Every woman I know who’s tried online dating has gotten all sorts of weird and sleazy messages from guys, from crude sexual come-ons (“sorry for being forward but id love to cum on your glasses :)”) to terrible “sexy” jokes (“So ay girl, you looking for a stud? Because I got the std, all I need is u :)”) to fetish-tastic examples of Too Much Information (“I WISH I WERE A DOG SO I COULD SUCK MYSELF OFF”). (No, guys, appending a smiley face emoticon does not make it ok to be a grotesque douchebag.)
You always wonder what guys like this are thinking. With the dog lover at the end, it’s clear he was trying to rattle a woman who hadn’t replied to two earlier messages of increasing creepiness. With the others, I suppose they think there’s always a tiny chance that some woman out there is as desperate and horny and undiscerning as they are.
What’s stranger are those who lead not with sexual come ons but with blatant misogyny. Do men really think that women melt at the thought of dating a man who hates half the human race? Or are they just looking for yet another chance to mansplain their Men’s Rights bullshit to the world?
Here are a couple of examples of this strange and unsuccessful approach to winning over women which I found on the delightful and disturbing blog The Ladies of OkCupid, which documents the quests of three women searching for love online.
Sometimes the misogyny sneaks up on you, as in this OkCupid profile from a “laid-back” slut-shamer (who was clearly not an English major):
This fellow, by contrast, launches into the misogyny right from the start, suggesting that the woman he’s writing is exceptional, simply because she’s not stupid and illogical like the rest of her gender:
This “edgy” fellow tries to break the ice with some lovely rape jokes:
But the strangest one I’ve seen so far comes from this dude, who uses his OKCupid profile as an opportunity to mansplain why feminism is eeeeeevil:
Oh, and that list keeps going; it’s one hundred items long.
As Jasmine from The Ladies of OKCupid writes,
Delusional and repulsive takes on a whole new level with this one, because I really don’t think he’s kidding. He has every social media outlet known to man with all the same crap, and his profile is HUGE. So either he’s attempting to become the ultimate Canadian troll, or he really thinks there’s a woman out there who exists like this AND would be interested in him, of all people. Really? He offers little more than a receding hairline and an outrageous sense of entitlement in return.
To paraphrase Animal House, delusional and repulsive is no way to go through life.
Happily for The Ladies of OKCupid, and the rest of those ladies seeking love online, not all the messages are like this. For example, take this message about a basic but delicious foodstuff:
Also, the woman who got the message above about that thinking-outside-the-box use for her glasses? She stayed on OkCupid, and is now in a happy relationship with a dude she met there who is not a shitlord.
Yeah! People with lives read and respond to BLOG POSTS about OkCupid profiles, not the profiles themselves! Take that!
You’re welcome to comment here, as long as David is cool with it. We don’t have to automatically like you though, and we are allowed to point out how hypocritical you are being.
ahahahh the “you all are losers!!” argument, my favorite. Guess I leave manboobz and hang my head down in shame that some person on the internet thinks I am a loser. XD
Viscaria, I have never once in my life seen this “street harassment” you harp on. Do you ever actually get out of the house or is this just some nonsense you read on a blog? I have never seen any harassment in any place that I have lived whether in London or NYC. Perhaps it happens in Podunk but I’ve never been there or do I associate with the lower classes. 🙂
I never wanted to join your club anyway!! *stomps off*
Uhh you must either not live in the city or are not a woman because sexual harassment is pretty common.
Isn’t that precious
and it’s “nor do I associate with the lower classes”, if you’re going to try and be pretentious, atleast do it properly
“Harp on”? I used it as a comparison once… But anyway, yes, good point. Street harassment only happens to low-class women. If they didn’t want it, they’d stop being so damned low-class. Burn!
some sort of private club where only a handful of diehard people are accepted
Yeah, totally! David has all these difficult tests before you’re allowed to join.
I mean, I remember when I went through the training.. First he made me do this test with 1000 questions, followed by the 24 hour marathon of MRA-related media to test my resilience, but those were easy. The hardest was the all-night stealth ninja tests out in the wilderness where I had to survive on my wits alone, with nothing but a spoon to aid me.. Only then was I accepted.
..Wait, that was just me?
I skimmed over the “lower class” part, you really are a nasty person aren’t you? WhateverJean I have to wonder if you are a repeat troll hmmm. The “you all are losers comment” made me think of ion.
Of course, street harrassment affects low SES women in different and typically more insulting/dangerous ways than it affects higher SES women. Intersectionality and all. But that’s, um, a bad and unfair thing. Not what they deserve for not being as privileged as you.
I’ve only spent a couple days in NYC and I’ve had to literally run off the street into a store because a guy was running at me trying to grab me. On the same trip I also had drunk guys offer some very frank appraisals of my looks.
I don’t know what NYC you’re in, but it must be a lot higher class than the one I’ve visited.
…Yes. Yes I am a loser.
Do you expect this to surprise me?
No no Viscaria, you don’t understand. If you’re experiencing harassment it can only be because you’re associating with the poor rabble, and of course poor men don’t have the social graces to treat women well, unlike those marvelous rich fellows that JeanM keeps company with. I mean, who ever heard of rich men harassing women? Ridiculous!
Shadow , yes I was referring all along to misogynists who complain about women’s lists. I have a hunch that man’s list is a mock and over exaggerated representation of a women’s list with some nasty below the belt digs thrown in for good measure.
I’m pretty rich and I was still harassed. You know what stopped my harassment? Cutting my hair and binding my tits.
…Not everyone is willing to take that step.
Maybe “not associating with the lower classes” means taking cabs everywhere, instead of public transit or walking? It’s pretty easy to avoid street harassment when you’re not, you know, on the street.
I haven’t gotten much harassment myself, and nothing really terrible. It varies a lot. But I also don’t assume that my experiences are universal, and when I hear pretty consistent things from many, many, many other women, I don’t assume they’re making it all up or exaggerating.
JeanM:
1) I only have an OKCupid profile because I signed up a couple years ago to do quizzes with several of my female friends who were into that kind of thing. I set my status to “in a relationship” and only looking for friendship, etc (and am largely inactive on the site), but I still get annoying messages from time to time.
2) I have received ridiculous amounts of negative male attention from other websites, on my YouTube account when I make AMVs, or simply for putting up any sort of profile that says that I am female (even if I mention that I am married and not looking for anything beyond friendship and networking).
3) And no, I am not super hot. I am a lumpy, late-20’s anime-loving geeky lady who hates wearing make up and loves comfy shoes. I’m also just entering my third trimester of pregnancy, so I’m not being self-depreciating when I say that I know I’m not going to win the Hottest Lady of the Year award. But I’m ok with myself, and I’m pretty secure in who I am and what I like. Why do other people feel like they have to dump their own insecurities on me and shit on my cake?
4) The only place where I don’t get harassed by the (largely male) population is a small gaming website where I am a fairly prominent blogger (I have gotten a few borderline comments posted to my bio-page, but most of them seem like they’re just young and clueless, not actively saying sexually gross stuff). However, I do tend to stick to fairly non-offensive-to-teh-menz topics and probably don’t receive a lot of problems from others because of it. The main issue I run into is largely with self-identified female users who are still in that “flailing around and wanting to be hot to all the geeky menz” stage of their lives where they think that every other woman out there is “competition” and have internalized a lot of misogynistic thinking.
5) Why do you think it is unreasonable to be a woman on the internet (or in any space) and expect to not be accosted by harassing, death-threat-making trolls just because you won’t engage someone’s misogyny? Do you honestly think that a woman brings it upon herself simply by being present?
Ozy – I had the same experience! Fancy that!
Funny thing is, before I started presenting more male-ier, I was really concerned that I’d get more street harassment because I’d be perceived as a lesbian or trans man and hassled for that. But it’s gone way down. (At least, in the liberal urban enclave I live in. I dunno how things would go in Montana or whatever.) Not only has the number of men making gross sexual remarks gone down to near zero, the number of men harassing me for not being sexy has been cut in like half! Which I did not expect.
I’m not sure if this is a bit of borrowed male privilege, if they’re leaving me alone because they respect masculinity, or if it’s just that I’ve crossed over from “I bet she wants male approval, I’m gonna fuck with her and get a reaction” to “I bet he/she’s totally indifferent to men; fucking with him/her would be unrewarding.”
Either way it’s nice. But not exactly something everyone can (or should have to!) do.
@ozymandias42
“I’m pretty rich and I was still harassed. You know what stopped my harassment? Cutting my hair and binding my tits.”
No one every harrassed you princess. Your life has been cake and whipped cream since day one. You sould’ve used that binding on your yap. When you’re silent it’s the only time you make any sense.
ust your average Joe’s doing what men have always done. Now go scour the web to see if you can find a creep who dared talk to a woman in an elevator.
Nice try, NWO, but I can counter with an example of a man who dropped his own baby in a rush to abandon his family to their fate, so you know, there’s heros and there’s zeros. Yeah, he dressed it up the in the newspaper interview, but if his fiancee hadn’t basically tripped over the baby on her way out, there’s no way to know what could have happened.
@Cliff Pervocracy
Oh boy. Here comes the reaffirming fantasies. Did a man talk to you in an elevator? The bastard! Quick, write about that entitled creep!
Cliff: For me, I pass as male (almost always when I don’t bind, always when I bind), so I’m pretty sure all the street harassers assume I’m a gay boy and leave me alone.
Podunk? Street harassment happens everywhere, and people of all classes do it. Sometimes it is wealthy frat boys that like to yell at women in order to look cool to their douchey friends. The guy who pinched my butt at the pop aisle of Wal-Mart had expensive cowboy boots so he probably wasn’t poor either. Your argument is classist and wrong.
@Cliff- My biggest problem with street harassment is that it’s not an EVERYDAY 24/7 thing. It’s a “when you least expect it” thing. Sometimes I can go weeks without having to hear someone make a gross shouting comment at me or stare at me with the gross “licking his lips” wolf face or try and stop me by stepping out in front of me when I’m trying to ride my bike to work (this happened last week and I just sped up so he jumped out of the way).
But it’s always unexpected, or it’s something that I’m constantly expecting will happen at some point, I just don’t know WHEN and that’s the horrible part. I’ll finally get comfortable and feel safe in a space, and then someone will come along with their nasty behavior and ruin it. It’s not always unsafe, but sometimes it become HORRIBLY UNSAFE and that’s what makes me so fucking paranoid. Every day in my life (and I am guessing this is similar for many other women and people with less privilege) is uncertain-I can’t know how much I’m going to be targeted for being who I am. And because of that, it’s very, VERY hard to let my guard down, relax or enjoy myself in public spaces because someone inevitably shows up and decides to shit all over my feeling of security and safety.
When women are still being stabbed to death by people in the middle of the day while walking down a heavily-trafficked road by men who profess to hate women (this happened last month) or where men can rape an intoxicated woman on the side of the road while people drive by (this happened only a few weeks ago in my city), and you live in a ultra-liberal town in CA, you know that it’s fucking BAD.
It’s not always bad. But when it’s bad, I could lose my life. I could be raped. I could be beaten within an inch of my life. And for what? For being a woman. In public. And at least a few people out there are going to tell me that I deserved it. For being a woman. In public.