"In pervasive female self-honesty begins the only hope of not training up more generations of jerks. "

I just read a post by Eric S. Raymond on his take on the PUA (Pick-Up Artist) and wanted to share it with my readers (thanks to Engineer Bob for sending this to me) because it is a brilliant analysis. Here is an excerpt:

The reason women need be paying attention to PUA goes much deeper than just notching up another escalation in the jerk-vs.-bitch arms race. It’s because until women stop lying to themselves about their actual behavior, they won’t have any prayer of becoming self-aware enough to change the sexual reward pattern they present to men. In pervasive female self-honesty begins the only hope of not training up more generations of jerks. And it’s there that the pitiless, revealing glare of the PUA spotlight might help....

Ladies, with having more power over sexual outcomes there comes more responsibility. And there’s this, too; just suppose the great mass of men stopped thinking with their dicks and 99% of them suddenly became sensitive New Age guys eager to commit. Until most women stopped being cruel to betas and rewarding men who behave like dominating jerks with sex, nothing….nothing would change. PUA game would still work. The tragedy to which it is a minimax response would still be in motion.

I don’t have any final answers either. But, gentle reader…if you’re a beta male and not a natural, learning some PUA game might sound icky but it would sure beat masturbating to porn for the rest of your life. And if you’re female, think hard about the last guy you slept with and the last guy you friend-zoned. Maybe you owe yourself a rethink and friend-zone guy an apology, of the kind best delivered naked.

CNBC: Why Men Date Dumb and Women Don't:

As it turns out, intelligence in men is correlated with valuing sexual exclusivity. A 2010 study by London School of Economics professor Santoshi Kanazawa established the relationship. More intelligent American boys are more likely to grow up to value sexual exclusivity in early adulthood than less intelligent boys......

Smarter women are no more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less intelligent women.

Note the negative title on this article. Men date across the spectrum of intelligence, women prefer smarter men. Smarter men are more monogamous, yet they date "dumb" women. Isn't there a better title than "Men Date Dumb..."? That's derogatory towards both men and women. Is it just to make the smarter women feel better?

"Every response that led to paying work was from a man."

Susannah Breslin on being laid off (via Instapundit):

After my post went live, I linked to it on Facebook and Twitter. I emailed the link to men and women. Men responded by introducing me to someone who was in a position to hire me, by sending me links to job listings that could be a fit, or by directing me to opportunities that resulted in paying work.

Women responded emotionally — with support or sympathy. Men responded proactively. Women responded passively — or not at all. Every response that led to paying work was from a man.

A commenter (Lydia Netzer) to Breslin's post ponders why women didn't help as much when Breslin was given a pink-slip:

Love this post. I especially was interested in the part about men do / women feel. I hope you elaborate on that in the future. Women secretly don’t want to help you succeed? Women don’t know what to do to help? Women aren’t in a position to help?

Perhaps this is a case where men's skills for taking action come in handy. Many times, women complain that men want to find a solution and do something when faced with a problem. Women often want to talk about it, but talking is not always the answer, especially in the face of unemployment.

"A man's sexual life is viewed with suspicion and sometimes disgust by women,..."

Monty over at Ace of Spade's blog discusses Hymowitz's book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys:

The big problem with modern heterosexual relationships is that apart from the sex, there's really not much in it for men any more. Men have few legal rights over their own progeny; family law for decades has whittled away a man's parental rights to little more than a financial obligation. If the woman already has children from a previous marriage, the man incurs an enormous burden in return for very little gain: in most cases he has no parental rights over the children, he competes for his wife's time with the ex (and the ex's family), and he incurs huge financial burdens but gains very little actual power in the household. A man's sexual life is viewed with suspicion and sometimes disgust by women, who seem to want to train a man's sex drive in the same way they train a naughty dog. A man alone with a small child is a man always on the verge of being accused as a child molester or abuser -- society has made single men afraid to even approach children who are not their own (and sometimes even when the children are their own).

The Daily Beast: "Men in their twenties and thirties are fed up with women, but author Kay Hymowitz says you can’t blame them when women are demanding equality except when it comes to romance."

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Back Pain

I just got a new book in the mail called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Back Pain which seemed appropriate since I just got back from physical therapy to help me deal with back pain caused by the computer. Anyway, the book was written by Jason Highsmith, M.D. who is a neurosurgeon and Jovanka Millivojevic, a health writer and fitness expert.

The book is easy to read and follow as it should be since it's one of the "Complete Idiot's Guides." I was glad to see that the authors focused on those of us with sedentary jobs that still wreck havoc on our backs. The computer has definitely caused some wear and tear on my neck and back but that doesn't mean I will give it up.

There is a chapter on Ergonomics that discusses solutions for daily back pain culprits, how to make adjustments for your back at home, work and play and how to get a good night's sleep. Another chapter on neck pain and how it relates to back pain was good as it discusses the neck's anatomy and different syndromes that can produce back pain. Since the book is written in part by a surgeon, it gives good information on different types of surgeries of the neck and back and talks about the latest and greatest treatments of back pain such as stem cell research and clinical trials.

Exercising for a Happy, Health Back and a chapter on Pilates and Yoga had good advice for do-it-yourselfers and included some exercises to lengthen and strengthen the back.

Well, I think I'll go try out some of these exercises, my aching back could use it.