So You Want to Date an Anti-feminist

Pick up artists and MGTOWs and redpillians, oh my!

All in favor of sex across political and ideological lines, say aye!

How are we going to heal the rifts of the modern world if we don’t sometimes stroke the genitals of our enemies? Bumping uglies can remind us that under all the bullshit, we’re human and we need to be loved.

It’s how the bonobos do it, after all.

Life is short — I say grab every good (and safe) orgasm that you can!

But please, please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t attempt a real relationship with an anti-feminist.

But he cherishes my femininity!

I’ve read a couple of essays here lately that talk about how it feels to be loved — even temporarily — by one of these men.

Girl, I feel you!

I believe that many branches of anti-feminism are attempting to approximate, or at least create the illusion of real masculinity, and sometimes they get close and it’s beautiful.

Real masculinity is glorious. But real masculinity isn’t laced with hatred and anger toward women.

It seems to me that most of these men see women as (at best) ephemeral magical beings, and (at worst) sub-human. It’s the Madonna/Whore complex on steroids.

Playing the part of the ephemeral, magical being is lovely. It’s a wholly different experience being “loved” in this way.

Enjoy the view from up there while you can, sis!

This is called being on a pedestal. It feels fucking great while it lasts — enjoy it!

But the thing about pedestals is that they’re very lonely, and very small.

They’re lonely because while the person who puts you there celebrates some aspects of you, he can’t actually reach you, or see the real, whole you (one might say his view is sort of like one of those up the skirt shots that perverts take in train stations).

The pedestal is a tough place to be. The platform you’re standing on is so small, you make one false move and you’ll tumble right off. That really limits your actions.

He’ll punish any part of you that doesn’t fit on the pedestal.

The situation isn’t helped by the fact that your definition of a false move and his definition of a false move are probably very different. You may find yourself conforming to his expectations just to stay balanced up there. This can be fine for a time — it feels great to be appreciated like that — but it’s exhausting long-term.

Let’s now talk about the distance between the top of the pedestal and the ground. That’s the distance between love and hate. When you fall (and you inevitably will) all that love you thought you had turns into hate.

This is hard, because you’ve gotten used to the dopamine rush of being up on the pedestal.

Is he really a misogynist?

As long as you’re up there, you can’t be a real person. Real people do things that their partners don’t like, on purpose and by accident.

If your partner sees you as a real person, they allow for that. If you disagree with them about something, they may not like it, but they’ll deal. If you look unattractive for a moment, they get it. It’s okay. They can still love you long afterwards.

But your anti-feminist? If he’s spending a lot of time in online spaces catering to anti-feminism, there’s a whole festering stew of beliefs about women that makes it very hard for him to see us as people.

Eventually, disagreements and differences will arise, and as we’ve established, he’s been spending a lot of time absorbing the false dichotomy that women are either magical ephemeral beings or subhuman. Eventually, he’ll transform you into a sub-human in his mind.

He probably isn’t able to follow any other trajectory. If he’s spending a lot of time in anti-feminist online spaces, he’s either already a misogynist, or he’s getting there.

Could you save him?

I don’t know, maybe. However, all of the usual warnings apply: he has to want to save himself first, and he’ll have to do the work by himself too. How motivated do you think he is to do that when anger feels so much more powerful than vulnerability?

But I’m sure you’re wondering why I think I have the authority to speak on this subject.

Been there, done that, lived to tell the tale.

I dated an anti-feminist guy between 2011–2013, back when we didn’t (or I didn’t) really know anti-feminists were even a thing.

He started out studying pick up artist stuff years before I met him, then moved on to red pill stuff that was meant to be applied to long-term relationships. He followed “the first rule of fight club,” which was that he never talked about his anti-feminist beliefs.

The upshot was that, for all intents and purposes, he was a member of a secret, all-encompassing, high-demand religion, and expected me to conform to that religion’s beliefs about women.

But I didn’t know that was the goal. I thought we were a couple of kids in the early 2010s trying to create a healthy, equal, modern relationship. Boy did his behavior have me confused!

For all intents and purposes, he was a member of a secret, all-encompassing, high-demand religion, and expected me to conform to that religion’s beliefs about women.

Finally, about a year into the relationship, he let it slip. We were on a hike and discussing feminism and he said, “I hate feminists.”

Oh man did I have a good laugh! When I finally could catch my breath, I said, “Well that’s funny, you’re dating one!”

I sent him a link to the dictionary definition for feminism that night, and he came back to me a few days later and said something like, “By that definition, I’m a feminist, too!”

But the conversation stuck with me, and eventually, as his bizarre behaviors stacked up, I started reading online and discovered that a lot of the things he’d said and done were consistent with techniques given in red pill style forums. I actually suspect he may have even had a coach he skyped with regularly.

I confronted him, and he admitted to having “read a lot of that stuff when I was younger,” but it was clear to me that he was still applying those techniques to our relationship.

I broke up with him shortly thereafter.

Spoiler alert! I did not emerge unscathed.

I’m a heterosexual woman with zero interest in pursuing a long-term relationship with a man. I still get crushes, I still like sex, and I still have men in my life that I dearly love.

But relationships? Partnership with a man? Meh.

I’m not sure how much of this can be attributed to my relationship with the anti-feminist, and how much is other life circumstances.

I wrote an essay trying to explore the issue, but I have to recognize that the incident that I wrote about occurred during my relationship with the anti-feminist — so dating him was probably coloring my views.

I thought with time my desire for partnership would come back, but it just hasn’t. Now I’m pursuing another course.

Anyway, I’m sorry if this seems alarmist, but I just want to tell other women — enjoy the sex! But don’t let yourself become thoroughly enmeshed in the world of an anti-feminist. It’ll likely affect you, even if you’re not aware of it at the time, and the effects might end up being long-term.