The Four Things that Make Men and Boys World’s Different
Getting What You Want – Excerpt
This is an excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to Their Sons: Understanding the World of Boys. The book is good for dad’s too!
The sexes are different in their strategies to get what they want. This difference starts early. Boys tend to be more physical and direct, demanding or playfully pushing another boy in order to obtain what he wants. Girls don’t seem to like this sort of method. Girls are more likely to use words or relational means to get what they want. Boys tend not to respond to this. Neither sex seems to be too keen on the other’s modes.
To get a better idea of how boys and girls differ in this way, lets look briefly at the anthropological research of Ritch Savin Williams observing an adolescent summer camp.17 Groups of boys and girls aged eleven to fourteen were housed in their own cabins. Let’s look at the boys’ cabins first.
Very soon after arrival, the boys started challenging each other, sometimes telling each other what to do, sometimes putting the other boys down. Each of these were maneuvers to try to attain higher dominance in the hierarchy of boys. Pushing and shoving was not unusual nor was making fun of weakness. In fact if weakness was exposed, the other boys would sometimes join in to mark their own dominance. Some boys barked orders and others followed, while some put up a challenge. The boys’ pecking order, their hierarchy, was being made clear to all and it happened fairly quickly.
Savin Williams found that both boys and girls used ridicule and name-calling as a means to create higher dominance. But there were some strategies used by the girls that were very different. Unlike the boys, Savin Williams says that the girls maintained a sweet and agreeable attitude for the first week, making friends and being nice. But after the first week was up the girls started their own ploys to gain dominance. Their modes were more relational and less direct. Girls would ignore someone, or appear to “not hear” another girl in order to maintain dominance. Other tactics included gossip, social alienation, misinformation and withholding eye contact.
The boys’ strategy seems to be overt and out in the open. They seem to lack concern for the feeling reactions of their friends and are more likely to throw their weight around with bravado in order to be higher on the hierarchy. They just don’t seem to care as much if someone gets hurt in the process. The important thing is to be on top. We can see this sort of thing when boys are together with their friends and they will openly put each other down. Moms get upset with this but it needs to be understood as being their way to navigate the hierarchy. This does not mean that we shouldn’t help boys find kindness towards their friends; it does however mean that we need to understand these behaviors in their context.
The girls’ strategy seems more passive and clandestine. Savant Williams tells us that the girls, unlike the boys, seem to want to be perceived as “nice” and maintain that image whenever possible thus they take a week to build alliances prior to starting to use dominance tactics. Their dominance strategies are designed to be stealthy. Their strategies are often easily denied as not being “on purpose” or by claiming they had no motive to hurt. All the while the hurtful behaviors flow via social alienation, gossip, exclusion and other means.
Both boys’ and girls’ strategies leave some chaos in their aftermath, the boys’ more overt and the girls’ more covert. Both strategies are designed to create and maintain dominance over their peers. It is easy to see how these very different strategies don’t mix very well. This may play into what we will look at next, the very different ways that boys and girls choose to play.
Pg 22-24 Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons: Understanding the World of Boys
If you are interested in learning more about relationships from a Red Pill Perspective you might want to check out Paul and Tom’s Patreon site on Red Pill Relationships
Fear and Loathing in Secondary School, Part 1:
This is a guest post from Moiret Allegiere. He has a great deal to say about our plight as men in today’s insane misandrist world. You can find his blog here.
My first inklings that life was a dismally unfair thing came in a blast during my years of secondary education. It was during those years, as the pre-pubescent freedom of childhood-bliss flew away to be replaced by puberty, hormones, madness and perpetual crisis; as my boyish body first manifested clear signs of manhood, that the first properly understood symptoms from the infection of feminism showed its face in classrooms as clear and as brittle as glass.
Of course; the signs were there that the girls were preferred and protected by teachers prior to this. Yet – in the prepubescent bliss of childhood, we are close to sex-less as no sexual characteristics are on display. At the very least not obviously so. The most obvious signs of sex and gender and the differences therein came from the mouths of us boys and girls who, in our childish innocence, believed the opposing side to have cooties. This made for some good moments and fond memories of chemical gender-warfare, as both sides did their very best to spread their cooties into the other camp and so infect them. In order to create spies willing to divulge the strategic and tactical secrets of the other side so that the war could be won and ended once and for all, I suppose.
Looking at it in hindsight and with that peculiar gleam of nostalgia that tend to come post-thirtieth birthday, it is clear that this was nothing more than the onset of puberty, the moment where we understood something which we could not properly articulate at the time – that is; the other side is as intriguing and fascinating as it is terrifying and kinda icky, and if I could only understand where the fuck these strange and conflicting emotions stem from I might be able to process the information properly. Besides; I never yet realised how beautiful her hair was and what in the hell does all this mean; those strange butterflies, that weird skipping of my heart, that strange and primal attraction? Better punch her in the shoulder and run away, laughing. Boys will be boys.
And so, fare-thee-well innocence, welcome confusion, welcome inner turmoil. Welcome puberty. Welcome gender-war tacticians in the shape of teachers speaking in twisted tongues, teaching all about the serpent cult of feminism. The oracle and the spectacle, the feminist ideology, the -ism told in twos and threes and twisted tattle-tales. Not as yet mentioned by name, but lying there still, coiled at the feet of the altar in front of the dismally black black-hole black-board where nimble spinning tongues and fingers spun nimbly spinning half-truths or full lies spat into our open mouths and minds that lapped it up as truth-without-a-doubt; an altar upon which we were placed as a sacrifice to the -ism, to remodel and restructure our biology and our sexuality as the horrid beasts of masculinity that we were then on the verge of becoming.
And here I find myself caught in a crossroad, with many a road to follow. Figuring out which road to walk down is a difficult one. I could express the weird confusion felt from schools telling me that what I experienced within during puberty was a social construct; that what I knew to do in order to express my blossoming masculinity was not something innate to my nature, but something learned from this society wherein all things gender is a construct and we are all blank slates.
I could explain the further confusion created as the teachers all insisted that the girls matured faster and better than the boys, even if all things gender is a social construct and so – really – there should be no differences in the level of maturation where the brains of boys and girls are concerned.
Not to mention that, if all things are a social construct, as we were told, then maturation is also a social construct and not anything to take seriously. Or that this train of thought further whisper to me that the only thing these statements meant, when taken to their logical conclusion, is quite simple: gender is a social construct. We are all blank slates. The girls mature faster than the boys. Even when maturation is also a social construct. The schools have chosen the feminine as the norm, as the way to measure maturity and the proper way to teach and to learn, in other words… This difference of maturation, this apparently incredible evidence of the moral, intellectual and emotional superiority of the girls were mentioned as often as possible, beat into our adolescent minds to make sure that we understood and remembered this so-called fact.
I could pick out single instances, single anecdotes of obvious preferential treatment of the girls – to the detriment of boys – and tell them in full. I have many of these anecdotes, many memories stored away of very clear discriminatory behaviour from the schools and from the teachers, that no-one gave a fuck about seeing as it was the boys in entirety that was singled out for social execution and shame and not the girls. See, I am cursed with a very good long-term memory and a terrible short-term memory. Might have to turn this into a series of sort. We’ll see.
…or I could try and explain how this dark cloud of shame that was forced down over the heads of the boys manifested in me personally.
…I could tell tales of how feminism wormed its way into the girls of my class and class-room-fancy, turning quite a few of them into footsoldiers for the explosive feminist revolution wielding such ridiculous arguments – hung up in the corridors of our schools come international women’s day as hand-made posters, funnily enough with loads of glitter and pink as I recall – that a female nurse earns less than a male doctor, and that this is a clear sign of gendered discrimination.
I am not making this shit up.
Opposition to this nonsense, this clear political activism was met with protest from teachers and students alike, making it very clear which opinion was OK to hold and which was not. Even when the argument presented on the preposterous posters was not one of logic or of reason, even when the argument presented made no sense at all. Disobedience is not allowed. One must not go against the holy grain and coffee-stain of feminism, lest one be shunned and publicly shamed for doing so by teachers wielding the magical double-speak staff that says that all voices shall be heard, as long as it is the voices of the girls that scream feminism in your ears and immature minds that are heard.
I remember one particular instance in a physical education class. One of our resident “mean girls” – and you all knew this girl growing up, I fucking guarantee it – the queen bitch, the bully and tin-pot tyrant, Ms. Queen bee supreme who looked down her nose on everyone and treated everyone like shit if they were not within her immediate circle of friends, buzzing around her magnificent form and shape as she wreaked bloody havoc on everything and everyone… yeah, you know the girl, you know the trope, you know the stereotype. The tropish stereotype is there for a reason, shining bright in every single high-school comedy or drama we have ever seen, just as true and magnificent as are the jocks that surround her and beckon to her every wish and demand.
It just so happens that one of her victims of perpetual bullying and mean-girl ways and vices had finally had enough and struck back. Not in any physical way, gentlemen as we were indoctrinated into being – one should never hit a girl, no matter what, you know – no, he had responded in kind to her snarling lips and on-going, for at least a year, systematic bullying with a vicious insult. I can not remember what she said that triggered his comeback, nor can I remember what he said. I was not present at the moment. No doubt, it was trivial – as these things go. Yet, in the vice-grip of confusing puberty, as we all know, nothing is ever trivial.
In this P.E. class, our entire class was made to stand to attention and listen as Ms. Queen Bee supreme stood behind the teacher, crying. Obviously, the tin-pot tyrant’s first instinct at opposition was to run crying to our teacher, playing victim. And we all had to stand there and listen as our teacher confronted the one who had done nothing but reply in kind; berating him and telling us all how horrible he had acted, how there were limits – even in hell – as our teacher, who of course was a woman, put it. DARVO-ing is learned quickly and it is encouraged brutally.
Absolutely astonishing, I thought then and I think now. If it was not made evident prior to this, it was bloody obvious after this that the girls were untouchable, no matter what they did. And I looked at the face of the one who had replied in kind as he was dumbstruck, completely aware that whatever he said, he would come out the loser and the scapegoat and that she – the bully and the instigator – now stood free to do what ever the hell she wanted to do and he could do nothing, nor could he expect justice served from those who were supposed to serve justice at our school. The stacks were stacked against him, as they were stacked against all the boys for the single crime of being nothing but boys, for the crime of becoming men. As expected, this incidence also let loose the ever-present shaming of the boys and their lack of maturity. For some reason, this was clear-cut evidence of the moral and emotional superiority of the girls; of their incredible maturity. Or the teacher just wanted an excuse to brow-beat us boys a little more for her own personal bias and satisfaction. Which I suspect to be the case, as you can always count on a dyed-in-the-wool feminist to use any opportunity to go on a petulant tirade about her most preferred topic – that is, the evil that men do.
There were many instances of this nature. The ideology of feminism shone and shimmered and enveloped all of our school and all of our schooling within its web and in its cocoons.
I remember being yelled at by a female pupil for having the gall – the audacity – of being born at the eight of march, which is international women’s day, and about as much fun as one can imagine.
That I – a foul male – would dare celebrate my birthday at this day of all women was an affront to the holy forces of fragile femininity; just that I was born on that most fateful day was enough to pull her g-string over her head and deliver an atomic mental wedgie. Such a terrible act on my part; such a display of toxic masculinity this, to dare be born on that most hallowed day! Of course, she was nothing but a bitch and an insufferable cunt caught just as much in the confusing mud of puberty as I was. But she was upheld and guided by the primal rage of feminism taught in school. And that is where the problem lies. I would not remember this as clearly now, all these years later, were it not for that fact. This was learned behaviour; accepted behaviour within the walls of our indoctrination-chambers that told her and taught her that she could act like this, with impunity, as long as the victim of her fury and her frenzy was a boy, was becoming a man, was someone who was not a woman or becoming a woman.
Yet, it was during sexual education that the searing misandry was made the most evident. Or, I should say, the most blatant. For beneath that roof and between the scarred and broken thighs of our indoctrination chamber, the ugliness and brute simplicity of male sexuality was made clear to us, as was the beauty and divine complexity of female sexuality. In a flash and a heat and what could quite possibly be referred to as a series of temper tantrums by our teacher, men and their lack of care and compassion during sex, as well as their lack of knowledge of the female body and sacred female orgasm was brought us as communion wafers; foul smelling pieces of bullshit served on a silver platter that we were made to swallow whole and make part of our one and our all. Where male sexuality was concerned, it was so simplistic – apparently – as to be waved away in a token hand-gesture; pull her, prod there, ejaculate and finish. Men, you see, did not necessarily have any manner of emotional connection to the more-or-less willing victims of their simian sexuality. Quite the contrary; ours was a philosophy of pump-and-dump. As opposed to women, whose sexuality was driven by emotional connection and nothing more and nothing less.
Sexual education was nothing but female sexual liberation and male sexual incarceration in front of the holy black-board, behind a make-shift altar of prophylactics and planned parenthood. The birds and the bees and how pregnancy works and all that jazz was mentioned, of course, as though it had to be done quickly and be done with. The purely biological reasons for sexuality, for fornication – that is – the urge to procreate – and how all that stuff actually works was mentioned briefly, and then forgotten in the rush to whip the boys with the nine-tailed cat of sexual shame for our simpering sexual simplicity.
For, you see, it was made out to be the fault of men – that is the patriarchy – that women and girls didn’t masturbate as frequently as boys and men did, that women and girls didn’t know their own bodies as well as they – apparently – should by that point in their lives.
And I can not help but think that maybe these poor and pitiful victims of a lack of masturbation would flick the bean with more regularity were they not told that their bodies and their sexuality was something sacred, something hallowed that was not to be given away or touched willy-nilly, but something to be savoured and treated as some peculiar sacrament.
Were they not told that sex is given to men and done to women, but told the simple truth of the matter: that fucking is one of our most basic primal instincts and that sex is – at the same time – the most profound and the most simple pleasure of life.
See, it sounds very traditional, does it not, that sex is something done to women by men and given to men by women? It is a very gender-stereotypical view of things; men can not control themselves and women must be protected from men. Would a chaperon be a good idea, perhaps and perchance? It is a tale as old as time, and here it was presented as something new, something profound, something liberating for women. It boggles the mind. But, it is as these things are: those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. It is the same-old-same-old packaged and presented as something new. Same shit, different day.
I am no prude, and I have no issues with talking about sex and sexuality. Quite the contrary – I find it to be a very interesting topic of discussion. One of the reasons for this is that I find it incredibly funny how much stock we put in it, how much of a protected and sheltered thing this very basic urge, need and drive is. For all manner of birth control has made it so that fucking is now a frivolous pursuit of pleasure more than it is a need and drive to procreate. As an aside, I would very much like to state that this does not bother me. Not in the least. The thing is; as odd and weird as it is, turning it into pleasure first and pregnancy second has made it even more protected, even more holy. Despite all our ham-fisted talks about sexual liberation and sexual revolution and what-nots and what-alls, we seem to be more neurotic in regards to sex and sexuality now than we have been for quite some time.
Almost as though one would be inclined to believe that a meaningless and pointless pursuit of immediate pleasure in one-night-stands and topless tinder-dates with no strings attached and no responsibilities lined up poisoned the well some and made for some hell-hath-no-fury-scenarios, where a lover scorned or a lover’s regret the day after a frivolous session of in-the-moment fornication made for feelings that were not shared in kind and a further shaming of male sexuality for doing just as his date did.
Men are terribly irresponsible when having no-strings-attached sex.
Women are not; they are liberated.
And if both man and woman are drunk and have drunken sex, the man is a rapist and the woman is raped. And the world is such a weird and peculiar place that confusion does not even cover it. For sooth, I do fear, sire, that we may have over-complicated matters to the point of complete and utter absurdity! I do fear that we have lost the plot ages back, that we have descended into guttural chaos and base-level desires that are never fulfilled even when we are told that this is what is needed to fulfil it. We are living in a Monty Python sketch, where one absurdity is explained with a higher level of absurdity. It is layers upon layers of absurdity, and I would be laughing my swinging dick and pendulous balls off, were I not quietly weeping in the corner. But I am getting better, I swear. I only break into hysterical fits of crying and babbling three times a week these days.
Anyhow; in those sexual education classes the boys were shamed for the girls not masturbating and not knowing their own bodies. This despite none of us knowing their bodies either, and should we wish to know their bodies we were beasts with only one thing on our minds. Not to mention that the same shame of not knowing a man’s body was not laid in the palms and prickly nipples of the girls. Odd, that. As though men are the ones who are supposed to run the show, from initiating dates to initiating sex. Or begging for it, more like…
And still; wanting sex, as a male, was a horrible thing and wanting sex as a woman was not a horrible thing, but a natural thing. Though the sex wanted by women was an emotional thing and the sex wanted by men was a primal thing, a thing of domination and subjugation. It was a confusing message sent and delivered. Sex was nothing to be ashamed of, yet it was at the very same time something to be deeply ashamed of.
We were told how incredibly complex female sexuality was, and that men would never properly understand it. Of course, the complexity of female sexuality was the complete opposite of male sexuality; simplistic enough to warrant barely a mention in front of the dismal black-board.
And were it mentioned, it was always with the barely-concealed snarl of wild mockery and disgust. This, in turn, rendered every god-damned unwanted erection a source of shame. And unwanted erections in those days of puberty happened once every ten minutes. You could set your bloody clock to it. There was nothing but spontaneous erections and a longing for some privacy and a few minutes to jerk off and be done with it. That is – if the erection came as a result of sexual desires, which it did not always do. Nor does it always do so. This is something lacking in common knowledge, as I understand it. Considering the mangled menagerie of feminist thought-and-action, an erect penis is nothing but sexual and shows nothing but sexual desire in the moment. Even when it is not. Of course; a lack of erection necessarily must mean a lack of sexual interest and something the woman should be insulted by. And the man be ashamed of. Just as he should be ashamed of his erection, he should also be ashamed of his lack of erection. The penis is there for the woman, and that is that. Objectification ho?
This is where sexual education is lacking, in their brow-beating of the male. For spontaneous erections were never mentioned or properly explained. Not as such. Erections meant nothing but the male being ready and willing to go, and that was that. It was a means to an end. For all the god-damned yammering and clamouring and claims that men don’t know shit about women’s bodies, women sure as hell know next-to-nothing about men’s bodies. Evidenced in the absolute lack of knowledge as to how erections function. Or how they do not function, for that matter. For, you know, a man can not be forced to penetrate. If he had an erection, he must have wanted it. This is the argument presented, time and bloody time again, to explain how a man can not be raped by a woman. I had a girlfriend once who honestly believed I could get an erection at will, just as if I were flexing a muscle. She was flabbergasted that this was not the case.
As much as I do believe that any sexual partner ought to know their way around their partner’s body, this is not something that should only apply to men. Yet, here we are, living in a culture where men are shamed for not knowing diddly-squat about the female body by women that do not even know that an erection does not equal sexual desire on part of the man, nor that a lack of erection does not equal a lack of sexual desire. It is far more complex than what these cretins believe.
And I lay a lot of the blame for this on the lack-luster sexual education in schools whose main focus in my day was the deification of female sexuality and the vilification of male sexuality; whose main train of thought was to teach the boys that their natural sexual urges was something to be ashamed of and to teach the girls that theirs was not. And as much as I agree with the latter, it is something that should apply to both or none. There should be no shame in sexuality, be you a man or a woman, there should not be any shame attached to wanting to fuck. Yet there were and there was, as long as it was sent in the direction of the boys.
Which is as evident now as fucking is natural, given the ongoing shaming of all things masculine from the girls and boys who grew up with this message imprinted in their developing minds and personalities and now only parrot the points they never questioned or dared looked behind and beyond, to repeat the mantra and carry on with the shaming and the glorious cuntural revolution of the feminist hive-mind; the breaking down and dismantling of all things masculine. The cloud of shame hung over the heads of the boys for which they must repent all their lives, bend their necks and their heads, kiss her ring and make amends for being such lustful and primitive primates as we are.
And this – this shaming, this perpetual demonizing and vilification of men and of masculinity – is presented as something that is supposed to help boys and to help men grow beyond the confines of traditional masculinity. Which is what, exactly? That depends on the feminist in question and the heat of the moment. But that don’t matter at all, the moment one is able to understand that nature plays more of a part than nurture does in how men act and how men behave, in how women act and how women behave.
This is not to say that nurture does not play a part. Because of course it does. We can not help but be a product of that which surround us as we grow up. We can not help but be infused with the ideas and the lessons we learn. We are a product of our surroundings. To a certain extent.
Yet; to claim that it is only nurture and not nature is to go against basic biology. It is to look at the state of nature, to look at the behaviour of animals and state that humanity is above and beyond that.
The problem of boys and men is not that they are boys and men, is not that they have been told to be boys and to be men. The problem of boys and men is that they are not being told that it is OK for them to be boys and to be men. It is that we are living in a culture that has not a kind word stored away anywhere for boys, for men or for masculinity. We are living in a culture in which we are told and taught that masculinity is something that must be done away with, that it is behaviour that is toxic, that it is learned behaviour that must be dismantled. And in its place the feminine shall thrive. In the guise of something gender-neutral. For feminism have us all shackled and in chains, have infested and infected our schools and our societies to such an extent that their philosophy is considered the norm and the guiding light. By their hands and their hands alone, the masculine shall be dismantled and the gender-neutral take hold. Just a god-damned shame, then, that what they propose to be gender neutral is remarkably feminine and that femininity is supposed to be some sort of saving grace for boys and for men who want nothing but to be free to be boys and to be men just as we fucking are.
Moiret’s book – Howling at a Slutwalk Moon, a collection of previous blog posts:
Vol 1 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/107571074X
Vol 1 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TZTPDPR
Vol 2 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075714184
Vol 2 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TZR25NL
Vol 1 Illustrated Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075717094
Vol 2 Illustrated Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075723078
What Women Don’t Understand about Men: Console or Consult?
So many times I have heard from frustrated women who explain that when they need a loved one to listen to their situation, the man in their life seeks instead to “fix” things. They tell me that this leaves them missing that loving connection that comes from being heard and all too often leaves them with the fear that the man just doesn’t really care so much since he is more interested in fixing things.
Right. But wait. What doesn’t she know about men?
What the women are missing is that men have a natural tendency to want to fix things. Why do men want to fix things? Because it helps them feel better. I could tell you plenty of stories of working on an old car and being frustrated in getting one bolt out. I try and try and no matter what I do, it just won’t budge. Then when I figure it out and successfully pull out the offending bolt I am hit with a wonderful blast of feeling good! Men know this elation. It feels good to solve and fix things and men simply want to share that good feeling with those they love. When she tells him a problem he wants to give to her the same feeling he gets when things are fixed so of course he tries to fix it for her. He’s doing this because he cares, not because he doesn’t.
After explaining this to the women in therapy I let them know that there are things they can do to help this situation. One effective approach is to be sure the man knows exactly what you want. Be clear with him whether you want a consult or want to be consoled. If you want to be consoled tell him he doesn’t need to do anything, that you simply want him to sit with you and listen.
When women talk to their men about this good things happen. When he becomes aware that she doesn’t want a solution and simply wants him to listen he can relax! I have seen this repeatedly. When this is explained to men they are relieved to know what is wanted and make an easy shift to simply listening. Most men find this much easier than the responsibility for fixing.
Here’s something to try:
If you are a woman talk to the man in your life about being consoled versus being consulted. Work out ways to let each other know when you need each one. If you are a man, talk to the woman in your life and let her know you need her to be specific about what she wants from you.
When both know what is needed, good things usually happen!
DIY or die! A ramble on doing things yourself. (And various other semi-related topics)
This is a guest post from Moiret Allegiere. He has a great deal to say about our plight as men in today’s insane misandrist world. You can find his blog here.
There is nothing better, in the humble opinion of this sleepless cripple, than the satisfaction of finishing some project or other. This goes for most everyone, I would assume. And it applies to any project one could imagine, from the artistic to the mundane, from the impractical to the practical.
I will focus on the mundane and the practical in this ramble, I think, following on a bit from my piece on hobbies. That is to say, I will try to the best of my abilities, seeing as my current struggle with insomnia leaves me a bit unfocused and weirdly scatterbrained.
I was fairly pleased with the piece I did on hobbies. That I was pleased with it tend to mean that very few enjoyed it. One of those strange quirks of the realm of artistic illusion, I suppose. In this realm, the pleasure of the artist does not necessarily translate to the pleasure of the beholder. The opposite also hold true; when I find myself severely displeased with some artistic project, people tend to enjoy it. It is really strange. Not that it matters all that much.
In some way or other, it evens out. I think it is a fairly funny observation, though.
In the dark days, in the long-ago time, when I still inhabited Facebook I posted a picture of some wooden planters I had built from the leftovers of another project I had been building. My caption for these photos were something like: “I built this using primarily my beard.”
I very much enjoy working with plants, tending to them, watching them grow from seed to fruit and everything involved in this process. I also very much enjoy working with wood, and would do so much more than I currently am doing had I only the room. The picture of these wooden planters were very well received. Particularly by women on my friend-list. This is something I found to be very interesting. Especially so since a few of these women, one who commented in particular, presented themselves as ardent feminists. The feminist in question who happened to comment, commented something along the lines of “Your wife must love your handyman projects!” There is absolutely nothing wrong with this comment, of course.
Quite the contrary.
I found it incredibly interesting, however, that it came from the hands of a feminist, seeing as it is very much gendered stereotyping, is it not? Wife enjoys her husband fixing and building things around the home, while the husband enjoys the wife doing whatever it is a wife traditionally does.
I am given to believe that a lot of the differences in the choices men and women make, as well as the interests of men and women, are driven in no small way by us being differently wired biologically.
There is nothing wrong with this either, of course. Were we only able to accept this tender little factoid instead of assuming some manner of discrimination every single time these different choices and priorities, strengths and weaknesses present themselves as differences of outcome. That is to say: were we only to accept, cherish and nurture these differences for what they are instead of fighting against them at every turn.
This is not to say that one should accept every difference as a rule, nor is it to say that you either have to do this or you have to do that, are you a man or a woman. I am not a fan of rigidly enforced social rules, norms and regulations as a general rule. With exceptions, of course.
What I mean to say is that people should be free to do with their lives as they wish to do with their lives, be they male or female. That, whether people chose a traditional path or not, it should be accepted as the choice of that person and that person alone. Of course, in regards to relationships, it should be accepted as the choice of that couple or that family. It is not the place of anyone else to force someone to do something they do not wish to do. And it does not reflect well on any movement when a movement attempts to tell someone that their choices are the wrong choices. As feminism is known to do, should a woman chose something particularly traditional – or something that she wishes to do that falls outside the very narrow realm of accepted professions for a woman as feminism sees it.
Which brings me to my point in regards to the comment left by the feminist – whom I know to be a feminist, because she stated as much quite a few times. As feminists are also known to do. That point being: at the moment I showed some manner of practical ability, some manner of doing and making, the distaste feminism usually shows in regards to the traditionally masculine and the traditionally feminine – man provides and protects, woman receives and is protected (in excruciatingly simple terms – I am aware that this dynamic is far more complex than this) – evaporated and gave room for what I would dare say is some manner of admiration. And that is admiration for traditionally masculine traits, in essence: protect and provide. There is nothing wrong with this admiration. Nor is there anything wrong that men lean towards this, or take pride and enjoyment in the admiration gained from doing things of this nature. Or take pride in these kinds of projects as they are, for that matter.
This sort of behaviour from the feminist, this small and – on the surface – insignificant thing did actually significantly alter my way of thinking where gender and feminism is concerned. It fixed, cemented and set in stone my conviction that people refer to themselves as feminists by default because they have been spoon-fed this hideous lie that it is the only force working towards equality between the sexes, and that is all that it is. So why not label oneself a feminist? It’s only muh equality, ya know.
But, yeah, my scatterbrain scattered its seeds and took me in a different direction yet again. I’ll do my best to get back on track. It was the pleasures of doing things yourself I wanted to ramble about a bit, and that strange sensation of fulfilment and pride that comes from being able to take care of oneself and whatever family one may have through doing so. From small projects to big projects, it does not really matter – the satisfaction remains the same. It does, in no small way, make one feel a bit manly, a bit masculine. And this is a good thing. That feel-good testosterone fuelling that toxic and fragile masculinity; that horrible urge to protect and to provide and to be able to do things on ones own. Terrible. Just terrible.
I am of the humble opinion that doing things yourself is the best course of action to take for most things – provided one has the know-how to do so. Or the ability to learn how to do so. And most things, I believe, one can learn for oneself.
Granted, this DIY-ethos of mine may very well have trickled down from the first time punk-rock filled my soul and body with all its wondrous tricks and trance-inducing rage and riot against the establishment.
What better way to tell the establishment to fuck off than participate as little as possible in the well-trodden paths; that is to say: do as much as possible yourself and be self-reliant, self-sufficient and self-fulfilled, needing little help from the established powers-that-be and any authority left therein? Which, in the end, may very well be a naturally well-established path for men to take. Interesting, is it not?
For full disclosure – I am receiving disability from the government for my severe chronic illness.
So I am not self-reliant in any financial way.
Which is a bother and a burden to me and to my toxic and fragile masculine pride (trademarked). My main wish, or hope, or goal, if you will, is to somehow manage to make enough money on my art and writings to be able to make a living off it. I am absolutely certain that it will never be enough to live some high-and-mighty life of overabundance. But a modest living is within the realms of possibility. Through hard work and sacrifice. And, rest assured, this art and writing I do requires a lot of hard work and even more sacrifice. I have lost friends and family due to the topics I have chosen to write about, and this is no fun.
No fun at all.
No matter how much it hurts, it will be worth it in the long run, as the topics I chose to write about are incredibly important to write about, talk about and learn about. And speaking honestly is good for the self. My choices were to write honestly on these topics, or succumb to clinical insanity from bottling all these thoughts, speculations and knowledge within.
No good fight is fought or won without sacrifice. And the sacrifice is most often severe and most definitely personal.
And were I not entangled and entwined in all this god-damned gender-stuff, all this strange and peculiar culture-war-stuff, I would be writing far more on various DIY-projects. With home-brewing and plants being my main focus, as those two are what gives me the most pleasure and consumes most of my time where DIY-stuff is concerned. With woodworking and carpentry most likely being a close second, the moment I get enough space to really start going to town on projects of that nature. In a couple of years, we will be buying a small farmstead. There will be room enough then. Room to breathe, to move around. Not infected by the inevitable stress and insufferable horror of city-living.
Raising a plant from seed to fruit and then using this fruit in various home-brewed concoctions that will be stored and matured for a year, in order that it is ready to be enjoyed when next years batch is being made is one of the greatest of small pleasures in my life. Of course; foraging plays a part in this, and picking plants in the wild for use in home-brewing or in teas or for food or whatever is a fantastic endeavour to embark upon. There is so much growing out there in the wild ready to pick and use in whichever way one would like that it boggles the mind that so few actually do things of that nature. In nature. And it is done by oneself. By hand. Bit by bit and piece by piece; projects that require patience and knowledge.
Patience being one of those things that seem to be dwindling alongside our attention-spans as our civilization descends ever more into the void of immediate gratification, into the nether realms of instantaneous satisfaction in place of delayed gratification. Fuelled, of course, in no small way by the dopamine-addictions shot into the central nervous system by social media, the tyranny of the stopwatch and various similar maladies of the modern era.
Long-term projects, projects that are determined by, and reliant on, the seasons is a great way to train patience, to cultivate patience as a virtue, to teach oneself to delay gratification and push away the press and desire for immediate satisfaction. Which of course, in itself, is a long term project. For if one has first fallen into the trap and succumbed to the allure of social media likes, clicks, shares and various harbingers of immediate joy and happiness-boosts, the path away from it is long and easy to stray from.
Patience is absolutely one of those virtues which I find to be the most important and the most lacking in society as it stands today, both on an individual level and on a societal level with the immediate and the instantaneous taking precedence, becoming more important than long-term plans and goals.
And here I speak from experience.
For some years back, in the throes of medicinally induced psychosis, I fell into the claptrap of social media addiction myself – completely and utterly sleepless and with faulty wiring in my brain making me erratic, I sough solace in the immediate and ultimately hollow boost of happiness and comfort earned from virtual clicks and likes gathered from social media nonsense. It brought nothing but further despair, making me dig the grave for my shattered glass-sanity ever deeper and, more like than not, prolonged the psychosis and made the path toward stability and sanity, healing and functionality a longer and more winding path. There is neither rest nor solace to be found in social media. The technology itself is neither good nor bad, of course. It is as technology is – completely neutral and dependent upon those that wield the tools and how they act and behave. It is a damned shame, then, that people tend to not know how to use their tools. Or their brains. Because the brain is most definitely a tool that can be sharpened and put to good use, were people only able to let go of the external world and the perceived happiness it brings for a little while to seek solace and happiness within, through meditation and deep introspection. And solitude. People, by and large, tend to gather their happiness from the input of other people. And only that, social pack-animals that we are. We are scared of solitude. This neglects the other, far more permanent and important happiness, which is finding solace and comfort in oneself, being safe and secure in who one is and – hacky as it well may sound – knowing oneself completely.
This also includes knowing ones abilities and what one is able to do. Or not able to do. Which of course translates into various DIY-projects. Having the strength, the belief in oneself that one will be able to complete the task at hand is not necessarily something that comes easily and fluently. In particular in these days, where mockery is thrown about at all things traditionally considered masculine.
I don’t think it is too much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine that traditionally masculine tasks, tools, abilities and so forth and so on is not something young men subjected to the ridicule of all things masculine on a daily basis cultivate all that easily. It is far easier to throw the traditionally masculine aside, to neglect and forget it as some shameful relic of the past than it is to cultivate it. That is to say – far easier to do on a superficial level. On a deeper level of consciousness, however, I fear that it is not all that easy. For the urges, the drive, the longing for the – for lack of a more fitting word – divine will still be there, festering in the subconscious, gnawing and biting and burning for wanting to come out and play, to be unfolded as the natural part of himself that it truly is. And all this and all that and all of the other which he has been told and taught as the gospel according to the feminist hive-mind is wrong and is bad and is poor within him lies neglected and dying for lack of nurture and sustenance, for shame and ridicule and all the clucking of the hive-mind, the buzz and the drone.
This becomes, of course, particularly confusing when he is told one thing and then shown the other. That is: the traditional expectations is still very much alive and well where men are concerned, enforced and rigidly expected by women he may wish to date and the society which surround him. Chivalry is expected. He shall still provide and he shall still protect, even as he is shamed for doing just that. He shall not, however, expect anything in return where the traditional gender-roles are concerned. He shall be enslaved to the role which he is shamed for wanting to fulfil. And she shall be free to do whatever, lest he be labelled a foul misogynist and abuser of his partner or prospective mate.
Should you be interested in some elaboration on these ideas, I delve into it in some rambling depth in my piece: ”What makes a man suicide? Rambling on traditional expectations and Suicide.”, which you can find on my blog or on YouTube or – preferably—BitChute.
I am aware that it may seem like a bit of a stretch, going from DIY to traditional expectations and shaming of all things masculine. The way I see it, it is interconnected and intertwined, which I think the comment on Facebook which I mentioned above points to directly. For feminism claims the eradication of traditional gender-what-cha-ma-call-its whilst expecting, and in no small way celebrating, the traditionally masculine… when it benefits women, and only then. Which, of course, protect and provide does. Now, obviously, a small planter built and small plants grown is not the biggest example of protect and provide. It still is an example, though, as I showcased my ability to build something that would hold something that would provide my family with food, even if it was not much food. And even if it was used for home-brewing. Home-brewing is, at the heart of it, only a week or two of fermentation removed from a reliable source of food.
And there is the thing of it, in my mind – men are drawn to these kinds of practical projects, in no small way due to their biological drive and innate desire to protect and to provide. This is not to say that men don’t do these things solely for themselves or merely for the pure enjoyment of it. That is not at all what I am speculating.
What I am speculating is that this drive to do things for oneself is a desire firmly rooted and embedded in the biology of men, a way to show and to prove that they are prime examples of their species, much like the Bowerbird and the nests he builds to impress and attract a mate. (Which is something of the most astonishing beauty; more amazing than I believe I have ever seen before.) We are really not as far separated from animals and from nature as we believe ourselves to be. Evidently so, if one but opens ones eyes and watches the behaviour of most animals and compare that with the behaviour of humanity at large. Particularly when attracting a mate. This goes for both men and women. We showcase our strengths based on what we know, deep down on a biological, reptilian-brain level, that any potential mate would desire. And we hide our flaws and weaknesses based on the same. We accentuate strength, beauty, youth, fertility, self-reliance, etc. etc. etc. in the most primitive, the most primal manner. Whilst subduing and hiding weaknesses, various faults and flaws, etc. etc. etc.
Simply put; some of the few things that separate us from the rest of the animal-kingdom is our intellect – which, more often than not, creates three new problems for every solution – and our nebulous, vapourwave-like civilizations and societies that are, as these things go, here in a flash and gone in an instant. It is built and it falls to ruin. And we believe that we have learned something the next time we rebuild. Then the process repeats.
All the while we believe ourselves separated from and, ultimately, superior to animals and to nature, never realizing that we are of the same thing.
All the while, we take things so incredibly serious, so absurdly seriously in fact that we feel some strange and peculiar need to categorize everything, to fit everything within neatly labelled boxes of this or of that. And we have the gall, the absurd arrogance to believe that smaller and smaller subcategories will fix all our problems when it, in reality, only creates more problems. For every category, every simple label and neat little box need its own sub-categories, need its own neat little labels that need their own and need their own, and so forth and so on. And every label, every category, every nefarious little box artificially creates and inflates a problem that must be solved through more labels and subcategories within subcategories.
So men doing what men tend to do, and women doing what women tend to do in general need their own labels, their own categories. And these need their own, and those need their own. On and on and on. And that must be fixed and mended in some way, because we are just as opposed to labels and categories for the simplicity that they bring as we are drawn towards them for the simplicity that they bring.
And all this instead of accepting and cherishing things the way that they are; instead of going with the flow of nature, the stream of time, the way of things as things are. Instead of accepting and celebrating, we slice, split and divide to infinity and beyond. We overcomplicate where we should just accept. Then we fight what we have made overly complicated, then we complain that things are so complicated, failing to realize that the only reason things are so complicated is because we made them so complicated in the first place.
And the solution is simple. Let people do as people do. Let people live as people wish to live. Go with what is natural. Don’t shame masculine behaviour in men. Don’t shame feminine behaviour in women. For that is the natural flow-and-glow of things; that is the river, the wind, the Tao, if you wish. Conversely – do not shame feminine behaviour in men or masculine behaviour in women. A real man does exactly what the fuck he wants. And so does a real woman. If that is traditional or not, who the fuck has any right to meddle? Or to care? Life is far too short for these small petty grievances, far too short to let it be bogged down by fighting things that come natural, by splitting, dividing, sub-dividing and so forth and so on. For, in the end, it does nothing but create more complication, more conflict, more ridiculously unnecessary time wasted that could be spent more wisely on something more constructive than fighting what is, in essence, biology and nature.
We tend to do as we tend to do, which is to say that we tend to do what we are wired to do. The differences between the sexes are evident in all animals. And humanity is no exception. We have just grown so smart that we have allowed ourselves to become arrogant in our proclaimed cleverness to the point of complete and utter stupidity.
This is not to say that one should accept everything from everyone based solely on the argument that “it is my nature that drives me to this destructive behaviour”. Of course not. That would be absolutely ridiculous. We are responsible for our own behaviours, in the end. And that includes how we treat others – man, woman and animal alike. We have grown clever enough to not run on pure instinct. This does not, however, mean that the instincts are not there. Ultimately, the main purpose of any biological organism is to reproduce before they die. Which means that, on a deeply subconscious level, most of what we do is done to attract a mate of the opposite sex.
And needlessly complicating matters does nothing but complicate matters needlessly. If there is one thing that you can count on humanity to do, it is to complicate matters to the point of absolute ridiculousness.
Just as I have done in this ramble.
God damn it.
Moiret’s Book, Howling at a Slutwalk Moon:
Vol 1 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/107571074X
Vol 1 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TZTPDPR
Vol 2 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075714184
Vol 2 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TZR25NL
Vol 1 Illustrated Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075717094
Vol 2 Illustrated Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1075723078