Where have all the men gone?

Who are these smooth faced androgynous boys I am seeing more and more of? Who are these lads beamed at us across all media posing in their CK underpants and talking about what the Kardashian’s got up to over the weekend? Where have the Clark Gables, Clint Eastwoods and Sean Connerys of our generation disappeared to? And what hell is all this pansy arse sparkly vampire BS about? There is far too much Eclipse in the world and far too little Bram Stoker.

It’s almost become a recurring theme with the New Age man…the watering down of masculinity as his defining attribute. And I don’t like it! We have been listening to too many women and ‘Lad Mags’ about what it is to be a man. We have been seeing too many young lads with their 8 packs staring back out from us from the covers of numerous magazines and advertisements, too many Robert Pattinsons or The Werewolf one, they’re all interchangeable…and few rarely express what a man should be, even in today’s modern society, actually check that, especially in today’s modern society. Strange isn’t it that only a few short years ago, one of the biggest debates in modern media was the depiction of women through beauty magazines and products, and what example our youth was encoded with from an early age as a result. And now… the ‘Bigger Guns, Better Body’ topics of numerous mags and publications as well as their ‘Best Hair Products’ for men, has slowly but firmly been blurring the lines between feminine and masculine.

Now please do not misunderstand me here, I don’t mean that a man shouldn’t take pride in his appearance and hygiene…but waxed eyebrows is often taking it a little too far. Can you imagine Sean Connery in his leathery Scottish accent asking the beautician: “Pleesh my dear, would you do me the implishit honour of…um …a say…Back, Sack and Crack waxsh? Why shank you darlin’”

Octopussy would not have been very impressed. Neither would M, or Q, or any of the other consonants.

Oh and don’t even get me started on the guy that cries when his girlfriend or significant other fights with him. I mean either the guy has the most sensitive soul ever! Think Brendan Fraser’s ‘Ginger’ persona in that one movie when Liz Hurley is the Devil…if you don’t remember it, you’re excused.

Or that same guy’s basic understanding of what a man is has become so diluted with the mixed messages we’re getting on a daily basis, that he resorts to tears to guilt his girlfriend out of the break-up speech. Tears? I mean c’mon.

Like in Spiderman when Peter Parker cries because Mary Jane (note the reference to weed there by the way) breaks up with him!!! I mean WHAT THE HELL!!! The guys is freaking Spiderman, a super hero that risks his life on a daily basis fighting evil, and he cries because his girlfriend breaks up with him? Think I vomited a little in my mouth when I watched that.

First problem with this whole business: young men are spending too much time and energy caring what other people think a man is, or should be. Too much time listening what woman want form a man (yes that’s what I think) and what these ‘LadMags’ seem to think.

Remember Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind: “Frankly Scarlet my dear, I don’t give a damn”…enough said.

In my opinion, a man needs to first and foremost find his purpose, find his passion and focus his energies on that, forgetting what other’s opinions are, and becoming an idea of the man he wants to be, not others’ versions. Probably the best writer to describe what a man should be was Ayn Rand. Read her last book “Atlas Shrugged” and meet some of the most masculine and powerful characters I have come across in literature. She puts it beautifully when expressing her philosophies of objectivism and purpose:

“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

I’m thinking of a strong, powerful man whose ambition and drive far outweighs any of his concerns about what the neighbours are doing, what Sally and Darren’s last fight was about, and how can I guilt my girlfriend into not being angry with me. No Toby Maguire! Tears aren’t the answer if your Mary-Jane wants to end it!!! Get your pimp hand out instead! Hahaha.

And another thing that grates me…this whole concept of ‘finding yourself.’ Julia Roberts in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, all good…if you’re a lady. But if you’re a man, then no. The set of rules should be different, your ideas of what a man should be, should by this stage, be different. One of my favourite writer/philosophers Jean Paul Sartre said it best when we said:

Now I’m not one to be a complete hypocrite, people in glass houses and all, and if there were a few ex-girlfriends who read this they’d go crazy! Even crazier than they did before! (Restraining orders don’t come cheap) So I’m not preaching complete virtue, and ethical understanding of what a great man should be, that is a whole other piece on it’s own, I am merely highlighting the need for young lads to understand what masculinity is, what a man is, and understand it’s not those soppy sparkly vampires we see on TV, or the irritating androgynous types who are as much feminine as masculine.

A man is whom he aspires to be, what he aspires to be, and it is in that aspiration that he finds purpose and self worth.

And that man would never ever feel powerless enough to commit a crime of power. (read: rape), And there you have it.

Ok piece out bitches (see what I did there)

Much love

Skeato