Ladies, you are leaving us less and less choice

This has been a long time in the making and I apologise to my detractors and supporters alike for it taking this long to pen the follow-up to “I blame your mother for your laziness” which came in for much debate, as anticipated, and I hope that it opened people’s minds to how most men weigh up “a good prospect” for a companion. I will continue to take the heat for my brothers so that they don’t have to, but can reap the rewards as their partners maybe start to see that taking care of your man and allowing him to be a man is not necessarily mutually exclusive to being a modern, liberated “equal partner” in a household.

I feel it is vital that I venture to explain my abscondense from blogging lately. You see, the Mail & Guardian doesn’t pay me — a certain confectionary company which makes the best chocolate in the world does and I have been rather preoccupied with keeping my job since February, when a rather major change happened which necessitated even stronger action from me and this has taken up most of my evenings, which I would have otherwise spent writing leisurely — for no pay — and or drinking beer.

So, now that that is out of the way let me proceed with shedding some light on the subject of relationships between the male and the female of our species, specifically around courtship.

If you are a traditional man, you are automatically branded a chauvinist and backward, but only if you try to live by those traditions that perpetuate you as a leader of the household and king of your own little debt-ridden kingdom. Where the woman benefits, you are required to uphold those benefits and those traditional values will be called nice names like chivalrous, gentlemanly and polite. But when you uphold those traditions that maintain you as king of the castle and rightful head of the household, you will be labelled backward, chauvinist and a caveman — a double standard here, anyone?

Here is an example: when you are to meet a girl for the first date, you are often required to beg for the date because a woman who approaches you is traditionally deemed forward and women still hold the retarded notion that if she approaches you, you will figure her a slut and proceed to use her before casting her aside or passing her digits on to your boys. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but this is how a lot of women live their lives, refusing to take the control of the engagement into their own hands, but rather allowing themselves to go on with the ride, which is fuelled by the said unfortunate gentleman, with the requirement from the woman being only to spruce herself to be served up as the proverbial banquet spotted dick.

Chivalry requires that the gentleman makes the evening’s plans before the fetching young lady and transporting her to the venue where he will wine and dine her, open doors and pull out chairs for her as he goes and all in the hope that maybe, just maybe she will be willing to spend the rest of her life with him. If not the rest of her life, then maybe for a weekend away in the Drakensberg, which he will also have to fund, if you were wondering.

If it all goes well, the young man will be standing outside the women’s door after the date angling for a kiss, which he most probably won’t get (it being the first date and everything). And you guessed it, he will also have to initiate this phase of the date and hope for the best, putting himself out there for rejection.

The theory then goes that if she gives the young man absolutely nothing on the first date, then she is a good woman, worth another date — I personally have never gotten this bit — you reject me and that makes you better than a girl who doesn’t reject me?! This is ludicrous, but these are women we are dealing with here, not the most rational people.

So because the young man, well, is young and still foolish, he calls her for another date, but in the interim the woman has been tossing and turning, calling friends for support and praying that the guy she turned down for a goodnight kiss and made to feel generally unattractive and unwanted actually calls her for a second date!

What?! Yeah, I know, beats me too — it’s a delicate dance, this courtship business.

Second date comes along and the woman puts on her best “I want nothing to do with you” show in order to really hook this guy, because apparently the longer she holds out the better a woman she is. And this goes on and on until finally, the magic three months have gone past and she gives it up, because that’s what women worth their salt do, they wait.

In the meantime the poor guy has been on a rollercoaster of emotion, not knowing whether she liked him or not, but has had to stick by his guns for the supposed prize, because we too have been brainwashed to believe that rejection means a good upbringing and solid morals. Sad, really.

So the masochist carries on until he gets the girl or the girl allows herself to be had and they get married and are in their marital home — the roles then are reversed. The tradition that he has carried on the whole courtship should now apply to the woman, right? You’d think for sure, but then you’d be modelled a chauvinist with caveman tendencies.

Traditionally, the man works, and the woman takes care of the home. Granted, these days everyone works, but how much of that traditional dance of marriage should be compromised due to the changed times and the roles of married people in the modern relationship? If you are a guy and are thinking that perhaps after all that work you did during the courtship and the financial investment you made in the relationship and by extension on her, you should get a break, then you are gravely delusional — you are now expected to do half the housework as well, as the modern good husband does.

Things have just gotten exponential for the woman, and the relationship requirements have curved into creating her as the queen of the castle, not an equal partner. A wife is superior to a man in every respect in our society these days and even the law says that, just try to divorce her for cheating on you and you’ll see. She’ll be given half your stuff to take and go spend with the guy she cheated on you with.

If you expect your wife to cook, clean, wash or even to participate in bed, then you have a high mountain to climb. Women are busy these days, you see, they have jobs more important than yours and don’t have the time to be a good wife when there is a corporate ladder to climb and the Gucci pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to chase.

After all that the man is traditionally expected to go through during courtship, all the traditional values in a marriage have to be shifted — the chores are shared and the man’s movement carefully monitored because God forbid he actually goes out with mates and enjoys himself without her.

So the modern man is supposed to provide and the woman will supplement that provision because she is not satisfied with what the man provides, which means that he also has to do his part in the home with the housework. Have you seen an unhappily married man? He has this hollow look in his eyes as he stands at the till at the mall with a woman in tow and he always watches you with fond memories when he sees your trolley with two things in it — a case of beer and two hundred rand’s worth of biltong on your way to watch the weekend’s sport activities.

There are benefits to being married, of course, but they are becoming very few and get eroded with every new issue of Cosmo. In time only the illusion of love and sowing your seed will remain the only benefits of marriage. And since we already know that love is a biochemical reaction that can be replicated, the hope of breeding will be the only benefit left.

In my life right now I see to every single aspect of my life from laundry to meals, to financial planning and back again. I want to breed my rugby player kids, and this is probably the only benefit to a relationship — I wouldn’t risk artificially inseminating a surrogate — lest my kids be called “test-tube babies” at creche, kids are cruel even at that level of their development.

Ladies, you are leaving us less and less choice in the matter and as soon as medical science develops a tonic to replicate feeling loved and fulfilled, which they are probably close to, and with the way blow-up-doll technology is accelerating towards the physical replication of anatomy and aIl, and it becomes more acceptable to breed laaities in a lab, you will become very dispensable to us.

Now all that is left to focus on is the legalisation of the prostitution industry and clean it up so it is safe for practitioners and customers alike — presto!

I rest,
The Sumo
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