April 2018 with 6/19 & 5/20 edits
On Committed Relationships
I have posted below an edited excerpt from my article, “feminism femininity: my take”, also on this site, highlighting my pro-commitment position as woman, wife, and mother, having been personally experienced and observed for decades, and having come to the conclusion that a goal of life-long commitment to one partner, most especially when offspring are produced, is the best possible life scenario, supported not only via our biology but also fiscally, socially and in practicality for optimum productivity and outcome of self and of partner. Most importantly, this is for best possible outcome of our human legacies, our children.
Cinderella-wedding day obsessiveness, hash-tagged and pinned to new heights, has skewed partnership commitment focus to self-serving attention garnering via ever more costly, grandiose weddings and all manner of marriage and/or reproduction related celebrations. Women who increasingly prioritize being a bride over being a wife and committed partner to another individual are victim-consumers to their materialistic and social-media-driven desires, whose pre-occupations with those proverbial 15 minutes of fame and wedding day, princess-style glory have come to override all aspects of legalized commitment – marriage – from product consumption to spousal selection to reproduction.
The deeper happiness in commitment which makes long-term, committed relationships even possible, requires positive effort, and even more so, the giving of self in order to get back in greater measure. Neither of these components are in line with the social media-fueled entitlement, self-centeredness and consumerism of today. As things stand, I see no end in sight for these issues’ pervasiveness, given that society is still awash in the addictive thrall of 24/7 tech and a long way from reaching any sort of tech-reliant equilibrium.
Partner selection has been psychologically confused by these distractions:
There is rampant chemically confusion by medical use, in particular chemical contraceptive reliance, * as those seeking life partners, while being conditioned by society to embrace promiscuity and chemical methods of prevention are physiologically unable to un-/subconsciously “recognize” (sense, smell, experience optimized physical compatibility via levels of desire and responsiveness) best genetic matches, which logically helps point to best partner selection. Cell phone attachment and first-world consumerism, in particular social media addiction, infects users with “grass is greener” fallacies, keeping adults in constant search and/or “upgrade” mode, which leaves legions of single, lonely, cash-strapped, aging/elderly adults and broken families in its wake.
Feminism, in particular the current, new wave, or third wave feminism, is founded and reliant on negativity towards anything having to do with men and/or traditional relationship constructs, which further confuses and undermines the goals and outcomes of selective selection and mindful, long-term commitment (see my feminism/femininity article at this site).
On long-term commitment, there is a great saying that goes something like this: Better to read every chapter of a book than just the first few pages of a stack of books.
Block-quoted below are the partnership-positive statements of my article on Feminism/Femininity, as well as a concluding statement composed for this article, for, despite all feminist cries for independence, I have yet to find a single person who does not want or hasn’t attempted a committed relationship at some point in their lives. I believe this is not due to social programming; I believe this is how Men and Women are evolutionarily wired.
Life-long partnership remains the ultimate goal, as it should.
When individuals claim to want “no one,” the founding honesty should be contextualized, perhaps scrutinized for aspects of transference and projection. Outright commitment naysayers may very well be rationalizing their single status, by making do in the most positive and logical way any typical, solo adult would – and perhaps should – given the ever-diminishing options as the years, experiences and “baggage,” fiscal to familial, accumulate and make availability and selectivity ever more sparse, ever more convoluted.
Partnership Denigration: Feminist negativism, separatism and dissatisfaction breed disharmony between adherents and their partners and family, for Feminism’s collective platform is counterintuitive to women’s very existence as female humans. Feminist negativism, separatism and dissatisfaction chip away in particular at the evolutionarily consistent (aka traditional) familial partnership structure of provider male and nurturer female by damaging the perceptions and self-perceptions of both roles.
Partnership denigration seeks to undermine the unifying, cooperative and collaborative co-dependence which defines long-term, partnership – in particular parental partnership – between two committed adults, where skills and focuses are complementary, where efficiency and expertise as illustrated in any successful business paradigm evolve to define two individuals as a successful couple – what I call the Partnership Paradigm.
Feminist negativism, separatism and dissatisfaction attack this positively and organically developed co-dependency via social construct by 1) creating, promoting and perpetuating competitive divides between men and women and 2) by pitting the members of a couple against each other.**
Partnership Paradigm
To share and do for each other, which is a source of personal and paired satisfaction and happiness within a committed relationship, has been skewed negatively and come to be viewed as a form of subservience, thanks to Feminist partnership nay-saying. This confuses and diminishes the emotional and physical aspirationality that allow each member of a partnership to evolve a self-actualized contributing individuality. Not only does each individual attain a personal best, but the “sum,” of a couple can far exceed its “parts” when the multipliers of teamwork are manifested.
Feminism, with its sexual empowerment focus (testosterone-reliant, ongoing/multiple partner pursuit, sexual insatiability ideations and displays thereof), also denigrates the value and satisfaction potential of partnership commitment by supporting commitment transience (infidelity/serial monogamy, multiple/broken marriages, multiple partner accumulation). Feminists likewise hold affirmativized regard for the resulting “broken” familial households through 1) anti-male support and 2) sole sustainer (you-can-do-it-all-alone) support, which includes governmental handout facilitation to spur reproduction by singles, and the ideological support of the single lifestyle, where the pursuit of outside others for sexual and social satisfaction is prioritized.
Additionally and, most damaging of all, Feminism 3) fosters the crippling societal climate in which it is OK to default one’s offspring to second tier, incidental consideration. Feminism, with its independence at all costs stance, supports unsustainable reproduction, part of the you-can-do-it-all-alone ideology and foments dissatisfaction from within existing partnerships, where failure is supported via rationales for divorce, infidelity and the romanticization of single parent existence, which is in actuality subsistence. Convenience and the handing off of children to others, whether due to supposed necessity or “bad mom” time-off trends, are framed as normal, harmless and even beneficial. Using offspring as human shields and collateral to manipulate the emotional agendas of factionalized adults has been supported, even in courts of law. And in the war against men, the de-masculinization of our sons in efforts to reign in what is inherently their biological and evolutionary legacy as male humans and providers has become not only accepted but socially and psuedo-intellectually and affirmatively dissected, re-constructed and then championed, which comes at cost to both sexes and all familial constructs.
Has Feminism formulated these solo-reliant platforms to excuse the society-crippling states that are? Is this an affirmativized “personal truth” re-write for 21st c. women, who are selfishly fulfilling their human role as reproducers by self-serving and/or coercive reproduction with unwitting/unwilling males?
Is it the rationalization of feminized, anti-domestic, non-giving/sharing women of subsequently failed partnerships, now faced with less comfortable circumstances and single parenthood? Has the current Feminist climate been formulated by and for women, who, once having embraced Feminism’s full-spectrum of anti-traditional role acceptance, wind up unwanted and alone, who, thanks to Feminist’s blame-shifting and tapping into the surging victimhood culture, likewise refuse to accept any personal responsibility for their situations?
Are fabled Sour Grapes at the root of current, new wave Feminist individualistic ideology?
Can women understand, that one cannot truly win, achieve or possess that which one also despises and seeks to destroy? To win, achieve or possess that which one also despises and seeks to destroy is a construct of war.
On Open/Uncommitted Relationships
I encourage exploration of the lectures and written works of Dr Jordan Peterson. In this linked video, he tackles commitment via addressing polyamory. My comments on poly-anything (open and acknowledged and initially/superficially agreed upon promiscuity among 2+ partners) are this:
the thrill of the added-on new and/or thrill of the game playing required to accommodate multiple combinations of partners (competition scenarios to dishonesty) creates distractions from the work needed for the maintenance of successful long-term commitment and compensates for individuals’ inabilities to go deeper into core committed relationships. it likewise foments relationship confusion with “performance” reliance (overt displays of sexual prowess and/or desire) in a society that still equates power/freedom/liberation with promiscuity posturing.
biological chemistry, which helps carry a normal couple over time, whether offspring are produced or not, is weak to non-existent in too many pairings due to faulty selection practices. selection side-tracking social pressures include prowess posturing, the wedding and bridal industry, presentation of happiness trends and affluence posturing – note that most of these are industries with profit motives.
additionally, the infiltration of technology into real life, non-physical contact selection and false presentations of self, confuse and undermine real, aka bio-based, selection. chemical-based confusion from birth control meds wreak havoc on bio-recognition, as do sexual performance enhancing meds, all which facilitate false ideations of attraction, fomenting a preponderance of coupling between individuals who are not, in fact, truly attracted to each other.
free market society has created a roster of worst possible conditions for the finding of truly suitable partners, financially/ materially entrenched and tracked. we as a society of consumers not only accept and rationalize this but also academize and applaud bad choices made, perpetuating them by institutionalizing them, which lead to inferior outcomes for ourselves and others. the absence of any differentiation between notoriety (error) and fame (accomplishment) completes the vicious circle of sexual and partnership consumption.
where these issues come to a head is with the offspring. marginalized and exposed to hurtful imprinting, children are now forced to shift within the ever-shifting venn diagrams of new and different commitment posturing by adults who are, by continuous partner pursuit, absent, distracted and stunted parents, no longer willing or able to prioritize their children’s needs
* Promiscuity support aka persistent and ongoing, multiple partner pursuit, the legacy of the free love and women’s lib movements of the past century, where the sex act has become fully integrated into casual, immediate and short term interactions among consenting adults.
Women who are consciously seeking a long-term commitment partner, especially if with the goal of procreation, would be well-served to explore partial to complete abstinence along with alternative contraceptives, so their systems are not functioning with chemical contraceptives. This allows biological, sub- and unconscious systems to detect, recognize and zero-in on best-suited partners. This also helps women stay focused on biological markers of potential partners, rather than on the distracting lures of superficiality, in particular affluence markers as indicators of suitability (see my HP post entitled Whine Time: the Trend Gen). There is validity to providership protential as being manifested in career choice and income; what I warn against are faux and superficial displays of materialism designed to dupe others into assuming these are reflections of true or accurately representational indicators of fiscal stability and career success.
This reservation and preservation of the physical self does indeed point to periods of abstinence from any activity that can lead to pregnancy, but I suggest it be viewed as a weighty investment, not to be taken lightly, but also not to be taken as a sacrifice or deprivation. Physical intimacy and pleasure can, after all, exist in myriad forms, and methodical courtship without pregnancy risk can be an enticing, enjoyable and fulfilling process. The mutual determination by any committed couple to engage in pregnancy-potential intimacy also need not be unduly prolonged – the key is to have freedom from chemically-altering contraception at time of initial choosing and pairing up in the relationship.
Important to understand in the quest for best partner, is that providership potential in a mate is not merely the display of affluence, but also display of the potential for generating income/affluence. Displays of income/affluence generation point to personal growth potential, marked by 1) the ability to dedicate to chosen causes and work as a goal, not sacrifice; 2) the ability to make choices in life that keep honesty and commitment as aspirational goals, not sacrifices; 3) good and stable health, the inclination for personal preservation; and, simply put, 4) when the “chemistry” in a partnership is “real,” its intense physical connectivity early on forges the bond that helps carry a committed couple over time and circumstance.
** This pertains to a comment I posted at a Ted Talk “What I’ve learned about parenting as a stay-at-home dad” thread. My comment pertains to the inverted parental hierarchy dilemma as I see it (see my previous work on what I call Appeasement Parenting, including an Urban Dictionary definition). I posted in support of the traditional parenting/familial hierarchy, in which the parents – the committed partnership – are at the core and come first. I took issue with the written intro to this talk, featured in the mailing list notification, where it stated this was about a Father who decided to “work for his kids,” and that they were his “new bosses.” Let’s hope it is not censored out. Here is the link to the talk and below is my quip:
I totally applaud parenting viewed as a journey, a learning experience that evolves as our kids grow up and present us with new challenges.
But I so take issue with the written intro to this talk, which appeared in the mailing list email notification. We don’t work “for” our kids. Our kids are not our “bosses.” This inversion of perception, where kids call the shots and are appeased like old royals is a premise that turns households upside down, stunts offspring and compromises the core relationship, which is the parenting pair.
That said, bravo for this couple making the commitment to live so that one parent could be there to parent their children. It is a noble calling and like a well run business, a great partnership premise, where efficiency, dedication and complementary skills build family economies that succeed and fulfill each partner.
kimann schultz: issues, advocacy, current affairs 