Look out, sex will end!
The Federalist explains that women are destroying trust between women and men. Yes that’s right, women are.
The breakdown of trust between the sexes is the tragic legacy of the modern feminist movement, but it has taken on a new fervor with the #MeToo campaign and the growing accusation that masculinity is vile, toxic, and inherently predatorial. Fear of men is legitimized, as accusation is treated as fact. Men are seen as “the enemy,” an embodied deviance that must be remolded into the image of a woman. Their sexuality is assumed to be naturally brutal, a threat to be controlled and reduced for the individual man to be considered “safe.”
Noticing anything wonky about her reasoning? (Yes, D. C. McAllister is a woman; probably an acolyte of Sommers.) Notice the neglect of a particular aspect of this subject? The fact that men did a lot to destroy trust between women and men, and that it’s pretty peculiar to blame women for objecting rather than men for doing?
Whether it’s in the workplace, church, or home, the interaction between a man and a woman is unique and primary to all other relationships.
Oh really. More so than that between parents and children, children and parents? Among siblings? Among friends? Universally?
That’s a silly and unsupported generalization, more suitable for a soppy Hallmark card than an argumentative essay.
Essential to the relationship between men and women is the sexual dynamic. For trust to flourish, this reality can’t denied, and it must be handled with respect, care, and honesty. It can’t be shut down.
She’s just making it up, and not thinking very hard while doing it. The “sexual dynamic” (whatever that is) is not essential to all relationships between women and men; that’s kind of the whole point. Ok that’s the point she’s objecting to, but she’s full of shit. Does she want the male editors at The Federalist to throw her article aside and tell her to get her tits out? It’s ridiculous and also wildly stultifying and smothering to claim that women and men can’t interact without sex at the center. That would mean the theocrats are right and women and men can’t work together. To hell with that.
If women believe that all men with their masculine sexuality intact are dangerous, there can be no trust between the sexes. Men are not going to become eunuchs, change and become like women, abandoning their natural masculinity just because women are afraid of it. It’s impossible, because this is their identity—it’s their nature and it can’t be expunged without destroying who they are as free individuals, as men.
It’s their identity? Being unable to work with or talk to women without bringing their dicks into it is part of their identity? That’s more insulting than any feminist claim I know of. Men like sex and think about it a lot; yes, we know; that doesn’t mean they can’t leave their willies alone for a few hours and get some work done, or even some interesting conversation.
I won’t bother with any more of this piece, it’s too crude and stupid. I had an idea that The Federalist was above this kind of dreck.
If it’s essential to men’s “identity” to behave like alpha male chimps around a female chimp in estrus, the more reason to lock ’em all up after dark.
I see it as a the building of a trust relationship between men and women, to replace the old force/authority relationship. Those complaining about the change are late.
Okay, so if the men can’t work properly around women without sexual advances, then fill the offices with women and keep the men locked up in burkas at home. Problem solved.
No feminist has ever painted men in a less flattering light than anti-feminists do every time they open their mouths.
McAllister frames the bottoms don’t trust their tops, and vice versa:
Shorter McAllister: Can we all get along? Can’t the bottoms just submit to their tops?
I completely agree. The fact that she calls it intact masculine sexuality gives the game away; it is plain that she means sexual aggression unfettered by considerations for consent, workplace ethics and similar. Her idea of male sexuality is dangerour by definition.
By my experience and observation women in general, trust men over and over again, and are shocked with each new betrayal to that trust.
That might even be true, but she doesn’t seem to consider the idea that men ought to treat the dynamic with respect, care and honesty. You know, by not creeping, sexually assaulting, or raping.
I’m a man. I’m utterly uninterested – repulsed – by sexual contact under terms of anything other than cheerful consent between unforced equals. I don’t think I’ve been spiritually castrated for feeling like that. I feel like I’m a decent adult human being for feeling like that.
I acknowledge that I don’t have any carefully vetted license to flash other people to make it clear I’m not some creep, and that I need to earn and maintain my not-a-creep cred all the time with anyone relevant. That’s not hard, that’s not out of my way, and it’s not dooming me to celibacy.
I’m certainly not benefiting from defenses of “masculinity” that try to make Harvey Weinstein out as a norm, or what women should expect from me. I’m willing to do the work, but I’d rather not have to start from a baseline of “belongs in a cage”, thanks.
I was going to say something along the lines of ‘look, it’s not hard; if you wouldn’t say or do it to your mother, your sister, or your daughter, or if you’d be offended by another man saying or doing it to them, or to your wife or girlfriend, then don’t say or do it to anybody else’.
But then I remembered that some men seem not to even have those boundaries.
Her notion of ‘intact’ male sexuality is demonizing in itself. There’s a sort of descending vortex where Bob Guccione and Helen Gurley Brown (or maybe Hugh Hefner and Phylis Schlaffly) combine to corrupt every interaction between men and women. And then clutch their pearls when the racket is exposed, or even resisted.
I weep a bit inside every time I see an anti-feminist express their opinion that men are incapable of treating women with respect, and that this is normal and to be accepted. The writer doesn’t seem to know a single male in her life that doesn’t put sex at the center of all their interactions with women, and has accepted this as the way things should be, rather than a thing to fight against. I may not be perfect. I certainly have acted in the past in ways I regret. But I grew a brain, and other men can, too. We don’t have to be the monstrosities McAllister describes, and it starts be defining the behavior we expect from men, teaching them while they’re still boys how to interact with other people and respecting boundaries. Disregard for consent is not acceptable, and neither is “boys will be boys.”
Dave @ 5 – thank you for reading on when I felt too nauseated to do it. “The poor don’t trust the rich.” Stone the crows! Did you ever?! Can we just issue everyone with a mandatory Universal Trust pill? Or should we just go full Brave New World and brainwash everyone during gestation?
Wimmin and Girlz gotta follow the rulz.
1. Men own your body, not you.
2. Men can and will grope your body at any time or place of their choosing.
3. You are solely responsible for a man’s behaviour.
4. You are solely responsible for contraception, your own health care, and the raising of any children as a result of 1 & 2 above.
5. Under no circumstances can abortion be permitted, it is not up to you to decide when or how a man becomes a father.
6. You are solely responsible for any children you birth. You wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if you hadn’t been such a slut in the first place.
7. If you think you should complain about a man’s behaviour, think again. You enticed him, you acted out his fantasies, and he has the power to destroy your life.
I think that’s what The Federalist meant to publish.
Dog, I feel filthy after typing that, need a shower now.