Category Archives: Friendship

Male Physical Intimacy

In their continuing efforts to destroy itself, Cracked has an article up on being in the closet while in other countries. It’s a low effort post consisting of 5 “facts” that are mostly blindingly obvious (Some geographic spaces have people more accepting of homosexuality than people from other geographic spaces! Surprising!) and a complete absence of humour. But there was one thing in it I wanted to comment on (aside from it being just another note on Cracked’s continued decline).

In Botswana, it’s customary for men to hold hands while chatting and walking. (No, the irony of such a homophobic country being filled with men skipping down the street holding hands was not lost on me.)

This is not irony. It is in fact the definitional opposite of irony, it is exactly what you’d expect.

These men are friends, engaging in male bonding. Touch is and always has been and important part of bonding and there is absolutely nothing implicitly homoerotic about men engaging in physical male bonding. In past, intimate physical contact between men was normal, and in other parts of the world that have not been homoeroticized it still is.

Take a look at this picture (one of a hundred similar ones from Art of Manliness):

Are these guys gay? Probably not. Yet it probably looks gay to you. In a healthy culture, intimate physical contact between men is normal and healthy. There would be nothing untoward or sexual about this, it’s just some friends hanging out. In our homoeroticized culture, this  kind of intimate contact between males is gay. We can see this difference from the Cracked article:

I didn’t even have to hide my boyfriend, whom I met at the gay underground party. He came to visit me for a weekend in my tiny village, and no one seemed to notice or suspect anything unusual about two dudes quietly holing up in a house together and sweating a lot. They must be great friends who love to work out!

As was pointed out in the Way of Men, men want to be recognized as masculine, as men within their gang who have attained the masculine virtues. Gays are effeminate, not masculine, and exist outside the gang. Normal men don’t want to be seen as effeminate or gay as this represents a failure to attain manhood and puts one outside of the gang.

In a “homophobic” society were homosexuality is proscribed, men can be physically and emotionally intimate with each other without being gay, because this intimacy is simply a normal, close friendship. So King David can say of his best friend:

“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.

And it’s not gay, because it isn’t gay. A man can have and signal intimacy with other men without it signalling gayness, because homosexuality doesn’t exist outside the occasional condemnation in a religious sermon. Male intimacy is normalized.

But, in a society where homosexuality is normalized as an accepted alternative lifestyle, and homosexuals publicly display their sexual proclivities through displays of intimacy, you can no longer safely display intimacy. If you do, there is a significant chance that other men around you will think you are signalling gayness, you will lose your masculinity. Through this, homoeroticism colonizes male intimacy. When homosexuality becomes normalized, male intimacy becomes denormalized.

In a gay society, you can not be homosocially intimate without being gay.

There are some modern attempts to bring non-sexual male intimacy back into normalcy. Both bromance and no homo try to explicitly counter-signal hetorosexuality and masculinity while engaging in male intimacy. But even then, our society is so gay that bromance is seen as “an increasing openness of society in the twenty-first century to reconsider gender, sexuality, and exclusivity constraints” rather than an attempt by young men to close the gaping spiritual and emotional wound that the lack of intimate male friendship has left in their hearts. These attempts have mostly failed.

In a non-gay society, you could slap your friend on the ass after the game, and walk to the showers with your arms around him. In our gay society, this sounds gay to you (and to me) because male intimacy has been colonized by homosexuality. This is one vague, virtually invisible, unquantifiable harm the homosexual movement has done to the majority.

Sharing Interests

Wintery Knight posted something from William Lane Craig along with his own advice. I’d suggest reading it, most of the advice given is good common-sense, but I do wonder about this:

I strongly urge those of you who are single to make having a shared interest in your field of study and ministry a top criterion in selecting a spouse. It doesn’t matter how beautiful she is or what a great cook she is if she has no interest in your field of study and so sees talking about things that you are passionate about as an annoyance.

Shared interests in marriage has always been one of those things that people seem to value highly that I don’t understand. I don’t see a need for a wife to share your interests, whatever they may be. I do understand that one or two shared activities, something like dancing, that you can do together on date nights is probably beneficial, but for something like philosophy: what use would there be in discussing philosophy with your wife? Why would that be even remotely necessary?

As you can probably tell by the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written on my blog and the thousands of articles I’ve linked to in my Lightning Rounds, I have a strong interest in socio-political theory and have a moderate interest in philosophy, theology, economics, history, etc., but I would never expect my wife to have to have an interest in this or for her to become my regular politics discussion partner.

That’s what I have friends for.

Would it be nice to have a wife who liked socio-political theory? Sure. It would also be nice to have a wife who liked ultimate, board games, science fiction, video games, and anime (as for shooting, hunting, and martial arts, see here) but these can be nice little bonuses. These are not things a wife is needed for and I don’t see the point in making them requirements.

I think this shared interests thing comes from the modern phenomenon of making your wife your friend. A century ago, most men would have thought the idea of discussing politics, theology, or philosophy with your wife was absurd; those discussions were what you did with your friends at the pub. Your wife was the one who dragged you home when you were too sloshed too distinguish between monarchy and anarchy.

But the pubs are now co-ed, men’s clubs have been destroyed, and male friendship has been destroyed. Men no longer have easy ways to find someone to trade bullshit about politics and philosophy with.

At some point in the last century, male friendship began to die, so well-meaning people looking to fill the bleeding wound in their chest its absence caused confused the categories of wife and friend. A husband-wife relationship is not a friendship, it is a unique form of companionship centred around the creation and care of a home and family. Neither relationship is better, they are simply different.

A wife can not be your lover, your friend, your confidante, your parenting-partner, your home-building partner, your BS-ing partner, your debate opponent, your drinking buddy, your complaint outlet, and your dance partner all at once. That is simply too much load to put onto a single relationship. A man needs male friends to fulfill many of these needs.

I’m pretty sure that expecting too much from a single partner is one of the great contributors to the breakdown of modern marriage.

Build a home with your wife and make her your lover, save philosophical diatribes for your friends.

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Another, difference with WK I want to comment comes from this:

And it also allows you to lead a woman so that she can develop herself to be ready for marriage to you. I hope that she would already have done a lot of the work by herself, (chastity, STEM degree, debt-free, good job, apologetics, conservative politics), before she even meets you.

Earlier WK writes about the male’s role as provider, but here he he puts down a STEM degree and a good job as developing herself for marriage, but if the man is meant to be the provider of what use are the degree and the job in a potential wife? Is a career-oriented women the kind of woman at traditional Christian wants raising his children? I think there’s too much focus on what a women studies and works at in the Christian community.

That being said, a degree is a basic signalling mechanism of low time-preference, so if dating any woman without a degree, ensure it’s not because she has high time preference and verify a low time preference in another way. But other than signalling why does it particularly matter what kind of degree she has or if she has a job. I’d much prefer a woman who had spent that time developing her home-making abilities and volunteering at the church than studying and working.

I can understand not wanting a wife who wasted a decade doing nothing, but then the question becomes why would a traditional man consider marriage to a 30-year-old woman?

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We’ll look at the advice-seeker, named Wesley, who illustrates my point nicely.

I recently got married this past summer to an amazing woman I met at a one year bible college I attended a couple years ago and it has been great. But between transferring to a new (secular) school and being constantly busy with school and work I feel like my relationship with God is constantly on the backburner, as I am not getting into the word nearly as much as I used to and my prayer life is nearly nonexistent, and because of this my relationship with my wife is not where it should be either.

I love my major and I love my wife, but they don’t seem to overlap very well, as my studies are normally more time intensive than hers and also she see’s my talking about it more as an annoyance than anything. I guess why I am writing you is because I am getting so spiritually burnt out and need advice on how to ignite/maintain my relationship with God and keep a healthy relationship with my wife and if having an aspiration of being an apologist is worth it. Not only does everyone else not see why I have picked the path I have because they see philosophy as impractical and I won’t be able to support a family with such an aspiration, but the path itself is difficult as I do not have many other fellow Christians in my classes and so I am being practically scorned in all directions. I often ask myself if it is worth it and if I should find some other path that would be more conducive to married life and family life that her and I hope to start in the foreseen future.

It’s very clear here, Wesley’s problem is not his wife. His problem is he doesn’t have virtuous friendships with male friends and is trying to use his wife to fill this hole in his life. But his is his wife, not his friend and she can’t fill this hole, and he shouldn’t be expecting her to.

So, Wesley, if by happenstance you come across this, your wife is not your friend, she is your wife. Don’t discuss philosophy her, take her dancing instead and lead her in Bible readings. Instead of trying to force her into a role in which she does not belong, find a good male friend or two who share your Christian values and discuss philosophy with them over a pint at the pub.

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I should make one last note, there’s a difference between a wife not sharing your interests and a wife deriding your interests. A wife not sharing your interests is fine; a wife who disdains your interests (and not in the harmless ‘men will be men‘ way), and by extension you, is not. Do not marry a women who contempt for those things you really like and enjoy.

I get the impression that Wesley’s problem was the first, but if it was the latter, then that is a something to be concerned about.

Also, values are not interests. Sharing values is important. Don’t marry a woman who doesn’t share your core values.

Guest Post: Friends and the Red Pill

Today we have another guess post from Daniel on the red pill and your old friends. Remember, we accept guest posts on blog-related content; check our contact page  for guidelines. If you have something you want to say, feel free to send it in.

Once in a while you realize how you need to change, how your life sucks and how wrong is everything around you. Then you go looking for something, some way to turn this all around, and you arrive at the manosphere. You find all sorts of useful advice, examples and inspirational tales that help you build the will and courage to finally set foot on the road of change. Unfortunately, they only rarely show you how to deal with the luggage of your previously life. How to deal with friends, memories and all sort of things that will eventually drag you down and back to the very hell you’re trying to escape.

I have currently this problem myself, so I thought I could write some lines about it. First, friends will be your major challenge in becoming an upgraded version of yourself(second only to yourself); not only they are used to the present you, but also will probably think they own you (talk about materialistic idiots who are defined by what they own and own what defines them). If you’re lucky you’ll have one friend with whom you can talk about it, but, generally, talking will just make things harder. So, don’t talk, and refrain from showing any major signs of change in the first moments, they’ll only resent you for that – for challenging their world view, for bringing discomfort to their lives. Look for a more distant group of people who either don’t know you well enough or just haven’t been around that much to care. They will be your training ground. But that is just one minor problem in the whole thing, the major one will be retaining all you’ve learned when you’re with your group of close friends.

As you grow to be a man, you’ll build some habits and lose others. But since (if you are like me) you lived pretty much stuck in the same level for the majority of your life – and shared this time with these friends -, you’ll have very old ingrained habits that are almost impossible to let go. Now, once you are in another place with other people, you will notice – correctly – that these die-hard habits are easier to forget, why does that happens? Well, first, I believe novelty brings forth novelty, that means, as you are with other people in different situations you’ll naturally act different, but, more important, is that your old friends and acquaintances will act so as to maintain the old you in you, hell, just the environment  will do it. It’s harder to let old habits die if you are constantly in situations where these same habits first evolved. So, the sad truth is that you may think you’ve overcome your vices, but as soon as you’re brought back to the old setting, you’ll realize that was not the case.

But fear not, not everything is lost. Your new habits are still with you, only the older ones are stronger – if that term applies in this context, but you get it. There is where the will comes in and you, consciously, can choose how to act, and, at first it’ll be difficult, but as you go out, train and come back it will become easier. One day, they’ll be gone for good. Now, some friends may not be threatened  by small changes in you – if they see the improvements you’re making and not only agree, but support you, you know what friends to keep -, but as I said, the majority probably will. I would like to say that there is an easy way out, but that is not the case. If they are serious about holding you back, cut them loose, tell them to fuck themselves and forget them. Friends are important, but quality always comes before quantity. And if you see one trying to do the same – improve himself – help him.

That’s it. I know it isn’t much new, as some things have already been said, but I still think they weren’t said enough, and, also, it is a problem more common than thought. It isn’t much, but it is what I learned in my experiences in the last years(some of it is just “get the hell away from where you are” and “do new things”, but I thought I could explain it a little more). I hope it helps somebody, as I once also needed this kind of advice. God be with you all, and, as we say here, Servus.