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February 7-13, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com
Back to Letters
Emasculated nation
by Ben Corbett
The previously owned Acura with Nickelback stickers sat lifeless across the street, parked haphazardly with a flat tire. The owner, a blond co-ed in her early 20s, paced around, dialing numbers frantically on her cell with that paralyzed look of shock that accompanies the sudden loss of mobility. Meanwhile, the girl’s idiot boyfriend leaned against the trunk of the car in a technological coma, looking stupid while his girl took command, phoning ex-lovers, her dad, and finally AAA to figure out what to do.
You’ve probably seen the idiot boyfriend in inaction. He’s that dude with baggy pants drooping to his knees, ball cap tipped at two o’clock, all bad-ass suburban thug. Another version is the construction guy poser, John Deere cap and Carhart overalls, a titillating specter of backwoods self-sufficiency, his face a marvel of carefully manicured scruff. Then there’s the Adonis-at-the-gym type, always working out, admiring his lady-killing stamina in the mirror, cabinet jammed with hair waxing kits. There are other variations on the archetype, but the common factor is sadly revealing: They look menacing, but none are equipped to rescue the damsel in distress. Even more mind-blowing is the idea that young women are actually attracted to these cream puffs. In the Me Generation of image-before-essence, American women tend to seek the sensitive tough guy, the pouty, defenseless mama’s boy who projects an appearance of danger, yet can’t even assemble a scissor jack. But once these women ensnare their nimble prey, they eventually get bored with the guy asking, “Is it OK if I kiss you now?” or “Would it be all right if we had sex tonight?” because there are lots of women who, as part of a consensual relationship, want to be grabbed with rough hands, thrown down on the bed and taken passionately after a playful, if not intense, struggle. Women want to know they arouse sheer desire. The failure to respond with animal impulse has created the Dirty Housewife syndrome so prevalent in America, and the natural reaction of men emasculated by their own inabilities is amplified macho. It’s a sad cycle at love’s expense.
The problem of sexual confusion is directly linked to economics. Affluence creates soft people, and image requires no effort. In this environment, men forget how to be men and women forget how to be women. It’s no surprise that 75-percent of rap music is sold to white, middle-class adolescent boys. Their lives are so sheltered in the white bread suburbs that they have no means of enacting the survival skills hard-wired in their DNA. Without a real struggle, they live on the vicarious edge in a musically accessible hood with its assorted fashion and street patois borrowed from films like 8 Mile. The only other option is the Xbox, where death lurks around every corner and violence is an immediate reality. With our isolation and decaying social skills, is it any wonder that 90 percent of those who purchase the popular game Tomb Raider are male? In this fantasy world, the sexy Lara Croft with her perfect breasts and luscious cartoon heinie can be made to run, jump, roll on the ground and come up blasting with a mere bump of the controller.
What happens when humans lose the ability to be human? After we’ve tamed the wild and eliminated all the dangers that threaten the species — alligators, bears, wolves — is it enough to replace those once-real dangers with the artificial rush of horror films to fulfill our genetic needs? Is buying a home-security system to protect one’s family from (basically non-existent) predators hyped on the evening news an act of manhood? Back in the 1970s and ’80s, kids ran loose in the neighborhood. They learned how to act independently and use their imaginations to keep life exciting since there was little money to purchase a continuous barrage of sensational diversions. Teenagers worked hard to buy that first car, and with it came a sense of accomplishment and responsibility. Nowadays middle-class parents hold their kids hostage within an eyeshot cage, typically the stop sign at the end of the street. They buy their kids’ first cars, in the process cheating them of becoming capable men and women while producing the unsatisfied girls with their idiot boyfriends of the future.
Perhaps an economic meltdown would be the best cure-all remedy for America’s socio-cultural confusion, sexual or otherwise. Rather than standing around looking stupid, the emasculated male, having little coin, would be forced to pull up his baggy pants and learn how to change a tire. By all accounts, for women there’s nothing sexier than watching a guy take command in a crisis, using his self-taught skills with focus and grace. Maybe a good, down-home economic depression would force us to actually learn our neighbors’ names after living next door for eight years. I mean, what’s so threatening about borrowing a cup of sugar anyway?
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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