Women look down on the sexuality of men. This is a grand
generalisation and in the past I have shirked away from making it.
But here it is. I am saying it now.
Here
is my two pennies on this whole issue. Women think that men are by
nature unfaithful. That men are at the mercy of an uncontrollable
sexuality, which needs to be managed and understood and at times
manipulated. On the other side of the coin, men grow up thinking that
they have something inside them that is wrong, that is shameful, too
powerful. Most men grow up scared of themselves.
I
believe this puzzle is at the heart of the masculine stereotype. You
either become apologetic for your sexuality, or you simply become
shameless and disregarding of the sexuality of others, in particular
women.
This is the root of the nice guy/ass hole problem. Neither is healthy, because both are evolved to mask the shame that men are
taught to feel about their own sexuality, and the shame with which society
brands the masculine drive.
What's
most annoying about the post-feminist pop culture crap around
masculinity, is that it paints men as essentially animalistic
creatures. Whatever the personality, they are all the same.
Now
ladies, whether you admit it or not, I don't care. I'm passed caring
quite frankly. It is my experience that you all hold to this damning
idea of men, because it has been handed down to you by culture, by your
mothers, by countless Madonna MTV videos, by a society which cannot
stand to recognise the nuance of masculine energy.
That's
why I can't abide what I call post-feminism; the girl-power-Tomb
Raider-“Who Run This...”-Beyoncee malaise. It's just bullshit
piled upon bullshit and at the bottom of it is an archaic idea of
masculinity.
This
ancient idea stems from a fear of life itself. It comes from the
primitive, God-fearing, Anglosaxon fear of existence. It is a direct
descendant of Original Sin. It is part of the forces which drive
humanity against itself.
At
essence, the masculine energy is simply the energy of procreation.
Men and women have it equally. However, in women it is tempered by
other evolutionary needs. That is about as far as it goes. It's
biology and there is nothing else to say on the matter.
However, for
thousands of years we have been taught to understand masculinity, and
more specifically men, through the prism of spiritual shame. The very
thing that affirms life, we are taught, is the very thing that which
is a danger to us. This
thing must be controlled. This thing must be disciplined. This energy
of life, if it is left unleashed, is too dangerous and too meddlesome.
It must be neutralised.
I
believe that is why women look down on the sexuality of men. They
shame it, and they ridicule it. Don't believe me? Am I making all
this up? Watch a couple of episodes of Sex And The City, look closer
at the gender prejudices exemplified in advertising. Listen to your own
language around masculinity.
“All
men are the same.” This is what it boils down to. I believe this is
not just some jovial, innocuous statement to be taken lightly. It's a
driving idea in the cultural subconscious. I wouldn't be so pissed
off, if I hadn't heard it come from the lips of some of my more
intelligent female friends.
Sometimes
the law creates the crime. The more we entrench the belief, the more
reality will start to form around this belief. If we treat
masculinity as a scourge, if we shame it and solidify the idea that
it is an unsophisticated, primitive energy that must be feared and
controlled, then we perpetuate the very crimes of Patriarchy that we
all claim to hate so much.
Women,
it's time you examined your ideas around masculinity and asked
yourself some tough questions. If you don't, you will castrate any
further attempt on the part of men to evolve past the archaic memes of
Patriarchal culture.
I've only dated men who were quite emotional, but even they were often self-conscious about how women would judge them. It's true that men are expected to be somehow immune to insecurities and doubts, which is completely unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteI will do my best to be more encouraging that the men around me express themselves emotionally. Thanks for the reminder.