Over on Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder has posted the excerpt below from A Love That Multiplies: An Up-Close View of How They Make It Work by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar — yes, those Duggars — explaining how women “defraud” men when they dress in a way that men find exciting (in their pants).
This, sadly, is not exactly an original or even unusual notion in reactionary religious circles.
Indeed, a couple of years back, I found a rather scary post on a radically pro-patriarchal site called the CoAlpha Brotherhood in which one young man calling himself Drealm lamented that, as a man living “in a university town that’s overrun with young girls” he was literally “forced to stare at hundreds if not thousands of women a day, all of whom bring sluttiness to all new pinnacle”
Like the Duggars, Drealm thought that “a woman dressing provocatively and leaving a man in an unfinished state of excitement … is an assault on men’s sexuality.”
When women dress like this, he argued, he and other men couldn’t help but want to rape them.
[T]he only thing I want to do to a slut is rape them. … dressing like sluts brings out murders, rapists and sadists in men. … A society based on sluts, might as well be a pro-rapist society.
Reading back over this now, it’s all a bit too reminiscent of the thinking of Elliot Rodger. Indeed, after Rodger went on his misogyny-driven murder spree, one CoAlpha Forum member wrote that Rodger “would have been a true hero” had he only killed more sorority women; the site now adorns its front page with an homage to Rodger.
But it isn’t just those on the margins of the manosphere who think this way. In The Myth of Male Power, the 1993 book that essentially provided the ideological blueprint for the Men’s Rights movement today, Warren Farrell famously wrote of the “miniskirt power” secretaries allegedly had over their male bosses.
Farrell is a couple of decades older now, and apparently it takes more than a miniskirt to render him powerless these days. And by “more than a miniskirt” I mean less. As in no clothing at all. When Farrell put out a new eBook edition of The Myth of Male Power last year, he had his publisher put a rear-view shot of a nude woman on the cover, “to illustrate,” as he explained in an appearance on Reddit,
that the heterosexual man’s attraction to the naked body of a beautiful woman takes the power out of our upper brain and transports it into our lower brain
This sort of logic, like that of the Duggars and of “Drealm” from the CoAlpha Brotherhood, also conveniently takes the blame for (heterosexual) male behavior and transports it into the bodies of women. With the Duggars, we’ve seen exactly where this sort of logic can lead.
Farrell, much like the Duggars and the excerable “Drealm,” also seems to think that women commit a kind of fraud against men when they “stir up sensual desires” that they don’t intend to fulfill. As Farrell wrote in The Myth of Male Power, when a man pays good money to take a woman out, and she doesn’t repay him, as it were, with sex, she is in his estimation committing a kind of “date fraud” or “date robbery.”
Or even a sort of date rape. Farrell wrote that
dating can feel to a man like robbery by social custom – the social custom of him taking money out of his pocket, giving it to her, and calling it a date. … Evenings of paying to be rejected can feel like a male version of date rape.
Emphasis mine, because holy fuck.
This is what happens when your ideology makes women responsible for (heterosexual) men’s desires. Hell, it’s what happens when you make anyone responsible for the desires of someone else, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
Your pants feelings are your responsibility. Not anyone else’s. Full stop.
@Mark
You were using the example as a way to excuse what this guy wrote.
However, maybe the guy should, you know, stop staring at people instead? Maybe he should just stop staring at people because staring at people is wrong? Maybe this guy shouldn’t be thinking that he has the right to stare and think that it’s the people he’s staring at’s fault for him staring at them?
“asinine.”
I feel kind of bad about having this debate here, to be honest – but it seemed like people wanted to continue it.
“are you truly advocating for some kind of legislated dress code” Yes, and I’m pretty sure that they already exist.
Isn’t it curious how Mark takes it for granted that the people who might be made ‘uncomfortable’ by someone else’s clothing take priority over those who might be made uncomfortable by having their clothing choices dictated by the sensibilities of others?
When I remember that the first group is almost certainly overwhelming male and the second group overwhelmingly female, no, it is not curious. It is repulsive.
Really? How many times have we told you to fuck off or cheered at the thought that you had fucked off?
Don’t you think that we all have a responsibility to try to minimize each others discomfort?
Robert,
So presumably I shouldn’t have my right to look wherever I please dictated by others?
Mark,
Why should I be uncomfortable in Victorian style clothing to appease someone who has a hang up about cleavage or arms? Why should I get heat stroke? Can’t the dude just deal with his hang up? Or go live on a religious compound?
And he’s finally admitted what we all knew: He’s a creeper.
@Mark
He could minimize his discomfort by averting his eyes or not thinking that the girls are just there to be looked at. That would minimize EVERYONE’S discomfort.
@Mark:
It is relevant, because you are using the idea of a man wanting to rape a woman dressed a certain way as a framing for your whole “shouldn’t we dress in a way that doesn’t make others uncomfortable.” If you can’t see what’s wrong with that, then god help you.
Instead, I’ll tackle the whole “uncomfortable” thing directly. Pretend there is a way to objectively describe an outfit with a single number that rates how uncomfortable that clothing makes people in general feel. Pretend it never changes.
So all the way over on the left, you’ve got your completely inoffensive clothing. All the way on your right is your offensive clothing.
If you are spending your time here arguing that there exists an upper limit on this scale that people should personally choose to respect out of respect for others, then you won’t find any disagreement here. It’s about as mundane as arguing that you should generally avoid being rude to people.
Is that it? Is that all you’re arguing? If so, then there is no argument.
If, however, you are trying to argue that that limit is well-defined, or arguing that the placement of that limit should take into account the sorts of people who feel like raping women they are attracted to, then hell-fucking-yes we disagree, because now you are trying to use the feelings of unreasonable people (as opposed to reasonable people) to dictate a social standard.
So, what are you trying to achieve here, Mark?
“Is that it? Is that all you’re arguing? If so, then there is no argument.”
Yes – but it seems to me that there *is* an argument – people seem to be incredibly offended by the idea that they should take the feelings of others into consideration with regards to what they wear.
I swear, if this entire discussion boils down to “don’t be rude to folks, yo,” I swear I will post no less than three videos of cute baby animals in protest.
No Mark when minimizing a rapists “uncomfortable” feelings comes at the loss of personal freedom for all women.
Mark thinks demanding women dress conservatively to “minimize discomfort” of men is reasonable, but that suggesting that men stop staring at women because it apparently them (and the women being stared at too) uncomfortable is unreasonable.
@Mark:
You might even be able to imagine a society where everyone walks around naked and the women are actually treated well.
Not really a society as such, but on nudist beaches there is no sexual assault or rape. Been to one myself — a decidedly asexual experience, IMO.
the liberal dream world where we all walk around in the nip *without it even generating a sexual thought* and without those sexual thoughts causing any discomfort is going to require a lot of work
Which liberals advocate for such a “dream world”? Have specific examples, or you’re just strawmaning for the heck of it?
I’m not aware of liberals (or anyone else, for that matter) advocating for a world without clothes or sexual thoughts.
@Mark
I think you should wear a chasity belt. A really old, rusty spiky one. That should really help that “uncomfortable” feeling you get from, evidently, not being to stop staring at women.
I’d like to see the one of the racoo eating a grape; so can I just say “Isn’t this just a case of trying not to be rude?”
Yes Mark we’re offended you want us to sacrifice our personal freedom to dress how we want in order to please rapists.
But snuffy, that is the opposite of what I am saying I am saying that women (or men) should dress conservatively if it causes discomfort to men and that men and women shouldn’t stare at other people if it causes them discomfort.
I am saying, and have said repeatedly, that we shouldn’t have the freedom to act without consideration for others.
Mark, I’m going to be as plain spoken as I possibly can here: A thread about rape is not an appropriate place to discuss how people dress makes other people “uncomfortable” or “generates sexual thoughts.” At all. The way people dress has nothing to do with rape, and by bringing it up here you are mirroring what the assholes in the OP are saying. Stop it.
O_o Are you for real?
o_O Like, seriously, for real? You want a “conservative” dress code, mandated by law, for all citizens? Really? Who gets to decide what is acceptable in this dress code? What are the penalties for violating it? Are you seriously advocating fines and jail time for someone wearing short shorts? Really?
*dances on Marky Mark’s empty little head until he goes away (or, even better, gets banned)*
No I’ve accurately described what you’re saying. You want women to sacrifice their personal freedom to dress however makes them happy in order to please rapists. The uncomfortable feelings of rapists should not be prioritized over my personal freedom, if someone is uncomfortable looking at a woman they can look away.
FUCK!
“I’m not aware of liberals (or anyone else, for that matter) advocating for a world without clothes or sexual thoughts.”
There are a lot of people here saying that people have a responsibility to *not be uncomfortable* at the sight of people dressed in whatever way they choose – I’m saying it would take a lot of work to get to that point.
I think there are also a lot of liberals who believe that sexual thoughts are not problematic, when in fact, they often can be.
For you, Alan.
@Mark
Asshole, listen.
People should be taught not to treat people like shit because of what they wear, you dick.
People shouldn’t have to think of what they wear because they don’t want to be stared at, people should know and should be taught that it’s wrong to stare at people because of how they are dressed.
You know why? Because people should be taught that people are more than what they dress and just because they dress a certain way doesn’t give people the right to stare at them
And being taught that people can wear what they want and you can wear what you want and no one has the right to stare at you or judge you will stop making people “uncomfortable” just because someone they can see is wearing something that reveals a bit of skin.
If you don’t get any of that, fuck off into a forest filled with rusted needles and broken glass.
No one should have to cover up to make people less “uncomfortable”, jackass.