Are modern men disgusting?

Societies succeed if they continue. This means successful societies are ones that prioritise the protection and nurture of the scarce resources involved in producing and raising the next generation; eggs, wombs and breasts.

Women choose the men they reproduce with and, through what Jonathan Haidt calls The Social Intuitionist process, determine social mores and mould the next generation's attitudes and behaviours pretty effectively.

For these reasons successful societies tend to reflect women's priorities - and always have. When the environment requires a fierce fight for survival they choose tough, resourceful, resilient men because their priority is protection. When life is easier they choose more compliant, subservient men. This latter environment suits women better because it provides them with more control over their lives, so the tendency is to choose it whether or not it is appropriate. The only thing that will change this is a reversion to a tough environment. This will happen, nature's variety ensures that, but no-one knows when. Then the issue will be whether there is enough resilience left in the men for the society to survive.

One way out of this cycle is the development of cloning and ex-vitro gestation. This would free men from women's control over their (and everyone's) primary objective; reproduction. However it is unlikely that any existing society would allow this to happen as women would try to prevent such a loss of control.

Real reproductive freedom for men is still a very long way off but understanding the dynamics - understanding that it is women collectively who determine these issues and that men are largely pawns in the process - might help us men feel a little less disgusted with ourselves, even if it does nothing for our feelings of self-worth!