Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

fp

I think they're fine at thinking, their problem is more with feelings and understanding them/acknowledging that other people have them and that they have real meaning for ppl and not just a web of protocols for reaching Point B.

i dunno, this stuff does not betray an thoughtful mind imo

the life of a "pick up artist" seems bleak.

Interstingly, thiswas in my feed from Brain Pickings today.

http://www.singledudetravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2607927_f520.jpg

DOES THIS LOOK BLEAK TO YOU

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcROqrni7V0DOl-AeOOxcyyr6-XVysITwiXfvm9Fe_uOsQXVO5OIeg

DOES IT?

http://www.pickupartist2.com/wp-content/uploads/alex-pick-up-artist-2.jpg

DOES IT!?!?

the outfits seem fun. the darwinian view of human social interaction does not seem fun.

Something unsettling about the combo of hat and crazy eyes

women love it though. all women think the same way and they all love that combination of hat and crazy eyes.

the hat says 'I will dominate you' and the crazy eyes say 'forever and EVER and EVER'

poor perry farrell

i'm a straight man and even i am a little turned on by the subtext of that hat and crazy eyes. it's just science.

What's the o/u on if his penis is out?

^potentially good pick up line

it's over if he's under you

Lol

that brain pickings link is fascinating. it also brings into relief how little the PUA thing seems to have with the idea of "seduction" it's talking about.

didn't I post something in here a minute ago? About the marvel that we men obviously don't understand anything about women EXCEPT that they all like to be treated poorly? I sure hope I accidentally posted that somewhere else.

the art of seduction is easy, really. you just need to look cool. wear sunglasses, etc.

look, the bare fact that the author to can see daylight between the concepts of "unwanted sexual touching" and "sexual assault" is enough to incriminate him in my book.

like as long as you don't slide something into an orifice then it's cool nbd ugh

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.
Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.
These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.

Thank you,

Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong

good for them for responding; it would have been better had they acted sooner but better late etc

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong

Bit ambitious to assume this is the only time.

Elmo otm

http://jezebel.com/fox-news-talking-head-to-tamara-holder-know-your-plac-534569484

man, i can't watch that shit even just to be a witness

the PUA phenomenon is about men who can't think

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:53 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

not sure how to embed tweets on ilx but i enjoyed this one https://twitter.com/ceejoyner/status/339765081485238272

Jordan Rivas ‏@sortiv 29 May
@ceejoyner I don't think you we're as clever as you'd hoped. Did you mean to imply women are like garbage? Not a fan of PUA's either but...

Jordan Rivas ‏@sortiv 29 May
@ceejoyner ...careful with the jokes, maybe? Sanitation workers are real people with a hard, necessary job. PUA's are selfish manipulators.

http://www.theawl.com/2013/06/ken-hoinsky-on-rape-culture-women-and-mistakes

was this somehow not discussed here?

it wasn't, partially because of fatigue but mostly because it was the dumbest fucking thing possible

I mean, when the actual author comes out and says "it wasn't at all my intent but reading back and listening to the arguments, I understand how people drew those conclusions, so I'm going to work with the people who complained to clarify the language I'm using so that dudes don't use my advice as a date rape primer", your "only a total moron and idiot would conclude that this advice promoted date rape" argument has even less strength than it did when you first made it, and it was completely toothless and wrong from the beginning

(obv "you" being the incredibly stupid writer who conducted that interview)

well, i don't think that was maria's goal w/ the interview

maybe she's misguided in approaching it this way but this seemed like an attempt to create some kind of understanding so PUA n3rds dont feel attacked & instead can be reasoned with

but it seems like it backfired & just annoyed ppl who feel like she's making it OK for those n3rds to badger women incessently

Have you read any of her tweets about this, or her responses in the comments? She is wholeheaertedly taking the position that this whole thing was blown out of proportion and that nothing that dude wrote could be taken as advice on how to sexually assault someone.

from what i've read, she's arguing that his poor writing has mangled his intent. and that the two quotes taken out of context amount to a witch hunt.

the 2nd quote for ex., in context (she argues) (i haven't read it myself) is written after consent has taken place; she links a video of the kind of idea that he's trying to write about.

idk, it's super-dangerous territory b/c it would be completely fucked up to enable speech that OKs rape-y behavior but i think she's trying to get him to come around & understand this w/out demonizing him.

which, you argue, "not worth the effort," but the continued success of that subreddit suggests this is a v real population

idk i haven't had a chance to read through both of the arguments completely so my devil's advocating here is based on a cursory understanding

i will also freely admit to giving maria bustillos some benefit of the doubt due to her being maria bustillos

for me, that awl article pretty much elides the central problem here, in that patriarchy is indeed a thing and the communicational playing field is already stacked against women in both directions. It's a double bind--you get to be a slut or a tease, no middle ground. "Consent" is already highly fraught from the very beginning because it doesn't take place in a vacuum. the PUA stuff isn't so much a handbook for meeting women and forming satisfying relationships but re-establishing that patriarchal dominance. notice how much pressure is put on the women to be explicit in her rejection and how slippery an idea that is. it replaces the ambiguity and risk of communicating with another person with the near-assault required to elicit a direct response. it is violence--and all the moreso for being cast as the prerogative in a unilateral fashion on the man as the LEADER or whatever.

the basic strategy is simply: "put as much pressure as you possibly can on another person and be amazed at how much you can get away with before they are forced to stand up for themselves."

The thing that squicks me most about even his "read it in context!" explanation is he still says effectively "if she says no... try again later"

NO.

Dude announced that he is working with the people who complained to rewrite his book so it isn't advocating date rape:

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/pickup_artist_ken_hoinsky_apologizes_for_promoting_sexual_assault/singleton/

Here is what Bustillos is saying about this guide on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/mariabustillos/status/349245202860482564

Maria Bustillos
‏@mariabustillos
@thebestjasmine @Nicole_Cliffe No: I don't think his book promotes sexual assault. I really do not.

Here is the thing everyone got up in arms over:

http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/

The problem is that the entire thing is written from the standpoint that the guy reading this advice is owed sex and these are the things he needs to do in order to get the woman he's with to give him some. The parts where Hoisky says to back off aren't written from the standpoint of "no one wants to rape someone"; he in fact specifically says to wait and try again later and describes telling a woman that you don't want to do anything she's uncomfortable with as a line, which is not the most sincere way of honoring a woman's refusal of consent. Bustillos has a point that dude's language is garbled and it's very likely that it wasn't his intent to write a guide that could lead people to getting raped but that doesn't change the end result.

The problem is that people are debating this shit, surely?

That too

Bustillos has a point that dude's language is garbled and it's very likely that it wasn't his intent to write a guide that could lead people to getting raped but that doesn't change the end result.

i was taking this as her primary point.

from what i've read, it does appear that she has been overstrenuously defending his book considering what a rhetorical fail it is

I get that shy guys need to be encouraged to be bolder for better success. I get that! And I think that is what she thinks she is defending? But yeah as Dan said, women - heck, *anyone* - is not a machine you put nicecoins into and sex comes out if you do it properly.

bitcoins on the other hand

:D