Over on PUA dirtbag Roosh V’s Return of Kings blog, a guest poster calling himself Emmanuel Goldstein (oh, how clever) offers a rather revealing take on the psychology of “players” and pickup artists like himself.
After justifiably mocking “nice guys” for assuming that “girls choose men like people buy houses” – that is, by carefully weighing pros and cons and looking for the best deal – he suggests that
[p]layers … are more like that sweet old lady with saggy arms wearing a hairnet at your local supermarket, handing out free, tasty samples.
Stay with him; it will all make sense, sort of, in a moment.
You’re not even looking at her, and she beckons you over to have a taste. Even though it’s junk food, you can’t resist. You avoid sweets, and here you are eating a tiny cinnabon. And really, she won’t mind if you take just the
tiptaste.Regardless, minutes later, you’re going home with a 96-pack of cinnabons – and you don’t even eat pastries! To be completely honest, the first time it happens, you’re a little jarred and confused about how the whole thing went down so fast. …
Now, imagine that that sweet old lady is actually a funny, strapping young man, and you buying those cinnabons is a woman agreeing to sex with him the night she met him. That confusion you felt after you bought a huge package of junk food? That’s how a girl might feel after her first one-night stand.
Yes, that’s right: Mr. Goldstein is comparing himself and his fellow “players” to supermarket pastry-pushers who cajole people into eating things they know they shouldn’t eat, and that they later regret eating.
And, oh yes, that are really bad for them:
If you remain unconvinced, just remember that our economy is in shambles because tens of millions of people bought homes they cannot afford, and that half of us are comically obese from eating too much junk food. That granny sample lady is looking pretty formidable right now.
Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with Mr. Goldstein’s analogy here. Sex isn’t pastry, for one thing, and for another, women (and everyone else) should be able to indulge in either of these pleasures without having assholes on the internet getting up in their business. (And, yes, PUAs, I’m saying that as a fat fatty.) I’m just trying to point out that by the terms of his own analogy, Mr. Goldstein is saying that sex with him is a shitty thing that’s bad for you.
This isn’t someone attacking PUAs for being miserable, self-centered sexual users who are only able to convince women to have sex with them through manipulation, leaving these women feeling shitty afterwards.
This is a PUA who ASPIRES to be such a miserable, self-centered sexual user he’s only able to convince women to have sex with him through manipulation, leaving these women feeling shitty afterwards.
In other words, PUAs are devoting their lives to making women feel bad about themselves. As a life goal, this seems a bit lacking.
RE: Argenti
You summed up my feelings on the intersections of trans and feminist identity great. I’m in the weird place of identifying strongly as a feminist (it got me through the raping days) but also feeling uncomfortable with the idea that only trans men can be feminists. (Because that implies I’m like, what? Some super-special okay hybrid man or something?)
Also, regarding middle of the road stuff. That’s pretty much what we’re doing. And my hormones are covered by our low-income state insurance. (Much to my shock.) If you want any pointers, I’d be happy to supply; we seem to be doing pretty successful now. (Or were; since lowering my mones dose, I seem to be getting read overwhelmingly female again.)
RE: sex work and sex-positive feminism
Oh god, those guys sound so fucking SKEEZY! D: I mean, I’m a guy, but I could NEVER do sex work. Like, it has the dubious distinction of “fastest job to mental collapse.” (And yeah, I thought about it; it was legal when I was in NZ, and the sex worker I knew was making money that made me weep with envy.) WTF. Just because I can’t DO something doesn’t mean I can’t support sex workers. Hell, I give them mad props because, like soldiers, they can do things I CAN’T.
Feministe, from what I’ve heard, is a transphobic skuzzhole.
As for the snow, Sneak and I unearthed the trash cans and recycling yesterday. Zie then climbed atop the recyling bin (which is larger than the trash cans) and bellyflopped into a snowdrift.
Stonerwithaboner…
Wasn’t that an AL sock? Or have I confused them?
Nah, pecunium, pretty sure stoner was his own boring beast.
Stoner was suspected of being an Al sock, primarily because of the handle I think, but I’m of the opinion that he’s someone else.
Honestly, I’m still not positive about Steele. It could have been an IP address coincidence.
It was some other one. Bro something? I forget. He had several, and admitted to a few.
That idiot “feminzm rulez bro” or whatever his name is? Mind you they’re all morons and a lot of them are interchangable. Is there a troll cloning program somewhere?
LBT — I may have to email you on that! Stuck living with transphobic, homophobic, racist asshole relatives currently, so I’m kind of stuck bio-gender = obvious, but you certainly have my interest!
I couldn’t do sex work either (hi PTSD triggers!) but this seems perfect —
RE: Argenti
Yeah, it can be a bit tricky (especially with hormone levels), but we were managing pretty well for a while. (What changed, I couldn’t tell you.)
I think the idea was not to alienate men who may have direct experience with misogyny, but it (1) assumes that all trans men identify as women or take misogyny personally before they transition, and (2) ends up sounding like trans men are “lite” men, both of which are hella transphobic.
That was part of what bothered me about mansplainey older feminist dude too. Prostitution in particular (as opposed to other forms of sex work that are legal in most places and done mostly in public, like stripping) is one of the most dangerous jobs around, because it often involves being alone in an enclosed space with a person who you don’t know. I can’t remember the exact stat, but in terms of death rates per profession it’s near the top of the list. So to blithely go “oh, if you’re not willing to do that you don’t get to call yourself a feminist”…thanks for insisting that I take risks that you have no intention of taking yourself before you bestow your seal of manly approval, dude.
On the issue of men being feminists I’m actually OK with cis men calling themselves feminists, I’m just inclined to look a lot more closely at their motives when I first encounter them than I might for a woman. If they don’t set off any red flags then I don’t mind them calling themselves feminists.
(Note that red flags would include an insistence on being Boss Feminist.)
This.
RE: emilygoddess
I think the idea was not to alienate men who may have direct experience with misogyny, but it (1) assumes that all trans men identify as women or take misogyny personally before they transition, and (2) ends up sounding like trans men are “lite” men, both of which are hella transphobic.
Yeah, the whole thing just makes me uncomfortable. For me, rape culture and the purity myth in particular really worked me over, which feminism pretty much single-handedly saved my mind. So I’m a yellow dog feminist. The thought that I can’t be a feminist because I’m male just… it hurts. Feminism saved my life, no exaggeration. If it hadn’t given me the foundation to understand what happened to me… I don’t know that I would’ve survived it. Never mind overcome it. I realize that I am bound to butt heads with male privilege and my own misconceptions… but feminism gives me what religion gives my husband.
Also, I didn’t know you were a fellow Boston-area Boobzer! *wave*
RE: CassandraSays
Yeah, what you said. Hell, would HE be totally okay doing sex work with people who are overwhelmingly larger and stronger than him, and alone in enclosed spaces with him? I’d be petrified! D:
Yeah, the idea that men can’t be feminists seems positively weird to me. It would be just like saying that you can’t be a socialist politically unless you’re working class. What makes you a feminist is the views you hold, and these views can be held by men and women alike.
If I look at my job and the men I know outside of job (husband included) most of them call themselves feminists, because they believe there’s gender oppression and that it’s a bad thing (although it’s not something they go around talking about all the time, and definitely not something they BRAG about à la Schwyzer). I can just picture myself gathering them all up to a meeting and womensplain to them that they actually must refer to themselves as mere “allies” because of their gender.
And re sex-work, as already stated, one doesn’t even have to drag safety in to the mix. Even if prostitution is mostly really unsafe, it’s not difficult to picture, say, a brothel with great safety arrangements. I would still never do it, and the same apparently goes for lots of people here. It’s really just enough to say
a) sex ISN’T like any other activity – for some people it’s really important only to have it with people you’re in love with, or merely people you’re in lust with
BUT
b) as long as sex is consensual there’s nothing wrong with it; SOME people are fine with doing it with anyone safe and okay and paying, and we can support them even if we don’t belong to their group.
That’s it. Although safety IS an issue, one doesn’t need to appeal to safety arguments to explain why one wouldn’t want to be a sex worker. It’s enough to state that people are different when it comes to sex, and many people just aren’t okay personally with doing sex work, but others are, and we can support those who are.
Which pretty much sums it up, Dvärghundspossen!
Yes, but I can also see the counterargument: That feminism was created by women to fight for women, and is therefore a women’s space that men shouldn’t be imposing themselves on like they do in the rest of life (which can lead to the Schwyzers). There’s also the issue of men claiming the title and then doing oppressive things, which leads to the argument that “feminist,” like “ally”, should be a title bestowed by the oppressed group rather than claimed by well-meaning privileged folks.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this, because I can see both sides, but I have to admit that men identifying themselves as feminists makes me cringe a little. I just don’t think it’s worth arguing with them over, and I’m happy to have them on my side.
Re: New England Manboobzers. I’m up here on the north end of that, and we only got a light dusting–a foot, tops. So it was a normal weekend up here. Good to hear everybody else is doing okay with monster storm.
Also, welcome to the new reality. Monster storms allatime. One after the other.
Re: cis men calling themselves feminists.
So, I’ve totally started calling myself a feminist on occasion. Mostly in the context of those places where there’s pernicious cultural pressure for the women around me to denounce feminism and declare it passe. At the same time, I feel totally uncomfortable and appropriative, especially given how I’m utterly fucking new to feminism relative to people who have actually been doing this for, y’know, any amount of time. And how my activism is largely relegated to mocking misogyny on the interwebs.
Re: sex-positive feminism
So I think it was somewhere around The Pervocracy or maybe Captain Awkward or Yes Means Yes that I encountered the idea that Sex Positive Feminism meant never having sex you didn’t want to have, not just the converse.
And that was a pretty mindblowing idea for me. A lifetime of hypermasculinized hyperfundamentalist hypergendered indoctrination has left me utterly screwed up on the subject of sex, and right now I’m kind of in a place where I don’t want any. And this kind of feminism was really the only place I could find people telling me that was okay, and maybe even normal, and I didn’t have to change myself to fit into some kind of idealized version of what I was supposed to want and do. (and who I was supposed to want)
And that’s given me a sense of freedom that is utterly mindblowing.
So, y’know, the only version of sex-positive feminism I’m interested in is one where sex-positive means positively no sex for me.
Yeah… I guess this can be argued back and forth.
One problem with claiming that “women” should decide whether a given man is a feminist/ally or not, is obviously that women aren’t a hive-mind, so it’s probable that some will think he’s a feminist and some that he’s not… And then what’s the truth in the matter? That’s one reason I prefer that people can decide for themselves whether they’re feminists or not. Obviously words mean things, so if someone said “I’m a feminist, because I believe that the Earth is flat” or something, zie’d be wrong, but as long as the person identifies as a feminist because zie believes that women as a group are oppressed and that’s bad, I’d be happy to agree that zie’s a feminist. Although, depending on how zie develops these views further, I might think that zie’s a CRAP feminist, or stupid feminist, or down-right evil feminist. (I don’t wanna go no-true-Scotsman on the word “feminist” either.)
Regarding female-only spaces… When I was younger I moved in socialist circles where it was common with women-only feminist groups, and the idea was pretty much to guard against men taking over feminism and going all Schwyzer. My experience is that at the end of the day, this strategy just ends up reinforcing gender prejudice, although it’s meant to combat it. I don’t wanna say that separatism is NEVER a good idea, there are probably specific contexts where it is, and maybe my experience isn’t a good guide to How Things Are… BUT with that caveat in place, I think having lots of women-only activities and spaces easily reinforces the idea that a) men just CAN’T HELP but taking over all spaces where they enter and walking all over women, and b) women are such fragile little flowers that they can only blossom in protected environments. Which is obviously not the message ANYONE calling themselves a feminist INTEND to send, but as we all know intent isn’t magic.
So I have personally come to believe that the least bad strategy is to, as a general rule, allow men into feminism and then just tackle the Schwyzers head on as they pop up.
(Maybe there’s a bit of a cultural difference here too. I’m under the impression that calling yourself a feminist is more controversial in the US than in Sweden. That might affect what kind of men are attracted to that label.)
My experience with gender segregated groups *outside* of explicitly feminist groups (i.e. within communist, anarchist, socialist spaces) is that they’re often used by the men to outsource women issues so that the group can focus on the ‘important’ stuff, while being able to point to the Women’s Caucus with words of “see, we care about silly women issues” to shut up feminist critiques. To be fair, though, I’m of the opinion that in groups where that ends up being the case, the Women’s Caucus is usually a lesser of two evils thing, because without it there probably wouldn’t be a second glance at those issues anyway. A even lesser evil would probably be for all the women to realize they’re being used and leave the organisation en masse for one that actually cares, but when it comes to social justice sometimes there’s a paucity of groups that 100% match your philosophy and it sometimes seem easier to work within an established one than start from scratch, so I can understand why sometimes people hang on to left-wing groups with outdated views on feminism until the cognitive dissonance comes to a head and they have to leave (see the recent dustup relating to rape accusations of a higher up in one of the UK’s communist parties).
In some cases the Women’s Caucus ends up spending more time trying to show how relevant and not at all girly they are by doubling down on terribly unfeminist analysis so as to respect core group orthodoxy. Our local RCP chapter’s WC is a (terrible) good example of this.
Gender segregation in general gives me the creeps, but that’s because I fall between the gaps. (I might BE male, but I can’t imagine any men’s group on earth being welcoming to me.) And honestly, feminism seems to be one of the few avenues that seems even slightly interested in acknowledging trans men. (It’s a source of deep frustration to me that I can find trans and women’s groups, but not a single trans and men’s groups. What, do you fuckers just not CARE?)
And also, I didn’t used to be a man, because I didn’t exist. Does that mean that until I came to exist here at the age of sixteen, we COULD be a feminist, but then we had to give it back? Do genderqueer people not get to be feminists, because they’re not women?
Sorry, now I’m just getting upset.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this, because I can see both sides, but I have to admit that men identifying themselves as feminists makes me cringe a little. I just don’t think it’s worth arguing with them over, and I’m happy to have them on my side.
This.
If a man wants to call himself a feminist, that’s fine, but if any Hugoness rears its head, then it can be dealt with. And you can pretty much tell who’s going to fall that way after a while.
LBT, I’m sorry if anything I said upset you.
It’s okay. I’m just… having a rough day.
One day, I swear, I will live in a room with four walls and a goddamn window, and I will be much less cranky about life.
Internet hugs if you want them, LBT.
More internet hugs if they’re wanted, and wishes that you will soon get that room with four walls and a window!
RE What LBT said about the lack of trans and men’s groups, it’s really sad to think that even the most transphobic radfems are doing better than the average dude on that issue, in that the average dude seems not to have even noticed that trans guys exist. There’s a level of indifference there that’s just not OK.