*Men Only*
I disagree with the PUA wing of the ‘sphere in a number of ways, nearly all of them significant. One area I want to touch on with this post is the way that most PUAs give women power over their lives. They will deny this, of course. Many will point out that they advocate taking women off the pedestal- if not smashing that pedestal outright. But pedestalizing women and giving them power over you is not the same thing.
This power transfer comes about when a man makes his notch count a metric to use in determining how much he “succeeds in life.” When a man does this, he gives women the ability to determine his level of success. It is women who hold the key to the treasure vault, as it were. He is reliant on them to become a success. This gives women power over you.
That a man can become astute at convincing women (or certain types of women, anyways) to sleep with him doesn’t change this. Sure they might be poor stewards of that power (nothing new, really). But they have that power all the same.
I would argue that an essential component of masculinity involves not being reliant on women to “succeed in life.” Boys are the ones who rely on women (mothers specifically) to tell them how great they are. Being a man means not needing a woman to tell you (whether in words or actions) just how great of a man you really are.
2Â What, my son? What, son of my womb?
    What, son of my vows?
3Â Give not your strength to women,
    your ways to those who destroy kings.
(Proverbs 31:2-3)
