[News] Men! Are we the baddies?

[Algernon]

It's not just the sexual differences.
I have a Facebook page that's been running for years now which I take a look at daily but to which I post something maybe once every 3 or 4 months.
I look at the comments after someone's dog is lost, or kid wins a certificate, or a Mother passes away and I notice that normally over 80% of the comments are from women; the usual "ah bless, well done hun, so sorry, sending love your way" etc.
I thought they were just softies but I'm coming round to thinking that I might be a bit of a cold hearted bastard and that they are compassionate and caring and I'm not.
And because it's 80% women then I don't think it can be just me but more men in general.
Doesn't the evidence somewhat prove this?
Or could it be because women are more likely to have an FB profile?
I'm coming round more to thinking that men are definitely the baddies.

 

[Horses Arse]

Script analysis has some interesting things to say about why some people repeatedly seek out abusive/horrible people to form a relationship with.

To be very clear, this is NOT victim blaming either. It does not in any way seek to excuse the behaviour of abusive people.

Yeah, I'm sure theres trauma in some that go on to play that out over and over. But equally there are folk that just seem attracted to complete wankers - Russel Brand is a surprise to absolutely no one, but he was a good looking guy and many went for that knowing what a c@@t he was - they weren't all suffering from trauma I'm sure. It's a really mixed bag I reckon,

 

[Algernon]

How many women are we seeing in the news advised of sexual predation?
Any "me too" investigations of women ongoing?

We appear to be the baddies.

 

[rogersix]

For example many years ago I and my female partner for that evening agreed that I could climax on her breasts but at the last second I changed it to the face. Am I in Russel brand territory or just a youthful indiscretion ?

There’s a couple more that spring to mind but I didn’t have the “golden ticket” of choice that Brand had and just had to shag what I could.

crivens! i was only joking mate!

so what did she do next?

 

[BNthree]

When women say they’re scared of walking by themselves at night it’s men they’re scared of. Obviously not all men are going to attack/molest/rape them but it’s men nonetheless.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

If you're a man and you've never coerced someone into sex and you've never done anything with someone underage and when a news story comes out about abuse you don't immediately and publicly side with the alleged abuser then you're not a baddie

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I have done the whole shagging about thing, always consensual of course and it was often the female making the first move, really don’t see the issue,

I think we are endanger of conflating promiscuity with sexual assault in society at the moment which is a very dangerous thing to do. A man who likes women and sex is not an immediate threat or danger to society.

What makes you feel promiscuity and sexual assault are being conflated? The issue is about consent.

 

[Live by the sea]

Personally I never slept with anyone i had just met even when I was younger & in NYC than in Notting Hill briefly . Think the fear of picking up some type of disease put me off . Had a few proposals I politely shrugged off . After 3 or 4 dates I was usually more interested as I got to them a bit better .

My brother had a stream of women he didn’t know chatting to him whenever we went out but I was a bit shy at first ,

 

[nwgull]

For example many years ago I and my female partner for that evening agreed that I could climax on her breasts but at the last second I changed it to the face. Am I in Russel brand territory or just a youthful indiscretion ?

There’s a couple more that spring to mind but I didn’t have the “golden ticket” of choice that Brand had and just had to shag what I could.

When I was still young, there would certainly have been times (usually if it had been a particularly stimulating sexual scenario) where an intended breasticular ejaculation could have unintentionally ended up on the lady in question's headboard, never mind her face. The force and distance became a bit more predictable once I got into my 30s, which is a bit of shame.

 

[A1X]

There are plenty of male c***s and plenty of female c***s.

The major difference is because in our society men tend to hold the more high profile jobs, them being flushed out tends to be more noteworthy.

 

[Seagull58]

crivens! i was only joking mate!

so what did she do next?

Reach for a tissue?
In a similar vein, who on here can honestly say they haven't switched from the easy pink to the difficult brown on a whim?

 

[Seagull58]

When I was still young, there would certainly have been times (usually if it had been a particularly stimulating sexual scenario) where an intended breasticular ejaculation could have unintentionally ended up on the lady in question's headboard, never mind her face. The force and distance became a bit more predictable once I got into my 30s, which is a bit of shame.

Like a footballer, as you matured you got better at dribbling.

 

[RandyWanger]

Conversion therapy.

Stop being yourself, sit still, suppress your aggression, share your feelings... obey. Female qualities are virtuous, masculine qualities are oppressive. Sit down when you pee like a good little girl.

 

[Bakero]

Conversion therapy.

Stop being yourself, sit still, suppress your aggression, share your feelings... obey. Email qualities are virtuous, masculine qualities are oppressive. Sit down when you pee like a good little girl.

Not sure about that. My former boss's emails were far from virtuous. Just a passive aggressive stream of cuntery.

 

[chickens]

What a thread, and what a tough question to answer. For those with patience, bear with me while I ramble.

Those who find Grandpa Simpson’s communication style unbearable should probably move to the next post. This post has been made under the influence of a decent single malt.

First, the culture I grew up in. Mainly through the late 70s and 80s, but with lots of exposure to cultural icons of the 60s. Looking back, it feels to me like the 70s was where the optimism of the 60s had come to an end, you either avoided reality and went into whimsy with prog, or faced harder more cynical realities with punk.

I split across both, loving Syd Barrett, but also with a best mate who was fully plugged into the US punk scene, idolising Henry Rollins, getting everything on SST imported through his dad, while in the charts a lot of synth pop and hair metal seemed to rule. People still dressed according to the music they listened to.

At the same time, we were also listening to Hendrix, Marley, The Beatles, the Doors, Led Zeppelin. The synth/electronic side of things didn’t make sense to me at first. I was initially puzzled by Acid House, didn’t get it until I was out and about and then it made more sense. The music culture growing up was mainly white and male, not a lot of female artists in my formative years.

In TV and film also, a lot of white dude heroes. The world belonged to the white male.

The rave scene, though I was hardly a Sterns regular, was genuinely transcendent. Ecstasy is/was (for me, in younger days) a wonderful drug, and again the scene felt far more equal.

At the time it felt like we were uncovering whole new ways of thinking, while looking back, we were just expanding the range of drugs we were taking. We would wake the next day, knowing we’d uncovered profound new truths in our late night/early morning conversations, but annoyingly unable to fully articulate them sober/coming down.

However, the objectification of women as sexual objects and the supremacy of white men was (largely) an unchallenged culture in the mainstream media growing up.

The first challenge that I was really aware of was in the 80s. Germaine Greer was becoming part of the mainstream media landscape, and pointing out some genuine and breathtaking hypocrisies, while the hair rock fraternity were still writing songs not a million miles away from “Big Bottoms”, the electronic scene absolutely still had hedonism, but it felt like it was on more equal terms.

Also in the 90s there was the FHM/Esquire concept of the “new lad”. Coinciding with the Britpop movement, it introduced puzzling new concepts, like the idea of having some emotional sensitivity, and both partners experiencing orgasm during sex.

Sadly, as a culture we keep returning to the idea of the “alpha” male. There are charismatic men who can seem inspirational, while actually being self-serving and manipulative. The reason we had Thatcher as our first female PM, was that she could out-alpha her party colleagues. Hitler was a bad idea. Mussolini was a bad idea. Johnson was a bad idea. Trump is a bad idea.

I understand why, when lost in a seemingly endless and directionless decay, it can seem like a good idea to pick somebody charismatic and single-minded. However, “alpha” is effectively just a synonym for “sociopathic” - they don’t believe the rules apply to them. In any functioning society, the rules have to apply to everyone, our personal heroes and our villains (and their representatives) equally. When we start enabling individuals to act outside our society without consequence, we’re enabling predators. They’re taking the benefits of our society without accepting its responsibilities and norms.

The move to change our economy to one in which everyone participates is the most profound of our time. The world was previously run by and for old white dudes. America is currently living out the death throes of this with Biden vs Trump.

Historically, by current standards, we’ve been the bad guys. That’s a natural consequence of society’s goalposts moving, which happens constantly and is usually in the long term a good thing. Judged by today’s standards, most of people’s favoured rock acts from the 1960s and 1970s should probably be in jail. Some have even written biographies celebrating behaviour that could potentially by modern standards land them in jail.

Having said that, it’s very important that consenting promiscuity on both sides in the moment, isn’t retrospectively labelled as coerced sexual activity.

I hate the idea of retrospectively editing books to make them more acceptable to modern audiences. I feel these are misguided attempts to keep sales up, when books should be documents of their time. By telling us what was acceptable in a timeframe, they give us perspective of the thinking of a time. Equally, somebody of consenting age who independently and willingly climbs into a taxi to meet somebody else for sex, should (in my opinion) be given short shrift if they try to reframe that retrospectively as grooming/abuse.

Men have been more prone to use violence, financial control, and threatening behaviour in relationships because they’ve historically had more strength, more financial control, and a greater ability to carry out unsavoury acts without consequence. Until that changes, we will continue to be seen as bad guys, even though many of us try to live pretty blameless lives.

Society is changing, which is positive, but I don’t feel that just by replacing lots of women feeling coerced with lots of men who feel they were coerced is any real form of societal progress.

Some men have been bad guys. Many haven’t. Women are technically equally capable of being, devious, stupid, sociopathic and greedy. They’ve simply had less opportunity.

What we really need to do is stop promoting/lionising anyone who believes their wealth/skills/charisma/qualities mean the rest of society’s rules don’t apply to them.

We still live in a world of male privilege, but if we move toward a more equal society that should mean more equally held power, and hopefully less wealth/power/influence being allowed to pool in a single pair of hands.

Without movement toward a more equal society, society won’t get better, but over time the changing power dynamics between men and women should at least mean that eventually there’s as many men being abused as women.

Hooray for progress. What was the question again?

 

[Seagull58]

Not sure about that. My former boss's emails were far from virtuous. Just a passive aggressive stream of cuntery.

I had that but more in person than emails. Female boss.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Some sweeping generalizations there. Why do we all have to be one thing or another? There is a spectrum of human phenotypes. If you think you have noticed that males tend to be more predatory that's only because more of them feel empowered because of their size and strength than in the female population, meaning predatory males are more conspicuous.

And don't imagine that there aren't plenty of women who aren't too choosey. An old acquaintance of mine, now in her 60s, has shagged hundreds of men (she told me there were more than 20 before the age of 16, always instigated by herself).

We humans come in numerous different shapes and sizes, physically, emotionally, 'morally' and intellectually.

Excellent use of 'phenotype '


Best use of 'phenotypes' on a

 

[nickjhs]

It's really quite simple at a base level we are one of the great apes and therefore prone to base behaviour. The difference being we have far more reasoning skills than the other apes and have built much more complex societies. In doing so we are working through how not to be predatory and it takes time and effort. On a local level we seem to be making great strides in the correct direction, but, when you zoom out we still look pretty bloody terrible. I am not just talking about sexual predation and deviancy, look at our general behaviour. On a local level we seem to care and help one another, but that only extends so far, we are still very tribal, and quite capable of committing the most atrocious acts on those not part of our tribe or tribal alliances.

I don't know if it is a gender issue but it would appear the recent push to a more Matrilineal society does seem to be bringing about positive results. Like I said what we are trying to do is hard, we are changing behaviours that have been part of our society for many generations, heck it was only a couple of decades ago that Benny Hill was getting great viewership and thought to be hilarious, or Old Mr Grace was touching up the staff and getting raucous laughter for doing so. So I think we are doing great but there is a heck of a long way to go.

 

[dangull]

Plenty of adverts out there for men paying for sex, and I see quite a few oriental massage shops about which I suspect maybe not always just to help relieve an aching back or neck. Very rare that women see men for the same thing, so I think there is a difference there.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

It's nature's hardwiring at play.