So over on MGTOWforums, the regulars are pondering the age-old question – should these committed women-avoiders deal with their continued desire to stick their penises in the women they’re allegedly avoiding by resorting to prostitutes?
In the midst of a lively discussion on the advantages of “going pro” over trying to pick up a “bar hog,” one regular by the nom de internet Xtc sets forth some thoughts that, for a moment at least, seem to transcend the usual MGTOW crudity and bitterness.
“I don’t think it’s really about sex,” he writes. “I think what a lot of people are looking for is love, respect, and intimacy – which you can’t buy.”
Why, that almost seems like an insight!
Alas, in his very next sentence he spoils the moment by returning to the standard MGTOW narrative of female perfidy:
I think what put me off women altogether was the realisation that you’ll NEVER get [love, respect, and intimacy] for real. It’s sad and sobering, but that’s the way it is.
Thinking that the attention of women validates you as a person collapses once you realise they are attracted to the worst qualities in the worst men.
Thinking that the attention of women equals affection, intimacy, or love – collapses once you realise they will leave you in a second if they sense any weakness or if a BBD [bigger better deal] comes along. Then you’ll realise that the meter was running all the time, whether this was clear at the time or not.
Women are like a bitter medicine that you force yourself to swallow because you believe it is doing you good. Once you realise it’s a quack remedy, and the whole thing is a scam, you’re free to spit it out and never partake again.
That leaves you with sex alone, which is really rather easy to come by.
If women really and truly are “attracted to the worst qualities of the worst men,” why aren’t they lining up at these dudes’ front doors?
I’m personally fine with judging people for being “irrational” when they actually are. Women who have tough defenses aren’t, however, irrational in the slightest while MRAs have their picture in the dictionary next to the word.
My former housemate (Best Housemate EVAH!), throws play parties. We started to have cuddle parties at our place, a couple of weeks before the play party; so people who didn’t know each other could get more comfortable, and get the hang of negotiating permissions.
And there was nice cuddling. I like cuddling.
On the cuddling, I note that a lot of mens sports teams have a lot more cuddling during games than they used to. Also the ultimate in manliness, the All Blacks, have players posting pictures on twitter where two players sre chilling in bed together. I love it, because I cant wait for affection between men to become more acceptable. Sometimes I really kind of ache to be hugged, as I spend most of my time around masculine men.
WeeBoy: When we got back from Iraq (hrmn…. when the rest of my unit got back, I’d been in hospital for almost eight months) my closest buddy and I teased one of our other fellows by holding hands as we walked.
It sort of squicked him, which is part of why we did it; because the squick seemed silly (he didn’t have any problem with homosexuals serving, just a cultural problem with guys showing that sort of affection. Being in Iraq, where it’s common made it plain that he had that button, and we wanted to desensitize it).
It was both childish, important, and harmless; because that buddy new we weren’t doing it to be mean. Hard to explain, I suppose. There is a lot of “hard to explain” in the Army.
And a lot of hugging.
The real reason the MRAs cant’ find love is that, being an evil feminist, I kidnapped love, hog-tied love, put duct tape over love’s mouth, and buried it in a shallow grave. I shall never give out the coordinates.
The bit about “Thinking that the attention of women equals affection, intimacy, or love – collapses once you realise they will leave you in a second if they sense any weakness or if a BBD [bigger better deal] comes along. Then you’ll realise that the meter was running all the time, whether this was clear at the time or not.” seems to better apply to MRAs. An MRA will give you affection, intimacy, or love so long as you remain attractive to them and don’t start demonstrating any feminist-type traits.
Self-awareness fail.
And hugs are good, regardless of whether they’re with manly men or not. Some manly men squeeze too damn hard, and I wonder if I’ll break a rib. Good touching = the best kind, after being face smooched by my kitteh. 🙂
Cuddling is something I don’t think I’ll ever be used to. Not only is my family not touchy feely at all, but “cuddling” for me means “having good/safe touch that turns into bad”. I wish it didn’t…cuddling sounds fun and relaxing!
I’ve cuddled lots of dogs and cats though, animals are always “good touch” in my mind.
Oh, and I love it when people play with my hair…it’s kind of an “in between” touch of physical contact without skin on skin. For me, letting someone braid or brush my hair is cuddling.
For whoever DOES like real cuddling, I hope you get all the cuddles you want! 🙂
Evito–I hope you get all the animal cuddles at all!
And hair playing, Evito — I hope you get TONS of it. (I love it too, but I’ll share.)
Evito, if you ever come by my place, I’ll lend you my kitty. She loooooves to cuddle.
(Where by “lend,” I mean I physically can’t prevent her from cozying up to every new person who comes through our door. Also she is on my lap kneading right now.)
Maybe this is the MRA version of the “fantasy of being thin.” These guys think that women are magical pixie dreamgirls made of dewdrops and fairy kisses and when they meet actual women and find out that they’re human and therefore complicated, and don’t magically fix everything in their lives, they blame the woman instead of the fact that a relationship, sex, and “racking up points” in the sex-partners arena don’t usually make a person more happy, fulfilled, or secure.
So all they really have left is the bitter, angry, hateful ranting at one another, similar to the dieters who are hoping to reach their “target weight” (in which everything will be perfect forever, amirite, because that is how the Fantasy works) clutch their hated diet-ordered-punishment-laden celery sticks until their knuckles turn white and disparage the person walking by eating a hamburger.
You may not choose whether or not something hurts you, but you can sure as hell choose not to become a poisonous mess and pretend that you are perfect and actually the victim since all women are evil and only love jerks. *rolls eyes*
I like intimacy, but I don’t know how it will be received. For example, I really liked it when my childhood dog used to lick my legs up and down the knee, but my mom said it was gross and “sexual” and forbade me from doing it. My family never kissed more than on the cheek from time to time, and I rarely got hugs except as goodbyes or hellos due to a trip. I liked cuddling a lot with my husband, but he also had some hygiene issues when I first met him and unfortunately, I have a ridiculously strong olfactory sense (I liked his scent, but not so much the rotting bacteria scent that came up when he did not shower for a week).
My daughter is often affectionate and then stand-offish at random intervals. She’ll hug me and then push away because she wants to do something else. So I do my best to just accept and roll with how she wishes to be affectionate. My cat is also kind of like that- I’ll be petting him and he’ll be purring and then suddenly BITE OW SCRATCH. He’s still purring, but suddenly NOT OK for no reason. Then when I refuse to pet him because I don’t want to get attacked again, he starts whining and rolling on the floor and demanding pets. I got a grooming glove for him, but it takes away a lot of the tactile “this is cuddling” sensation for me, so it’s mostly something I just do for his benefit. *sigh*
It’s not so bad when it’s consistant, but the constant feeling of uncertainty- it just adds to the general feeling that I can never relax, never truly enjoy the good times, because they’ll be snatched away just as quickly.
At least my infant still enjoys unlimited cuddles…but who knows for how long…….*tear*
I suppose that when I’m all alone, at least I can hug myself!
Cuddle parties sound like an amazing idea. I’d suggest a big bed or a pile of pillows, a bunch of cuddle-minded people, some cuddly pets and/or stuffed animals, and to top it all off, a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic marathon. Alternatively, a Katamari Damacy tournament would be appropriate.
Cuddling was never a thing in my family, to the point where now if my mum gives me a hug or something I feel quite uncomfortable, which is sad. I don’t feel the same way about getting hugs from friends, though (given all my friends live overseas, meeting up is so rare and special that hugs follow automatically!). And it goes without saying that hugs from Mr Kittehs are more than welcome. Yes, it has a very sexual component for me, just because that’s our relationship, but also we just like touching each other, and there’s the added element that I can’t always sense his presence. If I do feel something physically on this side it’s usually pressure when he’s holding my hand.
Hair brushing … yes please. I used to dream of brushing his hair in the days before our contact. Twice I’ve had mediums say (and this is people I’d never laid eyes on before) “There’s a man with long dark hair standing beside you and playing with your hair.”
🙂
Amnesia, I want to be at your place.
Also on topic:
MGTOW is basically the statement of self-ownership and saying that only you have the right to decide what your goals in life should be.
It is saying that, as a man I will not surrender my will to the social expectations of women and society, because both have become hostile against masculinity.
Identifying yourself as MGTOW is not something that in any way limits your options in life. In fact the opposite is true.
If it is your own real will, you can still do all the things that society expects from you. Being MGTOW just adds all the other possibilities to your options too.
You do not have to ignore women. If you want you can be a pick up artist, you can avoid relationships with women or you can marry your high school sweetheart and have three kids. You can do whatever you want.
As long as you believe that your own happiness and interests are more important than social expectations and you make your decisions based on that, you can consider yourself as one of the MGTOW – Men Going Their Own Way.
Well, here’s my take on things. We actually live in a much more affluent society than in decades past. Women today don’t have the same incentives to get married young anymore, or even at all in some cases. My grandmother married my grandfather when he was 22 and she was 19 after a very brief courtship. That’s just unheard of nowadays. If two young people today tried to get engaged after only knowing each other for a month, their friends and family would be screaming at them to slow down and not rush into anything serious. But back then it was different. Women didn’t have the same opportunities as men to pursue educational and professional goals. It was important to find a guy who could provide for her. And the sooner, the better. Back then, if a woman was 25 and had never been married, she was seen as probably having something wrong with her, or maybe she was a lesbian or something. Nowadays, I think we discourage both genders from getting married too young.
Now we live in an affluent society where both men and women typically continue their education after high school and can afford to delay taking on adult responsibilities like getting married, having children and buying a home. And because women are making advances professionally, relationships are just not necessary anymore. There was a time decades ago where relationships were necessary for the purposes of getting by, surviving and gathering resources. But we now mate out of weak biological urge and not necessity. We want relationships, but we don’t need them.
The Men’s Rights, Pickup Artists and Men Going Their Own Way subcultures are a response to these changes and the fact a significant percentage of women today in Western societies tend to be flaky, unreliable and extremely picky when it comes to when and where they will enter and maintain romantic relationships, etc. I see over and over again in mainstream media the onus is completely put on men for declining marriage rates and the fact that the median age of first marriage continues to rise. Popular tropes include the adolescent man boys that would rather play video games instead of growing up and becoming well-rounded personalities ready to handle adult relationships with women. And there is a little something to that. But I would also argue that this is not entirely the fault of men, and in fact a significant percentage of women today in their twenties and thirties lack emotional integrity and emotional maturity themselves. We shame young men for playing video games and fantasy football, but do we shame young women for consuming tabloid media and watching reality television? If a woman wants to get married and have children, and nearly all of them do, shouldn’t they make finding a good man a priority in their prime child-bearing years of 25-35? It boggles the mind to me that any woman over the age of 27 would turn down a marriage proposal from a suitor who has proven himself to be a person of good character and intelligence. And yet many women have followed the lead of Kate Bollick and decided that they’re “not ready to settle down” and maybe “something better is out there.”
You may detest them, but these male subcultures are a response to some very real changes in the the culture and the way that a large number of women are conducting their romantic lives. There’s a reason they exist now and weren’t around 30-40 years ago. There are things about these movements that are incredibly unattractive. It’s true that a significant amount of misogyny exists in them. The MRA and MGOTW guys in particular are incredibly bitter and hateful towards women. The PUA types aren’t bitter, but they tend to view women as not worthy of relationship commitments and as suitable for nothing more than objects for sexual release in the form of sport fucking and short-term flings.
I think it demonstrates a severe lack of cognitive understanding to assume that all of these men want to go back to a time where wives were nothing more than maids that their husbands got to have sex with, or that they believe it is a worthy goal to roll back women’s suffrage, or that these men are neanderthal types that are bitter that domestic violence isn’t tolerated anymore. A large percentage of these men deep down would like love, respect, emotional companionship and intimacy with women, and they’re simply not getting it. And I agree that in the case of the MRA and MGOTW types, their bitterness and their misogyny is their own worst enemy when it comes to their inability to get what they want in their interactions with women. But having observed over and over again as a whole the behavior of young women today, I understand how they come by these attitudes in the first place.
So men going their own way actually just do whatever they like and say that they are going somewhere? That’s a new idea, eh.
So men opting out of the whole marriage or relationships business are doing something quite understandable, but women doing so, or not “settling” for whoever asks, are flaky? That sounds like a horrible double standard, and not a new one, either.
Damn, blockquote fail. The second (long) para in the second block is my response.
So in other words, MGTOWs are dudes who have reacted to the diminution of their unearned male privilege by adopting a “fuck you, I got mine” mentality?
Thanks for the update.
It means live for yourself (non serviam) and let others do the same. Live and let live.
@Thinker11235
I agree with some of what you said, but not other parts. In case you don’t know, I considered myself a MRA until just last month when I finally got tired of the manosphere constantly calling me a slut/lesbian/feminazi/spy and so on…especially since I’m NONE of those labels. But I get where you are coming from, I just think that you have a few double standards to work out.
Now, those double standards have already been pointed out by others, so I’ll not go into them. But I will point out that you make the claim that the majority of women still want/need to marry and have children for true happiness…and they are waiting too long.
I posit a different opinion, one that is completely my own: What if we DON’T?
If I was a man, I’d be classified as having “Peter Pan Syndrome”. I got my Bachelor’s, rose up the ranks in my job, and make an okay salary. I work long hours to afford my personal apartment and pay my car/school loans. When I’m not working, I play D&D…my X360 or N64…boardgames…paint miniatures…or workout at the gym. Or you can find me hanging out with my male lover/friend with benefits. Even though all of my friends are men, they are already married or happy being single.
Just like me.
See, this is what annoyed me about many MRAs…the constant opinion that deep down, women really, REALLY want to have children/marriage. That we’re incapable of having a good, successful life being single and free. Oh, but MGTOW are living proof that MEN are different, MEN don’t need anyone, MEN are the only half of the world who don’t automatically desire children/spouse happiness. Do you know the names I got called for challenging this?
But you seem like a good man, Thinker 11235…perhaps you could actually tell me why MGTOW think that women can’t be happy being single? I’d like to have a real discussion, instead of being called horrendous names that don’t even describe me…
Interesting. Compare these statements:
Note, that love, respect, emotional companionship and intimacy are not mentioned as things that young women want or even need. Men, presumably, want and should have these things. But young women, who “…lack emotional integrity and emotional maturity…” ought to settle for any man that wants them.
Well, hello, Mr Collins. Jane Austen could still be hitting the mark after 2 centuries.
@Nobinayamu: “ought to settle for any man that wants them.”
Hear that ladies? All you uglies, oldies, and/or fatties who have a man in your lives better just thank your lucky stars to have a man, any man at all. As we all know having a bad partner is better than having no partner at all, amirite? We also know women’s expiration dates happen in their early twenties so all those high school girls need to hurry up and get themselves a ‘REAL man’™ before time runs out!