You might be interested in this—it’s by a male feminist who’s working on how to have feminism which is genuinely friendly to heterosexual men.
Another young guy, one of my best students, told me that he felt as if he’d been set up for failure, as if Jensen and I were positing abstinence from pornography as the sine qua non of being a decent male. “If I masturbate to porn can I still be a good man” was the question I got from more than one anguished participant in the class. And if several of the students were willing to divulge such private pain to me, I can only assume that still others felt the same way but kept silent.
I suspect the problem goes deeper than the specifics of feminism, though those are worth addressing. A lot of people interpret moral advice in self-damaging ways, and I’m not sure what’s going on there. It seems like a taught vulnerability.
You might be interested in [Hugo Schwyzer’s blog]-- it’s by a male feminist who’s working on how to have feminism which is genuinely friendly to heterosexual men.
For what it’s worth, I never got around to reading much of Schwyser’s blog. These days, I read No Seriously, What About Teh Menz?, and they’re none too fond of Schwyzer either. I hate that there was a felt need to give it a jokey title more than I can say.
I suspect the problem goes deeper than the specifics of feminism, though those are worth addressing. A lot of people interpret moral advice in self-damaging ways, and I’m not sure what’s going on there. It seems like a taught vulnerability.
You are saying, I take it, that the guy in question was mistaken in believing the advice prohibited the use of pornography? It isn’t quite clear to me whether you were saying that he correctly understood the pornography related implications but ought not have considered it self-damaging. I have of course seen both, as well as those (not you) who suggest that following the ideals is actually beneficial to the individual as well, almost by definition.
You might be interested in this—it’s by a male feminist who’s working on how to have feminism which is genuinely friendly to heterosexual men.
I suspect the problem goes deeper than the specifics of feminism, though those are worth addressing. A lot of people interpret moral advice in self-damaging ways, and I’m not sure what’s going on there. It seems like a taught vulnerability.
If by “make feminism genuinely friendly to men” you mean “defend paternity fraud” and compare the “men’s right movement to the KKK”...
For what it’s worth, I never got around to reading much of Schwyser’s blog. These days, I read No Seriously, What About Teh Menz?, and they’re none too fond of Schwyzer either. I hate that there was a felt need to give it a jokey title more than I can say.
I like NSWATM too. I’m glad it’s becoming more popular.
Read the update here. Truth is stranger than fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Schwyzer
Thanks, Nancy. I do find Hugo’s blog interesting, and I post there sometimes.
You are saying, I take it, that the guy in question was mistaken in believing the advice prohibited the use of pornography? It isn’t quite clear to me whether you were saying that he correctly understood the pornography related implications but ought not have considered it self-damaging. I have of course seen both, as well as those (not you) who suggest that following the ideals is actually beneficial to the individual as well, almost by definition.
Yes, your first suggestion.