Emerald

I've been on and off with this forum since it began. And truth-be-told, even though I've met some cool people, I never really enjoyed the vibes in the culture of this place... at least not since the very beginning. It definitely isn't the kind of culture that I would cultivate if I had my own forum as it's a pretty combative space... and my philosophy on curating social spaces is about creating a safe container that enables people to be more open and vulnerable. And yet, I feel quite drawn to coming back here... even though I find it to be a bit draining. And I've been reflecting on this in the past couple days. And I think I figured out what it is. To give some context, I have always had issues with being aware of and expressing anger. When I was a child, I discovered that anytime I ever tried to stand up for myself it was futile and just made things worse... and it would just add insult to injury. And eventually, I developed this coping strategy of remaining stoic and unemotional in the face of boundary violations and things that I dislike. And anger became my worst enemy. And this was very empowering because those who might try to engage in verbal abuse towards me would have nothing to grab ahold of. I would just sit there and watch them jump up and down like a yo-yo and cuss and scream and insult me at the top of their lungs... and watch them completely buckle under the futility of getting a reaction out of me. So this worked a lot better than what was before. As a child, it was just embarrassing and demoralizing when I would try to stand up for myself and it would backfire. So, as a pre-teen, when I decided towards a stance of never getting angry and never showing anger, it was like this shield where people didn't mess with me as much.... and people couldn't get a rise out of me. So, it was a powerful stance to disengage and have a perpetual poker-face in combination with coming across as cool and laid back. And it also came with certain cherished identities where people would see me as this really chilled out person who's easy to be around. And I would receive people unconditionally without push-back on anything... which helped me develop the ability for me to just hold space for people. And this parlayed into something very near and dear to my life's purpose, which is the ability to exercise deep levels of understanding and compassion for why someone is the way that they are... and to see it as always logically understandable as to why anyone is the way that they are. It's a very merciful viewpoint to hold in a very unmerciful world. So, it's quite valuable to many people. But in the less aligned elements of this coping strategy (despite its many positives) it can enable a lot of terrible behavior and leave you without defense. And it puts a gag on anger and disgust... and enables all sorts of boundary violations. It's like having no lock on the door of a home with lots of money laying around in it. And if someone comes in and steals the money, I can't even say anything about it because it would feel like I was being un-stoic, disempowered, and no better than cruel plebeian angry masses. So, it put me in a place where I'd have no choice but to simply quit while I'm behind. And it would temporarily make me feel like a loser and very (whatever the gender neutral term is for emasculation), but I'd reframe it quickly as some kind of stoic strength that proved me stronger and more dominant than them... like a priest that says, "Oh my poor child... you are lost." And that is always how I'd responded when anger comes up... ignore it, it's futile anyone, let's quit while I'm behind... then reframe it as some kind of stoic virtue. And of course, a lifetime of that builds a lot of rage. But that rage gets turned always inward because it's me allowing these things to happen. And I had even (as a teenager) developed a cosmology where the concept of right and wrong is completely relativistic (for others) but absolute (for me). And I pretended for a couple years to have no strong convictions and that I was perfectly moderate in all ways. My philosophy as a 12 year old was always to stay in the middle of the road... which I framed as a wisdom that arises from detachment but was actually a coping strategy to avoid confrontation. So, it placed me in this elevated space of stoic superiority, where I accepted all things and was exercising god-like forgiveness to others for their short-comings and trying to practice unconditional love, receptivity, and acceptance of that person.... but if I were to show some kind of flaw (especially anger or disgust towards that person), I'd be very ruthless with myself because "I should do better than others." It was like, the world can be as angry, frenetic, emotionally weak, terrible, and cruel as it wants to be... because it will only draw emphasis to my own state of stoic detached grace. And by contrast, I will be the winner. And then there'd be all these fears that I've harmed a person if I even have a mild expression of anger or disgust on my face... not only for fear of falling from my pedestal of stoic grace but for fear of subjecting others to cruelty... as I so hated the cruel and the pain they cause. So, I built lots of filtering mechanisms that have made my anger and disgust even unconscious to myself. And I check my facial muscles constantly in conversation to make sure that I'm not hurting that other person with unconscious micro-expressions... be remaining hyper-conscious of my micro-expressions. And it built out this entire superiority complex in my teens around being the one super-human who can accept others without anger or disgust. And this put me in very vulnerable positions in my relationships because I tolerated so much to maintain that superior identity. But being the graceful one who unconditionally loves the cruel one was the way that I had always coped. So it made sense that this pattern would show up in my life. And I was frequently the target of cruelty... which would strengthen my identity because I built a philosophy of, "Even if someone comes up and beats the crap out of me, I will not land even a single punch on them. I will simply absorb it and stay stoic." Mind you, a lot of this broke down under the sheer weight of living life... especially when I entered the work-force at 16. But that foundation that I built between age 12 and 16 is still there. And I still have a hard time with knowing what to do with my anger. I've seen the value of integrating it now since my early 20s. But I haven't gotten over the fear of being the cruel sadistic woman who harms with abusive words and facial expressions... which is the origin point of this whole mess. I don't want to hurt anyone... which I feel is very easy to accidentally because I interpret people as very very sensitive, and like I exist as a tiger among bunny rabbits. And one wrong move (even a subtle facial expression that reflects a tiny bit of anger) and I will unintentionally split the bunny rabbit in half... even if I make the slightly wrong facial express or use the wrong word. That person will totally implode. And I don't want to be the 'cruel inferior plebeian' who is too weak to be stoic and kind. So, that's the context. But on this forum, there's actually space for this disowned part of me that is sadistic, angry, and cruel... and who delights in defeating others. And I don't need to show my facial expression or see theirs. So, I don't feel like I'm tip-toeing around bunny rabbits. Plus, my most effective and sharpest sword is my intellect. And on here, I can have all sorts of intellectual duels with people. So, what I do is that I channel my sadism, anger, and cruelty and I hook it up to my intellect... which is an effective weapon, and not futile like my childhood expressions of anger. And with my intellect, I can still maintain the image of stoicism because it's a cold process. And I can channel my sadism, anger, and cruelty through the stoic mask of my intellect. Then, I have certain rules for dueling that both cloak my sadistic tendencies and mitigate the harm of them, which are... I must remain intellectually honest I must not use ad hominem attacks I must not grand-stand or posture in empty ways (i.e. "You just don't get it the way that I do." or "Well, you're Stage Blue/Red? Green, so..." or (posturing myself like the authority who knows something the other person doesn't) "That's for you to figure out on your own." I must genuinely try to help the other person understand I must not use logical fallacies I must state the source of where my insight is deriving from so as to give my explanation the proper amount of authority in the eyes of the reader (i.e. a scientific study, an insight that I got, what makes logical sense to me, my friend experienced this, etc.) I must clean up what I've written to take off any personalized harsh edges... and keep my edginess purely in the intellectual dismantling of the topic at hand. And so, in this space, there's a ton of nerdy guys getting into combative intellectual arguments with one another to prove who is the most intellectual or the most correct. And I know that I can out-do most of them because of my fealty to intellectual honesty and reconciliation of many perspectives. So, this forum is like a big intellectual dick-measuring contest... and I have a really big one. And I like to win. And it's like bumper-cars... if you're going to participate, combativeness is par for the course. But in cases where the person has a cruel or ignorant perspective that muddies the water around or enables the plebeian cruelty that endemic in this world, I really take the gloves off. In my typical response to this, I receive that person entirely and seek to understand why the person had developed that perspective. But in this setting, I can just dismantle it... and defeat their perspective. And instead of doing the emotional labor of holding space for a person to be exactly where they are... I can actually express, "This viewpoint is a problem, because it would lead to x, y, z outcomes." So, I get to draw firm lines in the sand. But the sadism piece of this is also present, as there is a desire to cause some pain to those who have a more cruel perspective... or who act as enablers to cruel perspectives. And I recall once, when I was in an argument that was in-kind to arguing against cruelty, I was laying on the couch. And suddenly an image of myself came into my head of this queen that looks a bit like Helena Bonham Carter's version of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland... but much rougher and colder than that. It was this stoic, cold, sadistic mean queen. And she had a look of sheer hatred and disgust on her stony face. Her forehead was high... which fashionable ladies used to pluck their hairline to give themselves a really high hairline and around the renaissance. Her face was powdered. And she had thin black lips. And she was laying in the same position as me and on the same couch as me. She had medium-short curly reddish hair. It was like this image was showing me this part of myself. It's like, this forum is the only space where I can be her... but also hide her under the guise of the intention of intellectual helpfulness. So, at the top level, I can genuinely be trying to help... and I always am. But I am so angry about human cruelty, that there is this cold death mother drive that's somewhat akin to the idea of, "I brought you into this world... and I can take you out... that is if you can't play nice with your sibling or the family pets and you're destroying the house." It's like this, if you can't play nice, let's just set the world on fire and be done with it. And I can really channel that on here... especially when people are advocating for cruel/foolish perspective and/or perspectives that muddy the waters to enable cruelty and foolishness to continue unchecked. And it's like I made myself into a dormant volcano of cruelty where I hold it all in to cope with cruelty and defeat the cruel ones by denying them an outlet. But I have had no outlet for that cruelty and anger because the stoic method also gives me the same kind of powerlessness... but the forum gives me an outlet. And it's like I can keep running through the process that I needed to happen when I was a child... to have my anger actually win me the fight that I was in the right about.

It was moreso when he first started the forum. It was a very different online culture.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about people who I know personally. Some of these guys were even my friends, despite their problematic behaviors. Most of these guys weren't sociopaths at all. Most of them really were just too lazy to operate from a code of ethics... and didn't really care about integrity. (and there are environmental reasons for the laziness and lack of ethics, which I'll get to in a minute) The vast majority of them were just low integrity guys with weaker ethical boundaries and less discernment about what kinds of behaviors they're willing to do and what kinds of behaviors that they're willing to accept in those they socialize with. To give an analogy, it's like the difference between a person who has higher standards for the cleanliness and tidiness of their house compared to other people who have lower standards for cleanliness and tidiness. So, one person might have low standards for tidiness and end up with garbage all through their house because they don't have the sensitivity or standards to even notice the garbage enough or see it as a big enough issue to deal with. And perhaps they stay in the status quo and follow the path of least resistance, so they end up too lazy to actively fix the problem. They don't have the activation energy to fix it because "Eh. It's whatever." This is what happens with people who have weak ethical boundaries too. They just are not sensitive enough and they don't have high enough standards to live in alignment with a code of ethics. And unless they have a "come to Jesus moment", they just follow the path of least resistance... which is what I mean by ethical laziness. It's doing things that make them less trustworthy... be being apathetic and not seeing it as a big enough problem to warrant the effort to change or fix it. But I recognize that there's a huge environmental factor to it... but not necessarily that they were the target of violence per se. Only some of them were in violent environments, but all of them were raised in low-standard environments with the philosophy of "things just are the way they are". But not every guy who was raised in those types of environments became like that, to be clear. In my hometown, one of the worst things about the area that I lived is that people had very low standards in general... relative to ethics, hygiene, the state of their house, who they're willing to accept as a romantic partner, etc. And that pattern of low standards is quite contagious to be around... especially if you've lived your entire life in it. So, I've known a lot of people who have been living their entire lives in a context that normalizes degenerative behaviors to where none of it feels like a very big deal. But it's a lot of people robotically or semi-robotically doing things that compromise their integrity, healthy, and overall quality of life. And a guy who has this level of apathy and "Whatever fuck it." mentality probably isn't going to do the work necessary to stick to a code of ethics... a may have a tendency to be less pressed about crossing others' boundaries... sexually and otherwise.

By that definition, every single man that's not sleeping with every single woman in existence is sexually frustrated. And there is no man on the planet that's sleeping with all 4 billion women. 1. Are you saying that every single man is sexually frustrated? 2. Are you saying that every single instance of sexual harassment comes from sexual frustration?

Thank you! I find that it really is the necessary vehicle to communicate about these kinds of topics.

@Shakazulu Thank you for sharing your story. And I hope that you mend quickly. And there's a lot of wisdom in the realizations you're speaking of. There is a line in the Bible that says something like, "Those who exalt themselves will be humbled." And I have found that, whenever I conceptualize of myself in an idealized way or try to build an idealized narrative around myself as "the special one" or "the chosen one", eventually that bubble gets burst... and then humbling happens. And there is great benefit to being humbled even though it's incredibly painful. It's like a disillusionment, grief, and embarrassment. But it's healthier, and it's more helpful for recognizing our place within humanity. If we exalt ourselves, we see ourselves as above other humans and it disconnects us from our place within humanity... and we experience a sense of exile, shame, and intense pressure that we often are unconscious to. But the humbling painfully reminds us that we are human and flawed.... and that we are not that different from any other person. We are ordinary people and we operate like ordinary people do. And knowing this in an embodied way helps us feel deeply intertwined and interconnected with humanity, nature, and existence at large.

A guy committing sexual harassment against a woman doesn't necessarily mean that he's doing so because he's sexually frustrated. In my teen years, I had been on the receiving end of sexual harassment many times from many different male peers and occasionally adult men. I was really unprotected from it because of the social situations that I was in. And it wasn't that all (or even most) of these guys had no sexual outlet. Every male peer that I'm talking about had girls in their social circle (because I was in their social circle and many other girls were too). So, the vast majority of them had girlfriends at one point or another. (Remember, this was the early 2000s and young men socialized back then.) In my experience of being the receiving end of sexual harassment... they most commonly were just morally weak guys who lacked ethical boundaries in many facets of life and sexual harassment was just one of those ethical lapses that are common with this type of person. They would also cheat on girlfriends, steal from people and stores, lie without care, and do generally untrustworthy things. It like, 'How a man does one thing is how he does everything." And it was usually that these guys were too lazy to maintain a code of ethics. Several of them were also bitter misogynists who had contempt for women/girls and wanted to degrade a young woman as an expression of sexual aggression towards women, and used sexual harassment as a way to do that. Or sometimes the guys just didn't view girls as whole people outside of being vessels for their own pleasure. They just weren't conscious that they were actually going over a person's boundaries because they weren't aware enough to see women as people. This one was usually just a result of a lack of reflection and lower critical thinking skills. Some of them were also guys who were incredibly socially inept and would transgress sexual boundaries into the realm of sexual harassment because they just didn't get it. Like, I remember in my freshman year of high school one unattractive guy with poor hygiene that was very socially uncalibrated would say, "Where's my hug at?" whenever he'd see me. And for context, I was in a very huggy alt-kid group where everyone hugged one another all the time. So, it would have been a clear act of social rejection to refuse someone a hug in this context... which wasn't something I felt comfortable doing at the time. But when he'd come to the group specifically to ask me "Where's my hug at?", I'd reluctantly give him a hug to be nice. And I'd try to give him a quick 2-second hug, but he'd physically hold me there for 10-15 seconds and caress my sides and back up and down while I was trying to squirm away. And he was socially clueless that he didn't really belong in the group, as he just wasn't on the same wavelength. And he was also socially clueless that the long romantic sensual hugs were unwanted despite me trying to squirm away. But the majority of these guys didn't sexually harass because they lacked outlets for sex... or couldn't get a girlfriend. There was even one guy on my bus who I never crossed paths with personally. But he was like a stereotypical rapey classically handsome jock guy from a movie. And he'd be saying very disgusting sexually degrading misogynistic things very loudly on the bus. I honestly would not be shocked at all if I found out that he got convicted of sex crimes. And I just thought he was a vile person. And he was certainly not lacking outlets to girlfriends or sex. He was frequently talking about his sexual escapades on the bus. And he was saying all sorts of disparaging sexual things to and about other young women. It was like a daily occurrence on the bus, him saying really disturbing sadistic things. So, that guy is a perfect example of how sexual harrassment doesn't come from sexual frustration.

You may not recognize it, but I am doing you a great kindness right now in challenging your ideas. But you must understand that you're not asking me for empathy. You're asking me to coddle you and to tell you comforting lies, so that you don't have to take personal responsibility for your own dating problems or take responsibility for solving them. And I am giving you VERY specific actionable advice... get acquainted with women, make friends with women, and interact with women. It doesn't get more concrete than that. And it's quite simple to understand that that's what you must do, even if there are challenges to doing so. And let's be real, it isn't that women don't like you. You haven't even interacted with women enough to know whether or not a specific woman likes you or not. And women are not a monolith or a hivemind. Some women will like you. Some women will dislike you. That's how it goes with people from any group. So, it's not that women (as a hivemind in your imagination) don't like you... it's that you don't like women as a collective group, which is why you refuse to interact with them or make acquaintances with them. Take responsibility for your own feelings of dislike towards women instead of projecting your own dislike towards women as a group onto female strangers and believing that they collectively and monolithically dislike you. I think the reason why you don't find our exchanges "productive" (aka comforting) is because I'm telling you to take personal responsibility for your own issue that blocks you from doing the legwork to become acquainted with women... which is the only way of finding a partner and getting your desired outcomes with women. It's more comfortable to see this problem as a problem women must solve for you... and that women are to blame for. You just don't want to take personal responsibility. You'd rather just finger-wag random women you aren't acquainted with for not fulfilling your fantasy of spontaneously given charitable romantic love. If 100% of women are strangers to you, you simply cannot rationally expect that women that you don't know are going to come breaking down your door to give you romantic love and kindness. That is the fantasy that I'm trying to break you of. And that is why I am sharp and not soft. It would be incredibly mean of me to re-inforce your victim's mentality rationalizations and coddle you and be like, "Don't worry sweetie baby honey pumpkin. None of this is your responsibility. It's not your problem to solve. It's those mean women who are at fault that are responsible for the problem, and so they are the only ones who have the power and responsibility to fix it. You are powerless in this situation, so you obviously can't fix the problem. So, you have no responsibility at all in the matter. Just wait for a selfless stranger woman to come and save you purely out of the goodness of her own heart." And it would be incredibly unkind to validate this idea because it would allow you to languish in victim's mentality and powerlessness where you never solve your own problem.

Yes, that's definitely a good step in the right direction of integration... as feelings are an element of the Feminine principle as it applies to being human.

The way I could describe this phenomenon that I experienced that was clear that the closest word to describe it in the English language is "Femininity".... I would say that you may be able to get a taste of it by being outside at night near a misty body of water... and feeling calm and serene in the silence. But this isn't how it feels to be a woman on a typical basis. The experience of woman-like-ness does overlap with Femininity in many ways... but there's also uniquely human things that are not specifically reflective of the Feminine. But if you're going for the direct energy of the Feminine subtle quality, I think outside at night in the silence of nature and sensing your interconnection with nature is a good way to get a taste of the Feminine polarity in a non-gender-focused way. But I have a video where I talk about qualities to integrate if you want to integrate the Feminine...

Thank you for sharing that. The deep Feminine definitely isn't just a woman thing. It's just that, within the English language, the closest word we have to describing the phenomenon of that polarity is the word "Feminine". But it doesn't derive from human gender.... but it supersedes and informs human gender expressions. Like, when I went into that first medicine journey, I believed for most of my life that Masculinity and Femininity were only social constructs with nothing real underneath them. And I was nearly 100% certain about that. But then, when my consciousness expanded in the medicine journey, I experienced this subtle energy all around me and within me in the plants, trees, night, and myself. And the only word in the English language that fit to describe this subtle energy was "Femininity". And it was my first glimpse that there's something real and not socially constructed about the Feminine (and logically that would imply a realness about the Masculine as well). But it didn't remotely resemble any of the cultural constructs around the Feminine that I was familiar with. It had nothing to do with pink, dresses, make-up, shopping, etc. It was dark and quiet and peaceful... and full of life-potential in waiting. And it was me. And I could see what my very Masculine value-system imposed on me by the culture had disconnected me from. And years later, I recognized that other languages had better and more accurate words to describe this subtle quality. So, the closest word that I know to describe it is Yin, as in the Taoist perspective... or Shakti from a Hindu perspective. But the closest word in the English language to describe it is Femininity. But there are problems with this. And that problem is that it gets confusing for people because colloquially people believe "Femininity = woman-like-ness". And we associate the word Femininity with female gender norms and pop cultural ideas around Femininity... and ideas of what makes a woman attractive. But the Feminine supersedes human gender expressions and human gender norms. So, both men and women have this Yin/Feminine polarity within themselves. But it can be noticed that women (as a group) tend to have more Yin in their "energetic signatures" as a collective group. So, there's a lot of muddying of the waters around this topic because we use the word Femininity to describe several things at once. And when I suggest for men to integrate their Feminine side, they often believe that I'm telling them to act like a woman. But all people should integrate their Feminine side and depolarize their values-system and identity, so that one can find their natural energetic signature which is a unique blend of the Masculine and Feminine (Yang and Yin).

Yes, we're definitely discussing two perspectives on the Feminine. I'm just not very interested in exploring the anthropological expressions of the Feminine, as the deep Feminine has been buried for many millennia and will not be found very much in culture and anthropology. And it doesn't help me find my own Feminine that I frequently become conscious to in my medicine journeys when the blocks temporarily fall away. The organizing structures of society (like gender roles) are Masculine-principled. And expressions of woman-like-ness are external structures of persona-expression of the symbolic conception of Femininity within a given cultural container. What I am calling the deep Feminine is more internal... and doesn't have to do with organizing principles. Culture, roles (including gender roles), external expressions, categories, and the like are in the Masculine principle. The Feminine principle is organic, un-organized, subjective, and internal. It doesn't have much to do with the layer of reality you're speaking about. It's deeply embedded in one's inner world... which is part of the reasons that the deep Feminine is more resemblant of the physical body of the women (who have their reproductive organs on the inside). But if I were having a discussion about gender roles, cultural patterns, man-like-ness, woman-like-ness, and what's empirically observable... we can certainly have a more Masculine principled conversation on that and explore it through the lens of the Masculine principle. And I'm not opposed to operating from that perspective if that's the right perspective for the job. But I find the Masculine-principled lens too detached from the direct experience of the Feminine and how I can internally and subjectively reconnect with my own repressed Femininity and how women as a collective can also walk the same internal, subjective path. You can understand all you want about what women statistically do in a culture, but that gives you no effective tools for the doing the deep excavation work necessary for finding your repressed Feminine sovereignty.

Yes. He's not aware of what my perspective entails. Like I said, it makes sense that he wouldn't be. He's thinking more about cultural conceptions of woman-like-ness, when I'm speaking more about the Yin polarity and what Femininity is in terms of a direct mystical experience of the subtle energy and the Feminine archetypes. But the argument on his part is moot, because his paradigm on the Feminine doesn't have any tools for me to use to reconnect with that part of myself. And this has been a nearly 2 decades-long journey I've been on where I began with his perspective and found it to be an ineffective way of thinking about things for my journey. So, to my perception, it's just the dilemma of the Dunning-Kreuger... a person who doesn't know how much they don't know. The Dunning-Kreuger knows enough about the surface-level of a topic to where they believe they're knowledgable... but they don't understand that they're operating off of a dearth of knowledge about that topic. But when encountering someone has explored the topic at a deeper level, the Dunning-Kreuger is like, "That's not how it's done!" because it doesn't match with their more surface-level knowledge. For example, when I was 5 years old, I learned that "When you subtract numbers, you take away the smaller number from the bigger number." And so, because I thought I was in the know about math, it certainly could have happened that child-me interacts with some PhD in a math-related field. And then, I correct their math because "Hey! You're not supposed to subtract bigger numbers from smaller numbers. Silly!"

I do understand that. And while I do think it's important for men to integrate their Feminine side (which requires some deeper know-how beyond the cultural conception of the female-like-ness), I get that it may not be their top priority to do so. The main thing, with my conversation with the other poster is that he's focusing on the question of "What's empirically true about cultural conceptions of Femininity according to studies?" But my focus is, "What is going to be an effective subjective paradigm on Femininity that I can use (and other women can use) to reconnect with the Feminine in a word that is either unaware of or actively devalues deeper expressions of the Feminine principle?" So, my perspective is "What's effective for integrating the Feminine?" And his perspective is, "What's empirically true about woman-like-ness and female gender roles on a cultural level?" But the answer to his question doesn't give me any tools or perspectives to work with that are effective for my own ends. And to be fair, I did try his way first. I experienced the Feminine directly at age 20. And I tried to shove myself into the traditional female gender role for the first few years of my twenties. And I was with my husband at 20. And I was a mom by 22. So, I was really trying to be just a mom and wife and to carve away my previous identity. But this diminished me and didn't feel anything like what I experienced at 20... which was this deep peaceful essence pregnant with eroticism and power that existed in the night and the trees. And I had made myself very very small. Then, at around 22-23, I stumbled into reading some Feminist literature. And for a few months, I got really into that. And it unwired some more surface-level barriers to reconnecting with m Feminine. But it didn't go deep enough. Then, at 23, I was listening to Tool in my room and pacing around and was in deep contemplation. And the phrase "Masculine and Feminine principle" jumped into my mind. And I hadn't heard those phrases before. But they felt like something interesting to me. So, I went immediately to Google and typed it in. And I found this woman's blog called Matrignosis. Her name is Jean Raffa and (at the time) she was in her early 70s. And she is a Jungian enthusiast who speaks a lot about Feminine integration... and her experiences with integrating the Feminine. And as I read her blog, I felt like I was reading the work of a 70 year old version of myself. And she was wise and deeply connected to the Feminine. And the struggles she spoke of with her own polarization into the Masculine was so relatable... and I'm sure many women would find it relatable. Then, that was my first effective in-road to the path that leads the deep Feminine. Prior to that I was just looking in ineffective places... first in traditional patriarchal Femininity, which is very man-centered and Masculinity-centered. Then, I looked into Feminist perspectives, which were more helpful... but still very surface level and still very Masculinity-centered. So, finding deeper perspectives to go on the journey was necessary. It's been my main internal journey over the past 16 years.

@questionreality is an ironic name for you, for one. I just realize that it's funny that someone with your perspective has that username. But I understand if you don't recognize the depth or validity of my perspective on the Feminine... because you haven't had the direct experience of it that I have. So, you'd have to simply believe me because these were direct phenomenological experiences... and it's fine that you're skeptical. And perhaps your more materialist cultural definition of the Feminine works for your purposes. But for me, I have had to dive VERY deep into this topic and do tons of inner work and contemplation and study various disciplines to reconnect with my Feminine side. And simply using the cultural costumes of Femininity would not be sufficient for my purposes. So, you can believe what you wan. But the materialist viewpoint that you're paradigm locked on has no efficacy for my purposes.

Yep.

You're clearly not hearing what I'm actually saying... and you're misrepresenting what I'm telling you. Go back and re-read by post and you will see that I'm not dehumanizing you or telling you any of those things you're implying. What I'm saying is that, if you don't have any female acquaintances or friends, that effectively means that ALL women who aren't related to you are strangers to you and that you are a stranger to them. And you told me before that you have zero female friends and acquaintances. That is how I know that to be the case. So, it's not logical or reasonable to expect to randomly receive some kind of charitable acts of kindness and love from strangers, as that's not how human beings operate... especially not with romantic love. So, don't expect women to give you romantic love out of a sense of charity. You also don't go out of your way to charitably give romantic love and kindness to strangers, I'd wager. If you want kindness from women, go make friends and/or acquaintances with kind women. And you can count on kind women who are your friends and acquaintances to be cordial and kind to you. If you want romantic love from a woman, go interact with a bunch of women and become acquainted with them... and eventually someone in that group will be interested in having a romantic relationship with you. You can't just expect women who you don't personally know to go out of their way to interact with you, give you kindness, and give you love. Female strangers simply are not going to save you from this problem. It's a problem that you are responsible for solving. Also, women generally aren't in the same standstill as you are. So, you're asking women to solve a problem that isn't a problem for them. Plenty of men are interacting with women, making acquaintances with women, and being friends with women. And women are going to be interested in those men who they actually know and are having some kind of interaction with. So, the standstill is a you problem that you must solve... and you do that by acquainting yourself with women and interacting with them. But there seems to be a fear and a block to making the acquaintance of women. You'll have to discover the root of that block.

It is self-related. But rather than selfishness which has to do with getting your way over other people... it's more accurate to call it sovereignty, which is not related to having power over others at all. It's about self-governance. Power is always in relation to the external world... not always about dominance over other people, but at least having leverage over external circumstances. For example, if I am hungry, I currently have the power to go to the fridge and get something to eat. But it can also be power over others too. Power is a mixed bag... and can be wielded selfishly, neutrally, or positively. But sovereignty just is... and is more of an internal grounding in the unshakable validity of one's own being and the unshakable validity of the objective facts of one's own subjective experience. It's basically about rendering yourself "gaslight-proof", so that you don't come to mistrust your subjective perspective, as your subjective perspective is your only navigational compass and your only anchor-point within truth. It's kind of like how the child in The Emperor's New Clothes doesn't fall for the illusions of external power that that the emperor falls for with the conmen who trick him, rip him off ,and sew his invisible clothes. Nor does the child fall for the illusions of external power that the adult crowd falls for when they gaslight themselves into seeing clothes on the naked emperor. The child possesses sovereignty of perspective and trusts their eyes... and not the mind's rationalizations around the illusion of external power. So, because the crowd trusts the illusion that the emperor can't have made a mistake or faux pas because he's the emperor... ...and because the emperor trusts the illusion of the power of the conmen to truly be sewing beautiful clothes (and believes that he cannot be tricked because of his own position of power)... ...neither the crowd nor the emperor possesses the sovereignty to simply see what they're seeing. They gaslight themselves out of the truth. But the child is still in touch with their sovereignty. So, they can simply see what they're seeing because they don't have the experience yet to do that kind of heavy-duty self-gaslighting. And they don't gaslight themselves out of the fact that they are seeing a naked emperor. And a major part of sovereignty beyond simply stating the facts of your subjective experience... is all about developing an awareness deep enough to answer the question, "What do I really want?" and to see the answer to that question has being valid in and of itself.

It sounds more like an issue that you're either interacting with mean women... or you're not interacting with women at all. My money is on the latter, given our conversation about only having male friends and acquaintances. So, if 100% of women you're not related to are all strangers to you (not friends or acquaintances), they're going to behave in a cold and detached way towards you... just as you would have some coldness and detachment with a stranger. It's the social contract and it's a boundaries thing. And while it's nice to have the idea that women you're a stranger to should just go out of their way to express kindness to you, that's just not realistic. It wouldn't even be safe for women to do that in many contexts. But to find kindness from a woman simply means interacting with women and makings friendships and acquaintances with women who are kind and mature. But you have to actually be acquainted. A kind woman is not going to go out of her way to share kindness with some random strangers... especially not one that wants something from her. But love (in the romantic sense) isn't just something women give out. It doesn't work that way. Strangers also are definitely not going out of their way to love you... and no one is owed love from a stranger.

Usually, people in the rationalist paradigm (like Stage Orange) will confuse people operating from a post-rational perspectives as someone operating from a pre-rational perspective (Stage Purple). You confuse an archetypal understanding of the Feminine based in direct mystical experience for someone who is engaged in magical thinking, like an inexperienced peasant who believes the plague comes from "the vapors" and that mold grows from "spontaneous generation".

It does very much strip the majority of the Feminine power away from women... only leaving a very narrow gender role of the conception of what "woman" is based mostly on quiet modest innocuous motherhood.

You seem to be under the impression that the only valid perspective on this topic is some evidence-based cultural perspective on it... which would be like if you expected some kind of evidence-based cultural perspective on enlightenment and saw that information as superior to the direct experience of it. You are looking at the Feminine from a materialist anthropological perspective. But I am looking at the Feminine from the perspective of someone who has had a direct mystical experience of the Feminine. (And Masculine and Feminine is mystical... meaning it cannot be studied empirically) This is my perspective based on my own direct firsthand experiences of the subtle Feminine polarity in my medicine journeys... and the symbolic understanding of Yin and the Feminine principle that I gained through exploring archetypal and mythological conceptualizations of the Feminine to make better sense of these experiences when culture offers so little understanding of the Feminine beyond simply what's attractive to men. And this deeper exploration of the Feminine has been necessary for me personally to connect to the Feminine, as there is no outlet for me to connect with my own Feminine energy through the cultural lenses... as those simply aren't boxes that I fit into. And they just moved me further away from the Feminine power when I tried to find my Femininity there. And you can't find deep Femininity in those cultural boxes anyway... as boxes and categories are archetypally Masculine. The Masculine is always trying to put an organizing principle around the Feminine and to conceptualize of the Feminine through the categorical box. And the deep Feminine cannot be boxed. So, the deeper energetic polarity and the Feminine principle (archetypally) is what I mean when I speak of integrating the Feminine. So, you can stick with the cultural definition of Femininity and what men generally find attractive about women. It's fine that that's your perspective. But simply figuring out how to appear Feminine doesn't go deep enough for my own purposes of integrating the Feminine, as those are fairly surface-level ways of conceptualizing of Femininity that has more to do with Femininity as a costume to be seen as Feminine in society and to attract men. Culture offers very little of the deep Feminine that I had a direct experiences of for the first time at the age of 20. Culture just hasn't developed a deep enough understanding of this principle. So, I have had to look beyond cultural perspective and into the energetic and archetypal perspective... like Jungian psychology, depth psychology, Taoism, and other perspectives that offer a lens for exploration of the Feminine and Masculine principles.

- Step 1 strips women of their Femininity because the traditional patriarchal culture is about polarization into the Masculine to the exclusion of the Feminine. This is how people fought against and sought balance with the powerful forces of Mother Nature. There is no space for the Feminine in a patriarchal society because of its un-insulated relationship with nature, so it's pared down purely to motherhood and anchored only to the domestic realm. Women are usually kept out of public life (like walking around in public) in these kinds of societies. - The average woman is probably in the phase where there's a resistance to the Feminine and polarization into the Masculine. But many 3rd Wave Feminists are actively exploring this polarization into the Masculine and away from Femininity from a Feminist perspective. And there are many schools of thought within 3rd Wave Feminism that are a lot more accepting of Femininity than what was in 2nd Wave Feminism. There are also plenty of women trying to navigate their relationship with the Feminine through the soft life subculture and more idealized aesthetics around the idea of traditional Femininity. So, there's work being done on this. But most women in places like America are probably still in the polarization into Masculinity. (aka Stage Orange) - I am not aiming for enlightenment, as my spiritual path is about embodiment within duality. I talked about it a little bit in my reply to Leo. And from that more expansive but still dualistic perspective, I have experienced in medicine journeys as myself as both God and Emerald at once... and this dynamic operates very similarly to Hinduism's Shiva and Shakti. And there has been a very clear Masculine and Feminine dynamic between my "small Emerald self" and God (which is also self and the other side of my face (and yours)).

For a healthy and stable relationship that's a good container to raise a child in, it should be relatively equal in love and care but with the man pursuing more and putting in more legwork. And men naturally do that anyway if they're really interested in a deep way. If a woman has to polarize into her Masculine energy and chase around a man and prove herself somehow worthy of him, you're asking the person who takes on more risk in the relationship to also take on more of the responsibility for making the relationship happen. Women take on more risk because of pregnancy and child rearing. So, it's men's role to take on more responsibility to make the relationship happen... if he values it. Otherwise, all of her attention goes towards trying to keep the lukewarm detached man instead of feeling comfortable and stable in the relationship container... and focusing on self-care, pregnancy, and childbirth. That's why women who chase men always end up in terrible relationships with a guy who feels lukewarm about her, never wants to marry her, and where she's always feeling a bit unsettled. Chasing a man is also something that tends to push men away anyway... as most men actually don't like to be chased. It puts most men off, even if there's some fantasy about it. And the thing to understand for a woman is that a man is either serious about your or he isn't. There is no mating dance that a woman can do to make a man be more interested in loving her. Only men can do the mating dance to make a woman more interested in loving them. But for women, there is nothing we can do to persuade a man to be interested in us in a serious way... he either is or isn't. Think about how most species operate... like birds. The male bird does all kinds of crazy dance moves and has his ornate feathers to attract the female. But the female bird is a drab bird that just sits there and decides whether the mating dance it is sufficient evidence of whether or not he's a good candidate to father the chicks. If a man really loves a woman and is really serious about her, he's going to invest heavily in making the relationship work. And if he doesn't' do that, he's just not that into that woman and the woman is a placeholder for him. And he will extract company and sex from that woman, but leave as soon as someone he really likes comes around. That's why the Feminine archetype is the Beloved (which is all about receiving love unconditionally and being loved simply for being). And the Masculine archetype is the Lover (which is about giving love unconditionally and wooing the Beloved).

Yes, in traditional cultures women don't get a choice to connect to their Masculine side. Then logically, as soon as women do get the freedom to choose, they go, "Fuck that prison!" And they fight tooth and nail to develop their Masculine sides against the nay-saying culture. And then, once the Masculine side is integrated and the romanticization and superior-ization of the Masculine principle goes away, the Feminine can be re-explored. So, it's like (and this is based on my own process... but I see other women at various phases in this as well) Step 1 - Women have all Masculine and Feminine power stripped from them in traditional culture... whilst also being saddled with the Feminine burden and vulnerability. Life is hard as nails. Step 2 - Women's lib. Women are given access to the Masculine side in a society that still only values the Masculine side. And women develop their Masculine potentials and strengths. Women associate Masculinity with freedom and power... and associate the Feminine with enslavement and powerlessness. This further informs polarizations into the Masculine and repressions of the Feminine... and all associations with the Feminine are "thrown in the fire". But important work is done with education and developing efficacy... and having purpose beyond just child-birthing. Step 3 - The supremacy of Masculinity itself is questioned... and the inferiority of Femininity is also questioned. There comes to be a realization that this is also a patriarchal viewpoint despite it existing within 2nd Wave Feminism. Step 4 - Women explore their Femininity through the surface-level lens of the aesthetics and modern conceptualization of the old patriarchal version of the traditional woman (though this vision is a hyper-idealized fantasy and never existed in real life)... but do not find what they are looking for. They may even find the negative of traditional Femininity that women so vehemently ran away from during women's lib. And if they go deep enough to hit some triggers, they encounter all the collective wounds and heaviness around that narrow archetype of Femininity... like a graveyard of unrealized potentials and ripped away sovereignty plus the pain of rape, domestic violence, and disempowerment. Step 5 - There is either a regression into the comforts and Masculine shielding of Step 2 where it feels safer to be like (men and women are the exact same and these are social constructs... close the book)... or with bravery the journey into the Feminine wounding begins. And there is a deep individual exploration of collective Feminine wounds... but this can also be helpful to connect with other women about. As you work through the wounding, your sense of self-worth on the level of being rises as you come to recognize the strengths of the Feminine. You learn along the way what the Feminine is really like, outside of patriarchal conceptions of it. Step 6 - Eventually, there are breakthroughs to the deeper Feminine power as deep-seated psychological and emotional dynamics are explored and resolved. You come out the other end of the Leviathan that originally swallowed you up.. more whole than before. You find that you've always been irrevocably and unconditionally sovereign and completely home in the universe... like Dorothy does simply by clicking her heels at the end of the Wizard of Oz. --- My personal journey began on Step 2. And when I was 19, I had a dream that I was seduced by a beautiful woman... representing the only thing that I valued about Femininity. And the beautiful woman asked me, "Are you ready?" In a stupor, I choked out the word "Yes." She looked down at me from above, quickly exhaled, and paused. Then, she violently inhaled air into her lungs an instantaneously transformed into an ancient skeletal hag with a gaping black hole for a mouth with lips like thin torn paper, no eyes in her eye sockets, her skin was paper thin on there bones to where I could see her skeleton through her gray skin.... and she was bald in some places, her skull was showing in others, and her wiry gray hair was poking out of her hair sporadically. And I knew in the dream that she was angry at me for rejecting the Feminine in all ways except physical appearance, which is why she first presented herself as a very sexy woman. I was so enamored with her appearance, so she used it as bait to lure me. And her mouth gaped bigger and bigger and bigger until it become the context all around me. And I was tumbling end over end in a black empty void for a time.. until I was teleported to my childhood kitten where I started rummaging through in the cupboards. After that dream, everything started happening. And I experienced my first glimpse of the deep Feminine at age 20 in a recreational medicine journey... and saw it for what it really is. And I knew that I must integrate what it really is. Then, it's just been a lot of digging into old wounds. I was really in touch with the pain part of that in my 20s... partially for fear of leaving the visual of the narrow Feminine archetype but partially for being on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted attention from a desire to exploit. And I was still burning through a lot of my internalized misogyny. Then, at age 30, I had my first Ayahuasca journey since I was 20. And I experienced ego death in response to the intention of asking, "Should I seek enlightenment or should I seek to anchor more deeply into the perspective of Emerald?" And it brought me all the way into the perspective of the Masculine to reconnect with God to which Emerald whole and part of... and I got a really clear answer that I was choosing the Feminine path for this life which is about anchoring deeply into the embodiment of my humanity in the Earthly matrix. (Note: In many journeys, I experience a kind of Shiva and Shakti-like dynamic between the Feminine finite Emerald and the Masculine infinite God... and it operates like a supportive partner to me.) Then, as Emerald and the entire reality that she existed within was reborn in the journey... there was a woman who was probably in her 40s assisting people and help those who ask. And I was struggling hardcore. Prior to my ego death, I rolled over onto the floor and my body fragmented into about 10 pieces. It was my toughest medicine journey experience by a long-shot. Then, this woman came to me and held my hand. And her face kept oscillating back and forth between being a 20 year old woman and a 60 year old women. And she held my hand and said, "You made it through." And I knew in the journey that the hag that swallowed me in my dream at age 19 was speaking to me again at age 30 using this more banal human conversation as a conduit where it could send the same exact message. Only this hag from my dream was far more integrated. She was no longer a perfect-looking femme fatale beauty and a terrifying underworldly hag. She was just a regular 20 year old woman and a regular 60 year old woman, making herself known in the face of a 40 year old woman. And holding my hand, she was my midwife helping me give birth to myself... and to birth a new world into existence, as my reality totally disintegrated in the ego death... and was remade from scratch an eternity later when I re-discovered the reason why Emerald and her reality was invented in the first place.