Trina sent me this astonishing post about a woman whose boyfriend literally gouged her eyes out. The article is written by one of my favorite authors, Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. It appears in City Journal, the famous journal of the centrist Manhattan Institute.

There are no graphic images in the article, but there is very vulgar and violent language in some parts. The author of the article is sympathetic with her suffering, but we can learn a lot from her story about how to choose a good man.

Fatherless

First, we learn that Ms. Nash grew up fatherless and the bills were paid by the state – she had no idea that women should prefer men who work hard, self-sacrificially, to be able to provide for a family:

Nash was born in Cornwall, one of six children to a mother whose relationships with men were tumultuous. “I’d seen my mum go through hundreds of break-ups and be badly treated by men,” she tells us. The mother’s complex love life left little time for her children, for, as Nash observes, “I was much closer to [my grandmother] than my mum, who never seemed to have time for us.” How many of the six children shared the same father we never learn, and indeed Nash makes no mention of a father of any of them, including her own. It appears that she came into a radically fatherless world, and though she does not say so, it is likely that at least some of her brothers and sisters were half-siblings; and again, though she does not say so, it is likely that the principal economic support of the family was the state, whose paid-out benefits meant that it was, in effect, father to the children. Nash grew up in public housing and seems to have lived in such subsidized housing all her life.

Not seeing her father providing for the family and loving her mother left her with no way to tell good men apart from bad men:

She tells us early in the book that she is a single mother of two children. Speaking of her first child, she says, “I may have had [him] when I was very young but my kids mean the world to me and not for one moment did I regret becoming a mum at sixteen.”

[…]The next sentence reads: “My choice in men, however, left a lot to be desired.” And when she reaches the beginning of the narrative of her blinding, she writes, “I had [moved back to my town of birth] with two sons by different dads and a series of dead-end relationships.” It is obvious that the suitability of men to be fathers to her children arose for her neither before nor after their births, because she deemed fathers inessential or even useless, as economically they obviously were, given her likely financial support from the state. That is why her choice in men “left a lot to be desired”: nothing of long-term significance for her hung on it, or seemed to hang on it, so that the only criterion of choice was immediate attraction—commonly known as lust. 

This is the problem with feminism that I am always warning you all about. If women are taught that there are no specific behaviors that men are responsible for, (because that’s sexist), then they will prefer men solely on surface  criteria like appearance, feelings and peer-approval. They will not choose men who can actually do the jobs that men do: protect, provide, lead on moral and spiritual issues.

Alcohol

Drinking too much contributed to her poor choices with men:

We arrive now at her choice of Jenkin as consort. As it happened, Nash had met him at a party some years previously, just following his release from prison after serving four and a half years “for stomping on a guy’s head and giving him brain damage,” as her best friend put it—adding that “he’s a bloody psycho.” And Nash’s first experience of him was not altogether favorable: after they spent hours talking about music and “our mutual love of rapper 2pac,” he tried to force himself sexually upon her. It was not love at first sight, therefore: it was love at second sight.

That second sight came when “I’d had a few glasses of wine” at a restaurant and a “few shots of tequila” at a nightclub, where she ran into him again, so that she “could barely hear in my head those words of warning [about Jenkin by her best friend years earlier] for all the alcohol I had knocked back.”

[…]When he asked for her telephone number, “I didn’t hesitate for a second. I felt I could trust him.”

She felt (feelings) that she could trust him. But there was no evidence that he could be a good father and husband.

Lust

So, why did she feel she could trust him?

What was so attractive about Jenkin? It was his size and muscles. He was six feet, four inches tall, and “his chest was so big his T-shirt clung to him like cellophane, highlighting his pectoral muscles. His blue jeans molded to his thighs, showing off his pert bum.” Nash’s subsequent rationalizations for staying with him were but a smokescreen for the rawness of her desire.

[…]But Jenkin struck Nash as a “great big teddy bear” with “puppy-dog eyes.” On waking up after her first night of sex with him, however, she noticed the tattoos on his chest and arms: “Down his right arm was an image of a hooded executioner raising his sword like he was about to slaughter someone. . . . On his left chest was a tattoo of a tiger ripping someone’s head off. Down his left arm was OUTLAW in big bold black letters.” Still, though she knew he had served a long prison sentence for seriously injuring someone, she “chuckled at the thought that Shane fancied himself as a bit of an outlaw.” His night of love with her resulted in him failing to get up in the morning, whereupon he lost his job as a painter and decorator, and he never found, or sought, another.

No woman who believed in traditional gender roles could ever think that this man would make a good husband. He is unemployed, unchaste, a convicted violent criminal, a drunkard and a brute.

Violence

The article then talks for a while about the drinking, partying and domestic violence between Nash and Jenkin. He accuses her of cheating, spits in her face repeatedly, throws a brick through her car window.

There were plenty of signs:

Jenkin exhibits almost every conceivable warning sign of vicious future violence. He takes anabolic steroids. He arrives one day with a crossbow—a formidable weapon—claiming that some Lithuanians with whom he has had a dispute want to kill him. He spends his days playing violent video games and his nights watching horror films of terrible sadism, including some that graphically depict people having their eyes gouged out with bare hands—scenes that obviously excite him and that he demands Nash watch with him. Nash learns that Jenkin had stabbed his own dog to death—a Rottweiler, needless to say—when he grew tired of it.

Jenkin actually attacked her before the eyes were gouged out. And she lied in court saying he was innocent and that she fallen down the stairs. And she took him back after he was acquitted of the first attack. The second time he attacked, it cost her her eyes. And all was done in front of her children.

The article ends with this:

In her book, Tina Nash describes how she tried bravely to get on with life after being blinded. After she finished the book, she found a new boyfriend. He has just been sent to prison for assaulting her.

Here’s a news story about the new boyfriend.

The point of me posting this is as a warning to those who believe that there are no differences between men and women – no specific things that men are supposed to do for a woman that she should choose him for. A man has to be able to work in order to provide. He should be protective and gentle with women, children and animals. He should be loving and caring. He should know God and be prepared to defend God. He should have strong convictions about theology and the moral law.

A woman learns about the qualities of good men by reading stories about good men, e.g. – Austen, Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, etc., and also from watching her father be a protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader in the home. It is very important that her father perform the standard male roles for her mother in front of her. That’s how daughters learn what it means to be a good man, and how men are supposed to love women well. It doesn’t mean letting a woman be spoiled and selfish all the time. But she should always feel safe and loved, no matter what she does.

By the way, you can read Dalrymple’s first book for free online. All the chapters are linked in this post.