This article is inspired by a Youtuber Caitlyn V who is a sex coach. I’ve watched some of her videos and I find them to be very informative, especially about sex. I’ll link it here below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agscWsru7Gk&ab_channel=CaitlinV
She actually goes onto explain how not having sex for a long time can contribute to problems on mental health, emotional health, etc.
The second half of her video has the solutions to these problems and the last point is one I want to expand on. The first 2 solutions was to 1. Create feel good chemicals by exercising, eating healthy, leaning on trusted friends, etc and the 2. one is fuck yourself (not regular masturbation where you race to ejaculation, but slowly taking your time with it.). The third suggestion is where I take issue with and it’s getting a sex worker.
Note I have nothing against sex work. I believe sex work is work and there’s nothing wrong with getting it. My issue with this point is the way I believe society is set up to profit off of lonely and sexually frustrated men.
Paying for sex work is very expensive, like you have to be making the kind of money where the cost to even get these services are casual at best. Even if there are cheap option, I don’t believe many men out there feel they should have to pay for experiences just to feel wanted.
Think about it this way. When you go outside to try to make friends, or to try and talk to a woman you find attractive, you notice how cold and distant people treat you in social places. In the first initial meeting, you’re treated as a potential predator that has to prove himself to be a good person first, and even after you passed the test, you need to be mindful of not making her feel uncomfortable, and make having sex with them feel completely natural. It’s also on you to make the sure interactions you lead the interactions in a way to keep her around, and basically really sell yourself. Couple that with the expectation society has for the man to be the pursuer, all of these things make a very daunting experience for men.
Men don’t have a lot of options when it comes to dating and when they to have the opportunity, are expected to make sure it goes well. This setup creates a very convincing need for sex work, with a high demand of it coming from men because their basic needs aren’t being met consistently.
I believe there needs to be a better solution rather than spending money on experiencing intimacy via sexual services. The most obvious way would be to stop demonizing men at a very ridiculous level, especially at the first meet, but most people on the left space don’t like that idea cuz ‘safety’ and ‘patriarchy’ so obviously getting to a point where we don’t do that is gonna take a long time, we need better short term solutions that doesn’t cost money for that. Sexual services are fine when you get them here and there, not when it becomes a potentially long-term thing (I’ve known men who consistently get sex through prostitutes)
One of the solutions offered by Aba and Preach would be a solution I would offer in helping with this situation as well, mostly short-term.
https://youtu.be/P22ZpncT8B4?t=738
Now they’re saying not to approach women and I don’t think most women put men that approach them on blast that regular, but that’s perfectly valid given the society we’re living in. Me personally, I’ve done a lot of approaching and have been very experienced in it and I haven’t been blasted on media, but this is because I gauge most situations I have going in. The process of learning it today is fucking hard so one slip up in an unlucky situation can turn your life upside down if you get blasted on social media.
Other solutions?
Read books and websites on people skills so you can work on talking to people. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve all had natural experiences with talking to people, so I’m not implying you’re all very socially inept that can’t hold a conversation. I think a lot of the guys here actually have no problem with conversation, especially when talking to women. But maybe you don’t have the kind of friends you do like having around, or maybe you don’t have any afab friends or maybe you do, but again not the ideal person you want in your life. I’m mostly recommending this because if you want to have control over your own life and build better relationships, people skills are crucial. So the next time you’re in a situation where you want to make friends with certain people or talk to a woman you find attractive, you know have the experience backed up to do it
Read books on dating material so you can make up for a lack of experience. However, this bit is very tricky as there’s a lot of toxic dating advice out there. I got proper sources of healthy dating advice if you want my suggestion message me.
Next step is practicality. For social skills, go to a hobby-based group or club and put what you learned to the test. Preferably a new one, as if you’re in an old group, they probably have a set image of you and depending on that, maybe harder to break out of. Finding a new social setting will give you a fresh start if this is the case. For practicing dating skills, I would highly recommend speed dating. Now don’t expect to actually get dates from speed dating. In fact, as a man if you wanna find a date via speed dating, you’re gonna be spending money for a long time. Instead, use them to practice your skills. Each date you have last up to 5 minutes so you have a very short timeframe to work with, but this is perfect as you get to work on initiating conversations and internalizing body language signals being sent out, and you’ll be ‘dating’ multiple people in one setting so you have a lot of volume to work with for one night. This is to help improve your skills quickly, arming you with enough knowledge and experience to navigate life with a prepared lens.
Now the article is written from the perspective of someone that hasn’t gone to any sexual services and don’t really plan to. Has anyone gone to get sexual services? What was it like going there? Do you agree it to be a solution for guys problem with a lack of sex?
What would be your suggestion for being less combative? I have a tendency to over-explain my position so the context doesn’t get misconstrued but perhaps there’s a better way of having a discussion.
It’s not just about the sex though, it’s about being treated as less than human due to an over-heightened fear of men. I referenced her video to mostly address the last point and how what I’ve said would lead to this. I don’t care if a woman is not down to have sex with me that’s her choice.
Stalking does exist. I didn’t include as it’s not part of the normal social context I was painting earlier. Stalking happens when someone who you don’t know or have little familiarity with is following you, so there’s no way to include it nor excuse it. And then there’s stalking from someone who you’ve known before but now is a stranger to you which is a much more difficult situation to deal with.
I specified those situations because A) these are the types of situations where potential predators are likely to take advantage and B) I’ve also acknowledge many of these are just suggestions from me as a man. These are also suggestions mentioned by women I have spoken with. Are they perfect? No. Do we need better solutions? Absolutely, we do. I also understand that these are very difficult situations to deal with, which is why even the suggestions I’m giving aren’t always bullet-proof when they do happen (and same goes for men who experience false allegations or abuse as well, you can record it and back it up, doesn’t mean it’s not a difficult situation to be in), but it doesn’t justify the fear of almost every guy out there which I have seen time and time again. I could’ve done a better job of not making dealing with those situations sound easy peasy while making my point.
First of all, I really appreciate the discussion here - I’m a recent reddit transplant and “what would be your suggestion for being less combative?” was such a breath of fresh air.
Frankly, women are right to be afraid of us, and if you understand and accept why then women will like you more.
EVERY woman has had MANY bad experiences with men, because some guys are shitty. Most things don’t rise to the level of being a crime:
On and on, since before girls hit puberty. Being a woman requires picking your battles. If you reject the wrong guy they might go apeshit, so you say “I have a boyfriend.” Don’t compliment a guy, because some asshole yelled at you for “leading him on.” I appreciate that you’ve talked to women about this - ask them about times guys have been creepy.
Now, it obviously feels bad to be treated as a threat, even though it’s not personal. Don’t fall into the trap of blaming women - they don’t want to be afraid of men, they were taught to be. Shitty men taught them, and they’re to blame.
As men, we need to hold each other to higher standards. We also need to empathize with women - be mad WITH them, not AT them.
I heard their experiences before and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to act this way. I do think there’s a vicious cycle at play that’s making it happen. We’ve done a lot to free women from their traditional role, but we didn’t do the same for men. Instead, we just said “oh since we freed women from their oppressive role, then it should obviously apply to men as well” not realizing that they had strong advocacy for the former but not the latter, which lead to society still having men conform to their expected gender role in the modern times.
We tell guys to be sensible and not bother them randomly, yet we also tell them that if they like a girl, they need to tell her. They’re taught that if they don’t do something, another guy will and he’d lost out on his chance. We set up dynamics where guys are told (either by society’s words or actions) that if he doesn’t take action and make the approach, then he won’t get a date, laid, or a relationship. So they feel the pressure to take action. Because they feel this pressure, and mainstream society has just given them passive advice, they turn to alternative communities which will give them the practicality. That being the PUA/TRP. So they get practible dating tips, but also getting a lot of toxic ideology about women as well. It also doesn’t help that there are some women out there referring to other guys saying “They’re good with women” (I hate this phrase a lot actually) so hearing those words only reaffirms his perceived failures as a mate.
Because of what they’re taught by PUA/TRP, they react poorly to simple rejections from women due to society telling them that their value is tied to how successful they are sexually. “She rejected you because she saw you as low value” “She likes a confident masculine man, not a weak feminine beta” “You’re a nice guy, any woman would be lucky enough to have you” “She rejected you, you need rizz bro” “You’re too nice and she didn’t feel that confidence from you, you need to be more aggressive”. It also doesn’t help when these messages get reinforced when they see other guys who are genuinely confident and masculine at their core with a woman who enthusiastically enjoys his company. They are gonna associated this experience with the ideology they’ve been taught.
Guy gets mad a you for rejecting him? He interprets this as her saying he’s not alpha or valuable enough for her (Thanks Redpill). Following her to a store is very reprehensible, but I’d also say it links back to the expectations as well. Someone grabs your butt at a concert? Maybe that guy thinks that’s how you be an alpha and show her you’re a ‘sexual being’ so she doesn’t see you as a platonic friend. This doesn’t excuse the guys behaviour, many of them are very reprehensible.
This isn’t new. PUA/TRP likely doesn’t exist in third-world countries, but gender roles are very much active there, and I do hear stories of guys attacking women over rejecting them.
Nobody is blaming women for the expectations, they weren’t the ones who set it up. Maybe some women helped set it up, just like men did. But I think as long as we as a society don’t actively fight to free men from the role of the pursuer, they’re gonna feel the pressure to take action, and it’ll result in more women being uncomfortable with guys approaching them, not being able to take rejection well.
Now you are right that most of the things you’ve listed don’t rise to crimes. But there are a lot of women who have said they’re afriad of men due to not wanting to be raped and murdered, which while that fear is very valid, it isn’t statistically common as I mentioned in the previous replies, which never meant you can’t exercise caution. However, with the situations you’ve laid out, they’re very common for women to experience them and it doesn’t need to rise to a level of a crime, which doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable for them anyways.
This explanation isn’t me trying to excuse these guys behaviour. Because they’ve learned it, they need to unlearn these behaviours to ensure we make women feel safe, I am all for that. But we also have to remember guys were put in a position where they feel they have to learn and do this stuff, so to ensure we don’t have a large number of guys going up to make women feel uncomfortable (which still happens), we need to start telling society not to conform men to these roles and not make them feel pressured to be the pursuer all the time, tying his success to that, and finding self-worth through other means. And after we’ve reached a place where women and men are free from their gender role, come up with rules for a more safer courtship, allowing men and women to take initiative with the people they’re interested in.
P.S I had a much more thought out reply before the redirection delete my entire message, so if this one comes off differently here, I do apologize. I was trying to remember things I’ve written out that time before it got deleted.
As for the guy thinking woman is ‘leading him on’. Guys don’t get compliments since they’re expected to go up to her than the other way around. So when they do get a compliment from women, those emotions can be intense. So when he finds out she never meant anything more than that, it flips his world. Though in this case he could learn to manage his emotions so he can receive compliments well.
It’s funny that no matter what happens, the answer ends up that the man is in the wrong and the one who needs to change or do something.
What happens when the men changing their individual or collective behavior does fuck all to address the problem, or even that they all wake up and realize the system was designed this way with women never being held responsible for changing so that men can continue to be controlled at will?
I almost lost my message too haha. Thanks for typing it out again! I agree that guys aren’t usually doing these things with the goal of making girls uncomfortable, and also agree that their intentions don’t excuse the behavior.
I had the misfortune of needing to learn about abusive relationships (my friend was in one), and the book “Why Does He Do That?” was very eye opening for me. It breaks down the mentality of abusive men, with the main punchline being that abusive men have a worldview where they place impossible expectations on their partner. They’re told “you’ll get a beautiful wife who will take care of your every need” and build an imaginary picture of what their wife will do, then when they date an actual human that obviously doesn’t match their imagined ideal, they get mad at her.
I’m not abusive, but after reading the book I was much more focused of why I was feeling upset, and often it was some version of an impossible expectations that I had put on her, e.g. she should have known that I needed a hug right then (even though I didn’t tell her).
I bring that up because I have a pet theory on why so many men feel lost and turn to PUA/TRP, and it’s that they’re operating under an out of date worldview that creates unrealistic expectations. Ultimately, it comes down to what you said: society has not told us how to be good men.
Here’s my practical advice:
Learn about women. Learn what women think is the problem with men and with society. Listen to female comedians. Learn about feminism. Talk to your female friends. Watch this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7EjlefWLnxCzLbBHU4Dz6R
Get a hobby that doesn’t involve a screen. Woodworking. Gardening. Get an aquarium. Go backpacking. Learn to ride a unicycle. Try a few out. Do NOT pick something that you think women will think is cool, they are attracted to YOU thinking it’s cool.
Go to therapy. You will develop self awareness and become a better partner.
Don’t watch porn. It fucks up your brain.
Set a time period of at least two months where you will not date and will not think about dating. Dedicate the time to improving yourself.
“They’re operating under a worldview that’s outdated an unrealistic” buddy is this really the takeaway?? It’s not outdated if that expectation is still there. Also you brought up abusive men. Men don’t need to go out approaching women and then become abusive from that. It’s about gaining and maintaining control, which wasn’t what I was talking about. I’m sorry to hear what happened to your friend tho.
“Society has not told us how to be good men” are u fking kidding me?? Society been telling us how to be “good men” and men are still going to PUA/TRP. This isn’t about society encouraging bad behaviour in men, theyre not out here doing that. it’s about putting gendered expectations on them in modern times and leaving them in the dust to figure shit out on their own. I’m saying we need to be teaching Society not to do that so men dont feel the pressure and have their self worth tied to sexual success like society makes it out to be. How in the world did you get my words mixed up?
As for the general tips you’ve laid out I got no problem with them except “learn about feminism” I did and I find out it wasn’t about equality between men and women, but female superiority under the disguise of equality. No way in hell I’m supporting that misandrist ideology.
Yes, I think that is the takeaway, but I don’t think I was clear about which parts were outdated. I agree that there’s an expectation that guys make the first move. This isn’t inherently problematic, until (like you said) getting rejected is taken as a commentary on your value as an individual.
The main problem is the last two - that your value isn’t defined by your success with women. THAT’S the worldview that needs to change, though I make no claim as to what society’s telling men in this regard. Obviously a PUA is going to tell you the opposite, since they’re selling you something. It’s the same thing as a makeup company telling women they’re ugly - it’s good for business.
Re: society teaching us to be good men, I think we’re actually saying the same thing. Society absolutely tells us something, but I argue that the image of a “good man” in movies/culture is NOT actually a good man. The Hallmark stereotype of the guy continuing to pursue a woman after she’s rejected him (and then eventually getting her) is NOT a good man. Being aggressive is NOT being a good man.
Being a good man is being yourself, even if there is pressure to not be. Being a good man is looking out for others. Being a good man is working to make yourself better. Being a good man is knowing that you have value because YOU think so.
Being a good man is hard. It’s letting go of all the rules that you’ve learned. It’s accepting that you have flaws, and working on them. It’s having empathy for those around you, men and women.
A good man walks up to the bar and orders a cosmo, cause he likes it. A good man approaches a woman and is ok with either answer because his self worth isn’t on the line.
PUA/TRP are an easy answer because they are working within society’s toxic worldview that we want to change. “Be more confident/aggressive if you want to get women” isn’t addressing the core belief: you need to have success with women to have value. That is a lie. If you believe that, you will not have success with women, because YOU believe you need them to have value.
Hold up. Why don’t you see the first one as one of the problems?
We’re not talking about media tho. The examples you’re talking about have largely been in the 80s media. Today’s media is nothing like this as it mostly portrays starting out as friends and hoping for something more to just happen between the characters. This is a very passive approach and not at all productive.
Many of your elaborations on what a “good man” is are just tips on how to live life authentically. What we consider “good” is heavily subjective. What you consider is good, someone else might consider standards apart from yours to be good. So just call these tips for what it really is, living authentically.
I gotta break this down. Society as it stands doesn’t share the viewpoint that men have to be aggressive, macho, at least not on the surface. Only PUA/TRP are teaching them that. Mainstream society tells them to just have confidence, to not bother them and leave them alone, just be friends with them, but they also expect men to be the initiators in talking to women at the same time. They assume them to just know how to deal with women which is a very unrealistic expectation to have of men and boys. PUA/TRP doesn’t work because it works with society’s ‘toxic worldview’ (as mainstream society views dating and relationships as something that just happens by luck), it works because it offers practicality that the mainstream failed to provide. Tips that they can use now and see results early on. That is the appeal and why it’s rising.
Society says that “you don’t need to conform yourself to gender roles” and by actions they show women don’t need to, but by those same actions, they show men need to. And how do they do this? There’s an over-emphasis on telling men to leave them alone and never bother them or they risk being a creep or making her feel uncomfortable. Society also says that “women can also make the first move” but let’s be real here. Over 90% of women don’t make the first move, and even when they do, their first move is sending out subtle signals which are hard to pick up, and then some of them wonder why those guys they tried ‘hitting on’ don’t like them. They’d have to go up to a guy and say “Hey, I like you and wanna go out with you” just for them to get the message.
Expecting men to initiate isn’t ideal, but it’s not the primary expectation that’s hurting men. Men are hurt when their perceived value and self worth are tied to their success with women.
I’d compare men’s expectation to initiate to women being expected to wear bikinis - it can make them uncomfortable to be on display, and ideally there wouldn’t be pressure for them to do that, but it’s really not the main problem that they face.
I don’t think a discussion of what “society” expects can happen without discussing media - it shapes our culture.
Do you think good men shouldn’t live authentically? I’d assume most people would think good men live life authentically.
I think when either of us use broad terms like “mainstream society”, “PUA/TRP”, “feminism”, etc, we’re talking about different things - not because either of us is wrong, just because they have fuzzy borders. I think we can agree on the different things men are “sold” and how many of them feel contradictory:
Like you said, these are usually pieces of practical advice, and different things try to “pitch” you on different views - ultimately it’s up to us to decide what we believe.
For me, the way that makes most sense to do that is to keep asking why.
Why shouldn’t you bother women? Because it makes them uncomfortable.
Why does it make them uncomfortable? Because they’ve had bad experiences in the past.
Why have they had bad experiences? Because some men act like assholes when they get rejected.
Why do some men act like assholes? Because getting rejects feels like being told they’re a failure.
Why is that? Because they believe their success is tied to their success with women.\
Why should you make the first move? Because for better or worse, that’s the social contract right now.
Why is that the social contract? Men have been cast as pursuers and women pursued.
Why? Answers vary, but it ultimately doesn’t matter since you’re not gonna be able to change it by yourself.
So, with that in mind, how can you deal with the reality that you’ll often need to initiate if you’re interested?
You can’t change the fact that she’s had bad experiences in the past, so your primary goal in your approach is to make her comfortable. She’s worried you’re one of the guys who gets mad if they get rejected, how can you show that you aren’t? Know your shit. “Hey, have you gotten yelled at for turning down a guy yet tonight? I can try to muster something up for you if you want.” If they’re not interested - that’s OK. Be nice, accept a no, and move on.
I don’t think TRP is responsible for guys getting mad at women for rejecting them. The guys who get mad are already crazy prior to learning anything from any of the pills.
That’s another good point too, but I don’t think we can deny the role it can have. I’m not saying every guy who learned from TRP won’t take no for an answer, but what I am saying is with their ideology there’s only so much rejection you can take up to a point. What happens if you get rejected 1000 times and you combine that with an ideology that tells you if she turned you down, it means you’re not high value, desirable, or some shit like that. This will eat at their self-esteem and in some cases lash out and try other toxic tactics i.e “Why you got an attitude.” “Do you know how many girls I get.” “Fuck you, you ain’t even that hot anyways.”
I don’t identify with any of the pills. I think the red pill has some truth to it, but I don’t agree with everything it says.
There are different beliefs within the “red-pill”. Sometimes the “red-pill” is confused with the “black-pill”, which is more extreme.
I would classify what you’re saying here as “black-pill”, not “red-pill.” The men who get angry have entitlement issues, maybe they’re narcissists. Those guys feel entitled to sex before even talking to women.
The blackpill is more concerned about looks having a huge role in dating. This isn’t what I meant when I made that statement. To elaborate, a man weather redpill or blackpill wouldn’t have a problem approaching a woman, getting rejected, and then moving on a few times right. The reason why I stated 1000 approaches cuz that’s equivalent to 1000 times of being told they’re not valuable or desirable cuz “If she rejects you, then she doesn’t see you as high value”. Many members of the black pill community tie most of their success back to baseline looks, whereas redpill believes that you can get results through self-improvement and game. But it wouldn’t matter what pill you fall into, as long as the ideology you’re being fed ties your value to being chosen, what I’ve said would be more likely to happen. I’ve studied a lot about dating including redpill and blackpill, so I’m very aware of what each ideology stands for and their beliefs.
Anger doesn’t always have to be entitlement issues. It may be due to their frustration over their lack of success after having gone through that many rejections. And the examples responses I gave are natural defense when facing the thought of “she doesn’t think you’re valuable” so maybe they’re saying those things as if to prove her wrong and make her out to be the arrogant one. Maybe on a normal day they wouldn’t feel entitled to have sex when they get rejected, but there’s always a buildup of such events where having your self-worth tied to success can only allow you to gracefully take that many rejections. I know cuz when I held these beliefs, I battled with those exact internal dialogues before.
I agree with you about red and black pills. Some men would definitely feel like it ties their value to being chosen.
Yeah it is basic social skills haha. I do understand it though (but do not excuse it), especially with what @Mshuser has been saying.
Rejection sucks for everyone, but if your self worth is tied up in how successful you are when approaching women, rejection becomes a judgement of your value. Instead of hearing “no” (which could be for a million different reasons) they hear “you are not enough” (which would be a mean thing to say), and they react to the latter.
Well maybe if men weren’t almost entirely responsible for dealing with rejection, and women dealt with some of it, then it wouldn’t be an issue?
Seriously tho, it’s hilarious to watch a woman complain about how badly men take rejection.
I’d bring up some stories of how women handle it, but you can Google the damage they cause on your own. And that’s with them dealing with <1% of what men are expected to deal with
In case you were wondering why all your advice sounded outrageously sexist when you read it back to yourself 😁
You’re right, the problem is in people tying their worth to somebody else’s interest in them, we were just specifically discussing men. Women taking rejection poorly doesn’t mean than men can.
Both men and women are taught that rejection is an affront to them personally, though through different ways. Men are told that success is partly defined by their success with women, and rejection is a woman calling him a failure. Women are told that men have low standards and are always dtf, so if a guy rejects her then it’s a huge diss.
Those things aren’t true though, and both genders have their share of shit to work through.
Those are the guys who feel entitled to sex. Most men feel disappointed when they get rejected. The guys who feel entitled are “black pilled”, not “red pilled.” I don’t identify with any of the pills.
This conversation conveniently ignores how many women frequently reflect men by outright saying “you are not enough”
In fact, if they have an audience, they’ll often do even more: “and how dare you think you were good enough to even talk to me, you creepy pervert go die”
But to many people, even that one is the man’s fault, because as some commenters have clearly shown: everything is
Hold on man. I’ve been approaching women and getting numbers for years and not once have I encountered being outright told this. Many rejections I got were polite rejections, I’m sure those same girls prolly thought I was creepy as I can’t always control what ppl think of me. Did you experience any different? And please don’t use tiktok vids as an example, I think that’s an extreme case and women like that are usually looking for clout.
I agree. I don’t doubt that this has ever happened, but I don’t think it’s remotely common.
And if/when it does happen, the girl is absolutely in the wrong.
Both pills can feel entitled to sex. Hell you can be no pill and feel entitled to sex. Entitlement comes when you feel like women or men should give you sex for multiple reasons. For the redpiller, it means being the alpha. For the black piller, that means being chad. For the average joe, that means being a ‘nice guy’. But all examples of guys with different background who’d feel entitled to sex.
Feminist propaganda also demonizes all men. It might be annoying for women to be approached by 90% of guys they don’t find attractive.
No reasonable person thinks all men are bad.
The belief that women in general should be wary of men in general is NOT feminism, it has been taught for a loooonnnnggg time.
Feminism actually says “it’s fucked up that we’re taught to be afraid of men” and aims to make a society where that isn’t the case. Both men and women want this, as we’ve talked about in this thread.
Step one of that is acknowledging why we’re in the current situation. It’s understanding that women being afraid of men isn’t women’s fault, it’s society’s. It’s the fact that too many men have been raised in a way that they make women feel unsafe.
Step two is examining what society is doing to make things this way. It points out problematic undercurrents in what we teach society, and how those teachings result in people who behave poorly. This isn’t demonizing all men, it’s demonizing behavior and beliefs that SOME (I’d even say many) men have.
Step three is replacing those problematic views with better ones. It’s changing social pressure on women AND men. It’s letting women not feel obligated to be pretty all the time. It’s valuing men who don’t conform to the 6’5" macho man stereotype. It’s dropping toxic definitions of success and how men and women behave. It’s expecting everyone to be kind and value each other’s emotions.
Also, agree that it’d be annoying to be approached by mostly unattractive guys, but the main problem isn’t getting approached, it’s the mental load of needing suddenly manage another person’s emotions. If every unattractive guy came up, took a “no” in stride, and moved on, women would be way, WAY more open to men approaching them.
Feminism (I’m talking about ideology) hasn’t said it’s fucked up we’re taught to be afraid of men. If anything, they contributed more to that with their campaigns. Yes, women have been wary of men for a long time, it didn’t mean feminist (esp OG feminists) didn’t play a part in making that worse.
Men weren’t raised this way by general society. It actually raises men to not bother women and leave them alone (mostly a good thing until said guy expresses romantic interest in getting to know a woman, in which society says “if you like her, go up to her and let her know how you feel” how is he supposed to do that while following the above?) Guys make women feel unsafe due to their own mental issues, being raised by misogynists or traditionalists, etc. But in cases outside of it, guys are generally respectful of women and don’t bother them. Once they resort to PUA/TRP, this is where they’re likely to start learning this stuff and eventually make women feel unsafe following a misguided path to romantic success. This is where even good guys start making them feel uncomfortable. Tying in with step 2, our solution would be to figure out why exactly the guys are going to PUA/TRP, and what other alternative can we offer them that A) helps them take control of their dating lives and B) not make women feel uncomfortable. This would include asking questions like should we encourage approaching, expressing interest, anytime anywhere or not? And if we do, how do we do it to make sure all parties are satisfied?
As for your step 3, I generally agree with you. It’s not just replacing problematic beliefs with new ones. There also needs to be practicality for a man or a woman to shoot their shot clearly yet ethically. We should encourage them that it’s okay to make the first move, that it’s okay to ask someone you find attractive out, it’s okay to go after what you want, even if it means just casual sex, and develop guidelines to help get those while keeping everyone safe.
I believe women should be cautious around strangers. I’m cautious too. There are some feminists who do demonize men’s sexuality. Some of them thought all men are rapists. Every feminist has different beliefs about it.
Yes, I think men should be taught to respect women and vice versa. There’s always gonna be a few creepy men. We can’t totally prevent creepy men from interacting with women. The creepy men should be punished.
Some women pretend to be victims, even when they’re not. There are videos about women at the gym and they label a guy creepy. The guys are usually minding their own business. Some of those women probably identify as feminists.
No, they are not. We are individuals. Judging us all based on bad experiences with some men is wrong. It’s sexist.
And many men also have bad experiences with women, but we’re taught to shrug it off, even if it were recognized as sexual assault or rape with genders reversed.
So I went back and reread all the stuff that you wrote, and I guess maybe combative isn’t the right word, maybe a little callous? It just feels like you’re being very dismissive of very real potential trauma. I’ve seen how it just kind of destroys any hope for any normal future relationship in a person. So I personally don’t think it’s wild for women to want to protect themselves even if that means it is harder to date.
I don’t know if this whole situation is something someone can individually solve, more of a societal push for things like reducing rape kit backlogs, improving statistics for women killed by an intimate partners and pregnant women killed by partners, and as you say the smaller percentage of rapists and murderers, serial or otherwise. I think if we could take a lot of the fear out of the interactions things would go better, but there’s not a lot of trust that if something goes bad, police will help in really any way, you’re kind of on your own you know? So it’s safer to be cautious, especially on the first meet.
I think a lot of your original post has some decent dating advice, if a little patronizing, I would point a teenager at it as decent advice, and would definitely emphasize shared hobbies. Hobbies are great for meeting new friends.
It occurs to me that a lot of my argument is America centric. And assuming you are also America centric and that might not be the case so I think it’s fair to call his whole thing a side discussion.
As to the your original question, I have zero problem with sex work even though it’s not currently legal where I am. I believe it is better to legalize and regulate sex work. And I don’t think it’s wrong for people to employ some sexual services, even regularly. There are people who can’t or won’t date or marry and they should still have the opportunity to have sex. I’m pretty sure it’s in Denmark they actually give handicap people a stipend for it because just because you’re in a wheelchair doesn’t mean you don’t want to have sex.
Your argument would make more sense if men weren’t dealing with all that defensive bullshit and being shit on for being single and not in some way giving their resources to a woman
Oh and if it wasn’t illegal for them to pay for sex
Oh and if they didn’t hear “where are all the good men” on every dating site
Oh and if men weren’t statistically provably in more danger at all times women complain to be (you didn’t provide sources either, when you gave them a pass for treating all men like shit out of their own delusional fears)
So, if it weren’t for a little thing called reality, you’d have an excellent point!
It does feel like it sometimes. But that too is also something that men deal with as well, especially when feminist have dismissed our fears of false allegations using the 2% conviction, even though that too causes very serious trauma. I’ve even seen counter articles saying they got nothing to worry about, but 2% only represent cases that have been resolved, not the reported yet unresolved cases nor does is count the unreported incidents. By this logic, should men start treating women the way women have been treating men? Should men start viewing every woman as a potential liar who’s out to accuse him of rape and SA? There’s a reason men are going mgtow and avoiding interaction with women altogether. This is also something I don’t agree with as it’s just going to heighten the fear of a demographic.
Having statistics of victims killed in IPV would certainly be very valuable information (tho I think that would be classified under severe abuse, maybe that category needs to be broken down).
A societal push we need to establish is to actively send a message to society not to conform men to the male gender role. We’ve done a lot for women not to be confined in their own gender role, but then we just think “well if women aren’t confined to their gender role then obviously men aren’t as well” but there’s a larger focus on the former than the latter, causing male stereotype to be strong even in the modern age. This is very important as because men trying to fulfill their gender role are likely the ones to go out approaching women on the street and trying their luck. I remember watching a street harassment video where a man explains why he does it, which was along the lines of showing her he’s the man, that you gotta show her persistence, etc. This kind of thinking is not inate to any man. They’re being taught by PUA/TRP that they need to do these things to reach the pinaccle of masculinity. But keep in mind PUA/TRP is rising cuz we as a society have never actively fought for men to step away from their gender roles, we just left them on their own to “they should figure out that also applies to them”. This premise doesn’t cover the more serious crimes such as murder, rape or SA I think in those cases serious mental issues are involved. But if we’re talking about a woman’s day to day experience with dealing with men coming up to her, then this is caused by society still telling men they gotta fulfill their gender role, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And a note about police. I think everyone has to remember is that police are a 3rd party. They need to collect all information first before they could do anything. Unfortunately, we humans have a natural tendency to get spooked during very stressful events that we can forget to document it and ensure the perpetrator gets bought to the police. Add in the fact that criminals are smart enough to cover their tracks to not get caught, and you can see why bringing perps to the police is hard. A lack of concrete information usually makes their job harder. Sure we can go to the police and report the incident, but for them to actually pursue the case further, you’d have to be able to capture not only the perpetrator appearance and information, but also where they escaped to and if they dropped a trail.
What about my advice bit is patronizing?
I don’t mean it’s morally correct, but practically, I don’t think it’s bad advice to tell people to be worried about false accusations, and that they should probably only sleep with people that they trust. I am a big “only date friends” person, but I acknowledge that that’s a minority view, and that strangers date all the time and it works out.
I’m saying those statistics already exist and they’re pretty grim. At least in the US those statistics are put out by the DOJ, I just wasn’t able to find one recently enough that I’d want to cite it(I don’t think it doesn’t exist, I think it’s user error lol)
I agree with everything you said about not conforming to gender roles. I think we really should start approaching interactions, thinking “this is a human, this is a person” and moving away from the binaries. Ya know, egalitarianism.
As for the police (at least in America I honestly think that if we fired all police unions and completely rehired new people, it would help a lot of things but that’s probably a different discussion), they probably need to employ more psychologist and specialists, because police already don’t do a great job with existing sexual assault cases so having someone who is able to suss out whether someone’s lying, without being an insensitive jerk to a victim would be good. The way I see it there is a bit of a cycle where police do a bad job or worse, are dismissive. Therefore, the perpetrator isn’t caught and punished. Therefore, there are more bad apples out there, repeat offenders, etc., and statistics go up and trust goes down.
So I as for my charge of mild condescension; the impression I got was “you need advice, so here’s advice” and not “do you need advice? If so, here’s advice”. You acknowledge later in the OP that not everyone reading it will need the advice, and I just think with some changes you wouldn’t’ve had to make that clarification, and it would’ve come off less strong. Maybe if the advice stuff was its own thread instead of mixed in here, I would feel different I think? Also, putting feminism in scare quotes isn’t great because the people who usually do that are the people who are mostly in it for hating women so people sort of will just lump you together with them because the human brain is lazy and it likes simple categories so it doesn’t have to think hard.
Overall, you seem like a solid dude who genuinely wants to have a discussion on this. I think I’m used to much more toxic spaces on this and so I probably pushed back too hard, so you shouldn’t let me get you down
The DOJ also puts out BJS when it comes to crime statistics. I did find a 2022 study that’s female victim specific showing they were more likely to be killed by an intimate partner in 2021, but the incidents are very small when you compare the number of female victims reported on an ncvs study of that same year. The number of female victims in NCVS is approx 4 mil, intimate partner violence incidents were 400k (this number includes both male and female victims), but the female specific study had 4k female victims of ipv related homicide. So they exist.
I think using a psychologist and specialist would be a great idea in this case. Though how credible do you think it is? Cuz we’re mostly going based off of a psychologist and specialist evaluation rather than concrete evidence. Or maybe psychology has an evaluation process of its own for it to be as credible as concrete evidence idk much about that bit honestly. But it is a good idea considering most SA incidents are usually done by someone known to the victim.
Can you point out where I put scare quotes on feminism? There’s a lot of conflation with criticizing feminism with criticizing women which isn’t the case. Feminism is an ideology which you can criticize, doesn’t conflate with criticizing women. People already lump anyone who criticizes feminism as misogynist cus they buy into the idea that feminism is about equality, but it also promotes female empowerment which touches on the female identity, of course most people especially women are gonna identify with it (the same way men identify with the redpill movement as it promotes male empowerment). Redpill is already being criticized as a misogynistic hate group as it should be, but nobody questions the feminist ideology cuz most of them will push back hard against anyone who questions it, which is why this sub exists. The OG feminists came up with the patriarchy theory, modified the definition of toxic masculinty to make it correlate with general male behaviour. When you put those together, questioning that is almost always gonna make people think you’re a misogynist. Once I actually questioned the patriarchy theory and did my own research, I found out it largely never even existed yet people believe we live in it. Same thing with the feminist ideology. The feminist ideology when it started wasn’t egalitarian at all, it was actually very misandrist in the way it talked about men.
I think ideally, you would have some sort of psychologist on staff to lead interviews and then probably either a specific department who only deal with SA cases or maybe if it’s very spread out in rural you could do like a shared scheme state wide, or some thing? They were only deal with SA cases and would be subject to a higher levels of, like, civilian review to make sure they aren’t just ignoring people or sandbagging it, and then I think the civilian review should probably employ their own psychologist to maybe review the interview or maybe conduct a separate interview that way no one just gets dismissed out of hand? And in cases where police are the apparent perpetrators, the case should be kicked up to the FBI(or equivalent, some state/federal police), and still be subject to the civilian review process. Though honestly at this point, I fell like my answer is “simply improve society” and I’m not sure how helpful it is.
As for the feminism thing, I’m gonna be honest, I Rhode Island, a really solid first draft of a reply, and then I noticed a dripping sound in my apartment (it’s been really stormy where I have been lately) so I went to investigate and I found my living room window is leaking water from the top(?!?) of the window so I tabbed out to take a picture to submit for maintenance request (because this is only the second month that I’ve been here and I am not gonna be responsible for water damage, ya know?) and when I came back I had lost my comment because I guess I didn’t post it like I thought I had, so I had to re-write everything down mostly from memory. So I probably meant when you put it around patriarchy up in your original post but I could’ve honestly misremembered and thought you put it around feminism at some point. I’m not sure if the etiquette would be to go back and edit my comment to remove that or to leave it for posterity because you are correct when you called me out on it? So I guess I’ll just leave it?
I agree that it’s hard to talk about these things without being lumped together with the worst of your respective sides degenerates, there are rabid misogynists and misandrists both. I think the best thing we can do is to make sure our feedback is constructive instead of destructive, and to be careful and considerate when having discourse on the subject (something I have apparently failed to do, considering my many mistakes in this discussion(and isn’t that super interesting, I actually kind of feel less embarrassed by my mistakes because I feel this is a discussion rather than an argument)). And as for extremism, I think it’s a very human reaction for society to, like, swing back-and-forth a few times before finding a happy medium and so I think society just hasn’t caught up with stuff like this. In my opinion, there are good indicators that we’re moving towards that, like the statistics on how Men are changing diapers at greater rates as opposed to in the 60s and 70s, and all those memes about how dads can’t repair stuff but at least can hug their kids, etc., but I’m not sure how one would really help it along. Maybe get groups together to write big bills on men’s and women’s issues, call them human rights reform bills, and lobby for them collectively? Otherwise I think all we can do is 1: our best, and 2:wait for society to catch up