Fun with Amazon.com: The Alphabet of Manliness
Posted by Richie on March 22, 2007
Lumberjacks, pirates, and Chuck Norris all agree that there is but one arbiter of manliness, and he has but one name: Maddox. The longtime proprietor of the absurdly popular website, The Best Page in the Universe, Maddox has thoughtfully collected his vast masculine wisdom for the first time in a useful reference work, The Alphabet of Manliness.
Customers who bought this item also bought…
- The Complete A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks Paperback by Dan Indante
- The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists Leather Bound by Neil Strauss
- The Art of Seduction Paperback by Robert Greene
- The Layguide: How to Seduce Women More Beautiful Than You Ever Dreamed Possible No Matter What You Look Like or How Much You Make Paperback by Tony Clink
In light of this, let’s amend Maddox’s foreword:
In a world where metrosexuals–stylish, well-groomed, and sharply dressed men–have taken the center stage in defining the new masculinity, small pockets of men are starting to emerge, rebelling against the status quo. This new breed of man has rejected a lifestyle of wine tasting, pedicures, and excessive cultural awareness (i.e., any cultural awareness). This newly born response to metrosexuality is gaining momentum like never before, calling back to a day when men proudly wore plaid, ate liver and onions, and smelled like motor oil by choice. This modern man has come to be known simply as: the
heterosexualcreepy loser who can’t get laid.
Much better.
Grace said
What perplexes me so much about things like this is the following:
- I don’t remember any women asking men to get ‘metrosexual’ – being in touch with your feelings so that you have the capacity to appreciate someone else’s past ‘i’m hungry, oh you’re hungry too, lets get pizza’ is not the same as tasting wine and being vain. Plenty of guys at uni seemed to go in for all this wine-tasting and being metro. I just drank beer and wondered if I was actually more manly than my boyfriend at the time, whose tipple was vodka and orange (usually from a plastic bottle, classy) – well the Spark website was 86% certain that we were both female based on our answers to a test.
- These guys why write/buy these books seem to hate women in so many ways, because we whine and are hormonal, and are too vague and moody, and are jealous and bitchy, and dont understand when our partners want to ogle other women while we aren’t allowed to comment that an attractive male musician has a good voice, and seem to get all weird about having sex demanded of us, and don’t understand that us not being in the mood doesn’t quell the instant NEED for gratification…blah…blah…and…blah…and yet the one common aim in life for all these men seems to be TO HAVE SEX WITH HAWT CHIXXX! Or, to get laid, as seems to be the more correct term for their expectations – which to me just says, men want a few quick fix chat up lines in order to have laydeez at their will – so that they can lie back and be laid
- How can they get away with bloody books like this when women aren’t even allowed to appreciate a bit of harmless, two dimensional, PG-13 male nude art?
Richie said
The thing about “metrosexuality” is that it’s actually a choice. Men have the option to spend / waste their time and money on botox, wax, gym membership and coordinated outfits, but there’s no genuine social pressure on every other man in the Western world to do the same thing, unlike women. So I’d find the whole “Fight for your manliness!” thing a total cringe even without the innate misogyny and homophobia that always seems to accompany it.
Grace said
Ooh ooh there’s a new thing though, it’s going to blow metrosexuality out of the water, I read about it today in a local paper – Heteropolitan-ism/ness! That’s right it’s a new word made up of heterosexual and metropolitan, like Modtro from those car adverts (or Ugtupid from the thoughts of an ex-housemates 10 year old brother…) Heteropolitan though is more like the working dad who puts his wife and children first…as opposed a self-obsessed pretty boy (i’m allowed to say that Birmingham Uni’s male population is at least half metrosexual, i’ve seen it with my own eyes).
You’re so right about the choice vs pressure Richie. What’s a little worrying at heteropolitan is that its even more homophobic than metrosexual in way because metrosexualism seemed to stem from the way gay men take more pride in their appearance, hence Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (and particularly memorable South Park episode related to it), but heteropolitan seems completely based on heterosexual family men. Doesn’t that totally ignore the instance of civil partnership and same sex parent families?
Richie said
“We’re sensitive and understand things from France. But we’re NOT POOFS”.
Blaaargh.
stormy said
Metrosexual, Heteropolitan…
I’m just getting too old to keep up with all this.
Richie said
This evening I actually bought a used copy from Amazon (there were about sixty there already, which should tell you something about its long-term appeal). I’ll write something about it when it gets here.
stormy said
The things you’ll do for research Richie!
However, the moment I see a bit of plaid on your blog… *whoosh* I’ll make the road runner look as speedy as a one-legged chicken.
Could we not just suggest to these losers to take care of some basic hygiene and respect women? Or is that somehow asking too much?
euny said
Okay, I had a housemate last year, a full on feminist, one of the few people I know who I feel really cares about respect for women to a massive degree, I mean, this guy would leave a club in tears at the sight of a lecherous guy. He really meant it. His sense of respect rules his life. He was a Maddox fan and is convinced to his core that every obvious dollop of misogyny in Maddox’s web page and in his book is a beautiful parody of the ridiculous mindsets in this world.
Now, I think there is no way of telling, but this book was hard to read. Not literally, it is hardly intellectually challenging, but the experience of reading it was a battle for me. My housemate at the time asked me what I thought, if I thought it was okay from a feminist perspective, knowing, of course that most people out there think Maddox is a deranged hate-monger. Well, the truth is I don’t know. There are enough sarcastic digs at other shameful aspects of society, like the ethics of multinational corporations, to make me think this is all just him trying to show up how ridiculous the whole mindset of misogyny might be. However, the misogyny on the web page is always presented in a less obviously “this is what I’m having a go at” manner, that it may, just may, be his actual attitude, although it wouldn’t fit with the deep-seated sarcasm that runs through everything else he says. Either way, it is not obvious, and already misogynistic people could get spurred on by the things he says if they took it the wrong way. He does criticise those that internalise ridiculous propaganda also, and has a taste for testing your ability to resist what he says, so I just don’t know what to make of it. Either way this book was tough going and did make me wanna cry. Maybe there is your answer. But it does include the odd line of sharp self-criticism, that may underlie it’s whole purpose, or may be an excuse to publish misogyny under the guise of “social commentary”. But yeah, brace yourself, the whole experience ain’t pretty.
On the back of the book is a quote from a reader:
“Thank you, Maddox, for publishing this book, now I have something to think about while I pork my ugly girlfriend.”
That gives everyone I know a deeply shocked look. Either this book is aimed at people I don’t know, or it is aimed to show people how shocking misogyny and overvaluing of typical masculinity can be. I just don’t know. The content is mainly ridiculous, and he just can’t mean it (like the best thing about boners is that man killed the last dinosaur with his giant boner, complete with ridiculous illustration), I think it must be mocking the self-importance and downright wrongness of celebrating “manliness”. But I don’t know if that makes it okay. It is still a trial.
Richie said
It still hasn’t gotten here yet. I’ll keep what you said in mind when it eventually does.
The other telling thing about his readers is what they say in the email he posts on his website. Stuff like “Why shouldn’t we be allowed to rape girls in the army?” and “Write about annoying gay bitches”… If he’s trying to make a point about bigotry by exaggerating it, then it’s not getting through to his audience.
The major problem I have with Maddox is that he’s not subtle enough to work as satire, but he’s also not self-critical enough to work as parody. Even his outrageous stuff about using a boner to kill dinosaurs has the underlying values of male supremacy through violence and sexual dominance. He doesn’t criticise the stuff he’s exaggerating, he just exaggerates it. People who don’t agree with the underlying values can say that it’s ironic / satirical / a parody, but – and this is the problem – people who do agree with the underlying values aren’t challenged or criticised for holding those values. He gets to have his cake and eat it too.
I don’t really think he’s deranged hate-monger, just a shitty writer whose work enables deranged hate-mongers.