Locked and loaded. Why, oh why, won’t guys spend their time talking about how they carry with them a guided missile that can’t be controlled?
Men arrive at this moment of reckoning woefully unprepared. Most are shocked by the reality of women’s lived experience. Almost all are uninterested or unwilling to grapple with the problem at the heart of all this: the often ugly and dangerous nature of the male libido.
If this strikes you as inherently contradictory, that’s only because you’re steeped in unyielding reality. How can “most” men be shocked “by the reality of women’s lived experience,” yet “almost all are uninterested”? Perhaps “most” means most of the men who live in the same house as the peculiarly woke author, Stephen Marche. Perhaps “almost all” means the men who aren’t Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK or Al Franken, and hence fail to realize their libido is “often ugly and dangerous” because it’s . . . not.
For most of history, we’ve taken for granted the implicit brutality of male sexuality. In 1976, the radical feminist and pornography opponent Andrea Dworkin said that the only sex between a man and a woman that could be undertaken without violence was sex with a flaccid penis: “I think that men will have to give up their precious erections,” she wrote.
No flaccid penis jokes, please.
The men I know don’t actively discuss changing sexual norms. We gossip and surmise: Who is a criminal and who isn’t? Which of the creeps whom we know are out there will fall this week? Beyond the gossip, there is a fog of the past that is better not to penetrate. Aside from the sorts of clear criminal acts that have always been wrong, changing social norms and the imprecision of memory are dark hallways to navigate. Be careful when you go down them; you might not like what you find.
By relying on “the men [Marche] knows” as his control group, one might expect him to find at least some solace. But even those guys don’t give a damn. As he seems to recognize, there are crimes and criminals, and there are “changing social norms” as reflected in women’s “lived experiences.” Criminal acts are wrong. Being a guy, by which I mean not being whatever it is a Dworkin would have us be, really isn’t worth discussing.
Christina Hoff Sommers explains this as a panic.
Farhad Manjoo at the New York Times says he has reached the point where “I seriously, sincerely wonder how all women don’t regard all men as monsters to be constantly feared.” Does Manjoo include himself? Are his female colleagues at the Times suddenly in constant fear of him?
Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, told NPR that the only way to address the harassment blight is to resocialize little boys: “We essentially raise boys in a culture that asks them to disconnect from their core humanity.”
The panic has even struck the Girl Scouts, who warned parents that their daughters don’t “owe anyone a hug” this holiday season.
And the new Dworkins nail it down.
Soon after the Weinstein scandal broke, an anonymously sourced “S—y Media Men” list began circulating on social media. The blacklist accuses more than 70 male journalists of sexual harassment.
But the charges range from “weird lunches” to rape. The informants collapse important distinctions between criminal predation and unwelcome flirtation. The men couldn’t defend themselves – and anyone who tries can be accused of not believing victims, even anonymous ones.
But prominent feminist Jill Filipovic dismissed the scrutiny as “backlash.” Writer Roxane Gay disparaged “all the hand-wringing about …the ethics of anonymous disclosure.” As she explained in the New York Times, American women live in a state of siege. She suggested all men confess to “how they have hurt women in ways great and small.”
And then there’s the Emily Lindin contribution, that she’s willing to “pay the price” by sacrificing the innocent because of the oppression women have suffered.
Of course, it will not be Lindin who pays the price.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Marche is modestly correct that men’s penises (peni?) are rogue weapons that compel them to have “weird lunches” (I don’t have a clue what that means either), so what? And much as I appreciate Sommers coming to our defense, she puts far too much stock in our giving a damn about women’s own weapon: their belief that we are, like they are, obsessed with their feelings and desperately desire to meet with their approval.
If men’s libidos are weaponized, so too are women’s emotions. The feelz have become the shield turned into the sword, the explanation for why victims of criminal conduct are relieved from any obligation to act upon it, to prove it, to even raise it. There are guys who rape women, as the word “rape” is legally defined, and when they do, they should suffer the consequences. That someone failed to speak up isn’t the fault of the rest of mankind, but yours.
The rest of us don’t break the law, and we have nothing to be ashamed about. That our totally lawful conduct touched your feelings isn’t a weaponized penis problem, but your emotional reaction problem. One woman might feel a guy is a creep. Another might want to spend the rest of her life with him. If a guy takes you to a “weird lunch,” don’t go to lunch with him again. This isn’t something worthy of discussion, or harboring the pain of your lived experiences for decades.
And our daughters can give grandma a hug. Grandma loves her, even if she’s old, wrinkled and creepy. The lesson is that the indulgence of every feeling is not a mandate for society to change, but for you to realize that your delicate sensitivities are your problem, not some guy with a penis unless he crosses a cognizable line. And if he does, do something about it instead of wallowing in the misery of your lived experiences for the rest of your life.
I would go with penii, because the extra syllable implies gravitas. Curses, my toxic masculinity strikes again.
It has the added benefit of making penii look more intellectualish.
For even more gravitas, go with “phalli”!
It seems to be a curious phenomenon recently–the folks least well-equipped to survive an all-out civil war seem to be demanding one.
Do you not feel the sting of rapid fire feelings?
They are certain that if they feel hard enough, all those 350 million weapons in the hands of their oppressors will just go away. At the same time, just to make sure, they are pursuing the same goal the hard way, by re-educating one small boy at a time.
SHG,
For a variety of reasons (most of which you well know), I am hesitant to comment on the subject of your post and related matters. Just this once, however, I will overcome that hesitancy.
The author of the NYT piece writes about the “dangerous nature of the male libido.” Where does this implicit statement of an apparently universal biological fact–the dangerous nature of the male libido– find credible scientific support? Relatedly, does the author believe that biology is destiny and, if so, where’s the proof?
All the best.
RGK
PS It may be worth noting that the author received a doctorate in early modern English drama.
Clearly, his training in English drama serves him well.
Your dedication to credible scientific bases is laudable, Judge. Especially after that whole dog sniff is probable cause fiasco .
The dog sniff thing isn’t Judge Kopf’s fault, you know. No matter how unscientifically idiotic it is.
The evidence is probably contained in a whole bunch of post-modernist, feminist, social “science”, which has been paid for by your tax dollars, and validated thru all sorts of social “science” peer review, published in “journals” of suffering and resentment, and maybe even a few courts cases, here and there. That is what constitutes “Scientific Evidence” to this crowd. It has corrupted all discussion of real science, and made it increasingly hard for people to understand the very real, difficult problems of science – probability/risk, uncertainty, incompleteness, and the communication of scientific concepts to a public that is numerically illiterate.
It is getting worse and worse, every day.
So you’re saying this is slightly more scientifically valid than dog sniffs?
Less scientific. At least, with dog sniffs, there are actual chemicals that can be sniffed, identified, and measured (not by the dogs), repeatedly, by different dogs and by non-dog humans (and even doglike humans), each of which comes to his/her/its/etc own opinion about the sniffee.
Maybe, on reflection, they are all the same, after all.
Just responding to the judges comment about the scientific basis for the “facts” that come out of social “science” studies.
Perhaps social science has a handmaiden, forensic science, which similarly falls short of actual science?
The bastard children of social science and political science.
rxs,
It is getting worse and worse every day. When serious people conflate social science with science they are likely to conflate military music with music. If we don’t understand the difference, the species is doomed, penii, vaginii and all.
All the best.
RGK
Your honour,
Military music is in fact real music, just several centuries out of date. My own Regimental March is a particularly delightful bit of Quebecois folk music absolutely guaranteed to send the woke into paroxysms of outrage (seriously, it involves a young woman, implied premarital sex, remuneration for an unsupervised donkey devoured by wolves, and parental deception based on innovative interpretation of Catholic holidays).
Now, to my real question- how can I tastefully include in my CV that I have successfully caused a judge to pluralize penis in the archaic latinate?
It seems like twaddle to me but I live in wild goose flyover county.
So twaddle is a bad thing?
“that men’s penises (peni?)”
or
“that the penis of every man”
A well-equipped man always carries a pocket knife and a spare penis, just in case there’s a leak in his regular penis and all his manliness leaks out.
John Wayne Bobbitt is not a real man?
Lorena had the knife. Look how that worked out for him.
“Look how that worked out for him”.
If I remember correctly, after reattachment surgery, he did a porn video: “John Bobbitt — Uncut!”
It’s only a matter of time before the ‘woke’ start demanding that DMPA* be added to the water supply, similar to prophylactic fluoridation, to help keep all us “testosterone poisoned”** males from getting out of control.
*DMPA, otherwise known as Depo Provera, is one of several chemical castration agents.
**A former colleague reported that, a very, very long time ago, Ms. Dworkin, while addressing the staff at a Rape Crises Center, declared that “all men suffer from testosterone poisoning!”
I defer to you on any JWB porn videos. I have no knowledge of such things.
And I fully expect a call for the cure to testosterone to appear in the Times one day. Maybe sooner rather than later.
“The years roll slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again,
The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleam where the flowers have been.”
What any given [person] might say about [what s/he believes,] and [how s/he actually behaves] are separate and unrelated phenomena. Liberal or conservative, feminist or chauvinist, woke or benighted, young or old, found on Fox News or in The New Republic, [people’s] stated opinions have next to no relationship to [how they act when they think nobody is looking].
Since when is any of this news? I mean sure, the “next to no relationship” part would be interesting if it were true, but still. This is old cheese.
NEWSFLASH: SOME PEOPLE SUCK!! MORE AT 11!!
Old cheese?
Most baffling about the entire thing is that so many of the women pitching in are like Roxane Gay. Their real prospect of even the slightest penis-driven attention is remote to non-existent. Perhaps this organized frenzy allows them that moment of “play pretend” wherein they can indulge their giddy feelz of being subjects of actual sexual objectification.
A very common response to any criticism is that it’s really a product of inchoate sexual desire. So, Roxane Gay, huh?
And here I thought we’d get past a Roxane Gay mention without this picture being attached. How naive of me.
I held off as long as I possibly could, but I was pushed too far.
This picture could be society’s instrument of penis suppression. Once it is displayed on every lamp post, on every bill board, a corner tile on every computer or television screen, in every bar, every hotel room and every home, not a penis in the land will be left standing.
Oh, and of course, a 4′ x 6′ poster in every unit of campus housing, to keep down the feisty college penises.
You would do that to the kidz? What about the perpetuation of the species?
Sex will be done, gone. Except whatever can be done in the labs, with no penis present. That’s the entire point, isn’t it?
Could you not?
No. I must.
Enough with Roxanne.
There is more… and really too much already….
Get your variance together and make the point already… Build the argument or start showing up at the “grocery” store in fly fishing vest.
“Be careful when you go down [on] them; you might not like what you find.”
FTFY