RUSH: I want to get back to the New York Magazine piece. I actually had this yesterday and I didn’t get to it, and I will confess in a mad dash effort just to clean up the desk here, I threw it away. In fact, I threw away everything I didn’t use yesterday. And Snerdley walked in here today and said, “You won’t believe what I found in New York Magazine.” I said, “Ah, darn it, I had it.”
Here it is. The guy’s name is Michael Sonmore. Michael S-o-n-m-o-r-e. Here’s how it begins. By the way, here’s the headline: “What Open Marriage Taught One Man About Feminism.” Now, this is New York Magazine.
“As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, Loretta Lynn is on the stereo –” Can you believe that a writer for New York Magazine admitted that he’s listening to a hayseed country artist? Man, the guy’s brave. “As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, Loretta Lynn is on the stereo, and my wife is out on a date with a man named Paulo.” Dawn, did you catch that? Do I need to read that again? Let me read it again. It might have flown right past some people here. Look at me as I read this to you, folks. Again, this is Michael Sonmore, a male writer, New York Magazine.
“As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, Loretta Lynn is on the stereo, and my wife is out on a date with a man named Paulo. ItÂ’s her second date this week; her fourth this month so far. If it goes like the others, sheÂ’ll come home in the middle of the night, crawl into bed beside me, and tell me all about how she and Paulo had sex. I wonÂ’t explode with anger or seethe with resentment. IÂ’ll tell her itÂ’s a hot story and IÂ’m glad she had fun. ItÂ’s hot because sheÂ’s excited, and IÂ’m glad because IÂ’m a feminist.”
Okay, folks, that’s just the lede. That’s just the opening paragraph. Now, keep in mind, earlier on in the program today, the ABC and Washington Post poll that we treated you to details that a majority of Americans do not like the cultural direction of the country. There is not majority support for gay marriage, transgenderism, whatever else is happening out there. It’s not supported by a majority, and including many Democrats. “So my wife will crawl into bed beside me, she’ll tell me all about how she and Paolo had sex. I won’t explode with anger or seethe with resentment. I’ll tell her it’s a hot story, and I’m glad she had fun. It’s hot because she’s excited and I’m glad, because I’m a feminist.
“Before my wife started sleeping with other men, I certainly considered myself a feminist, but I really only understood it in the abstract. When I quit working to stay at home with the kids, I began to understand it on a whole new level. I am an economically dependent househusband coping with the withering drudgery of child-rearing. Now that I understand the reality of that situation, I donÂ’t blame women for demanding more for themselves than the life of the housewife.”
Is this guy not a throwback? I mean, we’re recycling. This is almost like feminism has had no success whatsoever if we’re back now to feminism exists to get housewives out of the house? Do you realize how much ground they are admitting they have lost in this battle? I don’t know how old this guy is. My guess is he’s relatively young. I mean, he’s not old enough to be a contemporary of say a modern-era feminist of the late sixties, early seventies. So we’re just recycling ground that the feminazis obviously think they’ve already won, but this guy hasn’t gotten the memo.
“Still, as a man, I could, if I wanted to, portray what IÂ’m doing as ‘work,’ and thus claim for myself the prestige men traditionally derive from ‘work.’ Whenever I tell someone I stay home with the kids, they invariably say, ‘Hardest work in the world.’ They say this because the only way to account for a man at home with the kids is to say what heÂ’s doing is hard work. But thereÂ’s a subtext in the compliment that makes it backhanded: We both know no one ever says it to a woman. Mothers care; fathers provide care. The difference is crucial. Despite my total withdrawal from the economy and the traditional sources of masculine identity, I can still argue I am a provider. I provide care.
“In this way, my masculine self-image was stretched but not broken. Diaper bag notwithstanding, I was still a Man. It wasnÂ’t until my wife mentioned one evening that sheÂ’d kissed another man and liked it and wanted to do more than kiss next time that I realized how my status as a Man depended on a single fact: that my wife [screwed] only me.”
Okay, let me do that one again. That might have just slid right by you. (interruption) Yeah, well, you thought you were gonna have to hit the delay button, and if I had read it as written you would have had to hit the delay button. “In this way, my masculine self-image was stretched but not broken. Diaper bag notwithstanding, I was still a Man. It wasnÂ’t until my wife mentioned one evening that sheÂ’d kissed another man and liked it and wanted to do more than kiss next time that I realized how my status as a Man depended on a single fact: that my wife [screwed] only me.”
Do you understand what this guy is saying? Snerdley, what is this guy saying with that paragraph? (interruption) No, he’s not saying he’s out of his mind. What he’s saying is that he realizes how brutal, patriarchal, and how demeaning it was for his wife when she was only able to screw him. And it was his fault, bringing that attitude into the marriage.
Now back to the article: “When people ask how it started, I say this: We married young. She’d had sex before me, but only with a handful of people a handful of times. She never had a boyfriend, never had a lover. I was the first man she ever had the chance to get to know intimately. By her mid-30s, having already had our children and entering her sexual prime, she felt keenly her lack of sexual experience. Happily for me, she was willing to talk about it, willing to ask if I’d be open to exploring other options.
“We opened a bottle of wine and started talking, and talking, and talking. She didn’t present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions: Monogamy meant I controlled her sexual expression,” and that was not fair, “and, not to get all women’s-studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man’s fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can’t control.”
But “not to get all women’s-studies about it.” Well, he is getting “all women’s-studies about it.” So he “controlled her sexual expression,” which means he was discriminating! He was oppressing her because of monogamy, and that was “patriarchal oppression,” male oppression of his wife, ’cause she can only have sex with him! Men want it that way. Men want their wives only having sex with them because men fear a woman who will have sex with other men outside of marriage because those women he can’t control, “And I don’t want to be a man who controls women or my wife.”
He doesn’t write that. I’m adding this in as interpretation.
“We aren’t afraid of their intellect or their spirit or their ability to bear children. We are afraid that when it comes time for sex, they won’t choose us. This petty fear has led us as a culture to place judgments on the entire spectrum of female sexual expression: If a woman likes sex, she’s a whore and a slut; if she only likes sex with her husband or boyfriend, she’s boring and lame; if she doesn’t like sex at all, she’s frigid and unfeeling. Every option is a trap,” and we men are responsible!
He didn’t say that either, but I know he means it.
“When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist.” So this guy is admitting… (laughing) He’s just defined feminism for us. His wife says, “I want to have sex with other men, and it’s not about you. I want to embrace myself! I want to explore the full faculty of possibility of my life sexually, and I can’t do that if I’m only with you.” And he said, “Honey, have at it — and I finally became a feminist!” Is this what feminism is to you? (interruption) Is this what you’ve understood feminism to be? (interruption) It isn’t? Really?
Anyway, folks, that’s not even half this story.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So feminism is cheating on your spouse with approval while he stays home and raises the kids, and you get to come home every night and give him the details. So, ladies, I would like to hear from you. How many of you who are married would like this deal? How many of you who think of yourselves as feminists or maybe would like to — or maybe even not feminists. Just how many of you women in the audience who are married.
And, look, forget actors and public figures. Let’s say wherever you live. There are men where you live that you would like to get to know intimately, but you don’t because you’re married. How many of you would like to be able to, with your husband saying, “Fine, have at it, babe! I’ll be here when you get back, and I want to hear all about it”? And that is feminism.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Skyler in Kokomo, Indiana. Hi, Skyler, great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing today, sir?
RUSH: Well, sir. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Good. I was listening to you talk about the article written about the husband and wife who had the open marriage, and him discussing for her to go out and this, that, and the other.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I’ve gotta tell you, my wife and I have been together for 14 years, and we have an open marriage. And either that story was written by someone that doesn’t really know what the lifestyle is like, or just can’t be real. I’ve been in this lifestyle for many years, been to swing clubs, you know, events like that. Not one couple I’ve ever met feels that way. If anything, what a lot of the couples feel and what my wife and myself feel —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. This guy did not say his wife was going behind his back.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: He admitted that she’s doing it with his permission, and that’s what makes him a feminist. That she comes home and they talk about it in bed after she gets home.
CALLER: That’s not the way it really is in this real lifestyle. I mean, it really becomes a matter of a large amount of openness and honesty that both couples have. I mean, in so many relationships, one of the big things people lie about is their sex life — who they like, they see someone else, they think they’re good-looking, or whatever the case may be. In these open marriages, what you have is a lot of honesty that you don’t have in the regular relationship, because you can do what you want to do, you’re 100 percent honest with each other, you’re not hiding anything. My wife and I have run into many times over the years that we get judged by people (imitating), “oh, I don’t understand how you could do that, it’s just weird, different, messed up” — whatever they want to use. Yet, these are the same people that I can’t tell you how many times within —
RUSH: No, I understand the open lifestyle. I understand what you’re saying. This guy was not describing something happening clandestinely. He was being very open about it being open and that he’s fully aware of it and supports it. He doesn’t do it. He didn’t say he runs around and prowls, but his wife does, and he loves it, and he knows it. And she gives him the details. So, I don’t know what you heard about this when I was reading it, but — Well, it was all above the covers.