Many Such Takes: Porn Addiction, Mom Brags, Mamdani's Lunch, and More
The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free
Welcome to Many Such Takes! For those unfamiliar, this is a free weekly segment (I also do lots of other stuff—you can typically expect 4-5 paid posts a week too!) For Many Such Takes, I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter discourse so you don’t have to.
Also, in case you’re thinking of upgrading to paid, you will get access to CHH CHAT, a chat channel on Substack full of men, women, and people of different political affiliations and sexual orientations who manage to discuss hot topics like sex, dating, parenting, or even politics without killing each other. Join us!!
Great Substack Reads of the Week
This week, I actually uninstalled Twitter from my phone because it was becoming too much of a distraction. I have no regrets, but the downside is that I had to be way more intentional about absorbing content for Many Such Takes. Don’t worry, you are still getting a good dose of MST, but because I wound up spending more time on Substack than on Twitter I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite essays this week:
- wrote a great essay about the “great feminization.” Really great content that’s perfectly up her alley, but I’m also biased because she very succinctly and correctly summed up my earlier post from last week about men who seek out feminine women but hate femininity.
- redefined “dad humor” with his article about neurotic moms killing the birth rate. I actually disagree with his premise—I don’t think neurotic moms are making any measurable dent in the birth rate, although the ability to be that neurotic is probably driven by the same high standards and improved quality of life that has driven the low birth rate. That said, it was still a really funny essay that included ruminations about clown stabbings, so it gets a mention.
I loved this article by
about being a single woman over 30. All you need to know is it contains the line: “I agree with the old, ugly men who express a preference for young, beautiful women. I, too, prefer younger, more gorgeous men. The difference is I can get them.” Also, lots of mentions of Greece and Greek men, so I’m biased, but it’s a good read.
Messy Kitchen
A while ago I wrote about how I am the bad husband of wives, because I usually wind up relating more to the “lazy” husbands in the whole invisible labor discussion, much to the chagrin of my critics. It’s not that I’m actually that lazy, it’s that my husband is extremely neurotic about the house looking perfect all the time and things being done exactly his way, to the point that even when I try to meet his standards he still winds up doing it all again because I didn’t do it right (and I promise, I am not weaponing incompetence! I’m trying my best!)
Given that I find it hard to believe that every wife who complains about her husband like this is 100% in the right, I remain skeptical—not totally disbelieving, but open to nuance—when I hear these stories. However, a photo of a messy kitchen graced Twitter this week which made me reevaluate my whole “let’s hear both sides” ethos:
This is honestly what my husband probably thinks the kitchen looks like if there’s one errant spoon on the counter, but honestly, this is bad. Unless this woman’s husband was working full time while caring for six children under the age of five, I have a hard time understanding how the house got to this point. Can I shame? Am I allowed to shame just a little?
Fun little Easter egg I didn’t notice at first: the OP watermarked the photo with her legal name for some reason. I see you, Amy Jackson!
Mamdani’s Lunch
I have no strong opinions about Zohran Mamdani, but I will defend him on one particular, completely apolitical point: it is okay for him to eat on the subway.
The reason I feel strongly about this, of all things, is that for a long time I’ve been irritated by the vague psychological ick that drives most irrational germophobia. I wrote about that in my essay, The Germs Aren’t Real, They Can’t Hurt You. If there is no established, plausible mechanism for becoming sick via a particular germ pathway, it simply should not enter our minds. And what I see in the photo above is Mamdani eating a burrito (maybe?) in an aluminum tin, perched atop a brown paper bag. I see no plausible way for him to get sick doing this! Eat away!
Except apparently, there’s a risk of….fleas?
Finally someone else says it…how are you going to eat a burrito with a fork and knife….
So, eating a burrito with a fork and knife on a subway: weird. Eating on the subway: fine. Eating on the subway with at least two layers of material between your food and the seat: VERY fine. He did not dump a pot of penne a la vodka onto the seat.
Mom Brags
Twitter is, if nothing else, a great place to humblebrag about how hot and amazing you are, but this week we got some brags that weren’t remotely humble, starting with a mom of 8 claiming she had fewer signs of having been pregnant than someone who never had kids.
I do think it’s fine to express the happier stories of pregnancy, or to counter fearmongering about pregnancy ruining your body, and I wrote about that, but maybe I have my limits after all.
We did get this absolutely insane reply from the other side:
Some good ones:
Great Feminization
Several people asked me to write about Helen Andrew’ The Great Feminization article but it felt like too much of a repeat because completely by accident, I had already published my article on straight men who actually hate femininity. I don’t want to spend much time on this, but I did notice some particularly hilarious excerpts go viral on Twitter, such as the fact that she believes it’s unfair men can’t sue because their workplaces feel like a “Montessori kindergarten.”
Porn Addiction
We got another great Bad Take this week in the form of “wives are required to put out regularly to prevent their husbands from becoming addicted to porn….Biblically.” Now I’m just imagining someone in the year 2 AD jackin’ it to drawings of naked ladies on some scroll of vellum.
Anyway, just to be clear, I do think in most marriages, regular sex is important and ignoring a dead bedroom or hand-waving sex away as an unfair patriarchal expectation is silly. But, as this person put it, women are not “firewalls for porn.”
We did get one particularly amusing interaction:
Funny Tweets/Other Happenings
Am I allowed to post a Substack meme here, or is that confirming the whole “Substack is social media” thing?
Another one:
Another Trump banger:
My Permission to Be Horny
Viewer discretion is advised, especially for: my parents, my in-laws, my siblings, or my kids in 10 years.
I Am The Female Bad Husband
Heads up that while this article deals with somewhat similar subject matter, it’s not a response to Emily's Version’s recent essay about “good” (or not so good!) husbands. She and I have different views and experiences on this topic, but I’ve actually been working on this article for a while, so not only is it NOT meant in opposition, but I want to take this moment to highlight that she’s a great writer and you should subscribe to her!
"Zero evidence" she had eight kids? What did she do with the kids?
Re: messy kitchen, I'm in a huge FB group for moms of high school/college and beyond aged kids. The husband/kids refusing to clean up after themselves is absolutely a thing. There have been multiple pics of a teen's bedroom that looks like Horders, so many that someone once suggested sprinkling black rice around the room, drawing attention to it, claiming it's rat droppings and finally the kid cleans their room. I absolutely believe that husband and kids left those dishes for mom to do when "she feels better". Bet the trash was overflowing and wet towels on the bathroom floor, too.
Re:eating on the subway, a granola bar, a hamburger, chips, sure. The key is: handheld, finished in a few minutes. Anything with a knife and fork is weird. Is he bending over to eat? I realize the burrito isn't actually touching where someone's butt was, but your face is now closer to butt space? What happens when someone wants the seat?
Re: workplace feminization, I refuse to believe there is a workplace so ruled by women (except perhaps the non profit sector, actual social justice work or feminist orgs) that it resembles a kindergarten. I work retail, and even though many managers are women, no one is singing kumbaya and talking about feelings. That author simply wants men to avoid being polite and respectful to their co workers.