Reader asks: “Can’t men just control themselves?”

Andrea writes:

On the subject of women’s dress [see “A theory of Viagra” and “John Howard defeated by female opponent with great legs”], I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that bad dressing is disrespectful—disrespectful all around—and distracting and degrading.

But while women are now largely ignorant of the virtue of modesty, many people seem to have forgotten the virtue of continence in men. Is it true that the only third option (after 1. grabbing a woman and, 2. ogling a woman) is an emasculating repression? What if we were to say instead that these men are exhibiting self-control and mastering their animal passions in highly civilized fashion, is that still emasculating?

I just worry that we succumb to the sexualizing of everything when we think that men should always, rightly, have a sexual response to a sexually provocative situation or they are not masculine. That seems to be an enslavement to the passions that is more pagan or Islamic. What if a man is disgusted or is scornful of a sexually revealing woman, would that be unmasculine?

It’s an important subject. Thank you.

LA replies:

Continence is not the issue, because, obviously, in the situations being described, no one is doing anything and there is no question of anyone doing anything. For example, the men in the TV talk and news shows I described are obviously behaving in a professional, socially appropriate way.

So the question of whether men are controlling themselves is besides the point. The question of whether the man is not at all bothered by the female exposure (and I indicated earlier, men appear to be completely cool with it) is besides the point.

The point is that the situation I’ve described, regardless of the inner state of the man and no matter how much he is “exhibiting self-control and mastering his animal passions in highly civilized fashion,” is inherently emasculating, for the reasons I gave. He may not feel emasculated, but he is objectively emasculated. His male dignity, authority, and sexuality are being put down by the flagrant display of female flesh in front of him which he is not supposed to notice. The woman is exerting her sexual power in a manner that in a normal society would be done in a social or private setting where the man could respond in kind. But here she is asserting her sexual power completely inappropriately in a professional, non-sexual setting where the man must be non-sexual. She is thus asserting her sexual power over him and emasculating him.

Both sexes are damaged by this. The woman’s nature is distorted by her power grab and her expression of total lack of respect for the man, and the man’s nature is distorted by his taking the rule of eunuch.

Also, it’s not just a matter of two people. The game is being played by uneven rules that are putting down men as men and damaging both sexes.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2008 10:04 PM | Send