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.
amandajane5, did you ever consider I wasn’t within a stones throw of my parents? See, a little logic goes a long way.
Well, we worked 29 hours a day down at the mill, and when we got home, our dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing “halleluiah!”
LUXURY!
NWO, it seems to me that you’ve made some wildly contradictory statements about your life. So could you indulge me for a moment and clear a few things up?
You’re some sort of specialized mechanic who’s constantly jetting about the country to jobs, but you’re poor? (Or at least not making much.)
You were the inventor of some important electronic or mechanical component of something-or-other, that’s used all the time, yet you never earned money for that?
You’ve been so poor that you literally had no food for 200 non-consecutive days? Over what stretch of time was this?
zombie rotten mcdonald. Another of the privileged class. How nice it must be to mock the poverty of others. Now go stuff your face with a twinkie.
“No Mr. Kobold, I figured you’d like to hear how you’re doing alright by your masters. Your life revolves around any womans approval, even online.”
God this is awesome, you’re what? Over forty?
Forever alone?
http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/0/0e/Forever_Alone.png
Lying about their menial job?
“Go get a pedicure Mr. Kobold, you’re getting youself all in a lather.”
Man with comebacks like that you can just tell you’re a guy who’s old and busted. And all this about feminist masters lifted straight from Rush Limbaugh’s or Michael Savage’s mouth is hilarious coming from I guy who brands himself a slave.
Later scrub.
How nice it must be to mock the poverty of others.
IT IS AWESOME, TRUE.
Zombizzles are privileged? Does that mean we can stop with the shotguns and the chainsaws now?
Looking back over the comments (pause to sip my beverage)
I see that Slaver is berating me for mocking the statements The Captain made… which were themselves mockery.
DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MINDS?
I’m a chronic lurker here and dear Lord what NWO is saying is such rubbish. I was homeless at the age of 14 for two years and let me tell you, women get nothing for free in those circumstances let alone food. It was the same for the younger lads who we shared with but if you cry in public, even as someone female, people’s eyes just slide over you as if your not there.
It sucks to be homeless – regardless of gender or whatever. That peroid of my life was pretty damn unpleasant but you know what, I still know I had a whole bunch of privilage and some of that priviliage helped me correct my life. If I’d had the disadvantages of some of the people there (particually the ethnic minority kids) no one would have tried to help me in the same way. And before you say that was because I was a lass, me and two lads were rescued. One girl refused to come and she was left. Nowt at all do with gender but a lot to do with how ‘pretty’ they thought we were, girls or boys.
Another of the privileged class.
Admitting that you have privileges others don’t is the first step toward freedom, Slaver.
I admit that casting off your self-imposed shackles and blinders can be a scary prospect. But it’s good! And your life improves! Maybe not 100% immediately, but at the minimum, it would seem that being able to discard the seething hatred would be a step up….
zombie rotten mcdonald.
But actually, I am impressed you got the whole thing typed without mistakes; I often mess it up myself. Unless you have learned the Magic of ctrl-c/ ctrl-v? Next you might learn the wizardry of spellcheck!
In any case, feel free to refer to me as ZRM if it helps.
I WAS poor Dave, very poor. The job I have now is installing conveying/bottling equipment for dairies and such. Most of the equipment is hung from the ceilings. Average ceiling height is 30 feet and it is hotter than hell up there.
The other week I was in Texas and the ceiling temp was 125 degrees. The reason it’s specialized as you say is because of the turnover rate of employees. Keepers in this field are rare.
I was a machine designer for about 6 years, no schooling, I just moved up from machinist to assembler and I had a knack for design. Those jobs went south so to speak. When ya now have mech engineers with doctorates outta work, I can’t compete with that and they get the jobs.
And Dave, don’t be ridiculous, I said 200 days. Surely no one with half a brain would assume 200 days in a row. This was over a stretch of years. And when I said I willingly went hungry so others could eat, I mean it.
So when I hear these pampered little princesses talking about my privilege, you can imagine I might be a little miffed.
Okay, NWO is obviously lying, but I still want to address one of the points brought up. There is more than one axis of oppression. Race, economic class, gender, ability status, sexuality, trans status, citizenship…there are lots of different oppressions going on at the same time. A person could, for example, have male privilege but not hetero privilege. Still, these privileges do interact. While it is extremely hard for anyone to be poor, it is even harder to be poor and black (look at, for example, the discrimination in hiring in low wages jobs, or increased polic scrutiny).
On the castration issue, I was rebutting Adams’ assertion that castration would stop copulation, by citing historical and biological evidence. I do not hold to castrating anyone against their will, which should have been really fucking obvious.
NWO, I wan’t asking you to accept the quote as true, just to accept it as a prominent feminist argument referenced by a prominent feminist blogger. You make strange vague references to “our leaders” and the things they’ve supposedly said, but can’t even bring yourself to take a feminist blog seriously for long enough to get an idea of what feminist views are you don’t have to believe them, just realize what it is feminists are actually saying.
Oh, and that “men are rapist and that’s all they are” thing is a quote by a character in a novel written by a woman I’d never heard of before she showed up on a Hateful Feminist Quote list. Some leader.
darksidecat, the vile filth that comes out of your mouth is outrageous. How can it be “even harder to be poor and black” than to be the same level of poor while being white? If two people who are the same level of poor, how can one be worse off than the other? You’re a vile creature.
Gender privilege is the domain of woman. You’re so used to being catered to when a man doesn’t leap to help or defend you you’re mortified.
Do the trans status folks feel oppressed if everyone doesn’t worship their choice? Is that the oppression you speak of? I don’t love you for what you choose to be? Awww, my heart weeps.
Don’t backpeddle on your castration rant. You could care less, they’re only men. It’s your privilege to mock men, shame men, vilify men and get away with it. The State, Schools and mass media all join in the fun.
I’m just calling you on your shit and you’re so used to getting away with it you now feel oppressed. Poor dear.
unintentionalfeminist…Where heres a little something in RL not a novel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13666066
Seems women want to close down all thos nasty prisons for women. First of all it’s not like women are judged anything close to a man, why they’re women the privileged class. Instead they want to shut all womens prisons down and open up spas for the nastiest offenders. Thats right, women focuses communites to better meet a womans needs. Lets help them when they murder and such, child care the whole bit. Women have special needs.
Luckily for us privileged men they plan to keep the womens prisons around to imprison more men. Ahh what will my male privilege garnish me next?
Because there is a difference in the way one person is treated based on the colour of their skin by those who have the power to hire, to arrest and to otherwise impact a person’s life.
Uh oh, darksidecat you’ve induced the wrath of Mr Slave! Woooooooaoaaaahhhh noooooooo!!!!!!!
Wait, are we seriously trying to argue sense with a guy who thinks women can’t be poor because they can get free stuff by crying?
NWOaf, Seriously, what? You’re in denial about the fact that if you’re poor and black, the fact of being black presents additional obstacles to rising out of poverty? You’re in denial about the fact that unemployment among black people is about twice what it is for whites right now? That academic studies have shown that employers discriminate against “black-sounding” names, without even seeing the person they’re hiring?
Oh right, I forgot for a second: you’re a pathological liar. You can’t help yourself. You know very well that being poor and white is not quite as sucky as being poor and black, you’re just too invested in your delusions to allow yourself to be honest, even for a split second.
I don’t think anybody should take NWoaf seriously at all anymore. I won’t respond to any of his disingenuous questions any more, and I’m not going to say anything to him if it doesn’t involve a question about whether he’s lying or planning on stopping all the lying anytime soon. He’s way too dishonest, and he’s not arguing in good faith at all. He should be called out again and again, but he should not be allowed to set the terms of the debate.
Exactly what I’m saying. NWoaf deserves mockery and constant reminders of what a pathetic liar he is. Nothing else.
You’re in good company, darksidecat. The last person he accused of being “vile” was Julia Ward Howe.
There were 150 of us, living in a small shoe box in the middle of the road…
Another example of NWoaf’s pathetic, irresistable urge to constantly lie. Darksidecat said nothing of the sort. This sort of pathological dishonesty is pitiable, really.
There are over 24 million people out of work in this country PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth. Do you really believe that skin color will be any factor in what few menial jobs are being offered. My guess would be skill for any skiiled labor and whoever is willing to work for the least.
Theres no doubt that blacks recieve a harsher sentence, but being the privileged woman class you will recieve the lightest, if any sentence at all. Lets lay the wreath of least likely to be incarcerated at the feet of the privileged ones, shall we?
“Do you really believe that skin color will be any factor in what few menial jobs are being offered.”
Uh, let me think about that for a second… YES.