I'm so annoyed! Nothing like hearing some utterly clueless polyamory guys talking about how if "plural marriage" were legal then the main problem would be that all the women would marry rich, powerful, older alpha males, leaving a dangerous population of unfucked younger, less powerful males to "wreak havoc" on society.
What the fuck ever, dudes. There are so many things wrong with this assumption.
- assuming that would happen in the first place
- but if it did the results are not so much the problem as the messed up patriarchy that caused it
- anyway it assumes that men are savage animals that destroy and wreak havoc if they don't have guaranteed access to pussy
- even if we assume (which i don't ) that men, more than women, need sexual release in order to be... not destroying society in some way... Can't the hypothetical herd-animal zeta males learn to masturbate? What's with that? Is there some kind of pussy magic that tames men? Apparently - at least in the minds of the dorkwads on this particular email list...
- not to mention the problems the herds of hypothetical multiple disempowered trophy wives would have, personally...
- why wouldn't group marriages form in all sorts of combinations... etc...
Oh, beautiful, it degenerates further into some dude claiming that engineering schools where the gender ratio is skewed the men can't get laid but are consciously trading their getting-laid for later better chances at "better odds" on the "marriage market". Excuse me while I go vomit ....
Sexist sexist sexist... and it's always especially ugly when the men have such a low opinion of themselves and other men. And back it up with murky underpinnings of bad evolutionary psychology.
Since I love to put my foot in my mouth in public I wrote back and offered the solution that all of us ladies should be having sex with lots and lots of men - it's our civic duty to keep those animals sane and civil. Maybe we could stop the war that way! Crowds of rowdy, frustrated young men need YOU to control their excess energy with your magic sexual powers...
Whiskey... Tango... FOXTROT....!!!
I've always wanted to get messages from alien beings from another universe! And it happens every day thanks to the power of the internets.
This is why I'm not on any of those e-mail lists any more.
Posted by: lori | March 31, 2006 at 05:06 PM
Oh, because getting laid is the highest goal of any man? Or is that any person?
Just think how I've been misinforming my son!
Posted by: Wired | March 31, 2006 at 05:08 PM
Oh but wow, some of the other women on the list just spoke up too, and very sensibly... and not without a layer of sarcasm and humor.
I suggested the pussy magic theory to L.E.B. who agreed that indeed it's true; the men in her house wreak less havoc when cats are sitting on their laps.
Heartening!!
Sometimes my irritated little pokes at that list stir up something way better than what I would have produced if I'd spent half an hour composing a careful diplomatic reasoned response.
Posted by: badgerbag | March 31, 2006 at 05:36 PM
Can't the hypothetical herd-animal zeta males learn to masturbate? What's with that?
Lack of prehensile hands or similar grasping appendages with which to do it?
Posted by: Ide Cyan | March 31, 2006 at 08:34 PM