If you follow my blog, you might be aware that I recently contributed a guest post to Carla Louise’s Melodramatic Confessions site. You may be wondering why I, as a man, am contributing material to a feminism website (and I don’t consider myself to be a feminist), but I thought I would take advantage of Carla’s open invitation to men to explain why misogyny hurts men too. You can see that post here. You can also see the post which inspired this page.
With this page, I take aim at the frankly disgusting idea (that seems to be spreading among my fellow men) that women should be ‘helping’ socially awkward men to get laid. See Exhibit A (be warned, the link triggered a virus warning, my net security protected me but if you don’t have anything, don’t click. I’ll be quoting directly too).
I quote:
One man has a suggestion to solve socially-awkward men’s dating woes: Institute a government program which would pay women to go on dates with them.
This is evidently not a joke. The blog “governmentsgetgirlfriends” is dedicated to discussing the issues of “incel” men (short for “involuntary celibacy”). According to the anonymous author of the blog, who says that he identified as incel from age 14 to 24, being involuntarily celibate means:
The WordPress site has since been deleted (I can only guess as to why), but the idea behind it is still very much alive. On Carla’s blog, there is a post that details this via a scary Twitter ‘conversation’, where a number of men argue that women should be putting out instead of being ‘stuck up’, as it’s somehow unfair if they resist advances.
Here’s the thing guys. We are not entitled to love, sex, or anything in-between with any woman, simply because we want it. I don’t know a single woman who would find foot-stomping like a toddler attractive – and that’s what some men are doing (not all men, I hasten to add). If you are shy, or socially awkward, that’s unfortunate, but women don’t find that approach to be appealing in a man – and it’s not up to them to compromise on who they are, least of all by leasing their bodies so you can feel better. I doubt very much my wife would have gone out on a second date with me, much less married me, if I’d been afraid to talk to her – and protesting that she wasn’t sympathetic to my plight would have sunk my ship very quickly.
I should add here that some women find shy or awkward men attractive (depending of course, on what they’re doing to be awkward in the first place). Even if they do, it doesn’t mean they’re going to jump into bed with you there and then, just because they talk to you and even flirt with you. They don’t have to do a damn thing that they don’t want to do, and it’s up to you to respect that, rather than thinking you’re entitled to anything more.
Just to highlight the sort of behaviour which I am ranting about, check out the pictures below:
This is very scary and also tragic. I’m not sure which news story this relates to, because frankly there several, but women have been attacked and even murdered for rejecting male advances – and other men are breaking out in sympathy.
What the fuck guys? If anyone reading this happens to sympathise with these arseholes then I’d love to hear you try and justify why. Please fellas, don’t assume women have any kind of obligation to say yes to you.