So over on The Spearhead, the fellas are discussing journalist Daniel Bergner’s sexy new sex book What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. It’s a book that challenges many conventional wisdoms, both scientific and popular, about sexuality and, as Salon puts it, portrays female sexuality as essentially “base, animalistic and ravenous.”
I haven’t read the book, but it’s worth pointing out that this is not exactly a new idea. Indeed, for long stretches of human history this was the conventional wisdom about female sexuality, a fact I can only presume that Bergner addresses in some form.
Of course, none of the fellows on The Spearhead have actually read the book either, including W.F. Price, so essentially they just use the occasion of its publication as an excuse to spout their own, er, theories about evil sex-desiring ladies.
Price, extremely old school himself, agrees that “women’s sexuality is a powerful and often disruptive force” that “can be terrible in its power.” But he also thinks that the good fellows in the “androsphere” — his preferred term for what others call the “manosphere” — have these sneaky sexy ladies all figured out, and that this “knowledge disarms much of that [evil sexy lady] power.”
So, he concludes, Bergner may actually be doing the dudes of the world a solid:
The Red Pill, in short, is simply the truth about female sexuality. All Bergner has done is repackage the red pill and make it look sexy, and even empowering to women. So I suppose we should give the guy credit for doing us a favor, because although it is being sold with some misleading advertising, at least his book will contribute to general knowledge about the ancient truths of the world.
Or so he assumes, anyway, not having read the book. (I wish I could get a job reviewing books without reading them.)
Naturally, the Spearhead commentariat has many, erm, intriguing thoughts on the matter. So let’s look at some highlights — by which, as always, I mean lowlights. (And it goes without saying that all these comments got numerous upvotes from Spearhead readers.)
DCM offers some thoughts on female brains, and why the ladies need to be held in check and, I guess, never told that they’re pretty (even if you want to bone them):
Females’ minds are slightly but noticeably more primitive than men’s. Few of them will achieve mental and emotional maturity till they are old and infertile.
There’s little hope of getting most females to be rational, however smart they may be; they can only be somewhat repressed via ethics enforced by other females and the law, or men can be educated from childhood to see them as they are and not give in to the semi-instinctive idealization of females that’s part of the mating urge.
The latter is probably simpler and better.
Joeb offers a long and admittedly baffling manifesto, filled with parables and mixed metaphors and words used in, well, let’s just call them idiosyncratic ways. I’m trimmed out some of the really confusing bits, so what is left should be merely confusing.
Human sexuality is a red herring for the female to divert the real issue
Men cringe and cower to the mere mention of sex . Females use this red herring the same way the Government uses feminism .
As a shield .
If ,we all stop thinking with the most basic human drive and start thinking with are Mind’s , We need to put away anything remotely attributed to the visualization of sex during the other 23 hours a day . and push the real issue’s that stem from these basic drives in overdrive …
As long as females can divert the argument to sex they win . …
The red pill gives us a release from this Bondage .
I like to call Blue pill males ” Males still tied to the mask . We are all on a ship with rules and a limited space . As soon as you wake to the horror of your enslavement to the mask , Doesn’t mean you are not still enslaved . Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence.
Does this sound familiar . …
Continue Taking the regiment of the red pill and you will start seeing Life boats , Islands and other men on the boat .
Its not a one time Pill its a regiment .
Being deprogrammed from Bondage is a painstaking task . All that’s needed to derail this process is The Captain to throw a few galley wags to the sailor and he calms down and works hard .
Don’t get sidetracked by sexual issue’s they have nothing , I say nothing to do with Men’s rights . The Government is the privateer and we are the conscripted Male .
Conscription have been used for Thousands of years , Hitler , pirates , the Chinese , Mongols , The British , To build army’s of slaves .
We still fall for that one every time And it never ends well .
Keyster is a tad more coherent, if equally backward:
The Red Pill is understanding female sexual power.
If you’re an unattractive woman or lesbian you might be a feminist because you have such limited sexual power – over men.
Women wanted “rights” and “liberation”, but insisted on keeping their sexual power, much to the dismay of strident feminists. The male needs to understand female sexual power. Most are entranced by it while not even knowing it. There are untold fables and metaphor for this, from The Fall to Odysseus to Cleopatra and Mark Anthony.
It’s a “backlash” against women wanting feminism AND sexual power. Their sexual power is diminishing every day. The more they behave like men, the less sexual power they have…the less power they have at all.
I confess I don’t really understand sven thomas’ deal at all. Oh, his argument I get. It’s his, well, vocabulary that puzzles me.
Ummmm
The Author is late to the party.
5,000 years ago we witnessed Eve being tempted by the serpents as she lusted after da lostasts cockasz.
About 2800 years ago we witnessed Helen deserting her family/husband and running off with a PUA and causing a war, whence tens of thousands perished.
The important thing for MEN to see here is why the Neoconsosnz banned the GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN–because they teach of the TRUE NATURE of women.
Women are only Virgins and nice and good when they are raised by STRICT, HEROIC MEN who reign over their fallen sexuality via their manly honor, as exalted in THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN.
zlozozozozzo
And a zlozozozozzo to you too, sven, whatever that is!
Erm, I’m sorry, I think you mean Cleopatra VII Philopater.
I’ve long been of the opinion that her reputation has been at the mercy of the supporters of Augustus, all those pervy old white men in charge of European culture for two thousand years, and then all those pervy old white men in charge of Hollywood. She had the running of a troubled empire, and then she was trying to survive while the local superpower had several civil wars in succession. That she lasted as long as she did is not the mark of a dissipated vamp IMO.
… I actually enjoyed the idea of an Egyptian queen traveling with the Doctor from this past autumn’s episodes. Yes, please, more non-contemporary Companions, please.
RE: Falconer
Yes, of course, the seventh. I’m sorry, sick today and kind of out of it.
I mean, even besides all the Roman fights going on in that time, she was also fighting her siblings for the throne at all; she met Julius Caesar in the first place because he was going to vouch for her younger brother, so she decided to get to him first and persuade him to support her instead. (Not an easy thing; Caesar had political reasons to support her younger brother.)
From what I understand, back then you were constantly having to be on your toes and be friends with the right people, trying to stay one step ahead of the constant back-stabbing. Rome had wanted Egypt for quite some time, and there’d been a series of weak rulers. That Cleopatra lasted so long was definitely kudos to her. Plus, she actually SPOKE and READ Egyptian, which most of the Ptolemaic rulers (possibly all others?) never bothered to do. (Even in those days, hieroglyphs were hard.)
Yes please!
@LBT
I’m confused. By “debunked” do you mean that the 1945 photo wasn’t actually a picture of a real sexual assault? Or do you mean something else?
Aaliyah: The woman seems to be saying now that the kiss was consensual–but she’s using a definition of ‘consent’ that comes out of the 1940s, which isn’t very helpful.
They were strangers (in fact, his girlfriend is in the back of the photograph). He didn’t get any sort of approval. His grip was “like a vise”. However, probably in large part because of the era and standards of the time, she didn’t actively resist–so in her mind, she ‘consented’.
A bigger truth, though, seems to be that she would like her image to no longer be used by groups trying to fight rape culture. Regardless of how feminists might define what happened (and I do believe it’s fair to call it a sexual assault), it’s wrong to make her some kind of poster-child against her will, too.
So I wouldn’t say the Tumblr post is ‘debunked’ so much as ‘rude and objectifying’, at this point.
Ah, I see freemage. Thanks for clarifying.
One thing that never seems to get mentioned is that Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra II Selene was a successful queen in Mauretania. There was an article about her in History Today recently. It was the same old thing – tragic “failed” queen (especially with all that Sexy Sex nonsense thrown in) gets more attention than successful queen.
@LBT: Probably most of the Ptolemaic pharaohs considered the native Egyptians to be a conquered people, and their Macedonian/Greek heritage therefore superior.
I am kind of glad for the Rosetta Stone, though, because otherwise Pharaonic Egypt would be a closed book.
Oh, about VII or XIII — probably it was unnecessary to mention it, when ppl say “Cleopatra” informally there’s only one they ever mean. Sorry.
Oh, look what they found near Alexandria:
The experts say it’s Cleopatra’s palace, and I gotta admit a lot of those statues look classical Greek to me.
That first Pharoanic head sure has a Ptolemaic look about it.
Love the lion.
@babylawyer
The Bible isn’t fiction, it’s myth. Totally different purpose.
@Auggzilary
This. Either she was kidnapped, in which case Paris was a rapist creep, or she ran off with him by choice, in which case Menelaus was a controlling dick for believing he had a right to just take her back and killing thousands in the process. Frankly, he’s no different from the dudes you see in the news all the time, murdering women who dared to leave them, and anyone else who happens to be in the way.
As ever, when men fight over a woman like she’s a piece of property, it’s the woman’s fault.
There was a quip going around the internet last year: “homophobia: the fear that gay men will treat you the way you treat women”. Not always true, but it says a lot about the “OMG what if they hit on me?!?” kind of homophobe.
@bionicmommy
lolwhut? Did men spring fully formed from Zeus’ head 10,000 years ago? And what does it mean for “blah blah evo psych men are naturally rapists” if you’re going to turn around and argue that men aren’t ruled by their ancient programming?
@Cassandra
Shiba videos?
@Drew
I thought you were opposed to looks-shaming?
Where did he do this?
@Kittehs
One of my religion professors argued that the whole Eden/Fall scenario was God’s doing, just another phase in the Creation. He figured the serpent was God, or was sent by him.
Personally, I wonder if God just wanted to see what would happen. If the Biblical God is real, and the events in the Bible actually happened, I think most of what he does it just to see what will happen. He’s either some kind of scientist, or he’s playing a cosmic game of The Sims.
I’m now picturing God as Ridcully.
Scary.
Shit, we’re all doomed.
Totally.
Who would be worse as God: Ridcully or Bloody Stupid Johnson? It’d be a toss-up, I reckon.
I had the same thought. If God is Bloody Stupid Johnson, he was probably trying to create the rules governing the speed of light in a black hole and created humans instead.
Bloody Stupid Johnson as God opens up a whole lot of interesting ideas, doesn’t it? 😀