Tag Archives: Men’s issues

#NotAllMen – Again

Posted by grimachu on

I am not a fan of trigger warnings, but I will include one here as this is a particularly sensitive subject around which emotions are high. If trigger warnings meant anything, you’d be triggered by the warning itself, but nonetheless, I am going to discuss the recent events in London, street violence, rape, assault and sexual harassment here. Put on your big girl pants.

I’m writing this while the Sarah Everard murder is fresh, and the man accused of the murder is in custody. The suspect is a police officer, and a vigil held to honour her death has been policed with a great deal of violence in a way other protests during COVID haven’t.

Tensions and emotions are running extremely high, which means this is probably one of the worst times to try and introduce some moderation and consideration into the discussion, but that is also the most necessary time to do so. Bad decisions are made when they’re made reflexively and emotionally, some of the most dangerous words in the English language are: “Something must be done.”

I’m under no illusions that most people will read this blog in good faith, or that most will even pause to consider the content or to change their behaviour or demands, but some will. Just as with the misinterpretations of my defences of free expression, people will wilfully take it the wrong way, but such is life and such is the internet.

I consider myself to be an egalitarian, and I have a particular concern for men’s issues. This is because I think men’s issues are woefully underrepresented in the national and international conversation and, as such, go unaddressed. Everything from male genital mutilation, to the lack of shelter places for male victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). From men and boys falling behind in education, to rates of depression and suicide.

These concerns have led many to call me a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA), but while I do have friends within that movement – who aren’t the horrorshow that some call them, I’ve never considered myself such because I think the men’s rights movement has many of the same problems feminism does. However, I do think I can offer some insight into why men do get so bitter and angry, and why they do join onto such groups, even those that mirror the petty nastiness of the radical feminists.

It’s hypocrisy.

It’s betrayal.

It’s double standards.

Like most of my generation I was brought up to consider men and women equal, to decry sexism, to refuse to tolerate racism. The understanding was that we all have the same rights and that the differences between us are meaningless compared to who we are as individual people. This was obviously and intuitively the right point of view, and for a while it seemed like we had these issues licked.

Then something changed, I’d place the break-point somewhere around 2010, others suggest later. Gradually at first and picking up speed, the people who had been activists for equality and fairness began to express bigotry. This bigotry went largely unchallenged and even uncommented. People who had argued for the equality of the sexes began to spout the most hideously bigoted statements about men. People who had argued for racial equality started claiming that all white people were racist, by dint of being born white. That they were inferior and blackness was supreme. People who had fought hard for acceptance of their sexuality began spewing hatred at straight people.

If, like me, you took on board the messages of equality and fairness, this was betrayal. This was bigotry. This was everything you’d helped to fight against and had eliminated from your personal worldview, but now it was coming back at you from the people you’d helped and that you’d treated, lifelong, as equals.

If you want to know where a lot of anger and backlash comes from, that’s it. Hypocrisy, not living up to the standards we had all agreed upon. Not to dismiss someone because of their identity category, but also not to elevate them. To try and eliminate our prejudices, from any group, against any group.

Which brings us back around to recent events.

We are being told that this singular event is an exemplar of problems. That women are afraid to be out at night. That this is ‘male violence’. That men are the problem and that women need to feel safe. Feelings aren’t a good guide here, at all, they’re far too subjective. We shouldn’t care whether women feel safe, we should care whether they are safe. That’s also subjective, but we can at least compare and assess against other degrees of risk and threat and use that as a benchmark for what to do.

So what do the statistics tell us?

Women, as a group, are less likely to suffer random street violence than men. Men suffer random street violence at a rate of 150% that of women, though it’s closer to 200% in more recent surveys. Men are also more likely to be injured or killed in such circumstances, while women are more likely to suffer sexual assault, but all things considered women are considerably safer than men. This isn’t to minimise anything, these are just the bald facts.

Unlike women, men don’t seem concerned about this elevated level of risk, relative to women. This leads us to ask which case is correct. Is it than men are not assessing their risk level appropriately and accurately, or is it that women are overestimating it? Why is society so much more concerned about violence against women than it is about (more serious and prevalent) violence against men? Why are women being told to carry things for self defence, while men and boys are decried for doing the same?

It is true that most, but by no means all, of this violence is carried out by men. We’re hampered somewhat in accurate assessment because rape against men is commonly not recognised in law and sexual assault is underreported when it comes to male victims. We also find that IPV is underreported against men, and may run as high as 33-40% of the total amount of IPV.

We seem to have a paternalistic, benevolently sexism bias to see women as victims and to value their safety more than we do that of men. A classic example of this is a headline shocked and appalled that ‘1 in 4 homeless people are women!’ – blithely ignoring the fact that this meant 3/4 were men, who would appear to need more assistance in that situation.

Does any of this mean it’s justifiable to treat all men as potential rapists and murderers? After all, they are more likely to be such, right?

Well no.

Members of ethnic minorities are about twice as likely to be criminals as white majorities are (assuming UK/US). Would this justify clutching your purse whenever you pass a black man in the street?

Of course not.

We recognise, rightly, that this is a racist assumption. That there are many confounding factors at play and that even if it’s true, it’s still a tiny minority of PoC that are criminal. We understand that the vast and overwhelming majority of the time we are not at risk and that it would be racist to assume.

It is sexist prejudice to assume a predatory nature for men, for exactly the same reasons.

Yet the excuses seen on the ostensibly left-wing feminist side of thing, sound exactly like the talking heads of the right excusing their racism. It’s just acceptable to be sexist towards men in a way it isn’t acceptable to be racist. Some people will even claim you can’t be sexist towards men, an ironically, profoundly sexist statement in and of itself.

People will come out with anecdotes of their own sexual harassment and experiences, but we can’t make important societal or legal decisions on the basis of anecdote or feelings, we have to consider the facts.

I have anecdotes of my own.

I have been sexually harassed or assaulted several times, by women and once by men. Something I don’t make a huge fuss about, or laught off, because nobody gives a shit or wants to talk about it – because I’m a man. Even other men treat this as something funny, or even boastful. Should laws be changed and women given a 6pm curfew because of my personal, subjective experience?

Obviously not.

Shoud women be kept away from young infants because of their statistically higher chance to commit infanticide than men?

Also obviously not.

Which brings us back to risk assessment. If men are three times as likely to suffer street violence of any sort from a random stranger, why are they so unconcerned and why are women so fearful? Is it a constant diet of fear in the media and from activist circles, as happens to old people who only watch Fox or read the Daily Mail? Is it that men are wildly underestimating their risk? What is it? What is it rational to be afraid of?

Would you play Russian Roulette for a million dollars?

What if the chance was 1/100 rather than 1/6?

We have COVID as a good point of comparison here. From the start of the pandemic you had about a 60% chance of contracting it and a 2-3% chance of dying from it. Data on Long COVID isn’t that reliable yet. So, globally, we’re looking at about a 1-1.5% fatality rate. To deal with that we’ve taken to wearing masks, social distancing and lockdowns. In comparison, a women’s chance of being a victim of random street violence is 0.4% and a man’s 1.4%.

So what does a rational response to these levels of risk look like?

Correct and useful action can only follow from correct and useful information. We can’t formulate meaningful policy or enact effective change unless we look at these issues with dispassion and rationality. Meanwhile, a little consistency in ethics would go a long way towards creating solidarity and sympathy.

#NotAllMen is said sarcastically, but so many people seem to assume it is #AllMen that it continues to need to be said, at least until we shy away from misandry with the same readiness we do racism.

Sex is Oppressive; To Men

Posted by grimachu on

imagesCAYKT4J6This is an exercise in satire and gender-bollocks in the form of ‘frog boiling’ by slow degrees of seemingly relatively sane propositions, building to an irrational whole. I was curious how easy it might be to make a lunatic case using the kind of nonsense I have run into reading blogs and papers on Gender Studies issues and this is the result. References are intentionally as poor or comedic as I have run across in serious works and while there’s some truths or half-truths presented here, it’s intended as an exercise in bullshitting.

Introduction

Trigger Warning: This paper is concerned with heteronormative intercourse between cisgender individuals. Same-sex and trans intercourse is beyond the scope of this work.

There is a somewhat common conception that normative, heterosexual intercourse is necessarily an imposition on the woman and a matter of oppression.

Whether this comes from Dworkin’s ‘Violation is a synonym for intercourse'[1] or Lady Hillington’s ‘Lie back and think of England'[2] it seems that the two sides of the political spectrum, left and right, both agree that sex is an horrible ordeal and an unwanted imposition. While Dworkin’s words are often claimed to be misrepresented, at least some modern feminists agree with her radical statement, making this a subject worth investigating.[3]

While unwanted or duty-oriented sex may indeed be a momentary imposition oppression is defined as ‘prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or exercise of authority‘[4] which would require a much broader context than the mere act itself.

In this instance I argue that there is a much stronger case to be made that the act of sexual congress is an imposition and oppressive societal act upon men.

Approaching Intercourse

The oppression inherent in the pursuit and act of intercourse begins long before things might reach the bedroom. Men are expected to take all the risks and to make all the outlay.

Men are still expected to make the first move in approaching a potential partner[5].

Even in long term relationships men are expected to initiate the sex act[6].

The requirement for men to perform well (bring their partner to orgasm) and its precedence over other laudable qualities as a mate is a broadly accepted societal ‘meme’ or ‘trope’, even celebrated in pop culture[7].

The emotional risk at each step falls primarily upon the man. Incidental factors such as the cost of dates etc falling primarily upon the man[8] are also there. With that risk comes the possibility of emotional harm, loss of status, mockery and pain on par with physical harm[9].

It is not a stretch to consider this cruel, prolonged (lifelong) and an exercising of authority, as affirmative consent always lays with the woman, backed up by the power of the state[10].

The Act Itself

Should the man approach a potential partner successfully and initiate intercourse without rejection, his ordeal is not over because his pleasure and needs are almost entirely incidental to to act of physical love.

Male pleasure is devalued during intercourse via a combination of physical, social and relational impositions.

Physically, it typically takes a man 5-7 minutes to come to orgasm (intravaginally) while a woman generally takes at least 20 minutes of stimulation to achieve orgasm.[11][12]. Men have a refractory period of at least 15 minutes while women do not have a refractory period at all[13].

If sex were to be described as a game, then the ‘win state’ is the female orgasm and, for the majority of the period of intercourse the male orgasm would be considered a ‘fail state’ as it would bring an end to the act, and without having achieved the ‘win state’. After the female partner has achieved orgasm, the male orgasm – male pleasure – is virtually incidental and of much lesser value or concern.

The goal is almost never the male orgasm and this is reflected in media depictions which linger upon the cries and wild physical motions of a woman in the throes of ecstasy but which barely depict men’s pleasure, let alone ejaculation.

Even in pornography, a supposed misogynistic haven, whether acted or not the actors – and thus via transference the viewer – establish their virility and sexual worth by bringing their partners to (fake or genuine) orgasm.

This is even true at the more extreme end, of male-dominant BDSM and rough sex works which, though they would seem to be fixated upon male dominance and pleasure offers the same orgasmic female cues as mainstream erotic cinema and offers disclaimers in which the female performers assure the viewer (and presumably critics) that they enjoy what they’re doing wholeheartedly – returning the narrative to their pleasure and denying the viewer even the fantasy of being given primacy in the sex act[14].

Consequences

However safe one tries to be, sex can have consequences. The most consequential of these possible consequences is, of course, pregnancy and here again the oppressive tendency against men continues.

In the case of unexpected or unwanted pregnancy women have plenty of reproductive rights and options, across the western world. These run from abortions to adoptions to safe-haven abandonment laws[15].

In stark contrast men have absolutely no reproductive rights, whatsoever. They are held accountable for any offspring resulting from intercourse regardless of their wishes and even, in some cases, when their own sexual consent has been violated[16].

 

Conclusion

From initiation to conclusion and consequences, sex is an oppressive act against men. They are expected to expose themselves to rejection, dejection, loss of status, loss of partner, pain and harm in pursuing it. The cost of pursuit primarily falls upon them. During sex the man’s pleasure and comfort is deprecated in comparison to that of the woman – whose pleasure is paramount and not incidental. Should the sex result in an unwanted child the man has zero recourse and can be forced into indentured servitude in service of his sex partner and their child until the child achieves maturity. At every stage this is enforced by both social convention and the state and, given the innate physical nature of sexual performance differences between the genders it is hard not to see this oppression as gendered.

[1] Intercourse: A. Dworkin
[2] http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/close-your-eyes-and-think-of-england.html
[3] https://witchwind.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/piv-is-always-rape-ok/
[4] Oxford English Dictionary (online version)
[5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201104/why-dont-women-ask-men-out-first-dates
[6] http://www.today.com/health/ivillage-2013-married-sex-survey-results-1D80245229
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUYaosyR4bE
[8] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562054/Chivalry-not-dead-Most-men-pay-date-women-secretly-happy-do.html
[9] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-winch-phd/this-is-your-brain-on-rej_b_3749885.html?utm_hp_ref=science
[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/affirmative-consent-are-students-really-asking.html
[11] Waldinger, M.D.; Quinn, P.; Dilleen, M.; Mundayat, R.; Schweitzer, D.H.; Boolell, M. (2005). “A Multinational Population Survey of Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time”. Journal of Sexual Medicine.
[12] http://www.webmd.boots.com/sex-relationships/guide/what-happens-to-body-during-sex
[13] “The Sexual Response Cycle”. University of California, Santa Barbara.
[14] http://www.sexandsubmission.com/site/?c=1
[15] http://worldabortionlaws.com/
[16] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/05/nick-olivas-alleged-rape-victim-_n_5773532.html

Through Men’s Eyes (Link and mirror)

Posted by grimachu on

I was on Al Jazeera’s The Stream to talk about Elliot Rodger and the #YesAllWomen hashtag.

The first video is the AJ one, watch that if you can. If it’s blocked in your country I mirrored the video in the second link, though I’m not sure how long it will stay up.

I didn’t get to cover everything I prepared, so I may add to this blog later.

Things I didn’t get to cover in the panel:

The Rodger Shootings

Lest we forget, besides Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss, Rodger also killed James Hong, George Chen, David Wang and Christopher Michaels-Martinez. He also killed himself, his final victim.

His ‘manifesto’ was not political, it was an autobiography as a rambling justification for his hatred. It was a narcissistic hate-bubble.

Calling what he did ‘terrorism‘ is utterly irresponsible and unforgivably inaccurate. His agenda was personal revenge. Not political change. Calling it terrorism legitimises it, fixating upon his genuine, mentally ill misogyny and calling it something broader is also irresponsible. People like to blame things, but it’s not that easy.

Rodger was not a men’s rights activist, he was not a MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) nor was he even a Pick Up Artist. He was a member of an anti-Pick Up Artist group. The manner in which people have conflated all these things and then tried to associate them with Rodger is unethical opportunism.

The bad reporting appears to have directly contributed to actual terrorist threats of violence and disruption being made against AVFMs conference.

Blaming Rodger’s actions on Men’s Issues is like blaming Valerie Solinas’ or Aileen Wuornos’ actions on feminism – which I feel would be dishonest. Unlike these two I have not seen anyone seriously raise Rodger’s actions as laudable and I doubt his manifesto will become a standard ‘masculinist’ text in the way SCUM has.

Violence

Men are the majority victims of violence. Men are far more likely to be attacked, randomly, in the street than women are – yet are less afraid. Men are 40% of the victims of domestic violence (according to Parity). Men are the majority victims of rape – if you include prison rape and ‘made to penetrate’. Men get equal abuse to women online and the peak target of online abuse and cyberbullying is the 19 year old male – according to Know the Net and Ditch the Label.

Genuine Men’s Issues

The Men’s Movement raises genuine issues, amongst them criticism of the dominant feminist narrative in media and academia and the problems it creates. Outside of that, other genuine men’s issues include, but are not limited to:

  • Education
  • Work safety.
  • Medical funding.
  • The justice system.
  • University courts.
  • Alimony.
  • Child custody bias.
  • Censorship.
  • Military service & the draft.
  • Mental health issues.
  • Suicide.

My fellow panellists on Al Jazeera included Jackson Katz, Ravi Chandra, and Eduardo Garcia, they’re all worth checking out too.

I hope I’ve shown that a more reasonable approach can be more effective and that my desire for conversation and dialogue will be reciprocated by reasonable people on the other side of the divide.

#Atheism has an MRA Problem?

Posted by grimachu on

tumblr_mqkupetBAj1syitgfo1_500A response to this article.

No, atheism doesn’t have an MRA problem and, frankly, I expect a bit better of Patheos than to take sides in this particular, ongoing conflict.

‘MRA’ has become a slur to be hurled at anyone of dissenting opinion in the arguments over gender etc in much the same way as ‘feminist’ used to. Maybe we’ll see that change over time (the shift to MHRA -Men’s Human Rights Activist – is hopeful). It says nothing, it’s just an ad hominem shut-down attack in the same way ‘fedora’, ‘neckbeard’ and other nonsensical terms have become. None of it adds anything to the debate, but these slurs tend to go ignored while trolling gets taken seriously and treated as though it were people genuinely involved in the debate.

It is, perhaps, more appropriate to say that atheism has a feminism problem, in the shape of Atheism Plus.

Atheism Plus and it’s Tumblrist, pseudo-progressive nonsense has driven a wedge clear through the atheist community. The arrogant presumption was that simply because everyone who was an atheist didn’t believe in god they would have to agree with everything else they thought. That’s not the case at all. The only thing that unites atheists is their lack of belief. Otherwise you will find atheists of all manner of beliefs, all manner of political affiliations, all manner of positions on other topics.

There’s some things that are true as a demographic, we will TEND to be more liberal, TEND to be more intelligent, TEND to be more educated, TEND to be more law abiding but a tendency doesn’t describe the whole. Personally, I find the kind of ‘social justice activism’ promoted by A+, FTB and their ilk to be archly conservative, dangerously censorious and perilous to free thinking.

As with our engagements with religion, we find that people are perfectly happy for us to be skeptical in our examinations of any faith but theirs. We are not, it seems, allowed to be skeptical of feminism. As an ideology it seems to be considered beyond criticism, beyond challenge. Any challenge to its ideas, even the crazier ones, is treated as though it were heresy. Little wonder, then, that people like Thunderf00t, frequently criticised for his skepticism of feminist claims, have taken exception to it.

Are we skeptics or not? Do we want to know what’s true or not? Why would we tolerate conspiracy theories like ‘Patriarchy’ and leave them unchallenged when we’re willing to critically examine closely held beliefs that have lasted thousands of years? Why can’t we point out the flaws in the Wage Gap when we can challenge the very claimed existence of Jesus?

There’s a deep inconsistency there.

I also expect better from Patheos than to use fallacies in attacking something they don’t like. What possible difference does it make that MHRAs are white, (racism), young (Ageism), male (sexism) or conservative? An argument stands or falls on its merit, surely? Ah, but then according to some of these people you can’t be racist to whites, sexist to men etc etc. Pure bunk and another idea that should be subject to robust critique.

There’s another false assumption in the article that mass attacks by trolls are somehow the actions of MHRAs or other atheists rather than… trolls. It’s never been adequately explained to me why people think this. I’m sure there’s some crossover of course, but who benefits from treating trolls like they’re serious threats and genuinely mean it? Well, you need only look at how Sarkeesian, Criado-Perez and Watson have profited from their victim status (legitimate or not) to see why someone might take trolling more seriously than it deserves.

Speaking of this, Melody Hensley has come under concerted attack recently. Why? She’s publicly a feminist (a popular troll target because feminists react), she’s publicly an atheist (another popular target for trolls), and she’s claimed to have PTSD – a dubious claim and another big red rag to trolls.

Should she be trolled? No. Is it understandable that she is being? Yes. Can we separate the trolling from the scoffing, skepticism and arched eyebrows? Sure we can. What about the claim itself? PTSD from social media? That sounds unlikely in the extreme and little wonder that a great many people who do suffer from PTSD and other forms of mental illness (myself included) are incensed by what we see as her trivialisation and devaluing of a very real and present problem for a lot of people.

Still, conflating MHRA with troll is just as unfair and dishonest as conflating feminist and troll, and believe me, it’s tempting to do that. I’ve been verbally attacked, threatened, had my jobs come under attack, my work boycotted (failed) and it blows up again and again. Whenever I try to honestly engage in debate and try to understand the Social Justice Warrior position all I get is my appearance attacked, called names, my hat mistaken for a fedora (as though that were relevant), my past scraped over, threats of doxing (not that I’m that secretive) and on and on and on. Something I’ve not suffered from actual trolls or people who just disagree with me – even religious nutters, even Jihadis and right wing terrorist groups like Christian Identity.

I think that says a lot, but I’ll still – try – to take people one at a time.

So what’s really going on here?

I think I’m going to blame ‘intersectionality’. It sounds good on paper, considering the way different forms of advantage and disadvantage interact, but in practice it divides and subdivides a community more and more, diminishing and diffusing any power it has to be a unified voice.

Here’s a radical idea I want to present. So long as we all agree about religion being wrong, let’s agree about that and work on that problem – debunking creationism, promoting skepticism, secularism and freethinking. If we don’t agree on what political party to vote for or whether same sex marriage should be legal or not, who gives a fuck? We can campaign on those individual issues with people who agree with us there.

We don’t NEED to be a homogenous whole.

That’s not to say we can’t have this debate, but let’s make it a ‘goddamn’ debate, not a slagging match.

My door’s always open to sensible debate and there are no sacred cows here. Let’s extend that to the rest of the community.

 

Post-Script:

A few short years ago I would have considered myself a feminist, in that I would advocate for equal rights for women. However, that is no longer what feminism is and that became abundantly clear to me when my defence of freedom in fiction made me a target. ‘The radical notion that women are people’ or the cause of equality is not the feminism of the censors, it’s not the feminism of Criado-Perez or Suey Park, it’s not the feminism of Watson, Sarkeesian or Atheism Plus. It’s not the feminism of holding men guilty until proven innocent, it’s not the feminism of blaming everything on ‘patriarchy’ or using ‘privilege’ to silence contributions. It’s not the feminism that speaks of ‘male violence’ or terrifies people with specious talk of ‘rape culture’. If you’re a feminist in terms of equality, you’re not the kind of person being grumped about.

I’m on the verge of actually ‘joining’ the MHRA movement if only because I see the same kinds of irrational bitterness driving it I also see in feminism and I think it needs more sane voices. I also think the association with the right is problematic, as is feminism’s association with the ‘left’. There are plenty of left/liberal critiques to be made of modern feminism that are going unsaid.