Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

tbf though, sometimes one person in a relationship gets stuck on the no-sex tip, and the only way to break that ice is just to make oneself have sex. I think even Dan Savage says something to that effect, he just doesn't dress it up in all this bullshit about there being something particularly male about needing/wanting to have sex.

Breaking the ice is definitely necessary, expressing it as weight on the partner who doesn't want to have sex because she had a miscarriage isn't.

I mean, dude could have said "You are beautiful and I want to do what it takes to make you comfortable with sex, which I view as vital to our relationship" instead of "Why don't you like me?"

surprised they didn't just go with "yes, there's air in there, and yes, he breathes through his penis"

whole thing sounds too close to "If you really loved me, you'd have sex with me" which is what your friend Sarah's douchebag boyfriend in high school kept saying because he wanted to get laid

the main thing i think it buries is that it really is all about communication-- man feels discontented within marriage, tries various passive-aggressive ways of changing the things he wants changed, like making up a list of times it happens or doing the housework in the hope she will magically get a hint, or indeed just asking for the thing he thinks is missing but in a way that she doesn't relate to, and it's only when finally he manages to find words to say what he's feeling (when you aren't willing to have sex with me it feels like you don't love me) that they're able to change anything.

like, for me the moral of this story is not "ladies! your man is a delicate plant who needs sex like sunlight" it is "this dude did not know how to talk to his wife but when he worked out how to do it it seems she was pretty willing to listen"

he couldn't find the words to communicate because she wouldn't let him use his only form of communication

what a horrible catch-22

while I agree with you in sentiment, mh, saying stuff like

"You are beautiful and I want to do what it takes to make you comfortable with sex" is rarely a much more successful approach to turning someone on ime than "waah why don't you like me" especially when they are going through more serious issues. Miscarriage is a serious thing, but a year is also a long time, and at some point these things can become self-perpetuating. Ultimately c sharp major otm -- what they needed to do was talk about it in a direct way. Communication is better than sensitivity sometimes.

But obv the "THOG MAN NO TALK WORDS. ONLY TALK SEX" is nonsense.

whole thing sounds too close to "If you really loved me, you'd have sex with me" which is what your friend Sarah's douchebag boyfriend in high school kept saying because he wanted to get laid

― Dr. Adorbius (mh), Tuesday, April 23, 2013 4:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fair, but these people are married, it's a little different

true, directness works in relationships sometimes

dude was being passive-aggressive with that line about feeling unloved, if unintentionally

sometimes?

I think what I meant was not that that line was going to turn anyone on, just that he needed to start a dialogue and he has no words because penis durr durr

some people are hurt by directness! I am not that guy, although I am taken aback by statements at times, but people can retreat from a conversation

dude was being passive-aggressive with that line about feeling unloved, if unintentionally

― Dr. Adorbius (mh), Tuesday, April 23, 2013 4:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally disagree with this. dude needed to say what he felt. that's what should be encouraged.

I'm kind of getting tied up in what I see implied in the article, I think I should be a bit more generous here, and you're rigth

*right

*girth

lol

damn, decoded again

via roxy, thought this was p interesting http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/gay-mens-sexism-and-womens-bodies/

Article was v interesting to me as well -- especially the example at the Atlanta gay bar, b/c IME gay bars are kind of not a safe space for people who don't like to be touched, just in general. Obviously grabbing someone's boobs unsolicited is never OK under any circumstances, but non-sexualized parts of the body seem more like a gray area. I've gone to friends' DJ nights at gay clubs and dudes I didn't know showed no hesitation in putting their hands on my shoulders, back, etc. On one hand I wasn't really "cool" with it but otoh I was able to shrug it off because it's a freakin gay bar & it's an opportunity for gay men to have moments of intimacy in a non-hostile environment & it's not really my place to complain about that I guess? But I still wonder. I avoid those places now because I just don't like strangers touching me.

(also women probably have to deal with straight dudes they don't know touching them in the same way at bars & clubs, so I feel silly complaining about it)

gay bar or not, the unsolicited fondling of women you don't know seems like a shitty move. can't really speak to misogyny in the gay community, but a sadly predictable holy shit at the comments in response to that article.

Is that a good source, the good men project?

sorry to have to point this out to you, but there are quite a few women of any sexuality who make very unpleasant comments about the smell of male genitals – and then they advocate mutilation called Circumcision on the grounds of smell. I admit it seems to be a US centric issue, but it is disgusting and sexists globally.

i have felt in the past like the thing described in that article is a thing but i have never known how women feel about it. but then, nor do the gay guys.

it's kind of a thing but it's also, like, i don't know

finally we have identified the real enemy of womankind: gay men

wellllll it's more circling very slowly around the v v basic truth that the "patriarchy" is not heterosexual dudes, it is everyone. (also, hurts everyone.)

this is very much a thing that I have witnessed on many occasions

misogyny in the gay community is p rampant (maybe because a lot of them feel like they have "no use" for women and therefore don't have to make any effort to understand them?)

^ I've heard something this before! I was friends with a gay guy one summer who out of nowhere just delivered some spiel - in a very "hey we're both men here" kinda way - about how women weren't good for anything but laundry and dishes, etc. It was really bizarre.

i remember when scarjo got mad at isaac mizrahi for touchin on her hoots. i was stoked that she spoke up because i was so tired of homos having flaagrant lady-touching parties and everyone actin like its a cool thing to happen

i had a gf who insisted on going to gay clubs p frequently, and not like big downtown superclub ones but smaller more neighborhood-y ones. i was always kind of uncomfortable with it, mostly because i felt like we were sort of sailing into someone else's space? i felt like, we can our thing anywhere, and this club's core clientele really can't, so why are were here? we were never made to feel explicitly unwelcome but i couldn't shake it off obliviously.

parallel to (and hard do differentiate from) gay male misogyny, i wonder if there isn't some justifiable resentment of straight people (women, primarily, stereotypically -- unless crews of straight dudes hitting gay clubs for the dancing is common) kind of taking advantage of spaces where sexuality functions differently. idk, maybe i was making too much of it.

obv having someone act the fool in your club isn't justification for contempt for a whole gender, i'm just saying

I blame fiddy

I have long had a theory that most men, gay or straight, really really really love boobs, based primarily on how excited most of my gay male friends get about them

women also often fans

gay men feel entitled to women's bodies, as do men everywhere

boobs boobs boobs tbh

My friends and I have a delicate way of referring to misogynist gay men: "Is he one of those 'eww, I smell FISH" kinda guys?" Definitely a *thing* in the '80s/'90s, much less so now.

yeah, "EWW VAGINAS!" is definitely a thing amongst gay men, ~*tHx pAtRiArChY*~

gay coworker always made out with his female friends when he was drunk, like that's the thing you do when you're friends with him. they all do it is the crazy thing. he's been in a committed relationship for 15 years, I am friends with his partner too...amd friends with some of the girls he makes out with & it pisses me the fuck off when he just assumes he can do it, so I try to stay away from him. He tried once & got pissed at me when I told him to take a hike. "it's just fun, jeez why are you being so bitchy about it"
because i'm not part of the lady-banquet, is why.

"it's just fun, jeez why are you being so bitchy about it" is the great patriarchy leitmotiv.

i have other gay friends who don't behave like that at all though, are totally chill with women & boobs etc. not that I ever pressed them about it. so I was always more inclined to say that one guy was just a conflicted self-involved weasel. idk

misogyny in the gay community is p rampant

yeah, it's pretty thoroughly ingrained, like i don't really think it's cool for gay men to refer to their own assholes using female anatomy terms

maybe that's specific to gay porn but afaict 100% of gay men watch porn

whats wrong with callin your turdslicer a manpussy or w/e... doesnt seem like a big deal

xp Oh boy, that's a whole new low that I'd never heard of.

In general though, not to gainsay the article because I believe it, but also to keep in mind that when the free expression of humanity/sexuality has been suppressed and everyone has their own possibly fucked up journey to get there, some modes of expression will still show the...scars? I want a less judgmental word than "scars" but I'm kind of in a hurry so. I agree, access to women's bodies is assumed across society, incl gay men, for sure let's work to reduce that. I just don't feel good about coming down on gay men with both boots on when lots of facets of the public performance of "gayness" (I'm skipping right over a ton of nuance here, sorry) are responses to the repressive environments people developed in.

um is this a trend now?

http://www.vice.com/read/gay-men-and-their-not-so-cute-misogyny-problem

Yeah, like H*****4A**, I don't have any sort of problem with the m**-p**** contstruction