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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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GroundPetrel
GroundPetrel
9 years ago

What I mean is that you appear to agree that killing Brennan’s children is an appropriate response to the things Brennan says and does.

What the fuck? Where the fuck did I EVER give the implication that I think that’s OK?

You can think people are assholes without condoning other assholes’ responses to them, you know. For example, I think that Anita Sarkessian’s an arrogant fool who doesn’t know the first thing about video games, to the point that she doesn’t understand the purpose of a non-player character. I think that she talks out of her ass and plays the victim card to try to make herself seem more legitimate, which I dislike from a rhetorical standpoint.

I’m still completely disgusted by those shitheaded asswipes who say she should be shot or beaten up or whatever other bullshit they’re coming out with today, because that’s an utterly vile and reprehensible thing to do.

I think that Cathy Brennan is a hateful bigot who goes to extreme lengths to harass and attack people who are already going through a tough period (seriously, try changing which gender you present sometime; I guarantee that it’ll be stressful and society at large will be less than accepting at best). I don’t think that her children should be killed, that she should be harmed, or that her property should be damaged. I would advise a restraining order or two, but that’s it.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Thanks, Ken, for proving once again that my asshole-dar never fails.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

@cassandrakitty,

My point was merely that Margaret Corvid herself isn’t arguing that all women everywhere should have sex with some sexually frustrated man to ease his incel pain. It’s also really unfair to argue that she herself is contending that pedophilia and rape should be allowed. Her ideas on how to fight sexism are pretty myopic and hardly revolutionary (yes, feminists have been pointing out the numerous ways in which hyper-masculinity hurts men too for decades), but I’m really not seeing where she says (or even intentionally implies) that women should make themselves sexually available to all men.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

I think that she talks out of her ass and plays the victim card to try to make herself seem more legitimate

Really? You’ve noticed that she is in fact being victimized and yet you still wrote this?

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
9 years ago

@deniseliza
It isn’t that complicated. If you report that there is a brothel operating in your neighborhood and brothels are legal no one is going to go out to see if it is a legal or illegal brothel. They may or may not forward the report to whatever regulatory authority that oversees licensing.

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

*Watches in horror as it descends into a transphobic shitfest painting us as evil violent rapists*

… Alright, I might’ve missed something (keeping up with a thread this heated with a migraine is not possible), but where the HELL did that come from?

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

You can think people are assholes without condoning other assholes’ responses to them, you know. For example, I think that Anita Sarkessian’s an arrogant fool who doesn’t know the first thing about video games, to the point that she doesn’t understand the purpose of a non-player character. I think that she talks out of her ass and plays the victim card to try to make herself seem more legitimate, which I dislike from a rhetorical standpoint.

Please don’t call Anita Sarkeesian a professional victim. That’s a typical MRA by-line.

Also, as we’ve demonstrated here before, she is a real, honest-to-blog gamer. She doesn’t want to take away your games. She does understand the purpose of a non-player character; she’d just like to know why so many of them have to be women and why so many women can’t be player characters. (Well, okay, she does have theories as to why that is, but you get my point.)

Furthermore, pointing out that women who speak on the internet, especially if they’re challenging sexist tropes and narratives, often get death death and rape threats by talking about the threats that she receives on a regular basis serves a greater purpose than playing the victim and making herself seem legitimate. It calls attention to the way that women, especially those who oppose sexism, are treated on the internet.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

That’s not what I meant, alaisvex. What I’m trying to point out is that the idea that liberating men sexually is all that we need for a feminist revolution to happen is stupid, and part of the reason why it’s stupid is that not all men are nice subs or people who don’t want their sex lives to be about power relations at all who just want to be able to express themselves sexually without being judged. I’m all for encouraging men to break out of the current hetero paradigm for how sex is “supposed” to work, but the idea that that alone is going to make misogyny go away is really very silly. Men can be completely 100% happy with their sex lives and still not be pro-feminist at all.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

Also, is Anita supposed to just pipe down and take the abuse?

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
9 years ago

To continue in this fairy tale that one day the privileged will just give it all up peacefully on their own without some major awaking instigated by the oppressed is insane.

I don’t know what to say to you about this. Women have struggled for hundreds of years to make what progress we have and you dismiss us as what? Doin’ it rong?

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

And I understand your point now, Cassandra, and I agree. Apologies for misunderstanding.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
9 years ago

kitteh, Holy Monkey, I have never seen the like. I will check out more later now that I have some more search terms, thank you a million times for letting me know and for finding the link for me. I owe you huge.

M, it’s all my fault and I’m sorry I’m making your migraine worse.

WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

I sent a message to the KSU Interdisciplinary Department letting them know about the AVFM article/doxxing. Is that totally weird?

I worry for the poor people who are about to have inboxes and voiceboxes full of raged-out MRA threats. Bahhhh.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

NP, Alaisvex! I had a root canal recently and have been alternately in pain or doped up on painkillers, so I’m pretty sure I haven’t been at my most coherent.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

Ouch! Hope that the root canal pain goes away soon.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

And M’s migraine too.

alaisvex
alaisvex
9 years ago

Indeed.

Anyway, I am confused. Where did GroundPetrol imply that Cathy Brennan or her children should be killed? All that I saw was that he called her and some of her co-ideologues assholes for harassing his friend and implying that she was a rapist for being trans.

deniseeliza
deniseeliza
9 years ago

(Not meaning to be hostile, btw, it’s just that the endless debate about the issue of sex work gets wearying after a while. I’m taking a mental health break from it.)

No worries! I get it 🙂 Others seem to be interested in the conversation so I’m going to continue responding to them for a bit, but if everyone would rather not, let me know and I’ll shut up about it.

It isn’t that complicated. If you report that there is a brothel operating in your neighborhood and brothels are legal no one is going to go out to see if it is a legal or illegal brothel.

I suppose that is true, although if something is happening there that is illegal, wouldn’t it be better to report the illegal behavior and not the legal one?

I’m not trying to be a smartass, truly. I just feel strongly that harmful actions towards another (and sex trafficking is one hell of a harmful action) should be illegal and prosecuted, while people who are choosing sex work like prostitution for whatever reason should be able to go about their business under the protection of the law, like everyone else. If the police won’t investigate illegal behavior at a brothel because brothels are legal, well, the police aren’t doing a very good job (big fucking surprise). It’s like police refusing to investigate domestic violence in a same-sex marriage because same-sex marriage is legal. It’s a ridiculous thing for the police to (not) do.

Anyway, of course whenever we deal with sex work we have all this other terrible shit wrapped up in it, like a strong cultural fear of and contempt toward sex work, and hell, female sexuality in general. That results in sex work being very dangerous for the worker, and sex trafficking and sex tourism being a thing. I believe that we should prosecute sex trafficking vigorously, and prosecute violence against sex workers as well. I think we should stop wasting resources going after voluntary prostitution.

It is also worth noting that criminalization is leveraging state violence against prostitutes and their clientele, and that should also be considered when trying to keep prostitutes safe.

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

Ken L.

Why would the privileged give u there privilege on their own?

Because we’re people and deserve to be treated as such? It’s not that hard of a concept. If you were an actual feminist “ally”, you would understand why we don’t feel the need to educate everyone, especially people who refuse to be educated.

Seriously, what is with the rash of “I’m so feminist, I swear but here’s something that feminists obviously don’t agree with but I’m still feminist u guis” trolls lately?

Look at the civil rights struggle in the sixty. a large majority of northern whites, LBJ and other people in power did not give a shit about the issues until they saw the attack at Pettus bridge. They were forced by the oppress to listen. Granted their is still a shit load f racism in are country. To think that this issues is any different is ridiculous.

“I’m so feminist, look at me drop historical facts and compare you to the civil rights movement! So feminist!”

Stop trying to make it look like white people are the saviors of the civil rights movement. We white people have fucked up enough without trying to make it look like we’re heroes because we eventually started treating other people like people, as we should have been all along.

“Look, we stopped being assholes! We’re heroes!” No. Fuck you.

Stop trying to paint the oppressors like heroes for eventually being kind to those they’ve fucked over.

If the oppressed don’t do that then what changes. By default the privileged are the only one who can make change happen. To continue in this fairy tale that one day the privileged will just give it all up peacefully on their own without some major awaking instigated by the oppressed is insane.

No, we can make change happen mostly on our own, and we have. We do have allies (though I’m seriously doubting you are one), and they do help, but us going out of our way and devoting our time and energy to people who already fucking think they’re entitled to it “by default” isn’t going to help if they’re not willing to LISTEN.

To say that the ONLY people who can make change happen are those already in power is bullshit, and it completely devalues and ignores the struggles and victories that feminists have been going through over the years. You’re saying that everything feminists have done so far doesn’t fucking matter because only men can give us the rights we want. Fuck you. Your argument is another variation of “just wait, and men will give you your rights! It has to happen naturally! So just sit back and be nice until then!”

It’s essentially “Let the men give you the rights you want! Sit down and shut up and do things exactly how we want you to, and say exactly what we want you to say exactly how we want you to say it, or else we’re not going to give them to you!”. Which is bullshit. Utter. Fucking. BULLSHIT. It’s a goddamned silencing tactic. You are trying to talk over us and tone police us. Fuck you and your fake “ally” bullshit.

And while you’re at it, fuck off with your ableism. We’re not “insane” for not devoting our lives to educating people who want us under their boot-heels. We’re tired of playing nice, and we shouldn’t fucking have had to be in the first place.

weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

I really hate the phrase “victim card.” What does it even mean? It’s usually trotted out to silence someone who is being you know, victimized. It implies that being a victim is a privilege and something that marginalized people seek out. Which is complete bullshit.

GroundPetrel
GroundPetrel
9 years ago

Please don’t call Anita Sarkeesian a professional victim. That’s a typical MRA by-line.

I’m saying that she has tried to use the verifiable fact that internet shitheads are fucking with her to make her opinions somehow more valid. I’m not sure what a professional victim is, but note that I’m not in any way excusing the asinine shitheads in question for being titanic fuckheads.

Also, as we’ve demonstrated here before, she is a real, honest-to-blog gamer. She doesn’t want to take away your games. She does understand the purpose of a non-player character; she’d just like to know why so many of them have to be women and why so many women can’t be player characters. (Well, okay, she does have theories as to why that is, but you get my point.)

OK, this may be because I play MMOs and the only PC games I play are Mass Effect (FemShep is canon for me), XCOM: Enemy Unkonwn (where the soldiers can be male or female based on a RNG), and Rise of Nations (where if you can even see the citizens they’re about evenly divided male/female.

Counterexample time.

My main character in the MMO I play is female. Her crew has two women, two (gay) dudes, an indeterminately gendered alien, and a genetically-engineered supersoldier who is sort of male but biologically lacks gender.

My alt is female-ish (inherently sterile cloned living weapon who’s sort of the incarnation of black comedy), and has two male and two female supporting cast members.

My buddies play and write about 70% female characters, if you include the sexless alien who presents and identifies as male, the robot, the literal rock man, and the lizard dude whose gender doesn’t really matter in all honestly because who cares what gender a lizard is? Including their various supporting casts, it becomes closer to 50/50 unless you include Fred (not his real name) who writes mostly female characters in the main and supporting casts.

In the game itself, out of the three Captains of the player factions’ flagships, two are female and one is a sort-of-dude from a 4-gendered species. The NPC flagship Captain the player meets the most is Jarok (one of the women). In the most popular mission in the game, Koren (the other woman) is the one the player fights alongside and interacts with the most, and Shon (the dude-ish one) is the last one to show up for the epic final battle.

Also, the main Romulan villain’s boss (who is also the leader of a major galactic power) is female, the franchise the game is based on holds that about 70% of that faction’s fleet is female, the females of another faction are traditionally dominant in most aspects of life (and indeed are expected to be tougher and nastier than the males), and the best PVPer in the game (according to current stats, at least) is female.

There. Counterexample.

And no, I am not afraid that Sarkeesian wants to take away my games. I just think she’s arrogant and mildly annoying.

Kat
Kat
9 years ago

Damn, this thread is a disappointing thread. I have on occasion seen the word TERF be, in my opinion, misapplied. However I’m sorry to say that the Venn diagram of TERFs and people who think ‘TERF’ is violent/a slur/lesbophobic…well, it’s one circle.

I thought this place was better than that.

Ken L.
9 years ago

@thebewilderness

No, not at all but to say something like this “If men want to learn about feminism and the problems women face today, it’s not hard to do a simple damn Google” is stupid. What man who buys into the whole patriarchy thing would do that on their own? Not a fucking one. There faces have to be held to the flame as it were by someone.

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

alisvex

Please don’t call Anita Sarkeesian a professional victim. That’s a typical MRA by-line.

Also, as we’ve demonstrated here before, she is a real, honest-to-blog gamer. She doesn’t want to take away your games. She does understand the purpose of a non-player character; she’d just like to know why so many of them have to be women and why so many women can’t be player characters. (Well, okay, she does have theories as to why that is, but you get my point.)

Furthermore, pointing out that women who speak on the internet, especially if they’re challenging sexist tropes and narratives, often get death death and rape threats by talking about the threats that she receives on a regular basis serves a greater purpose than playing the victim and making herself seem legitimate. It calls attention to the way that women, especially those who oppose sexism, are treated on the internet.

THIS. I don’t agree with everything she has to say (Like the whole Peach-is-forever-a-damsel-in-distress thing), but she is bringing a lot of nasty stuff to light, and that’s A Very Good Thing.

She is a gamer. It doesn’t matter how long she’s played games, she’s a gamer. She’s devoted a lot of time and money to it, and I don’t think she’d have done that if she wasn’t actually into it.

And saying she’s playing the “professional victim” when she’s actually a fucking victim is low.

Ken L.
9 years ago

@thebewilderness

If that’s the position taken in by a feminist or their ally, Then I guess by default I think it being done wrong.

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