Reciprocal Capitalism

Reciprocal Capitalism - We Buy Money to Buy Our Home!

“Deep Throat” had it right! He’s the guy who said, “Follow the money”. So regarding our current economic crisis, why didn’t we follow his directions; or perhaps, why did we stop following them so soon? If we ever got started, that is.

In any case, they didn’t have to track the dollars very far to blame the banks and investment houses since they were screaming for somebody, anybody, to bail them out. But then, why are the mortgage brokers and realtors appearing to escape almost any culpability? Notice I didn’t say mortgage bankers, and I did say realtor with a small letter ‘r’ – there is a difference between small ‘r’ realtors and capital ‘R’ Realtors, or at least so the capital Rs claim; but that is, of course, another story for yet another day.

Deep Throat may have gotten us started down the green brick road, but whatever investigation continues, it needs to include the street people. You know, the street people, the folks actually doing all the work, meaning the real estate and mortgage professionals who really do sell us the houses and really do sell us the loans.

Well, now there goes all my credibility – or at least any I might have acquired so far - since I just said that mortgage lenders sell us the loans. Trust me, I did not make a slip of the paper tongue, I really did mean to say, lenders sell us the money. Here’s why:

 To their disadvantage, most Americans have been taught to think of a lender (usually in the guise of a loan officer or so the business card says), as some kind of gift bearing semi-deity. People believe the lender, or banker, or mortgage banker, or mortgage broker, or savings and loan representatives (oops, I forgot, those folks are long gone, gobbled up by banks during the early years of deregulation), is there to lend you money, not sell it to you. After all, you have been taught to believe you are buying a house by borrowing the money from the lender, and then using it to buy the house.

And that, dear home-buyer, is precisely what the lenders want you to think, and perhaps more importantly, want you to believe!

Off the street and behind the scenes, lenders don’t think of home-buyers as borrowers of money; they think of the home buyer as also buying the money, and even change their language to reflect it. When talking among each other, a lender discusses the “price” of the house and the “price” of the money. Because the lender considers money in those terms, and everybody else does not, they carry an enormous advantage over all other members involved in any real estate transaction.

But what advantage might that be, you say? Why it’s the one whereby the lender does not have to negotiate. Everybody else gets to, but not the lender. And why not, you say? Because the lender is lending you the money, not selling you the money, is why. Moreover, you as the buyer of the house are well prepared to bargain with the seller of the house, or with the realtors who are helping the seller sell the house, or even with the used car sales folks right down the street; all because they are selling something, not lending it - of which the pretentious grand financiers are more than well aware, and who intend to keep it just that way.

As someone once said in years long past and while in his full aristocratic glory, these nattering nabobs know, that if home buyers thought they were also buying the money they were going to use to buy their new home, they might be tempted to try to negotiate a deal over the price of the money they were going to use to buy their new home. Horrors, how awful!

Lenders of any stripe, have known they were well served to have borrowers believe they were borrowing money, and that the lenders were lending them money; and the deception should remain. Lenders knew this was a transaction like any other; they understood it had buyers and sellers. Lenders knew they were selling money, and they knew the poor borrower didn’t know he or she was actually buying money from them.

When purchasing a home the buyer buys from two sources: the seller of the house, and the seller of the money. In other words, he or she buys the home, and buys the money used to buy the home.

Home buyers, meaning borrowers (now understood to be money buyers), real estate brokers, home sellers, and almost anyone else who has ever thought about buying a home, know it will be a difficult, involved, occasionally deceptive, sometimes fraudulent, usually long, and always expensive transaction. The general public - meaning anyone not considered a real estate professional who intends to profit when some one other than themselves buys or sells a home – again, the general public, because they think they are borrowing money instead of buying it, have unfortunately, readily accepted another myth served to them on the proverbial silver platter by the folks called real estate professionals. (Now, now, calm down any of you real estate pros out there who might happen to be reading this, I promise I’ll exonerate you and be nice in a little while.)

This myth is so pervasive, even Bob Herbert, one of the op-ed columnists for the New York Times used it in one of his recent columns entitled, "Chutzpah on Steroids". He said, “The family home is the largest purchase most Americans ever make”.

Boy, do people believe that one, even though it’s a real howler and a knee-slapper. The lenders love it! After all, they are laughing all the way to the bank. Oh, I forgot, they’re already there, they own the bank. Hmm, or have they already sold their bank to the government, in which case they’re laughing even harder.

The myth works because we have all been taught to believe we borrow money rather than buy it. But then, if we follow the money, certainty returns, because we know we are buying the money just as assuredly as we are buying our new home.

Thus the old saw saying the family home is the single largest purchase most Americans will ever make, is just not the way it is - no matter what the meaning of the word “is” is, or how often somebody claims to smoke a little weed without ever inhaling. (By the way, I believe the President simply misspoke when he claimed he never inhaled; I think he meant to say he never exhaled.)

Anyhow, back to the myths at hand: After all this dancin’ around on my part, the truth is, the family home is not the largest purchase most Americans will ever make; it’s the money. Meaning - the money used to buy the family home, is the largest purchase most Americans will ever make! Lenders know this, or as least some of them know this. In either case, the lenders are once again, laughing all the way to their bank.

Under normal market conditions, some of the lenders are having a much better chuckle than others. But now, perhaps it is more correct to use the past tense on the poor lenders, since it is almost two years after the mortgage bubble burst, and many of those lenders have long since gone, or (because we can’t allow the home builders to go unrecognized) faded into a sunset of their own construction.

When the mortgage markets collapsed a year and a half ago, I wondered why anyone could possibly have been surprised. I called several old friends who were in the mortgage business with me in the 70s and 80s when these fancy financial vehicles then call collateralized mortgage obligations (later called collateralized debt obligations) were created, any of us could easily have told the new regime of financial experts the collapse was bound to happen. Underwriting had become non-existent. Too many people, legally or illegally, were making too much money. At least to some of us, nothing could have been clearer than this pending collapse of the mortgage markets. The world seemed to squirm, while some of us old codgers laughed, but unfortunately, not all the way to the bank.

Unfortunately and once again, I must stop holding forth for the time being. As I continue, this disquisition of mine should fill in some of the holes regarding the causes of our mortgage crisis. I, and many others my age worked our way through the last mortgage crisis when interest rates for home mortgages hit 22%. First came Volcker, then came Greenspan. Folks still bought homes, the country survived.

I began reading the works of Ayn Rand in the fall of 1972. The effect was significant. A year later, as a college senior, now full of myself as well as full of her theories and philosophy, while discussing Marxist economic theory during a required class covering Modernization Processes, the chairman of my department who was one of the three professors teaching the class, told me I was uneducable. As the reigning liberal, he did not beat around the bush any either; his proclamation had been directed at me rather than the entire class. I know this because his original admonishment was preceded by his half-hearted attempt at throwing a piece of chalk in my direction (I didn’t even need to duck), and followed by his glib finger pointing and the even more tendentious statement, “You are uneducable until you stop believing in reality”.

Of course, you really need the amusement of the longer version of what isn’t a fairy tale, but, per my indoctrinating experience way back when, I believe I should now be the poster child for David Horowitz and his immaculately conceived kids over at Front Page Magazine as they wage their war of victimization and sophistry against their perception of ‘liberal’ college professors. The longer version of my adventure includes the Viet Nam War, draft deferments, the draft lottery, an actual desire to finish college, my conversion from liberal to ultra conservative, my conversion from ultra conservative back toward liberalism, and - even more to my amazement - to what actually became some bureaucrat changing history in order to fit the proverbial square peg into the round hole.

Even though this screed of mine may seem self-indulgent, it truly has significance regarding my creating this website and naming it Reciprocal Capitalism. Knowing I won’t succeed, I shall try to be brief.

I graduated high school in 1967, smack in the middle of the Viet Nam war. I started college in the fall because it was the expected thing to do, not in order to avoid the draft. Two years later, like many from my generation, I flunked out, then left Wisconsin for San Francisco. While there, I attended college part-time, worked, and became more liberal. The following year, I returned to Wisconsin to attend college at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Since I had drawn a very high number in the draft lottery, military service was no longer a concern, so my intent was to actually obtain the education I should have pursued three years earlier.

Prior to the mid-sixties, the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay (UWGB) was a two-year junior college. When I arrived in the fall of 1970, it was in the midst of converting to a four-year university. Much of the sixties was about causing change and making public statements. Along with publicly proclaiming itself as the nation’s environmental university, the powers at the time, in what even then was considered a very left wing move, chose to proclaim itself as the nation’s first environmentally focused university and at least partially as a consequence, to re-name and reconfigure their traditional academic departments or disciplines. Among the monikers were the new fangled departments of  Urban Analysis, Analysis Synthesis, Creative Communication, and mine, Modernization Processes - which mostly combined economics, political science, and social psychology.

Humans have the tendency to proudly display their creations, while attaching high levels of self-satisfying importance to them. It makes them feel good as individuals, celebrate as groups, and lionize the creation without concern for how it will be received by outsiders. UWGB was no exception. When time came to send out the first announcements and college catalogues touting the new four-year university, the administrators found some abbreviations were needed to accommodate the space requirements in their written materials. The designers of the four year university were so proud of their achievement, they never noticed these new abbreviations for the departments conveyed meanings other than those intended: Urban Analysis proudly became 'Urb Anal'; following right along behind, Regional Analysis claimed the moniker, 'Reg Anal'; but their tameness seemed almost scatologically indicted when the tender emotions of the Humanities glittered forth as Analysis Synthesis, then lost all pretense when reduced to the infamous, 'Anal Syn'. The authors may not have noticed their embarrassing creativity prior to mailing, but upon receipt, students and folks on the outside certainly did, and then word of mouth took over. Other colleges and universities of course thought it was very funny but their reaction came and went without any lasting damage. The students however, extolled the error for years to come.

 

As I hope you can tell, I don't have this essay completed as of yet. Like my other posts that are in the same condition, I intend to expand on what is here in a kind of serial form; when and as I finish enough for my meanderings to be posted, I will do so. With this one, I should be able to do so every week or so.

As I also hope you can tell, initially, I was greatly impressed by Ayn Rand, but for well-grounded reasons my fascination didn't last. Although I have not completely rejected her philosophy, I began changing my mind about fifteen years ago. I know this is a rather tired metaphor, but I believe Rand's capitalism to be a one way street; whereas my conceptualism of capitalism began as deeply entrenched as hers, but now, in a way Rand would thoroughly reject, includes a definite need for reciprocity, without which we will suffer not only the tragedy of the commons but also a more devastating tragedy of globalization. In other words, both tragedys could be avoided with reciprocal capitalism as opposed to the vagaries of pure Friedmanism, Randian, free market capitalism.

Oh, and by the way, much of this site may not seem to have anything to do with capitalism, and especially Reciprocal Capitalism; however, I agree with you. Sometimes I will directly discuss ecomomics as applied to our current misfortunes - especially considering I spent about a dozen years in the residential mortgage business -  and other times descend into the more philosophical and historical regions of capitalism, socialism, gender, epistemology, evolution, gender, religion, politics, more gender, abortion, aesthetics, even more gender, and probably several others along my way. Therein, I hope, I have at least , and sort of, explained the variety of subjects falling under my banner of Reciprocal Capitalism. Some of you may have already noticed how much 'Reciprocal Capitalism' sounds like 'Reciprocal Altruism', I assure you, that's intentional, and will be a large focus of this site.

Deep in their bellies, men know, in the absence of force, women are clearly in charge.

Men know, humans are not predisposed to instinctively, automatically, impulsively, and with undomesticated depravity, rush into each others arms for the continuance of the species.

We men know, women have learned to cheerfully dally, toy, tease, flirt, and deceive -  and then with such unrestrained mirth, smile while saying ”no”; whereas we men have learned to beg.

We men know, women (for their own amusement), are designed to require we tantalize and entice. We men know, women are free to choose; but more significantly, each of us knows – 'I won’t be chosen'.

So, if civilization is measured by the absence of violence, women have evolved to a more advanced state than men. Men remain designated as the choosers of force, while women have matured to argue against it. Women are selected to control mens' violent urges, and are largely responsible for the creation of morality and the laws governing civilization, while leaving enforcement to the men.

On the other hand, women can and do perform the same jobs as men, including those more stereotypically thought of as a “man’s” job; so they have crossed over (so to speak) into those enforcement positions men have attempted to keep for themselves. Currently, even though many men still resent the encroachment, women can enlist and serve in the police forces or the military in any capacity for which they qualify, but ( and to make one more large scale generalization) their participation seemingly amounts to a patronizing, paternalistic, and perhaps even chivalrous, multi-leveled token, provided mostly and begrudgingly by men both in and out of the military.

In other words, many men prefer our military be populated only by men. So, what are the stated reasons for keeping women out of the military, and then, what are the actual reasons, and what is the importance?

We’ve all heard the usual bromides and soporifics, herein, I offer a different view.

“To the victor belong the spoils”! We’ve heard it before, most likely said it before. Unfortunately, most of us have never asked what it means. So, what are the spoils of war?

The answer, at least in short form, is land and women.

Among the victorious, the land part is easily, willingly, proudly, and loudly displayed, disbursed, celebrated, and discussed.

More seriously, the women remain as an additional and in some ways more valuable part of the bounty. Once having killed the enemy and captured their land, the victors only need to disburse their newly acquired wealth. For the triumphant, women are available and unprotected because all or most all their men are dead. So it seems, the other old saw about rape, pillage, and plunder may have some basis in fact.

This women part then, is cunningly avoided, or dismissed as fabrication, or cleaned up (supposedly) by shielding it within the ethnic cleansing label; but mostly, the women part, meaning rape, is considered as not worthy of discussion or intervention. If discussed at all, rape is often used as a false justification to keep our women from serving in the military.

For men, rape has always been a fringe benefit of going to war. It makes risking one’s life worthwhile. Even now, in some countries an entire cottage industry has emerged around rape. Women are rewarded to the foot soldiers, while women and land are divvied up among the aristocracy.

Among the civilized, the women part is difficult to acknowledge. Rape, if acknowledged at all, is of course never something our soldiers would do; it is always something their soldiers would do, which then becomes a primary reason to keep our women from serving. We must keep our women safe.

Those against women serving, claim they will be bad for morale because the men will worry that the women will be raped if captured by the enemy, then imprisoned and raped again. Thus our male soldiers will be busy keeping their fellow women safe during battle instead of trying to achieve the military objective. More importantly, protecting our female soldiers from rape is not as salient as protecting them from being impregnated by the enemy. After all, we must never forget (nor acknowledge), the nation’s ethnic purity is at stake. Men duck the issue, and attribute the necessity of protecting the women to the primary reason of not wanting to subject them to the violence and indignation of rape, rather than from the other possible result of rape, a child.

The more politically correct position taken by those against women serving in the military, results from acknowledging the potential for men and women to develop sexual relationships among members of their own unit. These relationships, as the argument goes, destroy discipline, morale, and unit cohesiveness, resulting in interference with the mission. This stance maneuvers to divorce civilian and military life. For seemingly valid reasons, acceptable relationships in the civilian world are not acceptable in the military world. Moreover, this argument conveniently avoids the rape issue altogether.

Since it is such an easy sell (even though currently unsuccessful in practice), voluntary sexual activity between men and women is passing as the primary reason to keep women out of the military. It appeals to those afraid to consider anything else, even though the potential for the rape of our female soldiers is clearly present. (Even more difficult to acknowledge is that a similar potential for our male soldiers also exists.)

Conversely, our virile servicemen will have the opportunity to rape the defeated opposition’s surviving female soldiers as well as female members of their civilian population. This last is so vicious and unpleasant for us to consider, we mostly claim we are too moral a society to ever participate in such activities, even though evidence to the contrary, is in plentiful supply.

At this point, especially because it is so obvious, it needs saying that men do the raping, not the women. The male soldier rapes; the female soldier, if present, gets to watch. But, why should she bother; or why should she need to find something else to do; or why should she have to pretend the rapes never occurred; or does her presence provide tacit approval; or if the enemy’s women are some sort of prize, then she doesn’t want one. Her inability and lack of desire, or better still, her revulsion to overt or even covert participation in this dishonorable part of the victory celebration, is the real, albeit unacknowledged reason, some men seek to exclude women from military service. The female soldier’s presence is often enough to stop the male soldier from committing rape. Thus, he is unable to acquire what he perceives as a valued part of the victor’s spoils - to which is his right, or so he has been told. It is time for him to claim his prize, and she has neither right nor recourse to stop him, as now he believes.

Custom keeps men in line. In the absence of female group members, men will not only belch, fart, wolf whistle, tell off color jokes, and leer at whatever non-member women are present, but are more likely to get in some fights, get really drunk, holdup liquor stores, steal a few cars, get really drunk, do a bit of gay-bashing, and maybe even find a woman to bother, tease, torment, harass, and then molest a little – or even to rape. Rarely, very rarely, do men rape or participate in gang rapes in the presence of women, and especially when in the presence of women who are members of their own group. Men just plain operate differently when women are around. In other words, women tend to cause men to behave themselves. They cause men to clean up their act. They cause men to control their most violent urges, or as novelist Frank Herbert argued, their adolescent fantasies.

Men see women as spoiling their fun, or as mandating a secure stable relationship. Meaning, men should settle down, establish that relationship, and abandon those adolescent fantasies. In the lives of men, women serve a mellowing function.

With little effort, women hold men in check – especially their own men. In our 'across group' scheme, a woman’s company reminds men of their non-military responsibilities and can often keep men from doing things they might do in her absence. Men do not want to face a woman’s scrutiny. It is and always has been far easier to exclude women from the board-room to the locker room, from the golf course to the tennis court, and from the playing field to the battle field, than to ignore them when they are close at hand. Her proximity alone, can either put her at risk or clean up their act, and post victory, to the eternal gratitude of the enemies’ surviving women, just might serve to keep all those testosterone driven, triumphant, men of the hour, well in hand and nicely subjugated. A female soldier’s presence serves to hold all men accountable.

For the men, secret knowledge among them (including those who do not rape) is the glue holding it all together. It holds, because silence is a powerful norm. those who rape, trust each other to keep silent; and the trust extends to those who didn’t rape also to keep silent. Silence is essential because the possibility exists for nobody on the outside to believe them anyway. The non-rapers will only be able to control the rapers by using force themselves, not by using reason. However, if American women soldiers are present, many times their presence has the potential to stop the rapers from raping. In this situation, that they are female is more powerful without violence, than the male’s is with violence. Their femaleness brings men to heel.

With a salute to the Madonna/Whore Dichotomy, if women are present, or at least those some men would call proper women, they will restrain the men’s behavior. Consequently, under many circumstances, men only want to be in the company of other men, or if women must be present they need to be a certain kind of woman. Even then, sometimes the presence of any woman can keep some men from acquiring their share of the spoils of war. More powerfully, with the aristocracy claiming the land, and their fellow women soldiers maintaining the safety of the enemy’s women, little motivation remains.

Unfortunately, that the presence of a woman from within our military, may keep some of our men from raping women who are not in our military, then is the unspoken, yet authentic reason, some folks don’t want women to serve in our military. (We should also remember the statistics show our male soldiers are quite willing to rape their fellow women soldiers, if the enemy’s women are unavailable.)

Men will rape in the presence of other men but not in the presence of women. Women’s abhorrence to rape is normally strong enough for them to intervene or for some men in their company to intervene and attempt to halt a rape. Men know this; consequently, they are more inclined to control themselves when in the company of a woman. In a larger sense, a woman’s presence changes the dynamic, and may change the entire situation so that women from the enemy’s civilian population can no longer be available to the victors.

So for men, the simplest method for handling the ‘Spoils of War” problem (at least as they see it and define it), is to gallantly ban women from serving in the military from the outset, all the while creating specious reasons for doing so in order to appease the public, themselves, and of course, their women (or so they think).

Ah but then, if such is even partially the case, then I wonder why some folks are so determined to keep gays from serving in the military? So, as has been said a trillion times before, stay tuned - I'm working on it!

A good many men, along with a smaller number of women, for whatever their reasons, fervently believe women have no business serving in “this man’s army” – mostly because they aren’t men. On the surface, the good many men and smaller group of women, appear to believe women in combat can only serve to distract the men, or cause the men to gallantly protect and defend the female soldier’s honor, instead of helping the men complete their mission.

Additionally, a good many men, along with a smaller number of women, for whatever their reasons, fervently believe homosexuals have no business serving in “this man’s army” - mostly (once again) because they aren’t men. However, on the surface, the good many men and smaller group of women, appear to believe male homosexuals in the armed forces can only serve to distract the real men by compelling straight soldiers to protect themselves from the sexual advances of one or more members (albeit gay members) of their own army, as well as from the bombs and bullets of the foreign enemy.

Those against homosexuals serving in the military are careful never to specifically claim sexual conduct between men is wrong, or by itself should be enough to keep gays from serving our country by joining the military. Those clamoring for ostracism manage to hide their rank homophobia along with their self styled moral issue, within their conjecture identifying universal sexual conduct as damaging morale, discipline, and cohesiveness in ways interfering with the military’s mission. Their rather slimy conclusion is sophomoric and designed to deflect attention away from their genuine reasons for seeking to exclude gays from our military.

The unacknowledged reasons emerge when examined as an extension of my argument for why some folks don’t want women serving in the military. Among those reasons, homophobia is at or near the top of the list. Sociologist Michael Kimmel says, “Homophobia - the fear that people might perceive you as gay – is the animating fear of American guys’ masculinity”. He continues, “It’s the fear of other men – that other men will perceive you as a failure, as a fraud. It’s a fear that others will see you as weak, unmanly, frightened”. This fear need be ultimately manifested only when in the presence of a gay male. If none are around, the fear still exists only to be displayed in ultra manly behavior in order to “offer constant proof that you are not gay”.

This need to always show that you are not weak and unmanly, extends from the straight man’s recognition that being in the presence of gay men creates the possibility of becoming the victim of a crime he always thought to be limited to women; a crime he here-to-fore only ever considered from the perspective of perpetrator, but never before from the prospects of being a rape victim.

Since we know that rape is among the most often executed war crimes, we know it to be a behavior in which men engage and a behavior men expect as a behavior from other men. Rape is so common that it can clearly be seen as among the ‘spoils of war’.

Scenario one: Once the battle is over and the enemy’s men have been killed, ideally, those left are our men and their women. If however, those left are their women, our male soldiers and our female soldiers, the ability to collect the anticipated ‘spoil of war’ drops significantly. Even though most men are disgusted by rape, their disgust pales next to a woman’s. Even though some men might rape if alone, they are less likely to rape unless rape is a norm (a covertly or overtly agreed upon acceptable behavior) among the men who are present. Those same men who might rape when alone or in the presence of agreeable male others, know that rape is not a norm among women and that women’s disgust for the perpetrators of rape is so strong that it can often limit the incidence of rape. Those same men also know that women are likely to try to stop the occurrence of rape or to prosecute the occurrence of rape – that is, if the men in power are sympathetic with their disgust and abhorrence.

Scenario two: Once the battle is over and the enemy’s men have been killed, ideally, those left are our soldiers and the enemy’s women. If however, those left are our ‘straight’ male soldiers, our ‘gay’ male soldiers, and their women, then how do those belonging to the latter group of gay males (and to whom women are not seen as a prize or bounty), collect on the promise of, to the victor go the spoils?

This is when the fantasies of straight males take over, and while leading them far astray, also lead them to be very afraid.

Some straight males, hobgoblins intact and demanding attention, realize that post victory, the gay soldier will have the same expectations as the straight, is just as super-charged with testosterone as the straight, and is equally as well trained and primed to perpetrate violence. However, unlike the straight soldier seeking victims (who just happen to be in plentiful supply and unprotected), the frustrated gay soldier has no potential victims in sight who are still alive; unless, and by personalizing and invoking the ultimate male fear, your own surviving straight soldiers become his rape victims. In other words, the straight soldier began his day on the offense trying to defeat the enemy’s males in order to procure their women; then to his chagrin, ends the day on the defense, while trying to stop his fellow (but gay) soldiers from treating him as the enemy and raping him as though he were just another surviving lowly female from the enemies camp. And, at least on one level, this big, strapping, well-trained, testosterone crazed, muscular, gay soldier is still male, so he just might succeed. 

Then again, it might be all together less embarrasing (or so their conceit goes), if gays were just kept from joining the military in the first place.

Unfortunately, I don't have this essay completed as of yet. What you see here is the short form of my longer analysis. If you have read my post about women in the military, you will have a good idea of how the analysis will be structured. So stay tuned, there should be at least a few surprises for you.

Some folks believe guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Others disagree:

People don’t kill people; guns kill people. Don’t blame the person pulling the trigger; just ban guns. At the very least men should register the weapon and comply with a five-day waiting period before using it. In other words, people don’t kill people; the weapon kills people. It is the weapon doing the killing. It is the weapon that should be banned.

Then, to further extend and paraphrase the bromide I just finished extending and paraphrasing: Sometimes, a rapist uses a gun; sometimes, he uses a knife; sometimes, he uses neither; but he always, always, always uses his penis. And of course, some folks must disagree.

Men don’t rape women; a penis rapes women. Let’s ban the penis, but don’t blame the man wielding his penis. At the very least, men should register their penis, subject it to a background check, and comply with a five-day waiting period before using it. In other words, men don’t rape women, the penis rapes women. It is the penis doing the raping. It is the penis that should be banned.

Among heterosexual males, their covert fear of being a rape victim is overtly denied. Concomitant with the fear is their apparent need to re-claim their ruined manhood by ardently rejecting any claim associating homophobia with being a rape victim.

Regardless of the seeming strength of their protests to the contrary, I now believe, homophobia results from the male’s fear of rape. But not merely the fear of rape, it is the fear of being raped. It is the fear of being the victim of rape. Even more so, it is the fear of not being the perpetrator of rape, but the victim of rape. It is the fear of losing the rapist’s arrogance. It is the fear of suffering the victim’s taint. It is the fear of losing the ‘male’ status. It is the fear of gaining the status of ‘woman’. It is the fear of becoming the equivalent of ‘woman’. It is the fear of becoming a woman’s equal. It is the fear of remaining a woman’s equal.

Homophobia recognizes vulnerability. It is a manifestation of the straight male’s fear of becoming the object of another man’s desire, conjoined with fear of having the other man actually act on that desire, and (no matter how well he, with well practiced bluster, tries to keep it hidden) the potential for success.

In other words, the intrinsic problem, the one almost never mentioned or at least the one most fervently denied, exists among those straight males who fear the gay male will be attracted to them and will act upon that attraction (or maybe not find the individual straight male attractive enough to act – but that’s another story). Moreover, if and when the gay male does act on this magnetism, his decision might not stop at a mere proposition, but just might include attempted and conceivably successful rape. When the all-powerful, all-macho, all-straight, all-male considers the perpetrators who could make him a rape victim rather than a rapist; the result is fear, deep fear; the result is homophobia.

At this point, if any straights are still reading this article, I imagine many (but not all) of them to be thinking, “Oh bunk” or something similar but less printable; and I imagine any gays reading this article to be rolling around on the floor in uncontrollable laughter.

Early in their lives, young women learn they possess an object of enticing and enduring value; an ineffable “something” of such significance as to cause it to never be explicitly named. Even though no one will directly tell the young women what it might be, young women sense a duty to protect it. Among the earliest of their childhood memories, women recall being instructed to be a lady, to sit with their knees together, have their legs crossed in a ladylike manner, and among a number of other commands, to at all times keep their skirt down; all of which are done to maintain the sanctity of the un-named object. Additionally, they recognize the object has value so great, their fathers and other family members will aid in its protection; and most realize their fathers will not merely aid in the protection, but to comply with social demands from outside the family, are mandated to protect it from all possible predators. Some women even sense the objects value to be greater than their own.

So, the young women learn this unsaid “something” of theirs must be protected at all costs, and it must be protected at all costs from the “stranger”. Without ever being directly told, the young women somehow come to know that “stranger”, means “male”. At some point, some also recognize the depth of their fathers understanding of their situation; to their horror, they notice he appears as the stranger to other young women. Now they know just why, their ‘Dad’ knows how those boys are, and just why their Dad knows what motivates them and just why he knows what drives them. Dad knows, and Dad especially knows the lengths to which her suitors will go. Even then, with all this freshly discovered and rather urbane wisdom, they understand (for sure) their ‘Dad’ will protect them.

Young women learn to hold the object close for obviously its greatest value is too men who will attempt to take it by hook or by crook, by lure or by luck, by charm and charisma, by flattery, cajolery, by enticement or inducement or even enchantment, by coaxing, beguiling, inveigling, deceiving, or by invitation, temptation, fascination, persuasion; all of which goes by the name of seduction. If seduction doesn’t work, if it is unsuccessful or seemingly inappropriate, then some of those same men will take this possession of hers by force. In other words, women learn men are the enemy.

Women live their lives continually aware of the threat of becoming a rape victim. Women learn to keep the rape potential forever tucked into a corner of their conscious mind and always at the forefront of their daily behavior. Women, accordingly adjust every behavior; they walk in groups, stay in lighted areas, and if possible, live in safe neighborhoods. They make sure friends know of their whereabouts.

Conversely, men rarely temper their behavior. Unless you count their macro-manliness (meaning their large-scale reputation), compared to women, men possess no object of similar value worth defending, (certainly not their micro-manliness). Vigilance is necessary to preserve their dominant position from any threat. Men believe they must protect their macro-manliness amongst themselves. To lose it, even a little, by not paying attention, or by engaging in a behavior normally and culturally considered as female, would individually, and potentially for all men, result in shame, opprobrium, and disgrace. Most often, a slip results in verbal slurs and accusations of ‘girlishness’, or more damningly, of homosexuality. Among each other, straight men pay a high price to avoid this label. To please other men, men restrict their behavior and adjust their performances to evade any suspicion of homosexuality.

To display macro-manliness, men strut their stuff, go where they want, live where they choose, exhibit their wares, travel in packs, and pursue women. Much of their lives are founded on and organized around pursuing women. As young men, when they are the most full of themselves, while crackling with testosterone and verve, they learn and practice pursuit strategies. Occasionally, they even share those strategies, but only to demonstrate their prowess.

Rape is never considered as among those ‘women acquiring’ strategies. Mostly, rape is never even thought of by straight males. It need never be considered and no adjustment in behavior is necessary because men know only women are rape victims, never men. Without fear, men can walk alone or in the dark, or in the park, or even alone while in the park. If men consider their own safety, it is in terms of being mugged, but never in terms of being raped. Men understand the natural order of things mandates men get to do the raping and women get to be raped.

Somewhere along the way, women are taught to be coy; men are taught to expect them to be coy. Men learn very early on to expect women to say “no”, thus the males primary response strategy exists in the old saw about never taking “no” for an answer. Men learn to ask; women learn to say no. Men learn to ask again, women learn to say no again. Men ask, women reject. Men beg, still women reject. Movies, books, musicals, and plays are based on it. The chase is on and he chases her half way or all the way around the world to finally convince her he is the one – the one to whom she should not say no. She can be single, footloose and fancy free when she begins saying no to him. She can be engaged, living with someone, or even married and still be saying no to him. Eventually, and everyone knows far in advance (usually when purchasing their movie tickets or buying the book), she will end up saying yes. The myth is satisfied.

(As an aside, some argue that this myth has been unfortunately replaced by another suggesting women want to be raped. With the advent of new types of media, primarily movies, it appears trendy to show women resisting her suitor’s advances until he finally begins the rape; she then succumbs to her own natural desire and enjoys it.)

Overtime, men become good at asking and women become proficient at saying no. Men learn many new and unusual ways of asking (some of which are rather indirect although ingenious), while women learn many polite ways of saying no (some of which, perhaps unfortunately for the woman, are also indirect - at least as far as the male is able to understand it). Women learn to reject. Some men learn to accept rejection while others do not because another old saw, the one about never taking no for an answer becomes, she doesn’t really mean it when she says no (to me).

So how do we get from the vagaries of dating rituals to concluding that homophobia results from a straight man’s fear that a gay man will forcibly act and possibly succeed, which really means the straight male fears becoming a woman’s equal. We get there by identifying some of the most obvious but most often avoided assumptions. We get there by reducing relationships into their most basic constituent parts; including those parts normally seen as so obvious as to go unnoticed and unexamined; as well as for the straight male anyway, among the most feared and shunned. We start by asking and elaborating upon who is sexually interested in whom and why. Of necessity, one of the responses requiring scrutiny is among the most obvious yet self-evident and thereby neglected of all courtship idiosyncrasies: Gay men are not sexually interested in women! Meaning, gay men are not sexually interested in straight women or in gay women.

With that said, we can then ask in whom are gay men sexually interested, as well as perhaps the more salient question - the easy and most common answer to which is intentionally designed to mislead us down the rosy path of the narrow and straight - in who do straight men believe gay men are sexually interested; or better yet, in who do straight men want us to believe gay men are sexually interested? To either question, the glib answer of the straight male is “all males, me included”. Gay men respond by repeatedly claiming they just are not interested in having sex with heterosexual men, and especially are not interested in having sex with uncooperative heterosexual men. Because the “all males” part of the straight mans answer is so conveniently self-serving and narcissistic, it enables the entire in-group of straights to extend its reach to the putative and oh so convenient “me included” conclusion despite the protests of gay men.

Straight men make this assumption because they believe all men, straight or gay, think alike. (For confirmation, just ask any woman.) Straight men make this assumption because they really are sexually interested in most women and it matters not to them if the individual woman is also straight. (I can’t quite bring myself to say straight men are interested in all women, because of plain old everyday selectivity, as well as my assumption the straight male is sober.) Therefore, even if the female object of the straight male’s attention is a lesbian, and despite the overwhelming potential for rejection by her, he is still interested; and some men are even more interested (because everyone knows, once she has sex with him, it will be so earth shaking she will never go back to having sex with women).

Thus straight males, being sober (or when occasionally sober), selective, and believing when it comes to sex, gay men must think and behave as shamefully as themselves, therefore erroneously assume gay men must also be sexually interested in almost all men, including straight men. Because of this original misguided assumption, their sexual sophistry, though enormously self-satisfying, is silly, shallow, defective, dishonest, fallacious, and perverse (yes perverse). Therefore, said presumption must lead them to an equally misguided and erroneous conclusion. You know, the one that includes, “me included”.

The correct answer to my original question regarding in who gay men are sexually interested becomes, gay men are sexually interested in other gay men; which also means gay men are not sexually interested in straight men. They aren’t because the gay male knows straight males are not interested in them, whereas other gay males are. Gay is not a synonym for stupid. Gays are not going to devote time or energy to chasing around straights, meaning those who most assuredly will reject their advances. It is difficult enough being a gay man in a straight world, therefore it is inconceivable for a gay man to make his life more difficult by wasting time and emotional energy seeking to become sexually involved with someone who he knows in advance does not want him, when he can easily find others who do.

To the straight male though, the thought of not being attractive to a member of the opposite sex is complete anathema. Seduced by his very own immense charm, the straight male is convinced of his sexual attractiveness; he firmly believes in his irresistibility to anyone female, and of course is convinced gay men must be at least partially female, as defined by their interest in having sex with men. The thought of gay men not being sexually interested in straight males, along with being disconcerting, confusing, and believed to be untrue, bewilders most of the kingdom of straight males who, by their very nature, of course believe, like the Sirens, their allure is boundless and compelling, meaning their charm surely must beckon all gay men as well as all women. The attitude is, “I know she wants me, so of course he must want me too”, resulting in his state of turmoil and terror.

However, this erroneous assumption by straight males regarding their uniform desirability should not frighten them in the least, because another man’s request for sex, can be met with a simple refusal by the straight male in the same way women are supposed to respond to him. You know, he can be coy and just say “no”. Or can he? Maybe not, in this instance the straight male is trapped. He can’t be coy (that’s not manly, it’s feminine behavior), he can’t just say no, because this person propositioning him has also been trained to never take no for an answer, and intends to act upon it. Maybe, just maybe, this guy looking upon him oh so longingly, is one who really believes no always means yes, and could actually succeed if he acts upon his training. Furthermore, recognition of this kind of success is, as a matter of course, followed by a wide-eyed realization of vulnerability conjoined with fear.

Homophobia then, ensues when straight males apprehend, that the presence of a gay male forces a reassessment of their oh-so-comfortable paternalism (just where did that God given dominion disappear too anyway) caused by a reconsideration of their personal safety from the physical and perhaps more importantly the cognitive perspective of a woman.

In other words, being wanted as well as pursued is not quite enough! The deeper reason for the homophobia is the fear of success. The straight male fears the gay male might actually succeed. The straight male can’t or won’t admit to fearing the gay male will succeed by the process of seduction (although that may well be rattling around in there someplace); the deeper fear, the one going beyond the pale, the one capable of reversing the natural order of things, the one to which he fears he might actually be vulnerable, is the fear another man will succeed, not by seduction but by force. Bluntly, the straight male fears being raped by the gay male, he fears becoming a rape victim. This particular type of fear is supposed to belong exclusively to women, not men, and especially not him.

More than that, homophobia extends from the male’s fear of the consequences of becoming a rape victim instead of a rapist. (If there were no gay men then straight males would never have to contemplate rape from any position other than rapist.) To consider rape by acknowledging the potential for both men and women to become rape victims is an ineluctable move toward gender equality. Here is where men and women truly become equals, and a move toward equality always includes a loss by the previous beneficiaries of inequality. A raped man loses status because men are supposed to rape not be raped. Homophobia ensues when this loss of status is seen as causing equality, and not equality with another man but equality with women.

Being in the presence of gay men causes straight men to recognize the possibility of being the victim of a crime previously thought as limited to women; a crime here-to-fore only ever considered from the perspective of perpetrator or protector.

Without being afraid, a single man can be in the company of a group of other men or in the company of a group of women. Without being afraid, a single woman can be in the company of other women or in the company of a group of gay men, but not in a group of straight men. Although, women commit a small-percentage of rapes, this percentage is so small it can mostly be disregarded, and men simply never consider it a possibility. Thus only when in the company of gay males does the straight male encounter the potential for being a rape victim. In no other situation does the straight male have the potential for being unwillingly or forcibly taken.

When in the presence of gay males, the straight male is reminded of the potential for him to become a rape victim. If he considers the meaning of becoming a rape victim, he may partially recognize the extremity of personal shame the act causes the victim. More perniciously, he knows that if society discovers he has been raped, or for him to publicly admit to being raped by pursuing legal recourse, it would be tantamount to admitting to a new found station in life, including being doomed to the second class citizen status of woman and the disgrace of losing membership in the boy’s clubs forever.

Anticipating the rape, the straight male agonizes over the same negative consequences he so effortlessly attaches to the fate of any woman who is raped. He realizes that if raped, some folks, both male and female (although he is mostly concerned with the males) will always look at him slightly askance. The straight male imagines these folks will always wonder what he did to cause the rape, or what he was wearing to cause it, or why he put himself in a position to cause it. He assumes they will always wonder if he asked for “it”, or believe he could have stopped it if he was more manly or less weak, and most damningly, he believes, they believe he could have stopped the rape if he hadn’t wanted the experience.

Additionally, he knows the human mental and physical sexual reactions are not necessarily connected, therein he is terrified of what his own body might do to him even while his mind screams “no”. In other words, he is suspicious of his own physical reaction to being raped – what if he gets hard, what if he experiences some pleasure, what if he experiences maximum pleasure? What will that make him? What will he become?

For the straight male then, the potential for personal shame & a loss of status greatly contributes to spawning his homophobia; meaning the straight male fears his dominant status will diminish, only to be replaced by what he believes to be a woman’s second-class status. Anxiety over this role reversal means the straight male actually fears becoming the equivalent of ‘woman’ during and after the rape. In reality then, homophobia is the fear of becoming a woman’s equal. It is the fear of remaining a woman’s equal.