Satire: Dating Difficulties Abound for Local Area Feminist

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN – If one word local area feminist Ada Cunningham says describes her and how she’s been feeling as of late, it would be distraught.  This past Thursday night after having waved five separate men over to her table at the local watering hole and eatery to fill out her Consent to Maybe Initiate A Conversation Form (CMIC), Ada couldn’t understand why no one wanted to indulge her. I made the mistake of pointing out that the ‘In Case You Rape Me After This‘ header might turn some men off. However, what was to me baseless castigation to Ada was an unarguable fact. Noticeably louder than before Ada proceeded to enlighten me:  ‘An alarming  majority of women are raped by men they know. No woman ever thinks that their smiling back at a male exhibiting interest could be encouraging a rapist into our space. That’s a scary thought, especially seeing how every man, even those who haven’t raped yet, are rapists. Yes, all men are rapist. The one’s who haven’t done it haven’t been presented the opportunity’. Since conceiving of forms as a way to keep track of who she talks to in the event of a rape, not a single one has been filled out. Ada finds herself alone weekend after weekend and visibly distraught. Moved by the severity of her predicament, I proposed that Ada  walk to the bar with me, where I give the bartender $20 while simultaneously pointing to Ada, telling him that whatever 2 drinks she wants are on me. I instruct Ada that she must at her discretion, first go to the bar while I walk back to our table, then chose her drinks in order to finally see them made in front of her eyes. This ensures no date rape drug conveniently finds its way into her drink. To my surprise, my following to the letter, the instructions for how to make a woman feel safe when buying her a drink, Section II of her CMIC’s Supplementary Information Section, changed Ada’s demeanor. Days later she called me to tell me that she had updated that header I commented on  to “In Case You Chose To Rape Me After This”.

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“And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the
average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference.”
– Susan Griffin, “Rape: The All-American Crime”,
Ramparts Magazine, September 1971

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A Convo on Gender Roles, Dating & other stuff 2 : The two issues we aren’t dealing with

When Last we Left ….

Today, men are given confusing and contradictory advice. Socially, they are expected to be “compliant” (i.e. cooperative) partners to women. However, they are also urged by women’s sexual interest to maintain an “attractive personality” (i.e. assertive and ambitious). Unfortunately, men sometimes report that attempting to balance these notions does not result in satisfaction, happiness, or women’s appreciation and respect.

… men lament about being in a “no win situation” in modern dating. If they follow what society tells them to do, they often end up “good guys” who are taken advantage of, mistreated, and disrespected. In contrast, if they follow more “assertive” biological imperatives, they are labeled “jerks” and “players”—who may get sexual gratification, but not love or respect from what they would consider a “good woman”. Overall, they report that there is often little incentive for men to date and even less for them to consider long-term commitments.

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If for a second, I believed anything society told me I would have killed myself a long time ago. Society has a vested interest in you working to maintain its biases, inherent power structures, and lies. Every time some one talks about peace, coming together, free thought, they get killed! Killed !!!

I believe that there is a direct relationship between how much you benefit from society and how much you believe the nonsense it wants you to ingest. It’s been clear to me that society doesn’t value my life so I don’t drink the Kool Aid offered. Society by it’s very nature cannot promote individuality. It has to treat people as pieces of meat that act a specific set of ways under a handful of conditions. Furthermore, unless you are a Caucasian of a certain class society has never cared for you.

We can agree that our society is a going through changes. I feel as many others do that we are put at odd with who and what we are. Or in other words, we are facing a conflict between social demands and biological motivations. A psychologists advises that: “until something changes, the best we can all do is adapt and find our own, unique way.”

I am going to offer you my thoughts: THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.

I will be saying more on this later.

The Reality

I try to be as realistic as possible. I have no allegiance to Men’s or Women’s Right’s movements. My allegiance is to self-respect, common sense and humanism. What I do know well is myself. I spent a lot of time getting to know my self (that’s actually not a masturbation joke). I push myself, learn new things, engage people etc. I’ve come to a point where I can identify my voice from the multitudes of voices telling me: what I should aspire to, what I should look for, how I should behave, etc. I have settled on three rules for myself:

1. My happiness is paramount I like everyone else is search for meaning and something real help us move forward to the vision of how we want to live.
2. I never do something because I am supposed to, rather I do things because I want to do it.
3. Be sincere. What I feel internally should match what I say externally. I should never repress or silence what I feel

Looking at Sex & Gender Roles

I have been informed that that there are many “strategies” guys use to deal with the frustrating dating scene. Some dudes opt out of the dating game completely. This is actually a movement called Men Going Their Own Way Movement. Other dudes get into the whole pick up artist scene, etc. To be honest with you, I was dumbfounded reading about all this stuff. To me these “strategies” are only momentary patches on a larger problem in my opinion. The problem is two fold:

1. Coming to terms with the advances and collateral damage of feminism.
2. Suppression and demonization of the expression of masculinity.

Until we deal with both issues, we will not make any real progress I feel. I am going to leave this here and go one from this place.

MrMary