Recently, in the comments to my Secret Life as a Group of Women post, our old friend evilwhitemaleempire offered this intriguing theory as to why I started this blog:
Your just a runt.
You put up that picture of Charles Altas so folks will think your not.
Your entire adult life has been about coping with the aggressive sexual displays of bigger, taller, more attractive men by throwing anti-male grenades at them. That’s why your a feminist. … you support the false rape/harassment industry because it acts to jail all those better men you can’t compete with.
You and your mangina ilk are what you have always been since high school. Nerds who think they can win the cheerleader if they can get the football captain jailed as a rapist.
I can’t fault his logic here, though evil here is making several incorrect assumptions that call into question his conclusion. One, I don’t actually support sending innocent men to jail on false rape charges, even if they were the captain of the football team in high school. Two, even in high school, I was never interested in the cheerleader type; as a nerdy alternative-music-loving slacker guy, I was much more interested in the girls who listened to The Jam rather than Journey. Also, the high school I went to was basically a high school for nerds; even the cheerleaders were a little nerdy. We didn’t have a football team; our basketball team was legendary for the length of its losing streak, while our chess team, meanwhile, racked up victory after victory.
But enough about my high school. The key point here is that manosphere dudes have somehow managed to convince themselves, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that sexual attraction is a very simple and straightforward thing: men want cheerleaders and Hooters waitresses; women want jocks and thugs. These are iron-clad rules, and apply to everyone, including the nerdiest of nerds and the feministest of feminists. (By everyone, of course, I mean cis heteros; manosphere dudes have no real theories about lgbt sexuality, and tend to forget it exists.)
So evil assumes that I (and presumably the rest of the feminist guys out there) have adopted feminism as a way to get into the pants of the cheerleaders who wouldn’t date us in high school. On the flip side, manosphere dudes often assume, bizarrely, that feminist women are all secretly obsessed with boning thuggish jocks.
In reality, of course, people tend to be interested in and attracted to people basically like them: gym rats go for gym rats, nerds for nerds, goths for goths, lawyers for lawyers, and so on, and so on, and scooby dooby doo.
To illustrate this point, I’d like to present some relevant anthropological data, in the form of video footage of the “aggressive sexual display” of one “alpha male” of a certain subspecies of homo sapiens. You will notes that this mating dance has attracted the attention of a female of the same type — and not a feminist. Unfortunately, as far as well can tell from the video itself, the dance did not result in successful copulation. In the end, our subject finds himself competing against the aggressive display of another male of the same type.
This alphabetaomega bullshit is cracking me up. By MRAL’s definition, I am a cut-and-dried beta female. Number of boyfriends I’ve had in my whole life? Two. Number of men I’ve had sex with? One. My two best friends on the other hand are definitely “BMI 25+”, and they’ve had more sex with more men than I’ve ever bothered to count. What could possibly be the explanation? Well, if we actually employ logic and look at the fact that I’ve been pretty shy around boys I had crushes on where the aforementioned friends of mine were quite assertive, it becomes clear that an outgoing, confident personality really is key.
kirbywarp: I am not an omega! I am a free man!
for those who get the reference in the last line
Ha, glad I’m not the only one! I also felt that this comment should be fixed:
there’s no point in sharing the fact of their awesome psychicness with a
losermundane like you.(Hoping that the HTML is working!)
On Topic:
I am firm in my belief that guys who cannot bear to be around the OMGFATTIES! will treat the thin women like shit. Pretty much women are objects, much like iPhone or other awesome gadget, just there as an accessory. No agency on the woman’s part whatsoever. I find that much grosser than rolls of fat.
In all seriousness, an actual insurmountable problem with MRAL’s ridiculous model is that it renders everyone in a category interchangeable, absurdly eliminating the simple possibility that certain people are attracted more to certain other people.
Try this quick exercise. Think of half a dozen or so dating or married couples you know (with the same sexuality as you), and ask yourself the following questions:
1. Would you want to date the applicable member of the couple?
2. Does the other member of couple enjoy dating him/her?
The answer to #2 is presumably usually yes, and most of the time the answer to #1 is no. At least with most of my friends who are couples, I’m not interested in dating the guy, Jordan’s not interested in dating the girl, and neither of them are interested in dating us either. Because, you know, individual people are different.
@Jadehawk
Heeeeey. Don’t be trashing gamers! We rock!
@Kirbywarp: Thanks–I’m fairly new to these blogs and the disagreements among various misogynist factions are super confusing. Especially since they can’t keep their own arguments in line with some semblance of reality most of the time. I agree “gamers” is confusing, I started shifting to “PUAs.” The neurotic hamster–as far as I can tell from the comments on Roissy’s blog it’s a real thing, some kind of shorthand for women’s supposed cognitive dissonance when they really really want alpha jerks but can’t admit it to themselves.
@TFT: Do we live in a patriarchal society and does that mean that people’s full potential is cut short? A few things here: there are geographic and cultural complexities that you seem to be ignoring. I would say a girl having her genitals mutilated is not a sign that a particular society wants her full potential developed, or that her full humanity is recognized. You will, no doubt, object that this doesn’t occur in the developed West. Fine. But then I would ask you why it wasn’t until the 1970s that marital rape was recognized as a crime in all 50 states. Why stalking and sexual harassment laws have taken so long to be recognized? You will, no doubt, object that these are NOW recognized as issues and that feminists have come to dominate society and are grinding men into the dust. I would then ask you how we were supposed to recognize that this legislation needed to be in place at all? Do you really think it would have happened without feminist activism? Do you really want to live in a society where your wife feels she has to have sex with you because–you’re married to her, you’re the breadwinner, you poor men just have these uncontrollable urges that women need to satisfy whenever and whereever? Feminism has made society better for women AND men. Or do you want to go back to the way it was in the 1960s–think “Mad Men”? Because all the characters in that show are so fulfilled? Finally, I may be fairly happy with my life when I’m living in the US–there are things I would fix, big things, but I never felt that my education or employment prospects were limited because I am a woman. Many male mentors helped me professionally. I have never been sexually harassed at work (taxis are another matter…). But I’m not living in the US right now and it’s pretty clear that I *am* of lesser status here in Asia. I couldn’t even get my landlord to acknowledge the problems in my apartment until my (male) boss protested on my behalf. So, TFT, is that bad? That I have to get a man to intercede for me on a matter of physical safety because–women count so much in the world today? Is my full potential, my equal humanity, recognized? And don’t say, Oh, but that’s just because you’re not living in the enlightened West. In the West my landlords have to take care of this crap because they know feminists will call them on their shit. There is a feminist infrastructure that protects women. So, TFT, yes, I do live in a world in which my full potential is limited because of my sex. Yes.
BMI is also thrown off by women whose mammary glands are above average. Even if it’s only 2-5 lbs it can bump you a bracket. BMI assumes that any given woman has B-cups. It’s always been a pet peeve as a DDD (or F/G for more european sizing) that BMI and other body fat measurements never try to take that into consideration. I’m a brown-belt at my dojo with a fast metabolism, but the one thing I just can’t change without surgery is my cup size.
So do I still count as a “fatty” when the fat that pushes me over the edge is on my chest? (though I’m sure he won’t answer this either… I think that the real difference between MRA’s and feminists is that MRAs see the whole world in black and white and the rest of us see it in glorious technicolor)
BMI is complete and utter nonsense. According to BMI charts, a powerlifter who is five and a half feet and built from over two hundred pounds of solid muscle is “morbidly obese”. Honestly, who even takes that scale seriously anymore? The only real, valid metric to go by is hydrostatic testing.
Oh what the bloody hell?
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/05/03/till-death-did-them-part-osamas-wife-stood-by-her-man/
Man how warped must you be to celebrate the death of any human being irrespective of what they did and how warped must you be to use that death to mock women?
Psst… She would have been speaking in pashtun or urdu. Not all the muslims speak arabic. Infact most don’t. (Most muslims live in Indonesia and India and wouldn’t speak Arabic as a first language)
Sigh… BMI is a rough guide. It does generally work but it cannot cover 100% of the population due to differences. I am never going to be 70 Kg. But maintaining a sensible weight is a good long term health plan. No one is saying “super fit”. Everything in moderation and moderation means keeping at a sensible weight. BMI is a medical tool as much as anything and for the most part BMI only breaks down in atheletes and a handful of people including women with large breasts.
A powerlifter is not a normal human being and will suffer from the effects of his sport. We are discussing normal humans not “people who have pushed their bodies to the limit”. BMI applies to me. I am a 85Kg and 5 ft 11 making me 5 to 7 Kg overweight. It holds true.
We follow it because it is a handy guide. When doctors call out your weight we know the differences in body type and make allowances for it. It is a rough guide rather than a hard and fast rule.
And keeping a sensible weight is a good way to reduce heart issues earlier on in life.
Avicenna-I am petty enough to be happy he is dead. I feel bad for the woman though. She (and the others) had nothing to do with this evil and I feel especially bad for the children.
They also got it wrong, she stood in front of the man as a human shield.
Oh and um, I guess I should be insulting you with the stupid “fatty” cuz of your BMI. At least that is what MRAL would have us do. Oh wait *smacks forehead*, I am female, I am supposed to be bringing you bacon and acceding to your every wish. Which I totally would do as long as your every wish was for me to do exactly whatever I wanted regardless of your opinion. 😛
Guys, I don’t actually specifically ask someone’s BMI. That is a guide for YOU to determine if YOU’RE overweight. If you want to delude yourself by saying it “doesn’t work on me”, fine, whatever. Personally, I just look at someone and if they’re fat, they’re fat.
This “only works on males”? More rationalizing deluded politically correct bullshit. Pregnancy is the only exception because for that duration your body is abnormal. Rest of the time? If you have a BMI more than a few points about 25, you’re going to be noticeably overweight. Sorry to all the fat bitches on this thread who like to pretend they’re anything approaching healthy after sitting on their fat asses eating cheesecake for 10 years.
So MRAL-you actually do not have any real way of determining someone’s BMI, you just said something stupid. Again.
And anyone who spent ten years just eating cheesecake would have died of malnutrition within a short period of time so yeah…no.
@avicenna, the inadequacies of BMI, particularly in women and ethnic minorities, are well documented. BMI is not even a good predictor on an individual level for cis white males when it comes to things like heart disease (the Mayo clinic’s study found the exact opposite-that high BMI patients had better heart disease outcomes than low BMI patients), stroke, or diabetes. Stigma of doctors against patients percieved as fat also shows up consistently, even in areas where correlations would in no way be expected (mental health professionals, for example, rated fat patients as more mentally ill than thin patients presenting similar symptoms). There are also a number of studies indicating that the way that doctors deal with fat patients does not increase behaviors such as exercise or eating healthy foods, but does decrease patients seeking preventative treatments (including things like pap smears). Dealing with individual patients and their health needs is a far better way to address people’s health than fat stigma.
@Avicenna
They called a terrorist who hid in a million-dollar safehouse nursing a pair of bad kidneys a “veteran warrior?”
He ain’t a veteran of anything. Not even the murder of 3000 American citizens. He hasn’t ever done anything notable by himself. He always had help, all the way up to the very end.
Moreover, I find it repulsive how they insinuate that the one and only purpose for a woman is to show her love for a man by casting aside her ego and displaying total submission. Ugh.
Apparently, to an MRA, a woman is not a human being with unique desires, passions and creative impulses of her own, but a product intended to be consumed by men; one that must meet a strict set of specifications before they take her off the assembly line, stuff her in a cardboard box and ship her off to meet her “owner”.
And these people wonder why we all hate their guts? Little wonder. Little wonder indeed.
Everytime I see the, MRA “analysis” of society I am croggled. MRA Lieutenant (is that a 1LT, or a butterbar?… in any case taking a rank which is, at best, “beta” is perhaps telling. Then again, claiming to be a “General” or some such would be differently risible) move from, “I don’t make the “rules, I just explain them”, and then says it’s a system, no wait, it’s immutable…
Right.
Also.. who defines “facially attractive” and what’s the difference between “skinny” and “thin” and “fat” (we aren’t even getting into the question of ratios/proportion). I can tell he’s never boxed, because my problem, when I was boxing was that I was too tall for my weight class. I needed to have an extra 10-20 lbs of protective mass, because when the other guy got inside, my guts weren’t as covered as they needed to be.
Hasn’t hurt my sex life. It’s been varied; some women he’d step on his tongue, and slip in his own drool to have look at him (because, from his posturing I can tell you that, in the “greek system” he’s, at best, a Beta. An “Apha” wouldn’t care; because an Alpha is successful, and has all the Hot CHicks ™ he can put up with, ergo MRA types are Betas and Omegas; because they self-define), to women he’d call, “fat (not that women aren’t in the same classes as men. There are Alpha/Beta and “too ugly to fuck” which is all that matters in dealing with them. A “self-respecting” Omega would rather live a life of homosocial exclusion than, “stoop” to having any sort of relationship with anything less than a Beta woman.
So me.. I’m sure I must be an, “omega”. My successes (relational/Career) matter not, becuase I am “too thin’ and lack the right mindset, that is I see people as complex creatures; not all of a piece. I look to fulfilling their needs, when I am involved with them.
I might… might, be a Beta to him, were he to know more about me; but that’s all I can be; because I don’t rise to the standard of attractiveness (and selfish behavior) MRAL deems to be the thing which makes one “Alpha”.
But, since the measure of “true Alpha” isn’t attainable by any but the “true Alpha” and a “no true scotsman’ fallacy predominates (all this crap is based on how much sex one is getting/how much one enjoys that sex; but self reports of finding one’s partner(s) hot and the relationship fulfilling, sexually and personally are void, if MRA types disagree) we can see it’s not about “facts” but social control.
What I don’t understand is why so many men (such as MRAL) are actively proselytising for second-class status to assholes and jerks, instead of saying, “This is bullshit” and actually looking to see how all the, “omegas” in the world manage to be happy when the “MRA” types aren’t.
Maybe they need more flouride in the water.
Okay, so MRAL has admitted that his division of women into pretty girls and “fatties” is entirely subjective. He just throws around words like BMI because they sound all sciencey, and he feels that this shows how high his IQ is.
So MRAL, would you through Lizzy out of bed for being a fat fat fatty?
http://www.celebitchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/lizzie1.jpg
How about Crystal?
http://www.plus-size-tall.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/crystal_renn.png
I’m guessing you won’t answer, because you don’t want to admit that your standards are either totally inconsistent, totally unrealistic, or both. I’m guessing you would apply the label “fat” to Nathalie Portman if she displeased you in some way. I mean, I’m sure she has some bump or bulge somewhere, considering that she is a human being, who is made of flesh.
kirbywarp: There is no definition; other than one backformed.
Alpha’s have socially defined attractiveness: they look, to some degree, like the “Cary Grant” of the day. They get, “hot chicks”.
Beta’s are “good looking”, but them “chicks” they get aren’t quite so “hot”.
Both of them happen to be able to get “hot chicks” (for ill-defined values of “hot”) without too much (apparent) difficulty. They seem, to outward appearance to be happy/successful.
Omegas are not so stereotypically attractive, and struggle to get laid, because none of the “alpha/beta” women are interested in them.
Only, per the MRA/PUA club, Alpha/Beta women are worth having sex with, so “Omega” are let out in the cold.
How, since they believe this to be an “immutable fact of nature” the MRA types think this will change by them bitching that they can’t get any because Alpha/Beta women won’t sleep with non-Alpha/Beta men (except when they do, which is a tragedy, and a thing of perverse beauty. The tragedy isn’t that a “hot chick” slept with an “Omega” it’s that the other “Omegas” aren’t getting any of that action.
The real problem the MRA/PUA types have with feminism is that they figure it ought to mean women sleep with everyone. That women get to sleep with everyone they want to (assuming the other person wants to as well… see ozymandias [about whom I can’t say if I would sleep with, but she seems interesting enough to not rule out :)) which means they still aren’t getting any, and now it’s either they aren’t worth sleeping with, or there is some other thing which keeps them from getting what they want.
In the old days, when there was a lot of social pressure (and the more prevalent risk of pregnancy)it was a lot easier to just accept it. Now, well women are having sex with people, and it’s not them.
Which they think is unjust, maybe even immoral.
Traindodger – Most veterans aren’t people who have done a whole lot anyways. A veteran is just someone with experience. And you have to admit he is a veteran of being a terrorist voicebox at the very least.
Elizabeth – I would like bacon and cheesecake. If there was a glorious way to combine them I would be on it… Like a fat kid on cake… Actually like a fat adult on cake.
Sigh… BMI is used medically along with “other things” to determine if you are fat. Yes it sounds arbitrary but we also measure waist size, height and body fat percentage. These vary in culture and in gender. I cannot drop below 80Kg without starvation. If your BMI is high but you have low body fat then you are an athelete. Medically you should “tone it down” since there are health issues that come with it too.
However some people are fat and should lose weight. The link between obesity and poor health is incredibly well known and denial of that is daft. If you are fine by the way you look then more power to you, but we suggest weight loss due to health reasons. Sometimes that steak is to die for.
What?! You like The Jam?! I LOVE them! You were pretty awesome before… now you’re just super cool.