A couple of interesting reads:
Check out Escaping the Friendzone: The story of a former right-wing MRA on Jezebel Groupthink, a confessional mini-memoir by a dude who traces his “transition from misogynist, homophobic, right-wing MRA to raging intersectional feminist atheist leftist.”
Meanwhile, that guy who just got that rapey pickup manual funded by Kickstarter, Ken Hoinsky? Well, he’s apparently been quite upset by the criticism and is now pledging to make the manual entirely non-rapey. No, really. He met with the guy who started the petition about his book, and released an apology of sorts saying, among other things:
The concept that someone could interpret what I was writing to be a rape guide shocked me at first. But I took a long look in the mirror and absorbed all the great feedback coming in from across the Internet…
Here is what I realized: In the most offensive and controversial parts, I chose my words poorly. Very, very poorly. I meant one thing and people were reading another. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. I needed to seriously evaluate every last word of my writing to make sure I wasn’t encouraging sexual assault in any way, shape, or form.
Ben Kassoy of DoSomething.Org … graciously offered to meet with me to provide alternate opinions and insights to help remove all of the potentially harmful advice. I am proud to say that his was the first of many meetings I will be having with anti-rape and anti-abuse organizations and experts to make sure that the advice I am offering is free of any tinge of sexual assault or rape vibes. I will be rewriting Above The Game under their guidance and insight.
Right here, on abovethegame.info, I will be starting an international dialogue on how we remove the negative stigma and shame that drives men to seek out seduction advice in the first place. My name may have been martyred in the press, but I will be using this opportunity for good.
The answer isn’t censoring all dialogue surrounding the issue ala Kickstarter’s statement on banning all men’s dating guide projects. Women’s rights and “male seduction guides” can and should coexist …
P.S. To my loyal followers from reddit, you should already be aware my writings are not intended to encourage rape. So rest assured the final book will be in the same style you are used to. I’m just taking us to the next level.
Frankly, it doesn’t sound like he’s really learned much of anything from the experience yet, but if he actually follows through with his promised meetings with anti-rape activists he might. We’ll just have to see how that goes.
But but but that’s not possible! Manosphere blogs said that science has PROVEN that all women everywhere are hardwired to be attracted to men who learn pua secrets! Pua tricks not working on a woman would mean that science itself must be broken!
Loved the Groupthink story. I don’t share the exact same path, but I share the continued journey to understand my privilege and account for its biases. (That and I certainly did assholish and dumb stuff and continue to realize I did something dumb just… after.)
The problems with pua aren’t just techniques but go to the core of the whole “seduction community” itself. A community of guys where it’s reinforced that a man’s status is dependent on how many women he sleeps with, and how “hot” those women are, and where the conversations center around developing the best techniques to get women into bed in the shortest amount of time possible is going to tend towards treating women like objects, like a means to an end.
Moreover, while the manosphere likes to make pua sound like something innocuous and harmless, the material and how it’s advertised isn’t designed to appeal to guys who just want to be a bit more confident or outgoing, but to appeal to guys who think women’s minds can be hacked into, resulting in sex on demand for the hacker.
No, it proves that she’s just Not A Real Woman!
The whole term “seduction community” has a nasty taste to it. They’re not about mutual pleasure, let alone about women making any moves or having any agency, except the agency to say “no”, and that’s seen not as her choice but as an inconvenience to be overcome. I can’t see these creeps as doing anything less than trying to make women have sex when we don’t want to, whether that’s by “persuasion” (no way can I believe any of them is actually charming), manipulation, coercion, or force.
I loathe them all.
Whenever people type PUA without the full capitalisation I momentarily parse it as the Hawai`ian word for flower. Let’s not be so hard on the Pua! I’m wearing a Pua shirt right now!
::gasp::
lowquacks, does that mean you’re peacocking?
Also it must be nice and warm where you are, it’s freezin’ here. 😀
@Pecunium
I heard about that too. It also doesn’t work on “self aware” women.
No wonder these guys hate educated women with rights.
Not that non-educated or women who don’t know about game deserve it anymore.
Well, Ken Hoinsky is at least half-way there. Reading his words and realizing they sound like rape advice is getting closer to reading his words and realizing they ARE rape advice. And he’s shown a willingness to listen.
So hurrah for good news!
@Kittehs
I don’t really feel the cold these days. It’s a gloomy Aussie winter day but NSW winters aren’t really winters.
I do have an Indonesian batik shirt that depicts two peacocks displaying to each other! Granted, it’s abstract/stylised enough that I had the thing for a few months before realising that, but great piece of wearable art. All matched across the placket and the three pockets (left breast and two cabana pockets) and with long sleeves and sumptuous fabric and gold threads and that. Very Nelson Mandela.
That’s not mine, it’s by Augochlorella. And it is indeed fabulous.
hoo boy is that guy in for a few shit fits when he realizes/gets pointedly told that his problems with the book is significantly greater than a few poorly chosen words.
I’ll raise my glass to whomever is in charge of getting this dipshit straightened out.
As for the first post on the reformed MRA… its strikes me as a post demanding cookies because he realized people other than straight white male are human? And all the readers are just supposed to be amazed that this self proclaimed intellectual giant was capable of doing so little? Really >.<
I have a parliamentary inquiry and I want to appeal the point of order to the chair!
Some of the most frustrating, rules-of-order bullshit tactics being pulled to stop the anti-choice law in Texas. I love it.
What sucks is this already a “special session” to deal with the fact that people managed to run out the clock on this shit once already.
On the subject of less shitty politics, anyone excited about the Prop 8/DOMA rulings tomorrow? It’s unlikely to be a huge win, but it’s virtually guaranteed to be a minor win (which is to say, the odds that the court will make a broad ruling that laws like Prop 8 are always legal are very low).
lowquacks – cool shirts!
Funny thing with the cold: last night, despite it being cold (prolly near freezing) I was too hot to keep the quilt on. It wasn’t me having hot flushes or anything, either.
This morning I’m walking to the train and a woman from down the street, who I’ve never spoken to before, is leaving at the same time. She says what a weird night it was and how she kept getting hot, and we puzzled over that for a bit.
Then she mentioned she has an 8kg cat sharing the bed with her. No need to guess what we talked about after that. 😛
@Pillowinhell I think these can serve a few (couple) good purposes. They may help motivate people to continue their mockery/advocacy in the face of the MRA bullshit. The stories may help pull in the people drifting away from the manosphere or who might have drifted in.
Just because cookies may come, doesn’t mean the motives are cookies. The MRAs are cynical enough; let’s celebrate the victories.
Augochlorella’s awesome (as now memorialized on Pierre).
I don’t buy this apology. Part of “game” is figuring out what people want to hear, sincerity not required. But I will admit that there’s a small optimistic bit of my brain that hopes that he’ll actually get something out of the discussions. There’s also a small pessimistic part of my brain that thinks he’ll mostly use his new-found “empathy” to try to get laid.
You know, I’m just wondering: Do PUAs think that “game” works on women who know about the techniques? Like, if they realize what they’re doing, it couldn’t possibly work, right?
Cthulu’s Intern Some PUA’s were saying they didn’t think it would, no? A con Game only works on marks not in on the con Game.
Due to the nature of my job, I work with a regularly rotating succession of college students, most of whom are female. I mostly hire graduate students, but a significant minority are undergrads. Lots of them report encountering PUA/”game” techniques, and I have to admit I enjoy informing them about the system. (After which they share amusing stories of the putdowns they come up with for the PUAs they encounter…) I like to think of myself as the Johnny Appleseed of anti-PUA knowledge in the western US. 😀
The Texas senate illegally passed SB5 at 12:01 am.
They also passed a restrictive voter ID law earlier this evening.
Soooooo when feminists inform him that 80% of his book has to be scrapped will he give back the money when he gives up on rewriting it? Also curious about what the field reports were.
The party of being personally responsible for denying the rights of others, Grandstanding on Privilege. GRRR!!!
Oof. I am about to have a rough year of full-time school and work, but http://www.battlegroundtexas.com/ is looking mighty attractive now.
Sorry for derail. I know feminism and human rights should be partisan on their face.