Jim, not to jump back in, because I really want to avoid some of the other men here, but perhaps you can do the heavy lifting that needs to be done in this topic and they’ll listen to a man. You are absolutely correct in the connection to Humanae Vitae. The whole birth control society, unlimited abortion, the playboy mentality and pornographic culture are all tied to sex as an activity cut off from its deepest meaning, the transition of life. Once life and responsibility are involved, immature men run off. If killing an unwanted baby is okay, why not get rid of the baby and the mother before the birth? I repeat, men are not growing up in this society. That isn’t man-bashing, anymore than to say that women have demeaned themselves by having abortions is woman bashing.
There is no societal stigma against this immaturity. Men don’t hold each other to account. Instead, the GMs and Eagles of the world agree with each other and mumble about irrational man-hating women who read pulp novels.
(Hey, guys, the men in those novels are often heroic, patient, self-sacrificing guys who save the heroine from the depredations of the narcissistic mountebanks, from what I’ve heard. Can a girl dream they’re out there? … anyone who has actually read these books can tell me if I hit the central plotline on the head. I was an English major, so I’m familiar with the genre in theory. A modern version of Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale kind of literature.)
I agree that jumping into the bedroom first is no way to get to know someone. Here I’ll interject that this bride waited till her wedding night. But then found out there is something out there called “the virgin chaser” that loses all interest once he’s gotten what he wants. (Hide your sisters and daughters, he’s still out there looking for innocent women…) That made losing my one and only all the more painful.
But society doesn’t condemn that anymore. Because sex and love and life aren’t linked anymore. With your wife it’s the same as with a woman on the computer screen as you bond with yourself releasing endorphins that retrain your brain to become aroused by perversions, needing lower and lower depths of depravity to achieve those results as time goes on… and women who find their husbands doing that are irrational for wanting to leave? How much deeper does an insult need to go? “I can get the same satisfaction with a picture that you give me by surrendering your whole body and self and opening your own life to the creation of a new child with me.” With some men, that becomes a complete replacement of their relationship with their wives. And it opens the door to activity outside the marriage.
Women may be dumb and irrational in some people’s views, but they’re smart enough to know a grave insult when they see it. And those who minimize that are just saying to the world they don’t begin to understand what really makes women tick.
You didn’t derail the thread, Jim. Not at all. You tied it together quite nicely. The distrust and anger between men and women is all about whether or not we are being valued, a value that comes from our worth as whole people created by God. When people don’t live up to God’s plan, they have lessened themselves in the eyes of others. When they don’t treat each other as valued children of God, they lessen themselves. They can’t then demand respect.
The fundamental desire in the human heart is the love-giving desire for union, and unless it somehow gives life emotionally, spiritually or physically, it is fruitless and has been thwarted and perverted. There is no real union. And maybe that attitude has produced a generation of spiritually and emotionally stunted people who are incapable of real marriage and real relationships. God joined the love-giving and life-giving in His plan. And we hear in every wedding ceremony “What God has joined together, let no man render asunder.”
Pope John Paul II the Great said this for 26 years. His “Familiaris Consortio” is one of the most profound documents ever written on the relationship that SHOULD exist between the sexes.
How sad that men who profess to be Catholic and should exist as a light to the world, (Lumen Gentium) say it is silly that they should speak to their fellow brothers and correct their misbehavior. And when called on it, repeat that it’s still “silly.”
Eagle didn’t think it was silly that GM criticized women for denigrating men, or people getting divorces and annulments.
Why is it silly to try to make the world a more moral place by calling men out on THEIR bad behavior?
And as to the question about men agreeing with GM’s position… the few men who have come here to agree with him tell me less about his position than they tell me about themselves. Why indeed do they agree with him?
Good luck, Jim, because the sewer that is society needs a lot more like you to point out the problem and then clean it out. Maybe they’ll listen to you because then you wouldn’t be “man-bashing.”
a good and thorough analysis… thanks for sharing this.At least this guy didn’t call me the F-ing B word.
