Slouching Eunuch

They’ll tell you it’s not misogyny. They’ll tell you that that is how real men talk — Real Women accept that sort of language. You speak the same way to your girlfriends. If The Sopranos was misogynistic, then Sex and the City was misandristic [a word so uncommon spellcheck doesn’t recognise it]. And as much as you love Mr. Big you know how fatalistically unrealistic he is as a barometer for how Real Men actually are. But maybe truth is truly stranger than fiction [cliche alert] and this is how gender dynamics work; this is how men and women talk about each other, and that to censor ostensibly sexist comments is an infringement on the freedom of expression. And sometimes it may be a genuine case of ‘bitch is a bitch’ like that N.W.A song. They’ll tell you not to feel bad about desperately seeking sexually compatible partners. They’ll tell you Taylor Swift is wrong about profiteering from failed relationships. They’ll tell you Taylor Swift is a national treasure. They’ll tell you to be pussy positive and to be cunt conscious. They’ll tell you pussy and cunt aren’t bad words. They’ll tell you they used to be euphemisms, not dysphemisms. They’ll tell you that whoever controls language, controls the minds of the populace. They’ll tell you that liberals are fascists in petty coats. You’ll wonder what this even means. They’ll tell you to pursue polyamory [another word so new and uncommon spellcheck has given it the red underline]. Find a partner with whom to have sex, another with whom to talk poetry, yet another with whom to go hiking. They’ll tell you that gender is binary. It’s black and white. It’s all about your sexual orientation at the end of the day. Gender dysphoria is a phase out of which you’ll grow once you graduate from university. They’ll tell you all feminists are the same. In fact, they’ll probably call them femi-nazis. Will authorial gender colour the perception of this kind of writing? Was the video for ‘Smack my Bitch Up’ any less shocking when the protagonist’s true identity was revealed? You recognise the literary abilities of the author. This book is well-written. This book, for all the things that bother you, is un-put-down-able. Your zero star rating of this book is more a reaction to the emotional upheaval you’ve experienced over the long, frenzied weekend during which you read this book. You stayed up late to finish chapters, and even later pondering what it all meant. You don’t know the author’s intent. You don’t know nearly enough about the author’s biography as may be potentially necessary for proper appreciation of the work. What you do know is that you were left quite devastated by it. Women are depicted as objects. And you know that a depiction is not an endorsement. But you didn’t believe it when Bret Easton Ellis said it and you still don’t believe it. The message, if there is any, is too ambiguous. You are not so naive as to believe that all fiction must necessarily serve a morally instructive purpose. In fact, you hate parables whose message is wrapped up so neatly that you can’t help but cringe. But this book…you suppose what pisses you off is the flippancy with which the author approaches it. You wonder if it could be excusable if the male characters are in fact psychopathic, diagnosed with ASPD or something, anything that explains their remorselessness. And you realise the male characters do sometimes seem regretful and self-aware of their misogyny, but you strongly believe that this is mere apologism. You are not necessarily offended by depictions of misogyny…if there’s a point. Perhaps a scathing commentary about the misogyny in a society that is…but the author doesn’t provide enough light and shade. There’s a lack of critique. You can appreciate subtlety, but in this case wires can and will get crossed all too easily. You think back to the guys you knew in college. There was the guys who had read too much Yeats and considered women to be Rubik’s Cubes, mysterious but soluble oddities of form and shape. There was the ones who watched the entire filmographies of Hitchcock, Lynch, and von Triers, and had become paranoid about the female condition, about the female gaze some Men’s Studies lecturer had told them about, about the Eliotesque fear of female carnality and the vorareaphilia underlying something ‘as innocent as oral sex’ [sic!]. There was the guys who had had more than one girlfriend in High School, but were still virgins who had experienced erectile dysfunction on Prom Night on account of spiked punch, you know, the kind of guys who considered themselves sympathetic to the feminist cause on account of their equation: Sexual Inexperience + Lack of Stereo-typically Masculine Initiative = Respect for Women…an equation granting unto them monastic enlightenment; the belief prevailing that they were the Real Men and Real Men were what they truly were; Real Men who ‘saved’ their virginity for that one special lady [to whom they’d confess their virginity on the third date], perhaps even waiting until the wedding night in the four star hotel penthouse to consummate the relationship to a soundtrack of Nina Simone on Digitally Remastered CD, doing so condom-less, barely tipsy from the discount champagne and performing the act of love slowly but no less passionately whilst reciting sweet nothings into her ear and the stink of Chanel moving them to tears, neglecting to even consider asking for oral or anything quite so perversely unnecessary, rather being content with missionary with lots of kissing alternating between French and non-French, and of course, post-coital cuddling, falling asleep in one another arms, waking early to order room service, the consolidation of the fact that they are Real Men. In short, you are left with so much anger and confusion, so much so you are too exhausted to express yourself any less obviously. Tell, don’t show. And now not a word more. Fuck men.