Real Men Don't Use Tampons

Writing on Taki’s Magazine Jim Goad makes clear that, being a man, he does not have periods and does not use or need tampons. (via Maggie’s Farm) Explain that to the woke students of Brown University who now place tampon dispensers in the male locker room… the better to accommodate male-identified females.

Question: if said male identified females take showers in the male locker room, how many of the males present will look at them in their resplendent nudity and mistake them for males? Might it not be slightly dangerous for a human person with a female body to shower with a group of rowdy, randy, toxic males? 

Anyway, Goad presents his unimpeachable idea:

I’ve never needed a tampon, and I’m 100% certain it’s directly related to the fact that I’m a man.

Tampons are for people who get periods. Women get periods and men don’t. These were simple facts that we, as a former society, used to embrace unquestioningly, because to do otherwise would be…insane?

The problem is, people who have an adversarial relationship with reality can’t seem to rest until they’ve made everyone as crazy as they are.

My preemptive apologies to those of you who’ve been bludgeoned and/or brainwashed into submitting to a very obvious lie, but our hysteria-prone friends in the “transgender” community have a fundamentally adversarial relationship with reality….

These are the ones who want us to look reality square in the eye and lie to it—they want us to say that despite the fact that they still menstruate, they are men.

With all due apologies, I will offer one correction to Goad’s argument. The transgendered community and their defenders are not just in an adversarial relationship with reality. They believe that they can create their own reality, and can completely ignore biological reality.

They want to impose their will on reality, to make it into whatever they want it to be. To their addled brains reality is whatever they think it is. If they are suffering miserably from denying the most obvious constituents of their biological reality, they are going to blame it on you and me and everyone who does not accept them for who they think they are. They believe that they can change reality by persuading everyone to see it as they see it, to deny it as they deny it. 

In an age where we are supposed to respect scientific facts, we are being led back to the Dark Ages, where reality is whatever you make it. And where everyone must believe in the reality that has nothing to do with reality, lest they be prosecuted and persecuted.

Annual Fundraising Campaign

It’s that time of the year. As has become a tradition in these parts, I have chosen to celebrate Cyber Monday by beginning my annual fundraising campaign.

I have been putting up daily posts on this blog for more than eleven years now. I trust that some people will consider that to be praiseworthy. Obviously, it takes time and work to do the job, and I could not have done it without the financial support of you, the readers.

So, allow me to thank you for your past and future generosity. It is much appreciated.

In principle, this blog attempts to keep you informed of the latest from the psycho world. It has tracked he influence of therapy culture, its effects on individuals and its political and social fallout. We would be wrong to limit the influence of therapy to individual cases. So, I have expanded the coverage to include questions involving political psychology, social psychology, organizational psychology and so on.

Precious few writers are doing this job, but surely it needs to be done. It is important that we recognize the way therapy has come to define our culture, direct our actions and  influence our thoughts.

Anyway, this project does require financial support. You can contribute by clicking on the orange Donate button, on the left side of this page. Then, the folks at Paypal will help you to contribute as much as you would like.

This year, as a special service, you can also fund the blog by doing your Christmas shopping at Amazon. If you enter the Amazon site by clicking the Amazon ad at the left of this page, a percentage of each purchase price will be credited to your humble blogger. Thus, you can support the blog-- at no extra cost.

If you do not wish to use Paypal, I gratefully accept checks or cash sent to my address:

               310 East 46^th St. 24H

               New York, NY   10017

If you have a friend or a relative who is a psychoanalyst or who still clings to Freudian theory, you can do him a great favor by sending a copy of my book, The Last Psychoanalyst. 

When I wrote it I suggested that it shows how a pseudoscience became a pseudo religion. But, I also showed how Freud created something that resembles what we now call a rape culture. The term was not in use five years ago, but if you read the book carefully you will see that I was somewhat prescient. The book is a perfect holiday gift. You can buy a copy by using the link at left.

Since this is a week long fundraising campaign, I will be repeating this post several other times throughout the week. Be prepared.

Thank you in advance.

America's Therapy-Driven Moral Destitution

Another tale of moral cowardice from America’s therapy culture. Today, Carolyn Hax addresses a letter sent by a pregnant 40 year old woman who is not sure she wants to get married. It’s her first pregnancy and the first for her fiance. 

The woman only values her feelings, her wants and her desires. Now that she is carrying the man’s child, she does not feel like she is madly in love with him. So, she wants to call off the wedding, to risk becoming a single mother and to hurt him deeply. I will only mention in passing that if she gives birth while unmarried, the child will officially be a … you know what. She does not care about that either.

She seems to recognize that she ought to consider what is best for her child, but still, she feels her feelings and feels like bailing on the wedding.

Here, for your edification, the letter:

I'm not even sure how to start this because I feel like a terrible person getting myself into this situation. I recently got engaged to a great guy — kind, responsible, outstanding human being. Because we are both 40, we immediately tried for a child, and, joy and surprise, I immediately got pregnant.

I'm overjoyed about the baby. However, despite the fact our relationship is going smoothly, I'm not feeling any desire to actually . . . get married. In fact, I've been waking up dreaming about a former boyfriend and wishing I were marrying him, and I am feeling painfully aware that although I definitely love my fiance, I don't love love love him the way I know I'm capable of.

He, I'm pretty sure, does love love love me. I'm feeling trapped. I'm missing laughter. I'm feeling terrible. I'm not sure how to proceed or even what questions to ask myself.

What's best for the baby is probably to throw myself 110 percent into making this relationship as good as can be, but I'm also scared we'll settle into a mediocre marriage, where he'll sense that I feel trapped, and that might be worse than blowing up our lives now. How do I untangle this?

— Not Sure I Want to Get Married

In truth, she is a terrible person. Sadly, Hax is with her… to some extent. Here is the Hax response:

Be honest about not wanting to go ahead with the wedding. Don’t “blow up our lives,” but instead just say you’re feeling overwhelmed (since it’s true!) and stressed (since it’s true, that’s what the dreams and inability to laugh are telling you) — and what you’d like most is to be free to give yourself over completely to your pregnancy, to sharing with him this overjoyed moment.

The 10 percent is that you will alleviate the pressure of impending nuptials you’re not 100 percent behind. The (possible) 100 percent is that giving yourself room to breathe will (possibly) relax you, and a relaxed you will be open to the love you have for and from your fiance. He might not be the reason for your lack of intimate feelings, in other words, but instead the victim of it. At least buy yourself the time and space to find out.

Consider the opening: Hax wants the woman to give herself over completely to her pregnancy, while at the same time putting off the marriage. She does not consider how that will go down with the man and his family, or her own family, for that matter. Might it be that her fiance will not be thrilled to share it all with him once she tells him in all honesty that she does not love him very much but would rather be with her ex-boyfriend.

Again, why do these women assume that the man in question will be thrilled to learn that she wants to call off the marriage? Why do they not factor in the public humiliation of having to tell family and friends that she does not want to marry the father of her child?

Yet, Hax quotes another woman, one who also believes that the woman should feel her feelings, but who understands, better than Hax, that pregnancy produces hormonal changes that directly affect your sense of smell.

Pregnancy is also weird, all your hormones shift around, and I didn't like how my husband smelled for nine months. Honest.

But, did she believe that not liking how her husband smelled should be grounds for divorce or for not getting married? In short, these women are allowing themselves to be led around by their feelings. They have taken leave of their moral sense.

Suicide in America

Maybe it’s a mental health story. Maybe it’s a story about the American cultural and political climate from 2007-2017. Whatever it is, its very bad news.

Here are the raw statistics, from the Wall Street Journal:

The suicide rate in the U.S. rose 24% from 2007 to 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among people ages 10 to 24 years old, it jumped 56%. 

I note this in order to disabuse us of the notion that the mental health industry is doing a great job treating depression, especially suicidal depression. And I would note, for those who believe that we never had it as good as we did from 2007-2017, that many people did not have it so good… psychologically speaking. 

So, I will let the facts speak for themselves.

The End of the End of History

According to David Goldman, Donald Trump’s call for “America First” does not mean what we think it means. It is a good idea, perhaps even an essential idea, poorly expressed. You see, “America First” was last used by isolationist politicians who wanted to keep America out of World War II. In truth, Franklin Roosevelt did not want to be involved, so America First was running cover for FDR.

One might argue, as Winston Churchill, that two of America’s biggest mistakes, mistakes that contributed to the horror house of the twentieth century, were to stay out of the world wars too long. By Churchill’s reasoning, getting involved earlier would have stopped the carnage before it provoked a sequence of events that killed hundreds of millions of people. If Woodrow Wilson had followed the lead of Theodore Roosevelt and had gotten involved sooner…. If Roosevelt had heeded the warnings issued by Churchill and had gotten involved sooner….

In one sense it was none of our business. In another sense, letting the situation fester made it our business. By the time it became our business, there was no relatively easy solution… short of all-war. Those who think that the choice is between war and peace are seriously short-sighted. The choice was between a small war and a large war. Which should we have preferred?

And besides, we did stand idly by while al Qaeda built up its resources in Afghanistan… because Afghanistan was not really our problem. How did that work out?

So, “America First,” proposed during the twentieth century, has now made a comeback. One understands the Trumpian idea. One would have preferred if the president had chosen a better expression, but surely, his idea has considerable merit.

Goldman offers this analysis:

Donald Trump has one quality for which the rest of the world should be grateful: He really does not care how China, Russia, or any other country manages its affairs. By “America First,” he simply means that he cares about what happens in America, and is incurious about what happens outside America unless it affects his country directly. That stands in sharp contrast to view of all the wings of America’s political Establishment – progressive, “realist” and neoconservative – who believe that America should bring about the millenarian End of History by bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, by expanding NATO into a giant social-engineering project, by pressing China to transform itself into a Western-style democracy, and so forth.

It’s one thing to manage crises that are developing around the world. It’s one thing to manage such crises when our interests, especially our trading interests, demand it. And it was surely good to destroy the ISIS caliphate.

And yet, it is well past time that we jettison the Wilsonian notion that we should be exporting democracy, and that once countries get a taste of democracy they will naturally love peace more than war. Those who accept the End of History argument, namely that liberal democracy will naturally be accepted as the best way to govern nations, should awaken from their ideological stupor.

They should return to their philosophy books and learn what G. W. F. Hegel really thought. The man who gave us the End of History—and who was also the godfather of Marxism—thought that he espied the real end of history when he saw the conquering emperor Napoleon riding his white horse through his Prussian city.

You do not need to know too much about history or about imperial rulers to understand that Napoleon did not invade Prussia, among other countries, in order to bring them liberal democracy.

Calexodus

Another day, another major company is exiting California. Now, Charles Schwab is moving its headquarters to Texas.

Forbes has the story (via Maggie’s Farm):

Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW), the San Francisco-based financial services firm that pioneered low-cost stock trades, is moving to Texas. The announcement follows news yesterday that Charles Schwab will acquire TD Ameritrade for $26 billion.

Schwab will move its headquarters to Westlake, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. The shift to Texas was telegraphed with Schwab’s increasing presence in the area over the years, with the firm already readying to double its Westlake workforce to 2,600. Ameritrade also has a large footprint in the area.

As for why Schwab might be doing this, the chairman explained:

Regarding the move out of California, Schwab chairman and founder Charles Schwab noted California’s high taxes factored in the decision while observing, “…the costs of doing business here are so much higher than some other place.”

Mr. Schwab was likely too polite to mention that his employees were much less likely to experience electric black outs in Texas, or step in human waste and used needles on the streets of Westlake, as opposed to San Francisco.

Given the internet it is no longer essential for financial services companies to aggregate in one location. Might this also tell us something about another major financial hub, Hong Kong, whose business might easily be transferred to mainland China?

The Schwab move is not as consequential as JP Morgan Chase's move from New York City to Texas, but still, it’s sending us a message.

Presidential?