During the #MeToo phase of “The Great Stupid” and even before, the Woke and Wonderful were lecturing men that to take any pro-active romantic action that involved touching required express consent, otherwise a mere impulsive kiss would constitute sexual assault. So now Clark Gable, Richard Gere, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and the rest are sexual predators because they didn’t say “please.”
I am watching the (excellent) series “The Madison,” and, as I had noticed in another Taylor Sheridan vehicle “Landman,” in an awkward moment of sexual tension between a man and a woman who were virtual strangers, it was the woman who instigated the surprise, passionate kiss.
That’s all right, see. If a man kisses the woman, it’s assault and battery, but the other way around it’s exciting, romantic and natural.
Got it.
Assholes.
Ethics Alarms 
Praise Allah the Duke stuck mostly to westerns. God, he looks and sounds cumbersome trying to play an ordinary person. Anyone who cast him as anyone other than John Wayne made a terrible mistake.
He’s not exactly a normal person in “The Quite Man”—he’s an ex -pro boxer who killed a man in the ring, and he engages in arguably the best fist fight in film history with Victor McGlaglen, who had been a real boxer. The Duke made a lot of war movies, many of which are considered among his best, and “The Quiet Man” is also on his “best of..” list. He never was much good at kissing, in my opinion, but that kiss in TQM is one of the most famous kisses of all.
All I see is John Wayne.
That was part of the plan.
The John Ford American fish out of water in a strange but charming culture of “The Quiet Man” was an especially deft use of Wayne, because he always symbolized the American iconic man, and his values didn’t work in Ireland.Sure, it was john Wayne all the way, but the part was perfect for him….with the wrinkle that of all people, he didn’t want to fight.
I’d probably rate it as… let’s see: Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Bravo, Stagecoach, The Sands of Iwo Jima, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Hondo, True Grit, The Shootist, The Searchers… his 11th best film, just ahead of Hatari, EL Dorado and The Cowboys. And that leaves out a lot of good movies, too…
Women make rules for betas that they break for alphas. A women would appreciate a kiss (and more) from a man who she deems to be highly desirable. But if a man is not desirable to her, a glance that is one second too long may have him labelled as a creep today, with sometimes adverse social consequences (social media shaming, job loss).
In Hollywood movie classics the male lead is almost without an exception an alpha, and his sexual attention is almost always wanted. The alpha male was expected to pursue his love interest, and she was expected to be coy and sometimes she is required to resist his advances for moral reasons. The John Wayne clip in the post is an example of this dynamic.
The double standard has always existed, and is rooted in biology. Male sexuality and female sexuality are different, resulting in different behavior by the two sexes. There is nothing wrong with that, as moral standards have to recognize the reality of evolved human nature. The traditional expectation was that men took the initiative in signaling romantic and sexual interest.
The morals of today are vastly different than in the 1950s. Boys are shamed at school for normal masculine behavior as such is deemed an expression of toxic masculinity. The negative messaging towards men is one of a number of reason why a lot of man are giving up on dating, with a significant percentage still a virgin at age 30. This is a problem, and many books have been written about it (e.g. by Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, Rollo Tomassi).
Having double standards in law (enforcement) is always bad, e.g. sentencing women lighter than men for similar crimes such as sexual relations involving minors.
The negative messaging towards men is one of a number of reason why a lot of man are giving up on dating, with a significant percentage still a virgin at age 30.
That’s difficult for me to comprehend. There wasn’t much I was interested in as an eighteen or nineteen-year-old other than getting a full-time, intimate girlfriend. Which ended up having its drawbacks. But still, not dating and remaining a virgin well into adulthood is simply untenable. And incomprehensible.
I love this Christopher Walken Miller Lite Commercial:
MILLER LITE BEER COMMERCIAL: CHRISTOPHER WALKEN | MILLER LITE BEER: IT’S MILLER TIME: MILLER LITE
Welcome to the world of on-line dating apps such as Tinder. Women at dating apps give attention to five percent of the men. Eighty percent of the men get zero attention. The remainder of man get some attention once in a while.
What about approaching women in person, as was the norm in the past? Approaching a women at the gym? You risk getting get creep-shamed at TikTok or Snapchat for looking one second too long in the direction of a women who is filming herself. Joey Swoll has a TikTok channel devoted to calling out influencers who do just that. Approaching a woman at the gym may be considered harassment, and result in a ban. Approaching a women at a book store at the Starbucks? Please don’t do it if she has her cell phone out, she might Snapchat you if she thinks you are a creep. If you approach a coworker, you risk a trip to HR. In the past the only risk for a man was a polite rejection, which was often kept discrete by a woman. In the present the risk for a man of a nuclear rejection is a significant decline in social status, due to gossip and creep-shaming. So men tend to be way more careful with approaching women than decades ago.
Let’s address the hookup culture. The women at the nightclub are all attracted to a small group of players. Most men in there twenties with regular looks and no money has absolutely no chance of getting a date in the nightclub circuit; they are invisible to the women. Many women want to have fun during their twenties, and only want to become serious on relationships and marriage in their thirties when they notice that the biological clock is ticking away fast. At that point they want a man that can demonstrate proof of financial stability.
What about (false) rape allegations at universities, where a women six months after a date comes forward with a claim, while the man believes it was all consensual? Reality check, if you both had two glasses of wine at dinner before spending the night together, then any verbal consent by the women means nothing and it is considered rape.
Ask women on the street what they expect from a man, and soon the three sixes will be mentioned: six feet tall, a six pack, and a six figure salary as minimum requirements. The expectations are completely unrealistic.
A lot of young men simply give up on dating as the juice is not worth the squeeze. Lack of opportunity, too much effort required, too high risk. This is especially true for young men with limited economic prospect, with low paying jobs or in the hustle culture.
I don’t know, Cees. I guess I still think for every Jack there’s Jill.
This is especially true for young men with limited economic prospect, with low paying jobs or in the hustle culture. Why not pursue a similarly situated mate? You’ve recited all the stuff we hear all the time, but can’t a determined guy navigate all those obstacles? I guess I’m a little enamored of the myth(?) of “the nice girl.” After having been hideously treated by one (met in a stairwell at our college) who turned out to be definitely not a nice girl, I had the good fortune of just about being tackled by a nice one. She was a passenger on the Yale shuttle bus I was driving, sat right down behind me, started talking to me and has yet to stop. As I’ve been trying to explain to our seventeen-year-old grandson, girls pick guys. we just have to pay attention to who’s interested in us. Anyway, I refuse to believe dating’s a grim as you (and everyone else!) describes. Are the guys aiming too high? We can’t all date the homecoming queen or the chick with the perfect nose and the surgical build-to-suits.
Hence the attempt to cancel the spontaneous VJ Day kiss in Times Square.
The double standard is why it’s taken so long to raise awareness of the wrongness of female teachers seducing male students.
A propos of nothing to this post, my wife and I are watching “The Man in the High Castle” on Netflix. It is very well done, produced by Ridley Scott, based on Frank Spotniz’s novel portraying a dystopian future where the Allies lose WWII, and Germany and Japan divide up the world, each side promoting their separate ideas of racial, ethnic, and cultural superiority over the worthless Americans. Germans are presented as ruthless, racist maniacs, and Japanese are presented as honorable but ruthless, racist maniacs (but only in a slightly less evil sense – they seem bow more than boot-click-one-arm salute). We rommend it.
It is so well done and acted that you actually feel empathy for the main German (Joseph Smith) and Japanese (Chief Inspector Kido) characters. That is until you remember that they are ruthless, ambitious, ethically and morally bankrupt crazed, murderous maniacs.
jvb
Very well produced series.
The horse racing out of the barn door that is MAID, to me, is portrayed well with the Nazi required euthanasia of the congenitally ill.
It is pretty good, but the TV series is by Spotniz, and the Novel by Philip K. Dick ….Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Minority Report, Total Recall (We Can Remember it For You Wholesale) …..
Seems sexual assault and You Go GRRL! are defined by the Y and X chromosomal divide.
PWS