Transcription
Men used the image of female perfection to motivate themselves, and that's exactly right; that's precisely what they do. You see that in the story of Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer is about 12 years old, and he's still hanging around with his friends like Huck Finn. Then, a girl named Becky moves across the street, and when she comes out, he's struck by her for the first time in his life. Something's changed. The first thing he does is hop up on a picket fence to show off and balance in front of her, saying, "Well, look at me, look at me." He's like the male bowerbird building something beautiful so the female will approve of it. It's motivation, you know?
That's something that I think modern women don't really understand about men. They don't understand that, at least to the degree that males are uncorrupted and not better because of being rejected, they're doing everything they can to kneel before the eternal image of the feminine and try to make themselves worthy. That's the chivalry story, right? That's what you should encourage in your partner.
Out of chaos emerges this first form: the feminine form. It's partly the form that represents novelty as such. On one hand, it's promise; on the other hand, it's threat. You wouldn't believe it. I don't know because I don't understand the situation with women as well as I understand the situation with men, obviously being a man. But I don't know if women have any idea how paralyzing they are to especially young men. A large number of my clinical clients, as well as young men I've talked to in general, are absolutely terrified of women because they're terrified of being rejected. The terror exists in precise proportion to their attraction to the woman, which is a horrible paradoxical situation to be in.
It's often why men make such fools of themselves in front of women they're attracted to. First of all, they don't see the woman they're attracted to because what the hell do they know about her? They don't see her as an individual; they see her as the manifestation of a judgmental ideal. It's only in establishing a relationship with the actual woman that they can start differentiating between the judgmental ideal and the actual individual woman. That also requires a sacrifice: you can never have an ideal woman.
To have a relationship with any woman, you have to sacrifice the relationship with the ideal woman. You have to see the individual woman and separate her from the ideal. That's the same thing that happens to the hero in Sleeping Beauty. He sees the Evil Queen, who actually turns into the dragon of chaos, and it's not until he can defeat her that he can establish a relationship with the actual princess.
I had one of my clients who ran this men's group, which was quite interesting. One of the things they had the initiates do, which was very intelligent, was to go out and ask 50 women in one day for their phone numbers—politely, properly. It wasn't a stupid game; it was a game, but it wasn't a stupid game. The idea was to get over your fear of rejection. How do you do that? By encountering it continually and continually and continually so that you're no longer paralyzed by this.