4,330 words
Jack Malebranche (Jack Donovan)
Androphilia: A Manifesto
Baltimore, Md.: Scapegoat Publishing, 2006
Near the end of Androphilia, Jack Donovan writes “It has always seemed like some profoundly ironic cosmic joke to me that the culture of men who love men is a culture that deifies women and celebrates effeminacy. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the culture of men who are sexually fascinated by men actually idolized men and celebrated masculinity?” (p. 115).
He has a point there. As Donovan notes, homosexual porn is almost exclusively focused on hypermasculine archetypes: the lumberjack, the marine, the jock, the cop, etc. (I am going to employ the term “homosexual,” despite its problematic history, as a neutral term to denote same-sex desire among men. I am avoiding the term “gay,” for reasons that will soon be apparent.) So why are homosexuals, who worship masculine men, so damn queeny? Most straight men (and women too) would offer what they see as the obvious answer: homosexuals are not real men. They are a sort of strange breed of womanly man, and it is precisely the otherness of masculine men that attracts them so. This is, after all, the way things work with straight people: men are attracted to women, and vice versa, because they are other. We want what we are not. Therefore, if a man desires another man then he must not be a real man.
What makes this theory so plausible is that so many self-identified homosexuals do behave in the most excruciatingly effeminate manner. They certainly seem to be not-quite-men. Donovan thinks (and I believe he is correct) that it is this womanish behavior in homosexuals that bothers straight men so much – more so, actually, than the fact that homosexuals have sex with other men in the privacy of their bedrooms.
Donovan objects to effeminacy in homosexuals as well, but he sees this effeminacy as a socially-constructed behavior pattern; as a consequence of the flawed logic that claims “since we’re attracted to what’s other, if you’re a man attracted to a man you must not be a real man.” Having bought into this way of seeing things, the “gay community” actually encourages its members to “camp it up” and get in touch with their feminine side. They think they are liberating themselves, but what they don’t see is that they have bought into a specific set of cultural assumptions which effectively rob them of their manhood, in their own eyes and in the eyes of society.
Donovan argues, plausibly, that homosexual attraction should be seen as a “variation in desire” among men (p. 21). Homosexuals are men — men who happen to be attracted to other men. Their sexual desire does not make them into a separate species of quasi-men. This is a point that will be resisted by many, but it is easily defended. One can see this simply by reflecting on how difficult it is to comprehend the homosexuals of yore in the terms we use today to deal with these matters. There was, after all, unlikely to have been anything “queeny” (and certainly not cowardly) about the Spartan 300, who were 150 homosexual couples. And the samurai in feudal Japan were doing it too — just to mention two examples. These are not the sort of people one thinks of as “sensitive” and who one would expect to show up at a Lady Gaga concert, were they around today. It is unlikely that Achilles and his “favorite” Patroclus would have cruised around with a rainbow flag flying from their chariot. These were manly men, who happened to sexually desire other men. If there can be such men, then there is no necessary disjunction between homosexuality and masculinity. QED.
In essential terms, what Donovan argues in Androphilia is that homosexuals should reject the “gay culture” of effeminacy and reclaim masculinity for themselves. Ironically, gay culture is really the product of an internalization of the Judeo-Christian demonization of same-sex desire, and its insistence that homosexuality and masculinity are incompatible. Donovan wants gays to become “androphiles”: men who love men, but who are not defined by that love. “Gay men” are men who allow themselves to be defined entirely by their desire, defined into a separate segment of humanity that talks alike, walks alike, dresses alike, thinks alike, votes alike, and has set itself apart from “breeders” in fashionable urban ghettos. “Gay” really denotes a whole way of life “that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics” (p. 18). (This is the reason Donovan often uses “homo” instead of “gay”: gay is a package deal denoting much more than same-sex desire.) He argues that in an effort to promote acceptance of men with same-sex desire, homosexuals encouraged others to regard them as, in effect, a separate sex — really, almost a separate race. “Gay,” Donovan remarks, is really “sexuality as ethnicity” (p. 18). As a result, gay men have cut themselves off from the fraternity of men and, arguably, trapped themselves in a lifestyle that stunts them into perpetual adolescence. Donovan asks, reasonably, “Why should I identify more closely with a lesbian folk singer than with [straight] men my age who share my interests?”
Many of those who have made it this far into my review might conclude now that Androphilia is really a book for homosexuals, and doesn’t have much to say to the rest of the world. But this is not the case. Donovan’s book contains profound reflections on sexuality and its historical construction (yes, there really are some things that are historically constructed), the nature of masculinity, the role of male bonding in the formation of culture, and the connection between masculinity and politics. This book has implications for how men — all men — understand themselves.
Donovan attacks head-on the attempt by gays to set themselves up as an “oppressed group” on the model of blacks and women, and to compel all of us to refrain from uttering a critical word about them. He attacks feminism as the anti-male ideology it is. And he zeroes in on the connection, taken for granted by nearly everyone, between gay culture and advocacy of left-wing causes. Androphilia, in short, is a book that belongs squarely on the political right. It should be no surprise to anyone to discover that Donovan has been busy since the publication of Androphilia writing for sites like Alternative Right and Spearhead.
Donovan himself was a part of the gay community when he was younger, but never really felt like he belonged. He so much as tells us that his desire for men is his religion; that he worships masculinity in men. But it seemed natural to Donovan that since he was a man, he should cultivate in himself the very qualities he admired in others. His desire was decidedly not for an “other” but for the very qualities that he saw, proudly, in himself. (He says at one point, “I experience androphilia not as an attraction to some alien opposite, but as an attraction to variations in sameness,” p. 49).
Donovan is certainly not alone. It’s natural when we think of homosexuals to visualize effeminate men, because those are the ones that stand out. If I asked you to visualize a Swede you’d probably conjure up a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nordic exemplar. But, of course, a great many Swedes are brunettes (famous ones, too; e.g., Ingmar Bergman). The effeminate types are merely the most conspicuous homosexuals. But there also exists a silent multitude of masculine men who love men, men whom no one typically pegs as “gay.” These men are often referred to as “straight acting” — as if masculinity in a homosexual is necessarily some kind of act. These men are really Donovan’s target audience, and they live a tragic predicament. They are masculine men who see their own masculinity as a virtue, thus they cannot identify with what Donovan calls the Gay Party (i.e., “gay community”) and its celebration of effeminacy. They identify far more closely with straight men, who, of course, will not fully accept them. This is partly due to fear (“is he going to make a pass at me?”), and partly, again, due to the prevailing view which equates same-sex desire with lack of manliness. The Jack Donovans out there are lost between two worlds, at home in neither. Loneliness and sexual desire compels such men to live on the periphery of the gay community, hoping always to find someone like themselves. If they have at all internalized the message that their desires make them less-than-men (and most have), then their relationship to masculinity will always be a problematic one. They will always have “something to prove,” and always fear, deep down, that perhaps they are inadequate in some fundamental way.
Androphilia is therapy for such men, and a call for them to form a new identity and group solidarity quite independent of the “gay community.” On the one hand, Donovan asserts that, again, homosexuality should be seen as a “variation in desire” among men; that homosexuals should see themselves as men first, and not be defined entirely by their same-sex desire. On the other hand, it is very clear that Donovan also has high hopes that self-identified androphiles will become a force to be reckoned with. He writes at one point, “While other men struggle to keep food on the table or get new sneakers for Junior, androphiles can use their extra income to fund their endeavors. This is a significant advantage. Androphiles could become leaders of men in virtually any field with comparative ease. By holding personal achievement in high esteem, androphiles could become more than men; they could become great men” (p. 88).
Is Jack Donovan — the androphile Tyler Durden — building an army? Actually, it looks more like he’s building a religion, and this brings us to one of the most interesting aspects of Androphilia. Repeatedly, Donovan tells us that “masculinity is a religion,” or words to that effect (see especially pp. 65, 72, 76, 80, 116).
A first step to understanding what he is talking about is to recognize that masculinity is an ideal, and a virtue. Men strive to cultivate masculinity in themselves, and they admire it in other men. Further, masculinity is something that has to be achieved. Better yet, it has to be won. Femininity, on the other hand, is quite different. Femininity is essentially a state of being that simply comes with being female; it is not an accomplishment. Women are, but men must become. If femininity has anything to do with achievement, the achievement usually consists in artifice: dressing in a certain manner, putting on makeup, learning how to be coy, etc. Femininity is almost exclusively bound up with being attractive to men. If a man’s “masculinity” consisted in dressing butch and not shaving, he would be laughed at; his “masculinity” would be essentially effeminate. (Such is the masculinity, for example, of gay “bears” and “leatherman.”) Similarly, if a man’s “masculinity” consists entirely in pursuing women and making himself attractive to them, he is scorned by other men. (Ironically, such “gigolos” are often far more effeminate mama’s boys than many homosexuals.) No, true masculinity is achieved by accomplishing something difficult in the world: by fighting, building something, discovering something, winning a contest, setting a record, etc. In order for it to count, a man has to overcome things like fear and opposition. He has to exhibit such virtues as bravery, perseverance, commitment, consistency, integrity, and, often, loyalty. Masculinity is inextricably tied to virtue (which is no surprise — given that the root vir-, from which we also get “virile,” means “man”). A woman can be petty, fickle, dishonest, fearful, inconstant, weak, and unserious — and still be thought of as 100% feminine.
A woman can also be the butchest nun, women’s lacrosse coach, or dominatrix on the planet and never be in any danger of someone thinking she’s “not a real woman.” With men, it’s completely different. As the example of homosexuals illustrates, it is quite possible to have a y chromosome and be branded “not a real man.” Masculinity, again, is an ideal that men are constantly striving to realize. The flip side of this is that they live in constant fear of some kind of failure that might rob them of masculinity in their eyes or the eyes of others. They must “live up” to the title of “man.” Contrary to the views of modern psychologists and feminists, this does not indicate a “problem” with men that they must somehow try to overcome. If men did not feel driven to make their mark on the world and prove themselves worthy of being called men, there would be no science, no philosophy, no art, no music, no technology, no exploration.
“But there would also be no war, no conflict, no competition!” feminists and male geldings will shriek in response. They’re right: there would be none of these things. And the world would be colorless and unutterably boring.
As Camille Paglia famously said, “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” She also said “There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.” What this really means is that given the nature of men, we can’t have Mozart without Jack the Ripper. So be it.
It should now be a bit clearer why Donovan says that “masculinity is a religion.” To quote him more fully, “masculinity is not just a quality shared by many men, but also an ideal to which men collectively aspire. Masculinity is a religion, one that naturally resonates with the condition of maleness. Worship takes place at sports arenas, during action films, in adventure novels and history books, in frat houses, in hunting lodges” (p. 65).
Earlier in the book he writes: “All men appreciate masculinity in other men. They appreciate men who are manly, who embody what it means to be a man. They admire and look up to men who are powerful, accomplished or assertive. . . . Men respectfully acknowledge another man’s impressive size or build, note a fierce handshake, or take a friendly interest in his facial hair. . . . Sportscasters and fans speak lovingly of the bodies and miraculous abilities of their shared heroes. . . . While straight men would rather not discuss it because they don’t want to be perceived as latent homosexuals, they do regularly admire one another’s bodies at the gym or at sporting events” (p. 22). None of this is “gay,” “latently gay,” or “homoerotic.” This is just men admiring manliness. One of the sad consequences of “gay liberation” (and Freudian psychology) is that straight men must now police their behavior for any signs that might be read as “latency.” And gay liberation has destroyed male bonding. Just recently I re-watched Robert Rossen’s classic 1961 film The Hustler. In the opening scene, an old man watches a drunken Paul Newman playing pool and remarks to a friend, “Nice looking boy. Clean cut. Too bad he can’t hold his liquor.” No straight man today would dream of openly admiring another man’s appearance and describing him as “nice looking,” even though there need be nothing sexual in this at all.
Of course, there is something decidedly sexual in androphilia. The androphile admires masculinity in other men also, but he has a sexual response to it. An androphile may admire all the same qualities in a man that a straight man would, but the androphile gets turned on by them. Here we must note, however, that although the straight man admires masculinity in men he generally spends a lot less time reflecting on it than an androphile does. And there are innumerable qualities in men (especially physical qualities) which androphiles notice, but which many straight men are completely oblivious to. In fact, one of the characteristics of manly men is a kind of obliviousness to their own masculine attractiveness. Yes, straight men admire masculinity in other men and in themselves — but this is often not something that is brought fully to consciousness. No matter how attractive he may be, if a man is vain, his attractiveness is undercut — and so is his masculinity. Men are attractive — to women and to androphiles — to the extent that their masculinity is something natural, unselfconscious, unaffected, and seemingly effortless. Oddly, lack of self-consciousness does seem to be a masculine trait. Think of the single-minded warrior, uncorrupted by doubt and introspection, forging ahead without any thought for how he seems to others, unaware of how brightly his virtue and heroism shine.
What all this means is that androphilia is masculinity brought to self-consciousness. To put it another way, the androphile is masculinity brought to awareness of itself. It is in the androphile that all that is good and noble and beautiful in the male comes to be consciously reflected upon and affirmed. It is in androphiles like Jack Donovan that the god of masculinity is consciously thematized as a god, and worshipped. Masculinity is a religion, he tells us again and again.
Now, I said a few lines earlier that lack of self-consciousness seems to be a masculine trait. If in androphiles a greater self-consciousness of masculinity is achieved, doesn’t this mean that androphiles are somehow unmasculine? Actually what it means is that they are potentially hyper-masculine. It is true that we admire unselfconscious figures like Siegfried or Arjuna, because they seem to possess a certain purity. But such men are always ultimately revealed to be merely the plaything of forces over which they have no control. Greater still then a naïve, unselfconscious purity is the power of an awakened man, who consciously recognizes and cultivates his virtues, striving to take control of his destiny and to perfect himself. This is part and parcel of the ideal of spiritual virility Julius Evola spoke of so often.
The difference between Siegfried and Arjuna is that the latter had the god Krishna around to awaken him. Krishna taught him that he is indeed a plaything of forces over which he has no control. But Arjuna then affirmed this, affirmed his role in the cosmic scheme as the executioner of men, and became the fiercest warrior that had ever lived.
Most men unconsciously follow the script of masculinity, pushed along by hormones to realize the masculine ideal — usually only to find the same hormones putting them in thrall to women and, later, children. Androphiles consciously recognize and affirm masculinity, and because their erotic desires are directed towards other men, they have the potential to achieve far more in the realm of masculine accomplishment than those who, again, have to “struggle to keep food on the table or get new sneakers for Junior.” Thus, far from being “unmasculine,” androphiles have it within their power to become, well, Overmen. Androphiles have awakened to the god in themselves and other men. There is an old saying on the Left Hand Path: “There is no god above an awakened man.” There is also no man above an awakened man. So much for the idea that a man’s love for other men is a badge of inferiority.
Implicit in the above is something I have not remarked on thus far, and that Donovan does not discuss: the duality in the masculine character. It is a rather remarkable thing, as I alluded to earlier, that testosterone both makes a man want to fight, to strive, and to explore — and also to inseminate a woman and tie himself down to home and family. Of course, without that latter effect the race would die out. But it is nevertheless the case that men are pulled in two directions, just by being men: towards heaven and towards earth. To borrow some terms from Evola again, they have within themselves both uranic and chthonic tendencies. Modern biologists have a way of dealing with this: they insist that all of life is nothing but competition for resources and reproduction. Thus, all of men’s uranic striving, all of their quest for the ideal, all of their adventures and accomplishments, are nothing more than ways in which they make themselves more attractive to females. This is sheer nonsense: nothing but the mindset of modern, middle-class, hen-pecked professors projected onto all of nature.
The truth is that men strive to realize the ideal of masculinity in ways that not only have nothing to do with the furtherance of the species, but are often positively inimical to it. Perhaps the best and most extreme example of masculine toughness one could give is the willingness of the samurai to disembowel themselves over questions of honor. Men strive for ideals, often at the expense of life. Masculinity has a dimension that can best be described as supernatural — as above nature. Women are far more tied to nature than men are, and this (and not sexist oppression) is the real reason why it is almost exclusively men who have been philosophers, priests, mystics, scientists, and artists. It is woman’s job to pull man back to earth and perpetuate life.
One way to look at androphilia is that it is not just the masculine come to consciousness of itself, but the masculine ridding itself of the “natural.” This “natural” side of the man is not without value (again, without it we would go extinct), but it has almost nothing to do with what makes men great. The androphile is free to cultivate the truly masculine aspects of the male soul, because he is free of the pull of the feminine and of the natural. This has to have something to do with why it is that so many great philosophers, artists, writers, mystics, and others, have tended to be androphiles. In 1913, D. H. Lawrence wrote the following to a correspondent: “I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not: so that he loves the body of a man better than the body of a woman — as I believe the Greeks did, sculptors and all, by far. . . . He can always get satisfaction from a man, but it is the hardest thing in life to get one’s soul and body satisfied from a woman, so that one is free for oneself. And one is kept by all tradition and instinct from loving a man.”
The androphile, again, is masculinity brought to consciousness of itself — and in him, it would seem, much else is brought to consciousness as well. For what else are science, philosophy, religion, art, and poetry but the world brought to consciousness of itself? These things — which are almost exclusively the products of men — are what set us apart and make us unique as a species. Human beings (again, almost exclusively men), unlike all other species, are capable of reflecting upon and understanding the world. We do this in scientific and philosophical theories, but also in fiction, poetry, and painting. Some of us, of course, are more capable of this than others — capable of achieving this reflective stance towards existence itself. And it would seem that of those men that are, some carry things even further and become fully aware of the masculine ideal that they themselves represent. And they fall in love with this. Sadly, androphile writers, artists, poets, etc., have often bought into the notion that their desire for other men makes them unmasculine and, like Oscar Wilde, have shoe-horned themselves into the role of the decadent, effeminate aesthete.
I think that when Donovan describes masculinity as a religion this is not just a desire to be provocative. I think he does experience his admiration for men as sacred. If this is the case, then it is natural for men who feel as he does to insist that such a feeling cannot be indecent or perverse. Further, it is natural for them to wonder why there are men such as themselves. What I have tried to do in the above reflections (which go beyond what Donovan says in his book) is to develop a theory of the “cosmic role,” if you will, of the masculine itself, and of the androphile. I believe Donovan is thinking along the same lines I am, though he might not express things the same way. He writes at one point:
Masculinity is a religion, and I see potential for androphiles to become its priests — to devote themselves to it and to the gods of men as clergymen devote their lives to the supernatural. What other man can both embody the spirit of manhood and revere it with such perfect devotion? This may sound far-fetched, but is it? If so, then why? Forget about gay culture and everything you associate with male homosexuality. Strip it down to its raw essence — a man’s sexual desire for men — and reimagine the destiny of that man. Reimagine what this desire focused on masculinity could mean, what it could inspire, and who the men who experience it could become. (p. 116)
There is much else in Androphilia that is well-worth discussing, though a review cannot cover everything. Particularly worthy of attention is Donovan’s discussion of masculinity in terms of what he calls physical masculinity, essential masculinity, and cultural masculinity. Then there is Donovan’s discussion of masculine “values.” These really should be called “virtues” (especially given the etymology of this word — mentioned earlier — Donovan his missed a bit of an opportunity here!). The language of “values” is very modern. What he really has in mind is virtues in the Aristotelian sense of excellences of the man. Donovan lists such qualities as self-reliance, independence, personal responsibility, achievement, integrity, etc. He starts to sound a bit like Ayn Rand in this part of the book, but it’s hard to quarrel with his message. The book ends with a perceptive discussion of “gay marriage,” which Donovan opposes, seeing it as yet another way in which gays are aping straight relationships, yearning narcissistically for society’s “approval.”
This is really a superb book, which all men can profit from, not just androphiles. If one happens to be an androphile, however, one will find this is a liberating and revolutionary work.
21 comments
Hi Guys,
Great article, fantastic book.
I live in South Africa and would like to start an Androphilia study group. Any ideas or links you can send me?
Can you perhaps tell me if I can order the book from the States – I have never seen it over here, neither could I find it in any decent bookshop for 3 years now.
Are there any newsletters I can sign up for to get to know more about the new right movement and similar groups?
Thank you for your time,
Kristof van Staden
Judging by Amazon.com, Androphilia seems to be out of print. But it is for sale from the publisher, Scapegoat Publishing:
http://www.scapegoatpublishing.com/blog/our-catalog/androphilia-by-jack-malebranche/
Here is Jack Donovan’s website: http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/
He is also on Facebook.
As for learning about the North American New Right, you can sign up for feeds, but maybe the best thing is just to make Counter-Currents your home page.
Imagine two young men, say college buddies, that encounter a beautiful young woman. One makes a comment, a crude comment, about how attractive she is. The other replies “that’s my sister.” Generally, I would think, the friendship would continue. The brother of the girl will accept the fact the his friend has this response to his sister, and, for his part, the friend will keep these thoughts to himself.
Now imagine a similar situation in which it turns out that the girl is the sister of the one who made the comment. I would think, in this situation, that the friendship would be in some jeopardy. You are just not supposed to have a sexual response to your sister. I don’t care how “hot” she is. The same goes for men. It is one thing to admire the virtues of body and soul in other men. Indeed it is good to do so, since this admiration is the first step to emulation. It is quite another thing to respond sexually to them. You are just not supposed to have a sexual response to them. To do so violates an important social taboo. This, I submit, is the reason why straight men have trouble dealing with homosexuals. Though most may not be able to put into words, they have trouble dealing with a man who has failed to internalize this. Such a one is beyond the pale, an alien. It makes one wonder which other taboos he hasn’t gotten.
The author is, admirably, I think, opposed to the tendency of many homosexuals to define themselves by this peculiarity of desire. But to make it the basis of a religion? Really? Now let’s see, a minority cult of socially alien, though talented and high-achieving individuals, who are likely to be highly over-represented in positions of power and authority. A group, furthermore, whose interests would be, almost by definition, very different from that of the society in which they live, particularly regarding future generations. What does this remind me of?
“You are just not supposed to have a sexual response to” other men.
Who wrote that rule? And if you throw the Bible at us, I would remind you that its provenance is seriously in dispute. Just like it’s hero.
I suppose the same people who wrote the rule about not having a sexual response to you mother and sister. It’s more of a taboo than a written rule. Seems to make sense too since the sexual organs exist for the sake of reproduction, using them in a way that rules this out, is pretty clearly a malfunction.
“Seems to make sense too since the sexual organs exist for the sake of reproduction, using them in a way that rules this out, is pretty clearly a malfunction.”
So would you say that the initiatic sexual rituals (for the purpose of transcendence) of Aryan civilizations are examples of a malfunction?
If sex is merely to be used for reproduction, whats makes us as humans any higher than the mere animal in this regard?
It is odd that the function argument is often advanced by celibate Catholic clergy, who thereby convict themselves of perversion.
Can you elaborate on these rituals? Are you talking about Tantrism or something less “foreign”?
Oh really? How so? There is nothing perverse about not wanting to start one’s own family, especially if one is going to be living a life that would make it difficult or impossible to care for that family. Then you simply don’t use the sexual power. At all. You don’t then go use it for something else.
We might say that the priest undergoes the initiatic rite of ordination in which he transcends his natural self, renouncing this power, to take on higher ones.
The ritual/practice that uses sex as the means to reintegrate into the primordial state.
Yes, Tantrism can be used as an example.
I don’t know anything about Aryan initiatic sexual rituals (I suspect the respondent doesn’t either). It makes sense sometimes to over-ride one’s “normal” responses. A good example would be our response to dangerous, or life-threatening, situations. As an organism one would naturally be inclined to avoid them. As a member of society, one must sometimes risk one’s life for the group. In case of the sexual response, same sex attraction not only doesn’t make sense on the level of the functioning of the organism, it is also clearly not advantageous to the group. A response of admiration to male beauty and virtue, yes. A sexual response, no. You can, after all, think something is beautiful and wonderful without wanting to fuck it.
Sex is not “merely” for reproduction, any more than food is “merely” for nutrition or buildings are “merely” for shelter. But if you are inclined to eat things that can’t nourish, and live in places that can’t provide shelter, you are not going to do too well.
Richard (do you prefer Richard or the more formal Mr. Ricardo, just asking for matters of politeness),
Thanks for making the point on the function for sex more clear.
Obviously I am not trying to dismiss the reproductive function of sex….vital for the continuation of the species. I am just of the view that that does not represent a higher function of sex. It is valid and necessary, but still on the lower rung of the hierarchy of functions related to sex, along with hedonistic pleasure.
As for the topic (homosexuality) of this particular article, it can also be related to the point of transcendence. If it is necessary for the union of the absolute male and female embodied in the respective participants to be in place in order for the reintegration of the primordial state to occur, then under this light, homosexuality is an aberration, since it disrupts what can be called the magnetic polarity of the sexes.
Evola was mentioned a number of times in this article, and his words on the matters of sex are quite interesting. If one is not engaging in the sexual act for the purposes of transcendence, or for the purpose of reproduction (something that he believed the higher differentiated man should not concern himself with in the dark age), you shouldn’t engage in it at all. Obviously then, men should not have sex with other men since the act would just be serving the base desires of the participants (according to this view).
Therefore walking on your hands is a malfunction?
Androphilia is currently out-of-print, unfortunately. This review is excellent, and it touches upon the very reasons I pursued Jack to publish this book. It DOES have implications for hetero man, as I think many of the arguments he makes could be published in a book without any reference to homosexuality. The victim cult is the enemy, the feminist/leftist collusion of all these “rights” movements, the fact that “gay rights” is just another mask for the liberal egalitarian worldview. Women aren’t important to feminism, homosexuals aren’t important to the “GBLT” movement.
Scapegoat Publishing is preparing an ebook edition of Androphilia to be released until the new print edition is out. Both will contain a new essay. The publishing has regrettably been on a hiatus for a bit, for various reasons. The book has been, and should be – once back in print – available at major booksellers. It was banned by a few notable gay bookstores.
Androphilia is indeed a great book, and this is also a great review! It’s sort of like the one I should have done years ago but never got around to. Kudos!
If I may, I’d like to add a couple points of relevance to White racial consciousness.
1. I was first introduced to similar ideas, but explicitly in the context of the British New Right, by the late Alisdair Clarke. He particularly developed the notion, from Evola, of the origin of Aryan culture in the primeval Mannerbund, and diagnosed the “co-opting” of homosexuality, post-Stonewall, into the phony “gay” identity, with all the culture-subverting results you and Malebranche detail. His blog, Aryan Futurism, is still up.
2. Speaking of which, I have developed on my own blog some of the contemporary racial implications of this analysis. Contrary to the traditional Christian right, and the Judaic neo-cons, civilization is not a function of “family values” but of what we might as well call homoeroticism. (This is why the Jews have never had a culture or civilization of their own.) Since the White race is the most culturally advanced, it bears all the traces of this (think Athens or Florence).
Therefore homosexuality and White culture can, in a sense, be equated; their enemies are the same, and those enemies are happy to return the favor: White equals cultured, cultured equals “gay.”
What then happens when a White culture is infected with the Judaic virus of homophobia?
The answer is all around us in the “modern” or “post-modern” world. Any assertion of White achievement is denigrated as “gay” or “homo.” (Think of the way even “liberal” reviewers sneered at 300, Beowulf, or even Fight Club]. Meanwhile, the polar opposite of the White, the culture-deficient Negro, is glorified as the epitome of “manliness.”
Thanks to Judaism (and the atavistically Judaic Christianity known as “good ol’ American religion”) our White youth emulate “gangstas” while shunning literacy, politeness, scholarship, cleanliness, etc. as “gay.”
I explore these issues in an essay entitled “Homos vs. Negros” which is slated to appear in the first issue of Kai Murros’ new European Right magazine, LeJournal.
Great comments. Could you tell me when and where I can find your article in LeJournal? Thanks!
You doom yourselves as a movement by affirming the “ Androphilia” idea of homosexuality, and by not centering on traditional man/woman families, with reproduction and upward evolution. Who needs infiltrating enemies with this sort of decadence in the leaders? Count me out now in any case. What a shame, with you being potential intellectuals of a movement to save the West.
Ken,
“Heteronormativity”–the idea that the heterosexual family is the social norm–is the cornerstone of any society with a future. Thus it is a cornerstone of every movement for racial survival and enhancement. But I don’t think that Jack Donovan would deny that either. That said, it is an important function of Counter-Currents/North American New Right , in fostering an intellectual movement, to keep an eye out for individuals, forces, and trends that might split the left-wing coalition, and Jack Donovan has identified and widened a major fault line in the “gay community” and the alliance of organized homosexuals with the diversity coalition, which is the chief engine of white dispossession. The same is true of feminists like Camille Paglia, whose work we will also follow.
So forgive me for being blunt, but your reaction seems awfully silly. First, this is not a political party or a church. A book review thus should not be interpreted as a statement of a party line or a theological truth. Moreover, since we are not a political party, you do not have to engage in any political posturing to any real or imagined crowd. You don’t have to agree with everything you read here, and it would be nutty to infer as much, especially since we encourage debate on important issues. As a rule, though, we prefer dissent to take the form or well reasoned articles or posts that end with something more than a declaration that you are “outta here.” Actually, I hope that you are back here reading this.
Greg
Richard, people can’t help it if they “want” to pork somebody or other. That’s not the point. The point is showing self-restraint if you do want to. It means saying no to yourself and your improper urges. A quality that is seemingly not much exercised these days.
Yes, I understand that people don’t choose their desires. But isn’t the first step to restraining improper urges recognizing them as improper? The line of reasoning being presented as “androphilia” seems to me precisely aimed at denying that there is essentially anything wrong with these urges. It seems to me that a man who has a sexual response to other men, whatever other virtues he possesses, has a problem to contend with. If he sees it this way he may be able to. If, on the other hand, he sees it as a sign of greatness, why would he restrain it? In fact, wouldn’t he resent any suggestion that he do so?
I was responding to a line of reasoning in the review that made it seem that this sexual response to other men was simply an extension of the ability to appreciate beauty (of soul and body) in another man. I don’t think it is, I think is rather a perversion of this appreciation. The more proper response would be emulation, to want to possess it in yourself, not in another person.
Gay and straight men should find it easier to bond because there is no competition for the same mate, and no concern about spouse-stealing. Also, without the commonality in desired mates, discussions are/can be, in my opinion, more meaningful rather than more for the locker room.
Gay men living productive lives won’t have any negative impact on straights impregnating women and having lots of children. Put a system of government-provided child benefits in place, and part of the taxes that gays pay will go right to straight households with children.
I don’t think gays have any advantage on the IQ front (i.e. same distribution as straights I would think), so I am not convinced that the advantage of having more time/disposable income will be of much benefit as compared to a highly ambitious couple.
Women can rock too; they aren’t all bundles of illogical contradictory nonsensical melodrama (some gay men fit this category though!). A good women can push a guy quite far, and help him achieve heights that he may have had difficulty achieving alone.
Great review and debate. Ricardo, LightofApollo, and Greg Johnson especially bring up good points. I would like to read this Androphilia before offering my opinions. This isn’t something we should shun interest in for fear of appearing homosexual (or spend too much time dwelling on it when there are many other important topics that need to be brought to the forefront). I definitely don’t agree with everything I have heard from the interviews with Jack Donovan and in this review, but I will say, overall it appears to be a great contribution.
Greg Palino/Paulson
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