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!
Way to not get it, Keyster. I don’t think he meant to reveal how stupid he is with that comment, but you never know.
Do they not see the irony in referencing Helen? She didn’t start the war. Seriously. Had people then thought of women as people who can choose their partners, the war probably wouldn’t have happened.
For fucks sake, they can’t even give an example where a woman did something wrong in a fictional story.
@Detached:
No, that’s EXACTLY what they’re saying. It’s zero-sum. To them, if you’re not doiminating women, minorities, etc., you are being dominated.
@auggziliary:
The other unfortunate implication–Paris as PUA (I just typoed that as PUS and nearly left it, because seriously)–is what did he do, in-story? Seduce her or kidnap her? It usually depends on the retelling, but the further back you go, the more it sounds violent and awful.
Sounds like PUA to me.
Paris was a PUA? I thought it was Aphrodite who made Helen run away with Paris by using her divine powers — which is why Helen is spared at the end.
Wow, these morons don’t even have the decency to read the Cliff Notes version, do they?
If a woman is involved in anything, in any way, however tangentially, involuntarily, or passively, she is directly responsible for all negative results, forever. If a man does anything that hurts himself or anyone else, it was either directly or indirectly because of something some woman somewhere did which effected him somehow, and is therefore all her fault. Always. So sayeth the red pill.
@theladyzombie
I hear you. I’ve had to distance myself from so many people I’d practically grown up with when it dawned on me how so many of the ‘values’ the church espouses just end up hurting everybody. Supposing that the Kingdom of Heaven is something worth aspiring towards, can the church really justify keeping people out with their hateful rhetoric and damnations of only specific sins (I blame Paul. A lot.)?
All in all, I still consider myself ‘religious,’ but as far as the mainstream church goes, I take an attitude of, “If you ever drastically cut back on the misogyny, racism, homophobia, and kyriarchical crap, drop me a line. I might still be interested.”
Howard, that implication is more awful. Btw, I only learned the story through a teacher so I thought she ran away because she was in love, so sorry if I sounded like an abuse/kidnap apologist.
If that’s what the OP meant, then basically man aren’t responsible for kidnapping, and women are responsible if they are kidnapped. And anyone who tries to get her back and causes damage, also her fault.
@David
It’s how Harriet Klausner did it. 😛
These guys… I’d like one day where they don’t think everything is my fault just because I’m a woman.
Whether Helen was kidnapped or left voluntarily has been an ongoing debate since ancient times.
Also I can see why spearheaders are so afraid of gay men now. If they think male sexuality is being some depraved animal, then of course they’d be terrified. But of course women shouldn’t be, since that would make them feminazis.
Aaand off to the library to find THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN capital letters exclamation mark times eleventy.
How the Fuck do “these” People TYPE… “Like” This…?
@katz: also whether she had a daughter by the guy who kidnapped her BEFORE the whole Menelaus thing…
Basically, even in the versions of the story that look cleaned up, Helen’s life is eight kinds of hell. But we’re supposed to be too involved in questions of ‘if greek-Ajax and troy-Ajax got in a duel, who would win?’ (answer: they hug it out, go back to killing other guys)
The time-honored Gilgamesh/Enkidu solution.
Great Books for Men is a PUA commenter, he’d always leave comments of gibberish on roissy/heartiste’s blog and apparently it made sense to them. He would always leave lines of this in between sentences: lzolzlozlzloz
Or something similar. Manosphere dudes are weird, and not in the good way.
Have they read the book?
Because in the first chapter it says: men=animals and women=animals.
And the first chapter also ummm describes a porn scene in detail.
Personally, just browsing the book I don’t think I’ll read it because of the style of the writing. I ended up skimming instead of reading in depth.
Though I did find a lovely quote: “Being a human who is sexual who is allowed to be sexual is a freedom accorded by society much more readily to males than to females. ” (page 17)
I’ll keep skimming.
and
and
Might be Hungarian? No really, I am stumped.
Butasts itnz wouzoldnz besosnz funozzo tosts talksnsz lizokez thisnz.
LadyZombie, that sounds very familiar. Did you also attend an Assembly of God church camp in Branson, Missouri? As bad as the whole “Eve ruined everything so women suck” argument is, it’s still not as bad as the Promise Keepers.
Joeb said
I think he needs to keep his sex boat fantasies to himself. Or at the very least, he should add pirates to the story to spice it up a bit.
auggziliary
Eve is tempted by the serpent offering knowledge of good and evil. To many fundie sects, the serpent is basically a penis, and the KoG&E is basically a reference to sexual desire. Because sophistumecated theology.
@Howard
That’s a really bleak attitude and it really clashes with what I see with relationships. I find it hard to believe that the common elderly couple is just some “alpha” dude controlling an old lady or some ball busting grandma beating up some “beta” old man.
Actually, most couples are just heartwarming to talk to. Especially old couples. I used to get jealous when I saw a happy couple (not sure if that’s related to toxic MRA thought though) but now, it’s just something sweet to see. I don’t see “misogyny” or “misandry” or whatever, just two happy people.
Well, to be honest, MRA thought doesn’t work well when compared to ANY part of reality.
Damned flying wolverines.
Maybe the whole “wymyyynnnnzzz” thing has just gotten totally out of control?
I think my generation calls it the Superman/Batman solution.
Freemage, why is the penis talking.
“Men cringe and cower to the mere mention of sex.”
HAHAHAHAHA…Ha…That is saaaad. Nope, sorry, only “men” like you.
“Few of them will achieve mental and emotional maturity till they are old and infertile.”
My grandpa is in his 90s and still horny in his mind, but oh wait, he’s infertile.