The Glory Days of “Guy Nation”

What is Guy Nation? To be clear, Guy Nation does not necessarily subscribe to any political affiliation, nor is it contained within any particular socio-economic boundary. It includes guys of all ages, races, incomes, creeds, and pick-up lines.

Guy Nation rests on the firm foundation of three all-important precepts:

1) Guys should stay as immature as possible for as long as possible (also known as the Peter Pan Precept).

2) Guys must avoid responsibility wherever and whenever possible.

All of these precepts have been in play ever since guys ventured out of their caves to kill animals with sticks and called it dinner. Yet widespread acceptance has been hard to come by. Until recently, that is. Finally, after centuries—even millennia—of dreams and struggles, Guy Nation began to become a reality in the 1950s. Guy Reality!

Through effective advertising, legal precedents, and the sheer, pajama-powered force of Hugh Hefner's aloof coolness, guys convinced women that becoming primarily sexual objects was a good and healthy thing. Mr. Hefner (“May his name be praised!” exclaims Guy Nation) had women lining up for the privilege of being viewed as bodies detached from personality, intellect, and soul—all for the pleasure of guys! (And for the aggrandizement of his personal fortune, but far be it for Guys to hold it against him.)

But all of this lusting after carefully produced and airbrushed images was just the first step toward Guy Nation. The girlie magazine dream needed to somehow become reality. Fortunately for the budding Guy Nation, there was a crack team of Guy Scientists working on the solution during the 1950s, including Drs. Gregory Pincus, Min Chueh Chang, John Rock, and Carl Djerassi (“May their collective names be praised!” shouts Guy Nation). Through their diligence and persistence—even in the face of strong evidence that the chemicals they used might be harmful to women—they gave the world The Pill, the first oral contraceptive. At last, at last, guys could have all the sexual carousing and pleasure they wanted without having to be bothered with stuff like marriage, commitment, relationships, pregnancies, and pesky little ones.

It was, however, going to be a tough sell in some quarters. Guys of the Nation had to convince women that sexual intercourse was nothing much—just another form of pleasurable entertainment that didn’t need to be complicated with that other stuff. In other words, they had to appreciate that the “reproductive system” should really be called the “entertainment system”. Guy Nation, of course, was up to the challenge! And holding true to Precepts #2 and #3, guys even convinced women that it was their responsibility to make sure they took The Pill every day so guys could enjoy as much sexual pleasure as possible. Needless to say, it was a total win-win for guys. This was surely the impetus for the invention of the Guy Nation salute, the high-five, which would later devolve into fist pumps, forearm bumps, chest bumps, fist bumps and all manner of whoops and grunts—but I digress.

Guy Nation was taking shape beautifully. Only a couple more hurdles were left to clear until guys would reach “Guy-vana” and the total fulfillment of the Sacred Precepts, especially the freedom from all commitment (getting married) and suffering (staying married). Guys had succeeded in getting women to give up their dignity and to start following their needs and desires (many of them acting more like guys than most guys do), but there were still some legal entanglements women could use against guys.

Yes, I’ve already mentioned it several times: marriage.

If only marriage wasn’t so, well, permanent. Sure, some guys could convince the more hesitant women out there to give in to Guy Needs by agreeing to be married. But, frankly, it caused all sorts of problems, especially since marriage involves a long-term commitment that is so limiting and restricting for men of Guy Nation. If only marriages would last for, say, three or four years—that would be perfect. Most guys could put up with a wife for a few years, or a couple of months, whichever came first.

Believe it or not, Russian guys were ahead of the Americans on this one. The early Communists made the important discovery that marriage was, in the end, just a contractual agreement on paper and not a lifelong covenant and commitment. Of course, the Russian Guys were also trying to follow the Communist way of life, and it turned out that love and marriage could get in the way of a total, all-consuming commitment to the State.

It turns out, in fact, that the State could be very helpful in building up and encouraging Guy Nation! For instance, the United States began approving “no-fault divorce”. The movement started in California with a bill signed by Governor Ronald Reagan (“May his name be forever remembered!” salute the men of Guy Nation) in 1969 and quickly spread throughout the land. The thinking was that such divorces would make it easier for women to leave their husbands. Yes! (Fist pump!) Many guys had objectified and de-humanized their wives so much that it took little convincing at all to get them to believe this was the best solution for themselves, their children, and, of course, for society at large.

It soon became apparent that the ultimate goals of the Guy Quest were within reach. Women were behaving more and more like men, marriages no longer tied guys down to just one woman, and sexual pleasure was quickly becoming an important part of the American Dream. The only glitch was that too many women were still not playing by the Guy Nation rules. They weren’t remembering to take The Pill (or even refused to do so, those religious zealots!) and were actually getting pregnant. This fact presented the most difficult challenge of all. To accept the presence of the child—responsibility! restriction! commitment!—would be the most egregious breach of Precept #2. This kind of relationship could actually go on and on for years, maybe even the rest of a guy’s life. Something had to be done.

Abortion was the logical response to this affront to Guy Freedom. But convincing women to get an abortion was still tricky. Abortion at the time was illegal, a delicate matter for many and sometimes a dangerous proposition. If only guys could think of a way to not only make it legal, but to present it as a logical and desirable option.

Guys also knew it would be challenging to convince a woman that what was inside her womb was not really an unborn child possessing real life. The men of Guy Nation needed to get women to question something they intuitively knew to be true. This required a clever and delicate use of rhetoric because the best way to get people to believe in a, um, reality-challenged proposition is to make it sound agreeable and truthful—and to then repeat it again and again and again. 

The first strategic move was labeling the embryo as “a bunch of tissue, sort of like a wart or a tumor.” Cutting the offending tissue out of the uterus was presented as no more involved than having a tooth pulled or clipping one’s fingernails. The next step was getting rid of the term “embryo”, which still sounded too human. No, this was nothing more than a fertilized egg. Even if it didn’t make any sense since a fertilized egg is no longer just an egg, it became a winning obfuscation. It wasn't taking a life, but was simply removing a “fertilized egg.” And if the “fertilized egg” was several months along in development, it was then a “fetus”, a handy and non-human sounding term.

Even while some people were questioning this language, there was a timely, tectonic shift in this calculated movement. Women actually began coming to the aid of Guy Nation. Imagine! Not just any group of women but a group calling themselves “feminists” who were fighting for equal rights with men. And they were ferocious warriors. Through their militancy, they embraced the Sacred Precepts in a way that most women had previously refused. If guys saw women as nothing more than an object of lust, these enlightened women gloried in it. If sexual intercourse was to be seen as just a casual entertainment, they embraced the idea wholeheartedly. And if responsibility for new life was to be avoided at all costs, they accepted the cost and proclaimed that it was “empowering”. They even developed the catchy and vaguely agreeable catch phrases such as “pro-choice”, “reproductive rights”, and “women’s health issues.”

And so, in short order, public opinion began to shift toward what Guy Nation had held all along. Miraculously, women were submitting to the very precepts that had motivated Guys of the Nation from the dawn of time. Even better, the feminists were raising their daughters and sons to believe in the precepts as well! Second and third generations of true believers now hold these truths to be self-evident, making guy’s work ever so much easier. All the defending of the Sacred Precepts, all the sneaky conniving, all the lies, it’s all being done for the occupants of Guy Nation! All the pleasure without the work—what could be better than that?

Yes, indeed, these are the golden days of Guydom. So, men of Guy Nation—sit back in your recliner, pop open another cold one, play some “Halo 4”, watch a mindless movie about dumb men sleeping with hot women, and relax. The girls are in charge now, and they’re doing a bang-up job. This time’s for you! Guy-vana has been achieved! 

“Mmm, mmm, mmm. Mmm, mmm!”