So I recently ran across a site called “Is It Normal?” The idea behind it is simple, and kind of wonderful: people confess some possibly odd thing about themselves, and others tell them if it’s normal. Now, normally (as it were) I’m against the too-rigid enforcement of what is considered “normal” behavior, especially when it comes to sexuality and sex roles. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here. Ohhhh, no. We’re talking about grown men and women eating their own boogers; having sexual fantasies about zombies; feeling an urge to jump off of high places; or wanting to be turned into a doll or manikin. (Hey, whatever floats your boat.)
Naturally, I did a search for “misogyny” just to see what turned up. Is that a normal thing to do? I don’t know, and I don’t care, but I did it and the search pulled up a couple of pretty interesting little discussions.
The one that really grabbed my attention was from a guy who said he hated female sexuality. Which may not be “normal,” though as readers of this blog know it’s not uncommon. But this guy is no Christopher from Oregon, whose hatred of female sexuality is part of a package deal that includes hatred for pretty much everything female.
No, this guy hates female sexuality in part because, well, he thinks the male body is ugly and so assumes – or at least feels on a gut level — that any woman having sex with a man is being coerced, bamboozled, or raped. Yep, we’re talking about a rich and toxic stew of misogyny and misandry here. Let’s let him explain:
I Hate Female Sexuality
What little mysogyny I have in me is directed at female sexuality. I can’t stand it that females are attracted to males, ever. I hate them a little for it, just feel it in my gut. I thought for a long time when I was younger that females were basically asexual, not interested in sex, and that romance for them was something far removed from physical love. It didn’t occur to me that anyone might find the male form attractive, and I always suspected males were using some form of deception or raping women in some way when they were with them. I don’t understand this hate and distrust for my own sex. It really bothers me.
I hate that I feel there’s something wrong with a female having an active sexuality when I know intellectually there’s not. I’m a passionate feminist and attracted to females myself. I don’t really understand this feeling.
I think maybe a small part of it is jealousy when I see a couple, and the rest mostly my wierd, incongruous hatred for the male sex.
I don’t think females are doing something wrong but that something wrong is being done to them when they engage in sexual activity, even consentual, with a male, and they’re allowing it to happen, are complicit in it. This is just a feeling I have and can’t shake. It’s not overwhelming, like I’m freaking out whenever I see a couple but it’s there a lot, subtle but persistent. I’m atheist and I’m not someone who belives sexual promiscuity is wrong or even undesirable in male or females. This is just a wierd, lingering emotional problem, like fear of the dark or something like that.
Is it normal?
So, yeah. For what it’s worth, only 14% of those reading this confession rated it normal. But, as I said, I don’t think it’s uncommon. We grow up, after all, in a society that treats sexuality as a commodity that women possess, and that men try to “get” from women – by charming them into “giving it up,” by buying it directly or indirectly (by going to a prostitute or paying for dinner), or simply taking by force.
This way of thinking about sex is pretty deeply embedded in our culture; as regular readers of this blog know all too well, many MRAs, MGTOWers, and PUAs (especially) seem unable to conceive of sexuality in any other way. Neither does the questioner on Is It Normal (who goes by the name SamuraiPeeper), even though he’s a self-described feminist.
Like a lot of misogynistic ideas, this “women own sex, men must fight to get it” idea contains a heaping helping of misandry as well – suggesting that women basically don’t enjoy or desire sex with men because male bodies and male sexuality are inherently disgusting. It’s only a few small steps from this to SamuraiPeeper’s whole muddled mixture of desire and disgust, hatred and self-hatred.
The biggest difference between SamuraiPeeper and the MGTOWers and other misogynists I write about here is that he’s aware that his views are fucked up, and is trying actively to work through his issues. And he’s actually gotten some good responses to his query on Is It Normal?
PoisonFlowers suggests that some of his hatred and disgust probably stems from a fear of female sexuality:
Is it misogyny? I don’t think it’s as clear cut as that. Perhaps because the image you had of women (almost an idealised impression it seems) when you were younger has been destroyed (instead of having romance that is above sex, it turns out that women can be just as animalistic as men), you feel a sort of resentment and that mixes with the jealousy and then as you say “a weird, incongruous hatred for the male sex.” This then becomes a strong dislike for female sexuality.
Why do you have these feelings about men? Is it the people you’ve been surrounded with throughout your life and their behaviour/attitudes? Have you witnessed a man being abusive towards a woman at any point in your life? …
You say that you feel as though “something wrong is being done to them,” which could point to an urge in you to protect women, or perhaps it is more accurate to say to protect the _idea_ you have of women that stems from the concept you had when you were younger.
randomsensuality offers some similar observations:
It definitely sounds like you want to protect the idea of females as pure, with an almost divine stature. It also sounds like you have been taught or embraced the idea that penetrative sex is inherently degrading or immoral: therefore a woman who enjoys it is equally so.
Another bit on the matter is that many men do not find it attractive when women lead the hunt, as it were. They want to be the ones in control, in the pursuit of the sex and relationships. If a woman is as much “on the prowl” as he is, then he can’t say that it was a full conquest. He wants to know he’s been where others have failed to enter, that it took his prowess to crack the nut, setting him apart and making his mate a trophy and attribute to his stature.
Lets also not forget the angle of loathing the male form, which you say you can’t understand a woman being attracted to. If you are heterosexual male, this makes sense. Of course it’s easier to wrap your brain around lesbian sex, you like women, you understand innately attraction to women. Attraction to men, is scary for more than that reason though. If a woman is attracted to a man, then she could be attracted to any man the way a man can be attracted to any woman: this vision of the situation can induce pre-emptive jealousy and defensiveness.
Meanwhile, a 19-year-old girl calling herself so_damn_unpretty offers a blunter response – and one that might do the questioner as much good as the longer, more thoughtful responses:
I love men… and cock.. and sex… so i really cant relate.
In the end, that’s probably the most important takeaway here, as they like to say in the business world. Women – most women, anyway – genuinely like and enjoy sex as much as men. Sometimes more. When a guy “scores” with a woman — she is also “scoring” with him. Rigid gender roles that define man as the sexual pursuer and women as the sexual prize may make it hard to see this, but it’s true. Not only that, but women – heterosexual women, anyway – actually like and enjoy the male body.
Guys, know this: while you are watching sports, or playing video games, or playing with yourself, or knitting (or whatever your favorite hobby is), there are thousands of women writing, sharing, and reading slash fic about dudes (from various TV shows and movies and books) getting it on with each other. There are no women in these stories, at least not in the dirty parts. Just dudes, and their dude bodies, having dude sex with each other. Freud once asked: what do women want? And to that we have a partial answer: stories about Sam and Dean from Supernatural penetrating one another’s deepest mysteries.
…I’m still just being underwhelmed by MRAL’s eye. After all that hype! Barely any difference.
Oh my GOD, you guys with your wonky eyes make me want to projectile vomit everywhere!!
Or not.
I had an older student who had one eye that literally had … basically escaped into the corner. I don’t know how to explain it. You could only see part of the iris. It was freaky as crap and difficult to try to make eye contact with her because at the same time you didn’t want to seem like you were staring at her deformity, but didn’t want to avoid looking at her. And you had to do one of those, obviously.
But you know what? She was a really nice lady. Really friendly. Loved classical music and played an instrument herself.
OH, AND SHE WAS MARRIED.
Yes, you too can have a severe deformity, have a great personality, AND get laid! If this woman could, with her scary “running away from her ear” eyeball, I think MRAL with his “slightly smaller than the other one” eye can. If he can get over the fact that he wants to murder people for not paying homage to him, I mean.
MRAL. I am very worried about you. You seem like a very sad, bitter man. And unduly upset about your so-called deformity, which it really took me a while to notice.
I honestly think that you should see a therapist. It may really help you sort through your anger issues, and your body image issues. There’s no shame in it. I see a therapist. A lot of people do. If you go into one with an open mind, they can really help you sort things out.
Good luck, man.
“You know, you saying they’ve been debunked doesn’t make it so.”
No more then you saying they’re still valid.
“So… You’re saying that letting more accused rapists walk will result in more victims coming forward? Really? Isn’t the deal that victims don’t come forward because they’re afraid of not being believed, being thought of as “false accusers,” or bringing a huge amount of shame upon themselves for being raped in the first place? I really don’t see the logic in your assertion.”
Of course you don’t see the logic. It isn’t feminist in origin.
Are you suggesting that accused rapist shouldn’t get to walk, even when found not guilty? You really think that helps ether? As for victims not being believed, well, they don’t think they’ll be believed because people like you keep telling them they won’t, and showing the prosecution statistics to “prove it”, ignoring the fact that innocent men and false victims are included in those statistics. By prosecuting “PROVEN” false accusers (they too benefit from due process), those statistics would begin to show a more accurate picture of true rape cases prosecuted, rather then including innocent men of being rapists walking free.
If a woman is a true victim, she will have nothing to fear from being prosecuted as a false accusers, as, at the very least, there should be evidence that something occurred, certainly enough to apply reasonable doubt, should it even get that far (which it shouldn’t). As to the “shame” bit, I don’t see how prosecuting false accusers would in any way produce more shame upon those that are victims, not that I see anything shameful about being a victim.
So your objections come down to ignoring the fact our justice system provides due process (understandable given the willingness to dismiss it in rape trials against men), and thus, assuming that true victims will be prosecuted. And then furthermore ignoring the impact that a deterrence would have on false accusers and the impact that would then have on prosecution rates.
I do note you didn’t make a single point about women being oppressed. Was the wage gap and rape culture all you’ve got?
Kratch — I’m just catching up with comments here, will make it short.
1) That blog you linked to? Hateful, yes — in much the same way that the sites I look at here are hateful. The difference? That site is on the fringes of feminism. Yes, there are hateful feminists. But they are outnumbered overwhemingly by non-hateful feminists, who regularly critique the hateful ones. Yes, Andrea Dworkin existed. Yes she had books published. Yes she had influence. But most feminists today have clearly rejected her views. She used to be in the mainstream of feminism. Now her ideas are on the fringe.
By contrast, the sites I write about aren’t the fringe of the MRM online. They ARE the MRM online, or at least its mainstream.
2) As for the more “moderate” sites you mentioned: If the False Rape Society is your idea of a sensible, moderate advocacy group, you (with apologies to MRAL) need to have your eyes examined. Look back on some of what I’ve written about it. SAVE is an ideologically driven group that has aligned itself with MRAs who regularly make jokes about rape and DV; not really a good idea for a group that’s ostensibly anti-violence. Glenn Sacks is a little less rough-and-tumble than the typical MRA online, but he’s done some noxious shit, like trying to interfere with the fundraising of a DV shelter whose ads he didn’t like.
I gotta agree with Sarah actually. I’ve been seeing a therapist recently as well. It helps to be able to talk over problems with someone who’s job it is is to be impartial and non-judgemental. Who knows? You may be able to work things out better when you are talking to someone who you are sure is listening.
@Laura, I know. I was expecting something more than that (like the human equivalent of this pig’s eye http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/342416/530wm/T1720083-Piglet_born_deformed_due_to_Chernobyl_fallout.-SPL.jpg though, on second thought, that piglet is rather adorable…). I would not have even noticed MRAL’s eye “freak deformity” if it hadn’t been pointed out.
PS, I love how MRAL’s definition of himself as an omega supposes omega=roughly average guy. Average height, average size, decent grades=omg can’t you people see how much of a loser I am! The “indoctrination” MRAL needs is some therapy to deal with his anger issues and a self esteem workshop.
” I mean, I don’t know. I really wish that one of these groups were addressing some of the issues that MRM purports to address — without slipping into default woman-hate mode. But they just don’t.”
Ever consider that you may have become so invested in women that you take any criticism as hate? You are aware that acknowledging women can and do lie about being raped isn’t misogyny? You do realize that noting that men don’t have a gender minister and women do, and that they therefore have a budget and additional programs not available to men, and that all results in governmental discrimination… this isn’t hatred towards women? And insisting that fathers be given the chance to be fathers, especially in the face of emotionally abusive mothers… not hate. (all fair question, some people actually do believe this is misogyny).
Just look at kirby’s reply to me above, where he claims women need attention, men… not so much. that is an example of someone too invested in women and opposed to men to think clearly and equitably. Certainly anything said that’s critical of women will be seen as hateful to someone like that.
Also be aware that hating feminism is not the same as hating women. Feminism is an ideology, not a gender, and is made up of both women and men, and more importantly, does not encompass all women.
@MRAL, hi we haven’t spoken but I saw your ‘wonky eye’ pic – just adding to the peeps who’ve said this upthread, but seriously, I know at least five people who’ve got a way greater mismatch between their eyes than that, and all are happily in relationships. (One of them, a guy, is magnetically charismatic in real life also, but ymmw.)
You said that it’s easy to be reassuring on the internet but people are blunter or more honest in real life (sorry I’m paraphrasing here, it’s early and I don’t want to start messing with HTML tags) – erm, I do take it you’re quite young still? Because when you’re at school/ uni/ college/ teenage/ early twenties, some people are *utter dicks* about your appearance, actual state of said appearance often being largely irrelevant. This sucks mightily, but the suck is on them and not you. I know this because I was a Registered Ugly Kid(TM), and nobody hesitated to point it out several times a day (winner of the school’s unofficial ‘ugliest girl in the entire school’ title two years running here! :p ) It’s taken me years to realise that
a) I don’t actually look so bad (and have killer biceps, so there)
b) these people were utter dicks. Maybe not in every sphere of life, and they may have grown out of it since; but they were.
c) I wasted years thinking very little of myself, and that prevented me from enjoying life as much as I coulda done.
Points a) and b) might be necessary to get to point c), but that’s the important one, because you seem very angry – if that’s only on the internet, fine, but if you are very angry, a lot, because of other people being utter dicks, you aren’t going to enjoy your life as much as you could.
Sigh. tl;dr – so don’t make my mistakes, kids! 🙂 Also being happy when it seems the whole world wants to criticise you is not often so easy as I am making out here. (And if I have mis-assumed anything about the situation, apologies, I’ll go away and get more coffee now).
@Kratch
“Of course you don’t see the logic. It isn’t feminist in origin. ”
No.. no it is not…
“Are you suggesting that accused rapist shouldn’t get to walk, even when found not guilty?”
No… no I am not. And this leaping to conclusions is exactly what you criticized feminists of doing, of thinking of issues in binary terms. What helps women come forward, I think, is the knowledge that their case will be heard, and that their agressor will be punished.
Being raped is not something you can admit openly, nothing like being robbed. If you had to deal with the trauma of rape, and then add on top the potential to be seen as a liar if the case doesn’t go your way (in a crime that doesn’t always leave a nice evidence trail), would you be more or less willing to risk it?
Actually, kirby doesn’t make any references to gender, just victims and rapists.
And… as far as I can tell, he only questions your logic. He doesn’t make any claims about who deserves more attention.
Unless your referring to the post where he encourages MRAL to get therapy? That makes even less sense.
” Yes, Andrea Dworkin existed. Yes she had books published. Yes she had influence. But most feminists today have clearly rejected her views. She used to be in the mainstream of feminism. Now her ideas are on the fringe.”
Are you certain of that? or has, perhaps, some of that hate become so commonplace that it isn’t even noticed? Notice your own posters didn’t really object to that blogs accusations of all men being rapists (some did, but not all), it was largely the violence and “men must die” that was objected to.
You seemed unfazed when an ad depicted an infant boy as a rapist in need of having his masculinity trained out of him so he wouldn’t rape was aired, and puzzled when MRA’s objected to it. Men like Biden continually support policies and laws that would ensure accused rapist get punished (such as the recent drive to lower the standard of evidence in colleges), completely ignoring even the possibility of false accusations. People like Nifong, Kellett, etc clearly discriminating against men, but suffering no consequences for doing it, and why? Because we live in a society that has come to accept dworkin’s hateful perception of men and sex. perhaps not completely, but enough to be a problem.
With stuff like this, I can hardly say that dworkin’s idea’s are on the fringe, simply her lack of tact and the direct quotes.
“What helps women come forward, I think, is the knowledge that their case will be heard, and that their agressor will be punished.”
Then why the constant insistence that they won’t? Why is it the rape advocates who are most vocal about victims not being believed, when even french leading presidential candidates are arrested in less then a day after accusations are made? I’d say that rape is taken very seriously by everyone EXCEPT rape victim advocates, who seem more interested in filling their coffers.
Ask any true rape victim and you will likely find someone who agree’s that false accusers should be prosecuted. They feel it would be easier to come forward knowing they were more likely to be believed due to the consequences of a false allegation. That alone should be enough to support that action, but the truth is, rape victim advocacy has never been about the rape victims.
“Actually, kirby doesn’t make any references to gender, just victims and rapists.
And… as far as I can tell, he only questions your logic. He doesn’t make any claims about who deserves more attention.
Unless your referring to the post where he encourages MRAL to get therapy? That makes even less sense.”
I’m referring to this quote… in particular, the last line.
“Perhaps you are actually for father’s rights and so forth. If so, good for you I guess, but you must understand that talking to a group standing up for the opressed and saying “Actually, the opressors have a pretty bum rap too” won’t get you brownie points. Usually because it means you want attention diverted away from where its needed most and towards where it is needed… not so much.”
Plz dun speak for us. (either survivors OR advocates)
You can make your point without that 🙂
Hey, weren’t we all supposed to be talking about how HAWT Sam and Dean are? I go get dinner and everyone goes off topic! 😉
I know! D: And we haven’t even rly gotten to Cass! Dx (poor Cass 🙁 )
Kratch:
My sense of moral superiority would be a lot more shaken if folks here hadn’t already been saying S.A.V.E. was worthwhile; if I didn’t think the False Rape Society wasn’t a bunch of rape enabling apologists. I have to admit I don’t know anything about fathers and families.
What I do know is that I can compare the people, at large, advocating for equal rights for women (i.e. feminists) to those advocating for the MRM.
And, for all that you (and all the other MRA apologists who come in here) keep saying that the Spearhead isn’t representative (though you say it’s a good gateway), but not one of you has pointed to the blogs of the people you say make up the baseline from which every one of that long list the right side of my screen right now is an outlier; populated by other outliers.
Which is why I say that you are talking a lot of shit, trying to blow smoke up my ass with a pretense of being reasonable, while not actually having anything more than, “There are some nasty feminists (and pointing to one who was far from mainstream, even when she was making headlines) out there too.”
As a very manly man, I must protest at the oogling over attractive gentlemen. Even if these fine models of manhood weren’t so devilishly charming, and even if imagining their shining bodies entwined about each other in an embrace of pure desire….
crap, lost track of where I was going with this…
Kratch, I guarantee you that there is not one commenter on this blog who thinks that all men are rapists. I think you misread what they wrote.
Also, you seem to have forgotten that I actually criticized the “baby rapist” ad, and that what bugged me about the MRA reaction to it was the violent rhetoric towards the guy behind the ad, which apparently included death threats (and some comments that weren’t far from death threats on the spearhead).
And, uh, how exactly do you figure that Nifong suffered “no consequences” for the Duke debacle? He was disbarred, he declared bankruptcy. His career is over.
Kratch: “You are aware that acknowledging women can and do lie about being raped isn’t misogyny? You do realize that noting that men don’t have a gender minister and women do, and that they therefore have a budget and additional programs not available to men, and that all results in governmental discrimination… this isn’t hatred towards women? And insisting that fathers be given the chance to be fathers, especially in the face of emotionally abusive mothers… not hate. (all fair question, some people actually do believe this is misogyny).”
Ok. These are not inherently misogynist. But history and context matter. There is a long history of disbelieving rape victims (men, women and children). Judges have been required, in various parts of the world (UK and the US from what I’ve read), to tell juries that rape claims are easy to make and should be viewed suspiciously (particularly in cases where women or children were victims). It is only in the 1990s that it became widely acknowledged that husbands can rape their wives and that the ‘I do’ at the altar does not actually mean ‘I consent to sex at any and all times no matter how harmful it might be for my health for the rest of my life’.
You’ll notice that feminists lately have been fighting for *parental* leave, not just maternity leave because we believe fathers should have a right to look after their kids. Hell, feminism and its concerted efforts to change society so that both men and women can work and both of them can do domestic work are the reason why fathers get to have such an active role in their children’s lives now anyway. Feminists, by and large, believe that the family structure – where women are lumped with the bulk of the child-raising and domestic tasks – is messed up and want to change that. Women getting custody by default is more to do with retrograde ideas that women are nurturers and made to care for children than it is to do with feminism.
As for the minister for women? History again – women and their needs have been marginalised for a very long time. They also, you might realise, have needs that are different from men (they, after all, give birth). The problem is that men are understood as the default human being (ever seen an anatomy text book? ‘Human’ anatomy diagrams are of the male body and is juxtaposed with ‘female’ anatomy which is usually just diagrams of women’s reproductive bits) and democracy and the workplace has been designed with men in mind (and women working for free doing domestic labour to support him). That’s why women need their own minister to try and rectify this imbalance.
Of course, if you think men and women are equal and that a very long history of inequality doesn’t matter then there’s no way you’ll agree with me. I’m ok with that.
Oh, and I like that this conversation has a little romantic liaison going on in the middle. 🙂
Hmmmmmm…. well that didn’t really get the reception I expected. But it’s easy to be reassuring on the Internet. In real life people are more blunt, or honest, or whatever you want to call it. My experience in the real world has given me a different picture of how people view me. Although I will admit I am a bit surprised. And Ami, I literally cannot tell which eye is supposed to be smaller.
Maybe now will you believe us that it’s your personality that’s not getting you any dates, rather than an eye problem? Because, seriously, people are hella blunt on the Internet, or haven’t people told you about Internet courage? If anything, we’re MORE likely to tell you how awful you look.
I once had a very pleasant encounter with a fellow who had been born blind in one eye, which meant that one of his eyes was always looking down and to the side. He also had bad teeth and a slight lisp as a result. But he also had the most beautiful long hair I’ve ever seen on a man, and I was totally over the moon when he let me braid it. He also had a slightly cracked sense of humor, and was able to talk to me about our mutual interests as if I were an actual person. FWIW, I’ve been told that I’m slightly above average in attractiveness, so I’m somewhere along alpha-beta in your worldview (does hanging out with gamers and larpers bump me up or down the scale? I know they’re nerdy, but I am one of few women among many men. It’s not that I care about your scale, but I’m trying to talk in language you’ll understand).
So there I was, happily going to bed with a guy who had a slight birth defect and many other cosmetic imperfections way worse than yours, just because he had mastered the seductive art of talking to me like he didn’t hate me and my whole gender, or harbor violent fantasies about destroying women to ‘put them in their place’.
Castiel is the fucking man. I watched the season 6 finale, having that power would be awesome and I’d do the same thing he did. Doesn’t like that archangel? Blown up.
I was less clear than I might have been. It’s not that S.A.V.E is seen as being, ‘good’ so much as it’s been admitted that some of the things they want addressed are real problems.
Ami: Nice glasses. Nice eyes.
MRAL: I know (because I’ve seen how you think of it) that my telling you your eye isn’t that bad (though yes, I can see they aren’t quite the same shape) isn’t going to comfort you much.
My housemate has a boyfriend who has a wandering eye. He can’t always control it. He is also not in the most, “classic” of shape (not tall, he’s about 5’7″, carries a bit of extra weight, his hair is thinning). He’s not suffering for female company. He has more than one woman he’s seeing now (and they all know about the other women).
My grandmother was born with a congenital cataract. Her left eye was milky white until it was corrected with laser surgery when she was ’82 (back in ’84). She obviously didn’t fail for male attention.
Very few of us are perfect (I’m really slim… really slim, like BMI 17.5 slim, and ‘only’ 5’9″). We manage. We have sex lives, and love lives and live reasonably happy lives.
It’s attitude man.
Yours, to be blunt, sucks. You expect the world to take a dump on you and treat every little thing which might be the least of slights as if people were actually abusing you.
I’ve been abused. Beaten up, publicly mocked, accused of terrible things. I coped.
You can too.
“Like a lot of misogynistic ideas, this “women own sex, men must fight to get it” idea contains a heaping helping of misandry as well – suggesting that women basically don’t enjoy or desire sex with men because male bodies and male sexuality are inherently disgusting.”
Women adore sex AND are a bunch of greedy manipulative gold diggers.
Just because a woman wants you doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t want your money.
Just because a woman wants your money doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t want you.
This false dichotomy that women either enjoy sex OR they’re just gold diggers is typical of no pussy getting runtdom.