Heterofatal

(An Accidental Valentine's Day Story)

The writing isn’t happening this morning, so I’ve been reading about men: Men who want to fuck too much. Men who don’t want to fuck enough. Men not showing up with the proper male force and using their emotional fragility as an excuse. Most of what I was reading was about what women think of men and what they think is that men are having a hard time and it’s a drag for everyone, ‘cause when a man has his shit together, he might just do a woman some good. This having your shit together seems to include a combination of communication skills (not taking a full day to text back), being a “good guy” (which, from what I gleaned, means a certain psychological awareness and at least semi-woke feminist sympathies, but while still remaining a dude) and a strong sex drive and the skills to get the job done. Sex was at the heart of it all (at least in the pieces I was reading). The writer, a woman, wasn’t saying men are useless, she was saying they can be useful, which is why it’s such a drag when they don’t have their shit together!

One piece I read was by a female writer in an open marriage (she was into it, and made it clear it was not to make her husband happy). She was complaining ‘cause she had sex with some cat she met online and though it wasn’t great, it was good enough and more than that, she kinda dug him. The next day he sent her a text saying he was “looking forward to” seeing her again but right now he needed to “lay low” because of his anxiety. She did not like that, especially the “looking forward to” part. She wanted heat, hunger, desire. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Your smell, your taste, the sound you make when you cum. My hand’s on my cock right now and it will be until your mouth is on it instead. You make me fucking crazy!” That’s the text she wanted, but instead dude was anxious and “laying low.”

She had lunch with a couple of female friends (a historian and a shrink), told them her tale, and they all laughed about “the poor, widdle fraidy cat” who couldn’t just man up and put the wood to her. Said this male bashing session with her sisters made her feel less powerless and disappointed. She mentioned “heterofatalism,” a recently coined phrase, the gist of which is women giving up on men ever providing them with what they truly need (round up a thousand people and if ten know what they truly need, I’d be impressed). There was a fatalism to her writing as well, as if the real bond between men and women was profound misunderstanding and not ying/yang divinity or at least yin/yang let’s give it a shot.

Before that piece I read an article about the actor David Harbour and his musician wife Lily Allen, and how the album she made about their open marriage made it seem like he had forced the arrangement on her. That he was now perceived as a sex-crazed, butt plug wielding scoundrel, and she, the wronged woman who just wanted to be a good wife. The writer (female) was defending Harbour, even though the court of public opinion was against him.

Clearly, it is not a good time to be a voracious ass-plugging deviant (even one in an open marriage), but it’s a bad time to be an I’m too anxious to fuck you wussy boy as well. My goodness, what’s a fella to do? Maybe this has something to do with the wildfire popularity (especially with women) of Heated Rivalry, the show about two beautiful boy hockey players having a torrid and illicit affair. It’s free of all the current male-female angst, and their lovely, hairless male bodies convey both the masculine and the feminine. I guess it’s a such a tough time for boys and girls, it’s easier to just have two dudes fuck and remind everyone sex and vulnerability can be A-OK.

The most telling part of one of the essays was an exchange between the writer and a close female friend. The friend had been let go by a lawyer she was dating (he felt like she wanted a relationship, even though she didn’t, so he stopped seeing her). “I wish we could just be gay together,” the friend said, as if the two women could provide each other with everything except the dick. To be honest, it made me feel a little unwanted, but then I stopped and asked myself, is it true? Are heterosexual women able to get all they need from each other, except the hard? And if it isn’t true, then what is it that men can still actually do for women besides disappoint them? Or to put it another way, how can the masculine increase and not diminish the feminine in the year of our Lordess 2026?

It’s a bad time for the patriarchy, but it’s always been a bad time for the patriarchy. Men do a few things well, but run the world is not one of them, nor is their historical record with the female realm one to be proud of. But just because we’ve botched the macro project, that doesn’t mean women can’t benefit from a little dude energy from time to time. Sometimes, the greatest relief a man can provide a woman is to just tell her what to do (but your timing better be spot on or you can get yourself in a lot of trouble). And though that kind of forceful, male certainty has its place, there is a higher calling.

This is a paragraph from the book The Hero with A Thousand Faces. It’s written by Joseph Campbell. I know some see him as sexist (and that a woman is as worthy a hero as a man), but that doesn’t mean we got to throw the baby out with the myth-water.

Woman in the picture language of Mythology represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations, she can never be greater than himself, yet she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his feters. And if he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known will be released from every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. By deficient eyes she is reduced to inferior states; by the evil eye of ignorance she is spellbound to banality and ugliness. But she is redeemed by the eyes of understanding. The hero who can take her as she is, without undo commotion, but with the kindness and assurance she requires is potentially the king, the incarnate god of her created world.

Maybe we need more picture language of mythology in our lives. Maybe women are the holders of the mystery and it’s a man’s job to be open to it. To be neither superior to or intimidated by what can be sensed, but not seen. Maybe it is the evil eye of ignorance that creates the gulf between male and female, and only the eyes of understanding can bridge it. And not just the eyes, but the ears as well. Ears that know what to listen for. That hear not just the words but the inner life behind them. I know that the times I have been able to take a woman as she is- without undo commotion, but with the kindness and assurance she requires, good things have happened. I’m not sure I became the incarnate God of her created world, but maybe I was able to bring a few things to the altar that another woman couldn’t have- And there ain’t nothing fatalistic about that.