A couple of people on the Memo to Feminism thread have been calling for an open thread on ideas of male expendability and the disposable male. So here it is! Have at it.
About ozyfrantz
Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.
EE: I must’ve failed spectaculary in how I wrote my comments. I was trying to point out that anyone buying sex from (or rather sexually exploiting) street kids in no way can claim to do so out of care and that the claim that they would be more focused on their own orgasm is as hurtful as it is absurd considering the no-real-choice situation they find themselves in – in no way was it meant as an endorsement of how good they would be! Exploiting people for sex is a vile thing to do and even more so when they’re… Read more »
EE do you remember the Movie “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”? It’s about this jaded rich women who lives up a canyon in LA andwho gores to Jamaica for a fling with a local (poor) guy. Of course she isn’t labeled a slimy sex tourist, no, no – it’s told in this Oprahesque, up-beat You Go girl tone.
Oh, and another point – if you use your car to find a streetwalker – the police in many areas can seize it from you and sell it at an auction to line their pockets. Did you know that?
Still wondering why police go after men with jobs/money to hit with their stings? Would you rather auction off a hooker’s used shoes or a 2006 Corvette? Quick – is anyone here good at math?
I am pretty late to the conversation here – and I think things got pretty far away from the “disposable male” angle – but I enjoyed reading. One thing I’d like to point out that basically every single person above has failed to mention: Except for very small areas of the world, prostitution is ILLEGAL. And if you are paying a 15-year-old street kid for sex you are engaging in CHILD PROSTITUTION. You all are talking like this is some sort of “option” for people. What is wrong with you all? I’m also shocked that me, insensitive and crass as… Read more »
And some people rationalize their likes into “it’s totally normal to be this way”, and it’s aggravating discussing gender with my boyfriend for this reason sometimes. I tell him that allowing boys and men to weak skirts and dresses, without any reprisal, is a good thing…and his reply is that no guy would do it anyways, because they don’t have interest in that stuff. Well, check out how many men have long hair versus how many women do – and I bet you, in a less discriminatory climate, it would be pretty much equal – and people wouldn’t die or… Read more »
“Smarter people are just less sex-differentiated in their interests.”
Or attribute it less weight towards their identity.
I bet you that people who are not in this smarter category might have androgynous interests, but think better of showing them, because the peer pressure is all they know. Wether they align with the interests they get pressured into, they do it. So you get people who complain they are *forced* to do stuff, like put make-up every day even to run errands. Or look super masculine at all times.
@Cheradenine I noticed though, in the Lubinksi & Humphreys study, that while they measure a variety of skills, their gifted/not gifted criteria is strictly based on mathematical ability. Have you come across any papers that are more general? I don’t know of any other studies, though Lubinski looked at this question. The mathematically gifted students were smarter than non-gifted students on every single test, including IQ, verbal, and English measures. Math skills were merely the way that the researchers selected their mathematically gifted sample (top 1% in math skills of a larger population). As we know from the study of… Read more »
With regards to the source of the ‘40%’ of men reproduced claim by Roy F. Baumeister, isn’t this derivable from the fact that Mitochondrial Eve lived several tens of thousands of years before Y-chromosomal Adam? I understand that this is how that statement was derived, as it is a possible explanation for how the vast difference in time between the two is possible. Note that very recent studies have pushed back timeframe for Y-chromosomal adam, so it may not be as true as when Baumeister wrote his speech.
Tracy: OK, now you’ve clarified that people buying sex from streetwalkers and people buying sex from street kids and homeless men would be and should be treated as having the same motivations, regardless of gender. I’ll assume that it wasn’t your intention to leave out that they would have he same motivations (having and being treated as are two different things). I still don’t see how you were arguing for that earlier, but now that you’ve clarified it that is moot. My beef is not with you arguing that street kids and homeless men are a different group than streetwalker,… Read more »
@ Tracy The assertion was, ‘women don’t have access to affordable sex for pay.’ My response was to point out that women who are looking for the most affordable sex for pay can find it in men and boys who are exchanging sex for survival. These men and boys are obviously sex workers, just the most marginalized and thus the cheapest. Now at the time I had no intention of discussing the morality of sex for survival trade however you or daisy came back with ‘that’s not a counter example because homeless men and boys are bad sex partners.’ Setting… Read more »
“If you are that 15 year old boy and suddenly a woman is demanding that you please her in exchange for food and yet you know nothing about pleasing a woman, what are you going to do? If I was in that situation, I would act out what I’ve seen in movies or in porn. ” Maybe it’s me, but as someone who was socialized male, I have never watched porn. I was sexually inexperienced until age 25…after I transitioned. Although I learned to french-kiss at 12, and perfected it at 16, with the help of two girls in weird… Read more »
@Tamen You are concluding that I was making it as an argument that they were different and I am telling you that I was making an argument that the people looking for sex in this manner would be and should be treated as having the same motivations, regardless of gender. Neither the hypothetical man nor the woman is concerned about the health or welfare of the people they are asking to have sex with them. Yet, when I argue that the group I’m told to solicit is not equivalent to streetwalkers for a number of reasons, I get horrified responses… Read more »
In particular when their next meal, hit or buzz depends on it. All things which are much more important to a person seeking and needing them than sex.
Tracy: Well, if you’ve had written your first paragraph rather than those comments saying things like “people who use the services provided by streetwalkers usually don’t care about the streetwalker’s health” as arguments for the difference between them. You still don’t see how I might believe that that means you think that people (which include women) who solicit sexual services from street kids usually care about the street kids’ health? As for the street kids and homeless mens only being passive traders of sex, this is belied by the survey’s definition of sexual exploitation: Sexual exploitation occurs when youth under… Read more »
typhon blue: I mean I could sort of understand it if either daisy or tracy said:
“Hey, that’s not an option because sexually exploiting street kids or homeless men just isn’t cool.”
Excuse me, but as I said upthread, I WAS a street kid, and I assumed that having said so, the rest of this statement was unnecessary.
No, of course it isn’t cool, and I think I know a little more about that than Typhon Blue does.
@tamen The original comment, by typhonblue, that started the equivalence discussion, in response to a comment made by DaisyDeadhead ” The way things are set up now, I have to be as rich as Demi Moore to be able to buy a man’s evening services, and I’m not.” Or you could promise a meal and a bed to a street kid or homeless man. My understanding is a streetwalker is, willingly or by force, actively trading sexual acts for money or goods. A homeless person or a street kid may passively accept such an offer if asked, but is not… Read more »
Tracy: How about you actually read that survey, I did include a link to it in my last commen. I’ll note that the study do mention what the street kids receive as exchange for sex, money being the most usual, but alcohol and drug coming a close second. Nowhere does it imply that only men pay money for sex with the street kids. Earlier in the conversation someone said women who wanted an alternative to a streetwalker already had it, homeless men and street kids. People who use the services provided by streetwalkers usually don’t care about the streetwalker’s health.… Read more »
@Tracy “In the case where both parents are alive but are not currently living together, what would be an equitable situation in regards to raising the child?” I think to get it right three principles have to come into play: a bias toward equal parenting, with all the flexibility that is bound to require, an insistence on tailoring each arrangement to the specifics of each situation in order to keep things as humane as possible, and real enforcment measures to keep everyone honest – measures to ensure CS is provided, measures to make sure CS is reasonable, measures to ensure… Read more »
“Re: chivalry – the point is that the man’s life is valuable or else it wouldn’t mean anything that he offers to help a (upper class white mother) woman over a canal or in rare cases safety. ” Collette, the point you are missing is that this is unidrectional and that unidirectionality is gendered. The simple fact that there is any expectation that the man will make this gesture and none that the woman will is the gendered inequality. The question is not that whether his life is valued or not, it is that his valued less than hers. That… Read more »
Typhoonblue, The elite men, overwhelmingly, didn’t necessarily serve. If they did/do, they receive care other men do not. Whether the powerful man served or didn’t serve, he benefits from being viewed as inherently capable and competent enough to be a soldier (being a man) … even when passing responsibility to less powerful men. In this case being a man doesn’t trump class but it affords by default the cultural view that one is inherently capable and competent. Internalized sexism? Perhaps if addressing any shaming of man’s manhood that exists. But in this case it erases the views on poor men… Read more »
@Jim
This may be off-topic in that it’s not about the myths, but I’m curious of the response. In the case where both parents are alive but are not currently living together, what would be an equitable situation in regards to raising the child? I agree that the current situation is biased towards the mother, but I’d love to discuss how to make something that isn’t biased along gender or income lines. If it’s off topic, I apologize.
No, you couldn’t have been more right. Ozy’s Law is that every instance of misogyny is equally misandrist. So when a father is separated from his kids, his daughters suffer the loss of their father, and his mother suffers the loss of her granchildren. When he is separated from his kids, a disprotionate burden falls on the mother. And so on.
You said nothing wrong, Tracy, you nailed it.
@Jim, I’m sorry, I’m not sure of Ozy’s Law…did I say something wrong again?
“That situation pisses me off to no end.’
Tracy, those situations are really, really good illustrations of Ozy’s Law.
@Tamen, No, I’m saying that a woman who exploits homeless people and street kids for sex doesn’t care for them anymore than a man who approaches a streetwalker does and if we want to look at whether or not two options are equivalent, we should keep that in mind. A woman who does that doesn’t care that they are exploited so talking about how exploited those groups are is irrelevant to a discussion of equivalence. I also found the repeated references that the women’s method of payment would be food and a bed to be strange and wondered if it’s… Read more »