False Scarcity and Rewarding Bad Behavior

I realized, about a decade into a marriage, that I was inadvertently "Rewarding Bad Behavior." Every time I was treated poorly -- and this was almost daily -- I came to the conclusion that I just had to treat her better, love her more, be a better "man."  Every time this happened, I was "rewarding bad behavior." 

I'm not a Behaviorist myself, in that, I don't believe that all behaviors are conditioned. I believe there are environmental, social, and familial factors that contribute to a person's overall personality and actions. However, we are all animals, subject to Pavlovian training, and as men, we often exploit this to our own demise. Kulturally, we are taught that it is our responsibility to provide for, dote on, and generally make the woman happy. If she is not, the WE must be doing something wrong. So what do we do? We do more, try harder.

What occurs is a Pavlovian cycle of diminishing returns. She refuses our advances: we buy her flowers. She says we don't earn enough: we work harder. She insults us: we attempt to improve. Do you get it now? Every time she is a complete jerk to us, we treat her BETTER! It is only animal instinct that she will continue ... no, increase her poor actions because every time she does, she gets a positive response. 

This is not to say that WE are to blame -- we are not. After all, we are just doing what seems to be the right thing to do. Unfortunately, we continue to reward bad behavior until they have absolutely no respect at all for us as men.

Why do we do this? False Scarcity, an economic term. Kulturally, we have been trained that women -- at least available women to copulate with -- are scarce. We have been taught that women don't desire sex as much as men. We have been taught that women are a prized possession when no person is a "possession." The idea of "false scarcity" is most easily seen with the example of diamonds: if diamonds are so rare to be highly priced, how come so many women are walking around with them on their fingers? Ever seen a jewelry shop say, "Oh, I'm sorry ... we're plum out of diamonds." Of course you haven't. It's a false scarcity that increases the price you have to pay.

Find some water, man.

Well, we run into the same thing with (and forgive my crudeness) pussy. It's HARD to get laid (no pun intended). Women, kulture, have created a scarcity of the commodity we seek the most -- that which should not be a commodity at all, but a natural, loving moment between a man and a woman. And when we feel we have "secured" our supply of this limited resource, we will do almost anything to keep it. Unfortunately, the more we do often leads to the situation I described previously -- a downward spiral of rewarding bad behavior ...

And why do we continue? Well, it leads back to scarcity. We know, inherently, that if we don't treat our woman well, some other weasel will come along and do it for her, because he is under the spell of false scarcity as well (not excusing his behavior). We know if we don't, someone else will; she knows if we don't, someone else will. Talk about FUCKED.

So the spiral goes: Either reward bad behavior or suffer the consequences of false scarcity ... if you don't do it, someone else will. Although slightly over half the population are women, women perpetuate the notion that WE should have to struggle to get our basic needs as male human beings met. Until this basic cultural issue is corrected, the cycle will continue.