I say nay, men.

Since the beginning of civilized human interaction, men have ruled the world, whilst doting on the “lesser” female species. Chivalry was something men took pride in. Who could hold more doors, go on more dates & bust the best moves. With each of these gestures men use to think that they would get so lucky as to hold the hand of the “apple of their eye”. After 2 or 3 month, they would advance to necking. Finally, they would get down on one knee & ask the woman to do him the honor of being his wife.

Then feminism kicked in. Not the women suffrage feminist, but the “I can hold the door myself, ass hole” feminist. They have been on a mission since the 60’s to try & be treated as an equal. Thanks to their efforts, sexual harassment has greatly declined, there is such thing as “flex” hours & majority of women are now working & homemaking. With all of these great strides legally & financially, we forgot about one thing; respect. We have focused so much on becoming equals in the world logically speaking, that women have unknowingly taken chivalry to the garbage disposal, leaving men to believe that women are equal on paper & are as eager to have sex, so any chivalrous gesture is a waste of time. If a man buys a woman a drink, they interpret the acceptance of said drink to be the acceptance of a one-night bonk. It's kind of like when men keep tabs on beer with their buddies, but with women, instead of the receiver owing them a beer in return, they owe them at least a slip of the hand.

How many women out there thought they were having good conversation & drinks with someone, & then the guy became increasingly inappropriate & totally presumptuous, ultimately ruining the moment? It is just another battle in the war of the sexes. The mother’s of today’s douches failed because they were trying so hard to get guys to see that women are the same as men, they did not try to teach them that women deserve to be “wooed”. That they cannot just saddle up & dive-in without some foreplay. (No, it does not happen like in the movies. It takes much longer to generate a legitimate moan of genuine pleasure.) Men, fun fact; a random sending of flowers is way more likely to land you a successful night in the sack than two hours of grinding on the dance floor, not even making eye contact.

When I was single, this would happen all of the time. A guy would do one minor gesture, like get you into an “exclusive party” because he knew the host, but if you danced with another guy he would either give you the stink eye for the rest of the evening, or go as far as to have you kicked out. In the past 60 years, wooing has been disintegrated down to just a “w”, maybe not even that. Even worse, women are starting to believe that after 2 or 3 drinks bought at the bar they “owe” the guy. Ladies, if we are going to sleep with someone because they buy us things, shouldn’t we at least hold ourselves to the same value as a high-end hooker? If we do, the tool whom is trying to buy his way into your pants is looking at a cool 10 drinks each for you & 8 of your closest friends.

My favorite is that if a drink or a dance is rejected, boys will use any excuse to avoid the fact that a woman is not interested. I one time went to a bar when my fiancé and I were still just dating & a guy came up to me to chat. After a while he offered to buy me a drink. I said I would love one, but before he does, he should know that I have a boyfriend. Instead of saying, “Thanks for the heads up, I think I will invest my money elsewhere,” he spitted “I’m not hitting on you.” Already having dealt with this a few times in the past I asked him, “I don’t get it. Guys get huffy if you don’t tell them from the start, but if you say you have a boyfriend off the bat they get defensive & try to act like they were not on a mission to hump. So which should I do?” Realizing how contradicting his behavior was, he accepted my reasoning & thanked me for not wasting his time. Do we really have to lecture each guy about why it is our prerogative to reject them, because their mother skipped over that lesson in life?

Women deserve to have the same career opportunities; men & women should be dealt with the same way, & employers should try to accommodate the uterus by giving us the necessary resources to accomplish work & family life. With that being said, we should also have the same opportunities to accept kind gestures without having to bend over. If a woman says no, there are only juvenile reasons for a man to question or condescend in response.

Dear men, I say nay to your half-assed advancements. Deal with it.

Yours,

DB

Remember when.

If I could have grown up in any decade it would have to be the fifties; the movies were musicals like Singin’ in the Rain & comedies like  I Love Lucy were on air. Whenever anyone is asked when they would have liked to grow up, they will almost always answer with a decade before the 80’s. In the 20’s people were roarin’, the 30’ s may be overlooked due to a little thing called The Great Depression, the 40’s was when America rallied together to help their neighbor while listening to the musical talents of Mr. Sinatra (For those a little slower, please note the irony of this link.), the 60’s because this decade was one of the most revolutionary times in American history since the Civil War (kinda hard to compete with that), etc.  What is it about these decades before the 1990’s?

We have been growing up in a culture that has rapidly deteriorated into a whirlwind of technology, instant gratification & genericization. Some may ask why any of these qualities are bad. Technology has led to much advancement in our society; medically, informationally, etc., no one has every said “I want this to take a really long time” & genericization is how capitalism can become all it can, so keep feeding the beast. However, while all of these refinements have made life seem better, easier, I beg to differ that it is all really an amelioration.

Technology has made our society into a black hole of web pages, personal profiles & Wikipedia. People can stay in touch with family & friend easier. Meeting new people has never been more effortless, just upload a photo of yourself looking fab while wearing your Doriotos stained sweats. You don’t even need to get dressed up to find a date anymore, you just need to get dressed up for the actual date; at least, it is recommended. Wikipedia has prevented about 1 trillion paper cuts with the sublime existence of their search bar. The thing is, while this all seems great, it is just a massive epidemic of producing laziness & impersonal interaction with a 1,000 plus friends. (Expect “Sociology of technology” to come to a computer screen near you soon.)

Back in the 50’s people had to use word of mouth, not a link on a Facebook status to get people aware of what’s going on. When there was a rally, people actually showed up instead of waiting for the article to come out the next day online & then share it to appear as if they are invested in the effort. When people had passions they would get up & go. They made fliers, sang songs, gave speeches to random people on the sidewalk about the next movement demonstration. When people became engaged in something they wouldn’t just “Like” an article, they would bring the paper with them to the coffee shop so they could discuss with their friends, in person, how they could help make an impact. Taking initiative like this is so uncommon now. Everyone wants to be apart of something without doing more than pressing copy & paste.

In the 60’s, the social revolution wasn’t the extensive growth of social networks, it was sexual liberation, especially the “Summer of Love”, 1967. I am not saying that everyone should walk around naked & spread eagle for whomever, I am just saying that back in the 60’s people were not trying to get the bare jest of someone (pun unintended) from a profile page; they were really getting to know people. Sharing themselves on a more philosophical, personal & stimulating level (yes, some of the stimulation was from all of the sex & LSD they were having). However, they didn’t just hump; they shared their thoughts, theories & prospectives about life. We can all laugh about the drugs & consummation, but they were trying to accomplish something so much more fundamental than anything we could ever fathom because we have our heads so far up Siri’s ass. So far up that everything has become unbearably generic.

Politics, personalities & clothing. No one cares about what they believe, what they feel. They just turn on the TV & try to emulate what they see. Everyone who is young wants to shake their fists at the government & rebuke them for all of America’s problems. The thing is we don’t really try to question authority; we just blame it. Everyone has something to say, but few have something to back up their statements, even if what they are saying is true. It is just a regurgitation of either Limbaugh or Olbermann’s opinion (depending on which way you swing). It is one ignorant outburst after another. We are trying so hard to be original; to be a rebel, but no one knows how, so we look to the person next to us to show us what to do (the result of art & music programs getting budget cuts in public schools). Just listen to the music today. All has a lot of bass, which causes vibrations, making us believe we are feeling something more than really intense sound waves. There is no talent. It is all just generated from a computer. I feel like we are chickens running around with our heads cut off trying to think of what we can do next, but always finding ourselves looking to E! News & Pinterest to tell us.

I am going to keep this conclusion short. No one says they want to live in the 2000’s because nothing is organic. For example, Apple is the icon of our generation. Steve Job’s job is done. However, very little has been produced by society that the masses can hang their hat on. Think about this: Society use to influence culture, now culture influences society. 

Socialization of the manly man.

My whole life I have grown up with men who are “manly men”. They drink beer, they watch football & they sit with their hand down their pants. They feel they are the epitome of masculinity, the poster child for those who are penis endowed. Why is it that acting this way is an automatic membership card to the “Manly Men Club”. I have never understood the desire to be apart of something so block-headed. It is not the beer, sports & ball sack fondling that bothers me. It is everything else that goes with these behaviors; it’s the state of mind. To them wearing anything pink is the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I like to stick my “junior” between my legs and pretend I am a girl.” Anything that threatens their masculinity is the enemy. My question is, why are objects with a feminine undertone so threatening to the “uber” male? One theory is that they became so manly they eventually do a 180 degree flip & that is why they are deathly afraid of My Little Pony & nail polish. They put down women & men who cannot use tools or throw a ball. Isn’t it just as bad, even more so, that something as simple as the color pink can make a man feel totally defensive & belittled?

There are guys who spend their whole lives putting on a virile show for the rest of the world to constantly reinforce this macho image they have built up for themselves. I would imagine it gets exhausting for them to keep up this performance. I believe that a lot of this insecurity is rooted from overbearing parents who had such a strong opinion about making their girls girly & their boys manly that their children became afraid of anything that is associated with the opposite sex. They grow up their whole lives gendered with no option for leeway. When a 3 year-old boy wants to wear a skirt & twirl, not because he wants to be a girl, but because he thinks it looks cool, he is told no & given a baseball mitt instead. Dear imperious parents, let the boy twirl in the nifty skirt. He just wants to twirl, he is not asking for a set of ovaries. A skirt will not determine your child’s sexual orientation for the rest of his life, so please, get over your homophobia & let your children play with dolls, trucks & board games alike.

Genderization is probably the longest running epidemic known to mankind. Boys will have a blue room; girls will have a pink room. Boys will rough house & girls will play with dolls. Heaven forbid that the socially approved assignment of colors & activities be tampered with. I am telling you, parents who think that butterflies will prevent your son’s balls from dropping, paint his toenails & give him a doll if he wants you to. This is part of the reason why men & women have such a hard time co-existing; you keep beating the understanding & empathy toward the opposite sex out of your children. Men cannot understand women because they were brought up to only know that girly things are wrong & visa versa. It is not Mars & Venus; it is footballs & Barbies, soccer practices & dance lessons. Just stop with the whole charade. Limiting exposure only guarantees that your child will be a little less tolerant & a lot more ignorant.

You manly men may be one of the most obnoxious people on Earth (We get it, you are the equivalent of G.I. Joe), but it is not your fault. Your constant battle of pushing the rock up the mountain, Sisyphus, is something that has been engrained in you for your entire life, even before you plowed your testosterone dynamo self into the world. However, now that I have pointed out just how pathetic your ploy is, maybe you will calm down your stallion of a personality & go get a mani pedi. No one likes someone with dirt under their nails.

Yours,

DB