Sex educator and Philadelphia Weekly columnist Timaree Schmit posted the peculiar document below to Twitter the other day. It was evidently handed to a friend of hers who was innocently making photocopies by some guy who wanted her to know that she had given him a boner and that he felt really really bad about this, because Jesus.
Guys, don’t do this.
Here’s the creeper’s little manifesto; the pic is a little blurry, alas, so I made a slightly less blurry version of the key bits and pasted it below the original.
I already used the nope badger in an earlier post today, so here’s a nope doggo instead.
H/T — @TByrne75 for letting me know about this, thanks!
@Hu’s On First
re:Hindu appropriation
Sounds like a new form of fatwa envy to me,
you ever notice the parts of other religions these guys always appropriate are the discriminatory or violent parts?
I know I’m late to the game on this joke but
Is… is this what they meant about masturbation making you blind?
@policy of madness
That actually explained the problem really well for me, thank you. There goes my innocence in this regard…. And good that it goes, too, I think.
I don’t think I can help feeling sorry for the person I imagine him as, but that doesn’t make him less of an asshole. (to me as well, now)
@weirdwoodtreehugger
Yeah. I’ve started noticing a while ago (not all of them, as evidenced in this thread). They suck and I try to talk against them when I can.
That leads me to another question for you that are wiser on this than me:
Where is the line?
Like, if I spill my drink all over myself because I apparently can’t drink and notice a pretty girl with colourful hair and I apologise and tell her her hair is great, is that still a boner notice?
When is saying “you (or something about you, dress, lipstick, hair etc) is really amazing/beautiful/other synonyms” a boner Notice and when is it not? Where is the line between compliment and boner notice?
(if it’s relevant, I do it to men too. There might have been an incident of asking a gigantic, mean looking metal fan if I might pet his hair because it was seriously amazing, long and wavy and shiny. Which I told him, too. Compliments should be for everyone!)
@TreePerson
Or they just appropriate religions that don’t even fucking fit with their idiotic ideology.
I’m specifically addressing all these White Supremacists who are part of the Germanic Paganism/Asatruar movement.
If you look at the Eddas, there are many instances of God-on-Giant interracial sex. Some of the Aesir are part Giant and part God, so where does this fit into their “PURE RACIAL CULTURE” ideology?
I don’t have a hard time understanding most accents, but a lot of people do. Especially over the phone.
I’m more annoyed by the fact that when I have to call Comcast because the wifi isn’t working, it’s incredibly difficult to get to someone who won’t just tell you to power cycle the router which of course I do before I ever call.
@Francesca Torpedo, Femoid Special Forces Major
Yeah that too!
I had an idea for a movie abut Thor and Jesus teaming up to take down nazis and klansmen because they got sick and tired of being used to justify there bovine excrement.
Well, the fact that he mentions “lust” in his note is probably the “boner notice” giveaway line. Telling someone you’ve never met before that you think she’s pretty, maybe not, if you didn’t stare at her for several minutes first. No leering creepily either.
The drink spill? I don’t know. You’re probably too drunk to remember what you actually said.
Basically, I think it comes down to, did you talk to him/her like a normal person before tossing out the lines? Have a relationship better than “we ride the same bus every day?”
Zaunfink,
I honestly don’t think there’s ever a need to compliment strangers, but that might just be me.
With people you know, I don’t think complimenting someones hair style or shoes or whatever is usually going to be offensive. Complimenting a body part, you’ve got to be careful with. Keep that to people you’re close with.
It’s not about never complimenting women. It’s about men not butting into conversations and bringing up women’s appearance out of nowhere. It’s about not constantly evaluating women based on appearance.
@TreePerson
I like your idea.
Similarly, I’d been planning to write a modern-day treatment of the Eddas, updated for current culture, inspired by the manga series “Aa! Megami-Sama!”
In that manga, Urd, the Nordic Goddess of the Past, is drawn as a black woman.
I had therefore intended to portray Odin as a young, effeminate black boy with white hair. The other Aesir and Vanir would similarly be racially and sexually diverse, yet still in keeping with the spirit of the Eddas.
After all, it is quite clearly stated that the Aesir are young and virile, so I don’t know where these people get off portraying Odin as an elderly Santa Claus-type fellow with a beard.
The Icelandic people I know who follow Asatru also portray him as a young, virile young man, so I am not the only one.
@zaunfink – it very much depends on social context and the complimentor’s intentions and social skills, but I think it’s usually ok to give compliments on something a person has chosen about their appearance , such as a hairstyle or interesting jewelry*. Praising more intrinsic physical attributes should be left for people you know well, and know would be pleased by it.
*Ruling out of course compliments of this type that are designed to let a person know that the complimentor has been staring at their breasts or are actually intended as niceness coins for later sexual repayment. And never compliment a woman’s clothing or accessories if she’s just done something professionally impressive and that hasn’t been acknowledged yet
@zaunfink A good rule of thumb re compliments is that complimenting someone about something s/he has control over (clothes, jewellery, book they’re reading, etc.) is much more acceptable than complimenting someone about something s/he has little or no control over (bust size, ass shape, skin quality, etc.)–the former is a genuine appreciation of someone’s taste; the latter is just creepy. It’s also good practice, if you sincerely want to compliment a stranger, to do it in passing–say ‘I love your boots’, then walk away; don’t expect any kind of response.
ETA Haha ninjaed.
Leaflet person is bad and ridiculous in a shaking-head kind of way, not a mirth-inducing way (maaaaybe “deemed to be fair” was sort of funny) but THIS thing by @kiki made me laugh:
😛
@Epitome
I just realized something.
[speaks nasally, which is how she imagines MRAs to speak]
Ack-shuaaaalllly, once the FEEEEEEMALE has HARVESTED SUFFICIENT MALE GAZE to feed the nest of hungry FEEEMALE young for the winter, she then exchanges a single Boner upon the Gentlesir. This boner can then be used for various purposes by the Gentlesir.
I will admit that I sometimes compliment women on their hair style. Typically Black women with natural hair. Myunderstanding is that in contemporary American culture, that represents a conscious decision and choice regarding self-presentation, which my compliment is intended to support.
The usual situation is me saying, ‘Excuse me,’ she acknowledges me, I smile and say, ‘Great hair!’ and move on. The women involved tend to react as if pleasantly surprised.
I also sometimes do this with people of various gender presentations with hair attractively dyed various colors human hair doesn’t naturally manifest, for much the same reason.
I’ve been notified by followers that that is a pic of Lee Harvey Oswald & the consensus is that he’s been maligned enough.
@Francesca… but apparently Gentlesir’s boner can’t be used for private masturbation, because that’s just wrong! *sigh at MRA logic*
@Robert
@Zaun
@Guest
Tangentially related:
Personally, I would like to hear you tell me how my fantastically glowing black skin makes me look like a majestic and powerful goddess, but that’s just me. Don’t do that with anyone else, they might not like it.
@JS
This Kills The Gentlesir. Hahahahaha!
This. Plus, as someone who once took support calls in a second language, most of the time when people “couldn’t understand” my accent it was actually an issue of being unhappy with the amswer/policy and taking it out on my accent and/or assuming I couldn’t have possibly understood them. Luckily I had native speakers I worked with who could take over if it was really needed. But even when my language skills got too rusty due to cross-training into other areas that took me off the phones more I wasn’t allowed to switch to English only because of corporate BS about head count, so that was 100% on the company.
@ kiki
That’s still making me giggle; but now I’ve also got an image stuck in my head of like a fairy godmother at the end of a story:
“You see, *I* didn’t give you a boner; the boner was in you all along.”
@Sir Alan
I’m slain, this man has killed me. I’m dying now. 😀
@Kupo
I witnessed this with my family members who were unfortunate enough to still have heavy accents in the USA.
People would just go out of their way to pretend they could not understand, when, in all actuality, you knew they could.
@Robert
I have unnaturally dyed hair and I take it as a compliment on my taste in hair color when it’s complimented.
Compliments I like:
-hair related
-clothing
-shoes*
“Compliments” I dislike:
-“The view is better on this side of the table”**
-anything about my body
-especially anything about my painfully large breasts
-especially especially anything about my weight
*Unless it’s a compliment on how comfortable my shoes look, in which case I feel really weird because I can’t wear traditionally “feminine” shoes without being in excruciating pain so I feel like complimenting me on not torturing myself is really weird. But I don’t take it as objectifying, just as a reminder that the system expects me to torture myself for optimal male gaze yields.
**Was actually told this by a man sitting across from me, who went on to explain, likely do to my expression, “that’s a compliment”
I’m honestly still suspicious of compliments on my clothes or shoes when they come from strange men. One time a man complimented my shoes, waited a few beats, and then went on to say he wanted to suck my toes.
@WWTH
I do not ordinarily kinkshame people, but people who like this kink are gross, I’m sorry. I can’t be around people like that.
This is absolutely one of the squickiest things someone can say, ever, in my personal opinion.
He sounds like a totally gross individual.
I’m not into that particular kink but for me it’s the act itself I find gross, not the people into it. I dated a guy who was into it and it was a huge turnoff for me but as soon as we discussed that it never came up again. He wasn’t gross.
What’s particularly gross in wwth’s story is the overshare. Noone you’re not already engaging in sexual activities with needs to know about your kink. Unless it’s in a space specifically for kink sharing.
The line is that it’s always safer to just keep your words to yourself. I know that some people appreciate compliments to hair/clothes/accessories, but I do not, and you don’t know when you’re going to encounter someone like Fran or someone like me. Fran is not harmed if you don’t compliment her, but I am harmed if you do compliment me. It sticks with me the rest of the day and bothers me the whole time. So err on the side of least harm and just don’t.
In fact, I am going to go even more extreme and say that you shouldn’t really be talking to strangers anyway, unless the context AND the person’s body language make it abundantly clear that the person is open to being approached. Some people (like myself) feel very unsafe when strangers approach due to past negative experiences, regardless of what the stranger intends by it. There is literally no tone of voice or action or whatever that you can take to make me feel comfortable except leaving me alone entirely. Whenever you approach a stranger, you are risking that that person is going to be like me and will be made to feel very unhappy and unsafe by it. Since none of that risk falls onto you, it may feel like it’s no big deal, but it is a big deal to me and I am not unique.
BTW, I feel so unsafe when strangers approach me that I take the step of trying to have a safe, trusted male person with me whenever I’m in public, because mysteriously strangers won’t bother me if I’m “taken.” Imagine that.