Tag: men

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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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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?