The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Memo From the Thought Police

Posted on | August 31, 2014 | 106 Comments

Years ago, an episode of Seinfeld showed a stand-up sequence in which Jerry Seinfeld discussed catcalling, including one common variation seen in New York City, the “car honk.” A man in a car is sitting at a red light, a good-looking woman crosses the street in the crosswalk ahead of him, and the guy starts honking his horn — “beep!” “beep!” “beep!” — to get the woman’s attention or, at least, to signal his appreciation of her beauty. Obviously, as a mating strategy, this is a hopeless failure. No woman has ever responded to the car honk (or the wolf whistle or any other form of what feminists call “street harassment”) by approaching the harasser and saying, “Hi, you’re very attractive, let me give you my phone number so we can have lunch sometime.” No man with half a brain could imagine that such tactics “work” in terms of attracting females, so why does this atavistic behavior persist?

Jerry Seinfeld concluded his stand-up riff with the punch-line: “These are the best ideas we’ve come up with.”

That line got a huge laugh, because it’s so true: When it comes to figuring out how to get women, guys are generally clueless. Why do you think the “Pick-Up Artist” phenomenon turned into such a cult thing? Because there is a vast potential market of clueless guys, and if some guy claims to have a clue — if he can convince clueless guys that his methods of scoring with women actually work — he’ll become a millionaire. And, as everybody knows, chicks dig millionaires.

Anyway, Molly Powell wrote a column at National Review to say that, within limits, the wolf-whistle/”hey baby” reaction can be regarded as flattering. Left-wingers flipped out at Powell’s contradiction of the Official Feminist Line, and Jazz Shaw writes at Hot Air:

While it’s apparently absolutely verboten to say such things out loud today, there is a difference — particularly for women — between dressing to look good and dressing to look hot. Seriously … does any woman go to the beach wearing a tiny bikini top and a thong because it’s just so comfortable to swim in? Nonsense. You do it because you think you look good and you want people to see that. If you didn’t, there are a wide variety of attractive one piece suits to choose from.
Men like looking at attractive women, and the more they work on dressing up the display, the more likely we are to notice. That’s been true across the history of man. There are clearly lines of decorum which most of us wish would not be crossed, but having the thought police try to turn every pair of males eyes following a shapely pair of legs into a micro-agresssion, rape society assault turns the entire discussion into a parody.

(Hat-tip: Mememorandum.) The issue here, of course, is not to defend or justify boorish behavior. Rather, the issue is feminists (a) trying to turn this into a political crusade, and (b) accusing anyone who disagrees of being an ignorant woman-hating bigot.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

That’s a hate crime now, the moral equivalent of rape. It’s heteronormative patriarchy, which is worse than slavery, genocide and nuclear war. And if you don’t agree, then obviously you haven’t been paying attention in Women’s Studies class.

 

Comments

106 Responses to “Memo From the Thought Police”

  1. Ron Robinson
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 8:02 am

    Why I honk….
    I Honk not because I think I,ll get a date but because it makes ME feel good. Just part of feeling alive. Men who have ever been in this space know exactly what I’m talking about: you have a nice conversation with a lady and ask her out…. She says no, but you walk away feeling great because you owned your admiration and took the risk. It,s that. You are openly owning your admiration (not trying to trick her into asking you out and taking no risk as in the sitcoms). Many women who accepted (not the honk) told me it was owning my admiration and taking the risk that caused them to admire me back and accept. That,s really exceptional these days, guys.

  2. 24601
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 8:13 am

    Swimsuit model who makes fortune selling images of her body upset at perverts. Story at 11.

  3. Jeanette Victoria
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 9:00 am

    Only the furry four legged kind

  4. Slam1263
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 1:50 pm

    It beat having guys hit on me.
    Granted, I have been told that I am a decent looking guy, but, still they always act so hurt, and want detailed explanations as to “Why Not?”.
    I told a couple of them they weren’t pretty enough, just to get them to go away.

  5. dicentra
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 5:49 pm

    Did I forget to enclose “Utopia” in sarcasm tags?

  6. Matthew W
    September 2nd, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

    Woo Hoo !!!