My eyes are all dialated from an eye exam, but even through a blurry haze I can tell this guy is kind of a toolbag. Here’s The Rational Male on why the ladies totally don’t appreciate all that dudes do for them, like for example, not having sex with other ladies when they totally probably could have.
I think what most men uniquely deceive themselves of is that they will ultimately be appreciated by women for their sacrifices. … You can’t be because women fundamentally lack the ability to fully realize, much less appreciate the sacrifices a man makes to facilitate her reality. … Men making the personal sacrifices necessary to honor, respect and love her are commonplace. You’re supposed to do those things. You sacrificed your ambitions and potential to provide her with a better life? You were supposed to. You resisted temptation and didn’t cheat on your wife with the hot secretary who was DTF and ready to go?
Ladies totally don’t appreciate that shit. Seriously, gals, it takes a lot of willpower for us to keep from going around sticking our penises in other ladies. You should probably bake us all cakes, or something.
The worst offenders? Women 40 and over.
[A]ssume for a moment that a 40 y.o. Man with the options to pursue younger women “does the right thing” and seeks out a relationship with a woman his own age. Would he be appreciated for essentially giving an aged woman a new lease on life? Or would he be viewed as doing what is to be expected of him?
Seriously, women over 40 are practically senior citizens. Even talking to them is a gigantic sacrifice for a guy who imagines he might possibly be able to cajole a drunk 27 year old into bed for a night of deeply unsatisfying sex with him.
It’s best to remind the fortysomething hags what a giant favor you’re doing them while you are actually, you know, doing them. In the “having sex with them” sense, if you catch my drift.
“Aw yeah, baby, you saw that waitress totally smiling at me earlier. I think she’d probably do me. You’re lucky I even gave your old ass a second look!”
Repeat this until she hates herself. That sort of thing is what makes for spectacular sex.
It’s no wonder he calls himself The Rational Man.
Ah… well yes, if you are willing to be open about your intellectual dishonesty, you can try to have it both ways.
It’s also disengenous (and funny) to whine in a self pitying way for months about how hard it is for you get laid or find dates, how tough the LA club scene is for you, how the only women who’ll give you the time of day aren’t hot, etc, and then post little affirmations about how remarkable you are and how great your self esteem is.
I’m not sure why trolls always think that everyone will forget their previous words.
Also… the PUA by means of rape is such an old scandal, and so infamous that it’s completely discredited, no PUA does that anymore… except the one’s who videotape themselves committing a rape as Game.
Tired, there shouldn’t be a comma in the word, “ones”.
I mean an apostrophe.
Eurosabra seems to be the PUA version of Alex whatsisname who’s always dropping in to inform us who the real MRAs are and which ones are imposters because, well, he’s decided that they are, and he’s offended that we’re sullying the good name of the MRM by referring to people who he hasn’t personally approved as MRAs (even though that’s what they call themselves).
^ You’re referring to Alek Novy, who is Paul Elam’s editor (think of the nightmarish gig that must be). I find it funny that Alek takes great care to distinguish himself from the likes of Roissy but seems to have no problems whatsoever working closely with one of the nuttiest MRAs out there.
Yeah, given that I tend to react to ambivalence or diffident participation by my partner by totally freezing up, I doubt I’ll ever come close to any non-consensual activity again, even something as mild as trying an unsolicited hug, which is the worst thing I’ve ever done . It’s pretty easy if you make enthusiastic participation your litmus test. I have only once explicitly been told to stop progressing towards sex while hugging, kissing, etc, the rest of the time I halted ambivalent partners at that stage. I do deal disproportionately with women who find asking unsexy, which might be a problem of my subculture.
I have shitty self-esteem, but a great sense of entitlement. You can get into relationships through sheer cussedness, provided you approach enough you’re bound to be compatible with someone. So I am a whiner, but I sometimes manage to be a decent sort to the women with whom I actually have relationships. (And am fully aware of the sources of my toolishness, such as they are.)
Now this is something I’m curious about. Who are these women who find men asking unsexy? I don’t actually know anyone like that, which is presumably a reflection of my subcultural and cultural affiliations, so I’m trying to construct a profile. I was thinking conservative/religious, but if you’re running into this on the LA club scene I’m baffled.
Caveat of course being that there’s a way to ask which would be almost universally offputting, and a way to ask that I’m not sure why anyone would find unsexy, so to a great extent it depends on how specifically the asking is being done.
Best thing is maintaining an acceptable sexual life style based on family. However casual sex is another option when women do not like to take family responsibilities.
Can we have an Explore Nature challenge in which he can’t post again until he actually replies to a comment made to him?
However casual sex is another option when women do not like to take family responsibilities.
Well, this is actually true. It’s not the only other option – it’s possible to have sex in a stable relationship that does not involve marriage or children, and it’s possible to just not have sex at all. But casual sex is definitely in the mix.
Yeah, given that I tend to react to ambivalence or diffident participation by my partner by totally freezing up, I doubt I’ll ever come close to any non-consensual activity again, even something as mild as trying an unsolicited hug, which is the worst thing I’ve ever done . It’s pretty easy if you make enthusiastic participation your litmus test. I have only once explicitly been told to stop progressing towards sex while hugging, kissing, etc, the rest of the time I halted ambivalent partners at that stage. I do deal disproportionately with women who find asking unsexy, which might be a problem of my subculture.
WHAT???????????????????????
Just read through this thread, read this post and WHAT?? is my only answer.
You’ve never said to someone you’re making out with something like “I want to be inside you? ” Simple sexy question and it works for any gender.
“You awake, love? Brace yourself!” isn’t asking for consent, exactly. 🙂
A quick hint: if someone would respond to you asking to have sex/whatever with them in the negative, they probably don’t want to have sex with you.
This is another one of those feminine mystiques that can be dissolved by remember that those women things are people too. If someone you would really like to have sex with, whom you are moving towards sex with, asks to have sex with you, is this a bad thing? Is this such a turn-off or faux pas you’d turn them down out of spite? I don’t think many people would.
I really have heard, twice, an after-the-fact “Yeah, I was interested, until you asked and killed the mood” and I suppose it’s an artifact of the post-club hookup culture, in which people are willing to participate until something is asked for and thus named and the realization that you are participating in casual sex hits. Haunted me from 21-25. But it’s easier to say that I must be mistaken about that and they were never interested anyway than to believe I met sexist women who were lousy communicators and who felt that I needed to intuit their communication style. But yeah, I’ve never asked for sex while making out. As a final check-in with someone who was participating enthusiastically enough that protection was already in place, yes, I’ve asked once or twice, but I have the feeling that if I ask, the answer will be “No”, because of my admittedly abysmal self-esteem and because this has been my experience. So my standard has been enthusiastic participation, which is easy enough if you react to any situation short of it by stopping whatever you are doing. So, yeah, I almost never verbally asked and I’ve also never done anything non-consensual, by normal legal and phenomenological standards. (There is the question of an active participant silently mentally, internally reserving consent which always crops up in discussions of mens rea. Eek.)
I have shitty self-esteem, but a great sense of entitlement.
So you wank about how your life sucks and then expect to be rewarded for it. I bet that gets you tons of dates.
If someone I had been about to have sex with, who had given every indication of wanting sex, said “Yeah, I was interested, until you asked and killed the mood”, then I’d consider that a bullet of pure unadulterated crazy dodged, and get the hell away from them as soon as possible.
Sometimes non-verbal communication is pretty clear in terms of desire and consent. Sometimes non-verbal communication is more ambiguous. Some people are better at reading signals than others. The problem with a social script that relies on non-verbals is that the people who suck it it don’t necessarily know that they suck at it. So you end up with a lot of people saying “oh, I totally stop if my partner isn’t clearly into it,” and I’m happy to believe in their sincerity unless I have reason to doubt it, but what I have no way of gauging is their accuracy.
I know one guy who is absolutely terrible at reading body language, and several times I have discussed with him the problems that this causes. He keeps getting in trouble because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. (He has not, to the best of my knowledge, ever ever ever raped or near-raped someone, but he has several times initiated inappropriate physical contact – gropes, hugs, kisses, etc.) If you were to ask him, he would say that he is respectful of other people’s boundaries, and he stops when it is communicated to him that he should stop, but there’s all kinds of stuff that he just doesn’t pick up on.
The only way to know is to ask. Anything else risks Dunning-Kruger wrongness.
There’s nothing wrong with non-verbal communication, and it can work. The vast majority of sexual encounters in my life have not involved specifically asking if it’s OK to proceed, on either side, because if there isn’t a whole lot of enthusiasm then hey, abort mission. But someone who’s actively put off by someone else asking because they’re not sure is not someone who it’s a good idea to be fucking anyway. I can think of lots of reasons why someone would react negatively to being asked, or change their mind upon being asked, and all of them are very very bad*. If you encounter a person who’s behaving like that then honestly, you should be grateful that the issues were revealed before sex rather than afterwards when there might be a huge psychological mess to deal with.
Even if we’re approaching this from a purely practical perspective and not giving a shit about the other person’s feelings, that kind of attitude and behavior is a giant blinking neon red flag.
I’d venture to suggest that it’s possible to do better than “I’m willing to do you as long as I don’t think about it too much.”
* Unless it’s during a prearranged BSDM scene in which asking actually would kill the scene, in which case both parties would already have consented, planned, etc. If someone wants to do BSDM without talking about it or admitting that that’s what they’re doing then again – huge red flag, do not engage.
“I’d venture to suggest that it’s possible to do better than “I’m willing to do you as long as I don’t think about it too much.” ”
I’d add that although going ahead in those circumstances isn’t rape, it’s deeply unethical, and indicative of a certain amount of low self esteem on the part of the person who’s willing to accept that situation that would be better dealt with in a way other than fucking reluctant strangers whose motivations are probably just as murky and unpleasant.
@Cassandrasays
Ross Douthat, is that you?