House of Eratosthenes

I was looking at my hotmail account and came across the ridiculous caption, “Is he a himbo?” at MSN. According to the urban dictionary, a himbo is the male version of a bimbo, whore, or slut. I stupidly clicked on the article (I know, I know, don’t do it) and read the following:

It’s a good thing I was reading the tabloids at my doctor’s office, because after looking at the latest Us Weekly and In Touch, I felt like I could use a heavy dose of antibiotics. I’m not sure when it hit me, but somewhere between the picture of Lance Armstrong holding hands with Kate Hudson (not long after he’d stopped canoodling with Ashley Olsen) and the snapshot of John Mayer catching some rays with Jennifer Aniston (mere months after telling Jessica Simpson he wanted to see other Wonderlands), I started to feel a little queasy.

I’m no stranger to the porcine habits of men, what with being one and all. But doesn’t it seem like these guys are going a little beyond piggy lately?…

Or perhaps these guys should take a cue from Cary Grant: By all accounts, he was the Ho of Babylon, and yet his legacy is all rakish charm and sex appeal. It’s a matter of style.

Maybe I give Cary Grant a pass cuz he made Notorious, while Matthew McConaughey made Failure to Launch. Whatever. I’m just saying, guys — have a little self-respect, OK? Seriously. Keep your shirts on. Live strong.

So, let’s get this straight. If women play the field, they are liberated. If men do the same, they are pigs with no self-respect. Give me a break. The guy who wrote the article is either jealous of these guys or has been so indoctrinated to telling females what they want to hear that he has to diss his own sex to make himself feel important. Either way, I say, if you’re male, single, and upfront with the women you date, let your inner himbo shine is you’re so inclined.

I’m of two minds about this. First, I think Helen is coming off a little bit thin-skinned on behalf of us gents. As a real man, I can watch you float one double standard after another, without getting my pride or my sensibilities wounded. That’s what being a real dude is all about. Knights and damsels; opening the door for the lady; laying the overcoat down in the mud puddle and all that stuff.

On the other hand, I draw the line at being diminished. And that is one of the ways we’ve been very effectively diminished, lately. This behavior is unacceptable. That behavior is unacceptable. This, that, this, that…such-and-such is threatening…oh dear, he made me feel uncomfortable. We think this is paying gentlemen some sort of compliment because of our roots — in the olden days it was called “chivalry.” So we think this is just a grandchild of chivarly. Men are expected to do this, and not to do that.

This isn’t chivalry. It’s a form of class warfare.

Thing I Know #237. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between being held accountable to a higher standard, which is an act of love, and being staked to the ground by a shorter leash, which is an act of hate. There aren’t too many ways to distinguish these things. I do know of one: Love is reserved for individuals. A class can’t be loved.

I notice it is a recurring meme in feminist circles to decry this double-standard with regard to sluttiness; girls are expected to remain chaste, guys are expected to whore around. There is truth in this. But only in middle- and high-schools. Feminists, you’ll notice, will use passive voice with regard to describing this double standard, avoiding like the dickens having to mention the venue in which male sluts are worshipped and female sluts are roundly condemned. They avoid mentioning it because it is so relevant. It’s all about the setting.

It’s also about the fantasies people have with regard to their own gender. We have a James Bond movie coming out next month. If it’s decent, it’ll have a “bop count” of at least three. So the feminists do have a point, because if you made a film franchise about a female spy who sleeps with four or five studs in the course of each adventure, for this reason or that, it would bomb at the box office. Where the feminists are steered wrong, is their refusal to separate fantasy from reality — nobody’s thinking too highly of a real flesh-and-blood guy who sleeps with half-a-dozen conquests a week — and, once again, feminists are confused about what can be done about certain things. They forget, again, that men and women are fundamentally different. We have different fantasies about ourselves.

Men don’t recoil in disgust from stories about women who sleep with lots of men. Women do that. At the same time, nobody is really attracted, in large numbers, to such an idea. It simply lacks any redeeming value for anyone at all.

Except as an object of ridicule. In which case, all gender-flavored favoritism, in one direction or another, vanishes. Male sluts and female sluts are equally ridiculous. Just look at Bill Clinton’s image during the last two years of his administration; the man’s very name was a punchline.

Bottom line: I don’t think either gender is honored, or validated, whatever, through any kind of cultural permissiveness vis a vis their pokey-pokey pecadillos. How that myth ever got started, I’ll never know. But I do agree with Dr. Helen that it’s become a rather inexpensive way to make yourself look like a “good egg” to nameless faceless multitudes, to chastise those knuckle-dragging men into doing this-or-that thing or stop doing some other damn silly thing. There can be some merit involved in that. Guys should wash their hands and leave the seat down, and a lot of ’em don’t. But generally, it’s good to be wary of costless ways strangers can make themselves look decent. I’ve found once the method emerges, people will exploit it, in droves, to make themselves look like they have more redeeming qualities than they really do.

Enough of that heavy-thinking nonsense. I’m gonna go download some pictures of good-looking ladies in skimpy bathing suits now.

I think it comes back to why women ended Marriage, and why they are(as a rule) so vicious in divorce. Women seem much more prone to “Beautiful Fairy Princess” then the men they marry. Marriage was ended(I believe) because so many women felt “trapped” in their marriage, shacking them to some clod, just as Prince Charming, their real and for true soul mate, had shown up. Women wanted to be free to play the field, which means something different for women. It means Marriage and living happily ever after with Prince Charming, who will love them heart and soul and die of a broken heart if she were to be taken from him.

So now women are free to go after Prince Charming. All of them. Thus the hate of the Himbo. Prince Charming is surrounded by fresh, friendly, attractive women, and is in no hurry to settle down just yet. “Why won’t he grow up?” is heard, as is “He needs to be more responsible!”. Because Prince Charming is going to marry them, of course, once he understands they were meant to be together…..

The hate in marriage comes because most men are not Prince Charming in the eyes of women. When women marry rank and file men, they feel that they have “settled” for less then they could have gotten. They get divorced when they can no longer contain their contempt for their husband. The hate comes because divorced women find Prince Charming more elusive then ever.

It’s becoming clear that Marriage was forced on women by men. With the death of Marriage, we are seeing the return of harems in Western Civilization. Women will settle for a piece of Prince Charming if they “have” to. That’s one of the points of the Himbo complain. Joining the harem is easy, then try to guilt him into giving up the other women. I’m rambling. Off to bed.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 10/23/2008 @ 02:20

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HimbosWednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Himbos
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008