Ex male feminist, Domestic Violence survivor

[Anonymous 0]

First of all, I want to thank the owner of the site for making this forum available. While I do not conceptualize myself as a “pure red-blooded MGTOW,” this site is an invaluable resource for men. Anyway, for a good portion of my life, I have behaved according to a MGTOW philosophy without realizing it. I am single, have never been married, and practice defensive strategies in the world of interpersonal relationships (with women, of course). That being said, I have never actually posted or participated in MGTOW. In part, because I felt a deep sense of shame of being associated with such “misogynistic, ignorant, woman-hating brutes.” The reason I held MGTOW in such low esteem was my previous admiration of the feminist movement. In many ways, I was a model male feminist. I conceptualized women as the embodiment of everything pure, noble, and innocent. The cognitive dissonance was astounding. While I noticed all sorts of abhorrent behavior on the part of women, I simply excused it as a legacy of patriarchy.
What caused me to discover MGTOW? Well, contrary to what many people believe, there are male victims of domestic violence. For some confounded reason, I have a propensity to attract emotionally volatile and manipulative women. In fact, I have sought of psychotherapy for this very reason. To this day, I have PTSD symptoms due to the abuse I received. To think that women are incapable of actually inflicting harm on a man is absolutely naïve, especially in today’s world. I do not want to discuss the violence I received as it would make it easier for my abuser to identify and further harm me. The vindictiveness of some women is amazing.
One thing I have appreciated about this site is that is betrays the lie that women rarely engage in violent, narcissistic, and sociopathic behavior. In fact, one thing I like about MGTOW.com is that it creates a sense of universality where men are no longer going it alone. Malignant narcissism, borderline personality disorder, histrionics, and other characterological disorders are much more common than I ever could have realized. Although Paul Elam and AVFM receive a lot of justifiable criticism, it was their site that caused me to look further into MGTOW. I think we do ourselves no favor when we adopt black-or-white, all-or-nothing ideologies. Many wise philosophers and psychologists have identified rigid, religiously held ideologies (whether patriarchy theory, Marxism, capitalism, atheism, Christianity, etc.) as the root of human disturbance.
That is not to say that I think we should not have definitions as to what constitutes MGTOW. Also, I think we should hold other members accountable when they damage the reputation of the movement or promote material that is antithetical to men’s interests. For example, I have to laud Stardusk’s (and the site moderator) criticism of Sandman. In particular, I am thinking about Sandman’s shaming of men who are allegedly ‘phobic’ of women. Also, he damages the MGTOW brand by making countless unsupported allegations and exploiting social media in such a way that drowns out other voices. As a simple exercise, go to YouTube and type in ‘MGTOW.’ It will appear that Sandman is the de facto leader of this movement. You will miss out on the excellent material offered by people like Barbarossa, TFM, Bane666, Stardusk, etc.
To reiterate, I laud the efforts of this site and its members. There is a toxic culture that treats men as disposable commodities. Too often, our value – as men – is contingent on what we do for women. We are stuck in an impossible situation where women simultaneously expect all the privileges of traditionalism AND feminism. Too often, men damage their own best interests by overvaluing their relationships with women. We have internalized a lie that men without romantic partners are necessarily miserable, incomplete, neurotic, and unbalanced. Curiously, there was a time in my life where I had only one romantic partner in an eight year stretch. By way of comparison, I have not been without one (often with another waiting in the wings) for the better part of the last three years. Was I deprived and miserable when I was alone? No. The only thing that really upset me was the internalized belief that I MUST have a romantic partner or I am a flawed, unsuccessful human being. Since April, I have deliberately gone without sex and avoided opportunities to date. In this time, I have hit the gym and advanced my education. My life is infinitely less complicated and I am able to be a better and more productive man.
It is interesting to read the posts of our younger participants. What they often cannot conceptualize is how easy it is to find attractive women when you approach middle age. Generally speaking, younger women want to sample men as though they were a big box of chocolates. Not surprisingly, many of them develop unrealistic expectations and waste their life “waiting for the ideal prince.” As others on the site have noted, they will eventually have to moderate their expectations as their beauty starts to wane. Some younger women actually prize the maturity and resources (over physical attractiveness) of older men, or even find them physically attractive. What I am trying to say is that your current situation is not your life’s destiny. Furthermore, you might discover – like I have- that what you thought was a blessing was actually a curse. Being viewed as desirable by an attractive woman (or women) does not make you a better or happier man. Rather, it creates a wheelbarrow full of liabilities. Our worth as human beings is intrinsic to us; it is not contingent on how many women we have sex with or whether our mate is ugly or attractive.
In conclusion, I want to express my gratitude for those who participate on the boards. Your stories played an integral role in my own recovery from addiction to pathological relationships. From my perspective, today’s self-respecting man needs extremely solid boundaries as intimate relationships with women have become exceedingly costly and downright dangerous. Your stories and wisdom help men properly assess the opportunity costs of having intimate relationships with the opposite sex.

[GrotesqueRogueParticipant 116]

Welcome!

I hope that you will find your piece in this world!

Your experience is yet another one that adds to my reluctance to actively pursue relationships with women. even with those who seem nice and nurturing.

[Anonymous 25]

Welcome to the forums. I think you have a good grasp of many of the issues. My story is not too dissimilar to your own. Although I’ve never been a male feminist. Thankfully I’ve never married. Focus on your own goals and needs and make your own life what you want it to be. It’s not worth the risks getting involved with women in relationships. Even having consensual sex is getting far too risky.

[UntamedParticipant]

Hi OneEye and welcome.
Interesting read. Congrats.

For some confounded reason, I have a propensity to attract emotionally volatile and manipulative women.

Do they come any other way?

Don't let them Blame, Shame or Tame you!
Give 'em NOTHING, not even an answer!
#GenderSegragationNow!

[RoyDalParticipant]

Welcome! I am glad you avoided the wheelbarrow full of liabilities and made it here!

Untamed wrote:

For some confounded reason, I have a propensity to attract emotionally volatile and manipulative women.
Do they come any other way?

No, emotionally volatile and manipulative is it.

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[FermatParticipant 3478]

Welcome sir. Seems you’re waking up from the social lie you’ve been sold since birth. The very fact that women are perceived as pure and generally untainted should set off red flags to any rational man. This ruse allows them to be crazy and get away with it. You do not attract crazy. They are all like that. The only difference is how they express it and to what degree. Gain knowledge and live your life without them.

I have discovered a truly remarkable list of reasons why women are not necessary for a happy life, but alas this margin is too small to contain it.

[GunslingerParticipant 242]

Bravo in such a great introduction! Welcome and thanks for sharing. You made some great and interesting points, and I hope you keep bringing those points to the table, by sharing on different formums here. I’m guessing you are a little older than some here, and will have lots of wisdom to share. It’s always great to read of younger men gtow but hearing someone that’s a little older sharing how and why they became this way is a very valuable tool for younger men like me. I have to come here everyday to get a dose of red pills, so I don’t fall trap to the many influences of women. I was trained very well in white knight tactics and I need a site like this to help shove those red pills down.

So thanks again for sharing and I look forward to seeing you on the front lines.

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings Grotesque Rogue,
Thank you for your kind sentiments. Unfortunately, most women are old hands at manipulating men. Women are better at reading body language and making correct inferences about our feelings. Their ability to read our emotional states aids them in their chameleon-like ability to manage impressions and disguise their true intentions. If a man is hell-bent on pursuing a relationship with a woman, I say he should remember that he is his own best expert. We should not trust what society (i.e. psychologists, relationship-experts, pundits, blog writers, etc.) tells us about women. More importantly, we should not trust what women tell us about themselves. If we are exceptionally patient AND listen to what our instincts tell us, we can usually work out the mystery of a woman’s intentions. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time and effort and can literally destroy a potential relationship (the good thing is that the women who want to expedite a relationship often are impulsive, selfish, needy, and sociopathic). My current stance is to have a willingness to be friends with women (if they pay their own way and provide as much benefit as they cost me), and to consider physical intimacy as a distant possibility should they understand and agree to my conditions. The man suffers almost all of the costs and liabilities. Thus, he has the right to protect his own health, wealth, and self-determination. Naturally, traditional marriage is not possible under any circumstances given the power imbalance it creates. Fair relationships are about a mutual give and take. Marriage is not conducive to equitable human relationships and incentivizes exploitative behavior.

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings Machiavelli,

Thank you for welcoming me to the forums and your kind comment. I agree with your sentiment about being cognizant of your own needs as a primary responsibility and goal of life. After all, what use are you to others if you are an exhausted, war torn, defeated, and depressed slave to somebody else’s agenda? Congratulations on having avoided marriage! I used to think I was defective for being single and having no kids; now I mark ‘single’ on forms with a sense of pride. Also, I agree that consensual sex is exceedingly dangerous for a man in the western world. While rape and sexual assault are very real and disgusting social problems, the threat of a false rape claim is also very real. Furthermore, a brief visit to the CDC website on STDs should make sensible men tremble before sticking their penis into almost any woman’s vagina. I won’t even talk about pregnancy or schemes to feign pregnancy as a means of extracting resources. If one is to have consensual sex, one should be exceedingly cautious. When dating a woman where sex is even a remote possibility, I never delete emails, text messages, snail mail, or other forms of correspondence. How does a man defend himself if a woman says ‘rape’ or otherwise makes serious threats?

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings Untamed and RoyDal,

Thank you for welcoming me to the site and humorously reminding me that all women are batty as hell 😉 Of course, all humans are pretty neurotic. Women are just exceptional in this regards! My personal belief is that today’s culture creates an environment that promotes Axis 2, Cluster B personality disorders among young women. The selfishness, entitlement, low frustration tolerance, lability, etc. have become epidemic. Still, most women do not qualify for a diagnosis of personality disorder (although they still have the capacity to seriously ruin a man’s life – the ill one’s tend to do it in a more dramatic, haphazard, and expedited manner).

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings Fermat,

Thank for your sharing your wisdom. I appreciate that you did not try to blame the victim, but rather considered the wider environmental context. It is interesting how the therapists I saw (who were steeped in the ideology of feminist theory) did not deny the woman’s bad behavior, but had to find a defect within me that attracted ‘rare outlier.’ They kept insisting that I start dating these mysterious ‘nice women.’ I found the whole idea laughable and stopped attending. I generally agree with your sentiment on dating and consensual sex. You put your freedom, health, and sanity in jeopardy when you become intimate with women. Today’s laws are structured in such a way that a woman’s subjective reality trumps objective facts and sound reasoning.

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings Gunslinger,

I want to offer my heartfelt thanks for your kind comments and warm introduction. Also, I appreciate your invitation to engage in conversations on the other forums. Your speculation about my age is probably accurate, as I was born in the mid 1970’s. As I have expanded my knowledge of interpersonal relationships, I have tried to help young men in whatever capacity I can. Amazingly, I have already helped at least four young men with various relationship problems. I tend to agree with evolutionary psychologists who argue that altruism is part of our genetic make-up. This board exemplifies the capacity of men to be show uncommon selflessness. Anyway, I think it is awesome that you are willing to learn from the experiences of your elders. When I was your age, I think I was probably somewhat c~~~y and a bit of a ‘know it all.’ Thus, I missed out on a lot of good advice (to my credit, however, I never married and have no kids). If I could give you some basic life advice it would be to avoid rigid ideology, think rationally, and trust your own instincts. That being said, I think older people have a lot to learn from younger people as well. For example, you tend to have a have a more nuanced understanding of current social dynamics. Also, a fresh perspective enables one to challenge entrenched or accepted ideas. Thanks again!

[MyselfParticipant 353]

Anonymous wrote:

Too often, men damage their own best interests by overvaluing their relationships with women. We have internalized a lie that men without romantic partners are necessarily miserable, incomplete, neurotic, and unbalanced. Curiously, there was a time in my life where I had only one romantic partner in an eight year stretch. By way of comparison, I have not been without one (often with another waiting in the wings) for the better part of the last three years. Was I deprived and miserable when I was alone? No. The only thing that really upset me was the internalized belief that I MUST have a romantic partner or I am a flawed, unsuccessful human being.

Understanding this was the basis for me going my own way, and it took a long time for it to finally sink in. It is amazing just how engrained it is that our value as a person is contingent on being in a relationship with a women. What’s even more strange is how this sense of worth can be satisfied by being in a relationship with almost any women. It really makes no sense. I look back now on my day to day actions and find it hard to believe how much of my thinking revolved around attracting a woman’s attention or retaining that attention. It is so freeing to be able to navigate my life without it being centred around finding “the one”.

Welcome @One Eye, great introduction!

[Anonymous 29]

Anonymous wrote:

EX MALE FEMINIST, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR

It is great to read that there are people with enough intestinal fortitude and integrity to admit that they were wrong about certain aspects/long held beliefs in their life and admit that they were wrong. Kudos to sir.

Now, before anyone rip’s you a new one. MGTOW by definition is not a movement or an association but a way of life/philosophy and so on in that vein.
Sandman is not a de-facto MGTOW leader, but more like a soft core introducer to MGTOW for a better word.

Good to see you here and welcome.

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings DRS_au,

Thank you for your kind remark. The biggest transformation in my life was learning to eschew rigid ideologies and think in more flexible terms. I found that I clung to feminism (another other destructive, firmly held beliefs) because it brought order to my life and bolstered my self-esteem. My sense of ‘rightness’ was inextricably intertwined with my ego. Who cares about if I make mistakes and am sometimes wrong – provided I am willing to take an exacting look at my ideas and modify my self-defeating beliefs?

Having spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours, reading MGTOW material, I am not under the illusion that MGTOW has one leader, or a defined leadership structure. During my initial survey of the MGTOW scene, I had many erroneous ideas. However, these were clarified as I spent time exploring a variety of different resources. Having re-read my post, I wish I would have been clearer about how I conceptualized MGTOW. Admittedly, I am still learning as this is the first time I have participated in any MGTOW-related forum. That being said, when I first performed a YouTube search using the term ‘MGTOW,’it appeared as if Sandman was a major leader (if not the primary guru/leader) of the movement. Other people, including media journalists, have made a similar mistake. Since he constructs posts almost everyday, and markets his video in a savvy manner, he has become synonymous with MGTOW. Obviously, if people dig deeper, they will eventually discover other MGTOW sources. Anyway, I can understand your presumably more positive appraisal (i.e as a soft core introducer) of his videos. There is a wider debate about whether he is a positive or negative presence. Ultimately, I do not know the answer. However, I believe he would vastly improve his content by using sources, making supported allegations, and stop shaming the ‘monks of MGTOW.’ In hindsight, I wonder if I should kept that comment out of my initial post. I left it in my introduction because he did play a significant role in how I have evolved my newfound MGTOW philosophy.

Cheers!

[Anonymous 0]

Greetings myself,

Thank you for kind assessment of my introduction and the feedback. I really enjoyed your response as it spurred me to further analyze how men link self-esteem with being attached or associated to another female.

As a personal anecdote, last night I went out on a non-traditional date with a younger colleague (I am nearly 16 years her senior). As an aside, I did it in true MGTOW style by not paying for her meal and refusing to accept her suggestion that we hook up at her house. As a sovereign individual who cares about my freedom and self-determination, I will not be manipulated into doing something that possibly compromises my safety, sovereignty, resources, or personal integrity.

Although I am not that physically attracted to her, my ego was temporarily bolstered by publicly spending time with a female. In fact, I had fleeting fantasies in my head about the possibilities of living the stereotypical American Dream, complete with a big house, four kids, and a traditional wife. However, the notion seemed completely laughable after I quickly considered the real world implications of marriage and child-rearing. It is interesting how dismayed women are when I reveal some of my ideological grounds for eschewing marriage and long-term live-in relationships. (No, I don’t mention the word MGTOW). They almost always readily agree with my premises, often adding their own evidence (of other women’s bad behavior, of course), but claim they are the rare exception to the rule! I have also noticed that younger women express even more angst and pressure about ‘being attached to a man.’

At this point in my life, I am very solid in my commitment to living on my own. As you noted, it is very liberating to go through life without the pursuit of that elusive ‘one.’ Staggering amounts of resources are wasted by men who think they are flawed or incomplete since they are single. Re-directing our money, time, and psychic energy to more productive activity is what brings real value to our lives.

[Author]

Posts