Elliot Rodger assumed that, since women were not interested in him (evidently), that it was essentially their fault, and that he could not possibly be doing anything wrong, or that his approach just was not working.
It apparently drove him nuts, quite literally.
And perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that there is (and perhaps always has been) a stigma attached to virginity in this country that makes people who are virgins, or not yet sexually active, feel like there is something really wrong with them.
That may sound like some sort of a joke, but the tragedy that unfolded from the completely legally purchased guns of Elliot Rodger most certainly are deadly serious. Whatever else may have been wrong with him, or with his life, the fact of the matter is that it is all too easy to imagine just how much this fact that he was a virgin was really bothering him.
Yes, I know that Rodger was obviously crazy, that he reached that rare point where something snapped, and he literally just went berserk, going on his murderous rampage as some distorted cry of help, or whatever it was that you could call the massacre.
I know, also, that I wrote a blog entry about gun control in response, simply because I am of the belief that this tragedy, much like so many of the other mass shootings that the United States sees just far, far too much of, could have been completely unavoidable if you at least limit free and easy access to guns at least a little bit.
Frankly, my position has not changed on that, either. What's the big deal about background checks? Technically, our right to alcohol is guaranteed by the Constitution, since the end of the Prohibition was enforced by an amendment. Yet, no one looks twice at the fact that we need to verify someone's age, because we know it would be irresponsible to sell alcohol to minors, right? That same logic, with even more validity, could be applied to guns, particularly guns that serve no other purpose but to kill people.
Why do people that have absolutely no business possessing these monstrous machines of murder keep getting their hands on these weapons here in the United States, and not so much in other countries?
But I digress....the focus for this blog entry was supposed to be a bit different. It just seems to me that the stigma for being a virgin in a society that clearly, de facto, endorses being sexually active as some sign of success, is becoming unbearable, particularly to those who are too young to really cope with the pressure. I am not excusing the thinking and behavior, much less the action, of Elliot Roger. But the fact of the matter is that, while officially, many "leaders" in government and church, and in communities throughout the country would officially endorse abstinence, the reality is that if you actually do abstain from sexual activities or, worse, find yourself on the outside but constantly looking into the facade of a culture that, at least outwardly, shows every sign of being completely obsessed with sex, it can be an exercise in torture. It can consume you, until it is all that you think about. And it cheapens both men and women, as the act of sex becomes all that really matters, and I think that is part of the problem.
This may sound like a "light" issue, or perhaps it is something that serves as one of our many, and frankly, unfortunate, taboos in this society. It has been seemingly an endless source of jokes and even the inspiration for many movies, such as American Pie (which i enjoyed, by the way), for fictional virgins to make it their mission to finally end their virginity and "do it", so that they no longer are burdened by the very real stigma of the lower class status of being a virgin. The reality in the United States today, in a very real sense, seems to be that if you are a virgin, there is something wrong with you, and that is no joke, even if movies and comedians (and perhaps others) laugh about the subject. In other cultures, tests of adulthood (specifically manhood) did not exclusively deal with ending virginity, but it seems that we are heading towards that direction. Never mind the very adult responsibilities that you assume, never mind the less than glamorous aspects of adulthood that kids should become more acclimated with. For many kids in our party-oriented society, sexual activity, and particularly ending one's status as a virgin, become the defining action that proves one's worth, that makes someone, truly, a "man", or a "woman." I use quotes, because of course, in reality, nothing actually changes in your life after having sex, or at least the changes are far more subtle than, say, after you land your first job, or after you begin to pay some real bills, buying your first car, or buying your first home, or having your first child, or other truer measures of actually being an adult. Those are things that immediately and irreversibly change your lifestyle, one way or the other, on an every day level. Having sex generally does not do that, although sexual activity may become more commonplace (and hopefully, less stigmatized and filled with pressure).
The fact of the matter, however, is that sex takes a central part in our American life. Probably, too much. We have adds for viagra and cyalasis all of the time, on television and on the internet. Television shows and movies and comedians and musicians all focus on sex, and it is a measure of one's manhood to be able to be able to boast about keeping a woman happy in bed, and that you are somehow less of a man if you do not. It does not end with the teenage years, although sexual frustrations later in life at least happen to adults who, presumably, are better prepared to cope with it.
Not so young people, particularly young men. And when you get someone where there is something seriously wrong with the wiring in his brain, it can lead to disaster. And in this country in particular, it can have very tragic consequences, because another issue, access to guns, can come into play.
I don't have the answers. I don't know what to do about this particular problem. What I do know is that it is a problem. I was not sexually active during my high school years, but it admittedly was not voluntary. I had some girls that were interested in me, that even made what probably amounted to passes at me. Still, nothing ever happened while I was there. And hearing all of the other kids, the really cool kids, talking in blasé manner about how incredibly sexually active they were made me feel....well, inferior.
Nothing has changed. If anything, it seems that it has grown far worse over time. And it would not surprise me, personally, if the stigma of being a virgin was the cause of many more tragedies, not just this mass shooting, but probably some suicides and attempted suicides. In this society of extreme judgments, being exposed as a virgin, and revealing that, by society's standards, there really is something wrong with you, just because you have not shared intimacy with another person, is itself a sign of some sickness. Just not the kind that most people might assume that it means.
Things will continue on the way that they have been going. People (myself included) will argue within the scope of the gun debate, and let's see if anything happens with that (my guess is that nothing will change).
But it struck me as odd that this kid, stupid and insane though me might have been, made a point of recording his last, torturous thoughts, addressing his status that he felt relegated him as somehow inferior. He blamed it on others, instead of owning up to responsibility on his end. Yet, prior to the shootings, knowing that he was a virgin, many in this country that officially endorse abstinence would have considered his position almost ideal, not seeing the nightmare that he was entangled in. And I can't help but think that there is something there that we really, really need to examine. In this society of extreme everything, where judgments may seem final and haunt us forever more, and where the pressure from being seen as somehow "lesser" is very real, it can really push some troubled minds over the edge. And that, it seems to me, is something that we also need to address as a society, perhaps as much as we need to address the issue of gun violence.
Here were a couple of article that I found interesting, even though they really have little to nothing to do with my topic in this particular blog entry:
Elliot Rodger And the C-Word by Ann Brenoff of The Huffington post, May 28, 2014:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-brenoff/elliot-rodger-and-the-c-word_b_5400621.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
In The Last 33 Years, 70 Of The 71 Mass Murderers In The U.S. All Had 1 Thing In Common by Adam Mordecai of Upworthy:
http://www.upworthy.com/in-the-last-33-years-70-of-the-71-mass-murderers-in-the-us-all-had-1-thing-in-common
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