Many detractors of The Red Pill find the men who subscribe to this body of information to be “controlling.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Red Pill promotes something that’s not immediately obvious at first: the complete abdication of any attempt to control anything, except for the one thing you can actually control. Yourself.

We can’t control women. Women are going to live the lives they want, date the men they want, fuck the men they want, marry the men they want, cheat on the guys they want to cheat on, divorce the guys they want to divorce, and live completely normal and happy lives with guys – or live completely normal and happy lives without guys -- and do exactly as they please, whenever and however they want. And they should. Women have the right to do whatever they want with their lives, and to pursue whatever kind of happiness they want, however they want to go about it.

You can’t control a woman, nor should you try. All you can control is yourself. You can choose to become physically fit, you can choose to become professionally successful, you can choose to become socially apt and well-connected, you can choose to learn useful skills, you can choose to pursue interesting hobbies – you can choose to live a fulfilling life, all on your own, with or without women.

When a man posts something on asktrp, lamenting that “My wife/girlfriend never has sex with me” or “doesn’t respect me” or “flirts with other guys in front of me” or “cheats on me constantly” or “is a total bitch about everything all the time” – Nobody ever responds, “Rape her if she won’t have sex with you. Beat her until she respects you out of fear. Lock her up and keep her in the basement to keep her from the outside world. You should CONTROL HER!” Nope. Never that. In fact, the exact opposite is what’s expressed.

Let it go, they’re told. You can’t control her. Focus on yourself. Become fit, successful, social, skilled, and interesting. Raise your own value and don’t worry about her at all. Live your own fulfilling life independent of her. She’ll either come around, or she won’t. If she does, great. If she doesn’t, any number of other women will want to be with you now that you’ve focused on your own life. Don’t worry about controlling her. Just focus on you.

If the situation is especially egregious, the advice usually given is: “Next.” That’s right. Don’t control her at all. Don’t even try. Let her go. Let her live her own life. Cut her loose and live yours. Being jealous and controlling is “beta.”

Where The Red Pill and modern feminism and other detractors diverge, however, is that the others will tell you that self-improvement is cheating. It’s “manipulation.” If you become muscular and hot, you’re just manipulating women with your good looks. If you excel professionally, you’re manipulating women with your money and status. If you’re awesome socially, you’re just gaming women when you go out and wow them with your social network. And so on.

When you withdraw your attention from a woman that’s behaving undesirably and focus on yourself, that’s dubbed “manipulative.” When you improve yourself such that you’re attractive to your woman (and to other women), that’s manipulative. When you dump a woman who’s not measuring up to your standards, that’s manipulative. Essentially, by not attempting to control the situation (e.g., control the woman), that’s seen as an attempt to manipulate her. Because the very fact that you’re not being controlling will influence a woman to think or feel a certain way. The very fact that you’re working on your own life will influence a woman. And doing things that influence women to think or feel something is evil manipulation.

The solution is simple, of course. Live in your mother’s basement and only come out to go to work. Give all of your money to the nearest woman since you’re not paying rent. Repeat. Or you could just tell the rest of the world to go fuck themselves and live an awesome life, and let the few women lucky enough to be a part of that life enjoy the ride.