It’s Okay To Call A Guy Creepy (article) / Little Sympathy for Ugly Single Guys
Before I get to the “It’s Okay To Call A Guy Creepy” article, I wanted to comment on all the guys out there who perceive themselves as being ugly- to- average looking who are angry at women who they feel only want to date really good-looking guys.
I have little sympathy for most of these men, because women in American culture have been heavily judged on their looks alone for many, many decades, and they still are.
There are times I will defend un-married males on this blog where I feel they are genuinely under attack from whomever, but other times, I feel their complaints are unfounded, whiny, or grossly exaggerated, and this is one of those times.
When I was growing up, I (and I am a female) went through a “tubby” phase around junior high school age (ages 11 – 13), where I also had acne, wore thick glasses, and had frizzy hair. Both genders let me know at that time of life I was ugly. But the males in particular were very cruel to me about it.
I never got dates in my teen years. Boys did not flirt with me or ask me out. They would spit on me, pull my hair, gather in circles around me on the bus ride home to tease me with cruel put- downs until I cried, and then make fun of me for crying.
Men are total unreasonable, unrealistic jerks when it comes to judging women on their looks. They really are – from the time they are teen-agers to grown men, males will dismiss women on their looks alone.
All men, Christian and Non, from the scrawny, un-muscular, geeky, dorky guy, to the sloppy, fat, obese, 956 pound bald male, all feel entitled to a thin, gorgeous, movie star Megan Fox look-alike.
When on dating sites, the only criteria men care about – even the so-called “Christian” ones – are what women look like.
Men look at a woman’s profile photos on dating sites but never read the damn profiles, where you, the woman, mention what your favorite band is, what your hobbies are, and so forth. All the men care about is your damn physical appearance.
Female politicians get hammered for their weight, hair styles, and wrinkles in the media and from everyday commentators on sites, but the male politicians seldom get scrutinized or criticized for their fat bellies or balding heads or wrinkles.
Teen-aged girls and women are judged harshly by men in the area of looks.
I was just told by a sexist Christian idiot on another site about a week ago that now that I’m in my early 40s that the “bloom is off your youthful beauty,” so no man will want me now, according to this guy. I’ve seen that same view by Christian men (and on occasion by married women) on other sites or in books about singles.
Most dating advice books and blogs aimed at women, even the Christian ones, wrongly assume that the reason women remain single is that they must be ugly or fat, so women (or teen-aged girls) are told in such material to lose weight, diet, have long hair, wear lip stick all the time, and look pretty.
I have never really seen males get instructed by other males in dating advice sites to stay thin, work out at the gym, use Rogaine (if they are balding), etc. I suppose you could cite an example or two, but by and large, I have not seen men advised to shed extra pounds, get in shape, or get a toupee.
Historically in American culture, males have had no where near the pressure to look beautiful that females have.
But it is true that women love good-looking, built men. This is a fact that is over-looked by conservative Christians.
I’ve blogged about this subject many times before, such as (Link): Superman, Man Candy -and- Christian Women Are Visual And Enjoy Looking At Built, Hot, Sexy Men, (Link): Atlantic: “The case for abandoning the myth that ‘women aren’t visual.’” and (Link): Women Are Visual And Like Hot Looking Men (Part 1) Joseph in Genesis Was A Stud Muffin.
We women get the message from preachers and Christian dating blogs that we’re not supposed to be too picky when selecting a Christian mate. We single ladies are not supposed to care about the guy’s money, the guy’s looks – but, rather, that he reads his Bible daily and hands out rice on yearly missionary trips to Africa, and so on.
You Christian men (and the Non Christian men) are let off the “stay in shape, exercise, and diet” responsibility hook, but women are still expected to be youthful, pretty, and thin if they hope to get a spouse.
Even though most women are visual, some of them are willing to date an ugly- to- average looking guy, if he has some other feature they find compelling, such as he’s very funny, sweet, wealthy, attentive, interesting, or romantic.
I seldom see hot- looking (or even ugly or average looking) men willing to date ‘ugly- but- sweet,’ or ‘average-looking but funny’ women. Many women are more willing more often to bend their criteria in the ‘physical appearance department’ when it comes to who they date, than men are.
Women have a right to be attracted to whomever they are attracted to; they are under no obligation to date men they do not consider physically attractive or men they find odd or dorky. Men have had this right for ages and ages, but women are expected by most Christians -and all ugly men themselves- to date ugly or average-looking men.
(Link): It’s Okay To Call A Guy Creepy
Excerpts:
by HUGO SCHWYZERJUN
June 27 2013
What SNL [television show Saturday Night Live] played [the situation of good looking men scoring with women while the ugly men are regarded as creepy by women] for laughs, many men (and some women) took – and still take – seriously: Some men can’t win with women, these people believe, no matter what they do or say.
This attitude is best observed in the recent backlash against calling men “creepy.”
“Creep is the worst thing you can call a man,” wrote Jeremy Gordon for the Hairpin, pointing out it’s an impossible charge for a guy to disprove.
As Gordon writes, “creepy is a vibe you can’t define… you just know it.”
Others argue that “creepiness” connotes something specific: male homeliness.
Men’s rights activist Robert Lindsay titled a post “Creepy” is Woman Speak for “An Unattractive Man Who Shows Interest In Me,” while Thought Catalog’s Johanna de Silentio wrote that “there are also a lot of guys who are labeled ‘creepy’ just because they happen to be really unattractive.”
I often hear something similar in my gender studies classes. (It was in a “Men and Masculinity” course years ago where an anguished young man first drew my attention to the Brady skit.)
Whenever the subject of sexual harassment or “creep-shaming” comes up in class, someone– almost always a man– makes the case that SNL was right: the only way for straight men to safely express sexual interest in women is to do so while following the skit’s three rules.
With almost invariable bitterness, these young men complain that unless a guy has won striking good looks in the genetic lottery, he’s doomed to be rejected and seen as overstepping his boundaries, no matter what he does.
…A society where people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, he [a male student of Schwyzerjun’s] declared, should also be a society where men are judged “creepy” solely on the basis of their words and actions rather than their looks. He got cheers from several other guys in the classroom.
… My student’s mistake is an obvious one: Enjoyment can’t be coerced. Congress can’t pass a law requiring people to be delighted by the advances of others they find unattractive.
I can get my children to eat broccoli by alternating promises of rewards and punishments, but I cannot do anything to make my daughter love vegetables as much as she loves ice cream.
Similarly, no law can compel “Ashley,” a barista at the local coffee shop, to feel the same way about the advances of an older co-worker whom she finds repellant as she does about those of the young hottie who joins her on the opening shift.
Until recently, however, few women could make sexual choices based primarily on physical desire and emotional attraction.
In a world where few women had the opportunity to prosper without a man’s protection, marriage was about survival. The more educational and economic opportunities women acquire, the more opportunity they have to choose based on what they want rather than what they need for survival.
As Daniel Bergner’s bestselling What Do Women Want? argues, once you level the economic playing field, women are just as likely as men to make sexual decisions based on desire alone.
… Men’s rage about sexual harassment regulations and “creep-shaming” may well be rooted in an unwillingness to accept these cultural changes that have given women unprecedented power to say “no” to the lecherous and the predatory.
Complaints that unattractive, socially awkward men are unfairly labeled “creepy” miss the point. “Creepy” describes having “the creeps;” it’s a word that centers on women’s own feelings.
It’s no more “unfair” for Ashley the hypothetical barista to be “creeped out” by the advances of an older, unappealing co-worker than it is for her to be excited by the same approach from the man to whom she’s attracted. In that sense, the SNL sketch got to an important truth: Women’s subjective experiences and instincts matter.
The freedom to act on those instincts doesn’t just lead to romantic fulfillment. In his indispensable 1997 bestseller The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker encourages women to rely on their own intuition to keep themselves safe from violence.
There are few things more risky, de Becker argues, than overriding one’s own sense of real danger (“the creeps”) for the sake of preserving a relationship – or simply being “nice” to a stranger.
Crucially, de Becker points out that people-pleasing and the urge to avoid causing offense put more women in danger than acting on sexual attraction.
Women are more likely to be assaulted because they were too polite to someone whom they sensed was creepy than because they were too responsive to the charms of someone who turned them on.
When men complain about being “creep-shamed,” or insist that the Tom Brady sketch accurately reflects reality, what they’re really lamenting is a culture that is increasingly willing to honor women’s right to be sexual — and women’s right to be safe.
Goodness knows I was judged harshly by males as a teen girl, then, when I lost the weight and the acne cleared up, I was lusted after in my 20s and 30s in person by men who I found to be CREEPY, dorky, ugly or weird, or, in a few cases, by guys that were attractive and okay, but I was just not interested in them romantically.
I’m on dating sites now, and I am still getting judged on my appearance by men of all ages, from their 20s, 30s, and some in their 60s and 70s, who want to date me.
Women are routinely judged on their looks alone by males, all through their life, from their girlhood to their senior years, so no, I can’t feel sorry for the dorky, scrawny, ugly, or fat guys who are upset that some women turn them down for not looking like Brad Pitt.
I used to get turned down for not looking like Megan Fox or Angelina Jolie, but I don’t quite hate the entire male gender for it. I accepted it and worked on my looks – which worked, because guys began asking me out. I do think males need to consider other qualities in a woman other than her looks, however.
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Some guy left a post replying to this one; I did not approve it to appear, but wrote about it here:
(Link): Follow up: Bitter Guy Replies to ‘It’s Okay To Call A Guy Creepy (article) / Little Sympathy for Ugly Single Guys’
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Related posts this blog:
(Link): Nice Guys: Scourge of the Single Woman
(Link): Nice Guys – the bitter single men who complain women don’t like nice men
(Link): Testosterone-Deficient Gamma Male Whines About the ‘Friend Zone’ (post from The Other McCain) – AKA, Ugly, Fat, Weird, Awkward, or Poor Nice Guys Who Unrealistically Expect to Attract Rich, Pretty, Thin, Socially Normal Women
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