By David Futrelle
The lady-hating wannabe ladykillers who call themselves Red Pillers love to trash talk cats and those who love them, forever “warning” feminists that if they don’t change their ways, and pronto, they’ll end up living their last years alone, surrounded by cats.
Dudes, I hate to break it to you, but this is not exactly the cutting insult that you think it is because, well, have you seen cats?
Sure, they’re little agents of chaos that leave tiny trails of destruction in their wake, but they are also some of the most delightful creatures on our green earth. Seriously, dudes, go watch some cat videos on Youtube and tell me with a straight face that being surrounded by cats is somehow a bad thing.
Thing is, beneath the disdain that so many Red Pillers profess to feel for cats you will often find a deep, if not very well-hidden, undercurrent of jealousy. How is it that these weird, furry, self-absorbed brats — I mean cats, not Red Pillers — have won the hearts of women (and men) around the world without even trying?
Some Red Pillers are convinced they have the answer: Because cats are assholes.
In one thread in the Red Pill subreddit from a couple of years ago, one enterprising fellow known as poopin urged his fellow alpha male wannabes to “Have the personality of cats. Bitches love cats.”
“I have always hated cats personalities and wondered why so many girls were so attracted to cats,” poopin wrote.
Cats treat you like shit, are mostly unaffectionate, and are assholes. Yet a LOT of girls love cats. You never hear of cat guys (as opposed to cat ladies).
I have always wondered why girls are attracted to an asshole pet. The Red Pill has made it all clear to me.
He then posted a long list of cat traits, real and imagined, that in his mind make them the ultimate alphas. Cats, he assured his fellow Red Pillers, are
*Cute
*Aloof
*Independent.
*Want affection(rare) on their own terms …
*You serve ME, I do not serve you attitude. …
*I do what I want. …
*Indifference mildly peppered with punctuated affection (to keep interest).
*The only interaction you get is when you play with me (sex)
A note of caution: If you think that sex and playing with cats are basically interchangeable activities, chances are good that you’re doing at least one of these things very, very wrong — unless your (human) partner has, say, a fetish for batting at dangly things.
Poopin is hardly the only Red Piller to suggest that his fellows emulate the “aloof” behavior of cats. “If you want to be more alpha, strive to act like a cat not a dog,” wrote one of his colleagues in a post last year. ” Commenter torodinson agreed:
You ever try to pet a friend cat you just met? They will likely avoid you like the woman and the thirsty beta. But if you ignore a cat they well need your attention like the woman and the independent alpha.
In a thread from last week, someone called Porespellar declared that
Cats are masters of holding frame
Cats rarely break frame. You can yell at them, threaten them, etc and all you’ll get is a bemused stare back at you. We can learn from this.
As something of a cat enthusiast I have to say that Red Pillers understand cats about as well as they understand everything else — which is not very well at all.
Yes, cats can be assholes. They more or less do what the hell they want, even when they know full well we don’t want them to do it.
But cats are hardly the aloof, indifferent creatures Red Pillers — and a lot of people who don’t actually own cats themselves — think they are. Red Pillers think cats are all like this:
What they don’t seem to understand is that cats are also like this:
Yes, cats can seem pretty aloof to people they don’t know or like, but sometimes their seeming aloofness isn’t the result of indifference but of their social anxiety. Many cats that are notoriously standoffish with guests can be endlessly and often ridiculously affectionate with their owners and other trusted humans, and not just because they want to mark “their” people with their scent. One of my cats insists on curling up in my arms like a (human) baby multiple times a day for as long as my arms (or my patience) can stand it, while the other stares at me affronted like a jilted lover in a Mexican Telenovela.
Cats also have a number of other habits, some deeply weird, that aren’t a good idea to copy if you’re looking to charm your way into someone’s heart, or at least their pants. They like to watch people poop. They sit on your head when you’re trying to sleep. They stick their butts in your face when you’re just trying to watch TV. They walk across your keyboard and sometimes take naps on it. They bring you dead animals as gifts. They sprint around the house at 4 AM for no discernible reason. As the video above demonstrated, some of them just really enjoy knocking things to the floor.
So here’s a thought, Red Pill dudes: Instead of trying to emulate animals, whether gorillas, lobsters, or cats, why not try emulating, I dunno, decent human beings? Play “hard to get” if you want — it’s a time-honored and basically harmless romantic trick of the trade — but don’t fetishize aloofness or turn it into a lifestyle.
There is, however, one thing about cats that some Red Pill pickup artists would do well to emulate. Cats are pretty good about cleaning their own asses without making a fuss about it. Just something to think about, Roosh V.
In the same vein as Gary Larson:
http://www.theideaoforder.com/img/comic/210.jpg
Source: http://theideaoforder.com/?id=210
Here’s a far out idea — I make no guarantee that it’s right, only that it’s interesting: Liberalism, and civilization, owe their existence to cats.
First, a technical note: cats transmit something called toxoplasma, which has been found in lab studies to alter rat brains … removing their fear of cats. The benefit of this in helping cats hunt should be obvious.
But (as someone else pointed out above), mammal brains are broadly similar. It stands to reason this thing would have the same effect on human brains. And that it is a bit broader than just removing fear of cats. There’s only a few “fundamental” causes of fear: big-scary-thing, snake-or-spider, heights, and thing-which-hurt-last-time-I-saw-it. The first of those four would be the source of all xenophobia.
So maybe exposure to cats’ germs removes, or diminishes, xenophobia in general.
This would enable humans, with a default tribalistic tendency and xenophobia (so, naturally conservative), to get along with strange humans and engage in common-interest endeavors with them, such as trade or building a pluralistic society — i.e., to become liberal, and then build a civilization.
How would it have happened? Well, first comes village horticulture. Then comes the need to defend the granaries against rats, and to keep rats from spreading plague. In most places this keeps on not-working, and most places humans don’t initially advance much beyond village horticulture and neolithic technology. Except in Libya, where the sand cat starts co-evolving with the villagers in the region, tolerated and even fed sometimes by humans in exchange for controlling rodents. And the humans lose their tribalistic xenophobia. Before long, new, more complex forms of society, such as states, show up in the Middle East. And they can form large conquering armies more populous than whole villages, and spread out. Civilization expands, and cats come with it, and where the cats go, there are enough liberal-minded people to keep civilization held together. A few thousand years later, civilization is everywhere, the planet’s nightside glows noticeably, and there are footprints and artifacts on the moon.
The biggest problem with this notion is the existence of some approaching-bronze-age civilizations in the New World before contact with the Old. I’m unaware of evidence of cats among, say, the Aztecs or Incas. On the other hand, if there was one species of small predator that transmitted a xenophobia-removing thingy there might have been more than one …
The weirdest thing is that if this has any significant truth to it, we can fix half the so-called “wicked problems” by a ludicrously simple measure: encourage, or even mandate, all children everywhere to spend some time around cats or kittens. A generation or two later, perhaps, all the nastiness just starts fading away. If we can manage to hang on that long amid nuclear threats and climate change and habitat loss and all that …
This also suggests looking into ancient cat population figures. We know cats were persecuted during the Middle Ages, while religious bigotry ruled the day (along with the plague and recurrent famines) and progress stagnated. Could a loss (or even a purge, possibly motivated by Christianity’s takeover) of cats in the Roman empire have inadvertently sown the seeds of its downfall? What about other collapses of civilizations? One of the longest-lived, ancient Egypt, hung on for literally millennia while others rose and fell … and Egyptians worshipped Bastet, a cat goddess. And if civilization requires “vitamin meow” to stay healthy, could our current problems in much of the West have stemmed from a decrease in cat exposure? Or something subtler: as we’ve advanced in our hygiene and medical technology, and in our fastidiousness vis-a-vis hand-washing and the like, we might inadvertently have reduced our exposure to toxoplasma directly. Could supplements be in order?
Re wanting attention all the time, when my husband played a TV game last night one of our dogs tried to get the controller away from him.
@Dave: One nit-pick, but this totally does work on me, if certain people I want to pet anyway are craving affection:
“They stick their butts in your face when you’re just trying to watch TV.”
But yes, Red Pillers generally seem very underexposed to actual, real-world interactions. Seems to be a general thing in the Manosphere.
@ Surplus to Requirements…
Toxoplasmosis is down to a parasite infestation of the nervous system and, in addition to reducing fear responses, I understand it can turn the affected person blind. I think you have a very good point about cats suppressing vermin (rats and mice) increasing available food supplies, thereby increasing the success of cat – associated cultures, but I’d rather not be directly exposed to the debilitating effects of toxoplasmosis.
Funny thing about Christian cultures and cats, their acceptance or otherwise has been variable. There was a time when Irish monks appear to have been much taken with moggies, to the point that I believe there’s even a poem, ‘Pangur Ban,’ written about his cat by a scriptorium brother.
When all your books are written on parchment and bound in leather, you definitely want creatures around that will keep the rodents in check.
(And “Pangur Ban” is a delightful poem — the monk describes himself and the cat as co-workers, the cat hunting mice while he hunts words and meaning.)
Stupid generalisations remain stupid. Every person who comes up with the “cats are for womz, dogs are for menz” crap acts like they’re the first genius to ever think of it. It’s. So. Old.
I noticed the other day (thanks to a thread Dr Spleen linked to) that Montaigne is a hero of the redpill guys (ugh, poor Montaigne). I wonder if they’ve read his musings on his cat, whom he loved dearly; e.g. “When I am playing with my cat, how do I know she is not playing with me?”
Also, this thread has all the feels. We had 3 moggies for 17 years and when the first one went from heart disease, the other two followed very quickly, like they just gave up. Our current three are delightful and, guess what silly RP dudes? extremely affectionate. Plus, one of my childhood cats knew when I was sad; he would sit next to me and pat me. How “aloof” of him!
I read or saw on the internet that a cat wagging its tail is a sign of stress.
You should see the stressball in my lap right now as I brush her winter coat off.
(Also it said that a cat who reveals its belly MUST NEVER BE RUBBED. The cat not currently in my lap *luuuuuuves* belly rubs. Fuck that web page.)
@ Numerobis
When I was a kid there was a cat down our street that warning would apply to. There’s a lot to be said for case by case assessment, especially if you don’t want to be scratched and bitten.
There’s a lady in the village I used to live in who takes in abandoned kitties. I got quite close to one. He’s an interesting character though. When he was rescued some (expletive deleted) had wrapped sticky tape all round his tail. It was obviously a bit traumatic removing it. So he’s a bit senstive about his back end. He’s pretty affectionate, but if your hand goes near there he will suddenly bite. But he took to coming to visit me and he’d do that thing of rubbing up against my hand as it dangled over the edge of the couch. Thing is, if he walked too far and rubbed his tail on my hand then he’d still bite. I’d be like “How the bloody heck was that my fault!”. He was very nice company though. Must confess I was tempted to see if she was willing to part company with him, but he was her favourite too.
Cat fanciers have included such macho men as Lenin and Hemingway. I’ve no idea why anyone thinks cat lovers are inevitably either female or effeminate.
Fortunately, I was innoculated early against the “cats are for womz” nonsense by observing my father. Nobody would ever have called him unmanly, but he was a complete softy for cats. There was a family story about him burying his first cat in a coffin he made himself from some handsome wood he had obtained to make tools.
We had two long-lived cats. K, the boy, adopted us. S, the girl, a few years younger, was a rescue. When K fell very ill with the flu (which he survived), and was too weak to wash, S washed him all over, like a mother cat with a kitten. It was a touching sight.
K loved nesting in small, dark places, and had several hidey holes around the house, where he would spend hours at a time, contented. S showed no interest in those places. But a few days after K died, S led me around the house, very obviously looking for him in his favourite spots: “check the cupboard under the stairs, hooman, you might have shut him in there”. When he was nowhere to be found, she sat down and let out a howl that I had never heard from her before. Broke my heart.
All the cats I’ve known have been wonderful in their own distinctive ways, and I feel privileged to have shared time with them.
@Moggie
Ok that brought a visit from the onion fairy ???
No, you’re crying.
@kupo,
I know, right?
Reminds me of when we lost our tortie girl, Wilkie. She and my son were best friends; she just chose him as her hoomin and that was it, so he grew up with her.
My boy is quite guarded and private especially where strong emotion is concerned. When Wilkie passed, he just stayed white and silent for hours. Then that evening I heard him howling in the shower; he was hoping the water would cover the sound. After that, for months he’d send me posts and pics about losing furbabies, and he’d caption them with “dammit”. But we never actually spoke about it. It’s been over two years and he rarely says her name, but he now has a photo of her on his desk.
My aunt has an ultra-shy cat who runs away from everyone and every sudden movement but will sometimes come up and investigate you after you’ve been at the house for a while and if you sit still. Once, when my family was holding a garage sale in my aunt’s garage, I got a really bad headache and had to go inside and sit down. I was sitting in my aunt’s low-armed rocking chair with my hand dangling off one of the arms and the shy cat was in the room. She must have known I wasn’t feeling well, because she came up to me and rubbed her head against my hand.
My aunt also has a super-sweet cat who can’t get enough of people. He rubs his head against any human body parts in his range-hands, legs, etc-to solicit petting. He flops over on his side on the floor and purrs super-loud when petted. If you pick up one of his toys, he’ll play with you, and he loves laser pointers. One year my then-boyfriend came to my family’s annual New Year’s party and the friendly cat kept following him around. He even sat under my then-BF’s chair when my then-BF was at the table!
Tl;dr: Cats are much better people than Red Pillers ever will be.
I don’t like cats. I’m still a liberal friendly feminist, but I live in the city and the birds and the squirrels in my tiny yard are always getting eaten by cats, so I’m not a big fan.
I’m always amused when cat-lovers act like they can predict someone’s personality by whether or not they like cats, because really? It’s just a cat, some people are immune to the Internet hype ?
Yeah, you’re right, Bacon, I mis-spoke. I don’t have an issue with people who don’t like cats for a reason! Cats can cause a lot of problems, chase and eat birds, etc. It’s okay to not like the problems that kitties can cause.
My issue is with a reactionary, reasonless dislike. People who say they hate cats, but when you ask them why they don’t have any reasons. Warrantless hate is my issue. And with cats, that warrantless hate is directed against an animal that’s socially coded as feminine.
Thanks for commenting, @Bacon, I was uncomfortable about what I said and wasn’t sure why. That helped!
Are you sure it’s cats? We have a hawk or maybe more than one in my neighborhood and it scoops up smaller birds and squirrels and then drops the mangled corpses. Cats tend to eat the whole animal. Squirrels would typically be too big for a cat to try and get though. I don’t think I’ve even heard of cats eating squirrels before. But to my understanding feral cats account for a significant majority of the kills that cats make. My cat alerted us to a mouse nest that had developed in the basement because she kept bringing up living mice into my bedroom that I had to trap and bring outside. She’s well fed. The mice were just really amazing toys for her.
If there’s a feral cat problem in your city, that’s more the fault of humans. More and more cities are implementing spay/neuter and release programs for cats too feral to be pets. It’s more humane than euthanasia. These programs can drastically reduce feral cat numbers within just a few years. Another important thing to do is for shelters to not adopt out kittens until they’re old enough to be spayed or neutered there at the shelter. In my area, you pretty much can’t adopt an unspayed or unneutered cat or kitten at any shelter and we don’t have a big feral cat problem here at all. If people are concerned about cats killing local wildlife, donating money to responsible shelters or spay/neuter and release programs is more effective than hating on cats.
But seriously, if squirrels are being killed in your neighborhood, I’d look into the possibility that raptors are the culprit. They’ve made a huge comeback lately due to conservation efforts and the outlawing of pesticides that destroy their eggs. I’ve even seen bald eagles in the suburbs near the Minnesota river a few times in recent years. I never saw a bald eagle in the wild before about 5 years ago. If your city has old growth trees especially near bodies of water, there’s a good chance you’ve got eagles, hawks or owls around. They’re increasingly moving into populated areas.
Also more efficient. If there’s only one male and one female left (and face it, killing off every single one isn’t likely), they’re gonna reproduce super fast when they have all those resources previously spread out on an entire population by themselves. Also, feral cats from other areas will rush in to fill the “vacuum”. So killing them will only temporarily shrink the population; soon, you’re back where you started.
If you spay/neuter them, well, you still have a bunch of feral cats there, but the population will be small and stable instead of rapidly growing.
How do mammotheers feel about indoor-only cats? That’s one way to deal with their decimation of local wildlife. Having lived all my adult life in a succession of places where cats and dogs are banned, I haven’t had to make that choice myself. My childhood cats loved the outdoors, so I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with the indoor-only option, but I’m not judging others who make it work.
I’m not sure there is an ideal option when it comes to cats. I feel a bit sorry for indoor only cats. At the same time, outdoor cats don’t merely kill the wildlife, they also face serious risks themselves. My parents and one of my sisters have outdoor cats, and over the years, a number of them were killed by cars, and one of them simply disappeared after several happy years in my parents’ home (so likely he, too, was killed by a car, only they never found him). And they live far out in the countryside! But still, even if you do, there are gonna be roads somewhere in the vicinity. And when there are roads, outdoor cats are occasionally killed on them. (Plus outdoor cats face other risks too… From time to time you read in the papers of cats being murdered by evildoers.)
So sadly, I don’t think any option re keeping cats is that great. It’s actually one of the reasons I prefer to have dogs.
I think indoor only is good. My childhood cats went outside, but the family pets now don’t. Cats sleep so much of the day anyway that they really can be quite happy indoors. You do have to entertain them though. Make sure they have things they can scratch and plenty of toys. Give them catnip. Play with them. I think once a cat gets used to being able to go outside, making it stay in all of a sudden can make them unhappy. But if they’re never an outdoor cat in the first place, they’re fine.
Some people do things like screen in a portion of the yard to make a little cat run that gives them the experience of being outside but keeps them safe and prevents them from hunting. It’s a cool idea. Of course, not everyone has the space and money for that.
I only do indoor only with my cats. They’re just fine with it. It’s safer for them, protects them from disease and wild animals (and other cats) and they find plenty of entertainment. If I get an actual house I’ll want to put a cat run in the yard but for now my kitty gets to go on the balcony when she wants and just watch the people and birds. She’s spoiled, though, and won’t go out if it’s cold.
Our cats have a cat flap and use it at will. Not much danger of predators, apart from foxes, and it’s London. The only things they’re going to catch are rats and pigeons, neither of which are in short supply. (Well, we do have a colony of wild parroquets about, but they’re too smart to be caught)