Manosphere put me off men and sex (although I have healthy sex drive and desire a relationship)

[Lbbbbb]

I'm not asking for advice here, I just wondered if I'm the only one who feels this way, I suspect I'm not.

Men show interest in me romantically/sexually and although I don't have any ill feelings towards men (just some men's behaviour towards us) and don't wish to see them suffer, I'm terrified to ever date or have sex with a man again and feel many of them enjoy seeing women suffer. I have a healthy sex drive and the idea of a relationship is nice theoretically, but after discovering ex-husband was into manosphere and as a result became emotionally abusive, I've research all this stuff and combined with my past experiences with men, I am terrified to ever date or even have sex again.

The thought of co-habiting with a man, being financially tied (combined finances) to one and having a baby with a man, is absolutely out of the question for me now, the thought of it fills me with terror. I feel like I have some kind of ptsd or stress disorder from everything. I feel like it's all a trap and scares me, the ones that scare me most of all are the wolf in sheeps clothing, like my ex husband. I really don't trust my judgement anymore, I was supportive of him and his career, split finances 50/50, it was a very egalitarian relationship, I was affectionate, kind, so it's been hard to get my head around the way he treated me.

I've been following posts on MN a while now and after reading this today:
medium.com/@ossiana.tepfenhart/75-percent-of-tinder-users-are-now-men-why-are-guys-shocked-95c3cd11c97f
and also how some women are breaking up with boyfriends over Andrew Tate, just wanted to share my experience and if any other women out there feel the same and sick of the abuse, your not alone.

Do you think men realise it's abuse? Surely they must, I read one married redpill post once, where the man announced his wife as being diagnosed with cancer, so he's going to stop implementing redpill on her and other men replying saying, yeah understandable and in agreement, like wtf? I have to get cancer to no longer deserve being abused. I was having panic attacks and waking up with night sweats/terrors, nearly lost my marbles, from the games, gaslighting and abuse with my ex. It's all just so fucked up, I'm lucky I got myself settled and a nice little peaceful life for myself and just enjoy work, hobbies and seeing friends now, I talk to men at work and don't hold any grudge against them individually, but sometimes my hands tremble around men. I feel so sad for not only women, but despite everything, I still feel sad for men too, that it has come to this.

@EmmaEmerald From men because I know that there are some dangerous men out there, there are some dangerous women but on average men have a massive physical advantage over your average women.

just checking that you realise men are the threat.

I know what you mean OP. I discovered this through a colleague/academic work and that married red pill group became my pandemic reading for a while. In a way it is interesting because the men in it are so utterly unhinged and disconnected from reality. Many of them would blatantly lie week after week in their little write-ups, just obvious works of fiction. As a whole they have little understanding of other people, no understanding of women whatsoever, and are clearly badly under-socialized in general. There’s almost a shared delusion going on, with them agreeing on the most insane ideas. For example, all women constantly “shit test” men. What is a shit test? Things like asking “Did you have a chance to empty the dishwasher?” I kid you not, they really believe that something this mundane is a sinister evil female test and not basic human communication. It is bizarre and fascinating.

That said, it absolutely started to negatively impact my mindset so I stopped reading any of it. The men in that group were so… almost animalistic in their behavior, completely devoid and incapable of the morality, higher thinking, and empathy that makes us human. Much of what they describe is disgusting at best and reprehensible at worst. Thankfully I recognized it and just quit, though I do still discuss it with a colleague occasionally. The upside is that, having done a fair amount of research on it, I can spot it readily.

I can’t imagine how awful it was to find yourself married to one of these lunatics, OP. It definitely sounds like you have some trauma from his abuse, between what you described while with him and your hands shaking sometimes around men. I think you should give yourself as much time as you need and not feel pressured into jumping back in. 💐

Solvent and single. CBA anymore. Men are no longer worth the effort. Full of perceived superiority complex's masking total inadequacy. We don't need 'em for sex and certainly not for solvency.

The problem is OP, it's a bit like spending time on twitter - the more time you spend on it, the more you start to think everyone is an arsehole. You seem to keep going on about manosphere but I have no idea what it is, and am purposefully not going to bother because these things all target the same people - angry or unsuccessful (often both of these things) misogynists - or teenage boys who are just easily led and full of angst.

I've never heard of manosphere and I doubt anyone in my friendship circle has, and we're all unanimous that Andrew Tate is a twat who should disappear. This has been a common view across men and women I know.

You seem to know more than I'd ever wish about it and are in somewhat of a bubble where you see it everywhere but it's still very much a minority view across men.

@anthurium I have one that's just started uni, not sure I could even get pregnant now, I'm late 30s, although I have no signs of menopause yet and periods still regular. To be honest I feel like it would be going back to square one in many ways, If I did want another, I would certainly do it alone as you say. First husband (daughters father) was controlling and tried to make it difficult for me to leave him, made lots of threat's that he'd get custody of our daughter if he left, bear in mind he was a police officer and him and his work friends called me in middle of night after I left, harassing me, my husband begged me not to report him, I never did take any of it any further.

I walked out with my daughter when she was around 4, we owned an house to together, I didn't want to go through the fight in the courts, I just wanted to divorce quickly and get on with my life, signed house over to him and took nothing, I'm actually proud of that,someone once said it was probably more of kick in the balls that I did that and walked away. That's another irony, all these men that claim women are gold diggers, my experience has been the opposite, that men exploit women in so many ways, including financially. I private rented alone, then with second husband.

After leaving second husband, luckily I saved over years after leaving first husband, we had separate finances and kept our own savings when we split, I managed to just get a mortgage on a very low full time wage. And that's another thing I wouldn't have another because of the cost of it, I work full time, but couldn't afford kids. I manage to live a nice life, by not driving and cycling to work and having very low fixed mortgage payments, I can still do nice things and go on holiday occasionally, I feel like a baby would cause financial struggle. The biological urge is there, but I feel like in the current system women are set up to fail, so can see why more and more are opting out of becoming parents and marriage.

@EllieM27 I left my husband not long before pandemic and it was also during that time I was reading about it more, I don't really now, although occasionally I type incel into search engine and click on news, to see latest articles, I'm just curious how people are becoming more aware of it and teachers talking about manosphere language in classrooms, there has been talk of discussing it in schools.

In a way I feel it's a blessing I discovered it, made me revaluate my boundaries and standards and how to recognise abusive and misogynistic behaviour sooner, things like silent treatment, I previously never released could be a deliberate form of abuse and manipulation, or a way to 'train' someone to behave a certain way and be obedient. And I'm now aware of strategic incompetence and how you mention, some men perceive basic things like equally divided chores, things like loading dishwasher, as a 'shit test' and think we're oppressing them, simply be expecting the same things a room mate would in shared accommodation. It's just sheer entitlement.

The men who follow the manosphere may be a minority, but I recognise the same and or some overlapping attitudes and behaviour in many men who probably don't subscribe to it. I think I did consumed by it, but then I think of America and how women have had their rights taken away, with abortion and that's scary, I can see the link between that and those attitudes/beliefs.

No they are not objects ☺ definitely the prize.

OP "not sure I could even get pregnant now, I'm late 30s"

jeez! Of course you can still get pregnant, please don't make an error there.

sorry for the aside but baffled - most mums I know didn't have babies till late 30s!

@Ciaran1998 I think when you think of it in that way, in actual fact we could say everyone's 'damaged' as you put it, men and women, in some way or another and the men I've encountered that refer to women who are damaged because they have in their eyes been 'used' as you say, have usually turned out to be the most 'damaged' as you put it, emotionally immature and insecure that I've met.

The argument the 'manosphere' exists is because of radical feminism is ridiculous. Radical feminism is far less harmful than the manosphere. I don't think anyone is encouraging anyone to be promiscuous or do porn, from what I gather they are encouraging sexual liberation and freedom which is something men have always had. Even if a small group of radical feminists are promoting women to remain single, independent, career focused, not to have families, the only way they are harming men is depriving them of a few options for partners, it is not an attack on the other gender it is deciding on a way to live their lives without men. The manosphere promotes shaming women who are not 'pure', rating women on their value (usually based on their physical appearance and how many partners they have had), it promotes having control and dominance over your partner, it promotes harmful 'vetting' of potential partners, they view women by two extremes either vacuous sluts who are only interested in material things in life or subservient housewives who are not allowed any life outside of being their wife and raising their children. The manosphere whole basis is to be harmful to women and see them as lesser beings.

There is no issue in schools from young girls 'man hating' but there definitely is big issues with boys going round women hating.

Also, people saying tate says some bad things but speaks some truth. Are they referring to the completely generic comments he makes about men's mental health? Nothing groundbreaking there, just very common sense. The fact that peoples support of him is on the basis "he is not as bad as he seems" says it all.

His followers are completely deprived of any independent thinking skills, I recently watched a clip of him where he was talking to a couple of women who said they were not sure if they wanted children. He went on a rant about how life will be shallow, and their life will just be holidays, parties, and booze, it will have no real meaning, and when they are old, they will be full of regret and lonely. There were so many things wrong in the argument which the silly boys in the comments just couldn't see.

1. Why was the only alternative to not having children for women be to live a completely shallow life of parties and designer clothes?
2. That is the exact life he leads, and the life he is encouraging men to live, but somehow it is only wrong if that is what women want?

I would like to add though, I do think the manosphere represents a small group of men, but they are a very loud and damaging group of men so the impact is felt much more, and their influence is spreading. Most men I know are disgusted by it.

Most men, just like women want a simple life, they are not trying to 'test' women, they are not sat around thinking about how they will control, manipulate their partner, they just want a nice life and are not looking for the underlying meanings of everything. I have a good partner, a good dad, my friend's partners do not seem to show any of these behaviours. My OH's friends mostly seem to have respectful loving relationships. The messages of the manosphere are not on their radar, and this is evident by how secure they are in themselves and their relationships.

I do worry about the next generation of men though with how the manosphere seems to be spreading.

My son is 17. He shares my Apple ID so his messages come through onto my phone. He doesn’t know this - or if he does he doesn’t care and forgets. I never usually look but something caught my eye in the notifications a while back. One of his colleagues sent some god damn awful “jokes” about women. My son responded calling him a dick, to grow up and that’s not how any decent person speaks about another human. Fuck me I was proud :-D
Even more proud because his dad is the most decent man who has taught our son how to be respectful.
And what made me even happier was when some other colleagues of theirs also chirped into the conversation, agreeing with my son. Lots of “damn that’s pathetic” or “wow you’re a loser” or “have some respect mate”…I have high hopes for their generation to do better than mine. The 1990’s were utterly toxic and shaped my own generation, not in a good way.

My own father and my father in law and pretty much every other man I know is pretty toxic in one way or another. That made me more aware of what to look out for and what to avoid.

Love this - agree.

This thread reminds me of friend of mine.

He's essentially a good man but has picked up some very dubious messages about women throughout his life. He's open to being challenged on them and has changed a few of them but I find it fascinating tbh.

He is single (and has ben for some time). He's on dating sites and having little to no luck. When we've talked about it, he says that when he and his friends were growing up (he's late 50s) the messages they received about women were the sort of manosphere stuff you hear about. These were 'truths'/ideas/beliefs he picked up from his parents, school, TV, films, advertising and society in general.

He's genuinely bemused by some of the things I (and his one other female friend) say.

He's not at the more severe end of some of this stuff. I don't think he would go along with shit test type stuff! But just views about women as 'being X'. In his case, he describes us as almost ethereal beings; describes dating as 'trying to capture a mermaid"; talks about 'strategies' for attracting women.

He really doesn't 'get' that women are just people who wanted to be treated as people and that we're not not expecting someone who will rush around doing things for us, soliving our problems and protecting us from the world. Whereas he sees those things as 'just what men are and do'. It's bonkers.

My boyfriend (same age as him) and I went out with him last weekend. My boyfriend is totally different. He has lots of female friends because he treats women like people amd has had long term successful relationships. He doesn't flirt with every woman (including his friends) because they're his friends. He doesn't see women as anything other than normal living, eating, sleeping, working, farting creatures - just as men are. During the night out, my boyfriend mentioned in passing that he'd bought me a particular scented candle (because it smells like an open fire). Friend's response was, 'Really? Does that actually work? I've heard that women like candles. Maybe i should try that" My boyfriend brought it up when we got home and said it had been a really odd response. Work? In what sense work?

It's because my friend is always looking for a way to 'catch' women and he thinks if he just hits upon the magic bait or right combination of words, then he will have the perfect relationship.

He just doesn't get it.

I think a lot of older men who find themselves drawn into the manosphere start off here and get drawn in.

He's certainly sent me dating advice videos by men and I've had to tell him that, no, that's a really bad idea. If men want to understnad women, they need to talk and listen to women. Not each other whilst wallowing in a sea of self pitying inadequacy!

As for younger men, I don't know. My son (24) and his friends don't buy into it and I know he's rejected friendships with men who are. I asked after a friend of his he hasn't mentioned for a while last week. He said outright that he didn't like who this friend had turned into and had got involved with some "manosphere shit" and had nothing in common with him or what he wanted to do anymore.

But then my son isn't also heavily into social media and (possibly through having female friends and a younger sister) is concerned about the extreme gender stereotypes that women seem to be expected to follow nowadays with overly porn influenced appearances etc.

Actually, i think friendships wirh women is the key here, OP. I think if men have genuine friendships with women (and I mean friendships in the way they have friendships with men) and not just liking the idea of having loads of women around them they just call friends, I think you're dar less likely to encounter these men.

I think men's friendships with women Is something women should pay far more attention to when dating.

There is no issue in schools from young girls 'man hating' but there definitely is big issues with boys going round women hating.

This is very true.

I often have to tackle misogyny in both boys and girls but I have yet, in 17 years of teaching, had to address a single incident of 'androgyny'.

The only time girls expres negative attitudes towards boys is when it's deserved (eg the boys are intimidating them, the boys are trying to take over their game and spoiling it, the boys have snatched resources from them, the boys won't let them play in one part of the playground, the boys have called them ugly etc)

I'm in primary. It starts very young. I gave a boy a real telling off once because he was irked that a girl had told on him for kissing her when she'd told him not to because he "wanted to". He came back to me 5 mins later of his own volition and apologised to me (independently of apologising to her) because he'd thought about it and realised it wasn't right. He was 7.

@GreyCarpet I think the word you were looking for is "misandry" and not "androgyny".

It is so surprising that more women don't hate men.
Often standing up to misogyny is labelled misandry though.

It was! 🤣 I knew it was the wrong word and just couldn't think of it 🙄 I knew you'd all know what I meant though 😬

@Aussiegirl123456 I also grew up with misogynistic family members and that kind of mentality, you've obviously done a great job of raising your son. My daughter has a lovely boyfriend and is very successful at having friendships with other males, it's interesting she actually has more male friends than female, but she would also call out anything like that, but the boys she's friends with are also nothing like that as far she's aware. It's reassuring, that although the manosphere attracts younger men, on the flip side some are the opposite and not like previous generations. I've tried to have male friends in the past, but it's always transpired they weren't interested in friendship at all, I wonder if that's more of a generational thing.

@GreyCarpet I must say this has been my experience, in nursery and primary school, the boys ran to take all the trikes and outdoor toys and some used physical force and aggression to get them, keep them or take them from girls. One of my earliest memories, is me and others girls fighting back against it, we plotted to rush out at playtime and take everything and block the boys from having anything, to teach them a lesson, we succeeded and put everything in a corner and formed a chain by linking arms. 😂

Then later in life, early teens, boys at school would grope girls, harass them,I got constantly bullied for being flat chested at the time, they would intimidate girls in groups, walk up to girls in groups to make a point of staring at her crotch to see if she had a camel toe. Many of them were vile bullies, calling girls sluts and humiliating them and then men wonder why women end up wanting nothing to do with them.

During the night out, my boyfriend mentioned in passing that he'd bought me a particular scented candle (because it smells like an open fire). Friend's response was, 'Really? Does that actually work? I've heard that women like candles. Maybe i should try that" My boyfriend brought it up when we got home and said it had been a really odd response. Work? In what sense work?

It's because my friend is always looking for a way to 'catch' women and he thinks if he just hits upon the magic bait or right combination of words, then he will have the perfect relationship

I'm not surprised. From my brief stint in having a look at pick up artist forums years ago, it was apparent that almost all of them were after a magic key that would unlock all women. That's because they thought women were like one homogenous mass, and therefore much more prone to believe in men selling them ideas of how they could 'get' women (if you bought their book).

The problem is that most women don't end up not wanting anything to do with them.

Many women grow up to be jealous of other women; to ccompete and compare themselves favourably or unfavourably with them (you only need to see the number of cheating husband threads where the woman criticises the appearance of the OW or their own appearance in relation to her, or the misogynistic language used towards the women); I know women who've been the OW who believed they were intrinsically 'better' than the wife and were validated by being seen as 'better' than the wife; women undergo surgery, have painful and ridiculous looking cosmetic procedures, force themselves into uncomfortable clothing/shoes, don't leave the house without make up all to be looked upon favourably by men. And the ones who say it has nothing to do with men? They do it because it makes them feel good about themselves? Well they just haven't asked themselves why it makes them feel better about themselves. And it's because they're successfuly conforming to the current misogynistic societal expectations of women. They are 'better' than they would have been if they hadn't.

Women who are proud to be 'not like the other girls' because they've e learnt to despise other women; the 'cool wives' who tolerate disrespect in the name of not wanting their husband to feel 'hen pecked' and ridicule other women for not doing the same.

The 15 year old girls who advertise themselves half naked all over Instagram looking like porn stars, pouting and looking sexually available (daughter's friends, I'm looking at you) and the parents who share these photos on their own SM for the approval of other parents ("Oh she's so beautiful, you must be so proud") (daughter's friend's parents I'm looking at you). Girls learning at a young age to do the 'pick me' dance to garner the attention of male total strangers.

An man i once knew said that women choose to objectify and enjoy objectifying themselves and wouldn't do it if they didn't. He just didn't get that many women feel that men have to notice them; want them to get anywhere or to be listened to. I want to say 'to be taken seriously' but a lot of men dont take women seriously regardless and a lot of women don't feel that they are being taken seriously by men. So what's the next best thing? To get them to want you because if they want to fuck you, you've got their attention. We hear about the experience of women over 40 becoming invisible because we're no longer secually desirable. The menopause is looming. Men associate that with us being moody and not up.for sex. What use are we then? So many women (mostly subconsciously) try and counter that. If they didn't, my FB ads for the past few weeks would not all have been for diets gimmicks, anti ageing treatments, slimming underwear, wall pilates (wtf! 🤣) etc

Women buy into the dream of the 'happily ever after' and any find out too late that it doesn't exist. I've seen it said many tines on here that if women rejected useless men wholesale, they'd have to up their game (or at least be removed from the gene pool) yet time and again, women stay with useless men in the hope of the happily ever after. Because some women (my mother for one) believe that there is nothing more shameful than being a single woman because it means one of our superiors hasn't selected us.

@GreyCarpet Also, this friend probably doesn't know how to make any genuine emotional connection to women. It's probably all a game, probably seeing how much he can get things from them - sex, emotional support when it's required, housework.

I have not encountered any men like your boyfriend @GreyCarpet. I did in college, and work colleagues who had a friendly, casual acquaintance-ships with female colleages, but anything closer than that, no. It's made me very sceptical of men with female friends, simply because some of them enjoy the ego boost and enjoy having women on reserve for themselves in case they ever get into a dry patch. They enjoy being privy to women's problems and being integrated in female social circles, again, mainly for an ego boost.

In my experience, if a man is friends with a woman vaguely his own age, she's attractive, and she has things in common with him, he's sexually interested in her, at least a little bit. Women are often blind to this. They would really rather not think of their male frienships in this way, and would rather not question the nature of their own partner's friendships with their female friends.

Male friendships have not worked out for me. I gave up on them when I genuinely thought I'd made a casual male friend from work. He was married, I'd met his wife. I later found out that he was in an open relationship (which he had decided upon and which his wife wasn't very happy about). I'd say it was pretty clear from one interaction I had with him that he had me in sights as a 'potential'. Awkward and I didn't peruse making a friendship with him any further.

Sorry meant to clarify - I rarely encountered any men like your boyfriend @GreyCarpet. I have a bit at college, and work colleagues who had a friendly, casual acquaintance-ships with female colleages, but anything closer than that or outside of those specific contexts, no.