No, just no

How The Manosphere Is Filling A Void Left By Feminized Modern Churches

Don’t read the above article, I’m compelled to link simply out of common courtesy. I cannot really give a proper wail over the stupidity of it all if I do not at least reference what I am talking about.

No, just no, the manosphere does not “fill a void left behind by the feminized church”, or perhaps it does in the same way that drugs, alcohol, money and unlimited sex might fill a void, a God sized hole in people’s spirits that can only be satisfied with a God sized relationship.

Why does the manosphere not serve as a good substitute? Well, there is the unbelievable hatred and bitterness expressed by many, the unrelenting hostility towards women, the bad theology, the cult like behavior, the attempts to replace inconvenient Christian values with ideology and clever catch phrases like hypergamy and AWALT, there is the pride, the arrogance, the evolutionary psych theories, the bad psychology, the relentless talk of sexual conquest….

By their fruits you shall know them, that is why! Your fruits are flat out rotten, people. You drive more people away from Christianity then your animal baptizing rainbow flag flying believers do.

All in good humor here, but anybody ever hear And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone….. It is so not good! Like, hello people! Maybe God did not design an exclusively male world run something like the Lord of the Flies?

I do not mean to be so critical, to paint everyone with the same brush, there are a few good manopsherians that actually take their theology very seriously, that actually do recognize what Christ taught, but oh there are others, others who use scripture to promote false things, to justify assorted sins, to promote male dominance in all things, to present women as only partially human and it doesn’t stop there, there are so called Christian manospherians that double down on the racial hatred as well. You have Vox Day actually calling himself the voice of God and his dread ilk with their so called Social Justice Campaign, and Dalrock who deletes all dissent, while promoting this idea that all women are spawns of satan.

It is not church people. It is so not Christ either. It is validation and justification for every feminist ideal ever dreamed up, no matter how harebrained and foolish.

The ostracizing, the bullying, the doxing, the harassment, the threats, I know, I know, it is the internet, we cannot control what everyone does and says, but those are the fruits of such foolishness and I have seen them. These are real things, ugly things. Just stop it already.

Oh, I could carry on and on bemoaning the perversion of such beautiful theology, the mangling of the very image of Christ himself, the never ending bits of stupidity being presented as so called “sound religious reasoning” in the hearts of such bitter and wounded men.

The author of this bit of nonsense says, I haven’t been to church in 20 years. But I vicariously live through other Christian bloggers…

Yeah, so called Christian bloggers who tell you to stay away from church because it’s been feminized. Bloggers who continuously promote hatred in Christ’s name, bloggers who wouldn’t know the bible if it bit them on the behind.

I really don’t know why I care, why I cannot let it go, why my whole spirit is consumed with despair and fury when I see this sort of thing going on, but it is true. I am driven to speak out against this over and over again.

Honestly, I don’t think the enemy himself could have written a better line than this,

“….because whether you realize it or not, ROK, Tom Leykis, Dalrock, and the hundreds of others sites that have evolved over the past 10 years to reconstitute the wisdom that was lost since the 1960’s, are a perfect, dare I say, superior substitute.  We are the new “church.”

A superior substitute? Oh dear Lord. It is Christ’s church people, there are no substitutes! It has always been Christ’s church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Then he says, “Of course, we are not preaching salvation…”

You don’t say?? Of course not. Christ without salvation, why am I not surprised? We’re going to provide you with everything you might find in faith, in church, in religion, except the ENTIRE HEART OF THE MESSAGE!

Ai yi yi, let me whack my head on my desk a few times.

"Our Sister's Keeper"

So, Tomassi of Irrational Male fame has written a post called, Our Sister’s Keeper.  Yikes. Ai yi yi, where to start, with hip waders and goggles I suppose, and a big shovel so we can cut through all the rhetoric, ideology, and hostility, and try to get to the heart of the matter.

Men are their sister’s keeper. We are our brother’s keeper. Whether in the context of faith or simply in the context of biology, it is what it is, total and complete symbiosis between the two genders. We can all attempt to squirm our way out of that truth, but truth it remains. No man is an island and women, well we give birth to men, and the hand that rocks the cradle in many ways, does rule the world.

Tomassi goes on to say, (of Beta game) “Play nice, respect a woman by default, be supportive of her self-image and ambitions to the sacrifice of your own, don’t judge her and do your utmost to identify with the feminine, was the call to action that, deductively, should make a man more attractive to a woman.”

Oh, the sheer horror! Play nice, respect women, be supportive, sacrifice, what a bunch of chumps men are, huh? The next thing you know women will actually demand men get girl cooties on them or something and when that happens you know she has truly harvested your organs and feasted on your very soul.

In the narcissistic, solipsistic soul of the wounded male ego, it never even occurs to them that women are actually also making sacrifices in the equation. Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel like a “beta chump” faster than finding yourself abandoned after the prime of your youth has faded, left behind with a pack of kids to feed because some wanker has decided he needs to go find himself. Naturally the first place he goes seeking himself….. is in another woman.

In fact if you want to get technical about it, hypergamy is actually the male sexual strategy projected onto women, an attempt to both reject the nature of yourselves and to blame women for it, an attempt to excuse and to justify your own dual sexual strategy. Men want security, families, respect, but they do want to sow their wild oats, too. Have modern women learned how to imitate this male biological strategy? Oh yes! Oh yes, and it is the oddest thing to witness, both tragic and funny at the same time. This is why you have college girls hooking up and the morning after saying “Wait, why am I having casual sex with dudes I don’t even like for reasons I can’t even fathom?? Did I even consent to this? Why, there outta be a law! A consent law! I couldn’t possibly have agreed to this kind of stupid, it’s just all wrong.”

It is just “all wrong” and girls are often aware of this on some level, but when you have grown up in a culture where women’s value is  presented as an exclusively sexual one, where you have been taught your empowerfulness as a female revolves entirely around your sexuality, it is very confusing. Combine this with normal hormones and the male sexual strategy which usually involves trying to storm the castle gates, or climbing over them or under them, or convincing you to open the drawbridge in some way, and you have questionable female agency. It’s a bit like demanding a woman stand tall in the face of a battalion of armed men coming over the hill. She is expected to not only know the nature of her own self, but to know the nature of men too, to understand the cultural deceptions going on in our world, and to stand there unarmed, deflecting all those arrows flying in her direction.

You know what the average age a woman is when she is expected to show this kind of emotional maturity and deep understanding of the nature of the world around her? 13 years old. It’s rather astounding, but while boys are still splashing around in mud puddles and sneaking off to look at dirty pictures in  Nat’l Geographic, 13-year-old girls are trying to navigate the world of so-called sexual agency. They have already encountered those words “slut” and “prude”, “bitch” and “whore.” They have to just learn to pick their poison too, because I assure you which ever persona they chose, it will be the wrong one.

Alas, women are not Batman either, and what you often wind up with is a dead soldier, a bit of collateral damage, full of sexual confusion, trying to make sense of what’s left of the the world around her.

“I’ve always found it fascinating because for all my dealing in cold harsh observable facts I’ve never paused to consider that women might have some excusable reason for their ethically challenged behavior..”

With all due respect, that usually is the position men take when they cannot face the truth of their own “ethically challenged behavior.” Do you know that I have spent years researching men’s ethically challenged behavior? Why? Empathy. A desire to understand why some insist on destroying themselves. To understand the nature of male/female relationships. To try and grasp the nature of the world around me. Can you even imagine trying to do that without ever bothering to understand and empathize with the other gender’s “ethical challenges?” Half the human race?? That’s so narcissistic it’s enough to make me laugh.

He continues, “In my own estimate Hypergamy isn’t inherently bad or good – it just depends on whether you find yourself on the sharp end of it….”

Complete moral relativism, rather astounding actually. See, I don’t believe hypergamy rules women at all, but suppose I did? In that case, what kind of a sociopath would simply say, “whatever, just as long as I don’t end upon the sharp end of your stick, it’s all good?”

“The problem I see in assigning the blame of women’s behavior to men’s lack of control is that, presently, men have no real control nor does men’s concept of justice align with that of women…”

Ah, and now we get to the heart of the matter, the blame and shame game. Men whether they want it or not, have a very protective nature towards women. Their sense of self-worth really is motivated by a desire for respect from women, respect that often comes from having a sense of honor. What really knocks men off base? Shame. Men have a fascinating and profound relationship with shame. You can hear it hinted at in Tomassi’s words, we have no control, it’s not fair, we can’t possibly be to blame… You can hear it all those derogatory remarks about women frequently found in Tomassi’s comment section, those attempts to make her smaller, more devious, more evil than you perceive yourselves to be. That is how we dehumanize an enemy, how we detach in order to try to justify our own behavior towards them. That is what men do when they are feeling weak and powerless, burdened with all of the responsibility and yet none of the authority or control. Full of shame about what is going on in the world but completely unable to do anything about it.

“On a final note here, whenever I delve into the ethical implications of Red Pill awareness I invariably run into the personal responsibility equation. I do my best to make as coldly rational an observation of dynamics I see and allow my readers to make their own judgements. However, those observation are never intended to excuse the behaviors men and women find themselves prone to acting out.”

Well, that’s something at least. Some kind of awareness that perhaps some people may subjectively receive your words and take them as permission, as justification and validation for what I sometimes refer to as wankerhood, no gender designation intended. All in good humor here, but oh, speak to me of the sins of Adam, about how his words just flow like milk and honey, not my fault Lord, not my fault, see this woman you gave me…..

Speak to me of men and their perceived ability to be rational, the great pride they take in allegedly being so coldly clinical, so detached from human emotion, that the first man actually took it upon himself to try to explain the nature of sin to God Himself. Quite sweetly even, so rationally, so logically….and so totally full of coconut candy that he found himself tossed out into the wilderness, too.

Anything, anything at all to try to avoid that awful shame, that sense of responsibility, that deep seated fear that just knows within itself, to whom much is given, much is expected…

Tomassi concludes with,“So are men to blame for the conditions they find their women in? Are we our sisters’ keepers, hamstrung by our own culpability to actually help them be better women? Or do they bear the responsibility to conform to our perspective of justice and police the worst impulses of a Hypergamy most are only peripherally aware of?”

Again, that blame/shame dichotomy I write so much about. What an evident and powerful example of that desire to claim no agency, no responsibility, and yet to reap the rewards, the fruits of having done so. That really is the human condition, something both men and women always struggle with, we tend to want all of the authority, all of the power, all of the control, and yet none of the blame. The buck stops here, what a quaint and outdated idea.

Ironically, the “hypergamy” women are expected to police is not really our own, but actually men’s! Men off running wild with it about the ‘sphere and saying, “meh, not my problem, I ain’t my sister’s keeper.”

Tomassi asks the wrong question because he is trapped in that pride/shame dichotomy, the one devoid of love, the fear based response that first demands to know, just who’s fault this all going to be? Who is to blame?

Like it or not you cannot have it both ways, that is a deception. If you wish to claim your own genuine power and authority, to step fully into those shoes, then you will embrace your own responsibility. The question should not be whether or not women have any personal agency, but whether or not you do. If you chose no, then you will forever be “hamstrung by your own culpability.”

Another name for “hamstrung by your own culpability,” is trapped in your own shame. It needn’t be that way. There is a much  better way of being in the world. Now, I may well have a very romantic and idealistic expectation of men, but that is neither a delusion nor a fantasy, it is based on truth and the example set by so many men who rise to the challenge, who actually perceive themselves precisely as I do.

I am my brother’s keeper, rather shamelessly not “hamstrung by my own culpability.” That is what it means to walk fully in faith and love.

Toxic Masculinity?

"Understanding Toxic Masculinity: Why Defending Men Isn’t Enough"

Interesting article written last year that I rather enjoyed.

“Vast forums host scores of lonely and deranged life drop-outs regularly assembling to rail against The Matriarchy and obsess about sex.”

Yes, yes, we’ve certainly met. Call it a close encounter of the unpleasant kind. The woman who wrote this article refers to them as biter men, I call them the Lost Boys.

I now have a pretty clear understanding of what toxic masculinity is and what it is not. It’s kind of sad, we’re living in a culture that has worked really hard to change gender roles, to redefine the family, to restructure the definition of marriage, and many boys and men are now suffering, completely confused about who and what they are, what their roles are, how they fit into the equation. What it even means to be men anymore.

She says, “This is the essence of “toxic masculinity.” It is emotionally stunted and obsessed with sex and violence. Toxic males seek the thrill of danger and shun responsibility and commitment. Since they lust after women but don’t want to marry or love them, their attitude towards the other sex tends to be offensively objectifying, and can easily turn misogynistic if (as often happens) they experience rejection.”

This is especially sad to me, because misogyny nearly always has it’s roots in self-loathing. It is not really fear of women, it is not really hatred of women, it is deep seated resentment and inability to embrace and love the very nature of your own self. It is generally wrapped in layers and layers of shame and deception.

It’s somewhat amusing, the most common complaint I get is that I don’t empathize with men. It’s amusing because I’ve written dozens of posts paying tribute to fathers, brothers, husbands, marriage, love. I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, my entire life is entwined and shaped and formed by relationships with men. Symbiosis. I really cannot pour anymore praise over men than I already do. So, such false accusations are simply foolishness and people’s erratic attempts to confirm their own biases.

She goes on to say, “My experience suggests conservatives are more or less united in seeing healthy masculinity as a positive thing, which we as a society should encourage and foster. That being the case, it should be possible to discuss potentially-toxic strains of masculine culture among ourselves without risk of becoming more generally anti-male.”

Amen. This country really does need to have a discussion on what healthy masculinity is and what it is not. Like many other discussions we need to have as a culture, it is an issue so wrapped in hyperbole and knee jerk emotionalism it is unlikely to ever happen.

In praise of white knights

If you’ve ever taken a stroll through the manosphere, hopefully wearing hip waders and goggles, you soon notice the most despised men of all, white knights. It’s a rather perfect closed system, rule #1, never listen to women at all and rule #2, accuse any man showing the least bit of compassion or empathy of white knighting. That’s how you close off both ends of your ideology with that cult like policing that prevents all dissent. Not all, mind you, but enough of them that the message becomes clear, man the torpedoes and shame the white knighters.

It’s really sad to see because the very essence of what it means to be men often involves  honor, a sacrificial nature, the idealism behind what it means to truly protect and serve, the leadership to be found there. Heroes all, and I think you will find shadows of that natural desire in little boys and big boys alike. That is simply biology and psychology at play, and rather than a shameful thing, it is an admirable quality. How can you not love all the men who have sacrificed their very lives for our country, to police our streets, to rescue those trapped in fires?

Than there are the ordinary heroes, those who stop to help you when you are broken down on the side of the road, those who carry groceries for the elderly, those who marry women and sometimes love children that aren’t even theirs. Those who speak gentle words of wisdom and advice, those who teach, those who lead families and serve their communities.

Rather than shameful acts deserving of ridicule and mockery, all those acts of heroism big and small are a beautiful thing, worthy of our respect and honor, our praise. These are the great tales of heroism we used to tell around a campfire, to preserve the legends of those who went before us and to shape the culture to come. Why do so many of us love men? Why, because we realize that they’ll lay down their very lives to protect those they love, their communities, their way of life.

Is is “fair?” No not at all, it’s a rather harsh truth to face, but much of men’s value in the world comes from their very expendability. I don’t like that truth very much, I wish all men to prosper, to live long and fulfilling lives, but it is what it is. It is the world we live in, the circumstances we face. It is both painful and bittersweet to recognize those who have paid the ultimate price to protect us, it leaves you both grieving and yet grateful, sad but keenly aware of the love behind the sacrifice.

Men often white knight women, too, bail us out of all sorts of trouble we manage to get ourselves into. It’s not politically correct to say such things these days, women are all supposed to be strong and independent, needing men like a fish needs a bicycle. It isn’t true however, not really. Don’t get me wrong, women really are strong and able to take care of ourselves, but life is a lot more pleasant with the things men have traditionally provided, plumbers, mechanics, bridges and paved roads. A timely rescue when needed. Women need men rather desperately to survive, not just for their physical skills, but also for their perspective on the world. Men often provide a different set of eyes, another way of seeing things, not always right mind you, but needed and valuable just the same.

In my life I have benefited from hundreds of white knights, all who I remember quite fondly. All together they often make up the oddest collection of strange characters, not quite Prince Charming on his white steed, but far more often some rather flawed and broken men. There was a drunken Santa lying on the pavement once who gave me some great words of wisdom. There was a disabled man with no legs who once told me to “suck it up buttercup,” words I’ve never forgotten because they were so timely. There have been so many who have stopped to help me with car trouble, with life trouble, with attitude trouble. There are men who have bailed me out of circumstances beyond my control and things I have brought down upon my own self.

There are young men right now, often homeless and jobless themselves, who look out for some of the young girls in this town who also roam the streets. I’ve raised four kids here and although they’ve all had a home and parents that loved them, it has been a great comfort to know that even when they are out roaming the streets themselves there have been people looking out for them, mostly young men. White knights that know a mother’s heart.

From a spiritual perspective, this dislike/disgust with white knights concerns me. Christians have the ultimate White Knight to emulate. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.. Christ laid down His very life for us, not because of who we are, but because of who He is. It was a life of service and sacrifice and He rescued us all. That is true love and honor and sacrifice. That is what it means to be a white knight.

Someone told me the church has been feminized, that Christ has been transformed into a savior that only women would seek. I disagree completely, Christ Himself was the most amazing example of what it truly means to be a man. Christ showed us what strength and leadership is really all about. Today there are millions of men who try to walk in those footsteps, who allow Him to heal, teach, and lead them. It is not an easy walk, one might even say it is the most difficult walk of all, but men have an awesome calling there, a huge responsibility. They have the power to show the world who Christ is and what He is all about.

Recently I said that men need women so they can see their own love reflected in our eyes. But women need men so they can see Christ reflected in your eyes. Men have the power to reflect the very Creator of the universe! In His image….! Indeed, that love had the power to change the world and the entire course of human history. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Many choose to cling to wounding and pride instead of walking in the victory we have already been given. I empathize, honestly, these are painful and complex issues and the world has been broken and trust is in short supply, but there is an inheritance of victory there just waiting to be claimed.