I hope this post is yet another broadside against the (mostly rich) White Male Patriarchy.
Two things no one tells you about; indeed, many of those who feel them may deny feeling them. Or deny such feelings exist. But they do. And if you want to be a real man and not simply an Adult Male Hominid, or, worse still, a Standard Male S**t, you must be honest about them.
Before I articulate the feelings, let me just say this: for me, three qualities make a man out of an Adult Male Hominid, to be written henceforth as an AMH. They are:first, integrity. You tell the truth and, with God's Help (available on request, sometimes called prayer) are honest about yourself and who and what you are, while also acknowledging what you may not yet know about yourself.
Second, responsibility. You acknowledge your mistakes and at least express the hope that you've changed since making them. And you do what you can for those close to you. Ask them what they need from you; unless you need serious work on anger issues it will almost never be your absence. Maybe not even then.
Third and last, courtesy. Unless someone is being an a**hole before your very eyes, treat them with the courtesy and civility with which you'd want to be treated. Be civil with both judge and janitor alike.
And now for these feelings. The first is not a good feeling. When you enter a woman and your body seems to ask you, 'What am I doing here?' it's time to pull out and tuck it in. I speak from hard experience. I didn't and I learned later that my partner was ill for some days after. I admit I've no empirical evidence for a connection there; only my own hunch.
The second is this: a time may come when you feel that sex is simply not worth everything that comes with it anymore. I suspect you won't feel this way while you're young; it 'll probably be mostly middle-aged and old men like me who feel this way. Yes. There comes a time when you may feel that sex just isn't worth all that comes with it. When it comes, if you'll pardon the pun. Such a time is here for me.
For me, sex is just not worth all the hysterical drama that, at least in my case, comes with it. And that doesn't only apply to my wife; I feel I've no reason to believe it'd be much different with any other woman of any legal age.
When this happens, you realize something: you have no major reason to consider other men as your rivals or competitors. Some will ask, why don't I ditch my wife? A number of reasons. First, she says she still loves me. Second, I'm not into breaking anyone's heart, especially one that breaks as easily as does hers. Even when a woman has her own livelihood, Malachi's dictum to the ancient Jews can still apply: 'Don't you know that, when a man divorces his wife, he overwhelms her with cruelty?'
My late first wife told me of her divorce from her first husband and boy, did it ever sound like what Malachi was talking about! We promised, at least implicitly, that we wouldn't visit that on anyone. And I silently promised God and myself I would never visit such a thing on anyone. And for me, a big part of being a man is to keep such promises. So there are two good reasons not to part, I'd say.
In D.H. Lawrence's work titled We Need One Another, he also had harsh things to say about what he termed 'men and women smashing each other to bits', and he continued, 'All I ask is that they pause and consider.' I guess those lines sank pretty deeply into what was then my young man's brain.
I'll go further and say, when men find themselves feeling this way about sex, that doesn't mean, by any stretch, that they are 'lesser men'. If anything, I suggest it may be indicative of growing into deeper adulthood. Such freedom from sexual compulsion can give men a chance to be better brothers to one another and truer protectors of those humans smaller, weaker and not yet as knowledgeable as they.
And, thus, to do their part in tearing down the patriarchy that shields evildoers who are rich, white and male. And under NO circumstances will I term them 'men'!
A growing number of women have been increasingly vocal about being fed up with males in general and wanting nothing from them but to be let alone. Well and good. Now, I'm speaking up as a man who now feels much the same about females and perhaps speaking for other men who feel the same way. I can clean according to my liking, I enjoy cooking for myself. And at my time of life, it's very unlikely I'll have children. There were times when I wanted that but I never had enough money on which to have a family.
So, with sex not worth the effort anymore, I can be content in my life with my current spouse and our pets.
