So a bunch of the regulars on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit have their collective knickers in a twist about dudes getting called “pedophiles” just for saying they think 14-year old girls are hot. Because that’s “ephebephilia,” dontchaknow, not pedophilia! And besides, thingsarebad argues
Normal heterosexual males will generally have sexual attraction for pubescent females of child-bearing age, from puberty till they start to get old and gross (late 20s, early 30s usually haha).
That’s pretty much “eww.” But so is the rest of the discussion, really, from this “joke” about all women being as immature as children to this heavily upvoted claim that feminists have created a “pedo-scare … to criminalize healthy and normal male sexuality,” to this Evo-Psych-flavored argument for lowering the age of consent.
Is it just me or are dudes who get indignant when people don’t carefully distinguish between ephebephilia and pedophilia just really really creepy?
Is “the right to lust after underage girls without having to feel icky about it” really a Men’s Rights issue? Why this preoccupation with 14-year-old girls, on r/mensrights and Reddit generally?
Pecunium, I’d say they’re about neck and neck, actually.
NWO fantasizes about 14 year old girls because he’s an ephebephile, yes, but mostly because he’s deeply insecure and believes that a 14 year old girl would, by virtue of her inexperience and lack of education, never leave him. He routinely conflates loyalty with an absence of any previous relationship, we know how he feels about anyone who knows more than him (nearly everyone), and he believes that caring about a woman’s sexual pleasure is distinctly unmanly.
Of course, according to him, he’s out working 28 hour days, 9 days a week so I imagine that he fantasizes about keeping her chained up like some Black Snake Moan re-dux.
And JUANDELACRUZ… well his shit kind of speaks for itself.
Both skeeve me right the fuck out and I have a pretty high tolerance level for creepiness. But between NWOs constant conflation of male sexual arousal and sexual assault, and JUAN’s certainty that a great illustration of chivalry and knightly courtliness is screwing middle schoolers…
I was a 14 year old girl once.
This thread just bothers me.
Sigh.
It isn’t inherently bad, but not for the reasons you listed here.
It’s not inherently bad because *It’s not inherently sexual*. I mean, yes, the desires themselves, if you didn’t say they were a thing you should be able to act on unfettered, would be fine, like non-consensual fantasies, but more tot he point, *It doesn’t have to be sexual*
No, no it isn’t. I mean, yes, they’ll claim that, of course. But someone that manipulative isn’t necessarily worth saving, so to speak. To win the debate, you first have to point out that there’s no grounds for their stupid stereotype. Whatever your response is, it must treat the stereotype as groundless and as a thing that has to be substantiated with evidence. Because the stereotype isn’t *true*, there’s little danger of losing, debate-wise; even if they do find a link to a self identified feminist who is in fact in favor of institutional bias against men, it’s trivial to find 5 or 10 self identified feminists who aren’t.
IMO, your target isn’t always the asshole in front of you. It’s the rest of the world.
Narcissistic little idiots, aren’t you? This is by no means ‘going at it with all I’ve got’. This is a lazy day on call, with quick looks between branches in a Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup run. I know who the actual target is, and it was never your pathetic little movement. You’re capering monkeys.
Johnny_B, quote a dick joke from these threads. Pull one up and quote it.
“Which are, of course, perfectly fine and laudable (who cares that so many men are insecure about their penis size? They’re just men, fuck’em and their worthless feelings) ”
There’s your problem right there, Johnnypoo. NO ONE said anything remotely like that. If you actually read what Ginmar wrote, as opposed to desperately searching for a reason to whine about it, you could have avoided making yourself look like a total moron. Better luck next time, cuddlebum.
**
“IMO, your target isn’t always the asshole in front of you. It’s the rest of the world.”
that is an excellent point. The asshole making the claims has already made up his teeny, atrophied mind about it. But the audience . . …. .
Nobinayamu; I don’t think, actually, that NWO is interested in 14 year olds. I think he is using that to yank our chains. What he wants is someone who isn’t all that autonomous, but has been reared to think serving a man is the apotheosis of female virtue (like Meller, but without the eliminationsist violence, which he blames on women).
Because such women are rare (fundie mormons and quiverfull types aside, which seem to be communities he doesn’t really cotton to), he has to turn to children, and then say they are actually sexual creatures, so he can justify the idea of being able to establish a relationship where one could indoctrinate them to be a Mellerian slave.
But his unease at the idea of women with rights, and agency, means he is unable to attack the root cause of his problem (that women really are people, and it would take a Nehamiah Scudder, bringing about a Gilead to keep them from being able to discover it; see Warren Jeffs and Colorado City, Ariz.), and so he has to move to more extreme examples of how, “women have been perverted, and men are marginalised”.
Add in his conspiracy theories (illuminati, international feminism, the Rothchilds [sic], the secret ownership of the US by the Fed, etc.) and one has someone who is almost completely unable to separate fact from fiction.
junadelacruz… just wants to enslave 10 year olds and rape them to get his rocks off.
“But the audience…”
Truer words and all that sort of thing, Bruce.
Urgh. When I was fourteen, I was creeped out enough when I got hit on by 18-19 year-olds. I mean at first, I thought they just genuinely wanted to be friends with me because gee, I dunno, they might have thought I was a cool person. The creep-factor didn’t come in until they started copping this “why haven’t you fucked me yet?” attitude. I can’t imagine being approached by a man in his mid-twenties, thirties, or forties when I was a teenager.
To make matters worse, at my high school we had a problem with this guy who had graduated, but even after he was 19 and in college, he would attend football games and other school events so that he could try to seduce the high school freshmans and eighth graders (anyone who was a sophomore or older at that time had spent at least a year going to school with him and knew better than to give him the time of day). Apparently he wasn’t having a great deal of luck with relationships among women his own age.
The teachers/administration didn’t feel it was their place to tell him he couldn’t come to sporting events, so the then-seniors and juniors took it upon themselves to have a meeting with the younger girls to warn them to stay away from this guy. It just goes to show, some of these men who get so huffy about simple age-of-consent laws are really upset that they can’t just go after someone who is much more naive and impressionable than an adult woman. Many of the girls who this guy was approaching felt uncomfortable due to his advances, but were not assertive enough to just tell him to leave them alone.
Rutee: You’re right, of course. Which is why Juandelacruz is so fucking annoying, because he’s taking a bunch of perfectly acceptable things that people are into and turning them into THE CREEPIEST SHIT EVER. Seriously. So creepy. I am going to have to wash my brain out with soap.
Papr1ka: I hate people who take advantage of vulnerable people who don’t know how to say no… Even beyond the “oh shit rapey” aspects, there’s the fact that in an actual romantic relationship, both partners want to be in the relationship. That is, like, Romance 101.
There’s your problem right there, Johnnypoo. NO ONE said anything remotely like that. If you actually read what Ginmar wrote, as opposed to desperately searching for a reason to whine about it, you could have avoided making yourself look like a total moron. Better luck next time, cuddlebum.
Let’s see… Ginmar said: “MRAs whine like stuck pigs when WE make dick jokes”.
Now according to your special wisdom, what is the grand meaning here which escapes me? Unless, of course, you were just desperately searching for a reason to take a jab at me… although I’ll admit your responses are quite funny when read out loud in a lispy femme voice, so feel free to continue.
Johnny B: when read out loud in a lispy femme voice, I can see where this might, at times, be troublesome. Have you considered seeing a speech therapist?
Ginmar said: “MRAs whine like stuck pigs when WE make dick jokes”.
Yes, but… show us, if you would be so kind, where anyone here has actually made one?
Because that’s known as “rhetorical excess”, and is a device meant to focus on the titty-baby behavior of misogynists (like yourself) who abuse women, and then get all huffy and offended if anyone dares to engage in the same sort of behavior toward them, it’s practically lèse majesté ; as evidenced by you getting your skivvies in a twist at the very idea someone might do it.
Actually, MRA historical ignoramuses, the notion of the women as the thing to be rescued and the protected woman as asexual is a much more modern notion. You could consider actually reading things like Chretien de Troyes “A Knight of the Cart” (Also known as “Lancelot”). We have a woman that Lancelot rescues more than once asking for him to have sex with her as payment for staying at her house. We have Lancelot giving a distressed monologue hoping his friends will come rescue him. And Guinevere is anything but a reluctant sexually innocent child in the description of the sex scene:
“Now Lancelot had his every wish: the queen willingly sought his company
and affection, as he held her in his arms and she held him in hers. Her
love-play seemed.so gentle and-good to him, both her kisses and caresses, that
in truth the two of them felt a joy and wonder the equal of which has never
been heard or known. But I shall let it remain a secret forever, since it
should not be written of: the most delightful and choicest pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told.”
Women in medieval discourse are often seen as oversexed, not unsexual. You are actually projecting a Victorian discourse on the medievalists (who certainly were not angels by any measure either, I definitely do not want to live in a medieval modeled society, though I don’t like a Victorian modeled one either).
Pecunium, I think you’re right about certain aspects NWO’s reasoning, but wrong about the chain yanking. I really think he wants a 14 year old because he thinks he’d have a lover he could parent. I find that fucked up.
Juandelacruz… makes me uncomfortable. He’s like reading the forums of self-identified pedophiles who believe that 10 year olds’ rights are being infringed upon by age of consent laws.
To be fair, NWOslave outright said that 14 was too young for him. He seems interested in 15 year olds though, so it’s he’s still creepy as fuck.
Oh, some of my favourite twilight riffs (other than Growing Up Cullen and Sparkledammerung) are Mark Reads Twilight (chapter by chapter essays by a gay Hispanic man), Alex Reads Twilight (irreverent Youtube videos by a British guy), Reasoning With Vampires (which hilariously corrects all the grammar mistakes and points out other issues – This one is by far my favourite).
*it’s still?
I’m tired today. Can’t believe I got all the HTML working.
Oh, and there’s also Rifftrax commentaries on the movies. No idea how I forgot those.
Yes, but… show us, if you would be so kind, where anyone here has actually made one? Because that’s known as “rhetorical excess”, and is a device meant to focus on the titty-baby behavior of misogynists (like yourself) who abuse women, and then get all huffy and offended if anyone dares to engage in the same sort of behavior toward them, it’s practically lèse majesté ; as evidenced by you getting your skivvies in a twist at the very idea someone might do it.
Where did I say you did? Methinks somebody is protesting too much. If you’re so innocent, why feel the need to correct me? Given what she said, it was natural to assume that people here were, in fact, making dick jokes. Or are you saying that it was my responsibility to go back and check whether it’s true instead of taking her at her word?
Oh, and apparently I’m now a woman-abusing misogynist. Good to know.
“and then get all huffy and offended if anyone dares to engage in the same sort of behavior toward them” – what’s that term where you accuse the opposition of the very thing that you are in fact doing?
Paul Elam
“To be fair, NWOslave outright said that 14 was too young for him. He seems interested in 15 year olds though, so it’s he’s still creepy as fuck.”
Spear, I know that’s what he said, but when push comes to shove he sexualizes 14 year old girls constantly, and abandoned his whole “I’d like a 16 or 17 year old”-schtick just as soon as it was pointed out that 16 and 17 year olds are perfectly legal in the vast majority of the U.S.
Walking like a duck and quacking like a duck are going to make me think you’d taste good in an orange sauce.
Johnny B: You don’t accuse people of being just as bad as misogynists on the basis of “assumptions”. You can only do so on the basis of facts. Claiming, first, that feminists on this blog are awash in hatred, then sanctimoniously proclaiming that there wasn’t actually any factual basis to your accusation, and how dare anyone insinuate that had one! — not only is it intellectually dishonest, it’s insane. If you want to accuse people of being hateful, you have a moral obligation to ascertain that a factual basis actually exists to make the accusation — even if that means that yeah, you have to go back and read all those comments. Anything short of that, you are reduced to admitting that you didn’t have a basis in the first place. Huff and puff though you might, needless to say your argument was exposed. Again.
darksidecat: You mean the Castle Anthrax scene was actually kinda historically accurate?
Fuck fuck ffuck fuck fuck This thing just ate my goddamned comment. No time to copy and paste; it was one of those Hey, why’d everything turn blue and SNAP OMG . Hey, if men invented everything and get credit for everything, then this means I can blame this on some dude, right? With credit comes responsibility, after all. You want all the credit, you get all the blame, too. I blame Dick Cheney.
I’m not dividing and conquering, Holly, the MRAs are, and anybody who feels compelled to respond to an accusation of man-hating with burbling about the boytoy instead of with the contempt such an accusation deserves is not helping other women. The social conditioning goes a lot deeper than people want to admit—-that and the denial, I think. If you respond to an accusation of wholesale man hating with, “But I love men! I love my boyfriend!” you’re basically apologizing to MRAs. They don’t believe you, but I bet they get off on once again making a woman feel nervous about being regarded as….what, exactly? Any of the types of women I delineated? You might as well say you hate cats. They’re setting a “When did you stop beating your wife question?” and the proper response is to tell them to fuck off, not assure them that you adore your wife, blah blah blah. You see this sort of thing all the time at Jezebel, where they’re so eager to appeal to men and prove to them that they don’t hate men (and probably assure themselves that it’s really not as bad out there as the big nasty feminazis say) that they buy into all kinds of appeasement.
Bruce, what do I suggest? Well, the MRAs are offering two shitty choices in the hope that women will accept one without thinking, “Fuck this shit.” They’re offering, “Suck up to us and make up to us, or else we’ll call you bitter, a bitch, whatever. ” To which I say, “Bring it, assholes.” Of course, I think there’s appeasement and then there’s deflection. Of course, some of the shit the MRAs say is out of line, and I’ve noticed that too many women—even feminists—-will pile on the victim rather than the MRA, for fighting back and making everybody uncomfortable.
There’s all kinds of choices. Tell ’em you castrate sheep for work and it was so fun you branched out. Whatever sarcasm you can’ think of. They’re going to think badly of you? Guess what? They already hate you and think you’re shit. Having the bad opinion of MRAs is kind of an honor, because as you might have noticed they live on magnifying slights and microscopic shit into injustices. (They never seem to want to trade their terrible circumstances for that of any woman, however many bonbons they think we eat.) Being though well of by awful people—-yeah, is that really something to be sought after? Why is it suddenly okay to say, “Here, I have a boyfriend,” when in other cases, it’s just, “Some of my best friends are black.” We’re not in the wrong here. Womens’ rights are under assault every where in the world, and that includes the US, where hundreds of bills have been introduced to make abortion effectively impossible for most women. That’s injustice, and it’s completely okay to get angry about it. When a bunch of woman-hating mal-adjusted losers try and make you ashamed of that anger, the last thing you want to do is fall for it. I mean, these guys are going on and on and on about how great and cool and wonderful it is to fuck fourteen-year-olds. They’ve got more excuses for it than Carter has pills. Couple that with the rage some of them seethe with and their total refusal to admit that anybody on their side has ever said or done anything the slightest bit wrong and…..yeah, ugh, I wouldn’t want to mention my SO anywhere around them. It’d feel dirty.
Just have to point out that until the past century/century and a half – so for almost all of human history – women often died in childbirth because medicine was still fairly primitive.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/childbirth.cfm
In fact, women had a lower life expectancy than men until the beginning of the 20th century, for this reason.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/08/08/is-america-ready-for-more-old-men/the-convergence-of-life-expectancy
Of course, we are talking about First World women here. In 2011, there are still plenty of places in the world where women get inadequate or downright damaging care during pregnancy and childbirth, and die in high numbers as a result.
So, yes, women dying to create more citizens was a very real thing throughout almost the entire period of time during which they could not own land or assets, could not vote, could not object to being raped by their husbands, and were generally treated like non-people (coverture!) under the law as well as in practice.
As for the draft thing, many feminists (myself included) have agitated for women to be included. I agree that it is not fair that the die-for-your-country-in-battle thing is compulsory only for men. Traditionally, though, women have not been drafted because of sexism, not because of feminism.
As for the original post about age of consent, I would say that even though it has been legal to have sex with a 14-year-old girl for much of human history, times are different now. Nowadays, people are not forced into hyper-accelerated adulthood because they live about 3-4 times as long as they used to. Because of the way our society is set up, 14-year-old people in 2011 are barely out of childhood and have nowhere near enough mental maturity to engage in intimate relationships with 30-year-olds. Societies for most of history had no concept of childhood and treated 14-year-olds far differently, with the result that they matured far differently. I would add that there’s the possibility that was quite damaging to them, and we don’t know.
Anecdotal experience: I was once a 14-year-old girl, and when I was I also knew many other 14-year-old girls. None of us, but none, were anywhere near ready to date someone who was 20, much less a much older guy. We were incredibly inexperienced in everything, and we were scared of standing up for ourselves, even the boldest of us. We had no idea what dating or sex were supposed to be about. A relationship or sexual encounter between one of us and an older man would have involved a major power imbalance.
When I was 17 years old, I dated a 24-year-old man for several months. I spent most of it being miserable because I could never seem to give him what he wanted, sexually or emotionally, and he would get pretty angry about that. Now that I’m 25, I am amazed and slightly creeped out by that guy for wanting to date me, and I think it’s ridiculous that he expected a 17-year-old virgin to satisfy him sexually and emotionally. I can also see the power imbalance that we had. And that wasn’t even a huge age gap, and I was only a year below the age of consent.
As for there being healthy relationships with a power imbalance – sure. But the Taken In Hand stuff is supposed to take place between two consenting adults, and I’ve never seen any TIH-ers advocating significant age gaps. If you read their website, most of the people involved are actually a little bit older and both parties already have relationship experience and seem to be of similar ages. The woman involved has power to begin with and understands what she is giving up. Not that I’m a fan of TIH, but it’s not right to compare that power imbalance to the one that occurs in a relationship between a teenage girl and an older guy.
Ginmar: While I kinda agree with the whole ‘playing into misogyny” thing, I can also understand the impulse – I adore my husband, I’ve spent over ten years with him, and being told that I hate him by some asshole stings. I know it shouldn’t (it’s some random douchenozzle on the internet, for fuck’s sake!), but it does.
Is JohnnyB squeeling like a stuck pig again?
Ginmar – I get what you’re saying. It’s kindof like the question: ‘you aren’t one of those hairy-legged feminists, are you?’ which has the coda: ‘if you are you should be totally ignored because, somehow, hairy legs on women makes it impossible for them to use reason.’ That is, of course, freaking ridiculous.
The difference is that if I were man-hating then I think that would be a problem. Hating an entire gender is wrong, imo. I like them in a I’m attracted to them kindof way which is why I responded the way I did – and I take your point that using that as a measure of non-man-hatred quietly implies that lesbians do hate men. In future, I’ll respond (to a direct accusation!) with a simple ‘I don’t hate men, I hate people for who they are’ or something like that.
However, I still think that describing my response as ‘burbling’ or ‘sucking up’ and saying that the ONLY way to respond to accusations of man-hatred is with anger (I may be wrong about this, but it seems to be what you’re implying) is divisive in its own way. I think that there’s room for different ways to engage with douches – I don’t like doing the angry thing which is, yes, totally part of my conditioning – but I don’t think anyone gets to insist that I do something that doesn’t suit me, or that if I don’t I’m doing feminism wrong. I think having a measured response to someone else’s anger has its place as a rhetorical device. I would argue too, that while righteous anger is certainly warranted in many circumstances, it isn’t always the best way to respond, and can alienate people who might have otherwise become allies (and I’m talking here about the audience rather than the misogynist who wants to fuck 14yos). It’s not our job to teach those who believe the crap about feminism being evil and man-hating, no-one has to, but if I want to then that’s no problem for anyone else. Just like I’m not going to argue that people shouldn’t respond in an angry way.