Categories
a voice for men feminism gender policing misogyny MRA PUA

The New Statesman's Margaret Corvid on the ways misogyny restricts male sexuality

Policing male sexuxality: a meme from A Voice for Men's Facebook page.
Policing male sexuxality: a meme from A Voice for Men’s Facebook page.

Check out Margaret Corvid’s fascinating piece in the New Statesman on male sexuality and the appeal of misogynistic movements to sexually frustrated men. As a professional dominatrix who’s also a feminist, she’s acutely aware of the ways conventional masculinity restricts and impoverishes male sexuality.

When I became a professional dominatrix after years in the kink scene, I expected my kinky work to involve lots of spanking, whipping and bondage. And, to my delight, it has. But in the majority of my sessions, I am creating a space for men to explore areas of their sexual lives that society feels are unmanly; they come to me to be penetrated, to be used, to serve, to submit, to worship, to be taken. A client might have any or all of a bewildering array of fetishes, but they mostly come to me to experience something well outside the very narrow confines of what society says that it means to be a man.

Unfortunately, as she notes, Men’s Rightsers and Pickup Artists offer nothing to men who feel confined by these narrow notions of manhood; indeed, their definitions of manhood are both retrograde and restrictive.

One of the greatest tragedies of the men’s rights movement is that, in the end, its lessons serve only to drive men further away from what they yearn for. Pick up artist techniques and aggrieved entitlement are unlikely to help men achieve the goal of intimacy, but feminist values can teach them the skills to communicate with respect.

You’ll notice a few quotes in there from me, from an email interview she did with me as well as from my post Is the Men’s Rights Movement driven by the rage of the rejected? (I also discussed the issue in this post on the weird sexual undercurrents in A Voice for Men’s Facebook “memes.”)

 

 

865 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

I remember you guys referencing the bra. That’s hilarious.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Men’s ideas of what women find sexy or interesting can be so funny. Like, why would you think that women would get excited about seeing bras in the laundry? We see them every day, why would this one be special just because it’s not ours?

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

Errr, basically like the Guars from Morrowind. Because of the name you see.

http://images.uesp.net/2/28/MW-creature-Guar.jpg

I was thinking quadroped and sharper teeth, but same big head.

M. the Social Justice Ranger
M. the Social Justice Ranger
9 years ago

… Wait, Kirby’s younger than me? Bloody hell, I thought you were older than me (I’ll be 30 in a week, ugh). I guess without anything else to go on, I just tend to assume that mature and intelligent people are always older than me.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

Another time he tried to sockpuppet as a woman, but gave himself away when he mentioned being all excited about seeing a bra in the dorm laundry room.

Even for a straight man though…that’s pretty sad.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

25 last November!

I don’t even know what ages people are. I guess I do the same thing where I imagine everyone’s about 5-10 years older than me.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

The real GWAR are less cute, and also less hygenic. Back in the day I refused to go to their shows because no, I do not want to pay to have a band throw disgusting shit at me. The spitting water all over the front row is bad enough.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

I mean, I know people’s ages when they say them, or give hints as to generation or general demographic, but the details go in one ear and out the other.

goodrumo
9 years ago

Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

LESS hygenic? Than medieval-era fantasy pack animals? Oh my…

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Um

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

…………….

oh.

kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

Another time he tried to sockpuppet as a woman, but gave himself away when he mentioned being all excited about seeing a bra in the dorm laundry room.

That was hilarious, and one of the shortest sockpuppeting efforts ever.

Not as bizarrely amusing as some of Pell’s efforts, though. The Uncle Monty farce will live forever.

portlantonio
9 years ago

I like this lady. Definitely myopic, like one of yall said, but still really interesting.

Also wow. Long thread. All the gaming stuff was boring (and a little embarrassing), but I wasn’t very aware of feminism’s history with trans issues. Sent me on a google-spree that’s been going for hours now. Really thought-provoking, kinda sad and eye-opening.
Nothing’s ever very simple.

Tessa
Tessa
9 years ago

That was hilarious, and one of the shortest sockpuppeting efforts ever.

Not as bizarrely amusing as some of Pell’s efforts, though. The Uncle Monty farce will live forever.

Is there a time scale so I can try to find this? Or a name? That sounds hilarious, and probably less distressing than reading that Mikey guy’s stuff.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

I did like Fisto sock-puppeting as his roommate Carlos, who thought that Fisto was cool, hilarious, great with the ladies, and looked like Thor.

contrapangloss
contrapangloss
9 years ago

I didn’t read him as a troll, just a really young fool with a talent for making toe-sandwiches, my trolldar’s been on the blink ever since Tedious Tinfoil Tion the Ridiculously Racist Annoying Abnoy… It’ll be interesting to hear word of David, for sure!

Didn’t Pellet have a recent sock? I vaguely remember being underwhelmed by a sock, then folks saying that was Pell, and being kind of surprised.

First run in with Pell. Kind of a let down, it was.

contrapangloss
contrapangloss
9 years ago

There was supposed to be a but in that first sentence.

Although, autocorrect did do a fabulous job with pellet. I mean, Pell…

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

You’d think they’d at least make a bit of effort on the names. Who’s going to take a guy calling himself Fisto seriously?

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Pellet is Pell’s younger and far less entertaining brother, obviously.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

Oh, I thought that was a clever misspelling. Can we call Pell Pellet from now on, just to mess with him?

Tessa
Tessa
9 years ago

Kit Fisto was a cool Jedi guy… I’d take him seriously. There was also a Fisto on He-Man. I wouldn’t take him very seriously at all.

contrapangloss
contrapangloss
9 years ago

Yes! It’s easier than correcting autocorrect every time, too!

Please?

Jarnsaxa
Jarnsaxa
9 years ago

But at least I got to write about women in videogames in a safe space.

For what it’s worth, I think there are a lot of men out there who *are* that clueless, and that at least some of them would be horrified if they knew.

Tremble in the face of my awe-inspiring optimism. 🙂 Which I retain despite having read the entire archives of this blog.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

Fisto was the author of a featured article who graced the comment section with his presence.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/01/16/become-a-total-alpha-male-sex-god-by-spitting-in-womens-mouths/comment-page-9/

1 17 18 19 20 21 35