You won’t know it because of the power of editing, but as I’m writing this I am having trouble pressing the correct keys. I’ve had to fix typos and completely delete words so misspelled that the powers of autocorrect couldn’t even step in and lend a hand.
The problem is that I just got through working out and creatine is still coursing through my veins, and my massive pectoral muscles are filled with even more blood than usual, bro. (Sorry, I normally don’t say bro, but as many of you know, it is a side effect of getting a proper pump)
Why am I telling you about my workout routine? Well, it has recently been brought to my attention that just because you were born a man and identify as a man, that does not necessarily mean that you are a man. And no, I’m not getting into some type of transgender discourse, so save your angry emails for someone else (or for another point I’ll try and make further down in this piece).
Matter of fact, even if you do pass society’s new rules for being a man, you are still subject to being placed in two categories: a beta male and the highly coveted alpha male! So before I start waxing humorously about how ridiculous that all is, I thought I would let it be known that whichever camp you determine I belong in, I bench press, have sex with my wife and eat steak — rare, because cooked any other way is burnt and you should be thrown in the gulag.
So any attempt at labeling me a soy boy will fall on deaf ears (Literally. I can barely hear because I crank nothing but AC/DC and Skynyrd in my headphones, bro! Cause I’m a freakin’ man)
I’ll admit that while I do think it’s a problem, I don’t really care for the term toxic masculinity because to some women it just means anything that isn’t just active listening in a sweater while drinking cocoa. Watching football isn’t toxic masculinity. Hazing in the locker room is! I’d love to avoid a sweeping generalization, but that’s just not how most men are wired.
But toxic masculinity absolutely does exist, and it is dangerous. What’s more dangerous is the swath of ultra-online MAGA chuds successfully convincing our nation’s young men that it isn’t.
The Andrew Tates of the world. The Nick Fuenteses. Even weaselly little Ben Shapiro, who weighs a buck-20 soaking wet and couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag unless there was a “lib” he desperately needed to “own” on the outside of it so he could collect enough rubles to pay the mortgage on his studio.
Or worse so, the Steven Crowders who preach family values and manhood into a microphone shortly after settling a domestic dispute with his wife in court.
Murphy’s law states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” I propose a new one called the (Matt) Walsh law: Anyone who makes a living by branding themselves a man of “family values” is most likely hated by their family.
Traditional values is the key phrase. And to them, traditional values means that the man is not only the head of the household, but is to be obeyed. A woman’s role is to submit to her man in all manner of the word.
These “men” pine for the good ole’ days. The ones that Archie Bunker sings about in that song. When women knew their place. When they spent all day cleaning and cooking and raising the children so that the man was free to pursue a fulfilling career — and more important to those men, I’d say, be able to do what ever the hell they wanted when they got home because their penis warrants them God-given dominion over their property. Excuse me, I mean wife and children.
But what’s funny to me is that it’s always women who are expected to revert back to behaving like their angelic ancestors from yesteryear. Never the other way around.
Ladies, do me a favor. The next time your man tells you that you should cook more or clean more, because that’s the way their grandmothers did it, give them an ultimatum.
Tell them you’ll gladly don an apron for the rest of your days if they will get their fat, video game-playin, TV-watching hind ends off the couch and go outside and build a house by themselves from scratch. Or if they’ll go sand some wood and build you a new Chester drawers. (That’s how it’s spelled. I don’t care.) And the next time it rains, that SOB better cover a puddle with his brand-new jacket for you to walk over, because by God, that’s how men acted in the good ole’ days!
So what is a man? To me, it’s someone who stands up for what’s right, not just what makes his life easier. It’s someone who puts the needs of his family above his own. It’s someone who has his priorities straight.
It damn sure ain’t someone who spends all day on the internet moaning about the new “Snow White” film and the fact that the 12-year-old girl they cast in “The Last Of Us” isn’t as “hot” as the 12-year-old girl in the video game.
Y’all are gross.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Corey Ryan Forrester is a comedian from Chickamauga. He is the co-author of “The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark” and “Round Here and Over Yonder: A Front Porch Travel Guide by Two Progressive Hillbillies (Yes, That’s a Thing.),” and a co-host of the podcasts “wellRED” and “Puttin’ On Airs.” Forrester will be performing at the Punchline Comedy Club in Atlanta at 7:30 p.m. March 20.
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