The recent Miley Cyrus debacle has generated a lot of conversation online, most of it rightfully directed at Cyrus. It appears, however, that it has also brought the white knight armies out for a march. One enlisted member of this pathetic farcical force, Matt Walsh, decided to create his critique in the form of a letter to his son, ostensibly with the goal of getting him to avoid following Robin Thicke’s example.
What follows is one of the most pathetic examples of how not to be a man that I’ve ever seen, which I’ll take the time to respond directly right now.
In any case, this gives you an idea of the full performance: A 36 year old married man and father, grinding against an intoxicated 20 year old while singing about how she’s an “animal” and the “hottest bitch in this place.” And what happens the next day? We’re all boycotting the 20 year old. The grown man gets a pass.
Now I’m beginning to understand why that judge in Montana gave a teacher a 30 day jail sentence after he was convicted of raping a 14 year old girl, who later killed herself because of the psychological trauma caused by being sexually victimized by a 50 year old man.
This guy must be a Robin Thicke fan.
White knight logic: Robin Thicke singing about sexy girls and dancing with a totally legal 20 year old at the VMAs = child rape.
I’m no feminist.
But where are the men in all of this? Have we so completely given up on chivalry that we don’t even see what’s troubling about a GROWN ASS MARRIED DUDE singing a song about sexual domination while dry humping a young woman on national TV?
1. Chivalry is dead and women had as much to do with that death as men did.
2. Notice the subtle age-gap-shaming implied here. Robin Thicke is a “GROWN ASS” married dude, but Miley Cyrus is, at 20, a “GROWN ASS WOMAN” who (at the time) had a fiance. She is an adult. There is nothing wrong with two adults doing what they please sexually/romantically, so long as it is consensual. The age gap is irrelevant.
3. What dry humping? I saw the performance, I didn’t see much in the way of active humping/grinding from his end. I saw her bend over and try to twerk on him, not the reverse.
Why the need to make things up? Is it too hard to white knight without fudging the facts?
The girls that behave like Miley Cyrus do so because they want to attract men. And it works. It shouldn’t.
It doesn’t. Men don’t find Miley Cyrus’ behavior attractive. They don’t generally prefer short hair like hers, don’t generally favor her tongue’s perpetual presence outside of her mouth and don’t really get much from her total lack of rhythm. Men like fit girls who can twerk and dance, but Miley can’t actually do these things.
It is important for young men to understand female behavior and the motivations behind it, since Matt Walsh clearly does not. Miley Cyrus is doing what she’s doing not for men, but for herself. Less famous women who make the kind of decisions she makes (lopping off their hair, adopting trashy dress and behavior, going out of their way to be “edgy” and adopting behavior traits from totally different cultures) are not doing it for dudes, they’re doing it for their own reasons (boredom, rebellion, desire for change, etc, etc). Many of the decisions women make have absolutely nothing to do with men and everything to do with their own emotions, feelings and relationships with one another.
These are the realities that make the white knight’s bid to saddle men with every ounce of blame and responsibility he can muster so totally and utterly absurd. Adult women make their own decisions for their own reasons. Smart men understand this and don’t take it all that seriously.
Smart men know that they do not have control over young women like Miley Cyrus and the tens of millions of young females who worship her. If they did have such control over the behavioral and sexual decisions such young women made, I guarantee that there would be no manosphere, no PUAs, no legions of “nice guys” complaining about girls loving “assholes” and no girls pulling a Miley Cyrus and lopping their hair off.
All of these very real things are the product of one inescapable fact of life: men, more often than not, do not understand women particularly well and are not usually successful in getting them to behave in ways that work for them. They have, in reality, no more control over women than women have over them.
A few days ago a mom blogger wrote a letter to her daughter entitled “Dear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to you.” Well, I have a daughter, and I echo this woman’s sentiments. But I also have a son, and I don’t want the boys to get off the hook here. My little man isn’t old enough to read yet, but one day he will be, and one day I’ll give him this letter.
God help this kid.
Dear son,
Don’t let Robin Thicke be a lesson to you.
Don’t let any of these pigs and perverts you see on TV be a lesson to you. They treat women like garbage;
They treat women only as well as women allow them to.
they possess no chivalry,
They’re better off without it. This isn’t medieval Europe, we are not knights and they are not ladies.
You might be tempted to follow suit. In fact, you WILL be tempted. These male pop stars and celebrities, look at them, you’ll think. They take advantage of emotionally broken, self loathing, confused young women, and they are rewarded handsomely for it.
Yep, totally just the dudes to blame here. Women don’t have their own minds, they live at the mercy of men. None of this has anything to do with women and what they want.
Sure.
In the eyes of the white knight, women are never anything but victims. Such a mentality is easy to understand when you think about it: who would the gallant knight have to rescue if he lost a ready supply of innocent, defenceless, and mindless damsels?
What you see on TV is a facade. It’s a sales pitch. It’s poison. You see the bright lights and the sexy women, but you don’t see what happens when the cameras are off and these pop culture gods return to their lives as mere mortals. You don’t see them in their big, empty, lonely houses. You don’t see the emptiness in the pit of their souls. You don’t see all the alcohol and drugs they have to use to dull the pain of living a life devoid of real, committed relationships. You don’t see the hatred they have for themselves and for humanity. You don’t see the jealousy they have towards normal, decent men.
I’m not sure I even need to illustrate just how self-serving this entire paragraph is.
We don’t see most of the things he mentions because, frankly, they often are non-existent. The bulk of the world’s wealthy and powerful are very comfortable in their homes, love what they do, are perfectly fulfilled as far as their “souls” go, and are not addicts. They don’t hate humanity, they don’t hate themselves, and (most of all) THEY HAVE NO DESIRE TO BE AN AVERAGE JOE LIKE THE TYPICAL WHITE KNIGHT.
Again, this guy says he’s not a feminist but the kind of rationalization I’m reading here reads like something right off of Jezebel and straight off of the white knight’s sigil. Healthy relationships, fulfilling lifestyles, a lack of drug addiction and comfortable homes are not the sole property of “normal decent men” lacking in money and fame.
Matt, bro, I’m gonna be real here: You are not a special snowflake. You sound like just another average Joe who isn’t too pleased about that status and responds by trying to tear down those above him. Robin Thicke is WAY better off than you are, and you attempt to rationalize this away by saying “oh, its ok. Deep down he’s just a broken, lonely drug addict!”. This is BS, bro. We can all see right through it.
Here’s a crucial realization for those seeking to define manhood and what is needed to attain it: If you can’t take pride in what you are without tearing others down, you’ve got a serious problem and a serious weakness. Men learn to define themselves and find contentment within themselves. The snarky, envious takedowns seen here are for females, particularly those who’ve yet to leave their teens. It is irresponsible of any man to not only fail to correct this, but to attempt to pass the behavior on to a child.
Your dad is no celebrity. He’s just an average, boring guy.
Yes, and painfully so.
But he’s got something that every famous and non-famous womanizer envies: He’s got the love and commitment of ONE beautiful, smart, faithful woman. He’s got your mom, and he’ll only have your mom until the day he dies. He ought to be waking up every day shouting praises to the Lord because of that.
Can you build a bigger pedestal than this for a woman? I’m not sure I’ve seen such a gargantuan illustration of oneitis in my life. Every white knight must have his princess, I suppose.
Look, Matt (and all of the other white knights out there), you’re in love. I get that, that’s cool and I’m glad it works for you, but don’t assume that it makes you special. Plenty of men are not monogamous and/or in lifelong marriages, and plenty of those men are quite alright with that. They don’t want the commitment of your woman. Some don’t want or need the commitment of ANY woman. Some wouldn’t mind having the commitment of one woman one day, but are just fine for now without it until they find a girl that’s right at a time that’s right. And still other rare men are able to get the commitment of MULTIPLE women at the same time or throughout the course of their lives at different periods of time.
Each guy decides for himself where he stands. What is objectively clear, however, is this: the fact that you are in a long term relationship with one woman does not make you special. The fact that you got one woman to marry you is not special. Your particular woman is, in all likelihood, not all that special. YOU, in all certainty, are not all that special. Nobody envies you. You are just one in a legion that stands itself among many other legions of white knights defending a damsel in no particular distress. Nobody is anxious to don your armor and join that horde of supplicants.
Men are loyal. Men are honest. Men respect and honor women. A man goes out and finds one woman, and he vows to protect and love her for the rest of his life. A man would never betray that vow
So, in short, Matt seeks to teach his son to adhere to a very narrow view of masculinity (even as he spends time attacking the media for putting forward what he claims is a “limited” view on manhood) that originated and really only holds strongly among North Western Europeans (and these days mainly just the most religious ones)?
The world your son will inherit is a very diverse one, Matt. The majority of the people in it right now don’t have a great track record of adhering to the kind of social model you’re promoting here. It isn’t a part of their culture, it is a feature of yours.
Given this reality, I think you’re doing your kid a disservice by teaching him to adopt such an intolerant point of view.
Even the weakest and most cowardly man — if he is a man at all — would die for the woman he loves. Your dad is no hero, but let someone try to hurt your mom and watch him suddenly turn into Superman (or Batman, whichever you prefer).
You are not a hero, and you won’t become one (or even remotely resemble one) under any circumstances. You’re an arrogant, condescending white knight, and that’s nothing to be proud of.
See, son, you don’t have to be big and strong to be a man, although I think you will be one day. You don’t have to be “cool” or athletic. You don’t have to play guitar or fix cars. These are all fine things, but they don’t define a man. A man is defined by how he treats women,
A man who is defined by women is not a man, he is a mangina.
Men must define themselves, and they do that in part through their treatment of EVERYONE (including themselves), not just women. When you can reach a point at which you are not defined primarily or exclusively by your relationship to and/or worship of a woman, you will have understood the definition of true manhood.
Until then, you’re just another supplicating white knight.
Read Next: The Ironies Of Female Empowerment
Leave a Reply