>
The video above, which has been making the rounds of the manosphere, is one of the creepiest and most off-putting things I’ve seen since watching Dogtooth a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I take that back: Dogtooth was much less creepy and off-putting. I was so repelled by what I saw in this video that it literally took me several tries to get through the whole thing. And no, it’s not some weird misogynistic rant by the likes of Bernard Chapin. Oh, no no no. The misogynists of the world are as repelled by the video as I am, though for radically different reasons. Titled “Dear Woman,” the video was actually put together by a couple of self-described “conscious men” who think they’re doing a great favor to the women of the world.
To which I can only say: Guys, stop it, you’re not helping.
If you can stomach it, the video is worth watching in its entirety. If not, here’s what you’re missing: The video is the work of a couple of New Age gurus — Arjuna Ardagh and Gay Hendricks, Ph.D – who, with the help of a little gaggle of guys, have written a little manifesto “apologizing” to the women of the world for all the bad shit done by men to women over the centuries. Or, as they put it:
I feel deep love, great respect and a growing sense of worship for the gifts of the feminine. I also feel deep sorrow about the destructive actions of the unconscious masculine in the past and present. I want to apologize to you and make amends for those actions, in order to bring forth a new era of co-creation with you.
The first step in “making amends,” evidently, was to gather together a group of men – some of whom seem to have been roped into it in the middle of a garden party — and to somehow convince them to read out loud the entire text of this manifesto. (The full text is here, but it’s much creepier when it’s read out loud.)
There is something about this manifesto, and the men reading it, that is so “off” that it may well make your skin crawl, and make you wonder how many of the men in the video have dead bodies secreted away in the crawl spaces under their homes. A female friend I showed the video to could only make it through the first couple of minutes before switching it off in horror; one commenter on Metafilter reported that it “made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a good way. Eeew.”
The creepyist, skin-crawliest part of the video has to be the section in which the assembled men talk about women’s bodies:
I honor the beauty and integrity of your body. When we worship each other through our bodies with awareness and devotion, there are no boundaries to the love that we can generate. I feel sorrow that men have used your beauty as a form of commerce in prostitution and pornography. In the grip of lust we have often lacked the skills to ask gracefully for intimacy or to take ‘No’ for an answer. I take a stand against any form of enforced or soulless commercialization of woman’s beauty, and I respect that your body belongs to you. …
I honor your capacity to listen to your body and its needs for food, rest and playtime.
I feel confident that I speak for many when I say “ewww.” Somehow I’m reminded of Saturday Night Live’s hot-tub-loving “lovers.”
As one commenter on Metafilter put it:
“We worship women” sounds like something Buffalo Bill would have said if he had a PR agent. My guess is that they’re sickos who seem really earnest at first but it turns out that they’re actually trying to collect used tampons for onanistic purposes or something.
So what is it, aside from all this worshiping, that makes the video so creepy? Part of the problem is that these “conscious men” are, in their own way, as patronizing and sexist as any manosphere dudes “mansplaining” about how all women only want to fuck alpha guys. Women, in their view, are inherently peaceful earth-mother types. “I commit now to … honoring the spirituality of the divine feminine,” the guys tell us. “I honor your deep connection to the earth.”
From this day, moving forward, I vow to treat your heart as the sacred temple it is, and I commit to honoring the feminine in you and me and in my relationship to all life.
I know that by leaving the past behind and joining hands in the present, we can create a synergy of our strengths. Together, there is nothing we cannot do.
—
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>Yeah, Dave, U R teh ghey! Boy, he really told you a thing or two. Yes indeedy.
>What's this "us" shit, sport? Far as I can tell, only person you're qualified to speak for is you. Maybe. You damn sure don't speak for me or any other "hetero male" around here who hasn't dedicated their lives to being a miserable crotch lesion because you're not getting the top-shelf women you think is your genetic due.
>Lol the old you just can't get laid remark…classic….sport : ) Unlike yourself I don't define myself around the acceptance of women. Your comment is very revealing. This seems to be central to your validation of your masculinity…what a shame.
>Us meaning heterosexual men… I wasn't talking about you. David does not speak from the heterosexual man's experience nor does he live it in relation to women…does that make any sense to you?
>Besides you do know whey David's blog exists don't you…poison in, poison out. The damage has already been done. He is part of the fallout. It will only grow. What is it that you plan to do about it?
>Discount: he was saying you have unrealistic standards that you cannot attain not that you cannot get laid. And you make very little sense. Please go back to trolling on Reddit. I am sure you can come up with some new not very witty name.Scarecrow: most of the guys on there seem earnest if misguided but a couple of them I would not want to be alone with ever.
>No, you define yourself around your contempt for women. Elizabeth is correct, the standards you lot tend to have is entirely what I'm talking about, but if you've convinced yourself that the real or perceived personality problems you encounter in the world around you can be tracked mainly to one gender, you're a fucking idiot and I could care less whether your motivation is an abysmal track record with women or not. I just usually find that most of the douchebuckles like yourself end up where you are because you'd rather blame other people for your own failings. My apologies if your douchebucklery comes from an entirely different source.And mourn not for my masculinity, sparky. I'm in much better shape there than anyone who lives in constant fear that his male peers might catch him doing something considered "feminine". 🙂
>"I'm in much better shape there than anyone who lives in constant fear that his male peers might catch him doing something considered "feminine". :)" You must mean male value is defined by external utility and that a man is not something that is by default but one must "be a man". You must mean that unlike women men do not carry inherent value to the opposite sex for the simple fact that we exist…in this you would be correct. You must mean other men police each other to exemplify their external utility or "being a man" over another..true. The only person I have to "be a man" for is myself. We as men owe women nothing in external utility…they are on their own. It is not men who place these expectations of external utility and uninherent value upon men….it is women. Men simply are the enablers of women's expectations and exemplify their status of external utility of being men over one another. In this I do not participate because again, the only person I have to "be a man" for is myself. Again, men do not owe any form of expectations to "be a man" to women. Women can "woman up" by themselves.
>"but a couple of them I would not want to be alone with ever." Don't worry, none of them would ever want to be with you because you would probably rape them, deprive them of rights and control over their own bodies, the fruits of its labor, and rob them of their children. Those men..like many know that they owe women, women's families and women's fatherless bastard children nothing. Take your "liberation" and shove it up your ass. Get a job and support yourselves and your own families and your own children. Men have no obligation to contribute to the matriarchal family..get it.
>How dare women call the fathers of fatherless bastard children "deadbeats". How dare "independent" women expect men to support a woman's family. Women initiate 70% of divorce and of the 30% initiated by men few involve children. Men know damn well what Marriage 2.0 laws women created are about. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQsU8ZTuT4I/AAAAAAAAAfw/5bhYbzlmpHM/s1600/ScreenShot032.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQndY7MWVKI/AAAAAAAAAfY/SpRFZAl1C88/s1600/ScreenShot028.jpg
>Go have your sex in the city lifestyles. 1 in 4 women carry a disease, their cervix and wombs rot from their body while any sign of life is vacuumed out and thrown in the garbage. Our marriage rates are at an historic low, fatherless bastard children at historic highs and our domestic birth rate below replacement levels. This is a demographic nightmare for any civilization and can not be maintained without immigration.
>Huh. I'm not gay at the moment. But after reading all this from Discount here I'm thinking of converting. Women sound terrible!
>By the way this is not the first time this has happened in history. Some short years before the Roman Republic descended into dictatorship the Roman family was in tatters and its birth rate below replacement levels. Women routinely left their newborn children on the steppes to die of exposure and this was legitimized by the philosophers and common culture of the time. Families were no longer formed and debauchery became normalized:"If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance.” So proclaimed the Roman general, statesman, and censor.Still, he went on to plead, falling birthrates required that Roman men fulfill their duty to reproduce, no matter how irritating Roman women might have become."Since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure." Go forth…enjoy your temporary pleasures and the newfound decomposability of men from a place in the family and the lives of our children. Live your liberated sex in the city lifestyle. Go buy some shoes.
>disposability
>I preferred "decomposability."
>"Women sound terrible!"No they are just incapable of seeing themselves as fallible or culpable for the state of our social fabric, gender relations, marriage and family in any way.
>I preferred "decomposability."I'm sure you do.
>"If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance.” So proclaimed the Roman general, statesman, and censor."Isn't this the whole theme of MTGOW in a nutshell?
>…"MGTOW" I mean.
>Discount, as a Hetero Male I'd appreciate it if you didn't make statements on behalf of such a vast group. The people within such a large group are likely to have experienced a large array of events and have a large array of opinions; based on my experiences with women and the literature I have read, I don't agree with a lot of what you have said, whereas I expect you do agree with a lot of what you have said.Let's do this case by case, more or less from the top.Italicised font is yours, or a summary by me with notes in parentheses. I've cut as much of the vertical whitespace as possible while retaining readability.Hate to break it to you David but men are the primary purveyors of comedy, romance, poetry, song, magic etc. Call it plumage of whatever the f**k you want but these things are overwhelmingly male. In fact I'd venture to say that rather than love, women dream of being loved…two drastically different things.Can you point out a single song a woman wrote that elevates and romanticizes the masculine???…how about a poem..??? It's not because of some sort of oppressive patriarchy either. Women don't do anything because they don't have to. Their inherent value makes their ego eclipse that of men's by many magnitudes. It also leads to a gynocentric narcissism that is intolerable at times.I'd say that you're being presumptuous and hypocritical here, because later you challenge David's ability to speak out as a member of his gender based on your evaluation of his sexuality yet here you assert that you know what women as a collective dream of (rather than love… of being loved).The aim of feminism is also not to be put on a podium and idolised (that was the whole point of making this blog post as far as I can make out), or to be elevated and romanticised; it's to be made equal, legally and socially. "Romanticising the feminine" usually amounts to objectification – "I don't mean to be rude but tonight I'm loving you ♫" essentially amounts to "I'm going to have sex with you".In relation to anything related to intellect (the arts included) the sexes are on an equal playing field. There may be more professionals of either gender within a field but that is not necessarily correlated with the gender's ability to perform in that field, it is merely indicative of make-up of that field at that given time, no more, no less.In fields such as basketball, where there is an element of physical strength and size involved, Men are more likely to perform better than women. That much is indisputable. In fields related to the mind, saying one gender is clearly superior to another is a fairly shortsighted judgement.edit: typo
>…I can't seem to post my reply to Discount, it's all getting eaten by the removed by author post. I'll just post them all in parts and assume they're going to a moderation queue?
>As a short aside ,I'd suggest that as far as artistic trends go (and therefore very generally speaking), popular music by female artists is either about loving someone, being loved by someone, or being hurt emotionally or physically, whereas most popular music by male artists is either about a woman being sexually attractive, loving someone, or overcoming some sort of obstacle in their life.Looking at the "bad" elements there, women seem to feel strongly about being hurt emotionally and physically and men seem to feel strongly about some woman being attractive, however looking at it as a whole, the scene is entirely contingent on whatever artist is popular at any given time.For example, Eminem makes music about his own life and the themes vary wildly. The Lonely Island (along with Akon) make music about having just had sex. Rhianna has made music about being unhappy with her relationship. Hellogoodbye make music about being sort of happy sometimes then unhappy but in a cute way about theoretical relationships.The only safe thing to draw from scenes as large as "Popular Music" is that people have different experiences and that those experiences are usually reflected in some way in their music. Anything more specific is contingent on the artists in the scene (feel free to prove me wrong with some data, this is conjecture)
>Patriarchy simply means that men are part of the family and have the God given natural right to fatherhood which they do not…so give up your blatant lies. Feminism is about the creation of matriarchy.http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQndY7MWVKI/AAAAAAAAAfY/SpRFZAl1C88/s1600/ScreenShot028.jpgWomen have their own families. Men have no obligation to women, women's children or women's families. Men have no civic or social duties to look out for anyone but ourselves. Women are now a separate socio-political and socio-economic class that men are in competition with. Common felicity between genders was killed off by women some 45 years ago you misandrist bigots. Men are waking the fu*k up….Using the definition found here, you're wrong. Patriarchy means that males are in power, and you aren't at liberty to redefine that as you please in a discussion dependent on such definitions holding true.You're also approaching this discussion from a minority viewpoint, not to mention an illegal one, as in most developed countries as far as I'm aware both parents have a parental obligation to their children regardless of whether they maintain custody or not unless they lack the means to do so; if you sire a child and pack up and leave you're legally obliged to send money to go towards raising that child.As much as you might disagree with the cultural norm, you can't just ignore it or declare it as invalid, and if speaking out against such a norm it generally helps to bring forth suggestions for change rather than angrily stating your opinion.Or call men pigs, dogs, horses asses, jack ass donkeys and throw men into garbage cans. Women have to understand that this means war. This is not my subjective interpretation either.Men are waking up to what women have done and are fighting back. We will win and if you insist on taking the entire society and common felicity between men and women down with it so be it. Some men and some women have done horrible things to other people. The majority of people have done some bad things to some other people. Women as a collective do not target men. Men as a collective do not target women. Individuals therein, however, do.There is no war here. That's not the point.Be angry at the individual, not at the collective. That is the point.
>Yes…there is not question. Now…shave your heads, sign up for the draft and get your ass to the front line to secure your own territory and resources like men have had to do for you since the beginning of time. The reason you don't see this is that women are legally barred from being in frontline combat roles.However, women do take part in conflicts regardless, see here and here for two examples of women serving in the air force.Australia is undergoing various investigations at the moment into sexual misconduct in the military (both male-male (usually officer-soldier) misconduct and male-female misconduct, as well as female-male misconduct if such a case arises) but is also looking to allow women into all military roles contingent on fitness (physical, intellectual and psychological – same as for men). Good news for equality.Men have the God given natural right to be a part of their childrens lives. The goal of feminism was to create marriage 2.0 laws to absolve women of any liability, responsibility, commitment or reciprocal obligation to men and the sanctity of marriage. Feminists also seek to remove men's rights to our own bodies and the fruits of our labor and transfer such things to women by force. Wait, before you seemed to be stating that a man could pack up and leave whenever he liked and that the children were essentially the woman's property; which system are you an advocate of?Feminists also do not seek to remove men's rights to their bodies. Feminists seek equality for women, nothing more, nothing less. They don't really want much to change for men at all, I don't think we're actually a large part of the equation; there are aspects of general male behaviour that should change but for the most part it's a movement for large scale social and political change with the result that women and men are equal in the eyes of the law and that that is reflected in how they're treated by and large in society.Again, men owe women, women's children and women's families nothing. Oh no, wait, now you're back to "fuck women". This inconsistency bugs me a little.
>Deny the purpose of the gynocentric ideology of "women's liberation" all you want. Men don't have to win by restoring our collective relationship and common felicity with women. We will win by everyone losing both men, women, children, family, marriage and society.You will increasingly see it manifest. In all elements of societal dysfunction and even violence. About 90% of ALL prison inmates come from fatherless families. Boys without fathers do poorly in education, have higher rates of depression and higher rates of violent crime. Women are getting the men they seek to create by removing men from the family and pushing men to margins of society, the family and the lives of our children. You're again treating feminism as a "competition" to be "won"; that's not the case.Feminism isn't a eugenics excercise like you seem to believe, and women certainly aren't removing men from the family. The only data provided here are relevant to male child welfare issues and not feminism, the two fields are connected but distict: they're both about fair treatment.Women work less hoursAnd get paid less per hour.seek jobs out of a different modus of personal fulfillment (one which has little or nothing to do with appealing to the opposite sex)Why should anyone choose a career based on appealing to the opposite sex?