Redpill vs. Bluepill - Two sides of the same gynocentric coin?
And the "dark" redpill vs. the "light" redpill.
“The Redpill and Bluepill are two sides of the same coin- both are equally gynocentric, just in different ways,” says a poster on Reddit.
As another fellow Eastuss puts it, it’s not about women, it’s about humans’ sexual strategies. But even if we take wanting to get laid or whatever as gynocentric, which is the same as calling a hunter deer-ocentric or a fisherman fish-ocentric, I’ll talk about why it’s not true even beyond that, and how different people and schools of thought within the rp community produce different outcomes that are largely overlapping even when theoretically in strategic conflict, and are both about increasing men’s power.
“Ironically, just like the bluepill, the Redpill also centers the life of men upon women, and demands men to unquestioningly conform to female sensibilities- their own personhood and identity be damned. The only difference is while the bluepill dictates that men must conform to the explicit female standards of virtue, the Redpill dictates that men must conform to the implicit female standards of attraction.
This way, the Redpill and Bluepill are both sides of the same coin, and both are equally gynocentric.”
My tl;dr: Are rp/bp both answers to the same question, "what do I think/do about dating women?" Sure, at least at first. Are they flip sides in outcome and effective results? Nah, especially when we consider the self-direction/improvement angle, where redpill usually starts and where it leads.
You see it in this blog, which is about relationships, sure, but mostly about men taking responsibility for themselves and their relationship/household/sphere of influence. Self-discipline comes first.
Bear with me, there's some important nuance here.
Patrice O'Neal's philosophy on the Black Philip Show was the catalyst for me to take redpill thinking and techniques and synthesize them into an internalized and acted-out life philosophy that's completely independent of sex and relationships, though it started there and continues to help with that. A lot.
But if there were no women on earth, the philosophy I live by, influenced heavily by redpill, would continue to guide me. If I were lost an island, floating in outer space, same thing.
I went into it for sexual/relationship strategy like almost does, but in listening to Patrice on the BPS, I pieced together a philosophy where my happiness is paramount, (if just to be capable of fulfilling my God-given duties,) that everything that can be my responsibility is my responsibility, and not to get upset when other people do what they do (e.g. "women are goofy,” “weak men will betray you,”) but to react pragmatically.
TRP was a portal to a lot more for me, because it's not just sexual strategy, and even if it were, figuring out a workable solution to one of life's most difficult and universal questions ("how do I deal with sex, women, relationships?") is a portal to more. It’s something that holds a lot of guys back because it can feel like such a glaring failure. Sometimes a little sexual success shows that sex is just sex. Sometimes it’s the gateway to self-improvement they would have never otherwise realized.
I’m not alone in emphasizing the self-improvement side. The married/LTR/parent/Christian/conservative redpill types tend to focus more on the same stuff as me, on patriarchy, leadership, and self-improvement, while the bigger "vein" of the redpill community is more focused on sexual strategy.
Key takeaway here is that self-improvement and sexual strategy are completely intertwined in the redpill, one is the right hand and one the left. You choose which. It's a matter of emphasis, style, purpose, personality, stage of life, school of thought, etc.
The “dark” redpill vs. the “light” redpill: not good versus evil, but different angles and purposes.
What I tentatively nickname the “dark" redpill is the main vein in the community. Sexual strategy, machiavellianism, spinning plates, enjoying the decline, all reasons it gets a bad rap. The bachelor path. Enjoying the decline.
The "lighter/brighter" redpill is less about sexual strategy, or typically puts it in the context of a marriage or LTR, and on a more equal footing with applied self-responsibility, intra-male support, building family and community, staying attractive to your wife to keep the family cohesive, and benevolent patriarchy. There's a growing number of us that know the game and play it our own way. The decline is real but our focus isn’t to exploit it as much as humanly possible, but use our knowledge and experience to build a bubble of strength and virtue around us where some of our own can be safer from it and flourish despite it.
How much other people in the redpill community envision it this way I don’t know, crucify and gatekeep in the comments, but the two veins are there and not wholly distinct or generally in opposition. They’re on a continuum, where long term relationship and married redpill are seen as hard and nightmare difficulty.
On the obvious conflict between the two, (e.g. redpill bachelors are going to want to fuck your gf/wife/daughter,) a redpill guy pointed out to me, “There’s never been a time where the father tolerated the Lothario.” Indeed, but there’s also going to be conflict between redpill bachelors that want to fuck each other’s girls. The dad or husband has more at stake, but at the end of the day we recognize each other’s game but do what we have to do to protect our interests.
Vs. Bluepill
These distinctions within redpill are important as we turn to bluepill, which as another put it, just means "not redpill" and so covers a much, much wider umbrella. It’s only real definition is in what it chooses to reject in the redpill.
So now we get into definitions and semantics.
Is redpill actually more gynocentric because it's immediately focused on sexual strategy, whereas bluepill is more like "eh whatever, I'm just an average guy"? What if the redpill person has evolved his philosophy to a point where he employs effective sexual strategies, but his mindset and lifestyle are so focused on self-development/happiness that sex takes its rightful place in his mind as a non-top-level concern?
Is redpill actually less gynocentric because a redpill man is able to accomplish more of his will with a woman than a bluepill man, while a bluepill man is inherently more accepting of a woman's explicit requests?
Are they equally gynocentric because on the discussion ground, they both end up talking a lot about women? Can they be two sides of the same coin when one is a delineated school of thought and techniques focused on action vs an ill-defined general negative definition of that same school of thought?
You decide, but I prefer to look at the actual purpose and outcomes.
In summary… no.
Redpill could come off as gynocentric if you’re looking to contrive that comparison, (though we we can argue whether the inherent people-pleasing of bluepilled guys who never buckle up and prioritize their own intuition and desires isn't more gynocentric off the bat,) but redpill isn’t gynocentric unless someone plays it that way. If all you do and breathe and self-improve is for getting laid, maybe there is something to OP’s point. But the mature redpiller isn’t like that, even the ones that are poon-collectors of legendary status. It’s one part of a fleshed out, dynamic life that has one’s will, and not women’s attraction, at the core.
Redpill's first/original concern is sexual strategy, but is a hunter knowing his prey catering to the deer, placating it, over-focusing on it, or is he simply trying to accomplish his outcome?
Never mind that the blind or treestand he got “to hunt deer” is his own little escape from the world, a place where he is happily alone with himself and his mind and skills.
As time goes on and he does the work, the self-improvement side of the "program" makes his actions and sense of self more natural, more himself, more outcome independent, and more about his own happiness than just sex.
The original poster’s comparison is a cheap trick. The functional difference is that one is more likely to give you the ability to enact your will on people and the world around you, (self-centered in the neutral sense, which you can then use in whatever way you want, good or bad,) and one is more likely to influence you to accept the demands and wants of others, including specifically women, which is about the only clear definition to bluepill: accepting most of the prevailing thought about women and the dating market and going with it.