An article went up at National Review Online, called Why Stick With Marriage? It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill traditionalist/conservative article hawking marriage and warning women about the dangers of committed relationships. It’s condescending to men and women alike, but it’s not the article I want to talk about, but rather an exchange between a typical traditionalist woman and myself, where I tried to highlight her moral superiority and give her a clue as to why a marriage is so hard to get from a man. It went like this:
Sandra K. Jenner
“If he can get the milk free, he won’t buy the cow.”
Our mothers and grandmothers had much more sense than we do. The phrase “friends with benefits” would probably send grandma into hysterics. “What, girl, are you CRAZY?”
Feminism was supposed to be about empowering women. When you shack up, or sleep around, or both, you lose power to men, that’s how it is.
Amy -> Sandra K Jenner
I absolutely agree! Women are just hurting themselves by having sex outside of marriage! Men have strong sex drives for a reason! If the unmarried woman gives into a man’s sex drive before marriage…He has no reason to commit to a marriage! In my opinion, for men it is about the sex and for women it is about the relationship.
Paul Johnson -> Amy
Wow, what a sexist bigot.
Men are just hurting themselves by marrying women before having sex with them. Women have an insatiable lust for money for a reason! If an unmarried man gives into a woman’s lust for money and power at any point, she has no incentive not to divorce him and take all his stuff.
In my opinion, for women it’s about the money and power, and for men it’s about the potential for a life-time partner to stand by his side.
(I don’t really believe that as such, but I hope it’s illustrative of the kind of objectification and projection you’re doing.)
Amy -> Paul Johnson
Did you read the article? It was about Retreating from marriage to “stable relationships”. In Maggie’s words… ” it doesn’t work because cohabiting women believe they are in stable loving relationships…young women in love are not very good at figuring out whether or not they are in a committed relationship.” To me it is about acquiring a REAL commitment and I believe marriage is the ultimate commitment. Not cohabitation. This is where the challenge lies; in getting the commitment from the man. My point is, that many men won’t commit if they can come home each night to a girl friend and “get the milk for free”. Why would they want to “buy the cow” if they have the benefits of marriage without the actual commitment of marriage. Of course, I’m not saying that all men are shallow and licentious. There are many out there who honestly “want a life-time partner to stand by his side”. Thankfully, my husband of 27 years is one of these kind of guys!
Paul Johnson -> Amy
My reply to you has nothing to do with the article, but with the misandric attitude apparent entirely in your own words.
And this explanation of yours does you no more favors.
What I did is say what you said with a sex reversal hoping it would reflect what you said so you could see it as I saw it. Apparently that didn’t work, so I’m going to parse it for you.
Your original reply to Sandra, you state that if a man has sex before marriage, he has no incentive to get married. This clearly implies that men are not incentivized by anything but sex. Then you go on and infer it directly by saying that “for men it’s about sex,” and “for women it’s about the relationship.” I don’t know how to make it any more apparent than your own words at this point. This implies the corollaries that men aren’t interested in relationships and women aren’t interested in sex, and that women should trade on their vaginas for a relationship. This is why I think wives are nothing more than state-legitimized whores. It also implies that you think your sexuality is more precious than his. So what does that say about your commitment? I suspect you have none and are as hypergamous as anyone.
Enter your reply to me:
Yes, I read the article — and the author is just as bigoted. She thinks women can’t tell if they’re in committed relationship (which, if they’re in love may be true — it’s true for men, too), but she suggests that because of that, she is not in a committed relationship (taking the default position that no man would ever commit to a relationship outside of what is essentially a legal hostage situation for him). But for your part, you agree. If he’s not willing to sign himself into servitude with state-backed force, he can’t be trusted. And now it’s not men but many men. “Men” already means “many men.” You say he can “get the milk for free,” again, implying that the proverbial milk is nothing but the sex. “The benefits of marriage” = “giving into his sexual desire.”It’s a damn shame that there are many men out there who want a life-time partner to stand by their side, because they’re not getting one.
From your own admissions, I’m able to ascertain that you don’t see men as fully-developed emotional human beings whose sexuality is worth what yours is, and that you do not bring commitment to the marriage — only sex. And you trade your sex for life-time commitment. You do not value his sex and you do not offer commitment of your own.
This objectification of men is what will allow you to cheat on your husband and chuck him to the street (but keeping his assets) when you’re done with him.
Now I want to propose a thought exercise for you. Imagine you are a male. You are fully emotionally developed. Put yourself in that mind-set, and re-read your two comments. If you don’t see what I see, keep reading them until you do. Then go vomit and start crying, and re-think the way you see men and the value of your “milk.”
Now let’s get proverbial again. The milk is never free. You either have to milk that heifer yourself or pay for the milk. It is precisely because of women like you that I say, “Screw the milk, and screw the cow.” I’m not buying either one and I can’t be bothered to do the milking. I’ll just watch a video of someone else drinking the milk and have a glass of water. That’s actually free and saves me a lot of time to spend with people who think of me as a human with intrinsic value.
I later replied to her initial reply to Sandra J. Kenner asking her exactly what the reason men have such strong sex drives is, as I had let that one slide previously but definitely wanted to address it. I suspect the answer is less diagnostic in nature and more pragmatic. I suspect she feels it’s so men can be more easily taken-advantage-of. I think it’s because without it we simply wouldn’t have survived as a species. Maybe we would have done fine until the agricultural revolution, but if this woman is any indication of what women were like back to that point, it would have been the death of us as it would simply not be worth the condescension.
Antigynocentrism 