Following up on my mildly controversial “she deserves better” post I’ve been thinking about how deeply, deeply “no-sex” class the mostly-male, entirely anti-feminist fear is that if women have parity in economic, political, and social power then men will become redundant, useless, unlovable, and unloved.

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon runs into an instance of the sentiment and renders her own judgment. She’s entirely too generous.

Like check out this guy who commented at Hugo’s place:

How can (men) feel valued as a human being if there’s basically nothing only they can do that women cannot while there’s a lot of things men cannot do that women can’t[sic]? You either get detachment or service in this situation, but service, of couse, is requiring social checks on women – some kind of affirmative action for men, which one may call patriarchy. Which leaves a bit of a problem: reject patriarchy and you’ll get male detachment.

I’m not going to pretend to understand why conservative men are so damn jealous of women’s reproductive and sexual functions, though I can see why they’re scared that women will reject them if we don’t need them.  (Because I myself reject these men out of hand for sucking, and I’m sure they have every reason to believe the women in their lives would, too.) But there it is, in all its naked glory—-the belief that half the human race needs to be subjected to violence, coercion, and abuse to keep us as a permanent underclass so the other half can feel good about itself.  (Of course, as Hugo points out, it doesn’t even work that way and a lot of men don’t feel good about themselves in this circumstance.)

Read the quote and commentary in context here.

As I said I think it’s mighty generous of Amanda to say it’s about jealousy and/or misogyny and/or power-hogging. I think it’s about astonishing self-pity, insecurity, and utter failure to recognize that, being human and all, and, having sexual and social orientations in pretty much direct proportion with men, women are going to want men around pretty much no matter what. And for approximately the same reasons men want women around.

Also, as Amanda hints, men who realize the no-sex class Two Rules of Desire was some weird shit we made up to make ourselves feel worse… and therefore realize we don’t have to be a) belligerently resentful b) pity-party mopers… women would be even more happy to have us around. I mean, seriously! Would you want to have sex with some dude with such absent self-esteem he calls it “getting lucky?”**

I mean, seriously, the only reason we even use the word “consent” in the context of is because men can’t get it through our heads that as autonomous human beings women might instead, you know, decide to have sex because they want to have sex.*** Instead of because they feel sorry for us.

I mean, seriously!

[** Believe it or not, yes. Because it happens all the time. That doesn’t mean it might not a) happen more often, or b) be more fun for all concerned, because c) it would be because sex feels really, really nice and not because men think they need women to (reluctantly?) “consent” sex with them in order to feel validated. —fl]

[*** I always feel a bit creepy talking about how much women do or don’t, would or wouldn’t want sex if this, that, or the other condition became true. Especially if the condition had something to do with men. Not least because the whole notion of sex and conditionality is a pillar of the no-sex class paradigm, but also because it sounds so presumptuously arrogant. In fact, as I hint in the preceding footnote, there’s very good reason to believe the chief outcome of dismantling the dominant male paradigm might be a net decrease in the amount of sex we seek! Because we’d only want sex when we’re horny instead of when we’re horny or feeling insecure. But if I say that to someone while he’s still inside the paradigm he’s likely get all wiggy about this men-and-feminerism business. So apologies to all concerned but that’s how I’m choosing to talk about it. For now. —fl]