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A review by lpm100
The Rational Male by Rollo Tomassi
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Book Review
The Rational Male
3/5 stars
"This book is insightful and raw with many good turns of phrase; I have problems believing a lot of it."
*******
Of the book:
1. No editor
2. No index
3. No bibliography; NARY a cited work.
4. Could have been a carefully edited book less than 200 pages (compared to 280 sloppy, poorly edited pages)
I see why it sold a lot of copies-- in spite of the fact that it is self-published *and* the AVALANCHE of spelling errors. (If you don't know the difference between "it's" and "its," did you really go to college? Or if you did, was it accredited).
And it *is* a semi-brilliant, hidden-in-plain-sight idea to just extract ideas from a blog and turn them into a book; it's the equivalent of crowdsourcing the process of discovering and distilling insights.
But, I have several problems with the book
1. As the author himself said in this book, men who are regularly able to successfully access Women's Moist Bits in both the frequency and quantity they desire are not likely to be the ones reading this book. So how do we know that his methodology has mass? As opposed to being a marketing gimmick to the 80% of unlucky guys.
2. I think as much as we would like it to be otherwise, the world is stuck with the 80/20 rule: 20% of men will take 80% of the women and the rest will get what is left over. And the author admits as much (p 43): "Women would rather share a high value man than be saddled with a faithful loser."
a. Can a world exists in which there are 100% Alphas and 0% Betas?
And what would that even look like?
If all men internalized the techniques of "the game," then it would probably be the same distribution with a few winners and a larger number of losers, just at a higher level. (If alphas and bettas are codependent, then one cannot exist without the other; similar to "left/right" or "light /dark" pairs.)
b. Or, can the author show us some place where it *did* even out? (A lot of civilizations long ago independently discovered that that's the purpose of marriage and monogamy)
c. As you age, you have less to choose from and there is no amount of game that can get a 20-year-old into bed with a 70-year-old; let's be cognizant of the inherent limits of the situation.
3. The author talks about this concept of "plate spinning" (and black men have been calling this " ho juggling" before the author coined his neologism), and a lot of black guys do in fact do this - - and that is because the number of black men who are not in prison AND have a stomach for black women (in preference to other options) makes it such that they have a virtually captive market.
But what is the upshot?
a. 59% of black single mothers have children by multiple men (because these men don't feel compelled to commit to any of them), and of course the corresponding incarceration increase;
b. The highest STD rate of all ethnic groups in the United States (and the mechanistic details of this imbalance were dealt with by Ina Park In her book "Strange Bedfellows")--usually a factor of 5 to 6 times higher.
c. Multiple Partner Fertility is higher in black women than all others. A whopping 46% have babies with more than one person--higher than any other ethnic group.
Also, how does this work out mathematically? Black men excepted, there are equal numbers of guys and girls. So, if you have 5 women in your rotation, then you are 1 out of 5 in her/someone else's rotation by mathematical necessity. Where does "plate spinning" go at this point?
4. The author of this book has been married for 17 years, and has ONE child. He mentions (p.171) having a body count of >40. I'm not sure what to think about how exceptional that actually is. (And I look it up, about a third of guys are 10-39 and about 8% are above 40%)
So, if he has bedded all of these women, then what was the point?
(A lot of people don't realize this, but: the purpose of copulation is actually procreation--Think about it: certain pornstars like Mandingo / Danny D/Jeff Stryker each have ONE child. Peter North has ZERO. And this is in spite of shooting enough spunk on screen to fill a 55 gallon drum.)
I would venture to say that the author is a lot less well off than any member of the Quiverfull movement. Mandrae and Karissa Collins have 11 children and don't even seem to be done yet. Nothing can compare to that many children and grandchildren, even if with only one woman; not even the highest "body count" in any given county.
I live in an Orthodox Jewish community where people get married by matchmaker/CV. People talk about what they have to bring to the table BEFORE the marriage.
These marriages are generally quite successful: the average Orthodox house has somewhere between 5 and 6 children. Guys who are the best can honestly compete for the best women, and guys who are losers shop on the discount rack. (Something like 40% of American men never have children; this is compared to 1 to 2% of Orthodox Jewish men.)
Everybody gets matched without so much hostility and subterfuge.
And in fewer steps.
5. In a lot of ways, having access to unlimited amounts of Women's Moist Bits can be counterproductive; when you get married and have to be with ONE woman and raise kids with her, you have to LEARN to enjoy being with ONE person/find ways to keep it "fresh" for X nights of the year instead of X people per year for one night each. (It's harder than it seems!)
I think if you become an expert in game, you really are setting yourself up for failure.
6. There's not a single citation in the entire book. On page 134, he creates a whole chapter about speculation and then apologizes for having no sources to "site" (another one of those spelling errors!) for his information.
Verdict: I think I would have to give this book to my sons to give them an example of why the matchmaking/ shomer negiah dating system is likely the best choice, And while this is likely not the best path.
Quotes:
1. (p. 93). Reservation has made men more endearing to women; either as enigmatic poets and artists for women to figure out, or as natural stoics whose every measured expression of emotion is an event unto itself.
2. (p. 84). It's all the more ironic to read the same mothers who created this generation of man lament how their daughters are unmarried and childless at 35.
3. (p.74) The fundamental flaw of Captain Save a Hoe is that it is essentially negotiated intimacy, and negotiated intimacy is never genuine. You can fix her flat tire, fix her a nice lasagna, give her the perfect shoulder to cry on, babysit her kids, and listen to her drone on for hours on the phone, and she'll still go fuck her outlaw biker boyfriend because her intimacy with him is genuine, unnegotiated, unobligated desire
4. (p. 67) A woman's behavior is always the only gauge of her intent. (p.147) More often than not women tell the complete truth with their actions, they just communicate it in a fashion that men can't or won't understand.
5. (p. 14) Learn this now: women never want full disclosure. Nothing is more self-satisfying for a woman than to think she's figured out a man based solely on her mythical feminine intuition.
6. (p. 15) Always remember, perfect is boring. Women will cry a river about wanting Mr Dependable and then go off to fuck Mr Exciting.
7. (p.95) All the flowery crap that you read in your Hallmark card on Valentine's Day was written by someone else. It's not individual acts of affection or appreciation so much as it is the whole of what you both do on a regular day-to-day basis. It's what you and she are all about after your 300th bowl of oatmeal together on a Saturday morning while you're sitting across the breakfast table discussing which bills need to be paid first this month and how bad the law needs mowing that defines love and marriage.
8. (p. 99) Women should only ever be a compliment to a man's life, never the focus of it.
9. (p. 100) Women are dream killers. Not because they have the agenda to be so, but because men will all too willingly sacrifice their ambitions for a steady supply of pussy and the responsibilities that women attach to this.
10. (p. 105) The truth will set you free, but it doesn't make it hurt any less, nor does it make it any prettier, And it certainly doesn't absolve you of the responsibilities that truth requires.
11. (p. 106) Power is neither good nor evil, it simply is, and your capacity to use power, your comforting using it, doesn't invalidate the principles of power.
12. (p. 130) It's far easier to believe that the world should change for you than to accept the truth that you need to improve yourself to get the things you want.
13. (p. 152) She wants you to get it on your own, without having to be told how... The guy she wants to fuck is dominant because "that's the way he is" instead of who she had to tell him to be.
14. (p. 157) Most of the women using online dating run the gambit from hopelessly fat to 2-drink fuckability, the one thing most had in common was an entirely overblown sense of self worth to compliment their grossly overrated self-impression of their sexual market value.
15. (p. 228) It is always time and effort better spent developing relationships with new, fresh, prospective women than it will ever be in attempting to reconstruct a failed relationship.
16. (p. 175) What's my obligation? Neglect myself in favor of a bad commitment or to the principle of commitment itself?
17. (p. 230) Our Great danger is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.
18. (p. 241) Booty is so strong that there are dudes willing to blow themselves up for the highly unlikely possibility of booty in another dimension. There are no chicks willing to blow themselves up for a penis." (Joe Rogan)
19. (p. 246) The good girl is still looking for an Alpha, and will still stop the good girl car to get up and fuck him should the opportunity arise.
20. (p. 251) There has never been a "Rubenesque" period for men--where overweight man where considered the feminine ideal - - in history. A muscular athletic build has always been the masculine standard.
21. (p. 254) Feminization in this respect is the ultimate form of penis envy.
22. (p. 276) Women don't want a man to cheat, but they love a man who *could* cheat.
The Rational Male
3/5 stars
"This book is insightful and raw with many good turns of phrase; I have problems believing a lot of it."
*******
Of the book:
1. No editor
2. No index
3. No bibliography; NARY a cited work.
4. Could have been a carefully edited book less than 200 pages (compared to 280 sloppy, poorly edited pages)
I see why it sold a lot of copies-- in spite of the fact that it is self-published *and* the AVALANCHE of spelling errors. (If you don't know the difference between "it's" and "its," did you really go to college? Or if you did, was it accredited).
And it *is* a semi-brilliant, hidden-in-plain-sight idea to just extract ideas from a blog and turn them into a book; it's the equivalent of crowdsourcing the process of discovering and distilling insights.
But, I have several problems with the book
1. As the author himself said in this book, men who are regularly able to successfully access Women's Moist Bits in both the frequency and quantity they desire are not likely to be the ones reading this book. So how do we know that his methodology has mass? As opposed to being a marketing gimmick to the 80% of unlucky guys.
2. I think as much as we would like it to be otherwise, the world is stuck with the 80/20 rule: 20% of men will take 80% of the women and the rest will get what is left over. And the author admits as much (p 43): "Women would rather share a high value man than be saddled with a faithful loser."
a. Can a world exists in which there are 100% Alphas and 0% Betas?
And what would that even look like?
If all men internalized the techniques of "the game," then it would probably be the same distribution with a few winners and a larger number of losers, just at a higher level. (If alphas and bettas are codependent, then one cannot exist without the other; similar to "left/right" or "light /dark" pairs.)
b. Or, can the author show us some place where it *did* even out? (A lot of civilizations long ago independently discovered that that's the purpose of marriage and monogamy)
c. As you age, you have less to choose from and there is no amount of game that can get a 20-year-old into bed with a 70-year-old; let's be cognizant of the inherent limits of the situation.
3. The author talks about this concept of "plate spinning" (and black men have been calling this " ho juggling" before the author coined his neologism), and a lot of black guys do in fact do this - - and that is because the number of black men who are not in prison AND have a stomach for black women (in preference to other options) makes it such that they have a virtually captive market.
But what is the upshot?
a. 59% of black single mothers have children by multiple men (because these men don't feel compelled to commit to any of them), and of course the corresponding incarceration increase;
b. The highest STD rate of all ethnic groups in the United States (and the mechanistic details of this imbalance were dealt with by Ina Park In her book "Strange Bedfellows")--usually a factor of 5 to 6 times higher.
c. Multiple Partner Fertility is higher in black women than all others. A whopping 46% have babies with more than one person--higher than any other ethnic group.
Also, how does this work out mathematically? Black men excepted, there are equal numbers of guys and girls. So, if you have 5 women in your rotation, then you are 1 out of 5 in her/someone else's rotation by mathematical necessity. Where does "plate spinning" go at this point?
4. The author of this book has been married for 17 years, and has ONE child. He mentions (p.171) having a body count of >40. I'm not sure what to think about how exceptional that actually is. (And I look it up, about a third of guys are 10-39 and about 8% are above 40%)
So, if he has bedded all of these women, then what was the point?
(A lot of people don't realize this, but: the purpose of copulation is actually procreation--Think about it: certain pornstars like Mandingo / Danny D/Jeff Stryker each have ONE child. Peter North has ZERO. And this is in spite of shooting enough spunk on screen to fill a 55 gallon drum.)
I would venture to say that the author is a lot less well off than any member of the Quiverfull movement. Mandrae and Karissa Collins have 11 children and don't even seem to be done yet. Nothing can compare to that many children and grandchildren, even if with only one woman; not even the highest "body count" in any given county.
I live in an Orthodox Jewish community where people get married by matchmaker/CV. People talk about what they have to bring to the table BEFORE the marriage.
These marriages are generally quite successful: the average Orthodox house has somewhere between 5 and 6 children. Guys who are the best can honestly compete for the best women, and guys who are losers shop on the discount rack. (Something like 40% of American men never have children; this is compared to 1 to 2% of Orthodox Jewish men.)
Everybody gets matched without so much hostility and subterfuge.
And in fewer steps.
5. In a lot of ways, having access to unlimited amounts of Women's Moist Bits can be counterproductive; when you get married and have to be with ONE woman and raise kids with her, you have to LEARN to enjoy being with ONE person/find ways to keep it "fresh" for X nights of the year instead of X people per year for one night each. (It's harder than it seems!)
I think if you become an expert in game, you really are setting yourself up for failure.
6. There's not a single citation in the entire book. On page 134, he creates a whole chapter about speculation and then apologizes for having no sources to "site" (another one of those spelling errors!) for his information.
Verdict: I think I would have to give this book to my sons to give them an example of why the matchmaking/ shomer negiah dating system is likely the best choice, And while this is likely not the best path.
Quotes:
1. (p. 93). Reservation has made men more endearing to women; either as enigmatic poets and artists for women to figure out, or as natural stoics whose every measured expression of emotion is an event unto itself.
2. (p. 84). It's all the more ironic to read the same mothers who created this generation of man lament how their daughters are unmarried and childless at 35.
3. (p.74) The fundamental flaw of Captain Save a Hoe is that it is essentially negotiated intimacy, and negotiated intimacy is never genuine. You can fix her flat tire, fix her a nice lasagna, give her the perfect shoulder to cry on, babysit her kids, and listen to her drone on for hours on the phone, and she'll still go fuck her outlaw biker boyfriend because her intimacy with him is genuine, unnegotiated, unobligated desire
4. (p. 67) A woman's behavior is always the only gauge of her intent. (p.147) More often than not women tell the complete truth with their actions, they just communicate it in a fashion that men can't or won't understand.
5. (p. 14) Learn this now: women never want full disclosure. Nothing is more self-satisfying for a woman than to think she's figured out a man based solely on her mythical feminine intuition.
6. (p. 15) Always remember, perfect is boring. Women will cry a river about wanting Mr Dependable and then go off to fuck Mr Exciting.
7. (p.95) All the flowery crap that you read in your Hallmark card on Valentine's Day was written by someone else. It's not individual acts of affection or appreciation so much as it is the whole of what you both do on a regular day-to-day basis. It's what you and she are all about after your 300th bowl of oatmeal together on a Saturday morning while you're sitting across the breakfast table discussing which bills need to be paid first this month and how bad the law needs mowing that defines love and marriage.
8. (p. 99) Women should only ever be a compliment to a man's life, never the focus of it.
9. (p. 100) Women are dream killers. Not because they have the agenda to be so, but because men will all too willingly sacrifice their ambitions for a steady supply of pussy and the responsibilities that women attach to this.
10. (p. 105) The truth will set you free, but it doesn't make it hurt any less, nor does it make it any prettier, And it certainly doesn't absolve you of the responsibilities that truth requires.
11. (p. 106) Power is neither good nor evil, it simply is, and your capacity to use power, your comforting using it, doesn't invalidate the principles of power.
12. (p. 130) It's far easier to believe that the world should change for you than to accept the truth that you need to improve yourself to get the things you want.
13. (p. 152) She wants you to get it on your own, without having to be told how... The guy she wants to fuck is dominant because "that's the way he is" instead of who she had to tell him to be.
14. (p. 157) Most of the women using online dating run the gambit from hopelessly fat to 2-drink fuckability, the one thing most had in common was an entirely overblown sense of self worth to compliment their grossly overrated self-impression of their sexual market value.
15. (p. 228) It is always time and effort better spent developing relationships with new, fresh, prospective women than it will ever be in attempting to reconstruct a failed relationship.
16. (p. 175) What's my obligation? Neglect myself in favor of a bad commitment or to the principle of commitment itself?
17. (p. 230) Our Great danger is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.
18. (p. 241) Booty is so strong that there are dudes willing to blow themselves up for the highly unlikely possibility of booty in another dimension. There are no chicks willing to blow themselves up for a penis." (Joe Rogan)
19. (p. 246) The good girl is still looking for an Alpha, and will still stop the good girl car to get up and fuck him should the opportunity arise.
20. (p. 251) There has never been a "Rubenesque" period for men--where overweight man where considered the feminine ideal - - in history. A muscular athletic build has always been the masculine standard.
21. (p. 254) Feminization in this respect is the ultimate form of penis envy.
22. (p. 276) Women don't want a man to cheat, but they love a man who *could* cheat.