The Stupid Billy Graham Rule Strikes Again, Via Relevant Magazine: ‘Is It OK for Married People to Text the Opposite Sex?,’ by Z. Carter

The Stupid Billy Graham Rule Strikes Again, Via Relevant Magazine: Is It OK for Married People to Text the Opposite Sex?, by Z. Carter

Not only did Relevant magazine (Christian publication) recently publish this dreck (link is much farther down this blog post), but a guy or two under Relevant’s Tweet about it were defending it, LOL.

This is basically a variation on the BGR (Billy Graham Rule), which generally casts singles as harlots, women in particular. Ergo, married men are strongly cautioned against talking to, showing compassion to, being around, taking phone calls from, adult single women.

(I have a collection of posts on my blog that refutes the BGR; please see links to those posts at the bottm of this one, under “Related Posts.”)

Jesus never taught the BGR, but actually befriended and talked to all sorts of women, including known prostitutes, divorced women, and so on.

Do evangelicals and the Reformed emulate Jesus on this, Jesus being the role model for all believers? Nope – they choose to emulate the rule-loving Pharisees who also taught men that all women are sexual temptresses, so men ought to avert their gaze if they see a woman walking by.

This paranoia of opposite-gender friendships ends up ostracizing and excluding single adults (some of whom may be lonely and in great need of platonic companionship, let alone romantic), it basically casts even virgins such as myself (over the age of 40) as being hookers and sluts, and it sexualizes every one.

For about four years now, I’ve been Facebook friends with a married guy on Facebook. He knows I’m single. I know he’s married. He knows I know he’s married.

I’ve also been friends with another married guy online for about ten or more years (we met on a forum) and we later became Facebook friends. This guy knows I know he’s married, and he knows I’m single.

And do you know what? This has not been a problem for any of us!

I sometimes even send private notes to the first friend on Facebook about some of my personal problems (stuff I don’t want to put on my Facebook wall).  At no time have I flirted with either male friend, nor have they flirted with me. It’s not even entered my mind!

Yes, it’s possible for single women to be pals with married dudes and nothing inappropriate happens.

I was engaged several years to a guy. My ex at one point rented his own home, then he went on to two different apartments.

I sometimes spent the night with him at these places (over night stays) even in the SAME BED, and we did NOT have sex. (I was very committed to the idea of remaining a virgin until marriage at that point in life. So, my ex and I did not have sex). It’s possible for two adults to spend time alone over night and not have sex.

I have a libido. My ex let me know he had one too – he respected my wishes and boundaries, but he let me know on more than one occasion he was “warm for my form” and was very tempted to get it on. However, we both had self control. Just because you’re alone with someone else and find them attractive does not mean that sex is inevitable.

At least several of the people who left comments below this page (on the Relevant site) were critical of the piece:

(Link):  Is It OK for Married People to Text the Opposite Sex? by Zack Carter

Excerpts.

Affairs don’t start with sex.

….However, I probably don’t have to tell you that too much can be dangerous—especially privacy with someone of the opposite sex.

Five Things Every (Christian) Married Man Should Stop Obsessing Over Around Single Women by J. Kamps

Five Things Every Married Man Should Stop Obsessing Over Around Single Women by J. Kamps

Thank you, Jean Kamps! Kamps is one of the very few married (Christian) women I’ve seen who comprehends how terribly Christianity, especially married Christian men, treat single women – the way most to all married, Christian men ASSUME (wrongly!) that all single women are minxes out to bed any and every married man we come across.

(These married Christian men must have some ego to assume I find them attractive enough to  want to boink. I don’t. Women are visual too and have sexual desire, but we don’t want to sleep with any and every man we come across.)

Often times some of the assumptions Kamps is addressing here in an article by a married Christian man, are taught under the BGR “Billy Graham Rule.” I have blogged on this topic many times before. I will put links to some of those posts at the bottom of my post, under “Related Posts.”

Did Hell Freeze Over?: Liberal Rag Promotes Idea that Celibacy is Acceptable, and a Valid Life Choice / Re: 2016 Study Says Millennials Aren’t Having Much Sex

Did Hell Freeze Over?: Liberal Rag Promotes Idea that Celibacy is Acceptable, and a Valid Life Choice / Re: 2016 Study Says Millennials Aren’t Having Much Sex

The following editorial comes from left wing site Salon, known for publishing pieces by left wing feminist Marcotte, who likes to insist everyone respect women’s sexual choices except for virginity and celibacy – she thinks it’s okay to mock those (see this link and this link for more on that).

Most of the time, liberals are loathe to admit that it’s okay for adults (or kids) to be virgins or celibates. They often portray the state of being abstinent as being sexually repressed or weird. They get all judgey-judgemental about it, but at the same time ask us not to “slut shame” the people, especially women, who boink around like dogs in heat.

So, I was quite surprised to see this liberal editorial defending the idea that it’s okay for people to be chaste, and that people need to stop pressuring everyone to have sex. This sort of editorial from a left wing site is very, very rare.

(Link):   Millennial Sex Panic! Why are we so worried they aren’t getting enough action? by R K Bussel

Excerpts:

Everyone calm down and stop judging young adults for “missing out on a good time”

….While the study’s findings are of cultural interest about changing sexual practices, an unfortunate side effect is the concurrent media sex panic. To wit: a Washington Post headline asked if this means “(Link): the end of sex?” while (Link): The Cut touted “Millennials Confirm That Sex Is No Longer Cool.”

A social psychologist reveals why so many marriages are falling apart and how to fix it (and a history of American marriage)

A social psychologist reveals why so many marriages are falling apart and how to fix it (and a history of American marriage)

Link to the article is farther below.

The article I am linking to below details how modern Americans put way too many expectations on marriage to meet their emotional needs, and when marriage inevitably fails at this, they often divorce.

Evangelicals, Baptists, and other types of Christians also put way too much emphasis on marriage to meet their needs. Not that I am against people getting their needs met, but it seems to me too many people expect marriage to be their end-all, be-all fount of happiness in life, which is setting them up for disappointment.

The emphasis on marriage by Christians is damaging not only for married people, but also to adult singles and the church at large.

Christians who are married with kids tend to focus all their time and energy on their nuclear family, and they sometimes use their family as an excuse to blow off tasks at church.  I have blogged about that before, like in this post: (Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family) (article).

You cannot get all your emotional needs met in a marriage, but a lot of people act like marriage should be able to perform this function.

Married women will blow off and ignore their single lady friends once they are married (or even in the dating stage of a relationship – I have blogged about that before (Link): here). Not only is this terribly unfair to adult singles, but it can leave the married person very alone if or when their spouse comes down with dementia or dies from a heart attack, old age, or an auto accident.

I’ve seen letters from widowed men who write to advice columnists who say they are incredibly lonely since their wife died – they have no social network to lean on, and their married friends no longer invite them over to dinners.

Discipling Healthy Male/Female Relationships in the Church Part 1 by Wendy Alsup

Discipling Healthy Male/Female Relationships in the Church Part 1 by W. Alsup

I am fairly certain that the woman who wrote this is a gender complementarian.

I myself am a former (note: FORMER) gender complementarian. I believe that Ms. Alsup might be a “soft” complementarian. If I am mistaken about that, I am sorry.

I’m only somewhat familiar with Ms. Alsup’s writings and views, and if I am remembering correctly, she is not terribly extreme in her gender role views and sometimes writes blog posts criticizing aspects of gender comp, such as the one that follows, though I believe she may support beliefs that women are not to be preachers in churches and so on.

As I’ve noted on my own blog time and again, Christians, especially gender complementarian ones, tend to sexualize any and all persons and relationships.

Of course, secular culture and left wing Christians can also be very bad about sexualizing anything and everything, though, hypocritically, the progressives profess to feeling “icked out” by Christian sponsored “Daddy Daughter” balls and date.

The progressives who find “Daddy Daughter” dates to be patriarchal and incestuous in undertone are often the same ones who sexualize hetero male-female relationships, or male-male relationships.

Progressive Christians or ex Christians tend to operate in the school of “it’s impossible for men and women to be platonic friends.” You can view an example of that here, in left leaning SCCL’s facebook thread about (link): Daddy Daughter dates.

To a degree, I share some of their (their =  SCCL or liberal) reservations or concerns about “Daddy Daughter” dates, but then, I’m also not running around acting as though men and women are incapable of being buddies.  I am not insisting that any and all male-female relationships are sexual, or have sexual undertones, or the potential to be sexual.

One very unfortunate result of conservative Christians, especially the gender complementarians, sexualizing everyone and anything, is that unmarried, adult women are treated like suspected harlots and are consequently shunned or excluded from social events, church functions, or friendships with married persons.

Married persons are coached in Christian sermons, marriage blogs, and TV programs, to steer clear of single women. This practice of shunning single women is sometimes referred to as the “Billy Graham Rule.” (Please see the bottom of this post, under the “Related Posts” section, for links to more information about that.)

(Link): Discipling Healthy Male/Female Relationships in the Church Part 1 by Wendy Alsup

Excerpts:

• … What was God’s purpose in creating two genders to work together to image Him out into His kingdom? For a time, conservative evangelicals simplistically set up marriage as the ultimate purpose for the creation of two genders, particularly around Genesis 2:18.

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

• However, if you embrace Jesus as the key to understanding all of Scripture, then Jesus’ words on marriage in eternity give us necessary clarification on the purpose of the creation of two genders in Genesis 1 and 2.
• God’s purposes for interactions between the two genders in this first sinless perfection in Eden is informed by glimpses of the second.
• In Luke 20, the Sadducees ask Jesus a question about whose wife in heaven a woman would be if she had multiple husbands on earth. In His answer, Jesus is clear that in heaven we do not marry. (Actually, we do marry, but Jesus is the groom.) Jesus teaches us that the ultimate goal in perfection for men and women is not human marriage to each other.
• But then, what is left for perfect male/female relationships if not human marriage? Well, a TON is left. But we are warped as a society away from valuing the vast wealth of human male/female relationships that don’t involve sex. 

The Islamic Billy Graham Rule – Unmarried Muslim People Are Punished For Being Alone Together

The Islamic Billy Graham Rule – Unmarried Muslim People Are Punished For Being Alone Together

Just when I think I’m done blogging on this blog for the day (and I do have other stuff to do off-line), I keep seeing pertinent stuff show up all over the internet.

This turned up on my Twitter feed:

(Link): Indonesia: Police Beat Couple with Canes for Sharia Crime of Being Alone Together

• Islamic sharia law was enforced with canes once again in Indonesia this week, including the cane beatings of a man and woman whose “crime” was being alone together in a guest room.
• This was no crazed mob action, either, as (Link): CNN reports the sentence was handed down by a judge, and imposed by a special police unit “charged with finding people who violate sharia law.”
• “The form of Islamic law is enforced in a very strict way in the area, including prohibiting unmarried people of different genders from being alone together,” CNN observes.

This totally reminds me of the insipid, sexist, ineffective, stupid, anti-singles Christian “Billy Graham Rule,” which I have blogged about before here (this view seems to turn up more in Christian gender complementarianism than it does Christian gender egalitarianism):

• (Link): Reclaiming Stolen Friendships – a blog post criticizing the Sexist, Anti – Singles Christian Billy Graham Rule
• (Link): Christians Should Stop Defending the Billy Graham Rule / How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Billy Graham Rule and Love Like Jesus by T. Grigg
• (Link): Think The “Billy Graham Rule” Would Have Saved Tullian? Think Again… (Billy Graham rule has all Christians treating single adult women as though they are harlots who cannot be trusted)

Except under the Christian BGR (Billy Graham Rule), you will get isolated, “tsk tsked,” or suspected of being a slut, rather than get whipped with a cane.

Also, and this is kind of funny in a sad way, Christians are stricter on this rule than the Muslims, in that they also look askance at single women who are alone with MARRIED men.

Single Christian women are doomed to live and die alone, because Christians who are inappropriately applying the “avoid even the appearance of evil” verse are ostracizing single women from every one, from other singles and from the marrieds. Similar the Islamic sharia rule that prohibits singles from being together.

Another dumb, oblivious, and naive thing about the BGR is that often times, married Christians end up having affairs with other married Christians.

Yet, I don’t usually see the same level of paranoia from Christians about married Christian women hanging out with married Christian men as I do the warnings about men being around un-married (single) women.

Here are some more links about the story (off site):

(Link):  The whipping girl: Screaming in agony, a woman collapses as she and a man are caned under Sharia law in Indonesia merely for being ‘seen in close proximity’ to each other without being married

• The woman was accused of getting too close to a fellow university student
• As the pair are unmarried, she had committed an offence under Sharia law
• She was brought to a mosque where she was caned in front of a crowd
• The woman received five lashes and at end had to be taken to hospital

(Link):  Crowd cheers as woman is brutally caned for being seen near man who wasn’t her husband

• Dec 29, 2015
• by Ruth Halkon
• Nur Elita, 20, had to be taken away in an ambulance after being beaten in public outside her mosque under Sharia law
• A crowd cheered as a young woman screamed in agony as she was repeatedly caned in punishment for being in ‘close proximity’ to a man she wasn’t married to.Nur Elita, 20, had to be removed from Baiturrahumim Mosque in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in an ambulance after she was brutally punished for allegedly showing affection towards another university student.Under Sharia law, men and women who are unmarried and unrelated are not allowed to get too close.

 (Link):  Couple caned for violating Sharia law

• Dec 31 2015
• Officials in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, held a public caning Monday. At the end of the punishment, she collapsed on the floor and was carried off the stage into an ambulance and rushed to hospital. Indonesia enforce strict Islamic laws including prohibiting unmarried people from having sex.
• Cheers went up as a masked man caned the woman, as a punishment for being “seen in close proximity” to a man she wasn’t married to, under Sharia law.
• The young Acehnese woman is caned in public, a punishment under the Islamic sharia law.
• Banda Aceh’s Deputy Mayor Zainal Arifin, who stood among the crowd, explained to bystanders that the punishments were meant to be a lesson for all and not simply entertainment.
• After her ordeal, 23-year-old Wahyudi Saputra, the man whom she was alleged to have been in close proximity with breached was also striked. “And also, those who have been convicted are reminded not to repeat the same mistakes”, he added.

(Link):  Woman accused of ‘affectionate contact’ with man caned in Indonesia

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Related Posts:

(Link): Similar Views of Women Between Christian Gender Complmentarians and Islamic Group ISIS

(Link): Extremist Muslims Like Family Values Too – Muslims are joining ISIS / ISIL (extremist Islamic group) because they believe it supports “Family Values” – When Christianity and Islam sound alike

(Link):  Evangelicals are Rethinking Friendship and Sexuality 

(Link):  Non-Romantic Nearness, The Billy Graham Rule, and Pope John Paul’s Friendship With a Married Woman

(Link):  Jesus Christ was not afraid to meet alone with known Prostitutes / Steven Furtick and Elevation Church Perpetuating Anti Singles Bias – ie, Single Women are Supposedly Sexual Temptresses, All Males Can’t Control Their Sex Drives – (but this view conflicts with evangelical propaganda that married sex is great and frequent)

(Link):  Patriarchy tends to sexualize all male / female relationships (article via Junia Project blog)

Link):  Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link): Why Christians Need To Stress Spiritual Family Over the Nuclear Family – People with no flesh and blood relations including Muslims who Convert to Christianity – Also: First World, White, Rich People Problems

(Link): Modesty Teachings – When Mormons Sound like Christians and Gender Complementarians

(Link): Mormons and Christians Make Family, Marriage, Having Children Into Idols

(Link):  Topics: Friendship is Possible / Sexualization By Culture Of All Relationships

(Link):  Relationships Of Welcome, Not Fear (Re: How Sexist Christian Views Marginalize and Isolate Adult, Single Women and Maintain Other Stereotypes About Adult Singles)

(Link):   How the Sexual Revolution Ruined Friendship – Also: If Christians Truly Believed in Celibacy and Virginity, they would stop adhering to certain sexual and gender stereotypes that work against both

(Link):  Hey Ed Stetzer: Opposite Gender Friendships Are Not Sinful – Ed Stetzer’s Advice: “Avoid Any Hint” – More Like: Re Enforce UnBiblical Stereotypes About Men, Women, Sex, and Singles

(Link):  Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual

(Link):  Pervy Preacher from Seattle who teaches men “to objectify women, by his over emphasis of sexualization of women and subservience” (Re Driscoll) Purity

(Link):  Brotherly Love: Christians and Male-Female Friendships

 

‘Christian’ Organization Allows Men To Shower With 15-Year-Old Girls

‘Christian’ Organization Allows Men To Shower With 15-Year-Old Girls

I don’t stand in agreement with situations like this.

You have no way of knowing if the guy insisting he is a woman is actually a harmless trans person or is really a hetero man pretending to be a woman so he can have easier access to rape victims.

Besides that, I would not be comfortable with someone biologically male being around me as I undress in a locker room, or have the ability to peer through the cracks in a bathroom stall while I am in there.

This kind of thing puts a woman’s safety in jeopardy. I’m concerned about grown women too, not just teen girls.

(Link):  ‘Christian’ Organization Allows Men To Shower With 15-Year-Old Girls

Excerpts

• Written by Pardes Seleh | Sunday, January 3, 2016
• Locker room policy at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Seattle, Washington, now allows self-identified “transgender” males to shower with 15-year-old girls. Controversy surrounding this decision has led many to question the organization and even cancel their memberships.
• According to an inside source at the YMCA, the decision had been brewing ever since March of this year, when a “open door” policy for trans individuals was being discussed. In April 2015, the YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap Counties established a “no questions asked” policy, allowing open access to locker rooms without stating genders.
  

How To Stop Sexualizing Everything by D. C. McAllister

How To Stop Sexualizing Everything by D. C. McAllister

Before I get to the link of the article by D C McAllister:

—————————-

• (Link): John Hugh Morgan Continues to Copy Stuff from my Blog / Report Inaccurate Information / Other Critiques
• (Link):  John Hugh Morgan Still Lurking At My Blog as of summer 2015 – What Nerve

——————————

This is rather long, but well worth the read:

(Link): How To Stop Sexualizing Everything by D C McAllister

Excerpts:

• Our society needs a phileo resurgence so we can express ourselves with the nonsexual passion and love we really feel.
• … I guess I am kind of weird. I confess: I’m very passionate about my friends. But am I the abnormal one, or is there something wrong with our society? My daughter isn’t unusual, and her response was pretty typical. Many people have that reaction to women who are passionate about their friends—and even more so for men!

  …I wish “bromance” would disappear from the American lexicon forever. That’s because it represents everything that’s wrong with our culture when it comes to friendship.

  Instead of friendship being noble, nonromantic, and normal, it has become the exception, romanticized to the point that we’re uncomfortable describing it and experiencing it for what it is. Even as we try to distinguish it from homosexuality, we are corrupting real friendship by placing it in the context of romance.

  …How Romanticism and Puritanism Corrupts Friendship

  The problem with our modern culture is friendship has been corrupted. Lewis says it began with the age of sentimentality and romanticism.

Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Very interesting editorial.

(Link): Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Excerpts:

• The Genesis account of creation reveals that God created only one species of human. He said, “Let us make human,” and not “Let us make humans.” What essentially makes one a human then, is being created in God’s image, in God’s “likeness” (Gen.1:26-27). What defines us then is the ruah (Hebrew word for spirit) of God in our bodies (Gen.2:7).
• God is a spirit. Therefore, when he said, “Let us make man in our own image,” he wasn’t speaking of bodies, but of essence.
• God created the human body out of dust, a decomposable substance, but what is really human—the soul—is indecomposable. This is the God-like property that dwells in humans. The body is really the “house” or “clothing” of the soul.
• So if we are the same underneath the “clothing” of our bodies, in our souls, why are so many arguments for gender hierarchy based on that outer covering?

Christians Should Stop Defending the BGR / How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Billy Graham Rule and Love Like Jesus by T. Grigg

Christians Overly Fond of the BGR / How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Billy Graham Rule and Love Like Jesus by T. Grigg

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Christians Should Stop Defending the Billy Graham Rule – Christians Are Overly Fond and Too Enamored of the Billy Graham Rule – by Christian Pundit

The link to the editorial by T. Grigg is much farther below in this post. I wanted to write some introductory thoughts…

You would not believe how entrenched this insulting BGR (“Billly Graham Rule”) is on Christian sites I visit.

There are a smattering of Christians who agree with me that the BGR is unfair and cruel to single women, but it seems a larger percentage think it’s a very sensible thing, and it’s there to protect men, especially married men, so it’s supposedly a good thing.

One woman participant on another site where this issue was under discussion was going on about the “reputations” of pastors and married men.

I asked her to consider the flip side: why was she so concerned about the reputations of male pastors and married men, but not how the BGR automatically smears the reputations of all single women? Why are the reputations of MEN deemed more important than those of women, or with how unmarried women are treated?

The BGR rule assumes that if an unmarried women meets with a married man, whether alone in his office, or at a restaurant for a meal, that an affair is guaranteed to occur. Or, gossipy tongues may be set a’ wagging.

Sometimes this assumption that an affair is guaranteed to occur is further based on the very unfair, demeaning idea that all, or most, unmarried women are over-sexed, unprincipled harlots who want to have an affair with a married man and will do anything to have sex with a married man.

Consequently, single women are viewed as temptresses by other Christians, rather than as “sisters in Christ,” and both married men and married women treat them with suspicion and do not extend hospitality to them.

Single women get demeaning treatment, such as pastors keeping their doors open during personal meetings, and so on. You, as a single woman, are automatically viewed as a threat, or as a lying harlot, who will either make a pass at the man, or lie and claim he tried to touch your cleavage.

Women don’t usually get subjected to this sort of insulting treatment in the secular world.

This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum / Double Standards By The Anti-Celibacy Crowd About Friendships and Sexualization of Everything

This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum / Double Standards By The Anti-Celibacy Crowd About Friendships and Sexualization of Everything

You’ll have to use the link below to read the entire page entitled, “This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough”, because I don’t want to copy their entire post here on my blog.

One thing I want to point out is a bit of a double standard going on here.

First of all, I first became aware of this “Nice Guys” article by way of Facebook group SCCL (Stuff Christian Culture Likes). Sometimes I agree with some of this group’s views on some issues, sometimes I do not.

SCCL is a group that regularly mocks or criticizes the traditional Christian position of upholding or defending the notions of celibacy, or of being a virgin until marriage – sometimes these concepts are all lumped together by them, and by others elsewhere on the internet, under the term “purity culture”.

I have argued on my blog the last few years that it is possible to be celibate, to refrain from having sex, and for men and women to be platonic friends.

I have also argued that it is society, both secular culture, as well as conservative and progressive Christian culture, and most secular feminism, which perpetuates the sexualization all male-female relationships (or even male-male, or female-female relationships).

For doing all this, for defending my choice, or the choice of others to be celibate, and for pointing out that not everything in life has to be sexual or is about sex, I sometimes get insulted or mocked by other people on the internet.

Everyone from secular feminists, to ex-Christians, to conservative Christians, to atheists (yes, ’tis so, click here to read), to political liberals, to political conservatives insult me or ridicule me for all this.

All these groups, who normally loathe each other – the atheists cannot stand conservative Christians, the liberals don’t like the conservatives and so on- all never- the- less totally agree that there is something bad, wrong, or weird about adults who choose to stay celibate, whatever their reason.

All these disparate groups fight like cats on dogs on many other topics, but they all come into agreement on this: they despise and ridicule celibacy (and sometimes, asexuality).

Do these people in these groups ever stop to consider, “Hey, other groups I normally disagree with on fundamental life choices happen to share with me a suspicion, dislike, or fear of celibacy, does this mean something, like maybe I’ve been wrong in my views about celibacy?”

I think it does. That your arch enemy chooses to fight with you on all other issues yet mocks celibacy right along with you might indicate that both of you are either misinformed about celibacy or terribly biased against celibates. Yeah, you might want to ponder that one for awhile.

There are more comments by me below this long excerpt:

(Link): This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum

Excerpts:

• There are a lot of really wonderful, well-intentioned men who have a difficult time understanding the difference between being nice to women and being an ally to women and women’s causes.
• Then there are other men who pretend to be nice in order to validate their manipulation of women for sex and romance. These are the people who I like to refer to as Nice Guys™.
• While this article is dedicated to helping nice men become better feminist allies, I want to take a second to clarify the difference between an authentically nice guy and a Nice Guy™.
• (Link): Nice Guys™, as many of you know, have become the object of  (Link): much loathing in feminist circles and among women and girls in general.Online, this is the guy who posts hashtags like #NotAllMen and (Link): #ReverseSexism, whenever we publish articles about (Link): street harassment,  (Link): rape culture, and (Link): male privilege.
• He is the exaggeratedly faux timid (read: passive aggressive) dude who still complains about the girls that didn’t date him in high school on message boards and in every other status update.
• Though the most stereotypical incarnation of the Nice Guy™ is a fedora-clad dudebro who spends too much time on Reddit and would probably push a six-year-old girl out of the way to get his hands on My Little Pony merchandise, the more garden-variety Nice Guy™ can be more difficult to spot. 
• Basically, he’s anyone who regards sex as the ultimate goal of interacting with women, and in turn views the idea of a nonsexual friendship with a woman as an abysmal failure.
• Trademarks of a Nice Guy™ include trying to guilt trip women into having sex, claiming that sex should be the inevitable reward for basic acts of friendship, and only being interested in building a friendship until the woman in question rejects them romantically.
• When he gets rejected, he cites every single time they did something nice for her, repeatedly asks her out (as in stalks her), and calls her a coldhearted bitch if she refuses to magically reciprocate his feelings within an almost instantaneous period of time.
• A Nice Guy™ truly cements his status as soon as he begins to complain that (Link): “women only date assholes.”