"I, for one, will welcome our new Sexbot masters . . . "

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Of Objectification, Solipsism, and Glass Slippers

I’m breaking my self-imposed blogging exile because a) I need a break and b) I got a bug up my butt.  I was following some interesting links around the Manosphere and got trapped in a site called Mommyish (now isn’t THAT a strong sign of commitment to the maternal instinct) in which a single mom who got married to a good man was sick and tired of people telling her how lucky she was. 

I wasn’t the only Manospheran following that link, and as is often the case, the Flying Monkeys were hammering the poster on the comments pretty badly.  Badly enough so that the comments became blogfodder.  That led to a whole bloggity post by another married formerly single mom about how everyone was being unfair to single moms who were sick and tired of being told how lucky they were for finding dudes to marry them and be fathers to their children, and that led to me revealing I work in porn which, as everyone knows, objectifies women.  And men.  But the women are, apparently, more important since they get paid more than the men.

ANYWAY, this led to a long internal examination of the typical objection to objectification in porn and the underlying psychological basis for that objection.  Could it be, I wondered, that there was a lurking psychological issue beyond the overt political issue?

Consider for a moment the whole idea of objectification.

We are objectified all the time.  Our employers and our insurers objectify us by turning us into statistics.  So does the Federal, State and Local government of your choice.  Our lives on Facebook and Google and all of their permutations across the internets objectify every keystroke and mouseclick we make.  Our lives are filled to the brim with objectification.  Celebrities are objectified as cultic objects to help establish a woman’s position within the Matrix, or sports celebrities are objectified through their stats and numbers until people are mere functions of a larger equation.  The glorification of winning and glamour by our respective genders objectifies the generators of that glory to the point where they cease being real people.

We are objectified in school from our first day of kindergarten.  Our performance is measured by arcane metrics of education upon which our teachers’ performance is judged.  Our hard-earned grades and personal effort become mere numbers on a grade sheet, then marks on our folder, then bits within the school system’s database, then statistics at the national level.  Our tastes and purchasing decisions are objectified by the vendors we use, and despite every attempt at friendly and personal corporate customer service, in the final analysis you’re still just a number to Food Lion.

So we’re objectified by our environment on a daily basis.  We've come to accept that as the price we pay to live within the sophisticated civilization we've developed, and it mostly doesn’t bother us because the entities involved are themselves objectified by law and composition.  It’s Google, Inc. who is spying on what kinds of kinky sex toys you’re buying, not Joe Google of Battle Creek, Michiganwho’s leering at that ten-inch faux phallus that you just had delivered discreetly to your door.  That would be creepy.

But in the realm of dating and mating and love and sex, feminist object to female objectification in porn.  Of women.  Objectification is wrong, they say, as it deprives the performer of her personhood and dehumanizes her somehow.  In doing so, they themselves objectify pornstars into their preconceived notions about how pornstars must feel about the subject, despite frequent and vocal expressions of those performers’ personal, individual (and mostly positive) feelings on the subject.  In decrying objectification of women in porn, feminism objectifies the very performers they allegedly want to protect.

But that’s not why feminism really goes after porn.  (I’m excluding the “sex-positive feminists” here, and focusing on the anti-porn forces of the Third Wave and the intellectual stain they left on feminism – and even the sex-pos fems often object to “objectification”, usually meaning any porn they themselves don’t like.  But I digress)

Feminism goes after porn because it represents a threat to the sexual power women were able to gain for themselves in the Sexual Revolution.  That is, the freedom for women to have sex outside of wedlock . . . and the freedom for women within marriage to use sex as leverage in their interpersonal relationships with their soon-to-be ex-husbands. 

Porn threatens that power, because (as women discovered in the 1980s) if a dude has easy access to porn and the freedom to whack off, her ability to use sex as leverage in a marriage is damaged.  In those days a wife confronted with hubby’s collection of tapes in the basement saw them as the first sign of infidelity, a signal that her husband was dissatisfied with her, and a sneaking suspicion that she had somehow married a secret pervert.  Worse, it raised sexual expectations – women who were used to starfishing once-a-week as a reward for a well-mowed lawn or other Beta excitements were confronted by dudes who were suddenly using terms like “doggie” and “cowgirl” and “anal” in disturbingly enthusiastic ways. 

That challenged the power of the married feminist.  A man was supposed to be faithful to a woman until she got tired of him, doting on her and supporting her in return for her grudging gift of sex.  These pretty, young, and thin pornstars were a direct challenge to that power, like having “the other woman” living in their house, tempting their docile hubbies into feminist-prohibited, female-degrading and demeaning sex like anal, male domination, or fellatio.  At the beginning of the porn revolution, in the VHS days, viewing porn could and was used as primary a basis for pursuing a divorce.  While that got to be less common as porn became ubiquitous, the official feminist “disgust” with the industry as a force of patriarchal evil corrupting the minds of the innocent and ruining the pursuit of a truly equal society hardened into stone. 

But feminists can’t wage a war against porn based on the loss of sexual leverage in a marriage.  That would be obviously un-equal, after all, from the female side – feminists views of marriage in general supported a female-led but ostensibly “equal pursuit of mutual pleasure” which usually mean equally-disappointing sex for both parties.   So feminism used the “objectification” meme against men watching bare boobies because you fellas just didn’t get to know those boobies as a person before you got to see them.  And those boobies were exploited and you should feel ashamed about any positive feelings you might harbor for them.  Objectification is WRONG when it comes to women.

The problem is, objectification is a vital and essential part of male sexuality.  Of all sexuality, actually, but since men are more visual creatures, it’s easier to point to porn and scream “objectification!” than it is to point to the stereotype of the young, handsome billionaire romantic lead with a tragically misunderstood past.  Sex objects are a lot easier to identify than “success objects”, and anyway, it’s not like women actually masturbate to the thought of a handsome billionaire with a huge dick.  Not to pictures.  Not of actual billionaires.  So it’s OK. 

But for dudes, we need a certain amount objectification in order to be fully-formed, sexually-mature men.  Unless we can objectively make decisions about our mating options, we lose the ability to select the highest-quality mates within the pool.  And that’s very poor mating strategy.  Since men value beauty and sexual adventure in their mates (usually – I don’t judge) then beautiful and sexually-adventurous women tend to – objectively speaking – be more attractive to them.  

The ability to objectify is utterly necessary for us to determine whether or not a woman is a better bet for casual non-reproductive sex or better for the development of high-quality offspring or – preferably – both.  Women have the same need for objectification, otherwise there wouldn’t be the flurry of pre-date internet investigation about every dude women meet to determine – objectively – whether or not he’s worth pursuing.

(Of course, they rationalize away this in-depth invasion of privacy as a “safety measure” – after all, they don’t want to get involved in a pre-conviction axe murderer [post-conviction axe-murderers are exciting and exotic, on the other hand, and deserving of huge amounts of attention].  But what a man’s credit rating, his socio-economic status and his resume have to do with his desire to hack a woman to pieces after an unsuccessful date is beyond me.  Are Audi owners more prone to decapitation, I wonder?  But I digress.)

Now, let’s also set-aside the intellectual dishonesty that allows feminists on the one hand to object to professional women being paid an exceptional wage for a demanding career naked and having sex on camera, yet support that same woman’s right to exhibit herself on camera with her lover at home as a fundamental sexual freedom.  Because, as most feminist don’t want you to know, the vast majority of porn on the internet is amateur fare made by consenting partners for their own enjoyment.  And yes, for a large number of such folks, sharing their videos is a major part of that enjoyment.  But women who get paid for it are being “exploited”, while Molly and Harry Sugarsack of Hackensack, NJare just getting their feminist-approved vanilla kicks.  Let’s forget that for a moment, because there’s a deeper issue here.

That issue is the psychological foundation of feminist objection to objectification (of women) itself.  You see, objectification is the polar opposite of solipsism, and that’s where feminists fall off the swingset.

Female solipsism, as we have discussed and explored, is the observed tendency of a woman to put herself as the focus of the situation regardless of whether or not she belongs there.  It’s the “what about me?” or “how does this affect me?” meme.  That is, in any given case a woman is more likely to consider the entire situation based on how it will personally affect her life before she looks at it from any other perspective.  This isn’t an absolute, this isn’t a universal, there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but in aggregate female solipsism is an observable trait that seems embedded in the feminine psyche.

It’s also understandable, from an evolutionary perspective.  As the guardians of genetic purity, women have a vested interest in ensuring their personal survival and the survival of their offspring.  Therefore, what happens to her, personally, is of great importance to the genetic cargo she’s carrying.  Putting “women and children first”, and herself at the head of the line, might seem selfish, but it’s just her body and her subconscious trying to maximize her sexual capital into the best deal she can get. 

Men, on the other hand, use objectification for much the same purpose, evolutionarily speaking.  Since men are the guardians of genetic diversity, then their interest lies in selecting the best possible future mothers of their children.  That has nothing to do with True Love or Fate or Kismet or Karma or anything else other than what makes their dicks hard.  And, generally speaking, that’s not a great personality or good earning potential, it’s big juicy boobs, a pretty face, a sexy smile and a bouncy booty you’d follow for blocks.  While he might have more in common with a woman on an intellectual and emotional level, his evolutionarily-proscribed task is not to bond with a single woman, it’s to spread his seed to maximize the genetic diversity he’s guarding to as many places as possible.

Solipsism puts the individual woman first, and all women ahead of everything else.  Or, more accurately, solipsism puts the woman’s perspective first in consideration.  It demands taking a “personal approach” to every problem.  And when you put that proposition into play in the dating-and-mating world, that means that it’s in a woman’s best interest to dissuade a dude from sowing wild oats in other fields and supporting her, because she’s a special little snowflake whose genetic material, exemplified in her warm personality and not her cottage-cheese thighs, which is just naturally better and more attractive than—HEY!  QUIT STARING AT HER BOOBS!

Feminists object to objectification NOT because they’re concerned with how they and their fellow women are perceived by men (and each other) at large, but because objectification denies solipsism.  When women are objectified, they lose the ability to place themselves at the center of their universe, and must concede that they are merely one snowflake in a snowbank.  That’s a painful admission for feminists who have been raised on the red meat of grrl empowerment.  It’s also painful for the non-feminist or not-particularly-feminist woman to acknowledge that they are not quite as special as they’d been led to believe by their self-esteem-inducing curriculum.

Objectification denies the solipsism that women need in order to form a lasting relationship with a man.  If a woman knows that the man she's selected is looking at other women, then it feels like she's somehow failed in her genetic mission to captivate his attention . . . if he's not exclusively focused on her as much as possible, then she feels that his willingness to commit to her, personally, is jeopardized   Therefore other women, real or digital, are a threat to her exclusive claim to him.  Feminism, in its fight for imagined "equality" in the interpersonal sphere, tried to demonize male objectification while glorifying female solipsism within the bounds of a relationship.  It was part of the failed feminist mating strategy.  

The problem is, as stated, men need to objectify women.  It's what makes our penises work.  It's also our greatest weapon against the ever-present rejection that even men in LTRs can feel.  When a dude gets turned down for sex, his first instinct is to objectify and distance himself from that failure like dropping a hot match.  That might sound unreasonable to women, but that's the biological fact.  While we can bond to one woman for a lifetime, we cannot do so without knowing and loving all women somewhat.  We need to know what we like and what we don't as thoroughly as any woman does . . . our criteria are just different.  Female solipsism says that "the One" is out there for everyone and anyone, because every snowflake has a match somewhere. In True Love, Fate will bring them together.  In feminism, if you ride the carousel for long enough "The One" is supposed to appear, inexorably (and inexplicably) attracted to your spunkiness, independence, and strength.  

Either way, the whole idea of "The One" is the cultural expression of female solipsism writ large.  Under either system, the perfect man is drawn to a particular woman because of her personality, her nature, and her unique perspective on life, with an emphasis on "fun" and "fearless".  Female solipsism fights against the objectification of women (but not men) under the guise of feminism in fighting against porn and under the guise of romance as snowflakiness.  Women deserve to have great relationships under both mating strategies simply by virtue of being women.  Of course, what actually happens is usually much more brutal.

From the male perspective, objectification of women is vital to Game as a mating strategy, especially in a Dating 2.0 world.  Indeed, Game requires objectification of women before you do anything else -- if you aren't willing to generalize about the observable characteristics of female mating behavior or their mating strategies, you're just as much in a True Love fog as the ditziest romance-reading cat lady.  Objectification requires placing all women on the same line, holding them to the same standards, and assessing them against those standards in a cool and calculated way.  Being persuaded away from objectifying women, such as our poor Blue Pill Beta brothers have done, denies a woman's fungibility and by default makes her the most important element in the relationship.  They have been forced to acknowledge that their sexuality only exists through the subjective perspective of their wives, and are denied the ability to consider other options even in the privacy of their own heads.

Romantic solipsistic women want to feel like Cinderella -- where Prince Charming will show himself by having the perfectly-fitting glass slipper that is hers alone.  The relationship works ONLY because of her unique character and individual perspective -- because it's her special little foot in the slipper.   The problem is that there are plenty of women with her shoe size, she just doesn't want to admit that . . . or how many shoes she's tried on while looking.  

Feminist solipsism says that the Prince Charming and his slipper will not only fit her, but because Prince Charming is there in the first place because he's attracted to her intelligence, wisdom, and personality (which has nothing whatsoever to do with how she fills out a ball gown).  That slipper will fit perfectly at first, and if it starts pinching her feet later on the feminist solipsist feels comfortable with the idea that she can upgrade to a better quality of glass slipper because she's not happy with them at any time in the future.  

Game says that you are Prince Charming, dude, and you started out with your own glass-slipper design.  It isn't intended for any one girl's foot . . . but the one it fits will be the one most likely to fulfill your criteria for a good partner.  It's not that you're looking for a particular princess, understand . . . you just want one whose foot fits within the objective parameters you've established.  Yet every woman who can manage to squeeze her piggies into it is absolutely certain that you are "The One", ready to sweep her off her feet and set her up in a magical land of luxury, love, and perpetual security and excitement, just because she can cram her toes inside.  

So consider objectification and solipsism as you plot your own mating strategies, Gents.  Understand the role they play in sexuality, and why feminism politicized it.  It's about power, no more, no less.  After all, if feminists were all that concerned with the plight of women in general, then why are they continuously freaking out about the thousands of women who work in porn instead of the millions of women who work in the textile industry, where they are regularly subjected to sub-par working conditions and on-the-job rape just so that they can keep their low-paying jobs and continuously supply their First World sisters with a dazzling array of stylish-yet-affordable fashions.  No, feminism's anti-porn perspective is born far more out of a crippling desire to dominate their personal relationships without the threat of another sexual outlet in contention, an extension of their solipsistic tendencies to consider their own interests and issues before any other.

Your best bet?  Build a really strong "glass slipper", long before you start trying to jam some chick's foot into it, and then don't accept any foot that can't fit into it comfortably.  Your commitment is your prize, Gentlemen, and if you want to get the most value for that prize, then build your slipper as smooth as silk and as strong as steel, and refuse to accept anything less before you offer a chick your kingdom.

Okay, break over.  Back to the book.

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Free To Be . . . A Man.

I can pinpoint, almost to the day, when I started chugging Blue Pills in my youth.  It was the day I saw Free To Be You And Me in elementary school, back in the 1970s.  It was the pro-feminist brainchild of Marlo Thomas, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and it was designed to make everyone feel it was okay to be different things: girls could be construction workers, boys could be nurses and carry dolls, black kids and white kids could play together, etc.  The basic concept was to encourage post-60s gender neutrality, promoting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one's identity (as long as you were a girl or a gay guy). A major thematic message was that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything.  But mostly girls.  It was notable for catchy pop tunes and lyrics, and for having the (young and black) Michael Jackson, Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Diana Ross, and Rosey Grier, among other stars.  Rosey told us "it's all right to cry".  I was cool with that.

I was also cool with the emphasis on boys looking forward to being fathers, and encouraging them to think of child care and interaction with their future kids as positive male things (okay, "positive things", they essentially downplayed the whole "male" idea).  But the subtext was clear: dudes will enjoy being good fathers to their kids, and it's something that you should look forward to.  And I did.  It made me use fatherhood as one of my prime motivating factors in searching for a bride, and I had and continue to have a very close relationship with all of my kids, just as my Dad did with his sons.  That's not where I take issue with the program.

I take issue with the program because it was loaded with anti-masculine imagery and took the approach that, basically, all things patriarchal were evil and oppressive, and all things feminist were inherently good.  It told me, in other words, that I was Free To Be pretty much anything in the world I wanted . . . except a masculine Man.

I can see trying to move past Agricultural Age stereotypes that no longer fit the socio-economics of the post-War period, much less the coming Post-Industrial period.  I mean, after Rosie the Riveter it was damn hard to make a case that women were incapable of working most of the same jobs as men, and the post-war need for expansion and industrialization almost required a doubling of the existing pre-war workforce, just to keep the paper moving.

But Free To Be You And Me fucked me up.  Bad.  It taught me that it WAS NOT OKAY to be a "boy", that MEN were universally overbearing and insensitive jerks whose only role was to dictate and oppress, and that my ONLY HOPE for moral and social acceptance in this brave new plastic world was to hand my testicles over to Marlo and forget I ever had them.

Because that's what FTBYAM represented to me: a clear choice between whether to become a feared and hated MAN, or a gentle and caring boy who eschewed violence and oppression in favor of fat-free yogurt and kittens.  FTBYAM probably contributed the most to my fucked-up ideas about women and men.  Because while Marlo And Friends were singing about how you could be anything you wanted when you grew up, I was looking around me at the time (mid-70s) and seeing that what most boys and girls apparently wanted to be when they grew up was DIVORCED.

FTBYAM made me ashamed of my gender, ashamed of my culture, ashamed of my history.  It made me ashamed of my father for not deferring to my mother in all things.  It gave all the credence the young feminist teachers in charge of me needed to castigate me for the slightest boyish infraction.  It gave all my young feminist peers all the ammunition they needed to not just reject me, but call me "creep" and other male-bashing tripe, and the sad fact was that if I reported them, it was I who got sent to the Principal's office.

Any attempt at asserting any kind of "traditional" masculinity was stomped on (by the younger teachers -- the older ones still remembered Segregation, they had other issues).  The younger teachers, the ones with feminist fervor in their eyes, seemed to delight in correcting a boy if he said he wanted to be a fireman or a policeman or a soldier or a race car driver, telling him instead that it was perfectly okay to be a nurse or a daycare provider instead.  Funny, she didn't mention the wonderful starting salaries of those perfectly okay positions, or how to raise a family on them.  The subtext was clear: such passively Beta, overly-feminized career choices were the only ones they were going to promote.  To boys.

The fact is, FTBYAM may have promoted "freedom", but in the process to make children who were "unencumbered by stereotypes", FTBYAM ended up merely creating new ones: the timid Beta (and soon to be divorced) dad, the overbearing Alpha (soon-to-be-step) dad, the successful marital "partnership" that was about as useful a guide to actual marriage as a bicycle manual is to a carp, the "empowered" young woman who could do anything, the "understanding" young man who was expected and obligated to let her do anything, and absolutely no room within the feminist pantheon for a dude who wanted to be free to be a dude.  You took the Blue Pill or you got kicked out as a troublemaker.  Period.

I bring this up today because I read over at HuffPo a lovely little post from Marlo about bullying.

You see, bullying is what happens when one kid is mean to another kid, and it really is a bad thing.  My son has been bullied.  My daughter has been bullied.  Both have witnessed severe bullying.  And it's clear that, for some individuals, the emotional strain of bullying is too much.  Pointless suicides or runaways have resulted from bullies and inattentive parents.  I have to agree with Marlo, this is a majorly important topic to discuss with our kids.

But the irony is killing me.

Thanks to FTBYAM and its clones, adherents, and attitudes, I and thousands of boys like me were institutionally bullied by feminists throughout our childhoods.  Our schools and our teachers were working with the intention of removing the dangerous "masculine" characteristics that might interfere in the feminist paradigm -- say, like getting married and wanting your wife to stay at home with the kids, or pursuing a "typical" and "traditional" male career path that might block some enterprising young woman from having that job.  FTBYAM epitomized feminism's subtextual message to men: YOU ARE USELESS AND EVIL AND IN OUR WAY.  

Not "equality", not "level playing field", regardless of their intentions the result was a generation of self-loathing boys who resented girls and women for their perceived privileges  even as we felt powerless and at the mercy of the whims of the adult women in our lives.  Moms who didn't give a damn what you thought about your new step-dad after a hypergamous divorce.  Teachers who -- no lie -- told my six-year-old brother Lester in kindergarten that "it doesn't matter if your mommy and daddy love each other, they're just going to end up divorced".  (That fucked Lester up for decades.) Neighborhood ladies, mostly divorced themselves, who kept trying to give my mother good reasons to leave my dad even though they admired his fathering skills (he was the only intact father in the neighborhood) and discouraged her from getting us boys involved with Scouting because it was "sexist".

And then there was school.  Female, feminist teachers who "lost" my applications for special programs, or failed to recommend me or other male students for honors in favor of girls.  If it hadn't been for my History teacher, bless her heart, I never would have won my first essay contest.  My English teacher was a feminist who told me, to my face, that despite the fact that my essay was chosen blindly (no names or other identifying characteristics) that the school didn't feel comfortable submitting so many boys and not enough girls.  So out of the five boys and two girls who were selected locally, one boy and two girls were recommended by her.  But my History teacher didn't like her, she did like me, and she recognized talent.  She submitted me on her own and I won.

And then there was the feminist guidance counselor in high school who desperately tried to use my boyish teenaged angst as leverage to get me to go to a small private liberal arts college instead of the local, internationally-known public research university nearby I favored because (as I found out later) her gender-based numbers were off: she had too many boys were going to big State and technical universities, while too many girls were going into the small liberal arts colleges and "traditionally female" schools.  She went so far as to call my folks and try to persuade them that I'd be "better off" someplace less challenging.  Of course, if that meant that another woman could take up my spot at the university, that was just gravy, but . . .

The upshot is that between my third grade year, when we had a school-wide assembly featuring FTBYAM, and my first year of college, I and my brothers were subjected to what can only be described as pervasive, gender-based institutional bullying.  And we did tell our parents.  And they did complain.  And no one cared one bit, because we were merely male.

FTBYAM was followed up with Free To Be A Family, which took the anti-masculine bias of FTBYAM and mixed it with some massive rationalizations about how much fun it was to be a kid from a divorced household.  In Marlo's own words, "I also wanted to dispel the idea that there is such a thing as a "broken" family. A family is a place that you come home to where people love you and support you and miss you and can’t wait to find out what you did today."

Well, that's great . . . except it was directly counter to the experiences we were having in the 1980s, when she was promoting the Murphy Brown, UMC Professional divorcee ideal of family and we were seeing kids our age becoming alcoholics because of the stress divorce, hypegamy, infidelity, and all the other wonderful hallmarks of feminism brought us.  Oh, what bounty!  My friend Marty shot himself at 17 because his mother had refused to let him even lay eyes on his father in three years.  My friend Chris had four step-dads in five years and eventually got into heroin.  My friends Mark and Tony were exiled to the shed in the back yard so their new stepsisters could each have their own room (in defense, it was a very nice shed).  Their sisters went to college, their mom and step-dad paying for it all.  Tony went to one semester of community college his grandmother paid for, and then joined the Army, and Mark ended up working retail for decades because their step-dad didn't want to pay for some other man's kids' college . . . and didn't think his wife should either (she felt it was more important to give the girls a head-start, since life was "against them" just because they were women).

Families in the 1980s were a post-apocalyptic disaster, and worrying about whether or not a kid felt "accepted" by his peers for his family life was laughable.  We were all just trying to survive the feminist-inspired wave of "I'm not HAAAApppy!" divorces, or the mid-life crises-inspired cheating that wrecked our families.  Kids in general, to the Baby Boomers who fueled the idealistic and unrealistic FTBYAM and FTBAF, were accessories and status symbols, mere points of contention in a divorce settlement and a useless and ungrateful waste of child-support money -- believe me, we knew that.  We got told that by our culture every day.

Especially if you were a boy, the consensus opinion of the women in your life (and in popular culture) was that you were either effeminate and ineffectual to the point of terminal Betatude (which they despised but accepted) or that you were an angry, violent male chauvinist intent on perpetuating the oppressive nature of the Patriarchy and therefore merited their disgust.  And if you tried to claim to be the former, they did everything but demand you castrate yourself before they'd admit it.

FTBYAM and FTBAF taught two generations of boys to loathe themselves and hate their own gender.  It taught us that that women were smarter than men, women were better than men, that women had better promise and better sense than men, and -- most importantly -- women were just more important than men . . . and particularly young men who weren't even cute boys anymore.  Yech.

By the time my generation hit our teenage years, crawling into a popular culture of disaffected youth and wailing androgyny was all we could do to survive this pervasive, intentional attack on masculinity.  The institutional bullying by "tough, smart, independent women" in our public and private institutions, not to mention the culture at large, taught us to fear women, not trust them in the slightest, and it didn't do a damn thing to make us less resentful.  It just showed us that, for men, feminism was about revenge and suffering, not about equality and fair play.  We could take a look around at the social carnage of divorce and hum a few bars of one of the songs with tragic irony and KNOW that it was bullshit . . . but bullshit that was Industry Standard.  The families we saw were chaotic messes who mostly just argued, drank, fought, and went to counseling until it was time for a divorce.  Few of the kids I knew ever had a place that you come home to where people love you and support you and miss you and can’t wait to find out what you did today."  That was a sick fantasy, compared to what was actually happening to "family" in America in the 1980s.  Mostly their parents yelled at them about homework, asked them pointless questions and didn't wait to hear the answer, and then went off on their own little head-trips about their own failing relationships.

Of course there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.  We've had two generations of catastrophic hypergamic divorce to look back on, two generations of weekend-or-absent dads, two generations where men didn't feel comfortable trying to talk to their sons at all, lest they be accused of "spreading sexism".  The original children of divorce have overcome the stigma enough to rack up three or four divorces and step-families of their own, now.  The Patriarchy has well and truly fallen, and now only the Puerarcy remains.  Two generation of anti-social Betas too battered by feminist combat dating and no firm social rules has had an effect someplace other than the Glass Ceiling.  I have seen Scout troops filled with boys from single-mom homes, and gosh, they didn't look nearly as happy, secure and fulfilled as those from two-parent households.

Because almost thirty years after Free To Be, we can measure its results, and those results are mixed at best.  While it's true that you have empowered, intelligent, highly-motivated young women willing to devote a decade and a half of their best reproductive years to climbing the corporate ladder, at the end of that climb they discover that their reproductive options (what we use to call "husbands") don't want a thing to do with them.  Feminists may make decent bosses and great co-workers, but they make cruddy wives and mediocre mothers, with a few notable exceptions.

You can chalk up at least a bit of the "marriage gap" (the age at which couples get married for the first time -- it was about 19 in 1960, it's 28 and rising here and now) to women focusing more on career interests . . . but you can explain a lot more of it if you consider that the dudes out there just don't want to get married at all, anymore, and particularly not to women who are more concerned with corporate bonuses than childcare.  Dads (and potential dads) are, indeed, a lot more involved and sensitive to their reproductive issues today (thanks, feminism!), and because of that those men who do put thought and effort into their fatherhood, including good wife selection, wouldn't marry a feminist on a bet.  The likelihood of catastrophic failure is just too high, especially when there are plenty of better options out there.  Foreign brides, "traditional" girls, or women who see themselves as mothers and (gasp!) wives rather than employees or competitors are all better bets than your average feminist, for the men of America.

(Free To Be . . . A Spinster!)

As for me, I'm going to take Marlo's advice: I'm going to be Free.  To be.  Free to be . . . a Man.  A big, hairy, thoughtful, considerate Patriarch far more concerned about my children's emotional welfare than whether or not my daughter can make partner before she's 30.  A Man, unafraid of women and disdainful of feminist shaming rhetoric.  A Man who understands that violence, power, money, and ingenuity are all tools at my disposal, not reasons to loathe who I am.  A Man who feels no shame at looking and lusting at women for fear of offending their "rights" not to feel afraid of me.

I was afraid of women for thirty years.  Female fear is just not a high priority for me.

But, thanks to Marlo, I'm Free.  Free to Be.

I'm free to be a Man who takes a wife (who knows and understands that "wife" doesn't mean "equal and temporary domestic partner", but WIFE) and raises his kids without fearing Marlo's ire.  A Man who feels no pity at the struggle of young women trying to find a job in this economy because there was damn little pity demonstrated to me during the last economic recession    I'm free to be a Man who can stick his tongue out at the gigantic shit test that is feminism and ignore it, because it just isn't working for me anymore (and, I see, it never really was).  I'm free to be a Man who doesn't feel compelled to sacrifice the futures of my sons in order to elevate my daughter's.  Sure, they're free to be whatever the hell they want . . . but they also understand that that freedom is dependent, partially, on their accepting my guidance, or they'll be free to slug it out on their own. I'm free to be a Man who delights in the sight of naked boobs and the hum of precision machinery, who doesn't consider the expression of my sexuality an attack on femininity, who demands respect -- yes, demands it -- or I won't play anymore.

And that's where Marlo And Friends really went wrong for half of the audience they were shooting for.  They managed to inject the idea of gender-free economic and social empowerment, but they did so in such a way that promoted the active and willful disrespect of masculinity and male authority.  And while that would make any real feminist cream her jeans just hearing about, the sad, Red Pill fact is that when you promote disrespect for masculinity in a culture, you do not automatically increase respect for femininity.  You just get a lot of sullen, pissed-off, uninvested men who can't wait until the feminists are out of the room so that they can tell that joke.

And a lot of strong, independent, empowered women who can't get two dates in a row with the same dude, much less a commitment, a ring, or a family.  Women who traded in their reproductive future and betrayed their genetic destiny for the promise of a respect that never was fulfilled.  Those poor women, thanks to feminism, are Free To Be single for the rest of their lives and die alone, childless, and unloved by men.  They get to stamp their feet in rage as the dudes they once dated and tried for years to get to commit end up getting married to much younger women (often in a matter of months) from the Philippines or Korea or Brazil or Siberia and start popping out kids like it's double coupon day.  These strong, independent women who were told there would be PLENTY of dudes waiting for them when they were done Being Free To Be are now realizing, to their horror, that they've been sold a bill of goods.  They're Free To Be a corporate drone with a vagina that's increasingly losing the attention she craves and increasingly getting frustrated at all of the guys who are just not real damn impressed with how well they've done.

But that's okay, Ladies.  Because it's all right to cry.  We should know.  We've been doing it behind your backs since 1974.

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Go Where The Fish Are

I'm not much of a fisherman, unfortunately.  That's not because I'm not interested, but because I'm impatient.

My grandfather tried in vain to instill a sense of patience sufficient to allow five whole minutes to pass in silence while we fished from his boat.  An enthusiastic if unremarkable angler, my grandfather was one of those guys for whom a bad day drowning worms beat a good day doing just about anything else.  It was the process, not the fish, that he enjoyed.  But as a kid I just couldn't hold still for very long, so he figured out early on that in order to engage my interest enough to permit him to enjoy himself, I had to get a fish every now and then.  So when we'd go for more than five minutes without a nibble, he'd sigh, start the engine, and move to another part of the lake.

Eventually I asked him why we kept going further into the wilderness  and why we changed spots so quickly.   He looked at me sagely.

"Ian, if you don't have the time to be patient, sometimes it's just easier to go where the fish are."

 My grandfather's advice came back to me when I was sitting at a penny-slot machine, waiting for Mrs. Ironwood to get out of her conference.  I was at the Rio in Las Vegas, which is a pretty impressive (if in need of renovations) casino resort complex.  For one thing, it has Penn & Teller, two of the funniest magicians in the world.  It also has the World Series of Poker every year, and hot-and-cold-running Texas Hold'em tournaments four times a day.

But it also has Chippendales.  And it's one of the cheapest shows in the joint.

Chippendales are, of course, the internationally renown group of male burlesque strippers.  They were Magic Mike before there was a Magic Mike.  Featuring a constantly-rotating cast of buff young men, the Chippendales are perhaps the most socially-acceptable all-male hetero revue a woman could attend.  The fellas strut and dance, work the ladies up into a frenzy, and then pose for pictures afterward while the ladies are basking int he afterglow.

Only, the ladies don't actually have an afterglow.  Indeed, the ladies-only show has a tendency to keep them in a frenzy.  With that much raw testosterone and musculature flexing in their faces -- not to mention the large, economy-sized slabs of penis these fellas carry just a scrap of nylon from the noses of said ladies -- you can just imagine what kind of raw Alpha inspiration they've been exposed to.  By the time they get to pictures, some of these women (who apparently haven't been touched by a man in a long, long time) are near to quivering with anticipation.

If there was ever a place where the fish were, so to speak, this is it.

Seriously, for my single male readers who are trying to round out their idea of Game over here in the married parts of the 'sphere, remember that if you're fishing scant waters you'll likely go home with an empty basket -- whether your fishing catch-and-release or you plan to eat it.

I talk to plenty of single dudes who are eager for Game advice, and then get bitter when the same crappy bars and book clubs are introducing them to the same small pool of pussy.  Pussy often requiring far more Game than it's worth.  But hanging outside of the Chippendales show and watching everyone from a nineteen-year-old bridesmaid to a sixty-nine year old spinster leave slug trails across the casino after that show suggests that finding a large pool of pre-seduced women is like my grandfather and I stumbling across a school of starving fish.

Remember, fellas: women have responsive desire, which means that they don't get hot without a reason, usually.  Women are also more-likely to seek out such stimulating entertainment as the pecs and abs of the Chippendales when they are close to ovulation -- prime sexy time -- and when they go in groups, the FSM mandates that they take a sluttier approach than, perhaps, they are used to.  Throw them into a vat of Primal Alpha, pheromones, cheap drinks and What Happens In Vegas, and the result is -- excuse the expression -- like shooting fish in a barrel.

As I've mentioned in the past, it doesn't really matter who is the perpetrator of the Alpha is -- if a woman witnesses an Alpha performance of any kind, it's going to start the tap running.  You can take advantage of it or not, but once it's running, it's pretty damn hard to shut off.  Put a horny chick in a room full of other horny chicks and stick the biggest dick they've ever seen three inches from her nose, and that's enough to make a nun gush.

Nor were the ladies in attendance uniformly old spinsters with cobwebs in their coochies: thanks to Vegas being a popular spot for bachelorette parties, and Chippendales being a mandatory stop on that circuit.  There were plenty of young, hot, and single babes panting and flushing after the show.  A blind homeless dude could have gotten laid with those odds.

Chippendales isn't the only venue you can take advantage of.  Women find themselves aroused after any number of exciting and sexually-stimulating displays.  I've had good reports following football games, NASCAR events, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and other brute displays of naked competition.  Rock concerts, as I've mentioned in the past, are particularly noteworthy for turning up the seat-heat in a woman.  The vibrations, the crowd, and the in-your-face sexuality of most male rock stars is more than enough to make her want to fuck someone . . . and that might as well be you.

Professional sports is another great place to find pre-horny women.  Everything from roller derby to professional football can give women the visceral excitement they need to keep the panties moist.  Witnessing a naked display of aggression and competition is hot-making for most women.

Another serious vein of wet panties is -- I shit you not -- the firing range.  An older friend of mine goes every Sunday morning, and after wasting $50 of 9mm ammunition he takes a break and susses out the possibilities.  Especially for the mid-30s crowd, Sundays seem to be a popular time for women to shoot, and he makes plenty of pick-ups there.  He's often said that the bigger the gun a woman fires, the easier time she'll be to get in bed.

Yet another good external cue is motorcycles or horses.  Many women still have a latent sexual association with horses left over from their little-girl My Little Pony phase.  Seeing a powerful animal, so graceful and beautiful, as well as the smell of horse, straw, and manure that accompanies them, is often enough to get a woman hyped up.  And my brother Lester once had a girlfriend with a motorcycle fetish -- not uncommon.  If they were driving down the road and a sport-bike whizzed by, her panties got wet just at the sound of the muffler.  If they got passed by a convoy of motorcycles, she would make him pull over and give him head.

Some dudes might feel threatened by the idea of their woman getting hot and bothered because of some 25 year old muscle-bound stud.  She should be getting hot and bothered over you, after all.  But the plain Red Pill fact is that women like to look at hunky guys gyrating their junk and sweating all over the place, yet the vast majority would never dream of hooking up with the dude in whose g-string they just stuffed $25 in ones.  Nor is it likely that the dancers are popping wood over the generally-rotund audience -- word on the street that many, if not most, of the dancers are Lambdas.  (Hell, if I looked like that, I'd probably be gay, too.  Women just don't know how to appreciate that much gym time on a man.  Gay dudes, on the other hand, can look at a guy that women find orgasm-inducing and wrinkle up their nose about how 'fat' he is.)

Romance novels are another horny-making device.  If your woman likes them, don't try to interfere . . . but pay close attention to her visible responses while she's reading, and if she starts to squirm and press her thighs together while she's reading, it's time to pounce.  And ten minutes with Christian Grey and his sex toy collection can work decidedly in your favor.  Indeed, if you see a woman reading 50 Shades of Grey openly, then consider her pre-primed and potentially even consciously looking for dick.

It's important, of course, to not come to rely on this kind of stimulation, should you be married or in a LTR.  Couples who regularly have to find their erotic inspiration outside of the bedroom are on the path to divorce, more often than not.  Going to Chippendales in Vegas and getting keyd up is one thing . . . stalking the local college ROTC so that she can find a good place to park while the young shirtless men can jog by five times a week is quite another.

In extreme cases it can lead to the cuckolding lifestyle, with the wife entering a Bull Alpha's harem while the mild-mannered Beta looks on, films his woman's antics with the "real man", and hopes like hell she'll still want to throw him a pity fuck afterward.  It's as bad --actually, probably a lot worse -- than being "addicted to porn" and requiring to view it before you can fuck your wife.  If she can only find satisfaction in the arms of a Bull, then your relationship has some issues.


Of course, if she's just lusting over a 25 year old muscular gigolo who's getting paid for the service, you don't have too much to worry about in terms of cheating.  You may, however, get the message that she'd like more Alpha in her diet if she's eager for such entertainments.  You may also want to come up with your own little dance routine, complete with props and banana hammock, with the caveat that it must be delivered with utter confidence or you'll probably just look fruity.

But if you're single, horny, and looking for an easy strike, go where the fish are.  If you're enterprising enough you'll ferret out where all the bachelorette parties go, what clubs have a ladies' night, etc.  Find the places where the horny women hang out, and maximize your potential for the evening.  If nothing else, it allows you to practice Game on a receptive audience, and gives you lots of experience in approach and confidence.

As far as my own Chippendales experience, you'll be interested to know that Mrs. Ironwood skipped it -- not because she doesn't enjoy rock-hard chiseled abs (they're a welcome change of pace, I imagine), but because she didn't want to get three-drinks-minimum drunk and horn-out in front of professional colleagues, nor did she want to witness her (mostly single and perpetually aroused) colleagues freak out over the idea of fresh cock.  It's not that she gets offended but . . . well, there are just some things you can't un-see.

So I entertained her myself, after the conference and dinner, back in our suite.  I won't mention the props or costumes, and I damn sure wasn't as hot as a Chippendale dancer, but the fact she got to do me without putting a wad of ones in my thong first -- and didn't have to worry about catching anything or getting rejected -- was worth it.  And I didn't even have to finish my routine -- I'm not the only one who gets a little impatient.

Sure, I felt objectified, cheap, and a little used afterward . . . but isn't that what Las Vegas is for?

Good luck fishing, fellas!

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It's Equilibrium, Not Equality, That Makes A Marriage Work

Q: It is well know that Mrs. Ironwood is smart, well educated, and well paid. So obviously she is not playing dumb or incompetent in an attempt to make her man feel important. It would be interesting to know what she does to "be the woman" and allow you to "be the man" (generalities, not details - lol). 

A: What an excellent question!

When I read this at Stately Ironwood Manor this morning over my usual coffee-and-cigarettes breakfast (most important meal of the day), I went ahead and read it aloud to Mrs. Ironwood, who has better sense about how to begin her day and was eating a ridiculously high-fiber cereal.

She considered.

“Mostly, I stay out of your way and let you do what you do.”

She elaborated – one of the things I love about her is her keen insight into masculine psychology.  Basically she told me that she recognizes that there are things that are inherently important to a man, and that when it comes to those issues (insofar as they do not negatively impact the over-all Mission), regardless of whether or not she thinks she knows a better way to do it, or a better approach, or whatever . . . she stays out of my way and lets me do those particular things my way.

It’s a struggle, sometimes, she continues.  But just as she feels sensitive to the fact that I’ve assumed many of the “traditional wifely responsibilities” like laundry, getting the kids ready for school, shopping and cooking, things that she feels judged about by her mother and the other women in her personal Matrix, she understands that I feel sensitive to the need to assert my masculinity in other ways.  Like working in porn and hanging pictures and spending my off-hours relentlessly trying to get into her pants.  

If expressing my masculinity involves her getting laid with the frequency of a truck stop hooker, then she's willing to take the hit for the team.  One of her girlfriends hasn't gotten laid in over a year.  Another has hit a rough patch in her relationship and has slowed to once a month.  Mrs. Ironwood implicitly understands just how dysfunctional that is for a relationship, so if accepting eager and willing cunnilingus a couple of times a week will help keep our marriage running smoothly, she'll gladly make the sacrifice.

She's such a trooper.

It was a fascinating discussion – we've covered some of this territory before, but it was interesting to see it like this.  We’re very aware of our mutual interdependence and how important it is to a well-functioning ship, but we rarely discuss it in those terms.  She makes more money.  I do more housecleaning.  Yet the social expectations of both issues put a lot of undue pressure on us from outside.  That alone is often enough to put strain on a couple.

However, one advantage that we have over many couples is the fact that we long-ago accepted the fact that while our relationship and our family was perfectly normal, it was also destined to be utterly unconventional.  Striving to fulfill outside expectations – in any direction – has the potential to detract from the efficiency of how well the ship runs, and could compromise the over-all Mission.  If outsiders see it as a challenge to my masculinity that I take my daughter to Girl Scouts and the only professional sport I follow avidly is Ice Dancing (long story), then I know thatit is their issue, not mine.  The Mission states that the important thing is the happiness and welfare of the children is the highest priority, and if that means I have to skip down Main Street in a blue satin evening dress in order to make it happen, then I can take the hit.  My masculinity is dependent upon successfully fulfilling the Mission requirements, not on living up to someone else’s expectations of how I do so.  And Mrs. Ironwood is the only person on the planet empowered to offer me unsolicited criticism about how I fulfill the Mission.  Understanding that difference has given me tremendous emotional freedom in how I run the household.

So we’re both willing to compromise about stuff . . . but we try like the dickens to make sure that we don’t have to.  Luckily, we both are on the same page so much of the time that our compromises usually seem minor and unimportant when they actually happen.  Chalk it up to good wife selection criteria and a long vetting period.

But one fundamental that we practice is always being willing to communicate, within the dictates of the Rules of Engagement.  And we have both accumulated enough of a store of trust in each other that when one of us does something the other sees as dicey, then we’re willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to each other, even if we’re pretty sure the other person is wrong.  I may know for a fact that what she’s doing is a mistake, but if I do not give her the freedom and autonomy to make and learn from mistakes (provided they don’t imperil the Mission) then I’m not leading properly.  

The same goes for me: if I’m indulging in a masculine fit of do-it-myself, say, fixing the porch or painting a fence, then Mrs. Ironwood has the brains to recognize that the important issue is not whether or not the fence gets painted, it’s that I am painting the fence as an expression of my masculine power to Order the household.  And because painting a fence is well within my capabilities.   She trusts me to do the job to the best of my ability, and then knows that the proper feminine response – regardless of the outcome – is to praise the effort, not the result.

Admittedly the praise is higher when I don’t fuck things up, but she never – NEVER – tells me “I told you so!” when things go wrong.  Indeed, even if I do fuck things up (it happens) she thanks me for my efforts and encourages me to think positively about it.  She doesn’t use my failed attempt as a crowbar to leverage in a subsequent relationship discussion.  

That’s a rare and special gift.  Some folks think that marriage means that both husband and wife can relax into a perpetual casual relationship in which the little things don’t matter because of the strength of your love, but any OMG will tell you the opposite is true.  Extending basic courtesy and politeness to your spouse is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to keeping the ship running properly.

Remember, Captain and First Officer are positions with a lot more ritual and protocol implicit in them than “wifey and hubby 2.0”.  Ignoring basic courtesy because you’ve happened to see your spouse busting a grumpy in the bathroom is foolish.  And ignoring her accomplishments and her efforts is twice as foolish.   Remember, the performance of the First Officer is in part contingent on (and is a reflection of) your abilities as a leader.  If that means calling out your spouse for praise more often than you probably would a casual acquaintance then remember that a) you likely did not exchange profound vows with a casual acquaintance and b) in most cases a casual acquaintance is unlikely to provide you with fellatio.

Mrs. Ironwood earns compliments from me every day – and note I said “earned” not “deserves”.  It doesn’t matter whether or not she deserves the compliment – the fact is, she is a superlative wife who earns the praise I give her, and I would be a stingy husband to withhold it.  And she reciprocates, often surprising me with “One of the reasons I love you is how you ….” at moments when I least suspect it.  This has the dual effect of increasing my attraction to her (we’re always more attracted to those who offer praise and respect toward us) and rewarding good behavior on my part.  The reward system works both ways, after all, and Mrs. Ironwood has learned how to work it to our mutual advantage.

Mrs. Ironwood also made this valuable point that I hadn’t considered:

“When you really are set on something and I think it’s a bad idea, and I’ve told you I think it’s a bad idea—”

“You let me do it anyway,” I finished, smugly.

“Well, not exactly,” she hedged, much to my surprise.  “Just as you have the masculine power of Ordering, I have the feminine power of Persuasion.  And in cases where I really think something is a bad idea, and you aren’t listening to my cogent and well-reasoned arguments, then I use my feminine wiles to distract you from the issue until you decide to do it my way.”

“Hey!  That’s not fair!” I protested.

“It’s perfectly fair,” she disagreed.  “Look, I respect your ability and willingness to be the leader of the household – I have too much leadership crap at work, the last thing I want is to be on the hook for the decisions that run the house.  And in most cases, yeah, I can let you do it your way, anyway, and I stay out of your way.

“But if you are dead-set on doing something utterly bone-headed, yet doesn’t imperil the Mission, then I feel well within my rights to distract you away from it and give you some perspective.”

“Distract me how?” I asked, a little alarmed.

“With sex,” she shrugged.  “And attention.  I get you focused on one of your other little tangents, or I ask you about work – back to sex again – or I take you to dinner, or I unload my work issues on you for advice, and you get so wrapped up in helping me out that you often forget about the thing you were going to fuck up in the first place.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked, warily.

“If sex doesn’t work to distract you,” she reasoned, “then that tells me that whatever it is Really Matters to you, and I can either let you go or get in your face about it.  But usually you’re open to being distracted.”

I frowned.  “Am I really that easy?”

She snorted.  “Why do you think I married you?”

There were plenty of potential responses to that, but I found myself going in an unexpected direction.  “So, does it bother you that our marriage isn’t based on the principal of equality?” I asked.

“Equality?” she asked, just as surprised.  “Look, it’s a marriage, not a suspension bridge.  We’re not two equally strong pillars both holding it up equally.  That’s a stupid metaphor.  Marriage is a fluid, plastic, constantly-changing thing, especially with kids involved.  Forget equality.  What we have is a teeter-totter.  A see-saw.  You’re at one end, I’m at the other.  The goal is equilibrium, not equality.  It’s not about what is fair to you, or fair to me.  It’s how we both can dance along the length of the lever in order to maintain equilibrium.”

“Explain,” I directed, intrigued.

“Look, if I’m having a shit-week – like this week, for instance,” she added.  “I’m so stressed out about work that I can’t even think about you and the kids, and that makes me feel like a bad wife and mother.

"But then I come home after bitching about it to you on the phone, and you have dinner cooked and laundry folded, it's like a Dido song.  That still makes me feel like a bad wife and mother, but I also feel so loved and supported that you adjusted your side of the see-saw to compensate for my shitty week, it makes me forget about what a shitty wife and mother I am and just drop to my knees in gratitude . . . like I have time for that.  And then next week, after I get my grades posted, I’ll re-adjust my position, spend a few evenings doing you like it’s prom night to show my appreciation and assuage my guilt, and we’ll be headed back into equilibrium.  You can’t do that trying to keep both people ‘equal’.  Someone’s always going to be up and someone’s always going to be down, but if both of us are trying for equilibrium in good faith, then we can appreciate the relationship better over time because we understand the process.”

“So to extend this metaphor,” I said, enthusiastically, “what happens if someone fails to adjust to compensate?”

“Then one of your asses is going to hit the ground with a decisive thud,” she replied, smoothly.  “That happens.  It’s happened to both of us, many times, in the last twenty years.  As long as the other person doesn’t get off the other side, you’re both cool.  But when you get off . . . well, it’s decisive thud time, only permanent.”

“So how have we avoided that, all these years?”

“You’re willing to dance on your end, I’m willing to dance on mind, and we’re both committed to the pursuit of equilibrium to affect the success of the Mission without being selfishly obsessed with equality.  It might not be as stable as ‘two pillars of equality’, but we sure have a hell of a lot more fun around the fulcrum than those couples stiffly holding up their relationship.  And then there’s the alternative . . .” she said, trailing off meaningfully.

“What alternative?”

“The thing that's really keeping me dancing on my end,” she confessed.  “Besides, y'know, true love and shit.  If one of us did step off, have you seen what’s available as replacement parts these days?  Jesus, I think I’d enter a convent before I’d start dating again.  No matter how bad you get – and you really don’t get bad,” she assured me, hurriedly, “don’t get me wrong, but no matter what a pain in my ass you are, you’re MY pain in the ass.  There’s a security in that that allows me a lot more emotional freedom than my friends.”  I was no good judge of that – that’s Matrix stuff – but I was willing to take her word for it.

“Seriously,” she continued, “half of my friends are obsessing about their lack of a boyfriend or husband, and the other half are bitching about their existing boyfriend or husband, and none of them are complaining that they aren’t being treated as an equal partner or they're getting laid too much.  I get asked all the time why I don’t bitch about you the way other women bitch about their husbands, and it really is because you don’t give me a reason to bitch.  In fact, I spent almost the entire conference talking about how great you are with the house, the kids, and me that I pissed off some people.”

I guess that’s a good thing.  “So you aren’t worried that I’m treating you like a slave, dominating the relationship, relegating you to second-class status, all that bullshit?”

She patted my knee warmly.  “Babe, my priorities are raising the kids well and keeping my family happy.  That includes you.  That’s where I find fulfillment.  Yes, I have a career -- everyone needs a J-O-B -- and I'm lucky enough to have married a man who was willing to put up with all of that school and abject povety so that you could let me make a career out of making the world a better place in a really crappy industry.  But you don’t let me make that my life.  You keep me grounded about what is truly important to me because you know me.  You get me.  And I so appreciate that about you.”  Awww!  More praise!  “So to answer your reader’s question, I’d say that I stay out of your way, let you be a man, and focus on my job as the woman in the relationship.  And I don’t let other people define for me what that is.  Not my mom.  Not my sister.  Not even you.”

Okay, I could accept that.  “And you persuade me with sex,” I added.  “When cogent and well-reasoned argument fails.”


“Right.  Do you feel threatened about that?  About me ‘using sex as a weapon’?” she asked, curious.

It was a fair question.  I mean, a lot of guys accuse women of that, and I’ve seen it employed thus over and over in other relationships.

“No,” I decided.  “Because you don’t use it as a weapon.  You use it as a tool of engagement.  When we have sex, it’s a non-verbal extension of our continuing intimate conversation.  Sometimes you use it to say ‘Honey, you’re wrong, you should see my point’.  I can handle that.  And sometimes you use it to say ‘Babe, you did a really good job – more of that, please!’ and I can handle that, too.”

“And sometimes I just want you to throw me down, rip off my clothes, and do me hard,” she reminded me.  “Just what do I have to do to persuade you to do that?”

The rest of the conversation would only be of interest to the voyeuristic and the aficionado, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.

But that’s her answer.  To misquote Star Trek, “The needs of the Family/Relationship outweigh the needs of the Spouse . . . but the Spouse’s needs are part of the needs of the family/relationship”.   We both have to dance along our side of the see-saw to keep the thing up in the air.  Every now and then we arrive at a point that’s not ‘equal’ . . . but it is equitable. We're striving for equilibrium with the understanding that we'll never quite reach it, and that's okay.

To this I will only add that Mrs. Ironwood does take care of her appearance, for work as much as for me, but she also doesn’t hesitate to doll up for date night and indulge in shameless PDAs in public. She is quite comfortable with her femininity – she knows she’s not winning any beauty contests, but that isn’t the point.  She dresses up to show respect for me, because a wife dresses up for her husband on date night.  She goes out of her way to ensure I get masculine down-time with my guy friends (I had to get her to stop calling them ‘play dates’ for the sake of my masculine dignity).

She treats me like her captain: with respect and honor and genuine loyalty.  She takes care of me, and acknowleges that that's part of her job description as much as fixing cars or cooking dinner is in mine.  She looks after my grooming and appearance, my skincare and whether or not my shoes are decent, and she tells me when I look hot enough to fuck.  And she doesn’t hesitate to show me off, use me as arm candy, and brag to her pals about just how lucky she is – whether I’m there or not.  

I understand part of that is just ‘marking her territory’, but, honestly, I find I don’t mind so much.

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