Misogyny and Moderation, again

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1

Per instructions, I am taking this to ATMB, because I think it illustrates the issue here.

OP starts a thread where he says that when he sees a hot woman with “ass cheeks hanging out”, all he can think is that he wants to “hit that”.

Rather than give a note that says something like “Hey, dude, we don’t talk about women like that here”, the burden is put on us to unofficially “educate” him that there’s something wrong with talking about women as if they were objects. Spoiler, it didn’t work, because in post #86, he was doubling down:

He’s clearly not here to have a conversation. He even goes on to explain:

Understand, when women read this story, we are the wife, and the girl on the scooter, being oogled by a dude who has apparently lost control of his mind and who has reduced the sight of her, of US, to the “sight of this”. It’s a creepy story. Whatever the intent, it has the effect of serving as a stark reminder that for many, we are only interesting, we only matter, when we make someone’s dick twitch. And all the lurid details aren’t there to help us understand what happened–it at least comes across as an excuse to linger on the memory: recounting it makes his parts warm in memory and he wants to humble-brag about his virile experience. And we all know this. Can you imagine telling that story in any sort of mixed company? At a work function? A back-yard BBQ with women present? At a bus stop to your dude best friend where women could hear you?

The OPs behavior is creepy and uncouth and makes women uncomfortable. But the powers that be have decided that it’s our job to “educate” assholes and creeps–there apparently can’t be any official guidance.

And it DOES shut down discussion. Because now before I can participate in the thread, I have to FIRST address the misogyny. Women end up stuck in the meta, arguing about how something was said instead of the content, because we can’t just let the meta go–it’s exclusionary, and so we have to address that it exists in order to even be clear where we are coming from when we comment on the content. THEN we get bogged down in an argument about whether or not it’s misogynistic to say “I just want to hit that” because apparently that’s controversial.

2

That poster was not talking about women. He was talking about himself.

3

As the “that” in “hit that” and the “this” in “i just had to take this in”, I disagree.

4

I think you’re doing a whole lot of projecting. How do leap from “some girl made my dick twitch” to “women only have value if they make my dick twitch”?

5

Speaking just for myself, I was/am glad that thread was allowed to stay open, because I found many of the responses—including yours, Manda JO—useful and enlightening.

I think here on the SDMB we have a “mission” of fighting ignorance and edifying each other, but we also don’t want to promote a hostile or alienating environment. And I think sometimes, like in that thread, those two values can clash. Speaking just for myself (as a man), I thought the good in that thread easily outweighed the bad. I found it helpful for the “Here is what goes on in some people’s heads” and “Here is what other people think about what those people think, and why” kinds of perspectives. But I can see how others might feel differently.

6

I agree that it was good to leave it open. I found the discussion interesting.

7

Being a horndog is not the same thing as being a misogynist. You can be a testosterone laden jerk and still not be a misogynist.
As has been said “You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it does.”

mi·sog·y·nist
…
noun
1.
a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.
synonyms: woman-hater, anti-feminist, male chauvinist, male supremacist, chauvinist, sexist; More
adjective.

Now, I dont see any hatred towards women in that OP. Nor “woman-hater, anti-feminist, male chauvinist, or male supremacist,” but perhaps sexist, maybe.

In fact the Op seems to genuinely admire women- perhaps for the wrong reasons, but certainly no “hatred”.
A male being a classless horndog is perhaps being a jerk, likely clueless, and quite likely annoying- but that doesn’t make him a hater of women.

8

What I really would have liked is a mod note on the first post and a warning on the second–though the second might not have happened if their had been a mod note on the first.

But apparently we can’t mod that sort of thing–it’s been discussed to death. Look how careful engineer_comp_geek is here not to actually condemn nate’s behavior:

See how passive that is? “understand why many in this thread are finding his post to be so offensive”. If I were hosting a party and someone said "Man, I get so distracted by ass. All I can think is “I want to hit that”, I wouldn’t get bogged down by “some may find your remarks offensive”. That’s weasel words. That’s “it’s not my place to say if this is offensive”

Here, again, focusing entirely on whether the issue/topic might be interesting, and nothing about the offensive way it was phrased. No suggestion demeaning descriptions of women and objectifying idioms are a problem at all.

And, again, the topic was fine–though I don’t think the OP wanted to do anything but get off by telling stories about his incredibly masculine response to female bodies. But again and again and again in these threads the topic is all that is evaluated: the phrasing doesn’t even register to the mods.

9

You are somehow reading an intent into my words that isn’t actually there. I was not using weasel words or saying that it’s not my place to say if this is offensive.

My intent with “the OP certainly has some issues” was to agree that the OP is offensive without taking the time to actually spell out what was offensive, since that seemed to me to be clearly stated in other posts. “… to understand why many in this thread are finding his post to be so offensive” is addressing the posts in the thread, and is saying that I hope nate actually gets what people are saying. I’m not weaseling out of saying that the OP is offensive, I’m saying that I hope nate understands why some people in the thread are saying its offensive (because it is offensive).

My point with “We really do not want to encourage posts along the lines of “women make me want to have sex”, and we definitely do not want to encourage men’s locker room types of posts where men just talk about who they want to have sex with and why” is also to say that in general these types of posts are not acceptable here. You state that there is " No suggestion demeaning descriptions of women and objectifying idioms are a problem at all." when in fact I am explicitly saying the exact opposite of that. Demeaning descriptions of women and objectifying are not acceptable here.

The OP is not being given a pass. The OP is clearly offensive.

10

If you were hosting a party and someone said that, and several other guests called him out on it, how much responsibility do you have as host to do something?

11

Do you see how it might look like you are? Especially to a poster who doesn’t think he is being offensive, and who has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he thinks other people are lying when they don’t “admit” what he knows to be true? And to women, do you see how you might look like you are being careful to take a neutral stance on what should be clearcut?

Hell, yes. It’s my house. I set the tone.

12

If you are hosting a party, it’s absolutely your responsibility.

If someone says something offensive at a party and no one does anything about it, it’s your responsibility as a host to tell them that this sort of thing isn’t appropriate at your party, they are making the other guests uncomfortable, and to please stop it.

If someone says something offensive at a party and everyone around him says “dude, not cool”, then perhaps the appropriate response for the host is just to acknowledge the situation so that everyone knows the host at least knows that the guy did something wrong, and to keep an eye on the situation to see if the guy got the message from his peers. Or perhaps not. That’s exactly why we are having this discussion here.

13

Exactly. And in my mind when someone says something really egregious and the host’s response is something like “Well, Bob has ‘some issues’ but I hope he will see why ‘some people’ are offended by his words”, it seems like the host is trying to just chill things out without offending either side. The host isn’t offended, just aware that “some people” might be. You comments didn’t let me know you thought nate did anything wrong–just that you knew we did.

And the later post, about “taking that in”, where “that” is a person, is awful. To me, that suggests the OP didn’t get it at all.

14

Meanwhile, one or more women feel really uncomfortable with the dude and the lack of any meaningful response to him and leave the party.

15

I’m with Manda and Helena here. There were a dozen different ways to approach the topic without the gratuitous details that served nothing more than to highlight just how sexualizing he finds these experiences and how objectified the women are in his posts. Frankly, it veered into Penthouse territory, IMHO.

I think Manda Jo put it very well, as the “that” and the “this” in his descriptions, the effect on women readers absolutely becomes relevant.

That male posters don’t see it that way isn’t relevant- that’s kind of the point. No one is accusing the OP of purposefully trying to be objectifying and demeaning- that it could be just isn’t on his radar and no one is making him accept that maybe it should be.

16

The whole point of the thread was to discuss how sexualizing he finds these experiences but you think it was out of place for him to highlight just how sexualizing he finds these experiences. Oookay.

17

That’s what we’ve been protesting for MONTHS.. How objectifying, demeaning, and hostile women find it when men post what gets their dicks hard! That was Manda JO’s, ITD’s, and my entire point.

:smack::smack::smack:

18

Yes. When it’s done in a manner that’s demeaning and objectifying.

If people can be asked to insult the argument, not the poster;

If people can be asked to discuss breaking news without political hijacks;

If people can be asked to express anger without using hate language they can be asked to do this too.

19

I agree he used objectifying language and I’m not defending that but you shouldn’t mix up the issues by complaining that he highlighted just how sexualizing he finds these experiences when you are really complaining about the objectifying. These issues can be complicated enough without that sloppiness.

20

THIS !

So much.

It’s like they have no inkling how many women are hanging by a thread here. Or why.

Ugh.