On Babies and Vampires, Revisited: My Post of July 3rd on Thinking Girl’s Thread–and a Modified Article

Dearest Readers,

We *all* make mistakes.  When we do, the best thing we can do is rectify them…and change them so that that would-be predators can’t try to bite you for raining on their parade and foiling their efforts at preying on the innocent.:)  Sometimes the wolves will try to bite the pit bull who fights for the Shepherd and  the sheep…so the pit bull must be prepared, with giant fangs and a nice long crook stick called a lawyer.:)  It turns out that I had quoted from an article very extensively that was copyrighted without realizing it; well, I took it down.  However, what my lawyer says is that *by Internet law,* I’m **allowed** to **provide the link** and comment on the link and the person who wrote it to my heart’s content; as long as I use NO quotation from the link–even if copyrighted–NO  legal action is possible.  I dislike paraphrasing, but I dislike mainstream patriarchal PUAism even more–so I’m thinking that I’m going to get very good at the paraphrase, even enjoying it. 😉 Yes, we **still** live in a free country, Virginia…one where even vampires can’t silence the whistleblowers and their opinions.:)))

So here is  “On Babies and Vampires, Revisited:  My Post of July 3rd on Thinking Girl’s Thread–and a Modified Article.”  ENJOY.

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Modified Article:

I have decided to take the majority of my writing of July 3rd, 2007, on Thinking Girl’s thread and re-post it **here.**   I know that Thinking Girl’s two PUA threads are lengthy and can present real challenges for reading, so I’m going to help my readers out by  taking this chunk and post it here as well–with more original writing and commentary.  I really advise that people read the two threads on PUAism at TG’s, because this will give you the real background to understand just precisely what my viewpoint is on this subject.  My added commentary will be in red text, so that it becomes clear which of my writing is the original from the post on TG’s blog and which is what’s been added on here.

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Scarred:  TO CLEAR UP THE RECORD ONCE AND FOR ALL ABOUT **WHY** I’M ON THIS THREAD, AND WHY I FORMED MY BLOG:  I have never, not once, claimed that I’m some kind of intellectual giant. I have been **very** honest all along about the purpose of my writing on mainstream patriarchal PUAism, which is **TO BUILD METHODS OF RESISTANCE TO AND INCREASE AWARENESS OF** its methodologies. Some people are more interested in critique; that’s okay, my intellect has always in some ways been more geared towards the practical rather than the theoretical, although I’ve gave analysis a good “college try” on the first PUA thread here on the blog.

In the earlier section of the first PUA thread at TG’s, I brought up a lot of ideas regarding Terror Management Theory and sexual addiction to explain the intransigence and rationalization of many mainstream PUAs about the methods they use to “attract” women.  Many to most mainstream patriarchal PUAs insist on their “right” to get women into bed by any means “necessary”–by hook or by crook.  The justifications and denial is incredible to me, but there it is.

Scarred:  I’m *still* going to analyze PUA methodology, but it’s going to be on **my** terms–which is analysis **with an eye towards resistance.** I have made this clear all along; I’ve never hidden this fact, not once. And my own feeling is that if my critique/analysis was **so** premature and overgeneralized, it wouldn’t have ignited the firestorm on this blog that it did. People respond incessantly and persistently to effectual threats, not ineffectual ones. I watch behavior, NOT claims.

I realized early on that we feminists were never going to persuade mainstream PUAs as a group to abandon their unethical methods of “seduction,” because I realized that there’s no quarreling with a patriarchal “junkie” hooked on controlling women with methods involving sex and power.  I decided to focus my efforts on educating women as to what mainstream patriarchal PUAism is all about, and to develop methods of refusal and resistance.  Some men will **get** this as well.

Scarred:  I’ve noticed that the reaction has become particularly fierce since I’ve started advocating using methods of propaganda analysis to deconstruct PUA advertising and methods. This tells me, quite rightly, that I’m very much ONTO something with recognizing PUA methods of approach, seduction, and advertising as a type of propaganda and marketing brought down to the **personal** level! If all women have to do is sit back and apply propaganda critiquing to the PUAs who are trying to approach them, it reveals the mirages for what they are–***doesn’t it?*** (And yes, that question was EXTREMELY rhetorical.)

If you combine using propaganda analysis and my methods of resisting pick-up methods that I entered on this blog on May 30th, 2007, you will have a nascent but probably *very* effective way of resisting mainstream patriarchal PUA methods.   However, I also forgot to mention another very, very important tactic in my “Methods of Resisting Pick-Up Artists, Advertising, and Other Manipulators.”  This tactic is this:  BEWARE THE OPEN-ENDED QUESTION.  I’ll add a second post explaining this either  today or tomorrow.

Scarred:  Am I new to this? Certainly!! Is there a possibility that my advocated methods of resistance and analysis will change over the years? That’s a given. However, WHAT WILL NEVER CHANGE is my insistence on developing ways and means for women to refuse and resist patriarchal domination in whatever form it presents itself. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: “If there’s anything I want women to take with them once you’ve read this, I want you to develop a ***bullshit meter*** that can rival or surpass a cop’s.” For this, I, Thinking Girl, and the feminists on this thread have been vilified and attacked incessantly, and there’s been a non-stop, CONSTANT effort to derail or distract our efforts. In case PUAs still can’t understand this, get this, and get this through your heads: WE’RE GOING TO KEEP ON NO MATTER WHAT.

This is self-explanatory.

Here’s one of the samples of some of the SHIT that has been thrown my way for daring to develop and argue for methods of resistance:  “Being a victim of past scarring events doesn’t mean that you should keep reducing yourself into a victim for the victimizers, it won’t make the certain future victimization of yourself less scarring – strengthen your mind and defend yourself with actions that aren’t knee-jerk reactions.”  Posting of April 17, 2007, 4:07 am by J.A.

Scarred:  This person did everything he could to slur me and my work, although granted in a very sideways manner–had he chosen to be honest with himself, he would never have said this. He knew DAMN WELL somewhere, deep down inside himself, that I wasn’t reducing myself or others into chronic victims; this especially doesn’t fly with me given how much EFFORT I’ve put into developing ways of spotting and resisting manipulative PUA methods. Working on ways to prevent victimization ISN’T being a professional victim.

I am by no means the only feminist who has ever been accused of having a “Victim Mentality.”  What many people seem unable to grasp is that the messenger isn’t usually the one creating the situation.  To  talk  about women’s victimization is not the same as creating it, wallowing in it,  or enjoying it.  Let’s say that there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Albuquerque, New Mexico on a *massive* scale.  If the CDC shows up on the scene in biowarfare suits and tons of antibiotics while enforcing a quarantine of the city and **warning** New Mexican and other American citizens to stay out of Albuquerque and watch for the symptoms of plague, would you accuse the CDC of creating an epidemic?  Of course not!   But when feminists try to inform people or observe that we live in a patriarchal culture with lots of infected mindsets, we get accused all the time of indulging in a victim mentality!  I’m not saying that we’re plaster saints or that feminists or feminism is above criticism, but ANYTIME we talk about a nasty phenomenon, we *routinely* get tarred with the “Victim Mentality” brush.  The above idiocy written by J.A.  is a good example of this. 

Or, how about this? 

Prophet 919:  “I have become genuinely disgusted and shocked. I have never seen such an utter waste of intelligence, knowledge and time in my entire life. This is the sort of extremist stereotyping that completely discredits the entire feminist movement. I’m sorry if you have had problems with men in your past or if you have never had a positive relationship with a male, but for you to so ignorantly label men as your enemy is simply foolish. Have you ever really deeply thought about why men act the way they do? Is the society that we live in not just as controlling for men as it is for women?”

Scarred:  When this person got confronted and exposed on his bullshit about how I was stereotyping all men as “The Enemy,” he backtracked, lied to himself, and rationalized THIS WAY:

Prophet919:  “well, youve pretty much agreed with what I meant actually, I think you misunderstood me as I was not clear enough.. I understand that scarred was not claiming all men are her enemy..”

Scarred:  YEAH, RIGHT.  Thinking Girl understood him **perfectly well.** He slung mud at me, then got real angry when I slung mud right back and pointed out to him that if he ignored and misread my posts, I can ignore [and misread] his, that he had his logic, I had mine. For daring NOT to get bowled over by his bullshit, he posted this:

Prophet919:  “…and you scarred are the reason why your movement is getting nowhere. if you ever hope to create anything more than tension then you will have to accept the fact that there’s more out there than your own adamant opinions and pit bull feminist rage..”

Scarred:  I will let his statement stand as one of the penultimate examples of male privilege that I’ve witnessed on a feminist blog. This ad-hominem non-logic was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

I think this man was angry because I simply stood my ground and didn’t roll over for his non-arguments.”…waste of intelligence, knowledge, and time” indeed!  He fully admits that he couldn’t finish reading the thread, and then proceeds to lambaste me.  That’s okay;  I expect it.  But what he DIDN’T expect is that I would get just as dismissive of him as he was of me.  THAT seemed to really knock him through a loop.

Scarred:  Now, I can have respect to a certain extent for criticism like this, although I don’t agree with it:

Hugh Ristik:  “The problem I have is that you are making premature claims for which you don’t have sufficient evidence (at least, not yet), like the one I identify above; thus, your critiques are frequently overgeneralized and risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I understand that you aren’t particularly worried about throwing out the baby, since your focus is on draining the bath, yet for me, this lack of concern for the baby is problematic, because my project is either to reform the community, or to take what is positive from it and leave the rest.”

Scarred:  Although I think this is well-reasoned, I also think that it’s a bad case of denial. Here’s why. Hugh [Hugh Ristik, creator of FeministCritics.org] and I fundamentally disagree on whether there’s a baby in the bathwater. He says it’s a baby. I say it’s a **vampire.** Maybe in some instances, Hugh is right and it’s just a baby in certain tubs. However, the more research I do into mainstream patriarchal PUAism, the more convinced I become that even if the creature may start out as a baby, it winds up becoming a vampire. If the vampire **leaves the bathwater,** then it seems to be going back towards being a baby, **but not as long as it’s in that bathwater.** Allow me to demonstrate my point.

Earlier in the thread, Hugh Ristik had made mention of Juggler, the founder of the Juggler method of PUA, as giving compliments on a woman’s good qualities that aren’t related to her looks.  He did this as a rejoinder to my observation to a highly manipulative method that the Mystery Method advocates to seduce women by giving them compliments on qualities unrelated to their appearance.  The post I had from the Mystery Method, however, blatantly and openly says that women are terrible at attracting men except through their looks; it was assumed that the PUA wasn’t attracted to the “target” except for her appearance and therefore was advocating a *nasty* little deception!  This was my reaction, and Hugh’s rejoinder: 

Scarred:  THIS IS WHAT MAINSTREAM PATRIARCHAL PUAISM IS ALL ABOUT. This is its real face.

Hugh Ristik:  This is one of its faces. Other PUAs, like Juggler, also advocate giving women compliments when they show positive qualities unrelated to their looks; yet for Juggler, this is not really a “technique,” because he argues it should be sincere.

The face I was referring to was the face of deception, not necessarily *a particular method* of deception.  But, I left Hugh’s comment unchallenged at first…then, later on, I came across a particularly immoral advocacy and method of delibrately creating an addiction that–yes!–came out of the Juggler Method.  And I used it in my post.  Where does the deception come in for the Dark Side of the Juggler Method?  Easy.  The deception comes in with the idea that the PUA who sets out to emotionally addict a woman to himself actually cares about her.  This is a gross illusion.  One of the common ideas floating around in our culture is that you can gauge someone’s level of caring by how you feel around that person.  PUAs take advantage of this and turn it into a monstrous deception.  Watch the following.

 Now, dearest readers, this is where I seriously modify the article due to copyright law.  Therefore, I recommend that in order to follow the link back to its original source and **read** my commentary at the same time, open up another window to access the Net with your browser and GO TO THESE LINKS.

Scarred:  I refer you to one of the senior instructors at Charisma Arts, Juggler’s method of PUA, a fellow who calls himself D1M1TR1. He was posted on Thundercat’s Seduction Lair–an entry entitled “The Dark Juggler Method.” Please check out the following two links, but be warned:  hang onto your stomachs, women, because this will make you blanch hard if you think about it.  You are about to read the method of delibrately addicting a human being to a predator:  be warned: 

http://www.thundercatseductionlair.com/2007/06/the-dark-juggle.html#more

http://www.fastseduction.com/discussion/fs?action=9&boardid=2&read=68055&fid=16

That’s right, people…and by the way, if you feel like doing rape, cannibalism, or suicide bombing, that’s okay too, now isn’t it??  Sure, it’s okay to addict a woman to yourself…and it’s okay to sell heroin or little children, too…NOT.  I myself have pointed out that we have the right to exist without approval or validation.  But the right TO BE is a different animal than the right TO ACT.  With action **always** comes moral obligations.

I felt sick as I read this method.  I think D1m1tr1 is sociopathic in advocating this, and if anything **finding** this confirmed my observation that I have been right all along in my **own** ferocious intransigence on insisting that feminists design methods of refusal and resistance towards PUA methods.

Scarred:  D1M1TR1 refers to the women he uses this technique on as  “VICTIMS.”  This is HIS language, people, not mine. I’m not selling you any wolf tickets, women; read this post very, very thoroughly.  It gets horrifying if you really think about the implications of what he’s talking about. Could it be “just” a marketing technique? Yeah, I think it’s marketing, however I also know from my ugliest personal experience that this is ***possible:***

I think that D1M1TR1 was trying to be humorous here, as the drugs he’s referring to in his posting are the endorphins and other chemicals that exist inside the human brain.  However, **I’m** not laughing.  I know from personal experience that this is a **nasty** thing to be hooked on.  When I was recovering from my love addiction, I went through everything that alcoholics go through in withdrawals with the exception of the delirium tremens.  I went through extraordinary grief that was so intense that I occasionally bayed like a hound INVOLUNTARILY; all I could do was disassociate and observe myself howl; I swear that the sounds that came out of my mouth weren’t human at times.  Other times I sounded just like an infant.  This wasn’t ordinary crying and weeping, people; to me, it seemed that I was POSSESSED by a spirit of grief.  Believe me, you don’t EVER want this.   

Scarred:  Remember the posting I’ve done on sexual and love addiction on the first PUA thread at TG’s? THIS is how it begins–by euphoria and ecstacy as intially manufactured in the brain of the sex or love addict. And please understand me very, very thoroughly: THIS IS THE DELIBRATE CREATION OF AN ADDICTION. This is **also** what drug dealers like to do to the newbies–the first sample is ***free.***

Scarred:  WHEN, not if, I perfect methods of resistance, D1M1TR1 will most certainly NOT be able to do this to any woman he chooses, and MANY women will be able to resist these drugs. In fact, I’m thinking that a wariness of the open-ended question and the ability to recognize and refuse the inital “rush” of brain chemicals as any basis to act on or make a decision of will be enough to head off any “seduction.” I’m not going to bet the farm on that, however; that’s why our research must be ongoing.I urge people to go back to the first PUA thread that TG has on this blog. On it, you will find my posting on Terrance Real, sexual addiction, and what my love addiction almost brought me to. I wasn’t kidding when I posted initially about how I almost threw myself off a tall building or ate a .45: I was as addicted as addicted as someone could be to a big-time manipulator and womanizer, PLUS earlier in my life I had been stung by a PUA (or possibly just an NLP master) who could have given Ross Jeffries lessons!! PUAs have done their level best to try to discredit me as someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but the truth of the matter is **I know damn WELL what I’m talking about!** I LIVED with the results of brain-chemical addiction to someone: I KNOW what it can and will do to you.

**My boss** thought I was getting suicidal; he knew I was behaving in an uncharacteristically quiet way at work, and I was starting to really visualize blowing myself away or diving off a downtown tall building.  That’s when I caught myself and got my ass into serious therapy.

Scarred:  No intelligent junkie, pothead, coke head, or meth user deludes himself or herself that the drug dealer actually cares about the customer. Is there a possibility that some mainstream PUAs care? Maybe, **but I sure as hell wouldn’t bet the farm on it, and I SURE AS HELL am not going to leave my well-being and safety up to them.** Real caring and love doesn’t involve getting women so addicted to you that you can manipulate them and get them to do **whatever** you wish. And if your desire is casual sex, the LAST thing you want is to be addicted to someone, because how the hell are you going to move on??

If all someone wants is casual sex, it’s not hard to find other people who are into it to get it on.  And if you want that person to have casual sex, you **don’t** want that person addicted to you!  Some PUAs will say, “Yeah, but there are methods of detaching someone from you after you’re had sex with them.”  Uh, If you can never guarantee the attraction, what makes you think you can guarantee the **DETACHMENT?**  And furthermore, NO ONE has the right to play with other people’s heads this way.  And it WILL undermine the mental health and stability of the person you’re playing with–if not now, sometime down the line.  I can’t prove this, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that one of the reasons why Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are volatile could be that they’re both *rumored* to have dealt with PUAs before–meaning, they’ve possibly been manipulated into the sack.  Neil Strauss mentions in his book “The Game” that *both* of them have been approached by PUAs.   

Scarred:  We talk about drug cartels and big-time drug dealers in this society, as well we should. While I tend to be pro-legalization regarding drugs, I will NEVER claim that drug dealers and members of drug cartels are fine, upstanding citizens. We have, for the most part, NO PROBLEMS recognizing hard-drug pushers as vampires and parasites on society. Given that the chemicals in our brains regarding emotional bonding are very, very powerful, mainstream PUAs are just as vampiric and parasitical, IMHO.  At best, your local pot-and-acid dealer might be a harmless chap caught in an economically rough time in his or her life; at worst, the head of the Cali and Medallin Cartels are monsters. And the harder the drugs, generally, the more monstrous the dealers. Also, the higher up the drug-dealing chain you go, the more monstrous the people become. Given what you’ve just read from D1M1TR1, and given all the **other** PUA gurus out there, what makes you think they’re any different? Yes, the “baby” in the bathwater in **many** cases is a fucking vampire–so **many** cases that it’s NOT worth taking the chance that it isn’t!!I’m not sure how much clearer I can make it that mainstream PUAism is the creation of emotional subjugation and slavery of women. There is NOTHING HERE that will do women any good, and ultimately it will only harm us. Feelings of euphoria and ecstasy are **only** feelings; and unfortunately, because women get battered by life in a patriarchy all the time, we frequently wind up miserable a big chunk of the time–so we get fooled by people who “make us feel good.” **This** is what renders us so damn vulnerable to this stuff. Our vulnerability MUST end, and only women can rely on ourselves to get out of this mess. If we find **some** trustworthy men to help us, great!! But first and foremost, self-reliance FIRST. Because I guarantee you that THIS clown, Thundercat, who posted D1M1TR1’s method, ***isn’t*** going to help you.

Read very thoroughly what Thundercat had to say as a response to what D1M1TR1 just taught the readers of Fast Seduction:  read it over and over again.  Understand very, very thoroughly that Thundercat has no objection to what D1M1TR1 has just taught:  in fact, he appears awfully RELIEVED to see that a method of enslaving someone has just been taught.  Because, after all, feminism is just being “PC” when it objects to men enslaving women, because goodness knows we can’t have LIMITS on men, now can we?  

UNDERSTAND THIS, DEAR SISTERS:  THESE MEN HAVE NOT  AND WILL NEVER CARE ABOUT YOUR HUMANITY.  THE FACT THAT PICK-UP ARTISTS CAN FORMULATE SOMETHING LIKE THIS AND THEN PRACTICE AND TEACH IT IS THE PROOF THAT–NO MATTER HOW PLEASANT, ATTRACTIVE, OR “EMPATHETIC” THEIR FACADE–THEY DO NOT SEE YOU AS A HUMAN BEING. 

Scarred:  The saying on the bumper sticker about feminism is~what? “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” You see, the idea that women are people and deserve better than to get hooked on some misogynist pig is apparently viewed as just an unfair “obstacle set upon men by society.”  Women, please forget about thinking that some PUA brain-chemical pusher is going to view you as a human being, or that he’s actually going to care about you.

Finally, I will leave you with the words of Hugh Ristik, whom I wish would actually believe what he wrote here, because it is the TRUEST thing he has ever written. I’ll just want to add this one thing: you don’t have to **be** a sociopath in order to cause the **damage** of one if you adopt a quasi-sociopathic attitude to justify your dealer actions:

“The seduction community is a group of men who believe that women are attracted to what pro-feminist author R. W. Connell would call ‘hegemonic masculinity.’ Prior to the community, some of its members buy into masculinity, and some do not. What they agree on is that women are attracted to masculine men (we’ll save the question of how true this is for later). Since they believe that the vast majority of women have such preferences, they believe that the only practical way to approach sex and relationships with women is by learning to perform masculinity better. Unfortunately, the performance of masculinity, as feminists have correctly pointed out, can have negative consequences both for these men and for the women they interact with. For example, in seduction forums, I have protested the maxim “don’t give a shit,” a classic example of male stoicism. Only a sociopath truly doesn’t give a shit. This doesn’t mean that PUAs are sociopaths, but it is disturbing that they feel they need to adopt stoic and quasi-sociopathic attitudes in order to be successful with women.”  Yes, Virginia, the baby in the bathwater really IS a vampire.

I don’t have a magic wand to wave to convince the reader that mainstream patriarchal PUAism is immoral and unethical, not to mention soul-destroying and horrid.  As you can see, I’ve done my very level best to try to persuade others of this reality, but I’m not going to focus the bulk of my efforts on this.  If someone doesn’t ”get it” and chooses to become a PUA, there really isn’t much you can do to convince them; his motivations are going to be much more about addiction and the love of power and control rather than about love and relatedness.  And there isn’t a **damn** thing you can do about it until he gets help.  The ONLY thing you can is to avoid enabling that person in ANY way, shape, or form; this means that you must not fall for his tactics, you must not make it easy for him, you must not fall for “reframing” mindgames, you must not go along with HIS program, and you must decide for yourself what it is that you really want.   Frankly, if I had a boyfriend or husband who became a PUA, I would dump or divorce him–and **I wouldn’t take him back until he went into treatment for sexual addiction.**  But each woman must decide for herself what she’s going to do faced with this situation.  I believe that the best way for women to avoid being preyed on by PUAs is to **avoid them** and not to fall for their tactics.  To this end, we MUST educate and arm ourselves with knowledge, ability, detachment, and motivation.Most of all, as women we must quit repressing what we observe or allow other people to convince us that we’re “deluded” or “crazy” or “mistaken” or “uptight” or what have you–**especially** if you’ve spent some real time and energy researching and learning PUA methodology.   If you think you’re seeing a vampire in the bathwater, don’t let other people try to convince you that it’s a baby!

Beware the Open-Ended Question: an Opportunity for Anchors!

Women:

When strange men are approaching you, be extremely wary of the open-ended question.  The open-ended question is a question that does not have a yes/no answer and requires thought and/or imagination to answer.  The last thing I want to do is to advocate paranoia for my readers, but I very much urge caution and care when someone you’ve just met is asking you questions.

Open-ended questions from a pick-up artist (PUA)  are designed not to get real answers from the woman he’s targeting but to elicit certain states in her, which he can then “anchor” (meaning, to associate them with himself) and recreate at earlier or later times.  Neuro-linguistic programming is where this initially originated.  I will refer you to this link at Wikipedia on anchoring:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_%28NLP%29

 Anchoring can be done in some basic ways:  it can be done kinesthetically (meaning, by touch–frequently, a touch on the arm is the most commonly used), it can be done verbally, with praise (or negativity, if someone wants to be able to set up a negative emotion to conjure up at a later date), and it can be done with sight–such as a dazzling smile at something you’ve said.  

Be aware that you can combine anchoring techniques:  for example, after answering an open-ended question designed to elicit a desired response, the questioner (a PUA or possibly someone else who is using NLP) can touch you on the arm or elsewhere, say, “Great!” and with a dazzling smile.  This is known as “stacking anchors,” and it’s damn effective unless you know **exactly** what you’re dealing with.   Even if you’re aware, sometimes the anchors can be set up without you knowing it.  I refer you to this link where a woman was conditioned into making tea for her husband anytime he wanted it.  Note just how subtle the conditioning can get:

http://www.lifedynamix.com/articles/Mental-Health/124.html

One of the people who came on one of my NLP training courses was particularly taken with the idea of anchoring. Shortly after the NLP training, one morning his wife offered to make him a cup of tea, and as she did so, he gently tapped the side of his cup with his ring. He repeated this the next few times she made him a cup of tea. After a while, all he had to do was tap the side of his cup subtly with his ring & she would spontaneously offer to get him a cup of tea!! Very Naughty use of NLP, Eh?! Just by creating a sensory representation (tapping the cup) that coincided with her making tea, he was soon able to use that representation as a trigger for what he wanted. He did eventually share his NLP anchoring experience with his wife and you can be sure he makes a lot more tea than she does now! [author:  Adam Eason]

This link is from cached websites that Google took a snapshot of:  I recommend looking at them.  If you have a problem in accessing the information, contact me, and I’ll see what I can do. 

http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:IRg6cJtJq-EJ:www.nlp-hypnosis.ws/nlp_anchoring.htm+methods%2Banchoring%2BNLP&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:IRg6cJtJq-EJ:www.nlp-hypnosis.ws/nlp_anchoring.htm+methods%2Banchoring%2BNLP&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us  

The important thing to avoid is allowing yourself to go into states of ecstacy, euphoria, or pleasure when thinking about a new man you’ve just met.  Habitual patterns of emotion or action is *precisely* what you want to look for.  The tea-making was supposedly harmless, and the husband *might* have just wanted to find someone to practice anchoring on, although what he did to his wife was *damn* sexist.  However, there is a way the wife could have cottoned onto what was going on previously to her husband *telling* her how he had anchored her. 

Point 1:  The wife could have stepped back and asked the very important question:  “Why have I picked up this new habit of spontaneously offering him tea?  What’s going on here?”

Point 2:  The wife could have tried to sit down and remember the various times when she was serving tea to her husband–and try to pick out the common thread of what he was doing just previously to her serving the tea.  This could be tough, however…

Point 3:  The wife could have checked out what her internal state was previously to each time she served the tea.  This is an easier and in some ways much more accurate way of gauging what was going on.  She could watch out for compulsory feelings such as the urge to get him some tea.  Urges are particularly easy to look out for.  Watch your impulses; discover what they are and govern them!  This may take a lot of effort…self-control can be a very hard thing to acquire; it’s worth it, however, as it puts you in the driver’s seat of your own life.

Tea-serving is harmless; being manipulated into the sack is a whole different animal.

Note how the husband didn’t even have to ask the wife an open-ended question! 

However, a stranger is at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with you.  There isn’t the huge catalog of positive and negative memories, states, and trust level that our friends and loved ones have to call on and induce.  This makes a huge difference; this situation can be dealt with much more easily. 

Avoid this:   watch for associating feelings of sexuality, ecstacy, euphoria, and behavioral impulses with new men. 

I don’t care how “different,” “unique,” or “special” they many appear from all the other men you’ve ever met.  In fact, the more “different, unique, special,” or “standing out from the crowd,” a man seems to be, the more of a red flag this actually is.  This is what PUAs strive for, to stand out in a woman’s memory, thoughts, or viewpoint as being separate and different from all the other men she’s ever met.

You do not have a basis for making a real decision for going to bed with a man until you’ve known him for years.   Beware the open-ended question, women.  It has led to one hell of a lot more deception and manipulation than any of us can imagine.

Let’s say you’ve already been bit by the euphoria/ecstasy bug, and you’re uncomfortable with how quickly this has developed.  There is a way to get rid of this, or bring this under control:  more on this the next time I post.

Condolences and Prayers for Healing and Safety for the People of the U.K.–and an Allegorical Prophecy

In light of the recent terror attempts in London and Glasgow, and also because I have **two** friends from the U.K., I want to offer my condolences and prayers for the healing, well-being, and safety of the people of the Old Country.  My prayers are with you all, and I hope with all my heart that there can be a way to achieve peace and security for all on Earth in our lifetimes. 

I was led by the Holy Spirit to “randomly” pick these verses from the Old Testament as–prayer or prophecy?  I’ll let you decide.  But this is the word of the Lord for this post today regarding this issue:

“‘As the LORD your God lives,’ she answered, [the Widow of Zarephath for whom Elijah the prophet worked a miracle]  ‘I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug.  Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.’  ‘Do not be afraid,’ Elijah said to her.  ‘Go and do as you propose.  But first make me a little cake and bring it to me.  Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son.  For the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’  She left and did as Elijah had said.  She was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, as the LORD had foretold through Elijah.  Sometime later the son of the mistress of the house fell sick, and his sickness grew more severe until he stopped breathing.  So she said to Elijah, ‘Why have you done this to me, O man of God?  Have you come to me to call attention to my guilt and to kill my son?’  ‘Give me your son,’ Elijah said to her.  Taking him from her lap, he carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed.  He called out to the LORD:  ‘Oh LORD, my God, will you afflict even the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?’  Then he stretched himself out upon the child three times and called out to the LORD:  ‘Oh LORD, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.’  The LORD heard the prayer of Elijah; the life breath returned to the child’s body and he revived.  Taking the child, Elijah brought him down into the house from the upper room and gave him to his mother.  ‘See!’  Elijah said to her, ‘Your son is alive.’” [emphasis mine]             (Scriptural passage is 1 Kings Chapter 17, verses 12-23, New American Bible.) 

I don’t really understand myself why I was led to put in these Bible verses in this post.  My own feeling is that it is a message from the Lord, but I’m going to let the readers decide for themselves what it means.  My own feeling, though, is that this is an allegorical prophecy for the Western world, or for Britain and Scotland–or both.  The Widow of Zaraphath can be said to be the U.K.; the dead son could be said to be the feeling of security and well-being that died with the advent of Islamofascist terrorism.  The drought can be said to represent the lack of common sense and morality as evidenced by the Bush/Blair regimes.  Elijah the prophet can be said to represent the presence of God who is with the people of the Old Country and the West in general.  The oil and flour that miraculously self-replenish for an entire year is the sustenance that God gives us all, even when we’re not aware of it–although in this case (cake?), it may mean something else.  More than anything, however, what God is trying to tell you, dear reader, is that just when you think God has abandoned or chastised you, it is then that Our Father-Mother is with you the most.

It is not for me to know the meaning of this prophecy; I feel a bit weird putting it out on the Net.  Nonetheless, I was pulled strongly to put this on my blog, and as a Christian I’m bound to obey God above all else.  The meaning of this allegorical prophecy will show itself over time.   Just know that God loves you, dear readers, and that no trial lasts forever.

Yours in Christ, 

Scarred the Feminist Pit Bull, who is occasionally God’s servant when I put aside my cowardice and do what He wants me to.   

Opinion Policy of This Blog

Point 1:  These are my opinions on  my blog.  This is the truth as I see it.  You don’t have to agree with me, but I DO have the right to speak/write it.  I have the right to observe, deconstruct, analyze, and help people resist manipulation as much as I desire…provided I specify that this is my OPINION.  I will not be held responsible for the behavior or decisions of other people; you will not hold me liable for other people’s actions.

Point 2:  The posts you see on the “comment” sections responding to the posts?  Those are the **opinions** of the people who are writing in.  If I post them, it will be understood that I thought their information was factual and truthful, but I’m not going to spend one million years investigating the veracity of their opinions/research/claims, etc.  If I allow the comment, it **doesn’t automatically** mean I agree with it, but it’s **their** opinion–an opinion I thought fit in well with the purpose of the blog.

Point 3:  If you don’t like my opinions, rebut them on your own blog/website.  You may rebut to your hearts’ content…ELSEWHERE.

An Example of How Propaganda Analysis Can Be Used to Deconstruct PUA Advertising and Methodology

Okay folks!  For today’s post, this is what I’m going to do:  my current writing on this post will be in blue ink and bold lettering; my three posts that I’ve authored from Thinking Girl’s first thread on PUAism will be copied here again in their original black ink and regular print.  My commentary will be in this color and boldness also.

My original three posts are towards the end of Thinking Girl’s first PUA thread, which is on my Blogroll–ergo, I won’t need to post the link.  I will **copy** my posts here, and then begin to comment on them.

 The first post is dated June 21st, 2007, at 12:31 pm:

It is useful to study mainstream PUAism from the perspective that it is *PROPAGANDA.* An extraordinarily useful website resource that I would like to refer people in studying propaganda is the official website of the United States Air Force War College, a.k.a. Air University. Its link is listed in my Blogroll section on my blog, The Feminist Pit Bull. I find its Informations Operations section to be most useful, and the site is surprisingly civilian-friendly and open to the public (within certain limits).

Here I will quote from the Air University website their definitions of propaganda from the Department of Defense: these definitions are useful in terms of identifying origins and makers of propaganda:

“Definitions, from DoD Dictionary
propaganda – (DOD) Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.

black propaganda – (DOD) Propaganda that purports to emanate from a source other than the true one.

grey propaganda – (DOD) Propaganda that does not specifically identify any source.

white propaganda – (DOD) Propaganda disseminated and acknowledged by the sponsor or by an accredited agency thereof.

counterpropaganda operations – (DOD) Those psychological operations activities that identify adversary propaganda, contribute to situational awareness, and serve to expose adversary attempts to influence friendly populations and military forces.”

Fellow feminists and feminist allies, we are engaged in what the Department of Defense would consider **counterpropaganda.** I want to emphasize heavily that propaganda and counterpropaganda is not limited to the military and political worlds; we are increasingly engaged in a world where ***propaganda has been brought down to the individual level.*** There are many types of marketing and mass communications that can be honestly be thought of as propaganda, and they are worthy of research and analysis; AdBusters to me seems like one hell of a good source, and there are numerous educational websites and blogs on propaganda; believe it or not, the Air University site has some **wonderful** links to *many* civilian sites; it’s a worthy resource, even if the Air Force is at Papa Doc Bush’s beck and call.:(

What I will do is submit this comment and submit another talking about the use of *one* of the techniques of propaganda that I view PUA sites as using quite heavily.

I was surprised when I looked at this Department of Defense dictionary definition of what it was that feminists are doing on Thinking Girl’s thread…it *IS* counterpropaganda!  I believe that this is the major reason why Thinking Girl and other feminists on this thread are getting so much flak…because essentially, without realizing it, **we mounted a counter-propaganda operation.**  The mainstream patriarchal PUA voices have been dominating the dating discussion for many men in the United States and the Western world…and, without **initially** realizing it, we’re challenging their discursive hegemony on attraction and “seduction.”

My second post, dated June 21st, 2007, 12:42 pm:

From the website wwwDOTpropagandacriticDOTcom

www.propagandacritic.com

is a listing of the most common techniques used in propaganda, although these are by no means the only ones. I will list them as follows:

1)name-calling
2)glittering generalities
3)euphemisms
4)transfer
5)testimonial
6)”plain folks”
7)”bandwagon”
fear

The website further divides these common techniques into three catagories and lists them as follows:

Word games
*************
name-calling
glittering generalities
euphemisms

False connections
******************
transfer
testimonial

Special Appeals
***************
“plain folks”
“bandwagon”
“fear”

Prior to analyzing the technique of transfer to the front page of a PUA website, I will ask you, dear reader, to please read through the quoted paragraphs from the “transfer” section of the Propaganda Critic website: it helps to thoroughly identify and define what the transfer technique of propaganda IS. **THEN** we will begin analyzing the use of the transfer technique in its application in my next post.

A valid criticism of my post is, “Well, why couldn’t you have just *paraphrased* the transfer technique instead of simply copying the text from the Propaganda Critic website?”  That would be a good point…but I’ve always been distrustful of the paraphrase.  Unless done very carefully, points and words can and do get distorted in the simplification.  I want my readers (and myself) to **really** understand the techniques; it is just better policy to let the information stand **as is.**  

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorn. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold! — William Jennings Bryan, 1896

“Transfer is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept. For example, most of us respect and revere our church and our nation. If the propagandist succeeds in getting church or nation to approve a campaign in behalf of some program, he thereby transfers its authority, sanction, and prestige to that program. Thus, we may accept something which otherwise we might reject.

In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. Those symbols stir emotions . At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation. A cartoonist, by having Uncle Sam disapprove a budget for unemployment relief, would have us feel that the whole United States disapproves relief costs. By drawing an Uncle Sam who approves the same budget, the cartoonist would have us feel that the American people approve it. Thus, the Transfer device is used both for and against causes and ideas.” (Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1938)

When a political activist closes her speech with a public prayer, she is attempting to transfer religious prestige to the ideas that she is advocating. As with all propaganda devices, the use of this technique is not limited to one side of the political spectrum. It can be found in the speeches of liberation theologists on the left, and in the sermons of religious activists on the right.

In a similar fashion, propagandists may attempt to transfer the reputation of “Science” or “Medicine” to a particular project or set of beliefs. A slogan for a popular cough drop encourages audiences to “Visit the halls of medicine.” On TV commercials, actors in white lab coats tell us that the “Brand X is the most important pain reliever that can be bought without a prescription.” In both of these examples, the transfer technique is at work.

An interjection here:  I’ve noticed that many mainstream PUAs very much like to dress their arguments in the “science” of “evolutionary biology,” clothing their rationalizations of patriarchy in pseudo-scientific drapery.  I’ve also noticed that their “scientific arguments” are pretty selective:  you hear a lot about evolutionary biologists whose views justify the patriarchal, aggressive promiscuity of early man, but you **sure as Hades** don’t hear  about other evolutionary biologists whose views might ameliorate or contradict the former.  Now, you could argue that current patriarchal behaviors **must be** rooted somehow in evolutionary biology, how else do you explain patriarchy’s universal presence on the planet?  This is a **valid** argument, but considering that we now know that there are only 30,000 total human genes, it is **equally** a valid argument that patriarchy may just quite simply be one **heck** of a lot more environmentally-caused than we care to admit!!

(Source of human gene information:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/info.shtml)

Also, do we look at a patient **riddled** with cancer cells and declare, “Thus it ever was from the beginning; this is how it’s **meant** to be.”  See how well THAT argument goes over with an oncologist trying to save someone’s life. 

Gives you pause, doesn’t it?   

These techniques can also take a more ominous turn. As Alfred Lee has argued, “even the most flagrantly anti-scientific racists are wont to dress up their arguments at times with terms and carefully selected illustrations drawn from scientific works and presented out of all accurate context.” The propaganda of Nazi Germany, for example, rationalized racist policies by appealing to both science and religion.

Note how many neoconservative positions that are blatantly sexist make an appeal **also** to both science and religion.   

This does not mean that religion and science have no place in discussions about social issues! The point is that an idea or program should not be accepted or rejected simply because it has been linked to a symbol such as Medicine, Science, Democracy, or Christianity.

True enough!  However, I’m **tired** of people appealing to biased, slanted science that doesn’t take into consideration opposing viewpoints.  That’s part of the reason why I’ve developed such a knee-jerk reaction to the symbol Evolutionary Biology.  Nonetheless, I’ve seen evolutionary biological arguments that were quite good…but almost always, they’re **nuanced** and **sophisticated,** not rationalizing and with an agenda you can spot a mile away.

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis has argued that, when confronted with the transfer device, we should ask ourselves the following questions:
In the most simple and concrete terms, what is the proposal of the speaker?
What is the meaning of the the thing from which the propagandist is seeking to transfer authority, sanction, and prestige?
Is there any legitimate connection between the proposal of the propagandist and the revered thing, person or institution?
Leaving the propagandistic trick out of the picture, what are the merits of the proposal viewed alone?”

The third post, dated June 21st, 2007, at 1:30 pm.     

OK, for the purpose of simplifying analysis today, I recommend (if you wish, dear reader) that you open up another window of your browser and bring up this PUA website **along** with this thread, so that you can see what I’m critiqueing as you read my post. The website you want to bring up is
wwwDOTthemysterymethodDOTcom

www.themysterymethod.com

(I did this originally on TG’s thread in order to avoid attracting spam to her site.  Here, though, on my own blog I’m providing the link.)

and you will instantly get the front page. This is the specific page I’m critiqueing for the use of transfer technique in propaganda.

What I detect is the use of three major memes and approximately three minor memes in the transfer technique of propaganda. The three major memes I detect for transfer are Sexuality, Mastery, and Science (gender psychology). I will begin my analysis as follows:

If you look up in the upper left-hand corner, you will see the title of the website, the Mystery Method. In smaller print underneath it you will find the sentence (I believe it’s called the tagline?) “Put beautiful women under your spell.” Immediately you see the use of the memes Sexuality and Mastery. To put someone under your spell is to dominate them: you’ve got them *right* where you want them. “That someone” is the beautiful woman. Look over at the far right of the page:

You will see a picture of a young, beautiful Caucasian woman with brown hair, red highlights, a revealing red dress, and a double-string of pearls. She is looking over her left shoulder with her face partially-obscured by hair, with her face tilted slightly downward; her right hand is located on her left shoulder, and her index finger is placed on her lips in a gesture traditionally evocative of silence. The image breathes beauty, sexuality, submission, and mystery-the veritable image of the Desirable Other that the artist and webdesigner imagine all men to want. Here the memes are Sexuality and Mastery (there is also a meme of Mystery, but one can argue that this in fact is secondary).

The drawing of this female is meant to transfer these memes; it does so very well. BUT-this is not the only area on the front page that is engaged in transferring!

Note the opening blurb:

“The Mystery Method
Learn the Rules of Attraction
*We are the Mystery Method: the notorious step-by-step system to meet, attract, and seduce or date beautiful women that anyone can learn and that GUARANTEES results.”

Just this one opening blurb is *laden* with transfer technique; I believe I’ve identified six memes already in this opener.

1st meme: Science/(gaming): “Rules of Attraction” (arguably, also reminds one of “Rules of Engagement,” doesn’t it?)

2nd meme: Outlawry/Rebel Aura: “notorious” (because who wants to play by the *societal* rules?)

3rd meme: Mastery: “step-by-step system” (Because practice and sequential learning makes the *master*:

4th meme: Sexuality: this one’s obvious: “meet, attract, seduce or date beautiful women”

Note on the analysis of the 4th meme: note how you seduce OR date beautiful women. Note how the implication is that you can’t do BOTH with the same woman, which hints at the “if you can get her in the sack on the first date, she ain’t worth having” mindset.

5th meme: Populist/The People/Everyman: “that anyone can learn.” The seductive meme here is that this is open to Joe Average and John Doe.

6th meme: Security/Sure Bet: “…that GUARANTEES results.” The meme here is that this system is fool-proof and surefire. In some ways, this may be the most important meme, for the following reason:

CHECK OUT THE PRICES THIS WEBSITE CHARGES!!

Please scroll down to the bottom of the webpage: you will see listed there the section for “Upcoming Events.” There are two basic programs listed: the Comprehensive Boot Camp and the Breakthrough Comfort programs. There is a section for “Availibility” (which obviously changes rapidly and could certainly create an urgency within the viewer to sign up BEFORE THE PROGRAM GETS FILLED!). Most importantly, look over to the far right of the page underneath the “Price” and “Deposit” sections. The lowest price is for 950 DOLLARS-that’s a ****minimum**** price for deposit, although the “Breakthrough Comfort” programs **are** “only” 950 dollars.

I want to contrast this with the inexpensive price of Alan Currie’s Mode One book, which is 19-something dollars plus tax and perhaps shipping and handling.

This was my “a-ha” moment, when I realized that while they might not be the *primary* targets, that men were *also* getting preyed on by mainstream patriarchal PUAism.  In fact, back on TG’s second PUA thread, someone made the **very** valid observation that men are the **primary** targets and women are the **bait.**  I tend to thing of women as the “primary” targets (Hades, we’re even called “targets,”), but a very good argument is that this could easily be a case of misdirection and deception on the part of PUA gurus.  Sure.  When hunting, we don’t alert the deer, now do we?

This is a **lot** of dough required by the Mystery Method for men to be spending in order to have a sex life. While mainstream PUAism preys on women, don’t ever doubt that it doesn’t prey on men too-it uses their hopes, dreams, angers, sense of existential powerlessness, the subsequent craving for power, loneliness, and frustration to empty their wallets. Do the techniques work? Sure-in the hands of someone who’s willing to be manipulative. And in turn, the men who are willing to manipulate women into bed are **also** getting manipulated out of their hard-earned cash, and, IMHO, their ethics and morals. The question we have to ask ourselves as peoples and as a civilization is if this is something that we really want to participate in. Jesus said, “What profits a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul?”

Do we really think we can buy sexuality, beauty, power, and mastery? Do we think that we don’t hurt ourselves when we are willing to spend exorbitant money-money that could be used to invest and save, money that could be used for charity, money that could be used to build, invent, create-on learning how to control other people to get sex and banish loneliness? I realize that these sound like rhetorical questions, but I’m hoping that people ***really*** ask themselves these things.

The increasing atomization and lack of social connections in my opinion is rendering our society, both men and women alike, much more vulnerable to manipulation and propaganda appealing to the “get laid quick” and “find someone NOW” urges that many of us have to struggle with daily.  One solution will be and must be the restoration of community and social ties to our culture…but that’s not the focus of the blog.  Another solution that we can and must implement along with the restoration of community and sociality is CRITICAL THINKING.  We must–for our own integrity, morality,  mental health, and viability as a civilization!–start teaching and practicing critical thinking.  It is time for Joe and Jane Westerner to avoid falling for propaganda offering ecstasy predicated on manipulation and control,  promises that prey on the increasing feeling of powerlessness that permeates our society.   PERIOD.

A little note: I fixed the link to the Persuasion Analysis website.

My dear readers,

You should be able to–with no problem!–go read Professor Hugh Rank’s outstanding website.  I think you will learn a tremendous amount of information on how to recognize–and thus short-circuit–manipulative and dishonest communications.  Enjoy!

Thank you for your patience

Thank you for your patience in waiting for my next posts.  I apologize for how long this took, and I had a problem I had to clear up.  All cleared up though:  happy to report that.  Thank you for bearing with me; I appreciate your support.:)  I’ll be doing some **MAJOR** posting tonight.  I’ve discovered propaganda analysis as a fitting tool for resisting PUAism.

Why I am a Christian: My Story, Part 1

 Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed.  Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian.  For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.  For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant, heirs according to the promise.  Galatians 3:  23-29, New American Bible translation.

I promised God that one out of every ten of my posts on this blog would be dedicated to witnessing for my faith in Christ.  These posts will be under the catagory of “Christianity:  My Journey,” and if visitors and posters to this blog choose not to read these items, that’s fine.  But I have promises to keep…

************************************************************************************************************

Where to begin?  Oh, where do I begin?  What led me to be a Christian?  How could I possibly begin?

Maybe I’ll begin with what *didn’t* lead me to Christ.

I grew up in a family of a stay-at-home mother,  breadwinner father, and children.  I will not go into explicit detail because this is how people get stalked over the Internet; disclosing too many details gives cyberstalkers an “in.”  However, I will say this:  my family was about as unhappy, dysfunctional, and nasty as you could get before becoming Lois Jurgens-level awful.  Alcoholism, wife-beating, and child abuse and neglect reigned in the family.  Truthfully, we weren’t really a family, more a collection of individuals drowning in a maelstrom of chemical dependency, hate, torment, and chaos.  I grew up to be one hell of an unhappy little girl, and I saw the ugliest gender dynamics you could possibly imagine.  I didn’t witness any marital rape, but I saw one hell of a lot of violence that my father perpetrated on my mother.  My brother and I were also on the receiving end of a lot of abuse and neglect by my mother.  I found myself walking around when I was eight or nine actively wishing that I had never been born, and one of my brother’s second-grade teachers reported to my mother that my brother had stood up in front of the classroom and said, “Nobody loves me; nobody cares.” 

Have I set the stage to explain why I became so escapist?

Because I really did become one.

Some children will lash out at the world around them when abused and neglected.  My tack was the opposite.  I chose to become very withdrawn, and I escaped into my own little world.  I didn’t have any social skills worth a damn, and I was picked on and ostracized at school–with very few friends.  I read books incessantly, didn’t want to go out and play too often, and holed up in my room whenever I could.  The library was a refuge for me, and at one point it was turning into a home away from home, particularly during the summer.   Life just didn’t seem worthwhile outside of a book, and I lived to escape life.  There is a very thin line between self-pity and depression, and as a kid I was incessantly going back and forth over the line all the time.  Even now I struggle with figuring out the difference between legitimate grief for a childhood I never had versus just wallowing in “poor me-ism.”  Yeah, I know, poor baby.:D  I don’t pretend to think I have a “plight,” not now.   But we all have to struggle with our inner demons, and mine are typical of the millenium-era white upper-middle class order:  depression and a dysfuntional family of origin.  Among others.

So here I was, tooling around at age 8 or 9, and looking for something to escape to, something to make my life better.  When I walked home from school or around my small town, I used to pass a little Baptist church.  I walked there pretty frequently, and I got very curious.  I began to ask my mother and father if I could go to Sunday school.  My mother, who had been brought up in a highly religious family with many kids and who was by denomination a Methodist, was quite pleased, and said “yes.”  So I began going, every Sunday.

Sunday school was my first real experience with religion.  I had a smattering at home; my mother and I used to watch the Billy Graham television crusades together, and she taught me the Lord’s Prayer.  But Sunday school took it to a whole new level.  I quickly became “churched,” going every Sunday to the classroom in the Baptist church for lessons.  It was exposure to social situations, and it was exposure to caring, loving Sunday-school teachers who were teaching faith to kids.  By all accounts, it should have been the healthiest thing for me.

The problem is that it wasn’t.

I’m of the opinion that one should be very, very careful just *how* religion is taught to kids.   You never know just what highly suggestible child from an abusive/neglectful home riddled with domestic violence is looking more for an escape than a relationship with the Divine. 

I quickly turned into a little religious addict; I turned to a religion to self-medicate my pain.  The problem is that the religion I was learning didn’t bring me close to God or bring me to the reality of Jesus Christ–in part because too much emphasis was placed on Biblical literalism and legalism and not enough on experiencing the reality of the Lamb of God.   I learned the wrong things about God–learned that he was a vengeful, cruel God who punished people at the drop of a hat.  I learned that if you didn’t do things exactly the way He told you to and be “born again,” you would burn in hell forever.  I learned that God was male and that husbands had the right to boss wives around, and that if women didn’t obey, they weren’t pleasing God.  Needless to say, the emotional ramifications for me were ugly; I swore even as a little girl that if God really wanted wives to obey husbands, that I would never, ever get married so that I wouldn’t have to be under the thumb of a man.  (Now at age 44, I think I can smile at my subconscious mind in amusement and tell it that marriage isn’t a Divinely-ordained threat to autonomy for women and that the little Baptist church had it wrong.:) )  I learned that I wasn’t good enough as a human being, that I was born with original sin, and therefore I was “evil.”  No one had explained to me the concept of hamartia as the human condition that was meant in the New Testament as the *original sin* we’re all born with–translating literally as “to be without a share in,”  “missing the mark,” a tendency to misperceive and *not* hit the goals of holiness or to *not* have holiness.  Note that this is a far cry and concept from being born evil, but this isn’t what I–and probably the other kids in the Sunday school–weren’t getting.  That was a big chunk of the problem.   

I learned to interpret the Bible literally and unquestioningly, to take it word-for-word, just as it says–a recipe for disaster in the mind and heart of a child.  I know that the Sunday school teachers were trying to teach us that God loves us unconditionally; I remember that we would all sing, “Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World,” the refrain still humming in my ears sometimes:  “Red and yellow, black and white/they are  precious in His sight/Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

But that was only part of the hymn.  Another part of the hymn was, “Jesus wants the little children, to be careful what they do/ Honor father, mother dear /Keep their hearts so full of cheer/ Then he’ll take them home to glory by and by.” 

And quite possibly, this is what screwed me up in my little Baptist church more than anything. 

My parents weren’t parents in the true sense of the word; they were two alcoholics, battering husband and battering wife–neither one of them qualified or able to parent.  Both of them were abusive to us kids or highly neglectful; neither one of them was present for us in the way that children need their parents to be present.  We really didn’t have  a mother or father, not in the true sense of the words.  And “honoring” your parents in those days meant obeying them to a “t” and not questioning *anything* they did–a recipe for psychological disaster when dealing with alcoholics.

The cognitive dissonance that was created between being taught by Sunday school to obey and honor my parents (or Jesus won’t take you to glory!) and experiencing the chaos in a family with two chemically-dependent non-parents was something my young mind couldn’t handle.    I couldn’t satisfy the religious demands of my church and be a dutiful daughter without playing a major mind game on myself.  I couldn’t tell the truth to myself and be who the adults in my life thought I should be.  I went into denial, day-dreaming, and escapism as my way of coping.  In other words, I had to lie to myself so thoroughly that I couldn’t see the real truth of what was happening in my family. 

The problem is, of course, is that the more you lie to yourself, the less experience of the Living Water you’ll have.          

Advice: If you get a chance, go through the Persuasion Analysis website

Seriously, it’s extremely educational!

One of the things I’ve noticed is that not only are the terms of Propadanga easily identifiable, anyone with a good knowledge of PUAism (a.k.a. seduction methods) also readily pick up on PUA methodology being easily classified as a subset of propaganda–or at least uses many methods recognizible as having their origin in propaganda.

 More on this tomorrow, folks!

 LET’S PUT THE CHOMP ON PATRIARCHY!

Yours, Scarred the Feminist Pit Bull

Update on Blog Site Progress

“If you build it, they will come.”

It appears to the casual reader that I haven’t been building my blog, and for this I apologize.  However, *I* have been doing a lot of online research and exploration of topics, and I’ve added several blogs and websites to my Blogroll.  There are three that I would like to point you towards.  Site 1:  Richie Pilbeam’s “Crimitism” blog.  If you haven’t read it, it’s a MUST.  Richie is a hard-hitting, Australian male feminist who’s as good a word gunslinger as you’re going to find in the blogosphere.  I invite you to read a sample of Richie’s hard-as-nails dissection of the New Patriarchy as he takes on “The Alphabet of Manliness:”

http://crimitism.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/the-alphabet-of-manliness-its-very-very-bad-possibly-even-worse/#more-38

 Read it, and savor it.  IMHO, it doesn’t get much better than this:  “Most people do think women are nags, men are inherently violent, goths are boring, and Garfield is a bit shit. People want to be told these things. People also want to believe that they’re the centre of the universe, and the only person with the guts to call a spade a spade, so if you can dress the same material up as a way of sticking it to the man, it’s no surprise that your website will end up more popular than Pepsi’s. It’s just Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus‘ angsty younger brother who wears an ironic Godzilla t-shirt.”  Or, how about this? 

[In a world where metrosexuals–stylish, well-groomed, and sharply dressed men–have taken the center stage in defining the new masculinity, small pockets of men are starting to emerge, rebelling against the status quo.]

[- Maddox, in his introduction to the book on Amazon.com] (Richie here quotes Maddox from his introduction to the “Alphabet of Manliness”)

“Fun fact of the day #2: Metrosexuality is, and has always been, a choice. Men’s right to be a slob is not under threat because of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, and describing metrosexuality as ‘the status quo’ just because it’s visible is so ridiculous I don’t know where to begin. There’s no genuine social pressure on every man out there to spend / waste his money on wax, cosmetics and firming lotion, and if he chooses to do so, we call him a metrosexual to differentiate him from the majority. And you can take ‘metrosexual’ as a byword for ‘fag’ or ‘poof’ or ‘himbo’ if you want, but it plainly isn’t just a euphemism; it’s a positive word that implies metropolitan sophistication and sexual potency. There’s no equivalent word for a woman who rejects the look of the female majority. They’re all insults. This whole ‘Reclaim your manliness!’ bollocks would be cringeworthy even without the misogyny, homophobia and ape-pack mentality that always accompanies it.”

 Ha-HAH!  Go, Richie, go!  I couldn’t have done any better myself…

Site 2:  Persuasion Analysis, Dr. Hugh Rank’s contribution to analysing propaganda and advertising.  His website is easy to navigate and extremely educational; so far, it’s the best one that I found of its kind, although I haven’t exhausted the Internet by any means.   As a sample of his efforts, check out the link I’m providing here:

http://webserve.govst.edu/pa/Political/Not-So-Great%20Expectations/bushbashing.htm

He does a cagey analysis of the Bush Administration, Dr. Rank does–yes indeed!

“About 1980, when I originally wrote the section on war propaganda, Osama bin Ladin was being supported by the CIA in Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was being supported in its war against Iran by the US. Neither of these wars then was on my mind which was centered primarily on the patterns of rhetoric of previous European wars. A decade later, the “Cold War” was over when the USSR disintegrated. Two decades later, Bush proclaimed the “war on terrorism” and linked our old friends, Osama and Saddam, as co-conspirators. Frankly, I do not know specifically who our friends and enemies will be twenty or thirty years from now. But, I think these patterns I’ve observed in the past will appear in the future.”  (From the above-mentioned article entitled, “Bush Bashing?” on Dr. Rank’s “Persuasion Analysis)

 And then finally, I decided to get a little spooky and daring.  I decided to provide a link to the US Air Force’s Air War College site “Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center.”  The site *is* surprisingly open to civilians, so I decided to provide the link to my readers as an opportunity for them to read about psychological operations, psychological warfare, mass persuasion, etc.  You will notice that if you examine this site carefully,  it does have a section on Neuro-linguistic Programming.  To those who say NLP doesn’t work, I say beware:  the military doesn’t generally waste time on ineffectual methods.  Anyone who thinks NLP is mere sleight-of-hand or doesn’t work is laying  him/herself open to manipulation…

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What I’ve decided to do with my blog is this; rather than not post *anything* on my blog publicly while working on big long essays, I’ve decided to do reasonably short public posts on my blog *until* I get my essays finished and *then* post them on the blog.  This way the blog is active, there’s more reason for my readers to check back frequently to see what I’ve written, and hopefully I can engender some really lively discussions serving as springboards to other research/essays/methods of resistance.   I *am* working on Part 2 to “On PUAs, Mind Control, and Patriarchy,” but it’s slow-going because I have to get some of the Vance Packard writings, which will not be republished until late July.  Ergo, I’m (hopefully) doing the sensible thing by concentrating on doing daily posts and other essays in the meanwhile.

I’ll write again tomorrow–until then, remember: 

LET’S PUT THE CHOMP ON PATRIARCHY!

Yours, Scarred the Feminist Pit Bull