I was having a discussion with a (cis-female) friend of mine about the challenges she was having meeting date-able guys. She’s quite tall, and has a difficult time dating guys who are much shorter than she is because of a long list of complicated reasons, some mechanical some psychological, which restricts the pool quite precipitously. But she said beyond the simple fact of physical compatibility (we’ll ignore for now the proportion of tall guys who she’s nonetheless not attracted to physically), the biggest obstacle she was having is findings guys who didn’t piss her off during their first date by saying or doing something that betrays a shitty, gender-essentialist, retrograde attitude toward women. This is a sentiment I have heard from many other friends – even ‘nice’ guys who might otherwise be fine to date take themselves out of the running by holding on to (and voicing) anti-feminist and/or misogynist attitudes.
If you (like me) are an openly feminist cis gendered heterosexual (‘cishet’, hereafter) guy, you’ve probably encountered the meme that guys are just pretending to be feminists to get laid (or worse, I suppose, actually adopting the tenets of feminism and self-brainwashing in order to get some consensual hotslappy going). ‘Real men aren’t feminists’, is the implication (if only there were a longer discussion of this topic somewhere). ‘Real men’ are deeply invested in perpetuating a rigid definition of masculinity, and any deviation from such perpetuation is a revocation of their ‘man card’; either that or they are actually adhering to the idea that men will do pretty much anything to get sex, including either mass deception or self-delusion.
I (obviously) have a real problem with this belief. First, it’s silly – avowed feminists are probably the least likely to fall for that kind of bullshit fakery, since they are dispositionally predisposed to examine and critique gendered behaviour. Second, it’s self-contradictory, as it lies within a cluster of beliefs that labels women feminists as unfuckable harridans who should be grateful for any and every offer they get for a Hot Peen Sandwich, regardless of the political beliefs of the Peen-holder. Third, it’s insulting, but nobody really cares about that so I’ll skip over it.
The most generous interpretation I can give for this meme is as follows: there exists an incentive structure wherein cishet guys are rewarded for their adherence to feminist ideas by having more opportunities for sex. Cishet guys who espouse feminist beliefs have somewhat-exclusive sexual access to a population of women who want Peen and yet will not accept the Peen offerings of non-feminist cishet guys. Therefore, the average cishet feminist guy has a sexual advantage over the average cishet guy per se, and anti-feminist cishet guys especially. Furthermore, even pretending to hold feminist beliefs gives you that same access, provided your dissemblance is convincing enough.
You know what else follows this logic? Taking a shower with soap and water. Seriously. Cishet guys with a regular bathing routine will have a much easier time getting laid than cishet guys who don’t. Nobody wants your stinky, unwashed Peen, sir. Ladies want a clean Peen.
And yet, we don’t see derision from this crowd for any man caught in the soap aisle of the drug store. “Real men smell like a sweaty asshole”, the cry should come from this same group. “You’re just showering so you can get laid, you weakling! Old Spice is brainwashing you!”
Let’s get something straight here: there are a lot of reasons that a cishet guy would profess feminism. Some are pragmatic, some are ethical, some are borne of empathy and basic decency. Men have complex reasons for doing a lot of things, given that they (we) are human beings with agency. We male feminists simply happen to recognize that people of all genders operate from that same basic tenet, and (hopefully) adjust our behaviour accordingly. Given the number of cishet women who decry feminism or prefer relationships where gender roles are strictly and consistently defined, the idea that paying lip-service to feminism opens up whole new worlds of coitus is… let’s just say the argument assumes facts not in evidence.
Now far be it from me to say that being a cishet guy feminist doesn’t give you some kind of advantage in certain circles. I’ve had sexual partners who I’m sure wouldn’t have slept with me if I hadn’t lived my belief in equality among genders. I’ve had a couple outright tell me that they were attracted to me, at least in part, because of my feminist beliefs. That being said, I’m sure I have a bunch of sexual partners who wouldn’t have fucked me if I had reeked to high heaven of the previous week’s physical exertion because I couldn’t be arsed to work a faucet. I’d imagine… all of them would agree if you asked them.
So yeah, feminism might help some guys get laid. So does showering. And the reason feminist women don’t want to fuck anti-feminist cishet guys is the same reason that women with functioning olfactory faculties don’t fuck guys who don’t shower: it’s because y’all stink.
Crommunist 
It is hard to find dateable men, and I’m not even tall. As someone who just got out of a LTR with a man who turned out not to be very feminist, I can aver that smart, feminist women don’t always catch the signs early. But I think this is more a symptom of some liberal men *thinking* they are feminist and then still being very sexist than *pretending* to be feminist to get laid.
The thing is there are many men who eloquently speak about feminism and even get involved in the movement who treat women like shit, including sexual assault. So if women are suspicious it’s because, they have been given experiential reason to doubt the depth of a man’s feminist avowals. It’s not hard to say the right things, there are a lot fewer men who just live it. Sometimes the ones talking the most about how they’re feminists are the least trustworthy just like those who loudly declare themselves to be allies to queer folk or POC.
Yeah, I think it’s something akin to being ‘a nice person’: if you have to loudly proclaim and protest that you’re doing it, then it’s nowhere near as obvious as you think it is. And if you’re faking it to wheedle things out of others, they’ll notice eventually. Sometimes immediately.
I’ve never actually heard anyone say the word ally outside of scare quotes and a heaping of scorn.
Conversely, I think if I weren’t sympathetic to feminism, I wouldn’t have been interested in the women I’ve been in relationships with. Feminist men may get, uh, “sexual access” to women non- and especially anti-feminist men do not, but they also are able to benefit from that situation.
Wow, I didn’t know there were any appreciable number of people left who didn’t know that washing every day was kind of the expected minimum.
There probably aren’t, George Kimball, but there are people who sincerely believe that someone who does something that is as basic as bathing is “doing it to get laid”. Not being a misogynistic, retrograde asswipe is ‘kind of the expected minimum’, except among those who angrily declare that it is some overwhelming burden, or worse a ‘betrayal’ of the natural order.
This is, however, how my partner and I sold showering to our then-12-year-old son (he’s 28 now): “Girls really like boys who smell good.” Aside from a (mercifully short) detour into the use of Axe body stink, I don’t think he’s missed a day since.
Of showering, I mean. But he’s also had pretty consistent happiness with his love life, too.
I think the “Real men look after their own birth control” talk may have had some effect there too. Not as much as we’d like, but hey, he was at least 27 before he spontaneously and unexpectedly generated life, and he’s been a good responsible baby-dad too (not with partner anymore).
I get this one all the time. And it really makes absolutely no sense to me.
It;s almost as if… bear with me, now… its almost as if these people actually think we men are animals with no self-control, entirely motivated by that appendage between our legs. As if… as if… that’s where our brain is located.
Hm…
Men’s Rights Activists wouldn’t be so anti-man as that… would they?