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.
Oh you are, trust me. You’ve clearly never been out with women when they’re speaking freely.
5
@mark, has it occurred to you that women are socialized not to talk about what they find sexy and desirous, and actually socially punished for finding things sexy and desirous, so maybe women are less likely to discuss the intensity of their sexual feelings because, hey, they’re not supposed to have sexual urges at all, let alone intense ones.
You read? Where did you read it, Mark? Link it to us and quote the relevant passage(s).
I propose men wear…Fuck it, I literally can’t think of anything to propose because I haven’t been raised culturally to think I have a right to control how other people dress.
6
While testosterone is one thing that can affect sex drive, people transitioning with hormones are comparing themselves to themselves, not to other people. The decrease in dyspohria that accompanies transitioning is going to have an impact too, and in fact many trans women report an increase in sex drive post transition as well. It could be regardless of the hormones that they are feeling more sexually confident in general.
This is a result of socialization, not biology.
Correct.
7
Dress code: orange floral muumuu, topped with either a rainbow-striped turtleneck sweater or a pink oxford shirt depending on season. Deerstalker hat in the autumn, classic boater in the summer, chullo in the winter. Combat boots on feet year ’round. For sporty times, muumuu may be swapped for polka-dotted culottes, souvenir t-shirt from a defunct theme park, and argyle knee socks.
There, I think I’ve solved all my clothing issues for the next calendar year. Granted, Mr. FM and the kids shall weep bitter tears any time they’re forced to be seen in public with me by their side, but I can’t let little things like good taste get in the way of proper attire.
8!
OH MY GOD. I’ve figured something out. Is that why in old-timey futuristic movies everyone is wearing that silver jumpsuit that compliments absolutely no one?
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10!!
11?
Oh look Mark continues to think the feelings of men are more important than the personal freedom of women. Mark the existence of laws banning nudity is not justification for forcing your ‘conservative’ dress code, most people think the current state of dress is just fine. You like to say you are ‘considerate’ of others feelings, but you only apply that to men ‘uncomfortable’ looking at women, you don’t give a damn about taking into consideration the feelings of the women whose freedom you’re trying to take away.
42! *breaks the pattern and hides giggling*
PS: In the off chance that you might actually learn something from all of this.
It’s transgender (or just trans) as an adjective; people, person, man, or woman as the noun. Transgender is not a noun. In your example, saying “transgender men” would have been sufficient for understanding.
Johanna noooooooo!
-_-
1
fromafar: You don’t have to go back to 1; 10 is a savepoint.
Oh shit. Thanks katz. I forgot that rule 😛
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http://io9.com/5977668/do-men-really-have-higher-sex-drives-than-women
“A study of 35 female-to-male transsexuals and 15 male-to-female transsexuals also supports the impact of androgens on sex drive. In a longitudinal design that tested patients before and 3 months postoperatively, Van Goozen, Cohen-Kettenis, Gooren, Frijda, & Van de Poll (1995) found a decrease in sexual interest and arousability among the male-to-female transsexuals, who were administered anti-androgens and estrogens. In contrast, the female-to-male transsexuals, who were administered testosterone, reported heightened sexual interest and arousability. These data highlight the importance of testosterone in producing meaningful changes in sexual arousal and interest, even over a relatively short time.”
Dammit, I thought Number Ninja had worked.
12
you know that not all men and all women have the same sex drive, right? it also can change over time. when I went off the pill my libido skyrocketed and I was horny all.the.damn.time for a few months, especially since it was summer and there were a lot of topless guys and guys in shorts to be seen in the streets. not ONCE did it cross my mind to be angry at them or think that they should be forbidden to dress like that because of how I felt.
Mark we have told you to fuck off multiple times, why aren’t you taking our feelings into consideration? Oh wait I know why, you only consider that feelings of men who are uncomfortable looking at women to be important.