Rob Lim (left), Lauren Lim (center) and Elyse Quail (right) in ‘This Incredible Life.’

“Until I started studying radical feminism, I never thought of ‘normal’ as an achievement.”

— Robert Stacy McCain, April 27, 2015

Rob and Lauren Lim are a Canadian couple with two young children. They have been together about 14 years, but a couple of years ago, Lauren “came out” as bisexual and started dating women, and the Lims tried “polyamory” until — plot twist! — Lauren decided she’s actually a lesbian. So now Rob and Lauren are getting a divorce, and Lauren is engaged to Elyse Quail, a 26-year-old dance instructor. Did I mention that Elyse has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that, until 2016, she had been in a long-term relationship with a guy? Oh, and also, Lauren and her new girlfriend have decided that Rob’s oldest son, Max, is actually a girl.

It’s your Five Basic Food Groups of Craziness, and they’ve turned this circus of insanity into a YouTube series called “This Incredible Life.”

There’s a certain element of foreshadowing in this story, like clues scattered at the scene of a crime. For example, in their first video, we learn that Rob and Lauren met in 2004 because they were both bloggers and she saw Rob’s photo of himself doing a backflip on the beach. She left a comment on his blog, then arranged to meet him at his workplace — they attended the same university — and they were instantly inseparable.

Love at first sight, or dangerous impulsiveness? With the benefit of hindsight, we must conclude it was the latter, especially when we get to Lauren’s “How I Realized I Was Gay” video, in which she says that a 2015 Hailee Steinfeld music video was the decisive moment.

Like I said, your Five Basic Food Groups of Craziness.

What I can’t understand is why Rob is cooperating with this project, the whole point of which is that he’s a clueless chump who wasted more than a decade of his life in a doomed marriage, but he’s such a Nice Guy™ that he seems perfectly OK with this Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst disaster.

We are looking for clues at the scene of the crime, and one of them is in the first video, where we learn that Lauren met Rob when he was 21, just four years after his own parents divorced. As a result, he was reluctant to get married because “just the concept of marriage itself was, like, a very constructed thing . . . I didn’t want to submit to the authority of this, like, societal pressure.” In other words, he lacked any moral idealism or religious reverence, in contrast to the Christian understanding of marriage as an institution ordained by God. If marriage is a “constructed thing” imposed by “societal pressure,” without any moral meaning, then Rob has no basis to resent that his wife is dumping him for a bipolar bisexual dance instructor she met via the Bumble dating app.

Also, hey, she’s raising your son Max to be transgender.

Here in 2019, everybody is supposed to be accepting and supportive, but what do these “progressive” values mean, except an acquiescence to moral relativism, an abandonment of any standard of judgment?

Nietzsche saw this: If there is no God, then we are Beyond Good and Evil, in a world where the will to power is everything. If there are no definite moral limits — if even “Thou shalt not kill” lacks the force of law — woe unto the weak! During the blood-soaked 20th century, we associated this moral nihilism with the violence of totalitarian dictatorships, and many failed to see how an atheistic worldview might influence life in western democracies. For a time, the social damage was limited by a sense of bourgeois respectability that remained among the middle class, even as the moral strictures of our Christian cultural heritage lost the force of law. Now, however, we behold a generation of young adults raised without any sense of moral limits in a society where abortion is celebrated with bizarre euphemisms (“reproductive health” and “a woman’s right to choose”), where sexual degeneracy becomes a lifestyle (“polyamory”) that no bien-pensant liberal would dare criticize. Of course, it is “hate speech” to express disapproval of homosexuality, and you’ll be heckled and assaulted if you criticize transgender ideology.

My intention in writing about “This Incredible Life” was more than just the usual point-and-laugh exercise, but I didn’t expect it to turn into a sermon or a lecture in moral philosophy. Rather, my intent was to point out the way so many warning signs were missed during the decade between the time Rob Lim met Lauren in 2004 and their drift into bisexual “polyamory” as a prelude to divorce. If there is no God, the phrase “holy matrimony” is a joke, and wedding vows are no more meaningful than the fine-print “terms of service” on your Facebook account. Without a binding moral obligation between them — with no sense of honor and duty in marriage — man and wife become selfish negotiators, trying to maximize their individual advantages, and the sense of teamwork is lost. In the traditional marriage ceremony, according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, everyone was reminded at the outset that marriage was not to be “taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly . . . but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God,” as the couple were entering a divine institution “ordained for a remedy against sin.” Nowadays, of course, it seems marriage ceremonies are an extravaganza to provide commercial opportunities for the Wedding-Industrial Complex, and many middle-class girls would be disappointed if their wedding cost less than $50,000 — limousines, catered reception, honeymoon in Bali, etc.

Just as weddings have become an exercise in status display, so also has the spirit of competition and envy entered marriage itself. Watch the video “Our Sex Life,” in which Rob and Lauren discuss the sources of dissatisfaction that emerged in their marriage before that Hailee Steinfeld video made Lauren “realize” she was actually a lesbian. (In case you didn’t notice, my eyes just rolled completely out of my head.) Secular readers might be surprised to learn that the ancient Book of Common Prayer also warns against this error; the purpose of marriage is not “to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding.” From this it is obvious that neither husband nor wife have any legitimate grounds for complaint merely because their sex life is less than a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular. Having entered the matrimonial bond “reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly” — understanding its religious significance, with realistic expectations and a serious sense of permanent commitment “in sickness and in health,” etc. — how could a conflict over sex ever divide them?

As I say, marriage must be informed by a sense of honor and duty to succeed. The young man who seeks a bride must realize what he is asking of her — to reject any other possible future for herself, to “keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live” — and vice-versa. It wasn’t as if Rob Lim had no other options, as a promising young university student with an athletic physique, when Lauren caught sight of that profile photo of him doing a backflip and decided to lure him into her spider’s web. But his self-esteem had been wounded by his parents’ divorce, and he was vulnerable to her enticements, evidently having no religious faith and therefore being outside God’s protection. Little did he suspect that, 10 years and two children later, this woman would have a lesbian conversion experience by watching a Hailee Steinfeld video, and then drag him out for public humiliation in this ridiculous YouTube series.

The Nice Guy™ who gets played for a chump is a cliché of pick-up artist (PUA) or “red pill” discourse of the so-called “manosphere,” but feminists never acknowledge this dynamic, because it does not serve their interests to admit that women can be selfish, dishonest and cruel. While the “manosphere” is generally condemned as anti-woman, what man would not be “anti” such women as Lauren Lim? If learning how to avoid these dangerous traps is “misogyny,” every man should be a misogynist!

The most cogent analysis of what’s gone wrong with modern marriage is Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s The Divorce Culture, in which she describes (p. 143) “the post-nuclear family ideology” that “abandons the norms of permanence in marriage . . . in favor of a norm of unfettered choice.” Feminists would denounce the selfishness of any man who discarded his loyal wife to pursue sexual adventure, but when the tables are turned — when, as in the case of Rob and Lauren Lim, it is the wife ditching her husband — feminists celebrate this act of selfishness as the essence of “empowerment” for women. In a world where women’s selfishness is praised, is it any wonder that men are less respectful toward women? How many times do men have to see the Nice Guy™ get played for a chump before they come to the conclusion that women are innately cruel creatures who always perceive kindness as proof of weakness?

“Thou shalt not be a chump” is not among the commandments found in the Bible, but it is nevertheless sound advice for young men. It must be kept in mind that predators have a natural instinct for spotting prey, which is why a selfish woman will instinctively find a Nice Guy™ to serve her needs, until such time as she becomes bored with his compliant obeisance and seeks a more challenging game, casting her victim aside after draining him of whatever self-respect he ever had.

Finally, permit me to ask a question: If finding Hailee Steinfeld attractive makes a woman “bisexual,” why aren’t all women “bisexual”?

This brings up a point that I once made in conversation with Ladd Ehlinger, namely that what is called “homophobia” is an entirely normal sentiment, implicit in heterosexual identity. The political rhetoric of LGBTQ activism promotes the idea that it is wrong to disapprove of homosexual behavior, but it should be obvious that, if such disapproval were not commonplace, many more people’s lives would resemble the circus of insanity into which Rob and Lauren Lim have stumbled. Until relatively recent times, homosexuality was considered so abhorrent that it was an insult even to suggest someone might have such inclinations. You could be sued for slander for suggesting such a thing, or more commonly, be threatened with a punch in the face for insinuating that someone was homosexual. And punching someone in response to such an insult would be legal under the “fighting words” doctrine. Now, however, with the LGBTQ rainbow “pride” ideology celebrated everywhere in our culture — even in many churches! — everybody must pretend to approve of homosexual behavior, and we are all expected to have “gaydar” that enables us to perceive a subtext of homosexual desire in almost anything.

What this worldview conveys is the self-congratulatory arrogance of the gay community, where it is imagined that the only reason straight people are straight is because they lack the courage to be gay. Supposedly, everybody is secretly harboring gay desires that they are afraid to pursue, so that it cannot be presumed that straight people are capable of considering the case objectively and answering, “No, I disapprove.”

Far be it from me to presume to know exactly how gay Lauren Lim is. However, if she insists that she is completely homosexual and just failed to realize this until she saw that Hailee Steinfeld video, I must either accept her explanation as sincere, or else make the cynical deduction that she is engaged in a self-justifying rationalization. Of course, I am naturally cynical, but even if I accepted her explanation as sincere, still she has no right to compel my approval of her behavior, nor can I be forbidden to express this disapproval. She is free to ignore my opinion, or to answer in her own defense, but what we have seen recently is a trend toward silencing almost any criticism of sexual behavior — gay, straight, whatever — under the rubric of “hate speech.” This is what we see in the claim that it is “slut shaming” (a category of misogyny, and thus “hate speech”) for anyone to express disapproval of female promiscuity. Feminism’s double standard is apparent here, because feminists routinely condemn heterosexual men as complicit in “rape culture” and “toxic masculinity.” Practically anything a guy does in an effort to get laid is wrong — it’s now “harassment” for a boy to flirt with a girl — according to feminists, whereas no women can ever be criticized for her sexual behavior, no matter how selfish and irresponsible her actions may be.

Call me a hater, if you wish, but you’re not going to force me to be silent while you run that shabby three-card monte hustle on me.

It is an objective fact that Hailee Steinfeld is attractive. Insofar as a woman might harbor any homosexual inclination, I wouldn’t be surprised that she would find Ms. Steinfeld worthy of admiration, but Lauren Lim seems to imply that no woman can acknowledge Ms. Steinfeld’s attractiveness without also betraying her own homosexual desire. The word for such a claim is crazy. To most men it is obvious why, for example, women are attracted to professional athletes, but does this mean every male sports fan is engaged in some kind of subconscious homosexual activity when he cheers for his favorite NBA or NFL team?

Just because people can’t offer a sustained argument to justify their beliefs doesn’t mean their beliefs are irrational, and yet heterosexuals have allowed themselves to be shamed into silence by LGBTQ activists who claim to have a monopoly on both rationality and compassion. One does not need any elaborate psychological theory of sexuality to observe that people respond to incentives, and to suppose that someone like Lauren Lim has at all times acted in accordance to what she perceived to be her own narrow self-interest. When she believed it advantageous to herself to have Rob Lim as her husband, she pursued this outcome despite his avowed reluctance, and when she grew bored with her marriage, she pursued other options that she considered more advantageous to herself. Am I being too cynical in believing that the actual reason that her sexual preferences have changed is because the incentives have changed? That is to say, if the culture in Edmonton, Alberta, had been as avidly pro-LGBTQ (and as avidly feminist) in 2004 as it is now, perhaps young Lauren never would have bothered dating men at all. As recently as 15 years ago, however, the sort of anti-male rhetoric one now hears from the feminist movement was rather rare, and one seldom encountered the radical lesbian claim that heterosexuality is inherently oppressive to women. In 2019, however, college boys are afraid to talk to college girls, for fear of being expelled over a “harassment” complaint, and everyone has to watch their words lesy they accidentally say something that could be interpreted as “homophobic” or “transphobic” by the Thought Police who constantly monitor the Internet in search of “hate speech” to condemn. In such a climate, it’s scarcely surprising that fewer young people are having sex, nor is it surprising that so many are now identifying as “bisexual” or “queer” in an effort to escape the accusation of possessing “heterosexual privilege.”

Well, I could never be deceived by such scams, but scammers always manage to find a Nice Guy™ they can play for a chump, and so you can watch “This Incredible Life” on YouTube to witness a chump volunteering for public humiliation. But it’s not “incredible,” it’s just pathetic.







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