Ever since SBG wrote about “How I Met Your Mother” recently, I’ve been thinking about this character I see on screen everywhere. He’s mean to women. The women know they’re being mistreated. And yet they can’t get enough of being used and abused by him.
He doesn’t exist.
Let’s just dispel that myth right away. As presented in TV and film, he doesn’t correlate to anyone in reality. He’s actually a fantasy concocted most likely by male screenwriters who have issues with women.
You know you want him, oh, yes.
Here’s how it probably works: a heterosexual male screenwriter finds he cannot just go out to bars and “pick up chicks.” He notices other guys can. He is jealous of those guys. He needs to rationalize in his head how the women really should be putting out for him and not the other guy. He concocts (unconsciously, perhaps) the delusion that he is a super nice guy, and the guy who can get women into bed is a jerk, and there’s something wrong with those women that they prefer a jerk to a nice guy. Bitches! I know – I’ll write this into my screenplays and teach ’em good.
That’s probably how it started. Now it’s been handed down from hack to hack for so long, even female writers don’t realize it’s based on a male fantasy. Now people really believe there are women out there who realize “I am being treated like garbage” and decide “I like it – I want me some more of that, oh, yes.”
Those women don’t exist either.
In reality, women sometimes go to bed casually with men they find attractive or entertaining. Women do not like being treated like crap, but they will even sleep with a sexist pig if they haven’t known him long enough to know he’s a sexist pig or don’t care at the moment. They may even ignore some icky traits in order to have a sexual adventure. The main points here are:
- Most of the men who “score” at bars are at least as kind and decent as the guys who don’t. In addition to being decent, they’re also attractive in some way – good-looking, funny, interesting, etc.
- Those men who are jerks but can “score” at bars are hiding their jerk nature in order to appeal to women. Jerks, like people who rob liquor stores and kids who bully other kids, know how to hide their true nature from people who would deprive them of something if they knew better. That’s why whenever a serial killer is caught, all his neighbors are all like, “Wow, he was always so nice, went to church, smelled good.”
- If a woman sees that a man is a jerk but decides to go to bed with him anyway because he’s just so cute or she’s just that bored or whatever, this is a case of her deciding how she wants to spend her time, not of him tricking the naive flower (who couldn’t possibly want casual sex, being female).
The thing about this writing trope is that it puts the men exclusively in the position of power. It depicts women as helpless things that need the constancy of relationships but sometimes get tricked into casual sex. It assumes women who have their own reasons for having casual sex are damaged goods. It assumes men are by nature sex seekers and women are by nature sex awarders, thereby stripping women of any power in the scenario… other than the power to award sex to the dull and/or obnoxious who are being framed as the “right” choice.
There’s another interesting shade to the evolution of the Sexist Jerk Who Scores character: he serves as a punishment and warning to all those great-looking girls who turn down dull, boring and ugly guys in favor of attractive guys. It warns women that sexy men are wolves in sheep’s clothing, so women should settle for the sheep right off the bat. It reminds women that men are allowed to be incredibly shallow about women’s looks and personality traits, but if we start to think like that, we’ll be punished.
Sylvie says
I dated a “nice guy” once. He turned out to be an awful, abusive man.
But, this is why I’m writing:
Maria says
Hi Sylvie!
As far as I know, that’s not something that comes up a lot in Hathor posts. I try to include kink blogs dealing with feminism in our Links of Great Interest (here’s an example of a recent one: https://thehathorlegacy.com/links-of-great-interest-1110/). I also talk a little about some of the attitudes in Gor here: https://thehathorlegacy.com/witness-of-gor-john-norman/.
I personally wouldn’t judge a sub for submitting… but if s/he tried to front that there is something radical about a female body submitting to a male body, or that there’s an essentially feminine quality to submitting, or whatever, I’d have a problem. I’d also have a problem with a kinkster blaming DV laws or feminists for ruining sex/kinkdom, or dismissing feminists as all being anti-sex prudes.
Sorry to derail your post Jen! :p
snobographer says
Karakuri says:
October 9, 2009 at 1:52 am
“Images of the ideal man all around us are created by and for men. Things that would impress a woman also have to be things that would impress a man”
Sean Connery is a perfect embodiment of this. Aside from the actresses in his movies, who are paid very handsomely to act like they dig him, I’ve never heard any woman IRL express any sort of sexual attraction to Sean Connery. Ever. Not even older women. The closest I’ve seen is women reiterating the CW that women dig Sean Connery, but that they personally can take him or leave him and that they don’t actually know any women who are all that into him.
I have heard lots and lots of guys say that women are totally hot for Sean Connery, like it’s an unassailable fact.
Also, the knight in shining armor or prince on a white steed, galloping through a meadow or along a beach. Total male fantasy. Has nothing to do with actual women’s actual sexuality.
It just goes to show most men – and really society at large – get their ideas about women from other men. It’s a big part of why we continue to baffle them. “You’re still mad at me? But I bought you jewelry!”
littlem says
My mother digs him. (And I’ve heard other Bond fans of her generation swoon over him.)
I, on the other hand, am a Pierce Brosnan girl.
I’ve heard some interesting things about how Connery treats women, and I’ve observed (from my shameful readings of Hello! and other equally vapid media) the lovely way Pierce treats his wife Kelly.
I think there’s something significant in that, even if I can’t quite put the finger on it.
Casey says
I don’t know at all about the way Connery or Brosnan treats women, so I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not in the “lovely” department. (I never seem to find articles on them in the trash mags I read…either that, or I’m just not paying enough attention! :P)
BetaCandy says
From Wikipedia’s entry on Connery:
So, you know, even if he didn’t hit Cilento, his thinking on the topic reeks. Unless he went on to state that women are also entitled to hit their male partners if the male partners are getting on their nerves with their silly male opinions and habits and such, and the publications edited that part out. Somehow, I doubt.
There have never been allegations of mistreatment by Pierce Brosnan of either of his wives. In fact, by all accounts (including film people I knew who worked with him directly), he was deeply devoted to his first wife throughout their marriage. She eventually died of ovarian cancer, and apparently he rearranged his whole life around supporting her through her illness. When she died, he struggled with his grieving process, as you’d expect from someone deeply in love.
Casey says
That thing about Sean Connery…WOW. 😐
It’s a surprising contrast between these two James Bonds, though.
And what the fuck does “bloody-minded” mean? That she’s on the rag?
BetaCandy says
It’s British slang for stubborn or just generally difficult to get along with.
Attackfish says
Good to know. I always thought it meant having violent inclinations.
littlem says
Hi, Casey –
I got this message three times in email but it wasn’t showing up here.
As for Brosnan, I wasn’t being sarcastic. He treats his wife, also mom of both his kids IINM, with loving solicitation. There’s a lot of fan sniping because she does things like appear in a bikini in public even though she’s not size 0, so you get all this woman-on-woman hate about how James Bond “should” be with someone “more attractive” … and the two of them just blithely ignore it, which has always pleased me.
In contrast, a sharp one, I think, to some of the things JK has dug up for you on Mr. Connery.
Casey says
Oh, I think I remember some Best/Worst Bikini Bods show on E! where they were talking all kinds of shit about Brosnan’s wife being “fat” or something.
voodooqueen126 says
I have seen Sean Connery when he was younger and he was handsome. Sad to find out he is a gross beater…
I think the men who are portrayed as being the mysoginists who pick up chicks are often kind of pretty blond men (like Barney from How I met your Mother or Joffrey Lannister from AGOT when Sansa liked him). Now Barney and whichever actor plays Joffrey (James Gleeson I think) would be pretty girls and no doubt appealing to men if they were women. But that pretty blond look is a big sexual zero for me.
Men who are incredibly sexy include, most Bollywood stars, Rory McCann, the guy who plays Wolverine, Daniel Craig, maybe George Clooney… Personally I think having a wonderfully muscled body like that would be incredibly high maintanence, far more high maintanence then being a pretty little blond like Barney or Orlando Bloom (who isn’t blond but still fragile looking), which merely requires dieting than actual weight-lighting and running. So I kind of assumed that men were projecting: they know they find fragile blond elf girls attractive, so they assume that women find fragile blond elf boys attractive, and whilst that sort of look was attractive to me before I was 12 (remember girlhood crushes) it changed at 12 and the beginning of adolescence. So they have this terribly pretty men with horrid personalities, getting laid.
As if in real life.