Begging for Sex: Gender Equality from the Other Side

© 2012 John Pepple. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 7/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7406-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7405-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7404-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906417

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Feminist Lies

Chapter 3 No, I’m Not A Reactionary

Chapter 4 Mating Roles In General

Chapter 5 Mating Roles Still Exist

Chapter 6 The Invisibility Of Mating Roles

Chapter 7 Having To Ask Is Begging, And Begging

Is Powerlessness

Chapter 8 Sexual Power: A Feminist Mistake

Chapter 9 Men’s Problems, Women’s Problems

Chapter 10 Mating Roles Underlie Everything About Gender

Chapter 11 Mating Roles And Sexual Misconduct

Chapter 12 Changing Sides, Apparently

Chapter 13 Morally Easy And Safe Roles, And Morally

Hard And Dangerous Roles

Chapter 14 A Plea For Equality

Chapter 15 Conclusion

Notes

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As the reader will discern quickly enough, this book was planned many years ago, and many people inadvertently helped me with it through comments they made to me about gender. I’m not going to name them because they probably don’t want to be named. There are three people who very early on looked at early chapters or versions of this book, whom I now thank: Dave Hill, professor of philosophy at Augustana College (Ill.), David Apolloni, professor of philosophy at Augsburg College, and Fred Schultz (alas, no longer with us). I also want to thank Peter Shea for recommending that I read Camille Paglia, and most of all I want to thank my wife, Sarah Blick, for her support, both material and intellectual. Naturally, any mistakes herein are my own.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

According to feminist theory, I don’t exist. But I do exist. Therefore, by the logical inference known as modus tollens , there must be something wrong with feminist theory, and it is the purpose of this book to explain what that something is. But this book is about more than showing a mistake in feminist theory. It is a manifesto for a certain type of man. Before I talk about the type of man I mean, I want to talk about the various types of gender roles. There are four types of gender role that exist in a traditional society:

1. Power roles: Men are allowed to dominate and get power, while women are supposed to be submissive to men, thus lacking power.

2. Work roles: Men are supposed to do certain kinds of work, generally outside of the home, while women are supposed to do other kinds of work, generally inside of the home. Often, women’s work is merely supportive of men’s work or else has less status.

3. Personality roles: Men are supposed to be masculine, while women are supposed to be feminine.

4. Mating roles: Men are supposed to be aggressive in the pursuit of sex, relationships, marriage, dating or even dancing, while women are supposed to be passive and to wait for men to take the initiative.¹

Now feminists have said a great deal about the first three pairs of roles, but almost nothing about the last pair of roles. I claim that what is wrong with feminist theory is the result of ignoring this last pair of roles, for it was this last pair that dominated my life. To read the feminists, one would infer that the most important role in men’s lives is the role that told them to be dominant over women, but that just wasn’t true in my case; the most important role in my life was the role that told me I had to be aggressive in the pursuit of sex. Feminists will, of course, tell me that I just don’t know the ways in which power roles have insinuated themselves into my life, but I claim on the contrary that they don’t understand men’s lives.

Now that I have enumerated these roles, I can get back to talking about the sort of man for whom this book is a manifesto. It is a manifesto for all men who feel frustrated and powerless in the aggressive mating role. According to feminists, this can’t happen. They argue, on the few occasions they are willing to talk about this role, that men have the advantage here, but I will argue in this book that this is quite wrong and that it is women who have the advantage. It is true that some men will agree with them and say that being the aggressor is a privilege that men have (and depending on where they are politically, they will go on to defend that privilege if conservative or ask that men relinquish it if liberal). However, the men who are saying this are generally likely to be the men whom our society rewards with lots of attention and power. The men who disagree and who have experienced nothing but frustration in this role are to some extent hidden away, and so feminists don’t hear about them or from them at all. These are men who are shy or socially awkward or who, for whatever reason, have had problems with the sexually aggressive mating role.

Thinking about such men brings to light a logical mistake that the feminists have made. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when much of current feminist ideology was being formulated, feminists explained that going to college was in effect being immersed in men’s studies. This was because women’s concerns, perspectives, and lives were almost entirely ignored; everything seemed to be about men. However, excluding all women doesn’t entail including all men. Feminists have always talked as though all men’s voices have been heard from, that all our concerns and perspectives have been out in the open, but in fact that just wasn’t – and still isn’t – true. There’s a logical difference between saying that (1) all we have heard from have been men, and (2) we have heard from all men. The first, which is what the feminists faced, entails that no women have been heard from but leaves it open whether all men have been heard from. The second, which the feminists insist is true, says that all men have been heard from while leaving it open whether any women have been heard from. The strictly logical way to say what feminists were trying to say was, We have heard from men only, though not necessarily all men.

Based on this logical mistake, feminists have always tried to silence voices like mine. I have claimed that we haven’t heard from all men, that those of us who were shy have not been heard from, while feminists have always responded as though we have been heard from. This book is designed to give shy men and other men who don’t like being stuck in the sexually aggressive role a voice. We are tired of feminists saying that all men have been heard from. We are tired of hearing that the sexually aggressive role is a role that gives men the advantage. We are tired of hearing discussions of gender that have nothing to do with our lives. We are tired of being told that men want X (to be the aggressor, for example) when in fact we don’t want it. We are tired of feminists telling us what our lives are like. We are especially tired of the feminist version of gender equality, which in fact is not true gender equality because it means that not only are traditional mating roles retained, but that the male role is made even more annoying than it was before. We want to assert what our own version of gender equality is, a version that comes from the other side of the gender divide, a version that insists that gender equality hasn’t been achieved until these roles are eliminated.

But let me point out that while this book is aimed at shy men, nevertheless what I will be talking about affects all (heterosexual) men, for even those who don’t mind the aggressive role have been affected by changes that feminists have made, changes that have made this role harder to deal with. Moreover, feminists have made claims, such as the claim that men are always less willing to make changes to traditional society than women are, that simply are not true. As I shall argue later, it is women more than men who want to retain traditional mating roles, and all men will benefit from making this known to society. Finally, feminists have been waging war against male sexuality because they link it with sexual misconduct, but I maintain that, while their concerns about sexual misconduct are of course justified, they have misidentified the target. The actual problem isn’t male sexuality; it is aggressive sexuality. It only looks like male sexuality is a problem because traditional society dictated that men be in the sexually aggressive role, so most sexual misconduct has been done by men.

Before going any further, I need to address an objection that feminists have made to me in person and will continue to make, that I am simply lying. Having never really talked to men like me, feminists will insist that I cannot really mean what I am saying, and so I must be lying for the sake of engaging in some sort of oblique attack on feminism. (Conservatives are generally more perceptive about what I am up to; they can see perfectly well that I want big changes, and they don’t want those changes any more than they wanted the changes that feminists demanded.) Having been accused of lying, I have decided that the best defense is to go on the offensive and accuse them of lying, too.

CHAPTER 2

FEMINIST LIES

Since feminists have accused us men of lying, it’s important for my purposes to point out that feminists have themselves engaged in lies. Let me list them. I’m going to list only those lies that relate to this book, which concerns what I’m calling mating roles and my attempts to liberate myself from the aggressive mating role.

1. We feminists want to eliminate all gender roles.¹ This sort of thing was said in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but at the end of the 1970s when I questioned feminists as to why mating roles were still in place and why they didn’t seem very anxious to eliminate them, some of them told me, It’s not important to eliminate those roles. (Other feminists told me something different, which I will discuss below.) I conclude that the original claim was a lie. Let me observe that I don’t think feminists had any idea of how liberating it was for a shy man like me to hear that all gender roles were going to be eliminated. A huge problem in my life was going to be solved by the feminists, who were going to push for the elimination of all gender roles. A role that I wasn’t suited for was going to be eliminated by feminists, who wanted to eliminate all gender roles because they felt that they weren’t suited for their roles. However, it turned out that they were simply lying about wanting to eliminate all gender roles.

2. Women’s liberation is human liberation.² In fact, it was nothing but women’s liberation. We men who hated the sexually aggressive role found nothing liberating in women’s liberation. In fact, our lives were made worse by their actions. Dealing with the sexually aggressive role was always a burden for us, but as the women’s movement gained power and made changes, it was made even harder for us. The new emphasis on sexual harassment meant that an awkward approach, which before meant nothing worse than a rejection, could now land one in serious trouble. One could lose one’s job. No, women’s liberation has not meant human liberation. It certainly has not meant liberation from the sexually aggressive role.

3. We think it’s important to listen to other voices.³ What they meant, of course, was that they wanted society to listen to their voices. Other voices which hadn’t been heard from but which disagreed with them on one point or another were considered beyond the pale.

4. The personal is the political. What they have meant by this is not that the personal is the political for anyone, but only for themselves. Obviously I had personal problems in dating, but my attempts to persuade them that this was the result of the role I was in and that shy women didn’t have my problems because they were in a different role were not appreciated by the feminists. Apparently, my personal problems are not political and are just personal.

5. Men, but not women, are resistant to progressive change. Actually, women have been resistant to eliminating mating roles. While many men are also resistant, it seems to me that more men than women are open to the elimination of these roles.

6. We would welcome a men’s liberation movement. Perhaps not all feminists have expressed this, but I have heard it on several occasions. And it is a lie, simply because when I have raised my voice demanding to be liberated from the sexually aggressive role, the response from the feminists has been very negative.

7. Women are sensitive to people’s problems, but men are not. I’ve never noticed any particular female sensitivity to what I experienced in the sexually aggressive role, and what little I have observed came from women who seemed more traditional and not from the feminists.

8. We want fairness. This is a lie promulgated by the entire left. When I have pointed out instances of unfairness that are not currently part of the left’s agenda, they are uninterested in even acknowledging the unfairness, and as for making changes, they insist that dealing with that type of unfairness is unimportant. With respect to gender roles, the unfairness concerns shy men, who have a much rougher time getting sex than shy women. Is this fair? Of course not, but feminists in particular and leftists in general never want to either admit it or to do anything about it.

These, then, are the lies I have noticed from the feminists. There are also other statements made that, while they aren’t lies, are despicable. For example, while some feminists have insisted that it’s not important to eliminate mating roles, at the same time they insist that women have it worse in all roles and in all ways. This book is dedicated to showing them that they are wrong. Consider it this way. Feminists say they have it worse in all roles, but then say that they aren’t interested in eliminating mating roles. I say that men have it worse in mating roles, and I then go further and say that therefore they ought to be eliminated. Which is more plausible? Are we really supposed to believe people who claim to be worse off in a role, but who don’t want that role eliminated, especially when they want so many other changes? I don’t see any reason why we should.

Here’s another example of a despicable statement. While, as I’ve already mentioned, some feminists claim that it’s not important to eliminate mating roles, others say something quite different. They claim, Men are no longer in those roles. The first time this was said to me, I was completely and utterly astounded (as well as enraged). A couple of feminists declared to me that we men were no longer in the sexually aggressive role. They said this to me, a man, as though my experiences counted for nothing. I was so angry that I didn’t even bother to ask them what they could possibly mean by such a ridiculous statement. But later when hearing other feminists say the same thing, it came out. What they meant was that women were now asking men out, so men couldn’t still be in that role. Never mind that they were basing their conclusion concerning men’s lives on what they observed women doing (rather than asking actual men what they were experiencing). Never mind that there have probably always been a few women who behaved aggressively. Never mind that the men being asked out were probably special in some way (rich or in the right professions). And most important of all, never mind that the rate at which women were asking men out was so small as to leave most men in the role most of the time.

This last point touches on the issue of what counts as gender equality. Let me begin by asking, what counts as political equality for women? Feminists don’t believe they will have full political power until there are roughly equal numbers of men and women in the Senate and roughly equal numbers of male and female presidents. Nevertheless, what they count as equality with respect to mating roles is very different. It is not what I would suggest, namely that the average (heterosexual) man and the average (heterosexual) woman would have equal probabilities of being approached by someone of the opposite sex for a date (or dance or whatever). No, for the feminists, it is much weaker: it is merely that women are now asking men out, so men are no longer in that role. Let me dispose of this ridiculous response by noting that this represents a change of standard on their part. Let me also note that almost never in human affairs has an odious situation simply disappeared with so little fuss. Most of the time, a huge struggle was required to make a change. Why assume that this case was different?

Another example of a despicable statement begins with the feminist claim, which I shall be disputing in this book, that men have had it best in all the roles mentioned in Chapter 1. In other words, we men have it best in mating roles because we are in the sexually aggressive role and not the supposedly weaker sexually passive role. Feminists never talked to men like me when making this statement, but for my purposes now, what I want to observe is that when they talk about a woman who happens to be in the sexually aggressive role, they flip positions and declare she is powerless. This is the gist of one feminist’s claim about sexual harassment in academia, that if the (female) student initiates the sexual relationship with a male professor, of course then it is acknowledged that the aggressive role is not a role of power.⁴ It is also entailed by Michel Foucault, who probably picked up on the direction that feminists were going, in his discussion of Socrates, who is interested in cute teenage boys. Foucault talks just as the feminists do of how the aggressor is the one with power, so that if Socrates were to have pursued these boys, he would have been the dominant one. But when it turns out that they are interested in him and to some extent pursue him, what does Foucault say? Why, that Socrates is still dominating.⁵ Another example comes from Kate Millett in her book Sexual Politics when discussing Henry Miller’s Sexus: But more pertinent to the larger issues under investigation is the information that Ida is now so ‘hooked’ that it is she who makes the first move.⁶ The implication of this sentence is that, since it is Ida’s powerlessness that Millett is talking about here, her making the first move is yet another instance of that powerlessness. However, when she talks about a man making the first move, she discounts its powerlessness:

Val [whom Millett takes to be an alias of Miller himself] makes the first move. I slid to my knees and buried my head in her muff. The locution ‘muff’ is significant because it is a clue to the reader that the putative humility of the action and the stance of petition it implies are not to be taken at face value.⁷

It seems that, according to the feminists, some of us men, no matter what role we are in and what our feelings are, end up as dominators, even if we feel powerless.

Finally, the last example I want to discuss is the strong tendency of feminists to assume the absolute worst motives for men. I was trained in the history of philosophy, and part of that training was being told that one ought to use the principle of charity on the philosophers one was talking about. What this meant was that when a historical figure known for brilliance said something that seemed stupid, one was supposed to look for some reason why it was not stupid (because, for example, it was part of their culture to believe such things, because they elsewhere gave good reasons for it, and so on). But one can apply the principle of charity beyond scholarship to everyday life and to everyone whom one meets. For example, that person who just cut me off in traffic: must I think of them as out to get me in particular? No. Must I think that they are as despicable as can be? No. They are merely being a discourteous driver. Maybe they even have a good reason for being in