Man Caves and Lost Boys

Feminism and the failure of fathers

The ‘man cave’ is a symptom of a modern malaise. In fact, a proper understanding of masculinity reveals the term ‘man cave’ to be a contradiction: the male role isn’t to retreat to a cave to watch porn, sports or play with gadgets. That’s for lost boys.

Such activities are a dereliction of male duty. Jane Austen knew this when portraying the failed fathers in her novels: in Pride and Prejudice, for example, Mr. Bennet retreats into the tranquility of his library, the man cave where he is ‘always sure of leisure and tranquility’.

But man is not made for tranquility. When the Huns invaded Greece as the Roman Empire fell, they didn’t torch the libraries: they wanted to encourage effete bookworms unable to defend their boundaries against barbarians.

Although often considered a response to feminism in the MRA and MGTOW spheres, male decadence and emasculation actually caused feminism. What did many famous feminist leaders have in common? Weak fathers: failed protectors and providers. Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem - all resented their fathers for inflicting suffering on their mothers.

As defined by Aquinas, effeminacy is the disordered attachment to pleasure. Bearing this in mind, consider the nature of sexual pleasure, aimed at ensuring reproduction. Men have a higher sex drive than do women. And this disadvantages men but empowers women because, in the sexual bargain, women are more willing to walk away. Sex, then, gives women great leverage.

And this means that when women don’t have much economic or political power, they restrict the supply of sex to ensure its price is high, putting them in strong bargaining position. But men realised that their access to sex was maximised by liberating women: the greater women’s opportunities for education and wealth, the less they relied on trading sex, so the more freely they give it.

Before the sexual revolution, men had to be marriage material to get sex. This motivated them to contribute to society as a proxy for status. ‘Men,’ as Roy Baumeister observes, ‘became useful members of society as a result of their efforts to obtain sex’. Behind every great man is a great woman motivating him because she is herself the prize. ‘It’s a man’s world, but it would be nothing - nothing - without a woman or a girl.’

But if society becomes a sexual free-for-all, men lack their main motivation for contributing to culture. And this has consequences. Throughout human history, men - whose networks tend to be wide but shallow - have created the overwhelming majority of social institutions; women, by contrast, tend - their networks being narrow but deep - to focus on the domestic sphere.

Consequently, women create less wealth for themselves and others, especially because they are less interested in STEM. Yet so motivated are men by sex that they will be willing to sustain the sexual free-for-all even if it involves affirmative action favouring women over men to further female power. Although this damages male employment prospects, it’s worth it: the primary purpose of careers was always signalling status for sex anyway.

Ultimately, however, what derails this male exploitation of female liberation for easier sex is its consequences for marriage and the family. Studies show that whereas new mothers withdraw from their careers, new fathers work harder. Reproduction reveals this reality beneath the fog of fashionable ideology: despite what feminism says to the contrary, women want stable providers for their families.

This is why studies show that, as the husband's job status and income decline, divorce rates rise. It’s the phenomenon known as the marriage gradient. Men need a surplus of resources to secure women, who are themselves precious because they are the limiting factor in reproduction. Throughout nature, competitive males give ‘nuptial gifts’ to choosy females.

Have you ever wondered why there are no male groupies? Now you know. Simply by being female, female fans can command the attention of extremely high-status male celebrities. But since women desire sex less than men, men are unable similarly to leverage sex. So the man who doesn’t pursue his career because cheap sex is available regardless is likely to struggle starting or supporting a family.

If such men are pacified with porn and prostitutes, the broader benefits of integrating men into families are missed. Men give more to society when supporting a family ennobles the dirty and dangerous work they tend - still - to do. Crucially, it also encourages them to assume responsibility for society beyond the family because the father is the intersection between the private and public spheres.

A man’s role is to protect not just his family but the interests of his people. Men’s sense of their ‘in-group', unlike women’s, shows no same-sex preference. Even in a minimal grouping condition (e.g., random pairing for experiments in psychology labs), men are more cooperative than are women. In contrast to women, they also don't depend on any expectation of the other party reciprocating.

The male ‘in-group' thus becomes the entire community because male all-inclusiveness produces a whole community where males collectively feel protective towards women and children. It is also why only males are more cooperative when facing an out-group threat; this never applies to females.

Ancestrally, this would have been the travelling group, later the village. In today's mega-society, it can be any symbolic community. Ironically, ideologies of 'inclusion' are often least inclusive towards men, regarding traditional masculinity as inherently toxic. And this leads to movements such as the Incel and MGTOW ones, separating men from the women and children whose wellbeing, throughout human history, has been men's primary concern.

As Laura Wood has commented profoundly, ‘patriarchy is taken to mean the rule of men when what it really refers to is the rule of fathers.’ This is why a king is called ‘Sire’. Natural law theory holds that men are more assertive and oriented to the public because they are supposed to provide for and protect their families while the mothers nurture them.

The essence of manhood is the potential for fatherhood - just as the essence of womanhood is the potential for motherhood. By striving to separate sexual pleasure from its primary, reproductive purpose, modern culture, mistakenly viewing cads rather than dads as embodying masculinity, has alienated men and women from the family as the font of culture. And the root of this alienation is ultimately spiritual because beyond the king as ‘Sire’ is God as the supreme Father.

References

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-012-9596-y

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.87.4.494

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513809000208

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430205051065

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491201000112