It isn’t every day that you’re introduced to a new subculture. Just last week, I was exposed to an article written by someone named Michael Sonmore, who cheerily explains how grateful he is that his wife convinced him that her sleeping around with whomever she pleases is a great way for him to experience and appreciate feminism.
Honestly, I’m still not convinced that this guy actually exists, or that the story is real. I simply can’t fathom how a father of two young children could be so completely gullible and stupid to conclude that a man must degrade himself in order to respect women. Moreover, what woman would actually want to be with a man so spineless, childish and idiotic in the first place? Obviously not her, which is why she cunningly convinced him to raise their children, while she’s in the back seat of their suburban with the plumber.
While I could go on and on, I’d rather just let you read it yourself. Apparently New York Magazine is so desperate for clicks, they thought this was worthy of publishing. From NY Mag:
As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, Loretta Lynn is on the stereo, and my wife is out on a date with a man named Paulo. It’s her second date this week; her fourth this month so far. If it goes like the others, she’ll come home in the middle of the night, crawl into bed beside me, and tell me all about how she and Paulo had sex. I won’t explode with anger or seethe with resentment. I’ll tell her it’s a hot story and I’m glad she had fun. It’s hot because she’s excited, and I’m glad because I’m a feminist.
Before my wife started sleeping with other men, I certainly considered myself a feminist, but I really only understood it in the abstract. When I quit working to stay at home with the kids, I began to understand it on a whole new level. I am an economically dependent househusband coping with the withering drudgery of child-rearing. Now that I understand the reality of that situation, I don’t blame women for demanding more for themselves than the life of the housewife.
When people ask how it started, I say this: We married young. She’d had sex before me, but only with a handful of people a handful of times. She never had a boyfriend, never had a lover. I was the first man she ever had the chance to get to know intimately. By her mid-30s, having already had our children and entering her sexual prime, she felt keenly her lack of sexual experience. Happily for me, she was willing to talk about it, willing to ask if I’d be open to exploring other options. We opened a bottle of wine and started talking, and talking, and talking.
She didn’t present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions: Monogamy meant I controlled her sexual expression, and, not to get all women’s-studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man’s fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can’t control. We aren’t afraid of their intellect or their spirit or their ability to bear children. We are afraid that when it comes time for sex, they won’t choose us. This petty fear has led us as a culture to place judgments on the entire spectrum of female sexual expression: If a woman likes sex, she’s a whore and a slut; if she only likes sex with her husband or boyfriend, she’s boring and lame; if she doesn’t like sex at all, she’s frigid and unfeeling. Every option is a trap.
When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist.
How does it work? We take turns going out. Because we have small children (ages 6 and 3), one of us stays home. (We don’t like to use babysitters because it gives us a curfew; we’d rather go out unfettered than worry about turning into a pumpkin at midnight.) Going out alone to hooking up with others was an easy transition. It does work both ways and, yes, I too enjoy sexual carte blanche. I just don’t use mine as much as my wife uses hers. What’s important is equality of opportunity, not outcome.
What surprises most people is when I tell them it’s not the sex-with-other-men that bothers me. The sex is the easy part, the fun part. It’s what the sex connects to, stands for, reveals that can be difficult. I don’t want her to fall in love with anyone else, and every time she goes on a date, I confront the possibility that she might. It happened at the beginning: The first person she dated after we opened up fell hard in love with her, and my wife, overwhelmed by his ardor, tried to love him back. Watching it happen, I was confused, angry, and terrified that she wanted to leave me. She assured me she didn’t, and whatever feelings she had for him didn’t lessen what she felt for me. Believing her then was the ultimate trust exercise. We survived because eventually I did believe her, and also because I learned to trust myself.
Don’t worry Michael, she’ll leave you eventually. She already has in a lot of ways. As soon as you wear out your usefulness changing diapers and driving the kids to soccer practice, her and Paulo #15 will walk right down the aisle, and it’s unlikely he’ll agree to the same sort or arrangement you did. It’s also likely she’ll respect and love him more for it.
Now for the concluding paragraph…
This has been the great challenge of my open marriage: to draw strength from vulnerability. Doing so requires supreme self-confidence. You must first really, truly love yourself; it is the foundation upon which all the other love is built. From everywhere comes the message that what I’m doing is for weaklings, losers, failures, pussies; that if I had money and status, I could keep my wife “in line”; that her self-discovery comes at the expense of my self-esteem. My open marriage has made heavy demands on my ability to silence the voice of doubt in my head, that gnawing feeling of worthlessness. But I find I can meet those demands, and that I am able to build my self-confidence out of nothing more than the basic dignity we all possess. I’m grateful to my wife for pushing us to take this leap, and whatever happens to us in the future I would do it all again. And when she comes home tonight and crawls into bed beside me with a hot story about her date with Paulo, she’ll do it all again, too.
Let me be clear. I have no issue with people living their lives however they please, which includes any sort of sexual relationships they desire. What I have an issue with is couching this as somehow equalling feminism. Feminism is to respect women, to love them, to honor them and treat them the same way you would anyone else. It doesn’t mean coming up with a politically correct sounding term for cuckold.
When I originally saw this article last week, I merely thought it strange and totally dismissed it. The only reason I decided to write about it, was because this morning I came across another neuron destroying piece written by another so-called “male feminist.” This made me wonder, is this a meme I need to be aware of? Why is this nonsense being pushed so hard right now? It’s rare to read something that makes Keeping up with the Kardashians seem like a intellectual tour de force, but this does the job.
Here are some excerpts from Slate’s, I’m a Feminist. I’m a Dude. And I Hate that I Love to Grill:
I hate how much I love to grill. It’s not that I’m inclined to vegetarianism or that I otherwise object to the practice itself. But I’m uncomfortable with the pleasure I take in something so conventionally masculine. Looming over the coals, tongs in hand, I feel estranged from myself, recast in the role of suburban dad. At such moments, I get the sense that I’ve fallen into a societal trap, one that reaffirms gender roles I’ve spent years trying to undo. The whole business feels retrograde, a relic of some earlier, less inclusive era.
Fear not young Jacob, there is still hope for you. Follow Michael Sonmore’s example and you can recast yourself as a suburban cuckold, and in the process, gain insurmountable clout in male feminist circles.
Paging through photographs of my years in grad school recently, I came across one in which two colleagues and I stand in a semicircle around a kettle grill. Though my eyes are downcast in the image, I’m not sad. Instead, I’m studying the burgers in front of me, and I’m happy. Our friend Katrina—the only woman in frame—leans in from the left, somehow outside of the scene, despite her presence in it.
This picture captures so much of what delights me about grilling and so much of what embarrasses me about that delight. On the one hand, there’s the peculiar alchemy of sun and smoke that makes summer days sprawl. On the other hand, it bears the stain of unintentional masculine cliché. Gathered around the coals with beers slung low, we’re all but enacting a myth of the American man, telling a story in postures and poses. No longer mere Ph.D. students, we have become bros.
This article has to be a joke, right?
Men, this commercial suggests, come together as men when they do a manly thing. Their grills become symbolic meeting points. They enable what scholars call homosocial contact, a kind of same-sex intimacy that deflects the supposed dangers of sexual contact between men but allows them to confirm their masculinity by excluding women. Grilling, in other words, allows these characters to cozy up to one another while still maintaining their understanding of themselves as truly manly men.
The association of grilling and masculinity partakes of a similar logic. Unlike most other traditionally “feminine” forms of domestic cooking, grilling typically happens outside, and hence in the public sphere. The putatively masculine quality of grilling may derive in part from the old public-private gender split. In that sense, it shares a common cause with the belief that women belong in the home.
Of course, having all this context doesn’t stop me from grilling, or from enjoying myself when I do. The other night, a few friends and I gathered out back to cook some sausages. We stood around the grill together, watching the meat cook. I was happy in their company and only a little embarrassed that I wouldn’t let anyone else take the tongs.
In order to maintain some degree of faith in humanity, I remain unconvinced that these articles are genuine. I still harbor some hope that they are the work of some troll mastermind, in which case a distribution of trophies is in order for the sheer genius of it all. However, if these are real, and I shudder to think, be prepared for more. Someone has unleashed the “male feminist” meme, and the dumbing down of the American public seemingly has a long way to go.
Then again, I guess you learn something every day in this brave new world. In the past week alone, I’ve learned that grilling and monogamy are sexist. Who knew.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Since George Carlin and Richard Pryor are RIP and Jeff Foxworthy is otherwise engaged, in comedy and taking care of his wife like a real man, I guess it’s left up to me to comment. In the great words of Tim Price, Slope of Hope, this moron is a feckless wonder, a narcissistic navel gazing douchenozzle, a dickless phenomenon of the first order. If his wife hasn’t saddled up the new stallion, leaving Mr Dickless with kiddies, she’s cut a few ponies from the herd.
This sort of thing might be rare, or not, but it speaks to the metrosexual nature of the confusilennials carrying the XY chromosome. The author of this piece should go out and buy Mrs Moron, the real man of the family, a Black and Decker weedwacker and have her perfom some minor surgery to remove that remnant of skin flapping between his legs and allow him to go FULL RETARD Caitlin.
Not that he’ll every win an Olympic medal unless the committee comes up with a new sport such Eunuch Racing or the Castration Biathalon, but at least she’ll do the world a disservice and put out to pasture a critter as deadly to the man-o-sphere (The Global Masculine Collective) as anything I can imagine.
At least Mr Moron will have some company, like Boy George, Pee Wee Herman and Woody Allen. Er, Ah, maybe not Woody. At least he had the stones to go after his wife’s daughter, and that is a whole nuther story.
It is a pity https://prev.intrade.com/v4/home/ is not in service any more. I think a good set of predictions would be:
A) The Wife of Micheal Sonmore will marry a second man on or before 00:00:00+00:00 January 1, 2016.
B) The Wife of Micheal Sonmore will marry a second man on or before 00:00:00+00:00 August 1, 2016.
C) The Wife of Micheal Sonmore will marry a second man some time ffter 23:59:590+00:00 December 31, 2016.
D) The marriage of the Wife of Micheal Sonmore will to a second man will be preceded by a divorce of the Wife from Micheal Sonmore.
Marriage defined as any act, civil or religious, between two parties for which the IRS recognizes the act as acceptable to *qualify* for filing taxes jointly.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewrice/the-fall-of-intrade-and-the-business-of-betting-on-real-life#.pvNxgmOGa
These signs come from the losers and just prove how few real men there really are in this back-awards country.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the United states’ process of moral degradation is one of the most abhorrent, disgusting, and atrocious examples of what humanity is, unfortunately, capable of.
The American people should cease to exist as an entity. I hope that day comes soon.
Michael, the cuckold piece was fake and has elicited the exact responses they wanted: outrage at how this man can put up with a woman like this and not have respect for himself, yet at the same time when a man does it to a woman he’s just doing what men do and the woman should “stand by her man for the kids” etc. The piece is very clever and you’ve half fallen down the hole they wanted, highlighting automatic sexist reflexes. These comments prove the same.
Have a rethink my man, because I love your work
A couple of things here.
First: I didn’t fall for anything. If it is fake, I mentioned I thought it had to be fake on numerous occasions.
Second: I NEVER said that a husband cheating on his wife is acceptable or decent behavior. You are putting words into my mouth. Nor did I see any commenter do that. I don’t believe in double standards, and if you read my blog you would understand that. What I objected to, was this ridiculous notion that polyamory = feminism. That is clearly what the author implies, and it is utter stupidity and lacks all logic.
Third: There’s nothing to rethink. The entire point of the piece was calling out as bullshit the notion that a guy being convinced over an “ocean of red wine” to become comfortable with his wife’s rejection and desire to sleep around, somehow equals feminism. Sure, it’s a sexual choice and I respect that, but it has nothing to do with feminism, he’s just trying to couch a lifestyle choice as a grand gesture, which it’s not.
Recall, from the article:
She knew how deep our love was, and knew that her wanting a variety of sexual experiences as we traveled through life together would not diminish or disrupt that love. It took me about six months — many long, intense conversations, and an ocean of red wine — before I knew it, too.
This woman (if she exists) should go into politics.
Michael, I wasn’t calling you sexist or gullible, my apologies if it came across that way. I was saying there might be and probably is a sub-text going on with these male feminism pieces. A lot of the comments on the quoted piece and above have been along the lines of “there’s no real men anymore”, guys need to “man up” etc, and that is what this movement is really about; binary and subconscious ideas about gender.
The piece itself certainly paints the picture of a weak individual making excuses for himself, which has nothing to do with sexism, like you say, so I misunderstood your conclusion.
If the story was the other way round though I do think the wider public reactions would be different.
Thanks for clearing up your position.
That said, you shouldn’t conflate my thought out critique of this NY Mag piece as bullshit, with sexist comments it may have elicited on other sites. Just because an article elicits some stupid commentary, doesn’t mean the piece isn’t complete nonsense.
More importantly, I completely disagree with your conclusion that had the story been the other way around, the public reactions would have been different. If NY Magazine published an article composed by a woman who claimed that after six months of conversation, and copious amounts of alcohol, she finally accepted her husband sleeping around, and that it ultimately represented her embracing “male empowerment,” the public outrage would likely be hundreds of times more extreme than what we have seen from this piece. In fact, it would probably be on the nightly news and NY Mag would have to issue a public apology. So no, I don’t agree with you.
Remember, this isn’t an article in which a husband and wife happily agree to an “open marriage.” It’s an article about a weak and stupid man who is convinced by his wife after massive quantities of alcohol to accept her sleeping around as a feminist statement. This logic is so flawed and moronic, to actually be dangerous.
I agree, by conflating your thought out piece with sexist comments I jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t yours. Excuse my poor comment etiquette. It’s a subject close to me so I jumped to it.
The public response to your example would be absolute outrage, certainly, because her own weak and pathetic justification would be laid bare, just like this guy’s, and asking women to adhere to any kind of male empowerment movement would be ridiculous and unbelievably sexist (which is your point).
Instead I submit that women suffer in asymmetric relationships all the time where they make excuses for themselves, and, crucially are just told that men are men and they need to “be good wives” or not to break up the family. Or even worse that they should stick around because the husband’s rich. Whereas a man in this situation is told to man up. And that’s the response this piece has gotten. If it’s a click and/or troll bait piece (given the state of the media advertising model it likely is and I’m completely wrong about it being clever) then bravo to the writer, like you say
Found the Cuckold!
The “male feminist”… kind of reminds me of the Dave Chappelle skit about the blind black man being a white supremacist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u__W0Qa8v0k
At least I know that was a joke. Real life is putting comedians and The Onion out of business.
Hope “Paulo” gives her a dose of the clap.
Another opportunity for hubby to share.
Funny thing about this article, Christopher. I have known a few men like this. Maybe the gruesome details were lacking but the couples I knew were just about this far gone.
I am certain that the article is fake. The elites use mainstream media to introduce and repeat radical ideas to undermine a society’s long-held values, in order to throw the society off balance and create stress. For example, the women’s lib movement, while pushing for much-needed changes, also pushed the notion that a woman shouldn’t feel that she has to be home all day with the kids and deny her own fulfillment. It sold the idea of “supermom”. She could do well at work and be a great mom. Now, those who remain full-time moms almost apologetically call themselves “just a stay-at-home mom” (“What do you do?” “I don’t work. I’m just a stay-at-home mom.”). So, kids get less supervision and attention at home and feel less secure, the stressed mom rushes home to get dinner going and get some housework done, the father comes home and wants to relax but can’t because he has to help out, and on and on. Both parents are too busy and stressed to devote time to their children and each other, and have less time for interaction with friends and neighbors. Social bonds break down, often the parents divorce, and children suffer.
Marital trust has always meant each spouse being faithful to the other and each having self-confidence and self-esteem to keep unwarranted suspicion of the other’s infidelity from entering one’s mind; two critical elements of a solid, happy marriage. This article seeks to turn that upside-down; the woman should feel like her husband is controlling her if he expects fidelity. And if he won’t change his attitude about it, well, that’s his problem and she should just go ahead and have her flings. It’s another way to break down the family unit.
When individuals learn they cannot count on family for security and support, they will seek it from institutions that give them a sense of belonging. And various institutions of control, like the military for one, will be there for them.
I honestly think the piece was written by a well paid anti-feminist prankster, to make feminists (men and women) look bad. It also feels like it was a test for reactions, to see if the article will gain traction and influence pop culture in general (not that I can prove it). Are the masses so stupid that they can be led to equate male feminist to spineless cuckold? Well, the masses were convinced about Iraq possessing WMDs (lack of evidence notwithstanding) among other things. There are also plenty of other ridiculous things the masses were conditioned to accept, but I think anyone who is reading this blog already knows that.
I was in an “open” relationship once, long ago. It was a terrible experience. And they do spout that sort of nonsense. Shoot, I bet I could hop on Facebook, find the people I dated, and get them to write an essay on the subject, and they would sound a LOT like this moron. If you doubt this stuff exists, go to Amazon and type “open relationships” into the search bar. You will see half a dozen books on the subject. “The Ethical Slut” was the one I read, and it was full of such drivel.
My experience taught me that jealousy is a natural and very important part of a relationship. (Of course, there is such a thing as abusive jealousy, but that’s not what I am speaking of.) We were made to be exclusive partners with one person of the opposite sex, and to love and support them as best we can, and to insist upon mutual fidelity.
Thankfully I am now in a happy marriage, and I have been for nearly ten years. My husband and I are devoted to one another, and the idea of either of us cheating is laughable. When I recently experienced an illness that left me wondering whether I could ever work again (and left me barely able to even do light housework) he said, “Don’t worry. I will always be there for you.”
I would never have heard that from the “Ethical Sluts.”