Anybody want to chip in to buy his wife an iPod with that nifty little vibrator attachment we saw last week? Then she can be a slave to the music.

Good gravy! I find this really terrifying, actually. It seems like a set-up for sexual assault. You know...just have sex with your woman and she'll forgive you anything...whether she wants to or not.

Gross.

god, what a sexist asshole.

"Young women have a crystal-clear agenda: they want the career, the wardrobe, the smartly furnished house, the 4x4 and the cute kids they'll ferry in it to expensive schools."

"Real men don't pretend or even try to understand women."

seems like a contradiction to me. don't tell me what 'young women' want. a 4x4 for chauffeuring kids around definitely isn't on my list.

Oh k8, don't you see.. he's telling us quite clearly that he is not a real man. Personally, I appreciate his honesty.

<beer>Hello, Dhali? "you are," yeah sure buddy, thas what she told me too, sucka... maybe you think you're the only one in this place can bust loose of the old ball-n-chain?</beer>

Such garbage. Why do you suppose that the female and not the male orgasm is, ahem, a mechanism for asserting dominion (one of my fave activities, BTW)?

Do people really think like this? That women (all of them, or at least all the straight ones) actually want the same thing?

Hmmm... I thought it was supposed to be those silly women who tried to "prove" things based on anecdotes instead of cold hard numbers. Gosh, math is hard!

And I'm just curious, but what is the alternative to being a "real" man or woman"? Are their legions of fake men and women somewhere? Or are they imaginary? Fantastic?

Ewwww! I wonder if his wife will still gasp "You're the boss" when he gives her Hep C. Yuck. Any man who demands validation like that is indeed a desperate loser. I wonder why more business deals aren't sealed that way..you know, in the middle of orgasm. Isn't that the time when people will pretty much say anything? Like: "OK! Yeah! Five million bucks! I'll give you five million bucks!"

I'll chip in to buy this poor woman a Rabbit....

Ya know, if he is such a rugged Manly Man, why didn't his wife change her name when they got married?

Two things...

1. *barfs*

2. I agree that orgasms don't typically equate domination, but to this woman it obviously does. She gave in, she took him back. Why? For no apparent reason other than the fact that her husband fucked her well. Of course, the source of this information is incredibly biased. Things like this make the whole "Down With Love" plot make complete sense (except, we should add Rabbits and the like to the self-pleasuring technique of chocolate). I think it would just be gratifying for this guys wife to stay married to him long enough to refuse his advances and deflate his ego (and his cock) for awhile.

this article, and this asshole, can be summed up thusly:

"I'm always telling my wife, the writer Liz Jones, to shut up."

ugh, and sigh.

Real men don't pretend or even try to understand women. They simply love them for being the mysterious, capricious creatures that they are. And they don't take them too seriously, either. They know the vicissitudes of the female mind, its constant insecurities and the fluctuations in mood.

With that writing style, this guy should only write overly dramatic fanfic. Also, lay off the Microsoft Word Thesaurus. Vicissitudes? Capricious? He didn't think of those words himself.

I am completely grossed out, for a number of reasons. First of all, asshole, you should feel guilty and want forgiveness. You cheated on your wife.

Now, I'm going to try and articulate something that I have difficulty with, so I ask for forbearance and patience, but it's why I don't think this article is funny. The idea of using a woman's sexuality to control her--it's all over our culture. It's what opponents of reproductive rights and lesbianism are about, it's what rape is about in part--as part of what the rapist has done is deeply injure the woman's relationship to her own sexuality, and this guy really seems to believe that he has the right to control his wife through her sexuality, and further, that sex between them is an assertion of his superiority to her. It's not something they do together, it's something he does to her; he's active, and his orgasm that represents that power, whereas she's passive, and her orgasm represents lack of power.

And it's a mentality like that which makes sex very problematic for some women. For many women, it is not easy to enjoy sex because of the cultural bullshit distilled in this asshole's ideas about female sexuality--that it makes us dirty, that it puts us under someone else's control, etc. And for a long time, it did put us under someone else's control--i.e., marriage.

And that's why I have a real problem with "sex-positive feminists" like Tristan Taormino or that Rachel person we were discussing a little while back, who take a tone that implies that all sex is wonderful and liberating all the time, and women who don't experience sex that way are frigid prudes. Many women have real reasons for being wary of sex, even of their own sexual pleasure, not because they're prudes, but because they've grown up under these cultural conditions of sexual patriarchy, and have learned to see their own sexuality as injurious to themselves or as making them vulnerable, etc.

So that's why I can't find this article funny. I find it deeply upsetting. It turns my stomach--literally.

I guess the only upside is that the guy'll probably blow his head off the first time he can't get it up. After all, if he "fails," he's no longer a real man, right? Given that most men have troubles every so often after the age of 30 (as I understand it), that ought to do for him soon enough. I guess "real men" are all in their 20s.

I don't usually speak that cavalierly about suicide, so please take that as a measure of my anger.

They simply love them for being the mysterious, capricious creatures that they are. And they don't take them too seriously, either. They know the vicissitudes of the female mind, its constant insecurities and the fluctuations in mood.

I know women who are like this (I know men who are like this ... I am arguably like this: do I have a female mind?) -- but to the extent that I have loved such women, it is inspite of the mystery and capraciousness. If this guy is actually attracted to insecurity, that says somethin' not so pleasant about him, don't it?

There is a problem with too many women being too insecure: it isn't that being insecure or mysterious is part of being a woman. It's what can happen when you are a woman in a society with too many assholes like this guy. People, both women and men, should have healthy levels of self-esteem. That anyone celebrates low self-esteem and deems that 50% of the population have or that it would be a-ok and possible even preferred for them to have low self-esteem is, frankly, frightening to me.

I hope this guy doesn't even consider cheating again -- I don't want him anywhere near the women in my family or any woman for that matter.

I know men who are like this ... I am arguably like this: do I have a female mind?

To clarify "like this" = being insecure and capricious, having a viscitude filled mind, etc.

I don't mean "being like this jerk" (although maybe this jerk's problem is that he himself is capricious and insecure and is projecting his own problems onto women?) ...

Umm... is the Daily Mail a real publication? That's supposed to cover, you know, news???

I liked "Whenever my marriage is at a crisis point..." It seems like this happens fairly often for the writer.

I gave her a manful bravura performance that night, and at the height of her passion, I asked her: 'Who's the boss?'

Normally, I wouldn't advocate yelling "Tony Danza" during sex, but this would have been a perfect response. And then she could knee him in the balls and call a lawyer.

"I liked "Whenever my marriage is at a crisis point..." It seems like this happens fairly often for the writer."

I can't imagine why.

Holy crap, that's truly foul! The worst part seems to be that the cheating aspect is completely brushed over - like it had no consequence. I think he may well have made it up, actually.

EG, you are effing awesome. Wonderful post and a good point about why some women are wary about sex. I'd never thought of it that way before, but it makes perfect sense.

princess_smartypants, that was the best laugh I'd had all month. You should be on stage.

This article.... at first I thought it was a little amusing... I mean, his style of writing is so overdone and he is so amusingly arrogant... but then it kind of turned my stomach and then I got actively angry at this guy. Obviously his wife took him back for some reason. (She loves him? She thinks he'll change? She needs financial security? She doesn't want to divorce until the children are in college? Who knows.) But his "I didn't want her to have me over a barrel and make me feel guilty for the rest of my life" attitude makes me sick. So you got her to day something she didn't mean in order to keep you from stopping before she came. Big fucking deal. I'll bet you'd promise her the moon if it meant the difference between shooting your load or having blue balls that night.

What a prick. My one consolation is that I suspect he doesn't know his wife nearly as well as he thinks she does. And the erectile dysfunction that EG thankfully brought up.

Women love men who will look them in the eye and tell them to shut up....I'm always telling my wife to shut up.

Do you get the impression that one day soon we'll have a new Lorena Bobbitt?

You know, Nirpal, when I was in college I worked a warehouse job with a whiney, unpleasant guy named Martin who was always talking about his experiences with street hookers. He'd talk about how pathetic and malleable they were, apparently thinking that having whoever was unfortunate enough to be within earshot picture him being all sadistic and, uh, "toppy", with some hooker would make him look really good in comparison. It was like: "Yes, I may be some wretch working inventory at a Coke warehouse by day, but by night I'm bossing around people damaged enough to take orders from my sorry ass."

Yep, Martin. You remind me of him.

What a creep. Sometimes you have to be thankful to the Internet for reminding you of the number of freaks who roam the world. I honestly thought that Neanderthals were extinct by now.
Can't help but thinking that his wife is quite pathetic too. I can't think of any good reason why anyone would want to stay with (or, for that matter, marry in the first place) that kind of loser. Someone made a really good point above: If you're a "real man" (whatever that means) and you enjoy a healthy level of self-esteem, you don't need anybody's approval, esp. from an "inferior".

Oh yeah, and if you're that desperate for an orgasm, I guess your fingers are your best friends. But I think I'd chip in for her rabbit as well, out of female solidarity... :-D

There's other anti-feminists who argue that the empowerment of men has left men emasculated. There is this one anti-feminist woman on Myspace who supposedly gives dating advice for men that feminsts have left a generation of men ballless. heres the link:http://blog.myspace.com/datingtipsformen

Thanks, EG, for that awesome post. You say perfectly and concisely what I've been trying to figure out for myself. I've tried to be a sex-positive feminist, but just couldn't wrap my mind around why it's right, and you've hit the nail right on the head. Brava!

In addition to all the great points above, here is a link to his wife's column in the guardian - which elucidates his issues even more clearly: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,6000,1543533,00.html

Oh I think I DO understand how they ended up getting married after all. They deserve one another.

"Maybe desperation was seeping from my pores."
- I think it still is.

"To be honest, although I spent my entire life trying to escape singledom, burying my nose in Vogue to find out how to banish cellulite, or the latest news on sugaring, or where to buy an Azzedine Alaia body for just £375, it wasn't really that bad."

The bottom line is he finally found someone as shallow and narrow-minded as he is and she finally found... someone. These Bridget Jones wannabes are so pathetic...

i think one of the most appalling things, unless you are directly quoting from his article, is that you choose to use "pussy" in such a negative way. why do boob soap dispensers infuriate you but you are ok using the word "pussy" in a way that colludes with such a sexist connotation? it really bothers me to see awful articles like that one, but it is actually more disheartening for a self-proclaimed feminist website to use that term in that way. it is not much different to me that using the word "nigger." i know that is not hip or popular, but that is how i feel. i am so sick of other women (and men) getting on the bandwagon and saying that shite. how does it NOT make you a part of the "system" you are supposed to be railing against??

I have a question which may get me thrown out (but please don't throw me out; it's fun in here!)

I am in no way condoning this man; he honestly makes me want to hurl, and no woman's sexuality should EVER be used against her. But does the same go for women using a man's sexuality against him? How many women, when their boyfriends piss them off, withold sex as a punishment, until he gives in and admits that he is wrong? Again, I am REALLY not defending this guy; his wife had a reason to kick him out and withold sex. He CHEATED on her. But as a general principle, is it not just as bad for a woman to sexually manipulate her male partner as it is for this guy to do what he does to his wife?

My general point is that NO ONE'S sexuality should be used as a weapon against them, be they male or female. I do agree that, on a cultural level, women are target for sexual manipulation more often than men are.

Dhaliwal, regendered:

http://regender.com/swap/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=398998&in_page_id=1879

Normally, I wouldn't advocate yelling "Tony Danza" during sex, but this would have been a perfect response.

Coffee => monitor

:)

Wow. She really sounds interested and fascinated by the way he ignores her and doesn't "put her on a pedestal." Clearly, she's loving the way he treats her.

I really didn't need a mental image of him fucking his wife either.

Thanks, EJ and sylke!

"How many women, when their boyfriends piss them off, withold sex as a punishment, until he gives in and admits that he is wrong? "

Andrea, I don't know any women who do this, nor do I know any men who have had this done to them (or, my friends just aren't telling me all, which is of course possible). I have to say, the question smacks of a kind of 1950s misogyny that I dislike intensely, and I'll explain why. The very phrase "withholding sex" implies that somehow, sex with this particular woman is something the man has a right to, and she is keeping him from it. Well, he doesn't. Nobody has a right to have sex with anybody else. She is not agreeing to sex and then withholding orgasms until he agrees that she is, indeed, the boss of him. She's not preventing him from having orgasms at all--he can go jerk off anytime he likes. Sex with another person is not a right. It's not a need.(Personally, I think this asshole's wife should have told him to fuck off and then finished things off herself).

Second, the idea that when a man and a woman disagree about something, and the woman doesn't want to have sex with the man (a phrasing I prefer to "withholding"), it's in order to "manipulate" him implicitly assumes that sex is all about what the man wants, and not what the woman wants. Deciding whether or not one wants to have sex with the man is not all about what the man wants; it also is about what the woman desires. Quite frankly, I, and I think many women, don't want to have sex with someone we're arguing with, because sex is an expression of closeness and vulnerability that is not comfortable when you're fighting. Despite what Hollywood may want everyone to believe, for lots of women, fighting is not a turn-on. If I don't want to have sex with my boyfriend because we're arguing about racial profiling (as has happened in my sordid past), it's not because I'm "withholding" sex to "punish" him; it's because I don't want to have sex with someone from whom I feel estranged and distant at that moment.

csue,

i wasn't trying to the word pussy in a derogatory way--i was using it to describe his general attitude...kind of in his voice, if you will. i agree--using the word pussy against men is sexist; it supposes that feminization is a horrible negative thing.

I think EG made a very good point here, well-put and much needed...

What she would be missing...

That reminds me of something I once read regarding some teenage boys gang-raping a young lesbian because of her sexual orientation--apparently, they thought that taking turns fucking her would change her mind, and show her what she's missing out on. Dhaliwal, by promoting this same mindset (albeit less violently), just goes to show that rape, in and of itself, is more about power than sex. In wartime, male soldiers have been known to rape women AND men--and were not perceived by their comrades as sacrificing an iota of their own masculinity or heterosexuality.


And any woman who enslaves herself to a man just because he gives her orgasms has obviously never given herself one. That is why I advocate masturbation as a form of female empowerment, and will chip in for the rabbit.


EG--you are da woman!


Andrea--funny you should mention that about witholding sex as a punishment--in the Oresteia, the women successfully use this tactic to stop a war! In my experience, most men are slaves to their orgasm much more than women ever are--maybe it's because they usually only have one at a time?

I've heard the story from his wife's side so many times - she has a column in the Daily Mail's sunday supplement talking about her marriage.
Every week, I read about him being inconsiderate, lazy and childish. Every week she still doesn't seem to have the guts to divorce him.
Liz Jones may be shallow, needy and neurotic, but she can certainly do better than this scum.

Alyssa and EG,

Firstly: I don't want to imply that a person EVER has the "right" to have sex with another person. Your replies really make me rethink my words, mostly because I had no intent of implying that women are sexual property that should be used no matter what.

I suppose what is nagging at me is that I know women who fight with their boyfriends, and not fighting about an issue like racial profiling, but something mundane, like who should have done the dishes or where the spoons go. They fight, the woman decides she doesn't want to have sex with the man, which is fine and her right. But implicit in this dynamic (many times, not all, I am sure) is the fact that, if the man goes and jerks off, she will be even more pissed at him, and probably a little disgusted (disgusted with his lack of self control, how could he want to do that under the circumstances, etc.) That to me counts as sexual manipulation, because the woman goes beyond her personal rights to consent or refuse. She's not outright saying "you can't do this", but I think we can all agree here that it's a bit wrong to subject a person's sexuality to judgemental displeasure.

I don't want the disclaimer to get old, but I just want to say again that I REALLY do not condone this man (he and Joe Francis should be locked in a padded room together... or better yet left for us to deal with), nor do I think his wife "deserves" what he does to her. It just made me think in the reverse -- do women do this to men? If they do, is this acceptable to the women here, who I thus far have seen to be extremely self-aware, level-headed individuals. I do know women who have acted in the manner I've outlined above. It's certainly not as awful as what this man did to his wife (or claims he did), but I wonder if it falls into the same category.

Andrea, you don't have to defend yourself. I was not attacking your views--rather, I commend you for showing the other side of the coin. You're right...one's sexuality, whether male or female, should never be used against one. I mentioned your name when citing the Oresteia (an ancient Greek comedy) only because the women in it behave in ways that you mentioned.

I'm familiar with Lysistrata, which from the sounds of it has a similar plot to Oresteia... although in that context it's quite fun (being outraged at the shortage of dildo-making leather is great). :o) I reacted the way I did due to fear of appearing to support the idea of a woman being beholden to her male partner in terms of sex no matter what the circumstances, and I don't think that at all. At any rate, I'm gonna go play Mario Kart now. :oD

And that's why I have a real problem with "sex-positive feminists" like Tristan Taormino or that Rachel person we were discussing a little while back, who take a tone that implies that all sex is wonderful and liberating all the time, and women who don't experience sex that way are frigid prudes.

I don't know who these sex-pos feminists are, to be honest. The one sex-pos blogger I regularly read keeps stressing that she has nothing against women who view certain or even all sexual acts as degrading as long as they don't come out and say things like "this is objectively disgusting and everyone who disagrees with me is brainwashed by the patriarchy."

Taormino is a fairly well-known anal-sex proponent who's been writing for The Village Voice for quite a few years now. The Rachel person whose last name I continue to not be able to remember (we discussed her column about S&M a little while back) is apparently also a columnist for the Voice. The kind of attitude I'm talking about is implicit in the tone of their writing, in my opinion (it's in Dan Savage's too, to a certain degree, but it doesn't bother me as much in him). Can't speak about your blogger; haven't read him/her.

Andrea: I'm unwilling to pass judgment on how important other couples' fights are; what may seem like a petty squabble over who should have done the dishes is loaded with a lot of tension about the balance of power and distribution of work in a relationship, or who didn't support whom emotionally during a crisis five years ago, or whatever. Honestly, it's the petty-seeming stuff that gets the most heated, in my experience, because it's usually about far more than the topic itself, because otherwise, why would people fight about dishes? (Except of course that doing the dishes is irritating and annoying and chore.) I truly believe that if a fight is intense enough that someone doesn't want to have sex, the fight is important enough to them, and who cares what I think about their silly spoons?

I just don't see much comparable in what, at worst, is an eye-roll about masturbation, and this misogynous prick's desire to put his woman in her place and then write about it in detail publicly, and in my mind, degree matters.

I guess Banky from Chasing Amy was right, "ll every woman really wants, be it mother, senator, nun, is some serious deep-dickin'."

Eugh.

See, I can see a number of complaints with Taormino or RKB, but talking as thought they're superior to "prudes" (as in, women who simply don't like sex as much or as wild as they do) or something isn't one of them. saying that this is "implict" in their writing...I'd need a specific example.

but Susie Bright tends to talk about a broader range of "feminist" subjects than either TT or RKB, ime.

but if you really want to go back to the root of SPF, you'd want to read such authors as Dorothy Allison and Gayle Rubin and Amber Hollibaugh.

Dan Savage is a loathsome little reactionary misogynist fuck with a fossilized sesame seed for a heart. i do not get why so many people, especially women, enjoy his shit. He's like the Chelsea Dr. Laura.

anyway, i think part of the reason people like TT and RKB talk about sex in a way that makes it sound like all good times all the time (or at least tend to stay away from the nastier, more abusive aspects) is roughly the same reason that any other minority group or ideology tends to emphasize the "pride, solidarity" aspects in public: because there's already so much negative publicity and stereotyping that they feel like "airing dirty laundry in public" simply gives "them" more ammo. and unfortunately, there's plenty of precedent for this belief. In the case of SPF, of course, they are reacting to not just radical feminists but "sex negative" culture in general, i.e. you're soaking in it.

(Example of the above: attractive woman poses for high-profile picture; reactionary woman taking a snipe results in all sorts of toxic shit pouring out of the woodwork on the general subject of just how sexual a woman, particularly a successful woman, is supposed to be in order for people to "take her seriously." the nail-thin overlay of "feminist" over the far too obvious "woman, period" just makes the whole thing more hilariously awful.

iow: sex-negativity is inextricably bound up with, if not synonymous with, misogyny).