Wrong priorities
Depression is a common condition among aging men and women. While, as a man, I have an easier time writing from a male perspective, I assume that the causes of depression are largely the same for women as they are for men.
Most depressed men are depressed for a good reason. Deep inside, they know that what they are lacking is a satisfying love life, or, in more direct terms, good sex. Better sex.
There are possibly many advantages to lifelong monogamous relationships: they are good for raising children, they are likely economically sound, and in a dangerous world, they can be protective capsules. But one thing they cannot do. They cannot provide a satisfying love life. Not for an extended period of time.
I realize that a good number of my readers are in longtime monogamous relationships, and I do not want to offend those who respect my writing; not individually, anyway. But I do believe that deep inside, every person wants to be free. And this means: free to have many sexual relationships.
I am not against longtime relationships. I have them, too. More than one, though this is sometimes difficult to manage in a world where American standards of sexual morality encroach upon every part of the world. It is possible only if one maintains a certain level of secretiveness and mobility.
For successful Asian men, the importation of US moral standards can feel like virtual castration. For men in many Asian cultures, having parallel sexual relationships is a behavioral pattern to ease the unnatural restraints of monogamy. And Asian wives fear that by Americanized rules, they would have to separate from husbands who have parallel sexual relationships but nevertheless are good providers, family men, and fathers, thus ending up at a disadvantage anyway.
American culture teaches women that it will break their hearts if their men have sex with other women. Asian women also like men for who they are and do not want to share them with other women. But Asian women are more willing to compromise. There are many other things one can get out of men, not just faked faithfulness.
I am not ethnically Asian. Ethnically, I am a Westerner. But I have lived in Asia most of my adult life, and Asia is my home. Because I know both cultures equally well, I know what is wrong in the West, especially America, and what is right in Asia. For example: the awareness that women, even though they, too, have a natural non-monogamous impulse, have an easier time adapting to monogamy than men do.
Mating strategies of men and women have been shaped through evolution and, in principle, by reproductive success. And reproductive success has formed the male and female sexual frame of mind.
No, we do not carry our genes to reproduce ourselves; rather, our genes have designed us to reproduce themselves. This includes mating strategies. They are the genes' choice, not ours.
Archetypal male mating strategies emphasize the aim to fertilize as many females as possible. By contrast, archetypal female mating strategies emphasize the aim to provide the best conditions for a much smaller number of offspring (which includes, for their sons, the best possible conditions to fertilize as many females as possible).
But we have to be aware of what the mating strategies of our genes are, and what humans who have reached sufficient self-cognition rightfully consider a sensible mating strategy.
Our genes only use our sexual desires as an instrument for their self-replication. But once we have achieved enough self-cognition, we will be aware of the fact that for each of us individually, the self-replication of our genes does not provide a sensible meaning for life. At that stage, the sexual desires themselves, and their fulfillment, separate themselves from their original purpose, which has been replication. And at that stage, when reproductive success is no longer the purpose of mating strategies, but to optimize the pleasure of sexual conduct, the difference between male and female mating strategies diminishes. This is why I can rightfully postulate that optimal sexual experience is the only philosophically valid meaning of life for both men and women.
The cultural imperative of monogamy, often supported by feminist movements advocating for gender equality and emotional commitment, is not only aimed at men; it also affects younger, more attractive women. The idea that older or less attractive women use this ideology to eliminate competition is a misinterpretation of feminist theory, which focuses on gender equality rather than sexual market competition.
In a society that considers "one at a time" as the ultimate standard of honesty, both men and women are restricted when it comes to opportunities to enjoy success by redeeming it in biological currency (attractive sexual partners). A clear choice is presented to them: (1) either suppress your basic desire to have a variety of sexual contacts and keep your permanent partner (and social status), or (2) give way to your sexual inclinations and lose it all (family, social standing, career).
I cannot be blackmailed this way. I do not have to live in a society of such rules.
With most of my articles, I have addressed a primarily male audience. Even though I have started to edit my work to address more of a female audience, too, the tilt remains. Thus, while in the following paragraphs of this article, men are the addressed audience, many of the assessments also apply to women.
Western men who are in mid-life and depressed usually started out with the wrong priorities. Their priority for many years has been to advance their professional careers, or to run a business and to accumulate wealth. And because all of this requires a high level of social conformity, they have maneuvered their private lives into a cage, albeit a golden one. When you pursue a political career, you cannot be a womanizer, or a bigamist. You cannot even visit a prostitute, or watch pornography.
(1946-)
Social climbing? The only currency in which we can realistically measure male success, according to this view, is the number of sexual partners and the satisfaction derived from them.
The dialectical nature of human biology (and sexuality) traditionally measures female success with a different stick: her ability to attract and retain an alpha male, or if that is not possible, a beta male. However, for truly liberated women, it is not her capability to bind a male, but the degree to which she achieves optimal sexual experience that determines her individual success.
Eastern societies, throughout history, have often been more pragmatic in that a successful man could have as many wives or concubines as he could afford, while in Western (basically European) society, there has been a clear imperative for monogamous relationships for some 1500 years of Christianity.
And that is the model that sets modern moral standards.
In such a world, men have to make awkward choices. Social climbing, on certain routes, results in fewer, not more rewards. Just look at the politicians of the Western, democratic world. Who, in his right mind, wants to be the president of a Western European country? Or a television personality? Or, for that matter, in any position which is subject to constant public scrutiny?
My biological parameters, philosophically emphasized, are that I strive to have optimal sexual experience with a considerable number of different partners. For the self-conscious individual of our species, all metaphysical projections beyond one's lifetime are plain nonsense. The only thing that counts is sexual satisfaction, and after that, a gentle death.
If, in the modern Western world, you place the need for optimal sexual experience behind your career, and behind your business, and behind accumulating riches, you stand a good chance of missing out on what really counts.
Being rich, of course, can come in handy, if you know how to exchange riches for sexual satisfaction. And no, I do not mean frequenting nightlife establishments. They will exchange your riches all right, but not for a satisfying love life. What you will get from them is just some outrageously overpriced champagne (or orange juice), and sex that is probably worse than masturbation.
I have been totally focused all my life on successful mating, and I am aware of the fact that my love life is better than what 99 percent of all men experience. I do not frequent prostitutes, but for many years have had at least one new love affair each month.
In my younger years, I primarily had to concern myself with supply issues: how to have at least one new sexual relationship per fortnight. I solved this problem when I moved to Asia, and I believe that many men, whether young or advanced in age, could learn from my experience.
I am now well beyond 50, and over the past decade, I have increasingly faced restrictions to my love life that had nothing to do with supply problems, but with nature throwing other handicaps at me.
There is no question that at my age, one's physical and mental ability to experience full sexual satisfaction tends to decline. This has never been acceptable to me, and throughout years of experimenting, I have found ways to counteract this tendency. I can proudly announce that my physical capabilities of lovemaking are as good, or better, than they were 20 years ago.
I am a writer by profession. But even more so, I am a writer by obsession. I write to drain my brain of the sentences that constantly form themselves, all by themselves. Thinking, for me, is formulating sentences. And to type them into a keyboard is my preferred method for making room for new sentences.
I am German by birth, and German is my native language. I was a journalist for newspapers and magazines, and I wrote a few books, all in German (under various aliases, as I am not interested in being personally known).
But I have been using English as my main tool of communication for more than 20 years, and I like the idea of writing for a worldwide audience. I cannot afford a copy editor, so I apologize for errors of grammar and word choice.
On the other hand, I am confident that I do get my message across. It is a message of better sex, or, if you wish, of more satisfying sexual love.