I come today to bury once and for all that thing called “romantic love.” You know what I mean: the thing your parents had—or that you imagine they had. The thing Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman had in Casablanca. And that all those other leading men and women have in Hollywood movies.

Well guess what: it no longer exists. And I’ll tell you why: women no longer need men. Period. What Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin and the rest of the militant/non-militant feminists wanted has come to pass. And now that human cloning is just around the corner, males are superfluous. We might as well pack up our Corvettes, fishing rods and penises and head for the hills.

And need is what romantic love is all about. Equals do not love one another. Parents love their children because they have power over them, and because they feel responsible for them. Children love their parents because they owe them their very existence. We love dogs and cats because without us, they would starve to death, or get run over in the streets.

Back in the olden days, when cave-women clung to hairy, testosterone-laden cave men, the choice was either belong to someone, or be raped and used by everyone. And up until our current generation, society perpetuated at least some of the “women as chattel” concept. Women had to find a man if they wanted to…to…well, to be, basically. If they wanted kids or a nice house or a nice car or any of the trappings of a “successful” life, they needed to chain themselves to the biggest, richest, most powerful man they could find.

Now, of course, women have scaled the corporate ladder. They are doctors and lawyers, truck drivers and basketball players. They want to be just as greedy and destructive of the environment as men: feeding at the corporate trough is no longer an exclusively male sport.

So, I ask you, why would a woman want a man? If they want kids, they can go to the local sperm bank and douche themselves into pregnancy. Or, in a few years, wander down to the local cloning factory and get impregnated with a little copy of themselves. If they want a nice house and car, they can get a better job, or go back to school for a Masters, or take over a corporation. And if they want sex, the cheapest dildo you can buy will stay hard longer than the most robust man. (And is probably as considerate a lover as the majority of us.)

And as for men, we can’t love women who don’t need us. Oh sure, we pretend to love them. But that’s just for sex. We can say we want a “partner” in life, and not just a possession. But it’s a lie. Based upon millennia of human history, men want control. We want power. If we can’t fuck it, we kill it. We want to own our mates, body and soul. We want to know that without us, our wives would be cast upon the wind, penniless, homeless, and cock-less.

The fact that we still need women for sex gnaws at us. It’s not just that we’re not in control anymore. No, it’s worse: we are now their slaves. Women no longer need us—but we still need them. Or, more precisely, our penises need them. We crave something warm, wet, and tight to impale ourselves on. Some lucky guys are able to use other men for this purpose. We call them homosexuals, and ridicule them. That’s because they’ve found a cure for what ails the rest of us.

So, we have a society of independent women who are able to satisfy all of their earthly desires without men. And a society of dependent, despondent men who need sex and are willing to say or do whatever is necessary to get it. And what’s left out of the equation? What fell through the cracks of our modern culture? Why do over half of all marriages now end in divorce? Love is dead. QED.

Disagree? Do you believe in the power of love? Are you one of those annoying, perky, romantic people? Then send me a note at scooter262@yahoo.com