Esther Vilar Quotes

“A man who wants to gain power over a woman must follow the example of women and condition his sex drive. If he succeeds in becoming as cold as she, she can no longer bait him with sex into the role of provider. At most she could offer herself as an equal sex partner, as dependent on him as he is on her. If men could abstain from sex at judicious intervals they might even succeed in normalizing the female sex drive - even make women desire them more than the other way around.”
― Esther Vilar, The Polygamous Sex

“When will women become civilized enough to stop mistreating men? When will they cease from training their lovers to become providers, merely because they have the power to do so?
As long as they continue as they are, men have no alternative to polygamy.”
― Esther Vilar

“Male aggressiveness consists in asking a woman to have intercourse and waiting for her to say yes, or a definite no. Skilful tacticians enhance their chances of making out by distributing their attentions among several women at a time (one version of 'playing the field') thus increasing their statistical chances for a favorable answer, depending on circumstances. This is the height of male aggressiveness that is tolerated. Genuine aggressiveness - rape - [men] have forbidden themselves by law.”
― Esther Vilar, The Polygamous Sex

“Power consists in making oneself the goal of another person's social instincts, without seeking to satisfy one's own social instincts through him. The other then does everything one asks. Powerlessness consists in wanting or having to satisfy one's social instincts through another person whose social instincts one has not succeeded in concentrating on oneself - one then does everything the other asks.”
― Esther Vilar, The Polygamous Sex

“Once a woman has opted for the role of the child (instead of lover) the next step is predetermined. A child must not show too great an interest in sex, on pain of losing both credibility and a child's privileges. A woman who values her status as protegee, therefore, must keep her sex drive under control. She must be in a position to make conscious use of her sexuality for her purposes i.e. to win a man who appears suited to play her father, rather than a man who excites and confuses her senses and her mind. And she must be able to refuse herself to her intended protector until he adopts her or at least commits himself clearly to such an intention. To see primarily the sex partner in a man is the end of her power over him. It means losing the motive of making him her protector - what good is a lover restrained by protective feelings ? - and being quite as dependent on him, sexually, as he is on her.”
― Esther Vilar, The Polygamous Sex

“A man who marries a woman inferior to himself i.e. 'adopts' her must expect that she cannot feel anything for him but liking and gratitude. A woman is better off than a child, after all; if necessary, she can take care of herself, like any man. That she nevertheless allows her husband to pay all the bills is a personal concession that can be retracted at any time. She is entitled, therefore, to high expectations: everything done for her must be first-rate, otherwise she may engage another protector or else, depending upon circumstances, even decide to take care of herself. Compared with the real father, a wife's 'adopted father' has no hope of becoming his pseudo-child's protege in his old age, either. The most he can hope for is the status of an inadequate or pseudo-protege i.e. if he is lucky, he may come to enjoy the woman's altruistic love, her charity.
The woman even gets a reward: she inherits his property, his insurance, his pension rights, so that he can go on providing for her after his death, the death she is statistically prepared to survive for, on the average, six years, plus the number of years she is younger than he is.”
― Esther Vilar, The Polygamous Sex

“As a result of "love," man is able to hide his cowardly self-deception behind a smoke screen of sentiment. He is able to make himself believe that his senseless enslavement to woman and her hostages is more than an act of honor, it has a higher purpose. He is entirely happy in his role as a slave and has arrived at the goal he has so long desired. Since woman gains nothing but one advantage after another from the situation as it stands today, things will never change. The system forces her to be corrupt, but no one is going to worry about that. Since one can expect nothing from a woman but love, it will remain the currency for any need she might have. Man, her slave, will continue to use his energies only according to his conditioning and never to his own advantage. He will achieve greater goals, and the more he achieves, the farther women will become alienated from him. The more he tries to ingratiate himself with her, the more demanding she will become; the more he desires her, the less she will find him desirable; the more comforts he provides for her, the more indolent, stupid, and inhuman she will become — and man will grow lonelier as a result.”
― Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man