We believe we have to be the heroes only because we can’t yet see other roles for ourselves.
Being a part of an online magazine about masculinity, I’ve come to observe a curious phenomenon. When we post about male rape victims or the enforcement of masculine gender roles, we get plenty of interesting comments. But when we post about Nice Guy Syndrome and other issues around men who feel sexually unwanted, our comments blow up like they were directed by Michael Bay. This is an issue that touches men deeply and damagingly, and ties in with a lot of pain that, hegemonic masculinity being what it is, usually doesn’t get talked about.
Some have written about how straight men don’t feel sexually desired, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s hard to overestimate just how deep this idea goes. It feeds into a phenomenon a lot of guys have experienced, a phenomenon based on weird broken ideas about gender roles, ideas so deeply rooted in the subconscious that most men aren’t even aware that they’ve got them.
The core issue is this: many, many men in our society feel they have to be needed, because they can’t imagine they could ever be wanted.
Being needed can take different forms, all of which resemble traditional male roles. Brave protector against danger. Breadwinning economic provider. Indispensable handyman. Problem-solving leader. We get any more macho stereotypes in here, it’s gonna look like a Village People reunion. This is what being masculine means in our culture: to be necessary.
Plan A, for men in our society, is to be necessary, to be needed, to be indispensable. There is no plan B.
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One of the most common complaints about feminism, all the way back to the First Wave, is that feminism seeks to make men obsolete or unnecessary. “If women can [fill in anything about female agency] what will they need men for?” runs the line, in every decade, in response to every advance. And while nobody is arguing that that’s a legitimate criticism, it’s important to understand that it arises out of a real fear. Look at the key word in that sentence, need. It’s always the same concept, however that objection is phrased. Plan A, for men in our society, is to be necessary, to be needed, to be indispensable. There is no plan B. If plan A doesn’t come off, we are lost, we’re adrift, we have nothing. This is an existential fear, on a very deep level.
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There’s a common observation among those who, like myself, have worked in senior citizen care homes. It’s related to why the population of those homes skews heavily female, to why men die younger than women. Over and over, again and again, those who are around senior citizens have to deal with retired men who, no longer working and no longer earning money, don’t know why they’re still alive. They don’t know who they are or why they bother to continue drawing breath, if they’re no longer needed for something important. Some of them find something else to define themselves, some new project or internal source of worth. Others just give up and let the next swell of ill health carry them overboard.
We’re at a place, culturally and economically, where many of the traditional sources of necessity for men have evaporated, or at least been drastically downsized.
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The “crisis of masculinity” that many people are currently wringing their hands over, the “mancession” involving men’s employment dropping slightly faster than women’s, the cultural yearning for an imagined past when men bestrode the world like gray-suited colossi, building and making and innovating Important Things… same problem. We’re at a place, culturally and economically, where many of the traditional sources of necessity for men have evaporated, or at least been drastically downsized. We don’t need to have 25% of the population growing food any more, we can do it with 2%. Women don’t need men to provide for them any more, education and career opportunities have opened up. All this would be fine, if there were any plan B.
It’s a well-worn observation that media is the first place to look for enforcement of societal norms. A quick glance at our culture’s media demonstrates that it endlessly reinforces the notion of male necessity. On a surface level, there’s the fact that with fictional heroes remaining overwhelmingly white males, if a guy doesn’t show up, there’s no story at all. That’s a nice form of necessity. Deeper than that, though, there’s the structure of every “romantic” subplot in every movie that has a character who can be accurately described as The Girl. Every action movie, every sci-fi epic, all the movies that are stereotypically written off as male power fantasies, all have the same way that the hero gets the girl: he proves his necessity, usually by saving her life. If he weren’t there, she’d literally be dead.
Interestingly, the romantic movies often stereotyped as female fantasies do not generally have this dynamic. Oddly, however, even those rarely focus on the male lead as the object of desire; the female gaze is commonly absent from these stories. Instead the heroine tends to be the object, and the hero prevails by demonstrating that his desire for her is the biggest and most special and pure and so on. Not even in the realm of “chick flicks” about the joys of heterosexual pair-bonding are men seen as desired, as wanted.
I’m not speaking in the abstract here; when this wanted/needed dichotomy was first pointed out to me, I felt a deep and embarrassed pang of recognition. I myself like it when I can rescue my girlfriends, when I can save the day or handle the problem or otherwise demonstrate my irrefutable necessity. I like feeling needed because even for me, even with all my ever-so-educated awareness of gender roles and stereotypes, even with all the women who’ve told me I’m sexy and desirable, I still can’t quite convince myself that I’m wanted. Even if I am, being wanted can only be a nebulous and fleeting state. Being needed, now, that’s solid. That’s a reason to keep going.
It is downright incredible how resistant to empirical data the sense of being unwantable is. It took many years and girlfriends before I began to suspect that every women who slept with me might not be humoring me out of pity. Even then, and to this day, I feel more secure in relationships when I can provide a measurable and necessary form of value other than just my own charms, whatever those might be. Girlfriend needs a ride to the airport? I’m on it! Needs a ride to the hospital? Even better! The rare occasions where I can help out with covering bills when she’s short on rent (most of the women I’ve loved make more money than a starving writer, it turns out) are even better, because I am Providing For My Woman, and I feel the warm glow of centuries of hegemonic masculinity validating me.
Let me be clear: I know this is stupid. I know it’s asinine social programming and that these women consider me sexually and emotionally desirable. But there’s a difference between knowing that and believing it. And for guys who haven’t got a girlfriend, who feel the bitter sting of active rejection or the endless cold of passive rejection, who yearn for love and sex and the touch of another hand… what can they possibly believe about being wanted?
The fact is, as I’ve learned during prolonged periods of loneliness myself, when a a lifetime of “Ewwww, gross, naked guy!” jokes combine with stretches of personal rejection, it’s easy to feel neither wanted nor needed. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a job where your particular abilities are necessary, so that’s a form of being needed, one you can throw yourself into, but it’s not the same as being needed by another person. Being wanted by another person, at that point, has disappeared over the horizon, into an unmarked area of the map labeled HERE BE UNICORNS THAT DISPENSE FREE MONEY.
It’s easy to get bitter when you feel unwanted, and so this unfortunate confluence of forces has left our culture littered with embittered men who get very upset about what they can’t help but perceive as their own failure. It’s easy to dismiss them as angry losers or some other convenient pejorative, but I’ve walked a few too many miles in their shoes to call their pain baseless. I don’t pretend to have a solution, but the least we can do is begin to correctly identify the problem.
Photo—Shutterstock
The solution is simple (but hard). You said it yourself in this article–that you don’t BELIEVE you can be wanted…. so everyone, I don’t care what age, gender or race, but everyone would benefit from doing the inner work and start accepting and wanting themselves. It makes the biggest difference because you’re essentially saying to yourself “I am enough without having to DO anything or have anything to show for it, I just am enough”. That’s a problem women and men both face, however it manifests differently. But the thing is, just as you’ve done in this article, a lot… Read more »
“, but everyone would benefit from doing the inner work and start accepting and wanting themselves” very true!
“I am enough without having to DO anything or have anything to show for it, I just am enough”.
Galaxy, with all due respect, you are simply ignoring the elephant in the room – women get the invaluable gift of male desire without having to even think about it. And before you say “ah, but not all women” let me ask you to consider that it is within the realm of possibility for women, yet consistently impossible for men. There is an immense gap between the genders, and women would benefit from contemplating it. As for your “inner change” suggestion, no amount of self suggestion could ever change the harsh reality of the facts, unless you forget that the… Read more »
Really good article! I think many people don’t reflect on this and harm caused-definitely harmful.
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women are made to feel guilty and slutty for their sexuality. When that stops, women will make men feelmtheirmdesire. Desire for women is judged as being slutty. The Patriarchal archetype of who’re and Madonna had led to this . Women are just people, not your mom or your prostitute.
As I explained in another comment on this thread, the reason that women are slut shamed is essentially because men are socially weak due to their lack of sexual value. The guy “gets” the girl, right? He’s put through some ordeal, slays a dragon, some bad guy, overcomes this or that obstacle, resolves the conflict in the narrative and successfully wins the girl’s love. That’s the familiar archetype which appears everywhere in our culture and has going back as far as you want to look. Well, break it down. The fact that the guy has to get the girl in… Read more »
MGTOW : Men Going Their Own Way
Some of us women, however, need not fear the slut-shaming or Madonna-Wh-re complex that het women and men alike espouse. If we are in the LGBT community, we are already morally bereft by dint of our sexual orientations/identities, and many of us, self included, date strictly within that community to ensure we are partnering only with those people who share our experiences. Thus, even when I date a man, he is q-33r too, so I have the comfort of realization that we’ve both walked the same paths of rejection and bigotry, even if the end results manifested in different ways… Read more »
YES!!!! Thank you, Noah! Every line in this article is absolutely golden! I feel like I’ve been trying to argue this point for a long time. But because most every time I’m trying to address it I’m in a classroom, I’m immediately shot down (and in one case verbally attacked) by the bell hooks and Pride and Prejudice thumpers. And their response, honestly, made me feel quite insignificant, like my point of view is both trivial and illegitimate, or unneeded. In turn, I spend a lot of time in a state of ‘existential crisis’ trying to balance my insecurities about… Read more »
The irony is that when you are actually not wanted, you can still be needed. I was married to a closet lesbian (and no, it’s not any fun). Boy was she ever needy. Work, home, family, she was a dream come true for a guy who equates being useful with being loved. But despite putting a roof over, filling the bank account (for her to empty), keeping house and helping to set up a business, not one ounce of affection or appreciation was coming my way. Where was the payoff? I was useful, but not loved. Men are sometimes called… Read more »
hi, you sounds like a dream come true to me. I am not a lesbian, I would have loved you. You seem like a wonderful man, you just picked the wrong woman.
A man is at best a utility to a woman : as an individual a man is not loved. His only value to a woman is his utility, the ‘ benefits’ she can gain from him.
You went MGTOW : Men Going Their Own Way.
Sigh. Give it a rest, why don’t you? Not every topic needs to turn to “men are raped more than women,” and “beta blah blah, Chad blah blah.” Wanna know why women don’t desire YOU? It’s this shit. Time to shit our your red pill, dude.
I think the article touches a very good point but makes the usual mistake in this site of blaming men for it. Women are doing a lousy job at making men feel wanted. In valentines and such you see what women get from men, in tv and movies its always the man doing things for the woman, and its impossible to find comments, articles or posts of women saying good things about men. Even when celebrating men’s day, you get mentions about male violence and domestic violence. It’s very hard to find a woman talking about a man being desirable… Read more »
So it is a mistake to blame men, but then you just go and blame women for men’s problems… ok. Why not the culture? The fears and desires of both men and women and how many times they do not meet? “If men don’t feel wanted it’s because the ones who should make them feel that way are not doing it right.” Do you believe men make women feel wanted in the “right” way? Most women just feel like men are trying to buy them or do things to buy their attention or sex; most sexual attention is unwanted. TV… Read more »
Women are usually the entitled ones in a relationship.
Well as pointed out by Altair above, “the article touches a very good point but makes the usual mistake in this site of blaming men for it“. What Altair failed to add is that not only women are unlikely to spare any sympathy for what men experience – they will reliably blame men for causing the situation, failing to “see it the way women see it” and thus deserving the outcome. If you need any example of such trivial cruelty, look no further than the post above by Kira Jahn. It is the very driver of MGTOW, a sad outcome… Read more »
Would not the fact that women who have sexual agency, such as asking the guy out, have been dismissed and denigrated as whore, sluts, harlots, etc. for the past couple of thousand years have something to do with why women aren’t so expressive of their desire?
If women select mates and men are the ones on the hook for competing and being the one that is selected, then it makes sense that men would be insecure about women who are “easy” because women have intrinsic sexual and social value while men do not. So that’s an example of male sexual and social weakness, not their power. Why else would men have any investment in slut shaming? Men want to have sex, yeah? So why wouldn’t they be happy about women being “slutty?” Women being chaste is really about putting conditions on their intimacy that men must… Read more »
Very true .
MGTOW : Men Going Their Own Way.
Please do, by all means. The female [more than] half of the world sincerely thanks you.
In my experience while dating men I’ve seen this quiet often. I do not need a man to pay my bills or fix my car. But if suddenly I tell him I was at the mechanic because there was something wrong I feel like I hurt him some how; “why didn’t you let me check it before spending all that money?” and I just start feeling awful; did I just emasculated him? I also notice when men are not used to getting attention from a woman. Damn I am attracted to him and I want to show it the same… Read more »
Try showing him you’re attracted. Show him you desire him and find him sexy. I don’t think he’ll resent thatjust because yyou’re not a damsel in distresa. Believe me.
Part of the allure of a strip club is women acting like they are attracted by the man, even if it’s pretend.
normally men are the ones expectes to being the chasers, the pick up-ppers and the ones taking the initiative in sex. All that feels like a job and like having to show the woman how attractive and lovable she is, never the other way around.
I never thought that some of you might feel that way, but know this: men are very much wanted and very much needed. A high-value male (which doesn’t necessarily mean wealthy) will always be in demand. Evolution didn’t ditch you. Come on! Trust in your own value and power. Women love men just as much as men love women.
If this were the case, then this article would not have been written.
The places in which men feel wanted are very small, and very rare.
That goes for everyone. Do you see, many people are depressed, have low self-esteem, feel under appreciated. It can be in different ways for women and men in general, but yes, that is a a very real social issue.
I think you are right Josh, and I believe that the recession has brought about this feeling in many of us. For example, I am the household breadwinner, and am female. (This is no longer remarkable, 4 in 10 of wives are the breadwinners; this is likely to increase.) During the recession, I read many narratives about layoffs causing men to feel useless and hopeless. It was an odd narrative, since many women were affected by the recession, too (although they were initially thought to be more “recession-proof,” what truly happened was that their layoffs just came later in the… Read more »
In the USA ( & the world in general) 3.5 × more men than women commited suicide in 2015. . .the proportions are not the same for men and women.
True.
“Women NEED men just as much as men LOVE women.
We get it. You hate women. Like I said above, please feel free to go your own way. Why aren’t you gone already?
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‘Look at the whole concept of “women and children first” – yes it does value the life of men as something to be sacrificed for the lives of women, but not because the woman is wielding power over the man – it’s because she’s being equated WITH CHILDREN. It’s a construct of helplessness.’ I think that’s an artificial narrative covering up a really old and once useful cultural meme. Its a strategy to keep a culture going in its most basic sense: reproduction. This is obvious on the level of the nourishment of babies all the way to the capacity… Read more »
Too bad that this is (yet another) problem that is solely blamed on men.
(In the beginning it says “subconscious of men”.)
Especially since it pretends to “correctly identify the problem”.
Women play an active and crucial part in “if you’re not needed you’re not worthy”.
Man, all the Internet Tough Guys are out in the comments on this one…of every gender.
The article has a lot of value, but I’d disagree with its approach, which I’d qualify as more or less sociological, deploying terms borrowed from culture and media criticism, and to a lesser extent psychological, diagnosing anxieties. Allow me to suggest that we should look at this from a more philosophical point of view, treating the ideas of heroism or niceness as real ideas, worthy of intellectual consideration, not as mere ideology only worthy of deconstruction. Such an approach to our problems is endemic to our culture — anything we need to explain, we explain in the sorts of terms… Read more »
“The frustration of men today arises, I would argue, from a lack of recognition of our capacities”. Good hypothesis. From the ‘silent types’ who weren’t talked to as kids and ended up monosyllabic to parents who don’t step in when two boys fight because ‘boys will be boys’ – the negative attributes feel like a self fulfilling prophesy from the outset. I often feel that the things I’m good at aren’t worth a damn and that the things I enjoy are simply narcissistic. Nobody else does it to me, it’s inside. If I tile a roof though, or bring in… Read more »
Exactly!!!! While quite a number of men whines that they don’t feel needed, that the women don’t make them feel that way, one thing is being forgotten – the person who *needs* you wil be …well.. needy! And from what I know about people, no sane person wants to be with someone who is needy.
On man caves – I bet the termn in rarely used by men. And I can understand where its coming from. I live in Eastern European country where the mentality that a man can do anything and a woman can only do what doesn’t harm her family in some way (be it hobbies, career or whatever) is very much alive. And the thing is men do use their passions and hobbies to get away from whatever issues they have, which definitely makes women feel that men have some sort of an escape route (I need my space, yada yada) whereas… Read more »
I’m not a man so I can’t speak from personal experience, but from what I’ve seen a lot of men feel this way about being needed/not wanted and it’s one of the key concerns of masculinity, that is, defining what it means to be a man. What I can speak to is my frustration at the lack of female gaze in film/media… we seriously need more scantily-clad hot dudes on screen! This may in part be due to the fact that the film industry – specifically directing and writing for film – is still a very male dominated field, but… Read more »
The first thing that’d come to my mind is, “get a plan B”, of course, that’s easier said, than done, what if you just keep in mind that a woman might need you for emotional support, love, someone to talk to, someone she can trust, then being Mr. Nice-guy makes you needed, in these times – where women can provide themselves with most of the things they need – a man who wants to feel needed, should try to find the things that women still can’t do on their own: They need someone to be able to talk to, who… Read more »
“They need someone to be able to talk to, who supports them, loves them, someone they can trust, intimacy is also something you simply cannot get on your own”
You talk as if female friends don’t exist.
Do you realize just how narcissistic your description was? Regardless of everything else, one of the real drivers for misoginy is the unashamed narcissism that women seem to find ‘normal” in what they want… Try reverting the genders in what you just wrote and tell me that you don’t feel repulsed by it.
Dead on brilliant. Seems like I’ve been trying to say this exact thing in so many ways that don’t get to the point: a point which to me was blurry and undefined. I’ve known and seen many guys who seem to defy this phenomenon, but I have a feeling whenever I see it, that unless they’re some famous sexual icon of masculinity themselves, then it’s just a front.
It’s interesting you wrote at the end: It’s easy to get bitter when you feel UNWANTED, and so this unfortunate confluence of forces has left our culture littered with embittered men who get very upset about what they can’t help but perceive as their own failure. Mostly because the entire time you say the real problem is being NOT NEEDED. If we’re dividing between need and want to get at the core of why disintegrating gender binary roles worry men, let’s keep the conversation consistent. Unless you feel both unwanted and not needed, in which case, the problem in completely… Read more »
Really interesting article about male gender and western society. Depressing/predictable that the the first page of comments is almost entirely about feminism rather than the actual article.
I’m loathsome for not having seen it before you did. I’m envious for your ability to put it into words. I’m grateful that you decided to do so – and my life is forever changed as a result. I can’t thank you enough, if you ever need anything don’t hesitate to write.
AB I too share your frustrations.So much of the anger that is directed at blacks is misplsced.The anger should be directed at the source of the problem,at those who designed the system that created the dynamic that divided up access to opportunity according to race,sex,class,religion,etc..Yeah,there are some aspects of how CR has played out that aren’t fair.Neither was the Constitution.For any white person to argue that CR legislation disenfranchised them as the Constitution disenfranchised blacks is beyond ludicrous.The flawed Constitution is what created the need for CR legislation in the first place,not blacks.Hell,if whites had lived up to the standards… Read more »
Thanks for that.
“convenient pejorative”…I love that!
I’d been trying to find an apt way to describe the phenomenon of people referring to others derogatorily with convenient simplifications.
Yes this article resonates. I’m saddened that the author did not dig deeper, and connect more dots, such as, “where have all the Jimmy Stewart’s gone?”, is Louis CK the new Jimmy Stewart?…Prison Industrial Complex as anti-competitive to all but the most successful (white) alpha men… (This article also reminds me that I’m grateful I didn’t castrate myself when I was a First Wave/Third Wave feminist…)
Tracy and katansi It is not my fault that feminism consistently does as poor a job of dealing with race as does MRA’s.These two groups are presumptiously defining,not just for themselves but for the world,the rules by which men and women relate.They are weilding this tremendous power while posing as victims.This is nothing more than new milennial imperialism.Amer-euro culture does not have the right to tell others how to live.
Actually, as a person of colour, I tend to agree with you. I’ve been partaking of civil rights activism on several issues, on and off (because it gets to the point sometimes, it’s just downright depressing and seemingly futile–and a damned if you do situation). Eurocentric ideals pervade our society. Period. Honestly I’ve gotten to the point of thinking, just harping on it (even my wording should indicate how futile I feel it can be) to people who are non-melanated is not going to help. They get defensive. I think we need to show, not tell.
I’ve often felt that the current men’s movement and the feminist movement of 2016 have far more in common than they have NOT in common and it seems those of us who feel that way are treated to either condescending lectures or stony silence. And yes, feminism offers nothing for minority or LGBT civil rights, and as it is controlled exclusively by well-off intellectuals, does nothing to solve the growing crisis of poverty in the U.S. As such, I find it most useful to align myself with various civil rights and economic equality causes and have turned away from feminism… Read more »
katansi Actually, I have been a volunteer coach/mentor to youth for 13 years.I don’t know what you do with your time,I am basing my comments upon your politics. You have made it clear that your are defined by women’s issues and your post consistent with that.Furthermore,you defend the hierarchy that defines feminism.This hierarchy behaves as any,prioritizing issues based upon self interests. It is called factionalism.At no point have I said that you don’t care about issues outside of self interest.But,women’s issues come first.Prison reform is not an agenda item for feminists.Generally speaking most 31 year old white women know little… Read more »
You are still choosing your narrative of my life. You are assuming when I say “men” I mean only white men and I don’t. I’m not from a place that’s 90%+ white, I’m from the NYC metro area. When you say: “I don’t get body image stuff because I don’t mind big girls.Its a cultural thing.Although, blackmen are not alone in this regard.Nonetheless, because the other culture is unknown and invalidated you couldn’t realize the missed opportunity right in front of you.Imagine viewing yourself through the eyes of the other,instead of through the lens using now.” You are saying that… Read more »
Thank you, Katansi, for consistently making good points. I’m withdrawing because I simply cannot stand making the same points over and over again to Ogwriter while pointing out the same flaws in his arguments over and over again as well. Good luck to both of you.