Warren Farrell, the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, is doing an AMA on Reddit today at 1 PM Eastern time. UPDATE: It’s started, and it’s here.
AMA, in Reddit-speak, stands for Ask Me Anything. So I would encourage you to ask Mr. Farrell questions about anything he has said or written in the past that you find troubling, or even just confusing.
Here are some suggestions. Seriously, ask him any of these, as I’m not sure I’ll be able to be online when the whole thing goes down.
1) Mr Farrell, in your book The Myth of Male Power, you wrote that:
It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and that her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.” He might just be trying to become her fantasy.
Are you suggesting that if a woman clearly says no to sex, but does not stop kissing a man, that he is entitled to have sex with her anyway because she has given him a non-verbal “yes?” If not, what specifically do you mean? What sort of non-verbal “yes” would outweigh a clear verbal “no?” Why doesn’t her verbal no mean no?
Source: Myth of Male Power, page 315.
Screencap here: http://i.imgur.com/cwSoc.png
2) Mr. Farrell, regarding your research on incest in the 1970s, you told Penthouse magazine that:
“When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200,” says Farrell, “the incest is part of the family’s open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve — and in one or two cases to join in.”
Were you actually suggesting that there are “glowing, positive cases” of parent-child incest – that is, child sexual abuse? How can child sexual abuse be “glowing” or “positive” for the child?
If this is not what you meant, what did you mean?
Penthouse also quotes you as saying that you were doing your research
“because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t.”
As I understand it, you’ve said you were misquoted and that you did not say “genitally,” and that what you actually said was “generally” or “gently.” But even with the word replaced, you are suggesting that parents are repressing their sexuality and their children’s sexuality if they don’t “caress” their children. What did you mean by this?
Sources:
Transcript of Penthouse article: http://nafcj.net/taboo1977farrell.htm
Scanned pages of original article from Penthouse: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/fathers/farrell2.htm
3) Mr. Farrell, why did you choose a photograph of a nude woman’s ass for the cover of the new edition of The Myth of Male Power? Do you really think that male power is somehow negated by female sexuality?
4) Mr. Farrell, why have you chosen to associate yourself with the website A Voice for Men, a site that frequently refers to women as “cunts,” “bitches,” and “whores?” If you are not aware of this, would you disassociate yourself from the site if given clear proof of the site’s frequent misogynistic attacks on women?
If you’re looking for more ideas on questions to ask him, check out my posts on him in the archives.
These might be good to start with:
The Myth of Warren Farrell: Farrell on Rape, Part One
Warren Farrell’s notorious comments on date rape: Not any more defensible in context than out of it
What Men’s Rights guru Warren Farrell actually said about the allegedly positive aspects of incest.
MRA founding father Warren Farrell responds to questions about his incest research with evasive non-answers. And a smiley. (About his last AMA appearance.
Warren Farrell on Unemployment, Salesmanship, and Other Things That Are Like Rape, Supposedly
Also check out the excellent Farrell’s Follies series on Reddit.
And Fibinachi has a series on Farrell as well.
Nothing much to add, but I agree. It says a lot about how central he thinks dating/impressing women is to a man’s emotional life, and life in general.
***
The birth control pill actually accounts for less than 1% of estrogen in drinking water, according to this source. A large amount of it is from livestock waste. All humans also excrete estrogen.
I suspect that the focus on the birth control pills comes from some combination of fear of women’s sexuality, technophobia/fear of Big Pharma, and MRA-style “let’s blame stuff on women”.
***
men do “cheat” but for each man who cheats, a woman cheats with him.
At first I thought it just meant “men and women cheat in roughly equal numbers”, but the word “with” does make it sound like the woman having sex with the cheating man, rather than a woman similar to the cheating man, is also cheating. Maybe, as Noadi says, it is a case of him assuming that people who hook up with a cheater always know that the cheater is not single. Maybe “with” is a mistake and he’s just a crappy writer.
So much fail: Feminism is responsible for the rise of “BRA” (“Black Run America” – yes, yes) because black men have higher testosterone levels than white men, and feminism is responsible for giving women all those birth control pills, which caused a higher level of estrogen to enter the water system and thus emasculate the white male who has a naturally lower level of testosterone.
So… Black men have more testosterone. And because there is estrogen in the water, white men (being less testosteroney) are more affected than black men. Which makes women go for black men.
1: This is bad because? Oh, right, you are white, and can’t get laid.
2: Why didn’t women go for black men before? After all they, innately, have more testosterone.
3: Don’t all those middle-class white folks drink bottled water?
Thus women, who in spite of feminist lies want a True Alpha Male, now turn to The Black Alpha Male
So now we see the blatant racism (as opposed to the sort of racial essentialism, with it’s sotto-vocce, deniable, racism). Only the White Man can be the True Alpha Male.
and have all become liberal Obama voters and the white man is oppressed and can’t stand up for himself anymore, or get a girlfriend.
And here we have the real issue. This white boy can’t get a date.
@LBT
They also thought that, during my run from my dad’s house, katz kidnapped me and brainwashed me into being trans and are supplying me estrogen prescriptions. I know that they’re just worrisome because they care a lot about me, but they really, really need to get a grip already.
Wait, they all thought that? o.O
At one point, yes. Fortunately they seem to be listening to me more now (except for my dad and my older brother).
No. They’d just be able to spew their bullshit unchallenged. There’s plenty of people outside to pay attention to them.
RE: Ally
I know that they’re just worrisome because they care a lot about me,
No. Hon, that’s controlling behavior that they’re BLAMING on caring about you. My husband cares a lot about me, and was worried about how my top surgery would impact my health. You know what he didn’t do? Claim that someone had kidnapped me and brain-washed me into transness.
@LBT
You have a point, but I’m giving them slack mainly because no one expected me to do anything as drastic as running away from home. I’ve always been seen as the “baby” of the family, so when I do something unexpected naturally everyone gets worried and starts imagining the worst.
My sister, for example, hated katz at first (without even knowing anything about her) because she was afraid of katz being just as deceitful and exploitative as so many other people in our lives. That’s because my sister has a history of being in relationships with guys who have treated her like trash. So I wasn’t too upset when my sister expressed how worried she was about me.
I think I’d be a bad kidnapper. I’d be all “So…you wanna go to Disneyland or something?”
RE: Ally
I’m giving them slack mainly because no one expected me to do anything as drastic as running away from home.
Like I said. Controlling behavior. You were out of their control, and so they freaked out, because you’d never done that before. That’s exactly what I mean. They weren’t freaking out because you did something drastic; your dad does drastic shit all the time. They freaked out because you GOT AWAY.
My parents pulled the same shit when I refused to come to a Christmas party, only instead of kidnapping, it was claiming I was schizophrenic and couldn’t recognize reality. They CLAIMED they were concerned for my mental well-being… but they were talking about things that were patently absurd!
I’m sorry that I keep harping on this, Ally, it’s just that I see you in the situation I was in a few years back with my family.
Okay, say you’re right. They’re concerned about your well-being.
If that’s so, why aren’t any of them doing anything about your father? Your mother divorced him to get away from him. You’ve mentioned that he’s hit you, screamed abuse at you, and threatened graphic violence on your mother.
Your family seems to be somewhat aware of this. So why is it such a big surprise that you ran away from him? Why is their answer, “You must’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed,” and not, “Your father’s an abusive terror?”
That seems a whole lot of leaps of logic to go through to avoid confronting your dad’s behavior.
I personally found it hilarious. The old coot is whining about not being able to get sex from pretty young things (who might even be his own daughters by blood, ick), and then he turns around and says that women are “turned off by whining”. No shit we are! And we’re especially turned off by creepy old coots who whine that pretty young things aren’t having sex with them, and who whine that their daughters are “too repressed” to sleep with them.
If this is WTF’s idea of “men’s issues”, it’s no wonder that the movement is a laughingstock.
@LBT
I suppose I wasn’t being very clear. They knew that I ran away from my dad’s place because my dad was treating me like garbage, and they empathized with me. It’s just that, when I was with katz, no one knew where I was, and I persistently ensured that they could never figure out my exact location.
Also, as soon as I got to her house, I called my older brother to tell him that I left, and though he admitted he was worried he also assured me that he still loved me and that I was “brave” for going through with that plan of mine. Once he talked to katz over the phone, he realized that I wasn’t at some abuser’s home and that she was someone I could trust.
RE: Bina
I’ve mentioned before how I’ve encountered a lot of guys who really don’t seem to understand “rape” or “sexual abuse” except as “sex that I didn’t entirely love.” Farrell is a really good example. He seriously doesn’t seem to understand what the fuck it’s about, so all he can do is bemoan the boners.
I sometimes wonder how many guys could be that clueless. But then again, I can’t imagine my life if rape WASN’T a formative event.
I quit wondering a long time ago. When every TV set is constantly bombarding you with images of “desirable” that you’re supposed to want and work your butt off to get, and you combine that with a cis-male’s privilege of expecting it all to fall into your manly-man hands just because you were born with a penis, it’s only natural to want what you’re told to want, and expect what you’re taught to expect. The fact that what one wants may in fact be an individual with wants and expectations of her own, on the other hand, never occurred to them because they were never taught to regard women and girls as such. Only as prizes for being A Man. The fact that the “prizes” don’t behave obediently and comply happily is the root of all their misogyny.
…and the fact that they haven’t progressed mentally beyond a childish “BUT I WANTS IT!!!” is the root of all their inability to get taken seriously. Other men have grown up, faced facts, and outgrown ridiculous expectations, or at least learned to put them in their proper perspective. These guys could sure use an old-timey feminist consciousness-raising group. Or, if they keep insisting on “having” women who could be their daughters, a therapy group. Because that shit’s not healthy, and it’s sure as hell not “sensual”, as WTF early on insisted it was.
RE: Bina
Yeah, that too. I also guess they just live in such a padded world that they can’t actually FATHOM getting raped, except as some sort of racist prison porn scenario. It’s really weird and confusing to me.