Hear me out. A lot of you probably don't believe in Freud's theories*, but I happen to believe there's a lot of truth to them. I'll explain.

Sigmund Freud's Oedipal Complex is about how male and female genders are formed in childhood. The child is naturally attached to his/her mother and is afraid of anything that might separate them. This fear is basically symbolic castration or in lay-mens terms 'Jealousy'. The child sees their father as a competitor and the only way to deal with this castration anxiety is to (i) for boys to identify with the father (ii) for the girls to identify with mother.

Now, with TheRedPill there are a load of men who don't act like men or they don't feel valuable. They don't work out or improve themselves, then they find the red-pill and suddenly they're driven to work out.

What's happening here? Why is it that they haven't improved themselves without the red-pill? Why is it seen as a 'secret'; that improving yourself is somehow forbidden knowledge?

When I first visited the red-pill I felt a lot of that castration anxiety. Each headline was degrading to women, and some men. 'Betabux' 'Pussypass', etc.

I don't believe these things. I'm not an American which seems to be typical environment of the red pill, although of course there are other countries. I feel that the articles on the red pill are often 'pornographic*' as in, the content is supposed to cause the feeling of being cuckolded by the world, unless you act the way they say.

TL;DR: The Oedipal Complex is in short 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em'

The mental pain caused by imagining all the sex people are having at your expense is a strong motivator to become whatever people suggest will make it stop. In /r/theredpill this is made more explicit and so has a powerful controlling effect on men.

Edit: Pornographic, as in Grandiose, as in exaggerated. Edit: With a grain of salt.

Edit: I found this: http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/2ku2xu/narcissism_in_modern_american_society/

One of the effects of Narcissism is that people resist changing their behaviour. It's not that people don't know how to change (By taking on the identity of a successful person) its that they don't want to change their identity. TheRedPill introduces castration anxiety, which leads Men to adopt the new identity. When I said:

What's happening here? Why is it that they haven't improved themselves without the red-pill? Why is it seen as a 'secret'; that improving yourself is somehow forbidden knowledge?

-I meant, why don't you adopt the behaviours of the fit, confident asshole without any of the asshole. If the asshole stopped being one would he lose his confidence, his looks, his 'edginess'?

The good aspect of the red pill is that it causes a person to improve their lives; the bad aspect is that it also involves varying degrees of misogyny, prejudice and degradation of a number of people.