I was inspired by an AMA session by this military dog trainer. Simply, a question was asked concerning of what is the best way to train dogs. His response? Operant Conditioning "focusing primarily on the positive reinforcement quadrant"

Training a loyal, well-behaved dog isn't much different than training a loyal, well-behaved girlfriend/plate/FWB. Both substrates (dogs, women) have innate submissive/obedient tendencies that should be emphasized along with unwanted behaviors to be diminished and punished. If you know anything about dogs, you know that many "incidents" are often the fault of the owner failing to provide a proper outlet for a dog's energy or natural predispositions.

Women have natural predispositions too: Attention-seeking, curious, emotional, irrational, solipsistic, unable to constructively deal with stress/criticism, likes to blame others, etc. Almost all of these can be subjected to a combination of operant conditioning.

In summary, Operant Conditioning is conditioning one's behavior based on the presence OR absence of a positive OR negative stimulus (4 possibilities), whereas classical conditioning provides a "prior" stimulus to elicit a desired response later (If you want to ring a bell in order to make someone dance, that is classical conditioning. Having someone dance and then giving them a treat is operant conditioning).

Here's a nice flowchart that details the four "quadrants". Pretty self-explanatory, so let's discuss how this can be applied to TRP.

Problem: Some girl you're sleeping with is getting uppity. You've had sex with her before several times...but this time she has arbitrarily decided to give LMR.

Analyze reason:

1) She may be trying to shift the power dynamic in her favor; too much "Sex & the city" lately or she had a girl's night out and her hamster is all powered up for a confrontation now.

2) She may be trying to retroactively reclassify you as her beta provider or "bf material" by making you work for it or by not being as sexually available all of a sudden.

3) She has been "thinking alot lately" about her future; she is insecure suddenly about the unique nature of your sexual relationship.

Operant conditioning:

  • Positive reinforcement - Provide affection or recognition of her worth as a woman IF sex occurs.

  • Positive punishment - Provide active punishment. Tell her to GTFO or smoothly tell her that she can "rest a bit while I get some stuff done", then leave her sitting on the bed alone.

  • Negative reinforcement - Remove active punishment. Be the bad boy that she wants to prove herself too. You're not giving her validation from the onset and she is wondering "WHY?!". Make her earn it and only remove this lack of attention if she does what you want. Maybe you're both at a bar instead. Proceed to freely & cheerfully interact with other girls in front of her and stop this only if she does what you want (I think this one is best applied in the pickup phase).

  • Negative punishment - Remove active reward. You're making out on the couch. She makes comment "not tonight". Give her the cold shoulder. Proceed to remove all affection, attention or "bf-like behaviors".

Obviously, pickup or LMR game are going to use combinations of these 4 quadrants. Mix and match. I would like to see some other ideas too (or other situations where this may be effective).

(I know a post comparing women to man's best friend is gonna attract lots of trolls from TBP, so to them I say: Ruff Ruff!!)