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Plato's Rabbit Cave's avatar

I rarely get triggered but I was reading a post by Stella O'Malley (psychotherapist, Genspect founder) a couple of days ago and at one point I felt like someone had trodden on my brain.

Quote: "Women’s sexuality is seldom a danger to others and so we can be pretty easy-going about their choice of attire. Male sexual expression, however, can be very dangerous and so we need to be a good deal more wary in this context."

Here's the full post for context:

https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/the-intricacies-of-sex-and-clothing

I would have left a lengthy comment but only paying subscribers are allowed to comment. I used to find Stella interesting enough to listen to whenever she was interviewed by Benjamin Boyce, but I started to notice these gynocentric biases creep in and eventually found the conversations frustrating to listen to as a result. (Boyce is also a hopelessly chivalrous - although he seems quite honest about it, so it's not so annoying).

For a whole afternoon I was trying to formulate what I would have written if the comments had been switched on. It is a difficult topic to pin down into a concise argument. The threat men's sexuality (or just men's physicality) poses to women is so obvious it hardly needs pointing out. But the threat women's sexuality poses to men is more like a 'snakes and ladders' board. It encompasses not only the threat posed by women but also the threat posed by other men who are taken in by a woman's facade of innocence, vulnerability and any affectations of victimhood.

Your story (above) illustrates this perfectly.

It is precisely because a neotenous, sexually vulnerable woman in attractive clothing appears to pose no threat to men that men are so at risk. I was staggered that Stella would not (choose to?) understand this concept given that she is perfectly capable of picking apart dogma when she wants to.

This breakup story illustrates how women's sexuality can destroy a man at any moment, whenever she is done with the relationship and especially if she also decides to destroy his life by making HIM out to be the bad one.

A man's sexuality poses a threat in the moment, on a date, in a dark street, in an unlicensed cab...... but a woman's sexuality can only ever be said to be harmless once a man has reached the end of his life unharmed! Until then all bets are off.

I think that's the difference I could not pin down, this story helped me clarify it.

At the risk of veering off topic.... what makes Stella's goof even more frustrating is that in her work with ROGD kids she is well aware that a huge motivation for a trans identity among teenage girls is the feeling that being a woman is all about being the passive, victimised, powerless object and that only men have power, potency and agency. So many de-transitioners have expressed how they wanted to feel that power and agency which only belongs to men, rather than be cursed with being a helpless, objectified woman.

Stella's nonsense about women having no sexual power and posing no threat to men is precisely the kind of feminist crap that makes young women feel inferior to men, and envious of men's dominance. If we could once again acknowledge the immense power of women's sexuality - and the very real threat it poses to men (and to women themselves) - then maybe those girls would not have felt the need to wreck their bodies with testosterone (feminism hurts women too).

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Paul Elam's avatar

Well said!

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Kirby Fagg's avatar

Excellent Paul! The most troubling thing about relaying this common scenario to guys is that they just don't get it until it's happened to them. Men don't believe it will happen to them anymore than they expect to be struck by falling space debris.

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Paul Elam's avatar

And too many don't even learn then, amigo. It's a frustrating uphill battle for us to reach guys in a way they'll hear it.

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Steel Ridge's avatar

Unfortunately church is just as much a problem for finding mates as any other place, maybe even worse. It's 100% positive social reinforcement to get married with practically all adults married and any Scripture showing the tough side of marriage is laughed off as a joke. In my case before marriage it was all "you are so good together" and "marriage is so fulfilling."

After marriage the lazy wife syndrome popped up among other issues, so after a few years of arguing without any improvement I went to the elders and asked for some help because the Bible says for the older women to teach the younger women to be keepers of the home. Boy was that a mistake, no older women actually came to teach and help out. What we got was a meeting with an elder and his wife who talked with us for an hour wherein the elder told me, "we knew she had problems before you got married", and "you both need to do better." To this day I kinda feel I was defrauded, like they wanted to get her married off so long as it wasn't one of their own kids.

(As an aside I was the new guy in church and my experience with women was practically nil even at 24 years old, IOW I was a tailor made for mark).

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Paul Elam's avatar

Dang, brother. That's big time betrayal. Shameful.

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Joesph J Esposito's avatar

Proverbs 6:23 28 WEB CAPTURED! Oh boy LOL that's going to upset a LOT of trad con fake 'Christian' wo-MEN when I post it./ Another brilliant article Paul. Juxtaposing & cross referencing the past with the present, neoteny with dopamine, gyno-centrism with testosterone, the wisdom of Solomon, the idiocy Adam, BRAVO! I feel there's a poetic aesthetic to your speaking points as well as a rhythm to your excellent delivery. You have that beatnik appeal. I wish I could play bongo drums for you while you recite your speaking points!

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Paul Elam's avatar

Reading your comment was a gas, daddy-o! LOL. Thanks, brother. The words of encouragement are a blessing!

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Joesph J Esposito's avatar

Scooby dooby wow wow wow give me some skin brother

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Pilgrim's avatar

"Take makeup, for instance. Over thousands of years, humans have perfected the art of visual deception in women."

Deception indeed. The Bible certainly takes a very negative view of it.

I've just done a search through the KJV for the term "paint". It comes up four times:

2 Kings 9:30 And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window.

Ezekiel 23:40 And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments,

Jeremiah 22:14 That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.

Jeremiah 4:30 And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.

Only once is it used for painting a house --- the other three times it's used to describe a woman painting her face.

...And all the women who are mentioned as doing this in Scripture are wicked women.

Food for thought.

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Cesar Quintana's avatar

Very interesting, parental brain stimulation explains a lot, but do women really change after marriage or do we blind ourselves and only see what we want to see?

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Paul Elam's avatar

They change, but they don't show you anything that you could not have found out by testing her character several times early on.

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Joesph J Esposito's avatar

I second Paul's wisdom. We could have seen these red flags if we weren't PUSSY WHIPPED

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