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Fighting Over The Future Of Manhood

In an article dating back to 2003, columnist Steve Sailer manages to start with what I thought was going to be one of those boastful "'real men' are back" articles and turn it into something I find rather fascinating. I guess it has to do with Sailer being a conservative and his article not jumping on the bandwagon.

"In the distant past, a man who dressed stylishly and enjoyed art, theater, and sophisticated music would have been praised as a "gentleman," but today his sexual orientation is automatically called into question. The average person's "gaydar" has become so sensitive that a long list of traits associated with civilized living are now assumed to be prima facie evidence of homosexuality."

Now, I'm not going to act like an expert in this kind of thing, but I can't help but be reminded of an event earlier this week with some bunch of fools on the bus. One had a portable DVD player and decided to play the remix of Chris Brown's "Gimme That". Following Lil' Wayne's rap portion of the song, one of the other guys immediately starts chanting "Chris Brown is a fucking faggot!" over the singing verses. It didn't take me long to figure out the mentality at work here...that a man singing is apparently regarded as 'sissy' (exceptions include Luther Vandross, Barry White, etc.) and meant only for women, while the 'thug' attitude is supposed to be more manly. Unsurprisingly, the group not only acted like hoodlums, but also looked the part.

"And then there's those new boxes on wheels, such as the Honda Element, that are designed to evoke a college boy's dorm room (just add empty pizza cartons). The hilariously homely new Toyota Scion bears a striking resemblance to Dumpy the Dump Truck in the little boy's storybook. I guess the appeal is: "Nobody's gonna think I'm gay when I'm driving one of these monstrosities!"

I personally find this kind of attitude sad and pathetic, but it does fit with one of my pet theories. The theory goes that while a minority of heterosexual men are actually straight and comfortable with it, most heterosexual men are not so much straight as desperate to not be seen as gay, and that there is a world of difference between the two. The first actually realize sexuality is more of a matter of hormonal reactions and sexual desires, but the second somehow sees sexual orientation in fashions, colors, mannerisms, and other things, thus becoming haunted by a spectre that should not even exist - a spectre that elicits exclamations of "that's gay!" toward inanimate objects.

"If James Bond were introduced today, the New York Times would describe him as a metrosexual rather than as a gentleman. I fear, though, that if you called him a metrosexual, he would make a witty quip, flick some invisible dust from his perfectly tailored lapels with his manicured hands, and shoot you."

This is something that I would wholeheartedly support, though a lightning-fast iaido strike would be cooler. After all, I've never heard of a man being called a fag for running around and kicking people's asses; that's for men who don't immediately jump at the opportunity to commit violence or fuck an attractive woman, so it would seem.

Though Sailer's essay doesn't address much of the reason behind the "straight flight" phenomenon, all in all, it's a good article.

Now for the boastful article, courtesy of Sara Stewart and the New York Post:

"A lot of men feel that a lot of what they like to do has been marginalized," explains Tucker Max, author of the best-selling book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" and self-proclaimed bad boy of what's been referred to as the "retrosexual" movement - or, if you prefer, the "menaissance."

"Men have been emasculated by the media," rants George Ouzonian, aka Maddox, author of "The Alphabet of Manliness" and another ringleader of the guys-being-guys groundswell. "You don't really see the manly men anymore."
...
"But when pressed to elaborate on what exactly about that trend had been keeping men down - what has inspired such a cringe-inducing backlash of beers and leers - both Max and Maddox came up a bit short."

Though both Max and Maddox try their hardest to avoid directly saying it, I'm convinced that the best explanation for this 'backlash' is simply a fear of being thought of as gay or feminine. It's not like you need the X-ray Visor to see through that. All these concerns about emasculation are purely linked to pretty boys and their grooming habits. Not one iota of attention is given to the staggering rates of incarcerated men in America, or to boys' underperformance in schools, because neither can be directly traced back to those pretty boys and their hair gel. On another note, Max and Maddox are among many who conveniently leave out that there were times in history where men were flamboyant without their precious sexuality being questioned.

I swear, as soon as we 'feminize' loutish and criminal behavior, we'll see a significant drop in crime and lewd activity. However, it seems that "The Establishment" - for lack of a better term - refuses to give it a shot, and only the ignorant have no idea as to why that is. The worst I can see happening out of such an attempt would be the crime rate staying stable (or rising slightly) and men not giving a fuck who calls them something less than manly. It still wouldn't be as bad as breeding the next generation of men to go berserk when their sexual orientation is questioned (how hard can it be to just say the goddamned answer and leave it at that?!).

"When pressed for specific examples, Max cites the images of well-groomed men in print advertisements. "Those guys with perfectly gelled, coiffed hair," he says disgustedly. "And ones that portray guys as wanting the latest, coolest gadget or the newest striped shirt."

Max goes on to compare the psychological fallout from these ads to the scourge of eating disorders in young women inspired by rail-thin models."

A very good point. I can understand this sentiment somewhat, but I still remain skeptical. It's not like making most future ads portray the ideal man as a musclebound chick magnet won't alienate some constituency of heterosexual men out there. Actually, that's probably how we got into this mess in the first place, and if we fail to learn and apply the real lessons of this now, the cycle will merely be repeated so that future generations will get to suffer just like us.

How will they suffer, you ask? It's simple to understand once you realize that some men out there are compelled to adopt identities that women claim they desire, whether that man is cut out for it or not.

"The gender wars are full of wishful thinking and self-deception. In the meantime, I'm heading back to the electronic croft's darkened room, before getting in touch with my inner caveman. Again.
Sometimes it's hard to be a man."

While the first sentence above may be true, the consequences of the "gender wars" are very real and far-reaching. Actually, the division of heterosexual man into metrosexual, retrosexual, ubersexual, and cross-sexual is probably the greatest divide-and-conquer tactic yet in this silly game. It has undoubtedly done a great job at turning men against one another over mostly trivial and superficial matters.

There's a solution to this societal travesty out there somewhere, in which men must be secure in their own identity, in which men must not try to change only to impress women or other men, in which indignation must be directed more at relevant problems than nonconformance to personal preferences, and in which heterosexuals are not automatically repelled by supposedly homosexual connotations. Will we find this solution soon? Probably not, as long as we allow popular perception to act as if the default setting for heterosexual masculinity is always set to "act coarse, chase after women, and be ruthlessly violent". Instead, we'll be treated to more sensationalized news coverage and a bunch of thugs being propped up as the definition of manliness.

posted by el-chozo-loco @ 12:02 AM