Sitting near the top of the front page of the Men’s Rights Reddit at the moment, with more than 300 upvotes: A post, based on a three and a half year old comment on a Fat Acceptance blog, with the title “Woman gains 65 pounds after getting married, forces husband to get Viagra after he is no longer attracted to her.”
Brace yourself for the HORROR of a wife who put on weight in blatant disregard of the rights of her husband’s boner.
Naturally, the Men’s Rights Redditors are OUTRAGED at this insidious assault on a man’s right to tell his wife that she’s too fat and ugly to fuck.
Here’s the top comment, with more than 100 upvotes:
The charming blueoak9 set the “ignorant sow” straight on a question of Boner Science:
Others concluded, from the fact that he agreed to try Viagra, that she was essentially drugging and raping him. No, really.
![Surprentis 50 points 4 hours ago Might as well be rape at that point. permalink embed save report give gold reply [–]ManRAh 31 points 3 hours ago She's literally drugging him so he'll have sex with her. By definition, it absolutely is.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/drugrape.png?resize=526%2C209&ssl=1)
Carchamp1 expanded on this, er, logic:
So never let it be said that Men’s Rights activists don’t take rape seriously. They take it very seriously when a man is raped by a woman by agreeing to try Viagra and then having consensual sex with her even though she’s a fatty.
@ Emmy Rae
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with the discussion myself. Either I’ve made my point or I haven’t. Some people minimize the impact that women’s verbal violence can have on men. This attitude does a lot of harm in the world. It never was about the wife’s entire personality.
/my POV 🙂
mrex:
Also a long-time sufferer of anger problems (I am much much better now) and I’m trying very hard to see where you’re coming from, but I just don’t think we’re going to see eye-to-eye on this. Like I said, I don’t think it’s useful to label every single incident of someone raising their voice as abusive behaviour. And I’m not saying this because I’ve done this in the past – I’m perfectly fine with you labeling it as abusive. But as you point out, humans do lots of negative things to each other and engaging unhealthy and unhelpful behaviours all the time. I literally can’t see how assigning all those behaviours to the category of “abusive” helps us identify root causes or furthers our understanding of how abuse dynamics works in relationships. As I understand abusive behaviour, it’s a) usually part of a pattern (i.e., behaviours that would be innocuous in isolation become red flags when they appear alongside other behaviours) and b) have a power dynamic at play (as in, one partner gradually claims the other’s power and agency through abusive tactics).
There’s a reason that alcohol is mentioned in every single rape prevention guide that’s every existed; because it’s the single most common tactic used by rapists to incapacitate their victims. It does not follow that all drunk sex is rape. Also, you’re conflating unhealthy and abusive here.
Do we? I am physically incapable of preventing myself from crying, going red and losing control over my vocal pitch when I’m in a heightened state of emotion. If there are techniques to get this under control, I’d love to know about them. My usual tactic would be to leave the room or stay silent until I have myself under control, but of course walking out on a partner while they’re trying to speak to me or refusing to answer them could also be seen as abusive. In an ideal world, we would always be exactly as calm, firm, direct, reasonable, measured as a given situation demands and I think that’s something we should aspire to in our relationships, but we’re not robots and I’m not sure who it’s helping to be like “aha! abusive behaviour!” every time someone slips up. And yes, I’m aware that abusers frequently use “I lost control/I was over-emotional/You just upset me so much!” as a cover for their behaviour, which is fucked up and totally unacceptable. But that doesn’t change the fact that much of human behaviour is a direct function of our emotions. Emotions and rational choice don’t exist in vacuums entirely independently of each other.
@mrex and @Emmy Rae, oops, I’m sorry, I posted a monster comment and then saw that general consensus was to let it go! My apologies.
Mrex, I completely agree that women are capable of committing verbal violence towards men and this is a thing that should be minimized by society. That much we definitely agree on.
ff, *a thing that should NOT be minimized by society. OK, too much thinking, I am done!
Yeah, there’s some serious longstanding double standard bullshit going on there. I think it’s changing some, though. The idea that women are mostly into emotional connection or money/power made sense in a world where women had to go through men to get basically anything, but in a world where women have gained at least SOME control of their own destinies… it makes perfect sense to me that male beauty would start making its way up the list of priorities.
MRAs and other assorted cranky pants traditionalists don’t like it and paint it as “shallow” since they think the aforementioned society was a desirable state of nature…
but I think it’s a pretty great development for people who actually like sex. ha.
Plus, a little taste of how much energy it takes up to continually meet someone else’s “reasonable, minimal!” physical standards is good for the gander, imo. It is certainly not effortless.
It *is* nice to have some men finally realizing what beauty standards are, and how frustrating it is to try to always meet them (or be expected to). I’d prefer a shift to body acceptance for everyone, so the standards go out the window…but, baby steps.
Unfortunately, you have these ass clowns (MRA types) that are always going to hold onto the idea that women have to maintain “hot babe” status, but they can be disgusting slobs if they choose and not only should said women not have a problem with it, they should jump eagerly onto their boners!
ceebarks:
This reminds me of the “secret uggo” post from a while ago where all the misters were shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, to discover that things like make-up and form-fitting clothes actually have significant appearance-enhancing properties! So they were angry about being “deceived”, but then also angry that the vast majority of women are “secret uggos” because we have things like pores, which become visible once our deceptive slutty make-up masks are stripped away. Another classic case of Women Can’t Win™
These days, whenever a man tells me that he prefers “natural beauty”, I hear “I would prefer if you could just tumble out of bed looking like a photoshopped supermodel, because watching you faff around with mascara and hair treatments and control tights kind of ruins the illusion for me.”
Thanks for agreeing to move on, y’all.
One thing I am weirdly intrigued by is men who absolutely will not wear pink, shorts of any more or less than x number of centimeters from their knees, shoes that are at all interesting, clothing that isn’t navy/gray/black etc. Men who are dress aggressively plainly who also see women as obsessed with their appearance. Like do you not realize how much time you put into your boring outfits? I have a few friends like that and it makes me laugh/cry.
@tinyorc “And yes, I’m aware that abusers frequently use “I lost control/I was over-emotional/You just upset me so much!” as a cover for their behaviour, which is fucked up and totally unacceptable. But that doesn’t change the fact that much of human behaviour is a direct function of our emotions. Emotions and rational choice don’t exist in vacuums entirely independently of each other.”
Oh I agree that emotions and rational choice don’t exist in vacuums entirely independent of each other; but a lot of evil is done in this world based on strong emotion as well. 🙂 Very few people in jail; very few serial killers, or tyrants, or rapists, or abusers, committed their crimes in the absence of one strong emotion or another, whether that emotion was anger, or fear, or pride, or greed, or whatever. Emotion is the human condition. 🙂
But your points are taken. 🙂 I’m responding because I wanted to respond to this;
“Do we? I am physically incapable of preventing myself from crying, going red and losing control over my vocal pitch when I’m in a heightened state of emotion. If there are techniques to get this under control, I’d love to know about them. My usual tactic would be to leave the room or stay silent until I have myself under control, but of course walking out on a partner while they’re trying to speak to me or refusing to answer them could also be seen as abusive.”
Yeah, sounds like maybe you’re Flooding ? When you get like this, leaving is exactly what you should do, and there is NOTHING abusive about saying “I need some time to think, let’s continue this discussion in an hour?”
Interestingly, all things held equal, men emotionally flood easier and faster than women. Neurobiological differences, maybe?
@tinyorc
“These days, whenever a man tells me that he prefers “natural beauty”, I hear ‘I would prefer if you could just tumble out of bed looking like a photoshopped supermodel, because watching you faff around with mascara and hair treatments and control tights kind of ruins the illusion for me.’ ”
LOL. So true! 🙂
seriously!
When I was 19 or so I worked with a guy who was like the definition of the creepy old dude, for so many reasons. I guess he was in his early forties at the time.
He got to talking about how he hated women who wore makeup and was like “look at you! you never wear makeup and you look fine! They all should just be natural. I don’t like all this fake stuff, who do they think they’re fooling?!” ‘course, I was sitting there wearing a full face of foundation, concealer, blush, and mascara. Probably a bit of sheer powder, too. And an expensive professionally-done hairstyle.
Don’t get me wrong, was kind of flattered that the application was good enough that this crusty ol’ makeup-hater evidently didn’t notice it was on day in and day out: that’s largely the point of office-appropriate daytime makeup.
but yeah, if your idea of the “natural look” for women-in-general is… a 19 year old wearing a full face of makeup… I don’t even know what to say except…
wow, they think WE are unrealistic?! ha!
Ha, my sister and I never wear makeup. Every once in a while her fiance does her makeup and everyone oohs and ahhs. But usually, when we are both barefaced, NO ONE says how nice we look. People who “love the natural look” or whatever are not impressed by my natural look.
@tinyorc
QFT
@mrex: Your points are also taken and thanks for pointing me towards flooding, I had never heard of it before.
Emmy Rae:
I also have a story about this! I worked in a shoe shop for years and the main brand we sold was Birkenstock. For those who aren’t familiar, Birkenstocks are ergonomic German sandals with a bit of a cult following, so the shop had weird amount of regulars with lots of opinions on the shoes. Anyway, there was one older man who used to always come in and complain (good-naturedly, generally) about the fact that women’s wall was a blazing rainbow of colours and patterns and the men’s wall was black, grey and brown and how you ladies get all the fun with colours and us poor deprived blokes never get a look in, blah etc.
Then one day we got the new catalogue in and I saw that there was a red men’s sandal available as a standard product. So next time this regular came in, I showed him the catalogue and explained that we could order it in for him at no extra cost if he was interested. We had the same colour in one of the women’s sandals, so I showed it to him so he could get an idea. He squinted at it for a second, screwed up his nose and said “Jesus… I mean, it’s very red.”
After he left, my boss stuck his head of the stock room and proclaimed solemnly, “And that is why we only stock men’s shoes in brown, black and grey.”
@ tinyorc
He, do you have the “Never brown in town” rule where you are? (More of a social convention obviously).
In the Guards (a military unit over here) the rule is that you can’t even wear brown shoes East of Ascot.
See also men who are only attracted to very thin women but want women who eat burgers and steaks, drink lots of beer and don’t worry about their weight.
Yes, there are naturally skinny women who eat a ton and don’t gain weight, but they are a small portion of the population after the age of 25 or so. Are men really so clueless that they don’t realize that for most women thinness requires work, sometimes to a disordered extent? Apparently, yes.
Blech. Don’t get me started on what men “expect” of women without realizing what that means or how unrealistic it may be. Also, when someone you’re with isn’t able to “roll with the punches”, as in, take some temporary or maybe even permanent changes to your appearance or personality when they are beyond your control is quite sad. Yes, there are exceptions. But as an example, I had to take a medication once that I knew would have some serious side effects…but decided to try it for 2 weeks as a compromise. My bf at the time made sure I knew what a depressed bitch the meds had turned me into and that he couldn’t stand it. Being supportive wasn’t in his vocab, though. Needless to say, the med didn’t even work so I stopped it.
In regards to men’s clothing, I find it absolutely abyssal how little choice is generally available to them. Mr Ghostbird hates it too, and generally buys clothes that favor a more elegant, interesting style; recently he acquired a Victorian-style red brocade waistcoat and several nicely cut linen shirts, all of which make me drool when he wears them. But in so doing, people constantly question his sexual preferences and have even quietly asked me why I’m acting as his ‘beard’! It’s absolutely absurd how rigidly men must dress lest someone think they’re – gasp! Horror of horrors! – gaaaaaay.
@GhostBird
his “beard”? Wth does that even mean? Ugh. His garments sound magnificent!
@because reasons
“Beard” means “Gay but dating/married to a partner of the opposite sex to look straight,” generally applied to men. I know a few people who’ve been taking it back, using it as a silly self-deprecating joke, but nine times out of ten it’s just pretty damn homophobic.
@tinyorc No problem, glad I can help. 🙂
Knowing about flooding has helped me avoid doing or saying things that I may later regret and also helped me to spot times where maybe I should take a break because my discussion partner themself is getting overwhelmed. It’s tough, because my emotional makeup tends to be more fight and less flight, but knowing that 90% of success is not setting myself up for failure helps. Anyway, I still suck. 🙁
I’m loving the stories about appearance and gender. I don’t know how you guys feel about the book, but maybe this Gone Girl quote is in order?
“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.
Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl”
Beard = woman an in the closet gay man marries so he can pretend to be straight. Yes it’s an absurd, stupid as hell concept.
And yeah, without bragging too much I must say that Mr Ghostbird is quite the handsome fellow. He might not be everyone’s cup of tea (he’s skinny as a rail) but to me he has no equal.
*”Has a beard,” rather. Changed tack halfway though and forgot to edit the start of the sentence. =P
Where I’m at, guys have the least choices in tops, but the most choices in jeans. It is odd.
I buy all of my “doing things jeans” off the guy racks, because I know my measurements (so it’s WAY faster than hunting through girl pants) and because guy jeans are actually denim and not the soft stretchy pseudo-denim that’s so popular with women’s jeans right now (and that I wear out in no time flat).
Oh my, I hadn’t heard that before! I’ve been called a “f*g h*g” before though, which sounds similar. I know this *does* happen- men pretending to be straight for various reasons, but for someone to assume that without knowing you, based on what your hubby was wearing? Don’t people have more important things to do?