Why are women are attracted to high-status men and men who take the lead? Why can’t women get status and be leaders themselves? It seems like life would be easier for women if they could just lead themselves without a man.

Well, a lot of things make men uniquely able to lead, but if you drill all the way down to the biochemical level the answer is testosterone.

Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone and, simply put, is the main “thing” that makes men different than women (aside from the fact that men have ding dongs and women have tacos). The average adult male has about 10-20 times the testosterone of an average adult female, and the amount of testosterone in a man’s system directly affects how “masculine” he is: his muscle tone, his sex drive, his aggressiveness, and so forth. Women who want to become transgender are given testosterone to turn into men, and men who want to become transgender are given testosterone blockers to turn into women. Some studies have even shown that giving testosterone to gay men can make them straight. I think it is safe to say that at the biochemical level, testosterone is what makes a man a man.

But what exactly does testosterone do? The answer is simple, but has massive ramifications for gender relations and society in general: Testosterone causes men to want to compete with and conquer other men. Read that sentence a million times, because it is super important. What makes a man a man, and what makes a man attractive to women, is the drive to compete with and conquer other men. If you take nothing else away from this book, remember that fact. What makes a man a man, and what makes a man attractive to women, is the drive to compete with and conquer other men.

Put more scientifically, testosterone increases a man’s motivation to defend his status in the dominance hierarchy. Many people think testosterone increases aggression, but that is not exactly correct. It is more correct to say that testosterone increases one’s desire to engage in any activity that brings status. So if you live in a society where status is determined by generosity, testosterone increases your desire to be generous. As the neuroendocrinology researcher Robert Sapolsky observes, "if you shoot up Buddhist monks with a bunch of testosterone, they will compete with one another to do the most random acts of kindness."

In practice, this means that men are more likely than women to want to compete with, confront, and conquer their rivals. Humans evolved to generally fear confrontation, but testosterone creates an exception and makes confrontation feel good. In fact, sometimes testosterone makes confrontation feel too good, and men often act aggressive in inappropriate ways and get themselves into trouble. As much as I hate to agree with anything feminists say, I agree that “toxic masculinity” is a real thing. Men are born with a loaded cannon, and if they do not learn to control it, they will end up irresponsibility firing that cannon. If you do not believe toxic masculinity exists, go to any ghetto in America right now where young men regularly kill each other for stupid shit.

The main practical difference between men and women, therefore, is that men are much less fearful of confrontation than women are, whether it comes to fighting a drunk idiot at the club or filing a lawsuit against somebody who cheated them in a business deal. Now it obviously makes sense that women would be afraid of physical fights, but why would a woman be more afraid of non-physical confrontations like filing a lawsuit? The answer is that humans evolved from apes, and in the ape world all confrontation was physical, so any interpersonal confrontation strikes women with more anxiety than it would a man, even if they know in their rational mind they will not get beat up. In a woman’s subconscious mind, the defendant in the lawsuit might crawl over the witness stand at any moment and beat her ass. As a result, women are afraid of ALL confrontation, even when their rational brains know they will be physically safe.

There is a second, independent, reason women are afraid of confrontation. Women are much less able to survive in the jungle alone, so they are much less dependent on the tribe and are terrified of doing anything that might offend the higher-ups (like breaking the rules, asking for what they deserve, etc.). womens’ fear of confrontation does not always come up from being afraid they will get beat up by the person they are confronting, but of being cast into the wilderness, which will probably lead to them getting beat up by somebody else. Again, this fear is often irrational: in the real world there is no tribe and there is no good reason to not confront business rivals and other people trying to take advantage of you. But nevertheless, any kind of direct confrontation strikes women with massive anxiety.

Obviously, not all women shy away from all confrontation. There are tons of women who, for a variety of reasons, adopt a warrior spirit and regularly stand up to and defeat men. As the comedian Patrice O’Neal said, “if you need to get a refund, get yourself a black woman.” And women are not stupid – they know that in life you sometimes need to stand up to the bad guys no matter how scary it feels. And of course, many women are forced to get comfortable with confrontation because they have been surrounded by weak, abusive men their entire life and had nobody to stand up for them. But as a practical matter, if confrontation makes you 10-20 times more anxious than it would make a man, that will obviously affect your behavior, and over a long period of time, you will adopt a much different outlook on life than a person who enjoys confrontation.

This one core difference – fear of confrontation - leads to a cascade of differences that exert a profound effect on male-female relationships and sexual attraction. Having less fear of physical confrontation makes men more emotionally able to confront all challenges because humans evolved to feel like the greatest challenge a person can face is a physical confrontation with another person. Not fearing confrontation also makes men more able to venture into the unknown because the main thing that makes the unknown scary is the possibility of monsters lurking therein. And because men are less afraid of confrontation and the unknown, they are less fearful in general, so they are more confident, positive, transgressive, calm, emotionally stable, and more likely to break the rules and create novel, innovative experiences. As a result, men have an advantage when it comes to shaping the world to their liking, procuring resources, and protecting themselves and their tribe. And finally, men are also better at making and executing long-term plans because they are less afraid of any obstacles and enemies they may run into.

In the modern world, most people never get into physical fights, so it seems strange to think of testosterone as the basis of female attraction. Nevertheless, at our deepest, most primal, lizard-brain level, humans evolved to view the physically dominant person as the highest-status man, so even if a guy is a complete broke loser, if he feels like he can beat up other men in physical combat he will tickle a certain something in womens’ subconscious minds. And indeed, it is a dirty secret of female attraction that women are often turned on men by men who are serial killers, bullies, or gangsters, because even when those guys are the scum of society, womens’ subconscious brains think they are the king of the jungle.

One of the strangest epiphanies I had in my journey to learn game was realizing that women were often and excited and turned on by my stories of getting into confrontations with other men, even when the story did not involve any actual fighting. They would even get turned on when I told stories of filing lawsuits or standing up for myself in contractual negotiations. And I have actually gotten into physical confrontations with other men a few times around women, and each time it went well and the woman became much more attracted to me. To women, watching a guy calmly and confidently handle confrontation is like watching a magic trick because they cannot do it. In fact, at the deepest level, being able to handle confrontation might be THE most attractive thing a man can do because it is an extremely important ability that women evolved to not have.

On the other hand, nothing is more unattractive than a man who does not stand up for himself. For example, I hate complaining at restaurants, even if the waiter gets my order wrong. But I have noticed that if the waiter gets my order obviously wrong, and I do not say anything, women lose a little bit of attraction. It seems silly, and it is, but to her subconscious brain the fact that I will not stand up for myself when the pimply teenage cashier gives me a burrito instead of a burger means I cannot protect her in the jungle.

The fact that women need a counterpart who can handle confrontation was driven home for me one night when I was laying in my bed with my ex-girlfriend. As we were cuddling, she said: “I have a recurring dream where I am beating the shit out of somebody. In the dream, they are screaming as I pummel them on the ground and there is blood everywhere. But no matter how much I punch them in the face and pound their head of the concrete, it is not enough.”

“Not enough for what?” I asked.

“Not enough for me to be satisfied.”

I was shocked. This girl was not some tough, trashy ghetto bitch from the hood. She was the sweetest, most feminine girl ever, and always happy, warm, friendly, loving, and compassionate. Like most hot 20 something women, her social media was full of inspirational quotes and stuff about yoga, meditation, and nature. I had never seen her fight or even talk shit to anybody. Why would she have this insane dream?

We talked about it and I think I figured it out. She dreamed of pummeling somebody almost to death because she knew she could never do it real life. Like every human that must navigate our cold, cruel, fucked up world, she had enemies and people that hurt her, but being a short, petite girl there was not much she could do against them. And more importantly, as a woman it was wired deep into her genes to fear any physical confrontation. The only way she could ever beat somebody’s ass was in her dreams. And it may sound insane to you, but I later learned that many women have fantasies of beating the shit out of their enemies. But in the real world they need a man for that.

Unfortunately for women, not all men have the emotional fortitude to take the lead and face down their enemies. In fact, most men are just as afraid of confrontation, uncertainty, and risk as women are. There is a reason for this: humans evolved for there to be only one person in the tribe with the competence and courage to lead (that person is the alpha male), and for the rest of the tribe to fall in line and be afraid of the alpha. In other words, the default state for most people is literally to be a follower. (We will discuss the alpha male later in this chapter).

The fact that only one man that can lead the tribe is deeply embedded in the human subconscious and explains why almost every society ends up with a single man in charge: a tribal chief, a king, a dictator, whatever. It is also why people worship celebrities and give away their entire lives to cults, even ones that ask their followers to do things that are clearly wrong and stupid. In fact, I would say that the strongest human emotion is the desire to obey the alpha male and conform to the rules of the tribe, and this desire is so powerful because humans evolved to feel like the tribe is the source of protection, acceptance, and positive emotional experiences.

Do not get me wrong – I am not saying you should be an aggressive bully or go around getting into fights to impress women. Womens’ desire for a physically dominant man that can handle confrontation is subconscious – in their conscious brains, women want a man who is nice, respectful, and can function in the modern world without going to jail. You only need to project the FEELING that you are physically dominant, which means you must have a solid, masculine posture, take up space wherever you go, and react calmly and confidently to threats and other crazy occurrences. It is also important that you never put yourself or the woman in a situation where you will get pushed around or punked by other guys. If I am out with a woman, I always make sure I am standing somewhere where I have space around me and drunk idiots cannot bump into me or push me. Watching their man get pushed around in a nightclub like a ragdoll is not attractive to women.

You also do not need to go and on about how badass you are to women - women just want to know that IF there is a situation you can and will stand up for yourself and her, which means that you just need to do one or two things to subconsciously convey that you are not to be fucked with (I discuss how to do this throughout this book). And of course, fighting random people is extremely stupid and nothing looks more beta and insecure than risking your health and freedom to look cool in front of a woman. You should only ever get into a physical confrontation if you absolutely must defend yourself (or her) and there is no way to escape. Otherwise, you should defuse the situation or get the fuck out of there. Whenever I am in a public place like a bar, club or music festival, the moment I feel like there is a threat from any man that me and the woman cannot get away from, I immediately call security and have them handle it. You can say that is the pussy thing to do, but I actually think that calling another man over and having him handle it feels pretty alpha to women.

All this stuff I am saying may sound like alpha male internet nonsense, but I actually have a very important source to back me up: The Bible, which tells a profound story of the human desire for a leader. In the Book of Samuel, the Israelite people are living in relative freedom without a ruler, but they nevertheless ask the prophet Samuel for a king. The Israelites enjoyed being free (who wouldn’t?), but they were constantly getting attacked by outsiders and tired of living in fear. Samuel warns that a king would be bad – he would take their money as taxes, enslave them, and fuck their daughters. The people do not care and continue to insist on a king, saying “our king will judge us, go forth before us, and wage our wars.” 1 Samuel 8:20. And it just so happens that later in the Bible, King Solomon actually does all the bad things that Samuel had predicted a king would do.

That simple story explains why both men and women have a powerful desire to submit to a leader – they want a powerful man to wage their wars. This desire is deeply rooted in our evolutionary programming – humans that grouped together in tribes were more likely to survive than individuals who struck out on their own, and the most successful tribes were ones where everybody obeyed and followed the leader. Humans, therefore, evolved to sacrifice their own freedom and obey the alpha male rather than face the scary things in the unknown on their own. And while both men and women have an impulse to submit to a leader, this desire is much stronger in women.

My website: http://www.woujo.com