You’re leaving? Why? The party’s just getting started.

Why are you quitting?

What’s the male pro-independence equivalent to a woman needing a man like a fish needs a bicycle? Rhetorical, I think.

Not rhetorical at all:
“If it flies, floats, or f*cks, you’re better off renting.”

Thanks for all the excellent posts.

It’s not a question of sex, but of access.

Also, marriage and relationships are more than just about sex. If a vibrator or pr0n solves it for you, then you are doing it wrong.

Women are the ones who men go after, so they can afford to pretend to be uninterested or take more time to evaluate their choices.

The main problem is losing their fertile years in hopeless hypergamous pursuits.

It is stupid to lose your fertile years having sex with several supposed alphas and then ending up a cat lady, or as a single mom (with a mulatto baby perhaps).

I know several attractive white women, now in their thirties, they didn’t marry, have no kids, they just pursued their “career” and “casual sex”, now they are increasingly desperate and you see them posting increasingly insane virtual-signalling stuff on social media about saving the whales in Tibet or black children in the Amazon.

When the comment window closes on this post, it will move into the archives. See you around the interwebs, friends.

Why? While I am not a great fan of statistics, it was one of the few blogs at UR that made some commonsensical points and didn’t require moderation (nor blocked people who disagreed, like some megalomaniac Russian bloggers)

I will miss your blog. I really enjoyed your posts and the comments. I would check in a few times a day. Of all the blogs this one felt like home to me.

I hope you reconsider and decide to stick around. I didn’t comment much here, but your blog was among the best, and will be missed.

See ya bro!

Sorry you are wrapping it up. Great job, I have really enjoyed the blog. Thanks and good luck.

Audacious Epigone’s focus on data, factoid sets, graphs, and charts, have been devastating key weapons in the culture wars … distinctive, valuable, and not easily replaced

general reaction to AE’s departure –

Sorry to see you go, you’re one of my favorite bloggers, maybe my favorite actually. Loved all the statistical work, it’s a shame there really aren’t other out there doing this.

Enjoy the family and have a good rest of your life!

Agreed – sad news.

There are a few U.S. commenters with whom I’d like to keep in touch, who have made a sufficient number of thoughtful comments over long enough a period that I am satisfied that they are no Feds. They can probably guess who they are, but earlier comments of mine have carried a nonexistent email address, whereas this comment carries an email address that actually works.

It’s the last chance to ask AE to put you and me in touch, if that is what you wish.

there is also the acquisition marriage

I am so steeped in the culture of marriage of equals that the third option didn’t even occur to me! Thanks for pointing that out.

And let me add a heart-felt agreement to those who have paid tribute to you. You have been a welcome voice of reason and sanity. As far as I can tell, you are the only blogger on Unz who publicly acknowledged and issued corrections when you were wrong about something, however few those instances were. That kind of intellectual honesty is indeed rare in this day of mindless tribalism, innumerate obstinacy, and ideological hardness. You are a Mensch.

I shall miss your writing and your presence on Unz (and now that the best part of Unz Review is gone, I think I will follow the example you set and reduce my own participation as well).

I wish you and your family well (have a few more kids!), and in your future endeavors. God bless.

It’s the last chance to ask AE to put you and me in touch, if that is what you wish.

Alternately, here is a better solution: a longtime reader who likes statistics, stands close to AE’s worldview, and is willing to spend the time, might negotiate to assume management of the blog.

That’s easy for me to say, since no one can fill AE’s shoes, anyway; but because I like the blog and like the blog’s commenters even more, I would prefer competent new management to just watching the blog close and the blog’s commentariat scatter to the four winds!

But, then, if the blog’s most valuable commenter by the consensus of many, Twinkie, means to retire, too, then maybe it was not meant to be.

Damn. One of the few (and fewer all the time) sources of pleasant, useful entertainment and information gone. I will miss it. Just like employees: The good ones move on to other things and the bad ones cling like barnacles.

Via con Dios, AE.

AE – You have unearthed valuable data and brought a perspective to our times that has been helpful to me in my own development. You will be greatly missed.

Good Luck.

Good Bye.

Came for Mefobills, stayed for Audacious Epigone. I only regret I discovered this blog relatively late; I’ll be digging through the archives. Thank you for all the erudite and even-handed analysis, and good luck.

Consider that there will undoubtedly be new events and developments where your take would be welcome to many of us, and I do enjoy reading a number of the regular commenters in reaction to it. I understand that producing a high volume can be laborious, but the well-timed and occasional post would be great. Very interesting group here and it would be a shame to see it dissolve.

All that said, best of luck and obviously you have to do what feels right. Hope to see your re-emergence at some point!

A tip of the hat to you.

You made a great case for self-determination.

Next year in Redstan.

It’s been a real joy.

Stay Audacious my man. It’s been a pleasure.

List them here. If they respond and the emails associated with your handles are real, that’ll be easy to facilitate.

If any of the following were passing through my area, I wish that he would drop by for supper: Almost Missouri; iffen; Mario Partisan; Mark G.; nebulafox; res; RSDB; Twinkie; Wency. Each is a better man than I, so for me to ask is presumptuous, but there is my list.

Of course, the incomparable dfordoom would be welcome in my home any time. It would be a special day, to be marked in red ink on my calendar; but my home stands so far away from his, his visit will never happen, sadly. My home isn’t much to boast of, anyway, so he’ll not be missing much in that respect.

There are a few others (Athletic and Whitesplosive, Barbarossa, Boomthorkell, WorkingClass and especially Catdog come to mind) with whom I have not had quite enough interaction to be sure, but whom I appreciate nevertheless. There is one (not listed) with whom I have already got in touch. I have valued Jay Fink’s tolerance more than he probably realizes, but to invite Jay under the circumstance would be pressing, so when it comes to Jay I should defer. As for A123, a persistent sparring partner is hard to find and I shall remember him well in that role.

It is stupid to lose your fertile years having sex with several supposed alphas and then ending up a cat lady, or as a single mom (with a mulatto baby perhaps).

I know several attractive white women, now in their thirties, they didn’t marry, have no kids, they just pursued their “career” and “casual sex”, now they are increasingly desperate and you see them posting increasingly insane virtual-signalling stuff on social media about saving the whales in Tibet or black children in the Amazon.

I wouldn’t pass too much judgement on them. Most were indoctrinated.

I worked around liberal White women and there was a much bigger problem with them holding out for a White man that was already taken. They were all waiting for a man that checked the right amount of boxes and not really getting that there is no secret supply of White collar White men that smell nice and vote Democrat.

They weren’t hitting the bars either. Most were going home to watch TV. One spoke of her dog as if it was her boyfriend. It was really sad. If someone brought in kids their female genes did not go unnoticed. Liberalism tries to program women into thinking that kids will not make them happy and yet I’ve never met a woman with kids that was as unhappy as a liberal cat mom. It’s all a lie.

It isn’t so much that they never wanted children or wanted to slut it up for years. Those women are out there but most got some stupid liberal arts degree and now think they are part of the Smart Class and as such expect a White man with minimal build/height/career/etc. The liberal men they work with are pretty much ignored and get friend zoned. By the time they realize they were too picky their options are even more limited. This is a huge problem that no one seems to be addressing.

Sorry, AE, I was caught up in farewells and failed to write a straightforward list: Almost Missouri; dfordoom; iffen; Mario Partisan; Mark G.; nebulafox; res; RSDB; Twinkie; Wency. I press none of them, for some probably have more to lose by compromising anonymity than I have, but there is the list.

It’s beginning, one way or another. I’m in for a very interesting year or two.

The difference is that I-and I alone-am going to be the one consciously writing it now.

What’s the male pro-independence equivalent to a woman needing a man like a fish needs a bicycle? Rhetorical, I think.

If we couldn’t fuck ’em, there’d be bounties on their heads.

I share in the many expressions of gratitude, and of sadness to see this pub close. The loss is quite significant because these days even conservative media like The Wall Street Journal resort to vague adjectives without quantitatively addressing the magnitude.

Thanks again, AE. And many thanks to the commenters, for your insights, anecdotes, humor, and companionship.

….there is no secret supply of White collar White men that smell nice and vote Democrat.

Some years ago I was scanning a thread on a liberal blog. It was mostly women complaining about the lack of or the quality of available men. Trying to be helpful I suggested they might try dating men who work with their hands. They attacked me like a swarm of killer bees.

Blessed are the Redneck Girls for they shall become mothers and grand mothers.

Very short-term poster, very long-term reader, if off and on. Best of luck in the future. I wish you everything you want!

there is no secret supply of White collar White men that smell nice and vote Democrat.*

Every so often, there is a really great turn of phrase on here. That was one.

Blessed are the Redneck Girls for they shall become mothers and grand mothers.

That was another.

Trying to be helpful I suggested they might try dating men who work with their hands. They attacked me like a swarm of killer bees.

That’s too bad … for all involved: the women who won’t find men because of their liberal prejudice, the men who are deprived of women because the wokarchy declared them off-limits, the children who will never be born because their parentage has been subverted, the happy families that will never be made because of the stealthy (but decreasingly so) genocide.

Among liberalism’s victims are its own adherents. The fail just keeps happening. Has liberalism no endpoint of inevitable self-destruction?

I recall reading the dating advice column in the human interest section of big 1980s newspaper. The story that week was that white-/pink-collar women were discovering happiness with blue-collar men. At the time, I thought, “Why is this a news story? This seems obvious.” But in retrospect, I guess that the women in the article were trying to create some social clearance that dating slightly down the social ladder was okay. (In fact a lot of the tradesmen I now know are better men and make more money than standard-issue office drones, but the stigma of manual labor apparently still persists, even—especially?—among the “liberated”.) The point of this anecdote being that I’m surprised that 30 years later the stigma is still as strong, when every supposedly “oppressed” class is being uplifted and reparated. Someone forgot to include the tradesmen! Who knew that when the workers of the world finally unite, having nothing to lose but their chains, the group that would be left out of the glorious Revolution would be … the actual workers?

On the other hand, that newspaper column was in a Midwestern newspaper, and Midwesterners tend to be practical and commonsensical, so the women they covered were like, “Marry a guy who can actually do stuff? Okay!” It will take some time for the class-bound coastal society to catch up to flyover egalitarianism. Easy does it, Comrades!

—–

*I’m not sure there is much of a supply at all of this, secret or not. There used to be, but that was the in the days of the bad old Democrat Party, not the new woke Party. I was born to Democrat voters, and raised among Democrat voters to be a Democrat voter, yet of all the white men I know who vote Democrat, I can only think of one who is eligible (well, he’s divorced actually) and white collar. And he’s gotta be pushing 60. The rest are all gay, nonwhite, or defective in some way.

I’m honored, and would reciprocate, but although my handle email is real, the service provider has locked me out of it, so I can’t read or send anything from it.

🙁

After many years through various iterations and authorship, it has run its course.

Wait, are you saying you are not the original AE?

Is Audacious Epigone like the Dread Pirate Roberts?

“This COTW roundup will be the blog’s concluding act. After many years through various iterations and authorship, it has run its course. When the comment window closes on this post, it will move into the archives. See you around the interwebs, friends.”

What? No!

Feels bad, man.

“See you around the interwebs, friends.”

Where will we see you again?

Is there no other way? I can only imagine how much time has gone into feeding this blog.

“various iterations and authorship”

I was under the impression that the same gentleman of a small town in middle America continued through time. No?

Deep gratitude for your being a light in the darkness. There must be another way. Can you post less often, like once every week or two instead of 7x a week?

I feel like lights are going out in the world, one-by-one.

I owe a debt of gratitude to AE for offering me the privilege of a guest post. I’m quite sure he is the only blogger here who would have done so. This is sad news for me, for now I don’t know how I will ever get anything published again.

I have been working on my promised long-form African essay, which is through with prewriting and is fully outlined.

I would still like to write for Unz.

Of course, I can always post on my own blog, but it has no audience. I have neither the skills nor the desire to be a webmaster, and I have neither the time nor the personality to spend years writing an endless stream of clickbait posts in order to build up a following. I write “contemporary scholastic philosophy” (I am probably the only person doing so), and it is by nature not glamorous. But I still think it is valuable enough for publication somewhere.

I’m sorry this is happening.

Can’t claim to have been a regular commenter here, but imo it’s a bad sign for Unz review that this blog is ending. It was one of the more moderate and sane parts of the site, with commenters who aren’t just loons and often provided interesting comments. Definitely bodes ill for the future of UR. On the other hand, maybe a good choice to leave that ship.
Anyway, best of luck for whatever you’re going to do.

Yeah he’s good I enjoy his stats. Not sure if he’s one of (((my people))) or just uses the name as a pseudonym . Either way will keep reading him

There are a few U.S. commenters with whom I’d like to keep in touch

Yes, I feel the same way. What’s so unusual about this blog is that it’s been enjoyable and stimulating interacting even with commenters with whom I sometimes disagree. Even with commenters with whom I often disagree! It must be just about the last place left on the internet where people with often diverging political views have been able to interact amicably and fruitfully.

I’d be happy to keep in touch.

>Each is a better man than I, so for me to ask is presumptuous, but there is my list.

Oh, trust me, that’s not true. I’m flattered, though.

Thanks.

As is always the case with manosphere-esque topics, the “carousel” narratives takes a kernel of truth and blows it out of proportion. Most people have more mundane sex lives than you’d guess online. More that time just goes by, life happens, and people always think they can push things off until next year. The rocky economic situation that Millennials face doesn’t help. Long-term unemployment can mean several years out of the dating market. Then there’s the mental health angle…

I think the good news is that younger women-30 and below-are realizing how unhappy these older women are. Many are deciding they don’t want to end up like that. A lot of the recent spate of articles encouraging men to settle down is probably driven by this. Albeit I’ve noticed it carefully targets men who have a variety of options, because public discussion about men who don’t is too poisoned for anybody to touch. Overall, people tend to underestimate who might make a great spouse if you are willing to put in the work. It’s great if you can marry your optimal match, but let’s be real, most people are not going to be that lucky, and will have to compromise if they want to get married.

I should note that men are equally prone to this: I don’t think there’s an innate difference between the sexes so much as there is different conditioning. The difference lies in the fact that the dating market for people in their 20s punishes male delusions much more harshly and directly than female ones, meaning that non-perma incel men are more likely to have had a degree of realism beaten into them by the time they hit marrying age.

It must be just about the last place left on the internet where people with often diverging political views have been able to interact amicably and fruitfully.

And, you know what? With barely no moderation (as far as I know). Compare it to Sailer’s and others who might take hours or even days to approve a post (and others like AK who outright ban).

Perhaps it’s the friendly atmosphere.

Or perhaps, AE’s data-based approach just attracted less crazy commenters. I don’t know.

The difference lies in the fact that the dating market for people in their 20s punishes male delusions much more harshly and directly than female ones, meaning that non-perma incel men are more likely to have had a degree of realism beaten into them by the time they hit marrying age.

Also, women are more prone to romanticize stuff and wait for Prince Charming. Already in the 19th century Stendhal (I think) and Flaubert decried romantic novels for the illusions they created in women (now it’s Hollywood, etc). Men have illusions too, but they end faster and more brutally, so men become pragmatic or resigned sooner – some become just cynical, but then it’s too much. It’s not all bad.

I think the idea of finding a “soul mate” is deeply ingrained in all of us; even if it’s in many ways impossible, it makes sense in a spiritual way, so we keep wishing it.

I’m sure that your reasons for ending the blog are good, but you will be missed AE!

Let me say that I’ve always appreciated AE’s ability to engage with commentors and also his unique penchant for coming up with funny titles.

Very short-term poster

That’s too bad, since I’ve been admiring your recent commenting, even if I don’t agree with all of it.

Speaking of which,

In an age when vibrators are sold on the high street

I guess your (UK?) High Streets are different from our Main Streets?

I’m old enough to remember seeing this being sold on the High Street:

No Sex Please, We’re British!

I am grateful for all the effort you have put into informing the readers of your blog. It is one I read every day and never fail to be improved by your research. I will not urge you to change your mind since that would be an ungracious response to your generous labors on the part of your readers. However, I would still like you to know that I will greatly miss your presence.

As is always the case with manosphere-esque topics, the “carousel” narratives takes a kernel of truth and blows it out of proportion. Most people have more mundane sex lives than you’d guess online.

These incels/manosphere guys much watch Sex and the City and think it is a documentary. When I was single I stopped going to bars because half the time the single women went with the friend that was running defense. Gyms and coffee shops are much better.

This idea of all these single women going to the bars to get laid is mostly Hollywood myth. Sure it happens but it is a Hollywood myth that most single women take up slutting as a hobby. It’s mostly projection based on the false assumption that women are men with boobs.

Overall, people tend to underestimate who might make a great spouse if you are willing to put in the work. It’s great if you can marry your optimal match, but let’s be real, most people are not going to be that lucky, and will have to compromise if they want to get married.

This is a huge part of the problem.

Hollywood tells these women they have prince charming waiting for them. Christianity tells them that God has a pre-ordained soul mate for them. No one is working in their best interest and telling them to find a man with a job while they can.

Most people will not get prince charming/princess babe. That is just the way it is. Both liberals and Christians are pushing unrealistic expectations. Liberals push gender denial and Hollywod fables while Christians tell their followers to pray and wait for a mate. That is terrible advice. God should not be called upon as a matchmaker.

Vibrators in the US are now sold in most major drug stores. They keep one or two models with the condoms.

I talked to someone who worked at one such store and she said they rarely sell them.

It sounded like when they do sell one it was usually to a guy buying one for his girlfriend or wife.

Women really are wired differently.

I can always post on my own blog,

You have a blog? Why not hyperlink it?

but it has no audience

Hmm.

Thanks for the content AE! You were a bastion of sanity and data among a great many hot-takes.

As far as the love & marriage stuff goes — my suspicion is that the people who post most about are those who are single.

-I used to think a fair bit about women until I was 17, got a motorcycle and started sleeping with them.
-I thought a fair bit about marriage until I married the woman I had been thinking about it with at 23.
-I didn’t think much about divorce until she told me she wanted to via a Skype chat while I on a research project in Taiwan.
-I thought a lot about finding a new partner and a good feminine influence for my daughter until I found my current wife in China.
-Now I don’t think very much about marriage or relationships at all. Who has the time with a toddler and one in school?

I’ve met my thinking quota for the month on these things.

Cheers.

Okay, I admit I don’t know this. Now I’m going to have to make an awkward visit to the drug store to see for myself:

“May I help you sir?”

“I’m just here to see the vibr—, I mean cond—, I mean, never mind, I’m fine. That lady over there looks like she needs help!”

Let me say that I’ve always appreciated AE’s ability to engage with commentors and also his unique penchant for coming up with funny titles.

He is intelligent while humble and genuine. Also has a good sense of humor. A truly rare combination.

It is a shame he is going but I assume this blog takes a bit of his time and without any financial compensation.

It sounded like when they do sell one it was usually to a guy buying one for his girlfriend or wife.

All of the women I know, own a vibrator. Many of them are happily married. Some of them need this vibrator to help them climax during sex.

These are highly educated, professional women, under 35, but they are mostly not sexually voracious.*

They shouldn’t need the vibrator, but they get used to it, or the man they are with is insufficiently responsive/they themselves are insufficiently communicative.

*There is one exception; and she is sexually very open and sleeps with both men and women. She does not feel she needs one as she “understands her own body”. She is quite androgynous or even masculine.

I am sorry if you experience this comment as lewd, but it might be useful for you.

I’m sorry to see you go, AE. Your blog has always been a thought-provoking space with excellent commenters. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Epigone: bear in mind that the “Ask A Mexican” blog is standing idle, and ripe for takeover.

Just a thought.

Vibrators in the US are now sold in most major drug stores.

At least a couple of the chain stores, for sure.

Women really are wired differently.

In many cities there are other stores that sell such things, often such stores are either owned by women or hire mostly women as clerks.

None of this is new, of course.

Penguins have had their issues for years.

They were all waiting for a man that checked the right amount of boxes and not really getting that there is no secret supply of White collar White men that smell nice and vote Democrat.

I’m a sample size of one, but my experience was pretty rewarding turning out rich little liberal girls with my wickedly incorrect ways. I’ve been kept in the barn for a couple decades now, but I can’t help but remember how easy it was back then and wonder if the problem today is a lack of masculinity..

Perhaps it’s the friendly atmosphere.

I think this explains quite a bit.

I think the rest is explained by AE’s typical topic selection and how he presents it to we, the blog readers.

AE’s overall presentation style just doesn’t encourage weirdos, trolls, infighting, or even comments that push the boundaries of respectability.

That’s a good thing, considering what one encounters on most of the rest of the Internet.

Not so much that all the ground has been churned, but that you are burning out on it. There’s no shame in that. You are not the first and you’ll not be the last.

Thanks for not being a grifter and for hanging it up rather than phoning it in.

What any of us might hope is to find a worthy successor for the time we’ve wasted here. To that end, have you and Ron discussed at all? Do you know if he has plans to fill this blogging slot? Perhaps with one of the guys you mentioned?

Too many people are afraid to be themselves. They need constant validation, often of the moral kind. This makes them much less attractive.

What is there to be attracted to in a person who is just a conglomeration of other people’s perceptions, expectations and their own anxieties and fears?

Women tell each other “you are OK, you are enough” a lot.

Many men would benefit from being reminded of the same.

You can call this masculinity, but I think integrity or courage fit better.

Incel types blame their looks. This is something they can’t change. Blaming something you can’t change is the narcissist’s excuse for not changing what you can.

Change is about becoming more you, this is what people never realise.

These are highly educated, professional women

Ah, there’s your problem right there.

Where else are they supposed to experience magic? Telling them stories about some guy who had to talk to his followers from a fishing boat over a body of water because he couldn’t organise a TikTik broadcast isn’t going to cut it.

It just doesn’t fit the feel of their lives.

Harry Potter is helpful, ​but where is the mystery, the transmission of authority, the ritual?

Shopping malls are a wasteland of the soul.

Internet outlets are worse.

Politics is poison. It only exacerbates small-minded egocentrism.

At least an orgasm is fun and honest.

People don’t do bad things because they feel like they have a choice.

There are obviously women using them given that there is a market for them. I don’t have a problem if a woman wants to use one. In fact a lot of single women probably need one.

But women are not shopping for them as one might expect under egalitarian assumptions. That is more my point.

I used to live near the only mini mart in an urban area that had porn and not once did I see a woman even look in the direction of the magazines. They in fact saw it as the porn mini mart and would only run in for a gallon of milk or cigarettes.

Women are wired differently. Sex for them is not the same as men. Liberal society tries to pretend this isn’t true and *wants to believe* that they would be acting like men if they were conditioned differently. Liberals want to believe they are gay men in female bodies that have been conditioned by Bad Whites of the right. A lot of the manosphere has a similar view where women are naturally sluts and need to be conditioned so they are more realistic in their mates. So the same incorrect view of their underlying nature but with different goals. This view comes from blank slate which has been deeply embedded in society by both Christians and egalitarians.

Women today are in fact conditioned but it is against their biology and it makes them go bonkers. They are conditioned to believe that having children shouldn’t be a concern for them. It absolutely should be and if they spent any time around dog moms at 50 they would run to the nearest bar while undoing their pants.

There was MGTOW, not sure if it’s still around anymore.

But women are not shopping for them as one might expect under egalitarian assumptions. That is more my point.

I promise you that they are. Women give each other vibrators as presents some times. They will just most often buy them online, delivered in anonymous packaging. A friend recently had her uptight older sister tell her, after a bad relationship, that she might be single for a while to see how it feels. She also sent her a link to an online vibrator vendor, saying “you don’talways need a man”. My friend found this ridiculously condescending, as she already had one, which she had bought when a teenager online. She wasn’t, in her words, “12”.

Sex for them is not the same as men.

Yes, it is about 10X more pleasurable, at least if with a responsive partner.

Also, most women don’t love porn, you’re right on that. Much of it is gross. Partly because it is made for men, partly because it really is just gross. Many do still like it, but, like men who aren’t broken, they prefer tasteful stills and non-mechanistic nonsense.

God knows how many caustic feminists would exist without vibrators.

Doctors in the 50s would actually induce orgasms in hysterical women by using a vibrator.

All of the women I know, own a vibrator. Many of them are happily married. Some of them need this vibrator to help them climax during sex.

These are highly educated, professional women, under 35, but they are mostly not sexually voracious.*

Thanks, Ms. Bradshaw. Although we both know you really should have typed “Over 35”, now don’t we? Plus we could discuss the concept of the “alpha widow”…

As an aside, this book is pretty interesting and even funny. Best read by men with a good pair of The Glasses on.

http://danielbergner.com/what-do-women-want

Is Audacious Epigone like the Dread Pirate Roberts?

I believe that it was his very first Unz post when I asked him exactly whose epigone he purported to be so that we might fairly judge his audacity for ourselves. I believe he replied with a mysterious “LOL” or something like that.

We’ve been catfished everyone! And now they have our email addresses..

Well, good luck and goodbye, AE and everyone. You had a great blog–one of the few that actually followed the data where it led.

It’s a shame to see you go, but I’m sure you have your reasons (perhaps in addition to those you listed) and I wish you well nonetheless.

I used to live near the only mini mart in an urban area that had porn and not once did I see a woman even look in the direction of the magazines.

Yeah, well, it’s not 1988 anymore. PornHub claims that about 20% of its subscriber base is female. Very likely true.

I promise you that they are. Women give each other vibrators as presents some times. They will just most often buy them online, delivered in anonymous packaging. A friend recently had her uptight older sister tell her, after a bad relationship, that she might be single for a while to see how it feels. She also sent her a link to an online vibrator vendor

Yes of course most of the purchases are going to be online.

But women are still wired differently.

They are more emotionally tied to sex than men. There will never be the sexual revolution that liberals hope for and manosphere types already assume happened. Women will never become gay men but with boobs and innys.

It used to be common in the West for prostitutes to hang around male heavy industries like timber and mining. It was just viewed as the nature of men and no one had a problem with it. If a married man went and visited a brothel he would be chastised but it wouldn’t be grounds for divorce.

The use of prostitutes by women is extremely rare and this has been consistent throughout history. The sexual nature of women is different and eventually modern society will recognize this and be amazed at how today’s egalitarians were able to delude themselves.

Also, most women don’t love porn, you’re right on that. Much of it is gross. Partly because it is made for men, partly because it really is just gross.

Well gross is relative to sexual nature. I find horse erections to be gross but I’m sure female horses like them. A man might find a dildo to be gross but you can’t pull out some authoritative sexual grossness meter and tell him he is wrong and that porn is in fact gross.

There is nothing wrong with men or women. They simply exist as nature intended. It is the egalitarian that frets over natural differences and idealizes the gender neutral or confused.

Eventually this age of stupidity will be over and egalitarians will admit that both racial and gender differences exist as the result of evolution. Might even be less than 10 years away.

AE,
Since I don’t see any direct email address for you on this site, I messaged Ron, asking that the message be forwarded to you. It’s sort of a Hail Mary Pass to get around my email account problem. Thanks.
364758

Thanks for the interesting replies. They all look like non sequiturs to me, but I sort of agree with them, the ones I can understand.

AE — Is there any reasonable way to get paid for what you do? I get it, it isn’t possible to keep up a labor of love forever.

There has been more genuine insight unleashed by this blog than all the sociology departments at all the universities in America. A low bar I know, but still.

You have tremendous talent and a substantial audience. Was Unz paying you anything? Sailer hits up his audience for tips. You have never tried that.

Write books?

Are there no wealthy patrons who will pay enough to make it worthwhile to do this?

Substack has gotten a bunch of writers paid. Is Substack a possibility?

Would Derbyshire or Charles Murray have ideas for how to do this profitably?

All readers of this blog… Your good ideas on making this worthwhile for AE — or any truth-teller — would be really valuable right now. What can he do?

Are there any media outlets who would pay this genius? Going dark seems just unacceptable.

It’s Father’s Day and a man’s has to support his family. This is a problem for the future of America if brilliant lights like AE can’t be supported for the light they bring.

Or is AE not even the original AE? My mind is spinning here.

The use of prostitutes by women is extremely rare and this has been consistent throughout history.

Prostitutes mostly hate their clients. Women can find a man who feels he needs to prove his masculinity to himself instead; this way they avoid this unpleasant situation.

You say women are different from men because they don’t use prostitutes, but how often do men use prostitutes?

Well gross is relative to sexual nature. I find horse erections to be gross but I’m sure female horses like them. A man might find a dildo to be gross but you can’t pull out some authoritative sexual grossness meter and tell him he is wrong and that porn is in fact gross.

Most men think that watching an ugly other man have unconvincing and unpleasurable sex with an ugly other women is the worst choice if all possible options.

Eventually this age of stupidity will be over and egalitarians will admit that both racial and gender differences exist as the result of evolution.

They have averaged differences. That is true. They are just quite different from the way in which contemporary “traditionalists” see them.

I only repeatedly mention this, because a lot of very online men have a self-limiting belief that alienates them from women. They don’t understand female sexuality at all, which puts them in the frustrated incel category.

If you don’t realise how much women like sex, even without romance, you will never be able to flirt effectively.

I am sure you understand this, but let’s not have any more bright young men thinking that women only give them sex for money. That is not only wrong, but also hurtful.

Thank you very much for the posts. You are one of my favorites on Unz, with in my opinion, the best mix of commentariat.

I think that we won’t be able to let you go though until you have trained up a proper replacement. It’s just plumb irresponsible of you to abandon us all without a proper protege waiting in the wings!

In all seriousness though, I really will miss your posts AE.
God bless, and I wish you the best of luck with future endeavors.

ACK! Say it ain’t so!

Not the ubiquitous they!

Next thing you know the CIA will be filling my inbox with ads for vibrators. It beggars the imagination…

Women tell each other “you are OK, you are enough” a lot.

Yep.

Many men would benefit from being reminded of the same.

Men are not defective women.

Good work AE, farewell.

You will be missed. Hope to see you again, somewhere, sometime.

Women are nowhere near into porn as men despite the bs we hear in the lying media, for one thing nearly any of them can go out and have sex any time they want if they really want — not the case for the vast majority of men wanking to porn….

Kinsey wrote a lot of bs also — it was taken as gospel for a long while and then found to be utter bunk — he lied about just about everything in one way or another and did all he could to make everyone a sex maniac as he was in fact it seems (see his death….)….so who knows as to this guy’s claims? “Studies” — worthless as we know even as to Peer Review MD “Studies” these days — all bs and based on what they want to find and who is paying….

All of the women I know, own a vibrator.

I suspect that the idea that women aren’t interested in vibrators is largely a male cope. Even in the 80s women were buying them. In fact to some extent the “women are different and don’t care so much about sex” thing is probably a male cope. Female sexuality is different, but women seem to like orgasms.

Drug stores probably don’t sell very many vibrators because there are much more discreet ways to buy them.

Napoleon agrees with me:

“Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war”

Of course, I can always post on my own blog, but it has no audience. I have neither the skills nor the desire to be a webmaster, and I have neither the time nor the personality to spend years writing an endless stream of clickbait posts in order to build up a following.

That’s been my experience as well. I still post pretty regularly on my blog but I’ve never been motivated enough to do all the things that you can do to attract more traffic. I also have no interest in going down the clickbait path.

Yeah, well, it’s not 1988 anymore. PornHub claims that about 20% of its subscriber base is female. Very likely true.

And one in 5 men have a female brain.

Most of us that are racial/gender realists are not taking some absolutist position.

We object to the idea that everyone is the same and differences only exist because of conditioning.

Male/female brain differences show up in MRI scans. Even liberal sites have reported on this:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/male-female-brains-wired-differently-scans_n_4374010

But you can find textbooks that describe any gender differences to be entirely cultural.

You say women are different from men because they don’t use prostitutes, but how often do men use prostitutes?

It used to be the norm for men to use them in areas where there were few women. But in modern society the practice has been denigrated by both Christians and liberals. In certain periods of Roman society prostitutes were available to women but were seldom used.

Men and women are wired differently for sex. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. The woman has to be a lot more careful about who she selects.

If you don’t realise how much women like sex, even without romance, you will never be able to flirt effectively.

I am sure you understand this, but let’s not have any more bright young men thinking that women only give them sex for money. That is not only wrong, but also hurtful.

I never took issue with your original statement and I am quite critical of incels and the manosphere.

I actually do well with women but I found one I liked and married her. Anyone that has had some decent girlfriends is aware that Hollywood lies about women. Most really aren’t that interesting. Same is true for most men.

My problem is with modern egalitarians that want to believe that women are actually suppressed men. It is similar to their belief that Africans are actually suppressed Europeans. It would make the world an easier place but nature is kind of a bitch about things.

I suspect that the idea that women aren’t interested in vibrators is largely a male cope.

No one is saying that women aren’t interested in vibrators.

They just aren’t wired for sex in the same way as men.

I’m not sure why so many secular egalitarians assume they would be.

There isn’t a mammalian species where both genders have the same sex drive. Typically the female is more cyclical than the male.

Secular liberalism really isn’t secular. It’s a religion where converts take the belief that gender and racial differences must not exist.

Sorry to see you go. I used to follow you before you joined Unz and think you are one of the best writers on their team.

All the best.

No one is saying that women aren’t interested in vibrators.

They just aren’t wired for sex in the same way as men.

I’m not disputing that. Female sexuality is definitely not the same as male sexuality, and women are most definitely not the same as men. I don’t see how anyone who has actually known a member of the opposite sex could believe that men and women are basically the same.

I do think that women are more interested in sex than some socially conservative men would like to believe. But women are, being women, interested in sex in a slightly different way.

Hyperlink your blog? I would check it out regularly.

The secret to Unz’s success, I think, is his very good commenting system. Easy to read and use. Without that, you are going to have to settle for writing without the emotional feedback of clicks and comments. But if you have something you want to say, say it!

I started reading you back when Heartiste would comment on your stuff. That era feels like ancient internet history now.

Sad to see you go.

Grateful for all of the work you’ve done.

Best of luck out there AE.

Well, I’ll miss this blog and the community here, and I’d be happy to stay in touch — I’ll make it simple and offer the e-mail address I created for this purpose earlier: misterwency [at] yandex.com. I’ll probably then transition that to a different address. Just let me know on here if you message me on there.

I probably overextended myself somewhat here in the past few months with too many comments, so like Twinkie, I think I’ll try to dial down my online communication for a time. I would like to create my own blog or Substack, but it’s one of those things that I could probably only maintain consistently if there were 30 hours in a day. I’m not sure how AE did it, so I understand fully why he’s getting out now. Family is more important.

Maybe when those of us with young children are empty-nesters, or at least our kids are all in high school, we’ll manage to find more time for these endeavors. Hopefully there will still be places on the Internet where such things can happen.

Hollywood tells these women they have prince charming waiting for them. Christianity tells them that God has a pre-ordained soul mate for them.

Christianity does not teach that. Jesus specifically taught that there is no marriage in heaven. Souls are not linked by marriage and marriage is only an earthly arrangement for the production of children and relief from sexual urges. I can’t recall the titles but there have been a bunch of books written attacking the soul-mate idea from a Christian perspective.

I love my wife but she is not special in a metaphysical sense. If I wasn’t married to her I’d be married to somebody else, and she’d be married to somebody else, and that would be fine.

But I agree with your broader point.

RIP In Peace. This was my favorite blog and it has the only good comment section on Unz, or perhaps anywhere.

After many years through various iterations and authorship, it has run its course.

I never knew there had been multiple AEs throughout the years. Anyway, thanks for all of the useful information and insightful commentary, my friend. Wishing all the best for you in the future.

This COTW roundup will be the blog’s concluding act. After many years through various iterations and authorship, it has run its course. When the comment window closes on this post, it will move into the archives. See you around the interwebs, friends.

I say:

Don’t burn the boats on the beach, Mr. Epigone!

Keep the boats floating in the water for a possibility of return and head for your next journey.

In a week or a month or so you might want to try to get what’s on your mind down on electronic paper as it were and you should keep available all your options.

Trump should have given a “burn the boats” speech but the donors and the ruling class of the Republican Party had Trump on a leash from the get-go and Trump didn’t fight back at all.

Trump’s problems with the corporate media and the Deep State stem from the fact that Trump didn’t immediately remove them when he had the chance. Trump’s voter base was more than ready for a “burn the boats on the beach” battle plan to defend the United States against the treasonous scum in the Deep State and the anti-White, anti-Christian shyster filth in the corporate media.

Please Reconsider Your Decision Mr. Epigone!

Let The Blog Be For A While But Keep It Ready For Action!

THANK YOU!

When selling vibrators on High Street is outlawed, only outlaws will sell vibrators on High Street.

Yes, I recall arguing this with John Johnson last time this came up. Within Christian culture, all I’ve ever been exposed to is shooting down the “soulmate” idea, which is viewed as a New Age secular notion. My wife had the exact same experience, and the preacher who married us was extremely insistent (and relieved) that we didn’t believe in such contra-Biblical things.

If you ever watch mainstream sitcoms, soulmate thinking has been all over them forever. “This is the person the universe has decided I’m supposed to be with,” they might say. “The universe” being the New Age sort of way of communicating, “fate”, “fortune”, or possibly “God” but in a very disembodied, you might say pantheistic sense.

I Googled the phrase “the universe wants” and it comes back with all sorts of links from New Age sites with posts like “17 signs the universe wants you to be with someone”. And of course, “9 signs the universe is trying to set you up with The One”. This sort of stuff is really the origin of “soulmate” thinking.

But all that said, I can see how elements of this might have leaked into teenage girl purity culture, that you are saving yourself for your future husband.

Christianity does not teach that. Jesus specifically taught that there is no marriage in heaven.

Well what Jesus taught and what the churches teach can be two different things.

The US protestant churches spend a lot of time on pre-martial sex. Look at this Focus on the Family resource:
https://media.focusonthefamily.com/topicinfo/pre-marital_materials.pdf

Did Jesus spend that much time talking about pre-marital living? No.

They tie in the soul mate concept with the idea that by having pre-marital sex you aren’t waiting for the person that God has picked for you.

I can’t recall the titles but there have been a bunch of books written attacking the soul-mate idea from a Christian perspective.

Yes and there are books about how you can pray for wealth or a soul mate. Lots of Christians selling books. Doesn’t mean anything.

Yes, I recall arguing this with John Johnson last time this came up. Within Christian culture, all I’ve ever been exposed to is shooting down the “soulmate” idea, which is viewed as a New Age secular notion.

A New Age notion? Do you think I am trying to slander Christianity? I had to sit through these lectures.

20 steps to finding your soul mate
https://marriagemissions.com/christian-soul-mate-20-steps-finding-yours/

It’s common for Christians to teach that everything is pre-ordained which then means your marriage partner has already been chosen by divinity. I was taught this as a teenager and that I would be corrupting that plan if I had pre-marital sex. That actually means I would be breaking the plan by my will…or was that action also pre-ordained??

I asked my youth pastor about people that never get married and he said that was God’s plan. Funny that because he just told us that we all needed to save ourselves for marriage.

So in Christianity you can be a moral virgin and God may not reward you with a wife even if you were told that you need to save yourself for marriage.

Christian doctrine on sex is really solid.

Islam is amazingly worse. They can’t even agree on whether single women should be allowed to masturbate. Seriously you can find online debates over this. Women masturbating.

Yes, I have seen “The One” as a bit of a thing in Evangelical Christianity, with their focus on “God’s Plan”. My parents were even part of a church well before I was born which believed that God had definite plans for what car or mattress one should purchase. Very silly stuff indeed!

For John Johnson to try to make it a broader point about Christianity in general shows a certain ignorance about broader and historical Christianity.

You are absolutely correct that the sitcom/ romcom popular culture has saturated women in particular with the notion of “The One”. I’m sure it’s led to countless broken marriages as the deluded folks realized that it isn’t all peaches and cream no matter how swell the honeymoon stage.

You may have a point and the situation might be worse than I thought within some churches (and it sounds sort of Prosperity Gospelish to me), but I still hold it’s a New Age and unserious idea that these people have allowed to infect their thinking, not an idea that has its origins within Christian culture or doctrine specifically. And it still has more than enough momentum outside the church.

My guess would be that practically everyone who is “spiritual, but not religious” believes something like “the universe” pre-ordains your soulmate, while it’s still a minority position within Evangelicalism and unheard of in the rest of conservative Christianity.

“I know several attractive white women, now in their thirties, they didn’t marry, have no kids, they just pursued their “career” and “casual sex”, now they are increasingly desperate…”

Men as well.

And one in 5 men have a female brain.
Most of us that are racial/gender realists are not taking some absolutist position.
We object to the idea that everyone is the same and differences only exist because of conditioning.

Cool babble, bro. What does any of that have do to do with the fact that about 20% of Pornhub subscribers are women?

You: Wahmen no like porn!
Reality: At least 1 / 5 do as revealed by their own preference.
You: BLahLBSLhblalbhalhhshsblh!

Reality: lol

Napoleon agrees with me:

Lol, no. He wasn’t chatting about affirmations with his besties over a cosmotini.

Men are not defective women. All of your personalities need to learn that, but the younger one really could benefit from internalizing this fact.

This COTW roundup will be the blog’s concluding act.

I’m sorry to hear that.

It’s been a real highlight of the website.
Probably my #2 blogger here, after Big Steve.

You’ll be missed.

Dangit, who’s gonna statisticspost now?

Maybe we ought to be using this short window of time to organize for the continuity of this community, rather than debating dildo usage.

Sure. But for men it’s different. Of course, some can become angry and violent. But others can find meaning in life beyond children or a relationship.

I think for women, this is harder.

Also, men can (in theory) still get married and have children later in life. For women, that’s harder too.

But I agree, it’s bad for both. We are all in a bad way. And it’s all by design.

“By the time they realize they were too picky their options are even more limited. This is a huge problem that no one seems to be addressing.”

I keep throwing this (attractive, brought up to focus on career (so had abortion when young), intelligent lady at the commentariat. The trouble is that even her site (https://gateway-women.com/) doesn’t go out to young women and tell them “it’s later than you think – don’t do what I did”. Misery loves company.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/02/the-desire-to-have-a-child-never-goes-away-how-the-involuntarily-childless-are-forming-a-new-movement

She remembers the moment she realised she was definitely never going to be a mother. It was February 2009 and, at 44-and-a-half, she had left a bad long-term relationship and moved into a grotty London flat. “I was standing by the window, watching the rain make dusty tracks down the glass, when the traffic in the street below seemed to go silent, as if I’d put it on ‘mute’. In that moment, I became acutely aware of myself, almost as if I were an observer of the scene from outside my body. And then it came to me: it’s over. I’m never going to have a baby.”

Very sorry to see AE go. Who will dice and slice the data as he could?

My guess would be that practically everyone who is “spiritual, but not religious” believes something like “the universe” pre-ordains your soulmate, while it’s still a minority position within Evangelicalism and unheard of in the rest of conservative Christianity.

Yea not at all convinced.

If everything is pre-ordained by God then everything is already fixed including your spouse.

Christianity seems to allow that some men and women will remain single which contradicts the message that you should wait for marriage. The real message is:

You should wait for marriage even though some of you will never marry.

Kind of sad really. Can’t remember who it was on here that talked about how Christianity needs something like warrior monks. That actually makes a lot of sense. Direct men towards a purpose where being single is a virtue. Reminds me of cases in history where childless men were selected for dangerous battles.

I have kids and a good wife but I am concerned with the single men that I see. I’m not convinced Christianity is helping them but liberalism / secular culture is certainly far worse. I am critical of modern Christianity but I absolutely despise liberalism. Just in case you are wondering where I am coming from.

“As is always the case with manosphere-esque topics, the “carousel” narratives takes a kernel of truth and blows it out of proportion. ”

I remember the argument from numbers best: the more men a woman has slept with, the lower the likelihood that any one man will be the “best” of the lot. What are the chances of outperforming 10 other men to occupy that place in some woman’s mind? Yet men likely follow a bell curve here, and most will not compete. Or compute, in her mind.

This leads to the concept of the Alpha Widow: every woman will always be the sexual widow of the man who best rocked her world. Of course, when she was younger, she attracted more of those types of men, and as she ages they will continue to pursue younger women. So the only man who COULD outcompete all those other partners won’t have her. A problem.

That all struck me as mathematically true. Would you call it a kernel?

How would you continue this community?

A Disqus account?

A mailing list based on new anonymous emails?

Telegram?

A request to Ron Unz for a small group of long-time commenters to continue the blog?

Some other suggestion?

I think that theory depends on an unemotional view of sex, which makes it extremely weak.

Rather than Alpha/Beta, I think a lot of men would best realise that safe, secure in themselves and open to the woman, results in far more sexual satisfaction for her, than some cartoon display of masculinity.

It is also fortunate that most men get better at this, the longer into a relationship.; which, not coincidentally, is also when sex gets better for many women.

V.K. Overlund
I must say that I’m somewhat flattered to be on your list of less frequent commenters you have nevertheless appreciated. I sometimes don’t post all that much, though I have been a consistent lurker.

I’ve certainly appreciated your posts as well for their thoughtfully considered content, impeccably well mannered presentation, and good humor. They are (like several other notable commenters here) of a high caliber rarely found on the internet today.

If you don’t find it presumptuous I’ll extend a similar invitation to correspond via email outside of this site.
The email on file is a real one, so if you would like it feel free to get it from AE. If you would prefer not to, no hard feelings and I hope I’ll continue to see you around other parts of Unz.

“Can’t remember who it was on here that talked about how Christianity needs something like warrior monks. That actually makes a lot of sense. Direct men towards a purpose where being single is a virtue. Reminds me of cases in history where childless men were selected for dangerous battles.”

Yes, every society is faced with the question of what to do with excess men. The genetic facts are that 2/3rds of all gene mutations that have survived have originated with women, and 1/3rd with men. The only way that that is possible is if twice as many women as men have left behind descendants, unless mutation happens differentially to women. The best estimate I read was that 80% of human females and 40% of human males have left behind descendants.

Males are the more fragile sex, being subject to more genetic diseases due to sex-linked traits, like color blindness. A lot of them are the results of bad genetic experiments and not meant to survive, let alone breed. That’s just the bad luck of being born male; the flip side is that a male can propagate a good mutation much more widely than a female can.

To a large extent, Medieval Christianity was an effort to deal with these very real facts of life. Men are more extreme, more likely to be geniuses and more likely to be mentally retarded, and a lot of that difference is written in the genes. I had very little to do, for example, with being born smart; it’s just a characteristic I was blessed with. Society moves forward when it gains the benefits of the good extremists while it compensates the loser extremists who were born stupid through no fault of their own (or any other characteristic.), and has a social support system that was paired with a Catholic morality (discouraging bastardy while supporting the children but also insisting on adherence to [or at least recognition of the validity of] a Christian morality. It’s an attempt to square the circle of differential sexuality, and also provide an outlet for the 60% of males who will never know the joys and sufferings of fatherhood.

Sure. But for men it’s different. Of course, some can become angry and violent. But others can find meaning in life beyond children or a relationship.

I think for women, this is harder.

I agree that it is harder for women, much harder in fact.

This is especially true if their friends have children.

Society wants to believe it is not true but I have seen it too many times.

I actually don’t think that women with children should be friends with childless women. There is too much of a gap.

Childless women get really snippy and gossipy. They will make a lot of negative comments about men.

Single men can envelop themselves into a hobby. There is the incel problem but men in general are more likely to take action on the extremes. Women are more likely to take it out on personal relationships. I really wish this wasn’t the case but I think women are better off just getting knocked up by a certain age. Even a bar encounter. I’ve met single women that had the accident kid and they were way happier than childless couples.

Best Napoleon quote

His Majesty told us that when he came back to Paris after his campaign in Italy, Madame de Stäel did everything she could to propitiate him. She even came to the Rue Chantereine, but was sent away. She wrote him a great many letters, some from Italy, some in Paris. She also asked him to a ball, but he did not go. At a fête given by Talleyrand, she came and sat down beside him and talked to him for two hours; finally, she suddenly asked him, ‘Who was the most superior woman in antiquity, and who is so at the present day?’ He answered, ‘She who has borne the most children.’

https://shannonselin.com/2014/08/10-napoleon-bonaparte-quotes-context/

Good Point. Which is why you are the Intelligent Dasein.

I’m rather a Luddite so my ideas of how to continue are likely to be not very savvy, but I’m certainly up for it in practice, and would be wiling to help make it happen. The wider internet is a parched wasteland when it comes to comment sections and I hate to see this one go.

Triteleia Laxa’s suggestion to petition Ron to allow the blog to continue under other auspices seems reasonable.

To also echo other’s point, I would certainly be willing to pay real money to keep AE around should he have a change of heart after a break.

“Soulmate” appears to be a pseudopod extension out of the cult of Courtly Love, which can be traced back to Eleanor of Aquitaine’s era in the 12th century. A bit older than the New Age stuff that merely restated the same old theme.

It should be no surprise that “soulmate” is a staple of romance fiction.

Yes, it’s literally a rational view of sex. The ratio of 1/n as the probability of being best gets smaller and smaller as n grows. That might not be the best way to view it, but it correlates with what I have heard from non-partner women telling me about their own sex lives. They go right in their minds to the one who rocked their worlds, and for a lucky few, that’s the current Mr.

James Joyce wrote about this long ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_(short_story)

The Conroys leave and Gabriel is excited, for it has been a long time since he and Gretta have had a night in a hotel to themselves. When they arrived at the hotel, Gabriel’s aspirations of passionate lovemaking are conclusively dashed by Gretta’s lack of interest. He presses her about what is bothering her, and she admits that she is “thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim.”[3] She admits that it reminds her of someone, a young man named Michael Furey, who had courted her in her youth in Galway. He used to sing The Lass of Aughrim for her. … Gabriel is shocked and dismayed that there was something of such significance in his wife’s life that he never knew about.

Rather than Alpha/Beta, I think a lot of men would best realise that safe, secure in themselves and open to the woman, results in far more sexual satisfaction for her, than some cartoon display of masculinity.
I agree.

It is also fortunate that most men get better at this, the longer into a relationship.; which, not coincidentally, is also when sex gets better for many women.
Yes, but if Michael Furey is occupying the spot of best, the long term will never come. Therein lies the problem, no? If there is no replacing Michael, then the best course of action is not to try. Joyce did not invent this female tendency, and it’s one of the wondrous things about that sex. It can also lead to disaster.

Women are nowhere near into porn as men…

Yeah, they are. It’s just that in the larger world, “porn” is defined solely in terms of men’s porn, i.e. visual. This is a benefit to women, who can indulge in their porn without most men noticing. Those who can see, however, merely smirk.

Tell me, how many copies did “Fifty Shades of Grey” sell, world wide? How about the other two volumes in the series? Those books were sold everywhere, even in airports. Did you ever read one of them? It’s a classic RomFic series; includes graphic porny text at semi regular intervals, with appropriate build up of the “will she? will he?” sort.

Go to a bookstore. New or used, doesn’t matter. See how large the “romance” section is. Pick up a Harlequin or other rom-fic and start skimming. How many pages does it take before some girl is in danger of foul ravishment? How many ravishings are their in the entire 180 page novel? What’s the narrative description like? How detailed are the words describing her swirl of emotions? Oh, and how graphic & anatomically correct are the details of the ravishment?

Yup. There it is. Like cleaning out someone’s garage and finding an old copy of “Letters to Penthouse”.

Buuuut….books are old tech. Stroll up to a 20 year old college girl and start looking into her phone, see what stories she’s carrying around – if she’ll let you. There’s a whole world of stories available from Amazon for 99 cents, suitable for phone or Kindle or other device than can be held with one hand. They generally go far beyond anything for sale in Barnes & Noble. Of course there are plenty of women pushing 40 who have their one-handed Kindle library as well. I know some of them.

Yeah, a lot of women are into porn, just not so much into men’s style of porn. This is part of that brain difference that John Johnson was going on about – that he does not completely understand, yet.

Sad to hear you will be moving on, AE. You’ve been a great contribution to the site. Take care and best of luck to you. The email on file is real. Feel free to share with VK Ovelund.

Flattered to make your guest list, V.K. An IRL UR commentariat dinner party actually sounds like a nice idea (or a potential disaster, lol.) Thanks for the compliment, but I wouldn’t presume to be a better man than you. You are very polite and a consistent gentleman in the comments section and there are times when I should take a step back and emulate your approach more. As I told AE, you are welcome to get my email on file. It is real. In any case, see you around the rest of the site. Cheers!

Okay, now I’ve visited a couple of US drug stores, and … zero vibrators on sale. And this is in a major metro area, so we’re not talking about the Bible Belt.

I suppose I may as well put down another marker on the “All of the women I know, own a vibrator” narrative. That is that none of the women that I know own a vibrator. Are they all “highly educated, professional women”? Well, a couple of them have advanced degrees, but most of them are just high school or college graduates. More teachers, housewives and social workers than lawyers, economists and college professors. Correlation may not be causation, but it could be a good hint.

Okay, now I’ve visited a couple of US drug stores, and … zero vibrators on sale. And this is in a major metro area,

Interesting. I’ve seen such things in every major chain in the US, even here in flyover. CVS, Walgreen, Rite-Aid. Not in the smaller, independent ones.

Here are some examples.

https://www.walgreens.com/q/sexual+vibrators
https://www.riteaid.com/shop/sexual-health/adult-toys
https://www.cvs.com/shop/sexual-health/vibrators-adult-toys/vibrators

That is that none of the women that I know own a vibrator.

Lol. Maybe, maybe not. It isn’t the sort of thing girls generally tell men, or at least most men.

The British sex shop and High Street chain for women claims to have sold 40 million+ of their own brand device.

Although only a third of British women admit to owning a sex toy, according to another survey I found.

Amazon US results in 1200+ results for vibrators. Some with tens of thousands of reviews, and I suspect that people are hesitant to leave reviews.

Trojan, a condom brand, says that, after research, the US vibrator market is worth twice the US condom market; as $1 billion annually.

50 Shades of Grey, a crass sex book, was the biggest selling book in the US of the 2010s. Its featuring of vibrators was soon as pushing huge growth in the market.

Here is my blog. There isn’t anything of substance on it right now except my anti-Darwinian essay. It’s more of a placeholder blog for when I start writing in earnest (which perhaps I will need to start doing).

http://intelligentdasein.blogspot.com/

A man needs a woman like a worker needs a union – you want it until you have it.

For men, marriage is a like a tornado – it starts with a lot of sucking and blowing, but in the end you lose your house.

Just let me know on here if you message me on there.

I have messaged you on there. (I do not know whether 945570 helps, but Almost Missouri has given a number for some inscrutable reason, so why can’t I give one, too?)

I loved audacious epigone as the best of all of the offerings on unz. It provided fact-based insight, as opposed to gobs of projection based on a news item blown out of proportion.
I am really going to miss you.

At this writing, Almost Missouri, dfordoom, Barbarossa and Mario Partisan seem to have accepted your offer. (Barbarossa was not on the original list but I can think of no reason not to add him, so let’s do it.)

Wency is getting in touch via other means.

A brother I know who is also a good friend and avid reader of UNZ saw this and suggested I should come out of “retirement” to say some words to our parting host. Sound advice.

A lot has been said and I echo those sentiments; this was a unique blog and the tone set by the host was crucial to helping the general civility and interesting nature of the discussions.

AE, UNZ will find it difficult to replace you. The topics you covered, with such interesting stats was always a welcome read. It was easily my favorite online hangout for the last few years.

It is my hope that the honesty and sincerity you displayed in your interactions will take you far in life.

May God grant you and your family honor in this world and the next.

Peace.

Since you have my email; if you are ever traveling around Chicago and have a couple of hours to spare, I’ll treat you to some joints that serve some of the best nihari and Bihari kababs this side of the Atlantic.

Most people will not get prince charming/princess babe.

I remain unconvinced of this. The idea of mate scarcity and hypercompetition rests on the premise that we are all basically the same and basically want the same things.

I may be biased on account of my own experience.

Women really are wired differently.

Yes, we are. I suspect the truth boils down to something like this:

sex : men :: chocolate :: women

And I’m only half joking. A parting hbd-related armchair hypothesis:

Women cannot improve their reproductive fitness by having more sex, but we can ensure that, in the event of a pregnancy, we have sufficient calories stored up to carry the pregnancy to term.

Where is Talha? He was my favorite commenter here.

As for you, AE, you have been a most gracious host and your commitment to a sincere search for truth has never failed.

Ah, there you are. Anyway, you have given me much food for thought, Talha, and probably had more influence on me than anyone else here. I feel I have a much better and more charitable understanding of your faith than I ever have before. My sincere hope is that Christians and Muslims coexist on this planet for centuries to come.

“ there is no secret supply of White collar White men that smell nice and vote Democrat.”

Yes there is, they’re called the senate Republican caucus. House R caucus too, at least under Ryan.

All I can say to all the vibrator discussion is that it certainly seems like a blot on manly pride that so many of them have to be in circulation. Perhaps it’s that men are just that bad at the arts of feminine pleasure from watching too many disgusting porn video’s? Are most men just that terrible at good sex?

My wife certainly has no needs for such a device, and If I suspected otherwise I would feel terribly ashamed. It’s not rocket science, but it does require paying attention to what gets results!

My small sample size from experience says that women do approach sex far differently from men (which should hardly be surprising), but that pleasure is still a major and desirable factor.

I went to college with a girl who was an early employee at Amazon. According to her one of their earliest major profit centers was sex toys, mostly vibrators. She worked in this unheralded but very profitable dept. and called herself the Dildo Queen as a joke. Before Amazon it was mail order. Women may be too shy to buy them at the drug store but not too shy to avoid them altogether. Bezos made a lot of money off those gals.

That’s a good idea except that you shouldn’t write on Blogspot which is Google. If you ever get a following you will be doxxed and cancelled because Google knows who you are.

I have been researching anonymous publishing. Nothing reliable yet, but it something dissidents need a primer on. There are many, many ways to accidentally ID yoursel f to TPTB.

It isn’t the sort of thing girls generally tell men, or at least most men.

Okay, obviously, I phrased it to match Triteleia Laxa’s phrasing, but it would be more accurate if we had said something like, “none/all of the women that I am in a position to know about definitively, own a vibrator.”

Here are some examples.

Yeah, okay they are offered on websites, but the original headline quote was “sold on the High Street”, which was the particularity I responded to.

The British sex shop and High Street chain for women claims to have sold 40 million+ of their own brand device.

Although only a third of British women admit to owning a sex toy

There are more guns than people in the US, yet less than a third of Americans are gun owners. Obviously, people who buy guns/vibrators don’t stop at one.

I am not alleging that you are making this point

You’re correct: I’m not. I’m only making the perhaps minor point that High Street vibrators and a-vibrator-in-every-pudendum ethos is less manifest from where I’m standing. On the larger and more salient point that public depravity is big and getting bigger, though, I do not gainsay.

it certainly seems like a blot on manly pride that so many of them have to be in circulation

Yes I think this is the underlying matter over which the varied rhetoric has been swirling. But then the number in circulation is a function not only of female appetite but also of the availability of mechanical vibrators to fill that appetite. I gather that female ownership of vibrators is quite low in, say, Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China, but is that a result of Saudi* and Chinese men being exquisite lovers, or of vibrators not being particularly available in those markets?

——

*There was that whole “Sheik of Araby” thing a century ago, but then its real popularity only came after an Italian was cast as The Sheik.

I’ve met single women that had the accident kid and they were way happier than childless couples.

Hm, I don’t know. I know childless couples – either by desire or biological reasons – who are mostly happy. Sure, there’ll always be the feeling of something missing, but isn’t it true of all lives? Also there are options such as fostering or adoption.

As for single or divorced moms, I know quite a few who are pretty miserable and lead messy lives. Worse, if they have an only child, and in particular a male child, they tend to smother him, and cause an infinity of problems for him later in life. Many such cases. A boy needs a father. (And lesbian couples with a male child, that must be hell).

I gather that female ownership of vibrators is quite low in, say, Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China, but is that a result of Saudi* and Chinese men being exquisite lovers, or of vibrators not being particularly available in those markets?

Oftentimes, it’s a gag gift.

You know how sometimes you’re joking, and then sometimes you’re just kind of joking, or saying something “half-in-jest”? Well, it’s kinda like that. It’s a joke, but yeah, we also know you’re problem gonna use it at some point. 😉

“See how large the “romance” section is.”

Man and women are different. I’m trying to think which feminist back in the 1970s (Greer perhaps?) did a neat deconstruction of Georgette Heyer’s 1935 novel “Regency Buck”, in which there’s zero explicit sex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_Buck

Men and women are different.

I hated it when a girl I loved slept with someone else, not in the least a turn on. But a girl can react quite differently to the thought that another girl wants her chap.

If you ever get a following you will be doxxed and cancelled because Google knows who you are.

True.

have been researching anonymous publishing. Nothing reliable yet

Though they’re getting woker, WordPress is not so intolerant as Google et al. yet, and more to the point they so far lack Google’s piercing panopticon reach into your privacy. Plus their blogging software is a sort of de facto standard (the Unz site uses a variation of it).

Minimal opsec is to register/post through a reliable VPN and/or Tor.

OTOTH, your neo-Scholastic Thomism (if I may describe it thus) may be too abstruse for woke midwits to parse. If you don’t use any algorithmic trigger words, they may just ignore you for now.

What causes you to believe that Google would dox someone?

I don’t know any instance of this happening. I also suspect that ordinary employees can’t access this information as it is encrypted for privacy reasons.

The only examples of doxxing that I have seen, have been where the individual repeatedly outs themselves in often boastful or ludicrous ways. I don’t blame them. They have a following and they want to benefit from it; but this seems to be the way.

Perhaps you have contradicting examples? Or anyone does?

I’d recommend being safe not sorry, but this is something I’ve noticed.

We’ll miss your perspective, always refreshing, AE. Best wishes !

WordPress cancelled Roissy (Heartiste).

TL – google have the potential to dox anyone given the amount of info they have on most people – as you may see from the targeted ads you’re delivered.

Degoogling – uncoupling – is (deliberately?) difficult and time consuming.

“WordPress cancelled Roissy (Heartiste)”.

He canceled himself by not marrying and having more than 2 white children.

But have they doxxed anyone?

Sorry, I thought your reply was to me. I agree with your point as regards Google. They could doxx anyone, but they never do. They are happy to deplatform, but they don’t do more. They act in a way which is broadly consistent with how they see themselves and what they think is right.

Might this change if a fully Woke wave takes over from their moderate liberalism? I don’t know.

No idea how to prepare if that ever becomes the case, but I don’t think it will.

Any suggestions?

Men are not defective women.

Who are you arguing with?

Cool babble, bro. What does any of that have do to do with the fact that about 20% of Pornhub subscribers are women?

The point is that men and women are more complicated than the traditional or the liberal view.

The traditional view is that women and men have different brains.

The liberal view is that gender is a social construct and there is no male or female brain.

Through MRI scans we can in fact see differences but many men in fact have female brains. So pointing out that 20% of pornhub subscribers are women doesn’t negate anything I have stated. I never took an absolutist position like the traditionalist or liberal.

However in the schools gender is still taught as a social construct. Liberals have no interest in reality and prefer to lie when it involves gender or race. You can find PDFs of college texts online where they depict the idea of gender brain differences as the ignorant thinking of conservatives. They have completely ignored MRI scan studies.

It’ll be on the archives here and our gracious host might permit a reapplication if it came through the doggy door:

I say:

Reapplication Now!

Thank you for all the blog posting and thank you for focusing on monetary policy.

Andrew Jackson was able to explain the power of the central banks so it can be done and I find it odd that the Democrat Party and the Republican Party go out of their way to avoid discussing monetary policy.

The Wall Street Journal at least allows some debate on monetary policy and asset bubbles and the NY Times will run some bits on monetary policy, too, but it must be explained to the voters, especially young voters, that the asset bubbles created by the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank have overwhelmingly given ill-gotten gains to the top ten percent of wealth holders and Americans born before 1965.

Thank You Again Mr. Epigone!

https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1407272919718412293?s=20

Soak The Billionaires Now!

Financially Liquidate The Billionaires Now!

Legally And Forcibly Exile The Financially Liquidated Billionaires To A Walled And Fenced Compound Camp In Sub-Saharan Africa!

Not just Jeff Bezos, all the billionaires, and his damn ex-wife with all that divorce loot too!

How it started: How it’s going: pic.twitter.com/GJbbpq7llv

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) June 11, 2021

I don’t know any instance of this happening.

I don’t track this, but there have at least been various YouTubers doxxed over the years. YouTube is owned and controlled by Google. The doxxing may not have been done by Google itself, but Google has a long history of working hand-in-glove with the Deep State, so they needn’t themselves jubilantly announce the identity of a formerly anonymous person, as an SJW-journalist does. Instead they can merely leak a bit of adverse information to government authorities, Antifa, a journalist/activist, or whomever might make adverse use of it. Google isn’t implicated, but “bad” people still suffer.

Right now, anyone can file a subpoena for your Google records. Most of the time Google just ignores subpoenas (for some mysterious reason, they are never penalized for this, as you or I would be), but if you happen to be the “right” kind of person, Google may choose to comply and release your “private” information to the petitioner. I don’t know, but I suspect, that this is part of what keeps people like, say, Michael Flynn in perpetual litigation/prosecution hell: his persecutors keep getting privileged access to data that would be private for “good” people.

In any case, Google has the power to do this any time it chooses to, so whether or not it has used this power already, there is no reason entrust Google with more power than it already has. Though it seeks to present a benign, anodyne public face, internal documents have demonstrated conclusively that the company, up to and including executive suites, is full of SJWs who view Trump voters, conservatives and whites in general with great hostility. To put it forensically, they have the means, they have the motive, … it would be the height of complacency to assume they will never start taking opportunities, if they haven’t already.

I suppose my disbelief is mostly rhetorical.

It really does seem a perverse world when the it’s awash in vibrators, too many men are sexually ineffectual porn addicts, and divorce is everywhere, while the culture is completely saturated in the sexualization of everything. It’s just so profoundly stupid and unhappy.

As someone who has been married for nearly 17 years to my only sexual partner, it just seems like it’s not that complicated (if one starts out with reasonable assumptions and expectations, that is. The lack of which are the crux of the problem.)
We still have a great time with each other (along with five kids to prove it) and while it takes some attention it’s just really not rocket science.

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised at humanity’s ability to eff up a wet dream!

“However in the schools gender is still taught as a social construct. Liberals have no interest in reality and prefer to lie when it involves gender or race. You can find PDFs of college texts online where they depict the idea of gender brain differences as the ignorant thinking of conservatives. They have completely ignored MRI scan studies.”

We understand your point, but you overgeneralizing it. Some, not all or even most, liberals hold that illogical position.

https://qz.com/1190996/scientific-research-shows-gender-is-not-just-a-social-construct

This runs counter to the popular narrative that gender differences expressed in childhood play are determined entirely by social expectations. Social factors certainly do have influence, and the paper found evidence of this: For example, as boys got older they were increasingly likely to play with conventionally male toys, reflecting the impact of environmental rather than biological causes. But overall, the data reflect broader findings in psychology, which show that biology and society interact to cause gendered behavior. In other words, contrary to the popular progressive belief, gender is partly socially constructed—but it’s not just a social construct.

Thanks for the kind words, Rosie, and thank you for reading my comments over these past years.

You may have missed my earlier comment that I was taking a major timeout from online forums/social media for the foreseeable future based on the advice of my teachers:
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/bipocs-view-cure-as-modestly-riskier-than-disease/#comment-4656685

Some of those reasons perhaps converging with AE’s reasons and rearrangement of priorities – there are only 24 hours in a day after all. One of the immediate benefits being that I’ve lost almost 25 pounds since my hiatus started in March – alhamdulillah.

I just came back for this instance (on the advice of the brother I mentioned) on the occasion of this blog ending and to say some well-deserved words of appreciation to our good online host for these past few years.

Stay well – and may your children make you proud and be a source of comfort and coolness for your eyes in your later years.

Peace.

Note: For the record, I think these kinds of forums would benefit greatly from more women commenters (especially mothers) who bring a different perspective (whether or not the men agree with everything they say). Any group/movement/ideology that cannot attract mothers (or would-be mothers) into its ranks is…well…whistling past the graveyard.

I came across a hadith during Ramadan that you might appreciate (it made an impression on me when I read it), it is reported in various authentic collections in slightly different wording, but…
The Prophet (pbuh) said to his Companions (ra) “The utterly devoted (mufarridun) have preceded.” They asked, “Who are the utterly devoted?” He answered, “The ones who are absorbed-in/addicted-to the remembrance of God.”

What a thing to be addicted to, eh?

And now, I’ll take my leave back into “retirement”, I thought it would be rude not to reply back, but please pardon me if I don’t reply any further to yourself or others.

I disagree with their liberal flirtation with SJW stuff being a sign of anything substantial, but I see your point. A primer on how to be undoxxable, without making much effort, would be useful.

I really enjoyed reading your analysis. Hopefully, you’ll still remain a regular poster on this site. All the best to you.

I doubt I ever commented here. I’m too dumb to say anything meaningful that would add to the conversation.

This really bums me out though! Shit…I’ve not been this upset at losing a blogger/voice I enjoyed since TLP quit blogging.

Good luck to you and yours whatever you’re doing! You’ll be missed a great deal.

Sorry to see you stop. Despite not always agreeing with your opinions, I always valued your arguments. You are one of the few intellectuals who actually does his homework and shows his work while the rest are just bloviating carefully avoiding anything resembling evidence and logic.
From now on my headcanon will be that your life is so awesome that you ascended above the culture war.
Stay sane and be happy!

Thank God. Please take Rosie with you, the two of you made half of AE’s comment sections unreadable.

A primer on how to be undoxxable, without making much effort, would be useful.

IMHO, if there is a single concept that is key to privacy/security/confidentiality/undoxability, it is …

[drum roll]

compartmentalization.

The big boys do it, and you can too. Just in different ways.

Keep your online identity separate from your real life identity. Particularly avoid mentioning specific dates and places together that would severely narrow the field of candidates for who you are. Maybe sprinkle in some false clues now and again.

Don’t do personally-identifiable browsing (shopping, personal email, work, etc.) and crimethink poasting from the same browser. Better not even to do them from the same computer.

VPNs can help, but a converged VPN knows as much about you as a converged ISP. Any network connection you paid for with your credit card knows your identity definitively. A VPN just pledges not to do anything with that knowledge. Maybe they’re telling the truth.

Your smart phone is spying on you and reporting back to the mother ship. That doesn’t mean don’t have one; it means understand what it is.

Chrome is Google spyware. IE and Edge are Microsoft spyware. Opera is CCP spyware.

Most browsers can be “fingerprinted” nowadays (a unique identity established and linked to you via data aggregators), especially if you have unusual fonts loaded. Brave actively resists this. Vivaldi passively resists this.

Tor works, mostly.

Thank you!

It does seem like a lot though; and I have broken it in every way.

I suppose it may be the Gulag for me, but I do have a feeling of security and beneficence in the universe, so I’m not torn up about it. If this is my delusion, then I am still happy with it.

Thank you.

BTW, there is question I always hoped you would address, but now that you are retiring, the most I can hope for is that you might deign to give some parting guidance on how someone else could answer it, or maybe point to someone else who already has addressed it, if you know of such.

In the past, you have made some simple posts demonstrating that modern breeding is dysgenic for intelligence, with some groups more so than others. This is bracing stuff, but undeniable as it is, obviously it cannot always have been the case. So the question arises, when did human breeding turn dysgenic? I have a theory about when (and what) caused this change, but never mind that, what do the data say? Is there a way to look back in time and see when the fertility curves vs. wordsum scores turned dysgenic? I believe you used the GSS to do these curves, so those data only go back as far as the GSS, which I think is 1972, which I suspect is after the turn happened.

Any advice/guidance/hints/tips?

I have broken it in every way.

Haven’t we all, at some point?

But don’t despair. Undoxxability doesn’t really exist. All that exists is less doxxable vs. more doxxable. Try to be less.

If you want to be hardcore about it, you can start over with fresh identities on fresh devices with better opsec practices, but that takes more effort than most people will muster. So just try to be less doxxable.

I have thought about implementing more internet security and your succinct tutorial is a good one. I should at least switch to Brave as a browser since Duck Duck Go seems like a lame attempt now. I’m still using a flip phone, for a variety of reasons including privacy and sheer contrarian spirit.

Mostly I’ve intentionally not worried about being doxxed though. I write a column in the local paper (which is probably pretty lame by Unz standards, but still somewhat perturbing to the normies) so my beliefs are hardly a secret in my community. I made that decision intentionally a few years back since I felt like it was time to put up or shut up. I’ve gotten called a racist etc. by some of the woke contingent affiliated with the local college, but it doesn’t affect my local standing.

That decision has been made significantly easier by the fact that I am self employed. If I worked at the college in town, I probably would have been much more tempted to lie low and not rock the boat. I rather feel like I owe it to my kids to not keep my head down too much though.

This might bite me in the rear later on as my previously fairly anodyne nonconformity becomes considered full crime-think. I really don’t get too crazy online anyhow, relatively speaking.

I know that there a lot of folks who would lose their jobs and livelihoods if they were doxxed and I understand their concern. However, it seems worth considering making oneself doxx-proof by virtue of one’s life choices. Mine were certainly not made with that specific goal in mind, but I’m happy enough to be at that place.

If the current zeitgeist is only confronted by a lot of anonymous people talking to each other online it will never change. The key in my mind is having that solid local community as one’s base.

Talha has some good points. Any discussion, which is missing the participation of women and mothers will end up being skewed, which then undermines learning and problem solving. If you aren’t learning or problem solving when commenting on a blog, then what’s the point?

Many of the columns and blogs on Unz.com have very few commenters with names typical of women. In that sense, this has been an unusual blog. So I have some questions about this.

Why have a significant number of women been participating in this blog?

What can be done to increase the participation of women commenters on a column or blog?

Is there anything else that can be done to increase the participation of mothers?

“ If you aren’t learning or problem solving when commenting on a blog, then what’s the point?”

Correcting errors?

“What can be done to increase the participation of women commenters on a column or blog?”

Turn them into men.

“Is there anything else that can be done to increase the participation of mothers?”

Offer coupons?

Women are mostly not interested in the type of discussions we get in here. They prefer more light weight topics. I know that sounds sexist but it’s the truth.

I agree with you that its important to make a significant effort to find a way forwards to sustain this community. This community seems close to Ron’s ideal of different kinds of people talking with each other, listening, and learning from each other.

Marriages work because people deal with issues, adapt, and find ways forwards. The same applies to sustaining communities.

In the short time I’ve been following this blog, I’ve appreciated your comments. When you respectfully asked me what my thinking was behind my comment, that might be the first time in my life somebody did that, instead of attacking me for thinking differently.

I wrote a couple thousand words in reply to you, and didn’t finish because I got stuck. I’m disabled by PTSD and disassociation, and my worst handicap is that at a very low level of stress I become overwhelmed, inarticulate, and stuck.

I think there might be a pattern, that the longer the writing is, then the more likely I am to get stuck. So I’m working on the concept of breaking my writing up into installments, to reduce the risk of getting stuck.

~
I learned and grew a lot while working on writing that response to your question, and am sorry I can’t finish it and share it in the near future. If you contact me offline, I will make an effort to finish it and share it with you, after its settled down enough in the back of my mind that I can continue working on it again.

However, by that time, there might not be much difference in our positions on those issues. LOL

I always knew there was a difference between hardworking, good neighbor, regular-people conservatives, and the trap of Conservative Inc. Until recently I didn’t see the difference between the old time liberal values, such as a livable wage for a hard day’s work and safe working conditions while you did that work, and the trap of elitist wokeism, which is in partnership with Conservative Inc.

The conservative/liberal framing is being used as a divide and conquer wedge. We need language that works better. I’ve always been 110% for regular people.

Maybe for now, the language of regular people versus the bloodsucking globalists and their zombie armies (on the right and left), will work good enough.

~
Euroamericans took the idea of consensus from indigenous people and turned it into a verbal arm wrestling practice, which is why so many people hate to do it.

The indigenous practice for creating consensus is to keep listening, learning, growing, and changing, and keep doing this until the shared wisdom reaches a common ground. I’ve done this for about 30 years now, and its very effective, as long as others are doing it too. I even did it in the marines in two different units.

To work well, consensus must have a good balance of talking and listening.

In the marines they called it taking soundings. The big boss, with a coffee cup permanently attached to the hand they didn’t write with, would walk around talking to people, adjusting thinking and plans, and keep doing this until everybody was on the same page. Basically it was facilitating consensus, but using more manly vocabulary. LOL

Yes, there are times when instant response to orders is needed. However, that works far more smoothly with a previously established foundation of trust and consensus. Of course, this was long before the military became heavily politicalized. One of the few good things about the USMC was leadership school, where I was 3rd in my class. Since I hate spit and polish, and points for that were a significant part of the ranking scores, that was a major accomplishment. I think my community and team orientation is part of why I did surprisingly well in the marines.

Much of what I’ve learned I gained by simply listening to others.

Thank you for your contributions to increasing my understanding of life.

I have more to say about continuing this blog/group/community, and that will be the next installment, which will be a couple of days because I think and write slowly, which is another huge handicap.

That is exactly his mission here. Utterly deceptive. I wish Muslims well, but far, far away from my country and my daughters.