By David Futrelle
What better way to celebrate International Women’s Day than with a mansplaination of the menstrual cycle from a (presumably) young man on Tumblr who doesn’t seem to have ever seen a vagina in real life?
Although he assures us he has felt their pain.
Welllllllllllllll periods suck(trust me, I was emotionally close with a woman, in fact close enough to feel her goddamn periods. Fuck I fucking hated it, men, don’t get that attached. Be supportive, feed her ice cream and whatever else she asks for, but don’t get attached enough to feel them. It’s not worth it.
So far, so good: Don’t get yourself surgically attached to a woman so that you literally feel what she feels.
Anyway, I hate to be callous but that’s just your body telling you to hurry up and get pregnant.
Wait, what? Dude, cis girls typically get their first periods when they’re, like, 12, and can get them as young as 7 or 8. Their bodies aren’t telling them to “hurry up” and get pregnant.
Also, are you aware that pregnancy tends to be a lot more uncomfortable than having a period once a month? And that’s not even counting the nightmare that is childbirth. If pain and discomfort were a reliable guide to what your body does or does not “want,” wouldn’t the pain of pregnancy and childbirth be an indication that no one should ever have kids?
Of course birth control also makes them not as bad, depending on what kind.
Uh, some forms of birth control have an effect on, ah never mind. I doubt this guy could tell the difference between birth control and, oh, I don’t know, motor oil.
Of course you find out that there’s more kinds of birth control than there are types of oil, which is a pain.
WAIT WHAT
There are more period blood containment things(yes, tht includes tampons, pads, cups, etc.) than there are types of oil according to my dad who actually knows his shit about the oil,saying there’s like 4 types.(Yes, talking about motor oil here)
WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MOTOR OIL
WHERE AM I
WHAT IS GOING ON
So ladies, find what’s right for you. Ask a doctor. Test some different period things out. It’s for your own good
Definitely ask a doctor. Ask a friend. Ask Alexa. Ask random women on the street. Ask pretty much anyone but this dude. Or his dad, who will probably tell you to pour some Valvoline SynPower 0W-20 up in there, get everything running nice and smoothly.
In case you’re wondering, Mr. Motor Oil Menstruation Man doesn’t seem to be trolling, if his earnest responses to various, er, critics of his advice are any indication.
One anonymous commenter, for example, took offense at his notion that periods are basically just your body telling you to get pregnant.
Maybe don’t encourage minors to get pregnant cuz they have periods? Wtf is wrong with you I literally started my periods at like 11.
He responded:
Not encouraging it, I was half exhausted at the time but what I meant was it seems like your body is holding you hostage like, “hey bitch, I’mma do this again next month if you aren’t pregnant k bye” doesn’t it?
No, no it doesn’t, dude. Because in order to stave off your monthly periods you would have to remain more or less continuously pregnant or lactating from your first period until … menopause, which tends to hit around age 50. Unless you die before then from HAVING TWENTY BABIES.
Dudes, at least spend a minute or two thinking these things through before exposing your ass on the internet.
And please don’t ever offer your thoughts on the correct usage of “vagina” vs “vulva,” because we’ve already been through that. Twice.
H/T — This post has been making the rounds on Tumblr. I ran across it thanks to @babypizzagaga on Twitter, who is funny, and quite expert at finding this sort of thing, and who also has a very nice cat.
@nowherepants:
Perhaps, if one is going to be a human ally, one should recognize that that what you say and do using the communication tools of the internet **is** what you say and do in real life.
Signaling virtue is not as important as having virtue, on social media, in blog comments or when talking to your cashier. Try developing just a little more of it.
@nowherepants – omg omg omg I can’t even right now omg omg
I do focus on how I treat women (and people) IRL, and I know that part of that is watching the language I use. The more I use terms, the more I think of those terms, and the more likely they are to pop out when I don’t want them to.
Also brb loling FOREVER @ the unironic use of ‘virtue signalling’. SERIOUSLY.
All the vulgarity was related to the word ‘vagina’ (not a vulgar word) or ‘twat’ (it is a vulgar word) both of which talk about part of anatomy that isn’t… Y’know, vulgar.
Did you email this tweet to David? He might do a post on it if you did. He’s only got so much time to see things, after all. Why do you think he does so many H/Ts? (Hat Tip)
oh wow, this thread though.
@Ariblester! You are a good egg. that is a good summary. You seem to have a talent for cutting through the fog, my duck.
@Crip Dyke, oh my gosh. The number of times I’ve wanted to reach through the screen and smack someone to tell them the things that happen here are as real as any other communication boggles the mind. I mean, wasn’t Brexit and the 2016 American election evidence enough? FFS.
@hetneo, You’re upset. I understand that! I have problems controlling that reaction at times as well. Hence my last name here. I suggest taking a peek at Ariblester’s summary, it’s pretty clear and straightforward. It’s okay if you don’t reply. Let it sit awhile, process the perspective that Ariblester’s offering you. It may not be exactly right, but I think it’s a good outside perspective that may help you triangulate what’s gone on in this thread.
You yourself have admitted that you have an attack instinct towards “certain people”. That’s okay! But it seems to have misfired here.
Have a lovely restful day, my duck. And don’t feel like you have to reply to this, one way or the other. I’m just trying to give you another perspective and a possible route to seeing it.
@nowherepants,
I’ll take it as a given that you’re honest in your contempt for some dood being a turbo-creep giving boner updates, but, well. Can we do this as a list? Let’s do this as a non-blockquoted list. Easily digestible chunks. I’ll keep them brief. Rhuu’s already done most of the work anyways.
testosterone defficient cuckgina: All of this – the whole thing – is saying “this man is bad because he’s not masculine.” You’re saying this on a feminist website. Like, I mean, “testosterone deficient” is only an insult if you think that thing-that’s-coded-masculine is better than thing-that-isn’t-coded-masculine. And “cuckgina” we have to fucking break down to parse what’s wrong with it. “Cucks” are bad because they can’t keep their woman-posessions from being taken from them, and using “vagina” as an insult is anti-feminine on its face.
Also it’s a vulva.
twitter twatter: Like, I know it’s a clever pun and all, but do we gotta go over the fact that using genitalia as a perjorative is bad? Again?
Now I know my words were extremely vulgar but I cannot help but feel such utter contempt for guys like this: No, it’s nto that they were vulgar. I can be pretty fuckin’ vulgar. The problem wasn’t that you were vulgar.
The problem is that your vulgarity seems to involve demeaning women.
Do you understand how that might undercut your message of “you should respect women”?
Anyways, something to think on at least. Have a lovely restful day, my duck.
NowherePants,
You don’t get to decide what makes a good male ally. Women do. I have no way to know how you behave online, I judge you by your behavior here and in terms of allyship, you are lacking.
There’s a whole wide world of insults out there. Have fun with them. You don’t need to resort to insults equating masculinity with testosterone or call women twats.
I mean, really, Nowherepants. Your lexicon of vulgarity is basically cribbed straight from MRAs. You’re using their language. That has knock-on effects.
@Nowherepants
And, I mean, honestly, just because a 5-month-old tweet is on the same vague topic as the original post doesn’t mean you need to come in here and share it while vomiting up misogynistic slurs against the guy who authored it.
@ Kupo, Scildfreja Unnyðnes, WWTH, and others…
I think we’re gonna need a bigger pizza, if the trolling continues! And popcorn too.
I’ll order an extra cheese for those of us who don’t do meat. I also have a fresh bag of Tostitos hint of lime flavor.
Woman-possessions? That’s a complete misinterpretation to say the least. The idea behind the insult “Cuck” is that a man cannot satisfy a woman sexually because of his passive, obsequious behavior so she resorts to sleeping with a more assertive, dominant male. Often behind his back IRL but sometimes openly, right in front of him.
FYI: monogamy has to do with loyalty to ones partner, not treating them as possession…but I digress.
@Bookworm, WWTH, Oogly, Freja, Kupo, Rhuu, Ariblester, & anyone I’ve forgotten
We can definitely do multiple pizzas! I also make awesome pastries, so there’s that.
Strong stance to take. How do you demonstrate it?
Oh. Interesting tactic.
So, someone who can take someone else’s woman-possession away, as Freja put it. Since the woman is acting as a thing possessed by the most masculine man in your example.
I have to say, proving Freja’s point is an interesting tactic when your stated intent was to argue with her. I’ve only seen it from most of the people who’ve tried to argue with her.
Untrue. Jealousy is what you feel when someone who you consider to be essentially a possession of yours is not spending as much time with you as you feel you deserve. Monogamy, as presented by the society we live in, is absolutely normalizing possessiveness of partners.
Though, it’s strange. Freja wasn’t talking about monogamy at all. She was focused explicitly on your choice of language and how that determines the ideas you express. It’s almost like you’re shifting the goalposts. Not that we’ve ever seen that from trolls before.
Remember Hitchen’s razor: what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. This is not a fact, it is an opinion.
Those who advocate “free love” are actively trying to use shame to make those who prefer monogamy into thinking that their preferences are a sign of bad character and that to truly be enlightened they should just accept their partners behavior rather than walk away and find someone else who wants the same kind of relationship as they do. Guess what? There ARE feminists who are also monogamous! Being loyal to someone is a choice. It is not because you have any obligation to them or that there is any sort of ownership involved.
Even among non-monogamous people, the more dominant, assertive men get more sex than the more passive, subservient men. Sometimes, even free spirits are willing to be loyal to someone who they see as extremely attractive sexually without being a possession of them.
Wait, Nowherepants! I know I read something that would help explain this… It was recent! What was it…
Oh, I know.
Perfect.
@Rhuu
@Nowherepants
https://tenor.com/view/congrats-djkhlaed-player-yourself-foolingyourself-gif-4961672
Have we considered this new one to be a seagull? Or do i just think theyre ALL seagulls. Hahaha
Oh my god. I had a post that was going to disassemble why “cuckold” is sexist, but I have to delete it now in a case of the giggles.
Okay, okay, okay. I’m better now.
http://derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/8/14/1224644.gif
@Nowherepants. I’ll be brief. First.
Since the “cuck” thing is the only thing you responded to, I guess that means you agree with me on the other part? On calling someone a “twitter twatter” being terrible (and it’s a vulva), calling someone “testosterone deficient” is bad, and that your vulgarity wasn’t the problem, it was the fact that your vulgarity seems to involve associating the target of your insults with femininity?
Do you have any issue with those things? Yes? No? Feel free to reply on that.
As for “cuck” being bad. I mean, I am glad you listed the dictionary definition of what a cuckold is, but the term is used actively in society, right now. It has layers of meaning and a lot of those layers are ugly and sexist.
Why is it always an insult about “a man not being dominant enough to keep a woman,” why not a woman losing a man to a dominant woman? Why is cuckold an insult now, but not cucquean? Why is it assumed that the women automatically are attracted to dominance and crave it? You actually say it later, here:
See, if this were a different sort of site, there’d be terms for this. Alpha-fux beta-bux. Hypergamy. They use different words, but they’re the exact same thing as what you’re asserting is true – without evidence, again.
You’re in here claiming to be a feminist ally, but you’re asserting patriarchal, manosphere beliefs. Do you understand why you’re perhaps having a hard time of it?
Oh, and most feminists are monogamous, because most people are monogamous, because we live in a society with enforced monogamy. Just to put a little bit of Jordie P in there.
I wanted to write about Hitchen’s Razor but I also wanted it separate from the last post because it’s basically another topic. This will be a big ole ramble, pretty much disconnected from the, uh, discussion at hand.
I lump Hitchen’s Razor and Ockham’s Razor together in the same pile. As in, “This is a pile of jagged sharp things that are as likely to hurt you as help you – use with caution”. They’re dangerous, because they make it easy to disregard the observations of others.
Outside observers – unstable, unreliable, inconsistent humans – are basically the only source of outside perspective we have available to us. They’re the only way we can triangulate reality out of the confused muddle of our brains. And our brains hate this fact so very, very much. We want to be right. We want for our first instinct to be the correct one. And it’s basically impossible to stop that tug of bias from skewing our perceptions. All of our myriad biases and failings stem from the simple fact that our brains want to be right, and damn what the world is telling us.
Hitchen’s Razor (ugh I hate that term) and Ockham’s Razor (don’t like that one either) are a sharp thing that our brains can use to cut off a pesky tug of reality before it starts to make us think we might be wrong. It’s an easy out.
This is not to say that they aren’t also true! You can disregard something that’s presented without evidence. You should take the simplest route to the truth. Used properly, they are effective and potent tools. But they are easily misused, and to disastrous effect.
They must be coupled – closely – with the principle of charity and a rigorous, unyielding sense of self-criticism. You must take the opposing argument at its highest, most convincing form, and you have to spend effort to find that highest form.
I can hear the reply now “It’s not my responsibility to make your argument for you; if your argument sucks then I don’t have to pay attention to it.” And you’re right that it isn’t your responsibility to make someones’ argument for them, to take the effort to seek the truth. It’s not about being generous to someone else, it’s about being critical of yourself. About good mental hygiene.
Brains get cluttered with bad ideas. They collect like lint in a lint trap. Unlike lint though, you can’t just peel it away. You have to find cleaners. Caustic, nasty cleaners, and you’ll need lots of varieties of them. They are to be found in the people you meet and the ideas they present to You. you take those ideas, you refine them to their highest potency, and you give your brain a thorough scrubbing to see if any of your own bad ideas break free and wash away. That way what’s left is clean, and hard, and clear. Until you find another cleaning agent and can scrub a little harder.
And that’s why those two razors are bad for you. They give you an easy way to toss out those brain-cleaners. “You have no evidence,” you reply, instead of thinking about it and looking for evidence yourself. It could be that the argument you’ve thrown away is a gem, but until it’s served to you with evidentiary garnish, you ignore it.
“That’s too complicated,” you reply, instead of thinking about all the moving parts and considering the fact that they might all be needed. People who use Ockham’s Razor to discard ideas often forget that part. You discard anything which isn’t necessary.
Finally – Ockham’s razor and Hitchen’s razor is frequently used to discard feminism, environmentalism, socialism – any progressive thing you mention, there’ll be someone piping up about those things. I’ve even seen Ockham’s used by flat earthers. Just look at where the use of those tools brought those people. Are you so sure that you’re using it properly?
That’s my ramble. I welcome any commentary on it!
Oh yeah, and Hitchens was a misogynistic dickbag who wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was. I bet Ockham was too, but that’s just because of statistics.
@ scildfreja
It’s a rule here that, if barristers act in an ex parte application, i.e. one where the other party doesn’t get to appear, you have to bring to the court’s attention *any* argument or authority that they might have raised themselves.
(As most other barristers are far more diligent researchers and better advocates than me, it’s always tempting just not to turn up)
Um, NO. Adultery, even though it is frowned upon socially, is not a criminal offense in most western nations(I know some states still have laws on the books but those laws are not enforced). Also, there is the US state of Utah were polygamy is legal.
In fact, there are more and more people in open marriages where there is mutual agreement that they can sleep with other people. There are also people in civil unions/domestic partnerships who are not exclusive. You act like this is still the 1950s.
And don’t even get me started about Donald Rump who is an admitted adulterer and still gets the support of the christian right and has avoided legal fallout over *that*(unlike Bill Clinton who faced impeachment over a sex scandal).
Just because monogamy might still be the norm does not imply that consenting adults are obligated to abide by it. You do have the freedom to be non-monogamous if you choose to do so since >>90% of Americans want the government out of our bedrooms.
@Nowherepants
So what would you call me, a woman who on a occasion likes to watch my fiancé sleep with other women? Gonna call me a penis for some reason or is that just for men?
Polyamorous
Cuckoldry traditionally refers to the situation where a man’s wife commits adultery(read sleeps with another man behind his back), gets pregnant with her lovers child, bears the child and her husband ends up raising another man’s child without agreeing to do so. But nowadays the term “Cuck” is used as a generic insult against passive, subservient, weak men.
@Nowherepants
Aw but you see we aren’t Polyamorous. My fiancé would like the arrangement much better if I joined in. But I like to watch. I’m just marrying him, just having children with him. We have a few friends that we sometimes have this type of fun with but we aren’t in a relationship like that with them. Now where is the term for is a man sleeps around and gets another woman pregnant behind his wife’s back? Is she a weak, subservient, passive woman?
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the use of the word “cuck” as an insult simply because it assumes that the normative model of masculinity is of aggression, dominance and physical strength?
@Scildfreja, I think you were alluding to this when you said that something was
You were referring to “testosterone deficient”, but I think it also applies here.
I mean, if fundamentally the insult is meant to imply that a man isn’t as masculine as he ought to be, any discussion of the role of possessiveness and jealousy and fidelity and monogamy is just adding further layers on top, isn’t it? But the basis of the insult is itself already problematic.
oh my gosh you are using a Peterson defense on me
halp, halp, I can’t get out from under all of this reasoning!
cough, cough
Hee, sorry. Okay, I’m good.
@Nowherepants,
The term “enforced mongamy” has an meaning. It is a term used by population biologists when talking about animals. Animals that have long-term monogamous relationships, and who have difficulty outside of them due to behaviours of mates and potential mates, are called enforced monogamy groups.
This term has been very esoteric and wonky for a long time, until Jordan Peterson used it to defend incels, saying that they wouldn’t be around if we were an enforced monogamy culture. The interviewer asked him what he meant by that, because it sounds an awful lot like forcing women into relationships with awful men and reducing their ability to choose. He retreated back into his keep by saying “oh, it’s a biological term, of course i don’t mean condoning coersion and rape”. Even though that coersion and rape is the only way his statement made sense.
Ever since he used it this way, a certain slice of the population has clung desperately to Peterson’s definition, despite it being shown to be both wrong and contradictory numerous times. Humanity has enforced monogamy, because our cultures use social pressure to encourage monogamous relationships.
All of this has been discussed, numerous times, on this blog. By David in main posts, by many of us in the comments. I’ve written almost these exact paragraphs more than once. Pretty much always when talking to a troll whose mask had fallen off.
Why am I having to explain this to you now?
I’m willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to you, because I’m hopelessly optimistic and naieve. But you really should ask yourself that – why do you hold nearly same definition in your head about enforced monogamy as the average incel defender?
Okay, that’s that bit. Now this bit.
Since you’ve not replied, i can only assume that you have no defense for me saying that you using those “vulgar” terms wasn’t offensive because they were vulgar, it was because they were sexist.
So if that’s the case, why are you defending this whole “cuck isn’t sexist!” when it’s right alongside a bunch of other sexist garbage? Even if you’re right, it’s still a clean bit on one side of the garbage pile.
Just … just calm down already. Honestly, stop and think about what’s been said a bit. Apply a little less Hitchen’s Razor and a little more Principle of Charity.
And yeah, @Ariblester, I am uncomfortable with it for that reason too. I said it wasn’t just misogynist, it was misandrist, too. Ain’t no misandry quite like misogyny, really.
@Ariblester
*Raise hand*
Yes yes it does, It also bothers me by implying that those are the things all women want. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable