SMC's Window : The constrained arousal hypothesis

Challenging Dr. Jordan Peterson himself as a way for the readership to understand he is wrong on his views of the sexual marketplace.

Despite his desire for his belief system, which can be most accurately understood as operating as a traditional conservative, with knowledge of a woman's short term mate preferences, masquerading as a short term mate and or "compromise" within a long term relationship to be the optimal relationship structure for a man that wants a family, it is fundamentally misinformed.

The hypothesis is framed agnostically to him, yet as if it where to land on his desk. So for readers who haven't digested the content here properly, where it has distilled itself into some illformed approximation of what you should actually take away, imagine you, are sitting at the desk. Because you likely share some of the same fundamental attribution errors that he does.

Executive Summary

Romantic love is the world's largest mutually shared illusion, and has become an illusory truth we choose to believe because of a significant number of cognitive biases and an inability to view the world through lenses other than our own. Relationship failure is a feature, not a flaw, of evolution which seeks to increase gene quality and diversity.

Discussions of the sexual marketplace itself are put through a patriarchal lens, and argued within a woman's long term mate preference paradigm.

The reconciliation of that last sentence was the dualistic hypothesis. Which only could have been born through male hubris. The idea that men had certain women who were "wife material" and others who were "just for fun" and the idea that women didn't have the same preferences had to die before we could realize that women selected men in the same way.

Endemic to understanding this are three female centric paradoxes. The last two, originate within this hypothesis.

1. The female happiness paradox : Where as women approach their stated ideals for happiness, they lag men.
2. The female arousal paradox : Where as women approach their stated ideals for relationships, they are sub-optimally aroused. This is self-evident within the results of the dual mating hypothesis.
3. The egalitarian family paradox : Where as the more egalitarian a relationship is, the more likely it is to fail, causing less children to grow up in the household of their biological father. This is self-evident in higher divorce rates of highly egalitarian nations.

Men who believe they can use knowledge of a woman's sexual preferences for a LTR attempt to masquerade as STR mates, this is not a solution to "the problem", and can not be, for fundamental reasons.

The solution to this systemic problem, is found within the female happiness paradox and requires a shift in male conceptualizations of women along with institutional recognition of this paradox.

The entire sexual marketplace is constrained on the basis that the female sexual arousal window is much smaller than the male's. And most if not all of the conflicts in long term relationships, family and marriage arise out of this issue. One that we could state is simply that "arousal can't be negotiated." More or less, that the failure point of a relationship is female arousal in the company of the male.

This is not finger pointing, as this is a gendered issue, some time is spent explaining that if men shared the same biological constraints, they'd likely act in similar ways. Pleas to male virtue are likely without basis.

The outcome of this knowledge greatly conflicts with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's posits to young men everywhere on how they should orient themselves within the sexual marketplace. Which can be summarized as to be "a civilized monster" while still adopting the traits of "a real man." Namely responsibility and family.

Cognitive biases that distort the ability to be able to see the sexual marketplace from the top down

Superordinate cognitive bias

Framing effect : First, we should understand that we're all seeing the same information and interpreting it in our own way. So while we're looking at the same world, we must control for our biases to see the truth that sits in front of us. Without this, we are constrained to an argument that is only addressing our willingness to accept or reject another's view of the same "truth." This is the reason this hypothesis is constructed in the way it is. It must accept that every reader will have a different view of every single facet to it, and attempt to control for the biases implicit to each portion of the illusory truth that has been debated since we've debated the idea of love and romance and whether or not we are monogamous creatures.

The bias that houses the rest of the issues

1. Availability heuristic : Potential partners are either good or bad and we are either monogamous or polygamous. These are the first available possibilities.
2. Availability cascade : Love is the world's largest mutually shared illusion. This is simply the widespread reinforcement of the availability heuristic. We then extend this notion to "finding good or bad partners and believing in or rejecting monogamy."
3. Confirmation bias : Which we reinforce by assuring ourselves that we are able to obtain the positive outcomes we see occurring naturally. These couples act as promotion mechanisms, even though they are very rare. Most people will see their positive qualities in themselves.
4. Declinism : Men view traditional conservative relationships and institutions as being "the best." When instead, it is best understood that these times simply represented the best tradeoffs in equity, not equality, and that it was the least suboptimal solution.

Mechanisms of action\Promotion mechanisms

We can understand this as the grease for the wheels.

1. Natural declines in "love chemicals" to near depletion typically around 7 years (7 year itch) : This is part of the evolutionary framework which seeks to increase genetic quality and diversity.
2. Innate competition for female resources (sex) from men which exacerbate this issue.
3. Narrow lens of female perception of male attractiveness starting at top 20% of male attractiveness (does not follow a normal distribution) which blinds her to less attractive mates, making competition a certainty, even when women outnumber men greatly. This is also part of the evolutionary framework which seeks to increase genetic quality and diversity.
4. Widespread belief in the ability to negotiate attraction and that we will hold reason over their animal self.
5. Lack of widespread belief in the strength of post hoc rationalization and lower than perceived degrees of control over free will.

Female Long Term Strategies

Least suboptimal solution

This is a higher risk paradoxical outcome. The only difference between the first "gambit" in the table above is she's choosing a man that would trend more towards "abusive." And rather than seeking to control volatility, she's looking for signs he ascribes to traditional male value systems.

So, despite his proclivity to be a warrior, rather than a diplomat, would you expect him to be in the delivery room? Would he still want to see his child graduate High School?

And that outcome would be greatly influenced by her ability to reject her desire to control out the very things that keep her invested in the relationship. These are the paradoxical issues hundreds of thousands of men deal with every year that are counseled by men across the world.

Naive men ponder idealistic concepts like "whether or not he's spending enough time taking her out on dates." While experienced men are literally tearing their wives clothes off if the situation demands it.

The catch 22 here being that a woman who is certain she needs the control and hands it over to her rational side is being sexually assaulted. The woman that's able to separate out "how it should be" and "how it is" goes along for the ride and thanks him for it.

The "Disney fantasy" in which a woman dates, and appreciates a prince charming, is constrained to women with zero or close to zero partners, in which the man she's dating matches her ideal composite male. That gives him plenty of room for error and allows him to operate in a way suboptimal for attraction.

That woman can both believe in the idea of love for loves sake, and have it. But few women get this, and the ones that do, can jeopardize that in one night away from home. A thousand mornings with flowers will be boiled down to "that was cute."

The ones that don't get that, don't get it because they can't reconcile prince charming with their arousal floor. This can be understood as the likely reason behind the inverse correlation between partner count and stable marital outcome. This form of "lifestyle inflation" is a linear ratcheting mechanism to prevent a woman from rationalizing away problematic attractions that jeopardize her on paper life.

Male Long Term Strategies

Least suboptimal solution

This is the conclusion to the least sub-optimal solution. Which is essentially a mirror to Briffault's law.

The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place. — Robert Briffault, The Mothers, Vol. I, p. 191

In this case, the male, determines his willingness to provision under the animal family. That is a shared duty of performance.

Men and women believe, or at least choose to believe, there is "a solution" denoting a way to change the world or balance the scales so "everyone wins." Yet the best we can do is select a system with the least number of negative effects, which maximizes outcomes for men, women & children while benefiting society at large by promoting values that can coexist within the socioeconomic system to the extent we can.

There is no way, we can't not hurt each other.

Boiling this down entirely, I believe only one true conflict divides men and women.

Women have a narrow view of arousing males, something around 20% of men and really the top 5% ultimately. And their attraction is fickle. If men were subject to the same, then only testosterone\estrogen would likely separate us.

This I believe is the actual programming of evolution itself. That very mechanism, is the way in which genes are improved, by always seeing the best, and being literally blinded, to inferior mates. Where evolution seeks to increase genetic quality and diversity.

If men were subject to this same constraint, all the claimed loyalty and male values would fly out the window as they saw the women in their lives the way that women see men who they no longer find arousing. Understand I've taken great effort to extend as much understanding to women as possible forming this hypothesis. And in doing so, been able to reconcile "good girls" and "bad girls." And dispute the idea that "men are more loyal."

This entire argument, that we frame as "men vs women" instead can be understood as "those who are easily aroused, against those who are not."

This is exacerbated by the fact that women settle for men, by design, since they select against features of arousal for a LTR. She trades to volatility of a more viscerally arousing mate, for an easily controlled man whom has nurturing characteristics.

And so what? So do most men.

But again, men are not constrained in the same way.

Regardless, to agree with Peterson here means a different thing.

It means to be a great physical specimen, who is narcissistic and arrogant, who walks the walk and talks the talk. Who is either unapologetically polygamous or at the very least has ultra high standards for his monogamous relationship but is capable of it. But likely, this serves as a cope, because the most viscerally arousing men simply have no interest in monogamy. There are viscerally attractive men, top 5% men with no interest. But now you're at a fraction of 5% of men.

To which many would argue that no family could survive such volatility, yet women "turn a blind eye" or "give a hall pass" to these men all the time. This just isn't something that most men are willing to understand or digest, much in the same way Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is willing to send a million men into the grinder rather than accept the message that men have learned in these forums through blood, sweat and toil. Few men in these forums started from a position of amorality. Few of them believed what it would take to save their marriages, how brutal courts would treat them or how duplicitous their wives would turn when their bedrooms turned cold.

These true monsters, balance "The Deal."

The Deal

Men sacrifice polygamy (male value), and embrace monogamy (female value). Women sacrifice hypergamy (female value) for loyalty (male value).

Men take ownership of women (male value), women take ownership of their children (female value), and under one household they share resources, the nuclear family(male value).

Since women are biologically unable to promise monogamy, the male rejects this part of "the deal" and trades her fidelity to him with provisioning. This creates a dual duty of performance. And only "a civilized monster" can pull this off.

This is the gritty stuff that men always let their ego convince them is unnecessary. And the source for the masquerade.

The short term mate schema ends when the effort to retain a mate becomes more important than changing them out. From this point on, no attempt of the male to masquerade as a short term mate, can ultimately be congruent, absent his actual willingness to leave and to upend the lives of everyone in his family strictly on his terms with an unlimited willingness to enforce them. Whether or not this is interpreted as "emotional abuse" or boundaries is up to the viewer. Put another way, a man's willingness to provide outside of the nuclear family while sexually active with his wife, will negatively influence "the game" and its outcome dramatically.

This is where a man is put into a situation where a woman wouldn't tolerate it. Where "being a real man" expects that he accept the deal that would otherwise be seen "as abuse." This, is a manifestation of our innate understanding of sexual competition and selection itself. A subconscious recognition of a woman's superior position as selector.

Put even another way, we could say that to extend this provisioning either overtly or through implication by accepting the legal framework after a relationship dissolution, the man acts as a mechanism to help transition a woman to the second evolutionary stage. As a stepping stool, all with the encouragement that he's being "a real man."

Men and women within a short term relationship operate under the Prisoner's Dilemma. Each relationship is a game unto itself. The game is post hoc rationalized as casual, but its purpose is to promote high quality genetic transfer. Women who "only engage in casual sex with men that would be good fathers" are the loudest, but are practicing atypical selection as per the dualistic studies. When raw arousal and excitement ends, the game ends and players move on. If they reconnect, it's an entirely new game. But the women here more or less understand these men "aren't the father type."

Men and women within a long term relationship operate under the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. The game is post hoc rationalized as romantic love, but its purpose is to find a male willing to invest in his offspring at the expense of raw arousal. Settling is stereotypically female, by design. As she is the one selecting and that she selects against features of raw arousal, such as ill-defined jawlines, or features like nurturing (which are negatively correlated to arousal). History is factored into the next "round" of play.

So from the very moment a woman pushes back to the man in the relationship (which is already sub-optimally aroused for arousal) and figuratively says "what are you going to do about it?" the relationship is in peril. At this very moment, essentially anything a man does from this point on will be wrong or abusive. This is why, from a game level perspective, being a "good man" is impossible. The minute she questions your willingness to pull the pin, the gambit is up, either you commit to being the one that cares the least or you demonstrate your subordination by negotiating with her, on her terms.

This is a manifestation of comfort breads contempt. The studies show a clear picture, short term mates in their very being are uncontrollable hyper-masculine men. Arrogant, narcissistic, with low features of nurturing, little future income potential etc. And these things are correlated to arousal. The very opposite of this, is to negotiate a mutual domestication with agreeable men. Men accept and promote this because, in their minds, it relieves them of the duty of performance. Within this context, I'm strictly defining this as a man's competition against other men.

They then shift their duty of performance to their mate and family although she does not recognize this sacrifice because she is not aroused by it. This is an "on paper" transaction that ever penny the male sinks into, he will lose if the duty of performance is jeopardized.

This is the exact point where men are locked into a double bind.

Want to wake up? Know that traits associated with good fathers, are negatively correlated to arousal. Stick that in your 1950s dad pipe and smoke it. Literally turned off by your good nature. Even if you think you're a "silverback patriarch." Which, you're still going to cupcake day at the zoo, buddy.

These paragraphs summarize the reason why dualistic strategy exists for a woman. Since these two types of men can not be assimilated into the same man unless she is wildly tolerant to risk and is willing to risk being left with children from a wild man who has no interest in sticking around. That is a tough gamble, and only the lowest status women typically make this gamble, though women should be leaning more towards this. It is again, paradoxical.

The willingness of a man to enter an honest, above the table, monogamous long term relationship de facto excludes him as a short term mate (in practice and definition), as comfort and high levels of arousal are often at odds for women, though the reverse is true for a LTR, which is why again, men in LTRs often function as useful idiots. Which is another failure point for long term relationships when amorally female, if the male discovers she isn't faithful.

Again, for the women making these choices, they make sense, to her, at the time. They're reasonable, rational choices. And they only have to finally "confront themselves" when they're in a marriage with children and they've lost attraction.

Then, the spark is gone. Then all the "good boy" points a man has accumulated instantly self immolate and the true value of being a good man becomes crystal clear.

Then it becomes real. Then the button up woman, with a degree who works 50 hours a week and is a mom too suddenly finds herself having moral conflicts she'd never had to confront before. Then she becomes the woman she never imagined herself to be, with a husband struggling to understand how his wife could be just like all those women he thought she could never be.

While everyone else either says he wasn't man enough, or that he "picked wrong."

Never accepting the possibility that they each played out their evolutionary script perfectly. And that it hadn't failed, but was just moving on to the second evolutionary stage.

So to any man that wants to be a family man, he must accept this first and foremost, before he starts lying to himself that he's just "responsibility and hard work away." Truly successful relationships are exceedingly rare, where both husband and wife are sexually satisfied through their years and the marriage functions as a useful mechanism for raising children. Though I would say men functioning as useful idiots, oblivious to their wives are common place.

And for the success cases, it probably would not be surprising that they trend more towards what is outlined in this hypothesis. Positive outcomes correlated to female arousal, negative outcomes correlated to female need for control over their mate.

Again, agreeing with Peterson here, men should be monsters, who chose to stick around for their children. NOT whom agree to be civil or domesticated.

The actual incongruence with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson & men who identify with him

This can require some "unpacking." I am on the one hand agreeing with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson here that "women want a civilized monster" or some variation of a monster that cares about her.

While fundamentally disagreeing with his overall message that men adopt traditional conservative viewpoints. The very man he understands and posits a woman would want, fundamentally conflicts with how he wants men to orient themselves in the world.

These very men are not generally going to trend on the side of family man types. However, unless she has without restraint let the dial move all the way over to "unrestrained psychopath type", more often than not, if she's fulfilling a feminine roll, he'll adopt a masculine roll and invest in his children.

I understand, in detail, where he's at through his journey in understanding this, and I do not expect Dr. Jordan B. Peterson to be able to reconcile how he wants things to be with his own knowledge base. Either a change of his message will be necessary, or a refute of this hypothesis.

Which so far, he softens with some degree of "work hard, be a civilized monster, and if she destroys it all, you probably missed some red flags or should have been a better man."

And the reason why this message resonates with men so widely, is because that is the fundamental place that men start from, in one degree or another. It's just a rebranding of the existing illusory truth. It sits as a nice piece of confirmation to the bias you hold, in the same way young men and women accept the idea that we are "polygamous."

Amorality is fundamental and necessary to this arrangement, or else it is subject to the same failure point.

If you came to him because you felt lost in the world and want a family, this isn't the solution to your problem. It's just a rebranding that will land you back in the same spot.

If the reason why you came to Peterson is to reclaim your masculinity, then you should look elsewhere. If you've come to him because you're just a mess and need to start getting back on your feet, then proceed with caution. If you're using him to mine some facts of the human condition, I believe there is no greater man on earth spitting this knowledge right now.

He is without a doubt, the world leader in understanding what makes us tick as people, and understands the individual better than anyone. But he suffers from the same belief system issue that nearly every guy had before his "unicorn" showed him she was just like "those other girls."

The collective knowledge of hundreds of thousands of men dictates that we do not know another way that men reach the next stage. And so, my concerns are that Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is unable to be moved from his position unless his family were to be put through peril. And even if, he'd likely externalize it on his work schedule, failing as a father or a lover, if the issue was instead arousal in say the introduction of a competing male while he was away.

Loss of female arousal to the male, after retention costs exceed trading costs.

Again, the male *must be willing to enforce his provisioning within the nuclear family, while sexually active with his wife, at all costs. Whether or not this man is moral or amoral in his choice of monogamy, extramarital partners etc, actually has a paradoxical outcome on marriage outcome anecdotally within these communities.

Put frankly, a civilized monster would cheat on his wife almost without pause, and yet the men you'd orient to the sexual marketplace, certainly would be draped in morality. Almost certainly, instead, what Dr. Jordan B. Peterson would advocate for would be to "masquerade as a short term mate." To ultimately still be a "real man." This is, not markedly different than the very same men he rightfully bemoans.

This well reasoned, seemingly articulate argument fails at a basic level, which is...

Dr. Peterson, we all tried that. Replacing a low-t, agreeable man who is within an egalitarian relationship with a man with a pair who sets boundaries will not change the fact that failure is a feature, not a flaw of evolution. We will never return to "enforced monogamy" and so only thing men can reply with is to "enforce provisioning."

Monogamy wasn't "legally enforced" it was just enforced de facto.

In a world where women offer freely what was once coveted, this is a fair trade.

And that... is the birth of the real monster. That realization, that women do not accept this compromise, because they can't, is the birth of amorality.

Ultimately, men aren't entitled to a woman's "love" (arousal) and men need to be willing to defend themselves against provisioning once the gig is up, at any and all costs.

I have given you every bit of understanding you need in this post. DO NOT EVER promise to provision outside of the nuclear family, while she is sexually active with you. You have your word, and your balls, don't break them for anyone. If she doesn't understand you, if you don't believe this deep within yourself, if this is not 100.00% congruent to you, then you are not oriented to deal with the world. If you are not capable of enforcing this, work on yourself until you understand this. It is the only thing you need to understand. Not the myriad of legal frameworks, PUA gimmicks, TPR theory etc. Just learn what separates you from the guy you wouldn't talk shit to in the bar. What separates you as men, defines the requisite capability of a man who wants to start a family to protect himself against female nature.

To reject de facto provisioning after the end of a relationship creates her own "duty of performance." Stop ascribing to ideas of women worshipping good men, when they just tolerate them. Women who are not fighting the battle with themselves will never leave a man who is satisfying her in bed, and helping to raise children, even if he does monstrous things.

Again, I agree with Peterson, but only in the way he's not willing to understand accept the very thing he's selling us. We can't in any way claim he "discovered this by accident" or "he's right, but for the wrong reason." Given his level of involvement at a clinical level.

He knows this, he just chooses to believe what he wants to be true, what he chooses to see as the solution. He wants to believe like nearly every man here, that women will respond to "the compromise" and accept the good man with an edge, and they will, until evolution steps in.

Then all the "good boy" points are invalidated, and guys land here look for answers. And they, like Peterson, will push back that we "aren't real men" but instead "little boys who are exploiting women."

Almost none of us started from the position of amorality.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, I politely ask that you refrain from pushing the very narrative that has destroyed a generation of men already. There are distinct male orientations and institutional changes (that do not involve "forced monogamy") that can change that, but right now, you are hurting, not helping men in this domain while helping them still find purpose and meaning in their increasingly meaningless lives.

Please, refrain from pushing this narrative until you are willing to have someone challenge you on it. You are equipped to understand this and change the world, if you choose, but you are having an existential conflict where your very morality is up against the truths you've grappled with for 20 years.

You want the men you're talking to, most of whom are in the 50th percentile, to perform to the 95% percentile, and if they fail at that, lay blame at their feet. Which isn't wrong in a literal sense, but doesn't make sense from a pragmatic perspective.

Making men own their lives is important. Marching them into the grinder is reprehensible.