If only Sodini had gotten laid, he wouldn't have killed anyone?
This from Dan Savage. I disagree. To put it very very very mildly. Lack of ejaculation into a female body part was very very very likely *not* the problem, Dan.
Thoughts?
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It's funny how the NiceGuys and Sodini apologists ala Savage are starting to sound like certain camps of radical gender theorists from back in the day.
Revolutionaries and reactionaries saying the same damn thing about the nature of hetero male sexuality, lol.
Interesting.
Thoughts? I think you didn't really read the advice Dan was giving.
You say "Lack of ejaculation into a female body part was very very very likely *not* the problem, Dan."
Dan agrees with you and says:
"I’m not suggesting that this tragedy could’ve been averted if only some selfless woman had “taken one for the team” and married Sodini, an asshole and a sociopath. The women who rejected him obviously saw him for what he was and were right to run in the other direction."
Then he continues on to offer a sex worker positive solution to the one tiny problem in Sodini deep pool of problems.
"But if someone had told Sodini, who hadn’t had sex since 1990, to see sex workers – something I advised the guys in my column two weeks ago to consider (among other things) – it might have taken the edge off his anger and kept it from curdling into homicidal rage. Maybe if we, as a society, valued sex workers and sex work, if we legalized and regulated it and if we viewed “paying for it” as a legitimate option for guys who would otherwise go without for decades, perhaps this tragedy could have been averted."
Dan's other advice in this column is far more troublesome to me than his analysis of the Pittsburgh shooting.
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This.
Sodini was a misguided nut, and prostitutes wouldn't have fixed that. The idea that getting laid on the reg would have made him a perfectly normal and functional human being is rubbish; if that's your mindset, then I agree.
But in terms of the murders themselves, when you consider the kind of batshit insane level Sodini had to reach to do what he did, anything that would take even a little of the edge off his frustrations may well have kept him from going postal.
It stings a little to agree with Savage (what is with media assclowns named Savage?), but this is probably the only morsel of truth in his column.
My thoughts? You mischaracterized what he was saying out to a small-part sound bite.
Spiffy McBang already quoted the rest of it to give context.
He doesn't believe that sex would have been a cure-all, but what he conjectures is that if sex work was more tolerable to society, then people like Sodini could get their jollies without the moral and ethical judgement on them for doing, or for the workers for being sex workers.
He advocates directly for respect of sex workers and the role they *could* play in society (and sometimes do) for letting people who tie their entire being into sex have a place for release. He's not saying that a sex worker's responsibility is necessarily to sleep with crazy asshats like Sodini and, in fact, he's saying that they shouldn't have to. Someone would, and that is their choice as a sex worker.
While I'm not going to call Dan Savage a media assclown, he does hold views I sometimes disagree with. This, however you feel about the context of his words, was not intimated in what the OP's interpretation was.
I know a lot of feminists don't like Dan Savage, but I'm tired of seeing this dragged out of context. As Gular said, he never said sex was a cure-all.
You don't have to agree with the man, but if you're going to call him out on his advice, call him out within the actual context of the advice. Not the sound bites that fit your beef with him. As feminists aren't we supposed to be better then that?
As human beings, aren't we supposed to be better than that?
OJ Simpson had a Playboy Bunny girlfriend - and I am sure he got laid fairly regularly - and that prevented him from killing, right? Hmmmm.
And the television star, albeit reality TV, who killed his very conventionally attractive, stripper ex-wife, I bet he got laid fairly regularly, too. Sure as hell prevented HIM from killing.
Seriously - sex is not a cure-all. In fact, the only thing it really cures is horniness. If we're going to examine men's violence against women, let's look at gender roles here, and how men are socialized, rather than the lack of vagina-induced orgasm.
...
I'm not going to get into any kind of debate about this, because it's off the point and not worth it, but before I hit the sack I have to point this out.
Sodini was quoted, from his blog, as saying the reason for his actions was that he couldn't get a woman. No one has ever suggested that about your examples. Your analogy is straight wrong- it's apples and friggin dragons.
Yeah, I think Savage opened himself for criticism up by starting off a conversation about violence with:
"Testosterone is gasoline – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (gas makes things go) – but sexual frustration is the match"
As far as the rest of it, my B.S meter is going off. He's being polite or PC at best. But frankly I'm tired folks like Savage making violence against women about women.
And yes our culture is backward and regressive about sexuality and sex work.
But Savage's error is to once again assume that Sodini and men like him are acting rationally. For example, there are plenty of cultures and communities with legalized and regulated, even relaxed sex work situations (compared to the US) where communities still grapple with levels of sexual abuse and violence against women and girls that simply defies Savage's logic.
And for all we know he was seeing sex workers, but it wasn't good enough. Maybe he was ashamed to write about it because of his association with Pick-up-artists. Many pick-up-artists (PUAs) preach that purchasing sex is a the mark of failure. Now that's a problem now isn't it?
In our culture with a thriving yet illegal situation, we can only speculate why some men chose to purchase sex and others don't. But it seems that plenty of men from all social strata do not let the current barriers stop them.
Furthermore, men of Sodinin's means still feeling the sting of American puritanism could simply take a trip to overcome these barriers.
But the real kicker is that there are indeed sex therapists and courtesan types right here in the US, operating high enough off the "moral radar" who do present themselves and their business model as more open, very professional and discreet. These providers offer all kinds of romantic counseling and coaching in conjunction with erotic services including sex.
I can't believe someone tapped into the web enough to blog AND to make and post videos of himself AND to hook into the PUA community, couldn't get in touch with some of these providers.
Seriously. The more I think about the whole thing, I'm just getting more pissed off about the excuses.
I am sick and tired of people using "sexual frustration" as an excuse for men's behavior. Sexually frustrated men (all humans, really) should feel insulted when people imply that they're just a couple "no"s away from killing innocent folks.