Heavens to Mergatroid, as we used to say.

What have we got?

"teenage males"

"hormones surging"

"lewd gestures"

"pornography"

"phallocentric military connections"

"the hero legend" -- you can tell she doesn't like that one --

and

"the patriarchal pursuit of manhood"!!!

I wonder what Ms. Morgan thinks young males should be pursuing?

No doubt the matriarchal matrix of vaginization, feminization and effeminacy.

Ms. Morgan says that "the terrorist mystique and the hero legend have the same root."

Really?

Why then are there female terrorists?

Why do women turn their bodies into bombs and blow themselves -- and innocent civilians -- up?

Is that in pursuit of manhood?

I don't think so.

Like Ms. Morgan's article, it's in pursuit of political and ideological goals, and has nothing to do with manhood.

It has to do with power.

Power -- for herself and her friends -- is what interests Ms. Morgan.

It's interesting also that Ms. Morgan chooses to connect terrorism and the hero legend.

I suppose it would be useless to point out to Ms. Morgan that heroes aren't terrorists.

Heroes openly confront their foes, whether human or monstrous, in open battle.

Gilgamesh and the Bull of the Sun.

Theseus and the Minotaur.

Heracles and Antaios.

Polydeuces and Amycos.

David and Goliath.

Polyneices and Eteocles.

Achilles and Hector.

As Joseph Campbell demonstrated, the list is virtually without end.

Which is why Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are included.

Nevertheless, Ms. Morgan lumps heroes in with terrorists.

Why?

It's not mysterious.

She doesn't want MEN to have HEROES.

Heroic role models.

Masculine role models.

She's against them.

As was the feminist author who condemned the "homoerotic glorification of manliness" in reportage about the Afghan freedom fighters who opposed the Soviet invasion of the 1980s.

(See the post titled Feminist author attacks warrior homoeroticism.)

Clearly, anything which might help the contemporary male identify as Manly or Masculine or a Warrior -- drives these women nuts.

Because then Ms. Morgan begins complaining about "phallocentric military connections."

Heaven forfend that Men should be Phallocentric.

What a feminist like Ms. Morgan wants is for men to be de-balled and de-dicked.

A complete castration, in which they're no longer capable of fighting, or defending themselves, or just having fun with their cranks.

"Phallocentric"

Clearly she thinks that's a damning word.

It's not.

Men should be Phallocentric.

That's what makes them MEN.

In The Warrior Ethos, we noted that

The phallus is, as Danielou says, the sacred symbol of man's creative power.

The power to create life.

The phallus is also the sacred symbol of man's aggressive power.

The power to fight.

The power to defend life.

So the phallus expresses two aspects of masculinity:

the creative and the aggressive.

At its most basic that power is expressed by the fist at the end of the outstretched arm.

And it's expressed by weapons.

The club.

The spear.

The sword.

Even the rifle.

Ms. Morgan works herself into a fine feminist lather over "Teenage males, hormones surging, [chanting] (with lewd gestures), "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun."

But Men have made the connection between the phallus and the weapon -- which by the way is defined in the martial arts as anything which extends your reach -- for eons.

I suspect that what Ms Morgan would like is for men to be periodically milked for their sperm, and then kept chemically, if not physically, castrated.

Because it is the phallus, after all, and phallocentrism, which in her mind is the problem.

Fortunately for Ms. Morgan, there are feminized males out there already who show no interest in sleeping with women, let alone raping them, and who are no longer phallocentric.

Instead, they've become ano-recto-centric:

And we can see, just by looking at HIV prevalence rates, what absolute paragons of human perfection such feminized males are.

In any case, one has to wonder what Ms. Morgan would replace our phallocentric military with.

No doubt a vagina-centric military.

But vagina, in Latin, means scabbard or sheath.

In a vagina-centric military, our soldiers would have to keep their weapons sheathed.

They'd be un-armed.

They'd be un-manned.

They'd be killed.

And what would happen to our civilian population, now at the mercy of our foes?

Many would be killed, and many of the women would be raped -- and then killed.

Now, what about Ms. Morgan's claim that the military is a rape-culture?

Interestingly, there was an article in yahoo yesterday about allegations of rape and other forms of sexual abuse at The Citadel, a renowned military training school which ten years ago became co-ed.

Twenty percent of the women at the school, in an anonymous internet survey, "complained of incidents ranging from unwanted touching to rape."

There were 27 incidents in all, of which 11 were unwanted touching, and of which 16 were apparently vaginal or oral rape.

As I do the math, the incidence of "unwanted sexual penetration or oral sex" then is 14%.

Which according to the article, is far higher than at our US military service academies, which last year was at about 3%.

By contrast, "The Justice Department has estimated as many as 25 percent of women could be raped or experience an attempted rape while attending college in the U.S."

So cadets in our various military academies, famed for their martial values, actually come in lower on the scale of sexual harassment and assault than do average American college students.

Clearly no one should be raped.

But notice how Ms. Morgan accuses the US military of fostering a rape culture, when the level of rape at military institutions is actually lower than among comparable kids elsewhere.

Is it possible that our phallocentric military is teaching its young people other values -- values like Honor -- which Ms. Foster doesn't want to recognize?

Robert Loring:

Every time manhood, maleness, and masculinity are attacked, no matter how subtle the attack is, we should RISE UP and FIGHT BACK. We should NOT turn the other way and pretend we do not hear the attacks!! And, we must JOIN RANKS with our fellow Warriors and STAND BY each other in whatever the situation! Warriors are brothers and, contrary to what society seems to think, brothers DO NOT abandon each other. Nor do SOLDIERS abandon each other on the battlefields!

Dudes and Warriors

REJECT being ASHAMED OVER YOUR MANHOOD!!

Robert's right.

REJECT being ASHAMED OVER YOUR MANHOOD!!

FIGHT BACK.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.