Before I start this column, I’d like to point out that I’m very well aware that this site used to operate, albeit very poorly, a “man list” in which we celebrated the manly achievements of various people who we considered worthy.

I would now like to point out that in doing so, we were subscribing to what I consider to be the most pathetic and emasculating practice that modern life can currently throw at us.

Along with the unending stream of people saying “FTW” about things that are (occasionally) interesting or funny, I’d be very shocked if you haven’t come across one of these ‘man points’ style Facebook groups or websites. For fucking shame.

For those of you who have been spared these obscene aberrations to mankind, allow me to explain. Man points work on the basis that acts of so-called manly behaviour deserve recognition and reward. For example, the larger of the groups on Facebook state that some things which will get you points include climbing a mountain, which is worth 100 points, drinking Stella Artois, which is worth 10 points, “melting stuff”, which is worth 3 points, and, weirdly, completing a Rocky marathon, which I assume means watching all the Rocky films back to back, which gets you an astonishing 50 points.

Other groups offer points for things like using power tools and having a noisy job, and still others remove points for acts they consider not to be becoming of “real men”, which include wearing clothes that are too small, using painkillers, going to the doctor, crying, apologising, and washing your bedsheets more than once a year.

I’m going to launch a two-pronged attack at this, starting with the removal of points side of it.

Ok, so basically what we’re talking about here is being punished for being reasonable. Some twat has probably taken it upon himself to never take painkillers for fear that he’ll be thought less of. Not washing your bedsheets however, is an excellent idea if your main hobby apart from being a massive arsehole is convincing women who find massive arseholery attractive to come back to your place, and then having her dissolve as soon as she sits on your bed.

This leads me, in a neat little segue, to my next point.

How the fuck much of a GIRL do you have to be to think that manly acts deserve rewards? Let’s recontextualise this situation for a moment. Suppose that instead of manly acts, we want to reward something else, say… I don’t know… making your girlfriend a cup of tea. (I realise this is a bad reference as I’d say about 97% of the people who believe man points are a good idea are chronically single sofa masturbators, but whatever). Then suppose that instead of points, you’re getting a gold star on a chart. There’s no actual reward or anything, just gold stickers on a wallchart that will probably be thrown away within a couple of months. Do you know what’s happened there? That’s right. You’ve become her bitch. You’re making teas left right and centre just to prove that you can, and so you can have some stickers.

But that’s not quite what this is, because being manly is not like making tea or finally managing to satisfy a girl in bed. Nobody really wants you to be manly, because it’s generally quite annoying, and involves a lot of shouting, which means you can’t be taken anywhere nice.

You know what this whole manly thing is? It’s the last gasp of masculinity, being drawn out by the ventilator that is modern popular culture. Back in 1950, nobody would have thought that being in a fight, drinking lager (which is girl’s beer anyway) or climbing a mountain was worthy of recognition. They were manly, sure, but only in that they were things done by men. But over the last few years, the position of ‘real man’ has been called up to the stand and is taking a kicking from every which way. TV constantly reminds us how useless men are. All men are badly dressed, out of style, out of touch, shallow, insensitive bastards who are bad listeners. But because women in the media keep reminding us that this is a man’s world and that women need to be strong, regardless of the fact that this hasn’t been a man’s world since about 1983, makes it alright to constantly peddle this new and insidious form of sexism. It’s no coincidence that all the so-called ‘nice men’ in TV are inevitably the ones who are described as ugly in the show but are blatantly so attractive it’s a wonder their more pan-faced brothers haven’t cut their pretty faces with kitchen utensils.

The man points initiative was probably started by Germaine Greer or somebody. It’s a massive ‘that’s nice dear’ to men everywhere, and sadly many have been scooped up by the relentless maw of quasi-masculinity.

Oh and by the way, one of the things on the list of manly shit you can get points for is “going on the-biomatrix.net”. That’s a bodybuilding website. So let me say this: visit my site, and lose all your man points. ‘Cause I don’t fucking want your sort here.

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