A response to the New York Times article: “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back”
Few actors possess the peculiar gift of turning the bizarre into the unforgettable quite like Nicolas Cage. So when he starred in the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man—a film in which a man is lured to a remote island by women only to be stuffed into a giant wicker statue and burned alive—it seemed merely another entry in the Cage canon of exquisite absurdity.
And yet, for all its outlandishness, the story now plays less like surrealist cinema and more like an unintentionally prophetic parable for our age. For what does the modern world offer to young men if not a softer, more socially sanctioned version of the same ritual? Women summon men with promises of warmth, companionship, or “connection,” but the script increasingly ends with the man feeling used, blamed, and symbolically set alight for the satisfaction of the crowd.
The New York Times recently published a Modern Love column titled—with the plaintive innocence of a village shocked by the absence of its annual sacrifice—“Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.” Women now scan America’s bars and bistros like puzzled islanders before a barren harvest, unable to comprehend why the men who once eagerly presented themselves have, at long last, stopped showing up. Even the phrasing of the Times’s lament—“Men, where have you gone?”—performs a deft little magic trick of moral positioning. It frames men as deserters, as if they slipped away in the night out of cowardice or neglect, leaving women nobly maintaining the ruins of romance. A more honest headline would have asked, “What have we done?” But that question would require self-examination, and self-examination is the single act modern feminist culture has carefully immunized itself against. The language is rigged to protect the female ego and assign responsibility to men—even in a landscape women largely redesigned.
Because the men didn’t vanish. They simply withdrew their consent to be burned. They stopped showing up where women expected them to be—kneeling with ring boxes, holding doors, absorbing emotional crossfire, exercising leadership, and performing the chivalrous duties that for centuries were considered the male contribution to the social compact. Society told men those roles were at best unnecessary, and at worst oppressive, outdated, and “toxic.” So men—being rather literal creatures—complied. They left the stage. And now the audience complains the play has no leading man. Yet the Times piece, like so many of its genre, treats the phenomenon as a sociological mystery. One can only imagine the editorial meeting: “We have criticized masculinity, mocked traditional men, declared fathers optional, dismantled the family, and rebranded male provision as patriarchy… Why aren’t men lining up for more of this?” The question is asked with the same innocence as a child who has smashed a clock and now demands to know why it no longer tells the time.
Modern culture has spent years preaching a new catechism to women: be independent, need no one, prioritize career, avoid dependence, and above all, “Never let a man complete you.” Fine advice, perhaps, for climbing corporate ladders or accumulating passport stamps. But thoroughly incompatible with marriage, which is—whether one likes the term or not—a relationship of mutual dependence. Two becoming one flesh, to borrow a phrase whose wisdom predates therapy-speak by several millennia. A marriage between two “independent, self-actualized individuals” determined never to need one another is not a marriage at all; it is cohabiting narcissism, a contractual arrangement to share Wi-Fi and occasionally exchange fluids. The great joke of the modern age is that women are told the highest form of empowerment is to live like an unmarried man of the 1950s—career first, casual sex, minimal attachment—while simultaneously demanding that men remain romantically devoted, emotionally available, and eager to commit to a life contract at a moment’s notice. Independence may be glamorous in a novel’s heroine. It is death to intimacy in real life.
This erosion of relational commitment has produced a more cynical phenomenon: modern marriage itself increasingly resembles dating, merely with lawyers and joint tax returns. It is approached not as a vow but as a temporary lifestyle arrangement—something to enjoy while convenient and exit once personal fulfillment demands a new chapter. And here the perverse incentives become impossible to ignore. Once women reach the midpoint of life—having secured the children and harvested the emotional and social capital of marriage—they discover that exiting the union is not only socially applauded but financially advantageous. For a certain cohort, marriage now functions as a state-enforced safety net: enjoy the benefits of a husband in your youth, and when the thrill fades, discard him while keeping the children, the house, and a monthly stipend from the man you left. And now you’re free! Now you have it all! It is the only contract in Western civilization in which one party can abandon the partnership and still collect the spoils. And yet we marvel—boggle, even—at why men hesitate to sign such a contract. If women can treat marriage as temporary and the state rewards their departure, why should men volunteer for a role that can be vacated by their partner at will—while he continues paying for the privilege of being replaced?
Compounding this is the new moral vocabulary that has transformed ordinary human flaws into clinical pathologies. Once upon a time, couples parted with sorrow, self-reflection, and reluctance. Now every ex is a diagnosed narcissist and every unpleasant memory is gaslighting. Therapy-speak has become a weapon for those allergic to introspection. In this brave new lexicon, a woman is never simply incompatible, immature, or selfish; she is a survivor. A man is never flawed, inexperienced, or emotionally clumsy; he is an abuser. There are real abusers, yes, but claiming abuse when there is none, just to feel better about one’s own choices and failures, is not heroic, it is trivializing.
But such as it is, breakups no longer result in heartbreak but in case files. This linguistic inflation permits no growth. No one learns. No one repents. Everyone emerges righteous. Men, for their part, often respond with the blunt vernacular of the pub rather than the therapist’s couch, calling difficult women “crazy.” Both reactions are equally childish. The sexes have lost the ability to recognize what every previous generation took as given: that human beings are flawed and relationships require, indeed, are designed to develop forgiveness, patience, and humility—none of which thrive in a culture obsessed with self.
To make matters worse, the modern woman has been sold another counterfeit form of empowerment: the idea that sexual display is a form of strength. The culture promises that if she dresses provocatively, posts revealing photos, and turns herself into a consumable image for male attention, she will gain affirmation, status, and power. And for a moment, it seems to work. A revealing outfit or a “thirst-trap” online can summon male attention the way a dinner bell summons livestock. Likes pour in, messages multiply, and she mistakes this rush of low-effort validation for genuine power. Yet attention is not admiration, and arousal is not esteem. The woman who trades in sexual signaling may attract men rapidly, but she attracts them only as consumers and voyeurs, not as future husbands. Put bluntly—and the rhyme is deliberate because maxims should be memorable—the woman a man wants to take to bed is often the opposite of the woman he wants to wed. The shortcut that wins a night simultaneously disqualifies her from the lifetime. What she sees as leverage, men see as a warning label. She gains male desire at the cost of male devotion—a poor bargain for anyone hoping one day to wear white rather than glitter.
And now we reach the exquisite irony that would be almost comical if it weren’t so ruinous: the movement that promised to celebrate women has done so chiefly by urging them to abandon everything distinctively feminine. Motherhood is framed as a trap. Being a wife is depicted as a concession. Nurturing a home is dismissed as servitude. Feminine softness, grace, receptivity, and relational prioritizing—the very qualities that once made women the civilizing force of society—are now considered evidence of patriarchal brainwashing. To be considered successful, a woman must now become a copy of the least admirable version of a man: career-obsessed, sexually unrestrained, unencumbered by family, and defined not by relational richness but by professional title and personal “freedom.” And besides, isn’t dating more fun than a boring marriage, with all its responsibilities? Don’t we love the chase, and to be chased? Yes, let’s orient ourselves to that, and never grow up.
So here, in short, is the contract of reciprocal ruin being offered to men: Both sides agree to reduce themselves. The woman reduces herself into an interchangeable object to be lusted after, rejects femininity, and dismisses the traditional roles of wife and mother. In exchange, the man must reduce himself to something less than masculine, and hope the woman doesn’t leave and take everything because he is not man enough. For some mysterious reason, this mutual misery pact is just not all that appealing to men.
And here’s an even crueler irony: women hate men who want to lead, and despise those who are submissive. The first is “controlling,” the second is “weak.” What, then, is left? Because marriage by committee, a two-person democracy, leaves a man doubly lacking: a man with no room to lead and no support when he does is not a partner, he is an employee of the household mood. Please, stop, I am not suggesting that women need to be subservient. If anything, that diminishes both parties. I am only observing the obvious: that modern culture punishes the complementary roles that make marriage functional.
The result is one of the bleakest social experiments in history: a generation of women who have achieved everything they were told to want—degrees, promotions, validation, and independence—and who wonder why they cannot find fulfillment.
Men are not blameless in this wreckage. Too many have retreated not only from responsibility, but from adulthood. They disappear into screens, porn, video games, and virtual fantasies rather than the real demands of life. They fear rejection more than they desire meaning. Some have allowed themselves to become spectators of their own existence. This is not masculinity—it is cowardice disguised as self-protection. Women are right to reject the man-child who contributes nothing, leads nowhere, and demands applause for basic competence. A man unwilling to protect, provide, cherish, or sacrifice cannot claim the ancient dignity of manhood; he is merely a boy with facial hair.
But this, I believe, is a reaction on the part of men, more than a reversion. Men will be men when women demand and welcome it. They revert to boyhood when manhood offers only punishment without reward.
For all the modern sneering at the old ways, there was ancient wisdom in the notion that man and woman are designed—yes, designed—to complement one another. The biblical phrase “It is not good for man to be alone” was never merely a religious sentiment; it was an observation of the human condition. The reciprocal is equally true. Independence is a splendid rallying cry for politics; it is a barren value at the hearth. We are social creatures, and designed for intimacy. Relationships thrive not on independence but on interdependence: giving, receiving, yielding, forgiving, and building a shared life greater than the sum of its parts. If the modern age finds this concept stifling, it is not because the concept is flawed, but because the modern ego is too swollen to fit through the chapel doors.
At present, both sexes seem to be waiting for the other to blink first, locked in a stalemate as sterile and joyless as a corporate HR seminar on dating boundaries. But the truth—unfashionable yet immovable—is this: men and women were made for each other. Not to compete, not to mirror one another, but, forgive the cliché, to complete one another. The Wicker Man ritual of modern romance has burned long enough. If the village wants men to return, it might start by dismantling the altar, retiring the matches, and greeting the next brave soul not with suspicion or demands, but with respect, gratitude, and the possibility of grace.
Men haven’t vanished. They’re just waiting for a world worth returning to.
