[Content Note: Rape Culture, Misogyny, Male Entitlement, Sexually Explicit Language]

On a lark, I went through my email’s trash folder the other day. For Saturday (Valentine’s Day) alone, I found four pieces of spam with a common theme: Get the woman (or women) of your dreams. See them for yourself (separated by lines of asterisks):

This shocking video is going to blow your mind and let you discover:

-Magic innocent phrases to make her horny in seconds;

-Simple questions to make any pussy wet;

-Couple of gestures to instantly take her down!

And much more for a full makeover of your life.

No practice, no efforts, no hard work!

***********

Tired of being in a friend zone and constantly feeling unable to put her to your bed? Your life needs a makeover!

It’s the very lucky day when you may learn the genius way to make any girl want you without any efforts!

Tested on thousands of them! And they still want more…

***********

I hardly believe it myself but I’ve tried more than 20 sex positions last week with 5 different girls.

This technique is a huge sex cake that has changed my life the way I had never even dreamt of.

You may carry on being just a jerk for hot babes or watch this video and let the science do the best for you!

Good luck!

***********

You know I feel like a love boner king lately!
And it seems I almost forgot how I pleased myself with a night porn and relationship with a girl I didn’t like very much…

Today the situation is 100% different.
I can swear this technique is the most useful finding for an average man like me.

If you want to take the lead and be the one to choose, not be chosen by them, this great video is a must-see for you!

There’s a lot of wrong that I could cover in this. I doubt I’ll manage to spot everything, but I want to list some of the assumptions that these messages continue to support and encourage men to hold:

Women are there for their needs, especially their sexual needs.

The way to get any woman they want is simply to say or do the right things.

Women’s sexuality and sexuality exists solely to aid the men in getting the sex they want.

Getting the woman they want can and should be effortless.

There is nothing worse than having a woman decide a man is good enough to be a friend, but not good enough to be a sexual partner.*

What a woman wants and who she wants it with doesn’t matter.

These are just four examples of this kind of mentality that landed in my email on one day out of the year.  These same messages are pushed explicitly by books an websites every day. They are pushed implicitly in other forms of media. (Think of all the “hero gets the girl” themes in just about every genre of movie.)

It’s these kinds of messages that deny the humanity and agency of women. It’s these kinds of messages that encourage and enable men to think that they deserve the attentions and sexual favors of women — and not just any women, but the specific women they want — sometimes to the extreme point that they react like Elliot Rodger or Ben Moynihan (just to pick two examples).

These messages are toxic and they need to stop. They need to be challenged and discussed. They cannot be ignored. They cannot be shrugged off as something “no one really believes or listens too” because the evidence to the contrary is stark.

Further Reading: A Culture of Violent Entitlement, and the Culture of Silence Surrounding It via Shakesville

Note: I am indebted to Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, whose extensive blogging about men like Rodgers and Moynihan provided me with the links to news articles about them.