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Notes -
A few thoughts on the male feminist sex pest.
With the (in internet terms, not very) recent news of Neil Gaiman's escapades, a lot has been said about the agency (or lack thereof) of women, and to the corrupting effect of fame on men, but I've been giving some thought again to the Male Feminist Sex Pest phenomenon.
Most people here are probably aware of it, it's notable enough to get a comic from good ol' Stonetoss. Basically, the idea is that male feminists are disproportionately prone to acts of sexual misconduct.
What is the reason for this? I've been thinking about a few possible ones:
The MFSP as a predator: The classic right-wing stereotype. Guys of dubious moral character will take up an ideology with the intent of making potential victims lower their guards.
The MFSP as salience bias: Basically, male feminists are not particularly rapey, it's just more suprising so it makes the news. This could be true, but is basically impossible to verify in either direction.
The Male Feminist as a man struck with guilt: In this formulation, the man's bad behaviour is in their past, and their male feminist views are, in a way, compensation for the fact that he has behaved shittily towards women.
The Male Feminist as a man seeking absolution: If all or most men behave poorly, then the male feminist's past behaviour is not particularly noteworthy. By subscribing to the most deranged feminist assumptions, the male feminist can morph from a "bad man" to just "a man", or even a "good man", because at least they're willing to fight their deplorable male instincts.
The Male Feminist as a man stuck in time: For this man, being a feminist means some vague notion of "equal rights" and it being acceptable to have non-committal sex with younger girls. This is not in line with which more modern feminists believe, as he might eventually find out.
I am aware this is not the audience most in tune with the mentioned cohort, but what do you guys think? Any of the above resonate more? A little bit of each? Something else entirely?
As an aside, the last few explanations imply a type of person that people here might be very familiar with: the nerdy anti-feminist nice guy (no capitalization). It is perfectly possible, as an upper-middle class guy in a moderately to very liberal environment who doesn't like partying or going clubbing, to never notice the behaviour many women complain about (because neither you, nor your close friends and family engage in it), see that they don't seem to be particularly disadvantaged in any of the environments they interact with them, see that their ire is directed very broadly at men in general, and conclude that the whole thing might just be a scam.
I agree with @2rafa that these are all different archetypes who are seen in the wild, but I don't think there is any reason to believe that being a "male feminist" says much at all about how likely any particular man is to be a sex pest. Obviously people who dislike feminism and/or male feminists love theories that flatter this bias: of course they're predators; of course their feminism is performative; of course they don't actually believe what they're saying and it's just another tactic to get into women's pants; of course they act just like any other man and delude themselves that being a "feminist" absolves them. I doubt male feminists are more (or less) predatory in general, though. It's just when a particularly famous one (like Neil Gaiman or Joss Whedon) is found sticking his dick in someone he shouldn't have, it's broadcast widely because (a) they're famous! and (b) given their loud, performative feminism, which annoys anti-feminists, of course the latter will delight in crowing about their downfall and holding them up as a "typical" male feminist when in fact they are not.
So based on this we should assume that the theory that there are no more mfsps than regular sps flatters your biases?
Well, you can assume that, but I think you'd be making a few incorrect assumptions. Like for starters, do you think you know what my biases are regarding male feminists?
I would start with the null hypothesis: being a self-proclaimed male feminist provides no information one way or the other about a man's likelihood to be a sex pest.
All the theories about why it's a "red flag" (theories that are popular with both feminists and anti-feminists) seem to be largely anecdotal. I don't find those theories implausible, necessarily, but they all sound like just so stories. You know this male feminist, he turns out to be a creep, you invent a story to explain why a male feminist would turn out to be a sex pest. For feminists, it's to make sense of why a man who's supposed to be one of the "good ones" isn't; for anti-feminists, it's to explain why there must be something wrong with a man who'd embrace feminism.
This is no different than liberals and conservatives who make up theories about What's Wrong With Those People, shellacking a coat of evolutionary psychology onto it.
I think you are at the very least negatively predisposed to the anti-woke, but I am glad that wasn't the point you were making. I base this on your immediate recognition of the motivated reasoning used by the anti woke re mfsps -
coupled with the motivated reasoning you employ in your final sentence
You say that based on no more evidence than the anti-woke say 'hey why do all these male feminists keep turning out to be sex pests?' but it must flatter your biases as you don't look any deeper.
If as it appears there is no data available on this, if for some reason academia are willing to write up thousands of studies on heteronormativity and androphilia and black feminism and queer theory, but are entirely incurious as to the intersection of male feminism and sex pestery, then all we can learn about are each other's biases, since we lack any evidence to change each other's minds.
As one of the anti-woke, I will tell you that I didn't latch onto the mfsp stereotype to explain why there must be something wrong with a man who'd embrace feminism - I do have some friends like that, but before the meme I thought male feminists were sycophantic, sanctimonious and misled but trying their best like everyone else. At that time, pretty much every man I knew called himself a male feminist. It was noticing how my pattern recognition system for believing stories about sex pestery kept getting tripped up if the accused was a male feminist that made the meme resonate.
Which is definitely bias, but informative bias imo which is why I call mfsp a stereotype rather than a just so story. I would do the same for your of course statement up there - I don't know think it's wholly accurate, but I think it points in the the direction of the truth, recency bias definitely plays a part. Reasoning from biases is never entirely accurate and only really works on these macro scales at all, but it's more realistic and useful than assuming we can't know anything without scientific evidence.
Not really, or at least, no more than I am negatively predisposed to the woke. As I suspected, you have a poor understanding of what I think. That's okay, I get that a lot.
I just wrote about all the theories that both feminists and anti-feminists present as to why "all these male feminists keep turning out to be sex pests," and why I think they are basically Chinese robber fallacies. Unless you have some stronger evidence. It's not about my biases (because you are wrong about them). It's because there isn't really any evidence that I am aware of that male feminists are more likely to be sex pests (or that sex pests are more likely to be male feminists).
So are you saying that the majority of the male feminists you knew turned out to be sex pests?
No they all stopped calling themselves feminists. One of them told me it was specifically because of the mfsp issue. But there was a joke at the time I'm sure you've heard - "of course I'm a feminist, I want to get laid bro". That joke stopped getting play shortly after the mfsp issue arose.
You wrote:
That is the theory you put forward in the just so format. You have no evidence for it. Your biases led you to proclaim that "given their loud, performative feminism, of course the latter will delight in crowing about their downfall etc." with the exact same weight and force as the anti-woke said "of course they're predators etc." You start from the position the number of mfsps don't exceed the number of regular sps and once you hit upon an answer that flatters your biases you stop, just like the anti-woke do when they go 'of course he was just a predator the whole time'.
I thought that was the point you were making originally, that we're all held hostage to our biases, by setting up a link between flattered biases and of course arguments and then using that exact same structure in earnest, like an irony double dip or something. But if you didn't do it on purpose to make a point, then by your own reasoning either your biases are flattered by that of course argument or the first half of your post is just nonsense with no explanatory power. I don't think that's the case. If you would like to lay out your biases I can reassess, but if you are going to continue to be vague and secretive about them for no reason I assume I'm right.
You quoted my point. Yes, most people choose a narrative that flatters their biases. My biases are that male feminists are mostly performative but many are sincere, and anti-wokes tend to rely on Chinese robber fallacies.
There is, imo, no evidence to support the theory that male feminists are more likely to be sex pests, nor any evidence that they are less likely.
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