As a woman, being anything other than blue is not in my best interest. Voting for anything else is voting against myself, my daughter, and other women. In the past, I have filtered men of quality by their political party. Those that are red are most likely leaning towards misogynistic, patriarchal, and oftentimes predatory views. My best interests are not on their radar, only theirs are. If mine seem to be, it is under the guise that they "know best" as my "protector". Lies, control, and manipulation. Unfortunately, I can no longer use voted blue as a filter either. Many men have figured this out and are posing as "liberal" just to get laid, to get a foot in the door, when they can't even scratch the surface of what it means to be a woman, especially now. More lies. More manipulation. This is why I'm single: too many men want to figure out women so they can get laid and be nurtured without having to understand them or put in the real work. I know there are good, honest, safe, emotionally available, strong men out there. It's kind of like how I know there are snow leopards. I stopped looking. I trust they're there, but I only have so much time and energy. I choose to invest it in myself and my daughter. As they say, if a man wants to be a part of it, he'd better show up authentically and add not only to my peace but bring just as much or more to the table, not take away from it or stake claim for himself.
the dilemma for that authentic guy is making a specific choice and working hard on his end of the relationship despite a fear that he may have made the wrong choice and he is being "used" (she doesn't love him, just the fruits of his labor) or he won't get laid enough in the future and he'll be stuck with sexual frustration (the typical happily married man with a few kids and a dozen years of marraige ?).
boy-men are cowards and real men make an effort with a woman of their choice and hope for a good life with their partner. love and hope create the next generations.
Not your intention, but I read this immediately after reading Laura Kuenssberg's always brilliant satire and my brain kept interpreting your serious words as satire. In a less insane world, your piece would only make sense as satire but here we are having to make sense of emotionally dysfunctional lunatics who think they need to wreck society.
This about-to-72 grandpa finds your analysis interesting and maybe even worthy of his attention, but suffers from a common grandpa problem: Who the hell is Harry Sisson? You might, at least, provide a link.
Yes, I've now done so, and it took me a while to learn. Dive into the Instagram rabbithole, a place my usual habits don't take me.
I'm not sure this isn't merely an attempt to defend Harry from the campaign GOP "influencers" are engaging in (justified or not, I don't care to dig deep there) to drag him through the mud. I didn't see much "totally awesome" stuff there, but fight on, Harry, yes we need stuff like this too. He doesn't project worry, just contempt for the other side. I'm okay with that.
"In a similar spirit, meet Harry Sisson, one of the few young, male, progressive influencers of any note in his generation. He’s also, apparently, a bit of a cad.
This can be—how to put it gently—a liability in the realm of modern progressive culture."
There is a sense in which male sexuality itself is treated as a bad thing. It had been coming on since I was a kid, really, but it absolutely exploded in 2017. And the politics around that outburst have been so disastrous that at this point you'd almost be foolish to argue that the "Access Hollywood" tape hasn't HELPED Trump's political career.
God forbid we subject somebody to the "male gaze." And how many times at the height of the "me too" movement (wow, that name kind of rings differently in retrospect) did I hear the phrase "down my throat"? Are you nervous about kissing that girl you like, kid? Well you should be - if she's not into it's *sexual assault!!!*
Al Franken got ran out of the Senate for having an implausibly out-of-character story launched at him by an open Republican operative. Aziz Ansari got semi-canceled for *checks notes* trying to have sex with a woman he went home from the bar with, and pretty much retired from his very successful acting career to write full-time. Things were legitimately upside down there for a minute, and they're still pretty sideways.
Try to imagine a male comedian doing a set as sexually graphic as that of Amy Schumer or Nikki Glaser. I don't even know how much I'm exaggerating when I say they would be arrested for obscenity like they were Jim Morrison whipping it out. Certainly nobody would be laughing at it.
If I was a teenager in 2017 I would be taking away the message that there is not anything good I could ever do with my penis. And be pretty into anybody who was telling me differently.
You are a troll. You are quite wrong. No one is bashing healthy male sexuality. Violence against one’s sexual parter or toward a desired sexual partner shouldnt even be considered healthy male sexuality. It shouldnt be ‘progressive’ for male sexuality to NOT BE VIOLENT. The male gaze is a thing because it is creepy. The problem here is treating women as an ‘it’ rather than a ‘thou’ , see Martin Buber. There are plenty of women who enjoy men and their maleness and their sexuality so stop pretending there isnt. There is an increase in misogynistic and violent men feeling increased permission to be just that and boys and young men are picking up on this. Instead this should be squashed. If men want women to pay attention to them, men can stop being creepy, can become interested in women as people and woo them, like any two friends woo each other really, and find good mates and and enjoy your sexuality together! But you men cannot expect to be assholes to women and expect women to care about you.
Yeah I figured somebody would respond like this. But it's not what I was GOING for. I'm not a troll, I'm just someone who disagrees with you (in what seem like pretty vague, vibe-y ways, to me anyway.).
So it is much easier to take these claims (which I see everywhere) if you had a definition of what is healthy male sexuality that is different than misogynistic/violet men. But what did you offer us?
Al Franken, whose situation had to do with politics not a vibe shift (discussing it is a distraction) and was still kind of outre if permitted. And Aziz Ansari who you describe as "just trying to have sex with a women". Yeah, no that is not what the problem was. He was claiming to be a supportive feminist while engaging in that behavior well known to women as the sex pest. Yeah, ok not a rapist but not a man who takes your no for an answer. He asks and asks and asks until you decide that it is just easier (and takes less of your time) to have sex with the dude than say no again--especially if transportation issues are involved.
If that's "healthy male sexuality" to you, well then sure women are against it. This shouldn't be news to you. Women have always been against this kind of "healthy sexuality". They are also against pressure to do unwanted acts--like being strangled which is decidedly new. Also, sex in which there is much banging into the cervix and not much orgasm.
Which brings me to another point, you have no idea what it is to have people be against your healthy sexuality.
Ever since I was a young woman the idea of sex that was slow enough with enough foreplay to actually provide an orgasm has been presented as wimpy, weak and (with the usual disdain) girl sex. Almost every "hot" sex scene in a movie is 5 min against a wall with no obvious touching of the clitoris.
Just now I read an article about the song WAP by CardiB, which is treated as wildly vulgar even though, as the article points out all it is saying is that she is hard. And a political operative tried to suggest this was a medical illness.
That's here in America. In some places in the world, we are shut away with no windows because the fear of our sexuality. So yeah, you are full of it, sir. You just don't want to have considerate behavior towards your sexual partners or people you'd like to be so.
"So it is much easier to take these claims (which I see everywhere) if you had a definition of what is healthy male sexuality that is different than misogynistic/violet men."
I see them everywhere too - from conservatives. I'm not a conservative. I'm speaking to my own people right now.
Your second paragraph couldn't support my point any harder if it tried. It's so glaring I don't even really feel a need to elaborate.
I'm not trying to discount the judgement on FEMALE sexuality that has defined civilization for as long as it has existed. That has been a problem and it still is. But two wrongs don't make a right - and it's pretty clear that liberal antipathy towards masculinity is making the other wrong more, not less, stronger, as men predictably backlash.
And please do not make assumptions about me. I am in a very egalitarian marriage; I do not have any occasion to be concerned about how sexual partners are evaluating me. I am speaking on a social problem, not a personal one.
If you are excusing the behavior of sex pests and others, it doesn't matter how egalitarian your marriage (well except for you and your wife of course) you are part of the problem. Actively.
Again, I'm not going to get into Al Franken at length, we all know he was set up by the R's to prove that the Dems were hypocrites so that they could get their teen abuser in office. The Dems did exactly right to ask him too resign. (As they did John Conyers and a female up and coming CA lawmaker in a consensual relationship with a staffer and set up by her POS ex. Nobody cries for them.) It's politics not a tea party. Lives are on the line.
However, it didn't mean that what he did back in the day was cool. That Porky's style jokes were cool. Or that we ever got good answers about the dem intern he chased. (That's when he resigned.)
You know since you are in such a good egalitarian relationship you should ask your wife about sex pests. Perhaps, you both were virgins with strict chaperones when you met and fell in love but otherwise I fairly sure she knew them. They are not "healthy" or "innocuous." To be clear, this isn't the same as a guy who pursues plentiful and less meaningful relationships. Honestly, the most successful men are playful. Attrition is not playful. Deception is not playful. They also have a sense of timing.
Also, really dude, two wrongs don't make a right? To declare yourself victimized as a group you are victimizing another, isn't a good look. To declare yourself victimized when all that is being asked is the kind of restraint, women are required to do without even thinking about? How do you expect anyone too take you seriously?
Do you think women get to ogle men? A women who relentlessly pursues a man is an object of complete ridicule in every movie I've ever seen. A women who goes after someone who is deemed out of her league just once is an object of ridicule. She's the punchline, when she's not tragic or considered crazy.
So maybe here is the confusion, women aren't asking men to do anything they aren't having to do themselves. And you all are having a hissy fit--even when you yourself are living happily--but on behalf of other men. Because some man not getting the pussy he deserves, that's the real oppression.
You are putting me on a “side” of this argument, and assigning all kinds of qualities and opinions to me I do not have, because you associate them with that “side.” I really wish you would restrict your responses to things I actually say.
For the record my wife and I got together when we were 33 (her) and 29, and each had reasonable (though probably below average) amounts of sexual experience. Nobody ever accused me of mistreating them, although I am sure I did hurt some people’s feelings. It goes with the territory (and I largely avoided casual relationships because of it.)
For whatever set of reasons, men are obviously fucking up REALLY BAD right now. And plenty of them are just straight up contemptible, both in how they deal with women, and in general. But the liberal response to that, of constantly distrusting and shit-talking men, discounting the growing economic struggles of younger men, and comparing men to grizzly bears and shit, has proven itself cartoonishly counterproductive. You might as well say you want to defund the police, for how horrible the politics of it are.
(As for Franken, I am glad you don’t hold those events against him because many still do. But I think it was really Gillibrand leading the charge there, because she saw Franken as a potential 2020 rival. I don’t think the politics of it were good for Democrats overall, and that voters don’t care about hypocrisy, and that we lost a top-5 Senator out of the ordeal. I do also hold Franken partially responsible - he could have fought and didn’t.)
FWIW, I don't think you're a troll or a creep, Miles. I think you're kicking off an inherently difficult subtopic. Your respondents, I think, are coming from a place of understandable wariness where they inhabit a world where half (more?) of men see misogyny as feature-not-bug, and then part of the "good" half (I'm putting us here, Miles), invested in coalition-building toward a better political future, end up "policing the policing." It is so, so difficult, and my hesitation to even jump into comments here reinforces in a visceral way what I think I know logically.
I will address one narrow slice of your original comment: stand-up comedy. I think the reason Schumer, Glaser, and Ali Wong (IMO the best of them) can do graphic sexual comedy while a male comic attempting same would ring with current-culture dissonance is . . . male comics did it for decades. Art evolves, mutates, churns in waves, I dunno, pick your imagery, you know what I'm saying.
My pick in recent art, overall, for the best comic excavation and exploration of male sexuality is The White Lotus S2. Bert-Dominic-Albie in particular, but Ethan-Cameron a bit too.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! It is a difficult thing to talk about and I have to balance the fact that appreciate it's a sensitive subject with the fact that I sometimes tend towards flippancy and/or rhetorical hostility.
You are right about the fact that Wong, Glaser, Schumer et al are following in the footsteps of male comedians like Sam Kinnison and Andrew Dice Clay who pushed similar boundaries. I guess we can look at this as a market force, right? Like I said, I don't WANT to listen to men do sexually explicit standup; I think it would be gross. Even as somebody who is making the argument I am. Meanwhile the female comedians we've mentioned make me laugh a lot.
And yeah, White Lotus, man. It's amazing both how observant and how honest Mike White is in his writing. The new season is great too, but you're right that season 2 stands out particularly for how it handled male sexuality. Ethan did kind of fill an "incel" role in the story despite having a very hot wife, and I think that speaks to how these insecurities aren't limited to the kind of algorithmed-up lonely young men we most associate them with.
(Anybody who is concerned about my point of view, know that I do NOT endorse Saxon's view of masculinity. And isn't it weird that the actor playing him is the HHS Secretary's first cousin once removed? It's easy from the name "Patrick Schwarzenegger" to lose track of the fact that the guy is a full-blown Kennedy.)
Women dressing provocatively then saying "don't look" seems like would cause some alienation and resentment in young men; maybe enough to get Trump elected.
I have a 23 year old daughter and it’s true about these young men siding up to the current Ben Shapiros - Charlie Kirk followers, her and her friends are disgusted by them. The ones that have “scored” both mentally and otherwise are not so much talking liberal points but by engaging, going to parties and yes bars! Like you said Brian - come on on the waters warm and yes, there are girls there👍
The problem with this premise is that it doesn't understand the basic contempt these types have for women (and girls). It isn't about their desire to get laid, it is about their contempt for women (and girls). They despise what they desire. To be fair most men despise women on some level. I don't get why.
Some have said because we "control" their most powerful experiences--orgasm and having a child. But even that feels a reverse engineered because if you didn't need to be in control, if you didn't define manhood by being in control and on top, being in charge of women, why would that make you feel less respect for women.
I can tell you I don't feel less respect for those men who provided orgasms. If anything I'm inclined to give them more rather than less than they deserve. With men, all too often it seems the reverse.
And while some men have a mother of my child respect(unless proven otherwise), a giant grouping think instead now I get to treat you like my slave. Another group think, ok now I'll kill you if you don't comply (which is really weird, evolutionary speaking).
What is happening is not about sex. To me the mustard seed of faith is their contempt for women. And since they have no girlfriend to pretend they don't feel contempt(or keep them offline), the radicalizers like Tate take that contempt and blow it totally up into a mountain.
If this is the best we can do, then “Red or blue, most men hate you” will be advice to any young woman I meet.
I get it. I know what the effort is here. I just don’t think this is it. I think you can make an appeal to just being able to live your life without valorizing vanilla misogyny.
The anthem of the MAGA male is “ your body my choice”. How romantic makes a woman feel so safe.
Instead of fifty shades of grey, male and female relations are now seen in black and white. One side wins, the other looses.
It doesn’t have to be this way. This anger and hostility has been created to divide and conquer. The current regime does not have the majority of American citizens best interest in mind. They are dismantling the government to cut costs not for the people but to cut taxes for the billionaires. They aren’t “draining the swamp” they are damming the river and cutting off programs for people struggling to make ends meet.
Walmart is a prime example of this practice. This Fortune Five
Hundred business gives new employees an orientation presentation that gives information on how to apply for SNAP and Medicaid because they knowingly don’t pay a living wage, instead they let the taxpayers take care of their employees. They intentionally keep their workers hours under 40 per week so that the don’t have to put them on their insurance plan.
And no doubt, Walmart will get trumps tax breaks.
But the rest of us, well as long as we keep to our ideological battles we’ll never notice that we’re all being screwed.
Your subject matter today reminded me a bit of the 1960s draft resistance slogan: "Girls say yes to boys who say no."
It was clever, somewhat sexist, and largely ineffective. But it was a good try at subverting the then standards of what a "real man" was and what "real men" were supposed to do to prove themselves so.
They were trying to drag him for being a player on TikTok but none of the people in the comments fell for it. Just goes to show conservative media exaggerates their characterization of “libs” to be an enemy.
I was happy to see the take that this is “his downfall” was swiftly shut down by men and women in the comments.
As a woman, being anything other than blue is not in my best interest. Voting for anything else is voting against myself, my daughter, and other women. In the past, I have filtered men of quality by their political party. Those that are red are most likely leaning towards misogynistic, patriarchal, and oftentimes predatory views. My best interests are not on their radar, only theirs are. If mine seem to be, it is under the guise that they "know best" as my "protector". Lies, control, and manipulation. Unfortunately, I can no longer use voted blue as a filter either. Many men have figured this out and are posing as "liberal" just to get laid, to get a foot in the door, when they can't even scratch the surface of what it means to be a woman, especially now. More lies. More manipulation. This is why I'm single: too many men want to figure out women so they can get laid and be nurtured without having to understand them or put in the real work. I know there are good, honest, safe, emotionally available, strong men out there. It's kind of like how I know there are snow leopards. I stopped looking. I trust they're there, but I only have so much time and energy. I choose to invest it in myself and my daughter. As they say, if a man wants to be a part of it, he'd better show up authentically and add not only to my peace but bring just as much or more to the table, not take away from it or stake claim for himself.
you are exactly right.
the dilemma for that authentic guy is making a specific choice and working hard on his end of the relationship despite a fear that he may have made the wrong choice and he is being "used" (she doesn't love him, just the fruits of his labor) or he won't get laid enough in the future and he'll be stuck with sexual frustration (the typical happily married man with a few kids and a dozen years of marraige ?).
boy-men are cowards and real men make an effort with a woman of their choice and hope for a good life with their partner. love and hope create the next generations.
You, a fool: men are voting liberal to get laid (derogatory)
Me, a genius: men are voting liberal to get laid (celebratory)
" (In my youth, we called this “going to the bar.”)"
So good to see you ministering to the youth, Brian. At 74, I feel I am now relieved of my duties. The Harvey Wallbanger has been passed.
Not your intention, but I read this immediately after reading Laura Kuenssberg's always brilliant satire and my brain kept interpreting your serious words as satire. In a less insane world, your piece would only make sense as satire but here we are having to make sense of emotionally dysfunctional lunatics who think they need to wreck society.
WOW. Reading this, I am glad to be an old fartsicle. Thank you Brian.
Having read this and knowing I understood almost none of it, I conceded today is the day I am, beyond doubt, old.
This about-to-72 grandpa finds your analysis interesting and maybe even worthy of his attention, but suffers from a common grandpa problem: Who the hell is Harry Sisson? You might, at least, provide a link.
Google?? Just sayin' ...
~A 71-year-old grandma
Yes, I've now done so, and it took me a while to learn. Dive into the Instagram rabbithole, a place my usual habits don't take me.
I'm not sure this isn't merely an attempt to defend Harry from the campaign GOP "influencers" are engaging in (justified or not, I don't care to dig deep there) to drag him through the mud. I didn't see much "totally awesome" stuff there, but fight on, Harry, yes we need stuff like this too. He doesn't project worry, just contempt for the other side. I'm okay with that.
"In a similar spirit, meet Harry Sisson, one of the few young, male, progressive influencers of any note in his generation. He’s also, apparently, a bit of a cad.
This can be—how to put it gently—a liability in the realm of modern progressive culture."
There is a sense in which male sexuality itself is treated as a bad thing. It had been coming on since I was a kid, really, but it absolutely exploded in 2017. And the politics around that outburst have been so disastrous that at this point you'd almost be foolish to argue that the "Access Hollywood" tape hasn't HELPED Trump's political career.
God forbid we subject somebody to the "male gaze." And how many times at the height of the "me too" movement (wow, that name kind of rings differently in retrospect) did I hear the phrase "down my throat"? Are you nervous about kissing that girl you like, kid? Well you should be - if she's not into it's *sexual assault!!!*
Al Franken got ran out of the Senate for having an implausibly out-of-character story launched at him by an open Republican operative. Aziz Ansari got semi-canceled for *checks notes* trying to have sex with a woman he went home from the bar with, and pretty much retired from his very successful acting career to write full-time. Things were legitimately upside down there for a minute, and they're still pretty sideways.
Try to imagine a male comedian doing a set as sexually graphic as that of Amy Schumer or Nikki Glaser. I don't even know how much I'm exaggerating when I say they would be arrested for obscenity like they were Jim Morrison whipping it out. Certainly nobody would be laughing at it.
If I was a teenager in 2017 I would be taking away the message that there is not anything good I could ever do with my penis. And be pretty into anybody who was telling me differently.
Fuck on, Harry.
You are a troll. You are quite wrong. No one is bashing healthy male sexuality. Violence against one’s sexual parter or toward a desired sexual partner shouldnt even be considered healthy male sexuality. It shouldnt be ‘progressive’ for male sexuality to NOT BE VIOLENT. The male gaze is a thing because it is creepy. The problem here is treating women as an ‘it’ rather than a ‘thou’ , see Martin Buber. There are plenty of women who enjoy men and their maleness and their sexuality so stop pretending there isnt. There is an increase in misogynistic and violent men feeling increased permission to be just that and boys and young men are picking up on this. Instead this should be squashed. If men want women to pay attention to them, men can stop being creepy, can become interested in women as people and woo them, like any two friends woo each other really, and find good mates and and enjoy your sexuality together! But you men cannot expect to be assholes to women and expect women to care about you.
Yeah I figured somebody would respond like this. But it's not what I was GOING for. I'm not a troll, I'm just someone who disagrees with you (in what seem like pretty vague, vibe-y ways, to me anyway.).
So it is much easier to take these claims (which I see everywhere) if you had a definition of what is healthy male sexuality that is different than misogynistic/violet men. But what did you offer us?
Al Franken, whose situation had to do with politics not a vibe shift (discussing it is a distraction) and was still kind of outre if permitted. And Aziz Ansari who you describe as "just trying to have sex with a women". Yeah, no that is not what the problem was. He was claiming to be a supportive feminist while engaging in that behavior well known to women as the sex pest. Yeah, ok not a rapist but not a man who takes your no for an answer. He asks and asks and asks until you decide that it is just easier (and takes less of your time) to have sex with the dude than say no again--especially if transportation issues are involved.
If that's "healthy male sexuality" to you, well then sure women are against it. This shouldn't be news to you. Women have always been against this kind of "healthy sexuality". They are also against pressure to do unwanted acts--like being strangled which is decidedly new. Also, sex in which there is much banging into the cervix and not much orgasm.
Which brings me to another point, you have no idea what it is to have people be against your healthy sexuality.
Ever since I was a young woman the idea of sex that was slow enough with enough foreplay to actually provide an orgasm has been presented as wimpy, weak and (with the usual disdain) girl sex. Almost every "hot" sex scene in a movie is 5 min against a wall with no obvious touching of the clitoris.
Just now I read an article about the song WAP by CardiB, which is treated as wildly vulgar even though, as the article points out all it is saying is that she is hard. And a political operative tried to suggest this was a medical illness.
That's here in America. In some places in the world, we are shut away with no windows because the fear of our sexuality. So yeah, you are full of it, sir. You just don't want to have considerate behavior towards your sexual partners or people you'd like to be so.
"So it is much easier to take these claims (which I see everywhere) if you had a definition of what is healthy male sexuality that is different than misogynistic/violet men."
I see them everywhere too - from conservatives. I'm not a conservative. I'm speaking to my own people right now.
Your second paragraph couldn't support my point any harder if it tried. It's so glaring I don't even really feel a need to elaborate.
I'm not trying to discount the judgement on FEMALE sexuality that has defined civilization for as long as it has existed. That has been a problem and it still is. But two wrongs don't make a right - and it's pretty clear that liberal antipathy towards masculinity is making the other wrong more, not less, stronger, as men predictably backlash.
And please do not make assumptions about me. I am in a very egalitarian marriage; I do not have any occasion to be concerned about how sexual partners are evaluating me. I am speaking on a social problem, not a personal one.
If you are excusing the behavior of sex pests and others, it doesn't matter how egalitarian your marriage (well except for you and your wife of course) you are part of the problem. Actively.
Again, I'm not going to get into Al Franken at length, we all know he was set up by the R's to prove that the Dems were hypocrites so that they could get their teen abuser in office. The Dems did exactly right to ask him too resign. (As they did John Conyers and a female up and coming CA lawmaker in a consensual relationship with a staffer and set up by her POS ex. Nobody cries for them.) It's politics not a tea party. Lives are on the line.
However, it didn't mean that what he did back in the day was cool. That Porky's style jokes were cool. Or that we ever got good answers about the dem intern he chased. (That's when he resigned.)
You know since you are in such a good egalitarian relationship you should ask your wife about sex pests. Perhaps, you both were virgins with strict chaperones when you met and fell in love but otherwise I fairly sure she knew them. They are not "healthy" or "innocuous." To be clear, this isn't the same as a guy who pursues plentiful and less meaningful relationships. Honestly, the most successful men are playful. Attrition is not playful. Deception is not playful. They also have a sense of timing.
Also, really dude, two wrongs don't make a right? To declare yourself victimized as a group you are victimizing another, isn't a good look. To declare yourself victimized when all that is being asked is the kind of restraint, women are required to do without even thinking about? How do you expect anyone too take you seriously?
Do you think women get to ogle men? A women who relentlessly pursues a man is an object of complete ridicule in every movie I've ever seen. A women who goes after someone who is deemed out of her league just once is an object of ridicule. She's the punchline, when she's not tragic or considered crazy.
So maybe here is the confusion, women aren't asking men to do anything they aren't having to do themselves. And you all are having a hissy fit--even when you yourself are living happily--but on behalf of other men. Because some man not getting the pussy he deserves, that's the real oppression.
You are putting me on a “side” of this argument, and assigning all kinds of qualities and opinions to me I do not have, because you associate them with that “side.” I really wish you would restrict your responses to things I actually say.
For the record my wife and I got together when we were 33 (her) and 29, and each had reasonable (though probably below average) amounts of sexual experience. Nobody ever accused me of mistreating them, although I am sure I did hurt some people’s feelings. It goes with the territory (and I largely avoided casual relationships because of it.)
For whatever set of reasons, men are obviously fucking up REALLY BAD right now. And plenty of them are just straight up contemptible, both in how they deal with women, and in general. But the liberal response to that, of constantly distrusting and shit-talking men, discounting the growing economic struggles of younger men, and comparing men to grizzly bears and shit, has proven itself cartoonishly counterproductive. You might as well say you want to defund the police, for how horrible the politics of it are.
(As for Franken, I am glad you don’t hold those events against him because many still do. But I think it was really Gillibrand leading the charge there, because she saw Franken as a potential 2020 rival. I don’t think the politics of it were good for Democrats overall, and that voters don’t care about hypocrisy, and that we lost a top-5 Senator out of the ordeal. I do also hold Franken partially responsible - he could have fought and didn’t.)
FWIW, I don't think you're a troll or a creep, Miles. I think you're kicking off an inherently difficult subtopic. Your respondents, I think, are coming from a place of understandable wariness where they inhabit a world where half (more?) of men see misogyny as feature-not-bug, and then part of the "good" half (I'm putting us here, Miles), invested in coalition-building toward a better political future, end up "policing the policing." It is so, so difficult, and my hesitation to even jump into comments here reinforces in a visceral way what I think I know logically.
I will address one narrow slice of your original comment: stand-up comedy. I think the reason Schumer, Glaser, and Ali Wong (IMO the best of them) can do graphic sexual comedy while a male comic attempting same would ring with current-culture dissonance is . . . male comics did it for decades. Art evolves, mutates, churns in waves, I dunno, pick your imagery, you know what I'm saying.
My pick in recent art, overall, for the best comic excavation and exploration of male sexuality is The White Lotus S2. Bert-Dominic-Albie in particular, but Ethan-Cameron a bit too.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! It is a difficult thing to talk about and I have to balance the fact that appreciate it's a sensitive subject with the fact that I sometimes tend towards flippancy and/or rhetorical hostility.
You are right about the fact that Wong, Glaser, Schumer et al are following in the footsteps of male comedians like Sam Kinnison and Andrew Dice Clay who pushed similar boundaries. I guess we can look at this as a market force, right? Like I said, I don't WANT to listen to men do sexually explicit standup; I think it would be gross. Even as somebody who is making the argument I am. Meanwhile the female comedians we've mentioned make me laugh a lot.
And yeah, White Lotus, man. It's amazing both how observant and how honest Mike White is in his writing. The new season is great too, but you're right that season 2 stands out particularly for how it handled male sexuality. Ethan did kind of fill an "incel" role in the story despite having a very hot wife, and I think that speaks to how these insecurities aren't limited to the kind of algorithmed-up lonely young men we most associate them with.
(Anybody who is concerned about my point of view, know that I do NOT endorse Saxon's view of masculinity. And isn't it weird that the actor playing him is the HHS Secretary's first cousin once removed? It's easy from the name "Patrick Schwarzenegger" to lose track of the fact that the guy is a full-blown Kennedy.)
I've seen male comics do it. I don't know what he's talking about.
Somebody? Let’s hope more people than not. You are clearly a creep.
Thanks for the feedback, Tina.
Women dressing provocatively then saying "don't look" seems like would cause some alienation and resentment in young men; maybe enough to get Trump elected.
I have a 23 year old daughter and it’s true about these young men siding up to the current Ben Shapiros - Charlie Kirk followers, her and her friends are disgusted by them. The ones that have “scored” both mentally and otherwise are not so much talking liberal points but by engaging, going to parties and yes bars! Like you said Brian - come on on the waters warm and yes, there are girls there👍
The problem with this premise is that it doesn't understand the basic contempt these types have for women (and girls). It isn't about their desire to get laid, it is about their contempt for women (and girls). They despise what they desire. To be fair most men despise women on some level. I don't get why.
Some have said because we "control" their most powerful experiences--orgasm and having a child. But even that feels a reverse engineered because if you didn't need to be in control, if you didn't define manhood by being in control and on top, being in charge of women, why would that make you feel less respect for women.
I can tell you I don't feel less respect for those men who provided orgasms. If anything I'm inclined to give them more rather than less than they deserve. With men, all too often it seems the reverse.
And while some men have a mother of my child respect(unless proven otherwise), a giant grouping think instead now I get to treat you like my slave. Another group think, ok now I'll kill you if you don't comply (which is really weird, evolutionary speaking).
What is happening is not about sex. To me the mustard seed of faith is their contempt for women. And since they have no girlfriend to pretend they don't feel contempt(or keep them offline), the radicalizers like Tate take that contempt and blow it totally up into a mountain.
If this is the best we can do, then “Red or blue, most men hate you” will be advice to any young woman I meet.
I get it. I know what the effort is here. I just don’t think this is it. I think you can make an appeal to just being able to live your life without valorizing vanilla misogyny.
The anthem of the MAGA male is “ your body my choice”. How romantic makes a woman feel so safe.
Instead of fifty shades of grey, male and female relations are now seen in black and white. One side wins, the other looses.
It doesn’t have to be this way. This anger and hostility has been created to divide and conquer. The current regime does not have the majority of American citizens best interest in mind. They are dismantling the government to cut costs not for the people but to cut taxes for the billionaires. They aren’t “draining the swamp” they are damming the river and cutting off programs for people struggling to make ends meet.
Walmart is a prime example of this practice. This Fortune Five
Hundred business gives new employees an orientation presentation that gives information on how to apply for SNAP and Medicaid because they knowingly don’t pay a living wage, instead they let the taxpayers take care of their employees. They intentionally keep their workers hours under 40 per week so that the don’t have to put them on their insurance plan.
And no doubt, Walmart will get trumps tax breaks.
But the rest of us, well as long as we keep to our ideological battles we’ll never notice that we’re all being screwed.
I’m waiting to see how the incel brigades will react if/when Republicans go full Christofascist and ban porn and video games.
Sisson seems like a bit of a himbo, but everyone likes a friendly himbo. Dems should put up big signs saying Himbos Welcome!
Brian
Your subject matter today reminded me a bit of the 1960s draft resistance slogan: "Girls say yes to boys who say no."
It was clever, somewhat sexist, and largely ineffective. But it was a good try at subverting the then standards of what a "real man" was and what "real men" were supposed to do to prove themselves so.
They were trying to drag him for being a player on TikTok but none of the people in the comments fell for it. Just goes to show conservative media exaggerates their characterization of “libs” to be an enemy.
I was happy to see the take that this is “his downfall” was swiftly shut down by men and women in the comments.