Manliness and Feminism 3: Rise of the Machines
2011 28 Jan
New open thread on manliness and feminism. What will we do when we run out of Terminator flicks?
As Cessen says,
The manliness followup thread was a bit over 450 thousand words long.
The second followup thread is a bit under 200 thousand.
So, counted together as a single thread (as it should be), we’re at about 650 thousand words.
For comparison, the bible is a bit over 770 thousand words long.
If we yoink out the intra-thread quotations then these threads are probably a couple hundred thousand words shorter than 650. But still. This is a seriously epic thread. It should be preserved for posterity. It’s amazing what joint authorship can accomplish.
Previous posts in the manliness series:
* Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 1: Who Cares?
* Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 2: Men’s Rights
* Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 3: Space for Men
* Manliness and Feminism: The Followup
* Manliness and Feminism 2: Judgment Day
The above image is available in poster form from movieposter.com, or would be if they weren’t out of stock. Gotcha!
Tags: feminism, masculinity
Or that the ending will be something of an anticlimax?
Well, coming from one of those straight, white men, I think the notion of manliness as it’s traditionally contrived is absolute nonsense from the word go. There have been many times when I’ve wished I could simply make up a different gender title for myself and disown myself from the idea of being a “man.” It’s a worthless concept, and the idea of femininity is similarly worthless. Perhaps we could just try being humans for once, eh?
In an amazing example of synchronicity, one of my favorite men just sent me this:
http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/waterstone.html
It’s a review of “Terminator 2″ by … wait for it … David Foster Wallace. Sam, I await your analysis ;)
Woo hoo! I was quoted in an OP (sort of)!
Does this imply that by the time we’re done with Thread 4, “Salvation”, we’ll have solved all the problems of masculinity forever?
No more than likely we’ll just have to move on to a franchise that has more entries. You could take the ironic route and start with Saw….
“Does this imply that by the time we’re done with Thread 4, “Salvation”, we’ll have solved all the problems of masculinity forever?”
I doubt it. I actually started to get optimistic at one point, but then I got Motley’s latest ‘reply’ to me, and I realised that I probably isn’t worth the bother :-(
Ms.Thorn, I participate on MRA forums/blogs, and I have read all of your posts regarding heterosexual men and privilege. I do not usually like the label “MRA” or “ifeminist” and I generally use the label “pro-human” as it’s not a loaded term.
I do not agree with everything MRAs say, but I do believe that men are the targets of institutionalized misandry. And I also do believe is that women and men have some privileges that the other gender does not.
In my honest opinion, traditional masculinity heaps a lot of problems on men’s shoulders thanks to sexist assumptions about men. Just as traditional femininity heaps a lot of problems on women. This is all especially true if men and women do not themselves fit into a proscribed role.
Thank you for your time. In frith.
@Clarisse:
Follow them up with an Equilibrium post. Christian Bale’s quite useful as a segue — in fact, many of his films could be employed as effective metaphors in regard to this subject — and that incident on the set of Terminator Salvation would be a good cautionary tale, too.
Now, if we could actually get him involved in these threads… especially considering that he’s Steinem’s stepson. :)
@Zack:
Tricky issue, there, trying to determine the right constraints. Bond, of the (regrettably) now-closed Dear Diaspora, used to write about that quite a bit: the usefulness of those terms for the formation of identity, countered by their potential to trap.
Fine line.
Man, when I read the title I initially thought someone was going to talk about vibrators and if they threaten manliness. ah, well :)
Tim,
we’d totally lose *that* battle ;)
“Call him doctor ‘Orgasmatron’”
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-orside11feb11,0,79450.story
@Tim:
Nope, just Bathmates, Sexxxtrainers, cock rings and ED medications. All of which definitely relate. (Not to mention things like RealTouch.)
I mean, not only is it “Rise of the Machines,” just look at the image. If that doesn’t scream “don’t worry, hydraulics fail from time to time,” I don’t know what does.
Hahaha what battle? Go get one of those trojan vibrating ring things and everyone’s happy hahaha.
That’s kind of the point.
Using one of those vibrating rings because both people want to, and enjoy doing so — that’s one thing. But if you’re mechanizing yourself in order to sidestep the issue, then that’s not exactly a healthy resolution.
The mechanization and medicalization of sex has certainly been (and continues to be) a feminist concern; it’s no less related to issues of being masculine and/or male.
@Orgasmatron
Great, if we are already this far it is just a matter of time until humanity is making sex by plugging USB cords into each participants back of the head. Of course the political far right will try to ban the sale of hubs, so that all connections will be 1 on 1 and the exchange of bodily fluits will be considered gross and disgusting… Wait, am I stealing this from a movie ?
@Infra
What issue are you refering to ?
That mechanical applications are going to replace genuine sexual encounters ?
That sex is being perceived as something ‘technical’ and supplied with a manual, just like the nightstand Aspelund from Ikea (Step 1: Lube, Step 2: Insert, Step 3: Pound away) ?
Both of those issues, in different ways — the IkeaSex issue could be related to the SC, for example, especially when considering Piccus’ and Shade’s material. And the mechanical application issue would relate to things like RealDolls and UR3 vaginas, and programs like Ripened Peach’s “Sex Sim,” along with the fact that RealTouch devices key off of DVDs. There, we’d be moving into “uncanny valley” territory, and the connection to arguments regarding objectification should be readily apparent.
But I don’t think that it’s limited to those two. Considering things like semen volumizers and erection enhancers (herbal, pharmacological and physical), among other things — jelqing, pumps, “hardness factor” fitness and nutrition books — it’s possible to assert that male sexuality is often viewed, functionally and as a whole, as mechanical. As something not entirely organic, even, as evidenced by approaches to whole-body and extended orgasms, which often focus on prostate stimulation and ejaculation control rather than modifications of normative behaviors (and often regard normative male sexual response as being incompatible with, or compromising, those experiences).
That broader view is relevant to performance emphasis, IMO, and I’m not sure that that emphasis can be rightly understood without considering it.
To clarify:
I’m saying that the vibrator/manliness question is the tip of the iceberg, and that it might be an issue, not because of the existence of vibrators, but because of a preexisting mechanical view of male and/or masculine sexual function and experience. The existence and use of vibrators and more complex sex machines simply brings it into sharper relief, and the use of vibrating cock rings can be either a choice out of pleasure or a simplistic, and not necessarily healthy, approach to addressing that issue.
Infra,
“then that’s not exactly a healthy resolution.”
Well, it’s decidedly more healthy than not having sex at all, in my opinion.
“There, we’d be moving into “uncanny valley” territory, and the connection to arguments regarding objectification should be readily apparent.”
Really, the entire “objectification” argument is so problematic in itself that I can really only barely accept it in a sociology level gender discourse about media and things like “the male gaze”, but not with respect to shaming individual people’s sexualities for their fetishes or because they are reacting to someone else’s body in one way or another.
As for RealDolls, I cannot understand why anyone would wonder about “objectification” in that context. If anyone is interested, there’s an amazing British documentary about men who live with such dolls, called “guys and dolls”. I once attented a panel discussion with a distributor and a doll, and, really, those dolls don’t feel real at all.
Is it?
Genuine question. IME, not having sex is more beneficial than adding things to it for reasons like that (with the qualifier that the former is an intentional decision), especially when those reasons are applied over an extended period. I’m just wondering whether or not your experience speaks differently.
Regarding objectification: I’m not saying that those arguments are necessarily valid, only that there’s a connection. That can make those things problematic when they otherwise wouldn’t be.
(Sorry — the word “experience” should have been emphasized there. I’m curious as to whether your statement is based in experience or is an extrapolation from other things.)
Infra,
maybe we’d have to clarify the concept of “sex” first, in order to avoid misunderstandings. I do count masturbation as sex in this context… and I do believe that masturbation, including masturbation using whatever fetishized object, is generally healthier than refraining from sexual activity at all. As for experience, having been involuntarily celibate for quite a while, I’ve experimented with a couple of masturbatory aids, yet none of them actually added significantly to the experience that I could create using “my own hand(s)”.
I don’t generally consider masturbation to be a “second rate” sexual activity, and I do think there’s nothing wrong with masturbating in a relationship, although I suppose that in the latter case, a fetishization could become a problem for the emotional relationship and thus potentially also for the sexual relationship. But that’s a matter of two people working out their kinks, not a matter of general medical concern, in my opinion. So, in general, yes, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that kind of sexuality.
Sam,
Yeah, it does help to clarify things.
I’d say that there can be problems with using e.g. a vibrating ring in order to address issues of the “how do I compare to a vibrator?” type, or out of a concern for living up to expectations, but I have no issues at all as far as use of toys or tools go, when used for other reasons. (Some of the things that I mentioned, and others that I didn’t, I own; all solo and for my own use, aside from things that I employ for D/s. Contra your experience, though, I have found some of them to be more effective than manual stimulation. Some, better than body-body sex, as far as raw sensation is concerned.)
Can’t say that my female partners have necessarily taken a kind view of my owning them, though. The only ones who’ve had more positive reactions were bisexual, and had those reactions to the more realistically-designed toys.
Infra,
“Can’t say that my female partners have necessarily taken a kind view of my owning them, though.”
interesting, I only know one woman (who has a lot of issues with sexuality in general) who holds an “eww” view about sex toys. I’ve actually given a remote controlled egg vibrator as a birthday present to a female friend (I’m not sleeping with, and only partly as a joke…) after she had complained to me about “being bored in lectures” without being able to stimulate herself manually… Most women I talked to about such things admitted to using some sort of masturbatory aid themselves (10-15, maybe) and they generally seemed to like the idea of guys trying out stuff.
Sam,
That was the odd thing: they didn’t hold negative views about sex toys, and usually owned toys themselves. And with certain ones (like an Evolved Talon), they didn’t have a problem with it, unless they also had problems with that kind of play in general. But when it came to the others, like the Fleshlight sleeves and UR3 casts?
Very, very different reaction. Seems like the more realistic they were — which, to me, also meant the more organic and integrated the sensation was — the more of a negative reaction resulted.
Sex toys for males have a three negative stigmas if you will.
First: A man using a sex toy is seen as a man who can’t “get any”.
Secondly: Some male sex toys are for anal play and using them makes the man gay.
Thirdly: If a sex toy is a disembodied female part (like a fleshlight) it’s objectifying parts of the female body and is creepy/weird (http://feministing.com/2007/06/08/most_disturbing_thing_ever/) – if it’s not disembodied it’s even more creepy (see the numerous posts on RealDolls on feministing).
For a more balanced feminist comment on this see: http://rabbitwrite.com/exploring-sex-toys-for-men/
Good quote from the Rabbit Write entry:
It would help to clarify why there’s no direct equivalent to “slut” when it comes to men, too. I’m not sure that a sentiment like that could be effectively boiled down to a word or a phrase. It almost begs for a conceptual structure rather than a nugget of language.
Infra,
“Seems like the more realistic they were — which, to me, also meant the more organic and integrated the sensation was — the more of a negative reaction resulted.”
I noticed a while ago that when science fiction communities are utterly dominated by women, they’ve often gotten rid of the men (or were an all-female species to begin with), but when they’re dominated by men, women are often present in large numbers, but completely dehumanised. The Stepford Wives being the prime example, and incidentally, together with The Handmaid’s Tale, one of the few sci-fi works which deals specifically with women’s fears.
One book I read even had both, a matriarchy where men were only kept around as a necessity for breeding and the women were working on a way to make them superfluous, and a patriarchy where men and women lived together and the women were subservient to the men (and while author didn’t exactly portray the patriarchy as good, he made it clear that it was infinitely better and more natural than the matriarchy).
It seems to be a common perception that if a woman spends time with a man, she does so because she appreciates him as a person, because if she didn’t, she’d just cut him, and men in general, out of her life completely. Whereas men don’t need to have an inkling of respect or consideration for women as people in order to like having them around, especially for sex. So perhaps more men than women fear to be made superfluous, but more women than men fear to be dehumanised and replaced with something else.
Clarisse,
will do the Foster-Wallace analysis asap ;). Although I have to say that my knowledge of Terminator movies is limited… maybe something to correct beforehand.
Speaking of technology, now that you’re on your server, how about adding some formatting buttons to the comment form, say for easier quoting?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-form-quicktags
Tamen,
“First: A man using a sex toy is seen as a man who can’t “get any”.”
Yeah, but that’s, sadly, a very generic slur. It’s possibly more the opposite of “slut” than “creep”, although there probably is a certain overlap between “can’t get any” and “creep”. Not being seen as a guy “not getting any” by women and men is certainly one of the bigger concerns for most men, in my opinion, and, alas, usually a necessary requirement of “getting any”.
“Thirdly: If a sex toy is a disembodied female part (like a fleshlight) it’s objectifying parts of the female body and is creepy/weird…”
You mean objectifying like a… ahm… dildo?
AB,
“So perhaps more men than women fear to be made superfluous, but more women than men fear to be dehumanised and replaced with something else.”
But if your assumption is correct that women are not as interested in men as providers of sexuality as men are in women, why would they fear being replaced with something else? If that were the case wouldn’t being replaced with something else be convenient and power-enhancing? They could decide about spending time with men on their own – assumed non sexual – terms entirely if they (and men) still wanted to.
Sam,
“But if your assumption is correct that women are not as interested in men as providers of sexuality as men are in women, why would they fear being replaced with something else? If that were the case wouldn’t being replaced with something else be convenient and power-enhancing? They could decide about spending time with men on their own – assumed non sexual – terms entirely if they (and men) still wanted to.”
Sure, if they thought men wanted to. For a variety of reasons, women tend to like men, and admire them. Even the women who profess to hate men often really want their respect, but have given up getting it. Perhaps it’s because the cultural climate in most of our history have caused then majority of the people who really made an impact to be men, but for whatever reason, women are more likely to count men among their heroes and more likely to want to read/hear stories about men than vice versa.
We have a saying here (and I bet you do too) that women give sex to get love, and men give love to get sex. So much of women’s interaction with men is dominated by the feeling that sex is (a) necessary (evil) to even get treated like a person. Just look at what happened in the last thread when I suggested that most women didn’t want men to date them, they wanted men to not treat them like lesser beings just because they were female and sexually uninteresting, and Motley answered that this meant that women really wanted the privileges that came with being attractive to men.
So not being treated like a lesser being by men is a privilege for women, which they can only earn by being fuckable. Women either have cunts that men want their dicks in, or they’re just cunts who’re not worth even treating like a person. The idea that there is a possible form of interaction between the sexes which isn’t decided by the presence of a cunt is unthinkable to such people.
This is further underlined by how many men complain that women don’t want to fuck them after they’ve wasted their time being friendly, as if the idea of just being friendly towards a girl because you like her (in a non-sexual way) is completely alien, and the idea that the girl could have mistaken their friendliness for an actual friendship is ridiculous.
Sam:
Yeah, the disconnect (pun intended) some women have when it comes to this is quite staggering. One argument at Feministing was that dildos were different than the feet with a vagina thingy because they were smooth or had a knob (another pun) at the end of it, while the feet were “jagged” above the ancle which obviously meant that they were supposed to look like they’ve been chopped off Bobbit style (oops, wrong example – I meant ..ehh.. Google luckily couldn’t help me find an example of what I meant…).
AB,
“For a variety of reasons, women tend to like men, and admire them.”
you know, I can actually understand that, not everything men have done was horrible. They also invented the printing press and the lightbulb, came up with separation of powers and the steam machine, probably the most important historical reason for the discussion we’re having ;)
“We have a saying here (and I bet you do too) that women give sex to get love, and men give love to get sex. So much of women’s interaction with men is dominated by the feeling that sex is (a) necessary (evil) to even get treated like a person.”
Did you read any of the links I mentioned in my replies to you in the earlier thread? I really don’t know what your thing is, but as I have maintained before: to the extent that we can abolish the pleasure-provision imbalance you mention culturally, we should do it, to the extent that such an imbalance should be the consequence of innate/essential/biological/evolutionary causes, we can likely only state its existence and then wonder about how to deal with it (as in, say, patriarchy, which is logically based on sexual assumptions like the one you mention).
I don’t buy your assumption, and even though most available research seems to point to a stronger male sex drive, women do like sex, and not merely to make a guy watch Ally McBeal with her, also because it’s a pleasurable activity as such. To suggest otherwise is contradicting my and I suppose pretty much everyone’s reality.
I’m not sure what you are attempting to get at with the “lesser being” thing? Have you had a look at this thread?
http://notfrisco2.com/leones/?p=5803
Again, I don’t know what you refer to by being treated as a lesser being, but what you say does sound a bit like you’re trying to police male desire by saying that it should really be different from what it seems to be. Everyone has a right to be respected, also to have their sexual persona respected (for all the problems this poses in practice, of course), but apart from that, Motley is right. Being liked is a privilege, being respected is a right. If being liked comes with advantages that being respected doesn’t come with, and I think it’s pretty obvious that it does, then people will treat people they like “better”, and nothing can be done about that. Remember what you said about “how sexual attraction works” irrespective of social forces, that you cannot make yourself like certain bone structures?
“and the idea that the girl could have mistaken their friendliness for an actual friendship is ridiculous.”
No, the absurdity is that the categories are mixed up. I can totally be friends with a woman whether I desire her sexually or not. You can also have sex without being friends or lovers, or be totally in love and have sex. There are multiple dimensions to relationships. Usually, relations between heterosexual women and men will always have a potential sexual undercurrent. But let’s face it – if that weren’t there, it would also be disrespecting the other’s sexual persona. And in the end, aren’t men who are following the pattern you suggest not merely doing exactly what you suggested as standard procedure? They are offering emotional attachment for sexual access. So, well, if women are offering sexual access for emotional attachment, that’s because they have to in the current dysfunctional setup, but if men are complying with the same script it’s their fault?
Really?
Also, I’ve probably hurt more women by not having sex with them and still wanting to be friends when they were clearly sexually interested than the other way around. It seems not all women appreciate that setup as much as you do.
I think, on the subject of male sex toys, that concerning that “objectification of a female body part” is not truly correlated to the objectification of women, at least not in the lesser cases. The RealDolls and similar things certainly are — they’re meant to imitate a whole woman in the form of an object — but things like Fleshlights I think are really just an acknowledgement of how male genitals function, just as the design of vibrators and dildos are an acknowledgement of how female genitals function. Men need something to enter, and it just so happens that fleshlights are designed to satisfy that need far better than a hand can. And if you really want to avoid and “objectification” then they have the sleeves which are just a hole, with no visual design.
As for men who are scared to put things in their ass, this is just clearly homophobia taking hold. As Dan Savage would say, if you’re doing it and thinking about a woman, then it’s heterosexual. And if you’re doing it and thinking about a man, then it’s homosexual. Obviously I have no problem with either, but again, if you acknowledge the simple fact that men have a prostate and when you touch it it feels good (amazing in fact), such toys are simply designed to take advantage of the anatomy of male genitalia.
Overall, I think the best view one can have on sex toys is this: if it gets you off, it’s doing it’s job. And we can acknowledge the various versions of toys and the fact that some of them objectify women or men, or at least parts of them, and perhaps realize that it’s better to objectify them in a toy than objectify them in real life (unless of course that’s what they want in a sexual context). Sex is a puzzling, complex thing, and what gets people off is often completely unrelated to what they believe. I have a friend who loves the idea of being pseudo-raped, but she’s an immensely powerful, independent woman in her normal life, and she would never let a man treat her in everyday life how she’d let him treat her in bed. Likewise, plenty of domineering, asshole men who probably are relatively sexist in their everyday lives like to be tied up and bossed around and objectified by women when they have sex.
@Sam:
In general I feel like http://notfrisco2.com/leones/?p=5803 is a fairly reasonable take on things.
In particular, this quote resonates with me:
Although I do still think there are problematic reasons to reject people that ought to be examined and talked about. But, ultimately, if you don’t want to date/fuck/start-a-life-together with someone, that’s your prerogative.
@AB:
I wouldn’t argue against this, necessarily, but it’s worth considering that this relates to other common tropes in sci-fi: insect metaphor and atavism. And they’re hardly restricted to that genre (isn’t “queen bee” the current equivalent for “alpha male” in much current analysis?), so I’d just say that it’s a deeper issue than might initially suggest itself.
Isn’t this exactly what Rabbit White was getting at?
I’m not saying that there aren’t situations in which and people to which it applies, but I suspect that she was right that this is a stereotype that men can get painted with for reasons that might have little to do with its origin in experience.
@Tamen:
I didn’t follow up on other threads at Feministing, and it’s possible that things have changed due to the fact that it was an older post… but what strikes me about it is that a comparison was being made between dildos and a toy that was featured at Stockroom. Comparing vanilla toys and a fetish item featured at a store that specializes in BDSM equipment — that’s like comparing apples and sashimi, and saying that the difference is that apples are sweet.
So, yeah. Kind of a huge disconnect, there.
I’ve been having an interesting discussion about boundaries, manipulation, and compliance tactics at LessWrong.
@Zack:
Fleshlights are… a complicated subject.
It’s certainly true that they reflect how the male genitals function, and it’s certainly true that objectification can be avoided in most cases. (Not always, because certain sleeves are only available in, e.g., the Fleshlight Girls collection.) It’s also true that part of it, when it comes to sleeve design, is novelty.
But those explanations fall short when looking at the specific marketing for the Stamina Training Unit, or the popularity of the Lotus, Forbidden and Swallow textures (all of which are designed with realism in mind), or the discussions of DGS — “Death Grip Syndrome,” resulting from manual masturbation, and the recovery/increase of sensation as the result of using the sleeves — in the forums.
It’s when considering those elements that the objectification argument seems to be, at best, circumstantially accurate — something that also applies to the functionality one. There seem to be men who use Fleshlights for functional reasons, but there also seem to be a substantial number who use them to connect with and increase genuine, embodied experience. I’m inclined to think (and have concluded from my own experiences) that realistic designs can be, and often are, closely related to that second motivation.
And the Sexxxtrainer product takes that to an entirely different level. I’m not sure that it’s coincidental, or just a business issue, that it’s specifically designed to work with Fleshlight sleeves.
Sam,
you know, I can actually understand that, not everything men have done was horrible. They also invented the printing press and the lightbulb, came up with separation of powers and the steam machine, probably the most important historical reason for the discussion we’re having ;)
And they did so under conditions that explicitly prevented women from contributing. It makes for a very strong love/hate relationship. But in my experience, one thing women rarely do, is ignoring men’s humanity. Or rather, if they do, they have to actively work towards it, demonise men, remind themselves how violent men are, make catchy slogans about how little they need men, etc. For men, it comes a lot more naturally, because both sexes have grown up in a culture where the default human being is male.
I don’t buy your assumption, and even though most available research seems to point to a stronger male sex drive, women do like sex, and not merely to make a guy watch Ally McBeal with her, also because it’s a pleasurable activity as such. To suggest otherwise is contradicting my and I suppose pretty much everyone’s reality.
I didn’t assume anything, I said it was a common perception. I’m not really interested in the part where men feel they have to give something to get sex (since everybody else is already obsessing over that one), I’m interested in the part where women feel they have to give something to get love. I’ve found out that just about the biggest turn-off for me is when I start wondering what will happen if I say no, such as losing a friendship.
That’s why, for someone who usually prefers monogamous relationships and emotional intimacy, I get surprisingly turned on by male sluts (in lack of a better word), because they often view sex as more self-contained. I suspect that for some women, knowing that they could get their non-sexual emotional needs met on the side, would enable them to pursue sex for it’s own sake, not as means to an end.
I’m not sure what you are attempting to get at with the “lesser being” thing? Have you had a look at this thread?
If you don’t know where I’m going, is it too much to ask instead of assuming? By lesser being, I mean someone who’s not entitled to the same consideration you’d give a higher being, which in men’s case is usually other men, not women they’re attracted to. I’ve even said so earlier, in regards to why many women get along so well with gay men (hint: it’s definitely not that gays treat them more like they’re sexually attracted to them than straight men).
Again, I don’t know what you refer to by being treated as a lesser being, but what you say does sound a bit like you’re trying to police male desire by saying that it should really be different from what it seems to be.
No, I’m saying that men need to keep their male sexuality the hell away from women they’re not sexually attracted to. It’s not the “sex-object” category I mind, it’s the “failed sex-object” category that bothers me. Just replace that with the category of “person” and we’re good to go.
No, the absurdity is that the categories are mixed up.
Agreed. But what’s even more absurd is that most straight men who want something from women that they don’t demand of men (sex), feel completely entitled to whine about it on half the internet when they don’t get it, but women who want the exact same thing from both sexes (respect, consideration, humanity) are accused of demanding special privileges that men are not able to give, and of trying to control men’s sexuality.
There is an imbalance, but it’s not just in regards to sex. It’s in regards to respect, identification, power, money, friendship, etc. It’s what causes guys to assume that their friendship is so infinitely more precious, and girls’ friendships so infinitely worthless, that girls should be grateful to be allowed to prostitute themselves just for a taste of it, even if it’s fake.
And in the end, aren’t men who are following the pattern you suggest not merely doing exactly what you suggested as standard procedure? They are offering emotional attachment for sexual access. So, well, if women are offering sexual access for emotional attachment, that’s because they have to in the current dysfunctional setup, but if men are complying with the same script it’s their fault?
I didn’t say women were. Pretty much every time I’ve heard the “women give sex to get love, men give love to get sex” proverb said as if the speaker/writer believed in it, it’s been from men. Women usually despise it, and why shouldn’t they? It suggests that men are worth loving and being loved by, and women are not.
But the difference is that friendships are often mutual, in that both parties like the other and benefit from it, while unreciprocated sexual attraction is, by definition, not. Only the most cynical women will assume that the only reason a guy would ever act friendly towards them would be because he was faking it in the hopes of sex. Being only a half-cynic myself, I sometimes suspect it, but I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Think about it like this: You’re at a bar, and a woman starts hitting on you. Perhaps she’s not the most attractive woman, and if you had your pick she wouldn’t be your first choice, but still, it feels so good to be desired that you gladly go along. Your confidence soars because this woman think you’re hot, and you end up in bed together, and have a great time. Then, the very next morning, she turns to you and says “That’ll be 200$……. What? You didn’t honestly think I’d be attracted to a loser like you?”. That’s how it feels to have a guy pretend to be your friend for sex.
Hugh,
that is really an interesting and relevant discussion! Also quite interesting how it reveals common pattern of discussions about initiation.
@AB:
For me this is interesting because it is so far outside my experience. I grew up with lots of girls as friends, and still today a lot of my friends are women.
From my own interpretation, though, the “guy pretending to be your friend for sex” thing is a really demonized interpretation of the behavior. As if they’re trying to manipulate you into sex. This goes back to the whole Nice Guy(tm) thing, no?
I don’t recall who said this, but I think earlier in the thread (or maybe is was over at the Yes Means Yes blog) someone made the observation that this strategy is rather modus operandi for many girls/women: if you’re attracted to someone, you try to hang out with them a lot and be really nice to them in the hopes that they’ll notice you. But suddenly when guys do the same thing it’s a nasty, manipulative, dehumanizing behavior to get into women’s pants. Frankly, I don’t buy it.
I mean, yes, it would be a lot better to be really obviously flirtatious, or even just be really direct and tell them that you’re attracted to them. But these things don’t come easily to a lot of guys, and some guys have blocks against them (e.g. toxic sexuality image issues).
I can understand, of course, that it would hurt for someone to suddenly stop being your friend, and to find out that it was because their intentions with you had been romantic or sexual in nature. But I don’t buy that (most of) these guys are being intentionally manipulative or dehumanizing any more than girls/women that use similar tactics.
AB,
“But in my experience, one thing women rarely do, is ignoring men’s humanity.”
well, not just a few feminists do have a tendency to disregard male problems out of hand and talk about teh menz in a way that can easily make one feel less than human. And they have a tendency to justify those bad manners with the requirements of a social justice movement… but that’s just a sidenote.
What comes a lot more naturally for men?
I’m sorry, but that’s really like looking at one side of an equation and then wondering why you can’t solve it. It’s not either or, this can only be solved by working *together* not against one another.
Huh? Isn’t that what I’ve said all along but which (I had the impression) you adamantly denied by explaining that women aren’t interested in sex as such and only see it as a trading resource?
I’m sorry, but this -
- and this -
- is a bit contradictory. Either sexual attraction *is* a relevant variable, or its not.
Nah, women who want respect, consideration, humanity *and don’t confuse that with being sexually desired* have a perfectly valid point that every reasonable person should support and aren’t trying to control anyone. Again, looking at the contradictory quotes above, it seems you haven’t really made up your mind about which argument you are actually making.
Again, huh? People choose their friends because they have things in common or can enrich each other. And while that may produce an overlap between interests and gender in a gendered world, I’d say gender is rarely a determining element for friendships, even though there are gendered activities in friendships. I prefer going to the sauna or football with guys because sometimes it’s great to have a guy-only safe space. And my best female friend’s being a woman occasionally comes in handy when I’m asking her about other women. And we know we find each other sexually appealing, and still will not have sex (and did not even have sex when she wasn’t in a relationship – I believe it would not have been bad for our friendship, but neither of us would want to risk that).
So, while I believe that sexuality and emotional connection aren’t always entirely separable (biochemically), and friendship doesn’t need to be entirely de-sexualised, it usually is. And that’s why I don’t really understand your premise about the relative value of male vs. female friendships. You seem to say the same thing here -
- but everything else that you write appeary to contradict that statement, while I think it’s true. I can’t say your perception is less valid than mine, but yours doesn’t reflect my perception of the world around me at all.
I don’t think it’s a particularly good metaphor, but still – the problem seems to be that you’re looking male female relations as a value exchange (category mix-up) with different currencies (emotional vs sexual) but, at the same time, are extremely annoyed about that. Interestingly, again, you only seem to blame men for prostituting themselves for sex (wow… that’s an unusual use of ‘to prostitute oneself’), but not the women who are paying with sex. Again, I don’t see the world of female-male relations as bleak as you seem to see it, but even so, I don’t think you’re looking at the transaction in a particularly fair way…
@Hugh:
From the LW thread:
I totally relate to that. In fact, the first girl I ever asked out (and I did it in a very docile, low-pressure way) said yes even though she didn’t want to, because she was afraid of hurting my feelings.
This gave me a bit of a complex about asking women out after that. And it took me a long time to get over it.
AB,
oh, and btw – here’s a trailer for a film about a true story romance that developed out of your last scenario ($200 Dollars).
youtube.com/watch?v=6VjZSx6bjqk
Sam,
And they usually feel the need to justify it, such as talking about the menz.
Dehumanising the other sex. They don’t (always) do it by means of overt misogyny, but frequently by simply ignoring women (in non-sexual contexts). Generally, more women than men are interested stories about people not of their own sex, and look up to people not of their own sex. Look at lists of what the sexes read, and men’s will be filled with stories by, for, and about men, while women’s will be more mixed.
In male-dominated environments, much is made of women’s need to adapt and be “one of the guys”, but I’ve been told it’s extremely common in female-dominated environments, particularly workplaces, that men seek out other men to “get away from the henhouse”, and that it is considered totally understandable. Women adapt to men, not the other way around. Men are the norm, women the exception.
I focus on it because it’s been ignored. Every time I’ve tried to bring up that maybe there are non-sexual factors at work, the only answer I’ve gotten is “But penis in vagina!”.
I have said repeatedly that I don’t think women are uninterested in sex. But they often end up like that anyway, because sex becomes a duty. One of the biggest occupational hazards for prostitutes (at least according to the ones I’ve heard talking about it here) is frigidity. There is a real danger that when sex is no longer something you have for its own sake, your ability to feel sexually aroused gets diminished. It wont happen to everybody, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a factor.
What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be a factor for people you’re not sexually attracted to. Perhaps it’s different for guys/you, but when I’m sexually attracted to someone, it’s going to have an effect on the way I treat them, but the people I’m not sexually attracted to are pretty much non-sexual to me. I don’t see young men as failed sex-objects just because I’m not sexually interested in them, I simply don’t see them as sex-objects in teh first place, any more than I’d think of a 5-year-old, a goat, or my mother as sex-objects. I can try to objectively judge their sexual attractiveness and whom it might appeal to, but my relationship with them is not dominated by any sexual feelings.
In my experience, this attitude is not quite as common for guys. Having experienced being both skinny and desirable, and gaining weight and wearing bulky clothes (during a depression), the difference with which you’re treated by guys is staggering. But the difference between the way you’re viewed as a girl, and the way guys view each other, is even more staggering.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just because I, and other women, are inherently unlikeable and uninteresting, but after having made the same observations for years, I don’t think it’s always the case. I remember one quote from a girl in a technical (e.g. male-dominated) study observing “No one even snickered at my jokes, but they all laughed loudly when my boyfriend told the same ones”.
It’s hard to judge, but I can remember several instances where I’ve had guys repeat what I’ve said to much better effect. It could be my delivery, but often, it was a case of them saying to me that I’d gotten it wrong, only to repeat it themselves, in the same company, and get applauded for it a month or so later. From what I’ve heard, especially from girls who’re not physically attractive, getting taken seriously by guys can be extremely hard. Even if you have the same interests, and have lots of relevant things to say, it’s like it’s sexual attraction or nothing.
The people with the most negative view on fat people are men, and the fat people that are most subjected to these negative views are women. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think the idea that women’s purpose is to be sexually appealing is so prevalent that when they fail at that, the failure comes to overshadow everything else they are. Being sexually attractive should be a bonus, but more often than not, not being sexually attractive is a punishment, which often hit women harder.
I observed in my teenage years that many, if not most, of my female peers didn’t seem to be wearing make-up in order to make themselves pretty, they did it to avoid being ugly, because the punishment for that was too hard for them to deal with. Some of them would be embarrassed if they were seen without make-up on, be completely obsessed with hygiene, pack a bag filled with beauty products to go skiing, develop eating disorders etc., even if they weren’t actually that interested in sex to begin with.
If being sexually attractive was just a matter of being treated better than neutral for a start, I don’t think we’d have the same stereotypes of women having gay best friends (the same is definitely not true of men and lesbians), because heterosexual men would be seen as just as friendly, but with the added bonus of perhaps treating you even better because you’re hot. But they aren’t. I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but it is my impression that a lot of women feel that way, consciously or not.
I fail to see what’s so contrary. When I talk about lesser beings, I’m not talking about everyone a given man might not be sexually interested in, I’m talking about women he isn’t sexually interested in. That’s why my original quote, which both you and Motley have taken such pain to read in bad faith, mentioned being female and sexually uninteresting. I even placed female before sexually uninteresting because that’s the crux of it. Basically, I’d like for more guys to treat me as if I’m male. Or perhaps even better, treat me as if they’re gay. Don’t get me wrong, I have a many male friends, and several of them honestly like me and are interested in what I have to say, but getting to that point has been a pain in the ass.
Ideally yes. So when guys complain that being nice and doing friendly things haven’t gotten them any sex, they’re basically discounting her friendship.
Friendship should, ideally, be mutual. But considering how many times I’ve had to wonder if a guy was interested in my friendship or my vagina, and how many Nice Guy rants I’ve read about the injustice of not being rewarded for your (male) friendship with (female) sex, I’m not sure it always is.
And that’s sort of the point I made earlier. There is a perception, true or not, that most men want women, but don’t necessarily care for them, but that the reverse rarely happens. A woman will say “I don’t want anything that looks like a man, smells like a man, sounds like a man, feels like a man, or acts like a man in my life”, a man will say “I want something that looks like a woman, smells like a woman, sounds like a woman, and feels like a woman…. but preferably without any opinions or any real personality that isn’t defined by her submissiveness to me”.
So fembots and realistic sex toys are seen as more of a threat to women, because if men can replace women for sex, they’ll have no use for them and will start treating them like dirt, whereas sex toys for women doesn’t have as much of an impact because it’s a common perception that women’s regard for men is not tied to their sexuality. If women seek out men for love and friendship, no amount of sex toys are going to change that, and it can even be an advantage (if a woman learns to feel aroused mechanically, she might be able to bring that arousal into her personal relationship), but if men only seek out women for mechanical sex, sex toys for men are a direct threat.
And for umpteenth time, I’m not saying it’s an objective or unchangeable truth, but I have met enough men who subscribed to it to understand why a novel like The Stepford Wives (men replacing women with robots so they can get all they want from women without having to deal with their humanity) can be written, and why some women feel disgust and fear at the thought of sex toys for men, to a degree which few men seem to feel in the reverse.
For the record, although I agree with a lot of what AB is saying as usual, I do think that many men feel a weird amount of disgust and fear about vibrators and other sex toys. I’m tired of it, frankly. There is such an obvious solution — express a desire to be good in bed with your girlfriend, maybe even use vibrators on her yourself — not to mention get the fuck over yourself and stop expecting your penis to be a magic orgasmotron in accordance with patriarchal sexual mores that have nothing to do with female sexuality (ok, maybe this solution is not so obvious to most people). And of course, male fear of vibrators functions to limit women’s sexuality (just like male insecurity always seems to), and in fact women start limiting themselves out of fear of offending men (as usual), so of course you end up with situations where women are afraid to even ask or suggest to their boyfriends that vibrators might be awesome, because we mustn’t question the magical penis power. Or where women don’t even try vibrators because of fear of their man’s reaction. Or where women don’t even try vibrators that aren’t penis-shaped because why would I ever derive pleasure from something not penis-shaped?
well, that was an incoherent rant. you can see why I haven’t been commenting on this thread lately, I’m a bit overwhelmed ;)
but I did find this interesting set of posts from a dude whose whole blog theme is about “married game”:
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/04/monogamy-as-sexual-strategy-my-wife-was.html
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/02/whats-wifes-role-in-all-this.html
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/03/10-critical-things-in-how-to-choose.html
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/05/virginity-thing-revisited.html
also, here’s a fetlife thread on a recent book (there are no responses yet, and I’ll repost the OP so non-fet people can read it):
http://fetlife.com/groups/245/group_posts/1155559
I’m reading Peter Hemmen’s book “Faeries, Bears and Leathermen: Men in Community Queering the Masculine.”
Hemmens develops the notion that the concepts of effeminacy and male homosexuality have only been linked in relatively recent times, and then presents ethnographic accounts of the three subcultures listed in the title, investigating the relationship of each to hegemonic masculinity and ideas of effeminacy. The work is grounded in critical theory and gender studies, and, like many dissertations which have found publication outside the academy, is not an easy read.
I’m developing my own critique of the work, and would be interested in exchanges with other who have read it — and most of all, people who have read it and have some direct experience in one or more of the three subcultures.
@Cessen:
I always got along better with guys, but I’ve noticed that it can be hard to really fit into a group of them. You can’t really be one of the guys, but you also have to try to make sure you don’t exploit your position as the lone girl, and to make matters worse, sometimes the guys will be sexist, and you have to be aware of that too in order to call them out on it and make it change.
I’ve been in situations where girls who didn’t fit in the group at all, and whose behaviour was often unacceptable, were immediately welcomed by almost all the guys because they found her hot. Not only did it annoy me (as they were forcing me to accept these girls too), but I also couldn’t help wondering how much of my friendship with these guys were based on actual friendship, and how much was just my looks.
I’ve sometimes wondered aloud, after hearing the guys talk trash about a girl behind her back, how they were describing me when I wasn’t there. I was immediately assured that “yes, we talk about everyone behind their backs, including you, but never in that way. You’re not like her, you’re one of us”, and in this case I believe it. But there’s always the danger of being ‘that’ girl.
I haven’t experienced it much the other way around. I’ve seen guys be popular with girls because they were attractive, but it seemed the girls in question also liked said guys. A friend and I once called a guy to get him to come over with ice-cream and bacardi because we were both feeling down and needed some kissing and cuddling (especially since we were with a third friend and her boyfriend), but I think he was pretty clear on why we called him. Though I also liked him and we’ve been friends for a decade now.
The deal-breaker for me is if they complain about it when it doesn’t pay off. I think you either like the person enough to see their company as its own reward, or you have to confess that you’re using a cowardly and often inefficient tactic to get laid. Both are acceptable (up until the point where they start to rely on you – if you aren’t truly interested in being their friend at that point, and count on leaving them if you find someone better to have sex with, you shouldn’t deceive them into thinking they can count on you), but acting like you’re doing them a favour which they should pay back in sex is disgusting.
They don’t come easy to girls either.
I don’t think they’re intentional about it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. I guess if I heard girls complain that guys just wanted to be friends and that it was unfair for girls to waste so much time on friendship without getting sex in return, or if I met guys who’ve had completely platonic relationships with girls, only to find out the girls in question were only after sex, I would start believing it was reciprocal.
I’ve heard a lot about nice guys feeling betrayed because women are supposed to value friendship and guys who’re not too forward with their sexual interest (and when it doesn’t pay off, it must mean women are dishonest), but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a girl express a similar sentiment, that men were supposed to be most interested in girls who were friendly and not overtly sexual. So it seems to me like the guys are more prone to specifically using it as a strategy to get laid. But that’s just my experience.
It’s interesting because it seems that the sex toys women are most disgusted with and feel threatened by are the ones most similar to female body parts, but you appear to suggest that men are most disgusted and afraid of things that aren’t like male body-parts. It’s sort of related to my theory about what the sexes fear in their relationship to each other.
Interesting. He does have some good points, but the third post is exactly what I talked to Sam about. He basically says that men who want something other than T&A (such as emotional bonding and commitment) are in such short supply that they’re infinitely more valuable than women, and can afford to set extremely high standards, such as virginity and a very specific body-type (because there is clearly only one standard of beauty for women… I guess that’s where the PUA part comes in).
My interpretation of this has always been that it’s a matter of women feeling more sharply the pressure to please. Men and women are both horrible at actually realizing/articulating what they want, but “You should settle down with a nice young man” comes with more force than “You should settle down with a nice young lady.” And so men’s view of what women want has a bias towards niceness, whereas women’s view of what men want doesn’t. So men are given the impression that women value niceness more than they do, and are frustrated to come up against reality. (See also: “Women are all alike; every man is a person in his own way.”)
Of course, that interpretation is based on purely anecdotal evidence. (Weakening my claim for the first time I jump into the discussion! Hooray!)
@Clarisse:
Totally agree.
But surely you realize that this sounds an awful lot like telling women to “just get over” their irrational culturally ingrained insecurities, right? In reality, it’s not that easy. And it’s going to take sensitivity, education, and positive reinforcement to help these guys get over their issues. They’re human beings too, not magical creatures that have complete control over their emotions and insecurities. (Not that they don’t have a responsibility to work on their insecurities, insofar as they hurt other people. But the same goes for women. And I don’t think either men or women are going to be very good at that in a hostile, unsupportive environment.)
And, just to note, I’m speaking as a guy that has never had these issues to begin with (apparently I didn’t get the memo that size matters, and that my masculinity is dependent on the capabilities of my dick; though I did get plenty of other toxic memos).
Cessen, agreed.
AllSaintsDay, I have this funny feeling that I know you personally.
AB, He basically says that men who want something other than T&A (such as emotional bonding and commitment) are in such short supply that they’re infinitely more valuable than women, and can afford to set extremely high standards.
You know, (I don’t have time to be commenting, for serious, and so this comment won’t be hugely articulate, but I just had this thought that I have to get out there) … I’m starting to think that men who say this are at least as motivated by trying to “drive up their own value” as they are by trying to accurately portray the situation. Men who haven’t had a lot of sex outside marriage often seem very insecure and weird about it, I’ve noticed (based on a very limited sample) — probably some anxiety about stereotypes of manliness in there. So they compliment themselves and talk extensively about how awesome they are … partly in an attempt to make themselves feel better? I get the impression that dudes like this often resent “sluts” almost as much as they resent “players”. They’re like, “I played by all the so-called rules in an attempt to be a good man, so I better be entitled to something in return. It’s not sex, so it must be an unrealistically and stereotypically innocent/pure/yet sexy woman. And I’m not just going to insist that’s what I’m entitled to, I’m also going to make sure that all those slutty bitches out there know that I don’t want them.”
You know, in my original manliness series I quoted Mr. Not Into Gender Studies, and I’ve often thought that I should have included a longer quotation of what he said. Here’s the full quote:
there’s problems inherent in finding any sort of masculine agency through questioning the dominant masculinist paradigm, and furthermore it’s very tricky to avoid simply devolving into male entitlement. That’s the basic crux of the problem with the “Men’s Movement” assholes- none of them are addressing the underlying problems of masculinity. They’re just whining about not receiving the priviledges their cultural conditioning tells them to expect in exchange for brutalizing themselves.
emphasis mine.
@AllSaintsDay:
That this reminded me of Tolstoy’s famous line also reminded me of a bit by Oscar Wilde: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
Makes one think that all three, along with “women use sex to get love, men use love to get sex,” might be describing the same thing… and quite possibly the same thing that Clarisse just bolded in her quote above.
I think that some amount of complaining is okay. I’ve seen generic complaining of “Every time I find a woman I’m interested in sexually, I treat her well, but I always get rejected.” that I considered acceptable. (I’ve also seen it become constant or misogynistic, and thus become unacceptable.) Complaining about her, right there who did this? Not so much. Kind of like you should complain if 100 positions in 100 companies open to a gender-balanced applicant pool and 95 of the hires are men, but you can’t find a single company you can call definitely biased. (Well, you can look at past hiring practices, but the analogy breaks down here because “Although I do still think there are problematic reasons to reject people that ought to be examined and talked about. But, ultimately, if you don’t want to date/fuck/start-a-life-together with someone, that’s your prerogative.” HT to Cessen for phrasing that well earlier in the thread.)
Men are given the impression that women want nice guys. When they are nice guys and women don’t want them, they rightly feel deceived, and shouldn’t be told that any complaining at all is unwarranted. When they are Nice Guys and women don’t want them, they correctly feel deceived (‘correctly’ replacing ‘rightly’ because if you yourself are deceiving someone you lose a lot of right to complain about being deceived).
(Did I just post a reformulation of my above post? I feel like I did.)
AllSaintsDay, I have this funny feeling that I know you personally.
It’s possible, as I don’t know anything about you other than having lurked at this blog for a while, but it seems unlikely to me. The most personally revealing information I’ve provided has been my love of AK.
(Speaking of which…)
That this reminded me of Tolstoy’s famous line also reminded me of a bit by Oscar Wilde: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
References within references!
So… is that what a lot of dating is? Attempting to ascertain the humanity of one’s partner, through a black box and nerve induction?
Can’t go around maiming potential humans, though. That’s where a the current models fall short.
@AB:
I’ve experienced that quite often, actually. I honestly couldn’t count how many times I’ve heard something along the lines of “[something something] men [something]. You know how they are. Present company excepted, of course,” or “Yeah, but you’re not a guy that way.” But it’s happened often enough for me to pretend that I don’t speak English when those conversations start up.
It was especially common around women who didn’t express any sexual interest in me personally, but were talking about interest in other men, or with women with whom I’d been previously involved, but wasn’t anymore (even though we were still friends). When there was evident sexual interest — or a when a woman was present and the others knew that she was interested — it didn’t happen.
How does that fit in with what you’re arguing?
Clarisse:
I was one of those guys for quite some time, but the source of the meme in my case was female friends and older women that were trying to make me feel better. They were trying to highlight my positive traits to me, and claimed those traits were hard to come by in men.
I can’t, obviously, make any assertions about where other guys get that meme from. But in my case it was women.
I can relate to some of AB’s observations.
I see this all the time.
In my experience, looks create a “halo effect” that makes everything a woman does cuter, and everything she says more interesting.
It probably would take more work for a woman I’m not attracted to becoming friends with me… but I’m not sure it would take more work than a guy. Other guys may vary. Of course, given a random woman I’m not attracted to, and a random man, I’m probably slightly more likely to have more in common with the guy.
I think it’s common for many single men to put more effort into getting to know women who are conventionally attractive. Due to the need for men to initiate, and the lower likelihood that any woman will initiate with them, men must devote a certain amount of time and energy to finding potentially partners. This means that they must focus on women who meet their minimum attractiveness criteria.
@Infra:
Yeah, ditto, I’ve had similar experiences. And as far as my experiences go, this isn’t a phenomenon specific to women in men’s company at all. It happens the other way around too.
Ironically, I’ve only once seen this happen to a woman in a group of guys. But I’ve noticed it a lot when I’m in groups of women. So I think it might be a cognitive bias thing (noticing/remembering things more when they impact me). Or even just a selection bias of some kind (the friends I choose, etc.). We’re working in anecdotes here, after all.
@AB:
Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
So it’s actually the complaining that’s problematic, not the behavior itself? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then we’re in total agreement. But I think it’s important to be able to talk about the behavior and the complaining as separate things.
I don’t dispute that it’s inefficient. And in some cases guys just want sex, but certainly not all. (I wasn’t looking for just sex when I employed such tactics in the past, and I highly doubt it’s as ubiquitous as you seem to imply it is in these kinds of cases.)
But cowardly? Really? That’s really strong and shaming language. Are you going to apply that language to the aforementioned women and girls as well? They’re cowards, because they don’t make their interest plainly obvious?
To me this sounds like a harmful reinforcement of toxic masculine norms. And this actually seems like a great segue, because honestly this thread seems to be going in circles at times. We’ve gotten so caught up in the sexuality thing that we’re not looking at other issues. But this is a great one.
If a guy’s actions are affected by fear, he’s a coward. If a woman’s actions are affected by fear, she should be accommodated, or at least treated with understanding.
Not to mention how heavily “coward” and similar are used to police masculinity.
I see your point here.
But I also don’t think it’s so obvious to define or recognize the kind of dependence you’re talking about, especially if it comes on slowly.
And if I’m giving advice and/or emotional support to someone I’m interested in, it’s probably because I care about the human being in front of me, and because I would have to be an asshat to drop them and say, “Actually, I’m mostly just hanging out with you to see if things will work out with us romantically, and I feel it would be deceptive to give you any kind of support right now.”
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stick around (or that I’m obligated to stick around) if it becomes obvious that I’m not going to get what I want out of the relationship.
Again with the sex. Yes, some guys are just out for sex. But a lot of guys aren’t. A lot of guys want the emotional intimacy and support, and all those other things too. But they also want the sex. They want the package deal.
But a lot of guys already have a lot of friendships, so they’re not necessarily going to stick around for someone that just wants to be friends. And I don’t think this particularly inappropriate. I mean, instantly cutting out, sure, that’s mean. But just kind of not spending much time together any more, and drifting apart…?
Moreover, if I’m really head-over-heels for someone, it can be really painful to stick around after it’s obvious that romance is off the table. I think there is a gross underestimation of how emotionally involved the guys in question can get.
@Cessen:
There’s also the question of how similar the forms of friendship are for men and women; there’s at least some research out there, such as Greif’s _Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships_, that suggests that there are significant differences, and even that they’re not always recognized as friendships by women. So in addition to the issue of how many friendships a person has, there’s also the issue of type, and its attendant valuation.
“Being friends,” in such a case, simply might not wholly translate.
It’s an issue that would relate to what you wrote about “gross underestimation:” different structures and expressions of friendship are sometimes seen as an absence of such (as noted by Greif), and the same can be said about emotions and emotional investment. There’s probably some linkage between the two.
Hmm… so, tentative arm-chair psychoanalysis of men with regards to sex toys.
I seem to recall Typhonblue way back when making a comment along the lines of, “Men are so afraid of not being needed, because they can’t imagine being wanted.” That really, really resonated with me at the time (and still does).
And it strikes me that the whole sex-toy (or just non-penis) insecurity may very well have some of its roots in that. And if that’s the case, then it all comes back–yet again–to toxic male sexuality.
But, again: arm-chair, tentative, etc. Not being a guy with these particular insecurities, my insight is limited.
The more I’m thinking about this, the more it’s making sense, and the more explanatory power it seems to have.
The whole sex-toy thing may comes across a lot like “I don’t need your penis” to many guys. And that could perhaps be really scary? And presuming that is the case (this is still tentative, armchair, etc.), this meshes with a lot of other things like freaking out about not being able to “get it up”.
The more I think about this, the more it seems like guys don’t actually own their own penises. The penis is portrayed as being more about female pleasure than male pleasure. It’s portrayed primarily as a tool that women need. Similar to how breasts are portrayed with relation to men. So if a guy doesn’t feel his penis is needed, suddenly it’s like, “OMG! What is it good for!? OMG!” And before we even start talking about factual inaccuracy, that attitude alone is totally messed up just for the attitude itself. The penis should be about male pleasure, not female pleasure.
It seems like it would go a long way to start saying, “I don’t need your penis. And I don’t need to need you penis. Because I want you. I want you, I want your valuable, delicious touch. Your penis is for you, not for me. And I love that. I love your penis because it brings you pleasure.”
Okay, so maybe that’s waxing on a bit weird. But presuming any of this has any bearing on reality, it seems like addressing male toxic sexuality and making the penis about men’s pleasure, would go a long way to helping some of these issues and insecurities. If a guy actually felt sexually wanted, and if he viewed his genitals as being for himself, not for his partner, then sex toys, sexual exploration, etc. would probably be a non-issue…?
Maybe I’m just spewing a bunch of BS. Dunno. But there it is.
Cessen wrote:
What strikes me about this is that fear seems to be something regularly discussed when it comes to a man’s reactions to other men, his reactions to women, and women’s reactions to him (the film _Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon_ deals with an underexamined aspect of that). But I haven’t heard it discussed much in the context of women’s reactions to other women.
I doubt that fear is absent in that last case, or even less prominent; FWIW, a number of the women that I know have specifically and often said that they prefer to be in men’s company because the dynamics are less caustic than they are between women, even if they can be brutal, and that would certainly indicate the existence of significant fear in that context. It just doesn’t seem to come up as a major subject for discussion. Not too often, anyway.
‘Course, I’m a bit of an outside observer when it comes to this subject. Due to my… neuroatypicality, it hasn’t been a personal issue. But I do have to wonder whether or not that has any connection to the fact that I’ve had no problems carving out and sustaining my own concepts of maleness, manhood and masculinity, too.
@Cessen:
“This is my rifle,
this is my gun,
this is for killing,
this is for fun.”
I don’t really think that the penis is regularly portrayed as a tool for women.
@DFL:
Fair enough. The penis is also (perhaps more often) portrayed as violent and violating. (Again, toxic male sexuality…)
Perhaps another way to put this: the penis is mostly portrayed in terms of it’s affect on other people.
Cessen:
So if a guy doesn’t feel his penis is needed, suddenly it’s like, “OMG! What is it good for!? OMG!”
(Dropping out of ShadowMode.)
And when that links into how sexual prowess is played up to be such a big part of being a man that could very well (and I think it does for a lot of men) become, “OMG! What is it good for!? OMG! What good am I for!?”.
DFL:
I don’t really think that the penis is regularly portrayed as a tool for women.
I have to disagree with that a bit. Consider how women are just presumed to “want the dick. not want but need the dick.” to the point where women who aren’t into penises (namely gay women) are seen as “wrong” for not being into them. Its like, “You don’t take pleasure in penises? What’s wrong with you?” Also think about how gay men are also seen as “wrong” for not being into women. Its like “You don’t use your penis with women? What’s wrong with you?” (Mind you what I say here is only a part of the overall core of homophobia.)
Mind you I think this simultaneously exists with what you say (which is why I disagree a bit and not totally).
Oh, holy crap, that’s even worse. Then when a guy feels his penis isn’t important to his partner’s pleasure, then what’s left over? This evil, violent thing.
(Still tentative, armchair…)
AllSaintsDay
Are they really? Because I could have sworn that western culture is currently seeped in “girls want bad boys” and “nice guys finish last”. Most of the guys who’re complaining are not actually expecting that being a nice guy is guaranteed to make them sexy, or even that it could, they’re demanding that it should. Because women are a reward for men’s behaviour, and if they start rewarding (i.e. fucking) the guys exhibiting the wrong behaviour, they’ll ultimately be responsible for it when they’re abused….. and of course, if they fuck the men exhibiting the right behaviour and still get abused, no one is going to believe them because nice guys can’t be abusers. No matter what, women are screwed.
And that’s not even mentioning that niceness as a sexual strategy is ultimately futile, because there’s a fundamental difference between niceness (and kindness/morality/unselfishness), and most other qualities one might look for in a mate. If you work out and get a toned body, it doesn’t matter if you did it in a attempt to to be sexually attractive, you still have a toned body, and that’s what you’re offering a potential sexual partner. If you make sure to keep yourself updated on current events, it doesn’t matter if you do it out of interest, or because it helps you become interesting to talk to, because whoever you’re courting will still get a partner able to contribute in most conversations. And if you play in a band purely to score, you still play in a band, and you’re still signalling to whoever you court that they’ll get a partner who plays in a band.
But if you don’t actually want to help other people, but are only acting nice because you want them to like you, what exactly are you saying with it? You’re definitely not signalling that you’re a good person, because then you wouldn’t simply be using niceness as a strategy to get something else. So you’re either what we call ‘behagesyg’ (pleasing-sick) here, a quality only considered positive in a dog, or you’re disingenuous. You can’t make yourself nice the same way you can make yourself more knowledgeable or more physically attractive, you can only fake it, because genuine niceness comes from a genuine desire to be nice.
Of course, some people will say that what separates niceness from actual kindness is exactly that niceness is a strategy to make people like you by being as inoffensive as possible, whereas kindness describes true altruism, and that definition does make it possible for people to make themselves nice. But I don’t believe that’s the definition usually used. I think that what most people who say that women want nice guys are saying, is that they prefer guys with strong morals, empathy, social skills, the energy necessary to exhibit altruistic behaviour, etc., and most self-described nice guys also seem to assume (often wrongly) that they’re in possession of said qualities.
The word ‘nice’ is problematic because it originally described a behaviour which is frequently negative, but since it’s used as a shorthand for ‘good person’ in everyday language, I don’t think most people really assumes that “girls like nice guys” means that women want guys who will not take a stand, who will pat bullies on the back to become popular, and never actually do anything kind without some sort of ulterior motive. So if you’re complaining that being nice (i.e. a good person) should get you laid, and blaming women for not fucking you, you’re actually not a nice person. At all.
And finally: So what if guys hear that women like nice guys, behave nicely, and still fail to get laid? I’ve also heard that men prefer blondes, but I have yet to hear anyone complain “I bleached my hair, and guys still don’t want to date me, they must have lied to me!”. Sexual attraction is based on more than one thing, and it’s perfectly possible that the women who rejected said nice guys were judging them on completely different criteria.
@AB:
Speaking from my own experience, and from the discussions that I’ve had about this with other men: we get both. That’s a substantial part of the problem, in that the context includes contradictory messages, each of which is portrayed as valid, while also portrayed as invalidating the other.
Actually, one of the oldest ethical traditions in Western culture — the Aristotelian approach — is based upon that precise idea: that one becomes good by doing good, essentially, in that actions contribute to disposition (hexeis). Or even that one simply cannot become good without doing good. But, as with the above, a contradictory message (that goodness cannot be faked, and is somehow inherent to character) is often simultaneously present — similar to the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election — and that works to complicate the situation.
One not-uncommon result of that ends up being the pursuit of virtuous behavior without any commitment to, or belief in, the idea that it can actually result in virtue. Even the possibility of being good becomes subject to doubt; but not enough to be entirely dismissed.
The end effect is a noncommittal pantomime.
@Infra:
Actually, that’s something different. It’s people complaining about the other sex, which happens fairly often (though some, like your friends, have the decency to realise what they’re doing and try not to hurt the currently present members of the other sex).
What I’m talking about here is guys going to great lengths treating a girl well, sometimes even better than they treat guys, and yet turn out to have zero respect for her. They weren’t saying that I wasn’t a girl, they were saying that, unlike her, I had earned my place in the group and a was an actual friend, whereas she was just someone they put up with. Since their treatment of us was very similar (it differed mostly because our behaviours did), sometimes even better towards her than me, there was very little in their behaviour to back up the words.
What I find interesting is that it seemed like many of the guys actually enjoyed having her in the group, but still felt fine talking about how stupid and unreasonable she was behind her back. They didn’t seem to do it with guys as much. They’d talk about them, but never as viciously, and they wouldn’t treat guys they didn’t like with the same friendliness and helpfulness they showed her.
That’s what unnerved me so much. It’s one thing to see another person in a better light because you find them attractive, it’s something completely different to find them attractive, treat them like they’re attractive, but still believe that they’re insipid, annoying, and completely deserving of being slandered behind their back. And I do find that to be the case with guys sometimes, in fiction and in real life – they can want a girl without truly liking her, to a much greater extent and frequency than girls seem to do (openly at least).
@AB:
And that is precisely the kind of thing that I’m talking about, as well. (To clarify one point: when it came to the “not a guy that way” comments and such, it didn’t come off as invalidating me as a male qua male. It was more along the lines of “you’re not one of the ones that we’re talking about.”) It occurred to me, after posting the comment, that I hadn’t made the other parts explicit, but I figured that they could have been inferred from the closing words.
So I’m not at all arguing against what you’re describing. I’m just saying (as Xakudo did) that, even extended to those additional elements, it seems to be an aspect of general human behavior, not something that’s sex- or gender-specific.
Just to add one thing:
There was absolutely no impression that they did that to avoid causing hurt. It was much more along the lines of, say, “I really can’t stand gay guys. Except for [X], of course. But [X] doesn’t act like he’s gay.”
Which I’ve also heard, being someone who doesn’t just get involved with women. It wasn’t decency in that case, and it isn’t in this one, either.
@Cessen:
It’s more that the two are contradictory. If nice=kind as most people seem to assume, you can’t really be nice because you’re expecting a reward for it, because then it’s not niceness, it’s selfishness (which is completely legitimate as long as you’re not hurting anyone by it, but shouldn’t be confused with altruism). So women being blamed for not wanting nice guys is actually a pretty good indication that they do want nice guys, because if they wanted jerks, the complainers would be getting laid all the time.
Actually, I was referring to how I feel about myself when I want a cute guy to notice me, but don’t have the nerve to approach him. Perhaps I should have made it clear that, although this conversation began as being about men, the tactics in question are really quite universal, but I thought it would be obvious. It’s a bit like that Heartless Bitches quote. Even though HB are, if anything, harder on women, it was immediately taken as a shaming tactic used only against men.
Sorry, but sometimes a word like coward is just a word, not a part of some gigantic misandrist conspiracy. And if you feel it’s more acceptable to speak of a lack of traditionally male qualities as something negative, it might just be because our patriarchal forefathers defined almost every admirable character trait as being masculine in the first place.
I think you need to first and foremost be aware of it. Most personal relations are like sex to some degree (probably because sex is usually some kind of personal relation). If you only want a one-night-stand, but have reason to suspect your partner might want some closer personal commitment, you have a duty to make it clear to your partner what you’re after and what you’re offering. And if you want a long-term relationship, but have reason to suspect your partner is looking for casual sex with no commitments, you shouldn’t expect or demand anything more.
The same goes for other kinds of relationships. I have a limited amount of energy to make friends, and no need of lovers, so making me spend that energy on developing a relationship to you without making it clear that I’ll lose you the moment you get a girlfriend, or figure out that I wont be one for you, is hurting me. In the same way, if someone has a crush on you and you use it to make them do and buy stuff for you, with no intention of ever returning their affections, you need to inform that person that they have no chance for a romantic relationship.
And yes, these things can get confusing. Someone might think that a person doing them a favour is merely doing it as a friend, whereas the person doing the favour sees it as way of courting, which can end up with both parties feeling exploited. And sometimes it’s not the best idea to have a conversation about your intentions shortly after meeting someone. Perhaps you have a crush on someone, but want to get to know them better before deciding whether or not to act on it, and that’s perfectly legitimate.
But the main thing for me is that people acknowledge it. Many guys talk so much about ‘teases’ that I feel the need to make it clear that it goes both ways, because most men (and people in general) really don’t make their sexual intentions that obvious. While our culture expects people to get it, it wont always happen – there are a ton of jokes about women being invited into a man’s home to see his stamp collection, only to be dumbstruck when it turns out he actually wanted them to see his stamp collection, indicating that they expected something else, but there are girls who will assume that ‘stamp collection’ just means ‘stamp collection’ (and most come-ons are much subtler than that).
Infra:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I got both as well, and from different people, at different times. Or at least the focus was different, depending.
Putting media influences aside for a moment (they do matter, but not as much as people I know telling me things):
I got the “women want nice, sensitive, respectful men who treat them right” message primarily earlier in my life, and primarily from older women (I suspect in an attempt to mold me).
I got the “women go for bad boys” message later on in college, primarily from other men.
And there’s also the whole “but the nice guy wins out in the end, for the long-haul, even if women mess around with the bad boys first” thing. Which I think I’ve heard from just about everyone, since then. And it’s kind of a merging of the two messages.
@infra:
No, you misunderstand. They weren’t talking about girls, they were talking about her. As a person. They didn’t say I was different than other girls, they answered in the negative when I asked if they spoke that way about me when I wasn’t there. They weren’t generalising about women, they weren’t making claims about how women are, and while the way they treated her probably had everything to do with her sex (and theirs), none of them ever made a point of it. They just didn’t like her (and I fully understand that because I didn’t like her either), but many of them still made a point out of being gallant and genial to her face.
The situations have practically nothing to do with each other. If you want my opinion, the women you spoke to, while rude and possibly sexist, showed a level of self-insight and consideration unprecedented in almost all male social circles I’ve been in. I much prefer that sort of directness to what I’m usually confronted with.
@AB
I’ve also heard that men prefer blondes, but I have yet to hear anyone complain “I bleached my hair, and guys still don’t want to date me, they must have lied to me!”.
I’ve heard that and some effective equivalents. Not nearly as often, of course. It was at the level of complaining I’m saying is acceptable: “What the hell? I thought men liked blondes/tanned women/skinny women/women with big boobs.” and moving on, kind of like I find “What the hell is with all this trouble; I thought women liked nice guys?” acceptable so long as you move on.
And I do think men can be nice for the sake of being nice while still expecting it to pay off as far as women are concerned. The difference is in being nice because you think niceness is a good thing and expecting more dating success as a side benefit, and in acting nice for the sake of the dating success. (Analogy: I’m working out for the sake of health and capability, but I’d also like to look more attractive, and if I still look the same a year in as when I started, I’ll be pretty peeved but keep doing it because appearance wasn’t the ultimate goal I was going after.)
@AB:
Considering that you’re talking about a specific situation and I’m talking about a group of experiences, differences in the description are to be expected. That doesn’t change the fact that what you’re talking about, I’ve experienced, with women and with men. That includes the clarifications that you’ve made. I don’t see why that would be such an unlikely possibility to consider.
As I indicated above, the experiences weren’t that different from ones that were token-good-fag homophobic. That’s hardly an example of self-insight and consideration. It’s quite possible that they were unprecedented, in those terms, in comparison with the all-male social circles that you’ve been in, but that doesn’t change their blatantly stereotyped and prejudicial character.
Like I wrote, I’m not in any way challenging the validity of your experience. I don’t see why that same courtesy couldn’t be extended from your end.
AB said:
This claim relies on way too many linguistic presuppositions.
1. “Should”
Not all self-identified “nice guys” who complain about their lack of romantic success, or about women’s preferences, feel that women “should” behave differently. But even if they do, “should” can mean a bunch of things:
- The prescriptive “should”: this is the you are using. It would be fair to say that a guy using this sort of should about women’s choices is being entitled.
- The descriptive “should”: “it should rain tomorrow”. If it doesn’t, you might be confused or frustrated… but you aren’t mad at the weather or feel that you are “entitled” to rain. Plenty of guys have the exact same attitude towards women’s choices in men.
- The instrumental “should”: “you should do X if you want result Y.” A man might feel that women “should” make different choices in men not because of entitlement to fulfill his preferences, but in order to fulfill her preferences (or what he has been told to believe that her preferences are).
2. “Getting laid”. As others have observed, the complaints of self-identified “nice guys” are not merely about sex.
3. “Nice”
Your conceptualization is pretty close to mine:
In my view, what self-identified “nice guys” mean by “nice” is some combination of Agreeableness, altruism, empathy, ethics, and cooperativeness. As you point out, altruism is a tricky concept:
This is a false dichotomy of being nice to help other people, and being nice for some other end or reward. You can being doing both at the same time.
According to some definitions of “altruism,” it must be “unselfish.” Under that definition, are self-identified “nice guys” who engage in behavior that benefits women being “altruistic” or not?
I think it’s quite possible. Personally, when I identified as a “nice guy,” I would just suddenly get an urge to do helpful things for women I was attracted to. It felt instinctual, rather than goal-oriented. I wasn’t expecting that she should give me anything in return.
I do think that some self-identified “nice guys” engage in benevolent behavior towards women not just to help them, but also to attract them (because such behavior is believed to be attractive). If attracting her is partly a “selfish” motive, then is the behavior truly altruistic? That really depends on definition. By the definition of altruism used by biologists (“an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself”), that behavior is still altruistic.
It is possible for a man to be a “nice guy” in the sense of agreeableness, empathy, ethics, cooperativeness, and altruism (at least, under some definitions) who complains of lack of success with women… yet his complaint does not imply that he is “not actually nice” in that sense of “niceness.”
Are there some self-identified “nice guys” who complain about their lack of success with women in a way that contradicts one or more of the elements of “niceness”? Sure. But I think we should be careful to avoid making the fundamental attribution error when judging people complaining of romantic difficulties, because people of all genders are known to have trouble handling it gracefully… but that doesn’t necessarily make them bad people in general.
AB said:
I think you’ve got a valid beef, here. Even if most men wouldn’t do this, there is a nontrivial percentage who might (I’m not sure of the percentage of women who do this, but that’s a different question). I do think it’s a reasonable concern when investing time and energy in a friendship with a guy. Perhaps there are ways to test for genuine platonic compatibility and shared interests that will last (a) him getting a girlfriend, or (b) you rejecting him.
@AB:
This seems to hark back to the whole women-as-children thing.
It also reminds me, yet again, of something that Typhonblue said way back when. She mentioned something about women being denied the consequences of their actions, and how that is harmful to women’s personal growth. In this case, regardless of how a woman behaves (you vs this other woman), they are still treated deferentially. (Although, as you note, this also relates to physical attractiveness, to a degree.)
First, ditto to what Hugh said.
But also, you’re analyzing these guys like they are static, non-changing people. People aren’t static beings, and you can’t analyze them as if they are (well, you can, but it’s not useful). People can change and become embittered with experience (especially if they don’t attribute the causes of the experience properly). You have to think about them as being on a timeline.
For example, a guy that starts out as a genuine good guy, but that doesn’t know how to read interest cues from women or how to express interest himself, could very well become very frustrated and embittered over time. And that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a genuinely good guy when he had the experiences he later rants about.
Now, arguably, a person that is susceptible to frustration and subsequent embitterment–especially when coupled with self-serving bogus explanations–isn’t a “good person”. But, personally, I think that bar is pretty freakin’ high, and I doubt anyone on this thread would meet it (myself absolutely included).
Indeed. My apologies for mis-attributing that attitude to you. It is a common attitude, though.
Also note that “coward” is a pejorative, and one that AFAIK and IME is more typically applied to men.
Along with almost every negative, deplorable one (if we’re going to be hyperbolic…).
I agree with this, sure.
But it’s interesting, because I think a lot of the complaining Nice Guy(tm) types would agree as well, and actually view it as a vindication of their complaints. In fact, I suspect this is actually the heart of the Nice Gut(tm) complaint, but due to cultural conditioning and lacking eloquence (e.g. highlighting only the part that’s ‘missing’, rather than the parts that are already present) it often comes out as a complaint about lack of sex.
To be clear, I don’t think these guys are justified in their complaints (at least not with regard to individual women; I think there are valid complaints about cultural norms of masculine attractiveness, just as there are valid complaints about cultural norms for feminine attractiveness). If I wasn’t clear about that before, I apologize.
Honestly, it’s starting to sound to me like a lot (not all) of these Nice Guy(tm) situations are just big misunderstandings. The guy starts hanging out with the gal so he can get to know her so that he won’t be one of those “just going after her because of her looks” guys (or whatever other reason), and then the gal takes that as a signal of wanting to start a friendship and starts “relying” on the guy (as you put it), and the guy takes this “intimacy” as a positive sign that things might be going somewhere and sticks around, but eventually when it becomes clear that she just wants to be friends he gets frustrated and leaves.
And both people end up feeling hurt, because there was no explicit communication about intent from either side.
I think the guy is clearly in the wrong here about how he interprets the situation (just as any girl would be with the roles flipped). But given that he is misinterpreting, it’s easy to see how he could feel used and become frustrated and embittered over time.
AB,
Yeah, that’s clearly all “social justice” requires ;)
You’re kidding, right? Somone who hasn’t read Wollstonecraft and de Beauvoir alongside Kant and Plato is “dehumanizing women” instead of just not aware of female contributions to human knowledge? Seriously.
That depends on the environment. Try kindergarten teachers, or primary school teachers, etc, where male is decidedly not the norm. Now if you want to get into a discussion about why there’s a gender-based division of labour and a glass ceiling of some sort, that’s a totally valid discussion, but one consider as a cultural consequence of the more fundamental gender dynamics we’re trying to understand here.
While I would say that the shorthand is a bit unfair, I would maintain that this answer was given because it *is* the other side of the equation you’re not looking at.
I don’t understand your point, sorry. If women are also interested in sex as such and men are also interested in romantic interactions, and if the incompatibility is cultural (“end up like that”) then how is that different from what I’ve said way up in the thread?
OK, I think I’m getting closer to understanding what you’re trying to convey. Even though I personally had a lot of issues with my body, and more and more guys are getting that kind of problem, I do agree that appearing visually attractive is a “requirement” that falls disproportionally on women. I’m not sure the “fat”-shaming issues falls into the sexual shaming realm as much as it falls into the religious shaming realm (“gluttony”), altough I think I agree that fat women will suffer more from it than fat men, and that may well be related to the fact that they experience a sort of sexual invisibility that other women do not experience and which they will as such not only experience as painful (like men, for whom sexual invisibility is the default condition) but possibly also as some sort of individual failure on their own part.
Interestingly, I’ve had a discussion about something similar with my best female friend earlier today, when we talked about my sister’s body shape, her dating prospects and how my gaining 10kg after an injury last Summer really had no subjectively measurable effect on my ability to attract women. Interestingly, she maintained that it wouldn’t have any effect for women either, and I sort of made your argument ;)
Yes. To the extent that socially unskilled men are able to correct their behaviour and become more attractive to women, and women do not have that possibility because the male attraction is more visual than female attraction, then women who have not been lucky in the genetic lottery do have it worse… and if cultural norms add insult to injury by, however implicitly, suggesting it was their own fault, then that is something that needs to change.
What I’m not sure about is whether it’s possible to come up with an “objectified” measure of the “neutral” treatment you’d like, because whatever perception you will have of the way others treat you it will be inevitably be filtered by your current beliefs, interpretation schemes and confirmation bias. Maybe what you consider as the “failed sex object” treatment is seen as neutral/baseline nice behaviour by most other people. It’s really a scaling problem. You’re suggesting an ordinal scale but the behaviour probably can only be measured nominally.
“So when guys complain that being nice and doing friendly things haven’t gotten them any sex, they’re basically discounting her friendship.”
No, if they were merely pretending, then they’re discounting *THEIR OWN* friendhsip. It will still suck, of course.
Nonononono. That’s not what the whole nice guy friend thing is about. It’s about guys who probably already have trouble expressing themselves sexually who then hear and internalize sexual shaming and hear female statements about men only being interested in them sexually. Of course *they* still want sex but they figure that behaving asexually is a superior strategy for them in the “emotions vs. sex” paradigm who are then pissed off that being non-sexual doesn’t usually lead to sex.
“And that’s sort of the point I made earlier. There is a perception, true or not, that most men want women, but don’t necessarily care for them, but that the reverse rarely happens.”
Again – if your point is that women and men are pleasure incompatible and merely trading partners (as you mention again in your reply to AllSaintsDay (“Because women are a reward for men’s behaviour”), then this whole discussion seems sort of pointless, because then there’s nothing we can do about it by understanding each other better, in that case we should go to our respective corners and prepare for the next round…
Also – because it just happened and loosely relates to the “emotions for sex paradigm”, and because I’m rarely able to give dating advice to women ;): If you’re having a fun and flirty conversation with someone you *just* met who also thinks you’re having a fun and flirty conversation, and who just asked for your facebook contact info after you suggested getting coffee sometime, don’t tell your female friend too loudly that you’re trying to “sell yourself”, don’t immediately mention all your emotional baggage – how hard your last breakup was, that you are some sort of a clingy person (“… but also sexy!”) -, and *don’t* ever start talking about how desperate you are for a *real* relationship to a guy you met about 30 minutes ago unless you are also desperate to make said guy question if he should ever actually use your contact info… such (unintentional?) honesty may be considerate, on some level, but it’s probably not particularly helpful…
AB,
I feel like your point is less about the talk, and more about the allowing into the social circle. That is, you’re using the bad-mouthing as confirmation/evidence that the woman didn’t fit in the group, rather than holding it up as the behaviour in question.
Am I interpreting correctly?
If so, I think I’d agree that it seems to happen far more with women in mostly male groupings than the reverse.
Hey AB, bet you’ll like this one:
http://www.realadultsex.com/archives/2011/02/prison-rape-reform-heads-anyone-whos-ever-typed-men-get-raped-too-comments-feminist
Clarisse,
thanks, interesting link (had a brief look at the report)…
@Clarisse (from the linked article):
Heh heh. Indeed.
Thanks for the heads up, btw. Had no idea this existed.
@AB:
Thinking over it a bit, I should clarify what I wrote in #68: the part of your comment that I quoted was specifically what I observed in the treatment of attractive men (one of the most notable was one of the best singers at karaoke night), who would be treated extremely well when they were present but ripped to shreds, as far as comments about them as people were concerned, when they weren’t around. I didn’t ask whether or not they specifically talked about me that way when I wasn’t there, because that kind of thing generally doesn’t concern me; but when I asked if it was a regular thing, I was specifically singled out as an exception.
The way that I was treated in the group was usually in the same way, but sometimes not up to the same level of kindness, etc., as those men were. Those events were almost line for line like what you wrote in #67.
So, as I wrote, “that is precisely the kind of thing that I’m talking about, as well.”
The main difference, if there is one, seems to be that after the personal attacks wound up, they were rapidly (and almost always) accompanied by statements about men as a group.
… and, accordingly, the exception was phrased in terms of men as a group, too.
Which, I suspect, had to do with the assumption that I was with a group of women because I didn’t want to be, couldn’t be, or shouldn’t be, with a group of men. As if my being involved in the group signified some kind of loyalty had been given, and that going back into the general category “men” would be tantamount to a kind of betrayal.
In fact… once I started hanging out with larger groups of men, after that, I was excluded, and didn’t get back in.
@Hugh Ristik
You have a point there. I guess that for me, there’s very little separating that sort of advise from all the other moralising drivel about potential dangers you tend to hear as a girl. I think the myth of female frailty (http://hugoschwyzer.net/2009/02/09/one-mistake-will-not-ruin-your-life-thoughts-on-onesies-and-the-myth-of-female-frailty/) that Hugo Schwyzer talks about is often applied, and the message that comes across is “as a woman, getting a good man who will take of you and not abuse you should be your first priority – things like fun and passion are only affordable priorities if you’re male”.
And they usually don’t have them. Seriously, our culture is so obsessed with the idea that a guy who doesn’t get sex is just a victim of women’s bad taste that people will do everything to try to make unsuccessful guys appear sympathetic. Almost any guy can take on the label of Nice Guy as long as he’s sufficiently unattractive, but it’s almost impossible for guys who’re getting laid to be accepted as one.
This was the second link when I googled ‘nice guys bad boys’ (the first link promised magical tricks to attract hot women by not being nice): http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5197531&page=1
Notice how their poster ‘stereotypical bad boy’ says that he’s honest to the girls he hook up with, and yet the article gleefully goes on about how guys like him are using deceit to get women. And like pretty much every article on the subject, they conflate things like extroversion and risk-taking with ‘dark traits’, despite said traits being the hallmark of most of the world’s humanitarian heroes.
When Clarisse talks about not demonising men who’re open about their sexual needs, people seem to be all up in arms about feminism, but feminism isn’t the main culprit in this. Men, PUAs, and MRAs are. Because they, like the article above, tend to conflate guys who’re interested deep, lasting monogamous relationships with guys who’re good people, and guys who just want sex with guys who’re bad people, and then use bogus studies to back up their claim, wilfully conflating “guys who’re specifically interested in many sexual partners and who’re outgoing and willing to take risks to get them, end up with more sexual partners than guys who mainly interacts with women on a platonic basis while hoping to attract the princess of their dreams” with “Guys with no morals or empathy are more successful with women because women like jerks”.
When people do that, it sends a very powerful signal: Women are not interested in casual sex because sex is not supposed to be enjoyed by women for its own sake, men who pursue women with the intent on engaging in casual sex are amoral bad boys (because sex is bad, at least for women), and women who have sex with the aforementioned bad boys are stupid twits who don’t know what’s good for them. If women are constantly told that the guy who honestly just wants to fuck them is being a bad boy who’re abusing them, how can they not end up viewing male sexuality as toxic?
That line helped me clarify something I’ve been trying to say for a while. I don’t think getting the urge to do nice things to the person you’re interested in marks you as nice. It marks you as someone who will go to certain lengths to please the object of your affection, but that’s about it. It’s not terribly impressive, and unless the woman is already attracted to you, it’s not even that flattering, because it just raises the question of how much she’s supposed to ‘allow’ you to do for her before you’re entitled to getting something back.
I once held a large birthday party for my friends and family, where I had invited primarily male friends. My father told me that during that party, he had walked up to the guys’ table and asked them if any of them would help him carry some cases of beer out from the basement. As he was speaking, one of my mother’s friends shouted to him to “put a name on”, i.e. to ask a specific guy instead of making a general inquiry, because young men would often shy away from helping if they could do so without directly saying no. I disagreed, and said that I could imagine several of my friends to be helpful, and I mentioned who those guys were.
My criteria for deciding this were the following: 1) The guy had to have enough initiative in him to step up by himself when he knew help was needed. 2) The guy had to be willing to help even if there was little prestige or chance to impress a girl in it (e.g. if a middle aged man asked him to help at a party with no girl in sight). And 3) The guy should help reliably, not just depending on whether or not he felt like it on a given day.
As I mentioned the guys who fitted those criteria, I realised those were all the guys who were either currently dating a girl, or frequently had sex, and I remarked “It’s amazing how being romantically involved with girls can make guys act that way”, to which my father answered “Or maybe they get romantically involved with girls because they act that way in the first place”. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), the group’s self-identified Nice Guy was not among the guys I predicted would help, but the resident Bad Boy was.
Regarding trashtalking in group
Are you sure the ingroup trash-talking is solely based on sexual attraction between men and women ?
I have heard my share of this and I am really tired of this, truth to be told. But I have always experienced this as some kind of ingroup vs outgroup instead of men vs women. Those groups are usually based on a common ground, be it that all members are nerds or man or students or co-workers. The trashtalking that starts sooner or later is then only directed outwards, towards people who are not members of this specific group.
Trashtalk is then directed towards a ‘common enemy’. A group of your co-workers might trashtalk the guys from the marketing department, the nerds trashtalk sports junkies and men trashtalk women.
And it seems to me, that this trashtalking serves some kind of bonding to the group, like, i don’t know, reverse peer pressure ? They may have something against a very specific kind of outgroup people, but they hold this grudge together as if shoving others from your group away makes the group stand better together. You know, just like howling wolves.
Regarding nice guys
I have heard nice guys complaining that they are not getting rewarded for their nice behaviour. But I have also heard nice guys complaining that others are getting rewarded for their not so nice behaviour.
And I think this is something that begs to differ, because there are men out there that display behaviour that is not only inappropriate but inherently harmful. I can give you an example. A couple of days ago 2 guys i know on an after-exam party introduced me to the ‘rule of three’.
The rule of three says that when you introduce yourself to a woman and she tells you to leave her alone that she doesn’t actually mean it until she said it three times.
Now, is this ‘nice’ behaviour ? No it isn’t.
Are these guys being ‘rewarded’ for their not so nice behavior ? Yes, they are.
Should they be rewarded for it ?
@Tim:
Personally: not necessarily between men and women, but I do think that this kind of two-facedness occurs more often when it involves someone considered sexually attractive. I’ve seen the same dynamics happen in gay, bi and lesbian circles; it’s just that with het dynamics, it’s been easier to spot.
With that in mind, I don’t think that it can be convincingly explained by ingroup/outgroup or common enemy dynamics. Those can be associated with it, certainly; but I don’t think that they’re necessarily involved.
@Cessen:
This definitely rings a bell with me. Though I’d say that women are also treated harshly in certain contexts, because they’re often perceived as less competent, and the good treatment they get in relation to their look is often deceptive. I’m reminded of a girl who was the most popular kid in primary school and ruled the class. Her name was Caroline, and she was actually a pretty cool person, but her status in the class made everybody want to be her friend.
The cycle in the class was as followed: Caroline would have a couple of girls as her current closets friends (perhaps one primary and one who tagged along), and frequently a couple of boys too, and they would decide who was a valid target for bullying, be they girls or boys. Then the friends would drift apart, Caroline would get a new posse, and the formerly popular girls would bitch about her behind her back, without daring an open rebellion, until she started hanging out with them again, etc., etc..
There were a few attempted rebellions, where the other girls got together and decided to freeze Caroline out and end her reign for good. They usually lasted a couple of hours after which the leaders of the rebellion could be seen socialising with Caroline themselves, vying for a share of her position. When Caroline and her parents moved to England for half a year, all people’s pent-up frustration with her took over and she became a valid target for all sorts of slander. When she came home, a new alpha had taken her place, but the two of them usually got along pretty well and she regained some of her former status (I’m not sure how much she was even aware she had lost it, though I’m told she had a rough time in England and that might have shaken her faith in herself).
I moved to a different school, but I later heard that the girls had gotten fed up with Caroline and made good of their former plans. At the age of 15, Caroline had to change school after the girls in the class had systematically bullied her for months, with the specific goal of breaking her down to get rid of her. And while she had certainly been a bully, I could help feeling sorry for her, because she’d only (ab)used a popularity which was thrust upon her, which almost anyone would have done, and she’d paid dearly for it without even knowing why.
I see the girl in my example as being somewhat similar. Some of the guys had a crush on her, the alpha took a shine to her, and thus, she gained a certain status. Because of that status, which had little to do with her as a person, she was treated a certain way which, again, had little to do with her as a person. But this had the side-effect if causing the guys who never liked her in the first place, the guys who got tired of her, and the guys who failed at getting on her good side, to all become doubly resentful towards her.
And because she had never really been respected in the group, even the guys who liked her had no issues when others talked about her stupidity and incompetence behind her back, except perhaps the guy who ended up dating her. She was never given any incentive to improve, or any clue about which direction she should improve in, and as her special status began to wane, all the pent-up resentment was slung in her face without her having any chance to deflect it.
When my mother (I sometime borrowed the lower floor in my parents’ house for movie nights, parties, and geekery, so they got to observe the group) remarked that she was like the group’s scapegoat, the one everybody felt entitled to pick on, I was quite surprised because I’d had this image of her as a spoiled princess, and I realised that for a long time, she had actually been treated pretty horribly. People talked down to her, got annoyed with her over things they’d never been (openly) bothered by before, ignored her, made fun of her, etc.. So she still got all the negative reactions her behaviour had called for, she just got them at a time when she had no chance of avoiding it or knowing what was happening.
This OKCupid article was posted in the earlier incarnation of this thread, but I think it deserves a second look in light of this discussion:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/
@Cessen:
I think that, in order to come to the conclusion most Nice Guys come to, there must have been something wrong with their relationship to women in the first place. A behaviour motivated by self-loathing can still be sexist, and in this case, the notion of toxic male sexuality is also demeaning to women because it suggests that they’re somehow defiling themselves through sex. Women who choose to have casual sex with handsome and exiting men (like some men choose to to do with pretty and exiting women) are either poor victims to be pitied, or horrible abominations who’re directly to blame for men’s abusive behaviour.
That’s probably true, though with the exception of groups which consist mostly of men (such as soldiers), I don’t know how big the difference is. But I see no reason for why a girl who’s afraid of approaching a guy wouldn’t think of herself as a coward (“a person who shrinks from or avoids danger, pain, or difficulty”).
That’s pretty accurate. I just hear so much about women being teases, sending false signals, giving false hope, being dishonest about what they want, rewarding bad behaviour, etc., that I’m wondering how much attention is paid to the opposite, guys sending false signals (of platonic interest), giving false hope (of emotional intimacy), being dishonest about what they want (such as not owning up to their sexual interest), rewarding bad behaviour (by treating girls who play hard to get better), etc..
“As I mentioned the guys who fitted those criteria, I realised those were all the guys who were either currently dating a girl, or frequently had sex, and I remarked “It’s amazing how being romantically involved with girls can make guys act that way”, to which my father answered “Or maybe they get romantically involved with girls because they act that way in the first place”. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), the group’s self-identified Nice Guy was not among the guys I predicted would help, but the resident Bad Boy was.”
Sorry AB, but this anecdote sounds like you’re implying that romantically unsuccessful guys are bad persons. The nicest guy I know, a relative of mine, was remarkably romantically unsuccessful until he got married in his late 30s. The reason for his lack of success was certainly not that he pretended to be nice only to get laid. He is a rather introverted and extremely modest person, for example he never uses his academic accomplishments, he has a PhD, to impress other people. Added to this, he also doesn’t look very manly. I’m not sure if he would call himself a nice guy, but a lot of his behavior fits the criteria. But the difference is that he’s a genuinely nice guy, who’s nice to all people. As I mentioned, he’s married now to a rather non gender-typical woman and a devoted father of a small boy.
My question is how can you distinguish genuine niceness from fake niceness? I for one can’t. If niceness is a sign of weakness no matter what, PUAs like Rossy are right after all. I just read an excerpt of Rossies advice at the man boobz blog. Basically he’s saying men should behave like complete assholes to women they are attracted to. I don’t want this to be true, but perhaps he’s rudimentary right.
At the very least, it is a lot easier to not send false signals of platonic interest and false hope of emotional intimacy if you’re being a complete asshole.
“My question is how can you distinguish genuine niceness from fake niceness? I for one can’t.”
I’d say essentially the difference is how much it relies on external reward. If I act nice when I see benefit for me in it (in this conversation, sex or relationship), but not when my only possible reward is “because I like being nice,” it’s not genuine niceness. Even if that’s not a difference you can use to diagnose a real-world situation, it’s one we can apply to hypothetical “What if a guy does X for reason Y? Is he being nice or Nice?”
That said, I’d find it very strange for a genuinely nice person to not have a natural tendency to be even nicer to someone they’re attracted to.
@Thomas
I implied no such thing, and I don’t know where you got that idea. I put up some criteria, and remarked that guys who fitted those criteria seemed to have an easier time getting romantically involved with women. I never said those criteria were the one and only definition of a good person, or that everyone in the world who fitted them would be romantically involved, though I will say that they’re probably a good indication of a person’s successfulness in communicating their niceness to the world, as opposed to merely earning the label of Nice Guy (which is primarily done by being shy, indirect, and sexually unattractive).
It’s a bit like intelligence. I know quite a few guys with high IQs (it tends to come with being a geek), but several of them are not able to properly use it in conversations with others. They might be able to talk about some pretty complicated stuff, but they’re not able to make themselves understood. At best, they’ll come across as too intelligent for normal people to relate to (possibly making them feel inferior), but mostly, they’ll just come across as pretentious, boring, ignorant, and, ironically, stupid. And some of them actually are stupid (it’s entirely possible to have a talent for IQ tests without being smart), but believe their high IQ makes everything they say both interesting and correct, causing them to never improve.
If you’re not able to communicate your niceness, it’s like wearing a burqa. Even if you’re the most beautiful person underneath, it wont show. If you’re the type who, when noticing that everybody else is ignoring a person who needs help, will have to fight to break out of the group and draw attention to yourself by helping, and someone else ends up beating you to it, people are not going to see your struggles, they’re just going to see you not helping.
In terms of attraction, it doesn’t matter. I could be totally wrong in thinking that the Bad Boy is helpful and the Nice Guy is not, but the point is that the Bad Boy managed to give me the impression that he would be the type to help, and the Nice Guy didn’t. I have some criteria, and especially the parts about consistency and being helpful even when there’s no girl to impress have been very useful, but to be honest, I don’t really care that much any more.
I might be a woman, but I’m not a prostitute. I get romantically involved with guys for my sake, not anyone else’s. Making my sexuality into an obligation rather than something to be enjoyed almost left me frigid, and I’m not going to risk that again just because a bunch of Nice Guys feel entitled to my pussy. If a guy makes me feel good, here and now, then that’s enough. And if he doesn’t make me feel good, I don’t have any obligation to try and look behind any lack of social skills to figure out if he’s really a good person deep inside, because the fact of the matter is that I don’t feel good being with him.
If fake niceness works, then it works. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. I don’t have a duty to decide if it’s fake or real before being attracted to it, any more than you have a duty to figure out if a woman’s breasts are made of silicone before deciding if you’re supposed to want to touch them. Guys who manage to communicate to me (rightly or not, though I’ve become pretty apt at getting it right, especially where my male friends are concerned) that they’re helpful, supportive, trustworthy, etc., are much more likely to be sexually attractive to me. Guys who don’t manage this, regardless of whether they’re really nice inside, will usually have to look like models before I’ll give them a second look.
I have an obligation to not treat the guys I’m with like shit. I have an obligation to make sure I’m not pressuring them into something they don’t want, take advantage of them when they’re vulnerable, or making promises I don’t intend to keep, directly or through my actions. I have an obligation not to act like Rossy, not just for the sake of the guys, but because I’m better than that.
That’s the extent of it, and to be honest, it’s more than what most guys have done for me. I don’t have an obligation to try to figure out if the guys I’m with are worthy of me, and I don’t have an obligation to let myself get racked by guilt because guys who came across as unsympathetic to me might be really nice inside, unless I actually treated said guys like shit (and not having sex with them doesn’t count).
@Thomas:
Fake niceness tends to correlate with reactive and performative niceness, which goes to what AB’s been saying. Faking something has little purpose when there’s no audience around to see it (and, on top of that, the individual has to recognize that the audience is present, which they don’t always do). It isn’t easy to spot in any given instance, but it becomes evident through pattern. Certain triggers, certain circumstances, inconsistencies, etc.
My experience, anyway. YMMV.
“Making my sexuality into an obligation rather than something to be enjoyed almost left me frigid, and I’m not going to risk that again just because a bunch of Nice Guys feel entitled to my pussy.”
If someone feels entitled to sex with any one person, they’re dead wrong, and feeling entitled to there being sex available somewhere is less wrong, but still very wrong. But I think that a nontrivial portion of this issue is outside of those two.
From my experiences, there’s some variant of toxic male sexuality that produces what is essentially the opposite incorrectly inferred obligation. A man with good intentions is aware that a woman, whom he genuinely likes and is interested in sexually, is sick of men only being interested in her sexually, so he feels an obligation to suppress his interest. (Or he is aware that women in general tend to be sick of men always viewing them sexually, and never tries because whichever woman he’s thinking of has probably already had to fend off twenty billion advances that day, and he’d feel like shit if he added onto that.) As usual, feeling pressured to have sex is worse than feeling pressured to not have sex, but the latter is still something that needs to be gotten rid of.
Sam,
It’s better than the alternative “Sexism doesn’t exist any more, 95 of the 100 women here just happened to be a waste of space, and it’s certainly not that I’m prejudged in any way”.
Where did I say anything about that? I haven’t even read Wollstonecraft and de Beauvoir, I’m not an established feminist, remember? I’m talking about casually ignoring women’s viewpoints, talking over them, interrupting them, dismissing them, etc.
They might not be the norm, but they’re still often treated that way. I read a report on women in male-dominated workplaces (police officers, fire-fighters, soldiers) and men in female-dominated workplaces (kindergarten teachers, nurses), and there were some pretty clear contrasts. The women were expected to prove themselves, and were considered incompetent until proven otherwise. They often deliberately avoided seeking out other women in order to make a female support-network, because they feared it would be considered a failure to adapt on their part, and make them isolated from the men. But they were often met with admiration when people heard what they did for a living.
The men were assumed to be competent until proven otherwise. Whereas the women would often be told to stay away from certain areas because they weren’t good enough/ought to be protected, the men were frequently seen as a resource and asked to assist in areas where men were considered more skilled. They had no fear of forming networks, and their colleagues respected that they would need time off from ‘the henhouse’. But on the other hand, outsiders often looked down on them because of their jobs, and assumed they were only doing it temporarily.
My boyfriend used to work in a children’s institution, and he confirmed that men were pretty much immediately met with open arms there, and a male friend of mine who works at an old folks’ home uses the term ‘henhouse’ himself and talks openly about his need to distance himself from the women there, so I’ll wager that at least half of the report wasn’t completely inaccurate. While a lot of it is probably connected to status (the men are high-status individuals in low-status jobs, and the women are low-status individuals in high-status jobs), it still seems like people are more OK with a man standing out among women than vice-versa.
I think there are at least two sorts of fat-shaming for women. One is the shame over not being thin, which even healthy women are subjected to. It’s more frequently caused by other women than by men, and failing to live up to it doesn’t damage a woman’s sexual appeal (normal women might lack confidence compared to thin women, but this is made up for by many men tending to prefer curvier women). I’d say it’s mostly a moral (possibly religious) shaming, and strongly linked to a perceived lack of self-control. The other is the shame over actually being overweight, to the point where it’s starting to become less attractive to most men. It’s a mixture of sexual shaming, feeling inadequate, and being perceived as deformed and disgusting, and men are definitely the prime contributors to it.
Again you assume that sexism (against women) doesn’t exist, and that men aren’t treated any better or taken any more seriously in non-sexual contexts. That’s part of why I feel men are lucky sometimes, because people who’re sexist against them will usually be much more open about it, which means it can be talked about, whereas sexism against women will be something along the lines of “I’m not a sexist, I just think it’s obvious that men are inherently better at math, science, and logical thinking, just look at how most scientists are male…… How I know most scientists are not male because of sexism against women? Well, that would be idiotic, this is the 21st century, if a woman wants to become a scientist she has every opportunity, it’s not like anyone would assume she’s inherently less competent just because she’s a woman”.
I wasn’t suggesting that. I was suggesting that women’s role in society have been defined by their relationship to men, especially as objects of sexual desire (though motherhood is a big one too), and their worth as people has come to be defined by how well they perform their role in society, i.e. how sexy they are. Men have a bit of it too, but they’re not tied down quite as much, and their role in society is much bigger and more diverse.
Of course it would be hard, but it’s important to notice that the baseline is not neutrality. Men and women are not treated identically, period. It has been proven time and again that the same action will be ascribed a different meaning and quality depending on the sex of the person doing it. But if I was to ascribe values to it, I would say that, though exceptions exist, men’s baseline reaction to the average, sexually uninteresting woman (and to some extent, even women’s reaction to the average, sexually uninteresting woman) is numerically lower than their baseline reaction to the average, sexually uninteresting man, but that sexual appeal can add to that.
Perhaps discounting is the wrong word. Finding value might be a better expression. He’s assuming that his (pretense of) friendship has a higher value to her than her friendship has to him. And he’s right of course, but it still sucks.
I have said it repeatedly, I’m not talking about how women and men are, but how they’re perceived. When people complain about women’s alleged preference for bad boys over nice guys, there’s frequently an undertone of perceived injustice in it. An idea that since nice guys deserve women more, especially attractive women, more women should date nice guys. All I’m saying is that it’s hard to have a sexuality without strong selfish components, and that focussing on who you want is usually a much shorter path to horniness than focussing on who should have you.
When my nerd friends drool over Catwoman, they don’t stop to ask themselves if they’re encouraging bad behaviour. And when they hit on a woman because she looks confident, sexy, and out to get laid, they don’t worry about whether or not she’s a nice person unless she actually makes them uncomfortable. I think it would be great if women felt more free to do the same, and I believe that as long as they’re so often made to feel bad about their choices, that’s not likely to happen.
(I knew I couldn’t stay away too long.)
AB:
That’s part of why I feel men are lucky sometimes, because people who’re sexist against them will usually be much more open about it, which means it can be talked about,…
I can say that for myself I don’t feel the luck you speak of here. They might be more open about it but that rarely (in my experience at least) translate into making more accessible to conversation.
First off consider that there is a nontrivial number of people who will outright declare that there is no such thing as sexism against men (well more directly there is no such thing as female against male sexism). Getting past that you do have those that will (grudgingly) cop to “gender discrimination” against men and even then that might not get talked about much because it gets lost in the (and I’m thinking that whether this is intentional or not varies from person to person) storm of “women have it worse”. And from there you pretty much end up with the expectation that such things being regulated to the back burner so to speak.
AB,
just briefly. This -
“it still seems like people are more OK with a man standing out among women than vice-versa.”
- is, I think, very much related to whatever “essence” of masculinity there is. If you have a lot of time, check this very interesting article called “the origin of male dominance (on a radical feminist evolutionary scientist’s blog) -
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2006/05/07/the-origin-of-male-dominance
- and then a bit of conversation about it between a commenter named DanceDreaming and me in Clarisse’s manliness followup thread, between here
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/12/09/manliness-and-feminism-the-followup/#comment-6643
and
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/12/09/manliness-and-feminism-the-followup/#comment-6651
Tim:
I recall a female friend of mine back in college telling me that when a guy asks her out she always says no the first time, even if she’s interested. She said it was because she wants to make the guy work for it, or prove himself, or something like that. I remember being peeved at the time, but without being able to quite put my finger on why.
In retrospect (this was quite a long time ago), I wish I had said, “You do realize that you’re filtering out every single guy that respects ‘no’ for an answer, right?”
And to be clear, this was not some “bitchy” high-horse girl. She was actually a really good person that I was proud to call my friend. To the point that I was shocked that this is how she behaved when it came to dating.
Ironically, she came to me at some other point to complain about a guy that just wouldn’t leave her alone (not in a threatening way, just in an annoying-as-all-hell way). I was very sympathetic to her at the time, but in retrospect I probably should have been far less so.
@Xakudo:
Similar experiences, as well, though not of exactly the same kind.
One was with a woman that I’d met through a student ambassadorship program after high school, of which we were both members. We’d became intimate on three or four occasions, each of which would progress to a certain point, at which she’d say that she wanted to stop, and I’d stop. The next time, things would go a bit further, then she’d say that she wanted to stop, and I’d stop. She looked a bit upset after we’d stopped, each time, but didn’t tell me why until the last one.
“You give up too easily.”
We never interacted again after that.
@Xakudo and Infra
I really don’t know why people of both sides (I mean both the initiator and the reactor) feel the need to play games like this. Dating would be so much less frustating if people would just be straight forward.
@AB
People are not only more okay with men standing out, I would argue that it is at least partly of what men are supposed to and what the whole alpha male/masculinity thing is about. You are just one in a bunch of faceless dudes until you manage to stand out in a way that plays into old and false male stereotypes.
@AB
I agree with you, regarding communication of niceness. But it also worth noticing that successful communication of your niceness is just marketing. I have a friend, we were once best friends, but our friendship cooled down, significantly. He’s a very charming guy, fun to hang around with, popular with the ladies and with his buddies. I’ve helped him out several times, but never made a big fuss out of it or expected anything in return. When I moved to city were he was living I asked him if I could sleep two weeks at his apartment until my new apartment got free. He told me it’s fine, but the whole time I was staying with him I never felt really welcome. After that he used this favor as leverage in our friendship. Told everyone what a good person he is for letting me stay at his place and how he saved me from sleeping under the bridge. What he did not mention was that he spend half of his teenage years at my place, that I lent him money when he was totally broke, etc. For the people, who did not know the background story, I was beggar and he was a great, generous guy. Long story short, he’s very successful in communicating his niceness. But only after that incident I realized that he’s not really a friend I can count on.
All I’m saying is that it’s worth trying to look behind the curtain. I’m a rather superficial and judgmental person. When I reminisce I realize, that I often overlooked or misjudged good people, and only after I had to take some hits in my own life, I came to that conclusion.
Apart from that, I never suggested you should reward nice guys with sex. If you don’t feel attracted to them that’s totally fine. What bothers me about the whole nice guy discussion (not the discussion with you but rather the discussion on the gendersphere) is, that it feels like an attempt to police masculinity. The nice guy attempt to romance contains are great deal of feminine traits. Being passive, waiting till your love interest makes a move, etc. Usually, feminists point out that feminine traits in men are condemned, because of misogyny. For example, when the wimpy kid gets called a “faxxxx” in school. But with the whole nice guy narrative this is not the case, in spite of that it’s vastly popular. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the discussion, it’s just that I don’t know a single stereotypical nice guy, who manipulates women into having pity sex with him, in real life. But I know a couple shy, introverted guys, who only open up after you know them a little better and this goes for interaction with both men and women. A friend of mine from high school looks like a fashion model, he’s the tall, dark and handsome type, but was also very shy, especially around girls. His shyness was often mistaken for arrogance and there was also a rumor that he’s gay, because despite his exceptional good looks he never got a girlfriend. Of course shy guys are not good at picking up strange women. They want to get to know their potential partners first. When they feel safe they make a move, but often they need to be pushed out of their comfort zone, first.
BTW, there is also the opposite case, when women behave rather manly to initiate romance. I have a good female friend, who’s very forward and direct when it comes to romance and sex. She is sometimes downright inappropriate. For example she told me once how she hit very explicitly on her hot but married lecturer. The lecturer blushed and got bashful in front of the whole class. It didn’t even occur to her that her behavior was questionable. She has had a equally hard time finding a partner, because her directness was scaring away a lot of men.
On a personal note, I’m not invested in this topic, because I’m a nice guy, myself. I was rather a jerk in my past relationships, mainly to hide my own insecurities. I identify as a sexually submissive man and I hid this part of my sexuality for the whole time I’m sexual active. Only now in my mid 20s I’m coming to terms with my sexual orientation. I would prefer, if my partner takes the active role between the sheets. But the cultural norm dictates that this is my job and if I can’t live up to this ideal I lose my status as a “real man”. That’s why policing masculinity is a touchy topic for me.
This is a really interesting conversation and I tried to read all of it but I might of missed some. This is a ridiculously confusing topic for me. I used to think you could be friends with guys but all of those turned into sex and were really confusing.
I’ve had a lot of guys tell me, “Well you were smiling and talking to me, you lead me on and now you should have sex with me.”
I felt so bad the first time a guy said that, but then I internalized everything so much. I realized I just pressumed it would be rude to talk to a guy and not assume I should give sex. If you hang out with guys you should give them sex for male attention right? I mean male attention has a little something specialer than female attention because they want sex. But then it would be rude to get this special attention and not give sex, right?
I know, my life is weird LOL.
“Maybe I’m misinterpreting the discussion, it’s just that I don’t know a single stereotypical nice guy, who manipulates women into having pity sex with him, in real life”
Wow I just read this… really?
Huh. I guess that depends on how you define “manipulate”.
I had a guy say that I had smiled and talked to him and that I was manipulating him by laughing and if I wanted him to be my friend I had to have sex with him or he would walk out of the room right then and there.
Which isn’t technically manipulation, I mean, it’s perfectly reasonable to define what you’re looking for. I had no friends so I said ok.
I met a lot of guys like this and they seemed like nice people other than this. Then again I think I have the problem that if people talk to me and smile I think they must be nice.
That same guy told me “better to be the wolf than the sheep.”
@rox
I don’t doubt your experience and I’m sorry that you meet these guys when you needed a friend and they pressured you into sex. I have lived a rather sheltered life so far and I might be oblivious to these kind of guys. I’m just stating my experience, but I don’t want to deny yours. I apologize if I offended you.
@rox:
Yeah… that brings back memories of some people that I’d rather not have known.
A lot of it seems to depend upon who we’re around, or upon who seeks us out, if you know what I mean. Sometimes, we’re fortunate enough never to experience it; at other times, it’s all that we find.
Oh Thomas, I’m so not offended at all! Yeah that’s all I found. I was going through a rough spot with some health issues that made it very hard to have any friends at all. I reached a point where all my friends just left. I felt like maybe I had nothing to offer in friendship so that was all I had left to give.
But it is interesting how when I lost all of my friends those guys seemed to find me. And strangely I would think, “Maybe this person will really be my friend!” the first three times. I finally just decided if guys talked to me that’s what they were looking for so all the rest I can’t know what they were ACTUALLY looking for because by default I just had sex with them to be polite for talking to them. Some of them might have been really nice guys lol.
@rox:
I suspect that having E places people at an elevated risk for that kind of thing; I know that I was, before my previous neurologist advanced the diagnosis of TLE and put me on AEDs. Maybe it interferes with our warning signals. Or throws enough noise into them that they become far less reliable, to the point that we’re unable to recognize them for what they are.
You’re definitely not alone in what you experienced, though. It was a complicated and dramatic situation, but a woman I met after an out-of town concert had come to a very similar place: believing that men would expect sex as payment for helping her out, or being kind to her, something that (as our conversation went on) she certainly had reason to believe. So flirting and having sex had become a kind of automatic response. A way of getting help, and the expected compensation for it.
I know that she found it strange, if not threatening, that I’d helped her out but didn’t go toward anything sexual with her, especially since it was evident that I found her attractive; so if her experiences and feelings were anything like yours, I have some idea of how hard it can be to get past that. But I also know that the part of it that I know is a small one, and that it’s something very difficult to recover from.
Still… if her experiences and feelings were anything like yours, I also know that it’s possible to break through.
figleaf posted about PREA again:
http://www.realadultsex.com/archives/2011/02/prison-rape-reform-heads-anyone-whos-ever-typed-women-get-raped-comments-feminist-f
Not entirely sure what I think of all of it, but I’m linking to it because Clarisse already linked to the previous one.
Interesting. I hate CWA (they’re super sex-negative and super anti-BDSM for one thing). It’s always a little weird for me when feminist organizations that I vehemently disagree with are doing work I admire.
Hm, I think you must be the only (with the possible exception of CWA themselves) who calls CWA a feminist organization. Even Wendy McElroy calls them an “anti-feminist” organization.
Well, I don’t know what CWA calls themselves … (I prefer not to get caught up in the “policing the definition of feminism” wars …. Yes, this discussion could get fairly ridiculous pretty quickly, but let’s not get caught up in reductios ad absurdum.) If they’re doing anti-rape work then they’re at least a little bit feminist, in my book. But if I were writing an actual post or something and not a hasty comment, then I’d be more careful about how I described them.
@Clarisse:
This is interesting to me. I tend to think of “feminist” as an adopted label. So it feels a bit bizarre when I see the label placed on someone, or someone’s actions, who have not adopted the label. I think it is rarely intended this way, but it comes across as feminists trying to give feminism credit for activism it didn’t do.
In any case, from the CWA wikipedia article:
Apparently they also oppose LGBT rights, are pro-abstinence-only-education, etc. So I’m pretty sure they would never, ever identify as feminist. And I strongly suspect that most feminists would not accept them as such even if they did.
Cessen:
So it feels a bit bizarre when I see the label placed on someone, or someone’s actions, who have not adopted the label. I think it is rarely intended this way, but it comes across as feminists trying to give feminism credit for activism it didn’t do.
Not just bizarre but in some cases almost insulting. I’m sure that Clarrise doesn’t mean to sound so but I myself find it almost insulting when someone who does not claim the feminist label does or says something and some feminist comes along and calls it feminist. As if calling the words/actions feminist is a requirement for validity. Almost like co-opting. Like they are engaged in some sort of guerrilla marketing campaign just going around and trying label anything that might be considered good as feminist for the sake of trying to make feminist synonymous with good.
It strikes me as more an issue of some issues being dealt with — in a highly visible fashion — primarily by people with a feminist bent or identification, with people of opposing positions not often dealing with them. So addressing those issues can lead to a “de facto feminist” interpretation.
But I don’t think that this necessarily reflects a co-opting of those efforts by feminists, or even an issue of granting validity (though the second has a relationship to who is and isn’t considered to be an ally). It’s more a matter of underestimating the complexity and variability of positions not covered by that label, pro or con.
Cessen,
This is from a while back, but:
Re: the bolded part. From the context, I’m assuming you’re saying that neither are being intentionally manipulative or dehumanizing, rather than that both are (or that both are “arguably” doing so). Am I correct?
@ Danny–
I’m under the impression that when a feminist calls something feminist she means “This action is in accordance with the beliefs of mine that I call ‘feminist,’” rather than “Credit for these actions should go to my political movement.” I’ve seen something pretty similar from religious people–when someone calls a particular action “An example of good Christian charity,” I don’t think they’re really trying to appropriate it–they’re just voicing approval.
…Though I’ll admit there is kind of a patronizing tone to it, but they don’t (consciously) mean it “that way.”
@ Infra–
This is from a ways back, but I missed it at the time:
Are you assuming that the definition (or experience) of what a sociopath is or isn’t changes based on levels of poverty? (Hint: It doesn’t.) And it’s possible to still live a fantastically-sheltered life (in this case, one of zero experience with certain disorders) while being lower-class–even while being abused. (Most abusers aren’t sociopaths. The word “sociopath” doesn’t actually mean “bad person;” though it’s usually used that way on the internet, that’s not at all how I’m using it.)
I’m also more than a little curious about the psychometric testing to which you refer.
@ Tim–
I’ve thought this for quite a while–and I think (but am not entirely certain) that I’ve read something to this effect, somewhere, possibly more than once. I agree wholeheartedly–you see it both in social groups and larger, “tribal” organizations. (It’s really interesting, because it has a lot of permutations, but I’ve already derailed these threads enough times…)
What do you mean “should?”
@Motley:
No. I was responding to the statement about leading a sheltered life, and simply indicating that even from the little I’d disclosed, “fantastically sheltered” would be far from an apt description.
I’m aware of these points, and I also refrain from using those terms to describe anything unless there’s significant evidence to establish them. But it’s a point that anyone can take or leave as they will; all I’ll say is that the full complement of behavioral signs (including pyromania, animal mutilation and killing, etc.) were present, and the diagnosis has been strongly suggested in a clinical context on more than one occasion. Two individuals, immediate family, biological relation.
It dropped out of use later on, but the term that was initially used for one of them was malignant narcissist. She had a significantly reduced history of criminal behavior compared to the other.
Initial, strongly suggestive results on an MMPI (among other things, “elements of sociopathic personality disorder,” as it was phrased, resulting in my discharge from the military), strong confirmation on one factor of the PPI-R (inconclusive on the second) later on, combined with two decades of clinical treatment and review. It’s possible that the neuropsych assessment that included the PPI-R also included the PCL-R, based upon what I know of it. But if it did, I wasn’t directly informed. I was only told that the results were clinically significant, but not enough to meet the full diagnostic criteria.
So, like I wrote: partial, not full. That’s as much detail as I’m going to go into here.
@Motley:
Yes, you are correct.
Yeah, that comparison rings true to me. I’ve run across that kind of thing from christians as well, and it feels pretty much the same from my perspective.
It’s not that it’s a big deal. It’s just… irritating.
Motley:
…they’re just voicing approval.
You know I was at first going to reply to this with something to the effect of “as if their approval is desired or required”. But then I think to myself that maybe they simply don’t realize that despite their intentions they don’t realize how condescending they sound with their giving of approval sometimes. And then I think back to all the times I’ve seen feminists chime off with something like, “intent doesn’t matter” before going into how someone’s statement may have made them feel…
…Though I’ll admit there is kind of a patronizing tone to it, but they don’t (consciously) mean it “that way.”
Combined with their distaste with the whole “I’m not a feminist but….” thing I’m not so sure that they don’t mean it that way. Something like “See you just did something that’s feminists. So why don’t you just suck it up and claim the damn title already?”. Like they are more concerned that something is label feminist that whether its actually a good thing or not. A pretty weird PR campaign I tell ya.
If you see eye to eye with me on something cool. But don’t get so caught up in trying to call it feminist that you forget that there are actual non-feminists out there that actually do care about equality.
And remember how I was making a point about how these threads have become basically hostile-feeling to feminists?
Clarisse,
“And remember how I was making a point about how these threads have become basically hostile-feeling to feminists?”
Maybe. I remember some “heated” exchanges back in the followup thread. One was about “overreaching feminism”, and “discourse control”. I think we’ve all agreed a number of times that much of the thread’s value was a direct consequence of your ability to communicate and your willingness to listen to points of view you did not share. I’m not sure other feminists would have considered the thread less hostile back then, but then again, maybe your recent need for an “empathy break” is an indication that something has changed. But we’ve all managed to rescue the thread from similar situations before. We should do that again.
@Clarisse:
Not arguing against your larger point, here, but I do think that this particular issue has a much more substantial impact than is generally recognized. I eventually managed to sidestep it by taking the position of “If that’s how it’s going to be seen, fine, I’ll just continue to do the work on my own and not concern myself with it.” Regardless of whether that meant being seen as de facto feminist or as anti-feminist. But if I hadn’t done that, or hadn’t been able to?
I’d have become far, far more bitter toward feminism than I am now. Just as the result of speaking my own experiences.
In the past, actually, that’s how it was, and it only faded when I stopped caring about whether or not my positions were seen as feminist by individuals who self-identified as such, or by people who objected to feminism on these grounds or those. There is an element that verges toward absolutism, on both sides, and it often seems to run things into the ground when it otherwise could have easily been prevented.
It takes the middle ground, and turns it into no man’s land. Some people polarize; the others go silent.
Ok ok. In fairness, I shouldn’t drop in with just a complaint, and also I’ve been pretty behind on this thread, so I’ll try to write a real comment.
Firstly, in the “creep” thread [ http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/ ] Motley challenged me to come up with some quotations from AB that I agree with, so here we go. Note: As always, I’ve liked a lot of points people have made, but since I’ve been specifically asked to point out some bits I liked about what AB has said, here they are:
(In response to when Sam said something about how reducing sexual scarcity for men might result in positive behavior changes, which I agree with:)
It’s not that I disagree with the result, but too many women are used to seeing themselves as sexual commodities, not as consumers, and this whole issue seems to revolve around making women more available for consumption. Honestly, it’s hard enough for women to figure out what they want themselves, putting a further duty on them is hardly going to achieve the desired result.
I know Sam wasn’t trying to say that we should approach the scarcity problem by pressuring women to put out — I agree with his ideas about how to approach the scarcity problem, in fact. But I also think that AB is correct that a lot of other commenters have stated or implied that women should be “more available for consumption”, and that’s messed up.
(In response to something humbition said about ritual stone-throwing matches between sides of feminists/non-feminists)
I know how that feels, it’s pretty much the definition of being a feminist. Are you too radical? Are you vocal enough about distancing yourself to feminists you may or may not have heard of? Are you a sexist man-hater? Do you only support feminism because you’re ugly and jealous? Are you just out to get preferential treatment? Do you work hard enough on rejecting each and every way in which you might be treated even slightly favourably because of your sex? Are you making too big a deal out of rejecting ways in which you’re treated favourably (such as by not wanting men to open doors for you, and thus being hysterical and giving feminism a bad reputation? Do you spend enough time on issues other than feminism? Are your priorities wrong? Are you alienating men?
As I said earlier, I didn’t much self-identify as feminist before, but if you’re female and say something regarding female equality, especially on American message boards, you’ll get labelled that way no matter what. The only exceptions are girls who make a point of being negative towards feminism, as way to deflect criticism in advance.
In my experience, feminist is a very effective slur, and people will react differently to it. Some people, like me, get rebellious and go “And what’s wrong with that exactly?” while others try to distance themselves from it, both of which are not going to win feminism any friends. It’s amazing how often the phrase “giving feminism a bad name” comes up, so I’m not surprised if many feminist sites almost ban it outright.
It’s a bit like being accused of having the body hair of an adult woman. If you reject the accusation as being completely irrelevant, you’re stuck having to give up discussing your actual point, in favour of trying to defend women’s right to have body hair (which, with the American squeamishness towards that subject, is almost like trying to defend people’s right not to shower, and will only get you labelled a freak). And if you actually start explaining that you do shave/wax, you’ve already lost.
AB also said:
When guys approach me to make me aware of just how terrible it is when girls don’t want them, I don’t become inclined to fuck them, I become inclined to give up dating altogether because rejecting someone is too painful, even without counting the times they try to back at you.
Yup.
And lastly, on the women-have-sex-for-emotional-commitment-thing:
There is an imbalance, but it’s not just in regards to sex. It’s in regards to respect, identification, power, money, friendship, etc. It’s what causes guys to assume that their friendship is so infinitely more precious, and girls’ friendships so infinitely worthless, that girls should be grateful to be allowed to prostitute themselves just for a taste of it, even if it’s fake.
OMG I love that last one so much.
Motley also asked some other questions that I want to acknowledge:
I’m curious how you think the two quotes [one about how abusive people will use whatever tool comes to hand as applied to a radical feminist, the other about how I'm concerned about how some of my writing on manliness has enabled bad attitudes from men] interact, particularly with regards to a couple questions: Do you think you’re obligated to refrain from providing tools for abusive people? How much difference do you think it makes–do you think Xakudo’s ex would not have abused him if she’d never been given that particular tool?
Good point. This actually makes me feel better about the masculinity writing I’ve done. Good job.
(I had written: it’s really messed up that the approach is so often to say “it’s women’s fault that they see me as creepy, how dare they”.)
If a man calls you a slut, whose fault is it? His, yours, nobody’s, or someone else’s? Or some combination of the above?* But you know this already. If a white person sees a black person as a threat, whose fault is it?
Ok, I think I have a better handle on this now: if the “creep” label is about boundary violations (which consensus seems to indicate it often, though not always, is), then it’s more legitimate for someone to call someone else a “creep” (because they’re trying to protect their own boundaries) than it is for someone to call someone else a “slut”. I still think the “creep” label is too vague to be useful, but I’m unwilling to condemn people who are trying to use mean words to describe other people who have specifically been doing stuff to them.
Finally, @rox: I totally sympathize.
Having gone back over a ton of comments for the past hour or more, I don’t feel like this thread is doing too badly. I was concerned, because AB got really upset in the Creep thread, so I felt like I should go over things more, but now I’m not so concerned. I do feel like we’re talking in circles around some things (WHAT THE HELL DOES POSITIVE MALE SEXUALITY LOOK LIKE ANYWAY!) but that’s been true from the start of this giant manliness series ….
If anyone wants to go meta for a moment, I’m curious to know whether anyone cares to summarize some of the impacts reading or participating in this thread has had on their thoughts.
Also I probably shouldn’t have called CWA feminist. That was dumb.
@Tim
There’s that too, but was referring to more to the attitude among co-workers. “Here is a man, let’s try to to adapt to having a man here, make room for his male needs, and make use of his male strengths” vs. “Here is someone who is not a man, let’s hope she can adjust and be normal like the rest of us”. People who consider themselves a niche are, in my experience, often aware that they have to adapt more to others than vice versa, whereas people who perceive themselves as normal are more used to not having to change behaviour and expecting others to adapt to them.
Many straight people habitually talk about sex and dating as if all people followed the equation man+woman=couple, even if they technically know that it doesn’t have to be the only way, but most queer folks seem to always have it in their mind that others could be heteronormative. And speaking of language, women also appear to use more gender neutral pronouns or refer to both sexes, whereas men tend to use male pronouns as default, which is a bit of the same.
So when a woman enters a male environment, the men are more likely to perceive that she is different from them, and see it as her responsibility to adapt, whereas when a man enters a female environment, the women are more likely to perceive that they are different from him and see it as their responsibility to take that difference into account. Again, in my experience and interpretation
Clarisse,
I’ve wondered for a while if it wouldn’t be useful to go back and try to topically cluster and then summarize the entire discussion for easiert consumption. After all, as someone mentioned recently, it’s apparently quite the book by now. For me, the discussion has both emotional and intellectual value. Emotionally, it’s really sort of the only place on the web where I feel that most people are willing to listen to both / all sides of the story and don’t come to the with answers disguised as questions – while at the same time everyone has their opinions and is willing to defend their merit. Intellectually, I think the main realizations were what I call the “Foster-Wallace-realizsation” about double binds and male sexual shaming, about feminist discourse hegemony, PUA and performative masculinity, the discussion with dance dreaming about patriarchy as affirmative action, the discussion with Clarisse about mistle toes, framing, and the interaction of yes-means-yes and no-means-no.
I think this thread was/is unique in the way that I felt/feel “at home” both intellectually and emotionally. Having a gender discussion that does accept the problems of initiatiors and doesn’t reject scarcity based arguments because they make it harder to make purely sociological arguments made me see a lot more things in the gender realm as “grass is greener” issues and let me see more aspects as nurture-based than I previously thought.
Feeling “safe” in the thread, if only anonymously, also allowed me to report personal experiences I felt are relevant to the subject matter, which, in turn, made me generally more aware of such issues in my daily interactions.
@Motley
Ah, I wrote that in a hurry and the formulation is a little off. What I meant is complaining about negative behaviour being reinforced by women. The argument is stupid because it assigns blame on the wrong side and is basically the NiceGuy complaint reversed. Forget about it.
@AB
I think I see your point this time. You basically mean that an archetype of something or someone is seen as the default.
People who fit this standard are oblivious to it at best, expect others to adapt at worst and usually take no or only meager steps toward accommodating people who don’t.
The people on the other side, those that are a part of a minority or a niche, however are very well aware of the differences and alternatives and try to adopt a stance that doesn’t put anyone at a disadvantage.
Is that what you mean ? Because if it is, I absolutely agree with you.
I can’t say if women use gender-neutral formulations more often or not, but thats mainly because I am German and the german language doesn’t leave much choice in what gender you use.
You might be able to ask if someone has a partner instead of asking if someone has a girl- or boyfriend, but the rest is pretty much gendered to begin with (even inanimate objects).
This is a helluva discussion, and I don’t have much to add jumping in at this point, especially since I’ve only just started reading the series. I just wanted to register my appreciation of these threads. I’m an undergraduate with an academic focus on gender issues and although I’m in the first semester of my senior year so far I’ve only discussed men and masculinity in classes as something of a corollary to women’s issues (trans/ intersex/ genderqueer issues are sadly and frustratingly invisible at this institution). Now that I’m taking a class expressly about ‘Men and Masculinities’ I’m struggling with the materials, not on an intellectual level but an emotional one. I go back and forth between ‘This is really important for me to learn’ and ‘Why do I have to be thinking about men again?’ I love that this series started at the same place and I’m finding it super helpful to read through.
@Clarisse:
I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. ;-) Let’s call them MRA’s instead. :-P
First and foremost, discovering this thread allowed me to break out of a nasty self-destructive cycle I had gotten into with the feminist blogosphere at large, wherein it reinforced the whole “I’m ashamed to be a man”, “toxic male sexuality”, etc., etc., etc. The feminist blogosphere wasn’t the initial source of those feelings, but it sure cranked them up to 11. So, stumbling across this thread helped me break out of that, by helping me recognize that my issues were valid and important as well, and were worthy of discussion and empathy.
And in that respect, I suspect (though can’t be sure, since it’s conjecture that this might have happened otherwise) this thread may have also helped prevent me from eventually going full-on anti-feminist. Even still, I definitely have a latent (if not irrational) hostility to feminism based on my damaging experience in the feminist blogosphere. But finding a feminist space that was actually interested in accounting for my experiences and including my issues as a guy in the grand analysis was very healing, and possibly (possibly) fended off me just flat out saying “fuck you” to feminism. And, ultimately, this means I’m a lot more sympathetic to women’s issues than I might otherwise be.
Second, this thread has helped me a lot in recognizing and deconstructing a lot of my own issues as a guy. Toxic male sexuality and the issues surrounding that being the most talked about. But even ones we haven’t talked about much or at all (chivalrous attitudes, for example, and various other inappropriate expectations placed on me as a man), the thread got me into the habit of looking at my own issues and trying to deal with and deconstruct them. And this has had a very real and positive impact on my life. (And it’s an ongoing process.)
Third, the thread has given me a lot more sympathy for guys who deal with problems that I don’t have. Previously I tended to look at alpha-male types, and view them with contempt. But in recognizing my own issues as a guy, it’s given me a context for view other guy’s behavior in a more sympathetic light as well. And I think this is really important.
I think, also, that perhaps we’re focusing too much on a narrow set of issues (e.g. relating to sexuality). But perhaps that’s just because sex is so interesting. ;-)
In any case, I think it’s difficult to know what positive male sexuality would look like without first allowing it to develop in a culture that doesn’t demonize male sexuality. Which is to say, it’s difficult to do on our planet at the moment. Although perhaps within some sex-positive subcultures…? Dunno.
Welcome LoriA! :-)
Cessen:
And in that respect, I suspect (though can’t be sure, since it’s conjecture that this might have happened otherwise) this thread may have also helped prevent me from eventually going full-on anti-feminist. Even still, I definitely have a latent (if not irrational) hostility to feminism based on my damaging experience in the feminist blogosphere. But finding a feminist space that was actually interested in accounting for my experiences and including my issues as a guy in the grand analysis was very healing, and possibly (possibly) fended off me just flat out saying “fuck you” to feminism. And, ultimately, this means I’m a lot more sympathetic to women’s issues than I might otherwise be.
Yes yes. I must agree with this. Despite my recent shut down on gender (I’ll be posting about that later) this thread (and this blog overall) are part of the glimmer of hope that keeps me from going anti-feminist. Don’t get me wrong there are certainly some nasty people among feminism (and the words “asshole” and “jerk” could be pretty accurate descriptors of a lot of them and a lot of spaces) but it is reassuring to know that they aren’t all like that (despite my impression that the ones that aren’t like that seem to be in the minority or of the smallest voices). But goodness I’ll tell yea part of the reason I shut down was because I was closing in on that point.
I’m just glad to know that there are at least some feminist spaces that won’t dismiss me because I dare to think that my actual experience might conflict with what others are telling me my life is.
Sam:
I’ve wondered for a while if it wouldn’t be useful to go back and try to topically cluster and then summarize the entire discussion for easiert consumption.
Yeah I think some condensing might be a good idea. But damn what a task that would be…
@Danny:
So, in fairness to my point over in the “I know you’re smarter than me” thread, I think it’s important not to demonize the feminists that behave in asshole ways. Intent matters.
I think most feminists that come across as nasty, and mean, and assholish really aren’t. They’re just trying to be heard, and are mentally/emotionally calibrated to trolls and people who dismiss them without thinking, which leaves them ill-suited to respond to good faith but critical dialogue (see Sam and AB over in the creep thread, for example).
This doesn’t, of course, make their behavior or the effects of their behavior any different. But it’s the difference between crashing your parents car accidentally vs on purpose. ;-) I think some tolerance is in order. And I think demonizing them is inappropriate.
(Though I would never suggest that anyone is obligated to listen to/engage them as long as their behavior and style of rhetoric remains as it is.)
So, in fairness to my point over in the “I know you’re smarter than me” thread, I think it’s important not to demonize the feminists that behave in asshole ways. Intent matters.
Why yes Cessen I think you’re on to something.
That would certainly explain why I’m much more receptive the likes of Clarrise and AB (and other feminists here) than the ones at like say Feministe who I think exist only to complain and bitch about men sometimes.
@tim
Sort of. I think there’s an imbalance. I recall my group’s resident Nice Guy talking about how much he loved women, and it struck me that for a guy who loved women, he had very few of them in his life. He idolised his father but talked very little to or about his mother (except as a price for his father to win), and he had no sisters, but his brother was his best friend.
He hung out with a group of primarily male nerds. He recommended me a lot of books, all of them with male authors and male protagonists and I don’t recall seeing a single book with a female author/protagonist in his room. The shows he watched on TV were all filled with guys. His ‘love’ of girls consisted on making them the subjects of one-sided crushes, and then neglect them once he got a new interest.
I’m not saying he’s the model for all guys, but I have the feeling that it’s generally easier for a man to cut away most female influence in his life, and still feel like he’s complete and normal. Like women seek out men (and male spaces), but the reverse doesn’t happen as often. Except in relation to sex. It’s where the tables are turned, where men seek out women, vie for their acknowledgement, hinge on their every word, and give them their full attention (at least in theory). And I don’t think it’s healthy, but I also think it’s a mistake to look at it as an isolated phenomenon.
In my experience, girls and women often use sex, or rather, sexual desirability, to compensate for missing something else. I remember doing it myself in my youth, sometimes thinking I had great (non-sexual) chemistry with a guy, but fearing (perhaps with good reason) that he wouldn’t spend time with me unless I seemed sexually available, because I wouldn’t fit into his ‘friend’ category as a girl. I deliberately flirted, and then slowly toned it down until there was ‘only’ a platonic friendship left.
Some women are more aware and deliberate in their use of this, like a woman saying that since she couldn’t get the same respect and credibility as a man when she tried to sell people something, she would instead use her sex-appeal on (male) clients to compensate. This is also hurting women, because some of them come to see sex more as a performance, designed to elicit a certain response from men, rather than something to be enjoyed for its own sake, but in the end, I think at least part of it comes from compensating for a lack recognition in society and a feeling of inferiority.
Hmm, I don’t know if there has been any debate about gender neutral language in Germany, but from what I can remember of the German language, most titles and professions are considered masculine as the default, with the suffix ‘in’ used to communicate when it’s female, which in itself is telling. I could imagine some people who, when talking about an unknown teacher, would use the word(s) ‘Lehrer/Lehrerin’ or ‘Lehrer(in)’, instead of the officially gender-neutral (but effectively masculine) word ‘Lehrer’ to communicate that the teacher could be female as well as male, but with the way German grammar works, it would probably be too chunky.
Anyway, my experience comes mostly from English, and a bit of Danish, where this is less of an issue. Even the Danish word for boyfriend/girlfriend is gender neutral. From what I’ve heard, women tend to gravitate more towards a preference for gender-neutral language than men, and I haven’t watched them make quite as many assumptions about the femaleness of their audience as men on the maleness of theirs, just as I haven’t heard as many gays make assumptions about the homosexuality of their audience as straights do about the heterosexuality of theirs. But it’s all mainly observations.
Tim, AB,
re. Germany.
There have been a couple of attempts to create “gender inclusive” language in Germany/German. Today it’s sort of a requirement for any “progressive” institution to use the “Binnen-I” (interior-I), which actually sort of disappears the male form because adding the female suffix “In” (as in “LehrerIn” (teacher)) to address both male and female teachers. Gender activists now seem to believe that using underscores is even more politically correct (as in “Lehrer_in” as the underscore is supposed to include transpeople in some sense). To be honest, while I can understand the point about gender representation in the average person’s share of mind (that’s also what I think is the background of Clarisse’s current post about being/feeling shut up) many feminists who brought this matter up in the seventies had, they also *created* a problem and a division most people, including most women never had before. Particularly in German, where (take Mark Twain’s essay on the horrible German language) a lot of biologically gendered things are grammatically neutral – like “Mädchen” (girl). So by intrudicing tons of female forms instead of just broadening the social understanding of the previous default to logically include women they also sort of “created” the problem of male defaults which they then attempted to address by linguistic inventions that were often mostly ideological markers. By using the interior-I or not you were making a political statement. Just like someone using ze/hir in English is making a political statement.
There are certainly places where that is appropriate, but in my opinion, something that is used to separate oneself from others (a rallying variable) will probably not make it into the mainstream.
Exactly. So how do you suggest we (humans) deal with that imbalance?
AB:
This is interesting. And yes, I think there is some truth to that.
This also seems consistent with some of my experiences. I have had several flirty female friends in the past. In my case I think they kind of sabotaged themselves a little bit that way, because it made the friendship feel less authentic to me. But I can see how experience with other men with whom that is the only effective way to get attention could lead to that becoming a default strategy.
This is also interesting because it lends some credibility to some (some) of the Nice Guy(tm) complaints. I’m sure some guys feel misled by that.
Megapost !
@AB
I see your point and I agree that walking through live without female influence isn’t exactly a healthy and more than just a few unlucky exceptions. In fact I was there and I am currently trying hard to keep away from it. And while not especially rare, I would not go so far as to say that these guys deliberately choose to exclude women from her life. I would rather say that what you like to do, what your job is and what your hobbies determine how much female influence you have in your life. I don’t think i need to reinterate how imbalanced certain groups and subcultures are when it comes to gender and what the reasons for this are (hint: sexism).
I am currently matriculated at a university of sciences. As the name suggests the focus lies mainly on STEM stuff. That means computer science, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, food science and so on and so forth. Now we all know that these are disciplines that are rarely sought by women (for reason listed above). I started there together with 36 other students of which only 3 were female. today, three semesters later that numbers has shrunk to 12 in total with 1 woman remaining.
Now I can tell you that the majority of students there didn’t deliberately choose to enroll there because the womenfolk won’t bother them there. Truth be told I would rather have enrolled at a large university but I simply could not afford to live somewhere else.
If you now add in a few hobbies, and I mean almost anything remotely nerdy or geeky, in which a similar imbalance is prevalent (again, for the reason above) then you have pretty much achieved a life almost devoid of female influence. And again, without deliberately doing so as people don’t go around and pick their hobbies depending on how gender-balanced it is.
And trying to fix that is pretty hard since you aren’t able to single-handedly overturn society, or at least i am not, sadly. Pretty much the only thing you can do is picking up things you are not that into and doing that just to increase female influence in your life is nothing that gets recognised as honest behaviour easily.
re:German
Yeah I know about the gender inclusive ways to address people, but both the Binnen-I and the Lehrer/Lehrerin thing is something you might find in bureaucratic german, in politically correct newspapers and in speeches, but in everyday conversations these rarely pop up, simply because they sound very clunky. And truth be told, in my opinion they reek of political correctness and nothing else. I remember an equality-concerned writer (not necessarily identifying as feminist) suggesting to drop the female alternatives to male descriptions altogether and just use the male for everyone, like just using actor in english instead of actor and actress, but this provoked quite a backlash that argued that doing that would erase women out of the german language and accept male as the default gender. I actually think that this would be a good idea, simply because that is what people already do in everyday conversations. You don’t refer to a woman or a group of women with only female gendered words. It is far more realistic that you do it once during a conversation to pay someone respect or establish that an entity is female if it is relevant.
Oh and finally I can understand Mark Twains initial disdain for the german language.I don’t know if there are rules to determine the gender of an object but if there are, just memorising every word with the grammatical gender is probably still easier. i know a couple of brits who often complain how difficult it is to learn german (or french in one case). However, when I come across an english word that translates into several german words each with a slightly different meaning I can’t help but wonder if I loose a lot of meaning and sense when I translate stuff from german to english. I also wish there was something more polite then a simple ‘you’. I always fear I am being perceived as rude when I address a stranger or a professor with a simple you.
@Sam
That would depend on how men see it, which we haven’t talked a lot about. Do they feel obliged to give compliments to women which sour their relationship to them as people? Do they feel they have to hold back on affection and respect for women because giving it for free destroys their chance of getting sex?
Finding credible solutions is going to be nigh impossible unless we have some idea of both sides of the equation..
@AB:
Normal, maybe. But I’m not sure that “complete” accompanies that. By my observation, serious problems tend to emerge (as in regard to group behavior, issues of friendship, and issues of sex, relationships and children) once the idea of being complete, or the need to be so, is introduced. It doesn’t seem to be part of the baseline. In fact, I’m not sure that masculinity, as such, contains any real preparation or context for the idea.
That often seems to be a core component of masculinity, really, in the different forms that I’ve seen: a sentiment along the lines of “You’re incomplete, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s strength and potential in it. You just need to deal with it in the proper way.”
Hi all I haven’t read the thread properly yet but while I do, here is a post by Mark Simpson, on misandry.
He is my favourite writer on masculinities.
http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2011/02/09/misandry-the-acceptable-prejudice/
That’s really your favorite piece of writing on masculinity? It’s the most Oppression Olympics thing I’ve ever seen, with a healthy dose of sexism thrown in. QRG, I’m really surprised to see you cheering for a writer who includes sentences in his work like, “A new generation of ‘spice’ girls seem to be tiring of being ‘better than men’ – after all, so many are choosing to dress like street hookers these days.”
It’s not my favourite piece of writing its a piece of writing by my favourite writer on masculinity.
If you are really keen to get to grips with masculinities I can’t recommend Mark Simpson’s work enough. He is also very approachable.
@Clarisse – while there’s lots of language in that post that I hate – mostly revolving around the guiness book of oppression theme that the author seems to be pointing towards – a few of his points are valid.
I walked past a very popular teens and ‘tweens clothing store the other day and saw a range of girls clothing featuring phrases like ‘The stupid factory, where boys are made’ and ‘boys are stupid, throw rocks at them’, ‘Boys are smelly’, ‘I make boys feel bad because it’s fun’ and my personal favourite, an extra, extra small shirt with the caption ‘My Boyfriend is out of town tonight’
The store in question is a national chain, and a brief google search tells me that it’s actually an international line that has caused controversy in other places. I only looked through the door for a moment – but I saw maybe a dozen girls aged between (I guess) 8 and 18 looking at the shirts, laughing and trying them on. I can only imagine the response to a teens and tweens store carrying shirts with the same messages aimed in the other direction.
My largest issue with feminism as an ideal, is that it’s taken something I believe in very deeply – the idea that genders should be treated equally, and uses that noble and admirable idea as a stalking horse to promote single gender advancement.
Men’s rights advocates, who already have a much less provocative name than feminists – are already labelled in the same breath as PUA’s and douchebags in general – simply for believing that maybe there are some situations where misandry/gender disparity against men exist and should be advocated agains. Imagine how much more backlash would occur if those rights advocates were simply Masculinists – with an implict agenda of not only advocating the rights of men – but of promoting the interests of men over women in general.
I think I’ve sung this song here before – but I really will never understand how any genuinely ethical feminist can be a feminist, and not an egalitarian. Everything worthwhile that feminists are seeking can be summed up as equal rights – and everything awful that feminists are working against can be summed up as the exclusionary promotion of a single gender’s agenda.
But I do think we can all agree that oppression Olympics are generally offensive and stupid.
@Scootah I can’t speak for the author of the piece but I suspect he’d welcome everything you said (apart from the ‘oppression olympics’ which I don’t think he is trying to engage in-but he’d be prepared to argue that point I expect).
I certainly welcome your approach!
AB,
“That would depend on how men see it, which we haven’t talked a lot about. Do they feel obliged to give compliments to women which sour their relationship to them as people? Do they feel they have to hold back on affection and respect for women because giving it for free destroys their chance of getting sex?”
It would depend on how men see what? To men, apparently much more so than for women, being sexually desired *is* a sign of respect. To you, hearing “let’s just be friends” may be a sign of respect – someone who doesn’t want to sleep with you still wants to be your friend. Not so to most men who are likely feeling *disrespected* as men in that situation. Maybe some, or more, men feel that they have to hold back on affection because they need to exchange it for sex, as you stipulate. But what else are they supposed to do in the proposed situation? They have limited time and resources and need to trade them for the maximum available return. Assuming that sex is what they want, that seems like a reasonable strategy.
Again, I don’t think the situation is as bleak as you keep suggesting, but there certainly is an immbalance, there is a relative scarcity of female sexuality compared to male sexuality (and I’d say that this, and not the emotional/affection element is the starting point of the imbalance, because if there were no sexual imbalance, it wouldn’t be a factor for non-sexual interactions, which would not be the case the other way around).
And apart from helping men deal with their sexuality in a positive way and helping women to stop worrying about enjoying sex I don’t think there’s much we can do about it. Of course, removing those cultural obstacles for happiness would be a huge step forward, but there will likely always be an imbalance of some sort.
@AB & Tim
I think there’s also another dynamic at play: masculine norms tend more towards self-reliance and expecting that of others, while feminine norms tend more towards welcoming. I think that men would also spend less effort integrating a new, but somehow different man than women would spend effort integrating a new, but somehow different woman. But I don’t think that accounts for the entire difference. (No real point here, just a throwing-that-out sort of thing.)
@Clarisse
“If anyone wants to go meta for a moment, I’m curious to know whether anyone cares to summarize some of the impacts reading or participating in this thread has had on their thoughts.”
I’d kind of echo the sentiment that it seems a better place to actually getting anything figured out. There ought (IMO) to be a notion that everyone’s experience is equally valid (intrinsically), but women’s contributions are more valuable for determining the effects of men’s actions and the reasons for women’s actions while men’s contributions are more valuable for determining the effects of women’s actions and the reasons for men’s actions, but this is one of the few places I’ve found that even goes anywhere near that.
“I do feel like we’re talking in circles around some things (WHAT THE HELL DOES POSITIVE MALE SEXUALITY LOOK LIKE ANYWAY!)”
Well, we do still need to figure it out. :-) Okay, not need, but it’d be supremely helpful… I do feel like it ties in with some others’ responses where even if threads like this aren’t ideologically necessarily, they’re an extremely good thing practically, because it prevents men from going full-on antifeminist if they know that, at least somewhere, feminism isn’t immediately invalidating their experiences.
@Danny
“I’m just glad to know that there are at least some feminist spaces that won’t dismiss me because I dare to think that my actual experience might conflict with what others are telling me my life is.”
It is good to realize that this complaint was levelled at patriarchy by feminists first. (On the one side to know part of where they’re coming from, and on the other side to know that doing this is kind of hypocritical, depending on how Golden you think the privilege Hammer is.)
@Sam
To be blunt, I sometimes feel like a straight man has no more respect for the women he’s fucking than a man who’s into bestiality has for the sheep he’s fucking. A lot of porn are sold with words like ‘sluts’ or ‘hos’ in the title, and while there is a legitimate problem with finding flattering names for promiscuous women, those titles don’t exactly reek of respect.
For the record, I don’t mind humiliation fantasies (though I dislike when it’s done along gendered lines – seriously, I can read the most brutal rape fantasies, but when the rapist start sounding like an MRA, it just ruins the mood for me), but the question is how much is specific humiliation fantasies (that the customers recognise as such), how much the titles are just short for ‘women who like sex’, and how much of it is a general tendency to look down on promiscuous women and see women having sex at least partly as being degrading.
After all, it’s not like men never engage in slut-shaming, or get mad when their friends sexualise their female relatives or when they’re hit on by homosexuals. In fact, there are a butt-load of cultural artefacts still in effect about how disdainful men can be to women they have sex with, to the point where certain men (still) talk about raping each other (by sticking their penis inside, like they would with a woman) and making someone their ‘bitch’ as a way to dominate and humiliate them. Traditionally, I bet most of the men who looked down on prostitutes and used ‘whore’ as an insult would visit said prostitutes themselves when/if they had the means to do it.
I guess what’s good for the individual can be bad for the group. If men manage to raise their own cultural importance above that of women, it makes women eager for male validation, which they can get through sex. And in that cultural climate, holding back on that validation in order to get the maximum value for it does seem like the logical strategy for them.
The problem is that this tends to lead to three things in women (in my experience): playing the “I’m sexy so I can get away with almost anything” to an extent where it hurts their (women’s) personal growth, becoming bitter and resentful, and/or lacking sexual enthusiasm. None of which benefits men, or anyone else, in the long run.
The emotional/affection element is part of it. Because when women are (supposedly) looking for emotional commitment in the people they have sex with, it’s a way of showing of regard and affection, since people usually want emotional commitment from those they admire, trust, like, and otherwise care for, which makes a woman’s sexual attraction a sign of respect.
And if men have no emotional regard for their sexual partner, and furthermore aren’t even that picky, it’s hard to see sex as a compliment, especially when you can find 100 girls more pretty than you in a 5 minute google search, and even those girls aren’t very respected. So it becomes a matter of having the guy prove that he’s especially interested in you (such as by pursuing you), or ending up with a highly desirable (in the mainstream sense of the word) guy who could get anyone he wants. And that’s not very fun.
That’s the best I’ve got too, unfortunately.
I seem to be overlooking important stuff lately -
I don’t know, I’ve realized quite a bit.
I still don’t know what it *looks* like, but I think I’ve recently come close to what it feels like… first at a party at the end of last year, when a female friend complained about the lack of tall, manly guys, and I told her that’s just a mental proxy for I think she’s looking for. Then she asked what I thought she was actually looking for, and I said I’ll show you. I then grabbed her by the shoulders and softly but firmly moved her against the wall behind her, I moved closer keeping the eye contact. I stopped the demonstration at that point and she, being an old friend, was looking at me like she hadn’t ever before. I believe the key is in the touch. It’s a firm but soft touch coming from the confidence that she would never say no to this appreciation, but at the same time has a subtext signalling understanding of her body language, mental and emotional presence, and readiness to let go at any moment. About a week later, I demonstrated it to another female friend, and her reaction was similar.
Sadly, given that I’m still not entirely over the toxic male sexuality issues, I’m much better at doing this when I’m demonstrating it rather than “doing it” for personal “gain”, that’s Foster-Wallace biting me (and the girls) in the ass (that’s if they don’t escalate further at that point).
@Sam –
This is a personal dynamic/chemistry thing. The physical mechanics aren’t nearly as relevant as the chemistry and dynamic between the two people and way it all goes down. I do a quite similar thing involving some quite rough and aggressive physical mechanics – usually when demonstrating something about a kink dynamic – but sometimes just on a date, when I’ve read that the person I’m with might be receptive to that. I’ve used scuff of the neck/hair grabs, face slapping, choke holds, and lots of other rough body play to get what I think is the exact reaction that you’re talking about.
I’m guessing that with your friends, you’re not that kind of person usually. They don’t look at you and expect to see what they’re seeing during the demonstration. I know that I’m a jovial, chilled, cuddly teddy bear looking guy most of the time. It’s a dramatic shift from my default mode of interaction to agressive, dominant and sadistic.
That duality/dichotomy is a big part of what works about it. The other person is forced to discard their existing impressions and reassess who they’re looking at. It’s like a shared secret and it creates intimacy which you build even more with the touch element, especially when it’s unanticipated touch. It also puts you into the dominant role – and while I know that for many guys and girls, the dominant manly man thing doesn’t work and it has no inherent qualitative benefit over submissive or egalitarian man – there’s a lot of social programming and evolutionary expectation around attractive men being dominant. The 1950′s patriarch, James Bond, the outlaw biker, the dominant buck in a herd of mares – etc. To butcher a Dorothy Parker line, it’s not normal – but it is common.
Along with that intimate dominance, and the pushed boundaries, you visibly display interest, you display huge confidence and self assurance and you push all those primal buttons about the ingrained idea of what a ‘Man’ is.
You need to be either a very good actor, or very honestly displaying something of yourself – or the confidence and dominance and forced reinterpretation of perception all fall apart and you look like a weird jerk. And you need to read the person that you’re trying that sort of move on very well – or you’ll find that you either haven’t pushed hard enough and the boundaries weren’t shaken enough elicit a response, or you pushed to hard and your eyes are burning and your balls hurt. It’s a big gamble of a move.
I think there’s also a huge timing issue with this sort of thing. It’s not so much that there’s a ‘right’ time for this sort of gambit to work – as there are many, many wrong times when it will go horribly wrong.
Scootah,
hmm, I’m not sure I expressed sufficiently clearly what I tried to say – it wasn’t that much the effect in itself as the positive feeling it gave me with respect to my own sexuality, the feeling (as opposed to rationally knowing) that initiating and performing the leading part in the dance is not necessarily tied to “taking” (as per the Foster-Wallace reference I’m usually referring to. And I think the “meachnics” of the “sweet touch” are actually important – sure, not as important as chemistry between two people, but it’s an element that can add to it, too.
depends on what you mean by “that kind of person”. They are definitely seeing me as someone to turn to for advice on such matters, also someone they know has become quite “good with women”.
Exactly, but the self-assurance is only possible because of the subtextual display of “being in control” of oneself and the situation, being able to stop at any point. It is that part that allows the confidence in the first place, because it allows to handle the internalized notions about problematic ” taking” male sexuality. This is also why, I reckon, it is much easier for me to demonstrate this than to actually “do it”.
Sure, sadly, nothing that involves another person is ever error-proof.
- absolutely. With respect to the point of the interaction as such, but particularly – and I mentioned this when I added the “timing” factor to my creep taxonomy at some point in the last part of the manliness thread – I think there is a fine, but golden, line for the timing of the touch itself. Be too fast and you’re not giving enough space to react if it should not be appreciated, be too slow and you won’t be able to project the confidence. I still think “the mechanics” do matter quite a bit.
AllSaintsDay:
It is good to realize that this complaint was levelled at patriarchy by feminists first. (On the one side to know part of where they’re coming from, and on the other side to know that doing this is kind of hypocritical, depending on how Golden you think the privilege Hammer is.)
Which pisses me off even more considering how quick they are to do the same behavior. What’s the bloody point of recognizing they did it first when they pretty much grant themselves unlimited latitude to do the same thing to other people? So I know they’re being hypocritical. What good is it when they refuse to admit it themselves? Its almost like think that the fact that they leveled this complaint at the patriarchy first justifies them doing it to others.
This goes back to one of my main problems with a lot of feminists. They go on and on about how they knew this first or how they’ve always felt that but then they turn around and do the exact same thing and then twist reality and language in order to justify it or explain it away.
Scootah in regards to those shirts you saw at that store I recall a post over at Sociological Images talking about them (specifically the “Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.” one). I remember one of the commenters chiming in to say that there was definitely sexism at work…against girls. Yeah there are those that think the idea that telling girls its okay to hurt boys is only harmful to girls.
@Danny:
It highlights the fact that pursuing the argument too far makes it into a trap. That applies to feminists employing it, and it applies to employing it in reaction to feminism.
And that usually means: avoid it by treading lightly, or start gnawing through your own leg. The first one’s usually the better option.
@AB:
In regard to the second part: a lot of it is, but to point out something that has been argued by various sex worker bloggers, these are vastly outsold by features, one of the most notable examples being the Pirates duology. Without minimizing problems with the industry, and with the nature of the ad copy throughout, the nature of porn does tend to vary depending upon where you look (and what you look at).
In regard to the first: to what extent, do you think, does this affect or influence the remainder of your analysis?
I’m not sure that I’d be able to phrase that in a way that wouldn’t seem loaded to some degree, so I’ll just make it explicit that that’s a question to be taken as stated, nothing inferred or implied.
@Sam:
It was difficult to tell from how you wrote it, and even with the clarification later on. Did it feel healthy because it diverged from the leading-taking connection (i.e., because it didn’t match with stereotype), because of how the act felt in and of itself, or both? From where you are now, do you think that it would be possible to tell the difference?
I’d agree (or say, if this isn’t actually what you’re saying) that we’d probably have to start with how healthy male sexuality feels before moving on to how it looks, but I think that those questions would have to be resolved first.
Personally, I’m inclined toward that sort of interaction to begin with, but I’ve also had women tell me that they were comfortable with it when I did it, but not when other men did. IMO, the importance of that statement, as a general thing, couldn’t be emphasized too strongly. (I’m not convinced that it resolves to a matter of performance, timing, contrast, etc., though I wouldn’t rule those elements out.)
Maybe there’s some element of genetic determination in it, as Scootah suggested. But as I’ve seen suggested elsewhere (at FuturePundit, IIRC), even if that’s the case… it might also be the case that some people are more genetically determined than others. Which would mean that even a genetic basis wouldn’t work out to general applicability.
Infra,
Both, feeling the appreciation and feeling in control gave me a “leading-giving” feeling. As I mentioned in the later addendum, the being in control part is so important to me because of the internalized assumed male sexual sociopathy, the toxic touch stuff we talked about. Again, I guess that’s why it is easier to demonstrate than to do. But it’s really hard to disentangle that any further. I guess I’ll have to think more about that question.
“I’d agree (or say, if this isn’t actually what you’re saying) that we’d probably have to start with how healthy male sexuality feels before moving on to how it looks, but I think that those questions would have to be resolved first.”
It’s not exactly what I was trying to say, but I agree with it. I’m always saying that “there is no vocabulary for positive male sexuality, but maybe it’s not merely the vocabulary, it’s that the eperiences are missing in the dialogue. Talking about how it *feels* would also allow women to join the discussion on a more subjective level, which may reduce the occasionally adversarial nature of definitional battle about “what it looks like”.
Again, sure – everything has its time and place. Reading a person and an interaction is key in pretty much everything. But then again, even with respect to the “premature sexualisation” creepiness category, there is a lot in the touch. When I’ve told female friends the story about the guy at the party who got the “don’t touch me” reaction from every woman he said hello to, I’ve demonstrated what I believed his touch was like from seeing it briefly. It’s hard to describe but the word “creepy” in its original sense does come to mind. And when I demonstrated it on the girl’s arms, they sort of had a similar reaction to the one the girls at the party had to the guy’s touch.
There’s a reasonable chance that it is (https://www.genepartner.com/index.php/?language=en
), but it’s not a variable we can control. To put this differently, the “result” I got before and I get now are hardly the result of changed genetics.
AB,
“To be blunt, I sometimes feel like a straight man has no more respect for the women he’s fucking than a man who’s into bestiality has for the sheep he’s fucking.”
You did watch Night on Earth, didn’t you? ;) I’m not sure to which extent porn copy is really such a big problem, but I’ve never taken porn seriously to the degree some feminists do (and see it as inherently violent and degrading to women). All of these arguments require the removal of female agency in patriarchy, an argument that logically also removes the agency of all female feminists in patriarchy and is as such compltetely self-defeating. But sure, some men do some or all of the stuff you’re mentioning, but that doesn’t invalidate the argument I made about seing “being sexually desired” as a form of personal respect (for THEMselves, but I think also for women). But it also doesn’t mean they’re exempt from social pressures to slut shame etc.. I think as is apparent from modernizing societies, sexual politics and social mores is a very complex subject matter.
So how do we go about that? How does that masculinity look (and feel, as per the recent comments.)
@Sam:
I was attempting to get at something different, more along the lines of what happens with a perfume or a cologne. A person can choose one with the proper notes, and essences that aren’t synthetic, designed by a skilled and talented perfumer; they can store it properly, use it at the proper time, and wear the right amount. But if it doesn’t work with their body chemistry, it just isn’t going to smell right, no matter how precisely matched the other elements are.
And beyond that, the acuity of others’ sense of smell also varies. Which means that some might pick up on these matches or conflicts — these alterations of fragrance — while others do not.
So the “result” that you got might not have been due to changed genetics, but it might have been due to wearing a scent, so to speak, that wouldn’t necessarily have worked for others, even if they had done it in precisely the same way.
Infra,
“But if it doesn’t work with their body chemistry, it just isn’t going to smell right, no matter how precisely matched the other elements are.”
sure, people have different styles and not everything will work equally for everyone. But I suppose the ingredients for the individual recipe may well be quite similar.
Interestingly, I’ve recently seen a documentary about current state of reseach on sexuality, and it mentioned a study conducted at (I think) the neurobiology department of the University of Göttingen, Germany, that concluded that people cannot fool others with perfume. Apparently, whatever you choose if you think it smells good on you will amplify your *own* genetic fragrance and picking something that you don’t think smells good on you to cover up your own smell and trick that system will lead to olfactory confusion of the brain of any potential mate smelling it. Basically, stop giving fragrances as gifts ;) Can’t find the study online though.
The smelly stuff is really interesting. Particularly since the interaction of biological and cultural factors seems is sort of unknown. There clearly is an effect if women stop taking the pill, for example, but adopted children are more influenced by the genes of their adopted parents, not their biological ones. Humans are annoyingly complex creatures.
@Sam:
This one, maybe?
Yeah, the role that scent plays, or might play, in all of this is a fascinating subject, especially when considering Teresa Brennan’s work on the transmission of affect (laid out in the book of the same name). It’s also one that doesn’t get much attention, other than reference to the old T-shirt studies.
Smell, as a whole, tends to be an overlooked and undervalued sense. Its importance only comes to the fore when someone loses it.
(On a note more along the lines of analysis, this brings Süskind’s _Perfume_ to mind, too.)
Hmmmm, missed this thread and been distracted by other things. (Such as the furry community, which is actually quite interesting from a masculinity standpoint… not to mention somewhat likely to make most feminists’ heads explode on contact.) Still bugged by something about gender and kink not working the way it theoretically ought to, though.
AB: I think the thing you’re missing when you talk about how “dehumanising the other sex” comes more easily to men is that male-controlled society has never actually worked the way you think it does. See, women – particularly hypothetical ones – have always been used as a key arm of social control. More specifically, the idea of women as a class of vulnerable individuals that need to be protected by men at the price of their own safety and lives has a long history. For example, there’s a lot of propaganda from the US war of independence about how the English will come and rape American women unless men sign up to fight them. These male soldiers were and are dehumanised to the point of effectively being treated as replaceable parts. This idea is also spread by the treatment of male and female deaths in fiction.
#1 on the list of things most feminists don’t get about masculinity for some reason. Pops up in all sorts of interesting places, like “equal pay for equal work”.
@makomk:
I wouldn’t say that feminists don’t get this; I’ve seen this particular issue raised often, in fact, though it’s usually been in the context of a PHMT argument. I’m inclined to think that where the error creeps in is when it’s attributed to a purpose. In the end, when it comes to a greater or lesser degree of this stuff, there might not be any purpose at all.
Kind of like what Worth said in that character’s major scene in _Cube_:
“This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. [...] I mean, somebody might have known sometime before they got fired or voted out or sold it, but if this place ever had a purpose, then it got miscommunicated, or lost in the shuffle. I mean, this is an accident. A forgotten, perpetual public works project.
[...]
You have to use it, or you admit it’s pointless.”
Infra,
yeah, that sounds pretty much like what the guy said on tv. Interestingly, about two weeks ago, I was at a party and a girl I had only met shortly before smelt my neck and said “you smell like my boyfriend” (who’s out of the country). I asked what perfume he used, and it was something entirely different… anecdotal evidence, of course, but still.
@Danny
“So I know they’re being hypocritical. What good is it when they refuse to admit it themselves? Its almost like think that the fact that they leveled this complaint at the patriarchy first justifies them doing it to others.”
I’m not saying you should be aware they’re being hypocritical. I’m saying you should be aware that they’re far more used than you to being silenced, and that’s what drives them, even if it’s driving them to the wrong place. To use Cessen’s metaphor, don’t blame them for wrecking the car on purpose if it was an accident.
@Infra
I think I’d more or less agree in that the source of error is what Hugh referred to above as the fundamental attribution error, i.e. viewing your own actions as situational while viewing others’ actions as dispositional. In this case, women’s actions are the result of unconscious behaviors learned while growing up in a patriarchal culture, while men’s actions are the result of directed intent towards keeping patriarchy intact. (It’s not the textbook idea of FAE, but I that’s where my “more or less” comes from.)
I might, however, say that the “men are disposable” trope is pretty high on the list of male problems which feminism downplays.
Also, apparently I have a different notion of what “positive male sexuality” means than the rest of the thread. Oops. :-(
@AllSaintsDay:
Yeah, we’re probably looking at FAE/correspondence bias. But that just suggests, to me, that the fundamental issue involved is the same one that remains unresolved with FAEs themselves: their cause.
I’d be inclined to think that the “just world” phenomenon comes heavily into play. If nothing else, what we’re looking at in feminist analysis (and related fields) is the occurrence of injustice, brutality, exploitation and death, taking into account the foci that particular studies have. If it turned out that these things often occurred, not because of an intent to maintain a structure, but because we no longer understand why we do what we do… who would want to accept that explanation? Who could deal with accepting it?
I’m not sure that I’d agree with “downplays,” but I’d definitely agree if that were rephrased as “doesn’t examine in depth,” possibly because it can’t, due to the nature of the framework. Which, I suspect, goes right back to the issue of the causes of FAEs.
You’re not going to leave it at that, are you? ;)
(Well, a variation of the just world phenomenon: that men suffer from the system because they support the system, and that the world would return to its naturally just state were those actions to be stopped, corrected and/or eliminated. The same kind of thing would come into play with criticisms of women who, directly or indirectly, support and enable patriarchy, as are applied to female subs and sex workers.)
@Infra
I usually tend to think of this coming into play in ways like the reasons attributed to men in male spaces saying “Women are stupid” and to women in female spaces saying “Men are stupid.” Without the FAE, you’d give roughly the same reason for both of those. I find less just-world there than, say, salience of the actor.
I think we disagree then; I definitely meant downplays. The feeling I tend to get is a bit of Oppression Olympics and the notion that it’s just not that big a deal if your gender role involves jumping to sacrifice your life if the other, better sex is in danger.
I was, because I merely was using a different definition, not mentioning an alternate view of what it should look like. I was thinking of the more recent conversations re Nice Guys (of either type) and nice guys, and viewing “sexuality” in the wider meaning of “How do we advise men to approach this whole dating/sexing thing such their efforts will be both positive and productive?”
But the way I phrased it, it does sound like I was holding out on y’all with actual opinions, doesn’t it?
@AllSaintsDay:
Different varieties or intensities of FAE, maybe? I see a lot of what you’re getting at here when it comes to more general, everyday gendered discussions (this being one of the reasons why I tend toward a position reliant on a notion of role incommensurability), with just-world influence building upon that in more formalized theory.
Probably a similar issue of context when it comes to downplaying, too.