Woman manipulating man with handkerchief, butt
The idea that women regularly use their sexual wiles to gain control over men has long been central to the Men’s Rights Movement.
In the seminal MRA tome The Myth of Male Power, Warren Farrell famously declared that secretaries have “miniskirt power, cleavage power and flirtation power” over their male bosses; the latest edition of his book features a shapely female posterior on the cover, sans clothing, to illustrate what he sees as the immense power women can exert over men with, well, their butts.
In the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit, one Reddit MGTOW takes Farrell’s argument one sickening step further, seeming to suggest that women use this sexy power of theirs to “intice” [sic] men to, well, rape them.
As High-Fruit-Trinity sees it, women have
used men’s nature against them.
They called men pigs & date-rapists. But they were the CAUSE
Of male piggishness and … rape?
They have entire industries just for women to be more beautiful, inticing and sexy. They’re taught everything about manipulating men. Men aren’t taught anything.
Women got away with this because they are the perceived victims, and you shouldn’t blame the victim. So who do you blame?
I dunno, dude, when a man acts like a pig to women, I blame him. When a man rapes a woman, I blame him. Who do you blame, Mr. High-Fruit-Trinity? Do you actually see rape survivors as the real “CAUSE” of rape, and the rapists themselves as the victims?
Apparently so. In a followup comment in the thread, High-Fruit-Trinity approvingly quotes a comment from a Washington Post reader about a famous political sex scandal.
“let’s acknowledge that women also play a role in soliciting sexual attention. Think about John Edwards and Rielle Hunter and how all the blame is focused on Edwards. She could easily cry “sexual harrassment!” as a causative factor; why isn’t a charge of “sexual enticement” just as accurately applied to the situation? “
It’s a bizarre question to ask about Edwards and Hunter, given that no one was accusing Edwards of sexually harassing her; the two had a consensual affair. But MRAs and MGTOWs seem to have some trouble understanding the difference between sexual harassment and mutual sexual attraction, as well as between consensual sex and rape.
In any case, the logic here is pretty clear: in High-Fruit-Trinity’s mind, whenever a man harasses or rape or does anything sexual to a woman that she doesn’t consent to, it’s her fault, not his, because she must have “enticed” him into doing it.
Basically, this is blame-the-victim on steroids. And yet another reason so many people wish that the so-called Men Going Their Own Way would indeed go wherever it is they are allegedly going, the further away from the rest of us the better.