A few years ago, I was your typical office-worker: stressed out, uneven energy, overweight, and inconsistent complexion. Now I'm just your typical 28-year old urban hunter-gatherer on a quest to be healthy, and having a few adventures along the way. See my full bio.
When I read the NYT obit of adventurer John Fairfax, as amazing as it was, I knew it had to be a white-washed piece. Remember the motto of the New York Times : "All the news that's fit to print." I'm pretty sure that a bunch of John Fairfax's best stories ain't fit to print. High testosterone people create good material for biographies -- ups and downs, achievement and failure, tragedy and comedy. That's the nature of risk-taking.
Sure enough, here are excerpts from a book on Fairfax: violence, women, gambling, drugs, achievement, perseverance, greatness. Go read the whole thing, it's gripping. Here are a few great parts.
On his first day of rowing across the Atlantic, Fairfax is having second thoughts:
"How had he gotten into this mess? he wondered. As though prodding Britannia [his boat] to answer, he kicked her, but she remained mute. He remained despondent. He was hungry, thirsty, damp, sore, sleepy--and no Sylvia to look after his needs. "How silly, this going to sea without a girl," he muttered, resolving right then and there, only twenty hours from shore, that the next time he rowed an ocean, if there was a next time, he would travel with a woman."
Given the nature of high testosterone people, I have a sneaking suspicion that "hungry, thirsty, damp, sore, and sleepy" weren't his only needs.
Sure enough, a few years later, when he rows across the Pacific, he takes his lover along with him. I wish I could have been there for that conversation -- persuading his girlfriend to get into a tiny rowboat and row across the Pacific. Now that's charisma. I'll bet they had mind-blowing sex out under the Pacific stars, the night after a shark attack.
As for sharks, here's the time that Fairfax lasso'ed a mako shark and got it to pull his rowboat:
"As the great fish swam alongside Britannia, he passed the loop round the snout and past the gills. Before it could pass over the dorsal fin, he tightened the loop with a pull. The shark reacted with a paroxysm of fury, towing Britannia on her fastest ride ever. She skimmed the waves like a torpedo, with John hanging on for dear life. It was hard to believe that even a shark could generate such power.
Then he killed the shark, cut her open -- and finding offspring, killed them all.
It was soon over, the shark spent. Sharks get their oxygen from the flow of water over their gills. Since the gills don't move independently, they achieve this by swimming. A shark prevented from moving freely in the water, as Dusky was, will eventually drown.
Curious about the contents of its stomach, he slit it open and discovered about two dozen tiny sharks in her belly, tiny replicas of their mother. Wriggling about, they appeared in perfectly good health. His last entry in his log that day reads:
...killed them all and dedicated my victory to Venus...Well, it's now sunset, the wind has almost stopped and, yes, my beautiful star, thank you, I shall row all night.
Lesson learned: do not mess with John Fairfax.
I like the journal entry on his birthday:
May 21 121st day
My birthday--thirty-two years that feels like a hundred--and one of the worst days at sea. I ran out of tobacco; had a bit for half a pipe only, which I had kept to celebrate--and it got wet. A tin of raspberries I had kept for today gassed, and I had to throw it away. And just as I was about to have a sip of brandy to celebrate my birthday, an enormous wave, about 15 feet high, hit Britannia squarely broadside and washed me overboard. Lost the bottle and hurt my leg and foot very badly.... Apart from that, a very happy birthday!
Rowed eight hours.
So British.
How does a man like John Fairfax come into the world?
He was, he admits, a horrible kid, an only child spoiled rotten by his mother and nanny. "We had money," he says, "and I got everything I wanted. What I lacked was a father for an authority figure. It made me an opinionated little brat. To this day, I don't like children because they remind me of myself as a kid."
He never learned how to channel his testosterone. It's a good thing Fairfax was crazy enough to row across the ocean, otherwise he probably wouldn't have gotten an obit in the NYT. Remember that for every one John Fairfax, there's a hundred like him who got eaten by sharks, thrown in prison, or killed in a bar room brawl. But the ones that succeed, sure do make life interesting. Go read the whole thing.
"Mark Twain said that quitting smoking is among the easiest things one can do; he did it all the time. I would add vegetarianism to the list of easy things. In high school I became a vegetarian more times than I can now remember, most often as an effort to claim some identity in a world of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly. I wanted a slogan to distinguish my mom's Volvo's bumper, a bake sale cause to fill the self-conscious half hour of school break, an occasion to get closer to the breasts of activist women. (And I continued to think it was wrong to hurt animals.)"
He doesn't make it sound terribly successful. Writing a series of critically-acclaimed, best-selling books is a much more effective way to attract women.
This new PETA ad is hilarious. PETA has long known about the most powerful motivational force in the world, and suggests that men who go vegan not only will get laid, but will become amazing in bed. Have a look.
Drop dead funny. Did you see the dweeby intellectual guy they casted? That's the target audience. DWEEBY DUDE, DON'T FALL FOR IT! You're a smart guy, think with your brain for a second.
The dirty secret of veganism is that some women lose their period (or have an irregular one)
Celibate monks the world over have embraced vegetarianism or diets without red meat
Traditional fertility foods tend to be animal-based
Being a great hunter is an age-old way to get laid (and not just in our species)
As a defense mechanism, some plants sterilize the animals and insects that prey on them
You'd have to be an ideological zealot to believe that a vegan diet will make you better in bed. You'd be better off eating a traditional Masai warrior diet of meat, blood, and milk.
Here's how you score with vegan and vegetarian women:
Go kill a wild animal
Agree that factory farming is wrong, but explain why a healthy food system involves raising, killing, and eating animals in the right way
If you ask why vegetarian women don't eat meat, more than half the time you'll find that they stopped because they found it disgusting. The human sense of disgust is largely innate (though modified by experience) and tends to be triggered by things that are probable vectors of disease, like feces, rotten meat, or festering wounds. In the words of Steven Pinker, disgust is an "intuitive microbiology." As the ones caring for and feeding infants, it makes sense that women would have a more sensitive disgust mechanism. (Something that PETA also understands.) Probe into the early years of a lot of vegetarians, and it was often a moment of disgust that triggered their conversion. Most of their intellectual arguments are just half-baked rationalizations of their existing eating habits.
Trust me, if sex with vegan women were that easy (or that awesome), PETA wouldn't need an ad campaign to tell men about it.
"If Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather were Hugh Hefner, rather than Miles Park Romney, he’d have an easier time winning the Republican nomination and the White House. That’s something for voters to ponder, especially given the marital history of Romney’s chief rival, Newt Gingrich.
Hugh would be a more politically convenient forebear because Miles, unlike Hefner, was a Mormon who practiced polygamy (he had four wives). He fled to Mexico in 1885 after Utah acceded to the federal government’s demands and banned the practice.
Hefner, however, has only married his “bunnies” one at a time. Sure, the playboy lives with up to half a dozen at a time, but mere promiscuity is easier for the public to forgive and isn’t a criminal offense in most states."
Then the columnist talks about who is harmed in society by polygamy and promiscuity.
"Polygamy is understood to often be harmful to women and children: Women, for example, are in many cases treated unequally, and children suffer from distant fathers. But the same is true in promiscuous relationships with several partners. In those cases the women and children are likely to be worse off than in polygamy, as the bond between the mother and father is weaker."
Did you see what just happened? Just like the Canadian Supreme Court justice who recently ruled against polygamy, he neglects to mention that men are also harmed by polygamy: the "lost boys", i.e., low status men who can't find wives and are driven out of polygamist societies. Here's what I wrote previously:
Says Chief Justice Robert Bauman:
“I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm,” Bauman wrote in the decision that was handed down Wednesday morning in Vancouver.
“More specifically, Parliament’s reasoned apprehension of harm arising out of the practice of polygamy. This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage.”
...
I feel compelled to point out a glaring omission in the Chief Justice's statement of who gets harmed: men. According to his own 335-page decision, there's quite a bit of evidence on how polygyny (one male, multiple females) creates "lost boys" who get driven out of polygynous societies because they can't find a wife and thus are a source of social instability. So the Chief Justice really should have said: "This includes harm to women, to children, to men, to society, and to the institution of monogamous marriage."
Isn't it amazing how commentators, even well-informed ones, neglect the fact that many men are also harmed by this arrangement?
Now, let's go back to the Forbes piece, looking at the second half of the quote:
"Polygamy is understood to often be harmful to women and children: Women, for example, are in many cases treated unequally, and children suffer from distant fathers. But the same is true in promiscuous relationships with several partners. In those cases the women and children are likely to be worse off than in polygamy, as the bond between the mother and father is weaker."
Again, in the modern context, the focus is on women and children being harmed. I don't disagree that modern promiscuity harms some women and some children. But are there no men who are also harmed?
Let's continue to use Hugh Hefner as the example of modern promiscuity.
Most of the Playboy Bunnies are perfectly happy using Hef for his wealth, status, and connections. Hef is perfectly happy using them for sex. The high status male and attractive/promiscuous females seem fine with the arrangement (plus, they don't seem to be having many kids). The people who are really harmed by a promiscuous sexual marketplace aren't invited to parties at the Playboy Mansion.
Good Girls
These are relatively chaste women who are undercut by promiscuous women. Think of Good Girls as akin to the subset of women who chafe under polygamy and don't like what it has to offer, but are stuck living there.
Low Status Males
These are guys who don't have a source of status (confidence, money, intelligence, humor, skill, athleticism, health, etc.). Low Status Males are akin to the lost boys in polygamous cultures -- demographically doomed to celibacy, adrift, dead to their own society.
So follow this logic:
Hef monopolizes multiple women
Fewer women in the sexual marketplace
Men on the bottom of the totem pole get bumped, go celibate
More celibate men buy Playboy
Sales of Playboy go up
Hef gets even richer
Hef monopolizes more women
Rinse and repeat. Continue ignoring low status men. Hope the problem goes away.
For the econ majors out there, what is the optimal size of Hugh Hefner's harem to maximize sales of Playboy? Assume that Hef has an infinite supply of time and Viagra.
A new survey reveals that the Japanese national sex drive continues to plummet.
The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had "no interest" in or even "despised" sex. That's almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.
If that's not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.
It's the rise of the "grass-eaters".
Many commentators in the Japanese and international media have laid the problem squarely at the feet of soshokudanshi -- "herbivore men" -- a term coined by pop culture columnist Maki Fukasawa in 2006. It refers to Japanese young men who have rejected their culture's traditional definition of masculinity, and seemingly eschew relationships with the opposite sex as part.
CNN spoke to a MidoriSaida, a 24-year-old Japanese woman who described "herbivore men" as "flaky and weak."
"We like manly men," she said. "We are not interested in those boys -- at all."
Seppuku(切腹, "stomach-cutting") is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, (and likely suffer torture), or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed for other reasons that had brought shame to them. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion.
But this isn't seppuku. Seppuku is an honorable death reserved for warriors. Seppuku is death by disembowelment. What we're witnessing is death by castration, the slow-motion suicide of a nation.
We live in a country that has bought into the cult of self-esteem. Everyone gets a participation trophy, everyone is unique snowflake. This is a terrible way to motivate men. Men thrive in contexts where there is an surfeit of respect, where respect must be earned through accomplishment.
In the run-up to the Super Bowl, ESPN ran an article on Bill Belichik, head coach of the New England Patriots, and how he motivates his players. Does he do it with self-esteem? Not exactly. His film sessions are legendary for cutting players down to size.
The Belistrator is an equal-opportunity humiliator. He doesn't care if you are a young safety or a first-ballot Hall of Famer; if you mess up, he's going to hold you accountable.
And then he's going to degrade you.
Former linebacker Don Davis was a popular and revered figure in New England's locker room. He was a pastor who coordinated Bible study groups for the players and proved to be a tireless worker on the field and in the weight room. He even earned the offseason conditioning award.
"So there's this one play that made Don look really bad," Vrabel recalled. "Bill showed it a few times then said, 'Offseason award winner, my ass. You look like a cow on ice.' Tedy [Bruschi] and I were in the back laughing our butts off.
"Of course, it's only funny until it happens to you."
Belichick's current and former players and coaches say his vicious film critiques have been part of his motivational arsenal for as long as they can remember...
"It was very, very effective," said Brad Seely, the former Patriots and current San Francisco 49ers special teams coach.
Belichick uses humor and humiliation in a social context to keep his players hungry. He denies respect to athletes who have been given respect (and adulation) their entire athletic careers. A lot of players can't deal with the loss of respect.
After Patriots rookies are handed their playbooks, if they are fortunate, a veteran will pull them aside and prep them for the devastating beatdown that each of them invariably will experience.
Most learn to take it; some never can. Those players do not last in the Patriots' organization.
"The idea is to take it personally," Bruschi said. "Bill wants you to do that. You get angry, and you get embarrassed. But then you get to the point where you want to fix it, and fix it badly."
...
Deion Branch said if you are looking for positive feedback to soothe your ego, New England is the wrong place to play. The idea, he said, is to push you to the brink, then reel you back in so "you can prove Bill wrong."
"He never compliments you," linebacker Rob Ninkovich said. "He'll throw you a little something once in a while, but it's never, 'Good job.' It's more like, 'Well, you did a little better with this.'"
This, from the most intellectual coach in football.
How else is Belichick supposed to motivate a guy like Tom Brady, who already has three Super Bowl rings, wealth, social status, and Giselle? By denying him what everyone else gives him: respect.
Past Patriots veterans fondly remember the time Tom Brady uncharacteristically threw a weak, fluttering pass. As they left the stadium, Brady announced, "Bring the popcorn. I'll be the star of tomorrow's show." Sure enough, when the lights were dimmed and the film began rolling, there was Brady in technicolor, tossing a wounded duck up for grabs -- over and over again.
In that instance, the coach let the picture tell the story. Then he clicked on the lights and announced, "I've seen better passes thrown at Foxborough High School."
The Brady lowlights have been frequent and biting through the years. Belichick stresses the need to never leave points on the board and whenever his quarterback does, he's treated to his own personal film festival. The clips include bad reads, interceptions and poorly timed bombs, such as one in 2009, when Brady overthrew Randy Moss as he streaked toward the end zone.
"As you can see," the Belistrator pointed out, "Randy is wide open. The defense let him go. Not that we can hit him, though. Right, Tom?"
Picking on Ihedigbo is one thing; embarrassing the face of the franchise would seem to be another matter entirely.
It isn't.
"The message was always clear," Bruschi said. "No one was off limits. That's why you had to respect it."
I'm not saying this should be an exact model for other situations. The NFL is highly competitive, all male, high testosterone, and winning requires enormous levels of teamwork from egotistical individuals who regularly change loyalties (teams).
But in a broader social context, if we teach young men that simply being alive is a ticket to self-esteem (and if sex is more or less free), don't be surprised if they aren't motivated to accomplish much.
This installment of miscellaneous thoughts is brought to you by my experiences currently living with three female roommates, having lived with about a dozen different female roommates over the last few years, and having had many of their female friends over to the apartment.
Why do women seem to leave the TV on even when they're not watching it? Is it enjoyable just to have voices talking in the background?
I hate hate hate the manufactured drama of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Or the melodrama of Lifetime. Yet some women are utterly mesmerized by these shows. I mean, I get it. I just don't feel it.
Sometimes I feel like my masculinity is primarily useful to do dirty jobs (unclog drains, deal with trash). This is not very romantic.
I don't like having my masculinity taken for granted. If you need me to lift something heavy, and if you ask nicely and show gratitude, then I will enjoy doing it for you. If you ask like you are entitled to my help, then I will resent doing it for you.
If you are dating me and you want to communicate with me, the easiest way is to touch me first. Scratch my head or run your hand down my back. Touch before talk. (But don't do this only when you have something negative to say.)
We have a whiteboard with chores on it: dishes, trash, etc. When a former roommate (male, military) lived here, I added a column called "Heroic Acts of Bravery in the Face of Danger". He wasn't good at regular chores, but he occasionally did really high value things. One Hero point is worth many times the points for ordinary chores. But they are hard to achieve. The girls started to realize how much we liked these Hero points.
When I recently killed the mouse, one of my female roommates gave me a Hero point. She was really sweet and genuine and grateful about it. It was nice. Ladies, you should make your man feel like a hero, and find ways to respect him even for little things. He will love you for it.
Women often seem to preface stories (or tell stories?) by describing all the people involved and how they all relate to one another. But it takes five minutes to get to the point. Is there are point? Why are you telling me this? Are you asking me to weigh in on something? Are you asking my advice? If there is a functional objective to what you are saying, I need to know so that I can listen for relevant facts. Or are you just talking to me and want me to nod along?
I can become friends with a random guy in about 45 seconds. It's easy. I find it harder to become friends with women, and it's never in the same kind of way. Unless she's in her 40s or older. Then it's easier to be friends.
I met a female astronaut last week. She was awesome. Very action-oriented and direct. We got along pretty fast.
A visiting female once bragged about cheating on her boyfriends. She saw this as a form of sexual empowerment. The rest of us (including female roommates) found this disturbing.
I become fiercely loyal to women who seem to understand men. One roommate said that her father told her always to give guys a chance. That was very sweet. I feel bad for guys who get shot down all the time.
Go see The Descendants. After initially disliking the teenage girl in it, I fell head over heels for her. Not because she was young and attractive, which she is, but because she was loyal to her father when her mother had wronged him. She was astonishingly mature for her age (and looks). It's a good movie.
Hypothesis: The most powerful motivational force in the world is the male sex drive.
Individually, females control access to sex, and thus, decide which male behaviors to reward with sex.
Collectively, societies where females reward productive males with sex are societies that will be more productive, all else equal. Societies where females reward unproductive males with sex are societies that will be less productive, all else equal. More productive societies grow faster than less productive societies.
Conclusion: Female sexuality controls the direction of societies.
Putin goes out of his way to be photographed while engaged in various masculine endeavors: bare-chested horseback riding, judo competitions, recovering ancient underwater urns, racing Formula One cars, riding motorcycles, flying jets, hunting dangerous animals, saving dangerous animals, and more. He makes James Bond look like a nancy boy. (See here, here, and here.)
And to many Westerners, he seems ridiculously over the top. But that's partly because we've been trained to look down on displays of masculinity, and partly because we don't understand the Russian context of Putin's displays of masculinity.
As a result, Westerners completely misunderstand Vladimir Putin.
Here's why.
As with any performance, you have to know your audience. Putin's homage to masculinity isn't targeted at Westerners or Russian oligarchs. These special-ops photo-ops aren't displays of Putin's actual political power. Most of Putin's power is invisible, and he wields it behind the scenes. He doesn't show the public how he rigs elections, he just rigs them -- and people learn the results. He doesn't show the public how he threatens oligarchs with jail, he just threatens them privately -- and if one steps out of line, he jails him publicly. He exercises most of his real power behind the scenes, but gives enough public examples to maintain his reputation. And his reputation is enough to keep everyone else in line.
Putin's displays of masculinity are targeted to ordinary Russians.
They are intended to boost his popularity. And they work (or they did for a long time). Why?
Ladies, if violent crime shot through the roof this year, trust me -- big rugged men with lantern jaws would start to look surprisingly sexy, soft, and marriageable (even more than they already do). Russia is a dangerous society, with dropping life expectancies, high levels of drunkenness and violence, and weak rule of law. Therefore, the baseline sexual desire for masculine men is higher.
Unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin is a big hit among Russian women -- and attractive ones too. For example, Putin's Army (SFW) is an amorphous group of attractive Russian women who claim they will do anything for their beloved Prime Minister, including wash cars in bikinis.
Second, Putin's displays of masculinity are disciplined.
I can't emphasize this point enough. Mastery of judo requires years of practice. Flying a fighter jet requires responsibility and training. Proper hunting and fishing requires more intelligence and patience than most sheltered urbanites think. All of these endeavors require control. He's not doing dare-devil stunts, brawling on the street, or playing the most foolishly risky game of all: Russian Roulette. He's taking calculated risks.
Vladimir Putin is providing an example to Russian men on how to harness their testosterone, which currently is being wasted on gambling, alcohol, suicide, and violence. Undisciplined testosterone is an incredibly destructive force. Disciplined testosterone is an incredibly productive force.
Russia has a lot of natural resources -- think of Russian men like an untapped energy source, like the gulf stream, the sun, or ocean currents. Men, like women, are a natural resource, and Russia is wasting it's men. Putin knows this. He knows that testosterone is an incredibly powerful force when channeled in the appropriate direction with discipline and control and incentives. Putin is trying to show men how to control it.
Vladimir Putin is Russia's strong father figure.
And when you view it in that light, you start to see that many of Vladimir Putin's displays aren't about masculinity unleashed -- which is how most Westerners view them -- but about disciplined masculinity, about testosterone well-channeled toward productive ends.
Don't forget this important, but often-overlooked fact: Vladimir Putin is sober. He doesn't drink alcohol. The leader of Russia, one of the heaviest drinking countries on earth, is a teetotaler. Now isn't that a quaint, moralistic notion. And Putin's sobriety stands in stark contrast to the public drunkenness of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
Furthermore, in the midst of Putin's hyper-masculine photography, we somehow miss the fact that he nurtures wild animals (#25), protects national treasures (#7), and plays the piano (#23). He wraps these activities in masculinity, which we associate with silly recklessness, but the activities themselves are about nurturing, civilized behavior. (Even if he's a thug behind the scenes to maintain a semblance of order.)
There are two ways to harness the powerful force that is testosterone: external control (the rule of law, culture, access to sex) or individual control (self-discipline, personal values). Russia has no external controls on behavior: the rule of law hardly exists, and culture and religion were destroyed by communism. And sex, like in the United States, is probably pretty easy to get. That leaves self-discipline. And what does alcohol do? That's right, alcohol loosens inhibitions. Alcohol destroys self-discipline.
Here is a recipe for disaster.
Testosterone (risk) + Alcohol (no self-discipline) + No Rule of Law, Culture, Religion, or Limits to sexual access (no social discipline) = Wasted National Resource
Putin knows that if Russia can't channel men in socially- or individually-productive directions, Russia is doomed. Needless to say, countries are also doomed when their women stop wanting to have babies. (Goodbye, Europe!)
So the next time you see Vladimir Putin doing something manly with his shirt off, move past the macho. Look for the control, the mastery, the discipline that he will inevitably be displaying. And realize that Vladimir Putin is being a positive role model -- yes, a positive role model -- for Russian men who otherwise lack external controls or incentives to channel testosterone in productive directions. It sounds crazy to say so, but like a good father, he is trying to inculcate in his Russian sons a culture of self-discipline.
Whether it will work -- or whether it will be subverted by more powerful forces -- is another question entirely.
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(Tip to men: If you ever meet a young and attractive Russian woman, up the alpha to comical levels. You'll be amazed by the results.)
One of my goals for 2012 was to learn how to ride a motorcycle. A good buddy (and an experienced biker) emailed me some good advice.
Anon: It's a ton of fun, but it definitely requires a certain personality. Just remember, there are two kinds of riders: those who've fallen, and those who will.
JLD: What type of personality does it require?
Anon: First, you have to really love riding a motorcycle. You can't do it because of a perception that doing it is cool, or makes you cool, or whatever. I say this not because I think this is your motive, I have no idea what your motive is, but because I had a friend who I always thought rode for the wrong reasons. He wound up dying in a motorcycle accident, leaving a wife and kid.
Second, you have to be the type who will have an accident, and just get up, brush your self off, and get back on the bike. Obviously the first reason is really important. I've known a lot of people who have one accident and never ride again. All the guys I know who've been riding for decades have had at least some accidents, and just shrug and get back on.
So if you're inclined to think you're not the Second type, you can probably save yourself the suffering. If you think you might be the Second type, then it's worth a try, which is, of course, the only way you'll find out if you're the First type.
And there's nothing wrong with trying a motorcycle because you think it looks cool, or whatever, and then discovering that you love it. I know guys like that also, and they've been riding for decades.
Motive is really important, because like a lot of things, you can't be good at it if you don't love it. And successful (safe) motorcycle riding requires a great deal of care and attention. You're unlikely to give it the care that it demands if you're just riding because of what you think it will say to other people. Which is the reason I thought my deceased friend was riding... He rode to impress his father who loved to ride, and to impress people who were saw him riding, IMHO.
"Survivors from the Costa Concordia spoke angrily yesterday of the nightmare evacuation from the stricken ship as women and children were left behind. In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats. Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out.
In heart-rending footage, recorded on mobile phones, British children could be heard shouting ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ in the melee. As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’"
Compare with what happened on the Titanic during that evil era of Victorian patriarchy. From an analysis of Titantic casualties (my highlighting):
"First of all, if you were a man, you were outta luck. The overall survival rate for men was 20%. For women, it was 74%, and for children, 52%. Yes, it was indeed “women and children first.”
But what about class? Well, third class women were 41% more likely to survive than first class men. And third class men were twice as likely to survive as second class men."
Those rich white Victorian men were so sexist that they actually believed a woman's life was worth more than a man's life. What fools.
Athol Kay is on a roll over at Married Man Sex Life. If you are interested in how to create a healthy and happy sex-filled marriage, then his blog is a must read.
Here are a few excerpts from Male Captains Are a Sexual Turn On describing what he calls the Captain and First Officer model of marriage, where the wife willingly creates and allows opportunities for her husband to be dominant.
(Note: the political examples of alpha dominance displays that I've linked to are between two competing men in extreme high stakes situations, not a man and a woman in a loving and lifelong marriage. The dominance Athol is referring to could be as simple as choosing a restaurant without a long drawn-out process or showing a little more assertiveness in the bedroom.)
First, the obligatory flashing neon sign warning label in bold highlighted extra large font underlined and italicized:
"So just to say it one more time, (!!!!) there is absolutely nothing immoral, or inappropriate to having a 50/50 marriage or a female-led relationship. It doesn't affect my happiness how you run your marriage. If it works for you, please continue it. Seriously... I. Don't. Care. What. Works. For. You."
But here's why the Captain and First Officer model works for a lot of people:
"Female nurses fall in love with male doctors far more often they fall in love with male nurses aides. Female teachers fall in love with male principals far more than they fall in love with male janitors. Female managers fall in love with male directors far more often than they fall in love with a male working the retail counter."
"For most women, there is a natural dynamic creating attraction that starts kicking in when a man is in a position of social dominance over her. The primary purpose of the Captain and First Officer model is to seek to use that natural dynamic, to advantage the eroticism of the marriage."
What happens when this dynamic changes? (My highlighting.)
"It is very common that wives that end up dominating their husbands, find their attraction for him diminishing over time. I get zero email from husbands who are leading their relationship saying they have a sexless relationship. I get an avalanche of email from husbands who have dominant wives saying they have a sexless relationship. It's really that simple."
"More frequently than not, women are appalled at the realization their sexuality actually works this way. You would think that the $74 trillion dollar romance novel market featuring dominant male leads would have tipped them off."
Not exactly a PC conclusion, but there you have it. Before leaving angry comments, please see the preface to this post. It's a free country, go live your life as you see fit...and feel free to blog about it.
Be sure to check out Athol's prior posts that go into more details of the Captain and First Officer model: consciously choosing it, crisis situations, and making the bigger decisions. It's not what most women (or men) think it is at first blush: a caveman clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her back to his cave. It's compatible with the modern world, and the moral and political equality of the sexes.
Every few months, I read an article that calls on modern men to "man up". See here and here for recent examples. See here on the meaning(s) of the phrase.
Let me pose a question: What would it mean to "woman up"? Is there such a thing? If not, why not? If so, what would it entail?
As the old saying goes: "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." But what happens if you switch planets?
Below is a report of a Dutch transsexual undergoing female-to-male hormone therapy. He was taking testosterone for three months in order to stimulate physical changes -- but he was shocked by how much it changed his mind too. Here's what he said about starting to think like a man:
"I have problems expressing myself, I stumble over my words. Your use of language becomes less broad, more direct and concise. Your use of words changes, you become more concrete. I graduated with a 10 for Dutch. It is subconsciously different. It is a much more spatial, a more visual language. I can make comparisons more easily. I think less; I act faster, without thinking.
I can’t make fine hand movements any more; I let things fall out of my hands.
The visual is so strong… when walking in the streets I absorb the things around me. I am an artist, but this is so strong. It gives a euphoric feeling. I do miss, however, the overall picture. Now I have to do one thing at a time; I used to be able to do different things simultaneously. """
It's just one anecdote, but pretty amazing nonetheless. Language abilities became less expressive and broad, but more concrete, direct, concise, and spacial. Visual sensation up. Thinking less, acting more. Improved ability to focus on one task, but decreased ability to multi-task.
These reports should be mandatory reading for any couples about to married. Reading about these experiences are not so different than, say, reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. That book put white readers in the shoes of a slave, and was a seminal work in the abolitionist movement. These reports help men understand the female mind, and help women understand the male mind. And that understanding should hopefully breed more compassion between the sexes -- in both directions.
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Source: Stephanie van Goozen, Male and Female: Effects of Sex Hormones on Aggression, Cognition, and Sexual Motivation (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1994), pg. 173.
In the run-up to the Super Bowl, ESPN ran 
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