Back in 2003, I was nowhere near the feminist ally I am today. Oh, I considered myself a feminist, and I was strongly pro-equality, but there was a lot about feminism I couldn't articulate, and quite a bit I wasn't quite ready to see.But even in 2003, I realized that Kim du Toit was the biggest douchebag on the planet.
Kim du Toit, for those of you fortunate enough not to have made his acquaintance, is the author of what I declared on November 3, 2003 to be the worst thing I had ever read, a distinction it holds to this very day. That essay, "The Pussification of the Western Male," was the apotheosis of the MRA screed. I can't possibly summarize all its complete stupidity. Suffice to say that du Toit defended men who rape, praised George W. Bush for being all manly and stuff, got bitterly angry about a commercial for Cheerios, and basically acted like the douchiest douche on the planet. Not for nothing did L,G&M declare du Toit "America's Wost Blogger."
So when I read, via Sadly, No!, that Glenn Reynolds had linked to "thoughts on men, women and marriage from Kim du Toit" -- I knew what I'd be writing on tonight.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed as bad as you think it's going to be.
Du Toit begins by linking approvingly back to Dr. Mrs. Wingnutty Perfesser, just in case you didn't get the memo that she's a deep misogynist. And then he says something just bone-jarringly stupid.
I think women don’t understand how clinical men can be when it comes to analyzing a relationship. (Note: just because we don’t talk about our relationship with you, doesn’t mean we don’t analyze it.)I think somebody's confusing "himself" with "men."
Seriously -- yes, men think about their relationships. But we don't analyze them clinically. At least, most of us don't. For most of us, marriage has an emotional component to it. We, you know, love our spouses. Love can't be weighed or measured, and doesn't fit neatly into a category. At least for most humans.
Du Toit, evidently, doesn't know what love is.
Here’s how I explain it. I think that men keep a running ledger going in their subconscious—all the good/great things about their relationship on the one side, and all the bad/terrible things on the other. At some point or another, if the perceived negatives outweigh the positives, the man will quit the relationship—I mean, just bail out of the whole thing—and usually with a swiftness and finality which confounds women.
Because we’re guys, we don’t talk about this much—even, or especially with other men, and hardly ever with women. But it’s a plain fact.
Now, because we’re guys, certain things have a disproportionate effect on both the good and bad things: on the good side, sex, food and shared interests being probably the best examples; on the bad, infidelity, constant nagging and invasion of privacy constitute the negative. The degree of each, good or bad, will vary among individual men, of course. Some men will put up with almost anything if the sex is of the “bed on fire” variety, for instance, while others will walk out of a relationship for something as trifling as compulsory weekly visits to Mom (hers).
Isn't he a romantic, ladies? Don't you just wish you were married to someone who believes that if he adds up everything in tabular form and finds out that this week debits exceed credits, he'll "quit the relationship—I mean, just bail out of the whole thing—and usually with a swiftness and finality which confounds women"? Doesn't that sound like true love to you?
Frankly, it doesn’t matter what these things are. What’s important is that they are each weighed, and applied to the ledger. And when the negatives consistently outweigh the positives, the man will say (to himself), “You know what? This isn’t worth the hassle. The hell with it.”
And once that decision is made, the relationship is over. Now, it may take a long time for all that to happen. Men are not accounting machines, and this is not a daily, or even a regular process. But it takes place in every man, sooner or later, when the negatives get too much to live with.
Well, that's nebulous enough that it's hard to dispute; yes, if the pain gets great enough then everyone will leave a relationship eventually. But du Toit implies that every man on the planet is going to be ready to leave his wife the second she starts demanding anything of him, at least anything he doesn't want to give.
This is, in a word, bullshit.
As you know, I'm divorced. It was her decision, not mine, though I gave her every reason to pull the trigger. It was probably the best thing for us both, all in all. But I can tell you that even as I knew our relationship was spiraling, I didn't ever start adding things up, consciously or subconsciously, to determine the value of the relationship. My marriage had value, and always will have value to me.
But I value different things than du Toit.
What’s interesting about all this is that as men grow older, the process becomes a lot quicker—mostly, it should be said, because younger men can put up with almost anything if they’re getting laid. As men get older and sex becomes less important, however, the “bullshit” factor and the tolerance thereof become more important.
It's funny. There are many things I miss about being married. And while sex is on the list, it's not in my top ten. No, the thing I miss about being married is having an emotional bond with someone, being on the same team as them, as it were, in life. Looking over at someone and thinking that you really do want to wake up next to them every day for the rest of your life. I miss being in love, and not just the brief infatuation of an early relationship, but the deeper feeling of being with someone you've grown to know intimately, and grown to care for immensely, someone you want to be happy, someone whose feelings you care about.
But Kim doesn't care about women.
I am not interested, incidentally, in hearing the female side of this. The topic is “why men are putting off getting married”. Here’s why.Enlighten us, O Minister of Manliness.
All the great advantages of the women’s liberation movement have created an environment which, frankly, does not leave men with much. We can’t flirt with women at school, college or at the office anymore, because one man’s “flirting” has become another woman’s “sexual harassment” and the punishments for such transgressions are not only severe, they’re permanent—crippling a man’s career and prospects thereof.But -- zuh -- I thought we were talking about marriage here. So why are we suddenly starting with how it's totally unfair that I can't tell some chick I work with that she has nice tits, and that I can get her into a better job if she gets into my bed? What's wrong with that?
Seriously, sexual harassment is keeping men from getting married? In what universe?
But wait -- it gets dumber.
When a woman can get pregnant outside wedlock, and still hound a man forever for child support (with the enthusiastic support of the State), is it any wonder that men, even though ruled by their sex drive, might actually step back a little and think with their heads? And once married, if a divorce becomes a later reality, he stands a real risk of losing access to his kids forever, because if Milady is feeling vengeful—and most do, in a divorce—the merest suggestion of “endangerment” or “violence”, and he is completely screwed, forever, even if the allegation is a complete falsehood.The stupid! It burns!
You mean, if a man and a woman have sex, and she has kids, then she can get child support from him? The outrage! How dare men be required to take care of children they father? Next, he'll be saying we can't hit our spouses -- oh, snap, and there he goes! And he's declaring that "most" women are vengeful in divorce, which will totally be news to most people who've been through divorce. And he's saying that if a woman alleges violence you're permanently screwed, even if she's lying, because, of course, no court ever considers actual evidence before putting you in jail!
Jesus Tapdancing Christ, I swear to the Ceiling Cat that this is not a parody. Kim du Toit really means what he's saying here, folks. Of course, Kim's a reasonable guy.
I am not denying, by the way, that men have brought a lot of this on themselves.Oh, he's also a liar, but he's a reasonable guy.
But remember, men are more clinical about relationships than women are. It is an absolutely certainty that men read all the news about some guy losing his right to own a gun just because a spiteful ex-wife filed a nonsensical claim of “abuse”, or guys getting ruined because of an intemperate offhand comment at the office, or even, good grief, getting hit up for child support after having been an anonymous sperm donor—and ask: ”Looks like the rules are all in her favor. Remind me: what’s in this ‘marriage’ thing for me , again?”
Okay...so men read that they can't demean women in the office, they might lose their guns if they beat their wives, and they find out that they might have to support children they father...and this is dissuading men from marrying how?
I knew all this before I got married. I knew, when I became a father, that I would be responsible for my daughter regardless of my marital status, and damn it, I've been contributing to my daughter's well-being since the day my ex and I separated. Were the rules "in her favor"? Well, only insofar as she would have had a very good case that she deserved physical custody had I been stupid enough to fight it; I was an emotional wreck at the time, and quite frankly my ex-wife was the better parent for my daughter to be with.
But a funny thing happened -- I recognized this. I didn't fight the divorce. My ex -- an attorney who had clerked in a county child support office, mind you -- and I worked out the initial visitation and support agreement together, and since then we've pretty much chucked the whole thing and gone by what we feel is best for my daughter. That's why I've got her the next three days, and why she stays with my ex on school nights, and why this summer I'll take her most days and have reduced child support for doing so -- because we work together for our daughter's best interests.
None of this is a surprise to me, and if I could go back and tell myself all the horror of divorced life before I got married, I feel quite certain that I'd still get married, and still become a father, and still risk divorce. Why? Because I never would hit another human, much less someone I love. Because I would never, never, never sexually assault anyone, and certainly not a spouse or child. Because I understand my responsibility to my daughter as her father, and because I don't mind that child support is part of that responsibility.
Am I "clinical" about this responsibility? Hell, no! I feel it in my gut, feel it in my soul. You could come to me with tables and graphs showing me that I'm not getting "enough," and that I should just quit the game -- withhold support, ignore my daughter, be "clinical" about things, and look out for myself. To hell with all that. I have a soul, and the love of the best five-and-a-half-year-old on the planet. That's more valuable than life itself.
Okay, rant over. Back to du Toit.
And the fact that women have become more sexually liberated doesn’t help matters. The old saw is true: why would a man go to the trouble of buying, stabling and feeding a cow, when milk’s available at the supermarket?
Remember: the early post-adolescent years are the time in men’s lives when they are most ruled by their sex drive. If the drive can be constantly sated by willing women, can anyone be surprised that when the sex drive starts to fade in importance, men look at all the other parts of a relationship, and find that the game just isn’t worth the hassle?
Yeah, womenz! You think that you're having sex with men who love you, or at least don't despise you. And that's just playing right into their hands, because they get sex, and then they don't marry you! And you end up not married to some MRA douchebag who would mistreat you and compare you to a cow.
Wait -- actually, this sexual liberation thing seems to benefit women quite a bit, what with them not ending up married to cobags and whatnot. Well done, women!
At ages 19 to about 27, men are at their most vulnerable for marriage, because the nice thing about married sex is not that it’s necessarily great, but that it’s pretty much always available, without too much work involved.
Fuckity fuck fuck McFuck.
You know the song "Nookie" by Limp Bizkit? Sure you do. It's an ironic breakup song, with a central storyline about a guy dumped by a girl, muttering bitterly that he "did it all for the nookie." And yet a cursory overview of the lyrics tells you that the main character didn't do it all for the nookie. Indeed, his "heart will ache."
Why do I go to lousy power rock to make this point? Well, like sex, bad music is very popular with people between 19 and 27. And that's exactly the segment of the population this song was aimed at. Yet -- funny -- the nookie doesn't seem to be what Limp Bizkit thinks that this guy was really in the relationship for. Indeed, he seems to have...I don't know if du Toit knows this word...but he seems to have feelings for this ex of his. He seems...how do you say it? Ah, yes...to have actually been in love.
I didn't get married for sex, Kim. If an orgasm was all that I'd wanted, I could have stayed home and masturbated.
I got married for the obvious reason: I loved my partner. I know this seems strange, but I actually felt an emotional connection with her that transcended physical love. Oh, sex is a good thing, and I'm not saying that wasn't a nice side benefit of the deal. But it wasn't the clincher.
Men are not just interested in sex. We have the capacity for love. At least most of us do. Kim du Toit...I think the jury's still out. After all, he thinks men don't get married if they don't do it by 27.
But if during those early years women don’t get their hooks into a man soon enough, the job becomes progressively harder as the man ages. So if women spend those early adult years building themselves a career and “fulfilling themselves” at the expense of getting married, they will find that when they do finally want to settle down and get married, men are no longer as welcoming as they were before.
Oh, Christ, just kill me now.
So ladies, if you want to get married to a shallow, self-centered jerk, I think du Toit has some good advice. 25-year-old proto-MRAs might not be interested in marrying a woman with a "career" and "a rich inner life" and "the ability to be happy alone."
If, however, you're looking for an actual human being who appreciates you for you, then yes, there are probably men over the age of 27 willing to marry you. And if there aren't -- well, for cripe's sake, do you actually want to marry someone who doesn't want you to have a career and be personally fulfilled? Do you actually want to marry someone who settles for you because you put out semi-regularly, and...uh...what's your name again?
Fuck, no! I'm not a woman (though I am a mangina), but I think that I'm sane enough to know that the "men" du Toit describes are little more than overgrown boys, incapable of love and respect for their partners. You can buy a vibrator in Texas now, ladies; there's no emotional connection there, either, and you don't have to put up with it being angry that you ask something -- anything -- of it.
As du Toit says:
And the foundations of all that were put down when women tried to stop men from being like men. Even with sex involved, men will always apply “The Ledger” to a relationship. Without sex, men are, quite simply, unwilling to put up with all the shit that a woman brings to the party. And when men feel that the dice are constantly loaded against them, they’ll simply refuse to play the game, at all.
There. Is. NO. FUCKING. LEDGER. YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE PUNK.
I'm sorry, but frankly, right now, I'm about as angry as I can be. Why? Because du Toit isn't attacking women at this point: he's attacking men. He's saying that because women might ask something of us in relationships, that we can't handle that. That we can only be in relationships where we're the proud patriarch, and can come home at the end of the day, smoke our pipe and read the paper while the missus wrangles the kiddies.
Goddamn it, no. I have a higher opinion of myself than that. I have a higher opinion of my fellow men than that. Just because du Toit hates men, that doesn't mean I should have him claiming that his ass-backwards view of men is remotely real.
None of this, incidentally, applies to the lucky men and women who found their soulmates—but I have to tell you, life isn’t much like the deliriously-happy couples on eHarmony.com. For every blissful couple in the ads, there are literally millions for whom a relationship is not a joy, but a wearisome chore.
Really? Millions? Okay, fine. Life's not all beer and skittles. But there's "wearisome chore" and there's "relationship that requires some work." Life isn't an eHarmony ad. Real relationships take real work. My relationship failed because I didn't put in the work to keep it going. That's my fault, not the fault of my ex, not the fault of feminism. If I had it to do over again, I would have worked harder. That may not have cured all the ills, but I'd feel better.
I've never been in a relationship that took no work. That relationship doesn't exist. Relations that matter should matter enough for you to talk, listen, and learn.
What feminism hath wrought is simple: if men are to treat women as equals, then they will treat them like men—or at best, they will not treat them like women.
Or -- here's a thought -- men could treat women like human beings. Not men, not women, but humans. You know, humans? Part of the ape family, one of the hominids? Homo sapiens? Social animals, pretty smart, mastered fire and the internets? Those creatures?
Yeah. You know, it's funny, but H. sapiens has male and female members of the species, and they're all a part of the same species. I'm just saying, you could treat your partner like, I don't know, an equal or something. Like you'd treat any other human being.
Crazy, I know, but that's life in the big city.
One more time: I’m not interested in hearing The Other Side Of The Story from women. We’ve heard little else for the past thirty years. The question was: why are men getting married later, if at all?
This post is the answer, and women should not be shocked by its conclusions.
Well, no, just as women should not be shocked by an article telling them that the Sun is made out of baked potatoes. When you read something that's completely wrong and batshit crazy, to boot, the normal reaction is not to be shocked. It's to point, laugh, and back away slowly.
The saddest part of this is that all things being equal, most men actually enjoy being married, and look forward to it. It’s nice to have someone to come home to, someone with whom you can just be yourself, and someone to share the wonderful joys of having kids. And don’t kid yourselves, the sex is great. A buddy of mine, married to his childhood sweetheart for over twenty years, put it to me this way: “A lot of the time, the sex [between longtime marrieds] is fine, or just so-so. But every once in a while, it’s fantastic, tremendous, brilliant, and better than you could ever ever get from a stranger.”
Well, duh -- but again, I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I didn't get married for sex, and had my penis fallen off during my marriage, my ex wouldn't have divorced me for that. And I wouldn't have divorced her, screaming, "Free! I need no more sex, so I need no more women!"
Seriously, sex is great, but sex is not the main reason men get married. Men get married for the same reason women do: because they're in love. I don't know why that's so hard for du Toit to wrap his brain around, but boy, is it ever.
The men who are resisting being married are cutting themselves off from all this—and women should ask themselves why this is the case, without resorting to the “men are just refusing to grow up” bullshit. They’re not refusing to grow up: this is the reaction to the constant belittlement and the infantilizing treatment they’ve been exposed to all their lives.
Infantilizing how? By suggesting that men are only interested in relationships based on the sex that they get, that men are unwilling to deal with a relationship where their partner has actual needs and desires, that men are willing to quit a relationship the second it gets tough? That kind of infantilization?
Because that's not coming from feminists, bub. It's coming from MRAs like du Toit, male chauvinist douchebags of the first order, men who can't understand how you could look at a woman and see anything more than a few holes to stick your dick into -- and men who would call you a pussy for actually noticing the human being that possesses those holes.
Men who could write, "We are turning into a nation of women," and think that's an insult.
Those are the greatest misandrists of all, the ones who believe that men are shallow, dumb, and sex-crazed. And that women, if they want men, should put up with shallowness, stupidity, and demands for sex. If men were really like that, then I'd be all for women cutting us off permanently. But fortunately, there are more than a few men out there who realize that our partners -- be they women or men, gay or straight -- are valuable because they are our partners. Because they were willing to be with us, and love us back, and let us love them. There are more than a few men for whom the negatives on the ledger will never outweigh the one simple word on the positive side: love. There are more than a few men who are far better people than Kim du Toit could possibly imagine. And far better people than Kim du Toit ever will be.
