Last week's column drew a lot of fire, but you'd probably be surprised at how many women supported what I wrote. The hundreds of e-mails, in fact, ran 4-1 in favor, and that was the women. The male e-mail was, unsurprisingly, unanimously favorable.
A few points deserve addressing. The statistics are from Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, not my imagination. I was not writing about all 30-something women, just the upper-middle-class, college-educated, single women who don't want to be single. I am not single. I do not hate women. I do not suffer fools gladly, especially not critics who can neither read accurately nor write grammatically.
Now, it is important to keep in mind that while 30-something women certainly exacerbate and perpetuate their problem, they did not create it. Their feminist forebears did. But there is another group that adds fuel to the fire, and that is predatory young men. I know this very well, because, were it not for the grace of God, I would still be one of them.
It does not take long for the smart young male to learn that nice guys finish last where women are concerned. Young women in their teens and 20s, for the most part, simply don't respect men who treat them well. But, the observant young male soon learns, if you keep a girl guessing, keep her off-balance and insecure, you can summon her for a late night booty call whenever you want. Thus the once-lovestruck puppy becomes a dog.
Desirable women keep fan clubs of "friends" who wish to date them, holding them in reserve for those times when they need an armpiece or for long-term backup should Prince Charming fail to eventually appear. Desirable men, on the other hand, keep stables of willing women to provide them with sex on demand. Two or three is normal, but a Big Dog will have four or more at his disposal.
He does so without conscience, because it is impossible to provide him with any rational reason he should not. Having been taught since grade school that there is no connection between sex and morality, he is unmoved by appeals to traditional right and wrong. Sex education has wrongly taught him that women enjoy sex as much and as often as he does, and the vulgar, provocative front put up by college girls leads him to believe that they are as casual about it as he is.
He does not respect them, of course – why should he? They are simply there for his use. If a woman turns him down, he will simply shrug and move on. In fact, he may well move on should he not receive adequate satisfaction on the very first date. Those he is using are terrified of admitting their true longings for love and romance to him, as they know he will lose no sleep over informing them that he will no longer be requiring their bodies for his physical pleasure.
Marriage? It doesn't even occur to him. He knows women seek most divorces and is in no hurry to risk losing his future house, savings account and children. After college, he will often live with a woman for a year or two, only to move on to the next if she brings up the M-word too often. By the time he reaches 30, he usually has received and passed on at least one sexually-transmitted disease, hence the popularity of colposcopies in these latter days.
The Big Dog has no problem plucking another girl off the Girl Tree whenever one is needed. He is generally quite content with himself and his life, and he lacks for nothing, except honor. But without it, he is incomplete, because he has not learned that a man is more than the sum of his desires. He is a predator, without morals or mercy, stalking the bars and nightclubs as inerrantly and as voraciously as a great white shark.
He can change, however – he will need a good woman to help him do so. Her education, brains and success do not matter, but her character does. She does not represent a challenge, to him, but inspiration for what he can become. She is, almost surely, not an insecure, bitter, highly educated and career-oriented woman.
Answering the question of who let the dogs out is not difficult. The blame lies with those who decided that the patriarchy would best be undermined by debasing man's oldest currency: sex.