Men’s Rights activists are constantly posting links to stories of women committing horrible crimes – what some have taken to calling “women behaving badly” (WBB) stories – and almost reveling in the fact that, yes, some women do indeed do horrible shit.
MRAs are particularly obsessed with stories of female high school teachers preying on their underage students. While this partly reflects the general MRA obsession with badly behaving women, MRAs do actually make a legitimate point here: while most people understand that female victims of predatory male teachers are indeed victims, quite a few people regard male victims of attractive female teachers as “lucky” boys who get to live out the schoolboy fantasy of having sex with a “hot teacher.”
So when I saw that The Spearhead was featuring a guest post titled “The Hot Teacher Myth, and How it Hurts Men,” I expected to see some version of this argument being made. What I found was one of the strangest and creepiest things I’ve ever read: Walt Forest seems to think that the real problem is that so few guys get the opportunity to have sex with “hot teachers.”
Forest points out (correctly) that cases or female teachers sexually abusing their male students are actually fairly rare. He goes on to argue that all the attention paid to predatory “hot teachers” in the media promotes the “myth” that male and female sexuality is fundamentally the same. This, he suggests, is bad for men:
How does this myth hurt men?
Set aside for a moment the image of the hot teacher and her underage male victim which the media force on us with such insistence. Instead imagine a far more common scenario: a young man (or for that matter, a not-so-young man) who does NOT have sex with his teacher, but desperately wants to.
I’m not quite sure in what world lots of young and not-so-young men – not teenage boys — are being taught by “hot” high school teachers. Perhaps the “hot teachers” here are actually “hot” college professors or grad students and the men in question are college students? Or is Forest simply trying to avoid the question of sexual abuse by pretending that underage boys are “men?”
Forest continues to explore the plight of this poor fellow:
In fact this man would like to have sex with many of the women around him, but — with very few exceptions — he cannot.
Well, yeah. There are 3.5 billion girls and women on planet earth; even the most advanced Lothario is only going to be having sex with a very small fraction of a percentage of them.
But alas, the media tortures this hapless undersexed fellow by suggesting that women like sex as much as men, even though the overwhelming majority of women won’t actually have sex with him personally.
[O]ur media and increasingly ordinary people assure this man that women he hardly knows (even his teachers) will suddenly lead him by the hand to their beds for no other reason than the pleasure of having sex with him, “no strings attached.” This kind of thing is ordinary, we tell him. It “happens all the time.”
Well, in porn it does. Most people are aware that porn isn’t reality.
When it does not happen—of course it never does—he is left to think that he must be something less than an ordinary man. If he dares to voice his disappointment, we tell him that he places excessive importance on sex, views women as “objects,” and the rest of the standard pop feminist rhetoric designed to put the blame back on the man himself. We blame the man because we MUST if we are to avoid blaming ourselves for all the lies we are telling him.
I’m pretty sure that most men – or even most teenage boys — don’t spend their days wondering why their lives aren’t exactly like Penthouse Letters.
These lies hurt men. It is difficult for anyone who has not suffered this hurt first hand to understand just how bad it can be, but from my own experience I believe these lies are helping to create the ongoing male suicide epidemic (which our society, tellingly, also refuses to acknowledge).
Men kill themselves because “hot teachers” don’t seduce them on a regular basis? Really?
These lies certainly make countless men miserable. For this reason I believe exposing the myth that male and female sexualities are the same should be the men’s movement’s first priority. Hot teacher stories obviously make up only a tiny part of this myth, but because they are such a blatant distortion of reality, they are a good place to start.
Quite a few of The Spearhead’s regulars were put off by the, well, weirdness of Forest’s post. But others chimed in to agree. Indeed, Arpagus actually took Forest’s strange argument a step further, earning himself some actual Spearhead downvotes in the process:
[T]he female sex offender charade has been the most frustrating aspect of feminism for me personally, not least because I have experienced a great deal of sexual frustration in the past, and nothing can be more offensive to celibate men than pretending there is an epidemic of female rapists. …
It is a most distinctive sign of cultural decline that we have forgotten that pussy is good. This ancient wisdom has been brainwashed out of our culture by feminism. Now pussy is rape and abuse just like male sexuality is. Traditional society might have punished an adulteress for a student-teacher type of relationship, but they certainly did not indulge in any charade about the boy being a “victim,” because they knew he got lucky if you consider the sex itself. There are reasons why a society might want to proscribe those kinds of relationships, but the boy being a “victim” of “abuse” is most assuredly not one of them.
MRA elder “Zed” gently corrected Arpagus in a comment that was nearly as strange, suggesting that predatory “hot teachers”
are not being punished for “harming the boys”, that is just a convenient excuse. What they are actually being punished for is giving away free pussy.
If you take a close look at the outrage among men these days for having to pay full price for used pussy, their anger is divided between the guys who got it at a price far lower than they paid for it, and the women who gave it away to another man for less than they charged him for it.
It would be like a rich man buying an entire wine cellar of Dom Pérignon at the going price of $200+/bottle – savoring what indulgence his wealth could buy him – only to find his kitchen wench had been pouring free flutes for the pool boy.
Or, like it a member of the Medellín Cartel discovering that their US connection to whom they shipped 2 metric tons of high quality cocaine, was laying out lines for her friends.
She is not being punished for “harming the boys” (HA!) but for black marketing the product that the pussy cartel owns.
The women are being punished FOR allowing the boys to get lucky, and get some without having to lay out 3 months salary for an engagement ring and $35,000 on a Bridezilla party for cupcake.
Now that’s the kind of comment that gets upvotes on The Spearhead, and makes Zed a revered figure in the Men’s Rights movement.
EDITED TO ADD: Not sure how I missed this, but Arpagus is apparently the truly creepy Norwegian blogger Eivind Berge, whom we’ve met before.
Maaaaaate!
I wish we could have clones of John Clarke and Brian Dawe doing all our Parliament stuff instead of the mob in there now.
@lowquacks Fuckin oath mate
@kittehhelp
I didn’t think of it as a joke as much as a reference to a jokey bit of doggerel. I think it’d be hard to pull anything misogynistic out of a picture of a birdy and that phrase, but that’s a really good point because there has to be something I’m missing, right?
If only I were an older lady it’d be perfect.
I’m a massive liar though, the other thing I’ve wanted for a while now is the stuff you can’t do with straightedge and compass on my right upper arm (square and circle of equal area, doubled cube, trisected angle), or possibly around my ankles? I don’t know, feeling far less doubt these days than I used to.
My parents both got tattoos (about four in my dad’s case) a few years ago as part of an admitted midlife crisis, so they can hardly complain.
What’s the point of getting a tat if your parents don’t complain? 😉
LOL Magpie – my mum got a tattoo the same time I got my second one. She was in her seventies then.
ManBoobz – come for the mockery, stay for the discussion of tatts and the Aussie slang.
You beaut!
Well, that’s if for me this evening – I’ve knitting to do and telly to watch (or listen to, I should say). Niters all!
Don’t have any tats myself, but I’m learning to appreciate them. There is some reallly beautiful art on skin. I was chatting to a tattooist the other day, he said when people come in wanting Chinese writing, he sends them down to the bloke who runs the $2 shop, to double check it’s right.
Night kittehs’ help. Watch the Hamster Wheel
It’s hard to say whether the Aussie contingent misses the action and therefore goes off-topic or we’re just even more likely to drag the topic out of the way to talk about whatever.
Trolls are mostly USians though, so let’s go with the first one.
I’ve had a couple of acquaintances who were insistent that they wanted a spouse that was either significantly younger and a virgin. What it boiled down to was they sought someone who was inexperienced with life, didn’t really know what he/ she wanted out of life and would go along with whatever their partner suggested. Basically, someone who was easy to manipulate and control. They had some pretty harebrained ideas about life that most people would question harshly… unless they didn’t know any better.
While I’m dating a man that’s significantly older than I am, I’m in my mid 30’s and experienced enough in life to be on similar footing, mentally and emotionally. Had I met him in high school, he would have been in his early 30’s and I’d have been severely disadvantaged, because I lacked the emotional maturity to carry on a relationship with someone that much older.
But, this doesn’t really explain the motivations behind the hot teacher posts. Really, these guys think that they have a right to have sex with whatever woman they lust after and, to be denied this sacred vagina is misandry, simply because they’re not getting their way and can’t deal with it.
On the work front, we practiced a great deal of misandry. Lots of men were titillated by nekked wimmenz, with no sex provided. However, I don’t think any of the men were complaining of misandry when they left. Except the guy who showed up and tried to game some of the dancers and the lone female customer. Those guys are always funny, especially after I explain that trying to pick up an exotic dancer in a strip club is actually solicitation of a prostitute.
Oh shit this is terrifying.
I always thought they were just a bunch of women-hating dudes with no real ideology who just twist any story in any arbitrary way to make women look bad. But apparently some of them really believe this shit. They really don’t think rape and consent are real and believe sex is sex no matter the circumstances.
I also can’t understand how they can write stuff like that and then call other people ‘misandrist’ with a straight face.
Wow… I can’t even begin to say how offensive the OP is to me. I’m wondering if these guys would stick to this line when talking to a parent of one of the “hot teacher” victims.
“You see, the problem isn’t that your son was abused by an authority figure and will probably be emotionally scarred for the rest of his life. Oh, no! You’re seeing this all wrong. Your son was just getting his rocks off. The real victims are all the “young men” who haven’t been the recipient of a hot older woman’s favors. And all men who are not currently in a fulfilling sexual relationship with the woman of their choice. Because society holds up all of these unrealistic ideals of sex, and then women refuse to fulfill these ideals except for a select few. Your son’s teacher did him a solid, so that’s OK for him. But what about the other men who haven’t had their whims met? I bet you’ve blue-balled your fair share of men in your time, ma’am. So obviously you’re part of the problem, you with-holding harridan. Or maybe you haven’t blue-balled men? Then you’re just perpetuating this idea that women act upon their desires. Sluts like you add to the problem even more than the with-holders!”
I missed steelepole, this makes me upset.
I have no doubts they’d stick to their “Every guy should be so lucky” line no matter who they were talking to. And anyone who disagreed would just be a killjoy.
@Ice
I’m not a teacher but I’ve realized that I have similarly revised my views of “maturity” over the years. It mostly consists of looking back at anything from high school (a decade ago) and thinking “My God was I a twit. A self-important twit.”
Totally agreed on the idea that a 2-3 year difference can be huge. Additionally, priorities change and being at a different stage of life, whatever one’s age is another factor.
I would assume that a young, 20-something teacher is focused on things like: paying the bills, saving up enough money for who-knows-what, keeping their job, dealing with administration, and other such things.
The whole mindset that orients towards long-term career goals widens the gap between them and the high school kid who has significantly fewer responsibilities and isn’t thinking on the long-term.
Heck, one could be the same age as someone else, but if there is still such a huge mis-match between priorities and life-plans, it can be a disaster of a relationship.
It’s never to late to do the right thing.
You know, given the OP, I wonder if they think Pizza Delivery Guys are more likely to commit suicide since random dick in pizza sex stuff only exists in the shittiest porn available.
@Naira
Actually, agreed 100%. Just didn’t broaden my topic ’cause it was all about teachers in the post. (Which is a whole level of EWW, not just because it’s a friggin’ personal topic that really triggers me sometimes — to me, telling teachers they’re oh so lucky to be surrounded by such young, beautiful people, which HAS happened, is not different from telling parents of teenage kids the same thing — but beyond the age difference, there’s also power dynamics which… ew, all in all, ew.)
Myself, I’ve noticed every big step was a huuuuuge mind changer. Like, when I was elementary school (8th grade, age 14-15), I though dating a 16 year old isn’t such big of a deal. Then I got to high school.
When I was last year high school (so, age 19), I thought… heck, dating a university student… I mean, come on, it’s a year difference.
Then I got into uni. The same with a job.
And it really pisses me off that there are so many people out there happily claiming that age difference relationships are actually between a younger partner who is OH SO GROWN UP FOR THEIR AGE (because, you know, there’s a whole world out here of kids who happen to be extremely grown up for their age or something), instead of just admitting that there are creeps out there doing creepy things to easily manipulated people, because they’re creepy.
Or just having a career where being surrounded by dumb hormonal kids who make easy victims has turned me into a screaming banshee. Sorry. *blush*
Are men still not being perfect like women? No matter how hard women try to elevate men to being more like women, men just don’t seem to have the knack of womens perfection. Oh well. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and accept the fact that women are perfect and no amount of social engineering will help men achieve womanhood. Masculinity is demonic and femininity is angelic.
Pertaining to my earlier comment, what should I do about my social anxiety problems?
@ Aworld.
I would suggest exposure therapy. Pick a time frame, and within that time frame, force yourself to socialize over and over again until it’s no big deal. It’ll be old hat. You won’t break a sweat over it.
I’m an introvert and at the begining of my life I was shy. I’m still an introvert (hey, I like people, but I like my own company too), but not shy and have cultivated a social persona that I use in social/public settings. My exposure therapy was being a reporter for a long time. I HAD to start conversations, I HAD to approach people I didn’t know and talk to them, and in some instances keep them talking. Asking people about themselves takes the pressure off of you, by the way…and being a good listener is always appreciated. You don’t have to suddenly become a blabbermouth to be a good socializer. Just make eye-contact and be pleasant. In time, it gets easier. Swear to god.
@Ice: Okay, can’t really chime in with the OH HOLY GOD NO part about relationships with that kind of age gap, since I had a short one with a 16-year-old when I was 20. But yeah, it’s a bit weird, you DO notice that the other person is much younger. I think, as Cliff wrote on zir blog in some post about age differences, that she wanted me mainly because I seemed sophisticated and grown-up (she was the one who got hold of my phone number via a common friend and called me and asked me out), and I wanted her because she was funny and sweet and, well, really hot. I’m not thinking back on this with an OH MY I WAS AN AWFUL PEDOPHILE feeling but, yeah, it’s a bit creepy with that kind of age difference. And if you tell yourself you have an awful lot in common you’re very probably just deluding yourself.
For some reason a colleague and I was talking some while ago about age differences in relationships, and I said that the worst age difference I’ve had was definitely the above. She said though that it’s allright because my partner was a girl, and girls mature faster than boys. I don’t really buy that. I think girls often give that impression because boys are taught that it’s okay to be noisy and silly, while girls are taught to behave – and because it’s more common for an older guy to be with a younger girl, lots of people have an interest in maintaining the myth of fast-maturing young girls.
Kitten Wrench dude should probably invest in a cat toy; it’s going to be ugly when that cat’s all growed up and wants to play with someone’s hand like that.