MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
To be fair most serial killers seem very unassuming to most folks. John Wayne Gacy was a respected pillar of his community and operated as a clown for parties....before it was found out he was raping and killing young teenage boys. Robert Hansen appearing to be an living Elmer Fudd like figure to people whom met him doesn't appear very far fetched to me. Jeffery Dahmer was also known to be a charming individual....
Toxic masculinity creates a lot of these serial killers considering their motivations. It's even responsible for creating some female serial killers like Aileen Wurnos whom was treated like trash for being a slut by the men in her early life.
Of course if I were to ever bring this up to any people that lean more alt-right they'd argue that it was somehow all women's fault and victim blame the poor folks that were slain by serial killers. I have seen it a couple times.
The Mod with the Migraine
That was a pretty good joke. My kinda humor
Jupiterian Local
It's just an attitude espoused by a lot of toxic alt-right assholes that I think I'll never ever understand.
They're so close to realizing that the standards of toxic masculinity are bullshit, but rather than recognizing the reality that the standards are toxic, they turn against reality for not living up to the standards. I totally understand their frustration, but the way they go about dealing with it is completely backwards.
None of which makes them any less harmful (not least of all to themselves), unfortunately.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Unreasonably Quirky
Geez, I'm really sorry to hear that. No one deserves to be treated that way.
I love to learn, I love to yearn, and most of all... I love to make money.
Oh, bother.
The problem is, they mostly blame women for their incel status.
Would that it were so simple.
It goes further than just whose "fault" their sexless existence is (it's theirs, in any case), it goes to how they view human interaction. It's completely transactional — they interacted with women, they say hello, they hold the door open, so, naturally, they have to sleep with these fellows, or else it isn't equivalent exchange. They don't value her for her, and probably don't know any individual woman, aside from family, deeper than their looks. It goes without saying that building a romantic relationship around the phrase, "When are you going to repay my adherence to several of the most basic and superficial expectations of society with sex?" is deeply dysfunctional.
So I was at a gathering with a few of my college friends a few months back, and this topic came up. Since I was the only guy there after a couple hours, I decided, for the sake of variety, to break up the "I tell you, guys are the worst! THE WORST, I say!" talk by posing a hypothetical: what if the incel, or the neckbeard or whatever, actually got the girl? What would they do on their first date? Where would they go? What would they talk about? How would he keep it going past a couple days? Do they have anything in common? These men are so focused on finally checking that proverbial quest objective off on the story of their lives, they give no thought to whether it's the right time, whether they would enjoy it, whether they would even connect. More than likely, they'd hate the woman inside of a month and then the abuse starts or intensifies.
edited 24th Apr '18 12:32:21 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Jupiterian Local
They reject half of the premise of toxic masculinity, but double down on the other half, which means they end up as something just as bad.
Here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with wanting sex. There's nothing wrong with being upset that you're not having sex. This is especially true when toxic masculinity discourages men from sharing any kind of physical intimacy except with a sexual partner. I'm not going to call anyone out over wanting a pretty basic part of the human experience and not finding it.
The problem isn't the frustration, the problem is how they deal with it — where they spray unfocused rage at being cheated of something they're owed at everyone and everyone outside the incel community.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
There's nothing wrong with wanting sex. Feeling entitled to have sex, however, is a whole different story. And I think the problem isn't that guys want sex, it's that they feel entitled to it.
No, the other one.
They feel entitled to it because society teaches them they're entitled to it as long as they're Real Men. If you're a man, you're either a Real Man or a loser, and no one wants to be a loser.
Though I've got to say, I've seen none of this where I grew up, and most of what I have heard is from Internet stories like these.
Check out my fanfiction!
Ahr river
I've encountered a lot of it on this site. The old IJBM section and some people who used to frequent the Romance thread in Yackfest got a lot of it. It was never "why don't I have my alotted Woman" but often a more cyclical self defeating sinister situation.
Read my stories!
Sex is a basic need.
And shouldn't normally be difficult to acquire.
But it is for multiple reasons, especially if the person involved is a creepy asshole.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ahr river
It's a basic need for some people. Some people don't need sex, and some people see masturbation/masturbation equivalents as a perfectly fine method.
Read my stories!
Asexuality is a thing.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Sorry but acting like if only Creepy assholes with no redeeming traits don't get sex is pretty much factually wrong.
It's basically the same "A Nice Guy deserve sex" idea.
They don't. A person can be really nice and that don't means that they naturally deserve having sex with the person that they want.
edited 24th Apr '18 8:54:17 PM by KazuyaProta
Watch me destroying my country
Ahr river
IMO it's more accurate to say human intimacy is a Basic Need. Which can mean any variety of interaction, from friendship to family to having a Dog.
And some people conflate this desire with their desire for sex and refuse to separate them.
Read my stories!
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I mean, not all afections are equal. Playing with your pet and hanging out with friends are very different from each other and the romantic-erotic affection from having a romantic and sexual partner.
"Nice guys" aren't bad for wanting to have romantic relationships and have sex with their partners.
They are bad because they act like if they're rejected, then the person that rejected them did commit a crime.
edited 24th Apr '18 9:05:17 PM by KazuyaProta
Watch me destroying my country
Ahr river
Yes I know they aren't the same. That's why I said the desire for closeness plays out differently for people. The issue is saying that the end result is what the core desire is, not the actual starting point.
Read my stories!
A lof ot people here are missing a factor of two about it.
Is not just about having sex being the utimate prize is the fact nobody tell you HOW to got it.
I mean, in general men culture just sort of shurg and expect YOU know how to charm women or treat it as in build trait, something you just kinda now, in sort is invertion of Men act and woman are: Women need to ACT sexy in the right mounts while men just.....are, between that and the presure of being the best the only advise is just kept doing it...
This leade them unprepared and in many cases quite confused and scared or angry when things dosent go like they should, I guess this were the whole "I did the basc things, were is sex" zephyr mention a coupe of post.
So what incel does? they see the game is rigged(it kinda is in a way), they decide to blame EVERYBODY for being better than them, this is why their jargon looks like painfully 80-90 teen movies with their stacies and chads or tyrones: Because they decide all of them are a bunch of jerks who got away with sex while they are the poor underdogs who are nice and better than them(why? becuase they know).
I way, I can see why they are like that and I do kinda pitty them, im very shy with women and I often feel awkard and stupid trying to date them, if I wasnt for my girlfriend(who I plan to marry) I would probably end like them.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Nah, I trust you enough to be better than them even if you didn't have a GF.
From what I have seen and experienced fake Nice Guys do one thing wrong universally. They are extremely manipulative and enter friendships or make acquaintances with women (or men as I have heard and seen a small few gay fake Nice Guys) for the sole idea of having a relationship or sex.
Its not a good idea to do this. I have seen the repercussions and one of my former relationships was with a fake Nice Girl whom ended up being one the worst relationships I ever had. She was both emotionally and physically abusive and made me believe everything she did to me was my fault.
That's another thing. Fake Nice Guy's gut reaction from what I have seen is to immediately start blaming, insulting, and demeaning the other person for rejecting them. This manipulative behavior will continue if you are fooled into a relationship with them....
Don't go directly looking for relationships is basically what these guys need to do. Just focus on fostering friendships whenever they can and themselves. I have ended up fostering really good friendships with women before despite finding myself very attracted to them. As time went on the attraction faded or in some rare cases grew stronger. In the latter case I would reveal my feelings but be perfectly accepting of the fact that they may reject me. And more often then not they did, so I just chimed that down to bad luck, worked through my emotions, and moved on with the friendship or met more people.
These guys treat dating, social interaction, and relationships all wrong. If an shy doormat can understand that better than them then well I don't know if their is any hope for them unless they change themselves.
I can emphasize to a certain degree as I used to be there. I used to think that my crushes were dating assholes over me because I lacked any kind of attractiveness. The difference between me and fake Nice Guys though was that I was self-aware enough to know that the assholes were likely just my jealously coloring my perceptions of the guys in question.
I remember back in high school I had a crush on a gal whom I made friends with whom had a rocky relationship with a guy. I did not like this guy at all but I would make an effort to still treat him like everyone else I would talk too. When she came to me upset over him one time I instead of taking this as an opportunity to sabotage their relationship decided to help her with him the best I could with no ulterior motives other then Make her happy. I didn't expect anything back either. By the next week or so they were back together and were happy looking. Both were surprisingly grateful of me. They are still together today. This isn't the first time I did this either were I put my own feelings for them aside to make sure the person I liked was happy.
Fake Nice Guys would of tried to force her to leave him through shady shit in order to get a chance to be with her. I was still attracted to her but I didn't let it control me and wanted to help her be happy even if it wasn't with me.
edited 24th Apr '18 10:08:01 PM by Wispy
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I -personally- had the bad experience than in my case, "the other guy" was a asshole.
I mean, he did cheat on her and acted like if her bisexuality meant that she was always eager for a threesome.
They thanksfully broke up, but damn that he caused her a lot of psychological damage that still affects her years later.
I'm not in contact with that girl, by the way. But I did knew her enough to realize how bad was the damage. The sad part is that her Bastard Boyfriend wasn't even the worse thing on her life.
edited 24th Apr '18 10:16:59 PM by KazuyaProta
Watch me destroying my country
"enter friendships or make acquaintances with women for the sole idea of having a relationship or sex."
Well, I wont see is not a wrong idea, and I can see the logic of it: by getting close to a person it make easier to be in a relationship, it sound good in theory but in pratice...
" Fake Nice Guy's gut reaction from what I have seen is to immediately start blaming, insulting, and demeaning the other person for rejecting them"
This happen and in general is because they feel their revealing their feeling is ALSO a nice act, meaning rejecting them carry a sort of negative conotation.
This come again as my point that we dont reallu know how to teach men rejection in general or learing from their mistakes.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
What I think a lot of these people fail to realize is something Zephyr hinted at in his earlier post: getting someone to reciprocate your feelings is just the first step.
The fact is, actually being in a relationship really changes the way you have to think about your life, i.e you can't just be worried about your own needs anymore, but someone else's as well. "Relationships take hard work" can seem like an obvious cliché but someone who's never been in one has no real conception of how true it is. I had to learn the hard way that being in a bad relationship is much worse than being alone, and just amplifies any problems you already have. A lot of people who want to be in a relationship are exactly the kind of people who wouldn't be able to sustain a healthy one at all.
Unfortunately we don't really do a good job of preparing people for these realities.
Yeah. The two episode series on Robert Hansen opens with one host, Marcus Parks, describing his actions and the escape of his last victimv like he was narrating a true crime documentary... then asks you to imagine the man capable of all that sounding like Elmer Fudd. (Last Podcast treats these people with all the respect they feel they deserve: none. So Black Comedy abounds)
edited 23rd Apr '18 10:04:32 PM by sgamer82