New blog recommendation

There's a new blog that I can't help but draw attention to, even if it seems a bit self-serving: The Liberal Heterodoxy.  Its anonymous author says he intends to spend most of my time scolding the right, but also a good bit of time asking hard questions to my fellow leftists, in hopes they'll have an answer.

He starts with me, in this long and thoughtful piece, responding to my posts about "older men, and younger women."  He raises lots of questions for me to answer, and takes on a number of my stands on feminism, sexuality, faith, and agency.   My critics from the feminist left will be particularly pleased, I think, with some of his points.

The Liberal one finishes his first post with a provocative query:

Here's the bottom-line. I agree with Hugo that our culture encodes a uni-dimensional sexuality on women's bodies. I agree that this is bad, and that we ought to do something about it. However, I am not willing to impose celibacy on myself or others to do it. And so, I address this question to Hugo: How can a Feminist Man Get Laid?

Yikes.  That's a tough one I'll have to work on!

Comments

[zuzu]

And so, I address this question to Hugo: How can a Feminist Man Get Laid?

Not being a misogynist asshole usually works on me.

[evil_fizz]

Well, you can start with the presumption that just because you want to have sex doesn't mean you're entitled to it...

[NancyP]

Ask politely.....

[sophonisba]

Oh goody, more bashing of young men from an older one. It's sad, and every bit as detached from reality as the bashing of older women we see elsewhere. I'd tell him that the number of obnoxious frat boys is roughly equal to the number of obnoxious sorority girls, but I'm sure he knows that.

Good Older Man is punished (absence of relationship/sex)

This formulation of sex as reward/punishment is never less than stomach-turning. I notice he also characterized the young woman in the example as helpless to reject Bad Older Man's advances and unable to notice his Badness - there's his real estimation of young women's sexual autonomy and decision-making skills.

[Lauren]

Fishnets.

[Mr. Bad]

sophonista said: "This formulation of sex as reward/punishment is never less than stomach-turning."

The same is true of the practice of women using their sexuality as currency in order to manipulate, i.e., punish/reward, men. Perhaps if women used their "decision-making skills" and decided to stop this practice then men wouldn't have this attitude.

[NancyP]

How is refusing to take an interest in a boor "manipulation"? I'd consider it mere good taste, and applicable to all potential genders and sexualities (except the few folks who actually prefer boors as sex partners).

[Noumena]

Mr. Bad, if you don't want the women around you to 'manipulate' you into changing your behaviour by 'withholding' sex, just buy a bottle of KY and a box of Kleenex. Or treat the beautiful woman who's flirting with you so you'll bend a rule in her favour the same way you'd treat a wealthy man offering you a bribe, and turn them both down. Personally, I have free will, and don't have to do what my penis or wallet thinks is a good idea.

Or is offering a bribe manipulation, too?

[Thomas]

Hugo, frankly I thought that post said a whole lot of nothing. The guy's primary complaint is that he can't get laid, and he's worried that other guys are getting more sex than him. This is not a problem of being a feminist man. You've been married four times now, so obviously you have no trouble finding women who are interested in you, and I've done just fine in the female-sex-partner department. I've never found that I had to "trick" or manipulate women into having sex with me -- I just spent some time around women I was interested in, let them know I was interested, and generally if the interest was mutual something good happened. Either this guy is in an environment where he doesn't meet a lot of available women, or he does but they don't like him. Either way, likely not something that has to do with his feminism. I don't buy that he's limiting himself by eschewing unacceptable behavior, and he provides no evidence that he is.

Not that I don't think your view of sex is overly restrictive: I'm an atheist sex radical and you're an evangelical Christian pro-radical feminist guy. You're going to have a more restrictive view of appropriate expressions of male sexuality than most other feminist men. But just because I'm not in agreement with you, doesn't mean this guy has much to say.

[Roz]

I'd draw your attention to 'pick-up lines for feminists' - a poem by Lesley Kartali which addresses that very question of how a feminist gets laid. ;-)

[kate.d.]

Fishnets.

*ha!*

i haven't checked this guy out yet, but i'll go take a look. seems like a lot of "leftist" men are getting pounded lately (see the comment threads of pandagon and feministe lately), and often for good reason. i think it can be fascinating, albeit a bit painful, to see some of these honestly well-intentioned but often clueless guys get taken to school.

[rabbit]

Yea, I agree with the previous posters that this was a whole lot of 'I like hawt younger women, how can I justify this without coming out and saying that I prefer a girl who thinks I'm wise because she's too young to know better?' This is not to bash younger women (I am one...), just to say that when you're in your early twenties, I know for sure that I don't know shit compared to where I'll be in 10 years, and dating a guy 10 years older than me is a little...unequal. It was all 'men her age are stupid frat boys!' and 'how can you say 20 year old girls don't know what they want, isn't that unfeminist?' and 'well if she likes me and I like her, why not?' And its not that I think that these relationships are always bad, but most of the time they're very unequal...experience and maturity-wise, and money and opportunity-wise and I find it a little weird when people prefer relationships that are unequal. Which this guy seems to be justifying. To put it more succintly, as my boyfriend tends to say, he's looking for a girl too young to see what a loser he is because even his meager charms look good to a girl who hasn't seen many yet.

And I guess that was kind of mean, because this guy seems to be genuinely interested in not being a jerk about it...but older men/younger women relationships have actual problems related to them, and any essay that simply seeks to ignore or talk away these problems as opposed to saying 'this is where pitfalls tend to lie, these are ways to work through them'...I just can't take seriously.

[Mr. Bad]

NancyP and Noumena, it's not the manipulation that turns the stomach, and I never said it wa. I and other men (although certainly not all) don't allow oursevles to be manipulated thusly, rather, it's the behavior that is disgusting. I suppose it's similar to what women describe as the "man gaze."

As for K-Y and Kleenex, I know a lot of guys who actually prefer that course to women; they say it's a lot cheaper, much less hassle and in the end, more satisfying vis-a-vis all the baggage and endless headaches that go along with relationships with modern First World women. I suppose this fits into the category of "be careful what you wish for."

[mythago]

I know a lot of guys who actually prefer that course to women

They don't have a marriage as good as yours, eh?

Either this guy is in an environment where he doesn't meet a lot of available women

It's amazing how many people don't seem to get this one. I recently had to remind a friend, who was griping about his inability to "meet girls" (this friend is in his late 30s) that single, attractive women do not wander the halls of large software companies, sticking their heads in cubicles and asking for dates.

[Trulove]

not be exception a cynic yourself, you can afford some form of criticism, I think we just need a little bit of check in balance to balance our stuff all the time

[MasterillioViktoria]

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That I know less it - it concerns statistics, is applied to the conclusiveness of the nonlinear equations.
Vastly much the justification to the problem decidedness (as far as something cultivate now anybody so plainly explain nothing a smog) interests:
There is a teleshow - the player and the leader.
There are three doors. Behind rhyme of them the prize, behind two others is not present.
The conductor offers a creme de la creme to the thespian that accordingly chooses any of 3 doors (their probabilities are correspond to).
After the choice is made, the numero uno who knows where lies a prize, opens whole of those doors that are not chosen by means of the trouper and shows that there the purse is not present. Also suggests the trouper to select aeons ago again already between 2 doors.
Beyond consideration - how to attain to the player? (In a inception it is specified that it is high-priority to restore a choice, the expectation of a receipts behind a door on which was specified nearby the sportsman who is doing not direction = 66.7 %.
Altogether much I wait in compensation councils or at least references where to look.
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[college basketball fans]

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