So AskMen.com just put up the first segment of its annual 3-part Great Male Survey. Filled with strange assumptions and sometimes creepy questions, it’s a survey that reveals at least as much about the survey makers as it does the survey takers, and what it reveals ain’t good: it seems to have been written by a jaded ex-romantic ( or a committee of such) only a few short steps away from full-blown MGTOW-hood.
The survey starts off with a fairly innocuous question about basic compatibility, but quickly veers off course with question #2:
How important is it to you that your wife/future wife signs a prenup?
Hold on a second, daddy-o! We haven’t even determined if the little missy has “wife potential” yet — as question #3 puts it.
After one more question about marriage, the quiz moves on to cheating and then (perhaps inevitably) to the issue of divorce:
Do men get screwed by the courts in divorce?
Then it’s onward to kvetching about what a naggy shrew your partner is (assuming you haven’t already finalized the divorce):
Followed by the classic “Would you dump a girlfriend if she became fat?” (Just in case you’re wondering, ladies, nearly half the American guys in last year’s survey said “yes.”)
Next we get to what we might call the “creepy controlling asshole” portion of the survey. After asking whether we’ve ever snooped through our partner’s email or Facebook messages, they pose this doozy:
That quiet clattering you hear is the sound of a thousand creepy dudes Googling to see if this is possible – and, if so, the best place to put the chip.
After several more questions about Facebook and the internet, a few badly conceptualized questions about romance, and a bunch about sex, the quiz moves on to some good old-fashioned slut shaming, asking men to quantify the number of sex partners a woman is allowed to have before they consider her “promiscuous.” Ladies: you’ll be glad to know that 41% of American dudes who took the survey last year consider any women with more than 9 lifetime partners to be dirty sluts – sorry, “promiscuous.”
Then of course it’s on to an attempt to quantify exactly when women start getting all old and ugly:
Yes, one of the possible answers is “18.” You may be slightly reassured by the fact that zero percent of last year’s survey takers gave that answer. Six percent said “20,” though, and 24% said “30.”
Then we have this curiously worded question on workplace sex:
So the idea that your partner might be a big higher up on the old org chart isn’t even a possibility? What is this, 1962? Did they borrow this question from Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl? Or find it scribbled on a napkin on Don Draper’s desk just before he impulsively proposed to his new secretary?
I think we need to design our own survey.
(Note: Cartoon above borrowed, of course, from Comically Vintage.)
I am sacred to even look at the list.
Good lord.
I am actually tempted to fill it in. I find ask men comical. It’s part sane information (dress well, talk to women, be confident in what you are!) part lunacy (chat up lines, game theory and “buy this and you will get laid” advertising).
I would love to see a Man Boobz survey!
game theory
to be fair, Game Theory was an excellent, if underappreciated, power pop band from San Francisco.
One question for a manboobz survey would HAVE to begin “You get into an elevator with a woman who you have seen in the halls. Do you..”
Man that survey is depressing if you are single and have no hope of any relationships for the near future…
At what age do women start losing their looks?
Second trimester, obviously. Only zygotes are really attractive.
Hey baby you have nice pharyngeal arches! The juxtaposition of of them indicates that one day you will be attractive and I wish to get in on that action… If you know what I am saying…
Man foetus pick up lines are lousy.
Second trimester, obviously. Only zygotes are really attractive.
John? John Derbyshire?
I think my answer to that last one would be “yes but only if he/she was at the SAME level position as I am”. Because I would not want to have to explain to HR that *either one of us* was in a position to potentially affect the other’s position.
Of course if one of us got promoted that might be a problem! Hmm.
ok, wow. I took the damn thing, and fully half of the questions were basically unanswerable unless you are a jerkwad.
I just don’t understand. Most of the fat chicks I’ve known have been totally friggin’ awesome people. Seriously, the guys that hate so much on them are missing out.
I’m peeved that the question, “Is it okay to pay for sex?” did not have an answer, “Yes; but only if you’re sure she isn’t being exploited & you tip her well.”
him/her, LVVS.
That GPS one is going to give me nightmares. If it had “only” been about hiding a GPS in her purse or car or something, it would have been merely creepy. But suggesting the idea of an implant and then letting one of the answers be “only if she didn’t agree to it”? The casual disregard for the woman’s bodily autonomy inherent in that is really gross.
You’re correct, zombie.
“Yes, but only if you are sure your sex worker is not being exploited and you tip him or her well.”
Which magazine do you most frequently consult for relationship advice?
A. Ms.
B. Cosmopolitan
C. Maxim
D. Penthouse Forum
E. Guns & Ammo
I told FiletofSwedishBoyfriend about the question about the GPS chip. In a “Haha- Isn’t this crazy scary and a totally not-OK thing to do” way. His answer? Only if I thought she was cheating and I wanted to confirm it. Implying not getting her permission. It makes me worried. Sigh.
And I’m seconding that there aren’t many of the questions that have a non-dipfuck way to answer.
If you want to ensure your girlfriend says ‘yes’ when you propose to her, you should:
A) Design a really elaborate proposal in front of her friends, family and even a few complete strangers so she’ll feel pressured to say yes.
B) Make sure to buy her a really big engagement ring.
C) Get plastic surgery to make yourself look more like Brad Pitt.
D) Have some talks with her about your future together and your shared expectations of married life.
Frankly, the number 38 is the real howler for me. I decided to fill out the survey out of curiosity before I read the rest of your post. I came full stop at that question and burst out laughing. I could actually smell the axe body-spray and cheap hair gel through the screen.
plymouth: “I think my answer to that last one would be “yes but only if he/she was at the SAME level position as I am”. Because I would not want to have to explain to HR that *either one of us* was in a position to potentially affect the other’s position.”
Fortunately not everyone is in a direct-report relationship. If I am the head of Sales and you are an entry-level Programmer, there’s a power imbalance but you don’t report to me.
Lady V, I like the question idea. How about this one:
When a woman is talking, what does it sound like to you?
A) The Charlie Brown adults (wah wah wah).
B) A screeching bird or monkey.
C) A lumbering, mooing cow.
D) A sentient human being.
E) Background noise — I don’t even hear it.
@Lady Victoria
E) Tell her over and over again that no one else will ever love her like you do, and that you’d die without her.
Mind as well weed out some of the really creepy ones.
I think my answer to that last one would be “yes but only if he/she was at the SAME level position as I am”. Because I would not want to have to explain to HR that *either one of us* was in a position to potentially affect the other’s position.
When I’m having a sexual relationship… I like it when we can affect each other’s position.
“I just don’t understand. Most of the fat chicks I’ve known have been totally friggin’ awesome people. Seriously, the guys that hate so much on them are missing out.”
Well we try. Quite often, however, they grow quite awesome once the marriage papers are signed. So we don’t miss out on too much awesomeness I can assure you.
Question one: Did you take the AskMen.com Survey:
Yes
No
Question two: If yes why?______________________________
If no: Why not? ________________________________________