When I bring up the subject of cats on this blog, as I so often do, it’s party because, well, I’m a bit of a fan. But it’s also because I know it confuses and irritates the misogynists who read this blog, inveterate cat-haters all (or almost all). I’ve never quite understood the depth of the animosity the guys in the manosphere seem to have towards cats.
But now one of these cat haters has provided us with a theoretical explanation for his catphobia. In a post with the suggestive title “Limp-Wristed Cat Lovers, Beautiful Dog Lovers,” the guy behind the PUA blog LaidInNYC explains why real men — and real women — hate cats and love dogs instead.
Dogs are loyal, obedient, and affectionate.
Masculine men love these qualities in our companions, and they are qualities we want in our women as well.
Cats are selfish, independent, and alpha.
Masculine men hate these qualities in our companions. This is because masculine men are the owners, not the owned.
Huh. It’s weird how these descriptions of “alpha males” often read like confessions of massive insecurity. So “masculine men” are so insecure they can’t stand being challenged even by their pets? They’re so threatened by the independence of other creatures that they can’t tolerate a pet that might sometimes wander off into another room to take a nap?
But according to Mr. LaidInNYC, it’s the cat-loving dudes who are the sissies:
95% of men who love cats are either gay or have sub fantasies*. If you like cats, you like not being in control.
Well, all except for a small-percentage of super-alpha dudes who are so manly they can tame even the mighty housecat:
There are a small percentage of straight alpha seducers that like to own cats. The reason is they love dominating an already dominant living thing. They like to stare down and dominate their cats just because they can.
Welcome to my world.
Well, ok, sometimes the cats stare me down.
But what about the women? If masculine men love dogs, shouldn’t feminine women love cats? Then why do manosphere dudes so regularly hurl abuse on women with cats?
Well, LaidInNYC has an answer for that: it turns out that truly feminine women actually prefer dogs to cats, but for a totally different reason than men.
While men love the loyalty and obedience, girls are much more likely to coo over a dogs unconditional love, furry cuddles, and “look how cute he looks when he does that thing with his paw” type stuff.
Feminine girls love their dogs but they don’t enjoy training them, letting them run in an open field and feeling pride when the dog comes right back when called, punishing them when necessary, etc. …
Most of the feminine dog lovers I know already have strong male dominance types in their life, be it a strong father, boyfriend, or husband, and they just like the dog as another source of love. … cats are superfluous when you have a man to obey.
It’s a different story indeed for “the masculine, ugly, old, short-haired, barren feminists who end up being cat ladies.”
Ugly masculine girls, on the other hand, cannot find a male to dominate them in their social life because they lack the beauty. Since being dominated by a strong independent entity who doesn’t need her is so important to a woman, she must seek out that domination. Ugly girls find this in either a career, feminism, cats, or some combination of the three.
A job, a cat, some feminism: the holy trinity of MISANDRY.
I’m not not exactly sure how any of these things “dominate” women, but since Mr. LaidInNYC doesn’t actually seem to know anything about anything, I guess I’ll let that one slide.
In the meantime, I would like to treat you all to pictures of some of the evil independent creatures that make alpha males tremble in fear:
I do not understand this cultural meme we have concerning “dog people” and “cat people,” and the arbitrary way we ascribe certain personality traits to each. It’s as nonsensical to me as this insistence we have on claiming that some personality traits are “male” while others are “female.”
I love both dogs and cats. I’ve had both as pets. I’m not a cat person and I’m not a dog person. I have a fondness for animals, period.
And dogs are not “alpha?” None of them have ANY dominance issues whatsoever? Pfft.
Can’t don’t dominate. They just don’t give a fuck. Trying to dominate anyone would imply caring about something that isn’t them.
Dang, women can do nothing right by these guys, even raise pets.
Personally I’m a dog-lover (though not a cat-hater, per se… they’re cute but not all that entertaining for me). I can assure these men that it has nothing to do with a dominance-submission dynamic, but because dogs are friggin’ adorable with all of their licking and affection and tail-wagging and chasing squirrels. And then you take them for a walk and they’re pulling you around like, “Sniff sniff, what’s this?! Sniff sniff, what’s that?! Sniff sniff, hey, look at this, this is amazing!”
It’s just adorable and playful, it makes me happy. I guess I don’t require pets to self-actualize a psychological powerplay like PUAs do when they aren’t date rapi-… I mean, seducing women.
Shorter PUA idiots: “We must attempt to squeeze everything into our stupid gender essentializing narratives to validate our asinine ideas and make ourselves feel important”
“There are a small percentage of straight alpha seducers that like to own cats.”
This is also known as “The Ernest Hemingway Exception”.
Or the “Oh crap, I forgot about that famous example that completely disproves my so-called thesis so I’ll just pretend that it’s okay for manly alpha dudes to own cats as long as you get into staring contests with them to prove who’s the MOST FUCKING ALPHA.”
Now I’m off to stare at my cat. Oh, he’s asleep. I win!
I’ve never had an aloof cat. I know they exist, but I don’t believe that it’s a hard and fast rule of the species that they are uncaring. I think it’s kind of a cruel stereotype that only fosters more distrust and cruelty towards them.
I have a male cat (I jokingly call him my “beta” cat) who plays fetch, responds “verbally” to me when I call his name and comes running. I have another male (my “alpha” cat who is “the boss” of the other one) who follows me around the house like a little puppy. He sleeps on a pillow next to my head every night and he loves snuggles. Both of them wait for me at the patio window to come home from work every afternoon. They watch me walk up towards the door, and then when I pass, they go running to my front door to greet me. And it’s not for food, because their bowl is out all day.
Wouldn’t manly men like cats if the cats are alpha? Because being alpha is a good thing in their world? What a dumb theory to ponder on – cats vs dogs. LaidinNYC must not be getting laid if he has time to devise these all important theories.
NACALT!!!!
Mr. Moktoo’s tonkinese follows him around all day and practically dies from purring if you just notice him.
The darn MRA’s are so obsessed with labeling everything. Women are like this, cats are like that, dogs do this thing, man are all “x, y & z.” Earth has a wide variety of warm-blooded creatures – from homo sapiens to rattus norvegicus. Studies of any animal in the wild show unique actions taken by individuals in that group.
So basically it’s more like “Not all species are like that!!!!”
He seems to be claiming that an “alpha” animal will not accept the dominance of its master but that it untrue. My “alpha” cat is only “alpha” towards my other cat, who is very submissive by nature. They all accept me as the boss of the house. It only takes a sharp word from me to break up a fight or get them to stop doing something naughty and I’ve never struck or been physically aggressive towards any of my animals.
I’ve only ever had one alpha cat who flatly refused to accept my authority. And he had extreme territorial issues — for instance, he despised any male who came into the apartment and viewed it as an intrusion into his territory. I was the only person he was ever truly nice to, and that was only after I got a second cat for him to be the boss of. Before that, he would lie in wait for me to walk past so he could attack my legs, or run past me on the back of the sofa and smack me in the head. Good times. RIP, Maxwell Smart, you old bastard.
I second Chie! And I’ll elaborate a bit: I think many dog owners as well as cat owners like to exaggerate the differences between these species in order to inflate their own self esteem. Many cat owners (haven’t seen it on this board, but in other spaces) like to imagine that cats are such super-duper-independent creatures that it constitutes a huge compliment when a cat hangs around your place rather than just taking off to become a stray. It must be because you’re a super-duper-awesome person, otherwise this super-duper-independent creature wouldn’t choose to hang out with you. And many dog owners like to imagine that the dog completely worships them and regard them as analogous to the big bad alpha wolf and yada yada.
But really, the difference between cats and dogs isn’t that big. Dogs can be independent-minded, whereas many cats stay with a shit owner rather than becoming strays.
Sure, dogs are more of herd animals than cats are, which means more dogs than cats will become submissive and try to please someone who treats them badly rather than go aggressive and/or try to escape. But a) this difference isn’t quite as big as people make it out to be, and b) most importantly, desperately trying to please someone who bullies you is a survival technique, it does not mean you love being dominated or some shit like that. People who use harsh training methods on their dogs always claim that dogs love to be treated like this because WOLVES, and that’s such bullshit.
Me, I like both dogs and cats, but slightly prefer dogs. And I love to train them, but in a cooperative spirit, like we have fun hobbies that we pursue together, not in some bully-them-into-submission way.
These PUAs seem to have a very tenuous grasp of animal behavior. It’s all the alpha-beta false dichotomy.
And who the hell is so insecure they need to stare down a cat to feel powerful? Sounds like something a budding animal abuser might do. I wouldn’t let one of these jokers anywhere near my pets!
And if the cat is giving him their heavy-lidded “lovey eyes,” they aren’t even being aggressive or dominant — they are telling him that they love him!
I love the slow blink lovey eyes.
I have to admit something…. I hate cats. I hate cats, and I am made profoundly nervous by the presence of a cat.
But it’s the opposite of what these guys are talking about. Dogs, even little dogs, seem more… structurally sound. But a cat, I worry I’m going to fall on it or step on it, or something. And cats are inscrutable. With a dog, pretty much, you feed it and are nice to it, you’re jake. but a cat, you’ll be nice and it’ll totally scratch you! I’m worried I’ll be petting a cat, it’ll scratch me for no reason, and I’ll panic and throw it across the room and hurt it.
I have befriended giant, growling German Shepherds. It takes like ten seconds and we’re best buds. But a cat, I’m jello. Yes, my friends do find this hilarious.
I love all cute, cuddly animals. I’ve had cats in the past and they’ve been wonderful pets. Last week a friend gave me a free dog, a Yorkillon (yorkie and papillon mixed) and I think she is wonderful, too.
http://imgur.com/2mTZw7l
It’s fun to spoil cats and treat them like royalty. And a lot of people also do the same with dogs. So if by “not being in control”, they mean to spoil the pet, then yes, pet owners of all types like that.
I prefer cats because they’re easier to take care of, they always smell good, they purr, and if you show them the litter box once and they’re trained! You can go away for the weekend leaving them with food and water and they’ll barely notice you were gone.
A puppy is like having a newborn, but without diapers. In short, if u wanted my life dominated, I would get a dog over a cat.
“letting them run in an open field and feeling pride when the dog comes right back when called, punishing them when necessary, etc. …”
This sounds much more like what mras want their relationships with women to be like.
I want to know how this meme got started that cats aren’t affectionate. Have any of the people saying this ever met a pet cat? I’ve certainly never known a cat who didn’t regularly go into “PET MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” turbo-mode.
Also, anyone else notice the subtle dehumanizing of women in this guy’s “theory”? He posits two types of men–those who prefer to dominate and those who prefer to be dominated. He labels the latter category as inferior, but he at least allows that it might exist. But according to him, all women want to be dominated, so the ones who are too nasty and butch to attract a superior man to dominate them get a cat to do it instead. Or in other words, women are just as uniform in personality as dogs and cats, while men have some variety.
IMO, it’s the owner’s responsibility to let guests know what to expect from their animals. This includes dogs! For instance, I would never let my niece and nephew spend any time alone with my mean cat (he passed away when my niece was still a baby). But Mose, the one who likes to play fetch, doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. I trust him to be good more than I trust THEM — he didn’t even retaliate when my nephew purposely stomped on his tail. (I told my nephew that I wasn’t going to let him visit my animals if he was mean to them, and that sobered him up real quick and he didn’t repeat it, thankfully)
I’ve nearly been attacked more than once by neighborhood dogs while taking my walks. This includes animals who have actually left their yards and crossed the street to come after me. I love dogs but strange dogs scare me, until I know from the owner that they’re okay. People need to be more responsible for their animals and how they interact with strangers.
HAHAHAHAHA. I’ll my herd of cats that Mr. HK is getting ALL THE ATTENTION NOW, because some joker on the internet said so.
*gigglesnort* “obey.” *gigglesnort*
I think dogs are great, but I’d never own one by myself unless it was very well trained. I just don’t want to deal with training a dog, because I’m a lazy motherfucker. Cats are perfect for lazy people.
If someone I was living with wanted a dog, I would be all for it as long as they took responsibility for training it. Dogs are fun and I’ve lived with dogs my entire childhood. I just prefer to own cats.
I love dogs. I just can’t have one where we live, and I’m just not up to training one at the moment even if we could.
Well damn, what about us feminist, short haired, “masculine”, married (to a man, no less) women, who have jobs and love BOTH cats and dogs? We currently only have dogs, as ours would make it their life’s mission to terrorize any poor cat that we got, as they’re quite independent (gasp) and strong willed (Australian cattle dogs) and wake up every day with the goal of being pack leader.
Would the ideal pet for an Alpha be like a capuchin monkey? With those, you need to constantly prove yourself Alpha, otherwise it will think its the Alpha monkey, and you’ll end up with a smug monkey that will just steal all your things.
Manosphere + animal behaviour = all the lols/despairing all the time
I don’t really get the whole cat/dog person thing anymore, having known and worked with literally hundreds of cats and dogs. I guess you can generalise that a dog is more likely to want a somewhat more intense relationship with an owner than a cat, but it depends so much on breed and individual temperment and the animal’s life history and the owner’s behaviour and training and and and…
Currently, I’ve got a big fat grumpy lizard, and a whole bunch of cacti as my ‘pets’. Less vacuuming and poop clearance than those messy mammals >:D I don’t know what this means in relation to the theory mentioned in the post…hrrm. Not sure if lizard can be alpha…