MRAs and Anti-Feminists Have Ruined Complaining About Being Single

marty

Remember the 1955 movie “Marty”? It was a respected oldie when I was a kid (it’s one of only two films to win both the Best Picture Oscar and the Cannes Palme d’Or), but it’s now pretty obscure. I saw the movie in the 1980s as part of a screenwriting class.1

“Marty’s” title character, plain-faced, chubby, and not great at talking to women, despairs that no woman will ever love him. The screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky, thought of the “Marty” story after he saw a sign posted in a ballroom, which said “Girls, Dance With the Man Who Asks You. Remember, Men Have Feelings, Too.”

Marty eventually meets a wonderful woman and begins a relationship, although he has to overcome the resistance of his jealous mother, and of friends who mock him for dating a “dogface.”2 In pop culture, everyone – or at least, everyone who isn’t a terrible human being – eventually meets someone wonderful and falls in love.

But in real life, that’s not how things always work. Some people don’t want romantic love at all. Others want romantic love but will never find it. That’s life. I’m beginning to accept, at age 45, that probably “true love” will never happen for me. I have a bunch of factors working against me – I’m physically conventionally unattractive, I badly lack confidence, I’m sort of a weirdo, as I get older I meet new people less often, etc..

To tell you the truth, I resent the situation. It’s not an all-consuming bitterness or anything – on the whole, I’m a happy guy3 – but I irrationally feel cheated of a fundamental human experience.4 And although I’m happy for my friends who are in great relationships, there’s also some ugly jealousy in me on the subject. And I’m really fucking sick of movies and TV about the sad troubles of stunningly attractive people who somehow can’t find love until they meet some other stunningly attractive person, blah blah blah complications ensue and are overcome happy ending credits roll.

I don’t bring this up to ask people to feel sorry for me, or to ask for dating advice. (GOD NO!!! Please don’t give me any dating or romantic advice, folks; if I haven’t specifically asked you for it, I don’t want to hear it.) I bring this up because I feel my ability to enjoy complaining about my single state has been ruined by MRAs and anti-feminists.

Because in human culture, we do something called “signaling” a lot. And, on the internet, men complaining that they don’t have the romantic success they want, that they feel they should be more attractive to woman then they actually are in practice, etc., have all become signals used to indicate alliance with the manosphere.

When I read someone from the manosphere talking about their lack of dating success, I always emphasize empathize. How could I not? They’re pretty much describing my life story. Except then they keep on talking, and suddenly the repulsive bitterness towards women or feminists (or both) comes out. And the empathy is now accompanied by a strong desire for a shower.

I don’t want to be even momentarily mistaken for part of the manosphere. Because while not everyone in the manosphere is a bitter, angry woman-hater, lots of them are. And those who aren’t overtly woman-hating seem to find the misogyny among their comrades either invisible, unobjectionable, or excusable.

Those hatebags have directed abuse at me personally – fat jokes, “you’re just trying to get laid,” name-calling like “Mangina,” and so on. I’m not bothered by such insults, but it sure hasn’t endeared their community to me.5 I get off relatively easily; the abuse directed at well-known female internet feminists (Amanda Marcotte, Jessica Valenti, and Anita Sarkeesian are the most obvious examples, but the ever-moving hatefest is always seeking new victims) is stunning in quantity and vileness.

Gore Vidal once groused that the once-useful word “turgid” now belongs to the porn writers, because it has become impossible to use the word without sounding like a porn writer. The manosphere has done something similar to unattractive men’s romantic problems. They’ve flooded the discourse with misogyny and anti-feminism, and it’s nearly impossible to rescue discussion of being male and unwanted from their bitter waters.6

  1. Actually, I’m not positive I’ve ever seen the movie – I may have seen the 1953 television play that the movie was based on. []
  2. Marty’s love interest, played by Betsy Blair, was too pretty to be plausible as someone men would label “dogface” at a glance. But nearly all “ugly” female characters are played by pretty actresses because Hollywood. []
  3. Seriously, don’t worry about me, folks. I’m not lonely, I’ve got lots of good friends, I’ve got a great job. My life is good. []
  4. What’s irrational about it is feeling “cheated,” rather than merely “lacking.” []
  5. Actually, one time my feelings were hurt. I attended a blogger dinner, where I was seated next to an anti-feminist who had clashed with me online. We had, I thought, a terrific conversation. He offered me a ride home after the dinner, and we agreed that we should meet again sometime. The next day, in a forum he didn’t know I read, he wrote that I clearly wasn’t into feminism to get laid, because I was (he said) so fat no woman would ever have sex with me. The insult was too pathetic to hurt, but that he was so extraordinarily two-faced stung. []
  6. Said waters are no doubt made up of male tears.
    To tell you the truth, I don’t feel natural making that joke – see Ally Fogg – but I’m making it anyway, because I hope it’ll get the goats of people who had vapors over Jessica’s sweatshirt, while remaining silent about the immeasurably worse comments Jessica receives from anti-feminists on a daily basis. []
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131 Responses to MRAs and Anti-Feminists Have Ruined Complaining About Being Single

  1. 101
    KellyK says:

    If I am married to you and I have to strangle the snake myself you have failed as a woman.

    Pretty much the same way as I would have failed as a man if we were living under a bridge.

    BULL. FUCKING. SHIT.

    If you marry someone because you actually like them, let alone love them, then you don’t want to use them as a sex object. You want a blow-up doll, go visit the adult store.

    In an actual relationship, people with different sexual needs have actual conversations about how to get those needs met, and they figure out a way to make both people happy. This requires grown-up things like compromise and mutual respect. If you can’t manage that or don’t care enough about a partner to take their needs into account, see previous statement about blow-up dolls.

    It so happens that I personally am one of those women with a higher sex drive than my husband. So, I *would* have some sympathy for the “not getting enough sex in their relationship” crowd if not for the whiny insistence that women are supposed to put out regardless of whether they want sex because their husband snapped his fingers.

    When I want sex and my husband doesn’t (and isn’t up for getting me off in alternate ways), I either 1) accept the fact that I’m going to sleep horny tonight or 2) masturbate.

    And, amazingly enough, despite my having a higher sex drive than his most of the time, there are times when he wants sex and I don’t. Notable example being the time I had a miscarriage and my sex drive completely disappeared for about three weeks. Instead of whining like some entitled jackass who thinks a wedding ring makes me his personal sex toy, he took care of things himself. Because only a colossal asshole would be like, “Gee, honey, I’m sorry you’re grieving and you physically hurt and your hormones are all crazy, but that’s not as important as me getting my dick wet.”

    Or, you know, what Ruchama said:

    If the only thing you want from a woman is sex, then why go through all this PUA stuff at all? Wouldn’t it be easier to just hire sex workers than to put yourself through all of this?

  2. 102
    KellyK says:

    Also, Amp, I’m pretty sure the comments from the recent deluge of MRA/PUA trolls seriously confirms my earlier statement that no one who was paying any attention would mistake your complaining about being single for theirs.

  3. 103
    KellyK says:

    What, she cannot get her own money and call her friends when she has emotional needs?

    I am sure nobody ever died from living frugally or not having her emotional needs met.

    As far as emotional needs, I seriously doubt that men who view their wives as sex vending machines are doing all that good a job of meeting her emotional needs.

    As far as money, hilariously enough, the majority of women *do* get their own money. From the Department of Labor:

    Women’s participation in the labor force accounted for 57.2 percent of the working age women population in 2013, compared to 69.7 percent participation rate for men.1

    So, yes, a whopping 12% more men than women work. (Remember that the non-working population includes high school and college students supported by their parents, so they don’t figure into your “women sitting home painting their nails while the man goes out and earns money” narrative.)

    And look, if you want to explicitly make your relationship transactional, and you find a woman who’s up for that, you’re allowed to do that. I personally don’t recall making “make more money than I do” a condition of marrying my husband, nor do I recall agreeing to “give me all the sex I want, whenever I want” as a condition for him to marry me.

    But I still think that if you want to exchange money for sex, you’re better off skipping the whole relationship thing and hiring a sex worker.

  4. 104
    Ampersand says:

    Also, Amp, I’m pretty sure the recent deluge of MRA/PUA trolls seriously confirms my earlier statement that no one who was paying any attention would mistake your complaining about being single for theirs.

    LOL! Point well taken.

  5. 105
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    KellyK says:
    September 10, 2014 at 2:52 pm

    If one partner wants it daily and I will kinda, sorta generalize that this partner will have a penis and the other does not, there kinda, sorta, is a problem.

    What, his hands don’t work? I’m pretty sure nobody ever died from not getting sex the minute they wanted it.

    Once there was a teenage boy who didn’t get laid, and his BALLS EXPLODED AND HE DIED.

    No, really.

    ;)

  6. 106
    Eurosabra says:

    To answer Ruchama’s question, a few drinks with an interested party who might be interested in being picked up are tremendously cheaper than the rates for legal or illegal sex work in the developed world. There’s more stigma to being a john than a pick-up artist, and enough women are interested in sex-only assignations that in theory and practice some of the men seeking that are taken care of. (Though my impression of the casual sex “market” in any major American city is that a small number of women relative to the population are interested and participating, and a larger number of men are interested but only the small fraction the women are interested in get to participate. Which is just an exaggerated form of the “market” in hetero sex in general.)

  7. 107
    orion says:

    @Myca

    Does the very fact that I generalize make it wrong or are my generalizations wrong?

    If the latter, why does the captain of the football team do the did with the most desirable women then?

    Also, there totally is an upper hand, they reason why you say its not its because you have it and you would know it if you had not.

    This equal, sharing mumbo, jumbo is a fantasy and I guess quite a few of your partners have paid the price for you indulging in it.

    Maybe not a high price, maybe it was worth it, just saying.

    @ Harlequinn.

    That implication is in your head, and your head alone, deal with it on your own time.

    If that was a roundabout way of asking what I meant by this, I meant that this was the first time she became aware that the other gender took a real interest in her.

    @ Jake Squid

    I think that no such thing is clear, we live in exactly the same world but the interpretations of our surroundings differ.

    Be that as it may, my interpretation of your following statement is that it is similar to a heroin addict, which also feels quite well, while blending out reality.

    @KellyK, I will ignore your personal experiences while acknowledging that I, as well as you, were shaped by the experiences we have made.

    However, first, put a man in a MRI and yes, he sees women as a sex object. Cuz like, the objecty stuff in his brain is busy objectyfying.

    If that bothers you, you have a problem with healthy male sexuality, mebbe men are not for you.

    Or, mebbe, you think we will rewire our brains just to suit you?

    Also, if you are married, and it sounds that way, notice how you are totally entitled to have your financial needs met, whereas his sexual needs are more or less optional?

    If you remember spread sheet guy, if you have ever heard of him, who got sex like 3 times in 7 weeks, well, he went to work 5 days a week, at least, whether he felt like it or not.

    No woman would want to shack up with a guy that only works when he feels like it, but they demand the right to be sexual hobos.

    Also, I am not trolling and the difference is that we JDGAF, which is the just around the amount of fucks given by the average women when it comes to the average man.

    @ gin-and-whiskey

    And there where several boys who did not get laid and killed themselves.

    There were also several who killed others.

    Personally, I don´t find that amusing, you might want to work that out on your own time too.

    @ Eurosabra

    Sounds about right.

  8. 108
    Jay Sennett says:

    Hello Amp,

    When I read someone from the manosphere talking about their lack of dating success, I always emphasize empathize. How could I not? They’re pretty much describing my life story. Except then they keep on talking, and suddenly the repulsive bitterness towards women or feminists (or both) comes out. And the empathy is now accompanied by a strong desire for a shower.

    This. As a transsexual man, I have empathized with the manosphere’s struggling to find a concept of masculinity that works for them. But then the repulsive bitterness comes out, and the notions of masculinity that rest on hating women as the de facto definition of masculinity, and I think, “Yeahno. Hating women and feminists gets me no closer to being a man than tying my left shoe.” Especially since certain feminists saved my life (thank you, Donna Haraway and Simone de Beauvoir).

    As always, thank you for your candidness.

  9. 109
    Ruchama says:

    I figured out who orion reminds me of — those guys in middle school who, when I wanted to join their Magic: the Gathering game, made it clear to me that their game was No Girls Allowed (unless really hot.) Then they spent years complaining about how girls only liked the football players and popular boys. Dudes, if you push away all the girls who might actually like you, then what do you expect to happen when you try to hit on girls who have absolutely nothing in common with you? Obviously you’re going to have a ton of rejection.

  10. 110
    orion says:

    @ Ruchama

    Well, thats nice.

    If that is enough to explain people like me to you, I actually pity you.

  11. 111
    Ampersand says:

    Orion, I don’t feel there’s anything gained by having you post on “Alas” any further. You’ve had a full opportunity to express your views here, but now it’s time to move along. Thanks.

  12. 112
    orion says:

    Kthxbye!!

  13. 113
    Jake Squid says:

    I would like to thank orion for his civil, clear comments. He was the best example he could be.

  14. 114
    KellyK says:

    Also, if you are married, and it sounds that way, notice how you are totally entitled to have your financial needs met, whereas his sexual needs are more or less optional?

    If you remember spread sheet guy, if you have ever heard of him, who got sex like 3 times in 7 weeks, well, he went to work 5 days a week, at least, whether he felt like it or not.

    Right, whereas women just kind of show up to their jobs when they feel like it. And of course, men’s paychecks magically go toward the woman’s financial needs, while she just keeps her paycheck entirely for herself.

    Oh, wait, I know what this is. We’re pretending this is 1950 and ignoring the fact that women do actually work. Because the whole “he provides money, she provides sex” construct doesn’t work if she’s also providing money.

    In most couples that pool financial resources, unless the woman works a lot fewer hours or has a much lower-paying job, *both* partners’ standard of living is improved by combining paychecks.

    I realize orion has already been banned, but I still have to roll my eyes at the idea that “provide man with sex whenever he wants” is supposed to be a woman’s job. Again, you want no-strings sex, either hire someone, or have a bunch of one night stands, or have some kind of friends with benefits thing. Don’t marry someone and pretend you love them just to get laid, and then bitch because you signed up for a relationship and didn’t get a 24/7 on-call sex worker.

  15. 115
    KellyK says:

    However, first, put a man in a MRI and yes, he sees women as a sex object. Cuz like, the objecty stuff in his brain is busy objectyfying.

    If that bothers you, you have a problem with healthy male sexuality, mebbe men are not for you.

    Or, mebbe, you think we will rewire our brains just to suit you?

    The idea that an MRI shows it, therefore it’s pure biology that can’t be helped is bogus. Humans rewire their brains all the time. It’s called “thinking” and “learning.” Humans are also perfectly capable of making conscious choices about how to act, even given instinctive thought patterns.

  16. 116
    Tüssi says:

    Kind of what I was talking about upthread.

    – Someone comes on here with ideas different from the clique
    – He is misunderstood, mocked and insulted, no real attempt to understand
    – Then Ampersand bans him with some smart-alec comment
    – Then he is mocked after the banning

    Wash, rinse, repeat

    By the way, I’m wondering if Ampersand is saying that he will never have a girlfriend because every last woman is superficial and will reject his physical appearance? Or what exactly is the basis for him thinking that he will never have a girlfriend?

  17. 117
    Ampersand says:

    Tussi, maybe you should try reading the post?

  18. 118
    KellyK says:

    So, Tussi, what you’re saying is that we should all be really nice and respectful to people who come out to troll, regardless of how disrespectful they are to us, particularly to Amp, whose blog it is? Really?

    If orion had said the things to me that he said on my blog, I’d have banned him. If he said those things in my living room, he would not be welcome in my house.

    Amazingly enough, gin & whiskey and Ron F post comments disagreeing with Amp or with other commenters *all the time* and yet, they don’t get banned.

  19. 119
    Ampersand says:

    On the other hand, Robert disagreed with me all the time for years, and he got sent away to the big house. Coincidence?

  20. 120
    mythago says:

    Amp, this is the second time you’ve asked Tüssi if zie’s read the original post, and the answer seems to be pretty much no, it’s just a typical “waaa your personal blog is !!!!CENSOR!!!” whine by somebody who wandered here from an antifeminist site to complain that you’re one of the cool kids who picks on other people not part of your “clique”.

  21. 121
    Charles S says:

    In addition to what KellyK said about the MRI study, one of the things that MRI study (Fiske et al, presented at a conference in 2009, not sure if it made it into a paper) found was that men who score high on a sexism questionnaire show decreased activity in their medial pre-frontal cortex (associated with empathy and suppression of negative emotional responses) as well as activation of the premotor cortex. So sexist men arguably fail to see sexy women as in-group people (but we already knew that, didn’t we?). Notably, Fiske primarily studies prejudice, not sexual response, so it is unsurprising that this study is actually about prejudice.

    Also, neurocritic, discussing this conference presentation, points out that Ponsetti et al, 2006 found that people in general shown pictures of aroused genitals of the sort that they are attracted to engage the areas that are also associated with tool use. This isn’t a sex or sexual orientation specific response. So the notable addition of Fiske’s study relates to how more sexist heterosexual men respond differently compared to less sexist heterosexual men (since the study included both), not how men respond differently compared to women (the study included only men).

    Also, we could equally take this collection of studies and say that people engage the part of the brain associated with visualizing having sex when they look at pictures of power tools, so people must think of power tools as sexually compatible (or something). The areas of the brain associated with thinking about intending to use a tool are also apparently the areas of the brain associated with thinking about having sex. This doesn’t mean that we think about having sex as using a tool any more than it means that we think about using tools as having sex, it just means we use the same area of the brain for both.

    Or, as someone claiming to be one of the participants in the study comments, some or all of the response seen might be about suppressing sexual response in an environment where sexual response is inappropriate. We don’t actually know what the people in the MRI were thinking in either study.

  22. 122
    mythago says:

    Amp @119: Well, he got sent to a minimum security place, right? So it’s more of a warning shot.

  23. 123
    KellyK says:

    On the other hand, Robert disagreed with me all the time for years, and he got sent away to the big house. Coincidence?

    LOL!

  24. 124
    Franz says:

    – Someone comes on here with ideas different from the clique
    – He is misunderstood, mocked and insulted, no real attempt to understand
    – Then Ampersand bans him with some smart-alec comment
    – Then he is mocked after the banning

    Yep. I was genuinely enjoying this. The thread was at least interesting before the banning.

    Orion was on topic and took a thread that was dead and burnt out and injected some life into it with some crazy and extreme but semi-defensible opinions. None of you had to read or post if you didn’t want to. All that will happen now is the thread will now fall into oblivion like it would have 2 weeks ago if orion hadn’t bothered to share his thoughts with us.

    If anyone knows someplace where these red pill opinions are debated with a sceptical but not hostile or censorious crowd please let me know where.

    Charles/Kelly – it’s really shitty of you to continuing arguing with someone who won’t have an opportunity to reply.

  25. 125
    Charles S says:

    Franz,

    I’m not arguing with orion. If you’ll note, I never argued with orion. I am discussing something with KellyK (and anyone who pleases to join in). You can join in discussing it if you like, but I’d strongly suggest you quit with your current line of complaining about moderation and telling us how we should discuss things. That shit is tedious as all hell.

  26. 126
    Tüssi says:

    I think the general term is “tin-plated dictator” for a bully who is given a very little bit of power – and he fully exploits it. Carlos Castaneda had a more beautiful phrase: petty tyrants. And he thought you should welcome them into your life because they teach you. I agree.

  27. 127
    Ampersand says:

    By the authority vested in me by my tin plates, I hereby declare Tussi to be “moderated” status.

    Tussi, if you care to leave a comment that is on-topic and shows that you’ve read the original post, then it will be approved by a moderator and appear; otherwise it will not.

  28. 128
    mythago says:

    Franz @124: Why would you want to debate “crazy” and “semi-defensible” opinions?

    You could certainly go over to Feminist Critics; I doubt I agree with ballgame on much, but unlike orion, he can keep his opinions consistent over a handful of comments.

  29. 130
    Ampersand says:

    Hey, I may have delusions of godhood, but I don’t have delusions of rising to Kirk levels of swaggering tin-platedhood.

  30. 131
    KellyK says:

    Hey, I may have delusions of godhood, but I don’t have delusions of rising to Kirk levels of swaggering tin-platedhood.

    Yeah, I don’t think anybody quite reaches that level. And you strike me as more similar to Spock than Kirk anyway. But I can’t hear the phrase “tin-plated dictator” without thinking of that quote.