The “dude hates women because he can’t get laid” thing irritates me from a number of directions.
Dudes who get lots of sex from women frequently hate women, dudes who want sex with women but are “volcel” or not interested in “sluts riding the cock carousel” or whatever manosphere redpill grossness is floating around have some weird shit going on and probably need hugs and sympathy for other reasons but that doesn’t excuse the fact that lots of them just hate women.
But that’s just some of the straight dudes.
I’ve known a lot of *deeply* misogynistic/femmephobic/transphobic gay men and at least a couple of very misogynist ace folks. I know a *TREMENDOUS* number of misogynist straight women, who are sexist as fuck and fighting daily battles with their own internalized misogyny but who are certainly not motivated in their contempt and hatred for women by a desire to fuck them. Misogyny in gay men, straight women, and ace folks at least proves that misogyny can be completely divorced from an unfulfilled desire for vaginal sex.
I think the reason we hear the “he’s just mad because he’s not getting any” is because there is a not-insignificant number of men who will be more vocal about their misogyny when they’re single and having trouble “pulling” - that’s where you get stories from women in bars who get called stuck-up bitches or who are told all women are the same gold-digging whores and whatever, because some dude tried to hit on them and got shut down. I heard an awful lot of this kind of thing as a comforting shoulder to many a geek who wanted to know what was wrong with him and why girls didn’t like him and went for the jock or the dude with the motorcycle or the asshole with the tattoos. But I also ran LGBT clubs and was the shoulder for a lot of gay men discussing how disgusting vaginas are and how they don’t even want women around (and I understand that a lot of that probably is a defense mechanism for young men being pressured into performing heteronormativity who are totally uninterested in women and ambivalence can easily become revulsion when you’re pressured into doing things you don’t want to that aren’t right for you; I feel less sympathy and understanding for older gay men I know now who continue to regularly discuss how icky vaginas are and how women are cock-hungry because they’ve got penis envy and aren’t whole without a dick in them somewhere, what the fuck you sound like radfems)
I’m rambling too much, but here’s what I’m trying to get down to: many women hear the most vocal, vicious, misogynist things from men they’ve just turned down or from men whose catcalls they’ve ignored. I think the reason a lot of women default to “you just can’t get laid” as an insult to misogynists is because their mental picture of “misogynist” is “that guy who chased me for two blocks because I wouldn’t smile” or “that guy who screamed at me in the bar” or “that guy who called me a bitch in science class because I didn’t accept his promposal” or “that asshole who said I put him in the friendzone when I wouldn’t sleep with him after a breakup because I just thought he was my friend.”
I’m not saying that it’s right or it’s good that people default to “wants and can’t attain straight sex” as the handwave for misogyny, I’m saying we should figure out where this is coming from. Homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality are probably a significant part of the answer, but lived experience of women being personally attacked (either verbally or physically) by men whom they’ve rejected is probably another part.
And, yeah, a lot of this ends up throwing LGBTQIA folks under the bus - an adult who menstruates and is freaked out by tampons is assumed to be childish or a prude instead of sex-repulsed or penetration-averse or experiencing dysphoria; an adult who doesn’t seek (primarily straight) sex is assumed to be broken.
And that’s all fucked up.
So yeah, feminist folks, you are perpetuating the cycle of toxic masculinity when you use “this loser can’t get laid” as an insult (also when you use “prude” as an insult - there are lots of good reasons people aren’t interested in sex or aren’t interested in hearing about sex in lots of contexts, oversharing when someone is uncomfortable with it is violating their consent).
And I’ll just end my rant with “can we just try not to be jerks to each other? That’d be swell.”
