After this post, as far as I’m concerned, Christmas has arrived. But this is a demolition job that’s been building up inside me for, ooh, I’d say only, you know – the last thirty years. Ever since, in fact, I started having doubts about feminism.
When I was much younger – the late Sixties and early Seventies – there was a thing called FemLib, later changed – as it became a mass movement – to Women’s Lib. There was a real need for it, and the reason was simple: many blokes (especially in the US) still had the woman-as-chattel-I-can-hit-when-I’m-pissed Edwardian outlook to the opposite gender. Huge tracts of law were incredibly mysogynist, office environments were at best patronising towards women, and the biologically more passive and gentle side of women had been bullied into believing that their only raison d’etre was home, kids and cooking.
I’m generalising here, but you know what I mean. As a man who had decided while at University that I had no intention of working my nuts off so a woman could sit at home and turn my sperm into the only things she cared about (after which, things in the bedroom got infrequent and unsatisfying) I was a big supporter of Women’s Lib. I thought the idea of bras being weapons of male imprisonment was a bit fanciful, but on the whole I rapidly realised that going out with the more ‘liberated’ end of the female spectrum was more likely to produce an intelligent, radical and – dare I say it – raunchy relationship. And perhaps, a marriage wherein the woman wanted a career in an office rather than one day a week in the hairdressers.
But then the campaign for female equality became feminism, and the movement was rapidly hijacked by large numbers of women who, to be clear about it, didn’t like men. Their main desire, it quickly became apparent, was to have me apologise for my wiring in general and, specifically, my dick. Much worse, the natural equality and respect that early women’s libbers craved turned (as always with anything at the liberal end of politics) into a completely unnatural set of contradictory demands – and insane assertions that didn’t bear so much as a scintilla of interrogation. Just as with many Guardianistas (for whom disagreement is prima facie evidence of fascism) so – as the Eighties began to unravel – any attempt to suggest that ‘progressive’ feminist politics didn’t check out that well was met with “Mysogynist! How can even think such a thing?”
The hypocrisy and delusional inaccuracy that makes up most of its output today is at times difficult to believe. The British and American legal changes in the light of these fantasies has become, for most men, a nightmare: paying a compliment, asking for a date and even kissing a hand have become sexual abuse; but Ladettes who were fond, as the old century ended, of tweeking your bum or even grabbing one’s balls were merely asserting their rights. They too have been reborn in the truly awful slut-march cobblers of recent years. And more recently, all of this bore fruit in the shape of infamous legal stitch-ups of stupid but largely harmless old celeb gropers – most of whom now find themselves either in prison or on the sex-offenders’ register for being ‘paedophiles’…rather than the faintly irritating pests they were. “He groped me…it ruined my life”. No dear, what you need for that to happen is to get one in the first place.
And yet, at the end of this lamentable history, it never seems to occur to any of the higher-profile feminists that their extremism has had zero, zilch, diddly-squat positive effect on what goes on among 95% of men and women 95% of the time. The early women’s movement without doubt changed male attitudes to women: you only have to watch a Sixties movie (or even, read the Rolling Stones’ lyrics of the time) to see how male beck-and-callism has virtually disappeared. But today, the media imprisonment of women in angular weight-obsessed bodies is worse than ever…and advertising like Renault’s shaking that ass is depressing in the extreme. Does it offend me? No of course it doesn’t – it’s just a crap ad lacking in any understanding of femininity.
Whatever happened to femininity? The answer is, it was hacked to death by a search for equality stolen by nutcase misandrismo. And in allowing this to happen, both men and women have reduced what was once a noble pursuit to being just one more tawdry example of our culture’s inability to accept responsibility: “Please Miss, it’s not my fault, men did it”.
What tipped me over the edge and into this rant today was an article in the chattering progressives’ latest hip-hop dinner party topic: a magazine called Salon. I’ve suspected for some time now that the clue to this publication’s real identity is in the name: let’s face it, poor folks don’t go to any salon beyond the hairdressers. Salons are places where the Great and Gormless chic radicals of the West’s capital cities gather in order to patronise the latest luminary in the long-running soap Truthbenders. Shopfloor workers, the unemployed and real trade unionists don’t go to salons, they go to saloon bars. They don’t do brasseries.
Sadly, the Labour Party has become the La Brasserie tendence. And it’s why Miliband, Harman and Cooper don’t connect with the People – whereas Frank Field and Kate Hoey do. It’s a feet and ground arrangement thing.
Anyway, the feminist movement’s feet of clay have not made contact with any planetary surface whatsoever for the best part of thirty years now….and Salon reflects this unreality with near-clinical accuracy. On going into the site, one is immediately struck by an obsessive concern with matters of homoaeopathic relevance to anything. At the Home Page now is this corker: ‘“So you lost your dick?”: Inside an Ivy league transphobia nightmare. Meredith Talusan thought her fancy liberal college would be a safe space for a trans student. Here’s the ugly truth.’
Transgender changelings are under one twentieth of one per cent of Western Homo sapiens. People who might be phobic about them must be what – 20% of that? But hey – it’s the lead item in today’s issue. North Korea, eat your heart out.
But the lulu in the current issue is this one: 5 things women wish men knew about sex.
The piece is written by – wait for it –
Errrrrrhhhuuuuoooogghhhwwwweeeeeeagglebwouurrrrg. My God, that’s better.
I urge both genders to read the piece. Its worst moments are in turn anger-inducing and hilarious….my favourites being these:
‘Our sexist culture unleashes many forms of toxic socialization on its inhabitants, but few lessons seem to take as well as teaching girls from the cradle to coddle the male ego, not just with flattery but with a deep unwillingness to speak truths that could cause men to feel uncomfortable or imperfect.’
‘If you [men] consider it a point of pride that you can thrust away for an hour without coming, there’s a high chance your partner is lying under you wondering how on earth she can say she’d have liked to wrap it up 40 minutes ago, but is afraid to say anything because she doesn’t want to stomp all over your accomplishments.’
‘She might feel that bringing a vibrator in [sic] bed will make you feel like less than a man, or she might worry that having you eat her out at length is boring for you. So she won’t ask. If you suspect this might be the case, it’s well worth bringing up. But don’t do it during sex, when fear of judgment is that much higher.’
‘When I put the call out for suggestions for this article, probably the No. 1 category was comments like, “That’s a clitoris, not an elevator button.” Nipple-twisting was also denounced, and one woman noted that not every woman is a fan of finger-banging, which can feel rough and sort of pointless. Men who dive at your genitals with their mouths were appreciated for their enthusiasm, but not so much for their technique.’
I wonder: did her enquiries invite responses from blokes? Did Ms Marcotte not marvel at the pathetic inability of women to ask for what they need? Did she think at all that – if there’s no honesty within and without intimacy – the relationship is meaningless in the first place? But above all….what kind of fucking drongos has she been going out with over all these years?
Right then, that’s my lot for serious bollocks deconstruction in 2014. In a few hours time, the New York markets will close, and next week the volumes will be low. Congratulations all ye Masters of the Universe, you have managed to put off Gotterdammerung in 2014. Meanwhile, here at The Slog all will be irreverent Christmas fun…and, as ever, a pc “Happy Holidays”-free zone.
Remember: those who take offence vastly outnumber those who really want to give it. But ’tis the season of goodwill, and thus I will be giving generously at any and every opportunity.
The Slog 