Like many, I feel disgusted at the message and the popularity of someone like Andrew Tate. His open misogyny and contempt for women, his eagerness to use violence against women, his selling of these toxic messages by means of fancy cars and cigars are all revolting. And yet his popularity--especially among schoolboys--has grown over time. How lovely that Romania has jailed him and his brother while they await trial for rape and human trafficking. I hope they give him his just desserts--a nice, long jail sentence where we can see how much of a "man" Tate is compared to the other "men" in a Romanian prison. I think he will be proved the twerp he really is.
I had put Tate at the margins of my mind, but a recent essay brought him back. It's a great essay by Joseph Robertson in The Critic, and it's trenchantly entitled, "Andrew Tate is a Symptom: Online Pornography is the Disease." That caught my eye because I'd come to the same conclusion. Read a little of what Robertson has to say:
"How did we get to this point? The answer is simple: pornography. It is a Class A drug ravaging the streets and bedrooms of every major city, affecting every man’s brain and every woman’s sense of self-worth, destroying more homes than heroin could ever dream of. Everyone has consumed porn in Western civilization today, even if they are completely innocent. Billboards, fashions, jokes, songs, attitudes stem from the damage that porn has done to society.
"This is not an exaggeration or an oversimplification of the issues affecting our culture. Sure, one can argue that the egg to the pornographic chicken is in fact contraception, and one might be right. However, the main emissary for the fall of today’s society is the saturation of pornography through all levels of society. Men who consume it are responsible for the greatest changes to masculinity. The derogation of manhood and the desire for instant gratification with no hardship, suffering or self-sacrifice can be directly traced to the pornographic mindset. This drug effeminises, emasculates and effectively tramples on the natural human purpose. Detailed studies show the untold and in some cases irreversible consequences of porn on the human brain and sex drive.
"We must learn from our mistakes. To avoid the false prophet of Tate and his bot army, to avoid pornographied minds seeking escape from the agony of self-torture, we must eliminate the root cause. The normalisation of the pornographic must end. A cesspit of abuse, the industry of selling bodies via pixels is ripe for cessation. We are a society that has lost itself in chaotic pursuit of progress at any cost — yet in this area at least, those of all political persuasions can surely shake hands: we have entirely regressed. Feminists, wokeists, libertarians and traditionalists must unite across the deep divide of political discourse online and in real life to agree that porn is a common enemy. It adds nothing to society and takes away so much. You have had your warnings, now you’ve seen what it can do. Take your opportunity and hit “destruct” on this paralysing new drug that has warped the minds of generations. Stop the process before it is all too late. You have the power to break free from the cycle."
That's excellent analysis there. Porn is destroying our men, who then destroy our women. Violence is rising against women, by men who masturbate to viewing that violence. Violence against women is the prime entertainment of our porn-rotted men. No society can survive such a turn of events.
I research global demographic trends, and people always say it's the cost of living or the ambitions of women that are causing a global downturn in fertility. Absolutely that's part of it, but there's a big elephant in the room--why would a woman in her right mind EVER have children with a man who gets an erection by choking and slapping her?
This is how the fountain of life runs dry. Men have so misused the gift of being men that neither women nor God wants children born from these men. For these men who have so polluted their own bodies and minds are not men--they are but ravening beasts wearing masks.
The only hope for humanity is for men--or enough men--to stop marinating their brains in porn.
And you know what? That leaves me feeling completely hopeless. Even Christian men can't seem to turn away. Sometimes I feel this is a sign that the last days truly are just about here . . .