The Red Pill: https://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill
Red Pill Women: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/
The Red Pill’s Philosophy
Based on my understanding, the Red Pill philosophy, at its core, is a description of male and female natures and the best strategies for men to take in pursuit of their objectives.
Women have two main objectives: maximize the fitness of their offspring and find a man to raise these offspring. Often times the most desirable men are not the ones that will stick around, so women will have sex / get impregnated by the desirable men and find another man to raise the kid.
Men have one main objective: spread their DNA as far and wide as possible.
Since women are trying to maximize the fitness of the offspring, they will not hesitate to sleep around on their boyfriend or husband as long as they think they can get away with this. The fact has (allegedly) been confirmed by many members of the Red Pill Community who have reported sleeping with women who did have boyfriends and denied this or failed to bring it up.
The conclusion that the Red Pill Community seems to have reached is that long-term relationships are a raw deal for men nowadays since it is only a matter of time until your wife or girlfriend sleeps with someone else. Divorce laws make marriage even less attractive due to the possibility of losing half your stuff, having to make child support payments, and the possibility of not getting to see your kids. The only viable option for men who don’t wish to get screwed (pun not intended), then, is casual sex.
It comes as no surprise, then, that casual sex has becomes one of the focal points of the Red Pill community. They have the turned the art of picking up girls into a science that revolves around one concept: frame.
Frame is best described as a way of looking at the world, a perspective if you will. When two people with different frames meet, the stronger frame will overpower the weaker frame (i.e. the person with the weaker frame will adopt the stronger frame). Women are attracted to looks, money, muscles, and reputation, but above all, they are attracted to the strength of one’s frame.
In short:
1. Women are attracted to you because you have a stronger frame than they do.
2. Women would rather fuck an ugly guy with a strong frame than a handsome guy with a weak one
3. A girl can ONLY get horny for you if you have a stronger frame than her.
…
10. Women will test [your frame] brutally when they want to sleep with you
— From this post on Reddit
In Practice
Philosophy and ideas are great, but the real question is, what actually happens when someone joins the Red Pill community? A better question might be, what do the people in the Red Pill community value the most? And the to answer that question, we have to ask, what do the top posts and top posters all have in common?
The answer can be summed up in four words: “Fuck bitches, get money”. Many people in the community claim that self-improvement should be done for its own sake, for yourself, but all the evidence points to the fact that self improvement is only valued for its effect on one’s ability to fuck bitches and get money.
Self-improvement here centers around gaining muscle, improving overall health, increasing social confidence, and making more money.
Red Pill Women
There’s an interesting female-only community that developed as an offshoot of the Red Pill community called Red Pill Women (/r/RedPillWomen). It accepts the same Red Pill principles about the nature of men and women but pursues a different objective: committed long-term relationships.
And how do they go about doing that? Through self-improvement, just like in the Red Pill community. The Red Pill Women version of self-improvement boils down to becoming a more feminine woman. This is in opposition to the masculine aspirations that are fed to women today, like being a “strong independent woman” and not needing a man.
Red Pill Women brings nothing revolutionary to the table — it’s really a revival of conservative Christian values without the Christianity. At the forefront is the restoration of traditional gender roles. In particular, for women, this means cooking, housekeeping, taking care of one’s appearance, taking care of children and being warm, caring, nurturing and submissive. There are many posts about how to stop nagging and being “high-maintenance”.
Making Sense of Everything
The Blue Pill for both communities comes from the media. For men, it’s the idea that they will find “the one”, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. For women, it’s the idea that women should be independent, aggressive, career-driven and sleep around because, why not? Interestingly enough, it seems as if the blue pill for each gender is what the other gender actually wants.
Both communities seem to see eye-to-eye on the facts but come to different conclusions about what can and should be done. The conclusion of the Red Pill community seems to be that marriage and long-term relationships are a raw deal and should generally be avoided. For the Red Pill Women community, they seem to believe that marriage and long-term relationships are fundamentally workable if there is a restoration of traditional gender roles. It may be that women have more incentive to make things work as is explained here:
In a recent conversation as well as in articles I’ve been reading recently, it was pointed out to me that more and more men are “going their own way,” and that it doesn’t seem to bother them. Men are much more suited to being hermits and loners, whereas we women are social creatures who need companionship, especially from a man, to live a happy life.
The imbalance of power inherent in modern marriage and supported by feminism is largely to blame for so many men dropping out. What incentive does a man have to marry if he is not entitled to sex, his wife isn’t expected to cook or clean (or at least not all the time), and he has the ever-present fear of divorce (facilitated by no fault divorce laws) and the ensuing alimony/child support payments, along with limited access to his children?
At first glance you might think that men suffer more from not engaging in long term relationships, but in reality it hurts women more.
— From the RedPillWomen post Swallowing the Red Pill Is Not a Lifestyle — It’s Choosing Society and Civilization
Both communities were formed as a reaction to the discovery to the social and cultural changes that have been occurring over the past few centuries. The first is the gradual fading of religion from relevance. For all the downsides of religion’s prominence in society and culture, it did provide a set of shared social and cultural norms that structured the interaction between the sexes. Things like “don’t have sex before marriage” have become somewhat antiquated in the face of effective birth control and the the condom. “Adultery is a sin”, the ethical dictate has now become “Cheating is grounds for divorce”, a legal fact. The practical wisdom behind religious dictates is lost on many people who see it as arbitrary and outdated mumbo-jumbo. People have not changed much in the past several centuries, and the dictates found in religious texts are still very relevant “antidotes” to the unsavory side of human nature (and STDs).
Closely related to the fading of religion is the sexual liberation that we’ve seen in the past century or so. The invention of the condom (which controls the spread of STDs and pregnancy) and effective birth control, the rise of television and the internet, and a populace that chafed under the power of corrupt religious institutions have given rise to modern feminism and the carefree attitude towards sex that is increasingly seen in cities. (This is a guess, take it with a grain of salt.) Hollywood and ads gave people something to aspire to, religion’s declining presence in society and culture no longer prevented them from feeling guilt or shame about their sexual behavior, and condoms and birth control gave them the means to fuck away without the consequences of pregnancy or STDs.
In short, advances in medicine, the fading of religion, and the rise of TV and the internet have changed the dating and sex marketplace in way that has prompted the formation of communities like The Red Pill and Red Pill Women. This applies more to urban areas than rural areas and similarly more to first world countries than third world countries.
First Principles Analysis (Spitballing)
Men want sex. Women want commitment.
More specifically, men want to have sex with as many genetically fit (read: hot) women as possible. Women want to have sex with a genetically fit man AND commitment from a man who can provide and protect. These don’t have to be the same man, but often are. Put simply, women want winners.
Each sex works to maximize themselves in the dimension that the other sex values. This means men strive to win and women strive to be hot.
Women are the gatekeepers of sex. Men are the gatekeepers of commitment.
Men will use commitment (or the promise of commitment) to get sex. Women will use sex (or the promise of sex) to get commitment.
Condoms drastically decreased the chances of getting STDs when having sex. Birth control effectively eliminated the chance of getting pregnant after having sex. The rise of mass media and the declining relevance of religion led to the removal of social stigma around casual sex and infidelity. The result is a massive uptick in people’s willingness and ability to have casual sex, an increase in the percentage of the population who actively participates in casual sex, and ultimately, an increase in options for people who are looking for casual sex.
An increase in options and loosening of restrictions in the sex / dating marketplaces leads to 1) an increasing preference for casual sexual relationships (since there are more options and people want to sample them all), 2) an increase in infidelity rates (as there are more tempting alternatives when you are in a relationship and little to no consequences for cheating) and 3) an overall increase in time and energy spent in the matching process (look to the job market for a parallel). 1) and 2) lead to an increase in STD rates (see CDC report).
With an increase in the population of people who are down for casual sex comes an increase in options for everyone. Increased options in the sex marketplace leads to increased variance in success for men in sexual marketplace, i.e. “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. Now a smaller percentage of men are sleeping with a larger percentage of women. On the other hand, women’s success rates stay the same. Across the attractiveness spectrum, women are able to have sex in approximate correspondence to how attractive they are.
The increased variance in success for men leads to a divergence in ambition where men either push harder to break into the top x% or give up altogether. The Red Pill is a good example of guys who are pushing the break into the top echelon and Men Going Their Own Way is a good example of guys who are dropping out. Dropping out often times involves something akin to a hikkomori lifestyle.
NB: Unfortunately, in the case of men’s success in the sex and dating marketplaces, a rising tide does not lift all boats. Women always look for the best options, and the best 10% will always exclude the majority of guys. The only solution to ever-increasing variance here is to stigmatize infidelity and encourage low body counts for women, which is exactly (interestingly enough) what they are doing over at the Red Pill Women subreddit.
The increase in options when it comes to casual sex mainly affects the middle tiers of both genders. Mid-tier women now have access to top-tier men in the casual sex marketplace and have the opportunity to sleep with many of them. Unfortunately, these women often aren’t able to get commitment from these top-tier men, and when it comes time to get married, reluctantly settle down with a mid-tier man. This drop from top-tier man to mid-tier man can cause a lot of bitterness in their subsequent relationship(s). Mid-tier men, on the other hand, want to have casual sex but find that the pickings are slim. This can also lead to to bitterness on their end especially when they end up in a long term relationship with a mid-tier woman who has a history of having sex with top-tier guys.
Final Thoughts
Both communities provide general-purpose guidelines for what to do — for RedPill men, it’s “Fuck bitches, get money”, and for women, it’s “let’s play house again”. (I know these are overly simplified, but these are pretty good summaries). The information and theory here describes general trends and often does not apply to individual scenarios. Nevertheless, it is still valuable to understand.
I believe the main value that both these communities provide is in telling people who to chase, but what to avoid. For men, it’s wasting time banking on finding “the one”, and for women, it’s wasting your time pursuing modern feminist values.
