Merry Christmas

God bless you all!

Sometimes the Customer is Wrong

As far as I can tell there is really only one acceptable way to punish women, and that is exclusion.  All mankind are social creatures and will suffer from exclusion, but because women are more sociable and more dependent they will more keenly suffer when left out. This makes exclusion more deterring, and thus more instructive, for women. In addition, most people (including myself) just aren’t going to stomach any more than the minimum violence necessary to stop a woman either from a dangerous or criminal activity, or move her away from the same.

This is our biggest problem as a democratic, atomized, consumerist, and faddish society. Nobody can exclude anybody when everybody is already alone, here in Babylon. And we really are. This is compounded by the fact that entry into–and affiliation with–another superficial social group is a trite and silly affair which can be accomplished by the purchase of a tee shirt. If a man kicks out his belligerent wife, she’ll just get a new shirt, a new church, and a new husband. No one cares. Everyone acts as if these acts were not superficial.

Immigration, minority criminality, and white male apathy really are serious troubles right now. They are problems which are too big to be ignored in the meantime, and we each need to do our best to combat them as we can. But none of them will be resolved–or even meaningfully combated–unless and until men band together into significant, genuine, geographical, and exclusive communities.

Tudor Shards

I’ve been listening to The History of England Podcast for awhile now. It’s informative of course, but also entertaining. I’ve laughed aloud countless times. There’s five years of casts so it’s taken me some time to catch up; probably a year since I started it, but I’m almost current now. He’s at the reign of Henry VIII, who has just, finally after years, broken with Rome and married Anne Boleyn. Protestant though I am: I despise her. Katherine really was abused.

The host does his best, I think, to paint everyone with their best and worst colors. Everyone comes in for criticism, but he also highlights their virtues. Still…every person reminds me of St. Paul’s comments that some vessels are made for honorable use and some for dishonorable, and that the latter are made to be broken and disposed in pursuit of God’s uses.

Retreat into Euphemism

I have great respect for the work Colin Flaherty does with his YouTube channel. This one in particular does a good job of conveying his message, both logically and rhetorically. At 17 minutes it might be a bit long for some people, but it’s worth it.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Have you ever left a city, or a part of a city, because of minority criminality? Did you see any point in complaining about it openly, or did you decide nothing would change because you can’t make the blind see–so you just moved to a whiter safer neighborhood?

There’s No Way Around No

Tim Finnegan writes:

I think the question of what women ought not to wear will get answered when we answer the question of where women ought not to go. I think if we find a location/activity that is exclusive to men, then the clothing which is designed for that location/activity will be what women ought not to wear. It would be best if there were multiple such activities/locations (as there used to be).

Nope. Didn’t work. Doesn’t work. Won’t work. If it worked, women wouldn’t wear men’s clothes now. Anyways, such exclusive activities are always “solved” by inventing or repurposing men’s clothes as women’s.

There’s no way around learning to say No to women, and holding to it; even on totally subjective merits. Especially then.

Moist and Twisted

As far as I can tell, all of the Western world is in denial about the temptation of women to lust. We are the proverbial fish, and female lust is the feel of wet. For women still under the pull of the red tide, they are tempted to view everything from a sexual perspective. Ev-er-y-thing. Those beyond it are sympathetic, even wistful.

Every piece of clothing is measured on its sex appeal. Every purchase is made either in congruence with, or in opposition to, its sexual connotation. Every interaction with a man is investigated and dissected for sexual content. If it’s there and desired that’s good to that woman. All other combinations disappoint in some way.

Everybody understands that sex sells, and everybody understands that women are the target audience for the great majority of advertising, but nobody puts the two together.

It is the same among Christians, but we add a twist: When women dress, behave, or speak lewdly, we blame men for noticing the lewdness. We accuse those men of lust. But it is at least the second act of lust, because the desire to attract illicit sexual attention in the first place just is lust.

Escaping Androgyny by Mimicking the Brothel

Today, after the Sexual Revolution, the way we can tell a woman is wearing women’s clothes  and not men’s, is that there are designs on her ass.

But the most common way [for conservative women] of affecting a difference in dress from their male conservative counterparts was for women to wear jeans with rhinestones pasted on the seat. There were as many sparkly designs on butts as there are women, and more available in booths. It must be said that there can be no reason for sparkles on an ass except to call attention to the ass; which is immodest, exhibitionist, and ungodly.

Yet one of the common sparkly ass designs were rhinestone crosses.

Take a look at dress patterns from any period you like before ours. What you won’t find are patterns on the ass alone.

Said another way: The way we can tell a woman is wearing women’s clothes, and not men’s, is that she asks us to make designs on her ass. That is the cost of failure to keep women from men’s clothes.

Why Everyone is Married to a Peppermint Patty

In a follow-up comment to my post “But Pants Aren’t in the Bible!” I asked a simple question: “Blue jeans, tee shirt, ball cap, sneakers. Whose outfit is this?”

Derek didn’t get it. Instead of answering the question he tried to be cute:

Wool socks, snow boots, heavy winter coat.

Who’s outfit is this?

But I pressed him back to the question and he explained why he can’t answer it:

@Cane Caldo – “It is a simple question. Why can’t you answer it?”

Because it’s a loaded question, just like mine is. If I change your question to this: “Blue jeans, t-shirt, pink bra, cap, sneakers, hair bow. Whose outfit is this?”, then the answer is immediately different.

It is obvious that what constitutes women’s or men’s garb is subjective to a society. It is also subjective to both the situation and intention. The latter two are more important than the former because they are more specific.

If both my wife and I wear jeans, t-shirt, baseball cap, and sneakers to a baseball game, there isn’t anyone who would ever mistake me for a woman or her for a man.

Ah…the old “But My Wife” trick; coupled to the old “But everyone’s doing it!” gag.

Well, we wouldn’t dare to impede upon a woman’s desire to dress like a man while at a baseball game. After all: watching baseball is strenuous! Every woman in a stadium needs to look like a baseball player, wear brush resistant pants, and strip down to her undershirt to avoid sweat-stains on her blouse.

That’s what baseball caps were for: Men and boys who played baseball, and who identified with their favorite ball players. Blue jeans were invented as hard-wearing pants for men contending with the rugged terrain of the American West. Tee shirts are men’s undergarments. I’ll grant that there have always been athletic shoes for men and women, but even there I bet the trend went: Boys wore them casually first, then girls invaded. Sneakers aside: Ball caps, jeans, and tee shirts are all men’s clothing, and were intended to be so from the beginning.

Unlike those items: Wool socks were invented for both sexes. Snow boots were invented for both sexes. Heavy winter coats were invented for both sexes. Derek thought he was comparing apples to apples. He wasn’t. A ball cap, jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers used to be the casual uniform of the American Working Class Man until the Boomers ruined it with the Sexual Revolution. Now no one knows what women should not wear, and if they do, they won’t say it.

So Long, Freaken!

From Yahoo News:

Sen. Al Franken says he’s been an advocate for women. That’s even as he resigns amid a torrent of sexual misconduct accusations.

The Minnesota Democrat says he’s used his position “to be a champion of women.” He says despite the allegations, “I know who I really am.”

Hey-o! A little Stuart Smalley there.

He says, “Even on the worst day of my political life, I feel like it’s all been worth it.”

Yeah, I bet you do you little freak.

The Course of Your Paths

My people—infants are their oppressors,
    and women rule over them.
O my people, your guides mislead you
    and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.

In the Men’s Sphere, there are a lot of different men with a lot of different viewpoints. I find that the posts and comments which get my interest and respect don’t hold to a particular pattern except in one way: The comment (and I therefore assume the commenter) admits that we are all lost in the wilderness. I don’t mean that he admits “the society”, or “the culture”, or some other notion of a group of which he is a part of but also somehow apart from. I mean he admits he is lost.

It’s reassuring. I’m no less lost when I find someone else who is lost, but even if nothing else there’s something trustworthy in that confession. That in-and-of-itself means we can have at least one thing: trust. And, very often among the confessors, there is something else which is valuable: He knows which direction not to go. He doesn’t know where we are, but he knows where he came from to get here, and can confirm it wasn’t any better back that way. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left.

The men who pretend to know where we culturally are, and where to go, can’t be trusted. It always turns out that such a man has no idea of what is right in front of his face; much less where we are, where we should go. He doesn’t have a map. He usually doesn’t even know what a map is.