The Medicalization Of Maleness

Reading the funny articles about Tiger Woods’ romp through a battalion of trashy, deluded babes who thought they would be the next Mrs. Woods, I noticed a theme emerge.

David Smallwood, who has treated a host of celebrities at north London’s Priory clinic, said: “He displays a number of the pointers such as seeking highs from outdoor sex and having many mistresses.

“I would implore him to get help. But I see him as ill, not bad.”

***

“People who have affairs typically do so because something is lacking,” says psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser. “You can be the world’s best golfer, role model and endorsement spokesman and still not feel good inside.”

When that happens, she says, a man tends to “fill that hole with women as a distraction and an escape.”

The opinion of the experts and sexperts is in: If you are a man who is able to satisfy his natural sexual inclination for a variety of women, you have a problem. A big problem, my friend, and you should seek therapy right away to cure yourself of your affliction.

As a valiant avatar of the ugly truths, I’m here to tell the collected wisdom of the armies of psychotherapists swinging their degrees like battle axes: Tiger Woods does not have a problem. What he has is a male sex drive, and a willingness to fulfull it. In so doing, he makes you confront your worst fears about the base instincts of humanity unleashed in glorious wanton hedonism. You shirk not because of what Tiger does, but because you tremble before your fear of what most men would do given the opportunities available to a man with Woods’ high social and material status.

Tiger Woods may not be a model citizen, but neither does he have an emotional or psychological problem. He’s just a man with a strong sex drive who got bored with the same old pussy day in and day out and decided to spice it up with a willing brigade of slutty concubines all too ready to dismiss their own feelings of complicity in the sordid arrangements that will now cost Woods hundreds of millions of dollars. If Woods has a problem, it’s that he got married. Big mistake, chief.

How many typical married men would act like Woods if suddenly blessed with his fame and fortune? Imbue 100 Joe Sixpacks with Woods’ high status, and 99 would run roughshod on their marital vows. Over and over. Gleefully. Guiltlessly. Until they got caught.

I would ask the experts in the human condition: Do Woods’ mistresses have a problem that must be addressed by months of therapy? If not, why not? Aren’t they just as happily and guiltlessly following their own biomechanical directive in hypergamously hooking up with a wealthy uber alpha who happens to be married? How many typical housewives would act like Woods’ skank parade if suddenly blessed with Woods’ attention and desire? Impart 100 Jill Saddlebags with Woods’ sexual flirtations, and 99 would run roughshod on their marital vows. Over and over. Guiltlessly. Orgasmically. And even after they got caught, because they know in the event of divorce they are not going to be the ones coming up short.

We live in a culture where today the natural male sex drive is demonized and the natural female sex drive is glorified. It is an interesting shift of the paradigm, and one I suspect is unsustainable for a modern, first world economy that rests on certain implicit assumptions about how its citizens are to comport themselves if the good of the whole is to thrive. (Nevermind my antics; While good for me, I’m not one to bow before the concept of the good of the whole. I’ll just freeride until I wind up in the same place as all those properly behaved subjects of the industrial kingdom.)

The adamantium foundation of core values that buttresses all other values is the sexual market. The constant flux of sexual energy between men and women is the force multiplier that breathes life into cultures, and infuses societies with everything from salsa to skyscrapers. When you fuck with the workings of that origin value you fuck with everything resting on top of it, ten times over. This is why late 20th century feminism has been such a boon for the haters of beauty and a weapon for the bringers of doom. Given the inherent lag effect in any large scale human value shift, I expect the fruit of our current culture of lies to ripen fully within our lifetimes.

As I see it, a culture can grapple with the reality of the sexual market and its consequences in one of four ways:

I. Shame/demonize/medicalize the male sex drive. Condone/laud/glorify the female sex drive.

II. Shame the male sex drive. Shame the female sex drive.

III. Glorify the male sex drive. Shame the female sex drive.

IV. Glorify the male sex drive. Glorify the female sex drive.

2010 America is currently knee deep in paradigm number I. 1950s America, according to our best sources (the ones who lived through it) was operating under cultural condition number II, with nods and winks toward number III. Speaking of number III, this seems to be the arrangement most prevalent in the Arab cultures. Number IV is the historically rarest configuration, and is seen most often in pagan cultures like Scandinavia and underdeveloped tribal nations like the swath across much of subsaharan Africa. Number IV is emergent in either highly anarchic societies or in highly homogenized societies of small, manageable population sizes.

America has chosen number I, which is probably the worst option to choose for a mature economic powerhouse rapidly morphing into a trifurcated multicultural and multiethnic population of immense size. This is the option that will send most men into either withdrawal or violence, and most women into hypergamous overdrive. No modern economy, built as they almost invariably all are on the sweat of men with an eye toward saving and investing in the future, can survive a long bout with a value system resting squarely in number I and constantly propped up by the likes of elite opinion makers and Oprah.

Personally, I live by construct number IV, as it is the value system that most pleases me, and is likeliest to persuade women to shed their inhibitions in my company. A master seducer at the height of his game will be living his life by the precepts of number IV, whether or not he argues for the abolition on a wider scale of the paradigm that so suits him in his personal quests.

My prediction for the future is that number I eventually will yield, softly or cataclysmically, to number II, with a short temporary stint in number IV. Number IV is really the wildcard here. While number I works its magic slowly and insidiously, number IV has the explosive power to radically alter the cultural landscape in a very short period of time, especially in a culture historically insulated from the hedonistic ravages of number IV.

I think it would be funny if our culture were one where male gigolos are forgiven and invited onto talk shows and cheating wives are forced to cough up half their assets and income, lose custody of their children, and be shamed from polite society. Sounds punitive, doesn’t it? Well, that’s what we have today. Just reverse the genders.