Oh, Scott Adams! Can you write anything about that whole man-woman business without being a creepy douche about it? In a recent blog post titled “Pegs and Holes” – which refers to exactly what you think it refers to — Adams offers his take on the powerful men who have been in the news lately because, as Adams puts it, they’ve been “tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world.”
After noting that the “current view of such things is that the men are to blame for their own bad behavior” and that this “seems right” to him – gee, ya think? – Adams decides to get all philosophical on us. (When you’re Scott Adams, this is a very very bad idea.) He writes:
The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that the natural instincts of men are shameful and criminal while the natural instincts of women are mostly legal and acceptable. In other words, men are born as round pegs in a society full of square holes. Whose fault is that? Do you blame the baby who didn’t ask to be born male? Or do you blame the society that brought him into the world, all round-pegged and turgid, and said, “Here’s your square hole”?
I’m assuming that Adams doesn’t actually think that baby boys are born with erections, and realizes that it is biology, not society, that hands out penises and vaginas to babies in the first place. I’m just trying to understand the whole pegs and holes metaphor. Why does he think “round” penises and “square” vaginas are somehow incompatible? In the context of consensual sex, after all, penises of all shapes and sizes generally fit into vaginas quite nicely.
As far as I can figure it out, the round-vs-square analogy simply refers to the fact that men can’t simply stick their “round pegs” into any conveniently located “hole” whenever they feel like it. The fact that these “holes” aren’t accessible to any random guy thus renders them “square.” This seems to frustrate Adams, who goes on to complain that “society has evolved to keep males in a state of continuous unfulfilled urges, more commonly known as unhappiness” and that “society is organized as a virtual prison for men’s natural desires.”
Looking at Hugh Hefner’s marital history – he’s been married and divorced and just got stood up at the altar – Adams concludes that:
For Hef, being single didn’t work, and getting married didn’t work, at least not in the long run. Society didn’t offer him a round hole for his round peg. All it offered were unlimited square holes.
What does this even mean? I suspect that over the course of his lifetime, Hef has had about all the sex he could possibly want, and then some. Is it somehow unjust that he couldn’t force his latest fiancée to actually marry him? Or that some women are sexually unavailable – that is, square holes – to him?
It goes without saying that Adams’ notions of human sexuality are profoundly insulting to both men and women . On the one hand, he’s suggesting that men are basically all potential rapists walking around with, er, turgid pegs; and, on the other, he seems to regard women as little more than passive (if stubbornly recalcitrant) receptacles for these male “pegs.”
And so it’s hardly surprising that his grand solution to the conundrum he’s invented is a rather depressing one. After noting that it really wouldn’t be a good thing for men to go around willy-nilly raping women and/or, as he puts it, tweeting their meat, he suggests the real solution is for men to be chemically castrated. And no, I’m not making that up. Here’s Scotty:
I think science will come up with a drug that keeps men chemically castrated for as long as they are on it. It sounds bad, but I suspect that if a man loses his urge for sex, he also doesn’t miss it. Men and women would also need a second drug that increases oxytocin levels in couples who want to bond. Copulation will become extinct. Men who want to reproduce will stop taking the castration drug for a week, fill a few jars with sperm for artificial insemination, and go back on the castration pill.
That might sound to you like a horrible world. But the oxytocin would make us a society of huggers, and no one would be treated as a sex object. You’d have no rape, fewer divorces, stronger friendships, and a lot of other advantages. I think that’s where we’re headed in a few generations.
Is he being serious here, or is this all some satirical “social experiment?” Who the fuck knows. Though I suspect if I accused him of being serious, he’d claim he was being satirical. And vice versa. Because that’s just the way he is.
Also, while I’m at it: the idiomatic expression about pegs and holes posits a square peg and a round hole, not the other way around. Why did Adams reverse this? Why!? Why!!?? Is he trying to drive us all mad?
EDITED TO ADD: Check out Feministe for more on Scott Adams and his peg.
EDITED AGAIN: And Pharyngula as well.
Generally if someone does not eat anything at all in 200 days, they die. Also no one in America has no access to any food for longer then a few weeks unless in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. And even then you can eat bark and things.
Somewhere, some place someone will be kind of enough to give you a little bit of food.
Because only white males ever experience hunger…
My father was pretty bad actually NWOaf. So you know, this guy’s little list of “do more then just work” is nice to see for other men to avoid the mistakes my father made. (He had reasons for being the way he was and I understand that.)
No PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth. A woman can get food whenever she needs it, she has choices. Hell a woman could just start crying in the middle of the street and say shes hungry and legions would rush up to feed her. Your privilege.
A man is on his own. Also some of those days I went hungry were by choice; giving the last few dollars I had to families so they could eat. As poor as I was there were those less fortunate that I helped, I chose not to eat so they could. My privilege.
NWOsub is such a transparent liar.
You should really brush up on your lying skills, NWO. Maybe check out a book by Paul Ekman.
I know you are wrong about that first part because I actually once was on the bus and a lady started to cry because she had not eaten in several days. One of the other patrons asked her what was wrong she told us and we said we were very sorry but we could not help her. So uh, once again you are completely wrong.
If your second story was accurate, that was kind of you. However there are soup kitchens, food pantries, and other places that you can go to as a male or female and receive some kind of food. Not great stuff-watery soup is still food though.
A person can starve to death in this country but generally it takes someone being very stupid.
Mr. Slave, you know that “A woman can get food whenever she needs it” because of why? Your extensive experience as a woman? Wasn’t your mother unable to feed you? Weren’t you complaining about that? How could she simultaneously “get food whenever she needs it” and not be able to feed you?
Have you ever known hunger SallyStrange? Heres a little taste. Your sitting on run down furniture in a heatless apartment. You get up to look in the cabinets for food, though you know theres none there. I shit you not, your stomach actually forces you to look over and over again. It’s like your mind forgets there is no food.
Spend a day, just 1 day not eating, ya still have to work and whatever, and see what it’s like. By the end of the day, food consumes your every thought. On the plus side when you wake up in the morning you don’t have to shit. Another privilege I’ve enjoyed.
Hey, NWO you are prone to hyperbole and outright lying. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to back up off that claim a bit or explain it. Like instead of claiming that you didn’t eat for 200 days, you could say that you didn’t have enough to eat. Or only had protein shakes. Or supplemented your diet with vitamins and V8 juice. Something that could be true.
My father taught me not to lie.
You’re a liar, NWOaf. You have no credibility. If you really did experience hunger, that’s terrible, but it doesn’t excuse your lying.
You assume that none of us have ever gone hungry NWOaf because we are not making outlandish claims like you. And you know what they say about people who assume…it makes an ass out of you instead of me.
@amandajane5…My mother and father always fed me, they were fantastic. The hunger I experienced was on my own.
SallyStrange, how am I lying? I’ve gone hungry. I’ve helped others so they wouldn’t go hungry and in the process gone hungry myself. What have you done?
I never experienced hunger. Probably because my parents were smart enough to get food stamps when both my folks were out of work. I did experience extended periods when we ate mostly rice with “tuna glop,” a mixture of tuna, cream of mushroom soup, and canned peas. It was actually pretty good.
You said, “A woman can get food whenever she needs it,” which is an obvious lie, whether you’re talking about USA land or the world. You also said that you ate nothing for 200 days, which is an obvious lie because if it were true you’d be dead.
That’s just two instances. You also like to lie about what people say here. Like, someone says, “A woman should be prosecuted for false accusation if that’s what she did,” and you turn around and characterize their views as being completely opposed to prosecuting women who bring false rape accusations.
So sue me if I don’t believe you now.
NWO you don’t required rapier wit. A plastic babyspoon would more than take care of the job.
No Nobinayamu, I won’t back off. You sit there and speak of my white male privilege while knowing only the privileged lives you’ve led.
Have you ever lived in a cubbyhole that led to someones basement with a candle for company, shivering from the cold? Snow being a blessing because you could drink it?
Cream of mushroom soup and rice, is the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions isn’t it Sallystrange?
Have you ever considered what experiencing hunger as a non-white non-heterosexual non-male might be like, NWOaf? Once again, you make the elementary mistake of assuming that having privilege means your life is all awesome, all the time. This has been explained to you, and others, again and again and again.
Your willful ignorance about the subject is just another form of dishonesty.
I have never had any privilege Sallystrange. When you get that thru your thick skull you might actually learn something.
“Have you ever lived in a cubbyhole that led to someones basement with a candle for company, shivering from the cold? Snow being a blessing because you could drink it?”
Fact: NWO hasn’t.
What’s your day job? Because if the internet is evidently where you go to exercise that stunted imagination of yours I’m guessing it must be something extremely dull and menial.
Lying again. But are you lying to yourself or to us?
I understand it’s possible that you may actually believe the falsehoods you spew. The thought fills me with pity.
Mr. Kobold again. Another of the privileged elite. First off I’m older than you know. My day job is not a day job. I just got yesterday. I worked a 28 hour shift. My job is a little rougher than painting my toenails to match my lipstick and handbag, and pulling a nasty 9 to 5er in an air condition office. Now go stick up for your feminist masters.
Mmmm… Nope, lying again. So obvious! Really, dude, you can do better. I can lie better than this. I’m actually pretty good at it. Let me know if you’d like some tips.
Tell me my privilege SallyStrange, since it’s obvious my life was a little more rugged than the horrible lives of you poor pampered princesses. I’m sure when they sold out of faux gucci shoes it was a heartbreak.
How could I have gone hungry and homeless while dripping with white male privilege?