Getting Carded, Part 4

When we last left off I was calling bullshit.  Specifically, I was calling bullshit on this:

It's because, in males more so than females, the sex drive is completely detached from the rest of the personality. The part of the male brain that worries about job security or money or social reputation or legal consequences has almost no veto power over the sex drive. You've heard guys say they were "thinking with their dick" or "I was thinking with the little brain" or "I took an order from Captain Bonerhelmet." That's what they're referring to.  [Emphasis mine]

I have a huge problem with the line of thought in the bolded sentence.  My problem is that it’s in an article that’s ostensibly written as a defense of women against the predation of men, but that single sentence negates pretty much every good thing that the article could have said (which, sadly, were few and far between).  See, by offering an awful and convenient evo-devo explanation the author totally takes all responsibility for men’s behavior out of the hands of men.  Don’t believe me?

Science doesn't seem to totally understand why the "base urges" part of the brain reacts differently in men. Maybe it's just a matter of having 10 times as much testosterone in their system, or maybe society has trained us to be like this, or maybe we're all spoiled children. My theory is that evolution needs males who will stay horny even in times of crisis or distress, and thus cuts off the brain's ability to tamp down those urges. Whatever -- nailing down the cause isn't the point.  [Emphasis mine]

Um, yes, as a matter of fact, nailing down the cause should be the point.  It should be the entire goddamn point.  And just dismissing male tendencies in the horniness department as “men need to be horny during distress” is fuck stupid.  You know what happens to be a really good way of getting your dumb, horny ass killed?  Stopping to rub one out while being chased across the savannah by a hungry lion, that’s what.  You know what’s a really bad idea during one of those “times of distress” that might include things like “famine” and “drought” and “spending a year stuck in a city besieged by ravening hordes of Huns?”  Bringing more hungry mouths into the world, that’s what.

I, personally, would think that the more logical evolutionary developmental advantage within humanity would go to the one who can control his sexuality.  Yes, there’s the whole propagation of the species through survival of the fittest and wider dissemination of the genes is a total Darwinian concept that makes perfect sense.  But humanity has something that your average mayfly, cuttlefish, or prairie dog lacks: the actual intelligence necessary to engage in long-term thinking.  Actions, after all, have consequences.  My dog doesn’t necessarily have the capacity to understand that, but I sure as shit do.

That, for the record, is pretty much how society works.  We have laws and cultural mores for a reason.  Some of those laws might be stupid.  Some of those cultural mores might be outdated.  But the underlying concept of laws and mores is essential to the proper functioning of human society.  So if you take fifty-percent of humanity, throw your arms up, and say, “Fuck, I don’t know what to do, they’re evolutionarily incapable of understanding consequences,” then YOU.  ARE.  NOT.  HELPING.

It’s as simple as that.

That’s the problem with this entire exercise, though.  The article attempts to say that it’s somehow “society” or “evolution” that causes men to treat women like shit, then passively says, “Well, what’re ya gonna do, boys will be boys, after all.  We can’t be trusted around boobies.”

Step one is to say that, no, it’s not okay.  Step two is to hold that line.  Step three is to smack any whiny, over-privileged twit who tries to go over that line without consequences.  Step four is to smack anyone who lets him get away with it.

It’s really not that complicated.  This isn’t to say it’s particularly simple, as there’s a lot of inertia and unexamined privilege that must be overcome in order to create real, lasting, necessary change.  For the most part it should be an issue of changing mores.  Make it unacceptable to be a douchebag.  Make it clear that certain actions are sexual assault.  Then, when someone crosses that line, don’t let him say, “She was asking for it.”

This is usually when someone comes out with the ol’, “But what about those crazy bitches who accuse guys of rape because they’re, y’know, crazy-ass bitches?”  To be honest, this is problematic.  I have no doubt that there are women somewhere in this world who will run around all willy-nilly claiming that every single guy who’s ever looked at them is engaging in sexual assault.[1]  This, unfortunately, is a problem we have to deal with all the time in society.

What’s to stop my neighbor from accusing me of stealing his laptop?  What’s to stop someone walking down the street from calling the cops and claiming I tried to run her over with my car?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  This is the risk of living within a society.

Accusations of crimes related to sex are also far, far more complicated and fraught with social peril than accusations of property theft.  In most cases it’s literally a case of the word of one against the word of another without any witnesses.  That’s truly problematic and does open well-meaning people up to spurious and false accusations that they cannot disprove.

The solution to this seemingly intractable problem, though, is not to simply allow one half of the population to get away with anything they want because, fuck, man, what’re you supposed to do?  That’s the world we live in right now.  Boys will be boys, after all.  They can’t be expected to consider the consequences.[2]  Besides, she should have known better than to put herself in a position where those uncontrolled and uncontrollable boys would see her and she sure as hell should have known better than to have a history of being sexually active.  Really, if a woman has had one penis inside of her then that means she wants to have every other penis inside of her at any given time, regardless of whether she knows the guy or likes him or wants to have sex at this particular moment.

That doesn’t sound fair to me.  And if it sounds fair to you, chances are you’re some sort of MRA and/or PUA douchebag and, quite frankly, the only solution to that is castration with a rusty X-Acto knife.  Sorry, bro, you know what they say, “Life’s a bitch, then you marry one.”  Har-har.

David Wong does try to avoid the exceedingly negative implications of his argument:

No, this doesn't excuse anything. Obviously, "She was asking for it!" is still a bullshit rape defense. All I'm saying is when you see guys actually get annoyed or angry at the sight of a girl showing too much skin, or if you see them eager to degrade or humiliate the girls at the strip club, this is why. It's probably why some Muslims make their women cover themselves head to toe.

While the disclaimer at the start is nice, the rest of the thing is pretty fucking stupid.  It makes sense if you genuinely believe that men are uncontrollable horndogs, I suppose.  But, again, all this does is say that it’s all the woman’s fault.  Humiliation, abuse, and strictly enforced dress codes are not an issue of men recognizing their limitations, either.  They are the artifacts of control, plain and simple.

And that is why we need to change up the cultural mores and stop saying that men can’t be expected to control themselves or consider the consequences of their actions.  It’s not some strange, amorphous “society” putting these limitations on women and allowing men to run about in a blissful fog, free of any consequences of their actions.  It’s men.  You know how I know that?  Because I happen to know that men are in society, men have most of the power in society, and the way society is formulated is strangely skewed to give men more power and privilege than women.

So, yeah, that’s all I have to say about that for the moment.  Stay tuned, though, since I’m going to veer off of the David Wong article and take all a y’alls into a place I’m sure you don’t want to go: The Friend Zone.

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[1]Seriously, I knew someone in college who was a social work major and one day, out of fucking nowhere, put this big, long diatribe out (on Facebook, if I recall) about how every man in the world was a rapist and not to be trusted.  Except her current boyfriend, of course.  She also accused me of being a tool of the Devil and attempting to undermine her once because she got it into her head that I had been pulling the strings on something that I had only a tangential connection to.  There is little doubt in my mind that, yes, she could end up accusing some dude of rape because he bumped into her on the sidewalk.

[2]Some people, of course, genuinely can’t think past the action to the consequences.  I do not think that this is or should be thought of as a normative male modality.  I think that your average male is completely and totally capable of controlling himself, but we as a society have not given enough incentive to do so.  I’ll also note that the primary drivers of the laws and law enforcement in our society are men.  Strange coincidence, that…

Comments

[Firedrake]

If any man is genuinely incapable of controlling himself in sexual situations, he should surely be locked away from society until he can be cured, just like anyone else who's mentally ill in a dangerous way.

Whatever the validity of Wong's thesis, I think he should be aware that this is exactly what an apologist for rape would say - and he doesn't take it any further, perhaps to suggest a way in which the problem might be dealt with.

[The Everlasting Dave]

Ohhhh. Oh. I get it now. Suddenly I feel like the passerby in that episode of "Community" where Britta and Annie are holding a rally to help flood victims, or earthquake victims, or genocide victims. The passerby looks at these women, marching with their signs and their chants, and calmly informs them, "You don't have to yell. Nobody is on the other side of this issue."

The whole problem I had in the last comment thread was I didn't understand why you were taking a satirical article and reading it like a men's rights manifesto. It was obvious to me on the first read of the article was that it's satire. It's making fun of men for all the old clichés about not being able to keep it in our pants, about how women lead us around by our dicks, keep our balls in jars on their mantels, etc. It misses the mark of being funny, obviously, but that's not a crime. I think any time someone brings up dudes who hump inanimate objects in public, it should be obvious he's not applying that behavior to men at large. So to sum up, the number of men who would read that article and direct their associates to it as a justification for doing stupid things with their penis is just about zero.

[Janet]

"Men don't need to be horney during distress." Too true: they need to be horney when the female is ovulating. Otherwise, we miss out on procreation, which is mostly the point of sex. The difference between men and women is that females are not always fertile. The estrus cycle leaves a limited time-window for successful conception. When that window is open, the male better be ready, or he is out of luck in the game of progeny.

Biologically, it doesn't make sense for a female to be sexually receptive to a male if there's no chance of getting knocked up. It wastes her time and his energy if sex doesn't lead to pregnancy. That is why animal breeders don't need a veterinarian to tell when a breeding female is in heat. The female tells you herself by assuming the position rather than attacking the male when he comes to court her.

Take a horse stallion near a mare when she isn't in heat, and nine times out of ten she'll respond violently to his advances. She's full of progesterone and she has better things to do (like eat grass, or swat at flies). But wait until she's ovulating, and she will probably be willing for any stallion who knows his business. In contrast, a healthy stallion's drive is always there. That is why many boarding stables and showgrounds restrict access to stallions, or only allow stallions to be handled or shown by adults. It takes experience to safely manage a stallion. Much less so to work with a mare, because she only becomes mildly unmanagable for about a week out of every three during the long days of the year, when her estrogen levels are high. And even then, she's not likley to go mounting other horses.

I have heard it said that humans and dolphins are the only animal species that engage in recreational sex. But I truely doubt all the other animals are thinking hard about starting babies when they do it. And yet, I know the mood only really takes me at the peak of my cycle. Most other times of the month, my mind will wander right over sex to things like dinner, finances, housework, philosophy. Being female, I don't know what it means to have a male libido. I do know that my female libido waxes and wanes like the moon. The phases averaged together do not describe the whole cycle.

[Geds]

Firedrake: Pretty much...

Dave: There's a two-fold problem with your original read of the article that, in turn, leads to a third problem. First, it's Cracked, not The Onion. Cracked's general raison d'etre is to take crazy but real things and write funny shit about them, so it's not generally a good idea to just assume everything is a satire. This is exacerbated by the second problem with that read, which is that the first two items on the list could be read as completely on-point critiques of how men look at women. So even if the part that pissed me off was completely and totally supposed to be satire, it doesn't work as a, "Hey, I'm just yankin' your chain," point right after two, "This is actually how men look at the world and it's wrong," points.

As such, it's at best bad and misplaced satire. As such, not only does it not help, but it's easy to miss and will end up simply reinforcing a notion that men generally hold, anyway.

Janet: Humans and dolphins are the only species to engage in recreational sex? Bwuh? What about the various apes and monkeys that do it? And the whole gay penguin sex thing?

Also, at least in my experience, the male libido waxes and wanes, too. I think that one of the real disservices men do to each other is to pretend that it doesn't and to be "male" is synonymous with "horny all the fucking time." I tend to think that impotence, for one, is something that isn't always a, "Crap, gotta fix this right now," issue.

In men changes in libido might not be to the level that women experience it, but I don't think that it's too far off to say that men can let other things get in the way of thinking of sex, too. We might be more easily turned towards thoughts of sex by a passing attractive woman or whatever, but men are fully capable of becoming completely absorbed in their work or some project or whatever.

[Firedrake]

I think that part of the problem may be that this is a self-reinforcing meme: if you believe that manly men are horny all the time, then if you want to be thought of as a manly man you too will claim you're horny all the time. (Hence wolfwhistles at building sites when a woman walks past, and so on.)

[emilyperson]

I don't think the estrogen cycle is the only thing in charge of the female libido, either. I'm more likely to be horny when I'm ovulating, but that doesn't mean I never want sex when I'm not.

[The Everlasting Dave]

I dunno, man. "Cause it happens for Han Solo and Marty McFly" and "I haven't actually seen Bridesmaids but Melissa McCarthy is fat so ha." don't sound to me like the arguments of someone who intends to be taken seriously. Part 1 strikes me as a big fat "quit yer bitchin'" directed at all whiny single men who don't share many qualities with the legendary captain of the Millennium Falcon and can't admit it. Part 2 is completely throwaway. And other than the loosest "Funny how art imitates life" sense, I cannot understand anyone reading this and thinking "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter." I know you're taking it seriously and you've raised some good points in the process, but for the life of me I can't comprehend why.

[Geds]

Eh, as much as anything it gave me something to coalesce a series of free-floating thoughts around. And those free-floating thoughts have been BUGGING THE LIVING HELL OUT OF ME for several months precisely because they were interconnected in a strange sort of way but unwilling to allow themselves to be nailed down.

And, weirdly, items 5, 4, and 3 on that list actually did connect the dots I needed connected, while item 2 gave me a sort of overarching way of discussing them. Item 1, on the other hand, did fuck-all, since I still have no idea what he was saying, as it comes across as neither straight funny nor satire. It's just a complete and total miss on every level I can conceive of.

But you'll notice that for part 5 I completely veered off of the David Wong article. Part 6 and the (possible) part 7 will remain away, other than the possibility of a quick connection to the ideas behind items 5 and 4, since they're still applicable to the thought process.