Continued from Part One

Many Red Pills

There are many red pills one might encounter as he grows. Many who grew up religious eventually experience the epiphany of atheism (or the logical inconsistencies of religion). Very few who grow up with a particular view of politics keep that view into their older age. And for us, we grew up thinking that the secret to happiness was love, and the secret to love was being a good, faithful husband.

We’ve already covered the ingredients for the initial state of the blue pill mindset. And I’ll discuss what I think keeps people perpetually there in a future essay. But what is the mechanism that is used to look past our biases and preconceived notions to formulate a more functional world-view? What gives us permission to suggest the unthinkable when our culture is built in such a way that we are immediately ostracized and suspect if we were to admit our counter-cultural hypotheses?

Part of it is easy- you don’t have to accept Red Pill truths to test them. You could dip a toe in without selling your soul to the devil. Many did just this and discovered instant results with women. Just trying out the tips you’ve read here can give you immediate results that you can bank on. Very few would go back to failure after tasting success.

But there’s more to the discovery of reality, or our approximation of it, than making up random hypotheses and testing them. Something drives us and points us in a particular direction. That something is a combination of observation and gut, an unconscious effort giving us a ‘vibe’ that something’s wrong, even if we aren’t exactly sure what it is. Two possible worldviews collide, and your mind must resolve the cognitive dissonance between the two; that’s the feeling that drives the pursuit of truth.

You’ve been told since grade school that the moon has no air to breathe, and that nobody lives there. There is little reason to think otherwise. But if you arrived on the moon at a future time and discovered a full atmosphere full of breathable air, and a population of moon-men, you might suspect something is wrong. Undoubtedly, most people would assume that either they’ve gone crazy and can’t trust their senses, or that our school books were wrong. But you cannot hold both views- that the moon is habited and uninhabited simultaneously. Your mind must build one model with which to work, and so it rejects information it does not believe meshes with the rest of your world view.

And that brings us to our example...

All Women Lie About Rape

My observations and understandings about rape and sexual assault have a few conflicts. On one side of the coin, I’m told by the media, my liberal friends, college professors, and the women in my life that rape happens constantly. Every woman I know has a rape or attempted rape story. Every woman I know can talk about the time they were sexually assaulted. I know literally one woman who hasn’t given me this sob story (so I raped her…. Kidding, I’m dating her).

But on the other side I don’t know a single man who is interested in raping women. I know many guys who lament their sexlessness, and others who bemoan long dry spells. But not one has given me a reason to think they’d rather rape than go without. Most are characterized by pain, caused by undesirability rather than the lack of sexual release. Rape wouldn’t make women desire them, so it wouldn’t cure their problem.

If sexual release were the point of rape, there are easier and less dangerous ways to go about achieving said release. Although prostitution isn’t legal everywhere, even hiring a prostitute where it’s not legal is both more pleasurable and less risky than raping somebody. If legality were still too high a risk that you’d avoid a prostitute, it stands to reason that rape is even farther down your list of options, and travel to a place of legal prostitution is inexpensive anyhow.

Some make a point that rape isn’t about sex, but rather about control and power. If I kidnapped you and put you in a dark room for three days, that would be an example of control over you. I could just as easily kill you afterwards. That would be control sans sex. Certainly then, we can understand that the crime of control is not explicitly about sex, nor is sex explicitly about control. Needless to say, if somebody were to rape – that is, take control over somebody else and have sex with them – then they’d be more closely related to the group of monsters who control other people (kidnappers, killers, etc), rather than in the group of people who have or want sex (everybody on the damn planet).

I’m not convinced rape is simply about control, I think that’s an over simplification. But I think it would be hard to suppress the male libido in an otherwise completely psychotic male who has already decided to kidnap or otherwise assault a woman. In that sense, I’d say sex is a weapon in the hands of psychos. Most men find themselves thinking about sex on a regular basis. Luckily, most men are not psychotic. There doesn’t seem to be a public opinion that most men are likely kidnappers, attempted killers, or otherwise criminals. It should stand to reason, then, that most men are not rapists, since these groups are more closely related than not.

By this point, there are a few pedants out there banging their heads on their desks because I’ve contradicted myself about rape. I stated at the beginning of this series that All Women Lie about Rape. How could I have this conversation at all if I didn’t believe in rape in the first place?

It should go without saying that yes, there are rapists out there. And, despite my inflammatory title, there are obviously rape victims out there as well. If you’re smart- something didn’t line up for you about my title. You might have gotten a feeling in your gut that what I said didn’t quite match your observations.

But that’s not the only thing that gives me that feeling. There’s another extraordinary claim being made: Almost half of all women experience rape or sexual assault.

We know observational data tells us neither is true. So how do you move forward on this information?

We’ve got a ton of victims, and an invisible enemy that doesn’t match observational data. Admittedly, I don’t understand or observe murderers either, but our culture has been happy to dismiss them as either unlikely, maladjusted, mentally ill people, or people caught in a crime passion (and that’s actually a defense! Imagine defending rape as a crime of passion!).

Our culture treats rape very differently. Every male is a potential rapist. Our culture accepts rape to such a degree, many men aren’t even aware they’re raping and need to be sent to classes to teach them not to rape! Becoming a rapist isn’t a rare disease you hope not to get, it’s genetic for men. There are sensitivity seminars at student orientations on campuses world-wide. They teach our students the perils of accidentally having sex with a woman.

Of course I can’t tell you the inner workings of every single man on the planet, but I can tell you the inner workings of my own head. Rape wouldn’t be pleasurable to me. If getting my rocks off were the goal, there’s plenty of internet porn, lotion, or prostitutes to get the job done. Sex is fun for me because of the surrender. The surrender is the challenge. Most men I know agree with this assessment.

So how do you reconcile these two viewpoints that don’t match? Do all women lie about rape? Probably not, since it’s unlikely that this is the one crime on earth not being committed. Are all rape stories true? Once again, that seems unlikely, as we know that some percentage of all accusations are false, it would be odd for the universe to select rape accusations as the only thing people don’t lie about.

The world view that we must choose is that some rape accusations are true, and then gauge to what extent these must be true. It would be hard to determine the validity of every accusation, since most rapes don’t have spectators, and we can’t read minds.

It’s safe to say at least some of these accusations are false, because we know from personal experience that when we’re present we’re not seeing physical rapes take place, nor are we seeing men going from woman to woman groping as many breasts as they can find. If half of all women experienced this, surely at least a small percentage would take place in way that would have to be observed by an onlooker. Perhaps not, though, since rape happens in private.

If these crimes were hidden from public view, certainly at least the mindset of men would reveal that these crimes take place. We’d hear tales of rape in the locker room. We’d hear tips exchanged on how best to commit a rape, and what the most pleasurable rape methods might be. At the very least, we'd know men who aren't against rape.

Much like the fact that I don't personally know any men that would murder anybody, I do not know any men who would rape.

As an aside, it's fascinating that when you say "I don't know personally anybody who is a murderer" most people are perfectly fine with such a statement. Obviously there are murderers out there, but they are few. The statement is most likely true, as most people simply don't know any murderers. But when you say that you don't know anybody who would rape, the public reception to such a statement changes. Rape is a dark crime committed by all men regardless of ethics or personality. You simply don't know that they're rapists. I reject such nonsensical reasoning.

Since we’re seeing all demand but no supply, we must assume that the amount of accusations being made is simply not matched by the amount the crime must take place. If we conclude that false accusations are possible, then there are some questions this raises:

  • What are the advantages to advertising false rape statistics?
  • How can false rape accusations affect my life personally?
  • Who is likely to make a false accusation?
  • Can I predict when I might be a victim of a false rape accusation?
  • Who benefits from false rape statistics?

Not every subject will raise the same questions. A claim about global warming might raise questions such as “How soon will this affect me?” and “What changes can I make in my life today, if this is real?” But every subject that requires scrutiny can still be screened in a similar fashion. What mechanisms can we use to determine whether we’re on the right track or not?

This will be addressed in my next installment.