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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.
@AB, I’m not arguing that women are more moral than men, just that the assertion that men find unasked groping and forward sexuality threatening and disrespectful isn’t exactly broadcast far and wide for women to see. Quite the contrary, even here, in a supposedly progressive blog with a lot of atypical and extra sensitive men, male posters tell about how much they would love to be the targets of the kind of sexual behaviour women complain about. “The kind of sexual behavior women complain about” encompasses many things. I’m going to need a cite for the claim that the “men… Read more »
@RocketFrog
Pretty much the same here, though it never hurts to have the company of a few familiars. The worst is when it is late and the parking lot is suddenly filled with a gang of souped up cars blaring obscenely loud music. You fear they could pounce on you at the slightest infraction.
@RocketFrog: You don’t need to ask if society was fair to men. Ask if it was fair to you. By all means, do consider the benefits you receive because you were a man. But you have no obligation to suffer to “balance” the advantages of other men nor as “penance” for the sins of other men; that’s certainly not fair. “Society is unfair, but unfortunately we are forced to live within it, even while we attempt to change it.” Absolutely true. If you think that it’s unrealistic to expect to date, given your handicap (and your ethics) and society’s standards,… Read more »
“This is NOT to say that ignorant aggression is OK.” I’m quoting myself, but I want to build on this some. Even if the recipient of “non-hostile” aggression has a net positive experience, that STILL doesn’t mean the aggression was necessarily appropriate or acceptable. If you do it again, you might hurt someone. Further, society is in something of a toxic, low-communication equilibrium, especially on matters related to sex. As a result, in certain circumstances, aggressive but non-hostile behaviors are expected, and lead to positive results IF both parties are communicating properly. BUT the low-communication equilibrium makes it harder to… Read more »
I am not sure that it makes sense to say that society, as a whole, is unfair to men, though. If men are a privileged oppressor class, then the suffering of men in a sexist society can be considered fair, precisely because it is the price individual men pay for the crimes perpetrated by men as a class.
Does that make sense?
Fnord:
Society is unfair, but unfortunately we are forced to live within it, even while we attempt to change it.
@RocketFrog: “I honestly find it more or less unthinkable that the particular character defects usually exhibited by my “type” of man can be considered “endearing, attractive and quirky”. You may be right that they would be considered that in a woman – but I do not happen to be a woman, so that does not exactly help.” So, if your flaws are considered “endearing, attractive and quirky” on a woman, but considered worthy of contempt on a man, what does that say about the standards of society, as regarding those flaws? It would mean that the standard is sexist, presumably,… Read more »
@AB: Perhaps you misunderstand. I didn’t think you were over generalizing. I agree with your (yes, very measured) statement that sometimes men have positive experiences with sexual aggression from women, although certainly not all such experiences are positive (it’s even possible that some women (as you say, not you) have had positive experiences with male sexual aggression; probably significantly less frequently). The thing I disagree with is, given that you “wouldn’t be surprised” to find that those positive experiences exist, that you don’t think it’s worth distinguishing between types of aggression. I have a hard time imagining a truly positive… Read more »
Xakudo, Solo:
When walking alone at night and the streets are utterly deserted, I feel safe and calm.
When walking alone at night and other people are around, particularly loud and drunk people, I am usually extremely frightened and constantly worrying that I might be attacked.
@Solo:
That’s a good example, at least from my personal experience. I absolutely experience anxiety and fear when walking alone at night, but I’ve never voiced this to anyone in real life. If other men are like me, they experience that fear as well, they just don’t talk about it.
@AB Thanks for writing that up. A couple points: There was a study that said that a good chunk of women of women admitted to rape fantasies. Naturally the whole PUA/misogynist crowd felt this was a validation of their ‘women say no when they mean yes’ idiocy. What they left out was that the fantasy involved picking a man of their choice, where and when they wanted, i.e. it wasn’t really a rape fantasy at that point. Similarly most men who wish women impinged on their personal space are likely imagining a woman of their choice, on their schedule. Second,… Read more »
I messed up the blockquote too. Sorry! The first paragraph is the RocketFrog, the second one is me.
@RocketFrog
Arg messed up the blockquote on that first paragraph.
@AB: I never put numbers on it, but I’m merely repeating what men on this board have agreed on for a long time, from a woman’s perspective. It wasn’t too long ago women here were told that the main reason we had such negative experiences with guys hitting on us and not taking no for an answer was that our unreasonable privileged whining about sexual harassment and boundary violations had scared away all the good guys, so the only men being sexually forward with us were now jerks who didn’t care, and it would all go away when we stopped… Read more »
I am unfortunately considerably more Sheldon-like than I would care to admit, although I (unfortunately) do not share his asexuality.
“I honestly find it more or less unthinkable that the particular character defects usually exhibited by my “type” of man can be considered “endearing, attractive and quirky”. You may be right that they would be considered that in a woman – but I do not happen to be a woman, so that does not exactly help.” Everybody loves Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. Though probably not everyone would want to live with him, I bet many would. His shunning romantic and sexual desires sort of puts a barrier though. If it wasn’t for that, he’d have fans somewhere. Heck, Amy… Read more »
Schala: The revulsion for a certain type of awkwardness in men appears to be more or less universal, at least in the Western cultural sphere. Perhaps it is a cultural thing (I have no idea how awkward socially incompetent men are treated in, say, East Asia), perhaps it is instinctive revulsion. But even among socially progressive people like the NSWATM contributors or the people over on Manboobz, this type of man is generally reviled (and among more conservative people, my type of man tends to be actively picked on and bullied). I honestly find it more or less unthinkable that… Read more »
“But I do not think that all awkward, clueless guys are transpeople or can solve their problems by transitioning. I am fairly certain that it would not work for me” I didn’t mean to imply it would work for you. I meant to imply that “See, I had the same behavior. I probably still do have the same behavior…and now I have worth according to society, SOLELY on being seen as female and NOT having to initiate”. So in short, your distinction is arbitrary. If being seen as female is enough to redeem the awkwardness…then it’s not a fault of… Read more »
Schala: I understand that transition probably literally saved your life. One of my old high school friends is a transman who not only “failed at performing femininity” pre-transition, but had a so massive sense of alienation towards his body that he too considered suicide until he transitioned – he was literally nauseated just by looking at his own body. Just “coming out” made him feel so much better, when he actually started hormonal treatments (and later had reassignment surgery) he eventually got rid of all his old suicide ideations. But I do not think that all awkward, clueless guys are… Read more »
I do not think that all nice guys who are shy and awkward are scum who deserve their loneliness and who need to keep to themselves – just a particular subset of them, a subset I myself happen to belong to. This particular subset is the “pathological” one, the kind of Nice Guy who is not just shy and awkward, but is literally clueless about how to even initiate such things, and who ends up trying all manner of tactics to make himself more appealing to women. Do you consider this an extreme opinion in itself? Personally I think that… Read more »
Solo: a. Men mostly violate boundaries because they want to hurt their intended target, or want sex regardless of what their partner’s wants. b. Women may violate boundaries, but do so because they feel it is flattering to their partners. If we got the message out that men feel violated, the violations by women will drop precipitously. Because of this most men do not feel threatened and welcome more groping by women. This is only a problematic opinion if it happens to be wrong. It seems to me that it is exactly right: When men violate boundaries, they generally do… Read more »
@Fnord: But you basically do: No, I said “I wouldn’t be surprised if [i.e. I’m not saying I know for sure] men in general [i.e. not all men everywhere] had more positive experiences [i.e. not necessarily mostly positive experiences, simply more compared to women]”. If Schala would be half as careful as that in her generalisations, most of the conflicts between her and Daisy wouldn’t come to pass to begin with. Men get the message that certain sorts of behaviors are aggressive (and even that their sexuality is inherently aggressive, but that’s another story) in a way that women don’t.… Read more »
@AB: When the biggest complaint from men by far is how unfair it is for them to have to be careful around women, what exactly is there to make women believe being careful around men is a desired behaviour? Holding the position that men shouldn’t have to be hyper-careful around women, but that women should be hyper-careful around men, is hypocritical and sexist. If that’s the point you’re trying to make, then I agree whole-heartedly. I think people on both the feminist and MRA sides of the debate far over-demonize the other gender, and over-innocent-ize the one they are advocating… Read more »
@AB and Solo: @AB Maybe I’m going off track, so I’ll summarize what I think you are saying so you can correct me: a. Men mostly violate boundaries because they want to hurt their intended target, or want sex regardless of what their partner’s wants. b. Women may violate boundaries, but do so because they feel it is flattering to their partners. If we got the message out that men feel violated, the violations by women will drop precipitously. Because of this most men do not feel threatened and welcome more groping by women. [emphasis mine] That is my impression… Read more »