A Longer Essay, Packed For Today: Why The Fuck Do Dudes Treat Women Like Vending Machines For Sex?
At some point I’m going to unpack this thought further, into a larger essay, but after seeing numerous examples this weekend, I’m just sort of still mystified by the behavior.
Why the fuck do dudes treat women like vending machines for sex?
Like, okay, if you treat them like puzzle boxes, it’s not great, but at least you’re accepting that there’s a kind of entertainment to be found. But the number of guys who literally want nothing to do with women if they’re not dispensing sex terrify me. They have zero female friends, except for the ones they’re pretty sure they can bang one day, and when it becomes apparent that the banging isn’t going to happen, they walk away without an ounce of shame or discomfort. In fact, they walk away with such an absence of shame that it’s as though they genuinely believe the entire world is like this, and the women should have known better to be fooled.
At which point I sputter. People are interesting. Women are people. Do you treat your guy pals with the same psychopathic coldness – your dudebros are just there to deliver an experience, and when that’s gone, so are you? Or are you so conditioned to see women as an alien race that you literally have a negative interest in connecting?
And do you realize how awful this methodology works? I mean, I guess you can go out and Pick-Up Artist the bars, finding new chicks every night, but that fails for most guys. Even if you just wanted nothing but mercenary sex, pretending to be pals with women is still your better option, because women know other women. If you hang around a girl, she’ll introduce you to her friends, and eventually one of them will likely show an interest with you. As opposed to burning every bridge you walk across the instant it becomes apparent there’s no juicy treat in immediate site. A smart psychopath would do better.
I dunno. It’s a cold approach, one abhorrent to everything I believe about the way you should treat women, and people. But it’s also insanely prevalent, this whole schism between women and men, where men treat women like an ugly foreign land to be endured. And that prevalence just shows a whole mindset that I find repellent and scarring and yet those dudes will probably find some wife who also believes in it and will raise a new generation of dysfunctionals. Which is, you know, creepy to the maxicreep.
I work with a couple of guys like that, and it just amazes me that they can think that way. I really have to wonder if there’s something broken in their brain, some central humanity processing neurons that just don’t fire.
Have you considered that the problem is deeper than ‘guys are just assholes’?
Look at what we’re conditioned to believe socially. Media, films, TV, music. Look at what these things all say about how attraction works, and how love is supposed to work, what women are supposed to want. It’s all completely insane and the world doesn’t work like that.
I do agree that certain attitudes can be unhealthy, but I think that a large number of emotionally immature, shallow men is a symptom of wider social problems.
I don’t know if you want to see how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.
I think they DO treat their guy friends that way. It’s just that what they want from their guy friends isn’t sex – it’s companionship, recognition, respect, etc. Getting what they want from the bros is more complicated because the end goal is more complicated.
These are people who only do what they need to do to get what they want. There IS something broken; they lack compassion. A startlingly large number of children never go through the transformative moment when they learn empathy, and they grow up to be people like that.
As a guy who used to think that way but has changed and loves what you write because it is so honest and wise in general, I feel I can actually contribute here 🙂
I think it is a symptom of objectification in general in our culture, and the tendency to paint with large strokes. The simplest version of this classic “Women only want assholes” line. A lot of people have a tendency that is encouraged by shitty television and “self-help” books to lump others into a group or class and draw conclusions accordingly.
“Woman are from Mars and Men are from Venus”, my ass. We’re all humans on Earth, and life gets much better when you look at others in that fashion.
It’s common to hear male friends say “Women are a pain in the ass.” or some other such generality, and I always correct them… Some people are a pain in the ass, and women happen to be people.
The trick is that coming to these realizations requires a great deal of thought, introspection, and challenging what one is told within one’s own brain. It is far easier to take a group, write them off, and stay wrapped in the safety of your own biases than it is to question why you are told to think certain ways.
So in that spirit, Ferrett, why do some dudes treat women like vending machines for sex? Because people, men and women both, sometimes treat other people like vending machines for sex, and dudes are also people. 🙂 (And if you haven’t met a woman who does so yet, trust me, they’re out there. And as long as both sides understand the other’s motivation and are not being hurtful, I personally see no problem either way.)
It’s not so much about sex as just not wanting to be around women. I’m bi and feel the same way; I’m not gonna hang around a girl unless she has something for me, because I find women stressful to interact with. I gladly schmooze with guys whenever I can, though.
It’s like you said: “men treat women like an ugly foreign land to be endured. ”
It’s not about kindness coins or vending machines or puzzle boxes, it’s about having to endure something bad to get something you want. It so happens that this something is often sex (but isn’t always!), but that’s not the cause of the avoidant behavior. If anything, sex is just a reason to suspend the behavior and endure that harsh, dirty, stressful but ultimately empty foreign land.