How to Not Suck at Being a Man

Say you were starting a sentient species from scratch–like, say in a videogame–and you wanted to set one gender of the species up to be practically destined to be a sexual predator (like your own fucked up version of The Sims).

I don’t know why you’d want to do this.  Maybe you’re trying to prove some stupid social point.  Maybe you’re just an asshole that likes to watch CGI thigh touching.

But the question is this: how would you create the sex predator?  Some parts are obvious.

1. Set the sex drive levels to a 100–to the point where the predator is more or less mentally dry humping for massive chunks of his life.  Besides just wanting sex a lot, this would also make it so that when the predator sees it’s desired gender, its first instinct will be to evaluate their attractiveness, and to therefore undervalue their thoughts, feelings, and desires.

2. Because of that and societal reinforcement, you’d want to make sex something the predator equates with their vitality and value–thus making it so that if it doesn’t get sex, it feels frustrated, inferior, and powerless.

3. Surround the predator with images of the gender they desire with their boobs out (or whatever your species’ weird alien-udder equivalent is).

4. Of course in your settings, you’d set the physical strength of your predatory gender to like an 8 and the gender they desire to about a 4.  I mean duh.

5. This one’s vital.  Make it so that only the predator’s sexual gratification is necessary for procreation, setting up a psychological precedent that the predator having a good time is the only really important part of sex.

6. Weird sex predator mustache, naturally.

7. Constantly reward the predator for taking charge and seizing positions of power in your society, and call the desired gender a total bitch for doing so, leading to a cultural understanding that the predator should be in power.

And ta-da!  You have your predator!  Great job!  Your characters will be jerking off in public in no time!

On a related note: Hey God, you’re kind of an asshole.

So okay.  This is kinda why all of this is happening.  This is why even the wokest of the “women are better than us” sycophantic douchebag men are susceptible to becoming gross sex monsters–because this problem isn’t about our conscious decisions, or spoken positions.  It’s about our subconscious training and wiring that goes back to the dawn of man.

This is how our videogame is designed. It’s fucked up.  I’d give it like an 2/10 on Gamespot.

So dudes, listen up.  Let’s have a chat.

Let’s start by getting one thing clear: This programming is built to different degrees into all of us, and it excuses absolutely zero sexual misconduct.  Even with this programming, most of us men still manage to walk around with a high sex drive, implicit power, and privilege without showing anyone our unbelievably unwanted penis.

But even if our universal programming doesn’t lead most of us to doing anything illegal, it does lead most of us (at some point) to being shit human beings who either don’t really listen to women, or who say some creepy shit over Tinder, or who ogle our coworker because she has the audacity to eat a banana.

Some men have gotten past the programming, and truly do always see and behave as if women are their exact equals…but it’s a minority.  It’s about as common as women who are indifferent to shoes.  For the most part, misogyny is programmed into all of us so deeply that very few of us are able get it all out.  It’s entrenched in the gutters of our souls with racism, Jesus guilt, and lyrics to Dave Matthews songs from 1998.

So if we want to avoid turning into total creeps, or at least stop fantasizing about our dick getting peeled and  bitten off by the receptionist, we have to get to the root of our grossness.  We need to see this time in history for the opportunity that it is for men to take our next step in evolution towards this crazy, unheard of place where the genders are actually–down here in reality–seen as equal.

We’re about 10,000 years late, so we should probably get going on this like, ASAP.  Here are what I think are the five most crucial steps.

It’s easy to watch all of these predators get exposed as a man and to think, “Well whatever. That’s not me.  I always ask a woman on my power level very respectfully before I show her my 3.75 inches of thunder.”

And sure, you probably really feel like you could never see yourself doing anything as bad as these famous creeps.  I get it.  I’m right there with you.

But respectfully, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.  If you don’t believe me, let’s look at a related example.

Most men fully believe that they would never cheat on their spouse. And good news!  Most of them don’t!  About a quarter of a men admit to cheating on their spouse, which really doesn’t seem that bad.

But what happens if we adjust men’s opportunity to cheat?

Spoiler alert: Bad things. Bad things happen.

A statistic reported by CNN found that 80-90% of professional athletes cheat.  

That reveals one simple, terrible reality: for most men, if you are surrounded by a sea of beautiful women in cleavage tops sliding into your DMs, and trying to baby trap you, eventually, you’re probably going to trip and fall into one–if not many– vaginas.  For most men, not cheating isn’t about morals or self-control.  We mostly just don’t live in a Nelly video, so it’s easy to abstain.

The cheating itself is irrelevant though.  My point is this: We have no idea what we’ll do when put into a new situation that applies different pressure on us, or gives us different power, or shoves titties into our face.

The same goes for potentially becoming a predator.  You don’t know what will happen when you’re on top of the world and you feel like you can do whatever the fuck you want.

Fortunately, that probably won’t be a problem for you.  Most of us losers won’t ever be put into that position of power and wealth to find out if we’re this terrible, but some of us will.  Some of you reading this right now will be someone’s boss, or become a gatekeeper, or get rich.  You’ll have some kind of power over another human being.

That will change you in some way, and it’s up to you to take actual steps to ensure that that change isn’t you cornering a subordinate in a hotel room and demanding she give your fat, lumpy ass a massage.

So maybe haven’t technically sexually assaulted anyone.  Good!  Wow!  Pat on the back for you!  Are you sure your name isn’t Jesus Superman McAwesome?

Here’s the bad news: due to your programming, despite your best efforts, there is a very good chance you’re still doing like 50 trillion things wrong.

When you’re programmed as we are to see women as less than, you’re bound to act at times in ways that may not be criminal, or even fireable, but range from, “kinda offensive,” to “technically harmless but why?” to “you’re clearly unqualified to have both testicles and eyes.”

Here are just some examples of this type of behavior:

1. Receiving nudes that weren’t meant for you, and opting to look at them.

2. Trolling women online about their sexuality, or how about how they have a “subpar ass.”

3. Staring at a woman’s cleavage for like…8 minutes too long.

4. Taking women less seriously.

5. Using social pressures to get a woman to consent.

6. Sending dick pics basically ever unless she asks you and confirms she’s serious like 14 times because I promise she is joking and has no desire to look at it, nor does anyone that thing is terrible for the love of God stop.

7. Making almost any physical contact at all ever with someone who isn’t expecting it.

8. Really almost anything that hypothetically would make someone say, “Oh Jesus what the fuck.”

Regardless of the external impact of actions like this, the internal impact on you is huge and terrible.  You’re training your brain to feel okay about doing things that are inherently violating, which can lead to you doing things that are very violating later on.

It’s like how murderers start off killing animals, or like how your work acquaintance gets a polite laugh from quoting The Office one time, and then says, “That’s what she said,” 14 times a day every day for the next 83 years.  Learning behaviors can be a slippery slope.

You’re building your awful-bullshit-justification muscle, and that’s a bad idea.  Find another workout.  Lose some of that gut instead.  It’ll make the dick you’re no longer showing her look way bigger.

If the specifics of what is and isn’t okay still feel unclear to you, here are your rules of thumb: unless it’s a situation where everyone’s well-being is kept in mind, keep your thumb off of her, out of your pants, and off of your keyboard.

That can help you get to the all-important step 3.

Men love to claim that we view women as equals and to pat ourselves on the backs about it.  Even your creepy homeschooled fundamentalist cousin who prays before he opens a bag of Doritos thinks he sees women as his equal.

On a conscious level, I think most men really do see women as equal.  The problem is that the conscious version of us almost doesn’t matter because we’re awful at living consciously.  Most of us live primarily through our subconscious programming, and our subconscious is a bucket of dicks covered in fire ants.  It sucks.

Unless something else is demanding our attention (like “me hungry” or “oh no, offspring is sad,” or “oh no, have to poop”) the default subconscious motivation for most of a man’s life is in some way related to sex–no matter how unwarranted or inappropriate the situation.

This does not mean that we’re running around constantly with our boners dangling from our groins like disappointing spears going, “Man, I need to fuck something right now!  Where is the nearest hole?”

We’re not quite that sad.

It does mean that when we see a woman, we often subconsciously revert to rating her looks (i.e. her sexual viability), and valuing her on this basis.  Way beneath the surface, the automatic monkey-brain reflex to a woman (even in every day life) is very often, “Could I breed with her later?”

Because this is is often our initial reflex, we internalize this idea that, “Okay, first and foremost, she exists to look pretty for me.”

The result of this is that hot women are given lots of attention but little respect (since their attention is based on hotness), and less attractive women are given no attention but…well, also little respect.

This “Could I breed with her?” reflex is kind of inevitable, but the lack of respect doesn’t have to be.  The most effective way I’ve found to be a straight dude with straight dude reflexes while also respecting women comes down to one word:

Overcompensate

If we just say, “Derp, women are my equal.  If I say that’s my opinion, I’m sure that must be the way I act,” and then continue to live through our subconscious, our actual behavior will constantly be hijacked by our reflex of, “5 in the face.  3 in the body.  Wouldn’t bang.”

In order to truly see women as equals, we have to see them as more than equal.  We need to consciouslyovercompensate.

We must instead work extra hard to listen to women, to over-consider what they’re saying, and to aggressively give them due credit for successes, because on some level, our programming tells us, “Men do things.  It must have been me and my handsome, brainy penis that did this.”

If we’re not careful, we’ll always default back to our programming.  The only way to truly see women as our equal is to walk into our interactions assuming that we don’t, and to fight the uphill battle with our inner baboons. 

Hi, I’m Will, and I’m a giant pussy.

But don’t worry.  My ability and willingness to kill a boar with a spear and grunt loudly aren’t super relevant to how I define success in a modern world, so I’m pretty okay with this fact.

Unfortunately a lot of us dudes are fed this “be a man!” idea of masculinity that’s been propagated for like, I don’t know–all of mankind.  It’s total bullshit.  Everything communicated when someone says, “Be a man,” is either something women should also aspire to, or something that’s fucking stupid.

But a lot of us are dipshits, so instead of replying to this demand with, “Uh, why?  It’s not 5000 B.C.,” we cave to it.  So we flex in the mirror, we fling our crap at the walls of society, and we whip our dick out, as if we’re begging the world to say, “Oh a penis.  I guess you are a real man!”

Remember: that’s what this is really all about.  Sexual assault is never about needing a sexual release.  Think about it.  Men are by and large Olympic level masturbators without ever making women watch them live.  Men have sexual release down pat.

It’s this awful, deformed, archaic demonstration of manhood that leads to these horrendous things like sexual assault, marginalization of women, and bro-hugs.

So take it from me: just be a pussy.  Be a total pussy.  When someone wants to fight you, fuckin’ run.  When you have an opportunity to take advantage of people, cower, and regret it later.  When she says “no,” to you, say “aww shucks,” and carry your sad dick home.  You’ll get ‘em next time, champ.

A “real man” who “takes what he wants” from others, who fucks a lot women to feel powerful, and who fistfights other men to “defend his honor” isn’t an alpha hero.  He’s a dumbass.  All of those instincts are leftover caveman shit.  Let them go, and march proudly with me into pussydom.

Fixing your own grossness is a start, but if we’re going to change this game, we have to fix it elsewhere too.

This doesn’t mean you have to saddle up on your high horse and give a 2,000 word sermon every time a wrong is uttered, like you’re some asshole with a self-improvement website or something.  Trust me.  No one wants that.

But there are scenarios where you can say something very simple, and off the cuff to alter some other asshole’s programming and make a dent in this hellscape of exposed dicks and boob ogling.  Here are some examples.

1. Overcompensate (as discussed above) in front of men who wouldn’t think to do that.

2. We all have the friend (or sometimes, are the friend) who is getting way too obsessive with a girl.  He’s sending her twelve texts in a row, clarifying his joke he made four texts ago that she didn’t respond to, accidentally liking Instagram pics of hers from 4 years ago, sending passive aggressive comments about her not responding to his texts, and just creating hell for everyone involved.

When you notice your friend is on that road, a simple, “Hey dude, maybe jerk off and then do something else for awhile,” can go a long way.  Pull him off of the obsession (or allow him to pull himself off). Invite him to play mini golf.  Constantly reintroduce him to the rest of reality until he’s there.

3. A simple, “Hey, that seems pretty fucked up.  Maybe never do that again,” can be a valid response to many stories that your broey idiot friend tells you with pride.

4. Reporting people who need to be reported.  I mean duh.

5. Pulling your pushy asshole friend away from the girl at the bar, and advising him to pump the brakes like a lot, and stop smelling her hair can be helpful.

6. When your friend’s first response to an actress coming on screen is about her looks, a very casual, non-preachy, “Uh, you do know being hot isn’t her job, right?” can create a quick reset in perspective for the guy.

Now you may be asking, “What will all of this do for me?” 

If so, first off, kindly go fuck yourself.  Improving the state of things for the other half of the population should be enough of an incentive for you to look to better yourself.

But fine.  Since I know you’re still stuck in your entitled, “ALL penises matter” programming, I’ll pander.  Here are all of the ways this process will help you.

1. It will enrich your relationships with half of the population (which at times will get you laid more–and by people who actually want it!).

2. You won’t be (as much of) an emotionally stunted idiot.

3. You’ll become more in control of your desires and distractions, which will make you a way more competent in basically all areas of life.

4. You’ll step out of the denial of who you really are, which is always good and healthy.

5. This will dramatically decrease the chances that you end up sitting anxiously at your computer one day, trying to figure out the best wording to a public apology about why you showed your former co-worker your balls, and started to cry when she wouldn’t touch them.

So good God.  Let’s get it together, guys.  There’s a better world out there for everyone, and it starts when we can actually take that next step in dude evolution.

So I’m asking you, please fight your programming, try to stand all the way upright, and put that thing away.  The rest of us are trying to have dinner.