So the fellas over on the Men’s Rights Subreddit were having a little discussion the other day about the c-word, and wondering just why so many ladies get so offended by that word. I mean, it’s just a word. (Not like “creep” which is the worst possible thing anyone could possibly call someone else, and a clear abuse of their human rights.)
Funcuz, for his part, blamed Oprah for the unpopularity of the c-word among women:
Hardwarequestions, in a rather circular manner, blamed the offensiveness of the word “cunt” on women, for being offended in the first place:
The only one who seemed to think the insult was genuinely a big deal was expletive-deleted, who rather likes it that way:
Men’s Rights Activism at its finest!
What douche. He has the problem with the gendered nature of insults backwards (it’s not a horrible thing to call a woman an anxious prick, but it’s offensice to call a man a whiny bitch).
This makes people who complain that this is unfair the people with the, “victim act”.
He’s pissed off that cu*t is more offensive than prick, and want’s to what? Make prick a bigger insult?
But he has to follow it with a question begging rant about us: Very compassionate, I know. Very nuanced. As always, Says is neglecting to consider the fact that men are human, and not evil androids out to oppress her. But then again, being as Man Boobz is a vile, misandrist hateblog filled with repulsive bigots who consider men to be subhuman, it’s not surprising that they subscribe to us the most unflattering motives.
Yep, we are lacking in compassion (really… has he said word one about rape in prison, other than to show how women/feminists don’t care?), why? Because we are … insert laundry list of bad things, which makes us non-compassionate.
Others have said it more eloquently than I, but there is a very simple reason why “creepy” is reviled in the MRA blogosphere- because it doesn’t actually mean anything.
What? If it means nothing, wy do you care?
When someone uses a nonsense word (i.e. one that means nothing, has no sense) people don’t get offedend.
“Did you see what a gostchalky thing he did?”.
“Whut????”
Gostchalky is a word that means nothing. It conveys No Thing. It can’t offend, it merely confuses.
The problem he (and the MRM) have with creepy is that it does convey meaning. They just dislike the meaning. In this aspect the MRM is just like women/feminists who hate the use of gendered insults, the MRM is offended by the meaning of the word.
Where he fails at nuance is the nature of it. Women can be creeps. Men can’t be cu*ts. To be a cu*t is to be not a man. It’s treated as degrading, diminishing.
That, I think, is the real thing they hate about creep. It’s a diminishing insult. When it’s leveled at one of them he’s suddenly not a manly man, a scary man, a presumptively Alpha-Man. He’s a creep. A guy who doesn’t know when he’s not wanted. The sort of person who makes your skin crawl, and gives one the sort of gooseflesh that comes of passing a sodden patch of ground in the gathering dark. Nothing clear to be seen, and eerie noises, with a whiff of fetid air.
That’s what they hate. A single word can undermine them.
Because when someone says, “Did you see what a creepy thing he did”?, the reaction is, “No, tell me what it was.”
Or, worse, “Yes, I did. What a douchenozzle.”
It’s not that it’s a nothing word, it’s that it’s a word which is very effective at conveying a real meaning.
From coffee drinking men who dare to ask a woman for her precious company
I was talking to someone in Canada this past week (the weddings were very nice, thank you), and elevatorgate came up.
As soon as the timing (four in the morning), came up; before hotel elevator was mentioned, he interjected, “That guy wasn’t interested just coffee.”
This was a guy from Hungary. I’ve tossed this little question at a lot of people, from a lot of countries. None of them has thought he was “just asking her to have some coffee.”
I’m going to join Team Not Comfortable With Telling People How To Assert Boundaries.
Or rather, I think it’s okay to say “this might work better,” but it’s not okay to say “this is more polite/nice/gentle.” Because having your boundaries violated is not a job assignment. You don’t take on the obligation to handle it in any particular way.
You know, it’s funny, I’ve had the SAME EXACT kind of “smal talk” conversations (sometimes with almost the exact same words) and some of them are TOTALLY FINE and some of them were TOTALLY CREEPY. Most of the time, it’s not just the words being used, it’s the inflection, the body language, and the way that the person invades or does not invade your space. For example, someone who is standing rigidly like their muscles are tensed and staring you down in an elevator like prey is creepier than someone who has a relaxed posture and keeps looking up at the elevator or checking their phone. Most people with ill intentions like to disguise what they have to say but most body language is VERY hard to fake (your body reacts pretty much honestly even if your brain is coming up with sweet, sweet lies).
Basically, the whole idea is that if society is going to put “don’t get victimized/raped/attacked by a random stranger” in the court of the individual woman (or minority person) then HELL YEAH you’re going to learn these skills because you need them to SURVIVE, especially if you know that practically NONE of rapes/assaults EVER get prosecuted and if you get murdered well hell, who cares about justice because you’re still going to be DEAD?
Seriously. Some guy not getting laid or hanging out with a woman because he makes her feel weird and frightened is NOT nearly as WORLD-ENDING as a woman overriding her feelings of “this is not safe” and then getting attacked or hurt and then EVERYONE TELL HER THAT IT WAS HER FAULT ANYWAY.
It’s a catch-22. I’d rather be called a “bitch” and GTFO before anything more than a squicky invasion of my personal space happens to me (which still feels shitty, BTW) than be victimized and have no recourse *JUST TO MAKE SOME RANDOM GUY FEEL BETTER ABOUT HIMSELF*. And them’s the breaks, creepy fellas.
Seriously, do creepy guys actually think that GUILTING women into overriding their safety protocols is actually a strategy that will work?
Oh, and to add to that- these guys act like they are entitled to not look at themselves and pay attention to what could possibly be creepy about their behavior, if they are truly just awkward and socially inept. When I was socially inept as a kid and had trouble making friends, I did not DEMAND that everyone just be my friend even if I was acting like a weirdo. I figured out what people preferred as a friend and adjusted my own behavior. If women are calling you a creep and giving you the cold shoulder, the first thing to do is not to invalidate her response (which you cannot directly control) but to look at yourself and figure out how you provoked it. If it’s just one person, it’s probably their own drama and in that case, why would you want to be with them anyway? But if you get it pretty much every time? The main similar factor is you, and therefore, it’s probably time to start adjusting your social interactions.
Seriously, do creepy guys actually think that GUILTING women into overriding their safety protocols is actually a strategy that will work?
Yes, because if she’s just give it up, then he wouldn’t have to rape her.
>>>Last week there was a thread where MRAs whined about sexual harassment and claimed that women only claim harassment and call “creep” when the guy doesn’t fit her standards.
I always find that objection weird. It’s sort of like “you only call sex rape because you *didn’t* want it”. Well, yeah, that’s the whole point. Unwanted advances are unwanted. Wow, mind blown.
Their objections to ‘creepy’ is that the term basically asserts that they don’t have the right to consider every woman in the room as a potentially available sex object. They might have to think for a second that that girl who’s with her three friends at the bar is not there to be picked up but just wanted to have a night out with her friends, rather than assume that she’s receptive. They might have to actually talk with her about something other than hooking up for a few second and listen to her/assess body language to know if she might be interested, instead of blundering up to any woman and start from the assumption she’s available for a lay.
Basically, women to them are commodities, I like that term better than ‘objectified’ because it both contains the denial of personhood AS WELL as an assumption that women are interchangeable, coming out of an assembly line somewhere and all made to spec.
@shade
owlslave has said flat out that he doesn’t believe in equality. Not that he doesn’t support it but that he doesn’t believe it’s possible.
“Women demand carte blanche to insult a man/men in any fashion, and never be held accountable or retaliated against.”
If I am insulting a man (and I used to do this when I drank–this is one reason why I stopped) he is free to call me a bitch, asshole, and tell me to fuck off and leave him alone, and I deserve it because I’m acting inappropriately.
But calling a woman a cunt because she refuses to sleep with you, date you, or otherwise conform to your wishes is unacceptable. Nobody here is advocating that women be able to insult men without repurcussions. Men are people and they deserve respect. But calling a woman a cunt in order to establish that she is inferior is not cool.
Fembot: When NWO says, ““Women demand carte blanche to insult a man/men in any fashion, and never be held accountable or retaliated against,” you have to recall that one of the things which upsets him is the “insult” caused but the “onslaught” of women wearing sexy clothes and then not having the decency to fuck anyone who wants it.
That’s what he means when he says, “never be held accountable”.
Well I just walked to my mailbox wearing a tube top and a denim skirt. I saw the maintenance worker for our apartment complex, a Fed Ex driver, and an insect exterminator, all men. I smiled at them, and they all smiled back at me, and not one called me a cunt! Oh, and I didn’t fuck any of them either. LOL
A friend of mine in college told me once that she envied gay men one thing. From her perspective, they (i.e., me) got to have sex with men without having to deal with *straight* men, and she couldn’t. Now, thirty years later, I’m married and she isn’t, because neither of us lowered our standards.
Owly rerminds me of that conversation every time I read one of his posts.
On the other hand, my younger sister got married, and, unlike my two older sisters, has not divorced. She and her husband seem to be getting along just fine. Why? I guess he’s not a creep.
Heh. I see the point you’re trying to make with this, but my first response is “If I ever said *either* of those things to my parents’ faces they’d join forces to disown me.”
@Molly Oh yeah, mine too. They were the sort of people who thought saying ‘bugger’ was incredibly vulgar. I meant it more figuratively – if I’d actually tried it I wouldn’t have reached adulthood.
I’m not even sure what to take away from this comment. Straight guys actually suck? The woman was being misandric? I’m supposed to swap out “straight men” for “straight women”?
You and me both, Molly.
“Seriously, do creepy guys actually think that GUILTING women into overriding their safety protocols is actually a strategy that will work?”
Going by the responses from angry dudes whenever this subject has come up recently – yes, they do appear to think that this is a viable strategy which would work very well if only feminists would stop encouraging women to be all uppity.
Molly: Me too! But while “dick” might get me in heaps of trouble, “cunt” would probably have them demanding where I learned that word 😀
“Seriously, do creepy guys actually think that GUILTING women into overriding their safety protocols is actually a strategy that will work?”
…it will work though, I mean, gaslighting is a real thing (and itself abusive)
will => can, sorry about that
I think NWO makes his point in the worst possible way.
So much so that almost none of the responses including his deal with the fact that there are a lot of words to insult either gender. I don’t understand why insults are gendered, but they are, and as a result, a lot of them are just offensive either way.
I’ve heard men called cunt, I’ve heard men called asshole, pussy, dick, and prick, and none of them are as offensive as cunt.
I don’t think his point should have been that men should be more offended by those insults, but rather that one gender is clearly entitled to be more injured by gender specific insults than the other.