In this blog post, I want to do what I feel Phaedra Starling failed to do. I’m going to attempt to talk about this topic across the gender line. It took me 4 different sessions to read her blog post from start to finish. The first few times, indignation overtook me. I suspect I’m not alone as the comments appear to have been heavily moderated before being closed.

To openly express my full and complete opinion on this piece would likely serve to infuriate and enrage a feminist audience as much as this piece infuriated and enraged me. This does nothing to establish a dialog or help anyone grow and evolve. Thus, I’m going to attempt to focus on a few core concepts that, while perhaps hard to swallow, might just make it to the mental digestive tracks of those who found Starling’s article to be inspiring. I’m sure it will still be bias, I am human and I’m wrong a lot. Still, I want to speak up here.

Comments on Insult

Before I get constructive, I have to take a few paragraphs to cite a reasons why this article is insulting towards many men.

First, there’s the “you are a good guy” dialog. This is presented in such a way that suggests Starling has some sort of empathy towards men. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that these words are not written in empathy nearly so much as a failed attempt to placate. There’s also the student/teacher metaphor used in the writing. This sets a dominating and oppressive tone towards men. Feminist should know by now that being oppressive is not effective.

Beyond the tone and approach, this piece blatantly promotes the notion that all men are rapists until proven innocent. Rape is a horrible crime and those found guilty of rape are usually strongly punished. However, accusations of false rape often destroy the lives of innocent men. While the damage done to the victim in false charge cases rivals that of rape cases, the punishment for false charge is relatively insignificant. Being falsely accused of rape is a real and terrifying concern for many men. Starling’s approach of openly labeling men as guilty does not help bridge the gap with her supposed audience of men.

Content Analysis

Now that I’ve called attention to the oppressive and threatening components of Starling’s piece, I’ll focus on a constructive analysis of the content itself. I am about to draw a few conclusions based on evidence found in the blog post itself (as quotes).

So far, so good. Miss LonelyHearts, your humble instructor, approves.

There are two take-away items from this line. The first is the voice Starling is speaking from, “Miss LonelyHearts.” While this entire blog post pretends to be targeted at men, I believe it is really written for a world full of “Miss LonelyHearts.” She, Miss LonelyHearts, will be are focus from now on. From now on, we will refer to her as She. Given her name, we form our first plank.

Plank 1: She is lonely.

There is a second take-away item from the line above. This is demonstrated in two parts. The first is the self-given title of instructor. The second is playing the role of deciding approval or disapproval. From this we can take our second plank.

Plank 2: She sees herself as dominant over men.

To begin with, we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted.

“But wait! I don’t want that, either!”

Well, no. But do you think about it all the time? Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones?

Without citing statistics on who the most common victims of violent crime are, lets go directly to drawing information out of this quote. On to another plank.

Plank 3: She’s concerned about violent assault and murder all the time. She fears being assaulted.

Do you follow rules like these?

Yes, I do follow rules, but don’t let me get off track. Miss LonelyHeart has a clear set of rules based on her fear. These rules apply directly to her social behavior.

Plank 4: She has an established set of dating rules.

One in every six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. … then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty

This entire paragraph is rich with logistical error (read the original post, or this post or this one, for the omitted content). While she uses these stats to support a fear of strangers, 83.8% of rapes occur from someone the victim knows. Furthermore, Starling mixes sexual assault and rape stats, two distinctly different acts. Starling’s use of poor logic and statistics conveys a much more threatening perspective than reality.

Plank 5: She is willing to delude herself and others to validate her fear.

To begin with, you must accept that I set my own risk tolerance.

This is a demand. While obvious, since we all set our own risk tolerance, this commentary is delivered as a directive.

Plank 6: She wants control.

Those women do not want to be approached, no matter how nice you are or how much you’d like to date them. Okay? That’s their right. Don’t get pissy about it. Women are under no obligation to hear the sales pitch before deciding they are not in the market to buy.

No where is it said in any of our governing documents that we have the right not to be approached. It is their right to not want to be approached, as is inferred by the line “pursuit of happiness.” However, the freedom of speech also gives us the right to speak to anyone in a public place.

Plank 7: She sees control of first contact as a right.

The second important point: you must be aware of what signals you are sending by your appearance and the environment. We are going to be paying close attention to your appearance and behavior and matching those signs to our idea of a threat.

Starling is now saying that She will evaluate you based on how your appearance and behavior rate against her own criteria. Note that Starling specifically says “our idea of threat.” She’s now free to judge a man’s character based on things such as the color of your skin, how wealthy you appear, or if you have the ability to color coordinate.

Plank 8: She passes judgment based on circumstantial evidence.

You are a threat, remember? You are Schrödinger’s Rapist.

Starling consistently reminds her proposed male reader that he is perceived as a threat. However, Starling cleverly leaves out words such as “perceived” and goes directly to blatantaly calling the proposed male reader a rapist.

Plank 9: She perceives all men as threatening.

There’s a man with whom I went out on a single date—afternoon coffee, for one hour by the clock—on July 25th. In the two days after the date, he sent me about fifteen e-mails, scolding me for non-responsiveness. I e-mailed him back, saying, “Look, this is a disproportionate response to a single date. You are making me uncomfortable. Do not contact me again.” It is now October 7th. Does he still e-mail?

Yeah. He does. About every two weeks.

This is one side of a story. It would be unfair to assume too much from the other side. What we do know is that during this date Starling was precise about the time, the date was for coffee, and that there was one date. We also know Starling was scolded for non-responsiveness. Here we can only assume that she was not responding to him. She also expresses frustration when he continues to contact her.

Plank 10: She is upset by men who do no behave the way she wants them to.

You see, Mr. E-mail has made it clear that he ignores what I say when he wants something from me. Now, I don’t know if he is an actual rapist, and I sincerely hope he’s not. But he is certainly Schrödinger’s Rapist, and this particular Schrödinger’s Rapist has a probability ratio greater than one in sixty. Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well.

Here we have to be very clever because Starling left out the majority of the story. Even Starling blatantly says she doesn’t know if he is an actual rapist. She makes an assumption based on a man ignoring a woman’s NO. However, and this is the clever part, she never actually says what she said “NO” to. What did this mystery man ask of her? Starling’s only story is about him not following her order to stop contacting her, not that he ever specifically requested anything of her. Why was this omitted from the story? Given Starling’s story, she sets us up for a very troubling plank.

Plank 11: She equates a man not following her orders (to stop contacting her) to rape (NO in a sexual setting).

And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.

This particular line is emphasized with italics in the original text. Again, Starling uses the term “rights”. She weighs the male motivation as “desire” and the female motivation as “rights”. Note that this is in reference to attempting to converse in public with a woman who is not interested. While it is easy to draw a conclusion that a male attempting to pursue a female this way is likely to fail, the use of the term “rights” here is no mistake.

Plank 12: She perceives some of her own desires as personal rights, when there are no laws or scriptures supporting her.

And we’re done.

Building a Picture

Now that we have all of these planks, lets do something with them. Let’s put our planks together: She is a lonely (1), insecure (3), controlling (2,4,6,7,10,12), and delusional (5,8,9,11) woman.

Now, there’s one more crucial bit of information I did not pull from the article because it has nothing to do with She. No, this other bit of information is Him, the guy she’s speaking to (or about) through the whole document. I will skip the lengthy process of quotes and analysis for Him and just straight to it. Him is the guy who is nice, tries hard, is lonely, doesn’t understand women, needs help, gets frustrated, and keeps sending emails and making phone calls when all hope is lost.

Those education in the venetian arts have an acronym for Him: AFC. An AFC is an Average Frustrated Chump. I was, and admittedly in some ways still am, an AFC. In a moment of sheer desperation and utter rejection, I told a woman I desired that I was “a nice guy.” Then I found myself stuck. I was wondering why I would say that. It took a lot of self-honesty and introspection to admit that I wasn’t being nice to be nice, I was being nice to get something in return. I wanted attention, affection, and romance. I was listening to what women told me and being the man they said they wanted in hopes of seeing returns on my investment. I was frustrated, as I’d done everything ever asked, and I was still not being treated the way I wanted to. I was insecure. I had a low self image. I was the man She keeps attracting. I was Him.

In those days, I would have responded to Starling’s post first by empathizing and then by being exactly the man she suggested I should be. I would have done it in an attempt to win her approval, just like in the quote supporting plank 2. And She would never have been attracted to me.

Today, I would avoid Miss LonelyHearts like the plague. The last thing I want in my life is a controlling woman to remind me of what an untrustworthy creature I am. Truth is, I want to have fun before I die. If you’re going to come hang with me, you better be prepared for a wild and crazy ride.

Ladies, those of you who are Miss LonelyHearts, you are still attracting Him, the AFC. Do you find yourselves wondering why you don’t attract men of virility? Do you wonder why the men who approach you turn out to be insecure? Do you feel like they constantly want or need something from you? Is that feeling of neediness what makes you feel threatened?

The man you want knows he has value. The man you want doesn’t need you to validate his self worth. The man you want will never be lured by the concept of rape because he knows he has power over himself – and he knows that’s all he needs.

Miss LonelyHearts will never attract this kind of man. She views his security and confidence as threatening to her own controlling nature. Miss LonelyHearts doesn’t mean to be controlling, it’s just a defensive measure because she’s scared. However, she’s scared because she keeps dwelling on, reading about, talking about, and exposing herself to the things that scare her. In fact, she didn’t even notice the fallacy cited in planks 5, 8, 9, and 11. She’s caught in a downward spiral of blame and fear.

The only way out is to take responsibility and to stop blaming innocent men for your fears. Yes, we men hear your concerns and acknowledge them as legitimate. However, we can’t help you; only you can help you. The only person who will ever bring you a true and reliable sense of security is yourself. Once you find your way through the haze of fear and start living, you will start attracting a different type of man.

When you realize and accept that a decision made from fear is never as powerful as a decision made in love, you will find yourself wading and flowing effortlessly through the seas of the insecure. Instead of oppressing them along the way, walking on them and controlling them, you may find yourself touching them and lifting them up lightly along the way. You might just spread hope.

There are horrible things out there in the world. Don’t let it keep you from experiencing the joy. Wake up. Take responsibility. Love thyself, then love thy sister, and most of all, love thy brother.

As soon as I would begin to debate and argue, I could see immediately that my efforts were at best ineffective, and at worst more damaging. The feminist rhetoric is as powerful as an organized religion and contains a wide variety of deeply emotional justifications for much of the inherent misandry. Once powerful emotions are triggered, a fair and logical discussion grows increasingly difficult if not impossible.

Most recently, I’ve been drawn into Men’s Rights groups. These are, very much, a counter point to feminism. At the core, they have strong talking points. Many of which I recently posted about. In that post, I barely scratched the surface. I am, currently, a strong believer that – if men were privileged in the USA (and I think they were), they are no longer privileged above women. There now exists, as a direct result of the Feminist movement, a significant amount of gender biased law and gender biased government funding putting men at a distinct social disadvantage.

That is my current belief. I may learn more that could show me this is untrue. I invite such knowledge. However, the more time I spent reading content related to the Men’s Rights movement – the less happy I was becoming. I became angry, vengeful, and perhaps even a bit misogynistic. I’m just aware enough to watch the irony of this as it boils up inside of me. While my emotional response may be justified, my instictual response will not help.

I need an outlet for this huge energy. I need an intent to apply this energy to. I believe the Men’s Rights path will ultimately lead, if successful, to the exact same negative outcome created by Feminism. Emotionally, I want to join the fight and stop those that have created suffering for my brothers. Spiritually, I refuse to wage a war on my sisters.

After lots of exploring online tonight, I’ve finally found the term that best fits the intent I wish to adopt, Egalitarianism. I was asked once if I was a Feminist. I had to ask what that would truly mean. Upon hearing the verbage of “equality” in the dialog, I said that I must be a Feminist. Knowing what I know now, I am not a Feminist. Nor am I a masculinists. I am an egalitarian. This is core to who I am, not just regarding gender, but also race and sexuality.

I’m blogging about this as a bit of personal record as to how this word brought me a sense of peace tonight. I like it.