What’s “Fuckability” Got To Do With It?

by FCM

so what does being “fuckable” really mean, in a world where men as a group are known to stick their dicks into anyone, at anytime, under any circumstance? most of us spend way too much time, energy, worry, and of course money on fuckability mandates, beauty, and appearing “appropriate” at all times. which not coincidentally requires an entirely different costume from one hour of the day to the next. for women, of course, not for men. women make less, but spend more. on being fuckable. for men. cha-ching!

and there are heavy penalties, too, for paying too little attention to it, or being simply unable to achieve fuckability, in one way or another. or, you know, losing your fuckability over time, by actually being fucked too much. like…the woman who “lets herself go” after having too many kids. or…as dworkin mentions in “intercourse,” the ravaged junkie-prostitutes and toothless bawds from history, who do the elephants share of the fucking across time and place. yes, thats right: it seems as if the less fuckable you are, the more you actually get fucked. so what does fuckability even mean, and whats it have to do with PIV?

in actuality, fuckability mandates, and the entire notions of both “female beauty” and “male desire” seem to be a largely unexamined and generally accepted falsehood (that head-spinning quality generally indicates as much) that serves to obscure the actual truth. and the truth is, apparently, that men stick their dicks into women, because they are women. because they can. because “female” is synonymous with carnality and accessibility, and women exist only to be sexually used by men.

these pages are from dworkin’s “intercourse.” she is talking about joan of arc, and how joan seems to have largely escaped the gauntlet of male desire. in other words, she wasnt “fuckable” and the men she fought with and slept next to never tried to fuck her, or saw her that way. however, the image of joan as “not pretty” that has somehow survived as historical fact, apparently wasnt true. so while the unfuckable “toothless bawds” of history were getting fucked and fucked and fucked some more…joan of arc was beautiful, but the men didnt want her. now, i wonder why that would be? i love a good mystery, dont you?

so, it seems as if “fuckability” and female beauty mandates really have nothing to do with anything. or at least, they arent required for PIV, and even the most beautiful woman (at least one that we know of) has avoided being sexually used i mean desired by men, where there appeared to be severe consequences to using her that way. for example…fear that she would kick their fucking asses if they tried. (high heels and footbinding kind of preclude that). or…an overwhelming sense (by the men) that she was protected by something. like god, in joans case. or like…the law. indeed, these things appear to be a total boner-killer, across time and place. would that rape laws were even remotely effective ay? sure, if you are a woman. not so much, if you are a man.

so, whats fuckability got to do with fucking, really? welp…it seems very much that its actually female vulnerability that gets men hard, across time and place. and women spending money they dont have on disabling footwear seems to fit the bill. you know, just as one example. and having ineffectual rape laws and social-safety nets in place that are more hole than net seems to achieve that too, as well as a disposable, permanent underclass of women who belong to all men, and are vulnerable to all men, all the time. aka. sex workers and porn.

yes, its a sexxxay, sexxxay world out there, if you are a man. if you are a woman…well, its all very complicated, expensive, and likely to get you pregnant, is what it is.

this post was previously published at femonade.

36 Comments to “What’s “Fuckability” Got To Do With It?”

  1. “so, whats fuckability got to do with fucking, really? welp…it seems very much that its actually female vulnerability that gets men hard, across time and place. ”

    OMG, so true. Awesome piece, FCM. I loved your reference to Joan of Arc and the Dworkin quote–she really nailed it.

    How I wish womyn understood this better! Thing is, some *do* understand it, but not in a way that serves their safety or other interests. Too many think it’s all good to ‘play the fem/fuckable card’ as if they could actually be always and completely in control of it. As if, by owning that ‘power of their sexuality’ and parlaying it into ‘erotic capital’, they are not just hurting themselves and all other womyn thereby. As if it’s not always, always, this fuckability factor, only about the men.

  2. Your analysis is absolutely correct.

    We live in a world completely dominated and controlled by when. Men have determined that women and girls are their property and the main purpose of the female is to serve their sexual needs and desires. As the world is controlled by men, men make the laws and decided what is right and wrong. Women and girls are not protected under male law but are virtual sex slaves to their male owners.

    The only thing that will stop men from fucking women is if they feared women which will never happen in a male controlled world. Destroying male supremacy means removing all power from men so that they cannot oppress women and girls and simultaneously transferring the power to women so that they can protect themselves.

    No man would interfere with any women if he new she could simply cut of his disgusting cock and shove it down is throat.

  3. Yes, focussing on female vulnerability (and on vulnerability as penetrability) helps explain why men find such putrescent things as mutilated, dismembered, bandaged, tortured, massacred and dead bodies sexy. Contrary to what men want us to believe, they don’t find women sexy at all. The ‘sexiness’ is nothing other than male sexual arousal from seeing women crippled and knowing it’s for them.

    But actually, if we look at the word fuckability in a different way, fuckability has all to do with vulnerability. Fuckability means being in a disposition to be fucked, available to be fucked. And to fuck means seriously harming a women by sticking a dick into her. For the women to be harmed in this way without fighting back, for her to remain fucked, her physical and mental defenses must be seriously bashed down – she must be made as vulnerable, crippled and defenseless as possible to keep being penetrated and penetrable by men. Anything inflicted upon a women that facilitates men sticking their dick into her will be called ‘sexy’ by men. ie anything that dissociates women from their body, that turns them into dead receptacles, into absent bodies.

  4. Which is actually why PTSD & dissociation is such an effective means for maintaining female vulnerability and penetrability.

  5. female vulnerability-as-fuckability also explains why and how female fashion (and other things) can and do change over time or vary from place to place, but at the same time completely support the same agenda: the P. womens clothing covering their whole bodies (for example) or being way too hot for the climate can be just as hobbling as mile-high heels and skimpy clothing that leaves them vulnerable to the elements. womens clothing is not utilitarian (from womens perspective) but it is utilitarian from the perspective of the P, and its function is to make us vulnerable, and this doesnt seem to vary much across time and place. women have struggled with that for a long time and continue to struggle for the RIGHT to wear utilitarian clothing thats not hobbling or constricting.

    it should be noted that womens political struggle against hobbling clothing this has nothing to do with special-snowflakeism, or being allowed to wear “whatever we want” nor is it about gender or whats gender-appropriate and whats not. its about hobbling versus utility. something the fun-fems (and trans discourse) as related to clothing and fuckability mandates completely miss. the RIGHT to wear hobbling clothing is what some men want, bc its not FAIR that they cant wear whatever the WANT. thats not the SAME as what women have been struggling against (and for) all this time.

  6. I think women’s vulnerability as desirable is also one of the reasons women are discouraged from defending themselves. Your right to self defense as a woman is pretty dodgy, it’s certainly not the same as a man’s. We have prisons full of women who killed abusive husbands, who shot rapists. A man’s right to defend himself is sacred, in women it’s really discouraged.

    Women not being allowed to defend themselves carries over to reproductive rights, too. It’s still kind of debatable whether or not we should have the right to defend ourselves from pregnancy.

    In rape, we have the right to defend ourselves but only if it involves passive avoidance, like not going into parking garages alone, late at night. We never tell women to simply arm themselves with the weapon of their choice and blow the balls off anyone who doesn’t understand the word no. Some women have done just that and they’ve gone to prison…….for failing to perform vulnerability, I guess.

  7. yttik–“for failing to perform vulnerability, I guess.”

    What a perfect way to state this. This is the very reason that I remained so isolated after I finally managed to make my abuser go away. Of course, part of his agenda was to socially- isolate me once I kicked him out, with manipulations to make him appear to be victim of my abuse–not that all believed him, but he performed such a mindfuck on everyone around us that many backed off just from the sheer confusion and intensity of the situation. He carried on his abuse via the social manipulation, money (we made a kid) and the legal system for quite awhile. And I remained isolated in the end, not because of what he did, but because of what *I* did–I refused to play pitiful victim, I set about getting him far away from us and I succeeded in doing so. Oh, I was pitiful, too–but enraged as well and clearly saw what a danger he was to me and our son–there was no way I’d let him fuck with either of us over the next 18yrs. So whatever he did, I found a way to let him hang himself with it–and finally he left town permanently and has not been seen since.

    It got very clear over time that people in our community were extremely upset with me for refusing to perform proper female vulnerability–I called it ‘refusing to be a proper victim’, but same diff. It’s kind of funny, because I was known as ‘assertive’ and a ‘feminist’—so why all the surprise that I would defend myself? I guess I was still seen as fuckable/vulnerable enough, since I let that guy fuck me, and fuck with me for awhile before waking up. But since I *had* let him fuck me and start a baby, of course I was supposed to remain continuously open to him via ‘father’s rights’–permanently fuckable via the child, willingly committed to vulnerability to him…OH HELL NO!

    People literally said I went ‘crazy’–out of my fucking mind. No, just completely out of my fuckable mind–which is a return to sanity for any womyn. No more performing vulnerability!

  8. Hari B, you’re story is a perfect example of how society expects women to be masochists for men’s amusement, after a lifetime of indoctrination. It’s that learned masochism/internalized misogyny that makes us “fuckable” or not to the males. How much are we willing to hate ourselves, how far are we willing to go, how much time and money are we willing to spend, how much are we willing to hate each other, and how much suffering will we endure all for the sake of being fuckable?…a good girl?…a good wife?…a good mother?…a sexxay chick?…all for people who hate us?!

    And of course they have their female-enforcers, like the “Aunts” from The Handmaid’s Tale. For example I was first shocked when I found out that it’s women who oversee the butchery that is FGM, and during the age of foot-binding mothers would oversee of that too. But then we see mothers around the world basically doing the same though it may subtle, not so overtly violent and seemingly harmless and “cute”; teaching their daughters to be masochists eager to perform whatever the males have deemed sexxxay.

  9. “Your” not “you’re”.

  10. It has to do with equality. Men find it undesirable to fuck anyone they view as their equal. Joan D’Arc was men’s equal on the battlefield, if not their superior. That’s why these boys couldn’t get it up for her. It would be akin to fucking one of their own. Taboo. Which gives us some insight into men. If a man finds a woman desirable, guess what? He’s not viewing her as his equal. Puts a spin on these supposedly pro-feminist men, no? It also gives us insight into porn, FGM, foot-binding, requiring women to dress in clothes which cause discomfort and hinder mobility, do the work slaves once did (housework, cooking, child rearing), whistling at women, likening women to farm animals and calling women woman-hating names, etc The name of the game is subjugation. To make women different from themselves in order to create a hierarchy to give the illusion she is not his equal and beneath him. What men eroticize is power and power over, not sex, beauty, vulnerability or much of anything else.

  11. You said it, Mocha. I bumped into that guy when I was 39–by then I’d spent a long time, since my teens, trying to see, and undo the damage of growing up in patriarchy, within a perfectly normal totally dysfunctional family. I’d recently left my 2nd marriage and was, as a single parent of 3 still at home, more vulnerable in some ways than I even realized– but also feeling that I was finally starting to come into my own. Myself, my power. Then I got blindsided by the sociopath. And the realization that hit me like a freight train through the course of our relationship and getting free, was the Fundamentally Sado-Masochistic Nature of Patriarchy. With that, the realization of my own deep masochism that led me to entertain him for one minute past his first raging verbal outburst at me, soon into our relationship. Later, I could clearly see *both* that I was NOT to blame for his abuse…and I had totally allowed it into my life, had engaged with it (if more briefly than many do), by virtue of the masochism I’d been so carefully trained to. In fact at first, still too much the good little masochist, I blamed myself for being masochistic! As if one chooses that…

    Getting to that realization–both the S&M nature of patriarchy, and my own masochism was the hardest, most painful thing possible. And it was what freed me to fight him off…to become so determined, to find the power my rage .

    No less than the mothers who oversee FGM, our mothers/aunties/sisters/all womyn do carefully oversee the implantation and development of little girls’ masochism with that eagerness to be fuckable service providers to men and patriarchy generally. For our own good, of course, that we may ‘succeed’ and ‘be safe’ in patriarchy–we must be psychically butchered if not physically. And for their good too, these other womyn–for if ANY womyn escapes, then other womyn have to doubt the bargain with the devil that they have made, and get a glimpse of all the losses and damage they’ve endured.

  12. luckynkl–“Men find it undesirable to fuck anyone they view as their equal. ”

    Yep–exactly.

  13. i think “vulnerability” is a more concise term though than “equality” or “power” or even their converse: inequality, or powerlessness. besides, the fun-fems end up twisting the word “power” to mean whatever the hell they think it means, instead of using it in relation to powerlessness. they make up different kinds of “power” and then pretend they have it: sexxxay power, the power to excite or satisfy men, individualistic “feelings” of powerfulness which arent based in reality. they could SAY that wearing constricting clothing makes them FEEL powerful, or even use men going ga-ga over them as evidence of their alleged power, but theres really no denying the FACT that restrictive clothing makes you VULNERABLE, no matter how you feel about it, or even devoid of social context altogether. if you were alone in the woods, mile-high heels would still make you vulnerable. restrictive clothing that hinders the senses (such as covering the eyes or ears) or thats too hot or too cold would still make you vulnerable. i think it helps to think of it that way. its a better word, and a more helpful concept IMO.

  14. I think that insistence that women remain vulnerable might also be why our female superheros in video games and on TV always have to wear porn compliant clothing. They always have to be in a corset with a sword or chasing a suspect down the street 4inch heels. It’s really ridiculous because we all know that just doesn’t work in real life.

    It’s almost a cliche in movies, before the woman goes down into the basement to fight the bad guy….she has to strip down to her bra and panties. Most of the time she’s not going to win anyway, having walked passed the gun, the knife, and the candlestick on the way down the stairs. Naturally having her scream a lot and d-r-a-w-i-n-g out her vulnerability just to make sure everybody gets it, is important too.

  15. chunky heels were in fashion in the nineties, and buffy wore them, but if “buffy” were made today, would she be put in heels? would the stunt-doubles have to wear them too? its something to think about. watching female actors have to hobble around in heels makes me cringe, even when they arent attempting to run, or kick ass. in the action sequences where women are seen wearing heels, i sincerely hope its a trick of costume, but im afraid its probably not, or its not always.

  16. Agreed that women who aren’t vulnerable-looking are completely undesirable to men. But I wouldn’t call it “equality” either because that would imply equality is possible in given contexts, or that just by getting rid of certain aspects of vulnerability we’d become equal, or that equality within patriarchy would even be achievable at all. but that’s not the case, and that’s why radfems don’t want it.

    Very true that men won’t ever fuck their equal (unless they’re gay) but their equal can only always be a man. Under patriarchy, a non vulnerable or independant women isn’t an equal to a man, but a threat. that’s why men are so intent on wiping this category of women out, accross all times and places.

  17. I agree that men find it undesirable to fuck anyone they view as their equal, but it is not always manifested in their longing for a subservient persona, sometimes they do seek a more powerful persona. But yes, they want their sex and relationships always to be unequal, to eroticize the power difference. Also, even all gay couples I have seen, are also not “equal”, in the sense that one is usually notably younger, or one wears sm-clothing etc. Just look at all the well-defined gay scenes/preferences (e.g. bears, twinks, sm, top/bottom). Gays sometimes brag about how they fuck those superior creatures, men, as opposed to those inferior creatures, women – but they apply (repeat) their manly inequality-disposition in their own sexual scene(s).

  18. ‘Il faut souffrir pour être belle’ (that would translate in english by ‘one must have to suffer to be beautiful’, although the french version is not gender neutral…). I was very young when I heard this sentence for the first time (from my mother, while she was doing my hair…). I guess a boy who would have scream from his hair being pulled would have received a ‘sorry’ for excuse, but for a girl, the motto was that she had to suffer to be beautiful…

    Now at my workplace, many of my female colleagues have an average of 5 pair of shoes in their office (that was unseen before… I call that the ‘sex and the city’ effect…). I’ve tried one of my friend’s high heel shoes recently; I could not stand on those things. She told me that I needed practice, that it hurts at the beginning but you had to go pass the pain and then you get used to it and it does not hurt anymore… I asked her why I should inflict myself pain, she told me because high heels give you nice legs and a nice ass…. When I asked her why she needed to have a nice ass to come to work (I work for the public service) she started to laugh… but provided no answer…

    Have you also notice that in the movies, you will see this scene of a woman walking alone on a street at night where everything you hear is her high heel shoes on the ground, resonating as she walks.. the sound of her high heels signals her vulnerability… and if she happens to wear a miniskirt, this will give the advantage of a quick and easy access to her genitals for any raper who passes by…

    ‘Slutwalk’ is right in that a woman’s dress is no excuse for rape (since a woman’s dress is not relevant when we are talking rape, why ‘slutwalk’ is putting so much emphasis on it? and by associating derogatary words to certain kinds of dress, arent they promoting what they are claiming to denounce? their message seems counterproductive… ). However, we can not deny that women’s fashion promotes vulnerability. Then, the next question should be why is vulnerability associated with sexyness… and then take a close look at the answer!

  19. that’s very true Elin, *all* men, including gay men, need to fuck someone subordinate to them. Look at the connotations behind the verb “fuck” after all: you cannot do that to an equal. This is where MtF transexuals come in. They don’t have the inclination or the temperament to subordinate another; and this is a phenomenon called “failed masculinity”. But instead of realising they have a penchant or a fetish for being a “bottom”, they have confused themselves into thinking they’re women. That’s how misogynistic they are: male to female transsexuals believe bottoming *is* being a woman. ANd it makes me sick.

  20. Sigh. Another example of how male civilization has pathologized womankind, warping us into insults to be thrown back and forth from men and boys, regardless if they’re hetero, gay or trans. We’re something to be ashamed of, at least to those shitheads anyway. How fucking twisted; they want us to be vulnerable, masochistic twits and then they hate us for it, and *then* they hate us even more if we refuse to endanger and dumb ourselves down for them. And we’re the crazy ones?!

  21. “It has to do with equality. Men find it undesirable to fuck anyone they view as their equal.”

    I think men are scared to fuck anyone that is of equal or greater strength to themselves, rather than lacking in the desire to do so. I think men have the ambition to fuck everyone in the world including more powerful versions of themselves.

    “That’s why these boys couldn’t get it up for her. It would be akin to fucking one of their own. Taboo.”

    Where is male homosexuality taboo? Men’s institutions are cemented by it, the priesthood, the public school, the army and navy, anywhere men gather in groups without women being present. The taboo is on admitting it to women, and that, depending on the degree of patriarchy present in any given society, can be punishable by death. Because it is breaking the code of the boys club, which corrals women’s bodies by controlling their minds. Women must religiously follow heterosexual edicts, men are exempt.

    “What men eroticize is power and power over, not sex, beauty, vulnerability or much of anything else”

    How can someone in your presence be vulnerable without you having power over them? Why eroticize power if it has no purpose? I think the word vulnerability implies the purpose behind the desire for power and so is helpful to our understanding.

  22. “Equality” has to do with the political whereas “vulnerability” has emotional connotations and implies a helplessness and a need to be taken care of. I find folks “vulnerable” for example, when they’ve just suffered some kind of major loss – such as the loss of loved one – and they’re not running on all cylinders. I know the word has more than one meaning and perhaps that’s what troubles me. The ambiguity of the word, especially given the link between that and the stereotype of women being emotional and helpless.

    Women’s condition has to do with the political, not the emotional. It’s not an internal thing. It’s about power – politically, economically, socially, culturally – and those who have been granted it and those who have been disenfranchised from it. That’s what power means. Men have been granted power and women have been disenfranchised from it. Men then use that political/economic/social/cultural power to lord over women. What men then institute and eroticize is this dom/sub relationship. The structure of which can be seen throughout our society. Examples: male/female, masculine/feminine, butch/femme, white/black, master/slave, employer/employee, teacher/student, top/bottom. This dom/sub relationship is a co-dependent one. Without one, the other cannot exist. IOWs, masculinity, for example, cannot stand on its own. There can be no masculinity without femininity. There would be nothing to gauge it by. The dom/sub paradigm is the earmark and bread and butter of patriarchy. And this very power structure is what is eroticized by men.

    Joan D’Arc was able to cross these boundaries for whatever reason. I personally didn’t know her so I couldn’t tell you what it was about her that caused men’s dicks to go limp. :p But being I have a bit of experience with the boys and this sort of thing, my guess is her skills in battle were superior to that of the boys and it gained her their respect. As such, she became part of the dominant group and even their superior. Men are all about hierarchy and rarely challenge it within their own groups. Compare it to a wolf pack. How often is the alpha challenged? The pack accepts it and obeys the alpha without question. Men do it too. Men probably modeled their social order after animal packs. So dig it. Joan D’Arc may have been viewed as the alpha female. But she also had that witchy thing going on too. She had prophetic visions and those visions came to be. Damn right the boys were in awe of it. Which put her on the same plain as god. Little wonder they had a sag in their pants. Could you fuck god or his messenger?! Would you dare provoke his wrath with that blasphemy? Oh, I so don’t think so!

    Anyhow, that’s my speculation.

  23. Vulnerable comes from the Latin word vulnas ‘wound’.

    I agree with your assessment of power structures but power structures have a purpose. You set them up to control animals, mainly for food and as a byproduct you get labour. You set up power structures to control women mainly for reproduction and as a byproduct you get service. They eroticise their means of controlling our reproductive processes, designing clothes that display our vulnerability both physically and mentally. Willingly wearing crippling shoes, covers both departments, a mind bent to their will (women look as ridiculous in heels as men and poodles do) and a body hobbled by their will. Lots of babies whenever they want them!

    It is thought Joan was raped during interrogation, when she was vulnerable and no longer had the support of the king. There was still a lot of paganism mixed with christianity in Joan’s time; the ordinary people still followed female spiritual leaders. Joan came along when the king was losing the war against the British and he used her as a recruiting tool to re-inspire the common men in his flagging armies.

  24. zeph: “It is thought Joan was raped during interrogation, when she was vulnerable and no longer had the support of the king.”

    Or, wrt the definition of vulnerable (quite illuminating): Joan is thought to have been raped, once she was wounded by the king’s withdrawal of support for her. She was rendered physically fuckable, once psychically fucked by the king.

    The story of womyn’s lives: the endless psychic violations (at least) as we grow, priming us for eventual physical fuckability.

  25. “They eroticise their means of controlling our reproductive processes, designing clothes that display our vulnerability both physically and mentally.”

    Yep, you nailed it, thanks for that. Everything on the “fuckability continuum” from PIV -to rape -to physically and mentally crippling- to mutilating genital and reproductive organs (etc) is what enables the controlling of our reproductive processes. The only reason men experience control of our reproductive processes (and all women’s forced vulnerability that goes with it) as erotic is because of the genital arousal created by the erect penis necessary for the PIV/rape to take place. The fuckability thing also ensures men are walking erect penises, so they’re ready to fuck women any time.

  26. From what I hear, the English put a bounty on Joan’s head. The French may have viewed women as more their equal, but the English did not. The English, who were over-the-top misogynist (and still are), were enraged that a woman was kicking their ass and defeating them in battle, so they put a price on Joan’s head, rumor has it. Some Frenchmen went for it and turned her over to the English. I also heard Joan was repeatedly raped while imprisoned by the English. Which is what PIV/fucking is all about. Degradation and subjugation. To be domesticated and treated like an animal. Fucked like an animal. Bred like an animal. Men are rather fond of animal husbandry, as I’ve always said and you allude to, Zeph.

    A friend and I were exploring some ideas recently. Ideas that men view women and animals as earthly, wallowing around in the muck, mire and dirt. Men imagine they originate from sky, overlooking the fact they’re all born an inch away from a woman’s asshole. Details, details. In any case, men consider all earthly things beneath them. IOWs, the physical plane is beneath them. So they shackle animals and women to the earth to perform the physical maintenance of the physical body and the physical universe. So men can live in their heads, way up there in the clouds (but which in reality, is located somewhere up their ass and around the corner). Cuz on the physical plane, males are at best useless, unnecessary and insignificant. So unnecessary and insignificant that 99% of males could be eliminated and life on the planet wouldn’t skip a beat. Of course men’s overinflated egos cannot accept this so suffering with a severe case of sour grapes, they imagine they’re sky dudes and space cadets and above all those lowly earthly things in the physical universe. They imagine they are astronauts within the womb, their mothers are the ship, and it’s all controlled by the men at NASA. Can’t say men don’t have vivid imaginations. They ought to considering how much time they spend in their heads and avoiding work and routine, physical maintenance. But someone’s got to do the physical maintenance so they can continue to live in their heads, otherwise they will die, and that’s where women and animals come in to serve them.

    Whatcha think?

  27. men absolutely rely on women to perform all caretaking on their pathetic carcasses, and yes, many men cannot even remember to eat or sleep without women reminding them, and even nagging them to do so. this completely distorts mens (and therefore mainstream) cost-benefit analysis in every context, bc they take female labor and caretaking for granted, so they can make statements like “beneficial” and “its worth it” and “we cant afford not to” without having to consider or take into account in their cost-benefit analyses that its women that are going to be taking care of them (and others) when they hurt themselves (and others). and thats worth something.

    if women stopped taking care of men, things would change radically in every way.

    its absolutely 100% true that 99% (or some large percentage) of males are redundant. this has to affect them psychologically. it probably affects us too. like, it triggers caretaking behaviors or something, to realize on any level how pathetic and redundant men really are. if we suddenly became interested in self-preservation, the reality of mens worthlessness and redundance might “trigger” something else instead.

  28. Lol! Yeah it’s greats thoughts. living above the earth, splitting their minds from their bodies (while forcing women to take care of it) and treating women as empty vessels and dirt on the ground is a way of punishing women, the creators, for birthing men but failing to give them a birthing machine too. They hate the women they came out of, they hate being reminded women made them, resent women’s reproductive organs and resent being so worthless.

    I see the body/mind split as simply one of the strategies men found or developed to assert their power over women to overcome their own perceived powerlessness. Dissociation from the body and PTSD create the necessary numbness to do all the raping and murdering men need to do to keep women and their forcefully conceived children under control. It’s a sacrifice they’re ready to bear to stay on the top and uphold the myth they’re more powerful than women.

  29. god, I loved that comment Luckynkl. really loved it.

    and yes witchwind, it’s easy to forget that men are raping and murdering us every day. But second wave feminists agreed that this was crucial to patriarchy. If the patriarchal status quo was natural, and women were born subordinate, we would just go around being subordinate, wouldn’t we. But we don’t. So men have to terrorize us, because if they didn’t their power wouldn’t last half a day. We would take back our land, the renumeration for our labour, and everything else they’ve taken from us.

    Their violence simply proves what we all know: that they are not better than women, that they can’T control us, not really. That only way they can control us women is by killing some of us every day in every single country. Norman Mailor has a character in one of his novels who kills his wife because that was the only way he could control her. When she was alive he simply couldn’t.

  30. I watched a few moments of Tim Gunn, the fashion guy, in which he confessed he hadn’t had sex in 29 years. What was kind of fascinating was the way he said a guy had left him after telling him he was doing sex “wrong.” Then the whole AIDS thing came along and he just didn’t think sex was worth risking his life for. So here we have this gay guy who makes his living trussing women up in fashion to ensure they continue to look feminine and vulnerable (fuckable,) but he himself can’t have a relationship with men…….because well, they’re men. They expect you to submit, act like a woman, and even sacrifice your health, your very life, risking sex with them.

    I thought it was really revealing because women of course, do what he was complaining about every single day, as a way of life. We don’t just risk AIDS, we risk, STD’s, PID, HPV, cervical cancer, blood clots, stroke, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, uterine rupture, etc, etc., not to mention domestic violence and rape. Tim Gunn decided the risk of just one disease was too great. He also apparently decided that sex as he knew it was about dominance and control, not affection, so who in their right mind would want that? And then he goes on to earn his fame and fortune teaching women how to comply and submit……but that’s a whole other subject.

    Anyway, it was kind of revealing. Tim Gunn thinks too highly of himself to have a sexual relationship with a man. It’s kind of astounding how women are seldom allowed to feel the same.

  31. Wow, amazing article again, and AMAZING comments. I defended myself a few years’ back from an assault and now I have a rep locally as a ‘violent psycho (insert misogynist slur)’. I promote local womens’ self-defense classes and have been threatened not to. You’re all correct in all the different ways you say it: men don’t want strong or equal partners. They want someone to violate and abuse. I find myself daydreaming about running away from this place with a woman; someone who really could care about me… ?

    I’m so tired of eating shit.

  32. “its absolutely 100% true that 99% (or some large percentage) of males are redundant. this has to affect them psychologically. it probably affects us too. like, it triggers caretaking behaviors or something, to realize on any level how pathetic and redundant men really are. if we suddenly became interested in self-preservation, the reality of mens worthlessness and redundance might “trigger” something else instead.”

    WOW, YES…

  33. “So unnecessary and insignificant that 99% of males could be eliminated and life on the planet wouldn’t skip a beat. Of course men’s overinflated egos cannot accept this so suffering with a severe case of sour grapes, they imagine they’re sky dudes and space cadets and above all those lowly earthly things in the physical universe.”

    Oh goddess this made me laugh, it reminded me of a ludicrous Salvador Dali painting where a naked man is trying to take off but a woman is holding him down by his penis, a complete reversal. Women are high minded, men low minded and most of us would be delighted if they would fly off into space and take their sexual obsessions with them.

    “I find myself daydreaming about running away from this place with a woman; someone who really could care about me…”

    That is a good daydream, I hope it comes true.

  34. Sigh. Moral of this story- or all stories, really. PIV= Subjugation. Wait, no. Men= Subjugation. I’m amazed every day.

  35. ‘for failing to perform vulnerability’

    Thank you for putting this so concisely. I’ve been trying to sum up this concept for ages.

  36. “Where is male homosexuality taboo? Men’s institutions are cemented by it, the priesthood, the public school, the army and navy, anywhere men gather in groups without women being present. The taboo is on admitting it to women, and that, depending on the degree of patriarchy present in any given society, can be punishable by death. Because it is breaking the code of the boys club, which corrals women’s bodies by controlling their minds. Women must religiously follow heterosexual edicts, men are exempt.”

    This is fascinating. It is true that they often beat each other up over being homosexuals; this, however, is only because they fear that the man in question has become the WRONG type of homosexual- the passive type. They know that half of all homosexuals are active, rather than passive, but in thier paranoia, assumptiveness takes precedence. They turn on thier own club members, as the Russian Communists, in bouts of paranoia, ordered the execution of fellow high ranking Marxists. They cannot afford “not to assume” or to use reason, like humans instead of animals. They hear “gay” and they knee jerk. However, they implicitly understnad they have attractions to other males and often to themselves. And that this makes them gay.

    Most men NEVER admit thier homosexuality to women especially, because women would ask them to go off then and fuck men instead, and since they don’t want the woman to get the idea that they are the weak (i.e., fuckable, subordinate-able) type of gay, they won’t admit.

    But to men? Oh, yeah! they even brag about it! they won’t, of course, say “I’m attracted to men”, rather, “”Let’s kick/grab/fuck Simon’s ass!” Notice the language they use when playing video games: “AUGH! YEAAAHH! Josh just got RAPED!” Any excuse to put thier dick into something. As for male homosexiality not being stated: Bear in mind the Masonic (all male) rituals about sexuality, nudity, etc, and how they MUST be ritualized, expected from a higher power, hidden, forced upon the participants. It MUST be ritualized so no one can admit to WANTING to engage in it.

    I recall a story about some Masonic friends in the 18th century who blindfolded their friend, told him to give a kiss to a pretty woman, and he was shocked to be presented, when the blindfold came off, with the naked backside of a friend. They laughed like it was a HUGE joke, but we ALL know the point was to engage in a homosexual act. Funny or not, you wouldn’t let someone kiss your ass if it wasn’t sexual for you. It wold’nt be worth the funny if not for the attraction. (I had a professor who was a Mason and, while not particualrly sexist, was an all around douche- wimpy, discouraged questioning, sadfaced, etc- you know the type).

    If they admit to women that they are allowed any sort of same-sex bonding, then the women might figure out and do the same. Though, I’m not sure if there are any other reasons. And I’m still trying to puzzle through why they don’t admit it to each other, though. I’ve not only seen them hiding homosexuality from women, but from men too. Why? Or are they pretending in front of women to hide it from other men, or perhaps they are not admitting openly that what they are experiencing is attraction, though they go through the motions- slapping each other’s butts’, having pissing “contests”, etc?

    Maybe, these men are afraid to admit they have an attraction to other men because those men will use an attraction as an excuse to blackmail them, the way men use love and attraction against women, to get them to submit!! (think Valentine’s Day, or diamond jewelry- “she’ll pretty much have to”, says a Famly Guy episode, and then a silhouette of a woman bends down to her man’s crotch). They want to signal sexual desire or sexual behavior but with no attraction- atttraction makes you “weak”, since you’ll submit to the object of your attraction to keep him from leaving, ignoring you, etc. Attraction means “you can fuck me”. And possibly, “I want it so much I’ll even be on bottom.”

    Perhaps this whole thing explains why things such as urinals (including those exposed without partitions), privacy-lacking showers and locker rooms, and pissing contests are so cherished among men. They want to have the desire quenched without the need to ask for it (which would signal “need”- ergo, the ability to be manipulated because of that need- on the part of the afflicted), so they INSIST on urinals, locker rooms, faggy steam rooms, ritual nudity BY DEFAULT.

    Bear in mind: People in most cultures don’t walk around naked, and being clothed does not hurt or offend anyone, though nudity sometimes does. Hence, we can conclude some people are offended by nudity, but NO ONE is offended by clothing, or lack of nudity. No one will be harmed by NOT seeing a naked body in a particular time or place. Keep this in mind. Now try asking a man why locker/rest-rooms need to be lacking in privacy, and watch the defensiveness come in. Remind him that you never said people would be disallowed from exposing themselves in private, to other people, only that they shouldn’t HAVE to go naked if they choose not to. Though this makes perfect sense, he will often comment that women are not supposed to understand. What he is trying to hide is that he WANTS to see other men naked, but does NOT want to ask for that want to be fulfilled by name, because that would be marking him for death- weakness via want (attraction).

    We can all see this already! Ask a man why he thinks he is THE straightest guy in the room after he just violently defended men’s “right” to see each other naked in locker rooms. Ask him how that can POSSIBLY be considered proof of HETEROsexuality. He will become even angrier. It’s just like a person who SCREAMS they are not a thief, before anyone accuses them of it. And keeps screaming it. It becomes obvious they ARE a thief.

    This kind of man also doesn’t want to admit he and other men have a kinship- then the women will be onto the conspiracy. This could be why women are expected to have privacy in restrooms and locker rooms- because they aren’t expected to form bonds, especially sexual bonds, with their own. (not that the men are doing anything healthy by forcing each other into nudity, this is just the reason they mandate a privacy difference between the sexes, this is what they intend to accomplish). Girls are also not expected to need to hide their sexual attraction to others, including other women, and it’s why lesbianism is less harmful to them than homosexuality- because attraction makes you “weaker” (at least, if you consider a want or a need a to be sign of “weakness”). It’s ok for women to hug and kiss others, to act like emotionally needy children, or sexually needy teenagers- because that only fucks THEM up (excuse the pun). Only the lovER must suffer, not the love-EE.

    There could be another reason for this restroom nudity mandate: since men are allowed the privilege of being individuals, and women aren’t, it is in their favor to expose themselves, to prove that all penises come in different sizes and shapes (and genitals, in their worldview, are alter-egos). Women must not discover the variety between each others’ breasts and vaginas- otherwise, they risk losing their collective identity as the fuckable, Barbie-shaped Everywoman. Men cannot let women find out their bodies come in all different shapes and sizes. Men can afford to be individuals (except, of course, along lines such as ability to pee standing up- which, btw, NOT all men can do, nor all women can’t!- and the ability to subjugate a woman). Only loss of ability or willingness to subjugate women warrants bieng kicked out. The very few good men there are are the enemies of the locker room assholes.

    I used to think, before I was smarter, that since nudity was an unpleasant thing, men were taught that going naked in front of each other was a sign of manliness because conquering the unpleasant was a sign of strength. Now I know better.

    Part of the obsession with homosexuality, in addition, may be a TOTAL unwillingness to accept the nature of females and of the feminine. At least some men are fascinated (though not in an unselfish way, and RARELY in a selfless way) with the nature of females and the female body, like some kind of scientist conquering the volcano, or some kind of 16th century sailor brave enough to risk falling off the end of that horrifying feminine Earth by literally fucking with the unknown. This is why men who are strong and “protect” their woman are lauded- not for their altruism, but for their not being “ascared” of the monster, that horrible vagina. However, many, if not most men, are cowardly enough to feel better among that which is familiar: the male body. They get a war medal if they have sex with women, the medal of honor if they tolerate them emotionally (even though women only want what men want- to be respected- and even though most “female” problems are directly and obviously caused by male abuse), and pity if they go homo, in fear of the Feminine.

    As the Greeks used to (and still) seem to think, Women are not even good enough to fuck.