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.
*throws more squids at Mark*
http://i.imgur.com/RU7GEYD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K1pwhAm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JHQhqCh.jpg
Oh hey look, the middle one looks just like P. Z. Myers.
EJ (The Other One)-Awesome theory! I think it is a rather accurate one, too. The patriarchy does put a HUGE amount of pressure on men to succeed. You see it in the higher suicide rates among men, how they are pressured into working longer hours and being the provider, etc. Which is why some feel that they are entitled to what ever they want, when they want and that everyone else has to cater to their desires. Since the deal is so often broken or is unfulfillable, some men try to take back what’s ‘owed’ them, by abusing their wives, committing rape or committing mass murder.
EJ (The Other One)-LOL! It does!
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2012/09/fierce_pz.jpg
@Mark:
I don’t think this is accurate. People are going to have sexual thoughts about all sorts of things. I am attracted to women, so will get “sexual thoughts” about women I find attractive. It’s part of existing in society as someone attracted to women. I don’t, however, believe I deserve sexual gratification from the women I have “sexual thoughts” about. I don’t believe they exist for me to enact my thoughts on. That belief is the problem. And as I mentioned above, it’s the common comparison of women wearing skimpy clothing being like someone hanging meat in front of a dog’s nose. Or being in a restaurant and getting to smell all kinds of food and not being (unjustly) allowed to eat. The idea if it’s in front of you, you should be able to have it, and not being allowed is a slight against you.
EJ (The Other One):
I totally agree. The patriarchy is the source of the entitlement I was talking about.
The Economist has published an…interesting article about “the plight of lower class men” which at first reads like an MRA wank-piece but then brings up legit male issues and concludes with actual decent methods to help men and boys, instead of blaming women for everything and throwing a tantrum. It has a good couple of problems e.g. relying a little too heavily on anecdata to make its point, ignoring some facts, not enough sources to back up its various statements, even quoting Christina Hoff Sommers at one point but by the end it seems to say that the best thing such men can do to help themselves is simply adapt to the changing world around them (with help from others, of course).
http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21649050-badly-educated-men-rich-countries-have-not-adapted-well-trade-technology-or-feminism
The thing is, women wearing skimpy clothes isn’t like being at a restaurant. It’s more like walking down the street, smelling all these good smells coming from your neighbors’ houses, because they’re cooking dinner for themselves. Your options are: make friends and hope for an invite for dinner someday; go home and cook your own dinner; take a cooking class; go visit an actual restaurant (ie pay for sex). Stewing resentfully over the nerve of your neighbors, wafting delicious home-cooked meal fragraces into the street and not letting you have any: entitled and unproductive. Wanting to kill your neighbors and take their food: creepy, unacceptable, and wrong wrong wrong. I think we’re all in agreement on that last point.
Oh, as a heads up, the comments are stuffed full of MRAs whinging about feminism. Of fucking course.
@Buttercup
Fantastic rebuttal to the restaurant analogy.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants:
What a lovely analogy.
@Mark –
You seem to be rewording your same argument over and over again. You keep tweaking the verbiage just a bit each time until you get what you’re sure will be the “aha! I perfectly agree!” moment from the rest of us. I don’t think that moment will ever happen, because your argument still boils down to: some people need to curtail their nonviolent, unaggressive personal behavior because it might inconvenience strangers. And the rest of us aren’t buying that, no matter how carefully you craft your sales pitch.
I mean, take your last post:
So, as you have been saying, maybe the clothing of women doesn’t actually play that much of a role in generating sexual thoughts.Perhaps the correct response to the guys in the OP would be to emphasize their ability to make a choice about their own sexual thoughts.
Good! Personal responsibility is a thing.
But wait, personal responsibility is too hard for some people and will take generations to develop. So in the meantime we need other people to go the extra mile so that those poor dears aren’t overstimulated.
If there’s no problem with how people are dressed now, why doesn’t that put the onus on guys like the OP to just suck it up if they’re offended by people’s garments? Why must everyone tiptoe around his sensitivities when they’re usually appropriately dressed?
Personal note: part of the reason why a “conservative dress code” idea rubs me the wrong way because their are so many ideas about what constitute modest dress, even within the confines of one culture. Does anybody else remember the Modesty Survey that The Rebelution put on a few years ago? It invited Evangelical men to give feedback on the perceived modesty of women’s clothing, makeup, and mannerisms. The results are gone from the main site, but another blogger has archived them. If you comb through the results, you’ll realize that pretty much anything a woman does can distract or turn on some subgroup of straight men, somewhere. So who gets to decide what’s acceptable dress in a woman? The forty-plus percent of men who think that a cross-body bag draws too much attention to the breasts? The twenty-something percent who don’t want women to wear leotards while they participate in a dance or theater performance?. The thirty-seven percent who think that a woman taking off an extra pullover in public is too distracting? Even if a woman did come from a place where she felt that she needed to show deference to a man’s tastes in her dress, it’s impossible to please everyone at every time and still live an active, productive life. One person’s “Oh, she’s just wearing a dress” is another person’s “She has a slit in her ankle-length skirt! Brazen harlot!” Stuff like that is the reason why when someone says “Modesty, ladies!” a lot of us hear “I wish to circumscribe your existence so that you can do nothing but sit demurely in a chair with your ankles crossed.”
The fellow in the OP is the one making claims that his arousal is a perfectly reasonably excuse to commit violent acts. And of course that’s ridiculous. All I’ve seen from the other commenters is anger that someone is giving cover to his actions by dismissing him as an outlier while simultaneously saying that a dress code for women is a splendid idea anyway because of arousals just like his.
TL,DR – So, why do we need to cater to people like the guy in the OP, or anybody who doesn’t want to have to deal with their feelings? Why does their admittedly unreasonable need to never feel an inconvenient urge or emotion trump other people’s need to just get on with life?
****
All right, I’m off to take the kids to the park. I’ll check back in later. Have a lovely morning/afternoon/evening, everyone!
@Buttercup
I agree – and that is a great analogy – but at the same time, there isn’t anything ridiculous about having rules against eating really noxious smelling food on public transport, or anywhere else. It’ll depend on the culture, of course, and I don’t think anyone really objects to people eating these foods in their own home, but in public, you know, you can have rules.
hey mark: one of my best friends – who is a conventionally attractive young woman – is nearsighted and has to wear glasses. now, as far as I know a lot of men find glasses sexy on women and may find my friend wearing her glasses out in public distracting them from whatever they are doing at the moment. what’s your solution for that? Just curious.
Mark sez:
Dude, can you be any more dishonest? We’re not talking about women walking around naked in public places or dressed in head-to-toe, skin-tight patent leather. We’re talking about women wearing clothes that are considered perfectly appropriate for whatever location they’re in by pretty much everyone but That Guy(tm). You’re comparing people doing something obviously objectionable with women just trying to FUCKING. EXIST. without some random asshole deciding they need to be raped and murdered for proccing his boner without also intending to fuck him.
Mark: So what you’re saying is that the reasoning for the rules is important?
I thought you hated nuance. OK, let me ask you this. Historically what was the purpose of dress codes for women? How were they enforced? Conversely what was the purpose of dress codes for men, and how were they enforced?
@Mark – Yeah, but as Flying Mouse points out, where do you draw the line? Who decides what’s noxious? Is it OK to eat ice cream in public, but not smelly scallops? Or will someone, somewhere decide that sweet treats are not acceptable because they’re on a diet, and ice cream jeopardizes their willpower?
The rules limiting food on public transport have more to do with safety (people may have allergies) and hygiene than “consideration for others”. Ditto for rules requiring shirts and shoes in restaurants. There’s no rules against swearing and B.O. on public transport, much as those might cause internal discomfort in others, because they don’t threaten people’s health.
How many times can Captain Boring repeat himself before either he gets banned or we all fall asleep? He’s like a broken record, only with fewer unique moments.
OH MY GOD MARK ARE YOU STILLHERE?
Also you just changed your basis of analogy from “delicious smelling food” to “noxious smelling food” in order to fit your basis of argument – which is that it’s so unfaaaair for women to go about their lives without thought for the poor rapists that want to rape them. That IS your argument, you Playdoh troll. You really think nobody would notice you switching the goalposts like that?
Coincidentally enough, I’m currently on a London Overground train where someone in the carriage is holding a fresh cup of coffee and a pastry, and the smell is wafting through the carriage. It’s not strong, but it’s noticeable.
I have zero problems with the smell, in fact I like it, but someone else might find it a problem. Must there be a rule enforced that nobody may carry any food or drink on a train lest some poor soul has to deal with a mildly unpleasant smell for fifteen minutes? Is it more or less convenient to force hurried commuters to go without beverages and snacks AND close down the coffee stands in every station, than expect a handful of customers to just breath through their mouths for their journey?
Serious question Mark.
@Mark
Your dress code concept is, quite frankly, asinine and unenforcable. We’ve told you again and again that modesty is far too nebulous a concept to maintain, given that people have massively different definitions of it, and to suggest such a concept puts the onus on a person who has done no wrong, rather than the person who is having the ugly or uncomfortable thoughts. So how about you explain what it is that’s so personally distracting to you that makes you think you have a right to dictate the clothes of others. Or, better yet, explain why previous commenters’ points about men in suits being sexy and whether they’d also be affected by this dress code are going unanswered.
The stress due to the intense societal pressure put on men to compete and succeed over others might be one of the main sources of manospherian misogyny and general disdain (ranging from mild distrust, to virulent hatred) against women in traditionally “male spaces” (gaming, STEM, cf. “fake geek girls”). For all their talk about superiority, they actually envy what they perceive as “female privilege”. That (as they like to discuss at length) they believe women are not really forced to take their careers or even hobbies as seriously as men do – they seemingly always have the option to “opt out”, and become dependent without much of a social stigma; while men are derided as “slackers” and “losers” if they openly rely on others (whether by choice or necessity), even at a relatively young age. They are frustrated that the average woman, as they see it, doesn’t have to prove her worth the same way the average man is compelled to. That, unless a woman is unattractive in the conventional sense, she doesn’t have to make an effort to become visible to others, to garner at least some form of attention in whatever situation she’s in (of course at the same time, they view women as compulsive, deliberate “attention whores” – cognitive dissonance being an alpha-male virtue, apparently). Of course their self-pity, societal deprivation (alphas my ass) and almost impressive lack of empathy stop them from realizing that getting constant attention from people who really only see you as a piece of meat no matter what you do or say must also suck enormously; so it’s not quite clear who got the shorter end of that particular stick, even within the confines of their simplicistic worldview.
However, instead of noticing the parallels between the problems they perceive and feminist ideas about “toxic masculinity”, and the like; instead of challenging the notion of “men as stoic heroes, silently working and struggling for the good of others”, they choose to embrace it and single out women as the main problem. As if the problem is not men being compelled by society to be dominant and successful no matter the cost for themselves, but women being increasingly unwilling to submit to their traditional, subservient roles (i.e. to become the primary, unconditional provider of a sense of superiority and dominance over others for men), while still enjoying some of the alleged privileges said roles provided. Even from the viewpoint of their own ideology, most manospherians should appear as myopic, hateful, spiteful creatures, who would rather relish in seeing the people (sorry, feeeemales) they envy getting brought down and put in their place as some sort of petty revenge, than even contemplate improving their own situation in constructive, non-sociopathic ways. MGTOWs might be some sort of exception, but they simply want to remove women from the picture entirely, leaving every single damaging aspect of traditional masculinity intact – even amplifying them hundredfold as part of their of their ideology – and in reality it’s quite comical how much they can’t stop caring about (i.e. hating) women, no matter how loudly they declare the opposite.
@shigh
If this was Google+ I would +1 your comment 100 times. Very eloquent and on point.
Mark is still here wanking, huh?
Well Mark,
You are missing the point. Likely on purpose. Whether clothing “generates sexual thoughts” is completely irrelevant. Most people, not just straight men, people of all genders and orientations have sexual thoughts. Including sometimes about strangers. That’s normal and okay. If someone feels bad about that, it’s because they were raised in a toxic culture. The point is not to stop people from having sexual thoughts. That’s your deal, don’t project it onto “liberals.”
The problem is when sexual thoughts lead to misogynistic and violent thoughts or actions. Your thoughts are your responsibility, not the responsibility of the object of those thoughts. Feeling entitled to assault or rape a woman because of pants feels comes from the same misogynist place as feeling entitled to tell women what to wear because of pants feels. Endorse one, you’re endorsing the other because you’re ultimately endorsing men controlling women’s bodies.
That’s why you’re a rape apologist and a misogynist. Either admit that about yourself and maybe do some reflection, or go away.
@Buttercup/ Ghostbird – there did used to be laws against swearing in public, there are laws against being racist in public – there are laws against being naked in public. There clearly isn’t any practical problem with creating laws against non-violent behavior which happens to be offensive/disturbing to others in the context of a given society.
I mean, for example, where I come from, a man who walks around showing all and sundry his naked body when in a state of arousal is called a “flasher”: he gets arrested by the police and we are all very glad. Are you arguing that such a man should be free to pursue that kind of behavior because it is non-violent?
@sunnysombrera /Tyra Lith – “Is it more or less convenient to force hurried commuters to go without beverages and snacks AND close down the coffee stands in every station, than expect a handful of customers to just breath through their mouths for their journey?”
If there were a significant number of people who were bothered by the smell of coffee I think you would have to at least consider their feelings – if someone had a particularly odd preference it will obviously be difficult to help them out – the decision has to be made balancing out both sides – but this is a very different question to whether you simply have the right to do whatever you like if it is non-violent.
@sevenofmine – in that case we don’t disagree!
@Tessa – I don’t know. Could you tell me?