One of the themes of the manosphere is that "sex" is a commodity that women control and men will go to any lengths to obtain. Women use "sex" to manipulate men and get them to do their bidding, or else cruelly deny men whom they capriciously deem unworthy. Men, on the other hand, require sex to be fully masculine. It is their biological imperative to pollinate every fresh flower they see; it is to attract potential hotties that they are driven to labor, to achieve, to acquire. For example, according to at least one "incel" (see previous post), JFK did not become a senator and then a president in order to please his striving father, or even to fulfill his own ambition for power; he was driven by his innate need for nooky.
It strikes me that both men and women share a tendency to blame the other gender for their own base impulses or thwarted desires. One thing that women don't generally do, however, is feel "entitled" to the sexual services of men.
Now, I know the Angry Guys will say that is because women, just by virtue of having vaginas, can have all the sex they could wish for. But that isn't exactly true. Sure, even a flabby old crone like me knows of at least one notoriously seedy bar in my area where I could find a fuck buddy in ten minutes flat (make that five if I were buying). I could find a partner for most of these incel guys at the same place, if they would just ratchet down adjust their expectations of what it is they believe they "deserve" -- just a mite.
I know a lot of women who are lonely and horny, who spend many nights yearning and burning, writhing alone in their beds, listening to vintage Sarah McLachlan and gnashing their teeth. I know how that feels: I have been one of them myself.
I have had several periods of "involuntary celibacy". One of these periods lasted nearly five years, which, by anyone's reckoning, is a long dry spell. It followed a seven year relationship with a man who had finally put me out of my misery broken up with me by announcing on the phone he was marrying someone else. I was devastated, alternately in denial (spinning fantasies of winning him back) and suicidal (cuz that would show him). It was a period of extreme depression and social isolation punctuated with bursts of manic, impulsive activity: I moved several times, started and abandoned three different jobs.
I had gained a lot of weight, and was living in rural Colorado, where I hardly ever met anyone, much less any eligible bachelors. Still, I was a young lady with a high libido. This was in the late eighties, the burgeoning era of internet dating, and I was among the first to try to hook up that way. There were long, passionate e-mail exchanges with a bipolar lad in Canada and a slightly demented elderly gentleman in California, but to no avail.
This was back when I still identified myself as straight, although even if I had realized I was in fact "hetero-flexible," I doubt it would have improved my plight. Looking back, eighty percent of the problem was that I was functioning under a dark cloud of depression, practically exuding desperation, and obviously needed therapy (which I eventually got) even more than a roll in the hay.
This was also the period that I discovered pornography erotica and mail order, uhm, marital aids. So it wasn't a complete waste...
A friend who was in similar straits used to joke that if she could order a man like a pizza, she would have tipped generously. We joked about taking up horseback riding, about telephone poles, about the gnawing hunger to be taken, to be well and truly fucked, to be royally rogered while we thrust our noses into some random stranger's hairy armpit and inhaled his musky pheromones.
We were, to put it bluntly, mad with unrequited lust.
I even thought about hiring a male prostitute. (This was, after all, the decade book-ended by "American Gigolo" and "My Own Private Idaho", so the concept of men commodifying their sexuality had become a thing.) I had no idea how to procure one, however, especially in my dusty little town snuggled high in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Even if I had stumbled upon Richard Gere (or even better, Brad Pitt) in some cowboy bar, I couldn't yet un-bundle my desire for sex from my desire to be desired. And I don't think these angry male "incels" or frustrated PUAs are much different. Whether male or female, we look to sex with a partner to provide confirmation of our own desirability.
I broke my five year record as soon as I had moved to a larger city and found a career that (at least temporarily) I enjoyed and which put me in contact with a broader array of like-minded people. In fact, I proceeded to make up for lost time by having a string of casual encounters colorful off-color adventures that I immortalized in another blog.
Now I am an old(ish) woman. My circumstances and needs are quite different. I haven't had penetrative sex for a number of years, and I don't miss it. Yet I can still remember the pain and frustration of my own days of involuntary celibacy, and sympathize with those men (and women) who rail against it.
A commenter on Manboobz shared a link to a documentary called "Shy Boys," in which the director, Sara Gardephe, interviews several "Incels" (involuntary celibates). Because Incels tend to be ready "converts" to Game, I watched it with interest.
The fact that most of the young men describe themselves as "ugly" is really striking to me because, really, none of them are. In fact, I thought the long-haired dude was quite pretty in a rock star way. Yet they blame their lack of success with women primarily on an imaginary defect in their own physical appearance. Of course, girls do that too, and to such a degree that we hardly notice. I don't remember boys being so self-critical in the past, however. I am sad to see men starting to share women's neuroses about their looks. Body dysmorphia is a form of equality I don't welcome.
As for their disgust of female genitalia, it reminded me of Victorian art critic John Ruskin, famously unable to consummate his marriage because he was so horrified by the sight of his beautiful bride's genitals.
Somehow I cannot judge these boys too harshly. Truth be told, I've never been enamored with the sight of my own bits, and recall how unpleasant I found it when a Nurse Practitioner insisted I examine my own cervix with the aid of a mirror, speculum, and flashlight. Working in an abortion clinic, I saw hundreds of vulvas, of course, and I gradually lost my revulsion to my own. So my first Rx for these troubled lads is more exposure to real women and less porn.
I cannot even be too hard on the way the Incels in the documentary refer to "fat girls" as scraping the bottom of the barrel in the sexual marketplace. They are simply parroting what the entire culture is teaching us, so why should we expect them to challenge the standards of the day? It takes self-confidence to buck the system. I refused to date fat boys when I was an undergrad even though (or because) I weighed 170# myself. Being discriminated against did not make me compassionate or tolerant -- the opposite, in fact.
Was I so different from these guys at the same age? As a teenager, I would go six weeks without speaking to anyone. I was so shy that some days I simply couldn't muster the courage to go to school, instead whiling away the hours sitting alone in parks or aimlessly riding buses. One day, when I was about seventeen, I realized "This won't do," and started to force myself out into the world. But it took many more years before I overcame my almost crippling shyness, and I only managed to do so by acts of will, challenging myself with activities that caused me the greatest degree of manageable anxiety.
I finally figured out that my self-consciousness was basically egocentrism. I found that the more I attended to another person, the less "shy" I was. Perhaps it was this realization that drew me towards work where I had to perform service for others. In a professional role, I could finally let go of myself.
I still remind myself, when I feel the old social awkwardness and anxiety creeping up, to focus, focus on the other person. Ask questions. Then listen. Reflect on what he/she is saying. Get over yourself!
Ironically, "game" is probably the worst way for these fellows to overcome their issues. I wish I could share this with Incels.
