existential female despair

With the popularity of booktok and smut there's been men who are absolutely disgusted yes, but only because they think women shouldn't have drives at all, or they're mad as shit about the fact that only good looking sexy men get Abusing Women Privileges. And they're disgruntled about the popularity of the bad boy trope. Like look at this random reddit example which echoes male sentiments I've been seeing absolutely everywhere

A significant other portion of men support this, because if you're a pos misogynist all you have to do is say you support women's choices to like what they want and you'll have both the opportunity to abuse them without consequence and get praised for it. If there is actually somehow a man uncomfortable with it he's gonna get reassured by thousands of feminists on how some women love getting abused!! Consent!! Feminism choice empowerment!! It's crazy out here.

There are a lot of women gloating over how mad men are over romance/smut while not realizing how we're reinventing misogyny in new desirable ways every day. And just how many men are going to take advantage of this recent boom. Misogyny is misogyny is misogyny. At the end of the day It doesn't matter that we can separate reality from fiction and that women can like certain things or that it's more nuanced than we think. The damage is done, for women as a group, it keeps us right in our patriarchal chains.

Why does nobody say this about men when it comes to these discussions? And policing? A Tumblr post in a small non mainstream community, that criticizes broad patterns is not policing. I'm not personally walking up to women and telling them to stop and feminists dont have the power to police womens sexuality the way its policed by patriarchy. And genuinely, very very few people, even feminists, are encouraging women to have 'feminist fantasies'. Even on here the only thing a lot of people bring up is the concern that this is just a another way to police women. But I'm afraid the fantasies many women have now are the accepted and patriatchally correct and expected ones.

And u did acknowledge that its popular because of internalized oppression and internalized misogyny. Should we or should we not do something like encourage better models and narratives for attraction? And encourage questioning and reconditioning? This will involve discomfort because if theres one thing absolutely everyone is resistant to questioning to its sex and fantasy related things. If it was only fantasy, it wouldnt be cause for concern, but because it mirrors oppressive structures so perfectly, and its become more and more encouraged to embrace that, it is something concerning. And yes, sex and related things form a fundamental tenet of womens oppression. If we dont encourage questioning and making healthier baseline sexuality for ourselves, how do we expect to make progress in this regard at all?

Directly degrading women as a team activity. No explanation needed.

An arbitrary aesthetic or consumption pattern that's been assigned value. Finding community around interests like wristwatches and cigars (or comics and video games) is part of it, but not enough for these guys. Including women who share these interests would spoil the idea that men are special, sophisticated, and privy to secret knowledge.

Co-opting virtues as exclusively male. Deciding that courage and self-sacrifice (or empathy and wokeness) are "masculine" allows them to feel like they belong, by virtue of having penises, to a group that's responsible for the very existence of these positive concepts (and of course, each of them can take some personal credit). If a male person is heroic, they attribute this to his gender and use it to validate their imagined superiority. If a male person's actions are reprehensible, then he's "not a real man," even if he committed a harm that's statistically male-dominated.

Be okay with rap lyrics that portray women as objects. Be okay with reading the classics by white male authors who didn't shy away from letting the reader know just how much they hated women. Be okay with the use of imagery depicting violence against women for shock value by metal bands. Be okay with the blonde pop star posing like a dog while a man pulls her hair. Be okay with shaving your body hair. Be okay with applying makeup every day. Be okay with using noncancerous chemicals to straighten your hair. Be okay with ads showing half naked women. Be okay with other cultures' traditions such as head coverings, widows who are thrown in their husband's funeral pyre, female genital mutilation, forced marriages. Be okay with biological males dressing up as a caricature of women and stepping into your spaces. Be okay with language changes such as "chestfeeding" and "people who menstruate". Be okay with having to reconsider calling yourself a lesbian if you're not attracted to trans women and are repulsed by dick. Be okay with unlearning your "genital preference". Be okay with being strangled and beaten by your partner during sex. Be okay with being called a bitch, as it is not a slur. Be okay with the existence of an industry dedicated solely to the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women. Be okay with games from the point of view of a rapist. Be okay with children having access to videos showing women being raped. Be okay with protecting your rapist's career by not coming forward with an accusation. Be okay with the statistics that show your male partner is the person most likely to rape and/or kill you. Be okay with doctors dismissing your health issues. Be okay with your contributions being erased from history and your work being stolen by mediocre men.

The price of men's comfort is women's discomfort. We're supposed to stomach this discomfort all the time, no matter what. And for what? So that men can get to continue living in a system that benefits them and them alone?

tolerate this tolerate that ENOUGH