Everything Is about Sex, Femininity Is about Power
It's a performance of peril and prestige, and everyone's watching.
She pops into the breakroom with a smile and a chirp of “don’t work too hard!”. She skips the donuts despite some stomach grumbles and stops by the restroom on the way out to fix up her lipstick (rustic caramel, velvet-matte). She rushes to the elevator without rushing, the gait of a trained performer.
But who is this performance for?
The Male Gays
Kryptogal says: femininity is performed for the men she wants to fuck her.
I’m talking about painting our faces, bleaching and removing our body hair, pitching our voices upwards to sound more sweet, tottering around on tiny stilt-shoes, pushing up or padding out our boobs, pretending to be innocent, walking in the way that makes your ponytail swing side to side instead of stay flat, wearing clothes that exaggerate the parts men like and hide the ones they don’t
If femininity was natural to women, then why are they universally less feminine when no men are around? Would it not be the other way around, if it was natural? Without men, they could be free to express their TRUE feminine nature. But it’s the opposite.
And that’s because all “femininity” is completely artificial and a performance to pander to men and get them to be nice to us or fall in love or at least not keep us in cages or take away our vote or something. Because men love femininity, it’s for them.
Kryptogal suggests that it’s the gay men who “rule the runways and beauty salons” who wrote the stage directions. They alone possess both the male eye and the lust for men. From this privileged vantage, they invented performative femininity as the most male-appealing way one can act. Driven by horniness and intrasexual competitiveness, women were forced to play along.
In the annals of things straight men have said not even once, “your lingerie needs more buckle sliders” is right up there next to “actually honey, could you take another 20 minutes on your makeup? being sexy is more important than being on time.”
Women seem rather uninterested in interrogating men’s preferences on a performance supposedly done to appeal to them. They would ask a magic 8 ball for seasonal styling advice sooner than ask a straight man. For our part, I am the first straight man ever to discover that rustic caramel is a “deep indulgent classic, updated with a nod to Pantone’s 2025 mocha mousse”.
One could respond that men’s stated preferences cant be trusted. Fair enough, men don’t know what they want. We can look at revealed preference instead. For example: porn. I can’t be sure I’ve never seen the girl in Eigenrobot’s screenshot in an adult video made for men, but I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen that harness in one.
Maximally appealing to the lustful male gaze would involve getting anime-titties and crawling on the floor with your back arched making anime-faces. Uncomfortable, perhaps, but no more so than stiletto heels and gel mani and eyebrow plucking. And isn’t that a small price to pay for a 100% guarantee that every man in line-of-sight is now fantasizing about the exact same sex act involving you?
Kryptogal writes:
If femininity was natural to women, then why are they universally less feminine when no men are around? Would it not be the other way around, if it was natural? Without men, they could be free to express their TRUE feminine nature. But it’s the opposite. A man without any women around is even more like a man. Women in women’s prisons act much more like men, while men in prisons act like barbarian chimpanzees.
Men in prison act like barbarian chimpanzees for the simple reason that we take the men who act like barbarian chimpanzees and lock them away in prison. Most men in the absence of women just play video games or argue over sports.
And what about women in a male-dominated environment, the opposite of a woman’s prison or the Isle of Lesbos? According to Kryptogal’s theory, we’d expect them to be femininemaxxing. Do they?
There’s a city that is heavily skewed not just toward men, but specifically gay men — San Francisco. A famous prison on a rock is visible from the waterfront, a reminder to all that male rules alone hold sway in the city. Instead of chimping out, the men in SF wear hoodies and sell B2B SaaS. Instead of tottering about in frilly dresses, the women in SF also wear hoodies and sell B2B SaaS.
Men only want one thing, and it’s disgusting B2B SaaS.
The Judgment of Women
No boss man would survive if he said, "ugh, you should put on some makeup, doll yourself up a little bit" but women say this to other women all the time-- especially at work. "You look really tired," says a woman in MAC Greensmoke to another who isn't. Just once I wish the reply would be, "I am, your husband kept me up all night."
San Franciscans give each other performance reviews, but reviews of your feminine performance mostly come from other women. Men care that you’re attractive enough, but we’ve established that femininity doesn’t simply equate to attractiveness. Women judge each other’s appearance in a more demanding fashion, and they care about each other’s judgment.
One reason is mate guarding. A guy isn’t worried that other men will try to steal his girl just because she’s hotter than him, only if she signals her availability to other men. For women, on the other hand, dating a guy that other women think is hotter than her is often a source of anxiety. Even if she matches her boyfriend’s specific type, she knows his status would rise if he was with a conventionally hotter woman. Every such woman becomes an implied threat.
This explains why women invest more effort into being hot than men do, and why both men and women agree that women are more attractive as a whole. It’s also why hot people only seem to date other hot people instead of using their selection power on literally any other trait. I’ve written about "SMV compliance enforcement”: it’s all “love is love” and “let consenting adults” and “the heart has its own laws” until people see a 6 date an 8 and get conspicuously mad.
With whispers of “is something wrong with him?” when a guy dates below his perceived hotness to accusations of “grooming” when it’s the other way around, SMV compliance is mostly enforced by women.
Women don’t just care how attractive a girl is, but also exactly how she is attractive. This involves strong limits on how much she can explicitly cater to the male gaze. Outside of theocracies like Iran, men mostly just care about their own partner’s body count or dress. In secular society, slut shaming and modesty standards mostly come from other women.
The “raw milkmaid” dress sparked a furor online, mostly among women arguing if it’s too slutty in itself or if the model’s boobs are simply too large. Although it’s ostensibly aimed at the “traditional wife” market, it is advertised primarily as a sexual accessory. The designer claims the dress was “inspired by the hardworking dairymaids of 17th-century Europe”; one suspects that if a “milkmaid” looking like that showed up at a 17th-century village she’d be burned as a witch by nightfall.
We have a seeming contradiction: women judge other women for not being hot enough, but also for being too hot. Performative femininity itself sends contradictory signals. Red lipstick, push-up bras, and swaying hips grab male attention and broadcast sexual availability. But it’s also feminine to cross your legs demurely, speak in soft questions, be discreet, and act coy about male interest.
Women demand a tightrope act of each other, and femininity walks that tightrope. It’s feminine to be emotional but with restraint, credulous but with discernment, sexy but with plausible deniability.
Power + Discipline
A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has it under voluntary control.
— Jordan Peterson
Anthropologist Joseph Henrich distinguishes two ways to climb hierarchies and gain social influence: dominance and prestige. Dominance gains status through intimidation, by demonstrating a capacity and a willingness to inflict costs on others. Prestige is obtained by displaying skills that others may wish to imitate or benefit by. It’s about showing competence combined with an unwillingness to harm others.
We submit to dominant individuals because it is too dangerous to oppose them. We seek to ally with prestigious individuals to learn from them, benefit from their skills, and gain status by association. The same capacity, i.e. martial arts, can be the basis for either type of influence. Think: Kreese vs. Mr. Miyagi.
What about the female capacity for attracting male sexual interest?
The implied threat in most male conflict posturing is “I could kick your ass”. The implied threat in women’s conflict is often “I could steal your man”. Dominance-seeking sexiness is a beautiful woman provocatively dressed and ingratiating herself with men, posting thirst traps and proofs of her many male admirers. Other women may be afraid of getting on her bad side, but they wouldn’t respect her.
The prestige strategy is walking the femininity tightrope with precise skill, also known as being ladylike:
when women can tell, or believe, that you are doing something painful/uncomfortable/dangerous/inconvenient to be more sexually attractive, they will feel defected against. obvious plastic surgery hits this really hard, a ton of makeup hits this really hard, very high heels, clothing that’s revealing enough to limit movement.
that being said, the more old-fashioned/more stereotypically ladylike/more formal/more expensive (sorry but cost does matter) the vibe of your outfit is, the more overt sexuality you can get away with without triggering this–bc all of those signal unattainability
do SOCIAL favors–introduce people to each other, that really hits–say nice things about people behind their backs–look out for people at events who are alone and feeling awkward & talk to them […] remember that while you're still young & pretty, you have more influence in social situations–& someone who feels like you made them feel better in a social situation, is going to be nicer & more forgiving socially w you
Female attractiveness is power. It can be used to antisocial ends, such as threatening other women’s relationships or forcing them into an arms race of unpleasant hotness enhancements. It can also be applied prosocially, used to help people and create social harmony.
Performative femininity seeks prestige. It gains the respect and friendship of other women by demonstrating both the capacity to be really hot and the discipline to not use that hotness against other women. Femininity demands conspicuous effort put into one’s appearance with dress, makeup, posture etc. not because women can’t be effortlessly hot, but because they can’t demonstrate disciplined control over their hotness if it’s not deliberate.
The opposite of being ladylike is a woman who puts no effort into her own appearance while attacking other women over theirs. This can get you plenty of Twitter followers and even some male suitors, but very few female admirers.
Wife Material
In summary: femininity isn’t maximizing direct appeal to men. It’s a performance of a woman’s precise control over her attractiveness and ability to grab and redirect attention. It is displayed to all but evaluated primarily by other ladies in a hierarchy of prestige.
But this doesn’t mean that it has nothing to do with attracting men. Men of high social standing care deeply about the social standing of their partners. Rich men pay for party girls to dance at their table but don’t date them. They marry attractive women, but ones whose credentials go deeper than their cleavage.
This doesn’t require men to judge feminine performance directly. They are oblivious to a lot of it, from the seasonal suitability of her lipstick shade to the emotional suitability of her reaction to a small compliment. But women also don’t need to understand fantasy football to tell who’s the leader of a male friend group, who’s a respected member, and who is barely tolerated. Men can judge the respect and prestige granted to a woman by other women, and it’s an important factor for serious romantic pursuit.
This is massively underestimated by some young women, especially ones who have mostly male friends and/or/aka live in San Francisco. Dating advice for women often completely ignores intrafemale prestige, imagining that women are dating as untethered individuals. But while social proof matters more to women than to men, it still matters — especially when men start looking for serious relationships.
A funny demonstration of this are groups of women whose shared ethos is victim feminism and yet who are easily able to find male partners. The men value a girl who is in good standing with other women, if that standing is maintained by misandry.
The precise rules of femininity vary by subculture and change over time, but its effects are consistent. Men watch women watching men watching women. They’re watching for power and prestige.
A harmless woman isn’t a good wife. A good wife is a very, very feminine dangerous woman.
This is quite insightful.