In this week’s news-and-snark piece, Bill Maher offers a piece that may be controversial, for it’s about how men need to be “men” again. He avers that the loss of masculinity in males is one reason why women are disappointed in men, and why people are having less sex. The data are eye-opening; for example, 44% of Gen Z men say they’ve had no relationship experience at all during their teen years. That means up to age 20! And you might be interested in the new genre of literature he describes: “romantasy”, in which women get involved with animals or half-animals like centaurs.
His solution? Men should “man up”. His example: Taylor Swift being engaged to football star Travis Kelce (“old-school wood”) after writing songs about all the lame men she was once involved with. (He describes songs by other women.) Is he right? I have no idea.
The guests are Jonathan Haidt (not shown), Stephanie Ruhle and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Retired).
Didn’t Germaine Greer tell educated women to marry truck drivers?
That was the advice to lots of PhD students aiming for academic careers. Instead we tended to marry each other, with hilarious (meaning disastrous) consequences. [Sorry not directly related to the masculinity crisis.]
According to the data it seems kids today are virginal, scared of the opposite sex and don’t do the usual things we did for entertainment (smoke, drink, drugs, knocking each other up, etc.).
In fact the most “degenerate” generation has been…. Gen X! (sorry boomers!)
🙂
D.A., 55
NYC
When there was no internet, one was channeled by necessity into talking with members of the opposite sex face to face. In fact that was the only practical way to meet and engage with anyone. Today, with the internet, it’s quite possible to let fear of rejection lead people to conduct their lives entirely online. The most pathetic can even “identify” as an avatar instead of a person. I don’t know how bad the problem really is, but some may never be able to have normal social lives.
Very true, Norman. With AI “partners” and “friends” there’ll be more of that phenomenon I think.
D.A.
NYC
The impression I get is that this is a consequence of the following combination:
1) Western society still largely following the idiotic norm of men being expected to “make the first move” in most aspects of a relationship.
2) Massive social condemnation of a lot of behaviour that “making the first move” entails – everything from creepy to condescending to chauvinistic.
Once, any of these gets relaxed – preferably 1) – normalcy should resume.
The males pursue and the females pick and choose. Blame the evolution of the sex binary. If all the males check out then there will be nothing for the females to choose from. Maybe we are on that trajectory, but only to a degree – some males will still rise to the challenge no matter what.
The problem is that the “pursuit” is getting increasingly condemned as “toxic masculinity” and so on.
If men are expected to “initiate the mating procedure”, then it follows that women will get a significant amount of attention from men they may not find attractive.
If the latter is strongly condemned as “creepy”, “toxic”, “rape adjacent” behaviour, then it only makes sense for the men to check out.
Maybe the women can compensate by showing some initiative instead. 🤔
For men, dating is like a job interview. For women it’s like shopping. This asymmetry means the invitation to a date means different things to the two sexes. If a man invites a woman, he is indicating unambiguously that he has already decided he wants to have sex with her, and will if and when she but agrees. Women know this. So does HR. No one is fooled by what a “coffee date” means. If he wants sex enough to bother proposing the date in the first place, accepting all the risks of shaming, he’ll accept any offer of sex she makes (if she’s not drunk.) As with a job interview, there’s nothing he can do about rejection except bear it like a man.
Most women who might invite a man on a date would not want men to have the general understanding that she is unambiguously indicating she will sleep with him if he agrees. (Of course he will, which he signaled by accepting the date!) Whether she initiates it or not, the date is still choosiness to her, a thought alien to men. She’s still just probing him to see if he has enough resources to make him worth mating with, the same as if he had initiated the date. I can imagine the cross-wired communication that will result, with grave trouble for the man. “Can you believe that jerk actually thought that my asking him for a date meant I wanted to have sex with him that very night!!”
So a man considering an invitation for a date from a woman needs to know that he probably still won’t get lucky and will be put in a possibly compromising situation for no gain to himself. His toxic masculinity will still be judged and broadcast to all and sundry including his HR Dept even if she doesn’t even work there. A few men are so attractive and charismatic that women seek sex with them just for jollies. Men like that play by different rules. Under the rules the rest of us play by, the only way to win is still not to play.
And that’s even before we get into the ballet of Da Roolz about who pays.
Re women showing some initiative —
Hmm…. Like expressing some opinion that happens to differ from his? Like making some positive comment on an attribute of his that isn’t the image he’s trying to project? Like actively seeking some emotional competence?
ISTM the preferred initiatives usually involve stroking his ego, or something else.
I’ve read that one real roadblock to romance is the lack of casual friend groups who “hang out” with each other. No pressure, just proximity and frequency and an opportunity for acquaintances to gradually become friends — and possibly more. Online groups or dating apps just don’t offer the same benefits.
Also, with online dating, women have the advantage and can be more choosy. I think men feel discouraged by this. And yet men have exposure to lots of online porn though. I agree that making people interact in person is probably the key to getting young people in romances again.