The Atlantic on: Why porn proves sex is grim and miserable!

This is one of those links that have been peristalsing their way around the blogosphere for a little bit: Hard Core: The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women. Writer Natasha Vargas-Cooper has a bit of a rambling problem and this really didn't need to be a four-page article, but the gist of it is that porn is grim and nasty because male sexuality is grim and nasty. And the gist of my response is "well, sometimes, but it doesn't have to be and it's nicer when it's not."

There, I saved you four pages. Let's get wordy anyway, and pull some quotes.



As recently as 15 years ago, if somebody wanted vivid depictions of, say, two men simultaneously performing anal penetration on the same woman, securing such a delicacy would require substantial effort because the pornographic repertoire was still limited by the costs and imprecision of distribution. Leaving aside matters of taste and propriety, just how big an audience of horny derelicts or hurried businessmen would wriggle into a Pussycat Theater, with its sticky floors, and, in the company of others, watch a double-anal double feature?
VCRs weren't news in 1996. Double anal definitely wasn't news in 1996. But more to her point, double anal isn't a form of torture. It's definitely a challenge, it's not something I'm up for myself, but it's a sex act. It's arousing because it's a whole lot of dick in not a lot of hole, not because it's the worst thing you can possibly do to a woman.

Or, on another, stickier level, it's degrading, but it's supposed to be hot-degrading, not just unhappy. I'm pretty sure the intended mental image is of the woman afterwards going "ooh, those boys just used me, mmm," not of her going "oh God I'm disgusting and I hate myself" and curling into the fetal position.

Finally: the fact that double anal wasn't a big seller back when porn had less selection suggests that it's not a majority interest. If every man secretly wanted double anal, double anal would have been the naughty nurses of its day.

So, perhaps it’s no surprise that, for those who crave the more drastic masturbatory aid, the Internet offers easy access to a Grand Guignol of the outright bizarre (Midget Porn, Clown Porn, Girl-Fight Gang-Bang Porn). What is surprising is what now constitutes widely available, routine stuff in the major porn portals: episodes of men—or groups of men—having sex with women who are seven months pregnant; the ho-hum of husbands filming their scrawny white wives having sex with paunchy black men in budget motels; simulations of father-daughter (or mother-daughter) incest; and of course, a fixture on any well-trafficked site: double anal.
These aren't really "routine"; they exist, but I'm pretty sure that the genre of "conventionally attractive young women shimmy around naked and have vanilla sex" is still King Of The Porns.

Anyway, what's Grand Guignol about diversity? The porn industry certainly doesn't handle the subject with great sensitivity, but it's not intrinsically bizarre or gruesome for a pregnant woman or a little person to have sex, or for people to play around with cuckoldry or roleplay. It seems the writer is confusing "different types of sex" with "darker and nastier sex."

MEN, SO THE CONVENTIONAL wisdom goes, tend to desire more than women are willing to give them sexually. The granting of sex is the most powerful weapon women possess in their struggle with men. Yet in each new sexual negotiation a woman has with a man, she not only spends down that capital, she begins at a disadvantage, because the potential losses are always greater for her. A failed or even successful single encounter can be life-altering. Whatever “social construct” you might impose upon the whole matter, nature imposes much more rigorous consequences on women than on men.
I impose the social construct of condoms with backup willingness to use the morning-after pill or abort. Pow. Then I impose the reality that people can't even tell what my sexual history is, let alone perceive how much "capital" I've "lost," whatever that even means. Ka-bam.

And as for my vagina as a "weapon" to be "granted" in the "struggle"... If I did have magical feminine wiles that let me manipulate men, you know what I'd use them for? Getting laid.

But the reactionary political correctness of the 1990s put forth a proposition even more disastrous to women than free love: sexual equality.
Disastrous!

This is an intellectual swindle that leads women to misjudge male sexuality, which they do at their own emotional and physical peril. Male desire is not a malleable entity that can be constructed through politics, language, or media. Sexuality is not neutral. A warring dynamic based on power and subjugation has always existed between men and women, and the egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche.
So, male readers, I have a question. Is the desire to subjugate and degrade women something that just naturally sets in around the time the deep voice and body hair get going? Do you have boyhood memories of waking up with unexpectedly sticky sheets and a sudden urge to see a woman devastated for your pleasure?

Because if so, I'm moving to a very small island.

Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression.
And what do these dark, aggressive men want? Mostly to see pretty girls enjoying sex. OH THE DARKNESS.

You could be poking around for some no-frills Web clips of amateur couples doing it missionary style, but easily and rapidly you slide into footage of two women simultaneously working their crotches on opposing ends of a double-sided dildo, and then all of a sudden you’re at a teenage-fisting Web site.
Wow, that sounds exactly like that time I smoked a little weed with my friends, and the next day I was a homeless heroin addict with suppurating abscesses and a felony warrant.

Oh, and I see lesbian sex is intrinsically dirtier than straight sex.

But how is sex, as a human experience, anything less than extreme? Not the kind of sex (or lack thereof) that occurs in marriages that double as domestic gulags. Or what 30-somethings do to each other in the second year of their “serious relationship.” But the sex that occurs in between relationships—or overlaps with relationships—where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist: the raw, unpracticed sort.
Sex in relationships? That's laughable! Let's just toss that whole idea out.

At the heart of human sexuality, at least human sexuality involving men, lies what Freud identified in Totem and Taboo as “emotional ambivalence”—the simultaneous love and hate of the object of one’s sexual affection. From that ambivalence springs the aggressive, hostile, and humiliating components of male sexual arousal.
I don't believe this. No snark even. I just flat don't believe that guys in general hate the women they sleep with. That's not a normal dynamic.

Sometimes, man... sometimes I'll be having sex and I'll look up (down, back, in the mirror, behind the robotic octopus) at the guy and he's just smiling. Just grinning like an idiot that he's getting laid. There's no secret hatred. No dark psychodrama. Just "Dude, there's a cute chick on my cock! How awesome is that? Dude!"

Never was this made plainer to me than during a one-night stand with a man I had actually known for quite a while. [...]We quickly progressed to his bed, and things did not go well. He couldn’t stay aroused. [...]in a moment of exasperation, he asked if we could have anal sex. I asked why[...] He answered, almost without thought, “Because that’s the only thing that will make you uncomfortable.” This was, perhaps, the greatest moment of sexual honesty I’ve ever experienced—and without hesitation, I complied. This encounter proves an unpleasant fact that does not fit the feminist script on sexuality: pleasure and displeasure wrap around each other like two snakes.
I think you could use this same logic to justify poo-eating as everyone's deep dark desire. Hey, you wanna be really uncomfortable?

But the author's on to something here. Sometimes, a certain irreconcilable, truly nasty darkness is a part of sex, and sometimes even though it's not justifiable or even okay, it feels right. Sometimes sex is mean and cruel and wrong, and it's the hottest thing.

Other times, sex is so full of love that you're almost brought to tears, and it's the hottest thing.

Other times, sex is giddy and giggly, a silly experimental game you're playing with each other's bodies, and it's the hottest thing.

Other times, sex is muscular and striving, your bodies soaked with sweat from the sheer effort you're exerting on each other, and it's the hottest thing.

Sex is a lot of things. Don't point at your personal kinks and your general stereotype of what you think porn looks like, and tell me that's all of sex. Oh, and while you're at it, don't tell me about a sexual encounter that you participated in and you clearly got off big-time on and tell me that it was 100% about male sexuality.

Pornography neatly resolves the contradictions—in favor of men. They fuck with impunity. Women never dream of staying. And if, God forbid, the women get pregnant, well, they can be used in pregnant pornos and then in an episode of Exploited Moms. What a marvelous means of delving into the heads of men.
It's pretty sad to imagine that men never want to be in relationships and never want to have families. No, wait, it's very, extremely, super, ridiculously sad. And I wonder what on Earth would make someone think this was the natural order of things. And I really wonder what on Earth would make someone think this is the natural order of things, and keep having sex with men.

For someone who praises stark "sexual honesty," the author is remarkably obtuse about what she gets out of sex with the horrible monsters that are men. If you're a masochist, lady, or if you like the idea of being used and discarded, or if you don't want a loving relationship yourself--own up.

ONE OF THE most punishing realities women face when they reach sexual maturity is that their maturity is (at least to many men) unsexy.
Now we're just in Wackyland. I don't even know what to say here. Dudes, you've just been upgraded from exploitative sadists to exploitative sadist pedophiles.

[Amateur sites like RedTube are] largely a grim parade of what women will do to satisfy men: young wives fingering themselves on the family couch, older wives offering themselves to their hubby’s Army buddies, aging moms in shabby corsets shoving their sagging rear ends into the camera.
If she hadn't grimmified the diction there, it'd be a party. Young women playing with themselves! Swinger ladies fucking hot guys in uniform! Women in corsets showing off their bodies! OH THE DARKITY DARK DARKNESS.




It goes on, but I've played into the ramble-a-thon enough already. At this point I'm just writing a disorganized response to a disorganized argument.

(Also, I have to go to work. And I got distracted from this entry by making a strapon harness--which looks and works great, except I burned myself. I was using a lighter to seal the ends of the nylon straps, and... I'm clumsy. Ow.)

It's a mess of an article, as writing and as thinking, never even mind the sexual politics. But if you do mind the sexual politics, all you get is the following:

1) Porn is always dark and miserable.
2) Therefore, male sexuality is always dark and cruel.
3) Therefore, sex is always grim and destructive.
4) Therefore, please publish me in "The Atlantic."

I didn't find it real insightful.

Evolution, rape, ovulation, and how to get your opinions labeled "Science."

I should declare, before going on, that I just finished my period and haven't ovulated yet. So take the following with a grain of awareness that this is just my post-period-pre-ovulation opinion.



A reader sent me this link from Slate about how women have supposedly evolved to protect themselves from rape. It falls victim, severely, to the usual process of pop-evolutionary-psychology:

1. Get a little bit of data. A self-reported survey administered to fifteen undergrads (the portion of your 9AM class who returned the surveys) is more than enough.
2. Break that data down by sex. Make sure to never ever ever break it down by age, socioeconomic status, level of education, nationality, or any other way people could conceivably differ from each other.
(2b. Make sure that you treat gender as absolutely biologically fixed. Disregard the possibility of non-heterosexual subjects, or for bonus points, attempt to lump gay men in with straight women and vice versa.)
3. Search for differences and discard similarities. Ways in which men and women are alike could never be significant findings! For bonus points, design your study in a way that is incapable of finding similarities--only test one sex, or test two sexes in different ways without a control.
4. This is the creative step. A less brilliant researcher would find that, say, women have a higher pain tolerance than men (as tested by heat exposure to the skin), and publish a paper entitled "Gender and pain tolerance in heat exposure." You are better than that! Because you know how to speculate wildly! Make up a completely ludicrous story that could have produced the results you found, and present it as your conclusion. Be sure that this story references "cavemen," justifies stereotypical gender roles, and act like proof of your data constitutes proof of your story. In the example given above, your paper should be entitled "Women naturally adapted to cooking; cavewomen adapted to the heat of cooking fires while making their men a nice mastodon roast when the men were away doing important things."
5. Release your findings to the popular press with an air of "This is the proclamation of Science and henceforth must be considered objective truth." Promote the story you came up with as the headline and bury the boring ol' actual data.
6. Get read by millions of grandparents, chatty neighbors, and suburban ER nurses who are spectacularly susceptible to the appeal to authority fallacy, and respond to all objections with "but that's just your opinion, Holly, and this is Science."

So, the article.

Women, gather round, read carefully, because this gay man—who once, long ago, feigned sexual interest in your bodies—is about to shine a spotlight on some hidden truths about your natural design.
That's a heck of a weird opening. I thought opening a post with my menstrual cycle was weird, but at least I didn't get all "I used to act like I thought you were sexy, but no." Great beginning for a science article.

It's by no means a perfect system, but evolution has endowed you with some extraordinary, almost preternatural abilities to prevent your own sexual assault. And these abilities are especially pronounced when you're ovulating.
This is the main thesis of the article, and contains two different weirdnesses:
1. Wanting to prevent sexual assault is evolution, instead of, like, wanting not to be assaulted.
2. Being sexually assaulted when you weren't ovulating, well, that wouldn't be so bad.
Expect these two assumptions to go blissfully unquestioned as we continue.

There is some evidence that convicted rapists are physically unattractive, at least as judged by women on the basis of their mug shots.
There is also evidence that attractive men aren't as often convicted as rapists, because they have an easier time setting up date rapes and because juries figure it must've been consensual if he's all studly.

And spousal rape is most likely to occur when the husband finds out (or suspects) his wife has been unfaithful, suggesting that he is attempting to supplant another man's seed.
Or suggesting that he's, you know, angry and jealous and attempting to punish her or reassert his possession. I don't think you need to resort to speculative evolutionary psychology when psychology-psychology has you pretty well covered.

Furthermore, UCLA psychologist Neil Malamuth and his colleagues found that one-third of men admit that they would engage in some type of sexual coercion if they could be assured they would suffer no negative consequences, and many report having related masturbatory fantasies.
Since these men were certified to have no families, peers, schooling, culture, life experiences, or media exposure, clearly evolution is the only explanation.

We've heard the argument that men may have evolved to sexually assault women. Have women evolved to protect themselves from men?
The thing I can't help thinking here is, you know, male and female genomes cross over every generation. It's not like these are two species evolving in parallel. Obviously there are traits that are expressed in one sex more than the other--hello, vagina--but I would suspect that for a trait to evolve in only women is more complicated than evolving in all humans. For the physical traits, there tends to be at least vestigial crossover--female clitorises, male nipples--and a significant portion of males who develop breasts and females who develop chest hair. So while of course males and females do express different traits, the image of us competitively coevolving like cheetahs and antelope is at best oversimplified.

1. When threatened by sexual assault, ovulating women display a measurable increase in physical strength. In 2002, SUNY-Albany psychologists Sandra Petralia and Gordon Gallup had 192 female undergraduate students read a story about either a female character being stalked by a suspicious male stranger in a parking lot (ending with: "As she inserts the key into her car door she feels his cold hand on her shoulder …") or a similar story in which the female character is surrounded by happy people on a warm summer's day (ending with: "She starts her car, adjusts the stereo, and as she pulls out of the parking lot those nearby can hear her music blasting"). The researchers measured the handgrip strength of each participant before and after she read the story, and compared the scores. [...] Only the ovulating women who read the sexual assault scenario exhibited an increase in handgrip strength.
I'd like to see the results of a third group that read a story about being threatened by, say, a wolf. (We would specify it was not a horny wolf.) I suspect that would do a bit for your handgrip too. Without that third scenario, we can't really distinguish between "ovulating women are protecting the purity of their sexy ladyparts" and "ovulating women are protecting their freakin' hides."

I also think the undergrad should become formalized as an SI unit of lazy psychology research. "We performed a 1.92 hectoundergrad study..."

2. Ovulating women overestimate strange males' probability of being rapists. [...]The researchers showed 169 normally ovulating women videotaped interviews with various men and asked them to rate the men on several dimensions, including their tendencies toward sexual aggression, kindness, or faithfulness. The more fertile the woman was at the time of her judging, the more likely she was to describe the men as "sexually coercive." Ovulating women didn't see these men as being less kind, faithful, or likely to commit—only more inclined to rape them.
I read the original study for this one (and I'm grateful that there actually was a direct link), and you know what, I'm going to break with Pervocracy tradition and buy it. Not as The New Immortal Truth About Women, but their methodology and results sound fairly plausible to me. In my personal anecdata, I do get noticeably hornier during ovulation (which is saying something believe me), and that means more aware of sex in general, and thus more likely to project sexual motivations onto people.

3. Ovulating women play it safe by avoiding situations that place them at increased risk of being raped. [...] At least two studies have demonstrated that women at the peak of their fertility are less likely than their peers to have engaged in high-risk activities such as walking alone in a park or forest, letting a stranger into the house, or stopping their cars in a remote place over the preceding 24 hours.
Walking alone in a park is a high-risk activity? Stopping your car? MOTHER OF GOD. I'm a fucking extreme adventurer and I didn't even know it. I've gone years engaging in high-risk activities every day! Twice a day sometimes when I couldn't get a ride in the morning and had to walk through the park both ways.

I don't even know what to say about the ovulation connection or whatever here. I'm just stuck on the implication that being outdoors while female is a high-risk activity. You know, this Monday I was planning on going for a nice long walk in the snow out in the boonies, maybe taking some photos, maybe doing some journaling, and I really didn't add "but of course I have to take the rape factor into account" to my plans. Until now.

Then again, I'm not ovulating, so of course I didn't.

4. Women become more racist when they're ovulating. At least white American ovulating women do when it comes to thinking about black American men.
Hoo boy.

Those are the jaw-dropping, politically incorrect findings of Michigan State University's Carlos Navarrete and colleagues.
Quick note: can we stop using "politically incorrect" to mean "harsh truth?" It really just means harsh.

While we're at it, can we stop trivializing decency in discourse by labeling it "political correctness"? Avoiding discriminatory and hurtful language isn't some partisan posture. It's just a basic step in not being a dickhead. Characterizing black men as rapists of white women isn't a daring rebellion against oppressive thought police, it's just racist.

White, undergraduate females were evaluated for race bias using several variants of an implicit association test, which asks participants to perform a word-matching task that indicates the relative accessibility of certain stereotypes. The women who happened to be ovulating scored especially high when it came to fear of black (as opposed to white) men, a fact that the authors interpret as reflecting an evolved disposition to avoid so-called "out-group males," who "may not have been subject to the same social controls as in-group members and would have constituted a threat in antagonistic situations." In this case, skin color serves as a convenient marker of group identity.
The entire history of American racism, washed away in a beautiful evolutionary flood of "it's perfectly reasonable not to trust the out-group!" The fact that this particular out-group has been specifically libeled with "coming after our white women" since the end of slavery has nothing to do with anything ever, since culture does not exist.

Stereotypes about the particular out-group being prone to violence may also play a role, so, at least in American society, cultural transmission works alongside evolutionary biology in promoting racism.
Oh, okay, culture exists. Oh my god, how to deal with this? Think... think... aha! Perhaps it merely works alongside my pet theory that explains everything!

Above is a set of astonishing truths that, had an evolutionary approach to studying complex social behavior not been adopted so rigorously over the past quarter-century and applied to human sexuality, would have gone entirely unnoticed—not least of which by a Kinsey-6 gay man who wouldn't know what to do with an ovulating woman if she came with instructions.
So now they're not studies suggesting certain things. They're "truths". A study showing that a limited population of young white women had negative associations with black men while ovulating is now somehow the TRUTH that ovulating women are racist (and they're right to be).

No. This is not how science works. A high p value doesn't mean all possible implications of a study are True. It means that the study itself--as in, the actual population tested and the actual tests done, not the various things they might symbolize--showed a correlation unlikely to be chance alone. You may have suggested something about women and the way they think, but you have only proven something about white undergrad American women in Michigan and the way they take implicit association tests. That's the only thing you can call truth. Everything else is somewhere between guessing, generalizing, and making shit up.



In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'm bisexual but more attracted to men. I hope this clarifies my views tremendously.

Little Miss Perfect.

Another day, another woman threatened with the release of a sex tape. Because it would totally ruin her if anyone knew she had consensual private sex with her own husband. Except it kind of would (not as bad as ten years ago, maybe, but see her try to do anything with children or government now--the mere fact that this made international news tells you we as a society aren't exactly cool about it), so, yuck.

Every time one of these comes out, the water-cooler talk is the same: "This is why I'd never make a sex tape. You just don't know where it'll end up! I'd never do anything like that!"

And that's damn right, I would never make a sex tape!

Other things I would never do include: getting pregnant by accident, staying in an abusive relationship, gaining weight, losing weight, getting upset because of something that was said to me, putting up with sexual harassment, getting in debt, saying something rash on the Internet, getting drunk, giving in to social pressure, or making any bad or irrational decisions ever in my entire life.

As someone whose life contains absolutely no mistakes, flaws, or unexpected circumstances, I just can't muster up any sympathy for these... these humans.

Troll / What About The Men.

Man, I got some nasty troll attacks last night. The weird thing is that they were mostly calling me fat. Like I don't have a mirror? At least if you say "you're fat and that's bad," it's a proper insult. This is just, like, an observation.

But it does annoy me, because I'm fairly sure they're responding to the rape/blame posts, and I wish they'd just go ahead and say that they're offended by something I said, instead of latching onto something irrelevant that they think I might be insecure about. If something I said made you mad, Trolly, say so, don't get all "and I bet your dog's ugly, too!"

-----

Anyway. One of the things I've had difficulty communicating as I've transitioned from being a "feminism means I'm free to give blowjobs!" feminist to a "feminism means I'm free to demand social respect and campaign for equal rights and give blowjobs!" feminist is that absolutely nothing about feminism (as I practice it, etc.) is about playing Boys vs. Girls. We are not on opposite teams.

And I don't just mean that feminists don't hate men, although we don't. I mean that we actually want their lives to be better. For some it's a side effect of liberating women and for some it's a goal in itself, but feminism actually has a lot to offer men.

For starters, anywhere that women are forced into a stupid little box labeled "femininity," men are being forced into an equally stupid box labeled "masculinity." It's a slightly nicer box, to be sure; you get to be in charge of stuff, and your clothes are comfier, and you don't have to deal with baby poop. But though the restrictions are fewer, they're there, and they're absolutely brutally enforced. If femininity means being forced into weakness, masculinity means being forced to play hyper-tough and often violent. A guy who isn't at least a little cruel is a guy who's going to be accused of being a girlyman--and woe betide a guy who really is kind of girly. You'd be more popular if you ate puppies.

I feel like this is ingrained deeply enough that a lot of guys will (in loud, deep, growly voices) protest that they don't want to get in touch with their feminine side. Well, that's okay. I would never stop a guy from grunting and watching football or whatever. I would just like it to be--just like the high heels! funny how that works!--no longer compulsory.

(By the way, one of the few legitimate gripes that "men's rights advocates" have is that women tend to automatically get custody and men tend to get child support and alimony judgments in family court. They generally blame this on some evil feminist agenda [because they blame everything on that], but I'd say that they should actually be looking at sexism. Compulsory masculinity means you must be a provider but cannot be a caregiver, and so men are expected to provide money and denied the opportunity to care for children. So if you want a better deal in family court, support single dads and high-earning women.)

The other big thing men would get out of feminism is happier, freer women. Don't smirk, 'cause I'm serious. When you treat someone like a trophy, an enemy agent, a sex toy, a child, or a space alien, the response you get is going to be about as bizarre as those options suggest. When you treat them like a person, asking no more and expecting no less, they're going to respond like a person.

Powerful people don't nag--they can get things done themselves. Powerful people don't cling--they can survive on their own. Powerful people don't manipulate--they can get what they want honestly. Powerful people don't complain--they have less to complain about. Powerful people don't make guys pay for dinner--they can afford to pay their share. When women are happy with our lives, we don't subtract from the finite happiness pool held by men; we spread it around and make everyone happier.

Finally, feminism is good for men because unlocking the potential of half the human race massively increases what the human race can accomplish. Letting women contribute to the world isn't some sort of generous favor we really ought to do for women. It is--once those contributions start rolling in--a favor to the world.

The People You Meet When You Write About Rape.

TRIGGER WARNING for rape and rape apologism.



Mr. What About The Men
"The real problem here is all these false rape accusations that are destroying our society! 90 million men are falsely accused of rape every second! A woman just has to sort of mumble a word starting with 'r' and a man instantly gets a life sentence! There are no instances on record of a woman actually being raped!"

Ms. Tough Girl
"If women would learn martial arts--70-year-olds and women with disabilities can do this if they put their minds to it, darnit--and carry weapons everywhere, no one would ever get raped! All you have to do is be ready to threaten your own friends and lovers with lethal force at any moment, any anyone who can't do that must be weak or something."

Mr. Model Victims Only Please
"The victim was no angel herself. If you look at her record, she's been arrested several times, she's a single mother, and she's living on welfare. So it's not like she was some innocent little virgin beforehand. None of this makes it right, but I'm just saying, let's not overreact like a good woman got ruined."

Ms. Fashion Police
"Did you hear what she was wearing? I'm sorry but that's just not common sense. If you go out looking like a piece of meat, you have to expect you'll get treated like a piece of meat."

Mr. I'm Not Blaming Her But It's Her Fault
"Rape is never the victim's fault, of course. But I just want people to admit that she has some responsibility. That she maybe played a part in it. That in an alternate universe where she'd done things differently and she lived in a steel Battlemech wearing a chastity belt, she wouldn't have gotten raped, and she did make the choice to not use a Battlemech. I just need people to acknowledge that."

Ms. Couples Therapy
"I dunno, seems to me like they both made mistakes. Maybe he just wasn't reading her signals, or maybe she wasn't communicating clearly to him. A lot can get caught up in an emotional moment like that and I bet they both feel really bad right now."

Mr. Offensive And/Or Baffling Metaphor
"Look, if you walk down a dark alley with a wallet stuffed full of money, sure it's still a crime when you get mugged, but what if the mugger is just trying to feed his family because he was laid off by an evil solicitor and the ghost showed him a lone crutch leaning in the corner?"

Ms. CSI
"If you put the pieces together, her story just doesn't wash. She claims that he ripped her pants off, but her pants have a button fly. Ha! And she waited a whole forty minutes after the supposed rape to call the police--who would do that?"

Mr. Troll
"lol bitch deserved it loooollll"

Ms. You Don't Just Get To Decide Whether You Consent
"She was seen earlier in the night drinking with this guy, talking to him, and even making out with him! And then she went up to his apartment! What did she think would happen? No one ever goes to a guy's apartment unless they're consenting to every sex act he could possibly want."

Mr. How Do I Not Rape Someone It Is So Difficult
"I just don't understand how to tell if someone is 'consenting' or not. What if she secretly decides she doesn't like it--am I a rapist then? What if she changes her mind midway through? Or afterwards? It's impossible to know what women want, so how am I supposed to know if they want to have sex with me or not?"

Ms. Traditional Values
"You know, back when women dressed modestly and simply didn't go out drinking with strangers or going home with people they'd just met, this sort of thing didn't happen."

Mr. This Wouldn't Happen If Women Would Just Fuck Me Already
"This sort of thing is inevitable when women constantly act as gatekeepers and doom beta males to a life of frustration and loneliness. Of course rape is horrible, but the pent-up rage felt by men cast aside just because they weren't billionaire underwear models has to express itself somehow."

Ms. Avoid The R-Word
"Wow, that is just not cool. Having sex under those circumstances--I mean, treating a girl like that--you know, being inappropriate with her--is a totally insensitive and downright mean thing to do."



This time I know I didn't nearly cover them all, but I have no energy (I've literally had to take mid-post naps) so this is what you get. If you want more, please send a fresh, healthy human liver, A+ or compatible, to my mailing address by certified overnight carrier.

How to discuss gay rights like a reasonable adult.

Argument from Personal Responsibility
"If you choose to act in a certain way, you have to accept the consequences. For example, if you go walking and a bunch of thugs beat you up and steal your wallet, that's just the natural consequence of you going walking, so stop whining."

Argument from Lack Of Variety In My Entertainment
"Why do the gays have to keep bringing this up all the time?"

Argument from We Gave You The Vote And Everything
"Gay people are allowed out in public and we don't even lynch them that much anymore, and now they want more?"

Argument from Anal Sex
"I'm sorry, but I refuse to tolerate a group of people who get their kicks by grasping each other in a harsh, brutal kiss that turns suddenly tender, falling together into bed with their hands stroking all over each other's muscular, sweat-glistened bodies and working their way slowly, teasingly to each other's cocks, caressing each other to a state of delicious anticipation before one of these disgusting perverts gently slides first his lubricated fingers and then his huge rock-hard beautiful cock into the soft warm anus of the other."

Argument from Children Starving In India, New Millenium Edition
"Why are we even arguing about this when our economy is in the state it's in?"

Argument from Gays Starving In India
"Why are you worrying about some poorly chosen words when gay people still get beaten in other places?"

Argument from Blind Faith
"The number one, most important tenet of Christianity is to hate gay people. It's the entire foundation of my faith. Look at the first page of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and don't be a faggot."

Argument from Blind Smugness
"Look at these stupid christians (yes I spelled that lower-case, take note) who don't know that their entire religion is a scam lie for idiots and that Richard Dawkins has the real truth about your magical sky wizard. Try reading the Origin of Species morons!"

Argument from I Confused Myself With Wikipedia
"I don't want to pass judgement on anyone, so it's important that we keep a neutral point of view and respect everyone's opinion equally. You want to ostracize and persecute gay people, and he doesn't, and I think you both have valid points on this complex issue."

Argument from I Confused Myself With The United States Congress
"I don't think it's right to tell other people what to believe, so if someone believes that homosexuals should all be sent to re-education camps in Siberia, that's their First Amendment right."

Argument from I Won't Tolerate Your Intolerance Of My Intolerance
"For a bunch of people arguing for tolerance, you sure aren't very tolerant of my opinion that homosexuals are pervert scum."

Argument from Can I Interest You In Our Line Of Deluxe Closets
"Look, I don't care what someone does in their bedroom, but why do they have to go around announcing it to the world? My wife totally agrees with my opinion here, as do my mom and dad."

Argument from La La La Can't Hear You
"It doesn't matter what you say, this is just what I believe."

Argument from La La La Nobody Can Hear Anybody
"Well, that's just your opinion. Everyone has their own opinion."

Argument from I Walked To School In The Snow
"These whiners need to realize that life is tough for everyone. I got bullied in school too! Just man up and deal!"

Argument from Hate The Sin, Condescend To The Sinner
"I have nothing but love and respect for homosexual people, but I cannot approve of homosexual behavior."

Argument from The Children
"It's one thing if people want to be homosexuals, but I draw the line at exposing children to that kind of thing."

Argument from My Right To Be A Jerk Is Really Really Important
"We've had enough of this 'political correctness.' It's just one '-American' after another. First they told me to stop using racial slurs and now they're taking away my homophobic slurs? WHERE DOES IT END?"

Argument from It's Hard To Be White, Middle-Class, and Male, Yo
"The real victims here are the straight white male Christians that everyone demonizes and discriminates against!"

Argument from You're Already Allowed To Marry A Woman
"Why should gays get all these special privileges that normal people don't, like being allowed to marry and being allowed to serve in the military?"

Argument from Look Mom I'm Using Naughty Words
"Who gives a shit about some fucking faggot shitpackers and ugly bulldykes?"

Argument from What If We Gave Everyone Rights, What Then
"Next thing you know they'll be allowing polygamy because they are all 'consenting adults' too, right?"

Argument from Guh?
"Being gay is a choice, therefore it's wrong."

Argument from I'm So Fucking Funny
"Be careful not to drop the soap, or there'll be a whole Pride Parade swishing their limp wrists at you and calling you 'thexy!' "

Argument from Discrimination Justifies Discrimination
"If being gay is so great, why is it illegal for them to get married? You know homosexuality is harmful from how many gay youth are depressed or suicidal!"

Argument from Opposite Day
"If these heterophobes get their way, normal heterosexual marriage will be illegal and we'll all have to participate in their debauched lifestyle!"

Argument from Undertrained Gag Reflex
"I just don't want their deviant lifestyle shoved down my throat!"



Did I miss any?

The sad thing is I probably did.

Cocky and Funny.

I love this xkcd.

And since someone asked for it in comments, here's some random PUA site!

As PUA concepts go, I actually don't disagree with "cocky and funny" in principle. I like guys who are confident and even jokingly arrogant, as long as they don't actually take themselves that seriously and they're able to show more vulnerability as we get closer. And of course I like funny guys. If you can make me laugh so hard I almost barf, you can pretty much have your way with me.

The problem with "cocky and funny" as a strategy, however, is that it's like suggesting a runner use the strategy "go fast." Cockiness and funnitude are talents, not traits that can be simply turned on. If you're not innately a confident and witty dude, and you don't have any particular knowledge or experience in the fields of self-esteem and comedy, but you just decide to put on your cockyfunny hat, the results can be... unfortunate.

Which brings us to the Top Ten Ways To Use Cocky And Funny!
#1 Perfect your delivery - You have to brush-up the way you deliver a comment. This includes eye contact, tone of voice and timing. They’re all important.
I said run fast, dammit. The speed with which your feet push off the ground? It's important.

#2 Joke about a point system - The idea here is to suggest that if she loses enough points, you may not want to see her again. If she likes broccoli and you hate it, she just lost a point.
This isn't terrible--I have friends who do this and it isn't weird--but you're not supposed to actually keep score. And when my friends do this, it doesn't make me think "oh god I better not lose more points because this one's a keeper"; it makes me think "man, that's the third time he's made a 'points' comment, he's really due to move on before this turns awkward."

#3 Jokingly express your doubts - This is a variation on the “you just lost a point” theme. Whenever she does something that suggests she could be a loser, a nerd or otherwise unworthy of your attention, tell her, “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
Again, not terrible on its own, but it's hard to imagine a woman so insecure and literal that she's consumed by terror that she's going to lose you (and consequently is willing to do anything to keep you, baby) because of your jerkish offhand comments.

#4 Use sarcasm - When a woman says something totally obvious, you can reply with “Really? Wow. That must be the most fascinating thing I’ve heard all week.” Say this with a sly smile!
Okay, now you're just a douche. A guy who's actually funny might be able to pull this off and not get worse than an "oh, you", but a guy who doesn't have the instincts and is going through the motions based on a top ten list is going to whip this one out as I tell him my grandpa died.

#5 Disqualify her by age - The idea here is to convey the notion that if she’s young, she’s not young enough, and if she’s older, she’s not old enough. What makes this interesting and different is that it’s the opposite of what most women would expect you to say.
"Haha! I'm a creep! Hilarious!"

#6 Guess her weight - Tell her you can guess her weight. Then do something silly that’s completely not related to her weight, like taking one of her fingers and examining it really closely to say that she ways about 500 pounds. But, remember to use this only on women who are very fit.
This entry lifted directly from Uncle Elmer's Rootin-Tootin Party Tricks for Barn Dances and Sock Hops. It's right after the one where you find a nickel in her nose.

#7 Be playfully mean - Say something that could be mean, but in a playful way.
"You are the most disgusting, physically repugnant, willfully idiotic, emotionally monstrous, and frankly malodorous human being it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. Ha ha!"

#8 Slap her hand - Next time she says anything that could be interpreted as “bad” or even “naughty,” ask her to give you her hand, take it, slowly turn it upside down, and gently slap the back of it.
See, this is one of those situations where I'm torn. On the one hand, I know guys who will slap me right across the face for something like that. On the other hand, this is happening in a kinky context and it's an understood joke/play thing between us, not something they just bust out on me.

#9 Give stupid answers to stupid questions - If a woman asks you a lame question such as, “Do you date a lot?”, reply with something cocky like, “Who me? No, never. I usually stay at home, locked in my room playing Nintendo, can’t you tell?”.
Yeah. I kinda can tell.

#10 Bust her on her jokes - If she tries to be funny in any way, let her finish and ask “I’m sorry, was that supposed to be funny?” Keep a straight face when you do this.
Okay, now this is the height of douchebaggery. I can forgive the 500-pound finger and all the "you're about to lose me, better jump on my cock quick" gambits, but what the fuck. Seriously. If there's a line between funny-mean and mean-mean, this is like twenty miles past that line. Funny guys are fun because they're engaging, and conversations turn into repartee. A guy who shuts a girl down with "no, no, this is my performance, no one cares what you say" is killing that repartee with a fucking sledgehammer. If you're so much better than me at everything, wouldn't you have more fun masturbating anyway? Jerk.



Ultimately, the reason this list is so creepy is that it isn't about being cocky and funny in the way that I understand them--as ways for someone to be amusing and fun to be around. It's about playing the "I'm too good for you, you're too bad for me, so if you don't blow me right now you'll wallow in loneliness forever" card. In a funny way! No wonder it isn't that much of a belly laugh.

No sex please, I'm a complete twit.

There was a time, when I was very young, when I thought of the New York Times as a very authoritative newspaper, a paper run by grownups who put in a real effort to spell everything right and read op-eds before they printed them and maybe not print incredibly stupid shit.

But then there's things like Camille Paglia's op-ed on "female Viagra." It's... well, it's fiskable, that's for sure.

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.
"Viagra" is really a poor term for a libido drug, since Viagra is fundamentally a vascular drug. It'll give you blood, but not desire; in the absence of libido, it makes sex possible, not fun. The "female Viagra," then, is just lube. But ignore all that and just get the gist that we're talking about a drug to increase libido in women.

Which I think is not a fundamentally bad idea. Certainly it could be used as relationship-glue, as a "c'mon, just take your pill and let's do this thing," but it could also be a useful option for women with sexual dysfunction. Ideally, the point of such a drug is to give women more control over their own sexuality, and that's a good thing.

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class?
I was not aware we were going to medicate the country. I was under the impression that women were individuals and some of them had sexual dysfunctions and some of them didn't. Silly, silly me. I'm always mixing up zeitgeists and general cultural feelings and grand sweeping trends with things that happen to humans in reality.

I was further unaware that every woman in the country, or every woman with sexual dysfunction, was a member of the white upper middle class. I guess the implication here is that those lusty ethnics and blue-collar types surely have no such problems?

Only the diffuse New Age movement, inspired by nature-keyed Asian practices, has preserved the radical vision of the modern sexual revolution. But concrete power resides in America’s careerist technocracy, for which the elite schools, with their ideological view of gender as a social construct, are feeder cells.
Apparently "Asian," like anything that isn't white and upper-middle-class, is one of those concepts that just means generally foreigny and requires no specifics or research. If I get some vague associations of incense and spiritual stuff and flowy fabrics, it's either Asian or a liberal-arts dorm room, right?

I'm sure that the teachings of "elite schools" are a major factor in the sexual health of the average American.

Most aspects of gender are social constructs. I asked my female guinea pigs if they would prefer to wear pink dresses or blue pants; they tried to chew on the dress a little, then got nervous and hid in their cardboard tube. Stupid guinea pigs don't know that dresses are innately coded in their estrogen receptors.

In the discreet white-collar realm, men and women are interchangeable, doing the same, mind-based work. Physicality is suppressed; voices are lowered and gestures curtailed in sanitized office space. Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation. Androgyny is bewitching in art, but in real life it can lead to stagnation and boredom, which no pill can cure.
Well, yes, men and women are the same at work, because they're there to work. Men going around grunting and swinging their cocks around, and women going around buying shoes and cooing at babies, are not workplace assets. I sound like I'm kidding, but I seriously don't know how I should express my gender at work. How do I do CPR like a woman?

Androgyny can be hot as fuck. Androgyny is not sexlessness, or even genderlessness--it's another form of gender expression. If acting like a "real man" or "real woman" gets you off, have at it. But don't tell me that just because I was born with a vagina I have to play along too.

There are enough debates about whether someone's partner should ever change their gender expression to accommodate them, and you think that everyone on Earth needs to play your little game? Wow.

Meanwhile, family life has put middle-class men in a bind; they are simply cogs in a domestic machine commanded by women. Contemporary moms have become virtuoso super-managers of a complex operation focused on the care and transport of children. But it’s not so easy to snap over from Apollonian control to Dionysian delirium.
Yeah, my ol' lady is in charge of the dishes and the laundry and the vacuuming, so I guess you could pretty much say she runs the house, ho ho.

And as for the "care and transport of children," well, what would you like done with the children? Sheesh.

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left.
See, this is low journalistic standards right here: a sweeping generalization based on a sloppy and hackneyed stereotype, where not only was formal research obviously out of the question, but even momentary anecdotal (i.e., looking out the window) research seemed like too much work. It's just a nationally published opinion piece, I can knock this off before lunch.

Anyway, of course this is all insanely insulting to women who have biologically based problems with their sex drive. You don't need a pill, honey, you need him to put on a nicer shirt! It's on the level of telling people with clinical depression that they just need to think more positive thoughts.

Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense — a boy’s thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.
Okay, I'm not one to scream "racist" at just anything, but this is kind of proble... it seems to be verging on... the implications carry certain historical... IT'S FUCKING RACIST!

Also apparently skinny people don't have sex. I'm learning so many things today.

On the other hand, rock music, once sexually pioneering, is in the dumps. [...] Late Madonna, in contrast, went bourgeois and turned scrawny. Madonna’s dance-track acolyte, Lady Gaga, with her compulsive overkill, is a high-concept fabrication without an ounce of genuine eroticism.
That ellipsis covers three paragraphs, but the tl;dr is "I haven't listened to music in thirty years."

Pharmaceutical companies will never find the holy grail of a female Viagra — not in this culture driven and drained by middle-class values. Inhibitions are stubbornly internal. And lust is too fiery to be left to the pharmacist.
Fun fact I found out doing some reading for the last Twisty post: before the invention of bronchodilator medications, asthma was thought to be a psychosomatic illness, and talking cures involving working out the "suppressed baby's cry" of wheezing were attempted. (The funny thing is, asthma can be emotionally induced. And if that's the case... a bronchodilator will still save your life.) I don't need to spell out the analogy here, do I?



I've seen both feminist and anti-feminist objections to "female Viagra," from concerns it will be used to try to "cure" asexuals or pornify women to the "we just need to go back to the days when men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri" nonsense on display here. But my feeling is that technology is good and choice is good. Some women with low libidos don't want them raised, some want to work out psychological causes, and some want to treat it medically. And dammit, they're all right and they should all have the option to do what they want. Between living in a world where I can take a libido drug or refuse it, or a world where I can only refuse it--I choose the former.

Withholding.

Fox News: Reasons Women Withhold Sex.

I think I'm about done with the phrase "withhold sex." In fact, I'd be okay not using any more phrasing about how sex is given or taken. Sex isn't an object, it's an activity, and it can only be had or not had. So let's talk about "Reasons Women Don't Have Sex."

Which is like "Reasons Women Don't Have Lunch," isn't it? Sometimes women simply aren't hungry or have no food available, but other times they may find the food choices unpalatable, or not have time to eat, or wish to avoid others in the dining area! Fascinatingly complex creatures.

Some women make a habit of withholding sex from their partners, while some only do it under very specific circumstances. To men, this seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Some women have sex very often, while others prefer to have sex less often. To men who think everything is about them, this seems like it's all about them.

Of course, there is a difference between a woman simply not wanting to have sex and purposefully withholding it.
This sentence stands alone, with no attached "ways to tell" discussion, so I assume the rule of thumb is "if she doesn't want sex and this makes you feel bad, she's purposefully withholding it."

I'm not trying to deny that women sometimes don't-have-sex because of their feelings about their partner, or to manipulate their partner. But that's not every time. Personally, I've never withheld sex in a relationship, because I couldn't withhold it from myself, but I've turned down sex, um, ones of times! For reasons that had to do with both my partner and myself. And most importantly, reasons that I wanted respected at the time, not "solved." If I'm not fucking you because I'm unhappy, the main problem is the unhappiness; the fucking problem is only a symptom.

She’s pissed
This is probably the most common reason that women withhold sex. If you’ve done something that made her furious, she may not be above punishing you by keeping the one thing you really, really want out of your reach.
It's not about how bad you want it. It's about how I don't really like to fuck people I'm not fond of at the moment. I'd have to smell their breath and do stuff for them and everything. When I'm angry at you, I don't want to have you inside my body. This is not some ultimate cruelty that I'm "not above."

Sometimes simply acknowledging that you’ve done something wrong is enough to make her calm down. Other times, the only way to get out of the doghouse is to participate in one of those long, heartfelt conversations in which you share feelings.
Oh what a chore. Definitely not something any man would ever want to do, sharing emotions with someone he has a supposedly emotional relationship with.

She’s asserting herself
If she’s keeping the good loving from you, it may be an attempt to assert her power over you and the relationship. If there’s one area of a relationship women think they have control over, it’s sex. She may just be doing it to show you who’s boss in bed or she may be compensating for feeling powerless in some other aspect of her life. Maybe she has a cruel boss, a domineering best friend or an overprotective mother.
No, no, an overprotective mother makes me fuck more; you've got it so backwards. But yes, women do have control over sex, in the sense that they can say no to it. Wow, what amazing power. It's like saying that because I can refuse to take a job, I have total power over where I work; there's two separate misconceptions in there. Veto power is a very limited sort of power, and few people really enjoy just vetoing everything.

She’s manipulating you
Another reason women withhold sex is to get something out of you. When no other methods of getting what she wants are working, she might resort to revoking your sex privileges until you agree to what she’s after.
This isn't going to be a mystery, though, is it? Generally you either flat-out say "We're not having sex until X", or you at least make your requests for X very obviously coincident with the non-fucking, right? So this isn't something that has to be subtly puzzled out. Unless she's crazy and wants you to read her mind, but in that case--are you sure you want to fuck this person?

Again, ugh, "sex privileges." It's not like I can just hand you the key. I have to be there the whole time and everything.

Playing games
Women withhold sex because men let them get away with it.
Oh Jesus. I don't have to explain why this is extremely fucked up, right?

It’s pretty clear it’s the one thing that most guys can’t live without and that they’ll do pretty much anything to keep it coming on a regular basis.
It's pretty clear that most guys can live without it, considering how many single men won't hire a prostitute or even have casual sex that isn't quite right. Partnered sex isn't like oxygen for men; it's just nice. Very nice, certainly, but you won't wither and die. A unilaterally-decided lack of sex is a relationship problem, not a torture method.

If you and your girlfriend can openly communicate, you should be able to talk through these issues as they come up instead of getting to the point where she’s closing her legs while you’re begging for it.
Articles like this always seem to end with an admonishment to communicate and be respectful and all those things that the rest of the article told you not to do. Just to prove that they really do support responsible behavior, despite what you might think from reading the entire rest of the article.

OkStupid.

OkCupid (I know, I know, but 98% of my social life is coordinated online, so it seems stupid to say "online dating is for losers!" in light of that--especially if you say that online...) has a feature where it displays how often you reply to messages. You get a little green light if you "reply often," an orange one if you "reply selectively," and a red light if you "reply very selectively."

Roughly ten seconds after opening my account, I had a red light. I Googled "'replies very selectively' + OkCupid", because I was curious where they drew the line. I didn't find a clear answer on that, but I found a huge number of blog and forum posts complaining that girls with a red light are stuck-up picky bitches who expect perfection and won't give guys in their league the time of day.

Well gosh, I'd hate to look like I'm stuck-up. I resolve to truly engage with the gentlemen who give me their time and put themselves out there emotionally!

NEW MESSAGE FROM OKCUPID: "wats up lol"
NEW MESSAGE FROM OKCUPID: "more coushin for the fuckin"
NEW MESSAGE FROM OKCUPID: "I have not had sex in two years and I hate it and I am getting bored with pleasuring myself all the time..."
NEW MESSAGE FROM OKCUPID: "do u do anal?"

(These are not jokes. These are not exaggerations. These are copy-pastes.)

Yeah... I don't think I have the intestinal fortitude to earn myself that green light.

Not-friends with only one benefit.

Dorkiewitch sent me this article, and it is amazing. I was uncertain if EzineArticles should be completely beneath my notice, to be honest, because I'm not sure anyone reads them, but this particular scribbling managed to be offensive in a sort of interesting way.

Occasionally, you'll meet a girl you have a lot of chemistry with, but for some reason, you don't want to commit to her. So you remain friends with the girl, while still being intimate with each other. It can become a problem though, if the girl is insistent upon turning it into more than that. She might try to suck you into a relationship. To prevent this, you need to lay some ground rules.
No, you need to lay one ground rule: this isn't a romantic relationship, and if you try to make it one while I still don't feel the same way, it would be best if we stopped altogether. Unless she's a full-on stalker (in which case any sexual relationship, "intimate" or not, is likely to set her off), she's actually capable of understanding this if you just say it in words. Just about everything that follows isn't maintaining boundaries, it's distrustful humiliation. But don't take my word for it.

1. No spending the night.
Letting her spend the night, or spending the night at her place sends the wrong message! It communicates a desire to settle down. If you can, keep the encounters at her place, and then leave. It's much nicer than kicking her out of your place.
Is she your fuckbuddy, or not? Because if she is, then she'll most likely want to leave, or be able to sleep over without making a thing out of it. And if she isn't, this isn't going to help. Either way, sometimes "I'm sleepy and don't feel like driving home" actually means it. Or hell, even "I'd enjoy sharing a bed with you"--sometimes I like a warm bed and some skin contact, without it meaning the guy is entrapped in my tentacles forever.

This article has a lot in common with Cosmo's "communication by whipped cream" philosophy--it totally discounts the messages you might send in words.

5. Don't discuss anything real.
Remember, we're trying to avoid intimacy here, and nothing creates intimacy like talking about important things. No family history, no favorite colors, no goals, no personal triumphs or tragedies. If you want to keep it a friends with benefits situation, you have to stay light: movies, bands, and favorite brands of booze.
Then you're not friends with benefits, because you're not friends. This shit isn't all-or-nothing; you can be slightly closer than strangers at the DMV and still not end up accidentally married with five kids, or whatever you're so afraid of.

What is this guy so afraid of, seriously? Say the worst-case-scenario happens and his fuckbuddy starts introducing herself as his girlfriend--then he tells her it's not so, there's a few minutes of really ugly crying and yelling, and it's over with. The worst that could happen, the result if she really gets her evil woman-tentacles in you, is just not that bad. It seems like one big fight and some hard feelings is vastly preferable to an entire relationship of mistrust and humiliation.

And it is humiliation; this kind of stuff doesn't make me feel like I'm not a girlfriend, it makes me feel like I'm not a person.

9. Always play it safe!
One of the sad realities of life is that women will sometimes do dirty things to hook a guy, and one of those things is getting pregnant. So always, always, ALWAYS use condoms and birth control when playing with your friend with benefits!
Okay, here's the worst worst-case scenario. It's not that common, and using the discretion to not fuck the craziest woman you know will probably do more for you than a condom, but say it happens. Say she calls you and says she's pregnant and now you have to get married. You say that you'll go halfsies on an abortion or she can take you to court for child support. It's harsh (but so is using a human life as a trap, which is why remotely-sane girls don't do this), but 98% of the time this results in a "miscarriage."

I still think you should always use condoms with fuckbuddies, because you're not fluid-monogamous and birth control can fail, but you can do that without expressing your hate and mistrust of all womankind.

I can tell you from sad personal experience, too, that guys like this never manage to be subtle about this shit. It's never "let's use a condom for safety"; it's always "YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE A TRAP BABY YOU BITCH I KNOW YOUR TRICKS." (And boy, you know I'm not in this for the emotional fulfillment if I still fuck you after that.)

Joseph Matthews has been instructing men how to meet women since 2004, and is widely known as an authority in the subject of confidence building and dating advice.
Confidence building? Confidence? Confidence is being able to trust someone even if they aren't your schmoopy-bear, and being able to say "no" to them if you can't trust them. Confidence is realizing that you can deal with worst-case-scenarios so you don't have to spend your entire life on edge. Confidence is acknowledging that it's okay to have emotions and not all of them mean that you have to get married. Confidence is being able to say what you mean, instead of getting into a relationship with no spoken agreements and trying to communicate everything via whipped cream and toothbrush placement.

If you want to stick your dick in a warm hole, but you absolutely don't want to talk or go out or cuddle or sleep together or look a woman in her treacherous entrapping eyes--soak your Fleshlight in warm water and leave human beings the hell alone.


Wow, I got through this entire post without mentioning Benny. But even Benny, who was the absolute king of stiff-armed "know your place, woman" antics, wasn't this cold. (Actually, we started out genuinely dating, and it sort of devolved after I broke up with Alan. But even at its coldest it wasn't this cold.) He let me sleep over and we cuddled and stuff. And as you can see I became devastatingly attached and am now carrying twelve of his babies. He better buy me a really big ring!

The Misandry Bubble - Part 7 - The Exciting Conclusion!

I'm finishing it this post. I don't care how long it takes, I'm not devoting one more post to this guy. I'm only bothering to finish because I've gotten through so much that I'd hate to abandon the project when it's nearly done. After this, I'm posting about hot happy sex between decent human beings, so help me God.

I left off with him applauding mass murder, but right after that there's a section I'm going to skip over, because all it does is prove that women who choose to have fewer children end up having fewer children. (Except feminists, who have zero children because no one wants the ugly old sluts etcetera.) There's a chart and everything.

Lefto-'feminists' will be outbred and replaced very quickly, and rural American conservatives will be the only resiliently youthful population among all the world's white ethnicities. The state that lefto-'feminists' so admire will quickly turn on them once the state calculates that these women are neither producing new taxpayers nor new technologies, and will find a way to demote them from their present 'empowered' position of entitlement.
Gosh, and I was just thinking this essay could use some racism. White people aren't breeding enough, the population will become sullied, oh noes.

I don't think the state actually wants "new taxpayers" that badly, considering that they're going to spend their first 18 years (at least) as serious financial liabilities, and even more so when people are having large families at young ages.

Also, apparently women don't invent new technologies or even contribute to existing ones. That one didn't really come from anywhere; I guess it's self-evident. I don't think this guy understands that when women don't have children, and certainly when they don't have partners, they work. A single childless woman probably contributes more to society in the short run.

The Four Horsemen of Male Emancipation
Dun dun DUNNNN!

1) The Venusian Arts : Learning the truth about how the female mind works is a precious and transcendant body of knowledge for any man.
Ooh, I can teach you that right now.
1. Think about how you think. Consider how you like things that are fun, don't like things that suck, sometimes have difficulty with your emotions but are usually able to step back and see things rationally, and feel a certain inner sense of what's right.
2. Imagine another person thinking just that same way.
3. Except they have breasts.

The ecstasy of two or even three concurrent relationships with women of substantially above average beauty are quite attainable to a man who has scaled the summit, which further deprives the hapless betas (again, male attractiveness to women is zero-sum in a way that female attractiveness to men is not). Thus, while 80% of men have no intellectual capacity to grasp and master the Venusian Arts, if the number of solid practitioners even begins to approach 20%, multiple parasitic beasts, from female moochers to the tax-swilling state to the corrupt real-estate and divorce lawyer industries, can be effectively starved.
But if you only want women of "substantially above average beauty," won't the uglies still go out and marry betas and get thrill-divorces? I don't see how this solves the problem.

2) Adult Entertainment Technologies of 2020 : What of the 80% of men who cannot conceptualize the Venusian Arts? Won't they be condemned to live a life of frustration, humiliation, near-slavery, and occasional thoughts of suicide? Thankfully, these poor souls will experience a satisfactory release through technology, just like women did through technologies such as contraceptive pills, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners.
Oh, I see, no one would marry an ugly, they'd kill themselves first! Fair enough. So then we get to "fuck you all, I'll just go watch porn!" Which works just fine for me, mister.

I have no idea at all what this has to do with vacuum cleaners. I guess the idea is that vacuum cleaners liberated women from men (before them women had to stay home all day to beat rugs and needed a man to finance this operation) so now porn liberates men from women. And the idea--in both directions--that you could be liberated from needing someone but still feel that you wanted them--clearly doesn't exist in this guy's cold dark little world.

For those (mostly women) who claim that the VR sex of 2020 would not be a sufficient substitute for the real thing, that drawback is more than superceded by the inescapable fact that the virtual woman would be made to be a 10/10+ in appearance, while the real women that the typical beta male user has access to would be in the 4-7 range.
Oh, I have no doubt that VR sex would be excellent! But taking off the VR helmet and codpiece and looking around your empty silent apartment--that's not for everyone. Even if your VR 10 passes the Turing Test perfectly, telling her about your day and making little private jokes with her just won't be the same.

As single men arrive home from work on Friday evening, they will simply default into their VR immersion, giving a whole new meaning to the concept of 'beta testing'. These sequestered men will be conspicuously absent from the bars and nightclubs that were the former venues of expenditure and frustration, causing many establishments to go out of business. The brains of these men will warp to the extent that they can no longer muster any libido for the majority of real women. This will cause a massive devaluation in the sexual market value of most women, resulting in 8s being treated like 5s, and 35-year-old women unable to attract the interest of even 55-year-old men. The Wile E. Coyote moment for women will move a few years ahead, and the alphas with Venusian Arts competence will find an even easier field of desperate women to enjoy.
It's true, some creepy desperate men will stop trying. And thank God for that, it'll mellow them out and get them off our backs. But as for "and then there won't be any men left and you'll all be desperate and feel ugly, ha ha," I think he seriously overestimates the prevalence of desperate creeps. Escorts already provide a "pay for it and a beautiful women will pretend to like you" service, but they haven't exactly taken all the men away. (Actually, I don't think this particular breed of desperate creeps goes to escorts that much. They're so fixated on winning a woman-prize, just hiring one would be cheating.)

Besides, shit, you guys are always on about "status" as a reason for getting a woman--where exactly is the status in admitting that you've completely given up?

3) Globalization :
The TL;DR of this section is "fuck you, I'll just go marry a nice perfectly submissive foreign woman!" I think this is a repeat since he talked about sex dolls in the last section already. Weirdly for someone who claims to have lived outside the US, his perception of foreign women is about as nuanced and realistic as his ideas about women in the Past.

4) Male Economic Disengagement and Resultant Tax-Base Erosion : Earlier passages have highlighted how even the most stridently egomaniacal 'feminist' is heavily dependent on male endeavors. I will repeat again that there will never, ever be a successful human society where men have no incentive to aspire to the full maximum of their productive and entrepreneurial capabilities.
There sure won't! That's why we have money and public acclaim and social success and personal fulfillment! But pardon me if I don't volunteer my pussy as a Motivation Builder at the next company picnic. Anyway, most guys who really get to the "full maximum" have already been married for a while at that point. It's a mystery why they kept going after they got a woman; what other reason could there possibly be for human endeavor?

The 'progressive' income tax scale in the US was levied under the assumption that men who could earn 10 times more than they needed for themselves would always do so, for their families. A man with no such familial aspirations may choose an easier job at lower pay, costing the state more than he costs himself. [...] The 'feminist' hypergamous utopia is not self-financing, but is precariously dependent on every beta man working at his full capacity, without which the government bubble, inseparable from the misandry bubble, collapses.
Most lower-paid jobs aren't so easy. For every security guard who gets $10/hr to watch an empty parking lot all night, there's quite a few people doing mind-numbing data entry or soul-crushing customer service or back-ruining manual labor, and I imagine they wouldn't need the promise of pussy to get better jobs if they could.

His entire thesis seems to be that men will go completely torpid if they aren't paid in exactly the amount of pussy that they've earned. Women just need to take one for the team to keep society going, because the allotment of our bodies to deserving workers makes the world go 'round. This is one step beyond commodification--we're not even a commodity, in this guy's head we're currency.

Maybe we could have a bunch of women hole up in Fort Knox and pass out notes indicating how many women in that fort you're entitled to, and guys could just use the notes for trade. Then we'll all sneak out and leave them trading purely fiat pussy, and no one will be the wiser.

Who Should Care?
No one.

This section is pretty much just recap, and of course boils down to "everyone should care!"

I am just an observer, and will not become an activist of any sort, although, as described earlier, being an 'inactivist' in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi is also powerful.
I think you're more an "inactivist" in the spirit of my cousin who lives in her mom's attic and watches a lot of soap operas.

If my views on gender dynamics are unwelcome in the country of my birth (the US), and if the costs of misandry asphyxiate the US economy to the extent that India is a greener pasture, I will leave my homeland and immigrate to India, where a freedom of speech exists that may no longer exist in America.
Well gosh don't let the door hit you on your way out.

For those misandrists who say 'good riddance' with great haste, remember that blogging can still be done from overseas.
It's a twist ending! The monster looked dead but then, slowly, as it lay broken on the ground, it opened just one eye.

THE END?



Yes. The end.

The Misandry Bubble - Part 6!

Welp, I've gotten this far. In for a penny, hung for a sheep, or something like that.

Hence, there will be no real Men's Rights Movement in the near future. The misandry bubble will instead be punctured through the sum of millions of individual market forces.
And now he gets into pseudoeconomics, which is almost like pseudoscience, except instead of saying "cavemen passed on their genes by only fucking swimsuit models" you say "it's economically rational for a man to only fuck swimsuit models." God damn that Freakonomics book, by the way--it's interesting in itself, but it taught a million armchair economists that you can prove anything "economically" by carefully selecting which incentives you consider and which you completely fucking ignore. It's economically rational for me to cut off my feet because then I won't have to buy socks!

Misandrists shriek about a supposed 'glass ceiling' of pervasive sexism that explains why 50% of the CEOs of major corporations are not women. What is never mentioned is the equally valid 'glass floor', where we see that 90% of imprisonments, suicides, and crippling occupational injuries are of men.
Here we see the logical Fallacy Of Buh?, in which the premise and conclusion are from different planets.

Also, out of the Fortune 1000 companies, 13 have female CEOs. There's your fucking 50%.

One of the most dishonest myths of all is the claim that 'women earn just 75% of men for the same job'.
That's a misphrasing. Women earn 75% of men for the same hours. It's true, female surgeons and stockbrokers earn about the same as male surgeons and stockbrokers (actually often they don't, but anyway), and male housekeepers and nannies earn the same as female housekeepers and nannies. But if you look at the numbers of men and women in various professions this doesn't work out nearly even, and claiming women voluntarily choose low-paid careers for some mysterious lady reason makes pretty poor argument-spackle.

It is true that women, on average, earn less per year than men do. It is also true that 22-year-olds earn less, on average, than 40-year-olds. Why is the latter not an example of age discrimination, while the former is seized upon as an example of gender discrimination?
Because in 18 years I still won't be a man.

If women truly did earn less for doing exactly the same job as a man, any non-sexist CEO could thrash his competition by hiring only women, thus saving 25% on employee salaries relative to his competitors. Are we to believe that every major CEO and Board of Directors is so sexist as to sacrifice billions of dollars of profit?
This hypothetical (and male!) CEO can't just hire the cheapest possible labor for executive and management positions, he has to hire experienced and qualified people even if they cost more. Whoops, they all turned out to have penises, what a crazy random happenstance.

Furthermore, women entrepreneurs could hire other women and out-compete any male-dominated business if such a pay gap existed, but we do not see this happening in any country in the world.
It actually is, slowly, but:
A) Since feminism isn't actually the mirror-image of misogyny, most female businesspeople don't hire 97% female management.
B) Most entrepreneurs don't start in a garage and work their way up with no help from anyone on sheer merit and spunk. Business experience and contacts are invaluable, and they're disproportionately available to good ol' boys.

I am willing to pass laws to ensure that 50% of all Fortune 500 CEOs are women (despite the accelerated turnover this would create in the ranks of the Fortune 500), if we also legally mandate that 50% of all imprisonments are of women, and 50% of the jobs that involve working with heavy machinery, being outdoors in inclement weather, inhaling toxic fumes, or apprehending dangerous criminals are also occupied by women. Fair is fair. Any takers?
Um... yeah. I would take that deal. Except for the imprisonments because that's the Fallacy of Buh?, but the rest of it, that sounds just fine. (I've already worked in inclement weather and I still work with dangerous criminals; for some reason the typical female job of lying on a couch eating bon-bons didn't have any openings when I applied.)

In the recent recession and ongoing jobless recovery, the male unemployment rate continues to be much higher than the female unemployment rate.
Yeah, that's because all the good jobs went away first.

Traditionally female jobs tend to be low-paid and low-status, but necessary: childcare, healthcare. The demand for manufacturing and construction is dependent on the economy, but kids and sick people are always around. These sectors don't have big failures but they also don't have big successes--there'll never be a "Childcare Boom." So there's no childcare recession, but that doesn't mean that babysitters rule the economy now.

The 'mancession' continues as the US transitions to a 'sheconomy', and among the millions of unemployed men, some owe prohibitive levels of 'child support' despite not being the ones wanting to deprive their children of a two-parent household, landing in prison for lack of funds. Furthermore, I emphasize again that having 10-30% of the US male workforce living under an effective 70% marginal tax rate will kill their incentives for inventing new technologies or starting new companies. It is petty to debate whether the top federal income tax bracket should be 35% or 39.6%, when a slice of the workforce is under a 70% tax on marginal income.
Mancession? Sheconomy? This guy could write for Cosmo.

And you do realize that if your children lived with you, you'd still have to clothe and feed them? Ideally.

The next time you hear someone say that 'the US has the largest prison population in the world', be sure to mention that many of these men merely lost their jobs, and were divorced against their will. The women, in the meantime, are having a blast.
So apparently when you get divorced you go to prison. This is, uh, new.

I know he's really just bitching about his child support payments again, but in every state I could Google, you don't get imprisoned for Nonsupport Of A Child if you simply didn't have the income. You can be made to pay a portion of unemployment benefits, which I admit sketches me out a little (although less so when I consider that the kids still have to eat, and if the dad is broke but still ordered to pay, the mom's probably dead broke), but you can't go to prison for failing to produce blood from a stone.

Anyway what goddamn proportion of the prison population is there for Nonsupport Of A Child, seriously. I couldn't find statistics but I seriously doubt this is the root of America's entire crime problem.

It goes further. The vast majority of social security taxes are paid by men, but are collected by women (due to women living 7 years longer than men on average). [...] Remember again that the earnings of men pays 70%-80% of all taxes.
"Men don't earn more than women! And since men earn more, we have to pay more taxes! No fair!"

There's a long segment about why feminists are responsible for high taxes (they just are) that makes less than no sense and it's very boring, so I'm going to skim over that bit if you don't mind.

A single man does not require much in order to survive. Most single men could eke out a comfortable existence by working for two months out of the year.
Well, not in the beloved Past, not unless you can find me a crop that ripens in two months and is nutritionally balanced and perfectly storeable. But in more modern times, the median individual income of a man--not counting zero incomes--in the US is about $30,513. (And of a woman--still not counting zero, remember, so it's not all housewives--is $17,629. But anyway.) Two months of that is $5,086. $424 a month. That's not a "comfortable existence," that's a van down by the river.

The reason that a man might work hard to earn much more than he needs for himself is to attract a wife amidst a competitive field, finance a home and a couple of children, and ultimately achieve status as a pillar of the community. [...] 80-90% of a man's output went to people other than himself, but he got a family and high status in return, so he was happy with the arrangement.
If women would only marry rich pillar-y men, doesn't that mean that like 80% of women had no one to marry? Clearly someone was settling (or, ohmigosh, failing to gold-dig in the first place), or there'd be no such thing as a poor family.

It's also kind of harsh to describe your income as going to "people other than himself," and grudgingly consider the value received in return, when it's your own wife and kids. Life must be sad when you live on The Planet Without Love.

Hey kids, it's GLORIFYING MASS MURDER TIME!
(This is quoted from a different essay, but the Misandry Bubble guy gives his explicit agreement to these specific quotes.)
A man like George Sodini, who listened to his cultural elites and followed their dictates to the letter only to get swindled, had no reason to love America. In fact, he had every reason to lash out at the society that screwed him over and make its denizens feel some of the pain that they had inflicted on him.
You could stop this madness tomorrow by refusing to follow your vaginas straight into the arms of scumbags, and actually live up to your claims of wanting nice guys – but I doubt you will. You’ve made your bed, ladies – now sleep in it.
WHAT THE FUCK IS FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU WHAT THE FUCK I CAN'T EVEN BE FUNNY HERE FUCK. All this cute little talk about divorce laws and tax rates and TV characters means fucking nothing if you're going to justify murder. Holy shit. You don't want to be called a misogynist because it's a mean word that hurts your little feelings and you don't see a problem with killing women?

You know, there's a word for fucking a guy just so he doesn't kill you. I believe we were talking about it earlier? Starts with an R.


There's more but I'm done for now, I'm just fucking done.

The Misandry Bubble - Part 5!

This is getting exhausting. I'm hoping to hack through a little quicker and finish this up in six parts at the most. ...maybe seven.

Contrary to their endless charges of 'misogyny' (a word that many 'feminists' still manage to misspell), in reality, most men instinctively treat women with chivalry and enshrine them on exalted pedestals.
Okay, he's totally got me there. I'm always typing "misogny" and not catching it until the little red squiggly line shows up.

I don't want to be enshrined on an exalted pedestal! I want to be just a person. When you're on a pedestal no one takes you seriously if you want to do anything un-princessy. Also, the whole "women were lucky just not to starve in the gutter" thing from a bit back doesn't sound very pedestal-y to me.

When well-known 'feminists' openly state that 90% of the male population should be exterminated, the unsupported accusation of 'misogyny' is a very pure manifestion of their own misandric projection.
Okay, I think those feminists are insane too, although I also think there are about twelve of them and they all comment on Twisty Faster's blog. But let's not get them mixed up with the people who are "feminists" in a very meaningful sense and yet do not support genocide.

To provide a helpful analogy, "I hate Christians because Fred Phelps says disgusting things at soldiers' funerals. Fucking Christians!"

(This is only a test. Had this been an actual Internet Atheist post, the word would be spelled "Xtians.")

On the second charge of being a 'loser who cannot get laid', any observation of the real world quickly makes it obvious that men who have had little experience with women are the ones placing women on pedestals, while those men who have had substantial sexual experience with women are not.
Then you must be Wilt Fucking Chamberlain. Anyway, I think the very existence of Eurosabra disproves your point.

Having sex with a large number of women does not increase respect for women, which is the exact opposite of the claim that 'feminists' make. Again, this charge of 'loserdom' is merely the psychosexual frustration of 'feminists' projected outwards, who express surprise that unrelenting hatred by them towards men is not magically metabolised into love for these particular 'feminists'.
I don't think that anyone's claiming being a man-whore makes you a feminist. But having a satisfying sex life, whatever "satisfying" means to you, does seem to make guys more likely to respect women. Although there's a certain chicken/egg effect there.

One Sentence Wonder: "Saying someone doesn't get laid is a stupid way to argue, and I bet you don't get laid."

Despite my explanation of this predictable Pavlovian response, the comments section will feature misandrists use these same two slurs nonetheless, proving the very point that they seek to shout down, and the very exposure they seek to avoid. My pre-emption will not deter them from revealing their limitations by indulging in it anyway. They simply cannot help themselves, and are far from being capable of discussing actual points of disagreement in a rational manner.
Wow, you said inflammatory things and you predicted people would get inflamed. Good job, Miss Cleo. By the way, this is my fifth page of actual points of disagreement.

Once again, remember that this should be taken no more seriously than if uttered by a 10-year-old, and there is no reason to let a 'feminist' get away with anything you would not let a man get away with. They wanted equality, didn't they?
I want to call "treat them like a 10-year-old, treat them like a man" a One Sentence Wonder, but under this guy's worldview it might not be.

And sure, let's have some equality. Let's pine for the days when men were chattel and even ugly and unpleasant women were guaranteed a man by the system, and let's say that men are worthless when they turn 35 or fuck more than 3 people, let's demand that divorcing women be able to just walk away from their children, let's talk about how you should ignore everything a man says, and let's say that it's no big deal when men get raped and they're probably lying anyway.

Or let's not. Because I don't believe any of the things in the above paragraph are good ideas at all. That's not how feminism works.

The greatest real misogyny, of course, has been unwittingly done by the 'feminists' themselves. By encouraging false rape claims, they devalue the credibility of all claims, and genuine victims will suffer. [...] By trying to excuse cuckolding and female domestic violence, they invite formerly docile men to lash out in desperation.
Whereas you have no responsibility whatsoever for your words about rape victims. And could you sound a little more like a wife-beater with this "you made me do this to you, bitch, I tried to be nice to you and what did I get" shit? Put on one of them sleeveless white undershirts and you'll be ready for Lifetime.

Chivalry greatly increased a man's prospects of marriage, but the reasons for this have been forgotten. Prior to the modern era, securing a young woman's hand in marriage usually involved going through her parents. The approval of the girl's father was a non-negotiable channel in the process. If a young man could show the girl's parents that he would place her on a pedestal, they could be convinced to sanction the union.
Actually, a lot of the time they'd sanction a union with anyone halfway decent just to get the girl out of the house. (See, here I go talking about The Past like it's some unitary thing that never changed with time and place.) Or in other parts of The Past, the man's parents would work it out with the woman's parents, and tough beans if she turns out to be a 1.

Hence, many men are still stuck in the obsolete, inobservant, and self-loathing notion that chivalry and excess servility are the pathways to sex today [...] and the term 'White Knights' can apply to the entire group. Their form of chivalry when exposed to 'feminist' histrionics results in these men harming other men at the behest of women who will never be attracted to them.
My still slightly sore vagina begs to differ.

Although I do have to commend him for applying the "you don't really hold those beliefs, you're just kowtowing before the oppressor" logic to men. That's quite equitable of him.

An article worthy of being written by The Onion could conceivably be titled 'Social conservatives carefully seek to maintain perfect 100% record of failure in advancing their agenda'.
I'm just putting this one up here so you can admire the gracefully crafted prose.

At this point, readers may be wondering "If things are this bad, why don't we hear anything about it?". Indeed, this is a valid question, and the answer lies within the fundamentals of male psychology. Most beta men would rather die than be called a 'loser' by women (alpha men, of course, know better than to take this at face value).
Then how come so many "alpha men" are actually decent to women? Although I guess this depends how you define "alpha." Is an alpha a guy who has satisfying sex and social lives? Because I know a bunch of those, and they're decent to women and never go on about their horrible oppression. But somehow I think they must be secret betas. Somehow. If I squint real hard.

...shit, squinted too hard, ice cream headache.

Hey. Why would alphas feel oppressed, if being alpha gets you everything you want? Can't complain about chicks ruining your life when you've got chicks in the palm of your hand.

Alpha men have no incentive beyond altruism to act as they benefit from the current climate, and thus my altruism will be limited to putting forth these ideas.
Oh, I see. You're a real humanitarian. Some altruists give to charity, some volunteer, some teach or care for others, and some write long essays on the Internet about how sluts and alimony judgments and rape investigations are like Hitler.

Is it just me, or do the specific areas of his rage tell a little story? Women should be forced to marry men while they're young and attractive, not when they're all "cougary" and used-up... women are cheating sluts, cheating is worse than rape... accusations of abuse are mostly false, and anyway the abusers were totally pushed into it... divorce lawyers are Nazis!

All this, however, requires me to believe that he actually got a woman to marry him. So I guess we can disregard this ludicrous speculation.

Any serious movement has to start a think tank or two to produce research reports, symposiums, and specific policy recommendations, and the few divorce lawyers who were compelled by their conscience to leave the dark side have to be recruited as experts. Subsequently, televised panel discussions have to be conducted at top medical, business, and graduate engineering schools (where young men about to embark on lucrative careers are approaching marriage age, but know nothing about the law), documentary films have to be produced, prominent victims like Mel Gibson, Paul McCartney, Hulk Hogan, and Tiger Woods have to be recruited as spokesmen, and visibly powerful protests outside of divorce courts have to be organized.
...Hulk Hogan? HULK HOGAN??? I uh. I what. I um. You broke me. See what you did. Guh.

Also, Hulk Hogan and Tiger Woods cheated on their wives and Paul McCartney on his fiancée, and that's worse than rape.

Other than that, great plan! You get started right away on that and I'll check back in a bit to see how it's going.