In his opening essay, Aaron Renn provides a good summary of why men in general and Christian men in particular are turning to Pick Up Artists (PUAs) and mentors within the manosphere. To put it bluntly, when it comes to intersexual dynamics and how men attract women, these men know what works. The PUAs assert that Western Culture and the church within it have been sold and are selling a bill of goods produced by Feminism.[1] These men, however, recognize the fact that Feminism is a war on reality. Women do not want what Feminism says they want, and men who have played along are being emasculated. What leaders in the manosphere are discovering is God’s created design.
Renn’s references show that the techniques for men attracting women work while the evangelical church’s emphasis on “servant leadership” does not. Many Christian young men are attracted to the Rollo Tomassi’s of the world for this reason. The servant leadership model (a perfectly fine biblical phrase) has been hijacked by those within the church highly influenced by Feminism. Servant leadership is generally understood now as, “pedestal the woman, give her everything she wants, just say, ‘yes, dear,’ be a self-deprecating nice guy, and, remember men, it’s always your fault.” (This is nothing like the Servant.) This is not working. If these men begin to date and eventually marry, attraction, if it ever was there, wanes and the marriages turn sexless all too often. The couple then goes to counseling where the husband learns that he must negotiate for sex with his wife–paying for sex in some form or fashion– following the Al Mohler model quoted by Renn. Things don’t improve because that’s not what she wants, even though that’s what she’s been told she should want. She’s just not sexually attracted to him. On the rare occasions when they do have sex, it becomes passionless “duty sex,” which becomes frustrating to both of them. Our churches are filled with married couples like this. (I speak as a pastor of thirty-plus years.) Some of these spouses, believing themselves to be good soldiers, endure. Others are divorcing, not willing to live in “loveless” marriages.[2]
Enter PUAs. They tell men what has been glaringly obvious through the centuries about what attracts a female’s sexual desire. Men try it. It works. They like it. Game. Set. Match.
The techniques work. The question is, Why do they work? We can say that it is because of sin, but sin is not a creation ex nihilo. Sin is a parasite that twists God’s creation. So, behind all sinful intersexual relationships is a divine design that is being leeched off of and distorted. These men have tapped into the way God created and sustains intersexual dynamics, specifically what attracts women to men, and they have sinfully used it. PUAs use God’s reality to a perverted end much like any atheist uses language to deny the existence of the eternal Word; he operates within God’s reality while denying his existence. Reality is reality whether you use it for good or ill or accept or deny its Source. Sound epistemological justifications for intersexual dynamics cannot be found in the secular manosphere, but they know reality when they see it. In the area of intersexual dynamics, the manosphere men are images of the sons of Cain who discovered and developed creation previous to the sons of God. In this case, the manosphere re-discovered and re-developed biblical treasures that the Western Church lost through neglect and allowing the Jezebel of Feminism to redefine masculinity, femininity, and intersexual dynamics.
Our battle with the manosphere men is, of course, over their misuse of creation and the evolutionary worldview that they claim supports it. But we are working with the same reality and, quite frankly, at some points, they are seeing reality better than many of us Christians. There are good, biblical explanations for why these attraction techniques work in intersexual dynamics. They are rooted in the original creation. Though twisted by sin, our original design, which includes intersexual dynamics, is restored by grace, not obliterated.
As Leithart notes in the closing paragraph of his essay, attraction is mysterious. Genuine attraction cannot be negotiated. It can be cultivated, but it is never merely contractual. People are attracted to different sorts of people for a myriad of reasons. Our attractions are shaped by various factors: how and where we were reared, our goals, race/ethnicity, culture, brain chemistry, and other conditions. There are characteristics that initially attract us and those qualities that keep us attracted long-term.
Attraction is what we are drawn to as beautiful and somehow useful to us. While there are a number of micro-factors in specific attractions, there are some common factors that are not so mysterious that attract women to men and vice versa. Qualities that attract men to women are very different than what attracts women to men. Men are attracted to classic femininity; long hair, softness, curves, etc. Feminism, however, has attempted to convince women that men should be attracted to sameness. For example, men should be attracted to a woman if she has power, status, money, and physical strength. In other words, the more she acts like a man, the more she will be attractive to men. Men sexually attracted to women do not want boyfriends. Our polarities attract us to one another as men and women, not how we are the same.
We are created to need one another for different reasons to fulfill our created purpose of dominion, and when we see another person who can somehow meet those needs at some level, we are drawn to or attracted to him or her. Opposites attract because we complement one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Beauty and utility are friends, not enemies.[3]
The PUAs have developed their techniques around traits of genuine masculinity that attract females. Genuine masculinity is rooted in God’s original creation of the man and his relationship to the woman and the rest of creation. God made the man to take dominion. As Roberts rightly states in his essay, this dominion began even before the woman was created as man named the animals and was given the responsibility to guard and work the garden (Genesis 2). God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. He needed the woman to accomplish his dominion mandate. So, God created the woman to be his helper. The woman, Paul says, is created for the man (1Corinthians 11.9). While the man’s primary orientation is toward the earth from which he was created, the woman’s primary orientation is toward the man from whom she was made.
The woman becomes a part of the man’s mission in the world, so he names her at her creation as well as being tasked with guarding her and providing for her because she becomes a part of the Garden. The woman looks to the man for protection and provision. His ability to provide and protect defines, to a great extent, his masculinity in relation to femininity.
Adam failed to take dominion over the serpent as he should have, consequently, failing to provide and protect his wife. Since the fall, the man’s masculinity must be proven to the woman. She tests him to see if he is a worthy protector and provider. These masculine characteristics, rooted in the original intersexual dynamics, prove to be what attracts women to men.
For a man to be a protector, he must demonstrate strength. This strength comes in many forms: physical, intellectual, social status, competency, et al. So, for instance, women like more muscular men. No woman is going to see Jason Mamoa in Aquaman because of the literary superiority of the film. In Captain America: The First Avenger, when Chris Evans is transformed from scrawny Steve Rogers to buff Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter gets a little flustered when she sees him without a shirt on. This is so common it is cliché. The woman is attracted to power because she was created to need and, therefore, be attracted to a man who can protect her. This is why a professional CrossFit woman will not generally be sexually attracted to some beer-guzzling couch potato who plays video games all the time. He is weaker than her. If she is stronger than him, he cannot protect her any better than she can protect herself. She is looking for someone stronger. (This is one aspect of the hypergamy Renn alluded to.)
This powerful man exudes confidence as well. He knows who he is, and he knows what he wants to do. He has a mission. He is happy for a woman to join him, but she does not define his mission. Since she is created to be oriented to the man’s mission–helper–this masculine confidence is attractive. If he loses this and begins to revolve his life around her, she becomes less attracted to him. This runs contrary to her created design.
The perversion of this is seen with the bad-boy attraction. Bad boys have women flocking to them. Why is that? Because they are exhibiting strength. They are going to do what they want to do, and they don’t care what people think. It is distorted, yes, but it is a distorted masculine trait. A woman wants a confident man; a man who will lead her, whom she can join and orient her life around.
A man’s ability to provide is coupled with his power to be attractive to women. The man was created to work the ground and through that to provide for his wife. Women rightfully want to know whether or not a man will provide for her. Feminism has taught women to be their own providers. Consequently, they have hyper-educated themselves and competed with the men for jobs. Many make a great amount of money. When this happens, they find themselves less attracted to men who make less than them. The woman who is a brain surgeon is not normally attracted to a plumber. Just as with the physical strength mentioned earlier, if she can provide for herself better than the man can provide for her, she will not normally be attracted to him. This is why very unhandsome men with a great deal of money can have physically beautiful wives. We can call it gold-digging if we choose, but a woman sees ample provision. She uses her power–feminine beauty–to secure it. Again, many times this is twisted, but it is twisting the way God created the sexes to be oriented toward one another.
Rollo Tomassi, something of the godfather of the manosphere and one who has formalized many of these insights in his The Rational Male series, will tell you that this hypergamous inclination is due to the evolutionary development of the hindbrain in the woman as a survival technique for her and her children. The Bible provides the true foundation. A woman’s hypergamous inclinations are in the hindbrain, but they are given to her by God in her creation. She is created to desire a man who will lead, guard, and provide for her. She judges and tests men’s masculinity relative to her strengths and weaknesses and is drawn to men who are superior to her.
Though these creational realities have been discerned, developed, and perverted by the sons of Cain to use to their selfish, sinful ends–namely, to sleep with as many women as possible–the root intersexual dynamics are a distortion of reality: the way God created and sustains intersexual relationships. Recovery of these fundamental dynamics can be quite helpful to the church. Many frustrations in Christian marriages can be traced back to the simple, biblical truths in which men are not being masculine. Because of this, their wives do not respect them as protectors and providers and, therefore, are not sexually attracted to them. Both the man and the woman keep trying everything that they are told in their churches and through the latest marriage books. These tend to be no more than baptized Feminism. Consequently, frustration continues.
The manosphere men are working with our world and perverting it to their own devices. It is time that we reclaim what rightfully belongs to us, benefitting from their insights just as we would from Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Freud, or Yogi Berra. We must sift those insights through God’s Word. When we do we can find a reality that is true, good, and beautiful.
Bill Smith is pastor of Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, IL.
[1] For a historical tracing of Feminism, see Rebekah Merkle, Eve In Exile And The Restoration of Femininity (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2016). See also, Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005). Kassian only traces Feminism from the second wave forward, which is the only real weakness of the book. For more of a summary, see my “Letters to Young Men: The State of Masculinity” at http://kuyperian.com/letters-to-young-men-the-state-of-masculinity/.
[2] Refusing sex to your spouse as a matter of course in a marriage is a biblical ground for divorce according to Exodus 21:10-11 and 1 Corinthians 7:1-5. Consequently, people who divorce because of a sexless marriage (under ordinary circumstances) are not unfaithful Christians. The spouse who refuses is the one who is disobedient.
[3] Studies conducted on the male brain reveal the connection between physical attraction and utility. When men see women in sexually seductive clothing, the area of the brain that “lights up” is the same area that “lights up” for tool use. While those conducting studies tend to put a negative spin on this conclusion (namely, women are seen as inhuman), the data harmonizes well with the intersexual dynamics of original creation. The woman is given to the man as a helper to complete the task of dominion. Beauty is functional for man’s mission. For studies see here, here, here, and here.
In his opening essay, Aaron Renn provides a good summary of why men in general and Christian men in particular are turning to Pick Up Artists (PUAs) and mentors within the manosphere. To put it bluntly, when it comes to intersexual dynamics and how men attract women, these men know what works. The PUAs assert that Western Culture and the church within it have been sold and are selling a bill of goods produced by Feminism.[1] These men, however, recognize the fact that Feminism is a war on reality. Women do not want what Feminism says they want, and men who have played along are being emasculated. What leaders in the manosphere are discovering is God’s created design.
Renn’s references show that the techniques for men attracting women work while the evangelical church's emphasis on “servant leadership” does not. Many Christian young men are attracted to the Rollo Tomassi’s of the world for this reason. The servant leadership model (a perfectly fine biblical phrase) has been hijacked by those within the church highly influenced by Feminism. Servant leadership is generally understood now as, “pedestal the woman, give her everything she wants, just say, ‘yes, dear,’ be a self-deprecating nice guy, and, remember men, it’s always your fault.” (This is nothing like the Servant.) This is not working. If these men begin to date and eventually marry, attraction, if it ever was there, wanes and the marriages turn sexless all too often. The couple then goes to counseling where the husband learns that he must negotiate for sex with his wife–paying for sex in some form or fashion– following the Al Mohler model quoted by Renn. Things don’t improve because that’s not what she wants, even though that’s what she’s been told she should want. She’s just not sexually attracted to him. On the rare occasions when they do have sex, it becomes passionless “duty sex,” which becomes frustrating to both of them. Our churches are filled with married couples like this. (I speak as a pastor of thirty-plus years.) Some of these spouses, believing themselves to be good soldiers, endure. Others are divorcing, not willing to live in “loveless” marriages.[2]
Enter PUAs. They tell men what has been glaringly obvious through the centuries about what attracts a female’s sexual desire. Men try it. It works. They like it. Game. Set. Match.
The techniques work. The question is, Why do they work? We can say that it is because of sin, but sin is not a creation ex nihilo. Sin is a parasite that twists God’s creation. So, behind all sinful intersexual relationships is a divine design that is being leeched off of and distorted. These men have tapped into the way God created and sustains intersexual dynamics, specifically what attracts women to men, and they have sinfully used it. PUAs use God’s reality to a perverted end much like any atheist uses language to deny the existence of the eternal Word; he operates within God’s reality while denying his existence. Reality is reality whether you use it for good or ill or accept or deny its Source. Sound epistemological justifications for intersexual dynamics cannot be found in the secular manosphere, but they know reality when they see it. In the area of intersexual dynamics, the manosphere men are images of the sons of Cain who discovered and developed creation previous to the sons of God. In this case, the manosphere re-discovered and re-developed biblical treasures that the Western Church lost through neglect and allowing the Jezebel of Feminism to redefine masculinity, femininity, and intersexual dynamics.
Our battle with the manosphere men is, of course, over their misuse of creation and the evolutionary worldview that they claim supports it. But we are working with the same reality and, quite frankly, at some points, they are seeing reality better than many of us Christians. There are good, biblical explanations for why these attraction techniques work in intersexual dynamics. They are rooted in the original creation. Though twisted by sin, our original design, which includes intersexual dynamics, is restored by grace, not obliterated.
As Leithart notes in the closing paragraph of his essay, attraction is mysterious. Genuine attraction cannot be negotiated. It can be cultivated, but it is never merely contractual. People are attracted to different sorts of people for a myriad of reasons. Our attractions are shaped by various factors: how and where we were reared, our goals, race/ethnicity, culture, brain chemistry, and other conditions. There are characteristics that initially attract us and those qualities that keep us attracted long-term.
Attraction is what we are drawn to as beautiful and somehow useful to us. While there are a number of micro-factors in specific attractions, there are some common factors that are not so mysterious that attract women to men and vice versa. Qualities that attract men to women are very different than what attracts women to men. Men are attracted to classic femininity; long hair, softness, curves, etc. Feminism, however, has attempted to convince women that men should be attracted to sameness. For example, men should be attracted to a woman if she has power, status, money, and physical strength. In other words, the more she acts like a man, the more she will be attractive to men. Men sexually attracted to women do not want boyfriends. Our polarities attract us to one another as men and women, not how we are the same.
We are created to need one another for different reasons to fulfill our created purpose of dominion, and when we see another person who can somehow meet those needs at some level, we are drawn to or attracted to him or her. Opposites attract because we complement one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Beauty and utility are friends, not enemies.[3]
The PUAs have developed their techniques around traits of genuine masculinity that attract females. Genuine masculinity is rooted in God’s original creation of the man and his relationship to the woman and the rest of creation. God made the man to take dominion. As Roberts rightly states in his essay, this dominion began even before the woman was created as man named the animals and was given the responsibility to guard and work the garden (Genesis 2). God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. He needed the woman to accomplish his dominion mandate. So, God created the woman to be his helper. The woman, Paul says, is created for the man (1Corinthians 11.9). While the man’s primary orientation is toward the earth from which he was created, the woman’s primary orientation is toward the man from whom she was made.
The woman becomes a part of the man’s mission in the world, so he names her at her creation as well as being tasked with guarding her and providing for her because she becomes a part of the Garden. The woman looks to the man for protection and provision. His ability to provide and protect defines, to a great extent, his masculinity in relation to femininity.
Adam failed to take dominion over the serpent as he should have, consequently, failing to provide and protect his wife. Since the fall, the man’s masculinity must be proven to the woman. She tests him to see if he is a worthy protector and provider. These masculine characteristics, rooted in the original intersexual dynamics, prove to be what attracts women to men.
For a man to be a protector, he must demonstrate strength. This strength comes in many forms: physical, intellectual, social status, competency, et al. So, for instance, women like more muscular men. No woman is going to see Jason Mamoa in Aquaman because of the literary superiority of the film. In Captain America: The First Avenger, when Chris Evans is transformed from scrawny Steve Rogers to buff Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter gets a little flustered when she sees him without a shirt on. This is so common it is cliché. The woman is attracted to power because she was created to need and, therefore, be attracted to a man who can protect her. This is why a professional CrossFit woman will not generally be sexually attracted to some beer-guzzling couch potato who plays video games all the time. He is weaker than her. If she is stronger than him, he cannot protect her any better than she can protect herself. She is looking for someone stronger. (This is one aspect of the hypergamy Renn alluded to.)
This powerful man exudes confidence as well. He knows who he is, and he knows what he wants to do. He has a mission. He is happy for a woman to join him, but she does not define his mission. Since she is created to be oriented to the man’s mission–helper–this masculine confidence is attractive. If he loses this and begins to revolve his life around her, she becomes less attracted to him. This runs contrary to her created design.
The perversion of this is seen with the bad-boy attraction. Bad boys have women flocking to them. Why is that? Because they are exhibiting strength. They are going to do what they want to do, and they don’t care what people think. It is distorted, yes, but it is a distorted masculine trait. A woman wants a confident man; a man who will lead her, whom she can join and orient her life around.
A man’s ability to provide is coupled with his power to be attractive to women. The man was created to work the ground and through that to provide for his wife. Women rightfully want to know whether or not a man will provide for her. Feminism has taught women to be their own providers. Consequently, they have hyper-educated themselves and competed with the men for jobs. Many make a great amount of money. When this happens, they find themselves less attracted to men who make less than them. The woman who is a brain surgeon is not normally attracted to a plumber. Just as with the physical strength mentioned earlier, if she can provide for herself better than the man can provide for her, she will not normally be attracted to him. This is why very unhandsome men with a great deal of money can have physically beautiful wives. We can call it gold-digging if we choose, but a woman sees ample provision. She uses her power–feminine beauty–to secure it. Again, many times this is twisted, but it is twisting the way God created the sexes to be oriented toward one another.
Rollo Tomassi, something of the godfather of the manosphere and one who has formalized many of these insights in his The Rational Male series, will tell you that this hypergamous inclination is due to the evolutionary development of the hindbrain in the woman as a survival technique for her and her children. The Bible provides the true foundation. A woman’s hypergamous inclinations are in the hindbrain, but they are given to her by God in her creation. She is created to desire a man who will lead, guard, and provide for her. She judges and tests men’s masculinity relative to her strengths and weaknesses and is drawn to men who are superior to her.
Though these creational realities have been discerned, developed, and perverted by the sons of Cain to use to their selfish, sinful ends–namely, to sleep with as many women as possible–the root intersexual dynamics are a distortion of reality: the way God created and sustains intersexual relationships. Recovery of these fundamental dynamics can be quite helpful to the church. Many frustrations in Christian marriages can be traced back to the simple, biblical truths in which men are not being masculine. Because of this, their wives do not respect them as protectors and providers and, therefore, are not sexually attracted to them. Both the man and the woman keep trying everything that they are told in their churches and through the latest marriage books. These tend to be no more than baptized Feminism. Consequently, frustration continues.
The manosphere men are working with our world and perverting it to their own devices. It is time that we reclaim what rightfully belongs to us, benefitting from their insights just as we would from Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Freud, or Yogi Berra. We must sift those insights through God’s Word. When we do we can find a reality that is true, good, and beautiful.
Bill Smith is pastor of Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, IL.
[1] For a historical tracing of Feminism, see Rebekah Merkle, Eve In Exile And The Restoration of Femininity (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2016). See also, Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005). Kassian only traces Feminism from the second wave forward, which is the only real weakness of the book. For more of a summary, see my “Letters to Young Men: The State of Masculinity” at http://kuyperian.com/letters-to-young-men-the-state-of-masculinity/.
[2] Refusing sex to your spouse as a matter of course in a marriage is a biblical ground for divorce according to Exodus 21:10-11 and 1 Corinthians 7:1-5. Consequently, people who divorce because of a sexless marriage (under ordinary circumstances) are not unfaithful Christians. The spouse who refuses is the one who is disobedient.
[3] Studies conducted on the male brain reveal the connection between physical attraction and utility. When men see women in sexually seductive clothing, the area of the brain that “lights up” is the same area that “lights up” for tool use. While those conducting studies tend to put a negative spin on this conclusion (namely, women are seen as inhuman), the data harmonizes well with the intersexual dynamics of original creation. The woman is given to the man as a helper to complete the task of dominion. Beauty is functional for man’s mission. For studies see here, here, here, and here.
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