So the Men’s Rightsers over on Reddit are getting worked up over the evils of women “friend zoning” men, and one especially angry fellow by the name of andreipmbcn has a warning for the ladies: if they don’t watch themselves, the men’s rights movement might just rise up and make friend zoning illegal:
What this means is not exactly clear to me. Would women actually be required to have sex with all men who are aggressively “nice” towards them? Who knows. But judging from the dozens of upvotes andre’s comment got, Reddit MRAs like the sound of it.
(Thanks to Cloudiah for pointing me to this lovely comment.)
Zach’s site is aggressively dumb, but it isn’t misogynist. And if it actually converted an MRA it would indeed be progress in some useful direction.
I think the idea of a REAL MAN is similar to the idea of something being UNAMERICAN. The whole idea is stupid. A crazy racist rape-apologizing douchenozzle is a real man. He just isn’t a good man.
If you want to “pick up” women, that is, manipulate them into sex, there are myriad ways of doing this. People are not difficult to manipulate. You’ll generally find this experience unfulfilling, though.
If what you want is for women to consent to sex with you, then make a list of women who seem to like you and next time you see them say “you know, I really like you and I am attracted to you. I would like to pursue this. Would you?” Or some such thing. It works fine. It’s not some big puzzle to solve.
Will this law work in the opposite direction? If a woman does something nice for a man, is he legally obligated to have sex with her?
Excuse me, I need to bake Neil DeGrasse Tyson some cupcakes.
Of course not. Men are SUPPOSE to have lots of sex. Women who do so are tramps/whores ect…..
Men can’t have sex with someone they aren’t attracted to. Only women should have to do that because reasons.
Sarcasm above BTW
@Shaenon,
“Will this law work in the opposite direction? If a woman does something nice for a man, is he legally obligated to have sex with her?”
Now there you go! (LOL) I wrote a love letter to Russell Brand on my blog. I think that should get me at least to first base.
A good woman. Like we’re electronics or appliances or something. Do they have any idea how they sound?
@Amused
Nah, everyone knows marrying a woman means you own her, so someone else fucking her would basically be stealing.
I read some of Zach’s stuff and it seems to come to generally good conclusions through problematic language and cringe inducing tangents. Basically, it incorporates a lot of MRA and PUA framing and language to reach not so objectionable ends. So… it sounds a lot like when people are working on pulling their head out of their ass.
This may actually be more effective at changing some minds than attacks or mocking. (Not that this undermines the need and desire for attacking and mocking assholes.)
Does this mean Mr K doesn’t cook stuff I like eating just ‘cos he enjoys cooking? :O
Ah, but it always works both ways for them. We’re not human enough to be free; we have to be property. But if we do something that displeases them, suddenly we’re human enough to have made that decision and to be punished for it.
Ah yes, if a woman does not want to have sex with you, she must have contempt for you.
Not that these MRA’s have contempt for any women who happens to not want to have sex with him. Certainly not. *fedora tilt*
Hi and welcome, sonofadiddly!
Could we drop the “fedora wearer = MRA/PUA creep” meme, please?
Ugggh its not “suitor abuse” when you haven’t even told her you want to go out with her, you MRA turd. GAWD.
It appears to me that the guys bellyaching about being “friend-zoned” are expecting an open-ended contract for sex & emotional services–& strikes me as a pretty uneven rate of exchange when the same amount of cash would buy no more than an hour or two of a sex worker’s time, & carry no obligation for any personal interest in the customer. But the “friend-zone” guys also apparently take women’s emotional concern & support for granted, as they clearly don’t value that provided by women in platonic friendships with them…truthfully, these guys are so clueless about adult relationships, period, I’ve a hunch they don’t have many friends, of any sex.
O/T:
Today I found out that not only am I graduating from college this weekend (had my last test on Tuesday) but I’m graduating summa cum laude.
On the subject of stupid stereotypes: I was talking to a guy I knew pretty well freshmen and sophomore year at a party last night and I mentioned that I wanted to go into quantitative biology but need a few more classes before I can, specifically programming and differential equations, and a look of horror crossed his face.
He was like, “I’m so glad my career plans do not involve differential equations.” He’s an English major. He’s also a tech nerd. A complete tech nerd.
Congratulations, wordsp1nner! ::applauds::
Argenti: *cheers* But you forgot the funny people who want to learn and think people ought to be treated well. This isn’t Mensa after all, there’s no test for entry besides passing “being a decent human being 101″
Smart =/= educated. Brz is educated, but smart he ain’t.
The folks who thrive are those who like to share, and find things which are interesting worth sharing. Think Boing-boing as the model. “Look at this thing I know! Isn’t it cool!”.
Yes, yes it is.
Carp (or Koi). Browser crashed, and re-opened in wrong thread. Sorry for the double post.
Carp, koi are at least pretty (albeit kinda creepy)
Congrats wordsp1nner!!
What’s creepy about koi?
Cassandra: That’s related to a twitter convo between Argenti and myself.
In order for this “law” to work the initiator would need to inform the other person that they do not want to be friends and receive confirmation that the other person did not want to pursue a friendship either. That way neither of them would waste their time getting to know one another well enough to become friends. They could go directly to having sex or ignoring the other person entirely.
Typing that made my brain hurt.
@thebewilderness – but that wouldn’t work, because what happens if the initiator wants sex but the respondent doesn’t? Women aren’t allowed to reject men, remember. I very much doubt this moldy fish shit’s laws would permit men to be given a sad boner in any circumstances.
If the respondent does not then the initiator cannot be friendzoned because he was told no before he pretended to be nice. Saves a ton of time and effort for both of them.
WOOT. *throws confetti* Today has been a good day.
It would be great if they would all tattoo I’m an abusive entitled asshat on their foreheads, but I don’t see that happening.
I was just puzzling out how such a community standard or law would work. I think we need Pierre to handle it.
I could be wrong but the issue seems to be the amount of time and effort these d00dz waste pretending to be decent human beings.
Hey MRAs! You want ‘community standards’ to prevent ‘friendzoning’? You know what? Sure! Here are:
Amatyultare’s Four Community Standards That Will End “The Friendzone”* Forever!
1. Stop romanticizing bitter, mopey unrequited love. It’s not that unrequited love (in fiction, at least) is a bad thing – IF the person suffering it fully gets that it’s his/her issue to deal with, not the loved-one’s. However, too often ‘I love them and they don’t love me’ becomes ‘I love them and they don’t love me – how dare they!‘ See also: Tom in 500 Days Of Summer**, fandom!Severus Snape***.
2. Get rid of the weird societal concept wherein romantic and sexual relationships must begin with men being aggressor-hunters and women being something between prey and bait. Normalize the idea that sometimes men will do the asking-out and sometimes women will do the asking-out and both come from a place of basic equality and are completely fine ways for a relationship to start.
3. Seriously, stop believing that women are sex vending machines. No woman – no PERSON – is obliged to do anything with you beyond provide basic human courtesy. Also, see that word ‘do’? Stop imagining that sex is a commodity that women have and men try to get. Maybe start thinking of sex as a fun activity that people sometimes mutually choose to do together.
4. In general, stop making men the default gender and women a mysterious ‘Other’. Do women the favor of believing them to be people, just like men are. Understand that some people of each gender will have shared some of your feelings and experiences, and others of every gender will not have. Do all men and women – and let’s not forget genderqueer, androgynous, and intersex people – the favor of imagining each individual complexly****.
*The idea of “the friendzone”, I mean
**To be fair, I’ve never been quite sure whether 500DOS is falling into the trope or criticizing it.
***Severus Snape, as written, is an ambiguous and interesting character. However, why so many fans have romanticized a guy who is basically an emotional Miss Havisham is frankly beyond me.
****’Imagine others complexly’ is not my idea; it’s a John Green-ism.