Harmony Between Misandry And Misogyny
Irradiated by LabRat
So Scott Adams did in fact say something stupid on the internet, and in his usual inimitable fashion went on to claim that everyone had misunderstood him and his series of remarkably stupid statements and lines of reasoning were in fact evidence of his overwhelming brilliance and the inability of other people to read words when put into sequence*. The original subject of his controversy manufacture, should you not wish to go read it or others taking it down, is the idea that society is ordered around unfairly suppressing the natural desires of men and this is why there’s so much rape and divorce. (Did you know? Hugh Hefner not getting married after spending sixty years of his life setting the bar for female desirability and bedding hundreds if of young nubile women is evidence of our society’s misandry. Really!)
I had planned to leave it at letting other people comment on Scott- which at this point could be done with a form letter and would make a fairly amusing Mad Libs book- when someone sent me a link to this, which is a checklist for how to tell if a man is a rape supporter, and this highly vitriolic (and amusing**) response. The “rape supporter” list is a good Poe’s Law case, because the only time I had ever seen opinions this extreme on what makes a man a rapist or in favor of rape is when men’s rights activists are telling me what “feminism” is like. (Abridged: a man is a rape supporter if he is heterosexual, apparently, and also possibly if he is homosexual.)
What struck me about seeing both on the same day, however, is some of the central premises that are completely shared by both authors. Adams lumps rape in with marital infidelity and off-color jokes as natural extensions of normal male behavior, which are only restrained- and produce unhappiness due the stifling- by women and society at large:
Powerful men have been behaving badly, e.g. tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world. The current view of such things is that the men are to blame for their own bad behavior. That seems right. Obviously we shouldn’t blame the victims. I think we all agree on that point. Blame and shame are society’s tools for keeping things under control.
The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that the natural instincts of men are shameful and criminal while the natural instincts of women are mostly legal and acceptable. In other words, men are born as round pegs in a society full of square holes. Whose fault is that? Do you blame the baby who didn’t ask to be born male? Or do you blame the society that brought him into the world, all round-pegged and turgid, and said, “Here’s your square hole”?
The pro-rape checklist, among rather less controversial points, list these as equally damning:
He defends the current legal definition of rape and/or opposes making consent a defense…. He has gone to a strip club…. He is anti-abortion… He is pro-”choice” because he believes abortion access will make women more sexually available… He frames discussions of pornography in terms of “freedom of speech.”.. He watches pornography in which women are depicted…. He watches any pornography in which sexual acts are depicted as a struggle for power or domination, regardless of whether women are present… He supports sexual “liberation” and claims women would have more sex with (more) men if society did not “inhibit” them.
In other words, she thinks that the only thing standing between what most of us would define as a fairly normal heterosexual man and rape is his fear of punishment/shame, and that the interests of women definitionally do not include recreational sex with men, and Adams agrees with that completely. Their worldview is identical, the only meaningful difference between them is which sex they think this is most unfair to.
The rest of us, I like to think, can recognize that there is in fact an important and meaningful difference between desire for something someone else can do for you or share with you, whether in the abstract or the particular, and a will to take it by force if they don’t volunteer to do so. Consent isn’t a footnote, it’s the most important element in any interaction (and not every interaction is a transaction) between two people there is- and NORMAL PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO BE TOLD THIS.
*I’m not linking to Scott Adams directly. It feels like giving booze to a wino on the sidewalk that keeps pissing into your mailbox.
**I do disagree with the author that this piece necessarily represents “feminism”, any more than I think the guy I ran across yesterday arguing that women never mature beyond a mental age of nine and must therefore be sexually controlled by a responsible male from birth to death represents men.
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Key comment… “Consent isn’t a footnote, it’s the most important element in any interaction (and not every interaction is a transaction) between two people there is- and NORMAL PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO BE TOLD THIS.”
I would caveat that, saying that normal people don’t, but a lot of movie stars, athletes and other ‘elites’ DO have to be told…
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:48 pm
This is indeed a fair point…
June 23rd, 2011 at 5:42 pm
With that list, I’d say the point stands as-is without caveat.
June 23rd, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Actually, I think you failed at fairly representing his original subject. Which proves his point, particularly with the word “unfairly”. Also, I didn’t think that THIS would be the place to see correlation conflated with causation.
Bad form.
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:43 pm
What do you think would be a fair representation of his original subject?
There’s a difference between completely missing an attempt at satire, and judging that said satire has failed utterly.
June 24th, 2011 at 6:10 am
That “rape-supporter” list was… pretty impressive.
So, all bondage works out to rape, because even if the woman consents-enthusiastically consents-to having sex while tied up, it’s rape. Even if a woman says-while sober-“I’m going to have sex with you once we’re intoxicated”, it’s rape.
And even if you could find a woman capable of giving consent-not that consent counts to make sex not rape-the simple act of pointing a camera at that woman while she was managing to have her non-rape sex would make that sex rape.
I sure hope that poor woman is a lesbian, or she must be really lonely.
June 24th, 2011 at 9:08 am
- He has accused a rape victim of having “buyer’s remorse” or wanting to get money from the man.
- He has blamed a woman for “putting herself in a situation” where she “could be” attacked.
…
- He characterizes prostitution as a “legitimate” “job” “choice” or defends men who purchase prostitutes.
Holy assbaskets, this thing is the mother lode of scorn quotes. We should tap it to build a Strategic Scorn Quote Reserve in case of scorn quote shortage during a national State of Sarcasm.
June 24th, 2011 at 9:30 am
I sure hope that poor woman is a lesbian, or she must be really lonely.
Cat lady. Certifiably.
June 24th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Society…represses…men…sexually?
Yeah, that’s why females who have lots of sex with people are called sluts and whores, while men who do the same get a slap on the wrist by society.
June 24th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Silver, more likely a high-five!
June 25th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Also — and I am feeling bad about mentioning this but I have to — it’s icky when the sidewalk keeps pissing into your mailbox.
June 25th, 2011 at 11:59 am
I think a fair characterization of what he said was, societies that successfully repressed the instinctual urges of men and encouraged the instinctual urges of women have been more civil, and that by chemically supressing the instinctual urges of men we could have the most civil society.
I don’t agree with it, but that is what he said.
June 25th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
If Adams wants people to directly and clearly represent his views at all times, he could always do so himself in the first place rather than trolling as hard as he can. Being deliberately obfuscatory isn’t clever, it’s just obnoxious.
Regardless, in terms of both what he wrote originally and what he said in his own defense after getting reactions to the troll, his views do fairly and clearly include:
1. Rape is just an extension of natural sexual desire/normal male behavior. This is profoundly misandric. So is the insinuation/direct statement that men don’t want/are hurt by relationships.
2. Societies are built to control the natural impulses of men and reinforce those of women. Blatantly historically false at the best characterization, blatantly misogynist if he really does believe that female sex drive is abnormal/only about marriage and babies. Control over female sexuality has been a vastly more dominating theme- that the justification was often “for their protection, from men” that doesn’t change the fact that that’s what it is/was.
3. Male and female interaction is a zero-sum game that one loses or wins more than the other, at all times. Misandric and misogynist, and again something he said clearly and directly in the followup.
So no, I don’t think I’m being unfair to him. Did I directly represent the direct core of everything he said/what he might have ultimately intended beyond making people angry? No, but again, he’s a troll and I don’t really care- he’s not acting in good faith to begin with. My central point stands quite firmly without misrepresenting the assumptions I was pointing out.
June 27th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
I have to say, Scott Adams starts out okay with this and I agree with the first parts. We men are awful beasts. If we listened to all of our urges and desires the world would be a devilishly frightening place. But suppressing those desires and urges - or at least harnessing and channeling them into other activities - is a part of being an adult civilized male. The other part is being compassionate and decent, which for some reason more powerful people seem to have a hard time getting a handle on.
Where Scott loses me is when he starts making this sound like something unfair on the part of society. It’s not unfair; it’s wise. It’s necessary. Without this suppression there would be no civilization.