DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I thought my boyfriend family were lovely people when I first met them. There were a few awkward moments. For example they are really passive and do not communicate with each other. We went on a camping trip and they sat in silence for the most part. However, the more I hang out with them, I notice passive communication between each other. His mom was fine, but I would notice small things and eventually there was a flip. She would bring up other girls that my boyfriend knew in childhood or through a friend, but did not have a relationship with. I’m his first girlfriend and first everything. I don’t think she is aware of that. These women also have more similarities with her. 

Me and his sister had a conversation about PCOS and fibroids and trying to heal it by losing weight. Out of nowhere [his mother] said I was chunky and started laughing. Which me and everyone in the room paused to. She noticed our reaction, then looked to her son and asked if I said something rude and gave puppy eyes. He didn’t want her to feel guilty, so he said “no”. However, after we talked he called her and told her what she said was rude. He thought her comment was wrong, but felt caught off guard. This doesn’t matter, but I’m 5”4 and 140lb. I have what looks like a BBL body, but because my fibroids grown because of stress from work, I got some belly fat. However, it still wasn’t chunky comment level, especially considering everyone’s weight in the room. 

These comments made me have body dysmorphia and arguments with my boyfriend. We sleep at his parents’ house when we visit. They have blowup mattresses. We live together, so we are used to cuddling together. One of the blowup mattresses she gave us had a whole that we were sleeping together on deflated eventually. She kept saying that when she used it, it lasted her a week… I thought this was a joke and didn’t want to bring up that we were cuddling and sleeping on one mattress. 

I’m not exactly sure what problem she has with me. Her son is 28yrs old and I’m 24yrs old. We are both full grown adults, but for some reason she has a strange attachment to her son. Even though my boyfriend is a people pleaser, he is not a mama’s boy. However, she trying desperately hard for him to be. A couple weeks before that visit they met a woman in a store that said daughters in laws ruin everything so that probably got in her head. 

She is also jealous when he spends money on me and when we travel together. They have a family group chat that they talk on every day, but she calls twice a week. I have heard their conversations together, and when my boyfriend talks about me, she circles it back to her. He sometimes lie to her about me paying for stuff, even though he did, because he knows she gets upset by it. 

I’m not sure what to do. I really don’t want to be around her. However, my boyfriend is very handy and can learn how to do things quickly. For this reason his mom calls him or tell him to come down. It doesn’t really feel like a question. For example to replace a window or do installation they will get him to do it and it’s a 5hr drive to their house. The father is in the picture, but he isn’t as handy. Their relationship seems okay, but they do have passive arguments. My boyfriend does ask me before sometimes, but I notice it has been a constant thing lately. I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to be around her. 

Because of my hormones, I like more protein, more fiber, and staying away from certain carbs. Part of him coming to their state is that they take us out to eat or bring food. She didn’t go with any of my food request, which they asked about beforehand. Then said I could get it the next day, but got New York style pizza instead. Me and my boyfriend felt bloated and not like ourselves because it was a big change to what we were eating.

She keeps saying she loves me and I felt like I’ve been nice to her. I understand how difficult it is to feel like your losing your son. Most mothers do have an unhealthy relationship with their son. In combination with that, plus her constant need of attention just makes me uncomfortable. She also stop and talk to strangers, but they are only men she finds attractive. Which made me realize she is constantly looking for attention, mainly from men. She is probably upset she doesn’t get the same attention from her son since we started dating. 

I’m not sure if I should keep going with him to see them. The weekend becomes draining for me and I feel like I have to act peppy all the time.

His Beloved Smother

DEAR HIS BELOVED SMOTHER: Awkward relationships with your partner’s parents are a tale that’s practically older than dirt. As soon as hominids evolved into having discrete family units, they also started complaining about the in-laws.

Here’s the thing: every relationship with the parents of your partner is an awkward dance because we all have our own familial dynamic; trying to adapt to a new one (or add a new person into the mix) always means that there’s an adjustment period while everyone tries their best to find the balance between The Way Things Have Always Been and How To Accommodate The New. So there’s inevitably a period where s--t is just weird and uncomfortable, especially if someone’s dynamic is entirely different from yours.

I mean, if you come from a family of Stoneface McGee’s and your partners’ family’s primary love language is shouting and hand-waving, you’re going to feel all kinds of uncomfortable until everyone finds their equilibrium. So a certain amount of patience and willing to go with the flow is necessary.

But there’re also times when one parent or the other just doesn’t vibe with who their beloved child has brought home and that’s when s--t tends to hit the fan in slow motion.

It sounds to me like your boyfriend’s mom has some boundary issues, a seemingly unhealthy need to be the center of attention and a tendency to not think before she speaks. To your boyfriend, who grew up with this, this is normal. That doesn’t mean that he necessarily likes it, but it’s what he’s used to and there’s often a dynamic that can feel hard to go against. Especially if he’s pushed up against some of her behavior before and gotten nowhere.

Now, from what you’ve said, I don’t think she dislikes you, but I think she definitely has a tendency to not think or care about how what she says may come across or be construed. That doesn’t make it ok, though. Even if it’s being said with all the love in your heart, making fat jokes ain’t cool. Comparing other girls he knew to you isn’t cool. And while some things – like forgetting about your dietary needs or requests (which, as you said, she asked for) – may have innocent explanations… there is a point where ignorance is functionally indistinguishable from meanness.

The problem is that you don’t have much pull here. This is very much a family problem and the person who’s going to have to step up and say something is your boyfriend. He’s going to have to be the one to take the lead on telling his mom to knock it off with the jokes and stray comments, to remember that you all had specific food requests and so on. You should stand up for yourself and call out those comments too, especially when she’s insulting or mocking you for your physique, but he needs to be the one tanking and taking most of the aggro. She’s his mother after all.

But he also needs to be willing to start enforcing his own boundaries between him and his mother. At the moment, it sounds like he’s done a lot of “go along to get along” as part of his tendency towards people-pleasing. That tack tends to end with people asking for even more, and even more still later on. As an adult, he needs to be able to say things like “don’t make jokes like that period, but especially not to my girlfriend” or “sorry, I’m not available this weekend.”

An 5 hour round trip to help with occasional big projects is one thing. Getting voluntold on the regular to make that trip to do various odd jobs – especially if they can afford to hire a contractor or handyman – is verging on the unreasonable. As you said: he’s a grown-ass man, with his own life and his own responsibilities, and she is, likewise, a grown-ass woman who presumably can hire someone to replace a window.

Now, maybe those requests are as much bids to see her child, who’s a not-insignificant distance away, and that’s understandable. But part of the kids growing up and leaving the nest is that they start having their own lives and their own responsibilities. It can be an adjustment for the parents, but it’s a necessary one. And if she’s someone who needs male attention at all times… well, that’s a her problem, not a him problem and especially not a you problem.

I would also point out that you don’t necessarily need to go with him every time he goes down to see his parents. This isn’t The Defiant Ones where you’re handcuffed together or Wedlock where if you get too far from your partner, your prison collar blows your head off. You have your own boundaries and your own life too. If going every time with him leaves you drained and miserable, you are well within your rights to send him off with a ”have fun storming the castle” while you stay home and do whatever you were going to do that weekend.

You don’t necessarily want to make a habit of never coming down, but you can certainly be more selective of when and under what circumstances. It doesn’t have to be every time she snaps her fingers to summon him.

Start with a talk with your boyfriend about his mother, boundaries and how her behavior affects you. As I said: she’s his mom, and thus he should be taking point on this. If he needs you to back him up or support him when he gets the inevitable pushback – and there’s always pushback when you’re enforcing boundaries against people who rely on your not having them – then by all means, be his backup. But he needs to be able to do this, for his own sake as much as for yours and the relationship.

Meanwhile, don’t be afraid to give your own pushback in the moment when she makes those comments. A simple “that’s not funny” or “I don’t appreciate that” is all that’s necessary. Even if she comes back with “I didn’t mean it that way” or “don’t be so sensitive”, again, you just need to reply with “ok. I still don’t appreciate comments like that” or “that still doesn’t make it funny”. You don’t need to engage with her deflections or derailments, just stand firm on that one fact: she made an inappropriate comment and you don’t appreciate it.

Do it enough times, and she’ll get the picture. Because if she doesn’t, you’re not going to be coming around nearly as often… and likely neither will her son.

Good luck.

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DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a trans dude questioning my sexuality. I believe I may be some kind of asexual, but I can’t tell because I have a LOT of other baggage that’s impeding my self-exploration. I’m concerned that I’m actually a bisexual repressed by mental illness and self-isolation. Here is what I know so far:

– I have lots of trouble making friends. No friends right now due to mental breakdown/depression (will work on it). Never been in a relationship. I only want to try dating just to see if it’s nice, but in the past there have been people who I could have seen myself dating

– I have depression, anxiety, and OCD-like symptoms (untreated). Plus I’m trans in an unaccepting household and used to be anorexic.

– I don’t want to have sex with anybody and am comfortable (even happy) with the idea of being a virgin for life. I looked at some asexual resources and now see that even for allos, you don’t NEED to lose your virginity, and I’ve got more important things to do these days, like treating my mental illness

– I can’t tell the difference between willingness to have sex and sexual attraction.

– The idea of growing up and being expected to date/have sex fills me with dread and anxiety, but I’m not sure if it’s because of social anxiety or asexuality.

– I am touch-repulsed. I don’t let people touch me most of the time, and if I do, I’m the one initiating it. Only on non-sus areas like arms. I’m also very touch-sensitive

– I don’t like being seen as sexual and wear modest clothing (I know not all aces do that, but whatever) (the modest clothing is also because of social anxiety + hiding curves). I never make dirty jokes

– I used to think I was bi until I realized that aesthetic and sensual attraction made up most of my “crushes”

– I do find myself more attracted to men than women, but still both. It could be because I tend to like styling myself in a masc way, and my gender envy and aesthetic attraction mix.

– I’m sex-positive for others but if I hear other people talking about sus things it grosses me out and I want to leave immediately

– I am not excited by genitalia. They look weird.

– The only sus media I might ever consume must involve fictional characters. If it’s real people it feels gross to me.

– A girl flirted with me a few days ago and I felt conflicted. I think I just liked knowing I wasn’t totally ugly but I didn’t care for her at all (never found her attractive). I kind of wanted to get away but was too shy to say it so I just didn’t meet her eyes. I was friendly but I got out of there as fast as I could.

– I’ve only ever had one serious crush (on a dude who was a rare good friend) that I would have liked to date and MAYBE could have had sex with but I’m not sure. The thought of it now feels gross but back then I liked the idea a bit. Then he got a gf and I was very huffy about it because I had never liked anyone like that before.

– I don’t know if most people count it as sexual trauma (I do just because it’s really scary and uncomfortable for me), but I have intrusive thoughts regarding sex that make me feel very unsafe about it. They terrify me and I do think they play a big role in me not wanting to do it. I don’t know if I can be a valid ace if I have intrusive thoughts.

In short, I don’t know how to figure out my sexuality with all the other stuff, and I’d like to know if I can/should consider myself ace at all.

Taking Up Ace Space?

DEAR TAKING UP ACE SPACE: So, if I’m being honest, TUAS, I feel weird about the idea as a cis, allosexual man, adjudicating whether you’re “legitimately” asexual or not… but then I also feel that other people in general don’t get to dictate what your sexuality is or isn’t. Sexuality is fluid and flexible and doesn’t always fit into neat categories.

There’re folks of all genders who identify very strongly as being gay or straight but who have had sexual experiences that would seem out of step with their sexual orientation. There are lesbians who’ve had romantic or sexual attractions to individual men, straight men who’ve been willing to say “a mouth is a mouth” when hard up and just looking for an orgasm, bi-or-pansexual people who tend to only have romantic relationships with one gender and ace people who occasionally have sex.

And God knows there’ve been oceans of ink and pixels spilled over who “counts” as one sexuality or another. Bi women or queer AFAB people who’re in relationships with men are often told that they’re “not really” bi or queer, gold star queer people sometimes argue with queer people who’ve had hetero sex while closeted, ace people who aren’t sex-repulsed or gray-aces sometimes get told they’re not really ace and demisexual people are frequently told they don’t exist as a sexuality in the first place…

As far as I’m concerned, you know your sexuality better than I ever would, seeing as how you’re actually living your life and I’m just a rando loudmouth looking at things from the outside.

But I also understand how this can be new and weird and anxiety-inducing, so I’ll at least give you my thoughts on things and maybe they’ll help serve as some guideposts or food for your own thoughts. You can take these and draw your own conclusions on the matter, up to and including “Doc doesn’t know what the f--k he’s talking about.”

The thought I want to start with is that you’ve given yourself a false binary. Being asexual doesn’t mean that you can’t also be bi. People can be bisexual, straight or gay while also being asexual. Asexuality is a spectrum; it doesn’t mean a complete absence of sexuality or sexual identity. People can be ace without also being aromantic, and they can also be ace while also acknowledging that, were they to decide to have sex, they would prefer it with one gender, their own gender or their own and other genders. The two aren’t necessarily in conflict and they don’t cancel each other out.

My next thought is that a lot of the things you list aren’t really indicative of sexuality one way or another. Not telling dirty jokes has nothing to do with being asexual or allosexual; it’s a matter of taste and comfort and your sense of humor. The same goes with how you dress; “asexual with an OnlyFans” is as much of a thing as an allosexual person dressing incredibly conservatively. People who come from a tradition of conservative dress aren’t any more or less ace or allo than someone who bares a lot of skin or likes wearing form-hugging clothes; it’s just how they dress. Dress is as much an expression of identity and culture as it is one’s sexuality.

This is also why having intrusive and upsetting thoughts about sex don’t negate the possibility of your being asexual. Intrusive thoughts are just that: thoughts. They’re not deep wells of hidden meaning, proof that you’re a fraud or hiding dark secrets even from yourself. They’re just thoughts and sometimes people have very weird, very uncomfortable thoughts for seemingly no goddamn reason. You mention that you have OCD, which means that the intrusive thoughts are entirely unsurprising. The popular conception of OCD being “oh, I need to have my books arranged a particular way” or “I wash my hands a lot” really diminishes what having OCD is. OCD is quite literally defined by upsetting, intrusive thoughts, thoughts that have no rational or reasonable relationship to the reality. Turning off every light and then having to check ten more times to be sure before leaving the house because if you don’t something horrible will happen isn’t a reasonable thought. It’s not something built on lived experience or a rational look at statistics and facts, it’s quite literally magical thinking. It’s the feeling that there is a doom that can only be avoided if someone does these totemic and ritualistic gestures.

The fact that you – or someone else – has these thoughts and reactions to them is only proof that you are having those thoughts and they make you feel a particular way. That’s it. That’s what they mean. And the fact that they’re unwanted, upsetting and frequently disruptive is what makes them intrusive.

(Incidentally, you may want to look into cognitive behavioral therapy, even if it’s self-directed exercises like at MoodGym. CBT is known for being especially effective at helping people manage intrusive and unwanted thoughts.)

Your style and aesthetic preferences are likewise not proof positive of being allosexual or asexual. It’s entirely understandable that you’re drawn towards men who have a particular aesthetic because they represent a masc-presentation that vibes with you. It’s entirely possible to find someone fascinating or appealing because they represent what you would like to be or to become – an aspirational or inspirational figure. That doesn’t mean that it’s only an aesthetic appreciation; aesthetics and attraction can go hand in hand, and we do find ourselves more drawn to people who are similar to us in many ways. It’s possible to be having crushes on people while also seeing them as a model for how you would like to see or style yourself or how you feel inside. It’s not either/or.

It’s also important to note that whether you find genitals exciting or fascinating or not, regardless of the gender of the person they’re attached to, isn’t a measure of anything other than how you feel about people’s junk. People can have very strong feelings about genitalia that are entirely separate from their sexuality. You will never, for example, find people more obsessed with dicks than straight guys. They’re not closeted gays, it’s that to a certain type of straight dude, dicks are full of terrible meaning and incredible significance and all things about them as men are reflected in dicks. Some folks may be attracted to vulvas, some people may be attracted to the person with the vulva but not find vulvas themselves to be aesthetically pleasing or arousing. Same with boobs; you’ll find gay men obsessed with women’s breasts, straight men who’re far more about other body parts and all sorts of other variations.

Being sex-positive for others is also not really an indication of being ace or not, even if some things squick you out. You can want other people to have the sort of sex that they find fulfilling and enjoyable without wanting it for yourself or without finding what they are into arousing. Someone’s into feet and you’re not? OK… good for both of you.

Now, some things that you mention are, I think, completely unconnected to whether you’re asexual or not, and are far more related to other, different issues. You mention that you dress conservatively in part because you’re hiding your body. That sounds to me as though this is more about wanting others to accept you as a man, rather than misgendering you – an entirely reasonable feeling, especially under your circumstances. It’s incredibly hard being trans in this day and age; it’s even harder when the people in your life are unsupportive, unaccepting or even actively hostile to trans and queer people. Not wanting other folks to add to that stress (accidentally or intentionally) is completely understandable and legitimate.

The same goes for how the idea of being expected to date or be sexual gives you anxiety. A lot of people, especially young people and femme-bodied people in particular feel this way, and with good reason. One of the reasons why a lot of women and femme-presenting non-binary people are choosing celibacy or being “boysober” is in part a reaction to a societal pressure to perform their sexuality in particular ways; those ways often have little to do with their own relationship to their sexuality and far more to how other people think they should be.

If you’re still working on your relationship to yourself and your gender, still dealing with significant people who don’t or won’t accept that you’re a man and/or who pressure you to be sexual in a way that misgenders you? Shutting down and preferring to avoid it entirely is a completely understandable reaction to that. People pushing you to perform your sexuality in opposition to who you know yourself to be is something that strikes directly at the heart of who you are, and I imagine it would feel a lot like society trying to force you back into a tiny and restrictive cage. If you feel like to date or to be sexual would mean a conflict between who you are and who other people insist you should be – especially during a time when people are trying to enforce that through law – then I’d be surprised if the thought didn’t give you the screaming abdabs.

Now after all of this, if you want me to give you a definitive ruling that you can then either accept or appeal to others… well, honestly, I don’t think I can give you one. What I do think is that, ace or allo, you’re someone who’s going through a really rough time, and you’re dealing with not just mental health issues but also the conflict of being a reasonable person in unreasonable circumstances. It sounds to me like a lot of things are up in the air for you right now or are otherwise in a state of flux and chaos. I suspect that, as things settle down, you find more support and you get a handle on things like your mental and emotional health, you’ll be in a better place to explore yourself and figure out who you are.

I will say that I think there’s a trend in society right now of people who feel like their preferences or needs won’t be respected unless they tie it to something intrinsic to them or outside of their control. However, I can’t emphasize this enough: this isn’t to say that people who say they’re ace or autistic, who have social anxiety or other issues are lying. If anything, it’s more of a commentary on how other people won’t accept “I would prefer not to”, but will accept “I can’t because I’m X”, and that’s kinda f--ked up, honestly. I don’t know if that applies to you or not, but I do think it’s relevant and something to think about – especially if you’ve had past experiences of people who refuse to accept your wishes unless you can “justify” them in some way.

But maybe that’s not you. I have no idea; you’re the one in your head and I’m not, so you tell me.

The last thing I have to say is that if you do decide that you’re ace, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re locked into this forever. What is true for you now and your understanding of yourself and your own sexuality may not be true down the line. If you choose to say that you’re asexual and later you find that you’re sexually attracted to someone, that doesn’t mean that you were lying, faking or otherwise wrong – not any more than someone who identified as bi later comes to realize that they’re actually gay or someone who was straight realizes that maybe they’re not as straight as they thought. All that it means is that sexuality is weird and messy, frequently contradictory and sometimes what you understand to be true can change. Your relationship with yourself, your knowledge of yourself and who you are is always changing as you learn more, experience more and settle into yourself.

I think, if nothing else, it’s perfectly acceptable to decide that sex should be on the backburner while you figure everything else out. I certainly feel like prioritizing your overall mental health and well-being, and finding friends and family of choice who love and support you is a good idea. If deciding that the label of asexuality fits best and gives you permission to do so? Go for it.

It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers right now. Nobody worth listening to expects you to. It’s ok to not be sure, to change your mind or to recognize that what you understood to be true at the time turned out differently. You and you alone are the expert and foremost authority in your own life. Never forget that.

You’ve got this.

All will be well. Bottom of Form

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DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Good day to you. Red pill/MGTOW incel people do have good point although I want to leave such mentality

It aches my heart to see so many former incel/doomer on reddit posting their tragic experiences only to be mocked by users on incel.is as “meme factory”. I even find it highly disturbing Google has yet removed the domain from their search results. Makes me wonder if they plot on taking advantage of sentiments felt by lonely users for increased traffic.

My point is there exists objective evidence for broke, unfortunate frustrated men to be angry about.

Foster care is always awarded to the wife, not the husband. In the UK 99 of prisoners are male. In all nations male suicide rates are higher, and life span is shorter. In world of animals also  more male babies are born than females that is because male cubs are more prone to death so there is need for extra entity.

Women want equality except when jobs are either dangerous or low paying. Even in Ukraine only men are obliged to fight. Meanwhile their female counterparts migrate to safer places of world. Womb is costly, sperm is too cheap.

I could keep going forever but it only increases my mood of misery. Web is filled by non-effective irrelevant generic indifferent life advice like “just focus on yourself work out ,read, paint, travel”  Such activities aren’t not bad by itself but only shifts focus temporarily still fails to address core interpersonal issues which surface upon interactions with opposite sex. 

I am in urgent need of your wise piece of advice.

regards,

Red Pill Refugee

DEAR RED PILL REFUGEE: And here I’d been thinking that it’s been a while since I’ve had someone asking me to refute the usual incel/red-pill/men-going-their-own-way talking points so that they can finally decide to move on…

Well, let’s reset the clock and get into it.

Now, as tempting as it is to clown on folks who come asking these questions – and the occasional obvious attempts by folks trying to wash their talking points through columns like mine – it actually is important to take questions like this seriously. Dunking on incel beliefs is the sort of thing that – to paraphrase one Anton Ego – is easy to write and fun to read. But that approach is frequently counter-productive.

Part of what keeps people locked in these communities is the way they get smacked around when they take tentative steps away from the group-think and actually try to address the cognitive dissonance between what their peers say vs. what they see in the real world. Much like how some evangelical churches specifically isolate their followers by encouraging aggressive proselytizing designed to generate hostile and belligerent responses from “outsiders”, the dunks and mockery that people trying to leave the red pill, MGTOW and incel communities often drives them right back. The fear – a not unreasonable one, to be sure – is that they’ll never be allowed to grow past those mistakes and thus they’d rather stay in the community than face the humiliation of having to admit that they were part of it.

So with this in mind, and to drag this back to your question, RPR: the points you’ve brought up are actually valid. The issues you bring up – such as the question of child custody after divorce, suicide rates for men being higher than women and more men being incarcerated than women are very real.

The problem, however, is that this never gets at the actual reasons for these conditions. And it’s not – as the saying goes – because sperm is (biologically) cheap and eggs are expensive. The problem is that the people who bring up these talking points never dig even slightly into why these conditions exist. It’s just taken as writ that it’s some inherent unfairness against men, at which point the questioner stops interrogating their own assumptions.

(Incidentally, that bit of evopsych is frequently quoted and just as frequently misapplied. Whenever it’s brought up as proof of why humans do anything, you should look at the conclusions with deep suspicion, and I include my own older writings in that.)

It also is notable that the people who bring up these questions are rarely asking for solutions. More often than not, what they’re doing is just complaining. When they talk about how high the incarceration rate is for men, how men are more prone to complete suicide attempts or to die in risky or dangerous jobs, there’s rarely any actual attempt to wrestle with these issues. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a lot of people who pose these questions to others think that the answer is to increase the number of women in prisons or who die in unsafe working conditions rather than, y’know, investing in judicial reforms, increased safety regulations and enforcing the laws that already on the books.

But before we even get to that, let’s actually dig into the truth of these statements that get thrown around as articles of faith – such as the fact that women get primary custody of children in divorce proceedings. This is actually not the entire truth; women tend to get primary custody of children in divorce proceedings because in the overwhelming majority of straight divorce cases, the parents mutually agree to give primary custody to the mother without the involvement of the courts. Men rarely ask for primary custody, and when they do, they’re more likely to actually get it.

Much of this is because in most cases, the mother is, in fact, the primary caregiver of the children. This isn’t a matter of opinion; this is both something that is regularly agreed to be the case by the parents, and statistically factual. In recent studies, it was found that married fathers on average spend around 6 hours per week as the primary child care activities while mothers spend 13 hours per week. If the father is the primary breadwinner of the family, he’s more likely to be out of the house more frequently than the mother and have fewer hours to devote to child care – which also factors into custody arrangements. And in many cases, the fathers don’t seem to actually care about custody until the divorce.

Now, one could argue that legal and judicial bias plays a role here – and you’d be correct. In many states and countries, it was a matter of law to prefer giving primary custody to the mother. This has actually changed, as many states passed laws to take a neutral stance over child custody preference, but in cases where custody is challenged in court, judges often lean towards giving the mother custody. But the reason why this bias exists is because society as a whole tends to define child care as a maternal role. And the people who are most likely to promote and enforce that role… are men. I mean s--t, I remember the sheer number of movies and TV shows in my lifetime where the premise was the inherent comedy of a man as the primary caregiver for children or playing a nurturing role instead of the role of “father”. And the people who wrote, produced and greenlit those movies and shows: all men.

The same thing applies to things like men dying in dangerous jobs; the reason why men die in mining jobs or working as longshoremen or other high-risk industries and why men die in combat roles in the military isn’t that women “refuse” to take those jobs. Quite the opposite in fact; in almost every case, you will find that there were actual laws passed that forbade women from working in those industries and in those roles. Those were laws passed by men, while women actively campaigned to have them repealed. Even when those laws were repealed and women were technically allowed to work in those roles, they were frequently harassed, intimidated, threatened and even assaulted until they quit – often with the tacit approval of management or commanding officers. There have been a multitude of quite high-profile legal actions by women to be given the right to work high-risk jobs, to take combat roles in the military and to otherwise have the same rights to risk their lives for pay as men.

In fact, at the time of this writing, Democrats in the U.S. Senate put forth an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would mandate women having to sign up for selective service at age 18, the same as men do. This amendment is being opposed by conservative male senators like Josh Hawley and Roger Wicker. So it’s disingenuous and ignorant at best to state that women want equality except in these cases.

But what about higher rates of male incarceration, higher rates of death by violence and higher rates of completed suicide attempts? These are equally easy to explain. It’s not a matter of women having it easier or judicial bias; it’s a matter that men are far less likely to seek out help for mental health issues such as depression than women, far less likely to even acknowledge that there is a problem and are far more encouraged to respond to conflicts with violence. And again, it’s not women who are telling men that they shouldn’t go to therapy or to respond to everything with their fists. It’s men.

(I would also note that when the issue of incarceration rates are brought up, the fact that it’s primarily men of color who have higher rates of incarceration is pointedly left out… which is its own can of worms).

When incels or MGTOWs and the rest complain about actual societal issues causing harm, they’re correct in as much as that these issues exist and are a serious and significant problem that often goes overlooked. But what they leave out or ignore is that these are all entirely the result of restrictive, toxic ideas and beliefs about how men are supposed to be, and the voices complaining about them are the same ones who laugh, dismiss or actively hinder attempts to fix them. S--t, the person who invented the term “toxic masculinity” wasn’t some fire-breathing 2nd Wave Dworkinite radical feminist, it was Shepard Bliss, the founder of the mythopoetic men’s movement.

How many Red Pillers or MGTOWs do you think would accept the idea of, say, being better communicators and being more in tune with their emotions – or at least emotions that go beyond rage, lust or stoic indifference – as the solution to their loneliness issues? How many would push back against the idea of deeper, more emotionally intimate and open relationships between male friends as the cure for the loneliness epidemic for men? How many point to greater gender equality as the problem as opposed to a willingness to grow, change and actually treat women as potential partners, rather than submissive servants who shouldn’t be allowed to outshine their male partners?

The same goes for incels. It’s true that there are men who struggle with the ability to find and foster relationships with women, for a multitude of reasons. However, much of the reason why they struggle and continue to struggle isn’t some inherent unfairness of the universe that they don’t measure up to bulls--t and artificial standards of masculinity. The problem is in no small part that they don’t see those standards as artificial and bulls--t. Instead of recognizing that the system that they’re trying to be part of is almost custom-designed to harm and exclude them, they are pissed off that they are failing the system. The hate they feel is turned inward at themselves for not living up to standards that literally no human on earth can actually measure up to and that punishes them for even the slightest deviation, rather than recognizing that the system is the problem.

It’s like the way that people continue to misunderstand the point of Fight Club (and come on, you had to know Fight Club was going to come up): Ed Norton’s character is never happier or more at peace with himself when he’s allowing himself to cry and express emotions. It’s when he (via his alter ego as Tyler Durden) decides that the solution to their problems with the system is that they need to recreate the same system, but more so that his life falls to s--t and gets progressively worse as the movie goes on.

As I said: the issues you mention are real, those concerns are legitimate. But the conclusions you’re drawing from them are at best ignorant and incorrect and at worst an attempt at gish-galloping rather than an honest and good-faith discussion of the problems. Because the ultimate reason for why these situations exist isn’t that “women have all decided that it should be so”. It is the case that society has decided that men are an expendable gender… it’s just that the people who decided this were other men. To paraphrase Kieron Gillen (who was, himself, paraphrasing Laurie Penny): patriarchy doesn’t mean “rule by men, it means rule by fathers, and most men will never be allowed to become fathers.”

Now this doesn’t mean that the solution to the struggle of trying to meet women and form relationships is to become a thunderous radical determined to bring down masculinity. Nor does it entail a belief that all men are evil and bad and all things male are to be avoided at all costs – no matter what the Red Pill fellow-travelers might say.

Rather, the first step is to recognize that so much of the reasons why you – and people like you – struggle are the bulls--t restrictions on how men are “supposed” to be and how much it limits men’s emotional, social and spiritual growth. Much as a bird in a tiny cage will end with deformed and atrophied wings that leave it unable to fly, a man trapped in the “man box” (to use Tony Porter’s term) is going to find himself stunted and restrained. Learning to both recognize that the box exists in the first place and to step outside that box is the first step towards the growth and improvement needed to actually access your potential and to become someone who can be a full-fledged partner in relationships.

Asking these questions is a good first step. But the next step is to actually look for the actual answers to how those circumstances came to be and why. Once you see just how much these toxic ideals have poisoned you, your friends and your community, it’s hard not to see its effects in so many areas. And to be sure: it is a struggle to break out of those beliefs, in no small part because we’ve all grown up in it for so long that we don’t realize it’s there. It’s the classic “fish have no word for water”. But once you do, and once you start challenging and testing those supposed “rules” and realizing how many of them are fake, you can start to grow to the man you were always meant to be.

It’s time to let go of the chains that’ve been holding you back, to slip those restrictive tethers and finally let yourself soar.

Good luck.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com