"I worry we are literally evolving a new breed of asexual, asocial male.”
Luckily, we literally can’t evolve them because they should die out after a generation… Not to be too morbid or anything.
3 Likes
Revenge bedtime procrastination. I still do it even now that my kids are self-sufficient.
2 Likes
We are so spoiled as a society, really. We have so much more than we ever did. I doubt any of the younger white men would prefer to dump themselves into the 1600s with John Smith “you don’t work, you don’t eat” or the 1800s “go west, young man” (and go in debt to the bank during the years your crops failed a la Little House on the Prairie, or do backbreaking work in the years they didn’t fail) or the 60s or 70s (Vietnam).
This is of course true. However i think a comparison with those other time periods you mention is tricky for at least two reasons.
One, i am not sure that any other time in history has been so isolating as our is. Many of us have neither God, nor community, nor even family, really. I have been told about some Z-lennials who live in portable trailers/shacks in different national parks as they work remotely.
Second, it is one thing to know what you are supposed to do in life, but to lack security because everybody lacks it; isn’t this most of history? It is another thing to lack security because you were not good enough to deserve it in a capitalistic society that prides itself on supposedly being a meritocracy.
If someone doesn’t have God, it’s mostly by choice as churches and other establishments still abound. As to the others, yes, I suppose finding community is different nowadays, and many don’t have family through no fault of their own.
I do agree that the really brutal thing about a meritocracy is how the people who are struggling probably feel worse about themselves than in another, different type of system.
Inquiring minds wonder what an ideal education program about public sex would entail.
1 Like
A non-exhaustive list of things that need to be covered would be:
- A comprehensive course on all the biological aspects of sex, such as how it works, etc.
- Education on sexual minorities, gender identity, tolerance, and inclusion.
- Education on STIs and safe sex practices.
- Education on contraceptives, how to use them, and where to get them.
- Males need to know how the female body works including knowing how menstrual products work and how to obtain them. They will have daughters one day and need to know this stuff. Females also need to know how male bodies work and how to obtain products such as condoms as well as what procedures like circumcision do because women will have boys one day and will be part of the decision-making process on that. No segregation by gender on these topics, everyone needs to know these things.
- How to obtain reproductive services.
- Education on what to do if pregnancy does occur and what options are available.
- Education on proper consent, abuse, how to recognize vulnerable situations and what do to if you are in one.
3 Likes
Sometimes my inappropriate humor is a little too subtle.
2 Likes
It is deemed humorous. By me.
1 Like
That is a good list. It gets at many of the biological mechanics of sex. And it also includes some guard rails that limits the most extreme actions. For example, sex without consent is never ok.
On the other hand, it doesn’t really get at what is “good sex” in the sense of self affirming sex.
I think one difficulty is that sex has really, genuinely changed in the last 40 years with birth control, antibiotics and paternity tests.
It seems to me that as the social constraints on sex change, the persons involved also change, and with them, the act of sex itself. For example, it is no longer true that a woman who has sex also risks getting pregnant, has a significant chance of dying in childbirth from that pregnancy, and has no way to identify the father in the case that she and baby live.
I think this is why we are getting a dizzying proliferation of sexual identities. In part because sex is now a different act than it historically was, many new choices are available. To understand and make these choices, personal identity expands and needs new language.
This is all hard because choice is hard. Forced roles are hard too, but in a different way.
All this, too, is contributing to this “masculinity crisis”, though i’m not sure exactly how.
Re: community. We encourage and tolerate dropping out of relationships that don’t serve you. That can be a good thing. But it comes home to roost if you do it too much. And we’re doing it too much. 10 years ago, it was an in vogue millennial joke to fetishize cancelling plans. People who do that eventually find themselves with no plans to cancel.
1 Like
I guess there is something to be said for trying to be forgiving in relationships.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was given a little piece of advice on her wedding day by her mother in law: “In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf." So maybe we’ve forgotten that to some extent, if we ever knew it.
I don’t think we’re in a meritocracy, maybe better than 200 years ago, but lots of other factors strongly influence outcomes in the US.
2 Likes
Not to be that guy who posts well known quotes, but this one is often on my mind. It is from Slaughterhouse 5, so feeling bad about losing the US rat race is 70+ years old.
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
3 Likes
Women don’t have the manosphere rabbit-hole, but they can get certainly caught up with other single-minded obsessions, both online and offline. Mostly due to social media or conservative media-- Tiktoks, Conspiracy theories, Trumpism. Sometimes things like radical feminism, lgbtq, AI, masking, or whatever.
I PMed a couple pro-trumpers on a neighborhood facebook group the other day. The one who responded was a lady, who was friendly enough, but was also huffing facebook conspiracy theories and trump memes 24/7 and just obviously got a dopamine hit from believing them all. She wasn’t the brightest, but she wasn’t stupid either. Just very, very content to be continuously brainwashed.
I didn’t get into personal lives, but my guess is she was similarly vulnerable-- divorced and/or unemployed.
1 Like
Is “meritocracy” the right word? It seems like a lot of jobs in the US and elsewhere are a result of who you know or how much you have in common with the person making the decision rather than your actual abilities.
Where AI is screening out a lot of CVs these days, your ability to game the AI seems more important than your ability to do the job.
The new masculinity involves shrieking when you are upset. Also grabbing women by the pussy and abject cruelty.
Wow, Miller is such a trainwreck.
Ifyp
.
1 Like
Our models of the new masculinity are supposed to be Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Emil Bove. Shit your pants, grab some pussy, lie unapologetically, and America will be great again.
IMO the problem with this topic is the lack of definition. It’s generally used as a fondness for the good old days where wealthy white men could engage in sexual assault, racism, and cruelty with out repercussions as a real man.
It’s certainly true that the incel nation longs for those days.
4 Likes