Male despair and mail-order brides

Catty sent me a link to this article that appeared in Harper's last month, and that I understand has already been widely discussed on the 'net: A Foreign Affair: On the Great Ukrainian Bride Hunt.  The author, Kristoffer Garin, spent a few weeks in the Ukraine with a number of American men eager to meet and marry the beautiful, traditional, submissive, much younger woman of their fantasies.

I've read this sort of piece before, and I've learned I have to be careful to watch my own emotional reaction.  Reading about the men (Garin is a compelling writer with a knack for succinct characterization), I oscillate between anger, contempt, and compassion.   I've thought hard about what it is that makes me so angry about these men in particular, and I've decided that it's the colossal sense of entitlement.  Over and over again, the men Garin interviews claim that American women aren't giving American men what is their birthright: submissive, pleasing, beautiful, infinitely understanding companionship.   In the Ukraine, a nation whose economy has forced countless young women into one form or another of prostitution, these men hope and expect to have the "natural order" of human relationships restored.  The Ukraine, in the fervid fantasies of the middle-aged and the socially inept, represents an idyllic pre-feminist culture where women "still know their place".  In a sense, traveling to Eastern Europe (or Southeast Asia, or South America, or wherever) is, in the hopes of these sad characters, an opportunity to live out their boyhood fantasies of time-travel.

My language is harsher than normal, because these men infuriate me.   For example, when Garin nearly blows his cover by questioning the men about their decisions, he gets this response:

“You’re bringing all your value premises and laying them over relationships,” the New Englander objected. “You’re thinking about how you view it as, not what she’s looking for.” He became angry. “Have you been married and divorced before?” he continued, apoplectic now, forcefully jabbing his finger in my direction to punctuate each thought. “No? So you know nothing."

Garin may not have been divorced, but I have.  Three times.   Three times I've started over, more or less from scratch.  Three times between 1992-2002 I found myself buying a basic set of pots and pans, a few pieces of furniture, a television.  Once, I calculated the total losses from my divorces (based on real estate prices and so-called "lost opportunity costs"); the sum comes to around half a million dollars.  No, I never had human children.  But in each of my three previous marriages, there were beloved dogs, and each time, my ex-wives kept them.  (There was never, ever, litigation -- it just always seemed to make sense in the particular situations for these women to hold on to the pets.)  So, I've got at least some sense of what it is to go through a divorce.

In March 2005, I wrote about marriage, divorce, and taking responsibility.  I wrote then:

When faced with the end of a marriage, one has a choice.  One can get bogged down in blame and bitterness, or one can honestly face up to one's own myriad mistakes and shortcomings.  One can point fingers, or one can take responsibility.  Too often, on the subject of women and divorce, I see the men's rights advocates trapped in that blame and bitterness.  Too infrequently, I see self-criticism and a willingness to transform.  When I became convinced that it was I who was the architect of my own adversity, and not my wives, I took the first key step towards healing and growing up.

If that sounds condescending, I'm sorry.  But three divorces have earned me the right to speak on this subject.

And what makes me angry about the men visiting the Ukraine is that they are failing to do what I -- and many other decent, thoughtful men I know -- have done, and that is take their fair share of responsibility for their divorces.  That doesn't mean denying that one's ex-wives have a share of the blame as well; it does mean refusing to play the childish but seductive role of the misused and abused victim of an angry, selfish harridan. 

And yet, as exasperated as I get with the crude sense of entitlement I see in these men, as infuriated as I am by their misplaced rage at American women, as maddened as I am by their refusal to take responsibility for their past relationship failures and divorces, I also feel a genuine compassion for them as well.  Their loneliness is real and profound, and though they may not recognize that their wounds are largely self-inflicted, their pain is genuine and acute.  Garin describes the men following their first big "social" in the Ukraine:

By the time the social ended at 10:00 P.M., many of the men were positively radiant—the attention had transformed them, if only temporarily. The happy ones were positively brimming.

It's odd -- as I read those two sentences, I felt the pinpricks that signal the beginning of tears.  I've known what it's like to feel inept, unwanted, and, as Morrissey sang in my youth, "sixteen, clumsy, and shy."  I've also known the euphoria that comes when suddenly, perhaps for the first time, someone to whom you are deeply attracted pays you real and sincere attention.  After years and years of secretly believing that you are undesirable and unloveable, to realize that you are wanted is intoxicating and transforming.   Just for a moment, reading the Harper's piece, my heart ached for these sad and lonely men.  Beneath their misogyny, their rigid traditionalism, their anger, their misplaced sense of entitlement, beneath all of their crap lie  vulnerable and hurting hearts of boys who never got to feel like the handsome prince.  Without excusing their actions, I can genuinely empathize with that sadness, that woundedness, and that desperation.

Comments

[Quentin]

I oscillate between anger, contempt, and compassion. I've thought hard about what it is that makes me so angry about these men in particular, and I've decided that it's the colossal sense of entitlement. Over and over again, the men Garin interviews claim that American women aren't giving American men what is their birthright: submissive, pleasing, beautiful, infinitely understanding companionship. In the Ukraine, a nation whose economy has forced countless young women into one form or another of prostitution, these men hope and expect to have the "natural order" of human relationships restored. The Ukraine, in the fervid fantasies of the middle-aged and the socially inept, represents an idyllic pre-feminist culture where women "still know their place". In a sense, traveling to Eastern Europe (or Southeast Asia, or South America, or wherever) is, in the hopes of these sad characters, an opportunity to live out their boyhood fantasies of time-travel.

You need to take the log out of your eye before you start pointing out the specks in your brothers' eyes. You claim that MRAs are trapped in "blame and bitterness," as you put it, yet you yourself are trapped in blame and bitterness directed at men. You like to phrase things in terms of "privilege" and "entitlement"; those are classical liberal code words at whose utterance or writing those who disagree with you are expected to hang their heads low in shame and be silent.

Your three failed marriages (and your current fourth marriage, also doomed to crash in the miserable flames of failure) do not give you any right to lecture men about marriage and their own pursuit of happiness in life. You refuse to admit that women in Western--and, in particular, North American--culture have any problems or shortcomings whatsoever.

You have, by your own words, failed miserably in marriage. Much more shamefully, you are willing to beat your breast publicly, wailing and gnashing your teeth in a bizarre and rather sickening form of public narcissism. However, those repeated failures and self-indulgent postings here give you no special ability berate other men or to project your own shortcomings and feelings of inadequacy upon them.

Your public claims are like the prayer of the proud man in Jesus' parable of the proud man and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). I quote here part of the proud man's prayer from the New International Version, at which the proud man:

stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

According to Jesus, that man did not go home justified. You are that man.

You are not following Jesus, not at all. Instead of following Jesus' simple and eloquent commandments, you are elevating extremist feminist dogma above the teaching of the one you claim to be your Lord and Savior. Actions speak louder than words. Your actions roar like lions, deafening the mouselike squeaks of your words in these matters.

[Hugo]

Quentin, I'll let the rest of your vaguely eloquent screed slide, but the proud man in the Scripture admitted no fault. If I am guilty of anything,it is of exaggerating the depths of my own failings. (I sometimes am guilty of thinking of myself to be like Paul, the "chief of sinners" by his own account.

I am very much like other men -- just touched by grace.

[The Happy Feminist]

Hugo, I think don't think these men's loneliness "underlies" their misogyny. I think that their loneliness combined with their sense of entitlement causes their misogyny. They feel entitled to female companionship (on their terms of course) that they are not getting and this causes them to hate women.

Quentin, your statement that Hugo's marriage is doomed to failure is so out of line that have completely lost all credibility.

[Hugo]

Happy, you may well be right -- male rage at women comes from a variety of sources: loneliness, disappointment, a frustrated sense of entitlement are just three.

Quentin's remarks about my current marriage are sadly typical of at least one strand of men's rights activists. (Some, to their credit, are capable of greater civility.) In Quentin's case, the phrase "hoisted by his own petard" comes to mind.

[Quentin]

Quentin, I'll let the rest of your vaguely eloquent screed slide,

Hah.

but the proud man in the Scripture admitted no fault. If I am guilty of anything,it is of exaggerating the depths of my own failings. (I sometimes am guilty of thinking of myself to be like Paul, the "chief of sinners" by his own account.

Your admissions of fault are mere public displays of your narcissistic, man-hating agenda. You use them to draw attention to yourself, exactly as the proud man in Jesus' parable did.

I am very much like other men -- just touched by grace.

There you go again, with the ridiculous superiority complex. Other men are not touched by grace? Give me a break.

[Quentin]

Quentin, your statement that Hugo's marriage is doomed to failure is so out of line that have completely lost all credibility.

I'm not overly concerned about your assessment of my credibility. Hugo's marriage is indeed doomed to failure. A leopard does not change its spots.

[Quentin]

Hugo, I think don't think these men's loneliness "underlies" their misogyny. I think that their loneliness combined with their sense of entitlement causes their misogyny. They feel entitled to female companionship (on their terms of course) that they are not getting and this causes them to hate women.

Of course, the old "men hate women" canard. Why do you hate men, 'Happy'?

[anonymouse girl]

I read things like this and it makes me angry.

I'm 50, female, and plain; in the dating world, those facts outweigh my qualities of intelligence, adventurousness, kindness, sensuality and serenity.

Many men in my age range, seem to feel entitled to a pretty young woman, no matter what they themselves look like, and no matter whether they have anything else in common.

I'd like to get married or at least have a life companion, but 10 years past my divorce I've accepted that it's probably not going to happen.

Feel sorry for those guys if you want. I don't. They can move on with their lives just like I have, and make friends to travel with, to go to cultural events or movies, camping...whatever I want to do, I have a friend or two who'll share the experience with me. And there's a little dog at home to greet me.

I don't have to buy a mail order spouse to somehow make my life OK. Neither do they.

[Vacula]

Ugh, before this thread gets taken over by trolls I thought I'd mention that a sort of imitation-documentary movie on this subject came out a few years ago titled "A Foreign Affair" in Britain and "2 Brothers & a Bride" in the U.S. The tone was similar to your article, in that it was horrified by the abuse and degredation it could enable but took a fairly sympathetic approach to the men and women who would resort to this. You might enjoy checking it out - Emily Mortimer plays the documentarian and she's great.

[Quentin]

Quentin's remarks about my current marriage are sadly typical of at least one strand of men's rights activists. Some, to their credit, are capable of greater civility.)

When one makes a career out of hating men, one does not inspire civility.

In Quentin's case, the phrase "hoisted by his own petard" comes to mind.

How amusing. Like a parrot, Hugo has seen a phrase on other blogs, so he repeats it here without a clue as to its meaning. How feminist of you!

BTW, what does your 'wife' think about your discussing the following topics publicly with the nubile 'Mermade'?

fantasy and masturbation

the sexuality of women's breasts

your supposed 'hotness' [barf]

And your toady 'Happyfeminist' wonders why I don't think your 'marriage' will last.

[The Gonzman]

They feel entitled to female companionship (on their terms of course) that they are not getting and this causes them to hate women.

And yet a great deal of what is termed "misogyny" is in not giving women male companionship on THEIR terms. And I say this because I only keep company with women who share "my terms" and understand fully where I stand on marriage and "forever love" and I'm still called a misogynist for it.

[Hugo]

Quentin has earned a ban. Future comments like his will be deleted, though I leave those he has posted to stand.

[Douglas, Friend of Osho]

Quentin, what makes you think all men with liberal/left views think divorce in the West is only men's fault? I'm more or the less the same Marxist I've been since adulthood and I happen to think the failure of my one marriage was a tango: you know, something it takes two to enact. And my last relationship ended with my ex more or less admitting I was a means to an end, not an end in myself (kind of like guys who'd stoop to getting mail-order brides). If Hugo is guilty of anything, it's not emphasizing sufficiently that he more or less speaks for himself; even then, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discern that. Sorry, Quentin, the claptrap you espouse is the connubial equivalent of terracentrism. With Christians like you, I don't know how the old Padre manages to keep his faith; this old Breaker lost his because of fellows like you.

[perplexed]

In a sense, traveling to Eastern Europe (or Southeast Asia, or South America, or wherever) is, in the hopes of these sad characters, an opportunity to live out their boyhood fantasies of time-travel.

I am well acquainted with Thailand - have been there 5 times - last time was for 5 months. I am going back there later this year for another 6 months. I see many couplings of western men and Thai women. I personally know of 3 married couples. One couple live in the UK, 2 out in Thailand - 5 years, 8 years and 12 years - that's how long each couple have been married. From my own subjective, firsthand experience, all marriages look very steady. I also have heard about Thai/Western marriages that fail utterly. When it comes to knowing a person for a few years, making sacrifices for them (time, effort, commitment on BOTH sides), you get to understand that these kinds of relationships require REAL dedication to make them work. These are real people who HAVE to get on together - just like any other couple. In fact, it's probably harder with the culture and language differences and one spouse inevitably having their family on the other side of the world. Hugo - you make international marriages (for that is what they are) sound very casual and sleazy. Even in terms of legal paperwork, they sound very difficult. It's not something to 'just try it and see'. On the otherhand, I do know it's incredibly easy for two western nationals to marry in the west - just go down to the local registry office, sign a few papers and you're done.

As for western men who choose to marry foreign women - they love their partner, their children, and their lifestyle just as much as men who choose women from their own country. In fact, some guys frankly have a wonderful life out in Thailand with their family. I look at them with some envy, not pity. Thailand has a much lower divorce rate than any western country - you could say western guys are just hedging their bets. To say the least Hugo, your post is incredibly condascending to these men who wouldn't even recognise that the strawmen you've described are supposed to be them.

I think you need to make a distinction between international marriages and sham marriages and not equate international marriages with being sham marriages.

[SamChevre]

Disclaimer: I have not read the article, and so may be commenting on something other than the kinds of "mail-order brides" it is talking about.

My observation is that, though both MRA's and feminists hate it, economic/social status is one factor in who is willing to marry whom. Very few people--feminist or not--want to marry someone who doesn't raise or insure their social status. Since gaining the ability to get a US visa is an advantage if you aren't a US citizen, but has no value otherwise, a US citizen has something to offer to a potential spouse who isn't a US citizen that is valuable to the non-citizen, but trivial to the citizen. Thus, it would be entirely reasonable that one could make a "better" match with a citizen of another country (since the spouse's citizenship is valuable to a non-citizen). I don't see any reason that this is, in itself, a bad thing.

I guess I'm agreeing with your last paragraph. I see no problem whatsoever with "I want to marry someone who considers me desirable and attractive."

[Hugo]

Perplexed, I'm not decrying marrying someone from another country -- though I think that exploiting another person's need for security or a passport is beneath contempt. It's rank colonialism at its shabbiest.

The men you refer to in Thailand perhaps did not travel there on a tour where they were exposed to hundreds of desperate and impoverished hopefuls. My current marriage is interracial; so was my first (the middle two were to WASPs) -- I certainly have no beef with love across cultural lines. But if you read the Harper's article, the dynamics of the Ukrainian trip are appallingly exploitative and ugly.

[jt]

(begin delurk)

It's odd -- as I read those two sentences, I felt the pinpricks that signal the beginning of tears. I've known what it's like to feel inept, unwanted, and, as Morrissey sang in my youth, "sixteen, clumsy, and shy." I've also known the euphoria that comes when suddenly, perhaps for the first time, someone to whom you are deeply attracted pays you real and sincere attention. After years and years of secretly believing that you are undesirable and unloveable, to realize that you are wanted is intoxicating and transforming. Just for a moment, reading the Harper's piece, my heart ached for these sad and lonely men. Beneath their misogyny, their rigid traditionalism, their anger, their misplaced sense of entitlement, beneath all of their crap lie vulnerable and hurting hearts of boys who never got to feel like the handsome prince. Without excusing their actions, I can genuinely empathize with that sadness, that woundedness, and that desperation.

Well done, Hugo. These are the sort of guys who have had it drilled into their heads from day one that (1) men must exude independence and self-confidence and be respected at all times and (2) having emotional wants or needs is a sign of unworthiness of respect - and a lot of sexist/misogynist behavior just follows directly from taking this dogma too far, and the resentment that it produces. Because many of these guys probably genuinely do want a loving relationship, but how to pursue a real one and reconcile it with the demand that you be an impenetrable, invulnerable fortress of manliness? Can't do it - pursuing a real relationship involves some risk of humiliation (and thus loss of Manly Mojo) and a bit of giving, and not just in the "I go to work and you cook/clean/spread your legs" sense. And they just don't get that.

Most women, especially those of the feminist persuasion, probably can't sympathize with these guys - unsurprisingly, as they are the unfortunate recipients of a lot of these men's neuroses. But as a guy, I can still see where they're coming from, even if they've got it wrong.

[glendenb]

Hugo,

You have a knack for identifying the human side of many circumstances. As I read the Harper’s article the men struck me as pathetic, whiny losers willingly shelling out some serious jack to prop up their well-justified lack of self esteem. The Harper’s article portrays them as socially inept and desperate for any kind of status – ‘I own two businesses’, ‘I’m a doctor.’

Then I remembered a friend from High School – so hungry for female attention he’d listen to any advice anyone would give him about getting to know women. His focus was solely on getting the date – anything beyond that was all but inconceivable to him. His ideal date was some magical mystery evening of flowers and dancing, a bright eyed woman peering adoringly at him all night, hanging on his every word, feeding his ego.

I think he was so wrapped up in the fantasy that he never wanted the reality. A real female wouldn’t simply conform to the reality of his fantasy – she would be an inconvenience to the fantasy. The fantasy was also completely safe – no risk of rejection. My friend would unintentionally undermine relationships with our female classmates (normally through completely bizarre behavior and questionable hygiene). He could ascribe the failure to her inability to be his fantasy. Safe from rejection, my friend could return to his fantasy of the pliable, demure, adoring woman who needed him.

The men in the Harper’s article could easily have been the adult incarnations of my long lost friend. I wonder at the level of emotional need they feel that they’re willing to waste thousands on a trip to Kiev rather than invest in decent therapy.

It reminds me of the Law and Order episode where the American man embraced the most anti-female version of Islam, murdered a women’s studies professor all because he was rejected by the woman of his fantasies. Rather than move on, rather than accept that she wasn’t interested in dating him, this character allowed his feelings of rejection to dominate him, to destroy him. Fictional yes, but with the ring of truth. And somehow, these men going to the Ukraine to find wives are just acting out a different scenario of the same emotional dynamic.

[Douglas, Friend of Osho]

Perpelexed: My mother is Korean. My father has been married to three women from Asia. My brother is married to a Thai, whom he met here in the U.S. She's no boat-person; her father is a Thai army officer. They dated for two months before they were engaged. We're estranged, but from what my other siblings say, they're miserable, my sister-in-law especially. This after 20+ years and two grown children. I can you tell from first-hand experience and much observation that some of that lower divorce rate you bring up comes from a certain type of socialization Asian women are subject to: put up and shut up. Proof? My father has been married to his current wife, a Taiwanese, not once but twice. He left her briefly for a younger gal (also Taiwanese) and when he went back, my step-mother took him back, no questions or comments (they have a daughter). And we're talking here about relationships that employed no brokerage of any sort. Is it any wonder that feminists and even non-feminists look upon so many of these sorts of marriages with jaundiced eyes? Not to me it isn't, even as I recognize many such marriages do involve love, affection and respect.

Sam Chevre: Of course status and "the goods" make a difference in who marries whom; it helps to remember that marriage is still a contract. I don't have a problem with marriages that reflect that fact, so long as the principals don't pretend it's a love match. I myself came close to enacting a green-card marriage, something I'm not ashamed to admit. But I think you should ask yourself: who's the one that's expected to clear the ashtray in these situations? Any bets on whether the chromosone structure is XX or XY? Before my father quit smoking, the limit was two; any more and he'd never fail to say something. No, Sam, the guys in this article are losers. The world passed them by and they think it's unfair. When their mail-order marriages transpire, you can bet your bottom dollar that a) they'll be offended if anyone suggests they were engaged in anything but love with a capital "c" and b) there's a laundry list of expectations for the wife, while the husband's duty is simply to work and provide. These guys should stick to brothels, but that would require them to admit they'd pay for sex.

[SamChevre]

Hugo,

Can you clarify the difference between "exploiting another person's need for..." and "entering into a relationship that is mutually beneficial"? (I think there is one--just not sure how I'd define it.) In other words, almost everyone who gets married gets married because they think they would be better off married to this person than staying single. The reason they would be better off varies a lot, but social/economic status is one of the common ways in which people are better off.

[Hugo]

Sam, I think that radically asymmetrical relationships are generally a bad idea, be that asymmetry chronological, educational, or financial. There are some magnificent exceptions, but in most cases, they weren't SOUGHT. The lads on the plane to the Ukraine were actively seeking out a woman who would be "one down" to them -- that's highly problematic and different from by chance falling in love with someone whose income is significantly above or below one's own.

[perplexed]

The men you refer to in Thailand perhaps did not travel there on a tour where they were exposed to hundreds of desperate and impoverished hopefuls. My current marriage is interracial; so was my first (the middle two were to WASPs) -- I certainly have no beef with love across cultural lines. But if you read the Harper's article, the dynamics of the Ukrainian trip are appallingly exploitative and ugly.

Then let me state (what I think is obvious): don't then expand on that article to include vast swathes of land (and people) with this kind of comment:-

In a sense, traveling to Eastern Europe (or Southeast Asia, or South America, or wherever) is, in the hopes of these sad characters, an opportunity to live out their boyhood fantasies of time-travel.

I just want to make a clear distinction for you Hugo : of course there are 'sad characters' who you describe; but there are also a huge number of western men who don't fit that (straw)stereotype. Like I say: don't confuse international marriages with sham marriages (or anything shameful).

Perplexed, I'm not decrying marrying someone from another country -- though I think that exploiting another person's need for security or a passport is beneath contempt. It's rank colonialism at its shabbiest.

This sounds incredibly idealistic. Romanticism blows hot and cold. It's wonderful for 5 years, and then there's a messy divorce. A pragmatic relationship is built on stronger foundations than romantic love (which is a need anyway, just a very unstable feelings-based need). I have seen that strong partnerships are based around pragmatic needs of some sort - it's the glue that holds marriages together. You can keep your romanticism and ideals til the next divorce - I'll take pragamatism everytime - much more robust and stable.

[perplexed]

Douglas, you give me anecdotes and I give you anecdotes. You know what this proves? It takes two individuals to make a good marriage. I also know of bad marriages in Thailand (as I mentioned). Guess what - happens all over the world. And because of that fact, I hate to see Hugo make sweeping generalisations about international marriage here as something sleazy and shameful (and c'mon Hugo - people in glasshouses and all that). Aso, in the west, I rarely hear of women marrying down. Sure, I know some people here will give me the exceptional cases, but nevertheless this is a general fact.

[SamChevre]

Thanks Hugo!

Both you and Douglas seem to think of the ideal marriage as more "identical" than I do. (And, of course, I married someone very like me in almost all respects, so I'm not speaking from experience.) I tend to think that if two people are both better off married to one another than whatever the plausible alternative is (single, married to someone else), I don't object to them marrying. I guess I don't see the Ukranian women as "one down"--they have a relative disadvantage (being Ukranian) and several relative advantages (smarter, younger, prettier). It's assymetrical, but not (IMO) unequal.

And--having now read the article--the marriages I've seen work have been those like the farmer, not the other guys.

[Helena]

"I think you need to make a distinction between international marriages and sham marriages and not equate international marriages with being sham marriages."

Who is equating international marriages with sham marriages? The post wasn't about international marriages generally, it was about relationships "brokered" by internet companies capitalizing on the socioeconomic desperation of Eastern European women. IMHO, you're completely missing the point.

Per their own comments, the men profiled in the Harper's piece are looking for a "traditional" wife they can dominate and control. They know that these women have few options, know their "place", and would be happy to put up with nearly anything to have some economic security. Is that the foundation for a healthy, happy, successful marriage? Hardly. It's simple exploitation. While I can empathize with feelings of loneliness, isolation, and rejection (who can't?), I just can't see how one's self-esteem can be lifted by "buying" companionship from poverty stricken young women without options.

Hugo, many experts in the field feel the mail-order industry provides a "legitimate" front for sex trafficking and forced prostitution rings. The patterns and dynamics are certainly the same. The Ukraine is a major supplier of trafficked persons.