Men: An Explanation - Introduction
What "Men: An Explanation" is about.
The night I was I given I Hate Men by Pauline Harmange to read, I read a few chapters, and then dreamt I was being sexually harassed by a boss who could turn invisible.
In the dream, I was having a performance review, and I was nervous. She told me that I was doing badly, and especially, that I was dressing badly, and with that over, she turned invisible and fondled and caressed private parts of me. And then she was gone.
Had she already done that it in the past? Did she do it again? I can’t remember; it was a dream, but there was no one I could tell. No one would believe it. This woman, who was strong and powerful, and also attractive to me (thus I was to a small degree pleased by the attention) - who would believe she could or would do this?
The next night after the sexual harassment dream, I read a couple more chapters, and dreamt I was watching some old I Love Lucy clips for some sort of research, but the one that grabbed my attention, was one that co-starred a young-ish Bill Cosby. In fact, there was a passage of Bill Cosby solo on the screen, in which he was comically sliding down an accessibility ramp, and then down a very long bathtub.
I watched this part over and over, knowing I couldn’t watch this in the presence of my wife, and SHE’D never believe my reasons for doing so: I wanted to see what a rapist looked like. I wanted to see if there was joy on the face of a rapist when he was doing otherwise normal and happy. I wanted to see if I could see the aggression in his eyes. I wanted to know if I was a rapist.
Later in that dream, Cosby and I were in the same bed together, waking. I was a reporter writing about him, I tried to sneak out, but he heard me, muttered something that I tried to evade, eventually some of the people guarding him took him by car to the next part of our story, and I stayed in the back.
That day I started this book (or blog or substack or whatever.)
Before I read Harmange’s book, my eyes fell to an early page, where she wonders why men are the way they are. “They are violent, selfish, lazy and cowardly” she says, and I agreed.
But then I backtracked and stumbled on “lazy”. I don’t think men are lazy, when they are acting from what they believe. They just don’t believe in much.
Harmange was introducing her topic, and not being encyclopedic in this sentence (additionally I was reading a translation into English), but this sentence stopped me and made me want to a) read the book, b) offer a slightly encyclopedic answer, to why men are the way they are, and c) to expand on those four qualities, identifying more in context, and maybe d) quantify them a bit.
I’m always looking for a grand unified theory, so I confess I’m looking for patterns that return over and over again to the same responses to the same impulses. Impulses I know. Impulses I have.
As this is a work in progress, some of these ideas might change, but at the present, I’d like to offer that there are a some core impulses which men are responding to.
Here are a few:
Self-preservation
Dominance
Exploration
Order
Novelty
Pursuit of feeling: Pride, ecstasy, camaraderie, etc.
Self- preservation alone has numerous subdivisions:
Preservation of his corporal self: Body and life.
Preservation of his Feelings, mostly pride but also occasionally ecstasy (and access to same) that comes in various forms.
Preservation of his stories and mythology
Preservation of his self-mythology, that is, my special function on Earth, my special mission.
Preservation of his longevity in the system
Preservation of the system
Preservation of the family, once it has been systemized (that is, identified as worth preserving by the system.)
Preservation of his lineage (i.e., genes)
Additionally, I made a small list of typically boy behaviors I’ve engaged in, been the victim of, or seen often, and I’ll try to outline them and identify how they serve the greater order (read: patriarchy) but also how they are responses to the same impulses.
Those include:
Centering
Bullying
Chaos / Destruction
Record breaking
Preferring/choosing
Hurting / torturing
Ordering around
Ordering (scientific)
Rule breaking
Fake threats
Noise/Sensory overload
Hoarding
Display
Daredevil behavior
Demonstrations of dominance
What can I get away with?
I had my first beating on the playground as I remember it, in 5th grade, so at around 10 years old.
This was probably my only beating, because after that I got good at hiding, and putting myself into groups that don’t beat.
Thus, Preservation of Body and Life became one of my guiding impulses.
Following any other of the impulses might have resulted in different behaviors:
Were I to follow the impulse to dominance, for instance, I might have strengthened myself and retaliated.
Were I to follow the impulse to order, I might have ingratiated myself into the my bully’s social group. Or opposite, reported to the school administration.
Were I to follow the impulse to feel, I might have stayed and cried, gone home to write or draw about it, found a friend, or even tried to talk to the bully.
But I began learning how to hide.
What will follow in these entries will only be personal examples, or examples shared in our culture. Then from there, my small attempts at explanations from within the context I exist in. I hope my narrow experience can illuminate, for the greater good.
I’m putting the word “friggin’” in here right now, to maintain an informal tone, lest I try to sound studied, or like an Academic, neither of which I’ve ever been.
Ok, good.
Now, as my daughter’s favorite friggin’ Youtubers say, “Let’s get started!”
"But I began learning how to hide."
Possibly the key line in the whole piece? Men's adapted ability to hide from themselves (in the guise of hiding from others) explains so much.
"Violent, selfish, lazy and cowardly." Yes a lot of men are that way. But so are a lot of women, even if the violence on their part is more likely to be emotional or channeled through a man. Also the impulse chart: you're leaving off all the good stuff, like art. But your dreams! Your dreams are friggin' eloquent.