Men's Group
Related: About this forumJeez, this poor schnook...
(Thanks to the gals over in HOF for the link)
All I could thing about when I read this is what a self-hating schnook this guy has become. He has, sadly, bought into the idea that it is impossible to believe in equal rights for women while simultaneously being a normal male that enjoys sex and gets sexual thoughts. Talk about drinking the kool-aid and internalizing feelings of contempt that are floating around out there re men.
Some of the comments were reasonable, but many of them amount basically to "shut up and don't talk about it" as if men should be shamed of their sexuality. Ironic to see that women, who for decades were told that they can't express their sexuality, now seem unable to stop doing the same thing to men.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/05/stay_at_home_dad_sexual_fantasies_why_i_d_like_to_stop.single.html#comments
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Im a stay at home dad. Im a feminist. I have erotic thoughts about random women I pass on the street. How can I stop that?
Im a stay-at-home dad to twin 4-year-old girls who are already smarter than me, and my wife is a brilliant doctor who kicks ass and saves lives every day. I grew up with big sisters and a mom whose authority was unbreachable. I celebrate every inroad that women make into business, technology, science, politics, comedy, you name it, and I get angry about slut-shaming or stereotype threat or whatever is the affront du jour. And yet, in the caveman recesses of my imagination, I objectify women in ways that make Hooters look like a breakout session at a NOW conference.
In Louis C.K.s comedy special, Live at the Beacon Theater, the stand-up, who in his own way has been making feminism funny for years, talks about being sick of the constant perverted sexual thoughts that intrude on his day-to-day life. Women who claim that they have equally hardcore erotic thoughts, he says, are just tourists in sexual perversion whereas men are prisoners. Youre Jane Fonda sitting on the tank, he says to the hypothetical woman who boasts of being as dirty-minded as men. Im John McCain in the hut
its a nightmare
I cant lift my arms. He then illustrates how his condition plays out when he cant even ask a librarian about a book on Lincoln without aggressive pornographic daydreams turning him into a slavering idiot. I just want to have a day [without the perverted thoughts], he laments, I just want to be a person, in clothes, walking in a store.
Im quickly realizing that avoiding ogling is a very effective strategy for reining in the imagination, and that the Three Second Rule keeps me honest. Its also striking how the drive through campus is a trigger (to borrow SAA terminology) for what could be considered compulsive behavior on my part. As I approach certain intersections, I get a feeling of anticipation thats not exactly sexual, but more like the buzz I get when I feel like theres a Facebook notification on my iPhone burning a hole in my pocket: Okay
[scan, scan, scan]
let me just check her out really quick
Oh! Theres another one! Lights green
Ill just linger on her a little bit in the side-view mirror as I pass. But Im not doing that today. Im watching traffic, staring at the stoplight, making faces at my kids in the rear-view mirror.
I consider this a big victory so far. After all, its much easier to succumb to the impulse within the automotive bubble of unaccountability than when were face-to-face with someone. But giving up the little charge of satisfaction I get from acting out makes the driving more peaceful. Like road rage, ogling, while momentarily satisfying, actually consumes energy and attention, and ultimately makes the task of driving more difficult. When I interact with the staff at the kids school, and later the female cashiers and shoppers at the grocery store, again its a bit of a relief to make myself focus on their faces. Instead of undressing them with my eyes, Im cloaking them in imaginary burqas. It seems like I shouldnt have to do this, and that its not the right solution, but its working, and its less draining than catching myself furtively checking out the parts that areforgive meon display, and then creep-shaming myself.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Denninmi
(6,581 posts)Societies that oppress sexuality tend to oppress a lot of other things, like civil rights and even basic human rights. Sex is a basic biological urge, trying to suppress normal reactions to it is about as dysfunctional as trying to alter the normal human relationship with hunger and food to the point of developing an eating disorder.
HuskiesHowls
(711 posts)edit for grammar...
This part of the article, quoted from Hugo Schwyzer: "Lust is the background music that occasionally gets turned up. Learning to let it come and go without being ashamedand without making it anyone else's problemis part of growing up. (emphasis added), is key.
Enjoying the beauty of the world, whether it's a landscape, a flower, a dog, or a good-looking human is the best part of life.
galileoreloaded
(2,571 posts)Wait till his wife quits finding him attractive and starts banging her personal trainer in spite of all his enlightenment.
See it every sad day.
Without alcohol and porn, I think male suicides would jump 10 times.
How is it even possible, in an age when we can split atoms and drink iced liquor in July, to produce an ideology that depends on what other people think when they look at the world around them? We have become so decadent that all we need for our understanding of moral human behavior is proper perception management.
And sure as shit stinks dickheads will make money of that narcissistic tripe.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)And it's boilerplate Dworkin-Mackinnon.
What the guy is doing, and trying to be funny about, is responding to these goofy, inane subtexts- like, "how can you be pro equality if you want to have sex with the people you support equal rights for?" (uh, because they're not contradictory, for starts) ... so he's self-flagellating, or pretending to. I don't think he is honestly wracked with a "problem" of being unable to control his nasty man-horn-thoughts, the way some people can't stop smoking crack.
And he points out a fairly obvious, to many of us at least, fact; that sex and sexuality are natural, healthy, positive things, and being sexually attracted to other adults is not a form of "oppressing" them.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Sort of like how "PIV" is an unnatural act invented by Teh Patriarchy.
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)I don't look much beyond it other than schtick.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)I do kinda feel sorry for the guy. Mostly, though, I just shook my head at that whole article.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)make the mistake of even jokingly pretending to open this can of worms ever ever ever ever again:
http://www.betadadblog.com/2013/05/what-i-meant-by-that-thing-i-wrote-on.html
I'll put some of the blame on my editor, for telling me I was funny.
I'll put some of the blame on context. As one of the more reasonable commenters on Slate pointed out, it was hard to tell if I was trying to be funny when she first read it, because the article appeared in the "Double X" section, which is generally devoted to "women's issues" and almost always comes from a strong feminist slant. So it seemed feasible to that reader, at first anyway, that I was being 100% sincere about trying to purge dirty thoughts from my mind and that I was relentlessly beating myself up about having sexual urges. I assure you, as much as I am sometimes a little conflicted, I am not beating myself up.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Are we not men?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Flashback.
DEVO-Psych!
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Apparently he's enraged the "you look at women, you're an eye rapist" contingent. Like I said, I'm sure -now- he deeply regrets wading into that swamp.
And look! the excessively verbose "gender essentialism" person is there, too. I swear to God, there are maybe four people on the whole internet who obsess endlessly about this crap. The rest of the planet really doesn't give a shit.
"Pull up the RV, Honey, we're staying!"
Well, this all sucks for you, poor besieged blogger-man, but maybe it will make MIRT's job easier for a little while.
Denninmi
(6,581 posts)I fell for it.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Comments are shut down, now... not too surprisingly... but it doesn't matter- the damage is done, I think. You made the list, buddy.
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