I’ve been feeling a bit low just lately, what with it getting dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s the kind of lifestyle in the kind of latitude where you realize that it’s entirely possible that you became a vampire weeks ago, and you just haven’t noticed because sunlight hasn’t touched your skin since god knows when.
One of the things I’ve done to try to avoid sinking into serious depression is spend more time with the women I’m involved with, including making a point of seeing up to three girlfriends in 24 hours. One reason for this, obviously, is that spending time with people who love us can, in some cases, really help with mood issues. The other reason is, equally obviously, much much creepier. Reminding myself that I have all these girlfriends makes me feel like a big man, for societal reasons I’d like to dig into a bit. Bring a shovel and a revolver; it’s gonna be one of those Indiana Jones kinda digs.
It’s no secret that part of how a man is judged in our society is by the woman or women he’s got around him. This, oddly, isn’t tied to the perception of the man’s sexiness, it’s more perceived as a measure of his success (of friggin’ course). Some people take this to sociopathic extremes, of course, but let’s face it, there’s a reason “trophy wife” is a trope everyone knows.
Now, there’s certainly a generous reading of this impulse; if you prioritize schtupping attractive women (for whatever definition of attractive you like) in your own life, then actually schtupping a lot of them does, by definition, count as a genuine success. You intended to do it, and you succeeded! Well done, old chap! Obviously, this is the interpretation I prefer to apply to myself.
Thing is, it’s still problematic as fuck. On the most obvious level, there’s the fact that it undeniably objectifies women, turning them from human beings into… well, “trophies” is actually the word everyone uses. Hence my guilt about, on some level, thinking of the women I love as a collection of prizes that prove how awesome I am. Yeah, it’s an enculturated notion and it’s not like I made it up, but… damn, I want to punch myself in the head.
Ow. That was ALSO a bad idea.
Here again, though, Ozy’s Law is like Ozy’s love: merciless. The flip side of the idea that being waist-deep in pussy makes a guy successful and awesome is that guys who aren’t… well, they must be losers. Failures. In that endlessly mockable Roissy piece I’ve now linked twice, he explicitly says that no other form of masculine achievement is of any worth whatsoever. Thus, this ridiculous, sexist, ugly idea also serves to make more men feel like failures.
Asexual or just low libido? Doesn’t matter, loser. Monogamous with one person your whole life? Doesn’t matter, loser. Only into long-term committed relationships? Pffff, yeah right, you must be gay. Actually gay? …okay, maybe that’s a different issue.
Perhaps most commonly, you get the attitude that’s all over, among other places, the comments in Ozy’s Nice Guy threads. The genuine pain of guys who’d like to be with more women than they are, but it’s not working out for whatever reason. Then there’s the ugly resentment that often comes out of that pain, which is as unfair and indefensible as me looking at my girlfriends like so many Steam achievements, but alas, is just as enculturated.
The fact is, it’s very easy for a guy to take “No thank you, I would prefer not to touch your penis” as “You are a worthless human being, a loser, a failure, worthy only of contempt and the mockery of your peers. You will die alone in a ditch and be eaten by wolves and nobody will miss you.” The system is set up so that the former actually implies the latter. Sleeping with women=success, not sleeping with women=failure, so therefore if a woman declines to sleep with you, she has on her own authority made you a failure.
This is, of course, utter horseshit. “No thank you, I would prefer not to touch your penis” means only what it says. The lady declining the ride on any particular baloney pony is not calling the pony owner a loser, she’s just saying no thanks, and then this ugly, dehumanizing cultural expectation comes in and calls him a loser. Since these happen almost simultaneously, though, it gets real easy to conflate them. Take things the wrong way, put the wrong spin on them based on some bad unexamined assumptions, and… well, we’ve all seen the kind of vicious misogyny that can result, haven’t we?
So once again, we see misogyny inextricably bound up with misandry, and not bound up in a sexy way. The only way out that I can see is to begin to separate out the assumptions from the actions. That feeling of worthlessness that comes over you when the lady (or gentleman, or whatever term you prefer) of your desire rejects you has nothing to do with her. That feeling is entirely separate, and comes down to us from a million sniggering locker-room jokes, a million sneering virginity references, from… well, probably every single thing that happened to you in high school. Including that one geometry test, somehow.
This, to my mind, is the point of examining and dissecting men’s issues. We can separate out the actual sources of our pain and alienation from the unspoken assumptions that we take for granted, and we can begin actually addressing the real issues. The more we dig down beneath the surface, the more things turn out to be caused by unspeakably awful forces we never suspected. I warned you this was gonna be some Indiana Jones shit.
Some of you may already have read The Man With No Spine – it’s been around for about a decade already, but I want to link it for those who haven’t seen it yet. —————- The Man With No Spine – A parable for “Nice Guys” By John Russell There once was a man without a spine. He was a very likable guy. The advantage of not having a spine was that he could fit himself to anyone, and he frequently did. He could flex this way and that. But he couldn’t stand up … …and being kinda mushy and… Read more »
For me, I said, “fuck those type of chicks” and changed where I was hanging out and who I was hanging out with. I didn’t do that well in pick up joints or clubs but I did well at things like office parties and when I had to travel to different company sites. Instead of going to a club maybe I’d do happy hour after work. Now it’s not that I’m going around hitting on 40 year old women…it was just that in this type of environment I had the 40 year old women pining for me. Having the attention… Read more »
Speaking as someone who seems to be getting away with improving the whole confidence thing: a useful substitute for it is going “Ehh, fuckit” and just trying not to worry about it. I realise that’s really quite difficult, but I think it’s a little more practical than just magically Becoming More Confident. If you manage to adopt the attitude that it doesn’t actually matter whether you succeed in impressing the person you’re talking to, it looks like confidence… It’s not easy, it may not be something you can just do, and it might take something fairly major happening to get… Read more »
@Pterygotus “I really hate this. One problem with this is, a lot of the people who aren’t successful with women don’t have confidence (due to, for example, being systematically harassed and persecuted in school), and can’t just magic it up out of nowhere. And this on top of whatever other social awkwardness they might have. And the best source of confidence with women is, of course, success with women, which you need confidence for, making the whole thing a stupid Catch-22…” Amen. And then to top things off, you don’t just need to be confident in who you are, you… Read more »
What gets me is the way that people are always told that shit about confidence – ‘just be confident! duh!’ , which for the unconfident folks, just being told to ‘be confident’ results in feeling less confident! Like, oh great now I can feel insecure about my confidence level. Same with being told ‘just be yourself’, cuz then alla sudden you become conscious of your ‘self’ and what it’s doing and if it looks weird while it’s doing it.
Well, at least that’s how it works for me… it’s all meta and whatnot. 😀
Agreed, telling guys they’ll attract women, or in my case guys, by being more confident is roughly as helpful as telling guys they’ll be more attractive if they grow a few inches taller.
NSWATM is sometimes mildly triggering for me when people here describe their very successful/active sex lives. This, so much. On Manboobz too, actually. I get so tired of people bragging about how much sex they’re having when I don’t even have a sex life… Advice tends to be overwhelmingly “Well, duh, confidence is attractive, you won’t be attractive if you don’t have confidence” and then at the same time there are incredibly strong implicit assumptions that if you’re really unsuccessful with women, you’re both a loser, *and* that that you deserve to be alone. I really hate this. One problem… Read more »
@Debaser71 This HS person and your father shame men (young, middle aged, old) who want monogamous committed relationships? Shame is too strong of a word , it’s more subtle than downright shaming. The idea is that young men should have sex with a lot of women and then settle down for one. Even though the goals in the lives of these men (e.g. my father, HS) have changed they still feel that their former romantic success is worth bragging about. This is something I’ve ever encountered with women. But, interestingly enough, one does get adult “achievement” points for, for example,… Read more »
I’m just saying that talking about your wild youth is not really that impressive when you are dealing with other adults. It might be interesting and entertaining but one doesn’t get any “achievement” points for it. But, interestingly enough, one does get adult “achievement” points for, for example, surviving, settling down, and moving beyond their wild youth.
I read Thomas as pointing out that saying that these men,although older and no longer chasing after women, are still bragging about their wild youth and that they therefore really haven’t grown out of the “young adult” phase.
This HS person and your father shame men (young, middle aged, old) who want monogamous committed relationships?
@Debaser The ‘mainstream normal adult’ men I know do not think in the way noah and Daisy are suggesting. The point is that men are men for most of their lives. Men are not young adults for most of their lives. I’m not sure about that. I know a lot of older men who like to brag about their wild youth. They are not chasing after women anymore, but they still like to brag about their past encounters. Male feminist No. 1 Hugo Schwyzer is one example. A very personal one is my father and I know far more about… Read more »
@debaser71
Ah, I had missed that bit by Noah – I think personal bias kind of blinded me here, I hear “Men are judged by lack of sexual success” and think “Yeah! That sucks.” before realizing that we’re still talking on completely different levels. The idea of judging someone as lacking for being in a committed relationship seems kind of foreign to a guy who doesn’t even know what it’s like to cuddle or kiss a girl, and is dealing with the “Success with women = success as a man” stereotype from a completely different perspective.
@tovyasagain “having a bunch of close friends doesn’t even remotely count …If you’re single with no relationship history, it better be by choice – and even that is only acceptable if you’re super career focused – and succeeded at it.” Yes, this is pretty much how I am saying it is. It’s not the best thing but it’s just different than what noah and Daisy are saying about success. Noah said this, “Asexual or just low libido? Doesn’t matter, loser. Monogamous with one person your whole life? Doesn’t matter, loser. Only into long-term committed relationships? Pffff, yeah right, you must… Read more »
@ pocketjacks There are guys on this blog with more steam to blow off on the everyday pains of the dating world who seem to have much more active sex lives than me. I feel this way sometimes depending on what’s meant by activity. I feel very much like were all failing to speak the same language sometimes. Most of my sex life was spent between second and third base because… well… I really, really liked second and third base and home plate rather scared the shite out of me. I really feel for the guys that, ah, want to… Read more »
@debaser71 I wasn’t trying to exclude gay men, but the discussion was already heteronormative, with the emphasis on trophy wives and judging men based on the women around them. If you’re counting close friends as family, then my comment doesn’t really stand, so I apologize – but from my experience, and from hanging around with my older coworkers, having a bunch of close friends doesn’t even remotely count (particularly with the “guys aren’t allowed to be emotionally intimate with other guys” bullshit). If you’re single with no relationship history, it better be by choice – and even that is only… Read more »
I did say “or”. And a “family” is not explicitly stating anything about women. I even left it open to interpretation because gay men can have a “family” and I did not want to exclude them. So to me “family” can also mean more than just a wife and kids. It means having people around you that care about you deeply. You know, people don’t want to die alone and hated right?
@debaser71
“For me and the adult men I know “success” is measured by 1) being alive 2) having a decent job or 3) having a decent family.”
Except #3 explicitly implies success with women.
Sure, older people might measure success less by the Hugh Hefner “number of sexual encounters” statistic, but general success with women is still one of the primary status indicators people are using to judge men – they just redefine what “success” means.
@humbition That was pretty much a perfect comment to sum up the issues I tend to have with the even using the phrase “Nice Guy”. What’s always struck me as sort of bitterly amusing is the double edged dichotomy when it comes to guys who aren’t successful with women. Advice tends to be overwhelmingly “Well, duh, confidence is attractive, you won’t be attractive if you don’t have confidence” and then at the same time there are incredibly strong implicit assumptions that if you’re really unsuccessful with women, you’re both a loser, *and* that that you deserve to be alone. Personally,… Read more »
Daisy, when did you learn that you don’t need the approval from each and every jerk to have a sense of self worth? Anyway I’m very disappointed that even self proclaimed gender social justice warriors are sort of buying into the standard cultural tropes. The ‘mainstream normal adult’ men I know do not think in the way noah and Daisy are suggesting. The point is that men are men for most of their lives. Men are not young adults for most of their lives. What counts as “success” for a young adult is not the same as what counts as… Read more »
I grew up with a fairly uncommited agnosticism around me, and I ended up somewhat religious
(in a way. As they say on some site, “it’s complicated.”_
It’s probably because they’re not admitting to themselves that they’ve done that.
pocketjacks: “analyze” the “phenomenon” of older men and younger women. People lie to themselves about motives, is why this is impossible. Specifically: I just hope Billy Joel realizes that if he was still pounding on pianos in Long Island bars, he would not have the trophy wife. You will find that many men argue this point with a straight face. Its like beautiful women with gigantic implants claiming “he loves me for my personality!”–sure he does. (if you think I am kidding, check out recent “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”–actual quote!) Why do people insist on believing this bullshit? No… Read more »
Daisy, at some point you have it pounded so hard into you that you snap. It no longer matters. Screw everyone. Screw everything. And let me play videogames while on welfare.
Debaser: It’s sort of life growing up with religion all around but still coming out an atheist. Debaser, funny, I’ve just been arguing about this with someone, the catalyst of the discussion being the death of Hitchens, which I talked about on my radio show this morning. Some of us grow up with religion all around and can’t shake it, and we really tried, too. For others, it just seems to bounce off of you. I think this means you have a strong personality or psyche (for whatever reasons) and you need to go easy on those of us who… Read more »