Girls, why do you feel that men need permission to be attracted to you ?

Lianza · 2021-11-06T15:27:16+00:00

Hi! A young 24-old woman here. My mind is a little foggy for writing tight now but I found this thread interesting and thought to shoot you.

In my personal experience, I think that I started to see sex and boys' looks as threatening because of some unresolved trauma. Ever since I was a child I was heavily pressured to fill my gender role. I lived under a very pushy traditional father that constantly harassed me into looking and acting prettier, and back at school kids of both genders bullied me for similar stuff. As the years came by, I developed a deep abhorrance towards anything that had to do with fashion, sex and so on. Adding to that, I think that getting exposed to media like domestic violence news and the way some movies treated male characters as chauvinistic pigs made me start getting more paranoid when men looked at me.

It's funny, because it wasn't until I played a male character for a now failed romantic roleplay that I understood how these views came into play. Now I still kinda get nervous with sexual stuff, but I understand how it is human nature and also how the demonization of sex plays a crucial role on shaming dynamics, both for men and women. I try to keep my prejudices at bay, but I am not perfect, of course.

I don't know if this is the kind or answer you were seeking but I hope it helped somehow!

ripyourlungsdave · 2021-11-06T14:36:17+00:00

It's just the same tactic the right used for years to control women through sex.

It's amazing the amount of control you can have over someone when you tell them that something as innate and primal as sexual attraction is inherently wrong outside of the specific scenarios in which they say it's okay. Look how people used it to control the LGBT community.

Just like any other organization/movement throughout history, once it gains enough traction and power, it will inevitably be co-opted by people just using it to garner control over a people they feel are lesser (or to just make money off of it, which leads to them pandering to the less-than-reputable and usually more extremist members of the movement). Which leads to it becoming a supremacist movement.

You can't even masturbate to porn without feminists telling you what you're doing is inherently wrong. Even when you go out of your way to find reputable and respectable porn companies. It's just a revenge fantasy come to life where they now get to be the ones controlling men instead of the other way around. That's all it comes down to.

So I say fuck em. Pop a boner whenever you damn well want. As long as you aren't infringing on anyone elses personal space and or doing anything obviously illegal, be sexually attracted to whomever you want, fantasize about whomever you want. That's between you and you.

Skirt_Douglas · 2021-11-06T16:10:10+00:00

I think there is a lot to unpack. For one thing, I really think this started out as a holdover from a Christian dominated society, and feminists have worked to dismantle old Christian hung ups about female sexuality, while preserving hang ups about male sexuality. There was a time when all human sexualities were gross, now just men’s is.

As another element, I think it is also connected to women’s sense of each other’s sexual market value, and how they advertise their own perceived sexual value. Men show off their perceived sexual value by bragging about how many women they’ve been with; when you are expected to go out and approach women, and they are expected to be hard to get, then how many women you’ve successfully “hunted” becomes the point system. Women boast about their perceived sexual value by bragging about how many guys they have to turn down, because if so many guys approach her, and if they are all unworthy, then that reinforces this idea that she is really valuable. So for women, harshly turning down men is a way of reaffirming their ego and sense of self worth. “How dare you approach me? You should gaze upon my beauty and know you are not worthy.” That sentiment isn’t really for the guy making the approach, it’s for her and her ego. The unworthy approacher is taken as an insult to her because her ego tells her that this unworthy suitor is mistaking her for a lower value women, so rudely rebuking the “unworthy” suitor is her ego attempting reassert its toxic sense of value in the face of an insecurity that maybe, this average Joe recognized her as his equal (how dare he?). I don’t think this is the only or even main cause of what you are talking about OP, but I do think it is connected.

Syndocloud · 2021-11-06T15:01:51+00:00

To be clear(I think the main post was worded weirdly but the topic some replies were touching on is good so I'll keep it

The question I'm simply asking is

Why are heterosexual women so grossed out by men and their attraction to them. This concept barely exists the other way around and trying to explain it through male concepts just makes it sound so clearly evil or an entirely privileged non issue that feminism invented. And yet it's not.

The worst part is. Most men I feel wouldn't feel bad if this was just a universal fact. "Women find overly overt and explicit displays of interest icky" but when friendzone and male friend discussions come up suddenly you should have "made your feelings known".

For me this is the crux of all unisex spaces' gender problems. The guys are straight and have feelings for some of the girls (because they are heterosexual and hetero romantic) and these(heterosexual) women are for some reason grossed out by this, or just kinda get weird about it. Worse yet pulling out the " men don't understand friendship". This phrase implies that men need to already know a girl likes him before even having feelings and their feelings are their fault(implying that romantic feelings are bad and someone could even be at fault for them) and they are ruining the friendship.

We've all heard the nice guy era memes. Most are overdramatic but none the less it's true that girls some way way cooler with what they would otherwise call sexual harassment by attractive or charismatic men.

Honestly I don't want this comment to be infinitely long but I wish I could debate and learn from girls on what exactly goes on in their mind on these topics because there are like infinity questions.

DouglasWallace · 2021-11-06T17:12:28+00:00

You approach the matter from an interesting perspective and make the point well.

I think you are wrong in it not being 'just a feminist thing'. Yes, it is across the political spectrum: so is feminism. Don't forget, feminism has been infecting our societies for so long now that some things they started almost appear to be part of our culture, instead of the corruption of it.

Some women get the message about sex, by the way. There are women, for example, who are well aware of one of the main reasons a man gets married, and are happy to accommodate.

Some years ago, a friend of mine wrote an article in this kind of topic. She has so much common sense it is painful at times, particularly for the feminists. See Feminism vs Femininity.

Kuato2012 · 2021-11-06T16:01:29+00:00

I've removed this post due to the antagonistic wording of the title. I think the social phenomenon you're describing is a fair topic for discussion, but we're trying to keep the discussion more civil and less outrageous here at LWMA. If you'd like to repost it with a different kind of title, that would be fine.

tittltattl · 2021-11-06T15:02:36+00:00

I’ll be honest that this post made me laugh a little bit. I think the vast majority of people know that having sexual attraction is totally fine and normal. Hell, I used to think like you and I hid my sexual attraction from everyone as a result. The people who reinforced that for me were other men telling me this exact thing without any real grounds to believe it. What ended up happening is I reinforced a cycle of shame about my sexuality without any sort of outside reinforcement from women. Once I stopped doing that, dating and relationships became ridiculously easy compared to before. Simply put: people often find it flattering when someone is into them, even if they don’t feel anything back or don’t want a relationship of any kind. There is likely a minority of men and women who are not flattered or are bothered, but by and large, no one is bothered by normal sexual attraction. I think what men and women have a harder time with is if sexual attraction causes a person to harass them or stalk them or behave in some other toxic way. Consent and boundaries should always take precedence over sexual attraction. But simply having a sexual attraction is fine and I find it hard to believe that any significant amount of people are unhappy about that. Just my two cents.

Title	Girls, why do you feel that men need permission to be attracted to you ?
Author	Syndocloud
Upvotes	44
Comments	10
Date	November 6, 2021 1:46 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/qo0l1b/girls_why_do_you_feel_that_men_need_permission_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/girls-why-do-you-feel-that-men-need-permission-to.1085609 https://theredarchive.com/post/1085609