Saturday, February 16, 2013

Compulsive Love and Schrodinger's Rapist

Watching male fantasies like "Compulsive Love" makes me feel like I'm watching science fiction - male fantasy land is a planet that does not abide by the same conventions of human behavior as those on planet Earth.

Case in point is the end of the trailer for Compulsive Love in which a woman on a bicycle is chased down by the protagonist whom I shall call Ratface. And her response, on discovering that Ratface is trying to chase her down is NOT to start pedaling faster to escape, rather her response is to STOP and wait for Ratface to catch up so he can give her his oafish elevator pitch:
            Ratface 
This is crazy, what I just did... you... hey I'm Aaron. 
Yeah, that always happens on this planet. It's stuff like this that makes you wonder if the assholes who harass women on the street actually do think they're going to get lucky. Current theories hold that when men accost women on the street, they couldn't possibly be so stupid as to believe that such behavior will result in their getting laid, so it must be a display of male dominance and aggression.

But maybe scenarios like this are evidence that a certain subset of men actually do think that behaving like an aggressive asshole is a surefire way to pick up chicks. In any case the set up in this trailer is ridiculous, but if you've already set up a planet where unattractive men get sex with lots of women, the sky's the limit.

It's possible that the straight white men responsible for this bullshit are completely unaware of the fact that all women live in the fear of Schrödinger’s Rapist.

In this superlative blog post, someone with the nom de Internet of Sweet Machine explains. This should be required reading for all men on this planet.
When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.
So a man running after you like a dog in heat in order to try to pick you up - yeah that's sure to charm any woman.

But on Male Fantasy Planet sexual assault - and the fear of sexual assault - don't exist, and in fact this aggressive asshole is portrayed as a victim of women. The series tag line is "PUNCHED IN THE FACE BY LOVE AND THE WOMEN WEARING THE BRASS KNUCKLES."

On Male Fantasy planet men are the victims of women, no matter how stupid or idiotic the man behaves. And on this planet the word "love" means "sexual attraction based purely on physical attributes."

Well it must be tough to be a straight white man on Planet Earth - no wonder they have to resort to these fantasy scenarios - gets them away from the harsh realities of real life.