…was how that dumb political ad opened up last week. If you haven’s seen it, it featured about half a dozen actors who explained that they were really MEN! and that they ate steaks cooked rare, repaired cars, went huntin’ and fishin’ and drove pick up trucks and motorcycles. They were also not afraid of women and not afraid to vote for a woman president.

The stupidity of the ad was only superseded by the sad commentary it made on the state of sexual understanding in our society. In the midst of widespread gender confusion some pundits were getting a lot of attention asking, “What is a woman?” They might also ask, “What is a man?”

That the questions even need to be asked is alarming, but the gender confusion should not be surprising. It is the fruit of fifty or sixty years of sexual and gender dysfunction in our society. I’ll get to the root causes in a moment, but first let’s stop to analyze that dumb ad first.

The actors (and script writer) obviously thought a man could be defined by what he does, what he likes and how he dresses. So the “men” the actors portrayed wore cowboy gear, drove motorcycles, worked out, lived on a ranch etc. But of course, all of those things could be done by a woman so clearly outward behaviors and preferences are not what define masculinity. These are not what a man IS they are some of the things some men DO.

It should be obvious that a man is a human person with XY chromosomes and male genitalia. Since that is what defines a man we may then ask what his genitalia are for. They are…duh…his reproductive organs. They are for making babies. We conclude therefore that a man is not just someone who wears cowboy boots or a flannel shirt or likes cooking meat outdoors. A man is a Father or a potential father, and in my experience personally and pastorally a man only really understands and lives out his masculinity when he becomes a father–and if not a literal father of children, then by performing a paternal role–as a priest, mentor, guide, protector and provider.

Why all the confusion about what a man or a woman is? Because we’ve forgotten what penises and vaginas are for. The sexual revolution reduced the genitalia to pleasure toys, and the medical technology of birth control and abortion removed the natural consequences of the sexual union. We therefore forgot what those organs were actually for so we also became confused about what a man is and what a woman is.

We were further confused by the culture’s images of men and women. While this basic sexual and gender dysfunction was developing we started to idealize woman as Barbie doll and man as Rambo. Marilyn Monroe and Rambo stood in for Woman and Man. “Woman” was not mother and wife but a sex bunny. “Man” was not husband and father, but macho butcher. This brought us “toxic masculinity” and something no one is allowed to mention: “Toxic feminism.”

The trajectory of this cultural malaise is not optimistic. We are on the verge of a demographic winter. More young men are avoiding marriage and fatherhood. More young women are choosing a career over motherhood. Why ? Because they really don’t know what a man or a woman is–therefore they do not know themselves.

With plummeting birth rates worldwide our whole race is in danger of forgetting what a man and a woman actually IS–and that must lead to a colossal collapse of human integrity and perhaps even the future of our race.