OPPEC

Ummm….why bother, really? Do you think his ‘view’ is anything more than an attention stunt? And if it’s anything more genuine that that, do you actually think anything other than a very, very small minority would take it seriously let alone agree with it? Of course, I tend to ignore dogshit on the sidewalks…

Am I down with the ideas expressed in this post?

Yeah, you know me.

However, there is clearly no prospect of the Organisation of Asshole-Exporting Bloggers from reducing its output targets any time soon.

Amazing. Another Nice Guy rant on why Nice Guys finish last, with standard misogyny. Film at 11 :-P

Didn’t realize it was funny, though I thought it might be an attempt. God, I’m getting old

You must be. I’m 60 and I thought it was drop dead hilarious. Probably shouldn’t have read it at work, though.

Whenever time ends, the final paragraph may well prove to be the best paragraph ever written by anyone, ever.

that was an Australian gender-neutral use of “guys” there, obviously. Please don’t send the ninjas after me. Unless they’re armed with pillows!

“assholes continue to get showered with pussy”

I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around that visual image.

PS- what I would like to see sometime is a blogging match between Belle Waring and Michael Berube. It would blow the tops of our heads off.

Doug Stanhope

is just as much a “woooooah, I’m hardcore un-PC!!” asshole offstage.

Ummm….why bother, really? Do you think his ‘view’ is anything more than an attention stunt?

No.

This post is brilliant.

Belle, this really was fantastic work. I laughed so hard, and greatly appreciate the service rendered.

So, Belle, about the breaking glass, was it the hot Japanese super-ninja women or was it the girls practicing their superhero moves?

Excellent snark. The last 1/2 of the last paragraph, while excellent on its own, detracts a bit from the snark factor, what with it being serious and all. It should be read aloud to Anthony Klavan by Samuel L. Jackson (when you need someone to say Motherfucker, accept no substitutes), followed by – what else? – a bitchslap. ;)

The Secret Cabal Of Women is nothing new, in fact, it’s been done many times before. In – of course – the fantasy/sf genres. It goes back at least as far as Leiber’s “Conjure Wife”.

Yes, any man who stumbles onto the conspiracy in that one is eliminated :-)

Beyoncé’s status as our country’s representative sheds new light on her well-meaning-seeming but otherwise inexplicable piece of work Run the World (Girls):^1^ it was either an act of whistleblowing on the cartel, or an intimidating advertisement on their behalf, it’s hard to tell which.

^1^my previous theory was “what is this trying to be, Lysistrata as performance art?”

Are teh bi-monthly sekrit meetings held twice a month or does “bi-” refer to something else. AFAF.

Also Belle’s post kind of explains the mostly nice guys who tell you every day when you eat lunch with them how hot some other woman is and how a woman that goodlooking would never spend time with a guy like them. They’re addressing the cartel.

In that case, though, it’s a mystery why Klavan bothers to publish when he could just address the cartel more directly, by harassing women he knows for forcing men to be jerks and causing rape and all that stuff.

Klaven is a dick; I seriously doubt he mistakes himself for a ‘nice guy’ in any sense of the term. He is also right, and the women here are making the mistake of projecting their intelligence onto women at large. Women, like all individual subgroups of people, are mostly idiots. Most people are flat out stupid and have no capability to judge others whatsoever. Just as most people will mistake being pretty for being ‘good’ and being loud for being ‘smart’, most women will confuse being a total asshole with having confidence (obliviousness is generally a more accurate diagnosis).

You’re basically judging what you think other women would do by the standard of what hyper-educated, very intelligent would do.

Also: Why should men take any of your complaints seriously if you ridicule the most widely-held complaint that men have about women? Giving people something to hang their hat on – a reason to simply dismiss everything you have to say if they so desire – is always a mistake. A lot of men won’t need that reason, but a lot of them will and you’re giving it to them. Nobody actually expects you to be able to ‘do’ anything about the complaint, but acting defensive the moment something you disagree with gets brought up and screaming ‘RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE’ to shut down all conversation is the biggest reason nobody sane even bothers talking to you all anymore. People who need you in their political coalition will talk to you and rabid lunatics who want you chained to a stove will talk to you; few other people will bother at the moment.

also

biggest reason nobody sane even bothers talking to you all [ie women] anymore

I am not entirely sure that this is true.

Sorry Lemuel, what you have the is not a conspiracy; it’s all up front. But more importantly, it’s only a cabal of some women. The stuff I’m talking about has as it’s premise that all the women are in on it – and secretly.

That being said, I’m sorry to say it’s been my experience that as a group, women aren’t as up front as they could or should be. Also, they have memories for wrongs that make Confederacy nuts look like happy-go-lucky let-bygones-be-bygones type of guys :-)

soullite @ 39 could be worse. He could be saying “women are (all) idiots; (all) the women here are making the mistake of assuming the intelligence they’ve perceived in (presumably all) men is something they themselves possess.” As for the third paragraph, I don’t think it could be worse; I already have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. The biggest complaint men have about women is that they aren’t demure enough and cause roues to pursue their (the men’s) innocent daughters through corruption of the culture? Or what?

Nobody actually expects you to be able to ‘do’ anything about the complaint, but acting defensive the moment something you disagree with gets brought up and screaming ‘RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE’ to shut down all conversation is the biggest reason nobody sane even bothers talking to you all anymore.

If OPPEC leadership takes it up at the next meeting it’s possible all women around the world will cease the behaviour a crazy person on the internet has identified. OR MAYBE THE SCREAM QUOTA WILL RISE.

Can I just say that my friend Anthony Clavane, author of the excellent Promised Land: the Reinvention of Leeds United (see here), which everyone should read, has nothing in common with Anthony Klavan at all? Thank you.

re: “Women are idiots”

In soullite’s defense, I may have oversimplified. For example he may have meant that the widely-held complaint is “women aren’t sucking my PENIS right now. Because they are idiots.”

I hope that helps put soullite’s comment into bettar perspective.

Soullite’s saying that most women and most men are idiots. Narcissistic assholes like Weiner, Strauss-Kahn, and Schwarzenegger get laid, yes, but they also easily get elected, they are respected and admired by women and men alike. So, the conspiracy is wider than you think.

Rob at ~#31:

On the “hidden asshole” problem: I think it’s probable that all the permutations exist. I.e., someone who is, in actual fact, an asshole might appear to be so or not appear to be so in many different situations or to different people, all more or less independently. So some assholes might end up revealing themselves to be really obvious assholes to their partners, but never to their friends (of either gender). Other assholes might be judged really obvious assholes by their male friends, but not by women they meet casually at parties. Or maybe they’re really obvious assholes to women at parties, but not to women they consider friends (who might even know about the asshole-at-party thing, but make allowances or have a different perspective on it). Etc., etc.

It’s actually worth asking what someone even means when they talk about someone being an asshole. I think one of the many ways cretins like Klavan are wrong is that some dude they think is an asshole might be viewed by, for example, a woman who dates him as perfectly sweet and exactly what she wants. (And she might even be right!)

So Klavan’s complaint that “women” complain about assholes, but also like to date assholes is sort of meaningless. What if it’s not the same assholes in both sets? It might be that most of the genuine assholes women are complaining about are invisible to Klavan: the ones that do creepy, boorish or violent things, but only to women, and usually when Klavan isn’t looking (or when he’s doing them himself), so he just assumes they’re Nice Guys. Meanwhile, the “assholes” he sees women with are just people Klavan doesn’t like for whatever reason but most of whom might actually be perfectly decent to their partners.

one of the many ways cretins like Klavan are wrong is that some dude they think is an asshole might be viewed by, for example, a woman who dates him as perfectly sweet and exactly what she wants. (And she might even be right!) So Klavan’s complaint that “women” complain about assholes, but also like to date assholes is sort of meaningless.

Interviewer: Butt-Head, I have a question for you. I noticed that you often say, “I like stuff that’s cool.” But isn’t that circular logic? I mean, what is the definition of “cool,” other than an adjective denoting something the speaker likes?

Butt-Head: Huh-huh. Uh, did you, like, go to college?

I: You don’t have to go to college to know the definition of “redundant.” What I’m saying is that essentially what you’re saying is “I like stuff that I like.”

Beavis : Yeah. Huh-huh. Me, too.

BH: Also, I don’t like stuff that sucks, either.

I: But nobody likes stuff that sucks!

BH: Then why does so much stuff suck?

B: Yeah. College boy! Huh-huh, huh-huh.

Really, there are quite enough misogynists, creeps and sexists; one doesn’t have to shout down every complaint against women as being illegitimate.

Which complaint about all women should I corner an individual woman with? I want to help!

Klavan’s complaint sounds less like something a nice guy would say than it sounds like my mother, especially “Women — by which I mean each and every single member of the female gender — you know who you are — need look no further than themselves to explain why Weiner-types behave toward them in this fashion,” and this is consistent with something I remember Jonah Goldberg praising Klavan for on The Corner some time back.

Well, that’s obviously something that happens all the time, but not the situation I was addressing. What you’re describing sounds like an issue that is somewhat orthogonal to Klavan’s complaint: AFAICT, he’s saying, “women are responsible for the behavior of assholes because women like to date those assholes,” NOT something like, “women who choose to date men who treat other people badly are not behaving well themselves.” Those are very different statements.

Let me try again then: I think he’s saying (and I agree to some extent) that (some) women are attracted to men who treat other people badly – whatever they may say about “nice” guys. That to me seems the more commonsense interpretation. Cue the usual glib sociobiological, er evo-psych explanations. Well, at least they’re better than the “scream and leap” sort, though barely.

And yes, this happens often enough that one can make a comment to that effect.

I don’t even know what you’re getting at here. If I’m reading it right, both that statement AND the converse sound weird to me and unlikely to be true. Did I imply something to that effect?

I do not mean to imply that you’re doing this; just that I see a double standard coming into play with women (and men) who have no problem with typing group behaviours so long as it’s the right group. Point out that if you’re going with such weak types, well, here’s what women do and these same women (and men) will howl with outrage that you’re stereotyping.

Actually, there’s a lot of beefs on both sides that never seem to get settled. Though one side seems to get a notably more sympathetic public hearing. That’s nothing new, of course; Thurber was even able to make a living at pointing them out.

I think he’s saying (and I agree to some extent) that (some) women are attracted to men who treat other people badly – whatever they may say about “nice” guys. That to me seems the more commonsense interpretation.

Well, yes, that probably is a lot more sensible, but it’s an awfully generous reading of what Klavan wrote.

The part Klavan leaves out is the “(some)”. There’s really nothing in his post to indicate he’s only talking about a subset of bad actors, and a lot pointing in the other direction. He’s lumping all women in together and blaming them collectively for selectively breeding a race of creeps (“it’s Darwin 101”).

Also, Klavan doesn’t seem to mention the part about treating OTHER people badly. He is specifically talking about how men treat women (“to explain why Weiner-types behave toward them [women] in this fashion”, my emphasis, and this is obviously all brought on by the sending allegedly unsolicited underpants pictures to a woman. He also references Strauss-Kahn, Schwarzenegger…)

And again, it’s women (and men) as a lump – there’s nothing in there to indicate that he’s even distinguishing between someone treating women badly in general, treating his date or partner badly, or treating women who aren’t his date or partner badly. The women who complain about creepy men are implied to be exactly the same women who date creepy men (and the creepy men are all the same as well).

I think even your reinterpretation is somewhat problematical on the last point.

Sooooooo the fact that you were in a band solely to score pussy doesn’t make you shallow and manipulative? Interesting.

Hi Belle,

Okay, my sincere congratulations, you have now won the Internet.
[standing ovation] [clap clap clap clap clap] [throwing bouquet]

However one minor little niggle– didn’t Aristophanes demonstrate in “The Lysistrata” in 411 BCE that this pussy boycott will not actually completely work, at least in the short term, unless you also get monopoly control of all the hands?

Have a nice day!
Antti

Perhaps. But he also doesn’t strike me as someone who can communicate his thoughts very well in writing.

No, he’s not very articulate. But I’m not sure there’s that much room for misinterpretation.

One last observation: take his point that the phenomenon of women being attracted to men who treat them poorly is so dominant that it actually represents some kind of implacable evolutionary force. That’s hardly compatible with an innocent little observation that a few people here and there get off on dating jerks for whatever reason. It’s a declaration that multitudes of women are straight up attracted to dickishness. (The whole evolutionary frame* really does not seem to me to admit of the possibility that, of all the women who have knowingly dated a creep or six, that the vast majority simply get fooled initially; and/or get stuck in abusive or codependent relationships for a multitude of reasons having nothing to do with the inherent Darwinian desirability of dickishness; or that dickishness itself may be a big turnoff for almost everyone, but jerks both are common and have a lot of OTHER qualities, so women might be frequently attracted to them for completely different reasons and simply let their hormones win out over good sense (and/or balance their priorities differently); etc., etc.)

—–
* Which is incredibly ridiculous for a number of other reasons too. For one thing, his proposed solution to the phenomenon of [sentient, adult] men who behave poorly toward women is to encourage womankind to collectively organize some kind of coordinated, long-term, world-wide selective breeding program to eliminate this supposedly evolved trait from the male race. Like the above, that is a pretty fundamental conceptual problem that shines through independent of whether Kravan is using his words very well or not.

Actually Belle I think I’ve uncovered the flaw in your masterplan here (don’t tell the ninjas). I think we can all agree that the product in question itself requires regular servicing, and in the majority of cases this service can only be provided by people who will never be admitted to OPPEC. At some point the smooth functioning of your sinister cabal is going to start to go a bit haywire without regular servicing and, ah, lubrication of the important parts.

So it becomes a battle of wills. And contrary to popular ev-psych myth, I have a strong suspicion that the members of OPPEC are actually quite weak-willed when it comes to allowing the product to remain in an unserviced state…

‘One last observation: take his point that the phenomenon of women being attracted to men who treat them poorly is so dominant that it actually represents some kind of implacable evolutionary force. That’s hardly compatible with an innocent little observation that a few people here and there get off on dating jerks for whatever reason.’

I pretty much completely agree with what Jack Lecou has written here, but I especially wanted to add to this sentence. When Klavan says ‘I mean each and every single member of the female gender — you know who you are’, I see no reason not to take him at his word. He’s taken the idea of ‘The Gangster’s Moll’ and ‘The Bully’s Girlfriend’ from Central Casting, applied it to 3 billion women, and then used it as a stick with which to beat all of them generally, and – not distinguished in any way from anyone else – those women who have (allegedly) been hurt by the predators he mentions; lest we forget, an African hotel maid who was allegedly the victim of a serious sexual assault, a woman who allegedly received an unsolicited sexual text message, and the pregnant wife of the supposed perpetrator.

It might be easier to chalk this up to a misunderstanding, a lamentable failure to adequately express adequate ideas, if he didn’t give every impression of being a man who read ‘The Game’ once, and has decided that that’s all the info he needs about women, thank you very much.

Hi,

Thanks for your concern, Belle, please go to bed now, and don’t forget to take all your meds. Then come back and see us again tomorrow.

Love,
The Internet!

I think that following a cheap Bordeaux with a cheap Rhone was a mistake, because

denying the power women have to define the male gender role through their preferences, and the problems men have with it being done in unsympathetic ways

makes me want to howl at the moon, which wouldn’t be a problem if it hadn’t set a few hours before.

Perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but I don’t think women’s preferences have had fuck all to do with defining my gender role or those of my peers. Women have certainly had considerable influence over the way I treat women, since that’s inherently reciprocal, but not over the way I code, wield a wrench or a pencil, whether I dress right or left, or which jeans I wear.

I’m a white guy. The world is arranged to suit me. If I turn on the tube I get to choose which channel titillates me: violence, female nudity, or defiant stupidity. Unfortunately, the last choice predominates.

the power women have to define the male gender role through their preferences, and the problems men have with it being done in unsympathetic ways.

If I knew we were going to be having a consciousness-raising seminar I’d have brought my bongos.

I’ve been reading (and on rare occasions, posting) on CT for half a decade now, so I know what to expect, no need to lecture me about it. I know it’s some good and some bad. I guess I sometime just don’t agree with you about what’s funny and not. Attitudes like bad Jim’s [the idea that poor, ickle women’s attitudes can be harmful to us big, manly patriarchs is laughable!] didn’t use to bother me, but for various reasons they do now. Sorry for trying to get something worthwhile out of this post.

That’ll teach me to try the caret-W delete-word gag on the interwebs. The idea is that I typed “the story of m” and then deleted the previous four words. Funny now, yes?

A question for Bad Jim who wrote:

I’m a white guy. The world is arranged to suit me. If I turn on the tube I get to choose which channel titillates me: violence, female nudity, or defiant stupidity. Unfortunately, the last choice predominates.

The last sentence is unclear. Does it (the last choice) predominate among the range of possible or of actual choices?

I put Andrew Klavan down as a boilerplate “offensive contrarian”. You get them sometimes, especially among war bloggers – people whose solution to the Palestine process is to exterminate all the Palestinians. The formula is simple:

(1) Take some perceived sort of conventional wisdom, then turn it on its head for maximum shock.
(2) Turn the offensiveness up to 11, regardless of how much this is appropriate or amusing.
(3) Puff it up to 1000 words.

Klavan may congratulate himself for being provocative, but I see this formula as the mark of mediocrity.

I’ll add one thing – I don’t get this “nice guy” meme. “Nice” can be good or weak, but isn’t it more important that the man is ethical or decent? Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy may not have been the nicest person, but he was a scrupulously honorable gentleman, and made an excellent husband for Elizabeth Bennett.

I suspect that the success of assholish approach is better explained by a large number of attempts, rather than by common female preference.

I kept finding my trigger finger itching to hit the ‘like’ button as I read Belle’s post & some great comments.

As to the invisible asshole problem, it’s plain to me and to many/most women that many a Nice Guy can become a Date Rapist given booze, opportunity and a sense of entitlement. I’ve found the optimal way out is to talk him down, appease him, manoeuvre yourself out of the situation with no one’s cover blown.

It is extremely galling , to say the least, that this approach relies on all the feminine wiles and sexist crap that is part of what creates the situation in the first place. Secondly, the talking down approach means DR wakes up the following morning as NG, probably a bit hung over, and none the wiser about who he is.

Disclaimer – I find my impulse control today to be lower than average. What follows may be offensive to some and reader discretion is advised (to make up for my lack thereof).

re: the Nice Guy meme.

Some of the subtleties that may have been missed:
1. Teh origins are from self-labelling. Are there women who complain that they can’t find a “Nice Guy”? Sure. Is this population of significant size when compared to the number of men who self-identify as “Nice Guys” that can’t catch a break on teh Pussy Market?
2. The requirements to qualify as a “Nice Guy” then are self-identification. That’s it. You can be the slimiest asshole ever – and pretending to care about some hot chick’s problems so that you can get into her pants – that makes you a “Nice Guy”.
3. Assholes are swimming in pussy? Well if you control for other factors such as “is the guy hot, or what seriously”, is this still true? Sure we all know some dirtbags who have landed a woman they clearly do not deserve, but plural of anecdote,,, I mean it’s not like non-rapist, non-asshole douchebags don’t get laid* – but I guess it’s not notable**.
4. Some people aren’t ready for relationships and/or fear commitment and they self-sabotage. Falling for someone grossly inappropriate is a classic method that this manifests. And it’s rewarded with attention and drama. So maybe the fact that that one girl who always ends up with guys that even she knows are bad for her, well just maybe it’s about her and nothing to do with the undifferentiated and interchangable assholes she dates.
5. And there you are saying “#4 is EXACTLY MY POINT! Women claim to be wanting relationships when all they want is to star in their own personal made-for-tv movie!” Uh – well some women may be doing that but categorizing women in general by this small subset is like calling all men exactly 5 foot 4. And besides, who’s really the idiot in those cases***:
– the woman who is manifestly not ready for a meaningful relationship of any sort, accomplishes that by dating jerks and gets sympathy for the inevitable catastrophe that ensues;
OR
– teh Nice Guy who recognizes the pattern and while claiming to care about the well-being of said woman, enables it in teh hopes of her recognizing that he’s her true soulmate.
6. All of that said, teh heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of. Fr’instance, I have incredibly conventional sexual preferences. I ascribe to society’s profoundly disturbed ideas of beauty. And yet I find myself constantly returning to the embraces of Andrew Klavan’s morbidly obese and hideous mother.

* For moar anecdata on this point, ask your mom about me.
** Unless you’re asking your mom about me. I’m very memorable in teh sack.
*** All other things being equal of course. If the woman happens to be a Juggalo or is Megan McArdle than it’s a different calculus.

“53-year-old, divorced, former warbloggers who appear to have forgotten the existence of Iraq and now lurk on MRA forums and troll Pandagon”

For this alone, I would nominate you for any prize you wish to be up for.

I put Andrew Klavan down as a boilerplate “offensive contrarian”.

No, he’s the standard American right-winger-on-the-internet who’s willing to mouth the sentiments behind the policies. People actually believe the things he is saying. He’s certainly trying to rile people, but you can do that while being sincere. If you follow what he says and what he writes, he is a genuine asshole, not a pretend one.

But he does bring to mind the notion that you can’t point out how say, child support laws are extremely unfair to men as a group (and ironically, sexist as all get out) without a violent reaction to the contrary

I bet you actually can do that.

My point was that he writes so badly (and provocatively, for that matter) that it’s hard to tell what he is really trying to say or what he really believes. Dialing up emoting to 11 rarely clarifies anything, I’ve found.

Well, fair enough. But I’m not seeing any reasons we’d be obligated to spend much time puzzling out what he “really” believes. His piece was laughably idiotic, inflammatory, and notches itself neatly into an existing corpus of similarly stupid and vile Nice Guy philosophical treatises. If he’s not writing what he really believes, that’s his problem.

Yes, sometimes there’s a case to be made for the possibility that an author can be read in a slightly more generous light to better effect, but that’s really not the case here. Even if we’re not supposed to trust the plain meaning of the words (and they’re pretty plain; really, go reread the passage Belle quoted), the animating concepts of the piece are still completely ludicrous. There’s just nothing salvageable there.

Yes, sometimes there’s a case to be made for the possibility that an author can be read in a slightly more generous light to better effect, but that’s really not the case here.

Quite. Intellectual charity should be exercised in interpreting people’s meaning, but it has to be a hand up, not a hand out. This guy is one of those “intellectual charity cases” where continuing to give him the benefit of the doubt is just “enabling” his intellectually self-destructive lifestyle.

But he does bring to mind the notion that you can’t point out how say, child support laws are extremely unfair to men as a group (and ironically, sexist as all get out) without a violent reaction to the contrary

I bet you actually can do that.

I’d really liked to be proven wrong on this one. But the sad fact of the matter is, at least four times in five this is what has happened in my personal experience. Anecdotal data, sure. But I don’t have anything else to go on.

Go on then, I’ll try and do it in a post on CT next week, which I will get ghostwritten by a committee member of a British fathers’ rights group who I know. But first, let’s agree some ground rules for what’s going to constitute a “violent reaction”.

Go on then, I’ll try and do it in a post on CT next week, which I will get ghostwritten by a committee member of a British fathers’ rights group who I know. But first, let’s agree some ground rules for what’s going to constitute a “violent reaction”.

I like the way you think sir. Before, not after. For starters, how about any comments about men being lowlifes who are just looking for a way to get out of their obligations? How about you? Any suggestions?

Doesn’t this presuppose that women don’t have the option to ask? I find that one hard to believe.

I don’t.

how about any comments about men being lowlifes who are just looking for a way to get out of their obligations?

Hmmm, the haggling begins … Nice opening bid but there’s no way I can agree to that, because everyone, including the guy I am hoping will write the piece, will agree that there are some men who are lowlifes looking for a way out of their obligations – it’s just a fact. In order to be convinced that a violent reaction was common, I would need to see comments broadly in support of this view forming more than, say, 25% of all comments by identifiable women. I’d also want to impose some sort of standard of vehemence and/or stereotyping.

I happen to think it’s just plain ignorant to leave the lid up. What a surprise, of the women I’ve lived with over the years, at least 80% have just as much trouble with this one as guys supposedly do with leaving the seat up.

Which then constitutes incontrovertible proof of your personal ability men’s ability to shape women’s gender roles. And it’s the fault of men everywhere if a toilet lid ever gets left up.

I’m not arguing that people aren’t lazy – rather the opposite. That this power women have to define the male gender role through their preferences sure sounds plausible, until you think about it at all.

Also too, teh follow-up to women’s magical powers of influence:
To put a feminist spin on it (not that it isn’t absolutely true): it is also insulting to women, to claim that they are so utterly powerless and wimpy that they’re incapable of influencing men.
Whereas it is totes reasonable to claim that men are so utterly powerless before the lure of pussy that they should be expected to behave like sociopaths. The only moral or ethical consideration in this case is about why women are forcing men to be such jerks.

Scent of violets wrote:

So’s leaving the toilet seat up.

Funny thing that, but it seems that the default seems to favor women. There’s an obvious solution – I happen to think it’s just plain ignorant to leave the lid up. What a surprise, of the women I’ve lived with over the years, at least 80% have just as much trouble with this one as guys supposedly do with leaving the seat up. And when caught out at this, women have just as many weird and weak self-serving justification as the cruder sex does to the other arrangement

I agree with you on this, and my wife has never made an issue of it, esp. once I pointed out the phenomenon known as toilet aerosol, This is over and above the reduction in Yucch from the lower frequency of having to reach in and rescue items that fell into the toilet.

(I may have to double post because this does not look correct in the preview below — we’ll see)

Is it OK to make “yer mum” jokes, in a post-feminist male context? Cos if so, I ascribe to society’s profoundly disturbed ideas of beauty. And yet I find myself constantly returning to the embraces of Andrew Klavan’s morbidly obese and hideous mother. is winning. And if not, it isn’t.

Which then constitutes incontrovertible proof of your personal ability men’s ability to shape women’s gender roles. And it’s the fault of men everywhere if a toilet lid ever gets left up.

Well, that’s something of a nonsequitur! Or would you care to quote the bit where you think I made that claim?

The point I was making, since you didn’t get it the first time, is that when the seat is left up, the complaint is that men are lazy/thoughtless/crude beasts. Rather that people are lazy/thoughtless/crude and women can act just as badly in similar situations with just as pathetic a set of self-serving serving justifications as ever men put forth.

Which, oddly enough in the rare cases I’ve seen where women actually do ask, has never actually happened.

Well, mostly I’d say it just isn’t done (much). There’s no reason there’d need to be any particular sanctions at all. I think that’s how norms work sometimes.

Of course, if it’s an anecdata war, I have certainly heard tell that women can, on occasion, get “shot down” a lot more brutally – perhaps especially if they’re the women nobody has been asking.

Ha ha. Nice try. But no, you made the claim that “women don’t have the option of asking”. And since you made the claim, it’s up to you to support it. Not on me to prove that you’re wrong. I’m merely pointing out that you have made no attempt to justify this, and indeed in my personal experience that just ain’t so.

Well, that’s something of a nonsequitur!

I’m sorry, I thought you were replying to my comment at #99. I raised the toilet seat in order to address something that I needed to get out.

To be clear, here’s my version of teh timeline:
#83 Harald says something about people being ignorant of the power women have over male gender roles.
#99 I contest this by pointing out that they can’t even get most of us to lower the toilet seat – teh classic example of something women care about and men ignore.
#113 You cite it to explain how women are also bad at bathroom etiquette because they also leave the lid up

If there’s a non-sequitur in this chain (noting that the thread is about someone blaming women for men’s bad behaviour) it’s yours.

But if you want me to provide a non-sequitur, I am happy to oblige.

I’m merely pointing out that you have made no attempt to justify this, and indeed in my personal experience that just ain’t so.

Well, I’ll let the anecdata hash it out then. Not much use arguing about something like that. You’re either aware in principle that social norms can confine people’s behavior — often without actually being punitive — or you ain’t. (Though as I pointed out, there’s plenty of punishment handed out too, especially to those who most suffer under the current arrangement.)

(I’d add that this is largely missing the point – that being that it’s rarely constructive to interject something like, “oh yeah, well, women have it easy sometimes too”; doubly so if the thread is originally about some dude trying to tell women they’re entirely responsible for the bad behavior of all the poor confounded male animals.)

Just as the existence of marijuana users justifies a lot of the draconian powers of the BATF?

Um…no, not at all. “Deadbeat dad,” by definition, implies “neglected child.” Unless you can point me to the equivalent of the neglected child in someone smoking a joint, this analogy makes no sense.

You said that leaving the seat up was “ignorant”;

I think you may have forgotten to copy the second part of his quote there. You know. The substantive part. Dragon-King’s summary seems somewhat more accurate to my eye.

To the contrary, Jack. But feel free to post it, and feel free to demonstrate why you think this is so.

And btw, to attempt to use the line of reasoning, “If women are so all-fired powerful, why can’t they get men to do X” is – dare I say it, ignorant. There are powerful institutes and agents who are all the time trying to get their way on some point or another and failing to do so a significant fraction of the time. “If the government is so powerful, how come people speed/ignore traffic signs/smoke a joint/etc.” is silly, and obviously so.

Er, no Jack. If someone posts points A, B, and C, and I only quote A and only respond to A, you have to show how my response is a non sequitur to point A (which I’m guessing you’re conceding did not happen in this case).

You don’t get to say that because I only quoted A and only responded to A that is was a non sequitur because it was not a response to C.

Frankly, I’m having a hard time believing that you don’t get this. Or do you get it, but are now taking sides in way that is making my original point for me ;-)

Er, no Jack. If someone posts points A, B, and C, and I only quote A and only respond to A, you have to show how my response is a non sequitur to point A (which I’m guessing you’re conceding did not happen in this case).

I seem to recall something earlier today about trying to read with a generous interpretation in order to glean the author’s real meaning (if it’s not too difficult). Hmmm. Where was that?

It seems pretty clear, to me at least, that what you now call Wangchuck’s “Point A” (which consists in it’s entirety of the short sentence, “So’s leaving the toilet seat up.”) did not actually constitute any kind of freestanding “point” at all, but was instead simply a playful lead-in to the meat of the argument, such as it was, in all it’s rhetorical glory.

Although in your defense, Scent ofViolets, I can not explain what Chewbacca is doing on Endor. But I will agree that it’s a woman’s fault.

Sigh. “You don’t understand; our amps go up to 11.”

Look again at what I had to explain to Jack; if I quote one point and only one point, and respond to just that point; you don’t get to claim that it’s a non sequitur because it’s not response to some other, nonquoted point.

Ironically, quoting that bit about how leaving the seat up is “ignorant” and then going on to explain why an argument of the form “if you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich” type doesn’t follow would have been a non sequitur!

Oh, it just occurred to me – do you know what a non sequitur is?

and why folks like Wangchuck aren’t necessarily bothering to deploy their most rigorous arguments

I’m flattered but I’ve already yelled PENIS, made rude comments about moms and attempted a RickRoll. That’s pretty much my stock in trade. All I got left after that is dirty limericks and verse of questionable meter.

No Jack, I don’t. You’re not making any sense that I can tell in trying to infer a connection between those two statements. You also seem to be getting a bit worked up, so let’s just cool it for a while.

There is no connection. Let’s start over again with the sequence of events from the beginning:

1. Klavan posts absolutely ludicrous argument that women are responsible for bad behavior because they’ve selectively bred men to be that way and they should cut it out.

2. Belle responds with over the top satire.

3. Comment thread ensues, much of it similarly mocking and tongue in cheek (right next to the venom glands…).

4. One or two comments take a half-assed stab at defending Klavan (“no really, women have pussies, so they do have the power to remold the male race if they want; you’ve got to admit that because having power is feminist“).

5. The mocking tone of the thread evaporates at once and the only possible interpretation of all further posts is as very serious and logically rigorous arguments. Pointing out logical flaws in those not-satirical-at-all “arguments” is an important public service which will be welcomed by everyone!

I am now inexplicably feeling somewhat guilty for my own uncharitable reading of Klavan’s post. He has a right to the kind of ultra-charitable reading I would after all give a passage by Kant. It’s not at all the case that the violence of his prose makes it only natural that people would respond casually, or that the incoherence of his prose makes it preferable to dismiss it all as garbage altogether. Thus, I withdraw the accusation that his argument is essentially against women’s natural inclination to give it up when presented with the natural and unreconstructed animal behaviors of the unreconstructed human male. He was simply making a humorous observation, very much like Jerry Seinfeld.

What is not typically held to be fair is the absolute and unilateral claim they have on the putative father’s income. Even if the couple has agreed beforehand not to have children.

I agree, as far as this goes, but it’s such a rare (if not completely hypothetical) case that it’s hardly outrageous for a legislature to have not addressed it.

We can argue over the definition of “rare”, I suppose, and trot out supporting evidence. [1] But the fact remains that the scenario I outlined is unfair . . . no matter how rare it is.

In theory, the payee doesn’t have any claim on the support proceeds anyway; they’re for the benefit of the child, and the amount will always be strictly less than the child’s needs (unless the payee is totally disabled or something like that). In practice… well, maybe if you could prove that the money wasn’t actually being used for the benefit of the child you could get the award reduced, but it might be difficult to prove.

Yes, and “in theory”, police are supposed to treat claims by men of domestic abuse and violence on the part of their spouses every bit as seriously as what usually gets reported when it’s the other way around. In fact, the split is about 50-50, gender-wise for domestic abuse and violence. Which is just what you’d expect if you go with the idea that people are people first, and male or female second. But how often does female-on-male domestic abuse get reported :-(

[1]More anecdotal data – my daughter’s mother was in Family Services for almost two years before she couldn’t take any more. One of the scenarios that happened with a fair bit of frequency was women talking Girl Talk with her about how they had deliberately gotten pregnant just so they could spite their men and collect child support from them. I don’t mean to imply that this type of story stood out for any particular reason; I heard a lot of stories that lead me to believe that these were for the most part not saintly poor people bearing up with Fortitude, God, and Family, but rather some seriously messed up, and frankly vile individuals. They made bad decisions, and they paid way to much for them, that I’ll agree with. But they didn’t innocently make those bad decisions for the most part, and they didn’t make them with any sort of good motivation in mind.

Which is one of the reasons why I don’t consider myself to be a “liberal”.

bianca: women’s natural inclination to give it up when presented with the natural and unreconstructed animal behaviors of the unreconstructed human male

Instead of making the obvious and tasteless joke that I (alas) have never encountered this allegedly natural inclination in the aforementioned circumstances, I’ll make a (very slightly) more highbrow and (perhaps) not quite so obvious and tasteless reference to the infamous poster supposedly seen in Berlin in 1968, which read:

Comrades! The oppression of women by men has lasted 50,ooo years! Why can’t it last another 50?

The point is that calling men ignorant for failing to put the seat in a certain position, and doing it in such an unthinking way when going with a similar formulation would be obviously unthinkable and asinine is making my case for me.

I got that. Calling men ignorant in a way where we wouldn’t ever consider making a similar remark about women = offensive/unfair/bad form. Possibly you are even intimating that this is a problem endemic to feminist argumentation. I don’t necessarily agree that that’s quite what occurred in this instance, especially that last part, but I hear you. Loud and clear. Really.

It’s just, sorry, but I’m just still not seeing how it actually ties in to the meat of this particular thread in any way. (Or how you justify your claim that that sentence constituted a “point”, rather than merely a [n arguably offensive] fragment.)

(And “treating you badly”? Really? You think this back and forth of words on the internet is abusive or something? Geeze. I guess it’s just as well Dragon-King didn’t deploy any of those limericks…)

Belle, your suggested solution to the problem of an inadequate servicing regime is interesting, but I don’t think it’s going to last. Sure, in your planning committees you think you’ll be fine, but that’s not how it’s going to work in practice. The product we’re discussing here needs a more delicate fine-tuning than the double-headed dildo can provide, and preferably by a qualified serviceman.

As proof of this, let’s consider this simple idea: next time I go on a date [with a girl I’m already shagging – anything else would be a little impolite], I’ll tell her as soon as I arrive that “sorry, I’m a bit out of sorts tonight, so we’d best use a dildo.” I’m pretty sure her feelings on the matter would be obvious [though a polite attempt made at hiding them]. And I don’t say this because my servicing skills are somehow special; it just happens to be a common expectation women have of men that they be able to get it up and fuck hard.

So I reckon your strike will soon run into a scab problem.

Regarding the toilet seat issues, I suggest the Japanese solution: automated toilet seats. Surely you guys have all worked out by now that there is a robotics-based solution to every problem of social interaction?[1]

—
fn1: yes I know this contradicts all my previous paragraphs.

ok. I get it — original message: “it’s friday – regularly scheduled SoV threadjack.”

1) Compliments to BW for inspiring one of the weirdest and most entertaining comment threads ever.

2) On glancing at the post for, maybe, the 10th time, the following lines caught my eye (as they are just above the fold):

But think about it: women, taken as a whole, have control of all the pussy in the world. That is some valuable assets right there. What could be more natural than the formation of a cartel?

I have a mental image of the Monty Python sketch for the masculine counterpart of BW’s cartel, OPECC (Organization for Pretty Extreme Control of Cock). In this skit, the pythons (a nice image in and of itself) walk around stiffly, cheering each other on and offering encouragment to hang tough while they wait with increasing impatience for women to come around and accept their demands. Women, it turns out, generally find the situation increasingly enjoyable as the level of harassment and danger has plummeted and the men look ever more distressed.

The linked Pandagon thread was a nice, tidy reminder of why I gave up on reading Pandagon years ago. Arrogant claims to be smarter than everyone else, conservative ideals of masculinity masquerading as the “nice guy” meme, some woman bragging about how tough her husband is, and a troll so bad it can’t pass a Turing test. Oh, what a pointed reminder of the horror that is a Pandagon comment thread…

me @ 68
Wow. It turns out there were men actually doing this (reported in the Times on 6/7 and 6/8 but in the Boston Globe just today): seeking out women who were communicating with Weiner and contacting them over Twitter to give them advice, and possibly also letting Weiner know they’d contacted these women in such a way that he’d defriend them. I can only say, whether or not the law as it exists now protects those women from roving bands of vigilantes who essentially stalk them, I feel they should consider themselves to have a legitimate complaint. People like that could conceivably do real damage to the famous person they’re targeting too.

All women have to deal with all arguments about anything involving male/female relations all the time.

Yes, meant @38. But what is your point, SoV? That women should stop grooving to rock music because it’s dangerous to the men who are in bands? I’ll take your word for it that successful rock musicians were primarily in it for the chicks. I’d guess, however, that there are men who would do it anyway because they love to make music. Are you going to take responsibility for women stopping grooving to rock music when men like to play rock music and make a living at it–and need people to buy their records if they’re going to make a living?

And what you’re saying is that the women men approach at parties tend not to be interested in physics. Again, I’ll take your word for it that they aren’t just expressing, “I really hated physics myself,” and are really totally focused on the conversation as a purely sexual negotiation, not anything like a regular conversation in which they get to have opinions without worrying about whether their opinions flatter you. But you’re concluding that ALL women hate physics students from the fact that the top two women in the room aren’t interested in dating physics students? You teach what again?

The thing about bands may be geography specific.

SoV:
Has anyone ever told you that you have an interesting sense of relevance? I haven’t read anything by Willis, but I don’t see any relevance there to what I wrote, so maybe you have in mind a Frank-style attack on pop. culture. In fact, I thought you positing the possible existence of a non-null set of pop stars who–perhaps, like Klavan–want to make money appealing to the baser instincts of the audience while insuring that their art is judged as moral and that they can’t by caught by Frank’s critique.

Suggested title: “How Could Someone With My Views On Women Get Into an Acrimonious Divorce?”

Or, I guess twin experiments might work. Sort of adds a whole new dimension to the story.

What I have heard about unfairness in this issue is that women have the unilateral power to decide whether or not to have children in the event of a pregnancy. Which is okay, insofar as it goes. What is not typically held to be fair is the absolute and unilateral claim they have on the putative father’s income

oh gaaaawwwwwd. Well in that case our bet is off, because I am certainly not going to be able to find someone to ghostwrite an article on such a god damned stupid point of view.

Oh gaaaawwwwwd. Rather than return the salute and say something along the lines about how breaking a contract because it is “unfair” is completely idiotic, I’ll simply note that a) no reason was given for why this point of view was stupid, and b) at least one other person agrees with me on the fairness part.

I get it – you were going to advance an obviously idiotic point of view about fairness because you expected it to be renounced as such, and so that makes people who say such things look even more like moronic troglodytes. I expected better of you, Daniel.

As I said, reflexive defense of a stale ideology is just soooo 20th Cen ;-)

And as for you, Jack, do you have something you want to say to me?

This is where I get to sigh, right? Because I don’t care what your version is. I care about what actually happened. I care about quotes. Ever hear about this thing called “cut & paste”? Because here’s what actually happened:

Go ahead and sigh. It’s pretty clear that you don’t care what about any versions of anything that don’t align perfectly with your microscopically narrow view of teh world.

Even if we take your unbelievably asinine position – that you are only trying to point out that women are hypocrites for wanting teh seat lowered and yadda yadda yadda.

OBSERVE:
1. My “non-sequitur” statement about how women not lowering the lid for you is the same as men not lowering teh seat for them – a demonstration of the lack of ability people have to influence others.
2. That is sort of an important point in teh context of the discussion at the time.
3. In order to accept your version of “reality” with “quotes” – you have to completely strip all context from my original statement about toilets. You have to consider the toilet seat statement in isolation from teh thread.
4. And yet, and yet, and yet. You didn’t balk about teh “non-sequitur”-larity of teh original toilet seat mention – you only did so when I tried to tie it back to the ongoing discussion. Why? Maybe because you love calling women hypocrites too damn much to let the opportunity pass.

#187 may be the best limerick I’ve ever read; at the very least, the only one to work in cryptosporidiosis, which is surely a singular honor.

(But women can get crypto too! They’re no better than men! Feminism is so last century!)

Wait, this is the “treating you badly” thing? You’re still on that? By Cthulhu’s Geometrically Impossible Goatee, I don’t see how you can possibly be serious.

In the all the hours I’ve wasted on the internet, and of all the strange sights I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anyone demand an apology from someone who apparently merely had the gall to engage them in discussion. And a rather bland discussion at that.

So, no, I don’t have anything to say to you on that matter. If that means you’re gonna take your ball and go home, well, gee whiz. Do what you gotta do!

Hi,

Here, at this point in time, we finally have an opportunity to do a GREAT service for all humanity. Can’t we at least put this toilet seat issue to rest forever?

I grew up in a family of seven brothers, plus a father, a mother, and a bitch dog. No sisters. Can you guess what we all had to assume was the default position of the toilet seat?

Yes, if you fell in, you had no one to blame but yourself, and we all came to instinctively understand this is NOT a gender issue.

Have a nice day!
Antti

Hi S of V.

I also grew up without indoor plumbing, and we all knew if we were not careful, those dropped articles and particles might end up on the seat. Nobody wants to sit on that! Leave the toilet seat up! Everybody wins!

Antti

I only do that to my children if they leave the seat up.

When I was a kid, I recall we had a 5 gallon bucket in the chicken coop. It DID have a seat nailed to it, but no lid. Or you could cut out the middle man and head straight down to the rocky beach – all the way below the tide line, please.

Dead serious.

We never used a toilet, because we had to eat our shit for nutrition.

We never used a toilet, because we had to eat our shit for nutrition.

Well, if you had the equipment for it, it was considered polite (polite to the person who had to haul the bucket, that is) to do your #1 on the compost pile in the vegetable garden, so I guess that’s kind of the same thing.

Also: Don’t remember the spiders being that bad, but maybe that’s why the seat was nailed down. And the hens would scold you a bit.

Rather that people are lazy/thoughtless/crude and women can act just as badly in similar situations with just as pathetic a set of self-serving serving justifications as ever men put forth.

This is the classic “why can’t white people call blacks n***ers?”