I was stocking the storage room at my last day job. Head down, organizing some things on the lower shelf. Typical day.
I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that there was an entire shelf above my head, so I stood up, and banged my head hard on that metal shelf.
Pain filled me.
Chill, friendly Ben Foth vanished. I growled. My eyes focused sharply.
I was an animal, holding the tension, ready to channel it into killing, sinking my teeth and claws into something.
“Ow, that looked like it hurt!” My coworker gasped.
“I’m fine,” I said blankly.
I stood there, holding the pain, controlling it, embracing my rage and urge to kill until it subsided.
Then I became a man, a civilized human being again, and went right back to work.
This is far from the only time I’ve felt this way.
More recently, I was at a bar and pissed a guy off when he wrongfully thought I was trying to get with his girl. I got mad and potentially violent too, and allowed myself to feel it. I just left the guy alone, didn’t try to fight him or anything. Violence isn’t worth it. There’s nothing I could have gained from pouncing on him, except potentially an assault charge, a ban from the bar, and maybe an injury or three.
Instead, I held the tension. I accepted it for what it was, and let it dissolve.
I look back on moments like this with pride, dear reader. Moments when I get triggered or challenged, and this survival instinct of mine pops up and forces me to wrangle it.
This raw, animal energy makes you a man.
I’m NOT advocating for violence or fights or general pissiness, but you gentlemen need to understand this base nature of yours, or be blindsided by it.
We’ve all seen drunk guys with too much estrogen looking for a fight, and we’ve all seen guys blow up angrily over petty things while desperately pushing their emotions down instead of letting them flow. This isn’t masculinity. This is being a PUSSY with a weak understanding of the animal within.
If you really understand the animal within and your own masculinity on the deepest level, you know that your power as a man comes from being able to embrace and CONTROL this energy, not from simply feeling it.
We can call this “shadow work”, or what it is:
Getting acquainted with your dark sexual energy.
Right here is the “secret” to being effortlessly, unquestionably dominant as a man, and the “secret” to just as effortlessly being the “Alpha male” women want to have sex with, rather than the “Beta” they’re primarily with for resources and attention.
I’m not saying these “Beta” parts of you don’t matter. They do. Being a great man means exploring your Provider archetype, finding your place in society, and treating women with care and kindness. (being socially accepted and “in the crowd” sure helps too)
But even men who sleep around and play around tend to be numb to this lower nature of theirs, and to the extent they understand it, it’s pure theoretical evolutionary psychology that resonates with their Head, but not their Heart or their Sex.
So I’ll be the first to teach you about yours.
The Male Shadow
Men are violent by nature.
Our bodies are designed to overpower other men, women, nature, and the physical world. We’re built to bend the world to our will. A man in touch with his masculinity is potent, capable, sharp, and all sorts of platitudinal adjectives.
This isn’t some “all men are potential rapists/killers/tyrants” diatribe. Just because you have knives in your kitchen doesn’t mean you’ll be using them to stab people. Your heart’s in the right place.
Most men’s hearts are in the right place as well.
We don’t want to be killing, raping, or maiming anyone. We want to spend quality time with our brothers, cherish and adore our women, and do something with ourselves that improves the world and the lives of everyone around us.
But just like those knives in your kitchen drawer, a good man still has that dark, violent edge.
Every one of us men fantasizes about righteous violence. Stopping a robber at a restaurant. Fighting a mugger on the street and hurting him before he can lay a hand or a weapon on us. Being a warrior or a soldier in an ancient war. This is a natural instinct of ours. Men aren’t accidentally drawn to first-person shooter games, violent movies, and combat sports. The desire to fight other men and potentially kill them is hardwired within us.
Especially when it’s to protect innocent lives.
Especially when it’s to stop evil men from destroying society.
The archetypal narrative of a good strong man’s violent fantasies ISN’T “I’m just gonna kill everyone for the hell of it”
It’s more like:
“Evil violent man threatens to destroy what’s good and right, and only I can use my own masculine power to stop him. Also, a beautiful woman will fall in love with me for it and society may or may not revere me for it,” It’s cliche, but it’s catnip for men.
This instinct often manifests in more benign ways than being a robust defender of society, women, and children.
Do you remember getting rough with the other boys when you were a kid or a teen, at least until women stepped in and told you you were wrong for it?
You weren’t even trying to hurt them (unless they really pissed you off, I don’t know). Rather, your wrestling and playfighting was you boys exploring your capacity for CONTROLLED violence. You were teaching yourselves to sharpen a sword and sheathe it, not to madly wave it around.
I had a phase in high school where I tried to arm wrestle any guy who was down for it. Sometimes I’d win and my ego would love it, sometimes I’d lose and my ego would be crushed for it.
Back then, I’d get conscientiously violent with my male friends. We’d arm wrestle. We’d punch each other and see who could hit harder or take the most pain. We’d spar and brawl while pulling our punches. We’d explore each other’s physical “pain points” and see how much pressure we could take.
You might think you’ve grown out of this physical rough-and-tumble or this bravado, or that something’s wrong with you for it, but it’s not immature. It’s FOUNDATIONAL. If you’re missing it, you’re missing an essential part of being a man, an attractive and confident man.
If you don’t understand and appreciate this violent instinct of yours, you’ll be looking for violence in feminine, psychological ways – Internet arguments, talking shit about more successful men on Twitter, trying to sabotage other men because their success makes you feel worse about yourself, sleeping around with any half-attractive girl who’ll put out for you, getting sucked up in online or offline social drama, defining your masculinity by petty things like body language or the shape of your eyes…
Or being psychologically violent towards YOURSELF – being neurotic, self-loathing, and defeatist.
All that controlled, rough play you did as a kid and a teenager (at least I hope to FUCK you had it) was Nature PREPARING YOU for being a man amongst men. For CHANNELING and INTEGRATING this violent instinct, not ignoring it or being possessed solely by it. You were being prepared for your basic duties as a man – protection, provision, and procreation. (Or as I prefer to put it, fitness, finances, and fucking)
(I bet there’s a masculinity platitude Twitter account out there called “A Man Amongst Men” that tweets shit like “omg guys did you know that feminine women are attracted to MASCULINE MEN, not to weak feminine soy nice guys ???”)
So if you’re not in touch with your capacity for controlled violence, you’ll always be missing a certain masculine “je ne sais quoi”. You have no excuse not to discover it, or else you’re doomed for a life of mediocrity and fucking 7s at best. Join a fighting gym and let yourself get hit. Next time someone crosses your boundaries, embrace and control your anger (but don’t chimp out on them). Meditate on the part of yourself that’s closer to Nature than to God or Society.
And understand how your violent side comes out around women.
How women feel about violent men
Women don’t consciously understand this instinct in men, but they go tingly for it.
There’s a reason imprisoned serial killers and true crime podcasts get so much female attention. There’s a reason series like Supernatural and Twilight have almost entirely a female fanbase. There’s a reason female romance novels always star a rugged, muscular “bad boy” type of guy, and not some skinnyfat workhorse office drone. All of these appeal to women’s fantasy of men capable of violence, righteous or not, which they consciously rationalize as “oh, he’s just hot”.
There’s a reason athletes, especially football players, are stereotyped as the guys who get the hottest girls in high school and college. These guys are exploring their body’s capacity to dominate the environment, and their violent, conquering instinct in controlled, productive, socially accepted ways.
Aaaaaand there’s a reason my results with the ladies transformed and became far more predictable when I decided to rely less on “game”, and more on this dark sexual energy.
When I was a “game” guy running routines and strategies and shit, my dating life was “maybe” girl after “maybe” girl. I could get a girl’s attention quickly, but I could just as easily blow it and lose her over certain missteps. These tactics and positionings got me some notches, but it wasn’t fulfilling. I still didn’t feel in control of the game.
I knew other guys who’d be effortlessly dominant, who had unbreakable frames, who’d turn girls on just existing around them. What was their secret? I wanted that power for myself, but no game I ever pulled gave me it.
Until I rediscovered my animal within.
If I was attracted to a girl, if she was viscerally turning me on, I’d just pounce on her. Go as far as I could with her while respecting her boundaries and being aware of nonverbal consent or lack thereof.
I’d rely less on canned stories, dad jokes, puns, displaying my value, and social proof to attract a girl… And more on surrendering to my animal instinct around her.
Girls would either be turned on quickly and want to sleep with me quickly, or they’d get scared of my intensity and their own feminine shadow, and blow me out quickly. (often both, interestingly enough)
Which is why you need to INTEGRATE this energy, not rely purely on it. As much as it may scare you if you’re unfamiliar with it, imagine what a girl who isn’t used to it will think of it.
You should still know game, have social awareness and status, make the girl feel comfortable and secure and listened to, leverage social proof and your archetype in your favor… And understand that a little sprinkling of this raw animal energy goes a long way. Give her just a sip, but don’t drown her in it till you’re in the sheets together.
I guarantee she’ll feel SOMETHING about you is different and more attractive compared to what the other guys have to offer her, but she won’t entirely know what it is, turned on as she will be 😉
So why are women helpless against being turned on by men who’ve integrated their violent instinct?
Simple answer:
These men can keep women and children SAFE FROM HARM.
For the same reason we men fantasize about being capable of violence against evil, women are turned on by HAVING a man who can defend them and their children from anyone who seeks to take them or hurt them.
Without this safety, women distance themselves from their femininity. They harden up to survive and ward away threats. Understand where women are coming from when they close themselves off to masculine energy and refuse to trust it. Yes, they want you to be uninhibited and dominant with them, but only when you trust each other and you’re attentive to her needs, not just using her to gratify your own.
Women want to BOND with a worthy man, not be used by him. Huge difference between those two feelings. Women can viscerally tell when you’re selfishly lusting after them vs when you deeply DESIRE them.
Women don’t want you to be violent towards them, obviously. Any woman who’s attracted to men who’ll harm and abuse her is BROKEN and is better left alone. A healthy woman who feels you could harm her won’t be turned on by the thought of you hurting her, she’ll be scared and uncomfortable.
Rather, she’s turned on by the feeling of you knowing this energy and controlling it. Transmuting it into love for her, not violence. Women want to be taken and sexually overpowered, but LOVINGLY, only by men they’ve opened their hearts to. Only by a man who’s deeply possessed by his desire and Love for his woman.
Your capacity for violence and your capacity for love and ravishment come from the same well of energy.
You can only love a woman to the degree that you can conquer the physical and spiritual realms. Otherwise, any “attraction” you feel towards the gals will be borne from ungratified emotional needs, not from possession. And it’ll obviously give you a shitshow of a dating life.
You also can’t trust men who haven’t integrated their violent nature.
There’s nothing morally righteous about being weak and harmless and unchallenging. Congratulations, you occupy space and have feelings like all the rest of us. Being capable of destruction is a good thing. It makes you confident and capable of standing for what’s right.
A man who can’t defend himself will always follow authority if it means his own survival. He’ll sell you out if it means protecting himself physically or socially, even if it means surrendering to evil. He would rather be safe and subservient than fight and you know, be a man. I’ve seen this time and time again, and have been sold out by at least a couple “guys” who’ve just wanted to keep the peace instead of rocking the boat, while I stood for what was right and true, and let myself be disliked for it. I wish them a pleasant time burning in Hell.
Now let’s talk about the female shadow.
Men unconsciously rank themselves by who can cause the most physical destruction. Women unconsciously rank themselves by who can cause the most social destruction, by which women can most easily influence men and the world through their beauty.
How men feel about violent women
A woman who’s in touch with her femininity understands the value of her Sex. It’s priceless. Men want it. Society craves it.
And she can either be responsible for it, or wield it foolishly.
She can be open and radiant, Love and Sex itself, an emissary of Nature’s wisdom…
Or she can be an attention whore, seeking cheap connection, ego-victories, and mass-attention instead of giving herself to a worthy man.
Just like a man’s potency, a woman’s beauty and fertility is also a destructive force, when she wields it as a weapon.
She knows people, both men and women, want to take her and own her for her beauty, and her power comes from opening and closing herself to this possession. Deciding which man gets to have her and which ones don’t. Deciding which authority to follow, and which one not to. She doesn’t directly attack people, rather she subtly plays them against each other, superficially absolving herself of any responsibility while pulling strings behind the curtain.
And she can only love YOU to the degree that she’s aware her capacity for Love and chaos come from the same well of energy in her. Otherwise, her attraction to YOU will be made of her unmet emotional needs needing soothing, not this raw animal energy.
When you were a teenager, you may have been exploring your capacity for controlled physical violence with the boys. But guess what your girl was doing. She was exploring her capacity for controlled social violence with the girls. She was gossiping, encountering drama, following the trends, judging which guys had IT and were worthy of bonding to vs which ones didn’t make the cut, exploring her foundational femininity and her capacity to open and close herself to Masculinity.
If you think MEN are vicious towards each other, you haven’t seen women’s world. You will likely never have the capacity to socially destroy someone that a woman does, just like a woman who’s not on steroids won’t have your capacity to physically destroy someone.
Girls don’t fight with their fists. They fight with their frames, with their social value. A fight between two girls happens through glances, looks, chats behind the other girl’s back. No one practices character assassination quite like an immature girl does.
(If you want a movie recommendation to better understand the immature female shadow, I recommend none other than the cinematic masterpiece known as Mean Girls. It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, and not just for the humor and the memorable lines)
Like it or not, we men are attracted to women’s storms and chaos. We’re attracted to women’s capacity for social violence. But if we’re healthy, only when they transmute it into Love for us. 😉
A perpetually gossipy, critical, neurotic woman will strongly attract a weak, critical, neurotic man, but if we respect ourselves, we don’t want women being socially violent towards us. We’ll leave a dumb woman like that in a heartbeat.
Rather, we want women to use their social power to lift us up and protect us SPIRITUALLY. Receiving a woman’s sexual energy inspires our own sexual energy and perceived social value to grow, it inspires us to cherish and protect her, to give her our energy so she can make it more of her own. This is how the sexualities become each other.
Nothing revitalizes us and gives us the motivation to fight another day quite like a woman’s radiance transformed from our masculine energy, viscerally knowing Nature has decided to open itself to us and let our genes stay alive. If a beautiful woman thinks we’re valuable enough to have sex with, we’re alive. We’re on fire. Nothing’s gonna stand in our way.
Then she closes herself to us and we’re defeated.
Nothing crushes men’s spirit quite like being denied sex. Feeling so useless that Nature closes itself off to us, tells us we aren’t worthy of continued existence. At the very worst, this propels men towards rape and violence, trying to forcibly TAKE the world’s energy instead of cultivating their own.. Yet the average sexually frustrated guy would rather let it out into porn, alcohol, drugs, chasing cheap sex, and fantasy escapism.
At best, he’ll cultivate a “player” image and maintain transactional sexual relationships with girls to show everyone (including himself) that LOOK EVERYONE, THIS IS A SEXUALLY VALUABLE GUY WHO GETS LAID RIGHT HERE… While he and his girls are truly playing each other, acting out fantasies, and the deep animal passion just ain’t there.
(yes, I’ve been both the sexually frustrated needy nice guy and the sexually frustrated “confident” player who BSes his way through the dating world. both these lifestyles SUCK)
If that’s you, you don’t have to be that guy.
You can rediscover your animal side, and integrate it alongside your looks, your game, your lifestyle, and your individual personality and all its quirks.
Getting high-quality women who are acquainted with their own deep femininity will be as natural as breathing.
So why not come see a guy who’s done the work of integration, who’s had the trial-and-error, and can pinpoint exactly where you’re going wrong with the ladies, whether it’s a sexual issue, a social issue, or a spiritual issue?
When you’re ready to be a gentleman, a savage, a ray of sunshine, and my next client success story…
– Ben
