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What Does It Mean if I Find You Neither Endearing nor Horrifying?
Still travelling, still stuck in Doodville. Two more nights. Like infants, the doods demand constant attention and to suck at the collective tit of Woman. Some more than others. Most women deliver. Fawning. Patiently listening with an interested look. Cooing, clucking, nodding. Reassuring. Building up their confidence and egos. Laughing at their rape and ‘dumb ho’ jokes. Tee hee, you’re right, girls are so [insert misogynist stereotype here]. For the pathologically narcissistic of them, you could be lying there, clearly dying, with a knife protruding from your throat, and they’d still keep up with their demands on your energy. Yap, yap, yap.
I’m puzzled and perhaps only slightly amused by a new dichotomy presented to me by an egotistical, but untalented, ‘travelling artist’. He fascinates himself. He is tickled by what a jerk he is and its effects on the women he comes across during his travels and the female students he instructs (apparently he teaches some art class somewhere – details apparently not necessary to the casual inquirer, I discovered). He fully admits with a scary, psychotic laugh, that he enjoys how he treats people. Disapproval, insults. He said it makes fledgling artists better and they usually thank him later. Who knows if that’s true. We live in a mandatory S&M world where abuse is seen as positive attention and even love. So maybe he’s right on a surface level.
But Artiste says that in general, women either find him endearing or they find him completely horrifying, both of which he enjoys, but he says he clearly prefers the former. This means he gets laid, although, I suspect, given how this world brainwashes women and as evidenced through every bloody romantic comedy out there (those misogynists are so damned sexy, aren’t they?), those horrified women let him fuck them too.
But where do I fit in? I’ve thrown this guy for a loop because I find him neither endearing nor horrifying. He is boring, typical, standard, an EveryMan. And my reaction, or perhaps non-reaction is the better word, to him clearly rubs him in a way that he is not used to. I’m waiting for Gowan to pop out of nowhere and sing the chorus to ‘You’re a Strange Animal’. Artiste waxes on loudly about himself to anyone who enters the room. I can see him looking at me from the corner of my eye. “Why isn’t she paying attention? I don’t understand how this reaction fits in to my schema.”
This morning, he sat down across from me at the breakfast table, and I didn’t look up from the newspaper and my coffee. Somehow, even as he loudly started announcing things about his newly shaved head and the reasons for doing so, and how often he does this, and how much time the hair takes to grow back in, I registered nothing. I mean really, who gives a shit? I was busy reading about a local firefighter who had taken a teenaged girl as a sex slave, raping her continually. She got away and is telling her story. She will be labelled as a whore. You can see the set up in the language. “She had sex with him many times…” I put the paper down before finishing. I left the table and the hair monologue. A woman from the room I was staying in came in as I was preparing to get up, an apparent ‘nurse’ with tracks and several healed, self-inflicted cuts on her arms and wrists. Ignoring me, she entered the ‘he’s endearing’ camp and was enticed out to Artiste’s van to look at his collection of masterpieces. He has enough groupies. I’m not one of them.
Look at my hair cut, I’m endearing/horrifying, pay attention to meeeee, trusted community protector rapes teenaged slave repeatedly, teenaged girl is a slutty whore, not a victim… its all on the same continuum of male domination and narcissism and violence, violence, violence against women. It’s the sea we’re all forced to swim in.
Can someone please make it all stop? Make men stop. Make them accountable. Take away the entitlement. There aren’t enough goddess sessions to counter it all. What does it mean that I’m bored and tired rather than endeared or horrified? I think it means that I’m opposing the social order. I’m behaving naturally, and it’s a very simple, but threatening, position to take.
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How I Lost My Smile
I hope I won’t meander too much here. This isn’t a straightforward little Aesop’s Fable with a sweet little bottom line. It’s involved, layered, and there is no clear conclusion. Just something I’ve been thinking about for years and that I continue to think about as I experience more and more and find myself further down that downward spiral that is life as a woman.
Let’s just start with this: Canadians are miserable fuckers. I’m saying this as a Canadian and one who tries to spend as little time there as is humanly possible. As evidence, despite my great boredom on ‘holiday’ here in the US from China, and despite the fact that I have a piece of business I need to take care of up North, I’ve decided not to cross the border. I just hate the place. A small part of it is that Canadians are miserable fuckers. Various data/polls even show it. I remember a comparison poll I once read about done by the airline industry on the differences between Canadians and Americans, and they found that the number one thing American airline passengers hated was fellow passengers who brought too much carry-on luggage. Canadians? The number one hated thing was strangers sitting next to them trying to talk to them. Yeah, miserable fuckers.
But it’s all relative. Canadians are, for example, much, much friendlier and more helpful than the Chinese who are some of the rudest, most selfish, emotionless and humourless assholes on earth. But we’ll get to that.
And I will say this, having disparaged my fellow countryfolk, friendliness varies depending on where you are in the country. I’ve travelled a fair amount in Canada, and I’ve lived in four of the 13 provinces/territories. Having grown up in one of the nastier parts of the country, it was a breath of fresh air to move to the West Coast. I’d say that about American geography, too. I’ve lived on both American coasts and also travelled through 25-30 of the 50 states. While Americans are much friendlier than Canadians, in general, the West is waaaay friendlier than the East. And I’m talking basic friendliness, not politics or ability to think, etc.
Living on the West Coast, and in particular, on the various islands is a different world. People look each other in the eye. Strangers say hello to one another on the streets. You strike up conversations with people at bus stops. You help your neighbours. And people smile. Could be the weather. I really do think better weather makes for more easygoinginess, in general. It’s not that simple, of course, but I think it plays in. So when I moved out there in my later 20’s, I felt myself relax, connect more easily. And I smiled a hell of a lot more.
If you don’t think about smiling in particular contexts and the meanings it can have, you can make the blanket statement that smiling is good for your health. I have felt that, and still do to this day. Exchanging an ‘unloaded’ smile (I’ll get to that in a moment) with a stranger can change your frame of mind and put a different spin on whatever is going on in your mind.
But then there are the ‘loaded’ situations. This is where men come in and ruin things for women like they ruin every fucking, innocent, positive thing on the planet with their filthy minds and need to humiliate and dominate.
It is dangerous to smile at or around men. It is also dangerous not to smile at or around men. Nothing is safe, but a blank look – the kind you see on rape victims or women destroyed by working in porn – is best. Smiling at or around a man can, TO HIM, mean, that you want him, want sex, want to be approached, are submissive and friendly and compliant, and are the perfect victim/prey. Not smiling, and even scowling, may invite sexual harassment, belittling requests for a smile (“Smile for me, honey. It’s not that bad.” Um, yes it is. Now that you’re talking to me.), or the seeing of you as a threatening bitch in need of punishment. Women are required to smile in order to make men feel like men and to help them get what they want from you. Fucking fuckers.
But having said all that, it is not Western men who made me lose my smile, although I will say that now that I have been permanently affected and my eyes are fully open, I don’t waste smile energy on them anymore.
No, I lost my smile due to long-term immersion in Chinese culture. And it took only a month for the first changes in my behaviour to occur.
I still remember my very first month in Taiwan. I’d gone directly from the West Coast of Canada – happy, smiley territory. I was bright-eyed and pleased to be working in a foreign land once again. Until I got there. Despite having a machine gun held up to my face by an aggressive young man on the second day I was there, I still remained my smiling self. But I realized something. Not only did the Taiwanese not return my smiles, ever, the only thing I ever saw were blank, robot-like faces, or just plain old disgust. It was bizarre, and very disheartening. Chinese culture discourages emotion. Emotion = bad, weak, out of control. Even fucking smiling.
Even the children don’t smile. Even most babies!!! Back in those days, in between my regular teaching, publishing, editing and writing jobs, I took on some private language-teaching sessions with the children of rich families. I had one weirdo kid – an 11-year-old boy from a very rich family – who had a freakish interest in out-moded English vocabulary and whose mother would enrol him in adult-level film classes (um…). And oh yeah, the kid refused to smile or even laugh because he thought it made him ‘look ugly’. I got him to engage in some tailored, fantasy/comedy-based murder-mystery story-writing centered on the strange-looking photos of the authors of one of his English books. His stories were hilarious and I laughed my ass off. The kid would start to laugh and then deliberately choked on it to prevent himself from getting all ugly. But I pushed and pushed and finally one day he started laughing and couldn’t stop. Every time I came by his home after that, to his mother’s confusion, the kid would spend the first five minutes laughing hysterically before exictedly whipping out the next instalment of his who-dunnit.
Jezus fucking christ. My biggest accomplishment in Taiwan. Forget the textbook I published, I got a fucking little kid to learn to smile and laugh. Pathetic.
I spent a couple of years in Taiwan, found myself changed fundamentally in a negative way, but not entirely smile-less. I returned to Canada for about 6 years. And then I went back to a culture I said I’d never return to, and I’ve been in Mainland China almost solidly for the past 6 years. The Mainland is even worse than Taiwan, which might be expected given the history and the sheer terror that communism wreaked on the country for so long. And having been there so long, I’ve had a lot of time to study and reflect on the culture and how I have adjusted to it and been mostly destoyed by it.
China killed my smile. It’s not that I am incapable of smiling. I do it a fair amount when warranted. It is much less automatic or natural though in these situations. But in public, outdoors, it never happens. Never in China. And while it has a significant effect on how I feel inside and my outlook, in general, it helps me dissociate, which is necessary when you are a white woman in China. It also saves me a lot of energy. I was quite surprised actually, when I began to analyze the effects of the implemented changes to my public demeanour in China. I used to try to be ‘present’ when I went out, and it was exhausting and demoralizing, especially because there was never any reciprocation from the Chinese. Once I started behaving like them, things became, I don’t know… streamlined? Energy-efficient? Self-centred? I’m not sure what the right word is. I mean, I absolutely hate the way it has changed me, but at the same time, I don’t feel exhausted every time I finish an outdoor ordeal. Going outdoors is always an ordeal. The funny thing is this: I know from feedback from some of my students, that they think I look angry or they are a bit afraid to approach me. But the thing is that I look exactly like them, expression-wise. Blank face. ‘Chinese face’ is what some of them call it. But as a Westerner, and especially as a woman, I am expected to be the kind and entertaining dancing monkey. Double standards. But it saves me energy and I don’t have to be concerned with how I appear when I don’t waste time on distorting my face into something I’m just not feeling. I want to feel nothing, so I put nothing on my face. It becomes easier and easier.
The double standards happen in the West, too – only for women though. We must be the happy slaves at all times. Men can wear whatever the fuck they want on their faces including murderous rampage or disgusting, rapey perv. They’re fine no matter what. Not so for women. Now that I’m visiting the US, I have relaxed a little, but I am much more economic and mindful of my smiling. Tons of women have smiled at me, and I smile back. No problem, and it feels good. I like women. I like the solidarity and energy I feel when exchanging a smile with one. But I don’t smile at men anymore. I try not to even look at them. I’m mindful of where they are in relation to my person, but I don’t look at them. And I don’t scowl. I adopt blank, trauma-face. It is the safest. And so far, so good. I am hyper-aware without perhaps appearing to be so. I come across perhaps as on a mission, hopefully ‘not prey’.
I hate that men and male culture have destroyed something so simple as smiling and relating positively to people. I don’t feel natural, comfortable, easygoing, or healthy. Thanks, China. Thanks, men. Thanks, international Patriarchy.
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Another Oppressed White Male is Liberated by Yours Truly
Last night, I went to bed lighter, but with a heavy, heavy heart. Only if you have felt it yourself do you know what that phrase ‘heavy heart’ means. The words don’t do the feeling justice. All at the same time, you feel like something hard and weighty has crept into the space where your heart should be, a coldness invades you as emotion sears you from the inside out, you feel like you are slowly and uncontrollably, physically sinking. It is weird, and I don’t feel like I can describe its complexity.
As I lay down, I felt some relief, but more poignantly, a bottomless sadness bordering on despair. The layers of this despair are many and might be better understood through a reading of all of my posts. But this post alone will convey at least the sadness part of my emotional state, and perhaps some of the relief too.
I’ve had to let go of another misogynist male in my life.
In the space of four months, this is the second important and long-term relationship I have nixed. Both men, both from California, both uber-liberal ‘nice guys’. Not self-professed feminists (thank goodness), but guys who are totally on board with opposing (not fighting) racism (against males is the unspoken part, I’ve realized). It is fucking hard to end a long-term relationship. But it is harder to accept being treated as less. It is harder to silently accept really sexist opinions, pontifications, theories, actions and orientations from men who profess to be my friend and to care about me. If you cared about me, you wouldn’t treat me as less. It’s really that simple.
This current misogynist – I am staying with him and his wife (until this morning, that is) – didn’t seem to be so horrible in the past. I mean, he was horrible, and I chose not to examine it too closely. Until recently. I’ve been talking to another feminist online about some of the shit this guy has done over the years, and only when you talk about it do you realize what you’ve not allowed yourself to process in a necessary way. When you say it out loud or in text, you realize you’ve been tolerating abuse from or the existence of an abusive individual. But this ‘nice guy’ has become worse over the 8 years that I’ve known him. I think it is because of two things: 1) he has a dysfunctional relationship with a wife whom he both needs and antagonizes and who also is an antagonizer and controller herself – they are both fucked, co-dependent; and 2) he has been spending more and more time online engaging in ‘virtual BDSM’ with women who buy the male idea that female slavery is empowering. (I may have to do a post on the online BDSM community, where I have spent time trying to figure out what makes these idiots tick. It is the silliest thing. Ever.) Use of misogynistic sexual material or services has been correlated with increased violence against women by men. I’m not surprised that liberal dude’s online playtime has made him more outspoken against women.
Said misogynist is the liberal white dude that I wrote about in this post. He is behaving atrociously during his wife’s second bout of cancer just as he did during the first. I was around at the beginning of the first, and the second was announced just before I arrived this time. So, I’ve been around at the beginning of both and watched how this dude has mishandled both situations. Eight years ago, when her first and more serious episode of lady-cancer was diagnosed, dude realized he wasn’t going to be getting laid for a long time and issued an ultimatum that they adopt a polyamorous relationship or else he would leave. What choice did she have? She needed help through recovery. She had to say yes. He got what he wanted and still didn’t support her properly. But he still got to live for free in the house that SHE owned. And this time, it is a very treatable, slow-growing breast cancer. He announced to me and the liberal white lady from the post I linked to above that his wife’s cancer was going to kill HIM. I gave him shit for that, which he didn’t like.
And I’ve since opened my mouth several times to challenge the bullshit that has come out of his. And it has been endless. Him explaining away the cute pedophelia theme in a film we watched one night. Sexist comments when he is ‘forced’ to listen to a small group of women talking about health, travel and misogyny in the world. And the endless harping on the topic of black men getting killed by police. (I am soon going to post on the actual data on these killings provided by black activists and give the issue some perspective that you won’t get by the media, any male, or any government agency.) As I’ve become more observant and less tolerant of this man’s abuse, he has become more petulant, and has adopted a facial expression that speaks of serious male oppression. Pouting, sulking, and then more verbal antagonism towards me. This man in all his years, has never been challenged by a woman. His misogyny has gone unchecked. Because he pretends to be an activist for the poor, he receives serious cock suckage, despite the fact that he relies very heavily on free female labour (I worked as a full-time volunteer for his non-profit for 8 months, which he tends to forget about or downplay) and seldom follows through on his ideas unless a woman is involved.
I’ve had enough. I thought I could deal with or handle this stuff. I need to retain some connections in the meat world for some very practical reasons. I feel that I’ve invested too much energy in relationships with males, and now that my eyes are open, it is practically impossible to respect myself, be healthy, and maintain those relationships. I think to myself that I should have made more connections with females, but they are not necessarily any better. So many women are male-identified, and any relationship you have with them is inevitably tainted by the toxic males in their lives and the female friend’s requirement that you accept abuse that she herself Is willing to accept. And when push comes to shove, these women will often throw you under the bus to support the male abuser.
Where are the feminists in real life? I used to have a few. All were lesbians. But that was years ago. Perhaps, I need to go on a mission, a pilgrimage… Things to think about.
As I contemplate that, my heart is heavy and will be for a while. I still can’t quite figure out which is the worse feeling, dropping toxic males/connections from your life and being almost completely or completely alone, or subordinating yourself in order not to feel alone. Both suck. In different ways.
But at least from Liberal White Dude’s perspective, he has been liberated (a little) from the oppression of a feminist unwilling to accept his free range misogyny. Luckily, there are other women in his life to burden him and fuel his victim mentality and justify his beliefs and the ways he acts on them.
How to Respond to Male ‘Feminists’
I’m going to enter this under my ‘Conversations with Men‘ series for obvious reasons, although I’ll follow a slightly different format than I usually do for posts in that category.
If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know that not only do I assert that male feminists don’t and can’t exist, but I really dislike men who apply that label to themselves. Further, I’m not too keen on the women, including supposed feminists (ffs!), who shower praise and blow jobs on these self-professed activist woman-lovers either, but I get why they do this even if it is enormously damaging to women.
I’ve written about these creeps before:
They Don’t Do It Because They Care: Where I talk about why men join the helping professions, activism, and volunteer organizations.
Is It A Necessary Concession? Where I talk about the hidden, selfish agenda underneath the male feminist costume.
Truth Will Out: Where I talk about how you can reveal the misogynist turd that is at the heart of the majority of male feminists?
Today, I want to demonstrate how to respond to a male ‘feminist’ who tries to ‘engage’ you in dialogue. The thing with most male feminists is that they always end up in the same place using the same set of tactics. Most of them, with their keen male predatory radar, will sniff out real feminists. What are real feminists? There aren’t many around despite the label starting to become fashionable again for pole dancers and identity politickers. Real feminists are those radical women who are consistent in their belief that men as a class oppress women as a class on the very basis of sex. Real feminists name the problem: men. Real feminists understand the interplay of biology and socialization, and that men are free to be their biologically violent selves and have created a society that supports this through socialization, while women are NOT free to be their natural selves and constantly fight against gender socialization and comply against their will to attempt to avoid male violence.
So having zoned in on a real feminist, the male feminist starts a conversation. It might start out in a seemingly innocent or friendly way, but it quickly devolves into antagonism. (Or he might just dive right in.) The dude just can’t help himself. You see, men, no matter how human rightsy they say they might be, are not on board with radical feminist theory because they don’t see themselves as part of class, male. They are special, different. And they neeeeeed to make you see that you’re doing feminism wrong. Your thinking is wrong. You’re mean. You’re rigid. You’re responsible for everything bad in the world. You’re not doing enough to help women less fortunate. You… you’re something. And whatever it is, you are wrong and you should feel ashamed and guilty. Luckily, he is there to set you on the right path. And if you want to help him out somehow to show your thanks, well, you are free (free!!!) to do so.
Where most women, even real feminists, go wrong is in dealing with these douchebags. Even the most hard lined feminists have been socialized from birth as females to be constantly on the defensive. Being a woman means constantly being under attack in many ways. So women will spend enormous amounts of energy trying to explain themselves. No, I’m not a man-hater. No, I’m not humourless. No, I’m not violent. No, I’m not… oh, please just stop. I’m sorry I’m alive.
It is endless, and even staunch feminists cave under this relentless apologizing, self-defense, and explaining. We’ve seen bizarre capitulations by women once seen to hold the flag of feminism. I’m sure you can think of a few.
Online, these dickheads are even worse. They’ll flounce into a women’s space like the king of the castle and pounce on a feminist. They’ll either ask short, snarky, derailing questions, or they will lay it on thick with multi-paragraph mansplanations. What is expected is that all interested women drop everything they’re doing to address the male feminist’s concerns, defend their positions, and answer his stupid questions.
I propose something different, and I’ll illustrate with a real example put in my lap a few days ago.
~~
I left a comment on one of the blogs I follow. I can’t remember the exact topic, but it had something to do with male ‘feminists’. My comment was:
“Just as there is no such thing as a woman with a penis, there is no such thing as a male feminist.”
A concerned penis-brain responded to me, quoted the second half of my comment “there is no such thing as a male feminist”, and then said “Really?”
I did what most women automatically do, I wrote a draft explaining my position and a few other choice things. And then I stopped. This asshole spent two seconds to write one snarky word that demanded that I defend myself. And I almost fell for it. I found that as I was writing my answer, my stress level increased, and my anger flared. And then all became clear.
I decided to respond. And I responded in kind.
“Yup.”
And it felt good. It felt right. And he didn’t engage me further, which was exactly the right thing to happen. Some people might include their blog address or specific posts, and let the dude know that the argument is laid out there. I don’t bother. This kind of guy isn’t interested in feminism, and he will definitely not take the time to read your blog or post. He is looking to antagonize. He is looking for followers and praise and possibly a liberal woman who will be feisty, but who will still suck his dick because he is so fucking awesome.
In other words, not a feminist. Feminism isn’t about individualism, selfishness, or men/male ‘needs’. It is about women as a class. And if men want to be feminist allies/supporters (not feminists), they should go educate men, not spend time on feminist blogs antagonizing already overburdened, harassed women.
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The Male Therapist (Post-Christmas Navel-Gazing)
I’ve never been to therapy.
I think I badly need it, but I know I won’t ever go. And I’ve come to realize why this will never happen.
I was raised and abused by a father who was a male therapist. I won’t (in this post) even touch on my even more abusive mother (who was not a therapist). Between the two of them, I grew up to be an emotionally paralyzed, very confused, silent, angry, socially anxious and awkward, depressed individual, and then was further abused by these parents for being emotionally paralyzed, very confused, silent, angry, socially anxious and awkward, and depressed. Exactly the kind of person who could use a little therapy to untwist the emotional twine binding her.
But as I said, I’ll never go. Even though I went on to formally study psychology for years, I kept to the hard sciencey specializations (statistics, neuroscience, psychometry) and kept all my clinical dealings as a sideline through clinical and forensic research projects, coursework and collaboration/friendship with the more interesting of the clinical (female) crowd.
Even in the thick of things, I still declined therapy while feeling I desperately needed it at the same time. Instead, I self-examined. I know exactly what’s going on with me thanks to years of this relentless questioning and probing. Unfortunately, therapists are useful creatures – you can self-examine all you want and still not make much progress towards balance or health. Therapists are guides, and they are supposed to support you when you are at your most exposed and vulnerable.
As I am an expert in mind-fuckery, I often think about therapy professions. That was what I wanted to be as a kid, and I discarded it in college. At the time, I thought my classmates were too wishy-washy, and hey, I was really good at math and experimental design, but looking back, I know that I left because it was too threatening. Part of me didn’t want to have to address the nasty truths in my life and thus become vulnerable. I knew what vulnerable was and the therapist I grew up with both made me vulnerable and exploited it relentlessly. Who wants more of that?
And as I’ve explored the therapy professions (social work, clinical psychology, clinical psychiatry, etc), I keep coming back to the same question or set of questions.
What draws men to this line of work? And more specifically, what draws men to therapy for female victims of sex crimes (rape, sexual assault, incest)?
Let’s come back to this and talk about female therapists first.
First off, not all female therapists are good and/or appropriate for your needs. The therapist’s professional orientation may not line up with yours. The therapist has been educated by the patriarchy and likely holds patriarchal views of women and their illnesses. Speaking from experience with clinical psych undergrad and postgrad students and professors, many therapists (male and female) are not the most stable themselves. People with problems tend to gravitate towards this profession and the field is sooo competitive that often, only the most obsessive and neurotic are given admittance to programs. I can’t speak for social work programs, but most of the practitioners I’ve met have been really weird people with weird agendas. But I DO believe that it is people with problems who are exactly the people who should be working in these fields because they understand first-hand what the patient is going through. It is important, however, that the therapist have worked out her issues to minimize the intrusion of said issues into her patient/client’s situation.
All said, there are tons of well-meaning women who gravitate towards the helping professions. Well-meaning doesn’t mean effective or correct, but it is a starting place. Men don’t often have even the correct starting place.
To speak more specifically about work with female victims of sex-based crimes (aka hate crimes against women), it is easy to understand why women get into it. Women want to help women. Therapists are often victims themselves. Oh who am I kidding, all women are victims of at least one sex-based offense and are exposed to male filth on a daily basis. Female therapists want to get in there and do some good. Are they going about it the right way? I don’t know. I don’t think most of women’s energy expenditure actually makes any progress towards ending male violence. But someone has to put on the band-aids, I suppose.
I’ve also known female therapists who’ve worked with rapists and men who sexually assault women and children. I can even understand why women gravitate towards this. The work is, of course, pointless. You can’t fix men, and you absolutely can’t fix a rapist. But again, women pour endless energy into trying to fix male problems that can’t be fixed. It’s a misplaced, erroneous belief in male ‘goodness’ (whatever) and a desire to keep women safe. *Sigh*
So we come back to men. I’ve written about men and the helping professions and volunteer work before. What could possibly bring men specifically into wanting to ‘help’ female victims of sex-based crimes? It boggles the mind. Men have little capacity for empathy, and I have never met a man who can wrap his head around the fear women live with daily as a result of forced proximity to men. So to deliberately be around and ‘help’ female victims isn’t a problem in their minds. The last thing women need after victimization by a man, however, is to be made even more exposed and vulnerable with a man controlling her aftermath. Male therapists must be looking for control or a vicarious experience or something. Perhaps they are invested in putting forth a male agenda in ‘managing’ female victims. Does he want to show that ‘not all men are bad’? How completely selfish and self-centred, if that is the case.
We have a new problem with aggressive MtT’s targeting battered women’s shelters and demanding to work there and be put into direct contact with female victims. They are becoming so self-centred and disrespectful that they are bringing law suits to fight for their right to access female victims. Why are they doing this? Is it an attempt to use women’s real experiences to build up their own sense of victimhood? Whatever they are doing, it is assault. It is disgusting. And it needs to be stopped.
Men also love to gravitate towards helping male sex offenders. I have personal experience with one of these creatures. I was taking a course in a form of counselling and was paired up by phone with a black, American, Christian man who headed up his own church and specifically helped rapists get on their feet after (unfortunately) being released from prison. He and I were to do ‘counselling’ sessions on the phone. He was controlling of me from the very beginning, and took advantage of my commitment to the course. He cancelled our sessions, let me do all the work, and would take other phone calls while we were in the middle of a counselling session. But he was smarmy, saying all the right things to smooth things over. If I were 20, I would have accepted the abuse and chided myself that as a WHITE woman, I supposedly was the privileged one. But I was older and well-versed in how all men have privilege over all women regardless of other group membership. Penis trumps vagina, regardless of race, every single time. One day, I called him on his repeated disrespect of me, and the truth came out. He attacked me mercilessly, and threw all the information I’d given him in my vulnerable state as counsellee in my face. And then he played the god card – he knew I was an atheist, and let me know I was shit because of it. Pure abuse. I suspect he was a ‘recovered’ rapist himself. I put my foot down, complained to the school, and only after my fellow student attacked the teacher was he thrown out of the program.
So, I suspect that sex offenders help sex offenders, and any man who gravitates towards therapy for female victims or male offenders is just there to perpetuate the system of abuse, keep the male agenda alive and well, ‘help’ women to put their experience in a compartment and not paint all men or the patriarchy as bad, and experience personal control and vicarious excitement over female victimization. I advocate for keeping men out of all professions where they have access to vulnerable women and girls.
Conversations with Men: The Cambodian
In my last ‘conversations with men’ post about the rape holiday, I mentioned that I would pull another experience from my Cambodian visit. In the former, I was an observer. In this story, I was an object.
Women are constantly divided and divided again. It is a male strategy to prevent women from joining against them in solidarity to fight back in a serious way. But scores of women get on board for a variety of reasons in order to show their sisters that the dissimilarities and points of disagreement are much more important than their common experiences and needs.
Despite being the violent and sadistic sex, there is a great deal of evidence that men of different races, socioeconomic classes, religions, and political leanings are always quite able to come together – and even bond – over a single common cause: abusing, torturing, terrorizing and destroying women and girls. It is a pity that women cannot come together over the single common cause of liberating themselves from men, their violence, and their parasitic tendencies.
And it is with this thinking that I present a conversation from several years ago. Reviewing my two experiences well after the fact made me realize that despite the many differences between me and the young, female, Cambodian prostitute, we both shared the reality that we were objects. We were both seen by men, first and foremost, as bodies to be used.
~~~
Rewind to 2003: I was in the middle of a two-week trip by myself to Cambodia. It is very common for travellers, especially if you’re alone, to hire motorcycle guides in the larger areas. These drivers are often connected to guest houses, and you can hire them for single trips or pay a flat fee for a period time. While in Phnom Penh, I hired a driver who was able to speak some English (I don’t speak Khmer, and those few Cambodians who speak French are quite old now). I did a number of things, including seeing some of the historic sites, checking out one of the riverside, local clubs for some live music (no other foreigners there), and on one of the days, spending an afternoon by the water in the shade eating durian.
Through conversation, I was able to get an inside look into the life of a typical, low-earning, young man. And I also was reminded of my place as a woman.
At that point in my life, I sported very short hair, so I had to provide an answer as to why. Surprisingly, I wasn’t asked why I never wore skirts or dresses. After many more years living in China, I’ve come to expect and hate this whole line of questioning about hair, clothes, husbandlessness, childlessness. But at the time, I was still in my first year in Asia.
But then we moved on to other things.
Dude took on an air of sadness. He said he was too poor to get married. he had to share a room with several other guys. And he had to go to prostitutes.
Yeah, he lost me there. One thing I do hate about traditional cultures is the mandatory marriage thing and the idea that you need to have X amount of money in order to live up to expectations and procure a slave. But I don’t feel sorry for the MEN. I feel sorry for the women. Being sold into slavery – which is exactly what marriage was and still is – is not something I agree with or think is part of a healthy society. And in traditional cultures, if a woman can’t get married, there aren’t a lot of other options for her to support herself. Further, she becomes vulnerable to all men when she isn’t owned by one man. It’s a racket that men designed. Women are screwed no matter what happens. But married men benefit, so who gives a shit, eh?
But the marriage thing wasn’t where dude lost me. It was the ‘had to go to prostitutes’ comment. Men believe they must have sex. And they believe that if they can’t get it from their personal whore (wife/girlfriend/family member), then they must get if from a public whore. And then there is outright, payment-free rape of strangers, which I won’t get into in this post. The thing is, nobody has ever died from not having sex. And I say this as someone who, for much of my life, has had a demanding sex drive that no man (or woman, for that matter) I’ve known could match. Ever. And yet, despite almost never getting what I wanted – quality or quantity – and then eventually just ditching men altogether when I came to my senses about ‘how shit works’ in both the greater world and in my own world, I never felt I was entitled to sex. And I haven’t died from the lack. Presto magic. So take it from me, men don’t need sex.
And then the conversation got worse.
Dude got it in his head that he should have sex with me. The suggestion was put out there. He didn’t actually offer to pay me for sex. No. The idea was that I could continue to pay for his driving services as well as the food we were consuming, and he could have sex with me. It was almost as if he were offering himself up as a prostitute (although he didn’t ask for extra money), except for one very, very significant difference.
This difference lies in the sexes of the people in my last story versus this current story.
Women generally don’t offer themselves as prostitutes because they like sex or want random sex with strangers. Prostitutes are generally desperate, vulnerable women with a history of sexual, physical and psychological abuse. Both men and sex are dangerous to women, and men generally don’t cater (let alone acknowledge) women’s sexual needs. Don’t believe me? Well there is a shit ton of evidence on all. I don’t need to provide statistics. Spend five seconds on Google.
Men seldom offer themselves as prostitutes to WOMEN. To men, yes. That is more common and I don’t really care about that dynamic. When a man, like in my scenario, suggests sex to a woman, he is looking to get off. And in this case, especially, a) he didn’t suggest a monetary exchange, and b) in most cultures, especially traditional ones like Cambodia, men don’t service women – they use them. And if they give something, it is never without the expectation of something in return. So this dude wasn’t offering me anything. He was expecting something.
Of course, I said, “No.”
Everything about this exchange was repulsive. There was fear that he would attack me because I said no (luckily, that didn’t happen – HIV rates were at an all-time high in Cambodia at that time – and nobody wants to be raped anyways). I realized that none of my ‘privilege’ could erase the fact that I was still a woman and thus was under the thumb and at the whim of this guy and every single man on the planet regardless of their status among other men. I realized that because he, a man, brought up sex, no matter how this guy had framed it, he was insulting me: to offer me money would be to tell me I was a piece of meat, but to not offer me money told me that I wasn’t worth paying for and I should give it away like (they think) all ‘free’ Western white women do.
I went away from that conversation with another piece chipped off my tiny block of female self-confidence and then added to the growing pile of evidence of male yuck.
I Tried, and I Had to Leave
For some of us, it’s a process. It can be a lengthy process if you score high on empathy, have any kind of draw to the helping professions, and/or come from an abusive family (for females, not males) where you’re not allowed to stand up for yourself. I’m referring to shedding the dead weight known as men.
Dead weight is only a partially correct term. Yes, men give you a heavy load to drag around with you, draining your limited (and often low) energy. This energy will be redirected from the little self-care you allow yourself to listening to their endless whining, helping them with their endless problems, taking care of them, paying for them, cleaning up after them, etc. But they also fill you with lies and misinformation. They attack your limited self-confidence. They make you doubt yourself. They steal your ideas and creations. They stop your thoughts when you start to appear a little too independent or critical. They’ve got a dangerous arsenal at the ready.
And there is only one solution for that. Get the fuck away from them. Don’t tie yourself to them. Do serious vetting if you are considering being around one. Ideally, never deal with them, although that is next to impossible as this is NOT ALLOWED and besides, practically impossible given that there is unfortunately no female-only territory/country (never mind woman-space, these days).
So, for many, it is a process. I’ve been doing just that. It has been a long process. Very gradual, although more accelerated in the last year.
Except for one or two I haven’t managed to eject from my life and except for mandatory listening that is part of my job as an educator, I don’t willingly listen to them anymore – so much so, that find myself automatically tuning out when one speaks. I jokingly attribute it to age and my hearing, but of course, it’s just that I’m tired of feeling ‘vampired’ after interactions with their non-stop verbal dick-swinging and too-apparent mental deficiencies.
I also don’t bother joining any groups that aim to ‘change things for the better’ if men are involved at all. There is no such thing as an honest to goodness male activist. It doesn’t matter whether said dude is an environmentalist or an atheist fighting religion, the changes dudes look to effect are ones that maintain male dominance. Women don’t factor in as recipients of positive change. And male feminists, as I’ve said before (here and here), the scourge of activism – well, I truly don’t know what they are doing exactly. Soapboxing, perhaps. Men naturally gravitate to self-righteous pontification. But the majority of them spend way too much time telling women what to do or not do. Many of the white male feminists like to shit on white female feminists and accuse them of not only doing feminism wrong, but calling them racist or transphobic. It’s as if they take some kind of pleasure in finding someone else to blame for everything they’ve done on their own. It’s revolting.
And this leads into my latest shedding of dead weight. I forced myself to sort of suffer through the reading of ‘We Hunted the Mammoth’ posts for a while. When I first ran into the site, I thought “let’s see what happens here”. I much prefer men who purport to be fighting the fight (although, I can’t be bothered to go and check whether the author calls himself a male feminist) to keep their own blogs and to read, but not comment, on women’s blogs (for the reasons mentioned above). I was amused that he was taking on the Morons Rights Activists (seriously the dumbest, loudest and most violent men on the planet besides MtT dudes and both Christian and Muslim male fundamentalists). I think this is a job for men. But of course, because men truly don’t understand women’s issues, it is impossible for them to take down these assholes completely. I get the impression that WHTM sees the MRAs as a joke primarily, and he slaps them around like a cat does a mouse. And indeed, if you look at who comments on WHTM, it is mostly dudes who like swinging their dicks around, feeling superior as if they are doing something Important. There is no real talk of women’s rights or feminism. There is no willingness to get on board with or understand radical feminism. It is just an amusement to write about and comment on the latest ‘hijinks’.
I have been commenting occasionally. No one interacts with me, which is fine – that’s not what I went there for. For me, it was more like dropping a beautiful, perfectly-shaped, feminist turd in the middle of a circle jerk, and it gave me a little pleasure and satisfaction. A few people clicked over, likely to check out the bitch who dared comment on an anti-MRA site (remember, male feminists aren’t activating for women’s sake, but just to feel superior). But it didn’t take long to get bored. The writing is not interesting, and neither are the verbose commenters. The blog has no purpose other than poking fun, and if I want that, I read the comics. I’ve noticed other feminist blogs commenting that all the rad fems that initially stuck around that blog and tried commenting ended up leaving. Too much misogyny and dick-swinging – and no real purpose.
I feel much lighter for having shed this silly corner of the internet.
If you want to visit a blog that is much more effective and on point and with clear purpose in dealing with MRA bullshit, you must, of course turn to a woman (don’t you always?). Mancheeze takes things seriously. You won’t be disappointed.
Lab Work: A New Job Choice for Men
I get annoyed – although that is not quite the right word – when I hear men and their fembots talk about how prostitution and other rape-oriented work is really a fantastic work option for women. They rename it ‘sex work’ to take away the rapey, violent aspect of it and to diminish this kind of slavery so that it is on par with flipping burgers.
I get further annoyed listening to men say they are ‘jealous’ about women’s options. How they wish they could rake in the cash by doing what women are lucky enough to be able to do with their natural attributes and talents. How prostitution is ‘easy money’. How using prostitutes and strippers and watching porn is ‘contributing to the economy’.
It’s fucking gross. And ignorant. And it’s horrible to hear women parrot what these men say.
Given that it doesn’t look like we are going to change that culture and belief system any time soon using rationality and appeals to morality and human rights – like men give a shit about that, right? – I propose a more effective method.
Men generally only understand problems when they affect them. Self-centred creatures, you have to hit men where it hurts. Raping women doesn’t hurt them, but maybe experiencing something analogous would. Maybe…
Anyhow, here is my proposal.
I think we should open up a new job category that is only open to men. It’s called ‘lab work’. Here’s how it works. I am against animal testing, and I think all beings should be able to choose the type of work they do. Currently, animals don’t have that right. So I will free them. Instead, men will be able to choose to have chemicals and drugs tested on them in exchange for money. In fact, teen-aged boys can choose to do it too.
There is potential for ‘big money’ – or at least, that’s the rumour/promise. It will be a good choosey-choice for men who would otherwise suck from the government cock (aka ‘welfare kings’), or be homeless, or have to resort to finding a sugar mommy. It can help young men pay for their college education. And some bored men – from househusbands to professors – can even choose to do it as a sideline and then act as poster boys for the ‘happy lab rat’ when people try to critique this important, empowering job choice.
They will be provided with comfortable cages in view of other men. Drugs will be available to make the work even more palatable. We can even groom boys from a young age to see this type of work as a good career option.
Why is this work so important? Well, you see, women have a god/nature-given right to safe cosmetics, hair products, household cleaners, and properly tested medications. We can’t provide that safety guarantee unless we test them. Men provide the best test subjects – men tell us all the time that they are better than women at everything, so naturally, they are totally and naturally made for this job. And it is a good match anyways – everyone wins. Women have their rights satisfied and men make a good living! Women will contribute to the economy and help men stay employed and feel empowered. Besides, if men don’t provide this needed service, women will likely start illegally testing the chemicals they need on the men in their lives. And we all know that that isn’t good for society. We need to protect the virtuous men. And the others, the unspeakables, are better suited for lab work, anyway. All in all, we reduce random violence against family men by legalizing lab work.
Agency, empowerment, choice, free will, economic stability, men’s rights. That is what this job is all about.
Oh, and by the way, if you think you have any right to criticize this proposal, think again. I will shout you down as a gynophobe, a misogynist, a communist, and worst of all… a LWEMRA (Lab Work Exclusionary Men’s Rights Activist). And I’ll probably just throw in racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and a few other terms I’ll make up along the way, just to get you to shut the hell up and let men choose their choices with agency and dignity!
~~
I’ll add these as I see them – cases that support the implementation of this kind of work. It is especially relevant when MEN create dangerous products for WOMEN. They should absolutely be tested on men first so that their safety can be vouched for.
A New Topic: Conversations with Men
I spend a lot of time – too much time – wondering why, as a society or even a global community, we aren’t further ahead than we are. I wonder why we still don’t have basic human rights for the majority of people in the world. I wonder why we still have so much war and violence. I wonder why religion still has a stronghold despite the development of real tools of knowledge development. I wonder why there is still so much opposition to the simplest social and technological advances.
And I find that it really boils down to one major roadblock. Men.
Under a male system based on dominance, which all societies are, we can’t truly advance. Any real advances are made at a snail’s pace. You see, you can’t truly advance when the underlying motivation is greed, power, sex and dominance, rather than peace, unselfishness, and the betterment of ALL people. The former tends to fuel the male quest for ‘advancement’.
If I want a reminder of why things are the way they are, I just sit down and have a conversation with a man or group of men. I’m often disappointed, disgusted, unhopeful about the future, or some combination. There is a reason I have fewer and fewer male friends as I get older. They tell me nothing new, make me feel sick, and waste my very precious time.
So I figured I’d dip into my deep vat of slime in the form of conversations with men I’ve known, and record them here for… posterity? A personal warning? A reminder of why I mostly dislike talking to men?
~~~
Rewind to 2011: an outdoor table at a small Muslim noodle shop in Haikou, the capital of Hainan province in China. I was having lunch with a middle-aged Spanish dude from my Chinese class.
For some reason, dude was pontificating. Don’t they always? He had gone through some blah blah blah about the sweet young Chinese thing he was fucking, and then moved on to the pontification – he was seriously trying on an air of wisdom and depth, and failing miserably. He said: every time I ask an older person what they regret most, they always say the same thing. They wish they’d had more sex.
Sigh. Of course they did. I’ll bet you money he always asks men, and men are typically obsessed with their virility, their legacy, and their conquests. If his poll were true – and it either was, or he selected the answers he liked best in order to affirm his own personal reckless abuse of women – it is a sad thing indeed.
I like to ask people ‘deep’ or introspective questions too. Women tend to say things like: I wish I’d not gotten married. I wish I’d not had children. I wish I’d had the confidence to [insert career-related action]. I wish I’d done more to change the world.
When men look back on their lives and wish they’d done more fucking, I know why our world sucks so much. Power and pleasure, rather than true selfless impact, is what fuels the privileged class. And it’s why we’ll never truly advance as a society.
Story Ending Never 
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