There are still plenty of asshole guys out there, but the rapidly spreading idea that men who are married or in stable relationships are automatically pussy-whipped is both reinforced and shown to be more and more prevalent in American culture by the institution of television. Any time I walk out into the living room to see what kinds of images my folks are letting themselves be brainwashed with, it doesn't take more than about 10 seconds before I see some guy who is
- trying to subvert his wife's regime by buying a motorcycle or sneaking a beer or a candy bar behind her back
- begging her forgiveness for an earlier infraction of the rules she set for him
- just being undeniably much much stupider in every way than she is
Why do sitcoms
exploit this idea? Because it's good for a laugh to see the classic gender roles getting violated. Unfortunately, the more you watch TV, the more you think of it as a reliable source of information, and so lots of stupid couples who watch 4 hours of TV a day start believing the characters are acting like normal people do, and eventually start to emulate their behavior (
monkey see, monkey do). The man gets more and more convinced that he's stupider than his mate, and the woman is convinced that it is appropriate for her to watch him become
whipped.