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The blogger Fidelbogen likes to think of himself as some sort of grand theoretician of “counter-feminist” thinking. Which means that his posts are usually far too long and ponderous to read, much less to write about. His ideas – at least judging from the few posts of his I’ve had the patience to wade through — are really not much more advanced than your typical MRA; he’s just much more pretentious (and long-winded) about it.
He is, in other words, the sort of guy who could take 3000 words to explain the rather basic MRA notion that women control men with their vaginas.
I mean that quite literally. Our excitable MGTOWer friend MarkyMark recently drew his readers’ attention to a 5-year-old post by Fidelbogen with the enigmatic title “Ideas Which Go Against the Grain,” which offers, yep, a 3000-word précis of the evils of pussy power. Perhaps against my better judgement, I’ve decided to give it a detailed look. Strap in!
I’ll give him credit for one thing: despite his vague title, Fidelbogen states his thesis quite plainly at the start:
Female sexuality is raised high upon an altar like a golden calf. Male sexuality is looked upon as a ratty old kitchen chair with a cracked vinyl seat, under suspicion of mildew.
Well, ok, not the very start. Right about here:
This disparity, this imbalance, this . . . . inequality, accounts for most of women’s power over men. By extension, it accounts for a great deal of feminism’s leverage in the realm of gender politics.
In other words: vagina=power.
I leave it to the poets to wax lyrical about the mysteries of the eternal feminine, and to the psychoanalytic priesthood to plumb its shadowy depths. As a political tactician and theorist, it is my cold-blooded task merely to figure out how the world works, blabbity blabbity bloo.
Ok, those last three words are my paraphrase of his argument. Focus, Fidelbogen, focus!
The higher valuation assigned to female sexuality generates a seller’s market for women in the so-called game of love. That is how the world works; women do not queue or cluster in quest of men’s favors. No, it is nearly always men who act this way around women.
And this leads to, yep, the dreaded Pussy Cartel:
Deprived of euphemism, the case is this: women have cornered the market on sexual intercourse, and are able to dictate the price and the accompanying politics much as OPEC might set the terms for oil. …
Understand, that the higher valuation of female sexuality translates into both female power and loss of male power. Since female supremacy is feminism’s driving ambition, it makes sense that the women’s movement has undertaken to siphon power away from men using every siphon hose imaginable.
Normally, I would assume this last bit was some kind of sniggering reference to blowjobs. As Fidelbogen seems to be utterly without a sense of humor, I have to assume it’s merely a belabored metaphor.
So how do the evil feminists siphon away male power? By driving along some sort of road:
Certain lanes, deeply rutted by age-old usage, serve handily along feminism’s route to power.
So after siphoning their way down this road, we (and the evil feminists) arrive at what I’ll call (to keep Fidelbogen’s metaphor going) “Courtship Lane.”
The word “courtship” is revealing. Men are the “courtiers”, which is to say lackeys or sycophants who wait upon the pleasure of their “lord”. In courtship, more often than otherwise, women hold all the cards. Feminists, being women, are well aware of this. But they are also aware that the realm of courtship, while being women’s greatest zone of power over men, is likewise a critical link in the chain of power which binds men specifically to the designs of feminist domination.
After a bit of empty rhetoric, Prof. F continues:
Most women are aware of their superior sexual bargaining power. And many women have been politicized to some degree (more or less) by feminist ideology. This latter group will most certainly carry their politicized outlook into the sexual bargaining arena, and in their minds both feminist ideology and the knowledge of their age-old power will meld together into a troublesome sort of hybrid entity.
Fidelbogen, alas, does not take the opportunity to name this dastardly “hybrid entity.” Let’s just call it THE FEMIGINA!! (In all caps, with two exclamation points.)
At this point, Prof. F loses what little steam his argument has, and begins prattling about this and that and the evils of feminism. I will attempt to convey the gist of it with the following excerpts. In order to truly capture the flavor of it, I will replace the traditional ellipses – used to indicate excised material – with the phrase “blabbity blabbity.”
Blabbity blabbity to gauge the extent of feminist indoctrination among the female population would be like measuring the spread of a gaseous substance with a rubber band. Blabbity blabbity [f]eminism has blabbity blabbity secured a tremendous power over men by means of a momentous bio-political conjunction. Blabbity moral corona of the ideology blabbity female noosphere blabbity blabbity feminist-tinted spectacles blabbity blabbity the path lies clear before us.
And then he comes to his point:
Men should cease to value female sexuality beyond a certain fixed rate. Once the cost exceeds this rate, the value should fall to zero—leaving the purveyors in their deserted market stall.
Yep. That’s right. He’s talking about what we here on Man Boobz know as the Cock Blockade.
Blabbity blabbity it would go against nature blabbity blabbity laborious gritting of teeth. Blabbity blabbity supremely human accomplishment. Blabbity blabbity we are more than simply animals.
And he comes to another point:
Devaluation of female sexuality would alter the balance of power between the sexes. There would come a point where a man, any man, could make the personal choice to cast loose from women altogether—in all but the peripheral aspects of his life.
Blabbity blabbity men would need to cut each other some slack blabbity blabbity stop competing with other men in the customary arena where female flesh is the prize. Blabbity blabbity. The question “are ya getting any?”, along with the adolescent mindset it signals, would be out of place in this altered scheme of things.
And this would put the ladies in their place – standing lonely in their vagina stalls, gamely trying to interest men in their now worthless vaginas.
Women would be the courtiers, the ones who queue and cluster. Deny women their fundamental age-old power, and feminism would find itself reeling in shock as though from a serious blood loss. The best way for men to free themselves from the boa-constrictor grip of feminism is to free themselves from the power of women.
So now I have the image of lady boa-constrictors with head wounds standing in a line, displaying their boa-constrictor vaginas with a sort of desperate hopefulness to the wholly uninterested men who pass by.
After a good deal of blathering so tedious it’s not even worth quoting in part, Fidelbogen begins to ponder the power of “no.”
[M]en must play hard to get. They must learn to exercise the very same option which has historically been the province of women, namely, the power to say NO.
Saying no lies coiled at the very heart of playing hard to get. Saying no signifies a withdrawal which generates a vacuum along its line of retreat, and this vacuum by its draft draws the other into a pursuit by default.
I feel a bit of a breeze myself, but I think that’s just because Prof. F is talking a lot of wind.
Let’s move from breezes to earthquakes:
The changes I am discussing here would amount to a tectonic realignment of unquestionably world-historic magnitude. An inversion of the Victorian pedestal.
The old way of doing things, Prof. F tells us,
I have decided to call it the pussy paradigm—a somewhat vulgar expression to be sure, but it has the common touch!
Ironically, the common touch is something hetero dudes will have to become masters at if they swear off the ladies. Prof. F continues:
So, this pussy paradigm belongs in the category of things which predate feminism’s arrival in the world. And when the feminists got here, they saw in a flash where their advantage lay, and they closed in, and they threw a harness around it.
They threw a harness around a paradigm?
The heart of feminism is female supremacism, and the heart of female supremacism is the pussy paradigm. Remember this if you remember nothing else.
So what does Prof. F call his pussy-optional way of doing things? The “optionality paradigm.” That is, dudes can have sex with women or not, whatever they want, and shouldn’t pressure one another to score with the ladies. (I’m not quite sure how, in Professor F’s economic model, the price of pussy can be reduced to zero if some dudes are still interested in it, but I confess that I only sort of skimmed that bit of his post. Life is short, and Fidelbogen’s posts are long.)
More blabbity blabbity:
The future, in theory, should see a migration of the optionality paradigm toward the center of the map within hetero-normative male culture, along with a corresponding displacement of the pussy paradigm toward the perimeter. This would exactly reverse the present disposition of forces. The optionality paradigm would, at that point, become the ruling paradigm.
After reading this turgid turd of a paragraph , I decided to cut my losses and skip directly to Professor F’s grand conclusion. Which turns out to be neither grand nor much of a conclusion:
My endeavor in writing has been to flesh it out somewhat. To write about it is to give it a form, to make the inchoate choate, to fashion an anchor of words that can hold things usefully in place so we can discuss them, if need be, with a view toward implementation and concrete action. The time to draft contingency plans is now. Put these ideas in your thinking cap and ponder their utility.
Even better, put them in a small bag, weigh it down with rocks, and toss it into the nearest large body of water.
Jesus, this turned into a long post. Still, it’s only about half the length of Prof. F’s original.
“Power” to do what, exactly?
It seems to me that when I exercise this amazing power to say “no” to sex, the result is… I don’t have sex. Which is good and all, but I still have to hold down a day job.
Jesus Christ, I aged just getting to the bottom of this post.
Pussy power? Like solar power? It’s good for the environment? Or else….whoops, too many Kegels, didn’t mean to crush anything. On the other hand, hey, I can crush all those soda cans now!
The fact that these assholes can say this shit in public says it all.
God once again I find myself in the uncomfortable position of sort of agreeing with some of the points a certain MRA makes but then having it ruined by all the other stuff he says.
For instance all that stuff he says about men cutting each other some slack, how we are not animals the freedom to actually be able to say NO? I say hell yeah preach it brother. Makes a nice change from constantly being told I’m a rutting beast who is phisicaly incapable of keeping it in his pants.
But for fucks sake why do they have torpedo there own arguments by saying that by doing this we’re striking a blow against teh evil feminists? No we are not if anything we are striking a blow against the limiting “hetro-normative culture” that this guy values so much for some reason.
You’re not agreeing with him; you’re agreeing with a fairly feminist idea. So he takes something and twists it.
Does this guy get paid by the letter? I’ve seen better padding by freshmen trying to get their word count up.
No, he is agreeing with him. He shares a feminist ideal. I’m sorry if you have a problem with that, Her Holy Highness.
MRAL, may I suggest you start practicing the “power to say no” as soon as possible.
You might become a much more pleasant person if you view the sex you’re not having as something you’re turning away instead of something women aren’t giving you.
If abstinence only education has taught us anything, it is that is not easy to convince people to just say no to sex. It’s a tough sell to get people to settle for masturbation and cold showers.
So his basic premise is that men should only have sex when they want to? Like, they should only have sex if they *consent* to it? And this is a novel idea for him?
*weeps for the state of sex education*
Just highlighting that MRAL just directly called a poster a bitch.
Why can’t MRAs write well? It won’t make their idiotic screeds about sexual politics or feminism correct, but it’d make them tolerable. Get an editor at least, if you suck this bad.
Who are you talking to? KathleenB? She was not talking about marc2020 but that blathering fool that Mr. Futrelle was quoting.
Well, it’s okay for MRAs to do that, Rutee. He has to actually threaten someone for it to matter.
Any time somebody calls themselves a ‘political tactician and theorist’ it’s time to mentally translate that to, basically: “Pretentious unemployed shit with misogyny issues.” I don’t know what MRAL’s issue is, but I really don’t have to give a shit, either? Fidelbogen’s screeds remind me of the crap that other ‘theorists’ used to spout during more radicalized periods of the Sixties. It was funny to watch men on both ends of the spectrum agree on one thing: Bitches ain’t shit—-in incredibly turgid, pretentious, ten-dollar-SAT-word screeds like FB’s here.
I wonder if the perfesser would get along with these assholes? They don’t seem amenable to grammar correction, but they’re singing the same tune—- albeit with a new arrangement, and set to a different beat. FB thinks pussy is a necessary commodity which he’s being deprived of, and those losers think it’s something that women are demanding too high a price for, but they’re playing the same tune. It’s like how Dolly Parton gives stuff a country arrangement when she sings something that someone else does in a straight pop style, you know?
Boil it down he’s pissed that women can say no and yes. Make of that what you will.
I wonder if we can get an artist’s rendition of the Cock Blockade. Would it be a roosters in sailing frigates crying “prepare to be boarded!” to vagina-shaped trading dhows? Or is it more a solid wall of erect penises, like the Great Wall of China, blocking the path of marauding kittens riding Mongol ponies?
Or do I just need more coffee?
Ok, even this shortened version of yours was TL;DR, geez! So, he starts of so well… it really IS a problem that women’s sexuality is venerated and men’s is viewed as filthy. Personally I have a lot more interest in raising up our appreciation of men’s sexuality than in tearing women down. Mostly this is because I think men are so damned PRETTY!
Womens’ sexuality is venerated? Where?! And mens’ is viewed as filthy? Yeah, that’s just one half of the dual layer there. Men also get excused for having uncontrollable sexual urges, so women just ought to keep out of their worldway, because male sexuality is awesome and awe-inspiring, a force of nature to be reckoned with.
Which is why you’ll never see Wilford Brimley as a spokesman for Viagra. Not the image men like to have of themselves.
Women get routinely raped, beaten, and murdered for that ‘venerated’ sexuality. And men get praised for their ‘filthy’ sexuality. Women get slut shamed constantly.
It’s not being ‘venerated’ if the only choices you’re offered are chaste virgin and irredeemable whore.
“to make the inchoate choate,”
Yo, Prof. F., you’re doin’ it wrong.
MRAL was that really necessary? I asked a question Ginmar answered it simple as that.
MRAL: I am going to quote you, once directly, once as a manner of response.
No, he is agreeing with him. He shares a feminist ideal. I’m sorry if you have a problem with that, Her Holy Highness.
The only thing one can say to something like that is, “Fuck you, [MRAL].”
The picture of the cat was the only part of this post that didn’t contribute to my headache. I would say that all Man Boobz posts should contain cats, but then people might start associating cats with MRAs, and that’s just not fair to the cats.
Which is why you’ll never see Wilford Brimley as a spokesman for Viagra. Not the image men like to have of themselves.
I think it depends on to whom the product is being pitched, demographically speaking. I mean, wasn’t Bob Dole a spokesman for Viagra for a while? Senior citizens might relate to ol’ Wilfred just fine. Young men, not so much.
Two things. 1) If you were really serious about the whole ‘not using insults for/to women, you’d STOP using them! Substituting one word/phrase that clearly means the same thing as bitch for the word bitch is not really obeying to spirit of the rule. 2) In this context, ‘your holy highness’ makes much more sense, since you’re directly addressing someone.
Addendum: 3) you are an arrogant jackass.
I find that if one thinks of cats when MRAs invoke pussy, it works much better.
Pecunium, don’t say stuff like that to MRAL. He’ll start humping your leg and who wants a hefty dry-cleaning bill?
(For the dry heaves, of course. I’m not so cruel as to invoke visions of any other substance exiting MRAL’s body.)
Also, MRAL, wtf? Your statement has me very confused – who are you addressing? And why? Are you calling me a bitch, or someone else? Or just being sarcastic?
I always associate Wilford Brimley with his character from The Thing. Excellent movie, but seeing as how he hasn’t changed in appearance since then, and it’s been at least thirty years, I have to wonder if he sold his soul to Satan. Or Satin, as a former friend one memorably put it.
Bob Dole was a certified war hero, and he was a Republican when it wasn’t quite that scary to be one. Also, he was kind of poking fun at himself a bit, too, which, if you’re a war hero….Yeah, you can do that.
Which in a way reminds me. That venerated female sexuality thing. How come we have Viagra but no male BC pill? And how come Viagra is subsidized but the news that female birth control would for the first time be free for women aroused great howls of outrage? Hell, even the HPV vaccine is the object of rage, because it offers sluts a chance to escape the wages of sin, if you listen to that kind of crap from certain people.
I was referring to Ginmar as an arrogant Her Holy Highness, because she is. I don’t know why people brought in the term “bitch”, because I sure didn’t.