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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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kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@Jennifer:

I’m so sorry for the massive ninja attack you’ve just experienced. 😛

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

Kirbywarp

What games do you play? I’m calling you on the “no sexism” thing.

I second this.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

@ Jennifer

The thing is, OK, there are women who you think are being assholes to trans people, and then there are men who murder trans people with alarming frequency. Can you see why seeing tons of people arguing that the women who they think are being assholes are the greatest threat to trans people (as opposed to the men who keep murdering them) would raise some skeptical eyebrows?

contrapangloss
9 years ago

GroundPetrel:

Can you please knock it off? Did Anita steal a piece of your 5000 piece puzzle and hide it, or something?

I really don’t get why you’re having such a problem with what boils down to:

“Hey, games sometimes have sexist tropes. It’s okay to like problematic media, but can we maybe just think about this, a little, before we go back to driving our white baby grand pianos around in grand theft auto?

Oh, and maybe we could try making a few more games without some of these? KThanksBye!”

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@nequam:

That was an amazing distraction, thanks! There’s a certain gravitas and solemnity in his performance that I don’t think I’ve ever seen matched.

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

@contrapangloss:

But, Anita’s talking about how terrible people have been to her! It’s obviously to make her stance of “Let’s examine games and how they portray women sometimes in very sexist ways, but it’s okay that you still like them” more legitimate!

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

On this Petral dude, I can’t tell if he’s trolling or just not mature enough to recognize how consistently obnoxious his behavior has been so far, but either way, the behavior isn’t cool. Either learn how to engage in a manner that doesn’t piss everyone else off or go away, that’s how internet communities work.

(Again, jaw and head hurting, not feeling patient enough to sugarcoat things right now.)

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

“I’m just saying Anita is an ignorant asshole who knows nothing of videogames! Why are you getting all mad at me?”

*he says to a group of people who think Anita is neither ignorant, asshole, nor unknowledgable*

GroundPetrel
GroundPetrel
9 years ago

OK, from now on I’m never using an example again.

Seriously, I imply that one person isn’t a perfect shining pillar of light–even though I recognize and acknowledge that she’s had some truly epic shitty behavior aimed at her, and I make it clear that I am DISGUSTED by said behavior–and everyone treats me like I just walked in from RSHD’s little cuddlepile of hate or something.

In my experience of video games, nothing has held up to Anita Sarkeesian’s ideas of some big sexist undercurrent to the genre. OK, there are skimpy outfits in fantasy MMOs…but the sum total of male options in those games are almost always “Beef Chesty” or “Wolf with a bit of dude”. OK, you sometimes have to rescue female characters…but you have to rescue dudes, too! And it’s always portrayed the same damn way whether the character to be rescued is male or not!

All I’m saying is that one person who people either treat as scum because they’re assholes or put on a pedestal because she’s a feminist icon or something is neither scum nor a perfect savior. She’s a mildly annoying person with a misguided obsession who’s been flamed and harassed by a pack of abusive assholes.

And I’m not suggesting that she’s equal to the assholes. I just say that I think she’s arrogant and her opinions are sometimes nonsensical.

The assholes are just nasty shits, and you get them everywhere. Like I said, the best PVPer on my server is female, and she gets the same sexist shit all the time.

I think it’s a good thing that Sarkeesian’s dragged the sexist assholes out of server chat logs that my buddies share and laugh about (seriously, nothing funnier than a self-obsessed asshole QQing about being beaten by a woman in one alpha strike) and into the public eye. That’s commendable. But the assholes who lurk in video game cesspools aren’t the same as the devs who make video games. The company that makes my MMO? The lead story writer and community manager are female. The lead story writer’s been with the company since the start, and is probably the third-most-loved dev after the chief artist and the former community manager.

I’m not denying that there are plenty of assholes who play video games; I’ve run into people like that, I’ve told them where they can stuff it, I’ve watched my aforementioned elite PVPer friend ROFLstomp them with a single alpha strike, I’ve watched them use every slur they can get past the chat monitor (and Star Trek Online’s chat monitor is a very profoundly heavy-handed one, so most people just turn the thing off).

I just don’t think that video games are inherently sexist or that they are regularly made with sexism inherent in them. And when Anita Sarkeesian pulls out stuff like her complaints about Princess Peach, I find it profoundly arrogant and misguided.

I’m not in any fucking way denying that a fuckton of shitheads exist, are shitty, and were shitty in public to Anita Sarkeesian, who did not deserve the abuse she got in any way. I’m simply saying that I think she’s wrong and that people unjustly beatify her opinions, and I don’t like that.

God damn it, I didn’t even want to get into this debate! I pulled out one example of someone I don’t particularly think of who’s experienced massive amounts of abuse, and I get compared to the assholes who I explicitly stated I find incredibly reprehensible for the abuse that they have engaged in.

Ken L.
9 years ago

@weirwoodtreehugger

I view things differently. the whole point of the march in Selma for example was to go right to the enemy and make them see. And barring that to make the people who didn’t care see. you can’t read my mind, or know why I feel strongly about this. Call me Asshole or a jerk or just wrong that more then fine. But why did you going to I must be mansplaing, The reason I feel this way as nothing to do with male or female or trans or whatever.

Lady Mondegreen
9 years ago

I disagree with Corvid here:

But we must also end the debate between moralists and libertines in our ranks for an essential strategic reason. If feminists do not abandon their moralism, men’s rights activists and their growing penumbra of supporters will continue to paint us all with the same brush. They will continue to distort our views, telling their audience that we are all moralists, and channeling the frustration of men towards their hateful ends.

I don’t like her simplistic labeling of the two camps she’s discussing “moralists” and “libertines,” but let that pass.

More important, I think, is that she doesn’t realize that she’s simply got it all wrong. Most MRAs hate any hint of “libertine” female sexual agency. They’re agin it. They may think sexual freedom is fine for themselves, but they don’t approve of it for women.

MRA whining and their paeans to the good ol’ days reveal that they really long for–and go to great lengths to rationalize–a world in which women aren’t sexually free enough to reject THEM.

ParadoxicalIntention
9 years ago

@nequam:

Holy shit, I was having flashbacks to my childhood watching Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry. Bless your face for posting that.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@cassandarkitty:

I’m going with the second.

And hope your jar gets well quickly! I’ve been sick, but at least I haven’t had to deal with much pain. (Oh, speaking of which, turns out I had the startings of strep along with the flu! Hooray! Got more meds, luckily everything’s clearing up nicely)

hellkell
hellkell
9 years ago

Also, as I’ve said, the games I play show know signs whatsoever of sexism–and again, I play these games with people including an asexual woman, a genderfluid person who is sort of between male and female, a bisexual woman, a bi dude, a gay dude, and another het guy. We’re not really a bigoted bunch.

Well, have yourself a fucking cookie.

No one curr.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Feminists have been taking the fight directly to the enemy since suffragettes were throwing themselves in front of horses and going on hunger strike in prison, you clueless asshole.

WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

GroundPetrel, bro. If you have never encountered sexism in games, I think you are the one who doesn’t know a much about games.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

So basically feminists must end (imaginary, simplistic) fight between moralists and libertines by the moralists shutting up and letting the libertines run the show? Wow, she’s deep, what a profound and not at all self serving way to approach the issue of disagreement between ideological allies.

hellkell
hellkell
9 years ago

Haven’t we had this convo with Ken before? Someone’s refusing to learn.

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

Oh Christ, Petrel is a #Gater. Fuck it, I’m going to bed before I puke on his feet.

hellkell
hellkell
9 years ago

But we must also end the debate between moralists and libertines in our ranks for an essential strategic reason. If feminists do not abandon their moralism, men’s rights activists and their growing penumbra of supporters will continue to paint us all with the same brush

Ha, no. We do not all need to be the Cool Girl to get the sexists to like us. They never did and they never will.

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
9 years ago

GroundPetrel, the primary rule when you are standing in a conversational hole of your own digging is stop effing digging.
We can scroll up and read what you said over and over again and so can you.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

GroundPetrel, I mean this in absolutely the nicest way possible.

Grow the fuck up, sit the fuck down, and examine yourself for one fucking second.

Seriously, I imply that one person isn’t a perfect shining pillar of light–even though I recognize and acknowledge that she’s had some truly epic shitty behavior aimed at her, and I make it clear that I am DISGUSTED by said behavior–and everyone treats me like I just walked in from RSHD’s little cuddlepile of hate or something.

You’re minimizing the hell out of what you said and deflecting. We can handle Anita not being considered Mother Mary incarnate, and we’re not upset with you for thinking that the shitty harassment she’s received has been shitty.

If you have to, re-read the conversation. Every time you’ve mentioned Anita it’s been alongside some invective against her, repeating talking points that have been constantly used by the harassers whose behavior you hate so much.

I’ll address your particular beef with Anita in another comment. For this one, I’ll just end by telling you again to grow the fuck up, sit the fuck down, and examine yourself for one fucking second. By misrepresenting what people are saying to you (nobody is “beaitfying” Anita here, come the fuck on), you’re making things a ton worse for yourself.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Eh, go ahead and puke on his feet first, then go to bed.

(Hope you feel better!)

GroundPetrel
GroundPetrel
9 years ago

Feminists have been taking the fight directly to the enemy since suffragettes were throwing themselves in front of horses and going on hunger strike in prison, you clueless asshole.

And where the fucking fuck did I say that was untrue or wrong?

There’s a difference between taking the fight to shitheads and equating those shitheads with the people whose product they consume!

There are asshole consumers everywhere. Video games are no exception. I’m just saying that there is no reason to believe that video game creators and their products are somehow inherently sexist.

And again, I’m not some nut job who thinks that Anita Sarkeesian just crawled out of the deepest pits of Hell. I think she’s a generally decent if mildly irritating person who’s doing a good thing in a way that I disapprove of.

If you’re going to call out shitheads in video games, just gank ’em in PVP and post the chatlogs of their rants. Or take videos of said chatlogs. That way provides amusement for others as well as exposing asinine behavior.

I think that the whole gamergate pile of shit is a bunch of assholes like the ones who annoy my buddies in our game being assholes over the Internet. Plenty of MRAs play video games, we run into the shitheads all the time (and they usually can’t build a starship worth beans, so even I, the healer, can solo them), but that doesn’t mean that video games themselves are sexist.

(note: I’m not talking about Grand Theft Auto or those terrible browser games that you see advertised in banner ads on certain websites all the time; those really are sexist and disgusting. I’m saying that Sarkeesian takes it way too far)

Ken L.
9 years ago

@ Cassandra
Yeah, your right but they but for everyone of them there is two of you. Who won’t do more then be a asshole on the internet. Your attitude of “It’s not the oppressed job” is just like a right to work person, you want all the benefits of the union but won’t stand on the picket line, You pious coward.

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