Post a controversial opinion

acknowledging guilt/the scale of a problem is not the same as throwing up your hands in the face of it

when you’re under 25 you are still just a simian with a little less hair.
― El Tomboto

This is dehumanizing rhetoric and can only serve to alienate young men from feminist perspectives. I mostly see male feminists talking this way — people like Stephen Marche who wrote a column in the Times about the bestial nature of male sexuality. I don’t know why it’s considered constructive to make these essentialist arguments but people are doing it. Seems to have little to do with the purpose of the #metoo movement, which as I understood it was about stopping sexual harassment and assault, not insisting that we are all guilty in the eyes of God style fatalism.

thanks ogmor. that is the correct interpretation per the author.

Luna probably right though, was just using the old “the prefrontal cortex isn’t done baking until” age as my plimsoll line in this case.

also I of course am in the 98th percentile of virtue I have no idea why anybody would think otherwise my decision making in my teens and twenties was impeccable how else do you think I wound up in the military harrumph.

I’m not sure how acknowledging that a lot of men currently living are likely to have engaged in sexual harassment and/or battery when they were young dumb and you-know-what is “dehumanizing” unless you think it’s dehumanizing to acknowledge anything else that you ought to be fucking ashamed of

Be careful you don’t hurt your ankle coming down though

Because saying that almost everyone has done it lessens the implied individual guilt. Also element of "we're animals, we can't help it" - no, we can help it.

^^otm

Arguments like these are never about severing individual guilt, and always about leaving as much space as possible for individual innocence. #ControversialOpinion

I don’t think there is any “nature” to make sexuality, it’s nurture all the way down. “Boys will be boys” is an insipid tautology and to accuse me of thinking that is an insult (the other day when I posted something to that effect on the Weinstein thread after deej and shakey had their massive spat about who the king of jerk mountain was or whatever, I was trying for caricature, forgot about the five things that don’t come through in prose).

Male sexuality’s “nature” is learned and it’s good to hear that posters who grew up after the age of Benny Hill, Porky’s, Animal House etc feel confident telling me I’m wrong. That alone is a good sign.

I for one also suspect the sexual assault crises in the military services and on college campuses was there all along; it’s just being reported, investigated and accounted for now because our society is better and we’ve had just about enough.

the five things that don’t come through in prose

wait what are the other four?

I made that up

We should have a thread for nominations

You're otm though. The military, college/uni, the entertainment biz, and let us not forget the church: all institutes with huge power dynamics.

xp the fact that you made it up didn't come through your prose so that's one

I’ll fess up that the “simian with less hair” bit is both dehumanizing as well as universalizing bad conduct. It wasn’t necessary either but I reflexively needed to speciate youth from maturity 🤔 🤔

saying that almost everyone has done it lessens the implied individual guilt.

I don't think this is true, but what it does do is highlight how insufficient individual guilt is as a response

My memory of my teens and twenties is hazy, but I think I performed being a Sensitive New Age Guy, perhaps overmuch. I went to protests and held signs. I wore buttons. I attended lectures by Naomi Wolf and Germaine Greer; I read Susan Faludi; I did a non-insignificant amount of graduate-level Woolf scholarship.

To a degree that I am not proud of, I think this was at least partly a dating strategy. In retrospect, I can't say how much of it was following my own lights and how much was "will artsy feminist riot-grrly chicks dig that I am doing this?" With the unspoken corollary that they would presumably reward my wokeness by going to bed with me. If I was reading something very woke and third-wavey I sometimes tried to casually make sure that the women in my life knew it.

As I said, not proud of the simian side of that behavior pattern. Of course this was happening in a specifically chosen cultural surround: liberal arts school, bohemian neighborhood, lots of sex and drugs. In that surround, wokeness-avant-la-lettre was valued, not frat-bro alpha-male jock confidence. I have no idea how I would have behaved in a different environment.

pledged Phi Delt I imagine?

Harsh

Sigma Nu obv

Controversial opinion: some Greek societies have redeeming qualities

(Full disclosure I hate them all on principle)

I don't have any concept of what you guys are talking about with the Greek stuff. Completely outside my orbit.

But I saw Vagina Monologues TWICE, dudes. Many of my peers bought guitars and started learning Zeppelin, Hendrix, Rush. When I bought a guitar I immediately started learning Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin, and Joni Mitchell tunes.

Was I doing what I wanted, or what I thought would land me chicks? I don't know, and cannot know at this remove. I do know that it "worked," in that I had a lot of female attention during that time, and only the warmest possible memories. But I carry a measure of guilt and ambivalence around how much of it was performed in order to get that attention.

Are you sure you're not just pretending to feel guilty and ambivalent?

I really bristle at this sort of contrivance, and the how its scope seemed to encompass your entire identity and lifestyle. Which I hate to say, because I don't mean to judge, and I admire your courage coming out with it. I just find it interesting that I was just p-shawing treesh and others who objected to tombots assertion, and here I am indignant toward your confession. And I have grabbed a butt or two, I think it was twice around age 19 at packed shows, even think I had a gf at the time :/ glad i cut it out when i did

let’s break out the time machine, we can all zap ourselves back to 19 and see who lines up against who in the great ILX bro battle royale

Yeah, tbc, I admire YMP's honesty (and also his sensitive-bro PUA successes); my comment was meant as light ribbing.

i am genuinely O_O at such an admission. it's validating to know my instincts were otm! i can't say thank you for doing it, but thank you for admitting it.

you guys know it's possible to be as (performatively) woke as you wannabe and still do shitty things in a more private setting, right?

'united binary states of america 'r us' would make a great gifted kid toy store name

I've long felt that the monolith of "girls" is to blame for so much of this behavior. It reminds me of how pervasive this idea was when I was in high school.

This is a line from an article about a guy I went to high school with -- he has a restaurant now and was profiled for a local writeup. i won't link it but the context is that he was reminiscing about growing up in our hometown. The writeup was published almost 3 years ago and this line continues to bounce around in my head. I looked it up and here it is:

Inside those abandoned industrial carapaces, sketchy kids built makeshift skate parks and shredded until the cops came to rustle them out. Rock shows, hard-core shows, girls, booze, rumbles. Regular shit.

Rock shows, hard-core shows, girls, booze, rumbles. Regular shit.[

It was not "regular shit" if you were a girl, a faceless nameless identityless girl. I know because I was there too and I was a girl. I am glad men are coming to grips with the way they have treated girls and young women. It doesn't undo any damage caused by treating girls as a faceless monolith to be conquered but it is validating.

You couldn't pay me to be 19 again. 26? Mosdef.

i genuinely thought that staying away from fratty sporty bros would protect me -- turns out everyone was infected, even the punk boys.

i don't think there's any personal redemption in confessing to some of the bad thoughts and actions we (I) grew up with, and nor should there be. i do think that trying not to repeat the same stuff and trying to raise young men not to be like I have been starts with a thorough self-critical audit tho.

Infected with what? Wanting to get with girls????? Not an 'infection' ESP at 19 xp

LL, uh, you're welcome, I guess?

And as NV notes, of course there's plenty of sexism and rape culture and outright evil on the cultural and political left.

However, in some defense of my youth - a lot of young people are trying on their identities with greater and lesser degrees of convincingness. And many of them don't really know where performance leaves off and authenticity begins.

Whether it's being a SNAG or being an alpha male fratbro or being a flower-child deadhead. Or even - dare I say it - being a Riot Grrl.

yeah it's why i bracketed performative, doing is being isn't it? but everybody does and bes many people throughout their lives

infected with toxic masculinity that dehumanizes people

i believe it is possible to try on different identity and engage in romantic pursuits suits without dehumanizing people

Vompletely normal masculinity is not toxic

Lol *completely, obv

enlighten us as to what normal is

oops
that got messed up because i got flustered
i believe it is possible to try on different identity suits and engage in romantic pursuits without dehumanizing people

Like, as a hetero man, you are attracted to lots of women and you have to figure out what to do about it... The attraction isn't the problem

"vompletely" otm

Lol knew that was coming

sleepingbag, you may wish to reread what La Lechera has posted.

There is a difference between "trying to get with girls" and "treating girls as a faceless monolith to be conquered."

I lived in a very female world as a child (single mother, four sisters, running a ballet school). I do think that at my best moments I was genuinely listening, genuinely interested, and genuinely treating girls and women as individuals rather than dehumanizing.

As does most everyone. But again I'd say there is nothing wrong or toxic about a general fixation/fascination/even 'objectification' of women in an object of one's desire sense so long as it doesn't manifest in amoral behavior, because unless you've undergone some sort of religious brainwashing or otherwise unnatural reprogramming, it's going to be there. Trying to say that the underlying drive is the issue rather than certain behavior is pushing way too far.

You couldn't pay me to be 19 again. 26? Mosdef.

I'd do 19 - 20 again only if I get access to all modern antidepressants and antianxiety medications and transfer to a different, smaller college. Then I'd relive that year.

The problem with the behaviour YMP is describing is being untruthful to the girls, he pretended to be a feminist, but was just trying to get with them. And as LL said, yeah, it's objectification and dehumanizing. It's just a few steps away to PUA rhetoric about women then being 'false' because they don't reward him enough for being a 'nice' man.

And I'd say that most men have behaved like that, I have behaved like that, and even when I try not to there's a part of my brain that sometimes says that women 'owe' me something. I think it's such a big part of culture, of our upbringing, in a way. The hero saves the world and therefore gets the girl. But it's not at all ok, and everyone has to get past it.

Frederik (and others) SEVERELY misread me if the takeaway is

he pretended to be a feminist, but was just trying to get with them

No. False. Wrong. If your mouse is working you can go back a page or two and reread.

Well, that's the bad version of what you wrote. I get that you are questioning your earlier behaviour.