A lot has been made about the dangers of porn and prostitution but very little attention has been given to the constant titillation that men are forced to endure in Western culture, which I believe is the more damaging of the three.
Good article, and I agree but for one minor quibble, where you write ‘Tolstoy rendered his opinion at a time when women wore the equivalent of a full burqa’—undoubtedly intended as hyperbole but I’ll shove my tuppenny ha’penny in regardless.
While Victorian-era women certainly dressed far more modestly than they do now (and had far more laudable goals, to attract the best man they could and settle down with him), they advertised the goods as much as they could. Given the reputation for prudery that Victorians had, it can be surprising how much women showed off with off-the-shoulder dresses and bodices (although as someone observed, given the large number of children the average Victorian couple had, their reputation for prudery must be rather exaggerated).
A /pol/ anon in a ‘best of /pol/’ screencap makes a good point thematically similar to yours in reply to someone’s cartoon complaining that a woman can’t put everything on display without attracting comment: https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1523993080965.png
It’s really interesting to see more discussion outside of religious circles about modesty. I grew up in the 90s. My parents were devout Christians and there was much discussion about modesty in our home. There were definitive dress standards articulated and enforced for anyone living under Mom and Dad’s roof. The funny part was that we were sort of outcasts among our own church family for these standards. We “looked weird,” we were “legalistic,” “puritanical,” etc… And yes, some of it was overkill. At nearly 40 years old, I have tempered my views a good bit on what constitutes modest dress. One needn’t be Amish or wear a hijab to present yourself decently. But much of it was absolutely necessary as we’re seeing today.
Glad you are telling the guys. When a lovely and modest girl at my churches young adult group did a presentation on ‘modest is hottest’ the guys argued against her speech.
Also what a lack of self reflection, women almost never dress for themselves, though usually they dress for other women, to show status, and not for men.
I will say this, the women dressing to attract male attention have been very successful with you. Try ‘seeing’ the women that are not dressed for you as an activity. The middle age housewife in sweat pants at the grocery store, the young mother with children who is wearing a T-Shirt and jeans.
It is also socialized, I rarely wear makeup beyond tinted lipgloss. And I am policed by other women for not putting my face on…
I agree that men need male only male spaces. I’m also thinking that the world would on average be a better place with arranged marriages.
This article is IT. These are the issues affecting the West. Let's face it, whoever wrote this isn't misogynistic or some manist as some people might twist it to be like. He's just spilling bitter truth we've all be ignoring.
I know that in posting this, that it can be turned around and used against me.
"The first process, drawing a conclusion from evidence or facts, is called inferring; the second process, searching for reasons as to why we might believe something to be true, is called rationalising."
Brene Brown a researcher said she would collect all this data, and then try to determine what the data was 'saying', sometimes the data will display things that we do not like and challenge our preconceived notions, ideas and beliefs.
Take the case of "Why "scout mindset" is crucial to good judgment | Julia Galef | TEDxPSU" Watch it and sit with your discomfit.
Author Niel Lyndon wrote about a friend of his who is a feminist and to whom he gave a copy of his book, that she had not read it and her reason was, the book may challenge every thing she was taught to believe to be true and it might contradict and challenge her beliefs.
Reading the comments is extremely fascinating and enlightening.
What, I can see from the comments is that this article has caused some people a huge cognitive dissonance.
It also saddens me that those who experience cognitive dissonance have not taken the opportunity to explore why it has caused them so much discomfit. I mean really, explore and go where your emotions are forbidding you to go.
quote<"Not only are we in the grip of a staggeringly complex array of cognitive biases and dispositions, but we are generally ignorant of their role in our thinking and decision-making.
Combine this ignorance with the conviction of our own epistemic superiority, and you can begin to see the magnitude of the problem. Appeals to “common sense” to overcome the friction of alternative views just won’t cut it.
We need, therefore, a systematic way of interrogating our own thinking, our models of rationality, and our own sense of what makes for a good reason. It can be used as a more objective standard for assessing the merit of claims made in the public arena."> unquote.
It would appear that many of the commentators believe in their own epistemic superiority, yet are so threatened by the alternative view that Steve has provided that he must be attacked and destroyed by some extremely dirty and underhanded tactics.
He and Janice Fiamengo have a whole library of informative videos that were so threatening that YouTube removed all of them, losing years of data contained in the comments sections of those informative videos. Even now Youtube hides many videos critical of feminism.
One more thing about this piece I recently though about:
The 'BBQ' and 'bakery' analogies are misleading since food is a basic need, but having sex with young hot women is not - it's a luxury.
Let's say we applied the same argument to cars - advertising supercars should be banned because it's "abusive titillation", since most people cannot afford them. Most car guys would think it's ridiculous - they just like to look at expensive cars they cannot and most likely won't ever be able to afford. Most of them either have average cars, some crappy cars or have none at all (because they're poor or they're still kids). But it still feels good for them to look at fast expensive cars, there is no envy, grief or hatred involved.
Part of the "incel rage" or "Tinder ruined dating" discourse is based on an implicit assumption that average, or even below average guys should have "access" to young hot women. They shouldn't, because they're the "luxury" not everyone should be able to "afford".
The sexual marketplace should work such that everyone could eventually match with someone from their league, with options for self-improvement for those men and women not satisfied with their default circumstances. This is because for the society to thrive, as much people as possible should 1) be happy and satisfied, which results from sex and relationships, and 2) eventually enter long term relationships, marry and have children, to deal with the fertility crisis.
Esther Vilar in her book "The Manipulated Man" uses similar analogies. Typhoon Blue on YouTube uses the analogy of men being the draught horse for the farmer (female).
Many of the media publishing the porn you describe who make money from it are men. Most women do not do that, but you apparently have eyes only for the women who do advertise like this. And I’ve read similar arguments which then go on explain how titillating and terrible and intentionally harmful to men is the ankle. Therefore, cover up women completely, in black, including their eyes. Modesty is important but you appear to come from a place of blame and hate.
Your comment is the classic perpetrator = male, victim = female, male advantage versus female disadvantage.
The way you phrased the statement is to make it appear that all men gained, while at the same time, you minimise female agency by saying most women don't.
The reality is that I suspect the vast majority of women and men do not make money from porn. The fact is female and male porn are very different from each other. Female porn mostly consists of Mills and Boon-type books.
Male porn tends to be more visual, exploiting a millennium of biological evolutionary responses.
Women can and do make a lot of money through porn and prostitution, the overwhelming majority of which is done voluntarily. You immediately take it to the burqa extreme in your rush to misrepresent my argument.
You appear to be coming exclusively from the dishonest perspective of the feminist hate cult.
My name is as real as the obvious misandry that you nurture. You are unable to counter the argument in my essay, so you attack my name. You have been exposed.
Modesty comes from a place of charity ( love) ; to one’s self, the other and for God. Modesty was once prized and is a virtue.
The disappearance of the virtues in society and culture have been displaced with their opposite. Though opposite is not an accurate word, Indeed virtue and vice are not polar opposites but rather a spectrum. Virtue is in the middle and on either end of that trajectory are two vices . It is finding the balance . A woman need not be dowdy, or overly covered lest an ankle be seen. Such prudishness is not a virtue.
A good hard hitting article that will provoke thought, discussion , debate and challenge the present timidity in public discourse.
As an observation, men are not immune or completely innocent dressing immodestly. Another discussion but balance is important.
I would agree with some of your post; however, modesty should be charity to OTHERS not yourself. God comes first, others come second, and SELF comes LAST. As an observation there is NO comparison between wo-MEN'S intentional sexual display and the occasional MAN looking at his abs. That is not balance. As Steve has said most MEN dress utilitarian.
I believe you’ve uncovered something meant to stay concealed by the dark. Something that doesn’t want to be challenged. A force that will lash out and bite those exposing it. As I was reading your post, I questioned the volume and tenor of responses. As a Christian man, I’m defiant against titillation and have long discerned my needs to do so. Thank you for this step of exposing - now get ready.
Ok Steve, I agree with you on many points. Except my objection goes something like this: you present women in this act as able and intentional. I think that as a group women are having the effect that you are describing, but on a personal level most girl/woman involved in this are not so ‘empowered’. Many of them are just desperate creatures ruining their own lives by behaving in ways that they think are expected of them. Most of them don’t see that they have much more value than how attractive they are so they think they need to engage on that level all the time.
I agree with you that the total result is what you describe. But do you see what I am saying? There is something at play here where every person’s private sin is becoming something greater than the parts.
I have not given extensive thought to this subject but I enjoyed your comment as it touches on a dimension of the argument that was perhaps intended but not expressed, though I can't speak for the author. I could only say that it seems reasonable to suggest the criticisms would be more appropriately levied against the broader culture as an examination of the deleterious effects of our collective unmooring from certain objective value hierarchies. In other words, I'm not sure if the author meant this as a scathing denunciation of the women who embody these roles, but more so rebukes the ideological or societal trends which have led to widespread adoption of the behavior the author has studied and articulated here. That might have been a word salad, it's late, but I liked your comment and I would like to think there is room in this discourse for the idea you presented, as I believe it is a valid point.
I think you are right . I read an article a little while ago written by a woman who was helping a young girl get ready for a date . The young girl was nervous because the young man she was interested in was Christian and she wanted to make a good impression. The young girl was trying on different outfits and presenting them to the older woman for approval and advice - she didn’t even realize that a lot of the outfits she was trying on were immodest - she just thought they looked “cute” . So I think what you are saying is very true - especially for younger teenage girls .
No reasonable person takes these statistics you’ve quoted seriously. Even the briefest of searches into FBI and DOJ databases reveals that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of crime, particularly against women. For example: “The percentage of females murdered by an intimate partner was 5 times higher than for males.” The physical strength of men is greater, making women more vulnerable. I can’t believe I have to point this out. Dude, you need to repent of your misogyny.
"once in a while"....
https://youtu.be/pojtx1jC8MU?si=srOq2pi90oZ1LQF3
Good article, and I agree but for one minor quibble, where you write ‘Tolstoy rendered his opinion at a time when women wore the equivalent of a full burqa’—undoubtedly intended as hyperbole but I’ll shove my tuppenny ha’penny in regardless.
While Victorian-era women certainly dressed far more modestly than they do now (and had far more laudable goals, to attract the best man they could and settle down with him), they advertised the goods as much as they could. Given the reputation for prudery that Victorians had, it can be surprising how much women showed off with off-the-shoulder dresses and bodices (although as someone observed, given the large number of children the average Victorian couple had, their reputation for prudery must be rather exaggerated).
Victorian Era Fashion: Clothing Trends and More: https://historycooperative.org/victorian-era-fashion/
Russia: https://www.flickr.com/photos/99377981@N03/46129724954/ , https://www.flickr.com/photos/99377981@N03/45940210205/ , https://www.flickr.com/photos/99377981@N03/40638051904/ An 1882 painting (‘Taking a rest’) by Ilya Repin depicts a woman modestly covered but in a figure-hugging dress: https://cdn.tretyakov.ru/mytretyakov/25/483d5a763eef72f1ad27fd362ae1ce97/thumb/90a73f89396b5df6a1a55fdc42e97216_x1.jpg
A /pol/ anon in a ‘best of /pol/’ screencap makes a good point thematically similar to yours in reply to someone’s cartoon complaining that a woman can’t put everything on display without attracting comment: https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1523993080965.png
It’s really interesting to see more discussion outside of religious circles about modesty. I grew up in the 90s. My parents were devout Christians and there was much discussion about modesty in our home. There were definitive dress standards articulated and enforced for anyone living under Mom and Dad’s roof. The funny part was that we were sort of outcasts among our own church family for these standards. We “looked weird,” we were “legalistic,” “puritanical,” etc… And yes, some of it was overkill. At nearly 40 years old, I have tempered my views a good bit on what constitutes modest dress. One needn’t be Amish or wear a hijab to present yourself decently. But much of it was absolutely necessary as we’re seeing today.
>to my knowledge no man has ever claimed to create “art” with his sperm.
The covers of the Metallica albums "Load" and "Reload" feature artwork created using the artist's semen, mixed with cow blood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_(album)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reload_(Metallica_album)
I disagree vehemently.
Well I guess that settles it then: logic and reasoning are out of your reach.
You cannot override my opinion, sir.
No doubt.
That would require you to be responsive to logic and reason.
It’s getting like ‘A Few Good Men’: https://youtu.be/84BsudK4p-Q?t=239
‘I object!’
‘Overruled.’
‘I strenuously object!’
Glad you are telling the guys. When a lovely and modest girl at my churches young adult group did a presentation on ‘modest is hottest’ the guys argued against her speech.
Also what a lack of self reflection, women almost never dress for themselves, though usually they dress for other women, to show status, and not for men.
I will say this, the women dressing to attract male attention have been very successful with you. Try ‘seeing’ the women that are not dressed for you as an activity. The middle age housewife in sweat pants at the grocery store, the young mother with children who is wearing a T-Shirt and jeans.
It is also socialized, I rarely wear makeup beyond tinted lipgloss. And I am policed by other women for not putting my face on…
I agree that men need male only male spaces. I’m also thinking that the world would on average be a better place with arranged marriages.
This article is IT. These are the issues affecting the West. Let's face it, whoever wrote this isn't misogynistic or some manist as some people might twist it to be like. He's just spilling bitter truth we've all be ignoring.
"The Street light effect"
Many of the commentators who are attacking Steve and what he wrote, I believe should study the "The Street Light Effect".
"Survival Heuristics: My Favorite Techniques for Avoiding Intelligence Traps - SANS CTI Summit 2018". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNv2PlqmsAc
"What you think is right may actually be wrong – here’s why". https://theconversation.com/what-you-think-is-right-may-actually-be-wrong-heres-why-18143
I know that in posting this, that it can be turned around and used against me.
"The first process, drawing a conclusion from evidence or facts, is called inferring; the second process, searching for reasons as to why we might believe something to be true, is called rationalising."
Brene Brown a researcher said she would collect all this data, and then try to determine what the data was 'saying', sometimes the data will display things that we do not like and challenge our preconceived notions, ideas and beliefs.
Take the case of "Why "scout mindset" is crucial to good judgment | Julia Galef | TEDxPSU" Watch it and sit with your discomfit.
Author Niel Lyndon wrote about a friend of his who is a feminist and to whom he gave a copy of his book, that she had not read it and her reason was, the book may challenge every thing she was taught to believe to be true and it might contradict and challenge her beliefs.
Reading the comments is extremely fascinating and enlightening.
What, I can see from the comments is that this article has caused some people a huge cognitive dissonance.
It also saddens me that those who experience cognitive dissonance have not taken the opportunity to explore why it has caused them so much discomfit. I mean really, explore and go where your emotions are forbidding you to go.
How do you know what you know is true? https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884
quote<"Not only are we in the grip of a staggeringly complex array of cognitive biases and dispositions, but we are generally ignorant of their role in our thinking and decision-making.
Combine this ignorance with the conviction of our own epistemic superiority, and you can begin to see the magnitude of the problem. Appeals to “common sense” to overcome the friction of alternative views just won’t cut it.
We need, therefore, a systematic way of interrogating our own thinking, our models of rationality, and our own sense of what makes for a good reason. It can be used as a more objective standard for assessing the merit of claims made in the public arena."> unquote.
It would appear that many of the commentators believe in their own epistemic superiority, yet are so threatened by the alternative view that Steve has provided that he must be attacked and destroyed by some extremely dirty and underhanded tactics.
He and Janice Fiamengo have a whole library of informative videos that were so threatening that YouTube removed all of them, losing years of data contained in the comments sections of those informative videos. Even now Youtube hides many videos critical of feminism.
Wow, Steve you certainly hit the nail on the head. Good work and the comments are fascinating and humorous, especially the Ad hominem attacks.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks Phillip.
This essay attracted a few feminists so hate and ad hominems are to be expected.
One more thing about this piece I recently though about:
The 'BBQ' and 'bakery' analogies are misleading since food is a basic need, but having sex with young hot women is not - it's a luxury.
Let's say we applied the same argument to cars - advertising supercars should be banned because it's "abusive titillation", since most people cannot afford them. Most car guys would think it's ridiculous - they just like to look at expensive cars they cannot and most likely won't ever be able to afford. Most of them either have average cars, some crappy cars or have none at all (because they're poor or they're still kids). But it still feels good for them to look at fast expensive cars, there is no envy, grief or hatred involved.
Part of the "incel rage" or "Tinder ruined dating" discourse is based on an implicit assumption that average, or even below average guys should have "access" to young hot women. They shouldn't, because they're the "luxury" not everyone should be able to "afford".
The sexual marketplace should work such that everyone could eventually match with someone from their league, with options for self-improvement for those men and women not satisfied with their default circumstances. This is because for the society to thrive, as much people as possible should 1) be happy and satisfied, which results from sex and relationships, and 2) eventually enter long term relationships, marry and have children, to deal with the fertility crisis.
Esther Vilar in her book "The Manipulated Man" uses similar analogies. Typhoon Blue on YouTube uses the analogy of men being the draught horse for the farmer (female).
Many of the media publishing the porn you describe who make money from it are men. Most women do not do that, but you apparently have eyes only for the women who do advertise like this. And I’ve read similar arguments which then go on explain how titillating and terrible and intentionally harmful to men is the ankle. Therefore, cover up women completely, in black, including their eyes. Modesty is important but you appear to come from a place of blame and hate.
"money from it are men. Most women do not do that"
Amie that is not factually true. It is an emotive argument that denies female agency.
Ok then, give me some statistics that proves your emotive generalization about women.
Your comment is the classic perpetrator = male, victim = female, male advantage versus female disadvantage.
The way you phrased the statement is to make it appear that all men gained, while at the same time, you minimise female agency by saying most women don't.
The reality is that I suspect the vast majority of women and men do not make money from porn. The fact is female and male porn are very different from each other. Female porn mostly consists of Mills and Boon-type books.
Male porn tends to be more visual, exploiting a millennium of biological evolutionary responses.
Women can and do make a lot of money through porn and prostitution, the overwhelming majority of which is done voluntarily. You immediately take it to the burqa extreme in your rush to misrepresent my argument.
You appear to be coming exclusively from the dishonest perspective of the feminist hate cult.
Do you have anything good to say about any women or is it all bitter?
Do you have anything relevant to say about this essay, or is it all feminist distraction and lies?
I think you are not serious but a satirist making fun of pseudo philosophical woman haters. Your name for example.
My name is as real as the obvious misandry that you nurture. You are unable to counter the argument in my essay, so you attack my name. You have been exposed.
Modesty comes from a place of charity ( love) ; to one’s self, the other and for God. Modesty was once prized and is a virtue.
The disappearance of the virtues in society and culture have been displaced with their opposite. Though opposite is not an accurate word, Indeed virtue and vice are not polar opposites but rather a spectrum. Virtue is in the middle and on either end of that trajectory are two vices . It is finding the balance . A woman need not be dowdy, or overly covered lest an ankle be seen. Such prudishness is not a virtue.
A good hard hitting article that will provoke thought, discussion , debate and challenge the present timidity in public discourse.
As an observation, men are not immune or completely innocent dressing immodestly. Another discussion but balance is important.
I would agree with some of your post; however, modesty should be charity to OTHERS not yourself. God comes first, others come second, and SELF comes LAST. As an observation there is NO comparison between wo-MEN'S intentional sexual display and the occasional MAN looking at his abs. That is not balance. As Steve has said most MEN dress utilitarian.
Agreed,, and thank you. Listing ones obligations to charity in order is clearer.. Mother Teresa said it beautifully , “ I am third”
Thank you, Patricia, I knew you would get what I meant.
I believe you’ve uncovered something meant to stay concealed by the dark. Something that doesn’t want to be challenged. A force that will lash out and bite those exposing it. As I was reading your post, I questioned the volume and tenor of responses. As a Christian man, I’m defiant against titillation and have long discerned my needs to do so. Thank you for this step of exposing - now get ready.
Ok Steve, I agree with you on many points. Except my objection goes something like this: you present women in this act as able and intentional. I think that as a group women are having the effect that you are describing, but on a personal level most girl/woman involved in this are not so ‘empowered’. Many of them are just desperate creatures ruining their own lives by behaving in ways that they think are expected of them. Most of them don’t see that they have much more value than how attractive they are so they think they need to engage on that level all the time.
I agree with you that the total result is what you describe. But do you see what I am saying? There is something at play here where every person’s private sin is becoming something greater than the parts.
I have not given extensive thought to this subject but I enjoyed your comment as it touches on a dimension of the argument that was perhaps intended but not expressed, though I can't speak for the author. I could only say that it seems reasonable to suggest the criticisms would be more appropriately levied against the broader culture as an examination of the deleterious effects of our collective unmooring from certain objective value hierarchies. In other words, I'm not sure if the author meant this as a scathing denunciation of the women who embody these roles, but more so rebukes the ideological or societal trends which have led to widespread adoption of the behavior the author has studied and articulated here. That might have been a word salad, it's late, but I liked your comment and I would like to think there is room in this discourse for the idea you presented, as I believe it is a valid point.
I think you are right . I read an article a little while ago written by a woman who was helping a young girl get ready for a date . The young girl was nervous because the young man she was interested in was Christian and she wanted to make a good impression. The young girl was trying on different outfits and presenting them to the older woman for approval and advice - she didn’t even realize that a lot of the outfits she was trying on were immodest - she just thought they looked “cute” . So I think what you are saying is very true - especially for younger teenage girls .
Baloney
Okay bro
Why do wo-MEN refuse to take accountability:
wo-MEN in today's society have discovered a superpower.... the power to victimize themselves to avoid accountability & responsibility for all things.
So, your objection to Steve's article is that he "presents wo-MEN as able & intentional" LOL.
Are wo-MEN able & intentional when they initiate 85% of divorce?
Are wo-MEN able & intentional when they are the aggressors in 70% of domestic violence?
Are wo-MEN able & intentional when they perpetrate 83% of child abuse/murders?
Are wo-MEN able & intentional when they fabricate 97% of rapes?
You, present wo-MEN as having NO agency or accountability. Do YOU see what you're saying?
No reasonable person takes these statistics you’ve quoted seriously. Even the briefest of searches into FBI and DOJ databases reveals that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of crime, particularly against women. For example: “The percentage of females murdered by an intimate partner was 5 times higher than for males.” The physical strength of men is greater, making women more vulnerable. I can’t believe I have to point this out. Dude, you need to repent of your misogyny.