Sperm Libel

September 20, 2009

Blood libels are false accusations that Jews use human blood in certain aspects of religious rituals and holidays. Surely, there has been some Jewish guy somewhere that has used human blood in some aspect of religious ritual, but it isn’t part of Judaism. The libel of the entire religion persists in certain circles nonetheless.

Of course, as guys, its barely possible to open a newspaper or magazine, watch more than a few minutes of TV, or converse with women for more than a few minutes without encountering some sort of libelous generalization about guys that is not true, and probably never was true. A few of them were slung about by commentators mentioned in my previous post, More DirkJohanson on Semen Facials. Indeed, it appears that one of the commentators, Mrs. D, to her credit, eventually separated fact from the sperm libel that guys were holding her success against her. This isn’t to say that guys never claim they don’t want to date or marry a broad due to her success – I’m sure plenty of guys have used that line when they really just want a quick roll or two in the hay – just that, as studies show, us guys are quite welcome to the idea of a woman earning more than us so long as it isn’t a problem from the woman’s end (which, studies show, of course, it is).

And so it was last week when a Facebook friend of mine posted,

“Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority. Mary Wollstonecraft”

Mary Wollstonecraft tried to kill herself twice before dying at age 38 when her baby-daddy wouldn’t take her back, and used his last name even though they were never married. She convinced her sister to leave her husband and infant when the sister was suffering from post-partum depression, dooming her sister’s future.

More than two hundred years after her death, feminists are still impressed with this nutty broad. But that’s not the point.

I can’t speak of conditions in the late 18^th century between the sexes. Maybe what Wollstonecraft said, despite her insanity, was right on point back then.

What I can say is this: “trivial attentions?” causing women to be “systematically degraded?” Because we “think it manly” and are “insultingly supporting [our] own superiority?” The Facebook post is from 2009! Where is this systematic degradation happening?

So, if any of you have an example, let me know – tell me where I’m wrong. If the Wollstonecraft has any contemporary relevance, call me on it.

In the meantime, I would like to start accumulating a compendium of similar statements about guys based on myth not fact – in other words, of Sperm Libel. As you may be just now noticing, the Monologues now even have a new posting category.

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