Once upon a time, I was a feminist. In fact, I spent a lot of time reading Bell Hooks, (excuse me, bell hooks), Gloria Alzandua and Audre Lorde (and others forgotten). I spent almost as much time explaining it to women as I did explaining it to myself. In other words, if you are a man looking for a righteous spouse, chances are the more well read you are in the feminist texts, the more time your date is likely to be checking her watch. Feminist theory makes for a better man in theory. In practice, you spend more time with your own meat. My advice, open doors for the lady, at least that way they understand the respect you're attempting to convey.
One of the annoying things about feminism is that it's very complicated, and most people don't understand it. That which has been popularized is held in disdain by true feminists. It's a two tier system. So any man attempting to satisfy his own appetite for feminism may find himself stuck between the pseudo-feminists that the real feminists hate and the radical feminists that hate men. For me, the instinct for survival won out in the end. But it was not without some encouragement from that school of thought formerly known as the 'Do Me Feminists'. I like that school. Think Salt and Pepa singing 'Shoop' as a DMF anthem. Don't get it? You're not alone.
Aside from feminism's twists and turns, there is the ethics of trying to follow it, which is difficult enough given the kinds of persons likely to give you the thousand mile stare. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, such women are as likely as not to be former victims, ever alert. What is known are the horrors of domestic violence and the ugliness women endure from those our society rightly calls cads. So do not doubt the steely determination of such watchdogs to watch us 'dogs'. The DMF contingent has made peace with male sexual aggression, and it's a good thing as evolutionary biologists are backing them up. But there are plenty who would rather we stick with our own meat. Those would be the radical feminists.
This paragraph might be the one in which I crack wise with something to the effect that every man is a lesbian trapped in a man's body. To the extent that's not a laughing matter, there is generally some undeserved abuse and pain behind the thousand mile stare. Is it not life experience that makes all the difference when it comes to matters of intimacy and violence? Pain, they say, is the best teacher. I agree vociferously. But if one's life is not informed by such pain, it's awfully difficult to make peace with feminist theory as advanced by those who have the worn the bruises and lacerations of patriarchy.
It is from this context, as one man who might be instructed by feminists on a more appropriate het lifestyle that the gay card comes in. In the end, what most men want is love, and we spend an ungodly amount of time looking for it, especially those of us with disposable income. Into that bourgie pastime of looking for love, sex, affection and all that romance comes feminist informed gender equality and all that. Chances are that an ordinary straight man coming in contact with theoretical feminists will come to understand gender as socially constructed. In otherwords, you were born in a box and you have to grow out of it. It is not sufficient to describe you as a man, you are a heterosexual man in a male body and if you've never seen yourself this way before then you are an unthinking agent of evil patriarchy.
You can say, 'but I really love women', and then you will be asked an infinite regressing series of 'why' until it comes down to your mother, your first grade teacher or a playboy magazine. In any such case you have been busted, and thus the first day of your re-education.
It is at this point which you should, homeboy, play the gay card. Just admit, as best you can that you are acting out something (insert link to foucaultian jargon generator here) and really worship at the alter of penisity. At this point, you will be released from re-education and your feminist inquisitor will chalk up a victory against patriarchy, and thusly add more ammo into the all-purpose excuse of there not being enough good men.
I am serious and I exaggerate and I am glib in all this. But there is something about the bohemian lifestyle that irks and annoys me, especially in its influence among the chatting classes. For there are good things that bohos teach us, multiculturalism for one. But over the 90s, as the Alternative has itself morphed into its own mainstream, we are in danger of moving much of society away from a sustainable mainstream. What I'm getting at is that I have a hard time with the evangelism of alternatives, gaming as if all of this was a zero sum thing. I find it difficult to believe that the self-sufficiency of alternative lifestyles is completely undermined by the conventional. And so I suggest the gay card to terminate conversations which go awry when someone is suggesting that the way you love isn't what it should be. Tell me how it works.
At the very least I thought we would have learned by now how difficult, if not foolish, it is for women to try and change the way men love.
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