Jeez, this poor schnook... [View all]

(Thanks to the gals over in HOF for the link)

All I could thing about when I read this is what a self-hating schnook this guy has become. He has, sadly, bought into the idea that it is impossible to believe in equal rights for women while simultaneously being a normal male that enjoys sex and gets sexual thoughts. Talk about drinking the kool-aid and internalizing feelings of contempt that are floating around out there re men.

Some of the comments were reasonable, but many of them amount basically to "shut up and don't talk about it" as if men should be shamed of their sexuality. Ironic to see that women, who for decades were told that they can't express their sexuality, now seem unable to stop doing the same thing to men.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/05/stay_at_home_dad_sexual_fantasies_why_i_d_like_to_stop.single.html#comments



[font size="16"] Heel[/font size]
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?

I’m a stay-at-home dad to twin 4-year-old girls who are already smarter than me, and my wife is a brilliant doctor who kicks ass and saves lives every day. I grew up with big sisters and a mom whose authority was unbreachable. I celebrate every inroad that women make into business, technology, science, politics, comedy, you name it, and I get angry about “slut-shaming” or “stereotype threat” or whatever is the affront du jour. And yet, in the caveman recesses of my imagination, I objectify women in ways that make Hooters look like a breakout session at a NOW conference.

In Louis C.K.’s comedy special, Live at the Beacon Theater, the stand-up, who in his own way has been making feminism funny for years, talks about being “sick of the constant perverted sexual thoughts” that intrude on his day-to-day life. Women who claim that they have equally hardcore erotic thoughts, he says, are just “tourists in sexual perversion” whereas men are “prisoners.” “You’re Jane Fonda sitting on the tank,” he says to the hypothetical woman who boasts of being as dirty-minded as men. “I’m John McCain in the hut … it’s a nightmare … I can’t lift my arms.” He then illustrates how his condition plays out when he can’t even ask a librarian about a book on Lincoln without aggressive pornographic daydreams turning him into a slavering idiot. “I just want to have a day [without the perverted thoughts],” he laments, “I just want to be a person, in clothes, walking in a store.”

I’m quickly realizing that avoiding ogling is a very effective strategy for reining in the imagination, and that the Three Second Rule keeps me honest. It’s also striking how the drive through campus is a “trigger” (to borrow SAA terminology) for what could be considered compulsive behavior on my part. As I approach certain intersections, I get a feeling of anticipation that’s not exactly sexual, but more like the buzz I get when I feel like there’s a Facebook notification on my iPhone burning a hole in my pocket: Okay … [scan, scan, scan] … let me just check her out really quick … Oh! There’s another one! Light’s green … I’ll just linger on her a little bit in the side-view mirror as I pass. But I’m not doing that today. I’m watching traffic, staring at the stoplight, making faces at my kids in the rear-view mirror.

I consider this a big victory so far. After all, it’s much easier to succumb to the impulse within the automotive bubble of unaccountability than when we’re face-to-face with someone. But giving up the little charge of satisfaction I get from acting out makes the driving more peaceful. Like road rage, ogling, while momentarily satisfying, actually consumes energy and attention, and ultimately makes the task of driving more difficult. When I interact with the staff at the kids’ school, and later the female cashiers and shoppers at the grocery store, again it’s a bit of a relief to make myself focus on their faces. Instead of undressing them with my eyes, I’m cloaking them in imaginary burqas. It seems like I shouldn’t have to do this, and that it’s not the “right” solution, but it’s working, and it’s less draining than catching myself furtively checking out the parts that are—forgive me—on display, and then creep-shaming myself.