From the New York Times (via Michele):
A high school principal in Columbus, Ohio, has been fired and three assistant principals suspended without pay because they failed to notify the police last month about accusations that a 16-year-old special-education student had been sexually assaulted in the school auditorium by a group of boys, one of whom videotaped the incident, school officials said yesterday.
The principal and her assistants not only failed to report the incident but also urged the girl’s father to avoid calling the police out of concerns that reporters would become aware of the assault, according to statements given to school investigators.
The police are investigating four teenagers in connection with the incident, a spokeswoman for the Columbus police, Sherry Mercurio, said yesterday, but no charges have been filed. […]
One of the three assistant principals, Richard Watson, said he had found the videotape and then viewed it with other administrators. Their conclusion, they told investigators, was that there had been no coercion.
From what the NBC story says, it appears that the boys may have been caught because they were showing off by playing the video for friends in math class. While the school administration may not have found any signs of coercion, the police investigators found quite a lot. From the Times:
One witness’s statement said a boy pulled the girl onto the auditorium stage, ordered her to be quiet, pushed her to her knees and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
“If you scream, I’ll have all my boys punch you,” the boy told her and then hit her in the face, causing her mouth to bleed, a student told the investigators.
The girl told a special-education teacher minutes after the incident that she had been forced to have oral sex with two boys behind a curtain on the stage while at least two others watched. She said the boys stopped only after someone arrived in the auditorium and scared them off.
The girl, who has a speech defect, “just kept saying she was scared,” the special-education teacher told the investigators.
Maybe there’s less to this story than it seems; maybe the witnesses are lying, for example. But if the witness statements are accurate, then the boys should be arrested and tried as rapists.
MaxedOutMama , aka MOM, has an interesting post regarding this story. She doesn’t think the boys will ever be punished:
I’m outraged too, but not at all surprised. For one thing, multiple boy on one girl blowjob orgies aren’t that rare any more, even in school. There is a fine line between manipulation, intimidation and outright force. Stories such as these aren’t that rare – developmentally disabled girls are often manipulated and abused in this way in school. So are emotionally vulnerable girls. Once you have kids blowing each other in the school johns in junior high, things get pretty much out of control.
I’ll give you my guess. This boys will not be convicted of any criminal charges. There will not be enough evidence; the testimony (said quietly behind closed doors) will be that the word was that this girl was known for giving blowjobs to boys. Those involved will say they thought she was consenting. Those witnessing it will agree. Not one of all the boys involved said anything to school authorities. Not one. They don’t know the difference between right and wrong, consenting and enforced acts. If they haven’t participated themselves they have all heard about such acts before.
(Link to MOM via My Whim is Law).
MOM is already mistaken about what at least one of the witnesses is saying (if the New York Times‘ account is accurate). I’m also more than a little skeptical about how common “multiple boy on one girl blowjob orgies” are – as far as I can tell, adults have always vastly exaggerated how much sex kids are having. But I worry that she’ll be proved right about the odds of any of these boys being convicted of rape.
MOM goes on to suggest that “instinct” may be responsible for this disgusting act: “Instinct in a young, roving band of teenage boys dictates imposing sexually upon a vulnerable girl…” In MOM’s view, young boys have an instinct towards gang-rape, which they need to be guided away from. I don’t think there’s much evidence to support MOM’s view, however. Have any anthropologists found that hunter-gatherer societies have a high incidence of gang rape, or if they don’t, that they spend a lot of time teaching their boys that gang-rape is wrong?
I don’t think boys have a natural instinct for gang-rape. However, I do think boys have a natural instinct to rely their peer group for validation and for their self-identity (that’s something I think MOM and I agree on). In a culture which teaches boys that masculinity is measured by “getting some,” that if they’re not a man they’re nothing, that having sex is not only normal but an entitlement, and that women don’t have much worth, it’s unsurprising that gang rapes happen. It’s even less surprising that the victim is (it seems) disabled, since the disabled are also not seen as being worth much by our society.
I doubt these boys were acting out of a desire for sexual release. I think they were acting out of a desire to show each other that they’re not scared, that they’re brave, that they’re men. From the point of view of the boys, their victim was just an object, which they used for demonstrating their masculinity to each other.
MOM then makes what seems to me to be a surprising, and out-of-place, digression:
Here’s reality. Girls can be imposed upon sexually, but once they learn the sexual game they can often whipsaw adolescent boys with it. Boys often find one-on-one sex really frightening until they’ve proved to themselves that they can do it, but no such inhibitions exist in a group. Adolescent boys are often just as emotionally vulnerable as girls. Girls have an instinct to use their own powers of sexual attraction. Nature made it so. An attractive, intelligent girl can become a superstar by her junior year in high school if she plays her cards well, especially if she is carefully and selectively sexually active. In the process she may cut an old boyfriend into emotional pieces.
No doubt some girls act just as MOM describes. But what does any of this have to do with a “developmentally disabled” girl who is dragged onto an auditorium stage, hit, and told “if you scream, I’ll have all my boys punch you”? The girl in this case wasn’t using her “powers of sexual attraction” to make herself a “superstar”; she was raped by a bunch of assholes using the power of threats and fists. To use a discussion of a girl being gang-raped as a springboard for discussing how girls are victimizers, too, is bizarre and disturbing.
There’s a lot more to MOM’s post, some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t; take a look.
UPDATE: Due to having nearly 500 responses, this thread is now closed. If you want to continue the discussion, please do so on this new thread.
Hey Alsis!!!!!
**smooooooch**
:)
I’m not sure why I’m bothering…
But yet it happens time after time after time. In fact, men often don’t get prosecuted because his desire becomes part of the defense. Strangely enough. Read the Bible, look at great works of art (the rape of the Sabine women), watch Sin City… men’s desire is all that is required to effectively make rape not rape (in the minds of men).
What we are trying to say is that most people in this society are just like you someone… you think that it is enough to simply wring your hands, lament that rape is wrong, and then…. what? the issue ceases to exist? Because you say it’s wrong it will just stop, disappear? You passivity is in fact condoning rape. Your abject anger at us for arguing with you condones rape because you are more willing to get angry with women who are telling you their experiences then you are willing to get angry at a society that socializes its young men into the belief that a certain amount of force is a “natural” part of “sex.” Your falling back on our purportedly animal behavior/instincts (alpha, beta, zeta, delta, delta, delta) in regards to sex is a political and social stance that condones rape — because I would bet dollars to donuts that you don’t apply this animal instinct theory to much of anything else that we do! I mean, shit, we’ve created currency, the Internet, gourmet food, medicine, spaceships… but our sex acts are just animal insinct? How fucked up is that?
post 293:
post 296:
This is how you define polite?
HC
Author’s message decoded: to be good I have to agree with the author, else I have male privilege and I am in over my head.
Message rejected.
Your post doesn’t look like you are feeling significantly less indignant and SO RIGHT than me.
A majority of men are assholes, message recorded.
—-
Q Grrl
I did actually ask earlier what would saying that society condones rape achieve. I didn’t receive an answer.
So, what will it achieve?
And what is your solution to the problem of rape, wise one?
How does it socialize them into this belief?
Such forces are present in some way (like young boys observing older abusers, or looking at their father beating their mother which is related)
But they don’t exist for all young boys, and there are also very strong competing forces that teach young boys that violence and rape is wrong.
And indeed, most young boys do manage not to grow into rapists, criminals, or wife batterers.
So the social forces that encourage violence against women and violence in general must be surely weaker than the social forces that discourage it.
They aren’t animal instincts, they are human instincts that are an inevitable consequence of sexually discriminate beings living in a society together.
For example let’s say that there is A Grrl, Q Grrl and Z Grrl.
And where they live, there is 3 males.
One out of those likes A Grrl only, one likes both A Grrl and Q Grrl but has a preference for A Grrl, one likes both A Grrl and Q Grrl equally, and no one likes Z Grrl because she smells like sour milk and her food drops out of her mouth when she laughs.
There you go, sexual rankings.
A Grrl would be alpha, Q Grrl would be beta, Z Grrl would be gamma.
There is nothing animalistic about it, it’s just the way things work.
Different individuals have different capabilities of attracting the opposite sex.
did someone sneeze?
Message decoded: Immature 18 year-old boy who has NO IDEA WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT with no interest to hear others.
Got it.
I thought I heard that too, Q Grrl. Bless you, whoever it was.
You guys are so damn mature. :(
Discussion over.
We’re not guys.
You have demonstrated that you have no desire whatsoever to argue like a normal human being. It doesn’t even matter what I say, you will take it and twist it around to mean what you want, or simply ignore it and then accuse me.
You aren’t serious, you can’t debate properly, you have no concept of decency, you are rude and obnoxious, your opinions are moronic.
And sadly, this place isn’t much different from any other feminist blogs that I have seen.
It’s not about logic and debate, everything already has been decided.
If some person does make logical comments, use personal attacks on them and act like an ape.
I made a perfectly civil reply to Q Grrl in my last post, explained why sexual competition exists. What reply did I get in return? “Did someone sneeze”.
You are useless.
In fact, I suspect that Q Grrl and her buddies had no intenetion to be civil and argue properly since the beginning. They were just stalling the discussion and trying to annoy me.
HC 307: Thank you.
Someone:
The author does benefit from male privilege. So do you, so do I. It’s not a personal attack, but a statement of how the world works.
Here’s the (original?) male privilege checklist, as written by the male author of this blog.
Even if you don’t agree with all the points on it (I don’t), you’ll probably find more benefits than you have counterarguments for.
And to think that I actually pondered her arguments seriously… haha.
I bet Q Grrl is an emotionally abusive person in real life.
She probably enjoys spreading malicious rumours, clashing people against each other and tearing down their confidence by berating them.
Err… isn’t the point of evolution to ensure the survival of the species? And how is this to occur if women avoid pregnancy?
Oh really? Try googling ‘female promiscuity and evolution’ to see how wrong you are.
For example: (bolded bits are mine)
A force of nature–female promiscuity and choice
FOR YEARS, VICTORIAN IDEAS ABOUT GENDER AND SEX influenced scientific theories about humans and other animals: Males…including men…were thought to be promiscuous, as well as more evolved, while females…including women…were thought to be naturally monogamous, sexually passive, and less a force of evolution than males.
Recent research, including DNA paternity testing of primates and birds, show that these ideas were false. More the product of men’s delusions than of scientific brilliance, those prudish ideas can now be laughed off and discarded. Females are not the passive bystanders of evolution they were once thought to be, but active participants, often leaders, in the game of sex and natural selection.
“Darwin assumed that females were ‘coy’, holding themselves in reserve for the one best male. Yet field studies for primates suggested that, once again, the behavior of females was more variable than expected. Females could be ‘promiscuous,’ like males, if by that term we mean attempting to mate with many partners….. Whatever else these apes and monkeys are up to, it’s obvious that selecting the one best male from available suitors–as Darwin imagined female choice would work–is scarcely the whole story.” 4
“By the end of the twentieth century, sociobiologists had revealed that females were anything but passive or sexually coy, and certainly not less evolved. Females were the genetic custodians of the species, and through their mate choices–when permitted–directed the course of evolutionary change” 4
New technologies, such as DNA testing, have given us insight into female sexual behavior in the wild that was once only guessed about, and guessed about quite incorrectly.
“For years researchers assumed that females in these groups mate exclusively with their male counterparts, thereby maintaining male investment in territorial defense and parental care. It turns out, however, that these monogamous arrangements are not all that they seem–recent genetic paternity tests conducted on a wide variety of bird species have confirmed that extra-pair fertilizations are far from rare.” 2
“The fathers not only lived outside the study sample, but included males that the observers had never ever seen the female traveling with, much less mating with.” 4
“Even in Chimpanzees it seems that females have more choice than observers (and presumably their own males) suspect. DNA tests of chimps born in Christophe Boesch’s troop in the Tai Forest of the Ivory Coast showed that 7 of 13 troop offspring were sired by males outside the community. This means that females were successively sneaking away unseen to find partners elsewhere…. it suggests that all the herding, corralling, fighting, and seducing by chimp community males still may not succeed in limiting females’ choices.” 1
And we see that being the alpha male may not be what it’s cracked up to be….
“Worse yet for cherished ideas about behavior, four of the males in the chimp community were dominant during the study period, but two of them fathered no offspring (within the group) while dominant. So much for the notion that dominance is necessarily coupled with high reproductive output…” 3
Apparently females have alternative methods of exerting mate choice, and sneaking around behind the backs of dominant males is a highly successful strategy.
“This new awareness of female reproductive interests is transforming our understanding of animal mating systems. Wherever males attempt to constrain female reproductive options, we can expect selection for traits that help females evade them” 4
And we see that sexual loyalty to a mate is no more natural in females than in males:
“In fact, fidelity is a phenomenon that seems to occur only when males can impose it on females, either directly through their greater social power or brute force, or indirectly through controlling the resources that females and their offspring require. In sexually egalitarian societies like those of bonobos and marquis, females have both less fear from males and more equal access to resources than do most other female primates. The fact that the most liberal attitudes toward human sexuality are found in societies where women have similarly independent social status and economic means is entirely consistent with the broader patterns across primates” 2
1. Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution. Jolley, Allison
2. Tree of Origin: What primate behavior can tell us about social evolution. Frans B.M. de Waal, editor
3. Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect. Ehrlich. Ehrlich, Paul R. (p. 188)
4. Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the human Species. Blaffer Hrdy, Sarah
That list is a bunch of nonsense, Andrew, there is no male privilege actually.
If I attempted to explain why exactly the list is nonsense, and how I could make a similar list of “female privilege”, or any other useless list, you would just resort to personal insults and using all kinds of tricks to stall the argument.
So I am not going to bother.
Sorry – missed a link in one of the references:
1. Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution. Jolley, Allison
Someone, I thought you said the discussion was over?
It is.
Ginmar says:
Can someone point me to that DOJ study please. The best I can find after a quick google search is:
Sexual Assualt Statistics references this as the source of the 2% conviction rate (for reported rapes):
Yeah, so… after you said it was over, you made 3 more posts, not including the one where you said it was over, again.
And please, don’t let us stop you from coming up with reasons why there is no male privilege. I need a good laugh….
someone, I find your commentary on evolution and ‘what is sexy’ completely bizarre. You seem to think that because you find certain traits to be sexy or unsexy, that everyone else, including members of the opposite sex, will follow suit. And it just ain’t so, Joe. For example, the “men’s legs were just made for walking” statement. Ridiculuous! Women (heterosexual women, anyway) watch men’s legs and asses all the time. All. The. Time. I find nothing sexier than a man with well-developed legs and glutes. Hoo baby! Yum!
Since you want to argue from personal experience—-have you ever had an in-depth conversation with a female friend on what she finds sexy? Have you ever asked any older women of your acquaintance what they find attractive about men? Aunts perhaps, or older cousins? I mean, you could ask your mom too, but not everyone is comfortable doing that. It’s astonishing to me how anyone could assert that women aren’t interested in sex, or that women don’t find masculine physical characteristics alluring. But hey, what do I know, being a woman and all, and having had thousands of such conversations over the years.
Here’s a point for you to ponder. If women are so naturally sexy, and all we have to do is avoid complete butt-ugliness and smelliness in order to attract men, why are there so many women’s magazines devoted to making us more attractive to men? Why are there several aisles devoted to women’s toiletries in the grocery store, while only half of one side of an aisle dedicated to men’s? Why are there entire wings of department stores devoted to makeup? Why are there scads of specialty stores at malls, devoted to making women more attractive? Why are outpatient plastic surgery clinics devoted to women popping up in even the more economically wracked communities? Why are literally billions of dollars invested in and devoted to industries whose main purpose is to make women more physically attractive to men?
Could it be because men don’t really find us all that attractive? That we are more likely to find them attractive in their natural state, than vice versa?
Q
…What La Lubu said. What are we, if not evidence that your information is disastrously incomplete?
And would you mind providing some evidence for (a) the dimensions of this disparity and (b) the fact it’s hardwired, rather than the result of social pressure on women to not have sexual appetite or self-centered sexual desire?
Men can afford having a higher sexual drive because they don’t get pregnant.
Heh, that would be such a nice and neat concept, Someone, if it was true. Now, since you’re talking “mother nature” and evolution (nevermind you’re applying evolution principles to social behaviour which was never the purpose of the original theory of evolution from a biological point of view, but, you know, these days that’s a very common practice, so let’s all play along with psycho-social darwinism for a sec here and pretend it’s scientific!), you seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact that, in the animal kingdom, in many species, from insects to mammals it’s the females who are often even not just as promiscious as males but even more, precisely because they get pregnant – the idea is that promiscuity facilitates better chances of getting a wider gene pool for the offspring and better chances of actually getting pregnant. See this for a quick summary.
But social darwinism playground aside, thing is, humans are a bit more complex than insects and even chimpanzees, right? You surely have realised that much, in your 18 years of life, I would imagine? We have a thing as cultural and social history and development, different social models, different cultures, languages, religions, and sexuality and notions of sexuality is one of the things that do play a big role in how social relationships develop.
If you want to ignore all that, and keep sticking to formulas and alpha-beta-gamma classifications and “but it’s so obvious, it’s what I can see all around me, the whole world knows this”, fine, but if you want to dabble in biology and explain everything away with mother nature, you could at least do her the courtesy of getting it right.
Though I have a feeling that getting it right is not your main interest here. Pardon me if I so grossly misunderstand your intentions, oh walking dispenser of self-evident truths about female behaviour, but you do seem to be trolling just a tiny wee bit.
If you haven’t the capability to argue logically against the male privilege checklist, but dismiss is out of hand, then you really are inviting personal insults. Especially if you start with them:
—-
I merely offered you the chance to inform yourself about what you were talking about. If you could have a rational discussion on it, so could I. If you could disprove every point on the list, I would bow before your prowess. If you could make an equal list of female privilege, I would read it with interest.
But note the words “equal” and “every”, and don’t jump straight into the unfounded personal attacks you accuse others of.
Oh you have got to be joking: there actually exists a person so out of touch with the real world that he’s unaware women do ogle men’s body parts?!?
I mean, even the lamest popular sit-com has by now had the obligatory “Girls’ [sic] Night Out” episode featuring a trip to watch male strippers, hasn’t it? And isn’t the character of the female lead’s best girlfriend, depicted as wise-cracking & sex-obsessed, constantly commenting on the perkiness and firmness of every male buttock that passes by, pretty much obligatory on both TV and the large-screen as well?
In other words, even if a young man is in the position of not actually knowing or having any meaningful contact with any post-pubescent females, doesn’t he still have access to cultural evidence showing that, hey, at least some women DO look at men’s body parts in a sexual way?
hey, I’m the big ol’ dyke around these parts and *I* still ogle male body parts. Why not? A nice package is a nice package. I just don’t want to get overly friendly with said packages. :-o
If men could attract women by exposing their body and acting in a demure teasing or in a “luring”? manner, they would be doing it massively.
Honey, they are, maybe you haven’t noticed because you’re a heterosexual male and you’re not attracted to men and don’t find them sexy or attractive! Duh! Has that even crossed your mind? Or maybe, just maybe, you don’t have that much experience.
Why do you think marketing researchers target so many products, including boybands (hello, multimillion record industry, not an indicator of any widespread preferences, I guess?) to both young women and gay men? What do they have in common? That’s right, they like visually appealing and/or sexy men. Wow, what an amazing thing, the world has never heard of it!
And please note that, on the one hand, all that’s about advertising and media content and so on, is after all only a superficial example and a very skewed one, because obviously it’s influenced by social standards and ideas of what’s sexy and women have traditionally been represented as sexual objects a lot more than men. It’s less about what women really like as opposed to clichés and acceptable notions of sexuality. But even then, it’s a good indicator already that yes, heterosexual women who are sexually active do get attracted by men just as much as heterosexual men by women. (As if that’s something that needed obvious public examples to be acknowledged!)
Think of the movie and music industry capitalising on the visual appeal of both sexes. I’m frankly amazed that you would not even think about something as public and worldwide as that. From Cary Grant to Brad Pitt, please tell me again all about how women really aren’t as visually attracted to men as men are to women?
I’m not saying you should go see for yourself next time Justin Timberlake is in town, but perhaps it’d help. I doubt you’d see more fan hysterics from men at a Kylie Minogue show. It’d also help if you waited until you have had a wider experience of direct, personal interaction with women, before you make any generalisations about their sexual drives and response to visual attractiveness. Well, it would actually helped if you made none, especially because you’re not a woman. (Will that ever sink in?)
But I guess you’re so young and sure of yourself, you just can’t help it, right? You’ll do well in life, don’t worry. This world is made exactly for people who think like you! All you need is absolute certainty and a ton of conviction, whatever your beliefs are and no matter how wrong-headed, a total imperviousness to any questioning and debate, plus unconditional acceptance of all forms of competition as the basis for social interaction. You’re primed for Success, someone!
Aside from Someone, did anyone think my comment in #285 was reasonable?
Qgrrl
On rereading a chapter from Andrea Dworkin’s Intercourse the other day, I was surprised at how it critiqued norms of sexual relations and proposed an alternative. I don’t think I understood that the first time I’d read it, because I had never had sex with another person, and I’d never encountered any other description of how heterosexual sex was supposed to work, so I had no context to understand it.
Sadly, I think that many women don’t realize what they’re missing, either. Fortunately, my first partner was more experienced and confident than I was. My second, however, had no idea that sex meant anything other than “pounding away,” and didn’t really expect to enjoy it as anything but a way to assuage loneliness.
hey, I’m the big ol’ dyke around these parts and *I* still ogle male body parts.
LOL…
Look at the pics below the header here:
http://www.sexymalecelebs.co.uk
Now presenting the latest overblown and historically inaccurate epic blockbuster, but let’s not mind that little thing about crusades revisionism, we’ll be able to marvel at the sight of Orlando’s pecs & ass… Now, if only Someone was to crusade against sexual objectification of both sexes to sell worthless pieces of outrageous neo-theocon propaganda (I don’t mind if it’s to sell perfumes, like), I’d be willing to give up said sight and even stop ogling men. I promise.
Brian: nah, of course your comment wasn’t reasonable, you were grossly misreading the poor fellow who now, after being so unfairly derided, will have even more examples of how feminist blogs are moronic and obtuse and alien to debate (and oh no he wasn’t trolling!).
There was some nice posts, especially the one by Spicy, so maybe I might join in again a bit later…
I knew the stuff about promiscuous chimps before though, and I didn’t say that women are monogamous (which is obviously untrue, as we can see by observing society).
I love the idea that women don’t look at men. A man who thinks this is ugly or daft.
Someone:
When women tell you what they like in men and tell you that your assumptions about them are wrong, I strongly suggest you listen up. Think of it as a privilege of sorts. Because it is a pretty reasonable assumption that they know better than you what being a woman is like. So stop being a cry-baby about women getting angry (getting angry=disagreeing with you) at you “for absolutely no reason at all” I know Id be royally pissed off too if someone would claim to know better than me what I like and what I want etc. Considering your all-knowing claims about women the posters here have shown amazing self-restraint.
This pseudoscientific BS about evolution evolving men to something and women into something entirely different is not only pretty obnoxious it is flat out wrong (and also evolution is VERY slow and generally for the most time humans have existed the main thing has been simply surviving and survival of the fittest not being some “who do you think is hottest and most fuckable” -game.). The difference in the genes is one frigging chromosome. Its 46 XY for men, 46 XX for women (X and Y being sexual chromosomes that are transfered to offspring entirely, without genetic recombination) . So if a man likes a very smooth-skinned woman or a hairless woman (and im pretty sure you know many of those modern very hairless women shave and wax? Right?) the chances are that his sons will too be smoother-skinned and relatively hairless. The Y-chromosome is responsible for development of testicles and penis, and testicles in return produce testosterone which makes skin thicker and faciliates muscle growth and causes typical male hair patterns, and to some extent male behaviour. So you see, the 46XX thing of women means that women get one half their genes from mother, half from father one X-chromosome coming from daddy(his only x) and one from mother (which may be either of the mothers x:s). While with men half genes from both parents and the fathers only Y from him and again either of mothers x:s.
And the pregnancy = different strategy thing… Lets say men really supposedly want to impregnate as many women as possible and will do that too if given chance, then why on earth would women even need a strategy? Just put out out to the super-alpha stud and thats it. The problem with this alpha, beta, gamma thing is that they arent constant in different environments, what constitutes as being “fittest” as in survival of the fittest. Therefore your blathering about good/better/best genes or bad/worse/worst genes in males or females (AND remember, we ARE talking about the exact same genes, you know, human genes, except for the previously mentioned very small X and Y chomosomes) is complete bullshit (I suspect youve been reading some politically motivated BS pseudoscientist).
About your off-hand dismissal of male privilege, rape culture etc. Somehow you havent explained to anyone why they are BS, they just are?! Then you immediately go back hiding behind your “but women are sexy! And men like that!” and “but I want you to be civil because I have been civil too!” (maybe you at least genuinely have tried at some point, but now…) and that awful mockery of evolutionary biology and your greatly exaggerated and mostly untrue views of biological differences between men and women. AS IF any of those had anything to do with the original issue (gang-rape and coverup) and rape issue in general.” Lets just discuss these things im comfortable with” and even when everyone does, no amount of personal experiences or just plain logic wont make you even consider what others have said, or that your “facts” might be wrong (oh the horror).
One last thing: I dont believe anymore you even want a rational, honest and civil discussion so enough pretending otherwise. If you want to prove everyone wrong just be rational, civil and honest. And you might want to check post 141 by Ampersand.
Orlando Bloom doesn’t do a thing for me. Now, William H. Macy… [sigh]
They’re not mutually exclusive.
Speaking for myself, and I am probably “daft” in this respect (it came up a lot in therapy), I still have trouble with the idea that women are attracted to men in general, or to me in particular. I mean, I know it rationally, but some part of my brain just doesn’t get it. I’m not sure how common that sort of neurosis may be, but cultural attitudes certainly come into play.
Well, women aren’t really attracted to men, at least not in a sexual way. That whole cute-butt thing is a figment of the socialist feminazi imagination. They just need to feel supported and cared-for. And, of course, cuddled. Lots of cuddles and praise. Women are kind of like spaniels that way. It works out pretty well, since men are all about sex and utterly devoid of emotion–they’re sort of like wolves. So women put up with sex in order to get love and protection, and men offer love and protection in exchange for nookie. Girls get eviscerated, occasionally, but no one ever said the system was perfect.
…All not-you-directed sarcasm aside, I think it’s pretty universal to suspect that you’re actually ugly, clumsy, and off-putting.
…And I meant “you” in the universal sense.
Armchair, the alpha/beta/gamma thing is just a device that I used to explain sexual competition. I never said that they are constant in different environments.
You are assuming things that I didn’t actually say.
Here is how I defined them in an earlier post:
Ok?
And the discussion about how males and females go about attracting the opposite sex is different from the observation that regardless of the means by which they achieve it, some individuals are more sexually successful than others.
It isn’t something that you should disagree with, or anyone in here, it’s a fact of life.
As for your other points and other people’s posts, I might reply later, after some nice sleep.
Have a look at piny’s “ugly, clumsy, and off-putting” thing, is such an individual not fitting my definiton of “gamma”?
Is she not implicitly acknowledging that different individuals do in fact have a different degree of success with the opposite sex?
So what is the goddamn problem with it?
Alpha, beta and gamma are just words that I used as shortcuts to describe categories of people.
“So what is the goddamn problem with it?”
For starters, it smacks of social Darwinism, the creation of pre-ordained master/slave relationships made famous in Huxley’s *Brave New World*, and classifying one “family” of humans as if they were different species of animal life. It also reminds me of the rapists targetting an “inferior” girl because— of some fetish they had ? Because they thought that a “lower order” of female should be grateful to have their “alpha” dicks in her face ? Because she’d be less credible than one of their own “rank” ?
Gevalt.
Just can’t resist us, can you? Must be our collective sexual charm keeping you up so late.
I also find it funny how La Lubu was first accepting that for women looks are indeed more important in deciding their “ranking”:
And now she seems to be against it or something.
Or perhaps La Lubu agrees that in contemporary society looks indeed play a much larger part in women’s attractiveness, but she disagrees that it is a consequence of different levels of visual attraction to the opposite sex’s appearance in women and men?
Is this it? I am trying to understand you better…
If that is it, then I did provide an argument for it, here:
So is it some sort of a cultural mystery that men aren’t discovering their true potential at attracting women with their body?
What is up with all those long pants and t-shirts.
Come on boys, let’s show off those hairy legs and flat hairy chests. :-D
The ladies will be loving it.
Alsis38, anything else other than that emotionally charged nonsense?
I mean, I did explain yet again that these are simply words that I chose…
to describe categories of people… according to their sexual success…
do you disagree that different individuals have a different degree of sexual succes… this is what disagreeing with the ranking system means…
or do you just dislike the words themselves… which ones would you propose?… “hot”, “normal”, “ugly” – these would refer only to appearance which is just one of the components in deciding one’s sexual rank… you need a dedicated word…
or… are you just trying to annoy me? Yeah, that must be it.
GROW
THE
FUCK
UP
and then go to bed.
Hey Brian, you just reminded me of something I had forgotten about my main college boyfriend. He told me that he didn’t understand how women could feel sexually aroused. Like you, he knew it intellectually, but he just couldn’t grasp how women could experience wanting sex or feeling desire for men.
It seemed the most baffling thing to me at the non-feminist (and incredibly sexually active) time in my life, but looking back now it makes sense when I put the pieces of him together. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he married a trophy wife he keeps in pretty lingerie and who doesn’t work but to please him and be around for showing-off at events. In his mind having a girlfriends was more about the social approval than the actual, sexual or otherwise, relationship and I don’t think that’s uncommon
Makes me wonder how widespread this disbelief in women’s desire for sex is among men. I really can’t say I understand how men who know their own strong yearnings can think women have almost none, but there you go.
Wasn’t this conversation over?
Ho hum. Dont you ever run out of straw?
Exactly where do I assume that? Did it occur to you that I was using that concept of alpha-beta-gamma to illustrate a point? And to add that what constitutes as being alpha or whatever is very dependant on environment and culture in general…
It has been discussed. Plenty of posters think your views are only from your viewpoint, instead of being universal as you claim them to be and your attitude is that they are “minority of people” and you claim to know for sure what most men and women do to attract the opposite sex. Then you list all the cultural cliches about men and women and add insult to the injury by posting some pseudoscientific BS about how evolution and biology has worked to create these differences and different “sexual tactics”. (Sex as competition again)
Yes, some are more “sexually succesful”, and the point is…?
I suppose you will actually answer some relevant questions posed at you by plenty of people instead of self-quoting again and again in your next post… Though I wont be holding my breath.
Samantha, my behavior wasn’t much like that of the man you’re describing. But I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be whining about myself in this thread.
“…emotionally charged…”
[Whitney Houston:]
I get so emotional, Baby
Every time I think of yooooooooouuu
I get so emotional, Baby
Ain’t it shocking what looooooove can dooooo
Ain’t it shocking what loooooooove can doooooo…
[/Whitney Houston]
Lemme make this simple for you, someone.
If men (as a group) found women (as a group) so incredibly sexy, then why do we need entire industries devoted to improving the physical appearance of women? Earlier, you stated that all a woman had to do to attract male attention was not be butt-ugly. Based on the number of dead trees devoted to articles on how to look better, and the various kinds of magic potions to put on our faces and bodies, and the number of carve-and-go plastic surgery salons, one would think that women, by and large, are beyond hideous, and need extreme measures in order to be acceptable.
Contrast that with the miniscule size of the men’s beauty industry. Now, tell me who really finds who sexually attractive. Step outside, someone. The weather is warm. Look at all the men wearing tank tops, or taking their shirts off….I am! (and it’s ok; I won’t tell anyone you’re looking). Men actually do know that women are checking them out. The only mystery here is how you’ve reached the age of eighteen without realizing this.
Nota bene: that’s “he.” Former woman. But I’ll give you a pass, since that’s like gender-studies trig, and you’re still struggling with long division.
No, not at all. I pointed out that most people suffer from a lack of self-confidence. It is not at all abnormal to believe oneself to be unattractive for a variety of reasons, physical and otherwise. “Clumsy and off-putting” don’t have to do with appearance; I could also have added, “Dull, dumb, and nerdy.” And of course some people are in fact less attractive to other people; it becomes problematic, however, when you say that those people are unattractive to everyone. For example, I would probably find you incredibly off-putting, and you probably wouldn’t have gotten along with my former self. That does not mean, however, that we’re unattractive to everyone.
Right, because you’re intellectually lazy. Alpha, beta, and gamma are problems because, goddamn it, the standards and advantages are not that simple. My “hot” is your “lardassed bulldyke,” and your “hot” is my “fluffheaded Britney clone.” What I consider brilliance and humor, you consider senselessness and hysteria. Attraction and affinity have to do with a variety of things, some of them appearance-related, some not. You can’t oversimplify and say that someone’s ability to get laid or find love can be predicted by their ability to match a narrow, inhuman standard of beauty and talent.
And to think, Amp deleted my post of:
“I need a sign next to my computer, reminding me to not feed trolls.” as my last response to Someone.
I’ve got a bone to pick.
I didn’t mean to be nice!
>
I didn’t mean to imply you were like him, just musing on how you triggered a memory I had forgotten about him saying something very similar.
I think your comment is relevant to some of what’s going on here with a young a man having a hard time imagining women desire sex immensely. I also think it was brave of you to share that personal and not flattering information with us; thank you for the honesty.
I think my favorite part of this thread is when Someone whipped out the word “heuristic.” I was impressed. No, really.
Well, far more impressed than with the beta/gamma/iota business. Eh, who am I kidding? This thread is sufficiently derailed, right?
So I guess this is POST-discussion, since someone already said the discussion was over?
(I’m sorry, I find that really hilarious.)
Why is everyone jumping on someone? The response he is getting here is widely out of proportion to what he has actually written. Even if you want to look at him as a horribly misguided and naive young man, there is no need to be nasty to him. He was very patient when people started insulting him, but as soon as he got snippy in return and asked people to be civil, he was accused of setting double standards for civility. Aside from someone’s comment about stabbing people (wtf?), he has taken a lot more hits than he has dished out. What really shocks me is that none of the more sensible posters here have called people out on their nasty behavior towards him. Is solidarity more important than either reason or compassion? And it is very hypocritical the way that people are scapegoating him for diverting the topic of the thread. Several of the feminists here have been equally responsible; it doesn’t matter whether they were in the right or not.
If anyone is at fault for the diverting of the thread, then I am. I originally suggested the idea that some males who commit rape may be acting from chauvinistic attitudes that stem from their lack of sexual power relative to women. My line of thinking was something like this: “chauvinistic and resentful attitudes towards women can cause rape; feelings of sexual powerless can result in chauvinistic or resentful attitudes, therefore perhaps male sexual powerlessness is a cause of rape.” Yet I abandoned this line of inquiry. Why? Because in between I actually looked up some journal articles on rape. One of them mentioned that most rapists are not sexually deprived. Well, so much for my theory! But anyway, I don’t see anything wrong with the twists and turns of the topic in this thread. I found the discussion of relative sexual power during youth and the alpha/beta/gamma stuff to be interesting, and I don’t think someone should be demonized for raising those issues.
I am getting the feeling that some people here (like Q Grrl) view any male poster who is not pro-feminist as the Patriarchy Incarnate. They have been given the hammer of feminist theory, and suddenly every man looks like a nail. They jump on any chance to distort or selectively misinterpret his statements so they can misattribute sexist or misogynistic attitudes towards him. Instead of dealing with what he is actually saying, they can simply block him out. They are seeing what they expect to see.
The only other place I have seen this kind of narcissistic, one-sided lynching is when a woman joins a misogynistic internet forum. The misogynists require her to admit how women are manipulative and have everything so much easier than men. This only alienates her… as soon as she loses her cool, the misogynists simply take it as proof that she is simply another irrational and hysterical woman. Their attitude towards women becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same thing is going on here: if you want to see all non-feminist men as misogynistic tools of the patriarchy, then that is what you will see. I would like to point out that this kind of predjudice is very alienating. I don’t feel like I should be made into the bad guy simply because I dare to state some views that disagree with feminists (if you want to say “damn that patriarchy, it’s conditioned little someone and Aegis!” to yourself, then go ahead, but blaming or guilt-tripping him or me helps nobody).
In any discussion, it is easy to find ways to defend your point of view. This way, you don’t have to question yourself or entertain any threatening ideas. Nevertheless, I find that this strategy is less than rewarding, because it means forfeiting any kind of nuanced, multiperspectival understanding the issue. If anything, it is good to listen to the arguments of people who oppose you simply so that you can understand the weaknesses in your own position. I am here because I believe there is some value in feminist arguments , and because I am willing to have my mind changed. The fact that I haven’t really done so in this thread is not evidence that I am not willing to have my mind changed, but rather that nobody here has provided any decent arguments that would convince me to do so. If anyone wants me to explain exactly why I am not convinced that society condones rape, I would be willing to reiterate.
If you believe that a male has attitudes that need changing, or privilege to own up to, what do you think is the best way to do that? Bludgeoning him over the head? No way! In general, if you want someone (in general, not the specific poster) in a discussion to agree with you, you need to give them room to come over to your side without feeling like they are losing something. But if you attack someone, then they have no room to change their minds without looking bad, so they will stick with their old beliefs. In fact, the nastier you are, the easier it is for them to dismiss your argument. While verbally bludgeoning someone might make you feel better, it will not change his mind. How do you actually help someone change their mind?
– Civility. Hostility only give people an excuse and a reason to dismiss you, even if you are right and your anger is justified.
– Listening to what they are actually saying. It may be tempting to jump on a small comment someone made and distort it to make them look bad. But making yourself look good at their expense will not help change their mind.
– Reason. I am not saying that a logical argument is necessary for everything. But if you want people to agree with you, then you need to provide something in addition to your personal experience and the assumptions of your ideology.
– Compassion. Realize that what people say usually makes sense to them from their point of view. If you want people to change their mind, they need space to do so, and you can’t expect them to verbalize it to you. Bullying or guilt-tripping people isn’t compassion. Personally, if I felt that I had some kind of privilege that I needed to own up to, I wouldn’t feel comfortable mentioning it in a place where people had no compassion for me, like this thread. No matter how right you think you are, there is no excuse for not having compassion.
All of these are of course only suggestions. Anyone who wants to engage in unproductive ranting that simply confirms negative stereotypes of feminists as hysterical man-haters is free to do so! You can dismiss this post as yet another patriarchal male trying to “lecture” you, or you can take it as the set of well-intentioned, common sense suggestions that I intend it as.
Btw, I find it strange when some feminists insist that ideas like “reason,” “civility,” and “empirical proof” are somehow “male” standards of behavior. Not all feminists agree with these notions. (I shall answer the interesting criticism that empiricism bolsters current power arrangements in another post. I shall also explain the problems with the idea of “authority of experience.”) I can sort of understand feminist attacks on reason, but civility being “male?” That’s a new one! A staple misogynist argument is that women are incapable of any kind of rational thinking that isn’t clouded by emotion, and that women see all discussions as personal. This type of argument has been used to justify excluding women from higher education in the past, and from the sciences in the present. Hence, I think it is a foolish and dangerous argument for feminists to make. Personally, I believe that females are just as capable of civility, rationality, and backing up their statements as males are.
I think you may have misunderstood the point being made.
This thread and this subsequent one will help explain.
Are you familiar with the rhetorical low blow known as the false dilemma? Because this is one of those.
I don’t think that your “lecturing” is patriarchal, precisely, but this idea that we have to be kind to someone like someone, who doesn’t seem particularly teachable on any terms, in order to get our point across? Because treating him just like we would treat each other would hurt his feelings and cause him to dig in his anti-feminist heels? Pretty reminiscent of William Faulkner’s “Go Slow” essay.
Someone is not just ignorant, but belligerently so, and he has been all along. It’d be one thing to believe that women are less attracted to men’s bodies, but retaining that belief in the face of strenuous objection from actual women is insulting to those women. It’s insulting to tell someone that you know better than they do what they’re thinking and how they feel. It indicates a profound lack of respect to insist that they can’t possibly know better than you, when they’re the ones with firsthand experience.
It wouldn’t have made an iota of difference if we’d been gentle, or maybe ladled the sarcasm on a little less thickly. The moment we started trying to get him to understand that he didn’t know everything, that he was wrong about certain important things, and that he really should listen to people who would know, he would have locked up his mind and started with the eye-rolling and the “obviously….” He phrases personal beliefs pulled straight out of his eighteen-year-old ass as statistics. You know, like Gallup polls and census data and peer-reviewed studies? That’s indicative of some serious conceit.
Getting back to your other argument, this idea that women can’t speak in straightforward language about a deeply offensive attitude, because it’ll just confirm the anti-feminists beliefs about feminist stridency. You can’t confront double standards and appease them at the same time. You can’t simultaneously support and dismantle a lie. If people like someone can’t let go of their confirmation bias, there’s no talking to them in any case.
Holy carp, my last post was long. I wish people luck!
Lauren said:
Thanks, it was actually me who whipped out “heuristic.” I was rather impressed with myself too.
Brian Vaughan said:
Oh, I think this is a very common perception for males to have. Well, I had it at least. I was convinced that women were frail porcelain statues with no real desires, let alone for me. I couldn’t even recognize what it looked like for a woman to display interest. In retrospect, I realize that I was completely oblivious to any female display of interest in me. I didn’t even know how to tell when a woman was flirting with me; I was afraid to flirt because I thought it would mean “hitting on” a woman (which in my mind was wrong because “hitting on” a woman was something that only those bad boys with no respect for women would do).
Nowadays, I don’t know what to think as far as female desire goes. The obvious perception is that females on average don’t have quite the sex drive that males do. Is that perception correct? I don’t know. I have read evolutionary arguments on relative sexual desire, but they are unconvincing on their own. Last quarter I took a sociology course with a feminist professor in which we read that research on relative sexual desire was inconclusive. One theory in one of the books was that even if females in our current culture do have less sexual desire, it could still be due to cultural factors (such as females learning to repress their desire from an early age).
So when the sexual desire of males vs. females came up in a conversation with my friends, I took the chance to put forth these arguments. Yet none of my female friends bought my argument that females might have the same level of sex drive as males, and simply repress it or need different conditions to manifest it. One of my friends, who is a feminist and considers herself to have a high sex drive, considered the idea not only wrong, but laughable. Should I go tell her that she really has the same level of sex drive as males do, but just doesn’t know it? I really don’t know what to think at this point.
I want to point out that the perceived disparity in how much males and females want sex is a source of powerlessness for males as well as for females. If females as seen as wanting sex less, then it justifies the view that men should purchase sex somehow, either by doing her favors, or protecting her in some way, or giving her a relationship (if a man has a relationship with a woman, shouldn’t it be because he actually likes her, rather than because he feels somehow indebted to her for having sex with him?). The less women are seen to want sex, the more leverage they can have with it, and the easier it is to justify having males do all the work in courtship, or pay for dates (which is unfair and sexist to both people).
I’ve sat back and watched the thread develop with Someone for several days now. His posts are nothing if not so cliched, they come off as almost surreal. He states at one point that we’re just like other feminists at other feminist blogs, and that one had me wondering – what is his purpose in going around to feminist blogs?
And yes, Aegis, you are lecturing. You’re asking people who aren’t your or his peers to acquiese to what Piny correctly called belligerent ignorance of the subject matter. It’s kind of laughable really, in that here is this 18 year old young man attempting to define and ‘school’ us on women, sexuality and this foolish notion of ‘sexual power’. The collective us is a group of adults in either their 20’s, 30’s or 40’s, well educated, and well versed in the realities of sex, attraction and rape. He’s offered genuine statistics and information to help him see the picture in a better way and he dismisses it and comes back with this whole ‘alpha/beta/gamma’ routine that is horseshit and then is offended when people call him on it. He calls us, and then later women up through the age of 23 ‘girls’ and again attempts to school us on it being an acceptible colliquialism – say what? He again gets upset because this isn’t met with the civility that he feels is his due (ohhh, get to call people dismissive names and feel entitled to it – what does that sound like to you? Could it be false entitlement? Uh oh). After that he gives us his opinion on how women are less sexually libidinous than men – huh? Or that teen girls don’t lust – ummm, my bedroom as a teen was lust center – the full Outsiders cast shirtless and pretty, staring at me, beckoning me, oh YES ROB LOWE, YES – digression, sorry, that was me not masturbating as a teen, and not feeling lustful. Pffft. And then, Someone went on to tell us we were crazy if we couldn’t see how his sophmoric view of reality was the real deal, and attempted to play the ‘feminist’ card, which again is a classic example of attempting to silence women via implication of hateful bias. Which do you suppose came first, Aegis, the experience or the feminism? I wasn’t a self-declared and really self-aware feminist until I was 26 or 27, and even then it’s been a journey of revelation and knowledge that has far too often floored me.
And finally, what do you suppose the odds are that a similar tone and tenacity would be applied to a forum where you or he felt that you were among a group of older intelligent, academic males was going on. Would you be nearly as quick to dismiss them? I’m thinking not, but you feel free to prove me wrong – with example please, ‘I would’ is not really going to wash I’m afraid.
I know this went a while back but..
Someone said:
Go read Elaine Morgan’s Descent of Woman. It explains the physical differences between men and women from a different prepective, than women adapted to look the way men to (instead there are logical reasons for the way women/men look, and we find them attractive because we recognise these adaptions)
My guess is that the “women just don’t like sex” crowd watches A LOT of porn. Yes, they are bad actresses who are clearly doing it for the cash.
But let me tell you a secret boys……*whisper* If real life, women actually have sex enthusiastically. In fact, women can go further and do much, much more than men.
Maybe that’s it. Considering that women’s sexual capacity far outstrips men’s, maybe the insecure sexist reaction is to deny our true natures to ourselves. Men worth knowing delight in women’s capabilities.
My guess is that the “women just don’t like sex” crowd watches A LOT of porn. Yes, they are bad actresses who are clearly doing it for the cash.
But let me tell you a secret boys……*whisper* If real life, women actually have sex enthusiastically. In fact, women can go further and do much, much more than men.
Maybe that’s it. Considering that women’s sexual capacity far outstrips men’s, maybe the insecure sexist reaction is to deny our true natures to ourselves. Men worth knowing delight in women’s capabilities.
Oh Amanda, stop being so kinky! And stop giving away women’s bedroom secrets ;-) Let the insecure boys keep thinkin’ that women are asexual prudes unless they want to get pregnant.
In particular…
Okay, just call me crazy for a second here… these fat layers could be storage of energy for growing/nursing a child? Surely it’s more likely a women’s body is designed for child-bearing primarily, and that men find these features sexy because they, on some level, realise this women would be good at bearing children/would bear well adapted children.
Of course, this doesn’t work in todays society beause lots of over-riding instincts are pushed onto people (thin to the point of starvation is sexy! really!)
Following your argument? More muscles, broader shoulders etc. Lack of fat? unless you are arguing that women started out identical to men, and then only the women adapted? If all the changes women developed to become more attractive to men, there would be changes in the male for similar reasons.
Following mine. None – we find the features attractive because they are good adaptions, they did not adapt because we find them attractive.
Amanda, I have a great deal of respect for your opinions, which makes it all the more painful when you make flip comments about people who aren’t sexually active or are sexually repressed. I’ve thought I shouldn’t hold it against you — I may be such a freak case, a statistical outlier, that it’s unfair to expect anyone to account for me. Still, it hurts.
No, I don’t look at much porn.
I am tired of people twisting my words. You are all pretty intelligent people here, so you are perfectly aware when you are doing it. Like Amanda babbling about women being asexual, when I even gave you “numbers” like 10 and 7.
Or piny with that ridiculous crap about “everyone” when I have never mentioned the word everyone in my bloody definition which i quoted a few posts ago, read it piny!!
Nevermind with making a new large post then.
If the people here just bothered to read my earlier posts all their “misunderstandings” would have been cleared.
I already explained everything many times over and over, and it’s really simple stuff too.
These cute little “misunderstandings” are intentional without a doubt.
Kim spouts out
What a shame that I didn’t actually call anyone in here a girl, isn’t it.
But don’t worry, everyone, this isn’t a problem for Kim. She will just put words in my mouth! That is so easy.
(Nevermind the fact that there isn’t anything offensive about the word girl and it’s just some crap La Lubu made up on the spot to beat me on the head with.)
piny says
Now, piny, if these women also were men in their free time and could compare their attraction to the opposite sex in their male form to what they experience in their female form, then their experience would have been complete.
Otherwise they have as much credibility as me!
But don’t let logic stop you. It is not ok for me to say “I think that women are less attracted to men’s bodies, due to these mounts culturual evidence” but it is ok for them to say “women are attracted just as much as men, even though I don’t know what actual men feel since I am not one, and there is little cultural evidence to back up what I say.”
piny said:
Oops, you are right… but I hope you still recognized my main point. The intent of my post was not to lecture feminists on how they should, but simply to give them a common sense guideline to getting heard by people like someone.
I sure hope that posters here don’t treat each other the way they were treating someone! (I am not talking about you in particular; although you have misread both someone and I a few times, I have appreciated how you have remained civil and reasonable.)
First, from my viewing of the thread, it seems that someone became belligerent after several people had been insulting him and distorting his words for quite a while. All that shows is that he will get angry after being pushed; in other words, he is human.
Second, I don’t buy your argument that it’s disrespectful for someone to claim that women have a lower sex drive, even in the face of the women in this thread telling him otherwise. Perhaps incorrect, but not disrespectful. There is hardly a consensus among women about whether they have a sex drive that equals the male drive. As I mentioned, I talked to women who have basically laughed at me for suggesting that women have the same level of sexual desire that men do. Someone should not be demonized for disagreeing with the self-knowledge of the women here, considering that in the wider world, female opinion on this subject isn’t consistent. (Also, just because some women here claim to have a high sex drive, it doesn’t follow that women on average have the same level of sexual desire as men. For all I know, the women here would simply be statistical outliers, or they might be mis-estimating their sexual desire as compared with males. Now, I am not sure whether this is actually the case or not; I really don’t know what to think on the case of female sexual desire.)
Maybe it would have made a difference, or maybe it wouldn’t have. We will never know, will we? I would like you to consider that perhaps one of the reasons he became stubborn was the attitude that was displayed to him.
I should also point out that from the perspective of a young man (or at least me), it seems not just apparent, but extremely, blatantly obvious that women don’t have as much sex drive as men do on average. I am willing to doubt my perception in this area, but I cannot pretend that it isn’t a very compelling perception. I suspect that someone has the same impression as I do. From his point of view, it probably looked very silly for the feminists here to argue that women have the same level of sexual desire that men do: you might as well have argued that the sky is orange. Perhaps that will explain his incredulous reaction. Hence, I don’t think you can call him disrespectful simply for defending a perception that seems obvious to him. I think the real question here is: why would a young male get the seemingly obvious impression that females were less interested in sex than males? Is this due just to cultural attitudes? Or to the way the entire system of male-female interaction is set up?
That’s not what I said. I didn’t say that women “can’t” speak, I pretty clearly said that how they posed their arguments was their own choice. I said that if feminists want men to listen, then feminists need to pose their arguments in a way that is at least not insulting (and it would probably be good to thrown in some reason, respect, and intellectual honesty also). This is nothing to do with either feminists or men. If person A wants to change the mind of person B, then it is probably most pragmatic for person A to avoid insulting person B. Simple as that! It doesn’t matter who is right, and it doesn’t matter what they are arguing about. It is simply human nature for anyone being attacked in a discussion to dig in their heels.
I honestly don’t see what some feminists here hope to gain by using personal attacks. Feminists who think that insulting a man will make him magically wake up and see his male privilege are sorely mistaken. Insults do nothing to change people’s minds, all they do is make the person venting feel a bit better, and possible look good in front of those who already agree with her.
(Sigh) Which “everyone” are you referring to, now? This is a four-hundred-comment thread. If you don’t at least requote, no one knows what you’re referring to. You have, however, made lots and lots of extremely general statements–I see no reason why we should be expected to read complexity into them.
This is the gist of what I’ve read so far:
Women as a class are less interested in sex than men as a class. They’re less visually-oriented insofar as attraction. Their attention is less drawn to men’s bodies. Because they don’t need sex, they can leverage their bodies against men’s greater–well-nigh uncontrollable, sometimes–desire for sex, in order to get stuff. Since men are so much more interested in sex with women than vice-versa, there is far less pressure on women to work to attract men. They don’t have to do anything special, just not be butt-ugly or smell like sour milk.
Additionally, women don’t have to worry about being labeled sluts, or otherwise punished for sexually acting-out. It’s not an issue anymore, at least not such that any woman would restrict herself because of it.
Society does not condone rape, and most people think rape is a very bad thing, full stop. When people display biases towards rape victims or perpetrators, they have nothing to do with sexism.
Have I misread you?
>>I should also point out that from the perspective of a young man (or at least me), it seems not just apparent, but extremely, blatantly obvious that women don’t have as much sex drive as men do on average. I am willing to doubt my perception in this area, but I cannot pretend that it isn’t a very compelling perception. I suspect that someone has the same impression as I do. From his point of view, it probably looked very silly for the feminists here to argue that women have the same level of sexual desire that men do: you might as well have argued that the sky is orange. Perhaps that will explain his incredulous reaction. Hence, I don’t think you can call him disrespectful simply for defending a perception that seems obvious to him. I think the real question here is: why would a young male get the seemingly obvious impression that females were less interested in sex than males? Is this due just to cultural attitudes? Or to the way the entire system of male-female interaction is set up?>>
First, tell me why you thought this as a young man, and why you continue to wonder as an adult. What evidence did you have for this conclusion? Was it that women fucked around less? Was it that there was less sexual material out there that was directed towards women? Was it that women spoke less openly about jacking off and fantasizing? When you saw a young woman lusting after a hot guy, either a local or a celebrity, did it seem like romance to you, somehow unconnected to sexual attraction? Did you never talk openly with young women about sex? Did the young women you slept with seem not to enjoy it as much? Any idea why that might have been?
Someone doesn’t seem to have any interest in thinking about these questions, even when they _were_ brought up respectfully. There’s also hardly a consensus that women feel less sexual desire. Bear in mind, as well, that someone didn’t argue that women _as a class_ feel less sexual desire–he seems, at least, to feel that to be a woman is to feel less sexual desire. And here on this thread, nearly a dozen women of disparate circumstances and upbringings have told him that he’s wrong about all of them. That would give a reasonable person pause, wouldn’t it?
Kim said:
Actually, I’m not asking you to do anything. If I was to do so, I would simply suggest refuting someone’s arguments with attacking him or distorting his statements. I don’t think he is displaying belligerent ignorance; the worst he is guilty of is innocence and naivete. But neither ignorance or innocence are a crime. Instead of dismissing him, you might try to understand his point of view (even if you think he is wrong). I think it is important for feminists to understand the perspectives of young men; after all, we are tomorrow’s potential patriarchs… or are we?
Maybe he honestly believes that it is an acceptable colloquialism? Maybe in his area, it is acceptable? Maybe he was talking specifically about young women? I don’t see any reason to read a sense of entitlement into his words.
Hell yes. I have no respect for authority, even male authority, when that authority is wrong. I have seen flamewars between males on the very subject of relative sexual desire, and I have argued on both sides of it at different times. I don’t know whether this will “wash” with you or not, but I don’t feel like I need to prove it to you (just as it would be innappropriate for me to ask you to prove that you don’t hate men).
P.S. someone: I am not sure that there is mountains of evidence that women have less of a sex drive than men on average. I prefer to remain agnostic on this subject. Yet either way, women have more sexual power during youth in our culture, for reasons that I might explain in a future (though you probably already know some of them). I would urge that you cool down a bit (or else it just gives people in this thread more of an excuse to demonize you). To other people, I would urge you to actually read what he says instead of constantly distorting his statements.
Okay, you didn’t ask, you advised based on the idea that his statements have been distorted. Believe me, they haven’t. You then went on to state I should try to see it from his POV, which as I noted prior I attempted to do for nigh 100 or so posts. The dismissive attitude that has become the common theme directed at him is based on his consistent restating of his opinions, after causing a huge amount of thread drift, coupled with consistently trying to back up offensive ideas with non-existent statistics. He’s stated he frequents other feminist blogs, and has gotten a similar poor opinion of them ‘you’re just the same!’ I believe was the statement – which tells me he’s here to stir the pot with some feminists. Whose fault is it if he’s in over his head.
I think it’s important for feminists to understand the perspectives of people in general – that doesn’t mean that we are responsible for molly-coddling people who attempt to go toe-to-toe with us on issues that we have bothered to become informed and knowledgeable about. Regardless of all that, something Amp and I were discussing the other day resonates in this line of thought – people that display the sort of ‘despite lacking knowledge, experience or background, I’m sticking to my guns’ attitudes are not going to have an epiphany over a thread on the Internet. Some points might resonate with them, and might come back with a ‘ding ding ding!’ sound at some point later, but I don’t think any of us are holding out for a ‘Blessed be, I have seen the light!’, at least not any time real soon. I know that this is likely to offend you and Someone, but based on your arguments and the stagnation, repetition and inclination towards thread drifting, I’m fairly certain that the people who have tolerated the self-preoccupation that has accompanied this drifting have given you both as much at this point as you can or will absorb.
Part of society is hoping so, but plenty of us with daughters of our own are of the mind ‘not if I can help it, and not where I can help it’.
Well, clearly, despite AMPLE evidence and information to the contrary it is not. I wouldn’t be surprised if his area does commonly use and accept the term ‘girls’ when referring to women when considering his views – that doesn’t make it okay on a feminist blog, especially not repeatedly, after it having been explained. If he was referring specifically to young women, he should have used the term young women, as girl refers to a female child. Going to a feminist blog, repeatedly using a term that has been established as dismissively sexist even after being told is a very clear ‘in your face’.
We’re not talking ‘authority’ with regards to obedience here, we’re talking authority with regards to extensive knowledge with regards to the subject matter. You made some good points about what it is he might perceive, but you failed to acknowledge the framework of how he offered his perceptions and to whom.
Here’s the kicker, this is from the perspectives of two 18/19 year old men. Young men are indoctrinated into a belief set of it not only being okay, but a masculine imperative to pursue relief for their teenage sexual urges. Young women are indoctrinated into a belief set that their sexual activity is a commodity, and they need to play the market wisely or someone won’t buy their milk (teehee). Why buy the, right? It’s certainly not equal, honest, or indicative of sexual longing, but instead of perspective conditioning. I’m sure you’re both familiar with the idea of there being young women that are relationship material, and young women that are one-night-stand material, based on the lack of or presence of rumored sexual proclivity, right?
Someone said:
1. La Luba did NOT ‘make this up on the spot’. This is not a new concept – certainly I first came across this idea well over two decades ago.
2. La Luba is not the only one to object – several women on this thread have pointed out that it is offensive to infantilise women by calling them girls.
3. It is not the word girl which is offensive – it is the context in which you are using it.
piny 1
The “everyone” I am referring to is this one:
This isn’t how I defined it.
I defined it by using the number of potential partners, and I even specifically said that the more people you know the better it is for your ranking.
It is true, because the more people you know the better chance you have to get laid!
It isn’t about “everyone” which I take to mean every single person they could meet in their lifetime, or every single person on earth, it’s about the circle of people they interact with.
The definition might need some tweaking because it doesn’t include all kinds of “unusual situations”.
For example, if someone is locked up in prison, does he become “gamma” since he can’t interact with any women? What if outside of prison he is the guy that gets all the women?
But whatever…
Yes… now you see… If lardassed bulldyke actually has more potential sexual partners than fluffheaded Britney clone, or in other words there is more guys that like lardassed bulldyke than fluffheaded Britney clone, then lardassed bulldyke wins.
It means that lardassed bulldyke has better mating potential than fluffheaded Britney clone.
If they are the only two females in our scope and the difference in their popularity is significant, then lardassed bulldyke is alpha, and Britney clone is beta.
My ranking system is working perfectly.
Indeed, you can’t. And this is not what my ranking system is about.
It’s just a shorthand.
—-
Aegis
I never excluded the possibility that it is due to cultural factors, in fact a large portion of it is doubtlessly due to cultural factors.
In our modern times we can certainly see much more women acting in much more sexual ways than their grandmothers did when they were young.
This is true…
Yes…
I am fairly sure that if you just picked up a random stranger from the street, they would agree with me.
Even if this random stranger was a woman.
And although some women would argue that they have as much sexual drive as men, I am sure that few would argue that they are attracted to men’s bodies as much.
They obviously can see that although they might oggle men sometimes, men oggle them about 200 times more often…
—
piny 2
Yes
Besides the exaggerations, yes.
It is not true that I said that women don’t need sex, and it is not true that all women can do it. It depends on the particular woman and man involved.
For example if the man has many more options to choose from, he doesn’t have to give in to her. Or he can simply not find her attractive.
It doesn’t work every time, it actually works pretty rarely.
It works best for very attractive women, it is not a very reliable tool for average women.
But yes, the tendency is that women get “stuff” from men by using sex.
The same tactic is sometimes used in relationships, withholding sex until your partner gives in to whatever your condition was.
This tactic is more often used by women than by men.
Do you disagree with this?
Well she does need to have some social contacts, so that she actually has some men to interact with…
But otherwise, yes.
Well to be honest, I can’t know for sure.
There are many young women acting sexual, wearing very revealing clothes, spending their time in pubs and clubs, switching their sexual partners often, etc. (This fits the definition of a “slut”.)
But then there are many that are quite insecure and they could be hurt a lot if someone started insulting them in this way, or spreading rumours about them.
And there can be negative consequences in schools, like VK’s story in post 179.
Yes…
I don’t know about this, I am in a conflict now.
As far as I am aware, in the US and the UK there is some law that prevents evidence about the alleged victim’s past sexual behaviour to be viewed in court.
If this is true, then “sluttiness” shouldn’t be an issue?
As for regular people, I don’t think that it is wise to assume that most people are biased against women simply because they are women, even women themselves. This doesn’t make much sense…
I do, it’s just that if you haven’t noticed, the last 100 posts or so were mostly spent on bickering instead of doing something productive.
So first, let’s establish firmly that we are discussing two related but different things.
1) Sexual drive
Sexual drive is how much one wants sex, how often one has sexual thoughts, etc.
2) Visual sexual attraction to the opposite sex
How much women are attracted to men’s bodies, how much men are attracted to women’s bodies.
Now let’s think, how can we actually compare these things.
Perhaps we could use signs of sexual interest to compare “sexual drive”, and signs of sexual interest in the opposite sex to compare “visual sexual attraction to the opposite sex”.
Is this ok?
Thinking about it now, It might be true that women’s sexual drive is similar to men…
They do display a whole lot of signs.
Women look at porn less, but this isn’t necessarily an indication of a lesser sexual drive, but perhaps an indication of other things such as:
1) A lesser interest in visual excitement than sensual excitement
2) Cultural attitudes to porn as “stuff for males”.
With masturbation (which is a sign of sexual interest) the problem is more complicated though.
How much is it affected by cultural attitudes?
Has the level of male masturbation been similar throughout the ages, or did it become a massive obsession only in the recent few decades, when porn became available, and society’s attitudes on sexuality became much laxer?
Is the data that we have now on the popularity and frequency of masturbation in males and females accurate and trustworthy enough to be considered in a discussion?
I think that questions 1 and 2 are for an expert to answer, and 3 would probably be a no.
So I could accept that perhaps women have the same “innate” sexual drive as men, but they express it less or in different ways.
There is an interesting question though… young women often wear very sexual clothes, and even their “normal” summer clothes still expose a lot of their body.
Does this cause no sexual feelings for them? If it does, and we assume that females masturbate less than males, then how do they let out these sexual feelings?
Now for visual attraction…
What are the signs of visual attraction that males display?
– Looking at women that they meet or see when they walk around somewhere
– Looking at porn with naked female models in it, this is done by the majority of men, especially young men that have internet access. Among those it’s pretty much universal.
– Having their attention stolen by ads with attractive female models (which are a multitude)
– A personal belief that women are the “beautiful” or “sexy” sex
What are the signs of visual attraction that females display?
– Looking at men that they meet or see when they walk around somewhere – this happens much less often than men looking at women
– Looking at porn with naked male models in it – much more rare than the opposite, and even among women that don’t look at porn regularly I doubt that most spend the majority of their pornviewing time looking at male models. (Some poll or study would be nice to see.)
– Having their attention stolen by ads with attractive male models – not really, hence there isn’t too many of these ads
– The majority of women certainly don’t hold the belief that men are the “beautiful” or “sexy” sex
Now let’s look at the means that males and females use to attract someone with their body, and how often they are used.
We can all agree that this way of attracting people is predominantly used by women, and the entire area of culture that focuses on improving one’s looks to become more attractive is mostly concerned with women.
There is a multitude of various style of clothes and haircuts which isn’t matched by men’s clothes and haircuts, all kinds of ways to act, walk and talk, make-up, magazine articles to givwe them information (which are read by many women), etc…
So I hope that we can agree that regardless of whether it is more of a cultural development than a genetical predisposition, women still rely on looks much more to attract men, and as a compliment to this men display more signs of being visually interested in women.
Summary:
Women and men might have similar levels of sexual drive, but certainly not similar levels of visual attraction to the opposite sex.
In contemporary western culture, women’s bodies are highly sexualized, their “feminine features” are usually highlighted, even in formal dress, women employ a wide variety of means to appear attractive to men, but the reverse happens much less often, men rely much less on their looks to attract women, and they tend to employ more direct approaches to finding a partner.
We can make an analogy of men as a “bee” and women as a “flower”. (I hope that this analogy is understandable, although it is not entirely accurate, since a bee can enter into any flower without performing social rituals and the flower finding it attractive.)
This is how it works in contemporary western culture and in most of the world except the areas that practice arranged marriages.
Conclusion:
As a result of this, women’s looks (if they are not ugly) contribute more in their “sexual ranking”, so they need to spend less effort in other areas, such as “personal charm” and “image”.
This is especially true for very attractive women, whose personality and attitude can often act as a detrimental factor, but their looks still pull them up on top.
For an average woman, finding sexual partners is somewhat easier than for an average man, due to the aforementioned difference in the importance of looks, and the fact that men tend to be more active and direct in their search for a sexual partner (which may be culturally determined or not, it doesn’t matter here).
However finding someone that she truly likes for a relationship and then keeping this relationship is probably just as hard…
Because of this, it is not correct to say that men have enough power in relationships and in the “dating game” to exert their demands on women in every area of life.
Both males and females have a wide range of modes of interacting with their partner in a relationship, women are not submissively dependant all the time, and men are not “dominant” all the time, it is much more balanced in reality.
Or perhaps La Lubu agrees that in contemporary society looks indeed play a much larger part in women’s attractiveness, but she disagrees that it is a consequence of different levels of visual attraction to the opposite sex’s appearance in women and men?”¨Is this it? I am trying to understand you better…
If you were honesty trying to understand other people on this thread better, you wouldn’t have behaved like you did.
I won’t speak for La Lubu, someone, as she’s given you excellent replies herself, which you proceeded to completely ignore. So much for you trying to understand.
You say your ideas about women and sex are not even up for discussion. How’s that for trying to understand, again?
Try this, if it’s not too complex for you: one thing is to say that there is a higher emphasis placed at cultural, social, advertising, media etc. level about women’s looks, another thing is to say that’s just how mother nature wanted it because she equipped women with less of a visual response than men.
You talk like everything that exists in society is biologically ordained. Then what are human societies for? Just a flimsy cover for animal behaviour? Or may our social and cultural histories have influenced the way we behave more than any other animal, don’t you think?
What is up with all those long pants and t-shirts.”¨Come on boys, let’s show off those hairy legs and flat hairy chests. :-D”¨The ladies will be loving it.
Someone, you really sound like you lived in a cage all your life, or like you’re purposefully takin the piss, I hope it’s the latter, because at least it would mean you’re not that thick.
Are you talking of women who you see around in a city during the day, going to work, in shops, in restaurants, cafes, like, normal daytime activities when people usually go about fully clothed? Please tell me, in winter, do you spot women being less covered up than men? In summer, doesn’t everyone expose more skin? Or do women go to work in July in their bikinis while men wear suits?
Context, come on. In holiday resorts in the summer, everyone will be half-naked. In nightclubs, you’ll find many people who are wearing what they wouldn’t wear in daytime in the office. Are you telling me you’ve never been to any place where you’ve noticed men making an effort about their looks and clothes and style and haircut?
Do you watch tv, at least? Do you ever watch mtv? Do you ever see the videos where hip hop male stars show off their pecs and abs? Do you think they’re doing it for a gay audience only?
Nike ads? Hello?
You think men’s bodies are not appealing. That’s you. How on earth can you think they’re not appealing to anyone else? Especially hetero women, doh?
Plus you know, hate to break it to you, there’s a lot of men who aren’t anywhere as hairy as your caricature description. It’s bizarre, really, that you should consider your own sex so unworthy of being looked at. But unlike what you did to other people here, I’m not going to have some cheap armchair psychology shots at you.
Oh, and the “flat chest” thing: that’s so funny, because it’s clear you’re looking at male bodies with the eyes of an unexperienced heterosexual male with very strict ideas of gender roles, and it’s like you expect women to be attracted by the same things men are attracted in women! (And you probably can’t even conceive of gay male attraction, can you?) You like women, you like boobs, you can’t think of why women would find a male chest attractive, because it’s flat! LOL. Like, if men had breasts instead of flat chests, they’d be more attractive to women?
You probably don’t even realise how absurd you sound.
In contemporary western culture, women’s bodies are highly sexualized, their “feminine features”? are usually highlighted, even in formal dress
You mean boobs, again? (A little obsessed, aren’t we?) Can you explain how you would envision any kind of dress that would be comfortable to wear and that completely masked or the presence of breasts, small or medium or big as they may be? Hint: it’s not possible to hide breasts if you have them. And why on earth would anyone want do to that.
Men don’t have breasts. Get over it! But please don’t tell us you are completely unaware of any style of clothing, casual or sporty or more formal, that does highlight the shape of men’s bodies.
The problem is you look at female bodies with the hyper-sexualised look of a teenager who hasn’t had much sexual experience yet; you fetishise body parts, you even conflate visual attractiveness with pornography. And you simply expect women to feel sexual attraction and visual attraction the very same thing *you* do (as you hold yourself as teh one representative of all male behaviour). To the point you expect them to be unaroused by male chests because they’re flat.
That’s why you say women are less attracted visually to men. You just expect there’s one kind of visual attraction to one kind of body shape only, the female one. How thick is that?
We can make an analogy of men as a “bee”? and women as a “flower”?. (I hope that this analogy is understandable, although it is not entirely accurate, since a bee can enter into any flower without performing social rituals and the flower finding it attractive.)
Ah ok I get it, so you do see sexual behaviour as a mere matter of animal instinct covered up by social rituals, all right, that explains a lot.
Let’s not bother with all that part about female promiscuity in animals or even how in some animal species it’s the males who attract females by parading their appealing features (male birds equipped with elaborate ornamental plumage and engaging in courtship rituals to attract females). No, no, you just pick your classic clichés from nature as you see fit, and please, do not ever think you’d learn anything about sexuality by being curious and interested in your partners’ desires and preferences, nooo, your own certainties are much too precious to be challenged, even if you’d benefit from that challenge. Remain unexperienced, ignorant, and completely self-centered, that’s how you’re going to have a happy sexual life.
This has nothing to do with the ways in which society condones rape, nooo…
(which may be culturally determined or not, it doesn’t matter here)
Oh yes it does matter, because we’re talking social behaviour, sexual behaviour in complex human societies, with cultural factors that developed through centuries of history.
And it matters even more if we’re talking of social reactions to rape, as opposed to notions about ordinary dating and sexual attraction.
Cultural expectations are exactly the point here.
Err… I have legs like a goat and some women find them sexy and have told me so. I say “Thanks” and maybe something else. Not “You cant possibly think that! You are strange! They arent sexy! Theyre awful man hairy legs only made for walking!” So :-D indeed…
Um… noodles. Read my post more carefully.
Saying “women rely on looks more” is not the same as saying “men don’t rely on looks at all, never“.
Quit with the endless exaggerations, it is so boring.
Stop thinking in extremities.
Of course men try to pick clothes and hairstyles to be more attractive, but my statement is still true, and you too agree with it in your own feminist way. (Ie, sexual objectification, women’s magazines, make-up and sexy clothes mandatory for women to be found attractive etc. It’s just another way to look at it.)
I am not negating the promiscuity of human females, I am saying that they rely more on looks to attract a mate.
It doesn’t mean that for males looks are completely unimportant. Why must you jump from one extremity to the other?
And that stuff about male birds… humans aren’t birds.
Your first statement is untrue.
Research at Northwestern University demonstrated that women could sometimes have more powerful responses to visual stimuli than men, although in different ways.(emphasis mine)
The study used a device to measure genital arousal in subjects as they looked at pornography. Heterosexual men were aroused by footage of men and women having sex. Gay men reacted to two men having sex. Women, regardless of sexual orientation, responded to everything. (emphasis mine)
In some cases, although women reported no sexual arousal, the device said otherwise.
The second statement is partly true in that in mate selection, women consider not just looks, but also other factors, including smell.
Research has shown that women can sniff out genetic differences in potential mates. When asked to smell T-shirts that different men had worn, women ranked more favourably those that belonged to men with dissimilar genes for major histocompatibility complex, a group of proteins involved in immunity to disease.
This would suggest that attraction for both sexes is ““ at some unconscious level ““ based on reproductive capacity. Since men can assess women’s reproductive capacity on appearance, this is their primary method of selection. Because women also bear the high cost of pregnancy (time, energy, health etc) they want to be assured any resulting child will be healthy and so supplement their visual assessments with olfactory information.
Quit with the endless exaggerations, it is so boring.
Stop thinking in extremities
Heh, right, as the pot said to the kettle…
Of course men try to pick clothes and hairstyles to be more attractive
Right…
but my statement is still true
Oh, ok then! Whatever you say, master of wisdom.
and you too agree with it in your own feminist way.
Oh, of course, yes, that was exactly my point…
I like that “in your own feminist way”, lol. You do get a special kick out of trolling feminist sites, don’t you?
I am not negating the promiscuity of human females, I am saying that they rely more on looks to attract a mate.
Ok, if you say so. It must be true.
Actually, you were also saying that women are not that visually attracted by men. And that flat chests must be unappealing. But whatever you said, I now know it’s True. So it doesn’t matter how much you try and protest you didn’t imply this or that, you’re right anyway.
It doesn’t mean that for males looks are completely unimportant. Why must you jump from one extremity to the other?
Oh sorry, you’re so right, I’m only putting words in your mouth, and I should probably adopt your idea of nuanced statements and reality-based conclusions…
And that stuff about male birds… humans aren’t birds.
Well honey, they aren’t bees or flowers either. Yet that’s the analogy you picked.
Humans are not animals, yet you keep applying a selective view of animal biology to humans.
But hey, doesn’t matter, you’re so right in everything you say. When you’re right, you can say whatever you like and not be called on it, and ignore everything that doesn’t fit your oh so nuanced and not at all extremely reductive statements.
There you go, happy now? Because you know, this discussion was not about social views of rape and/or how they related to ideas of sexuality, nope, it’s all about making you feel happy and your claims accepted and not criticised one bit.
someone says:
Actually, this comes from a bias in the way men and women look. Women has better periferal vision and can look in less obvious ways thn men can (i.e. women can oggle men out of the corner of their eyes, and don’t have to look as directly at the subject so it’s less obvious they are checking them out). Women oggle lots… they jsut gets away with it :)
Not in UK law (it’s at the judge’s discretion, and past sexual behavior is often brought up in trials, particularly as to whether the victim had had intercourse with the accused previously, and whether she was a virgin), and I don’t believe it’s true in all states either.
“Sluttiness” is an issue, and one that influences people hugely in rape trials.
someone, you really should go click on the links Spicy has provided.
And your ‘ranking’ system is very flawed. Since piny’s example flew right over your head, let me give you my example. I’m 5’5″, my hair is thick, black, and wavy. I have dark eyes, and light olive skin. I’ve got an athletic build, big boobs, a ‘booty’ (that’s “butt that sticks out in back”, rather than the pancake butt preferred by most white boys), and muscular thighs. And all those features added up to “dog” where I went to high school. Boys would really go out of their way to make sure I understood exactly how much of a dog I was, too.
Then I moved to another city. Wow. It was the difference between night and day. I attracted all kinds of positive male attention. The first time I started hearing whistles, I had to turn around to see what they were whistling at, because there was no way they were whistling at me! And when I went to work in St. Louis, it was unbelievable. I’d walk past men who’d actually say, “hello beautiful!” Unreal! Me?!!
What had changed? Not me. I was the same height, size, shape, and color that I was in high school. No, what had changed were the eyes of the beholders. See, where I went to high school, practically everyone was of German descent, with a smaller contingent of Anglo-Saxon descent, and an even smaller one of African-American descent (and with the level of racism there, there wasn’t any visible interracial dating at that time). The white boys of that area had a distinct preference for tall, straight-haired blondes. But when I moved to another area, one that had a pre-existing Italian-American population (not just me!), I found that even the non-Italian-American men found me attractive! And in St. Louis, it was amplified more.
So, I’m inclined to think that the alphabetical system is pretty meaningless, else how could I go from ‘gamma’ to ‘alpha’ without changing? And hell, if I lived in New Jersey, I’d probably be a ‘beta’! And when you add some age into the mix, the system becomes even more meaningless. Adults (male and female) tend to put less importance on physical appearance than teenage boys. For one thing, adults put more emphasis on what they actually find attractive, as opposed to what they’re supposed to find attractive.
Which brings me to another point. Age. Ever hear the canard about men reaching their sexual peak at eighteen, while women don’t reach it ’till thirty-six? My, my. Quite the discrepancy, don’t’cha think? Ya think sexual repression could have anything to do with that? Women, particularly young women, have to hide their sexual interest….especially from boys. There isn’t cultural room for women to display our sex drive, without being considered ‘sluts’ or ‘freaks’, whereas boys can admit to sex and masturbation and still be ‘normal’. In high school, I’d have rather died than admit I jilled off, let alone admit the frequency of said jilling off! Now, I don’t give a shit.
And that’s key. See, the older a woman gets, the less she gives a shit about societal mores that have functioned to oppress her. She gives less of a shit each year that goes by. So, someone, when the women here, who are mostly in our late-twenties, thirties and forties, tell you that we really, really like sex—enjoy the living daylights out of it, actually—pay attention. You are judging the sex drive of women based on the reactions of sexually repressed eighteen year olds. Trust me—that will change. Speaking for myself (although I know I’ll get an amen corner here!), I had the same high sex drive as a teen that I do now. I just didn’t feel comfortable expressing it.
>>This isn’t how I defined it.
I defined it by using the number of potential partners, and I even specifically said that the more people you know the better it is for your ranking.
It is true, because the more people you know the better chance you have to get laid!
It isn’t about “everyone”? which I take to mean every single person they could meet in their lifetime, or every single person on earth, it’s about the circle of people they interact with.>>
Oh, that everyone. No, I read you right. You speak as if the lardassed bulldyke and the Britney Spears clone can be held to some universal or even widespread standard of attraction. Not that every human being on the face of the planet will find one more attractive than the other, but that _most people_ will find one more attractive than the other. This is not a sensible way to look at it, as I explained. Some people–like me–will find lardassed bulldyke infinitely sexier and more interesting than the Britney Spears clone.
>>Yes… now you see… If lardassed bulldyke actually has more potential sexual partners than fluffheaded Britney clone, or in other words there is more guys that like lardassed bulldyke than fluffheaded Britney clone, then lardassed bulldyke wins.
It means that lardassed bulldyke has better mating potential than fluffheaded Britney clone.
If they are the only two females in our scope and the difference in their popularity is significant, then lardassed bulldyke is alpha, and Britney clone is beta.
My ranking system is working perfectly.>>
Still not getting it. In the queer community in San Francisco, the bulldyke would have women lusting after her. The Britney Spears clone would probably be ignored. In the mainstream straight community, the Britney Spears clone would probably get more attention, and the bulldyke would face vituperative abuse. So…who has better mating potential? Isn’t mating potential a pretty oversimplified way of looking at it, given that the bulldyke probably isn’t terribly interested in heterosexual attention?
The mating potential standard implies that attractiveness is a concrete, objective quality. The thing is, most people are in unusual situations, and most people have idiosyncratic tastes. I am a freak to some people, and a fetish object to others. And if someone can increase “mating potential” by meeting more people to fuck, then what meaning does that standard have at all? It’s about exposure, not hotness? I’m a transsexual; I tend to attract serious interest from a specialized population. Do I have higher mating potential than a beautiful woman who happens to live in a small town?
>>But yes, the tendency is that women get “stuff”? from men by using sex.
The same tactic is sometimes used in relationships, withholding sex until your partner gives in to whatever your condition was.
This tactic is more often used by women than by men.
Do you disagree with this?>>
Yes. Withholding intimacy is a tactic used by both partners in an unhappy marriage. Where are you getting your facts? Seriously, do you have any statistics–actual ones, not just your observations phrased as ratios–to back this idea up? Or is it just something you’ve heard once or twice and decided to accept as true?
[On sluts]>>But then there are many that are quite insecure and they could be hurt a lot if someone started insulting them in this way, or spreading rumours about them.
And there can be negative consequences in schools, like VK’s story in post 179.>>
Then why did you insist in an earlier post that slut-bashing wasn’t something that would matter to a woman’s decisions about her sexual behavior?
>>I don’t know about this, I am in a conflict now.
As far as I am aware, in the US and the UK there is some law that prevents evidence about the alleged victim’s past sexual behaviour to be viewed in court.
If this is true, then “sluttiness”? shouldn’t be an issue?>>
In this country, at least, they’re called Rape Shield Laws. They prevent the defense from questioning the woman on specific aspects of her sexual history. They _do not_ prevent the defense from asking about general
sexual behavior, or from asking about her behavior on the night of the rape: “You had a few drinks, didn’t you? You went to that party planning to meet men, didn’t you? You were wearing revealing clothes….” So the sluttiness factor is mitigated, but not altogether controlled. There are also plenty of examples of defense attorneys violating the Rape Shield Act–look at the Kobe Bryant case. Furthermore, these are legal prohibitions. They have no effect on the media or on society in general, which is free to publicly discuss the woman’s past sexual behavior. Again, look at the Kobe Bryant case.
[On sluts]>>But then there are many that are quite insecure and they could be hurt a lot if someone started insulting them in this way, or spreading rumours about them.
And there can be negative consequences in schools, like VK’s story in post 179.>>
Then why did you insist in an earlier post that slut-bashing wasn’t something that would matter to a woman’s decisions about her sexual behavior?
Apparently, piny, the “slut” in question just has to be confident…?
That’s a nice article Spicy, I have read about that somewhere before. Most of it actually proves my point though.
La Lubu’s stuff about racist school and moving: You moved, the males around you were new, not the same old racist ones. So your ranking changed. My system isn’t flawed. It isn’t supposed to be a damn constant, read what I say for once.
Anyway, I am bored to death of arguing about this stuff with you all.
I don’t even feel like “proving” anything anymore, it’s all useless crap.
Bye.
(I might post in other threads though, you never know…)
Err… how exactly does it prove your point?
Uhhhh…
Because Spicy…
It said that heterosexual males were most aroused by female/female couples, and females were less “category specific” or whatever.
And both lesbians and heterosexual females were aroused by the same things on similar levels… Proving my point about women being “more bisexual”, “less visually focused on the male body” etc.
And they even had this quote
See… Not just I alone, a misguided teenager, think that there is at least some basis for making such an assumption.
I should really stop responding to this thread.
Also when I was posting this post, a sudden thought hit my head…
To make these experiments, the scientists obviously had to touch the volunteers’ genitals, put stuff on it, etc.
I bet it was a female lab assistant doing it for all of them, heterosexual females, lesbian females, heterosexual males, gay males, mtf transsexuals, ftm transsexuals.
And none of them probably objected.
But if it was a male assistant I bet that everyone except gay males would object and ask for a female assistant. (Perhaps some transsexuals wouldn’t, I don’t know that much about transsexuals.)
(But the people that were in charge for making the experiment wouldn’t put a male assistant anyway.)
See, does this tell you about some differences in male and female sexuality?
Damn… “this post” = “that post”
Hmm… althouigh if the equipment isn’t that complicated, they could have given the volunteers instructions on how to do it on their own…
But this doesn’t really matter here, just think of some other example.
No, someone, you’re still not getting it. The ranking system you have in mind is completely useless because it doesn’t take into account that the alphabetical rankings have nothing to do with objective reality, and everything to do with subjective opinion. The “alpha”, or whatever, isn’t a quality of the person being watched; it’s in the mind of the person doing the watching.
It matters, because it takes literally all kinds of people to make this world go around. All kinds. You will find this out someday. I can guarantee you that some of the boys you know who rave about Britney clones, actually find other types of women (or perhaps even men) more attractive. It’s just not considered socially acceptable for them to admit to it. One of the guys I went to high school with was what you would call an ‘alpha’; he was tall, physically fit, gorgeous, with curly hair. He dated a lot of girls, from all the ‘cliques’, and most of the neighborhood guys were jealous as hell of all the female attention he garnered. They were especially jealous of his ability to pull the “pretty girls” who played dumb. Who did he actually prefer to date? Intellectual fat girls. He married one. In his younger years, it wasn’t “cool” for him to “come out” like that. As he got older, he gravitated towards who he liked, not who he was supposed to like. And the pretty girls? Their intelligence level skyrocketed after high school, as they no longer felt the need to play dumb. Trying to extrapolate anything about human sexual behavior by what goes on in high school will leave you with an incredibly distorted view, to say the least.
La Lubu, just read the definitions, how much more simpler can it get?
My system is not wrong at all, it’s ridiculously simple.
You keep reading extended meanings into it which aren’t there.
Your story: Yes, okay… And what… You don’t get it, even though it’s so damn simple.
I will explain it for you on piny’s example…
Foolish piny attempts to disprove my system:
Now prepare for this shocking revelation…
If Bulldyke and Britney clone are located in the queer community in San Francisco and all the women are lusting after Bulldyke, while Britney clone is being mercilessly ignored, Bulldyke is alpha! Britney clone is gamma.
But!
If Bulldyke and Britney clone are located in the mainstream straight community and the Britney clone is facing vituperative abuse… then… Britney clone is alpha, Bulldyke is gamma.
Wow…
That was horrible and amazing at the same time, wasn’t it. :)
Okay and now something else that some girl just told me in a PM:
Yes, you see… males aren’t allpowerful and immune to any kind of bashing either.
Imagine if I was a younger teenager in school, and this girl hated me, she could start spreading rumours about me being gay, and the entire school would be laughing at me.
Kids in schools can be mean to kids of both genders… really…
Although the ways to hurt someone might be different dependent on gender… (and many that don’t have to do with gender of course)
Argh, what the hell am I doing still making posts here.
Time to play some Doukutsu Monogatari. ;)
I bet it was a female lab assistant doing it for all of them, heterosexual females, lesbian females, heterosexual males, gay males, mtf transsexuals, ftm transsexuals.
And none of them probably objected.
But if it was a male assistant I bet that everyone except gay males would object and ask for a female assistant. (Perhaps some transsexuals wouldn’t, I don’t know that much about transsexuals.)
(But the people that were in charge for making the experiment wouldn’t put a male assistant anyway.)
See, does this tell you about some differences in male and female sexuality?
If you’re just guessing, then no, it doesn’t.
Haha, how many times now has someone said that this is over or that he’s not going to post anymore?