Gender Warp: A Cautionary Tale of Life in 2034

By Richard P. McAdams

What will life be like in the U.S. by 2034 if current trends in gender relations and gender politics continue? Women especially will be severely disadvantaged by verifiable trends in marriage, divorce, family life, and the military. Everyday life, and gender relations, in 2034 are viewed through the eyes of three couples at different stages of life. Men have been emasculated and women must carry the burden for domestic life, work life, and ever-higher taxes. The roles of the two genders have become so warped that everything from the family to the military has become dysfunctional.

A better way of life in a fictional New Zealand is compared to a U.S. society that is becoming increasingly unsatisfying to individual citizens, particularly women. The book relates how President Midge Houston and a few trusted lieutenants struggle to change society, against great odds, to the benefit of both men and women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 28, 2003
• ISBN: 9781465334428

Richard P. McAdams

Richard P. McAdams worked as a science teacher, high school principal, and 15 years as superintendent of a local school district in Pennsylvania. He served for seven years as an assistant professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. He is the author of two previous books and approximately 30 journal articles on educational topics.

Book preview

Chapter One

The President

THE WHITE HOUSE—April 14—It is Cherry Blossom time in Washington in the spring of 2034. A few tourists gather to peer through the wrought-iron gates of the White House in the early morning sunshine. Songbirds are chirping as the early morning dew evaporates from the plants in the Rose Garden. The figure hunched over her desk in the Oval Office is oblivious to the beauty of nature beyond her window. Margaret Houston, in the sixth year of her presidency, ponders the most serious challenge of her tenure. Once more she studies the title of the report from her National Security Advisor—The Decline of American Society: Possible Causes and Remedies.

The sheer absurdity of the report’s premise leaves Houston both incredulous and concerned. As President, she can’t disregard the report’s thesis merely because it is improbable. She must consider whether or not such a scenario is possible. If the thesis is possible, how can she discover whether or not the report’s conclusions are valid? Shifting uneasily in her chair, she flips to the last page and the final paragraph of the report:

It appears likely that a dramatic change in the relationship between the sexes has fundamentally altered the culture, economy and value system of the United States. Women find most men to be both immature and irresponsible. Men reject the role assigned to them by modern women, and in large numbers they have retreated from a commitment to a spouse or children. Many men assume the role of juveniles in a troop of gorillas. They move about the edges of the troop and make a lot of noise, but otherwise contribute little to the gorilla community. The women must bear an ever-larger share of the obligations of society, from raising children, to paying taxes, to performing society’s least pleasant tasks. The fracturing of the human pair bond model has had dire consequences for society including a weakening of our defense capabilities, declining economic productivity, dissolution of the traditional family structure, collapse of our infrastructure, and the loss of moral bearings by large numbers of the populace. Current trends are not sustainable and must be reversed if our American civilization is to survive.

Madam President, her secretary calls softly from the doorway, Ms. Benning is here to see you.

Distracted from her troubled thoughts, Midge Houston rises to greet her visitor. Deborah Benning strides into the room with the assurance borne of a long and successful career in the higher reaches of public service. At age 50, the stresses and strains of her high profile career have drained much of her youthful good looks. Her eyes are puffy from a lack of sleep, her clothing is wrinkled, and she is carrying about 10 pounds too much to fit comfortably into her size 10 dress. Even though she was the author of the report, she too found its conclusions farfetched at best. She was anxious to hear Houston’s reaction to it. She tried to introduce a light tone to the conversation.

Well, Madam President, what do you think of my thesis predicting the end of the world as we know it?

Frankly, Deb, I find your conclusions to be absurd. I strongly believe that you are wrong, I hope and pray that you are wrong, but I am willing to allow you to make your case in person.

Thanks for your indulgence Madam President. Anticipating, shall I say, a skeptical response to the report, I’ve asked two colleagues to stand by to participate in our discussion, with your permission?

"I hope they’re members of our team. I’d hate to see reports of this conversation show up in tomorrow’s Washington Post. The opposition would be quick to question my mental stability and the press would have a field day with this."

Not a problem Madam President, you’ll be quite comfortable with both of them.

Walking to the door, Benning opened it and motioned to her waiting colleagues to enter the Oval Office. Sally Fielding, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, entered first. She was tall and blond. At 45 she possessed a telegenic vitality that made her a favorite of the Sunday morning talk shows. A slightly stooped, balding and portly middle-aged Black man, Jim Cummings, followed Fielding. Cummings was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.

Thanks for coming, Jim, Sally! Have a seat.

Just then the steward entered the room with coffee and tea. The foursome made small talk while the steward served each member of the group. As soon as he left the room the discussion turned to the subject at hand.

Tell me, Jim, what is your take on Deb’s creative writing effort? Houston leaned back in her chair awaiting Cummings’ answer.

Cummings chose his words carefully before responding. "Let me start with some incontestable facts. Productivity increases have been sporadic at best for the past 10 years. All sorts of explanations, perhaps excuses is a better word, have been made by politicians of every stripe. For the past two years productivity has actually declined. This is well known, of course, but it has been attributed to a normal trough in the economic cycle. This is possible, but a look beneath the surface statistics tells a disturbing story.

What we are finding is a steady decline in the proportion of males in the work force. Men are entering the full-time work force at later ages and leaving at earlier ages. Not only that, younger men seem less inclined to pursue traditional male occupations such as construction work, heavy industry and trucking. In a nutshell, younger men seem to find serving lattes at coffeehouses more attractive than working as carpenters and plumbers on new housing developments. Women, of course, have never entered the construction trades in significant numbers and are not willing to do so today. Thus we have a shortage of construction workers, depressed productivity, and simultaneously rising wages and thus costs in the construction industries. Cummings paused to allow his points to sink in with the others.

"Women, on the other hand, hold the large majority of positions in traditional high paying, high status professions such as law, medicine, and business management. Women now earn 70 percent of all payroll dollars, and because of their higher earnings on average, women pay 80 percent of all federal taxes. Men have apparently opted out of the highest paying occupations in large numbers, and instead are settling for making less money in less lucrative and lower skilled jobs, those with little chance for advancement or career development.

Interrupting Cummings at this point, Houston asked, How and why is this happening, Jim?

I don’t really know, Madam President. I can measure what is happening, but the explanation is beyond the scope of economic analysis."

Deb Benning interjected, This might be a good time to hear from Sally. Given her work at Health and Human Services, she might be able to shed some light on the whys and wherefores.

Fielding took a sip of her tea, then a deep breath, and directly addressed President Houston.

"Madam President, we are all too familiar with the data on social phenomena in this country. The marriage rate is at an all-time low. Births to single mothers now comprise 70 percent of all births. Many of these births are the result of artificial insemination, and thus there are no fathers in the picture to help support the children. While virtually all of these new mothers quickly reenter the workforce, the cost of childcare is a burden for them personally, and also for the government in general since higher and higher proportions of the costs are borne by government subsidies. As Jim has pointed out, please remember that women pay 80 percent of all federal taxes, thus many women are, in effect, subsidizing the childcare of their own children.

Looking at social indicators for males, we find that the suicide rate for males, always much higher than that of females, has tripled over the past decade. Furthermore, as single men age they are much more likely to suffer from chronic diseases than their married counterparts. Since far fewer men are marrying, debilitating diseases are increasingly striking middle-aged males, removing them from the productive workforce, and placing increasing demands on the government subsidized health care system. Again, the great majority of these costs are borne by women through taxes. There’s much more to the report Madam President, but I think you get a flavor for the nature of the problem.

I get the point Sally, but I’m still skeptical. At this Houston turned to Benning with a question.

Tell me, Deb, do you have an equally succinct explanation for our problems with the military?

I’m afraid so, Madam President. As you well know, our level of military preparedness is dangerously low. The public is unaware of the seriousness of our problems, but we can be sure that our adversaries have a pretty good reading of our vulnerabilities. China is our main problem. Since China’s failed attempt to invade Taiwan in 2015 the Chinese leadership has become convinced that we have become, as they say, a paper tiger." Although we were just barely able to repel their attack, it was obvious to both sides that our military resources were strained to the limit. China’s economy continues to grow rapidly and by 2050 it is projected to surpass the United States in terms of gross domestic product. Their military ambitions are expected to grow apace with their economic strength, and they will shortly pose a major military threat to our survival as a nation.

"Our military is clearly rotting from within. The need for ever greater expenses for social welfare programs, mentioned by Sally just a few minutes ago, has drained the defense budget to the point where strictly military needs have been compromised. More importantly, the personnel problems in the military have reached a critical stage. We no longer even approach our recruitment goals among either men or women. Sixty percent of our military personnel are now female. Men are avoiding military service in droves. I attribute this to what I call the ‘junior high school chorus effect.’ Remember in junior high school, 95 percent of chorus members were girls. Boys wouldn’t even try out for chorus since it was viewed as a girl activity. Boys in the chorus were often considered sissies by their male friends. I think that the same dynamic is at play in the military. The percentage of females in the services has reached a critical mass, so that the average young man looks at the military as an adult version of the Girl Scouts.

"Back in the year 2000 about 15 percent of service personnel were women. They mostly served in technical and support roles. Women joined the military in those days because they received good technical training that translated into good job opportunities in the civilian sector. They did not show much interest in the infantry divisions, and as a matter of historical fact, the incidences of pregnancy seemed to increase in proportion to the likelihood of assignment to a combat zone. This phenomenon was first documented in the Gulf War of 1991.

Nowadays we can still find women to join the military if they are assured of technical training of use to them in civilian life. Women are not willing, however, to enter the service to perform the grunt work formerly done by males. Men, as I pointed out, are not willing to join the service under any conditions. We really need to reinstitute a peacetime draft—a politically impossible option. Thus an argument can be made that the male/female dynamic that is the subject of this meeting may, in fact, be a major source of our current problems in the military.

OK Deb! That’s enough. I need time to assimilate all this. Just one more question for each of you. Do you think that there is a real possibility that changes in gender relationships could be a root cause of all the problems discussed this morning? Houston’s three visitors each nodded in agreement.

Thanks again for coming, Jim and Sally. Deb will get back to you about where we go from here. I need not remind you that this conversation is highly confidential. At this Houston rose from her desk, turned her back on her visitors, and walked toward the picture window adjacent to her desk.

* * *

The family quarters of the White House could be a lonely place. Midge Houston was spending one of her few free evenings in the White House residence. Between diplomatic receptions, party fundraisers, and foreign and domestic trips, little time was left for private reflection. These few hours of solitude could not have come at a better time. Midge was greatly disturbed by her earlier meeting with Benning, Fielding and Cummings. Both the meeting and the topic seemed equally surreal.

Turning the relationship between the sexes thesis over in her mind, she eventually drifted into a recollection of her own youth. At age 58, her years as a young adult seemed like another lifetime. She was 22 in 1998 when she first met her husband, Bob Houston. She was a first-year law student in Chicago, while he was the young heir to a large cattle ranch in Montana. As a very modern young woman of her time, she made it clear to Bob that marriage would be on her own terms. Bob, the product of an idyllic childhood on a Montana ranch, had a more traditional view of marriage and the mutual obligations of spouses. This fundamental difference in their views on marriage and family seemed relatively unimportant to the young couple.

After an on and off relationship spanning five years, they reached an accommodation, decided to marry, with Midge agreeing to move to Montana. Their first years of marriage were filled with happiness. Bob ran the ranch; Midge began a small law practice in town, and both of them hoped for a family with several children. Their son Tom was born in 2006, during their third year of marriage. Midge quickly returned to a heavy schedule at work, while Bob, being available on the ranch became the primary caregiver for their young son.

This arrangement worked satisfactorily for a few years, until Midge was recruited to run for the U.S. congressional seat from her district. Bob obviously could not leave the ranch, and Midge could not commute from Washington D.C. They argued constantly about whether or not she should run for the congressional seat, with Bob insisting that the marriage and family should come first, and that neither he nor she should jeopardize their marriage in order to pursue a career opportunity. Midge felt just as strongly that compromises could be made, and that a woman and mother could do justice to both her family and her career ambitions.

Midge did run for Congress, won handily, and in January 2009 set off for Washington as a freshman in the House of Representatives. Both parents agreed that Tom would be happiest at home, with Midge returning to Montana on alternate weekends. Bob was determined that Tom would have a normal childhood, despite the fact that he would see his Mom on a limited basis. Bob could not, however, disguise his disappointment and sorrow at what he considered to be Midge’s desertion of her family. Midge, on the other hand, felt that the arrangement, while not ideal, was the best one possible under the circumstances.

Midge’s career in Congress flourished, while her marriage slowly deteriorated. Within two years of her election to Congress, the two had drifted apart and essentially lived separate lives. Neither Bob nor Midge, however, had any desire to divorce. There was Tom to consider, and neither parent anticipated nor desired a new romantic relationship. As Tom grew older, Midge felt that she had a good relationship with him, although it was clear that Tom’s strongest attachment was to his Dad. Midge regretted her estrangement from Bob, and her inability to play a larger role in Tom’s life. Nonetheless, she was fulfilled in her work and was well respected by her colleagues and constituents.

In 2016, her party drafted Midge as their candidate for Montana’s U.S. Senate seat. Her election victory was the most gratifying night in her political career. She won the open seat and began what became a distinguished career as the junior senator from Montana. Her life in Washington had long since become all-consuming, and, as the years passed, her visits to Montana became less frequent. Once Tom entered college in 2024, only political considerations, rather than family obligations, brought her back home.

Midge was drafted as her party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2024. Her ticket lost to a popular incumbent President, who was also the first female to hold the office. By 2028 the large preponderance of women voters, and the success of the first woman President, led both parties to seek another woman to head the ticket. Midge was the natural choice for President by her party. The majority of women voters viewed her obvious independence from her husband as a plus, and this factor helped her to win the Presidency in November 2028.

This brief reflection on her past reminded Midge of why she now found herself sitting alone in the family quarters of the White House. She was estranged from her husband, her relationship with Tom was cordial, but distant, and her links with her family back in Illinois were weak. As President, of course, she had few friends, and no real confidants. In considering the two men in her own life, she saw indications of some of the male behaviors she had discussed earlier in the day with her advisors. Her husband seemed to withdraw somewhat from life when their marriage faltered, and her son seemed listless and unfocused at age 28.

Had it all been worth it? What sacrifices of marriage and family, for either spouse, are justified in pursuit of a career? In an ideal world, what marriage and family arrangements are best suited to the happiness of individual men, women and children? Of more direct interest to her as President, what types of family and marriage arrangements are best suited to the vitality of society? Perhaps her next discussion with Benning and others about the report would shed some light on these questions.

Sighing to herself, Midge rose from her chair, walked across the room, and paused before the mirror on the wall.

In keeping with her mood of self-assessment, she took a physical inventory of the 58 year-old woman that was Midge Houston. Her hair, having lost its youthful color, was dyed a honey blonde tint well suited to her skin coloration. An hour of exercise each day gave her good muscle tone and an overall look of vitality. At five feet seven inches, her height was just above average for a woman of her generation. Looking at her face in the mirror she again had the gnawing feeling that she was somehow wearing a mask. Somewhere beneath the artifact of the President Midge Houston, another woman waited to be released. She stared at her reflection for some time and then prepared to retire for the night.

* * *

Madam President, Sue and Bruce are here to see you." Nancy Chang, Midge’s secretary, stepped aside to allow Sue Peterson and Bruce Dalton to enter the Oval Office.

Sue, Bruce, take a seat. Have you been briefed by Deb Benning on the reason for the meeting?

Yes, Madam President, answered Sue. And I must say I find the whole idea ludicrous.

Just a moment, Sue, interjected Bruce. We’re here to give the President political advice, not debate the merits of the issue.

Midge allowed a small smile to cross her face. Sue and Bruce were two of the best political operatives in the business. They had helped her both interpret and shape public opinion on scores of occasions over the years. Before she discussed the essence of the topic any further with Benning and others, she needed a political reading from Peterson and Dalton.

My first question to you is this. If this gender relationship explanation makes sense, why hasn’t this been discussed in academia or in the media?

That’s precisely my point, Madam President, Sue interrupted. The idea is so preposterous that anyone who proposed it would be ridiculed by their colleagues, and their reputation irretrievably destroyed.

Sue’s intensity aside, Madam President, I basically agree with her that the notion is too extreme to be picked up on the radar screens of our academic and media stars. Bruce leaned forward in his chair and began to elaborate on the point.

Unconventional thinking on social issues is really quite unusual at our top universities. Tenured faculty members, who are middle-aged or older, effectively control the research agendas at top universities. Younger faculty, seeking tenure, are reluctant to pursue topics that will not be well received by their senior colleagues. The conventional wisdom in academia would be quite hostile to any assertion that changes in recent decades in marriage, child raising, and the relationship between the sexes could have any negative effects. Government and foundation research grants are also greatly influenced by conventional thinking and current academic fads. It doesn’t surprise me at all that the quite radical concepts contained in Benning’s report have not appeared in scholarly writings or in serious books by high profile authors.

Bruce took a sip of coffee before continuing. "The silence of the media on this issue is even easier to explain. Even 30 years ago news reporting was evolving into a branch of entertainment. Attention to the horse race aspect of politics, the primacy of personality over substance, and the need to boost ratings by entertaining the public, have all conspired to drive serious reporting of complex issues from the public scene. Twenty-four hour news channels, coupled with ever-shorter news cycles, only exacerbate the problem.

There is one more important point to remember. That is the tendency by government and press to deal with specific issues in isolation, without ever looking at society as a dynamic system. Who is likely to examine the effect that agricultural policies might have on family dynamics? Or the effect that affirmative action policies might have on relations between the sexes? The thesis of Benning’s report is not only radical, it is also complex. This alone is sufficient to explain why these issues have not been addressed in the public domain.

Sue Peterson, warming to the subject, jumped back into the conversation. Getting back to the political equation, Madam President, what would be the effect of introducing to political discussion a concept that is radical, complex and controversial? Obviously, a one-way ticket to political oblivion.

Thanks, Sue. You certainly have a talent for getting to the bottom line. Tell me, Bruce, is there a viable political strategy for bringing the country up to speed on this concept, assuming there is any value to it?

Madam President, you need to first be able to prove that this gender relationship scenario is really the crux of the problem. This is doubly difficult since the general public is now unaware of the problems identified in Deb’s report. The public does not know the extremely weak state of our military, and does not see a connection between the decay of our infrastructure and the shortage of male construction workers. Finally, people do not see the relationship between what Benning’s report calls the nanny welfare state" and the decline in our standard of living.

You will need to convince the public that the general trajectory of our society has been off course for more than 30 years. You will need to prove this assertion with incontrovertible evidence, and then ask citizens to make fundamental changes in their worldview. This is a burden that our political system is ill suited to bear. My advice is that you should not even begin to go down this road unless and until you have convincing evidence of the essential accuracy of Benning’s thesis.

As always, I appreciate your frankness. Please handle this discussion with the confidentiality that it deserves. I have a feeling that I will be calling on you frequently before this issue is resolved. At that Midge rose, signaling the end of the meeting, and her two guests filed out of the office. Midge considered the cautions urged upon her by her political advisors. Having benefited many times from the superficial nature of news reporting, and the inattentiveness of the general public to complex stories, she could well imagine the Herculean task involved in leading her nation to an understanding of this problem—if it was real. She wondered if she would have the courage to face the firestorm of controversy likely to attend any serious discussion of this topic.

* * *

Midge was now ready for a more extensive and detailed discussion of the Benning Report. She scheduled a full day for this meeting and asked Deb Benning, Sally Fielding and Jim Cummings to supply background information to support their presentations and judgments. She reread the report several times over the next few days, determined to arrive at the meeting with her own set of questions and comments. The meeting was held in the cabinet room, with each invitee permitted to bring one additional person to assist with the presentation. Midge also invited her political advisors, Sue Peterson and Bruce Dalton, to join the group. The small group of top aides gathered around the large mahogany conference table while a smaller group of assistants sat on chairs along the back wall of the room. Midge took her position at the head of the table.

Sally, I would like to begin with a more detailed discussion of the demographic and sociological data that you offered in our first meeting. What evidence can you provide to support the assertion that there has been a fundamental disruption in the relationship between the sexes, and that this fundamental change is the root cause of the social disintegration of our culture?

Madam President, in my brief summary of the problem last week I mentioned the declining marriage rate and the increasing proportion of births to single mothers. Back in 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later a senator from New York, wrote about the decline of the family structure in the Black underclass. He cited the high levels of illegitimacy, about 25 percent at that time in the Black community, and correctly predicted the social pathologies that quickly engulfed the underclass in our urban and rural communities. The 25 percent level of illegitimacy present in the Black community in 1965 had been matched and surpassed by society as a whole by 1995. Births to single mothers in the Black community in 1999 accounted for 70 percent of all births. Once again, the experience in the Black community proved to be a bellwether for the entire society, so that currently 70 percent of all births in the U.S. are to single mothers.

Sally paused a moment to let the implications of this statement register with her colleagues.

Most of the women involved achieve single motherhood in the old-fashioned way—they allow themselves to be impregnated by a male, knowing full well that the man involved has neither the capacity nor desire to form a stable pair bond. An increasing number of middle-class women, however, are taking advantage of the advances in artificial insemination to, in effect, shop for the preferred designer genes that they would like their child to possess. The ability of scientists to differentiate between sperm by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome enables women to select the sex of their child, before conception takes place. At present, these women are selecting for female children 64 percent of the time.

Just a minute, Sally, Jim interrupted. This would be a good time to discuss the economic impact of widespread single parenthood. Cummings’ assistant quickly placed several charts and graphs on a nearby stand.

"The first chart indicates that the gross domestic product has been declining by 2 percent per year for the past several years. The second graph shows level of participation in the workplace by age and gender. Notice how male participation as fulltime workers is in a steady decline—more on that later. The necessary conclusion from just these two charts is that an ever-increasing burden to provide for these children is falling upon females, many of whom are the mothers of these same children. The old argument that government subsidized childcare, and welfare, can provide an economic substitute for the traditional family is being negated by the magnitude of the social change. Ever higher taxes to support a welfare state are directly leading to a decline in the standard of living in all families, particularly those led by a single mother.

This gets back to the point about men leaving the fulltime workforce. Men have always been disproportionately represented in jobs requiring physical strength and endurance, and jobs that features unpleasant, if not noxious, working conditions. Men working as miners, farm laborers and trash collectors seldom toiled in these occupations because they found them personally fulfilling. In past generations, however, millions of men were willing to endure these hardships to feed their families.

Jim paused while his assistant placed another chart on the easel.

"By the way, some of the jobs I just mentioned are known as the ‘death professions.’ This is because they experience the highest rate of workplace death and injury. As the chart shows, other jobs on this list include firefighters, truckers and construction workers. Notice that men account for more than 90 percent of all workers in these occupations. Back in the 1990s males occupied more than 95 percent of all jobs in these categories. Women continue to show little interest in these jobs, despite more than 60 years of equal opportunities in the workplace.

Far fewer men today are getting married, or, if married, they are not the sole support of their family. Such men don’t need to take the highest paying job they can find, and they tend to settle for safer, more pleasant jobs. Few are attracted to the ‘death professions.’ Even the higher status occupations have been affected. Absent the cultural imperative to be a good provider, fewer men are willing to pursue the arduous path to become a doctor, a lawyer or a high-ranking manager or administrator. Women now hold 70 percent of these higher status jobs.

Excuse me, Jim, Midge said impatiently. You haven’t answered my question. Why, specifically, are single-parent families at greater financial risk than two-parent families?

"Sorry, Madam President. I needed to provide a context first. The fact that many men no longer see a need to enter these tough professions, plus an avoidance of these same jobs by all females has created a serious supply and demand problem. The grunt work of society still needs to be done, but far fewer people are willing to do it. Thus pay rates for these jobs have skyrocketed. A plumber or trash collector easily earns as much as the typical doctor or lawyer. Men willing to perform these physically demanding jobs are the economic elite of society, and they have no trouble attracting the small number of traditional women who are interested in marrying them, bearing their children, and establishing a household where the male is the primary breadwinner. Large proportions of the 30 percent of children being born to married mothers are from just these types of households. Since the jobs held by males in such households are being compensated at ever-higher rates, these families are not experiencing any decline in their standard of living.

If I can speak to just one more related item before yielding the floor, Jim continued. Let’s explore the lifestyle of the growing number of men who are minimally productive, in the economic sense of the term. Such men usually work at low skill; low pay jobs, that meet their minimalist needs. They tend to live in sparsely furnished apartments, expend little on food or clothing, and have no interest in what a former generation called a ‘yuppie lifestyle.’ They are not good consumers, and thus depress the markets for goods and services that they, and especially their wives, would have supported in previous generations."

This turn in the discussion gave Sally Fielding an opportunity to interject a sociological perspective into the conversation.

"Madam President, let me elaborate on the lifestyle of these underachievers. Men outside of a family structure have always been more violent, less community oriented, more sexually promiscuous and less future oriented than their married counterparts. This remains true today. In our brief discussion last week I talked about the high suicide rate and poor health practices for single men. Such men have often focused their sexual energies on pornography and prostitution. Pornography, of course, has long since entered the mainstream of American life.

"Surveys over the past five years, however, indicate an interesting change in the behavior of many single men. Some males have adopted a celibate, even ascetic lifestyle. A larger group of more mature males, tiring of the one-night stands, pornography and prostitution that some young men find so compelling, have opted for a chemical cure for their sexual libido. In 2022, as you know, several major pharmaceutical firms developed a series of drugs designed to inhibit the normal production of the male hormone testosterone. These drugs greatly diminish the testosterone level in the bloodstream, decreasing the level of sexual desire in males. Millions of men have chosen this approach to controlling the normal male sex drive. If this trend continues much longer,