Ninety-five

Human society is unnatural, not least because it’s patriarchal. Most animal societies are matriarchal.

All children are born into a matriarchy. The first revolution, which not only made humans unique among animals but also made men supposedly more human than women, is the revolution of sons against their mothers. Boys become men by rebelling against the rule of women.   

Human society is patriarchal because men think they must rule women in order to avoid being ruled by them.

Masculinity is a rôle boys learn to play in order to be accepted as men, members of the ruling class in patriarchal society, by other men, just as girls learn to perform femininity in order to be accepted by men.

Patriarchal society's ideal woman is childlike. Men desire her because they miss their own childhood, and regret that in order to become men they had to give up qualities they used to associate with children, and now associate with women. But the more they desire the childlike woman, the more men fear her. 

Men fear their desire for the childlike woman will overwhelm them, whereupon they'll become children themselves again.

Men fear the feminine in themselves as well, those qualities in themselves they consider feminine and childlike. They pretend to be guided by reason alone, becoming emotional only when they allow themselves to be guided by childlike women.

Homosexual men don’t desire other men more than, or instead of, women. Freud, who didn’t understand women, understood men well enough to know that what men desire they also fear.

Believing they don't have feminine qualities leaves men feeling incomplete, less than fully human. The more incomplete they feel, the more men desire women to complete them. The more incomplete they feel, the more men fear that instead of completing them, women will overwhelm and feminize them. The only way a man can avoid being feminized by women is by avoiding women.

Human society is unique in that, unlike most animal societies, it's built on illusions. Homosexuality, masculinity and femininity are not the most important ones. We talk about them endlessly in order to avoid talking about the others.