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.
Deoridhe, just put it in as the link (beneath name and email) and your name will link to it.
What the actual fuck?
I’m sure all the sex workers he knew rolled their eyes out of their heads when he showed up.
Pretty much, yeah. He was regarded with an air of contemptuous tolerance, like that one guest at the wedding who you have to invite because they’re family but nobody really wants to see them.
@Argenti
Apologies if this is cis-splaining, but I know someone got zir doctor to put zir on a more neutral course of hormones. I imagine a doctor that open-minded is hard to find, though.
@Cassandra
QFT. I mean, men who try to mansplain feminism to women can GTFO in general, but the ones who are sex-pos (or pro-porn or pro-sex work) to benefit their own boners, and who try to shame other women for not being sex-pos enough, are so fucking gross. And they’re definitely not feminists.
@CassandraSays
Maybe people should start using these on family? I am sure we could adopt them for feminism, too. 🙂
Or a new hastag.
# feminismisnotaboutyourcock
emilygoddess — didn’t realize any doctor would actually do that, kind of moot since I have state insurance (which explicitly will not cover GRS anything) and am living with entirely trans-phobic relatives, but interesting all the same!
#HugoFuckingSchwyzer just saying
Not that #FeminismIsNotAboutYourCock isn’t on point!
@Argenti – haven’t read all the way down the thread but your comment “(stick me in the middle isn’t exactly a medical option after all)” immediately made me think of “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you … ”
Yeah, I’m old. 😛
On feminist spaceships – yes please! But make sure Kirk never gets to visit. ::shudder::
(caught up at last)
Cassandra – ick doesn’t begin to describe that scuzzbucket! He sounds rapey-plus. I side-eye the sex-positive business when it seems to be so much about “you SHOULD be out fucking whoever” whatever the gender of the person saying/implying it, but especially when it’s coming from a straight man. How does that attitude differ from all the standard sexist messages that we’re supposed to be complying with men’s wishes, supposed to be available to them (I’ve had a lot of that shit implied over the years) whether we want to or not? I know that’s not what sex-positive feminism is supposed to be about at all, but it is so easy for it to reflect the whole not being allowed to say no attitude, which is just as poisonous as not being allowed to say yes.
Which, sort of related, is what really left a sour taste with those two sex-work threads on feministe. There was a heavy implication from some people that there’s no reason anyone should think of sex differently from any other activity, or find being forced into sex work any worse than forced to take a crappy job at McDonald’s. Mind you the whole “We shouldn’t have to work! It’s coercion!” line was la-la land, as if food falls from the sky for anyone not in a capitalist economy, or for any other species, for that matter.
I am fine. Had to work. Muscles ache. Will be resting tomorrow and Mon.
Yeah, I’ve run into that attitude before, and not just on Feministe. Older pseudo-feminist dude used that logic – if you support sex workers then you have to believe that sex work is just like any other job, which means that you have to be willing to do it, and if you’re not willing to do it yourself that means you don’t really support sex workers or see them as good people. Perfect circular logic designed to manipulate women into having sex they don’t want.
I think we need to support both people who want to have lots of sex and people who’d rather not have any at all, or who’d like to have sex but only in very specific circumstances. Basically our job as feminists is to support people in having choices, not to tell them which choices they ought to make and shame them for “setting back” feminism if they make choices that aren’t the ones we ourselves would make (or the ones that benefit some dude’s boner, but that he’d never in a million years be willing to make himself).
I think that’s all our New England posters?
Pecunium — I’d offer to deliver ben-gay or similar but we’ve been not plowed by a not plow >.< feel better!
There’s nearly four feet of snow in the road here, and the emergency vehicles are getting stuck (one perk of having a police radio, got to spend the day laughing at things like “rescue 2 stuck” … “rescue 2 and shop truck now stuck” XD )
Some one please send a bucket loader! (Seriously, that’s wtf they’re [not] using)
And yes, that whole discussion around sex work is just weird, and rather off putting.
QFT
I live in ~Boston, we dug ourselves out this morning (well, my partner did – I’m still kinda sick), not much to report. We’re housesitting this week and we moved the car back to our place ’cause there’s a driveway there and only street parking here, but it means that tomorrow we have to dig out a space for the car to occupy when we bring it back. So that’s fun. At least the dogs we’re sitting for are loving the snow. One’s an elderly corgi, and one is a golden retriever puppy – he’s got way too much energy but he’s brain-meltingly cute.
Every time I see the “we should stop thinking of sex as hearts and flowers and rainbows/stop putting it on a pedestal” line I want to scream. Fine, I get it, lots of people don’t see it that way and have a great time with casual sex or friends with benefits or whatever’s their preference, and have every right to do so and conduct their lives as they want! I agree that putting sex as equivalent to love or romance is what society does a lot, and it’s harmful. I don’t think the mirror-image idea of it being about as memorable and important as a sneeze is one that should replace it.
And that’s what comes out of so much of this stuff on Feministe (I haven’t read other sites where this is happening). Half the time it doesn’t seem to be about fun or pleasure or (gods forbid) affection; it’s like the wish to make it less emotionally loaded has lost all perspective. They’re even arguing about whether enthusiastic consent is a good term, now, talking as if enthusiastic means instant arousal and nothing else, ffs.
Plenty of people see sex as entirely about love for them and are are that 1) it isn’t the only way (much less the only valid way) of seeing it and 2) that there are all sorts of influences at play in their feelings. Plenty of people aren’t interested in sex at all (that’d be me if Mr K wasn’t on the scene). It’d be nice to see “sex positive” including those feelings for a change.
emilygoddess – a corgi in snow would be interesting! How does zie manage it?
Golden retriever puppy, d’awwwwww! They’re brain-meltingly cute even as adults. 🙂
The corgi sticks to the shoveled areas, mostly, but the piles made by the plow and/or neighborhood kids are dense enough to hold her if she tries to climb them. Mostly she just races along, since three-foot-tall tunnels = completely new world for a corgi to explore.
The funny thing is, in my experience and those of people I’ve known, the impetus to have sex not have anything to do with emotion usually comes from fear, at least when people are being so militant about it. People who just happen to like casual sex usually just…have casual sex, enjoy it, and move on, rather than going around yelling at other people about how there’s something wrong with them for not being interested in casual sex.
Corgi in snow tunnels – d’awwww again! (My last dog was a corgi and my sister’s are *cough*corgi*cough* crosses.)
Cassandra – yeah, I haven’t any personal experience with this sort of thing, but that sure chimes in with the whole “sex doesn’t mean anything!” bollocks being spouted over there. Dunno if it’s people trying to convince themselves or what.
The problem with labels and groups is there will always be people who disagree within them, and people who are evahl fucknuts in them, and it can be difficult to decide when to fight for a label and when to give up on it. And there always seem to be gray areas, you know? I also think people like to claim the ally label too quickly, for example, when they’re still at the “please give me cookies” stage of social justice awareness, instead of waiting for the “Yes I can argue you under the table and take my lumps appropriately” stage. I’m only now beginning to consider myself a racial justice ally, for example, as a white woman because the gods know I fuck up enough in my thinking to not be able to act without making more work for the people who know better than I.
There’s also this mental bug some of us privileged people get where we want to be the expert on everything? And so we’re an “ally” but we don’t actually know much, or want to acknowledge that an intellectual appreciation of prejudice is really different from a lived experience? I haven’t been able to nail the phenomena down too my satisfaction.
OMG I WANT A FEMINIST SPACESHIP!!! MISOGYNY!
Sex work is both fraught and…. not, depending on who. The trafficing issue is a real one, but the trafficking numbers for non-sex work actually are worse if I remember the figures right – people trafficked to be cleaners and actory workers and the like (which may include sexual exploitation as well, but that isn’t the primary purpose for wanting to own people), and it often seems in the US as if people get distracted by PROSTITUTION BAD instead of PEOPLE CANNOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD ASSHOLES. For sex workers who want to do it, enjoy it, etc… I think they should get legal protections. I think those protections most likely will help people who don’t want to do it, or are ambivalent, but I don’t know. I tend to defer to the people who are sex workers, but I think we’re working with a serious derth of data which will make actual raitonal conclusions difficult. Emotionally, I want to set it up so that anyone who is hurt or abused has recourse for protection and prosecution of their tormentor.
I’ve always maintained that if Sex Positive Feminism doesn’t include support for virgins and celibate people than it isn’t actually Sex Positive.
I think sex work is different from “regular work” the way being a therapist/care giver is different from “regular work”. The ideal of psychological caregiving is that you are essentially loaning out your mind and feelings in order to help someone else; it has it’s own demands and challenges which should not be demanded of everyone. McDonalds can be exhausting and demoralizing, but it shouldn’t involve extending your emotions or body in an intimate manner.
Does that make sense? I feel like I didn’t explain it well.
*pokes her name to see if it links now*
Yay I link!
There’s also the fact that there are some jobs that some people just can’t deal with, while others might be fine with them. I have OCD that focuses on the idea of cleanliness – I can’t handle jobs that require me to deal with trash or anything dirty, and hospitals freak me out because my brain goes right to “holy shit flesh eating bacteria”. I’ve done customer service work and been fine with it, whereas for some people who just don’t have any spoons to spare that would be far more draining and emotionally fraught then a cleaning job.
Lots of people find the idea of doing sex work themselves viscerally horrifying, and that has to be respected. I don’t think it has to mean that you can’t support sex workers and want them to have rights, any more than the fact that I could never, ever handle a job working in a hospital means that I don’t support medical workers.
No more missing links! 😉
You made perfect sense there, Deoridhe. To me the physical intimacy of sex work – if we’re looking at the majority which involves women being fucked by men – puts it totally outside the realm of any other sort of work. What other job requires you to allow someone else inside your body? This is where the whole “it’s no different from flipping hamburgers” thing becomes ridiculous, unless you’ve got a very strange way of flpping hamburgers. In fact the psychological work you mention is the only thing I can think of that could compare, and it’s specialised, trained work.
Hear Fucking Hear.
Sex work regulation is a bit of a mess in my state (Victoria). There are legal, licensed brothels, but they’re way outnumbered by illegal ones, and street work remains illegal. The situation varies from state to state here.