I found a really disturbing article by David Futrelle at We Hunt the Mammoth, “Women Don’t Need Good Chord Progressions,” and Other Ways the Ladies Are Destroying Culture by Being Ladies. But it is only disturbing because I’ve been largely unaware of things like Men’s Rights and so on. The article itself is funny as hell. You should read it.
It is based on a post in The Red Pill subreddit. It’s description is, “Discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.” I have a problem with “sexual strategy,” of course. I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys. Getting a girlfriend is not hard. Here is the proven two step process: (1) don’t be a jerk; (2) repeat until successful. I know a lot “sensitive” guys think it is their very niceness that stops them from getting a girlfriend. Generally, I’ve found that the sensitive set is often as bad as the cavemen. Romance is a negotiation. Guys who complain about the lack of a girlfriend are impatient.
To give you some idea of what “sexual strategy” means in practice, the top article right now is, “HumanSockPuppet’s Guide to Managing Your Bitches.” That may well be meant as a joke, but I doubt it. Certainly the commenters on the post don’t think it is a joke. It has such great advice as the necessity of being comfortable bossing your “girl” around. I’ve noticed that the word “comfortable” comes up a lot in other articles. It seems to be a kind of dog whistle. It means roughly not caring what others think of you. This is shockingly like libertarian thinking, where our genuine selves can be found in the distant past before it got spoiled by all this civilization nonsense.
The second part of that description of The Red Pill I have no problem with. Men in our society do suffer from a lack of a positive identity. But their idea is that men should turn into some kind of tired cliche: Don Juan but without the requisite love of women. Again: we get to this fantasy past that is devoid of any nuance, and is ahistorical if you take the broad view. Regardless, the way these guys want to treat women would seem to eliminate the possibility of having the kinds of relationships that they claim to want. The process seems to be: (1) “Girls don’t like me because I’m too nice”; (2) “I’ll be a jerk and then girls will like me.” And all they have to do is be “comfortable” being a jerk!
The article that Futrelle highlights is by a user named TheeRyanGrey, “The Men of Reddit(And America) are terrified to admit women have ruined their favorite activities.” His concern is that women have ruined things men like by dumbing them down. You see girls like to be entertained and men like… Actually, I don’t know. He doesn’t like romantic subplots in films. He doesn’t like “up close and personal” segments in his sports. I suspect that he has really bad taste in everything, but what do I know? I’m one of those weak men who manage to attract women without ever needing a guide on how to manage my bitches.
The funniest part of the whole thing came when TheeRyanGrey talked about music. On his profile, he claims to be a rapper, but he complained that music has become too repetitive. But here’s the best part of Futrelle’s take-down:
Screw you ladies, and your terrible chord progressions! I mean, I’ve seen it a million times. Some dude comes up and he’s all
E – B – C#m – A
And the lady is all, nuh-uh!
C – B – F
And you’re like, what the hell is this bullshit!
TheeRyanGrey then goes on to make a racist statement, “I know an Asian that’s tall and has a big dick, are we gonna just assume that’s the average? Grow up.” It’s funny that he would use “Asian” and not “Oriental.” But whatever. I doubt that many people on The Red Pill know too much about history and words and things. I mean, managing your bitches is a very time consuming activity!
Humans are at their worst when they fence themselves off in a world of their own bigotry. As bad as TheeRyanGrey is, the comments are worse. They show an even more primitive understanding of humanity. Women are supposed to be “helpers” and “supporters.” The whole thing should be called, “Atlas Won’t Shrug.” And it turns out that the whole Men’s Rights movement is big on rape apologetics. Ayn Rand would have loved this stuff! Normal women, not really.
I used to visit that blog a lot more when it first started in 2010/11. The commenters figured out the perfect woman based on the mindnumbing repetition:
“She needs to be a size 0, independently wealthy without it coming from any male, always stay age 18, be almost as intelligent as he is while also having exactly the same interests as he does, a permanent virgin who knows exactly how to best please a man sexually without having actually having had sex, give birth to as many children as he wants while taking full care of them and not gaining any weight, look absolutely beautiful without taking any effort to do so, look “natural” without having put on make up, be perfectly dressed without caring about her clothes, able to clean and maintain a house without visible effort, and be willing to put up with any amount of abuse without once getting upset with him.
It goes without saying-he can leave her, she can never leave him. If he does leave her she is to not get child support or alimony and she still has to come over and clean his house while taking care of the children.”
The movement is made up of generally two types of men-very immature 18-25 year olds who are mad they have not gotten a girlfriend and are, as you pointed out, very impatient. The second is bitter divorced 40-55 year olds who, thank God, are too scared to do what all to often happens and kill their ex-wife and the children. The immature ones are the ones most likely to be libertarian and to view everything as if it is a economic transaction. They also see someone like Donald Trump (who is bleeech) with an attractive young woman and assume all women are exactly like her despite all evidence to the contrary.
I could go on but it is dull and I have laundry to finish. :D
I get the bitterness. I suspect submerging yourself in that group will cause the bitterness to never go away. But I understand how it happens.
As for the young ones: if everything is economic transactions, why don’t they think that they have to pay their part in a relationship? So far as I can tell, they’ve convinced themselves that what women really want is to be abused. It is just the brainwashed feminists who want respect.
They do think they pay for it-paying for drink is sufficient to give them full access to all the bad sex they want before they move on to the next woman who they treat horribly because bitches amirite?
The Red Pill is more about pick up artists and the more you read their stuff the worse it gets.
I mean it is a decent break from the horribleness of the Republicans and what they want to do to women. At least the PUAs want to avoid knocking anyone up.
Yeah the “bitches” guide was pretty amazing. I try to avoid people who make me think worse of mankind.
And wow, I just read the very funny original post and now I’m hideously shamed by what I wrote. OMG please take it down.
If you wish. It wasn’t bad at all. But now that it is down, everyone will think it was really bad.
For those who didn’t see it: James wrote about how he used to kidnap and murder women until he danced with a military chick on 9/11. He claims he’s much better now. But I can’t recommend dating him!
It wasn’t that bad. I have had to deal with MRAs and yours was nothing on them.
I often paint with a broad brush. But none of this is to say that women are all wonderful. There are terrible women. What’s bad about the MRAs is the idea that women are this or what that. We all grouse about “women today” or “men today” or “kids today” or (in my case recently) “writers today.” Grousing is a human necessity.
MRAs not only paint with a broad brush, they literally think women are a hive mind. Which is why all of the women in your life treat you exactly the same. Without fail.
Hive mind is good. Reading these guys, you would think women are in on some conspiracy or that they are simply the Borg. Why it is they don’t all come to the rescue of women suffering from domestic abuse is unclear.
Because um, reasons. Mainly we are too stupid or too flighty or some other nonsense.
Logic is not their strong suit.
Took me a bit. Magnetic Resonance Angiogram? Ah, no, a men’s rights activist. Sort of like “All Lives Matter.” We’re persecuted because others are asking not to be persecuted. Oh, dear.
Don’t you just love America? There’s a line at the end of Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” that goes “I refuse to live in a country like this. And I’m not leaving.” Stirring stuff. My version would be “I can’t live here anymore. And Canada won’t let me in.”
I overshared because Frank’s “nice guys who can’t get dates” thing struck a nerve. I considered myself one of those. Now I realize I had really poisonous attitudes towards human sexuality I got from a fundamentalist father, and once I started getting over those attitudes, lo & behold the dates arrived.
I’m not going to look into these MRA types — I can only handle so much staring into the abyss for one day — but here’s my guess about them.
Like me, they’ve been emotionally damaged. I got along with women fine, always have; I prefer female co-workers/supervisors to males. I’m a wimp, I’m no good at sports, I don’t hunt or fish, I’m scared of everything, and female friends/co-workers don’t require me to compete in the Man Contest. We can talk to each other about books or “Doctor Who” or work stuff and nobody needs to out-macho anybody else. It’s a relief.
It’s perfectly natural for me to ask some of the girls I liked talking to and found attractive if they found me attractive! (It’s hard for me to type this; I’ve gone from being ashamed of my natural human feelings to ashamed I spent so long being ashamed of them. What a wreck, huh?)
I suspect these MRAs you mention are similarly damaged. And rather than question the bizarre teachings which damaged their feelings about sexuality (and those teachings are not their fault) they lash out against women. “She wouldn’t date me.” Well, if you didn’t give off a “sex debases both of us” vibe, she probably would.
Oofta (as we say here — it’s Minnesotan for “gee whiz fuck it”) this is heavy. Someday I want to research it more and write about it. It’s a difficult and very personal subject. Frank’s written about domestic abuse in a way that makes me wonder “how can you type these things?” Not that it’s wrong to type them. But it’s baring some extremely hurtful personal scars.
Some years ago, I came across a website — can’t possibly remember where — that had testimonials from Mormons about sexuality. (And if that isn’t fascinating, I don’t know what is.) A couple wrote about sleeping naked. I guess they aren’t supposed to, so they were told. The post described feeling a closeness to one another. Sometimes it translated into sex, sometimes not. Just feeling unashamed of their bodies and thoughts was the most powerful thing.
Well, that blew me away. In short; I don’t think men who hate women actually hate women. I think they hate themselves, very much. It’s a difficult thing to separate actual morality — regret for harm you’ve caused others and a resolve to cause less — from fake morality, garbage taught to you by damaged people. Simple lies and rules that fix nothing.
Thanks, Frank, for deleting the earlier post, and replacing it with “James used to kidnap and murder women until he danced with a veteran on 9/11.” That’s a Pratchett turn of phrase. I thought being attracted to anyone made me evil as a kidnapper/murderer. And then I learned, sometimes you can have sexual feelings and just dance. (Very poorly, but that’s not the point of dancing!) You can be horny and it’s okay. Horny isn’t a sin and it’s not debasing so long as the other person can say “no thanks.”
Aah, I’ve screwed up this post, too. It’s a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a long time and I can’t find a good way to do it. The harm done by passed-down ridiculous attitudes about sex is insane; like racism, sexism hurts everyone, including the “winners.”
Maybe someday I’ll imagine how to write it. Thanks Frank and Elizabeth for your patience.
You know what Yoda says about fear, anger and hate.
And no, they don’t hate women per se, they just kind of despise us.
Yes, I know what Yoda says! Also Jean-Luc, The Doctor, and other nerd gurus. I got my nerd bonafides on. I’m a nerd. Just not a successful nerd. Nerds are supposed to be cool & rich, now. I missed the memo.
The “too stupid/too flighty” thing you mention is, I think, a function of how screwed-up men are. The teaching we’ve had about human sexuality hasn’t changed at all in 100 years. Kinsey, Johsson & Masters didn’t change it. Some nice parents change it a bit; every ad on every football game reinforces the status quo.
So “stupid/flighty” describes exactly how confused we are about understanding women. We see you in the gross manner our instructors used to give us the sexuality ABCs — which often left out A, B, and usually C — bequeathed us.
Woman is Eve. Desire is sinful. If men don’t understand how to process what women are asking for, it can’t possibly be that we were trained badly. And that our trainers were trained badly. Nope — our parents were heroes raised by heroes.
Men bent hard by this stuff reacted to female demands for equality as “flighty.” Of course — it made no sense. It made perfect sense to Chaucer, just not American males in the 1950s
For the record: I don’t know what Yoda says. But don’t tell me. I’d prefer to be in the dark. He’s not my kind of puppet.
I think this was from The Phantom Menace when Yoda was a godforsaken CGI mess.
Ah. In that case, I’m even less interested.
No problem. Like I said, there was nothing wrong with it. My mind naturally goes to serial killers — and it seems a good fit with the MRAs. But you might be right about their self-loathing.
I regard writing — whether it be comments on somebody’s blog or things I’m allowed to publish — as peer-reviewed grousing. Here’s my attempt to deal with something in my head, how did I do? What would you change? What did I express effectively?
It’s why I’m addicted to trying writing about difficult subjects. “This is awful, I hate thinking about it” makes me want to try writing about it. I fail way more often than I succeed. But in the process I learn how to grouse in a better way, where I’m doing more communicating with others than spewing at them.
Any dingbat with two brain cells to rub together can write nonsense for right-wing think tanks. It’s lucrative. Sounds boring. Not to blow smoke up your arse, but I suspect you’re trying to challenge yourself with your writing, And, to me, that’s the point.
Sorry about my comments on this post. I’m working some stuff out. It takes time.
You have nothing to apologize for. I really like exploratory writing. I do it around here a lot. It is one thing that blogs are good for. We could all allow each other a bit more slack.
None of this means I won’t razz you, though!
The responses in this are out of order-I was saying the MRAs who believe women have a hive mind also think we are to stupid/flightly to save women being abused. Or we are evil.
And I know a lot of broke ass nerds. Nothing wrong with it.
Yes, the threading got messed up because someone requested their comment be deleted!
Don’t worry JMF; we still love you.
And really, there was no reason to. James is a darn sight better then the usual MRA rambling. Or Fox News panels on what we women should wear. UGH!
See what I mean?
Anybody care to discuss Rules Girls (and the bestselling books they write for a certain female audience)?
Anybody care to discuss “Rules Girls” (and the bestselling books they write for a certain female audience)?
Well —
I wasn’t able to find online what a “rules girl” is. I did find “The Rules,” about women having more self-respect so they date guys they want to date, not just any available candidate because being alone makes them sad.
I get how this makes men angry. I’m not paid fairly for what I do, so it’s annoying that I am seen as a less desirable sexual partner because of my low income.
This is an economic issue, not a gender issue.
Neither you nor I nor anyone else should be looked down upon because we work hard at jobs which don’t pay well. The culprit is American culture, and we need to change it.
Many women want kids, and it’s reasonable to prefer partners with better incomes to help support those kids (kids are really expensive!)
So as men with underpaying jobs, should we be angry at women? Hell No! We should want better salaries!
In American states with a stronger union presence — in European countries where every job is essentially middle-class — girls like guys who work at “blue collar” jobs.
Sexual frustration is very real. We should all objectify each other less. The solution for frustrated men tired of being objectified as “poor losers” isn’t to blame women for preferring more economic assistance in a potential partner. We should be paid more. Unless we’re useless CEOs, we should be paid more.
The Rules is a book on how to manipulate a man into marrying you. It is horrifying.
As for the whole low income thing making you less desirable…I don’t think that way and most of the women I know do not think that way but your experience is yours.
Thank you. Again, this is a very sensitive issue for me; rejection stings. It’s quite possible what I experienced as rejection because of my income was actually confusion why I was so negative about my income.
I’ve felt less rejected in a more union-friendly state. There’s another piece to that puzzle and education is part of it. I’m more attracted to partners who have a similar level of education. By hook, crook, and blind luck, I ended up being reasonably well-educated (not well enough, I’m working on it.) In Minnesota, although we’re currently going downhill (what state isn’t) I met working-class, blue-collar women with a similar education level to mine. (In Denmark, too.)
I’ve also been a snob, and rejected others because of their education level. I’m not proud of that.
It is the attitude you have towards it that counts. You describe your job as “I get to help the disabled be independent!” is different then “I am a professional poop cleaner.”
Women will be “awww you wonderful man you” for the first. The second “gross.”
I once lost interest in a girl partly because she’d never heard of Attila the Hun. Not my finest moment.
Education isn’t strictly a class thing, though. Someone with a library card (and a decent library) can have a broad education. And I’ve run across some very stupid M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s.