Fathers of daughters: Do you think all men are scum till proven otherwise?

The BBQ Pit
121

Thanks. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have dropped that into the middle of an already contentious thread. But as you can probably guess, it’s been on my mind a lot and it probably is coloring my rather humorless approach to this thread. FWIW, I don’t think anything is too sacred to joke about, but I prefer to have no ambiguity as to whether or not something’s a joke when it’s about something serious. Like I said, I tried to view it as “just me” until someone else spoke up. I’m *really *sorry I spoiled your fun thread. :frowning: You can send some flying monkeys my way if you like.

And yeah, I’ve talked to her about it and she says she won’t “cross any lines.” And I feel like shit that I don’t completely trust her. She’s just an idiot when it comes to men. It’s just never affected me before so I’ve chosen to overlook it in the past. In every other way, she’s just a superlative human being, and she really is a spectacularly good influence on him during a time when I’m really not. (Not because I don’t want to be, but because like any 16 year old, he’s beginning to differentiate from his parents.)

’rigs, if it were my daughter, I’d be in the same spot. Mentorship + love + adult with a history of poor judgement = worry. I can’t think that I’d feel or act any differently than I am…keeping a very close watch and worrying a lot. I don’t want him hurt, I don’t want her hurt, and I don’t want our friendship to hurt, either.

sigh

Sorry, I’ll go back to MPSIMS now. I need some kitty pics.

122

Sorry, WhyNot. I hope it all turns out well. I’ve read a lot of your posts about both your kids, and I’ve always thought of you as an awesome mom in general…I hope this turns out okay for you and your son.

123

I feel obliged at this juncture to remind you to check my sig.

Did she use those exact words? Because those words make me distrust her somewhat too.

I’ll have to phrase this carefully. I don’t mean to accuse your friend of being duplicitous, mendacious, predatory; I don’t know her, after all. But phrasing it thus sounds like someone who’s playing with semantics. Were I in your position, I’d want her to have said, “I won’t make any advances toward him, encourage him to make any advances, or accept any advances he makes.” Phrasing her promise as “I won’t cross any lines” is rather passive in a situation that demands that she not be passive. She’s the adult; managing the situation is incumbent upon her.

124

You also know me well enough to know that I don’t change my opinions or pull any punches just to please others.
Fuck you for this blind spot in your sense of humor.
Fuck you for implying that I consider my daughter my property.
Fuck you for thinking you know anything except what other women have told you about men and how we think.

125

Wow, I was bewildered by the arrows flying in here.

My “Eureka!” moment.

The topic seems to have morphed around, so just to frame this post—parents are naturally protective of children. And there’s a father-daughter angle in there that the OP was addressing, and which I interpreted as “(underage) daughter.”

And of course parents do decide that kids aren’t ready for things, sometimes wisely and sometimes overprotectively. E.g. the parents might decide that a 16 year-old (m or f) is or isn’t ready to drive a car. But those parents are responsible if the kid wrecks it or gets killed, so IMO they need and deserve latitude in the decision-making area.

IMO the same applies to underage children, both m and f, reproducing. Besides the financial angle, I wouldn’t want my child getting hurt, emotionally or physically, and that’s irrespective of gender as well.

Anyway, the magic word in the cited post: “belongs.”

I’d been interpreting the “macho posturing bullshit” posts as all tongue-in-cheek, and IMO much or all of it was. But catsix’s word choice shows me that for some girls, that’s the reality. How bad would it suck if no guy could date the girl without feeling threatened by the father or brother etc.?

Yeah, there’s no humor in that. I get it now.

126

As a fully accredited owner of a pair of testicles, I have to agree with Catsix. You may or may not be joking, but when your joke is indistinguishable from what people seriously say, how are we supposed to know it is a joke? Many otherwise reasonable men lose all rationality when it comes to dealing with their daughter’s sexuality. And yes, when done seriously, it does come off as implied ownership. Compare the outlandish statements made in this thread to ones made by people who are talking about defending their homes or the right to keep guns.

I think Catsix may be reacting so strongly because she was one who was treated as either an infant or property. There are two implications to draw from these type statements: first that daughters (of whatever age) are incapable of dealing with males in a social situation without daddy’s protection, and that it is not their decision to make in the first place.

Jonathan

127

Which is why the thread should not have been moved. I don’t care enough to pit the mod (Czarcasm?) who did it, but if s/he had a problem with the tone of the thread, it would have been better to leave it where it was and admonish posters to take their acrimonious statements to a Pit thread than to permanently derail the thread that I started.

Moving the thread was ill-thought. It transformed what was meant to be a light-hearted, silly romp into the current mess.

128

I know, I know, but I’m going to keep trying to tempt you back to The Dark Side [sup]TM[/sup]! No one’s an evil mastermind like [del]you[/del] that bastard, Fabulous Creature! Now it’s all work, work work, and not a vat of flying monkey piss to be found in three counties.

She’s said it in many terms; that was one phrase used, but not the only one. (We’ve had a bunch of conversations over the last year as I keep checking in; doing my part to remain an active voice in the situation.) She did say he once *did *make a pass at her and she rejected him unequivocally, so that gives me some hope.

129

It’s a shame too, and not necessarily just because of some feminist bullshit about empowered women taking charge of their own bodies.

I see two possible outcomes of such over-protection. One of them is that the daughter grows up sheleted, naive, and doesn’t learn to fend for herself. She’s stunted, shy, and ends up marrying a man who owns her just as much as her father did.

The other outcome that I see is the one where the daughter realizes at some point that she can have a healthy life, and enjoy the company of men and have sex and like it, but that the cost will be high because she will have to distance herself from her father.

I’m sure you can guess which of those I was.

It’s not that my dad and I don’t speak at all, or that we’re not in any kind of contact. It’s all kind of businesslike and small talk, not the way it was when we would go hunting and fishing and I could talk to him.

I don’t want this to be about me, because it’s not. That all happened a long time ago, almost 20 years ago, and it’s not going to be fixed now. I’ve only brought it up cause guesses have been made about me being:

And both of those are to some degree correct. My dad would make those jokes, and do all that posturing, acting like he had to be the great protector. I don’t know just exactly how serious he was, because I thought the easiest path would be to just distance myself and not tell him anything that might make him mad, or screw up my chances of getting a date. He never met any guy I ever dated or had any kind of relationship with that wasn’t strictly friends, until six months ago. He didn’t say anything or make any threats and he certainly wasn’t cleaning any shotguns at my house, but he wouldn’t stay more than a minute and a half, and couldn’t be bothered to say more than about eight words.

It is what it is, and I can’t undo it, but that’s why the jokes aren’t funny to me. So, that’s all I’m going to say about it and I don’t want any sympathy or boo-hoos because I didn’t have a great relationship with my dad once the boobs and boys showed up. That’s not the point, and I’m not here to whine about it.

You’re right, Scumpup, I don’t have testicles and I never will. I’ll never be a father or even a mother, but I have been a daughter for over 30 years. I have too much sympathy, perhaps, for the ones who grew up and will grow up like I did.

I know that you think less of me because of this, and you don’t want me to tell you how to raise your daughter, but I’m going to ask you anyway to think about these jokes as she’s growing up. Think about how you have a good relationship with her and you talk to her and you feel all close to her and she feels close to you. Are you going to bet all that on her sense of humor?

If I have made you angry, and I think I probably have, go ahead and let it fly. I can take it.

130

I don’t think my decision was wrong, though I’m trying to imagine what kind of light-hearted romp a thread titled “Mothers of sons: Do you think all women are whores until proven otherwise?” might turn out to be.

131

I see it could have been a “bash the troglodyte stereotype” type of thing making fun of those that posture this way. How lighthearted that would have been I don’t know, but it looks like to many people decided to run with the stereotype, seriously or joking.

I think the problem is the even the jokes only make since if you assume young women have no active role in the process. I guess the nearest equivalence would be a joke that needs the audience to accept that blacks are inherently inferior for the setup. Even if the butt of the joke was a white slaveholder, it wouldn’t make it any less offensive.

Jonathan

132

Exactly. I haven’t understood why there needed to be jokes in the first place, and I still don’t.

133

Yes. Let’s not joke about anything ever again. That way there will be no confusion in the world.

134

That’s not what any of us is saying, Jack Batty, and you know it. A post titled, “My daughter’s dating, I’m thinking of buying a shotgun…anyone else?” and a body with, “Ok, well, not really. But you know the jokes…share the good ones with me so I can scowl meaningfully and dream.” Would have gotten the same joking responses without engendering legitimate confusion or angst. (Would it have gotten some panties in a twist nonetheless? Absolutely. But then the argument that they were overreacting would have more merit.)

I mean, **Skald **even writes in the OP, “Inspired by this post of Oakminster’s, which was probably a joke, but even so,” which scans to me as if THAT post was a joke, but this one isn’t. **Skald **might have meant it to be lighthearted, but I’m not convinced he meant it as a joke. I took it to mean he wanted sincere answers (which I actually would like to see as well), and interpreting some of the replies as attempts to answer the OP, they made me stabby.

135

You’re looking for sincere answers to the question: “Are all men scum?”

What sort of sincere answer might you have been seeking? I mean besides, “of course not, but I think I’ll post something funny, just like in every other Pit thread I’ve ever read.”
Getting in a twist over a tongue in cheek question makes the offended look stupid.

136

While I can’t turn ANYTHING into a light-hearted romp, my light-hearted romping skills are mad. Benny Hill passed on his power to me before he died.

I only wish it hadn’t been with a French kiss. Oh, how I wish that.

137

This is what happens when I cut down on my smiley abuse. Between that and not channelling Victor von Doom any longer, my trainwreck-to-thread ratio is uncomfortably high.

138

The problem is some people really do think that all (young) men are scum, or at least they assume they are when it comes to their daughters. That means we have two problems: how to tell who is joking and who is serious (since they sound exactly the same on a message board); and the fact that the jokes themselves are sexist.

If I posted a thread titled “Black people: Do you think all whites are racists?” and the thread was full of responses from white people making “jokes” about lynching, how well would that go over?

ETA: We could have a real discussion on both topics, without offending anyone. They are not taboo subjects, it is just the maybe jokes that ruin the whole thing.

Jonathan

139

Oops…

Oh, well - I saved the lazy folks some effort. :smiley:

140

It’s all in whose ox is being gored. I’m reasonably certain the grossly offended parties in this thread aren’t nearly so hypersensitive about other jokes. I’m guessing that if one were to take the time to search the board archives for dead baby jokes and the like that you wouldn’t see any of them there pissing all over the proceedings because such jokes are insensitive to people who have lost a child.
Fuck 'em.