By Heart-thur oh Soul-livan
A specter is haunting Binghamton — the specter of incel-ism. There’s no use denying it: Binghamton Review, once the refuge of scholars, has degenerated into a bunch of malodorous men—more terminally online than a WiFi router—vomiting their written screed onto a Google document, clicking the “share” button, and sending their works of ‘genius’ to editor@binghmatonreview.com. There, the man behind the account, no less miserable than his writers (but now with a thesaurus), is forced to edit their too-long or too-short or too-nonsensical soliloquies into something approximating a coherent article. One watches this occur, and can only sigh at how lonely these men must be, to use Binghamton Review as their crutch for socialization.
Needless to say, there is a crisis at our border: the border between Binghamton’s sanity and insanity. The loneliness of Binghamton’s men, especially those who would write for the Review, crashes like furious waves against the bulwark of our collective psyche. In simpler terms, this rot at the heart of Binghamton Review, and Binghamton itself, by extension, can only be saved by one thing: “bitches.”
Mistake that term not for something vulgar: I do not refer to the fairer sex of dogs, nor make any comparison to our own. I, in fact, take this term from our former (female) Editor in Chief, Madeline, who whilom inveighing against this tide of “incel-ism” in Binghamton Review, would admonish the subjects of her fulminations to “get bitches.” As right as she was, she missed but one thing: How?
Now, the old floppy-conservative Arthur would say that the only way to “bitches,” as it were, is straight and narrow. Man should not concern himself with attracting women as his final goal, but rather build his character—through things such as taking responsibility, going outside, getting educated, etc.—such that women naturally gravitate toward him. But did that ever get the old Arthur bitches? Not really. To this end, I, being reborn in the fires of incel theory, have a much better solution to the incel problem, one which combines the best of paternalistic central planning with the Oedipal relief of relinquishing all responsibility: the Stenger-mandated spouse.
I hear your cries already. “The what?!” “What’s a ‘Stenger’?” “HUH?!” “Take your meds!” But I am immune to your narrow-minded criticism. If you lay aside your trifling Liberal morality, you will come to see that my idea—more so than any other proposed in human history—will save Binghamton, if not the world!
First and foremost: I have named the “Stenger-mandated spouse” after our inimitable university president, Dr. Harvey Stenger. Under his wise and clement rule, many aspects of Binghamton have flourished. We have become the Singapore on the Susquehanna, and Binghamton University its crown jewel. What more fitting end to his rule could there be, but for him to banish the one shadow which has survived his brilliant light. By my proposed system of mandating relationships, Dr. Stenger has the chance to make loneliness as distant a memory to Binghamton University as Smallpox.
Those of more acute minds might then ask, what actually is the “Stenger-mandated spouse”? It’s more than simple. Every year, thousands of freshmen find themselves paired with roommates—typically of the same sex—by our university’s Residential Life (“ResLife”) housing portal. Now, many people have bemoaned this system. One person might consider themselves a 7/10 on cleanliness, and hyperventilate when they see one dust particle out of place; another person may rate themselves the same, and have their room look like Hunter Biden’s apartment after a night of “light drinking.” This, naturally, breeds conflict. It also sometimes breeds the deepest friendships of peoples’ lives, despite the conflict. You know what else it doesn’t breed? Children. Indeed, our current roommate situation might breed conflict and friendship, but never romance.
The “Stenger-mandated spouse” system fixes that. Instead of assigning our best and brightest to a dorm with some smelly “roommate,” freshmen will be paired with a member of the opposite sex and common-law married (I don’t know what that is, but it sounds real) under the auspices of Harvey Stenger. Just like the good old days (the 1990s), divorce will be nigh-impossible, and likely end in the expulsion of one or both parties. Thus, those good-old-fashioned values on which we used to rely will be reinstated.
The benefits are too numerous to list. But I will anyway:
First: by marrying two students paired by ResLife, we no longer need two beds. One full-size bed will suffice for our newlyweds. This should reduce the size of our dorms by a few inches. On its own, that seems small, but scale it up up up… we’d save enough space to give Binghamton Review an office again!
Second: this will broaden students’ horizons immeasurably. With roommates, they learn some social intricacies. But with a mandatory spouse, they’ll learn that and more! Indeed, those who survive the crucible of my arranged marriage system will have the power to endure anything socially.
Thirdably and finally: dude just trust me it would be really funny.
I still anticipate some “moral” objections to my proposal. Some quickfire disclaimers: those seeking a same-sex or “other” gender spouse may receive special dispensation from the DEI chair (we are a welcoming university, after all); those too timorous to pair up with a “random” spouse can request—not unlike our current ResLife system—a specific person; to encourage romance and child-rearing, newlywed couples will be placed in regular mortal danger, only able to trust in each other, and all parties injured or killed by this program will have tuition refunded; all children begotten by this program will be raised as special janissaries to enforce this same program (it will pay for itself in a few generations).
With the “Stenger-mandated spouse,” all our problems become soluble. And if it doesn’t work, then my overarching “theory” just hasn’t been implemented right.
I’m Nikki Haley, and I approve this message.