Category: Heterosexual Men

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First, I think the strong positions people are taking before all the facts are know is interesting. The whole point of an investigation is to uncover the facts and come to a conclusion about how best to resolve the manner. This isn’t happening. People are already taking positions based on the accusations made. I am assuming I don’t have all the facts, to take a position is premature.

The woman in the case feels wronged and she has a burden to prove her case. What facts we do have reveal a messy situation. Drugs, alcohol and sex. But this is precisely why a court should intervene. It is messy.

Something happened though and it is worth investigating.

What I find irritating is the tears shed for the men involved. Miranda Devine, in the New York Post, writes: “The young men made bad choices, too, and I would be ashamed to have sons who behaved that way. But they were just as young and just as out of it as she was and don’t deserve to have their lives ruined if the evidence shows they committed no crime. As far as ruining the young men’s lives involved, though, I don’t know what to say.”

If a woman has to be cautious about how she behaves at a Frat Party, then the same applies for the men. Men need to be aware that women may object to these maneuvers to get them into bed and, because times have changed, these grievances may end up in court. This is where we are with the Cornell case.

I would also argue that these are questions worth pursuing and the courts are best place for their resolution.

Why did these men offer an already drunk woman even more intoxicating substances if not to make her more pliable to their sexual advances? By making her even more incapacitated, they were making the woman even less capable of making a reasonable decision. She wasn’t asking for more drugs and drinks, so why were the encouraging her to get even more inebriated? This seems like a line of inquiry worth pursuing.

But men have been doing this for thousands of years, it is all part of the seduction process — a woman has to be aware when given alcohol or drugs. This is hardly a defense of the young men. Making a person so inebriated they will do anything you want, doesn’t sound like a benign seduction maneuver here. They should have to explain their intentions here.

Then there is the message from one of the men to the rest of his fraternity to come join him for free pussy. Two questions here. Did the woman ask him to offer her up for sexual use? If not, why did he think she was offering it up? Again, this doesn’t seem like some benign action from a nice guy. It sounds very much like he was offering her up to be sexually used by the rest of the fraternity without her consultation.

But she put herself in that position. She did.

And the young men put themselves in the position of wanting sex so badly that they behaved badly in order to pursue this end. They now find themselves in a court of law to straighten out the mess they participated in making. Given the numerous ambiguities of the case, there is a good chance that most of them will get off scot-free.

Of course, their parents and friends have learned about their capacity for bad behavior but then, let’s face it, their behavior was bad. Is it really so wrong to learn this? Discovery is the risk a person takes when they do the wrong thing. If their lives are ruined, which I doubt very much in this case, they participated in causing the ruin.

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I enjoy Slate’s advice columns (think Dear Abby for a variety of different topics) because they are generally entertaining to read and eye opening in what people get upset about. There was a recent letter that alarmed me because I think it was over reaction on the part of the columnists (JENÉE DESMOND-HARRIS AND LIZZIE O’LEARY).

It is behind a pay wall so you might have trouble retrieving so I will summarize the issue. A husband and a wife (30 plus years of marriage) were traveling with friends who had a college aged daughter. The husband took surreptitious pictures of the other couple’s daughter in her bikini. The girl was in public places in all these pictures — walking in front of him and at the pool. The husband clearly was sneaking photos of the young woman.

The wife later was looking through their shared vacation pictures and found the pictures of the young woman. The woman confronted her husband because she thought it was creepy and the husband gave a bull shit story about it. He told her he thought the woman could be a model and he was checking this out. He thought she was making a big deal out of nothing. This freaked out the wife who wrote the Slate columnists to get their take on it.

Desmond-Harris and O’Leary’s response, to me, seems to be an over reaction. The husband is a creep. He needs to be taken to task. The wife needs to go through his computer and see what he is up to as they doubt if this is the only time he has taken pictures of girls in bikinis. She could find something so much worse so she should. Then they started talking about whether the girl and her parents should be warned about the husband’s behavior which they seemed to be conflicted about. Finally, they advised the woman to never let her husband be alone with that young woman ever again.

Huh? How about a simple — your story is bullshit and you better cut it out or one day somebody is going to catch you and everyone is going to think you are a creep.

The woman is an adult and was in a public place in her bikini. Anyone could have taken a picture of her. How many people take pictures of other people who haven’t a clue that they are the model. Yes there is a protocol to ask people if it is all right to take your picture but realistically how often is that done? If you are in a public place, and someone likes your looks, they are free to take your picture.

The wife had access to the pictures. He clearly didn’t think it was a big deal or else he would have deleted the pictures which he knew she had access to. He wasn’t exactly hiding his behavior. When the wife confronted him, he was embarrassed. He put two and two together and realized how other people might view these pictures. Yes, he made up a unbelievable excuse which he should be called out on but, again in my eyes, that is about it.

Then the columnist determined that the man should never be left alone with the girl ever again. What? We are talking about a grown woman — a young woman yes but a college aged woman who surely at this stage of her life has learned to handle herself with men. More irritating for me is the woman had been married to the man for over 30 years. The wife never saw any evidence that her husband went beyond taking pictures of one beautiful girl in a bikini. This is quite a jump from taking a picture of one adult woman to much more egregious behavior that the man somehow now poses a threat to young women everywhere.

He made a mistake, given his wife’s reaction — one that he isn’t likely to make again. I think, given the lack of any other evidence, the husband should be given the benefit of the doubt. He knows how to behave in front of women and should be allowed to be alone with the young woman.

Then Desmond-Harris and O’Leary discuss whether to involve the woman’s parents. Again, what? The woman is an adult not a naive 15 year old. She has gone beyond the age where her parents have any responsibility over her actions or her life. I personally don’t believe anyone should be told but if you must tell someone — it is the college aged woman and not her parents. This is infantilizing a grown woman.

Men like to see women in bikinis. They sometimes do stupid things because they like to see women in bikinis. The woman doesn’t even know it happened. Why create a problem where there is none? It seems to me that the wife’s big problem is not the pictures but her husband’s lame excuse about why he took the pictures. This is a matter between the man and his wife alone. No one else needs to be involved and the only action required is telling him to knock it off until he can come up with a better reason for taking surreptitious pictures of women in bikinis.

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I was watching the trial by combat joust in the new Game of Thrones iteration “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and it dawned on me on how attracted human beings are to violence. People are willing to joust and people are willing to watch jousting even though there was a good chance that somebody would, at the very least, get maimed or, worse still, be killed; furthermore blood sports have a long history in humanity.

The modern world makes a show of caring more about the athletes in their games but the danger still exists (think boxing, rugby, football, hockey, Formula One). These men risk their bodies and possibly their lives to entertain us.

Some observations here:

1.The participants are largely men. There is something innate in men to show their bravery by risking their health and lives. Some men like to rumble. I knew a guy who liked to get in bar fights. He would arrange situations where he might have to defend his “honor.” His honor was broadly defined as anything that irritated him, things like tailgating on a highway or running into him in a crowded bar. I generally thought his honor wasn’t at stake and a simple apology would suffice but he felt differently. The show of physical courage is important to men.

2. A lot of people like to watch these displays of physical courage. Millions of people watch football games and boxing matches — knowing full well that these men are risking their bodies for their entertainment. Even though they would like to detach the idea of this as courage, most people in the audience for these events would largely agree with this idea of physical courage. It is important to them to know there are men capable of this type of courage.

3. These ideas are pretty much locked into our definition of courage. As this appears to have been going on for as long as humans have been in civilizations, speaks volumes of the importance of violence in civilization. I can give all kinds of rational reasons why this shouldn’t be so, that it is insanity for a man to risk his future brain for a Super Bowl ring now but I am fairly certain it will fall on deaf ears. In order to prove his courage, a man must risk his body to prove it and this is the way things have been for a very long time.

What I am trying to figure out is why society’s approach to violence is to treat it as some aberration instead of fundamental to the nature of the male of our species. So much of what humans profess to think about something has nothing to do with how we feel about it. Men want to box. People want to watch boxing. Saying that they shouldn’t box or enjoy boxing fails to deal with the reality of the situation. When someone screams fight in high school parking lot, the people rushing to the fight are not running to break up the fight but rather trying to catch the action before it ends.

I wish I had answers but I don’t. But completely quashing this very strong emotion in humans and making them wrong, doesn’t stop people from having them. It is irrational and inexplicable but despite our best efforts to reform and our continued disapproval of physical violence, it persists. Let’s face it, humans like to rumble.

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Elon Musk linked to a post where the sender (some organization called Autism Capital) states that women and Beta men shouldn’t be active participants in democracy. They are unable to determine if new data is true. Because of this failing, only Alpha men are competent to participate in democracy. Musk finds this post an “interesting observation.”

This would be disturbing if Autism Capital provided any data to show what he was saying is true. He provides nothing but his personal prejudices so I am unable to assess whether what he was saying it true. Which is an interesting oversight for a man who values hard data. Any ordinary mortal would immediately dismiss this as nonsense without absolutely no value whatsoever.

Elon Musk is no ordinary mortal however. Why Elon Musk passed on this pile of bull shit is a mystery. I can only come up with he is desperate for a headline, any headline. Lately, the only way he can get there is stirring shit which is what he is doing here. His cryptic “interesting observation” is a cowardly bit of equivocation especially for such an Alpha man. If he receives any blowback, he can always claim that all I said was that it was interesting. What a big strong man Musk is, right? I can just feel the testosterone oozing from his pores.

The men who subscribe to this idea all seem to think of themselves as Alpha men — based only in their own humble assessment of their Alphaness. I can’t say I am terribly impressed by these Alpha men though. I thought Alpha men had these strong personalities that commanded respect and deference. Yet these smart intelligent men are being outwitted by a bunch malleable people incapable of determining what the truth is. I mean if they can’t outsmart a bunch of women and Beta men, how Alpha can they be? Not very.

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Billy Eichner’s recent gay RomCom called Bros failed to pull in the box office revenue it was expected to. Eichner went on to complain that there was some homophobic backlash against the film. I am sure there is something to that but I am also pretty sure that billing it as a RomCom may have had more to do with it. RomComs are not for everyone — particularly straight men. That’s why RomComs are also know as Chick Flicks. They simply appeal to women more than men.

I, for example, am bored by action pictures. I found the Bourne films a terrific bore — one long chase scene without any plot whatsoever. At least that was my opinion, however, many other people loved the movie and they went to in droves. So if you invited me to a Gay Action film, I probably will decline because it is just something I am not interested in. I find it difficult to believe that any of the straight men I know would willingly attend a RomCom movie, much less a gay RomCom. It has nothing to do with gay either and everything to do with RomCom.

So I don’t think it particularly fair for Eichner to complain about homophobia. He could be correct, but, it is just as likely, that he is wrong. There is no way of knowing until someone digs deeper and asks why didn’t you see this movie. Until then, I think we should give the audience the benefit of the doubt and accept the fact that a lot of straight men don’t want to see RomComs.

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The recent high profile of the MeToo movement and the effect it has had on the careers of certain high profile men is a subject I have wanted to write about for a long time. The problem was that I had difficulty finding the correct words to express what I wanted to say.

After reading Andrew Sullivan article in New York Magazine, I now have the words I want. Sullivan’s point is that men and women have different attitudes about sex. Men are more horny, more handsy, take more chances regarding sex and that heterosexual women need to understand this. It’s just man’s nature. Men have more testosterone that creates a greater sex drive. He then points out that gay men fuck often and indiscriminately because they don’t have the restraining factor of a woman’s sexual drive.

So how should society deal with these different sexual natures? Sullivan thinks nothing, at least, nothing that would change men’s behavior. Sullivan argues, by and large, women understand man’s sexual nature and are OK with a it. Indeed women would become antagonistic to the MeToo movement if it continued their campaign to make men more accountable for their sexual harassment. He also thinks that nature is more important than patriarchal institutions in how sexual relationships proceed. The horny man is always going to be chasing after the less horny woman. Women would just have to learn how to put with the big lugs and there is nothing that society can do about it.

The very problem with Sullivan’s argument is his argument. He thinks men are different than females. If this is true, then might women take another view of men’s groping hands? Might women become irritated with men who make sexual innuendos in the office, particularly if she isn’t interested in the man and the man blissfully disregards her feelings regarding his innuendos? Might it be frustrating that in order to stop these harassments, the woman has to go to Human Resources and files a complaint about the man’s behavior. Wouldn’t it be easier for men to just behave appropriately? Take a slower path with his flirtation?

And this is where the patriarchy comes in. In Sullivan’s world, women should just understand a man’s nature. He doesn’t mention a reciprocal responsibility for man to understand a woman’s nature. Why is the woman stuck with tolerating the bores? Wouldn’t it be just as easy for men to behave appropriately at work. Oh that’s right because men will be men. Their bodies are full of testosterone, they just can’t think straight when a woman is around. It’s there nature.

What about women being women? What happens if the man happens to be the woman’s boss? In the past, the woman could complain to Human Resources but what would HR do? Would they listen to a low level employee over the word of an executive? The power is with the man. He controls her livelihood. He has the power to make the woman’s life miserable. So her choice is to live with the harasser or quit. How does Sullivan propose women deal with this difference in power? Particularly in the very awkward situation of a horny boss chasing his woman employee. Who wins this showdown?

Then Sullivan goes after the feminists who are leading the charge to change the argument. They are trying to give more power to the women. Sullivan finds their arguments alienating, that they are making men the enemy and regular middle class people will be alienated by their arguments. To a degree, he is correct. The vast majority of people won’t agree with Feminist ideology. Sullivan thinks this will drive these people into the Republicans/Right Wing. Why is Feminist ideology more alienating than Right Wing ideology? Finally, who usually fights the battles in these struggles? It would be nice to think that nice middle class people will start the battle. But usually they don’t. Who fought the opening battles for Women’s right? I believe it was the hated and alienating Suffragettes.

These battles have to be fought. More importantly, these battles require us to look at all types of harassment – from annoying to egregious. Al Franken’s boorish behavior is not the same as Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment. But how do we know until someone brings it up? Yes, it is messy. Yes sometimes it will be unfair. And we will only get better at dealing with these situations and distinguishing between behaviors as we look at them.

Requiring perfection stifles change. Sullivan thinks men and women have different sexual natures. Since better than 90 percent of the population are committed heterosexuals, how do we move forward recognizing these differences. To stop talking about sexual harassment because some men might be hurt only means women will keep their mouths shut. Women will put up with the roaming hands and sex jokes in order to keep their jobs. Not talking about sexual harassment doesn’t solve the problem, it just moves the pain to a different gender. Then you must ask are men’s lives more important than women’s lives?