Question Time: MRAs and PUAs in the real world
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Reading through some of the stranger comments from MRAs and PUAs and other manospherean types I often find myself wondering to what degree this “new misogyny” reaches beyond the internet. I don’t mean old-fashioned misogyny and sexism, which are obviously fairly common offline. I mean the elaborate misogynistic ideologies we discuss here – the “feminism runs the world,” “all women are hypergamous bitches who will dump you in a second for an alpha,” “we hunted the mammoth to feed you” kind of stuff.
I run across much less of this offline than on, though the people I hang out with aren’t exactly a representative sampling of the general public.
So I’m asking you, dear readers, to tell me a bit about your own experiences. Do you run across MRAs/PUAs in the real world on a regular or even an irregular basis? Where (online or off) did you first encounter MRAs and/or PUAs? What aspects of what we might call the manosphere ideology are the most common offline? If it seems less common offline, is this because the beliefs are not that widespread, or is it that people are less willing to say the kind of horrific misogynistic shit they say online to other people face to face?
Thoughts?
Posted on February 19, 2013, in misogyny, MRA, PUA, question time. Bookmark the permalink. 466 Comments.
Never met a PUA but amongst my generation and education group it would have been mega uncool to be anti feminist I think things have gone a bit downhill since the 1980s.
I also remember the drum banging first men’s groups. We thought it was a positive if slightly silly American style self actualisation Then it morphed toxic.
Half of my high school friends bought into the MRA rhetoric without even realizing what it was.
I’ve never run across anyone who was openly MRA in real life. PUAs? All the damn time, it’s impossible to go to a bar without running into them.
The one who negged me with “nice boobs, how much did you pay for them” was a classic. I don’t think he appreciated me spending the rest of the night pointing at him and laughing with my friends, though.
I’ve run into a shit ton of nice guys, and as long as its not YOU they’re into the misogyny and racism are made pretty clear. Last NG into me stated that is was only with Beloved because I wanted his money etc,ect. (Despite the fact that I made it clear that NG and I weren’t compatible for very different reasons). This same dude told me that women can’t run as fast as men “because our boobs get in the way”.
I know of one guy who is a truly hair raising misogynist, when he loses his shit the insults and threats are terrifying. And his mother is often the recipient over the phone. I won’t repeat what I’ve heard, I don’t think there’s a trigger warning to cover it. And yes, he buys the MRA line big time.
Both these dudes were pretty heavy drinkers and had other issues like insecure jobs, poor health going on.
As far as why I’m not seeing much of it other than PUA offline, I think that it’s a matter of the circles you move in. I’m in a liberal, urban, West Coast area, and my social circle is self-selected to exclude people like that. I hear a lot more Nice Guy stuff than anything else, and used to hear a lot more of it when I worked in the tech industry.
There’s also a sense in which it’s just not socially acceptable at all to say stuff like that here. Even the milder end of the MRA spectrum would get you side-eyed by even the most conservative people here.
I don’t think I’ve ever run into a PUA, but then I don’t go to bars, I live in a smaller city and day game isn’t for the faint of heart apparently.
I also look like the stereotypical ball busting feminazi.
Depends how exact we’re being. “We hunted the mammoth” is just a specific phrasing of the general idea that Men Did Everything, and that comes up somewhat often IRL; for instance, in discussions of curriculum standards. The “boy problem” and idea that school/college are biased against men are common. But really specific MRA ideas I’ve never seen.
Rape apologia is all over the place. Last time we visited Doad’s grandpa he said that some woman couldn’t have been raped because she went up to some guy’s room and everyone else in the family totally agreed *barf*
My friend’s boyfriend works with a guy who seems to be an MRA, though (in gaming media). Dude is also into the Tea Party, hating on immigrants, and generally being a conservative asshole. Apparently the whole office hates him.
Honestly, I can’t imagine walking up to someone with nice boobs how much did you pay for them? And not expect a drink in the face and an escort to the nearest gutter.
To be honest, I have fairly seldom run into even the more common types of misogyny, let alone the kind you track down and share here. Shall we call it “hypermisogyny” or “webmisogyny”? Anyone have any better ideas for appropriate terminology?
This may have a lot to do with the fact that I’m the kind of woman that many MRA’s apparently don’t actually see as a woman, per se, from what I’ve read here. Since I’m very short, I find a lot of people, male and female, don’t even notice me unless I do something to attract their attention (apparently, anyone below their eyeline is invisible – I think it’s a side effect of excessive cell phone usage). I’m not conventionally pretty. And I’m told that I exude a definite aura of “knows where she’s going/what she’s doing” that seems to make people leave me alone for the most part.
My biggest complaint along these lines is the number of people who want to call me terms like “honey” and “sweetie” and “girlie”, and I get most of that from older women rather than from men of any age. At 38, I really don’t appreciate terms like that from anyone who isn’t actually my mother…and even my mother doesn’t call me words like that. I’ve experienced more blatant misogyny from other women than from men. Don’t misunderstand, I’ve gotten it from men, too, but it’s been more subtle, and for me it’s been hard to separate from the kind of unthinkingly dismissive attitude I get from people who think I’m much younger than I really am.
A neighbor of mine once called me a “stubborn independent little bitch”, and when I gave him the side-eye and replied, “Yes, yes I am”, he laughed and said he actually meant it as a compliment. At which point I allowed him to give me a hand with the furniture I was hauling into my apartment.
Oh..wait… I did know a total MRA twenty year old through work. He was of the incel variety, and the shit he told me thinking that I would somehow be impressed because he was so edgy.
How could I have forgotten him?
A lot the the negging stuff baffles me in that it seems to result in women being offended far more often than it results in women being inclined to fuck the guy. They may have refined it a bit over the years, but in the early days it was just ludicrous stuff.
Ellex, are you my long lost goody two shoe twin?
PUA types, like other people have said — particularly when I was younger. And there was a guy in a socialist organization I was in who thought we shouldn’t talk about feminism at all because it was a distraction from the “real” issues, but the other dudes explained to him that he had probably chosen the wrong organization to be part of. So he didn’t last long.
Lately I’ve been having the exact opposite experience, where guys I suspect of harboring MRA-like views turn out to be pretty feminist, or at least NOT asshats.
Pillow! It’s you! I knew you were out there somewhere!
I don’t go to bars either, or at least so seldom it really doesn’t count. And I’m not a social butterfly. I like my little circle of people I’m comfortable with, and in the end I’m always happiest with my own company.
An example of the curriculum problem.
Ellex, LOL! We really are twins!
I don’t remember ever having encountered this sort of thing. When I socialised in meatspace (mid to late 90s) it was with people who just didn’t have these sorts of attitudes, and there were no single men in my group, or men who were married sleazes. Racism and sexism would have been well crushed if they came up. I’ve never hung around in bars* or dated, so the, ahem, opportunity to encounter this sort of shite hasn’t arisen.
I’d never heard of the MRM or PUA before I started reading this site. I thought MRA stood for Male Rape Apologist (which it does, of course, just not officially). Reading their crap confirmed what I’d long thought about misogynists, or at least the most virulent of them: that they think women are always wrong, will say anything to put us in the wrong, and essentially want us to be fuckable property with no rights again.
I can’t say how much of this exists offline in Australia. Our papers are full of low level, standard, unconsidered misogyny, but not the sort of ravings this lot go in for. But I don’t socialise, so I simply don’t see what it’s like out there, good or bad.
I’ll say one thing, though: contrary to what Slavey et al seemed to think, I’ve yet to see a man, let alone men in general, slavering over women in public, in agony from those terrible boners they get from our slutty slut slut jeans and shirts and knitwear.
*I’m not a lumberjack, either.
I know a lot of garden-variety misogynists, but only one person who has flat-out told me he is an anti-feminist and blah blah women rule the world this and blah blah it’s not fair for women to suspect he might be a rapist if they go on dates and etc etc.
Got hit with some awesome rape culture-y bull crap of the more typical variety today from a co-worker! He told the hilarious story of that time he went to a bar and his friend said “I’ve always wanted to hug someone until they just got uncomfortable. I figure it would happen at the 10-second mark.” So my hilarious co-worker’s hilarious response was “dare me to hug somebody until they get uncomfortable!” And then his friend picked out a strange woman, and he went to hug that woman, and at the 6-second mark she started actively pushing away from him. 6 seconds, not 10! Science! Ha ha fucking ha violating women’s boundaries is great fun.
Harlem Shale – Doctor Who style…
http://t.co/FygnO3oL
Because PillowInHell said I could derail with thus but you wouldn’t mind. :p
Gakk, yes, “sweetie” and all that stuff. I really hate being called “love” by a guy young enough to be my son. Well, any guy, but especially the young ones. I feel like saying YOU ARE YOUNG ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER.
I live in a collective house with a bunch of punk kids who are PC to the point where it highlights my own latent sexism for me, e.g., I was helping my male housemate move this huge freezer and he was like, ‘I think you should get the heavy side,’ and I was surprised for a second before I thought ‘well why not?’ and did get the heavy side, no problem, but why did I hesitate in the first place? ug.
Outside our happy home & friendly social circles, I do think PUA stuff is definitely more common than MRA stuff- my brother sent me PUA materials 6 or 7 years ago when I was in college and obsessed with a boy who had “friendzoned” me. But my brother (and most of the PUAs I’ve since recognized among acquaintances) were all really vocal about recognizing how gross some of the stuff is, and picking and choosing what they perceived to be the non-creepy advice… not that one shouldn’t take all that protesting with a grain of salt when it’s coming from a dude explaining himself to a militant feminist…
The only really MRA-ish ideas that I see in the non-internet world on a somewhat regular basis are evo-psych just-so stories. Cannot believe the popularity of that bullshit.
/delurk
Nice guys. Nice guy attitude is everywhere. Ashamed as I am to admit it, back in my university days, I had my fair share of nice guy attitude (I got better!). I suppose this made me good at recognising it in others.
I find that the nice guy to be so common (particularly amongst males 18-30 years old) it becoming kinda to norm… at least for a largish sub-set of the M18-30 population. If you can’t get a girlfriend / get laid, it’s clearly not you that’s the problem. It’s her. Only undeserving males get the girl (thugs, alphas, the vocabulary changes, the gist stays the same). Oh… and everyone is doing it, all the time. Except you.
Maybe I’m overly cynical. I hope so.
/relurk
On the “stop oppressing my boner by walking around looking sexy!” stuff, I’ve never seen that outside parts of the Middle East. Until I encountered the MRM I assumed that those attitudes were a result of religion repressing sexuality, which is why they’re common in communities where men are supposed to feel bad about looking at women who they aren’t married to and feeling lust. Although I don’t like the logic that women should cover up because it’s a sin for men to lust after them, it’s a lot less sinister than wanting women to cover up because it’s not fair for them to “make” men have erections and then refuse to service those erections.
Gods, Viscaria, that’s horrible. What would he have done if she’d screamed? I know I’d be screaming and fighting him off if a strange man came up and hugged (read: assaulted) me.
@Kittehs: He said he talked to her for a minute and found out it was her birthday so he initiated the hug by calling it a “birthday hug.” Which I’m sure he thinks means she was okay with it, but I think means he put too much social pressure on her for her to do something like scream. It would have been much easier for her to protest if he’d just pounced on her.
It says something about MRAs that I view that as garden-variety misogyny and not MRA-level misogyny. Like, how bad are those guys that I automatically think “this is too mainstream for them.”
OT speaking of ebil bodies – I took a chance wearing that multi-coloured tunic with black leggings yest. No, butt didn’t show, but cor, did I feel exposed! :D
On what Cat was saying, I spend very little time around men under 25, but you know where Nice Guy attitudes are rampant? Indie bands. In fact, the indie/alternative scene in general. Sit down some time and actually listen to the lyrics of some of that stuff – it’s full of wah women won’t date me because they’re evil and they enjoy making men suffer and some day I will have my revenge crap.
I mean, there’s a band called Pretty Girls Make Graves. I eye-roll every time I see their name.
@Viscaria – your coworker would have gotten one of two responses from me. If I was in a good mood, he would have gotten his arms around me and heard in his ear a very calm, faux-friendly voice saying “If you don’t get off me right now, I will do [insert something awful and gory out of a horror novel] to you.” Probably something involving ears and their potential detachability.
In a bad mood, he’d have been stiff-armed off and shoved away before he even got his arms around me.
OT – hey look! I’ve got little pics now! See Rory Paws and his paintbrush!
(And yes, I know it’s a Smiths reference. Still dumb.)
Viscaria – even more gross, in its own way: finding the flimsiest of excuses to pressure a woman into that, cornering her in effect so she’d look Nasty and Ungracious if she didn’t allow a complete stranger to hug her. It really says how we’re socialised to comply with men invading our body space, doesn’t it?
::pukes::
oh lord, you’re right that the nice guy attitude is everywhere. another acquaintance of mine wrote this whole article about his own struggle with it: http://www.progressiveerotica.com/articles/ted/nice-guys-finish-shower
He almost gets it but… I don’t know what still bothers me about the article. I guess think it’s absurd that it’s even a question in the first place.
I know a toooooon of Nice Guys(tm). The good thing is, I know a lot less of them than I did, say, 3 years ago? As my dude acquaintances are maturing and becoming confident in themselves a lot of them are leaving a bunch of those attitudes behind. I’ve even had a couple friends apologize to me for blaming me/women for their datelessness back in high school or University.
That outfit sounds adorable!
I’m pretty huggy and I’d still be really annoyed if a stranger insisted on giving me a “birthday hug”. Manipulative people push my piss off buttons like nothing else.
@Ellex – I just saw your kitty! :) Isn’t Rory Paws one of the deadly implements you have in your kitchen?
I really hate being touched by strangers. Mostly it comes in the form of someone next to me on the train brushing against my side while I’m sitting with my arms folded. I know it’s not intentional but it irks the hell out of me – “Keep your fucking arms to yourself!” is my feeling about it. The idea of some presumptuous creature putting his arms around me (which NOBODY except Mr K has the right to do) makes me go into thoughts of knee, groin, rapid and painful contact with. I doubt I would, but I’d want to.
He was kind of doing the same thing to me, albeit in a much less serious way, by the way he told the story! He was being funny and cordial by regaling us with his exploits, and I was Nasty and Ungracious by (mildly, jokingly) expressing my distaste.
@Viscaria – thank you! :) I don’t remember if you saw it, but it’s this tunic. Only trouble is the back’s shorter than the front, and I spent all day trying to make sure it hadn’t crept up. I should sew some heavy lace or something around the hem.
@Ellex, your kitty is a cutie!
I’ve known more than a few Nice Guys and have encountered PUAs in the wild when I single.
I work with a couple early 30s hipster doofuses who have some latent Nice Guy/semi-anti-feminist attitudes going on. Sorry boys, I outrank you.
OT but this is super cute.
I don’t understand why a cat would need to be bathed regularly, though, unless the owner had an allergy to dander. I tend to think of cats as self-cleaning.
@Viscaria – tell him he’ll meet my Nasty and Ungracious knee if he ever crosses my path and tries that stunt.
Jokingly, of course.
Gods I hate men like that. I feel like he’s a fucking predator just reading about it from thousands of miles away.
The one I hear all the time, even from my liberal friends, is, “If feminism is about equality, why is it called FEMinism, isn’t that saying women are better?” or something to that effect. It’s bullshit light, certainly a far cry from rape apology, but I’ll wager that a lot of MRAs started out with softer statements.
That is one amazingly cooperative kitty! Lord, I’d be in Emergency getting blood transfusions if I tried that with any of our lot. :D
I <3 hellkell. :)
Kittehs’ – Rory is indeed one of the deadly implements…in my entire house. He’s young, full of vim, vigor and vitality, and he loves to chomp. He’s the bite-iest cat I’ve ever had, and the odd thing is that it’s clearly meant to be affectionate and playful.
Tigwell is older and much more sedate, but Rory has been good for him. Tubby Tig has lost some weight and has been perkier since we got Rory.
Actually, they’re a couple of scaredy-cats. They run and hide whenever a stranger comes in the house.
11 years of taking the bus to work mostly cured me of my dislike of physical contact. A sort of desensitization, if you like. It still bugged the hell out of me when someone would sit or stand too close when they had plenty of room, though.
it probably helps that I’m notoriously oblivious to people flirting with me. And I did my best to spend my time on public transportation with my nose in a book, which helps with the obliviousness.
Bath time kitty is so chill, most of the cats I know would be all I KILL YOU.
Obviously the whole sexual-assault aspect makes unwanted cross-gender hugs particularly bad, but IME unwanted same-gender hugs (well, woman-woman) are far more common and much harder to deal with. If it’s a guy hugging a woman, there’s at least the idea that you might find it uncomfortably sexual or inappropriate, but I find there’s no good way at all to explain that you don’t want another woman to touch you*.
And ugh, so many times I’ve had other women touch me in unwanted ways. Hugs, back rubs, surprise neck squeezes from behind, rubbing and squeezing hands…
*Of course same-gender hugging or touching could be inappropriately sexual, but it’s not generally societally interpreted that way.
My public transport strategy for avoiding annoying people is headphones on and stare out the window. I will turn the music off if someone actually needs help with something, but I’ve been known to just point at the headphones if a dude seems to have mistaken the train for a singles bar.
Thanks, Kitteh’s.
Ellex, your kitties are adorable! I could never give any of mine baths, my health insurance isn’t THAT good.
I haven’t really met guys like this in person. I mostly socialize online thought games or game related communities tho, so I see this sort of crap all the time.
Also, there was this one little special snowflake emo kid in my college program. Imagine your typical “nice guy” but then he get’s bonus points for entitlement because he’s in a class composed of 85% women who can ride circles around him. I still rage about this guy every time I think about him. I don’t know if he was a genuine MRA, but he certainly had the attitude down.
My public-transportation pet peeve: When you’re sitting in the back row of forward-facing seats and someone is sitting in the sideways-facing seat behind you and decides to use your head rest as an arm rest.
Tigwell and Rory are sweeet! I love Tigwell’s white nose. So cute (though is he prone to sunburn with that?)
Our Mr Hadji was so shy of strangers he’d hide under the bed when anyone came. My friends dubbed him The Imaginary Cat because none of them ever saw more than a pair of eyes in the dark.
I’ve taken public transport for thirty-plus years (I don’t drive) but I’m more sensitive than I used to be about being touched. I don’t know if it’s because I’m more aware of the idea of boundaries, or because of being partnered, or a combination of the two. I keep thinking I should get a sheet of hard plastic or something to use as a shield and shove it between the seats. “That’s your space, this is my space, now butt out!”
I’ll agree here for the most part, but I’ll add a but….
I grew up and (I hope) grew out of Nice Guy tendencies. A lot of people grow up and grow out of some silliness. But….
What worries me is that amongst the young’uns (and some of the not so young’uns) I know, the Nice Guy attitude seems to be becoming default. There’s not of a lot “I’m single and I’d prefer not to be but I’m still awesome and someone will come along. Or maybe not, but I can deal with it”.
There’s more “Being single is being a failure, but I’m awesome so I couldn’t possibly be at fault. Or it couldn’t possibly be a situation where nobody is at fault. No, SHE is at fault for choosing X instead of me, the obvious correct choice”.
Strictly anecdotally (so with a hypertension inducing grain of salt) I see the Nice Guy attitude becoming far more widely distributed than I remember. And it’s this creeping sense of entitlement that worries me.
Cassandra – that is one chill kitty. I bathe mine because I’m mildly allergic. Otherwise, it depends on the cat. I think all cats should get an occasional bath, just for the sake of cleanliness. I used to have a lilac point Himalayan who would turn brownish if he didn’t have regular baths (about every 3-4 months) because he washed himself too much!
Tigwell is very like the cat in the video, but he’s used to being bathed. Rory loves to play in water, but hates baths, so I have to put him in the bathtub, get in with him, and close the sliding glass doors, and it sounds like I’m torturing him.
He’ll get used to it eventually.
katz – oh yeah, or when you’re in the side-facing seat next to the door, and the idiot standing in the doorway thinks the bar is there for them to prop their elbows on. Elbows are at head height for the person sitting down. They get a firm push when they do that to me.
I agree that it seems to be getting worse. For example, for people my age (late 30s), did you know anyone like the guys who congregate in online incel communities when you were late teens/early twenties? When I was younger it was just a thing that people accepted, that it took some folks longer to find a compatible partner than others, and that it’s easier for some people to get laid than others. The idea of “incel” as an identity didn’t exist, and if you’d tried to ID that way people would have given you so much side-eye.
Protip: beware of laughing too hard at work. It prompts farting and that can be embarrassing.
All this entitlement and crap generally just reminds me I am so, so glad dating was never a thing for me.
@TheCat:
I wonder if this is, in part, a reaction to the ways that feminism has changed how we perceive and judge the interactions of straight men and women? Like, at one point, it was considered totally reasonable for men to treat their potential romantic partners with offhand contempt. Public opinion has changed on that. So now, we have this crop of young men, and they’re thinking “hey! I didn’t totally dismiss you and treat you like a child! I’m so much better of a man than men have been before! Why aren’t you rewarding me with orgasms??”
Yeah well, sex is really being pushed a hella lot more. I still remeber when sex wasn’t expected by date three. So that there are guys identifying as incel, or more men who feel entitled doesn’t surprise me.
Also, what is with the hook up culture thing where women are expected to please the boner, but not to get anything in like and kind returned? I’ve never done the hook up thing, but I hear a lot of complaints about it.
@ Viscaria
The problem with that theory is that I see far more offhand contempt for women in the men who’re now 18-35 than in the men I knew who were in that age range when I was too.
hellkell – Thank you! They’re very good kitties. Bathtime is mainly a matter of perseverance, patience, and establishing myself as the alpha. Eventually, each and every one of them has become resigned to it. (And I find myself giggling at using the term ‘alpha’ here.)
Kittehs’ – No, Tiggy has never had sunburn that I’ve noticed, but his fur is very thick. Technically, he and Rory are short-hairs, but I’ve never seen other short-hairs with such luxurious coats. And that includes Rory’s mother and siblings. I must be doing something right.
I’m so glad I don’t have to take public transportation anymore! So often I’d be standing there thinking “Dude, I realize I’m only 5’1″, but do you realize that my face is pretty much in your armpit? There’s a vertical pole right beside you, you don’t have to show off and hold onto the horizontal pole above your head.”
Also, hey tall people, please let the short people hold onto the vertical poles! We can’t reach the horizontal pole near the ceiling when the bus/train/trolley is too crowded and we have to stand!
“Hey sonny, meet Rosie Palm. I’m sure she can help you there.”
Part of the issue with incel is that people have unrealistic ideas about how much sex everyone else is having, I think. Survey say that high school kids are actually having less sex know than they were when I was in high school, but they all seem to assume that everyone else is fucking like bunnies. There’s a big gap between perception and reality, and it’s getting bigger all the time.
Heh, fair enough Cassandra.
I guess the reasons don’t really matter anyway, so much as that people stop doing it. God, dudes.
Ellex – I’m convinced the designers of our newest trains and trams must be at least 7′. They haven’t even provided hanging handgrips, just bars a few inches from the ceiling, and even guys have trouble reaching them. I’d have no hope if I were stuck standing. That’s one good thing about being at the end of the line: I always get a choice of seats.
Now I just need to get onto making a miniature legionary shield …
It does concern me that so many young men are so jaw-droppingly sexist, and I suspect that there’s some connection between that and the gap between reality and perception that I was talking about.
On the flip side, the young men who I know who aren’t sexist are far more woman-friendly and less homophobic than their peers back when I was that age, so it’s as if there’s a widening gap between the guys who’re decent people and the guys who’re stewing in bitterness too.
I think the “being single is a failure” used to be a meme directed mainly at women, but is now being much more equally directed at men (yet another example of the patriarchy seeing feminism’s complaint of male privilege and responding by taking away the privilege from men instead of extending it to women). And that leads men to having to choose between “I’m a failure” or “other people (i.e. women) are failures.” And while choosing the latter is hardly meritworthy, it’s far more palatable than the former. And it can be really hard to realize there’s a third option.
But I’m not really sure who it is that’s promulgating the meme at men. I know that I’ve picked it up from somewhere or other, but have no idea where.
+1. The “everyone is doing it, all the time, with everyone but me” fallacy is particularly widespread. Thanks overly sexualised but non-reflective of reality mediascape!