Before I get into this I feel like I have to say:
Fathers, I sympathize. Being a father to a daughter in 2023 has to be excruciating. While we explore why, understand that I’m just saying these hurtful things because everything needs to be visible and acknowledged before it can be fixed. This is a love letter to the Dads of my generation, that we can figure out a way to do this particular thing a little better.
Executive Summary: The age-old trope of the suburban father threatening the beautiful young criminal wooing his daughter with an old shotgun is real (I was the recipient of this twice in high school, and even later). For some reason the fathers of the type of girls that I get with are prone to this type of behavior. It has always struck me as completely insane; there really isn’t any sort of effective response to this weird thing except to acknowledge it and move on with the conversation. It’s alarmingly cringe, it’s like watching a car crash. The father of course is insistent that you acknowledge the Gun, whether it’s being waved in your face or not. But you just don’t want to look him in the eye. He’s five foot seven, wearing an Oxford Blue shirt lot number 365,987 of ten million, and the least intimidating person you’ve ever seen, it’s not because he’s scaring you. You can’t bring yourself to look straight at this guy without tearing up like you’re looking at a star of cringe because it is a fundamentally masturbatory and impotent expression. This dude’s jerking off! He’s jerking off because he can’t do anything else. Cut it out before more people notice.
Here, put these on, we’re getting in the device and jumping behind this guy’s eyes real fast, and try to empathize and understand a little bit of what this maniac is thinking. The father wants to convey some presence, he wants to have a little control over the situation. Maybe not even all of it, if he’s not a psychopath who wishes he was in the Hell’s Angels (Harley Dads). Just a little bit of presence, a position from which to deal, to get some assurances for his daughter. That’s what fathers do, right? This is his family, his home, his daughter. He feels deeply, in his bones, that he has the right and the obligation to impose rules to protect these things of his. And he’s obviously right, in case you hadn’t noticed this is a virulent reactionary’s blog, we are pro-patriarchy here, sorry ladies hang up your reading license and go no further. But he doesn’t have control over his household anymore. Whoops man, you’re illegal. Being a father is illegal now, not joking. It’s been outlawed in the same way that marriage was outlawed, by passing laws that abolish fundamental components of how the institution has always been understood. No-fault divorce eliminated marriage in any sense that would have been meaningful to those alive beforehand, and now we have no-agency fatherhood.
The modern father is in a bind he can’t talk about, good thing we have hateblogs; the State has usurped his control of the women in his life. “Women like strong men who provide guidance for them.” This is very charitable and euphemistic and kind to the general agency of women as I have observed it in my life, and honestly I should be thanked profusely by women everywhere for the magnanimity of my restraint in description. Ladies we love you but you’re not good at agency. When the State was run by the boys and for the boys, this wasn’t as evident, because the women were understood to have plenty of soft power, thank you very much, they don’t need to be pulling the levers of hard, turgid power. Basically the rights of the father over the women of his household was guaranteed by the State. Yes, the women were technically property, that’s not that bad. Get you a man who takes care of his belongings. When a woman gripes that her husband lavishes more attention on his Camaro than on her, maybe she should think about what she’s really complaining about.
Today the State unseats a father in his own home, and plays the role of owner/protector for all women everywhere, so his key function and right of protection is illegal, the State says “only I may protect these women.” So what does the fellow on the other end of this machismo display of totally fraudulent power naturally feel his reply to be? “You’re not going to shoot me, because you would go to jail and ruin your life.” That’s what I was holding back, white-knuckled and oscillating at speed, from gleefully spitting into this poor man’s face. But I didn’t do that, because he can’t help it. Boomers don’t even know where they are anymore, this guy might as well have Down Syndrome. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, and we all noticed. Critically, your daughter noticed that you issued a threat that was totally impotent, and it had more of an effect on her than on me.
That effect is basically to guarantee that she puts out like a one-time-only, everything-must-go BPD turbocharged V8 nymphomaniac. Wow man, great job. Good work, now I’ve got to deal with all this pussy. Truly I am shaking in my boots. Turns out the only risk to my life was the outside possibility, rapidly increasing as the night proceeded, of literally being fucked to death by this girl.
“You’re crazy dude, she was going to fuck you anyway.” I’m not so sure man! These things are subject to butterfly effects, let me tell you what she saw. Daughters see their fathers as fathers before they get out into the world, she had an illusion that you were the man you were walking around as. The ruler of the home, the strong right arm of God, morality, protector of the innocent and all that. Now a boy wants to take her to prom and here’s Dad to enforce the law and show him what’s what, he’s going to issue a threat, here it comes… Hm. Didn’t seem to land. My boy doesn’t seem to get that he could get shot if he mistreats me. I’m doubting now. Wait a second I just realized something, if my Dad kills Boy, he’ll go to jail and the family will be totally destroyed! Well if Dad isn’t able to protect me, who can?
And I just happen to be the closest guy to her at that moment, we walked out the door together 20 minutes ago, and no matter what I do she’s going to try to stick herself to me by any means necessary, and I mean any. YOU did this! Your actions as a father, while meant to demonstrate your devotion to your family albeit in some narcissistic fantasy divorced from reality kind of way, have driven her into my arms for IMPALEMENT. Hand to God, I only got laid in situations where the father did this stunt. When the father wasn’t there to see her off like this, it was a dry night. It’s real.
What do we do about this? I don’t know man. Maybe it’s because I’m not a father (yet) but the problem seems institutionally bad, a lot deeper than most guys are willing to give them credit for. Yes, there’s a lot that can be done when everyone is intelligent and disciplined, by all means I pray that your daughters will be intelligent and this won’t be an accurate description of their mental processes. The constant disassembly of important institutions by neurotic dismantling psychopaths makes finding an intelligent and KIND wife mandatory, where once it was just highly recommended. You and your intelligent and kind wife should talk about this stuff. Don’t be a wildman about it but tell them you’re not doing the shotgun meme with potential suitors. Maybe when some handsome young pirate knocks at your door you should talk to him and figure out what kind of guy he is, and if he’s the wrong sort of guy you should immediately laugh at your daughter and get her brother to call him a faggot on the Metaverse or whatever. Explore more effective alternative options. We can workshop this stuff in the comments, I’m not going to pretend I know what to do. But we absolutely cannot be engaging in anything as performative, as humiliating, as pretending you can shoot this guy. Every dude that has ever been given that speech has on some level internalized it as permission to fuck his daughter, and so has the daughter. Don’t do it.
- VL
P.S.
A big problem is when the guy is totally dominated by his fat wife. You do NOT want this to happen to you. I have literally been invited into the home of a man who does shit like this and I deflowered his daughter in the guest bedroom. He knew what was happening and did nothing because his wife completely dominated him and ran the house. Repeal the 19th, we can’t take another 100 years of this shit.
"Hand to God, I only got laid in situations where the father did this stunt. When the father wasn’t there to see her off like this, it was a dry night." Interesting. Maybe the stunt wasn't the cause here, but a symptom of something else, along with the daughter's views on getting laid. Classier girls go together with classier dads, perhaps.
"When a woman gripes that her husband lavishes more attention on his Camaro than on her, maybe she should think about what she’s really complaining about."
Brutal. Wives on suicide watch.