Mariolatry and Gyneolatry

January 2, 2017July 12, 2025 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

The following quotes (below) deal directly with lay Christian culture’s slow descent into gyneolatry as exemplified in many modern Churches. In a nutshell, the historical focus of lay Christendom evolved from the initial view that men and women are both born in original sin, to only men being so.

While official Church doctrine changed little in regard to original sin, with men and women being equal in their sinful inheritance, grassroots Christian attitudes toward gender began to evolve in the twelfth century. At this time there arose a new and heretical veneration of women as “counterparts of the Virgin Mary,” along with the rise of chivalry and courtly love, which had the effect of elevating women’s status and eclipsing the earlier emphasis on women inheriting original sin.

Like Mary, the notion of ‘woman’ as pure and holy became venerated among some laity.

After that change men continued to be viewed as sinners attempting to imitate Christ, whereas women were increasingly viewed, in popular heretical perspectives, as the Holy Virgin’s counterparts on earth, pure and perfect from the moment of birth, each a virgin with less focus on their need for redemption.

Said another way, after the Middle Ages various sects placed less emphasis on women’s inheritance from Eve, and more on her likeness to Mary. Even with the Protestant split from Catholicism, the popular idea of woman as pure and holy that had developed from and exaggerated veneration of Mary was carried forward, sans the Catholic emphasis on the person of Mary.

From this kind of belief system arose the modern Goddess Movement which sees car bumper stickers which read “Goddess Onboard” – ie. you will never see an equivalent bumper sticker for males.

Note: While gynocentric elevation of women took root in the Church, its source came largely from outside it in a complex intersection of pagan beliefs, Arabic worship of women, chivalry, courtly love, heretical Marian sects, and especially among the aristocratic classes who stitched these elements together into a popular gynocentric worldview.

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QUOTES

H.J. Chaytor, The Troubadours: “In the eleventh century the worship of the Virgin Mary became widely popular; the reverence bestowed upon the Virgin was extended to the female sex in general, and as a vassal owed obedience to his feudal overlord, so did he owe service and devotion to his lady… Thus there was a service of love as there was a service of vassalage, and the lover stood to his lady in a position analogous to that of the vassal to his overlord.”

C.G. Crump, Legacy of the Middle Ages: “The Aristocracy and Church developed the doctrine of the superiority of women, that adoration which gathered round both the persons both of the Virgin in heaven and the lady upon earth, and which handed down to the modern world the ideal of chivalry. The cult of the Virgin and the cult of chivalry grew together, and continually reacted upon one another… The cult of the lady was the mundane counterpart of the cult of the Virgin and it was the invention of the medieval aristocracy. In chivalry the romantic worship of a woman was as necessary a quality of the perfect knight as was the worship of God. It is obvious that the theory which regarded the worship of a lady as next to that of God and conceived of her as the mainspring of brave deeds, a creature half romantic, half divine, must have done something to counterbalance the dogma of subjection. The process of placing women upon a pedestal had begun, and whatever we may think of the ultimate value of such an elevation (for few human beings are suited to the part of Stylites, whether ascetic or romantic) it was at least better than placing them, as the Fathers of the Church had inclined to do, in the bottomless pit.”

Thomas Cahill, Mysteries Of The Middle Ages: “It is unlikely that we shall ever know for sure. An educated guess would be that the expanding cult of the Virgin Mary in the language of prayer and in the images of art served as the inspiration for all subsequent exaltations of women in religious life, in the worshipful literature of the troubadours, and in the courts of Europe, which soon devised a more secular form of devotion—courtly love—which in turn infuenced women like Eleanor to seize control of their destinies. Though this feminism is certainly not the result that churchmen would have wished when they reluctantly blessed the growing popular enthusiasm for devotions to the Virgin, it is also true that all cultural revolutions tend sooner or later to press beyond whatever initial limits were set for them.”

Mr. Marion Reedy published the following article in The Philistine in the year 1897: giving evidence that gynocentrism had already been established as accepted truth within certain Church circles.

Robert Briffault’s ‘The Troubadours’: discusses Mary’s influence on women’s status (click images to enlarge)

Male Masochism and Culture (1936)

September 24, 2016November 11, 2023 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

Do males in the Western world display clinical levels of masochism? Is chivalry a thinly veiled expression of masochism?

According to the following excerpt from his 1936 essay Male Masochism and Culture, psychoanalyst Arnold Herman Kamiat fingers masochism as a very real problem among men. With modern academic researchers unable to get past the traditionalist mythology of women as masochistic and men as sadistic, and reluctant to look at the concept of male masochism, we will take Kamiat’s essay as a first examination of the topic and a prefiguration of contemporary gynocentrism theory. – PW

SOCIAL MASOCHISM

The masochism that has hitherto occupied the attention of psychologists is individual masochism. This is the masochism of particular individuals in their subordinate relation, fancied or real, to particular members of the opposite sex.

But there appears to be a social masochism. This involves the subordinate relation, fancied or real, of a number of individuals of the same sex (taken collectively) to a number of individuals of the opposite sex (taken collectively). Social masochism has, strangely enough, received little or no attention.

This essay is, in part, an attempt to establish the reality of this kind of masochism. The masochistic aspiration often takes the form of a vision of an ideal society — ideal from a masochistic viewpoint of course. This is significant for the interpretation of such myths and religious cults as have already been referred to, and the structure of certain primitive and contemporary societies.

It is an interesting speculation whether any of the gynarchies and goddess-cults were conceived, brought into being, and sustained by masochistic men — or sadistic women. The Egyptian gynocracy is said to have been established by a man — King Sesostris. Was he a masochist?

Frazer attributes the primitive gynarchies to the perception of the importance of woman for the continuance of life. But did not androcratic societies have this same perception? Then why were they not gynarchic? At any rate, whatever may have been the origin of gynocracy, the latter must have operated as a breeder of masochism. If male masochism was not the cause of gynarchy, it may very well have been a consequence thereof.

A gynarchy is probably a large-scale producer of male masochism. Once generated, the latter will in its turn serve to sustain the gynarchy (as female masochism probably bred by androcracy serves to maintain the latter). Certain it is that gynarchies have in fact exhibited phenomena calculated to enter into full accord with the aspirations of male masochists. Some of these phenomena have been recorded by the Vaertings in their book, The Dominant Sex.

This book, like practically all writings on sex conflicts and sex dominance, takes no account whatsoever of the fact and the psychology of sado-masochism — an index of that strange inability so many writers on social topics reveal to give due attention to psychological factors. But the book does contain a store of valuable information, and some of the phenomena it describes certainly lend themselves to interpretation via the masochistic hypothesis.

The marital relation lends itself to masochistic uses under any scheme of social organization, including an androcratic one. No one knows how often a dominant wife is really the creation and the instrument of a masochistic husband — it is not at all unlikely that such is often the case. On the other hand, the wish being ‘father to the thought,’ a masochistic man will often ascribe a dominant position to his or someone else’s wife, lover or mistress, when the true position is really one of equipollence or subordination. Rumor, gossip and report are often species of phantasy.

MASOCHISTIC MYTHS OF TODAY

It has been seen that in the ancient world individual masochistic phantasies became generalized into socially shared ideas. They entered into, and became part of the mythos of a race or nation. The mythologies of the ancient world have in large part gone, but masochism has persisted, and masochism must have its mythos, social as well as individual.

Krafft-Ebing and other writers on the subject stress the individual mythos. It is contended here that masochists also have their socially shared mythology. The world today is not without its stock of socially shared masochistic myths — phantasies held by male masochists everywhere, and by those who come under their influence. Indeed, the mythology in question has become a source of revenue, and with all educational agencies utilized by the myth-peddlers, the myths are becoming the property of both masochists and non-masochists, men and women.

The myths masquerade as philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, educational theory, and schemes of social reform. Their most common characteristics are an imaginary magnification of feminine power, a correlative imaginary depreciation of masculine power, an imaginative depiction of woman as the savior of mankind (Goethe’s “The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on;” see also E. A. Robinson’s Merlin and Auguste Comte’s System of Positive Polity), and an aspiration toward some kind of gynarchic social order or way of life.

At times the phantasies take on a distinctly paranoid character, with women being envisaged as designing, conspiring, invincible Vivians, Circes and Delilahs. All this mythopoesis issues in certain familiar pictures of “reality,” “life,” and “love.” In these pictures an omnipotent womanhood carries on all kinds of transactions with a powerless manhood.

The phraseology is familiar — woman is the seat of power; the source of life; the conserver of life; the keeper of all ideals, all wisdom, all morality, all practicality, all culture; she is the fount and origin of all that is good; she is the one great constructive force; her practically infallible instincts and intuitions facilitate an instant grasp of the greatest truths of life, truths that men laboriously strive to attain, truths some of which are utterly beyond masculine ken; woman’s function is to govern, man’s but to obey; she is anyhow the ruler, androcracy being but a delusion; she is the center of the home and its ruler; outside of the home her power is equally great, men of importance being merely the instruments of their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, mistresses, private secretaries, office assistants, or wise and inspiring feminine friends; the greatest revolution of all time is at hand: women will soon take matters in hand and transform life in all its departments; and so on, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

It is not asserted that all this is manufactured solely by male masochists. Plenty of it flows out of feminine minds, and a good deal out of male minds that are either neurotic, or ignorant, or adolescent, or afflicted with a particularly morbid form of gyneolatry. There is a tendency, present in its most virulent form in neurotics of both sexes, toward the imaginative magnification of the power of the opposite sex. The idea of feminine, or masculine power, becomes emotionally charged. It thereupon looms larger and larger in consciousness until all perspective is lost and a rational comparative evaluation of the relative power and influence of the sexes becomes well-nigh impossible.

A reporter who must have been something of a psychoanalyst, while interviewing a male prophet of the “coming” feminine revolution, inquired of him concerning his childhood relation to his mother. In answer, the prophet, who has turned his gynophilia into a source of income, described his mother as exercising an unusual dominance over him as a child.

Masochism may enter into the makeup of a certain type of male, often of mystic temperament, with an adolescent notion of women as in some sense divine, exuding love and possessed of infallible intuitions, revealing “truths” greater and more profound than any mediated by mere science and philosophy, and who can solve all his problems for man, if he will only submit to her rule. This kind of male, for all his babble about the gynarchic future, in reality lives in the past, the gynarchic past. It is the gynarchy he wants to restore, albeit in a refined form.

Gynocracy of one sort or another has had and still has its pseudo – philosophical and pseudo-scientific defenders. Perhaps the best known of these is Auguste Comte, whose brief in the fourth chapter of his System of Positive Polity is one of the most curious and adolescent pieces of writing in the history of philosophy. The names of some living men would be in place here. The reader, if he will keep a sharp lookout on books, newspapers, magazines, and lecture announcements, can supply these names himself.

Definitions of gynocentrism

September 10, 2016March 24, 2025 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

1. GENERAL DEFINITION OF GYNOCENTRISM
(Greek: gyno “female” + Latin: centrum “centrism”)

(a). n. Dominant or exclusive focus on women in theory or practice; or to the advocacy of this. Often practiced to the detriment of males.
(b). n. A dominant focus on women’s needs and wants relative to men’s needs and wants. This can happen in the context of academic research, institutional policies, cultural conventions, and in gendered relationships.
(c). adj. Anything can be considered gynocentric when it is concerned exclusively with a female (or specifically a feminist) point of view.

2. SOCIOLOGY

(a). A pervasive cultural complex geared to prioritizing women and their interests.
(b). A reference to individual gynocentric acts or events (eg. Mother’s Day).

3. BIOLOGY

(a). The biological theory that humans prioritize female reproductive capacity.

4. PSYCHOLOGY

(a). An exclusive focus on the psychological experiences, emotions, needs and wants of women.
(b). A female expression of narcissism operating within the limiting context of heterosexual relationships and exchanges.

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MORE DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS:

ALLWORDS.COM
Gynocentrism: An ideological focus on females, and issues affecting them, possibly to the detriment of non-females. Contrast with androcentrism.

MIRRIAM-WEBSTER
Gynocentrism: Dominated by or emphasizing female interests or a female point of view.

DICTIONARY.COM
Gynocentrism: Focused on women; concerned with only women.

OXFORD DICTIONARY
Gynocentrism: centred on or concerned exclusively with women; taking a female (or specifically a feminist) point of view.

FARLEX DICTIONARY
Gynocentrism: Female-oriented, -centered, -exclusiveness. Sexism , discrimination on the basis of sex.

ENCYCLOPEDIA.COM
A radical feminist discourse that champions woman-centered beliefs, identities, and social organization.

EARLIEST MENTIONS OF GYNOCENTRISM

Etymology dictionaries do not record the history and earliest usage of the term gynocentrism. Research of literature archives for this website reveals that gynocentrism has been in use since at least as the late 1800s. Here are a few early references to gynocentrism and gynocentric:

The Open Court, Volume 11 (Open Court Publishing Company, 1897)

Women’s Franchise Newspaper (New Zealand, Thurs 26 November 1907)

The Independent, Volume 67, Issues 3175-3187 (Independent Publications, incorporated, 1909)

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – (Thurs 23rd November 1911)

From Dublin to Chicago: Some Notes on a Tour in America (George H. Doran Company, 1914)

FULL-TEXT:

Gynocentrism continued to appear in literature throughout the nineteenth century and into the present with a stable meaning of female centered, and especially to a culture so disposed, in which:

“It is arranged with a view to the convenience and delight of women. Men come in where and how they can.” [1914]

Until recently the term was employed infrequently, perhaps due to the availability of more simpler phrasings such as ‘woman centered’ or ‘female dominated.’ However it has enjoyed a resurgence since the mid 1980s and through the turn of the 21st century in response to increasing hegemony of gynocentric culture and feminist governance.

See also: related words gynæcocracy, gynarchy, gynocracy, gyneolatry.

Persiguiendo Al Dragón

June 22, 2016September 25, 2024 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

Por Peter Wright & Paul Elam

Muchos estudiosos de las políticas sexuales plantean la noción “científica” de que nuestra cultura ginocéntrica es una realidad biológica básica, y que tenemos dos opciones: o bien seguimos el programa y disfrutamos, o bien nos retiramos del sistema de manera nihilista.

Una explicación alternativa del superestimulo sugiere que se trata simplemente de una exageración del potencial humano; una exageración que lleva al fracaso social y reproductivo, pese a la sabiduría popular.

El léxico de las biociencias nos puede resultar útil para entenderlo.

Por ejemplo, en el caso de los pájaros hembra, prefieren incubar huevos artificiales de mayor tamaño, en vez de sus propios huevos naturales.

Los huevos grandes y coloridos son un superestímulo. El hecho de dejar desamparados los huevos auténticos es la superrespuesta.

De una forma similar, los seres humanos también son engañados con facilidad por los vendedores de comida basura. Es muy sencillo entrenar a los seres humanos para que elijan productos que provocan enfermedades cardiacas, diabetes y cáncer, en vez de los alimentos nutritivos para cuyo consumo y aprovechamiento han evolucionado; sólo hacen falta unos cuantos trucos con las papilas gustativas y los reflejos de hambre.

El azúcar y los carbohidratos refinados son superestímulos. El consumo de sustancias tóxicas es la superrespuesta.

La idea es que el comportamiento humano saludable evolucionó en respuesta a estímulos normales en el entorno natural de nuestros ancestros. Eso incluye nuestros instintos reproductivos. Esas mismas respuestas de conducta ahora han sido secuestradas por el estímulo supernormal¹.

Desde este punto de vista, podemos ver que el superestímulo actúa como una droga potente, perfectamente comparable con la heroína o la cocaína, que imitan sustancias químicas más débiles, como la dopamina, la oxitocina y las endorfinas, todas ellas presente de manera natural en el cuerpo.

Como ocurre con la drogadicción, los efectos de los superestímulos son responsables de toda una serie de obsesiones y fracasos que afectan al hombre moderno: desde la epidemia de la obesidad y la obsesión con la territorialidad hasta los comportamientos destructivos, violentos y suicidas fundamentales en nuestro culto moderno al amor romántico.

Un detalle interesante sobre los superestímulos de los narcóticos artificiales es el fenómeno conocido como “la caza del dragón”. Es un término que surgió en los fumaderos de opio de China, y se refiere a lo que ocurre la primera vez que una persona inhala el vapor del opio. La euforia resultante es absoluta e incluso mágica… la primera vez.

Después, el consumidor intenta recrear ese subidón maravilloso, una y otra vez, con cantidades cada vez mayores de droga. Pero no puede. El cerebro ya se ha acostumbrado a la inundación de opiáceos artificiales. El consumidor se coloca y se vuelve adicto, pero la magia de la primera experiencia es una mariposa esquiva.

Pero la persiguen con todas sus fuerzas, tratando de cazar al dragón sobre el que cabalgaron en su primera experiencia.

Podemos ver un fenómeno similar en los hombres que, en sus relaciones con las mujeres, intentan desesperadamente ser recompensados con amor, sexo y aprobación, mediante el uso de la caballerosidad romántica. Como drogadictos, avanzan por una banda de Möbius, caminan en círculos, persiguiendo al dragón.

En nuestra opinión, no hay duda de cómo se produce esto.

A continuación presentamos tres ejemplos de superestímulos humanos, y cómo se utilizan para desencadenar una superrespuesta destructiva en el hombre.

Neotenia fabricada artificialmente

La neotenia es la retención de las características infantiles en el cuerpo, la voz o los rasgos faciales. En el ser humano, la neotenia activa lo que se conoce como cerebro parental: un estado de la actividad cerebral que fomenta la nutrición y los cuidados. Esa activación se produce mediante el llamado mecanismo de liberación innato.

Un ejemplo clásico de mecanismo de liberación innato es el que tiene lugar cuando los polluelos de gaviota dan picotazos en el pico de sus padres para conseguir comida.

Todas las gaviotas adultas tienen una mancha roja en la parte inferior del pico; cuando la ven los polluelos, se desencadena, o libera, el instinto de darle un picotazo. Se trata del mecanismo de liberación innato.

Desde luego, este mecanismo de liberación innato es vital para la supervivencia de las gaviotas, y en todas las especies de aves y de mamíferos (y en cualquier criatura a la que le preocupe su descendencia) existe algo similar. En los mamíferos, el infantilismo es uno de los mecanismos de liberación innatos que determinan, de forma inconsciente, nuestra motivación para proteger y proveer, garantizando así la supervivencia de la especie.

Sin embargo, las características infantiles humanas también se pueden manipular para obtener atenciones y apoyo que sobrepasen con mucho las necesidades de supervivencia.

En concreto, la mujer utiliza la neotenia para conseguir distintas ventajas, un hecho que no pasa desapercibido a la escritora y médica Esther Vilar, que escribe lo siguiente:

“El mayor ideal de la mujer es una vida sin trabajo ni responsabilidades. Pero, ¿quién lleva esa vida, aparte de un niño? Un niño de mirada suplicante, de cuerpo pequeño y gracioso, con hoyuelos, rellenito y de piel clara y tersa; un adulto en miniatura de lo más adorable. Es al niño a quien imita la mujer: su risa fácil, su indefensión, su necesidad de protección. Es necesario cuidar del niño, porque no puede valerse por sí mismo. ¿Y qué especie no cuida instintivamente de su descendencia? Debe hacerlo, si no quiere que la especia se extinga.

Con la ayuda de cosméticos hábilmente aplicados, diseñados para preservar ese preciado aspecto de bebé; con exclamaciones indefensas como “Uuuh” y “Aaah”, que denotan asombro, sorpresa y admiración en una conversación dulce y trivial, la mujer preserva ese aspecto de bebé durante el mayor tiempo posible, para que el mundo siga creyendo en la adorable y dulce niñita que fue antaño, y confía en que el instinto protector del hombre lo obligue a cuidar de ella.”²

El zoólgo Konrad Lorenz descubrió que las imágenes de cabezas redondeadas y con ojos grandes (izquierda) liberan reacciones parentales en un amplio espectro de especies mamíferas, en contraste con las cabezas anguladas y con ojos proporcionalmente más pequeño, que no provocan dichas respuestas.

Comparemos las imágenes de Lorenz de la izquierda con imágenes de maquillaje para los ojos (arriba), hábilmente aplicado por la mujer moderna en busca de amor. Las sombras de ojos, delineadores y rímeles de todos los colores, por no mencionar las horas practicando ante el espejo, abriendo los ojos al máximo y agitando las pestañas; todo está diseñado para estimular y activar los “paleo-reflejos” del espectador.

Los rostros femeninos neoténicos (ojos grandes, gran distancia entre los ojos, nariz pequeña) les resultan más atractivos a los hombres, mientras que los rostros menos neoténicos se consideran los menos atractivos, independientemente de la edad real de la mujer³. Y de todos estos rasgos, los ojos grandes son el indicio neoténico más eficaz⁴; se trata de una fórmula triunfal que ha sido utilizada en el anime y en los personajes de Disney, exagerando el tamaño de los ojos e infantilizando el rostro de la mujer adulta.

Exageración de las cualidades sexuales

La vestimenta y las posturas corporales que realzan las caderas, los muslos, los traseros y los senos llevan milenios desarrollándose.

El corte, el color y la caída de las prendas; la ropa interior, los corsés, la lencería y los zapatos, sombreros, joyas y otros accesorios nos permitirían realizar un largo estudio sobre la evolución de la moda, y en términos de sexualidad, representan superestímulos diseñados para desatar una sobrecarga de atracción sexual en el espectador.

En relación con el “realzamiento”, resulta muy interesante la aparición de la cirugía plástica, pensada para transformar el cuerpo en un escenario de superestímulos, a veces con resultados grotescos e incluso letales. Esos son los riesgos que se corren y se aceptan al ir en pos de un atractivo sexual aumentado.

Implantes de pecho, implantes de glúteos, rinoplastias, abdominoplastias, lifting facial… todo ello diseñado para aumentar la sexualidad y, aún más importante, aumentar el poder y el control.

Instinto de emparejamiento intensificado artificialmente

Todos hemos escuchado el consejo de la matrona experimentada a las mujeres más jóvenes: “Si les dais vuestro amor incondicionalmente, perderán el interés; privadles de un poco de afecto y los tendréis siempre suplicando que les deis más”.

Hoy en día, este mensaje está tan difundido que se están reutilizando técnicas de adiestramiento de animales para las mujeres que desean controlar las necesidades afectivas de los hombres. En Cómo hacer que tu hombre se comporte en 21 días o menos utilizando los secretos de los adiestradores caninos profesionales, podemos leer lo siguiente:

“Un perro siempre se porta mejor cuando quiere que lo alimentes. Después se vuelve un manojo de nervios. Un truco muy conocido para que el perro mantenga su mejor comportamiento consiste en llenar su comedero únicamente hasta la mitad, para que desee más.

Ocurre lo mismo con su hambre de afecto. Mantenlo siempre emocionalmente hambriento de ti, y será más atento y fácil de controlar.”

Por cruel que suene, la privación de afecto, sexo, aprobación y amor se ha convertido en otra herramienta del repertorio femenino de superestímulos, empleados para obtener por la fuerza el servicio del hombre. Es posible que hubiera una época en la que ese servicio se pudiese considerar una respuesta apropiada a un estímulo de supervivencia. Sin embargo, hoy en día ha sido sustituido por superestímulos, y el servicio masculino ha degenerado en una superrespuesta destructiva.

Esta clase de consejos amorosos para mujeres abunda en Internet. Pretenden intensificar el deseo del hombre, de manera que la obtención de un vínculo estable (algo necesario en una relación sana) se convierta en una meta, en un objetivo. Pero el juego de la caballerosidad romántica, como todos los juegos de feria, está amañado. La meta está siempre fuera de nuestro alcance.

La necesidad de amor, aceptación y seguridad del hombre, una necesidad humana básica, se ve frustrada, dejándolo inmerso en un ciclo permanente de privaciones.

De hecho, uno de los principios fundamentales del amor romántico consiste en mantener el vínculo amoroso en un halo de negación prometedora y tentadora, y en mantener al hombre siempre listo para ser manipulado y utilizado.

La palabra tantalizing (“tentador”) proviene de la historia griega de Tántalo. Éste, según nos cuenta la leyenda, ofendió a los dioses. Su castigo consistió en ser colocado en medio de un río, con el agua hasta el cuello. Hacia él se inclinaba un manzano cargado de manzanas rojas y maduras.

Los dioses lo castigaron con una sed y un hambre feroces. Cuando inclinaba la cabeza para saciar la sed, las aguas retrocedían. Del mismo modo, cuando alargaba el brazo para tomar una manzana, la rama ascendía, quedando fuera de su alcance.

Las mujeres son socializadas para tentar a los hombres con la posibilidad de un emparejamiento, para mantener el fruto del amor siempre fuera de su alcance, y para enturbiar aún más las aguas con los dictados de la caballerosidad romántica.

Si quieres ese vínculo de pareja, es decir, si quieres que te tienten más, más te vale recibirla con flores, abrirle la puerta y, evidentemente, pagar la cuenta.

Más te vale estar listo para vivir así el resto de tu vida, exiliado en el río con Tántalo, eternamente sediento y hambriento. Hoy en día, el simple afecto se ha transformado en algo muy complejo, un impulso que ahora está guiado por las costumbres de la caballerosidad romántica, diseñadas para otorgarle el máximo poder a la mujer.

Incluso cuando en principio ya se ha establecido el vínculo de pareja, es posible que te sigan privando de amor, sexo y aprobación como método de control. Puede ser incluso peor después de haberse emparejado que durante el proceso de cortejo.

Ese comportamiento femenino no es un reflejo innato y simple; es un reflejo en el que han sido educadas y socializadas culturalmente. La mayor parte de las niñas dominan el juego de la inclusión y la exclusión, en grupos o con sus amigas, mucho antes de cumplir 10 años, y las meta-normas que han aprendido vuelven a aparecer en los consejos amorosos populares;se trata de normas diseñadas para perturbar la seguridad afectiva de la que nosotros, como seres gregarios, disfrutaríamos en caso de no haber manipulación.

Las normas femeninas resuenan abiertamente a lo largo de todo un género literario:

Mantén un aire de misterio.
Esfuérzate únicamente al 30%.
Haz que sea él quien vaya a ti.
No te veas con él sin una semana de antelación.
No lo llames nunca, salvo para devolverle su llamada.
Nunca respondas inmediatamente a una llamada o a un mensaje.
Haz que sea él el que se acerque a ti.
No le devuelvas la llamada inmediatamente. Eres una chica solicitada.
Finaliza la llamada SIEMPRE a los 15 minutos (aunque no te guste. Así te llamará más).
Aunque no estés ocupada, finge que lo estás.

Hemos recopilado estos consejos tras un examen somero de únicamente dos páginas web con consejos amorosos para la mujer. Sin embargo, no son producto de la era de la información. Representan la expresión extensa y codificada de lo que se ha enseñado a las mujeres de generación en generación, desde el surgimiento de la caballerosidad romántica.

Son las bases de un adiestramiento para la obediencia, pensado para programar al hombre caballeroso y romántico; son superestímulos, tremendamente eficaces a la hora de provocar una superrespuesta. En esta caso, la adulación ciega y servil por parte de un hombre débil y poco introspectivo.

El Amor Romántico

El amor romántico se puede reconceptualizar como un conjunto de superestímulos, cuyas distintas facetas conducen a la sobreexcitación del sistema nervioso humano. Esa excitación tiende a perjudicar el bienestar a largo plazo del hombre. Pero el daño no se queda ahí. Nuestro mundo social y familiar se ve rápidamente desintegrado por los excesos y la toxicidad del amor romántico. En cierto modo, el amor romántico se ha convertido en una de las mayores explotaciones anti-humanas de la biología humana que ha conocido nuestra especie.

Para comprender de dónde proviene esto, es necesario examinar sucintamente la historia del amor romántico, antiguamente llamado amor cortés, para así mostrar que en sus comienzos ya se aplicaban esos mismos elementos. Tal y como han expuesto detalladamente nuestros antepasados medievales, la literatura revela la misma neotenia exagerada, la misma exageración de la sexualidad y la misma obsesión con el control del afecto romántico.

Aunque el engaño de la neotenia lleva en funcionamiento desde el antiguo Egipto, como mínimo, con las sombras y delineadores de ojos, esa práctica se popularizó después de que los cruzados descubrieran los cosméticos que se utilizaban en Oriente Medio y los difundieran por toda Europa⁵. En la Edad Media, las aristócratas europeas utilizaban ampliamente los cosméticos; Francia e Italia eran los centros principales de fabricación de cosméticos, incluidos compuestos estimulantes como la belladona (que en italiano significa “mujer bella”), que hacían que los ojos pareciesen más grandes⁶.

De este modo, la neotenia, fabricada mediante técnicas artesanales, se convirtió en la herencia cultural de todas las generaciones de muchachas que aprendían (y siguen aprendiendo) el arte de la aplicación y la exhibición del maquillaje, particularmente en los ojos. Tales prácticas probablemente fomentaron los elogios a los ojos femeninos en la poesía trovadoresca, como los que se encuentran en la autobiografía del poeta Ulrich von Liechtenstein, titulada En servicio de las damas. Podemos leer lo siguiente:

“La dama dulce y pura sabe bien cómo reír bellamente, con sus ojos brillantes. Por ello llevo la corona de los nobles placeres, mientras sus ojos se llenan del rocío que asciende desde su puro corazón, con su risa. Inmediatamente quedo herido por Minnie.”

La vestimenta también se utilizaba para realzar la sexualidad. Sin embargo, las modas no cambiaron demasiado durante muchísimo tiempo, y su utilidad sexual no se comprendió completamente. El momento en el que se empezó a modificar con mayor frecuencia el estilo de la ropa, además de reconocerse sus múltiples formas de realzar la sexualidad, se puede situar (en opinión de los historiadores de la moda James Laver y Fernand Braudel) en Europa, aproximadamente a mediados del siglo XIV, la época en la que ciertos elementos sexualizados, como la lencería y los corsés, empezaron a cobrar fama⁷.

La doctora Jane Burns aporta pruebas adicionales sobre el papel de la vestimenta en el empoderamiento sexual de la mujer medieval en su libro Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture [“El amor cortés al desnudo: la interpretación de la cultura medieval francesa a través de la vestimenta”]⁸.

Como se ha mencionado antes, el truco más eficaz del amor romántico era tentar al hombre con la promesa de afecto, un objetivo que permanecía casi completamente inalcanzable. Los relatos de los trovadores dan fe de la agonía esperanzada que afligía al amante varón; el hombre permanecía en una rara especie de purgatorio, esperando algún “consuelo” de su amada.

El juego medieval del amor llegó a su máxima expresión cuando los códigos de conducta romántica animaron a jugar con los extremos de la aceptación y el rechazo. Comparemos la lista anterior de normas amorosas con la siguiente lista de El arte del amor cortés, un manual amoroso muy divulgado durante el siglo XII:

El amor es un sufrimiento congénito.
El que no siente celos no puede amar.
Se sabe que el amor siempre crece o disminuye.
El valor de un amor es proporcional a la dificultad de la conquista.
El temor es el compañero constante del amor verdadero.
Los celos y el deseo de amar siempre crecen al sospechar del amante.
Poco duerme y come aquel a quien hacen sufrir sueños de amor.
El amante siempre teme que su amor no se gane su deseo.
Cuanto mayor sea la dificultad de intercambiar solaces, mayor será el deseo de los mismos, y mayor será el amor.
El exceso de oportunidades para verse y para hablar disminuyen el amor⁹.

La obra más romántica de Shakespeare cuenta la misma historia: Julieta mantiene a su amante a medio camino entre aquí y allá, entre un vínculo estable y la vida de soltero. Aquí, Julieta le dice a su amante obediente:

“Casi es de día. Quisiera que te hubieses ido;
Pero no más lejos de lo poco
Que una niña traviesa deja volar
Al pajarillo que tiene en la mano;
Infeliz cautivo de trenzadas ligaduras,
Al que así atrae de nuevo,
Recogiendo de golpe su hilo de seda.
¡Tanto es su amor enemigo de la libertad del prisionero!”

A lo que Romeo responde, cumpliendo las expectativas del amor romántico:

“Yo quisiera ser tu pajarillo.”

En este breve paseo por la historia, hemos llegado al punto de inflexión final del artículo, donde nos hacemos la pregunta del millón de dólares de Aristóteles: la causa final. ¿Con qué fin se emplean estos superestímulos?

Muchos responderían con un tópico: que tales prácticas consiguen “éxito reproductivo”; que la mujer que las utiliza obtiene una pareja de calidad y tiene descendencia que perpetúa la especie. Pero es una explicación demasiado simple. Para empezar, hay otros objetivos en la vida humana, aparte de la reproducción: el abastecimiento de alimentos, la obtención de riqueza, las necesidades afectivas, o la gratificación narcisista de una mujer que nunca haya querido tener descendencia. Los recursos obtenidos mediante esos superestímulos cuidadosamente preparados pueden servir para otros fines.

Además, los entusiastas de la reproducción parecen no haberse dado cuenta de que esas estrategias pueden ser perjudiciales para la reproducción. No hay más que observar las relaciones fallidas por doquier, la disminución del índice de natalidad y las sociedades occidentales en decadencia; todo ello augura un futuro negro, si continuamos montados a lomos de los superestímulos que tanto nos gusta explotar.

Sin duda, al habernos centrado en la reproducción, no hemos hecho suficiente hincapié en la gratificación narcisista, aunque ésta tampoco es la motivación final. No puede haber nada más gratificante para el impulso narcisista que el ejercicio del poder (cosa que hacen la mayoría de las mujeres), y los superestímulos les otorgan un poder inmenso para ello.

Es muy posible que la satisfacción narcisista sea un rasgo profundamente socializado de la mujer moderna, pero es evidente que sólo trae beneficios a corto plazo, y que a largo plazo los resultados no son demasiado positivos. Los datos muestran que el índice de infelicidad femenina ha aumentado rápidamente en esta época en la que la mujer “lo tiene todo”.

En resumen, el ginocentrismo extremo en el que vivimos hoy en día es una aberración, un monstruo de Frankenstein que, en cierto modo, no debería existir; por lo menos no más que el gigantesco polluelo de cuco que crece en el nido de un pequeño pinzón. Es un fenómeno para el que nuestros sistemas no están preparados, pero continuamos atrapados en esteciclo de deseo incomprensible que lo mantiene vivo.

Podría compararse con una campaña propagandística tan fuerte como las que se usaban durante las guerras mundiales, apelando a nuestros reflejos territoriales; la diferencia es que esta campaña ha estado utilizándose y perfeccionándose continuamente desde hace 900 años.

Sea cual sea el impulso ginocéntrico que subyace en nuestro sistema nervioso, hoy en día se ha desarrollado exageradamente, y continuamos desarrollando mediante superestímulos cada vez más sofisticados. Pero si somos conscientes de ello, tal vez, sólo tal vez, podremos expulsar el huevo de cuco de nuestro nido biológico. Podemos empezar por reconocer que hemos estado hipnotizados, y tomar la decisión de no volver a consentirlo.

Es tan sencillo como dejar de ir en pos del dragón, y matarlo.

Fuentes:

[1] Artículo de Wikipedia sobre los superestímulos.

[2] Esther Vilar, El varón domado, (1971).

[3] Jones, D., Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness and Facial Neoteny: Cross-Cultural Evidence and Implications [“Selección sexual, atractivo físico y neotenia facial: pruebas y conclusiones interculturales”], Current Anthropology [“Antropología actual”], Vol. 36, No. 5 (1995), pp. 723-748.

[4] Cunningham, M.; Roberts, A.; Vu, C., “Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours”: consistency and variability in the cross-cultural perception of female physical attractiveness”[“Sus ideas de la belleza son, en su conjunto, las mismas que las nuestras: regularidad y variabilidad en la percepción intercultural del atractivo físico femenino”]. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [“Revista de Psicología social y de la personalidad”] 68 (2): 261–79 (1995).

[5] John Toedt, Chemical Composition of Everyday Products [“Composición química de los productos cotidianos”], (2005).

[6] Linda D. Rhein, Mitchell Schlossman, Surfactants in Personal Care Products and Decorative Cosmetics [“Surfactantes en los productos de cuidado personal y en los cosméticos decorativos”], (2006)

[7] Laver, James., Abrams, H.N., The Concise History of Costume and Fashion [“Breve historia del vestuario y la moda”], (1979).

Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life [“Civilización y capitalismo, siglos XV-XVIII, Vol 1: Las estructuras de la vida cotidiana”], William Collins & Sons, (1981)

[8] Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture [“El amor cortés al desnudo: la interpretación de la cultura medieval francesa a través de la vestimenta”] (2005)

[9] Andreas Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love[El arte del amor cortés] (republicado en 1990). El manual amoroso de Capellanus se escribió en 1185, por petición de Marie de Champagne, hija del rey Luis VII de Francia y de Leonor de Aquitania.

Foto de cuco por vladlen 666 – Obra propia, CCO.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/gynocentrism/the-supersizing-of-gynocentrism/

Chasing The Dragon: The Lure Of Sexual Superstimuli

May 19, 2016March 5, 2024 / gynocentrism / 3 Comments

By Peter Wright & Paul Elam

Many students of sexual politics posit the “scientific” notion that our culture of extreme gynocentrism is a basic biological reality; that we should either get with the program and enjoy it or bow out in a nihilistic fashion.

An alternative explanation of gynocentrism suggests it is merely an exaggeration of human potential; one that leads to social and reproductive failure despite common beliefs.

The bioscience lexicon can be helpful in understanding this.

A superstimulus refers to the exaggeration of a normal stimulus to which there is an existing biological tendency to respond. An exaggerated response, or, if you will, superresponse, can be elicited by any number of superstimuli.

For example, when it comes to female birds, they will prefer to incubate larger, artificial eggs over their own natural ones.

Large, colorful eggs are a superstimulus. Leaving real eggs out to die is the superresponse.

Similarly, humans are easily exploited by junk food merchandisers. Humans are easily trained to choose products that cause heart disease, diabetes, and cancer over the nutritious food they evolved to eat and thrive on, simply by playing tricks on the taste buds and manipulating the starvation reflex.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates are superstimuli. Consuming toxic substances is the superresponse.

The idea is that healthy human behavior evolved in response to normal stimuli in our ancestor’s natural environment. That includes our reproductive instincts. The same behavioral responses have now been hijacked by the supernormal stimulus.¹

From this perspective, we see that a superstimulus acts like a potent drug, one every bit comparable to heroin or cocaine which imitate weaker chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins, all of which occur naturally in our bodies.

As with drug addictions, the effects of superstimuli account for a range of obsessions and failures plaguing modern man – from the epidemic of obesity and obsessions with territoriality to the destructive, violent and suicidal behaviors central to our modern cult of romantic love.

An interesting tidbit about superstimuli of manufactured narcotics is the phenomenon known as “chasing the dragon.” It is a term that originated in the opium dens of China, and it refers to what happens the first time a person inhales opium vapor. The resulting euphoria is complete, even magical — the first time.

Subsequent to that, the user tries again and again, with ever-increasing amounts of the drug, to re-create that first blissful high. They can’t do it. The brain is now familiar with the flood of manufactured opiates. The user gets high and very addicted, but the magic of the first experience is an elusive butterfly.

They pursue it, though, with all their might, chasing the dragon they rode in their first experience.

We see a similar phenomenon with men trying desperately in their relationships with women to be rewarded with redeeming love, sex and approval, through the use of romantic chivalry. It sends them, like an addict, traveling the path of a Mobius strip, going in circles, chasing the dragon.

There is little doubt in our minds how this happens.

Here are three examples of human superstimuli, and how they are used to elicit a destructive superresponse in the human male.

1. Artificially manufactured neoteny

Neoteny is the retention of juvenile characteristics in body, voice or facial features. In humans, neoteny activates what is known as the parental brain, or the state of brain activity that promotes nurturance and caretaking. The activation occurs through something called an innate releasing mechanism.

A classic example of an innate releasing mechanism is when seagull chicks peck at the parent’s beak to get food.

Each adult seagull has a red spot on the underside of their beak, the sight of which instinctively triggers, or releases, the chicks to peck. It is the innate releasing mechanism.

This innate releasing mechanism, of course, is essential to the survival of seagulls, and there is something like it to be found in all birds and mammals — any creature that cares for its offspring. In mammals, juvenility is one of the innate releasing mechanisms that unconsciously determine our motivations to protect and provide, thus ensuring the survival of the species.

Juvenile characteristics in humans, however, can also be manipulated to garner attention and support that far exceeds the demands of survival.

In particular, neoteny is exploited by women to gain various advantages, a fact not lost on medical doctor and author Esther Vilar, who writes:

Woman’s greatest ideal is a life without work or responsibility – yet who leads such a life but a child? A child with appealing eyes, a funny little body with dimples and sweet layers of baby fat and clear, taut skin – that darling minature of an adult. It is a child that woman imitates – its easy laugh, its helplessness, its need for protection. A child must be cared for; it cannot look after itself. And what species does not, by natural instinct, look after its offspring? It must – or the species will die out.

With the aid of skillfully applied cosmetics, designed to preserve that precious baby look; with the aid of helpless exclamations such as ‘Ooh’ and ‘Ah’ to denote astonishment, surprise, and admiration; with inane little bursts of conversation, women have preserved this ‘baby look’ for as long as possible so as to make the world continue to believe in the darling, sweet little girl she once was, and she relies on the protective instinct in man to make him take care of her.” ²

Zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that images releasing parental reactions across a wide range of mammalian species were rounded heads and large eyes (left), compared with angular heads with proportionally smaller eyes that do not elicit such responses.

Compare Lorenz’s images on the left with images of skilfully applied eye makeup above by the modern woman in search of romance. The many colored eyeshadows, eyeliners, and mascaras, not to mention the hours practiced in front of the mirror opening those eyes as wide as possible and fluttering – all designed to spur the viewer’s paleo reflexes into action.

Neotenic female faces (large eyes, greater distance between eyes, and small noses) are found to be more attractive to men while less neotenic female faces are considered the least attractive, regardless of the females’ actual age.³ And of these features, large eyes are the most effective of the neonate cues⁴ – a success formula utilized from Anime to Disney characters in which the eyes of adult women have been supersized and faces rendered childish.

2. Exaggeration of sexual qualities

Clothing and postures which exaggerate the hips, thighs, ass, breasts have been cultivated for millennia.

The cut, color, and drape of clothing; the underwear, corsets, lingerie and the shoes, hats, jewelry and other accessories make for a long study in the evolution of fashion – and in terms of sexuality they stand for nothing less than superstimuli designed to elicit an overload of sexual attraction in the viewer.

Perhaps more interesting on the enhancement front is the arrival of plastic surgery designed to transform the body into a theater of superstimuli, sometimes with grotesque, even fatal results. Such is the risk invited and embraced in the pursuit of enhanced sex-appeal.

Breast implants, butt implants, botox injections, nose jobs, tummy tucks, facelifts – all designed for enhanced sexuality, and even more importantly, enhanced power and control.

3. Artificially intensified pair-bonding drive

We have all heard the advice of the seasoned matron to younger women; “Don’t turn your love on like a tap or he will lose interest – withhold some affection and you’ll always have him begging for more.”

This message is now so widespread that animal-training techniques are being redeployed by women who wish to control their man’s attachment needs. In How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers we read,

Consistently a dog is “nicest” when he wants to be fed. Then he becomes all wags and licks. A known trick for keeping a dog on his best behavior is to just fill his bowl halfway so he’s yearning for more.

Same goes for his appetite for affection. Keep him in constant emotional hunger for you and he’ll be more attentive and easier to control.

As cruel as it sounds, withholding affection, sex, approval and love have become part of women’s repertoire of superstimuli used to coerce men into service. Perhaps there was a time when that service could have been considered an appropriate response to a survival oriented stimulus. Now, however, it has been replaced by superstimuli and male service has degenerated into a destructive superresponse.

Such dating advice for women abounds on the internet with the aim to intensify a man’s desire by turning a secure bond, a necessity for healthy relationships, into a brass ring. Only on the ride of romantic chivalry, like all carnival sideshows, the game is rigged. The brass ring remains ever just out of reach.

Men’s basic human need for love, acceptance, and security, is frustrated, leaving them in a perpetual cycle of deprivation.

Indeed, it is one of the core principles of romantic love to keep the bond in the realm of tantalizing denial, and men, therefore in constant readiness to be manipulated and used.

The word tantalizing comes from the Greek story of Tantalus. Tantalus, as the fable goes, offended the Gods. His punishment was to be placed in a river with the water up to his neck. A tree full of ripe, red apples leaned toward him.

The Gods afflicted him with a raging thirst and hunger. When he bent his head down to slake his thirst – the waters receded. Likewise, when he reached up to grab one of the apples, the branch recoiled higher and out of his reach.

Women are socialized to tantalize men with the possibility of pair-bonding, to keep fruit of love ever out of reach, and to further muddy the waters with the dictates of romantic chivalry.

If you want that pair-bond, which is to say if you want to be more tantalized, you had better greet her with flowers, hold the door open, and of course pick up the bill.

Be prepared to live that way for the rest of your life, exiled to the river with Tantalus, ever thirsty and hungry. In modern times, simple attachment is transformed into something complex – an impulse now guided by customs of a romantic chivalry, designed to tilt maximum power toward the woman.

Even when the pair-bond is supposedly attained, you may still experience the withdrawal of love, sex and approval as a method of control. It can even be worse once bonded than during the courtship process.

Such behavior from women is not a simple, innate reflex, but one in which they are culturally educated and socialized. Most girls become fluent in the game of inclusion and exclusion, in groups or among friends, well before the reach the age of 10 and the meta-rules learned there reappear again in popular dating advice – rules designed to meddle in the attachment security we social creatures would otherwise enjoy sans the manipulations.

The rules for women resonate shamelessly throughout an entire genre of literature:

– Keep an air of mystery
– Only put in 30 percent effort
– Make him come to you
– Never see him with less than 7 days notice
– Never call him unless returning a call
– Never return a call or text immediately
– Make him approach you
– Don’t call back immediately. You are a girl in demand.
– End call first after 15 minutes ALWAYS. (Even though it sucks. He will call you more.)
– Even if you are not busy, pretend like you are

Those items are the product of a cursory scan of just two internet dating sites with advice for women. They are not, however, an invention of the information age. They are the long codified expressions of what women have been taught, from generation to generation, since the advent of romantic chivalry.

They are obedience training basics for conditioning the romantically chivalrous man — superstimuli, powerfully effective in eliciting a superresponse. In this case, servile, blind sycophancy from weak, non-introspective men.

Romantic Love

Romantic love can be reconceptualized as a cluster of superstimuli, with each facet driving the human nervous system into over-excitement. That excitement tends to negatively impact men’s long-term welfare. The damage is not contained there. Our social and familial world is disintegrating rapidly under the excesses and toxicity of romantic love. In a way, romantic love has become one of the most anti-human exploitations of human biology to ever grace our species.

To understand where this originated we need to take a brief look at the history of romantic love, previously called courtly love, to show that the same elements were already at work at its inception. As laid out in great detail by medieval forebears, the literature reveals the same exaggerated neoteny, enhancements of sexuality, and the same obsessions surrounding control of romantic attachment.

While the neoteny ploy has been in operation at least since ancient Egypt in the form of colored eyeshadow and eyeliners, the practice gained greater popularity after the Crusaders found eyelid-coloring cosmetics used in the Middle East and who spread the practice throughout Europe.⁵ By the Middle Ages, European aristocrats were widely using cosmetics, with France and Italy becoming the chief centers of cosmetics manufacturing, including the use of stimulant compounds like Belladonna (Italian name meaning “beautiful woman”) that would make the eyes appear larger.⁶

Thus neoteny, manufactured by artisan techniques, became the cultural inheritance of each successive generation of girls who were – and still are – taught the art of applying and then displaying makeup, especially to the eyes. Such practices probably encouraged praises of women’s eyes in troubadour poetry, such as we read by the poet Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his autobiography titled In The Service of Ladies. There we read;

The pure, sweet lady knows well how to laugh beautifully with her sparkling eyes. Therefore I wear the crown of lofty joys, as her eyes become full of dew from the ground of her pure heart, with her laughing. Immediately I am wounded by Minnie.”

Clothing too was always used to enhance sexuality, however fashions didn’t change much over the course of millennia and their sexual utility was not fully realized. The beginnings of frequent change in clothing styles, along with recognition of their multitude ways of enhancing sexuality, began in Europe at a time that has been reliably dated by fashion historians James Laver and Fernand Braudel to the middle of the 14th century – a period when sexualised items like lingerie and corsets began their rise to fame.⁷

Jane Burns PhD adds further evidence of clothing’s role of sexually empowering medieval women in her book Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture.⁸

As mentioned earlier, the most powerful of romantic love’s tricks was the tantalizing of men with a promise of attachment, a goal that would remain largely out of reach. Stories of the troubadours attest to a hope-filled agony that plagued the male lover, with men dwelling in a strange kind of purgatory in waiting for a few “solaces” from the beloved.

The medieval love-game went into full swing when codes of romantic conduct encouraged a toying with the two extremes of acceptance and rejection. Compare the above list of dating rules with the following list from The Art of Courtly Love – a love manual widely disseminated in the 12th century:

– Love is a certain inborn suffering.
– Love cannot exist in the individual who cannot be jealous.
– Love constantly waxes and wanes.
– The value of love is commensurate with its difficulty of attainment.
– Apprehension is the constant companion of true love.
– Suspicion of the beloved generates jealousy and therefore intensifies love.
– Eating and sleeping diminish greatly when one is aggravated by love.
– The lover is always in fear that his love may not gain its desire.
– The greater the difficulty in exchanging solaces, and the more the desire for them, and love increases.
– Too many opportunities for seeing each other and talking will decrease love.⁹

Shakespeare’s most romantic of plays tells the same story, with Juliet keeping her lover midway between coming and going, between stable pair-bonding and the single life. Here Juliet tells her obedient lover;

‘Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone.
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

To which Romeo replies, in accord with the expectations of romantic love;

I would I were thy bird.

Following this little detour into history we now come to a final juncture of this article where we ask Aristotle’s million dollar question – that for the sake of which. To what end are these superstimuli employed?

Many would offer the clichéd answer that such practices garner “reproductive success,” that the woman employing them gains a quality mate and produces offspring to perpetuate the species. But this explanation is too simple. For starters, there are other aims of a human life than reproduction; such as garnering of food resources, securing wealth, attachment needs, or of securing narcissistic gratification for a woman who may never intend to have offspring – the resources garnered via her carefully orchestrated superstimuli can serve other ends.

Moreover, it appears not to have entered the minds of the reproduction enthusiasts that such strategies may, in fact, be deleterious to reproduction – all one has to do is look at the failing relationships everywhere, lowering birth rates, and decaying societies in the West that do not portend a future of success riding on the back of the superstimuli we’ve grown so fond of exploiting.

Narcissistic gratification is certainly one motive we’ve under-emphasized in our focus on reproduction, though it too is not the final motive. There can be nothing more gratifying to the narcissistic impulse than to wield power – as do most women – and to this end superstimuli places immense power in their hands.

Narcissistic indulgence may well be a heavily socialized trait in modern women, but it also proves to be a short-term windfall with not so gainly long-term results. Evidence shows that the misery index for women has risen sharply in the age when they “have it all.”

To summarize all that we’ve said, the extreme gynocentrism we live with today is a freak, a Frankenstein that on some level should not be, or at least should not be any more than the super-sized Cuckoo chick that swells in the nest of a tiny finch. It’s an event that our systems were not specifically designed for – yet we remain caught in the insoluble loop of desire that keeps it going.

We might think of it as a propaganda campaign every bit as strong as those used during the world wars to target our territorial reflexes, only this campaign has been in continual use and refinement for the last 900 years.

Whatever gynocentric impulse lies buried in our nervous system, it has now been supersized, and we continue to supersize it with ever more refinements of superstimuli – but if we regain our awareness we might, just might, kick this Cuckoo’s egg out of our biological nest – that can begin by recognizing that we have been hypnotized and deciding that we no longer wish to indulge it.

It’s as simple as choosing not to chase the dragon, but to slay it.

Sources:

[1] Wikpedia article for Superstimulus.
[2] Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man, (1971).
[3] Jones, D., Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness and Facial Neoteny: Cross-Cultural Evidence and Implications, Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 5 (1995), pp. 723-748.
[4] Cunningham, M.; Roberts, A.; Vu, C., “Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours”: consistency and variability in the cross-cultural perception of female physical attractiveness”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (2): 261–79 (1995).
[5] John Toedt, Chemical Composition of Everyday Products, (2005).
[6] Linda D. Rhein, Mitchell Schlossman, Surfactants in Personal Care Products and Decorative Cosmetics, (2006)
[7] Laver, James., Abrams, H.N., The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, (1979).
Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life“, William Collins & Sons, (1981)
[8] Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (2005)
[9] Andreas Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love (republished 1990). Capellanus’ love manual was written in 1185 at the request of Marie de Champagne, daughter of King Louis VII of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Cuckoo image by vladlen666 – Own work, CC0,

When romantic love came to China

April 30, 2016March 15, 2025 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

The following video When Romantic Love Came to China is a talk given by Lynn Pan in which she describes and then contrasts love in Chinese vs European descended traditions.

“About Gynocentrism” – an educational resource by SANDHAN

April 18, 2016April 18, 2023 / gynocentrism / Leave a comment

The following video “about gynocentrism,” created by the academic Programme “SANDHAN” through BISAG, is an educational resource used in Universities in India.