I guess we all want to find our place in the sun. Let me tell you a tale from a male perspective, indicating some of the obstacles. Young boys are, of course, adventurous and boisterous. Sometimes, that will result in a badly broken nose, just on the cusp of adolescence. Those burgeoning, bourgeois goddesses at grammar school were never going to look at you anyway, since you're a country boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Social events are a continuous exercise in ritual humiliation. Even though you're witty and funny, girls' eyes go vacant when they discover your background, or lack thereof. At university, female hypergamy now reaches ridiculous levels. While expecting careers which will offer huge remuneration and compensation packages, these women won't settle for anything than a man even higher in the food chain, so you're not on their radar. As an undergraduate, you visit a brothel to get laid, so that you can sidestep mainstream female entitlement and gain some perspective into manhood. With a first class STEM degree under the belt, you bump into an old acquaintance from school. He has become what would now be called a PUA, and he demonstrates a few tricks. Working as a team, you and he spend the summer of 1977 in a hormone haze. You discover that, in the outside world, populated by women from all walks of life, having a few prospects and a bit of confidence works wonders. The bouncers finally allow you to enter the party. But, some of the girls in the room are bad news, with self-interested motivations barely concealed. Over a dozen girlfriends later, you find an attractive, vivacious girl of nineteen, someone you'd like to spend the rest of your life with. You get married in 1980, right after completing a PhD, which lands you a decent job. You get stuck into a hard-working career, averaging a couple of patents a year, have two kids together, steadily climb the housing ladder. By all conventional standards, you've 'made it', and you're happy..... apart from a niggling feeling, getting worse by the year, that life is passing you by in a blur of suburban conventionality and keeping up with the Jones. Then, in 2000, it all goes wrong.

Women love the word 'lifestyle'. Put 'alternative' in front of it, and this does not compute. Just say these words to release Armageddon: The house is paid off, and I've got a pension. Let's sell up, and go back to our roots. Maybe, I can start enjoying life." Wow! What has this guy done? He finds himself without sex, and with a bare minimum of communication, for two years! This is where the Duluth Model of Male Power & Control is fatally flawed. In any sexual relationship, Dominance and Control is gained by the party who desires sex less. This man is now in a war of attrition with his wife, who, like most females, believes that the Achilles' Heel of male sex drive will allow her wishes to prevail. But, he holds out. Most weekends, the kids are now skateboarding, and he leaves her alone in the big, empty house, since she seems to like silence so much. Failure of the marriage is a close call. An attractive French woman is transferred to the laboratory where he is lab manager. She tries to seduce this sitting duck of abstinence, probably because she requires a powerful ally to ward off criticism of her risible knowledge, and klutz-like practical skills. After rejecting her advances, she becomes openly hostile, and he's gonna have to tread carefully at work.

The situation only resolves due to a concurrent family emergency. His elder son is beaten up, hospitalised by six yobs who steal his mobile phone and cigarettes. The situation forces his wife to communicate, for the sake of their shared offspring. He draws a line in the sand, tells her he's leaving his job, going home.... with or without her. Years later, he's sitting in a park, reading a book, dimly aware of women strolling with their children in prams and pushchairs, enjoying the sunshine - and with the slightly disconcerting feeling that they resent him being there also. Today, one of them strikes up a condescending conversation, which begins: "Shouldn't you be at work?" He replies that he has just finished a shift, night-sorting for Royal Mail..... that he has earned his place in the sun, with as much right to enjoy it as she. It makes him think about 'The Patriarchy'. His grandfather was a patriarch, the undisputed head of his household. But, that man did not live his dreams. Instead, he worked underground, in the dark, on his hands and knees, destroying his health for the sake of his family. A regular sex life was his recompense, and his Patriarchal role arose through female preferences to stroll in the sunshine, with kids. The 'Gender Pay Gap' is also a result of female choice for easier, often part-time work.

So- please find your own place in the sun, men. The man I speak of found his through motorcycles, long distance footpaths, guitars, books, fishing, and drinking with friends. He was also forced to issue an ultimatum to his wife, who, like all women, believe that we can be manipulated through sex until the light in our eyes finally dies.