God’s Perfect Beta

Author A.J. Jacobs has been the subject of lampooning at the Chateau before:

In this Esquire article (with a very disturbing photo at the top), the author recounts his experience trying to set up his drop-dead gorgeous babysitter on a date.  For some inexplicable reason, she can’t seem to find a man on her own, so her host dad decides to help her out by impersonating her on an internet dating site and sifting through the e-suitors until he finds someone acceptable (to her, not to him, though the line is blurred).

Reading about his efforts, I can’t help but think what a milquetoast this guy is, as exemplified by what he imagines his hot nanny would look for in a guy.  It’s a classic case of beta projection.  But I suppose throughout history LJBF’ed betas have served as male cockblocks intercepting the natural desire of girls to hook up with the kinds of men who stomp all over betas.  If I were him, I’d be working the magic on my nanny, not working to get her banged by someone else.

Well, the madam of milquetoasts is back, this time with an article about how he agreed to do everything his wife told him to do for one month, as part of research for a book he was writing. The project itself is cutesy, in that it’ll help push copy, but the lessons he draws from his experience working as his wife’s house eunuch are hilariously delusional.

At 20 days in, I start to think the power is going to Julie’s head. Her requests are coming thick and fast  –  and are no longer softened with a ‘please’ or ‘would you mind?’

She has started snapping at me. I try to ask her something while she is watching MasterChef and she answers me with a wave of the hand, sign language for ‘get out of the room now’.[…]

Later, when I sit down to join her, she says regally: ‘Can you turn up the volume?’ We’re watching Ten Years Younger  –  her choice.

‘You have the remote,’ I say, trying to keep my temper. ‘I know. But I want you to walk to the TV and turn up the volume on the set.’

I’m not supposed to argue with her. I heave myself off my chair. Thank goodness there’s only two days left.

Julie admits that she is in a mood as she knows that the experiment is about to end and in 48 hours she’ll have to go back to doing everything.

Oh, that’s not the reason she’s “in a mood”. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Jacobs, and she won’t have it! Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a domestic deal. That is not the case! The feminists and their boybitches have taken billions of balls out of this country’s scrotum, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, menstrual gravity! It is psychosocial balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of oppressors and oppressed. There are no oppressed. There are no patriarchies. There are no conservatives. There are no liberals. There are no progressives. There is no feminist utopia. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multihelical dominion of DNA. Genes, neurons, glia, electrochemical signaling, enzymes, mitochondria, and spiritless matter. It is the universal system of reproduction which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU… WILL… ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Jacobs? You write feelgood pablum on your little 13 inch laptop and howl about egalitarianism and shared spousal duties. There is no tidily egalitarian world of your fevered mental account balance sheets. There is no 50/50 child rearing responsibility. There is only estrogen, testosterone, eggs, and sperm. Those *are* the governing bodies of the world today. We have never lived in a world of harmonic convergence and ideologies, Mr. Jacobs. The world is an emergent phenomenon of the incessant, eternal quest for sex, Mr. Jacobs. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Jacobs, what few of them are born, to see that… perfect world… in which there’s no lifelong monogamy, guaranteed paternity, or two parent families. One vast and ecumenical hedonism, for whom all men will work to serve a common erection, in which all men will hold a share of dystopia. All pleasures provided, all ejaculations immortalized, all desire sated. And I have chosen you, Mr. Jacobs, to serve as example to men on what not to do.

To my surprise, I tell her that will not be happening  –  this has definitely made me appreciate how much my wife does around the home.

Before the experiment, I probably thought I was doing 45 per cent of what needed to be done  –  it turned out it was more like 20 per cent.

Now I actually notice when the hand soap dispensers and loo roll are empty  –  and refill them. And it’s made us both realise it’s not always the big gestures that matter.

We now make an effort to be nice to one another and, obvious as it sounds, it makes us both happier.

Marriage is an accumulation of the little gestures. The little gestures are the ones that count  –  like making chicken piccata.

I admit that when I hatched this grand plan, I rather hoped Julie would grow to hate the new doormat husband and miss my insubordinate, slobby and annoying ways.

You, yourself, Mr. Jacobs, noted how your wife was “in a mood” toward the end of the experiment. You may want to reflect a bit on why exactly she entered a mood and began imperiously ordering you around the house as if you were the hired help.

Boy did that backfire. Julie describes our little experiment as ‘the best month of my life’.

How many times a week did she agree to fuck you during this experiment in self-emasculation? Was it more or fewer times than typical? Perhaps you reveal the answer in your article:

Clearly happy at being relieved of her cooking duties, Julie says: ‘If you cook for me every night, we could make love every night.’ ‘But I don’t want to make love every night,’ I protest, somewhat alarmed. [ed: of course you wouldn’t. men generally prefer making nonstop love to attractive women.]

‘I thought all men did?’ she asks ‘All men who are 17,’ I inform her. Which brings up a question. How often should the ideal husband sleep with his wife?

The average married couple has sex just about twice a week, according to several recent surveys (a statistic probably skewed by the randy just-married 22-year-olds).

Is that what the woman wants? Or is it some compromise? It’s not clear. ‘How often is ideal for you?’ I ask. ‘Once a week sounds good.’ She pauses. ‘Don’t write that down.’

I wonder if you could be honest about just how much better or worse was your sex life while you snapped to attention at your wife’s every beck and call? I suspect not.

And my male friends are full of resentment because their wives are forever saying ‘why can’t you be more like AJ?’

The worst advice your male friends could take would be to be more like you.

But the lessons I’ve learned have, without a doubt, improved our marriage.

A one month sociological contrivance which ended with your wife “in a mood” as she harangued you to raise the volume on the TV without using the remote she had in hand is not evidence for marital improvement.

Unfortunately, they have torpedoed my comfy, ignorant existence for ever.

On the contrary, you’ve never been more comfortably ignorant.

Readers may ask, if A.J. Jacobs is the Moloko Plus of betatude, how is it he was able to snag a wife and bear children with her? Simple, reader. He snagged her younger, slightly hotter self when he was insubordinate, slobby, and annoying. And he keeps her because she is unattractive. When your wife has even fewer options on the sexual market than you do, then you can be all the post-modern enlightened feminist bitchboy you want to be without much consequence.

But not zero consequence. Excessive betaness has been known to push even wives well past their expiration dates into a loveless, sexless torpor. I think Mr. Jacobs knows this deep in his soul, which is why he’ll go back in no time to being the slobby, annoying, inconsiderate husband his wife fell in love with. Which is how god intended.