The Myth of Warren Farrell: Farrell on Rape, Part One
No book has had more influence over the Men’s Rights movement than Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power. Published in 1993, in the heyday of the early 90s antifeminist backlash, it set the agenda for the Men’s Rights movement as it’s developed over the last two decades. He’s the one who came up with the notions of “male disposability” and the “death professions.” He’s the one who got MRAs fixated on the issue of draft registration.
Indeed, so pervasive has his influence been that if you see an MRA making a dumb argument anywhere on the Internet, the chances are probably more than 50-50 that it originated in the pages of Farrell’s book. Despite its age, and its eccentricity, The Myth of Male Power is still the first book recommended to MRA newbies in the sidebar of the Men’s Rights subreddit, the most active MRA hangout online.
It’s a book that deserves a lot more attention than I have been giving it on this blog. Sure, I’ve written about Farrell’s strange and creepy notions about incest, as set forth in a notorious interview in Penthouse in the 1970s, and about his recent attempts to explain away these views. But I haven’t devoted any blog posts to his most influential work. I intend to rectify that now, with a series of posts on some of Farrell’s chief arguments and assertions.
I will start with several posts on Farrell’s views on rape, which has been the subject of much controversy of late. This part will deal with his general statements on rape and sexuality; another will explore in more detail his views on date rape (did he really describe it as “exciting?”); and still another will look at the vast assortment of things he has inappropriately compared to rape.
Pinning down what Farrell “really believes” about rape – and indeed, about almost anything– is difficult. Farrell’s arguments, such as they are, are slippery and evasive. Instead of setting forth a clear argument about rape, Farrell instead provides us with a series of jumbled metaphors and strange comparisons. Instead of trying to summarize them – many of them defy summary — let’s just go through them one by one.
Farrell supporters will likely suggest that these quotes are taken “out of context,” to which I can only say: Check his book to see for yourself. None of his troubling quotes are any less troubling, or for that matter any clearer, in context, and many don’t have much of a context. Farrell writes in a rambling, free-associational style, and many of the “arguments” he makes in the following quotes seem to come from out of the blue, and are never developed further (though some, as you will see, are referenced again in later quotes).
Page numbers given are from the 1993 hardcover edition of The Myth of Male Power.
All that out of the way, let’s jump right in:
Near the start of his book , Farrell sets the tone for what will come by suggesting that men suffer as much sexual trauma from women’s mixed signals as women do from rape:
Feminism has taught women to sue men for sexual harassment or date rape when men initiate with the wrong person or with the wrong timing; no one has taught men to sue women for sexual trauma for saying “yes,” then “no,” then “yes.” … Men [are] still expected to initiate, but now, if they [do] it badly, they could go to jail. (p. 16)
Here, he elaborates on the notion that rape is a matter of bad timing, of “tak[ing] risks too quickly.”
In the past, both sexes were anxious about sex and pregnancy. Now the pill minimizes her anxiety and condoms increase his. Now the pimple faced boy must still risk rejection while also overcoming his own fear of herpes and AIDS and reassuring her there is nothing to fear. He must still do the sexual risk-taking, but now he can be put in jail if he takes risks too quickly or be called a wimp if he doesn’t take them quickly enough . (p. 168)
Here, Farrell falls back on the old “rape is misunderstanding” canard, and somehow manages to compare sexual activity –- from kissing up to and including rape — to eating a bag of potato chips.
It is also possible for a woman to go back to a man’s room, tell him she doesn’t want to have intercourse, mean it, start kissing, have intercourse, and then wish she hadn’t in the morning. How? Kissing is like eating potato chips. Before we know it, we’ve gone further than we said we would. (p. 311)
Here, he seems to seriously suggest that juries could do a better job judging rape cases if they were sexually aroused.
The problem with every judgment of sexual behavior is that it is made by people who aren’t being stimulated as they are making the judgment. A jury that sees a woman in a sterile courtroom, asks her what she wanted, and then assumes that anything else she did was the responsibility of the man is insulting not only the woman but the power of sex. (p. 312)
And then he returns to the potato chip metaphor.
A man being sued after a woman has more sex than intended is like Lay’s being sued after someone has more potato chips than intended. In brief, date rape can be a crime, a misunderstanding, or buyer’s remorse. (p. 312)
Farrell repeatedly tries to absolve men of sexual wrongdoing by suggesting that they are literally intoxicated by female beauty.
Sexually, of course, the sexes aren’t equal. It is exactly a woman’s greater sexual power that often makes a man so fearful of being rejected by her that he buys himself drinks to reduce his fear. In essence, her sexual power often leads to him drinking; his sexual power rarely leads to her drinking. If anything is evidence of her power over him, it is his being expected to spend his money to buy her drinks without her reciprocating. …
It is men – far more than women – whose mental capacities are diminished when they are “under the influence” of a beautiful woman. (p. 320)
But Farrell thinks it’s “sexist” – against men – to put men in jail for “selling sex” to intoxicated women:
As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don’t put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a “no” into a “maybe” into a “yes.” If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the “yes” turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson. (p. 321)
We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of Warren Farrell’s equally daft and disturbing views on sex and rape. Stay tuned.
Posted on May 1, 2013, in all about the menz, antifeminism, block that metaphor, creepy, evil sexy ladies, mansplaining, misandry, misogyny, MRA, oppressed men, rape, rape culture, reddit, sexual harassment, victim blaming, warren farrell and tagged antifeminism, MRA, rape, warren farrell. Bookmark the permalink. 716 Comments.
What’s truly pathetic is Farrell has no idea how closely he is echoing the “reviled” Andrea Dworkin’s very discussion of how sex is framed in our patriarchal culture – that it is something that men must “win” and “take” from women, who are tasked with “protecting” themselves from it.
The only difference of course is that Farrell is outrightly arguing that rape is just a standard courtship ritual.
Holy shit. That was some truly breathtaking scapegoating. BRB, going to go erase that from my mind with a 3 martini lunch at a shitty Italian chain place.
I see.
So, clearly, Farrell is an advocate of increasing awareness on what precisely constitutes rape. Anyone who truly believes that rape can be a simple, transactional misunderstanding would be supportive of the need to educate.
Does Farrell ever argue that the way we view heterosexual courtship and sex is wrong and needs to be changed, or does he just use it to excuse rape?
I’m pretty sure business contracts aren’t valid if you get one party pass-out drunk and then move their hand yourself to form the signature. I’m also fairly sure that “silence” doesn’t equal “sure, we’ll buy a million of your shitty cars!” in any business relationship… nor does it trump an earlier “no.” So even aside from how fucked up the business transaction metaphor is, it’s just plain inaccurate.
Well this is all vomit inducing *shudders*
And on another note, hello everyone! I haven’t been around in a while as I’ve just started back at University and have had a hell of a lot to do with essays due in, exams in a few weeks and various other things.
One of the things that has been taking up a lot of my time is my continuing quest to get my University Students Union to ratify the Feminist Society which I’m setting up.
Being ratified basically means we can get funding and advertising from the Union, and have a University email address and access to the system which makes it easier to book rooms and allows us to have a stall at the Fresher’s Fair at the start of the year along with all the other Societies on campus.
They rejected the first application and yesterday I had to present an appeal to a committee and then they’ve rejected the appeal only this morning.
We’re having our first meeting tonight and we’ve got to decide where we go from here, so wish us luck!
So much of this reminds me of when I was younger. Even by the end of high school, these ideas were looking mighty shabby. To see a married father saying this still floors me.
…there is no FUCK YOU in the world big enough for this shit.
How misandrist of him. He clearly thinks men can’t control themselves.
Hey, MRM, nice “father” you’ve got there.
Get Patrick Rothfuss to be your adviser.
(Background: Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind, was a faculty adviser for a feminist student group. He also said that he liked taking pretty girls to horror movies because “Occasionally, it’s nice to have an attractive young woman cling to you in a moment of pure animal terror.”)
Shorter Farrell: Men are just hapless victims. They eat too many potato chips so they can’t help but rape because of reasons. Women are always, always to blame for rape.
‘K, got it.
This.
As someone who actually has made money working in high-end, commission sales – specifically for women- not once have I seen any of these jackasses provide an accurate representation of sales work.
David, did you slog through the whole book? You deserve some kind of medal for subjecting your brain to that.
Women, of course, do not get STDs. And the Pill never fails.
Going further than you set out to is not the same as being raped. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that he didn’t talk to any actual women in the course of writing this book. Is he presenting this as an opinion piece, or is he pretending to have research and facts on his side?
A+ misandry right here.
I’m pretty sure a contract isn’t binding if one of the parties is drunk, nor should it be. Even when you compare rape to a business transaction (ew), the facts still aren’t in the rapist’s favor.
You know, Farrel, it’s actually quite easy to avoid raping someone. In fact, most people I know have not raped someone and do not seem to think it’s difficult to avoid. In short, you’re a disgusting piece of shit.
Yeah, there’s pretty much no way you can salvage…
…with context, unless that context begins with “Someone else said” and ends with “,and they’re an idiot”
This is like the world’s worst analogy. It treats the man as the passive provider (Lay’s) being sued because the active taker (the eater) took too much and regretted it. Date rape is the exact fucking opposite, when someone takes more than the other is willing to part with.
If corrected, this would be like Lay’s suing the convenience store owner for taking the entire delivery truck, rather than just their shipment.
And even then, it would be “Theft”. NOT RAPE.
I swear, anyone using this analogy should attend a class of ju-jitsu where their sparring partner ignores their attempts to tap out. Should give them a good dose of empathy for “Getting more match than they intended to”
Wow so hundreds of pages of well researched and documented writing boil down to “Men raping women is good”. Glad to know you have a screw loose in there.
Your entire post is “We should take every rape allegations at face value no questions asked, no investigation done, never even consider any possibility other than the divinity of women, guilty until proven innocent” Sorry that’s just BULLSHIT.
*snicker*
It’s true. The only possible positions here are “date rape isn’t real” and “women are divine and all rape accusations are true”. There are literally no other possible opinions.
This is it, Futrelle is critiquing the possible final boss of the men’s movement.
I say possible, as I personally consider Daniel Amneus a better candidate since he pretty much set up the hypergamy argument, the core of MRA calls to subjugate women and call it compassion.
…I totally thought trolly mctrollersons was being sarcastic at first.
Poe’s Law in action (did we come up with an MRA version? Hoe’s Law, maybe?)
Because this is totally a good summary of Farrell!
THIS.
Sure, I guess a salesperson could take the client out to dinner and be all charming and stuff, and make the client change zir mind, and then the contract will be valid even if the client had had a drink or to. Likewise, if a man persuades a woman to go on a date with him although she’s not that interested to start with, but during dinner she starts to change her mind and find him attractive after all, and then they have sex after a couple of drinks, THAT’S NOT RAPE EITHER. But maybe Farrell thinks that’s what “date-rape” or “raping someone too drunk to consent” MEANS?
gendernutter:
You address literally nothing in Dave’s post. Weak neg, try again.
When MRA trolls get all het up about rape like this, you just know they’re counting the skeletons in their closets.
One gets the distinct impression that Mr. Farrell has done no research on rape, people who have been raped, or the likelihood of rapists spending a day in prison, other than possibly talking to a few angry MRAs and relying on common rape culture narratives about how women either don’t know what they want or knew what they wanted but changed their minds the next morning.
What about the rape victims who said no and no and no? What about the rapists who used alcohol as a weapon, to render the other person powerless? What about the rapists who look for perfect victims — people who are underage, homeless, disabled, addicted, or otherwise not likely to go to the cops and, if they do, aren’t credible? What about the rapists who rely on juries believing the old narrative about short skirt/too many drinks/why’d she go home with me if she didn’t want?
And of course rape has shit all to do with men being sexually aroused; it’s about rapists getting sexually aroused by rape. It’s like Farrell didn’t want people to forget all the old lies about rape, so he collected them all in one place for ease of reference.
Yeah, his “research” seems to consist of “everyone knows”.
Rape: Just like eating too many potato chips!
Assbag.
If potato chips were sentient and had a desire not to be eaten, then that would be wrong, too.
You’re right about one thing. Your entire preceding paragraph is bullshit.
Read for comprehension.
Please provide the quotes that support this assertion.
To be fair, he’d have probably just ignored and/or misinterpreted his findings:
So what he’s saying is anything you can coerce someone into short of violence is fair game? I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding him….
Are you seriously claiming that rape allegations today don’t result in investigations, questions asked, and the complainant being crucified on the witness stand by the defense attorney for days on end? Seriously??
I must have missed something. Can someone explain this to me?
Even trying to think like a MRA, I don’t understand that part. I understand how he leaves aside that in the “good old time” men good just abandon pregnant women (especially since there were no paternity test) while pregnant women had the fun choice of illegal and dangerous abortion or life as a single, often young mother, with all the social shame and economic difficulties coming with it. I get that, plenty of people are great are rewriting history to fit their purpose.
What I don’t get is why condom is bad for anybody. Contrary to the pill, you know for sure if it’s being used and it protect against both unwanted pregnancy and STDs. Why would men be more anxious because of that ?
And even the pill, how is that not great for men? Let’s say we have a ‘traditional’ family, and the mother takes the pill, that allow for plenty of condom-free more-children-free sex!
But mostly I wonder about the condom part. The best I’ve got is “she can grab the condom once it’s full of sperm run away and make babies or witchcraft rituals”. Help?
@Aurore: I think he means it’s unfair that men have to worry about STD’s. It’s not unfair, however, that women worry about STD’s, because worrying about the consequences of sex — be they babies or syphilis — is woman shit. In the past, when all women other than “whores” came to men as virgins and once “plucked”, were considered untouchable (except as “whores”), a man wouldn’t need to worry about STD’s. Since changing social mores and the pill have made it possible for young women to go through multiple sexual partners, men are unfairly made to take care of their own sexual health. Misandry!!
Okay, starting to read comments…
Arg, I hate those guys! Especially when it’s the young instructors who are trying to demonstrate a technique for the class, and the reason they don’t stop is because they aren’t finished demonstrating the technique. It’s like, Dude, you can loosen up
“well researched” nice. yeah, tell us what research he did.
“screw loose” nice ableism, dipshit
“entire post summary” please re read but this time without your confirmation bias binders.
I think it was the Poe Menz Law, but I can’t remember who came up with it.
Oh, yeah. I always get the uncomfortable feeling that’s why the go all about it, too.
I’ve gotta say that like everything else he write, it makes no sense, Aurore. Especially since it conflicts with the very next sentence’s focus on the guy’s concern about AIDS. (Trufax: Women are never concerned about AIDS!)
In trying to make any sense of it, my guess is that the “pimple-faced boy” is anxious about how to put the condom on (his school having abandoned its sex-ed program) or possibly having to buy condoms (hey, I’ve watched a few teen sex comedies in my time!)?
Also, I forgot. Hyena Girl, I love your avatar.
I guess I thought the condom thing was about performance anxiety; you know, the “can’t feel anything” argument.
Me too! It looks like a D&D gnoll. Did you draw it?
@ Fade and katz,
It was drawn as part of a character reference for me, I don’t have the art skills. What can I say, I adore hyenas.
Wow so hundreds of pages of well researched and documented writing boil down to “Men raping women is good”.
Yes, one does wonder how it got published.
LOL
You’re just too much.
The straw man factory wants their straw men back.
The straw man factory wants their straw men back.
He got the straw man factory owners super drunk and coerced them into signing over all the straw men; they’re his now. Because that’s a thing.
Would it be silly to say that Warren Farrell makes my skin crawl every time I read his work?
Well, hey – he’s just an opportunistic guy! He doesn’t deserve to go to jail for theft! I mean, he sure did a good job.
@Amused: well, in a very twisted way I get it makes sense.
@Hyena Girl
Get out!! Man, you think you know someone…
@Aaliyah
Unfortunately for them, genderneutral got their manager drunk and told him he was gonna take them, so the law must be on his side
If you can keep from walking into walls when you’re saluting, you can keep from raping someone.
@Bagelsan
BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Hisssssssss
Hey everyone, I have a present for you!
(It’s a new Pierre.)
@Shadow: highfive!
Yay! New Pierre!
Well done katz!
Is it at all clear what’s happening? Because I’m concerned you have to scroll down to the author comments to figure it out.
I hope the troll will note that even if the rest of the book were, in fact, “well researched and documented,” that does not make these excerpts any less real or atrocious.
Teh Poe Menz Law.
@Aaliyah: I think it fair to say that there is loads of creepy things about Warren Farrell and if you are creeped out by him then you have a functioning sense of What Is Creepy.
@Katz: Pierre!!!
Misandry!
@katz: back from reading.
I may have died from the loling.
@katz: It’s not super-clear, no. But it works anyway in a ‘watch the movie a second time and realize all the things the filmmakers snuck by you.
Side note; the best twist endings make the second watching an edge-of-your-seat experience.
Yea! Pierre! Yea!
Gift for katz:
Now THAT is an alpha dog.
Now THAT is an alpha dog.
He gets all the bitches.
Of course. Couldn’t get you a beta one. ;)
@Bagelsan
High five!!
Now you made me look like a petulant child! Misandry!!!!11!!! Male disposability!!!!!!!
He must have written this book:
…which is still more coherent than any pua/mra book.
I’m sorry, Shadow, I just can’t respect you unless you smack my ass and send me to make you a sandwich! It’s my hypergamy acting up. Or something.
@Bagelsan
I know, but just by thinking that you gon’ get me sent to jail!! Damn feminist!!!
What facts should I put in NWOslave’s biography? There’s just so much to choose from.
Shorter Farrell: men think with their dicks and get judged for it! It’s not faiiiiiirrrrr!