Over on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, cheester warns all of us dudes about an especially insidious form of anti-male oppression: the racks of women’s magazines that lurk near the checkout counters of grocery stores everywhere!
can I get some feedback on womens magazines at the grocery checkout? Every issue states “new tricks he doesn’t know in bed” and shite like that. It’s obvious porn for the gals but why is it so accepted by everyone that it has carte blanche to be within a two foot reach as I pay for my food? If a magazine for men had on the cover: “20 Ways To Make Her Squirm Like A Fish”….there would be a national outrage.
Yeah, it’s not like Men’s magazines ever run anything like that.
Church groups and womens rights would say it demoralizes women and have the publication banned or put behind censored racks in seedy smoke shops.
Yeah. It’s not like this ever happens to women’s magazines.
But the womens mags are right there as a last shop item in the flourescent lit, sterilized, family atmosphere where every mother parades her toddlers and kids right past the 3 letter word in big black block letters;SEX on the cover of every flashy colored womens mag that comes out each month.
Not only is this oppression of men, it’s oppression of all toddlers who can read and know what the word “sex” means.
Also, feminists have never criticized women’s magazines in any way. “Ten Ways to Make Him Squirm” articles are the distilled essence of feminism! And most of them are written by the ghost of Andrea Dworkin.
NOTE: Does this even need a “sarcasm” tag?
Kyrie:
Don’t be silly. A woman who wants sex desiring some choice as to partner is as impossible as a woman being a fighter pilot.
How can there be discussion of miniature horses vs. ponies with no L’il Sebastian?
Hihihi! A female fighter pilot, what a fluffy silly idea! But you haven’t read the advert, have you? It’s not a brothel, it’s not only about sex! It could have, and I quote,
“nightclub, music, or cinemas for their clientele, either alone, with other male clients, or with a hostess(es).” and “massage, yoga and meditation, or simple relaxed conversation”.
I mean, if I’ve learned anything from stereotypes and girly movies, it’s that women love to chat, do yoga, go to a spa and pretty much all this stuff. And I’m sure a few women would enjoy a pretty hem.. face, I mean a gentleman to share this quality time. And bitch about her husband.
And it continues: “saunas or hot tubs, again with a lady’s company, if desired, with sex (if any) to be negotiated later”, “cinema or stage plays, either erotic or regular”
What’s not fluffy feminine about any of that!? Personally, I love theater.
“tavern services with various mood-altering, mind enhancing, or (if desired) aphrodisacal food, drink, or “drugs””
That’s a little less fluffly feminine, but damn I’m pretty sure men aren’t the only enjoying drugs. And “mood-altering, mind enhancing” drugs! With all those brave honest men complaining how stupid and mean women are, I can’t believe it wouldn’t wonders for our lady brainz.
At the end of the day, you would have employment for pretty boys who don’t want to marry and smarter (ergo more submissive) relaxed happy wives eager to please their men. And isn’t it all that matter?
Fixed that for you and you are so right now!
*goes off to not torture her SO*
Well, no, he’s right, it’s not a new idea, there are tons of TV ads and quite a few sitcoms built around that idea. I just don’t know any non-fictional examples off-hand, and I suspect any that anyone comes up with will be widely recognized as unhealthy relationships.
Not that this will sway MRAs, who are old hands at equating misandry condemned by feminists with misogyny extolled by MRAs.
Hershele, are you responding to what I said to Buttman on the ABC sitcom thread? I can think of some non fictional men on TV who are portrayed in a positive light. Adam and Jaime from Mythbusters are both shown as intelligent and likable. Most game shows have men as hosts, and the hosts are usually shown as friendly and funny. Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover is shown as a humanitarian, although some people here in Joplin said he’s not as friendly in real life. Another positive male role model on TV is Anderson Cooper. I don’t think any of these non fictional men are shown to be in unhealthy relationships, either.
You know, I’ve told MrB your theories about women and softness and sundry other bullshit. I actually asked him flat out last night if, after eleven years together, he would rather have a doll. He looked at me like I’d grown another arm or had started speaking in Urdu. So, there’s your universal theory of ‘men hate women, no REALLY!’ down the drain.
I would like to offer this rebuttal of DKM’s assertion: The first page of Teahouse.
As you can see, the Teahouse is classy as all hell, and it is clearly referred to as a brothel.
@Katz: Yeah, in terms of relative status and diction, I’d put “brothel” a lot “higher class” than “whorehouse” or “cathouse,” and I am sure there are a variety of even ruder terms out there.
It’s an old word–earliest print usage cited in OED is 1393–and amazingly enough (I DID NOT KNOW), the first meaning was connected to men:
ronunciation: /ˈbrɒθ(ə)l/
Forms: Also ME–16 brothell(e, ME brodel(le.
Etymology: Middle English broþel , < Old English broðen … (Show More)
Thesaurus »
†1. A worthless abandoned fellow, a wretch, scoundrel, scapegrace, good-for-nothing.
First usage for a woman, a prostitute is, a century later–and for a house, even later:
3. Short for brothel-house n. at Compounds 3; taking the place of the earlier bordel n., bordel house n. at bordel n. Compounds: A house of ill fame, bawdy-house.
a1593 H. Smith Wks. (1867) II. 26 Some [return] unto the taverns, and some unto the alehouses‥and some unto brothels.
And this meaning (third in the list) show a strong connection to BORDEL, from even earlier: 1305
a. A house of prostitution, a brothel.
c1305 St. Lucy 92 in Early Eng. Poems & Lives Saints (1862) 104 Oþer to comun bordel beo ilad oþer ibore.
I'd assume the age of the word and the connections with French is why it's considered a bit higher class.
Whatever. Meller’s disdain for the term “brothel” in this context is just symptomatic of his general queasiness about sex and his constant use of hand-waving euphemisms in order to make oppression seem like a wonderful favor he’s trying to do for everyone.
And the women there are not prostitutes! They’re strumpets!
Ha ha, even better, they’re “ex-floozies.”
Pecunium – I think there is a big difference between a legitimate transaction between equals, and the “Bird in a Gilded cage” model of Meller’s.”
Yes of course! I think we’ve just crossed some communication wires here. I’m gonna drop it, cause I see no reason of letting it build into an argument. *doffs hat*
Meller – What Happens If She Says No, Meller? Tell us. Just tell us what happens if she doesn’t want to go to the entertainment center. Stop dodging this simple question.
Meller – What Happens If She Says No, Meller? Tell us. Just tell us what happens if she doesn’t want to go to the entertainment center. Stop dodging this simple question.
Seriously, dude. You’ve got all the fucking answers. So answer this.
Note: I betting the answer is “She can go starve to death or die of exposure.” I would be delighted to proven wrong, though.
@Dracula: It will involve gutters. DKM likes thinking of women in the gutters.
I shall not speculate why, but GUTTERS!
DKM, what happens to women who don’t want to go to entertainment centers? That’s a simple enough question.
The same thing that happens to gay and trans people in NWOtopia–they just don’t exist because they can’t. It’s unthinkable. What woman wouldn’t want to be an indentured geisha/prostitute? You’d all want it if you hadn’t been indoctrinated against your true inclinations.
I was thinking about Meller’s comments while I was at work today (sharpening knives gives one time to think) about the reasons and causes of men being treated badly by women who leave them and I think we need to consider the possibility that the loving consideration and tendresse which used to lie between them was destroyed by the actions of the man, who, over the course of years, piled minor slight on petty injury until all of her care and warm feeling was exhausted, and worn away to nothing by his actions, which drove her to the understandably termangantine reactions which so flayed his peace of mind.
IT MUST BE HYPOTHESIZED! Perhaps it is enough to ask the question, which by it’s very existence answers itself.
zhinxy: Yes of course! I think we’ve just crossed some communication wires here. I’m gonna drop it, cause I see no reason of letting it build into an argument. *doffs hat*
I was taking no offense, it was just an excuse to show some more of my trivial erudition. 🙂
Kendra: I was responding to DKM, though I generally skim his posts and only responded after PFKAE quoted him. He said women like thwarting men, that a man’s happiness makes his female partner unhappy. There are plenty of fictional examples of that being treated as normal; I know of no non-ficitional examples of this happening without everyone around saying “that’s a dysfunctional relationship.” Real people (real feminists, frex) even note that about the fictional tugs-of-war.
quackers – what is natural law? is it related to the bullshit excuse “my biology made me do it!!!”
No! It’s a philosophical concept of inalienable rights as applied to ethics and law. Often said to have started with Aristotle, developed heavily in the Roman Catholic tradition under Aquinas and the Scholastics, very important in the western “common law” tradition, had a great deal of influence on the US Founders and subsequent US constitution. (Especially as variously taken up by EG Hobbes and Locke.) – It’s been deeply influential on the libertarian tradition, but not all libertarians are natural law theorists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
http://www.iep.utm.edu/natlaw/
inalienable rights and rationally determinable values as applied to ethics and law, I meant to say. 🙂
Oh I see. So certain “universal” rights that apply to everyone and can’t be taken away basically?
Not trying to “weasel” out of anything!
In all of the controversy over my “Houses” for sex-addicted women, especially if underage(?), or otherwise lack the judgement for permanent relationships, I forgot that this was supposed to be a description of women, their employers (or guardians) and the larger libertarian society.
There are no reasons for women to be “forced” into such avenues of employment. I should think that such houses of entertainment (calling them “brothels”, as I said before, would probably be like calling Wal-Mart a “big mom-and-pop corner grocery store”) would NOT be the only options for women, even sexually wayward ones. I am sure that other avenues of employment would be discovered for them, and possibly also religious institutions may have some instructive and even enlightening contributions to make there (e.g. future versions of “convents”, an analog to what used to be called “settlement houses’, especially if the girls got in the family way with no visible means of support”, expanded free-market oriented adoption and parental guardianship institutions (perhaps connected with the above services for such women, or perhaps independent) and maybe even undiscovered ways of coping with a set of problems that so far, at least, we are out of our depth in dealing with in the USA (Where recent figures 2007 show that approx. 30% of babies of of White background, 45% of ‘Hispanic”, and over 60% of Black babies are orphaned out of wedlock! Out of wedlock levels are comparable in Europe, especially Eastern Europe (where Feminism’s closest political cousin Communism ruled for several generations).
What a bloody MESS!
There will be no government mandated or judicially imposed “affirmative action” insanity, and no subsidies and bailouts for employers of women in euphemistically called “non-traditional” occupations (Occupations of skilled ‘blue collar’ work that used to be 95%+ MALE in saner times) so while females will have complete freedom to enter the workforce to anybody that will hire or promote them, but natural market–and human sexual–forces will indicate more opportunity, both sexual and monetary, and probably also more renumeration for girls and women in your much hated “entertainment” field! As these girls are already shall we say, “receptive to male attention”, it is hard to feel sorry for them. It is even harder to imagine, on closer attention, that any kind of force, coercion, or intimidation would be necessary to either hire them or to keep them. IF any girls were, well, stupid enough to reject such opportunities for glamour, upward mobility (both in and out of marriage), and their considerable prospects for a stratospheric income–look at the incomes of, e.g. XXth cenury movie stars, singers (after they became famous), fashion supermodels, and female TV personalities. Not all, or even most, lady entertainers there will become millionairesses, of course, but it will do better by them than almost any other avenue of female employment!
This was even accomplished in an environment where business opportunity for females–as for males–was enormously constricted by the prevalence of government run amok and its altogether out of control taxation/regulation/ compliance costs at all levels!
In short, no force is needed, wanteed, or even proposed in the use of women or girls in the Men’s entertainment houses! Rest assured that there, as elsewhere, women have freedom of choice respected! Eat your hearts out, modern women!!
Owl–Dec 7, 2011 @ 3:48am
Luv that owl. Absolutely adorable!
Was that expression actually a SMILE that I saw when he was standing on his perch being petted?