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Male-strom in a Teacup

No, not THAT kind of “male study.”

“Men’s Studies” has existed as an academic discipline for several decades now. Not surprisingly, most of those involved in it identify themselves as feminists – as people interested in studying gender tend to do. But not all of them: A couple of years back, a group of mostly anti-feminist academics and popular writers with an interest in gender decided to try to do a sort of end run around the discipline of “Men’s Studies” by conjuring up a whole new, altogether un-feminist discipline called “Male Studies.”

Recently, The University of South Australia announced that it would start offering postgraduate courses in Male Studies sometime in 2014; our old friend Eoghan/Sigil1 brought this earthshattering news to the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, where it was greeted with … suspicion and hostility.

GotMyFrogHatOn wrote:

Great, now men have the same opportunity as women to waste their time and money on a worthless degree!

Liverotto was even blunter:

YES, because the cure to bullshit is… MORE BULLSHIT! /s

That’s right: Men’s Rights Redditors hate Women’s Studies, and Gender Studies, and apparently every academic discipline with the word “Studies” in it so much that they’ve transferred this hatred to a new academic discipline that could well have been (and sort of was) designed just for them.

But don’t worry, they still hate Women’s Studies the most:

What was I saying the other day about projection?

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Pecunium
12 years ago

Even the “straights” seem to be non-normative in a lot of ways; poly/kink/queer friendly, at the very least.

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
12 years ago

Just a guess but — we’ve all already been mocked enough in real life these guys have nothing on that?

Jessay (@jessay)
12 years ago

@CassandraSays Oh, absolutely there are bands created just for that. No doubt about it. Others who weren’t built around being good looking, but happen to be good looking, sometimes play it up for the ladies as well. As a woman who was heavily involved in my local music scene, I can tell you all about “groupies” and women viewing musicians as eye candy and going just for good looking men. It’s nothing new. So when these guys take off their shirts and throw them into the crowd, the female fans are scrambling to catch their sweaty rags. I mean, Ruby is not even close to accurate with her comparison because men are just presented sexually in different ways. You can’t talk about playgirl sales vs playboy sales and call it a day. You gotta consider how many Backstreet Boys albums sold after they made a music video dancing shirtless in the rain.

I dunno if the guy in that band was considered traditionally attractive, but he was to me, lol. I turned to my cousin and was like, “Oh my, he could totally get it,” and she was like, “REALLY? Ok?” The males in the audience definitely outweighed the females by a large percentage. The band definitely wasn’t founded on the basis of hotness. It wasn’t even what I would consider a mid-level band. Him stripping was really just a perk though because I’m into that kind of music anyways. Although there was one lady there in heels and a short skirt gyrating to the non-gyratable music and I was sitting there thinking, “ska is not sexy, what are you doing?” hahaha.

And like the groups you mentioned, when I was like 14 or so, I used to love this band called the Moffatts and I saw them live like 4 times. I was friends with some other teen girls who I met at their shows where the audience was almost exclusively teen girls (and their parents). Well, the singer used to take off his shirt and then during this song “Misery,” he would like, caress his stomach whiles singing the words, “I wish that you would hold me, touch me, feel me,” and we would go absolutely nuts. One of my friends even snapped a bunch of quick shots of it to make a flip book of sorts out of it, haha.


(Note, he doesn’t do it in this video and I can’t find one on youtube but whatever, leaving it here anyways haha)

the lyrics are clearly made for a female audience to swoon over. Oh, and there was a fanfic about this guy and the lead singer of Hanson falling in love and giving each other bjs. I read it from time to time for lols still because fanfiction cracks me up.

ithiliana
12 years ago

@Jessay: Male musicians and female fans–nothing new at all.

Apparently Frank Sinatra was an incredible sex symbol in his day (and looked at w/concern by parents) as the teenagers and young women swarmed to his concerts.

I remember Tom Jones (OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOT).

And let’s not forget the Beatles.

Not as much throwing of shirts in those days (but the women throwing things on stage were legendary).,

Summer
Summer
12 years ago

I know I am late to the party, but… do not men and women evolve at the same time? If a good-looking woman and an average-looking man have children, it won’t be good-looking girls and average-looking boys. Especially if the only factor counted as beauty is simmetry!

pissedoffwoman
12 years ago

darksidecat: Sorry I’m not Ruby, but here’s my own evo-psych explanation for your sexual proclivities (and a lot of mine lol):

Bisexuality is good for social bonding because fucking people brings you emotionally closer to them a lot of the time, so if someone wants to have sex with you again he/she is also more likely to bring you food, babysit your kids, protect you from sabre-tooth tigers and wooly mammoths, etc.

Poly means you can encourage your lovers to all be friends with each other, thus increasing the social bonding and therefore the chances for group survival.

Kinky: if you’re a sub, you can get off on behaviors other people might consider a deal-breaker, thus increasing your pool of potential sexual partners. If you’re a dom, you can sexually dominate people into bringing you food, babysitting your kids, protecting you from mammoths etc. If you’re a switch, best of both worlds!

Not sure where genderqueer fits in, though.

jumbofish
12 years ago

Omg I think you missed the entire point of the discussion pissedoffwomen. XD

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

I hope that was a joke.

Rutee Katreya
12 years ago

but here’s my own evo-psych explanation for your sexual proclivities (and a lot of mine lol):

You are a dumbass. Continue to produce just-so stories.

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
12 years ago

“Not sure where genderqueer fits in, though.”

Why am I not surprised?

lauralot89
12 years ago

Hey, why don’t the asexuals get an evopsych explanation? I’ve been asking for one ever since Ruby started!

Let me guess, we’re humanity’s way of keeping the population in check?

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

Bisexuality is only a boost to social bonding if everyone fucks everyone, like bonobos. Most human beings who are bisexual do not do that – in fact, some of us are remarkably picky.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to sexually dominate everyone in my neighborhood into bringing me cave-pizza.

burgundy
burgundy
12 years ago

The evo-psych nonsense (assuming it was not offered as a joke, in which case, never mind) is made even more ridiculous because the things being discussed (bisexuality, polyamory, kink) are minority behaviors in our culture, and not generally valued. If they have such reproductive benefits, why aren’t they more widespread in the gene pool?

Now, one might say, “well, the inclination toward them is widespread, it’s just that we’ve been socialized against actually carrying it out,” to which I would reply “AND THAT IS THE BASIC PROBLEM WITH EVO-PSYCH AS A BEHAVIORAL EXPLANATION.”

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
12 years ago

burgundy — There’s also a few other obvious problems with the theory (if it wasn’t a joke).

“Bisexuality is…” blah blah blah none of it is relevant in a monogamous relationship.

“Poly means you can encourage your lovers to all be friends with each other…” — oh gods does it not work like that (and “oh great, you hate each other” is hella awkward)

“Kinky: if you’re a sub, you can get off on behaviors other people might consider a deal-breaker, thus increasing your pool of potential sexual partners.” — abusive is still a deal breaker

“If you’re a dom, you can sexually dominate people into bringing you food, babysitting your kids, protecting you from mammoths etc.” — dom =/= abuse through control

“If you’re a switch, best of both worlds!” — ok, that one’s true, they just aren’t the worlds pissedoffwoman thinks they are.

“…protect you from…wooly mammoths…” — we fought the mammoths for you!!

burgundy
burgundy
12 years ago

If we enumerate all the problems with that “explanation,” we’ll never get anything else done. The bisexuality thing is not only irrelevant to monogamy, it’s irrelevant to anyone who’s picky. Bi != promiscuous. Social-bonding-through-fucking is not a function of who you’re attracted to, it’s a function of how many people you are willing to fuck who are in turn willing to fuck you. Hell, I’m bi and poly and I still don’t fuck enough people for this line of reasoning to make sense.

LBT
LBT
12 years ago

RE: Argenti

Agreed, on all of that, but that’s not just Ruby, or straight? women — I have a gay male friend who once got into this stupid debate over whether my porn folder would interest him, apparently “there are no cocks here” = “lesbian porn” >.<

I’m gay and STILL have days where I nurse the chip on my shoulder about how I fail at gay manliness because I don’t like dick enough. Trying to find gay porn to watch with hubby where there ISN’T an overwhelming focus on penis is fucking HARD. (No pun intended.) Also the weird “we must never smile or look affectionate while fucking, just bored or constipated” thing. I often end up watching dyke porn with him just because even though it brings out no response in me either, at least I don’t feel like I’m failing something watching it. At least they look like they’re having FUN.

RE: pissedoffwomen

I’m a sub. What I allow my husband to do because I trust him to the end of the earth doesn’t have anything to do what I trust OTHER people to do. Most dominating behavior I see depicted in pop culture, sexual or not, is completely douchey to me.

pissedoffwoman
12 years ago

Revised theory!

Bi poly kinky genderqueers are so unfit for caveperson life, it’s a miracle they’re not extinct!

Bisexuality is bad for gene survival because a bi woman could end up spending her prime reproductive years in a monogamous relationship with another woman, and only become interested in fucking men after menopause. And a bi man could walk out on the mother of his children to spend all his time in non-reproductive sex with guys, lowering the kids’ chances of survival without fathering any more backup kids!

Poly is bad for social bonding because you might want to fuck a whole bunch of people who are either naturally more sexually jealous than you, or just plain don’t like each other, leading to your lovers fighting over you instead of fighting the sabre-tooths.

Kinky: if you’re into sado-masochism, you could take it too far, resulting in you or your lover or both parties ending up too badly physically hurt the next day to be much use in hunting, or even gathering.

Still not sure where genderqueer fits in, but I’m sure some enterprising “scientist” is working on it, let’s hope not with public money…

jumbofish
12 years ago

Um here let me help you:

You are not funny fuck off.

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

pissoffwoman, what the hell are you doing here?

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
12 years ago

“pissoffwoman, what the hell are you doing here?” — actually trolling I hope

LBT — congrats on finding porn that actually looks fun!

“just plain don’t like each other, leading to your lovers fighting over you instead of fighting the sabre-tooths.” — um, what? o.O?

“Still not sure where genderqueer fits in, but I’m sure some enterprising “scientist” is working on it, let’s hope not with public money…” — how in the fuck…how is ev-psych at all worth spending public money on? But genderqueer people aren’t?

Does anyone have a nice calming SCENTED FUCKING CANDLE I can borrow? (Actually, SCENTED FUCKING CANDLE! itself seems to work, excellent!)

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