On Body Count Envy
Some slut-shaming from men is fueled by a desire to have the easy access to sex that hot women have
Years ago, I saw a Reddit thread asking men, specifically “red pill” men, what they would do if they were able to switch bodies with a woman. Theoretically, this switch (at least according to the prompt) would involve being a straight, cisgender woman, so “touch my boobies, have loads of sexy lesbian sex and pretend I wasn’t in a woman’s body” wouldn’t work as an answer.
Because these types of men frequently criticized women for “banging ten Chads in the club bathroom,” (how big do they think a club bathroom is? What about the attendant standing outside with the Bath and Body Works sprays?) I stupidly thought that their womanhood fantasies would be a bunch of virtue-signaling comments about getting married young to a stable provider twenty years older, having lots of kids, and avoiding college or a career. But shockingly, those talking points went out the window when faced with this hypothetical switcheroo. Most of the comments were about using sex, or sex appeal, to make lots of money (usually by tricking old guys or hapless losers), having lots of one-night stands, or just doing sex work. It struck me that the fantasies of these men directly mirrored the type of behavior they claimed was responsible for the downfall of society.
Part of this contradiction is that not all manosphere men are red pillers (I hate that I know this.) Trads and red pillers are actually at odds. A true “enlightened” red piller is someone who is completely at peace with women’s “nature” to seek out sex with attractive men, and is stoically devoid of jealousy or bitterness. He isn’t mourning the downfall of a traditional world- he’s “enjoying the decline.” He isn’t perturbed by a woman banging ten Chads in the bathroom because he isn’t shattered by the realization that women are humans with sex drives, who are capable of all the same depravities of men, which by the way, is basically the whole “red pill” they’re taking (in a way, these guys are the real sex-positive liberal feminists.) Arguably, he’s one of the Chads, or if he doesn’t want to share, he’s seamlessly walking past the loud bathroom to find some other hottie who wants to bang him. In his lane, flourishing, moisturized.
But I feel like most men who consume this type of content have not reached this point of enlightenment. Many are still pissed off, bitter or jealous and I think some of this content exists to keep them that way. So, a lot of these dudes see a woman sleeping around and still feel angry about it. It’s easy to see this anger and think it comes from a place of being mad that these women aren’t sleeping with them, and perhaps that’s a part of it. But I’m going to say something you might find a little surprising (or not, if you’re familiar with my content.) Without approving of the misogynistic framing, I can at least understand where they’re coming from, even if they’re being hateful jerks about it. They’re not jealous of the guys these women are banging, they’re jealous of the women.
I know what you’re thinking—these men don’t actually want to switch places with attractive young women. And in a literal sense, of course they don’t, because they identify as men, and are attracted to women, but I’m not talking so literally. Even speaking less literally, maybe they would actually hate living any life of constant sexual attention, no matter what they claim. After all, your average young aspiring red piller could probably get plenty of attention from gay men if he really wanted to, but he doesn’t want to, because he’s not gay. And perhaps to women, getting attention from unattractive men might as well be the equivalent of gay male attention to a straight man (I don’t know if I totally buy that argument, but it’s made often.) But at the end of the day, these are two groups who are just completely talking past each other, because neither of them are able to imagine what the other’s life is like.
Now, I'm not a perfect 10 and I never have been, but I think it’s safe to say I’ve been a decently attractive 22-year-old woman. I wasn’t promiscuous, because I was in a relationship, but if I had wanted to sleep around, it would have been very easy for me to do that. I’ve never been a socially awkward young man, but I’ve talked to plenty of them for my research. I can’t overstate just how different the lives of attractive young women and awkward or unattractive young men are. What I’ve ultimately concluded is that a lot of the supposed “disgust” for promiscuous women is jealousy, because the snippets of the “hot young woman” lifestyle we see on social media present a gender-swapped version of what many young men wish they had: no responsibilities, lots of resources and privileges that they get just for being attractive, and most of all, a bottomless pit of sex.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Cartoons Hate Her to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.