Some things I shall never tire of, among them the following:

  1.) Repeating that wisdom rarely appears as such to the unwise

  2.) Massaging beautiful women

  3.) Eating a well-prepared steak

  4.) Defending the genre of metal from the aspersions cast by its ignorant and tasteless detractors

 It is to the fourth that we turn our attention today. Would you expect to find a love song in a metal album? Not the overly sentimental rubbish that usually passes for a love song, mind you, but one which actually gives voice to a profound and wholesome passion? You may be surprised. One of the reasons metal deserves our attention and respect is that, unlike most other kinds of music in the modern world, it does not shy away from dealing with mythological, philosophical, religious or mystical subjects with reverence and real depth. Consider A Love Unreal by Black Label Society, which does an exemplary job of capturing the essence of masculine love, of how a wise and powerful man thinks of and expresses love for a woman. It begins:

Hand me your doubts, worries and fears

Within this embrace they shall all disappear

A love beyond, a love unreal

The sadness you felt, you will no longer feel

 The protective side of man's nature beams out from these lyrics. One of the primary ways men show their love, especially to women, is by encouraging, stabilizing and uplifting them in times of despondency or anxiety. Have you ever embraced a woman lovingly when they were distraught or melancholic, and felt them melt into your chest? As if it was precisely what they needed? They seem to instantly change for the better, you can actually feel the sadness begin to abate and drain out of them as it's replaced with a warm gratitude. These lyrics capture that moment perfectly, and a crucial aspect of masculine love in general; the giving of strength, warmth and surety to those we love when they're enduring hardship.

This world and all that there is

I give it to you, all to you

Hand me your love and all that you are

Could you promise me, as I promise you?

 Here we encounter man as provider, as one who lovingly gives the things of the earth, who initiates and awaits reciprocation. A man overflowing with passionate love will move mountains to provide for his beloved and expects, in return, but the whole-hearted love and loyalty of his woman. Women tend to underestimate just how powerful their genuine love and reverence for a man is. A great deal of all that has been accomplished in our history can be traced back to men responding to or seeking the love of a woman. As men we want to give everything that is needful for our lover to enjoy a blessed and blissful life in this world, to allow her to fully unfurl her feminine beauty and happiness, even if the labor to acquire it proves grueling, perilous and oppressive. The reward of her reverent love and devotion, and bearing witness to the flourishing we've made possible, is more than enough compensation. The contemporary assault on this reverent feminine love, which casts it as a regrettable surrender of agency and free-wheeling girl power, has done tremendous damage to both sexes. Women have been conned into eschewing and mistrusting what is perhaps the greatest power they possess and the finest satisfaction they can know, while men are starved of a spiritual nourishment and sense of fulfillment they can get nowhere else.

Abandoned lies, the uncovered truth

Of who you are and who's of worth

A love beyond, a love unreal

The sadness you felt, you will no longer feel

...

Hear my words

I speak no lies

The dawn of the new

With open eyes

 Finally, we see masculine love as seeking the truth, as dispelling illusion and deceit and still cherishing the reality that remains. A man uses that truthful apprehension to guide him and his lover into a brighter and better life, with a clear-eyed and adventurous spirit. We can all feel, on our darker days, that we are somehow undeserving of love, but women seem especially prone to this, and the more awe-inspiring the man she loves is, the more acute the problem becomes. While women deeply desire to be understood by their man, they may also be wracked with anxiety as to how he would respond to the naked truth of who they are.

 She wants her man to intuit, unearth and comprehend who she really is, what she really believes and desires, what truly makes her happy, what she is anxious to reveal but dares not; she may want him to know these things even better than she herself knows them. If, from this place of true understanding, he can then place his hand upon her chest, feel the fluttering of her heart, look deeply into her eyes and declare his love, he will have given her one of the greatest gifts she can receive: To be seen for precisely who she is, to be bare both spiritually and bodily before him in the full light of day, and to know that he still loves and desires her, that there is no one else he would rather be with.

 This doesn't mean he blithely accepts any vices she may be prone to, that he has no standards, or that he doesn't expect her to grow as a person. A man who can only ever say "you're perfect just the way you are" is in the grip of a pernicious, thoroughly modern delusion; the notion that love could be and ought to be entirely unconditional, that true love is simply accepting a person precisely as they are, refusing to criticize or challenge them in any way. This belief is the very antithesis of the most integral quality of masculine love; the willingness to do and say that which could hurt, offend or aggrieve those you love because that is what's best for them.

 A strong and loving man is willing to chance their beloved's ire, even their contempt, when he believes he is in the right. This can be seen in the sternness of a loving father who is willing to rebuke and stubbornly refuse the demands of his children, or disagree with them strongly on subjects they're passionate about, because he earnestly believes that, in the course of time, they will be better for having been refused or disagreed with. They may throw a tantrum, they may say they hate him―for a while they may actually hate him! But he does not waver and, if his judgment is sound and his children are honest with themselves, they will one day look back and be thankful that he had the integrity and courage to endure their displeasure, as it was ultimately to their benefit.

 This disciplined, far-sighted love is what we lack most severely in the Western world today. The prevailing conception of romantic love is horrifically misguided, is now thought to be, in its ideal state, something like an unending bacchanalia of lovey-dovey sentiments and unconditional bliss. This is the odious excretion of a callow and drug-addled mind; it bears no resemblance to reality. It's a kind of spiritual vanity masquerading as enlightenment, which is far more likely to engender disillusionment and resentment than anything akin to wisdom or an empyrean state of joy. The closest thing to unconditional love that I've ever encountered would have to be the love of a good mother for her child. Yet even that, if the child becomes sufficiently monstrous, cruel and irredeemable, can ultimately be shattered. If unconditional love does exist, it is surely reserved for spirits so advanced as to approximate deity and, let us be frank, even the best among us are a long ways from that.

 We have an ode then, in this excellent piece, to three of the centrally important facets of masculine love. The love of the protector, of the provider, and of the one who loves fearlessly from out of truth, doing what they believe is best despite the risk. All this, from a song written by heavily-muscled, bearded and boisterous headbangers! Does this surprise you, my friend? If so, perhaps it's time you developed more catholicity of taste and let go the silly prejudice you have against a beautifully powerful form of music.