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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.”)

 

 

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sunnysombrera
9 years ago

Only one of the three cats gets up on my lap. Some nights when I’m still up and the landlady has gone to bed he’ll sit in front of me and look at me like a dog does when it wants something. When I make space for him on the seat next to me and pat my lap he jumps up and starts to snuggle me. It’s cute enough that I don’t mind the drooling he does when he purrs.

On another note, the intrusive stray cat problem is becoming a serious problem as he’s started to invite his friends over as well. What was one unwelcome visitor is likely to become three. And the main culprit is becoming more persistent, he’d move in if he could. Landlady is considering getting a cat flap that only opens to microchips.

Cassie's Major Domo
Cassie's Major Domo
9 years ago

Darrow will not sit on my lap. In the 8 years I’ve served him he’s sat on my lap once for about two seconds.

Cassie is the same way. Very social and affectionate cat, but won’t do the lap-sitting, no way.

However, she is an only-cat and has no cat of which to be jealous. There is the neighbor’s cat who sometimes comes to the window, whom Cassie has told in no uncertain terms to GO AWAY. She’s much more chill about the neighborhood dogs, and just loves the little girl who taps on the window every day she comes home from school to say “hi.” But other cats: NOPE NOPE NOPE MY PLACE MY HUMAN EVEN THOUGH NO LAP SIT GO AWAY OTHER KITTEHS.

Bina
Bina
9 years ago

My Sasquatch-kitty won’t sit on my lap when I’m in a chair, but when I’m down on my cot for a siesta, she’s up on my legs, usually nestled between my ankles. Eventually, once fully relaxed, she’ll stretch all the way out, and I’ll feel her hind paws on my feet, and her big front mitts on my thighs. Best sleeping buddy in the world, she is!

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

@Nequam:

Nice! That book binding looks lovely! I learned how to do a Japanese-style stitch-binding book binding when I was in college, and I’ve done a couple of books that way. It’s a very fun and soothing project.

Kind of like this, except my stitching wasn’t that fancy:
comment image

jaygee
jaygee
9 years ago

Phew, I can’t believe I made it through this comment thread. OP was interesting in reiterating that feminism helps men too (good, though not main goal) by dismantling gender roles and ideas of masculinity. I agree with someone who said pages ago that Corvoid was poorly communicating the alternatives she mentioned wasn’t necesarrily be nice to men or else but somehow supporting sexually frustrated men. Though that problem is on the men. Maybe they just need a counselor/ therapist for help, not a feminist.

The whole, intent is not magic was also a current theme in the comments. I did find GroundPetrel’s obtuseness interesting to read, wondering when he’d realize substantiating his disagreement with Sarkeesian was a separate issue to the disagreement itself. If he’s not a troll (and I guess I’m giving him the benefit of a doubt), his ban will hopefully let him better reflect.

I also enjoyed meandering through the tangents to other threads with interesting trolls. I’m relatively new here (maybe around the time of GamerGate?) and though I notice some links in the welcome package that explain some inside jokes, I wish there were a page of “classic” or especially popular blog posts.

Though not my first post, shut up Woody.

Back to lurking.

WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but AVFM is actively trying to dox a KSU faculty member in relation to the AVFM student branch on campus, KSU Men/Ven Men.

He is now offering a $100 bounty for a picture of this faculty member. What the actual eff. (The post doing so is titled “KSU feminist panic over AVfM stickers,” if anyone cares/can archive it).

I have already written the KSU department involved, letting them know about the first article, which links to the faculty member’s info.

…what, if anything, can I do to help stop this doxxing campaign?

WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

*Zen Men, not Ven Men. My typing thumbs automatically recoiled from how narcissistic the name “Zen Men” is, I guess.

Nequam
Nequam
9 years ago

Paradoxical: Japanese stab binding is pretty cool, too; I made a couple of felt needlebooks that way, and I’m thinking of making a (yes, not really legal) personal copy of Roger Zelazny’s “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai” in that style.

There’s a really funny tutorial on the basic Japanese stab binding here:
http://westdeanconservation.com/2014/10/26/intro-to-binding-japanese-stab-binding-tutorial-flexible-cover-with-three-hole-stitching/

Bina
Bina
9 years ago

I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but AVFM is actively trying to dox a KSU faculty member in relation to the AVFM student branch on campus, KSU Men/Ven Men.

He is now offering a $100 bounty for a picture of this faculty member. What the actual eff. (The post doing so is titled “KSU feminist panic over AVfM stickers,” if anyone cares/can archive it).

I have already written the KSU department involved, letting them know about the first article, which links to the faculty member’s info.

…what, if anything, can I do to help stop this doxxing campaign?

Contact the local police and FBI, as well. I don’t know what they’ll do, but with any luck it should get a ball rolling…

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

Nequam: Sweet. I’d forgotten the name. It’s cold, and the cold makes me eternally sleepy, and thus a little slow.

Off topic: I had a guy leave a comment on one of my YouTube comments (Had to have been over a month or so old), where he tried to argue with me that sexism is over in games because Portal, Metroid, and Tomb Raider.

He then posted a silly comic to counter me after I said “Yeah, those are good, but that’s still a very small amount of female lead characters.” where men stand around and rattle off names of female leads (and they also include “female options” like FemShep and one guy says “Well, create-a-character characters count too!”, which they absolutely do NOT.)

To which I named at least two male main characters for almost every series in that comic, and posted a Wikipedia link to gender studies in games.

He got sarcastic with me because I posted a Wikipedia link and didn’t say anything else.

*sigh*

At least someone else hopped in and wanted to have a discussion with me in good faith.

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

@Paradoxical

The last time I linked a #Gater to Wiki, they told me I’d “Lost” because Wiki had been bought out by the “Commufeminist NWO” and therefore I’d been “Poisoned.” Actual quote. Completely earnestly.

I probably should have taken a screencap or saved the link to that one, but I was headdesking too hard to think of it. =P

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

@M.

Ugh. I swear to every deity I hold dear that these people need a re-education on how to “debate”. A la A Clockwork Orange if I have to.

Though what really got me was that his argument was a comic. Literally a fucking COMIC drawn by someone who wanted to paint women who wanted more females in gaming as hysterical “Stop raping me!” strawomen who can’t be happy that we already have some women in games.

Ugh.

WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

Contact the local police and FBI, as well. I don’t know what they’ll do, but with any luck it should get a ball rolling…

I sent an email to campus police. I’m a little nervous to do much more–one, I am neither a student nor a resident, and two, I don’t want to end up as the next AVFM target.

Bah, it’s just so frustrating. They still harp on about “Big Red” and even reference her in one of the articles. I don’t want to see more feminists on campus subjected to the same harassment just because the AVFM campus group leader got in trouble for announcing himself as the custodian before putting AVFM stickers in a women’s restroom (it was empty, but still–what the actual hell).

This is where my ability to laugh at the idiocy of MRAs kind of fails me. It’s all well and good when they’re just acting like a bunch of jerks without a cause, but when they coordinate harassment like this it makes me so, so upset.

Bina
Bina
9 years ago

the AVFM campus group leader got in trouble for announcing himself as the custodian before putting AVFM stickers in a women’s restroom

WTactualF, indeed. And why do any of them think graffiti-ing a women’s washroom with male-supremacist propaganda should be allowed?

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

Bina

WTactualF, indeed. And why do any of them think graffiti-ing a women’s washroom with male-supremacist propaganda should be allowed?

Freeze peach?

Men are oppressed by WIMMENS’ need of separate restrooms so they can’t be harassed by men while trying to take a shit?

Because they say so?

emilygoddess - MOD
emilygoddess - MOD
9 years ago

I kinda wonder hiw Elsm handled the whole sneaking-in issue, but i’m worried that it’ll be more terrible than funny. Like “women violate men’s spaces all the time” or some shit.

archimbaldo
archimbaldo
9 years ago

Hey, Watermelon Sugar, the Packet has been sent to the woman AVFM is targeting by the Womens’ Defense Council. I see Mancheeze has an article on it, and on the vliet tiptree site she’s saying she’ll start doxxing the doxxers if cyberstalking starts to happen.

friday jones
friday jones
9 years ago

I’m over 50. Had my sex reassignment surgery in ’85. And I’d rather walk right on onto a Futurama-type suicide booth than to hear or see yet another argument like the ones Thebewilderness and Kittehserf have employed against trans women in this thread. That somehow we’re a greater threat to cis women than cis women are to us. That we’re rapey issuers of death threats.

An (alleged) Muslim did a bad thing the other week. Ethnocentric types demanded that all Muslims everywhere bear responsibility for that bad thing. Civilized people recognize that demand as racist. Yet because some (alleged) trans women have made rape and death threats on the Internet somewhere, that makes all trans women’s political movements, terms, and personal integrity suspect. We have to solve our “being murdered by cis men” problem before we’re allowed to so much as publicly acknowledge our “being publicly disrespected by cis women” problem, according to the rhetoric I’ve seen here.

I have to confess, I am disappointed in WHTM today. How depressing.

kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

Fine if you feel that way, friday jones. I’ve seen enough of what’s going on with the transgender extremists (who, btw, nobody is saying are representative of ALL trans people, any more than AVfM actually represents men as a class). But I’m sick to death of these same trans women calling lesbians transphobic for having sexual boundaries, sending rape and death threats and doxxing other trans women who don’t happen to toe the party line. This shit happens.

Puddleglum
9 years ago

And some subjects will never fucking die. *headdesk*

Look, y’all, this is a site that mocks misogyny. That’s the entire purpose of this site. Mocking. Misogyny.

That the regular commenters here are all interested in most other social justice issues is awesomesauce, but still. Not. The. Fucking. Point.

If lurkers and others need us all to walk in lock step on every single issue, you’re going to be disappointed. Seriously. If you think the refusal to walk in lock step makes us all haters, well, I’m gonna just roll my eyes and ignore you.

Puddleglum
9 years ago

That wasn’t meant for you, kittehserf!

kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

You might also be interested to know that the trans women doing this shit are overwhelmingly white, not the trans WoC, in particular those forced into survival prostitution, who are the vast majority of trans victims of male violence.

friday jones
friday jones
9 years ago

“Transgender Extremists” sounds like the same construction as “Feminist Extremists.” And yeah, I’ve lived through (as in, barely survived) the transphobia of some of the more famous of the Second Wave feminists, yet I still consider myself a Feminist. But Feminism includes attitudes such as the odious transphobia of Germaine Greer and Janice Raymund and Sheila Jeffries, And Feminism has had a checkered past with regards to minority women (Audre Lorde comes to mind as a victim of that mentality) and even Lesbian and Bisexual women (Friedan’s “Lavender Menace”).

Own that shit. Don’t pretend that it’s some rapey trans woman conspiracy to point it out, and don’t pretend that some lesbians aren’t doxxing trans women and mailing their bosses, doctors, and schools to try and scuttle their ambitions. Own your bad people, the same way you demand that we acknowledge we trans women own every MAAB person who has ever done a bad thing while wearing lingerie.

friday jones
friday jones
9 years ago

Transmisogyny IS misogyny.

kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

It was a great comment, Puddleglum, and no, I didn’t think it was aimed at me! 😀

There seems to be an assumption among some commenters that everyone on here has views that could be straight from Tumblr – liberal-feminist, your-kink-is-cool-whatever-it-involves, gender-queer-politics-is-the-best, biology-don’t-real, etc etc etc, and that there will never be pushback against that stuff, too much of which is just repackaged misogyny.

They’re wrong.

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