On Feminism and Getting Laid

A little while ago, I wrote a blog post called Some Thoughts on Rape Culture.

Every time I write a blog post like this, as sure as night follows day, the same thing happens. Invariably, I will get at least one, and sometimes several, private emails in my inbox. The content of these emails is always the same, and they’re rarely stated in the blog comments. Every time, they’re some variant on the same theme:

That must be working pretty good for you, huh? Pretending to be a feminist must really get you laid.

This has happened for years, and this last blog post was no exception.

I’m not quite sure what to make of the assumption that a man who espouses feminist values must be using it as a ploy to get sex. The first time I encountered this, it was quite a head-scratcher, I must confess. Really? I thought. That’s your take-away? I am pretending to support values and ideals about women’s agency because I’m trying to score sex from feminists? Seriously?

Now, in all fairness, if you look at all my partners, it’s very unlikely I would be involved with them if I weren’t a “feminist man,” or, as I like to call it, “a man who thinks women are people.” I have simple tastes; I prefer strong, smart, confident women, and those tend–surprise!–to be women who like being treated as people.

But here’s the thing.

The fact that these women would only be likely to get involved with a man who respects the ideals of feminism doesn’t mean that they’d get involved with every guy who respects those ideals. Treating women as people is necessary but not sufficient; if you treat women as people, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll be involved with them, but if you don’t, you won’t. Yes, in order to have sex with my partners, you have to be a dude who’s a feminist. You also have to be a dude who they think is worth having sex with, and you can’t fake your way into that.

So as a strategy for getting laid, adopting feminist ideals is, by itself, kinda rubbish.

And pretending to adopt feminist ideals is even more rubbish.

I don’t quite get what’s going on in the head of some guy who thinks pretending to be feminist is a ploy to get laid, but I have to assume that a guy who thinks that, probably doesn’t think women are very smart. If someone pretends to think women are people, but doesn’t actually think women are people, I suspect the ploy would be revealed rather quickly. Probably some time between appetizers and the main course, and certainly well before any clothes come off. I really don’t think it’s possible to pretend to be feminist, at least not for any length of time longer than a dinner conversation.

I don’t say that rape culture is a thing because I’m hoping to get laid by women who say that rape culture is a thing. I don’t think women deserve agency and personal autonomy as a tactic to try to get them to use their agency and personal autonomy to fuck me. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? How is it that someone might seriously think that being nice to feminists is a strategy for getting laid? Is it because he thinks feminists are so well-known for…um, having sex with any guy who’s nice to them?

If I were to advocate some kind of duplicitous scheme to get more sex, I would definitely recommend “learn to swing dance” over “pretend to be a feminist.” It certainly seems far more likely to succeed. Pretending to be a feminist when you really don’t think of women as real people, just to try to get in the pants of women who want to be treated like real people, is just…it…I just…what is this I don’t even.

36 thoughts on “On Feminism and Getting Laid

  1. Pretending to be a feminist when one is not would seem like an awful lot of work. To convincingly “pretend” you’d have to actually start to *gasp* believe your own schtick and act in ways consistent with the philosophy. I can’t even imagine what kind of twisted mind *could* convincingly pretend to be a feminist when they actually were not.

    • It isn’t hard. What you do is set up a few times a week or so to be available. Keep to the schtick for a few hours of ‘talk-time’, ie. non-food or movie theatre time. Keep people separated who might talk and compare notes, ie “Oh, I have this one friend, but they work a different schedule than me”. Read up on narcissistic parent behaviours regarding multiple children; it works for manipulative abusers, too. In the end, the only way to realize that the person is lying about it is to spend more time with them, and/or to get into in-depth conversations with other people about the person in question. Bet he never has someone around him for more than an hour or two, so there won’t be much to say. Heh.

  2. Pretending to be a feminist when one is not would seem like an awful lot of work. To convincingly “pretend” you’d have to actually start to *gasp* believe your own schtick and act in ways consistent with the philosophy. I can’t even imagine what kind of twisted mind *could* convincingly pretend to be a feminist when they actually were not.

  3. Feminists who also know how to swing dance are SUPER sexy in my book. 😀 Still isn’t an automatic ticket into my bed of course, but since dancing is frowned on by conservative religious groups because “it might lead to dancing,” and because sex is also known as the “horizontal mambo,” it’s a good start. 🙂

    And I’m certainly right there with you that pretending to be a feminist in order to get laid is about the silliest thing ever. WTF indeed.

  4. Feminists who also know how to swing dance are SUPER sexy in my book. 😀 Still isn’t an automatic ticket into my bed of course, but since dancing is frowned on by conservative religious groups because “it might lead to dancing,” and because sex is also known as the “horizontal mambo,” it’s a good start. 🙂

    And I’m certainly right there with you that pretending to be a feminist in order to get laid is about the silliest thing ever. WTF indeed.

  5. Cognitive dissonance. Some humans do it and cannot see what they’re doing, and the rest of us watch them and are flummoxed. How do you make a person understand what he is doing when he’s missing such big pieces of what to us are basic aspects of our nature?

    At what point in their young lives did they miss the memo that we are humans first, and other defining things after that? But always that, always human above all? How many failure points have there been since then, that they got their heads this far up their asses?

  6. Cognitive dissonance. Some humans do it and cannot see what they’re doing, and the rest of us watch them and are flummoxed. How do you make a person understand what he is doing when he’s missing such big pieces of what to us are basic aspects of our nature?

    At what point in their young lives did they miss the memo that we are humans first, and other defining things after that? But always that, always human above all? How many failure points have there been since then, that they got their heads this far up their asses?

  7. Yes Franklin you are absolutely correct. The effort put forth to pretend to be a feminist isn’t worth the effort if they are trying to get laid. There’s MUCH easier targets & ways of getting meaningless sex… *lol*. I wonder why anybody would think you would want to waste your time in that endeavor? first ogfff you woludn’t bpother to prtetebndto be who you wreen’t- you’re a straight up person as faras I can tell… You’re way too smart to use a complicated a ploy & you don’t even NEED to! *lol*

  8. Yes Franklin you are absolutely correct. The effort put forth to pretend to be a feminist isn’t worth the effort if they are trying to get laid. There’s MUCH easier targets & ways of getting meaningless sex… *lol*. I wonder why anybody would think you would want to waste your time in that endeavor? first ogfff you woludn’t bpother to prtetebndto be who you wreen’t- you’re a straight up person as faras I can tell… You’re way too smart to use a complicated a ploy & you don’t even NEED to! *lol*

  9. There’s a bit at the beginning of your post where you say that people assume that you “must be using it as a poly to get sex” which made me chortle a bit, not gonna lie.

    As a strategy for getting laid being a feminist is… a good start, I guess? Yeah, it boggles me that people think no man can truly be a feminist unless he is looking to get laid by women who are feminists. Wut. As my partner says, it’s oppositional sexism at its finest.

    • I too liked the “a poly to get sex” typo 🙂

      I suspect what’s going on is just simple projection: if someone thinks “I’d only do that as a ploy to get sex” then there’s a chance they’ll project that on to others “you must be doing that…”. My guess is that calling it out is then a combination of rejecting the idea that behaving differently might help (“nah, that’d never work”), and possibly looking for a “dude, you should totally do it, it’s an awesome strategy” reply. It should probably just be regarded as a close cousin of rape culture.

      Ewen

  10. There’s a bit at the beginning of your post where you say that people assume that you “must be using it as a poly to get sex” which made me chortle a bit, not gonna lie.

    As a strategy for getting laid being a feminist is… a good start, I guess? Yeah, it boggles me that people think no man can truly be a feminist unless he is looking to get laid by women who are feminists. Wut. As my partner says, it’s oppositional sexism at its finest.

  11. I too liked the “a poly to get sex” typo 🙂

    I suspect what’s going on is just simple projection: if someone thinks “I’d only do that as a ploy to get sex” then there’s a chance they’ll project that on to others “you must be doing that…”. My guess is that calling it out is then a combination of rejecting the idea that behaving differently might help (“nah, that’d never work”), and possibly looking for a “dude, you should totally do it, it’s an awesome strategy” reply. It should probably just be regarded as a close cousin of rape culture.

    Ewen

  12. It is a strange accusation to make. Sadly, the strong women I know would be quite a bit less likely to put out were such a facade attempted, since such a facade would be so very transluscent.

    Now, the accusation that you attend anonymous swinger sex parties to get laid, that might have a bit more traction (were, of course, it were true).

  13. It is a strange accusation to make. Sadly, the strong women I know would be quite a bit less likely to put out were such a facade attempted, since such a facade would be so very transluscent.

    Now, the accusation that you attend anonymous swinger sex parties to get laid, that might have a bit more traction (were, of course, it were true).

  14. Oh, come on, Franklin, it’s quite simple! The reason they believe it must be a ploy on your part is because: no matter how hard they try, the alternative — that you ACTUALLY BELIEVE all this — is even harder for them to imagine! They just cannot wrap their head around how any guy could sincerely think that. So they have to come up with some other explanation, no matter how incredible.

  15. Oh, come on, Franklin, it’s quite simple! The reason they believe it must be a ploy on your part is because: no matter how hard they try, the alternative — that you ACTUALLY BELIEVE all this — is even harder for them to imagine! They just cannot wrap their head around how any guy could sincerely think that. So they have to come up with some other explanation, no matter how incredible.

  16. This this this, a thousand times this!

    I tend to call those men who do that “fauxmenists,” and I’ve encountered enough that I can now usually spot them three miles away.

    I think they just don’t understand/can’t cope with the fact that women choose to have sex with men other than them, so they have to rationalise it somehow. That and they can’t get their heads around the notion of ANY man thinking women are equal human beings, because they don’t.

    • “Brogressives” is a good name for the type, too. They’re slightly harder to spot as fakes if they’re involved in social justice otherwise, but by no means impossible even then. The amount of misogyny we breathe in every day just living in the world, it’s very hard to conceal something that’s so common unless you’ve actually made an effort to understand it and recognize it, to de-install the kyriarchal vision-filters that make it something like nitrogen: invisible and ubiquitous.

  17. This this this, a thousand times this!

    I tend to call those men who do that “fauxmenists,” and I’ve encountered enough that I can now usually spot them three miles away.

    I think they just don’t understand/can’t cope with the fact that women choose to have sex with men other than them, so they have to rationalise it somehow. That and they can’t get their heads around the notion of ANY man thinking women are equal human beings, because they don’t.

  18. It is true that there are guys who pretend to be a feminist/womanist just to get laid, the way there are guys who pretend to be gay around women so that we’ll feel comfortable taking our clothes off. And aren’t we SO SPECIAL that we’re the ONE girl that could “turn him straight”! Amazing. Magical.

    Does this mean that you are doing this? I’ve read your work for a few years now, starting with posts I saw on other LJ communities. Based on that, I really don’t think that’s the case. But I do see exactly why other people are paranoid about the idea. And then we have that small group of feminists who think that no man can ever adopt womanist/feminist ideals because all men hate women or something, so you’ll always get hate mail from them.

    The troubling part is that women DO fall for guys who just pretend to be feminists/womanists. Because some of us are so incredibly surrounded by violence and craziness and misogyny that the second any guy treats us like an actual human being, we think we’re really lucky. That this is a special guy. I should know- I did it, too. So it works. And so more guys catch on to that, and the tactic just spreads.

  19. It is true that there are guys who pretend to be a feminist/womanist just to get laid, the way there are guys who pretend to be gay around women so that we’ll feel comfortable taking our clothes off. And aren’t we SO SPECIAL that we’re the ONE girl that could “turn him straight”! Amazing. Magical.

    Does this mean that you are doing this? I’ve read your work for a few years now, starting with posts I saw on other LJ communities. Based on that, I really don’t think that’s the case. But I do see exactly why other people are paranoid about the idea. And then we have that small group of feminists who think that no man can ever adopt womanist/feminist ideals because all men hate women or something, so you’ll always get hate mail from them.

    The troubling part is that women DO fall for guys who just pretend to be feminists/womanists. Because some of us are so incredibly surrounded by violence and craziness and misogyny that the second any guy treats us like an actual human being, we think we’re really lucky. That this is a special guy. I should know- I did it, too. So it works. And so more guys catch on to that, and the tactic just spreads.

  20. It isn’t hard. What you do is set up a few times a week or so to be available. Keep to the schtick for a few hours of ‘talk-time’, ie. non-food or movie theatre time. Keep people separated who might talk and compare notes, ie “Oh, I have this one friend, but they work a different schedule than me”. Read up on narcissistic parent behaviours regarding multiple children; it works for manipulative abusers, too. In the end, the only way to realize that the person is lying about it is to spend more time with them, and/or to get into in-depth conversations with other people about the person in question. Bet he never has someone around him for more than an hour or two, so there won’t be much to say. Heh.

  21. “Brogressives” is a good name for the type, too. They’re slightly harder to spot as fakes if they’re involved in social justice otherwise, but by no means impossible even then. The amount of misogyny we breathe in every day just living in the world, it’s very hard to conceal something that’s so common unless you’ve actually made an effort to understand it and recognize it, to de-install the kyriarchal vision-filters that make it something like nitrogen: invisible and ubiquitous.

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