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Horrible Mansplainy Video about "Nice Men"

dizzy the egg said:
I thought it was against men pretending to be nice. can't be bothered to watch it again. I did actually watch it twice because I thought that there would be a discussion and I read a couple of pages on here and everyone was just condemning it so badly

I thought that whoever wrote it was more angry with men pretending to not have sexual desires than with women. I suppose it just goes to show that it's all a mirror etc.

What he asked for at the end was that his girlfriend would get into his peccadillos, not that he could go and grab someone
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it's also implying that she isn't into sex. that she can't have ideas of her own about hat sort of sex she wants. it's just about convincing the woman that because she';s got no desires of her own, her only way to happyness and her only way to keep his attention is to do the stuff he wants.
 
bimble said:
Poor De Botton, I knew he was boring even for a swiss person, but had no clue he was suffering so horribly from his wife's refusal to put on the french maids costume or whatever it is he's so frustrated about that he's lost the ability to think.
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Given his education, he was probably trying to get her to dress up as a fag from the lower third, rather than as a French maid. It's often claimed that formative sexual experiences imprint and influence the rest of your sexual life. :eek: :hmm: :eek:
 
Boycey said:
And a great implied threat the end- "This [repression] can be dangerous". FFS
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In a fraction of a percent of the population, that might be true, but those so-called "nice guys" would probably be sex offenders anyway, even if they did have access to regular consensual sex of an odd or perverse nature. de Botton should be ashamed to host such nonsense.
 
Saul Goodman said:
The video was repulsive, but it's a fact, at least for some of us, that if we get aroused and don't do anything about it, it can be extremely painful.
I'm not suggesting this is anyone's problem but our own, but it certainly isn't a myth.
And did I mention that the video is fucking repulsive... at least to any right-thinking male.
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"Extremely painful"? A kick in the bollocks is - transiently - "extremely painful". Getting stabbed is "extremely painful".
It might give you significant discomfort, but if you quantify that as extreme pain,you've either got a very low pain threshold, or are known locally as "Saul, the bloke who's legendary for exaggerating"! :p
 
ViolentPanda said:
Any psychologist will view "inappropriate thoughts", and the fact of NOT acting on them, as healthy socialisation, not as something worthy of reward from compliant females. That video is purely sexist whataboutery, demanding compensation for acting in a manner that is merely legally and socially civil. Fuck the sad masculinist bastards. With a traffic cone.
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Indeed. Everyone's living in a landscape of cognitive dissonance, and everyone's constantly managing a plethora of disturbing phantasmagoria in an attempt to operate as a functional member of society. That's called 'being a civilised human being'.

There's a certain section of this that's specific to heterosexual men, arising from the fact that they're the principal market for violent fantasies, and even as their conscious minds are rejecting those fantasies, their unconscious minds are being aggressively sold them.

Helping men to gain critical perspective on this situation, and to discuss it with their partners and others around them, and to challenge the processes underlying it, would be a great thing to make a video about - and I'd like to give a tiny bit of benefit of doubt and think that maybe some thought along these lines informed some early stage of the planning of the video in the OP.

But it went horribly wrong at a pretty early stage - instead of telling men to understand and break out of the cycles in which they're caught up, it told women to appease those cycles.
 
Not sure what to make of that.
Seems like a lot of "nice men" have thoughts about some nasty sex stuff.

This doesn't seem like either much of a newsflash, nor something particular to men, but there plenty of troubling aspects, such as the bits that imply some kind of duty to comply with any weird stuff, plus the bits implying a 'danger' in not doing so.

Pretty sinister.

Also, I only watched it the once, and it struck me that the man was always in the dominant position (as far as I noticed) in the video, which does not chime with my experience (you get subs and doms of both genders as any fule know.)

If you took out those sinister bits, <and also the bit about "nice men" being deeply sympathetic to the feminist agenda>, you could pretty much swap the genders and call it "nice girls".

But the sinister bits stand out.
 
ViolentPanda said:
"Extremely painful"? A kick in the bollocks is - transiently - "extremely painful". Getting stabbed is "extremely painful".
It might give you significant discomfort, but if you quantify that as extreme pain,you've either got a very low pain threshold, or are known locally as "Saul, the bloke who's legendary for exaggerating"! :p
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It's not the most painful thing ever, but it's definitely one of my least favourite types of pain. Something about the slow, dull almost-nausea that spreads into your stomache. Knocking one out does seem to 'cure' it, but it's no fun so a complete bullshit excuse (as any coersion for sex would be regardless). Pain's weird anyway. You know that feeling you get when your legs gone dead, and as the feeling returns you get this kind of buzzing electric pressure? It's not remotely 'painful', but it's probably more unbearable than 99% of classic pain I've experienced.

ANyway, what a bullshit video. People think about fucked up things all the time, it's just how it is. That's the issue that people with OCD sometimes have around intrusive thoughts. They either worry that they will act on them or that there's something wrong with them for thinking them in the first place. When you go through CBT you aren't told to either supress OR act out these 'desires' (the whole point being that they're the exact opposite), you're taught to sit with them and understand that it's not representative of you as a whole. To frame it as 'nice' man repressing a fundamental side of himself, with the implied risk that he will 'burst' eventually, is gross and sexist. Yes people should be open about their desires with their partners, but it's so disingenuous and irresponsible to conflate fantasies, thoughts and self-worth in that way.
 
Pugnax said:
It's not the most painful thing ever, but it's definitely one of my least favourite types of pain. Something about the slow, dull almost-nausea that spreads into your stomache. Knocking one out does seem to 'cure' it...
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Well, it certainly does do that, but the lengthy stay in A&E and the tedious questions you get asked when recovering from a concussion make me think it's probably better just to ride it out.
 
I know who the people behind The School of Life the channel associated with this video) are, and I can assure you that they are no way connected to the manosphere. Exactly the opposite in fact.

I belive this video popped up on the men's rights page in Reddit which is why it is doing the rounds. I belive they're poking fun at "I'm a nice guy" types who believe they are nice even though they have violent thoughts against women.

School of Thought probably think it's best all round for these "nice guys" to keep their offensive shit to themselves rather than open their horrible mouths and remove all doubt that really they aren't all that nice.

The video is instructional as the best way for a "nice guy" to be nice. They aren't wrong.

Not all guys. Just the "nice" ones.
 
FabricLiveBaby! said:
I know who the people behind The School of Life the channel associated with this video) are, and I can assure you that they are no way connected to the manosphere. Exactly the opposite in fact.

I belive this video popped up on the men's rights page in Reddit which is why it is doing the rounds. I belive they're poking fun at "I'm a nice guy" types who believe they are nice even though they have violent thoughts against women.

School of Thought probably think it's best all round for these "nice guys" to keep their offensive shit to themselves rather than open their horrible mouths and remove all doubt that really they aren't all that nice.

The video is instructional as the best way for a "nice guy" to be nice. They aren't wrong.

Not all guys. Just the "nice" ones.
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I didn't see it like that tbh. Not that I'm going to watch it again to see if I was wrong.
 
FabricLiveBaby! said:
Not all guys. Just the "nice" ones.
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So does this mean it doesn't apply to nasty "nice" guys (this being their natural MO anyway)?
Or nice nasty guys (I suppose they'd just come out with what they were thinking...)?

And that it is only nice "nice" guys who are the people who should heed the message of this video in your view?

Which would make them "nice", but less nice.
 
8ball said:
So does this mean it doesn't apply to nasty "nice" guys (this being their natural MO anyway)?
Or nice nasty guys (I suppose they'd just come out with what they were thinking...)?

And that it is only nice "nice" guys who are the people who should heed the message of this video in your view?

Which would make them "nice", but less nice.
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The man in that video properly resonates with "but I'm a nice guy" MRA types with a victim complex who genuinely believe they are nice... which is why they are all flocking to the comments section. I guess for normal-headed dudes it'll leave them going WTF, this isn't me.

Anyway, the comments have all the usual suspects bunfighting in there. Including the Honey Badgers. Who are horrible horrible women.

The debate seems to be "should us "nice guys" be PC and keep our thoughts to ourselves, or is this video a bunch of SJW feminazi propaganda aimed at silencing real mens thoughts"

So I guess it's at least sparked that discussion in the manosphere if anything...
 
Just watched that and found it highly creepy. A couple of classic lines, such as: "You may be thinking he's not a nice guy, but he is - niceness just isn't what you think it is". According to the video, 'nice guys' seem to be self-pitying, resentful and passive-aggressive.
 
The Pale King said:
Just watched that and found it highly creepy. A couple of classic lines, such as: "You may be thinking he's not a nice guy, but he is - niceness just isn't what you think it is". According to the video, 'nice guys' seem to be self-pitying, resentful and passive-aggressive.
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One of the basic mistakes in that is the idea that the weird/unworthy thoughts that pop up in our heads are the 'real' us, while the other 'nice' stuff is somehow the front. They don't seem able to handle the complexity of how they're necessarily both 'us'. And surely the unworthy stuff that pops up and we reject in our actions is if anything less the 'real' us by definition.

Also, the makers seem to think all men have the same kind of unworthy thoughts as they do, which we don't. We all have this stuff, but each of us is different. (And of course they don't even seem to have considered the idea that women have them as well!)
 
The Pale King said:
Just watched that and found it highly creepy. A couple of classic lines, such as: "You may be thinking he's not a nice guy, but he is - niceness just isn't what you think it is".
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That doesn't seem so bad - sometimes niceness *is" suppressing what you might really want to say. It's employed a bit simplistically here, though - unless I'm even more innocent than I think I am, isn't it just being willing to taking a step back from being overly curt or rude etc.? As opposed to suppressing continual desires to fuck everything in site. :confused:

The Pale King said:
According to the video, 'nice guys' seem to be self-pitying, resentful and passive-aggressive.
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I'm assuming they are referring to the ones who (and I can't take credit for the wording here) see women as 'machines you put kindness coins into until sex falls out'. Which may be all of them, depending on the definition of "nice"/nice/'nice'.
 
Miss Caphat said:


This came up from a site that generally has quality content. :confused: Anyway, I just wanted to share because I haven't been able to get this horribleness out of my head since yesterday. Basically it's about how "nice" men are all having violent sex fantasies all the time, and are under tremendous amounts stress due to having to supress their urges, and that if women don't want their "nice" men to abandon them, they should cater to these depraved yet healthy, normal, manly desires (regardless of how we might feel about this or what our own desires might be?). Reminds me a lot of the "blue balls" myth we all were faced with as teens. :rolleyes:

Thoughts, Urban?
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I reckon this "nice man" bollocks is really just talking about sexuality, and how it is often wrapped-up in shame and deceit. One could say the same thing about homosexuals or women who prefer to be the bossy assertive one in bed (or elsewhere) and thus being considered a "bitch" for it, or any number of sexual angst that normal people go through every day. Don't see why the issue should be "mansplainified"... which just makes the subjects around sex and power and identity (who am I supposed to be, what do I do with my nasty needs etc) more awkward and weird to get into. If you're a woman and have these questions then you might expect more support from people who believe in liberation and understanding and the ability to accommodate how complex people can be. Mansplainifying these issues when it's men that we're talking about just perpetuates the self-same sexual-self-hatred and contempt for passion that has created this society of sexual hypocrisy and sex-as-weapon crap that we're having to wade through now.

tl: dr; Fuck the "nice man" bollocks, fuck everything to do with the experience of life from "mens" point of view being mansplainified, or womens point of veiw being "feminazied" let's all agree that sexuality can be thorny as fuck and that the constant battle between the inner beast and the outer human can be quite troubled and go from there. Away with the them-versus-us crap already, we all have nipples after all. In fact isn't this what "nice women" have been saying about their experiences in our culture all this time?
 
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8ball said:
That doesn't seem so bad - sometimes niceness *is" suppressing what you might really want to say. It's employed a bit simplistically here, though - unless I'm even more innocent than I think I am, isn't it just being willing to taking a step back from being overly curt or rude etc.? As opposed to suppressing continual desires to fuck everything in site. :confused:
QUOTE]

Yeah suppressing one's baser instincts is pretty par for the course for normal social intercourse for men and women, not only a part of niceness. As you say the video is positing a simplistic, total opposition between the internal and external, casting niceness as a sort of camouflage, and holding women (as ever) responsible for doing the interpretive labour to ameliorate men's feelings. Maybe there is a connection between seeing women as passive containers for men's feelings and fantasising about sexually dominating them, so that one implies the other, I don't know.
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They're at it again...



not as bad this time, but again a lot of the same themes and similar assumptions (people either fantasize about being dominant or submissive). It's more irritating than offensive this time. I do wonder why people are so eager to swallow this psychobabble without questioning it, though.

I think the theory that being open and building trust with a partner is a solid one, but it

A) doesn't deal with the problem brought up in the beginning, which is how to deal with insecurity (for a lot of people, insecurity is the cause of not being able to open up to a partner)

B) seems to assume that all people have some sort of fetish which if they just were able to express it would be enough to make sex fulfilling. I see all kinds of practical problems with that theory, including the fact that fetish or not, technique is still important, women & men's bodies are different, and you still need to learn your partners physical responses (no, Alain De Boton, sex is not "all in the mind" truly)
 
I don't hate that video. I don't agree with all of it, but its heart seems to be in the right place. I like how gender- and sexuality-neutral it is.
 
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