Sons of Mary

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Wherever you were, whomever you were with, whatever you were doing, hope it was fun, fulfilling, fantastic and full of Christmas cheer!



Quite by accident, I think I may have just experienced one of my most meaningful Christmases ever.
Unconventioanl as it was, I think I may have peaked as far as Christmases go :-)

It was always going to be a poignant Christmas this year. Quite possibly, my last in a certain city. Quite the accident that I was in this city at all at this time of this year, but so it happened.

Usually, my preferred way of celebrating Christmas is the midnight Mass. Always has been. Family tradition.

Not this time. Events conspired against me and I found myself battling to make it on time...and failing miserably.

Enter Plan B:
Morning mass at a distant but favoured church. For sentimental reasons, I HAD to go to Christmas Mass at this particular church.

But how to get there?
20 km away.
No public transport.
Didn't feel like driving.

Enter crazy idea No 2.

Run.
Run 20km to favoured church, attend Mass, run back home in time for Christmas dinner.
Negotiate hard with other female members of the household to be let off cooking duty :-)

And now I am firmly on the rota to prepare our first meal of 2014 :-)

It was worth it.

The solitude (an introverted nerd's paradise!).
The quiet.
The beauty of winter stillness.

This is the ONLY Christmas carol that even begins to describe this mood:

The highlight of this little descent into insanity (as some of my nearest and dearest call my foray into Christmas madness) was just when I began to 'hit the wall'. Um, I don't mean I suddenly aged during my run :-) I am using 'runner speak' here, as opposed to Manosphere terminology :-)

A group of cyclists passed me. I think I had passed them earlier on in my run as they whizzed past me on the opposite side of the deserted streets. But it was only when I got to the centre of this great city and in need of a serious distraction to take my mind of a niggling right knee injury that I spotted them again and this time, I took notice of them.

They must have numbered about twenty. They were all men. They looked young but I cannot be sure of their ages. Dressed in funny Father Christmas hats. Made me laugh, despite my right knee agony.

The leader of this group had a ghetto blaster attached to his handlebars. This was what was playing (but in base rather than soprano, in a Taizé-like fashion):

I hadn't heard this ancient hymn in ages, so it immediately grabbed my attention. I guess that was the point. Confused tourists finding out too late that nothing was open in this city on Christmas Day stopped to gawk at this little party of strange cyclists, no doubt thinking as I was, 'what the...'

I stopped to listen to them and watch them as they cycled past me. Then I realised something else. They were saying the rosary.
I wonder if they were priests or seminarians?

I will never know.

But I do know one thing:

I had just seen Sons of Mary cycle past me on Christmas Day 2013. That was the most precious Christmas gift I could have received!

Perhaps I have alludded to this before - forgive me if I have.
But I cannot help myself.

I adore Sons of Mary. For me, the ultimate 'Catholic Game' would be if a man whipped out his 'Miraculous Medal' or 'scapula' during a romantic date...

OK, enough of Catholic Girl weirdness :-)

Any man who professes to love Our Lady is a friend of mine. Indeed he is my brother.

These South American Sons of Mary are family...
They are worthy of respect.

Everyone loved Pope John Paul II for his extrovert personality. For one member of my family, however, the only reason she adored him was that he was known to be a Marianphile.
It must be genetic or something...
I seem to have the same affinity for 'Sons of Mary'.

My old school was a convent school with the name of one of the titles of Mary. The nuns there made sure we understood that we were to be daughters of Mary. Throughout our lives.
Sure, we have all failed on various levels. Afterall, none of us will ever be perfect. But I hope we at least get full marks for trying :-)

So I guess it makes sense that I have this strong sense of kinship with men who have a genuine love for Our Lady. This love cannot be faked. It is a beautiful thing when witnessed.
For example, on Christmas morning by a group of cyclists with funny hats on.


In other news, I thought I knew all the titles of Our Lady.
Queen of Peace.
Our Lady of Victories.
Our Lady of Sorrow.
Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
Queen of Angels...
And so on.

This Christmastide, I have come across a new one. I had never heard this one before!

Mary Undoer of Knots.

Has anyone of you heard this one before? To my eternal shame, I hadn't even heard of St. Irenaeus...

But I am so pleased to be acquainted with this Our Lady. I like the idea that she can undo knots, for some odd reason...


Finally, I leave you with a poem.
Sent to me by none other than a very kind 'Son of Mary'.

I am not a natural poet. But even I have more reverence for poetry than the mother in this film :

 

 

  

 

Mother: My boys don't go to your school no more, and that's gonna be it.

Teacher: You took 'em out of school?

Mother: You're damn right I did. I saw what they were bringing home... poetry and sh*t.

 

Hahahahahahaha!

 

That scene continues to amuse me to this day...

(Do excuse the utter irreverence, I beseech thee).

 



 

Here is the poem: 

 

 

I Can Do Anything Better Than You

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I can do anything better than you.

Anything you can do, I can do better.

Why can’t I get you to say that I Do?

 

Women like me sail as one of the crew.

Fish don’t need bicycles; fish need it wetter.

I can do anything better than you.

Adam, you slept late; to Hong Kong I flew.

I’m a dealmaker, self-starter, go-getter:

Why can’t I get you to say that I Do?

 

Whispering underlings call me a shrew.

I build my business; my man is a debtor.

I can do anything better than you.

Eggs I have frozen for motherhood too.

Marriage should fit like your favorite sweater.

Why can’t I get you to say that I Do?

 

Just when we women were getting our due!

Dizzy with freedom from breaking each fetter.

I can do anything better than you.

Why can’t I get you to say that I Do? 

 

 

This is not how daughters of Our Lady think.

This is not what daughters of Our Lady do.

This is not what Sons of Our Lady deserve.

That it is so in many households is  a travesty.

 

Food for thought... 

 

 

May you all experience a happy and holy start to 2014.

 

And to the Sons of Our Lady, may the ultimate feminine woman wrap you in her warm arms and keep you snug in her motherly embrace. 

 

 

 



The case against 'Go get a surrogate!'

This post is a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible image that popped into my head a few days ago.
You can blame PVW for this one.
(LOL, it is always someone else's fault, don'tcha know!).


PVW sent me this link:

I became fixated on one idea, and now I really cannot get it out of my mind.

Here is the source of my latest problem:


In that article the case of the fatherless daughter is put before us. And how unfair it is that she is barred from a father-daughter dance. Fair enough. It is not the daughter's fault for not having a  father. Perhaps Mum kicked him out. Perhaps Father was a dead-beat who walked. Perhaps he died tragically. But make no mistake - she will pay for this lack in her life. More on her later.

In that same article, the concept of mother-son events are also mentioned. But what of the boy with no mother? He would undoubtedly be barred from such events too! Again, not his fault he has no mother. He too will surely pay.

And in my overactive imagination I got to thinking...what happens when we have a world consisting solely of children missing one parent? What would it look like?

We already have plentiful fatherless children. No problem there...we could throw a lot overboard and we wouldn't miss them.

Don't understand that reference? It comes from a joke an Indian friend of mine made. Only an Indian could have made this joke, by the way. Anyone else would be 'racist', of course:

A British man, a Norwegian, a Swiss man and an American were on a boat with cargo representing their respective countries on board. Soon the boat started to capsize.
In an attempt to solve this problem, the men decided to offload the boat, starting wih the merchandise that was most common in each of their countries.

The British guy stepped up and said: 'Well, in my country, we have loads of tea, so let's throw all the tea on board out into the sea'. So they did. Things got a bit better, but they were still in trouble.

Then the Norwegian said, 'OK, in my country we have a lot of snow, so let's throw the snow overboard'. So they did, and thngs improved, but not by much.

Then the Swiss guy got up and said, 'we have lots of expensive watches, so we can afford to throw all the watches overboard'. So they did. Again an improvement, but something else had to go.

Then the American stood up and said, 'in the States, we have Indian computer engineers coming out of our ears, we can sure lose a few, no sweat'. So they threw into the sea the computer engineers.

Terrible joke, I know...but you get the picture...


And now, with all the negative consequences of feminism rapidly coming to light, men are responding quite logically with their own solutions...in an attempt not just to 'hurt' or punish women, but in some instances to nullify them. Indeed annihilate them.

I won't rehash John Galt's words here. A few posts back, I recounted my reaction to them. Chilling and disturbing.

The reason I found his words disturbing is not so much that I want to see women destroy society with no consequences. Being a woman myself, I do love other women, (because I love myself). But alas, not that much.

It's not all about us women. I hope that much is clear.

I do firmly believe that some women are just not suited to marriage, because they really are incapable of giving a man what he wants and needs. Such women should not be given the time of day by men. I fully believe that. The same goes for men who really are not cut out for relationships of any sort with women.

But the (right) solution to feminism and 'choice motherhood' is not surrogate mothers for single fathers, or worse, artificial wombs and the like.
Two wrongs definitely don't make a right.

In much the same manner as I felt strongly against the mother in this post, I think Cristiano Ronaldo's dodgy parenthood is also questionable...


We all accept that where one parent is missing, the child suffers in some way, even if there is a 'substitute' parent. Where is that substitute at 3am? The substitute is never as good as the original, as we all know. So why do we pacify ourselves with poor alternatives? (Rhetorical question).

We can spot the child of a singe mother (at least the worst kind) by now. Here comes the generalisation: usually narcissistic, they lack the drive that fathered children have. The women are poor examples of femininity and the men are overly supplicative, something which hurts their chances of success with women. These people are sorted as far as social skills go though, in the sense that they are usually extrovert. They identify strongly with the feminine, which explains why perhaps some of the men turn out to be 'manginas'.

But what about motherless children? This sample population is small, granted. But I think there are accurate characerisations of them in some films. Take 'Firelight' for example. Both Eliazbeth Laurier and Louise Godwin are motherless children, the former more than the latter, who gets a break when her mother shows up.
The kid in this movie is also a classic example.
Introverted, insular, generally highly principled, very disciplined, but alas, they have deep emotional issues.
These people identify strongly with the masculine: in Elizabeth's case, she very nobly decided to pay off her father's debts. In her era, the only option available to her was the 'surrogate mother' route. Have a baby for a strange man and give up said baby? No problem.
Ms. Laurier was thinking like a man. Nature taught her a feminine lesson she would never forget. She spends the next seven years searching for Charles Godwin and Louisa...
I daresay, a woman with a mother in her life from a young age would never do what she did.

In both cases of an absent parent, there is an imbalance in the child. Emotionally, psychologically, financially, whatever.

Life is sometimes unfair to some of us: sometimes a parent dies when a child is very young. Sometimes there are very serious reasons where a parent must be removed from a child's life. Barring these legitimate cases...

So, 'Children of women', meet 'Children of men'.

Trainwreck...

Do we really want this future? Aren't things already bad enough for us yet in the SMP? Do we really want to reduce parenthood into yet another 'his and hers' war?



The use of the phrase 'Children of men' was no accident on my part. The film with the same name is a truly chilling experience. Do we really want to go there?
(Rhetorical question).

So the feminists banished men from the home front and now there are long queues at the sperm bank.
And the response from men?
Get a surrogate!
Get an artificial womb!

Do you really mean this? Have you thought this through, all the way to the ugly and bitter conclusion?

Is anyone thinking about the children?
(Not a rhetorical question).

The missing question

Abramovic.
Kazanov.
Eriksson.
O' Mahoney.
Ben Laden.
Mendelssohn.
MacDonald.
Gruzinsky.
Bin Moosa.

Not to talk of
Leninskaya.
Jόnsdόttir.
Jankowska.
Petrova.


What do all these names have in common?

They are all patronymic.

They all mean 'son of' or 'daughter of' a man. Or a patriarchical community of some sort, as in the case of O'X which could mean either 'grandson of X' or 'from X village'...

In many traditional societies, a person is defined by who their father is.

In the bible for instance, a visitor is always asked... 'who is your father?'
You better have an answer to that question - otherwise, you may never gain entry into anyone's home.
Of note is the reference to 'son of X' ad nauseum in old testament books. No-one is just them. They are always 'son of' someone else...

Even Our Lord was 'son of God', or 'son of Joseph', or 'son of Man'.
He was 'son of someone'.
In keeping with Hebrew tradition.

I am intrigued that at the transfiguration, God chose to say (about Jesus): This is my son...
Why did he not just say, this is Jesus...?

His son.
Even Jesus needed a father?
Fascinating...



I love studying names.
One of my more nerdy endeavours :-)

Even in matrilineal societies (another of my pet geeky loves), patriarchy rules. You may inherit property and titles from your mother, but it is your father who gives you your identity.
Your soul.

Is it any wonder that nowadays with 50% of households with missing fathers in them, there are lost souls in ubiquitous abundance?


Who is your father?

In many ways, there was a time when it was almost always a bad thing to have this question addressed to you, as  a child, if it was asked within your own social circles. It meant you had messed up somehow.
Someone wanted to know who to 'give a talking to' because you had done something wrong.
Because you had been naughty and someone wanted to know whose shame you had come to embody.

Best if you steered clear of this question :-)

But that was then.

Now, no-one asks this question.

When Miley Cyrus was making an exhibition of herself on the world stage a few weeks ago, save for a few Manosphere bloggers who were posing the question, 'Where the heck is Ray?', no-one wanted to know about the father.
I remember when Lawrence Fishburne's daughter started to go down the wrong path. He was ostensily hurt. But that's as far as public fatherly input went.

Non-entity.
Not relevant.
Persona non grata.


Perhaps in Mr. Cyrus' case, this is a good thing. Afterall, he is spared some personal shame, no?
But what does this say about society in general?

This says that we accept the status quo.
That father is no longer the spiritual head of the family.

No-one need know who or where he is.

He disappeared and no-one went looking for him.
Should he come back, no-one would notice.



This is the missing question: Who is your father?




Perhaps I should give due credit to modern society.
Perhaps modern society actually understands the gravity of this question.
Which is precisely why we choose not to ask this question anymore.

Perhaps we are not as dumb as we seem :-)

Excellent.
This then, is in fact a good sign.

No-one is arguing about the sacredness of motherhood. It is plain to see how important a mother is.

But somehow we have forgotten how important a father is.

How did this happen?
And more importantly, how can we restore fatherhood to its former glory?

Are we in a double bind?

Oh the shattering soul-destroying and wretched sound of abject failure ! I can hear it now as it rings out in every conceivable corner of the room!

After years of 'the search for the truth' I really cannot believe I am back to Square One. Indeed Square zero.

But such is life. I am where I am. What can I say?

Is it normal? Is this the 'who said the path to progress was smooth'? playing itself out?

I had intended to write a post about father figures, but suddenly, there appears this emergency that I cannot ignore for much longer :-)

I honestly thought I'd got it licked in posts like 'What's a woman for' and such like.

But I guess asking 'what's a woman for' is a very different question from 'what do men want'.

Is it just that there is a continuum and every man has his own little 'niche' (unhelpful for the individual woman who needs some concrete advice) or is there a block of basic traits that men want (helpful!) that would enlighten the fairer sex?

I know I am chronically confused about most things, but this particulat question is starting to take the proverbial biscuit :-)


WHAT DO MEN WANT?

Do men actually know? Or are they 'waiting till they see it' sort of thing...

Is part of the problem in the SMP that men are 'undecided' and will take what they can get until the next best thing comes along? Is it as random as that? Or are there definite, solid, unwavering criteria that men will adhere to, no matter what?

In this sense, only MGTOW (and of course happily married men) are doing the 'stoic' thing - for they have 'opted out' until they get what they want, and only what they want, no detours, no compromises. The full shebang, or nothing. But they are absolutely clear on what it is they are looking for, and do get what they are looking for. Are these guys 'luckier' than other men, or do they have a formula that we beseech them to share with the rest of us?


To date, only Grasshopper has been totally honest (as far as I can tell) on this issue.

I tassled with Grasshopper when he declared that he wanted a woman with a job, because he needed his woman to share the financial responsibility of the household. He seemed undeterred that her attention would be divided threeways as a result: childcare (and this may well take priority when the children are young - as it should be), him, and her job.

Other men declare that they want a woman who wants to be 'pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen' but go all shy and refuse to answer the question as to whether they therefore expect to shoulder the full finacial responsibility for the household for as long as it is needed.

Others, like John Galt have choice words for the stay at home mother (SAHM). 'Entitled traditionalist' is the best of them, I suppose.
Is he right in believing that women like that are 'entitled'? Am I missing something in John Galt's message?
If John is right, are we falling for the feminist message that unless a woman is doing paid work, her contribution is useless? We women as a group have generally fallen for that porker, but have men too? Are we wrongly judging women as men, and if so, is it because women have 'asked for it' with the whole 'equality' thing?

No problem if that is the answer. I would just like to know. Yes, the truth hurts, and I am not averse to hearing it :-)
I really do prefer the pain of hearing the 'troof' to the pain of eternal ignorance.



Some men like hardworking women as a rule. M3 recently posted about medical (and dental) women. It was an ode of sorts to the working woman.

I was however at odds with this statement:
I should have asked M3 to elaborate! Perhaps I shall invite him here to do so.

"To the female cardiologist, (who was much older than my image might indicate, as in grey hairs old) who showed a dedication to her profession by not leaving it in order to have children, or if she did have children, stuck it out in medicine, made a career out of it and gave back to the people what she got educated to do."

M3 is praising a woman for abandoning maternity in favour of her job?

Is it any wonder I am confused, when all over the Manosphere 'careerist femc*nts' are being mocked and shamed everyday?
:-)
Or again, am I missing something here? Do I misunderstand M3?


If every woman followed Deti's advice of

1) Be pretty

2) Be thin (and preferably young, as in, younger than  your intended love interest)

3) Be nice

4) Be available


I still suspect that this alone would not be enough.

Is there something my esteemed male readers are not telling me?
Are they hiding something crucial from me?



Or am I just listening to the wrong guys on this? Is John Galt so far out in his own world that I should not take his message at face value, even though he does have a valid point to make?

We discussed the 4 Fs in the post about what a woman is for.

None of these include a 'w' (as in work). And yet, men go in for working women all the time. And certain non-working women are in fact excluded from the dating pool.

This man caused a series of controversies with his 'list'. The bit about the 'woman with a job' went under the radar, but that is the one that interests me on this post. (He caused the biggest controversy when he excluded a certain race from his list of desirables. I am not interested (for the moment) in that racial aspect - just the bit about 'work').

"I will not date a girl that does not have a job or career."

To be fair, most of this list sounds reasonable. The only comment to make about it, in a negative sense, is that it is unusually long for a man's list. It is a bit too prescriptive. It is we women that usually have such lofty aspirations in the dating world :-)
Also, some of the items in the list are rather inconsistent, eg. he wants a feminine and young woman (i.e. in the childbearing age group) but he does not want her to have had children before, or to have children with him. Most feminine women do want children, so this contradiction in the list of desirable qualities may prove fruitless for this man.

Is this man also an outlier?

If the argument is, well we go in for 'women with jobs' because they are all working now! then fair enough. But do you prefer women with more homemaking tendencies?

Or would you rather denigrate them and call them 'entitled b*tches' because they are not out there earning their own money?

It is not that simple, I know. But the inconsistencies make me wonder if men are just as confused about what they want as women are, but are too proud to let on.

Is John Galt an extreme outlier (having arrived there as a consequence of events beyond his control) or is he plum in the centre when it comes to the breadth of preferences professed by men in general?

I am still in the dark here.

I had expected to have progressed beyond this point after 2 years of blogging, but this is a sign for me that I need to be more patient with myself.

In the meantime, if you all don't mind dragging yourselves back to rehash this subject, hopefully you could get me out of the dark abyss of confusion that I find myself in.

Much appreciated.
And please feel free to colour me confused until we thrash this one out until it is clear as glass.

Explain it to me like I am a six year old :-)

Please.

Men civilise (women), women socialise (men)

Um, I ruffled a few feathers...

:-)

Not unusual, by any yardstick.
What disappointed me in the case though, is that I did it twice in quick succession, once online, and then (not having lerned anything from that episode), repeated my mistake in real life.

So I am full of mea culpas as I take a step back and retract my words...

Or rather (hello Hamster!), I rearrange my words to reflect better what I really meant to say :-)

Hahahaha, I know exactly what someone here (mentioning no names) would say to my little hamsterisation exercise :-)

I said once that women civilise men. Whilst that sounds amazingly inflammatory to my now educated ears, I think it is worth explaining where I was coming from.

In a woman's world (to which I wholeheartedly belong even if I like to distance myself from the seedier aspects of Planet Feminine), I have to say that every man is viewed like this (below), due to some programming in the recesses of the female brain:

Every. Man.

No matter if he is your father, brother, boyfriend, husband, the guy in the motorbike repair shop, the doctor in the nearest paediatric department, your cousin twice removed or the pizza deliverer.

Every man looks like this in our minds.

But this is not necessarily a bad thing, lol.

This image is quite enticing if Mr. Caveman happens to be to our liking.
I know, little comfort to the unwanted cavemen out there.
What can I say, I sympathise.



Because women instinctively see men as somehow raw, or unrefined (and believe me, this property of masculinity is one that women are naturally programmed to respond to, and are therefore drawn to, which is why 'jerk' or 'A-hole' Game seems to work so well on women who operate in terre-à-terre mode - sorry, I just cannot translate this phrase - it conveys so much of the meaning I actually intend when left in French), there is a uniquely feminine drive to refine men - i.e. shape them to our liking, and more importantly, to make men useful or profitable in some way, to us.

Hold your horses! It's not as bad as it sounds!


Now, this system works very well, if:

1) The man is aware of this need in a woman, but is able to circumnavigate it in a way that he chooses. He takes things in his stride. He lets her 'use' him, when it pleases him, and is firm when he knows she is at or close to his personal boundary. In other words, he is an alpha who is able to dodge or simply refuse to respond to ALL of her 'fitness tests'. This is also good for the woman, because she sees him as 'strong' (necessary for her attraction to him, and in many ways is a way for her to be civilised by him - see below). It is a two-way street which works beautifully when both parties do their part and are in sync.

2) The woman actually has good intenetions towards said man. She needs to influence him in some way such that he provides and protects her (and any small people that pop up from nowhere :-) but at the same time she also realises that there are certain needs of his which MUST be catered for. It is not all about her. Ditto as in 1) above.

3) She is selective about who she plays this game with. She does not feel entitled to use all the men she encounters in this way. If 3) is the case, then  2) cannot be true of her.
Selectivity is an important aspect of this dynamic.


My mistake was the use of the word 'civilise'.

Having drawn you a picture of how women view men (from a psycho-social standpoint only, I have to swiftly add!), you can see (I hope) why I use the word 'civilse', no?

Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian are in serious need of civilising, no?

But alas, I show my ignorance of the wider world view.
I have come now to understand that the word I was looking for was 'socialise'.

I often trip up on words even though I love the field of philology. My usual excuse is that I am polylingual and direct translations from one language to another do not always work and I end up saying something I did not mean.

But there is no excuse for this howler!

Which is why I come on bended knee (figuratively speaking). Hence the mea culpas.
This mistake was borne out of ignorance, and I am glad I have learned this.

The only influence a woman need have on a man is one on a social scale.

This is one advantage women have over men. We are much more social creatures than men, even the most extrovert of men.

This is why, (despite the headache that comes with having a woman around! - hey, I understand your pain :-), men who have women around them are more socially involved (in general) than not. They thrive better in 'society'.

Politicians know this very well, for example.

Yes, groups of men have fun on their own - true enough.

But whatever it is, it could be socially 'improved', I think, by the presence of women (and I am not referring to the sexual sense at all). OK, it is better to have no woman around at all, than an unpleasant one, but let's stick to normal, pleasant, feminine women just for this post.

Groups of women can happily socialise all day without a man present. Women will socialise with whoever is around, until oblivion arrives :-)

This is one area where women really do not require a man's presence. Social interaction comes naturally to most women, even the shy/quiet/introverted ones. Rarely is a woman born without this 'switch', and rarer still is this switch never turned on at some time around puberty.


What women absolutely need from a man, though, is civilisation.

Women can easily go feral without the 'control' of a man, or men.

And I know I will get shot for this, but it is an observation that anyone who has eyes to see, has got to have made at some point in their life!

Men may look 'unsocial' and 'unrefined' to female eyes, but most men are born with the 'civilisation' switch which replaces the 'social' switch in women.

And, like in women, this switch gets turned on fully, when boys become men. But one can definitely see traces of this even in young boys...

The reason why women 'own' society is precisely because we hold the social key in life.
It is why in the SMP, a man's 'black and white' life can be made 'colourful' by a woman.

The reason men 'own' civilisation is due to their own unique traits which make them prone to building and creating the Framework for civilisation.
It is why women who 'break free' of men don't do well in life, and become caricatures of failed humanity. (I say this with regret, but it is nonetheless true).


It really is that simple when seen from a neutral standpoint with no emotional overlay.

And... it helps to get the terminology right.

My specific thanks to the man in real life who took offense at my mistake and corrected my language when it comes to this topic.

It is, I think, an important point to have smoothed out in my mind.

It means I get to correctly see men and women as they should be viewed, each with unique, but different and complementing strengths.

For it takes diferent skills to civilise, as it takes to socialise.
For the world to function correctly, both aspects of human life are needed.

No shame in having more of one than the other, or none of one and all of the other.

Bonding - what gives?

One of the biggest bugbears of the Manosphere is that modern women don't bond to men very well. Specifically, they don't bond well to their husbands.

I am interested in this subject.
Let's just say I am back to my curious self :-)

What's the story here? Can someone help me flesh out the salient points of bonding?
Can we debunk some of the false myths of bonding? Just for a laugh?

Why is there a complaint against women that we don't bond so well these days?
Is is a straightforward 'oxytocin overload' as a result of too much promiscuity?
That seems almost too simple to be true.

Let me explain.

Even promiscuous women feel strong bonds to their objects of affection. Um, so I hear :-)
So I don't think the problem there is with bonding per se.

But for sure, there is a problem. I concede that.

What, however is the problem?

I suppose the first question to ask is, is bonding necessary for long-term relationships or marriage?

It might seem like a stupid question to some, but I feel it is a necessary question, given the situation we find ourselves in. To get to the root of the problem, sometimes we really have to start at 'square one'.

I ask this question because the implication is that there has to be some sort of bond before marriage. And when this is missing, the marriage is doomed. This is the picture I get when I read this story:

I think Beverley Craven is an exceptionally beautiful woman. And what beautiful girls she has too! Her husband could not have been bad looking :-)
It is such a shame that her marriage has broken down.

But the reason Ms. Craven gives for her marital woes is that 'love' was missing before marriage. In this sense, she needed 'love' to bond her to her husband, and its absence made it impossible to stay with him.

Is this for real??

I don't understand. She had three children with a man she did not love?

How is that possible? Am I being naive again?


And what about the many marriages where an old parent or relative simply arranged the logistics and a man and a woman who had never met each other before found themselves married to each other. And they usually made it to 'till death do us part'.

See...I think that bonding is a dynamic process. No-one is truly bonded on day one. It slowly develops over time. In many ways, it is a retrospective diagnosis, no?

If dead people could talk, the morgue would be full of men and women declaring: 'Ah, that nag of a woman, I suppose she was my life's partner afterall', or 'that chauvinist pig I had to cook and clean for all those years, he wasn't so bad afterall...'


But...again I concede. If after sixteen years of marriage, or whatever the arbitrary time period is, if a woman feels that 'the bond' hasn't arrived yet, who am I to argue with her?

It is said that men bond better than women. I don't know what to make of this so-called 'truism' yet, but I am still 'analysing' this :-)

What is true, (to me) is that most men are certainly more respecting of a marriage bond than most women, especially modern women.

Inhererently, I have an issue with the 'truism' above because logically, it would seem more plausible that the sex with the more potent consequence of the hormone oxytocin, i.e. women, would be the one to 'bond' more.

But where things break down in my thought process is this: can one bond to many people?

A promiscuous man is not likely to bond to anyone. And certainly, the current wisdom is that neither can a promiscuous woman.
But what is confusing for me is that the latter statement is not true.

A promiscuous woman is not good 'wife material' but it seems to be a matter not related to her bonding ability, I find. Am I confounding hidden variables perhaps?

Here is a question:
Is this woman more or less likely to be a good wife one day?

She is quite abnormally bonded to her cuddle bunny. So she has what one would call 'oxytocin overload', lol.

Now don't get me wrong: I am not equating her problem with a promiscuous woman. The source of the oxytocin clearly counts :-)

But the question is, could she still live a normal life with a man one day? Is her oxytocin all used up on that lamb, or is there plenty more where that came from?

Indulge me.
I am in an intellectual muddle about this, as usual. But I think I could get to the truth of the matter with your help.

After 45 years of marriage, this is how Frank reacts to Marie's accusation that he doesn't love her in 'Everybody loves Raymond'. (Response exaggerated for effect :-) but you get the idea...
Men and women's idea of 'bonding' are clearly different!

The humanity of Man

"Take away his clothes and belongings. Put him in a bed. Remove his glasses and/or hearing aids or whatever else he needs to function as a human being. Then you have a man well and truly minimised."


I have been on a rather extended summer break. Which was wonderful. I hope yours was just as nice.

Now that the summer is drawing to a close (sob), I return to my beloved sanctuary.

I have been thinking about writing this post for a very long time. I just never had the time to sit down and formulate it properly, until now.

And the prompt for it came from an unusual place:
Someone made me laugh.
And I realised, in the midst of my laughter that that person had somehow managed to break past a barrier that most people don't even realise is there :-)
So I say 'bravo' to that person.
He may not even be aware that he had achieved a major 'victory'. But all the more fascinating to me, the silent observer...

So, before I confuse you any further, 4 questions:
Who am I talking about in the quote above?
Who is the utterer of the quote above that I am quoting?
Who made me laugh and why?
And (most important!) why does all this have any relevance to this post or this blog?

Patience, patience :-)

The quote above refers to...hospital patients!

Have you ever been an in-patient yourself? Do you visit friends and relatives in hospital?
Have you ever thought about why an in-patient needs to be in a simple, unattractive, mostly immodest hospital gown?

Is it because doctors and nurses need access to their bodies and these shapeless gowns are the only way possible for this to be facilitated?
False, for the most part.

Is it because it improves the care of the patient in any way?
False again.

So why...?
I don't know...
But someone made a point earlier (in another post) about some monkeys in a lift...and that certainly comes to mind here :-)

To put the above quote in context, I attend a lecture a long time ago when I was a student (um, yes, in my geeky days, lol). This lecture has stuck in my mind ever since. It was entitled 'The dignity of man' or some such, and was actually part of a wider set of lectures about Catholic teaching. The speaker was a brilliant woman whose explanantions as to why contraceptives exponentially reduce the dignity of women will stay with me forever...but let's not get sidetracked...

Her point was that it is oh so easy to strip someone of their dignity or humanity. In the case of a sick person, the vulnerability is already present. All you have to do to reduce his humanity further is to remove him from the familiar and plunge him further into the unknown. Take away his everyday clothes. Lock his wallet and keys away in 'a safe place' and take away his dentures...
And hospitals do this routinely, with no evidence that it improves the quality of care. In many ways, it reduces it, no?

The man who made me laugh was a hospital patient I saw walking around in his jeans and cotton shirt. He simply refused to change into hospital gear and the nurses were fed up trying to persuade him. So he was prancing about the ward not looking like a hospital in-patient whilst everyone else looked like they were.
I laughed when I saw him because he had somehow managed to retain his humanity in an environment where it is exceedingly easy to lose it.


Why is this relevant to this post?


I had a conversation with a fellow woman a while back which disturbed me. I hesitated to reproduce our conversation here as a 'field report' of some sort but I still may in the future, in which case I shall cross-reference this post.

The conclusion I came away with from that conversation is that the humanity of Man as opposed to Woman is in a level of jeopardy I hadn't quite grasped.

The woman I was speaking to is a Brit of Indian origin. She is one of the sweetest people I know. We were discussing an issue of a personal nature to her.
Which involved a man :-)

She had started out the discussion with a complaint against him. At the end of the discussion she made the insightful declaration that she had not in fact seen him as a human being, with his own needs, desires and choices. I was startled by how quickly she had made this turn-around, given that I had not really prompted it, but simply stood by as she came to this conclusion herself after her rant in which I was just a sound-board. But her admission pleased me, for her sake.

But thinking widely around the subject, I see something which I know is already obvious to you Sanctuaryites :-)

We as women are systematically trained to elevate the needs of ourselves over those of others.
Yes, I think feminism is a large part of this mechanism. But it is only a social engineer, and like all social engineers, it (in this regard at least) can be easily overcome.

Women are naturally nurturers. Someone has to be, and it might as well be the one who carries forth the progeny :-)

This means that women are naturally happiest when in service to others.
Which means that the 'self' of women is more easily and is naturally downplayed, in the interests of serving others.

This is in major contrast to the 'service' of men which requires that he elevate himself over those he serves, because his service is of the nature of protection and provision, which requires a sense of magnitude over those being served. I wonder if this makes sense?

To give an example, I imagine when Prince William said recently that Kate and George were his priority now, he did not mean he puts them 'over himself' because he needs to be able to protect them. He couldn't possibly protect people who he sees as 'bigger than him', which is just as well, given he is refrring to a woman and a baby :-)

A woman's servitude is much more 'indirect'. I see why this needs to be so. And I also see why today's 'empowerment brigade' is incompatible with female happiness.

The biggest problem in today's world is the elevation of the female 'self'. Which negates and woefully contradicts the notion of 'service' in a way that is truly deleterious to society.

It is easier for a woman to 'see' the humanity of people when this self-elevation is absent.
This is true.

I run the risk here of offending Ceer in the same way I did in the 'Mercy and Pity' post when I appeared to indicate that women are more 'merciful' than men. Someone came to my rescue and pointed out that a man is actually more capable of mercy the more magnanimous he is. Which sounds counterintuitive to a woman, but there we are...


A woman who is truly self-absorbed is shooting herself in the foot, whether or not she has a family to be 'serving'. The happiest women I know are in service to someone, or some people (anyone!) whether or not they are linked to her in a socially arranged way or not.

The unhappiest women are those who have checked out of this 'obligation' in the pursuit of 'freedom'.
The problem is, these women are the ones least likely to 'see' anyone's humanity but their own.

I watched an interview given by an ex-model with a chaotic and complicated life-story - complete with a history of self-harm, hard drugs, etc.
It was so clear to me that the solution to her problems would be for her to be a little less self-absorbed. For the entire interview, she talked about herself. Even when the interviewer tried to draw her away from the topic of herself, she somehow managed to drag the topic back to her.

It was fascinating.
Men are naturally self-serving, (um, no offence Ceer! but this is intrinsically true, for reasons I now 'get') and I think the french have a better word for this - egoïste, because the link to the masculine ego is expressed in this word.

I think the female mind is not the best to analyse why a man needs his self-importance to be at his highest in his dealings with others, so I won't sweat it :-)

But I understand that it is somehow necessary, in men.
Good men use their 'selfishness' to achieve great things for themselves and those they love. Bad men do the opposite. But in both cases, the self-elevation is an important factor.

This post suddenly makes me realise that whilst there is something such as 'the servant king' there is actually no female equivalent! At least not in the same way...

It also explains why it is entirely possible for huge numbers of men to GTOW, but it is much harder for a woman to GHOW. Intrinsic nature simply does not allow it, unless there is a fundamental reason why this needs to be so. Exceptions do exist of course - but here, I am referring to the general population.

For women, things are different. Self-elevation is destructive beyond the teens and at latest, early 20s. When it was socially (almost) compulsory for women to be self-effacing, it was easier for women to be truly woman-like. When this mechanism broke down, it became harder for women to 'see' men's humanity... and men responded with the expected masculine response - with displays of domination hardened with anger.



Life in the modern world is not mutually exclusive with a return to the virtues that made it easier for women to be women. In fact, women could evolve into something absolutely beautiful, with the right values, despite modern influences.

Thanks to my friend for helping me to understand this issue. And kudos to her for pointing out her error of judgment when she realised it, long before I even saw the problem. And especially important for me to witness is the ease with which she dropped the false teaching she had (unknowingly) absorbed, when she needed to.

See? All is not lost.
We find comfort in unusal places.

This is why I retain hope...

The new breed explained

NC asks (in response to my declaration that the system needs changing):
"How should the system change?"


That is not a hard question at all, NC!
It is shockingly simple from where I am standing :-)


We can't stay as we are...that is clear enough.
We can't go back to 1950s model either. That model belonged to an age of innocence which we no longer have. Although in general, it was quite a good deal for women, it was largely rejected by women themselves.
Either women got it really wrong (should have stuck to what works, dear) or there were too many flaws in that system anyway, so it had to go.


Either way, a NEW system is required.
My recommendation is that since we have the benefit of hindsight and can see which bits worked and which bits didn't, we are in the rather privileged position of picking and choosing the traits we would like to project forth, and the ones we would like to drop.

Much like agricultural breeders. Animal breeders weed out unfavourable characteristics in favour of good ones.

Yes, I am venturing into the ugly territory of 'social eugenics' so to speak.


You gentlemen, I am sure will confirm that there are some attractive traits to the modern woman.
Let's be fair.

Many of you would soon grow tired of the perpetual child who cannot do anything for herself unless there is a man holding her hand.

That, gentlemen, was the woman from the 1950s, in general.
Vulnerable is one thing. I am sure you chaps dig that, in a woman :-)
I get that.

But helplessness is another. And I am sure knowing that the little lady wouldn't be able to handle anything unless you were there to guide her is quite the burden!

Many modern women don't have this problem. That has got to be quite a relief to you men.
The problem however, is that women are now so 'empowered' that they are hardly recognisable as 'women' anymore.
This is a question of degree, though.
It can be corrected once women take on more of the mantle of vulnerability that we were keen to shed in the days of 'bra burning'.



Another issue is that of 'the full package'.

Um...how shall I put this delicately, Lord help us, lol.

I think women have never really unleashed 'the full package' ever, in history.
We could be the first era to achieve this.

Bellita once mentioned the notion of women having 3 phases of life (in direct comparison to those of men, namely the page, the knave and the prince) i.e. the maiden, the mother and the crone.

In all previous ages, men had to live with the biological fact that a woman could not possibly be all three at once. If you were lucky, she could be two at once.

This is one aspect where Mother Nature would not allow multi-tasking', lol.

Once a woman was past the 'maiden' stage, that was it. In many non-Western societies, the difference between a 'mother' and a 'maiden' is sometimes alarmingly stark.
She is totally unrecognisable - physicaly, psychologically, mentally...

But these societies remain stable because men are given free reign to replace the 'lost maiden' with a new one, whilst retaining the services of the mother and the crone.
Polygamy for the win, I hear you guys say...
:-)

But in the West, there is at least an attempt of women to retain wifely allure, which is not totally blighted by maternal (matronly?) demeanour and appearance.

But I hear you scream: But this is exactly what is missing! As soon as she pops out her 2.2 kids, it's goodbye sexy!

Well, one of the by-products of 'wayward womanhood' if I may coin a potentially unpopular phrase, is that more and more women are revealing themselves to be capable of a 'crone' stage mimicking the maiden stage quite well...at least better than previous generations of women managed it.

Of course, the results are not always totally successful or indeed desirable, but this is because these women are trying too hard, and in the wrong 'frame'.

I would hazard a guess that a woman is much more attractive to the man she has been yoked to for years, rather than a new man who is himself perhaps unimpressed with women in general.

Here is a suggestion: wouldn't it be great if thse cougars who were trying to catch the toyboys reserved their cougardom for the men they have vowed to honour, love and obey forever?
See where I am going?

The 1950s woman had no such extensive experience of observing cougar wildlife at play, as much as we do today's SMP.
Yes, we can learn from the cougars.
Some of us are not too fussy where our education comes from :-)

The cougar of today could teach the frumpy wife of the 50s a lesson or two in 'sexiness'.
Whilst the latter was probably more of a 'lady' than the former, the two combined would be quite a formidable 'package' of femininity, no?


What about the young 'uns?
What could change about them?



One of you gentlemen complained recently here that all women bring to the table is sex and kids, and 'no, thanks Ma'am, I don't need neither'.

I responded dismissively that sex and kids were already quite the gift, why can't you see this, Sir.

But I missed an important starting point for a whole new debate :-)

Women are providing one or the other at any given time, ain't it the problem :-)

Before commitment, you men get all sex and no kids.
After commitment you get all kids and no sex :-)

Would you prefer neither pre-Commitment and both post-Commitment, maybe?
Your call.

I think it would be nice (but is it pie in the sky?) if you blokes got 'the full package', but that requires a degree of defying Nature, by women.
In any case, it takes a great deal of hard work on the part of women, who naturally, have a lot of demand on their bodies in ways that you gentlemen will never experience :-)




And there is a third aspect to this 'full package' thing. I ain't finished yet :-)

Studies upon studies say women are not having enough babies...
Nonsense.
Women are having lots of babies alright. They are just not legitimate babies, half the time, um... literally.
Hence the dissatisfaction.

The evidence is that um, sex is in short supply, at least for married men.
And yet, the hook-up culture is ubiquitous.
The point is that legitimate sex is in short supply.




It is not enough to simply provide a commodity.
The commodity must be 'kosher'.
If not, its value is nil.

It must be the 'full package', otherwise it might as well be an empty package.

A right 'jack-in-the-box'.

So that's how the system should change, NC.

We should look at the evidence before us and act accordingly, weeding out the highlighted unwanted traits and inserting new and desirable traits into the female collective DNA.

The result would be a womanhood that for once in history, delivers the 'full package'.
The means are there, but is the spirit?
That is the question...

The Servant King

What an oxymoron this is!
It's got me thinking all day.



At Mass this morning, I was struck by the words of this hymn.
The lyrics kept playing themselves in my mind all day.
Flicking through channels in the hope of an update about a certain royal baby :-) I came across a church service where the congregation were singing a hymn.

You wouldn't believe which hymn...


I promised to pray for a young lady.
She is on the cusp of womanhood.
That means she will soon enter into the SMP.
Her father is educating her well. But he is quite rightly worried about her romantic future.

Cadders, this one is for your young daughter.
May she be the kind of woman that one day you would be immensely proud of.

The Servant King.
A servant who is also a king, or a king who serves?

This reminds me of a french phrase that a close family member uses a lot:

Noblesse oblige.
With nobility comes a lot of responsibility.

Kind of puts paid to the modern 'princess' who has all the rights and no responsibility, doesn't it?




The last verse of this hymn is the one that got most of my attention.

"So let us learn now to serve,
And in our lives enthrone Him
Each other's needs to prefer
For it is Christ we're serving."


I am not versed in Scripture. I can't quote Bible passages at will. Google is my friend when I need to find something in a hurry :-)
So for me it is nice to get a little titbit of wisdom handed to me on a plate, for free.
This hymn was one such gift for which I am grateful.

The last post about 'a new breed of woman' is a way to elevate my own ideals. But I realise it won't be possible without a supreme being's help.

In my world, I call this being 'God'.
Others may have a different word for Him.
It doesn't matter what we call Him.

If we learn how to serve, like Him, if we prefer each other's needs like Him, we would be well on the way to be what He designed for our eternal happiness, I am sure.

There are people who serve everyday, without even thinking about it. Kudos to these people. They are selfless and self-sacrificing, and they are a great example to follow.

This servant King, he has a number one fan.
She is his mother, the Servant Queen.
And she is like me, female.
But there endeth the similarity :-)


She is a cool role model to have, for every young woman.
If one has a difficult choice to make, one could try asking, 'would she do that?'
If the answer is yes, cool.
If it is no...



For sure, we would all never quite be like her.
For she was born without sin, and we were.

But our lives can be lived trying to imitate her, and other women like her.

Cadders, may your daughter strive to be like the mother of the Servant King all the days of her life.

At this point in her life when she is about to enter into an important phase, may she get all the good guidance that you (and her mother) have to offer.




The rest of us will support her with our good wishes, positive thoughts and prayers.

Behold a new breed of Woman

Lonely Himalayan Bear made a brilliant point in several guises.
I am afraid I missed the point many times, which is why he had to present the same point to me in several takes before I finally caught on.

LHB, I never said I was a bright spark ;-)

The point he makes is essentially this: that MGTOW is not necessarily a reaction to women's bad behaviour. Men have reached a state of play where it is rational - a choice (Hey, what's good for feminism is also good for 'masculinism') to GTOW which is absolutely nothing to do with women.

I guess my first reaction to this notion is, 'Hm, this is one almighty coincidence, isn't it, that when woman go AWOL, men decide to GTOW. Interesting'.

Well that's a simplistic view of a very pertinent point, I know.

I missed what LHB was really trying to say, but he was patient enough to try, try, try again until I could see his point finally :-)

The following helped my understanding of where he was coming from:

"Women NOT marrying is not the problem; often women that DO MARRY are the biggest deterrents :-) Everything I needed to learn about marriage and female psychology (outside of books, that is), I learnt by observing heterosexual couples around me. Many of them were traditional, religious Hindu couples wedded under Marriage 1.0 laws in the "culturally deep-rooted" Indian nation. It was all like a never-ending play where I saw Briffault's law, Weininger's thoughts, Schopenhauer's opinions, Manu's teachings (Hinduism), Menckenian philosophy and Esther Vilar's book being played out several times before I actually even encountered those literary works."

Well, this made me sit up, because I was under the impression that the current state of play (women hooking up with the bad boys instead of rewarding the good boys) was enough to derail an already failing system.

But oh no. As LHB points out, there is more that is undermining the good name of marriage.

I think I see what he means. Let's try and smoke out this new monster (actually, a very old monster).

And now I am reminded of a phrase I used to use a lot months ago. I used to say a lot of this:

"Virginity is not enough."

How true.

LHB is describing a phenomenon which is being played out by women who would have been the archetypal perfect brides. Tarditional Hindu women? There are no better women than traditional Hindu women!
(Hey, not even traditional Catholic women, lol).

So what's the problem?

And it is important to say, this problem predates feminism, but certainly has been updated, upgraded and rebooted big time by feminism.


Here is my take on the problem:

First of all, this problem seems to be distinct from the ills of the contemporary SMP because as LHB points out ad nauseum until I 'got it', it involves women who should have been perfect wives, from a bygone age.

Who are these women... who should have made for excellent wives, but who caused generations of men to want to curl up and die whilst simultaneously sucking it up and manning up because they felt compelled to?

Who are these women who rode on the coat-tails of other women of their generation and hopped onto the 1950s 'kept woman' bus but who didn't deserve to be on that bus?

You see, there were lovely, beautiful (in every way) honourable women of that era. So for LHB to pinpoint this errant minority (um, I hope this was indeed a minority but I have no way of knowing for certain) sounds rather like heresy.

But it is not heresy.

On the surface of things, these women possessed at least two of the following positive characteristics: they were virgin brides, good-looking, demure, charming women with some but not excessive education who were sought after by many men but settled for the men of her choice, men who satisfied their 'lists'.

Anything wrong with this picture?

Absolutely not. So far so good. Things should be exactly like this.


But these woman were hell to live with.
I think this is what LHB was getting at.

Why?

I have two theories on this.

The first is that I think there is a natural tendency for women's 'tolerance' levels for men to drop as they get older. This is not a criticism of women as such. It is but an observation.
I described this phenomenon here (link - hourglass device). Whilst I think there are many factors that cause a rapid decline in the sand within this 'hourglass devce', I think perhaps it is prudent to accept that there will be some decline, unless the woman in question is making a concerted effort to be a saint. Many men notice this decline in the form of denial of certain privileges :-), getting roughed up by law enforcement on the whim of 'er indoors, or getting downright kicked out of the home when she is well and truly done with him.

Deplorable and regrettable, yes.


My second theory is that women evolve much faster than men on an emotional level. Men largely stay the same emotionally. Women swing a lot from day to day, month to month, year to year.
Maybe it is the hormonal changes associated with lunar phases :-) childbirth, etc.

The point is that a woman who seems to have 'changed a lot' may appear to have 'tricked' a man because he 'didn't see it coming'. This is a common response amongst stunned and shocked recently divorced men.

I make no excuses - I am just trying to understand what may be going on.


How can this problem be solved?

The first thing to say is that for sure, feminism is not helping the situation, because the woman (even if she is not the type) is egged on by laws which enable her to do as she pleases to the detriment of everyone else. These laws are the woman's enemy in the long run, but at the time she is busy taking advantage of them, she is blinded to this possibility.

We need a new breed of 'super woman'.

Bellita and I made (independently of each other!) the point that at this stage of the game in the current SMP, a woman needs to really show that she is the bees' knees before she will be taken seriously by any man as a good prospect for marriage, whoever she is.
She needs to be far better than what a 1950s woman had to be, to be 'wifed up'. This is the price ALL women have to pay now.
Voilà, we are where we are now.

And the tragedy is that many men won't just say, 'well I am MGTOW because there are skanky young women about'.

No, they are also saying 'well, my mother was seemingly the perfect wife and mother, but my father still wants to kill himself every three months'...



There is one thing that feminism has gifted women: the proximity to men at the workplace for large numbers of women may be seen as a bad thing in general, but I say, why don't we put it to good use?

The 1950s housewife had no way of knowing what it would be like for a man to be out all day 'slaying dragons'.
The modern woman does, by default. She has had to slay a few dragons herself.
When she empathises with a man who has just gotten grief from his boss, her words of empathy carry far more weight than those of her grandmother.

A modern woman may lack the understanding of men that the 1950s woman naturally got from her own mother, but the modern woman has the proximity that the 1950s woman was simply not allowed for fear of adverse consequences for her :-)

If only the modern woman can still avoid those 'adverse consequences', she can take full advantage of this proximity to really study men 'in the wild' as it were, with little need for top-up 'second-hand information from third parties:-)


 All the other rules of femininity apply. The modern woman can only add to the repertoire. There is potential for a fulfilling life as a woman, with all the strides made to provide women with 'choices'. The key is to know that choices are not endless, and that each choice has a consequence down the line.

What we need is a new breed of woman who has the ability to use the quirks of modern life to her actual advantage rather than capitulate under all these 'choices' that Mama Feminism brought her.
Modern woman needs to be the Cinderella whose feet fit whatever shoe modern life throws at her.

It begins with a certain empathy and understanding of men and a refusal to succumb to the 'all men are bastards' chorus.

This, I think is what was lacking in those pretty, slim, virginal 1950s women who somehow despite all their apparent gifts still managed to wreak havoc for their unsuspecting entourage.

They somehow managed to give marriage a bad name in an era when this should have been impossible.

But they managed it, because there was a critical mass of excellent women around, so much like all children benefit from the herd immunity that immunised children provide (if theay are the majority), these unfit women were carried along on the tidal wave of the goodwill of their good sisters, much to the eventual pain of the 1950s man who could not tell the difference between a 'good one' and a 'bad one' because 'well, they all look the same to me'.

But now, modern woman stands very much alone, as she is judged not with the positive reflection of her critical mass of good sisters ('cos there ain't a critical mass of good sisters no more :-) she is judged as a stand-alone entity (if she is lucky).

Worst case scenario - she is judged with the negative reflection of the increasingly critical mass of her not-so-great sisters.
This is the unintended consequence of the legacy of our errant female ancestors, yes.
We are where we are now...


Modern man has much more than the unlucky 1950s man: he has the ability to study modern woman. This same proximity thing works both ways :-)



So, LHB, the problem you describe should never be the modern man's prolem in this current era.
For you guys have a tool your fathers did not have.


Whilst modern woman is more than capable of restoring the good name of marriage,

1. It would take a great deal of personal effort, prayer, guidance, divine intervention :-)

2. It may not make any difference to the atrtitude of men, because the die has already been cast.

3. But she really does need to do something. Because she needs marriage. Even if she doesn't know she does.








Wouldn't it be fun to beat the 1950s woman at something... just so we could say we could...
:-)

About 'All but one'...

I had an answer for Lonely Himalayan Bear that I was going to post up today.

And then someone else pitched up and blew my mind :-)
Ezriel says something that I have heard before. But not quite like this :-)



Ezriel is a MGHOW and a storyteller. And I like this story he tells:



"The others will not come back.

Women only want heroes on their parade.

The women rejoice at their returning heroes. A great celebration is held for the new members of the village. They feel the love, admiration and respect of everyone around them.

All but one.

Quietly a father searches the perimeter for his son. “He’ll make it”, he says to himself. But as the hours pass, he is forced to return home and comfort his mate over what is increasingly obvious even if he won’t admit it to himself. His mate is sad, but resolute. “It had to be done”, she remarks. “Only the strong have the right to survive.” As the night falls and his mate drifts off to sleep the father cries for his son.

When the morning comes, the father’s mate rolls over and finds a cold, empty bed. Sure that he is hunting she busies herself with her daily tasks. As the day goes by, more and more of the hunters return to smiling families, marveling at bounty they provide. A niggling doubt creeps into her thoughts, her mate has yet to return and night has fallen. She asks the other hunters if they had seen her mate to no avail. No one has seen him since the celebration.

Deep in the jungle, a father hunts not for food but for his son. He uses every trick his father taught him but it fails him. No blood, no body, no trace whatsoever. Sure that his son survived after all he rushes to the village expecting to find his smiling son, now a man!

Nothing but emptiness greets him. He knew then that it will never be the same.

Time passes: days become months, months become years but the father never forgot. Couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. Everyone’s life continued as nothing has happened. Sick of it all, he drifts off to the jungle never to be heard of again.

Even without one of their hunters, the village prospered and grew. Their time honored tradition has served them well. The strong live, the weak are culled. The women prepare for that night’s celebration and as the boys, now men, return. The celebration is held and the men can feel the love, admiration and respect of everyone around them.

All but one…

***

I hope you don’t mind Spacetraveller, I took your narrative and made one of my own. It’s shorter than I wanted it to be but I’ve a limited space. I apologize in advance as English is not my primary language. What I’m trying to illustrate here is that, at least for me, the system becomes unsustainable. It works for a while but it will implode at some point. More and more men are drifting away from the village, if they make it back to begin with.

I turned 30 last month and it has turned my sight inward. I look back at the roads I’ve traveled; that my father traveled and his father before him. The beaten path is familiar to me, but no longer fulfilling. Somewhere along the line, something fell off and broke. Whatever it was, I couldn’t fix it. I had to make something new to replace it with but that something, that elusive thing, is now tugging at me towards a new path. One away from what is expected of me. But I don’t see it as a loss, more and more I see what awaits me at the end. It is not without its peril, to walk this path I must discard everything that has led me this far and remake myself anew. But what awaits me at the end is more precious than diamonds, more beautiful than your child’s first word, sweeter than a woman’s first kiss.

What awaits me at the end is freedom, and I like it."


Ezriel's story is easily recognisable to any man, I am sure.
I know this is every man's story.
I also know that many modern women do not know this story.
I know this story because I was fortunate enough to find it 'by accident'.

I post all of Ezriel's comment here in the hope that women will find it and read it. Again and again.




All but one.


If I didn't know this before, I can categorically say this now:

As a woman, I have never feared being that 'one'.

The one who never comes back.
The one who is 'missing in action'.
The one who is 'lost at sea'.
The one who is just 'lost'.
The one who is no more.

This is not a woman's reality. It just isn't.
Sure, there are women who are truly heroic, but this characteristic is not intrinsic to womanhood. If it happens to a woman, it does add extra depth to her character, to her fortitude and to her sense of self, yes.

But it is not what makes her a woman.

The 'All but one' phenomenon is unique to men, as well you know, Ezriel.
So I cannot pretend to know all about it. But what I can say about it is what it looks like from the other side of the fence. Which is all I can offer on this subject. And I hope it is of some value to you.

Yes, women want heroes. I agree, Ezriel.
It is an essential part of our make-up.
And what's more, we cannot lose this aspect of our wiring.
Because the minute we do, we are no longer women.

You already know the score: nothing new here.
You don't want the 'Strong and Independent' types who don't need men.


So we agree that men actually want women who want men. And to an individal woman, that man has to be something more than a man, to be special. He has to be somewhere between a man and a god. (No exaggeration :-)

And what's more, you do want to be a hero - not necessarily for a woman, but for yourself.

We women do not need to be heroes. Of course we can be, if the situation calls for it. But no-one expects it of us. So we don't seek to be anyone's hero.

But you, you need to be. Because your sense of manhood depends on this. In an outcome-independent kind of way.
But hey, you wouldn't complain if erm, you get some 'perks' along the way :-)

Unfortunately, not everyone can be a hero.
Indeed in chasing 'herodom' as you are wired to do - and society eggs you on to do it if your own Nature doesn't - you run the risk of losing life or limb, yes.

This is not woman's fault. But woman is designed to take advantage of this need of yours.

So if you come back from your sojourn, life and limb intact, you should be a hero to some woman, somewhere.
If you don't come back, you are the 'All but one'.

It is sad, and I lament this fact of life.
Which is why I think women should be more aware of the natural plight of men and not add to their troubles with unpleasantness, deceit, divorce rape and cuckoldry.

But no-one can help the 'All but one' phenomenon. Not men (who must compete fair and square to avoid being the 'one' and certainly not women who must definitely not meddle in the business of man-ness :-)

So I receive your heartfelt lament in the spirit of shared friendship ("good on you for revealing your inner pain - I sympathise with you, my friend") as opposed to a wistful attempt to circumnavigate an essential pillar of male upbringing.

There must be a reason why all successful societies put their young males through brutal rigorous rituals such as that which you describe.

Once again, it is not women's fault that these harsh sojourns of mind and body are in place for young men like you.

But I agree that at some point, you ought to be rewarded for not being the 'one who didn't come back'.

That is what is missing in today's world for the men who did 'make it back'.
They are not getting any sort of recompense for their fear, their pain, their sweat, their toil.
In fact, very often they are punished for coming back!

This is wrong. This is unfair. This will and is coming back to haunt womanhood...




In my view, before you are 'tested', you shouldn't be asking any woman, 'Will you cry if I don't come back?'
The answer will be 'no'. You already know that.

:-)


But once you are back, you shouldn't have to ask too many women if they will watch your back until the day you die.
The answer to that rhetorical question should be 'yes'.

In fact, it should be a given that you are shown the basic respect and possible affection reserved for someone who is 'back'.

But this part is missing in today's SMP.
I understand that...




Thank you for your story.

But I think your lament should be less about your fears about someone not coming back, and more about what should be your rightful bounty for actually coming back.

Which you do. Over and over again. Day in day out.

In your mind at least, you are a hero. Which means you made it back.
To your close family and friends, you are a hero too, perhaps.
But not so much to the wider society.

And yet, the wider society expects much of you.

This is where I see a disconnect.
And this is where I rejoice with you that you see freedom somewhere in this awful mix.
And I admire you for this, because I find it very difficult to see anything good in this sort of situation, as it currently stands for men.

But in all honesty, Ezriel, I cannot do anything for the man who didn't make it back.

But I think society can definitely do more for those who did.
That is where I focus my energies.

That is what this whole blog is about.



And now I feel compelled to ask you men:

What do you make of the man who didn't come back?

Do you share Ezriel's compassion for him?
Do you have the loyalty of Snoopy?

Or do you see him as a fallen rival, and therefore 'good riddance'?
Or do you, like socety in general, feel that his Worth is in his making it back?

Is this locker-room stuff that I should keep away from?
I shall understand if the answer to this not-so-rhetorical question is a firm 'yes'.