CroMagnon
Thursday, November 06, 2003
  Whoa. I just got a chance to read Kim du Toit's missive The Pussification of the Western Male. A very popular message, obviously, since the sheer number of responses brought Kim and the Mrs.' server to its knees. So, being the curious little caveman that I am, I thought I'd compare myself to what Mr. du Toit considers to be a REAL man.

Here's the first part I looked at:

Amongst other things, I talk about guns, self-defense, politics, beautiful women, sports, warfare, hunting, and power tools -- all the things that being a man entails. All this stuff gives me pleasure.

Taking these one at a time, and trying to be brutally honest with and about myself, here is what we have:

I don't own a gun, never have owned a gun, and probably never will own a gun.

As far as self-defense is concerned, I would probably get my skull broken in in a fight, but the other guy would know that he had been in a fight.

Politics bores me. I don't trust career politicians. We should put the best person for the job in the spot, and when the job's done he or she should have the cojones to step down and move on.

I love beautiful women; as a matter of fact, I married one.

Sports are ok, but my life doesn't revolve around which team is going to the World Series or the Super Bowl. I used to follow tennis regularly, but not in the last twenty years or so.

Warfare is a necessary evil, as long as evil men reside in the world. And, since I haven't heard from anyone lately about advances in the evil-destroying field (Hallo? Q?), warfare will probably be around for many more years.

I don't hunt. You could probably figure that out from the "I don't own a gun" bit earlier. If it came down to eating or starving, I'd hunt, but as long as there is a grocery store around the corner, I don't hunt. I just don't get pleasure from ending something's life.

Power tools. Yeah. But only recently; up until about ten years ago, if I couldn't do it with hand tools, it didn't get done. I didn't even own a circular saw until The Better Half talked me into trying one out. Now I can't live without them.

Well, so far, I'm not doing too well. It appears that I'm on the low end of the "real man" scale. Let's continue:

Now, men are given Ritalin as little boys, so that their natural aggressiveness, curiosity and restlessness can be controlled, instead of nurtured and directed.

I'm sorry, I have three sons at home now who passed Ritalin a LONG time ago. J is on medication that is three steps up from Ritalin; P and M are on medication a couple of steps above. And I don't apologize for it. The Better Half and I tried for a couple of years to get by without medicating the little bastards (we refer to those years as "The Living Hell"), and it ended up we either medicated them or killed them. Medicating them involved a lot less paperwork. Granted, all three of my boys are adopted and have medical problems, so that might make mine a unique situation, but I don't fell like less of a man for doing this. And the medication sure as hell hasn't slowed the boys down much; they're all still boys, and still show their "natural aggressiveness", etc. to the max.

And finally, I want men everywhere to going back to being Real Men. To open doors for women, to drive fast cars, to smoke cigars after a meal, to get drunk occasionally and, in the words of Col. Jeff Cooper, one of the last of the Real Men: "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth."

Well, hell, so do I. It's only polite to open doors for women (and I have yet to be smacked down for it). As far as I'm concerned, chivalry is not dead. As for the rest of it, eh.

So, my score so far? On the Kim du Toit scale of manness, I believe I would score a 2 out of 10. Oh, the shame! Not only am I pussywhipped, I'm pussified!! Time to hang my head in shame and shuffle off to my little corner of the living room where I can watch TV without bothering anyone.
 
A small town guy from North Carolina trying to get by in the modern world with caveman viewpoints.

Name:
Location: Wendell, North Carolina, United States

Ramblings about a middle-aged guy in NC trying to raise a family without totally losing his mind in the process

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