There’s a post on the AgainstMensRights subreddit today highlighting a comment from a Men’s Rights Redditor that offers some, well, interesting theories about why feminists are “obsessed” with rape and abortion, even though he thinks they are very ugly.
Actually, in his mind, it’s because they are very ugly, and secretly wish someone would be attracted enough to them to rape them.
I’m sure there are MRAs out there who would like to dismiss his posting as the ravings of a random Redditor. Sadly, it’s not. Despite the terribleness of his “explanation,” or perhaps because of it, it seems to be a common one amongst Manosphereians and Men’s Rightsers.
Indeed, in one notorious post a couple of years ago, A Voice for Men founder and all-around garbage human Paul Elam — probably the most important person in the Men’s Rights movement today — offered a much cruder version of this argument. [TRIGGER WARNING for some primo rape apologism. I have bolded the worst bits, and archived the post here in case Elam decides to take it down, as he has been doing with some of his more repellant posts].
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Isn’t it more than just a little fascinating that underneath all this hoopla about rape is a whole lot of women who, when thinking about some guy pinning them down in a kitchen and forcing a hand up their blouse, generally tend to do so with their own hand or a vibrator between their legs? …
And isn’t it also interesting that the most rape obsessive morons on the planet also happen to be some of the ugliest morons on the planet?
Consider this. If rape awareness was a religion, Andrea Dworkin was The Fucking Pope. The 300+ lb. basilisk of man-hate had a face big enough and pockmarked enough to be used to fake a lunar landing. Her body was roughly the size and shape of a small sperm whale.
And she thought of little else in her life other than rape. The subject drove almost everything she said and did.
She even claimed to have been drugged and raped in 1999 in Paris, an accusation that was never proven and which came under a great deal of scrutiny, apparently for damned good reason.
C’mon people, Dworkin’s problem wasn’t that she was raped. Her problem, and I mean all along, was that she wasn’t.
Oh, it gets worse:
Like a corrupt televangelist who only shuts up about sexual purity and morality long enough to secure the services of a five dollar hooker, Dworkin was the poster child for “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Or, in other words, she was obsessed with rape, quite possibly even creating the illusion it happened to her, precisely because her worth on the sexual market was measured in pesos.
Dworkin wanted to be raped, which in her mind meant being sexually desired, but didn’t have the goods to make that happen so she made a career of hating both the source of her rejection, men, and the source of her competition, attractive women.
In the end, the most narcissistic of all Men’s Rightsers concludes that rape is all about female narcissism:
The concept of rape has a lot of utility for women. One, it feeds their narcissistic need to feel irresistible. Two, if feeds their narcissistic need to feel irresistible. That level of irresistibility is the pinnacle of a woman’s sexual viability and worth. And for a whole lot of women, sexual worth is the only self-worth they know.
A Voice for Men’s domestic violence mascot Erin Pizzey seconded Elam’s argument during an appearance of hers last year on Reddit.
If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this
This is an “insight” that many other manosphereians keep reinventing and announcing to the world. In a 2013 post, for example, the “Red Pill” blogger and sometime Return of Kings contributor who calls himself TheMaskAndRose offered a very similar take on the subject.
Feminists are ugly women. They are fat, old, masculine, aggressive, hateful, sociopathic, unattractive, or any combination of those things. Attractive women tend not to be Feminists, so I encourage you to think about why that’s the case. So keeping in mind that they’re not the type of women who normal men desire or pay any attention to, here’s my theory:
Rape culture is the ugly woman’s rape fantasy. …
I think the true heart of a rape fantasy is narcissism.
I think it’s about the idea of saying NO to a man, over and over, but he throws caution to the wind and gives into the animal instinct to just overtake you–because you’re so attractive, so beautiful, so alluring, so irresistible that he just can’t help himself.
It’s about being wanted, more than anything else. Wanted so badly that a man would risk throwing his whole life away just for the chance to put his penis in you.
So, since Feminists and unattractive women generally don’t have men paying any attention to them at all–at least not the sexual kind of attention they crave but won’t admit to … they instead cast themselves in the role of heroine in a cultural narrative whereby men think they’re just so fucking deliciously hot that they can’t wait for the chance to rape them.
They project that insanity onto the world around them, and voila–“rape culture.” A world full of scary men so overtaken with lust and desire for these fat, ugly, manly cow-beasts that you never know when one of them is going to risk his career, family, money, and life outside of prison just to have sex with you.
There is, of course, a much simpler explanation for why feminists tend to be “obsessed” with rape: because it happens all the fucking time.
Meanwhile, the guys I’ve known who’ve had the kind of dominance and submission fantasies I was talking about up there have also tended quite often to be interested in exploring submission for themselves, which is another easy tip off between “person interested in boundary exploring role play” and “asshole boundary pushing potential/wanna be rapist.”
Honestly, anyone who “confessed” to me that they fantasized about rape would get a huge side eye and I would probably go off and warn everyone I knew about them, if for no other reason than that someone willing to talk about those fantasies without reservation or clarification as rape would set off ALL THE ALARMS for me. Someone who is sensitive enough about the complications and considerate enough to take steps to avoid triggering people or being carelessly misunderstood is much more likely to be a good potential partner for such exploration, otherwise not.
Exactly.
I see men who talk about their rape (and general dominance, framed as “I will do this and you will do that” rather than “we could do this if you like”) fantasies in their OK Cupid profiles, and how anyone doesn’t see that as a giant blinking neon red flag is beyond me.
Alaisvex:
Quite possibly, if you mean fantasy as in “I imagine myself personally involved in the situation” rather than the vague titillation I mentioned above.
Again Cassandra:
Yes, in the latter case you absolutely need to check that the person person has at least decent understanding of fantasy/reality boundaries and the general wrongness of rape. Otherwise they’re not safe to be within shouting distance.
I actually find the idea of someone wanking to the idea of rape without picturing themselves as personally involved pretty damn disturbing too. If that’s titillating to someone? I don’t feel safe around that guy.
Yep. Totally.
Actually, even if someone were posting dominance fantasies couched as “we could do this” it would give me the creeping heebie jeebies because while I think that there is a whole HUGE range of sexual behavior that can be adequately described as totally “normal,” I think that talking about it on or before the first date comes across as incredibly creepy. I mean, sure, it’s a good idea to be clear that there are deal breakers before you get too invested in a relationship, especially if your particular kink is significantly out of the mainstream, but folks who are are so insistent about establishing their preferred sexual practices before they even find out whether their potential partner likes Italian food or sci-fi movies is not looking for a relationship so much as shopping for a service provider.
Yes! Exactly what I meant about fantasy/reality boundary!
Yes.
The thing is that the attractiveness argument doesn’t fly if you actually know anything about men (as a class) because MEN WILL F..K ANYTHING. Seriously. They don’t care if you’re a troll, they care if they’re horny. If they can’t get the “attractive” women who never, ever embrace feminism, they’ll take whoever else is nearby. Even if it means they use a less-attractive (or “ugly”) woman for sex while waiting for Miss Perfect to become available.
I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it.
The sad part is that they approach “unattractive” women in such a one-dimensional manner when really, the women who aren’t Barbie types might make a better partner because (1) they aren’t all wrapped up in their looks and (2) their looks are not the only thing going for them–if they stay “unattractive” or become even more “unattractive,” they’ve still got intelligence and loyalty and a good mother instinct and whatever else. But if you base a relationship on how “pretty” your wife is, and she loses her looks… whoops.
But seriously though, let’s just derail the looks argument right now. They don’t even have to put a paper bag over your head. You just have to say yes and they’re happy, if only for the next fifteen minutes.
@ gilly
I get the impression that those guys think that posting that shit is sexy and will totally turn on the women who read it and hypnotize them into wanting to do whatever dude has in mind? In reality they may as well be posting “I have no idea how female sexuality works, and this makes me a huge danger to you, because I’m also too arrogant to ever realize or admit that I can’t actually read your mind”.
I ran across one whose profile was all about how he WOULD pull your hair and you WILL like it because ALL WOMEN want to be dominated by a man and there will be NO DISCUSSION about your feelings about this or whether or not it’s going to happen. Since he helpfully included photos of himself I keep expecting to see him show up on the evening news.
(And before the usual whiny dudes start in, nope, he wasn’t nerdy or ugly at all, he was actually a nice looking guy who also happened to be a huge creep.)
If it’s not to deraily to mention more urban fantasy novels …
I’m a huge fan of Seanan McGuire’s work in general. Her October Day novels are essentially a the Dresden files with a female lead and more sexy Cait sidhe.
Her InCryptid series is about a ballroom dancer who is also part of a family who essentially “polices” the cryptid community.
Both have decent romantic subplots, but they’re not at the level of paranormal romance.
Yes, it’s entirely possible for those guys to be rapists too, although less likely.
I tried to make some finer point above but got lost in my own logic. It’s too late in my time zone. Sorry, and good night.
@ Arctic Ape
Basically what disturbs me about this is how normalized it is. Many different cultures are teaching boys that being aroused by the idea of women being raped is totally normal and not at all ethically problematic, and that’s scary. Whether or not any given individual would actually do it is a separate conversation (though certainly a culture in which rape = titillating is a normalized idea is one in which anyone with that inclination is more likely to feel like they have cultural permission to act on it), what I’m getting at is that just the idea that tons of men are walking around thinking “yeah, rape, that makes me horny, I’d fap to that” is incredibly disturbing to some women.
Even sadder, I think these guys seriously consider that sort of thing to be a major selling point in their pitch. And no doubt they are all self-styled Nice Guys™, too.
A charitable interpretation is that these guys are such unthinking products of rape culture that they honestly believe All Women Want To Be Dominated, and that they must therefore present themselves as these all-dominating Alpha Males™ in order to get even a tiny slice of the cock-carousel action. Even if they themselves are not really like that.
Unfortunately for guys like that, I’m not inclined to take the charitable route. If I see a guy spouting that sort of thing, I’m like “NEXT!” and running the hell away, as fast as my feet can fly. Because even if he’s not an Alpha Male™, who wants to take their chances with that?
Here’s a perspective from a retired Pro-Dominatrix, and confirmed control freak and sexual sadist. I’m the kind of person who has fantasies about doing things that sound absolutely horrifying to most people. Some of things I get off on make me cringe at myself, and wonder what kind of a monster I am. Then I call myself on the reality-phone with the million-dollar question : would you enjoy doing this to someone who did not consent to any of this?
Bang. Lady-boner gone.
Would I stick my strap-on in the teary, tied-up pretty boy if he hadn’t begged me to? Never.
Would I cane the tall British gent until he bled without a safeword and full first-aid kit handy? No fucking way.
Would I even get out the needles and electrical devices without special permission or a special request from that cute pink-haired girl who broke my favourite cane with her ass? Goddamn it, no! No! NO!
I like to think that the vast majority of serious BDSM players are, like myself, conditioned to eroticize consent. Lack of consent kills my sadistic urges dead. Or at least it kills my urge to do awful things to the non-consenting party. I’ll take my sadism elsewhere, where it’s appreciated and desired. I really, really, hope that this is the same mindset that men who fantasize about rape fall into – *it’s only exciting if both partners share the fantasy.* Of course, what with Jian Gomeshi and his ilk, we in the BDSM community need to take a careful look at ourselves, and particularly the men in our midst. I know of a couple, at least from my local scene, who are just rapists/abusers/misogynist assholes, using BDSM as a safe cloak for what they do, which is prey on women whose only experience was 50 Shades of Bad Writing and Abuse, and thus won’t call them out on their non-consensual horseshit.
I really, deeply hope that this is the context in which most men with rape fantasies think them out. I am also really, deeply afraid that I am wrong.
On the one hand, I’m happy that OkCupid allows these guys to display red flags like that so proudly. Then all women reading their profiles are forewarned. On the other hand, why does OkC not have a system that bans you if you raise too many red flags?
…or acknowledge that something in your mind is as important as my desire to act out my favorite porn.
Actually, I find it worse. Dominance/submission and other kinds of role play make sense to me, especially as practices that you are going to talk about with a partner and plan out so that both of you are comfortable and getting what you came for, so to speak. I find the idea of someone being aroused by watching what seems clearly to be rape utterly nauseating.
There’s a whole range of porn where the role of the woman involved is to act (please, please FSM, let her only be acting) scared, unwilling, and upset by what is being done to her, and I wish I could go back to a time when I didn’t know that it existed and is actually popular. I could never be comfortable around anyone who watched that. And someone who sought it out and found it arousing? I’m not sure I could be around them at all.
Even if we take the charitable interpretation, though, that doesn’t excuse them. Responding to cultural conditioning that makes you think that it’s okay to harm other people because *that’s what they really want* is still wrong.
I feel like there are certain questions that, if someone answers “yes” to them, that should be prominently displayed on their profile page. Like the one about women sometimes owing men sex.
@ gilly
That’s the thing, if someone just randomly says that he has rape fantasies? I’m assuming that he means that he finds the idea of the scared, sad, unwilling looking woman being forced into something arousing. At that point, well, normally I’m not a big fan of running, but hey, there are exceptions.
Also, even if he never would act on it, at that point I’m going to be so creeped out that there’s no way I could ever have sex with the guy.
Well, if I’m not allowed to brand that on their foreheads, then I suppose posting it online would be acceptable as a fallback.
I’m not sure I could be in the same room with them, or let anyone I knew be alone with them either…
alaisvex: Do they deserve the charitable interpretation? I’d think that hurting, let alone harming, another human without full, enthusiastic consent is just so obviously plain wrong!
There was actually a former coworker who admitted to having just those sorts of wank preferences when we were all out for drinks once. I made sure that I was never alone in a room with him again.
Thanks for validating my complete lack of social engagement with my coworkers.