Nice guys, the friendzone and sexual entitlement

In the wake of the NiceGuysOfOKC tumblr (currently down), the discussion about Nice Guys has flared up again. The Nice Guy is a category of human which can be–and often is–entirely mutually exclusive from “guy who is nice”: Nice Guys are men who consider their lack of dating success to be down to the fact that they’re “too nice”, often bemoaning the fact that they end up in the dreaded “friendzone”, wherein women want to be their friend but nothing more.

Every so often, the world will get together and argue about Nice Guys, with one side seeing Nice Guys as figures of pity, victims of shyness, while the other finds Nice Guys creepy as hell. The lovely @RopesToInfinity–an actual guy who is nice–wrote an excellent piece on the matter, addressing Nice Guys, and there’s a few points of his I’d like to expand upon some more, though you should really read the whole thing:

5) The Friendzone Is Not Really An Actual Thing
If a woman is just your friend and not someone you’re having sex with, that is what we in certain circles call a ‘friend’. Yes, what you have there is a friendship, one between you, a man, and a second person, a woman. This can sometimes happen. The chances are she’s not ‘put’ you there because women get off on torturing men, but because she simply wants to just be friends with you, like you might be with a dude. Sex is not the default interaction between men and women. Sex is a thing that happens between two (or more!) people that express a sexual interest in one another and then gratify it by mutual consent. It’s not something you’re supposed to expect, but which women then cruelly decide to deny you from their lofty position as the gatekeepers of the sexual realm. Friendships with women that feature no sex can be rewarding. Try viewing said woman as a person rather than a target for your dick, and see what happens.

6) You May Not Actually Be That Nice After All
Look, are you REALLY that nice? You’re complaining about women refusing to sleep with you, but you haven’t told them how you feel. Is that nice? You’re friends with a woman, but whenever you do something for her you note it down mentally as yet another thing you’ve done which inexplicably went unrewarded with blowjobs, as if it should have been. Is that nice? Think long and hard about your expectations of women, and whether they’re reasonable. And consider whether you’re maybe acting with an unearned sense of entitlement. Be aware that what you think of as ‘nice’ (reluctantly listening to a woman’s problems while wishing she’d shut the fuck up already and touch your penis), may not be what she defines ‘nice’ to mean. Perhaps she thinks of a ‘nice guy’ as someone who likes her with no ulterior motive and who isn’t concealing his true feelings for whatever reason.

These two points get to the crux of precisely what is creepy about the Nice Guy: male sexual entitlement. The complaints, bitterness, resentment about the friendzone all boil down to the fact that the Nice Guy believes that, having completed all of the appropriate rituals, he is owed sex and didn’t get it.

We’ve got to the point now where most of us have no sympathy for the man who believes he is entitled to sex because a woman wore a short skirt, yet seem to be lagging behind on men who believe they are entitled to sex because they’ve been really, really fucking nice. There might be a difference in consequences on the latter: rather than raping, he’s more likely to just write long screeds about how females want douchebags and he’s sick of those bitches wasting his time. However, there is the same root cause here, and it’s not something we should be tolerating or indulging.

Being nice isn’t the cheat code to a woman’s knickers, and it’s not OK to be resentful about this fact. Nobody is entitled to sex. Absolutely nobody. If you are a genuinely decent human being, you need to be prepared to hear the word “no”. And you need to be prepared to deal with that “no”, and accept that. If hearing a “no” is soul-crushing, or enraging, or likely to cause resentment, then you really need to work on your own issues before attempting to connect with other human beings in a non-coercive capacity. Rejections happen, and they’re a product of the other person expressing their autonomy. It’s nice not to resent another human’s articulation of non-consent.

However, there is more than just individual responsibility to these Nice Guys: society shares its fair bit of blame. The straight dating scene is mired in icky gender politics and is so patriarchal it hurts. With these patriarchal expectations in place, male sexual entitlement is ever-present, and so of course the Nice Guys have internalised this, too.

Furthermore, the straight dating scene denigrates the importance of friendship, demoting it to “just friends”. In fact, friendship is awesome: you get to hang out with cool people who you like and do interesting and amazing things even if you’re not having sex. Friendship is a deep, emotional connection, and it is a beautiful thing in and of itself.

Once upon a time, when I was a dorky 17-year-old with all sorts of queer thoughts which I didn’t yet understand, I developed a galloping crush on my BFF. She was hetero. I went all Nice Guy on her arse, having been socialised among straights and believing queer sexuality worked pretty much the same way as it does for straights. I was creepy as hell at the time, and I’m kind of ashamed at how I behaved at that time.

Now I’m a dorky 27-year-old, and I got over it. I am still very good friends with the lady in question, which I’m relieved about due to the aforementioned being creepy as hell. And you know what? Being friends is really, really awesome, because I get to hang out with that cool person and do interesting and amazing things, even though we’re not having sex.

Someone wanting to be your friend is not an insult, unless you feel entitled to sex. It should be a fucking honour.

How do we solve a problem like the Nice Guy? We must acknowledge context, but also that this behaviour is not OK. And if you are a Nice Guy, why not do the nice thing, and try to be better?

People I will never have sex with ever: those who don’t “get” enthusiastic consent

There’s a bit of a backlash going on against enthusiastic consent. I noted it a while back, and it’s become more and more abundantly clear as the rape apologists crawl out of their lairs to rally around Julian Assange.

Enthusiastic consent is vitally important for two reasons. The major one, obviously, is that it’s a far better way of establishing sexual consent and therefore not raping anyone. The other, though, is that sex with people who don’t do enthusiastic consent is just rubbish. Even when it’s not rape, it’s shit sex. 

The thing with enthusiastic consent is that it’s not difficult. There is absolutely nothing hard about asking “Wanna fuck?” or “What do you want?” or “Would it be hot if we did this?” During good sex, it’s generally pretty easy to ask “Oh god, come on my tits,” or “Would you like it if I bit you?” or “Hey, why don’t you two fuck while I watch?” This level of good communication between everyone involved in a fuck is a prerequisite for good sex, and it’s basically all there is to enthusiastic consent. Of course, not everybody’s going to be up for everything suggested, but if you’re not a dickhead, you’ll be cool with that, and with good communication, you can often devise a different fun activity together.

You can plot and plan things to try in future: sharing fantasies can often turn into making realities. With this model, you can then work out how to safely play, negotiating boundaries for temporarily suspending consent: consciously choosing that in *this* particular scenario “no” wouldn’t mean “no” (and the safe-word is “Thatcher”). And then talk about how it went afterwards, because talking is good and hot and makes your sex life so much better. And yes, enthusiastic consent can even apply to the sleeping scenario. “Hey, darling, would it be hot if you woke up and I was fucking you?” “Fuck yeah.” *next morning* “Hey sleepyhead, how’s this feeling?” “Very nice thank you.” See? It’s that simple, but the importance of that first conversation is often neglected.

There seem to be so many people who think this essential level of communication to make a fuck truly mindblowing will somehow ruin sex. They think it’s a chore, that it’ll ruin the flow of sex to check with a partner that everyone is on the same page. They think they can magically read a situation.

They’re wrong. At worst, they might be rapists–the “Reddit rape thread” is riddled with stories in the vein of “I saw her face and realised she was crying so I stopped”: all of these could have been averted by a bit of simple communication beforehand, a “hell yes, let’s fuck” from everyone. At best, though, those who can’t be bothered to communicate are crap in bed.

They’ll try one-size-fits-all sex moves, which really don’t work for everyone, due to each person being unique in their set of turn-ons and turn-offs and quirky little sweet spots. They’ll gruntingly hump away until they think they’re done, without ever bothering to check if you’ve had fun. Some of them even freak out over a little “dirty talk”, my frantic attempt to turn a dreary shag into something more fun.

They might think they’re the best fuck in the world, but if they don’t get how to do enthusiastic consent I can guarantee that they are not.

 

Hey baby, want to share my unsafe space?

Craigslist is a stew of people I will never have sex with, ever. Most of it is thoroughly unremarkable. It’s only the most special ones who warrant mention in this semi-regular gallery of awful, awful human beings who are not worth a sniff of my mooncup.

Meet Mr Creepytent. That’s not his name, as Craigslist is fairly anonymous, but it suits him fairly well. Mr Creepytent has posted in the “men seeking women” section, with a particular type of lady in mind, as Mr Creepytent has a rather specialist need. Put down those eyebrows, dear readers, as it’s not any sort of filthy fetish from your foetid fancies. It’s creepier than that.

“Are you going to be protesting at the Ecuadorian embassy alone?” asks Mr Creepytent. A faint scuttling sound is heard as he approaches. “Well what a coincidence, so am I” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“I’m heading there friday evening and staying overnight the whole weekend leading up to Assange’s statement on Sunday at 2pm. I don’t have any camping equipment so my plan right now is to sleep on the pavement, but if you want to share what you have, I’ll be infinitely grateful,” he continues. How can you say no? You can’t allow this man to sleep on the streets when there’s hero-worship of an egomaniac to be done, and pizza to be sent to an alleged rapist!

Honestly, I can’t think of a better place to pull for a creep than in an explicitly unsafe space such as camping outside waiting for Julian fucking Assange to emerge. AssAngels are hardly known for a nuanced understanding of consent, either.

So congratulations, Mr Creepytent. I will never share your tent. I hope nobody else did either.

Ladies, education makes you masculine. There’s a graph and everything.

I think I might make a semi-regular feature of people I would never have sex with, ever, given the internet seems to be riddled with the fuckers. This week’s fucknozzle is a pick-up artist named RooshV whose advice I would seriously recommend not following if you ever have any intention of ever having sex with a woman.

The thing about dear RooshV is I suspect he’s profoundly dimwitted. I suspect this because he’s seen fit to explain a relationship between “femininity” and education level, by means of a graph. The relationship would be a negative correlation of the statistical holy grail of R=1 were it not for the following criticisms:

1. He has conflated education level with current career.
2. “Career” appears to be a categorical variable, and thus it is inappropriate to use correlational analyses in the manner outlined by the author.
3. It is unclear precisely as to how femininity was calculated due to the y-axis being unlabelled.
4. He clearly made the graph himself at home using one of those graph generators.

Actually, I’m beginning to see why he finds education unsexy. It can’t be very nice when any woman with a high-school level education in statistics can point out how he is shit at proving his points.

RooshV also provides some qualitative evidence to support his hypothesis, proposing the following occupations to be “boner softening”. These betray a staggering lack of imagination in the bedroom and add to my burning desire to never have sex with him ever. In bold, I have added the first thing that pops into my head when confronted with each of the things which dull-shag RooshV thinks can’t be hot.

Sexy IT specialist (Ethernet bondage)
Sexy business manager (micromanaging)
Sexy tort attorney (would make a good top and gets a fun wig)
Sexy civil engineer (OHMYGOD imagine the possibilities for pervy devices they could build)
Sexy anesthesiologist (needles and illicit substances and fun oh my)
Sexy research associate (sub. Total sub)
Sexy financial analyst (honestly, who doesn’t want to spank a financial analyst every now and then?)

That literally took 15 seconds. RooshV , bro, you are vanilla as fuck.

To complete his thesis, RooshV has decided to furnish us with a list of “masculine traits” that might show up in women who are more educated than him. These include keeping condoms at home, dating multiple men at the same time and “saying filthy things in bed when you hardly know them”. From the sounds of it, RooshV is a total lights-off-socks-on kind of chap, and it’s probably a good thing he can’t conceptualise the existence of strap-0ns because that would blow his fucking mind.

All in all, though, it’s probably a good thing RooshV isn’t into educated women. Because I can’t imagine an educated woman who would consider going within miles of him.

I don’t know why this nice racist hasn’t got a girlfriend.

Nice guys. They bring the good name of all male-identified people who happen to be decent human beings into disrepute. The nice guy is a whinging mass of benevolent sexism, befriending women in a creepy attempt to get into their knickers then turning hostile as their efforts fail. Usually, they hit the point of tedium where it isn’t even worth commenting on them. It takes a little extra edge to become a truly egregiously awful nice guy.

Last year, I found one who shat in the grave of Pastor Niemöller with a pastiche which began with “When the feminists came for the rapists…” This year’s contender has an image he would like to share with us to explain his emotional state.

The image consists of nine images, arranged in a square.

Panel 1: Picture of a grinning shirtless white man with excessively erect hair doing the double finger-point, captioned “HEY LADIES… HOW’S IT GOING?”

Panel 2: Picture of the same shirtless white man, wearing a patronising expression and wagging a finger, captioned “DO YOU KNOW?”

Panel 3: Picture of some American money (at a guess, and for the groaning pun to work, I think it’s a dollar bill), captioned “YOU’RE SINGLE BECAUSE…”

Panel 4: Picture of a white heterosexual couple frolicking on the beach. The woman is wearing a bikini and is smiling at her faceless lover, who is fully dressed and a bit of a hipster. Captioned “YOU WANT LOVE LIKE THIS”

Panel 5: Picture of six black men wearing street attire, captioned “YET GO AFTER GUYS LIKE THIS.”

Panel 6: Picture of the man from the first two panels, thankfully clothed and wearing glasses. He has a smug look on his face and is holding his chin in a superior fashion, captioned “INSTEAD OF A GUY LIKE THIS”.

Panel 7: Picture of a crying white woman androgynous person, who is apparently called Chris Crocker, captioned “AND END UP LIKE THIS”.

Panel 8: Picture of a frustrated-looking Asian man, who Twitter has informed me is Jackie Chan, captioned “LEAVING US GOOD GUYS LIKE THIS”.

Panel 9: Picture of a black man, who I think might be the rapper Xzibit, smiling. Captioned “AND THOSE GUYS LIKE THIS!”, which neatly clarifies that our nice guy picture-maker seems to have a problem with black people having sex with white women.

I literally have no idea why this charming little racist doesn’t have a girlfriend. Must be women’s fault, somehow. Perhaps more finger-wagging will teach us the lesson we need to learn.

People I won’t have sex with, ever.

The stereotype of the sex-hating feminist fails to hold up to a cursory glance, let alone any degree of scrutiny. There are, however, some people I will never have sex with, ever…

Askmen.com

The festering frothing anuses at askmen have been at it again. Last spotted providing pick-up lines to demonstrate dickhead status, this time they think they have happened upon some feminist demands women secretly want to be ignored.

Askmen rather like the feminist struggle, they claim, because it means that there is finally the prospect of the holy grail of relationships: “the non-clingy girlfriend”. I’m assuming these dripping bellends would be lucky to have any girlfriend, clingy or otherwise, given that their attitude towards spending time with women is a grating display of tedious benevolent sexism.

Apparently, women secretly want men to carry their bags for them, pay for meals out, make decisions for them and get married, no matter how feminist they proclaim to be. Also, Askmen reckon that we women love to be objectified. Thank you for speaking for we little fragile women, Askmen.

Now, Askmen seem to have a little bit of a hang-up about what they call “chivalry”, but is more accurately termed benevolent sexism, with a plethora of articles with tips for demonstrating “gentlemanliness” and defending chivalry against those big nasty feminists. They seem to believe it’s the way into a woman’s knickers. It isn’t.

I have been on dates with “chivalrous” men, and it has rarely ended up in the bedroom, as it is irksome to be treated like a cross between a sickly pensioner and a small child. I have a cunt. That isn’t a disability. I am also, unsurprisingly, hugely turned off by people propping up oppressive systems. When called out on their behaviour, the chivalrous types invariably mansplain (they are always men) to me why it is all right, and mansplaining is about as sexy as mankinis.

I have, a few times, had sex with the bag-carrying, door-opening dinner buyers. Every time, the sex has been rubbish, as I’m not entirely sure they view women as people, but rather projects with a strict protocol.

So, for this outstanding contribution to furthering the cause of infuriating behaviour, Askmen, I am never going to have sex with you.

Unilad

Anyone clicking this next link requires a trigger warning. This little shitbag advocates rape. The writer  seems to believe he has written a humourous piece on “sexual mathematics“. He “mathematically” suggests that it is worth trying it on with a woman after a date, as 75% of women are likely to put out on the first date. He concludes with what will inevitably be defended as a “joke”, pointing out that 85% of rapes go unreported, implying that these are worthwhile odds to take.

This is yet another tired example of rape culture, albeit even closer to an outright suggestion of rape than usual. As an aside, it is also terribly written and thoroughly unreferenced, which leads me to question how this seeping bellend managed to get to university in the first place.

Remember that rapists are more likely to subscribe to rape myths, and the contribution to rape culture is a dangerous, dangerous thing. Having sex with those who trivialise and laugh at rape is ultimately never a good idea: to such individuals, consent is optional. For Unilad and his ilk, the chances of sex should be no more than zero.

The Activists

Touched upon in yesterday’s post on consensual power, BDSM and anarchism, tedious fuckwits The Activists think that sex is a waste of time.

Fuck that shit.

Brendan O’Neill

I think I may have mentioned this before, but Brendan O’Neill is a weeping syphilitic chode, a misogynist and all-round awful human being. He is the tiny infected penile avatar of rape culture, reeking of stale beer and a longing for the 90s. He hasn’t even done anything to specifically piss me off today, but it bears repeating and reminding every day.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Brendan O’Neill is a weeping syphilitic chode.

10 pickup lines that show you’re a dickhead

I shall begin by saying that I hate the notion of pick-up lines. I hate the notion of pick-up culture. I hate the notion that there is a large subculture which dictates that men must pick up women, and that this effect mushrooms into many men believing that the only way they can possibly spend time with a woman is by following these ludicrous rules and feeling like failures if it doesn’t work out for them.

It is not surprising then, that this article, 10 Pickup Lines That Work, pissed me off somewhat.

As its title suggests, it presents ten pick-up lines that apparently work. Unfortunately, little detail is given as to how these techniques were evaluated: it all appears to be anecdotal evidence. In order to adequately test the efficacy of these pick-up lines, one would need to administer the pick-up line to a large sample of recipients, ideally pitted against a control pick-up line with already-known effectiveness.

The unscientific and misleading title aside, these pick-up lines are absolutely awful, and if a man came up to me and started saying any of these things, I would, at the very kindest, decide never to have sex with him ever. At the very kindest.

Our top ten tips come in a number of varieties. All of them are pretty fucking sexist. All of them, in order to work, rely on a vision of society that wants radically throwing: that where it is a man’s responsibility to “approach” and “pick up” a woman. That society wants killing with fire. And so do these pick-up lines.

Type 1: Assault a woman

Remember how, in the popular construction of the Stone Age, men hit women round the head and dragged them by the hair for dating purposes? This pick-up procedure is still alive and well according to Proven Efficacious Pick Up Lines 10 and 4.

Tip 10 involves a bit of minor grabbing followed by the threat of further assault, saying “You’re going to kiss me or I’m going to punch you in the nose!”. Tip 4 is somewhat more direct in the violence and is, for some peculiar reason, titled “be modest”.

As she walks by at a bar, pinch the side of her butt (not hard, but enough to get her attention). She should be mad and say something negative about you. Then you say:

“Sorry, I thought that girls like you would just ignore a normal guy like me. Did it hurt? Maybe another drink will ease the pain.”

I suppose there is some modesty in there. Right next to the sexual assault.

Type 2: Be bafflingly creepy

Ninjas use smoke bombs. Stage hypnotists bark out a strange range of conflicting orders. Confusion as a tactic is also incredibly popular among men who subscribe to the cult of the pick-up line. Utilising confusion seems to comprise a large chunk of the list of useful techniques, ranging from Tip 9 (Stare straight at her, and smile broadly while slowly advancing towards her) to Tip 7 (the thoroughly puzzling “nice shoes, want to make your parents proud?”) through to Tip 5 (which is not, as it says, being sarcastic, but asking a woman’s favourite colour knowingly).

Apparently, women are “always thankful” after being completely thrown by a total non-sequitur. The explanation for how this works is as bamboozling as the line itself, and I still don’t want to have sex for the author, providing anecdotal evidence against the efficacy of this approach.

Type 3: Be cocky in a flat-out sexist way

The word “cocky” contains the word “cock”, so it’s hardly surprising that cockiness implies a performance of the most unpleasant aspects of masculinity. The pick-up lines of this type tend to include displaying a massive amount of sexism, in the hope that the woman on the receiving end finds it funny.

The least offensive is Tip 6, which involves telling a woman she should buy you a drink as she has been “checking you out”. Tip 3 is titled with the rather innocuous “find something you have in common”, which is actually very good advice for men who are interested in meeting and forming relationships with women. What is not good advice is what follows: “convey[ing] it to her with a well-balanced delivery of cockiness and playful insult”.

Then there’s Tip 8, wherein men are directed to use a classic street-harassment tactic: ”Hey girl, why you being all sexy ‘n shit?”

The last time someone said that to me, I considered wearing their testicles as earrings. The only thing that stopped me was the fact my earlobes can’t really support pendulous accessories.

Type 4: Assume she wants a boyfriend

Traditional gender roles hold that men want sex and women want a boyfriend. Traditional gender roles are, of course, a big heap of shitting arses.

The readers of askmen.com apparently missed this memo and so voted, as their top pick-up line, the following:

“You know what material this is?” [Grab your shirt]

“Boyfriend material”

Unlike most of the pick-up lines, this one does not come with an anecdote about how use of this line resulted in fifty young nubile nyphomaniacs immediately losing their knickers, “proving” that the approach works. It is just printed there, on its own, and presumed to work.

It is presumed to work, because that is, of course, what women are presumed to want. There is absolutely no concept that women might not be interested in the concept of a boyfriend and might just want a shag. Target is woman. Target wants boyfriend. Hunter disguises self as boyfriend.

I suppose that perhaps, I would not mind a shirt made out of ex-boyfriend material. As long as the material was the tanned hide of an ex-boyfriend.

…and the one that actually works

Surprisingly, Tip 2 contains some actual, decent advice for starting a conversation with a stranger. Unfortunately, it is placed under the heading of “be a gentleman”, which is unfortunate, as “being a gentleman” generally involves subscribing to benevolent sexism.

The “lines” presented are very good advice, though. They involve introducing yourself, saying hello or simply having a conversation with the other person to see how you get on. This advice is not really gendered in the slightest: it is a good approach to initiating contact with someone you don’t know that we can all follow fairly easily. As the tip begins, “no pick-up line is the best pick-up line”.

And that is completely true. Fuck pick-up culture. It is outmoded, outdated, and we would all be better off if we consigned it to the dustbin of history along with the bourgeoisie, Mensheviks and Trotskyism.  Oh, and of course, patriarchy.

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People sometimes send me things, presumably so they can find themselves amused by my blind rage. This gem was a little gift from @jedweightman.

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Edit: I’ve asked askmen.com to explain why they think the violent tips are acceptable. I will update if I get an explanation.

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Update 11/11/11: Askmen.com has not replied, but have quietly changed the tips advocating assault and threat (10 and 4) to more innocuous ones (introduce yourself and show off, respectively). This is a step in the right direction, but nowhere near good enough. They need to formally apologise for the earlier version of the article, as is good practice.

Chode of the day

From Alas A Blog, I have discovered this gem written by a “nice guy”.

When the Feminists came for the Rapists,
I remained silent;
I was not a Rapist.

When they locked up the stalkers,
I remained silent;
I was not a stalker.

When they came for the Players,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Player.

When they came for the men who they got bored of,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t some one they were bored of yet.

When they came for me, the nice guy,
there was no one left to speak out.

Lest the meaning of his poetic stylings are too opaque, the author of this short appropriated verse expands:

This is why I’ve become a harmless perv at this point.It’s not like there is an acceptable rule book, or social norm on this, and if I’m going to be the bad guy no matter what I do… might as well get it the fuck out the way right up front.

I might as well ENJOY being the villain.

This is, of course, somewhat worrying. What we have here is a “nice guy” calling for male solidarity with rapists, against those big mean feminists who are spoiling their fun. He’s a thousand times worse than the standard “nice guy” (who often aren’t that nice). I’m sure the fact that he can’t find a girlfriend is entirely down to the fact that he is “too nice”, and nothing to do with the fact that he’s fucking creepy (“harmless perv”) and thinks that rapists are unfairly maligned, and manages to do all of this while simultaneously making fun of the Holocaust.

Because women are all bitches, right? Particularly those feminazis?

What a rotten little shitstain.