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 went to a Jackson Galaxy seminar once and I recall shelving being mentioned prominently there too.
Here’s our new foster alpha.
auggziliary,
I had a pair of house-trained budgies when I was a kid. They were allowed out of their cage any time people were home, and would even return to the cage on their own to poop and eat. It was always delightful to have them fluttering around the house, and I miss having that in my life. The green one, Pickles, would always follow me around and even sit on me when I was reading.
Sadly, I think my current kitty would put an end to any budgies I brought home these days.
Give ’em hell, reginaldgriswold!
On dog obedience:
I’m more of a kitty girl myself, but I don’t hate dogs, and my family had the best dog ever most of my childhood (from two to sixteen). She was sweet, intelligent, loved to please and generally did what you asked. But even she had her own quirks that meant she wasn’t the most obedient dog ever.
One: she refused to jump through hoops. We trained her to stand on her hind legs, but she would not jump through hoops, even if it was placed directly on the ground and she could step through it. When we tried to train her, she stopped coming downstairs for goodnight treats, and so we stopped trying to train her.
Two: She did not like fetch. She’d get the ball once or twice, but if you threw it again, she’d go, “What did you just do? I just got that for you.” And she was a golden retriever mix (pound puppy) too.
Three: She loved the beach, but hated it when we’d break up into groups and go for walks on the beach. If it wasn’t the four of us together, she would only let us get so far before standing sideways to block our path. She only seemed to do this on the beach, though.
She used similar strategies when she was older to tell us when she was ready to end her walks, and we listened to her, because it meant that we could still walk her. Once she didn’t tell us she was done and basically collapsed a few blocks from the house and my mom had to go get the car to drive her the last little bit home.
what if my bf somtimes wears a cat onesie and chases me around the house? that’s like the alpha-est thing ever, right?
Kitty loves cement:
Who cares? Sounds like a fun weekend to me. 😀
it is true that Party Cat will dominate your social life:
http://nedroid.com/2009/05/party-cat-full-series/
Rigel (ALPHA MALE), wearing my shoes: https://imageshack.com/i/m9qzsvj
Mose and Sophie, the one time they have EVER been this snuggly (she’s old so she’s a bit of a crank these days): https://imageshack.com/i/govakgj
Cat-loving dude here. Oddly, our boy-cat is the more submissive, tolerant one of the pair–he will let himself be held in embarrassing or awkward positions, because Attention Is Everything, and comes over to beg for attention, or for the last 5% of his food dish to be filled. (Although he does decline to cover his own poop–but he’s kind enough to scratch at the wall to let me know he’s done, so that I can take care of it for him.) The girl, meanwhile, really is aloof, except when she wants to be, which is usually when we’re sleeping (she likes to curl around my wife’s scalp).
Meanwhile, I can’t help but this dog-man/cat-woman theory fails to account for the all-important Ferret Factor.
Zanana:
You owe me a keyboard.
It was! all this PUA angsting over dominance all the time sounds like it really gets in the way of fun, even if you’re the dominant one.
Seconding this! Wish I lived closer!
That actually sounds pretty misandrist.
Men to their dogs: I only love when you OBEY! Otherwise, you are nothing to me.
Women to their dogs: OMG U R THE CUTEST EVAR! TUMMY RUBS!
(Should’ve read, “… aloof, except when she wants to be affectionate, which is…”)
What passes for “thought” among many MRAs is astounding. We manly men must love Teh Dogz, b/c we can dominate them, and hate Teh Catz because we cannot (so very non-alpha to have a pet you can’t dominate). And women love Teh Catz b/c they can’t get alpha men to dominate them.
Riiiiigggght.
Could somebody point me towards an MRA’s shoe plz? I think I’m about to yakk up a hairball.
My family as a kid was a dog family, but most of the folks I’ve lived with since then have owned cats. I’ve never quite gotten the ‘aloof cat’ trope either. I mean, when we were a wee singlet, we somehow taught the neighbor’s cat to come when we called it. (And we had our OWN name for the cat, because we didn’t know it’s ‘real’ name for years.) It was great; we could stand in our front yard and just bellow, “KITTY SOCKS!” like a maniac, and generally, if the cat was in view, it’d come to us. It’d follow us around like a puppy, and seemed to like us better than its owners. We’d play tons of games with it using peacock feathers and shoelaces.
One of our past roommates also owned an enormous snagletoothed bucket of fluff. It was part Maine Coon, or so the guy thought, and it only had one fang. It was also one of the nicest, sweetest, most outgoing cats I’d ever seen. It loved people. There was a bit of push-and-shove over it trying to get on our bed, but over time, all we needed to do was glare at it and it’d immediately leave the bed alone.
Speaking of dogs, while hiking with hubby a couple weeks ago, I saw a disabled German Shepard! I’m thinking it had hip dysplasia; I know it’s an issue with the breed. It was wearing this little harness with handles, and it was walking with an older woman. It didn’t seem able to stand on its own, and its hind legs would just kind of flop underneath it, so the woman would LIFT IT UP by the handles, and then it would be able to walk with her.
I’d never seen such a thing. She was a pretty small woman, and German Shepards are pretty big dogs, so she must’ve been really strong to lift it and walk at the same time. (In such an awkward position, too!)
I consider myself quite feminine, yet I love my kitty. She is independent, she does not take shit from anyone,she is super cute and she loves to curl up with me and take a nap. Dogs are easily mislead, they cannot exist on their own, they need an owner to guide them to teach them – where to shit and piss. Dogs are a mess compared to the independent graceful cats. I have noticed the great hate that MRA’s feel towards cats as well, I think it reminds them of strong women who don’t take shit from them, thus they get angry. And settle for dog worship. MRA’s are weak weak men……..
reginaldgriswold, I am there with you in spirit! Let us know how it went.
Everyone has adorable pets.
I don’t think PUAs should be allowed to have pets. The way they write about them makes me want to report them to animal control.
Hey, I like cats, but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
If you have a cat, you’re probably gonna get that^.
“Up to a third of the world’s human population is estimated to carry a Toxoplasma infection.[3][4] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes the overall seroprevalence in the United States as determined with specimens collected by the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2004 was found to be 10.8%, with seroprevalence among women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years) 11%.[5] Another study placed seroprevalence in the US at 22.5%.[4] The same study claimed a seroprevalence of 75% in El Salvador.[4] Official assessment in Great Britain places the number of infections at about 350,000 a year.[6]
During the first few weeks after exposure, the infection typically causes a mild, flu-like illness or no illness. Thereafter, the parasite rarely causes any physical symptoms in otherwise healthy adults.[citation needed] However, those with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS or pregnant women, may become seriously ill, and it can occasionally be fatal.[citation needed] The parasite can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and neurologic diseases, and can affect the heart, liver, inner ears, and eyes (chorioretinitis).[citation needed] Recent research has also linked toxoplasmosis with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.[7] Numerous studies found a positive correlation between latent toxoplasmosis and suicidal behavior in humans.[8][9][10]”
Just sayin’
“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.”
This too, haha! Dogs are just more work.
auggziliary, Cats are weird. They are predators the size of prey which makes them a bit wary. They have evolved alongside humans but historically humans haven’t been as lavish with food & safety as they are with dogs. They don’t have the same built-in trust of canines.
Since they can’t tell the difference between “OMG!!! You’re a KITTEH!! Sqeeee!” and “GTFO!!” too much attention from a stranger might be frightening. Excessive eye-contact or staring also indicates too much attention. Ignoring them means that you don’t have any interest in them, either good or bad. After a while, they might come over to find out if that disinterest can be turned into something good.
Or they might not. Or you’ve got some sort of body language that freaks them out but there will be this one cat who doesn’t notice. Or any other possible combo of interaction. Like I said, cats are weird.
I remember Roy from FMA said something like, “I love dogs, because you can treat them like shit and they still love you.” and that’s pretty much the PUA fantasy, right?
Thank you, the First Joe, for your public service announcement on toxoplasmosis. Truly this is a very important thing.
Now don’t own dogs or you could catch rabies!
And it’s NOT EVEN TRUE ABOUT DOGS. As I said above, many dogs (not all, some will run away or aggressively attack you back) will try hard to please someone who’s abusing them, just like many people tries to please someone abusing them. That’s a survival technique attempted to minimize the abuse – it’s NOT LOVE:
Did anyone else get super uncomfortable reading about this guy “dominating” his animals?
RE: Sid
Yes. It reads like an incompetent kinkster into bestiality. Dude, your kink is NOT okay.