The generals are scum

Sheila Tone asks, "Not a word of analysis about the cheating husbands, eh?"

My analysis is that these generals are scum.

Comments

[Bernie]

"My analysis is that these generals are scum."

Really? For simply having an affair?

[Kiwiguy]

Although not unusual as Steven Pinker observes:

"Most human drives have ancient Darwinian rationales. Fear of heights kept our ancestors from plunging off cliffs; a taste for sweets kept their bodies fueled. Sexual desire is no different. A prehistoric man who slept with fifty women could have sired fifty children, and would have been more likely to have had descendants, who inherited his tastes. A woman who slept with fifty men would have had no more descendants than a woman who slept with one. In the Darwinian game, men should seek quantity in sexual partners, women quality: a source of protection, resources, and good genes for her children.

Indeed, in all societies known to ethnography, it is the males who seduce, proposition, hire prostitutes, and accumulate spouses. In our society, most young men tell researchers they are seeking one-night stands; most women say they are not. Men say they would like eight sexual partners in the following two years; woman say they would like one. The average man says he would probably sleep with a woman he had known for a week; the average woman says she would probably sleep with a man only if she had known him for a year. On several college campuses, researchers have hired attractive assistants to approach students of the opposite sex and proposition them out of the blue. What proportion say "yes"? Of the women, 0%; of the men, 75%. (Many of the rest ask for a raincheck.)

But if politicians and celebrities have standard-issue male libidos, why do they seem to have so much more trouble controlling them than the average Joe? One reason is that for the average Joe, the issue is moot: he won't find eight women willing to sleep with him in the following two years, and he never has to worry about attractive women propositioning him out of the blue. Only in special circumstances are sexual partners freely available, and only then will male desire yield ridiculous numbers. Imperial despots, who could get anything they wanted, kept harems of hundreds of women. Gay men, who don't have to compromise their desires with womens', sometimes find hundreds or thousands of partners. So can a contemporary heteresexual men if he is sufficiently rich, handsome, and powerful. Kissinger has been proven right about women. A survey of thirty-seven countries found that women virtually everywhere say they want wealthy, high-status, and older partners; surveys of personal ads tell the same story. That is why homely rock stars and octogenarian oil barons can marry gorgeous supermodels, and it is why powerful male politicians may face temptations that most of their consituents do not.

There may be another reason that political leaders are different. Incredible as it may sometimes seem, the male brain houses more than a sex drive. The human mind is a committee. The libido must contend with a mind's eye that simulates the consequences of different acts, an oddsmaker that reckons their likelihood, and a conscience that represents the interests of other people. Usually the libido gets shouted down before it can push the buttons of behavior, and if men commit adultery it is only in their hearts. But in some men, the internal debate may have a different winner. Anyone who has what it takes to rise to the top of a cutthroat profession -- say, getting re-elected president -- is likely to be a risk-taker, a strategist, and a moral utilitarian who reasons that if no one finds out, no harm has been done. And such men, of course, also have the power to skew the odds in their favor. But probabilities are probabilities, and luck can run out.

So are leaders and celebrities more concupiscent than the average man? Perhaps fortunately for the average man, he will never be in a position to find out."

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1998_02_09_newyorker.html

[James McKeane]

"My analysis is that these generals are scum"

...as opposed to who, exactly? The politicians? The Democrats? Don't you DARE say Republicans because we've all been down THAT road.

[chucho]

These generals deserve our condemnation for violating the Code of Conduct with their acts of adultery. If they had only engaged in homosexual acts they'd be in the clear.

[S_McCoy]

"Really? For simply having an affair?"

Is this snark?

[GNT]

puh-lease. cheating men have been analyzed out the ass. it''s time to focus on the (many, many, many) faults of the ladies for a couple decades now.

[Conquistador]

Half Sigma is shamelessly pandering to his female readers. In his human instincts post he specifically says men work to reach top dog status for sexual purposes. Now he does a 180 and claims the generals are scum. While I also frown on their behavior (monogamy is important to maintain for civilization) cheating as a male doesn't make someone scum. In fact women actually like a man who cheats. They crave a man with options. At no point did Petraeus' infidelity with Broadwell spark outrage in fact she tried to fight off rival females as she was even more captivated.

[Sanjuro]

"Really? For simply having an affair?"

They are scum for punishing their subordinates (adultery is an offense under the UCMJ) who may have behaved as these officers did, while indulging in the very same forbidden fruit themselves. To say nothing of wasting time composing endless emails which distracted them from their mission (such lapses get people killed).

[Comrade]

Add one more general to the pile:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-top-general-demoted-because-after-questions-about-his-expenses-20121113,0,2021373.story

In other news, Mitt Romney reveals he is Captain Obvious:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-donors-20121115,0,1719033.story

[Sheila Tone]

Well then. Carry on.

[Prophet]

Eh, these Generals aren't scum. They are just men. They can be tempted just like any other man. It's these sluts WHO ARE MARRIED who should be ashamed.

Why are married women throwing themselves at these Generals?

[George]

The generals also wrote some dubious letters for a child custody dispute.
www.nypost.com/p/news/national/battle_john_allen_also_helped_jill_YjkEYUNY2INC4smBMEYqUI

[JP]

"Not a word of analysis about the cheating husbands, eh?"

Women created the system in which they can dump a man at a moment's notice for supposed failures to meet their emotional needs. Thus women are in no position to complain if and when a man dumps them for failing to meet his physical needs.

Women insisted on the "right" to serve in the military. Thus they are in no position to complain when male officers take advantage of the opportunities that the presence of women creates.

[S_McCoy]

Romney reveals himeslf yet again as the ass he is, couldn't possible be that people just didn't like him, didn't believe him, the only reason is because they want free stuff.

[asdf]

As I read more about this its obvious it was not just sex. In created lots of drama and influenced and distracted top officials. Also, Patreus supporting the sisters bogus custody claim was terrible and an example of his bad character.

More and more its coming out that he's more of a beauracrat then a general. And I don't follow this Benghzai stuff but it sounds like there is a lot of dirt there.

[chesswife]

"Half Sigma is shamelessly pandering to his female readers."

To do that, he'd need a purple background with butterfly borders, plus coupon and recipe corners.

[Melykin]

Conquistidor wrote:
" In fact women actually like a man who cheats. They crave a man with options. At no point did Petraeus' infidelity with Broadwell spark outrage in fact she tried to fight off rival females as she was even more captivated."

---------------------------

Why would Broadwell be outraged that Petraeus was cheating? She was cheating herself. Most woman certainly do NOT like a partner who cheats any more than most men do.

I doubt either women was attracted to Petraeus physically. He is hardly what you would call good looking (is that a cheap hair piece he wears?). The woman are gold-diggers or just crazy.

[Ian]

[They are just men. They can be tempted just like any other man.]

They broke their word concerning their marriage vows, and also concerning military standards of conduct. A military man without honor is not a trustworthy military man.

Also, these two guys (like many modern senior military leaders) strike me as bureaucrats, toadies, and masters of politics more than any sort of old school blood n guts type army men.

We still have navy destroyers named after John Paul Jones, David Farragut, George Dewey, and Bill Halsey (admirals who won bloody battles), but our supercarriers are fifteen times as big, and all but one of them are all named for presidents and congresscritters.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

This story has it all. What's publicly known is already enough to fuel several months worth of blog material. It has sexual degeneracy, proles, government coverup, terrorism, and everything in between.

This situation will get kinkier. It will get kinkier and we'll be lucky to live through it.

[Turambar]

"My analysis is that these generals are scum. "

I am not sure what is going on with the Allen but in Petraeus's case this is a misanalysed.

Petraeus has been married for 38 years- pretty damn good in today's world. His wife has decided to settle into life as a dowdy, toaster cozy knitting mesomorph. Their children are grown and on to their own careers.

Meanwhile Petraeus is a hard charging marathon runner who is sharp mentally and physically. And he is running shit in CENTCOM. And he is in the field for months at a time.

In walks a hot to trot little strumpet writing a biography and telling him how great he is. Could he be her mentor? Squee! Flattery, flattery. And who wouldn't want to look at a shapely piece of ass in the desert? Do we really expect a high testosterone conquering hero to also be celibate? Boo to Richard the Lionhearted for a little slap and tickle after a long campaign of putting Musulmen to the sword.

I think the real question is not not a word of analysis about these women!

Newly married, two children under 5 and she takes off across the world to "suck up to" another man. Its not enough that her doctor husband is taking care of her two young children, she has to abandon the family for weeks at a time and make a play for a guy old enough to be her father. Then she ruins the guys career and reputation in some crazy email stalking campaign against another woman.

Just another in the line of Hunter Reilies and Penelope Trunks.

Any taut, over-trained American woman is most likely nuts.

Which is why HS should be looking for his bride overseas, or having some bubbie recommend a nice girl.

[HS: Russian women give me the impression of being even bigger gold diggers than American women.]

[ATC]

A guy who marries young and lets whatever game he might have had as a youngster wither away will have notso savvy judgement in women if years later his SMV rises to the point, as it did with Petraeus, where he starts getting approaches.

Another problem for these guys is that in the social media era, finding a non-attention-seeking mistress is harder than it used to be. In other words, Don't Get Married, Exhibit 9,999.

[CUELA]

" A military man without honor is not a trustworthy military man."

You don't know many military men do you?

[CH]

HS:
"Russian women give me the impression of being even bigger gold diggers than American women"

they are, unless you go ukrainian or crimean. tartar girls are just as hot as moscovians, minus the naked avarice. anyhow, golddiggerism can be easily neutralized with the proper application of game concepts dealing specifically with it. i've known quite a few hipster layabouts string along golddiggers on the power of their aloof charm alone.

[CH]

""Half Sigma is shamelessly pandering to his female readers."

To do that, he'd need a purple background with butterfly borders, plus coupon and recipe corners."

and an amen chorus.

[Kurtosis]

"Any taut, over-trained American woman is most likely nuts"

This is the comment of the thread.

[JP]

"Russian women give me the impression of being even bigger gold diggers than American women."

But I don't think they expect to have big, exciting careers *as well as* being well taken care of at home.

[Turambar]

[HS: Russian women give me the impression of being even bigger gold diggers than American women.]

Whats wrong with a wife wanting security? Thats totally different than this hussy abandoning her young children and sabotaging her lover's reputation.

You make a beautiful dollar. You should be able to attract some nice kibbutz girl who is appreciative of your ability to put cabbage on the table. Perhaps not in her first youth, but she wont have Feministing or Jezebel bookmarked.

You can teach her about oil futures and f-stops. This drove hits for Althouse- it can work for you.

[jay]

"A prehistoric man who slept with fifty women could have sired fifty children, and would have been more likely to have had descendants, who inherited his tastes."

This is ridiculous. What's the quality of the 50 women? If you have a child by a prehistoric slut who is the kind to leave a kid in a heated car...? It's stuff like this that make enemies of HBD guffaw and say its garbage. (I'm thinking of people like Auster.)

I do think that men are more promiscuous than women, and are probably hard-wired to focus on one woman for about 7 optimal years, sire two or three healthy kids, and then move on. They don't abandon the first wife, they keep her around out of loyalty, and to raise the children, and then take a second wife...and a third, if there is time.

I think that's the basic male HBD evolution-ordained template.

This whole business about screwing around promiscuously is modern trash.

[Peter]

It's a nearly 100% guarantee that all four women are hairless. The only possible exception is Petraeus' wife, and that's a longshot.

[chesswife]

I'm surprised proponents of HBD would even imply that humans are naturally monogamous when all evidence points to the contrary. I think it's something like 2% of all animals that are truly monogamous. Even bird species once thought to be monogamous are now known to cheat (like the sterilized blackbirds whose mates kept hatching eggs). Females tend to cheat with males further up the pecking order than their mates, which appears to be exactly what happened here. In fact Broadwell felt so threatened when her alpha catch looked elsewhere that she reverted to predatory behavior. It's like an episode of "Wild Kingdom!"

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Does anyone else think Broadwell looks like Lilith from Frasier and Cheers?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"They don't abandon the first wife, they keep her around out of loyalty, and to raise the children, and then take a second wife...and a third, if there is time."

The French and Southern Europeans have got the right idea: let the alpha man cheat on the aging wife but don't make a scene over it and be sure to remain married to make sure the kids don't end up sniffing glue.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"[HS: Russian women give me the impression of being even bigger gold diggers than American women.]"

I've found Balkan Slavic women, especially Croats, to be very striking with their pale white skin contrasted against jet black hair and delicate facial features. Unfortunately they seem more like American and Western European women in terms of bitchiness.

[Chic Noir]

Trumbar "What's wrong with a wife wanting sercurity"

Exactly , American men don't want to do their part anymore.

@Half Sigma- I think I met you a few months ago :)

[Chic Noir]

The undiscovered Jew

Well if you watch French cinema and read books about French women and culture, the adultery goes both ways. The French look at cheating as spicing up your life.

I can't tell you how many movies I've seen with French women dating or "having fun" with a younger man.

When I visited Paris

[Conquistador]

"Why would Broadwell be outraged that Petraeus was cheating? She was cheating herself. Most woman certainly do NOT like a partner who cheats any more than most men do." - Melykin

On the contrary women are selfish and don't care about principals or consistency. They also crave a man desired by other women but somehow only commits to them. It's female status.

"I doubt either women was attracted to Petraeus physically. He is hardly what you would call good looking (is that a cheap hair piece he wears?). The woman are gold-diggers or just crazy."

For someone his age Petraeus looks good. Most men over 30 are toads, balding, or in dead end careers, often all of the above.

[Peter]

"On several college campuses, researchers have hired attractive assistants to approach students of the opposite sex and proposition them out of the blue. What proportion say "yes"? Of the women, 0%; of the men, 75%. (Many of the rest ask for a raincheck.)"

I call b.s. on that "research." If a woman comes up to a man and offers to have sex with him, almost any man is going to think that (a) she's a hooker, or (b) she's completely insane, or (c) that it's some sort of robbery or extortion trap.

[destructure]

Sheila Tone asks, "Not a word of analysis about the cheating husbands, eh?"

What's to analyze? If a woman can have an abortion then a man can have an affair. It's no ones business what a man does with his own body. :)

[lil mike]

"i've known quite a few hipster layabouts string along golddiggers on the power of their aloof charm alone."

Heh. We either know the same people or unambitious hipsters stringing along gold diggers is more common than I thought.

[nebbish]

"You make a beautiful dollar. You should be able to attract some nice kibbutz girl"

I think it's a few decades too late for that. The kibbutzim have been in decline for years. And in the interval, feminism has made its way to Israel. Eh, Jewish women age poorly anyway, and I would bet all that sun exposure doesn't help the Israeli ones.

[destructure]

"This whole business about screwing around promiscuously is modern trash." -- jay

You can thank abortion and birth control for that. It allows women to spread their legs without consequences. And then they have the nerve to bitch about men having affairs? Yeah, well, "reproductive rights" is what normalized promiscuity.

[Brass]

I doubt either women was attracted to Petraeus physically. He is hardly what you would call good looking (is that a cheap hair piece he wears?)."

What does he wear? Get a clue.

[Anonymouse]

"You can thank abortion and birth control for that. It allows women to spread their legs without consequences. And then they have the nerve to bitch about men having affairs? Yeah, well, "reproductive rights" is what normalized promiscuity."

Some people in the HBDsphere complain about birth control/abortion all the time, but the truth is unless we start voluntarily eschew modern medicine to shorten our life spans, uncontrolled fertility results in overpopulation and misery.

It is not birth control or abortion that leads to promiscuity. It is the lack of social shame.

[not too late]

Pay no attention to whatever Obama is doing.

Look! Over there! A slut and a general!

Oooh, girl! Oooh, Oooh!

[destructure]

"but the truth is unless we start voluntarily eschew modern medicine to shorten our life spans, uncontrolled fertility results in overpopulation and misery." -- Anonymouse

There's no point in restricting one's own fertility until immigration is restricted. The country will still end up overpopulated but we will be dispossessed as well. Until immigration is restricted, restricting one's own fertility for the sake of "over-crowding" is both pointless and foolish.

"It is not birth control or abortion that leads to promiscuity. It is the lack of social shame. " -- Anonymouse

It's both. Birth control led to sex without consequences. Sex without consequences led to more promiscuity. More promiscuity led to less shame and the normalization of promiscuity.

[Laguna Beach Fogey]

'Scum'?

Nah. You're just jealous.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"The kibbutzim have been in decline for years. And in the interval, feminism has made its way to Israel. Eh, Jewish women age poorly anyway, and I would bet all that sun exposure doesn't help the Israeli ones.

Posted by: nebbish | November 15, 2012 at 11:00 PM"

I also recommend Sigma go wife hunting in Eastern Europe.

[Randall Parker]

High status guy hasn't aged as much as his wife. Younger, bright, attractive woman wants him and he takes her. How does that make him scum? Seems to me that just makes him someone who follows his instincts.

Really, what should we expect from Generals when they are dealing with a woman who is no longer an officer? Marital fidelity? Why? To set an example to who exactly? The horses have left the barn already. Want to defend the old order? Then say so and lay out why. Generals living highly principled and restrained sex lives will not prevent the continued decline of the Republic. We approach the Rubicon.

Conquistador is right about logical consistency and how the lack thereof is par for the course. We are discussing females after all.

[Insight]

"What's the quality of the 50 women? If you have a child by a prehistoric slut who is the kind to leave a kid in a heated car...?"

It really doesn't matter as long as some of them survive, and even if they don't, you can always knock up 50 more cave women.

Ignoring the relative cost between sperm and eggs does not make sense at all.

[nebbish]

TUJ,

Eastern European women may be attractive, but they tend to be gold diggers and don't like Jews. HS might as well skip the women, save his money and retire early.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Eastern European women may be attractive, but they tend to be gold diggers"

So what? Sigma can marry one who isn't.

"and don't like Jews."

The intermarriage rate for Jews in Eastern Europe is at least as high as the US. So while anti-Semitism may be more common in Eastern Europe there clearly must be gentile women over there who are willing to marry Jews. And if a prole Jew in Eastern Europe can intermarry, why shouldn't Sigma get a piece of the action?

"HS might as well skip the women, save his money and retire early."

Although men can postpone marriage till their 40s and maybe 50s, dying alone with no children or wife is no fun. Middle age is probably a good time for Sigma to cash in on his marriage potential and raise a family by getting hitched to a nice Eastern European babe.

And besides, if Sigma has kids he'll new blog material to entertain us with as he tries struggles to teach his children how to become elite Goldman executives and reads them excerpts of the bell curve to them at night.