I’m about to say some controversial things, they may upset, they may annoy, but I do this. Read it with an open mind, then decide. As ever, I am not an expert and I’m willing to be dead wrong…

All advertisements are basically a load of bollocks, and because of them, and other tv shows that are basically just adverts too, we are starting to become just characters in a drama that is like an advert. This change is somewhat problematic for the average heterosexual masculine male, which I think I maybe am. If we look at what is the overriding image of a man portrayed in the modern advert we find a guy that always needs to be saved by a woman or a child, we see a fool, the butt of whatever joke is in play, a guy that cannot be in charge or correct. On the other hand, women are ever the heroes of the piece, they save the men, they are the brave and the smart and the funny one, they cannot be criticised, they cannot be lesser, they cannot be in need of rescue or even assistance from a male. Why is this? Is it a true reflection of the reality of the 2020s, are men like these characters now, or is this an attempt at repairing what is perceived as the problem of toxic masculinity?

I am no fan of bullying, or the oppression of women, but… Men are men, they think men thoughts and that cannot be helped. 200,000 years of a 3.5 lbs meatloaf between the ears with a single purpose running though it all that time. A never ending, never satisfied, never fully understood desire to know the female in a carnal sense. This is evolutionary, it is imperative, it is the only thought or desire that, as a man, you will share with your furthest back ancestor. everything else in that time in between has changed, you desire food and you go to the supermarket, your ancestors hunted or grew, you want Ikea furniture, they wanted a sharp stone, you buy Gucci and they wore the skin and fur of dead things they had previously eaten, you’d do anything for your children, they would leave theirs out in the woods if they weren’t perfect.

Evolution has bestowed desire on man for the purpose of procreation and man is compelled by it relentlessly. To try to deny this makes being a man into a problem because it is not a simple mood or a societally created urge, it is not a psychological malady that can be cured by talk or pills, it is part of who each heterosexual male is, it is the fabric and it is in every cell and every strand of DNA. This desire is the machine code, the base programming everything else is built upon.

The simplest bargain between man and woman is the exchange, on the part of the woman, of sexual endeavour for the providing, on the part of the man, of protection and strength. If we look at this dynamic 100,000 years ago it is where he keeps her safe from the wildlife and the other tribes of men, and she provides him with affection, offspring, and he shares the yield from his hunt. In modernity the dynamic has remained almost unchanged save for a few subtleties, but that is arguable.

Every modern attempt to equalise society between woman and man has been thought out and debated, they have not occurred naturally in an organic sense, and they are all very very recent. I’m going to throw in an admission here, and I want you to think about this if you are a man reading this piece… I primarily judge every man I meet as if I may need to engage n conflict with them, and judge every woman I meet on the basis of how attractive they are to me. I cannot help this or turn it off, it is part of who I am and I suspect it is part of who you are too. Is this the correct thing to do in a moral sense? well I suppose that depends on where you get your morals from, and remember morals are also a quite recent thing too, they come from civilisations, not cave men.

Does an advert for car insurance that suggests something else make it otherwise, can it have the effect that is desired by those that designed it? Are we that naive that we believe these suggestions? Are we that naive that we can accept the idea that to find a woman attractive and act as if they are, or to find a man threatening and act accordingly also, is unacceptable behaviour that can be removed from our basic instincts because modernity says it can? I think that’s bullshit, behaviour can be modified, but changing what evolution has made us cannot.

This is a controversial post, I recognise that. As usual I am only speculating and throwing an idea at you, please feel free to tell me why I am wrong….

Paul S Wilson