“No Wife…No Kids…No Dice?”
By Ken Knight
Anyone who is not a cloistered monk has seen signs in restaurants warning that persons must have shoes and shirts upon entering the establishment. (I was always one who wondered why they never included PANTS on the list as well, haha). Anyhow, the warning signs of today still have the clothing requirement but also tend to include weapons, concealed firearms, and tobacco products on their “no-go” lists for entrance into their Mall, restaurant, gymnasium, Movie Theater, etc. Being private-property, I for one can respect such rules since I am entering a domain owned by a private entity that has the legal right to kick my ass out for bringing in something questionable. However, the “barring” of actual people from an establishment just because who they are physically is against the Law, but that little legal formality isn’t about to stop would-be tyrants from excluding “undesirables” (men) from the public venue when they get a hard-on in the name of “safety”.
Yes it’s a given — the single man going into a restaurant alone to dine is often treated to either the worst table or ushered to the Bar (so as to save the tables and booths for larger dining parties and families) and a lone male sitting in a Church without wife or kids beside him is usually viewed as “recovering” from either drugs or alcohol by the rest of the congregation (just ask any Pastor). Nowadays, a couple of men without wife and kids out to play Chess in a New York City public park paid for with his tax dollars can be subject to a fine for venturing into an area of the park where the Chess tables are located, but also happens to be a sector of the park designated for children with parents ONLY! Ask the City about such a regulation and the “protection of children” mantra is foisted as high as one of those rainbow flags in a downtown Manhattan parade.
I don’t even need to provide convincing examples (links) of the growing ordinances, legal cases, and police reports posted online, etc. regarding this eerie new “public safety” phenomenon because you’ve all noticed examples of such creeping draconian Statism on the horizon that clearly does not have MEN in the best interest here in the “free” US of A (I won’t even mention what’s going on in Europe!). From soft-law tactics such as the “children only” parks and public spaces to the digital communication apps that allows female college students to report “street harassers” (straight men flirting) on their social- network as a quasi-legal “safety” measure, the creeping panther of tyranny directed at a certain segment of the male population in the Western World is becoming undeniable.
Who allows such a thing to grow and creep slowly towards us? WE DO!
Has there been any significant challenge in court to localities like NYC barring single men from taxpayer-funded parks and illegally branding them “suspects” who “might” harm children? NO. Has there been any lawsuit against women who unfairly post pictures of men who say something to them in public on social-networks branding them “street-harassers”? NO. Have single men sued restaurants or even Churches for the way they’ve been treated or boycotted such places after the first time they were treated like second-class citizens? *Well, if they have, it’s not been reported in the major news media!*
Try walking into a Public School as a man without a child and see the response to your visit even though you’re a taxpayer…or simply visit your High School Alma Mata as an adult male by yourself and see how you’re treated (say hello to the armed police officer).
The fear of sexual predators anywhere near children is defensible yes, but to what extent the Law will eventually go to keep perceived “sexual predators” from places other peoples’ children frequent remains to be seen. It is approaching the point that one does not have to be on a sex offender registry in order to be treated like one, as we are beginning to see with single (childless) men being treated with suspicion from public parks to public schools to Boy Scout Jamborees, and even Video Game Arcades in Malls.
Is it too extreme to imagine that single childless men are inadvertently seen “suspected” as sexual predators of some sort simply because they don’t have a fat wife (and another man’s kids) tagging along with them in public? Maybe, maybe not….
In spite of these larger examples of situations/locations where single childless men are clearly not welcome, there are a growing number of places in the public venue where men in general are handed the “no-go” treatment: one being the trend of Gym franchises setting up “women-only” exercise rooms and “women/children-only swimming” pool hours, which would be fine if the men were not paying gym-dues like everyone else using the facility (men being the only “restricted” members!).
Need I even bring up the unspoken / unofficial “no-go” treatment afforded men who do not fit into a woman’s “Captain Awesome” category? The examples would fill volumes!
This is exactly the premise for Susie and Franny to complain about “street harassment”, and feminists pushing for laws and ordinances against (straight) flirtation in public from men whom the women may not find attractive….it’s coming~just that little road block called the First Amendment has kept “street harassment” codes from being passed here in the US up to now, so they’ll “soft law” it to death, mark my words.
All in the name of “Public Safety” laws and regulations are triumphed and forced to become the law of the land because most people want to feel “safe” and if that means someone else has to be inconvenienced, fined, or jailed to ensure such “safety”, then so be it! A single (straight) childless man over say…30 or 40…oh he’s just got to be up to no good and Hillary-forbid if he somehow comes across the line of sight of Sensitive Susie and her Partner Paula whose adopted kids are playing 1,000 yards from where the “creep” parked his car to read something on his Blackberry® then “911” it is!
And here we thought there were no second-class citizens in America….
Ken Knight is a Feature Contributor at Mondo-Video.com and the Author of “THE MIDNIGHT SHOW~Late Night Cable TV Guy-Flicks of the 80s” as well as his latest zombie-apocalypse novel entitled “DIRGE.”
