Posts
from


While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?




Bill Weintraub

Bill Weintraub

While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-10-2006

Bill Weintraub

While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

Here are excerpts from two articles in the NY Times which help give us a sense of what's happening in our heterosexualized society to the balance of power between men and women.

The first looks at the huge growth in purchasing power and financial decision-making by women, and states, "We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028."

What Do Women Want? Just Ask

By MICKEY MEECE

Published: October 29, 2006

..

[C]ompanies, in the United States and elsewhere, have realized that they overlook women at their own financial peril. The companies are realigning their marketing and design practices, learning to court an increasingly female-centric consumer base that boasts more financial muscle and purchasing independence than ever before.

"We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028," said Michael J. Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Group. "The trend has been escalating in the last 10 years as there has been a gradual, slow erosion of the power balance in the family, a psychic rebalancing."

Women, Mr. Silverstein added, are "controlling purchases and driving a shift in our economy."

Retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears, Best Buy and others recognize that women are running their households like purchasing managers. Some are "identifying stores that have more female shoppers and offering additional services," including sales support, customized signs and special product displays, said Dana L. Telsey, who runs her own independent research firm. Travel companies, automakers, and other companies, meanwhile, have had to cater to the tastes of women who have careers outside the home and are pursuing hobbies and other pricey interests. The phenomenon is readily apparent on the Internet, where Web sites built around the needs and interests of such groups as female homeowners and car buyers have gained steady traction.

Much of that shift has to do with education and pay. At American colleges and universities, women represent 57 percent of undergraduate classes and 58 percent of graduate classes, according to the American Council on Education. (They also hold a slight majority in the overall population.) And education, in turn, has helped to bolster salaries and income. In 2005, government data show, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings of $585, or 81 percent of the $722 median for their male counterparts, up from about 63 percent in 1979.

..

Best Buy, for example, "used to be a boy store, built by boys, for boys, but four to five years ago, there was a dramatic flip," said Julie Gilbert, a vice president with the company. That change, she said, occurred with the rise of must-have products like digital cameras, MP3 players, cellphones and other mobile devices, and products like flat-screen televisions that have became fashionable accessories for the home.

"Women are outspending men in our industry $55 billion to $41 billion," Ms. Gilbert said. "Not only that, they are actually influencing 90 percent of the purchases. It is a new day in consumer electronics."

THE same may be true in financial services. MassMutual, which recently introduced "Pearls of Wisdom," a video-based financial seminar, and added a women's page to its Web site, has taken the approach a step further. In August, it started a "Selling to Women" educational series to help its agents understand women's expectations and needs. "When it comes to financial advisers, women will share the most intimate details of their lives," said Susan W. Sweetser, second vice president of the women's markets department at MassMutual. "Women don't just buy based on information; they buy based on emotions, coupled with the facts."

Health care was the first industry to recognize and adapt to female buyers because it was clear that women were the gatekeepers for most families' health needs, according to Marti Barletta, president of the TrendSight Group, a research firm in Winnetka, Ill. Financial services was next, followed by home improvement and consumer electronics, she said, as marketers followed the money trail.

While women have always influenced decisions about big-ticket household purchases, their direct spending has expanded substantially in recent years.

[etc.]

[emphases mine]

Bill Weintraub: The

rest of the article examines those trends in more detail.

The important paragraph though is this one:

"We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028," said Michael J. Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Group. "The trend has been escalating in the last 10 years as there has been a gradual, slow erosion of the power balance in the family, a psychic rebalancing."

This is a very serious issue for men.

Because although the goal of the Women's Movement has always been equality for women, what I've seen in my own life is that no group stops with just equality.

Rather, people tend to want power and hegemony.

So rhetoric is one thing, reality another.

And what Mr. Silverstein is saying is that once women earn more money than men, the power balance will truly change.

And that there is already "a gradual, slow erosion of the power balance in the family, a psychic rebalancing."

How that will actually play out is very difficult to say.

But one possibility certainly is a continuing erosion of traditional male-female marriage.

One trend we saw earlier (in the post titled men without marriage) was that some working-class or otherwise economically-marginal guys are having a harder time finding wives, since women who can support themselves are not eager to marry a man whom they might end up having to support.

And in this article the author talks about various female buyers' clubs whose members get together for a weekend of shopping and relaxation -- without men.

So: one possibility is that society might slowly revert to an earlier pattern of gender separation, albeit under new sexual, economic, and technological circumstances.

In which case child-bearing and rearing arrangements could radically change.

In an earlier message thread (A Woman's Viewpoint), Frances had proposed that bonded male Warrior pairs enter into a triad relationship with a woman in order to have children.

Which would involve what I'll here call "dual impregnation."

When she was fertile, the woman would receive both men's phalluses into her vagina simultaneously, and both men would ejaculate.

This is something that Frances wrote me a few weeks back, and which may be germane:

I would love to know your ideas for a modern day agogé.

[Bill: the agogé was the very fierce, homosocial and homosexual Spartan system of turning boys into Warriors.]

Boys, as you know, desperately need help. They need a way out of this mess of a modern society.

You know I advocate men having their own children. I think it's important for a number of reasons: 1) as you've said, men want children. That's the most important thing; 2) heterosexualists think they are the only people worthy of having families and that men who love men are incapable of breeding (grrrrrr!), 3) the agogé has a chance of being realized with your own children, whereas if you're depending on the heterosexualist culture coming around, well you don't stand a snowball's chance in Hell which you know!

Imagine an Alexander, or Hephaestion trying to realize their greatness in this culture.

I would really love to read your thoughts of how Alexander and Hephaestion would react to finding themselves in our culture should a time machine really exist. I'm not into sci-fi, or fantasy per se, but I think it would be illustrative of just how screwed up we've become.

Alexander would be expected to join the "ghetto" (you're completely right about that appellation) of LGB(T), and of course, he would never beget his own children.

[Bill: Yes, basically, a man like Alexander would be miserable in this culture, and would never find himself.]

The dyad is sacred and inviolable. That's what gives it its strength and empowers and redeems the men within it. Women must not only understand that, but respect, and love the dyad, and protect it fiercely.

It would probably be easier for men to find a suitable wife among the women of the ancients who probably would have understood this, and did not need to be a husband's soulmate.

[Bill: Right. I think the demand that under heterosexualization husbands and wives be each other's soulmates is a problem.

Of course, many married men and women today are each other's soulmates, and that's fine.

But it doesn't work for everyone, probably not the majority, and those people need another system.

See the article below, Too Close for Comfort, for more about this.]

But, I know there are young, fertile women on the planet, whose DNA is worthy of a man wrapping his own around (your beloved caduceus imagery) who would be quite right with this set-up, or right as she ever will be with heterosexual monogamy.

What choice do men have? What choice do we have?

I think part of the fidelity among the men is that they never have sex with their wife without one another. They remain fidelitous to one another at all times. And, I can't see any woman in her right mind provided she really does love her husbands, as she should, minding this in the least.

And, if men get off so much on competition, well how about seeing whose sperm arrives at the egg first? Of course, in order for this to be most fair it should take place a day or two before ovulation (when slower, heavier, more genetic material, girl sperm are more likely to reach the target), rather than just before when who "goes first" probably confers an advantage (and increases the likelihood of lighter, faster, boy sperm piercing the ovum).

Imagine going through 9 months of pregnancy and not feeling closer to your husband? And, what woman wouldn't enjoy the consideration of 2 men rather than just one? They would all be bonded to the baby before anyone even knew whose baby, genetically, it was.

I've exposed my excessively righteous and harpy nature. (No one needs to convince me that my women forebears went into battle and took heads).

Frances, like her ancestors, is a true Warrior.

Now I know that to most of you this no doubt seems completely fanciful.

But society will change.

Change is in the order of things.

The only question is -- what will it become?

Well, if we're sufficiently organized and have a public presence, we'll have a say in that.

Along those lines, we can see some movement towards the single-sex rearing of kids in this other article from the Times, which talks about a modest comeback in single-sex schooling.

Federal Rules Back Single-Sex Public Education

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: October 25, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24. The Bush administration is giving public school districts broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools, in what is widely considered the most significant policy change on the issue since a landmark federal law barring sex discrimination in education more than 30 years ago.

Two years in the making, the new rules, announced Tuesday by the Education Department, will allow districts to create single-sex schools and classes as long as enrollment is voluntary. School districts that go that route must also make coeducational schools and classes of "substantially equal" quality available for members of the excluded sex.

The federal action is likely to accelerate efforts by public school systems to experiment with single-sex education, particularly among charter schools. Across the nation, the number of public schools exclusively for boys or girls has risen from 3 in 1995 to 241 today, said Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. That is a tiny fraction of the approximately 93,000 public schools across the country.

"You're going to see a proliferation of these," said Paul Vallas, chief of schools in Philadelphia, where there are four single-sex schools and plans to open two more. "There's a lot of support for this type of school model in Philadelphia."

..

The article states that some feminist and liberal groups like the ACLU are considering challenging the new regulations.

However, the article notes that there's substantial support for these regulations in both parties, and that they're likely to survive a challenge:

Critics argue that the changes contradicted the intent of Title IX and would not withstand a legal challenge -- a point Education Department officials disputed.

Nancy Zirkin, vice president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, an umbrella organization representing about 200 civil rights groups, said the new regulations "violate both Title IX and the equal protection clause of the Constitution."

"Segregation is totally unacceptable in the context of race," she said. "Why in the world in the context of gender would it be acceptable?"

The American Civil Liberties Union signaled it might consider going to court. "We are certainly in many states looking at schools that are segregating students by sex and considering whether any of them are ripe for a challenge," said Emily Martin, deputy director of the Women's Rights Project at the A.C.L.U..

Tom Carroll, chairman and founder of the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys and the Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls in Albany, said the new regulations gave greater legal protections to single-sex schools that had, until now, operated under the threat of lawsuits by such groups. "The A.C.L.U. now has a dramatically steeper hill to climb to upset the apple cart on single-sex schools," Mr. Carroll said.

He said his schools' research showed boys were stronger in math and girls were stronger in literacy. But in recently released test scores, he said, his schools did better than any other public schools in Albany. "Paradoxically, by educating them separately," he said, "we were able to do much to reverse the gender gaps that typically leave girls behind in math and boys behind in literacy."

And that's what's going to matter.

If these schools prove effective at educating their students -- they will stand.

I have to say I was amazed at how few single-sex public schools were left in the entire nation -- 241 out of 93,000, and that's up from only three (3!) in 1995.

Yet I went to a single-sex public school -- my high school -- which was renowned for turning out high quality students who did very well in college.

And Robert and I have written in yet another message thread -- from longhouse to hidey-hole -- about how our swimming classes were taken in the nude.

It wasn't ancient Greece guys, but it was an all-male environment with a strict code of conduct and honor system, and which produced boys who did well academically -- and athletically.

So could we see something like the agogé again?

Sure.

Jedi has a post pending in which he advocates a warrior society organized under the military -- somewhat like the society depicted in the movie Starship Troopers.

And that's what Sparta was.

It was a communal state run by its warriors.

In order to vote in the Assembly you had to be a warrior.

There was also a council of elders -- all of whom had been or still were warriors -- and who appointed the "ephors" -- a word which means both "guardians" and "overseers" and who had the responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Spartan state.

And then there were two -- not one but two -- hereditary kings.

Who took turns being warlords.

So we can think of this not as a junta, but as a representative or "democratic" military government.

In other words, instead of rule by a few generals, there was an Assembly, in which every warrior had a vote, and a Council of Elders.

And they're the people who actually ruled.

The other Greeks on the whole admired Sparta and the Spartan system.

They didn't like it when Sparta tried to dominate them directly or indirectly.

But they admired the warrior values and stability of the Spartan state.

And something like that, perhaps on a global scale as Jedi advocates, could become a reality again.

A warrior culture in the form of a military, but a representative military, stepping in to take control of a planet facing overwhelming problems.

We'll look at that more closely when we examine some of Jedi's ideas.

Guys, please take a look at "Too Close for Comfort," which appears below.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.


Bill Weintraub

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-10-2006

So far what we've seen is that women are gaining more and more financial power -- as well as cultural power -- which is to be expected under heterosexualization;

that at the same time single-sex schools are making a modest comeback;

and that people like Frances and Jedi are thinking in visionary terms about what society might become.

And let me emphasize that we need visionaries -- life can't just be arithmetic, we need dreams as well.

Now, in this next NY Times piece, which is an op-ed, an historian of marriage looks at the problems caused by society's emphasis on marriage to the exlusion of all other relationships.

Although the author doesn't appear to understand the extent of bisexuality, she describes very well the changes wrought in society by industrialization and heterosexualization.

And though I can't say I agree with all of her conclusions, she does, crucially, state "that men need deep emotional connections with other men."

Please take a look:

Too Close for Comfort

By STEPHANIE COONTZ

Published: November 7, 2006

Olympia, Wash.

EVER since the Census Bureau released figures last month showing that married-couple households are now a minority, my phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people asking: "How can we save marriage? How can we make Americans understand that marriage is the most significant emotional connection they will ever make, the one place to find social support and personal fulfillment?"

I think these are the wrong questions -- indeed, such questions would have been almost unimaginable through most of history. It has only been in the last century that Americans have put all their emotional eggs in the basket of coupled love. Because of this change, many of us have found joys in marriage our great-great-grandparents never did. But we have also neglected our other relationships, placing too many burdens on a fragile institution and making social life poorer in the process.

A study released this year showed just how dependent we've become on marriage. Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage.

In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn't have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.

The solution to this isolation is not to ramp up our emotional dependence on marriage. Until 100 years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty and religion.

St. Paul complained that married men were more concerned with pleasing their wives than pleasing God. In John Adams's view, a "passion for the public good" was "superior to all private passions." In both England and America, moralists bewailed "excessive" married love, which encouraged "men and women to be always taken up with each other."

From medieval days until the early 19th century, diaries and letters more often used the word love to refer to neighbors, cousins and fellow church members than to spouses. When honeymoons first gained favor in the 19th century, couples often took along relatives or friends for company. Victorian novels and diaries were as passionate about brother-sister relationships and same-sex friendships as about marital ties.

The Victorian refusal to acknowledge strong sexual desires among respectable men and women gave people a wider outlet for intense emotions, including physical touch, than we see today. Men wrote matter-of-factly about retiring to bed with a male roommate, "and in each other's arms did friendship sink peacefully to sleep." Upright Victorian matrons thought nothing of kicking their husbands out of bed when a female friend came to visit. They spent the night kissing, hugging and pouring out their innermost thoughts.

By the early 20th century, though, the sea change in the culture wrought by the industrial economy had loosened social obligations to neighbors and kin, giving rise to the idea that individuals could meet their deepest needs only through romantic love, culminating in marriage. Under the influence of Freudianism, society began to view intense same-sex ties with suspicion and people were urged to reject the emotional claims of friends and relatives who might compete with a spouse for time and affection.

The insistence that marriage and parenthood could satisfy all an individual's needs reached a peak in the cult of "togetherness" among middle-class suburban Americans in the 1950s. Women were told that marriage and motherhood offered them complete fulfillment. Men were encouraged to let their wives take care of their social lives.

But many men and women found these prescriptions stifling. Women who entered the work force in the 1960s joyfully rediscovered social contacts and friendships outside the home.

"It was so stimulating to have real conversations with other people," a woman who lived through this period told me, "to go out after work with friends from the office or to have people over other than my husband's boss or our parents."

And women's lead in overturning the cult of 1950s marriage inspired many men to rediscover what earlier generations of men had taken for granted -- that men need deep emotional connections with other men, not just their wives. Researchers soon found that men and women with confidants beyond the nuclear family were mentally and physically healthier than people who relied on just one other individual for emotional intimacy and support.

So why do we seem to be slipping back in this regard? It is not because most people have voluntarily embraced nuclear-family isolation. Indeed, the spread of "virtual" communities on the Internet speaks to a deep hunger to reach out to others.

Instead, it's the expansion of the post-industrial economy that seems to be driving us back to a new dependence on marriage. According to the researchers Kathleen Gerson and Jerry Jacobs, 60 percent of American married couples have both partners in the work force, up from 36 percent in 1970, and the average two-earner couple now works 82 hours a week.

This is probably why the time Americans spend socializing with others off the job has declined by almost 25 percent since 1965. Their free hours are spent with spouses, and as a study by Suzanne Bianchi of the University of Maryland released last month showed, with their children -- mothers and fathers today spend even more time with their youngsters than parents did 40 years ago.

As Americans lose the wider face-to-face ties that build social trust, they become more dependent on romantic relationships for intimacy and deep communication, and more vulnerable to isolation if a relationship breaks down. In some cases we even cause the breakdown by loading the relationship with too many expectations. Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it to compensate for the way that work has devoured time once spent cultivating friendships.

The solution is not to revive the failed marital experiment of the 1950s, as so many commentators noting the decline in married-couple households seem to want. Nor is it to lower our expectations that we'll find fulfillment and friendship in marriage.

Instead, we should raise our expectations for, and commitment to, other relationships, especially since so many people now live so much of their lives outside marriage. Paradoxically, we can strengthen our marriages the most by not expecting them to be our sole refuge from the pressures of the modern work force. Instead we need to restructure both work and social life so we can reach out and build ties with others, including people who are single or divorced. That indeed would be a return to marital tradition -- not the 1950s model, but the pre-20th-century model that has a much more enduring pedigree.

Stephanie Coontz, a history professor at Evergreen State College, is the author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage."

[emphases mine]

Bill Weintraub:

Coontz says that "Until 100 years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty and religion."

That's exactly what Robert Loring has been saying for a very long time.

That our culture is neither natural nor normal.

It seems to me however that Coontz somewhat betrays her central premise when she says that we shouldn't "lower our expectations that we'll find fulfillment and friendship in marriage."

The problem is that not everyone is going to find "fulfillment and friendship in marriage."

Which she acknowledges by noting that "In some cases we even cause the breakdown [of marriage] by loading the relationship with too many expectations."

Indeed, what she's telling us in the rest of the piece is that historically people didn't seek that.

Rather, they had many paths to fulfillment and friendship.

She points out that as late as the Victorian era, "Men wrote matter-of-factly about retiring to bed with a male roommate, 'and in each other's arms did friendship sink peacefully to sleep'."

She leaves out though the many Victorian references to "fleshy poles" and the like in those same male-male beds.

She also says that "many men [are] rediscover[ing] what earlier generations of men had taken for granted -- that men need deep emotional connections with other men, not just their wives."

I would say "some men are rediscovering."

Fact is, the evangelical churches in particular discourage men from having any emotional connections with anyone outside of marriage.

Again, they've made same-sex affection such a shibboleth that they're terrified of men just having male friends.

Haggard's solution was to buy sex -- without affection or friendship -- from a stranger.

No wonder he's so fucked up.

Guys needs guy sex -- Man Sex -- but they also need guy affection -- Man Hug.

They need to be able to express aggression -- Man Fight;

And they also need to spend a lot of time with other guys -- Man Space.

Man Space

Man Fight

Man Hug

Man Sex

It all has to be there.

And Coontz, though she doesn't talk about sex between men, does endorse a return to a pre-twentieth century model, and says, "we should raise our expectations for, and commitment to, other relationships."

Indeed.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.


Bill Weintraub

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-10-2006

Now, let me try to connect some of the dots:

In posts like THE POWER OF THE MASCULINE, we saw how the forces of heterosexualization, which received a huge boost from the industrial revolution, brought about the destruction of homosocial spaces; and the creation of the false category sexual orientation, both of which act to severely injure Man's Natural Masculinity.

In her op-ed, Coontz supports what we've said.

She says that today's model of hetero marriage is a result of industrialization, and a radical departure from what human beings have known in the past.

She says that this model has resulted in many problems.

And she acknowledges that "men need deep emotional connections with other man."

Even as Coontz is writing however, the NY Times is carrying articles about the increasing marginalization of men, and the movement towards "matriarchy" -- that is, a society run by women, based in this instance, on purchasing power.

That's the logical end-result of heterosexualization, as my foreign friend points out:

The heterosexual society cares only for women. It sees men only as a problematic group that comes in the way of what is called women's rights.

Gay men are one of the most ardent supporters of heterosexualisation. They represent the dust bin created by the heterosexualised society to contain the mutilated/ negativised remnants of male-male sex that survives after the intense oppression of them in the mainstream...

Gay men (when I say gay men I mean feminine identified males who like men) derive immense power from the heterosexual society. In fact they owe the heterosexual society their existence.

He's correct of course.

The very notion of sexual orientation didn't exist until heterosexualization created it.

My foreign friend has also pointed out that men have a huge need for same-sex SEXUAL relationships if they're going to realize their Natural Masculinity:

My experiences of working with young men for the past 10 years + my experiences of living in a traditional society show that male sexual desire for men cannot be tied down to a minority group. Rather it is a universal male phenomenon, especially strong amongst masculine gendered men --- unlike what the west propagates. It also seems that the male phobia against such bonds in America is mostly socially engineered and partly a media hype.

I think male sexual bonds are an important part of masculinity that must be made available to all men (and not just a specific group) --- especially in their youth --- and with suiting masculine pride. Depriving men of this amounts to robbing them of their true natural masculinity.

"male sexual desire for men ... is a universal male phenomenon, especially strong among masculine-identified men"

"male sexual bonds are an important part of masculinity that must be made available to all men (and not just a specific group)"

"Depriving men of this amounts to robbing them of their true natural masculinity."

Those statements are crystal clear.

Men deprived not just of homosocial spaces and homosocial relationships, but of male-male SEXUAL bonds, are also deprived of their NATURAL MASCULINITY.

Without which, they are not truly men.

This is a terrible crisis, and it explains why so much is wrong in the lives of ALL MEN, regardless of how they self-identify, today.

Society is dimly aware of these problems, but is hamstrung by the politically correct emphasis on gender equality.

Thus we see a modest attempt at bringing back single-sex public schools, an attempt which is immediately challenged by feminists and groups like the ACLU.

However, there are folks like ourselves -- the Man2Man Alliance.

With people like Frances and Jedi who are looking to revitalize ancient Warrior models as a guide to the future.

These are models based upon, as the Alliance is based upon, three key principles:

PHALLUS

FIDELITY

MASCULINITY

Those principles are sound.

Which is why they are also the solution.

Man Space

Man Fight

Man Hug

Man Sex

Suppose bro, just suppose, you had that in YOUR life.

In my next post, I'll look more closely at the issues of gender and transgender equality.

What's clear is that the forces of analism, heterosexism, and religious fanaticism are now the enemies of Mankind.

And they must be defeated.

YOUR life, dude, your LIFE -- depends upon it.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.


Robert Loring

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-11-2006

Thanks for posting these two articles Bill. They just confirm what I have, in fact, been saying for YEARS now. Our society is NOT normal nor is it NATURAL. And no matter how some wish to delude themselves into thinking otherwise we all feel something deep down within us that reminds us that our present society is NOT the historical/traditional NORM and that there is definitely something WRONG with society today.

Suppose you had a brother whom you considered fairly normal while the two of you were growing up. Then one day you brother began to change for no apparent reason. He suddenly stopped wrestling with you and he stopped hugging you. He obviously begins to withdraw into himself and you know it because you can see all the signs in his change of behavior that tell you something is wrong with your brother.

Time goes by and your brother stops displaying his masculine nude body to the world. Suddenly, you can see shame set in as he no longer goes without a shirt and never exposes his genitals like he did in the past. Once, you know, he was proud of his developing manhood but now it seems that he has become insecure and ashamed of his manhood. You begin to get concerned for your brother and you try talking to him to find out what is wrong. But, little brother won't talk to you on any level below the superficial. He avoids answering your questions and he assures you that there is nothing wrong, nothing bothering him.

Once the two of you wrestled endlessly night and day but now you notice that your brother rejects your invitations to wrestle. You can tell that there is now an emotional distance between the two of you and that it's getting wider. Little brother becomes very homophobic and you soon discover that ANY male-male contact or expression of emotion is quickly deemed "faggot" by your little brother. Little brother now spends endless hours talking about "faggots" and pointing out everything around him as being "gay." When he sees two males hugging he really goes ballistic because he deems such behavior as "really gay!"

Time moves on and little brother gets a job and marries. He becomes consumed in his job and when you see him that's all he seems to want to talk about. You soon figure out that the reason for this is because he is avoiding talking about his feelings. He wishes to avoid talking about his feelings because he is in a state of denial and he thinks he's doing a great job at hiding from you what is bothering him. But, in fact, HE'S NOT!

Little brother's marriage does not go well and doesn't last long. Little brother has slid into a daily life of alcoholism and his wife believes he has also slid into a life of sexual addiction because she knows he's having affairs with other women and, she suspects, maybe even with other men! Little brother's marriage ends in a nasty divorce and the children he and his wife bore pay the price (as always) for they now are forced to live the broken home life.

Time goes on and little brother isolates himself more and more not only emotionally but now physically as well. You're worried about him because you know something is badly wrong with him and has been for awhile. But, he won't talk to you and he denies everything you say to him about his growing problem. Now, lost in his own self rejection and dislike he drinks more and more. You begin to realize that you don't even really know your little brother anymore. He has become like a stranger.

Little brother maintains that there is nothing wrong with him. He tells you over and over that he is "fine and normal." But, you know that this is not so. You know that he is not "fine and normal." One afternoon a police officer comes knocking at your door to inform you that they have found your little brother dead. He put a bullet in his head. All these years you were torn. You knew there was something wrong but at the same time you wanted to believe what little brother said, that he was "fine and normal." But now, on this sunny afternoon with the police officer standing in front of you everything you suspected about little brother NOT being "fine and normal" is blatantly CONFIRMED.

Would you think that a little brother being like this was "fine and normal?" Would you conclude that he was just doing what other males do normally and naturally? Would you reject your own suspicions that there might be something very wrong with little brother? Would you stand by doing nothing as you watch little brother sink further and further down the abyss of abnormalcy, isolation, alcoholism, and major depression? Could you not see that little brother was on the road to SELF DESTRUCTION? And would you really be so surprised when the police came to tell you little brother had committed suicide?

Little brother is our modern industrialized society folks. No one in their right mind would see all these major changes in little brother and fail to realize that something was really wrong with little brother. So, do we continue to ignore little brother and downplay his symptoms hoping that everything will be ok? Will we continue to close our eyes to the FACT that NOTHING IS OK with little brother right now? Will we be so surprised with modern society commits societal suicide?

The past few decades have seen a dangerous ideology promoted. That being that the world is all about "Me! Me! ME!....Wonderful ME!" But the FACT is that the world is NOT all about YOU! It's about US!! All 6+ billion of US! The only thing the ME focus has done is to force people into isolation and neurosis more and more. It has taken what is historically and traditionally RIGHT and turned it into wrong while at the same time it has taken what is wrong and turned it into "right." Somehow....someway....people have got to band together and fight against the raging tide of the unnatural that is beating us all today. If we don't then I can assure you that we will witness and be an involuntary part of the coming societal suicide. Something IS WRONG with little brother! It's NOT going to be OK! It is NOT going to all go away either! BIG brother is going to have to take some action and help little brother right himself up again. Little brother is modern society. YOU are BIG BROTHER!!

I love Jedi's idea of a society based on Sparta's model. A WARRIOR SOCIETY! As I have said before, "The path of the Warrior IS the path to humanity's SALVATION!!" Society cannot go along the path it is now on for much longer. Something is going to give. We all know it and we all feel it. It's just a matter of time before it all comes unglued!

Homophobia, isolation, FEAR, depression, anxiety, selfishness, and egotism! These are what our industrialized, consumer-ridden society has produced. Industrialization might have made humanity's life easier BUT we are ALL paying the price psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Some of us are now asking, "Is it all really worth the price?" I'm one who shouts out a resounding, "FUCK NO!!"

And, as for masculine men such as Alexander the Great somehow being time warped into our own modern times he'd be a lost, confused man. He'd be a man who never would realize his potential for greatness and he'd die as a man unknown to the world. How can I be so sure of this? Because there are MANY Alexander's today in the world BUT they are SILENT and they refuse to come forth and claim the greatness that is RIGHTFULLY theirs! Instead, they stay in the shadows of society, hanging back, and they die unknown men. They feel like they do not belong in this time. They feel like men out of place and out of time. They innately know and honor the "old ways" of manhood and masculinity. The ways of the ancient Greeks and Spartans. The ways of true manhood and masculinity. Yet, they know that our upside down society would crucify them especially for their innate M2M love.

MEN NEED OTHER MEN psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and PHYSICALLY!

Little brother is screaming out! Who will hear him?


Bill Weintraub

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-11-2006

Wow!

What a wonderful, brilliant, and powerful parable!

Guys -- please read and re-read Robert's words.

Read and re-read them.


Frances

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-12-2006

Finally, after all the casualties, the bedrock of heterosexism, modern marriage, is down for the count. Bill's own story of how those forces went to work on him and nearly destroyed him almost before he could wake up and see what was going on tell us how powerful those forces have been, because I would say most of us could agree that the guy appears to have a backbone and a brain. But, we can all do a reckoning of the personal costs we ourselves have paid.

It took him, and people like him saying "NO". Bill Schuler said "NO" to the LDS. Robert Loring has been saying "FUCK NO!" Justin is telling you how important that has been to him, in order for him to LIVE and model the ideals he cherishes most.

Speaking of Living, Life: For too long, modern marriage meant that people went into the closet and had children. Later, when it became safer, many came out. Somehow, somewhere along the line, you either lived their life and had them, or you didn't. Now people are reassessing what it was they forfeited and why they forfeited that part of themselves. Is it still necessary to forfeit that part of yourself in order to be who you are? I don't think so.

Men and women right now are forging new territory. I think lesbian and bi-sexual (a term more and more women seem to identify with) and to some extent, straight single women are at the forefront of this movement towards parenthood without industrial-age marriage. And contrary to what many men believe, many of them are interested in their children having fathers, not just donors.

The future, as always, awaits.


Bill Weintraub

Re: While society slouches towards matriarchy, single-sex schools make a comeback -- is the agogé far behind?

11-14-2006

Thank you Frances.

Let me just talk about this part of it:

Bill's own story of how those forces went to work on him and nearly destroyed him almost before he could wake up and see what was going on tell us how powerful those forces have been...

Right.

The first of the forces which almost destroyed me were the Neo-Freudians and psychoanalytic psychiatry, which taught that homosexuality was a "personality disorder."

What's interesting is that Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, did not believe that homosexuality was an indicator of mental illness, and he very famously said so in his "Letter to an American Mother."

Further, we know from Freud's journals that he was very much in touch with and acknowledged his own homoerotic feelings -- including those towards his quondam disciple Carl Jung -- who was about half his age.

Yet Freud -- who towered intellectually over the first four decades of the 20th century -- was not able to prevent his followers from turning same-sex affection into a disease.

Why not?

Well, and I'm not being facetious, in part because he died.

Psychoanalysis after his death became far more rigid than it had been when he was alive.

But the larger reason is that heterosexualization was an historical process which an individual like Freud, for all his brilliance, could not stop.

And heterosexualization demanded that men be divided from men, and that those relatively few men who insisted on acknowledging their same-sex feelings be imprisoned and ghettoized.

And I do mean imprisoned.

In the 1950s, a repentant homosexual would be turned over to the psychiatrists.

But an unrepetant homosexual was likely to end up in jail.

In other words there were "good" homosexuals -- men who accepted that they were mentally ill and hated themselves; and "bad" homosexuals -- men who insisted they were happy the way the were.

The latter were frequently imprisoned.

Then there was a third group of seemingly "heterosexual" men who evidenced homosexual behavior in a single-sex environment like the military.

Their homosexuality was dismissed as "situational."

Now, if during this era you were an 11-year-old child with strong same-sex feelings, as I was in 1959, you were likely to:

1. self-define as homosexual; and, eventually,

2. try to find a way into treatment so that you could be cured.

That's what I did and that was a common experience.

But, of course, that was all in the antediluvian past and today we're far more enlightened.

Right?

Actually, no.

As I'm going to talk about in a separate message thread, gender theory is, in my view, rapidly becoming the psychoanalysis of the 21st century.

With localities, as I'll describe, rushing to enshrine key precepts of "genderism" into law.

Well, you may say, Bill, surely that's no skin off your nose.

You're a man and happy to be a man.

To which I reply, Yes, but I'm a man who remembers what it was like to be a boy.

And what concerns me is that not only are we seeing gay-identified kids self-define as bottoms at a very early age -- I'm talking 12 and 13; but we're also seeing gay-identified kids self-define as feminine at 12 and 13.

I got an email last week in which a 19-year-old said he'd decided when he was 12 that he had a "feminine brain," and should be effeminate.

Again, I'll discuss his email in a forthcoming post.

Needless to say, this kid does not have a feminine brain.

But, once he self-defined as feminine, he self-isolated and thus missed out on the crucial experiences of male adolescence.

Once -- or I guess I should say "if" -- he realizes that he's a he -- he's going to have problems.

Now, I agree with Frances that men want to and should have children.

And that we will see new and innovative social relationships to accomodate that.

As Frances says, "Men and women right now are forging new territory."

But: It's not going to happen for free.

Guys -- donations are at zero and I'm ludicrously overworked.

I have an inbox full of email from people wanting me to solve their problems.

How I'm supposed to do that with no money I don't know.

Perhaps one of you non-donors can explain it to me.

I just said that Freud, for all his brilliance, couldn't stop the forces of heterosexualization.

Part of the problem he faced was political.

There were three huge and contending forces at work in the 1920s and 30s -- communism, fascism, and so-called liberal democracy, which was rarely liberal.

Freud, a Jew, was not well liked by any of those, and barely escaped from Austria when the Nazis came in.

He was exiled to England, where he soon died.

Now, I'm not comparing myself to Freud intellectually or in any other way.

But we also face three contending forces: analism, heterosexism, and religious fanaticism.

Those too are huge.

The difference is that we're in the US, the UK, and the EU, prosperous societies which all guarantee some degree of free speech.

But YOU won't speak up.

Nor will YOU do anything to defend yourselves.

Which is amazing.

YOU know about the butthole who tried to delete this board.

I told you that a reasonable response would be donating a couple hours salary.

Nada.

Not a dime.

Here's a true story.

In the 1980s someone blew up Jerry Falwell's radio tower.

He told his congregation, and they immediately donated the money to buy a new one.

Then some gay group flooded his 800 number.

He told his congregation, and they flooded him with donations.

That's why the religious right has enjoyed so much political power for the last couple decades.

They've PAID for it.

DUH.

It's not complicated.

YOU guys, when faced with a similar sort of aggression -- do NOTHING.

That's a BIG mistake.

I know, Christmas is coming and then you have your winter vacation in Mexico or the Carribean or Thailand or wherever you're going this year.

But Falwell's people donate.

As do the analists.

Those AIDS Service Organizations raise huge amounts of money.

Which they then spend in ways which are inimical to YOUR interests.

Robert Loring said earlier in this thread that "Something is WRONG with little brother!"

He also noted that

there are MANY Alexander's today in the world BUT they are SILENT and they refuse to come forth and claim the greatness that is RIGHTFULLY theirs! Instead, they stay in the shadows of society, hanging back, and they die unknown men. They feel like they do not belong in this time. They feel like men out of place and out of time. They innately know and honor the "old ways" of manhood and masculinity. The ways of the ancient Greeks and Spartans. The ways of true manhood and masculinity. Yet, they know that our upside down society would crucify them especially for their innate M2M love.

"crucify them for their innate M2M love"

Robert's telling the truth.

That's what's been done to YOU.

When will you fight back?

"Something is WRONG with little brother."

In a very real sense, bro, little brother is YOU.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.

COCKRUB WARRIORS RULE



Add a reply to this discussion

Back to Personal Stories








AND


Warriors Speak is presented by The Man2Man Alliance, an organization of men into Frot

To learn more about Frot, ck out What's Hot About Frot

Or visit our FAQs page.


Warriors Speak Home

Cockrub Warriors Site Guide

The Man2Man Alliance

Heroic Homosex

Frot Men

Heroes

Frot Club

Personal Stories

| What's Hot About Frot | Hyacinthine Love | THE FIGHT | Kevin! | Cockrub Warriors of Mars | The Avenger | Antagony | TUFF GUYZ | Musings of a BGM into Frot | Warriors Speak | Ask Sensei Patrick | Warrior Fiction | Frot: The Next Sexual Revolution |
| Heroes Site Guide | Toward a New Concept of M2M | What Sex Is |In Search of an Heroic Friend | Masculinity and Spirit |
| Jocks and Cocks | Gilgamesh | The Greeks | Hoplites! | The Warrior Bond | Nude Combat | Phallic, Masculine, Heroic | Reading |
| Heroic Homosex Home | Cockrub Warriors Home | Heroes Home | Story of Bill and Brett Home | Frot Club Home |
| Definitions | FAQs | Join Us | Contact Us | Tell Your Story |

© All material on this site Copyright 2001 - 2010 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.