The purpose of my posting this is to hear other people's thoughts on the topic, not to preach or inform.

My premise can be summarized by stating that men by default do not possess sex, being that sex is an act requiring more than one person. Assuming you are a straight male, your sexual partner is ideally a female. From an economic trade point of view, that means an exchange of value must take place between you and her. You are in the market for sex, and she is in the market for whatever, usually hypergamy.

Supply and demand dictates that the greater the demand, even within a single transaction, the greater the value of the demanded commodity or service. Therefore, the more you want sex, the more you have to be willing to pay (her) for it, whether in the form of currency, services, or implied value (i.e. hypergamy).

One area in which I see a key difference between TRP and PUA is that TRP tends to preach more about self improvement, or increasing your value, which increases your access to sexual partners without making that result the direct goal. PUA on the other hand, as I understand it, tends to preach more about how to best negotiate, in a manner of speaking, the terms of the trade to your own benefit. In other words, how to swindle women out of sex at a cheaper price. Both strategies have a similar result in that sex is acquired, but the psychological impact and long-term positioning within the market seem different.

Ideally, I believe the result of correctly applied RP philosophy should be an independent man who achieves a medium to high SMV while internally and externally demonstrating that he is not directly pursuing women, but is open to being pursued as a friendly, social, accomplished male. He's not on tinder, he's not on OKCupid, he's not making cold approaches beyond impeccably noticing when a woman is signaling interest. A mindset of abundance.

Where I see TRP being mistaken for PUA is in the perpetually asked question "How do I get the girl?" or "How do I get more girls?" No matter what technique advice follows, it comes down to simple math. If your goal is to have as much sex as possible, you have to make a sacrifice in order to achieve that. The sacrifice will at some point inevitably be your own self-respect as you pander to what women want. You may do so with skill and charisma. You may do so efficiently and effectively. You may succeed, but you are nevertheless knocking on her door, messaging her on tinder or OKC, approaching her at the bar before she has noticed you, and with or without tact and mastery, begging her for sex. I use the term begging here not to denote your style of approach, which is no doubt suave, but rather to imply your state of mind in being a thirsty consumer of what women are selling, whether at premium prices or at bargain prices. In other words, it's unavoidable that you are increasing her value both in the real world and in your own life simply by needing sex so badly.

I am no monk. I understand and respect the instinct, especially for men, to have sex. However, if no-porn has taught me anything, it's that the actual need for sex is not as powerful as we assume it is. The pursuit of sex leads to the pursuit of more sex. It's like junk food, or drugs. The more you have of it, the more you want of it. Whether 'having' implies overloading your senses with visual and audible stimuli, or actually sleeping with a girl. The brain's response is similar enough, and the result is addiction.

My alternative to chasing the sexual dragon is not celibacy or defensive isolating behavior. The value of sex will probably never be zero, but there is a wide range between 0 and 1,000. However, if focusing primarily on your own self-improvement, not solely for the sake of attaining sex, can increase your SMV to adequate levels, I am confident most men will receive a supply of sex that meets their actual biological needs without the psychological addiction. To use an analogy, it's like eating just for nutrition and health instead of eating for flavor and to fill emotional voids. Food and sex do not necessitate addiction. It's the approach we take to them that result in possible addiction. Another example could be buying fruits and vegetables when they are in season, instead of paying extra to have them when they are not.

The topic of discussion ultimately boils down to a question of how much and how often men really need sex. It's subjective, but only to a point. I would argue that we need food as a biological imperative far more than we need sex, yet healthy individuals are satisfied with a certain number of calories while others consume far more, even if it is killing them. Must we satisfy our search for happiness by using very few and basic tools? Are we really limited to painting the entire picture of our life with a few colors (i.e. food, sex) or can we achieve the same -- perhaps even better -- result by diversifying our pleasure portfolios and freeing ourselves from dependence on any one particular source?

Can men learn to see sex as vitamin P, which should be taken at recommended levels and not more or less? Or will we continue with a mindset of scarcity no matter how much we're able to attain, because it is never enough to make us feel whole?