Foreign Brides

It's summer, and being at the moment much distracted by matters of love & real estate, I have decided to do a little "recycling." I wrote this about ten years ago, in response to seeing the following post on Seattle Craigslist Rants'n'Raves (which was the masochistic pleasure I indulged in before discovering the "manosphere").
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Guys if you want a Real lady Thailand is the place to find them! The bitches here ( I wont call them ladies) are a bunch of fucking Flakes 

Ah, yes, the enduring allure of the Asian wife: slender, petite, soft-spoken, submissive. 

I don't see my neighbor Frank much, even though he lives right across the street. He's a bit reclusive... or whatever you call someone who keeps all the windows in his house papered over with aluminum foil. But I hear (through my kindly neighbor, who's really in the loop on our cul-de-sac) that he was so set on marrying a virgin that he sent for one by mail, all the way from the Philippines. Unfortunately, after several years of marital bliss, she high-tailed it back to Manila. He still sends her money, though, so he must remember her fondly.

Fresh, tender cherry blossoms... or iron butterflies? 

In my line of work, I get to meet quite a few of these odd couples. A few years ago, a middle-aged Boeing machinist with a pronounced limp and one crusty eye swaggered into the office, towing a tiny, limpid Vietnamese girl who looked barely pubescent. "She needs to learn her some English," he growled. "I warn you, though, she's a real beginner. She no speak English good," he bellowed the last pidgin sentence into her ear.

I began to assess her proficiency by asking her name. She looked at me, mute and apparently bewildered, although, as is often the case, her control of the language increased exponentially once Big Daddy was banished from the room.

It didn't surprise me that she turned out to be a stellar student and is now enrolled in college studying to be an RN. In another year she will graduate and be ready to dump the lame-ass who brought her here and subsidized her education. Sure, his heart will be broken at first, but then hoo boy! will he be pissed off! Especially since Washington is a community property state.

It's easy to feel contemptuous of these suckers and to hate their beyond-patriarchal attitudes ("I paid for her, she's mine") which are rooted in a generalized misogyny and -- let's face it -- demonstrate a sound rejection of American women. (I mean, it's not like I want to marry a mean, stupid, toothless Boeing machinist, but still...)

It's easy to feel sorry for their wives, at least initially: vulnerable, exploited girls who should still be under the protection of their loving families and enjoying their care-free youths back home instead of sexually indenturing themselves to old coots. Local murders like that of Susana Blackwell (shot in a Seattle courthouse by her estranged American husband), or, more recently, that of Anastasia King, are not very common, but underscore how vulnerable these women are.

I'm not without a measure of compassion for both parties, actually: Everyone needs love and everyone needs money. On the face of it, these marriages should be win/win arrangements. And I suppose most marriages are compromises of some sort. We all make "deals." Hell, I'm not even married, and my sexual/romantic life is just one rather unsatisfactory "deal" after another. [Update: Glad to report that is no longer true since I climbed off the "cock carousel" and found my soul-mate alpha bitch.]

But these marriages are deals with the devil. The difference is that one party doesn't get it, at least not right away (and maybe never -- I heard Frank is courting another Filipina through one of the thousands of internet sites available for just that purpose). The other party is under no illusions, although perhaps underestimates the physical risk by underestimating the potential danger of violence. She jumps at the best chance life offers her: winner take all.

A reader followed up to this post by asking, "What is it about the Russian mail-order brides on which these guys hitch their fantasies?" 

That's an easy one: They are white. 

Guys who look to the former Soviet Union are a little different. They tend to be slightly higher in class (not high class, mind you, just white-collar rather than blue-collar). They are liberal enough not to require their wives be virgins; a surprising number marry divorcees with children. Their dream is to acquire the trappings of upward mobility (house, boat, trophy wife) for which they lack the personal means (looks, charm, income). Therefore, they are bargain hunters.

Former satellite states such as Moldava, Ukraine, and Kirghistan are, for them, a shopper's paradise. Nowhere can they get more bang for their buck. The women are beautiful in all the ways they, and the peers they want to impress, most value: statuesque, blonde, fashion-conscious. (Even though their fashion aesthetic owes more to Las Vegas than to Vogue, and on our suburban campus they stand out like very expensive call girls who have wandered into a Walmart.)

One can only squirm as their proud husbands gush about how well these women "fit in" with their families here in the States. After all, they already "look like" Americans (that is to say, white)!

These men are a bit too "evolved" and far too romantic to openly value submission in their wives. Instead, they will allude to other qualities: loyalty, beauty, maternal potential. Russian (or Ukrainaian or Moldavan) wives make good mothers, you see, because they (unlike American women) understand the importance of family. (Never mind that Russia has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, significantly higher than the U.S.)

The fantasy element these guys have in common with all American men who marry women from poor countries is that they are White Knights. They assume that the women will be grateful for having been rescued. And even more fatally, they believe that this gratitude will morph into love. Only in the movies, kids! 

They are ignoring a fundamental principle of human nature: We are not automatically grateful to those to whom we are economically beholden. In fact, we often resent and despise them. (My experience as a foster parent, which I'll write about later, taught me this.)

I see quite a few of these eastern bloc ladies in my classes, though lately fewer Russians, which makes me wonder if conditions there are picking up. Often well-educated in their own countries -- especially likely if they are Russian -- they tend to place high on entry and make rapid progress through the system. I find them to be excellent students and terrifying forces of nature. They are the least sentimental, most brazenly opportunistic, of the mail order wives. They're relatively easy to talk to -- forthright, articulate, poised -- and relatively difficult to like. They come with the attitude I've gotten this far, just don't get in my way, bitch. 

I've never met one who even pretended to like her American husband. It's not unusual, although no less bizarre, to see a Russian surgeon mated to a used car dealer. He's bursting with pride at her accomplishment, but what was he thinking? (She makes no bones what she's thinking: the more English she learns, the more he displeases her.) She encourages him to adopt her adolescent children and bring them over, which he practically bankrupts himself to do. But she isn't having any kids with him any time soon. Once she gets her permanent residency and is reunited with as many members of her biological family as possible, it's all over but the shoutin'. If she remarries (though why should she?) it will be to a fellow immigrant, one she recognizes as a peer, often someone from her hometown.

What's Your Name? Who's Your Daddy?

One of the most cherished delusions of the manosphere is that women "hit the wall" (somewhere at the tail end of their twenties), while men go on and on and on, just getting more deliciously seasoned with age.  Apparently, this may not be true.  According to The Daily Mail, the age at which most men become "invisible" to younger women is 39.  Yep, that's the age at which girls begin to perceive men as "father figures." And who wants to be ogled by Daddy? I mean, like, ee-yewww... 

Roosh himself acknowledged recently that the party doesn't go on forever, even for experts of game:

No matter how good your game gets, a 23-year-old girl will have less primal attraction for your 53-year-old self than when you were 33. This suggests that there is definitely a peak for men, and while there is some argument about the exact age, consensus among men I’ve talked to suggests it’s around 43.

43? When I was 23, I thought 30 was plenty older, and 43 downright "old." But perhaps Roosh has a few good years of chasing nubile young poosy before he has to either "settle" or "sponsor a gold-digger" (which, unless he plans to come into an inheritance, he'll be hard-pressed to do on the slender living he ekes out from hawking his wretched little rape manuals). Hope he's making the best of his time in Russia, cuz any way you slice it, Roosh, it's all downhill from here...

Edward Leedskalnin, Early MGHOW

Last summer, my partner and I spent a couple of weeks in Florida.  We loved St. Augustine, loathed Miami, and I spent a lot of time either soaking in the pool or making friends with the hotel bartender while my partner and her son enjoyed the Orlando theme parks. One morning my partner, who is a very spontaneous travel companion, woke me up at what I call "zero dark thirty" (it was probably around seven, the crack of dawn in vacation time) to excitedly announce we were going to make a pilgrimage to something called "The Coral Castle," which my partner recalled from the old "Ripley's Believe It or Not" column that used to be featured in the "funny pages" of local newspapers.

Several hours later, we arrived at the gates of this marvelous monstrosity:

Prepare to be amazed.

Edward Leedskalnin was a Latvian immigrant at the turn of the last century who, like many MGTOW, was disappointed in love. When the gal he'd set his cap for permanently and irrevocably "friend-zoned" him, he made his way to Southern Florida, where he devoted the rest of his life to building a "coral rock" Taj Mahal in order to win her affections. He worked tirelessly, mostly at night and behind a tall wall, so the townsfolk of Homestead couldn't see exactly what, or how, he was doing it, but he managed to heave great blocks of coral into place all by himself. He included within this compound all the amenities his lady love would require, too, including a bath tub, his'n'her thrones, and even a creepy little chamber in which he planned to "discipline" their future offspring. Not a detail was overlooked, and not a surface could one sit on without risking serious abrasions.  

Sadly, but not surprisingly, Ed died a bachelor, but his monument endures and and draws thousands of visitors to the pleasant, sleepy hamlet of Homestead, Florida: a testament to the awesome feats a single, ordinary man can achieve when He Goes His Own Way.

Dear Mr. Barnes...

So over at A Voice For Men, Jack Barnes critiqued Matt Forney's latest and most desperate attempt to garner attention, an ode to spanking in order to control women.  I will try to summarize it here as MRAs are notably long-winded, but the gist of it is that Forney is too EASY on women.  By proposing that women's bad behavior must be controlled by men (by physical discipline), he is actually letting women off the hook. And I think Mr. Barnes has an important point. 

Barnes starts by explaining that "strict gender roles, once necessary for human survival" restricted both men and women, but that it was modern women who "chose to case [these] aside... However, they have been reluctant to accept the responsibilities that come with being a fully realized and capable adult."

I myself have come across a few entitled princesses who thought that they should be able to enjoy both "equality" and the dubious benefits of "chivalry."  Whether they are representative of most self-identified "feminists" I doubt.  

I am a never-married woman nearly sixty who has been fully self-supporting since the age of twenty. I may have occasionally been "reluctant to accept the responsibilities," but I had little alternative. Although I often longed to be "equally yoked" to a caring spouse, the men who wanted to marry me were not capable or willing to pull their share of the freight. I put one boyfriend through college, another through truck-driving school, hoping they would prove to be the "responsible spouse" I longed for, but when, after considerable financial and emotional investment, neither came through, I had to cut them off and walk away, not because I didn't care about them, but because my resources were limited: it was literally a matter of survival.  But maybe I've just been unusually unlucky or inept at husband-hunting? I don't shirk responsibility for my own poor choices here, just telling you very frankly what the reality of my life has been.

The fact is, at the time, I loved each of these men, and wanted nothing more than to contribute to their happiness and success. That they turned out to be poor investments of my money and energy does not change that reality. I take some comfort in knowing that in my long, checkered history of pair-bonding attempts, I have at least never left any man worse off for having known me. Yeah, I may be a "snowflake" but I don't think my experience makes me particularly "special."

"Despite what feminists would have you believe, men are, in fact, human beings and deserve to be treated as such."

Mr. Barnes, you have a very warped perception of what a feminist is. 

Mr. Barnes, I am a "feminist" who strongly supports, among other MRM causes, fathers' rights, and the protection of boys and incarcerated men from sexual assault or other forms of violence. I hate those commercials and sit-coms that portray men as bumbling idiots as much as you do. I rail against an economy and a military industrial complex that treats working-class males as cannon fodder. I have no beef with couples who choose to organize their personal lives according to "traditional" gender roles either. I do not believe in the inherent superiority of either gender.

Here's the deal with Men's Rights Activists like you, Mr. Barnes. You simply do not understand what (mainstream) "feminism" is. If you did, you would see that our goals are very much aligned. It's ridiculous for you to allow your "movement" to be infiltrated with misogynists. You complain that Matt Forney's ideas are immoral and loathsome, and I agree. What are you doing to disavow those same loathsome and immoral ideas from being broadcast by A Voice For Men?

"Women need to grow up. They are adults, which means they and they alone are responsible for themselves."

I couldn't agree more.

"Forney’s belief that it is a man’s responsibility to shape and mold an adult woman into behaving like an adult is a burden that no man should have placed on him. It is a burden that any intelligent man would swiftly reject along with the woman who doesn’t know how to behave."

I absolutely agree.

"Let’s try the radical notion that women are adults... Let’s expect women to behave as adults, and when they don’t, we find another woman to spend time with."

Yes, yes, let's!

So remind me... What is it, exactly, that we're fighting about?

Hitting the Wall Softly

It goes without saying that I am so far beyond "The Wall," I am practically knocking on Heaven's Gate. But if The Wall is defined as the moment a woman realizes that she no longer commands the Male Gaze, I reckon I didn't hit it until I was in my early forties. I was about 45 when, for the first time in my adult life, I found I could walk into a bar unaccompanied and nurse a drink for a full hour in uninterrupted solitude.  Suddenly -- it seemed overnight -- I was as invisible as a ghost, passing unseen in streets, browsing undetected in stores, attracting neither positive nor negative attention everywhere I went.

As we all know, it is a basic tenet of the manosphere that American women spend their twenties "riding the cock carousel" until they see thirty candles on their cake, and realize the day has come when they must resign themselves to dusty spinsterhood, fill the yawning void of their barren lives with either cats or sperm-jacked infants -- or else settle for some "beta" chump and start pumping out the requisite 2.5 kids to fill a tract house in the suburbs. You know, I really have no right to deride Roosh for extending his own adolescence into his mid-thirties; I did exactly the same thing. I was at least 35 when it dawned on me that maybe I should start looking around for an agreeable man to knock me up. Oops!

Fortunately, Roosh has had a revelation: "The Wall Is Softer Than We Think."  Which is good news for older women, bad news for guys like Roosh: "The wall for women is more like a speed bump that any woman with half a brain can easily pass at high speed."

You see, savvy spinsters 35-85 have technology to efficiently sift through the remainder bins of available mates, "while forcing the bottom 90% of men to lower themselves through clown game or copy pasta begging on OK Cupid." It's true that a male friend of mine who dipped his toe in Our Time reported a rush of attention --  primarily from the septuagenarian ladies.

"We all want to believe that women will be punished for their bad decisions in life, because there’s no doubt that as men we are punished for ours." Hmm... I'm not sure which "bad decisions" Roosh feels he is being punished for, but I imagine abandoning a career as a biologist in order to pursue "poosy" full-time -- and then blogging about it under his real name -- must be among them. Double oops!

"We want to think that women will be reprimanded for passing on good men in their prime to have sex with bad boys who don’t care about them. But very few will. They will have their cake and eat it too, simply because they have a vagina in a time and place where vagina has the highest value it has ever had." Hey, does this mean we're heading for a "vagina bubble" in the near future?  How will a "vagina crash" impact the global economy? (As for having my cake and eating it too, that reminds me: I still have some left over from my birthday in the freezer. Yay me!)

"In my recent stay in America I was shocked to see the nearly unlimited choice that women over 30 still have to at least get sex, and if you tell them about the wall they would not understand what you speak of. The wall, we must now admit to ourselves, has just as much power in our minds as in reality." Actually, Roosh has been stewing about Elder Sluts for years.

"There will be no redemption. There will be no comeuppance. For most of their lives, women will have it easier than us..." 

I don't know about that. The opportunity to get laid any night of the week does not necessarily "the good life" make. And furthermore, I see little evidence that one gender has it much harder than the other, and how would one quantify respective degrees of hardship, and what does it matter anyway? I used to think that wearing heels and hose everyday was a far greater burden than having to shave every morning or change my own tires. Now I'm compulsively plucking my chin hairs and wearing flat, velcro-strapped mary janes with everything I own like some superannuated toddler, so... 

Let's just agree that being a human is hard, and that sooner or later, everyone eats his (or her) peck of shit. We all have needs, sometimes competing needs: the need for freedom, the need for security; the need for recognition, the need for privacy; the need to find love, the pain of losing that love. We all get old -- that is, if we're lucky -- and we all will experience the physical deterioration that is part of the normal aging process. It's tempting to envy the heirs to great fortunes and Hollywood stars for their "easy" lives, but even Casey Kasem, grossly neglected by his once beautiful blonde trophy wife, died, in the end, of a bedsore. 

"The truth is that any woman who rejects me today will never regret it."

Now that I believe! I'll even take it so far as to declare that any woman who "bangs" Roosh will always regret it.

But getting back to "the wall" metaphor, it occurs to me that what we often think of as "walls" really are more like "doors." About a decade ago, I went out the door of youthful, fertile femininity and emerged in another country called Middle Age Cronedom. Once I had overcome the "culture shock," I began to perceive certain advantages of escaping the male gaze, a freedom and dignity that I had only hitherto experienced as a small child or when wearing an abaya and veil in the middle east. This new "invisibility" can be exhilarating, not unlike discovering a latent "super power." Security and customs officials wave me through lines without meeting my eyes; I wouldn't be altogether surprised to discover that security cameras can no longer capture my image. Certainly, this is the time in my life to consider a second career as a world-class thief, con artist, or terrorist. Strange men, who no longer find me sexually viable, either ignore me completely or initiate oddly frank and self-disclosing conversations: I have, it appears, become everyone's favorite maiden aunt. Students have become more respectful as I have become more direct and authoritative. I can get away with all sorts of bossy behaviors and displays of temperament without causing offense. Although I care less about being found "pleasing," I am certainly kinder in my intentions. In short, an aging female finally enjoys the opportunity to be her most authentic self.

I'm happily coupled and hope to remain so for the rest of my life, but if I were to find myself a lonely singleton, I would have pretty much the same options I had twenty years ago. I could look for a new love amongst my current social circle, or once more brave the trenches of online dating. The same choices are there, although given that I am not the same person with the same needs I had at 35 or 40, I might choose another path altogether: I could simply embrace the joys of single life. After all, what more does anyone need to be happy than a little dog, a stack of books, music to listen to, a small garden to tend, and meals occasionally enlivened by wine and conversation?

Solipsistic Females Invading Men's Spaces!

Red Cross nurses landing on Normandy Beach in 1944

Is A Voice For Men A Cult?

Lately I've been reading American Crucifixion by Alex Beam.  My fascination with the early history of the LDS Church is rooted in my genealogy: my mother's family were (and mostly are) devout Mormons and I was raised to take great pride in the fact that some of my ancestors were members of Brigham Young's first party of pioneers to settle the Salt Lake Valley.  My mother attended Brigham Young University on scholarship, where she met her first husband.  However, in her early twenties she divorced frivorced him to run off with my father, who she judged had better financial prospects.  (Turns out she judged wrong on that count, but what could she do, driven as all women are by the mandates of hypergamy?)  At the same time, she officially renounced her ties to the LDS Church. 

And so I was born to a mother who was deeply ambivalent about her religious heritage.  On one hand, she taught me that the LDS Church was a cult that was based on a bizarre doctrine; that the prophet himself was a fraud and a plagiarist; that polygamy was an evil institution that oppressed the women and exhausted the men.  On the other hand, she taught me that Mormon pioneers were the strongest, most admirable people that had ever lived, whose work and spiritual ethics and dedication to The Great Idea wrought a virtual Eden from some of the most inhospitable country imaginable; that they had been unfairly maligned, persecuted, and suffered because of the envy and bigotry of the Gentiles.

My mother's legacy has left me struggling with a lot of questions about my forebears.  My biggest question has always been, What compelled my ancestors to embrace such a cult?  What persuades anyone to join cults?  And why haven't I, despite my genetic predisposition (as evidenced by a serious flirtation with various religions) ever been remotely tempted to join a cult?

One of the most interesting revelations in Beam's biography is that Joseph Smith was not an entirely admired figure even within his own band of devotees.  His "martyrdom" contributed mightily to his subsequent idealization.  There was considerable dismay and criticism about Smith's revelations concerning polygamy ("celestial marriage"), and the principle was not shared outside the closest ranks for years (his wife Emma never acknowledged it).  Even his closest acolytes saw something sinister and self-serving in Smith's insistence that polygyny was God's will.  Yet they eventually accepted the commandment, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, set forth to enter into plural marriages themselves. And later they embarked on many other dark chapters, including the political shenanigans that led to their violent expulsion first from Missouri, and then from Illinois, and later still, the infamous, long-denied Mountain Meadows Massacre.  No, it's not hard to understand why, after reading Beam's book, they were so hated and feared by the frontier residents who had first welcomed them.

Over the last century, the Church has sought to assimilate itself within mainstream Christianity although, Mitt Romney's campaign notwithstanding, it has a way to go to escape its early reputation as a cult, partly because its members persist in wearing "garments," baptizing by proxy Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and indulging in other undeniably odd and -- to many non-Mormons -- offensive practices, not the least of which is to control state politics in ways that clearly violate the will of the majority (and echo the behavior that got them burned out of Nauvoo back in 1844).

What Beam is unable to do is depict the powerful charisma I'd always assumed Joseph Smith must have had.  Aside from his bright blue eyes, and a certain way with the ladies (he was nothing if not persistent once he'd identified a likely romantic prospect), he seemed about as charismatic as an insurance salesman.  The majority of people who met him were impervious to his charms.  And, of course, a few people, including his father-in-law, positively despised him.  Perhaps personal charisma cannot adequately explain the success of cult leaders.

And so it was in this frame of mind that I found myself pondering the nature of cults, and wondering if we could fairly characterize various "manosphere" related communities (Dark Enlightenment and other neo-reactionaries, the weird "Christian submissive wife" networks of blogs) as "cults?"

I was watching local activist Lissie's (sworebytheprecious) telephone call with Dean Esmay last night, and it dawned on me: Dean Esmay was speaking like someone who was caught in a cult.  Of course, knowing that Esmay has a long history documented online of getting caught up in various forms of quackery (i.e., AIDS denial) probably informs my perception. His need to reach out to "the enemy" at 4 a.m., while at the same time evincing fear that he would be punished for doing so was striking, and may be why Lissie found the conversation so unnerving.  The paranoid notion that Esmay espouses that David Futrelle is a kind of "puppetmaster" (or "puppet") of a vast feminist conspiracy is also rather extraordinary: 

It's not hard to understand why Paul Elam, with his fierce, grizzled face and Old Testament-style rages, inspires followers to accept him as a kind of prophet, summoned from above to restore the patriarchy.  In the manner of most cult leaders, he rules his followers by alternately exalting or expelling them.  

Here is what David Futrelle has recently observed:

AVFMers are expected not only to accept Elam’s leadership; they’re expected to accept his distinctly non-consensus reality – a world turned upside down in which men are the real victims of domestic violence and rape and pretty much everything else, a world in which the Southern Poverty Law Center is a collection of evil bigots and his motley collection of misogynists is the true human rights movement of the twenty-first century. 

Like a lot of cult leaders, Elam keeps his troops too busy to think straight in a continual frenzy of pseudo-activism. AVFMers are forever brigading comment sections of newspaper articles and YouTube videos in little squads (AVFMers almost always travel in packs), all reciting the same few talking points.

Weirdly, the dynamics of internet discussions can actually reinforce this kind of intellectual conformity, much as Stalin’s control of the media did in his day. No, AVFMers can’t avoid being exposed to facts that contradict the shared (un)reality of their ideological bubble.

But in internet discussions you don’t have to be right in order to convince yourself you’ve won an argument. You just have to be loud and persistent and unwilling to ever give in. You don’t have to convince anyone else of your arguments so long as you convince yourself. MRAs don’t win many arguments on their merits, but they manage to convince themselves they win every one.

The trouble is that when they step outside of their regular stomping grounds on the internet, this strategy – so effective in generating ideological conformity amongst cult members – falls completely apart.

Like most successful cult leaders, Paul Elam has solidified his cult base by recruiting women.  "The Honey Badgers Brigade" are an integral part of his self-styled position as grand patriarch and prophet.  Cults cannot survive without female converts; they are the most fervent, loyal members and the most willing to sublimate their own egos to ensure the survival of the group.  Within any burgeoning religious or political movement, women are the worker bees, zealously serving the agents of their own oppression. Plus they bring the male converts on board! Although I have to admit paying $5000+ to be "love bombed" by typhonblue doesn't sound all that enticing... 

In fact, watching the Honey Badger Brigade, I am reminded of Mark Twain's visit to Salt Lake City as a young man in 1861.  Finding Mormon women not much to his taste, Twain remarked, "The man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure, and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."