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.
Once I looked over this again, Holly’s
does sound like a precipitate response to your remark here:
But even given that Holly’s remark was precipitate, I still think that “Oh yeah, well you must like misogynists then! The trophy I will give you is…me, doing terrible things to you!” was way too harsh as a response. Then you dug your heels in even further. I appreciate your willingness to have a discussion with me right now, but is there anything preventing you from doing that with everyone else here? Especially since Holly got the impression not that you were just being “sarcastic” with her (as when you say “her sarcasm is okay, mine is not.”) but that you literally hate what she’s doing with her life.
So let me get this straight, Elizabeth, if I may. I don’t like anything based on…what, exactly? Sarcasm?
Your complete and total lack of acknowledgement of anything you do like until this thread and Voip and Ami trying to draw it out.
VOIP, you mean the people who are dogpilling on me? Calling me nuts? Accusing me of being the feminist who said that Joss Whedon probably raped his wife? Accusing me, to quote, of lashing out and berserking? You really can’t take me to task for finding subtle meanings in what I say….and then saying Holly’s comment was one-dimensional, totally face value only, utterly harmless. And then felixBC links to a harassment site that’s five years old? If that shit is okay and gets to be taken at literal face value only, then so does anything I say.
PFKAE, I wasn’t aware that that was a sin that I needed to seek absolution for before I dared criticize anything. So I have to offer a resume of shit I like so…why, again? And again.;…if I have to provide this sort of list, then why doesn’t anyone else?
Where did I say that what she said was harmless? I said it was precipitate—it was too quickly said, rash. What I said was “Even given that Holly’s remark was precipitate, what you said after that was out of line.”
After you say “Post deleted for sadism,”
and
“If you’re going to basically accuse me of being an unshaved, humorless, sweaty, smelly, every-stereotype-there-is feminist, it’s profoundly hypocritical to object to anything I use in response, especially if it points out that you are offering yourself as the exact opposite of what you accuse me of.”
and
“Yeah, there’s no social context for calling a feminist Alpha and saying she doesn’t like ANYTHING. I’m a blue collar feminist. I did twenty years in the Army and you saying I don’t like anything….because I don’t like what you like….sounds awfully familiar to me.”
And after Holly said that she found your use of “sexy” as an insult directed at her to be hurtful.
Of acting like her, not of being her.
Ginmar, it seemed from my perspective you were playing the “I hate Starwars on feminist grounds” card a bit thick to me. This was furthered by your feeling the need to defend your hatred in a rather vicious way rather then explain. If you don’t like that movie, that’s completely fine (I myself love the original trilogy, but that’s just me). That’s just how you came across to me, that’s all.
However, one thing that bothers me is that you never ONCE addressed Holly’s complaints about your overly harsh reaction.
Do you believe that feminism is (or should be) a “no ‘sexy feminists’ allowed” movement, one reserved for the good girls(tm)?
Do you seriously believe that people who disagree with you are secretly trying to get down the pants of the trolls?
I’ll admit, I may have missed it if you did (I am on my study break, and my thinking is a bit hazy right now). If so, I apologize. However, if you didn’t, I think we would (or at least I would) like a clarification/explanation on that (unless we can take your refusal to answer as that you truly do hold the belief, in which case…OUCH).
Ginmar,
Of course saying that you don’t like anything is overstating, but when we brought up Star Wars, you said this:
Which sounds like at least you don’t like Star Wars at all. If people are talking about something and you show up and say how much it sucks, being accused of not liking anything is par for the course.
And back to being unreasonable again. *sigh*
Look, I said this is my impression of you, that you match what Holly said about not liking anything (and only that part.) At what point did I, or anyone, require you to post a list of things that you like? Even then, it would not matter if we all said you do not like anything under the sun-it still does not call for you to tell any of us that we are, in essence, a slut who likes MRAs and deserves something sadistic to be done to us.
And the other part that Holly said that I did point out was unfair? That still does not warrant what you said in response.
VOIP, he asked me if I WERE that woman. Saying I sounded like her came later.
And saying that Holly’s response was ‘precipitate’ downplays it. If there’s no context to her accusations—-who knew Star Wars was such serious business?—–then there’s none to mine. Christ, if criticizing a movie means you hate everything, then you guys ought to be tarring and pillorying him.
Demios, your question presumes that criticism of a movie equals hatred. As for the rest of it, I won’t repeat myself again. Either people will read or they won’t. I suspect one option will dominate.
Oh, you mean this. “Your complete and total lack of acknowledgement of anything you do like until this thread and Voip and Ami trying to draw it out.”
Why, again, am I compelled to prove I like anything before people leap to accuse me of disliking everything? Like Holly accused me of. Twice. In addition to being some kind of…..Alpha Feminist. She made it clear that is a Bad Thing. Not some kind of. And then she contrasted herself with me, with herself being the good option, overly me, who doesn’t like anything, in addition to being some kind of ultimate feminist. She’s the good girl, she said. I’m the bad one. Seriously, do you guys EVER go to any site that talks about tropes? Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s lashing out.
I’m not saying it again. Good night.
Ginmar, I googled you after reading this. Doin’ the research. And, yeah, there’s a lot out there, which must be difficult. But then I read your continuing posts on thread, and I can’t resist poking you with a sharp stick, just like any other commenter on here who rises so easily to the bait. And you went for it. (try telling an MRA that you’re ignorant and need to be educated. they’ll go ahead and explain, ad nauseam. fun with mansplainers!) But still, I meant it about your comments over the years being good, and worth reading.
Your introducing “sexy” as a criticism of Holly seemed egregious. Slut shaming ahoy!
And you, once again, refuse to listen to what someone is telling you Ginmar.
Oh, for fuck’s sake…
Ginmar, it was a snarky response to your Star Wars thing, and in retrospect, I could have tempered the sarcasm a little and explained myself more.
But the way you blew up–with unbridled rage that you had been criticized, that This Would Not Stand, that you would take me down by any means necessary, that you would bring up my sexuality and accuse me of wanting to date the trolls (and then, rather than saying “I went too far on that part, but you’re still a jerk,” just pretend that all criticisms of that bit are invisible or something)–it’s inappropriate for anyone but it’s disgusting for a feminist. It’s not just grouchy, it’s bullying.
(It also gives the MRAs great fuel to go “see what feminists are really like,” but eh, let them talk.)
And then when we called you out on that, you responded by accusing us of things we really never had said, of claiming we were perfect and you were crap, of calling you a fat hairy-legged Dworkinite when no one had said anything like that.
The impression I get, Ginmar, was that all if this had happened in a conversational setting it would be a case where I said one thing that was out of line (and sure, it was) and then you would have responded by backing me into a wall screaming and escalating and refusing to stop. (Mighta worked, too; I’m really short and in real life I’m not that hard to intimidate.)
Do I have to spell out why this is horrifically inappropriate behavior for a feminist?
What just happened……?
** Whistles **
** goes back to watching the secret supper club on the food network. **
And we see, again (as always?) that NWO is a lying sack of shit (with apologies to the lying sacks of shit in the world).
My recent “moderation” is proof of the duplicity of this site and your behavior. I’m banned for being “mean” to Molly Ren. She openly admits to sleeping with at least 30 men blabbity blabbity about more than 30 being too many men, etc.”
He says he was, “mean” (in scare quotes, denoting that he doesn’t think it was at all mean), when what he did was call another human being a thing, a disposable object, somewhere in the same category as a used kleenex.
And he thinks being moderated is unfair.
Being banned wouldn’t have been out of line; it would have fed his martyr complex (never mind how much longer Dave has tolerated the stupid git than the other places which have banned him), but we’d have been spared his bleating complaints about not being able to abuse people with impunity.ccepted” drinks, dinners, vacations, some type of monetary gain.
@Holly:
I agree with you that “well you must want to fuck the MRAs” was inappropriate and hurtful, but… eh, I don’t think it’s the same as yelling and intimidating in person. You said “in real life I’m not that hard to intimidate”, so you’re presumably harder to intimidate on the internet. Perhaps Ginmar is likewise more likely to yell at people on the internet than in real life.
INTERNET RAGE isn’t acceptable behavior, but it doesn’t imply that the person is emotionally abusive.
Slavey:
I’m pretty sure the phrase “I want children” isn’t supposed to be creepy.
PFKAelizabeth:
I’m not entirely comfortable telling even Ginmar “don’t call out X because X is an ally, and besides, Y is even worse.” Criticizing the topic and even style of her calling-out is fine, criticizing the target makes me uncomfortable. It’s the difference between “you shouldn’t question Holly’s feminism on the basis that she puts sugar in her porridge” and saying “you shouldn’t question Holly’s feminism, because she’s on our side” (for one thing, while she is, it borders on begging the question).
See what feminists are really like?
Which is why I followed up with pointing out that Holly was being unfair-however that does not excuse Ginmar from attacking her fellow feminist like she did. And this is not the first time that Ginmar has done that.
If thinking that Princess Leia is a badass is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
It’s not often I follow MRAL’s links, but I did check out Ginmar’s fandom wank page…and holy shit. I’ll be staying out of this debate, because I’m a twenty-two year old virgin and as such can only see things in black and white.
Can we focus on how people are behaving on THIS thread rather than dredging up a site evidently designed to harass Ginmar (and incoherently at that, outside of maybe it’s original context.) Half the things on that bingo card either have nothing to do with this discussion or are not even bad.
Fandom Wank wasn’t designed to harass one person.
And if she’s going to represent herself online that way, I’m grateful to know about it, frankly. I don’t want to waste my time talking to someone who thinks that I can’t have valid opinions if my hymen is intact.
Lauralot, Fandom Wank isn’t a reliable source for this kind of thing… they exaggerate and take things out of context all the time to make online conflicts seem more dramatic than they otherwise would. It can be an amusing site, but taking it seriously is just as bad idea as taking articles on Encyclopedia Dramatica seriously. And the bingo card that Felix linked to isn’t on FW; it’s in a personal journal entry that quite obviously is designed to harass one person.
When they provide actual links in which I can see her actual posts, which is what I was referring to, not the Bingo card, I’m going to consider her own words reliable.