Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Series: The Death of Morality--Gentleman

Going to a local water-hole in the heart of New York City, one finds an amalgam of people there with only one thing on their mind: Hook up. No matter how different their circumstances, societies, cultures, they all come to this open house leaving behind their restrictions, desiring only one core thing—to meet someone new, a potential, and then hook up. Although, not everyone goes home with a conquest, when the night starts out, the smell of possibility strongly lingers. As the night progresses, depending on one’s success, either one finds the delectable food that tingled their olfaction or one goes home hungry, dejected.

In the heart of this water-hole are two key players: the Man and the Woman. This post will be about the Man.

Men, throughout history, have always had one thing constant on their minds: Sex. Ranging from ladies-man, Casanova, to lady-killer, Henry VIII, to multiple-ladies, Osama Bin Laden, they all show their embarrassing yet true constant thought. The fact that this notion has been proved by Science does not aid the situation any further as it just makes men more potent and freer in their pursuit as they now safely have the excuse “blame our hormones not us” as back-up if they ever needed it.

However, the men of this era are somewhat different, somewhat more dangerous and a lot more disappointing. Their thought, as proved by Science, still revolves around the same thing but now it has more power for they are no longer ashamed in displaying it, no longer mindful of the fact that it might be “too robust for delicate feminine thought.” And at such common hang outs like the water-hole, this thought becomes even more pronounced, with the beast eyeing its prey and waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on it after baiting it with the lure of a refreshing drink.

The Gentleman has finally met his death in this era of Amorality. The tradition of chivalry and respect for the opposite sex that had continued for the last two thousand years has come to an unfortunate end as men become increasingly careless, wayward, and selfish. Instead of protecting and shielding women from their beastly counterparts, they themselves have morphed into the beasts, wanting nothing but “a nice piece of ass.” There is no longer a clear cut distinction between the Wickham and the Darcy, the evil guy and the good guy.

And, what’s more—these modern men are clever. They take pleasure in creating a smoke screen of appearing as Mr.Darcys in their normal day-to-day life. It is only under the cover of alcohol, heat, dancing, and the omnipresent Night that their true selves are revealed. Thus, a trip to the water-hole, in the wee hours of the night is a must for dreamers like me to finally “wake up and smell the coffee.”

Personal insight
: Discovering this truth has led me to terminate my search for my perfect counterpart. Like any other girl, I too have a desire to get married, but unlike most, I feel that the desire will remain just that. I am cynical and every man I meet has distinct qualities of the Modern Man, and thus I am repulsed by him. Only a few times, I think I am lucky enough to meet some exceptions, but in this age of momentary meetings, they fade into the many faces that I have crossed brief but meaningful paths with. And there you have it: a perfect craving of marriage, just lacking a groom or even a possibility of him.

13 comments:

hopesanddreams said...

GREAT writing isha...

I <3 you.

Jim J said...

That is some very powerful and hard hitting writing Isha! You certainly have a talent for putting words together. You are probably correct in a lot of what you say but I don’t think “the Gentleman has finally met his death” just yet. He may be an endangered species, he may be more difficult to clearly identify and he may not quite reach the standards of previous eras but he can still be found. There are nice guys out there and most of them might say somewhat similar things about a lot of modern women.

Leah said...

very nice isha, good writing, but sometimes ur word choices and analogies are really out there! :) i agree with the guy above, chivalry has not died out yet, there are some good men out there, i know it. they may not be the "darcy" ur hoping for, lets face it, times have changed. and that brings up another point - women have changed too. show me a player, and i'll show you the girl who hooked up with him last night. its a two way street. unless a woman has high standards for herself, the men she'll attract and meet aren't gonna have high standards either.

Mihir Pathare said...

Is the knight in shining armor dead for you? I'm sorry. There are still a few guys (Numbers dwindling over the years...) I know, who are the proverbial "Chivalrous heroes" you kePT reading about in the stories.

Unfortunately, they keep getting walked all over, or taked for granted, ignored or overlooked as boring or just plain dumped for being too nice.

A guy can't survive in this world being all "honorable" and "polite". As much fun as it is, harbouring romantic notions like these, it doesnt work any more when every other person is looking to get ahead of you using any means possible.

Being nice isn't easy. :(

Diwant Vaidya said...

Honestly, a "Gentleman" is only a state of mind prescribed by media at that (Renaissance?) time. I love that you have started expressing yourself in a blog, but I did not like two things:

1. Sex is not bad. You kind of portray it as immoral.

2. Women want sex too. It is not a one sided pleasure hunt.

Generally, I hope you are not trying to fit another time/society's morals on this society's population. If that is the case, I suspect the shoe won't fit.

Abhishek said...

Reading a lot of feminist literature in the past few months (and this is not just moderate, reasonable stuff here) has really made me sick of the stereotype that all man are bastards.) But I don't disagree with you statement, neither do I agree with it in the way you are trying to get it across.

A little point to be noted: women too, can be horrible bastards when they have it in their [b]power[/b] to be. Why is that power restricted for them and not for men? Because of the patriarchal system that is currently in place. Your Mr. Darcys' and Elizibethss facilitated this system. Or, at least, they helped it along by not opposing it. What is Pride and Prejudice but one loving caress to male dominance?

Also, while it's true that men/women are far more openly coarse nowadays, is it also not true that women/men also have much more freedom of thought and speech and action that those generations had? Yes, people have lost some restraints, but those restraints hindered things both good and bad. There is greater beauty now, than there ever has been. There is greater filth too.

Well, that’s it I guess. I do hope you find someone who can appreciate your romantic notions. Adios.

Isha said...

Abhishek, Diwant:

I throughly understand where you guys are coming from. Like I state it in my blog, sex is not a bad thing. Just the freedom and the vulgarity to go about getting it is what repulses me. How each and everything about going out and socializing is about Sex and like I say, the thirst of wanting to hook up.

Abhishek, you mistake me. This is not a men-bashing blog (as Jim and Taurius understand). If you read my prologue, these series are going to revolve around both sexes and they will be compared to the stereotypes of the past (whether you like it or not). And my personal morals clash with this modern thought, and thus the era is Amoral (you might call it the Era of Freedom--individual perception).

K. Antani said...

Good post Isha! Thought provoking, and well...as an endangered species, interesing to read.

Keep it up!

foogarky said...

And we have another blog about a girl wistfully wishing for the "perfect gentleman" from the Victorian era. Show me a blog about a guy wishing for the "perfect lady" from the same era. Now, that would be interesting.

Who wouldn't want a pure, virginal woman who would cook, mend the clothes and have children without complaining. Disenfranchised and not allowed to inherit property, she would be a perfect woman. On the other hand, my dog has the same rights as the Victorian woman. And the dog doesn't talk too. That eliminates the chance of constant nagging. Score one for the dog over a Victorian wife.

Yo taur, the chivalrous knight in shining armour of the Ol' Blighty is not the same as the "nice guy" wimp of today. A nice person can be polite and honourable and be assertive at the same time. He does not get walked over.

Mihir Pathare said...

dead blog? :(

Isha said...

So sorry about the delay in blog posting. End of the year=crazy, busy time! But, blog is not dead. Will have a new article up soon!!

Anonymous said...

Wow...very opinionated, and strong writing. Have a few comments/contradictions:
Generalizing 'men' as immoral is not right. Maybe mentioning that the average man is shifting away from your "ideal match" would be a better way to put it.
There is an explicit cause-effect relationship in the article implying that only men go to bars to find women to hook up with. What are women doing there is the first place? Perhaps your next post about women would clarify that.
Come what may, the problem of quantifying morality is hard to solve.
The 'moral' species is far from extinct. Who knows there exists a cyclical pattern? That would again be generalizing it, so I won't comment more.

Interesting...keep the blogs coming

Anonymous said...

There have always been places where men drink too much and act unlike gentlemen...perhaps the main chance is that only recently have young women shared these spaces unescorted!