Warren Farrell’s notorious comments on date rape: Not any more defensible in context than out of it
Warren Farrell, possibly pondering the mysteries of consent.
NOTE: This is the second installment of The Myth of Warren Farrell, a continuing series examining Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power, the most influential book in the Men’s Rights canon. You can see the first post here.
Men’s Rights elder Warren Farrell has been accused of being a “rape apologist,” largely because of one now-notorious sentence he wrote in The Myth of Male Power:
We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting.
This sentence is at least as puzzling as it is disturbing. Calling date rape “exciting” is pretty foul. But what on earth is “date fraud?”
To find out, let’s do what Farrell’s supporters insist we always do with his more troubling remarks: look at it in context to see if it is somehow more defensible – or, at the very least, to see if we can discern what exactly is is he even meant.
Looking at the sentence in context in The Myth of Male Power, we find that it appears in the midst of a long discussion not only of date rape but also of a number of other dating-related behaviors that Farrell claims traumatize men in the same way date rape traumatizes women. So let’s back up a bit to let him spell out his basic premises — and define what “date fraud” is in the first place:
While the label “date rape” has helped women articulate the most dramatic aspect of dating from women’s perspective, men have no labels to help them articulate the most traumatic aspects of dating from their perspective. Now, of course, the most traumatic aspect is the possibility of being accused of date rape by a woman to whom he thought he was making love. If men did label the worst aspects of the traditional male role, though, they might label them “date robbery,” “date rejection,” “date responsibility,” “date fraud,” and “date lying.” (p.313, The Myth of Male Power, 1993 hardcover edition)
He proceeds from here to some Men’s Rights subreddit-style man-whinging:
The worst aspect of dating from the perspective of many men is how dating can feel to a man like robbery by social custom – the social custom of him taking money out of his pocket, giving it to her, and calling it a date. To a young man, the worst dates feel like being robbed and rejected. Boys risk death to avoid rejection (e.g., by joining the Army).(p. 314)
I think Farrell is confusing “the Army” with “the French Foreign Legion” and real life with Laurel and Hardy movies.
Evenings of paying to be rejected can feel like a male version of date rape. (p. 314)
Yep. Paying for a woman’s dinner and having a pleasant conversation with her, only to have her refuse to have sex with you, is in Farrell’s mind just like being raped.
Having dealt with date robbery and rejection, Farrell moves on to date fraud and lying:
If a man ignoring a woman’s verbal “no” is committing date rape, then a woman who says “no” with her verbal language but “yes” with her body language is committing date fraud. And a woman who continues to be sexual even after she says “no” is committing date lying.
Do women still do this? Two feminists found the answer is yes. Nearly 40 percent of college women acknowledged they had said “no” to sex even “when they meant yes.” In my own work with over 150,000 men and women – about half of whom are single – the answer is also yes. Almost all single women acknowledge they have agreed to go back to a guy’s place “just to talk” but were nevertheless responsive to his first kiss. Almost all acknowledge they’ve recently said something like “That’s far enough for now,” even as her lips are still kissing and her tongue is still touching his. (P 314)
Uh, Dr. Farrell, I’m pretty sure that women are still allowed to say no to sex even if they are kissing a man. Either partner, of whatever gender, is allowed to stop sexual activity at whatever point they want to, for whatever reason they want to. That how consent works.
And now we come to Farrell’s famous quote:
We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting. (pp. 314-315)
It still doesn’t make sense to me, but that combination of “date rape” and “exciting” makes me queasy.
Perhaps the rest of Farrell’s paragraph will help to elucidate what he means:
Somehow, women’s romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said “No”. They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this “marry the rapist” theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of women’s most enduring romance novels. (p. 315)
Oh, so because some women enjoy fictionalized rape fantasies, real non-fictional date rape is therefore “exciting?”
Farrell follows this up, confusingly, with two sentences that utterly contradict one another:
It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.” He might just be trying to become her fantasy. (p. 315)
Three things. First: If the “conflict” is as Farrell sketched it out above — a woman saying “that’s far enough for now,” while kissing with “tongues still touching” — there is no conflict. Kissing, with tongues or without, does not give a man permission to put his penis in a woman. Reciprocal kissing gives you permission for … reciprocal kissing.
Second: when the alleged nonverbal “yeses” and the verbal “noes” conflict – or you think they do – here’s an idea: RESPECT THE VERBAL NOES. Err on the side of NOT-RAPE. If she says no, assume she means no, until she uses ACTUAL WORDS to say yes. Strange but true: woman can actually USE HUMAN LANGUAGE to express what they want. If a guy doesn’t respect a woman’s verbal “noes” because he thinks — or pretends to himself — that she’s saying “yes” with her body, how exactly can the law distinguish this from rape?
“Your honor, it’s true she told me no, but her elbows were saying “yes.””
Also: if your gal and you want to play out “nonconsensual” fantasies, that’s fine; lots of people do that — consensually. You just need to work out the basic rules and safewords in advance. There are entire subcultures of people devoted to this who will be happy to fill you in on the details. Really. They are very chatty.
Third: Do you all find it as creepy as I do that Farrell tends to sketch out these various rapey scenarios in the steamy prose of a second-rate romance novelist?
If you’re an MRA convinced I’m somehow misquoting Farrell here, here’s a screencap of most of the passages I just quoted which someone on the Men’s Rights subreddit helpfully posted some time ago. Or you could get hold of Farrell’s book and check for yourself.
Oh, but I’m not done yet. I’ve got even more context to provide.
Farrell tries his best to draw some sort of distinction between date rape and stranger-with-a-knife-rape:
We often hear, “Rape is rape, right?” No. A stranger forcing himself on a woman at knife point is different from a man and woman having sex while drunk and having regrets the morning. What is different? When a woman agrees to a date, she does not make a choice to be sexual, but she does make a choice to explore sexual possibilities. The woman makes no such choice with a stranger or an acquaintance. (p. 315)
So going on a date with someone and ostensibly making a “choice to explore sexual possibilities” means that it’s ok for people to force sex on you against your will later in the evening? Uh, Dr. Farrell, how exactly is this not rape? How does the fact that two people went to a movie beforehand turn coerced sex into not-real-rape?
You’ll have to ask Dr. Farrell that question, as his explanation makes no sense whatsoever to me.
A few pages down the road, Farrell warns about the dangers of “date rape” legislation in hyperbolic terms, arguing, bizarrely, that it will lead to more rape.
If the law tries to legislate our “yeses” and “noes” it will produce “the straitjacket generation” – a generation afraid to flirt, fearful of finding its love notes in a court suit. Date rape legislation will force suitors and courting to give way to courts and suing.
The empowerment of women lies not in the protection of females from date rape, but in resocializing both sexes to share date initiative taking and date paying so that both date rape and date fraud are minimized. We cannot end date rape by calling men “wimps” when they don’t initiate quickly enough, “rapists” when they do it too quickly, and “jerks” when they do it badly. If we increase the performance pressure only for men, we will reinforce men’s need to objectify women – which will lead to more rape. Men will be our rapists as long as men are our initiators.…
Laws on date rape create a climate of date hate. (p.340)
I don’t even know where to start with all that. That is just one giant steaming heap of nonsense. To put it as politely as I can.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, Farrell also thinks that a lot of what’s called spousal rape is really “mercy sex,” because people who are married to one another often have sex when they don’t want to — and that’s the way it should be, since “all good relationships require ‘giving in,’ especially when our partner feels strongly.” Sex you don’t want is just part of what makes a happy marriage happy!
The Ms. survey can call it a rape; a relationship counselor will call it a relationship.
Spousal rape legislation is blackmail waiting to happen. (p. 338)
So, does putting Farrell’s “we called it exciting” quote in context transform it into something innocent and understandable and not-rapey?
I think it’s pretty clear that the answer is no.
But not everyone agrees with me on that. When someone on the Man’s Rights subreddit recently provided some of the context for Farrell’s quote, the assembled Men’s Righsters mostly thought what he was saying sounded fine to them, arguing that he brings up some very legitimate points, attacking feminists for quote mining, suggesting that “feminists don’t reality” and that the Feminist machine slanders anyone who gets in their way. Heck, one fellow even suggested that he had gotten the distinct impression that Feminists want to create more instances of “rape-by-misunderstanding” in order to punish men. Oh, and then one of them attacked my previous post on Farrell’s disturbing views on incest.
Posted on May 3, 2013, in antifeminism, consent is hard, imaginary oppression, mansplaining, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, nice guys, oppressed men, playing the victim, rape, rape culture, reddit, the myth of warren farrell, warren farrell and tagged men's rights, MRA, rape, reddit, warren farrell. Bookmark the permalink. 1,058 Comments.
Marie: my boobs chose the most I convent times to have grown
Sorry for the clothing problems. but I love the typo.
@eurosaba
“Nekora you have rationalized your acceptance of what I consider a puzzling and in your case apparently chosen voluntary celibacy. Also, if your nym is a reference to Ras-a-Naquora, um, I wish you all the best if history repeats.”
Voluntary celibacy how horrible. /sarcasm. I guess I’m voluntary celibate (don’t really care about labeling it cuz pointless…) cuz I’m not making getting laid my main goal. I mean, it’d be nice, but I’ve got to learn how to cope with my depression a little better before it even gets close to a priority.
That was kinda rambly, but my main point was that getting laid doesn’t have to be a huge priority, even if you do want to.
Also, stop making unwarranted assumptions about people’s sex lives.
“Shorter Eurosabra: “A man didn’t fuck a woman! OH NOES!””
So that’s what he took as voluntary celibate :/ if that’s voluntary celibacy I don’t think I know many people who aren’t voluntary celibate.
@nekora
“To be completely honest, I’d rather just masturbate than shove it into a woman I don’t even know or like”
Seconded. Tmi here, but I’ve been taking this option for like…the past year plus. Not that I wouldn’t like to try o date, it’s jus not a priority. :/ I hope I’m making sense, it’s morning and I’m super tired….
@bob
“I actually had a woman at my gym chat me up and ask me out thanks to a feminist themed shirt. So that was nice”
Yay :D envy of feminist t shirts…. Want one.
” I currently work out for ‘free’, since my apartment complex has a public workout room with freeweights, machines, treadmills, and ellipticals”
Totally butting into weightlifting conversation. My apartment has a work out room too, I’d love to go if my back didn’t suck… Though its slowly getting better since I found out what was wrong.
@bob
“The Zero Game Method:
Step 1: Don’t be a rapey dick bag.
Step 2:
Step 3: Sexytime!
So, I’ve got some refining to do, clearly.”
You should keep the feminist (or geeky) t shirts. XD
@pecunium
“Sorry for the clothing problems. but I love the typo.”
XD I have no way of proving this, since I typed it last night, but I blame auto correct.
Also, everyone, guess who’s making spanakopita today?
I am!!! :D
@MollyRen — lawls. I’m not nearly as bulky as Vin Diesel, but whatever floats ur boat. I appreciate him for inspiring nerds everywhere and showing that being a geek doesn’t have make you unsexy or uncool, but I wish I liked his movies more. “Pitch Black” was his peak, IMO.
@Marie — it was the famous “This is what a feminist looks like” T. I also have an old “Feminist chicks dig me” shirt that an ex bought for me, but I don’t wear it often because of its use off the word “chicks”; also, it’s now too big for my healthier self. Anyway, lady friend at the gym and I ultimately decided we weren’t right for each other, but we had some fun.
@Nekora — Great work on your progress! I started out at about 230, and am now at 190 with a 33-inch waist. Running definitely got easier as I got lighter; and yeah, it can be hell on the knees and ankles at times, but other than fasting, I haven’t found a quicker way to get lean. Running on a treadmill can be easier, as it’s designed to be easy on the knees and ankles, and lets you set and keep a pace without having to think about it, but it can be really boring. Running on the street or blacktop works different muscles, but can also inflict more damage if done wrong. So, there are trade-offs, but you already know that. Rowing machines are top-notch, too, and great for doing strength, resistance and no-impact cardio all at once. Have you tried swimming? Weights-wise, I do low weight-high rep regimens, cuz I just want to have a healthy lean mass to body fat ratio and don’t really care to bulk up.
I’ve been trying to lose fat, and bulk up a little bit, so I try to do high-weight low-rep lifting. Though there’s some exercises that I’ve ‘outgrown’ my apartment’s workout room (50 pounds each hand is definitely not enough for freeweight squats, bench presses, or deadlifts for me anymore, and that’s the highest they’ve got, and there’s no barbells unfortunately).
The elliptical I use is probably near-equivalent to running, at least at relatively high resistance. I figure running is marginally more energy-intensive, but I’ll take the elliptical anyway. I also have exercise-induced asthma (nothing acute; it functionally means that I hyperventilate while exerting easily and my stamina just goes to zero if I do), and running triggers it REALLY hard, but the elliptical never does for whatever reason. The elliptical machine is also more stable, so I can put my tablet up on it and watch netflix or anime or something while I do it. (Which REALLY REALLY helps to get through an hour of cardio).
@Marie, there are definitely lifts you can still do with a bad back, and in fact, you can just do lifts with very low weight as well, which may help your back get better sooner, if you are able to do that. Also, try doing stretches that hit your back.
And last, I don’t quite look like Vin Diesel, but I’ll take that as a compliment. :)
@nekora
What kind of lifts?just curious cuz I wouldliketo do strength training?
Rowing and swimming for the fucking win. The rowing machines are the one thing (well besides stage crew) that I miss about high school. And I’m kinda pissy about my mother’s work situation, weather gets pool worthy and I lose my ride >.<
@argenti aertheri
Ahhh! No swimming. Besides hating it, my back doesn’t like my arms moving in above my head much. Or lots of motion at all in my arms… Can’t wait til it gets better(it should in theory because my problems are bc of vitamin d deficiency and I’m on supplements now.
@argenti aertheri
And sorry about your mothers work situation…hope you find way to get to pool anyway.
@Argenti
I hope your mother’s work situation improves. =[ Also, pools can be nice (especially private pools), but if you happen to live near an ocean, lake, etc. that isn’t too cold for your tastes, I recommend you go there instead. If water near Santa Cruz weren’t so fucking frigid, I would totally swim there as often as possible because the beaches there are lovely.
Also, because I think you folks might be interested in reading it, here’s a five-part series I wrote on feminism and normative ethics. Of course, if you hate philosophy, you’ll probably hate this as well, so I suggest you steer away if you do. I tried to make it easy to grasp, though.
Probably TMI here. A few years back, I lost a lot of weight and then regained it all (~160lbs lost). I found that losing weight only delayed me getting better at self-esteem. Finding value in myself through my ability to shed weight was placing my self value as contingent to some facts about the world. The world is a fragile place and allowing your self value to be fragile is dangerous.
So, gaining this confidence has helped me label my regain as a temporary setback and to get back on track. Still kinda depressing to be back at the bottom of a very tall hill.
Also, about women and my lack of conventional attractiveness. Getting more social and better esteem has helped me to ask out women more often. This has largely been unsuccessful, Still, I don’t blame women. They get their freedom of choice just as I get mine. I wish I would hear fewer “Maybe”s and more “No”s, but fear of rejecting is just as real as fear of rejection. I certainly don’t blame women as a whole. Nor do I usually blame them individually, except when someone is actually mean.
Anyway, I am rambly.
@wordsp1nner
Thank you for the pattern. My mother is learning to knit from her sister, and this is a beautiful pattern.
There doesn’t appear to be any contact stuff to make it easier to find you again on Ravelry within the PDF.
So you’re the Underpants Gnomes of sex. Did you notice that “Big Corporate Profits” isn’t a result of their half-formed method, the way sex isn’t a result of yours, apparently? But it is an appetite and appetite varies from person to person and enforcement of normative masculinity is a cultural identification from which one can opt out.
Marie, I have massive sympathy for you on depression, since I’ve had depression my whole life, but lack of sex for straight ciswomen is a fundamentally different issue than for straight cismen. But I really hope things will work out for you wrt depression. However, I hate ambiguity in communication and generally wind up the side of not having sex when I get a potential partner who can’t/won’t communicate. Apparently I have very minimal sex by the standards of the PUA community.
UGGGGHHH
Eurosabra, my dad had depression. It wasn’t because he wasn’t getting laid; it might have been triggered by his PARENTS JUST DYING!!!
So stfu and stop whining about not getting sex. Hey, how about we trade: how about you walk through life getting paid less, treated as less competent, with a higher rate of being sexually assaulted, and I walk through life not being able to get imaginary nooky-on-demand?
@opium4themasses
Feel like getting confidence helped me feel better about my body too :) didn’t have any huge weight loss or weight gain though. I’m normally 160-170 pounds (it wavers) and the most I ever dieted down to was 150, and I was miserable during that. Lowest I’ve ever been at (post hitting above five feet) was about 137, when I had pneumonia for a week. :/ kinda rambly, just thinking, because. I shared my insecurities I had growing up with my mom recently and she didn’t really seem to get it. Not in a telling me I still should be trying to lose weight way, just not really understanding why it was making me miserable. I don’t think there’s a problem with trying to lose weight if one wants to, just know that when I was doing it to try to feel better about my body all it did was make me more miserable.
@eurosaba
Go fuck yourself. Im trying to take your word on you having depression, since its a total dick move to doubt, but you really fucking better not be talking abut having a sad boner cuz you aren’t getting laid.
“Marie, I have massive sympathy for you on depression, since I’ve had depression my whole life, but lack of sex for straight ciswomen is a fundamentally different issue than for straight cismen”
Take our sympathy back you pathetic shitstain. I don’t want it. I’m also not straight. And I think it’s much much more likely that men just whine a fuckload more bout not getting laid. I don’t think the issues are very different.
“Could if you wished” is sex that did not happen, and therefore beta. It is the equivalent of a judicial verdict of “Not Proven.” However, the amount of sex you DO get might be alpha, if the women are hot enough, pics or it didn’t happen.
/sarc
I’m mildly sad about it when it happens. It’s kind of an important element of a somewhat trying time in my life, one I’ve arguably made worse by obsessing about it. I agree that lack of sex is a minor concern, but it is a truism that it is different for men and women. (Example: women disproportionately shamed for seeking sex, so even exercising initiative is problematic.)
Also remember I said “straight cis women.”
@eurosaba
If your going to call it a truism, your going to need a huge ass citation. Funny that you mentioned women are shamed for wanting sex, but didn’t notice that that would probably affect if they have it, even if they want sex.
Also, how the fuck would this be a different problem for straight people? I’d ask on cis people to, but I don’t know enough about trans* issues. Probably has something to do with wanting to avoid trans phobia and violence, and not different desires for sex though
Why would people want to be “alpha” if it required you to do things you didn’t actually want to do?
“Also, pools can be nice (especially private pools), but if you happen to live near an ocean, lake, etc. that isn’t too cold for your tastes, I recommend you go there instead.”
Lol, not here! Long Island sound, where I joke that if it’s blue it’ll try to eat you. Blue fish, blue crabs, vicious little buggers. Anyways, I have an annual pool pass already and it’s the high school pool I used to be forced to swim in. I’m long past used to it.
@Katz:
The secret handshakes are really interesting, and the fact that you get free beverages at any train station or airport is tempting. I also enjoy the knowledge that I’m part of a large, interconnected group of people, bound together not by genetics or geography but by our goals.
I can go to any town in the world and, with some work, find a member of my order and together, we can make the world a better place bit by bit.
The dental is great too.
Yep, the Illuminati offers lots of great perks.
Dunno why you’d want to be an alpha by PuA standards, though.
—
@Marie:
Empathy for the depression up and down and swing around. It sucks. Literally, your life and energy. I hope you accomplish what you wish to do and work yourself to a position you’re comfortable and happy in.
@BULK, DUDE, DO YOU EVEN LIFT:
I clock in at 147 pounds.
Hah, I have you all beat for 2d curvature and space! I can fit into nooks and crannies that you can’t! Sometimes, stiff breezes knock me over. I have to walk outside with an rope attached to my friends, so I don’t get carried away on an idle breeze. I possess the magic ability to become nigh invisible in rooms when I sit perfectly still!
I am so, so jealous of your ability to gain weight. Entirely, completely, truthfully so. Every time I try, I am foiled. But I shall be foiled no longer! Because I have just finished ordering 4 kgs of protein off a shaky internet site, and soon, I shall be the biggest person in all the country.
Hah
Ha.
Ha.
Body images are a fun thing, aren’t they? I’ve always wanted to gain weight, but fail. Most people have it the other way around. With a danger of going overboard in the following bit:
It’s amusing, from a certain perspective, how when trials and tribulations about body mass come up in conversation people tend to assume I’m lucky – because I’m thin, so I must be happy, right? – except I’m not super keen on the entire “the wind tends to kidnap me”.
I think opium4themasses makes a very good point.
Everyone’s going to find some aspect of your physique to critique
so like yourself, you’re all you’ve got.
@Eurosabra:
I disagree with your statements. But good luck, and best of things, in working with and dealing with your own depression.
@fibinachi
“Empathy for the depression up and down and swing around. It sucks. Literally, your life and energy. I hope you accomplish what you wish to do and work yourself to a position you’re comfortable and happy in.”
Thanks. ;) though I’m kinda put off of well wishing for the moment, given eurosaba’s totally unconvincing ness (IMO). Good news is my depressions mostly fine ATm cuz my anti depressants have been working great since I upped the dose… Just getting other blues cuz my computers broken and I do lots of socializing through the Internet, so a little lonely.
Eurosabra: if you’re going for creepiest poster, congrats, you win.
My opinions on Eurosabra’s depression/ or not.
It is a moot point because he is still an asshole who does not understand that not being able to get sex is not the worst thing in the world.
Gues what, Eurosabra. I haven’t had sex in eighteen years
@fade
Me too!XD though if I were going with when I got sexually interested in people, it’s only one and a half years. /tmi
I am fairly sure I have some serious depression. Part of learning to deal with it is learning not to take your insecurities out on other people. In some ways, depression is like a weird addiction to sadness. The same rage, frustration, and desperation comes through. Learning to detect when a bad time is coming and taking steps to address it are part of taking responsibility for yourself.
Addiction to sadness?
WTF, it’s a chemical imbalance of the brain.
(I am describing my own experience. I am not trying to say that all people experience depression as I do. I realized that I was a bit too presumptive with my close)
Okay, that at least makes sense. It just seemed like you were saying “this wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t addicted to being sad” without context.
No no no. I was not trying to imply anything was “just” an addiction at all. I mean in that it is a set of thoughts and thought patterns that you come back to repeatedly and which do you harm. These patterns are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. This is similar to addiction patterns. I am not assigning blame for the disease and it’s affects, merely that recognizing the onset and mitigating the effect on yourself and others is part of taking responsibility.
I am making a value judgement on the actions, but definitely not on the people. I see a lot of MRAs who are sad, depressed, frustrated, and desperate. They lash out at women and find ways to externalize the cause of their pain. Some of them might have internal causes which they should recognize and work to correct. I am probably using way too fancy of words when I am not an expert by any means here.
Eurosabra, go fuck yourself. Depressed or not, you’re a slimy little creep.
I very much doubt I could have done what you fancy cishet women can do, ie. get sex practically on demand, had I ever tried it. I’m very glad I didn’t, because my sex life – the one a fuckwit PUA wouldn’t even recognise as such – is loving and joyous, more than a loser like you could imagine.
And go sit on cacti with your demeaning of people for having preferences and the capacity to say no, and trying to pretend there’s some sort of credits to be gained for men (oh, only men, of course) in having sex whether or not they actually want to. I guess we should say it’s nice to see you’re equal-opportunity stupid when it comes to enthusiastic consent, since you expect men to have sex regardless of whether they want to, as well as being into the whole manipulation of women for sex they don’t want PUA schtick.
@opium4themasses
“In some ways, depression is like a weird addiction to sadness. The same rage, frustration, and desperation comes through. Learning to detect when a bad time is coming and taking steps to address it are part of taking responsibility for yourself.”
All the fuck yous. It’s not a fucking addiction, and it’s not something that everyone can avoid by taking “detecting it”. What the fuck, and fuck you again.
” I am not assigning blame for the disease and it’s affects, merely that recognizing the onset and mitigating the effect on yourself and others is part of taking responsibility.”
Fuck you again. I don’t know what the fuck you mean by ‘taking responsibilities’ but damn does it rub me the wrong. Do not want to see this shit here.
“I see a lot of MRAs who are sad, depressed, frustrated, and desperate. They lash out at women and find ways to externalize the cause of their pain. Some of them might have internal causes which they should recognize and work to correct. I am probably using way too fancy of words when I am not an expert by any means here.”
FFs, being depressed and being an asshole are independent from each other. Some depressed people are assholes, but just because someone is being a whiny, hateful misogynist does not mean they are depressed. How many times must variants of this must be explained?
I’m just going to skip all the weight stuff being talked about here. (No offense to you guys, y’all keep on talking, but I’ve been fighting an ED relapse the past month, so food and exercise are back on strict regimens.)
RE: the original post
What disturbs me is that I BELIEVED all this crap when I was young. (Not helped by date rape being some of my first formative experiences as an independent entity.) It’s why I refused to date at all; I truly believed it was a transactional relationship where I traded painful, humiliating sex for someone to pretend to love me. What a shitty deal.
Also, wow, does the author not know what ‘date rape’ or ‘exciting’ means. Exciting is hiking mountains with my husband. My date rape involved me hiding naked and shivering in a closet, crying. It took me FIVE YEARS to truly metabolize the idea that this wasn’t a required part of romantic life. And I STILL have an obsessive need to keep people from paying for anything of mine, for fear it’ll be taken as signing a contract for unmentioned services.
So yeah, fuck you Warren Farrell. The equivalent of date rape for men is, shock! Date rape! I can testify.
I think there has been some serious miscommunication here.
For me, my depression seems to be a lot like an addiction to being sad. I have come to recognize the patterns when I am falling into them and learn to account for them. I do my best to not let my insecurities be visited upon other people. To explain, I start to doubt that the people in my life like me for who I am for reasons that suddenly seem logical. Recognizing bad modes of thought has helped me avoid doubting and/or lashing out at people for no reason. These erratic feelings are very similar to what I have seen addicted people do. I am not equating, but comparing depression and addiction.
As far as the asshole thing, we pretty much agree. I am not trying to excuse being an asshole due to depression nor blaming all assholes on depression. I have been an asshole to others due to my depression and it looks a lot like my experience is not unique.
As long as you’re not trying to talk for people other than yourself, I’m cool.
@opium4themasses
:/ well, if its just you. It was just very, very duifficult to tell.
@opium4themasses two things: First, as a recovering addict with depression, I undertsand what you’re saying. There are times when I’m deeply disturbed to find myself pursuing and amplifying the depressive thoughts, because I’m getting some kind of twisted charge out of them. It’s hard to explain, but yeah, it does remind me a lot of the ways I used to think when I was justifying my next drink (although since I was probably self-medicating my depression with alcohol, I’m not sure they can be separated into “depression habits” and “alcoholic habits”.
Your stuff about “taking responsibility” really resonated with me, because it’s something I’ve struggled with, trying to put my depression on other people or excuse away bad behavior as me being sick, and I’m working really hard on not doing those things. But I’m uncomfortable talking about it in a way that makes it seem like a general depression issue, because there’s a fine line between acknowledging that we’re still responsible for our behavior, and throwing our fellow depressives under the bus by appearing to suggest that we’re entirely in control of our minds…if that makes sense?
I don’t think I’d write a book on it, but I think this place could stand to hear from someone who haz a non-creepy sad about it, lest you dismiss out of hand, as usual. But it’s not really a big deal.
Fade: I suspect that you are a real statistical outlier. If it is working for you, great!
I suppose these notions of responsibility are better placed in a self-talk or in a speech from someone close to the individual to back them up with compassionate support. It is a bitter pill and writing comments to strangers on a blog is a poor medium for communicating it properly.
anything that conflicts with eurosabra’s views: statistical outlier
@Eurosabra — “So you’re the Underpants Gnomes of sex. Did you notice that “Big Corporate Profits” isn’t a result of their half-formed method, the way sex isn’t a result of yours, apparently?”
Wait, what? Who said sex isn’t a result of my “method”? I think you have reading comprehension problems. Your should get that looked at.
And do you not recognize the practice of self-deprecating humor, or irony? Check your PUA manuals. I’m sure it’s in there.
— “But it is an appetite and appetite varies from person to person and enforcement of normative masculinity is a cultural identification from which one can opt out.”
Wait, what? That looks vaguely like a lexicon I recognize, but the words don’t seem to mean anything.
I’ve never had a problem finding sexyfuntime when I wanted it, and I don’t know what planet PUAs and MRAs are channeling all their bullcrap from. To me, you all sound like a bunch of whiny nitwits who are scared of women.
RE: opium4themasses and emilygoddess
I think I sort of get what you guys are saying. Though I dunno that I would call it an addiction, I know that when I feel bad, I often feel it as a lack of appetite first. I mean, horrible as it is, starvation was often the best (and sometimes only) self-soothing behavior available to me, and even though I KNOW now that it’s really bad for me, my body really does associate happiness with hunger. It’s hard to break that link, even when you recognize it.
It seems that every so often, Eurosabra decides to show that he’s not ENTIRELY oblivious, and accept a basic fact like “Women are shamed for wanting sex”, but fails to interpret that in the empathetic way, and not realize how that might affect women socialized in that manner, and still blames women for not having sex with him.
Part of feminism, Eurosabra, is looking at how socialization of different genders affects people and their wants. I personally think the whole ‘men want sex more than women’ thing is an artificial social construct, created entirely by the socialization of women to ‘belong’ to a particular man in the confines of marriage, and only give sex to that man, or face dire social consequences (Generally adding up to extreme poverty). Ever think the reason that women don’t want to have sex that much is because society at large believes that they are stupid, evil slutty slut sluts if they sleep with too many men? Ever think that the reason a lot of men want to have sex is because much of society measures men by their sexual conquests? Why is it that men who sleep around are desirable ‘playas’ and ‘alphas’, while women who sleep around are disgusting sluts?
Of course, the idea that a woman explicitly BELONGS to her husband is (mostly) gone in the West, but most of these social ideas that surrounded that concept are very much still alive, and even to this day, some wedding ceremonies include a daughter being ‘given away’ to their husband, by their father. Brings to mind the day when marriage was little more than chattel slavery of women.
Without all of these toxic gender ideas, and freeing up men and women to be people who may or may not engage in a pleasurable activity with other people that they like and/or finde attractive, I think women would be much more interested in sex, and men less interested in ‘sex-as-conquest’.
For the record, Eurosabra, I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you think I’m an alpha, beta, or whatever. I’m a human being, and I can choose whether I want to have sex or not. I won’t judge you for wanting to have sex more than I do, but I -will- judge you for participating in the gender-policing and bullshit sex-conquest culture that reduces women to obstacles between men and their vaginas.
@Marie
If you ‘re looking for stretches, this site has some good illustrations.
As for lifts, you might try straight-leg deadlifts, and freeweight squats. HOWEVER, do not start with weight on these, if you are having back problems. Do them with JUST body-weight, for the first time or two, even if if it feels silly. Then try it with 5-pound weights or so. Go up as you feel safe with not injuring yourself.
Straight-leg deadlifts consist of standing with your legs slightly apart (around shoulder-width, whatever you need for stability), then bending forward at the hips as deep as you can go, and then lifting yourself back upright, while keeping your legs straight. All the power should be coming from your back. It’s basically a controlled version of what people tell you not to do when lifting heavy boxes. ‘Lifting with your back’. If you add the freeweights, just have them in your hands as you bend forward, and let them hang down towards the ground, straight.
Squats, you just squat. But be careful with this one. It can be hard for some people to keep their balance. Use a wall or something if you have trouble. Also, a squat should throw your butt backwards, instead of throwing your knees outwards. If you have correct form, your knees should NOT be going out in front of your feet. Don’t go so deep if you have back problems, until you are confident you won’t hurt yourself. When you add freeweights, hold them above your shoulders (again, start with only body-weight and add 5 pounds in each hand if you feel good about that).
If you have problems with the lifts, stick to just stretching. But deadlifts are part of the rehab program for people with back injuries, once they have enough strength and the pain is gone. Also, squats are great to do, because they are the single best lift for overall strength and muscle-usage. They hit most of your legs, almost all of your core muscles, and your back. If you do just ONE lift, make it squats.
And Nekora wins an internet!
I don’t recall Eurosabra having a non-creepy comment to make about anything here … anyone else?
@nekora
Thanks for link. ;) I was kinda hoping for more (from what you described, I had my sister bookmark it and cuz i can’t access links well on iPad) upper body stuff… My lower body I can do fine, cuz it actually works with me XD anyway, you don’t need to look for more, just to clarify, I’m just thinking out loud. Thanks again.
@marie
The link I gave was all back stretches, since I assumed that was what you wanted. If you want upper-body exercises/lifts, I can tell you what I do, which I think hits all the major muscle groups that most people care about.
@nekora
Mostly I’d like strength training for my upper body, so if youve got lifting ideas id like to hear those :) The stretches I’ve tried so far haven’t helped, though I’ll be checking out the ones you linked to since its probably got more to try.
Also, tell me if I’m being a bother;) I dont want to take up too much of your time.
Again, boundary issue. We keep telling Eurosabra that his little lectures on his ideas about how sex and dating work aren’t welcome, and neither is he, but he just keeps coming back. Apparently he’s decided that listening to him is educational for us, and that’s more important than the many times we’ve told him to get lost.
The more I see from him the clearer it is why he has such a hard time finding sexual partners.
@Marie,
Here’s what I do for upper body. I generally use freeweights, though sometimes I use a machine to target the same muscle I would use with freeweights. I tend to split these up into groups, so I don’t do these all at once.
Bench Press, Pec Flyes, Shoulder Press/Arnold Press, Bicep Curl, Shrug, Lateral Raise, Upright Row, Bent-Over Row, French Press, Incline Bench Press, Incline Pec Flyes.
There’s a bunch of other things that you could do, that target similar muscles, but I think these are the easiest and a good, simple base set to do, that should hit all the really important upper body muscles.
I think that’s all. Some of that might be a little redundant.
Here is a site that contains a video reference about how to do nearly any dumbbell exercise you could ever possibly want to do, with basically correct form. The guys in them are kinda lunkish and lifting a lot of weight, but they are generally doing a good job, and it’s the same whether you are lifting a lot or a little. You should be able to look up all the exercises I mentioned on here (Just use your browser’s in-page search function).
You want to focus on form, more than just getting it done. If you’re just starting, it’s tempting to try to lift the weights and then kinda ‘drop’ them, but the backwards motion going slowly is just as important. Resist that and do it very slowly, a smooth motion to do the lift, then a smooth motion to move back.
@manboobz- I’m not sure I’d be so eager to reach back into the ’80s and ’90s in order to pick apart MRAs from that time period. You’re opening the door for some Dworkin mining. ;)
Not like mras don’t already mine dworkin. And they also haven’t really rejected farrel’s views
Oh yes. You should be doing 3 sets of each exercise, and you should probably split these into 2 groups, doing one of the groups 1 day you lift, then the other group the next day you lift, and alternate back and forth.
Each set should be about 8-12 reps if you’re trying to build muscle. You can do more reps with less weight if you want to just tone or maintain. Take a small (30-60 second) break between sets, and then go again, till you hit 3 sets, then move on to the next exercise.
@PEMRA,
Dworkin is not nearly as extreme as most MRAs would like to pretend (considering that the MRA Dworkin lexicon is just a handful of out of context ‘gotcha’ quotes, which ARE in fact much more moderate in context, unlike Farrell). And even so, most modern feminists tend to disavow Dworkin.
On the other hand, Farrell is respected in the MRA movement and is an uncontroversial thinker for them. There’s a damned big difference between the relationship modern feminists have with Dworkin, and the relationship between MRAs and Farrell.
PEMRA: @manboobz- I’m not sure I’d be so eager to reach back into the ’80s and ’90s in order to pick apart MRAs from that time period. You’re opening the door for some Dworkin mining.
Go for it. Dworkin, in context, never means what folks like you allege it means.
Bring it on.
Example: TMOMP is praised by folks like Elam, no reservations. Dworkin, accepting her virtues, isn’t the go to person we recommend feminists read if they want a jumping off place to understand the issues.
She’s 300 level material, not 101. Farrell is your movements 101.
And when you try to mine for support of Dworkin, you will have to take the corrollary comments made by the MRM about Farrell (you know, the dude CAFE at UofT invited to speak).
fibinachi: (WEIGHT RELATED) I know how you feel. The only time I really wanted to gain weight was a failure (free weights didn’t do much. Definition, but not much mass. I could bench more than I weighed, but it added about 3 lbs).
People tell me how nice it must be, and I have to give them some sort of polite answer; because being told how lucky I am that I can’t buy clothes off the rack isn’t actually all that swell.
Yes, I get less (but not a complete lack) of the weight shaming that larger people get, but as you know, it can suck.
There’s been some other stuff, far less pleasant about it too; some serious attempts to shame me for not being quiet about how being at the other end of, “outside norms” can suck. (this is not directed at LBT
I’m cool with what I weigh, but it’s not the easy ride, with no pain, that people assume.
RE: pecunium
There’s been some other stuff, far less pleasant about it too; some serious attempts to shame me for not being quiet about how being at the other end of, “outside norms” can suck. (this is not directed at LBT
I think there was something cut off here?
RE: PeMRA
You know, I just finished watching a Let’s Play of a game where the villain once notes that if you add a :) or a :( after a statement, you automatically make it happy or sad, so he starts saying things like, “War! Famine! Pestilence! :)” I feel the way I did about that as I do with your little eye-wink.
Maybe permatwerp is trying to tell us he has a tic … or a lazy eye, who knows?
I’ve yet to fathom why calling Descartes a shitstain for his horrendously cruel ideas about animals was worth making a weak joke about.
So, in response to us quoting a famous and well-respected MRA provided with full context to expose for the misogynistic shithead he is, you think that it’s only fair to selectively quote a feminist without any context to accuse her of having beliefs she never actually had.
Sure, go ahead.
Re: Aaliyah
I’m always surprised they choose freaking DWORKIN, of all people. Just for once, I’d like an MRA troll to bring up Janice Raymond or something. You know, switch things up a bit.
LBT: Glossed as not relevant, and I didn’t want you to think telling us that you were having some difficulty with the topic was what I was referring to.
Well, sometimes they bring up Mary Daly instead, and they cherry-pick quotes from her just like Dworkin. It’s quite amusing.
Margaret Sanger too and they often don’t even use the truly repugnant shit these women said. They quotemine offensive sentiments from context in which they’re justified or even humane.
MRAs, would you please, PLEASE bring the appalling positions of women to us IN CONTEXT so we can denounce them instead of having to point out your intellectual dishonesty?
Well, if you keep commenting on my ideological forefathers and operating a comment section, I’m going to comment on various aspects of the ensuing discussion. But what you want is an echo chamber. I get it. So you use verbiage like “boundary violation” and “creepy” and “rapey.” David can ban me if he likes, but apparently my discourse is thought to further discredit PUA, which is a miscalculation that the website Mondoweiss made to its detriment with respect to my advocacy of Zionism. PUA seminars unleash 100s of men who believe this stuff implicitly, 99% of them with less self-reflection than myself and certainly with less consumer care than I provide my students, like this article by a friend of mine. http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/date-set-match-dating-now/2013/may/4/drunk-dating-when-yes-means-no
It’s hard to regard women’s preferences as a filter rather than a wall when you have to take the initiative and ask 100, 200, or 300 women out to get 1 yes, as many men have to do when they compound being short, or a specific ethnic type, or socially awkward with the visible effort involved in overcoming their fears. Making this effort invisible, removing the social awkwardness, are laudable goals. Removing the transactional element from society’s “meat markets” might also work, if pretty young women didn’t like the free drinks so much.
I realize this is pretty lurid for here but the link is SFW (trigger warning: alcohol consumption, objectification, revealing clothing, PUA, sexism) and a respectable effort to impose a “no drunk sex” rule. It is absolutist because it recommends the man saying “No” when the false “Yes” is too enthusiastic, too verbalized, in the context of someone whose control of everything else (body, speech, balance) is too obviously slipping. There is a lot wrong with the article from a feminist perspective, but this is a fedora-clad guarantee that someone is circulating a strict opposition to drunk sex in the PUA community.
I won’t stop talking at you and you can’t make me! Also, I am hated by multiple communities for multiple reasons. The one constant is that nobody likes me.
(Shorter Eurosabra)
Bob Goblin:
Step 2 is blank. And step 3 is the result that the Gnomes explicitly don’t get. The whole point is that they fail, because the plan is chained non-sequiturs. Thus, either you fail or you misrepresent your method as analogous to the Gnomes’ when it is not. And practically anything can get someone laid somewhere sometime.
The one constant is that those communities that hate me are marginal and I continue to indoctrinate hundreds in the real world and send them forth to work their magic.
And having a lazy eye. Don’t ever forget the lazy eye.
On a more general note, if you really are asking 100/200/300 women out in the hope that you might get just one saying yes, you’re doing it wrong.
Of course, to those of us familiar with your incessant advocacy of your pathetic and demonstrably disastrous modus operandi, this won’t exactly come as news, but will the penny ever drop for you personally?