, but she’ll give it all up in a trice for a man with strength of character, passion for genuine mastery and an empathic awareness of what the hell is going on.
Some men, understanding all this, learn pick-up skills, in order to bypass her mind and manipulate her emotions; to compel her, through references to sex, physical contact, ungrasping assertiveness, suggestive body-language and so on, to unplug her brain and continually evaluate him in sexual terms.
By using the tricks of a pick-up artist2 a man (any man) can, with some practice, learn to manipulate woman (not any woman) through a combination of raising her emotional temperature, suppressing her critical powers and appealing to her biological weaknesses, into a date and, eventually, into bed.
Not that manipulation is all bad. Up to a point, women like to be ‘manipulated’3 — men too, if the pilot is confident, experienced and skilful. Men who relinquish public control and let interaction with women fall into a vortex of consultation (‘I dunno what do you fancy?’) tend to get dumped, or get saddled with a virago.
At the heart of pick-up scene are (or were, it is now a prudish ‘post-game’ world) some sensible and laudable principles, above all, to learn to be — indeed, to actively work at becoming — attractive to women and capable of handling the excruciating demands of talking to an attractive girl you don’t know.
Thus, many pick-up artists really did become ‘better versions of themselves’, better dressed, better read, healthier, more socially confident, more emotionally aware, more physically intuitive, more comfortable with ambiguity and more sensitive to the subtle cues of tone, body language and unspoken implication.
But love plays no part in technique, which is why women who fell victim to the predatory arts of the pick up artist so often felt used and exploited, and why men who were attracted to the the scene, including so-called ‘masters of the art’ were so often small, broken creatures, incapable of love.
Being a technique, woman can learn counter-techniques to defend herself against the pick-up artist, but she is defenceless, and loves to be defenceless, before a man who hides nothing, and who does not use any technique to manipulate her; who openly loves her, without sexuality.
Such a man is not ashamed of loving her, from moment one. Today it sounds like the nuclear option with a girl you don’t know, but, believe it or not, walking up to a woman and saying ‘I love you’ — in the right spirit — can work. Be that as it may, such conscious spirit is a prerequisite to all interactions with all women.
Genuinely loving men are affectionate and chivalrous to all women (or all women who will let him, which is, alas, a diminishing circle) but attracted or drawn to only a few. If the circumstances are right, he will then naturally and openly pursue her and she will then respond to him sexually and romantically.
She may well be surprised at who it is that she is responding to, because it’s very often not the kind of man she thought she liked at all. Such erotic surprise is impossible through the screen, which can only appeal to calculating thought and to selfish emotion and so does not require sensitivity or courage.
The aura of the moment, of him and of her, cannot pass through the screen, which precludes the subtle dance from whence romance emerges. The glance, the smile, the tone, the scent, the rich silence; none of this exists on the screen. Qualities die when the internet pulls them from the ocean they swim in.
The Audacity of Courtship
First of all then, a woman invites a man. He might need to force his foot into the door to give himself a chance — to interrupt her momentum, and get her attention — but unless he manipulates her through pick up tricks, he needs her invitation to proceed and he violates her if he goes where he is unwelcome.
Once he has knocked on the door (or twice perhaps… she can respond to a bit of persistence you know), and seen that, through the way she looks at him, through her posture, and through the quality of her voice, that she is giving him a chance, then he may try his hand with a conversation.
The conversation, if it is to succeed, must be unplanned.4 It must draw its inspiration not from the past, but from the moment, responding to the situation they are both in, and responding to her, as she is, in this situation. This is difficult for man, who is less well acquainted with the situation than she is.
But this works for him. The very difficulty of throwing himself into the void of the moment, unscripted, without a technique, can earn him what he longs for, a slightly impressed smile. Why would he want it to be easy? Only a child needs stabilisers and floats. A man dives in, even though he may drown.
If he persists with her, uninvited, he doesn’t stand a chance. If he is grasping and starey, if he sticks tediously to his plans and to his knowledge, or if he tries to win her by bragging, he doesn’t stand a chance. And if he is afraid of her, sweating, gulping and stuttering, he doesn’t stand a chance.
Probably! For woman, strange creature that she is, and despite what she might say, does not respond to the explicit, literal fact. She hears what he says, but she is listening to what he does not say. If he is clumsy, robotic or violent he can still possess spirit. He can win her heart by breaking all the rules.
Today we live in a world dominated by literal laws, a ‘no means no’ society that demands explicit consent at every stage of courtship, right up to orgasm. This makes it impossible for man to prove his mettle, which is to say his judgement. He no longer knows when to break the rules, when to be audacious.
There are some advantages to such a world; every form that the nightmare takes allows for a version of waking. Today women are better protected from the force that permissive societies allow, if for no other reason than that men now lack the energy to kick down her door. But at what cost?
There are few things a real woman responds to so well as to audacity, but he must know the right time for it. She expects him to know when he should ignore everything she is saying and abseil into her bedroom, and when the game is up. He should, in short, be able to read her heart as well as the room it is in.
Man tends to lack either sensitivity or courage. Some men are quiveringly aware of what is going on in women but lack the balls to do anything about it. Others are swashbuckling heroes (or think themselves to be) but haven’t the foggiest what’s going on in her belly. We call the former cowards and the latter bastards.
The bastard, usually found in the upper and lower end of the social scale,5 must learn to perceive the aura of phenomena, the quality of things, the vibe of the room. He must learn to quieten his will, so that the strange voice of unself can speak to him. Then his audacity will have a purpose nobler than gratification.
The coward, whose home is the middle-class, must learn to act despite how he feels. For courage is not feeling no fear at all — which is psychopathy — but acting despite it. Thus, even though man sweats and stutters and flaps around, his character, manifest through his courage, may still charm her.6
The Improvised Woo
Approaching a woman requires courage because it is a form of improvised theatre, which demands total exposure. What this means is that something more profound than the mind, the emotions, the will or the appetites of the body must be in charge of the situation. This something is consciousness.
The unconscious self cannot bear to talk to another person, particularly a stranger, without relying on tactics, props and scripts. These include gagging, gassing, gossiping, questioning, flattering, judging, grandstanding and controlling, either through violence, or through titillating excitement.7
If, as noted, the unconscious self has sufficient power or prestige, through fame, money or through its position in society, it has no need to rely on any of these tactics, which is, for many men, the chief appeal of success, and why success tends to be synonymous with mediocrity, charlatanism and sloth.
Impro demands innocence. You cannot create something from nothing if you go in with the ‘something’ of your personality, your beliefs, your knowledge and your appetites. You have to open yourself up completely to the moment, or you’ll get trapped in the abominable clench of ‘this is not working’.
As noted you’ll notice this if you plan what to say to her. You’ll also notice it if you reuse a witticism or charming comment that seemed to work well elsewhere. You’ll also notice that it is extremely difficult to talk to her if you don’t do so in the precise moment you have the chance, and let desire build up.
The safe and easy way is to meticulously plan, come in with a load of impressive facts, engineer romantic coincidences or rely on your money, your name, your power or the power of your parents. To throw yourself into the improvised unknown without such props demands great courage.
Being approached by a man also requires courage, albeit of a different kind. A woman has to let her consciousness run free, so to speak, and share her sweet nature with the world. She has to be available for love, available to be loved, admired and enjoyed, by men of all ages.
Such availability necessarily allows jackals through the door, which is why women walk through the world with nary a glance to the left nor to the right. A sensible approach for undiscerning women, but those who can tell the difference between a grasping and a giving look need no such defence.
She must open her heart — or it will die in her breast — but she must also have faith in its power to discern prince from predator and pretender. This is difficult because her emotions are fearful (attracted to the kind of security which bores her spirit) and weak (attracted to the kind of excitement which breaks her heart).
The solution is to discover unconditional love, the source of love in one’s naked life, before it is clothed with the conditional pleasures of attention, affection and security, which all depart. This is a life’s work, and far beyond the limits of this enquiry. Nevertheless,8 you can start here, in this little room.
If you cannot feel love unconditionally in your body, here and now, before you meet a man or woman you will, first of all, by the same miraculous attractive principle that draws bastards to cowards, exploiters to exploited, you’ll bring to yourself a love that rests upon shaky conditional foundations.
This principle, a kind of ‘relationship karma’ governs all love with a merciless, punishing — and, ultimately glorious — logic. And although it demands the improvised, open-hearted and gendered spirit, discussed above, it has nothing to do with what you do (e.g. your ‘game’), but who you are.
To put this another way, if you have anger in you, someone is coming to make you angry. If you have jealousy in you, someone is coming to make you jealous. If you have fear in you, someone is coming to make you afraid. And if you have love in you, someone is coming to love and be loved by you.
The second consequence of living without unconditional love is attachment. Withough a love that does not go away you’ll cling to the love that does. You’ll tell yourself that your love is there, not here. As clinging is repellent at the cellular level you’ll then drive the object of your love away from you.9
Unconditional love is the surest defence against deception. How can you be deceived into buying something you already own? Another defence, for woman (who has more to lose from poor judgement), is to refuse to have casual sex with a man, particularly one who is pestering her to sleep with him.10
A man must prove himself, with time and patience. He must be able to show that he loves her enough, and loves life enough, to be able to wait before making love with her. He must woo her. Otherwise, chances are, all his charm, humour, considerateness and patience will evaporate after an orgasm or two.
Women have a tendency to think men are simple creatures, that they only want one thing, because of course that is true; but it is not the truth. The truth, as difficult to locate in the heart of an ordinary man as a single bat is in a deep cave, is that what he wants, more than anything else in the world, is love.
As we have seen though, this is not just a state he can access, but a fate he must live. He must, through his life and work, realise the truth of his spirit in the world. This is not a simple task: it is so profoundly complex in fact that woman has as much chance of understanding it as he does of understanding pregnancy.
Does this mean that woman must wait for a Prince of Love to come along on a white charger? If so, she’ll be waiting for more lifetimes than the one she has. No, she ‘only’ needs a man who is on the way to a better place. As he isn’t there yet, she must expect all his tediously predictable fears, desires, tricks and tactics.
The Heartbreaking Fiendess
The tests that a woman puts in the path of a man are both conscious and unconscious. Conscious, firstly, in that she knows he must prove he can master his desperately desiring self before she’ll let him in, and secondly in that she knows she must be courageous enough to cast him out for ever if he cannot.
Her unconscious challenges to his self-control are more terrible. As the prince gets closer to her heart, he finds it circled around with a forest of thorny emotions. Erratic bursts of spite, fickle wilfulness, chilling indifference and even hatred come at him. Hard. She knows, by instinct, just where his weak spots are.
I am speaking here of our old friend, the fiendess, the diabolic emotional self implanted in woman by man’s world. If, as Barry Long says,11 ‘he cannot walk away’ from that self, and detach from the emotions of rage and fear that it seeks to arouse in him, it will crush him, an event he is not likely to forget.
If all this seems rather unfair, it is because the man in question knows himself, and his world, but slenderly. He cannot see the supreme truth of heartbreak, nor can he see that the problems he has with women and the problems he has with the world are one and the same. This why he can rarely handle either.
With each trial man must consciously master his self; his cowardly fear that he will lose her forever (he might) and his bastard desire to control her through force, through physical force or, more likely in the modern world, through force of technique, force of capital, force of argument and force of desperate effort.
To put this another way, every step of the dance demands improvised self-abandonment, not just in the approach, but in every moment of being with her he must sacrifice his mental-emotional self to the presence from which he can gather the spirit to hug her, despite her tyrannous emotions, or to walk away.
It is usually the sadistic bastard who must learn to embrace her thorny heart and the masochistic coward who must learn to walk away from it. She’ll probably know which is which, or rather the fiendess will, and test the former with irrational spite and the latter with frigid coldness.
For a man to be worthy of a woman takes many years of such trials, well beyond woo; deep into the far land of marriage. But it is here at the start, while dating, that a woman must discover if he has the gumption to make it all the way there. Unless she does this, she will have her heart broken. Again.
As for him, he’ll get nowhere without heartbreak, which is to say, without selfbreak. If he ever rises to the challenge of love (which is unlikely in a world comprised of men ‘who are spirit of sorts for an hour one day a week’12) he will be, sooner or later, torn open by it. Then a new, better man may emerge.
And then the millennial battle of the sexes will come to an end. When a man and woman are conscious, together, of the purpose of their union, and of their love-making—to free themselves of their selves—then they are no longer lost in the wilderness, but travelling together through the wild.
Next time, sex and love-making…
As, believe it or not, I’m neither infallible nor all-knowing, I am happy to hear from anyone who has anything to add to the above (or to anything else in this series) from their own experience. I’m happy to read questions and queries too, although I might not be able to respond to them.
Further reading…
An A to Z of Unself
Wilhelm Reich argued that psychological defences against emotional trauma manifest as muscular tension, which he termed ‘character armour.’ This armour develops as a way to block the expression of emotions and spontaneous impulses, forming rigid patterns in both personality (character structure) and the body (muscular rigidity). These patterns reflect a person’s life history of emotional suppression and are expressed in habitual postures, gestures, and breathing restrictions, effectively limiting the free flow of energy and emotional vitality. In the most extreme cases this leads to the mask-like faces and tense, characterless gait of the corpse-like people we call ‘stiffs’ — although most people are armoured up to some degree, as many woman, particularly the lovelier ones, are pre-consciously aware.
I should note however that although Reich’s work is worth reading, he was a gross materialist and a madman, so proceed with caution.
The ‘pick up artist movement’ (if it can be called that), ran, like most movements, for about ten years, from 2000 to 2010. I was part of it, insofar as I read some of the books — including the notorious The Game by Neil Strauss, but also a lot of ‘secondary texts’ with winning titles like ‘Daygame Nitro’. I put what they said into practice and found, to my amazement, that they worked — but only with the women I stood a chance with anyway. I was poor at so-called NLP, or neurolinguistic processing partly because I didn’t really need it, preferring to pursue women who I had a chance with in the first place, but primarily because I found it, as our American cousins would say, gross.
‘Controlled’ is probably a better word or even ‘guided’, more neutral.
A certain degree of planning can be helpful, provided that the plan is worn extremely lightly and is completely dispensable. Wear your plans like peanuts.
This is the source of their political alliance.
We might note here, keeping with their political characteristics, that bastards tend to be contrarians and conspiracy theorists and cowards tend to be submissive conformists and uni-dimensional institutional men.
See The Apocalypedia for a fuller account.
As discussed in Sex, Love and Excitement.
And into the arms of another; another person or another thing. Men have a habit of running from love into objects.
This is a principle, not a law. On rare occasions, a loving one-night stand does no harm, particularly to the young, whose reckless errors are more forgivable than those of the old, and whose hearts are more resiliant to the pain of casual sex.
The fiendess is Barry Long’s term. See Woman in command of love.
As a rule, men are conscious only momentarily, conscious in the midst of big decisions, but they do not take the daily everyday into account at all; they are spirit of sorts for an hour one day a week—which, of course, is a rather crude way to be spirit. But eternity is the essential continuity and demands this of a person or that he be [continually] conscious as spirit…
Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death.