We’d kicked off a discussion earlier this month on why young men, in a sharp departure from their historical birthright of horniness and reasonable ability to gratify those urges, were not getting laid or even dating all that much. Since this conundrum is kinda-sort acknowledged in the mainstream press but not discussed in detail, reader observations, which sometimes included details of encounters and relationships, were extremely helpful.
The picture that emerged (and again, across all young men and women, there is bound to be a lot of variation) was of men often finding women more exacting about sex, as in desiring it more often than men do and being demanding about male performance and appearance, including very tightly circumscribed and difficult to discern ideas about what acceptable flirting v. gross come-ons amount to. Women (and men too, truth be told) still are attached to the old normal of women marrying/dating up, when with young women now outdoing men in educational attainment, means even more demand for a smaller pool of relative alphas. Yet most women also want fidelity.1
This dynamic seems to be so widespread that calling it “reverse Lysistrata” is not much of a stretch. Those who remember your classics will recall that in the Aristophanes comedy, Lysistrata organized a sex strike in Athens and Sparta to try to end the Peloponnesian War. Obviously, we don’t have anything so programmatic in play here.
But men dropping out to a meaningful degree from dating and marriage (and college) does have some similarity, in that men are withholding sex over they unhappiness with new gender norms and their enforcement not just by women but often institutions. One obvious illustration: for a man on campus to have sex with what in the stone ages of my youth was called a co-ed is now incredibly risky. What in the past might merely have been bad date/bad sex can be escalated by a woman into a rape accusation, even if the issue was poor communication, as opposed to the use of force.
It’s been nagging at me how to take this examination further. In our last post, we linked to an article in Cosmopolitan that confirmed that getting even good anecdata is hard; the author had great difficulty finding 30 men in relationships or actively dating to talk to her, and many were gay. So the reader input was actually significant relative to the very limited in-depth knowledge on this topic. Therefore, please forgive the musings below as what consultants call a forcing device: presenting preliminary information and theories for the client to react to and correct as needed.
In this post, we’re going to hone in on the decline in the social and relative economic status of men, since not only is it an issue for men in and of itself, but serves as a force multiplier for some of the other impediments. But we don’t want to diminish the notion that this is a tangled problem.
At a very high level, there’s great disconnect in gender role expectations, particularly as far as dating, sex, and marital duties are concerned. Readers described a number of proximate to the dating dearth: the difficulty of meeting people in casual settings (and workplace encounters are now fraught), the general horribleness of dating, the rise of mean girl behaviors freely directed at men, helicopter parenting producing emotionally immature adults, excess reliance on phone-mediated communication greatly eroding in-person skills, and ubiquitous screens also retarding the development of social skills. Other contributing factors extent of porn use among teens (by implication, it’s no longer all that bad a substitute for the real thing), high levels of erectile disfunction, due at least in part to taking SSRIs and other meds, and endocrine disruptors in water.
But the big overarching issue seems to be the diminished social status of young men and the demonization of manliness. For instance, there’s no “heroic masculinity” or “wholesome masculinity” as a counter to “toxic masculinity.” Although some cited #MeToo (with some disputing its importance in the bigger picture), publicly hating on men as an acceptable posture well predates that; #MeToo’s vehemence indicated that there were still levels of pent-up hostility that a not-trivial number of women felt the right to express.
And yes, dampened male libido and pursuit of relationships has political and economic implications.
Economists and policy-makers around the world are distressed about falling birth rates in advanced and even not-so-advanced economies. For instance, the birth rate in Thailand is 1.32 per woman, well below sustainment levels.
Mind you, given the fact that current population levels are above what the planet can carry on a sustained basis, in terms of resource demands and rising lifestyle expectations, fewer people ought to be a good thing. But nearly all societies are organized around the premise of economic growth, which in turn is a function of population and productivity growth. Even though Japan (which admittedly started from a high level of development and income) has managed a shrinking (and therefore also aging) population gracefully, most leaders and pundits reject the idea of learning from their example. Instead, there are calls and schemes for how to get women to have more babies, with not enough willingness to admit that the very sorry state of relations between young men and young women play a big, if not central, role.
And as an aside, it’s not as if this sort of thing is happening only in the US. Readers discussed how they see similar patterns in Europe, Japan (early to this tendency) and South Korea. Another Thailand data point: a female cab driver asked if I was single. When I said yes, she immediately started recounting (as a married woman with kids) why being married was lousy: she still had to perform household chores and child care when she was also working part time. She also said 80% of the young Thai women felt the way she did and were not interested in getting married.
In the US, young men have lower social status than men of a generation ago. And that’s being institutionalized with fewer men getting college degrees. In 2020, over 58% of college were female. And graduation rates are higher for women than men.
Some reader comments on young men’s status and aggressive female enforcement of what they perceive to be their rights:
Reed Richards
June 11, 2025 at 6:36 pm
I coach and referee youth basketball, mostly middle school and also live very close to a large middle/high school that I occasionally volunteer at for events. Im in the age range of most of the parents and many of them say their sons openly talk about how theyll never pursue a committed relationship because they find most of their female counterparts obnoxious and combative. Most cite the negativity against men and boys they see on social media, negative experiences in school and what they feel are impossibly high standards largely tied to money and looks. I personally do not spend much time on apps but some of the clips I have been shown are seriously disturbing, anti-hetero male rhetoric that I cant even understand what the source is. Presumably none of these boys are sexually active or ever have been so I would find it hard to believe a bad kiss or something would spark all of this. IMO social media and late stage capitalism are having the biggest negative effects, it simply costs too much for most young men to pay for the types of dates that have been traditionally expected. And with social media you have people of all ages interacting in ways they never did in the past, youve got men and boys of all ages essentially comparing notes and drawing the conclusion that a relationship with the average woman is a juice not worth the squeeze.
In other words, women want it both ways: they want men to pay for their company, consistent with traditional gender norms, while also seizing on an apparent new right to dictate male behavior, including in intimate settings.
Similarly:
XXYY
June 11, 2025 at 1:08 pm
Speaking for myself at least (male), I would suggest the #MeToo movement has done a lot to damage sexual relationships and relationships in general. Most of the media and personal discussions coming out of women over the last decade or so have been to the effect that men are terrible, they have no consideration for women, and the fewer men that women have to deal with or be around the better. I have heard comments about how terrible men are even when I am sitting right there! There is of course no upside to trying to dispute these remarks since you just end up sounding like you’re defending rapists and Harvey Weinstein.The upshot for me has been perpetual uncertainty about talking to women, asking them out, or doing much of anything for fear of crossing some hidden line, which can lead not only to ostracism but also HR interventions and even firing. I’ve occupied various supervisory roles at work, and now strongly prefer to only have men in my group for everyone’s peace of mind.
I have exactly zero history of any actual problems with women in the workplace or anywhere else; it’s all strictly in my head. But nevertheless, it’s still a thing, and I now see women as a source of unpleasantness and even danger. We have mandatory annual trainings where we are warned against doing a large variety of things that could be misinterpreted as harassment or worse.
I very much doubt that this is the entire explanation for the things talked about in this post, but it is something that has changed in many societies recently. The more one goes on and on about the opposite gender being a danger and an unwelcome presence, the more that gender will seek peace of mind by keeping a safe distance. I’m certainly not saying that women should put up with abusers for the sake of better relationships, but such relationships do require welcoming openness and the expectation of a good outcome in order to happen.
And:
George
June 11, 2025 at 6:47 pm
I believe the situation is far worse than what the surveys are picking up…I don’t pretend to be hip and with it, I never was, but by and large the STEM students I take classes with will generally warm up in conversation even though I’m twice their age. I’ve had a couple of heart-to-heart conversations with men who appreciate advice from a older stranger. Most of the student body comes from well-to-do middle class or higher families (I am white, grew up in the ghetto, raised mostly by a single mother and occasional drive-by parenting from a weak father. Not a recipe for success, but I do what I can). Of the men I talk with well enough to be nodding acquaintances, most are not in any kind of relationship, and do not expect any romantic success….They’re fit, smart or smart-ish, good-looking (as a straight man, I’d say these are 7.5-9.0s in most cases), and dress well…
The women? Good lord almighty. I struggle for words that do not immediately spiral into variations of prostitute. The girls are MEAN, all of the time. Resting bitch face does not even begin to encompass it. They are mean to the 5s, they are mean to the 8s, they are mean to the 9s. Maybe the 9.5s are cleaning up on social media and tinder-type apps, but there are damn few real-life interactions. I was here for a good 3 months before I observed a single display of public affection (a couple hugging on a bench between classes. It was a freshmen GE class, I think they may have been high school sweethearts). I have overheard one flirtation at the library. The campus is dead otherwise. Most of the campus are well-to-do. Most are fit. The women are dressed scandalously whenever the weather is above 70F. But they’re always mean and cold. “Frigid sluts” is the phrase that comes to mind, as paradoxical as that may sound. The women are begging to be approached, but are simultaneously threatening to end the life of any sub-10 male that dares speak in her presence. It is horrid to witness. I am terrified of being accused of stare rape by one of these thong-flaunting women, and I can’t be the only one.
Of the men, I can affirm there is no locker room banter of any kind anymore. Probably online, but never in person.
Even worse:
Michael Fiorillo
June 11, 2025 at 10:48 am
Every reason given in the comments makes sense, but to some degree I distill it down to, Who Needs Males?They’re increasingly not needed for work, or reproduction, so it stands to reason that there would be psycho-social-physio consequences.
And this behavior is producing what is sometimes called dickus shrinkus:
Corr(s,r)
June 11, 2025 at 7:46 am
Lower status males are supposed to have low libido. Ask a primatologistYves Smith
June 11, 2025 at 9:18 am
Is telling men generally that they engage in “toxic masculinity” lowering their status? That would seem to be the intent. Probably does not work on the intended targets but might affect the rest to some degree.Corr(s,r)
June 11, 2025 at 9:36 am
Trashtalking differentiates men efficiently – quite contrary to the literal or public intent indeed, but informatively for the mating purpose (?!)Adam1
I think this is the sweet spot!1) Socioeconomically men are being reduced/marginalized because they were the top wage earners 30 years ago. In our, now, Neoliberal order anyone making “top” wages who are not part of the chosen elite class are making too much money.
2) The “Liberal” paradigm is that “toxic masculinity” is everywhere and has broken men and men should be ashamed of themselves and should just go away if they can’t fix themselves.
Should we be surprised young men who have no control over #1 and are just broadly painted by #2 don’t start to internalize a “Low Status” and “Low Libido” reality.
And to IM Doc, these same men are so defeated and lost before they even get into bed with a partner it should be no surprise that some freak out. And I mean this from the perspective of how polarizing the world has become. #1 has been an ever-wrenching issues since at least the 1980’s, but #2 has become so intense.
A friend of mine’s wife has a running joke which seem fitting in most liberal circles… when she see’s a man with a “jacked-up”, mudded-up truck she wants to ask the guy, “how small is “it” really?”
I revisited a talk seven years ago, between Camille Paglia and Jordon Peterson and strongly urge readers to listen to it in full (the points made are so colorful that IMHO not much would be lost by consuming it in snippets). Even though Peterson has become even more controversial in recent years, the points he makes in this discussion are solid, even prescient.
Another reason for given this conversation a good listen is the way it covers the way the American embrace of a naive version of postmodernism have damaged historicism and connoisseurship with a fixation on power relations as the lens through which everything must be viewed, thus forcing everything into victimizer/victim storylines. But there are lots of juicy tidbits, in the form of Paglia rants and factoids, such as how the idea that there are leftists in academia is a fraud (they are all rank careerists who are very protective of their status and hate the working class); the rushed and poorly thought-ought creation of women’s studies programs; the way that faculties rolled over to the takeover by boards and administrators, with a successful revolt at Bennington the exception that proves the rule.
No doubt readers will find part of this discussion to quibble with. For instance, I’m generally leery of “men versus women” stereotypes, since in classes as big as “men” and “women”, the differences within a class will be bigger than the differences between class. For instance. Peterson goes on about how women are more agreeable than men. Yours truly is most decidedly not agreeable :-)
Nevertheless, he is on to something in his discussion of how men and women fight. He contend that with men, there is always the threat of escalation to blows if things get out of hand. Yet when men get into fisticuffs, they usually make up.
Yours truly has commented on the role of male physical dominance too, and how women are further conditioned not to fight back even when they can (a pet peeve is on crime shows, how all women save female ninjas simper and cower before a violent man, when in many cases, they have viable self-preservation moves, like kicking him in the groin or trying to gouge his eyes out. I can go on longer form but will spare you).
Unlike Peterson (if I read him correctly), I see the pose of female agreeableness as a function of nurture rather than nature. Most men can beat the shit of out most women. Thus women who are trying to get their way won’t get far with confrontation (the man has escalation dominance) but instead resort to manipulation. It also seems, from reader comments, that the sort of emotional bullying that was once a teen girl speciality is now being deployed on adult men.
Peterson points out that men have no way to “fight” with women or even stand up to them these days. Getting physical, particularly in a professional setting, is a complete loser. And he adds (and Paglia provides more support) that the new answer to this conundrum is to get men to conform to female modes of behavior, and that this ultimately is destructive to many men (as in per his a cause of more men turning their backs on educational advancement).
Paglia argues that men and women historically lived nearly entirely in very separate realms and women exercised power in their sphere. I think she wildly romanticizes women doing laundry and cooking together.
Surveys at the onset of Peak Feminism (as in during the 1960s; I think of Peak Feminism as the 1970s; for instance, it was then that gender stereotyping in toys was at its lowest) found that the happiest group in the population was married men. Next was single women. Below that was single men. Married women were the least happy. This festering discontent with a subordinate role was the big impetus for women’s liberation. The fact that women, having breached the citadel, have kept trying to increase their power beyond the point of maximum advantage has now created a new set of problems.
The fact that the professional women Paglia knows are unhappy does not mean that being in mixed-gender environments is the main or even a major cause. Neolibearlism produces social isolation and weakened community ties, and greater inequality. All of those make people mighty miserable, particularly those high up in status hierarchies, where a fall from your perch can be pretty far.
There’s a lot more meat in this discussion, including the detrimental role of nuclear families and how the denigration of motherhood has led to a loss of understanding that the mothers of boys develop, of the fragility of men. Again, I urge you to listen to it in full. Paglia is extremely energetic and entertaining. Even if you don’t agree with many of the things she and Peterson say, their opinions will help you sharpen your own.
____
1 It is perverse that with all this supposed women’s liberation, women are not (much) comfortable with, say, marrying someone smart from the working classes who is also a hunk, but having an affair with the pool boy or tennis pro is OK. I spent a bit of time with a family in Bali where the husband had three wives. They seemed to get on reasonably well because they each were running one of his businesses, and so had their own spheres of influence. European have, or at least had, a clear understanding of the role of the mistress versus the wife, which was another solution of how to have high-status male earning ability and protection shared among more women. There is the problem of what happens to the resulting number of unattached men. The military was one answer.
‘with young women now outdoing men in educational attainment, means even more demand for a smaller pool of relative alphas. Yet most women also want fidelity.’
I ask you. What could possibly go wrong here. If more and more women are honing in on the alphas, then are the alphas likely to be faithful to one partner forever having chose one – if they do choose? Why would an alpha settle for just one? As the old saw goes, ‘Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap?’ Will those women feel betrayed or will it be expected of them to accept it?
This reminds me of another dynamic. There was a bunch of us sitting at a table and all English speakers. So you had young guys from England, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, the US, myself from Oz and others. The subject turned to girls and all agreed with the consensus that far too often that girls would go for the ‘bad boy’ type only to have them cheat on those girls who would then proceed to take it out on all guys. It was like a bad joke and yet from nearly a dozen countries all saw the same.
The top men candidates not needing to choose is a real thing are results in the colorful term ‘situationship’. One of the partners is just waiting for a better to come along to ditch the current person.
From a lower comment Mentioned hoe_math. he’s got a great diagram showing the bad boy vs provider axes creating a serious if relationship types. From prince charming to situationships to creep zone and friend zone.
Par of the trouble seems to be a lack of recognition/discussion about the fact ‘bad boy’ is actually a desirable quality in mate selection for many woman. And often it’s at cross purposes to a provider desire. But the bad boy indicators/behaviours/qualifiers are often things that will be explicitly hated on by woman. I think it’s one of those ‘this is what we should like’ discussion. You’ll often have video clips of woman wondering why they keep falling for jerks/aholes.
Men just get frustrated and confused. When I do all those things they say they want I get friendzoned. And they go for the aholes anyway.
I’ve been aware of that debate for basically my entire adult life. The situation has not improved. If anything, it’s substantially worse now with apps.
I have not dated for decades. And am aging rapidly. But not so rapidly that I can’t remember my adolescence and complaining with and to my friends about exactly your comment: Essentially “Why don’t girls want to go out with nice guys like me? They always go out with the assholes” We thought we were nice guys – courteous, thoughtful, not sexually demanding and so on. Good looking? We thought so. Smart – ditto.
So what this leads me to is a belief that everyone – men and women – are simply immature, stuck in a bizarre adolescent dating Twilight Zone phase that does not pass. How did they get that way? Look at your phone.
I dated in my 30s, I had a higher degree, and an income that was above average, but not significantly so. At the time I was thin but not muscular, and slightly above average height. I did end up getting married and having children, after needing around 100 first dates of which less than 10 led to 2nd dates.
Some of my failings were my fault. I come from a sheltered environment, and I had some growing up to do. So sometimes I was awkward, I had women remark that I came off as very “rational”.
At the same time, I do think that many women were very picky and poor communicators. They were looking for an instant spark, when in reality I think it’s fair to try and get to know somebody and spend a few dates together to see how things go. Initial meetups can be very awkward for a lot of people. I remember one told me that she didn’t want to be with me because I lacked relationship experience. I did at the time, a few years later she’s bought a house on her own, and I’m married.
The pickiness of women is largely because men are not picky about 1st dates, they’re picky about what comes after. It’s been noted many times that many women on online dating apps easily have thousands of potential suitors. They’re not real suitors of couse, but they do have thousands of men who have messaged them at any given time, so I imagine that’s like shopping for sugary cereal at walmart, it comes off as an excess of choice that can be paralyzing. And in practice they’ll often go with the best looking one.
Others would flake, say by not showing up to a date, or agreeing to one and then ghosting. I found that very immature. I’m glad I’ve never ghosted anybody. But that might also be a generational thing. Generation Z doesn’t just ghost potential romantic partners, I’m told they ghost potential employers too, as in there are cases where they sign a contract to start a job, change their mind, never tell their employers and simply never show up for the job.
One thing I was not good at was recognizing the different kinds of mental diversity. I can spot things like autism/ADHD very well, but I couldn’t spot borderline personality disorder, for example. I didn’t know what that was. I remember this one women I was texting with for a few days, she was super into me for a day or two, but she’d get into long personal arguments with me prior to meeting me about her grievances. I dodged a bullet. But I was lucky in dodging, I didn’t know what was going on.
******
Finally, some pickiness is rational, and I feel the need to mention. The cost of living is going up and up and up. Is a 30 year-old woman looking for a man with whom she can raise three children, support them through school and college, have a couple weeks of vacation a year with, have a 3 or 4 bedroom home in a safe neighbourhood, eat meals that include vegetables and proteins, and then be able to retire one day? Well then yeah, even in middle-cost cities you might need a household income of 150,000+/year for that, along with a 750+ credit score, hopefully your car is already paid off, and you already have life insurance and a 401K/Roth IRA. Traditional sources of support such as grandparents and government are useless.
“I had women remark that I came off as very “rational”.”
I’ve heard that one too; it’s a red flag. Strike that, it’s a field full of red army soldiers waving red flags.
There is a weekly column in the Guardin called blind date. They set up two people whi are on their dating site and pay for a meal for them. In exchange they both answer a set if questions. One of these is would you go meet again. With the hetreosexual couples it is just about also “no, there was no spark” or “yes, but justas friends”. It seems silly to me to not go on a second date unless you really didn’t like someone. There is still this idea that two people meet, sparks fly, they fall instantly in love and live happily ever after. That really does not happen. At least the last part.
Interestingly the gay couples (both male and female) generally seem more interested in seeing the other person again to see how it goes.
Fascinating. I am a woman of a certain age, happily married for 20 years now, but after my starter marriage failed I had to go back to dating at the beginning of my 40s. (This was when we were being told that a woman over 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married.)
I had number of dates that didn’t lead anywhere, but an uncanny number of them included my dining companion saying at some point, usually in a tone of mild wonder, “You’re so sane.”
As a lifelong depressive, I’ve worked hard on my sanity, and I think I put one of my psychiatrist’s daughters through Stanford. Still, I felt sorry for these guys and wondered what the rest of their dating life was like.
I trained as an engineer and economist, both fields that prioritize rationality, as I do. However, spending time with men in these fields gave me a fair amount of familiarity with a certain type who claimed to be entirely rational in all aspects of life but appeared to me to be driven entirely by emotions that they couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge having but were masters at rationalizing. Perhaps this is why “rational” in this context has become a slur? I do think that the comments on my sanity were meant as compliments.
I married a poet. He’s good at understanding and articulating emotions. He’s short and balding and smart. Best husband evah!
Hoe_math is a YouTuber that talks a lot about the dating and relationship dynamics. It’s fairly thoughtful and mostly lacks a lot of gotchas that you find a lot with this sort of fraught topic.
Many of the topics you noted are touched on in his model(s) of how it all works. He does good one page diagram/drawings that really enhance understanding the interlocking problem.
Unnoted in your coverage is there appears to be a two axis desirability (bad boy as well as good provider) for what woman want vs how men do selection. It’s not really talked about much so it confuses the shit out of men and helps make the ‘good’ ones more likely to throw in the towel.
One reason I did not mention it is that the model you posit is outside the focus of the post. It’s about the the effect of the fall of status of men on men’s and women’s mating behavior (or lack thereof).
Second, I don’t buy that model. None of the women I know were interested in “bad boys”. They wanted men who would be presentable to people in their circle. This includes not just the NYC professional women I knew but also women from a broader social mix I met via New Age groups. Oh sure, there are some women who like that type, but the fact that I have yet to encounter one in real life says their representation in the population is not that large.
Marriage brokers (there are such things) find that the relationships most likely to lead to durable marriages are between people from the same social background, so same religion, came from the same part of the US (better yet, same state/same city), went to the same college….
There is a joke, admittedly, but it’s not about bad boys per se as much as “men who are not conventional producers”:
I certainly met a lot of young women who dated the bad boys and friend-zoned the nice guys, but that was way back in the 80’s, and it was also when I was working as a fry-cook so the fact that I was a nice guy did not necessarily make me presentable.
Rarely mentioned is the second-order effect that the nice guys want to date the type of women who want to date bad boys, while they friend-zone the women who want to date nice guys.
Isn’t Joni’s “Carey” about Bad Boys?
[Verse 2]
Come on down to the Mermaid Café
And I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we’ll laugh and toast to nothing
And smash our empty glasses down
Let’s have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
A round for these friends of mine
Let’s have another round for the bright red devil
Who keeps me in this tourist town
See upcoming rock shows
[Chorus]
Come on, Carey, get out your cane
I’ll put on some silver
Oh, you’re a mean old Daddy
But I like you
I like you, I like you, I like you
Out of scope for the discussion is reasonable, apologies for drifting wide.
In terms of the status effect…
Social status is about meeting the exemplars of what society values (success, wealth, good looks, charismatic, powerful, etc). I think the dysfunction and checking out of young men is related to the fact that it’s incredibly difficult/impossible to reach these goals through traditional means (the old ‘if you just abc then you’ll have your xyz). The social contract is broken, but the thought leaders and symbol manipulators aren’t allowing for change in the exemplars.
One of the topics we discussed in my nurse training was about identity, and lots of people meet their identity needs in terms of role (often job, but not always [could be head of the family, or provider, or as mother, etc]). Identity can also be about family (including friends). The current situation for young men is that they are struggling to craft their identity in a society that has changed rules but hasn’t changed it’s objectives…..and it’s largely impossible for many of them to create a meaningful role and even have meaningful social networks. It makes me think we may have the type of generational trauma brewing that we get when cultural erasure occurs in indigenous population.
There is a lack of understanding (willful or not) of the challenges by the older cohort and leaders. There is no useful guidance (hence the outrage about useless suggestions for meeting people or how to be economically viable). In this sort of milieu depression, substance abuse, and ‘checking out’ are obvious coping mechanism. It feels to me like there is a parallel between quiet quitting in the worksite and what is happening in the dating/relationship area. The same sort of outrage and panic heard from employers definitely has parallels in what we are starting to hear from woman about men disappearing.
I found this piece fascinating.
It critiques the “too hot to work” phenomenon, in which attractive women attach themselves to (economically) powerful men in exchange for, au fond, sex. As a Russian, the author saw it earlier there, but discusses it in other contexts too.
At the age of 77 I am for the most part “no longer in the game”, but based on my observation I say the demise of the male/female relationship is due to the advent of the internet, smart phones, drive in banking etc.
In the past, both young male and females developed through their various activities’ social inter-personal skills. These skills developed in youth not only fostered common sense, but the ability to handle relationships between the sexes and the confidence to do so. This is no longer the case.
Technology advancement is great, but we are becoming transhuman and we don’t even realize it.
Shoe on head has put out a few videos talking about this topic-
https://www.youtube.com/@Shoe0nHead
Re: Paglia and Peterson–
I’ve only listened to the first 7 minutes of the video, but what a 7 minutes. I don’t agree with Paglia about a lot, but her rant against those (like Peterson) who call post-Modernism “Marxist” and trash the 60s with a “It’s the hippies’ fault” cliche like Thiel (and Peterson) was epic. I stood up and shouted, “Bravo!” Listen to the video for that if nothing else.
More broadly, we have been messing with the primal forces of Nature, not Mr. Jensen’s ecumenical college of corporations, but with the real primal forces. Unsatisfied with being two-legged animals on a stunningly beautiful and bountiful Earth, we set out to take and commodify and master whatever we could lay our hands on, beginning slowly with agriculture and accelerating exponentially with the arrival of Nate Hagens’s Carbon Pulse.
Our hubris has brought on the twin curses of capitalism and technology that in combination first destroyed our communities (think Enclosure), separated extended families into vulnerable nuclear families (think ‘burbs’), and now is interrupting our species’s very means of propagation.
Order will be restored. Those primal forces can sweep us aside the way we swat a gnat. If we could learn from the Japanese, who have entered degrowth without falling into immediate chaos, we still might avoid the worst, but I suspect things will need to get considerably worse before most of us are ready for that.
Yes, and the demise of the smaller community schools that promoted more inter-personal relationships to the busing and creating of the giant “consolidated” schools that basically destroyed what was American youth.
I first watched the video a few years ago when I was wondering what all the fuss about Peterson was about and wanted to find out if he had anything interesting to say. After watching Paglia bat him around like a half dead mouse, I realized he was mostly hot air and became and even bigger fan of Paglia’s. Definitely well worth the watch.
Japan may be doing ok at the moment. But if the rest if the world goes into degrowth and screws up the export side of their economy, that may change.
Greshamette’s Law*, or how college expense, ideology culture and job market dysfunction helped drive men away. Why go into debt for some sketch degree and office dronery when you can learn a trade requiring real skills that are hard to offshore, have a decent shot at a six-figure income, work around like-minded guys and retain some self-respect. Bonus, less caustic interactions, lower chance of cancel bulls**t and better qualify of life. More people want a trad or similar life than the media are willing to admit. Not for everyone, but not for nobody either.
Colleges are rethinking their missions, right-sizing or even closing, with ripple effects likely through high schools. Re-engineering academia, another unexpected oxymoronic aspect of modern life.
*Bad environmental factors drive out the good.
Fantastic sum up Yves! Don´t know whether I agree with all of it but thought provoking and well laid out! Exactly the kind of thinking that is verboten nowadays. By the way: I am the father of two late teen / early adult boys and one girl and live in Germany. it is all very sad and also mysterious.
The exceptions among the friends of my kids that have normal relationships with the other sex are:
1. Ella. Also with two brothers, a very smart STEM girl, mostly woke but open to arguments. Has had several boyfriends.
2. Noa. A Christian, totally rejects Smart phones, abortion and the modern world. Sews and wants to be a school teacher. Has steady boyfriend. Got on well with Ella during an outdoors trip which I organised.
3. Felix. A rather cynical 20 year old from a broken family. Studies to be an official. Conservative. Rejects practically all precepts of society but smart enough not to show that too openly. Several girlfriends
4. Benedikt. Studies classical music. Plays bass. Brainy and no adonis. Rather cynical about girls but quite successful. Also from a broken family. Loves his troubled younger sister and tries to help her in life.
And then there are rather more ostensibly woke teenage girls who never had a boyfriend as they simply scare the opposite sex. The opposite are boys who go to the gym all the time as they seem to believe only a perfect body might entitle them to female companionship.
It is a total mess…
Interesting and timely topic. This link provides background information on the MGTOW movement. fyi
https://easysociology.com/sociology-of-social-movements/the-mgtow-movement-an-overview/
Back in the 90’s when I was in uni and the only male in the Women’s Studies class I made friends with some radical leftist militant feminists who were quite vicious, I would say toxic even, about men, even while being friendly towards me. We studied Paglia, Kristeva, Irigaray, etc. In my view, my experience was more difficult than what men typically encounter now – because I was dealing with many who agreed with Dworkin that all heterosexual intercourse was a form of rape and domination, male supremacy, even if or when consensual. More so, it was nearly universally agreed that we were living in a patriarchical society.
These days I don’t find that feminists or women believe these things to the extent they did when I was in uni.
The toxicity was confusing for me, yes, and super awkward, but didn’t affect my dating life – I went on to have a long term relationship with a radical leftist militant feminist. I would argue as a result of my learnings and experiences I went from anti-feminist to feminist.
I don’t think it impacted my libido? Or my sex life? And lefties even nowadays are known to be sexually free, even promiscuous, many in my circles were/are poly or in open relationships. If your belief is that society is patriarchical, the alternative to this would be relationship styles which tended away from the strictly scripted, predefined roles assigned by that same patriarchical society, such as men are heads of households, breadwinners, and women belong in the kitchen. In other words away from domination/subjugation or even status and tending toward consensual. Away from the typical model of institutionally or religiously endorsed marriage and your assigned role is to be fruitful and multiply.
Are we saying that men and boys these days are so utterly sensitive and vulnerable they go through the same experience but come out damaged and incapable? Eunuchs? Castrated (physically or psychologically)? I’m not sure I would agree with that.
Perhaps roles are being redefined away from the idea you must enter relationships, have sex and be fruitful and mutiply? Perhaps as a society we’re moving away from a framework where if you’re not in a relationship you’re a worthless human being?
Also, I’m going to throw in climate change as a possible factor. I have to say I find it impossible to have sex in a sauna, which is what the world is these days. And why would people want to bring children into this?
But I do also think I’m seeing a trend of young women misreading innocent situations. Over the years I’ve witnessed a shift in the kinds of work related incidents where I’ve seen men literally sexually harass women in very obvious and easily verifiable ways, e.g. video footage of a male worker trapping a woman in an elevator, or witnesses to sexual touching, hands on bums or boobs, or easily verified persistent unwanted behaviour, but nowadays the kinds of incidents I see are where men don’t do anything at all and are nevertheless said to be harassing or sexual. Simply standing in a different room facing the other direction, talking to someone else, is misread by a woman in a separate room as sexual harassment. There urgently needs to be more education around what is or isn’t sexual or harassment, there IS a disconnect between what actually is sexual or harassment.
I just don’t think that disconnect is the reason. I dated and had sex in a far more difficult dating environment.
In the sexual harassment trainings I’ve seen in corporate settings, the key understanding is intent is irrelevant, and whatever the aggrieved person feels is controlling. In such places, it makes sense to minimize interactions with anyone that might possibly get you into trouble. Leaving under a cloud can’t be good for future career prospects, either.
I believe you’re failing to notice the conceptual synthesis that has occurred since your college experience with some of the ideology you witnessed at its relative zenith, and flatly disagree that your environment was more challenging. Boys these days are not going through what you did – another way to describe your women’s studies class is that you were witnessing firsthand ideological fringe, or ideological vanguard, of an idea which was and had been (in attenuated form) seeping into the culture at large. Young people today live something of a domesticated version of hyperfeminism which is less extreme and absolute but not less malignant – indeed, it’s probably more malignant, because it no longer exists on the fringe. The domesticated form is ubiquitous and legitimized by its mainstreaming, and the sense of psychic peril that accrues is very different from experiencing fringers with odd ideas about the moral character of the ol’ in-out, love. This is essentially the difference in what constitutes sexual harassment today and sexual harassment of yesteryear – it’s not some “misunderstanding” on the parts of the parties involved. The entire environment of mating is saturated with expectations that would’ve been arcane and wonky 30ish years ago, you can’t educate your way out of that, it is a manifest zeitgeist.
I did not expect this website to become my first entry point into the manoshpere :-)
Thanks but I’ll stay outside on this one.
I think this gets close to the issue: “But men dropping out to a meaningful degree from dating and marriage (and college) does have some similarity, in that men are withholding sex over they unhappiness with new gender norms and their enforcement not just by women but often institutions.. . . . And yes, dampened male libido and pursuit of relationships has . . . economic implications”
Much has been written about men dropping out of the workforce (and civil society in general), and I think this is largely related to gender dynamics. There is a meme that a man’s ideal house is a two car garage with a car on one side and futon, kitchennete and computer desk on the other side. There may be some truth to that, and I suspect many men’s drive for accomplishment and extravagant houses, cars, etc. is largely to impress women. Take away any interest in attracting women and there goes a large percentage of men striving for achievement. Obviously there are men with a strong work ethic and who work to provide give their lives meaning regardless of what women want, but they could be a minority.
Heh
I’ve seen this played out on Apps with womens’ profiles saying something akin to being in therapy is sexy or don’t talk to me unless you’re in therapy.
Fun times!
I visit many web sites that review new books, since I have been a big reader all my life. For at least the last decade now I have seen more and more books reviewed set in imaginary societies that are horribly oppressive of women, a la The Handmaid’s Tale, or past societies where women are sub-third class citizens. More women than men are regular readers, so I imagine they are a large part of the readership for these books. But why in a place and time (1st world, 21st century) when women have more freedom, power, and wealth than they have probably ever had in recorded history, are they focused in on exaggerated stories of past (or fantasized) oppression? And, in a related trend, why are some novels mentioned approvingly as illustrating “female rage”, as if rage was good when felt by the right sort of person? I thought rage (like pride, ironically) was one of the seven deadly sins, not something to be celebrated. If the rest of the world of cultural/media influences (which I am out of touch with) mirrors the literary world, young men certainly must feel very wary in encounters with women, and they have to feel like they’re typecast as the default villains in most narratives that are promoted by the publishing industry. Not to say there aren’t pockets of the opposite kind of unrealistic male-female interactions, where hyper-masculinity and violence are portrayed as heroic (Special Forces military porn, basically). But those are small in publicity and readership compared to the stories of angry women fighting oppressive males.
People should read more Plato and Aristophanes speech in Symposium:
Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers [—] He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair [—] each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. [—] And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another.
https://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/myths/androgyne.htm
A guilty pleasure of mine is to watch a reality series (one of the very few I watch) Love Is Blind on Netflix. I realize some of it is scripted and editing is done, but the grief and frustration on the part of the males comes through. The guys seem to be in almost physical pain when they try to talk about feelings. Yet, this is what the women seem to want the most. During the series they “date” several people by only talking through a “wall” that prevents seeing the other person. Falling in love with the person’s mind/personality without being distracted by the visual is the premise of the show. When one person proposes marriage through the wall and the proposal is accepted they get to finally see each other in person. Their reaction to how the person looks and subsequent interactions on their “honeymoon” and trial marriage creates the drama of the series. Very few maintain their relationship to the day of legally getting married. The focus on what each person expects and what they are able to contribute is interesting even in this contrived atmosphere. There is a big mismatch in most cases. Often the males just can’t tolerate having to talk about feelings so often.
It perhaps isn’t that they can’t tolerate it. But they just don’t have an opinion on many things that they are asked about.
I’ve been single and dating before and after the pandemic started, and things post-pandemic seem to have completely fallen apart. (I met my last serious relationship a couple months before COVID-19 hit, and we were together through early 2024)
In my own appraisal, it seems like:
1) women’s expectations are now way WAY off what most men can provide (and as an aside, yeah, a lot of guys are bums, but it’s not like some of these women complaining about men are any great prizes themselves!*); and
2) the dating apps themselves make meeting and interacting with someone much more dysfunctional, rather than making it easier and streamlining the process like you’d think.
Regarding women’s dating expectations, they seem entranced by Instagram models; that’s a lifestyle – particularly for expensive travel – that is just unrealistic to me, and given the incomes of the average American male. And also of course, way out of line with what the planet can bear, if the stats about CO2 emissions due to increased air travel are to be believed…
“Don’t swipe right unless you have TSA-precheck”
“Pick our first trip: Paris, Bali, or Maui”
“I’m gone every weekend. you better be able to keep up.”
…I’d see comments like these on A LOT of profiles. And these are like nurses, mid-level corporate managers, marketers, dental hygienists, etc. Are they going on these trips by themselves? Do that many Gen X and Millenial women have trust funds? Where are they finding the money? I’m a corporate attorney and I don’t travel as frequently or as expensively as they do when I DO take vacations. This is nuts.
It’s so bad that a couple months ago, I deleted the last dating app I was on, and I don’t expect to use any again.
And speaking of dating apps, I suspect the apps themselves make meeting people more challenging. Seems to me the programmers are tweeking the algorithms to squeeze more $$$ out of men. When I used Bumble pre-pandemic, I don’t remember the pressure to pay for a half-dozen different features being so intense. The wording they use around the need to pay $5-$10 a pop to boost your profile for a 1/2 hour to get views and likes is extremely coercive. And you can’t even use some of the common filters (like religious beliefs) without paying for premium. Hinge and Tinder are similar.
Maybe this is all not such a bad thing… the planet could do with fewer Americans.
(I already have kids and am not having more)
*of the five (5) dates I’ve had post-pandemic, 4 showed up significantly heavier and older than their pictures showed. I felt lied to, though I was still polite and we otherwise had an okay night out. The 5th one was relatively fit, but confided that if she didn’t smoke marijuana regularly she had anger and anxiety issues. Glad she let me know that on the 1st date! I used to enjoy the period of time before a date started… the expectations, the anticipation, etc. Now I dread it. So I deleted the apps and am not going to make meeting someone a focus in my life at all. If it happens, okay. If not, no big deal.
Basically all the Apps, except Bumble, are owned by Match Group. And they have a minority stake in Bumble I believe. And thus every app follows the Tinder model of extracting more and more money out of people.
Being on the apps is a kind of psychological abuse. I spend much of my time wondering if anyone would ever match with me, and when that happened, often I never got a reply, and if I did, an attempt to setup a date often failed, and if one was setup, the cancellation rate was very high if she was attractive.
Apps are a great way for average looking guys to feel worthless.
Thankfully with the Pandemic, all these are completely useless. Few people acknowledge the ongoing Pandemic. And being single in this environment is actually a great risk reducer.
Regarding some of the comments in the article, I don’t know that fear of being accused of rape is to blame. I’ve never been in that position or even felt like it could happen. But I’m not an a******.
Like if you’re not dating because you’re worried about being accused of rape… are you telling on yourself?
Regarding my prior post, I’m not sure where women’s insane expectations of men come from, whether that’s feminism or capitalism, but I lean toward the latter. Women were often more concerned with social appearances than men, and in my opinion the need to “keep up with the Joneses,” and that’s just been turbocharged by social media, and social media is capitalism on steroids after 3 margaritas.
It’s gross. But it’s not because of 1970’s feminism (whatever wave)
Have had two hookups where the woman started yelling “No! stop!” In the midst of it. Both apparently got off on r*** roleplay. Would have been courteous of them to tell me this before scaring the hell out of me.
Had another who in the midst of our first hookup want me to punch (not slap or whatever but punch) her in the face and call her awful things I won’t type here.
The numbers of hookups with women who want to be choked is off the charts.
As someone who abhors violence and has no sexual attraction to it in any form these have been traumatizing experiences. But there’s also the added fear that if I’d followed through on the actions requested of me and an accusation would surface it’s hard to imagine a “But she said she wanted it, your Honor” would work in court. Definitely wouldn’t work in the court of public opinion. See: Armie Hammer.
That said, the one that still haunts me was the time I was out with a female friend and things seemed to have taken a romantic turn. Went in for a kiss and she recoiled with horror in her eyes. Seeing that look and knowing I’d caused it with my advance was heartbreaking. I apologized and took her home. Over time we rekindled our friendship but that moment still lingers in my brain. I’d never had someone look at me in fear before and never want that to happen again.
The compassionate side of me wants to (and have on a few occasions) delved into how these women had been hurt that this is what they seek out. Tragic abuse seems to have been the root. The reality of violence and abuse toward women is not something I take lightly. It is not something I would ever take part in even in a roleplaying scenario. But, the fear of an accusation is still there. Especially when it seems many (at least ones drawn to me) like to push the boundaries.
I don’t know how common my experiences are. Maybe something about me attracts emotionally wounded women. And these experiences haven’t stopped me from dating so on that point I agree with you. But it has made me timid and much less “alpha” then I once was in how I court potential partners. Basically I leave it to the women to make first moves now days.
That’s wild. I’ve dated women who liked being submissive or wanted me to pull their hair and stuff like that, but never actually get punched (ouch!).
I could do those things without worrying about consequences, because we were in a relationship and there was trust there. You still have to assume some basic human levels of understanding and decency, and even if she were to turn out to be a complete psychopath and lie and wholly fabricate the context of our interaction, I have more hope than not that I would be exonerated, even if I was actually charged with a crime.
I don’t understand where this fear comes from in guys; there are more stories than not out there of police departments just wholly disregarding rape kits, and cops doing nothing when presented with credible evidence of rape.
Harvey Weinstein made an entire career out of coercive sex; it took multiple women testifying against him to convict him, and he still had more than his fair share of days in court to contest all of it.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, and women can be as manipulative and abusive in relationships as man can, but it’s not common. I don’t understand the thinking that this fear of being accused of rape is what’s causing a declining birthrate and turning men off from dating.
I’ve been out there and it sucks, but for very different reasons.
Something about the conundrums faced by young men now reminds me of Otto Reutter’s famous song “In fünfzig Jahren ist alles vorbei” written in the 1920s, (link to recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHGE-VVweY ), but very very popular in the 1930s and early 1940s in Germany. Yes, this will pass. But as you wait, life passes you by.
Who is surprised that in the West, social relations are increasingly ugly. Snowden, talking of social media, says this in his introduction to Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother”: “We are coming to see all too clearly that the construction of these systems was less about connection than it was about control: the proliferation of mass surveillance has tracked precisely with the destruction of public power.” There was considerable power, for ordinary people, in cultural forms that made things like romance, marriage, and some social solidarity with other peoples life goals possible. But that culture is NOT to be sustained. What a lovely wedding we have just seen in Venice, a media wrapping on a money porn spectacle.
Surveillance can in a sense be a substitute for the conditioning effects and social stabilization and security created by the forms of institutions. We can abandon the goals that institutions sustain, because we don’t need to spend to socialize or condition people, we can orphan them from our society, or from any society at all, and henceforth use surveillance and fear to control them outside the bounds of our elite thing.
The thing that has happened to young women to make them unattractive to young men is cultural deracination. That’s what social media is “for.” Young men’s alienation in turn drives their separation from contemporary culture. The invention of the idea of “toxic masculinity” can be seen as the first step in creating a surveillance ideology that can be used to track young men as we no longer bother to socialize and condition them, because we have abandoned cultural goals we want to defund.
It is interesting that young men, turning away, are abandoning “liberal education” to pursue more hands on and concrete work, when they do work. Young women, always more likely to follow the talk, to “drink the Kool-Aid,” continue to pursue professions that are fragile in the face of defunding and AI. This will not end well.
A large pool of unattached young men is a harbinger of war, and asceticism–always watch asceticism because the ability to do without is a prelude to revolution. Shia Islam is the most complex thing out there that might have a place for such young men. As Mercouris says, “Just saying…” But surely, young American men would not turn that way.
Finally, I want to say that the most serious attempt to understand the topic of Yves’ post is the writer Rollo Tomassi, in his book “The Rational Male,” and other books in that series. Tomassi is perhaps a rather repulsive Youtube personality, but his books are well informed and the best and most serious attempt to address what Europeans call the “philosophical anthropology” of mating in the liberal world.
But the big overarching issue seems to be the diminished social status of young men and the demonization of manliness. For instance, there’s no “heroic masculinity” or “wholesome masculinity” as a counter to “toxic masculinity.” Although some cited #MeToo (with some disputing its importance in the bigger picture), publicly hating on men as an acceptable posture well predates that; #MeToo’s vehemence indicated that there were still levels of pent-up hostility that a not-trivial number of women felt the right to express.
This an informative discussion of matters outside of my field. A few thoughts that come to mind: Our “post-modern” society has become so divorced and incompatible with our evolutionary biology, that these problems are now a big issue. I would say that for the vast bulk of human evolution, humans were concerned about propagation of the species, life was short, so humans had to reproduce quickly and often. Traditional gender roles were largely dictated by necessity and evolutionary logic.
The “mean girl” issue: this might have arisen out of “divide-and-rule” identity politics, worship of oligarchs and celebrities, soc. media, and the general lack of social cohesion in over-populated, mass “post-modern” society. As George Carlin would have said: “no one gives a fuck about anyone else”. This attitude appears ubiquitous in our society, from the top down.
The “identity politics” program (gender, sexual preference, abortion, immigrants, guns, and other social/cultural issues) appears to be deliberate distraction and diversion from serious discussion/debate about economic justice, institutional corruption, societal breakdown. It is a perfect way to divide the public and mask the common interests of the vast majority.
For example, on Democracy Now (an outlet of the so-called left), we have almost constant discussion of LGBTQ, race, immigrants, women’s issues, “toxic masculinity”, “pregnant people”, gender pronouns etc. As Paglia mentions, there is no traditional “left” anymore. Peterson’s use of “neo-Marxist” is laughable. I wonder if he ever actually read Capital vol. 1.?
I wonder if declining fertility is a function of some sort of collective genetic consciousness, as propagation of the species is no longer crucial. Yet our instinctive drives and need for social status remain.
Marriage is nothing more than a man owning a woman as an unpaid housekeeper, prostitute, and trophy wife. Men raised with modern, progressive values may avoid sex and marriage because they oppose these inhumane practices.
In my opinion Erich Fromm nailed it decades ago:
We’ve been conditioned to value everything in life as a commodity including our relationships. Our online culture curates everything to our tastes but real life doesn’t do this and people struggle with an uncurated experience. They find “flaws” to be defects instead of seeing them as the unique qualities that give us each our own distinct personalities. If we all had no “flaws” we’d all be the same.
As a guy on teetering on the verge of “old age” yet still living solo I’ve taken a hiatus from dating for a number of years. It’s been both an incredibly productive and mentally healthy stretch of time. My time/energy has been spent on creating both artistically and socially. And I don’t spend my evenings listening to someone tell me all the ways I don’t live up to their standards.
Oddly, I’m often asked by female friends why I don’t have a girlfriend and my response is usually a self-depreciating line like “If I like someone I’d never subject them to that misfortune” but when I’ve given sincere responses I’ll tell them how I don’t trust my choices in partners. Have had enough toxic relationships that left me both emotionally and socially wrecked that I have serious trust issues with my brain’s attractions. But, having read through this article it may not just be my bad choices but potentially a wider social dynamic that hinders finding a partner who values their partner as a person instead of a commodity.
Fromm again: “Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’”
When was the big transition, from a time and place where men were commonly very brave and wise, to a time when these traits were not so common among men?
This article is about the recent fall in men’s status in many societies, and I agree that’s real and has real effects. But many women have complained about men going back centuries in countries around the world, and many of their complaints are similar. What happened?
The biggest transition has been from living in free societies to living in unfree societies, which most of us live in now. In free societies, everyone is expected to stand for what’s right as a normal way of life. Bravery and wisdom are commonly cultivated in men in these cultures (women also cultivate these qualities, but this comment focuses on men), whereas bravery and wisdom are much more rare in unfree societies where people are expected to obey the law, but not uphold it. In unfree societies that expect obedience and punish people for standing up for what’s right, people are actually trained for cowardice rather than bravery, and this has dramatic effects on the quality of the men.
The stories that most impacted me were what I call “transition stories” — essentially stories of free people being conquered and forced into an unfree society where cowardly obedience rather than bravery was expected.
Pretty Shield was a Crow woman who grew up when the buffalo were plentiful in central North America in the 1800s, and she described how the US intentionally wiped them out to subjugate her people. She said:
“Our men had fought hard against our enemies, holding them back from our beautiful country by their bravery; but now, with everything else going wrong, we began to be whipped by weak foolishness. Our men, our leaders, began to drink the white man’s whisky, letting it do their thinking. Because we were used to listening to our chiefs in the buffalo days, the days of war and excitement, we listened to them now; and we got whipped. Our wise-ones became fools, and drank the white man’s whisky. But what else was there for us to do? We knew no other way than to listen to our chiefs and head men. Our old men used to be different; even our children were different when the buffalo were here.”
Many people describe a similar transition in men. When they had no choice but submission or death, there was no longer room for deep masculine bravery and wisdom. One Sioux man named Rain-in-the-Face described how his soul died when he submitted, and only his body lived on (referring to himself in the 3rd person): “I have lived peaceably ever since we came upon the reservation… I fought for my people and my country… Rain-In-The-Face was killed when he put down his weapons before the Great Father [US president]. His spirit was gone then; only his poor body lived on, but now it is almost ready to lie down for the last time.”
The degree of selflessness and bravery in free societies absolutely astounded me, and showed me how low our standards are for each other.
Apache man Geronimo described how the minimal requirement for young men was to prove “beyond question that he can bear hardships without complaint, and that he is a stranger to fear.” Sioux man Ohiyesa hinted at his deep training for bravery and service when he said he was “trained to be a warrior and a hunter, and not to care for money or possessions, but to be in the broadest sense a public servant.” How many boys do you know that were raised with such deep attitudes of selflessness and bravery?
Can you imagine if deep wisdom and bravery were simply the norm for all the men around you?
This bravery supports people in being generous too. In all free societies I’ve studied, men are consistently trained to give up all their possessions, whereas unfree societies train men (and women) to take as much as they can, either to avoid poverty or to get rich. Ohiyesa wrote about the Sioux: “It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way it will in time disturb the spiritual balance of the man. Therefore the child must early learn the beauty of generosity. He is taught to give what he prizes most…”
In free societies, generosity and bravery among neighbors are simply normal ways of life – I see this in every free society I’ve ever studied, including the Apache, Cherokee, Sioux, Nootka, and dozens more. In fact, this is the only way humans lived for millions of years, up to recent times. Only in unfree societies are greed and cowardice encouraged, as ruling classes train people for obedience and maximum productivity. Tragically, few people in unfree societies recognize the depth of this conditioning. I only discovered it after intensive study of many free cultures. And I believe this hurtful training gets to the heart of why many men struggle, each man in his own way as he faces the challenges of growing up in an unfree society that doesn’t welcome everything he has to offer.
References for these quotes and many other beautiful stories are here in a book that explores what it would take to live in a healthy culture again.
There is a short scene in the movie Sin City where Brad Pitt and an actress enter an elevator together. It is implied that this chance encounter escalates into an amorous adventure. Let’s contrast this with my reality.
One late Saturday night, I went to exercise at a gym that was still open at that hour. I parked on the rooftop of a parking garage and waited for the elevator. The doors opened up, and I saw one young woman inside the elevator. She was presumably just finishing her nightlife activities considering the way she was dressed, and she was also petrified, paralyzed with fear. I waited for her to exit the elevator and said, “This is the top floor. Is this your stop?” No reply. As I proceeded to enter the elevator, she then abruptly runs out into the parking lot. I wondered what she was running away from. Then it suddenly hit me. She was running away from me! Hey, no, no. Come back. I don’t have any history of violence. Or rape. Or violent rape. I continued watching the absurdity of a stick thin woman worthlessly running away in high heels as if she was about to trip and break a leg. I thought, “Who does she think she is. I can effortlessly chase her down in a second.”
Much later, while I was exercising, I realized that this woman had placed me in a compromised situation, which I had completely overlooked. She could have sprayed me with some pepper spray for no good reason. She could have called the cops, who would probably proceed to beat the stuffing out of me. All of this could have been easily avoided had she nonchalantly walked out of the elevator. It is plausible that my presence was intimidating. She saw a muscular man curiously wearing sunglasses and a beanie on the top floor of a parking garage. It is not at all clear that I wear the beanie because I dislike the air conditioning blowing at my head when I am running on the treadmill and I wear the sunglasses because the bright lights in the gym cause me insomnia.
About ten years ago, I attended a NC “meet & greet”, I wanted to flirt with Yves but didn’t want the one time I met her to be uncomfortable for her.