Ishtar spoke to her father, Anu, saying: “Father, give me the Bull of Heaven, so he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling. If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!” – excerpt from Tablet VI of the Epic Of Gilgamesh, written over 4500 years ago (emphasis added)
Marriage used to be something that had great and balanced benefits for men and women, but from the very beginnings of human society both men and women were the reluctant to commit to an unworthy mate.
The oldest known human story – The Epic of Gilgamesh – relates, in part, the fallout from Gilgamesh’s refusal to marry the cruel goddess/princess Ishtar. Ishtar responds with a murderous rage, but like modern feminists, she seeks to avoid direct responsibility for her actions, and so uses double-proxy violence to exact her revenge (threatening a zombie apocalypse to her father so that he will release the Bull of Heaven to attack Gilgamesh).
Maybe the God/King Anu found her zombie threat compelling, or maybe it was the gynocentrism of this early culture that turned the trick, but in any case, the Bull of Heaven was released.
Likewise, as far as ancient stories of reluctant brides, my buddy Peter Wright (Tawil) recently related to me in his own words a Greek Myth about a girl named Atalanta whose father was a King. He wanted her to marry but she refused. After much cajoling she agreed that she would marry a man who could beat her in a running race.
Unfortunately, she was super fast, and all the suitors failed. However, one poor runner entered in a race against her and he had a trick up his sleeve – he appealed to her greed by carrying three apples made of pure gold which he would drop, one at a time, throughout the race, making her stop to pick the shiny things up and allowing him to surge forward. He won the race and Atalanta was compelled to marry him.
But nowadays the marriage myths have been twisted all out of recognition into grinding, brutal realities – it is men who are avoiding marriage, and those married men who are being booted out of their families are still being forced to drop three precious things – their wallets, their housekeys, and their children – as the price for their freedom.
To avoid the marriage trap, more and more men are (sometimes unwittingly) adopting a philosophy known as “Men Going Their Own Way” – MGTOW – to protect themselves from the physical, emotional, and financial damages inflicted by feminist-inspired changes to the marriage laws and practices – laws and practices that trample any man unlucky enough to get tangled up in them.
Also more and more, the modern marital landscape is breaking down in ways that resemble the collapse of society depicted in zombie film productions like AMC’s The Walking Dead – a TV show now so popular in its 4th season that it comes complete with its own followup analysis show, Talking Dead. I believe that these productions resonate with audiences in part because the stress levels, desperation and suffering depicted among the human survivors are echoes of the same helpless frustrations we all face in our personal, real-world relationships today.
These common frustrations depicted include:
- The widespread destruction of marriage – in the zombie apocalypse your dearest loved ones (spouse, children, lovers, siblings, parents) may transform at any time into mindless automata bent solely on your destruction. Likewise, in the daily October series In His Own Words on domestic abuse published in A Voice for Men, Dr. Tara Palmatier recounted, in story after story after story, the real-life horrors of having a wife turn insane with hatred against her husband. In the zombie world it is expected that one can simply dispatch the creature trying to eat your flesh, but in the real world your zombie wife has an army of defenders and enablers in the form of the police / courts / feminist harpies that will swarm you if you try to stand your ground or protect your kids.
- The loss of our children – in the zombie apocalypse pregnancy is a death sentence; childhood is truncated by death and perhaps even worse: your surviving kids will have lives as a stone-cold killers whose emotions are as blunted as the shambling, rotting corpses that are forever hunger after them. The real-life horror of having your children legally stolen from you by the family courts and turned against you by greedy, ungrateful ex-wives is no less brutal.
- The society-wide erosion of personal security – in the zombie apocalypse the threat of getting gnawed to death is ever-present; in real life a false accusation from a disgruntled woman can wreck your life at any time. The loss of due-process legal rights for men, particularly on college campuses where 2/3 of the students are women, can have life-shattering consequences that can stalk you for decades.
- The death of hope for the future – in the zombie apocalypse each gain seems to be offset by a dozen losses. In the real world, the voices of men crying out for justice are silenced by lies with names like “privilege”, “misogynist”, “patriarchy”, “rape culture”, “rape apologist”, “male ally of feminists” and “creep”.
In some ways, though, and despite its brutality, the zombie apocalypse is a vast improvement for men on both current marriage and society.
- The valuation of male traits – when one is struggling to find the simple basics of human survival – food, water, and shelter – in the midst of rampaging zombies – the strength, endurance, and skills of men become of premium value. The safest place in the zombie apocalypse is standing with the strongest, smartest man you can find, and taking care to let him know how much you appreciate him.
- The utter destruction of feminism – When your stomach is growling you don’t have time to worry about whether you are being self-actualized – a Rubenesque slattern like Jaclyn Friedman, well-filled in both belly and nether regions, has the spare time and privilege of wondering whether she is being truly valued as a woman, but in a world overrun by zombies, our indulgence of feminist fantasies is exposed for the silly rotting tripe that it is – there are no Maslow self-actualization problems when minute-by-minute survival is your overriding concern.
The lazy lady leisure class goes by another name in zombieland – lunch.
Yes, the zombie world is a nightmare, but it is not devoid of hope.
I recently happened upon another view of the zombie world, captured in the little-known film Warm Bodies. (You can watch the first four minutes of the movie at the link, or below.)
In the movie, “R” (played by Nicholas Hoult), a zombie boy, and “Julie” (Teresa Palmer), a surviving human girl (who is the daughter of a military leader), meet and slowly fall in love after R eats the brains of Julie’s fading, laconic boyfriend Perry, and thereby assimilates some of his happier memories. Yes, it is a thinly veiled Romeo and Juliet meets the Zombie Apocalypse adventure in lovelorn escapism, but I found the movie weirdly moving nonetheless.
The feminist narrative has been destroyed in that world – getting raped is not a problem, but getting eaten is. As R begins to protect Julie from the other zombies, and then brings her food and water as she hides in the sanctuary of an abandoned jet airliner, Julie’s life hangs on whether R’s nascent feelings for her can transcend his hunger. Their verbal communication is little more than monosyllabic grunts, but their chemistry blooms despite (or because of) their extreme circumstances.
The human contract – men provide; women appreciate – is reborn.
I won’t spoil Warm Bodies further except to say that it takes more than just courage to rout the packs of feminists/zombies. It also takes compassion. It also takes love.
It takes feelings that are impossible in the world that feminism has poisoned.
