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“You can be a Man Going [his] Own Way, and also, with a bit of caution and cleverness still go out and get yourself all married up.”
Wrong, asshole.
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In the last week, I jumped, late, into a discussion on the forums of AVfM about the relationship between men going their own way, and marriage as a social and legal institution. It has become apparent that in the various MGTOW and MRM public spaces, an opinion has emerged that men self identifying as MGTOW can also participate in that ancient foundational institution of family and society, the big M. (Marriage)
Something along the lines of:
“You can be a Man Going [his] Own Way, and also, with a bit of caution and cleverness still go out and get yourself all married up.”
Uh-huh, please, do tell me more.
What I posted last week on this topic[1] was my personal opinion. Just that, nothing more. Although a long-ish post for that forum, it was just my own private, personal opinion, shared with no more implied authority than simply: This is what I think. This site isn’t “A Voice for John” any more than it’s “A Voice for Paul (he-who-must-be-obeyed) Elam”. It’s also not THE Voice for Men. Its A Voice for Men.
However, before addressing marriage and MGTOW again, its useful to recognize one or two things about the nature of MGTOW, what it is, and what it’s not.
Some people within the MHRM seem to believe that, within this movement, MGTOW denotes a form of elite status. This is tragicomically incorrect. With the caveat that every man on a MGTOW path is defining his own criteria, one of the common, and important elements of “Going Their Own Way” is a flat rejection of conventional, gynocentric status hierarchy gamesmanship. Indeed, writing this commentary as a practitioner of MGTOW, if that label label becomes a marker of elitism, I will abandon it in favour of some alternative.
It’s not a club to join. It’s not a badge to wear and find a sense of belonging with like minded brethren.
It is highly individual and self-selected commitment to a fundamental and radical rejection of some of the most deeply embedded establishments and institutions of our present culture. MGTOW is activism on behalf of your own basic humanity and fundamental rights as a human being. It is not just another term meaning the same as MRA, MHRA, Zeta Male, free-thinker, or, guy with his own opinions.
And, while every man forging his own MGTOW path must do so making his own decisions about what going his own way encompasses, there are a few things which are not just incompatible with MGTOW, they run directly against the fundamental nature of MGTOW.
Calling back to the AVFM forums discussion from which the following opinion emerged.
“You can be a Man Going [his] Own Way, and also, with a bit of caution and cleverness still go out and get yourself all married up.”
No, you fucking can’t.
If you are conventionally married, then, in my opinion, you are not MGTOW. If, on the other hand, you are a Man, Going [his] own Way, and you become married, then, guess what, you are no longer MGTOW.
It really should not require explanation here, but due to what seems the obtuse failure to grasp from some of the parties of this discussion, re-stating a few painfully obvious facts appears necessary.
A man married to a woman in our present culture is his wife’s prisoner. His freedom, his life, his livelihood, his reproductive choices, his continued relationship with his children, and his home, all depend of the forbearance of the woman defined in law as his wife.
Certainly, not all, and indeed, most wives, common law or otherwise are not malevolent, or possessed of a will to exercise such destructive power over the men defined in law as husbands. However, remaining is the fact that a married man has a gun pointed squarely at his own neck, and his wife holds the trigger.
Obviously, the entire men’s human rights movement is driven by recognition that under law and social convention, men and boys are lesser humans and second class citizens. But, men buying into marriage are actively choosing to support and participate in one of our societies realizations and manifestations of the disposable, lesser-person legal and social status of male human beings.
If you are married, you have already gone the way of this culture’s mainstream. You are being a good and compliant follower of the blue pill. Even if you made those choices before taking what we call “the red pill”.
I also know that many very real, valuable men’s human rights activists are married. Further, I’m aware that being told as a married man that you’re a good compliant blue pill believer is a pretty raw and painful offence.
Sorry about that.
However, in defence of married MRAs, it’s probable that realization and recognition of the nature of the sub-person social and legal status of males came substantially after the advent of getting oneself married. It cannot be a comfortable thing to wake up to, that the woman you love, and who probably loves you actually holds the power to dispose of you with the full weight of law and culture behind her whim.
I’m also not suggesting that an aware and self-identifying MRA must dissolve whatever marriage he find himself a part of. You wife may love you, and may never exercise her power against you. But she DOES possess that power, and you do not.
But if you are conventionally married, you are not Going Your Own Way.
But what about that already married guy who wakes up to the reality of the social and legal cage he’s in, decides that. goddamn it, he’s a human, not a slave or a beast of burden, and asserts himself from within that legal union. Who the hell am I to tell him he’s not MGTOW if he decides that he is?
Isn’t it a foundational point of that “Going Their Own Way” acronym that men on this path define not only their own internal identities, but also define the terms and conditions of their interface with the rest of the world?
Let’s imagine a man already committed to legal union between himself, a woman and the state. This man wakes up to the reality of his situation, that he’s signed on the dotted line for a butt-fucking by the state, on the seeming behalf of his wife or his future-ex-wife. Absent of his immediate dissolution of his marriage, is this guy simply fucked? Indeed, that hypothetical de-marrying might include the butt-fucking-by-state just mentioned above.
Remembering that for every individual man practicing MGTOW, each must make their own individual choices – it remains that participation in that coercive legal union between yourself, a woman, and the state is antithetical to the basic foundation of MGTOW.
So what is a married MRA looking for the MGTOW path to do? We’ll assume here the wife of this potential MGTOW’s is benign, is aware, is not crazy, is not a passive sociopath, and both loves and respects him enough to NOT pull the trigger on the gun our society puts in the grip of every woman interacting with a man.
She’s still, by family law and by social convention, the arbiter of his freedom, his continued career, his reproductive choices, his continued access to his children and so on. Even, if in good will, let’s say she never pulls that metaphorical trigger.
This potential MGTOW must undertake a jail break, at the same time as he shares his bed with his jailer.
Can you run an underground railroad from inside a prison cell?
No.
Well, maybe. But this undertaking is not without some significant problems.
In fact, while I bear only goodwill towards men still falling into that coercive legal and social convention, a married man applying the MGTOW label to himself is actively diluting and subverting the purpose of MGTOW.
I don’t like that last sentence. Particularly because it suggests to uncreative minds that MGTOW requires a life of solitude.
Does Going Your Own Way as a man necessitate avoidance of sex, or friendships, intimacy and love and affection towards and from women? Do you have to move into the woods, grow a mountain-man-beard full of squirrels and bugs and live a life of lonely masturbation with only a tree-bark vagina to keep you warm at night?
OF COURSE NOT!!!
So, while I bear only good-will towards men falling into that coercive legal and social convention, a married man self-identifying as both married and MGTOW must be taking some real action within his relationship to his wife to subvert the state’s participation in what should be a purely personal relationship between two adults.
But if he’s not doing that, and is still calling himself MGTOW, as well as being married, he is very regrettably diluting and subverting the purpose of MGTOW.
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I’m going to let a great big secret out of the bag here. It’s probably going to shock and alarm many of the people who’ve read my writing or watched my videos. I love women.
More than that, I don’t even hate them. I don’t even think they’re naturally evil. Nor do I avoid them, or even use my secret X-ray patriarchy powers to reduce their paycheques to 73 cents on the dollar compared to my own income. I even, (shudder) have one or two friends with boobs and vaginas that I both like and love.
I know, I know, they’re going to take away my MRA and MGTOW memberships after this. Paul will add my name to the lists of the damed, and the secret international brotherhood of patriarchs will deactivate my MALE-GAZE [TM] superpowers.
I hope a few of you can forgive me. I’m a bad MRA, and an even worse MGTOW. I even had sex last year. With a woman. I didn’t even pay her. Oh god, I feel so empty.
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As silly as that sounds, the point is that MGTOW as variously practiced is not a life of austerity and self-denial. But it does encompass rejection of conventional marriage, because that social institution escalates the already pronounced legal and social marginalization of men and boys.
But a conventionally married man, self identifying as MGTOW is actively an enemy of not just the Men Going Their Own Way movement. A married man not working on his own jail break with the informed cooperation of his warden, and using the MGTOW label is an opponent of the men’s human rights movement.
And a man advising younger men that it’s okay to be MGTOW and also go out and get married is not merely irresponsible, advocating something unsound, destructive and dangerous. He might as well just start being honest, and calling himself a radical feminist.
However, as always, everything I’ve said here is without any authority. This is not a positional statement of this website, or the MHRM, or of other MRAs, high profile or otherwise, and is only my opinion. Also, thank you for your kind attention.
