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.
I almost never post but I have to delurk for a bit.
Before reading this thread I’ve just finished reading this:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/church-treasurer-murdered-his-wife-because-she-wouldnt-meet-his-sexual-demands-court-hears/
Why do I have the feeling that those same MRA who blame and hate the “ignorant sow” will (if they read about the linked case) also blame and hate the murdered wife?
@ceebarks feel like “exploding” is definitely understandable, but it’s not a good way to move the communication forward, if that’s what they want to do. it just leads to more pretending and avoidance and walking on eggshells and ultimately… it really sucks. I have a lot of those stick-head-in-sand tendencies myself, so it’s like, by the time I am so fed up that I can’t stand another minute of pretending everything is fine, it all comes out in a torrent of verbal rage that is pretty hard on my husband, who’s a fairly sensitive guy with some longstanding conflict-avoidance issues of his own, lol. The stuff I was so frustrated about may be reasonable, but the way I go about expressing it isn’t, necessarily.
Yeah, I’ve been there, done that. Here’s the thing; raging at someone, in particular until the feel that they’re walking around on eggshells, is verbal abuse. Let’s not weasel word our way around it and pretend that it’s anything less. I’ve had to own up to this shit myself.
Some questions, for people who think this was “just working on the marriage”;
1. Why are we assuming how the husband felt? Maybe he felt coerced. Maybe he didn’t. We don’t know; because he never told us how he felt .
2. Why does society have such a double standard when it comes to women verbally abusing men? Let’s face it, any husband who “exploded” on his wife when she told him why she didn’t want sex would (rightfully) be called on his shit, no matter how understandable his pain and anger was!
3. Why does society assume that female anger is inherently less coercive, manipulative, intimidating, guilt producing, shaming, and harmful than male anger is? Angry women may be shamed as harpies, but they’re ultimately viewed as harmless annoyances, and men who are influences by them are “weak”. Not so. Not so. Men are just as influenced by their SO’s anger as women are.
“Why does society assume that female anger is inherently less….”
Because for a variety of reasons it’s less likely to have any serious, and particularly, violent consequences.
I think if someone’s been suffering from an ED or cancer, or etc, then they seriously need more professional, personalized help than is possible on an internet forum.
On a relationship level, a person just can’t have major stuff like that going on, keep their partner in the dark for years, try on a new kind of self-prescribed therapy– while continuing to keep the partner in the dark– and then blow up when they respond to noticeable, unexplained change with anything less than total assurance of desirability and eternal devotion.
I mean, one CAN try that, but results will probably be disappointing.
I’m not going to say I’ve never tried anything similarly wacky, which is why I’m like, yeah, that’s… ah, probably not gonna work. lol And yes, it’s awfully hard on the relationship and is just a shitty thing to do, if that’s what’s going on here.
To me, the husband sounds like he calmed himself down in the face of some uncomfortable feelings, laid his cards on the table… and she got mad about what was in his hand like that was really gonna change it, instead of calming herself down and putting her cards down, too.
@mrex – you are *extrapolating a woman’s entire personality and routine behaviour based on one verb choice*. How can you call anyone else out on assuming how the husband felt while you’re doing that?
This brought up some really emotional internal conflicts for me, but I must say I kind of side with Cyberwulf and Emmy Rae. We really do not know what’s going on here, but some of what is being foisted on the comment really rubs me the wrong way. In my case, I have experienced highs and lows of weight. I lost a lot when I was in college due to stress, toxic attitudes about my body, and not having a lot of money for food. It was decidedly disordered eating, and I was miserable about it, whether I’d admit it or not. Then, after college, I gained a fair bit of weight from learning to cook/not moving around much. And I received a lot of personal criticism about it from my family, didn’t fit my clothes well, and was miserable about it. Then I got a fairly physical job that allowed me to lose a good bit of weight, but I’ve refused to let my food habits return to what they were before. I feel infinitely better for it. Now in the midst of all this, Mr Ghostbird continued to find me attractive, but if he had done what the woman in the comment’s had, I would be hurt and I would be angry. Not because I wasn’t being given the sex I thought I ‘deserved’ but because the relationship I considered to be happy and stable apparently had a clause, heretofore unmentioned, that I must maintain a certain weight, even if I hated it. And I might ‘explode’, not in cruelty or to coerce sex, but because to hear something like that when you are emotionally vulnerable can provoke reactions that aren’t productive.
Also, in regards to sex making a relationship, for some people it can be a deal breaker one way or the other. My libido runs extremely hot, and in the event (gods forbid) that Mr Ghostbird straight up ceased to be attracted to me, while I would definitely work to rekindle what we had, eventually being physically rejected would probably lead to the relationship ending. And while there’s no way to force someone to be attracted to someone else, it’s not beholden upon the party who has ceased to be attractive/has the higher libido/whatever to maintain that bond at the expense of themselves.
And I’m rambling, but I can’t help but feel there’s some really unsettling and toxic judgment going on and it raises my hackles.
@cyberwulf; I’m not making guesses on her personality, I’m gauging the likelihood of a particular behavior being a pattern based on her lack of remorse/insight for that particular behavior. If I came on here and unapologetically spoke about a behavior that I CHOSE, it would be fair to assume that I’ve made that same choice in the past. It’s not like being angry in marriage is a rarity. Husbands are pretty infuriating. 😉
Anyway, you missed the point that my comment on men loosing trust based on “exploding” was said as a bit tongue in cheek. It can happen, I wasn’t being specific to this case. Regardless, my point stands; people change in relationships, and sexual desire can evolve, if there’s not something else deeper going on.
Correlation does not equal causation. It’s easy to blame the symptoms that are hanging out on the surface, rather than looking deeper.
@ceebarks – and why are you assuming that this woman had an actual eating disorder that she (selfishly?) didn’t discuss with her husband? Why are you assuming she hid the fact that she stopped going to the gym so often from him? Maybe he liked having her home more, it just never occurred to him that that and her changing shape were connected.
mrex:
Probably because in the majority of societies for almost the entirety of human history, angry women were a harmless annoyance, because female anger directed towards men didn’t have any real consequences for men. Anger only works as a tool of coercion or intimidation if it has power behind it. That’s why the idea of your boss yelling at you is terrifying, but the idea of the intern yelling at you is absurd and kind of sad.
Wait, are you saying I’m verbally abusive?
@mrex – “I’m not making guesses on her personality, I’m gauging the likelihood of a particular behavior being a pattern based on her lack of remorse/insight for that particular behavior.”
Yeah, you are. Because she didn’t follow up with “then I cried and grovelled and gave him a nice blow job to show him how sorry I was for exploding at him like an irrational fat bitch”, you’re assuming she has no remorse or insight into her feelings.
@Ghostbird – ” Now in the midst of all this, Mr Ghostbird continued to find me attractive, but if he had done what the woman in the comment’s had, I would be hurt and I would be angry. Not because I wasn’t being given the sex I thought I ‘deserved’ but because the relationship I considered to be happy and stable apparently had a clause, heretofore unmentioned, that I must maintain a certain weight, even if I hated it.”
Agreed. Seems, too, like a lot of commenters here don’t realise or don’t want to understand that for many people “I don’t want to have sex with you any more, Life Partner” might as well be “I don’t love you any more, Life Partner.” And if the reason for the loss of libido is Life Partner’s weight gain, then that can also sound like “You did this to yourself. You made yourself unloveable because you’re gluttonous and intemperate, and those are sinful things and you are a Bad Person.”
@cyberwulf; In other words, I feel comfortable calling her out because I have her words, direct from the source. I don’t have his words, or even the wife’s assumptions of how he felt. It’s all compete conjecture.
@cyberwulf Now you’re being completely rediculous. People admit to making mistakes all the time without crying, groveling, or giving (unwanted) blowjobs. They say something like, “I know my behavior was wrong, or unhelpful, or whatever, but I was hurt and I flipped out”. 9_9
@mrex – and you’re still assuming that because the woman explicitly didn’t say “I know that was wrong” that she feels no shame or remorse and routinely flips out on her husband. That’s messed up.
Obviously, everyone has their own opinions/values when it comes to relationships so I’m not going to judge someone for feeling how they do (in regards to your personal life). I will say that, having been in an abusive relationship where I was punished for being heavy and rewarded for unhealthily losing weight, it is humiliating, disrespectful, shallow, and cruel for a SO to base his/her treatment of you on weight. You know what won’t help a person through a tough time? Distancing yourself from them or worse, berating them. In fact, it will likely cause them to gain more weight from the stress and comfort eating (this is from my own experiences). You have a problem with getting aroused because I’ve gained weight? Well, be an adult and discuss it with me before it gets to the point of just ignoring me all together or maybe even hurling insults at me. Then support me and help me through whatever stress is causing my weight gain (because it didn’t just happen overnight). Support and love can work wonders, as can therapy and medical intervention (if needed).
As for the MRA chant of “neglect rape” or whatever other horrible language they have adopted to describe a guy asking his MD for viagra…nope. First, there is nothing wrong with getting some help if you’re having arousal/libido issues. Second, there is nothing wrong with a partner being distressed when the relationship goes from regular sex to no sex, with no indication of why and no discussion or explanation, as most people would be worried about the drop-off. I’ve been in this situation myself and it is frustrating and lonely. It makes you wonder if they have a medical problem, are cheating, are not attracted to you and why, or if they’re just tired of the relationship all together- and when they won’t discuss it with you for months (when you’ve tried to do just that) and finally give you some half-answer it just makes you angry and exhausted and depressed. Third, rape is about power/control and not someone wanting to hold onto the intimacy and sexuality in their relationship and suggesting medical intervention to achieve that.Now, if the wife slipped a viagra into his drink and then forced him into having sex, that would be rape.
Sorry for the mini-teal deer.
@Jimmy — she looks so happy, fun, and a little goofy, maybe? I’d hug her too, and my tastes also run to men.
As far as the original letter goes, I can tell y’all that the people I know and love (whether as friends or lovers) are the most beautiful people in the world (to me, even if the world in general can’t see it for some of them), and it doesn’t matter what life does to their outsides. And so, I would be devastated were any of them to think less of me due to my looks/weight/outer shell. The important part of me is the inside part.
GhostBird:
Exactly. Mrex, I’m sort of baffled by your running assumption that anger is fundamentally coercive and/or manipulative unless explicitly stated otherwise (or unless followed up sufficient grovelling?). Couples fight. People raise their voices and lose their tempers and say nasty things they don’t mean. It’s not good or admirable behaviour, but it’s also not automatically abusive. This lady could well have been an asshole to her husband in the moment she found he no longer wants to sleep with her because she’s too fat for him now, but you’re reading a whole pattern of abuse into a single verb choice and the absence of further elaboration on that verb choice.
@Ghost Bird Thank you, well put and I agree.
@Cyberwulf I also agree with you.
Re: women’s anger=/=men’s anger
I think women’s anger is not socially acceptable because we’re stereotyped/expected into being pretty, feminine, fragile, quiet, cheery, congenial hostesses. Men are stereotyped/expected to be macho, strong, loud, rambunctious balls of testosterone. When a woman gets angry and vocalizes it, it’s scary, off-putting, unexpected and/or intimidating to people, especially men. And I mean when she feels angry and expresses it…NOT she gets into a rage and turns into a verbally abusive monster, because that’s not ok for anyone. I have been in several situations where I was angry for good reasons, but when I voiced it I was told to “calm down” or that it wasn’t a “big deal”. I had to gently remind those folks that anger is a valid emotion, just like sadness, embarrassment, or joy and expressing it is OK.
Just my 2 cents
Also re: female anger!
Female anger is frequently characterized as hysteria or “overreacting”, and so often doesn’t even register as anger in the way male anger does. Typically female indicators of anger (such as the voice getting shriller) are portrayed as ridiculous and definitely not intimidating. These tropes definitely spillover into the individual dynamics of heterosexual relationships. Classic example of this is that girlfriends who get angry a lot are described as “crazy” instead of angry. Women are also patronized for their anger far more than men. If you’re a man who’s used to seeing society reacting to angry women with scorn and ridicule, it’s likely you’re going to absorb that and bring it to bear in your relationship if your girlfriend starts yelling at you.
Um, so, yes, being told by one’s partner that partner no longer finds you physically attractive is hurtful, and it’s completely understandable that someone would react with anger, sorrow, pain, all kinds of emotions. And, no, how much she weighed then and how much she weighs now is nobody’s business and completely irrelevant. And, no, she shouldn’t have to make herself miserable trying to maintain a specific weight in order to be “worthy” of love and lust.
But, this a relationship in which one person has to take a prescription drug in order to have sex with the other person, because they’re no longer physically attracted to that person. No, that’s not rape. But it’s not right or healthy, either. Even if this is completely the husband’s idea, it’s basically him still trying to force sexual attraction. And she deserves someone who doesn’t have to take a pill in order to have sex with her. Therapy to work on their issues, foster healthy communication, and figure out what they both want out of the marriage and if they even still want to be in the marriage? Yeah, go for it. Just, the whole “he’s taking a prescription drug to ensure arousal because he doesn’t find me sexually attractive anymore” squicks me out on several levels.
@tinyorc Good point! I hate the patronization.
@Fred_the_Dog and @Sparky Right on!
I’m not assuming she did or didn’t: this is in response to Emmy Rae’s post about EDs, the idea that the HAES approach is ED treatment. (?) I’m assuming he didn’t know about anything relating to HAES because she makes no mention of any previous discussion between them on the topic. Which is totally her choice to make: she owes him no explanations about her body.
I just think making major personal changes and expecting one’s partner to person to be onboard even if they have no idea what’s going on or why, and then getting mad when that doesn’t pan out, is not a good idea.
Well, I can see how a person would feel that way. I’m just like, how the heck are people supposed to force themselves to be convincingly sexual with someone they no longer feel sexual about, esp. when the person pestering you for sex won’t make an effort to meet you at LEAST halfway on the attraction front? That’s not a bucket of joy either. “Hey! You! Partner! Why aren’t we having sex? I know you said you’d be a lot more interested again if I did this thing I used to do back when you weren’t locked in… but, yeah, I am not doing that, and you are A Bad and Shallow Person for bringing it up anyway. You’re contractually obligated! My whole ego rides on this!!!!”
*cue embarrassing, agonizing, prolonged relationship death spiral*
^^why I believe in relationship euthanasia
@Sparky
In theory I agree fully with you. But there’s still a lot of supposition going on. We don’t know if the drug in question actually is Viagra, we don’t know if she pushed the idea or he proposed it, and we don’t know that he followed through with it. And to the best of my knowledge, Viagra isn’t just something you can get OTC, so he’d have to explain the issue to a doctor, and any doctor worth their salt is going to raise an eyebrow at such reasoning. The fact is, he may have genuinely wanted to make her feel better and said he’d take….whatever….to try to ‘solve’ the problem without thinking too deeply about the implications. Or he may have just rolled his eyes and said he’d do it to make her shut up. Or, yes, she might have bullied him into it. But we straight up don’t know.
Priest: Do you take this woman to love and honor, in sickness and health, til death or fattiness do you part?
Man: I do
Woman: *turns and runs*
I second the “it’s okay and normal to be angry with your spouse.” It’s how you express it that matters. I’d be angry in her situation too. At my husband, yes, but *mostly at myself for not speaking up sooner, not noticing, and not asking him earlier on if he was okay*.
And we don’t really know what “exploded” means here, either. Some people are angry criers. “Burst into tears” isn’t exactly a peaceful method of crying.