By David Futrelle
Hey ladies, if you’re so into EQUALITY why aren’t you asking MEN out on DATES? CHECKMATE FEMINAZIS.
That’s more or less the argument of one apparently lonely Men’s Rights Redditor, who recently posted his plaintive (if also slightly belligerent) complaint on the Men’s Rights subreddit today.
“Every girl knows that guys prefer to [be] asked out,” wrote TC1827, “yet so few will do it cause they can’t get that equality goes both ways.”
“It’s a straight up equality issue,” he added in a comment, “with women being unwilling to give up their privilege.”
Ah yes, the privilege of getting their DMs invaded by horny weirdos bearing dick pics! The privilege of being propositioned on the train while wearing headphones with their nose buried in a book! The privilege of, well, you get the point.
Happily, TC1827 has a solution to the problem, and it just happens to be the same as Jordan Peterson’s.
Bring back socially enforced monogamy so that dating is less about sex and more about a life partnership. And socialize equality from a young age so that each gender has an equal chance of being asked out.
So … bring back a more patriarchal system, then “socialize” boys and girls to act in a less patriarchal way? That’s sure to be a grand success.
Or, I dunno, TC1827 and those who agree with him could go sign up for Bumble, the dating app in which the women have to make the first move for any conversations to happen at all.
Somehow I suspect that TC1827 still wouldn’t get the attention he thinks he deserves.
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@defintetly not Steve
The last time i got cat called i was in the mall parking lot by myself and walking to my car when a pickup truck starts driving really slow next to me. Had his window rolled down and kept trying to get me to look at him but i kept my eyes to the ground and kept thinking don’t engage don’t engage you might die. So he called me a cunt and threw a half drunk coffee at me promoting me to have to go change before class and so angry and crying on my way back to my apartment.
Yeah I’m sure hetero aexual men would love it if a woman did that to them.
@Lainy
I’m so sorry that happened to you. May you have safety and may that never happen again.
I think whenever men think about how they’d “like” to be catcalled, they don’t know what catcalling actually looks like or feels like. I don’t think anyone wants to be assaulted or harassed, and I don’t think many men realize that that’s what it actually entails in many cases.
The difference is when a creepy guy aggressively goes after a woman regardless of whether she’s actually interested she can get hurt or killed and nobody cares. If a woman goes after a man and he’s not interested he’ll just ridicule her and shame her. He himself isn’t in any danger for daring to not respond to the person he didn’t find attractive. At fucking all. I wish guys would get that.
When I started getting catcalls at about age 14 (AKA when I grew out of my training bra) I liked it at first. I thought it meant I was attractive. But it got old quickly. Especially when some of the street harassment started to take a more blatantly* predatory turn.
When you start to get the message that you are perceived as an object, there for the pleasure of the dominant gender, it’s not so fun or flattering anymore. When you can’t ever be sure you’ll be left alone every time you leave the house, it’s less fun. When you don’t know if a catcall will turn into stalking or a verbal or even physical attack, it’s less fun.
When men imagine receiving lots of female attention, they don’t tend to comprehend that the reality of the attention women, or people perceived as women receive is much different than the cis male porn fantasy they imagine. I don’t think it’s wrong to fantasize about receiving genital pics or catcalls though. As long as you are willing to understand why the reality isn’t so fantastic for us.
* of course, grown men catcalling girls who visibly and obviously minors is inherently predatory, but I didn’t realize that until I was a bit older
@StacySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
What you said reminds me of something Margaret Atwood said that rather encapsulates the main idea of this discussion:
I agree with WWTH that there is definitely nothing inherently wrong with anyone (including cishet men) just wanting to feel attractive and have someone think they’re attractive. That is something deeply important to me. Just understand what women go through just for existing.
I’ve been going to social events in a special community to help build my own sense of a confidence about going for what I truly want in terms of feeling attractive and powerful. My boss who is like my mentor suggested it and I talked about it with my therapist and I started going to this group’s events.
This whole conversation about unwanted attention reminds me of that.
@Naglfar
Yes, I remember that from a Women’s Studies class in college. We didn’t read a full Margaret Atwood book but an excerpt I think. It’s really thoughtful.
Unless it’s a dating site where they are explicitly there to meet potential dates, odds are she isnt waiting for you to ask her out, she’s just minding her own business in public because this is the real world and not a video game where people are characters who exist for your benefit. Sometimes unfortunately we have to share real life spaces and don’t need to deal with some rando going into Karen mode
@Lainy,
I’m sorry to hear about your experience, and I know you’re not alone. Probably just about every woman I know has been through something like that, and it’s infuriating.
To (attempt to) be clear, I understand the reality that unwanted sexual attention from cis men frequently threatens to spill over into sexual harassment and assault, and no one wants that, regardless of their orientation. And even benign attention is substantially less fun when you have to think about how it could escalate.
But sometimes it’s nice to fantasize about a world where everybody recognizes boundaries and is happy to back off when they find they are overstepping someone else’s. (Wistful sighs…)
Hard to say, since the whole idea sounds so outlandish. Generally, I don’t see much appeal in disembodied vulvas.
@Lumipuna:
Really, it’s sort of:
– Do I know this person?
– Do I trust this person?
If no to either of those questions, then them getting inappropriately intimate too early with sexually explicit information is a turn-off. I don’t see how that has anything to do with personal gender or orientation.
Honestly, about the only people I can see that might be fine with unsolicited genital photos would be exactly the sort of MRAs we talk about, because they’d just read it as ‘she wants me!’ and it would be validating their sense of entitlement.
@Jenora Feuer
I think that they would, because like Stacy (and Margaret Atwood) said, they are in a position of power. If they received unsolicited photos of vulvas, at worst they’d laugh it off. Women receiving dick pics or getting catcalled are not in a position of power, so they can’t.
It really is about who has the power.
The social group that I have gotten in with does stuff with power exchange in ways that at very first scared me maybe just a little but I also thought at the same time was really attractive and liked. They made it safe to learn about and helped me learn to bring together my art in a performance art kind of way with taking a more powerful position and with really emotional connectedness with a guy in a way that was safe but still made me feel attractive.
When it’s in a safe and structured way and I have the power it’s so different from just the world in general where because I’m a woman who dresses in a way some guy happens to think is sexy I’m expected to either do what he wants or die. It’s such a difference and I think I am learning a lot.
Sorry I wrote that really rambling but I am so smitten right now maybe I shouldn’t be trying to write about serious subjects. You all are such wonderful and smart people and I try to keep up.
@Definitely Not Steve
From your responses, it seems like you understand that no, heterosexual men wouldn’t enjoy being sent unwanted pictures, if it was equal to what non-heterosexual men went through re: these pictures and the culture that enables them.
And that’s really the point. It isn’t someone that someone is interested in getting a titillating picture, sending this is always a move that signifies power. It says “I don’t care what you were doing, now you’re involved in my sexual fantasies, whether you like it or not.” It says “You are an object for me to control.” It says “What did you expect, existing on the internet/in public/on a dating site? You’re basically asking for this.” It says “This isn’t anything, don’t get upset, can’t you take a joke?” if there are any repercussions at all.
I’m not saying that people who have consented to be in a relationship that would include this type of sexy texting don’t exist, just that you need to know that that is the type of relationship that all parties involved have consented to be in. Sending random explicit pictures to random people that the hypothetical person finds hot isn’t the same thing at all.
Especially when it’s just a constant reminder that the only use not-heterosexual-men have is to be a ‘thing’ that receives this unwanted attention. :/