If courtesans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigour as some silly people would have it, what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honour of our wives and daughters? – Bernard Mandeville
When I was a lass, we were taught that men only wanted one thing, and that it was the responsibility of women to control access to that thing. Everyone, male and female, over the age of 12 understood this principle for the first 12,000 years of human civilization, then suddenly less than one human lifetime ago started to deny it. We could talk about the reasons all day long, and in fact we have at length in this column before. Dependable birth control, the Sexual Revolution, misguided feminism, the “social construction of gender” lie, the “rape is not sexual” lie, the Cult of the Child’s catechism of trying to keep little girls ignorant of sex until marriage, and the naïve modern belief that Nature is “fair” (born of the complete disconnection of modern urbanites from the natural world they claim to be so concerned about) are among the many causes of this phenomenon, but no matter what weight we give to which factor the result is the same. The typical modern woman under the age of 40 or 50 is totally, completely clueless about the powerful, primal, dangerous, predatory nature of male sexuality and daily engages in the equivalent of dancing around in front of a pack of hungry Siberian wolves with rare steaks strapped to her naked body while insisting that said wolves are really herbivorous and only believe themselves to be carnivorous due to “social construction of dietary preferences”; and, that if they try to eat her she will simply “kick them in the balls” and thereby render them as harmless as kittens.
OK, I’m exaggerating. A little. My analogy breaks down because human men have minds and most of them are both civilized and have the instinctive tendency to protect women. That does not, however, change the fact that they’re still wolves and they’re always hungry, and the only reason they aren’t ripping those steaks off of your body (and maybe eating you for dessert) is because of their own powers of self-control backed up by fear of the consequences. It’s not because they’re “enlightened” or “modern”, it’s not because they were given unisex toys when they were kids and it certainly ain’t because they’re afraid of your magical waif fu combat ability. It’s just that most of them are too civilized, decent and self-controlled to take steaks you don’t want to give. Oh, they might try to talk you or trick you into giving them up, and I certainly wouldn’t go to sleep in the presence of a strange wolf, but most of them aren’t going to be ripping them from your body without asking. But where do men’s nigh-superhuman abilities of self-control come from? They’re learned, of course; over many centuries males have developed a set of behaviors designed to bring vicious young cubs into the pack and instill in them the ability to control their passions. These patterns of male society may seem harsh to women, but they have to be in order to control male passions and thereby turn young savages into adult gentlemen.
In the last generation, however, we have seen a breakdown in these male institutions due to the well-intentioned but frighteningly ignorant meddling of women. In the past, men largely stayed out of women’s business and women stayed out of men’s, and society stayed in balance. But once the neofeminists and their “social construction of gender” fairy tales came into favor, all this changed; male-only institutions were forced to admit women, and women did not like what they saw, largely because they had absolutely no idea what they were looking at. If one presumes that all gender is “socially constructed” then obviously there is only one “normal” pattern of human behavior and everything else is pathological. And since the neofeminists obviously can’t consider female behavior abnormal, they automatically presume that male behavior is, and furthermore conclude that if young boys are feminized then everything will be wonderful and we’ll all go skipping down the road to Candyland together. Except for one thing: Male behavior isn’t automatically pathological, it’s just male. And those young wolf cubs who are being forced to wear fleeces and eat grass won’t grow up to be sheep; they’ll grow up to be either very screwed-up wolves or else very angry, maladjusted wolves who hate sheep and don’t have any clue as to how to behave in a wolf-pack.
One example of a male norm which women have undermined is teaching boys to control their feelings; naïve women bleat about how terrible this is, and how men should be encouraged to “show their feelings”. What kind of insanity is this? The average man is six inches taller than the average woman and outweighs her by fifty pounds; he has three times her upper-body strength, twice her muscle mass and about 1.5x her bone mass. If she gets angry and hits him, it stings; if he gets angry and hits her, it can cause major damage. I’m perfectly happy with men controlling their feelings, thank you very much, and so should you be unless you think being beaten and/or raped on a regular basis is a good thing. It’s because I trust my husband’s self-control that I feel safe screaming at him when I’m angry; if he felt as free to “show his feelings” as I do he would beat the hell out of me every time I dared to provoke him in that way.
Another male social mechanism almost completely destroyed by female meddling is hazing. In any male group which faces danger together (such as military, firemen, police etc) there are certain rites of passage to which newcomers are subjected; these can appear quite brutal to female eyes and indeed I myself was horrified by such practices until I took the time to research the psychology behind them so as to attempt to understand rather than arbitrarily imposing my own female sensibilities on a male institution where they did not belong. Here is what I learned: Because such groups face danger together, they have to have absolute faith in one another. Every man must know that his brothers can be counted on in a crisis, that they will not buckle under the strain. Hazing is the way in which newcomers are tested; they are exposed to psychological stress, even mild torture, and are expected not to break. If they pass the test they become part of the brotherhood, and if they fail they wash out. The process is harsh but absolutely necessary; if a man can’t even take teasing and insults from his comrades, how the hell will he survive being shot at by people who want to kill him? By equating adult male hazing rituals with mere mean-spirited high-school bullying, well-meaning but ignorant women have removed an important and time-tested weeding process from military and paramilitary organizations.
We’ve talked about the consequences of uncontrolled male sexual passion in this column before, most recently on September 24th and October 2nd. But what I didn’t really discuss in those columns is the reason why we’re seeing more of this behavior despite the claims of social engineers that modern men are more “enlightened” and “sensitive” than their forefathers. Certainly the reasons are complex, but I believe one important cause is the pathologization of normal male behavior. If both society and individual men recognize the intensity of male passion and the need to control it, social mechanisms like ingrained stoicism and hazing evolve to teach men to control their passions and institutions like prostitution and violent sports arise to allow them to expend their energies in socially acceptable ways. Some men have milder passions, stronger wills, wise wives or all of the above and will never have need of these outlets, while others need them very much (as evidenced by the study I linked on the 24th showing that decriminalized prostitution reduces rape rates). 19th-century social purity laws which insisted that males be publicly held to female sexual standards were ridiculous enough, but at least in those days men were still allowed to act like men in every other way. Ever since the advent of “social construction of gender”, however, men are expected to act like women and are viciously punished if they do not. Every day in the US men are fired or sent to re-education camps for telling dirty jokes or hanging pictures of pin-up girls in their lockers, and five-year-old boys are arrested for stealing kisses from little girls, yet no politician has the balls to stand up and decry any of this as unjust and insane.
Modern boys are being taught that normal male behavior is sick, perverted and wrong, yet at the same time the social constructs which taught them to control their passions have largely been dismantled. Boys are encouraged to “show their feelings”, then punished when they do so. This is a recipe for instilling sociopathy on a massive scale, and if the behavior of young men on the internet is any indication the damage is already very widespread. Perhaps some of my older male readers may consider me to be overstating the problem, but I doubt many of my younger ones feel that way. And though some of my female readers may not believe me either, that’s because they aren’t whores. We frequently have to listen to customers talking about their frustration on this subject, and we constantly see the evidence of it in their behavior and sometimes-twisted desires. Modern American society needs to stop punishing boys for being boys, and to cease its relentless persecution of the women who work to keep the wolves fed so our prissy domesticated sisters needn’t get saliva on their dainty little hands.
i think that one of the places where this can be seen best, and at its worst, is in the public school system in our country. everyone is a winner, no one ever fails, and even the child who defends himself or herself is immediately suspended. and heaven forbid a 7 year old even mentions the word “gun”, because they will be expelled!
too much molly-coddling and trying to make everything all candy canes and pixie dust has not made our society any more sensitive, just less responsible.
Yes, absolutely. If I had had children there is no way I would ever have condemned them to the state babysitting and brainwashing service we ludicrously refer to as the “public school system”. When little boys are expelled, referred to psychological evaluation and heavily medicated for drawing pictures of tanks or men fighting, why don’t their fathers say anything? For women to be ignorant is understandable (though not forgivable), but men know better and yet sit on their hands like obedient eunuchs. 🙁
unfortunately, not all of us can afford to pay for private school, as that can run from $6k per year and up. And I am not entirely convinced that private schools would be so much better.
the problem with trying to “fix” the system is that any attempt to address public school ideology or even fiscal mismanagement is immediately called an attack on the children and anti-education. some of the absolute worst bullying i have seen is by administrators in the public school system against other administrators AND against parents. They go to great lengths to hold the children and parents accountable for everything, but never hold themselves responsible for anything.
there was a local board of ed president in my state who wrote a letter to the editor claiming that chicken nuggets were baked and weren’t fried, and denounced the people who said they were. low and behold several weeks later the school system took the word baked off the menu. when questioned about it they claimed that the fda meaning of fried wasnt clear and blamed them for the confusion.
come on people, chicken nuggets aren’t fried?
oh, and there was never an apology from the president about it. not one word.
the problem is the damn arrogance WE have allowed to continue for way too long!
not that i have an opinion or anything… 😉
My mother went back to work in 1972, a time when most housewives still didn’t, in order to pay for our education at Catholic schools. Even though she and I never got along, I will never question her dedication to doing what she thought was right for her children.
In common with many others I support a school voucher program; once poor parents could start sending their children to good schools the public school system would be forced to reform or die, which is exactly why all the teacher’s unions and educational “authorities” oppose such a program. 🙁
well some of us tried to get our SOs to go back to work, but they were too [CENSORED] to get up and do anything but complain about it. I’ll refrain from further comment for fear of being labeled as a woman hater.
I really tried to find ways to argue with some of that.
…But I can’t.
Don’t ever stop trying; it keeps me on my toes.
And believe me, I wish I was wrong about this. Not about male nature because it’s the tao of men to be that way and any woman who doesn’t like it cannot honestly say she likes men. No, I mean I wish I was wrong about the way modern American society treats boys and men, which to me more resembles a program for breaking slaves than it does anything else. 🙁
True as well, and also, ditto on what you said about men sitting on their asses like eunuchs. I don’t know what happened to these last two generations of men, but for some reason, they’ve tucked it between their legs and seem to be content with that.
I’m not. My dad was all man. To the end.
Also, I hate public school as well. The only focus is to teach you how to be ignorant of everything that you should know, and become a victim of excessive living/consumerism.
“True as well, and also, ditto on what you said about men sitting on their asses like eunuchs. I don’t know what happened to these last two generations of men, but for some reason, they’ve tucked it between their legs and seem to be content with that.” – Thehumanscorch
^alas, I think the answer to that question is “castrated by feminism” ; the dark side effect of the equality pendulum going too far *past* the middle point.
I was fortunate to have several good examples of what men should be like (including my father and my cousin Jeff), and I’ve judged every man in my life by them.
The entire purpose of public school is to create good, obedient little factory workers who are conditioned to respond to bells and stand quietly in lines while never questioning authority figures no matter how stupid or arbitrary their rules are. 🙁
I think the main problem is that things have always to find a “golden mean” to work as they should, Maggie. When, for instance, you say that it is good for men to control and hide their feelings, you don’t mean that they should become desensitized robots. Society was not perfect in the past — for men, or for women either: we haven’t exactly invented gender misunderstandings the last few decades, it’s just that we — me and you — are more aware of the problems of today, since we can see them much more easily and directly.
One of the problems was that men who control their feelings too much ended up not knowing what these feelings were anymore. Consider sex: just as they were told to control themselves, they were also told not to masturbate, and that their desires were inspired by Satan with the purpose of tempting them away from Christ and salvation, etc. etc. etc.
Men were also told to be hard and pragmatic; so they often didn’t understand their own more emotional needs, like emotional contact with their children, especially their male children. My 50-year-old friend (whose marriage problems I mentioned in another comment) tells me with some sadness that his father was never able to tell him he loved him, or show affection physically, say by hugging him, or putting his hand on his shoulder, or anything like that. Because it wouldn’t be “manly.” I remember similar behavior from my own father, and from other father-son relationships from my generation (I was born in ’68).
Not all men were like that, of course. But just like the confused men of today — confused by wrong neo/radfem ideas — are not all men of today, yet show something about why those ideas have wrong elements and can have bad consequences, the ‘insensitive’ or ‘affectionless’ man of yesteryear, even though not the only kind of man that existed then, shows something about the wrong elements in yesterday’s ideas about manliness and their bad consequences.
There are good men today, like your cousin Jeff, and there were similarly good, well-round, deeper men in the past. But I don’t think they’ve ever really been a much more representative fraction of general population than they are today. The processes which create such men — assuming they are not born that way — are not really entirely understood. (Nor are the processes that lead to good women, by the way.) We’re still learning things about ourselves.
That’s only since the advent of the “social purity” movement, which has not since gone away. In the PAST (pre-Victorian times) men were not brainwashed in that way.
I firmly believe they’re born that way.
It comes and goes; there were bad periods like the Victorian purity movements, and there were also good periods. But this has always been controversial, and men have mostly received mixed messages about whether their natural propensities were good or bad, which is not really conducive to self-acceptance.
If so, why bother about what society thinks about men? The good ones will be born that way anyway, (and so will the bad ones, I presume). Whether or not men are seen as good, bad, whether or not measures are taken against them, whether or not there is neofeminism… that won’t affect the good men or their ratio in the general population, if indeed they are simply born that way.
The Victorian “social purity” legislation and thinking has never gone away in the US; it has only become slightly less popular since the ’60s. So there have been no “good periods” since then, only slightly less bad ones.
Exceptionally good men will always be good, but that has nothing to do with the behavior of the majority. As I’ve said before many times, the existence of exceptions does not disprove general rules. And the only rule without exception is the one which states “all rules have exceptions”.
Indeed, that I can agree with! 🙂
Good and bad periods? Well, the ’10s weren’t like the 20’s, and neither was like the ’30s. Even though indeed the Victorian frame of mind remained established, people’s reaction to it varied with the Zeitgeist. Similarly also before the Victorian period.
As for the US: the impression I have is that it contains several different subcultures (with respect to ‘purity’, for instance) that are evolving into keeping as separate from each other as possible — achieving cognitive closure, as it were. As far as controlling other people’s behavior, just as there is a ‘Victorian’ bent to America, there also is a ‘libertarian’, ‘live-and-let-live’ one (I’m using the labels very loosely here), both with old roots, or so it seems to me. Maybe at some point Americans thought that they would merge into one thing (the ‘melting pot’), but to my outsider’s eyes it seems like they’re moving farther and farther apart.
This insider’s eyes see the same thing. 🙁
I’ve finally worked my way back to one year in the past. The bad news, of course, is that I only have a few more months of blogs left, and then I’ll have to settle for just one a day. 🙁
I do have to offer a minor correction here, though. The anti-masturbation hysteria predated the Victorian period by about a century, beginning with the publication of Onania, which started all the ridiculous health scares about masturbation. (The book was actually a marketing gimmick designed to sell the author’s masturbation cures.)
So we had two centuries of lunacy rather than one, but your general point is still accurate.
Maggie–sorry for jumping in again so soon, but, unlike many of your other posts, this is one I have some real disagreements on.
* There’s a huge gap between having involved fathers and other men teach boys how to behave and relying on hazing and other abusive rituals to set the norms. A boy I once knew, with wonderful parents, died in a pointless hazing incident in college. I doubt he could have learned anything about being a good man from other abusive kids, but he had a great father who lost him for good. I don’t anything about military training, so I’ll leave that, but otherwise I can’t buy the “we abuse you, and you abuse in your turn” tradition as a model for treating other people well. I’d rather my son learn how to be a good man from people with a less dehumanizing approach.
* There’s also a big gap between overdone “sharing” and traditional male stoicism. Very few of the many grim, silent, unemotional male stoics I’ve known have had any warmth (or anything else, other than rules) to offer anybody. They’re like obsessives constantly straining for a completely unreasonable ideal–“must be strong, must be silent to be strong.” But quite a few of them seem to be abusive or dangerous when they *do* break the silence. Once again, there’s got to be a reasonable middle ground where men can communicate feelings and ideas effectively. I’d say that kind of behavior shows more strength than giving in to the fear of being judged as insufficiently “strong and silent.”
* Your description of public schools as a “state babysitting and brainwashing service” really stands out from your other thoughtful statements as something more like rabble-rousing or (forgive me) propaganda. Just as calling prostitution “rape” insults real rape victims, you might say that calling public education “brainwashing” insults the real victims of brainwashing, not to mention belittling the efforts of thousands of good teachers. There are good schools and bad schools, and you can always find examples of stupid or inept administration, but you can find those in any type of public or private institution. Public schools at least give kids a chance to grow up around a wider range of people and learn to get along with them. It’s increasingly popular in the US to put down public institutions, but that seems to be a symptom of increasing incivility and “me first” thinking.
Scott, you never need to apologize for comments, nor for disagreement. I welcome polite disagreement; it’s only trolling and runaway argumentativeness which I ban.
Your views on male hazing rituals are far more valid than mine, which is exactly the point I was trying to make. If males among themselves decide that hazing is no longer acceptable, that’s their decision to make. It’s when women who have never lived as men and know nothing about male psychology try to apply their asinine “social construction of gender” notions to male institutions that the trouble arises. I don’t feel women have any place applying female standards to males; feminists (not neofeminists but actual feminists) are constantly bitching and moaning about male standards (in medicine, etc) being applied to women, but they have no issue whatever about applying female standards to men. This is the hypocrisy at the heart of feminism which has caused so many young women to shun it; feminists only want “equality” when it benefits women, and otherwise wish to retain traditional feminine privileges.
We’ll definitely have to disagree on the public school issue; though I agree that there may be many dedicated teachers, they are not allowed to teach. The fact that the brainwashing which goes on in public schools is mild in comparison with communist “re-education” does not free it from the label, any more than drugging a woman is less rape merely because it isn’t as violent as putting a gun to her head. Public schools are designed to train kids to obey authority without question, to memorize whatever they’re told to memorize and to queue up for bells; in other words, to train them as factory workers for industrial jobs this country no longer has.
There is only one way to fix our broken educational system: school vouchers. The Washington, D.C. voucher program cancelled by Obama had already achieved notable results (which is, of course, why it was cancelled). Voucher programs force schools to be accountable; good teachers will advance and bad will be canned, good schools will flourish and bad will die. Ever heard the expression “follow the money?” Take a look at where all the funds for lobbying against vouchers are coming from: teacher’s unions and public-school administrators. What does that tell you? Those who stand to lose from reforms are always those who oppose them most desperately.
The reason it’s increasingly popular to put down public institutions is that they’re incompetent; when the Mustang Ranch was taken over by the feds for back taxes years ago in 1990 the IRS couldn’t manage to run it due to political squabbling. And though the urban legend which claims the government actually ran the place is wrong in point of fact, its premise is still true: a government which cannot effectively run a whorehouse without losses and political struggles is not competent to do much of anything else either, certainly not to manage my money or educate my kids. 🙁
Thanks, Maggie. I understand your point about hazing and other male activities better now.
But we will have to disagree on schools and on public institutions. (Not that I expect that to really shake up your day. 🙂 ) I went through public schools and am really bad at not questioning authority, doing things because I’m told to, or, for that matter, being competent at any sort of industrial job. And I’ve known lots of people who benefited from the skills taught in public schools and from the wider social contacts there and are still irreverent independent thinkers.
As for public institutions, they just can’t all be lumped into one category. It’s easy to find the extreme or entertaining bad examples, or actions that disagree with someone’s politics, but steady competent work, most of it done by people with an honest desire to help others, goes un-noticed. (And, fwiw, this is not coming from a conformist bureaucrat or a flag-waving patriot. I think our society and economy are fundamentally screwed up*, but I also think it’s important to have shared institutions to help connnect a community.) And saying “it’s all bad” doesn’t help us find where the real problems are and fix them.
Of course, one of the real problems with public institutions is that they can be pawns of short-sighted, self-involved politicians. You can go four years doing something, then have an election and find yourself directed to stop doing something or change what you’re doing just because someone wants to make political points. And then four years later it swings back the other way. It’s hard to make progress like that. Having raving ideologues of any stripe in power causes a lot of wasted energy, and can really screw up peoples’ lives for no good reason.
*that’s the *really* short version of that particular rant 🙂
I think you’re selling yourself short, Scott; I think you and the others you know who did well, did so in spite of their public school education rather than because of it. A kid with an exceptional mind can learn even in a bad school, but poor learners won’t. And good learners learn BETTER in good schools.
But, we’ll agree to disagree. 🙂
I can’t speak for the US, but in Canada the school system is starting (albeit slowly) to realize the kind of trouble they’re creating. In my city of Toronto they’re even talking about creating some schools segregated by gender. If one opens, my son will be first in line!
They’re still a little dismissive of boys (“oh, boys will be boys…”) and still don’t really understand why boys prefer playing videogames to school work. (Hmm… something interesting, challenging and inspiring vs. sit down and shut up … yeah, can’t imagine what it is…) but at least they’re making progress.
I agree that a school voucher system would dramatically accelerate the process. I’m in the process of starting a freelance gig to get more time to educate my son. He’s smart, but he’s bored in school and they will lose him soon, like they lost me. The good news is that we’re in the best time ever for self-education. Tools like the Khan Academy and homeschooling message boards make it easier than ever to get your kid a quality education.
It certainly doesn’t help that there’s a bit of a stigma to being a male teacher with young children. It deprives young boys of a good male role model.
I’ve been working with young men finding their “Mojo” or confidence professionally for 5 years. So many males below 30 find it incredibly hard to express their desire for sex to a woman for fear of repercussions.
The thought of telling a woman they are sexually attracted to them in any form sends them running to the hills. It’s truly disturbing.
Of course it scares them, Johnny; they know that they’re only safe making such a comment if by some small chance the woman wants to be wanted. If she is not attracted to them, they then become “creepy” and, in the workplace, will find themselves talking to HR. Some businesses are worse than others in this regard, but in light of sexual harassment laws which define harassment as occurring essentially whenever the alleged target “feels uncomfortable” and which have nothing to do with the intent of the alleged harasser, and with the added burden of potential litigation and adverse publicity, many businesses are more than willing to throw a few men to the wolves rather than run the risks.
There’s also the danger that the woman might be receptive to a desire for sex. One thing leads to another and pretty soon the man is stuck with a wife and children, then the wife stops wanting sex, then a divorce, etc. These same men are usually reluctant to patronize prostitutes, for the simple reason that is easier and cheaper to masturbate. It takes a huge amount of shaming (“man up!”) to get these men to put aside their own interests, which leads to natural preference for masturbation for most men, and do what society wants.
As for the idea that masturbation isn’t a substitute for sex because men also want emotional intimacy, isn’t that handled by all the women who want to be “just friends”? If a young man really wants to throw square women for a loop, he should take them up on their “just friends” offer, while learning to be satisfied with masturbation plus an occasional visit to hookers to validate himself. And get a vasectomy in case the girl converts “just friends” to “friends with benefits” because she wants to get pregnant.
One thing I had that was a huge advantage: A traditional, Catholic father who took me aside and told me about men and women. Not the sex part: He presumed I was all over that at the time. Lessons he told me:
– Women are very manipulative. Never sacrifice money, time or energy for them if it seems unreasonable, because half the time they’re just testing you to see what kind of man you are and what they can get away with. This has been proven time and time again in my life.
– Women who are close to you deserve respect. Men who are your companions deserve absolute loyalty. But always remember: The loyalty of a woman is dependent on circumstances. In combat, most men will die with their companions and feel guilty if they don’t. Few women will do either. It’s because women need to look after the kids and the future, and men are disposable. You are disposable. This is how women see you. Some will love you, but they love you for a reason. You’ll fall in love and love for love’s sake. Don’t be blind.
(I was).
– Make sure you stand by your friends.
– Make sure you stand by the women you know who are worth standing by. You’ll know them. These are the women you sacrifice yourself for. You owe other women the same thing you owe other men; there is no difference.
Clannish and dogmatic he may be, my father had some things right. Once married, though he opposed my choice, he told me to make it work, because I owed it not just to her but to myself. When I said she was immature and manipulative, he told me to be a man and stand up to her: By doing this, I would actually be defending her interests. I didn’t. She divorced me. She then dated a series of bad and badder men, looking for something. She once said that sometimes I was too nice. It was, in retrospect, a whisper that was ultimately as loud as a scream.
I took my father’s advice with my current SO, who I will likely marry. She was angry with me, almost violent. She pushed me. I looked at her, said very calmly she was being unreasonable, I don’t take kindly to being dealt with in this manner, and that I was leaving. I stayed out for two nights. I told her to call me when she felt she could carry on a conversation like an adult.
Lo and behold, she apologized for reacting as she did. Not for our argument: But for attempting to shame, silence and browbeat me into agreement. And then we discussed our original point, and came to a very sensible and economical agreement, and solved the problem.
In a previous life, I pandered to such sensibilities.
I might have reacted with the same emotional, manipulative, self-righteous tone she used.
Instead, I stood back and demanded that she be an adult. And, true to her strength of character, when led in this fashion, like my father said, she rose to the occasion and we solved the problem.
He told me to be a rock; around this rock, the waters ebb and flow, and especially women and weak men will tear at you; but you always remain. If you need to, push them away; if you need to, hold them steady. But you are the anchor that keeps them solid. He said it was called being a man.
There was much to respect in women, he said, including a sense of decency few men have; but for even-handed justice, for fairness and for discipline, it was insane to expect your wife to match these expectations unless you offered her the same, and enforced it.
It might be sexist, but my own life anecdotally supports these notions. It’s interesting. It plays against the very non-sexist script I learned in college. But it seems to be true.
I think My Lady’s dichotomization of the sexes is part of what makes her weblog interesting to read. Unfortunately I also think it’s disconnected from reality. Men are more wolfish than females, of course! But truly, most of us aren’t like starving wolves. And particularly, men are *less* emotional than women; female emotionality likely acts to inhibit antisocial behavior.
Consider traits like psychopathy; the high male psychopathy rate is inexplicable until we know that males score lower on measures of emotionality, and that emotionality is negatively related to psychopathy (see for instance Lee & Ashton’s 2005 article, “Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and Narcissism in the FiveFactor Model and the HEXACO model of personality structure.”) Or, consider sociosexuality, the willingness to have sex outside of a committed relationship; greater male sociosexuality again seems mysterious until we know that emotionality negatively predicts the endorsement of no-strings attached sexuality (as found in a related article by the same authors, “The Prediction of Honesty-Humility related criteria by the HEXACO and Five-Factor Models of Personality”).
To be honest, I would bet that My Lady is less emotional than most females, and far less emotional than the authoritarian neofeminists and “for the children” prohibitionists who make her life so difficult. After all, how long could a whore last if she grew sentimental after sex?
The news disagrees with you. Every single day there are stories of men ruining their lives, getting in legal trouble, going to prison FOR LIFE…due to inability to control their sex drives. Women? Essentially never. I think you’re projecting your own unusually-low sex drive (itself possibly the product of environmental estrogens that many biologists feel are responsible for lowering both male sex drive and sperm counts over the last two generations) onto other men.
Ah! But My Lady is focusing on the extremes. News stories are based on unusual events; otherwise they wouldn’t be particularly newsworthy. Many more men than women do commit rape, but women also rape and molest – and none of them, men or women, are typical. It is easy to see how two strongly overlapping Gaussian curves can still produce disparities at the tail ends. After all, a mere half-sigma shift can change a 1 in 100 rarity to 1 in 480. Far more men than women are professional football players, Nobel laureates, and rapists, yes! But the overwhelming majority of men are none of these.
As to My Lady’s claim that my sexual drive is artificially depressed, that is of course quite likely – to my knowledge just about everyone in the First World has been affected. But truthfully, considering the number of children I’ve fathered, the quantity of pornography I regularly absorb, and even the studies I’ve carried out on sexual preferences, I’d say it’s inaccurate to claim that my sexual drive is particularly low. In fact for a while Wife complained that I never drew anything except overdeveloped female nudes; I’ve made an effort and can now proudly say that I produce a broad array of violent and Lovecraftian imagery the whole family can enjoy. 😉
Very well thought out. I love it.
I remember reading this one, but again, I seem to have left no comment. Well, now I have.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, and …
… thank you.
It is good to be “seen.”
As a kid I was teased and bullied, and when I tried to fight back I was in trouble, and I was expected to put up with it. I never was accepted by the other kids for all the stuff they put me through. I don’t think at all it ws anything noble or heroic.
“Perhaps some of my older male readers may consider me to be overstating the problem, but I doubt many of my younger ones feel that way. ”
Incredibly true. One thing I’ve noticed talking to older men in my family and listening to the concerns of friends is that when young men talk to older men about sexuality and masculinity it’s like the two live in different worlds. The older men just approach the subject from such completely different assumptions about human nature and the facts that it’s like the two groups are speaking a different language.
It’s interesting to consider that this article was published almost 10 years ago. It seems to me that the problems identified here have gotten worse over that time period.