All men struggle with it (or have in the past), but are never permitted to discuss it, much less express it.

Readership: All; men especially;
Theme: Dating and the SMP
Author’s Note: The content of this post is based on a collection of comments from readers concerning the challenges of being a young single Christian male. Links to the original comments are contained in the initial words. Some comments have been edited for emphasis and readability.
Length: 2,100 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

The Dire Desire

We are not designed to be alone. We are designed to live in relationship with others. Out of all of our relationships we are were designed to experience unique intimacy and joy with one other person in a relationship so important that God made it the earthly model of His relationship with His kids. Sex within marriage is how this happens. The desire to attain this relationship when single is highly motivating and the hurt and pain that stems from sexlessness in marriage is nearly all consuming (years of personal experience) because we were designed by God to experience the joy and intimacy of sex with a spouse. This is why sex is part of a wife’s calling as her husband’s helpmate.

A key developmental milestone for a man is his relationship to his own sexuality, and I mean that in the broadest possible terms, “sex” including his maleness, his masculinity, and his manhood.

There isn’t a man alive who hasn’t wanted sex and couldn’t get it. This has happened to EVERY man IN THE WORLD. I don’t know ANY man who hasn’t gone through a period of sexual frustration and forced celibacy.

The man who wants sex (which is almost all men) and who cannot get it, loses a piece of his humanity. He becomes less human, less masculine, less “a man”, even if only in his own eyes and in relationship to himself. It causes great distraction and excruciating pain. It causes emotional instability and mental disorders.

It can be maddening. Can’t concentrate. Can’t relax. Can’t stop being self-conscious. Spending 70% of all my energy trying to fight against nature. 90% of my thoughts are about mind control and not about anything beyond “managing” myself. Always jerking off and can’t stop, and feeling guilty and ashamed of it. My grandparents’ generation typically referred to this as a “young man’s problem”. It’s a huge burden.

It gets much worse. Jason pointed out that men who don’t have sex for whatever reason, whether they are incels or volcels, and regardless of LAMPS attributes, including men of faith who choose to wait, are typically seen as backwards, socially inept losers, “betas”, “lesser men”, or “not real men”. Even if it is not explicitly said, it is felt and implied.

The “loss of humanity” and “feel like a lesser man” comments (mentioned above) were intended to capture how inceldom tends to make men feel about themselves, not how they should be seen by other men.

img-1783680988-6a50cfdc31fd43.50988672.jpg

The Waiting (Caterpillar345’s Testimony)

I am in my mid 20’s. I grew up in a good Christian home, regularly attend church, serve/lead on the technical crews (which aligns with my abilities), and have a good (probably very good, for my age) Biblical understanding. I spent several years with my head down and got a STEM degree without partying and carousing in college, assuming that this would be looked upon favorably in the future. I have a good paying job in my field and live on my own with paid-for vehicles and no debt. I have hobbies including ones that involve using my hands and building things (and I don’t play video games). I’m not overweight and am reasonably fit; although I’m not an athletic stud, I certainly hold my own with backpacking, mountain biking, motorcycles, rock climbing, downhill skiing, etc. The church I attend is fairly conservative (not SSM affirming, no women pastors/teachers, sermons always refer to scripture as their basis, etc.). I’m not a particularly charismatic or extroverted man but I work on putting myself out there. And yet, it seems the women I meet (in the church or certainly those not in the church) are not interested in what I’m offering, or are not currently (or on track to be) the Proverbs 31 woman I’m looking for.

I alternate between:

  • Seeing the vision of what a Godly marriage could be and having faith/hope that if I keep doing what I can then God will direct my path to put me in contact with such a woman and bless me with a Godly marriage.
  • Hopelessness about finding such a woman and the fact that God isn’t making any promises to give me such a woman and accepting that I may never have that, meaning a continued celibate life, which causes me to feel guilty about being faithless.
  • Frustration about being in this position, trying to figure out how to get there by hook or crook (such as fornicating if the opportunity presented itself), and again feeling guilty about not having faith that God can provide, and then feeling that I’m having a victim mindset for “trusting God to provide” instead of doing something about it to solve the problem.
  • Frustration towards God because He gave me my sexual nature and said that “a good wife is from the LORD”, and “it is not good for the man to be alone”, and then “don’t fornicate either”, but here I am on my own.

I can only assume that:

  • My attitude, emotions, and social skills still need work in order to be attractive (which is likely).
  • I need to spend more time in the gym and get ripped (which couldn’t hurt).
  • I am not trusting in God to provide so He isn’t providing for me.
  • I still have things to learn before God will bless me in this way.

And yet, none of that takes away from the fact that, as Jack commented:

“It’s maddening. Can’t concentrate. Can’t relax. Can’t stop being self-conscious. Spending 70% of all my energy trying to fight against nature. 90% of my thoughts are about mind control and not about anything beyond “managing” myself. Always jerking off and can’t stop, and feeling guilty and ashamed of it. My grandparents’ generation typically referred to this as a “young man’s problem”. It’s a huge burden.”

Sex is NOT a need on the same level as food, water, sleep, and air. A man will not die without having sex, as evidenced by incels, monks, and any of us who go without sex for an extended period of time. But I do agree it is a deep-seated need for men in the way that Jack mentioned in his comment.

I guess I do feel like a “lesser” man or that part of my masculinity is missing because I’m not successful with women, if that is defined by sleeping with one (or more) of them or being married. But it’s really hard to ignore all of the above and just redefine “success” to be “faithful in God’s eyes because I kept myself from fornicating, even though it was never available to me as an option.” I try hard not to be bitter or resentful about it but the thought of being in Jason’s position in another 20 years is not very encouraging.

img-1783680968-6a50cfc8df1b56.95032041.jpg

The Silence

The expression of a man’s sexual desire has become verboten. Most men are required to neuter themselves in public. They aren’t permitted to express themselves as men… because most men are not sexually attractive. It’s because people have a lot of discomfort with bottom 80% men expressing themselves as men. Part of expressing oneself as a man is through masculinity which includes his sexual desire and desire for sex. It’s because, if you have that desire, you probably will, at some point, act on it, and women DO NOT want bottom 80% men acting on their sexual desires toward them. Or in public.

Especially not in church!

Men are not supposed to be men in or around church. Men are supposed to be good little beta bitchbois with their heads bowed in eternal submission to everyone. They’re to submit to their wives, to other women, and to the effeminate pastor who screams “HOW DARE YOU!” at them. They’re never ever to express that they are sexual beings who desire sexual congress with women they’re attracted to. They’re not to feel that, experience that, want that, or even SAY that they want that. They sure as hell are not to act on it or act like that in any way whatsoever. In Churchian World, even men feeling or expressing sexual desire for attractive women is bad, wrong, evil, immoral, perverted, sick, and criminal.

Yes, “neutering” men is one of the culture’s highest priorities, and what passes for “the church” these days has capitulated fully to the culture. Therefore…

We men must now neuter ourselves and render ourselves sexual blanks to be in a church body.

This statement (in bold) cannot really be taken as satire.

img-1783684328-6a50dce8c95c80.69407611.jpg

But it gets worse, much worse.

Even if a man does his very best to hold his primal nature in check while pretending to be a listless automaton, it is still not sufficient! We must not even allow ourselves to talk about male sexuality, because that would suggest lewdness, fornication, and other expressions of “toxic masculinity”.

The Church and most Christians really do have a problem with talking about sex and male sexuality. Never mind that women’s secret lives are 10 times worse.

Note also that the “church” doesn’t have the guts to say this directly, even though it’s clearly what their behavior and attitudes endorse. Like the world it worships, the “church” lies and obfuscates compulsively.

Gee. I wonder why men are leaving the church. Why, oh why, might that be happening? Such a conundrum, I cannot imagine why men might feel unwelcome at a place where talking about and facing up to something essential to them as men is viewed as anathema and unChristian.

There’s nothing to “step up” to

In Step up, so they don’t have to (part 1). (2017-5-10) and (part 2) (2017-5-12), St. Dalrock made light of the complementarian refrain that men need to “step up”. “Man up” is a similar phrase heard in churchian circles with an emphasis on marrying single mothers. These phrases are deceptive, because in reality, men have no motivation to take responsibility for all the various social ills created by feminism and progressivism.  It is preaching false bravado to mask paralyzing fear.

You want to know why men aren’t “stepping up”? This is why…

  • Because women are telling men they are nothing and they deserve nothing except whatever leftovers and table scraps some used up s1ut is willing to toss them, and because the Church fully endorses that viewpoint.
  • Because the church is telling men they have to give all they have and then earn what they want from a s1ut who has nothing to give because she let dozens of other men jackhammer her heart into hamburger.
  • Because the church is telling men they have to sit there and listen to some effeminate p_ssyboy who couldn’t assert his way out of a wet paper sack tell them what masculinity is.

The church has largely succeeded in turning its men into not-men. And then they have the nerve to b!tch and complain that the not-men they demanded to be created are not men.

img-1783684330-6a50dcea0b8cc1.45618187.jpg

Conclusions

So you see, the issue behind The Young Man’s Problem of today isn’t really about sex and fornication (or the absence thereof), it’s about whether masculinity is condemned or not, and whether expressions of masculinity are forbidden or not. Men are suffering because they’re not finding any forms of masculine expression. Sex is only one such area in which the lack of masculine virility is acutely felt.

The wider culture imposes a double standard on men, saying in essence, “No masculinity allowed! No displays of masculinity… No TALK of masculinity! …but… if you’re sexually active, then we’ll have a bit more respect for you as one approved by the Gynapotheosis.“

Hypocrisy!

The church is giving men essentially the exact same message only amplified with false religious guilt. The church capitalizes on the Biblical acumen of sexual desire and fornication, and magnifies this into a guilt-trip hot button, all accompanied by regular “man up” lectures given to the “lesser men” (those who aren’t having sex), which is code for “masculinity is childish“ and/or “worker ants go back to your cubicle and perform!”

This too is hypocrisy, because those men who are actually fornicating are usually given a pass, even within the church, unfortunately.*

All in all, the focus on sex (i.e. the lack, the absence, or the evils thereof) is used to hit men where it most hurts, derail the discussion of masculinity, and stuff men back into their pigeonholes.

Such is the experience of a young man, and this has grown exponentially worse over the last few decades.

* We Christians seriously need to rethink this paradigm and come up with a better system — something that would move men towards viable relationships and marriage instead of rewarding fornication. To this end, Jack has put forth a tentative model in the post, A Volitional Model of Cascade Courtship (2021-11-15).

Related