Hi boys,
Okay, here’s some straight talk. I am one of those horrible feminists you guys loathe so much, and I am also a woman who really enjoys sex and is really not prudish about it. So, you know, in many ways, I am potentially your target audience – ie: a woman who “puts out”. (We won’t get into all the things wrong with that concept just yet – I don’t think you’re ready for that.) So, here, listen up while I totally blow the lid on the whole mystery and tell you what women want.
In many ways I am “guilty” of a lot of the things you accuse us of. I do, in fact, have a bit of a taste for what may on the outside appear to you to be a “bad boy”. I do tend to like guys who are cocky and confident and sure of themselves. Confidence is hot, there’s no denying it. I’m turned on by competence, and humour, and smarts, and often those guys have those things.
Here’s the thing though. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it’s not that simple. It’s not that I “like assholes”. It’s not that I don’t “like nice guys”. I have, in fact, in my time, dated several men who would definitely qualify as “nice guys”. Hell, the man I was married to was a “nice guy”. And he got plenty of sex out of me. The truth is, the “bad boys” I am attracted to are actually not that bad. And the “nice boys” I’ve been with were not that nice. They were, like everyone, complex humans with various strengths and weaknesses. The thing pretty much all of them have in common?
They treat me like a whole person. Like a human being with ideas and opinions, thoughts and dreams and nuances and history and loves and likes and dislikes. They exhibit a certain baseline amount of personality of their own. They can hold their own in discussion with me. They have thoughts and opinions too, and they can discuss them with me as if, you know, we’re both PEOPLE. And you know, in retrospect, some of them may totally have been faking it in order to get into my pants – those ones didn’t last that long, because once they ran out of personality and conversation, I lost interest.
Here’s the “secret” us women are (totally not at all actually if you’d listen for a second) keeping from you.
We don’t like to have sex with people who hate us. Just, you know, as a general rule.
It’s not the fact that you’re a “nice guy”, it’s not cos you’ve been “friendzoned”, it’s not because we like the bastards and assholes, it’s not because we’re ‘stuck up’. IT’S BECAUSE OF YOUR MISOGYNY.
You’re not getting laid BECAUSE OF YOUR MISOGYNY. Because you hate women, because you think we owe you sex, because you think that our bodies are things we hold at ransom from you instead of, you know, OUR bodies. It’s because you think that we’re sex vending machines and if you feed in certain behaviours (roses and chocolates and, apparently, creepy stalker behaviour THANKS FOR THAT ROMCOMS), you should get sex out.
“But I don’t hate women” I hear you plaintively call out. “I love women, with their curvy delicious…” STOP. See what happened there? You reduced us to our bodies.
“No, no, I have lots of female friends, I like them, for reals. I just don’t understand why none of them ever want to… ” STOP. See how you made their value all about whether or not they’ll shag you? Reducing to bodies.
“Wait, but not all men…” STOP. We know that. Despite what you may think, women are not complete imbeciles. Of course we know not all men. But the fact that every single time this topic comes up, some guy feels the need to jump up and say “Not all men!” just proves the point. It proves that it is more important to you to prove you’re not one of those guys than to ADDRESS THOSE GUYS. It proves that your precious little ego is more important than the lives of the women these guys KILL. Not to mention the lives of all other women (and make no mistake, it’s THAT ubiquitous) who deal with constant low (and high) grade harassment all the time.
I date “bad boys”. I date “nice guys”. The ones I DON’T date are the ones who think they have a right to my body, the ones who treat me like a game to be won, the ones who think I owe them sex just by virtue of the fact that they want it.
The real secret? Is to treat us like people. I know, it’s radical! But you should try it. The undefined thing about you that gives women the ‘creeps’ is your misogyny. It’s not your mental health, it’s not cos you’re shy, it’s not cos we ‘actually like bastards’. It’s the fact that you don’t think we’re real people. AND WE CAN TELL. So fix your brains, resolve your inherent sexism, and lo! You may find that not only are you a much nicer person to be around, but you’ll probably start having a lot more sex. With real people. Which, trust me, is the best kind.
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PS: The fact that I am dithering over posting this at all, because I now have to decide whether I want to deal with the backlash if it comes, even though I don’t think I am saying anything that revolutionary, is further indication of the problem. Men don’t have to worry very often that their posts on the internet will lead to actual violence against them. Women do. #Yesallwomen