Tag Archives: masculinity

August 22, 2017 · 7:02 am

What Makes A Man An Asshole?

I often talk about things on this blog that are complicated, convoluted, and downright esoteric at times and that’s just with respect to sex robots and superhero comics. Hell, I could probably run several separate blogs on those topics alone, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Some topics, though, need not be too complicated. Some basically explain themselves. It’s like the movie “Snakes On A Plane.” There’s nothing deep or vague about that concept. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a movie about snakes on a plane. Sure, it’s basic and a little dumb, but sometimes we need to turn our brains off and just enjoy the spectacle.

So, in the interest of giving everyone’s brain a rest from thought experiments and sociopolitical undertones surrounding major protests, I’m going to talk about something simple that requires little thought or mental exertion. At most, it only requires us to think about a certain type of person or character, real or fictional, that we’ve all probably dealt with at some point in our lives.

This brings me to people who are assholes, specifically of the male variety. I hope that’s a topic that needs no explanation, exposition, or build-up. We know them. We deal with them. We may even be related to a few. Chances are, you find yourself dealing with asshole men at least once a week.

It’s just as common in fiction, including the erotica/romance variety. I’m not just talking about the Biff Tannen variety either. In many major conflicts, including the ones I write about in books like “Skin Deep,” there are plenty of assholes who seem to only exist to make others miserable. They are both the driving force of a story and an infinite source of frustration in real life.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I’ll just be blunt and say that the male gender breeds a special kind of asshole. That’s not to say that women aren’t as capable of such assholery, but I’ll save that for another post. Being a man, I like to think I have a greater insight into what makes a man an asshole.

Now, the psychoanalyst and wannabe philosopher in me is tempted to break down every major component that goes into turning an innocent young boy into a walking affront to all things fueled by testosterone. I’m sure there are all sorts of reasons, excuses, and faulty brain wiring that go into it. I’m going to skip those complexities for now and just focus on the basics.

With that in mind, here are my list of factors that go into making a man the kind of asshole that doesn’t deserve functioning genitals. Again, these are fairly basic. I’m sure other people have other, more elaborate ideas of what makes men assholes. I would love to hear some of those ideas so I can expand this list down the line. For now, though, let’s just start with laying the foundation for all things male asshole.

Asshole Factor #1: Always Having Something (Stupid) To Prove

Chief among any male asshole’s defining traits includes excessively flexing his male bravado. We all get that there’s a time and a place for bravado. If someone is attacking a loved one or there’s a hungry lion coming at you, that’s an appropriate moment for a man to flex his nuts and show what he can do.

For assholes, though, that time is all day and that place is anywhere. They’re the kinds of guys who will do anything on a dare, make everything a competition, and not give enough of a damn about the rules. If they’re not trying to impress pretty girls, they’re trying to impress friends. If they have no friends, they’re trying to show up enemies. It never ends until they do something so stupid that they hurt themselves.

I’m not going to lie, though. When an asshole like this take it too far and pays the price, it’s kind of nice. Like seeing King Joffrey die, it can help remind us that there is some semblance of justice in the universe.

Asshole Factor #2: Entitlement To Certain Things (Like Sex)

This largely shows in the rich, arrogant, I’m-a-big-deal-so-I-can-do-anything type of male asshole, of which there are too many. From reality stars to the asshats on Instagram, these assholes exploit the hell out of the lucky hand they’ve been dealt in life and expect the world to massage his balls upon demand.

It goes beyond wealth, though. There are even non-rich male assholes who think the mere act of having a penis entitles them to certain things, like the love of a beautiful woman or the freedom to be a dick to other people.

They carry themselves with this mindset that just being a man makes them inherently manly, entitling them to all the stuff that comes with it. They fail to realize that you still have to work for certain things. You still have to earn the right to see that pretty girl naked. Real men do that work. Assholes don’t even try.

Asshole Factor #3: Always Needing To Show Off And Seek Vindication

We’ve all known our share of class clowns. I knew more than a few back in grade school. Sure, they were funny at times and could get a cheap laugh. Some do it in a likable way. Others are just assholes about it.

As with the first factor, there’s a time and a place to show off. If you’ve won the Super Bowl, achieved something of note, and done something that few can do, then go ahead and show off. You’ve earned it. Just showing off for the sake of showing off is what distinguishes the lovable class clown from the asshole.

Beyond just showing off, the asshole does it in a way that seeks some sort of unearned vindication. They’re basically saying, “I’m here! I exist! Now, I demand that I be valued!” Always needing that kind of vindication hints at a lot of insecurity and, deep down, assholes tend to be a lot more insecure than most.

Asshole Factor #4: Needing To Be The Loudest Voice In A Conversation

If there’s one good thing about most male assholes you deal with, it’s that they make themselves known. You don’t have to look very hard to find them. Usually, they’ll either come to you or be so obnoxiously loud that you can’t miss them. Like a bear taking a shit on your driveway, it’s hard to miss.

It goes beyond just being loud, though. An asshole man talks as though his voice is the only one that matters. He acts as though he’s the leader by default and everyone else’s voices might as well be the echoes of a dying cat.

They don’t listen. They barely even hear what others say. They just keep talking because the sound of their voice is just that much more valuable. These are the kinds of guys that make noise-canceling headphones a godsend.

Asshole Factor #5: Always Making Excuses (And Never Learning From Failure)

I dedicated multiple posts regarding the difference between reasons and excuses. I won’t rehash all the main details behind those concepts because, in this instance, you really don’t need to know those details. Like the loudmouth factor, it’s fairly clear that male assholes live in a world of excuses and reasons might as well be an alien concept.

You know this because whenever they screw up or fail at anything, it’s never their fault. It’s never even the fault of luck. It’s everyone else that’s the problem. They’re the reason the male asshole believes he didn’t get what he wanted.

That’s a big part of why male assholes tend to be bullies. Everyone’s an obstacle. Everyone’s a means to an end. They’ll have any number of excuses to shove them out of their way or bend them to their will. Other people are just tools to get that vindication I mentioned earlier.

In many respects, it’s this factor that helps distinguish the casual assholes from the professionals.

Asshole Factor #6: (Overly) Emphasizing Style And Avoiding Substance

Even if you don’t hear a male asshole’s loudmouth rantings, which isn’t easy, or avoid his constant excuses, which is next to impossible, there’s still one way they stand out from their non-asshole peers. They will purposefully style themselves as the kind of person that is so superficial and so shallow that they inspire awful Jack Black movies.

The spoiled rich assholes do it with pride. Even the non-rich assholes find a way to do it with sheer arrogance and bravado. They spend way too much time on their hair, buy way too many overpriced clothes, and generally conduct themselves in ways meant to gain unearned vindication.

It’s one thing to wear a championship ring that you earned. These guys just wear all sorts of fancy crap that gives the illusion that they’ve done something meaningful with their lives. More often than not, they haven’t done squat. They can’t be bothered to put in the work. That, my friends, is the literal mark of a true asshole.

I hope this gives everyone a better concept of male assholes. You can never be too prepared or informed. Make no mistake. Assholes can really make your life difficult. Even if you can’t avoid them, you can use this information to better endure their crap. We’re an imperfect species full of imperfect people. Some people just take those imperfections to an annoying extreme.

Again, if you want to help add to this list, please let me know in the comments. Maybe down the line, I’ll update it in another post. For now, make good use of this information and may the influence of assholes in your life be minimal.

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Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights, Marriage and Relationships, Reasons and Excuses

Tagged as assholes, gender issues, gender norms, gender roles, human relationships, love, male heroes, male villains, manliness, masculinity, men, men and women, men are assholes, men's health, relationships, stupid men, stupidity, toxic masculinity

May 24, 2017 · 7:00 am

A (Distressing) Thought Experiment On Gender Double Standards

Whenever I pose one of my thought experiments, I do so with the hope of inspiring novel, entertaining ideas that get people thinking for all the right reasons. Ideally, these ideas are fun and enlightening. If they make people horny in the process, then that’s just a bonus.

Every now and then, however, it’s not enough for an idea to be enlightening or sexy. Sometimes, for a thought experiment to work, it needs to make people feel uncomfortable. It needs to create some sort of mental distress.

I know that’s something most people avoid. I’ve even pointed out how our brains are wired to do anything and everything to avoid mental distress, even if it leads to outright hypocrisy.

Well, as uncomfortable as it is, mental distress has a purpose. It forces us to contemplate an idea that highlights a major problem in the world. It’s often one of those problems we know is there on some level, but avoid thinking about because it’s too daunting. For this particular thought experiment, it’s not so much that the idea is overwhelming. It’s more that it reveals something about our attitudes that we don’t often scrutinize.

So with that in mind, here’s the experiment. Think back to any action scene in any major action movie of the past couple decades. Given the glut of superhero movies and “Die Hard” rip-offs out there, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Specifically, think of a scene where a female character was kicking ass. Given the rise of strong female characters, that shouldn’t be too difficult either.

A good example comes from the memorable Black Widow fight scene in “Iron Man 2.” By any measure, it’s a wonderfully entertaining scene. It has Scarlett Johanssen kicking ass in a skin-tight outfit. What’s not to love about it? Most people who watch this scene, especially comic book fans and people who find Scarlett Johanssen sexy, would be rightly entertained.

Here’s where the thought experiment comes in. This is where it gets really uncomfortable. Watch the scene above once as you usually would. You don’t need to know the context too much. This is just Black Widow beating up the hired goons of Justin Hammer, the primary antagonist of the movie. Use that first reaction as a baseline of sorts.

Now, watch the scene again. This time, though, reverse all the genders of the characters involved. Make Black Widow a man. Make Justin Hammer’s goons women. Let it play out in your mind, this lone male character beating up all these women. Does the scene evoke the same reaction? For most people not named Chris Brown, it probably makes you sick to your stomach.

This goes beyond the typical double standards between men and women, which I’ve talked about before. It even goes beyond strong female characters, which I’ve also touched on in various ways. This is one of those dynamics that has always been there right in front of us. We just don’t take the time to scrutinize it.

We can watch scenes of James Bond beating the crap out of a bunch of SPECTRE henchmen and be entertained. We can also watch scenes of Black Widow, Sarah Conner, and Furiosa do the same and be entertained. Swap the genders, though, and it becomes extremely distressing. We don’t see powerful characters kicking ass anymore. We just see a man beating up multiple women.

Find a scene like the one above from “Iron Man 2” and do the same thought experiment. Look for a scene where a woman beats up a much of male thugs. Then, swap the genders. Chances are, the feelings it evokes are just as distressing.

For a greater sense of context, I came up with this thought experiment after reading an article on Cracked.com about the way Hollywood treats men. I’ve cited Cracked before because and while I don’t always agree with them, they’re good at tackling serious topics in a humorous way, even sexy topics. This one, however, had a hard time being funny.

6 Backwards Ideas Hollywood Still Has About Men

Some parts of the article were more inane than others, like pointing out how every leading man has to be at least a half-foot taller than the average guy or how tortured men are somehow compelling. Some of those details are just quirks, blatant examples of style over substance.

Beyond the quirks, though, there are some genuinely disturbing dynamics at work. We find such entertainment in women beating the crap out of men. We also find entertainment in men beating the crap out of men. However, when it’s men beating the crap out of women, context doesn’t matter. It always makes us feel disgusted and repulsed.

The thought experiment I just posed highlights that. However, it goes beyond violence as well. Rape is one of those super-sensitive issues that’s impossible to make funny or sexy. However, if you put it in the context of prison rape where men rape men, then that somehow changes things, so much so that jokes about rape will even find their way into an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Then, there are the cases where women rape men. Yes, that does happen in real life. Women are capable of domestic violence against men. However, it’s still okay to joke about. Christopher Titus has even worked it into his standup. It even finds its way into cartoons that air on prime-time.

The best example of this is the “Futurama” episode, “Death By Snu Snu.” In that episode, the cast encounters a planet populated by big, hulking, hostile Amazonian women, albeit not of the Wonder Woman variety. Through a series of hilarious antics that are entirely appropriate for a show that has a hard-drinking, sociopath robot, the male characters end up captured.

This is where the line between hilarity and distress blurs if you dare do the same thought experiment. Once captured, the Amazonian women decide to “torment” their prisoners with “snu snu,” which is their alien verbiage for sex. The reaction of Fry and Zap Branigan is a mix of horror and intrigue.

Granted, it’s presented in a funny way, but that doesn’t change the actual substance of what happens. The women rape these men. They rape them and it’s portrayed as humorous. I’m not going to lie. I did laugh somewhat at how the episode played out. Most people with a healthy sense of humor would.

However, if you do the same thought experiment with the Black Widow scene in “Iron Man 2,” it takes on a very different context. Watch the episode again, but turn the hulking Amazons into men. Then, turn Fry and Zap into women. Suddenly, that scene takes on a much darker undertone.

It would push the line even for the most hardcore porn. Think about how that would play out, a group of warrior men taking a couple of women who just stumbled upon their world and deciding to rape them to death. It wouldn’t just be rated NC-17. It would be outright banned and subject to protest from every women’s group in the world.

What does it say about our attitudes, our culture, and our standards when we’re okay with one gender dynamic and not the other? Now, there are inherent differences in those dynamics. Human beings are a sexually dimorphic species. That means there are inherently different traits within the genders that are impossible to overlook completely.

However, the sheer breadth of the disparity here is cause for concern. If flipping the genders of a story or scene evokes such a different reaction, then that’s a serious disconnect that’s worth scrutinizing.

That’s not to say that the scenes in “Iron Man 2” or “Futurama” are wrong or not entertaining. There’s just something inherently revealing about ourselves when we flip the gender dynamics and react to the same scene. We may not like what that reveals, but it’s not something that can or should be ignored.

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Tagged as alpha male, beta male, cracked.com, feminism, Hollywood, human psychology, love, masculinity, men, men's health, men's issues, mental health, movies, popular culture, psychology, relationships, sex, toxic masculinity, women's issues

May 6, 2017 · 7:47 am

Virtue Signaling: How It Creates Beta Males And Bitchy Girls

They’re weak, pathetic, gullible, whiny, sullen, and boring. They lack confidence, charisma, and any meaningful personality trait that might help them stand out and accomplish something of value. They do nothing to excite the opposite sex and make only the most asinine of efforts to do so. They are the beta males, an inane segment of the male population that I’ve protested before.

Now, allow me to describe a different crop of annoying people whose presence pollutes the collective gene pool. They’re loud, obnoxious, arrogant, impolite, dense, unreasonable, vindictive, and crass. They are unflinching, unfeeling, and utterly devoid of empathy to anyone who isn’t like them. Their disdain of others and perpetual victimhood complex is the only thing that gets them up in the morning.

I’m talking, of course, about bitchy girls. If beta males are a bane to all those with a Y-chromosome, then bitchy girls are repugnant stain on the feminine mystique. I call them girls because there’s a difference between women and girls. Being a woman, just like being a man, requires some measure of maturity. Girls, like their beta male boys, have none of that. As such, they don’t deserve to be called women.

I bring up these two case studies of festering warts within the human condition to help make another point about virtue signaling. I know some people are probably tired of this topic. Believe me, I feel your pain. However, this last point is more relevant because it affects our personal lives, as well as my efforts as an erotica/romance writer.

Beta males and bitchy girls are sometimes a necessary component of a story, especially one that relies on major antagonistic characters. You need a male or female character that is easy to hate and easy to root against. That’s why we have characters like Biff Tannen and Regina George from “Mean Girls.”

It used to be that we needed those characters to be alpha males or alpha females. They had to be tough, mean-spirited jocks or cruel, cold-hearted bitches that nobody rooted for when they got gutted by a crazed killer in a hockey mask. It’s crude, but it did the trick. Unfortunately, new trends in character development, as well as real life, are tweaking that script and not for the better.

Beta males and bitchy girls may not be natural allies on paper, but they occupy the same space in terms of being utterly contemptible on multiple levels. They just take different routes and virtue signaling is how they get there.

The best contemporary example are certain breeds of those who call themselves “male feminists.” By the way, anyone who actually has to preface feminism like that should raise a few red flags. That’s usually a sign that they’re already retreating into beta male mode and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

These types of men are habitual virtue signalers, routinely bashing their own gender and agreeing with the bitchy girls about everything involving some “cisgendered white male patriarchy” conspiracy. They essentially emasculate themselves, shunning any male traits, and associating every masculine trait with being Biff Tannen.

It’s a form of self-flagellation, an effort to alleviate the sheer guilt they feel with being male and trying to earn attention and/or pity from others. That’s how they seek their validation and when they interact in groups, they can’t help but reinforce those efforts. Virtue signaling is just the proverbial gasoline they use to keep the fire going.

For bitchy women, the virtue signaling is much more overt. Unlike the beta males, they’re exceedingly vocal with their efforts. They don’t discuss, debate, or rationalize. They just yell, whine, and groan. Virtue signaling is just how they stay on topic.

Bitchy women don’t care about anyone’s voices, except their own. They loudly whine and bemoan about everyone who doesn’t buy into their view of the world. They will yell about the oppressive white male patriarchy at the top of their lungs. Then, when someone calls them out on their bullshit, they dare to play the victim.

In the mind of a beta male and a bitchy girl, they are the underdog hero of their own story and everyone else is an evil demon-possessed Nazi working on behalf of reincarnated slave-holders from the 1850s. Virtue signaling allows them to prop up this inner narrative, as though they have to keep it going in order to ensure they get the same ending they’ve seen in every Rocky movie.

It isn’t just that this inner narrative is utterly false and devoid of substance. It isn’t just that it gives them too many excuses to cling to these annoying tendencies, which constitutes excuse banking of the worst kind. The biggest tragedy here, beyond the people they annoy, is that with their virtue signaling, they champion traits that naturally drive people apart.

Beta males and bitchy women do not conduct themselves in ways that inspires intimacy, progression, and growth. They present themselves as heroes of their own story, an ideal for what a man and woman should be, but they cannot and will not realize that the picture they’re paintings is both flawed and repugnant.

A beta male, in his meek ineptitude, barely qualifies as a pet to a bitchy girl. A bitchy girl, in her immature arrogance, is just another bully that a beta male tolerates. Together, they reinforce a brutal cycle of bitterness, self-loathing, and arrogance that ensures isolation, apathy, and loneliness.

For an aspiring erotica/romance writer, that’s a triple dose of narrative kryptonite. For characters like the ones in “Passion Relapse” or “Skin Deep,” it’s important I strike a particular balance. I can’t have characters being too much like Biff Tannen or Regina George. I can’t have them be like the entire cast of the “Big Bang Theory” either. If I want those characters to be more than mere foils, they need to have some complexity.

I’m not saying there isn’t a place for characters like this. Someone needs to be Freddy Kruger’s first victim in a horror story. However, virtue signaling and those who abuse send a toxic message about what makes a man or a woman moral within the context of a story.

Beta males and bitchy girls don’t deserve to be heroes, ideals, or examples. More than anything else, they are cautionary tales of what happens when virtue signaling goes too far and infects someone’s mind. They should not be encouraged, nor should they be ignored either.

There are many different dynamics that go into making a character, real or fictional, into who they are. If they need something like virtue signaling to function, then that’s a sign there’s something inherently flawed. People have enough excuses to be mean to one another, some of which they can’t do a damn thing about. It’s better for society, our live lives, and erotica/romance novels if we don’t provide them with more.

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Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as alpha male, beta male, feminism, human society, love, masculinity, men's health, psychology, Radical Feminism, relationships, sex in society, society, the human mind, toxic masculinity, virtue signaling, women's health

May 5, 2017 · 6:47 am

Virtue Signaling: Why We Are NOT The Hero Of Our Own Story

Think back to any movie that ever involved a lovable underdog. For anyone who has been to a movie theater more than once since 1978, this shouldn’t be that hard. Hell, think about a popular TV show involving a lovable underdog, going all the way back to the “Leave It To Beaver” days. What do they all have in common?

The similarities aren’t exactly subtle. The lovable underdog isn’t someone who is big, strong, handsome, cocky, arrogant, or dumb. They’re often unremarkable, so much so that others don’t acknowledge their existence. They do little to stand out and even less to distinguish themselves, but the same story usually plays out for them.

Whether they’re John McClane from “Die Hard,” Peter Parker from “Spider-Man,” or the entire cast of “The Big Bang Theory,” they embody the traits of all that is good and right with the world. They overcome obstacles, bullies, and a world where pretty girls aren’t lining up to touch their dicks to become heroes in their own right.

In the end, everything works out for them. In the end, they get what they want. The world comes to love them. Everybody, male and female alike, loves them. They are respected and admired for their thoughts, actions, and ideas at every turn. They have every reason to feel good about themselves.

What I just described is both the standard narrative for no less than 95 percent of every underdog story ever told and the primary reason why virtue signaling is getting out of hand. If that sounds like a bit of a stretch, then please bear with me. There is a logic behind it and, unlike my previous post on virtue signaling, it has a major implications.

As with other topics, like sex robots and body shaming, it’s impossible to cover every aspect of a certain topic. Virtue signaling, having only recently become a major buzzword, definitely qualifies. It is very much an emerging trend that is finding its way into politics, gender issues, media, and even erotica/romance. Since I’m trying to make a living writing erotica/romance, that deeply concerns me.

For this particular post, I want to highlight the more direct impacts of virtue signaling that I’ve observed in recent years. Specifically, I want to focus on how it affects the way people see themselves and the way they relate to one another. There’s a lot of material to cover and I can only handle so much coffee before my brain starts to short out.

I’ll table my concerns about brain function for the moment because this is something that I haven’t just observed. I’ve experienced it as well. As a man, trends that affect how men and women relate to one another don’t just affect the kinds of sexy stories I tell. They effect me personally and how I conduct myself in my day-to-day life. They effect all of us, often in ways we don’t see or acknowledge.

With respect to virtue signaling, these effects have only recently become more pronounced to the growth of social media. Unlike every other point in human history, we no longer need a million people to march through a capital city or a massive rebellion to send a message. We just need a smartphone, an internet connection, and a willingness to castigate ourselves in a public sphere.

As a result, virtue signaling has become a popular pastime of sorts. Political leaders, media figures, and ordinary people with too much free time on their hands go out of their way to make these elaborate gestures to prove that they’re virtuous or pious or tolerant or not a Nazi.

More often than not, these gestures just aren’t enough and people end up doing more and more, thus creating a brutal cycle of sorts. Sometimes the gesture is misinterpreted, as often happens with poorly-worded Tweets. Sometimes it’s just part of a larger agenda, one that requires constant reaffirmation in light of incessant criticism. Video game critics found out just how bad this could get back in August 2014.

It’s a stressful endeavor, trying to loudly proclaim to the masses that you’re as virtuous, heroic, and understanding as any protagonist from a John Hughes movie. It’s also tearing us apart and making us despise one another.

So how exactly does it work and why is it so toxic? Well, to answer that, think back to lovable underdogs that I mentioned earlier. We, as a culture, love those characters for a reason. They live in a world where they do what they do, but come out on top. They win in every way they want to win, becoming the heroes of their own stories.

The problem with that world is that it’s a total fantasy and too many people try to make that fantasy fit into their reality. Unfortunately, reality is notoriously uncompromising. Just ask anyone who tried to make a romantic gesture that backfired horribly.

It’s not that they’re insincere or inept, though. They’re just part of an entire generation that has grown up seeing this narrative of the lovable underdog overcoming the odds and they’ve been led to believe that this is how you succeed. This is how you become the hero of your own story.

We, being the egotistical creatures we are, want to be that hero. We want to be the lovable underdog we see in the movies who can say they overcame the odds, succeeded, and got laid in the process. However, the tactics we see in movies and TV shows just don’t work in the real world or require an obscene amount of luck.

Since all the success, adulation, and sex doesn’t just immediately happen like it does over the course of a two-hour movie, those wanting to be the hero try to force it. That’s where virtue signaling comes in.

Since being a hero often requires hard work, sacrifice, talent, training, and the ability to be in the right place at the right time, virtue signaling offers a much easier alternative. It’s not solely about laziness. It’s just often the path of least resistance and the most readily available path. Can you blame anyone for taking it?

Rather than actually doing something meaningful, virtue signaling allows people to feel like they’re the hero of their own story, even if they accomplish nothing heroic. To their caveman brain, it doesn’t matter. It already has a hard time processing what gets it aroused. How the hell is it going to determine whether someone qualifies as a hero?

The short answer is that it can’t. The longer answer is that our caveman brains still urge us to seek validation from our tribe and security in our identity. Virtue signaling allows us to do both, even when there’s nothing of substance behind it.

This can lead to a real identity crisis for some people. There are people who define themselves as members of a particular tribe, be they radical feminists, conservative Christians, or Twilight fans. When they feel as though they aren’t slaying the necessary dragons, s to speak, they become distressed and look for any way to alleviate it. Virtue signaling allows them to at least feel it’s alleviate, which is close enough.

That laughably low standard ensures that virtue signaling is almost always an empty, shallow gesture at most. It only ever functions as a means to help certain individuals feel better about themselves, alleviate the mental stresses that come with seeking validation, and ensure they can be the hero of their own story, even if they do nothing heroic.

In a real world full of unflinching, unyielding circumstances that keep most people from ever doing anything remotely heroic, virtue signaling offers empty promises that only feel real enough to keep our brains and tribes functioning. Even when there’s no substance whatsoever, it gives people an illusion to buy into and that can be dangerous because it gives people an excuse to not do something greater.

As I’ve pointed out before, people will cling to any excuse that allows them to justify their actions or lack thereof. Now that doesn’t make those who virtue signal bad. If anything, their desire to be the lovable underdog hero of their own story proves to me that such people are good at heart. They’re just misguided, clinging to the feelings and validation that virtue signaling earns them.

Since I like to be a bit more optimistic about people in general, I believe that the lack of substance that inherently comes with virtue signaling will eventually catch up with most people. There will be those who can never escape it. For most people, though, I believe they’ll learn that there are better ways to be the lovable underdog hero of your own story.

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Tagged as alpha male, beta male, feminism, Heroes, identity politics, intimacy, liberalism, love, masculinity, political correctness, Radical Feminism, romance, toxic masculinity, underdog story, underdogs, virtue signaling

April 1, 2017 · 8:45 am

We’re ALL Perverts (According To Cracked)

In the interest of science, sex, and having an excuse to talk about subjects that get our blood flowing in all the right ways, I’d like to do a quick survey. Don’t worry. This isn’t a pop quiz. It’s not another one of my sexy thought experiments either. It’s just my way of making a point, one that may very well be important to our collective understanding of sexuality.

It’s just four questions. Anyone can take it. They’re simple yes/no answers. If it takes you more than 20 seconds, then you’re just overthinking.

Question 1: Are you a man?

Question 2: Are you heterosexual?

Question 3: Do you enjoy the sight of female breasts?

Question 4: Do art forms that depict female breasts appeal to you?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then congratulations. You’re a pervert. That’s right. According to a growing sentiment within our culture, any straight man who dares to admire female breasts in any form of media, be it video games, movies, or TV, is somehow a pervert.

That’s the message that a recent article of Cracked.com gave. Usually, I’m very fond of Cracked.com’s work on discussing matters of sexuality. However, every now and then, they write an article that reeks of politically correct horse shit. This particular article talked about how video game developers put a lot of effort into the physics of breasts on female characters. For some reason, that makes them and those who play these games perverts.

Let’s step back for a moment and try to make sense of that without hitting ourselves in the head with a baseball bat. This is apparently an issue now. Men admiring women’s breasts is controversial. Granted, women’s breasts have been subject to controversy in the past and I’m not just talking about Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl performance either.

We’re still a culture that gets exceedingly queasy when we talk about sex in any form. We all remember how awkward it was in health class when we learned about the inner workings of a penis and vagina. Boobs have a sexual component to them. So unless you’re on a nude beach, at Mardi Gras, or in a Super Bowl halftime show, it’s going to be awkward.

Now there’s nothing inherently wrong about feeling awkward about sex or certain body parts. Who doesn’t feel a little awkward when they find out their best friend’s mom got a boob job? That doesn’t mean it qualifies as an outright perversion, does it?

Thankfully, we’ve advanced our society to a point where we have these things called dictionaries and this amazing achievement allows us to actually check the definition of a word to see if it fits a certain context. The definition of pervert in a sexual is actually fairly concise. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition is as follows:

An aberrant sexual practice or interest especially when habitual.

The keyword in that definition is “aberrant.” That means unnatural, improper, or abnormal. Now I know people don’t agree on what’s natural, proper, or normal. In fact, I would argue that most people can’t agree on that. They can’t even agree on pizza toppings. However, when it comes to our biological wiring that helps us survive and reproduce, I think we can find some common ground.

With few exceptions, straight men like breasts. They like the sight of breasts, the feel of breasts, and the depictions of breasts. I know this, both as a straight man and as someone whose readers regularly demand more vivid depictions of breasts in my novels. It’s as natural as enjoying a cold beer on a hot summer day.

So why is this wholly natural, hard-wired predilection being classified as a perversion? Why would the brilliant writers at Cracked.com see the efforts of video game creators to make more appealing breasts as a catalyst for perversion? Do they think men even need a catalyst to admire breasts or want to see them?

Well, a lot of it is our fault. By our fault, I mean both men and women alike. The media, and video games in particular, has been subject to much greater scrutiny lately in matters of sexism. If something can even be slightly misconstrued as sexist or objectifying, then that’s the end of the conversation. It’s sexist. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. Anyone who enjoys or appreciates it is a monster.

That last part was sarcasm, but I worry that sarcasm can’t do justice to the sheer absurdity of that notion. I don’t want to say it’s entirely a product of feminism, political correctness, or prudishness. However, it is a bad sign.

I don’t doubt that those at Cracked.com and those who complain about breast physics in video games have good intentions. They see beautiful, big-breasted women in media and think that’s objectifying and degrading. That’s an understandable sentiment. They completely lose my sympathy, however, when they try to conflate objectification with basic biological wiring.

The science is fairly conclusive. Humans are visual creatures, as evidenced by the significant amount of brain matter we dedicate to processing visual images. Art, media, and everything in between seeks every possible way to generate attention and garner interest.

Female breasts naturally create powerful imagery and not just for straight men either. They are a distinct feature within a sexually dimorphic species. As such, we’re going to respond to that imagery. It’s not a perversion in that it’s unnatural. Hell, you could make the case that it’s one of the most natural reactions human could possibly have.

I don’t deny that there are many facets of sex, nudity, and breasts are still taboo. However, it does our culture and our species a disservice when we start identifying natural reactions to natural sights as perverse. That conflicts with our own sexual nature and, as any Puritan will tell you, that nature is hard to suppress.

So in this case, Cracked.com is dead wrong. We are not perverts for enjoying the sight of female breasts. Game developers who put a lot of time and effort into the physics behind breasts should not be shamed or shunned. If anything, they should be celebrated. They’re putting that much effort into one of nature’s most beautiful creations. On behalf of all straight men who appreciate the sight of breasts, I thank them.

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Tagged as boob physics, boobs, breasts, cracked.com, female sexuality, feminism, human sexuality, male gaze, masculinity, sex, sex in media, sex in video games, sexual health, sexuality, sexy, technology, video games

March 29, 2017 · 6:59 am

Important Announcement: It’s OKAY To Be Sexy

Today, I have a very important announcement to make. No, it has nothing to do with the release of my upcoming book, “Passion Relapse.” That’s still coming out on April 18th though. Yes, I’m going to promote the hell out of it in the coming weeks so get used to that.

This announcement is every bit as important as my first book. It may even be more important. Since I’m a long way from success as an erotica/romance writer, I don’t say that lightly. However, I do feel that this is worth saying. It needs to be said so brace yourself. This may shock a few people.

It’s OKAY to be sexy!

I’ll give everyone a moment to recover from the shock. Take all the time you need. I know. This is a startling revelation, but hang in there. We’ll get through this together. I promise.

Okay, that’s enough sarcasm for now. I’ll ease up on the melodrama, but it was necessary for a reason. I say it’s a good reason too because this is one of those topics that has no middle ground. Either people just shrug it off or they’re downright hysterical about it.

Since I’m trying to break into the erotica/romance world, this subject actually affects me and could very well affect my future career. The stakes are higher for me is what I’m saying. So what exactly makes this announcement so vital?

Well, to answer that, here’s some context. It wasn’t that long ago that people didn’t make too big a deal about characters in movies, video games, and comic books who were overtly sexual. I’m not saying some people got their panties in one too many knots. I’m saying that, for a time, it really wasn’t high on the list of things that pissed us off.

That time wasn’t too long ago. For reference, allow me to cite one of the most iconic female characters of the past couple decades, Lara Croft. She’s always been one of those characters with a special kind of sex appeal. You could argue that her sex appeal helped make her an icon. How could it not? This is what she used to look like.

That’s pretty sexy. I won’t deny that it’s somewhat impractical for a soldier or a fighter, but Lara Croft is still a badass, globe-trotting fighter who happens to look good in short shorts and bikinis. There’s nothing wrong with that. As a man, I greatly appreciate that sort of visual appeal.

Then, back in 2013, her character was essentially revamped and rebooted. The sex appeal was downplayed, if not outright purged. Lara Croft went from being a badass, globe-trotting fighter with a sexy attitude to just a badass, globe-trotting fighter. She’s still a beautiful woman by most objective standards, but she’s not allowed to be quite as sexy anymore. This is what she looks like now.

Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with how Lara Croft looks now. That hasn’t made her video games any less enjoyable to play. However, the removal of her sex appeal is somewhat jarring.

Lara Croft isn’t the only female character to undergo that change either. Remember when I did my list of female characters that make men hate women? Well, on that list, I put a character named Felecia “Black Cat” Hardy. She’s a typical female vixen character from the Spider-Man comics. She’s another character whose persona is built around sex appeal, as evidenced by her costume.

Well, like Lara Croft, she underwent a change too. No, she didn’t become any less likable. Yes, she’s still a character who will make men hate women on some levels. The only difference now is that she doesn’t show as much cleavage.

It’s part of an ongoing story in the Spider-Man comics to make Black Cat more of a crime lord than a vixen. The story has been mediocre for the most part. I won’t say it’s bad, but I will say that it has done nothing to change the parts of Black Cat’s character that make her so unlikable. Whether she’s fully clothed or wearing a G-string thong, she’s still a character that make men say stupid crap about women.

I find this trend somewhat troubling and not just because it means less visible boobs. It troubles me because for some reason, the image of sexy women is somehow a bad thing. Granted, sexy women have always made people feel a bit uncomfortable and not just in their pants, but this is getting into dangerously regressive territory.

There’s no doubt that there’s a certain level of sexism in the media. There’s also a vocal component of radical feminism that has this mentality that any man who admires the image of a sexy woman is somehow sexist, perpetuating sexism, or contributing to rape culture. For a guy just admiring a beautiful woman, that’s pretty extreme.

Beautiful women, pictures of beautiful women, and any female character that has some form of sex appeal is now somehow contributing to this concept of “toxic masculinity.” That’s basically a catch-all term for all the terrible things men do and, conveniently enough, the cause is something that’s hard-wired into their own biology. That’s like calling a man sexist because he sweats more than most women.

Never mind the fact that the ideas of toxic masculinity and rape culture are somewhat flawed concepts. Never mind that since 1995, rates of sexual assault against women have declined by 58 percent. Apparently, all these sexy images are causing a crisis somehow.

Regardless of the facts, these crises are becoming more and more petty. Last year, I mentioned some of the laughable outrage generated by a comic book cover for Invincible Iron Man. Maybe I should’ve pointed it out then too, but that was just one sign among many.

Whether it’s due to concerns about body image or female representation in media, there’s a new moral crusade brewing. This time, however, it’s not being led by clerics, mullahs, monks, and popes. It’s being led by ordinary, educated people who have somehow convinced themselves that being sexy or admiring sexy things is somehow wrong.

I’m here to say that’s simply wrong. It’s okay to be sexy. It’s okay to admire sexy images. Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’re not a bad person for enjoying things you find sexy. You’re just a healthy mind in a healthy body. There’s no reason to apologize for that.

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Filed under Sexy Sunday Thoughts

Tagged as beauty, beauty standards, body image, body positive, feminism, internet outrage, love, masculinity, outrage culture, popular culture, Radical Feminism, sex, sex appeal, sex in the media, sexy, the human body, toxic masculinity

March 1, 2017 · 6:25 am

Jack Fisher’s Top 5 Female Characters That Make Men Hate Women

Let’s face it. There are some fictional characters that are so detestable, so irredeemable, and so shamelessly mean that even a devout nun would want to punch them in the jaw. From King Joffrey to half the cast of “Friends,” there are plenty of characters we just love to hate and hate to hate.

Within that long list of depraved individuals, there are plenty of female characters. Women are just as capable of being that infuriatingly detestable. That’s one of the few things that both radical feminists and men’s rights activities can agree on. Some of these women don’t just give their gender a bad name. They act as a legitimate reason to roll back gender equality.

There are a lot of utterly detestable women in the real world and not just Lena Dunham and Ann Coulter types either. There are plenty more in the world of fiction and they do plenty to channel the inner Archie Bunker in all of us. It doesn’t matter how politically correct or how many gender studies courses you’ve taken. These characters inspire a special kind of hate.

When I compiled my list of great underrated female characters, I knew I would be contrasting them with women like this. The spectrum for female characters is pretty broad, despite what those behind the Bechtel Test may claim. On one end you have Furiosa from “Mad Max: Fury Road.” On the other, you have Regina George from “Mean Girls.”

In the spirit of balance on this blog, I’m going to explore the other end of that spectrum. That means I’ll be tapping into some of the sinister sentiments I’ve explored before, namely those of misogynistic men. As always, I feel compelled to disclose that I do not support such sentiments. I am not here to start a gender war. I want this blog to remain funny and entertaining.

That said, I’m going to turn off my politically correct filter and dig into this den of detestable female characters. Just as before, I’ll stick to fictional characters with this list. Feminists, radical or otherwise, may want to brace themselves here. These are Jack Fisher’s top 5 female characters that make men hate women.

5. Lucy Van Pelt (Peanuts Comics)

There are so many lovable characters in Charles Shultz’s iconic Peanuts comic strip. Seriously, how can you not love someone like Charlie Brown, Linus Van Pelt, or Pig Pen? Unless you’re a sociopath, it’s a challenge at best.

Then, there’s Lucy Van Pelt. If lovability has to be balanced with frothing hate, then it’s safe to say that Lucy does plenty to tip the scales. It’s not just that she never lets Charlie Brown kick that damn football. She’s coarse. She’s greedy. She’s manipulative. She’s constantly belittling others and telling them what to do, often with her firsts.

She may be a kid, but she embodies traits that kids and adults adults despise. She embodies the kind of callous cruelty that men often find in women who betray them. Lucy Van Pelt is very much a proto-Regina George, but she’s willing to punch people. That’s a dangerous and abhorrent combination.

4. Black Cat (Spider-Man)

When it comes to female comic book characters, I have a soft spot for self-proclaimed vixens. Throughout the history of comics, there have been many. From Emma Frost to Starfire, they embody the raw sex appeal that puts a smile on my face and a boner in my pants.

Now I understand there are certain uptight, overly PC folks who see vixens as an overt objectification of women. Most of the time, I just roll my eyes at these remarks. These are the same humorless asshats who claimed Wonder Woman was too sexy to be a UN ambassador for women. These people deserve no credibility.

That said, some characters do way too good a job of making those humorless asshats seem logical. Most female superhero vixens at least try to develop some sense of personality and depth. Even Jessica Rabbit had some moments of growth. For Felicia Hardy, also known as the Black Cat from the Spider-Man comics, there are no such moments.

She’s sexy. She’s cunning. She’s coy. Those are all basic traits of a vixen. However, Black Cat rarely uses her sex appeal for good. She’s a thief, a con-artist, and a liar. Unlike Catwoman, who will at least try to balance out her deviant habits, the Black Cat makes no effort.

She eagerly takes advantage of Spider-Man’s gullibility. She often uses her sexiness to manipulate others. She never makes any effort to grow or improve herself. She is a walking worst-case-scenario for a female vixen. She uses all her sex appeal for selfish indulgence and never for the greater good. She’s the epitome of irresponsibility and yet Spider-Man still wants to bone her. That says just as much about her as it does about Spider-Man.

3. Lois (Malcolm In The Middle)

There are any number of overplayed archetypes for male heroes. There’s the ladies man, the nerd, the jock, the rebel, and the token black guy. In every movie or TV show, you can usually find a couple of these characters.

For women, there are plenty of archetypes as well, but they’re not always as easy to identify. Most female characters tend to avoid the extremes of a given archetype. It’s not always balanced, but it’s rarely overt.

That’s what makes Lois, the temperamental mother from “Malcolm In The Middle,” such a frustrating character. She doesn’t try to avoid the extremes. She embraces them. She is, by every measure, the ultimate ball buster. She’s bossy, if not downright tyrannical. She’s callous, going out of her way to crush spirits and make everyone as miserable as her.

She embodies the kind of woman who takes over a home and runs it with an iron fist. Lois’ husband, Hal, is exceedingly submissive to her and not in a fun way. On top of that, nothing she does makes her deranged kids any less deviant. So not only is she a ball-busting tyrant, but she fails to realize that her methods don’t work, have never worked, and never will work. She’s the kind of woman that give men nightmares.

2. Peg Bundy (Married With Children)

Lois from “Malcolm In The Middle” isn’t the only sitcom that takes female archetypes to an infuriating extreme. Before there was Lois, there was another female character who inspired a special kind of dread in all heterosexual men. Her name still evokes fear in those who are thinking about getting married and for once, it’s not the name of a divorce lawyer.

Her name is Peggy Bundy from the classic Fox show, “Married With Children.” She embodies a different archetype than Lois, but one that’s every bit as detestable. She’s not the angry, ball-busting tyrant as much as she is the parasitic, soul-crushing, self-absorbed bitch who opts to bust balls indirectly. Given the many pathetic moments Al Bundy endures throughout the show, her methods work ominously well.

At least with Lois, she tries to better her family’s situation. Peggy makes no effort whatsoever. She doesn’t cook. She doesn’t clean. She doesn’t support her husband or family in any way. However, she still expects her husband to earn enough money to support her heavy shopping habits and her love of snack food.

She’s less a spouse and more a leech. The only reason Al married her is because she got him drunk. She represents the ultimate fear of men everywhere, a woman who exists solely to leech off their hard work and contribute nothing to the relationship or the family. As a female character, she is the ultimate cautionary tale for men seeking marriage.

1. Quinn Morgendorrfer (Daria)

This is just too fitting. When I made my list of the top five underrated characters, I made it a point to highlight Daria Morgendorrfer from the classic MTV show, “Daria,” as a likable, compelling, well-developed female character from an era that was just starting to develop those kinds of characters. On top of that, Daria didn’t even have to look good in a bikini to pull this off.

In that same show, however, there was another character who highlighted all the reasons Daria was so likable by being the complete opposite. Her name was Quinn Morgendorrfer. She’s Daria’s sister, although she spent nearly four-and-a-half seasons denying it.

Quinn, despite her bubbly persona, is the worst of the worst with respect to female characters men love to hate. At least with every other woman on this list, they’ll acknowledge their ego and narcissism to some extent. They’ll even joke about it. With Quinn, however, there’s no humility whatsoever.

For men, Quinn is one of those characters that just makes you want to grit your teeth and punch brick wall. She’s shallow, boring, self-centered, manipulative, uptight, whiny, and crass. It’s not just that she’s everything Daria isn’t. More than any other character on the show, she goes out of her way to avoid being likable or respectable in any capacity.

Quinn rarely, if ever, sees anyone as anything other than obstacles or opportunities. She doesn’t date men for any kind of emotional appeal. She just uses them for social status. The same goes for her female friends. She’ll ingratiate herself to them, but only because it helps her popularity. That’s what it’s all about for her, being popular and looking cute.

Quinn is the ultimate manifestation of what men don’t like about certain women. She uses and manipulates their emotions for her own personal gain. Even when she tries to do good, it’s often only because she wants to better herself and no one else. She doesn’t care if she breaks hearts or annoys others. She just wants to be cute and popular.

I hope this list and the one I posted before offers some insight into what makes quality female characters. I also hope it serves as a guide for men and women alike. Guys, if you’re looking for an ideal woman, stay away form the Quinns and Peggy Bundys of the world. Ladies, if you want men to be more understanding of women’s issues, then don’t be like Quinn or Peggy Bundy. We’ll all get along better as a result.

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Tagged as female sexuality, female superheroes, feminism, masculinity, Mean Girls, popular culture, Radical Feminism, sexuality, sitcoms, Top 5, women, women in media, women in movies, women in TV, women's issues

February 17, 2017 · 6:31 am

Advances In Male Contraception And What It Means For Women

I wasn’t planning to do a follow-up on yesterday’s big post about male contraception. In fact, I originally had an entirely different set of topics to discuss this week. However, some issues are just so relevant and so tantalizing that I can’t resist. I know contraception isn’t an overly sexy topic, but let’s face it. It has some very sexy implications.

It’s not hard to see why. Contraception does affect our sexual behavior as a society and a culture. The fact that the Catholic Church hates it is proof enough of that. Their hate doesn’t change the fact that contraception is as old as civilization, if not older. The problem is that, with the exception of condoms, most of these methods focus on the women.

Now there are logical reason for this that have nothing to do with some grand patriarchal conspiracy and everything to do with the inescapable tenants of male/female biology. Radical feminists may claim otherwise, but high school level biology is working against them.

It’s due to these biological restrictions that the modern history of contraception is closely tied to the modern women’s movement. It’s no coincidence that the advent of reliable birth control in the 60s also coincided with the women’s movement that began in the mid-60s.

From a logistical point of view, it makes sense. Contraception didn’t just give women more control over their fertility than they have at any time in human history. It leveled the playing field. Now women could participate in the economy and not be subject to the frequent interruptions of pregnancy, which could even prove fatal in some cases.

Again, the Catholic Church hates this. The idea of genders being equals does not sit well with certain institutions that would rather see women as breeding factories who regularly pump out new adherents/workers/tax-payers/soldiers/consumers. However, if we’re to create a more equal society with more balanced romances, then contraception is key.

That balance has already played out in ways that modern generations don’t even realized. Despite what the anti-gay marriage crowd would have you believe, modern marriage is very different from what it has been for most of human history.

The biggest difference, by far, is the concept of marrying for love. As an erotica/romance writer, that’s pretty jarring because marrying for love is often part of the narratives we craft when molding romantic stories.

However, for most of human history, we didn’t marry for love. We often married whoever our parents told us to marry. Love was even seen as disruptive to this institution. So whenever someone talks about “traditional marriage,” they might as well be referring to a loveless marriage.

Contraception changed that. Contraception made it so people didn’t have to get married for children. They didn’t have to get married because they got too horny one night and the woman ended up pregnant. People could actually choose who they married. What a concept right?

This concept couldn’t have worked without contraception because it gave couples control over their fertility. Men and women could spend time to find out whether they were romantically and sexually compatible. If done right, then it makes for a more loving, intimate bond. However, as the divorce rate indicates, there’s room for improvement.

That brings me back to Vasalgel, a potential game-changing contraceptive that the Catholic Church is sure to hate. What the birth control pill did for women in the 60s, Vasalgel could do for men today. It effectively levels the playing field in a way human civilization has never experienced.

It’s exciting and somewhat scary, but it is coming. The effectiveness of Vasalgel has already been proven to work in monkeys with no ill-effects. There are now monkeys in labs that can hump all they want and never have to worry about a monkey baby mama. Those are probably some very happy monkeys.

Within the next three to five years, after further testing with the FDA, this product could become available for men everywhere who also want to avoid baby mamas. Unlike condoms or pills, Vasalgel is as close to idiot-proof as you can get when it comes to contraception. For certain men, that’s very important for reasons I hope are obvious.

As a brief refresher, Vasalgel works in a way that’s not unlike a non-hormonal IUD for women. It involves injecting a special gel into the vas deferens of a man, which are the tubes that carry the sperm from the testes. This gel allows seminal fluid to pass through, but not the sperm. Without the sperm, there’s no possibility for conception. Even the anti-abortion crowd can’t complain about this.

There are no hormones involved so it doesn’t mess with any biology, which has been a big problem with past male contraceptives. It’s also easily reversible, requiring only another injection into the vas deferens to dissolve the gel. After that, the man can go back to making babies like a wannabe Dugger.

It’s also completely passive. Men don’t have to think or worry about it in any capacity. They don’t have to remember to put on a condom. They don’t have to remember to take a pill. Given how much thought and energy men put into video games, football, and extreme sports, that’s also very important.

Once injected, Vasalgel lasts for approximately 10 years. That’s 10 years of men never having to worry about a woman showing up on their doorstep with a baby and a legal document saying they owe them back child support. Ask any guest on Maury Povich why that’s very important to many men.

Beyond giving lawyers one less recourse to screw men out of their money, there will likely be other major impacts on men, women, and society as a whole. Think about it. What will this do for men and male sexuality in general?

Make no mistake. There will be an impact. We saw it with the birth control pill for women. We’ll definitely see something similar with men. I already painted a scenario in my last post for a man who doesn’t want to worry about having children. For this post, I’d like to focus on the women.

In order to do that, I’ll have to remind women of a few unpleasant, unspoken truths that some men harbor towards women. Remember last year when I did a post where I tapped into the mind of a misogynistic man? Well, there’s one key component to that mentality that needs to be highlighted.

One of the unspoken, but rarely-discussed attitudes that men have towards women has to do with using their horniness against them. Men hate it when women use their insatiable desire to have sex to manipulate them. As men and as human beings, we can’t turn off our horniness. It’s what drives us to jump through all the hoops that women make us jump through, even when they have serious legal ramifications.

The biggest manifestation of this disdain comes in the form of women who get with men for the sole purposes of locking them in with marriage and/or child support. While marriage is difficult in that it requires legal documents, getting pregnant does not. It just requires that a woman have sex with a man at a time when he’s too horny to remember to put on a condom. Given how horny men can get, this is not a difficult feat.

It’s this kind of manipulation that makes men say and think some of the horrible, misogynistic crap that makes radical feminists hulk out. They hate that women use their sexuality against them. They hate that they can’t always control the outcome of their short-sighted sexual escapades. When you’re that horny, you just don’t think things through.

Vasalgel changes that in a big way by removing that traditionally easy method that women can use to manipulate men. If a man uses Vasalgel, then it doesn’t matter what the woman does to get him into bed. He won’t get her pregnant. He won’t give her that baby that’ll entitle her to a healthy chunk of his paycheck. It wouldn’t just put Maury Povich out of business. It would change the way women have to relate to men.

Suddenly, women can’t extort men in a way that is far too easy, as many professional athletes can attest. They can’t hook up with him with the sole purpose of extracting valuable children from him. If they want access to his money and resources, they actually have to put in the time, effort, and passion to make him want to be with her. What a concept, right?

Beyond baby mamas for pro athletes, Vasalgel could have an even greater impact on the sexual behavior of youth. Many of us, minus those in Texas, endured sex ed in high school. We learned all about contraception, diseases, and all the ways that getting knocked up when you’re young can ruin your life.

Well, to this point, only the teenage girls could do something about that. For the teenage boys, they could never be sure whether the girl they were trying to hook up with was on birth control. It’s not just stressful in a way that makes it hard to get a boner. It gives the girls a significant amount of leverage over the boys. Give any gender that kind of leverage and you’re just asking for trouble.

Throw Vasalgel into the mix and things change. Suddenly, a teenage boy knows that he won’t be getting any girls pregnant for the duration of high school or college. He can be as irresponsible as he wants, banging every drama student and cheerleader in his path, and never have to worry about knocking them up in a way that’ll make some girl’s father hunt him down with a shotgun.

Once again, this levels the playing field. This means girls are the ones who can’t be sure if a man has Vasalgel or not. That means they actually have to talk to each other about who does what to avoid getting pregnant. It’s sure to be an awkward conversation, but the mere fact that they talk this stuff out is important for two people who are thinking about having sex.

At a time when young people are less sexually active than ever before, this could very well change that. Take away the stress and anxiety of contraception, especially among the exceedingly horny men of this world, and there are far fewer reasons for young people not to bone.

Assuming that Vasalgel makes it through the necessary testing phases, it could very well be available for the coming generation entering their teen years. Granted, those teen years will surely be awkward for many different reasons, but not having to worry about unplanned pregnancy will definitely help.

This means that we’re on the cusp of a major dynamic shift between genders. What will happen to the way men and women relate to one another when they both have equal control over their sexuality? It’s not just a thought experiment anymore. We’re going to find out very soon. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I look forward to the possibilities.

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Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as biotechnology, contraception, feminism, gender equality, gender issues, gender roles, human sexuality, love, male birth control, male contraception, masculinity, paternity, romance, sex, technology, the human body, Vasalgel

December 21, 2016 · 6:01 am

Man’s Best Advice To Women (According To Sam Kinison)

Before I say anything on this post that’s going to put undue pressure on my balls, let me make one thing clear. I am not a therapist. I am not psychiatrist. I may write a lot about sex, love, intimacy, and society, but I am not an expert. I’m as much an expert on this issues as I am a brain surgeon.

I’m an erotica/romance writer. What I know about these issues is strictly limited to my own personal experience, my own unique observations, and my ability to do rudimentary research on Google and Wikipedia. With that in mind, please don’t take what I say as the words of an expert or specialist. I am an aspiring erotica/romance writer. That is the extent of my qualifications.

Why do I make this disclaimer? Well, part of it is to cover my ass legally and to protect my balls metaphorically because I’m about to do something I try not to do unless asked. I’m going to give advice.

Please keep this advice in context though. I am a single man whose success in erotica/romance is still a work-in-progress wherein said progress is very little. I understand that gives me a credibility problem. Then again, this is a world where men like Glenn Beck still has credibility somehow so that’s another context to consider.

All that being said, I’d like to share this advice to everyone, but specifically I want to share it with women. It can just as easily apply to same-sex couples, but being a straight male, it’ll apply most directly to women.

This advice actually comes from specific source and no, that source isn’t a certified therapist either. That source is Sam Kinison. Who is Sam Kinison? Well, his Wikipedia page will only tell you so much. Pretty much everything you need to know about him and his style comes from a clip in the Rodney Dangerfield movie, “Back to School.”

Are your ears still ringing? Don’t worry. That’s normal. That’s what tends to happen with Sam Kinison. He’s legendary in comedy circles for his style and the unique noise his makes when he yells. Some find it frustrating. Some find it magical. I think it’s just a damn good way to get a point across.

Sam Kinison had may points to make during his brief, but eventful life. A lot of those points had to do with sex and women. Having been divorced twice, he had plenty of material. In fact, much of his comedy involves him yelling at and railing on women, marriage, and everything in between.

That’s not to say he only ever complained. If he did, that would just make him an overly loud whiner. That was not Sam Kinison’s style. He did offer plenty of insightful tidbits, but none were more direct than this one.

Listen to it again. Wait for your ears to stop ringing and then listen to it another time. Listen to it as many times as you need to. Then, let it sink in. Let this amazing insight from a dead comedy legend really resonate in your brains.

To all the women, gay, straight, or bisexual, heed this simple advice. You want your lovers to satisfy you? You want them to do something you know will get you off and earn you beach-front property in O-town? Well, you can do that. You just have to do what Mr. Kinison advises. I’ll even repeat it since he’s no longer with us to belabor it.

“TELL US!”

I’ll omit the profanity, but if it gets the point across, please heed this fucking advice. Why is it so important? Well, here’s another little secret about men that I’d like to share. It may get me in trouble with the grand male conspiracy, but I’ll take that risk.

Ladies, men want to satisfy you. Men want you to enjoy sex with them. They want to be the awesome lovers you fantasize about.

I know this doesn’t always seem to be the case. There’s this popular, but dead wrong, perception that men care mostly about humping until they blow their load. A woman’s pleasure ranks somewhere below the condition of their car in terms of importance.

I don’t know where this perception came from, but it’s wrong. It’s dead, fucking wrong. If I had Sam Kinison’s voice, I’d yell it as only he could.

Think of it with a little basic logic for a second. Use the logic even Homer Simpson would understand. Men want sex. Men enjoy sex. If we have sex with our lovers in a way that they enjoy, then they’ll want to have more sex too. It’s the most perfect of cycles. The problem is we can’t kick-start that cycle until our partners tell us what they want.

Now I know there’s this other dead wrong perception that women have to be coy about what they want. They have to be subtle, devious, and mysterious about their sexual proclivities. I understand that some of that has to do with our puritanical, yet schizophrenic attitudes towards sex, but this takes priority over those attitudes.

We want to satisfy you. We want to make you crazy with love, lust, and everything in between. We can’t do that if we’re fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what gets your motor humming. So please, for the good of your sex lives and ours, tell us what you want. The world will be a much better place if men know how to please their lovers and their lovers are regularly pleased.

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Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as comedy, erotica, love, marriage, masculinity, men and women, relationships, Rodney Dangerfield, romance, Sam Kinison, sex, sex therapy, sexy, women

December 3, 2016 · 8:08 am

A Handy Trick For Men

It’s true you can’t really know a person by judging them on their looks, their clothes, or who they follow on Twitter. There are so many things that go into making people who they are that, short of reading their minds and hacking their Facebook account, it’s impossible to truly know them.

That said, it is possible to glean a few details about a person based on simple observation. As I’ve said many times before, nature is not that intricate. Nature is a drunk monkey trying to shave itself with a rusty axe. That means there are bound to be a few surface-features that nature is too lazy to tweak.

The results are a few little parlor tricks that you can use to impress others too lazy to look them up on the internet. The human body, in all its flawed glory, has a few peculiarities that you can either laugh at, exploit, or ignore entirely. It doesn’t matter. Nature is so beyond giving a fuck at this point.

One of those little tricks involves your hands. No, I don’t mean that trick that requires tissues and lube. I don’t mean the trick I’ve used to set an overtly sexual tone in my novels. That’s not a trick. That’s built-in happiness that we can all celebrate in our own way.

This little hand trick involves measuring the length of your fingers. Why would you do that? Why would anyone without severe OCD do something like that? Well, for the men out there, I can best sum it up in two words: bigger penis.

Do I have your attention now? Good because short of fireworks and air horns, this topic is sure to interest a certain segment of men, gay and straight alike. It’s called digit ratio. It’s not quite as technical as it sounds, but it effects your penis so you damn well ought to take it seriously.

Specifically, digit ratio involves the length of your index finger compared to your ring finger. In technical terms, your index finger is labeled 2D (second digit) and your ring finger is labeled 4D (fourth digit). Take that length and put it into the ratio 2D/4D and you’ve got yourself your digit ratio.

That’s the basic math. So how does this affect your penis? Well, it actually affects a lot more than that for reasons that are a testament to the eccentricities of biology.

For reasons that I can only assume involve nature being drunk on the job, your digit ratio is a byproduct of the amount of androgen (male hormones) that you were exposed to in your mother’s womb. According to Science Direct, a smaller ratio, which means having a longer ring finger, is a direct byproduct of being exposed to more androgen.

More androgen means more masculine features and masculine traits. Among those many masculine traits includes a man’s penis size. In a sense, nature really does have the sense of humor of a 13-year-old boy. More exposure to manly forces make your manly parts bigger. It’s crude, but oddly fitting when you think about it.

It’s also a great convenience when you think about it. At the moment, it’s not legal to show somebody your penis in public when they ask you to prove your endowment. While that’s a legal battle we’ll surely fight down the line, our hands give us an easy cheat.

Is someone curious about the size of your bulge? Are you in an area where dropping your pants will get you arrested? Don’t worry! Just show them your hand. Show them that your ring finger is longer than your index finger. That should assure them that you’ve got a generous endowment. If they have a problem with it, they’ll have to take it up with biology.

I hope this tip helps men out there who want to flaunt their penis without taking their pants off. I’m sure it’ll help at office parties, bars, and nosy relatives. As a man, this is my way of doing my part and I feel I can do more than just write sexy stories.

Now this is not to say that simply having a longer ring finger makes you a well-endowed man. Again, nature is not that refined. Having a bigger penis is just one of the effects of getting a big dose of manly chemicals in the womb. There are other effects and not all of them are good.

According to the fine folks at www.artofmanliness.com, having a low digit ratio is also tied to higher rates of prostate cancer, higher rates of substance abuse, higher rates of infidelity and risk-taking, and higher rates of aggression. These are all things that can ruin your weekend and limit your ability to enjoy your big penis.

In the end, all we can do is take the good with the bad. I try to focus more on the good so to those men out there with a low digit ratio, do what you can to enjoy the benefits. Show your hands to those curious about the bulge in your pants. Show them that nature has been generous enough to endow you.

On a more personal note, I suppose it’s only fitting that I describe my own hands. I’ve measured them closely and I can confirm it. My ring finger is considerably longer than my index finger. Take from that what you will.

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Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as digit ratio, femininity, finger length, health, male sexuality, manliness, masculinity, men, penis size, sex, sexual health, sexy, testosterone

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A Handy Trick For Men

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