This was written by la scapigliata, who is a regular commenter over at Feminist Current. I bolded a little of it for emphasis, but realized that I would just end up bolding it all, it is entirely fabulous.
If you need context, you can find the article and her comment here:
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/10/22/14-ways-men-can-respond-productively-metoo/
Thanks to la scapigliata for allowing me to share with my reader. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Ok, I’ll spell it out for you, and this isn’t up for debate. I don’t actually believe in the genuineness of your question, you sound like just another man passivelly aggressivelly clinging to his entitlement, but I think it’s a good idea to set out our expectations of men, and a “bare minimum” standard for their behaviour.
1. Men must commit, for the rest of their life, to give women full respect, not just a “bare minimum”, in other words, they must put humanity and human rights of half the population higher up on the list of priorities than their erection.
2. Men can fantasise about whatever they want, and they are free to masturbate as much as they want, just like women. What they can not do under any circumstances, is hurt or endanger a single woman or child in their quest for orgasm. So rape and sexual harrassement are out of question, in every form. If men find themselves fantasising about subjugating or coercing women, they must seek psychological help.
3. Reality check – “very real, inescapable and extremely powerful sex drive” is nothing more than simple “sex drive”. We all have it, and while there are individual differences, men and women in a roughly same stage in life have comparable sex drive. The significant difference is that male humans are socialised into a raping class, whereby they learn to sexually exploit others for their own satisfaction, and in order to justify their violent behaviour, they use lame excuses such as claiming that their sex drive is somehow (vastly more) “real, inescapable and extremely powerful” than sex drive of female humans who don’t get socialised to be rapists so they don’t rape. Also, due to male sexual entitlement and desperate inadequacy of most men to allow women to orgasm during sex with them (which is in sharp contrast to women being socialised to please men sexually at all costs which leads to men usually orgasming during sex with women) most women are traumatised in sexual situations and therefore don’t seek out sexual experiences with others as freely as men. This has nothing to do with primary sex drive and all to do with trauma, violence and consequences of patriarchy and men’s actions.
4. Whenever man gets an erection, he must keep it to himself unless he is with a partner who is genuinely happy to hear about it, or unless he is asked about it. Women get aroused and attracted to others all the time, and yet they don’t feel compelled to impose their sexuallity (or power) on unsuspecting others.
5. Men must get over themselves. Men are just a human animal, like we all are, nothing special about them other than their on average greater physical strength and an ego the size of a planet (the latter is fully correctable).
6. Men don’t have any sort of birthright to assisted orgasms or a mate. This means that they can’t buy sex from women (from here on, “women” is understood to always be accompanied by “or children or any living thing”), nor can they coerce or manipulate women to assist them with their orgasms in any context (date, friendship, relationship, power imbalance, your own disability or undesirability etc).
7. Men can not view pornographic material in any shape or form. One day in the future, when male violence (rape, domestic violence, capitalism, colonialism and war) truly disappears, or becomes extremely rare and recognised for the henious crime that it is (right now, such a time is unimaginable), there might be a possibility that women may in fact trully consent to being filmed while having sex, in which case it might be possible for a man to not be a sadistic misogynist when he views such content. He will still be a pervert, though, as all voyeurs are. But it’s the issue of his fetish harming others, including complete strangers on film, that counts.
8. If a man needs a woman to bear hallmarks of oppression in order to get aroused (fully shaven, made up, starved, operated on, in uncomfortable clothing or dangerous footwear) he is a fetishist and needs counselling and a good dose of insight that his fetishes endanger women, because as a man born in patriarchy, he’s likely to be a really manipulative, gaslighting bastard who will stop at nothing to ensure that women remain oppressed in order to satisfy his male gaze.
9. Immature women are off limits to adult men, and those men who can only be aroused by young, immature women, again, have fetishes and paraphillias and are one step away from becoming a sex offender (many have already crossed that line). They too should seek therapy, and any other methods of containment.
10. A man must never expect a woman to smile, be polite, coddle him (or any other man), encourage him, support him, understand him, move out of his way, respond to him or engage with him, unless it’s a woman he knows and she consents to such expectations (under the proviso that we are living in a male violence free distant utopia where consent is meaningful and possible).
This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. If unsure, come back here and politely ask more questions on behalf of your ilk (without expecting an answer, as per point 10.)
RadFemSpiraling 