The Fisher King

Men need to be less hesitant about discussing masculinity.

If they don't, they will let the alt-right MRA rape apologists set the agenda on their behalf. They need to reject that agenda on their own terms. It's with this in mind that I make this contribution to the debate.

In medieval Arthurian literature there is a figure known as the Fisher King. He is the individual who has access to the Holy Grail and is capable of enduring its presence. However, he has an injury.

In the stories this injury is sometimes described as a wound on his leg or abdomen. It is clear it is actually an injury of a much more personal, intimate, and embarrassing nature. Some scholars interpret this as explicitly sexual in nature. They make reference to the imperatives of primogeniture in medieval society and the shame that would accrue to any man unable to perform his duties in that regard.

I prefer here to be more vague, and consider it to be simply that injury or blemish which we are literally unable to talk about, that thing about ourselves we find most unbearably disturbing, the thing it is excruciating to admit.

The Fisher King does not go on quests. He does not fight dragons and save damsels. He simply maintains his vigil in a kingdom laid waste by his literal and figurative impotence, sustained only by a diet of fish from the river near his refuge because the barren land lies uncultivated. Instead, his kingdom is where the Grail Quest reaches its climax. All roads ultimately lead to him.

His wound can be healed, but only if he is asked the right question. Grail knights arrive and are entertained by the Fisher King's hospitality, feasting and carousing merrily. But when the opportunity is presented to them to ask the right question, they misunderstand the occasion and fail.

I imagine the Fisher King sitting alone by the river afterwards, wishing he could open up, wishing someone would ask him the right question, remembering the disappointment of every encounter with a Grail knight who didn't.

He confides in paper and pen, and writes a message in a bottle, which he sends down the river to us. In it he talks about his feelings of self-loathing and worthlessness. Ostracised by his peer group as a child, ignored or belittled by others, he finds it difficult to form attachments characterised by trust and openness as an adult. He can play the part, certainly, but is never truly present, just an object that assumes the necessary form and shape.

His own sexuality and desires disgust him. He feels guilt at the crimes committed in his name, the crimes in which he is made an accomplice by his maleness. He is monstrous and isolated. He is not connected and free. He is alone and imprisoned.

He is irascible, perceives accusations in every comment, and goes on the defensive preemptively rather than allow the possibility of criticism. He loses his temper.  

And he has done bad things. Very bad things. A sense of entitlement was the only way he knew how to make sense of his feeling of having been somehow thwarted. Vague frustrations find their explanation in imagined deprivations. Things that aren't unfair seem unfair. Malaise precedes malice.  

It seems the other way round afterwards. The order in which things make sense switches back and forth before and after the event. But the order that makes it easier to blame someone else is always easier to believe.

He does terrible things. He proves bullshit points to hold back the overwhelming sense of pointlessness. He does things he regrets. Things he is later ashamed of. He sees that now. He writes it down. He pushes the paper down into the bottle and nudges the bottle out into the stream. And waits.  

I imagine this message in a bottle washing up on some tropical beach of the sort we see in glossy brochures, making its way from his legend to one of our modern myths, the idyllic escapist fantasy where youth cavorts without consequence and slams shots in beach bars and lives the dream in a bright spot light of night life or in the languid sun lounger shadow and piña colada of a lazy midday holiday hangover.

A young man wanders along the water's edge and finds the bottle. He reads the message it contains. It strikes a strident discord. Its testimony is like a suicide note in paradise.

And yet this paradise is patrolled by its own monsters, predating on those unfortunate enough to become separated from the pack in the late night spaces we leave dark and empty, where hidden nightmares can unfold just beyond the edge of earshot, the dim lit date rape chalets and back alleys of the pass out and the puke one million miles and a stone's throw from the loud public bustle of the dance floor.

The message is uglier and more urgent than ever.

Men need to sit by the river and reflect. They need to learn how to be sad. Men need to learn how to accept their flaws, to live with their inadequacies and cope with their disappointments. It turns out they aren't the heroes they thought they were, were taught they were, the intrepid quest knights, the talented, irresistible embodiment of all the ideals set before them to provoke and stimulate them to aspiration and accomplishment. It turns out they are just as broken and used up and discarded as every disposable object they were ever invited to enjoy.

Men need to get things straight, get the order of things right in their minds, to stop repeating the destructive cycles they are trapped in. The entitlements they feel are artefacts of frustrations that have nothing to do with whomever or whatever they project those entitlements onto. Leave behind the carnival of guilt, the merry-go-round of self-pity, the pass-the-parcel of blame, and the inevitable recriminations when we all end up victims of the same game.

I don't like the term "toxic masculinity." Imagine if there was a corresponding term for the set of oppressive assumptions and expectations that inform women's view of themselves: "toxic femininity." This would not be acceptable because of the possibility that the phrase, taken in isolation and out of context, could be construed as implying there is something intrinsically toxic about femininity.

The same considerations apply to the phrase "toxic masculinity." Even though I understand rationally what the intended meaning is, at another level the phrase works to inform or confirm something else. If someone already feels toxic, calling the thing that makes them feel that way toxic can be construed as merely a comment on their own toxicity rather than an attempt at explaining it.

So we should not talk about toxic masculinity, but maybe wounded masculinity instead. Mutilated masculinity. Masculinity that bears injuries so intimate and personal and shameful they cannot be discussed.

Those who feel unlovable do not believe that they are loved. Protestations of love remain a mysterious and elaborate ruse. The world is an impenetrable clique from which they are excluded. Everything is a joke they are not in on. Every laugh they overhear must be at their expense. That's the immediate assumption if not the considered response.

And where the luxuries of rational thought and reflection and not available, their reactions merely compound the injury. A pantomime ensues: guilt, self-pity and anger from a failure to understand the guilt. Before we know it, Pierrot's not sad anymore. Pierrot's got a knife. He's got a gun. Pierrot's pissed off.

The world's wounds will not be healed until we address the source of self-loathing. We may shine our love upon them, but their hearts are enclosed spaces that jealously guard their shadows. No light can penetrate. And they only open up from the inside. We can forgive them, but how can they forgive themselves?

Answering the problem of men's violence against themselves and others requires us to ask the right question, and so far we have failed to do so. Let this be our quest.