Patriarchy is behind male unhappiness

[Sheeled]

I realise this is hardly a revelation, but wanted to explore one idea that occurred to me watching " Adolescence" "Half Man" & my reading and observation.
It seems to me that a big part of the reason for straight male desperation is the fear of.not being able to attract a woman.
Clearly women and gay men who want and don't have a relationship are also at risk of severe frustration and possible isolation. However many more women and gay men have active, deep caring friendships that nourish their emotional needs, compared to many straight men.
Why? Because of the conditioning of the patriarchy that straight "real" men don't have emotions, and shouldn't provide emotional support to anyone as this is women's stuff.

The reality is, all human beings have emotional needs, hence the rise of the so called male "emotional golddigger".

Would the term "incel" have the emotional resonance it does if men could have close emotional bonds with each other? Don't know. Obviously even then there would be the issue of sexual desire, but again, would.men experience desire at a level that realistically may not be possible to be satiated if they had more loving physical contact with each other?

Lastly, you may know the book "women dont owe you pretty". Time for a male version- men don't owe you strong/stoic/wealthy"?

Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

I think a lot of men when they marry and have children think they are really clever, avoiding all the boring bits of childcare- the school pick ups, the parents evenings/ soft play/ play groups/ birthday parties then, suddenly they realise their children have grown older and they've missed out, but it's too late by then, kids grow up whether you're there or not and they get regretful about spending their time at work. But from what I have seen from my friends and myself is a lot of it was presenteeism, where they could have got home early but chose to have a 3 hour lunch break and then work until 7 for example. So maybe in that sense the Patriarchy is harming them, because of the things said above- it's other men who expect men to do this, and the macho culture surrounding them.

I agree with that. I've been single since being widowed and that description is accurate for me

I sometimes wonder if straight men are secretly angry at their own sexual desires. They didnt ask for these desires, and if they cannot satisfy them, they perhaps get angry at women they fancy that don't fancy them back, and at women they don't fancy because neither group are satisfying the desire. I had a fairly open conversation with a male friend (straight) once who said when he was 15 to 30, he was tormented by his own sexual desires (for age-appropriate women) to the point he would happily have temporarily switched them off. I am not saying in any way this is any excuse for bad male behaviour.

Plato said in one of his plays that becoming older and losing sex drive was a relief, because "I viewed it as escaping from a mad and savage master." This has been echoed by many other writers eg John Grisham, who said that having a strong libido was "like being chained to a madman".

But women can also have intense and powerful libidos and desire. I certainly remember being very extremely horny as a teenager and 20-30s. We don't act on those urges as often because of social disapproval and/or our understanding that it could put us in serious danger. If women can control their lust, so can men control it and learn to live with it. In fact, my H said there were times when he was younger where he couldn't think straight because of his libido, so he'd go and have a quiet wank, which would clear his head.

It's my view that men are raised in patriarchy to think sex is their right and to objectify women as suppliers of their right. This, not their libido, is why so many of them are sexually abusive to women.

I think it is fair to say that most men have no choice but to live with a libido they do not ask for any more than women do. I too have spoken to men about this, one said he took the same approach as the previous posters DH, but needed to go further, and tuned to heavy drinking to take the feelings away. Some part of me thinks it is healthy to acknowledge the painful aspects of sexual frustration, and the fact that they never asked for the feelings in the first place.

Agreed. I don't believe that the female sex drive is any less powerful than the male one, but women have to learn to control it and be discreet about it.

As, for that matter - probably even more so - do gay men, certainly as teenagers.

Yes, that's a great point that gay men could control their lust urges because it was unsafe and not accepted socially that they act on those urges.

It's not the male body that driving all the raping, female objectification, and horrendous brutalising behaviour. It's the culture of male entitlement.

I think a certain percentage of men have been repeatedly selected for these qualities during evolutionary history because they fill and filled an evolutionary niche.

Some people straight or not desperation is because they think they are owned, a job, a partner, sex, friends etc etc, and they are wrong, no one own you anything.
You work to have that and you work to keep it, either in a conventional family, group or in a more modern type.