Backlash against the Christian Manosphere

We’ve been covering some incredible ground recently in what has been coined the “Christian Manosphere”.  While some have mocked us for rediscovering what countless generations already knew, I see our agreement with pre-modern Christianity on the topic of biblical marriage as a very reassuring sign that we are on the right track.

While there is productive disagreement within the sphere which allows us to learn and correct errors, there is also a passive aggressive backlash.  Vox Day’s recent posts on the blogging style of what he terms gammas, the men one step above omegas in the “socio-sexual hierarchy” is uncanny in its description of this dynamic.  From Vox’s most recent post on the topic:

Gammas find direct conflict particularly difficult because they don’t customarily engage in it.  They habitually engage in female-style indirect conflict, where rhetoric is are the battlefield and the sly passive-aggressive shot taken with plausible deniability is the weapon of choice.

From his post immediately prior:

Notice that whereas the ALPHA points (links and identifies) and laughs (is genuinely amused), the gamma avoids (refuses to link, refuses to even name), and alternates between feigned laughter, feigned indifference, and genuine anger.  Confrontation and contempt are alpha.  Evasion and sniping from safety are gamma.

Manosphere blogger Samson’s Jawbone left a series of bizarre comments on this site back on Dec 30th.  In this one and this one he complained that he wished he could unknow what he now knows about women and attraction, as he has become cynical:

I do actually agree that over-immersion in the manosphere makes one cynical and removes some of the romance from life, forever. Whether this outweighs the benefits of learning the truth is unclear, but I think it’s more important than I used to. I often wish I had my innocence back.

This really surprised me at the time, because understanding women better has only increased my empathy for them.  This is true despite my continued willingness to call out bad behavior by women.  In reality unless you are consumed by bitterness the object of calling out bad behavior should be at least in part for the benefit of those you are correcting.  My improved understanding of and empathy for women has helped me when offering advice to women on the blog and at Yahoo Answers, and my wife regularly comments that while she loved the “old” me, she feels far more loved now and really appreciates the changes I’ve made.  But Samson really did have a negative reaction to learning more about women.  Back in March of last year he wrote a post on it:

I don’t know what’s more gut-wrenching: watching women deny that they play cruel games… or seeing them acknowledge that, yes, we really are this cold-hearted and calculating. The latter is certainly more shocking.

…Sociosexual philosophy has disillusioned me beyond all reckoning. Peering deep into the psyche of woman has rendered me grievously scornful in feeling and mercilessly unscrupulous in behaviour towards these unholy, ungodly beings. I venture to say that… I hate them. Yes, I hate them! And how could I not?

…they are beasts, deserving nothing but callous treatment and damnation; and I can wish nothing upon them but furious hatred, ignominy and a miserable passing.

On January 11th Samson wrote what appears to be a breakup letter with the Manosphere:

After years of at least semi-regular reading (less regular in recent months), I am finally inclined to distance myself from the part of the web called the “manosphere”…

A related, second reluctant conclusion I’ve come to is that many, if not most, of the men on these sites are not really worthy of much respect, not worth emulating or feeling much sympathy for…

For instance, most of the manosphere denizens are perverts. Even at the supposedly “Christian” sites, most of the men are perverts. I mean this not as a pejorative, but in a literal, clinical sense: these men’s ideas about proper sexuality have been perverted; corrupted. On these sites, there is a good deal of posturing about wifely “submission”, but an awful lot of the time this is followed by complaints that a wife won’t “submit” – to her husband’s pleas for sodomy. This very blog entry was inspired by a sordid discussion that I saw at Dalrock’s (a site that I frankly have never been impressed with, viewing the author’s style as whiny and frequently bordering on misrepresentation), in which one commenter was upset and soliciting advice because he expected marriage to be an opportunity to engage in sickening sexual acts, and was disappointed when this didn’t materialize.

In his closing paragraphs he includes his own version of where have all the good men gone!, having somehow forgotten entirely that he is a Christian man who coincidentally has a blog.  Won’t some big strong good man come to Samson’s rescue?

I would still like to see a Christian – a TRULY Christian – resurgence of teaching on the biblical definitions of manhood, womanhood, and submission, but after what I’ve been seeing in the manosphere, I wonder whether that’s possible. Theoretically, it should be – but in practice, it doesn’t seem to work out. For whatever reason, the men who are most interested in this topic seem to have their own pathologies.

When I found the post I left a couple of comments challenging Samson to stop being so evasive.  If he feels the need to imply that I’m a pervert for believing in biblical marriage, he should be able to point out the offending text.  In true chick mode he followed up with another post, including a refusal to do anything beyond making cowardly and passive aggressive accusations:

…in response to complaints that I have not identified whom or what I am talking about with exact precision: I decline to do this because I think such things ought not to be talked about and find discussion of them to be creepy. That is the end of it.

While Samson is clearly the worst in this regard, he isn’t the only blogger who is following the passive aggressive pattern in objecting to the Christian Manosphere.  On January 22nd Simon Grey wrote:

There is a certain segment of the Manosophere that is both nominally Christian and participates in the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM).  I generally make a point of avoiding these people since, as far as I can tell based on what I’ve read, they generally make a point of blaming women for everything that’s wrong with the world…

Anyhow, getting back to the point at hand, there are still plenty of men today who are, in a sense, trying to blame Eve for every major problem they have.  The complaints are legion.  Some men complain about getting fucked over in a divorce.  Some men complain about not getting fucked over enough in the marriage bed. Some men complain that their wives are unattractive; some men complain that their wives are not attracted to them.  Some men complain that their wives are lazy and refuse to help around the house.  In general, a good number of these men avoid being introspective and asking themselves whether they have at all contributed to their own problems.

It isn’t clear who or what he is referring to here, but that is the point.  All I can tell is he is referring to Christian married (or divorced) men in the manosphere.  In a baffling denial of the modern feminist movement, Simon places the bulk of the blame for the rebellion of women on the common man:

A husband’s job, though, is to obey God and do what he says.  In regards to marriage, the husband is expected to lead.  He is expected to treat his wife with kindness.  He is to love his wife and not be bitter towards her. He is to protect his wife.  He is to provide for his wife.⁵  He is to sacrifice himself for his wife, if necessary.  He is to make sure that his wife is sexually fulfilled.⁶  He is to do this because God requires this of him.  He is not to do this because he expects his wife to return the favor…

This is not to say that women are completely without fault.  However, it is clear that the greater fault lies with the men and their near-complete failure to comply with God’s commands.  Therefore, men in unhappy marriages need to examine their lives for sin and failure, and do what they can to correct their course and live as the leaders that God would have them to be.  Once they’ve done that, then we can talk about the women.

This idea that men have to be perfect before we can expect anything from women is more of the standard fare we get from feminised Christian leaders, and it has no basis in Scripture.  The NT emphasis is on telling wives to submit to their husbands, not telling husbands to force or manipulate their wives into submission.  This of course is recognized by those against submission and twisted to suggest that marriage vows are only promises to God, and aren’t something each spouse also promises to each other (as well as their future children and the larger community).  This thread of specious logic of course instantly disappears if we are talking about a wayward husband, as no one would suggest that an unfaithful husband hasn’t betrayed his wife.

As Cane Caldo points out in his excellent post Advocates Under Authority, the OT similarly only offers enhanced moral protection for women who are under submission to a man.  The idea that the mass of modern women in feminist rebellion are in submission to either a father or husband is truly laughable.  Nevertheless, Simon has doubled down on this idea that God holds men primarily accountable for the rebellion of women in his second post in the series, I Will Not Punish Your Daughters When They Commit Harlotry.

Simon also discovered a scriptural defense of Man up and marry those sluts!

I note, not without some degree of amusement, that the example of Hosea would indicate, contra to the assertion of some MRMs and MGTOWs, that God does occasionally expect men man to man up and marry whores.

Given this logic I can only assume that we should look forward to a future post by Simon Grey explaining to pro lifers that “God does occasionally instruct parents to kill their children“.

If men like Simon Grey and Samson’s Jawbone have insight to share with other married Christian men, I call on them to share it and stop the passive aggressive sniping.  There is a mass of human suffering out there and pompous claims of “I’m better than those other Christian husbands” won’t do anyone any good, men, women, or children.