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: Kittehs and cloudiah
Thanks. And I know it will, one day, I just have to hang in there. It’s just exhausting.
RE: CassandraSays
Yeah. Like, the closest I ever came to experiencing a men’s group was when I was in a partial hospitalization LGBT program. There were some women, but not a ton, because there was a separate women’s program, so I guess a lot of the queer women preferred to e there. (They asked if I wanted to be there. I said NO.) It was a really shocking experience for me to be accepted so much.
…but then again, I was read as male a lot more there. A bunch of the cis guys were floored and thought I was fucking with them when I told them I was trans. And it was a HIGHLY unusual situation, since most people aren’t in fucking mental hospital day care.
I have never experienced such a thing before or since. Which, when you think about it, is actually really sad, when the fucking MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM was the best I got. But I have lots of all-gender buddy spaces that work great.
Not actually here currently (grocery store wifi) but grocery store wifi! We got dug out finally!
Yay for being excavated!
Gaaaaahhhhh I’ve been away for a week and am just catching up – I just read the bit about SnowdropExplodes and thought the name sounded familiar then someone mentioned his BDSM blog… horrible realisation of where I knew the name – he once wrote a comment on my blog when I wrote about porn then wrote a whole article on his blog mansplaining it to me*.
BRB SHOWERING IN BLEACH FOR A WEEK.
(*I wrote about opposing the industry without opposing pictures of fucking, and as per usual got a zillion comments from white straight cis blokes about how the industry couldn’t possibly be bad, because it made their winkies feel good. Well shoes make my feet feel good but I don’t buy ones that are made in sweatshops.)
::hands thenat economy size bottle of bleach::
Personal contact with Snowdrop does leave you with a bit of a not enough Purell in the world feeling, doesn’t it?
Also, is it just me or do the reflexive “you’re taking our porn!” responses to any discussion of labour issues within the sex industry sound an awful lot like the “they’re taking our jobs!” bullshit that racists like to spout whenever anything to do with immigration comes up?
We don’t have quite the same level of “they’re taking our jobs!” crap here so I can’t really compare, but it always sounds to me like these guys are complaining about anyone threatening their inalienable right to have their boners serviced however they want, and that what it means to other people – women in general or actors in porn – simply isn’t important.
No Cassandra, it’s not just you.
I have also seen self-appointed ‘feminist’ men* argue that we should support sweatshops because they mainly employ women, so where else would they work?!?!
(*LOOKING AT YOU NICHOLAS KRISTOF)
DING DING DING.
I didn’t want to derail, just had to panicvom about SE and needed to put it in context.
*shudders*
And we’re right back to the conversation about why some men are not welcomed with open arms when they decide to identify as feminists. Also, it’s grimly amusing how even if you make it explicitly clear that your issue with sex work is how it intersects with class, and the labor issues that often causes, a lot of guys still go directly to “but you can’t take my porn/strippers, why do you hate sex?”.
SE seems to have only two conversational modes – mansplaining and angry ranting about how some women are doing feminism wrong and destroying the movement by not catering to his boner enough.
Oh holy fuckpants, is he UK based? I’m just reading the whole piece now and he sounds English.
Kittehs, do you have a sofa I can sleep on and brainbleach I can watch? I’m running away.
I’ll put the pillows out, thenat! The couch is pretty short so you’ll have to curl up. Bring your summer jammies, it’s hot here at the moment!
For brainbleach I’ll ask Mads to play with her bally. That’s always fun.
Yep. In fact he runs BSDM munches in his part of England, or at least he used to.
@Kittehs I’m only 5 foot tall, no sofa is too small!
@Cassandra Mind if I ask which part? I have a friend who attends some and want to tell her to watch out.
The whole “how dare you question porn” seems to go back to some bloke’s boner, and it doesn’t increase my confidence in them, that’s for sure. I’m very dubious about mainstream pornography. No, haven’t sat through it; seeing stills on the net is enough. It’s *WORD OF THE WEEK WARNING* problematic, to say the least. An awful lot looks truly horrible, and not just because they’re not acts I’d want to do. When guys start getting really defensive about it, I wonder what sort of porn it is they’re talking about … they never say. Makes ’em look like they’ve got guilty consciences even if that’s not the case, or they’ve nothing to feel bad about.
/stream of consciousness blather
It’s weird, I hate feminism. I’m antifeminsist and I support the MRM with every ounce o strength. Feminists are bigots and a cancer on rational thought. And all that is true. But woman feminists actually seem to prefer me over men who call themselves feminists! AS a great man just said, it’s no wonder everyone hates you, and the MRM is rising.
I can’t remember, sorry, but if you google his name it will come up. And yeah, please do warn your friend – I’d be very concerned about any friend of mine who was involved in the same scene as him.
thenat – our couch is not quite 5′ long including the arms! It’s a two-seater. Your feet’ll just have to hang over the end. Or your head, if you want to do a sort of Cat Yoga sleeping position.
Brain bleach! Here’s a corgi pup who hasn’t quite figured out Teh Gravity yet, but has mastered the Sad Face.
http://youtu.be/2tLQklNVzco
Awwwww, corgis! Oh yeah, to brighten up the mood – we found a pair of rats to adopt yesterday! Their owner is a member of a couple of local groups I’m also on but has to move back to Scotland and leave them behind, so we’ve tentatively said we’ll take them. We’re going to meet them on Saturday XD
thenatfantastic! Run away back to York and help me set up the Feminist Society on campus!
There bizarrely isn’t a dedicated Feminist Society here, there’s a Women’s Committee in our student union but it’s not very intersectional at all and don’t do anything terribly interesting or ground breaking.
I want my society to be primarily a discussion group to meet like minded people, talk about the issues that matter (and eat tea and biscuits/drink wine) and do some carefully thought out and interesting campaigns, maybe get some speakers in.
Keep deluding yourself, @Fatrelle.
@Historophilia
I’d recommend getting in touch with the FemSoc at Royal Holloway (@RHUL_Fem_Soc on Twitter), I’m pretty sure they only set theirs up in the past year or so, so they should be able to give you some good pointers on how to do it. They seem nice.
I’m pretty sure I know some other people (Sussex, UWE and Bristol certainly) who are members of respective FemSocs who I could also put you in touch with.
@Kittehs:
99% of mainstream porn involves some variation on coercion, force, humiliation, or a combination of those. It’s the lifeblood of porn–more than the sex part.