ECS of Feminist Mormon Housewives takes note of some implicit male bashing from Elaine Dalton, president of the conservative organization LDS Young Women, by way of exhorting women to stay perched as high up on the pedestal as possible. (Emphasis mine.)

But then President Dalton tells us that if a young woman (i.e. a Guardian of Virtue) sends a sexually explicit text message to a young man, that this text message may “cause them (the young men) to lose the Spirit, their Priesthood Power and their virtue.”

By holding up women as “guardians of virtue” and telling young women that they “cause” young men to lose the Spirit, their priesthood, and their virtue, is similar to telling young women (the guardians of virtue) that young men cannot control themselves upon reading sexually explicit text messages.

Source: Feminist Mormon Housewives

Obviously some Mormons are feminist but LDS Young Women is decidedly not a feminist organization. You know how you can tell? Feminists don't believe it's their role in life to shepherd men.

There being far more non-feminist and (like LDS Young Women) actively anti-feminist women in the world it's not surprising that a lot of men pick up the idea that really is women's role. Or, another message implicit in Dalton's speech*, that shepherding men's sexuality is such a crucial role that women should withhold sexuality from themselves by not flirting, sexting, or otherwise having anything to do with sex.

Except, of course, when they come down off their pedestals to reward one man for being "worthy" enough to "deserve" it.  And, of course, once they're done not having sex even when they're ready to and want to, they have to turn around and start having sex even when they don't want to, or aren't even ready to.

The cool thing about mainstream feminists is that they recognize that men are perfectly capable of "guarding" their virtue, sexual or otherwise.  And therefore that women aren't obliged to be "guardians" of their own.

Anti-feminists?  Not so much.

What's funny is the way anti-feminists keep insisting it's feminists who hate men!  When you boil it all down feminists are mainly exasperated with men's learned helplessness.

It's worth noting that rather than being young herself the leader of "Young Women" is the mother of five sons and one daughter, and has ten grandchildren. One can only imagine what she thinks of her husband or how she raised her sons or how much pressure she put on her daughter!

Photo by Flickr user kevkerkev. Used under a Creative Commons license.

In the course of farking the latest edition of the perennial "Why You're Not Married" schtick, Holly takes issue with this little tidbit from Tracey McMillan,

[Y]ou can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn't even all that great and the next thing you know, you're totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that's how it happened. And since nature can't discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you're going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.

Source: The Wall St. Journal no wait, Dr. Phil Huffington Post

Holly replies

[Y]ou know what really gets me about this sort of thing? If it were true, you wouldn't have to be told about it. Falling in love after sex would be like getting thirsty on a hot day -- blatant and predictable. "Welp, now I'm in love with you" would be as everyday as "welp, now I want a nap." When someone tells you something about your own nature and it comes as a surprise, skepticism is in order.

I dunno if "nature" can distinguish between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, but I can. But wait... I'm made of nature!

Source: The Pervocracy

First of all, like men never get "strung out" on our partners, even very short-term partners...

...hey

...wait a minute!

I'm sure I was going to say something all intelligent and quirky and thoughtful-like but I've just been distracted by numerous recollections of first, second, and third-hand reality.

Quick survey time for any reader who's ever had a (biologically and/or self-identified-as) male partner:

Is it true, as McMillan implies, that only women form uncontrollably, dare I say uncomfortably deep attachments to short-term and even one-night-stand partners?  Can it be that this never happens to men?  Answer in comments, below.

And now quick survey time for any reader who's ever been a biologically and/or self-identified-as male:

Is it true, as McMillian implies that you've never become deeply, dare I say even goopily attached to a short term or even one-night-stand partner?  Can it be this has never happened to you or another man you know?  You can answer in comments as well but speaking for myself the answer is no, I've fallen embarrassingly hard for women I'd barely met.

Because, as the whole point of the oxytocin narrative is that women have it by the gallon and men only by the milliliter.  And without oxytocin, why, you can barely form an attachment to your catcher's mitt let alone a full-sized, interesting-in-her-or-his-own-right human being.

And yet...

It seems to me...

That there's an awful lot of hurtin' cowboys out there.  At least as many as there've been hurtin' cowgirls.  And I'm pretty sure there always have been, and I'm guessing there always will.

Gee, if you can get the same thing when you've got lots of oxytocin and next to none then... maybe the oxytocin theory is a contrived piece of batshit cooked up by conservative, gender-essentialist fundamentalist cranks to explain why women shouldn't have sex except for reproduction.

Despite being really, really not fond of MRAs Amanda Marcotte is actually pretty ardent about her support for men. Case in point: while she things divorced and separated men still support their children she also thinks it's evil to force indigent and imprisoned men to pay it.

There's a twist to the story, below, that I think makes the point that traditional, conservative anti-feminists are far more brutal to men than even the dead, white "radfems" of the decidedly radical 1970s. Emphasis mine.

But throwing men in jail for not paying child support is just stupid. Charging men who are in prison and literally cannot make the money to pay child support for child support is just stupid. These are policies that not only hurt men that might very well intend to pay child support but can’t, but it doesn’t actually do anything to get the child support paid.  Men who can’t make money can’t pay child support, and being behind bars pretty much means you can’t hold a job.

I realize [expletive deleted] blame feminists for this, but it’s worth pointing out these backwards, punitive laws tend to be in place in anti-feminist, conservative states.  The reason behind them isn’t “feminazis out to get paid”.  It’s actually because conservatives believe that mothers are on public assistance not because they’re poor, but because they’re not married.  They still subscribe to this ridiculous notion that Mom + Dad + Baby = No Problems Ever Again, and figure that if people are struggling financially, it’s because they’re sexual deviants.  And so their child support laws are geared not towards making sure men pay for their children so much as punishing people for not being married, and punishing people for being poor.  It’s no good for the mothers, either, because they’re often expected to go to great lengths to try to get the money from the fathers before they’re permitted to get public assistance to feed their children. This is all rooted in a highly punitive view of gender roles and responsibilities, and no one benefits from it.

Source: Pandagon

I think that's about right. It is evil to hold non-custodial parents (it's not just men) responsible for child support if they're simply and legitimately unable to pay. It's particularly evil to use child support as just another way for legislators and prosecutors to pile on punishment than either law, justice, or (more to the point) penal theory would otherwise allow. And finally, as Amanda makes clear, it's also evil for social service agencies to refuse to provide assistance for children and their custodial parents (usually but not always women) when the primary-earning parent (usually but not always men) are also indigent. Or in jail.

But do check remember that not only do such laws tend to be more draconian in jurisdictions where feminism has less influence, many or most of those laws predate feminism by decades!

So once again, who really hates men? And if you were genuinely interested in men's rights, against whom would you rationally expend most of your efforts to resist their influence? In fact, who might you most logically want to form alliances to combat such oppression?

Oh, and last point?  At least in progressive jurisdictions legislators and courts, legislators, and society in general are all at least sympathetic to two crucial-to-men's-rights issues.

1) That divorce law and child support aren't strictly gendered, such that it's not enshrined that mothers stay home with children and fathers are responsible for all financial support, with the result that if a mother abandons her children or if a mother has more financial resources than the father then child support can go the other way, and

2) That opportunities exist for women such that they are economically, socially, politically, and legally capable of earning a living wage and supporting themselves and their children... or even their children and their ex-husbands if the husbands instead provided most of the primary care.

Items #1 and 2 aren't fully distributed yet, even in progressive, feminist-friendly jurisdictions, but they're a lot further along than in conservative, feminist-antagonistic ones.  Thing is, though, that traditional anti-feminists don't want women to have equal rights (these days they don't seem to want women to have rights at all!)  Such jurisdictions actively don't want men providing anything but financial support for their children (ok, maybe laudably beating them with their belts "when your father gets home.")  But sure as shittin' you're not going to find many feminists who want that for themselves or men.

Audacia Ray calls out a genuinely egregious form of discrimination against a former prostitute based on a Louisiana state law from... the year 1806!

The words “sex offender” now appear on her driver’s license. “I have tried desperately to change my life,” she says, but her status as a sex offender stands in the way of housing and other programs. “When I present my ID for anything,” she says, “the assumption is that you’re a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just ongoing and ongoing.” Eve was penalized under Louisiana’s 205-year-old Crime Against Nature statute, a blatantly discriminatory law that legislators have maneuvered to keep on the state’s books for the purpose of turning sex workers into felons. As enforced, the law specifically singles out oral and anal sex for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution

Source: Waking Vixen

This is a form of reflex prosecutorial piling on that's just inexcusable. In what conceivable universe is a prostitute who performs fellatio a registerable sex offender in a way that a prostitute who "merely" performs intercourse isn't?  Or that a prostitute's customer isn't.  My personal and 100% correct opinion is of course that a prostitute is never a registerable sex offender and, for that matter, shouldn't be considered a criminal at all.   And while there's a bit more division in the ranks over this, with one interesting exception it's also my opinion that simply being a prostitute's customer should never be considered either a sex offender or a criminal either.

The exception, of course, is when the customer engages in behavior that would normally get them charged as a criminal or sex offender.  But, in today's... morally conflicted environment is considered boys-will-be-boys, hearty-fellow-well-done when a customer does it.

In other words, when customer has paid for sexual activity with someone who through age or coercion couldn't or wouldn't ordinarily be considered a freely consenting adult.  So paying for sex with a trafficked person?  If you weren't paying it would be rape, and thus a registrable sexual offense -- therefore if you get caught paying for it you should go on a sex-offender registry as well.  Same with sex with minors.

I happen to think it's appalling that prosecutors or judges in Louisiana, or any other state, would use such a heavy tool to penalize a voluntary adult prostituted or his or her customer.  But I also think it's appalling that they leave the same tool on the table when it comes to customers who have sex with children or slaves.