Straight male Dopers: What do you think of this article?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was reading this Cracked articleyesterday, and although they do go a bit over the top (they’re a humor site–they have to keep people reading so they tend to sensationalize a bit) I saw a few grains of what I consider truth in it too.

In particular, it seemed to offer a pretty good explanation for something I wonder about a lot: why many guys seem obsessed with sex, but consider women who like to have sex to be “sluts.”

So, I’d like to get the opinion of a cross-section of straight guys and see how much of this they think is insightful and how much is horse pucky.

Everyone else is welcome to chime in too, of course, but I would particularly like to hear from straight guys since they’re who this is aimed at.

2

Well, I can’t get to the article from here, but I’ll take a stab at my theory:

Insecurity. “If she’ll fuck me that easy, she’ll fuck anybody.”

So, the women who are most ‘avilable’ are also the ones who trigger the most insecurity. Insecurity manifests itself as aggression or passive-aggression. Hence the labels and de-humanization (if she’s not worthy of respect, then her opinion of the guy’s shortcomings ahem doesn’t matter).

3

This is easy. The only thing ridiculous about this article is framing it as if it were something particular to modern men rather than, you know, sexist concepts that have been working against women since forever.

Yeah, maybe in some guys. But you know, I’d wager it’s less this and more than society just teaches us that sexuality exists for men’s benefit so women who have sex and enjoy it (specifically with men that are not us) are lessened by it. That’s all there is to it. We’re taught that women exist for our pleasure. Just ours. Not those other guys.

But you know what? If anyone’s eyes are opened by this article? Get with it, guys. Feminists have been saying it for a long time. And we should be listening to women about this. Not each other.

4

I think David Wong’s material is flat out some of the best content on the entire frickin’ internet. But, he wasn’t quite as dead-on accurate in this piece as he usually is. In some parts, yes, in some parts, not so much.

I don’t know enough to make any grand pronouncements about male-dom as a whole, so any observations I could make are heavily biased toward my own attitudes and experiences. With that in mind, I will say that I think that the sexual frustration he talks about- (wrongly) expecting that you’ll eventually be rewarded with a beautiful girl, seeing women as being “made of sex” the way a starving cartoon character sees someone as being made of food- is an unhappy, frustrating, ongoing fact of life for a lot of men. Of course, good men just sort of roll with it and accept it, while bad ones become the misogynistic assholes posting the sort of comments he links to. But either way, a man spends much of his life wanting sex with pretty women, and there are so many, everywhere, so tantalizingly close, yet you can’t have them. Through no fault or action of her own, but instead just by being attractive, a woman is just sort of doing the equivalent of waving money in the face of a poor person or food in front of a starving person and saying “Betcha wish you had THIS, doncha? Too bad.” Again, to emphasize, it’s not her fault or anything and she’s not being evil. It’s just sort of the way it is when you’re around someone who wants something you have.

I think this is the source of some of the negativity towards women who actually make themselves look downright sexy (which is the equivalent of being slutty, to the misogynistic asshole). It’s seen as doing it deliberately.

He’s also right about seeing women as decorations. I don’t know that I’d put it quite that bluntly, but assuming that what he’s really talking about is judging women’s physical appearance… well, yeah. It’s weird, because I think it’s completely stupid and awful, and yet I find myself doing it all the time. Including when Elena Kagan was in the news for her nomination for the Supreme Court. I really, really, would like to not do this, but damn it’s hard not to.

For me personally, the article misses the mark when it talks about “our manhood being stolen.” I have no interest in the supposedly “manly” things he mentions- “heroes and strength and warriors and cigars and crude jokes”- so I really don’t understand anyone who would think this. Also, I don’t buy his assertion that pretty much everything any man has ever accomplished was done for the purpose of impressing women. Every artistic endeavor, maybe: I think every wannabe musician, for example (and real ones, too) imagines pretty girls swooning over him and his music. But I think a lot of people, regardless of gender, just think it’s cool to build a big damn building or an awesome rocket.

The biggest problem with the article is that Wong quite rightly points out how awful a lot of men are towards women, but then seems to be trying to offer at least some sort of justification. Maybe it’s one of those “explain, not excuse” things, but… I don’t know. “Some people just suck” is a better explanation for some of these behaviors, if you ask me.

5

There is a lot of truth to the article, but I dunno… maybe I just know a lot of nice guys (really kind people, not Nice Guys), but this isn’t the men I know. I think more highly of them than that. But I am curious to see what the guys on here say. I wonder if my faith is misplaced.

6

Yeah, but, can you not see how this sort of objectification of women is exactly what is being pointed out to you? Women’s bodies are not objects like food or money to be used. They are not commodities. If we men are thinking this, there is undeniably fault to be found here. And it’s with us.

7

I’ve been thinking the same thing. What worries me is that it’s the men on my Facebook news feed passing this around to each other and commenting how accurate it is and their Friends have to read it. The women (including me) are being very, very quiet. That’s pretty f-ing scary. I think maybe our faith *is *misplaced. :eek:

8

Yes and no. It certainly is a form of objectification, but I’m not sure of the extent to which it can be helped. That’s not to say, of course, that sexual impulses excuse any sort of bad behavior (“How can you expect me, as a red-blooded male, not to [insert inexcusably dickish behavior here]?”) In these nature-vs.-nurture, biology-vs.-socialization types of debates, though, I tend to give a lot of credence to nature and biology. So, I don’t think a lot of guys can really help it that they see pretty women and immediately want them for sex. I don’t think the really demeaning sort of objectification comes from just wanting sex with pretty women- it comes from how a man responds to his inability to get it. The real sexism and misogyny comes when the sex is ALL, or mostly, what you want them for, or the only way you can envision them- in that case they become objects or commodities, like you put it. I sure as hell don’t think that, but I agree that a lot of men do.

Those men are jerks.

9

I’d agree with the vibe of the comments so far. He’s not totally off base in many ways, but his biggest mistake seems to be generalizing about men. We’re not all like that…we weren’t all subjected to the same influences, and we don’t have all the same thoughts behind the scenes.

The article actually exceeded my (fairly low) expectations, in that a lot of what he’s saying makes sense and explains a great deal of misogyny. But the idea that we’re all inherently misogynistic and that some of us just control it better than others is a bit off the mark.

10

But they are objects like art or scenery to be admired.

If you think of a woman as a commodity, yes, that’s wrong. If you think of a woman as beautiful, no, there is no fault to be found.

Men are hard-wired to look. It’s gonna happen; the trick is to do it in the right way. Feminists who want to make men feel guilty over all instances of looking are going to lose credibility. If that’s still possible.

Regards,
Shodan

11

Maybe I’m not male enough, or straight enough, or something, but I don’t recognise the picture painted by the article as normal. It’s not a description of men, it’s a description of assholes - and all joking aside, I don’t think the two things are the same.

12

Fascinating, and right on the money.

13

Taking the article’s points in turn:

#5. We Were Told That Society Owed Us a Hot Girl

TV isn’t real. Most adults realize this. Those that don’t, I can see hating women for not co-operating with fantasies.

#4. We’re Trained from Birth to See You as Decoration

Like I said, it happens before birth. It’s part of the hardwiring.

#3. We Think You’re Conspiring With Our Boners to Ruin Us

If you think that many or most women are out to get you, you’re ruined no matter what your penis does.

#2. We Feel Like Manhood Was Stolen from Us at Some Point

This sounds like Fight Club garbage.

#1. We Feel Powerless

More of the same. If you feel that manhood consists of being able to tell dirty jokes to a mixed audience, or driving too fast and acting stupid, well, there may be a career for you on World’s Dumbest Whatever, but you will have to grow up a bit if you want to date anything but drunk women.

Regards,
Shodan

14

Fair enough, but to me, it was a fairly fascinating insight into the minds of assholes themselves, and some explanations of why some of them, at least, act the way they do.

Some of it struck me as being way too much of an overgeneralization, but some of it, man … the use of Elena Kagen as an example was perfect, for instance. Some people’s reactions when she was nominated are a good example of what this article was trying to explain.

15

Right, and anyone who takes an article that uses examples from anonymous Internet posters, TV sitcoms and Garfield to make its point needs to broaden their study of 21st Century gender dynamics.

16

I think that article was based on stereotypes of a subsection of men (maybe 20-30%). I personally don’t think about sex all day (I think about it a handful of times a day, but that is about it. It isn’t a constant though. However if I see an attractive woman I think about that but I’m sure women do the same when they see attractive men), and I know several women who aren’t attractive where that is not a concern for me. I don’t demonize my female friends and coworkers who are unattractive or think of them as failed sex objects.

Point 5 could just as easily apply to women as to men (women are told that society owes them an attractive, wealthy, well respected, interesting man). I don’t think that point 5 was gender specific to men, I think that is a gender neutral issue.

Point 4 is fairly absurd too. Aung san suu kyi isn’t being judged for her looks. Our media tells us what they think our stereotypes want to hear. Just like that article. To the degree that women are judged solely for looks I think part of that is just a self fulfilling prophecy of people who think that is what they are supposed to do. I once read the male mind responds to an attractive woman the way it would respond to a nice steak. I can see that happening. But to imply that is ‘all’ women are good for is a stretch.

Point 3 has some truth about thinking with ones dick and how that can override more rational parts of the mind. But I don’t think you can extrapolate that into a society where people determine the best solution is the large scale blaming of and domination of women. That is quite a stretch.

I don’t believe point 2 on multiple levels. Not all guys think our ‘manhood’ was stolen from us. Even if we did, blaming women for it would be a stretch.

I think point 1 has some truth to it, and explains the openly hostile attitudes towards women seen in many cultures. But I don’t agree with it completely. It reminds me of a bit Doug Stanhope did about why prostitution is illegal. he claimed you had to do that to keep the supply of women low to keep mens noses to the grindstone. Some truth to it, but I don’t think at the level the article describes. Men focus on status/power to get high quality women, women focus on looks to get high quality men. But implying ‘everything’ is for women is a stretch.

Those attitudes seem the attitudes of the most emotionally repressed and/or psychologically damaged men who alternate between extreme dependence on women with intense hostility towards them. Not that I’m one to judge, considering my past (and current) history of problems. But still.

You could write an article about the attitudes of the most psychologically damaged and emotionally disturbed 20-30% of women too and get the same kinds of attitudes. But you can’t extrapolate that to everyone.

17

Yeah, exactly. I get so tired of all the insecure boys in so many internet comment threads (not to mention places like Fark and Reddit and other similar venues) defaulting to making derogatory (and often quite insulting and downright creepy/scary) comments about women’s appearance–any women’s appearance. It’s one thing to do that about women who make their fame by being attractive (even then it’s not right, of course, but it’s at least a little further up the continuum toward “understandable”), but why the hell do they have to comment on Hillary Clinton’s appearance, or Elena Kagen’s, or pick your favorite woman who’s in the public eye for something other than her ability to stimulate men’s smaller heads? Why is it that every time a girl or woman is pictured in a news article, the oh-so-clever assholes have to start tearing down her looks, speculating about having sex with her, and in general acting like a pack of rabid apes?

I know all men aren’t like that. I doubt that most of them are. It seems to concentrate more in teenage boys and twentysomethings, though I’ve seen it in older guys who never matured past ‘mom’s basement’ level. They’re out there, and they’re vocal. And I’d like to give every last one of them a good hard slap and tell them to grow the fuck up. (Can I say that in IMHO?)

18

Not only that, but all the examples given are movie heroes. For those of us who have never thought of ourselves as heroes or main characters or protagonists of stories, the point doesn’t apply.

This one reminded me a bit of the fairly recent Pit thread I am an ugly WOMAN, and I hate it. And I don’t see myself, or many of the male friends/family members/classmates/co-workers etc. I’ve spent much time around, in the crude comments quoted in either the Cracked article or the Pit thread. Most of the guys I know don’t talk like that; but I don’t doubt there are plenty out there who do.

If women are judged on how they look, it’s not because all men are doing it all the time, but it may be that enough men are doing it enough of the time that it has an impact. (And that’s not to mention the times when women judge themselves or each other by their appearance.)

“Almost no veto power”? Come on. As a normal, functioning, civilized adult, I am by no means a slave to my impulses, my emotions, or my sex drive. Blaming a man’s actions on his “little head” is just as much of a bullshit excuse as blaming a woman’s actions on her PMS.

Wait—what? I must have been made of something other than pure testosterone as a kid, because I don’t see myself in this description. If you think of “warriors and cigars and crude jokes” as characterizing manhood, you had different role models than I did.

This analogy made me smile at its aptness, and I admit some degree of truth to it. A “talking piece of food” isn’t the only thing I see when I look at or interact with a reasonably attractive woman, but yeah, that kind of reaction is at least in the back of my mind.

And no, women are not all we straight men think about. It’s not all about you. There are plenty of other reasons why I do things. But yeah, you women hold the keys to something we straight men want desperately. Not just physical sex, though that’s a big part of it, but also things like feminine attention and affection and admiration. And that does give you a certain power over us.

19

We have biological urges, but how those are expressed and lived out are different in difference cultures. Sex and gender relations, for example, are very different in Taliban Afghanistan and modern Denmark. US gender relations are not some perfect expression of our biological destiny.

20

We secretly admire Charlie Sheen? May as well secretly admire my tomcat when he sprays jit in my shoe.