Returning to the Man Cave with a Package of Bagels and a Tub of Butter

Every so often in the corner of the ‘sphere that I inhabit, a current appears.  Members of the chattering class emerge from their respective caves and, failing to see their own shadows, seek to exile the purported white knights, the insufficiently outraged, the manginas, the traitors to the cause. Theoretically, I welcome such conversations because I believe that the onus for stanching the decline of civilization lies with men. Practically, I quickly tire of these conversations because they inevitably devolve into shouting matches in which shaming language, like the aforementioned mangina label, litters the digital salon.

The reasons in support of expelling various men are legion; the reasons are weak. Men are ostracized not for a lack of commitment to patriarchy and masculinity, but for beliefs about economics or for their success with relationships. Such men, be they goldbugs, married, both, or something else altogether, are labeled a detriment to the ’cause’ because they seek to institute their own solutions rather than simply identifying the root problem and then doing nothing more than bitching about it. They are labeled manginas because they, gasp, actually spend time with women. The horror! Moreover, they hold some wacky beliefs. Best to just ignore them in perpetuity because they are not infallible. How can one focus on one’s own set of conspiracy theories if that guy over there is distracting one with another set of conspiracy theories?

Those who ostracize do not frame the situation as I do, they are more serious and angry. Really angry. However, their seriousness belies a dearth of concrete solutions. Instead, they generally deride the purported charlatans and then go ghost from the salons.

And I just don’t get it.

As I wrote several months back:

I just don’t see the point in the battle if victory doesn’t include the ladies. Don’t get me wrong. I love drinking beer with the guys as much as anyone, but I don’t want them to rub my shoulders at the end of a long day. I don’t want to move through life with a hairy, burly sidekick. I don’t want to spend my days in an undecorated cardboard box, masturbating to crude pictures I drew on the box with ashes.

Nothing I’ve read since I wrote the above has changed my opinion. Theoretically, I would love to be an MRA, but the most vocal MRAs I’ve read don’t advocate actually doing anything. They just bitch and moan about the status quo and label those who live more traditional lives, and who in the process abjure misogyny, as white knights or manginas. When asked for concrete solutions, outside of going our own way or going ghost, they don’t offer much beyond challenging laws or attempting to expose female liars as liars. The laws they want overthrown, like IMBRA, are inane, but overturning those laws will not actually reverse the decline and return patriarchy to its rightful place. Instead, such victories border on Pyrrhic. The nattering nabobs will quickly introduce newly minted and equally puerile laws to take the place of those repealed. Exposing liars as liars is important, but if such exposures are seen as attacks on the sisterhood, the end result will not be productive.

Of course, I am not an ideal candidate for an MRA to begin with. I love the ladies. I enjoy their company. I have no desire for a victory which excludes them. If the ladies are not riding shotgun on the road to victory, then we will arrive at a destination rife with bagel sex. Fuck. That. Noise. I love wet pussy and the soft touch of my wife too much to aspire to anything to which she is not a party.

To again quote myself:

I am not only a man. I am also a husband and a father. I enjoy those things because I have a wife and family who are worth the effort they require. For me, and men like me, having a wife and family are not death knells. They are very good things. For those men who have not yet achieved such satisfaction, the fight is about giving them better inputs, better laws, better ladies with which to work. It’s for damn sure not about convincing them that their evolutionary desire to live in a group and procreate is really a desire to live in a cave without lasting relationships. MRAs and MGTOWs bemoan shaming language, yet there is a lot of shaming language directed at men who do live or wish to live more traditional lives.

I don’t want to throw in the towel. I don’t want to go ghost. I don’t want to live in decay either. I don’t want my daughters, my genetic legacy, to live in decay. I want them to be able to spend their lives with people they love instead of in solitary existences punctuated with random hook-ups and rot. In order for that to happen, changes must occur. Such changes may require a little creative destruction.

Through such destruction, we might still educate the masses. Through such destruction, we might still achieve lasting happiness.  Such destruction requires active participation; vanished men will not implement the changes we seek. Such destruction requires us to seek a higher goal than bagel sex.

Are you down for the challenge? Or is that buttery hole just too tempting?

What the fuck is the point if the end result is just a bunch of liberated men living absent of the ladies? Why are you fighting if not to actually effect positive change? Are you really willing to paint with such a broad brush as to write off an entire gender?

Feminism has contributed mightily to the ills of modern society. A powerful antidote to those ills is a return to classical gender norms. Such a return requires that both genders be present. Patriarchy is very difficult when there are no ladies around. Absent the fight for such a return, you’re just slathering butter on a bagel and pretending that forsaking women altogether is the smart decision.