Hat tip to Buck, who’s trying to find some wall space for his new memento. Nice! Congrats on that one, Sergeant:
Archive for the ‘Is It Really a Man’s World?’ Category
The Difference Between Women and Men
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Unhappy Alpha Women
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Oooh…this is good. Fascinating stuff. But I don’t see a way to extract meaningful pieces out of it, so I’ll just read in the entire thing.
I was talking about relationships with my buddy John Hawkins of Right Wing News, and the following IM conversation ensued:
John Hawkins: Show me a woman who is stronger than the man she is with and I will show you a woman who is unhappy or getting there.
Cassy Fiano: Think so?
John Hawkins: Definitely. Some women like being stronger than the guy at first…but it eats at them both over time.
Cassy Fiano: You don’t think there are any circumstances where maybe the woman is the alpha and the man is the beta and its a good thing?
John Hawkins: Short term, yes. Long term, I think it’s unhealthy. Some people make it through anyway, but it’s not good for them, nor do I think they are nearly as happy as they would be if the positions are reversed.
Cassy Fiano: why do you think the man needs to be the alpha for happiness to occur?
John Hawkins: Not just that. I think the woman needs to be the beta to be happy.
Cassy Fiano: OK, but why? I don’t see myself as a strict beta female.
John Hawkins: You don’t have to be. But, it’s built into us. It’s genetic. A woman, in her core, wants a man who is stronger than she is. If that’s not the case, she will eventually feel like less of a woman. A man wants to be stronger than the woman he is with, too. It makes him feel like a man. If you are stronger than the man you are with, you will eventually start to feel contempt for him. It’s as natural as a dog chasing cats. You can train a dog not to chase a cat, but it’s his nature.That conversation definitely got me thinking. Do women really need to be the beta in a relationship in order to be happy? My first inclination, obviously, was no. As I said above, I certainly don’t see myself as a beta.
In a sense, I agree with John. I do think that in a healthy, long-term relationship, the man needs to be the “alpha” in order for him to feel happy and secure. If a man feels like his wife is stronger than he is, and more controlling, then he will feel disrespected and, as John said, like less of a man. Likewise, while many feminists will probably tell you that women are perfectly happy as the Alphas in their relationships, if a woman’s husband cannot show her strength and backbone, then she will slowly cease to respect him. (Marie Claire had a great article on an alpha female-beta male relationship implosion.)
A lot of women will think this means that men don’t want strong women, and I don’t think this could be further from the truth. I think most men do want a strong women… I think they want a partner who is intelligent, successful, confident, and intelligent. However, if a man is made to feel like less of a man, then there’s a problem. Men need to know that they are respected by their partners, and women need to feel like their partner is strong enough to be deserving of their respect. A spineless weakling a woman can walk all over is not going to garner any of her respect, is it? The more disrespected the man feels, the less happy and fulfilled he will be. Likewise, the less a woman respects her man, the more resentful and bitter she will become.
On the other hand, a man whose wife respects him and looks up to him will probably be the happiest man in the world, while his wife will find herself proud rather than resenting.
So, I guess I agree with John. I think it is importantand healthy for the man to be the “alpha”, or the head of his household, or however you want to phrase it.
I just have one exception. And it’s a big one.
I don’t think that either the male or the female needs to be “stronger” than the other. I think for a relationship to be healthy, the two need to be equals. Just because the man is the alpha, it does not mean that the woman needs to be the beta doormat. The main issue here, I think, is respect, and it needs to go both ways. Just as it is unhealthy for a woman to feel she can walk all over and control her man, it is unhealthy for a man to feel that he can walk all over and control his woman. There needs to be an equality and a balance, and without it, the relationship is doomed regardless of who the alpha is.
I’m curious about other thoughts on this topic. Are John and I way off base here? What do you think — do women need to be betas to be happy?
My own thinking? John’s got some of it…Cassy’s on her way there. As for the rest of it, I dunno. Maybe I should break form and keep my silence this one time, for sake of getting along. I know that’s not my trait, but I’m still smarting from that beak-poking I got last time I talked about women. Yes, let’s try to turn over a new leaf. That’s the ticket.
Naw. In for a penny, in for a pound. So here goes.
Women are more sensitive than men are, to pointlessness. A common mistake I see fellas making with their women, is to acquiesce. It starts out so harmless — “oh no, honey, those shorts do not make you look fat.” And then the “oh, I dunno, whatever makes you happy” in response to…what dress should I wear…eggshell or creamy off-white…Noritake or Corelle…cedar or mahogany…
Having no opinion, is so safe. Can’t guarantee an opinionated man will be threatening, but you can always guarantee a man without an opinion, won’t be. Right?
It’s not so simple. Because women are sensitive to pointlessness, they train this sensitivity, first and foremost, upon their men. It’s instinctive. The man is there for the purpose of planting his seed; the seed exists to carry a genetic blueprint; having no opinion, is like having no blueprint. Women want men to provide a signature. An inclination. Something that sets the fella apart from that other fella she was thinking about choosing, but decided not to. What’s the impact? What’s being done differently from the way that other guy woulda done it? That’s the question; the million-dollar question.
Note…I’m not talking about what’s done better. Just different. It’s the sense of identity. And so, to the feminine way of looking at things, a guy who doesn’t put his opinion into a relationship doesn’t put anything else into it either. They never say that, especially the feminized ones. But they all feel it. So in real life, all these guys go out of their way to act like Luke Wilson in “Legally Blonde,” just doing nothing but…adoring. Nothing else. And they end up losing their women, because they aren’t providing the signature.
What complicates this, is that women want themselves to have purpose as well. Oh, Lordy, do they ever.
Both of these are non-negotiable, so when it comes to making women happy it’s a little bit useless to talk about terms like “Alpha” and “Beta.” But you can see, by now, where I agree with John; if a woman provides all the strength, and all the function, to day-to-day living, what’s that guy doing there? Emotional support? She can get that anywhere, really. So even if her material needs are being met, and all other needs being met — she’ll still be unhappy and unfulfilled. It’s not that she thinks some other guy would make her happier. It’s just there’s no hard answer to the question, “Why Him?” That love-shit doesn’t cut it. Being friends as well as lovers doesn’t cut it. Deep down, she knows she could just as much be in love with someone else. Things have to have a purpose.
So each half of the couple has to have a “turf,” and the lady has to realize internally that she, as well as her dude, have it. She doesn’t have to come first in all things, she doesn’t have to come last in all things either. The point is, is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? If so, then she’s fulfilled, and if not, then she isn’t. A woman who feels she’s just there to do stuff for her man, and nothing else, is going to be unhappy, not because of all the work, or the lack of gratitude, but because any other woman would be able to do it just as well. A woman whose man is a jack of all trades and master of none, will be equally unhappy, not because of his lack of talent but because of his lack of specialty. She wants that sense of identity, and she doesn’t want it to come from within her; she wants it to come from her man, as the Good Lord intended. Yes, I mean that. Look at all these civilizations that grew, isolated from each other. In all those cultures, the male is in charge of the surname — he passes the one to his children, that he got from his Dad. This is not an accident.
This is made out to be something a tad more complicated than it really is. Our women adjudicate our relationships with them, and they do it according to what makes those relationships worthwhile, whether they realize it or not. They’re doing what just makes sense. If both participants are living a life richer together than it would be if they were apart, the relationship is a success, and if not, then it isn’t. This is true in general of women. They don’t seem to make much sense, until you study them awhile, and then they do.
Case in point, my happy alpha-beta woman seems to have slipped off to bed. Think I’ll shut this laptop down and go join her. G’night.
Can’t Fire Off Your Roman Candle In Here If You Blast It Off Out There
Thursday, January 1st, 2009Jawa Report (image behind this link may not be safe for the workplace):
Some women in Naples said they won’t make love if their men shoot off dangerous fireworks on New Year’s Eve. “Se Spari, Niente Sesso” (If you shoot, no sex), as the reported group calls itself, claims to have signed up hundreds of women in the Naples area to combat celebrations that injure or maim hundreds each year.
I have a theory about women bludgeoning men into the correct profile of behavior by restricting sex:
When they stay silent about it, it always works.
When they blab away about it, it never does.
Well…I shouldn’t say “never,” now should I?
Child Support Triples… on Autopilot
Thursday, January 1st, 2009This interests me. Not so much because I’m a single-dad myself, but because of how the law goes about being changed. I think it should interest us all. I’ll explain further below.
Glenn Sacks emailed to let me know about a lawsuit being filed by Fathers and Families, to stop new Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines:
Fathers and Families has filed suit in Federal District Court in Boston to stop the scheduled January 1 implementation of new Child Support Guidelines. The suit seeks a temporary injunction halting the use of the new guidelines until a full hearing can be held. It will be heard before Judge D.P. Woodlock on Monday, January 5 at 10 AM in courtroom 1…..
The new guidelines will cause almost all child support orders to increase substantially — when all factors are considered, middle-class recipients will enjoy a standard of living almost double that of payers who earn about the same amount. In some cases, child support orders will triple, even in cases in which the payer is poor and the child is economically comfortable because the custodial parent earns over $100,000. And in high income cases, the child support order for one child could be nearly $50,000.
Massachusetts is already an expensive place to live; if these new guidelines are passed, it will be harder, mainly for the divorced men in that state. Go take a look here and see what you can do to help. As Dr. Ned Holstein, the executive director of Fathers and Families says, “If you ‘leave it to the other guy,’ it won’t happen.”
I think it’s a mistake to oppose this kind of thing outright. Like many silly ideas, it isn’t exposed as the sham it is, until you take it seriously. So let’s try a different tack here and take it seriously.
There may be an exquisite latin term for this legal concept — perhaps one of the legal-beagles can blossom forward with some useful nuggets of info in the comments below. This concept in which, it is determined at the outset that “it’s impossible to be fair to both parties” involved in the transaction that has come to be known as child support. Obviously, if the momma and the poppa are not living together, and there isn’t enough money to go ’round to support two households, that’s the situation we have. And sure, the kids should win, so there is a glimmer of merit to this argument.
A glimmer.
But — if we are to take that seriously — why the trebling of the child support on autopilot? Isn’t it pretty much a foregone conclusion that such cases would have to be heard on a case-by-case basis? How in the world could they not be?
That leads into another thing…another legal concept, for which there may be another exquisite latin term. It happens at the state level, usually, and here in the Golden State we have a lot of this going on. That thing where the legislators take on the same issue, every twelve months, or every six, over and over again. Picking at it repeatedly, like a little boy scratching away at a scab.
Out here, our thing is child safety seats. “As of July 1, your child will need to be in a seat if he weighs more than…” We should hear this, like, maybe every five years or so? Ten? It’s more like every one or two. How come that iz? If sixty-five pounds is the magic number, our wonderful illustrious legislators should’ve figured that out earlier, or if they didn’t, they, or the researchers who put out the reports they were reading, should be flogged with some kind of discredit or disapproval for producing the wrong numbers in earlier cycles. Human lives are at stake here, after all! Childs’ lives!
But no, it’s just a little game they play. Planned obsolescence. I can understand doing that for the sake of grandstanding. But you’re supposed to be at least play-acting like you’re doing this out of concern for the safety of the Little People, and of course, if that were the case they’d be working extra-extra-extra hard to make these laws extra-extra-extra good. With the right numbers. The right quantity of pounds of a child whose butt has to be in a seat, or the right number of dollars siphoned from the single dad who can’t make the rent for his shitty apartment anymore.
But no. They keep screwing with it and screwing with it.
First time my baby-momma and I compared notes on the “new” law of the day, and found out even the cops didn’t understand what was going on, we were flabbergasted. Since then, we’ve learned to take it in stride. She no longer lives in California. And the kid is too big for any kind of safety seat at all. I think. Until they muck with that law again. At this point, nothing would surprise me.
But let’s stop kidding around. This isn’t about making sure everyone’s comfy and has the adequate child support dollars rolling in. It’s about proving you’re a “Good Peepul” by passing bad laws. Legislators, of all states, tend to be caught in this infinite loop of proving this over and over again…the way all guilty people are. Very much like the guy with the tiny penis driving a racy red-hot car, or an enormous truck. Compensatin’ for somethin’.
Romantic Comedies Make Women Miserable
Friday, December 19th, 2008Ah, finally a white-coat-pocket-protector propeller-beanie-wearing-egghead study that’ll do the fellas some good. Not quite as helpful as the apocryphal “man chowder takes ten years off your face” one…but perhaps a bit more practical, y’know.
And even if they’re lying their asses off about their research, I can personally vouch the bottom-line of what they’re reporting, is a hundred percent accurate.
Rom-coms have been blamed by relationship experts at Heriot Watt University for promoting unrealistic expectations when it comes to love.
They found fans of films such as Runaway Bride and Notting Hill often fail to communicate with their partner.
Many held the view if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.
If you have a twiggenberries, and you don’t agree with this a zillion and one percent, then you don’t deserve to have twiggenberries. Or you weren’t meant to. Or you weren’t born that way. Or some combination of those. Maybe your sister is the only woman you’ve ever seen naked. I dunno…but those of us who have married, incohabitated, and/or simply partied for a night or two, know full well. This is a heap-big huge problem for us guys who admire and have fun with women. Things are goin’ good, they watch some Daniel Day-Lewis flick, and it all turns to crap.
I’ll tell ya something else. If the Good Lord likes to relax in a plaid shirt, prefers a stick shift to automatic, changes His own oil, cuts His own firewood, enjoys snacking on hot chicken wings and cold beer — and I think He does all these things — Hugh Grant is going straight to hell.
Dr. Helen, via Maggie’s Farm.
Should Females Have Opinions About Things?
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008File this one under “us dudes have the long end of the stick here”:
Big Bear High School student Mariah Jimenez should be allowed to wear the “Prop. 8 Equals Hate” T-shirt she was banned from wearing on campus, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The 16-year-old sophomore, who is her class president, wore the tie-dyed T-shirt to school on Nov. 3, the day before voters approved the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in California.
Mariah’s sixth-period teacher, Sue Reynolds, ordered her to remove the shirt during a meeting of the Associated Student Body.
When Mariah protested, Reynolds sent her to the principal’s office.
“She said I shouldn’t be wearing such divisive shirts, and my shirt draws a line down the school,” said
Mariah, who also plays on her school’s golf and softball teams and has been involved in school politics since seventh grade.
I think every lad my age and under has recollections of a young lady like Mariah. Strong Willed Woman type, outspoken, lots of opinions about things, constantly encouraged to have ’em. Until it becomes inconvenient.
See, for the boys, the message is consistent: Opinionz iz bad. But of course, every gutless necktie-wearing coward bureaucrat wants to be closely associated with the opinionated female. Until the heat in the kitchen is just a little too hot. And so, we end up saddling our ladies with the most terrible of burdens, the burden of inconsistency. Have an opinion. Oh, no no no, don’t have one. Too divisive. Mariah is a product; a product whose designers cannot handle what they’ve built. She’s been encouraged since seventh grade to be opinionated — it’s been oh-so-trendy to manufacture these gals who are so opinionated about things — and now they just can’t handle it.
So should females have opinions about things?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer on that one. See, we’re all going to have to swing our heads back & forth, looking to each other, to see what the other fellow thinks. And so no such answer shall be forthcoming.
We know what to tell the boys though: I can’t have an opinion, so you can’t have one either.
Gorgeous Women, Short Hair, Sick Days and Rattling Phlegm
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008I recall reading an article somewhere about making homemade napalm out of gasoline and soap flakes. No, don’t be alarmed, if I was interested I’d have saved the link. But it got me to thinking…supposedly the soap is used to give it that gelatinous, sticky consistency. Whoever’s making napalm out of soap is missing a real opportunity with this yellow crap coming out of my nose. See, with these pounds and pounds of kleenex being wadded up and tossed in the (full) wastebaskets, I’m really instituting my own disarmament program.
And doing lots and lots of sleeping.
Mmmkay, that’s just about as much graphic information as I’m going to give. I know I’ve crossed the “TMI” line already.
So Cassy has a post up about some propeller-beanie-white-coat-egghead researchers Across The Pond in Jolly Ol’ Britain…actually, they aren’t “hard” type scientists-folks, they’re Relationship Ekspurts…discharging their opinions, that a woman cutting her hair short is a sign that she’s not craving sex with us guys.
Does short hair mean that a woman has given up on sex? Absolutely not.
But it might mean there are more important things to her than attracting a man.
The British male, in particular, is an unimaginative beast.
He doesn’t look at a woman’s chic and sleek new cut and think how fabulously fashionable it is.
He doesn’t assess its softly cut layers and think how perfectly it frames her features.
All he sees is the absence of the long mane that he instinctively equates with ‘youth’ and ‘sex’.
So, if a woman is looking for a man, she’s not going to cut her hair off.
It’s a fact that long hair has a broader appeal to the opposite sex – I’d say nine out of ten men prefer long hair to short – which means long-haired ladies are more likely to catch a guy’s eye.
I find that to be a pretty reasonable set of statements, although it isn’t as well-sourced as I think it should be, appearing in a prestigious tabloid such as Daily Mail and droning on about such an intricate and weighty issue. In fact — side note here — I think the selection of authorities is all wrong. When you study things like how the sexes attract each other, “researchers” are dudes, usually dudes who don’t get any. That may seem silly, but Relationship Ekspurt is several rungs further down on the authority ladder. They’re chicks. You don’t ask chicks what men find sexy. Not if you want to get hold of some hard, reliable information that means something.
In fact, Cassy and I both picked out the same Ekspurt as offering the most sane and sensible thesis in the entire article — a dude who cuts hair. Not because he’s a dude, but because of what he said and how much sense it makes.
When the time comes to find out what dudes like in a woman, there are two kinds of women: Women who ask other women what’s what, and women who really want to learn truth instead of wasting their time. Well, I’m a dude. And I’m never quite so confident in my opinion about how to appeal to a woman’s primal, lustful instincts, as when my nostrils are all jammed-up airtight with germy yellow snot.
So since Cassy was specifically asking for further opinions, Casanova blossomed forward. Hey, I’m just the giving type.
1. Take the “British” off of it. Regardless of nationality, men are an overwhelming disappointment to the lady who’s spent some extra cash having her mane chiseled down “artistically.” I don’t care how sensitive you think he is, there’s something in each haircut you wanted him to notice that he didn’t notice.
2. At my age (42), when a lady gives off vibes she’s not interested in a gentleman, four out of five of us will have the good sense to say “no accounting for lousy taste” and move on, with the one out of five grasping at straws ready to do ANYTHING to make her interested.
3. Cut my age in half, and down there, the ratio flips around. Eighty percent of the studs have an insatiable desire for the apathetic and unattainable.
4. Too many women find out too late how the male mind works, and then make the mistake of applying those lessons throughout life. And so it becomes a semi-regular event that the shorter ‘do is used as a seduction device…thou shalt be interested in me, because I am NOT interested in you. With tragic results. I used to adore Lori Laughlin and Jeanne Tripplehorn. And, believe it or not, between ‘93 and ‘96 Hillary Clinton found a way to shed what little sex appeal she might’ve had. Go on, find some seventeen-year-old pics of Arkansas’ First Lady before lynching me for that remark.
5. Continuing with that thought…women don’t really dress or apply makeup or get their hair cut to please men. They do it to please other women. If that were not true, miniskirts and go-go boots would still be in style.
7. The researchers are being clinical-minded, to excess, when they talk about “wanting sex.” Note the hairdresser discussed in the article who says most of his customers who want their hair chopped are already in a stable relationship. Long hair isn’t a sign of wanting sex; it’s a sign of being in the market (or rather, short hair is a sign of not being in the market).
8. If three women in a clique are not in the market, and a fourth member of the clique is, the three are not going to be very nice to the one.
9. Women are vastly more sensitive to clique-politics than men. Evolution has molded and shaped the female side of the gender to live within the village walls, while us men run around outside the walls and do the hunting. That’s why we’re better at burping and farting. That’s also why the most independent-minded lady will sit with a fashion magazine and comment with genuine interest that this is “in” and that is “out”; and the most peer-pressure-susceptible dude, even, will respond to this with a quick change of subject, and eyeball-roll, or both.
10. A beautiful woman’s hair is a wonderful thing. Fact is, very often, once it’s gone you suddenly realize you never understood how much it contributed to her overall beauty, until it was no longer there. It’s easy to underestimate this. It’s practically impossible to overestimate this.
11. Obviously, in certain situatio[n]s, pointing out #10 will lead to a dude sleeping on the couch for several nights in a row.
12. Among the misunderstood things about men, women, and the relationship between the two — MOST of the misunderstood things, arise from certain other things not being pointed out because some guy was afraid of sleeping on the couch. This is one of them.
Thatisall.
Misfortune Due to Negligence
Sunday, December 14th, 2008Contrary to popular belief, I do have sympathy for the misfortune of others. There is a fine line between lacking sympathy for one’s misfortune, and lacking sympathy for one’s misfortune due to one’s negligence.
In fact, I even have sympathy for the misfortune of others due to their negligence.
Up to a point.
Allow me to state that which is embarrassingly obvious to all red-blooded American men: This panel was drawn by a Canadian woman — and if it was somehow her desire to make it a secret, or just something obscure, either her nationality or her gender identity, then she has failed.
This is…assuming it’s based on any kind of real-life event…just one of many thousands of little costs that all add up over time, of failing to give masculinity its proper respect. Such a scene would never — I repeat never — occur in any household over which I preside as Lord and Master, or that prospers from the benevolent patriarchal wisdom of any similar Real Man.
How do you forget the rope?
In the castle of which I am King, the rope is the star of the show. Actually, the hooks in the rope, and the really cool knots that are used to secure them, that only a Real Man can tie. The point of the trip is to use the knots…and the hooks…and the saw (only for a few brief seconds)…and the really manly genuine-leather gloves.
And to march the woman and the whelps around in the chilly winter air, for only that tiny handful of minutes, in token honor of the ancestors who had to live out their entire lives in it. So the hot apple cider or hot chocolate tastes that much better to them an hour later. That is what Christmas is all about.
Manly men don’t forget the rope. They wouldn’t. It’s not because we have better memories, it’s because it isn’t logically possible to do so. You think like a man, getting a tree becomes synonymous with getting a rope.
Power and Freedom Mean Pounding Your Verginer Like a Pork Chop Under a Jackhammer
Friday, December 12th, 2008Our good friend in New Mexico told me I should lower my blood pressure by paying less attention to dimwits. He’s not the first to say so. We, here, see Buck as an exceedingly sensible gentleman, one who possesses a past different from ours but is united with us in the future. In other words, throw us into a time machine, crank it ahead by a couple decades, out pops Buck. And it certainly does make good sense to monitor issues related to the systolic and diastolic when one is in one’s early forties, than in his late fifties, so we did what he suggested.
And paid more attention to intelligent, sophisticated people.
Like Dr. Helen.
Crap. More nonsense. Being a lady of class and dignity, she does not endorse, she just points, but there it is, getting me all worked up. Got any more wonderful ideas, Buck? The idiocy, it would seem it surrounds us on all four sides.
Young women ‘have more sexual partners’ than men
Young women are more promiscuous than men, according to a survey that claims the average 21-year-old has had nine sexual partners compared with seven for men.The poll of 2,000 by the magazine More also found that one in four young women has slept with more than 10 people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.
In addition, half of those questioned admitted they had been unfaithful, whereas only a quarter said they had been cheated on by a boyfriend.
It comes just a week after an academic study branded Britain one of the casual sex capitals of the Western world, with residents having more one-night stands and more liberal attitudes than those in Australia, France, the Netherlands, Italy and the US.
Lisa Smosarski, the editor of More, said: “Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today’s twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed.”
First of all, there are problems with statistics…which I’ll get to later on.
But before that — whoomp, there it is. Lisa Smosarski puts a voice behind this thought that’s usually just rolling around out there, contemplated but unspoken. The five thousand years of oppression, by thoughtless, piggish men against the innocent, doe-eyed women, continues throughout this day and beyond…until girls start screwing like minks, and then that will somehow magically bring it to an abrupt end and it’ll be time for the ladies to start dancing like Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi (or Obamatons on January 20, but let’s keep the awkward metaphors to a minimum).
Captain Obvious is availed the luxury of dropping a single paragraph and then bailing out to attend to more pressing matters. Here’s his contribution: When you screw, you have a good chance of getting pregnant whether you use contraceptives or not. And a big round belly has very, very little to do with power. Or freedom. And it damn sure doesn’t have much to do with taking control of your sex life. More like surrendering same for a couple decades.
The floor is thus yielded to the owner of The Blog That Nobody Reads, so he can again bewail — with his blood pressure topping out — the continuing progress of all the civilized world, seemingly, past the second milestone on the way to complete insanity, which is the act of feeling your way around challenges rather than thinking your way through them. This doesn’t make any sense. The picture of a lady who has taken charge of her sex life, doesn’t have much to do with sleeping with lots of guys. Such a lady more likely sleeps with one guy. Think about it. Whether you’re a male or a female, cheating means lying. It means sneaking around. It means all the encumbrances that come with deceiving someone. And there’s nothing liberating about that.
Now, on to the statistics.
And Guthrum has put forward a decent, although somewhat incomplete, attempt to field this one. It comes down to a simple rhetorical question: With whom are these young ladies doing their fornicating? The study doesn’t seem to have much to do with lesbian sex, foreigner sex, or with a male-heavy domestic population. By process of elimination he determines someone is lying.
Well, I have another explanation, since Guthrum’s explanation would have to controvert the conventional wisdom of boys lying upward and girls lying downward. And this is a piece of conventional wisdom I believe…at least…when alcohol is not involved.
Here’s my explanation. And if it is true, it is not at all helpful to the study, or Ms. Smosarski’s idiotic conclusion(s), which is why it was left out of the article.
The fellas are subject to more of a 80/20 rule when it comes to frequency of sex and number-of-partners: Among those who are young and available, twenty percent of them are having eighty percent of the sex. This is not necessarily true of the women, since this would only take effect if there was some personal attribute that would make it likely for any particular instance to have more sex than her sisters. That would be physical beauty — which I think we should take into account only if we want to presume, when an appealing young lady is presented with lots of opportunities, she takes advantage of all of them. Let’s give the fairer sex the benefit of the doubt here.
So if you were to draw a graph about how much sex each person is having, and with how many partners, and draw two graphs on two pieces of paper for two genders — the female graph would be more of a flatline and the male graph would be all spikey.
And these “Alpha Males” who are screwing anything with a skirt, don’t participate in polls.
It’s just that simple. It fits in well with my philosophy about polls: They separate themselves from reality, when it is presumed, too casually, that that which was tested, extrapolates safely into that which is the universe. There are lots of things, generally, that confound this, and the tendency among study-makers and poll-takers is to not check those things out too carefully. Whether you buy it or not — Guthrum’s beef with the study makes good sense. With whom are these freewheeling strumpets doing their cavorting? Smosarski doesn’t seem to possess the mental horsepower to seriously entertain the question…which I find unsurprising.
Finally, my blood pressure trickles a little bit upward when I consider the issues of time and history. Those who cling to this notion that women will finally be free of male oppression the day they’ve finally done enough screwing, after all the other transgressions they’ve committed against responsibility and common sense, have failed to make use of long-term memory and allowed history to slip out of their mental fingers. Has this not been a doctrine that has already been put in practice for four decades or more? Free-love and all that shit?
Aighh…it’d be funny if nobody was listening to it. But congratulations to Editor Smosarski and those like her. Your next generation of urban-sprawl welfare queens, and all their litters of whelps, is comin’ right up. And half those whelps will be girls…whom you’ll tell to have lots of sex with lots of guys so you can sell your shitty magazine.
Their mommas who’ve spent so much of their lives with swollen ankles, big round bellies, and no man hanging around long enough to handle the extra work — somehow, for reasons I still fail to grasp — will, for the most part, fail to take the time to set ’em straight.
Who cares about any of it.
Women are having lots of sex. More sex than guys. That means they’re “free.” And empowered.
Yeah.
++sigh++ Blood pressure not coming down yet. I’m off to stare at my own Things That Make Me Smile page, to put me in a better mood.
Rules, Rules, Rules
Saturday, December 6th, 2008Not sure what it is about this time of year, must be the gift-giving.
My e-mail inbox is swelling up with rules, rules, rules.
Mens’ Rules for Women…please note, they are all numbered ‘1’ ON PURPOSE!
1. Men are NOT mind readers.
1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
1. Sunday sports It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
1. Crying is blackmail.
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one! Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.
1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.
1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have NO idea what mauve is.
1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say ‘nothing,’ We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, Expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine… Really!
1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball or golf.
1. You have enough clothes.
1. You have too many shoes.
1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!
1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know I have to sleep on the couch tonight; But did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.
What do the ladies do about this?
What do you think women do when you hand them a list of fifteen rules.
You didn’t really have to wonder about that too long, did you?
Rules for Guys, by women
1. When crying occurs you caused it and should fix it. Perfect time for a gift.
2. Watching Star Trek or any type of non-romance movie/ T.V. show should also be rewarded in a gift.
3. The toilet seat prefers to be down. Gravity; any questions?
4. When we ask if we are fat, we are looking for a “NO I love you just the way you are” answer.
5. Cindy Crawford cuts her hair why can’t we?
6. We are not always thinking of you.
7. We are not always looking for the perfect gift… some gift is better than no gift, and we realize it is the thought that counts.
8. Our Cats truly are special friends.
9. Shopping is not a sport, it’s an adventure.
10. We value your opinion on our outfits and perhaps you should ask for direction when you are dressing.
11. Wearing the same clothes because they are on top of the pile is not acceptable.
12. If we had enough clothes or shoes then why are there so many stores?
13. When we ask for something we want it then!! Don’t wait for a birthday, etc. you may for get what it is that we want.
14. If you cant be expected to hit the toilet, we can’t be expected to find the oil.
15. When the lights come on in the car, we let you know when we get around to it.
16. Three pairs of shoes in not a selection, its a crisis!
17. Boots, old tennis shoes, and grass shoes are not adequate shoe choices.
18. We don’t believe you when you say you’ll be right home.
19. Yes and No are not answers, you are not on trial and we are not your attorney.
20. We remember what you say regardless of how long its been. Why can’t you?
21. Saying what you think we want to hear gets you in more trouble! Stop while you are ahead.
22. There are no good sports.
23. Why can’t you ask for directions?
24. Why can’t you follow directions?
25. How can we be expected to tell you about our day in just 30 seconds when it took all day to happen?
26. You too can order Pizza.
27. Chinese Food is a meal.
28. Chips and Dip are NOT a meal.
29. Why don’t you know all of these rules?
Quid pro quo is good enough. For any woman.
Eh…no, it’s not. Just making sure you’re paying attention.
A Woman’s 50 Rules for Men
1. Call.
2. Don’t lie.
3. Never tape any of her body parts together.
4. If guys’ night out is going to be fun, invite the girls.
5. If guys’ night out is going to involve strippers, remember the zoo rules: No Petting.
6. The correct answer to “Do I look fat?” is never, ever “Yes.”
7. Ditto for “Is she prettier than me?”
8. Victoria’s Secret is good. Frederick’s of Hollywood is bad.
9. Ordering for her is good. Telling her what she wants is bad.
10. Being attentive is good. Stalking is bad.
11. “Honey”, “Darling”, and “Sweetheart” are good. “Nag”, “Lardass”, and “Bitch” are bad.
12. Talking is good. Shouting is bad. Slapping is a felony.
13. A grunt is seldom an acceptable answer to any question.
14. None of your ex-girlfriends were ever nicer, prettier, or better in bed.
15. Her cooking is excellent.
16. That isn’t an excuse for you to avoid cooking.
17. Dishsoap is your friend.
18. Hat does not equal shower, aftershave does not equal soap, and warm does not equal clean.
19. Buying her dinner does not equal foreplay.
20. Answering “Who was that on the phone?” with “Nobody” is never going to end that conversation.
21. Ditto for “Whose lipstick is this?”
22. Two words: clean socks.
23. Believe it or not, you’re probably not more attractive when you’re drunk.
24. Burping is not sexy.
25. You’re wrong.
26. You’re sorry.
27. She is probably less impressed by your discourse on your cool car than you think she is.
28. Ditto for your discourse on football.
29. Ditto for your ability to jump up and hit any awning in a single bound.
30. “Will you marry me?” is good. “Let’s shack up together” is bad.
31. Don’t assume PMS is the cause for every bad mood.
32. Don’t assume PMS doesn’t exist.
33. No means No. Yes means Yes. Silence could mean anything she feels like at that particular moment in time, and it could change without notice.
34. “But, we kiss…” is not justification for using her toothbrush. You don’t clean plaque with your tongue.
35. Never let her walk anywhere alone after 11pm.
36. Chivalry and feminism are NOT mutually exclusive.
37. Pick her up at the airport. Don’t whine about it, just do it.
38. If you want to break up with her, break up with her. Don’t act like a complete jerk until she does it for you.
39. Don’t tell her you love her if you don’t.
40. Tell her you love her if you do. Often.
41. Always, always suck up to her brother.
42. Think boxers.
43. Silk boxers.
44. Remember Valentine’s Day, and any cheesy “anniversary” she so-names.
45. Don’t try to change the way she dresses.
46. Her haircut is never bad.
47. Don’t let your friends pick on her.
48. Call.
49. Don’t lie.
50. The rules are never fair. Accept this without question. The fact that she has to go through labor while you sit in the waiting room on your ass smoking cigars isn’t fair either, and it balances everything.
And the gentlemen (make the mistake) of hit[ting] back…
43 Rules for Women
1. It is only common courtesy that you should leave the seat on the toilet UP when you are done.
2. If you are cooking a special dinner for a man, be sure to include something from each of the four
major male food groups: Meat, Fried, Beer and Red.
3. Don’t make him hold your purse in the shopping centre.
4. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary in many of the fine bars and fraternities
throughout the country, not all men are cretins deserving your contempt.
5. Shopping is not fascinating.
6. When he asks for a threesome with you and your best friend, he is only joking.
7. Unless the answer is yes.
8. In which case, can he videotape it?
9. If you REALLY want a nice guy, stop dating good-looking arseholes.
10. The man is ALWAYS in charge of poking the campfire with a stick and/or tending the grill.
11. Trying to provoke a large, dangerous-looking felon from across the room is not funny.
12. Money does not equate to love. Not even in Nevada.
13. Any attempt by a man to prepare food, no matter how feeble (ie Microwaving a burrito, fixing
Spaghetti, etc) should be met with roughly the same degree of praise a parent might shower upon
their infant when it walks for the first time.
14. Those male models with perfect bodies are all gay. Accept it.
15. He heard you the first time.
16. You know, YOU can ask HIM out too… Let’s spread the rejection around a little.
17. If you truly want honesty, don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to.
18. Of COURSE he wants another beer.
19. The guy doesn’t ALWAYS have to sleep on the wet spot.
20. Dogs good. Cats bad.
21. Any sort of injury involving the testicles is not funny.
22. If he has to sit through “Legends of the Fall”, you have to sit through “Showgirls”.
23. “Fine” is not an acceptable way to end an argument.
24. Do not question a man’s innate navigational abilities by suggesting he stop for directions.
25. He was not looking at that other girl.
26. Well, okay… maybe a little.
27. Okay, so what! He was looking at her. Big deal. Like you never looked at another guy…
28. There is nothing wrong by calling a women “FINE LOOKING HOOCHIE MAMA”.
29. He is the funniest, strongest, best-looking, most successful man you have ever met.
30. And all your friends think so too. Especially the cute ones.
31. Your (select appropriate item:) butt/boobs/hair/makeup/legs look fine. As a matter of fact, it/they
look damn good. Stop asking.
32. If you want a satisfying sex life, you will NEVER fake an orgasm.
33. It is not necessary to discuss the heaviness of your menstrual flow with him.
34. Remember: that Nair bottle looks an awful lot like shampoo if left in the shower.
35. Two words: blow job. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
36. Dirty laundry comes in several categories: Looks fine/smells fine, Looks fine/smells bad, Looks
dirty/smells fine. Unless you intend to wash it, do not try to disrupt piles organised in this manner.
37. Yes, Sharon Stone/Pamela Anderson/Cindy Crawford is prettier than you. Just like Brad
Pitt/Antonio Banderas/Keanu Reeves is better looking than him. But since neither one of you is
going to be dating any of these people, love the one you’re with.
38. Of course size matters, and boy does he have the grandaddy of them all.
39. His (fill in appropriate selections:) bald spot/beer gut/impossibly thick glasses/impotency/scabby rash, is cute.
40. Don’t hog the covers.
41. Watching football is a major turn-on for you. But please wait until the halftime show to act upon
that…
42. He does not just want to be friends.
43. A successful date always starts with the woman uttering the sentence: “You know, why don’t we
just skip the expensive dinner and stay here having freaky circus sex all night?”
And with that…the roosters stunned the hens into complete silence.
And won the argument.
For good.
Really.
……….you’re just not figuring this one out too quick if you bought that, huh?
Women’s rules for men
TOP 30 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT US!!!1. Don’t ever lie to us, we always find out.
2. We don’t enjoy talking dirty to you as much as you enjoy listening.
3. Don’t say you understand when you don’t.
4. Girls are petty, get over it.
5. You don’t have PMS; don’t act like you know what it’s like.
6. Saying something sweet might get you off the hook; doing something sweet will always get you off the hook.
7. If you talk about having a big dick, we know you don’t.
8. Zit’s happen to everyone. Yes, Mr. Perfect, even to you.
9. We don’t like it when you act like Mr Big; we like it when you are Mr Big.
10.A system in your car only impresses your homeboys.
11. No matter what you say, your ex girlfriend is a pig.
12. It’s good to be sensitive, sometimes.
13. If you did something wrong or even if you didn’t, apologize.
14. Be spontaneous, dinner and a movie won’t always cut it.
15. We are self-conscious by nature, we can’t help it.
16. We are drama queens.
17. Fashion police do exist.
18. Don’t ask us to give head; if you are nice you just might get it.
19. We absolutely do not care about monster trucks, or anything else you and your friends talk about, like: how much you know about the video games, porn, computers, Star Wars, etc.
20. Hugs and kisses must be given at all times.
21. We don’t shave our legs every day, get over it.
22. Don’t make bets about us, we always find out.
23. Shave – no matter how cool you think it looks, we hate it.
24. Even if you think it is cool to burp, fart, or emit other strange gases from your body, it’s not.
25. Don’t compare our breasts with Brittany Spear’s, hers are fake.
26. It is not cool to shoot snot rockets.
27. We are beautiful, but make-up helps. (All girls love makeup, do not call us prissy or tell us we worry to much about the way we look for wearing it.)
28. We will always think we are fat so humor us and tell us we aren’t.
29. It doesn’t make you look cool to make fun of someone else.
30. If you ever beat us in a sport or game, it’s always because you cheated, even if you didn’t.
And…
This is for the lady’s. Post these on your fridges.
The rules for men:1. The female always makes the rules.
2. The rules are subject to change at any time without prior notification.
3. No male can possibly know all the rules.
4. If the female suspects the male knows all the rules, she must immediately change some or all of the rules.
5. The female is never wrong.
6. If the female is wrong, it is because of a flagrant misunderstanding which was a direct result of something the male did or said wrong.
7. If Rule 6 applies, the male must apologize immediately for causing the misunderstanding.
8. The female can change her mind at any given point in time.
9. The male must never change his mind without express written consent from the female.
10. The female has every right to be angry or upset at any time.
11. The male must remain calm at all times, unless the female wants him to be angry or upset.
12. The female must under no circumstances let the male know whether or not she wants him to be angry or upset.
And then finally this gem rolled on in…
FIVE RULES FOR MEN TO FOLLOW TO A HAPPY LIFE:
1. It’s important to have a woman who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
2. It’s important to have a woman who can make you laugh.
3. It’s important to have a woman you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.
4. It’s important to have a woman who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
5. It’s very, very important that these four women do not know each other.
To which I shall reply with my simple rules. The ones that really matter. There are only three of them.
1. Society is in a state of advancement if the ladies are impressed by the skills and abilities of their men.
2. Society is in a state of wane if they are not.
3. If Rule #2 applies and Rule #1 does not, it really doesn’t matter whose fault it is.
Doghouse Husbands
Friday, December 5th, 2008‘Tis some season for some male-bashing…and, again, to wonder why we tolerate it.
Hat tip: Dr. Helen.
How Do You Provoke Dr. Helen Into Using a Four-Letter Word?
Thursday, December 4th, 2008By selling idiotic faux-woman shit to men, that’s how.
Introducing…mantyhose.
I hate pantyhose and I’m a woman, how the hell would a man wear them with all that hair on his legs? Wouldn’t that be miserable? Are they trying to turn men into women because women buy more shit? What other reason could there be?
Well, I’m a dude…and I’m not having any luck coming up with any other reason.
The whole leg issue, to me, goes into the file marked “proof or strong evidence of intelligent design.” Girls are designed to show off their legs. Their legs look good. Guys, who aren’t jogging or doing something strenuous, need to keep theirs covered up.
Back when my mother was alive she used to joke about how it was the ugliest part of a man’s body. Just that swath of two or three inches, when a fella wore some nice suit trousers cut to come down just barely to the ankle when he was standing up, then sat down, with his legs crossed like an old man and the hem would rise up halfway to his knee with one nice wool sock all slouched down. The Bill Clinton look. I don’t swing that way, but from the evidence I can gather I think Mom was right. If the Good Lord put together any fleshy specimen anywhere for the purpose of directing people to look away, that surely must be it.
What does mantyhose do for that, I wonder.
Okay, so now we have manscara, man-lipstick, and mantyhose.
Can manpons be far behind? Come on you gender-bender manufacturers, that’s where the gals have entire store aisles all to themselves. Go all the way. Take that big step.
The Dating Scene
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008How glad I am to be out of it. I know there’s lots of fish in the sea and you get to choose, but some of the sturgeon you see hauled in, or simply inspected by other fishermen…yeck.
About Me
I am a very self-sufficient woman that is extremely clean, neat and organized (most of the time). I keep a clean home and I can definitely don’t like to cook (hey … I’m Italian .. what else would you expect?!). I always will defend my point of view if I feel strongly about something. I love to be mentally stimulated and be comfortable enough with my partner to be able to discuss politics, religion, jobs, each others wants and desires or whatever topic that might come up. I am not religious, but do consider myself a spiritual person. I have 2 wonderful children – a 22 yr old daughter that lives on her own and a very self-sufficient 14 yr old son that lives with me and visits his dad often – leaving me some time to relax and enjoy doing things I wouldn’t necessarily do when he’s around!I am tired of working hard to support myself and my son. I am a one man woman and prefer to be in a monogamous relationship. I have always been the type to work right along side my partner, but when I have a man in my life, I expect him to enhance my life and be “the man”. Open doors for me … whisper sweet nothings in my ear …
I love the outdoor life … especially if it involves boating. I’d almost like to say that a prerequisite to dating me is that you must have a boat. However, if you do have one, it wouldn’t hurt your odds of getting to know me! I enjoy catching fish (I am the Sabiki QUEEN and can catch baitfish like nobody’s business!). I love festivals, art shows, boat shows, romantic lunches or dinners on the water, comedy clubs. I expect you to pay for all of the entertainment. I like to stay as active as possible. If you’ve kept me busy enough all day and I just happen to fall asleep on the couch while we’re snuggled together watching TV in the evening, please know that I am very content and feeling incredibly safe in your arms. I love it when you snuggle up behind me, nestle your face in my neck and slumber peacefully right there with me! I know how the man in my life needs to be treated and I know how to keep him happy. I just need to find a man that can reciprocate and fulfill my needs! Is there anyone out there like that? ?Ideal Person: Besides enjoying many of the same activities that I enjoy, such as boating, fishing, traveling, romantic dinners, public displays of affection, etc., my ideal man would be educated and well spoken without being overbearing and****. He would be able to converse politely with people young and old and he would be admired by anyone he comes in contact with. He must also treat his mother well!
My guy needs to be self-assured and confident in himself. He will have great teeth and a beautiful smile, a healthy body and be disease free. He will be tall, handsome, gentle, kind and will always smell delicious! He will not be jealous or clingy. He must love to laugh and have the ability to make me laugh! You will exude sex appeal and I will know when I look into your eyes that you are burning with passion and desire for me and me only! When we’re out at dinner and I’m walking back from the ladies room, I expect to see you looking at me with “that look” in your eyes that let’s me know we’ve got to go home … NOW! I know you must exist. Come find me!”
You know who really needs to see how bad things can get. It’s not the guys out looking; they can read the ad for themselves, and come to their own conclusions.
It’s parents of little girls.
Sure, she’s your little darling and she’s cute, and when you find out she wants something you just want to make the whole household orbit around that.
Moderation in all things, parents. Moderation in all things. This is nothing less than a cultural crisis going on here. Vast reserves of energy…theirs…others’…going into making these grown-up girls as happy as they were in childhood, and they’re only becoming more miserable, making others even moreso.
Moderation in all things.
Sally Field, Call Your Office
Sunday, November 30th, 2008I’m sure this is not a reflection of where we’re headed, right?
It isn’t? There’s a line drawn, somewhere, between where we are, and where this society is?
Where is it, I wonder?
The Papua New Guinea jungle has given up one of its darkest secrets – the systematic slaughter of every male baby born in two villages to prevent future tribal clashes.
By virtually wiping out the ‘male stock’, tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future.
‘Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,’ said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special ‘peace and reconciliation’ meeting in the mountain village of Goroka.
H/T to Ace, via Helen, who adds:
But the commenters to the Daily Mail article that discussed the story certainly had sympathy for these female infant killers. One has to wonder about what kind of twisted morality commenters like the following must possess to write the following:
Stop judging these people with Western ethics. The commenters here have no idea how these people live and deal with life. I’ve lived with New Guineans and their minds do not work in the same way as Westerners. Overall they are gentle people and things must have got pretty bad for the womenfolk to kill their own children. In their minds it was the only way to save the village. Save your disgust for the baby killers in this country who should know better.
In any conflict, it’s always the women and children who suffer through no doing of their own. And when everything has been ruined, and the men killed, they have to pick up the pieces and restore everything. They must have really had enough to kill their own children like that.
How horrendous that these women so no other option but to kill there own babies to prevent heartache in the future,its a lose lose situation for them.
No sympathy at all for the male infants that died, just for the women who had to do the killing, how pathetic.
I suggest readers browse the Daily Mail comments for themselves. The nugget Dr. Helen lifted from there is a specimen, not a champion.
I wonder how Sally Field feels about this idea. We already know her opinions about other things. Perhaps the notion of male-only baby genocide would bring such joy to her that her nipples would stick out like pencil erasers.
The article goes on to suggest, if I’m reading it correctly — which is doubtful — that the fighting is still goin’ on. Seems to me, if that’s the case, that the experiment has not only been started, but brought to a conclusion. Didn’t work out so hot. But still. Women kill men systematically…newborn, infant, defenseless men…and the sympathy is reserved for the women who kill. Poor, poor mothers, how desperate they must be.
Can’t get much more deranged than that.
“Hottest Celebrity Moms”
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008They’re here. Every single one of them looking fantastic, of course. Which is the point…
There are plenty of beautiful actresses out there, many of who[m] have stayed young and beautiful after having children.
The sensitive males, like yours truly, will be pleased to know the small-dee dad is occasionally worth mentioning.
Todd Palin didn’t make that cut. Sorry, Todd.
Actress Melanie Griffith has three children, one for each of the men she has married.
Way ta go, Mel.
There’s also a huge flock of oyster-gals reproducing asexually…I would guess…though I tend to think reality is something in the opposite direction from that. Just like the old bearded aliens speaking perfect English greeting Captain Kirk to their paper mache planets, always with the one nubile alien daughter who needs to be taught how to kiss. No momma worth mentioning, alive or dead. Except this is Earth, Hollywood exactly; and the shoe’s on the other foot now. Women give birth. Women have kids. What the guys are doing in there, well, nobody really knows…they’re just rattling around, dropping seed in random places that’s scooped up by someone else eventually.
It’s really sad how self-defeating this is. I understand the point — “real” women have kids and then worry about whether they’ll stay attractive. So this gives them hope. I get that. Hope for what? And, as Edna Krabappel Helen Lovejoy famously said, won’t someone think of the children? It doesn’t seem to be in their best interests for their small-em mom’s market value to be kept up, just in case she figures out she’s done a better job keeping up her “resale value” than that schlubby husband of hers called dad.
So it’s not about the kids, it’s about small-em mom’s self-esteem. Well — what about the moms who’ve already made up their minds that after five or six kids, their market value is spent, and they’re still so in love with the capital-D Dad that they don’t give a rat’s ass about it? What about them? I don’t think it does anything for them to be told how great Brooke Burke looks…after reproducing repeatedly, and apparently all by herself.
So when you start out trying to feel good about yourself, instead of trying to do right by people who are counting on you — you end up accomplishing neither one.
And…you can’t play “musical dads” without diminishing the role of dad. Hope that doesn’t cheese anyone off. I know a lot of folks out there were raised by perfectly decent stepdads and think the world of ’em. But now that you have sons and daughers of your own, you’d want the daughters to get hold of a decent guy and stick with him for life, wouldn’t you? And you’d want the sons to raise their own kids, rather than taking on someone else’s, or leaving their own kids to be raised by some other guy.
Maybe — just maybe — it all starts with thinking of the Dad as someone worthy of a Capital Dee. Someone worth mentioning.
Hollywood’s Vision of Men, or Lack Thereof
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008Two good ones from Dr. Helen…first off, she’s continuing a discussion of sexual harrassment training upon which we were inspired to touch yesterday…oh so lightly…yes, we caressed it…teased it a little. Uh oh, now we have to go to training.
In her most recent installment, a professor who works for the state, has refused to go. He’s demanding the release of an official statement that his attendance in no way suggests or implies he is regarded with suspicion for such shenanigans.
Interesting.
I rather liked this comment from Bowen…
The easiest way to solve this problem is for men to start suing companies and organizations for the most insignificant comment or suggestive action. The problem with sexual harassment is not that men are assumed to be guilty. The problem is that men don’t sue enough. If men started suing en masse then these laws would either go away or be enforced in a different manner.
For example, if men started suing when women talked about their birthday parties or their periods, companies and courts would think twice about their policies. If men started suing when women went to work with their top button unbuttoned, companies and courts would think twice about their policies.
So again, the answer to this problem is not for men to fight these policies, but for men to embrace them whole-heartedly and turn them on women. Only then will women as a whole recognize that these policies are crap and ought to be revisited.
I often hear from leftist camps that the extent to which a society has become civilized, is measured in how it treats the least among those who live within it. I agree with that…if by “the least” you mean — the least organized. We do not need to worry about discriminating against ethnic minorities, or women, or poor people. We need to worry about discriminating against people who don’t organize to picket and litigate. This is where our true cowardliness is preserved, put on display, and chronicled with such unwavering regularity it becomes undeniable.
One set of rules for those who unionize, boycott, protest — and blog. A different set of rules for the others.
Helen’s earlier post points to a twenty-minute Pajamas TV interview between Roger L. Simon and filmmaker Lionel Chetwynd. The subject is Hollywood’s now somewhat-seasoned effort to reduce the differences between men and women, and to encourage women to become brittle bitches through the imagery they pump out.
I already know what the defense to this is…Hollywood’s in the business to make money, ergo, what Hollywood produces, is what the public demands. This is a case of the bullshit salesman coming to believe his own bullshit — it is by far the most common avenue, this failure to distinguish between “my bullshit has just the glimmer of truth about it” and “my bullshit is the gospel truth, therefore anyone who doubts even a speck of it is a moron.” Hollywood does sell what the public demands. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t throw in a few extra goodies on top. To say, whatever Hollywood pushes must be what the public demands, is to support the simplistic equation: Hollywood Product minus Public Demand equals Zero. That doesn’t hold up. Particularly in the area of providing the imagery of these repulsive, gelded men. I see, there, some things being provided by Hollywood that the public did not demand.
I can prove it. When women actually get hold of a man who’s been molded and shaped by this anti-male schtick…a flesh and blood man who’s a shell of his former self, a man who is a parody of himself…they are not pleased. They are not fulfilled. They are unhappy.
Swing on by Feministing if you doubt me. Read some posts. Read some comments. Do those chicks appear to be “happy,” to you?
No, the more accurate formula would be: Hollywood Product minus Public Demand equals Hollywood Agenda. And the first two items are not equal; the third, is decidedly non-zero. I would even say it is palpable. Toxic.
Anti-male conspiracy? I don’t believe in conspiracies; not active ones. Not the kind of conspiracies that call for meetings, and protocols, and secrets, and coordination. It’ll be very hard to convince me ever again that humans are up for any of that. But I do believe in the power of the passive conspiracy, which is most easily brought-about by the stigma. Once something is stigmatized, people will labor tirelessly toward avoiding it, and every step of the way they’ll be convinced they’re making their own individual decisions.
And you don’t have to watch too many movies nowadays, or inspect what you have seen for too long, to see that treating men on an equal footing with women, has been stigmatized.
The result is something the public certainly did not demand: Boring footage. When you know the man of the house is going to be just a big dummy, and his more-intelligent but long-suffering wife is going to be peevishly tolerating him and teaching her bitches-in-training to do the same…watching it unfold, becomes an exercise in suffering through the inevitable — watching something that’s supposed to turn out to be a surprise, fail at it.
Presto. Eighty-five minutes of “family comedy” become as monotonous as six or eight hours. But some “romantic comedies” are more like 140 minutes.
I think that’s why so many cell phones have games built-in nowadays.
Sexual Harrassment Training
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008Bill Whittle had to attend (H/T: Fellow Webloggin contributor Bookworm).
Some priceless stuff results from that.
My own impressions had to do with the twin goals of the class I attended:
1. To foster a work environment free of offense, discomfort or intimidation for the benefit of all;
2. To get the message across that in defining sexual harrassment, the intent of the offender doesn’t matter one bit — it’s the perception of the offended that defines whether hijinks were a-goin’ on.
Those are two opposing goals.
Opposing. Mutually exclusive. Irreconcilable.
As in, you absolutely, positively, have to go without one of ’em. Because there really aren’t too many ways to more effectively make people feel uncomfortable, than to surround them with a bunch of strangers empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner upon their careers once the proper itch is ensconced between their ears.
D’JEver Notice? XVI
Sunday, November 16th, 2008The more potential maladies that are subjected to preventive medicine in one generation, the greater the number of preventive measures will be proposed in the next. And they always, always, always involve money.
It’s the one sales pitch, to which we fail to show any constructive skepticism whatsoever.
An annual physical exam and twice-yearly dental checkup are supposed to protect your health. Now there’s a move for married Americans to do the same to protect the health of their unions.
So far, 171 couples in the Worcester, Mass., area are getting a Marriage Checkup, part of a clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health.
With questionnaires and two in-person sessions, the free program provides personalized feedback to keep relationships on track and circumvent trouble, says psychologist James Cordova, who runs the project at Clark University, where he’s an associate professor.
“This is a health issue,” he told a session of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies on Saturday. Some 3,000 are attending the three-day meeting, which ends Sunday.
“Your marital health doesn’t catch your attention until it really starts to hurt,” he says. “By that point, sometimes irreversible damage has been done.”
Doctor Freeberg here, who has spent, uh (grabs calculator) slightly less than four percent of his visit on this big blue marble in a state of wedlock, and is not in such a state now…nevertheless…has the perfect prescription for coupling-up and staying coupled-up. And periodic check-ups, wonderful as they may sound, don’t have an awful lot to do with it.
It’s so easy. So simple. So perfectly in harmony with exactly what we do, when we don’t want to die from cancer.
And it seems nobody ever thinks of it. Until it’s too late.
If she recounts conversations back to you, and the conversations are all “and then I said…and then I said…and then I said…” — run like hell.
If she ever uses the word “oppressive” except when quoting someone else, run like hell.
If she treats the waitress like a lower form of human being, run like hell.
If she keeps up her house or apartment, and the clothes stored in it, the way a guy does the same, you run like hell.
If she turns up her nose when you donate to groups that help veterans, run like hell.
If she presses too hard for the subject to be changed when you talk about whether you want a Glock or a Sig Sauer, or debate the virtues of 5.56 NATO versus 7.65 Browning…run like hell.
And, of course, it goes without saying, if she refuses to “let” you do something — like, for example, go to Hooters — run like hell. In fact, run like hell if she doesn’t drag you there. With a big smile on her face.
Because women who don’t like to have fun, are walking wastes of energy and time. They are black holes for your life force. Life is not a dress rehearsal, boys. So you put some attention into who you’re choosing. Once you get a good one, you hang on to her and let her know how happy you are that the two of you met. Find ways. All the other good things will follow.
The marriage checkup is not therapy but an information service, Cordova told the nonprofit membership group of psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers.
“We’re able to help them identify exactly what it is they’re doing that is keeping them healthy and make sure that whatever their areas of concern are aren’t potentially problematic in the long run,” he says.
Cordova says an estimated 12 million couples — about 20% of all marriages — experience some significant level of distress. And he says about 5% of couples who marry are already distressed. Marriages deteriorate in stages, and he says a marital checkup can catch small issues before they grow big.
Marriages do not deteriotate in stages. I know it looks like that the first year or two after things “didn’t work out”…it always does. With some more time, one sees the problem really was that all those years ago, at the time the twosome became one, both halves were somewhat ignorant about what exactly it was they wanted out of life. Separation became an inevitability once, tragically united, they began to figure it out.
The thing is, though, once the intelligent divorcee realizes this, the divorce itself is a somewhat distant memory.
By then, his or her friends are done inquiring about the possible cause of the divorce. They’re too busy asking other more recent divorcee friends, still laboring under the delusion of this “grew apart in stages” fallacy, why they think they got divorced. So this epiphany is a relatively quiet one, and the urban myth of “stages” endures.
Poppycock.
Just don’t marry bitches. Marry (or couple up with) sweethearts, and treat ’em like that’s what they are. Spend your time around someone who wants you to be happy, and you will be.
Humans. Boy, we are really good at making simple things complicated. Y’know?
New Hampshire Gets Rid of War
Sunday, November 9th, 2008Recalling Sally Field’s wisdom…
Renewed optimism for you, Ms. Field. Nancy Pelosi may have disappointed you, but perhaps your prediction will come true up in New England:
New Hampshire’s State Senate is now unlike any in the country and unlike any before it. After Tuesday’s election, women now make up the majority of the New Hampshire State Senate. In an election year that saw Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Nancy Pelosi grab headlines and airtime across the country, New Hampshire didn’t just vote blue, it voted for women.
:
Previously ten women held senate seats out of twenty-four in Concord, but now they hold thirteen.
I wish this meant something.
The problem is, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even say anything about voters in New Hampshire; they could very well have looked at two candidates running and decided one of ’em sucks, and that undesirable candidate just happened to be the only dude, therefore a woman was the best person for the job.
And we know it doesn’t mean the ladies have taken charge of anything. You don’t truly own a project, until and unless a blight upon that project is a blight upon you. One of the drawbacks to term limits in our system of government is that we defeat this attribute of ownership somewhat — all kinds of weeds in the garden are supposed to have taken root under the trowel of the predecessor.
I see it in President Obama. He’ll be mostly blameless for any domestic problems, and completely blameless in anything arising from foreign entanglements. There’s something our print media leaves undiscussed quite often, I see, since it has nothing to do with selling more newspapers — this dulling effect of women and minorites taking charge of things, since there is such an elongated dampening effect over time of their representatives truly taking charge of things. Perhaps that doesn’t apply to the New Hampshire senate. Perhaps there will be a genuine “The Buck Stops Here” attitude. Perhaps if they make the same mistakes the MEN make in the California legislature, they’ll admit it; or even better yet, they’ll have the foresight not to make those mistakes.
But knowing what I know about state-level politicians, I doubt it. And far be it from me to ever infer there’s something about women hobbling them from possessing such wisdom, since many women do — but having it, and keeping it, has nothing to do with one’s sex.
So we’ll just see.
To me, it would be much bigger news if the supply-siders took over a state legislature. The print media has a tendency to let us down, big-time, over this. They’re protected by their very own Constitutional amendment, but if such a thing ever happened, they’d never write about it. What an education that would be.
Himbos
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008Dr. Helen is taking on the pressing issue of the himbo — the male bimbo.
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.
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.
Best Sentence XLII
Monday, October 6th, 2008John Hawkins wins the forty-second award for Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL); he wins it for something he said regarding that new book by angry young flogger Jessica Valenti of Feministing.
The book is called — wait for it — The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. I’m thinking of buying it. I mean, I really don’t understand and I do have a need to have it explained to me. You ask me “How is America’s obsession with cheap and easy casual sex between young girls and scummy subprime guys hurting young women” and by this time I’m more than sufficiently informed, I think, to comment. Like Hawkins, I have to question whether we have a similar obsession with virginity. Must’ve missed that one.
Hawkins goes on to explore other ways in which this might be somewhat ridiculous…then goes in for the kill.
If you want to know why liberals and conservatives don’t get along, books like this tell you all you need to know.
People who long for “bipartisanship,” good as their intentions may be, miss the point. Somewhat, to completely. Conservatism versus liberalism is a conflict lacking any no-mans-land and cannot ever have any no-mans-land. It is order versus chaos. It is productivity versus dysfunction. Health versus sickness. Life versus death. No “gray area” is logically possible.
Don’t take my word for it. Head on over to Jessica Valenti’s turf, and read for awhile. “Equal pay for equal worth” has very little to do with the agenda. In fact, you’d be pretty surprised what has to do with the agenda. The PATRIOT Act — that’s a womens’ issue now. Same-sex marriage is a womens’ issue…although not in the way you might think. Young girls not having enough sex.
This is Third Wave Feminism and as you scan the Wikipedia article behind that link looking for a concise definition of what that is, you’re going to emerge from the exercise dizzy and frustrated. The common themes can only be expressed in terms that are derogatory to the third-wave movement itself…or else…not expressed. What it is, is controlling the opinions of the masses. Cracking a ruler over the knuckles of anyone who doesn’t think the right thoughts about feminism itself.
And “maybe girls who are just starting to become women shouldn’t sleep with any sleezy guy they happen to meet” is a decidedly wrong thought. Feminism, somehow, has come to be about everyone who can be a slut, being one. And anyone who says maybe it’d be a good idea not to be a slut, getting a nasty note on Jessica’s blog, a smartass comment thrown back in their face, or both. So yes. Of course. Anybody who needs to see how and why conservatives and liberals don’t get along…go ahead and check this stuff out.
Men Taking Their Wives’ Last Names
Sunday, October 5th, 2008Uh huh. Call me unenlightened, but it’s showing off. There’s no other reason to do it.
…it was grueling to navigate the legal process of changing his name. Many county and state officials didn’t know what to do.
“Humans trust traditions,” said [Todd] Fink [nee Baechle], now married three years. “But some things are worth changing. Sometimes you have to walk off the sidewalk if you want new experiences.”
Oh gawd, I get so tired of people babbling bullshit at each other. So now you can only have new experiences if you get yourself a new name, huh? Yeah, you know what, when I’m thinking about new experiences I want to have…sitting in a chair waiting for my number to be called at the Social Security office, IRS taxpayer service office, DMV, etc. etc. etc., to face off against some bureaucrat who will waste my time pretending my situation is listed in his policy manual when it isn’t — not exactly what I got in mind.
Anyway. Here is your FARK thread. Knock yourself out.
Todd Fink made the choice for a number of reasons.
His future wife was pursuing a solo music career after having been half of the pop duo Azure Ray. Todd Fink didn’t want her to have to change her name after having established her own musical identity. They debated using separate last names, but they planned to have children and thought the different names would be confusing for the kids.
Like I said. Whatever.
Sheesh. People. People spewing crap that makes no sense, bucking tradition just so they can brag about doing it…showing off for each other. End times. They’re a-comin’. If frogs wuz raining down out of the sky, the signs wouldn’t be clearer.
William is Tired of Whiners
Monday, September 29th, 2008Dr. Helen has a post up that has some Republicans commiserating with noted Hollyweird lefty Alec Baldwin…no mean feat that. It’s got to do with men getting reamed up the ass during a divorce, specifically, with regard to custody and visitation.
I had a contentious divorce because I wanted a meaningful custody of my daughter. I refused to settle for becoming a “Disney Dad,” one whose role is nothing more than outings to theme parks once or twice a month. Instead I wanted to share the joys and responsibilities of raising my daughter. I wanted to be a real father, and the system punished me for that. Ultimately, I refused to give in..
I am glad Baldwin wrote this book, perhaps this topic will get some attention because he is a celebrity. But it makes me think that if Baldwin had such problems with the system with all his fame and money, what chance does the average joe have?
Pete, commenter #1, speaks for me:
As long as Baldwin is still a shill for the dhimmicrats, he’s feeding the very same party which betrayed him the most.
…and then we have William, commenter #17. Heh. Heh heh heh. Get ready, you divorced-dad nobodies who don’t come by to not read The Blog That Nobody Reads. Hope you’re not drinking anything over your keyboards.
I’m tired of whiners.
All of the comments above are whine[r]s.
Our youngest son – 34 – was married a couple of weeks ago.
We, his parents, are approaching 40 years.
His Aunt and Uncle are well beyond 30 years
His brother is at about 15 years.
His Mother and Father-in-law are also over 30 years of marriage.
It takes a hell of a lot of work to stay married.
Quite whining.
Har! Four words for you, William. “We need to talk.” Or one…”Nothing” (in response to, “What’s Wrong?”). Or any one of a number of other tired cliches that have come to mean the same, to any thinking man, as Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. “I don’t see you the same way anymore.” “You’re a different person.” “We’ve grown apart.” “It’s not you, it’s me.” “I’m not content.” “I’m unfulfilled.” “We should go in for counseling.” …etc. And, it’s off to the lawyers. What’ve you got to say about it? Why did you think anyone would stop and ask you?
A man can bust his ass to stay married just as hard and just as long as he cares to. Spending time in the house, calling in to work sick when you aren’t sick…famillee valyooz…church…Chuckee Cheez…the works. If it isn’t reciprocated, well, he might as well spend that time down on the golf course or the rifle range instead. Two make a marriage, one makes a divorce. A married man is the low nadir among people who think they have control over their lives, and that’s just a fact.
Kind of scary you consider yourself sufficiently informed to comment, and still don’t know this…
Men Cheating Because They’re Unappreciated?
Saturday, September 27th, 2008Interesting. I know what this fellow’s trying to say, but what he spouted out during this interview contradicts itself. Directly. What a shame.
I think a woman’s first instinct when seeing the cover of your book is, ” Why do I have to prevent this? Why doesn’t he just not cheat?”
Gary Neuman: There is clearly no blame on the woman if he’s cheated. She’s not responsible for stopping him. However, the fact that you’re not responsible does not mean that you don’t want to take an active role in your relationship to bring out the best in your husband, as he should for you…a lot of men are essentially good people. They make mistakes, but that’s not who they are. So a lot of women are married to men who are good but that does not mean they are not susceptible to ultimately cheating.What did you find was the No. 1 reason men cheat?
…when the results came in [from my study] only 8 percent of cheaters said that sexual dissatisfaction was a primary contributor [in cheating] and only 12 percent said the mistress was better looking or in better shape than their wives. It really started to show a completely different pattern than what most expect. In fact, the majority—48 percent—said that the cheating was about an emotional disconnection.What was causing this emotional disconnection?
The No. 1 reason was feeling underappreciated. It was a lack of thoughtful and kind gestures. What I found is that men are far more insecure than they let on, and they do want to please their wives and feel valued. They like to win and as long as they are winning with their wife then they stay in the game. It is feeling underappreciated and like they can’t win—and maybe they do things that make it hard for her to appreciate him—that usually leads them into dangerous waters. Appreciation is what they first and foremost get from the mistress. [emphasis (bold within Mr. Neuman’s comments) mine]
I have been accused of taking a black and white view on this, and I’m probably guilty, willfully so. To me, “good people” just don’t cheat, period. I think people do before they are, so in my world when Mr. Neuman says “they make mistakes, but that’s not who they are” he’s just babbling so much nonsense. People are what they do.
Also, if the woman is not to blame, there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Neuman got it right the first time, missed it on the second. You want to change something that’s wrong, the first thing you do is find a way to make it your fault. Now, why a woman would want to go through this, with regard to a man who doesn’t have the strength of character to stay faithful to her — I dunno. But it speaks volumes, to me, that nearly half the men ‘fessed up that their cheating was because of an emotional disconnection, a lack of appreciation. I wonder how many better men are bearing such a burden in silence, without engaging in this kind of betrayal.
It’s peculiar what kind of tortured logic we’ll pursue, and to what kind of lengths we will go, to avoid telling females they’re doing something wrong. I mean that, without regard to whether they’re decent wives or not, or whether they have decent husbands or not. Even if both husband and wife are faithful people with strong characters and aren’t going to engage in any of these shenanigans…if she’s starting to treat him a little bit like an accessory, or like a beast of burden, to the point where he’s occasionally unhappy with it, she could be doing things better. What’s wrong with simply saying this? You can point this out without rationalizing the behavior of cheating men, or lending support to what they’ve done. It’s not that fine of a hair to slice.
I’ve been treated like a beast-o-burden by some women. I’ve been around other women who were ready and willing to do anything for me — women who were genuinely stuck in this stuff we call “love.” And I’ve been around some other women, if you can believe this, who did both (it’s quite possible…and those are the saddest stories I’d have to tell, were I inclined to go into details).
There’s just no two ways about it: If a man treats his woman with kindness and respect, he deserves the kind of relationship he’ll want to have front-and-center in his life all the time. Nowadays, that’s a rarity. And some of our weaker and less worthy men, have the indecency to occasionally lower their conduct to adapt to this, in ways that do not speak highly for their character. It doesn’t change the fact that for every man who’s motivated this way and acts it out, there are probably two or three more who are similarly motivated, and do not similarly act. And that’s a great, great pity. It is the plague upon the romantic terrain of our modern times.
Make it a genuine disgrace for a man to cheat on a woman, or for a woman to make the man want to…and you’ll solve probably nine out of every ten social issues we have, overnight. Things you probably never suspected were connected with this. Because our cultural protocols have always followed the females. When women are emotionally distant and unavailable, we all are. And then there’s nothing truly “wrong” with what anybody does. We’ll descend to any depth that happens to be convenient under the immediate circumstances, because there’s no reason not to.
Womens’ Personal Ad Dictionary
Saturday, September 20th, 2008Boortz brings us this politically incorrect glossary:
40-ish…………………………..49.
:
Feminist…………………………..Fat.
:
Old-fashioned…………………..No Lewinskies.
:
Professional……………………..Bitch.
Too bad nobody ever reads this blog. Feministing would have a field day with it; oh well, maybe eventually they’ll find out about Neal and give it to ‘im with both barrels. It’s sure to be priceless.
It Never Was About the Chicks III
Thursday, September 18th, 2008Becky notices something rather disturbing. Disturbing and, for her, surprising…not surprising for me. But I’m standing in lockstep with her on the disturbing part.
I never expected the National Organization of Women to endorse Sarah Palin. I know from personal experience that a girl’s inability to wrap her head around the idea that the fetus subjugates women, is enough to get her membership revoked.
But even so, still having respect for the goals of the organization, I thought they might join other feminists, who are equally opposed to Palin’s politics, but defend her against the rampant sexism.
After all, the ACLU, on principle, defends such vile clients as the KKK and NAMBLA.
That didn’t happen.
No duh.
It is incredible they are endorsing Obama-Biden simply because the Republican ticket has a woman who has a slightly different view of feminism than they do.
No it isn’t. They’re supported by the billions-of-dollars-strong abortion industry. It’s not an effort to secure equal rights for women, it’s an effort to bolster and buttress that industry.
NOW President Kim Gandy states that women in our country won’t support Palin because Palin’s idea of feminism differs from hers.
First of all, it appears from the polls that a good number of women do not take their marching orders from NOW, and actually find Sarah Palin kind of appealing.
Yup. It’s the plague of our society, held over from the twentieth century, a demon teleported into our world through the miracle of electronic mass communication: The mystic who purports to speak for “all of us,” who in reality did not go door to door finding out what “everyone” thought.
I’m sure when the angels look down on us and observe us continuing to put these mystics on soapboxes they don’t deserve, they forgive us for falling into this habit. We invent the radio, one man is able to speak to millions of his fellows in a single moment…it’s rather unavoidable that someone will form the habit of telling us what we’re thinking. And those among us with weaker minds, will accommodate him.
I don’t think the angels are quite so forgiving of this tendency we have to carry that bad habit out of one century, and into another. At some point we should be getting over it. Maybe that’s what’s happening with Sarah Palin. Kim Gandy can present herself as a magical spokesperson for any & all living female things, all she wants. That don’t make it true.
On that part, I agree with Becky.
The thing she said toward the end, kind of set me off. Which is rather a pity, because I’m sure this was not a central pillar to the message she was trying to present:
NOW reminds me of the bitterness we have detected under the skin of another caricature of the seventies—Jesse Jackson. The success of Barack Obama made the Reverend’s tired rhetoric irrelevant.
But at least Jesse finally bit his tongue and is going along for the ride—which would not have been possible but for the ground breaking work of himself and others in the prior century. [emphasis mine]
To which I had to enter the following comment:
Shenanigans.
Maybe it’s my six-foot-tall-white-straight-maleness, maybe it’s my virginity with respect to working for a trade union, or maybe it’s some combination derived from my never having drawn a benefit from being associated with some annointed victim-status ankle-biter activist class.
But when I see an activist uproar of any kind, I see raw, naked jealousy. These populist mobs band together, and before they even discuss how they want to make the world a better place in any great detail, they’re talking about how to deal injury to other classes of people…Class-driven activist movements *are* jealousy. They play Robin Hood taking things away from one class, and giving those things to another class. And Becky, I refuse to believe any progress has been made anywhere, in anything, because of jealousy.
These angry movements are just like FDR’s New Deal — the designated problem was ultimately solved not because of ’em, but in spite of ’em. It simply isn’t possible for a modern society to tumble onward into the ether that is the future, centuries at a time, continuing to marginalize the talents and contributions of people because of the color of their skin or their gender or sexual preference. The first time you need to get *real* work done, and there’s some dearth of talent available to assist you in doing it, you’d be forced to get the hell over it. Black…white…if he lifts his load, what the frickin’-frack do I care?
No, I’m not giving Jesse Jackson credit for bubkes. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t have the mindset necessary to make real freedom available to people. He’s just a rabble-rouser, a black-n-white bean counter, a headline grabber, an ambulance chaser. And worst of all, he’s smart enough to figure out that the day we have real equality is the day he’s out of a job, so he’ll do whatever it takes to stop it from happening. The man’s just a victim-monger and a rather disgusting spectacle of victim-mongering at that.
I stand behind those comments with respect to Ms. Gandy, Ms. Ireland, Ms. Yard, et al, as well. Throughout the years those people are all guilty of advocating new rules for the benefit of “everyone” when what they really had in mind, was the exact opposite of everyone. They’ve held themselves up as uniters while laboring to divide us. Sarah Palin is living proof — throughout the decades, they were jousting at windmills. Where’s the chauvinist pig just aching to vote for McCain, now threatening to stay home because now he’s gotta vote for a GURL? Where is that guy? Obviously, his presence was exaggerated. It’s undeniable now. And that is why they can’t stand her.
When I was a little kid, being told we had these movements in the sixties that made us enlightened and so forth, I believed it uncritically. As I grew a little older, I had these little alarms going off in my head, which I then tuned out as I was instructed to tune them out. When I grew to maturity, the problems became undeniable. And now that I’m an old man, I just find this mindset offensive in the extreme: We were a nation of racists and bigots back then, and no longer are.
Let me take on that last one first: We’re as bigoted as we want to be, any time we want, toward anyone. All it takes to set us off is the sense that those around us are willing to accept bigotry, and we’ll roll out as much of it as can be managed. I would point to Dr. Helen’s column on Pajamas Media about the male-bashing for my examples…but that’s just the first armload. I can find many more.
Secondly: We were a nation of bigots before? Sure, we had separate entrances and drinking fountains, etc. That’s true. But it’s also true there were people around back then, who knew that was wrong, and said so out loud. And really, I don’t think there would be quite so many outspoken dissenters today. We have become exceptionally proficient at discriminating against people. Like I said, all it takes is a sense that people within eyesight and earshot will be accepting.
Thirdly: Presuming we are enlightened now (false) and weren’t back then (false), for reasons that will become evident if you so much as skim over the comment I left for Becky, there are some real problems with crediting these pitchfork-and-torch-bearing populist mobs for this enlightenment that supposedly took place. Real problems. It’s a logical impossibility for a benevolent sense of symbiosis to culminate from a spirit of snarky and spiteful gettin-even-withem-ism. It simply cannot be done, I would argue.
No, here’s what happens. If there are more people around to do work than there is work to be done, people look for ways to justify their existences. And they’ll do what’s called “circling the wagons” in order to make that happen. They’ll band together. By sex and by color, they’ll band together, exaggerating the achievements of those who look like them, and dismissing whatever contributions were made by someone different.
If there’s work to be done, and not enough people to do it, they’ll stop doing this. They’ll be forced to. Think about…passing buckets of water to people of different sexual preferences and skin colors, when the house is on fire and the fire truck hasn’t shown up yet. Think about…piling up sandbags when a river is threatening to overflow its banks. Think about…little green men drifting down here from outer space with those ray beams that disintegrate what they touch, declaring war on our planet. Go on, discriminate against blacks, gays, or women. Try to do as much soft-discrimination as these left-wing activist groups do on a daily basis. Just try.
You’ll be ripped apart, and skinned alive. Rightfully so.
But when the work disappears, we’ll be right back at it again. Whoever is empowered to make an office look like something…will make it monochrome. If it suits ’em to make it look vanilla, they’ll make it look vanilla. Or chocolate. Or all-female, or like the weekend Bible-study class. Whatever makes ’em comfortable — as individuals. They’ll surround themselves with the like-minded; they’ll do it every time. Those who protest against it most vociferously, are the ones most competent at practicing it when it suits ’em. And when there’s little or no real work to be done.
We’re not past any of it. Quite to the contrary, our urgent work is at a low nadir, and we are now consumed in a process of justifying ourselves when we can’t be justified because we’re not trying to do anything. And so the National Organization of Woman, as Becky observes, ends up endorsing a the ticket that does not have a woman on it — endorsing it for propping up the political agenda. That’s because the agenda is what it’s all about. It has nothing to do with the chicks. It never did. The (perceived) anger of all those chicks, the ones Kim Gandy has in mind, has been the pressure that drove the turboprop attached to the engine shaft of this supposed “womens'” movement. But a bundle of far-left political agendas, is all it ever was or ever will be. And, ironically, those far-left political agendas had to do with preserving twentieth-century prejudices and bigotry for as long as they could be preserved — driving wedges between classes of people who don’t look like each other.
It never had anything to do with the chicks from day one.
It Never Was About the Chicks II
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008Rick brings us a link to a wonderfully worded piece by Jonah Goldberg which, arguably, stands guilty of belaboring the obvious. But being “plainly linkable,” in Rick’s words, it could have saved me some typing in some places…like here f’rinstance…and perhaps some other works I don’t feel like hunting down at present.
Goldberg’s words speak for themselves and need no introduction. Although I couldn’t resist putting bold on the especially scrumptious tidbits.
Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She’s exposed the feminist con job.
Don’t take my word for it. Feminists have been screaming like stuck pigs 24/7 since Palin was announced as McCain’s running mate.
Feminist author Cintra Wilson writes in Salon that the notion of Palin as vice president is “akin to ideological brain rape.” Presumably just before the nurse upped the dosage on her medication, Wilson continued, “Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She’s such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it’s easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.”
And that’s one of the nicer things she had to say. Really.
On Tuesday, Salon ran one article calling Palin a dominatrix and another labeling her a sexually repressed fundamentalist no different from the Muslim fanatics and terrorists of Hamas. Make up your minds, folks. Is she a seductress or a sex-a-phobe?
But this any-weapon-near-to-hand approach is an obvious sign of how scared the Palin-o-phobes are.
Gloria Steinem, the grand mufti of feminism, issued a fatwa anathematizing Palin. A National Organization for Women spokeswoman proclaimed Palin more of a man than a woman. Wendy Doniger, a feminist academic at the University of Chicago, writes of Palin in Newsweek: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”
It’s funny. The left has been whining about having their patriotism questioned for so long it feels like they started griping in the Mesozoic era. Feminists have argued for decades that womanhood is an existential and metaphysical state of enlightenment. But they have no problem questioning whether women they hate are really women at all.
Since we know from basic science that Palin is a woman — she’s had five kids, for starters — it’s clear that these ideological thugs aren’t talking about actual, you know, facts. They’re doing what people of totalitarian mind-sets always do: bully heretics, demonize enemies, whip the troops into line.
The academic feminist left has scared the dickens out of mainstream men and women for so long, the liberal establishment is terrified to contradict feminists’ nigh-upon-theological conviction that female authenticity is measured by one’s blind loyalty to left-wing talking points. This is a version of the Marxist doctrine of “false consciousness,” which holds that you aren’t an authentic member of the proletariat unless you agree with Marxism. [emphasis mine]
It’s got nothing to do with the broads.
If you’re a dude, and you happen to be the President of the United States, using your office resources and your authority to scare up some oral sex from your office interns, and committing perjury to cover your tracks and deny the other women you’ve abused their day in court…feminism will protect you.
As long as you are faithful to the agenda.
If you’re a strong-willed, intelligent, articulate woman and you manage to shatter a glass ceiling or two…feminism will be there to trip you up, to attack you, to slander you, to lend aid and comfort to your enemies.
Provided you aren’t friendly to the agenda.
It’s all about the agenda. Supporting women, increasing the standard of living of women, safeguarding the rights and privileges of women, looking out for equality of women…that’s got nothing to do with it at all.
There can be no denying this.
And there really has been no meaningful metamorphosis.
Which, of necessity, must raise the question about whether feminism had anything to do with defending or offering any help to the fairer sex, going all the way back to Day One. Women were just a means toward a desired end…the entire time…the entire forty years plus.
And our society fell for it. What a twisted, disgusting, sick joke. What a national disgrace.
Paleofeminism II
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008On the last day of last year, I said…
I hope 2008 sees the end of this brand of feminism, I really do. The subject of the link in question is Page 8 of possible reasons Home Improvement jumped the shark, and “Guest” writes in with…
The show jumped with the “sandwich episode” where Jill really started to assert her own special brand of aggressive feminism. It was angering to watch Jill call her son a sexist because his girlfriend did his housework; the problem couldn’t possibly be on the girlfriend’s end, it must be the EVIL MISOGYNIST BRAD at fault because he LET her do his housework. In the end, everything was resolved, of course, when Jill converted everyone over to her point of view, aka the right one, including dimwitted Tim, who, of course, buckled under his wife’s demands yet again. Was there ever a single episode where Tim said, “Tough crap, Jill, this time it’s my way”?
I was watching this episode with my ten-year-old son, and found myself answering some complicated questions.
I went on to point out the flaw in Jill’s logic. I was garrulous, so let me sum it up in a single short paragraph here:
It’s the knight who is drawing this tangible benefit from the lady’s attentions. What, exactly, is he supposed to do according to this moral code handed down on high from matriarch paleofeminist Jill? The answer according to the script of the episode was — STOP the thoughtful girlfriend from making him sandwiches. Yeah that’s right. Snatch the peanut butter and jelly right outta her hands. That’s the scripted answer; the answer, in spirit, was “I don’t know.” That’s the trouble with paleofeminism. Paleofeminists won’t admit that their goal is really to get rid of men — but the elephant comes lumbering into full view in the middle of the room, when they are observed spraying instructions and orders at everyone in earshot, like some fully automatic rapid-fire trebuchet — or to invent a metaphor more functionally fitting, a claymore — and at the same time don’t know what to tell the men to do. We’re sexist pigs if our girlfriends make us sandwiches…how, then, do we remedy the situation and stop being sexist pigs? Catch the samrich-makin’ bitch in a full nelson and force her to drop the mayonnaise? It just doesn’t make any sense.
So I had good reason for wishing 2008 would see the end of paleofeminism. Very good reason. I like it when pretty ladies make me samriches. That’s because I’m sane.
Good reason…but not high hopes. And rightly so. For the frost is nearly upon the pumpkin, and what did blogger friend Cassy Fiano find for us. That’s right, another screeching screed at Feministing.
Check out this 1970 ad for bath oil (via Found in Mom’s Basement):
The text reads:
Sure. You live with him and take care of him and hang up his clothes. But just because you do the things a wife’s supposed to do, don’t forget you’re still a woman.
One of the nicest things you can do for a man is take care of your skin. That means Sardo. No other bath oil or bead has Sardo’s unique dry skin formula. It’s pure bath oil. The richest. The best. 3 out of 4 women saw and felt and loved the difference after just one Sardo bath.
How about you? Why don’t you do something soft and young and special for him. Feel wonderful all over with Sardo.
Wow, this is really taking some early-nineties Bryan Adams to its sexist extreme. I wonder if, when she wipes her ass, she’s also doing that for her husband?
Cassy unloads. And as usual, it’s pretty priceless:
What’s hilarious is how offensive the feminists say this ad is, but the commenters have zero problem whatsoever insulting and deriding the man for the hair on his arms. So it’s OK to criticize men for their looks but not women? What if a bunch of men were making fun of a woman because of something beyond her control, like her arms being hairier than normal, these same women would be shrieking with outrage.
It’s stories like these that make modern feminism so out-of-touch with reality and the average woman. When you’re worried about trivial bullshit like an ad from thirty years ago, or a Bryan Adams video that’s over fifteen years old, and make abortion the holy cow of your entire movement, and then call it fighting for women’s rights, it makes people not really take you very seriously. The thing is, there is real sexism in the world, and real women who are fighting real oppression. Most of this does not take place in the Middle East, but modern American feminism finds things like thirty-year-old bath oil ads and abortion more important than, oh, say three girls being buried alive for the “crime” of choosing their own husbands.
What motivates these bitter women? It obviously is not the “rights” of the modern woman. If it was about that issue, the girls being buried alive would at least register as a blip on the radar, one would hope. In fact, the samrich issue would not — Brad’s girlfriend wants to make him a samrich, she can go ahead and make him a samrich…the “choice” is hers, you see.
*sniff* *sniff* Smells like…some sort of collective bargaining.
Yes, that’s exactly what I think it is. Start out slow, and slack off. You get hired on to the team, which pumps out eight widgets per man per hour — you start cranking out twenty widgets an hour, boss gives you a big atta-boy, life will be all wonderful. Until you go home from work that day. It’s your co-workers, you see. You’re making ’em look bad.
This is exactly the same principle. You’re a woman, taking baths in oils to make your skin soft for that man o’ yours, make him a samrich or two…you know how those uppity men are, sooner or later they’ll start talking! And this puts pressure on the other jealous wrinkled up old gals. Can’t have that.
Perhaps this is why the feminists aren’t too interested in the teenage girls being buried alive, Cassy. See, not being murdered is an individual right. Forcing one amongst your peerage to start out slow & slack off, so that mediocrity can continue to be confused with excellence, that is a group right. A collective-bargaining right. Don’t do good works as an individual person, because you’re making the group-collective look bad.
Lower the expectations. For the good of the collective.
Just as union management demands to step into the role of the “real” boss…the wrinkled up old paleofeminist harpies are demanding to become the “real” husband. That hairy ape you’re living with, he’s just in the way. Don’t do anything to please him, or we’ll make you sorry.
Okay that explains everything — except one thing. With all this Sarah Palin news floating around, we’re already getting a crash-course that the feminist movement is pulling a bait-n-switch on us. They’ve been pissing and moaning that not enough women are winning high offices because not enough women are seeking those high offices…and that must have something to do with us grubby, awful, icky sexist men. Along comes Gov. Palin. To a rational mindset, she would appear to be the fulfillment of everything the feminists had been demanding all these years. Well, the feminists don’t like her, which proves the “womens’ rights” movement never had anything to do with women, and most certainly didn’t have much to do with their rights. It was all about a political agenda. Putting pressure on people to vote for unqualified angry women, was just a tactic for enacting that agenda.
What’s really awful for the feminist movement, is that Sarah Palin and the attacks against her don’t clearly state this for the understanding of whacky bloggers like myself. These events make all this plain to the average, Main Street voter. It’s the kind of damage only self-evident truth can do.
So why now for the attack on the Sardo ad? Why choose right here-and-now to really solidify that message to us…that feminism is all about marginalizing men, and driving a wedge between the sexes — that it has little or nothing to do with womens’ rights? It’s as if Feministing is terrified someone out here was not quite clear on things, and wanted to make sure the message was really spelled out for everyone.
Heyyyyyyy, here’s an idea. Let’s make the 2008 elections all about this. Vote McCain/Palin if you want men and women to get along, vote Obama/Biden if you think whenever a lady is softening up her skin or making samriches for her man, someone should jump in and force her to stop, whether she wants to stop or not. In the name of womens’ choice.
Meanwhile, if any nice-lookin’ ladies come along and start making me hot juicy pies and fetching me cold beers, I fully intend to support womens’ rights. I intend to let them. Sorry if that offends anyone.
Best Sentence XXXIX
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008Lileks, commenting on Heather Mallick’s screed, funded by the Canadian treasury. Let’s set it up first. You saw our link to it here. Our neighbors to the North, of all political stripes, whether they like it or not, get to pay out of their own pockets for such well thought-out wisdom as this:
I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America’s name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.
So why do it?
It’s possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she’s a woman. They’re unfamiliar with our true natures. Do they think vaginas call out to each other in the jungle night? I mean, I know men have their secret meetings at which they pledge to do manly things, like being irresponsible with their semen and postponing household repairs with glue and used matches. Guys will be guys, obviously.
But do they not know that women have been trained to resent other women and that they only learn to suppress this by constantly berating themselves and reading columns like this one? I’m a feminist who understands that women can nurse terrible and delicate woman hatred.
I’m a blogger who understands that from that point onward, the Mallick bitch-fest heads downhill. Fast.
So is James Lileks.
Consider the joy that would reign if someone wrote that “Democrats, racial guilt-mongers that they are, really believe that African-Americans will vote for an African-American just because he’s an African-American.” Of course Republican men don’t believe that women will vote for her just because she’s a woman. It’s surely a factor, but there’s the possibility that they will vote for her because she is not a woman like Heather Mallick.
Then he lays the smackdown. Yes, it’s more than one sentence; it’s an entire paragraph.
But how glorious it is. Richly deserving of the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award.
You have to love the “Sexual inadequates that they are” line as well; if there’s one thing that’s amused me in the last two weeks, it’s the screechy distaste of Ms. Palin coming from men who embodied the Modern Alda Paradigm of masculinity, which is to say they are nervous around cars, think guns are icky, had their own Snugli, have wives in corporate jobs who make more money than they do, and still get dissed behind their backs because they can’t figure out how to make the bed. The Lost Boys, if you will. Now, some women can’t stand Sarah Palin for their own reasons, personal or ideological; same with men. Some men, however, are made deeply uneasy by her, because she’s the one who ignored the sensitive poet-guys in high school for the jocks, and didn’t seem to grasp the essential high-school truth that it’s cool to be a loser. But that’s rank psychoanalysis, and we won’t stoop to that.
And then…drum roll…he does. Well, not really. But he goes chasin’ after this meme that has been the elephant in the room, for a generation plus — some men aspire to become real men, other men go into politics. We haven’t been allowed to talk about it, and now we are. Lileks makes full use of the opportunity.
H/T: Buck, who adds:
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is world-class snark. Good snark. Great snark. Biting and oh-so-on-point snark. No one, and I mean NO ONE on Planet Gaia gets on a roll quite like Mr. Lileks. You’re truly missing something if you don’t read the whole thing.
Yeah…gonna have to go ahead and agree with you on that one.
The “Huneesh” Rule
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Saw something yesterday for what must have been the thirty gazillionth time, and it took that much to make me realize I had been seeing it for awhile. I think we’re all seeing this, quite often, and not realizing we’re seeing it. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t make an impression on you until later, and only if you think on it awhile.
It has to do with kids who aren’t yet old enough to understand, or act on, the concept of a “library voice.” Momma’s brought ’em to the bagel shop or at the coffee shop, some other interior setting not designed to absorb the shrieking…and their young voices BOUNCE off the farthest walls…that’s part & parcel of being a little kid. What fascinated me was the way the mothers reacted. Of course this can’t go un-corrected. It’s too embarrassing, and leaving it uncorrected would be a display of poor manners.
When a little girl does it, the response is “Honey, shhh.” But then, the little girl can clearly demonstrate by her actions just seconds later, that the message hasn’t gotten through. Yeah, whatever. AND LOOKIT THAT, MOMMY! The admonition is repeated. Honey, shhh. That’s what I was seeing yesterday.
Now in the same situation, this is not how we manage our little boys, is it. I see the parenting job is not completed, with boys, until the message has been communicated, and there is some solid evidence in behavior modification that the message has been so communicated. What you were doing just now is inappropriate. Mommy will pay attention to you when she’s darn good and ready. I’m standing right here, and I can hear you fine. Other people don’t want to hear you. You don’t talk the same way indoors as you do outdoors. Get it? Got it? Good.
With little girls, it’s Honey, shhh. Parenting job done. Repeat two seconds later. Parenting job done.
I think that’s worth noticing, although it probably violates all kinds of codes about political correctness, because I’ve observed that when you audibly comment on the results — that girls are more socially mature than boys — that’s not politically incorrect at all. In fact, you get extra brownie points for noticing it; perhaps climbing your way out of a hole you dug for yourself by saying something earlier. (Heh. Wonder if it’ll work here.)
It also has something to do with our epidemic of learning disabilities. As it’s been noticed by myself, and by others — dubious learning disability diagnoses, land disproportionately on male heads. We seldom wonder why this is. Meanwhile, here we are teaching our little boys that at times there may be something undesirable or incorrect about making oneself heard in certain settings. But we don’t teach our little girls the same thing.
Another thing I see about learning disabilities is that there is this difference of opinion about whether they are being grossly diagnosed or not, but there is no difference of opinion about the frequency in which they are so diagnosed. To say it’s on the “upswing” would be a gross understatement. And so, on this point, I confess I don’t understand my impassioned opposition. This kid has autism even though his behavior is completely removed from the behavior of a “classic” case; that kid has Asperger’s (which is autism now, they think); that other kid over there has ADHD; it’s oh so vital we recognize these things so they can get “the help that they need” now that “we know so much more about these things than we used to.” They are all boys and the situation has deteriorated to the point where anyone who doesn’t live in a cave, personally knows four families or more touched by the drama connected with a learning disability. But don’t you dare question any of it or you’ll get an earful about how this or that disorder “definitely exists” — even though that’s not the thing you just called into question.
I was pondering this one more time, how we have tens of thousands of people running around, proselytizing that we have all these diagnoses being made all of a sudden, and we shouldn’t question any of them. At all. They are suspiciously apathetic about the prospect of researching some root, envrionment-related cause. Some of them are making money off the racket, but most aren’t. Most are parents. We skeptics say, that’s because when you get a “diagnosis” about a kid whose personality is different from yours and you can’t relate to him, it gives you a good excuse not to, so life can go on. In response to that we get this “the lady doth protest too much” type of rejoinder. It’s easy to see what’s happening if you think on it awhile; among those motivated to form an opinion by the personal circumstances, most people are too emotionally connected to think on it awhile.
And the thought suddenly occured to me.
What if it was discovered, or simply suggested, that some of these learning disabilities were bacterial. Microscopic beasties with hundreds of icky legs and feelers. Yeah, I know, I’m being silly; but hang with me on this. Suppose, further, that while experts were mostly convinced these bacterial learning disabilities were non-contagious, they could make no guarantees about it.
We would then see an epidemic of inflamed, passionate curiosity about root causes…one that is mostly or completely missing now. Wouldn’t we? I can see it now. Aiiiggghhh!!! What’s happening with the chilllllddddrrrreeeennnn? Anti-bacterial soap on this. Bleach on that. And what is up with those icky, awful, terrible little boys? What kind of hygeine issues must they have going on that they’re incubating all these little beasties and perhaps putting our darling little girls in danger? Won’t someone think about the chilllllddddrrrreeeennnn?
It would produce a paradigm shift. A massive one. An abundance of curiosity, where a glaring paucity of same existed moments before. But if we were noodling on this stuff honestly, it would not.
But this isn’t a terribly useful thought exercise — we know things are gunnybags and bollywonkers. Anybody who thinks on it for a minute or two can see that. The lopsided gender ratio with those diagnosed, the word “diagnose” abused to the point where it no longer means anything, and most of all the skyrocketing incident frequencies…which seem to gather even more momentum still, every time more money is made available to handle bubbins’ little learning difficulties.
It’s all very simple.
Girls are allowed to speak when nobody was waiting for them to say anything. To shatter glasses with their dulcet toddler tones, should they choose to. To yammer away so loudly, that you can’t think about anything else. Sure they need correcting when they do so, but not with anything more impactful or long-lasting than a “Huneesh.” The lesson’s over in two seconds. It didn’t take, and that’s okay.
Boys can’t do this. They are required to learn that in some situations, and that’s most situations, they are not to be heard except according to protocol. The first step in this protocol is the request, which may very well not even be acknowledged, let alone granted. They become sleeve-tuggers. Mom? Mom? Mom? Oh…okay…
And then they become video game players. Once they’re there, they gleefully learn the purpose of the universe is to keep them entertained at all times. No doubt that comes as a huge relief to them, because now it’s no longer necessary to tug on Mom’s sleeve to get attention that probably isn’t forthcoming anyway.
And then at some point we require these kids to pay attention to people.
The little girls manage to pull it off, quite easily, if they can shut up long enough. The boys have more trouble. They have to be diagnosed with things.
It’s a good thing we have so many people working so hard to avoid asking the obvious questions about how this comes about. Because if they asked it, the answer would be fairly obvious too. This is a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma, because that is precisely what we want it to be.