As many of you know, there's been some drama on MRP. I was caught up in the middle of it and am doing my best to stay out. All of that led me to do a lot of thinking about what it means to be "red pill" - and I am now more than confident that even among the flaired people on MRP, there's no clear consensus.

The primary dividing line is between (1) one who sees and understands how the world works [descriptive RP] and (2) one who behaves a certain way (or at least is willing to) in order to accomplish certain goals [prescriptive RP].

Early on in my RP journey, I used to fall into the first camp. Seeing the matrix for what it is was "RP" enough for me. Some time ago I changed my mind. Just as we, as Christians, acknowledge that rote intellectual affirmation of the Gospel does not constitute saving faith, so also does rote intellectual acknowledgement of the "RP-Matrix" mean nothing if it does not compel us to be different - not just act different, but actually be different.

If RP is "sexual strategy," it cannot just be about understanding. It must be about doing. The question is then found in how we define the parameters in which the strategy applies.


Hard-Core v. Higher Priorities

Hard-Core

Hard-core RP prescription cares nothing about a person's life than achieving his 100% ideal sex life. This is the nature of sexual strategy in its RAW FORM.

What it does not account for is the myriad of other factors influencing a person's decisions. For example, on RPC we believe that hell is a real thing, sin matters, and someone living in deliberate, intentional sin is in danger of fiery judgment (Hebrews 10:26 et seq). So, hard-core RP says, "I don't care if you end up in hell. If you want your 100% ideal sex life, here's what you do. You choose between great sex and avoiding hell on your own. It's one or the other, there is no middle ground."

This choice between sex and some other higher priority doesn't compute for most hard-core individuals. They don't have a higher priority than sex. The result is that they will abandon anything and everything to get their 100% ideal sex-life. For non-Christians this is a legitimate way of life and one that we have no authority to condemn. We gain nothing by changing non-Christian behaviors or beliefs - only by changing their hearts, and that's more up to God than us. We are simply to be dutiful messengers. So, don't read this as a license to go around condemning non-Christians for developing their own life priorities. "Who am I to judge those outside the church?" (1 Cor. 5).

Higher Priorities

Now, basic observation does show us that there actually is a middle ground. I exist in that middle ground, as I expect most of you do. I'm not living my 100% ideal sex-life right now, but I have made substantial progress in that direction, and I expect that progress to continue. So, I've gone somewhere between "sexual misery" and "My sex life makes me feel like I'm on crack all the time!" The middle ground does, in fact, exist. If someone was satisfied with where they are in this middle-ground, that person could maintain their current sexual strategy (even if it's passive or subconscious), but if they want to improve they will have to change their strategy.

For those who have higher priorities than sex, living in this middle-ground is satisfactory as long as those higher priorities are being met. If you say your highest priority is bearing spiritual fruit for God's Kingdom and you haven't struck up a Gospel-centered conversation in the last 12 months, this is a display of where "bearing spiritual fruit" actually ranks on your priorities - and if you've got a middle-ground sex life as well, then your priority is probably actually something like relaxing to Netflix or eating delicious, fatty foods everyday, or studying theology, or whatever (good or bad, it could be either). Just be careful that your priorities are intentionally pursued and not passively lived.

For purposes of this sub, I will take it as a given that every Christian has a higher priority than achieving his 100% ideal sex-life - and that's going to connect to our faith in some way, even if, at a bare minimum, it's "I don't want to go to hell." The result is that most (maybe all) Christians are okay with living in the middle-ground to the extent that higher priorities require as much.

That said, there is nothing inappropriate about a Christian wanting to maximize his sex-life without compromising his higher priorities. This is the nature of sexual strategy in its REFINED FORM.

So, if a Christian is sitting at 5% of his ideal sex life (about where I was 2 years ago) and wants to bump that number as high as he can go, maybe 4 months later he gets up to 70-80% (about where I'm sitting right now) - and that number could go even higher - maybe even 100%. But the process of getting from 5% to 75% and beyond requires sexual strategy.


The Toolbox Approach

Base Mentality

The hard-core view of RP is that it is all-or-nothing. If you have higher priorities that prevent you from being willing to cheat on your wife or divorce her on a whim, then when those priorities come in conflict with your strategy, you're left with nothing and no other possible strategy can reap effective results.

The toolbox approach accepts all of the descriptive aspects of RP praxeology, but as to the prescriptive aspects it says, "Take what works for you and leave the rest." So, there is value in understanding the way culture has been shaped by the feminist imperative, that working out affects attractiveness in a variety of ways, the differences between alpha and beta mentalities, what fitness tests are, etc. (i.e. descriptive aspects). There is also value in actually learning how to lift, how to pass fitness tests, how to develop an abundance mentality or an amused mastery of life, fogging, etc. (i.e. prescriptive aspects).

But if there is a tool you'd rather leave in the box, that's your call. It must be vehemently understood that for every tool you leave in the box, you run the risk of decreasing the maximum % you can attain of your ideal sex life. So, if cheating on your wife is a tool you refuse to put in your belt, you might be dropping your maximum % down to 90% or lower. You've got to accept that. But it's also possible that you aren't dropping your maximum % at all - maybe it just means you're going to have to use a penny to turn the flat-head screws instead of your flat-head drill bit. Sure, this is going to be harder and take more time, but maybe it works.

Efficiency

Hard-core RPers have found the most efficient way to have their 100% ideal sex life. Bravo. I legitimately applaud this accomplishment. For a non-Christian, they do well to enjoy this world as much as they can before eternity sets in - if they insist on rejecting Jesus, it's the only enjoyment they're going to get. That said, those with higher priorities than their 100% ideal sex life must choose among:

  • (1) abandoning those priorities = going hard-core and only utilizing hard-core tools

  • (2) accepting the natural adjustment to how far you can get in the middle-ground = only existing RP tools allowed, but you decide which you use

  • (3) continuing to research and discover alternative tools that, when utilized, do not compromise your priorities = viewing RP not as a finished product, but involving an ongoing need for discovery and swapping notes about what works and what doesn't.

With regard to those "alternative tools" - the hard-core RPers have no need to extend themselves beyond the status quo. They have arrived. Their existing dogma of RP principles does not need adjustment or modification because it already meets their purposes. As a result, there is no room for new ideas, only tweaking old ones - and from their perspective this makes sense. They have no need to fiddle around with whether some new idea gives verifiable, provable results if they are confident that the new tool will be less efficient than the one they're using. Why test hitting a nail with a rock when you already have a hammer? Again, for a non-Christian this is an appropriate way of life.

The problem comes when this mentality extends into isolation territory: Only this specific set of tools will work and absolutely nothing else can possibly work ... or *You must be willing to utilize all of the tools we give you, and if you cannot, then it will be impossible for you ever to build that barn." This is flawed thinking. Hard-core RP may utilize a power drill for efficiency sake, but people were building barns long before the drill was invented.

For those whose priorities make them more selective about which tools they will utilize, if we want to build a barn without a hammer, we're going to have to get creative. Efficiency may go down when we start beating nails in with rocks - but we may still get our barn. At some point, there may have to be some compromise because there simply doesn't exist a rock that can get in the same narrow angles that a hammer might - and in that case, such a person might simply be okay with settling at 95% before compromising his higher priorities (which means turning down the hammer) to get that last 5%.

Descriptive RP as the Foundation

But here's the thing - there are still laws of architecture that must be accounted for when building the barn or the whole thing will crash. These are the descriptive aspects of RP. If one just starts willy-nilly using tools to hammer slabs of wood together and screw in brackets, but ignore things like creating a proper foundation or decides to use plywood for the entire structure, that barn will collapse at the first sign of trouble. That is why the descriptive aspects of RP are so important and must be maintained. Using the tools with an appropriate understanding of how architecture and craftsmanship actually function is where the only way to create a barn that stays up.