The Friend Zone, part three: How Sexist it is!

This "intelligent" young feminist blogger has quite a bit to say about "nice guys" and their friend zone:

"The Nice GuyTM Syndrome the phenomenon in which a self-proclaimed “nice guy” laments about how his close female friends – for whom he harbors feelings – never want to have a relationship or sex with him. “Why does she always go for the jerk?” the “nice guy” laments. “I’m such a NICE GUY!” Often in these situations, the woman has no idea what his feelings are. Other times, they know but don’t reciprocate, preferring to carry on a friendship than a relationship."

"This, apparently, is totally unacceptable to them. There are memes devoted to the dreaded “friend zone.” There are angsty chain Facebook statuses that are posted passive aggressively time and time again. One of them reads, “A woman has a close male friend. This means he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much.” Right, because no one wants to be friends with a woman unless she’s having sex with them eventually, right? The status continues to compare a woman just wanting a friendship with a man to a job interview in which the potential employer says, 'You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we’re not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic.'"

Or better yet, take the job for no pay, while hiring somebody else with lesser qualifications as your boss. That seems more like it. I will give her some kudos on the first part, though.

She elaborates that nice guys "stew bitterly in a sense of their own entitlement, waiting indignantly for something that was never promised to them." In other words, such a guy thinks he's been "robbed of his birthright" when denied the eros he desires, and relegated to being a "just a friend."

In conclusion, "If you have sincere, romantic feelings for a woman you’re friends with, be up front with her." Ditto there. As I've written in two posts below, it is quite pathetic that guys are too wimpy as not to do this. They'll self-righteously pigeonhole real men as "players" and "disrespectful toward women" for not "getting to know them first." All the while, they harbor this erotic attraction, the most pathetic among them finding a herd of women to befriend, moving from one to the next as "friends" when the last heartfelt confession was shot down by the one before.

But this blogging beauty mandates "And if she doesn’t feel the same way? Value her anyway. Be her friend," She also decries romance-seeking men in general as disrespecting of women whom they don't prioritize in their lives as platonic friends, on the basis alone of her whims and their previous interactions.

What stuck-up, misandrist thinking this is. Yes, a man has, as his birthright, the need to find a wife. That usually doesn't happen listening to the likes of this brilliant dame bemoan being "used," along with all her past "friends with benefits" mishaps. He has just as much a right to find love with the opposite sex as do you. Your late night, tear-soaked phonecalls about more boy problems (all of whom you chose, by the way) is a HUGE energy and time drain that hampers the emotional and social growth of both parties. He could be spending that time meeting women who appreciate him for all that he is.

Her argument is fallaciously predicated on the belief that since she already cares for a nice guy as a platonic friend, that he ought to sincerely reciprocate as such. While alleging that these guys only want to get laid by their attractive female friends, these women are so caring and charitable as to still be there for him as his friend. But her own anecdotes speak to the reality of this arrangement: he exists largely as her on-call, free therapeutic crying towel. Who's going to be his free shrink when the poor sap is consumed not by sexual frustration, but pure grief, whenever her tears and moments of joy surrounding her latest paramour are dumped on his lap?

Her (and many others like her) sense of entitlement to his unrequited adoration speaks to a disordered self-centerdness on the women's part. This is almost particular to many Americana Millennial females, who see themselves as perpetual victims no matter what.

Providence College: The Reality

One of the top-ranked Catholic universities in the country today is Providence College (PC). It has consistently ranked in the top five of the US News and World Report "top master's universities -- northeast" category for many years, and has received commendation among a host of other, lesser known college guides.



The institution, which is primarily undergraduate in scope, is operated by the Dominican Fathers (a.k.a. Order of Preachers Friars) Province of St. Joseph. No other higher education outfit in North America (besides a few seminaries) is affiliated exclusively with Dominican clergymen.

PC is especially unique not only for achieving top secular rankings, but a particularly notable religious one as well. In 2007, the Cardinal Newman Society, the de facto watchdog of Catholic education in America (on the basis of orthodoxy), included PC in its then-newly debuted college guide. Listed among barely two-dozen of America's "most Catholic" colleges, PC was lauded for its uniquely rigorous, freshman and sophomore Development of Western Civilization (DWC) core curriculum, an anomaly even among Catholic schools today. This particular core curriculum imitates the traditional, classical model, emphasizing the Great Books, theology, Western philosophy, and other humanities concerns. The institution was likewise lauded for its then-recently installed president, Father Brian Shanley, O.P.

In 2006, Father Shanley forced the annual V-Day, or Vagina Monologues production to leave the campus. This was in spite of fairly widespread faculty and student dissent. PC had been among three-dozen or so Catholic colleges (of some 220 in the US) to harbor the annual man-bashing, obscene spectacle, a supposed celebration of female sexuality and protest against man vs. woman violence. That same year, a notorious sociology professor, who had been exposed by the student newspaper for engaging female undergraduates in lewd speech during classes over many years, was abruptly "retired."

I wrote about these and other serious irregularities for a feature on PC in the October 2004 edition of New Oxford Review. This article was largely written in reaction to the continued praise heaped upon PC by the right wing Intercollegiate Studies Institute's College Guide.

A number of folks have requested that I write an update on the College, given some seemingly positive developments (at least from the traditional Catholic perspective) in more recent times. Consider also that the Dominican's St. Joseph Province, and the loosely-affiliated Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are both among the more conservative Catholic religious communities in the US today, the latter of which has become far more involved with the campus.

Unfortunately, the update is not a positive one. The Newman Guide has obviously booted PC off of its select "recommended colleges" list.

Among other matters, are perhaps the student body subculture themes embodied in this serious viewer warning candid camera spoof, live from the PC quad, seen below:



How's that for some religious conversion? Let me tell you, that little scene is TAME for what happens at PC. For several years, Providence College has ranked as one of America's top party schools, listing as #3 in "most beer drinkers" and #1 in "most hard liquor drinkers." PC has long hosted an on-campus watering hole as well. In common parlance, this is f'ing extreme...

Recently, the TFP Student Action, another conservative activist group focused on higher education, listed Providence College as among the 52 percent of American Catholic colleges and universities that hosts a "pro-homosexual club." If I recall, this "SHEPHERD" group goes back about nine years. If 52 percent of Catholic colleges have such a club, then 48 percent do not. Yet, somehow PC has been able to finagle its way onto the highly recommended lists of two of the most conservative-leaning college guides in the last several years, in spite of its true substantive nature.

As for academics: The most recent major to be added to the undergraduate roster is Women's Studies. Previously, it was an interdiciplinary minor. Then, having been severely henpecked by the campus-based feminists in the face of expelling V-Day from college grounds (over its outward obscenities), Father Shanley has been looking for ways to make it up to them. Women's Studies is one of the most politicized majors in existence, bent on inculcating radical feminism into the minds of students.

The new core curriculum has some interesting features as well: "DWC is four semesters of 4‐hours each in the new Core as opposed to 4 semesters of 5‐hours each in the former Core." Now, there's "One Core‐designated diversity course. Students will demonstrate proficiency in diversity, understood as either cross‐cultural or involving diversity within the American context."

Rather than emphasizing didactic tradition, it's now about "diversity." I'm not going to be the one to insist on ecclesial purity and total orthopraxy for Providence College. If it's anyone's job, it's the job of the alumni to do so. Notwithstanding, the issue here is as much as it was eight years ago: truth in advertising.
I've known many PC students and alumni over the years. Quite a number of them are rather bright and ambitious. Then there are others -- of the religious element -- who've insisted upon my self-censorship, mainly because the school is an outfit of the venerable Dominican Order. That is simply low-brow clericalism if I've ever heard it. These certain theology students and grads need to know that PC is NOT a seminary, and most students are not there for theology training. Nontheless, if Catholic values were of such high priority for the instutution, they would be conveyed across the disciplines. Not just by the few Dominicans who still teach courses on Thomas Aquinas.

2013 UPDATE: Apparently, PC's best-known and renowned conservative Catholic professor has some issues with the campus's administration as well.

Rather than delivering another sermon on the state of Catholic higher education (as I think what you've noted above stands on its own), I will say this: PC is yet another Rhode Island institution gone wrong. There are many today, including state agencies, hospitals, other universities, and yes, other religious entities.

Election 2012: Welcome to Liberal America and the Fall of the G.O.P.

This past Saturday, I predicted, on my Facebook page, the president's re-election by a margin of 49 percent and 290 electoral votes. It was a good thing I wasn't betting, because I was off by 42 of the latter.

I have been a registered Republican since 1998, when I first voted, in essence supporting the impeachment of President Bill Clinton that year. This time around, I championed Barack Obama's removal from office for myriad reasons, but my hope was well contained.

This loss has less to do with Obama than with the nature of today's GOP. Political Science 101 speaks to the "incumbent advantage" electorally: if polling has two candidates tied, then chances are the win goes to the present office holder. The GOP had completely unraveled about two years into the G.W. Bush administration, and has yet to recover as we well witnessed overnight this past Tuesday. It was, indeed, a shelacking. Laura Ingraham has said for months that given these near-dire economic and fiscal conditions, the GOP may as well not exist if it cannot manage to win now. But even she now admits that the widely-perceived failures of the second Bush administration -- including foreign policy -- shook the elephants to humiliating defeat.

So now it's my turn. This is not a dissertation, but a brief run-down of the points of revision needed to the GOP platform.

I- Forget the sentimental, Regnery Publishing-inspired reminiscing about Ronald Reagan and sanctimonious patriotism. Instead, style the GOP after right-wing, european coalitions. When they say they want austerity, they mean it. When they want to cut spending, it isn't to defund one program in order to bloat another (this includes "national security").

If they have to raise taxes on seven-figure earners in order to prevent the outsource of money printing itself to China, they'll hold their noses and do it to get every available dime to balance the budget. Even if it means going back up to former Clinton or Reagan administration tax levels for high wealth holders. Free enterprise flew in the 1980s and 90s, and they did it in Canada to balance their budget in the mid 90s, along with strong reductions in expenditures: now that country boasts a stronger economy than the emerging Mexico to the south. So why not repeat what worked?

How is a slight tax hike on super-high earners ($1 million per year and above) mutually exclusive with cutting the budget by ten percent? The budget mess, which would otherwise include alternate GOP hikes in military expenditures, is what truly threatens to take down the economy, not even in the long run. Listen to today's GOP, and anything other than a tax reduction is blasphemous. The mantra is that we cannot raise taxes "now" with about 8 percent unemployment. But that has been the same argument put forward even in the "good times" at 6 percent or less.

II-Forget mass intervention for Isreal. Why mind it when most Jewish people, with about 70 percent voting for Obama, very much mind you in the worst sort of way? If the 70 percent for Obama in 2012 represents a proportional decline of the Jewish vote from 2008, it is surely with the economy in mind, foremost.

Of course, the real championing of Israel's military interests is so Pastor Hagee and his tele-mega-church in Texas can finally have rapture with Jesus. But the evangelical vote will go to the GOP no matter what, given Obama's socially liberal excesses. Pledging to (nuclear war for) Isreal -- a nation not headed for bankruptcy like the U.S. -- with its untold costs in blood and livlihood, deeply damages the cause. So would Iran's oil wells pay for a war the same way Iraq's did the last time?

III-Get the domestic jobs agenda straight. We hear of 23 million workers un- or under-employed. And 30 million more Americans on food stamps under Obama's first term. Both are put forth as evidence of a bad economy and Obama's epic failures, according to the official Romney electoral platform.

Yet, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin repeatedly excoriated the young adult Occupy protesters, multiple times, to "get showered" and "go get jobs" instead of "whining." John Stossel, the televised Fox News liberterian who often coalitions with the GOP on economic policy, did a whole program segment on "all the jobs" within a short radius of the Manhattan welfare office. This was after he patronizingly questioned the recipients in line as to why they were even there. See an earlier, similar episode of this sort of thing below:





The witty insight. With all those jobs and cable channels, why not give the president another term for delivering (or preserving) this kind of prosperity still unknown much of the world over? To the average, non-ideological independent voter, it makes sense to do so. In essense, the message becomes that those 30 million more food stamp moochers don't really need the "help" with all of the economic opportunity Obama says he's creating. And these jobs are not located far from the food stamp office, either! But at the same time, the entire conservative platform today professes that Obama didn't create these very sorts of oppotunities in any gainful abundance.

Get my point? If you're a hard GOP-er who swallows Sean Hannity rhetoric hook, line and sinker every night, then probably not. Is it truly the job of the president to create more jobs? Or is it really a matter of personal self-reliance to find, or create them for yourself?

Either way, it's this sort of nonsense that prevents people from voting for you. It's highly contradictory and sanctimonious to suggest that the vast number of "dependants" are so out of personal sloth and gluttony, while still opposing a president on the basis of failing to deliver "opportunity" for enough individuals and families. As much as modern conservatism is aimed at "the bottom line," in practice it's really often based in emotions and more self-righteous moralizing.

IV-Get "prosperity" straight: Many immigrants and urban residents pulled for the Dems in even greater numbers this time around, despite the awful economy. But what is the GOP's alternative for prosperity? Under Bush, there was private sector job growth: many $9 an hour jobs, sans benefits, in the wake of losses in the millions of gainful, blue-collar manufacturing positions to the third world. This led to the rise in the belief of the necessary four-year post secondary diploma. Now, scores of young adults, graduates and non-graduated drop outs alike, are crippled by heavy debt and long-delayed adult launches.

Instead, what we have is a ghetto mentality that guages our broad electoral viability by what we think of each other at CPAC. Doing things "our way," rather than taking what works from all angles and combining them to outperform the Democratic opposition -- which is radical by Clintonian standards -- has become the crux of GOP values.

First, the watershed was 2006, when Nancy Pelosi was elected House Speaker against the failed record of G.W. Bush. The GOP said then that it would re-tool. Then came the next watershed election of Barack Obama in 2008. It was just a matter of waiting to see "how big" he'd make the federal government before re-canning the same arguments. The 2010 mid-term election can now be cast as a fluke, since modest voter turnout turned the House over to the Republicans.

But what's the rationale now? That Mitt Romney was a defective candidate? We all knew his defects long before heading into this -- his alienating aristocratic priggishness and non-aggressiveness for one -- yet most Fox News pundits bet big on his win last Tuesday. We forget the not-so-distant history of 2004, when G.W. Bush likewise had an abysmal performance in the first debate, against John Kerry. The two had been polling neck and neck for months, for Kerry to concede upon learning of Ohio's electoral results.

At this point, the GOP will have to forget its social causes for the next generation. Obama's inevitable Supreme Court appointees will ferment Row Vs. Wade AND its surely forthcoming gay marriage case. The latter will be legalized nationwide by the Court, with a warmer public reception for it than for legal abortion. So whether the Party goes more "moderate" or "softer," as some insist to win over more single women voters, versus hard right, will fast become a moot point.

Chances are that Obama's second term will be as disastrous as was Bush's, though more on the domestic economic front more than foreign policy (as bad as things look with Libya). As all punditry has stated in recent days, the Party does need fresh voices, but also a few substantive tweaks to its platform. Though so far, the proclamation has been to keep doing what we've been doing, only louder for now on. We all know the classic definition of insanity: Leave the unelectable old tunes of Palin and Gingrich in the dirt.

The Friend Zone, part two: Musings

As we've seen, the friend zone is a state of being to which people, mostly guys, are consigned when date-able (at least on the surface) women do not consider them as mating options. Either these dudes stick around, or she insists upon the arrangement, hoodwinking him with vague assurances of a potential romance.



But there's another huge, fundamental pitfall in it for a man. Being friends with someone is a committment. No? It involves maintenence like even a family relationship: returning calls, texts, and emails. Attending events and engagements together, etc.
But if a woman is desireable enough to have guys being her pal in the hopes of dating her, then she has options. And she's keeping those options open.

Why?

Because all she has to do is sit on a barstool somewhere, and prospective lovers will appear before her. She doesn't even have to lift a finger for it to happen.

But for you?

You have to be on the go to find prospective romantic partners. You have to be hussling it like a salesman, either sending out emails online or walking up to them, as strangers, to introduce yourself. You must follow up in proper fashion.

Folks, this doesn't happen sitting next to her on Friday and Saturdays as she gets hussled. It doesn't happen with her girl friends, who likely view you as platono material as well. It doesn't happen listening to her carry on about the guy that does interest her, you know, the one she is having a fling with, or wants to have a fling with.

When guys stop with this garbage, then so will women.

Women: The Official Statement

Just the other day, I received a troubling mass email message from Marc H. Rudov, a.k.a. The No Nonsense Man. He has declared his intent to cease his almost decade-long operation of promoting the rights of men in America and his specialty, dating equality. A movement unto himself, Rudov has appeared dozens of times on cable news, mostly Fox News, and scores of call-in radio programs throughout North America, promoting the view that, relative to women's undeniable advances these past forty years, men have experienced a relative decline, in both legal rights and social respect.

Rudov, who emerged on the larger scene about seven years or so ago, began primarily as a men's dating coach with his self-published no-nonsense guide on dating. There, with some apparent clever marketing, he began with his media appearances, in which he heavily denounced the inequality of longstanding dating rituals: A man picks up a woman, drives her to dinner or another social outing, pays for all or most, and heavily complements this with pricey flowers and other expensive tokens. These would be men escorting around women who were now considered their social and professional equals, unlike just two generations before when these customs most flourished. Of course, Rudov was met with some broad interest, but more roundly denounced a misogynist. This was especially the case after his commentaries segued into, more or less, arguing that women today enjoy broader privileges over men legally and often financially, and are in a position to, and often do abuse them. As many have said before him, though less notable, this has primarily pertained to men's experiences in divorce and family courts.

No doubt, the passage of time will render his efforts as more than meaningful, as having greatly advanced the conversation about male concerns into a greatly emerging, mainstream discussion. Before I continue on this road myself, I see it as necessary to state clearly and concisely, how I view the "better half" of humanity.

Women are like men in that they are just as diverse. WOMEN AND MEN ARE NOT, I repeat, NOT NATURAL-BORN ADVERSARIES. No two generations of women (or men, for that matter) have been quite the same. Factor in as well the cross-cultural differences: there's a huge gap between the Druids and the Anglo-Victorians, women from Ancient Egypt to modern Arab societies, from indiginous cultures to East Asia. It's just like comparing and contrasting men. If you hate S.S. officers and jihadists, do you therefore dislike all men?

"According to sociologist Allan G. Johnson, 'misogyny is a cultural attitude of hatred for females because they are female.'"Thus, misogyny on the part of a man or men (or even some women) is essentially transhistoric and transcendant of culture and race. As is argued in conventional Islam, women as a set within creation are considered unilaterally of a lower rung: be this due to morality, strength, intellect, or will. A misogynist is someone who looks down upon women collectively, that is, "ad feminam."

In Catholicism, popes and saints have written about the special gifts of women, and a paradox has formed: for centuries, the thinking was based upon "Eve the Temptress." In modern, even conservative circles, it is almost now "Adam the Cad." The Women's Movements ushered in some great progress for all, yet the drawbacks are too numerous to lay out in one statement. One of these is the phenomenon of misandry, like misogyny, but in reverse: often by women aimed at men and males in general.

As I am on record as predicting almost a decade ago, in America and other advanced, Western societies, young adult, Millennial females. of the generation up to age 30, have decidely surpassed their male counterparts on most notable social measures. Some noted commentators have even described Caucasion Millennial females as the "most privileged" cohort of humans ever to exist: Countless efforts and resources on all levels, at all turns of society, were diverted and invested into their causes: sports playing, self-esteem building, re-configuring didactics for all to be tailored to their learning styles, designated girl-as-minority scholarships (even as majority), policies and laws protective only of them, etc etc etc...

Equal opportunity is one thing; over-privilege is quite another, even as unspoken reparations for the past dearth of the former. All-female enclaves still flourish in the U.S. today, while all-male enclaves have mostly been integrated, thus squelched. As even before the Great Recession -- which itself took a greater toll on jobs for men -- Millennial working women in urban areas (which have the higher wages) collectively out-earned, on average, on balance, their male counterparts, effectively reversing the conventional wage gap for an entire, major population cohort. No doubt, society as a whole has divested its attention and resources away from younger men.

Have you ever noticed how whenever some Caucasian American Millennial female does something charitable or nice, the action or event gets its own Facebook page? "Missy's volunteering page" or "Laura's mission trip," with their 1000+ "Likes." I mean, talk about going above and beyond, to the point of personal martyrdom! So how does all of this female rah-rah, including the majority of (at least) 2012 American Olympians, impact men? Or, better yet, how does it impact woman-man interactions? Like never before, that's how.

This female population cohort is more romantically and socially frustrated than ever. More ink has been spilt on magazine pages and now, bestselling books, about the compromised levels of male peers available to them. But too often, as in so many other life scenarios, these younger women, in this society today, are viewed as blameless victims of circumstance, if not prejudice. Even when marital age delay is factored (i.e., young professionals marrying at age 31, not 24), fewer marriages are happening than ever before. Of course, for a generation that grew up on the "boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" motif, this is because we're losers, we're pigs or swine or dogs, and just don't get the meaning of committment.

In fact, even though younger women outearn us on the whole, they still assess us according to the densities of our wallets, social ranks, etc. And who ever said our physical appearances were out of the equation? There wouldn't be studies at Harvard on male "Bigorexia" if it just wasn't so. Then, there are all these additional, vague and capricious personality tests we must meet, oftentimes just plain "knowing" what she wants, right when she wants it. Feminists have been too busy moaning about "reproductive rights" to even begin to focus on this paradox. But someone must.

Yet, that tide is slowly turning. Books, such as "Why You're Not Married Yet" and "Marry Him" thoruoghly address this phenomena. It's often their own fault when "still" not married. But implicitely, it's our fault no matter what. Most of what goes wrong for many of them is our fault. They party and drink (per capita) more than men nowadays, yet since we set that trend in the first place, the negative and predictable fallout for young adult women is, of course, our fault. In a workplace or professional setting, many are oh so quick to banter at us about "taking responsibility," but then again, what is theirs? Before you hop up and start excoriating all feminists, just consider some of the baby-boomer males you know who have daughters. Think about how these deeply-vaginized beings, having heard the women's liberation rhetoric of the 1970s, their wives fanfare about Oprah Winfrey, and before that, Mom's early 1960s romanticizing about chivalry all rolled together, get all chocked up with emotion upon Stacey or Brianna winning this or that gold award in high schools, colleges and beyond? They weep to themselves, "If only Mom had these opportunities." While these ace daddies stacked it all against us as they took over the reigns of society, they're angry now that we can't give their precious princesses their due as "good providers."

The question is not whether or not women are inclined to marry up: Generally, they are. The true paradox of this era is, "What if there isn't enough 'up' to marry into?" Go ahead ladies, by all means, keep those brains working and getting educated, I'm in NO way opposing it. But like it or not, this is the fundamental turning point we are at.

Younger guys being called "misogynists" for identifying and avoiding what is rank spoiled brat behavior on so many levels, is to almost suggest -- ad feminam -- girls and women generally of being naturally bratty. Yet, such whiny windbags abound.

Rudov hasn't said enough times, treating women's bad behavior with kid gloves is to treat adults like little girls. And how does this honor womanhood and equal opportunity?

Women's true potenital is now, at long last, being realized. And it's wonderful. But we live within many zero-sum realities: A law school entering class with 100 seats, determined to be equal, is now rejecting nearly 50 guys it otherwise would have taken decades ago before Title IX of the Equal Rights Amendment. Does this have implications? Hell yeah. Am I saying the legal profession should be all or mostly male? Of course not. But those lacking in analytical depth will say that's what I'm saying, nonetheless.

Among American Caucasian female Millennials are some of the most splendid human beings to dwell existence. Yet, among others is a dense concentrate of self-entitlement and anti-male bigotry. Marc Rudov seemed to aim his messages primarily at his own age cohort (40s,50s and 60s), but problems, all told, are most acute among the younger ages. so if he does decide to close up shop (pending current reader response), know that the torch will nonetheless be carried forward. As the educational gaps -- long in place -- steadily increase, and anti-male laws beefed up per the Obama administration, young men will (and already are) get completely fed up. Let the revolution begin.

Like men, among both groups and individuals, some are great. Others are less so. It's not because "all women..." this or that, just as so often it's "all men..." Let's keep that in mind as at long last, an honest discussion between the sexes takes form.

Her Attitude Changes

A shout-out to Aunt Seraphic, about whose blog I posted a couple of posts down the other day. Apparently, word got back to her, all the way to Scotland, that I was making a federal case here in R.I.

The issue had to do with some seeming anti-male bromides she had written, pertaining to "seduction" by way of a young woman consuming alcohol and proceeding to have a sexual encounter with a man. She very angrily derides such behavior -- on the part of the guy having consenting sexual contact with the conscious/responsive but intoxicated female -- as seduction. Then, Miss Seraphic proceeds to make statements that seem to conflate this activity with a form of sexual assault (i.e., "it is not yet" considered rape legally, or at least that's how I picked it up). Of course, a number of U.S. college campuses, and some radical feminists, would press the issue.

Now it seems like a productive and open forum for both sexes may be opening, so long as women are willing to oblige. So much to her credit, Aunt Seraphic fesses the following:

"So why did poor little Seraphic (age 27) hate (most) men so much, eh? Could it have anything to do with the row of Andrea Dworkin books on the shelf in her bachelor apartment? Maybe. But it probably had more to do with 17 years of disappointment with male behaviour."

"adolescence brought all the disappointments of unrequited love, which I suffered probably every day. And I do mean every day...But it was the worst in high school..."

"I did rather better, socially speaking, in university where, I now realize, I was a heartbreaking menace, the rose-stem chomping bane of Nice Catholic Boys (well, a few of them anyway). But, unfortunately for him and me, I married Mr Protestant Totally Wrong, and that was a total nightmare and led to being divorced at 27, reading Andrea Dworkin and weeping on Shrinkie's couch."

"I understand why it is easy to hate men...All you have to do is hold a friend's hand as she cries because that man she had a crush on for so long used her and tossed her aside like a tissue. All you have to do is think about what bad stuff has happened to you. Soooooo easy to hate men. So tempting. But a seriously bad idea."

In the end:

"It is a seriously bad idea because if you get into the mental habit of hating men--and I know you might have very compelling reasons for doing so--you are not going to be able to see good men or the good in men who sometimes annoy you. The bad stuff will get blown way out of proportion. And so will the stuff that other women find only moderately annoying."

In all frankness, I never doubted this sort of trail of events in picking up on Seraphic's weariness of men. Dworkin wrote precisely to seize upon existing post-revolutionary discontentment women had from their dealings with the other half, who were increasingly viewed as cads. But Dworkin's views of pre-feminist sexuality weren't much nicer.

A couple of things still do come to mind, speaking as a man:

1. If I or any other guy wrote this sort of thing on a blog -- about how and why we've been bitter about women -- we'd have "no credibility," we'd be "misogynists," "desperate losers," etc. Women can whine all day about men, but not vice versa. In fact, in most modern Western societies, men are to put up and shut up. The results have not just been bad for us, but for the institution of marriage and all society.

At the same time, Aunt Seraphic deserves heaps of credit for being so forthright about this.

2. Tons of guys are now met with tons of single young adult women like the former Seraphic, circa age 27. We must hear their carrying on about their exes and formers, be viewed with constant self-righteous suspicion, "prove" ourselves worthy by showing her what a true lady she is -- with our wallets hanging open and outward, that is -- all to be found guilty nonetheless, though of some lesser charge. Too vanilla. Too nice. Still too pushy. Too close to his mother. Not enough steady employment in his life. Too many gaps between relationships. Doesn't attend Mass at the right sort of church. On and and frickin' on...The next guy must figure out which reparations to make for the last guy, or guy before that, who tossed her away.

3. It's still important to clear the air once in a while. Men and women are divided like never before, and people must always compete with expectations being mis-matched. It sounds so trite, but there's usually a dearth of honest and forthright communication between men and women, even going into a relationship. It's after he puts on the ring that we finally start sorting out our differences in religious faith, who does the laundry and how, etc. By why rock the boat when we can just keep things light, right?

4. She picked the bad ass over the Catholo-platano nice guys. What a shock. Given this, it's even more unfair to hate most men, but unfortunately too many guys are either/or. You've either got the chinstrap-bearded, ear-pierced biker hero; OR the parted-haired, rimmed glasses handerchief-carrying mama's boy. A total testosterone imbalance and a seeming limit on options for many young women.

I agree with Seraphic when she decries young chauvinists, using orthodox faith as their pretext, who attempt to dictate the terms of female modesty to their girl friends. Or desperate blokes who pressure women to do anything, which is always unattractive. And she deserves the ultimate tip of the hat for placing so much effort into focusing single women onto that which Truly matters, beyond banalities of single life.

Since this isn't the Seraphic fan blog, what about me then? I am BITTER?

Hell NO.

There are just too many single women available to meet and date, to be bitter about this one or that, however many years ago. Sure, I've had bad experiences -- mostly disappointments -- not major romance trauma. I acknowledge that many people do, BUT this includes men.

Part of this is, starting with online dating nine years ago, I knew to run the other way whenever a date introduced incessant chatter about an ex -- even if it was positive. She can have all the time she needs to deal with whatever her residual feelings of him (or them) may be; I have every right to move on and find someone who is truly emotionally available.

I've had many fewer relationships than other men of their early 30s, though I maintain the unique vantage point of living vicariously through the tales of many others. If you're boxed into one long-term relationship, chances are that will form the locus of your experience. If I'm a drug counselor who listens to addicts all day, then I surely know well the "life of an addict," even if I've only experimented once or twice (NEVER have, actually!)

What I am is frustrated that people spend their time either planning a Disney happily-ever-after with whomever, OR blaming that eventual whoever of the opposite sex (or the sex as a whole) when reality comes crashing down. What we need are honest discussions about proper expectations, and stopping the blame.

In many future posts, I will be describing what I see as the challenges and pitfalls of dating and singlehood for men...

Why I'm Not In the Friend's Zone

Sorry folks, this is intended to offend.

Many guys bemoan being put into this mysterious designation of the friend zone. While it isn't a place per se, but much like Hell itself is now understood, it is a state of being, but one that men have complete control over going to.

Usually the scenario is thus: guy thinks he wants to be or is in love with (or at least wants to get laid by) a woman. But, he lacks both confidence and cajones to come striaght out the gate with a date offer. Now, most oftentimes women just know when a guy wants them, even without any stated proposal or invitation.

Nonetheless, they proceed, but not as a pair exploring coupledom. Usually, she'll invite him out with her friends -- often they are mostly female. They'll have lots of fun together, talking about her favorite pasta textures, avacado recipes, places to shop, past boyfriends, cute guys, etc. All the while, he's getting closer, ever-harboring those high hopes. They text and talk constantly...

And then, all of a sudden, she announces she's met the guy she's really pining for romantically. Or even that she's now in a relationship. "But what about me?" the dumb bastard exclaims. Then, the predictable speech about "being like a brother to me" and "not wanting to spoil our beautiful friendship" comes. How beautiful indeed.

Several things are really happening:

1. She's irredeemably self-absorbed. On a practical basis, this friended dude is like another young lady comrade to her, for his presence is truly androgynous in her mind. Now that's largely his fault (as we'll get to), but on a practical level, what type of "love" is truly exchanged herein?

Well, oftentimes listening to her confide in him such tragedies as what exactly happened between she and some dude -- perhaps an ex -- when "he got me drunk." Mind you, platono-boy (someday) hopes to have relations with her, or just can't get her out of his mind, for her to instead torment him with all sordid details of her "mistakes" to be unconditionally assured of her lovability. The only problem is, it's his lovability she's blinded to in the process. And, sucking up his time and efforts away from what could be more fruitful pursuits for him means nothing to her.

2. He's like a brother. When she says that, believe it. Most women aren't interested in dating their brothers -- that's called incest.

3. He's a nice guy This in itself doesn't require much description, as it's culturally agreed-upon as to what constitutes such niceness. But all of his seemingly selfless gestures (which still have a distinct purpose, always) speak a much deeper, more subtle language to people in general, women in particular. He's a wimp. When push comes to shove on the elemental levels, when it comes to providing that essential security in life, his abundant social graces speak to his being a doormat in major conflicts, and an inability to "stake out territory." On the deepest levels, this is hugely unappealing to females.

4. Guys allowing themselves routine friend zoning are a scourge on all menkind. Private behavior does have a public impact, here too I'm afraid. Instead of directly pursuing the goal of dating and marriage directly, too many pussyfoot around it in their young adulthood. Women too often freely take the liberty to play on the perceived affections of a single and looking guy (they are NOT completely interested in), and think nothing of swallowing up his time and efforts under the "getting to know you" pretext. As a matter of routine course, young adult women in this society seek out guys not for loving, but to fill their respective gaggles.

For the past two decades, a national campaign has been in full swing to improve and insure the high self-esteem of girls and young women. Take a look at the results yourself. The pathologic social dynamic of "just friends" is no help whatsoever to this or even to the institution of marriage.

Now this is NOT a diatribe against all forms of platonic relations and affections. They surely have an integral time and place in life. But nature has it where it is impossible to fully conflate "agape" with "eros."

Aunt Seraphic and her Millstones

Many months ago I was first introduced to a blog called Seraphic Singles, written by a Catholic woman based in the U.K. Her blog is devoted to marrying-age single women who are burdened by the travails of modern dating and prolonged singlehood. Her perspective is, of course, quite spiritual and tends toward the more orthodox posture. I first came upon this when Aunt Seraphic's (the name she goes by) posted about the social decline of men, and the scourge of misandry we live under in Western societies today. For the most part, it was well said.

Occasionally, I returned to her blog, as she does have somewhat of a following of men, likely those looking for insight into dating more tradition-oriented females.
But a sampling of her oft-rambling and frequent posts, often set up in a question-answer format, reveals something else. Just consider this:

"Seventh, I am very angry with Catholic men who pressure women to sleep with them."

No doubt, this is a resurgent theme on her blog.

Of course, real Catholic men don't pressure women they are dating to sleep with them, ever. And I'd add that men who have to have women plastered -- Aunt Sepaphic refers to them in this context -- in order to facilitate sex are true eunuchs: They simply cannot get it on without a chemical interference. In short, boozers really are losers.

Yet it's hard to get around how Seraphic often comes off sounding like Caitlin Flanagan, a noted Atlantic contributor, in her many sarcastic screeds about piggish men who spend much of their waking time plotting to manipulate young damsels into sex acts they're otherwise too inately moral and pure, with "natural modesty" to engage in. And whatever they do by choice (or have done), it's shame on those swine and vermin who made them do it -- alcohol or none, no matter.

Of course, certain Catholic women who represent the "traditional" viewpoint, in particular, love to excoriate feminism: this is especially when it comes to its adverse impact on the proper ways for men and women to relate. Yet, read a bit deeper, and you'll realize how much they sound like their opposition at times. If women are not victims of "patriarchy," then they are the victims of the revolutions against it, especially the sexual revolution. And if women are at the receiving end, they reason, then men must be both the arbiters and the beneficiaries. Either way, women are qualified as victims, deprived of their true will in either case, by y-chromosome beings.

Still:

I am not angry with Catholic men who merely suggest it in the context of loving relationships. If you make out enough, such suggestions are likely because making out is Nature's way of preparing human beings to have sex. I cannot think of a better way to break down even the most devout Catholic's resistance to the desires of his body than prolonged making out with him

Aside from whether this may be a tacit nod to having some committed but pre-marital sex coming from this Catholic maven, there's no getting around how so many single women are ever-aggrieved in this more committed scenario as well. So often, it just doesn't work out in the end, and she's left holding the bag, with the likes of Seraphic there to cheerlead her away from such "users." Still:

Eighth, there are lots of good men. Many, many, many. I think most men are good men, and it is sad that bad men just make more of an impact...

A survey of the Seraphic blog reveals much careful coaching of young women in dating protocol. While there are just too many posts of length to wade through now, she advises her audience to more or less adhere to The Rules and the teachings of Wendy Shalit, who leads a so-called "modesty revolution." The former is a timeworn guide, popular in the mid-90s, that advises women to be as high-maintenance as possible (e.g. the famous not going with him Saturday night if he calls after Wednesday nonsense) while being pursued. On this thread, Seraphic is wont to tell her ladies to always let him do the asking out, dropping coy hints along the way, otherwise expecting him to divine her thoughts and wishes. Figures that both Rules authors are now long-divorced since their popularity.

Wendy Shalit, who authored A Return to Modesty in 1999, essentially posits the following, as summed up by Cathy Young:

Victim feminism and victim antifeminism converge in Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty, a strange mix of Victorian pieties about womanhood and feminist hyperbole (ours, says Shalit, is a "truly misogynist culture" that accepts " the rapist's view of womanhood" because it won't let women be women). It is, no doubt, the first book ever to boast blurbs from both neoconservative doyenne Gertrude Himmelfarb and lunatic-fringe feminist Andrea Dworkin. Shalit, the 23-year-old darling of the right, embraces not only conservative myths of female victimhood but the feminist ones as well. She agrees that women and girls face constant abuse, violence, and degradation at the hands of men, as well as the ravages of low self-esteem and eating disorders--only she thinks the culprit is not patriarchy but the loss of respect for female modesty. Echoing the feelings-over-facts attitude for which conservatives have rightly derided the cultural left, she even suggests that flawed studies and false charges matter less than the underlying truth: "A lot of young women are trying to tell us that they are very unhappy."

To say this hasn't had an impact on Aunt Seraphic is an understatement. As such, women on her site are advised to hang all sort of hoops that the seemingly vast majority of good men must fly through just to prove that they're not really one of the bad ones. Seraphic erects such a high barrier between single men and women, it's a surprise that they'd want to be with each other. Practically speaking, she proceeds as though ALL men are potentially "rat bastards" until proven innocent.

In fact, while Aunt Seraphic may lead her poppets to the gates of heaven, it is difficult to see how very many are being led to the altar. Not because they practice modesty and chastity in a sexualized culture(unless using the blame-the-bastard card), but because of this sort of attitude. If she loves men as she says, why does she so often rail about tales of woe at the hands of the few, while promoting such a defensive, ultimately divisive posture toward dating that serves to drive away many potential suitors? It sounds like she may be a bit personally bitter, actually. You might think at least a little after reading this:

But Catholic men who pressure women to sleep with them or ply them with alcohol in the hopes of changing their minds are Judas.

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, then it is better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." --Matthew 18.6

How she defines "pressure" or even "ply with alcohol" isn't quite so clear. In the end, Seraphic depicts a commonplace scenario among young adults as "seduction," that is, ethically a form of rape.

But merely offering a woman drinks, hoping thereby to change her mind, is not yet attempted rape. It is a form of seduction, and although it is a very stupid one, I can see why a rat-bastard would attempt it.

Not YET, folks. She boozes, then she changes her mind days, weeks, MONTHS after...but not YET. This is commonplace in that women often engage in sex acts after at least some alcohol consumption -- mostly consumed, in itself, freely by her, NOT by way of forced tube-feeding by him.

Given this, and its clear origins with Andrea Dworkin, one must conculde that most extra-marital sex is "seduction," and that most men are seducers. Given the invocation of MT 18:6, adult women must be innocent as babies, regardless, and at this rate, men are potantial molesters. Why else invoke this verse if not to drive home that point? Don't most sweet, good guys just pine to be with a young woman starting out with this subtle impression of them? Having to burn through much cash to wine and dine them, just for the privilege to prove he isn't a rapist? Tell us again, Auntie: Why is it that so many men never call again?

Oh yes, all of this Seraphic wisdom in response to a reader's note about a guy who, ultimately, "...was never the tiniest bit threatening or aggressive." Sure, he's a caddish scumbag, but worthy of millstones?

In all fairness, Seraphic is one of a cadre of emerging pseudo-traditional, more-or-less anti-male conservative Catholic warrior princesses. The other notables include EWTN's Johnette "Botox" Benkovic; Ave Maria Radio's Teresa "Tomboy" Tomeo (kind of converse to the former); this other site, and certainly, as of late, the previously sensible Mary Eberstadt. Once they're through ranting and screeding about un-chivalrous men-kind and the damsels (that they infantilize), the message becomes clear: Whenever it involves men, female sins are not sins.

A holistic reading of Seraphic (Perpetual) Singles reveals too much misandry to be ignored.

The U.S. Economy and the Anti-Idleness Ideologues

The U.S. economic news since late spring has been dour to say the least. Growth in the latest quarter hovered just over 1 percent, when historic post-recession recoveries could be as high as nine percent in a given quarter. Add to this the drawn-out nature of this recovery: it's been humming along (barely) for the last three years since the official close of the Great Recession.

This doubtless has a dire impact on jobs hiring. The White House itself now projects an 8-plus percent unemployment rate through the close of 2012 (H.W. Bush losing with a 7 percent rate in 1992), a White House that should be readying to change occupants in short order. Yet, most polling as of today yeilds no clear-pathed victory for GOP challenger Mitt Romney.

As social service spending has increased monumentally in these three years, with combined state and federal social services now placing the U.S.'s welfare expenditures well within the range of many so-called European "welfare states," has emerged some notable impatience with those utilizing this system in some way.

Thus has emerged the so-called Anti-Idleness Ideologues. These are oft well-meaning folks who maintain that, simply, "there are still plenty of jobs out there." This is surely true, and there is broad understanding that many of such jobs only hire those with a precise skill-set (usually quite technical in some way), that exclude from consideration most of those now out-of-work.

But the ideologues here tend to speak more to low-skilled, somewhat unsteady, often seasonal "jobs that no one else wants": these are heavily concentrated in food service, often restaurant-based and service fields. These are low-wage (and often really no-wage, tip-based pay) that offer largely fluctuating schedules that are seasonally adapted and over-sensitive to consumer use and demand. A popular bistro may be hopping through Labor Day -- hirees offered copious earning opportunities -- to find themselves effectively laid off thereafter.

Sarah Palin and former Senate candidate Sharon Angle of Nevada have made such notable commentaries, though one man is leading this charge: John Stossel of Fox Business and News channels.

Stossel, a former ABC News consumer reporter and noted libertarian, recently interviewed several largely minority social service beneficiaries in a line outside of the Manhattan welfare office. Make no mistake, there were dozens lined up, though Stossel interviewed a handful about their social condition: all noted a lack of gainful job opportunities.

Stossel then interviewed a good number of cafe and restaurant managers within a decent radius of the welfare office. No fewer than a couple of dozen said they were presently hiring in some capacity. Stossel then took this as an opportunity not only to rightly bash the welfare state, but also the individuals at the receiving end for their presumed sloth. But even the several openings he discovered still do not provide enough individual opportunities for the many more lined up, out the door, on welfare in North America's wealthiest city.

Whether Stossel and this cadre (and they can be of any ideology, really) care to admit it, those who take these sorts of jobs are STILL eligible for a host of nanny-state benefits, even under past administrations, due to the low wages: Medicaid for certain; also subsidized housing and perhaps even cash subsidies. These people may be more or less "justifying" their benefits through their labor efforts, but does this scenario raise anyone out of the hole?

To Stossel, it does. Within the segment, he asked many Fox News personalities what their first jobs in life were: They included cleaning parking lots of Dairy Queens, lifeguarding, dishwashing, landscaping, waitressing, and on and on. But why should this be of any real surprise? They were ALL KIDS when they took these positions. These sorts of jobs absolutely induce an essential work ethic in life, no doubt about it. But a dignified long-term livlihood?

The Anti-Idleness Ideologues rightly demean the socialist welfare policies of Obama, but often wrongly demean those individuals at the receiving end. Make no mistake, emotion governs their thoughts in this matter, raw anger over the "free rides" so many are getting at the expense of the perpetually motivated throught their tax dollars. But by identifying and promoting these "plenty of jobs" and opportunities line, these anti-welfare philosophizers are also giving tacit promotion to Obama's re-election. Why elect someone else as president, upsetting the apple cart, with so many available jobs and ample, ultimate opportunities for meteoric rises in life?

Stossel presents the obvious as the obvious for sure, but so often with such wallops of profundity in tone.

The True Ideological Divisions of Catholicism

In light of the raging debate over the Vatican's "crackdown" of the religious sisters of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious), which represents the high majority of women's vowed communities in the U.S., misunderstandings about the political nature of the modern Church have re-emerged. I love writing lists and breakdowns, so here it goes once more. .

As I see it, there are essentially three broad, notable divisions in practicing Catholicism today. It's hard to get a clear read on the exact distribution of how many belong to each group, as many surveys conflate the beliefs of both practicing and non-practicing. This pretty much represents the practicing distribution:

Progressives

This includes the LCWR and its surrogates, groups like Call to Action and elements of Voice of the Faithful. Whether or not activist, these are the Church's change agents: they wish for official Church teaching to be altered on birth control, women's ordination, certainly mandatory celibacy, certain "patriarchal" elements of liturgy, with far more lay involvement in Church governance. To them, abortion is just one among a host of issues and by itself does not take precedence, as there are scores of other social justice concerns, much aligned to secular progressivism.

Traditional

These folks are well-fractured, but hold out that the modernizing Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) was either entirely unnecessary, or simply turned out very badly for the Church. Think Pat Buchanan for starters: They point to the moral turpitude in the pews (e.g. the progressives themselves) and declining numbers of Mass attendance and religious vocations to illustrate the point. Most of the hierarchy has been either inept in this struggle, aligned with progressives in thought, or themselves morally corrupt no matter what they call themselves.

They love the traditional "Tridentine" Latin Mass, either viewing it as the exclusive rite of worship, the favored rite, or even close to how the new rite should basically look, sound, and smell. In all, these are people who readily admit they want the Church of the 1950s restored.

Neo-conservative

Often conflated by the press with the aforementioned traditionalists, this is an ecclesiology unto itself. It represents a sort of middle ground, but should not be confused with being "moderate" in terms of dogmatic rigor.

To these folks, the institutional establishment comes first. That is, the authority structure, as is, takes precedence in their minds. So, while Vatican II presented the Church universal with a bumpy ride in the decades out with plenty of progressivist dissent, Pope John Paul II pretty much straightened it all out (with the exception of notable bits of Western Europe).

The Latin Mass can be nice (even very nice) at times, but is surely not exclusive, for that wouldn't be true in thinking with the Church (and its Vatican II reforms). Most Masses today are in the are vernacular (with pretty crummy music, admittedly to some) but really shouldn't change, because that's the status quo, and since the establishment is beyond reproach, we really don't question it.

While we despise liturgical violations (they're against what the bishops say), we still welcome charismatic expressions (that often thrive on liturgical violations) because John Paul II did, since it presumably brought more folks into the institutional fold, and that's what really matters most.

We talk about those we'd love excommunicated, but we won't do it, as that would lessen the reach of the institutional establishment and make it all the more unpopular. Otherwise, the Church is in wonderful shape; we don't see many problems in the institution beyond a few public dissenters. The Church is growing worldwide, more priests are being ordained than in the past several decades in America (though how many imported?). Dissent was largely solved by JPII through his episcopal (bishop) appointments, and the priestly sex abuse problem is mostly a delusionary fiat of a hostile secular press.

So, how do these broad factions interact?

It's all rather counterintuitive, actually. Progressives and traditionalists both see the Roman Catholic Church as being screwed up...in major ways. And some of their lists actually overlap:

BOTH view the Church as being in a state of measurable decline, even worldwide overall, with no end in visible sight. BOTH view the hierarchy as being chock-full of disingenuous and power-hungry elites. BOTH consider sex abuse as still being a huge, largely under-addressed crisis. While there's a "one-strike" policy in the U.S. against priests, bishops are inconsistent in publicizing those who have been credibly accused and when. Bishops themselves are not personally held to account when they are accused of misconduct personally. BOTH admit to there being a somewhat widespread gay subculture throughout seminaries and the priesthood in the West. BOTH see the ineptitude of the hierarchy in addressing these notable hypocrisies.

YET, both have VASTLY OPPOSING solutions to these honest diagnoses. Progressives want "progress" through vast doctrinal changes and revisions. Traditionalists want a revival of bygone discipline through tradition to stave off further damage, or for a complete revival.

Though neocons have a different view: they want to crack down on "dissent," but this is often pitched popularly as liberal detraction from the ecclesial party line on such things as birth control. But other times, it is right wing, traditional dissent, that is, anyone who harshly criticizes the sitting pontiff, who doesn't "think with the Church" and "uphold the Office." Yet, their crackdowns can be notably tepid: for instance, threatening or suggesting withholding the Host from only the most virulent of pro-choice politicians, suggesting sanctions against the very most progressive (and often elite) of Church-affiliated institutions of higher learning (usually over invitations to secular-progressive notables for commencements); this is when most U.S. Catholic universities have long been mainstreamed into society. In the final analysis, it's all about preserving institutional cohesion. and prestige People being excommunicated will only trigger an exodus from this institution on their part and by their supporters, which in turn will serve to weaken the "big tent" that is today's Catholicism, thereby lowering the prestige and influence of the pontifical and episcopal offices. I shit you not, this is truly the cliff's notes synopsis of how they think.

While the outside world is rotting away, corruption inside the Church is not an issue for neocons. We should just celebrate John Paul II (JPII), who "revitalized" the Church, instead, and not really question the Church's establishment authority structure, lest we be "proud."

So WHO are these Catholo-neocons exactly? Think the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, who edited the conservative First Things project; or George Weigel, papal biographer, or Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law Professor, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, most of the cast and producers of EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) and their print outfit, the National Catholic Register. Occasionally this crew will call upon the hierarchy to be more aggressive in dealing with the afore-defined notable "public" doctrinal dissenters, but will stop short of promoting anything that will cause real "division," otherwise known as schism. In reality, many progressive dissenters FLOURISH within modern U.S. and European Catholicism, usually in the lay apparatus of Catholic institutions (oftentimes charities), the LCWR (yes!) which is connected to its own vast expanse of Catholic education and charity, and especially within the broader higher education ivory towers (and not just Jesuit schools). In truth, the whole house may fall if this status quo is disrupted, which is why the neocons hope progressives just shut up or be converted to orthodoxy; otherwise they wish to leave them mostly intact.

Then, there's neocon clericalism, which is defined as over-emphasizing the separateness and apartness of the clergy from the laity, to the point of noting only their "specialness." No doubt, this DOES mean ignoring or minimizing the sometimes notable personal faults of individual priests, including those that interfere with their effective ministering. JPII was big on this (as he was big on restoring institutional cohesion, which indeed WAS coming apart at the seams during the 1970s and threatening schism) as are most neocon laity and hierarchy. A great example is New York Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan: he's OK with Cardinal Bernard Law receiving his prestigious basilica appointment in Rome from JPII AFTER being removed for the horrendous cover-up crisis in the Boston archdiocese. You'll rarely hear a sitting bishop criticize another bishop, sitting or retired, for any reason. Laity who resist criticizing priests "because he's a priest!" are likewise of this mindless mold. The other two groupings almost love excoriating clergy who do not fit the respective bent these folks represent.

Yet, note how Pope Benedict XVI has called for a smaller, more cohesive Church, one without "filth" and dissent that, though reduced in worldly presence, is far more true and meaningful. Many on all sides minimize some of the astounding course-corrections undertaken during his reign, broadly conflating his policies with JPII's in order to serve whatever their talking points may be.

Trads can be found reading The Latin Mass, while progressives usually read Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter.

I don't readily identify with any of these divisions, actually. Though my emphasis herein should demonstrate wherein lies the true problem.

Let this serve as the inaugural theme tune of this blog.

Blog and Author Intro

WHERE BUCKLEY the IIIrd meets HOWARD STERN...

This is about the 1.7 billionth English-language blog about society and religion. But I guarantee you something -- it will go viral. Not because I'm special...now I know so many Xers and especially millennials think that of themselves (the only justification for them having something like two or more blogs each, on top of facebook and twitter), but I know my own flaws and limitations. I don't hide them, either.

People will notice them sooner or later, so why the hell even try?

Let's begin with telling you about my blog: Well, first of all, it's premise for existence: Western civilization -- led by America -- is fast headed down the tubes. No, Obama and Biden professing devotion for gay marriage is not a cause, it's a late after effect of what began probably starting around the time of the great baby-boom, mid-20th century. The victory over Western and Eastern fascism greatly inflated the collective ego of this society, exponentially over the decades through and including the fall of euro-communism.

Then it was home free for the West, or so we thought.

China, the haven of Eastern communism, is due to economically surpass the United States in terms of total output in four years (if Laura Ingraham is to be believed).
Radical Islam is making gargantuan gains stationing openly throughout Europe, east and west. Guess where it's headed next?
The marriage rates and connubial birthrates are dropping like a fart across the board.

America locks up more drug offenders and petty-level criminals than any other Western society with tougher-looking police personnel, yet suffers under more relative substance abuse and violent crime than almost any other advanced country in the West.

Obama has been a train wreck, yes, though the G.O.P. is already pining for yet another, bigger, more spectacular, more costly, and more detrimental war in the middle east: this time, an Iran takeover.
Sounds great, doesn't it? Oh yeah, and pop music sucks today like never, ever before.

The Great Modern Debate is cast within the narrative of progressive-secularists -- who presumably operate with elite, institutional backup -- versus the broadly Reaganite, traditional moral value, free market contingent. Somewhere straddling the sidelines are those libertarians, who frankly often promote libertinism. Unless, of course, you're Ron Paul.

Nevertheless, both of the broad, competing sides are deeply misunderstood, and deeply deficient --with their own sets of problems.

For one, people in America who practice conventional Judeo-Christianity -- particularly white Roman Catholics -- tend toward the more affluent and educationally elite strata. Yet we hear ceaselessly about "cultural and liberal elitism" eroding our simple, core values. And people with those core values being portrayed as toothless simpletons.

We hear about the decline of marriage, mostly from the cultural right. Yet, most divorce happens in bonafide red states, among conservatives. Yes, they have higher marriage rates, thus higher divorce rates. But overall, marriages with children stateside are more likely to break up than cohabiting arrangements between men and women in ultra-progressive Sweden. I mean, wow.  

Both sides profess sacred devotion to the First Amendment. Yet, both sides cherry-pick at its attendant rights -- particularly free speech. That's right: you'll routinely hear more or less orthodox Christians in America moan about certain speech being "offensive," (I'm not even talking salacious or pornographic) even from others like them but with different manners of expression -- all the while castigating liberals for trying to curb religiously-based expression (or viewpoints) from being expressed in the public square. Believe it.

Hypocrisy breeds hypocrisy, my friends, which then breeds contempt.

ABOUT ME: I am a 33 year old, Caucasian man living in a suburb of Providence, RI. That's right, once the northeast's urban renaissance, now literally on the cusp of municipal bankruptcy. Once goes Rogue's City, so then goes the whole state.

In early childhood, I was speech-delayed. A local, higher-end public school system placed me in special education (with a rigorous speech therapy regimen) and wanted to keep me there past my point of age-appropriate progress. My parents objected (half my class being retarded), and threatened legal action.

Representing my cause was then-Sister Arlene Violet, R.S.M. Sister Violet was a practicing attorney (and still is), until she developed political ambitions and clashed with the Vatican over them. She exited the order, and would be elected as state attorney general with a Republican affiliation.

Representing my cause to speak, if you will, may end up as Arlene Violet's biggest professional regret, as my life 28 years later will soon prove. 

My parents started off as lower middle-class, and would steadily rise with the 80s and 90s boom-waves into the entry-level upper-middle class. Neither completed college.

I graduated from the state's last all-male preparatory academy, Bishop Hendricken High School. I went on to graduate from Rhode Island College, one of two four-year state schools, after a two-year stint at Salve Regina University, operated by Ms. Violet's former Sisters of Mercy community.

Hence, I went into journalism, writing at various and overlapping times for each a local weekly, twice weekly, and daily between Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.

In spring 2005, not long after the pope's election, I was awarded a Robert D. Novak journalism fellowship by the Phillips Foundation, a non-profit group in Washington, D.C, whose namesake owns Regnery Publishing. The purpose of this more-or-less year-long stint was to begin a book-length, publishable manuscript on a non-fiction sociopolitical topic.

Mine was (and remains) the men's rights movements and masculism (more on this later), and I successfully completed my official fellowship in late 2006.

Though a strong, unwritten expectation of the Phillips Foundation is to remain affiliated as sort of a club beyond the non-renewable fellowship period itself, I nonetheless disaffiliated from the organization in 2007. As even more casual observers will note of its web site, it is profoundly ideological, strongly aligned to mainstream G.O.P. causes. In 2007, this very, very much meant it was almost wedded to the Weekly Standard pro-interventionist editorial stances, strongly supporting Bush-Rove foreign policy, by means of many fellows themselves and the broader Eagle Publishing group, including Human Events and Regnery books.

While I am grateful for the early career jumpstart they gave me, such an association became too cumbersome. That, and I had a significant personnel-related difference with them, and also felt censored quite a few times within the program. But life goes on.  

Starting not long before then, one might say, I've encountered waves of stiff opposition, both from institutions and even within my private circle. No doubt, over my form of expression. Some have even used coercive and/or emasculating rhetoric and means to degrade and quash my expression and present freelance-based occupation into "real" 9-5 work "with a schedule and a boss," etc.

And what some of them are now beginning to wake up to.

You see, life comes and goes in distinct cycles: I am now at a similar point I was at this time in 1984, when Arlene Violet came into my life briefly.

However, I now act out her role as my own personal advocate and somewhat a religious militant. And while I am more philosophically orthodox, I share in her much-touted disgust for so much of the institutional Roman Catholic Church in America.

For a practicing Catholic-Christian in this part of the world, this day in age, I'm nonetheless sort of a bad-ass. For men in particular, these Western Christian religious groups here place a primacy (wrongly so) on personal passivity and lack of anger as virtue. I am anything but, and I'm not so certain that a culturally-divorced, objective reading of Gospel scripture quite affirms the 11th Commandment of passivity.

And yes, I am least likely to get along with the priggish, effeminate nancy mama's boy, so self-righteously perched in great quantities in so many of today's pews, and for that matter, church leadership positions. By no means, though, are all active men of faith of such ilk.

Still, I assent to the Church's timeless beliefs, well summed-up for the most part recently by Canadian media personality Michael Coren's Why Catholics Are Right. But that doesn't mean I have to like most of today's American bishops and approve of all day-to-day methods of operation.

While the Church is emphatic over its sexual teachings, the fact remains that in today's technically celibate Latin Rite of Roman Catholicism, at least triple as many priests have homosexual tendencies as does the general male population (something like 30 percent are non-heterosexual). While not even close to a majority of clergy, that still rises somewhere around the levels of ordained male Anglican clergy, as a common ritualistic stiffness and liturgical vestment fashion performances often permeates. Today's bishops seem more accepting than not of this (in spite of predictable implications), perhaps in part because the newer priests are BOTH more likely to be gay, and more likely to be conservative. And just how many newer priest are coming down the pipeline, compared to even thirty years ago?

PHILOSOPHIES: Besides Catholicism, I take a deep interest in the relations between the sexes in America today. In short, it's a disaster.

It's simple for one of more traditional leanings to point straight at feminism, or women's liberation, as the cause. But would that have even been if society wasn't a disaster preceding it? I mean, that's like saying in order to oppose Soviet Stalinism, go back to the decades before the Revolution in 1917. Come on.

This will surely be a main focus of this forum, along with my pithy observations (collected over a decade and a half) of the life and way of existence between men and women. But then there's the hurdle of political correctness to cross:

If Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism, then America is probably more like the Kuwait, Syria or Malaysia. In all, political correctness in the U.S. can be categorized and prioritized as follows:

1)  RACE:

By far, hands down, the most verboten of criticisms or slurs that are tolerated in open society today: this applies primarily to the formerly enslaved Black races, less to but still much to Hispanics, and increasingly to Muslims.

Anti-Semitism, overall, seems to be of a different category, as it is found alive and well on both sides of the socio-political border.

If you're caught using a racial slur, your career is pretty much forever over.

2) HOMOSEXUALITY:

A very high priority protected group. Using anti-gay slurs is beheading-worthy to much of society today. Even criticizing state-sponsored gay rights is verboten in the public square, and will be increasingly so in years to come. c.f., the Commonwealth of Canada.

3) WOMEN AND FEMINISM:

Believe it or not, this is a somewhat distant third, though Amerika is still quite rigid in its view that even white, suburban caucasian women are vaguely patriarchal victims, or conversely, sexual revolution victims: Both Dems and often GOP-ers straddle these two poles.

But as Geraldine Ferraro put it, "it's not OK to be racist, but it is OK to be sexist." Now I'm NOT OK with any sexism, but I strongly believe it cuts both ways along the gender spectrum, from both distinct political angles. Don Imus was fired in 2007 far more over the racial dimension of his ladies' Rutgers U. basketball team comment, than the sexual dimension, though quite deplorable.
Otherwise, Bill Mahar would be receiving food stamps from the Swedish government by now.

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So what's wrong with Rogue's Island these days? Well, here's a little microcosm to look at:

You want socialism in practice? Never mind Brown or even the University of Rhode Island, where no doubt those philosophies abound (as do a large number of private job recruiters). Go instead to Rhode Island College (RIC), my alma mater in Providence. It's as if two-thirds or more of students there are there for the purpose of earmarking their entitled local, municipal or state, union-supported employment: in public schools, as social workers, as law enforcement, even as attorneys. It's the "all in the family" mentality writ large.

Problem is, those municipal jobs are fast disappearing. And so will RIC if it doesn't radically re-tool, and fast.

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My name is Jeff Jackson, and get set for an adventure like no other. I'm late to the blogosphere by about 8 years, but that still would have been a time far premature.