The Other McCain

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3 Theses: PUAs, ‘Sexuality’ and Feminism

Posted on | January 9, 2017 | 1 Comment

My work output has been irregular since Christmas, but I’ve got thousands of words in draft that I mean to finish. However, today I’m babysitting my youngest grandson, and there are a few thoughts that have been accumulating in my mind during my research recently, and so I want to just lay them out while the boy is taking a nap.

1. Confidence and Competence

One of the basic ideas of pickup artist (PUA) discourse is how the young man can convey confidence in his approach to women. While a man’s deportment — his mannerisms, his posture, his way of speaking — are certainly important in how he is perceived by women, his superficial display of confidence is not likely to matter much if this display has no underlying basis in fact. Confidence must be sustained by competence. That is to say, external manifestations of positive self-esteem are false advertising, if a man does not have the kind of skills and accomplishments necessary to elicit admiration. If the object of studying PUA method is for the young man to learn how better to display himself — basically, learning to perform the external mannerisms of a high-status male — this will be most effective if he actually possesses high-status traits and abilities. A man who is physically robust, who has a good job, etc., may yet lack confidence in his interactions with females, so that while he is winning in many aspects of his life, he is a loser with the ladies. In such a case, he may be able to learn elements of “game” from studying PUA methods which help him add confidence to his pre-existing competence. On the other hand, if a guy’s an all-around loser, no amount of “game” is likely to help him. This was Elliot Rodger’s problem in a nutshell. His personality deficits were so extreme that it was futile for him to turn to “game” in an effort to solve his problem. While I think feminists were wrong to blame the PUA community for Rodger’s murder spree, his case does help illustrate the absurdity of thinking you can solve every difficulty in your life by getting advice off Internet forums.

2. What Do We Mean by ‘Sexuality’?

Plowing through books of feminist theory — to say nothing of the online lunatic asylum of feminist Tumblr — one notices a tendency to speak of “sexuality” as if it were a tangible personal essence. We may observe in feminist discourse a habit of treating women’s sexual feelings as more important than their sexual behavior. By contrast, feminists tend to analyze male sexuality strictly in terms of behavior, which is always interpreted as having a harmful effect on women. Feminist discourse never portrays male sexual behavior in a positive way, and as for male feelings, feminists have no regard for men’s subjective perceptions and are profoundly hostile toward men’s emotional needs. Because this prejudice is inherent in all feminist discourse about “sexuality,” the result is that feminism turns all discussion of sexual behavior into a deliberately one-sided lecture, an endless litany of male wrongdoing, to which males cannot respond without being accused of an indifference to women’s feelings. If the feminist says she feels that her ex-boyfriend’s behavior was abusive, skepticism is impermissible, because how can we argue about her feelings? Likewise, if the feminist says she was “offended” by something — a TV show, a joke someone told at the office, whatever — no argument is possible, because she is the sole judge of what offends her. Because feminism treats normal male sexual behavior as inherently wrong and harmful to women, and because feminism makes women’s feelings the only standard by which male behavior can be judged, feminist rhetoric about “sexuality” is a form of anti-male hate propaganda.

3. Is ‘Feminist’ a Synonym for ‘Bitch’?

The vulgar epithet “bitch,” denoting a woman with a hostile or antisocial personality — angry, cruel, dishonest, etc. — is popularly conflated with the word “feminist.” This is quite often done by feminists themselves, who seem to take pride in being perceived as bitches.

 

Anti-male hostility, which is what this “proud bitch” rhetoric seems to signify, is thus further confirmed as a core feminist value. Insofar as feminism in the United States is politically identified with the Democrat Party, therefore, it is necessarily divisive. Meryl Streep’s angry feminist sermon during Sunday’s Golden Globes was celebrated by Democrats, who have interpreted Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the presidential campaign as evidence that “misogyny” is rampant among American men. Therefore, to rally their electoral base against Trump, the Democrats encourage the “proud feminist bitch” mode of discourse which, it might be argued, actually inspires misogyny. Feminists habitually treat men with hostile contempt, and Democrats celebrate such anti-male attitudes as “progressive.” Yet as more and more women embrace the “proud feminist bitch” pose, men will become less likely to support “progressive” causes, or to vote Democrat, because the messengers who deliver the Democrat Party message are so implacably hateful toward males.

This was one of the weird realities revealed by #GamerGate. In one of my first conversations with Adam Baldwin about #GamerGate, he explained to me that most of the young men (and women) supporting #GamerGate were not “conservative” in any conventional sense of that word. These weren’t guys watching Fox News or listening to Rush Limbaugh or reading National Review. Many of them were atheists and more or less progressive in their political orientation. However, they were fed up with the dishonest identity-politics shakedown racket which so-called “social justice warriors” (SJWs) were using against the videogame industry.

Well, my grandson will be waking up from his nap soon, so I don’t have time to connect all the dots, but if some of y’all want to post links to this article to your Reddit forums or wherever, I’d be grateful. Tonight’s the big game and we’ll be yelling “Roll Tide!” at the TV. Also, please remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

The cable company (through which I get my Internet hookup) hit me for $200 over the weekend, and I’m past due $300 on the electric bill, and “patriarchy” is really just a synonym for paying the bills.



 

 

Category: Democrats, Election, Sex Trouble

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One Response to “3 Theses: PUAs, ‘Sexuality’ and Feminism”

  1. FMJRA 2.0: (this space intentionally left blank) : The Other McCain
    January 15th, 2017 @ 4:29 am

    […] 3 Theses: PUAs, ‘Sexuality’ and Feminism EBL […]