On the Definition of Misogyny

[Shadowknight12]

There are points to be made there, but that's still far too idealistic. That is the highest tier of human beings who are also man-sluts. People usually aren't that perfect.

I am merely advocating treating women like you'd treat your male friends. You don't have to be a saintly embodiment of love, but it's generally understood that human beings genuinely appreciate and cherish their friendships, and are able to platonically love others for unselfish reasons. If you don't treat even your man-friends like that, see my previous post re: sociopathy.

[abcd_z]

Contradictory. Stance 2 ("view women as important only or primarily for their ability to grant sexual gratification") is incompatible with a mature definition of "love women".

Whose definition are we using? Mine, or yours?
Because my definition of "love" is "a specific emotional response, evolutionarily designed to encourage humans to emotionally bond with each other and stay together".
And by that definition, it is completely possible for me to exhibit both qualities simultaneously.

You got on my case for ignoring your definitions (which is a fair complaint; see below), but you can't then turn around and say "but your definition is wrong" to me.

Your discussion technique is to define terms as you see fit, instead of exploring how other people mean the terms they are using. If you impose your own definitions on the discussion, that only means everyone else has to go to great lengths to restate their cases, and then you can just apply the same technique again. This is tedious and makes for poor motivation to discuss with you.

Another example: I explicitly define "womanizer " as something different than "promiscuous man" by adding an element of deception (Britney Spears would back me up in this), and your response to my point is to contradict my definition, ignoring the point.

I suppose I don't have any problems with the definition of "womanizer" to mean "man-slut who deceives women", so long as you understand that it's not literally the dictionary definition, and that I won't be using that definition anywhere outside of this conversation.

I explicitly made the distinction between promiscuous men and womanizers to be able to have a label for abusers, and I would try to enforce social norms to make men who are the former not be the latter. This makes sense if you see these two terms as distinct, allowing a man to be promiscuous and responsible, yet not deceptive,

Okay, I can see that. Sorry for being a definition nazi. Or whatever the term for that would be.

Addendum: You set out to refute an argument chain that contains "sleeping with women objectifies them" - that's a straw man argument because it is a ludicrous argument that nobody here used; thus, while it is easy to contradict, you can't actually make a point that way because everyone already agrees.

I made the assumption that "sleeping with women objectifies them/is abusive to them" was a common belief. As you have pointed out, nobody here said that. I was working mostly from real-life arguments I've had, but I'm going to drop that assumption as an argument to disprove unless somebody says differently.

[abcd_z]

After reviewing everybody's responses, I think I see what's going on here. I made an assmuption* that is, apparently, off-base.

So let's see if I can wrap things up here.

1) A man can sleep around with multiple women and not objectify them. I assumed most of the people here would disagree with this point, but it looks like I was wrong.

2) A man who doesn't view a woman as a human being in her own right, AS INDICATED by a lack of respect for her choices and personhood ("she is only a tool for my pleasure, with no rights or free will,"), shows a hatred of her personhood and therefore a hatred of her as a person.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but I would say that, at the very least, the two may be closely correlated. That is, a man who thinks like that may also have the character trait "hatred of women" because A) hatred can be useful to keep a woman in line, and/or B) he may have a history of frustration when women exhibit free will that they "shouldn't" have.

3) Nobody here (including me) seems to know which categories the historic man-sluts would fall under.

Does that about sum it up accurately?

*I could edit that out, but assmuption is actually a pretty funny typo.

[Alex Starkiller]

There are points to be made there, but that's still far too idealistic. That is the highest tier of human beings who are also man-sluts. People usually aren't that perfect.

I am merely advocating treating women like you'd treat your male friends. You don't have to be a saintly embodiment of love, but it's generally understood that human beings genuinely appreciate and cherish their friendships, and are able to platonically love others for unselfish reasons. If you don't treat even your man-friends like that, see my previous post re: sociopathy.

No, you set a golden standard. That wasn't advocating, or you would have framed it as such instead of telling me now. Then you implicated that, if I was not actively invested in my friends' lives, I'm a sociopath. That said, I was just letting you know that not everyone in the position is capable of determining uniqueness in every woman he sleeps with, especially if some of them are one night stands.

[Shadowknight12]

Does that about sum it up accurately?

Correct.

EDIT: I would also add you seem to cling to an extremely narrow definition of "hatred", but apparently there's nothing I can say that will change your mind, so I'll let it drop.

No, you set a golden standard. That wasn't advocating, or you would have framed it as such instead of telling me now. Then you implicated that, if I was not actively invested in my friends' lives, I'm a sociopath. That said, I was just letting you know that not everyone in the position is capable of determining uniqueness in every woman he sleeps with, especially if some of them are one night stands.

You seem to be pretty dedicated to wilfully misunderstand everything I'm saying so that you have something to argue against (probably because of that first post where I said something you didn't like), so I'm not going to give you more fuel to tilt at windmills.

Have fun being angry.

[Alex Starkiller]

You seem to be pretty dedicated to wilfully misunderstand everything I'm saying so that you have something to argue against (probably because of that first post where I said something you didn't like), so I'm not going to give you more fuel to tilt at windmills.

Have fun being angry.

Sheesh, you always get that way when arguing? I was pretty dang calm when I said that, and I still am, and nothing I said was remotely how you claim it to be. And if I am truly misunderstanding you, then you should make me understand, not complain that I don't. It would seem that you are still very bitter that I said you were white knighting, and are just trying to upset me, which is petty.

[Shadowknight12]

Sheesh, you always get that way when arguing? I was pretty dang calm when I said that, and I still am, and nothing I said was remotely how you claim it to be. And if I am truly misunderstanding you, then you should make me understand, not complain that I don't. It would seem that you are still very bitter that I said you were white knighting, and are just trying to upset me, which is petty.

Nope, I just know how this goes. I explain, you misunderstand, I explain again, you misunderstand, lather, rinse and repeat. You've no interest in my actual opinion, you just want a windmill to tilt at.

There's not even anything to explain. I've already said my piece.

[mendel]

Contradictory. Stance 2 ("view women as important only or primarily for their ability to grant sexual gratification") is incompatible with a mature definition of "love women".

Whose definition are we using? Mine, or yours?

We're talking about something that Merle brought up, so maybe using Merle's meaning would be the thing to do? Just sayin'...

Because my definition of "love" is "a specific emotional response, evolutionarily designed to encourage humans to emotionally bond with each other and stay together".
And by that definition, it is completely possible for me to exhibit both qualities simultaneously.

Yes, that is a possible narrow definition. It is, however, one of many, and falls far off the "respecting your sex partner as an individual" standard we've been talking about. This is why I believe it is not the one that Merle is referring to.

You got on my case for ignoring your definitions (which is a fair complaint; see below), but you can't then turn around and say "but your definition is wrong" to me.

And indeed that's actually not what I'm doing, yes.

I suppose I don't have any problems with the definition of "womanizer" to mean "man-slut who deceives women", so long as you understand that it's not literally the dictionary definition, and that I won't be using that definition anywhere outside of this conversation.

Well, that depends on your dictionary, doesn't it? I already referenced Britney Spears, who attributes some fakeness to her womanizer; if I search Google for womanizer dictionary, I get the urban dictionary, which support me; the free dictionary, which supports me ("lecherously"), and vocabulary.com would do so as well. Yes, you can define "womanizer" by saying, as Merriam-Webster does, "to pursue casual sexual relationships with multiple women", but you'd be missing the important connotations that distinguish the word and that are in common usage. There is no one definition for a word, there are usages and contexts for them, and going back to the original question, sometimes "misogynistic" is very close to "sexist" in its usage. Deal with it.

I made the assumption that "sleeping with women objectifies them/is abusive to them" was a common belief. As you have pointed out, nobody here said that. I was working mostly from real-life arguments I've had, but I'm going to drop that assumption as an argument to disprove unless somebody says differently.

Well, maybe you misstated what you mean, but I don't think that anybody will deny that sexual behaviours are part of most healthy intimate relationships. "They're happily married, but every time they have sex, he objectifies her/abuses her" is hardly a common belief, is it? (I might also add that readers of LeftoverSoup have the polyamory pentangle as an example for men who love women (plural) and not objectify them.)

I'm making the latter point to clarify because it appears again in your "wrap-up", which I'm going to get to later.

[Alex Starkiller]

Sheesh, you always get that way when arguing? I was pretty dang calm when I said that, and I still am, and nothing I said was remotely how you claim it to be. And if I am truly misunderstanding you, then you should make me understand, not complain that I don't. It would seem that you are still very bitter that I said you were white knighting, and are just trying to upset me, which is petty.

Nope, I just know how this goes. I explain, you misunderstand, I explain again, you misunderstand, lather, rinse and repeat. You've no interest in my actual opinion, you just want a windmill to tilt at.

There's not even anything to explain. I've already said my piece.

That's pathetic. In fact, I honestly don't think I actually misunderstood you. I am pretty sure I understand everything you said, I just don't believe it meant what you said.
You're clearly just upset with me, and wanting to end the conversation. Just say so, instead of claiming that it's because I'm hopeless.

[And honestly, stop accusing me of being Danish. I don't want any windmills.]

[mendel]

Nope, I just know how this goes. I explain, you misunderstand, I explain again, you misunderstand, lather, rinse and repeat. You've no interest in my actual opinion, you just want a windmill to tilt at.

That's pathetic. In fact, I honestly don't think I actually misunderstood you. I am pretty sure I understand everything you said, I just don't believe it meant what you said. [..]
[And honestly, stop accusing me of being Danish. I don't want any windmills.]

If that was joke, it needed a smiley. If it wasn't, well, then you actually did misunderstood him right there: instead of Danish, you should've said Spanish.