The contest for the Most Ironic Use of the Term “Nice Guy,” When Applied to Yourself –otherwise known as the MIUTNGWAY Award – is heating up. The previous front runner – the Tumblr guy who compared his inability to get laid to the Holocaust – now faces a serious challenge from a Redditor calling himself DogmaDog.
The other day Mr. Dog wandered into a discussion of the SlutWalks in the Feminisms and offered his two cents: he declared them “stupid,” and suggested that they won’t really help victims.
And then he started in on his own tale of woe.
I know I’m going to be shit on for saying what I’m about to say, but please hear me out.
Not a promising start, Dog.
I’ve never raped a woman, and I’m the ‘nice guy’ who never took advantage of a woman.
Do you want an award for this?
But a girl I was infatuated with in high school blew me off and treated me disrespectfully. She ended up being raped one night, while intoxicated. I do not know how I am supposed to feel about it.
As Don Draper would say, “what?”
How do you think you’re “supposed” to feel? Did you accidentally dislodge the part of your brain responsible for basic human empathy?
Apparently, the answer to that is “yes.”
[H]ow do you suppose I am supposed to feel about this woman I knew who got raped? I mean, I’ve never taken advantage of a woman, but I don’t understand how my ‘friend’, this girl I went to high school with, could go out and party all the time, and in turn treat me, her classmate, as though I were an inferior person for not enjoying the atmosphere of drunkenness at high school parties.
As it turns out, you’re an inferior person for an entirely different reason.
That girl was a mean girl, no? And by being disrespectful toward men, and prejudiced toward men, wasn’t she asking men to behave badly toward her? The only men she gave attention and physical affection to were the ones who hurt her back.
So let me see if I get this: she didn’t go out with you, a “nice guy,” so she was therefore “asking” to be raped?
Naturally, this being the Feminisms subreddit, and not The Spearhead, some of the regular commenters took exception to Mr. Dog’s victim-blaming and his complete lack of empathy for the victim – especially strange, since Dog, who says he is suffering from an (unspecified) mental illness, considers himself “a victim, in my own way,” of prejudice towards those with mental health issues. This experience, alas, has not given him any sympathy towards other vicitms.
Indeed, it seems that DogmaDog didn’t misplace his sense of empathy after all; rather, he threw it out of the house and got a restraining order against it. Responding to someone who suggested he show a little empathy, Dog lashed out:
Your empathy can go suck a dick. Empathy does nothing to help my situation. I suppose that is just the excuse people give themselves so that they can feel like they are actually doing something.
You basically called me an inferior human being because I can’t or won’t empathize for my friend who was raped. Well, ask yourself this, smart-ass, have you ever really wondered what good your empathy does? It does nothing. …
In reality, you are doing nothing but attacking me, and I may or may not have a ‘complex’, even though I don’t know what that is, but I can guarantee you, I HAVE NEVER RAPED ANYONE!!!
The sound you hear is me banging my head, ever so softly, on my desk. Empathy is what connects human beings to one another, what allows them to understand one another on a deep level.
When people are suffering – as you are, Dog, in dealing with your mental illness – a little bit of empathy from someone else can make all the difference in the world.
If you can’t feel even a little bit of sympathy for this woman you were once “infatuated” with, you’re not a nice guy at all; you’re an even bigger asshole than those drunken high school partiers you disdain. You may never have raped anyone — as you’ve repeatedly insisted, as if this should win you a prize – but “in your own way” you’re thinking like an abuser. Your lack of empathy for the victim, your continued bitterness towards her for turning you down, your sense of wounded narcissism; none of this is healthy, for you or for anyone who comes into contact with you.
You need help, dude. Please, please get it.
I’ll take the satisfaction.
“I’ll take the satisfaction.”
I’ll take a justice system predicated on actual utility of some sort.
By the way, at no point in my time on this forum or blog comment section have you substantiated your claims that men are the disadvantaged class. Get to it, or concede the point.
I’ll take the satisfaction.
The Hitachi Magic Wand only costs, like, 1/100,000th as much for similarly satisfying results.
Or so I’ve heard from a friend. >.>
Pecunium, MRAL’s problem is that he can’t see past the nose on his face. He is very young, however, and that is to his advantage.
Honestly, stem cell research is a huge issue for me this coming election. Have you guys been keeping up with the news? There’s an explosion going on. It’s a combination of the technology being right and Obama’s new funding, but things are exploding. They may be able to treat multiple sclerosis in a few years. Deafness. Organ growth. Goddamn paralysis. If this keeps up, in the next ten years, who the fuck knows what could happen? That’s not just me blowing smoke, Google it, there are experts saying the same things. But the thing is, it needs the federal funds. With that boost, private investors become more interested and the capitalistic cycle starts. There’s uncertainty in investors’ minds right now, as well there should be, because the fucking fucking fucking Republican morons, and their nominees, all want to roll back funding because… honestly, there isn’t really a coherent reason that I can discern. If Obama’s funding were to be secured through 2016, the investors would be much more enthusiastic and things would likely move even more quickly. It’s a HUGE issue, or it should be.
For Republicans, Giuliani and even Romney are fairly reasonable (Giuliani moreso), but as I understand it they’d both scale back federal funding on stem cells. We can’t have that. We CANNOT have that. That would kill investor interest, and the coming decade would likely yield nowhere near the results that it could with reasonable people like Obama running the show. Obama 2012, bitch.
Bagelsan (way back): Yes indeed, she was pretty and white. and able-bodied, born here, english-speaking, reasonably well-off, etc etc.
MRAL, have you read Dr. Michio Kaku’s recent book, Physics of the Future…? I think you’d like it.
As for why the current conservatives in government want to roll back the funding, stop looking for a coherent reason. They don’t have one. People they don’t like think it’s a good idea. Their base doesn’t understand it and believes that stem-cell research is tied up with abortion. So they’re voting against it. That’s all there is to it.
By the way, who’s this Rick Perry douchebag? Did they take Bush’s DNA and clone an even bigger asshole for 2012?
Ha, we should be so lucky.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/will-rick-perrys-prayer-rally-feature-spiritual-warfare
Fair enough, MRAL, I concede that you are generally liberal.
I actually think there is a factory that makes Republican operatives….an endless stream of pudgey dark haired white men.
Not trying to derail things further here, but the discussion already has nothing to do with the original post anymore, so what the hell. Based on personal experience, I don’t know if I agree with a lot of those things, at least not where I am. Maybe if you’re living in a conservative, religious community that hasn’t changed for the past 50 years, or maybe your experience has been very different from mine but I just don’t see it.
“sex lives (Men can have them, women can’t)” – Magazines like Cosmo and Glamor are full of sex advice for women, “how to have great sex”, “50 sex moves that drive guys crazy”, etc., women write books about their sexual escapades, we have Sex and the City, etc.
“men’s pre-eminence in the media (Whine some more about getting the buffoon role in some family sitcoms. There’s still THE REST OF THE MEDIA, even if that were a point for women, and it unfortunately isn’t)” – I actually agree that men playing buffoons in comedies is not a mark against them, because it’s usually the starring role, whereas the women are the “straight man” supporting characters. Otherwise, I see a pretty even male-female split in most of the higher-rated shows. With movies on the other hand, you might have a point, they seem a lot more polarized (either mostly male or mostly female cast, and the former are a lot more common).
the pre-eminence of anti-woman myths in both society and the media (Such as the foundational myth of the nice guy, laid out by hollywood and TV writers who couldn’t get laid) – I have never seen the ‘nice guy’ character described as positive in any discussion, ever. It’s usually a target of ridicule and a cautionary tale for guys. Maybe in cheesy 80s movies the ‘nice guy’ gets the girl, but not lately.
women being crowded out of a number of fairly major hobbies – Which ones, and how? If you’re talking about stereotypically male geeky stuff, it’s probably a result of guys being used to dominating that hobby and feeling intruded upon/not knowing how to deal with women who want in. It’d probably be the same thing if men wanted to join some female-dominated community. But there’s nothing stopping women from starting their own groups within that hobby.
women being shut down throughout primary schooling in the US, etc. – From what I heard, it’s men who are disadvantaged and women are favored in education these days, unless you meant something else?
Anyway, I’m not trying to argue with you or anything, I’m just curious about your views because they seem to disagree with my personal experience. But maybe you know more or have experienced something different than I have. Getting someone else’s perspective is always helpful, which is why I was interested in yours.
Are the Republicans made out of Twinkie filling? I’ll bet they’re made out of Twinkie filling.
MRAL: You’ll take the satisfaction?
And when someone decides, after some horrid rape, that rape needs once again to be put in the list of capital crimes?
What then?
The problem with capital punishment isn’t, for me, that it kills people. I have no, significant, problem with killing people (otherwise I couldn’t have spent a career in the Army, where my job was to kill people, and train others to do the same). My problem is that the system is so far from perfect that the wrong people will be killed.
There are other moral issues with it, perhaps even stronger ones, having to do with how we treat those we deem unfit to live; but those are part and parcel of the madness which is our prison system, and pale before the problem of wrongful execution.
[quote]“sex lives (Men can have them, women can’t)” – Magazines like Cosmo and Glamor are full of sex advice for women, “how to have great sex”, “50 sex moves that drive guys crazy”, etc., women write books about their sexual escapades, we have Sex and the City, etc.[/quote]
Texas and Florida. Yes, I know, but we’re not exactly talking about small places with no influence. And we still have to deal with the same “Women can’t have sex” narrative all the time, everywhere; it’s the ultimate driver of the Slutwalks, which are while not entirely global, in multiple countries, and by no means just restricted to the conservative, religious communities.
““men’s pre-eminence in the media (Whine some more about getting the buffoon role in some family sitcoms. There’s still THE REST OF THE MEDIA, even if that were a point for women, and it unfortunately isn’t)” – I actually agree that men playing buffoons in comedies is not a mark against them, because it’s usually the starring role, whereas the women are the “straight man” supporting characters. Otherwise, I see a pretty even male-female split in most of the higher-rated shows. With movies on the other hand, you might have a point, they seem a lot more polarized (either mostly male or mostly female cast, and the former are a lot more common).”
I usually see a primarily male split. Elsewhere, I see a primarily female split (But love interests for one male) with occasional primarily female splits not just being in stuff for girls and women.
Movies repeatedly fail the Bechdel Test, still, and while the point was never that an individual movie fails it, the failures are remarkably commonplace. The Hathor Legacy’s founder goes through her experiences trying to break into Hollywood as a woman, and they’re pretty ugly; it’s still very much a man’s world. I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous BS there and elsewhere regarding what goes on in movie making.
One thing I find funny about your listing the straight man as support is that it’s true. But it didn’t used to be; when the Straight Man was a role for men (As nearly everything was), it was indeed a starring role, and considered the harder of the two (And certainly the least common). Of course, that decline probably came because of ensemble comedy (Watching multiple bizarre people bounce off each other can work out really well without a straight man), but once the decline came, *Then* we were ready for straight women.
“I have never seen the ‘nice guy’ character described as positive in any discussion, ever. It’s usually a target of ridicule and a cautionary tale for guys. Maybe in cheesy 80s movies the ‘nice guy’ gets the girl, but not lately.”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoggedNiceGuy
Plenty of modern examples. I recognize that in some dating circles and nearly all feminist ones, Nice Guy is a pejorative referring to the behavior of asshats raised on this trope and others, but they’re not pulling this idea out of nowhere.
“Which ones, and how? If you’re talking about stereotypically male geeky stuff, it’s probably a result of guys being used to dominating that hobby and feeling intruded upon/not knowing how to deal with women who want in. It’d probably be the same thing if men wanted to join some female-dominated community. But there’s nothing stopping women from starting their own groups within that hobby.”
Yeaaaaaaaaaaah I know how to do that in geeky ones, but it doesn’t change what’s produced from being fundamentally men-only. Even though they could make much better money selling to women *and* men (Having recently read Gloria Steinem’s article on how difficult advertising was for Ms. Magazine, I feel fairly illuminated on how this happens though). It’s not just male geeky hobbies, though, is the problem. It’s a big deal in STEM related things (Not really geeky, v. important for working), f’rex. As near as I can see, the biggest shit men take is from other men for female-oriented hobbies.
“From what I heard, it’s men who are disadvantaged and women are favored in education these days, unless you meant something else?”
Right, you’ve heard the MRAs correctly mention secondary schooling, and women’s numerical majority in it. This is true. But sociological examinations of primary schooling rather consistently show that it is men who are advantaged in the classroom, being taken most seriously as students by their teachers even when all other factors are controlled for. Women are still discouraged from a number of incredibly huge categories, *Even at the secondary level*. I’m not sure about whether women’s numerical majority translates into generally actually being taken seriously in secondary schooling. Which would probably be relatively easy to find a study for, so I will later. Nonetheless, you’re confusing secondary and the primary schooling in saying men are the disadvantaged. That in spite of this, more women get to college more is interesting, and I don’t have a mechanism for it, I’ll grant.
As you might be able to tell, that one is unfortunately not just ‘my experience’.
Re Cosmo: The adivce in Cosmo is conflicted. A lot of it isn’t about how she can enjoy sex, but how she can make it great for him, so he won’t ditch her.
“If you’re talking about stereotypically male geeky stuff, it’s probably a result of guys being used to dominating that hobby and feeling intruded upon/not knowing how to deal with women who want in. It’d probably be the same thing if men wanted to join some female-dominated community. But there’s nothing stopping women from starting their own groups within that hobby.”
IMO, not the case. I travel in a number of female dominated hobbies, and when men show up (knitting, crochet, costuming, scrapbooking), the reactions are always helpful, and supportive.
The flipside (RPGs, model rocketry, scale modelling, comics, paintball) not so much.
@MRAL – agreed, on stem cells. It is absolutely ridiculous that embryonic stem cell research is as controversial as it is. Especially when you look at the number of embryos destroyed for science vs. the number of discarded IVF embryos (which is apparently not controversial???)
I’m not sure you’re correct in how quickly we’ll see serious medical advances from stem cell research (great leaps forward have been made, but things are still quite preliminary) but that’s all the more reason to pour resources into it.
Re: Death penalty. I’m not sure how I feel about that, though Pecunium discussed it very nicely. I also don’t know if I favor a more utilitarian or justice oriented prison system, though I tend towards utilitarian, I think.
And as for Cosmo and the general problems with how it deals with women and sex, I’d like to heartily recommend Holly Pervocracy’s “Cosmocking” feature.
Yes, there are lots of magazines that talk about women and sex. But this isn’t a straight forward we-care-about-women-and-not-men. Look closely at a lot of the advice, it’s more about how to give men pleasure than anything else.
And it isn’t that there’s anything inherently wrong with articles on how to give a man sexual pleasure. But you can’t really use that as evidence that men are neglected.
Also, that’s really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Things Wrong With Magazines Like Cosmo.
theLaplaceDemon: thanks. I’ve spent a lot of time/energy on the question of capital punishment, esp. as I don’t have a personal problem with killing people; so the question of who/when/why such killing is acceptable is of specific personal relevance.
One of the papers I did when I was studying ethics was on capital punishment. It was an interesting paper to write. I was, at that point (it was recent) fairly confirmed in my opposition (I didn’t used to be so opposed; so long as the conviction was sound), but to make a defensible paper I had to look at as many of the possible countervailing points of view.
The end result was interesting to me. I moved much more strongly to a position of opposition. I went from moderately against, as a policy matter, to vehemently opposed as an issue of justice.
Laplace, they’ve already grown a trachea from stem cells and swapped it with a cancerous one in some dude, thus rendering him entirely cancer-free.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/08/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/
“and it’s why MRAs will never get along with feminists.”
Interesting. I always thought MRAs exist because some boys aren’t intelligent enough to grow out of the adolescent “i need a fuckable mommy house-slave” mindset.
And, judging by your posts, you clearly haven’t.
So far, the evidence supports my theory and not your hilariously stupid attempts at redefining words you cleary don’t understand.
“But this isn’t a straight forward we-care-about-women-and-not-men. Look closely at a lot of the advice, it’s more about how to give men pleasure than anything else.”
A lot of entrapment too, I’ve noticed. Men’s magazines are essentially the same thing. Here’s 100 pages on how to pretend to be someone you’re not to make happy someone you’re no compatible with cuz ZOMG!!! you can’t be single!.
Yay for that last post MRAL.
Of course they are! You can’t get laid now!
To be fair, I agree with Bruce McGlory here that the advice in men’s magazines is similar, it’s all about “moves that will drive her crazy in bed” and advice on how to get/keep a girlfriend. Anyway, the starting idea was Rutee saying that women “can’t have sex lives”. Rutee, you say “And we still have to deal with the same “Women can’t have sex” narrative all the time, everywhere; it’s the ultimate driver of the Slutwalks”. I thought the Slutwalk thing started after a police officer told women not to ‘dress like sluts’ to avoid sexual assault. He might have been misguided, but it sounds like he thought he was warning them about a risky behavior. That’s not condemning women for having sex lives, anymore than saying “you shouldn’t leave your car unlocked with an expensive laptop in the back seat” is a condemnation of people who drive cars and use laptops. Other than that, sorry, I still don’t see proof of your assertion that women are somehow looked down upon for their sexuality. Do you have maybe a specific case in mind?
Really? That’s unfortunate. I’ve played computer games and went paintballing with mixed guy-girl crowds and everyone got along fine and had a great time. I for one wish more women would be interested in ‘guy hobbies’ (come on, finding a girl you like who’s into the same stuff you are, how awesome is that?), but most of the ones I know don’t seem very interested in such things, unfortunately.
As for the education thing, I’m really not an expert on the issue, I can only say what I’ve heard – that girls are advantaged throughout the education system and like you said, colleges are becoming dominated by women. Personally I’m in med school and we actually do seem to have more women than men currently, but the ones who are at the top (both genders) are there because they study and work their asses off, while the ones with the bad grades are slackers and goofballs. No gender bias that I can see.
This is the quiet bigotry of blaming the victim.
Maybe this will help when you start making lists of things “you shouldn’t do.”