As men in the Red Pill multiverse, we can fall into the trap of conflating the predictable outcomes of perverted incentive structures with congenital character flaws inherent in “the other.” While there are differences between men and women and yes, hypergamy is a natural force, it’s still important to recognize capacity for agency and accountability, and not be fallaciously reductionist in our outlook.
Of course, our popular culture reinforces said structures, whether it be the most influential female singer (and self-proclaimed feminist) of her generation promoting a caricatured manhood as the ideal:
…to other singers justifying relational vengeance in the form of larceny (Blu Cantrell’s “Hit Em Up Style”) to rationalizing infidelity (TLC’s “Creep”), to campaigns to end women’s prisons, there’s no shortage of messages telling women they can behave badly without suffering adverse consequences to themselves. You almost can’t blame teacher Megan Denman for her confusion.
The most compelling example in recent years is how the Tiger Woods story went from a textbook case of female domestic violence to “where did Tiger stick his dick?” Never mind that feminism was supposed to teach us that realtionSHIP does not mean ownerSHIP; Elin Woods’s payoff, literally, was $500 million, zero days in jail, and openly expressed heroine status.
Indeed, in matters of domestic discord, female hypoagency and male presumptive guilt are increasingly codified into policy or law, regardless of the level of physical violence, who initiated it, or even if there was no physical contact at all (“coercive control,” “verbal abuse”). What is “domestic violence” is increasingly (and unfortunately) less about what is done, but the genitalia of the person doing it. This piece linked on the AVFM “Hot on the Web” sidebar (and a comment by Paul in another article I cannot recall) reminds us that despite the popular reinforcement of plausible deniability, hypoagency afforded to modern women, introspection is more common than we think.
Indeed, it’s how we get so many women in the MHRM. Neither physical nor emotional bullying know gender in the real world, and it’s refreshing to hear women in public space query aloud, “why am I treating my partner like this?”
Which brings Anita Baker’s “I Apologize” immediately to mind. Despite what we all know (that women are just as likely, and probably more so, to singe their partners with fiery words), few and far between are melodic expressions of female contrition for a fight. Indeed, the catalogue of “I’m Sorry” songs is overwhelmingly male, which corresponds with the male trait, socially reinforced, of taking the blame, whether it was all his fault or not. The apologetic woman is not a common trope in popular music, which makes Baker’s unvarnished self-repudiation all the more exceptional.
Quite possibly the most distinctive voice in R&B, the veteran chanteuse is used to breaking the mold. The song doesn’t recount a physical altercation, per se, but does accurately reflect the origin of plurality of the physical disputes, based on the available research from those not in thrall to the Duluth Model Hive-Mind model of scholarship. Particularly, misplaced indignance and “bringing home problems” are not the sole province of “patriarchal oppression.” The device Baker uses as port of entry into her confessional is the phone operator, whom she implores to connect her to her man, melancholy and regret palpable in her voice.
Operator, get my baby on the lineJust the other night/We had a horrible fightI admit that I, I was out of control
The subtext of the device is the novel conceit of the telephone operator as confessional priest. She unpacks her burdens, but not to relieve her guilt, but rather as a trial run.
Operator, it was like a bad dreamLord, you should have heardThe way he shouted and the way that I screamedI regret it, because I was unfairI took it all out on himJust because he was there.
The allusion is a circumstance familiar to anyone who has ever been in a relationship – using a loved one as an outlet for misdirected anger
When the road gets rough, we say things we should not sayI never meant to treat my baby that way
What makes the song most effective and sincere is the absence of the Passive Voice. The persistence of the personal pronoun “I” is like a metronome, punctuating the confession. In the chorus it’s uses no less than eight times, counting background vocals.
I apologize (Believe me I do)/Believe me I doI apologize (Honest and true)/Honest and trueBecause I know I was wrong/So I sing you this songAnd I’m tryin’ to get through/And make it up to you
No dissembling, no half-measures, no passive-aggressive narcissism, no reversals (“but if you hadn’t”) Just a pure, unvarnished penitence. Implicit in the song is the recognition that nothing hurts more to someone than biting, acerbic words from the one they love. Baker sets an example that should be emulated by all in relationships, but is sadly only socially, morally and legally reinforced for one. Enjoy, for you are unlikely to hear its type in the near future.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This piece was originally published in Avoiceformen.com on July 9, 2014. I found it necessary in the wake of the Eliot Rodger murders as a response to the attempt to divide and conquer the various Red Pill camps by smearing RP philosophy with Rodger's toxic narcissim, with led to his rampage. It was then, and remains today, a necessary recognition that even though each orientation is distinct, men can, and mostly do, draw from all camps at some time in their lives, often simultaneously)
Men’s Human Rights Activists (MHRA or MRA), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), game theory, and, yes, PickUp Artists (PUA) share one universal goal: that each boy/man can feel free to chart a course for his own life free from social conventions and laws that pre-emptively shame, marginalize, and punish him. Despite the obvious distinctions, in the wake of the Elliot Rodger killings, we should be cautious of “otherizing” one another to our antagonists. Instead, we should recognize ourselves as allies against a common opponent.
“Men blogging in the manosphere, whether it’s Game theory, PUA, MRA, or MGTOW, all assume a horrible risk for publicly expressing their views that a proponent of feminism would rarely need to consider. Professionally, personally, and to an extent, even physically, manosphere bloggers paint a big target on themselves that very few people would sympathize with their being damaged for their outspokenness. If it looks like patriarchy, it’s OK to set their home on fire, and a feminized world of angry women and their identifier mangina sycophants will line up with torches to do so.”
—The Rational Male, Build A Better Beta
In the wake of L’Affair d’Rodger, I already had this piece in mind when I read the otherwise skillful interview our own Robert O’Hara had with Al Jazeera. Bob deftly responded to both benign and trapdoor questions (“Do you like women?” = “Do you beat your wife?”) with aplomb, until the interviewer broached the subject of the PUA community with a question that presumed a connection to them when there really is none. But Bob gave the following answer, which isn’t quite true either:
Pick-up artists, they believe in this magical thing called “game.” And if only you had game, then your whole life would be great. You can have sex with any woman you want, everyone’s going to love you, your boss is going to love you, you’re going to make more money. And they honestly believe this. They’re deluded people.
My critique is not Bob’s opinion per se (we in the men’s rights community are allowed to disagree) but time and place. Let us vigorously debate as we have in the past between the various camps, and as families often do. Our opponents have us ALL in their sights, and are making no distinctions as they ruthlessly lie.
Counter-theory to ideological feminist dogma has many constituent elements. The purpose of the following is to show 1) that game theory and MHRA/MGTOW both have at least one common goal: to seek to improve the lives of men by helping them take the blinders off about how the world really works, 2) how interconnected the schools of thought are, and 3) that we can have our squabbles (like this from Paul, and this) while never allowing outsiders to use our words as partitioning devices to leave us further riven. As we’ve caught the broader society’s limelight, and hit with the wrong end of the shit-stick, in the wake of the Elliot Rodger saga, it’s crucial to recognize this interconnectedness and how men’s lives have been improved by both. MHRA and MGTOW can maintain their distinctiveness from PUA and game awareness while at the same time recognizing its members as “fellow travelers” down this road of rejecting society’s flawed narrative about men. Indeed, there is no reason why, say, PUAs can’t believe in men’s rights, as many do. Public “othering” of each other when questioned by outlets not associated with the “manosphere” or MHRA/MGTOW represents internecine conflict that is unnecessary, and harmful, to all members of our “tribe.” I’ll start with my story. My Red Pill Journey—A Play in Three Parts
My grandmother had converted me early into a news junkie, as I spent many evenings watching Walter Cronkite and Jerry Dunphy on her couch. Nightline with Ted Koppel had been regular viewing for most of my teen years on that spring evening of my senior year in high school when the show led with multiple clips of women gathered in groups, weeping as if a beloved professor or classmate had died, or some catastrophe had just occurred. Turns out, something did:
Mills College had decided to admit that virulent vermin known as men. After 16 days of strikes and untold acts of civil disobedience by the student body, the board of trustees changed course (turned tail?) and reversed its decision. This L.A. Times guest op-ed by Father Patrick Arnold of the University of San Diego is where I first heard the term “misandrosy” and is where I trace the origin of my red pill journey.
My third serving was during my sophomore year in college. Working in a library during my first 16 months of college was pure gold, and never more so than when I came across Norman Podhoretz’s Rape in Feminist Eyes, a classic, comprehensive, erudite, and airtight takedown of the still-germinating field of “rape crisis” feminism, in which Podhoretz exposes threadbare the “demon penis” philosophies of Andrea Dworkin and the hypo-agency/hyper-agency dichotomy foundational to “non-violent sexual coercion,” prophesying the current wave of codified expansionist sexual violence definitions. I consider it the Magna Carta of the subject, and 23 years later I’ve still not read a better essay.
In between, I heard Ross Jeffries say the following on The Tom Leykis Show in early 1991.
“There’s what women say they want. There’s what women think they want. And there’s what they actually respond to.”
Those three sentences affected me with all the subtlety of a roadside IED detonated at the base of my brainstem. I loved women, but was perplexed by them, until I heard those words. It was a moment of clarity, and suddenly everything made sense.
Back then, Tom Leykis was a local, albeit quite popular, host in my L.A. metroplex, whom I’d been listening to since I was 15. Bear in mind, the post-1994 iteration of Leykis is nothing like he was then—he had the same manner and rapier wit, but social issues, current events, and hot political topics dominated his show. Indeed, Leykis was a bit of a purple-piller when it came to women, fond of saying women wanted equality “when convenient” but yet on his third of four marriages (opposite of the advice he now dispenses), albeit with pre-nups for the final two. It could be argued that Ross Jeffries was an inspiration to Leykis’s unabashedly pro-male format, as Jeffries gave Leykis some of his best ratings whenever he appeared. Leykis also gave A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam his most friendly guest platform, allowing him to speak for an hour, unedited and unfiltered.
And therein lies the irony: the progenitor of the modern pickup artist heavily influenced the manosphere’s most beloved talk-show host, who was happy to share Paul Elam’s message.
Did Jeffries and Leykis imbue this then-18-year-old with priceless knowledge when I conversed with them on the call-in line? Did I run out and blow $20 on the book Jeffries was hocking? Not at all, as about 18 months prior, I had made a decision after my junior year to dial-back the amount of time spent with “female friends.” Never was I cross, but I had grown weary of being the emotional tampon for women I thought were cute, listening to their “boyfriend issues.” Needless to say, I gained my first girlfriend that summer, and subsequently more girls seemed to find me arousing. By college freshman year, I had gained my “footing” with talking to women, so I was already starting to “get it.” Of course, it didn’t hurt that I was 6’3”, 195 lbs, and an avid basketball player. Although some of what my mom had told me was true (“Women like TALL”), I was in the midst of a long-term, two-year, ego-crushing heartbreak from the first girl ever to lay with me. Nevertheless, I felt validated, something crucial for a testosterone-laced new adult man who had not had his dad in the home and was just beginning to navigate the treacherous waters of the sexual marketplace and was experiencing some extremely choppy waters. Allies vs. Friends
Joseph Stalin was the most brutal of Soviet dictators. What’s also true is that he saved Europe in World War II. The turning point in the war was the Battle of Stalingrad, in which Stalin’s generals surrounded and trapped the German battalion’s advance on the Caucasus oil fields, trapped them in the city, and allowed the Russian winter to do the rest, so weakening the Eastern Front that they could not stop the advance into Germany. Without Stalingrad, there would be no successful Operation Overlord many months later.
The Soviets were by no means our friends. They were, however, necessary allies.
PUAs and game theorists, by contrast, are not analogous to the Soviets in terms of diametric philosophical opposition to MHRA and MGTOW. Regardless, our opponents have us ALL in their sights and are making no distinctions as they deploy their artillery. Game Theory vs. PUA
PickUp Artistry (PUA) is unabashed applied male sexual hedonism. Nothing more, nothing less. Every man, even gay men, with any sort of single sex life has engaged in “picking up” someone in some form or another. Just like diet regimes and multi-level marketing scams, many “get you laid” programs have the element of swindles, and men can completely lose their own identity in pursuit of “lay counts.” On the flip side, they can serve like jumper cables to the sex lives of some—it’s no substitute for a working battery (read: developing your own personality), but they can get you on the road to where you want to go. There’s no such thing as self-improvement schemes that work for everyone, and by the same token, rare is the guide that is universally useless for everyone. As a sales professional, I learned many techniques, but ultimately I had to adapt each one to the client/prospect, product, and my style of delivery. Caveat emptor.
The problem with “game” is a branding and semantic one. The connotation of “playing a game” just rubs some people the wrong way. In the African-American community, however, there is widespread comfort with the term on many levels. Although it’s only about 15 years old as a popular phenomenon, the idiom has been around as a catch-all for both intersexual relations and a general life skill for decades in black inner cities, with our common lexicon replete with phrases like “you played yourself”( see Ice-T video of the same name), with even women extolling the virtues of a silver-tongued parrying as prerequisite to coupling. The advice novelist and audio-blogger Tariq “Elite” Nasheed uses our concept of “game” to promote practical self-improvement for men, and women, with his panoply of books, lectures, and Internet call-in radio shows.
But rather than go down the ethno-linguistic rabbit hole, I’ll keep things simple. There have always been masculine and feminine biological drives and imperatives. Correspondingly, social conventions, mores, and laws, although always in flux, have been put in place across civilizational history to check both for the cohesion of a society. If you view feminism as the philosophical and governance arm of unchaining feminine imperatives and hypergamy, while bending and constraining the masculine, “game” is no longer “magical.” It’s self-evident . . . and necessary.
The Rationale Male, married and himself a sometime-critic of PUA seminars and DVD pimps, recently discussed where his approach differs against the backdrop of the Rodger killings.
“What’s more legitimate, my prescribing some course or template to follow that leads a man to a success that ultimately I define for a reader, or my laying out an accurate landscape for his better understanding and he creates his own success with it?
Are you your success or my success? I’d rather a Man be his own.
Most men already know what the keys are, and most even know how to use them, but what they really want is confirmation that they actually have the keys.
My approach to Game is defined in much broader terms than simply “how to get girls,” and I think for the better part of the manosphere the understanding of Game has evolved beyond rote memorization of scripts and plans. It’s gotten to a stage where even the most enthusiastic proponents of PUA techniques acknowledge a need for an individualized approach to relating and interacting with women based on a broader applied understanding of feminine psychology, sociology and the particular conditions that apply to themselves as well as the women they’re interacting with.
It’s been noted before, my approach to Game is descriptive, not prescriptive.”
The relentless and unabated pursuit of “more notches” can lead to an empty existence, and some men already have both the attractiveness and charisma to attract partners easily. However, men who encourage the rejection of evidence-backed theories under the umbrella of the catch-all “game theory” out of hand do boys and men the greatest disservice. Just as girls should have an idea of how boys’ worst impulses can manifest if left unchecked, the landscape is littered with the carcasses of men who, had they gone into their relationships/marriages understanding the mechanics of women’s worst impulses unchecked likely would not have immolated themselves, self-medicated, committed suicide, or gone on murderous rampages. Pages like The Rational Male have done more than even MRM/MHRM pages to explore how hypergamy affects the interactions between the sexes, and the ever-fluxing social conventions that shape-shift to conform to it, while remaining cognizant that “underpinning all of these areas of specialization was still the need to internalize and personalize Game in a Man’s life.” Correspondingly, game theory mixed with a little MGTOW would show boys and men that “opting out” partially (like YouTuber Barbarrossssa) or fully (like YouTuber Sandman) are both viable and rational options which are not antithetical to a fulfilling life.
For those who scoff that one can be MGTOW and game-adhering, read one or more of Roald Dahl’s stories of Uncle Oswald, a bachelor who traveled the world with hedonistic flair, collecting walking sticks, and getting rich, with only one ironclad rule for sex with women. Balance in the Force
To use a Star Wars analogy, 60-plus years of one-sided gender discourse have put “The Force” out of balance. MHRA and MGTOW are there to restore this balance on the broader philosophical and legal side. Likewise, on the intersexual relations front, multiple generations of women have been weaned on Cosmopolitan, The Rules, and Sex and the City, to name just a few popular sources for modern women, all with the prevailing lesson being that women are entitled to make the masculine heel and genuflect before them, bending all social conventions to the Princess Paradigm. Thus it’s reassuring to know there is a faction willing to snatch off the tiara, throw it in the mud, and laugh heartily as the pearl-clutching ensues. PUA is our countervailing influence to the Fem-Centric Relationship Industrial Complex, the carnal IRA to our Sinn Fein. Why should we unilaterally disarm when the Ulster Party isn’t?
That is not to say that men should feel compelled into being “sexual performers.” I, for one, am not interested in treating my sex life like a video game. By the same token, let’s check our sanctimony at the door and admit some hard truths. Like Dahl’s Uncle Oswald, all men have that Lothario in our circle who makes us feel a little more alive when we’re around him. We may not feel like BEING him, but we’re happy he’s out there, if only to live vicariously through (my good friends on the University of Arizona basketball teams in the 1990s come to mind). Which leads me to . . . PUA Shaming = Slut Shaming
As MRAs/MHRAs, we have a vested interest in ending “slut shaming,” both as a philosophical (sexual hedonism is not always harmful) and practical matter; as has been demonstrated by Pierce Harlan and others, fear of shaming is the fuel of much regret asymmetry that leads to false rape allegations like the Kobe Bryant, Hofstra, and Oregon cases. Why then are we so easily goaded into internecine food fights with those men who choose to live their lives in a more hedonistic fashion? If you’re uncomfortable defining your existence by “lay counts,” fair enough. If the commodifying pickup gurus reek of snake oil to you, that’s fine too. But the foundation of the MHRM is to allow men to choose masculinity in their own way while taking an “agreeable disagreement” posture if you do not approve.
I believe Bob O”Hara fell into a “Let’s You and Him Fight” trap on Al-Jazeera, and the trained journalist and public relations pro in me cringed as Bob took the bait, riffing that “game” was some hoax akin to Christian Science and stating that all who believed in it were “delusional.” This was based on the demonstrably false presupposition in the interviewer’s question that Rodger was “connected” to PUA communities. His comment left the unsophisticated reader with the impression that PUA is more likely to lead to destructive behavior than the MRM/MHRM, an impression that is poisonous. However, Bob’s response should have been: “We disagree with game on much, and agree on some. But if you’d like to know more about PUAs and game theorists, ask them, not us.” Like any family, we should never offer our words as partitioning devices that opponents can use to make us further riven. It’s just another form of proxy violence.
Even after I realized the NBA and major college basketball were not in my future, I would still take some tactics and moves of some players to adapt to my game. Even though I knew I would never be like them, adapting components used by the best in the world only made me better, and it didn’t make guys like James Worthy and Joe Dumars “magic tricks.” Some guys really ARE that good. Likewise, as men experimenting is how we learn best. That includes different ways to interact with women. Eventually I found ways that work for me, comporting with my sense of decency and my basic personality, through trial and error, making sure not to compromise who I am. I find it needlessly antagonistic to burn the toes of young men testing the waters simply because they have one foot in the game pool. That young man was, and still to a point is, me. Common Ground
Ironically, Bob’s next answer based on MHRA outlook and “game aware” philosophy correspond to each other. Both teach men to focus on improving themselves, from physical fitness to their dreams and goals, all the while “safeguarding” themselves from traps. MHRA and MGTOW focus on the problem from the pragmatic, social, and legal hazards for men in relationships, while game awareness teaches men to observe behavior above all else when interacting with the opposite sex and understand its origins. Game theorists take down feminists, as well as simpering white knight academics like Michael Kimmel; impart lessons we should learn from male feminists like Hugo Schwyzer; and both game and MHRA/MGTOW teach men how to withstand and combat social conventions that shame the masculine for nonconformity. Paternity fraud is nothing more than the sizzling poop-pile of the dualistic procreative impulses game theorists like The Rational Male have broken down, most of which have a basis in research, impulses most women keep in check but today incur no obvious and immediate penalty when they don’t. Both endorse men maintaining control of their own reproductive futures and mitigating risks of being put on the hook financially or emotionally (see the “real man” meme). Indeed, some game theory actually does a better job of explaining these ever-shifting shaming tactics and their origins. When you listen to Sandman discuss the MGTOW observations of “Male Harems,” it’s just the functional destination of being in “the friend zone.” From either perspective, the point is clear: you are being used in order for a woman to keep your attention fixated on her, whether the reason is ego-edifying, utilitarian (disposability), or both.
It’s likely that if Elliot Rodger had immersed himself in the MHRM or MGTOW communities, he would have been less likely to go on his rampage. Like Sandman said, Rodger could not stomach truly “going his own way.” This corresponds to The Rational Male’s postulations that Rodger could not come to grips with the red pill truths as they presented themselves. Know this—had he immersed himself 100% in game awareness (or even PUA), he would have been just as unlikely to commit those acts of murder. Indeed, the most critically thought-out, well-crafted, and incisive breakdown came from Roissy, despite what you may think of some of his more sophomoric snark-laden riffs.
We can condemn Rodger’s actions with all our muster while still recognizing that every boy/man has suffered some disillusionment after realizing he’s been lied to about “what women want” or while trying to reconcile what he’s been taught about girls after getting assaulted by two of them simultaneously, emotionally bullied, or seeing his efforts to be “the good man” go for naught.
Men’s counter-theory is a buffet table. If you’re going to run a 5K or hike, eat the salad and carbs. If you’re in a celebratory and indulgent mood, then by all means grab some apple pie with a dollop of sorbet to chase down the prime rib. At different times in your life, men may want and need different things, and those things are always there, on the same “table.” Conclusion
This “renaissance age” is too important to be allowed to be squandered with finger-pointing. Like steel forging steel, the best ideas survive the trials of fire. But fire can both heat our home and burn it down. I, for one, will not set one room in my house alight, as each room contains something valuable, and fire rarely stays in the “other” room.
(AUTHORS NOTE: This first appeared on A Voice For Men.com on February 15, 2015. In light of the events currently unfolding at Morehouse and Spelman, it serves as a cautionary reminder of the blowback effects and unintended consequences of fomenting moral panics based on flimsy evidence or, more starkly, outright fabrications. #RapedByMorehouse #RapedAtSpelman has all the earmarks of being the HBCU "Jackie," and further proof that gender grievance politics supercedes race when it comes to shaming black men with collective guilt.)
The mascot of the University Of Virginia is the Cavalier. And the sorority women of Jefferson’s venerable institution believe that’s how their right to freely associate and look after themselves was dismissed by matriarchs of their organizations. So says, Ms Story Hinckley, a sorority active and senior.
At first blush, Hinckley’s entreaty not only tugs at the heartstrings, it threatens to yank the entire interior vena cava from its moorings. She has created an online petition to revoke the edict from a coalition of national sorority directors that their UVa actives not attend fraternity parties, starting with “bid night,” festivities, where chapters accept new member pledges, and, like most fraternity functions, good libations are rumored to flow, and, the matriarchs fear, bloomers are rumored to fall, forcibly or otherwise, as the women are trapped into spontaneous bacchanals by Rape Lycans.
Not so, says Hinckley.
This is gender discrimination.
"Instead of addressing rape and sexual assault at UVa, this mandate perpetuates the idea that women are inferior, sexual objects. It is degrading to Greek women, as it appears that the NPC views us as defenseless and UVa’s new fraternal policies as invalid. Allowing the NPC to prevent us from celebrating (what used to be) a tight-knit community, sends the message that we are weak. Please sign this petition to support women’s rights at the University of Virginia."
In another letter to the sorority dictators, quoted by the Washington Post’s Susan Svrluga, signatories take issue with the presumed “diminished capacity for agency” implicit within the edict.
Sounds like a cause one can get behind. After all, who wants to see adult women essentially grounded for having done nothing wrong? These women signed up for college Greek life, not a convent. How dare the National Panhellenic and various Sorority National Directors take these “strong women” back to the 1950s, treating them like “children,” they demur.
“This is not an issue of we’re angry because we can’t go out and drink,” says Sara Surface to NPR affiliate WVTF. “It’s an issue over whether or not we have the choice.”
Seems the only choice was to sign the petition, in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Booger from “Revenge Of The Nerds.” But not before a visit to the medicine cabinet, for two red pill caplets to blend into my fruit smoothie. Doing such is always a Huxley-esque and clarifying experience, and this time was no different. Indeed, the varied squalls and squawks of displeasure synthesized into their real meaning, as only the words “solipsism” and “cognitive dissonance” were visible on the page.
What complicates sympathy for the plight of these women is that they only sought to advocate for their “adult agency” when faced with prior restraint on their movements and activities. However, a search for a similar outflow of activist remonstration after fraternities were extorted into being conscripted to the role of “Sober Monitors” for these “adults,” under threat of revocation of recognition on campus comes up curiously empty. Funny, that.
As our colleague Pierce Harlan at Community of the Wrongly Accused eloquently lays out, the campus rape hysteria template is modeled after how the law protects child victims. Not surprisingly, the new Fraternal Operating Agreement addenda, announced by University President Theresa Sullivan, follows this template. Its provisions require, inter alia, that a minimum of three brothers be lucid at all events. Only these “sober brothers” would have access to upstairs rooms, and would monitor who can enter and exit rooms. It also includes “Bystander Intervention Training,” ostensibly to spirit away the innocents in the nick of time. The “agreement” also includes such feminist code words as “addressing. . .unhealthy power structures” and “eliminating chaos and discomfort.”
In other words, all risk for the women (children) is outsourced to the men (grown-ups). Can’t have the coeds being groomed for spontaneous, tipsy carnal knowledge. It’s the same principle at play with the new “affirmative consent” laws; Sexual contact with women is a presumptive crime, as it is with minors.
This hissy fit isn’t about freedom. It’s about privilege. Specifically, conferring upon these women the privilege to constrain male sexuality whilst holding in reserve the right to invoke post hoc plausible deniability for their own, something Title IX coordinators endorse, especially at Virginia colleges.
Moreover, how many opportunities to take a stand did the Good Greek Women of UVa. let fly by? In light of Ms. Hinckley’s stated frustration of the Greek men being stereotyped as “stupid rapist fraternity brother. ‘No women can come to your house on this night because they will all be sexually assaulted,”a review is in order.
When their fellow Greeks carried the cross of a fantastical horror story equal parts Animal House, Silence Of The Lambs and McMartin Pre-School/Kern County as a part of “ritual pledge initiation”. . .what did they do?
And yet, when the toga-clad chickens come home to roost, spiking the punch not with date-rape sedatives but with an acrid, caustic load of The Law Of Unintended Consequences expelled from their bowels, they demand the world take notice of their campus-wide bitter beer faces?
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: An abridged version of this piece first appeared in The Tucson Weekly July of 2009. This version first appeared in A Voice For Men in 2013)
How “sexting epidemic” exposes our hypocrisy
August 26, 2013 By Ty Henry 48 Comments
WRITER’S NOTE: a heavily edited version of the following piece was published in the Tucson Weekly in 2009. In the wake of the events in Nova Scotia, and others, I decided to update the full text and publish it here.–TH
In March of 2009, Pennsylvania Federal Judge James Munley took the near unprecedented step of preventing local prosecutors from bringing state child porn charges against six teenage girls who took and sent pictures of themselves and each other in states of undress. The girls are just the latest example of the sexting epidemic, which has been addressed kind of like termites in the house – you’ve heard the creaking for years, but have turned away until the bottom falls out of your kitchen floor.
Too bad there was no Judge Munley for Keimond Brown, and the millions of boys like him
Mr. Brown was charged with Aggravated Molestation of a 13-year-old girl, and now has to register as a sex offender. Before your chorus of “They should have shot him” reaches critical mass, consider that he was 15. Oh, she also consented. The same applies to Ben Wood, the Middletown, Ohio 7th grader arrested and charged with felony child porn, and the thousands of other teen boys whose lives are ruined after being ensnared in this web, such as Phil Alpert. Some, like William Elliot and Gary Blanton, are murdered.
Nothing in our current zeitgeist illustrates the dichotomy of how differently we treat boys and girls when it comes to punishment. Sex Crime jurisprudence is the A-Bomb in The War Against Male Sexuality; indiscriminate, unmerciful, inexorable, and oblivious to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Only now that the cloud threatens to envelop and swallow whole the population these laws were drafted to protect–white girls—are we looking to the underground shelters. The Chickens have indeed Come Home to Roost, in 8 megapixel resolution, brought to you by Olympus and Kodak.
Radical feminism and social conservatism long ago saw their one mutuality – The Deadly Penis – and happily wed. For the better part of 30 years, we’ve seen their progeny wreak havoc, from the false Satanist molestation scares of the 80s, to the White Girl Memorialization fad of the last 15 years, from Meghan to Dru to Jessica. Whether boys with raging hormones, or men obeying 10,000 years of evolutionary biology, we’ve put them in the soup with Ted Bundy and Joseph Duncan. In the meantime, our girls are taught they’re allowed to play House with House Money. If you enjoy it, have fun. If you have regrets or the boy/man pisses you off, run to the cops.
It has been the catalyst for the lack of any police modesty, as cops no longer know their place, and now actively lobby for more laws to enforce. Is it any wonder schools are hemorrhaging staff while at every Job Fair, who’s hiring? The State and Federal prisons. Just have a look at law, which says about 95% of boys and men are sex offenders. Don’t believe me? Any of you men who touched a 14yo breast, regardless of whether you yourself were 13, is a guilty of sexual abuse.
Of course, irony never takes a holiday. In 2007, 18-year-old Joshua Lunsford, older brother of Jessica of “Jessica’s Law” was charged with a sexual felony after being seen at a mall groping a 14-year-old girl – his girlfriend. The hue and cry from Mark Lunsford eventually led to reduced counts and no registration. Attribute that not to enlightenment but utility. Can’t have the martyr’s brother sacrificed at the same altar as his fellow boys
The Sexual Hysteria Industrial Complex (SHIC) is a dissonance-free zone. I hear mothers like my aunt comment all the time about how “the girls are worse than the boys these days.” And yet, the angle the mainstream press almost invariably takes is The Boy (predator) coercing the Innocent Girl (victim). We don’t call Miley Cyrus a victim, nor Brad Pitt and Wilmer Valderrama predators, even though both dated teens when they were in their mid-20s.
America is now compelled to come to grips with some Inconvenient Truths. We now have a sex crime whose primary perpetrators are 11-18-year-old women. The production of minor porn is being driven by Chelsea and Heather, not balding white Physics professors. Yes, Mrs. Robinson, your daughter and her naughty bits are on 40 Thumbnail Gallery Posts in Europe, and she put them there.
The upside of this is that we have an opportunity to re-evaluate our sex-crime laws, and hopefully shutter the SHIC. First, we must rethink how leisurely we throw around words such as “dangerous,” “predator,” and “victim.” The flasher is not dangerous; he is a creep, to be laughed at and shunned. Jessica Lunsford was a victim. The 16-year-olds who go to adult Spring Break and flash for Joe Francis are not. Michael Devlin, 40-something who befriended and abducted Shawn Hornbeck, is a predator, regardless of what Bill O’Reilly says. The guys in Adult chat rooms lured by geeks and actors pretending to be kids are not; they’re often just losers, and often just typical men. If you want to catch real predators, make the fake child nine, not 15. Next, we must acknowledge that for most Sex Offenders, treatment is the magic bullet. They have the lowest recidivism rate. Finally, understand that puberty makes one a sexual being. If John Walsh can date his future wife when he was 21 and she 16 1, then why can’t anyone else?
Any of these laws that don’t target molesters of actual children (read: 12 and under), rapists, and sex traffickers should be scaled back, changed to misdemeanors, or expunged. Keep the felonies for all in positions of power like teachers and coaches, and stop letting female teachers like Traci Tapp, Sarah Jones and Pamela Rogers off easy if the male teachers get 25 years, like Charles Robson, whom I served time with. Believe it or not girls are better equipped to handle relationships with older men than boys are with women. See Vili Fulau and Jason Eickmeyer.
All boys who had sexual contact with girls that was not rape should have their convictions expunged. Stop rousing the sheep with Pavlovian “public notification” regimes and goofy residency restrictions that rupture families and make someone more desperate and thus likely to offend. Keep offender data with police, and notify school teachers and administrators of what local molesters, and only molesters, look like. Accept that 14 is not 9, that most relationships that cross age boundaries are welcome, that for teen girls an older boyfriend has often been a trophy (tell the truth, we ALL knew girls with older guys when we were in school), and that age of consent laws were enacted to keep girls out of prostitution. Give parents veto power via restraining order, put in more community service, and implement more sensible penalties, like lifetime computer monitoring for those convicted of looking at child porn but not trafficking, and felony charges for molesters who apply at day care centers and schools. Eliminate prison time for victimless crimes like failure to register.
Look around us. The prison and jail system has been playing hot potato with inmate populations for about 20 years, and based on edicts like those of the Supreme Court to California, many have reached a dead end. In the meantime, school systems are collapsing (my local, Tucson Unified School District, laid off a staggering 622 people in a single day back in 2009), and the Universities are dying. I wonder if they saw the disconnect before their ox was gored.
These laws are eating the young in myriad ways, and irony is merciless. How many more Keimonds, Bens, Phils and Garys do there need to be before we heed its warning?
1. “The Dark World Of John Walsh,” Men’s Journal, June 2002
In the wake of Gabourey Sibide’s historic nomination to the academy awards, there was substantial hand -wringing over her win and what is represented. I decided to have a little fun, and find all the white, morbidly obese, Academy Award nominees. Surely, all the folks who said she “cut a bad image for black women,” were wrong. Surely, their had to be a white nominee who cut the came profile as Sibide or, hell, Mo’Nique
So I printed out lists of all the Academy Award best actress nominees for the last 40 years. I blew it up and, careful not to look at it too closely, invited a friend over for some fun and regaling. I taped the blown up list to the wall and let the games begin.
The game, darts, but with a twist. The goal is to find out who can hit the grouping of names that has the fat white nominee. . .blindfolded. Each of use got 3 darts. If no one hit the name, the winner is the one who hits the nominee grouping by year. I was ready to go.
Larry went first. The first dart hit 1976:
1976 Faye Dunaway - Network as Diana Christensen
· Marie-Christine Barrault - Cousin, cousine as Marthe
· Talia Shire - Rocky as Adrian Pennino
· Sissy Spacek - Carrie as Carrie White
Liv Ullmann - Face to Face as Dr. Jenny Isaksson
No dice, but no worries. Two more tries. The second dart hit 2005:
2005 Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line as June Carter
· Judi Dench – Mrs Henderson Presents as Laura Henderson
· Felicity Huffman – Transamerica as Bree
· Keira Knightley – Pride & Prejudice as Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Bennet
· Charlize Theron – North Country as Josey Aimes
Not quite. One more dart, but this time, a little to the left. THWAAP! 1989, gotta be a few here:
1989 Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy as Daisy Werthan
· Isabelle Adjani - Camille Claudel as Camille Claudel
· Pauline Collins - Shirley Valentine as Shirley Valentine-Bradshaw
· Jessica Lange - Music Box as Ann Talbot
· Michelle Pfeiffer - The Fabulous Baker Boys as Susie Diamond
DAMN, Larry, sorry about that, but hey, the Hard Lemonade should be well chilled by now.
I knew I would fare better. Blindfold wrapped tightly, I was ready to have at it. First dart:
1994 Jessica Lange - Blue Sky as Carly Marshall
· Jodie Foster - Nell as Nell Kellty
· Miranda Richardson - Tom & Viv as Vivienne Haigh-Wood
· Winona Ryder - Little Women as Jo March
· Susan Sarandon - The Client as Reggie Love
Ooo, so close. . . I think. Next throw, banner year, 1987
1987 Cher - Moonstruck as Loretta Castorini
· Glenn Close - Fatal Attraction as Alex Forrest
· Holly Hunter - Broadcast News as Jane Craig
· Sally Kirkland - Anna as Anna
· Meryl Streep - Ironweed as Helen Archer
One more try, OK. Maybe a bit lower
2000 Julia Roberts – Erin Brockovich as Erin Brockovich
· Joan Allen – The Contender as Sen. Laine Hanson
· Juliette Binoche – Chocolat as Vianne Rocher
· Ellen Burstyn – Requiem for a Dream as Sara Goldfarb
· Laura Linney – You Can Count on Me as Sammy Prescott
We’ve played this game several times, and are looking to switch up to Pin the tail on the Fat White Nominee, maybe with the supporting actress nominees. I’ve suggested these games to others, and one guy said the genius is that no one can win, and the game can never end. I’m not sure that’s true, but hey, I’m willing to be proven wrong.
If you want a clue as to why Black sociological thought is jammed in neutral, look no further that the current du-jour concept of Black Male Privilege. It was coined by Dr. Jewel Woods and Dr R. L’Heureaux Lewis, who defines it as “a system of built in and often overlooked systematic advantages that center the experience and concerns of Black men while minimizing the power that Black males hold.”
Orwell wept.
It fancies itself as revolutionary, but it only takes the old paradigm (“black men you must do more”) and puts perfume and a new outfit on it. It purports to blaze a new trail of understanding, but ultimately leaves us chasing our tails as we have been for decades now.
For 40 years black women have driven the engine of discourse in black society. The debates of the pathologies that afflict Black people are framed to absolve black women of all responsibility, whilst painting them as perpetually put upon and beleaguered. This narrative has been the paradigm of Black discourse, and its one-sided-ness has only served to make those pathologies grow in scope, not shrink. Any challenge to this narrative at its core is met with reflexive inertia, whether it be black men being shouted down by black women at both formal and informal discussions—I see you brothers nodding—arrogant academic refusal to engage the matter honestly and without presumption, or in the case of popular media, rejected by gatekeepers seeking to pander to black women’s insecurities. Meanwhile, our socio-economic barometers have only gotten worse, and worse still. Only recently, through the miracle of blogs, social networking, and video sharing, has full panoply of black male thought on our problems been on display. And before these can take full purchase in the terrain of ideas—BOOM! —another escape hatch for black women to abscond from their volitional choices
I decided to read the “Black Male Privilege Checklist” in its entirety, as should you. But first, it’s important to understand feminist orthodoxy and its sclerotic effect on academic thought. It starts with an article of faith, that the structure of societies are erected (ostensibly in a vacuum) by men for men, to the diminishment of females. In black America, it has been the springboard for black women to redefine their sex roles, while not challenging the strictures that define black men by their ability or willingness to do what “men are supposed to do.” Herein lies the paradox. The fatal flaws in feminist influenced thought and research is that it 1) fails to recognize Feminism may have changed how women view themselves, but not how they view men, 2) assigns all gender roles to construct and not evolutionary biology 3) conflates burdens with privilege
The issue with the checklist is not that it is completely inapplicable; is that it is both boldly presumptuous and leads to more questions than it answers.
Some beg the question, and balance out easily when those questions are answered. For instance, #77, “I have the privilege of marrying outside of the race at a much higher rate than black women marry.” Does he consider “why”? Or #19 “If I am raped, no one will assume that "I should have known better" or suggest that my being raped had something to do with how I was dressed.” True. . . you’ll only be derided as a punk and told “men can’t get raped”. Or #14, "My looks will not be the central standard by which my worth is valued by members of the opposite sex." Again true. The converse for women would be “My sexually desirability will never be based on my bank account or fame.”
Others are downright silly. 21. “I can live in a world where polygamy is still an option for men in the United States as well as around the world.” Dr Woods and Dr Lewis, before I introduce you to Warren Jeffs, let me suggest you not presume that polygamy did not sometimes serve the greater good, particularly when societies often lost a sixth of their men in one day to battle. The man who took on the additional woman bore the cross of their safety, nourishment and protection. No sexual Shangri-La, that.
Others reflect what Dr. Warren Farrell calls “feminism as fluoride”—we drink while not knowing its there. Take # 26, “When I consume pornography, I can gain pleasure from images and sounds of men causing women pain.” This is Dworkinism at its most malignant, mirroring radical feminist thinker Andrea Dworkin’s comparison of sex to “wartime invasion and occupation.” This is not only an attack on sex itself; it paternalistically ascribes masochism to the female participants.
Of course, any objections to this checklist are paternalistically pooh-poohed as analogous to white denials of self-evident privilege (“poor brothers, they can’t see the obvious”) or collectively addressed using straw men techniques. This imbalance mirrors popular media, which omitted the broader black male perspective in these discussions. And no, Michael Eric Dyson doesn’t speak for all of us.
Dr Lewis, a professor of sociology at City College of New York, has contributed to this work with his paper “Shadowboxing the Self,” which he read at Morehouse College last year. I took a listen to this as well.(See it here)
The ironic subtext in both Dr. Woods and Dr. Lewis’ positions is that there is no discussion of women’s attitudes on theses topics.
· Never a recognition that black women view men who aren’t hyper-masculine as weak
· Never a question as to why the male group most pre-disposed to revere women (raised by “strong” women as centerpieces of the family) feels aggrieved their peer women.
· A nod to how video images affect how we are viewed as sexual consumers, but never a corresponding nod to how 40 years of hearing from our women that we are deficient affects how we are viewed in the greater society.
· The references to male hyper masculinity in hip-hop culture, but no reference to black women in popular culture who have stated in their music and their mate choices, this is what they like. (Beyonce’s “Soldier,” anyone?)
It’s not as if black women’s attitudes are hidden. They’ve chosen buffet style feminism; gorge themselves on Fillet of Strong Independent Woman, but demand to be rescued from Thug Beefcake-induced indigestion.
As Dr. Lewis said, “a man with a skirt can have a greater character than a man with his pants pulled up.” Indeed, and he will be free to date that character on Friday night in lieu of a woman
He consistently draws the wrong conclusion. In using the example of Dr. Martin Luther King dismissing the idea of women leading marches, he ascribes it to privilege and not, say, to the idea that for the first time in American society, black men were able to collectively stand up to protect their women from violence. In quoting our higher rates of domestic violence, and how hesitant we are to cooperate with the police during rape investigation, “he states that if we want to end violence against our men by the justice system, we must stop violence against our women at home.” Of course, this presumes the man started it, and ignores that black women of the past two generations are the most likely to initiate physical aggression on men. Maybe the reluctance to cooperate with police is recognition that 1) sexual assault is the crime most amenable to false allegation and 2) black women over the past 30 years have become savvy at using the police as tools of control for their men. This is against the backdrop of our conditioned response when the police are present—the words “stand up”, “hair”, and “neck” Come to mind. You pick the word order. Of course in other areas he pollyanishly begs for similar data to prove a common sense corollary (sloppy dress and lack of academic achievement)
The ultimate effect of this orientation is to give further disincentive to treat women as adults, which in the end serves to infantilize them. Agency is the touchstone of human decision-making. When you take away agency, you take away humanity, which in the end is silent misogyny.
Perhaps the best example of Dr Lewis’ myopia is an anecdote he related in his speech. At a seminar, a brother stood up and asked him, “well OK, what have we gotten?” Although this brother, like many, may have lacked the rhetorical acumen to mount a full-scale challenge, his point is well taken. Unlike White privilege, which is dismissed by those it benefits because it’s taken as a character attack, Black male privilege is just plain old counter-intuitive. The problem with academics is that, in this case, they foolishly think they can “outthink the room,” literally. Sometimes, the herd is right.
As academics, Dr Lewis and Dr Woods would be wise to look beyond their echo chamber. To again become relevant to current black men’s discourse, such myopia is a privilege they can no longer afford.
