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FROM TIME TO time deeply problematic articles are written and published about sex or more precisely how to get it. These are largely but not exclusively penned by young authors and largely but not exclusively published on student and youth platforms. The latest article around which there is considerable discussion is an article published in the College Times on August 6 entitled, ‘One Night Stand Guide: For Him’.
These articles are characterised by an assumption that sexual activity amongst young people in our society is largely generated by men’s insatiable appetite for ‘no strings’ sex and these men’s capacity to trick women into ‘giving it up.’ Women are targets, men the predators.
While it is wearying and perhaps disrespectful to readers’ intelligence to point out the litany of misogyny in these articles and the clearly troubling and dangerous unrelenting assault on any concept of consent, what is less obvious and noted is the misandry that underpins every argument.
Throughout these articles men are assigned a sexual straightjacket. They are encouraged to be opportunistic and manipulative towards fulfilling that narrow sexual objective, ejaculation inside a vagina. From the smorgasbord of sexual experience men are supposed to snatch the dry cracker and reject all other delights, with men being instructed to avoid intimacies such as ‘kissing’ and ‘look[ing] her in the eye’.
Secondly men are expected to be contradictory and duplicitous; sincere yet masters of manipulation, show kindness and compassion while being remorselessly detached and cruel, have honesty and integrity but lie flawlessly. In other words in the battleground of love, relationships and sexual activity men of otherwise sound, decent and good character are understood to operate with an altogether different set of rules. A set of rules that dehumanises and brutalises everyone involved.
When sexual activity and relationships, aspects of the human experience with so much potential for joy and fun, are reduced to a combat zone where the best that can be hoped for is to come out the murderer rather than the prey, there is little left for either sexes to be proud of or hopeful for.
The principal skills men must learn in these how-to guides are about identifying women’s existing vulnerabilities, creating and increasing those vulnerabilities and then exploring the means to use those vulnerabilities to manipulate, pressure and coerce them into unwanted sexual activity. The icing on the cake is how to then humiliate and denigrate the women who have been victimised by these tactics.
The tenuous negotiation of consent described here occurs when the man is instructed to invade a woman’s body space in seemingly innocuous ways, a hand placed on the small of her back, and if the woman does not react with aggression then she is understood to have given the green light.
The women are name called and belittled throughout. In this latest article the author cranks up the misogyny with each paragraph first likening women to dogs, then horses, fish, ducklings, baby gazelles and finally simply as ‘prey’. These dehumanisations underscored by an accompanying cartoon from a popular tv show of a couple in bed with the female depicted as a rhinoceros.
However, much more sinister is the fact that in the final utterance of the article women are humanised again by virtue of the ‘successful’ male ‘hero’ of the piece being likened to a ‘murderer’. Murder being, by definition, something only one human being can do to another.
Clíona Saidléar is the policy and communications director for the Rape Crisis Network Ireland.
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Satirical piece surely?
Speaking of sexism, I was reading an article recently about a country which restricts the amount of women that are allowed to run for election.
It forces political parties to choose a certain percentage of men, even if there is a longer-serving, more popular, better informed, more interested female and fines them if they do not have a certain number of men in their ranks. Isn’t that unbelievable?
So hypothetically if a party had one man less than the quota and the majority wanted to pick a more qualified, more article candidate who has a better chance of being elected they would still have to choose the man to reach these crazy quotas.
The country by the way is Ireland, just change women to men. There is rampant sexism beginning to creep in where a militant bunch of idiotic feminists dictate the agenda about such crazy items as Whether there can be a Page 3 or not, while ignoring the insane body image articles which appear in the Glossy mags aimed at women.
Women are brilliant and Irish women are wonderful. They do not need artificial help and quotas to be ‘chosen’ to appear before the electorate. This affirmative action is demeaning and these sexist feminists do not represent my mother, my sisters, my girlfriend, my neighbours, my colleagues and my cousins. They simply represent a tiny percentage of loud mouth men haters IMHO.
Spot on 100%
Well said. I’ve encountered some dreadful feminazis. Their militant belief system requires you to agree with everything they say and comply with everything they want you to do. If you don’t, you hate women. Forgive me, but I assumed feminism was about the empowerment of women, allowing us to follow our chosen paths without criticism, as men do. Oopsie, my bad.
Being a burlesque dancer, I have been berated by some complete bullheaded fascists! I’m “objectifying” myself. Disregard the fact that it is something I highly enjoy and do for myself and no one else. Ignore the fact that women approach me at shows and tell me how wonderful they think it is that I’m proud of who I am. As a feminist, I feel that performing is an amazing way of enjoying one’s femininity and celebrating the diversity of female beauty.
I don’t have an issue with lads’ mags or glamour modelling. I have a serious issue with women’s magazines. They are more damaging to the female psyche. The feminazis are fighting the wrong enemy and have become an oxymoron personified. “Power to women! But, if you’re a woman and disagree with us: F*** you, you ugly slut.”
Seriously. Ugh.
Without any kind of affirmative action, or even just debate highlighting the issues about the under-representation of women in all positions of power, not just politics, you’re preserving the status quo which is white, heterosexual men (of which I am one of them) in a position of hegemonic power.
Saying that women don’t need help, they’re great on their own; or that you believe in equality but not taking any affirmative steps to achieve that equality does the opposite of what you’re professing to believe in. It preserves the status quo. When women have an equal share of power then maybe you might have a valid point
Affirmative action equals putting one race/religion/gender over another and making it easier for them.
Racism = putting one race over another
Sexism= putting one race over another
Sectarianism= putting one religion over the other
The only difference…. You approve of which race/religion/gender is being elevated in your so-called affirmative action.
Sexism when it suits your own leftist PC policies.
It’s grand to be all in favour of equality once you’re in a position of power, i.e. once you’ve climbed the ladder yourself. “Let me have a head-start and then once I’m ahead we can go back and play fairly”. But you’ve already gained from the original inequality and the others are suffering from it, even if you think there’s a level playing field out there. That’s the position of white heterosexual men in society today. We think it’s not sexist, but the whole system has been skewed in our favour and that legacy still remains and still propagates itself. Have a read of Everyday Sexism on Twitter and see what women have to put up with. It’s a real eye opener. https://twitter.com/EverydaySexism
Unfortunately Dr_Serious, your comments might not last long considering the policy of removing ”offensive” comments, and the general agenda that his website has been pushing recently.
Are you in favor of having quotas for men in primary teaching where they make up only 12%?
Nursing where they make up even less?
Quotas for travellers in politics? Muslims? Gay people? Disabled people? Hindus?
Where will the affirmative action end? If we had a parliament representative of the country we might need 1 Jew, 2 Muslims, 1 Hindu, 3 travellers, 20 atheists, 7 protestant, 40 Catholics, 83 women and so on….
In your perfectly equal, wholly in democratic world as the majority no longer has the say, how many quotas would you like to see implemented?
I never said I’m in favour of quotas, particularly in terms of Dáil representation. What I am saying, however, is that we need to be aware that women are very under-represented in positions of power and that the system at present propagates this. I never said mandatory quotas were the solution to this problem.
Regarding your arguments about ensuring representations for minorities, while these are important they are totally separate issues and have nothing to do with this conversation. Women are NOT a minority! They constitute 50% of the population! Do they have 50% of the power, however? No.
Traveller constitute 3% of the country and have ZERO reperestation.
That is surely scandalous in your equality driven mind, no? If one is favor of gender quotas then so to should they be in regards to this. (Not to mention the under representation of males in numerous jobs esp. Teaching)
Democracy for all its flaws is the most equal system of all. You wanna vote for a woman? Vote for a woman, I often have. Not enough women? Join a party. Start a party. Canvass. Encourage women. Yes, it would great to have more women in politics but gender quotas are a personal affront to democracy and a sham.
Ignoreland, they constitute 50% of the population and therefore half of the voters in this country. Let the women of the country decide who they choose to represent them in government, and not some idiotic quota.
Conor, do they constitute half the numbers of political party members? If they do, do they have an equal chance to get a nomination to be an election candidate? If that is the case then why are the vast majority of candidates in local and general elections males? Do you think there’s a chance that the ‘political boy’s club’ culture still permeates through political parties and that this internal ‘culture’ is what’s stopping women from realising their potential? They system is already skewed before the people get a chance to cast their vote.
Well then women need to join the parties en masse, if they feel strongly about it. Is there political parties that don’t accept women? No. Your argument is ridiculous. If you feel strongly about more women joining parties and getting nominated/elected then make comments encouraging them and telling them how important it is. Most women are like me and most of the other commenters here…they don’t care whether a man or woman reperesents them, they just care about the quality of representation. You sound like you may be a closet sexist.
“Well then women need to join political parties en masse then” – Ask yourself, why would women not want to join political parties at present? Seeing as parties have been dominated by men for so long, do not think that some of this culture remains and is acting as a glass ceiling to women getting involved?
Also, if it’s the quality of representation you care about then the quality is clearly let down by the number of women in politics. Look at the debate on Abortion and tell me if that’s quality representation. Look at the fact it took us 21 years to legislate in the first place.
There’s one hell of an agenda being pushed here at the moment. I’d love to know who’s decided to take this particular line 24/7. I’m sure all the readership are more than aware of the staffers views on gender issues at this point.
Any chance we could go back to actual news?
Well said
Well said Ignoreland.
You really think the Dail is currently based on merit? Good one.
Never saw so many oppressed, white, heterosexual men in one place before.
All the same lads berating “feminists” were over in the Stephen Fry thread telling us about how it’s not a big deal LGBT people get a hard time in russia. White, middle class Irish men, they knows all about the oppression, one time the shop was out of ice cream :(
Uh… I’m LGBT and male but still think some (not all) of the feminist stuff has gone completely OTT. As do plenty of other people as is evidenced.
Stop trying to draw conclusions where there are none. What’s going on in Russia is atrocious and a whole world apart from quotas and lads mags or the lack of them. Really now. I’m sure you can do better than that.
That wasn’t even my point. It’s the same people who know nothing about bigotry, sexism, racism, etc, stating that they don’t see an issue with bigotry, sexism, racism, etc,. i.e. because they’re never at the receiving end of any of it.
What is all the “feminist stuff”? A woman demanding she has the right to use twitter without being threatened with rape? A woman demanding the right to do with her own body what she wants? A woman asking for a male dominated tabloid industry to try promote some healthy images of woman as people as opposed to sex objects? Or a woman demanding that an article that refers to woman as horses, objects, things, as opposed to people be removed?
Those woman sound bat shit crazy to me alright :)
Ah ha. The old “equate the opposing point to an obnoxious extreme” method. Not very clever, is it? Anyone reasonable thinks the twitter rape threats are disgraceful. However many reasonable people also see banning lads mags (woeful as they are) as pathetically myopic and one sided.
The word is not entirely black and white, you know. Things do not exist only in extremes. Each and every topic isnt just two polar opposite points of firing invective at each other. Sleep on that one.
But you’ve no particular issue with the rapey nature of this article? I consider this article an “obnoxious extreme” as you put it.
And I’m not a proponent of banning lads magazines. And that’s not what happened today either, a company willingly withdrew its sexist drivel from page 3. What I am a proponent of is removing sexism and misogyny from society, that article was both sexist and misogynistic and now it’s gone, and its proponents will think twice before publishing such drivel again.
*sigh* You just don’t get it, do you? I think the article’s a rubbish attempt at satire. And obviously offensive as was its intention. The fact that there was a similar article aimed at women has been conveniently omitted from the reporting here, but that’s par for the course.
Anyhow, there’s lots out on the Internet that offends me. Excepting where it breaks the law, I don’t feel that I’m entitled to have it taken down. I guess that’s where we differ. I also find the general Internet lynch mob mentality very retrograde. It’s just a right on, lefty version of what Mary Whitehouse was up to in the 80s.
It’s also rather irritating that all these campaigns being ran on here emanating from persons of an identical political hue. There’s no balance or counterpoint.
If you’ve read their other articles and read statements from former staff members, as well as seen the site’s reaction, it doesn’t seem to be satire.
And what would the counterbalance be? I’d assume everyone thinks articles like this are bad…
Nick, the counter balance would be the Women’s Guide to One Night Stands which they also published
Unfortunately, ignore land
Until a woman puts an agenda forward to enshrine rights, yet again, it will not become any sort of reality at all. Therefore it will need a certain amount of women prepared to do this and in a position to enact it. It almost certainly will require positive discrimination as women are still “lesser beings” and subject to being regarded as playthings, prey or some kind of cheap workforce.
One day I hope it possible to have equality and this meaning of discrimination in the dictionaries will be relegated to history as it should have been.
Misogyny, misandry; the article had it all.
It also wasn’t funny and made a terrible your/you’re mistake… the horror.
The article was pure satire, this is yet another case of the hyper-sensitive feminist left jumping on any bandwagon they can claiming this is part of some sort of imaginary “rape culture”, people calm down , its satire , it objectified nobody, just like the abandonment of topless models on page 3 of the sun , this is a pc feminist agenda gone too far
You’re talking pure rubbish you damn fool
You called women “vile tarts” for bringing a rape complaint today – hint: that’s rape culture.
I read some of the other articles on that site (what there was to read). Getting root canal done is more entertaining.
In a world where our youth’s role models are Geordie/Jersey shore types…I wonder how one article is objectifying women when these women objectify themselves every day on TV? There have always been bad guys and girls just as there has always been decent ones. Whatever type you are is not going to change based on an article that is obviously satire. Cmon!
Hear hear!!!
Are we surprised by this? In an age of political double standards?
Come on
Wow, first comment in makes an a tenuous populous swipe at politics when it has nothing to do with the article.
I think we have a new record!
At least they didn’t mention bondholders. Oops….
The article was wrote by a female writer! Get over it it was a light hearted article nothing else
Because women can’t perpetuate stupid gender stereotypes?
I think it’s pretty clear that the CleegeTimes article is a satire. The irony is that the author of this article missed that entirely
Feminists are not renowned for their sense of humour I’m afraid!
But it’s not good satire. Firstly, it’s too broad with its brush strokes painting all men as such, or all women as such. So instead it’s just offensive. Proper satire would have been to write an article like ‘A Guide to One Night Stands for Douche Bags’ or something like that. Secondly, the entire website ISN’T satire, like The Onion is. Thirdly, it wasn’t even funny.
Satire doesn’t have to be overtly funny or obvious.
Ah no Thomas, it does have to be even a bit funny ..
I didn’t find the piece in question offensive at all. Not to say that the piece itself is not offensive. That’s probably because I rarely take offence at anything and also, I know I’m nothing like the ‘man’ portrayed in the piece.
However, it remains to be said that there are men out there who do fit the picture the piece painted. I’ve seen ‘him’ in action more than once. Even though the piece is poorly written and paints men and women within a very narrow and stereotypical mindset, it’s not to say these types of people don’t actually exist.
Maybe instead of berating a piece that was obviously written for the sake on controversy we should take a look at the people in society who help stereotype men in a certain way by their actions and berate them instead.
The original article in question was written by a woman which is important fact and seems to have been ignored or avoided in this opinion piece, the satire was aimed at the sexual exploits of males from that womans perspective. It had no other purpose than to portray males as predatory. This is where the demeaning is. The use of the crass sexual imagery and murder analogy was included to underline and dramatize the sexual predatory nature of males.
Thumbs up if you think Dr’s comment was way too long and skipped it
Went onto the site to read the article and I seen ‘how to take the perfect selfie” didn’t bother looking for the article after that. I got the picture from the headlines alone. From what I’m reading here I’m thinking if the piece is not satirical it seems it might of been just as offensive to men as it is to women maybe even more so!
The number of dickless wonders who immediately materilize to rubbish any complaint made about the treatment of women never fails to amaze me. Insecure much? A little tip, buddies. If your entire sense of self worth is based on the downgrading of the other half of humanity then you are right, you have no worth. Any woman who wants to be with me is with me by choice. I do not demand obedience or any class of subservience – I just don’t find it necessary.
Criticism of feminists/ism = having no dick?
The standard feminist response. Not that they would ever objectify anyone
I never heard of College Times before this. Just went to the website. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
It reads like it was written by a bunch of immature teens with no idea of taste or class or anything.
Awww look. She’s published an apology.
She should now do the honorable thing, admit she’s a total idiot and jump off a cliff.
@ SVT
It’s great seeing comments like that Scarlett. If only we had more independent thinking people like you.
In an attempt to be partisan I would turn a blind eye to this. All ado about nothing!
Loud mouth sexist feminists are getting louder and louder. They don’t care for equal rights. Just their own rights, selfishly and relentlessly. Have you ever seen a feminist take on a male issue? No, it’s not about equality and I have no time for sexism. Most people are too easy going to care, but meanwhile those who shout loudest are changing things in an unequal way. Sure history was wrong and male dominated but why are feminist men haters blaming the men of today? It’s time for a new movement. Not rights for one half. Rights for everyone. I look forward to the day that feminists are banned for being sexist.
I put sexism with racism and ageism. So saying old people missed the satirical point is poor form.
Except that plenty of people on this article have pointed out that it’s a woman writing it (so much for man hating) and that it makes men look bad as well, but don’t let reality interfere with your chosen narrative.
And feminists are incredibly vocal supporters of paternity leave, to name one obvious example.
@Frankie The main problem with it is that they don’t engage in any debate. You either agree 100% with the whole shooting match and all the terminology and doctrine or (male or female) you’re classed as an enemy combatant and just not tolerated.
Less rigidity and more debate would improve matters enormously and actually be way more productive. Much of the current discourse is so aggressive it turns many people off straight away. The whole “privilege” thing is a great example – unless you know intimate details about a person you can never claim that they’re privileged. I’d never presume to guess what personal battles someone has had to overcome and just automatically assume they’ve had it good because of their appearance.
Anyway, here’s hoping both sides will eventually exhaust themselves of invective and meet somewhere in the middle for an actual discussion.
Nick feminists aren’t “incredibly vocal” about paternity leave. Feminists simply say that they want the “threat” of parenthood to hang over men in the belief that this will encourage employers to hire more women
That’s why feminists oppose every other proposed father’s right; the right to access, the right to DNA testing, the right to be named on a birth cert, the right to adopt their own children etc
Really? Please name me where official feminists have said that? I’ve always been a vocal proponent of paternity leave as has every feminist I know and those who post on here.
Please provide me with statistics as to what percentage of fathers don’t have access in Ireland – I don’t think either parent should have a right to access, frankly. The right should belong to the child and be decided in the child’s best interest, I have no problem with DNA testing and I don’t think either parent should have to go through the adoption process with their own children.
Please provide me with an Irish feminist group making statements which disagree with these points. Thanks!
There’s “official feminists”?
I can barely make out the ‘screen grab’. Who is the old perv, pictured just below some text?
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