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Value in what sense? Calling attention to the fact? I agree with you - and though I am not a radical feminist I will presume to mansplain on their behalf - and the radfems agree with you too that it is a fact. Their core point isn't that the film is implanting the misogyny. Sure, it does reify it. Cultural artifacts are meant to be transmitted outward and downward. Their point is that you are right: these things are inherent facts about the world and men's sexuality. The filmmakers used those cues because they work and they work because that actually is how men feel and you agree with that because that actually is how you feel and I agree too because that actually is how I feel. I do dislike SJP because of her horseface in that movie. I'm just so offended by the family's dickishness and familiar enough with scene composition to still see what's going on.
Radfems are saying "uh oh" when you say "oh well". That's an understandable reaction when you actually are the prey.
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005)
This is pushing it to the extreme. But - as an average man I agree that there is an element of what they're describing inherent to male sexuality which is present in varying degrees in individuals. When you look at the world as it exists through this lens, you tend to find evidence that the distribution is not skewed towards the lower end. Yes yes; keys and street lamps, if ye look ye shall find. The fact that you agree with them on the underlying facts and there is such abundant evidence, however, is strong Bayesian evidence that you should update towards their positions. That doesn't mean you have to accept their conclusions or framing. But they do seem to have a point at a factual level.
lol I don't understand what you're talking about - or why (you're a man who fucks interns ffs - this is a jews for hitler situation. Do you realize these broads want you castrated? Don't sleep in.).
I should give radfems credit for recognizing something obvious? That the common man, along with most of the right, discusses openly?
So you think radfems are educating women about the biological preferences of men? Because presumably women know life only from romance novels about princesses and horses. Maybe that's how a radfem is born: she steps out of rainbowland for the first time.
I don't think desire is sex is rape. Like at all. Radfems sound like crazy people to me.
A man who fucks, wants to fuck, or would fuck interns under a pretty broad range of circumstances can be shortened to "man". Are you a man? If so, do you seriously deny the impulse?
I'm sure plenty of broads want me castrated. Plenty of [redacted] would be thrilled to [redacted]. I live in a diverse city. Yes, the tacos are good but the real benefit is knowing for sure that I'm never far from people who would, if they but knew me and could get away with it, kill me. 1 dedicated weirdo has a 99%+ chance of taking me out. 2+ and we're at quantum fluctuation levels of likelihood that I'll be able to stop them. It bothers me not at all to know that admitting to - horror of horrors - being by default attracted to a 23 year old over a 45 year old. Doesn't say anything about any given 23/45 pair and it doesn't mean I can't find a lot to appreciate about older women. But not by pretending that reality isn't what it is.
Anyway, I know what I did and what I didn't do. My entire department was also broad strokes aware as was HR - as they worked in it, I was not able to keep anything from them even if I'd wanted. Nobody's decision making skills are 100% when drinking their way through a prolonged divorce and I can defend everything without endorsing or being proud of it. It sure as shit wasn't seemly, no. That was the point. It was an inappropriate but nowhere near illegal age gap. Sometimes people want inappropriate things. God himself can cast me in a lake of fire if he really wants and I'll go pissing and screaming - but I can't say I'll agree with his decision.
(Edit: this background awareness of the violent possibilities of your neighbors / community must be how Jewish people feel. Their hypersensitivity is an obvious trauma reaction and isn't something that could be stopped if they wanted to - and I'm not sure why they should want to, all things considered.)
Yes. They are acknowledging that there are deep, unbridgeable divides between the sexes. That men and women are fundamentally not the same. This is not a convenient fact and not everyone is willing to come out and say it. See: "sports, trans".
I think lots of things have been done that can be described as broadly radfem and some of them include educating other women about men, yes. We are not born with an innate understanding of every fact in this world. The opposite. There are many, many facts that people would do well to internalize before experience forces the issue. Regrettably, the more important lessons are often the ones most difficult to act on. You should eat better and exercise more. Me too.
By default, women are not going to understand men's sexuality. Men and women are different, remember? Because they are, by default, also attracted to men they will find it very difficult to internalize some of these facts. The dissonance causes some women to go all the way to the extreme: think of your stereotypical literal man castrating radical feminist. They're all the way at 100. I'm not saying or implying that their maximal claims are true. I'm saying that you don't need to start sanding away the extremes until you come to simple, true facts.
Take your example: "desire is sex is rape". I'm sure there are some people who would accurately be described as radical feminists who do or at some point have believed the most extreme version of this statement. There are quotes. They've said it, I take them at their word. And that's much too far. You're correct that it's plainly false.
But I know the statistics that go around These Spaces. Men are more violent. Period. We can debate the causes all we want but this is a fact. For whatever reason, men on average are significantly more violent than women. If you don't believe statistics, trust the human body. Look at its structure. Squeeze the glands. Would you say that the male of that species is more predisposed to violence?
I would. I don't understand how it could be otherwise considering our evolutionary history. But if you need personal testimony - behold, I am an average man, and there are dozens of nights I can remember where a little extra alcohol at the wrong time or one too many bad memories in sequence and I might have expressed myself through violence. That doesn't count the nights I don't remember.
(I don't feel bad about this - my tone should not be read as confessional. I'm the fleshy appendage at the end of a very long line of decisions I did not make. I had zero input into most of the most significant decisions that shaped the broad contours of my likely development. Not all of them turned out great - it never does. Too bad, so sad.)
The question at the core of "desire is sex is rape" is: do you really think that deeper than bone deep difference in violent tendencies stops at the dick? It does not. Men's sexuality, like women's sexuality, entails danger. From men that danger often manifests as violence and it is inextricably bound through human biology / psychology to the reproduction process. How could it be otherwise? You don't need to agree with everything they're saying to agree with the bits that are, in fact, true.
No, I don't deny the impulse. Of course I want to fuck interns. But I'm not catholic, so I don't feel bad about it. It's morally fine to want that. It's even morally fine to do that.
I don't like the fuzziness of your argument, the lack of conceptual boundaries. Yes, I am more capable of violence than women, physically and psychologically. "The human body" does not make me residually responsible for the violence of others. If I murder someone, hang me. If someone else does, I am zero amount responsible . And if something I do is morally permissible - sleeping with interns, for example - then there is no residual guilt. I am as pure as the driven snow. And so ; desire is not 'a little bit' sex, sex is not 'a little bit' rape. Clean boundaries.
I'll correct you in a moment about it being my argument - the thing I'm trying to convey are the observations behind the arguments, any interpretation / argument / conclusion I make ("the gods struck down Diane Keaton as just retribution for her poor hospitality") should be assumed as for rhetorical effect and unimportant in its details or accuracy - but: same. I too dislike the fuzziness, the lack of conceptual boundaries.
Do I need to even write out the punchline here? Best start believing in ghost stories, Reeves-ian "whoa", facts / feelings, etc.
Disliking the fuzziness of the underlying reality is a matter of taste. Like all likes or dislikes. Understand that now, right now, you're telling me that you're too emotionally upset about the possibility that reality itself is fuzzy and lacks conceptual boundaries to process that as a possibility.
That may not have been your intention. Read your actual words again from the eyes of someone with no access to your thoughts, feelings, or intents. Internally, in your own feed, you should stick a gigantic mental flag every time you feel yourself going down a path that begins with "I don't like" and it isn't something like picking ice cream flavors. You may still be totally correct in your conclusions. You should be very suspicious of yourself though.
Anyway - the reality is fuzzy. Sorry. And they're not my arguments.
I apologize if you got the impression that I was saying it did. If you re-read my post with the understanding that I'm absolutely sincere when I tell you that I agree with everything you said about no residual guilt or responsibility, you'll see that we're saying the same thing. I used a fleshy appendage metaphor. But we are so close in our thoughts here that you could pluck them from one of our brains, transport them to the other, and neither of us would even notice that it wasn't "our" thought. We agree because it is correct. It is obviously and fundamentally true.
Yes, many radical leftists / rightists / feminists / chauvinists are correct in some parts of their critiques and then go off into crazy town when they try to ascribe meaning or responsibility to these things. You should not feel any guilt - I do not feel any guilt - over things for which you are not responsible. Your sexuality is one of those things. Doesn't matter if that cashes out into accepting someone for being gay or a statistically average heterosexual man. The conclusions are completely reversible because the underlying reality is always the same: people aren't responsible in many significant ways for who they are. They are responsible for their choices in a practical, we didn't choose to live together but we are, and self-improvement / locus of control sense. But they will fuck up badly and every one of them has fucked up badly and judging someone because their fuck up is a different shade of retarded than your fuck ups is ridiculous.
But even the bug nuts craziest people are correct when they say something that is correct.
I'm just saying - you don't need to feel guilty about your maleness, desire, or sexual escapades, and then pretending the radfems have a point to compensate. It's okay. So, that is my emotional-psychological read of the situation. You can stick a mental flag on that.
Consider it stuck. I have regret for some actions for personal reasons that make them actually regrettable for me. I don't think I'm trying to curry favor with the radfems - as you correctly note, they would happily take my balls for all kinds of things I have done, will do, and functionally cannot change as they're part of the body I didn't chose to be born into but also don't condemn - but my own motives should always be most suspect.
Reader, you should listen to Tintin here. They are speaking the truth in the parts they are correct, which in this case are the important parts.
But I'm not pretending. I agree they have points that are correct when the evidence shows they have points which are directionally correct. You did too. It is good that we both believe that we don't need to prevaricate or feel regret about saying true things.
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A radfem is simply a woman about whom traditionalist thought is right: being objectively inferior, and sex (and other related physical attributes) being the literal only thing of value they possess.
Everything they do is a reaction to this (and yes, the non-TE RFs are betraying the revolution, but note that what they do is primarily designed to attack and marginalize
the manlier womenthe women about whom traditionalism happens to be wrong).This is why seduction has to be rape- because for them, while they aren't smart enough to prevent being snookered out of the literal only valuable thing about them, they are at least smart enough to know that.
This is why they're obsessed with one thing, and one thing only: exerting as much control over how their only source of worth can be accessed and used. It's literally all they have, and everything they say and do is downstream of this- if they can get themselves embedded in the State's welfare system, then they're going to do that; if they can declare all sex rape by default, they're going to do that; if they can make themselves powerful enough that they'll never be forced to perform a biological function to get a meal, they're going to do that; if they can get away with making this observation unsayable, they'll do that.
I'm not willing to engage in the pretense they don't know what they're doing any more than I am in the pretense that a man might not know he shouldn't beat his wife. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that Haidt's Six Foundation people only have the morals they do partially because it allows them to still see themselves as moral while rent-seeking like this (you should value me more because purity/authority/your ingroup).
This operation of exerting control is also done by men when "ability to labor" is the only value they possess; that's why if you replace "workers" in union/socialist rhetoric with "women", you get radfem rhetoric.
Every wo/man simply acts in their own best interest. I'm not interested in blaming them for that (which is in traditionalist interests to do- it makes women easier to control if they can be convinced to wholly deny their interests); but those interests better be paying rent to be acceptable (which is in feminist interests to not do- it makes men easier to control if they can be convinced to wholly deny their interests).
I’m not sure they’re that crafty, man. My theory is really that they are emotionally little girls, and they just don’t want boy’s pee-pees in their waa-waas. ‘that’s disgusting, how could my friends agree to that?‘ And so it’s all rape. Even among non-radfems, there is a substantial minority of women who just do not like sex at all.
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