Little Deaths is a horror film that is really 3 short flicks. The first one is a typical vampire short and the second one involves Nazis. The third one is a peculiar short simply called “Bitch.” In thirty minutes, it shows a relationship between a beta, his domineering woman and its ultimate demise. It showcases the most horrific – and beta – act a man can commit: murdering his woman.
Overview Of The Movie
The movie features only two people of importance: Pete – a bartender – and Claire – a receptionist. The short opens up with her coming home and demanding that he make her a meal. He refuses and she tosses the food he was eating on the ground. She apologizes and says she will make it up to him – by going “to the room.” When he suggests the bedroom, she refuses. Later on, we see what the room is. After a night at a bar, where Claire clearly has eyes for the leader singer of the band playing, she tells Pete he would be better off going home. He refuses, but relents eventually, because he knows she will do what she always does – cheat on him.
That night she does not come home and he is the “room.” The room is a doghouse he sleeps in lieu of sleeping in the bedroom with her. They have relations that involve him placing on a dog mask and she pegs him -penetrating his ass with a strap-on. However, tensions are rising in the relationship with Pete becoming unsatisfied with it. One day at work, she comes in to his bar and she refuses to give him money, as she controls the purse-strings. He gets angry, gets in her face and tells her if she doe not give him the money he will smash her face till she bleeds to death. They go back home and for the first time they have actual heterosexual sex. However, Pete is a serious premature ejaculator and orgasms after a few seconds. She sighs – she grabs a dildo, with him lying next to her, and does herself. He pesters her and she ignores him. The camera slowly zooms in on him, as this is the beginning of the splitting for Pete.
The next day, we find out she has a deep fear of dogs and needs to be consoled after confronting one. Regardless, the climax is that night when a friend of Pete’s friend comes over for a drink and Claire is shamelessly flirting with him in front of Pete. The friend responds positively to her flirtations and they decide to hook up – while in front of Pete. He mistakenly assumed it will be a devil’s three-way; Claire intones Pete isn’t part of this. Those two retire to the bedroom and Pete tosses on his dog mask and saunters in on all fours. He sees first hand his woman getting fucked – they way he could not. He runs back to his doghouse and starts to sob. In this moment, he splits completely.
He rents a local garage and begins to purchase dogs, feed and lots of beef. He goes back to the apartment and begins to ignore her outright. He marches into the room and begins to dismantle the doghouse. She comes in, apologetic and crying, begging for him not to. He tells her it is over – she responds that she still wants it.
He leaves the apartment for a number of days, training his dogs to eat the beef and meat.
![[Image: Little-Deaths-movie-2011-5.jpg]](http://horrornews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Little-Deaths-movie-2011-5.jpg)
He goes back to the apartment on the fateful day, wakes her up from her sleep with a glass of wine and a package. She opens it eagerly and it has a pair of handcuffs in it. She flirtatious looks at him and intones she is privy to being cuffed up and fucked. He cuffs her up right then and leaves. She is screaming at him to come back – and he does, but with his pack of dogs. He pours the beef and meat he has been training them to eat all over her writhing body. He leaves the room and unleashes the hounds into her room. Pete celebrates with a glass of wine as the dogs begin to tear into her flesh. The background music montage cuts out to her dying screams as the trained beasts render her limb from limb. Pete is shown to be crying in the final shot.
Understanding Psychological Splitting
Hypergamy rules in any society that has been through a sexual revolution – America is no different. The narcissism of America distorts the sexual marketplace in ways that are obvious in “Little Deaths.” We have a clear codependent in Pete and a compensatory narcissist in Claire. Claire is not a clinical narcissist, just one that takes on the role when presented with a weaker-willed person. Here, Pete is a supremely weak beta male, one that Claire can drain while still simultaneously chase alpha males. Pete, however, has a few experiences in the movie that push him over the codependent cliff.
![[Image: jekyll-or-hide-2face.jpg]](http://witchfulthinking.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/jekyll-or-hide-2face.jpg)
Understand this is psychological splitting. The definition of splitting is the inability of a person to reconcile both positive & negative traits of themselves or others into a complete, coherent whole. Classic splitting behavior is the vacillation between emotional extremes – for example, either you view yourself as completely moral & good or you view yourself as completely evil & bad. There is no middle ground. The worse the splitting is, the wider the chasm is between the states. This is hallmark behavior of a borderline personality disordered individual.
First, consider narcissistic splitting. Compensatory narcissists and codependents are still narcissists. Codependency is a form of narcissism that is called inverted narcissism. As such, they can split psychologically. The classic narcissist will always have intermittent episodes of “narcissistic depression” whereby they give into their supremely low self-esteem and engage in a period of superlative self-pitying. It will always be alleviated – usually by a codependent who will think this is moment they have been waiting for where they can finally act out a real, mutually compassionate relationship. Once the narcissist feels the worship, they shore up their flagging ego and revert back to standard narcissist operating procedure – completely devaluing of others.
This segues into codependent splitting. The key factor of codependency is having a deep ability to understand other’s emotions, but only insofar as it relates to perform particular emotional roles in other’s lives. This is narcissism, as codependents only see others as persons that they need to emotionally manipulate in order to get their approval. They sense the roles that a particular individual would like them to play out; they play them out in order to get approval & love. The key difference between the narcissism and codependency is how they view themselves: narcissists think the world of themselves, codependents think they are not worthy of the world.
Second, as such, codependents can split. Splitting occurs when deep-seated fears are faced, often forced by somebody else or some event. The delicate psychological balance of any sort of narcissist can be disrupted by anything that threatens something that is crucial to the maintenance of their identity. The maintenance of that identity is expressly to avoid dealing with their deepest fears. When directly confronted with their fears, splitting can occur. They can become unusually narcissistic in order to paper over their fears. They can also fall deep into depression. Depending on how deep the rabbit hole goes determines the outcome. If the ending of that rabbit hole is the very core of their being, it can get violent – either through suicide or killing others that represent the source of their existential terror.
Pete’s Splitting in Little Deaths
In light of this, consider Pete and Claire in “Little Deaths.” There are three key elements to understand in order to fully flesh out the relationship: the doghouse/pegging, Pete’s premature ejaculation & the lead-up to and the killing of Claire.
Pete lives in a doghouse in a small room adjacent to Claire’s bedroom. This highlights the fact he is the clear subordinate in the relationship. Not content with psychologically dominating him, she places him in geographical isolation in a structure meant to reinforce his inferiority. It is for both of them, as Claire needs psychological reassurance that Pete is her inferior, Pete needs Claire’s approval he gets through complying with Claire’s frame.
The pegging is a clear inversion of heterosexuality. Pete wears a dog’s mask that reinforces his status as subhuman; Claire fucks him with ruthless abandon. Pete knows in order to get her approval, he has to let her fuck him in the ways the men Claire desires fuck her. It has an angry & bitter air to it, as Claire is upset she cannot get men she wants to commit to her. So, like many women, she locks down a beta male. However, she takes it to an extreme as she completely subjugates her beta, complete with forcible penetration.
Pete is presented with an opportunity when Claire’s interested is piqued when Pete sacks up & confronts her. In response to his nascent masculinity, she entertains the notion of an actual sexual encounter with Pete. She flirts with him and they go to her bedroom with giddy anticipation. However, even when we only see Pete’s backside, we see his burgeoning masculinity crumple once his cock tastes her vagina. His codependency takes over as it has never so much as sniffed this level of approval from Claire. He orgasms within seconds and his slumping shoulders signify a man defeated. Claire has a look of annoyed expectance, rolling over to use an object –a dildo – to pleasure herself. Pete notices this and recognizes that is all he has been to her – a tool, an object for her pleasure.
In the final act, after Pete splits when Claire openly fucks Pete’s friend in front of him, Pete decides to blow the whole relationship up. In a moving scene, Pete returns to the apartment to dismantle the doghouse. Claire intervenes, claiming the relationship was for both of them – and she would be right. However, Pete has decided that instead of dealing with his personal issues related to masculinity, self-esteem and women, he will completely and utterly destroy the relationship which has brought him so much reassurance and grief.
In her begging, she mentions that she still enjoys the relationship very much. He thoughtfully responds, “Well that’s the thing isn’t it – it has always been about you.” He leaves to finish training his dogs, only to return sometime later with an invitation for Claire. It is clear the roles of compensatory narcissist and codependent have flipped for the moment, as Claire accepts his offering of wine & handcuffs. Note, here, Pete is narcissistically wooing her for a change and she submits to his frame and dons the cuffs, completely at his mercy.
Here, he is subjecting her to a physical manifestation of their relationship. In the relationship, he was subject completely to her frame and whims. He had no recourse as he needed her as much as she needed him. Narcissists know their codependents fears and use them mercilessly against them. Pete knew Claire’s ultimate fear of dogs and used it against her in the worst way possible. He exposed her genitals and ass to that fear as he pointedly removed her panties before ushering in the beasts.
Which reveals his deepest fear – sexual inadequacy. By allowing Claire to peg him, he is releaved of any need to perform sexually beyond allowing her access to his ass. When he has a chance to change and face that fear down, he fails miserably and is confronted head-on with his sexual issues. When Claire flips on the dildo he must have been feeling supreme levels of inadequacy as he realizes a plastic object is more satisfying than a human being. When he cuts off her panties in order to expose them to her greatest fear, he reveals that his sexuality is his greatest fear. He wants to expose her like he has been exposed by her in his life.
When feminists, like Hugo Schywzer, talk about men needing to get pegged to be better men, what really is being suggested is a sort of Faustian bargain. It is trying to cover up your male sexual deficiencies by allowing a female to act out her anguish over not being able to control the men she is attracted to. The bargain is: “Let me fuck you in the way the men I want fuck me and I will stay with you. You will never have to deal with your sexual inadequacy issues and I will never have to deal with my abandonment issues.”
Both postures are biologically untenable and are psychologically unhealthy. However, so long as each person plays their role, it will exist into perpetuity. When one splits, like Pete, is it anybody’s guess as to what will happen in the aftermath. Biologically, he is grasping at his male identity of autonomy over his life, but he tragically outsources said autonomy in a murderous way. Psychologically, he is destroying the embodiment of his woes – Claire. When he is tearing up at the end, part of that is his recognition that he must now face down what has really been bothering him – his relationship with himself.
I must end with a lament. Men like Pete are ubiquitous in modern society. Their lives are marked by self-absorbed desperation that is reflected through their insatiable need for female approval. They were gifted that complex through a society that prioritizes female parenting and teaching. Many men are born to single mothers who are shepherded through a thoroughly female-dominated school system. These men only learn to kowtow to a female’s frame and suborn themselves to female emotions.
The lament here isn’t for the debasement of civilization that will surely follow such an arrangement, but for the individual men hurt and deceived.
Sometimes, society is progressing and recognizing issues that all men face. However, that progress is usually dashed on the coast of female privilege, as the media at large will always privilege female interests – it gets distorted as male privilege as alphas males get adoring audiences from female viewers.
Society isn’t progressing. It isn’t necessarily regressing, but stuck in the mud where betas like Pete get tore up in the hamster wheel spinning. Unable to capture the alphas they desire, women spin their wheels in the mud, using & pushing beta males like Pete further into irrelevancy. Most of the time they accept their inferiority – sometimes they violently crack like Pete.
We don’t live in a society that encourages real personal growth. Men like Pete mostly just fall through the cracks; occasionally striking back, like Pete, but most succumb to the feminine frame of subservience.
Murder is absolutely wrong, but what choice do you have when you are nothing but an object in a person’s life?
Read More: How To Build A Beta Male
Now someone link this to one of those BDSM pegging sites and watch those whackos go ape.
Am not so sure murder of a girlfriend is purely beta…psychopathic alphas are just as capable of such actions. The difference between the two types of men is that the psychopathic alpha, if arrested, will have female devotees; betas, on the other hand, will be subjected to ridicule.
Also, once a man allows a woman to peg him, I don’t think she can EVER respect him; that’s the ultimate form of emasculation. To be subservient to women and to allow them to disrespect you is bad enough, but to bend over so they can sexually manhandle you is worse.
This is deep and painful ….(no pun intended)
Great read.
“Men like Pete are ubiquitous in modern society. Their lives are marked
by self-absorbed desperation that is reflected through their insatiable
need for female approval.”
This speaks directly to me and my beta mindset. I discovered and began practicing game over a year ago, I elected for the long hard path of re-programming myself to the alpha persona. Advice for the millions of guys like me out there: Banging beautiful women in eastern Europe has been the greatest help for my progress toward becoming the alpha you were born to be.
More guys violently cracking is what is needed to shock the system. Also them going caveman might finally drive the whores they love to find some small measure of desire for them.
Just remember to beat them mercilessly young psychos! All that hurt and pain didnt go anywhere did it? You buried it down deep…
now let it out.
“Murder is absolutely wrong, but what choice do you have when you are nothing but an object in a person’s life?” -Wycked
So true,
feminist pressure from society + man shaming + sexual frustration + no guidance from alphas = homicide, suicide, massacre, and/or domestic terrorism
Seriously every time you a story on the news about a school shooting it is because some frustrated beta wasn’t getting blown.
Thank god I found ROK when I did, it was a matter of time before I split.
This is actually a very canny observation, and one that I’ve believed in myself for a long time.
It’s also extremely controversial, in that no one has the guts to acknowledge it in the mainstream media.
When you combine unrelenting anti-male propaganda, an uptight puritanical culture surrounding sex, the lack of decent available women, the decline of supporting institutions, and the absence of any organizations into which such men can channel their energies in a healthy way, you get a very toxic mix.
Our culture is breeding droves of angry, repressed, alienated men, who are being driven ever further into the abyss. Feminism is not alone responsible, but it certainly has done more than its share in contributing to the crisis.
The only two places I have found that truly speak for men are 1. The Manosphere and 2. Red pill comedy and comedians (i.e. Bill Burr, Patrice Oneal, etc.)
Pride is often the only thing left for these men. Pride will not allow you to admit your inadequacies. Pride will shift the blame away from you and onto other persons. Pride will stop you from trying to change yourself. Pride can be useful, e.g. it can stop you from pedastilizing women or chasing women who clearly aren’t interested in you. I’d call that “healthy pride”. The other form of pride (as described above), “destructive pride” will inevitably destroy yourself. It’s not surprising that pride is one the seven deathly sins.
Most men in modern society basically have two options: Turn gay or go without. (Most men can’t or won’t learn Game or travel to greener pastures.)
Anglo-American culture is VERY sexually repressed to begin with. Add to that frustrating fact the State basically supplanted the Beta provider’s role in society a long time ago, forcing many men to lead sexless, lonely lives. It’s no wonder some of them crack from the stress. Biological needs are job #1.
Even though gays are lionized by the government-media complex, only a small percentage of men will turn that way. For those that do, it basically means unlimited sex and financial security. I think that’s why we are seeing more and more gays in society.
It’s also why we are seeing more and more beta male rampages. The beta’s role in society has been eliminated under the current paradigm.
continue that with
homicide, suicide, massacre, and/or domestic terrorism = surveillance, control, better management of little sheeple by the elite.
The only solution to this mess I seem to find is a total collapse of blue pill society. After the collapse it will be our job to walk up to them and as they dust the ashes off their weak, sheltered, thin skinned bodies we ask them this question:
“Now what did you learn?”
If their answer is around the premise of “Something has to change to prevent this again, and I’m willing to be a part of that change.” We should take it upon ourselves to help walk them, through being them.
Hopefully when that happens it will be a wake-up call to all men and women to accept the way nature made us.
The only answer is for the government spray a gas that only affects men and takes the CURSE out of their sysyem.
This reminds me of a segment from Attack of the Show, when this guy asked Olivia Munn: “I want my gf to fuck me with a dildo..does that mean I’m gay??”, to which she replied, “*Sigh*…yeah, it kinda does.”
Careful though guys. Let’s not gradually slide into wishing for violent revenge to occur, no matter how past hurt may tempt one to think that way. We must rise above. Just my worthless 2 cents.
This isn’t a wish for violence, just an observation about how one man, in a fictional environment, responded to his inability to grow as a man.
If I was a prosecutor in his city, I would not hesitate to bring him up on murder charges.
That being said, it takes two to tango.There is always an enabler for an alcoholic, as there is a narcissistic female draining a codependent male.
His decision was muderous, but it is an interesting view into the mind of a man who refuses to come to terms with the beta arc of his life.
I agree. My comment was more meant for our own discussion rather than your article 🙂 Yes, definitely an interesting view to ponder.
Murder is absolutely wrong, but what choice do you have when you are nothing but an object in a person’s life?
Choices:
1) Suicide
2) Murder
3) Murder + Suicide
And yes, it is absolutely not surprising to me that murder suicides are rising in this country.
It’s funny as I first thought little deaths was a reference to the french term for female orgasms. Well what can I do.
That whole movie to me sounds like a waste. I hate film festival films usually, because what they call art, I call terrible. I don’t like vampire movies or shows, I can do without murder plots because usually guys are the perpetrator, and when it is the woman she was usually abused somehow.
I guess for me, it all becomes predictable, even when the flick has A level actors in it. The film festival movies usually serve no purpose for me. I don’t see any real depth in them, outside what modern culture, if you could call it culture, declares is popular.
When betas strike back:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/09/us/florida-facebook-confession
I was about to post this same article. Pretty much a real life illustration of everything this article is saying.
Speaking as someone with over a decades experience in BDSM, this is not a normal BDSM relationship based on the satisfaction of mutual needs.
Having known many submissive men, they really do need the approval and reinforcement of boundaries and control to feel safe to express themselves. How Pete handled to the situation was completely wrong. A submissive should bring up a topic for discussion, or use their safeword and time out to clear their head before talking about it. There’s nothing in even that disturbing parody of a living relationship to suggest that he wasn’t freely able to leave whenever he wished.
To all the commenters condoning murder: Pete is obviously not stable enough to be in an intense relationship like this, but at the same time makes zero effort to express his needs or desires, never exercises his safeword, and never simply walks away.
Very good observation and quite true. I would add that in old school BDSM relationships, the details of the D/s in regards to absolute limits would have been negotiated in advance to avoid this kind of thing. It’s not always done these days especially with new, young people who enter into this kind of lifestyle without any idea what they are getting into. Which makes me wonder if this story might be a warning to those who think they want to to get into kink without knowing the risks. Thanks to 50 Shades for bringing out all kinds of inaccuracies of real BDSM lifestyle.
Words can not express both how hilariously wrong that book is, and how many people have been led wrong by it.
in my day to day life I have total control over what goes on. I am a business, land and title owner. sometimes I want to be free of the burden of being in control. to this end I have, from time to time, let a woman control me utterly in the bedroom. I prefer to be the dominant player in the bedroom and my most feminine lovers have refused to control me in the bedroom because they feel out of touch with their femininity and thus, do not get any pleasure. I have never been “pegged”, and I have to be completely sure of my dominance in a relationship for me to surrender that dominance in any fashion, way,or for any length of (short) time. I have never had a stable, positive relationship that was not based on traditional gender roles.
I relay all this to remind men that role-play during a healthy LTR is beneficial only after a mans dominance is cemented. if any man lets a woman be the main dominant force in a relationship, that woman will resent and abhor the man. the character of “pete” makes this mistake, and both he and the woman pay dearly for the mistake. I have not seen the short film in question, but it sounds like an illustration of my point. do yourselves and your lover a favor men, keep masculine frame and never give it up. if a man ever does give up his masculine frame, he better have a plan and a goddamn good reason for the injury that 99% of the time will occur.
I also am an avid adult swim fan. Wycked, do u watch the show “sym-bionic titan”? I think it has a lot of good things to say about gender roles. what do you think?
thanks for another good article Wycked.
Errrr…. anyone else find this story rather disturbing? As in, no matter how bad it gets, we shouldn’t murder people? I mean, come on. I get that it’s frustrating with women. Trust me, I get it. But elevating it to murder is…not right.
A real man…heck, a human being is above such actions. The best revenge is a life well lived.
Also, doesn’t this story speak rather badly of men? As in, alphas are fine fucking betas’ women in front of them? While I’m not an alpha, I don’t think I’d ever do something as cruel as that.
That is the point of the movie – it is terribly disturbing.
I do NOT condone him murdering his girlfriend. I should not have to say that.
I simply wanted to highlight this horrific story and discuss the psychology behind it.
As for the ending, I was referring to him either killing himself or her – at that point in this life, outside an incredible personal intervention, he was going to kill somebody.
It doesn’t speak badly of men at all. Who said the man fucking Pete’s girlfriend was alpha? Claire was clearly trying to humiliate Pete, so who knows what she thought of Pete’s friend sexually?
One man decided to kill somebody to try to heal themselves. There are many men with the low self-esteem of Pete’s, but they rarely act in a murderous fashion.
Psychological torment will make people snap at some point. The same dynamic was portrayed in “house of cards” where Doug kept on pushing Rachel over the cliff, thereby at some point enabling her to spin murder as a justifiable option. That kind of thing isn’t gender related, it’s part of being human. We can only tolerate other people’s BS for so long. Yes, he could’ve walked away, but he was mentally unable to do so, because he was in some twisted way dependant on her, no matter how much he suffered from her treatment. This is as much a warning to the dependant to walk away early as it is a warning to the sadist to never forget that even weak dogs have a breaking point when they WILL bite back.
Good post, well written. I’ll play the skeptic and suggest the Pete’s among us are not ubiquitous. Think about it – that would be terrifying. Can you imagine everyday during your interactions in society you ran into Petes?
Many of us guys have been tooled by chicks, but I never stuck around for very long. Oh, you don’t like me? See ya!
However
There could be a small minority of Petes.
You wanna know what is much more probable beta wise?
“Dennis”, a Danish film about a beta body builder, son of a single mother.
Betcha 50 bucks Dennis is the true “ubiquitous” beta male of modern society.
Pete isn’t beta – he’s below omega. He’s a fucking gamma.
By the way, here is “Dennis”. Enjoy:
TL;DR
Whoa, let’s rise above women and this twisted psychodrama. Sick story, seriously… Not much to read into there. (Unless your really shallow.)
The title reminded me of something, something exponentially more meaningful that can actually bring value back to your life. It’s called “The Little Death”.
In
Tibetan medicine, it is said that seven drops of the vital essence of
food are required to produce one drop of the vital essence of blood. And
it takes one cup of the vital essence of blood to produce one drop of
the vital essence of semen. – See more at:
http://sacred-sex.org/facts/articles/231-semen-retention.html#sthash.UE0pFGp0.dpuf
Need advice. I have this chick that i always go back to to fuck and get validation. Then I ditch her for a while until I need my fill again. Been happening for years and I want to break the cycle.
Hooker?
Wyked- your summary of narcissistic splitting was so clearly articulated, I rechecked your bio to see if you were a psychologist. 🙂
Although I agreed with most of your points regarding Pete and Claire, a couple questions popped into my mind. First, it sounds like you made a really strong case for the destructive consequences of splitting within a relationship and applied it beautifully to Little Deaths’ depiction of a controlling woman with a controlled man. Couldn’t splitting also be used to describe the gendered inverse of Pete and Claire’s dynamic, such as when the female partner is subservient, used as a tool or object for male pleasure? Furthermore, your closing sentence suggests that murder of the celebrated/dominating party by the despised/dominated individual is a very likely outcome of such an interaction. If this were truly so, why haven’t we seen overwhelming numbers of men slain over the ages by dominated, codependent women in their lives?
Second, you very eloquently pointed out that Pete’s true conflict was within himself rather than with Claire. Claire merely came to represent Pete’s fear of personal inadequacy. As long as he perpetuated Claire’s domination of him, he did not have to recognize or accept responsibility for his own inefficacy. Why not extend this argument to your position on gender problems? So long as men, like yourself, believe that women are controlling you, you do not have to address your unacknowledged feelings of worthlessness, ineptitude, or powerlessness. For example, instead of bemoaning the all-dominating authority of female-run households or primary education, recognize that you are bound from within. In particular, why not have the courage to be a father or elementary school teacher instead of an aspiring attorney?
It was my understanding that the both of them were splitting. She was seeking out other men and still sought out petes subservience. Why didn’t she ditch pete when she had proven he was far less than masculine if not to satisfy her own form of narccisim.
I feel comfortable saying that the membership of this site tend to beleive that a healthy relationship consist of a Male lead and a female assistant in its most efficient and natural state. From this conclusion we might surmise that, unless abused or dehumanized, a couple is likely to find balance through the clarity of their fulfilled natural states.
The Manosphere, from my readings, advocate exactly what you are saying! This very site is an attempt to reachout and educate young men, pushing them towards self improvement and independence in a way no public school teacher would have the ability to. And who’s to say we dont all aspire to becoming a strong father figure, if we can find a likeminded, dedicated spouse.
Knurlagn- I agree that both Pete and Claire were splitting within their relationship (Claire holding all good/dominating qualities with Pete containing all despised/dominated qualities). I would also argue that at the end of the film, Claire took more responsibility for her previously disowned desire to submit by accepting the handcuffs from Pete. Alternatively, rather than taking responsibility for his corresponding wish to dominate (and possibly fail again in the undertaking), Pete murdered Claire with the dogs.
My read of Wycked’s original description of splitting was that ALL split relationships were pathological regardless of gender. I think the argument you and the Manosphere might be making is that splitting which occurs according to traditional gender lines (Claire holding despised/dominated qualities with Pete containing good/dominating qualities) will result in a healthy interaction. My response to this would be that whenever people require a relationship partner to be contain and manage critical elements of their own experience, trouble will ensue.
I respect your view of the Manosphere and really want to believe that its intention is to reach out to men who may feel their lived experience is dismissed or vilified. I think self improvement is a terrific aim as long as it is achieved by cultivating a more realistic sense of self and greater capacity to take responsibility for it. My read of many of the articles in the Manosphere is that self improvement comes in the form of developing the narcissistic qualities described so well by Wycked. That is, Manosphere devotees feel subjectively more powerful in comparing themselves to women depicted in the literature as inferior, helpless, or inherently amoral. They are also taught to manipulate interactions with women so that their narcissistic dominance is sustained (e.g. Christian McQueen’s recent piece on pulling a “slut” from a Vegas pool).
Pete’s killing of Claire is indicitave of a broken or malformed male identity. Think of the Preadator franchise where loss results in seemingly mutual assured destruction and not the commitment to renewed self improvement. As for Claire, i am less optimistic. Claire never ceased submitting to men, only to Pete. That was the cost of their relationship. Speculations on what could have been or Claire’s intentions for the future are inherently biased. Though i think your optimism, regarding Claire reveals good character on your part.
As for the splitting and the narccistic splitting i think everyone agrees that both are the result of mental illness or duress. I don’t belevie you mean to say that a male lead female assisted relationship falls within these but there seems to be some confusion.
“Whenever people require a relationship partner to be contain(ing) or manage(ing) critical elements of their own experince trouble will ensue.”
But we cannot be all things to ourselves. No individual can be the stern authority figure and the Loving caregiver simultaneously. Eventually one must winout. But by allowing one party to focus on Serious Business while the other focuses on Surrs Bizzniz we can allow ourselves to surrender to our partners and experince life to a greater fulfillment.
I have always had a hard time with what i call a fighters arrogance. A world champion prize fighter says he is the best in the world. Is he wrong? He trains and fights and wins AND loses but still claims he is the best. Is he wrong? Old age catches up with him and he retires but contends that if only he was younger he’d put the whopping on all the young’ns. Is he wrong? NO. Loss doesn’t define us, only our accomplishments in spite of defeat! What you see as encourageing male narccism we see as building up our champ before putting him in the ring.
As for more game centered articles
Psychological abuse is imho inherently gender neutral. Whereas the absence of healthy traditional gender roles certainly did play a role here as well, ultimately the reason for the murder was the perpetrator’s psychological torment and its resulting feeling of inadequacy that facilitated the murder, not the absence of healthy gender roles. In a different post of mine, I gave an example where the same thing happened with the roles reversed (in House of Cards).
Another fool, ignorant of human nature. The reason why subservient women haven’t slain their “oppressors” is quite simple…women LIKE/LOVE/YEARN to be dominated. That’s the natural course of things in the human species. This domination doesn’t imply humiliation, beatings or outright disrespect, very few men throughout the ages maltreated their women. In any relationship there has to be a dominating party, the problem arises when the women is the dominating power, when this happens she instinctively feels hollow, empty and yearns for someone that could dominate her the way she wants it and yearns.
The only part in which you are partially correct are your last statements but women like will be the first ones to start whining if men start kicking your asses figuratively, and I couldn’t wait more for it to happen…
J.M.- you make some interesting points. Personally, I find that it’s easier to respect an argument when the individual making it refrains from emotional outbursts characterized by name calling, stylized, unfounded opinion framed as “truth,” and vague threats.
I gather from your comment that you have a very strong personal conviction that women require a dominating partner in order to feel whole. As a woman who has had a very different lived experience than the one you outline, I have to respectfully disagree with your view. It’s possible that some women yearn for this level of domination but clearly not all, as evidenced by my own experience, which while insignificant when making generalizations about human nature, is nevertheless one valid case.
I’m wondering why it’s important for you to be such an intense and absolute authority on what women need in a partnership. Taking a cue from Wycked’s ending commentary on the consequences of Pete’s relative lack of self awareness, it might be more productive to focus on what you yearn for in a relationship rather than what women want.
All women want to be dominated. All. If the man in their lives won’t dominate them, then they’ll find someone who will or allow the government to do it instead.
We’re talking about lizard brain tendencies that have real life consequences. All women are like that, period. Even if you conciously fight against it, it will still be there, lingering, waiting to be freed. Perhaps your experience comes from being dominated by men who weren’t suited to be your dominators, i.e. Beta males pretending to be dominant, when in fact they aren’t. You didn’t really elaborate on that point, so one may only guess. If you were the dominating party you may have convinced yourself (the hamster spinning the wheel) that this actually fulfills you, yet the only reason why you do not reach the conclusion that this is a faulty assumption is that you lack comparative experiences of submission to real men on your part.
Wow, that was disturbing. But it really got the point across didn’t it. The peversion of healthy gender relations and their likely conclusions are really made quite stark by this man’s lashing out, at what he allowed himself to become. Is this how our society will respond as masculinity continues to be suppressed in the interest of equality? Are these the extremes some women must go to before feeling that they have broken through the glass ceiling? When the natural laws of human interaction are ignored for so long, how will our society cope? Can It cope at all? Or will we instintively seek to purge what our “modern enlightened” minds are to disillusioned to set aside? The film seems to favor the more pessimistict answer.
All he had to do was say one word and get on with his life, this is why heartiste has probably saved lives.
“Nah.”
Quite an entertaining picture. The first one was interesting in that the female of the sadist couple was the dominant, forshadowing the third film’s dynamics.
Unless she died of heart attack he did not kill her.
Dogs are not idiots, if you give them food on your bare hand they lick your hand not tear it.
There is nothing in the movie suggesting that the dogs were trained for killing.
They were licking her ass, that is all.