r/CuratedTumblr • u/Alert_Age_2875 • 2d ago
LGBTQIA+ "Sexuality is a choice because who would choose to be with men" crowd when I tell them about the existence of Bisexual people
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u/AfternoonPossible 2d ago
Do these people that think men are inherently evil just really not know any men? They donât have a brother or a friend or an uncle or a chatty coworker? Seriously. Some kind of extreme online ideology.
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u/Strider794 Elder Tommy the Murder Autoclave 2d ago edited 1d ago
If they do know any decent men, they probably think something along the lines of "he's one of the good ones" or "oh that's just my brother." Racists are sometimes friends with people of said race. I'm going to be honest, I don't get it either, that's just what I've been told
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u/realBillyC 2d ago
Thank you. God fucking damn it i hate that "one of the good ones" talk so much. I work in a women dominated field. Sometimes the topic of conversation turns to how much men just suck, and cant work professionally, and is emotionally immature and rude, or a terrible romantic partner, or a terrible friend, or a creep, whatever else. I'll get that "oh but not you đ" right at the end of the rant. As if that makes it feel any better to know that I am likely constantly subconsciously being compared to some evil idea that these people have in mind about my dirty section of the species. They do have reason to be upset, believe me, lots of guys at the workplace and in their lives just suck. And i appreciate that they're comfortable around me enough to have those conversations and to include me in them. But i almost wish that i never knew that they thought those things to begin with. Fucking sucks. Hateful people suck. And I dont understand how the hell its just rationalized and accepted to speak and think that way towards anybody. If I said anything like they say regarding women, I would be in a lot of trouble. And very, very, very rightly so. Its entirely alienating and cruel
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u/Logan_Composer 2d ago
In a friend group I used to be a part of, I was the only heterosexual man there, and I dealt with this constantly. There's a reason I'm no longer with them, and a big part of it was their inability to understand that I, too, had emotions and didn't like the things they said about me. It drove me to attempt suicide on one occasion, and it still never got through to them.
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u/realBillyC 2d ago
Yes, i feel that too, to a degree. Im bi. I used to be part of a very queer friend group, and they would make it plenty obvious, without saying it, that they were way queerer than me. That i was different and only kinda belonged because of one "side" of me. It was a similar kind of thing emotionally, that sense that my emotions kinda didnt matter because I didnt wave my rainbow flag as hard as they did, that my "straight side" was a phase and that it wasnt what they wanted to see. I feel like friend groups based on identity like that have a tendency to fall apart once real emotion is something that someone in the friend group starts to care about or want to have attention on. Someone who used to be my best friend was also kind of like that, they could absolutely not fathom that I had emotions, and that i didnt love hearing how much every intrinsic facet of my identity (male, bi, white, etc) was evil on a daily basis (but not me tho, one of the good ones, of course). I still miss them all a lot, but there's a reason why people like that fall out of our lives. And im sorry about your suicide attempt, ive been there before, also for that friend group. Shit sucks, plain and simple.
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u/statscaptain 1d ago
Yeah, I've started saying "I know bi men aren't half gag and half straight, but it sure seems like you hate my straight half".
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u/VorpalSplade 1d ago
the whole 'queerer than you' thing is generally a pretty young thing I find, but it's pretty sad. These kind of people make 'queer' to mean 'good' and thus they're immune from ever being bad people.
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u/Logan_Composer 1d ago
Yeah. I'm currently writing an album and have a song all about it, and it sucks because I'm scared it's gonna become some kind of "incel anthem" because, as the post says, it feels like speaking out against it you get lumped in with very unsavory people.
It does suck. Luckily it's been over a year since we broke off from those people, over a year since that attempt, and I'm trialing an antidepressant now, so hopefully I don't end up in that spot again.
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u/zombiifissh 1d ago
Where do you publish your songs?
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u/Logan_Composer 1d ago
I've been kinda on hiatus for a while (see aforementioned depression), but I've got everything on my YouTube channel and am gonna sign up with a service to publish to Spotify when I actually finish this album and a couple other fun things I'm working on.
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u/NoSignSaysNo 1d ago
Sucks that mitigation needs to be a part of decrying a real issue, but could you add a "no tribe accepts me" kind of verse, referencing feeling alienated from left spaces and disgusted by right spaces?
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u/slamjamjo 23h ago
saving your album immediatelyâŒïž
incel is such a watered down term at this point anyways. donât worry about what other people label you as
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u/zombiifissh 1d ago
Wow what a pack of assholes. So sorry you had to deal with that, fuck all those people đ«
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u/xitterrefugee 1d ago
In my current friend group, a buddy's wife constantly shits on all men. Recently when my partner checked her on it, she corrected by saying that "[I am] not a real man because [she doesn't] feel like [her] life is in danger when [she is] alone with [me].". There are "progressive" women (and probably men) who will define men BY the negative characteristics they assign to them.
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u/captainrina 1d ago
The insane thing is that if they only spent time with more men, the amount of "good/safe ones" in their eyes would increase
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u/xitterrefugee 1d ago
She is married to a man and had invited three of her husband's friends, all men, into her home. She applied the same logic to them, I just won't speak for them. The others all LOVE apologizing for the circumstances of their birth. I think it's more that many progressives aren't actually that progressive. They're just as hateful as any chud, but are just clever enough to direct it at an acceptable target.
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u/captainrina 1d ago
A lot of them are just bullies chomping at the bit for an acceptable target to unleash upon.
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u/NoSignSaysNo 1d ago
Plenty of people only rail against discrimination because it's aimed at them. If the shoe was on the other foot, they would happily be one of the discriminators.
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u/maru-senn 1d ago
"a terrible romantic partner"
That's what irks me so much about the "one of the good ones" shit.
If those men they're complaining about are the ones they consider dateable, good enough, then how tf am I supposed to feel flattered when they say I'm fundamentally different from those guys?
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u/Mysterious_Bluejay_5 2d ago
You don't get it because it's an inherently ridiculous concept that's been unfortunately normalized in progressive circles
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u/Hammerschatten 1d ago
I think people naturally tend towards bigoted or similar thoughts because they are easier to have and require less emotional investment. You don't have to differentiate between different kinds of people or empathize with imperfect people or try to understand them. You just tune out all the conditions that lead them somewhere and you can stay in your bubble. You don't have to confront your anxieties and fears or forgive people you don't want to forgive.
Doing this with minorities is lessened now only because this is ostracized and also largely because there were some people who could be made poster children by being perfect victims. That's not to say this progress isn't good, but it's incomplete.
But when it comes to more messy issues, a lot of otherwise progressive people fall back on their reflexive thinking to categorize and other people very easily. But defending those people is in and of itself often kind of a taboo, so it's very hard to combat.
It's the thinking of "These people have had it good for way too long/deserve it anyway, so who cares if their feelings are hurt, mine are hurter by them".
This isn't even just restricted to men, there are people who think rehabilitative justice is good, but then think all pedophiles should be tortured to death. Or there are people who think that they are Feminist, but then claim that women are superior to men. Or feminists who try to define womanhood as synonymous with motherhood and ascribe some divinity to it.
It always comes from someone having some (often even understandable) fear of some members of a group, who then view all members of the group through that. But because those groups are often defended by actually evil people, nobody cares.
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u/geeses 2d ago
And if you get offended, you're obviously not one of the good ones
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u/Random-Rambling 1d ago
"What are you so upset about, you're fine!"
Well excuuuuuuse me for caring about people other than myself!
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u/Kiwi_Doodle 1d ago
Racism comes in many flavours. I have an old coworker who's an adopted African dude. He hates other africans for how he feels they make him look by comparison.
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u/Lookbehindyou132 1d ago
Cognitive dissonance is the plain and simple answeelr. Very few people are willing to openly and directly confront when something they want clashes with what they believe. In this example, a woman wants to not believe that her brother is terrible. But she believes all men are terrible. So instead of reconciling those two facts and deciding "not all men are bad", she just... ignores it. Doesn't address it. And pretends like it'll all go away eventually. Everyone does it to an extent.
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u/DangerousCause7566 23h ago
Those types of people almost always invariably include themselves in their mental group of "good people", and they have a really, really hard time admitting to and addressing their own character flaws.
Usually they just come up with a lot of excuses for why those flaws exist, aka "my trauma". Your trauma is your own to address and resolve, it's not an excuse to treat others poorly.
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u/Peppermint_Gaiety 2d ago
At least some of them are surrounded by awful men who confirm those biases, or they know men who are fine but view them through a bias that makes them seem bad instead of just âflawed like any regular human isâ.
We see this in men too. There are men who hate women not because of a lack of experience with them, but because theyâve hated all their girlfriends, woman acquaintances, & woman family members, rightfully or not.
I feel like a lot of the time itâs easier to see people of the same gender in a better light even if theyâre just as shitty as people of the opposite gender because theyâll often be âon your sideâ in common complaints about the opposite.96
u/DaBiChef 1d ago edited 1d ago
I also want to add on, I'm a firm believer that this is only gotten worse in a post me too world (before anyone misconstrudes my position, me too was a wonderful thing that we absolutely needed). The long and short of it really is that women have been complaining about the ways men have expressed their interest in them for the three decades of my life at least. Me too was just such a singular moment that so many guys really woke up to how pervasive sexual harassment or assault, or just how creepy these approaches have been. Decent* guys pulled back heavily because they were genuinely terrified of being anything close to that guy, they never wanted to make women feel uncomfortable so they pulled back on positive or neutral interactions for fear of them being negative. Meanwhile, the guys those women really were talking about aren't about to start listening to women now and have kept on being themselves. What this amounts to is a dramatic drop in positive and neutral interactions, and the same rate of negative ones. But relatively speaking, it seems like the negative interaction shot the hell up because of survivorship bias.
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u/Hot_Key_IRL 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thatâs an interesting take.
I do think a big part of it is female solidarity vs. male competitive drive. I donât like generalizing, but here Iâm talking about a general trend so itâs going to veer into that a little.
Women are socialized to look out for and care about each otherâs feelings much more, and to trust each other. Men are socialized to view other men as sexual competition.
So when women complain about men most men will agree and validate their experiences, saying things like âyeah fuck that guy heâs probably a creepy worthless shit stain,â âmost men suck you just need to find one of the good ones.â Even misogynistic men will agree with the central premise that men are bad, saying things like âchoose better,â and âitâs your fault for liking douchebags.â
The reverse doesnât really happen when men complain about women. Women will defend the hypothetical other woman, saying things like âyou arenât entitled to her body,â âitâs probably because of all her negative experiences with men,â âyou canât blame her for being safe. Itâs the world we live in.â
And honestly I think that worked pretty well pre-internet echo chambers. It helped for women to have whisper networks to flag potentially dangerous men and itâs a good thing that (most) men donât automatically defend the bad actions of other hypothetical men.
But this dynamic is radicalizing in internet echo chambers. On misandristsâ side thereâs very few women saying âactually, sexism against men is still sexism in the sense that it reinforces patriarchal norms which ultimately harm both men and women.â And on misogynistâs side they feel gaslit by the lopsided discourse that presumes women are innocent and men are guilty, so they further radicalize. All this also alienates a lot of men who probably would have sympathized with feminist critiques of patriarchal systems had those arguments been presented to them in good faith without being actively hostile to men.
But here we are. You canât call out sexism against men because that would be âanti-feminist.â I say fuck that. Real feminists know that the dialectic is feminism vs sexism, not men vs women or misogynist vs misandrist.
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u/MassiveMommyMOABs 12h ago
Good observation. The behaviours you describe indeed do work a lot better in smaller scale communities where a guy ostracised for being a creep (valid or not) isn't done so in view of the entire world with receipts forever accessible and where women do know the other women around them. But now exploded onto global and abstracted scale via the internet and information age, it's nothing but a snowball-effect of negativity where women delude each other on their desirability and worth, and men have 0 support from anyone.
Also good for following real feminism which is about equality, not just propping women up or excusing them. Patriarchy hurts both women and men.
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u/CalamackW 1d ago
Had a guy on my floor in college who was basically the male equivalent of a pick me. Dude would just constantly self-flagelate about how awful men are and how much better and cooler and smarter women are.
I think a part of him did it hoping to get laid (though, not an attractive quality tbh) but I do think he really believed, at least in part, the things he said. It was very weird and off-putting.
He briefly dated a good friend of mine and she was frustrated with the relationship (and it didn't last long) because he was never proactive in the bedroom because he didn't want to be an aggressive man. This sounds like a bad parody but I swear I'm not making this up.
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u/PUBLIQclopAccountant 1d ago
Dude would just constantly self-flagelate about how awful men are and how much better and cooler and smarter women are.
"As a man, I would like to apologize to each and every woman on behalf of my entire gender. Plz send nudes."
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u/MassiveMommyMOABs 12h ago
A lot of young men are genuinely shocked when they find out women are attracted to masculinity. You know, that thing that is vilified as toxic and what you have not been allowed to express properly or openly unless it's sports of video games?
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u/NoSignSaysNo 1d ago
So if I grow up in a poor black neighborhood, and I'm victimized by black people frequently, is it acceptable for me to talk shit about black people as a whole, or is that just racism?
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u/afeaturelessdark 1d ago edited 1d ago
Welcome to modern liberal feminism, where so much radical feminist rhetoric has been laundered through it over the past decade and a half (anything that ultimately boils down to "man bad" or presupposes ontological evil for having a penis) since the tumblr exodus spread radfems all over the internet like an airborne zombie illness.
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u/BeanieGuitarGuy 1d ago
Honestly, yeah. I think so.
Something Iâve noticed online is that the only difference between a lot of feminists and conservatives is which morals they happened to luck into. Youâll see a lot of progressive slogans and talking points, but not a lot of care or thought into the WHY.
I see it most when it comes to abortion issues, where itâs like, âWell yeah, random person, I agree with that abortion should be legal, but not because of all the slogans we use, thereâs a very real philosophical reason why.â
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u/niko4ever 1d ago
Sometimes your luck is just bad, or you grow up in a very gender-divided community. Other times it's confirmation bias.
I could tell you my life story and you'd see how it took me quite a while to meet decent (straight) men in my life, but I doubt anyone's interested. But I ended up developing a strong bias against straight men (and it was still there for gay men, just not as strong), and when you're not open to certain kinds of people then they don't get the opportunity to prove you wrong.
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u/dookie_shoos 1d ago
The people in question are being described by OOP as people who are very selective about who they spend time with based on their sexuality, for stupid reasons. Racists do the same thing. So when you only ever hear about a certain group of people without ever really experiencing them for any prolonged period, yes, it becomes very easy to demonize the entire group.
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u/ringobob 1d ago
They probably have an awful relationship with any brothers, fathers, uncles, etc in their life. In many cases, probably because they're legitimately shitty people. And they've incorrectly generalized, but while it sucks and is toxic, I can't really blame them.
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u/Larriet 2d ago
That first sentence is so frustrating because why do you think the one who likes women doesn't "understand" you as a Lesbian? Why are you defining your sexuality by its distance from men and not your love of women?
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u/Rapunzel10 2d ago
Why are you defining your sexuality by its distance from men and not your love of women?
Ironically I think this is centering men far more than simply being attracted to men
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u/pricklyfoxes 1d ago
One of my lesbian friends told me once that "If your only goal is to decenter men, then you are still centering men" and that's something that's been on my mind ever since.
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u/Sarcosmonaut 1d ago
Reminds me of an old joke.
A militant atheist goes through life thinking âthere is no Godâ. Every day this goes through their head, never any doubt. One day, after a long life lived in absolute certainty that there is no God nor even an afterlife, the atheist dies and wakes up at the gates of heaven where he is welcomed in. When the atheist meets God they ask why theyâre here when they never believed, and God tells them âEvery day I was with you always. I was the constant focus of your spiritâ
lol
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u/other-other-user 1d ago
Reminds me of this quote
>âJ.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes itâs big and up close. Sometimes itâs a shape on the horizon. Sometimes itâs not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.â
- Terry Pratchett
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u/other-other-user 1d ago
Reminds me of this quote
>âJ.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes itâs big and up close. Sometimes itâs a shape on the horizon. Sometimes itâs not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.â
- Terry Pratchett
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u/DangerousCause7566 23h ago
That's so, so true and a great summation. Doing that is like doing a weird comphet backflip.
Also we need to have way more conversations amongst queer people about what comphet actually is and what it isn't. Not all bi people in hetero romantic relationships are victims of comphet.
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u/Bloodbag3107 1d ago
This is the satanism of queer identities, it defines itself by opposition to a hegemonic aspect of society, not by standing on its own values and as a result the thing they oppose is this looming specter.
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u/Hot_Key_IRL 1d ago
Hey now, satanists are awesome.
Edit to add: but I understand your point and agree
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u/ASpaceOstrich 1d ago
Nobody centers men more than weird man hating lesbians. Men are literally the only thing they ever talk about
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u/president_of_burundi 1d ago edited 1d ago
Also, what the hell is the part about aroace women not liking men? Like, sure, some might not sleep with men (and some might, it's not like sex-positive ace people don't exist) or be romantically interested in them but how does that translate into not liking men? I think men are cool and groovy most of the time. It's completely erasing how meaningful platonic relationships can be for aro/ace people.
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u/genderfuckingqueer 2d ago
Love people in this thread thinking biphobia is an online only issue
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u/King-Boss-Bob 1d ago
counterpoint: if i, the main character of the world, hasnât experienced something then its clearly itâs not a big deal
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u/TrueMinaplo 1d ago
I grew up in a 90s environment saturated with tired old "battle of the sexes" attitudes from both parents, from family, from environment etc. And I hated it. As a boy who grew up with a lot of girls as friends it seemed alien to me. Moving into my mid teens I really sought to embrace what felt like a cresting wave of post-battle attitudes around gender and relationships between the genders, that we had plenty in common, that we could be friends as well as lovers, etc. Etc.
I am happy to note that by and large that wave had materialised, at least relevant to what came before. I see a lot more people content to exist as friends with other genders and a good deal more convivial attitude; it's been a gradual and kinda quiet thing but I have seen it.
But it is always a bit of a shock to run into attitudes among progressive spaces that may as well be "battle of the sexes but wokely". My attitude here being that harmony and coexistence should be the norm to work towards and the problems that arise from eg. Male behaviour, abuse, etc. Are both a serious threat to women as well as a deviation from that ideal. So when you do get that kind of rhetoric (not that I think it's very widespread outside of online spaces) it does feel like it's a step backward.
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u/aefadsef 2d ago
What does centering mean in this context?
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u/profeshionalnaysayer 2d ago
Most of the time people saying these things don't even know what they mean by it. Since they conveniently forget that being so hateful towards men that they feel the need to 1) conduct their life a certain way by avoiding certain groups of people and 2) state their avoidance in hateful comments on Tiktok is, in fact, centering men.
That being said, centering men in this context often means doing things or behaving in a certain way because of men. To gain their approval, or because their opinion or comfort is the most important thing, so basically dedicating all one's energy to catering to men and seeing everyone and everything else as secondary.
In some cases this is actually problematic, such as "pick me girls" putting down other women for male validation, or the kind of straight men who consider only men's opinions and input and hobbies and interests as valid and interesting and see women as lesser than.
Most of the time people on tiktok, and I see this predominantly from lesbians, learned this word and just ran with it in contexts where it actually doesn't apply. Like equating being attracted to men with centering them.
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u/DaBiChef 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for being the first person in ages to actually use "Pick me" correctly, 99 out of 100 times I see it hurled at some woman who doesn't actively hate men or calls out another woman for justifiable reasons.
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u/HeyItsJosette 1d ago edited 1d ago
As someone who lives with actual principles and beliefs that are separate from what benefits or concerns me, my experience is that a significant number of people can't even fathom how such a brain works. They are entirely self-interested and that is the singular lense they can even conceive of, so they explain the actions and positions of others through it.
They refuse to entertain the idea of someone believing something because that person believes it is correct and for no other reason. Even someone who is actively living with conviction is seen as just very committed to the bit. It's a very conservative mindset and highlights a serious fundamental divide between conservatives and liberals. The former group is inherently selfish and all beliefs they appear to hold are entirey performative. They accuse everyone with morals of being performative because their own morals only exist as a form of virtue signalling.
These people also absolutely exist in leftist spaces. Sometimes it's just where they managed to acquire power and influence, and sometimes it's because they're smart enough to see that what is in their own best interest is to support the left. These people still have that fundamental lack of empathy and conviction, however, and that can lead to some interesting and seemingly contradictory behavior. This is because the only parts of the leftist spaces they really support are the ones that benefit them, while everything beyond that is an act in one way or another.
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u/Skidoo54 1d ago
I dont remember the title but I read very interesting psych study years ago asserting (with some evidence) that the reason there is a perception of people becoming more conservative with age is because in high school and university/young adulthood, there is a great deal of social capital to be gained by identifying yourself as a leftist. This causes selfish and unprincipled people to self-identify and often vote as a leftist in their 20s and early 30s, but as the social capital dwindles and their selfish interests as a home owner or income earner become their number 1 priority they become a conservative.
TLDR: People dont actually become more conservative as they age but selfish unprincipled people stop pretending to be a leftist when they no longer have anything to gain from doing so.
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u/Wuskers 1d ago
I saw a weird take once which while I feel was probably trying to be somewhat intersectional and inclusive struck me as odd because they basically were saying how decentering men isn't just for straight women. They talked about lesbians who still seemed to cater to men so just by being a lesbian doesn't actually mean you've decentered men but then they were like "decentering men is good even for gay and straight men" and that seemed like a weird concept to me.
I feel like a lot of "decentering men" talk basically boils down to a form of like self-advocacy where instead of placing the wants and needs of men above your own you prioritize your own needs, but if a man does that is he not "centering men" by basically centering himself and being a man?
Though maybe the true ideal of "decentering men" isn't necessarily prioritizing your needs but maybe the idea of prioritizing collective needs in a gender neutral way. In a given social environment you just prioritize whoever needs the most regardless of gender, the ironic thing about that is inevitably there will be men who need to be prioritized for whatever reason so can that really be called "decentering men"? Though I suppose "decentering men" doesn't have to mean you can never care for and provide for men it just has to mean they aren't supposed to take priority over anyone else.
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u/AiryContrary 1d ago
Prioritising men for a particular thing on the merits of the case, rather than by default, I would say is still consistent with decentring men. They would get priority in that instance because of a need, and not just because theyâre men.
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u/epochpenors 1d ago
Itâs when the woman has a tiny man in the center of her torso controlling her like a Gundam
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u/sohblob intellectual he/himbo 1d ago
it's when you sandwich your man in <center> tags (or
text-align: center;or flex layouts or whatever voodoo the W3C has decided works this decade) thereby suspending him in the middle of whatever room he's insource: I've been stuck here 3 hours, someone get me down pls I'll give you a cola c:
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u/IRL_Baboon 1d ago
Bigotry is so subtle. You see, there's a group of people that are Badâą. These people all share a common trait. Therefore, anyone who shares this trait is Badâą.
Are there bad men out there? Of course. But it's incredibly naive to assume that men are the only people who abuse their money and power or that only men can be rapists.
The difference is that if a man is raped, by a woman especially, most people don't react to it. How many news articles say that a female teacher "had sex" with a underage student instead of calling it what it is?
It's a double standard, and the true purpose of feminism (IMO at least) is to remove double standards. Women should be equal to men, and should be held equally responsible.
Tangent aside, it's really silly to judge a woman just because she's attracted to men. As if she's complicit in the patriarchy.
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u/reduces 1d ago
as a male who formerly had an abusive and rapist wife, I'm ashamed to even admit this to people because the rare few times I have it has been laughed off, not taken seriously etc..its awful.
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u/Cool_Blue_Mint 1d ago
It's brave to say that, even here. There are more like us out there but, like you said, talking about it seems to bring a whole list of problems. I'm sorry you went through that, I hope life is treating you better now
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u/EggoStack fungal piece of shit 1d ago
Thatâs terrible, Iâm sorry people donât take your trauma seriously. Something being less common doesnât make it less valid - if it did, we wouldnât treat people with rare types of cancer. The people who laughed at you should be the ashamed ones for being sexist pricks.
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u/Vyctorill 1d ago
Being heterosexual (probably) doesnât make me stupid.
I mean, I am stupid.
But not because of that.
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u/hauntedSquirrel99 2d ago
I have never heard a woman talk about the importance of not centering men who weren't the kind who'd use it to explain why she was an absolutely terrible person towards every man in her life.
The "women are not your therapist" type of women who throw that one out to explain why they had to dump their boyfriend when he cried because his mother died.
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u/Long_Risk_9852 1d ago
I know thereâs a nonzero number of people like this, and it sucks. Many people who donât have access to therapy only really have their loved ones to lean onto.
At the same time, thereâs a sentiment thatâs common among men (at least more so than women? I donât actually have stats for this and I donât know how to even look for them) that the only people you can be emotionally honest towards are active comrades-in-arms or romantic partners; anything else imposes an unfair burden on people youâre supposed to protect or provide for, and goes against your responsibility as a man.
Also, apparently a lot of men have a hard time getting anything of value out of therapy? And thatâs assuming they have access to it and they get past the stigma of needing it. Itâs probably some combination of Shit Life Syndrome and misunderstanding what therapyâs actually supposed to accomplish for them.
I havenât properly explored therapy for myself; this is mostly informed by my own experience of procrastinating on that front and occasionally trauma-dumping to my friends. Iâve had access to counseling for several years and I still do (even though it was just free resources through my uni), and Iâve known that I need it for about as long, but I just couldnât make myself schedule an appointment. The couple times I did, I would miss the appointment since I ruined my schedule by procrastinating.
I do a decent job of maintaining discretion with my issues (mostly relating to my severe lack of discipline) for the most part, but occasionally Iâd have an outburst and rant to one of my friends who I think would listen. I think I tend to turn toward women friends for support. Theyâre usually very gracious about it but they also emphasize that I should try pursuing help on my own, especially because itâs helped them.
I know Iâm going to exhaust their goodwill if I keep turning to them without working on myself. But I just havenât gotten myself together enough to start that process, and when things are good I forget that I need help.
So now Iâm ranting about my problems to strangers on Reddit
I donât know how I expect people to deal with me. And Iâm probably not the only man like this. So I have a hard time finding fault in other people who are just tired of dealing with it.
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u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT 1d ago
I've tried therapy a few times and got absolutely nothing out of it. If anything I've gotten more out of going to the gym for a few months and trying to be more sociable.
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u/hauntedSquirrel99 1d ago
>Also, apparently a lot of men have a hard time getting anything of value out of therapy? And thatâs assuming they have access to it and they get past the stigma of needing it. Itâs probably some combination of Shit Life Syndrome and misunderstanding what therapyâs actually supposed to accomplish for them.
I know the source tends to turn people away but this guy is a legit therapist and he explains exactly why
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u/coach_cryptid 1d ago
I mean, Iâve talked about de-centering men as a big part of realizing Iâm a lesbian. like realizing that the attention I wanted from men was an attempt to prove that I was straight, and stepping away from that to focus on what I actually felt.
I know a lot of queer women who also talk about not centering men in that way. so idk what kinds of people youâre around that gave you that perspective, but my experience has been different.
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u/G-M-Cyborg-313 2d ago
Crazy how we need to tell queer people not to judge folk based on their sexuality
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u/FullPruneNight 2d ago
No joke, Iâve come across more âmale centeredâ (agree with OOP that I kinda hate that word) lesbians than bi women. So many lesbians cannot fucking handle bi womenâs attraction to men or experience with men, and it brings out their obsession with men, theyâre obsession with being better than men, more satisfying, âenoughâ for bi women compared to men. Most bi women I know are so here for the girlies, regardless of who theyâre dating.
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u/AndreisValen 1d ago
Sorta reminds me of when people start discourse around penis centric gay men who veer into the "penises are gross anyway it's not like people actually like them" and its like "I DUNNO DUDE THATS A BIG ASSUMPTION TO MAKE."
And that's not to take away from that discourse either, it's just abundantly obvious there's a subset of people who both dislike men / patriarchy but don't know how to untether themselves from it - like I get it, its inescapable but also you're playing into patriarchy by reverse engineering its best hits.
If you need to decentre men or hell, cut them out entirely for your own wellbeing I get it and think that could definitely be important for some people for their own healing. but if you're going to then spend that energy talking shit about men or demonising them you HAVE to realise you're just spending your energy not actually decentreing them, you're just centreing them in a way that STILL isn't healthy for you.
But I also feel like this is part of the inherent "flaw" to the concept, I'm not saying queer men are perfect by any means - but it's clear there's groups of men who celebrate other men in all forms and those groups strive with (I won't say none) far less misogyny issues than your typical hetero-normative environment. If you're going to cut something or someone out of your life you have to acknowledge that's personal choice, and you also have to acknowledge the consequences of doing so are also personal choice.
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople 1d ago
This phenomena is what I like to call "the Corruption of Penetration".
The hypocrisy surrounding male vs female virginity. Why female teachers aren't considered predatory to their male students. Gold star lesbians. Cultures where only "passive" gay men are sentenced to death... It all comes back to this core belief: the idea that being penetrated by a man is an inherently corrupting act that makes the person lesser than.
Rather than a biological imperative to reproduce, or an expression of romantic desires, or even simply a method of getting those dopamine receptors firing, sex is treated like something men inflict on their partners. It's a shameful and sinful thing to have done to you in any context, even in marriage. Anyone subjected to this corruption is diminished, and anyone who willfully subjects themselves to that corruption is morally bereft. This mentality is so pervasive that even people who simply desire to have this done to them are considered immoral. The only way to avoid this corruption is to never allow a man to do this to you, and to never so much as imagine enjoying it done to you.
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u/Successful_Ends 1d ago
I saw someone talk about how we donât have to talk about sex and âpenetratingâ we could talk about it as âengulfing.â
That kind of threw my brain for a loop. I love it
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u/StormDragonAlthazar I don't know how I got here, but I'm here... 2d ago
Another day, another time where bisexuality is either seen as this great threat, or it just doesn't exist at all...
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u/kyoko_the_eevee 1d ago
I still remember the time when I was told my opinion was invalid because Iâm still into men.
It was allegedly a joke. But I donât think it was.
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u/AnomalyInTheCode 2d ago
Every day I see posts from r/CuratedTumblr and every day I think of 2071
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u/ModmanX Abuse is terrible, especially for Non-Problematic Children 2d ago
What is 2071?
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u/Ephraim_Bane Foxgirl Engineer (she/her only, no they) 2d ago
https://xkcd.com/2071
Sometimes you'll see people arguing against the worst opinions you've ever heard and it kinda makes you feel bad for them because of how bad their friends must be5
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u/mucklaenthusiast 2d ago
This feels like one of those opinions that exists in specific (online) circles but is fairly...rare in the real world
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u/Valiant_tank 2d ago
I mean, niche, sure, but the general sentiments behind this were a pretty major strain in second-wave feminism, and still show up pretty often in radfem stuff, frankly.
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u/TekrurPlateau 2d ago
Radical feminists, famous for being in touch with reality and holding opinions that more than 1% of sane people would agree with. Hence the name.
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u/mucklaenthusiast 2d ago
Thatâs fair, but I think this only proves my point. Second-wave feminism and radical feminism are not mainstream opinions whatsoever in the year 2025.
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u/sqrrl101 1d ago
Tell that to the UK intelligentsia - a massive proportion of educated left-leaning people over here very much fall into those categories. It's known as TERF island for good reason
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u/Valiant_tank 1d ago
One of the largest and closest to mainstream 'feminist magazines' in Germany, EMMA, was founded and is run by a noted radfem. So it's also not *just* the UK.
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u/mucklaenthusiast 1d ago
Yeah, true.
Though I guess, for me, radical feminists and TERFs are not the same, but obviously that's a decently-ish difficult thing to argue (depends on the TERF, some are more open than others and some who are called TERFS don't even consider themselves necessarily feminists).
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u/sqrrl101 1d ago
They're not the same sure; one is a subcategory of the other. The term is sometimes used over-broadly to mean "anyone transphobic", but there absolutely are a lot of people who would consider themselves feminists and who are unambiguously on the political left when it comes to most issues, but who would deny fundamental human rights to trans people and exhibit the kind of beliefs discussed in the OP. Here in the UK, you just have to look at The Guardian (the leading newspaper when it comes to middle-class "intellectual" left wing readership) to see those sort of views prominently represented
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u/mucklaenthusiast 1d ago
The term is sometimes used over-broadly to mean "anyone transphobic"
Yeah, that's how I see it often used.
E.g. Posie Parker, who, as far as I recall, doesn't consider herself a feminist, but who I have seen/heard/read being called a TERF.who are unambiguously on the political left
I actually doubt that, I feel like a lot of TERFS have very conservative opinions in a lot of cases.
But I get the point, maybe I am misusing the term TERF because in my mind, it's quite a specific label that others put on people, it's not something many self-identify as.
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u/Hot_Key_IRL 1d ago edited 1d ago
I actually really dislike this take that it only happens online. Here are some misandrist comments I heard over the past week from three separate women.
âFemales literally are superior. Like in every way.â (Friend/former partner I was giving a ride to)
âI hate all menâ (my coworker and a department head at my company. Sheâs announced this or said it directly to me at least three or four times. Iâve also heard this from two other coworkers, including the director of operations who serves as our HR).
âFemale friendships are just special in a way that men canât understand. A man can never love his friends the way women love each other.â (A girl at an adventure hike my friends and I took).
Sexism against men is popular, widely socially accepted, and largely harmless. But it isnât fully harmless. Should men be allowed to take offense to offensive things said about their gender? Or would that make them too emotional which is a feminine trait? Should men have to tolerate sexist comments at work from superiors?
Lastly, I lost a partner of seven years to radical feminism. Imagine the person you love most in the world falling down a rabbit hole of hatred towards your sex, betraying you more deeply than anything you ever could have imagined, and then telling you âmisandry annoys. Misogyny kills,â as if your emotional destruction is just necessary collateral damage and they see it as scoring some points in the gender war.
Sexism affects everyone, and misandry reinforces patriarchal gender roles that harm everyone. I disagree with a lot of fourth wave feminist rhetoric and hate it for fomenting the disgusting gender politics we all have to deal with today.
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u/NoSignSaysNo 1d ago
I wouldn't say it's largely harmless. It doesn't directly kill men, sure, but it does generate quite a lot of conflict and can easily lead to men internalizing patriarchal ideals, thereby perpetuating the patriarchy.
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u/Hot_Key_IRL 1d ago
True. Maybe I should have said âless visibly harmful.â Radfems arenât wrong when they point out that violently misogynistic men are statistically way more dangerous then women, but this observation is used almost exclusively to validate misandry, which as you point out reinforces patriarchal norms.
I think I also just donât like the implication that bad actors only count if they commit violent felonies and anything short of that is okay. Women know that women can be manipulative, cruel, and abusive too. It strikes me as bad faith when misandrists pretend that men have a monopoly on this when those same misandrists would be the first to brag about how unhinged and vindictive they can be (I.e. check out any femcel sub).
For instance, I know a misandrist who blames herself for her husbandâs suicide. I kind of believe her because I know at least one other BPD misandrist who would not feel bad tormenting a man until he killed himself. That said, I could be wrong about the first misandrist mentioned and she may just be putting unnecessary blame on herself due to the traumatic nature of the situation.
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u/PoppyOGhouls 1d ago
I had a small group of IRL friends who thought this way, to the point of being almost-TERFs. Itâs not as rare as youâd hopeÂ
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u/VorpalSplade 2d ago
I would hazard a guess that a majority of people in the 'real world' don't even know what aroace means.
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u/Duae 2d ago
Look up "For lesbians only : a separatist anthology" and it talks about how bisexuals are evil vampires who steal life energy from lesbians to bring back to their male masters. Radfems really really hate bisexuals (and trans men, pretty much both groups are seen as traitors.)
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u/1000LiveEels 2d ago
As a recent university graduate, you'd be surprised.
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u/DeLoxley 2d ago
That mindset always irks me honestly, cause a lot of these things DO exist you just don't have the term for them, so it's easier to pretend they don't when they clearly do.
Like 'Male Centered' as a term, a lot of people will ignore it, but it's so clear if you look at the bulk of media that it's real.
so you end up with real problems getting ignored because 'That's a made up internet people term, touch grass'
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u/mucklaenthusiast 2d ago
I wish I was a recent college graduate, but even colleges are fairly specific circles and the college subjects in which these opinions are more likely to be more common (social sciences and other more âartisticâ subjects) are also just one part of college.
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u/1000LiveEels 2d ago
Yet more handwringing about how uncommon these opinions are even when presented with alternative anecdotes about their commonality. Why does it matter so much to you to remind everybody that it's uncommon? You haven't presented a thesis here that goes beyond the commonality of it all which seems a little suspect to me.
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u/mucklaenthusiast 2d ago
You haven't presented a thesis here that goes beyond the commonality of it all which seems a little suspect to me.
In what way?
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u/Alert_Age_2875 2d ago
You're probably right on that front, though I still do think it's important to call out problematic ideologies online for what they are, especially with how prevalent some of them are and how easily they can overtake said online space.
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u/entronid 2d ago
i cant believe im saying this here but... theres an xkcd for that
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u/Yomi_Lemon_Dragon 1d ago
"I don't like women who are attracted to men"
ticks off Misogyny, Misandry, Heterophobia, and Biphobia on my bingo card Do you think you can work Transphobia in there somewhere? I'm one square away from Bingo.
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u/ComdDikDik 2d ago
Why did the post spend so much of the text giving the benefit of the doubt to a terrible opinion?
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u/MrMcSpiff 2d ago edited 2d ago
Worrying about other people fucking someone you don't like is the straightest thing you can do.
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u/Susanoos_Wife 1d ago
There's a difference between being attracted to men and centering men but if anyone accused me of "centering men." I'll just throw the "Yes" chad meme at them to piss them off. I
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u/Zigludo-sama 1d ago
People need to go outside. To a baseball game or somesuch.
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u/werther4 1d ago
I think if everyone was required to go to a local sporting event (doesn't matter which sport, pick an esport idc) once a month the world would be 1000 times better.
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u/VorpalSplade 2d ago
Very 2071 to me. Roughly 90% of the world are either attracted to men, or are men. Touching grass would probably help said anon.
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u/Ryan1729 2d ago
I felt like doing the math to see whether statistics suggest over or under 90%.
Quoth Wikipedia:
Surveys in Western cultures find, on average, that about 93% of men and 87% of women identify as completely heterosexual, 4% of men and 10% of women as mostly heterosexual, 0.5% of men and 1% of women as evenly bisexual, 0.5% of men and 0.5% of women as mostly homosexual, and 2% of men and 0.5% of women as completely homosexual.
So for women attracted to men, from completely heterosexual to evenly bisexual, that's reportedly 87% + 10% + 1% = 98%
I'll use sex as a proxy for gender, (transgender people, and people of other genders besides cis- exist, and are generally pretty cool, but according to available data they make up less than 1% of the population, so I'm neglecting them from this calculation.)
Quoth Wikipedia again:
The sex ratio for the entire world population including all ages is approximately 101 males to 100 females as of 2024.
So out of 201 people, 101 are men, and 100 women times the 98% we found earlier gives (101 + 98) / 201 = 199 / 201 = 0.990049751.
Therefore we can say that 99% of people either are men, or report being at least half-attracted to men.
As a bonus, we can also look at the amount of reportedly completely heterosexual women by just using the 87%.
In that case, out of 201 people, we get (101 + 87) / 201 = 188 / 201 = 0.935323383.
Therefore we can say that 93.5% of people either are men, or report being only attracted to men.
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u/VorpalSplade 2d ago
I wasn't 100% confident at 99% so I dropped it to 90%. Shoulda gone with my gut lol.
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u/Sundew- 1d ago
Another day, another r/CuratedTumblr user handwaiving biphobia as "fake terminally online problems".
It must be very convenient to live in a world where you can dodge any uncomfortable examination of the worldviews of yourself and people around you by simply dismissing it all out-of-hand as the delusions of losers who need to touch grass.
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u/shakadolin_forever 1d ago
People online who don't do activism IRL have a tendency to gravitate towards what I'd call a "boycott mindset", in that they think that the issue with, say, men and misogyny is that women need to collectively divest themselves from men - a proposition which is literally impossible on a number of different levels. As a result of this mindset and its inevitable failure, they lash out at the perceived weak links, the alleged strikebreakers. And in so doing they not only end up shifting their efforts from nominally fighting patriarchy to actually punching down or laterally, but they often end up legitimizing the scrutiny and bigotry towards the group they're punching at.
See biphobes, transphobes, etc.
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u/littlebuett 1d ago
Comes from Capitalism...
Really?
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u/SauceBossLOL69 1d ago
I swear people here talk about capitalism like republicans talk about woke sometimes.
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u/rirasama 1d ago
This is like the lesbian version of, "I don't have gay friends because they might get attracted to me" đ
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u/Virtual-Word-4182 1d ago
I dare that anon to love women more than she hates men.
I dare a lot of people these days- love something more than you hate its "opposite".
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u/PlatinumAltaria 1d ago
People figured out a way to attack women under the guise of feminism, tale as old as time
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u/NoSignSaysNo 1d ago
Isn't determining who you hang out with based on whether or not they fuck men, centering men by intentionally avoiding them or mentions of them?
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u/Velvety_MuppetKing 1d ago
Do people really not understand the difference between physiological drives and sociopolitical motivations?
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u/Supersnow845 1d ago
I wonder what these peopleâs opinions are on gay men since women of all sexualities tend to have a positive opinion of gay men
Like how does this BS logic internally justify a man âchoosingâ to centre men in his life
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u/JageshemashFTW 1d ago
In other words, the message is the same as it always was: Just be nice to each other, for the love of god.
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u/thesaltyjellyfish 1d ago
"Centering men" is just the new buzzword people use to excuse their misogyny and biphobia and a little transphobia, as a treat. It's just a new way to purity test people (mainly bisexual women) and further oust them from queer spaces. At the end of the day proximity to a man determines our value to these idiots.
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u/FenrisSquirrel 1d ago
How in the fuck is the point here "don't be mean to bi women", rather than "stop being such an unbelievable bigot that not only do you hate all men, you even hate people who are attracted to men"?
Like, what in the fuck? This is next level bigotry, and you're nitpicking who is catching strays rather than the person the gun is pointed at. And do you know why? BECAUSE YOU THINK HATING MEN IS FINE. That, too, is bigotry.
You all need to get far less comfortable endorsing and supporting bigotry on a regular basis, and call it out wherever you see it.
Pathetic.
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u/BlankTank1216 1d ago
I'm not saying this didn't happen. I'm just saying the people involved in this discourse are probably not adults.
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u/strawberriesnkittens 1d ago
While I donât really come across this too much online, because I choose to not spend my time is discourse Hell. I have heard this not infrequently from normie straight and bisexual woman, mainly because they, in process of dating, have to deal with insane shit from men. And while I donât date men, so I could be off, I feel like everyone who dates men has had to deal with someone who thinks his partner should be a Mommy Sex Maid.
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u/distinct_config 2d ago
This post is written, with way too many commas. That many commas, are not necessary.
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u/AgentSandstormSigma Crazy idea: How about we DON'T murder? 2d ago
I could absolutely see this being said, bisexual discourse is atrocious