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.
Paul,
She didn’t say she was overeating, she said that she had stopped dieting and being slavishly devoted to going to the gym.
None of us know what her diet or weight is. So stop projecting your experience with a family member onto a stranger.
Trigger warning for eating disorders ahead
Also, don’t compare HAES to pro-ana please. When I had an eating disorder, I used to hang out on those sites. Trust me, it is nothing like the (admittedly little) I’ve seen of HAES. Accepting your body type rather than dieting (which has been proven ineffective) is not like sharing tips and tricks about how to disguise restriction, how to stop yourself from eating, how to induce vomiting or posting pictures of very thin models that have been photoshopped to look extremely emaciated.
It is amazing to me, Paul, that you can diagnose this woman’s physical and mental health over the Internet without being either her doctor or her therapist and without ever having met her. Seriously, that is one impressive super-power.
/sarcasm
I’ll let the bartender from Boondock Saints respond to Paul:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQfglRyPlM&w=1016&h=452%5D
….. @because reasons, you are my new favorite person. If you would accept hugs, I offer them. If you’d prefer non physical contact, I offer the highest of psychological pop culture fives.
http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/6376702299_7cbc71ee3e_o.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vJDEi8U1ddw/UIDh13kA2cI/AAAAAAAAHdE/4IORzksOJfs/s1600/Hugging+Cats.jpg
I will gladly takes the hugs…and high fives 🙂
@Catherine You say she’s not showing any remorse and that she’s using her anger to get her way. The “no remorse” comment was in reference to her lack of acknowledgement that “exploding” is harmful behavior. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about as I never commented on her behavior, before, after, or other than “exploding”. I also never made any comment being critical of how she was feeling. She has a right to feel however she feels, and her feelings aren’t any different than what I would feel. I know because I’ve been in her shoes.
Want to know something funny? You guys may not remember but from what I remember one of my earliest posts here was arguing against another member over whether men had a right to feel angry over being denied sex. I spoke of the pain of withholding sex in a relationship. I spoke of sex being an emotional need. I spoke of my anger (more like rage) problems. I spoke of learning to accept even rediculous rage as a normal emotion, but holding myself accountable for my actions. And I don’t remember anyone agreeing with me. 😉
Point being; I think there may be a double standard being displayed here. Yes, “exploded” could be only a poor word choice, but it also means something, and it’s definition in the dictionary is of a violent, destructive event. Somehow I don’t think that a guy who “exploded” on his wife would be given the same pass here, even if he was NEVER a physically violent guy, and even if he walked “exploding” back as just a “poor word choice”, or heavily crying, or something. I’m NOT making a guess as to her entire personality or anything, I just think it’s fair enough to comment on behavior people freely admit to, and I find the double standard between how I think a man would be judged for “exploding” and how a woman is being judged for “exploding” interesting. That is the only reason why I’m still commenting on what started out as a tongue in cheek side comment on my part.
On a more serious note, there’s a difference between being abusive and being an abuser. Anyone can fuck up and react on emotion and be abusive; push someone down verbally, get in a fist fight, whatever. An abuser does it over and over again, on purpose, without change, because them abusing their power is a feature, not a bug.
Oh BTW our sex problems turned out to have less to do with his attraction to me and more to do with bankruptcy-nearing financial problems, fears over the possibility of another pregnancy, possibly habits he got into while masturbating, and, most of all, because he felt pressured by my requests for sex as I have a high libido. (Not that it was ever my intent to pressure him! This is where poor communication really can hurt.) Our finances are still a mess, but a vasectomy, eliminating my anger over sexual frustration, and working on the sharing/trust in our relationship has smoothed our sex life out consideribly.
It’s not just pop psychology. Most people have a complex emotional relationship with sex, and without emotional work you will only ever see the surface. Same goes for money.
As a 6′ tall man, my ideal body weight is around 160lbs. I’m usually about 50-60lbs. over that weight. Yet I can still run faster than a lot of men a decade my junior and a hundred pounds lighter, I can pull or push my own body weight enough to have come in 2nd place in a pull-up contest against a gaggle of Army lieutenants and I can do a good 50-60 Army PRT push-ups in 2 minutes. My stomach is small enough that I can comfortably wear size 34 jeans and medium shirts. People sometimes express surprise that I’m technically overweight because I don’t “look fat,” though I do have “love handles” and a small paunch. My cholesterol is slightly elevated, though it’s apparently the “good kind” and it’s not by much. Otherwise I’ve been blessed off as quite healthy. I say that just to put it in perspective that a woman who may have been at or even below her ideal weight is not necessarily morbidly obese or even very unhealthy after putting on 65lbs. Her gut may not be much bigger than mine. The people fretting over her weight gain are being a little over dramatic.
The thing is, it isn’t about the woman’s choice to stop torturing herself to maintain a certain body weight, which is a perfectly legitimate and perhaps healthy decision depending on her circumstances. It’s not about the man’s loss of attraction for her, which is also legitimate as sometimes that just happens. It’s not as if he’s throwing her out on the street or has stopped loving her because of it. The real issue is that some men are taking a couple honestly trying to work out their attraction issues as a woman taking advantage of a man because apparently there should be no question about compromise… it’s always the woman who has to accommodate the man with them.
1) we don’t even know if these people are real people
2) if they are it’s a very incomplete one side of one story
3) you can not pass any actual judgement (or conjecture) on their relationship based on the provided information
4) I think the topic has elicited such searching responses because it probably hits a lot of different people’s sore spots – weight, shallow love, anger over someone else’s reactions, lack of sex, sexual dysfunction, etc. it’s all there.
Personally, I’ve gained weight and lost weight and struggled with disordered eating pretty much the entirety of my life. I’ve also got a higher libido than my husband – and the lack of sex in a relationship that happens because the man doesn’t want to do it, that can be very hurtful because our socialization that men *always* want sex.
This is just a huge onion for lots of people with sooo many layers. I think people should take a step back and look at the reasons why you’re having a strong response.
And then can we get back to mocking the dum-dum mras?
It is physically impossible to gain 65 lbs of body fat without sustained, deliberate overeating.
We don’t need fine-level details about this person to know that she knowingly and purposefully overate by at least hundreds of thousands of calories, and that this unhealthy choice became such an issue that she is experiencing problems in her marriage of the sort that threaten its existence. None of that is reasonably in dispute.
The predictable health problems she will experience as she continues down this path (again, she stated no plans to stop or even slow the pace of her weight gain) are admittedly long term. She is not going to die tomorrow.
But the choice between her husband and a commitment to unhealthy eating is obviously looming. A couple in counseling is a couple on the rocks. The probability that she can keep her marriage and her objectively unhealthy eating habits is fairly low.
And there may literally be nobody in her life who is advising her to go back to a healthy diet and moderate exercise. She has a cheering squad pushing her in the other direction.
And apparently that is a social good.
Wow. Repeating my call for Paul to fuck off.
Dum-dums? Oooo!
?w=280&h=184
I tried to do a funny image search for mra dum-dums and all I could find was awfulness…and for some reason naked women in sexualized poses. 🙁
@WWTH
N’thing that! I think Paulie (any relation to *the* Paulie?) meant to go to fatty-fatty-2×4.com but ended up here by mistake. Instead of redirecting he decided to run with it here. And it’s getting old.
Paul, shut up.
Yeah, I shouldn’t liken MRAs to a pretty yummy candy (I’m partial to the blue raspberry ones). I just couldn’t think of what to call those assholes.
And Paul –
I haven’t really read any of your posts since you’re an obvious troll. Basically, shut up woody.
And I’m not talking about this woman in this story when I say what I’m about to say, but rather your personal relationship with overeating that you’ve put forth itt.
Have you stopped to consider why your family member has developed these habits? Did something happen in their life to make them not care about their health. There’s a shit-ton that goes into disordered eating from a psychological perspective. Maybe you should, instead of focusing on your pain of watching someone become “embarrassingly” immobile, maybe try focusing on their pain?
Like, have some fucking empathy?
Anyway, did any of your see the video where the woman wears a fat suit and goes on tinder dates? Did you know they did a male version?
No idea how many are actors but:
Male
female
@Leela
Empathy? But that’s haaaaaard. It requires taking the focus off of yourself for a while, and it doesn’t sound like that’s a skill he has. It sounds more like: “It’s not fat shaming when I say horrible things about fatties, because I have this, er, relative that’s super fat and gross and it’s making the whole family uber sad.” Cool story, bro. If this relative does, in fact, exist, I feel so sorry for the total lack of emotional support they’re getting from you. As I said before, the worst thing you can do for someone you supposedly care about who has gained weight is SHAME and GUILT them. Ugh. I’m too tired to say anymore.
Let’s just go back to talking about candy. I mean, kittehs. I mean, mra’s. LOL
6’8″ dude here. Went from around 220-230 of muscle to around 300lbs after stopping crew in college as a result of not exercising not cutting back enough on my diet. Took around 2 years or so. It’s very easy to gain a lot of weight without deliberately trying to get there, and I actually have a surprisingly hardy metabolism (based on how I apparently visually vary drastically depending on what I’ve been eating the previous couple weeks).
And seriously, overeating my 100,000 calories per day? That’s not even physically possible, given that the recommended daily calorie intake for adults is on the order of a couple thousand.
But none of this really matters. Go worry about yourself, and let other people live their own lives for god’s sake.
@becausereasons
I’m still pissed they got rid of the lemon jolly ranchers. >:(
Bye, Paul. Banned.
I used to hate banning people. Not so much any more.
Anyway, I’m just now catching up on this thread. Yipes.
Obviously no one is entitled to sex, whether or not they’re married. Everyone has a right to say no to sex for any reason they want.
But I certainly understand her being upset at her husband when he tells her her that he’s no longer attracted to her because she’s put on weight. Yes, oftentimes people use anger to pressure and/or control their partners, but I’m pretty sure that anyone in this woman’s situation would be upset and, yes, angry.
I mean, when you marry someone you kind of hope they will stay attracted to you — even if you get wrinkles, grey hair, or put on weight.
So what do they do about it? You can’t force someone to find you attractive, and if a lack of attraction is the problem viagra isn’t going to help.
But there are lots of reasons for loss of libido. Yes, he may simply not be attracted to her any more, But it’s also possible that he’s angry at her for gaining weight, because, I dunno, he feels he can’t show her off in front of his friends any more. Maybe he’s dealing with the side effects of some other meds. Maybe he’s depressed. Hell, for all we know maybe he just has less of a sex drive than she does and he was overcompensating for this earlier in their relationship when they were having sex all the time. We don’t know.
But the fact is that as the situation stands (or at least stood when she wrote her comment) neither one is happy. Both care about each other and are willing to make some efforts to make it work. Viagra isn’t going to do it, and I wonder a bit at a doctor who would prescribe that for a relatively young guy. But counseling certainly could help — and they should each get individual counseling as well. I don’t think it’s coercive to ask him to go to counseling.
If they can’t fix their sex life, well, they may need to go their separate ways. There are certainly couples who have perfectly happy sexless relationships, but generally not if one of the two wants to be having sex with the other one and the other one doesn’t.
@Leela
Aw, when did that happen? Lucky for me they still make apple, strawberry, cherry, watermelon, and blue raspberry!
Sooo glad David dropped his sweet sweet ban-hammer on Paul!
I’m still going through the most recent comments.
All I want to say right now is that there is this perverse part of me that wishes that all women, without exception, would start wearing frumpy clothes, cut their hair, and gain weight, just to piss the MRAs off. These men seem to think that women not putting their (the MRAs’) preferences first is a terrible sin of some kind; so it’s like when a woman who gains weight, she is actually committing an act of aggression of some kind against all of men, isn’t she?
Since it seems to be that easy to make them all unhappy (eat more ice cream! yay!), I am all for it.
But of course that is stupid. Every woman should be the weight that feels good for her, that is healthy for her, and that may be thinner or it may be bigger. What the MRAs want or think should have no sway.
I did that after my sexual abuse finally ended. It felt…safe. Still wasn’t though. There’s always some asshole who thinks you exist for his peen and will comment on how he’d like to do things to you.
But, if any MRAs are lurking out there, I grow my hair long just so I can cut it super short and donate it to charities that make wigs for cancer patients.
I also wear frumpy clothes because I like being comfortable.
And I’m unapologetically squishy.
*aggressive raspberry noise*
Maybe this is risking a ban but I don’t see why losing *some* of the weight isn’t as valid a course of action here. No more coercive than requesting a partner use prescription drugs in the hope of forcing arousal.
But anyways…sympathy for those who struggle with fluctuating weight, given that most packaged/pre-prepared foods are laced with various forms of sugar these days. It is *very* easy to inadvertently gain kilos, even with restricted portion size. Been there and it took 2 years on a fairly extreme Atkins style diet with the associated depressed mood before I was back within the healthy BMI range.
Bryce, there’s nothing wrong with losing weight, but it must be because you know it’s something you want to do, and it’s done for healthy reasons. Not because you’re less of a person if you don’t; or if you don’t, you won’t be pleasing to someone else.
Paradoxical Intention, I know what you mean.
It’s surely not a revelation to state that many women gain weight as a shield or protection from harassment, abuse, or unwelcome sexual attention.
The thing that I find so painful and at the same time, so infuriating, is that the MRAs (and assholes who share their views in this area) will blame and hate women for being fat, while completely distancing themselves for the reason why these women got fat in the first place. Because too many men were creepy and giving them unwanted attention.
They also notice that bigger girls are sometimes full of quirks and strong personalities, they blame the fat for that, while again refusing to recognize that when a girl is treated like a second-class citizen, is always treated like she’s committed some horrible crime by being fat, she may develop an attitude as a defense. But, somehow, the guys don’t see the connection. They never look inward and wonder if there’s anything they are doing which contribute. They only know that whatever the women do, they are doing it wrong, and that due to that, the women deserve more hatred heaped on them. As if the hatred will magically “correct” the situation!
So, so stupid.