An open letter to the dudebros, brodudes, and I Tappa Kegga brothers of the world.
Dudes. Bros. You are facing a crisis of bromongous proportions. At a moment in history when you might have unprecedented access to that most valued commodity of the Bromantic Era--willing, accessible, uncomplicated poontang--your own brother bros are shooting you in the foot.
It works like this: you throw a party, with lots of booze and annoying music and you invite lots of ladies. Ladies whom you hope will be eager to get in bed with you and total freaks in the sack. That would be the optimal party, right? Tons and tons of uninhibited women who dress and act sexy, like sex, are good at sex, and don't think it means you have to get married or be all weird in the morning or anything.
And then the foot-shooting. It comes in two forms. The first is slut-shaming. When guys talk bad about women for sleeping with a lot of guys, they're signing away their chance of sleeping with those women themselves--and your chance as well. When a woman is laughed at or insulted for being a "slut," there's a very good chance she'll respond by having less casual sex, even if she likes the sex itself. Other women see this happening and don't let themselves have any casual sex in the first place. And when that happens, dudebros, everyone loses.
The second is rape. Some frathouses and other guy-thrown parties have such bad reputations that the "she should have known better" victim-blaming comes into play for any woman who even goes there. Imagine how many women aren't showing at up at all because of this. Imagine how many of the women who do show up won't go upstairs with you because of this.
And then again, imagine a party house where sexually free women were welcomed with open arms, where women were respected and felt safe, and where they were safe. Imagine how many sluts would show up to their parties, and how much sluttier they might get.
I appeal to you, dudebros, to think not of women's rights--that can be such an abstract concept--but of your own pussy supply. What you and your bros are doing right now is scaring all the pussy away. If you like pussy so much, treat pussy owners nicely, and you just might get a whole lot more of it.
Sincerely,
Holly Pervocracy
P.S. No guarantees. Sometimes you act like a decent human being and don't get laid. Your odds are better, but still, it happens. The only solace I can offer is that at least you were a decent human being. That's something, y'know?
"P.S. No guarantees. Sometimes you act like a decent human being and don't get laid. Your odds are better, but still, it happens. The only solace I can offer is that at least you were a decent human being. That's something, y'know?"
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ha, not to the dudebros you're probably thinking about. The name of the game is insecurity, or at least that's my take on it.
But still, it sounds like a nice place. I'd like to visit sometime.
The best.
ReplyDeleteI've idly considered selling feminism as sexual self-help. You could write a sex and dating guide aimed at dudebro types, find some bro-ish "sexpert" they can relate to, and hope your targets don't notice it's feminist before they notice it works.
ReplyDeleteHeading off this brotastrophe is a real bronundrum.
ReplyDeleteIt's something, alright.
ReplyDeleteNow do one for the sororities.
I love this post.
ReplyDeleteHilariously, my experience with trying to have casual sex is that most guys I've offered it to will happily sleep with me once, but seem to get weirded out afterwards and never call again (no doubt while complaining to their friends that they don't get laid enough).
Meanwhile, fuckbuddies I've had who aren't all hung up on Madonna/whore actually come back for more sex, and have other partners they're sleeping with, too, so they're gettin' it several times a week from a bunch of different women and they don't have to "work for it" at all (unless you consider being a decent human being "working for it", and sadly I'm sure some guys do).
fucking has to be the only activity where two people can want the same thing fir the same reasons and both parties are freaked out about it. sigh.
ReplyDeletePerversecowgirl - Yeah, a lot of bros don't seem to understand the value and convenience of repeat business. Getting laid becomes exponentially harder if you have to find a new person every time.
ReplyDeleteWe can't use logic! That's...that's horrible! Unthinkable! Key word there being think for these little lads. Amusingly enough, the guys who whine about never getting laid also accuse everyone else of not getting laid. Projecting insecurities, ur doin it right? :P
ReplyDeleteSaw the title, and wondered if you were going to explain how we'd reached "peak pussy."
ReplyDelete(Had no idea how you were going to justify that, but there it is.)
Hahaha, love it!
ReplyDeleteNew Brosmo. Blue Cover!
Science Discovers What Women Want
"Women want the sex they want."
Getting Laid... Made Easy!
"It's easy to get girls in bed when they want to. Be someone they want to get down and dirty with! If you both liked the sex, do it again!"
2 Mistakes Your Bros Make That Keep You From Getting Laid
"Making them feel bad for wanting it."
"Making them have sex they don't want. They'll stop wanting sex with you and your bros, 'cause you give the bad sex."
When a woman is laughed at or insulted for being a "slut," there's a very good chance she'll respond by having less casual sex, even if she likes the sex itself.
ReplyDeleteI've never understood this. (About the guy's part in it, I mean.) I figured this out when I was 16, for fuck's sake, not exactly a time known for clear thinking on the part of the human male.
"If these girls are having sex, and I want them to have sex with me, I shouldn't make fun of them for having sex."
This is why I love my school, for all the flaws it has. We worked out in, like, the Sixties that shaming people for having sex leads to less sex, and now there are hot ladies dressed as Eve during commencement.
ReplyDeleteBros: this could be your school. Barefoot hippie men in dreadlocks do not have any special superpowers you do not.
"Brosmo"... Rowdy, I'm really going to miss you when you get Raptured.
ReplyDeletePerlhaqr - I think the guy's part in it is one-half "gotta show the bros that I'm tougher than some dumb girl" and one-half "I actually don't get laid that much and I'm very bitter."
ReplyDeleteIf I was in that type of brohood I'd totally make this a battleplan for the entire bropulation.
ReplyDeleteNow, since I'm not, I'll just keep pushing the "sex is fun, people should have as much as they like and not feel bad about it" agenda.
Sometimes the male bonding is the most important part. However, dude bros operate in a different realm, and score through prestige and masculinity. Necessary but not sufficient is no way to get laid, but maybe you'll get converts.
ReplyDeleteYes, Eurosabra, somewhere out there, there is a parallel universe where insulting women turns them on and assaulting women at a party just means more women will show up next week.
ReplyDeleteBut you know what? Somewhere out there, there's a parallel universe made entirely of mayonnaise. No eggs even. Total mystery where the mayo comes from.
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/two-vegan-mayo-recipes-111206
ReplyDeleteThat's where our eggless mayo parallel universe came from!
Also, I try telling some of my dudebro friends/relatives this. It is depressing how they don't believe me (or, more likely, don't care).
Brotastrophe is the best word EVER!
ReplyDeleteI used this strategy for YEARS before I met Ro.
ReplyDeleteI was a pretty happy, successful manwhore for a good six, seven years running! :D The Holly strategy WORKS!
--Mac
Problem is, the getting sex is secondary. Their actual aim is enforcing gender roles on both men and women as hard as they possibly can. Men are supposed to constantly want sex, and Real Men are supposed to constantly GET sex, hence they behave accordingly. But they can't advance that part of the gender-enforcement agenda by abandoning a different part of it; that'd be missing the point.
ReplyDeleteI saw a remarkable thing recently. Some of you may have heard that some Georgia shock jocks, bigtime frat boy types, published a bunch of photos they'd taken at Frolicon for purposes of ridiculing the people in them. Unsurprisingly, this pissed a lot of people off. Once of the assholes' defenders, on their Facebook page, said the most remarkably revealing thing: "Bottom line, when u do things outside the box, prepare to be ridiculed."
This guy just admitted that he lives in a box, and a very small one. His response to this is not to question the box or why he is in it, it's to attack everyone who doesn't live inside his box. And he doesn't notice anything odd about this.
That's what we're up against. That guy.
this is an awesome blog. as pope cat would say "bless this post"
ReplyDeleteon a more serious not you got a good point. frats should respect women and take women's rights more seriously because with all this talk of sexual or physical assault they really are "scaring all the pussy away"
Hey, you're making these words up! Brotastrophe, indeed!
ReplyDeleteI mean, how do you even bronounce all these bronouns? I think this trend will have a brofound effect on the language as a whole, brovided that the practice is bromoted widely enough.
I want to launch a brotest.
Or at the very least, start a dudebate...
;)
Like, totally awesome, Holly, dude...
These portmanbros are out of conbrol.
ReplyDeleteBut you know what? Somewhere out there, there's a parallel universe made entirely of mayonnaise.
ReplyDeleteOf all the things you've written, that may be the most horrifying.
That's gonna give me nightmares for a fucking week.
Well at least I'm a decent human being, and I've never resorted to calling someone a slut. Now if I could just get laid I'd clearly be winning duh.
ReplyDeleteSeconding what perversecowgirl said. And also adding that if you have a cool fuckbuddy/friend-with-benefits who treats you with respect and totally appreciates that you share your body with him/her (and vice versa, obvi), and you can provide this info as a reference, you get the pyramid pussy scheme in which you recommend each other as well-adjusted adults who are fun in bed and introduce your friends...and everyone gets laid more if they so desire. Love multiplies, it shouldn't divide.
ReplyDeleteConversely, if a dudebro sleeps with a woman and slags on her afterwords, she's gonna tell her friends that too and suddenly the supply runs low. Word to the wise...
I would definitely go to those parties.
ReplyDeleteI knew one bro-type who understood that calling the same girl back made getting laid easier, but unfortunately he did this with an ex-girlfriend and there was a lot of awkward tension. O_o; I guess, hey, at least they both got what they wanted?
At schools where the frats have the best parties, women take the risk in stride. Why the ideological commitment to terror, I'll never know, but a good filip arises in getting women to ironize the risk, bragging that they took UCLA's now well-lit-and-guarded Rape Trail to the parties. And frats are only lacking women at places like Yale, where the admin and the police keep the parties small and quiet anyway, meaning the DKE rape chants were only the final straw, and only decisive because Yale consistently sucks as a party school.
ReplyDeleteEurosabra - If the status quo is the awesomest thing ever, shouldn't everyone be a lot happier right now?
ReplyDelete'Scuse me while I stop laughing my ass off at Mr. Monster's comment. Bronouns, indeed . . . XD
ReplyDeleteAnyway, getting back to the original post: *this*. I've never understood why men want to have sex with women, then treat women badly, then wonder (loudly and at length) why women don't want to have sex with *them.*
You'd think it'd kinda be self-evident, wouldn't you?
A system that scares away or disgusts feminists while attracting sorority women and the hard-drinking is dudebro win. At every school I've been to, frat men always did better than the Independents. This may be a function of So Cal and stodgy Ivies besides Yale. Outside Antioch, the shame and rape deflator is everywhere, and utterly ruins the chances of the unaffiliated, who offer no prestige, connections, and athleticism. You must have gone to Dirty Hippie College.
ReplyDeleteOH EUROSABRA. We've been through this before, you know? First you claim that all women everywhere want a certain kind of man and will put up with mistreatment in order to get him. When people offer counterexamples, suddenly it turns out that all you're talking about is the specific clubs where you hang out, or "every school I've been to".
ReplyDeleteIf all one has to do to escape the batshit sexual economy you talk about is go to Dirty Hippie College, it sounds like human sexual behavior is a little less formulaic than you claim, no?
And again, how exactly do you know that frat guys were getting laid more often than non frat guys? Could it be that you were listening to frat guys bragging about their conquests? Can you think of any reason why, in a milieu where sex is looked at as a status thing, men might brag more about the sex that they're having or even claim to have more sex than they actually do? HMM. I WONDER!
Problem is, the getting sex is secondary. Their actual aim is enforcing gender roles on both men and women as hard as they possibly can.
ReplyDeleteWell, no. This illustrates the thing I occasionally find frustrating about reading feminist blogs. Unless they're consciously thinking "oh no, someone's stepping out of his/her proper gender role, I'd better punish that person" their actual aim, what they think they're trying to do, is to have sex. Traditional gender roles are the only way a lot of them know how to do this, and they may freak a bit to a lot when people step out of them, but unless you believe patriarchy is a literal conspiracy, their actual aim is whatever they feel their actual aim is.
At schools where the frats have the best parties, women take the risk in stride.
Wow.
Hershele - While I don't think there's a literal conspiracy, I do think there's such a thing as gender policing. Dudebros are notorious for harassing men believed to be "girly" or "faggy," simply for the fact of being that.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'd say that the actual aim is demonstrating their own masculinity and dominance. They're scared, and the scariest thing is not sleeping alone; it's being rejected by their own male friends for being a weenie girlie-man who lets chicks walk all over him. At least that's my two semesters of psychology.
Holly
ReplyDeleteThere are women you fuck. There are women you would marry/take home to mother. The populations are distinctly different. So it doesn't MATTER if you shame the sluts, they're not very smart to begin with, nor are they anyone you would wish to pursue a relationship with. They will fuck you ANYWAY. But you fuck them and then dump them, because you would never, ever, want to marry/be in a relationship with someone who would WANT to have sex with you.
Put it bluntly, valuable women have no sexual desire. Sexual women aren't valuable.
It's broad, just not broad enough to meet the needs of the average man. And frustrated men leverage ideology in response. Santa Cruz isn't different enough. I know because people kept having drunk public sex in shared housing, and sometimes actually in the room I thought was mine. Dorm rooms as opposed to a shared house allow discretion.
ReplyDeletehmm... I went to Dirty Hippie College and now I go to Egotistical Economist University, and at neither of these places did/do women enjoy being insulted and shamed. Even at EEU, which has a fair number of dudebros and a fair number of douchebags, women still prefer to hook up with men who treat them well. Or, you know, other women. Or they're in long-term relationships.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that some things that frat guys do helps get them laid, like throw (good) parties, have a lot of friends, and be athletic. But even if some frat guys get laid more often than some non-frat guys, it doesn't mean that everything they do is pussy-wrangling genius. Being an asshole is not one of the things that's attracting women to them.
As a student at EEU, I am now obligated to rephrase this as "Correlation does not imply causation."
Holly: I suppose, but that's not the same thing as saying "the actual aim is gender policing." Because that may be the effect, and it may be a desirable by-product, but it's not the aim in the sense I understand the word "aim": no one says "I'm going to gender-police today, because that's my role as an agent of the Patriarchy." I don't think it's useful to change or even understand the behavior to treat the subtext as the text (any more than it is to ignore the subtext entirely).
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think assigning motivation to these guys at all is giving them too much credit. Often it doesn't seem to go much deeper than "haw haw, that dude isn't acting like a dude, haw haw."
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just my frustration showing through, but I think a lot of the time there really is no thought at all behind these actions.
I had to think of a joke, a friend of mine told me:
ReplyDelete"Don't be sexist... Bitches don't like that."
@Holly: A world where men are just innate assholes for no rhyme or reason is a pretty depressing one - there's no hope things will ever change. It's also one where women will never see equality, and men will never know happiness. That's not a world I'd want to live in, and thankfully I don't believe I do.
ReplyDeleteYes, some individuals are really mean to the point of futility dealing with or changing them. Still, giving men credit for thinking about their actions is the only way to understand how we can change the system and culture we're in.
I think the truth is most guys aren't assholes because they're assholes, it's because asshole behavior makes sense to them. From their upbringing and experiences, the gender policing and rape culture, they believe their behavior is a sensible decision for how they should act as a good person.
That may sound even worse that it's deliberate, and though it does not excuse or redeem their behavior, it does mean it's deliberate but ignorant. That means there's hope and it gives us a point of attack. If we DO ascribe motivations to their behaviors, it means that we can change their motivations - we can make changes in how people see the world so that eventually being an asshole *doesn't* make sense to them.
@Rowdy: I'm not sure we don't live in that world, although I'd concede that the proportion of innate arseholes may be significantly less than 100%.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe people actually think about their actions at all, for the most part. They just react as they've learned to from their peers and role models, and as their own desires lead them to.
It's not even a question of their behaviour making sense: people just do what they do. Maybe they wonder about it afterwards, a little. Sometimes.
I agree that we should be able to exert a cultural influence on these people; after all, their behaviour is culturally coerced. But it won't be as simple as appealing to reason. Just because we see the motivations behind their actions doesn't necessarily mean they will ever be self-aware to a degree where they can be made to see things differently.
Huh. People, eh? What can you do?
Still, I wish you the very best of luck with that - and there's probably enough people who can change to keep us all busy for a lifetime...
Emma: Now I'm curious. Was your college a very small school, on the water, with parties called Walls? (Trying to describe my school in the most recognizable and unGoogleable method possible...)
ReplyDelete@Eurosabra – wait, UC Santa Cruz isn't a Dirty Hippie College?
ReplyDeleteIt is, but only about half the men there ever have sex in any given year, just like everyplace else. And the shortfall is caused by women's aggregate preferences for the men who are socially dominant, within whichever context, which preferences are very cross-culturally consistent across North America.
ReplyDeleteI want to ask where E got that 50% statistic, but I think I know where.
ReplyDelete@Holly: I'm not saying the asshattery doesn't follow a recognizable -- sexist, patriarchal -- pattern, one transmitted through the usual memetic channels. But yeah, saying "they're enforcing gender roles, and that's the intent of that behavior" is probably wrong. And worse than wrong: misleading, and leading to a faulty analysis, and thence to misinformed strategies for combating the problem.
Ozymandias: No, sorry. There are probably a lot of dirty hippie colleges scattered across America. And way more than half the men probably have sex in a year at all of them.
ReplyDeleteI want to ask where E got that 50% statistic, but I think I know where.
ReplyDeleteMe too...and I hope he wore gloves and used lots of lube when he was retrieving it. Safety first! :D
@Hershele:
ReplyDelete"Intent" might be the wrong word here. But if you look at an action that has no conscious justification, no real unconscious justification except for cultural training, and the clear cultural function of perpetuating, in this case, gender roles, I think it's fair to say that the purpose of the act is to perpetuate such roles.
The discussion here seems to agree that slut-shaming has no conscious justification--that it's circular arguments all the way down. The question, then, is whether it is best explained by recourse to unconscious or emotional motivations (Holly's "two semesters of psychology") model, or by the system such actions help to perpetuate.
While the former model is pretty persuasive, and may be philosophically superior, it's worth noting that slut-shaming occurs, in part, because the slut-shamer was previously exposed to slut-shaming. It's only a slut-shaming culture that explains why many different individuals choose to slut-shame, to meet a variety of psychological needs. Thus, I think it's fair to look at the actions as somewhat detached from the agent, as a self-perpetuating practice.
Sorry for the length. I get wordy when I get sleepy.
TL;DR: "Intent" may not be quite the right word, but sometimes gender policing is its own reason.
About half of college students-- both men and women!-- are virgins in one college studied, but since we don't know whether the college was MIT, Smith, Dirty Hippie College or Party U, how accurate this is to any given college or the general population is unknown.
ReplyDeleteAt least at my school, there are two kinds of people: sluts, and those who haven't had their first kiss yet. Polarization yay!
Rowdy - I think that dudebro assholes can think; they just, when they're being assholes, don't. I do think (well, hope) it's possible to get them to think.
ReplyDeleteEurosabra - I don't understand how "men never get laid! this is terrible!" and "men don't need to change anything! being assholes is working out great for them!" can coexist. But there's so much I don't understand about you.
Anon 12:12 - I do so hope you're describing a mindset, and not laying out your own. Because if that's your own, I don't know what to say except... I'm kinda sad that you exist.
ReplyDeleteThe "sluts aren't smart" particularly gets to me. How would that have anything to do with anything? Believe me, "not having sex" takes zero IQ points. Whereas having sex subtracts zero IQ points. And given that sex feels awesome, having fun sex seems to me a pretty smart way to improve my life.
You have to distinguish between male bonding war stories by alpha males among themselves about the women they' ve "had" and slut harassment to a woman's face or of her friends by unsuccessful, incel men. Men who can get laid laugh at women they won't invest time in or commit to if they see sex as transactional, while men who don't settle for implicit threat of "people will believe it was consensual if you get raped." Absence of shaming does not change womens' preferences and make things easier for average or looks/status disadvantaged men. It's different men doing slightly different things. Sometimes you have to nuke from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:12 - I also hope that's not your actual philosophy. But to whosever philosophy it is, I'd immediately put the question: if they'll fuck you anyway, why on earth wouldn't you want to fuck them more than once?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how "men never get laid! this is terrible!" and "men don't need to change anything! being assholes is working out great for them!" can coexist.
ReplyDeleteEasy. Men never get laid on their terms and it is terrible. Changing things so that men would get laid on women's terms is not worth it at all. Better stay single.
The main predictor at UCLA in the 90s was white male/Latina female hookups in a dorm or frat, which led to the "hot fucking cocksucking Mexican whore" frat chants, which were partly also a product of Chicana feminist activism's threat to certain frats rape culture. A lot of white guys got turned down by Race-activist Latinas, generally rather rudely, and there was cockfighting and Sharks/Jets rumbles on campus. Blended pathologies.
ReplyDeleteWomen's terms never include enough men to make it worthwhile for the average man, as sex-pos campuses indicate. 50% even there. There's no place like home for a Princeton man.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure all consensual sex happens on both partner's terms.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, why are women's "terms" so horrible? You'd think we wanted a finger or something. Usually it's some variation on "I'll only have sex with people who demonstrate in some way that they think of me as a person, possibly even a friend."
The horror... the horror.
Seriously, if you dislike everything about women, why is it so all-fired important that you stick your dick in one? There's lots of warm wet things out there.
ReplyDeleteGo microwave a grapefruit or something. Apparently they're far less hateful than women and they're definitely less discerning.
Because while I find a lot of cultural baggage women carry irritating, even in geek milieus, I do sometimes connect with them and I can't really fault them for valuing the things they value. But yeah, I'm naturally attractive to very few women and I'm mainly interested in using pickup to increase that number. And I like sex, and it's fun, and sometimes I even like the women I have sex with, for things other than sex. Schmoop happens.
ReplyDeleteOK Eurosabra. So what you've got so far is that you lived in a shared (frat?) house and were able to observe that the guys there got laid a lot. I assume you were also checking up on a representative sample of rooms that weren't in frat houses, as well as dorm rooms, in order to see if someone was fucking in there? FFS. You even seem to realize in the back of your mind that you lived in a particularly indiscreet situation, and that others might have been getting laid just as often without you as an eyewitness.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet you insist on acting like your limited personal experience qualifies you to know how many men aren't getting laid, or what preferences women consistently have across "North America". WTF? That is not how statistics work, baby doll.
You're talking out of your ass. I respectfully suggest cognitive behavioral therapy, which might help you get out of your own head a little and quit being so damned fatalistic.
Then there is the perceived level of social activity and the actual level of social activity amongst ones peers, a.k.a., what people SAY they do vs. what they actually do. Part of the problem with competitive-to-predatory sexual behavior on college campuses is the mistaken belief that "everyone is getting some except for me." I need to look up the actual study, but the gap between what college students reported as the proportion of their peers that had had sex the previous weekend (80%) vs. the actual proportion of students who reported that they had had sex (15%) was striking. And those that had recent sex were mostly people who were in regular relationships, whether committed partnership, friends with benefits, or regular fuck buddies, NOT the random drunk party hookup.
ReplyDeleteWhich underlines Holly's and commenters whacky idea that people who treat their sex partners well get repeat business and referrals vs. the "I'm going to this party and hope I get lucky with some ho" model.
I'm pretty sure all consensual sex happens on both partner's terms
ReplyDeleteSure. But that does not change the fact that one party has to compromise. I don't want to compromise, it's my way or no way.
Anyway, why are women's "terms" so horrible? You'd think we wanted a finger or something. Usually it's some variation on "I'll only have sex with people who demonstrate in some way that they think of me as a person, possibly even a friend."
No prob. There are plenty od dick supply for your kind of pussy supply, just that I am not interexted in any other kind of sex that I like, sex with sluts, and not the one that comes under the said pussy supply. You say that if I don't call the sluts "the sluts", a lot of good girls will join the pussy supply? I am not interested in what they can offer, I'd rather stick to sluts.
What even is "your way"? What exactly do you want to do to a woman that most women don't want to do with you?
ReplyDeleteI am not interexted in any other kind of sex that I like, sex with sluts...You say that if I don't call the sluts "the sluts", a lot of good girls will join the pussy supply? I am not interested in what they can offer, I'd rather stick to sluts.
ReplyDelete"Sluts are chicks who sleep with lots of people! 'Good girls' are chicks who don't sleep with lots of people...and I don't want them to sleep with lots of people because I'm only interested in sluts!"
OW MY HEAD.
...or rather, "...if good girls slept with lots of people I wouldn't want to sleep with them because I only want sluts."
ReplyDeleteEither way, OW.
I support everyone fucking whomever he/she wants, but some of us at that party want relationships, not just casual sex. Just throwing in my personal experience (and I'm usually with a bunch of people-- both female and male-- who are looking for the same thing). It's a funny game... good luck to all of you!
ReplyDeleteUnexamined beliefs party all up ins! Hollaaaaaa
ReplyDeleteWhat even is "your way"? What exactly do you want to do to a woman that most women don't want to do with you?
ReplyDeleteIt's not about "what", it's about "how". I do not want to pretend that I am interested in a person, because I am interested only in a good lay. I don't want to pay the cost of sex in pre-sex powergames, it is not worth it.
@anon 2:19
ReplyDeleteI'm imagining you explaining this, stone-faced, to a girl at a party.
Before you object, it doesn't have to be at a party! I could also imagine you reciting it to someone in a supermarket checkout line, at a cafe or in an airport terminal. I'm flexible.
ReplyDeleteI believe that refusing to give your partner basic human respect and actually getting angry in your refusal to treat a person like a person (which doesn't mean a $200 dinner or a longterm commitment, just being, you know, polite) is the very definition of a pre-sex powergame.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what makes a good lay for someone who talks about not paying the cost of sex or pre-sex powergames.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it doesn't overlap with what I consider good sex.
I'm also still super confused what these powergames are. I think this person is under some impression that "good girls" make you put your underpants on your head and do the teapot dance before sex, or something.
ReplyDeleteGenerally they just want you to be polite, nonviolent, get them off if possible, and to generally agree with them as to whether this has relationship potential or not (with "not" being an acceptable answer). Thinking of these as unacceptable powergames suggests that you're the sort of person who answers "hey, could you hit the lobby button for me?" in an elevator with "YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!!"
"Intent" might be the wrong word here. But if you look at an action that has no conscious justification, no real unconscious justification except for cultural training, and the clear cultural function of perpetuating, in this case, gender roles, I think it's fair to say that the purpose of the act is to perpetuate such roles.
ReplyDeleteIf you say to the dudebros under discussion here "stop slut-shaming, stop disrespecting women for having sex!" chances are they will make the decision to either stop or not stop; either way they're not going to (inwardly) deny they're doing it, even if they think it's justified. If you say "stop perpetuating patriarchal gender roles!" chances are they will be puzzled, and not understand that's what they're doing. If we want to change the behavior we have to address it on the level of what the people doing it think they're doing as well as what they are, ultimately, doing.
Gender policing isn't really its own reason. The reason is "this is my normal, and it's important to me thaat things be normal." Fighting the idea that gender roles are normal or necessary is more productive than telling people who believe that idea to stop acting on it, and moreover to couch it in theoretical language that doesn't match their (self-)perceptions. It's sort of the inverse of "if it's not about you, it's not about you": if you talk about "patriarchy enforcers" and "gender-role guardians" -- language not inappropriate in theory discussions -- the people you're talking about may or may not comiserate but either way are unlikely to grasp that it means them. or that they (we?) should be altering their (our?) behavior.
Thinking of these as unacceptable powergames suggests that you're the sort of person who answers "hey, could you hit the lobby button for me?" in an elevator with "YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!!"
I think a lot of them are Internet libertarians, who do act like that.
Yeah, Holly, but you just disappeared "attraction" as a factor in that discussion, which means you (like virtually all women) can treat it as a given, or it so naturally occurs that you forgot it, or in general you think sex "just happens." I can tell you the steps I took in order to attract the last 3 women who were interested in me, and how I had to use power (that is, offering sex to women who didn't get much of it) for a mutually-beneficial outcome. So I think you don't buy that attraction/comfort/seduction exists as a process that has to be carried out in real life for men who have to work for sex. I think you just think that everyone is magical like you and your friends.
ReplyDeleteEurosabra - Um, my friends and I aren't magical. We just aren't constantly dicking each other around.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I "used attraction" to meet Rowdy. But by that, I mean that we talked to each other and found we had similar interests, that we made each other laugh and feel comfortable, and that we found each other cute. Except for the "cute" part it wasn't any different from getting to know someone as a friend.
Attraction isn't a complex process a hunter performs on a target. It's a feeling that develops between two people who are both acting and both deciding.
okay now i'm gonna go push a rock up a hill forever in hades because that's easier than explaining humans to eurosabra
Oh hey cool, I'm magical, and so are all my friends.
ReplyDeleteHey Holly, wanna be magical-friends-buddies together? We can frolic through the magic woods of magicland, because we are apparently magic.
@Hershele
ReplyDelete"If you say "stop perpetuating patriarchal gender roles!" chances are they will be puzzled"
Did someone say we were going to use feminist terminology on "bros?" Is any of the words above mentioned in Holly's post? So why are you all over this point?
"The reason is 'this is my normal (understanding of gender roles), and it's important to me that things be normal. (so I enforce those roles)'"
Yes. Exactly what we have been talking about the entire time - the aim of slut shaming is the policing of gender roles. But no one is suggesting that's how we frame it to frat boys.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
ReplyDeleteFeminism explained to sexist cavemen. Maybe a lost cause but it is hilarious and every line is pure gold.
Anon 7:09, I confess I'm responding to iterations of this and similar discussions on a number of blogs rather than solely this post and its comments in particular, but, I mean, the reasons we can't use feminist terminology on the people who are the problem is my point. If you believe -- truly believe -- that "their intent is to police gender roles" is an accurate, adequate, and complete description of what's going on, what is the problem with putting it to them in those terms? And if you agree that it wouldn't work to put it in those terms, in what sense is it the aim?
ReplyDeleteAnd why the anger? Are we not on the same side? I'm not defending the behavior, I'm sincerely trying to stop it.
The broletariat is slow to change and quick to anger, but your efforts to explain feminism in bromenclature may at least break through for some of those bromagnons.
ReplyDelete"Bros: this could be your school. Barefoot hippie men in dreadlocks do not have any special superpowers you do not. "
ReplyDeleteIt's gotta be the patchouli.
I think it's the long hair. Long hair is sexy.
ReplyDelete@hellkell: So it's not just me? I'm thinking, as I'm reading, those words have a meaning but together they don't make sense.
ReplyDeleteYou women don't understand. All this stuff about relationships, politeness, powergames. You can get sex for $20, or less depending on the act and the desperation of one's partner for drugs. The punter gets off, and the partner then goes away.
ReplyDeleteConvincing a non-pro to have sex with you does involve all sorts of time and effort. You spend that sort of energy on a person with whom you want to have a relationship. The pre-sex powergames are all about the relationship and not about the transaction.
I still don't see how being vaguely decent to someone for a couple hours is a "powergame." Does it hurt that much?
ReplyDeleteThere are levels of relationship--a one-night-stand or a fuckbuddy arrangement is still a relationship. Sometimes that's enough. Not every woman is trying to entrap you in marriage. (Especially not you, Mr. Trollypants.)
If sex were nothing but physical to you, you'd buy a Fleshlight. Paying a drug addict $20 for sex--now that's a power game.
Also, Eurosabra,has it occurred to you that maybe your PUA "techniques" aren't so much making you attractive to more women as making you attractive to a different set of women? Namely, the women with the "cultural baggage" you say you don't like.
ReplyDeleteWhen I used to have an online ad looking for a fuckbuddy, all I required was that candidates have coffee with me for an hour or so; if I found a guy attractive, easy to get along with, and didn't pick up on any icky serial killer/rapist vibes, I'd take him home.
ReplyDeleteYou would think "cute, tolerable to be around, and not likely to kill me" would be pretty basic criteria in a sex partner, right? And yet a lot of guys would respond to my ad thinking I would just hop in a cab and go right to their house and fuck them - their first message to me would literally be "I live in ___ neighbourhood. How soon can you get here?" and when I'd say "Um, no, going to a total stranger's house for nakedtimes is textbook stupid, we need to meet elsewhere first" they'd be all "UGH THAT'S TOO MUCH WORK NEVER MIND."
It's hilarious to me that so many guys would rather be celibate indefinitely while looking for that one mythical girl who delivers her pussy like a free pizza...instead of having a freaking cup of coffee with someone and then getting laid a whole lot. And then doing the same thing with a different woman the next night. And then maybe seeing the first woman again.
I agree, Holly. It's skeevy as fuck when a guy doesn't even want to acknowledge his partner(s) as human, and why doesn't a guy like that get a fleshlight if he hates women so much?
BUT...I'm also grateful to those guys who snubbed me, in a way. A guy with such blatant disregard for a woman's needs - a guy who thinks that I'm being too picky in wanting a sex partner to be cute and safe - is not going to be fun in bed. If these guys had bitten the bullet and agreed to meet with me, it'd've been a waste of time at best and a tragedy at worst.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Eurosabra,has it occurred to you that maybe your PUA "techniques" aren't so much making you attractive to more women as making you attractive to a different set of women? Namely, the women with the "cultural baggage" you say you don't like.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I got little of that cultural baggage, and I'd laugh in the face of a guy who tried to PUA me. I'm also rather good-looking, but I suspect that Eurosabra, struggling under the weight of his own cultural baggage, wouldn't recognize that because I don't buy into current signifiers of "hawt."
Sex is a relationship, in the broad definition of the word as an interaction between two people. The only time sex is like a transaction is when, in fact, you buy it from a person who is selling it. You get sex and they get money, but in any other context, both people have to get something out of it for either party to want to do it.
ReplyDeleteSay I want an xbox. Well, I can buy one, or if I don't want to buy one maybe I can get somebody in my social network to let me come over and use theirs from time to time. I don't just put out there that I want an xbox and fully expect a stranger to hear of this and walk up and let me just have theirs, or let me come over for a while to use it without even checking to make sure I won't break it or steal it or whatever--although my friends and acquaintances might, and are going to be more assured that I wont' break or steal their stuff. if my existing social network can't help me out, Maybe I can find a club for xbox users and meet people and have fun playing xbox together...but just like finding any other person to do something with, that does involve meeting the person first, even if only nominally. Sex isn't borrowing somebody's grill for the weekend, it involves a good bit more personal risk and intimacy than that, so it doesn't make any sense at all to expect someone to just provide their body without even knowing who the heck you are. If that is work, then I'm sorry, interacting with other human beings can be that, sometimes.
@Jak: no, it's not just you.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if these PUA consider friendships of any sort to be pointless powergames, and shit, I think I may have answered myself while typing this out. But I'm curious as to whether they have ANY friends, other than the bropulation they hang with, or if those are even considered friends or just competition.
It seems like a lonely existence awash in poverty of spirit, but what the fuck do I know?;)
Thing is, "getting to know you" runs into an "all-or-nothing" mentality, such that I was misreading positive signals at the end of an evening that the getting-to-know you had already been done, and scheduled another GTKY date when something else might have been better suited. Of course I'm my own worst enemy, but I thought coffee->bed was ruled out because coffee->dinner is the natural progression, because she'd front-loaded the process with GTKY. This is way in the past, but we made a dinner date we couldn't keep, as it turned out. And of course PUA distorts things a bit and you have to know when not to do it.
ReplyDelete"...she'd front-loaded the process with GTKY."
ReplyDeleteDamn, that sucks. You're never gonna overcome her armor class without rolling a natural 20. Unless of course you use some spells or magic items to add positive modifiers to your attack roll.
Holly, Perversecowgirl
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:53
Why would I not buy a fleshlight? I don't want a fleshlight It's not alive. I want a biological machine, one with few options. A woman who is an illegal immigrant, whom I can call INS if she gets stroppy. A woman who doesn't speak English. One who can be used when I want for erotic entertainment. Granted, a sheep would probably be best, but I live in a city and there are zoning regs.
Talking, relating, that's for your friends, not for those whom you fuck.
Now, OK, I don't really hold these views, but I know people who do. You seem to be missing the point-some folks, mostly men, are perfectly able to split their sex lives from their emotional lives. Your mother or someone like her, you would never touch in a sexual manner.
So your offer of easily available pussy if you just act decently is discounted/ignored. Decent women would not make such an offer, and women who would make such an offer are tainted.
Okay, I think you're talking about "if I were an asshole, this I would say," not directly trolling, so I'm not deleting it.
ReplyDeletesome folks, mostly men, are perfectly able to split their sex lives from their emotional lives. Your mother or someone like her, you would never touch in a sexual manner.
ReplyDeleteI understand these two sentences individually but do not understand why you've placed them side-by-side as though one thought leads logically to the next.
Standard virgin-whore dichotomy, I think is that anon's explanation for why guys don't want sex if they have to actually talk to a girl first.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that if these guys were confronted with an actual woman, in their actual house, most of them would freeze and be unable or unwilling to have actual sex. The fantasy is powerful enough to try to make happen, but fantasy is not reality.
I stopped doing online chat when I was online dating, because I had too many chats that seemed like it had good connection and there was sexy talk, and the guys wouldn't meet. Usually because of excuses. They'd get off, sure. They'd talk about what they'd do to me when they'd meet me, but it was all fapfapfap.
Yeah, FSM forbid I should notice negative patterns and attempt to change them. I generally have to verbalize interest, which turns off a certain group of women. And I don't notice interest from women who give signals but won't say they're interested. Also, I have the Shvantz of Invincible Penetration +2.
ReplyDeleteEurosabra - Talking about people that way is tremendously dehumanizing, implies they're playing a game they have no idea they're playing, implies that sex is the only worthwhile interaction you can have with someone and everything else is just the hoops you gotta jump, and... it doesn't even work.
ReplyDeleteExcept that very often the woman doesn't see it as a game, just "the way things are." Like the woman who has decided "Guys who ask first, don't get X."
ReplyDeleteClarisse Thorn had a rather good post on that, in "Detrimental Attitudes of the PUA Community." And as for the rest, nothing "works" as such, you just have to be attuned to the person, and, finally, yay sex.
Eurosabra,
ReplyDeleteExcept that very often the woman doesn't see it as a game, just "the way things are." Like the woman who has decided "Guys who ask first, don't get X.
So you're playing a game with some sort of weird and non-flexible rules, she's trying to have a relationship (sexual, temporary, platonic, long-term romantic, whatever) with a human being, and you wonder why you don't get laid more often?
No, I'm saying the relationship dealbreakers they expect/demand that I intuit and pre-emptively avoid by asking, not asking, or asking in some specific way,(as above, for an example) are a significant source of miscommunication and rejection. She has a hidden preference I'm expected to intuit, and that sort of expectation functions like a game. You can tell me to find women who favor explicit communication and avoid forcing men to perform stereotypical masculinity, but they're hanging out with the unicorns. I am tending more towards explicit communication myself, but that's because I prefer to get rejected unambiguously. Only way to be sure.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think women think things like "Guys who ask first, don't get X."?
ReplyDeleteFor the love of God, why?
I AM NOT AN EARLY NINETIES ADVENTURE GAME IN WHICH YOU WILL LOSE IF YOU DON'T GET THE MUSTACHE BEFORE THE TURTLE! I AM A HUMAN BEING!
Sabra, I forget, but do you still live in Israel? Cause if you don't, you need to find a decent social circle / better ways of finding people. Sounds like the people you hang out with really suck.
ReplyDeleteClarisse Thorn had a rather good post on that, in "Detrimental Attitudes of the PUA Community." And as for the rest, nothing "works" as such, you just have to be attuned to the person, and, finally, yay sex.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Clarisse's post and I've only skimmed your last few comments, but based on my general familiarity with both I'm going to guess her point is pretty much the opposite of whatever you're citing it in aid of.
Sabra, I forget, but do you still live in Israel? Cause if you don't, you need to find a decent social circle / better ways of finding people. Sounds like the people you hang out with really suck.
There are probably decent people in Israel too.
Clarisse, Hugh, Sam, and Snowdrop had a rather good discussion about whether explicitly asking for a kiss ran into some women's view of that action as off-putting and a turn-off, and what percentage of women the ones with that view represented, and whether some men's practice of not asking but rather "going for it" was a response to their experience of women's aggregate preferences. And what it meant for feminists, whose preferences and actions are the opposite.
ReplyDeleteWe've kinda been through my social circle at length, with the conclusion that there are too many hipster douche bags involved. Although I guess the implication is that life stages in Israel are so imbued with the collective that you are accompanied by the same cast of characters no matter what.
I enjoy explicit communication and have no interest at all in forcing men to perform stereotypical masculinity, not least because I don't really like stereotypical masculinity. Most men I've used overt communication with have been discomfited.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I give it up easy, although not as easy as I did when I was single. (Now I take into account Mr. Shiny's opinion of who I fuck.)
I don't live with unicorns, I live in Real People World. Which is not Club World Full Of Club People Drinking And Partying And Drinking.
I know this won't matter to eurosabra, who has repeatedly show that he cannot find Real People World with both hands and a flashlight. I just get annoyed with people who proclaim that I don't exist.
To be fair to Eurosabra, he lives in Israel. There is no more machoistic, gender-stereotypical culture that I've ever visited in the world, except for possibly some parts of Honduras.
ReplyDeleteOutside of isolated pockets of kibbutznik-sabra feminism, Israeli culture is dominated by ... well, exactly what Eurosabra describes in his May 26, 8:32PM post.
Hershele: There are decent people in Israel. Most of those people are isolated, whether geographically (living on kibbutzim/moshavot, or in small areas of Tel Aviv, Herzeliah, and Haifa) or are religiously indoctrinated.
Worse, from the perspective of looking for decent human beings, essentially the entire male population has gone through the dehumanizing, machoism-inducing brainwashing that is compulsory military service (other than the ultra-Religious, who have their own problems). The effect of that on the society simply cannot be understated.
Eurosabra: You should go find a better social circle. Haifa's got some really cool areas, as does Tel Aviv. Haifa even has a very small population of geeks, making it the only geek-inhabited city in the entire fucking country. :)
I'm pretty sure he lives in LA, actually.
ReplyDelete...Which, admittedly, isn't such a great culture either.
Women who value direct communication live only with the unicorns my ass.
ReplyDeleteSure, that's Como's thing, but you need to find women who aren't Cosmo girls.
Worse, from the perspective of looking for decent human beings, essentially the entire male population has gone through the dehumanizing, machoism-inducing brainwashing that is compulsory military service (other than the ultra-Religious, who have their own problems). The effect of that on the society simply cannot be understated.
ReplyDeleteIsrael can't afford to rely only on paid army, like USA, which too had draft in wars not so long ago.
Besides, Israeli women serve too!
-Israeli woman
I don't know about anyone else, but I've found this discussion somewhat insightful, particularly the difference of perception about the purpose of meeting for coffee before sex. From the woman's perspective (I'm going to say "the woman" and "the man", although obviously this only applies to a subset of people fitting those descriptions) it's a perfectly reasonable safety precaution. But the man who isn't used to having to worry about his physical safety in this kind of situation may think "if you want to have sex, let's have sex already", and perceive any kind of prerequisite as an obstacle at best, and possibly a sign of ulterior motives.
ReplyDeleteSo he's overlooking the safety aspect, but I think his way of looking at it may have a little truth to it as well. It's not a game, but it IS test, which is in practice is much the same thing if you're the person being tested. Most people don't really enjoy being tested. So looking at it that way, I don't think it's crazy or strange that someone would consider it too much trouble. Then again, it's WAY less trouble and less gamey than PUA so I'm not sure what that's all about.
I'd be willing to meet someone for coffee beforehand, but I don't think I'm threatening, and I want to not be perceived as threatening, and I wouldn't, I think, insist someone have sex with me if she feels threatened even if that's the entire purpose of our interaction.
ReplyDeleteAnonytroll - There's a big difference between testing someone to see if they seem safe, and testing them merely to see what hoops they'll jump through.
ReplyDeleteI also think guys should test women for safety, because we're not harmless--statistically we're less likely to commit violence, but by no means unable to, and we can certainly turn out to be the sort of person who steals your stuff or stalks you. A quick "can this person act like a reasonable human being for the length of a cup of coffee" check really wouldn't be a bad idea for a guy about to take a woman home.
A quick "can this person act like a reasonable human being for the length of a cup of coffee" check really wouldn't be a bad idea for a guy about to take a woman home.
ReplyDeleteTotally! 'Cause, btw...one of the guys who snubbed me because I wanted to do coffee first was a sub. He was more than willing to just come over and be shackled to my bed.
Now, I would never ever violate someone's trust or safety - but he doesn't know that! Once he was tied down I could've done anyfuckingthing. "Hot wax? That's played out. I'm gonna use bleach." "You remind me of my ex-boyfriend. I hated him so much, I just...huh, I forgot where I was going with that. Hey, y'know what's fun? Knife play!" I was almost tempted to go ahead and invite him over just so I could teach him a lesson by pretending to be psycho...except, y'know, I don't invite strangers to my house.
There's a big difference between testing someone to see if they seem safe, and testing them merely to see what hoops they'll jump through.
To me the word "test" implies an active thing - seeing how someone will react to something. Meeting someone in a public place to gauge their vibe before you sleep with them isn't a "test" to me. It's just...wanting to see what they're like. It's passive. Giving him a calculus problem to solve before I sleep with him would be a "test".
But I suppose a guy who's either very cynical or completely oblivious to women's concerns would see the actual request for a coffee date as "making him jump through hoops" - like I'm deliberately putting obstacles between him and Teh Secks to see if I can make him "work for it".
Sigh.
This post was outstanding. Gold stars.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I came here via a comment by Ethan on this entry at ladypoverty, which makes a nice counterpoint to this.
And if this post weren't enough to get me to come here again, "I AM NOT AN EARLY NINETIES ADVENTURE GAME IN WHICH YOU WILL LOSE IF YOU DON'T GET THE MUSTACHE BEFORE THE TURTLE! I AM A HUMAN BEING!" sold me for good.
It's my experience that men who treat women like crap get the girls. Sometimes the ones I'm busy treating nicely because I'm into them. So they bone them and I help them move house. So screw being nice.
ReplyDeleteAs for "if you tell women off for having sex and being rape victims then you'll get less sex"... well yes. But isn't that... obvious...?
But I suppose the soft approach to plying morons with a sense of womens rights by tempting them like a small child with a bag of sweets may work, who knows? But is it moral, or are you just rewriting their bible-morals?
You could apply this to the BDSM community with greater ease, I think. If you act like a douche there then you'll suddenly find yourself in a no-play zone.