Comments on: Two cheers for Dan Savage: rape, male accountability, and the curse of the Nice Guy

By: Guell

Guell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:41:12 +0000

Dan Savage enrages and arouses and educates, and I’m glad you clarified this post of his.

By: What I’ve been trying to say for the past twenty years « stellatex

What I’ve been trying to say for the past twenty years « stellatex — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:21:06 +0000

[…] October 12, 2009 at 1:20 pm · Filed under feminism, politics and tagged: feminism, politics Only, succinct. […]

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:37:11 +0000

I guess I count myself as skeptical regarding the entire “standing athwart the tide” or “changing the culture” imperative as being that efficacious. Always sounds to me like “the culture” is some sort of operating system we can just download the new upgrade for or something, rather than being organic, unpredictable, and very often unspoken and embedded.

Maybe my focus is just different, more individualized. I count people’s integrity and ethics highly in how I judge them, so giving any sort of approval or even tacit acceptance to someone who would engage in sexual assault would be quite out of bounds. That’s my own personal choice, though, about who I want to be and associate with, and I make the decision about what the value of that is. That ought to be its own reward. Maybe that argument doesn’t “sell” these days.

The same works the other way for “Nice Guys” or “Knights in Shining Armor” or whatever guys doing that sort of thing are doing. People, men, ought to know themselves and decide their own value, not condition it on what women think of them or what sort of treatment they get from individual women. Attempting at a relationship should be plus-plus for everyone concerned, not an effort to cover some sort of character gap or insecurity.

By: mythago

mythago — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:03:49 +0000

Not following, Edgar. If your last girlfriend was a manipulative asshole, it’s OK to be a dick to all women thereafter, either as a form of revenge or on the assumption that her manipulative assholery was inextricably wired into her XX chromosomes and therefore all women will be just like that?

By: sophonisba

sophonisba — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:14:41 +0000

Dan Savage’s argument is similar, in that it appeals to men on a purely selfish level. I suppose that a moderately creepy argument that will be listened to is more practical than a good one that won’t.

But the prospect that the argument will be listened to is exactly what’s creepy. It is an argument for woman-as-vending-machine–telling men to keep their machines in good working order just isn’t a bad means to a good end, it’s a bad end.

It’s like Kevin Smith’s recent Twitter exhortations for men to care about breast cancer research, because tits that have been surgically removed are tits you can’t jizz on.

There is no way to make this garbage ‘pragmatically’ effective. It’s just giving misogyny a self-rightous suit of armor to wear (’how can you object to treating women as garbage? We don’t want our garbage to get raped or get cancer!’ No.)

By: Elena Perez

Elena Perez — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:07:35 +0000

Edgar, the point is that men often interpret as “shitting on” and “manipulation” a woman’s simple exertion of her own boundaries. A “Nice Guy” who does something like helping a female friend move will feel “manipulated” or “used” when she does not respond by falling in love with him. Or the “Nice Guy” will feel “shat on” when a female friend accepts his overtures to hang out, or spend time together as friends, but then does not accept his sexual overtures. There is an assumption that any woman should respond with love and sexual access simply because she is treated decently, and very little understanding that women are real people with their own preferences and desires, and that, just as men do not fall in love with every woman who hands them a cup of coffee, a woman will not necessarily fall in love with every man she is friends with. This expectation is, itself, an outgrowth of rape culture. Therefore, men feel justified in responding with anger to all women if one woman rejects them sexually, and in using manipulative techniques (PUA) to get the sex that they are “owed” simply by virtue of being male.

Yes, individual women can be jerks to men, but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about larger societal trends, and how those impact the relations between individual men and women.

By: grendelkhan

grendelkhan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:03:49 +0000

I’m reminded of the purely selfish argument against slut-shaming, which I heard and may have, at some point actually made myself, with the caveat that it’s profoundly grotesque if this is your only reason for not being a jerk. In short, slut-shaming discourages women from having more sex. If all the men shame the women, all the men will, in short order, be having far less sex than they would have otherwise.

It’s a reasonable argument which, incidentally, doesn’t require the listener to consider women as human beings, or as anything more than vending machines for sex. Dan Savage’s argument is similar, in that it appeals to men on a purely selfish level. I suppose that a moderately creepy argument that will be listened to is more practical than a good one that won’t.

By: Edgar

Edgar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:53:31 +0000

I agree with and applaud your overall point that men should direct their emotions to holding other men accountable for sexual transgressions. I think your articulation of a “full man” is needed, but I feel at times you do not give enough attention to the real, felt emotions of men that would be legitimately pointed towards women.
The men in the groups discussing their emotions, as you state, felt shat on and manipulated. Certainly one can trace the story back to an initial transgression by a man, but does that excuse the actions of the women that shat on the men and manipulated them? Is it not possible to hold both the men that assaulted the women and the women that manipulated and shat on their next partners accountable? Is not a wrong action a wrong action? I feel that this position, while difficult when emotions want to create a black/white world, would be more inclusive of men’s emotions while allowing them to work to help women. In this way, it bridges instead of entrenches.

By: tps12

tps12 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:11:46 +0000

[T]he good guys do realize that and the good guys try to do something about it.

It’s not enough for “good guys” to plead to the women in their lives “but I’m not like other men”.

I didn’t see a link to the transcript, so I’m not sure what exactly Dan Savage said in context, but “do something about it” doesn’t strike me as an entreaty to plead.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:10:53 +0000

I’ve been involved with two women who were survivors of some sort of rape or sexual assault. In my experience, it puts the premium all the more squarely on the sort of patience and waiting for invitation that anyone ought to observe in their relationships. It’s a dangerous temptation, in this area but not only in this area, to assume that you can “fix” anyone. Even if you could be the “knight in shining armor”, that’s a pretty high horse to ride on and to stay on. No one should actually want to set themselves on that kind of pedestal. People need to do their own work, in their own time and way. If and when someone is far enough along with whatever their path may be that a mutually satisfying sexual relationship becomes possible, then there’s something to talk about.