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.
@fromafar:
They make them for toddlers now. Soon the President will be wearing them to formal dinners. THERE IS NO ESCAPE
oops – have to admit that maybe my shoe taste is suspect. I do have a pair of bright orange faux crocs. But they were a gift. I don’t wear them out… much. They’re ***really*** comfortable.
Just out of curiosity based on some of the arguments raised I Googled “rape + nun”.
Trust me, you don’t want to go there; but the hundreds of incidents would seem to refute the ‘it’s all because of sexy dressing’ thesis.
Mark, what’s making you uncomfortable isn’t the lust you feel from seeing an attractive stranger, but the feelings it stirs up, eg “she’s out of your league”, “you can’t have her”, “who does she think she is, anyway?” “someone ought to take her down a peg”, “she probably only dates assholes”, “look at her, flaunting her body, taunting us helpless males”.
Your lust is perfectly legitimate, but those sentiments above? Are not. They’re the result of you projecting your personal insecurities and agenda onto a set of clothing that a perfect stranger put on earlier that day, for reasons having nothing to do with you.
I feel like this is a good time to bring up (again) that my home state of California (currently the Land of Drought) has formerly made it illegal to use the “Panic Defense” when it comes to assault/murder cases involving a trans/queer victim.
I suspect that the dudes who screech about how FEMINISTS THINK ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS are not actually saying ‘i would NEVER have sec ‘ but are in fact objectisex with an unconsenting person’, but are objecting to the pesky way that feminists identify sexual assault as able to be something other than ‘ strange, violent, (non-white) man drags a screaming and crying modestly dressed (white) virgin woman into the bushes to rape’. So things like having sex with someone who is unconscious, or who went on a date with you but didn’t agree to sex, or a stripper who didn’t agree to sex, or your spouse who didn’t agree to have sex, these are all suddenly considered “rape” now. And. I mean, all men would do THAT if given half a chance, amirite guys? They know they definitely would, and likely have. So feminists are saying that all men are rapists and demonizing men’s sexuality to these shitbuckets because they really believe that all men share their toxic views on women and sex.
@ Falconer
*sigh* FINE
But I’ll only wear them to garden, and only if I can get the John Deere green ones with ladybug and butterfly charms ;3
…and maybe on the beach. Teal, with sea shell charms!!
o_o
*shakes fist*
Noooo! DAMN YOU CROCS!
Whoa, editing mammoth got me bad there, let’s try this again.
I suspect that the dudes who screech about how FEMINISTS THINK ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS are not actually saying ‘i would NEVER have sex with an unconsenting person’, but are objecting to the pesky way that feminists identify sexual assault as able to be something other than ‘ strange, violent, (non-white) man drags a screaming and crying modestly dressed (white) virgin woman into the bushes to rape’. So things like having sex with someone who is unconscious, or who went on a date with you but didn’t agree to sex, or a stripper who didn’t agree to sex, or your spouse who didn’t agree to have sex, these are all suddenly considered “rape” now. And. I mean, all men would do THAT if given half a chance, amirite guys? They know they definitely would, and likely have. So feminists are saying that all men are rapists and demonizing men’s sexuality to these shitbuckets because they really believe that all men share their toxic views on women and sex.
Men (and women… hell, most humans) lust. If you say that wearing tight clothing causes lust, then everyone must stop wearing tight clothing. But then it’s a low cut shirt. And then it’s the “overall shape”. Pretty soon, the society has women in that culture’s version of a hijab, the lusters complaining over eyes that are too sexy and demanding women just stay home!
Lusting is not bad or wrong. If a woman’s ankels or a man’s jawline, or a guy in a swimsuit make you lust, then enjoy it. What is wrong is acting or even commenting on it. (Unless of course you have permission to act and comment!)
@Falconer – I’m genuinely surprised.
I frikkin’ LOVE Crocs for toddlers (or, really, Croc knock-offs because I’m cheap and they need new shoes like every other month).
They’re going to pry off whatever shoes you manage to put on them, anyway, might as well make them easy to put on and take off (with the added bonus that they’re easy to clean / generally impervious to kid foot funk).
re: horrid outfits: Maybe that’s like the young person’s version of the Purple Hat thing that old ladies have going on.
Probably not, though.
It’s probably just some fashion that I don’t get because I have a pre-teen and am not supposed to understand.
[Actually, though, lemme brag on my pre-teen for a sec: Her current favorite outfit is a Doctor Who skirt that some friends of ours got her, leggings or shorts (depending on the season), boots or Converse (depending on the season), and either a “The Phantom Tardis” (a Phantom Tollbooth/Doctor Who mashup) that I bought for her or a tee with all of the Doctors (excepting Capaldi but including the War Doctor) as cartoons.
*sniff*
I’m so proud.]
You should be; you’ve raised a great kid.
At San Diego Comic-con sometime in the late 1990s, I saw Ray Bradbury in wheelchair in a shirt and adult diaper shorts, nothing gross but it seemed undignified and I worried that he was mentally deteriorating. I then saw him give a wonderful, lively and often hilarious talk at the con and realized he was Ray Bradbury and had to give zero fucks to his appearance. One of the many deserved benefits of being Ray Bradbury. RIP.
There’s a whole store dedicated to Crocs at the Mall of America :O
I know that this has been said a bunch of times in a bunch of different ways on this thread, but holy cats. My response to feelings of lust has never been “enact force”. The idea that these are connected is nonsense; the idea that this supposed connection is automatic is stupid; the idea that resisting this automatic connection imposes some cost is laughable; and the idea that forcing men to endure this alleged cost constitutes some kind of moral wrong is straight up insane, and reprehensively vile. That’s pretty straightforward, innit?
Haha! There’s one in an outlet mall near here too. That’s how I know about all the little charms you can pop into the holes for… reasons.
Re: Ray Bradbury
He was all like:
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/behold-the-field-in-which-i-grow-my-fucks.jpg
@proxieme: My daughter gets them off. Then she puts them back on. Lately she’s even managed to put them on the right feet consistently, and to realize when she has them on the wrong feet.
Did I mention my babies are smart?
@fromafar – He got it while visiting Germany. Soooo sexy.
He thinks it’s too tight.
I laugh in the face of his calls to moderation!
@rugby – RIGHT?
He doesn’t understand when I say that he has lovely forearms, just the right amount of hair and muscle definition.
Is nice, is nice.
@Aunt Edna – Yep, just chaste lil’ ol’ me over here ????
As others have said, it’s funny how men are the logical, rational, masters of the universe and all that they survey except for what they say and do to people who excite their boners and women are the illogical, muddled, hypergamous walking dual temptresses and seductresses who must remain chaste and pure and modest for the sake of men.
Because Science.
Or God.
Or Original Sin.
Or Satan.
Or Something.
And then you put a hidden camera in the room and it’s really funny.
True story: I have a friend who teaches at a Catholic school, and is pretty much one of those “truly devout” fellows, but a very nonjudgmental and all-around cool guy. He told me about when he was at Mass one day, sitting next to another guy (didn’t know him), and behind a family. After Mass was over, the guy next to him lean over to the lady sitting in front of him and said “you shouldn’t have worn your hair like that, because the back of your neck was all my eyes could focus on during Mass.” The lady’s supposed sin? She put her hair up in a bun. My friend was just flabbergasted, and couldn’t contain himself. He told the guy, right then and there, “do you have any idea how creepy that is? You need to go home and work on your own problems!”
He said that it bugs him, even to this day, how creepy some guys are. It doesn’t seem to matter what a woman wears–creepy is as creepy does. Guys that will lust after a girl in a bikini and feel like they can’t control themselves, are guys that would feel just the same towards a Mennonite woman in traditional dress. If you can’t even wear your hair in a damn bun without some drooling weirdo focusing on it, what the hell can you wear without being leered at?
There are 500 Croc branded retail location worldwide according to their FAQ. Haters, the whole lot of you.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H8Mw7g_ebQg/TyAJ5So6uUI/AAAAAAAADt8/w4jswRxs9LM/s1600/tumblr_kqcyds42Mh1qzxzwwo1_500.jpg
http://company.crocs.com/faq/
*over 500, even
@catalpa – someone cited a study a thread or two ago (sorry can’t remember who) that was looking at the attitudes of convicted rapists. These guys assume that all other guys have the same attitudes that they do regarding rape and consent. So I’m sure you’re right on target.
But sometimes it not what they’ve done themselves, but what people in their circle of value have done. One of my brother’s friends raped a young woman who was passed out drunk. If I recall correctly, he was maybe just freshly 18 and she was a little younger, but not much. My mother and stepfather twisted themselves in knots trying to defend this guy and thus his actions. When I questioned this, she first told me it was statutory rape where it was all a bit racially charged (he was hispanic and she was white). But then the details started slipping out and eventually she showed me the police report where plain as day he had had intercourse with a girl who was incapable of providing consent in front of other people and they also performed humiliating acts on this girl (stuff that I wouldn’t normally care about kids doing and have done in a non-sexual manner – e.g. shaving cream in the hair – that sort of thing, but became really disgusting in the context of a sexual assault). They trotted out every excuse in the book to defend this guy. They’d had consensual sex before. (I don’t care, they didn’t that time). She was drunk. He was drunk. (WTF? Why can we blame her for the same thing that we excuse him for? We don’t excuse people for being drunk when they get behind the wheel.) Even that he’d had a really hard life (he had, he really had, heartbreaking in fact, but no excuse for rape). I was furious. It was like everything I’d thought they stood for crumbled away. My mother – the self-declared feminist – even said that she thought rape should just be treated like any normal assault and since there wasn’t a physical assault here (I disagree, but it wasn’t an injurious, outward bruise causing assault) it should be treated more leniently. Actually they trotted out every old trope except what she was wearing! They even said he shouldn’t go to prison because of what happens to young men in prison. (I wouldn’t have wanted him to be raped, and nor do I think that would have been a fair punishment, but the brutality of the prison system doesn’t mean the victim shouldn’t have been allowed to pursue justice.)
Eventually, and after I suspect a sustained campaign of harassment by the perp’s friends, she dropped the charges. If I believed in God I’d pray that my brother wasn’t part of that. But they even used the fact that she dropped the charges to defend him.
Years later, I was visiting my mother and he came round at Christmas and I left the house. Refusing to sit down for Christmas dinner if he was at the table. My mother told me that I was letting my anger get the best of me and that I should forgive him. She didn’t get that I didn’t really care about him. I mean, yeah, I didn’t particularly want to eat Christmas dinner with a rapist, but I’m not mad at him. I don’t need forgive him because he didn’t do anything to me. I’m mad at them and their continued excusing of his rape. His presence simply served as a reminder to what I desperately wanted to forget.
Ughh, I’m all upset about that now. Didn’t mean to dump all that here.
@FifthInterval:
That’s pretty straightforward, innit?
You would think. And yet.
It is just so effin’ convenient to blame others, including the whole groups of them, for our transgressions and crimes. And the most convenient targets are those who are (or historically have been) powerless, like women.
My daughter gets them off and /can/ put them back on, but she can be kind of a jerk about it -_-
We have a good family friend who’s Hindu amd says that she thinks that she’s my Grandmother reincarnated.
My Grandmother was a dear woman who loved her family but was also one of the most opinionated, dominant, and contrary people to ever grace the earth.
…kid does walk around collecting my Grandma’s stuff, declaring it to be hers, and stuffing it in her toddler bed, so I’m half inclined to agree.
And, for the record, I second the glowing assessments of men’s forearms (and hands). Mm mm mm.