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Imaginary feminists! Don’t destroy “Ian Ironwood’s” sexbot utopia!

Even the Bionic Woman had trouble with fembots.
Even the Bionic Woman had trouble with fembots.

Yesterday we looked at far-right manospheran clod/philosopher Vox Day’s melodramatic response to a Canadian sexbot ban that’s completely imaginary (but that Vox, natch, believed was real). Today, let’s look at an almost 3000-word post by one “Ian Ironwood” of the Red Pill Room, spelling out the dire implications of this imaginary legislation.

ProTip: Before writing 3000-word screeds denouncing something, spend 5 minutes with Teh Google to see if what you’re denouncing is in fact real.

Ironwood opens his argument with this dramatic (if slightly ironic) assertion:

The Sexbot threat to feminism is real.

No one wants to admit it, but it’s coming.  Indeed, the only people who recognize it as such are the radical feminists and the radical nerds, and rarely do folks take those groups at face value when they speak.  But they both have it right, sexbots are in our future.  Indeed, they’re closer than you think, and their capacity to seriously screw with the SMP is very, very real.

For those not fully versed in the pseudoscience of pickup artistry, SMP stands for “sexual marketplace.”

Ian starts us off with a little trip to Japan:

Japan, the undisputed global leaders in male masturbation technology, are [sic] investing literally millions in research into this market.  Why?  Because of the herbivores.

 The “herbivores” are the adult males (I hesitate to call them men) in Japanese society who have opted out of the dating-and-mating SMP entirely.  In consideration of the exhausting and complex web of social and financial penalties involved, these men have just . . . given up on women. 

Manospherians like to pretend that Japan’s much-discussed “herbivores” are essentially the Japanese version of Men Going Their Own Way. I’m no expert on Japan but even I know that’s a bit of an oversimplification.

Naturally, in Ian’s mind, it’s all the fault of those uppity ladies:

You think American women feel entitled?  Japanese “princesses” put them to shame.  Their demands and requirements for a husband are often so grandiose or unrealistic that they have turned-off an entire generation of Japanese men to the very idea of marriage, just at the point where their female contemporaries, themselves working in corporate jobs, are starting to consider it.

But when your day consists of going to work in a cube farm and playing the corporate warrior competing with women all day, apparently it saps your desire to deal with them all night, too. 

So, naturally, these poor cube farming herbivores are turning to vagina replacements:

Long an important part of international sex culture, the last few decades have seen rapid advances in masturbation technology, including the disposable Tenga “egg” stroker you can buy in a vending machine for those long lunch hours.  Japanese dudes whack it a lot, and that’s big business.  

And soon – oh, so soon — Japanese masturbation technology will be able to replace not just vaginas but entire women:

[B]y 2018, and certainly by 2020, we’ll see animatronic Sexbots available for purchase that you will not be able to distinguish from a human being more than ten feet away.

Ian, I will bet you literally a billion gazillion dollars that you are wrong about this.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Ian is correct, and let him continue his most interesting – and increasingly NSFW — survey of the future.

Every aspect of the phenomenon is being developed: realistic-feeling skin, realistic-looking eyes, realistic-sounding voice, realistic weight and mass, realistic movements …

The current state-of-the-art is still primitive, but that’s changing rapidly.  By 2020 your Sexbot will be able to walk, talk, see, hear, suck, fuck, give you an endless handjob, take it up her vibrating butt and do stuff no mortal woman can. 

“Endless Handjob” is going to be the name of my ambient-drone cassette label.

You will be able to order them in any style, from African to Asian to European to Latin and beyond, any height, any weight, and you will be able to personalize them to suit your particular fetish.  Advanced models will have changeable bust sizes and other options.  Hair, eyes, and accent?  Standard options.

I am glad to hear that sexbots will indeed have eyes as an option. It would be sort of weird otherwise. Can they have more than two? Could they have eyes instead of nipples, and nipples instead of eyes? Could you simply swap out various body parts as if your sexbot were some giant sexy Mrs. Potatohead?

Sorry, I’m getting a bit carried away with all the possibilities.

Let’s go back to Ian’s post, which is sounding more and more like some sort of sexbot informercial.

And just how much will dudes have to shell out to get a perfectly-programmed girlfriend delivered to their door?

About the price of an economy car.  Estimates indicate that the best consumer price-point for a Sexbot is about US$7,000.00 (2013).  Leases will likely be available.  So will financing.  But for the average dude, shelling out that kind of cash for the perfect sexual companion is a no-brainer.

I’m pretty sure Ian isn’t thinking with his brain at this point. Heck, he’s even wrong about the cars: a decent economy car is going to cost you at least twice that, and most of them don’t even have vibrating butts.

Imagine a dude getting home from work in his single apartment.  His Sexbot has been pre-programmed to start his dinner and have it ready on demand.  She greets him at the door, asks about his day, gets his dinner, and then spends the rest of the evening satisfying him any way he chooses.  With a sophisticated AI (one of the major focuses of the effort) she will be able to converse with you on nearly any topic or stay blissfully silent.  And you don’t even have to ask about how her day went.

After two years, trade her in for a newer, more advanced model.  Repeat as necessary.

And fellas, this stunningly realistic female human being replacement, with a vibrating butt and as many eyes as you want, will be yours for less than half the cost of a cheap car – in as little as six years from now!

And heck, these sexbots won’t just replace women – they’ll  even replace women who are whores.

Our children’s generation will look forward to a whole lot of men (if Japan is any indication, over half) depending on Sexbots for their erotic entertainment over actual human beings.  Even whores.  Because sexbots are safer than prostitutes by any estimation.

Sounds like life for heterosexual-yet-woman-hating men will become some sort of wondrous sexual utopia!

What could possibly stand in the way of this glorious dream?

Oh, you guessed it already: jealous, and probably ugly, feminists – who for some reason apparently want all of the woman-hating straight men for themselves.

Ian trots out that wholly imaginary Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act that we talked about yesterday. The “proposed law” that turned out to have been an assignment in a law school class about law and robotics. The law that Ian didn’t bother to Google before writing his long, long screed.

Ian is as worked up about this imaginary law as he is excited about his imaginary robot girlfriend(s) of the future. “[T]he thinly-veiled, incredibly obvious motivation behind this freakish proposed law,” he thunders, is that

 feminists are upset because when dudes can buy a girlfriend for less money than an engagement ring, and then have elective temporary vasectomies to cover their bases for the few times they do end up with a real woman, then the future looks an awful lot like a male paradise and a female hell.

Wait, now all men are getting vasectomies as well? Even though they have no reason to bother with mere human females, what with all their talking and their lack of vibrating butts? I’m a little confused now.

What happens when you’re a woman, you want to be a mom, but not only can’t you find a husband . . . you can’t even find decent sperm?  When in order to conceive, you have to convince a dude to commit to providing you with semen, which he can do only AFTER he consciously gets his vasectomy reversed?  No surprise pregnancies, no one-night-stands gone wrong, suddenly the only way a woman can get pregnant is if she can convince a man to commit to her?  If she can even find one who is interested? …

What happens in our society when a majority of working women can’t find husbands – or even dates, thanks to the Sexbot craze – and end up working and paying taxes to subsidize other women’s childbearing?  What happens when a dude with superior genetics can start a bidding war on his balls?

Yeah, but what if Japanese women develop ROBOT SPERM and use it to get pregnant and somehow force men to pay child support for their new human-robot hybrid babies? Did you ever consider THAT, Ian?

I’m not quite sure how all of that would work, exactly, but, hey, the Japanese are awfully clever so presumably they could whip up something like this in, oh, six to eight years or so, right?

But let’s just assume that my idea of robot sperm remains a pipe dream, and that Ian’s pipe dreams somehow become reality. He continues:

The temporary vasectomy is literally just a few years away.  Throw in Sexbots, and suddenly men have reproductive power the likes of which they’ve never dreamed, even at the height of the Agricultural Age.  They will decide when they conceive as a conscious choice, not as a whim of Nature.  Have a bad date with yet-another desperate woman who only wants you for your sperm?  Kandi the Asian 19year old Sexbot will make it all better.

Why is her name Kandi? Is that a common name in Asia?

And that’s why feminists are trying to ban them.  Not because they “objectify” women, but because they make women largely redundant to men.  Suddenly the allure of their genitalia will pale in comparison to the outrageous sexual bombshells rolling off of the Kyoto assembly lines. 

I’m sorry; I just love that last sentence there so much I have to repeat it:

Suddenly the allure of their genitalia will pale in comparison to the outrageous sexual bombshells rolling off of the Kyoto assembly lines. 

Ian dreams on:

Sexbots will actually cure a plethora of social ills: STDs, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, sexual frustration, loneliness, heartbreak, child sexual exploitation, and more.  Far from making men objectify women . . . it will merely make them ignore them.  Men with Sexbots won’t treat women poorly, because more likely than not, once they have the “perfect” programmed girlfriend at home, there really won’t be any reason to interact with women unless you’re at work.

Yes, because aside from sticking his penis in them, there is clearly no possible reason why a man would ever want to have anything to do with women.

Just imagine a society where any man can get his ashes hauled at any time, in any way, without having to ask a live woman to participate.  Just imagine a society where women can’t get “accidentally” pregnant anymore.  Not only is the impetus to marry absolutely killed, but even the impetus to mix with the opposite sex.  And that’s what is scaring feminists, not the potential for objectification.

Yes,  I’m sure feminist women are crying themselves to sleep at the notion that asswipes like Ian will refuse to “mix” with them any more.

Happily, for him, Ian concludes that the (wholly imaginary) Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act won’t stand up in court. Because of NAFTA, or something. (I kind of skimmed this bit.) But then he’s back to imagining the wondrous possibilities of a sexbotted-up world. Which apparently involves a lot of robot dismemberment.

Just imagine the result if sex with “realistic” Sexbots is actually made illegal . . . why not just pop an alien head on?  Or a animatronic animal head?  Or just a silvery glass sphere?  That’s the real danger for women when it comes to Sexbots: their ability to be customized in ways no woman would ever consent to. 

Uh, I’m pretty sure no living creature, regardless of gender, would consent to having their head “popped off” and replaced with a sphere.

Can’t have a “realistic” full-body Sexbot?  Then just buy her from the waist down.  And then next year spring for a separate torso and head.  You can use them separately, or together! 

Who needs a human girlfriend when you can just fuck a torso?

Cant’ have a Sexbot that portrays a minor?  Get a really, really small model, and no one knows what happens in your imagination.

How thoughtful! So even pedophiles will have a place in Ian’s sexbot utopia.

So while imaginary feminists propose imaginary laws to fight the coming sexbot utopia, Ian will be licking his chops.

I, for one, will be welcoming our new Sexbot masters.  It’s going to tighten up the SMP worse than gay liberation did.  And it’s going to make shallow, poor-quality women completely and utterly undatable, and leave them little or no options to reproduce.  And the women who do reproduce will do so only with the permission, consent and acquiescence of men.

I’m beginning to wonder if this “red pill” is actually some sort of hallucinogenic.

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Evito
Evito
11 years ago

Lol, yes I’m aware this isn’t an MRA site. And yeah…I did think I answered my own question that time.

But I guess I still just wanted to make sure that I’m not “living in a fantasy world of non sexual men” as one MRA accused me of doing. It’s like everyone thinks that men are eunuchs if they deign to be “friends” with a lowly female.

I recognize that the majority of people want physical intimacy and sex…I’d never try to deny that. But it’s hard to hear that all the effort I put into my (still ongoing) male friendships is for naught because DAMN IT, I STILL DON’T SEX THEM LIKE THEY DESERVE!!!

And no, none of them have ever said that…the last bit was purely from MRAs talking about my relationships and how I obviously was still against men having rights.

Cthulhu's Intern
11 years ago

So, wait a minute, are Asian women the best kind because they’re submissive, or are they terrible because they’re have entitlement issues? Show some consistency in your bigotry.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“What I’d like to know is what they think is going to stop women of the future from buying their own super sexy robomen with vibrating penises and just adopting one of the millions of unwanted kids already in the adoption system if they really want kids that bad? Or hey, sperm banks already exist too.”

Nothing. Male sex dolls are already somewhat popular in Japan, since they seem to be GREAT listeners and never tell you they don’t want to hear about your day. Knock yourself out. Buy one. It will probably be the best husband you could ask for. And adopt-away. Indeed, the more single working women who are paying taxes to subsidize other women’s children, the better.

And let’s be honest: there are plenty of ladies out there for whom a sexbot is going to be their best shot at Prince Charming.

But men will be the overwhelming majority of sexbot purchasers, so that’s where the R&D money is going. Dudes try to marry a piece of software or a cartoon character in Japan, so a sexbot won’t even raise an eyebrow. But women? I can just see it now:

“That’s right, Yukio, I waited all night for him to say something about my hair, and the best he could come up with was ‘it’s lovely’. Lovely! If he hadn’t been on sale, I never would have bought him . . .”

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

@Evito: see, the thing is, a lot of this makes a heck of a lot more sense once you wrap your head around the idea of, say, patriarchy, as a concept.

Or rape culture.

Once you see those, then it’s just that they think men who deign to be friends with a woman are eunuchs; but that saying such provides a great deal of cover to rapists, who just couldn’t help themselves. (the Nice Guy narrative also serves to provide great cover to rapists and misogynists)

Once you start seeing how much cover they give to predators, rapists and abusers, it becomes hard to see their sound and fury as anything BUT dangerous.

If you’d like some links to some good repositories of 101 stuff that really fleshes that out, I have tons and tons of links.

gelar
gelar
11 years ago

I CAN’T BELIEVE I PUT ALL THAT THOUGHT INTO PRETEND SEXBOTS.

I’ve had several story ideas pop up since reading the post. This topic is unfailingly good at that!

Cthulhu's Intern
11 years ago

Also, is it just me, or is “Male Masturbation Technology” not a good band name, but a pretty good name for an album?

ianironwood
11 years ago

“Also I think someone watched Cherry 2000 and got overexcited, then turned it off before the end where the main character relied he liked (gasp!) the ultra badass human woman over the sex bot macguffin that drove the plot.”

Never saw it, but I’ll check it out.

Actually, I’ve had meetings with several different companies who are working on it. The most impressive one so far had some fairly realistic looking skin that was warm to the touch, but still felt rubbery — it didn’t have the same tactile friction as human skin. The eyes on that one were the best, too. But another company had the best fluidity of motion by far. None of them have managed to do a free-standing, self-supporting, independently-mobile version yet (power supplies are an issue, as is weight . . . but carbon fiber makes an AWESOME chassis) but the one with the best shot at it predicts they’ll jump that hurdle in the next two years, at least in prototype.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“Ugh, these guys are as bad as MGTOWs for the simultaneous, “Well if that’s what you want, go for it!” and “You’re an asshole.” reaction.”

The two are not mutually exclusive. And isn’t that EXACTLY what I’m reading in the comments section here?

ianironwood
11 years ago

“Well, I’m convinced. How/where can I view these prototypes and invest?”

Start by going to the annual AVN Adult Expo or the XBIZ show or one of the smaller shows. Get a VENDOR pass that allows you to mix freely with everyone in the restricted sections. Go up to the Japanese vendors, preferably with a good translator (they “speak English”, but between accent, technical language, and idiom, it can be a problem) and shmooze them a little. Tell them that you work in the industry and you are a science fiction writer who is fascinated by the whole thing. Bring them a gift so they take you seriously. Buy them an ASSLOAD of drinks, demonstrate that you know what the hell you’re talking about when you speak of the American sex toy market, and then have them show you their R&D modules (after their lawyers get you to fill out a Japanese/English Industry NDA — good times).

As far as investment, most of the firms are already pretty well capitalized. The Japanese don’t have the same squeemish nature about masturbation that Americans do, so they don’t lack for funds.

drst
drst
11 years ago

I find it fascinating he’s sure that women wouldn’t want a sexbot.

Indeed. I have no idea what the numbers are, but I suspect women currently spend a lot more money on personal sex toys than men do (meaning “buying it for myself” rather than “buying it for my partner”). If anything, women are the larger market already primed to purchase mechanical tools for sex. So why he thinks the only people who would want them are men is, well, one tiny baffling piece of information in that entire batshit screed.

Of course, Ian lives in fantasy MRA land where all women everywhere can get sex whenever they want it, so the idea of “I really don’t want to find a guy in a bar for a one nighter and pray I don’t get into a dangerous situation / I don’t want to have to deal with my husband’s whinging right now / my boyfriend is out of town so… I’m just gonna ride my sex bot tonight and then go to sleep” being a thought women have probably would break his brain.

I would LOVE an affordable robot to do housework. Holy shit that would be awesome. Every time I cook a big dinner, I look at the dishes and think “If it wasn’t for the slavery thing I could totally use a house elf.”

If said robot could resemble, say, Chris Evans, I would not complain either.

Holy FSM, can you imagine the legal issues of making sexbots that resemble actual people, especially celebrities? Someone building a sexbot likeness of you without your consent, would that be considered invasion of privacy for a famous actor/actress? Yikes.

Cthulhu's Intern
11 years ago

Also, there is no way that any sex bot could look realistic without being in the uncanny valley. I don’t want to have sex with something in the uncanny valley. That would be scary.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“What say you peoples? Am I delusional in thinking we can acknowledge opposite sex attraction but still be friends, or not?”

See today’s post, “Mike Makes A Breakthrough”.

You aren’t exactly delusional, but you had better define your terms pretty sharply before you continue.

drst
drst
11 years ago

@gelar – I’m totally imagining a future dystopia novel where sexbots have been created and taken over most of the recreational sex stuff while a subculture of people who want to sex other actual humans hides in the shadows. Like the government subsidized the bots because of overpopulation and global warming and the need to reduce the number of people on earth, so having sex with another person rather than pre-approved procreation is against the law, etc.

And then… the sexbots rebel!

Or something.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

I’m guessing that the uncanny valley issue isn’t a problem for men who already think of women as not-really-human. From their perspective, what’s the difference?

It’s the fact that they think that most other men will feel the same way that’s hilarious. I can see both men and women buying realistic sex bots if they were available and relatively cheap, but nobody who sees the gender they’re attracted to as people is going to be content with a “relationship” with one unless the bot is actually sentient. And if they were sentient these guys wouldn’t want one.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“So, wait a minute, are Asian women the best kind because they’re submissive, or are they terrible because they’re have entitlement issues? Show some consistency in your bigotry.”

I never said that Asian women were submissive or “the best” — I’ve simply stated that they have more traditional ideas about marriage and family that might appeal to a man who actually wants to get married and stay married.

Japanese women are a cultural subset of “Asian women”, and they tend to buck the curve on a lot of fronts. Especially in terms of entitlement. Probably all the Western influence during the post-war period.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“Once you see those, then it’s just that they think men who deign to be friends with a woman are eunuchs; but that saying such provides a great deal of cover to rapists, who just couldn’t help themselves. (the Nice Guy narrative also serves to provide great cover to rapists and misogynists)

Once you start seeing how much cover they give to predators, rapists and abusers, it becomes hard to see their sound and fury as anything BUT dangerous.”

That is – literally – hysterical. Just another attack on male sexuality as “rape culture”. Try — just try — to give this some real cogent thought. I’ll give you a moment.

ianironwood
11 years ago

“So why he thinks the only people who would want them are men is, well, one tiny baffling piece of information in that entire batshit screed.”

See above.

“…being a thought women have probably would break his brain.”

Since I sell sex toys for a living, no, it wouldn’t break my brain. It does, however, pay my mortgage. So sure, go ahead, ladies, when the time comes, by all means get a sexbot.

“Holy FSM, can you imagine the legal issues of making sexbots that resemble actual people, especially celebrities? Someone building a sexbot likeness of you without your consent, would that be considered invasion of privacy for a famous actor/actress? Yikes.”

Consider having your ex-boyfriend order a sexbot that looks exactly like you after he dumps you. And yeah, that’ll happen too, eventually. Famous people (at least in the US) would have a hard time challenging that in court under the “parody” element of the First Amendment.

Nobinayamu
Nobinayamu
11 years ago

It’s the fact that they think that most other men will feel the same way that’s hilarious.

Remember that time we tried to imagine NWO having drinks with a bunch of other men?

Catfish
Catfish
11 years ago

Throughout my life, majority of my friends have been males, most of them cis. Though I really make little to no distinction between this because I honestly couldn’t give a fuck about one’s physical sex or gender expression, because I’ve always treated all of them as the individuals they are.
And I have never met a person who sits nicely with the stereotypes assigned for either sex/gender, and the variety between these individuals is massive.

Only one man ever got into my pants, and I was the one who was making moves on him – he never did anything until I made it clear that I was interested and the feelings were established to be mutual. We’ve been together for more than 6 years now, and he’s the only man I’ve ever been with 😛

Every single person I know has platonic friends of the opposite sex.

As a socially awkward agendered person, I can only view gender binary from an intellectual level and the more I study and the more experiences I have with different people, the more it occurs to me that these differences that are supposed to make male-female friendship so hard seem to really only exist in people’s minds. Cultural narrative is very good at reinforcing these ideas, and even modifying our own behavior accordingly.

I never felt like I fit in either category and was very confused for the most of my life up until recently. The thing was made even weirder by the fact that very few, if any, people I know actually fit in the gender binary to begin with yet still they somehow tend to enable these stereotypes trough the weirdest of actions and opinions, even when they admit that it’s not something they’d do or think like. I’ve especially seen this (unintentional?) conditioning being applied to children, especially boys who happen to like something “girly”.
Some even actively try to place themselves or others in the gender binary, no matter how little sense it makes.

As for sexbots… I’d welcome them just so douchenozzles like the author of that confused little article would leave the rest of humanity alone. The binary he seems to live in is even more out of whack than the one we have culturally established.

ianironwood
11 years ago

And, FYI to everyone, yeah, I know about the article. I also know what’s actually happening in the industry, so don’t think I’m an idiot. This subject HAS been tossed around in feminist circles for years — we discussed it in 1988 in my “Feminist Topics In Science Fiction” class, in which it was decided by the feminists in the room (most of the women — there were three dudes) that making realistic-looking androids for sex was a fundamental violation of their rights, it encouraged violence toward women, and it would have a detrimental effect on society and so should be banned . . . even though there wasn’t any facts upon which to base said determinations.

I also can’t help but notice few of you took the bait on temporary male vasectomies, either. I’m sure it won’t disturb our society any more than, say, the Pill did.

But the big thing I want to ask here is: despite your clumsy attempts to shame me, apart from nature of the original article, can you counter my argument with any reasonable suggestion? So far I’ve gotten “They’ll never have sexbots in my lifetime! You’re a freak!” and “No one would by sexbots but losers!”.

Surely y’all can do better than that?

Catfish
Catfish
11 years ago

drst, you little mastermind you.

melody
11 years ago

I think it is funny that he writes like he researched this stuff “estimates indicate___________price for sexbots”.

And I agree. I think ladies would love a sexbot. I’ve read somewhere that women aren’t as big into one night stands partially because they often end without orgasm.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/sexual-health/0531/why-hookups-arent-always-a-win-win.aspx

Meanwhile, men are very likely to orgasm during a one night stand.

I think it is funny that men seem to think just because I’m not having sex and that my friends aren’t having sex as often as the could means we have lower sex drives. I’m sorry, but my toys pretty much guarantee orgasm and a one night stand probably won’t end that way.

kiki
kiki
11 years ago

Is it just me, or is “Ironwood” the most obviously false name since “Underhill”?

I used to know two women, housemates, whose surnames were Firebrace and Winterflood. I always said they should start a superhero team or a paranormal detective agency or something.

Another woman I know was called Roseblade.

leftwingfox
11 years ago

Many of them were fine with ‘just’ being friends, but it is still awkward. If I’d been remotely attracted to any of them, I would probably have gone for it, but I just wasn’t.

Honestly, I understand where you’re coming from, and I sympathize. I think part of that is unavoidable as we move to a more egalitarian society, and people are more interested in partnerships with compatible people, rather than a relationship along strict gender roles. After all, shouldn’t good friends make for a stronger relationship?

I guess a lot of it is just too poisoned by rape culture, and the idea that a guy won’t accept no for an answer.

Polliwog
11 years ago

He calls himself “Ironwood.” I cannot stop laughing at that (or, really, anything else in this post, as it is a veritable treasure trove of hilarity).

Evito: I’m completely baffled by the “heterosexual men and women can’t be friends” people. I mean, even leaving aside the fact that most people who are not MRAs would identify their romantic partners as also being their dear friends, it seems self-evidently obvious that if there exist two people who share interests in common would be able to engage in and discuss those interests whether their genitals are innies or outies. I think where the MRAs run into trouble isn’t that they don’t know how to be friends with women but that they don’t know how to be friends, period, because they have no concept of “caring about/being interested in the lives of people who are not me.”

Further, I’m always a little puzzled by the idea that romantic/sexual attraction somehow inevitably ruins a friendship. Of the four people I consider my closest friends in the world, one is my partner, three are straight men, one is a bisexual woman, and (as it happens) ALL of them have at some point expressed romantic/sexual interest in me. Exactly one of them (my partner) ever got to act on that interest. In exactly zero cases was the reaction to me not sharing their feelings “our friendship is ruined now!” or “well then why would I want to hang out with you?” rather than “darn, well, it was worth a shot” followed by them continuing to be my friends and having happy romantic/sexual relationships with people who are not me. I’ve been on the other side as well, and at no point has crushing on a guy who wasn’t into me made me stop liking him as a person or enjoying his company. Occasionally it’s made me need to take a little time apart to dampen the crush before going back to being friends as normal, but that’s pretty much the worst of it.