Why don’t men today talk to women about commitment and marriage?

Painting:
Painting: “Courtship”, by Edmund Blair Leighton (1888)

I saw this essay from a young woman named Jordana Narin who is explaining how she feels about not being able to talk seriously to a man she had sex with. She is a radical feminist and has a non-STEM degree in creative writing.

The essay was published in the radically leftist New York Times.

First kiss:

I met [a guy] at summer camp in the Poconos at 14, playing pickup basketball by day and talking in the mess hall late into the night. Back home we lived only 30 minutes apart, but I didn’t see him again until 11th grade, when we ran into each other at a Halloween party in a Lower Manhattan warehouse.

[…]Under the muted flashes of a strobe light, we shared our first kiss.

No communication:

We stayed in touch for the rest of high school, mostly by text message.

[…]Every time his name popped up on my phone, my heart raced.

Still, we were never more than semiaffiliated, two people who spoke and loved to speak and kissed and loved to kiss and connected and were scared of connecting.

Where is this relationship going? This boy has no job and no savings and no proven record of steady work – and therefore he cannot marry anyone. Why is she even talking to a man who cannot afford to marry her – who has no proven record as a provider?

More:

Two years after our first kiss, we were exchanging “I’ve missed you” messages again. It was a brisk Friday evening in our first semesters of college when I stepped off a train and into his comfortable arms.

He had texted weeks earlier on Halloween (technically our anniversary) to ask if I would visit. We had not talked since summer, and I was trying to forget him. We had graduated from high school into the same inexpressive void we first entered in costume, where an “I’ve missed you” was as emotive as one got.

Long gaps in between text messages – they have nothing to talk about, and there is no goal. Nevertheless, they are away from their parents, and so she had sex with him, losing her virginity to a man she was not married to.

And then:

Naïvely, I had expected to gain clarity, to finally admit my feelings and ask if he felt the same. But I couldn’t confess, couldn’t probe. Periodically I opened my mouth to ask: “What are we doing? Who am I to you?” He stopped me with a smile, a wink or a handhold, gestures that persuaded me to shut my mouth or risk jeopardizing what we already had.

On the Saturday-night train back to Manhattan, I cried. Back in my dorm room, buried under the covers so my roommates wouldn’t hear, I fell asleep with a wet pillow and puffy eyes.

The next morning I awoke to a string of texts from him: “You get back OK?” “Let’s do it again soon :)”

So my question for you is this: should a woman who has recreational sex with a man she barely knows expect to have real relationships, including a marriage relationship?

There’s an interview that goes with it on the radically leftist NPR web site, but I saved a copy of the MP3 file here in case it disappears.

Rod Dreher comments on the interview:

I wouldn’t have understood the full scope of what this young woman is saying in her essay without the interview, which is short. In the segment, Narin says that men and women in her generation don’t have actual romantic relationships anymore. It’s all casual, non-committal sex. “

[..]She tells the interviewer that there’s lots of making out and sex, but nobody wants to be emotionally vulnerable to anybody else.

[…]“Everyone in college uses Tinder,” she said, referring to the wildly popular dating and hook-up app. “You can literally swipe right and find someone just to hang out for the night. There’s no commitments required, and I think that makes committing to someone even harder, because it’s so normal, and so expected even, to not want to commit.”

In a different time, my grandparents, my great grandparents, they might have thought they were missing out on casual sex,” she says. “But since my generation has been saddled down with that, we kind of look to the past and say well, wasn’t that nice. I think both are optimal. I’m a huge feminist, and I think women should be able to do whatever they want to do. If a woman wants to have tons of casual sex, she totally should. But I think that there should be the option. And they shouldn’t be gendered, women and men. But there should be the option of being in a relationship.”

Right. Young women like her who have swallowed radical feminism hook, line and sinker don’t want to “miss out” on casual sex right now, but they want to get married “some day” – after they have a lot of fun traveling and doing exciting, fun things. Today, they want to choose to have sex with hot guys, but tomorrow they want the “option” of a man committing to them, even though they have a repeated pattern of putting recreational sex above commitment in their own lives. Basically, they don’t want to pick a man now who can actually do marriage. Right now, they want to pick a man who has no interest in marriage. Later, they want a man to pursue them for marriage.

Consider this story from the Ottawa Sun about a woman who didn’t want to say no to sex right now, but wanted to get married “some day”:

A New York woman is facing charges after police say she lied about being raped by two football players at a party to get sympathy from a prospective love interest.

Nikki Yovino, 18, has been charged with falsely reporting an incident and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

Last October Yovino reported that she had been sexually assaulted in a bathroom by two Sacred Heart University football players at an off-campus party.

The men, however, said it had been consensual.

Capt. Brian Fitzgerald tells WABC-TV another student informed authorities of explicit text messages between the three. He says one man also recorded some of the incident on his cellphone.

“She admitted that she made up the allegation of sexual assault against (the football players) because it was the first thing that came to mind and she didn’t want to lose (another male student) as a friend and potential boyfriend. She stated that she believed when (the other male student) heard the allegation it would make him angry and sympathetic to her,” said an affidavit, according to the New York Post.

Two. Football. Players. At the same time.

Nowhere in society is there any man who tells women like this that they should not pursue pleasure right now if they want marriage some day. No father. No pastor. No one has the courage to tell young women that following their emotions leads them to abortion, single motherhood, divorce, infertility and missing marriage completely.

Do women prepare themselves for the self-sacrifice and self-control required in marriage?

Here’s what many women think of marriage:

Look at the lyrics:

You got that 9 to 5
But, baby, so do I
So don’t be thinking I’ll be home and baking apple pies
I never learned to cook

After every fight
Just apologize
And maybe then I’ll let you try and rock my body right
Even if I was wrong
You know I’m never wrong

And know we’ll never see your family more than mine

Even when I’m acting crazy
Tell me everything’s alright

Women today expect to be pursuing their own interests before, during and after marriage. They don’t want the constraints of relationships with a husband or children. I think this will work to get attention from certain men for a while, but when she loses her youth and beauty, it will dry up pretty quickly. Who is there telling women that they need to pick a marriage-minded man and focus on marriage earlier, rather than later?

Will anyone talk about marriage to these women?

Most men are not interested in committing to, or discussing commitment with, women who put pleasure above self-control. Most non-Christian men will have sex with a hedonistic women, but they are too smart to ever commit to them. Why would a man commit to a narcissist? If a man’s role is just to please the “huge feminist”, then there is no reason to commit to her and be the slave of her selfish impulses for the rest of his life. Radical feminists believe that relationships are about their plans and their needs. They are not interested in responsibilities, expectations or obligations to men or to children. Most men, even secular men, understand that they must not marry a woman who rejects moral obligations for fun. Especially with the looming threat of no-fault divorce.

13 thoughts on “Why don’t men today talk to women about commitment and marriage?”

    1. Right and I don’t have any problem blaming women for their choice of man. There are men out there, with jobs with savings, who are marriage ready and willing to wait on sex. What I have found is that those men are passed over by women deliberately, because women are looking for fun and autonomy. They don’t want to have to respect a man as leader, so they don’t choose a man who has a plan and who has authority because of his demonstrated ability with career and money.

      Like

      1. WK, I wonder if you have been developing attributes of personal authority as well as positional authority?

        Like

        1. Well I have no positional authority at work or in ministry, and I don’t want it. I mentor about a dozen young Christians most of them women, in school, career and financial areas. The funny thing is that non-white women listen to me and make smart decisions. They study hard things, work summers, get jobs, and avoid boys without jobs. I have trouble getting white women with non-stem degrees to listen to me. I think the people who listen can tell from my resume and finances that I know what I am doing. I don’t have to bully, I lead by example.

          Like

  1. If one listens to some of the commentators on various Christian (especially Catholic) radio programs, one might think that all this sort of problem is the fault of men. Nowadays, too many people censure themselves out of fear of offending feminist women. Truth needs to be faced even if it makes some folks uncomfortable. Yes, some women are irresponsible and reckless in how they live their lives (including their sexual lives).

    Like

    1. The tone in evangelicals circles is that men should prove their manhood by manning up and marrying elderly high-risk women who have delayed marriage and who have lived a pattern of reckless, self-centered behavior. Nevermind no fault divorce, infidelity, etc. Men are expendable creatures who must destroy themselves for the happiness of women wholly unsuited to marriage responsibilities.

      Like

      1. My late father told me many years ago (when I was in my early 20s) that those who take to the promiscuous life style often find later that they cannot be monogamous after they eventually marry. In recent years, we have heard that many such women do have difficulty with adjusting to monogamy, and seek the thrills of sexual novelty through extramarital sexual encounters sometimes soon after they have married. It is sad.

        Like

        1. You really have to look for someone who has a pattern of keeping promises that they don’t feel like keeping. Making commitments, and keeping commitments. Finishing what they start. Marriage is about finding someone who keeps their word no matter what their feelings say, no matter what their friends say.

          Like

  2. The problem: today’s feminists have taken the feminist movement too far. The Enjoli feminist of the 80’s who could “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never never let you for get you’re a man” was at least still accepting of two traditionally “feminine” roles – cooking for her family and pleasing her husband. Today’s feminists have rejected all that.

    Equal pay today is not enough. They want want their men to cook for them (why should they have to cook?), and they want the man to please them – in everything; without regard to the main need of the man: respect. So as many men are now observing, what’s in marriage for men? A demanding woman from whom they’ll get no respect most likely, that’s what. With regard to the bedroom, gone are the days of the Biblical command to mutually please your mate: “Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time” (1 Cor 7.5). Now sex is a weapon, and she holds (if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors) all the cards. Get over it Mr. – she doesn’t care about your desires or your need for respect. Stay in line, or else. No wonder men are concluding marriage either very little or nothing to offer them.

    This is to say nothing of the traditional wisdom – which still holds true:
    1: Men don’t want to marry the woman who has slept her way across the campus or across the country. They want a woman with a bit more virtue, purity and self respect. The pill brought women sexual freedom, but made them slaves to a sexual immorality that in the end, is degrading and thus repulsive to men who may in their youth have fun with the harlot in the bedroom, but when marrying time comes, want an angel for the altar.

    2: And of course there’s the matter of pragmatics: As they saying goes, Why buy the cow, when the milk is being given away for free?

    The feminist rejection of virtue, and respect for men has brought down on their own heads a male rejection of selfish, demanding, disrespectful women who think femininity is a distorted version of masculinity. Who want all the benefits of being a feminist, but refuse to give a shred of respect to men for doing so. And the more women want to be like men and move away from being respectful and feminine, the more you’ll see men reject any desire for commitment, and more articles like the one above, or this one: Young men are giving up on marriage: ‘Women aren’t women anymore.’

    Like

  3. “…women who put pleasure above self-control….”

    Feminism exists solely to benefit women at the expense of men. It’s entire purpose is to pillage men for resources while violating men’s civil rights by perpetuating a narrative which portrays all men as oppressive rapists.

    Churches also are essentially feminist institutions where women are constantly getting positive affirmations. Men, however, are only shamed, attacked, and pushed into being “providers.” Even in church men are not permitted to have a positive identity, and even there we are constantly demonized and used as piggy banks.

    I don’t buy into the MGTOW thing, but I understand why so many men do it. It simply makes sense if one considers the larger context of how things are for men today.

    I could write about this forever, but to answer the author’s question? Why do men not talk to women about marriage and commitment? Simple…. that would be “mansplaining,” as the feminists put it. Men are not even permitted to speak on these issues anymore, mainly because men are under constant ACCUSATION.

    Unless women and the Church begin a direct, powerful, and straightforward campaign to value men, encourage men, praise men, and OPENLY acknowledge their wrongdoing towards men…. marriage will continue to decline. This is not going to happen, though. Feminism is a multi billion dollar industry now, which means that its profits are directly tied to the abuse of men. If men do not suffer, feminists do not get money.

    Every movement needs an acceptable “other.” Men are this “other.”

    I do not see this changing in our lifetimes.

    Like

    1. Sadly, I agree. I do not see this changing in our lifetimes. And, many of the Christian churches, sorry to say, have aided the feminists.

      The bottom line is the traditional family and children are the big losers from all of this. This is why we are in a vicious cycle. Girls raised only by mothers without a father in the home do not get a correct appreciation and understanding of the role of a man as husband and father. These girls are prone to sexual promiscuity at an early age. It is hard to be optimistic about the future.

      Like

Leave a comment