Men Only Want One Thing

by Abdul Hamid, © 2000

"If it is true that men only want one thing...is it perhaps just to be left to themselves with their soap animals or some other harmless little trifle?"

-- Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence

Whenever I'm cruising the Internet, visiting the library, or talking to a friend or stranger, I always have a secret agenda. I'm on a quest for an elusive bit of information. As I grew up, I was intrigued by the old saying, "Men only want one thing." As a prepubescent kid, I vaguely suspected that the phrase was an allusion to sex. Today, however, I know that "sex" is a very broad concept, and that no two men necessarily get off on the same thing. (If you don't know the sheer vastness of male sexual identity and expression, you haven't spent enough time looking at porn on the Internet.) So I'm always digging around, reading between the lines for the one thing that all men really want. I think I finally figured it out.

As a bit of very brief background, my research into gay history introduced me to the Greek Isle of Lesbos, an historical island of mythical proportions, populated only by women. The inhabitants poetically defined the pure love that can exist woman-to-woman. This ancient society left a legacy of art, literature, and philosophy that has helped to define modern feminism and indeed has even given a name to lesbianism. I naturally wondered if there was a masculine counterpart of the Isle of Lesbos. Perhaps all men have some sort of genetic memory of a land of brotherly love, shrouded in the mists of time. Perhaps an all-male society is what every man instinctively yearns for. So I got to work searching for historical evidence of such a place. Exclusively masculine communities have been commonplace throughout the ages, from pirate ships to military camps, but they were movable feasts. I have yet to zero in on the exact location of a masculine homeland, though medieval Florence, Italy may be a possibility (which I'll discuss in a moment). Be that as it may, I have clearly documented the natural yearning for such a place. And I have found ways that men can begin to reconstruct such a place today, restoring a male culture for the future.

One of the best "masculinist" visionaries I have found is the British novelist D. H. Lawrence, whose work was banned in his time for being pornographic. Lawrence's prime motivation was to define "what does a man want?" He attempted to answer that question in one short essay entitled Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1920), one long essay entitled Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922), and the novel Aaron's Rod (1922). The short essay is mostly a quarrel with Freud's idea that a sexual motive can be attributed to all human activity. In other words, Lawrence said sex is not the one thing men want. In the long essay, Lawrence called for men to look within their hearts to discover their deepest motivation in life: "We've got to rip the old veil of a vision across, and find what the heart really believes in after all: and what the heart really wants, for the next future. And we've got to put it down in terms of belief and of knowledge. And then go forward again, to the fulfillment in life and art."

I believe Lawrence wanted men to rediscover their masculine culture. In Fantasia, he envisioned a society in which men come together with other men to channel their masculine energies toward constructing a world of their own, finding love and brotherhood in the process. Lawrence believed that "It is the desire of the human male to build a world... to build up out of his own self and his own belief and his own effort something wonderful."

Lawrence didn't like to pigeonhole men with different labels about sexual orientation or levels of manliness. He preferred to call every male person simply a man. In Fantasia, he traced the birth of human consciousness all the way back to the first cell that divides in the womb, explaining that every child is born either male or female: "every single cell in every male child is male, and every cell in every female child is female. The talk about a third sex, or about the indeterminate sex, is just to pervert the issue." He admitted that the rudimentary formation of both sexes is found in every individual, but firmly believed that that doesn't mean every person is a bit of both. At certain periods, he explained, men and women must play one another's parts. The male must sometimes be sensitive and submissive, and the woman active and authoritative. Yet, "Man, in the midst of all his effeminacy, is still male and nothing but male. And woman, though she harangue in Parliament or patrol the streets with a helmet on her head, is still completely female."

Lawrence saw the need for a greater distinction between the sexes in order to restore the natural balance. He believed that a man must be unencumbered by female influences if he is to follow the calling of his soul. As he put it:

"Man ... must follow his own soul's greatest impulse, and give himself to life-work and risk himself to death. It is not woman who claims the highest in man. It is a man's own religious soul that drives him on beyond woman, to his supreme activity. For his highest, man is responsible to God alone. He may not pause to remember that he has a life to lose, or a wife and children to leave. He must carry forward the banner of life, though seven worlds perish, with all the wives and mothers and children in them. Hence Jesus, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' Every man that lives has to say it again to his wife or mother, once he has any work or mission in hand, that comes from his soul."

Lawrence's novel Aaron's Rod is first and foremost about the rediscovery of a male culture. The main character, Aaron, is a hearty, indomitable man, endowed with physical strength as well as a spiritual sensibility. Describing the medieval town of Florence, Lawrence wrote,

"Aaron felt a new self, a new life-surge rising inside himself. Florence seemed to start a new man in him. It was a town of men....He found the Piazza della Signoria packed with men: but all, all men. And all farmers, landowners and land-workers...And above all, this sharp, almost acrid, mocking expression, the silent curl of the nose, the eternal challenge, the rock-bottom unbelief, and the subtle fearlessness...But men, Men! A town of men, in spite of everything. The one manly quality, undying, acrid fearlessness. The eternal challenge of the unquenched human soul.... But men-who existed without apology and without justification....Just men."

I interpret Lawrence's descriptions of Florence as a male counterpart to the Isle of Lesbos. The men there live in a society which is not ruled by the other sex and its values. They are not estranged from their fellow men. The character Aaron sets out to develop his own sense of identity, to search his soul for the hero within. After leaving his wife and family, he wanders through life until he meets another man whom he considers a mentor, then tries to discover what his own true feelings are.

Lawrence's frank discussions about men's relationships to each other present the question of whether he was homosexual or merely misogynistic. But the value he places on man-to-man friendship is simply parallel to modern feminist writings. For Lawrence, the love between man and woman is not enough for the individual soul. A man's soul needs someone who can fully resonate with it, and such resonance can only come from another man. In his collected letters, Lawrence said that one measures a friend by the breadth of his understanding. By "understanding" he meant "that delicate response from the chords of feeling which is involuntary." If a man is one's friend, he will respond "to the very chord you strike, with clear and satisfying timbre, responding with a part, not the whole, of his soul. It makes a man much more satisfactory."

Neither the Isle of Lesbos nor ancient Florence remain same-sex havens. However, that doesn't mean that men can't recapture the freedom that is their birthright -- to be left to themselves, with their tiny soap animals or whatnot. In his various writings, Lawrence seemed to be suggesting a formula for men to rediscover and recreate their masculine culture. His main points seem include the following:

° be yourself. As Lawrence says in Aaron's Rod, "You are yourself and so be yourself. Stick to it and abide in it. Passion or no passion, ecstasy or no ecstasy, urge or no urge, there's no goal outside you, where you can consummate like an eagle flying into the sun, or a moth into a candle. there's no goal outside you -- and there's no God outside you....You've got an innermost, integral, unique self, and since it's the only thing you have got or ever will have, don't go trying to lose it....Your own single oneness is your destiny. Your destiny comes from within, from your own self-form."

° look within your heart to discover your deepest motivation. Silent contemplation or meditation are appropriate ways to accomplish this.

° put your deepest motivation into writing and then act upon your masculine agenda. Become an architect of the future you envision.

° give yourself over to this purpose, no matter what the cost. To compromise one's own destiny is a price no man can afford.

° cultivate fearlessness. To paraphrase the novel Dune, fear is the mind-killer. Face your fears, allow them to pass over you, and when the fear is gone only you will remain.

° stop labeling yourself. Diversity is wonderful, and labels are useful to contrast different groups, but we don't need to pigeonhole ourselves. A man is a man, and no other distinctions matter within the brotherhood of men.

° cultivate masculine friendships. Only your fellow men can truly resonate with your soul.

° don't be dominated by female influences, yet promote feminism. The feminine tendencies toward domestication/burrowing, passivity, and mediation/compromise are invaluable, but such tendencies should never hinder your masculine destiny. With patience and peacefulness, we can respect feminine influences without being stunted by them. The key is to stay true to ourselves and find perfect singleness within. Feminism promotes women to fulfill their own destinies, and masculinism must do the same for men.

° lead other men by your example.



Abdul Hamid is a regular contributor to Nightcharm. His column appears regularly in the Art and Spirit section of this site. He is also the creator of the popular website Abdul's Waking Dream You may email him here.