this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Jesus fucking christ why do I bother. You didn't ask because you wanted to actually know what I thought. You just wanted to lecture me why I'm wrong. There was absolutely nothing I could have said that you wouldn't have used as a launching off point.
I did ask because I wanted to know. I just thought they were reasons to come to a different conclusion. Societal and cultural pressures on men aren't dealt with to the same level as women, and we do leave men to fend for themselves because many men learned a set of behaviors that were tolerated until they weren't. And that change can feel unfair. I think we can express masculinity in a positive way, allow us to focus on positive character traits and not physical ones.
There was a sentiment that you were hurt by someone who was ENM, and whether that was because you tried ENM and didn't like it or whatever, it did seem to be tacked onto your perception of women. I just thought I'd try and give another view of it, in the off-chance that you or someone else reading this needed some more perspective.
You didn't read my comment with an open mind. You asked for my input so you could give me specific things to lecture about.
I am not in an "ethical non monogamous" relationship. I have never been. However I have seen multiple men in long term relationships get strung along because their partner decided they want to leverage dating apps to have a harem. It has always ended up being a slow motion train wreck, that always ends up essentially being akin to cheating plus gaslighting. They always justify it in the same way you are doing.
You are sexist, plain and simple. You are sexist because you hold men and women to completely different standards in a comical way. You just use liberal rhetoric to justify it.
Your mentality is incredibly common. The world is full of assholes justifying shitty behavior under the guise of liberalism. It's just an updated version of how evangelicals operated in the 80s and 90s. I'm sick of giving this shit a free pass.
Then your issue isn't with ENM. It's with men (I should also note that this equally applies to women and nonbinary people, but we'll ignore them for now) staying in an ENM relationship that they clearly do not want. Why are they staying in that relationship? It's worth exploring that.
Is it loneliness? Is it dependency? Is it a fear of not being able to find another partner? These are issues that we don't often explore and try to help in men.
I definitely am sexist, likely in ways I don't even know. I am working to fix those biases as I encounter them. It is tough, though in this particular situation, I don't see those biases, so I'm trying not to be inconsiderate. I think I am holding men, women, and non-binary people to the same standard in this case.
But you are directly holding women responsible for ENM relationships when they didn't really do anything wrong. If a man did the same thing, would you have an issue with it? If you want a harem and tell everyone in the harem about it, what's the problem?
You're literally making excuses for women cheating on and gaslighting men. Bullshit you'd be behaving the same way of genders are reversed.
Sexual exclusivity is not a prerequisite for all relationships. ENM is a relationship based on the concept of sexual and emotional non-exclusivity. That's the entire basis of ENM. If you disagree, please explain what keeps these men in the relationship that they can't leave.
Why do you blame women for these relationships? Men and non-binary people are also ENM, but you seem to think it's exclusively women.
You know you're wrong because you haven't bothered asking why those men don't leave the relationship if they think it's cheating? If they were cheating, then you would be telling them to leave. But you don't. Why not? Would you tell a woman to leave a relationship if she were being cheated on?
Seriously, why is it exclusively the woman's fault and not the man's? Is the woman holding something in the relationship hostage? Children? Money?
Have you ever been in a relationship? Any relationship? Doesn't look like it.
That doesn't answer the question.
You know you can be on the left without falling into the trap of identity politics. Many (most) of us that consider ourselves leftists also find liberals annoying, and liberalism is not the highest ideal of the left as common notions in the US would have you believe.
Look Trump is a uniquely awful candidate, but why should I be associated with liberals? I'm a Jewish man. In liberal culture sexism towards men is normalized and antisemitism is normalized.
There's nothing stopping me from just coming up with my own philosophy while treating both liberal and conservative culture with skepticism. While right now that's gonna be more on the liberal side, I don't see why I should associate myself with people who normalize toxic behavior towards people of my religion/gender. That's basically asking to be next on the target list.
I always bring up the ethical non monogamy because it's the most objectively insane thing. It's so obviously toxic and unfair. It would soon obviously be considered emotional abuse if genders were reversed. Yet the more liberal someone is, the more they'll suggest I'm sexist for having an issue with that behavior.
Look, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you. I recognize that I do not have all the answers and I think it's both damaging and a waste of time to bicker about who or what is and isn't "sexist".
All I'm saying is that liberalism and the left are not the same thing or even really all that amenable to each other, and identity politics are largely a distraction from more important issues. There's a whole Wikipedia article that sums up various criticisms of it from a few different perspectives.
You are right, liberals are wrong about a lot of things and easily fall for ploys which only serve to divide us from each other. Choosing not to associate with liberals or to have more nuanced opinions in the face of their bickering does not mean that you have to be conservative or that conservatism is the only other thing left on the table. It's a false dichotomy.
I get where you're coming from, but I think you misread my original post. I said more conservative.
Pretend the temperature is 0 degrees outside. The next week, it is thirty degrees warmer. Someone would be 100 percent correct in saying that it's much warmer today than yesterday. However it would still be objectively cold.
That is what I am saying. I'm not conservative, but I am more conservative. I don't see myself belonging to either group.
I also live in a liberal area of the country. I don't really have to worry about running into someone who says homosexuality is a sin or a woman who isn't white and pure on her wedding day is a whore. On the other hand I do run into women blatantly hate men or will leverage tolerance rhetoric to gaslight and cheat on their partners.
Right, and what I'm saying is that disagreeing with liberals does not make you more conservative than them. You can be further left than liberals, or even aligned with them, and choose not partake in identity politics at all or only do so from a broader context. For example, you may instead advocate to fix the things that those identity politics and division are often a symptom of.
Per delduthling - It's very possible to be a fully fledged socialist demanding structural economic change who also recognizes that oppression on the basis of race, gender, and sexuality are intertwined with capitalist power structures. The project of "woke capitalism" can never make good on its promises of liberation.
I found this to be a pretty thoughtful article on the topic, Meet the Anti-Woke Left
But I relent. Perhaps you mean more conservative on a personal or sexual level that you wouldn't try to enforce on others. A level entirely separate from your politics. That kind of self determination would still be an ideal of the left though imo; you have the right to choose your own lifestyle as long as it doesn't cause harm to others.
What you're saying makes sense in theory, but I don't think it makes sense in practice. The word that has defined politics since the mid 2010s is intersectionalism. There simply isn't any sort of genuine political lane for, say, a socialist who hates #girlboss culture. I've actually watched the video you sent me and while I appreciate it, the opinion is rather niche. There isn't really a corresponding political faction or identity to really latch on to.
I also personally haven't experienced this lack of intersectionalism when I "touched grass". In general there is such a tight coupling of all things political to the point where you can do things like guess someone's opinion on the middle east by how they feel about bat roosts in suburban areas. To be fair, that has faded significantly since immediately post covid. However, it's still strongly present. There simply aren't people I meet in real life who espouse those kind of unique political values.
At the end of the day, I'm sort of in a rut. I can avoid certain people who behave in what I define as a toxic manner, but I can't really avoid all of this toxicity in the context of modern society. Identity politics coding is everywhere, and on some level I need to "pick a side".
I didn't link a video lol and your own political circles revolving around intersectionalism does not mean that is all there is; I think there's been a lot of manipulation in the media to make it center of mind because it gets clicks and serves to distract; but if you want that badly to be conservative and make judgement calls on people individually that extend to their entire sex instead of holding more nuanced opinions about issues that can be solved systemically then go for it, I can't stop you.
No, you don't. That's what I've been telling you. Who cares if it's niche. It's better than giving up on all your other values and saying you're conservative or "more" conservative than liberal just so you can bicker about which sex is more oppressed than the other. Maybe you'll be the person that makes someone else see the light if you do the work to better contextualize what you're trying to say, and then your ideology is that slight amount less niche.
I feel you're being disrespectful of my viewpoints, and intentionally being obstinate in refusing to understand them.
I am mad about toxic behavior that is justified by liberal rhetoric. It is more egregious when it comes to sexism, but that is not the only issue. These behaviors are upsetting to watch, and it is frustrating to live in an environment where this is not only justified but portrayed as moral.
This post is about the real world. As in, in person social interactions. That limits your options, and means you have to on some tolerate things that frustrate you or become a hermit.
I live in a city of moderate liberals. I am a nerdy college educated millennial. While I have made a choice to avoid the worst of it after witnessing a lot of things that just crossed the line for me, on some level I simply have to live with elements of liberal culture that I find toxic.
I have no idea where you live that you can find people that perfectly match your political/moral philosophy in such numbers where it's possible to meet people and strike up friendships, but let me assure you that isn't how it works where I live.
A lot of my friends are good people overall, but do or believe at least one thing that frustrates me. I consider that part of life. However there's some line I have to draw. In my experience the type of people who are extremely vocal about being liberal and how morally awful conservatives behave in really shitty ways, but get away with it by leveraging progressive rhetoric.
I have made a decision that on some level that rhetoric is bullshit, and to not involve myself with people who do things that I think are beyond the pale regardless of their justification. That by definition means rejecting or displaying extreme skepticism in regards to some parts of liberal culture. Hence the "more conservative". You seem hung up on the words conservative, so you can use the term "less liberal" if it makes you feel better. I am friends with a grand total of person who defines themselves as conservative in absolute terms.
dude, your argument about women denigrating men is based on women complaining about men denigrating women in exactly the same way. You stand up for what you see as the losing side, just as they do, but your argument is on the same grounds. You're no better than they are. And that's not me taking sides, that's just what this argument boils down to.
Perhaps picking your battles and searching for the root of your beliefs, so you can express something meaningful without coming off like a raging sexist (their words, not mine), would make it a lot easier to broach this topic with your liberal community in a more rational manner. People are going to criticize you, that's part of having beliefs, but presumably there are other things on which you agree with these people, meaning there must be a common foundation between your ideas which stands up to criticism and can be a means to a mutually beneficial end.
At this point you're clearly intentionally misrepresenting what I'm saying so you don't have to question your own beliefs in the slightest.
Lmao if you project any harder you'll go blind.
Seems to me you've only found bad examples of ENM. For me, a relationship is about honesty, communication and wanting the same thing (except BDSM). If people are lying to each other or don't really want the same thing then it's not really a good relationship and should end. That's most relationships really but that's human nature for you.
The few ENM couples i know have near perfect relationships because they're pretty clear with each other on want they want, and they want the same thing.
I get that women get a free pass for a lot of bullshit they do because they're women and how dare you, you're sexist and See? it's the patriarchy but i'd wager most toxic behavior is 50/50. Humans are assholes regardless of gender.