Andy Hind wrote an article for Slate.com on May 30 called “I’m a stay-at-home dad. I’m a feminist. I have erotic thoughts about random women I pass on the street. How can I stop that?”[1].
I won’t dissect Hind’s ideologically-induced self hatred in any detail, as numerous other writers have already done that. However, it’s worth noting that shaming human beings for expressing their natural sexual inclinations seems, in the gender ideological zeitgeist like just one more point of fatal hypocrisy. Just sayin’.
Maureen O’Connor, who writes for NYMag has posted a few words on Hind’s article too. The title: I’m a Woman. I Read Slate. I Have Violent Thoughts About a Guy Who Writes About Being Horny. How Can I Stop That?[2]
However, before any examination of O’Connor’s article, the most glaring question in my mind is what were Slate’s editors thinking when they okayed this piece?
O’Connor’s rant begins with a paragraph including the following: “As I read Hinds’s lustily imagined paean to penis, I struggled to overcome a powerful animal feeling within. Violence. Female violence. How can I stop my desire to rend limb from limb the innocent men featured in this article?”.
Two items jump out from this introduction, the first is female violence. Normally I would not take notice of this phrase. However, its compliment, male violence has become a standard rhetorical point in the writing of gender ideologues. The same ideologues who oppose human rights, who promote violence, and who appear to be fixed on the goal of a hierarchy of designated people and lesser livestock, organized along the lines of sexual identity.
Violence doesn’t have a sex or a gender. That means its initiation is no more, and no less vile, and it’s ideation no more, and no less shameful when conducted by members of the gentler sex; which is to say, men.
The second item of note from O’Connor’s NYMag article is her question: “How can I stop my desire to rend limb from limb the innocent men featured in this article”? MAUREEN O’CONNOR admits in the introduction of her own article that her desire is to commit violence on a man she designates as innocent.
But that question from O’Connor leads to a question of my own. Why would anyone write a feature length article for NYMag, announcing to the entire world that they are a violent sociopath? For that matter, why would the editors at NYMag publish any such self indictment, lending the name of NYMag to such ideations of murder?
Apparently, I have entirely missed the author’s main point. According to a colleague I consulted while I wrote this criticism, O’Connor’s claims “Andy Hinds does not deserve to be torn limb from limb” and “He’s not a misogynist” is constructed plausible deniability. This is also evident in O’Connor’s second pararaph, which concludes as follows:
“He knows not what he does — but I, oh, I know exactly what I am doing. I am fantasizing about snapping Andy Hinds’s fingers, one by one. And I am indulging this fantasy in a very long article on the Internet, because my exhibitionist desire to parody Andy Hinds is greater than my respect for Andy Hinds.”
So, O’Connor’s “very long” 695 words constitute PARODY of Mr Hinds, apparently. The guy whose most significant public failing seems to be writing about his sexual daydreams. I work with a few women, some of whom I’ve had a fantasy or two about. In fact, asking a few of my closer female friends, they too have fantasies about some of the men they encounter at work and elsewhere. People have sexual fantasies, and many of those fantasies are lurid and quite impractical. Andrew Hinds wrote an article mentioning this, and O’Connor decided her own fantasy to publicize would be, among other things, to snap all his fingers.
But as mentioned, until speaking to a colleague about her piece, I had entirely missed the point. Despite identifying Hinds as “innocent”, and having done nothing wrong – her point which had to be pointed out to me was to shame him. Well, not just Andy Hinds, also any male reader with sexual fantasies.
You get the message, guys? If you have any naughty thoughts about your kid’s female swimming coach, or the woman who drives the UPS truck, or the blonde with the big knockers in HR, or that valkyrie you keep noticing down at the gym, keep those thoughts bottled up and never never never express them. Because YOUR sexuality is dirty, depraved and to be ashamed of.
You should know this, because your social better, in the person of one Maureen O’Conner has told you. The existence of sexual fantasies belonging to men drives her into a murderous rage. In fact, according to our Maureen: “Violent rage is the background music every time you read a troll-baiting article on the Internet.”
Is it? Perhaps if you’re not an adult, and lack any ability to chose your own state of mind. But O’conner, whether she is the emotional toddler she claims or not is putting us all on notice that if we own a Y chromosome, our sexuality is dirt, bad and our sexual fantasies, whether they might be, should appropriately be a source of shame.
“And don’t feel bad about being horny, Andy Hinds. It happens. Just keep it to yourself.”
That’s what I totally missed. It flew right past me. In fact, It did not even occur to me that Andy should feel any shame at all about his lust for a Valkyrie on an elliptical. Nor did it cross my mind that I should feel shame for any of my own lustings. As the thesis of O’Connor’s article, that men should feel ashamed of their own sexuality, it simply did not occur to me.
Of course, it’s not like this is a new message either. The prevalent use of the word “creep” to describe any male whose sexuality can be plausibly drawn into the narrative is nothing new.
But aren’t we all lucky then to find a new bludgeon for our identities in the form of O’Connor’s publicly violent rage. But remember, she’s not just the violent sociopath she portrays in the following 695 words, she’s a woman. That means she’s our arbiter of decency and the judge of what is or isn’t acceptable sexuality. Of course, before it was pointed out to me, while I was still so puzzled over why anyone would make a public and literal claim of their own violent urges, I thought qualifying an opening opinion with “I’m a woman” was merely the solipsism of an emotional child and a bad writer.
The first words in the title of her article are her statement of authority. “I’m a Woman. I Read Slate. I Have Violent Thoughts About a Guy Who Writes About Being Horny. How Can I Stop That?”
Maureen O’Conner is clearly not a bad writer, and it turns out, not an emotionally arrested toddler either. She’s a member of the special people, particularly those who determine whose sexuality is appropriate, and whose is not. Men like Andy Hind. Maybe even men like me, whose sexuality, although intellectually we all know exists, will not be considered a natural aspect of our human identity. Indeed, as male sexuality should be for men, rightly a subject of shame.
But as mentioned previously in this article, this had to be pointed out. I quite missed it when I read Maureen’s rant about her own violent inclinations. I had to be told my sexuality should be a source of shame, and a topic on which to remain silent.
And now, It appears that I have already forgotten that lesson again.
[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/05/stay_at_home_dad_sexual_fantasies_why_i_d_like_to_stop.single.html
[2] http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/05/violent-thoughts-about-a-man-how-can-i-stop.html
Forgetting to be shamed
