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.
I don’t call women Her Holy Highnesses in real life, if that’s what you mean. ???
Her Royal/Holy Highness is a gendered insult in its own right. You already told us it’s a cipher for bitch earlier as well. Stop transparently lying. You’re awful at it. And be less stupid.
On the topic of the original incoherent rant, what exactly is withholding sex supposed to actually do for either gender?
“Withholding” sex does not seem to do anything for the person “withholding” it except to assert bodily autonomy.
I’m leaving.
It’s possible I’ve confused Meller’s equally incoherent posts with MRAL’s. In which case, apologies for the mistake, but your behavior online is still repulsive and if the fact that you don’t use “gendered” insults in the real world is supposed to redeem the way you represent yourself here, it’s failed.
I’ll save you the trouble… it hasn’t been updated since 2006. Actually, it looks like nothing in the Fandom Wank wiki has been updated since 2006…
MRAL, whatever your disagreement with Ginmar is, would you not consider debating it in a civil manner? Calling Ginmar a fucking idiot because you think differently, makes you look rather immature.
That’s right MRAL. Storm out like a spoilt brat.
Bodily autonomy being a very good thing, for both genders of course.
Another fucking flounce. I’m gonna bet… oh, say five internets that he’s back within twenty four hours. probably still being an insulting ass, but I’m not sure some tings can be helped.
MRAL: flounce, stick the landing, full points, etc.
He realizes that he’s going to get put onto moderation, but doesn’t bother to think about why he might get put onto moderation. Obviously it’s just because David is a big meanie pants who likes spitting on him.
Bostonian – I think the concept is that women withhold sex until they get what they want, and men will give women whatever they want. So I can tell some guy “I’m not having sex with you unless you buy me dinner,” and then I have the sexual power to get a free dinner.
Or something.
Through great unspecificity of thought, in which they talk about women demanding “things,” rather than “dinner” or “dinner and a movie, oh my god”, MRAs seem to have convinced themselves that women can make an entire living off of not-having-sex, instead of occasionally getting some dates paid for.
(Emotional “demands” seem to go in this category as well, as being affectionate with a woman is either a sacrifice of your time and effort, or an actual show of humiliation, rather than a human relationship. It’s unclear what exactly women gain from this, though. Perhaps it just amuses us.)
I have yet to meet a non-prostitute who got cash or anything useful for daily living by strategically withholding sex from men, but in MRA-land it happens all the time. Women just go around buying cars and paying their rent and credit card bills by not having sex with men.
This is real life, MRAL. You’re talking to actual people right now. I fucking hate it when people try to pull that shit.
Bye MRAL.
Six internets says he’ll be back by evening.
Katz – The ability to realize that people don’t like them, but the inability to think about why people don’t like them, is a common denominator for basically every troll Manboobz has ever had.
MRAL: I don’t call women Her Holy Highnesses in real life, if that’s what you mean. ???
Bullshit. This is real life. It’s just not face to face.
Holly, it wasn’t MRAL that told people to “cool off”, it was me telling him and Ginmar. This is why I probably shouldn’t apply to become a forum mod. 😛
And be less stupid.
If only everyone could follow this simple advice, what a wonderful world this would be.
MRAL, seriously. Just stop using insults when you talk to people. Don’t make up new insults. Just stop insulting people. Why is this hard?
And wait, the keyboard-mashing really is a thing in, like, gaming communities? Oh lord.
MRAL, Are you seriously saying that, when you have the urge to call me, or CB, or NWO, an asshole you are going to type, “Her Holy Highness?”
Especially when my proper title is Her Royal Majesty, Queen and High Priestess of Chocolate Funk. I’m very particular about that.
Shaenon, I’ve seen it before, but usually only in slash communities. Some of those shirtless depictions of Sam & Dean Winchester can make a girl downright inarticulate. 😉
CB: Yah! I’m Molly Fucking Stuffie Queen Ren, and y’all better not forget it! 😀
Since we’re betting, I bet 10 internets that he’s reading these comments and crying softly in the dark.
And a further 5 that he’ll post under a fake handle.
It’s interesting how by not using my vagina, I’m somehow sticking it to men or making them give me gifts. I wish I’d figured this out sooner!
Not have sex
????
PROFIT!!
Because here I’ve spent the last 20-some years not having sex and I sure would like some college monies.
But once again, we find that we can’t win. You use your vagina and you’re a used-up whore. Don’t use it and you’re a horrible, money-hungry harpy. :/ Well, if I gotta be a money-hungry harpy, I expect my check from the collective hetero male population to be arriving soon. Thx. $20,000 should do.
What appears to me to be the case when it comes to these kinds of screeds is that these guys have watched way way too many romantic comedies where stuff that rarely happens in real life (and even when it does in very specific circumstances) is what they think that all women do, say or think despite clear evidence to the contrary.
It makes me think of what happened repeatedly in history-women would be obviously capable and reliable and yet the constant refrain was “women cannot do squat.”
I don’t think it is a general thing actually. Though maybe the online games I’ve been playing lately are just more chill. There’s certainly a lot less rage in stuff like TF2 or Altitude than there is in League of Legends. Actually that could just be a server matter as well.
Er. He realizes (the OP that is) that men already can and do turn down sex? That, like. We’re all humans with that sort of basic abilities, among which is the vocabulary for “yes please” and “no, thank you” for many yes/no questions?