For Donal Graeme, Moose Norseman, and Deep Strength; who are thinking through how men and women differently go astray.
Helen wakes and gets ready to see Tom; whom she desires. She does as she has been taught women do to get a man’s attention; what every woman she knows does. She shaves her legs. To her face she applies concealer, powder, lipstick, rouge, mascara, and eyeshadow. She films her dyed and highlighted hair with potions, and blow-dries it into a shape that defies its natural tendencies. Hose tightens and disguises her cellulite, while heels sculpt her legs and buttocks to appear longer and more pert. She puts on a bra that bulks her breasts before lifting and separating them. She tops it all with a frock which gives the appearance of bigger breasts, a smaller waist, and longer legs, and a spritzes herself with perfume to make herself smell different. She is pleased with herself, and thinks this is good for her and Tom; especially if it makes him love her.
Tom sees Helen. He is Texan and crass, and so he says to himself, “I believe I’d drink her dirty bath water.” Of course he believes nothing of the kind. It’s a funny thing to say (in a crass way, of course) because Tom knows drinking dirty bath water is foul, and wrong; just like fornicating with Helen. It’s an admittance that he’d give up his wisdom and respect for a chance to indulge himself in her deception, and her in her arrogance. He is not deceived about the nature of the event. He’s making a choice in full knowledge of what is right and wrong.
Did Helen deceive Tom with her appearance? Somewhat. He is aware it’s a show, and that it’s a show of an available woman. But keep in mind: In order to deceive Tom into believing she is more beautiful than she is, Helen has invested more than two hours in a campaign against her natural state. It is an elaborate and precarious setup which could not survive a washing. If Tom is fooled, then it is because the preparation was so intense.
To Helen he says, “What a lovely-looking lady”; whom he is not loving, and who is not a lady.
She falls immediately for his two-second line.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
Yes…it’s all pomp and circumstance…the dance of synchronicity, the dance of disappointment and delusion.
I see where you are going with this.
https://canecaldo.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/they-want-differently-a-primer-on-womens-sin-and-genius/
Differential causes and effects of deception, aware and unaware, on the two sexes because of the different natures.
I’ll have to give this some more thought.
I may be missing something, but it seems to me that Tom is very much deceived. Not about the nature of Helen, or about the fact that the pertness of her boobs is due to underwire, but about whether or not it is “better to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”
@Moose & DS
DS is picking up what I’m putting down.
I would say that what you’re missing is that temptation and deception are not the same things. No man who wishes to be an athlete is deceived that an hour of eating chips while watching sports is as beneficial as training. Eating chips and watching sports is still pleasurable, though. It’s not about deception, but the lack of desire to do what is necessary. Women don’t lack desire so much as they lack discernment.
I have not written that men cannot be deceived, but only that women are more prone to it, and men more prone to “giving in”. If God causes men (both men and women, probably) to be deceived, does that have any bearing on whether either men or women are more easy to deceive in general? No. Both men and women can be deceived and both can lack desire or be ruled by it, but it remains that there are differences between the sexes. Satan deceives men and women alike, but his first recorded act on Earth was to deceive the easier sex and so get them to do his dirty work on the harder one.
I certainly do not disagree with any of this. Perhaps when I originally wrote “women are more easily deceived than men, except in the area of romance” I should have said “women are more easily deceived than men; however, the area where men are most easily deceived is the area of romance.”
@Moose
I second your motion to amend!
In response to “Moral Agency”, I think I cover some overlapping territory:
https://donalgraeme.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/ordering-deception/comment-page-1/#comment-13361
Deception is the temptation to be careless with the truth. It is the guard that will let the traitor in because he doesn’t follow his training or the rules. Perception is to understand, Deception is to misunderstand.
@tz
Deception is the failure to recognize the truth. The guard is nearsighted and hard-of-hearing.
@CC – True. I think I was considering the process whereby deception happens, not the fait accompli.
I think I understand better your illustration.
Maybe: (I’m rambling, but this is something very important and needs to be thought out carefully and completely)
Deception succeeds when there is a failure to recognize the truth.
It requires a deceiver who is trying to substitute a falsehood for the truth, but also a deceived who is a target.
Is it important how much the failure to recognize is due to intentional or culpable negligence?
One can be a suspicious fool, or a trusting wise man.
Worse, we are up against “The Father of Lies” who is very good at it.
As I read this, neither is really deceiving the other. Additionaly, both are giving in to temptation. The true deception is the lie Helen is telling herself, that what they are about to do is good, because it involves feelings of romantic love (desire).
@Dalrock
I think she wants both romantic love, and real love (commitment, steadfastness, good works, etc.). They often do want commitment from the men to whom they are attracted, and they do often believe that they can soil him with sex, and still get commitment from him, and want to give it to him. In other words: They are deceived that they can actually fry the ice.
Deception has become the norm for sexual market place, the fiscal market place and the church. We are immersed in BS from all sides from when we enter this world. Only faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His word will expose the lies we have swallowed. This can and does cause division amongst christians. When our works will be tested by fire all the stuff [time and effort] that is burnt off was the by-product of deception. The NT says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Exercising the senses to understand the difference between good and evil can be a long process. I have spent too many years under various clouds of BS. Im loving the concise info on relationships found in the manosphere. Well done CC.
@Don
Yes. This the is the genius of GBFM’s “bernankefied” remarks. He was on the case before many of us.
It is my pleasure if I am of use to you.
@Cane
I think this is generally true if we define commitment the way the term is commonly used. In that case however there is no real commitment, but an open ended boyfriend/girlfriend arrangement which lasts until either party becomes dissatisfied with the arrangement. Very few young women are hoping their next round of fornication leads to marriage, at least not directly. Nearly see it as part of their longer path to marriage, with the idea that “you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince”.
This is paramount to absorb, and it stands in stark contrast by gender in a general sense. Men, individually and collectively, tend to walk face forward and aware into sexual-relational-marital sin. Men don’t tend to rationalize other men’s sexual sin, and what rationalization men do of their own sexual sin is just sufficient to keep the thoughts stuffed down while they get the short term pleasure being sought.
Women rationalize their own and other women’s sexual relational marital sins. They borrow rationale from one another and build a war chest of currency that has its value pegged to the efficacy of the rationale.
A woman reading this would say I am making some kind of comparison between men’s and women’s sexual proclivity and sexual sin quantity. and calling men superior. Clearly i am not, but the hypothetical woman asserting that would have extracted that rejoinder from another compartment in her war chest, labeled “Obfuscations”.
“Very few young women are hoping their next round of fornication leads to marriage”
I think this is wrong. They do hope for a marriage, at some point. The point just isn’t defined. And women being women are more fickle than men. That’s why they form the weird alliances based on pseudo-families they do in prison for example. They like playing house. What you are seeing is immature women wanting to start the game over…and over…and over. I don’t think it is necessarily an abdication of (at least the fantasy of) marriage.