This "nice guys vs jerks" nonsense has to stop.

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Though I don't doubt you are being truthful about your observations, I have a hard time understanding why this would be the case. If a man disrespects a woman enough to physically attack or rape her, why should he care whether she is (voluntarily) sexually open or not?

Because, in his view, she EARNED his disrespect with her sexual openess. Thus it is "ok" to attack her. Which is where the phrase "she was asking for it" came from.

I don't see how disrespect for someone makes them fair game to sexual/physical assault.

I'm sincerely glad you don't. Believe me, I'm not condoning it. I'm not justifying it. I'm repeating what I've heard men saying (I don't deny the existence of horrible jerks, though my posts on this forum might seem like I do.) I'm repeating what I've read also. But I'm repeating, most horridly enough, what actual men (those actual jerks- not the ones who are seen with pretty women) have said to me in very heated arguments. (I was pretty heated. I was PISSED!). Back in college, I got into arguments with men who said they had never raped anybody and certaionly would never consider it (nice guys that they claimed to be) but then they proceeded to give me this justification for why they felt some women were "asking for it". I didn't feel physically threatened by these men or I would never have gotten in arguments with them. But they did give me what they saw as justifications for why they weren't appalled when one of "those women" got raped. These arguments happened after a particularly notorious campus rape. Word on the street was that the victim was "a slut" and therefore "asking for it". I was utterly horrified that anybody would believe such a thing. A couple of these men had even been ones I'd considered "nice guys". It was an eye opener and not in a good way.

To MountZion and Janissy's reply to him:

Yes, a lot of men are in his and my position--feeling that any way we go about pursuing women will end somehow in failure. And it's not just those on the spectrum who have this problem. I'm on OKCupid and have talked about it at length on there too.

And to Janissy's "husband" comment, I think that illustrates some of what the issue is.

Young men are sexually curious and want to have sexual experiences with different women. We hear that women don't like casual sex, that they prefer a real personal connection. And while many of us would be up for casual, a lot of us do ideally want real trust and some mental connection too. So we think that friendship and niceness is the best way to build the trust necessary for real physical intimacy without the constraints of a relationship.

But then the girls turn this around and, while often happy to get the attention, don't seem any more interested.

A core issue seems to be that while both guys and girls would prefer not to be physically intimate with a partner they find extremely unattractive, the level of attraction at which their curiosity and sex drive "wins" is often MUCH higher for girls than for guys. So while the two genders might consider a similar proportion of the opposite sex stunning, many guys are very interested in sexual experimentation with girls who are not exactly their "type" if their personalities are really compatible on just an interpersonal level.

On the other hand, for many girls, friendliness and understanding doesn't seem to count for anything in terms of sexual willingness unless they are looking to settle down. So guys must either find for a woman who is passionately attracted to them, or go into the long term dating market.

In the case of the first option, if the guys look for someone they also have an intense romantic and/or physical attraction to, the pool has just gotten vanishingly small. Having such a spark is rare, that's part of the reason it's so exciting when it happens. On the other hand, if the guy is willing to be sexual but yet his feelings aren't the same as hers, she is likely to be disappointed at his inability to reciprocate them, and possibly hurt if he is also involved with other girls.

For the second option he has to assume this role of the mature man who is ready to settle down, even when he feels more like a boy. And then, when he gets a girl to the point where they have an active sex life, he will possibly regret even more not having gotten anywhere with all the other girls. He has just gone from boy all the way to fully adult man on the outside without any opportunity to sort through how he really feels on the inside.

So many of us ask ourselves, why can't a girl just agree to fool around with us out of niceness, for a change?

They are under no obligation to do so. Intimacy and/or sex is not something just given out by everyone - you may find someone whose interest in sex exceeds their interest in a relationship, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily feel that way about you. Same works in reverse, as there have been women interested in me over the years who I had absolutely no interest in romantically, but thought they were keen people nonetheless. However, when they began to expect something reciprocal instead of becoming friends (and I have changed my feelings for people as I've gotten to know them, very much so) then my heels tend to set into the ground and things are awkward and challenging. But I am astounded that you consider it a matter of niceness for another person to have sex with you - that absolutely boggles my mind.


M.

^ (referring to second part of post) I was just talking to one of my male friends about this exact issue last night, and I think this is very insightful. It's an inescapable fact that male and female bodies and hormones work differently, and I think this is why the delusion that "a girl can get any guy she wants, but a guy has to settle for anyone that will take him" persists on the forum. This phenomenon does seem to occur in society, but it occurs solely in the area of sexual intimacy. It doesn't occur because society is sexist towards women, or men have no rights, etc but simply because women generally don't have the same strength of desire/need for sexual intimacy as men. Emotional intimacy (love) is a whole different ball game, and I don't think there is any particular gender bias involved in love and relationships (as opposed to sexual intimacy). I think we need to discriminate between the two.

Why does everything always need to come back to obligations for you? Women are not obligated to do anything for me, nor I for them.

A woman can be nice without having sex, but it is certainly possible to have sex out of niceness. If I were not particularly attracted to a girl, but I knew she had a strong desire to have sex with me, then doing so would show that I am willing to meet her need. It's the same as if she asked for a ride to a friend's house or something. Except that for the sex my level of trust for her would matter more.

Do you know if it is different for aspie women? I somehow thought it would be, seeing as they often claim to have less "gendered" brains. Though maybe that was naive optimism on my part. Though JanetFAP seems to think it has more to do with society and double standards, and I'm glad that women have the chance to voice their dissatisfaction with this phenomenon. Not just so that women can feel more like being sexually open, but so that we can work to promote more respect for everyone.

I am saddened to find out that the double standard is still the norm, but this explains

It is apparently it is still a lot to ask, biostructure

Except for the bush years, I have seen enormous progress in this culture realizing that each person has value, but we need to keep pushing for it. Stereotypes make us caricatures. Refusing to rely on stereotypes humanizes us.

By the way, women also “ask for it” by having a bit too much to drink so it’s best to protect ourselves if we go out for a bit of R&R.

Because they're not *wired* for it. Period. In order for a woman to agree to fool around with a guy she first and foremost has to be ATTRACTED to him. That's how the game works and its not going to change just because some people arent winning at it.
BTW, the notion that a girl can get any guys she wants is certainly NOT TRUE for every girl out there. A more accurate statement is that a girl(or at least 99% of them) can always get a guy, but not always the one she wants. The more attractive she is the more choices she has.

There are many women out there, who sleep with 2 or 3 different people a week. They begin their night by playing a game of "hard to get" to empower themselves and as they get drunker the bar lowers consideredably whereby just about anyone can take them home. These are the type of people who say "no" for fun, but then do so anyway... When people say they are not appalled that such people get raped, they are saying "Said person is putting themselves in a position to be raped. They are making themselves a target, they're a target because of their own stupidity so why should i care what happens to them?" It's not a double standard, for men would be included in this statement as well.

And i agree with such thinking, why on earth should i care about such a person? It's like driving on the wrong side of the road, or driving down a country-lane at 140 miles an hour in the dark. Bad people are out there, we know this, if you're going to make yourself as big a target as possible while placing a blind-fold on yourself you deserve what you get. You don't walk around a busy market in the city with hundreds of notes in your hands, you WILL get mugged and i won't care when you do, you're asking for it to happen.


It would be nice to have a platonic relationship with someone who you do not have any wish to have sex with because they wish to have said relationship, especailly if it improves the mental state of said person. When you are talking about "nice", you are talking about people going against their person beliefs to give you what you want, yet you do not seem to be willing to do so in return. Niceness/kindness, involves placing someone elses needs ahead of your own, the truth is, people are greedy and self-centered. The art is to find someone who wants the same things as you do.


Just as men ask for it when they drink themselves into a stupor. If you are barely concious, have little control over your mental faculties or motor functions you ARE asking for bad things to happen, wether that is a sexual assault, having your possessions stolen or being physically assaulted. There is no double standard except for the double-standard of women only thinking people's apathetic veiws on such issues are only aimed at women.


It's true that guys can always get a girl as well, we just tend to complain more than girls do when we don't get the specific girl we wanted.

I think some people are taking what other people are saying out of context.

Michjo, if you were on the jury for the rape trial would you acquit the rapist?



For example. This ^^ line here cold be taken out of context to imply that a person with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair is asking for this, which is probably not your intent.



Be careful with the word always. I'm pretty sure that there are guys with a certain blend of issues that make it just about impossible.



Speaking of the Bush years, I found an old thread about women liking jerks that I commented on back in the Bush years. Makes me wonder why I came back to the same topic. The thread is so old that I noticed that ToadOfSteel's posts in it were only 1 day after he joined. Take my posts with a grain of salt and a shot of bourbon.

Evidence that this topic is hardly new to WP: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt44221.html

Perhaps i have taken things out of context, it depends on the evidence presented to me, if it can be prooven without a doubt that said person had raped someone, then i'd like to see them do time for their crime. As would everyone i have met, wether they believe the girl was "asking for it" or not.

However, it's not a case of someone saying "He raped me" and throwing said person in jail. People need proof that someone is a rapist, a jury need more than just proof that sex took place and the girl claiming she did not want to have sex. A jury needs to see defensive wounds, a jury needs to look at the behaviour of both parties prior to the event and also to look into the personalities of said people.

As i said, if you make yourself a target you deserve what you get. I'd feel the same apathy towards the man who was accused of said rape, he has placed himself in a position where this can happen, the driving on the wrong side of the road analogy applies equally to him. If it was later prooven that the rape definately did take place, and i learnt i had supported the wrong decision, i would not feel bad or think she deserved what happened any less. Likewise, if it was prooven it definately didn't take place, he wouldn't deserve what happened to him any less.


In depends on the situation and the circumstance. If someone is unable to care of themselves or need supervision, they should not be in a nightclub on their own surrounded by strangers.


Understood, the intention was to show that there is less difference between the sexes than is being implied. Many of the jerks out there who are getting girls are doing so because they have the bar set very low, they are only seeking sex and likewise the same is true for girls with colourful sex-lifes.

Clearly it is, and of course whether it is too much to ask is up to the girls and nobody else. It is also fine if guys think it's too much to ask for them to shut off their sexual desires and curiosity when becoming friends.



This is absolutely right michjo. And in my case, this may well mean a girl who is willing to be sexual within the context of a friendship. Whether this means she is attracted to me in the conventional way we think of sexual attraction is immaterial, as long as she is happy interacting on the level I am looking for.

I don't know. I know for me that I am actually less open to sexual experimentation than most females, it is a trust and comfort issue. But the thing is you can't compare offering sexual favours to offering to drive someone's car. They are two completely different things, completely different. Some girls might find sexual favours to mean little, but to others it might feel like baring their soul - (that's how it feels to me) and driving a car doesn't make you feel like you're baring your soul to someone.

Me (again using myself as an example) offering up sexual favours indiscriminately to all my male friends, would feel like me voluntarily making myself throw up - or stripping naked in front of a group of old men - or a straight guy having homosexual relations. It's hard to come up with a good analogy for the feeling, but what I'm trying to get as is it feels *wrong*.

You wouldn't tell all your friends your deepest darkest secrets. Just like you wouldn't have sexual relations with all your friends. But that's just how I feel, and everyone feels differently. The point I'm making here is that to *expect* sexual favours from anyone is just plain wrong and absurd.

GoatOnFire - I have noticed this too. This stereotyping, the sexism, etc is all tied up together, and it's a serious problem (for some members) in this forum. I spent a long time just accepting and keeping my mouth shut, but I have reached a point where enough is enough and by not speaking out I wasn't being true to myself and my values. That is why I created this thread.