Funny - I’ve been seeing this exact problem for years and worry about what lies in store for my son, who turns 18 in a couple weeks. Fortunately my husband (his stepdad of 10 years) is an outstanding example of a “real” man: strong, brave, skilled, gentle and keeper of his own counsel. I also have four terrific brothers.
Still, the deficits you describe are so conspicuous in the younger generation, that a couple of months ago I approached three male friends (mid 60s) to form a “council of wise men” to do exactly what you describe - create mentoring teams for young men, with concrete objectives to build skills and resilience and courage. I told them my goal is simply to strike a match - this is not something I ought to be a part of. One of them asked “why not?” I just laughed. Of course not.
Don’t give up guys. Most women definitely prefer masculine men. I think the wealthy part is overrated (and a form of compensation for missing virtue). The big things are inner strength, bravery and intelligence.
All I can say is, fucking fantastic and amen! The good news is, I think the cultural zeitgeist is shifting. "Nothing argues like success..." Nothing, that is, except catastrophic failure. And few failures have been as spectacularly catastrophic as woke feminism and critical gender theory and all the madness that it has unleashed on our culture. Great fucking essay, like always!
My father left when I was 13 and I was raised by my mother and the streets. To put it bluntly, I was a punk. But I was blessed to have two older men, one a former marine and one a former gang member, who tore me down and built me up on a regular basis. I won't say they were like a father to me, more like a demanding older brother. They taught me what it meant to be a man by making me BE a man. No excuses ever, and even worse was a reason. That was just an excuse you conned yourself into believing. Pushing, finding your limits and then pushing more, and laughing when you failed. But respect when you didn't.
I'm 58 now, married to the same woman for 38 years, with eleven children, nine boys and two girls. I run my own business and employ 8-10 guys. Both are gone now but I want to say thank you, Steve and Kamau. The world needs more of you.
Effing amusing, and even insightful, but definitely a good read.
I have a reference point that few men could have access to. I live within a culture that has understood gender roles for around 40,000 years. Men and boys socialise together and hunt together. Women, young girls and infants socialise and hunt together. In families, all are together. It is that simple.
Until forty years ago, nobody here had ever heard of homosexuality. In 1973, after a young bloke had witnessed a gay coupling, nobody believed his narrative. Sixty people of three generations sat around a camp fire and gasped in incredulity when I confirmed his story, then followed hilarity and ribald jokes as everone attempted to visualise such a spectacle. Yet homosexial activists insist every human community has experienced homosexuality. My research suggests the Australian Aboriginal experience paralelled that of Inuit and Kung.
I draw no conclusion because I have no interest in this issue. As a young man working in the entertainment industry, I knew plenty of what was then known as 'camp' people. Some were good company but most were neurotic, dishonest, rationalising inadequates. As far as my own maleness was concerned, it was simply never an issue. Likewise women.
Looking back, I see social change engineered by a malelevant media and, in Australia, when I finally commenced researching destructive change, the names Murdoch, Rockefeller, and Rothschild were up there in lights. This has always been about the destruction of Family, culture, values and, eventually, the elimination of national ssovereignty preparatory to imposing the New World Order.
Women were the primary targets. They were manipulated to wage war against men because in all cultures, men carry the value systems. Women are universally adaptable. Watch any two cultures come together and, even if there is no common language, women establish relationships. It's what they do. Men continue to eye each other off suspiciously. It's part of who we are and what we are. Wisely, the French gave up analysing and concluded "Vive la difference".
The sad aspect of this is that at 80, I have no prospect of finding a real woman. The globalist elite have done an excellent job of destroying them. They can no longer see their own injuries.
Some useful points for those exploring the Manosphere, from someone who was not a natural Alpha but is now happily married.
1. You don't have to be an ass to be an Alpha. Bad boys are not the only ones who get hot chicks. Responsible squares are also successful in the Market. See why below.
2. Think in evolutionary terms. Human females are especially weak compared to males because our babies are large. And then said babies are slow to mature. A human female with toddler in tow is necessarily dependent. The only question is whether it will be husband, government, village, or extended family. This leads to several instincts into what constitutes a desireable man:
2a. Physically powerful. Duh. The physically powerful male can provide protection.
2b. Politically powerful. Leadership, even if one is an aging fat slob, is still an attractor. Indeed, even the illusion of leadership, such as being the lead singer in a band or a speaker at a conference, is a signal.
2c. Societal status. A man who is valued by the society is a source of protection even if said man is not a leader. Women love a man in uniform for a reason.
2d. Dependability. Power/status is nothing if a man will not follow through and use his protective ability. There is merit in being a reliable square.
2e. Caring. The man who truly cares will be a source of protection as well. A wimp who cares can provide more protection than a psychopathic powermonger. Sensitive New Age Guys can get a date for this reason.
Put these factors together and you can derive why libertarian men struggle to get a date. Combine the fact that most are cerebral non-athletes, with outsider status (whining about Government), and strong signals of non-commitment (freedom! non-altruism!)
For liberty to propagate, freedom lovers must embrace responsibility. To wean females from Big Government requires men to do their jobs. Take responsibility.
To be the ultimate man, read the New Testament. The True Man should lead but also care and sacrifice himself for those he leads.
This. This is the way you do it. Thanks, man. This, this is what women want - they just don't know it 'cause too many haven't had real men for dad's either.
Bravo!!! I laughed my ass off, was on the edge of my seat screaming FUCK YES so many times! As a very real 48 year old woman who has been single against my will for 7 years. I have been out here in the dating trenches wondering where all the real complicated gritty men are. I gave up trying!
I love your call to action and I will think seriously about how I could do my part to raise up more awesome complicated juicy women too. Challenge accepted!
When I was in college in 1975, I had a girlfriend that was learing how to be a feminist. I spent a lot of time at her apartment with her and her two feminist roommates. One had a boyfriend that was a "feminist," a wimpy type let's say. One day a friend of mine stopped by. He was of the handsome/stud/real man variety (hopefully that description does not make me gay).
The girl with the "feminist" boyfriend's eyes lit up when my friend entered the room. I never saw her look at her boyfriend that way. At that point I realized that the feminism thing was a lot of hooey, as someone like Bogart would have said. Back then the term "male chauvinist" was the term for what morphed into "toxic male." Both were and are the preferred option to females looking for the genuine article.
I feel like it's the sense of pointlessness, the ennui, that is causing both men and women to behave in strange and unnatural ways. The societal focus my whole life (I'm 52) was that Religion was Wrong, the Planet is Gonna Die, Having Children is Selfish, Patriotism to Country is Evil, Affinity to your Clan is Racist, and also, You're Never Going to be Rich so Vote for Bernie. So, what else is there to do? People spend their efforts banning plastic straws and trying to force everyone to be nicer to the mentally ill.
As father to some young adult men I can attest to the fact that these boys are looking for the male elders and the wolf pack with a purpose to express the maleness that they know they need to be.
You've inspired me to be even more purposeful in this respect, as one of the elders, as we reclaim what's been stolen in the last 3 seconds of human history from both males and females.
Would love to hear about some of your pragmatic efforts in this regard when you return to the topic down the line.
I've been so let down. This is just more devastating red pill (in the original sense; I didn't know about redpillers). The bastard top dogs of the world have deliberately engineered all this, and the “pandemic” and all the theatre accompanying it is the beginning of their endgame.
Unpopular take: ban and shame all pornography. Just do it. You know, like every sane country in the world does (except the West), and every country in history has done. Why have we fallen so far that people can't wrap their heads around this simple concept?
"that femininity draws more on biology, and less on social conditioning"
You lost me here. Maybe it's generational. But we had to sit down, shut up, cross our legs just so, do housework, be a lady, & play stupid so boys won't feel bad.
Foot binding, girdles, high heels, are socialized biology. "Stays" that preceded girdles forced internal organs out of position. Stays & girdles made it impossible to breathe deeply, correctly.
High heels wreck your feet & back.They literally crippled girls & women to force dependency...er... "femininity."
My best neighborhood friend, oldest of 6 kids, raised her 5 younger siblings while her mother sat sunning herself in the back yard. By the time she was out of high school she had already been a mother for more than a decade. That wasn't biology. That was training.
What is a woman? An adult, female human.
What is a man? An adult, male human.
What is the problem? We are no longer adults. We've stopped growing up due to bad socialization & a conditioned crappy culture & we've been physically damaged by the chemical replacements for food.
And none of us, male or female, evolved to sit around all day & consume.
I'm definitely going to be sharing this with people I know in the men's movement. I love the insights and courage, and kept laughing out loud. So much rich material here, I hesitate to comment on any of it for fear of slighting the rest. Maybe I'll write a full post on it. One crucial insight came at the end: you said, "There needs to be a point" and "It needs to matter." We are all familiar with the vacuity of those get-togethers with the guys that are just about consuming something. Working on hobbies together is a little better, but still far from satisfying our need for full masculine expression. Going to the gym and getting strong becomes a fetish too, a substitute for what we really want, when it isn't directed at a purpose beyond our own muscles. The muscles are FOR something. The fitness is FOR something. Thank you for pointing this out.
I think that insight leads to another about the origin of today's crisis of masculinity. What a man is FOR draws from larger cultural stories. Our culture once knew what it was for. We had an arc-story of humanity. It involved the onward march of science, colonizing the savages, conquering space, etc. The conquest and transcendence of nature. Today that story is in shambles, but it used to feed into the visions of men for their own lives, granting meaning through their participation in the larger story. So, I think part of restoring the man to manhood is to connect with a new story of the people. We want to get serious. Lacking that story, what are we left with? Impressing the ladies, getting laid, bulking up, showing off... but for what?
Funny - I’ve been seeing this exact problem for years and worry about what lies in store for my son, who turns 18 in a couple weeks. Fortunately my husband (his stepdad of 10 years) is an outstanding example of a “real” man: strong, brave, skilled, gentle and keeper of his own counsel. I also have four terrific brothers.
Still, the deficits you describe are so conspicuous in the younger generation, that a couple of months ago I approached three male friends (mid 60s) to form a “council of wise men” to do exactly what you describe - create mentoring teams for young men, with concrete objectives to build skills and resilience and courage. I told them my goal is simply to strike a match - this is not something I ought to be a part of. One of them asked “why not?” I just laughed. Of course not.
Don’t give up guys. Most women definitely prefer masculine men. I think the wealthy part is overrated (and a form of compensation for missing virtue). The big things are inner strength, bravery and intelligence.
All I can say is, fucking fantastic and amen! The good news is, I think the cultural zeitgeist is shifting. "Nothing argues like success..." Nothing, that is, except catastrophic failure. And few failures have been as spectacularly catastrophic as woke feminism and critical gender theory and all the madness that it has unleashed on our culture. Great fucking essay, like always!
My father left when I was 13 and I was raised by my mother and the streets. To put it bluntly, I was a punk. But I was blessed to have two older men, one a former marine and one a former gang member, who tore me down and built me up on a regular basis. I won't say they were like a father to me, more like a demanding older brother. They taught me what it meant to be a man by making me BE a man. No excuses ever, and even worse was a reason. That was just an excuse you conned yourself into believing. Pushing, finding your limits and then pushing more, and laughing when you failed. But respect when you didn't.
I'm 58 now, married to the same woman for 38 years, with eleven children, nine boys and two girls. I run my own business and employ 8-10 guys. Both are gone now but I want to say thank you, Steve and Kamau. The world needs more of you.
Effing amusing, and even insightful, but definitely a good read.
I have a reference point that few men could have access to. I live within a culture that has understood gender roles for around 40,000 years. Men and boys socialise together and hunt together. Women, young girls and infants socialise and hunt together. In families, all are together. It is that simple.
Until forty years ago, nobody here had ever heard of homosexuality. In 1973, after a young bloke had witnessed a gay coupling, nobody believed his narrative. Sixty people of three generations sat around a camp fire and gasped in incredulity when I confirmed his story, then followed hilarity and ribald jokes as everone attempted to visualise such a spectacle. Yet homosexial activists insist every human community has experienced homosexuality. My research suggests the Australian Aboriginal experience paralelled that of Inuit and Kung.
I draw no conclusion because I have no interest in this issue. As a young man working in the entertainment industry, I knew plenty of what was then known as 'camp' people. Some were good company but most were neurotic, dishonest, rationalising inadequates. As far as my own maleness was concerned, it was simply never an issue. Likewise women.
Looking back, I see social change engineered by a malelevant media and, in Australia, when I finally commenced researching destructive change, the names Murdoch, Rockefeller, and Rothschild were up there in lights. This has always been about the destruction of Family, culture, values and, eventually, the elimination of national ssovereignty preparatory to imposing the New World Order.
Women were the primary targets. They were manipulated to wage war against men because in all cultures, men carry the value systems. Women are universally adaptable. Watch any two cultures come together and, even if there is no common language, women establish relationships. It's what they do. Men continue to eye each other off suspiciously. It's part of who we are and what we are. Wisely, the French gave up analysing and concluded "Vive la difference".
The sad aspect of this is that at 80, I have no prospect of finding a real woman. The globalist elite have done an excellent job of destroying them. They can no longer see their own injuries.
Some useful points for those exploring the Manosphere, from someone who was not a natural Alpha but is now happily married.
1. You don't have to be an ass to be an Alpha. Bad boys are not the only ones who get hot chicks. Responsible squares are also successful in the Market. See why below.
2. Think in evolutionary terms. Human females are especially weak compared to males because our babies are large. And then said babies are slow to mature. A human female with toddler in tow is necessarily dependent. The only question is whether it will be husband, government, village, or extended family. This leads to several instincts into what constitutes a desireable man:
2a. Physically powerful. Duh. The physically powerful male can provide protection.
2b. Politically powerful. Leadership, even if one is an aging fat slob, is still an attractor. Indeed, even the illusion of leadership, such as being the lead singer in a band or a speaker at a conference, is a signal.
2c. Societal status. A man who is valued by the society is a source of protection even if said man is not a leader. Women love a man in uniform for a reason.
2d. Dependability. Power/status is nothing if a man will not follow through and use his protective ability. There is merit in being a reliable square.
2e. Caring. The man who truly cares will be a source of protection as well. A wimp who cares can provide more protection than a psychopathic powermonger. Sensitive New Age Guys can get a date for this reason.
Put these factors together and you can derive why libertarian men struggle to get a date. Combine the fact that most are cerebral non-athletes, with outsider status (whining about Government), and strong signals of non-commitment (freedom! non-altruism!)
For liberty to propagate, freedom lovers must embrace responsibility. To wean females from Big Government requires men to do their jobs. Take responsibility.
To be the ultimate man, read the New Testament. The True Man should lead but also care and sacrifice himself for those he leads.
This. This is the way you do it. Thanks, man. This, this is what women want - they just don't know it 'cause too many haven't had real men for dad's either.
Bravo!!! I laughed my ass off, was on the edge of my seat screaming FUCK YES so many times! As a very real 48 year old woman who has been single against my will for 7 years. I have been out here in the dating trenches wondering where all the real complicated gritty men are. I gave up trying!
I love your call to action and I will think seriously about how I could do my part to raise up more awesome complicated juicy women too. Challenge accepted!
When I was in college in 1975, I had a girlfriend that was learing how to be a feminist. I spent a lot of time at her apartment with her and her two feminist roommates. One had a boyfriend that was a "feminist," a wimpy type let's say. One day a friend of mine stopped by. He was of the handsome/stud/real man variety (hopefully that description does not make me gay).
The girl with the "feminist" boyfriend's eyes lit up when my friend entered the room. I never saw her look at her boyfriend that way. At that point I realized that the feminism thing was a lot of hooey, as someone like Bogart would have said. Back then the term "male chauvinist" was the term for what morphed into "toxic male." Both were and are the preferred option to females looking for the genuine article.
Bogart still rules.
Happy to see you back in top form!
I feel like it's the sense of pointlessness, the ennui, that is causing both men and women to behave in strange and unnatural ways. The societal focus my whole life (I'm 52) was that Religion was Wrong, the Planet is Gonna Die, Having Children is Selfish, Patriotism to Country is Evil, Affinity to your Clan is Racist, and also, You're Never Going to be Rich so Vote for Bernie. So, what else is there to do? People spend their efforts banning plastic straws and trying to force everyone to be nicer to the mentally ill.
Absolutely fantastic piece John!
As father to some young adult men I can attest to the fact that these boys are looking for the male elders and the wolf pack with a purpose to express the maleness that they know they need to be.
You've inspired me to be even more purposeful in this respect, as one of the elders, as we reclaim what's been stolen in the last 3 seconds of human history from both males and females.
Would love to hear about some of your pragmatic efforts in this regard when you return to the topic down the line.
I've been so let down. This is just more devastating red pill (in the original sense; I didn't know about redpillers). The bastard top dogs of the world have deliberately engineered all this, and the “pandemic” and all the theatre accompanying it is the beginning of their endgame.
Unpopular take: ban and shame all pornography. Just do it. You know, like every sane country in the world does (except the West), and every country in history has done. Why have we fallen so far that people can't wrap their heads around this simple concept?
You inspire me to be better and stronger. So does Jay Rollins.
"that femininity draws more on biology, and less on social conditioning"
You lost me here. Maybe it's generational. But we had to sit down, shut up, cross our legs just so, do housework, be a lady, & play stupid so boys won't feel bad.
Foot binding, girdles, high heels, are socialized biology. "Stays" that preceded girdles forced internal organs out of position. Stays & girdles made it impossible to breathe deeply, correctly.
High heels wreck your feet & back.They literally crippled girls & women to force dependency...er... "femininity."
My best neighborhood friend, oldest of 6 kids, raised her 5 younger siblings while her mother sat sunning herself in the back yard. By the time she was out of high school she had already been a mother for more than a decade. That wasn't biology. That was training.
What is a woman? An adult, female human.
What is a man? An adult, male human.
What is the problem? We are no longer adults. We've stopped growing up due to bad socialization & a conditioned crappy culture & we've been physically damaged by the chemical replacements for food.
And none of us, male or female, evolved to sit around all day & consume.
I'm definitely going to be sharing this with people I know in the men's movement. I love the insights and courage, and kept laughing out loud. So much rich material here, I hesitate to comment on any of it for fear of slighting the rest. Maybe I'll write a full post on it. One crucial insight came at the end: you said, "There needs to be a point" and "It needs to matter." We are all familiar with the vacuity of those get-togethers with the guys that are just about consuming something. Working on hobbies together is a little better, but still far from satisfying our need for full masculine expression. Going to the gym and getting strong becomes a fetish too, a substitute for what we really want, when it isn't directed at a purpose beyond our own muscles. The muscles are FOR something. The fitness is FOR something. Thank you for pointing this out.
I think that insight leads to another about the origin of today's crisis of masculinity. What a man is FOR draws from larger cultural stories. Our culture once knew what it was for. We had an arc-story of humanity. It involved the onward march of science, colonizing the savages, conquering space, etc. The conquest and transcendence of nature. Today that story is in shambles, but it used to feed into the visions of men for their own lives, granting meaning through their participation in the larger story. So, I think part of restoring the man to manhood is to connect with a new story of the people. We want to get serious. Lacking that story, what are we left with? Impressing the ladies, getting laid, bulking up, showing off... but for what?
So many good words in here. The best words. Gonna bromote the hell out of this.