Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

VIDEO GAMES & PORN -- YOUNG MEN CHOOSING FANTASY OVER REALITY:

We are, in fact, witnessing the social, intellectual and sexual demise of a sizeable portion of young men today.    John Stonestreet's commentary is important reading (or listening).  -- Listen Now | Download  

Stonestreet writes:

A generation of young men is choosing fantasy over reality. At least that’s what Dr. Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University and psychologist Nikita Duncan argue in their new book, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It.

The message of the book is simple: Research is demonstrating that young men are becoming addicted to video games and online pornography on a scale unparalleled by any addiction that we’ve ever seen in history.

But unlike with drugs, alcohol or gambling, these addictions aren’t for ever-increasing quantity. Instead, they drive boys and young men to seek novelty  — the next big thrill.

According to Zimbardo and Duncan, it’s the same phenomenon observed in laboratory rats which, when given the opportunity, abandoned food in order to electrically stimulate the part of the brain responsible for pleasure. In effect, the rats gladly “short-circuit” their natural means of enjoyment to get a thrill that felt new every time.

“Young men…who play video games and use porn the most,” say the authors, “are being digitally rewired in a totally new way that demands constant stimulation.”

Not only does this kind of addiction rob guys of the time, money and health they need to do other things, but it also diminishes their ability to enjoy real life, which can never offer stimulation as frequently, easily or in as much variety. As a result, say Zimbardo and Duncan, young men addicted to digital sex and digital soldiering are less able or willing to participate in those acts for real.

THE DIVORCE RATE FOR PEOPLE 50 AND OVER HAS DOUBLED IN THE PAST TWO DECADES

In in her article, "The Gray Divorces," Susan Gregory Thomas attempts to explain "why baby boomers are breaking up late in life like no generation before."  She writes:

Though overall national divorce rates have declined since spiking in the 1980s, "gray divorce" has risen to its highest level on record, according to Prof. Brown. In 1990, only one in 10 people who got divorced was 50 or older; by 2009, the number was roughly one in four. More than 600,000 people ages 50 and older got divorced in 2009.

And this is interesting:

What's more, a 2004 national survey conducted by AARP found that women are the ones initiating most of these breakups. Among divorces by people ages 40-69, women reported seeking the split 66% of the time. And cheating doesn't appear to be the driving force in gray divorce. The same AARP survey found that 27% of divorcés cited infidelity as one of their top three reasons for seeking a divorce—which is not out of line with estimates of infidelity as a factor in divorce in the general population.

So, what is going on?  According to Thomas,

"The trend defies any simple explanation, but it springs at least in part from boomers' status as the first generation to enter into marriage with goals largely focused on self-fulfillment.  As they look around their empty nests and toward decades more of healthy life, they are increasingly deciding that they've done their parental duty and now want out. . .

I found it interesting to read of "three successive views" of American marriages:

A FATHER'S GIFT TO HIS DAUGHTERS

Max Lucado writes in his book, A Love Worth Giving:

The whirlwind of adolescence was making regular runs through our house, bringing with it more than our share of doubts, pimples, and peer pressure.  I couldn't protect the girls from the winds, but I could give them an anchor to hold in the midst.  On Valentine's Day, 1997, I wrote the following and had it framed for each daughter:

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I have a special gift for you.  My gift is warmth at night and sunlit afternoons, chuckles and giggles and happy Saturdays.

But how do I give this gift?  Is there a store which sells laughter?  A catalog that offers kisses?  No.  Such a treasure can't be bought.  But it can be given.  And here is how I give it to you.

Your Valentine's Day gift is a promise, a promise that I will always love your mother.  With God as my helper, I will never leave her.  You'll never come home to find me gone.  You'll never wake up and find that I have run away.  You'll always have two parents.  I will love your mother.  I will honor your mother.  I will cherish your mother.  That is my promise.  That is my gift.

                                                               Love, Dad

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Me:  This struck me as worth posting.  Gifts need not be bought in a store.  Naturally I feel badly for those who, for one reason or another,  were unable (or in some cases unwilling), to give their wife and daughters the gift that Max Lucado gave.  May the Lord bring His comfort and restoring grace to all.

FEMINISM AND THE PROBLEM OF THE "CHILD-MAN" -THE MAN WHO DOESN'T GROW UP

In response to Kathryn Jean Lopez's article on the movie Juno, a reader responded with this intriguing analysis of feminism's effect on manhood:

. . . Feminism’s second wave has had many, many unintended consequences, one of which is that men, not just women have been liberated from their traditional roles. Many men simply don’t feel the need to grow up because women have quite plainly said they don’t need or value men. “You say you can take care of yourselves? Fantastic! I’m gonna go invent computer games and play them for as long as I want.”

So, women indulged in a gigantic fit of self-indulgence and selfishness, which they are still very much involved in, and along comes not just one woman (you), but many of them, calling upon men to engage in the self-sacrifice of yesteryear, while at the same time, retaining all of their newfound privilege, comfort, self-determination, and

SINGLE YOUNG MEN (SYM) IN THEIR 20's -- STILL ADOLESCENTS

Update 2/2/08 - Kathryn Jean Lopez reviews the movie Juno and thereby underscores Hymowitz's insights below.  See also a reader comment on Lopez's review posted above.  It deals with the unintended consequences of feminism's effect on men.

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This is an eye-opening "investigation" (is that the right word?) of single American men, 18-34 years old. Kay S. Hymowitz titles her latest City Journal article, "Child-Man in the Promised Land."  The article makes discouraging reading, and to my mind registers another signal of a culture in slow-motion collapse.

For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man’s default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: it is marriage and children that turn boys into men. Now that the SYM can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can—and will—try to stay a child-man.

Read the article to discover the ins and outs of a child-man.

P.S. Note Hymowitz's earlier article, "The New Girl Order: Single Young Females (SYF)," on which I blogged here, which is also worth reading. I concluded that post saying, "This is one of those articles that alters the way you view the world."