It’s the current controversy on the blogosphere. Kim Du Toit’s rant on The Pussification Of The Western Male. After reading a couple of related responses including the one from Kim’s wife and Spoon’s I thought I’d add my two cents. In the interest of being erudite.

His tone is a rant and he uses semantically loaded verbiage but he has a lot to say. It is OK for guys to be guys and want to do guy stuff. It is also good for men to show leadership in family, politics and life in general. The problem I have with his essay is it doesn’t seem to me to show an alternative that is good. I don’t want guys to abuse women or get drunk all the time, or abandon their wives and family because they feel slighted by a wife’s off-hand comment.

Having read Kim’s site for awhile I don’t think he is really saying that either. But some people could take it that way.

The problem I see, and Spoons touches on it, is there is no standard for manhood put forth that elevates people. The Man Show, which I enjoy, is not about men being better, its about them being worse. Of course people/women look at it and say its horrible, because it shows men as undisciplined hedonists. As an aside I don’t watch it anymore because I feel the new hosts go over the line. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Guys should be able to get drunk once in a while like Kim said, but the optimal word is once in a while.

Bachelor Party

I think my recent bachelor party experience was an example of how the pussification has effected us white suburbanites.

First the bride laid down some guidelines about how we couldn’t go anywhere that “exploited women”. By this she meant a strip club. There are a number of things wrong with this statement.

First, in keeping with Kim’s line of thought, she really had no right to make such a demand. The point of a bachelor party is to let the groom experience all the things he experienced as a bachelor and will not be able to experience after marriage without the Mrs. approval. She doesn’t get to set limits. Those have already been set by the groom in his life before marriage. Now in our case we weren’t out to get him laid, because we are all conservative men would have a problem with him fucking someone with out commitment. We wouldn’t have let him do it. But we were dang well going to get him some titty to look at. It should be said that J wouldn’t have fucked even if we wanted him to because that was his limit. His standards. If his bride didn’t like his standards, or didn’t trust him to live up to them, she shouldn’t be marrying him in the first place.

As an aside if she really thinks stripper are exploited, she knows nothing about the economics of strip clubs.

Secondly all the guys were really excited about going. We kept referring to as a “free pass” for the guy related activities of the evening. Wives aren’t threatened or insulted by their husbands going out with a bunch of guys and getting a little drunk, looking at beautiful women’s mostly naked bodies and acting like an idiot, when it is a bachelor party.

Kim might say you shouldn’t need a pass from your wife for a guys night out. But the fact is you want to live with this women and maintain her respect for you, so the two of you have to work out a balance. Your wife has a expectation of a standard of behavior from you. This expectation should have been worked out between you before this. If you disagree on the standard, there are deeper problems in your marriage.

Another interesting thing is all most all the guys want to do it again. There just isn’t enough guy’s night stuff in our lives.

Standards

I think a lot of the problems, the weakness, of the American male is they no longer have standards and discipline. These are not valued in post-modern America. Standards are no longer valued because they are based on the belief that somethings are right and somethings are wrong.

Including the belief somethings are right and wrong. If you think otherwise you are wrong.

It is too long a discussion to get into on why we don’t believe in right and wrong anymore, but we don’t. In America you can’t say someone else’s beliefs are wrong, heck you can’t even say yours is right.

No where was this more evident than the protests surrounding the Promise Keepers movement in the 90s. Women’s movements and the liberal media went ape shit over it. They said it was turning back the clock on equality. But you know who appreciated it the most? The wives and female friends of Promise Keepers. Because most women really do want a man who followed the 7 Promises. Remember promise #1 was already a given for most of the people involved in PK. They were already Christians. They already had a belief system that said a man was the head of the house, whatever that meant. And PK wasn’t a political movement. It was about changing individual men’s lives. The women’s movement was scared because they felt PK was out to control the government and make women “submissive” again.

What were they afraid of? That men would have male friends(#2)? That they wouldn’t cheat on their wives (#3)? That they would love, honor, defend, guide and just be generally be active in their families(#4)? That they would be active in their churches (#5)? They would make friends with men of other races and learn their life experiences (#6)?

Discipline

Even when men have standards, they don’t do any good if you don’t follow them. Discipline is the ability to follow up on promises. It is doing what you don’t want to do. Anyone can do things they want to do. It takes effort to do things you don’t want to do.

When I was in college and took a class on marriage and family relations the professor said something that stuck with me “The goal of all discipline is self discipline.” When you make a rule and use force to get your kids to follow it, you are teaching them discipline. When you make a rule then let them break it you are crippling them for life. It is those with discipline that succeed in life. They are the people who do the important things that need to be done but are no fun. They fight the fights. Life in America is easy and we don’t have to work our discipline muscles very often and our kids, our boys, don’t either.

It seems to me God made men and women different so that they complement one another. Fathers lay down the law and enforce it to the letter. Mothers comfort and relate to the harshness of life. If one of these is missing, you get a person with no discipline or no heart. It is a father’s role to guide a boy – or push – into things that scare him. He should know Dad is there to protect him, but that he needs to strive on his own. Mother is there to comfort him. She is there to tell him other people’s feelings matter. To point out when he needlessly hurts others. A boy with both of these influences will grow up respecting others and strong in his beliefs. This is what is missing in America. Either the dads aren’t there – because the divorced, where never there, or are working all the time – or they are taking on the female role, comforting and making life easier for their boys.

I don’t think the college rape problem is a reaction to pussification. I think is a lack of discipline. If there is any area of American culture that is out of control it is sexuality. And society seems to be OK with it. The problem is when you get a drunk aggressive male in a situation where he can get some pussy just by using a little force, he’s likely to do it, because the act isn’t that important. It lacks meaning. It’s like stealing a beer.

In the past sex was about marriage. It meant commitment. It was important and taking it was a major thing. It changed the woman forever. Now sex is about pleasure, and is no big deal. So rape, a crime of violence, goes from being just under murder in importance, to just above bullying.

Discipline and standards means a college guy knows deep down in his soul and right in the front of his mind, that if he can’t handle his liquor he shouldn’t drink. That force is to be used only in defense, and not as a way to get what you want. That women are to be treated like his mother or sister until he is ready to treat them like his wife.

And if a man lives a disciplined life he can be allowed more leeway to do wild things. A guy who has been faithfully married for 10 years can go to strip club without his wife worrying. But a guy who’s been married a year and already cheated on his wife once can’t. Once you’ve shown you can hold your liquor, you can go get drunk once in a while. The problem is many young men think they deserve to be treated like older men, when they haven’t proven themselves yet.