I still fancy RB

[WesterChick]

I've watched the documentary.

I still fancy RB.

I identify as a radical feminist.

I'm married with kids.

I think that if you are a heterosexual woman, you are either in denial on what men are or you accept what they are but find them irresistibly sexually attractive and so continue to be with them.

RB is simply what the vast majority of men would be like if they could get away with it.

Therefore - and because he's bloody good looking, funny and intelligent - and sexy - I will continue to fancy the pants off him.

I think women who are being all shocked and descusted at his behaviour need to consider what men are actually like. There's not some massive demarcation between him and other men.

Do you find it hard to empathise with others?
Some people can't empathise at all until the same thing happens to them by that person.

I think you can find someone physically attractive, while knowing that they are bad for you and you absolutely would not pursue any actual physical contact with them, right?

I had an ex boyfriend who was fairly physically similar to RB, but very very bad for me. (Different reasons). I still fancied the pants off him when I broke up with him. It's not really something that you can turn on and off (IME).

@Tandora You don't appear to have read your own link. If you had, you would have come across this in the first 100 words "However, Dworkin has denied this interpretation, stating, "What I think is that sex must not put women in a subordinate position. It must be reciprocal and not an act of aggression from a man looking only to satisfy himself. That's my point."

You're not a radical feminist so you can remove that from your identity stack to start

As @CurlewKate said, that's a misattributed idea, and I'm referring more to OP's comments in the first post about fancying RB and "I think that if you are a heterosexual woman, you are either in denial on what men are or you accept what they are but find them irresistibly sexually attractive and so continue to be with them. " Never heard such nonsense. None of the radical feminists I read (I spent a long time on Ovarit and previously on other sites) would talk about women as if we're either in denial or slaves to sexual desires.

I didn't compare you to a Nazi

I'll try one last time

You claiming to be a feminist [and therefore being anti-misogyny] but still fancying a poster boy for misogyny

is like

Someone/anyone [not you] claiming to be anti-nazi but still fancying the main poster boy for nazism

OP I agree many, many men behave or at least think like RB but I think it's actually incredibly depressing that you feel being heterosexual means you fancy them in spite of this. Your sexuality doesn't override your autonomy or self-control, or it shouldn't. I agree this is something worth exploring in therapy, it seems like a deeply ingrained trauma defence mechanism or something, because it's quite horrifying.

I'm bisexual, as is my (male) partner, so maybe that makes a difference, I don't know, but while I could recognise that a rapist or groomer might be physically attractive, I couldn't fancy them or willingly sleep with them. I think men as a class are gross, and my partner agrees. But the patriarchy and society has made and encouraged that, I don't think it's all innate "manly urges". We discuss feminism, inequality and gender politics a lot, and he's done enough critical thinking around it that I'm confident he doesn't think like RB. I'm not naive enough to think he's some kind of unicorn untouched by male privilege but he recognises it, he thinks about it, he calls it out.

I think with RB and other famous men, rock stars etc there's another level on enabling by the people around them (who are either complicit because they condone the behaviour or trivialise it, or silent because they're scared for their jobs), and famous people can seem more attractive than the average Dave on the street, in the same way that a smackhead in the park is gross, but Pete Doherty in his heyday was attractive. But no, even then, I couldn't fancy someone who's violated women. The patriarchy is a turn-off.

and famous people can seem more attractive than the average Dave on the street, in the same way that a smackhead in the park is gross, but Pete Doherty in his heyday was attractive

This.

By reducing it to 'I hate blokes' indicates that you don't get it. Its nothing to do with relationships with individual men, and isnt emotionally motivated. It's an opinion - that the behaviour of some (disgusting) men serves a wider purpose in perpetuating the privelege of all men, hence therecis no benefit to men in working to etadicate it. If you disagree with that, fair enough, you could simply say why. Throwing 'misandry' and 'hysteria' about to discredit opinions rather than putting forward a counter argument does nothing to progress anything either.

I'm happy to be corrected but I thought "all PIV sex is rape" was Dworkin's position too. I'd consider her to be quite an influential radical feminist.

As PP have said I think your ideals stem from some sort of abuse which is really awful for you and implore you to look into getting therapy because your mindset makes you extremely vulnerable and could put you in serious danger in the wrong situation. In all my life I’ve met some horrible RB type people but the majority of both men and women have a moral compass and wouldn’t do it just because they can get away with it. Think about it this way OP would you kill an innocent person if you knew you could get away with it? It’s something all human beings are capable of but for 99% of us wouldn’t imagine wanting to seriously. It’s not about getting away with it, it’s about having basic morals. People who don’t possess these have serious mental issues.

I don't see much call to political lesbianism anywhere in modern feminism but there probably should be.

Gawd are radfems still insisting on pretending that sexuality is a choice?

That "real" feminists have some kind of policeman inside their heads, making sure they're not into men, s&m, or any other consensual desires that are too complex for such a simplistic, conservative ideology to accept? (While often actually having a male partner of their own, who they disparagingly refer to as their "Nigel" - because they're not actually gay, just hypocritical. I'm not making this up!)

How is pretending to be a lesbian liberating for heterosexual women?

Also - since sexual assault is virtually unpunished in our societies - how come you don't believe ALL men rape or try to, seeing as they would most likely get away with it?

Could it be that even those who might check out a 16 year old girl in the street are aware that it's just a base desire, and not worth pursuing because of how damaging it would be for the 16 year old? That maybe they don't want to fuck with someone's head just for a shag?

And how do you explain all the women who date/marry men who watches porn, goes to strip clubs, shame women they find unattractive or women who are single/childfree/celibate, men who have paid for sex/woman was out of their head drunk/high… list goes on!

All of these men (including some of your sons) have women who live them. Are they all misogynistic also?
Why else would they be with these men?

yes, it's internalised misogyny and conditioning by society that this is "just what men are like"

He reminds me of kids at school who thought intelligence meant using “big” words, so they would learn a few and sprinkle them on their essays. He’s like that. What a twat.

@FOJN "I'm happy to be corrected but I thought "all PIV sex is rape" was Dworkin's position too. I'd consider her to be quite an influential radical feminist."

She never actually said that. It's a misinterpretation that is perpetuated because it suits some people's agendas. What she actually said is that PIV-the act of penetration is inherently violent and "that sex must not put women in a subordinate position. It must be reciprocal and not an act of aggression from a man looking only to satisfy himself. That's my point."

I doubt they're radfems. That's a particular strain of feminism that is strictly anti-porn (to the point that many radfems worked with anti-abortion Christians to ban porn in the 1980s, and these days work with real dodgy right wingers who also oppose trans rights, their current bugbear) and preaches that men as a homogeneous class are the root of women's oppression, ignoring them nuances of class, race etc (which might be why radfeminism attracts mostly white, middle class women who can't really comprehend other ways women's oppression manifests, or don't want to).

Btw - if you're a radfem reading this and feel the urge to try to discredit my opinion by calling me a man, a trans person, a troll, "male identified", a SA supporter, or whatever you've been calling me and others who disagree with you, for decades - don't bother. I'm none of those things and it just makes you sound a bit pathetic.

.

Is he even articulate off the cuff? He uses big words (that are often out of context) but watching the Dispatches doc, his line delivery is so leaden.

You can literally see his brain working as he tries to work out what to say.

Maybe he does better with rehearsed stuff.

Nice deflection.
I wasn’t going to call you anything btw.

I was going to ask, was the only problem here then that the op called herself a radfem, had she called herself a libfem, then everything would have been fine?
We all know libfems are famous for their never ending dick pandering, so this would be right up their alley.

You've still not answered the question of whether you'd fancy him if he committed violent rape against a stranger - by violent I mean using knives. Or threatening to kill them.

Or held these women for days against their will.

It's easy to play at this stuff.

He's not actually been convicted of anything. He did apparently have consensual sex with these women beforehand. Now this muddies the waters for me as regards his guilt because although consenting to sex once does not mean forever, it is difficult to prove he's guilty.

How the hell do I know what happened?

To be frank I don't know if he's guilty of anything or not.

Your posts get on my wick, OP.

It's as if you're playing at the I fancy a rapist to sound clever.

Look how hard core I am.
Fucking annoying.

I fancy bad boys seems to be what you're saying. I mean so what? No woman fancies completely nice guys.
We all like guys to have a bit of an edge to them.
Mine is pretty mild, a bit of cheek and arrogance, you regard your's as extreme.
Is it really? You gonna start writing to serial rapist killers.
Don't think so.

I'm going to go with the "not all men" line here, because you have said that all men would behave like this if they could and that is simply not true. Lots of men have no interest in exploiting vulnerable women or forcing themselves on someone. A lot of men actually want an equal partnership with someone who feels the same way as them. I think you must have met some truly awful men to make you think this way.

Deflection? I wasn't talking to you in particular when I wrote that, but I guess it applies then.

I don't share your misogynistic view of liberal feminists. I have other beef with them, nothing to do with them enjoying sex with men.

I don't think any rational, self-respecting woman would think that finding a rapist attractive was a positive thing.

I do find it interesting that a radfem can think so little of men as a group that she has completely given up on having any standards at all.

Seems a bit self-defeating as an ideology.

Yes, you did. It was quite strong.

I didn’t say or ask anything about women having sex with men, did you turn it that way on purpose?
I asked about women who stay/support men who are misogynystic (porn,pay for sexual favours, shame women who don’t follow patriarchal rules : ie. date men, have children, look/dress for male gaze, or indeed have sex with men - but again my question isin’t about having sex with men alone).
Are all these women also ’bad’, comparable to nazis etc?

And now I have misogynystic views?
Seems like everyone to you now has.

@WesterChick

Do you mean you still look at him and think that objectively he is physically attractive to you or do you mean that in addition to still finding him physically attractive you would still want to actually shag him even though you now believe it's likely he has sexually assaulted and raped women?