Thursday, April 14, 2011

Where Have All the Good Men Gone?

It's official.

Men. Are. Pigs.

I know this gets screamed all the time by all different types, but in a number of cases, it is really and truly true.

Well, no, that's not quite true. To say that a man is a pig is a contradiction. We have become all too fond of denominating an adult male by use of the term "Man," but the truth of the matter is that it is not that simple. It is, unfortunately, not automatic.

Better to say that many who we call men are in fact not, but merely boys trapped in an adult body without the faculties necessary to have achieved the noble title of "Man."

Some of you may recognize the image above as from an ad campaign by Trojan™ condoms, which basically implied that a man was a pig unless he carried Trojan™ condoms on his person. This is because, of course, it's okay to intend to have sex with a woman you just met, after both of you have become mildly to extremely inebriated, so long as you have "protection."

Of course.

The only protection needed in those circumstances is a bottle of mace. Or a shotgun.

The astute observer will by this point have noted that that campaign is not exactly recent, and that there must be another impetus for this particular post, and they would be right. Because they are astute. Why don't we get together and call ourselves an institute?

Sorry, Paul Simon makes me happy.

I recently had to pull out the "It's time to stop the rape jokes, they're not funny" card in a group of personages who will remain more or less anonymous. This is, unfortunately, not the first time I have had to pull out this card with this group. The time before, one of the males in question made the assertion that another person was "raping" him, because they were on a team together and he had been told to take care of some administrative work for the team.

After he had repeated his protestation several times, to the effect of, "Seriously, what you're doing right now is basically raping me," I quite simply told him that that was not funny, and that it was time for him to stop. He didn't understand, protested that it's just a joke, to which I simply replied that I know too many women who have been raped to make any such joke funny. It is not funny. You should stop.

He kept asking me why I was getting angry with him, to which I replied that I am not - and I wasn't, really, any more than I would be angry with a puppy that hasn't been house trained, though the pressure was indeed building - and eventually had to resort to interrupting him every time he opened his mouth with, "<Name>, let's drop this. This conversation is over. Drop it."

Bad enough, but unfortunately not as bad as this afternoon.

The discussion of several of these personages, the young male involved in the above encounter included, drifted to their current respective stocks of alcohol, and the uses thereof, which then led to this aforementioned young male expounding upon his technique for hooking up with freshmen:
So, basically, this is how I hit on them <approaches another guy to use as an example, putting his arms around the other's shoulders>, and then I say, "Let's go back to my place, I've got a hot tub," but then by the time we get there, I don't have a hot tub, but it doesn't matter, because she's forgotten why she came in the first place, so she thinks she just came with me for everything else.
After making it clear to him in no uncertain terms what I thought of that, he defended himself, saying that he was getting drunk too, and those girls made the decision to go to that party and get drunk. Others of the young males defended him in this, blaming these young ladies, because obviously these males in question wouldn't be doing this if these girls weren't showing up at these parties drunk.

No. No. No. No, No, NO, NO!!!!!!!

Even granting that these young ladies are making poor choices, I allowed, do you not see your own hand in building this situation? Do you not see how you are enabling this? If you recognize it as not good, then why are you being a part of it? If she is that drunk, she is too drunk to give consent. If she is that drunk you cannot assume consent.

At some point during this conversation I told the young initiator of this line of discussion, "So basically, as the father of a daughter, you're the type of man I'll be coming after with a shotgun."

They agreed, but continued to defend themselves. After all, it is my responsibility to not raise a slut for a daughter, they said, also referencing Chris Rock: "Daddies, it's your job to keep your daughters off the pole."

And you know what, they are absolutely right, it is absolutely my responsibility to raise a daughter who has too much self worth to even interact with this type of cretin.

But what about the daughters who had no fathers, or whose fathers were abusive <insert appropriate sentiment here />? You acknowledge that their "daddy issues" are a brokenness, but more over say that it makes them fair game?

You are not men. Not even boys, because boys at least have some innocence. You are predators. You prey on the weak who you should be defending, defending them even against themselves.

You claim that it is not your fault while you objectify women, making it clear that the type of woman you want to be with is one who is hot and puts out. Are you truly so blind to your part in this? Let those with eyes see.

It used to be that courage, honor, valor, integrity, these were the things that made you a man.

It seems that to today's society, what makes a man is the condom.