When Narcissists Fall Apart

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

From The Rawness:

Narcissists, without their armor of grandiosity, will fall apart. They reach a point where their armor is the only thing holding them together. Narcissists become what I like to call “grandiosity sharks.” Have you heard how a shark has to keep moving through water to breathe by pumping, and if the shark stops moving, he sinks to the bottom and dies? This is because sharks can’t pump water across their gills on their own like other fish can, so they have to constantly swim through water to externally move the water across their gills. If they stop swimming, sharks not only stop breathing, they sink to the bottom and die.

Well grandiosity sharks are people who have to keep swimming through a sea of external validation in order to breathe and stay afloat, because much like the shark can’t breathe internally, they can’t generate validation and self-esteem internally. If they stop moving through the sea of validation for a given amount of time, or their swimming is temporarily disrupted due to a blow to their ego, they figuratively suffocate, sink to the bottom and die.

As I’ve said in the previous installments, I believe the codependent is actually better off than the narcissist. Because codependents are more in touch with their feelings of self-worth, they have a better idea of what’s wrong with them. Also, because they are more aware that they have low self-worth issues, you don’t have to waste a lot of time convincing them they have low self-worth issues. They’re often the first people to admit they have low self-worth!

This gives codependents more self-awareness than the narcissist. The narcissist has blocked access to his own feelings of low self-worth thanks to the layers upon layers of defense mechanisms that make up his armor of grandiosity. You have to break down this grandiosity in order to get him to even admit to himself how low his self-worth is, and the worst narcissists would rather die than admit to themselves that they loathe themselves. And how can you go about fixing your problem when you can’t even admit to yourself much less others that you have a problem to begin with? This desperation to avoid accessing their own feelings of self-hatred helps explain why narcissists always blame others for everything but never themselves.

That’s why codependency is widely considered curable by mental health professionals but narcissism isn’t. To a narcissist, the payoff of remaining a narcissist is the ability to continue to lie to himself about how much he hates himself deep down. According to the narcissist’s warped logic, this ability to continue to lie to himself about the extent of his self-loathing is a better payoff than any potential benefit he would derivefrom curing his narcissism, because a cure would require him to access his feelings of self-loathing in order to deal with them. That’s why narcissists often have to hit rockbottom before they can seek help, because it’s only at rockbottom that their self-loathing becomes so bad the old defense mechanisms no longer work and they can’t suppress the self-loathing anymore or deny to themselves the true extent of their self-hatred. It’s only at rockbottom that their old strategy for dealing with ego setbacks, which was to replace old defense mechanisms with new, improved stronger defense mechanisms, no longer works.

…So the PUA, who thought he finally figured it all out and had finally found the final fictional goal that would wipe out all his past failures and most importantly his fix his core issues and reverse his primary inferiority feeling now realizes that at his core, nothing really changed. Suddenly he loses his grandiosity, and like I said, for a narcissist, even a compensatory one, grandiosity is all that holds him together. The new defense mechanisms he developed to create this grandiosity now start to fail him and he can’t project, can’t rationalize, can’t intellectualize and can’t deny, which causes him to re-access all those feelings of self-loathing he had been religiously blocking since he became a compensatory narcissist. He starts to feel his newest secondary inferiority feeling of failing as a PUA, then he starts to re-feel all his previous secondary inferiority feelings that drove him to become a PUA in the first place, then ultimately he re-feels the original primary inferiority that caused his deepest core issues to begin with.
Picture all these inferiority feelings rushing at you at once. Is it any wonder why Mystery turned suicidal and totally lost it when his stripper girlfriend chose another PUA over him (many strippers are narcissistic Cluster B emotional vampires)? Is it any wonder why Neil Strauss became obsessed with that woman Lisa once he realized his pickup tricks didn’t work on her? I have no proof and it’s pure speculation, but reading how he described their courtship I think it’s very possible she may have been a pure narcissist.
(By the way, I want to point out that stripping and sex work in general are profession that attracts a HUGELY disproprortionate amount of narcissists and borderline personality disorder sufferers, which lends credence to my theory that becoming a PUA often just makes one into a sophisticated form of codependent, because why else would these guys keep being drawn to strippers and pornstars, who can be some of the most severely personality-disordered people out there?)

…When you read the book The Game, Strauss and his PUA friends totally fall into these traps. The exploits and accomplishments he describes and the superpowers he claims these PUAs have definitely fall into “exaggerating achievements and talents.” In the book, Strauss is presenting himself as an expert and teaching bootcamps to strangers for money before ever even getting laid! And apparently it’s very common for guys who barely get laid to teach bootcamps. Isn’t that an example of “expecting to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements?”
Strauss discusses how pickup artists after a while always tend to distance themselves from or even dump their old friends who don’t follow PUA. Soon most of their friends are PUAs, because they believe those are the only people left that are worthy enough of associating with. They form organizations called “lairs,” rent houses and apartments and give them names like “Project Hollywood” and fill it with other PUAs as roommates. Isn’t this a perfect example of “believing he is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special high-status people?”
Part of giving up their old non-PUA friends is that they believe they are holding them back because they won’t become PUAs too. The PUA has “swallowed the red pill” and his friends are now haters who can’t appreciate his success and his self-improvement. Now that he is improving, they can’t be happy and even start appearing envious to him. Strauss discusses similar dynamics in his book. Isn’t this an example of “believes others are envious of him?”

…There are plenty of stories, both within the book The Game and in lots of internet gossip surrounding the setting of the game, “Project Hollywood,” about the guys all trying to cockblock each other. One guy would be hitting on a girl, then the next guy would try to hit on the same girl behind his back, etc. They would call it “stealing sets.” At one point the PUA Herbal stole the girlfriend of Mystery from him, which caused Mystery to have a total mental breakdown. Doesn’t that describe a lack of empathy, an inability to “recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others?”
As for the rest of the elements of the narcissism definition like being preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited power, brilliance, success, beauty or ideal love, needing excessive admiration, having a sense of entitlement and being interpersonally exploitative, I believe when you read the book and read gossip from other sources regarding the people and events described in the book, all those aspects of narcissism are described in numerous, obvious examples…

…what sexual affection conquests are to a man, flattering attention and ego boosts are to woman. Society teaches women this from very young, and as a result women realize early the power they wield by strategically denying and granting men access to their vaginas, or even just the potential for access to their vaginas. Society however doesn’t teach men about the fact that flattering attention and ego boosts to a woman are as important as sexual conquests are to men, and that the best weapon men have against women and their way of leveling the playing field is to strategically deny and grant women access to their flattering attention, or even just the potential for access to their flattering attention. Women are told to respect themselves and their bodies, but men aren’t similarly taught to respect themselves and their time.

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Analyzing Neil Strauss

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

From The Rawness:

When I was doing Part 4 to this series, I did a lot of research on the internet and in the book The Game to try to make a psychological profile. One thing I found interesting though was how little of Neil Strauss’s background, particularly his childhood and upbringing, was discussed, as opposed to Mystery’s, which was described in excruciating detail.

I tried a bunch of Google searches and looked at his Wikipedia and it was incredibly vague about his childhood, so I had to end up doing the piece without that info and worked around it.

However I found some updated information that confirms a lot of my theories about Neil Strauss and his issues, so I am going to revise Part 4 with an update. However since it’s unfair to make people who already read that piece to make their way through it all over again just to track down the updated information, I decided to also make this addendum post isolating the information for people who already read the piece and are just looking to read the updated info.

I recently was made aware of an interview he did in March 2011 called “Regrets of a Pickup Artist” where he actually discusses his childhood, and it confirms a lot of the psychological elements I’ve discussed in this series.

The whole thing is short and interesting, so I recommend following the link and reading the whole thing, but here’s the part that jumped out at me:

Growing up, I was watched by my parents and strongly critiqued. Instead of saying they loved me or showing physical attention, they would joke that I had a Roman nose – that it was roamin’ all over my face. Teasing was their way of showing love, but then you are young, sometimes you can’t tell the difference.

As a teenager I was a guy who was trying to belong, yet never belonged. I was scrawny and wanted a nose job. Each night, at 15, I would go to bed and wish that I would live long enough to have sex.

My first crush was on a girl called Jessica when I was in sixth grade, but I was made fun of for following her wherever she went in school. Years later, at a school reunion, the first thing she did was make fun of my hairline.

High school was equally barren. My friends and I called ourselves the “V Club” because we were all virgins – it was like a bad teen movie. We would sacrifice any amount of dignity to lose our virginity and yet it never happened. The girl I took to the prom ended up leaving with another guy.

The main reason I went to Vassar College was because it had recently gone from a women’s school to co-ed, and I figured I had a good chance of having sex. That didn’t materialise, but in between transferring from Vassar to Columbia University I met a girl and, at 21, finally had sex. Because I didn’t know when it would happen again, I dated her for a couple of years.

He briefly discusses Lisa Leveridge:

While living this lifestyle I met Lisa Leveridge, the guitarist for Courtney Love’s all-girl band, the Chelsea. Lisa was like no other woman I’d met. When she walked into the room, it was like the seas parted. There was something about her that was just more complete than other women. After The Game was published in 2005, we lived together for a while. It was perfect, but after two years the relationship had run its course.

I found this pretty interesting, given the dynamic I described in part 3 about what creates chemistry in a codependent:

Here is what I think chemistry is. Some people think we get attracted to partners who represent our opposite-sex parent. Women supposedly marry their fathers and men supposedly marry their mothers. This is not necessarily true. In relationships, we feel intense chemistry with partners who remind us of aspects of our parents we have the most unresolved, open issues with. And in relationships, we become those aspects of our parents we most identified with.

Someone with codependent caretaker values, they have unresolved issues with hard to please parents and never getting their emotional needs met from them. Therefore when they have a lot of chemistry with someone, it tends to be with someone who has the same issues as their parents as far as being hard to please and being inconsiderate of the codependent’s emotional needs. That intense chemistry they feel, that familiarity, it comes from unconsciously recognizing the most influential dynamic of their lives: the dynamic they had with their parents.

When reading The Game, it seemed to me that Leveridge was giving off lots of mixed signals, thereby hooking Strauss with intermittent rewards, and was also withholding validation from him like a carrot on a stick much in the way his parents used to. Then after driving him craz with those techniques, she then hit him with a narcissistic technique known as “idealization” where she hit him with a ton of flattery and ego boosting. (All people with narcissistic tendencies idealize and then devalue later on.) Then he possibly rationalized it into being something much more noble than it actually was. I want to stress, I’m not saying Leveridge is a full-blown clinical narcissist or any other type of pathological emotional vampire, because I don’t know enough about her to say that for sure. I am saying, however, that she does seem to have some narcissistic traits based on how the book describes her. Strauss even admits that modesty was never her strong suit.

Because his parents didn’t seem to be all-out emotional vampires, but rather seemed more like relatively decent people who had a few unfortunate vampire tendencies, the girl that produced intense chemistry for him was a lot more normal than the extremely damaged girl who produced intense chemistry for Mystery, whose dad was an all-out vampire. But when skimming the book for this series of posts, I did notice that a lot of her “push-pull” techniques and withholding of praise seemed to be what hooked him the hardest. It seems like the negative aspects of his parents that Leveridge had in her are exactly what drew him to her.

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Reddit RedPill: Summary Neil Strauss

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Link:

Neil Strauss, author of “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” has decided that he needs to absolve himself of the “sins” he committed against womankind by conducting an interview with The Guardian and advertising his Beta Bux status, throwing other would-be PUAs under the bus, and trying to write off natural attraction as “sex addiction”.

Neil’s interview with The Guardian confirms what many of us knew about him and pick-up artists for the longest time – the man, despite being able to bed women, is firmly ensconced within a blue-pill point of view. He needs their approval, and without it, is unable to value himself.

The story starts off with how he has tried to distance himself from the days of his book which sold 2.5m copies, and pseudo-glorifies how before writing it he was a kissless virgin (“he’s a husband, and a father, and stupidly in love on both fronts”).

We then shift to how he doesn’t hit on an attractive young woman in her 20s and how reformed he is because now only “interesting” people grab his attention.

The Guardian’s next step is to emasculate him and imply that he was mentally ill for being a Beta attracted to women presumably out of his league as he is “no switchboard-illuminating beauty himself. ‘Shorter than I’d like to be,’ he wrote in The Game. ‘My eyes are small and beady… To say my hair is thinning would be an understatement.'” and also that “ten years on, it is difficult to read this without anxiety. In an age of consent lessons on campus and school education on the harmful effects of pornography, the conversation has changed. So has Strauss. He tells me that, without knowing it at the time, he was a pretty troubled man when he wrote The Game”

Strauss now begins his apology in earnest by claiming that he feels “a healthy sort of shame” at publishing his book a decade ago and admitting that he “would sometimes browse mail-order-bride catalogues” (See how much of a loser I am?! See?! See?!). Next, he admits to banging his girlfriend’s best friend in a parking lot and thereby allowing his bitch to bully him into treatment for “sex addiction”. He goes into rehab and “discovers” that he has “anxiety syndrome, depressive disorder, two forms of sexual disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” (cough bullshit). How was it decided that he has sex addiction? Well he masturbates and looks at porn you see….

Strauss and the girlfriend who forced him into rehab are now married. He’s her Beta Bux as she’s well past her expiration date, and needed to get him nailed down. He spends most of his time apologizing apparently. To whit – “I think that a lot of guys who read The Game, they think that they’re fooling or tricking women. But most women are smart enough to know exactly what you’re doing. They just might like you enough to go along with it. I think one of the misconceptions is that someone else can be tricked into doing something they don’t want to.” We here at TRP know that that’s the salve he applies to his sense of Beta Pride in order to convince himself that NAWALT.

Conclusion

Neil Strauss never swallowed The Red Pill, but instead did what Betas do and developed a “formula”. In this case, his simulates Alpha-ness. Women flocked to him, and, disgusted and unable to deal with the true nature of “woman”, he retreated into apology and prostration. Now he is married and has a kid and presumably expects not to be fed into the grinder when his usefulness expires.

Pick-up artistry is fundamentally Blue Pill, because you are staking your self-worth on female approval. Strauss never moved past that mindset and now feels like men discovering how to be attractive for women are horrible people for “tricking women”.

Take the Red Pill and you won’t spend your life apologizing for wanting to have sex.

COMMENTS FROM THE THREAD:

* Strauss never fixed himself. Sex with women is not a panacea. If you have fundamental issues within your self image, and you do not take steps to address them, no amount of sex will fix you. You’ll just be a neurotic sexual machine full of shame. To be a man, you have to embrace and understand the totality of your loneliness. You must become intimate with your fears and failures. You must uninvest your perception of self from your sexual conquests. Guys have been well trained to be shamed by their sexual failures, it keeps them timid and afraid. It keeps the shame alive. A man needs to be able to prosper in famine to find abundance. Strauss seems like a man who could never suffer famine shamelessly. Better to carry your scars with you and cry about them than embrace your entire masculinity.

* The majority of dudes who get into PUA suffer from mental issues, this isn’t a big surprise. If you’ve ever taken the time to hang out with “lair” types you’d know it rather quickly.

A lot of the guys I know who were running PUA companies changed over to making better men, albeit not nessecarily the TRP way, or more interesting men. A lot of them caught on to the creepy mental factor and felt their money was tainted and they didn’t want to be associated with it.

At the end of the day, its a starting point for a lot of men. Not everyone can find the TRP or other….alternative….resources. Don’t be so quick to judge. A real man will hold judgement and choose to lead or mentor.

* pua is like lifting.

it teaches you social skills and how to get laid. the gym teaches you how to get muscly and fit.

if you have body dysmorphia lifting will not fix the fundamental underlying mental issues. pua will not fix your insecurities and anxieties and need for validation and feelings of inadequacy if you’re not self aware of these problems.

pick up is a supremely useful tool. when like mystery you think it’s the ultimate solution in life you can be very dissapointmented by the end game.

just look at how miserable women and gays are. two groups who can have sex at the click of an app.

it’s a fix to a problem. not to life.

* I have a very funny anecdote about this.

A few years ago when I was in the Amazon jungle drinking ayahuasca (Google it if you don’t know what it is) I actually came across these 2 PUAs. I had seen their videos before. One of them was Sacha something, funny dude. Does all these silly wacky approaches but rocked it. The other guy was this aussie fella James something. Sort of more refined elegant type, very stylish, put lots of work in his appearance, more of an ice cold too-cool-for you attitude.

Well back then I was relatively naive and thought wow man these guys are boss, they really know what they’re doing, they travel the world teaching this shit.

I never expected to run into them in the fucking Amazon jungle doing extreme psychedelics but when I did I was stoked. I was sure that being so ‘brave’ and confident on video meant they really were like that in real life. Fucking grade A troopers that would crush ayahuasca sessions for breakfast.

But again, ayahuasca is nothing to fuck with or take lightly. It’s not a magic potion that turns you into superman while you speak with butterflies. While that might happen too, you will more likely experience potentially lethal amounts of emotional pressure and confusion and sickness. You will go in the basement alone with your darkest fears, and battle with everything your soul has. Maybe you’ll come out victorious.

I have met some of the bravest people I can recall, some of which I was HONORED of having shared sessions with and will remember them and their stories forever.

The 2 PUAs were none of that. One session was enough to absolutely shatter them and rob them of all the confidence they thought they had. Biggest pussies. After a week I ran into them in town, shells of their former video personas, thousand yard stared weak boys. Welcome to reality bitch! Ha.

In all seriousness I sincerely hope that experience taught them a lesson and they rebuilt themselves stronger going back to square one.

Amongst the things I understood that month is that there are no shortcuts. True confidence and strength is built with grit and humbleness. Never watched/read anything pua related since then.

People want an easy fix so they’re sold weird party tricks by smarter people, giving them the illusion they’re owning. It’s a market that needs to be catered for.

Personally I don’t care at all wether something is rp, pua, nba nfl or whatever. It either makes sense or it doesn’t. I could find great insights in a colouring playbook like in an ancient proverb or hitler’s gazette or a random internet blog. I don’t care for the messenger at all. Content.

( Even though when something like this Neil Strauss debacle happens I have a hard time giving his material credibility. But again, cunts probably just mentally ill, and a broken clock is still right twice a day)

Ayahuasca certainly helped me in coming out as a better person. There was years of ground work behind it though, and the right mindset for it. It helped in putting everything together in one picture.

I think it’s possible to get the same results without it. It might just take a little longer, and feel more bland as a consequence. A bit less memorable and crazy. But I know some people that are on the same wavelength if not wiser, that never even smoked pot.

Ayahuasca comes with a lot of risks though. The environment you’re in is quite lawless. LOTS of guns, real risk of getting robbed/killed, no phone reception obviously, closest police station 220km of swampy jungle away. And you’re a cashed up gringo. You really are at the mercy of other people’s kindness so BE NICE to them (which you should be regardless 🙂 )

Greedy shamans that are somehow able to put you into a permanently psychotic mindset or make you sick, and blackmail you (“heal you” with extra sessions $$$$) are out there. I’ve seen and heard some very, very spooky shit. TRUST your gut feelings, stay alert, calmly but firmly stand up in front of abuse or shady practices, be prepared to walk away if shit feels off. The risks are all part of the experience though. Just know what you’re getting into. It might be a very stupid choice according to where you’re at in life.

Also, I speak good Spanish. I would have never fucking dreamt of putting myself in that situation if I could not understand what was said around me and communicate effectively.

* One of the most illuminating aspects of his autobiography “The Rules of the Game” was how dysfunctional all the figureheads of PUA were. Mystery (the man initially portrayed as being the most in control and the most alpha) had multiple nervous breakdowns over the course of the book and got terminal oneitis several times. RSD Tyler is portrayed as a borderline psychopath (this one might be embellished by Strauss, he thought Tyler was sabotaging his work) and the older first gen proto-PUAs they all took inspiration from are all broken individuals.

Even the ending of the book has Strauss trying to LTR a rock star chick with red flags aplenty. Honestly after reading it he didn’t seem to have any sort of growth or revelation on the nature of women or our roles, it just sort of fizzled out when he realized he had no arc.

* Neil Strauss is the reason I even made it this far. When I saw his book somehow made its way onto my computer, I was compelled to read it. I was weak, unsuccessful, anxious. PUA had always been discussed in a derogatory tone, so I took the plunge and prepared to take everything in there with a grain of salt.

Reading his book is what lead me into the rabbit hole that is the manosphere. Reading this book is what prompted me to discover I want more for myself and society was feeding me lie after delicious lie on how to get it. I WOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN THE STEPS NECESSARY TO IMPROVE MYSELF IF I HADN’T SEEN AND READ WHAT LIES OUT THERE FOR THE MEN WHO DO.

He dismisses his work because it was written during a troubling time because he is successful now. He forgets that the work he and Mystery did set the stage for Owen and RSD. I’m still not the biggest fan of PUA arm, but I think it was a necessary stepping stone for myself and a lot of struggling young males who needed to make it to supportive communities like this where men can convene and troubleshoot their issues with women, fitness, careers, and other aspects of our lives.

It truly saddens me to see that even the trailblazers and the greatest in the game can fold. I feel heartbroken and disillusioned, like my favorite role model growing up turned out to be a rapist or a heroin addict. Keep you wits about you gentlemen, for we truly have no rock to rest our heads on.

* Strauss confused the means with the ends. His ends should have been self-actualization, and pickup should have been the means he used to get there. Instead, pickup became his end goal. Don’t get it twisted, sexual success is great after decades of failure. I enjoy spinning plates, but it doesn’t define who I am.

Truly, bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks. Strauss never got that, and one day, looked around and thought “this is all there is?”. Now he’s busy chasing domestic bliss, in the hope that a wife and a kid will give him those things that are missing from his life. In many ways, this is no different than some actor or rock star, who despite seemingly having everything, drinks or drugs himself to death. He’s chasing something that he doesn’t know how to get.

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Neil Strauss Trades the Game for the Truth

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Joshua Rotter writes: The now-happily married father of one is only too eager to share his discoveries about life and love in his new book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, which he’s promoting at a Litquake brunch on Saturday, Oct 17, that’s aptly titled “A Playboy No Longer: (Former) Bad Boy, Neil Strauss. ”

Strauss went from interviewing musicians for Rolling Stone and reviewing music for The New York Times to co-writing a string of successful memoirs, such as Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt, and Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.

He would next write about his own sex life in the controversial bestseller The Game, the career-changing 2005 novel in which the author penetrates the seduction community. Unfortunately, Strauss began using those manipulative strategies IRL — and encouraged others to do the same in his sequel, Rules of the Game.

“I just have to embrace the fact that I had that side that was attracted to something so shallow and objectifying and narcissistic,” he says. “There’s a part of me that felt disconnected, and here was this group of guys that was maybe showing me how, instead of being an observer, to participate and have fun and get acceptance and all those things that maybe I lacked on the inside. I think it spoke to a wound, and the wound says, ‘Yes.'”

He credits legendary music producer Rick Rubin with mentoring him out of The Game. “He helped me realize, ‘You’ve got everything you’ve wanted, now you’re social and can meet people, so why are you still not happy?'”

Strauss wrote The Truth in an attempt to answer this question.

“The answer and the heart of The Truth is that there are unconscious forces that we’re not aware of, that are guiding the way we live our lives by the lies we tell ourselves — like ‘I don’t fit in,’ or ‘Everyone’s making fun of me.’ Maybe The Game and The Truth should have been one book, ’cause this is the conclusion it should have had, about getting away from manipulation and returning to intimacy and honesty. To start off with honesty, you have to be honest with yourself and know who you are before you can really be honest with someone else.”

He also learned that communication is key or else we just build resentments, that we pick our partners to work out childhood issues, that sex suffers over time because we turn our partners into our parents, and that only once we “un-parentalize” our partners can we truly connect with them sexually or otherwise. He speaks from experience.

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Neil Strauss Is Back

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

From Slate: Reviews of The Game were haughty and dismissive, pointing out how inane PUAs’ routines are, accusing them of puerility and alienation, and noting, accurately, that these Lotharios seem far more wrapped up in one another and their “community” than they do in the women they pursue. None of this would be news to Strauss, however; the shortcomings of the PUA scene are in fact one of the themes of his book, which opens with Strauss hauling Mystery off to a psych ward before his mood-disordered mentor makes good on threats to kill himself. By the end, Strauss and Mystery have been forced out of Project Hollywood, and Strauss has paired up with a woman, the guitarist for Love’s band. She is impervious to PUA tricks, most notably the “neg”—a backhanded compliment intended to communicate that the player is not intimidated by his target’s beauty. Strauss moves on, abandoning a closet full of paraphernalia used in the Game, because “real life beckoned.”

He didn’t make it that time around. As Strauss relates in his new book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships—also available in a faux leather edition—after he split up with the guitarist, he also blew it with a subsequent girlfriend, Ingrid. He could not rein in his compulsive womanizing, even after finding someone he deeply loved and with whom he wanted to start a family. The breakup precipitates a soul-searching quest, recounted in The Truth, ranging from sex-addiction rehab to experiments in polyamory, swinging, and other nonmonogamous relationships. “This is the story,” he announces in the first chapter, “of discovering that every truth I’ve desperately clung to, fought for, fucked for and even loved for is wrong.”

I’m aware that I’m supposed to scorn The Game, but in fact I loved it. As the sentences I’ve quoted thus far indicate, Strauss’ years writing celebrity profiles and co-writing celebrity memoirs (including Jenna Jameson’s best-selling How to Make Love Like a Porn Star) have honed his ability to squeeze the maximum amount of cheesy drama out of every situation. He really knows how to set a scene and sketch a character. The villain of the first bit of The Truth, a puritanical counselor at the rehab center he checks into when Ingrid leaves him, “raises her head like a cobra about to strike” whenever someone in his group therapy session uses the word girl. Strauss is also smart, with a well-developed sense of irony. When a counselor asks his group to calculate how much money they’ve squandered in chasing fleeting sexual encounters over the years, right down to the last condom, he silently totes up the opposite: “My sex addiction pays for my phone, rent, and health insurance. It pays for breakfast, lunch and dinner; for movies, books and the computer I’m writing on; for socks, underwear, and shoes. Fuck, I couldn’t afford to be here getting treatment without it.”

Despite the indignation The Game once provoked, taking a moral position on that book hardly seems urgent. It’s set in an alternate, nightclub-rich universe of perpetual recreation. Surgically enhanced women visit it when they want a bit of adventure, and yet, sadly, it is populated by a vast sea of indistinguishably dull, thirsty guys, each equipped with khakis and a cable package stocked with every variant of ESPN. As depicted by Strauss, PUA tactics—from their flamboyant “peacocking” wardrobes to their prefab patter based on questions promised to reveal the respondent’s personality—are meant to make the player stand out in this crowd. Imagine, if you can, a milieu so boring that the approach of a guy wearing a furry top hat and offering to do magic tricks and give Cosmo quizzes would be a welcome relief.

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‘His book The Game made him a fortune, but left Neil Strauss in treatment for sex addiction. Ten years later, he’s a changed man, he tells Tom Lamont’

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

The Guardian: Around 2010, he met and fell in love with a Mexican-born model named Ingrid De La O. She was perfect, Strauss thought, their relationship together “the best I’d ever had”. Yet he found he couldn’t stop pursuing other women and cheating on Ingrid. When she learned about the cruellest of his infidelities (her best friend, a church car park), Ingrid agreed to forgive Strauss only on the condition he be treated for sex addiction. So he entered rehab for three months. Here his problems really began.

By opening up his psyche to trained therapists for the first time, Strauss learned he had quite an assortment of mental and emotional conditions. In short order, he was diagnosed with anxiety syndrome, depressive disorder, two forms of sexual disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “It was like a hammer hitting me on the head,” he says. “I really thought I was normal.”

Out of rehab, still in some degree of turmoil, Strauss got back together with Ingrid, but managed just a fortnight together before splitting again. She started seeing other people. Strauss, meanwhile, went to visit a brain doctor who told him that he’d spent so long trying to figure out how to seduce women for The Game, he might have corrupted himself permanently; that pursuing women was “so deeply ingrained, you’re not going to be able to just walk out of here and stop it”.

Indeed, he was not. There were chaotic flings with a Vegas showgirl, with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and with a woman called Sage with whom he had an open relationship before she left him for two Mexicans. Strauss travelled to Europe to attend sex parties, and later moved to live in a free love commune in California. There was a lot of wallowing, Strauss says, not all of which made it into the pages of The Truth. “There’s only a certain number of ways you can write about depression before your reader reaches for Harry Potter.”

You suspect journalistic motivation in the sex-party trip and his enrolment in the commune (Strauss was writing as he went). But he sounds honest when he tells me it was the act of finishing chapters, and reading them over, that pushed on his recovery. He came to see that his years researching and writing The Game had made him manipulative and selfish, “following a shallow path to self-esteem”, as he describes it now. “My thinking was, ‘If this woman’s going to be naked with me, I must be OK.’ But it doesn’t last.”

He leads us on to his balcony, where we sit on weatherproofed sofas. It’s a scorching day. His wife stays indoors, in the cool, looking after their son. Throughout my visit, I catch only glimpses of her. She has requested not to be interviewed for this article, a reluctance I can well understand. His wife is Ingrid, the much-messed-about girlfriend who first insisted he seek treatment.

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Struggling With My Demons

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

From three years ago:

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Jews, Judaism & Gun Control

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

In the light of recent American shootings and renewed discussion about gun control, I researched Judaism’s attitudes to gun control.

As I expected, Judaism does not have a clear position on gun control (or any almost any contemporary political issue in the diaspora, Judaism simply does not issue clear directives on how Jews should try to shape politics in gentile countries). As one Chabad rabbi summarized: “I believe the issue can be argued on both sides from a Judaic point of view.”

Israel’s position on gun control is complicated:

Israeli gun control regulations ‘opposite of US’

By BEN HARTMAN \ 12/18/2012

A gun lover’s dream or a stringently controlled police state that would make a National Rifle Association supporter’s blood boil? In recent days, following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 dead, including 20 children, Israel has been mentioned as a country awash in guns yet still free of such random massacres. Many have pointed out that the difference between the countries is not in the prevalence of guns, but the regulations that accompany them.

According to Yaakov Amit, the head of the Public Security Ministry’s Firearms Licensing Department, the difference between the gun laws in the US and Israel are as clear as night and day.

“There is an essential difference between the two. In America the right to bear arms is written in the law, here it’s the opposite… only those who have a license can bear arms and not everyone can get a license.”

Amit said gun licenses are only given out to those who have a reason because they work in security or law enforcement, or those who live in settlements “where the state has an interest in them being armed.”

He added that former IDF officers above a certain rank can get a license.

Anyone who fits the requirements, is over age 21 and an Israeli resident for more than three years, must go through a mental and physical health exam, Amit said, then pass shooting exams and courses at a licensed gun range, as well as background checks by the Public Security Ministry.

Once they order their firearm from a gun store, they are allowed to take it home with a one-time supply of 50 bullets, which Amit said they cannot renew.

The gun owner must retake his license exam and testing at the gun range every three years. As of January, Amit said, a new law will go into effect requiring gun owners to prove that they have a safe at home to keep their weapon in.

Amit said that since 1996, not long after the Rabin assassination, there has been a continuous reduction in the amount of weapons in public hands due larger to stricter regulations. He estimated there are about 170,000 privately-owned firearms in Israel, or enough for around one out of every 50 Israelis, far less per capita than the US, where there are an estimated more than 300 million privately owned guns for a population of a little more than 300 million.

Amit also said there are only approximately 2,500 people in the country who have gun licenses for hunting, and they must first get approval from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Aside from Israel’s strict gun laws, reasons for the lack of mass shootings can be attributed to the country’s closely knit family structure, small size and intimacy and informality between strangers or the universal health care which makes mental health services available for all.

In the diaspora, Jewish groups predominantly line up on the side of strict gun control:

After Newtown, Jews Lead Renewed Push on Guns
Nathan Guttman December 23, 2012

Jewish organizations pride themselves on gun control stances that date back to the early days of the debate, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and of President Kennedy. Most played a supportive role in passing legislation then limiting access to weapons, and have since reaffirmed their commitment to reducing the availability of guns.
One reason for broad Jewish support of gun control, Mariaschin said, has to do with the community’s sense of security, “which perhaps leads us to feel that the possession of assault weapons is completely unneeded.”
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, former head of the Reform movement, listed in a recent Haaretz article several reasons for Jews siding with supporters of gun control: the community’s affiliation with the Democratic Party; the fact that Jews are urban people and detached from the culture of hunting or gun ownership, and suspicion toward the NRA, which is “associated in the minds of many Jews with extremist positions that frighten Jews and from which they instinctively recoil.”

The Jews I know are mainly Orthodox Jews (many of whom agree with the late Meir Kahane’s slogan, “Every Jew, a 22!”). They mainly vote Republican. They don’t want Muslim immigration, they don’t want Mexican immigration, they don’t care about civil rights, they don’t care about blacks, and they largely support law enforcement, widespread gun ownership and strong neighborhood watch programs.

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Forward: Why We Shouldn’t Accept Rabbis Who Marry Non-Jews

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

This seems like an excellent strategy for all peoples who want to preserve themselves, including whites. Can you imagine the uproar if whites published these sentiments about preserving their own group?

Jane Eisner writes:

At some point, however, inclusion leads to diminishment. At some critical point, boundaries become so porous that they no longer function as boundaries, and standards become so vacuous that they lose all meaning. This decision brings the Reconstructionist movement to that point, and to the degree that it places pressure on other denominations — and history suggests that it will — then it risks damaging our religious, moral and spiritual leadership at a time when we need it the most.

Here are some of the comments to this article on the Forward.com:

* This, to me, is a mistake. The deep, new reality of the moment we are in is one in which people inhabit multiple identifies and boundaries at the same time. I am Jewish, and also someone who meditates taking from Eastern religions, who works in an interfaith context, has a Christian mother / Jewish father, and who could theoretically choose to be any religion, actually — but more likely is that I’m going to choose to be multiple things at once in order to piece together a full spiritual life.

Jewish leadership, in this age, is about showing how living a good life is deeply possible within a Jewish framework. Checking membership cards for Rabbis or whomever feels a little silly when we are faced with a crisis of meaning and an age of radical choice (unlike any other context in Jewish history).

I would also say that I know intimately what it feels like to be INCLUDED by decisions like this — rather than excluded, as I have been in different contexts over the years. And wow, a welcoming and invitational approach really shifts how I am able to show up in whatever context. Duh. But stuff like this isn’t an abstract theological discussion, but involving real people and real moral opportunities and tests.

I just wish we’d spend less time policing the boundaries of who is a Jew, and more investigating and learning and publicizing what makes our community’s ethical monotheism so critical as a spiritual technology for this age.

* Indeed you have chosen to be “any religion.” To you this blending of cultures, traditions, rituals and spiritual practices is wonderful.
It may be just peachy for you, but it is not Judaism. It may be personally enriching to you, but while you take from your “multiple identities” It sounds like do not accept the responsibility that comes from living a committed life that builds up those traditions.
You can take what you want and leave the parts that are too challenging, annoying, boring, or whatever because when you do not commit to a religious community, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever, no one can make demands of you or expect anything from you. You are precisely the predictable outcome of RRC’s decision, people of partially Jewish descent
who are not committed to the wellbeing of Jewish life or the Jewish people or civilization. Your post supports the editor’s position by the case you make for syncretism and disconnection.

* Eisner is asking the impossible. She is asking Jews to remain universalists and full participants in diaspora society while remaining a people apart. This deeply misunderstands the fact that we are all temporal beings in a temporal world. Human beings and their contexts change. If we don’t understand that, and figure out a way to deal with that reality, then all the musar-ish lectures by Jane Eisner won’t accomplish a thing.

* How about this. I cannot marry you because our religion commands us to believe in one God, and not in strange gods. Love, unfortunately, cannot do away with this commandment.

If you do not believe in the Jewish religion, fine, marry whom you please. Those of us who regard our commitment at Sinai seriously, have a different answer. Good luck, best wishes, and do not close the door behind you.

* As a non-Jewish partner of an intermarried couple, I’m tired of hearing this discriminatory, fallacious, and short-sighted “argument.” I’m tired of putting up with the racist insult that I’m unworthy of Jews — and worse, the lie that my presence in the community is somehow an existential threat to the people I love.

I’ve been married to a Jew, learning about Judaism, co-creating a Jewish home, attending shul, and marching in the streets with Jews for social justice for ten years. I’ve always been committed to what many Jews tell me are “Jewish values.” My partner and I see eye-to-eye politically, ethically, and theologically about almost everything, and when we don’t, we argue. How Jewish is that?

So why not simply formalize what has already happened anyway in the most important ways and make my conversion to Judaism official?

Because the fact is, while I’m fully committed to living what could easily be defined
as a “Jewish” life, I simply do not identify as a Jew. My own background happens to be diverse, and I refuse to accept the fallacy that I have to renounce or ignore everything non-Jewish about my identity in order to exist among Jews without harming the Jewish community. Not only have I not harmed anyone, I’ve actually seen my perspective as a non-Jewish ally benefit some of the Jews in my life. As an outsider, I’ve asked unexpected questions about Judaism that have prompted us to analyze Jewish texts and rituals together in new ways. It seems like more rabbis should think more critically, carefully, and creatively about Jewish traditions and texts, asking new questions, and that if a non-Jewish partner can particularly assist in that effort, it should be welcomed and encouraged.

I’m not a Jew, but I’m proud to say that Judaism has become my home. I was lucky enough to have been welcomed by many thoughtful, confident Jews who agreed that it doesn’t matter that an Orthodox, male rabbi hasn’t muttered a few brachot over my head and given me a new name. Many progressive Jews will enthusiastically argue that there is no one “true” way to be a Jew, yet there are so many self-appointed gatekeepers. We strangers are here to remind you that “the stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” We’re here in love, friendship, and solidarity, and like it or not, we’re not leaving. I’m thrilled that the Reconstructionists have decided to join the proud tradition of iconoclastic Jews who have had the moral courage to reject racism and tear down walls.

* I am a resident of the U.S, here legally. I have never applied for citizenship. It is racist that I am not allowed to vote because some U.S. Federal District Court Judge has not muttered a few words over me.

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Is There Nothing That Elites Can’t Do?

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Luke Ford

If elites can convince much of the world to celebrate same-sex marriage, then is there nothing they can’t do in shifting basic moral values.

Does anyone seriously think that if elites were against same-sex marriage, we would have same-sex marriage?

Jews provide most of the funding for the Democrats, much of the funding for the Republicans, we dominate media and finance, and much of academia and law. We helpset the agenda in America. For instance, we got the country to provide Israel with over $100 billion in aid.

Traditional Judaism is 100% against gay marriage, but only about 12% of American Jews are Orthodox, and most of the rest of Jewry not to mind same-sex marriage.

Are there any significant differences in the same-sex marriage issue between Jewish elites and non-Jewish elites?

Jay Michaelson write for the Forward June 26, 2015:

One of the key points in today’s Supreme Court decision overturning state bans on same-sex marriage is that religious and civil marriage, like church and state, are separate.
And yet, the court’s opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, is itself prophetic in its tone. For the 80% of American Jews who support same-sex marriage, it is a clarion call to our better natures:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

This is profound spiritual writing, even if it is found in a secular Supreme Court opinion. It seems to understand the humanity of same-sex couples, and the historical import of this 5-4 decision.
In yet another of his childish, intemperate dissents, Justice Antonin Scalia called Kennedy’s language “a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic.” Scalia does have a point, if judicial opinions are meant to be dry, brittle, legalistic documents that never discuss the real lives they affect – like his very dissent.
But as many American Jews enter Pride Shabbat this week, we do so with a text that, while secular in nature, nonetheless takes the moral high ground.
Kennedy outlined four principles, in particular, which color marriage as a fundamental right.
First, “the nature of marriage,” Kennedy wrote, “is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.”
Second, perhaps echoing Genesis 2:18’s principle that it is not good for the human being alone, Kennedy wrote that “Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.”
“A third basis for protecting the right to marry,” Kennedy continued, “is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.” While this is usually a conservative talking point, Kennedy observed that “as all parties agree, many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted.”
Thus, “excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser.”
This is a neat, and truthful, inversion of the conservative claim that procreation is the essence of marriage. That is false, according to Genesis, Jewish law, and centuries of lived experience. Not only are many heterosexual marriages childless, happy, and complete, but as Justice Kennedy notes, many same-sex ones bring children into the world, via adoption, IVF, surrogacy, or other means.
Yes, such methods may not seem as “natural” as the birds and the bees. But then again, modern medicine isn’t “natural” either, yet we use it all the time to save and enrich our lives.
Fourth, Kennedy continued, “As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.”
These four principles – the values marriage promotes, its unique bond of companionship, its connection to child-rearing, and the imprimatur of the state – constitute the reasons, according to the Supreme Court, that marriage is a fundamental right, regardless of sexual orientation.

From JTA June 26, 2015:

(JTA) — How often do you get the opportunity to pack “109 years,” #LoveWins and the rainbow colors into 140 characters?
That’s how the American Jewish Committee celebrated the Supreme Court ruling Friday extending marriage rights to gays throughout the United States.
“For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty and human rights,” its tweet said. “Today is a happy day for that proud tradition ‪#LoveWins.” It was punctuated with a heart emoticon splashed orange, yellow, green blue and purple – the gay pride colors.

The contrast between an organization founded at the launch of the last century celebrating the rights embraced by Americans only at the launch of this one was emblematic of the glee with which much of the Jewish establishment reacted to the ruling.

The Anti-Defamation League, in its own tweet, left out its age (102) but also got in the hashtag, #LoveWins, and that funny little heart.

Thirteen Jewish groups, among them organizations representing the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative streams, were among the 25 joining the amicus brief the ADL filed in Obergefell v. Hodges.

The preeminence of Jewish groups among those backing the litigants was not a surprise. In recent decades, much of the Jewish establishment has embraced gay marriage as a right equivalent to the others it has advocated, including racial equality, religious freedoms and rights for women.

Multiple groups, in their statements, cited the passage in Genesis that states humans were created “in the image of God,” which has for decades been used by Jewish civil rights groups to explain their activism.

“Jewish tradition reminds us that we were all created equally, b’tzelem Elohim, in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27), and also shows us that marriage is a sacred responsibility, not only between the partners, but also between the couple and the larger community,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement.

Groups also were looking to next steps in advancing LGBT rights, including in the workplace.

“You can now legally marry in all 50 states and put your wedding on your desk and be fired and have no recourse in the federal courts,” Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, told JTA in an interview.

“We hope this will energize and inspire a bipartisan effort to end discrimination in the work place,” he said, specifying the “T” in LGBT – the transgendered. “People should not be discriminated in the workplace because of expression of gender.”

The notion that the decision would propel a broader debate about LGBT rights concerned the Orthodox Union, which in a carefully worded statement noted that it adhered to the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, but also recognized “that no religion has the right to dictate its beliefs to the entire body politic.”

The OU, like other more conservative religious groups, was wary of new liberties that could infringe on its ability to hire officials who hew to their belief systems.

“Will the laws implementing today’s ruling and other expansions of civil rights for LGBT Americans contain appropriate accommodations and exemptions for institutions and individuals who abide by religious teachings that limit their ability to support same-sex relationships?” the group said in its statement.

The OU did not file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case. Agudath Israel of America did, opposing the gay marriage side.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the consensus-driven public policy umbrella, recognized sensitivities on both sides in its statement.

“We call for sensitivity and civility in this debate, understanding that the vast majority on all sides are people of good will,” it said. “Adjusting to change is not always easy or swift.”

SCOTUS Marriage Equality

Sam Schulman writes in 2014:

In the mid-20th century, the American Jewish community distinguished itself for the zeal of its commitment to the cause of civil rights. Recently, American Jews have been no less zealous in behalf of another cause that many have likened to its predecessor. This is the movement to advocate, create, and legalize the institution of gay marriage.

Is that a surprise? That American Jews as individuals strongly support gay marriage should come as news to no one. What may be surprising is how much more avidly they support it than do non-Jewish Americans of the same socio-economic profile: educated, affluent, politically liberal. In 2010, the last time the Pew Research Center broke out separate opinion numbers for Jews, over three-quarters supported gay marriage, scoring eight points higher on this issue than liberals in general and 27 points higher than white mainline Protestants. Only the small group of avowed atheists believe more devoutly in gay marriage than do Jews. In a related datum, American Jewish attitudes toward homosexuality itself have long tracked markedly more positive than the attitudes of Americans in general.

Even measured against the standard of other Jewish enthusiasms, gay marriage is remarkable. In 2008, more of California’s Jews voted against Proposition 8, an anti-gay-marriage amendment, than voted for Barack Obama, who happened to be running for President on the same day. As early as 2000, the Reform movement, the largest Jewish religious denomination, authorized its rabbis, at their discretion, to “officiate at same-sex unions [of gay Jewish couples] through appropriate Jewish ritual.” The Conservative movement, the second largest denomination, has followed suit and in some respects, as we shall see, gone farther.

That an American Jew of any denomination, or of none, is significantly more likely to approve of gay marriage than are American liberals in general raises the question of whether there might be something peculiarly Jewish propelling this disposition: some element in American Jewish culture, or in the Jewish religious tradition, or in the Jewish soul or genotype.

From the Jerusalem Post June 28, 2015:

Lutheran pastor says Jews to blame for destroying Christian values after US approves gay marriage

The pastor insists that Jewish influence and money were being used to destroy Christian culture and values globally.

Mark Dankof, a Lutheran pastor and political activist, declared the Jews to blame for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday which declared any law to ban gay marriage unconstitutional.

Speaking to reporters from Iran’s Press TV, Dankof insisted that Jewish influence and money were being used to destroy Christian culture and values globally.

“It should not be ignored that the victories for abortion on demand and LGBT rights are reflective of the disproportionate influence of Jewish power, money, and activism in the United States,” he declared.

“The key Jewish role played in the mainstreaming of abortion, LGBT, and pornography in the United States may be documented in Google search, especially in looking at the Frankfurt School and its Institute for Social Research,” added Dankof.

Dankof declared that Russian President Vladamir Putin is one of few national leaders who recognize the threat of Jewish power.

“I believe Mr. Putin is a key ingredient in destroying this global threat, and restoring cultural integrity and national sovereignty to his country, and providing a model for defeating the Zionist agenda globally,” he concluded.

Regarding the article below, Ted writes: “Luke, the Jewish population in the US is dominated by European, Jews, who tend to be secular/non-observant and upper class professionals (maybe 60-70% of US Jews). By contrast, secular European Jews (non-Russian) make up around 30% of the Israeli population. This article (which I haven’t clicked on) compares two different populations.”

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