Consider the plight of the poor, horny Man Going His Own Way. He may have convinced himself that women are icky monsters out to highjack his sperm and steal his money. He may have convinced himself we live in a femi-fascist gynocracy out to destroy men and civilization generally. Yet his disobedient penis can’t stop thinking about sex with these evil, filthy women.
And so he turns to his fellow MGTOWers to ask for help: what can I do, my brethren, to stop popping so many boners? Ed1974, a newbie on MGTOWforums.com, puts it this way in a plaintive recent post:
[M]ore than almost anything I want to be woman-free and contentment to live a woman-free life. For more or less all of my adult life I’ve played in to society’s demands that I have to have a woman, and preferably a pretty woman, in my life. I’ve done a lot of Internet dating and every friggin time I get involved with a woman I regret it. Either I just want to get some ass and the woman wants a lot more than that and makes a mess out of my life when I leave, or I end up spending way more money than I ever wanted to spend just to have her grace my life with her presence, or something else that fucks up my life. The bottom line is I sincerely want to live a life without the desire to have a woman in my life.
So Ed is taking steps to quell his desire:
1. I downloaded a firewall blocking all dating sites.
2. I’m going to read as many books on misandry that I can.
3. I’m going to take myself out of situations where I can get in trouble, such as bars.
4. I’m going to fill free time that I would normally spend out with some woman with something productive.
I also want to remember the bad times where I’ve had women who I’ve tried to get out of my life end up stalking me for months on end. And to be perfectly honest, I want to remember the time I got the clap from some skank. I also want to remember that I should be thankful that I’m not a baby daddy and I’ve never had any false rape charges against me.
Alas, but poor pretty Eddie is afraid that this won’t be enough, and begs the assembled MGTOWers for “other steps I should take.”
Site admin Nacho Vidal suggests he go another way entirely:
My advice would be to scrap the ‘steps’ you’ve taken and take your wanking up a notch! Also, have you looked into hiring a whore or two once a month?
Others jump in to endorse the masturbation-and-prostitute strategy, and encourage him to cultivate his hatred of women by reading from the ample selection of stories on the site about evil, depraved, disgusting women. As fairi5fair puts it:
I go to college and still get the biochemical reactions that play into the mate-spawn-die script when I see a 20 year old with a candy apple ass and perky tits, but my growing understanding of women in general helps to make it less urgent and more negligible everyday.
A few others have more novel advice. Our friend womanhater suggests a trip to the mall:
Sit in the food court, and spend a good three hours there. Leisurely sip on some coffee, and simply watch.
See all the soulless men being dragged around by cupcake holding her bags. You’ll see the total absence of hope in the eyes of men in this trap. You’ll see his brain calculating the immense debt being run up, and yet he knows he’s fucked.
Pay attention to the stupid whores in training aged 15 or so, and simply listen the absolute shit running out of their mouth. Watch their behavior and internalize that every twat you see aged 25 was doing the exact same shit a decade ago.
Every time I start to feel my ghosting resolve start to slip, I go to the mall for a few hours. Clears my fucking head every time.
NewWorldMan suggests a sort of mind-over-boner strategy:
Sounds like BS, I know, but telling myself (actually saying the sentence in my head at the moment of attraction): “I control my dick, my dick doesn’t control me — actually works for me.
Frederick326 suggests an anatomy lesson:
Read up on vaginas. They’re fucking disgusting.
And fairi5fair also links to the (somewhat NSFW) video below. I’m not sure what exactly it’s supposed to accomplish other than to remind us that Japan leads the world in baffling entertainment product:
I was not aware that my posting would carry such a suggestion (I have re-read my posts, and I cannot see where I have written such a thing), and did not wish to offend.
OK, really? You’ve come here to a feminist blog and turned it into Free Therapy Hour.
Look, I know you can’t really roll into an MRA blog and ask your questions, but perhaps some reflection about why you automatically expect the women to drop everything to tend to your problem is in order.
I was not aware that this was a site for women. I assumed that there would be men here, due to the author of the site being named David.
The OP was about a MRA raising this subject, and I had hoped for a non-misogynist perspective, as I do not sympathize with the MRM.
I apologize and now realize that what I did was not OK.
” perhaps some reflection about why you automatically expect the women to drop everything to tend to your problem is in order.”
Indeed. Why did you think that this was an appropriate space in which to ask that question, and what did you hope to achieve by doing so? There’s no indication that this space is full of people who are involuntarily celibate themselves, so why would you ask us how you should cope with that experience? How would we know?
Not all women are feminists and vice versa, and this is a blog that mocks misogyny.
There are men here, but how many of them identify as involuntarily celibate? If they don’t, what help could they be in terms of telling you how to live with a situation they haven’t experienced?
It’s just all around sort of strange to ask a question of a group of people who’ve given no indication that they’re in a position to be able to answer it.
I don’t mean to dogpile., but do you have any idea how often men come into feminist spaces and say “I’m not getting as much sex/the kind of sex/the treatment from women that I want! How are feminists/women going to solve this problem for me?”? Seriously, it happens all the time, and it’s vexing. Most of us are out of patience with it, so there’s the context in which we’re responding.
I am sorry for my inappropriate behaviour.
No need to apologize, just be aware.
Kind of sounding like Simon.
It does bring up one of the fundamental issues here, which is that even feminist-friendly men can be completely unaware of what the whole experience of interecting with men and male sexual desire is like for many women. It often feels like a solid wall of DO THIS FOR ME, BECAUSE I WANT IT, WHY CAN’T YOU JUST DO IT FOR ME, WHY IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK, YOU’RE BEING SO SELFISH AND UNFAIR, NOW I’M SAD, SO WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GIVE ME WHAT I WANT, starting at around puberty and continuing until at least the 40s.
It gets very, very tiresome. I personally have no objections at all to men offering sex, but anything that sounds like a demand is going to get the “no, and also piss off and stop pestering me” response on an instinctive level.
I think the tendency for some male involuntary celibates to become misogynists is *precisely* due to a (more or less consciously held) view that they, as men, are entitled to sex with women.
If they think they’re entitled to sex with women, they’re already misogynists. I’m gratified to see you’re taking the high road here, even though you’re going through a sub-optimal relationship state.
I am not sure where I wrote those things?
I hope that you believe me when I say that I honestly did not think such things – I do not consider myself “entitled” to sex; such a concept of entitlement is an absurd violation of other people’s human rights.
I am sorry that I upset you, I did not mean to. Unfortunately, I am often unaware of how other people perceive things I write.
It’s okay, RocketFrog, it’s just a classic “privilege” moment; you are in good faith (I believe) doing/saying things that women have heard lots of times before and which have sexist baggage attached to them, and you as a man don’t have the experiences that we do so you don’t know that. It is a phenomenon that men don’t tend to notice ’cause it doesn’t tend to happen to them.
I think your apology is sufficient and probably you won’t make anyone less irritated with further explanations, so shush up a bit, but it’s not like the manbooberz are gonna shun you now or anything. You are experiencing a normal part of the social justice process. 😀
(And to be super explicit, I obviously don’t owe you an explanation or anything but I’m in a chatty mood and you and I have been discussing this so I’m being nice and giving you a cookie.)
RF, I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that you think you’re entitled to sex – they’re pointing out that, as someone who does not think he’s entitled to sex, you probably want to avoid terms like “involuntarily celibate,” because that’s mostly used by dudes who whine about how they’re entitled to sex.
Unless I’m much mistaken, no one here is mad at you; they’re trying to clarify to you that, while they understand that you did not mean any harm, it gets frustrating as a woman and a feminist to have men perpetually entering feminist spaces to say, “But what about ME? What about my sex life? What about my penis?” That doesn’t make any given man who does it a bad person – it just makes him someone who didn’t realize that he’s roughly the forty-millionth person to do that same thing.
Think of it this way: there’s a Shortpacked comic where the cashier checks someone out, their product doesn’t scan right, and the customer says, “That means it’s free, right? Ha ha!” The cashier’s thought balloon then reads something like, “GOD DAMMIT I AM SO SICK OF THAT JOKE. YOU ARE THE 487TH PERSON TO MAKE THAT JOKE TO ME! WHY DO YOU ALL THINK IT’S ORIGINAL?!”
It’s not that the customer did anything wrong per se. They were just trying to make a joke, and it was the first time they had made the joke, so it was funny to them. But to the cashier who has heard the joke 487 times, it’s more than a little tiresome. Guys coming into feminist spaces and asking for help with their personal problems is a lot like that. There’s nothing inherently bad about asking for help, and some people might be perfectly willing to offer it…but for a lot of them, it’s the 487th time they’ve seen that pattern, and they are just plain sick of it. So they’ll ignore it, or they’ll snark, or, in this case, they’ll simply try to explain to you that 486 times was enough.
So, basically, you don’t need to apologize or feel guilty. You just need to try, in future, to take a moment before posting and think, “Is this likely to be something they have seen 486 times before?” 🙂
There are men here, but how many of them identify as involuntarily celibate?
I don’t. I use the descriptive phrase “Not currently getting laid.” Or the more succinct “lonely”. Here’s the thing about loneliness; you just kinda have to accept it. This may sound trite, but own your feelings. It’s better by far to say “I’m unhappy, but it’s my problem and I’m working through it.” than it is to ask why the world hasn’t given you your allotted portion of joy. (Not trying to imply that you’re guilty of the latter, RocketFrog, but it’s an easy trap to fall into.)
Note that this advice is not at all guaranteed to make you happy, but if my experience is anything to go by, it can do a lot to lessen your misery.
RocketFrog: . But what about heterosexual men who do not wish to mutilate themselves physically (or are unwilling to take the health risks associated with castration), but who – whether out of ideology or of necessity – want to live unfrustrated, unmiserable lives without sexual or romantic contact with women?
I’ve done it. I’ve done it for lack of interest/upset about a really bad breakup, for about a year, and I did it while I was deployed.
Wasn’t a real problem in either instance. The deployment involved being 11,000 miles from my beloved, and even though we were poly, there was no one whom I was in a position to be involved with (even if it hadn’t been a court-martial offense to have sex).
The priests with whom I have been close (I was an altar boy, and a lay reader) seemed to have no real problems. They admitted to temptation. They spent (so far as I know non-sexual) time with women. They had normal lives, that didn’t involve sex. None of them have been implicated in anything untoward, neither as rumor in the parish, nor as people prosecuted.
Frak, you get court martialed in the Army for having SEX? o.o
I may have seen guys roll up into feminist spaces and demand help for personal problems 486 times, but they’re usually a lot more disrespectful and a lot less willing to listen to criticism than RocketFrog.
Also, RocketFrog, physical attractiveness isn’t 100% the most important thing in the world for attracting people. Charm, confidence, wittiness, and a positive attitude really make a huge difference when it comes to attractiveness. So if you feel that maybe physically you aren’t all that attractive, which you can’t change, developing and cultivating other attractive qualities that you can change would probably make a huge difference in your quality of life.
Molly: In a combat zone, or certain other situations where, General Order One is in force, yes.
But, as I was rarely with women who weren’t in my chain of command, it would have been fraternising, and some form of relational power disparity, so I’d have seen it as almost impossible to avoid some real problems in the side-effects, even though I can see people with whom it might not have been a case of sexual harassment.
I am really resisting the urge to shamelessly self-promote NSWATM in response to Rocketfrog’s queries…
Captain Awkward runs a geek advice website– you might email her and get some advice too!
@RocketFrog,
thank you for asking that question. It’s something I have struggled with myself a lot: Given the fact that I’m not attractive as a sexual partner, how do I live my life in a way that reduces misery for others and myself? And I don’t have good answers, really. Masturbation certainly helps keeping the physical needs in check. It may help to switch from real porn to drawn or written material – you (general you) might be able to train part of your attraction away from real people to non-real fantasies. Also, “going your own way” and limiting interactions with women may sound like a good strategy, but I don’t think it is, really. Most likely a good proportion of the people whose company one would really enjoy are women, and restricting oneself from these connections is probably unnecessary. The solution maybe to go for lots of rather superficial connections – do really fun stuff together, chat a bit, then eject. Mixed-gender spaces are pretty good for this. Theater classes, dance classes and social dancing, martial arts classes with good gender balance, cooking classes, whatever. Make sure to pick something that’s fun for you, and feel free to try out new things if it didn’t click. Remember though, that the idea is to keep it at mutual sympathy and shallow friendship, otherwise you might appear as, or even become, a Nice Guy and end up as a source of misery for the very people you like. It can be difficult to balance.
Going by the things you’re writing I’m probably not telling you anything new. I just wanted to share my perspective. It’s not working perfectly – on some level, humans are not meant to live like that; and both loneliness and the feeling that I’m missing essential experiences are occasionally there. But following measures such as these, my life is now a lot better than it was before.
Bagelsan:
Unfortunately, I have many such privilege moments. An unfortunate and rather annoying consequence of my neurological disability is that I have difficulty conceptualizing how other people perceive my words and actions, so I am often found inconsiderate, offensive or plain strange by others. This frequently leaves me baffled, and often shameful over having screwed up again. I am sorry for coming across as entitled and misogynistic.
I hope that you understand that I am not a misogynist. There are women I admire, there are women I despise, and there are women I am indifferent towards. If anything I have more problems with men, as there are a proportionately larger number of men who end up in the “despised” category, for having acted cruelly and/or unethically. I have trouble finding my proper place in the often highly competitive and hierarchical social dynamic of much male social interaction in our culture (but I also do not consider myself a misandrist).
Shora:
Thank you; I am glad you did not find me disrespectful.
Although I am ugly, I am not (in my own opinion) exceptionally so. I am not a very good judge of male attractiveness, but comparing myself to other men, there are certainly some who fall farther from what is generally considered attractive than I do. My acceptance that my being alone is likely to be a permanent condition is more because of the fact that the way my brain is structured makes it very difficult for me to handle such things. I do not know how to behave properly in dating contexts. I have no idea what the other person is feeling or thinking, and usually end up saying or doing inappropriate things. I have many mannerisms that others consider odd, that I have trouble keeping under control in pressured situations. For this reason I have often been described as creepy. I have actually been in a relationship before, but unfortunately, that did not end well. I screwed it all up because I do not have empathy, and was therefore unable to meet the reasonable expectations of a romantic partner.
I wish I was different, but I am as I am, and perhaps therefore Ed1974’s post on the MGTOW Forum reminded me of my own situation of wanting to learn to properly deal with urges, drives and wishes that cannot be satisfied in an ethical manner, without excessive unhappiness. I wish I did not have them, but I am unfortunately just as much an animal as all other humans are.
Have you read Henry Flynt’s “Creep Theory” from his book “Blueprint for a higher civilization”? He remarks that for “creeps” (like himself and other autistic people) it would perhaps be best if a medical procedure could be developed that painlessly removes such biological urges. I do not personally feel partial to the thought of physically mutilating myself, however. I must hasten to add that this particular article contains a lot of misogynist views, and I completely disagree with Flynt’s bizarre and misogynist view that women are incapable of having a rich inner life.
Dracula:
“Lonely” is indeed a much better term, particularly if it is not just sex, but also close companionship, a person is going without.
Ozymandias42:
I have been following NSWATM since July, when I read noahbrand’s article “Emotions: Threat or Menace?”. I appreciate that you run a blog that talks about men’s issues without engaging in misogyny. Unfortunately, too many men who want to discuss such issues do so from a standpoint of misogyny.
Kilo:
I used pornography in the past, but I have since stopped. Watching other people have sex tends to make me even more depressed. Also, the working conditions for many people who work in the pornographic industry are appalling, and I try to minimize how much exploitation I help finance (to the extent that is possible in this culture). But personally, it tended to just make me even more aware of what I was missing out on, and in the end I concluded that watching pornography was mostly like watching a kind of grotesquely overexaggerated advertisements for something that is not available anyway. Drawn pornography never really did anything for me, and I often find written pornography unsettling (and it has the same effect of making me more acutely aware of what I am missing out on).
I never thought “going your own way” sounded like a very good strategy. First off, its premise seems to be that any contact with women will inevitably lead men to misery, and that is a misogynist stance. More personally, I know many women I am happy to have in my life. My closest friend is a woman, I have female family members who I love, and I have female colleagues that I respect and depend on. Removing those from my life because of the fact that I do not make good relationship or sex partner material for other women seems to me to be a complete non sequitur. Perhaps living a life with no women around would make a heterosexual man think about sex less frequently or less intensely, but at least for me, it seems like an absolutely absurd price to pay. I am not sure I understand the need to “eject”, or your warning about appearing as or becoming a “Nice Guy”.
By the way, I am going to stop posting in this thread. I have thought about it, and I can see that what I did was essentially co-opting this place for my own personal issues. This is clearly a wrong thing to do. I wanted to write a last reply to the people who had written to me, hence the very long post above.
I once again am sorry for having behaved poorly, and I appreciate that everybody pointed out my error without resorting to abusive language.
Best of luck, Rocket Frog. I hope you find what makes you happy.
Rocketfog, good luck to you, and thankyou for being able to see “the error of your ways”, without digging your heels in. A rare thing on the interwebs.
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