The death of chivalry....

So I was out and about on the LES (Lower East Side) tonight.... with a good friend of mine, his former high school sweetheart and her friend - a hot black girl, who, if I was into sisters, I would have been all over.

The women, nice, cute/fuckable and generally personable were complaining about the death of chivalry in NYC.

"Men don't open doors'
"In the south, men make sure that women do not walk on the curb side of the street"
"there is just a general aggressiveness in this town that makes it hard for women"

I was fascinated, in a morbid way, by their complaints and what seemed to me like a massive sense of entitlement.

Regardless of what the PC thing is to say, chivalry died when feminism became a viable and practical philosophy.

You don't see men - straight, gay or bi waltzing around opening the doors for each other as a matter of principle. Some men do it to be polite, but every man worth his salt in this world knows that you are not owed anything.....

Chivalry made sense in a world where women were 2nd class citizens. In a world where women can succeed as well as men, fuck as well or even better (in numbers and in quality: please see Egan, Tracy) and where their opportunities continue to grow, I am not sure that chivalry has a reason to exist.

Of course, some of my female friends might read this and imply that I am advocating an end to polite and reciprocal relations between the sexes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women are not nice/welcoming/open or available to all men, ergo; there is no practical reason for the onus to be on men to do so either.

Do be polite, do be respectful, but no - you don't have to open every door, nor do you have to stand up at dinner, nor do you have to buy an expensive dinner to impress someone. Do that for people worth your time and effort, not because you think it is some duty you have to perform to get what you want.

In a strange way, I personally believe that the death of chivalry has wrought something more profound, more honest and more real. Chivalry was fake.

In it's place, in some cases it has brought about real friendship.... the kind of friendship where, if a man is your friend ladies, he will walk you home because he understands the world, he will buy you a drink before hand, he will make sure some guy does not harass or push you around at the bar.

Not because you are a woman, but because you are his friend or his partner - and a real man stands up for those he cares about - friends or more. Chivalry was just posturing; akin to foreplay for a time when sex needed a first act that met some emotional need. On the other hand, that which I refer to, while much harder to achieve, is much more real.