Drew Magary, Twitter personality and a writer whose work I often read and enjoy, made a mistake when he thought he could be glib about rape. In the unfortunately titled piece for GQ, “The Make It Stop Guide To Not Raping People,” Magary outlines guidelines for “horny boys of the world” who don’t want to be become awful predators like Elliot Rodger.
Magary acknowledges that his attempt at advice is "feeble," yet continues on to paint us a picture of his audience: dudes looking to “place [their] penis somewhere,” and will take any measure to do so, including, “lying, cajoling, begging, asking for sex again three minutes later, proposing.” While I appreciate Magary urging men to consider whether the woman they’re with actually wants to have sex with them, and to “err on the side of offering safety,” the tone he’s carrying the conversation in nearly, if not entirely, nullifies his point.
There’s an obvious danger in glibly pedaling advice on how to avoid being a rapist. If you have to dress conversations about misogyny in quips and vaguely sexist one-liners, maybe you shouldn’t enter into the conversation.
Being a woman writing for a men’s magazine, I’m well acquainted with the idea of catering to a male audience. It’s the job of any successful media entity to know their audience, deliver what they’re interested in, and hone a voice their readers can relate to. So, I get Magary’s inclination to speak to his readers in what he presumes is their voice. But there’s an obvious danger in glibly pedaling advice on how to avoid being a rapist. If you have to dress conversations about misogyny in quips and vaguely sexist one-liners (“It's not enough to tell men, 'Hey, don't rape anyone!' because men are terrible listeners”), maybe you shouldn’t enter into the conversation. Leave it to writers who don’t feel compelled to dilute the discussion with comedic asides.
Why try to have a serious conversation in the same condescending tone you talk to your dog in: “Bad boy. Don’t ‘fuck an unconscious person.’ That not nice.” Also, really—in a piece about sexual assault, we’re going to use the word "fuck"? Doesn’t that make light of an issue that is already fraught with misunderstandings and chauvinistic bravado?
So, by now you’re wondering—how does a horny man-child keep his inner-rapist at bay? Masturbation, duh. Magary muses, “Your hand is the REAL slut." What does this revelation accomplish? It still implies that butt-hurt, boo-hoo-not-getting-laid men should go home thinking about the other "slut” who wronged him by not exalting his penis like the gawd it clearly is. It’s that very attitude that fueled Rodger, who set out to “slaughter every blond slut” for denying him the pleasure he rightfully deserved. It's too potent a parallel for comfort.
The same goes for Magary telling readers, “You can be a nice guy without people thinking you're a pussy.” This is the kind of pro-alpha male urgings that can be found on the very message boards Rodger himself participated in, a community of men spewing misogynist rhetoric and encouraging one another to “man up” and commit unspeakable rape, violence, and yes, even murder. As one of Magary’s followers responding to his tweet put it: “Taking female anatomy synonymous with weakness is PART of rape culture.”
I don’t believe Magary’s intentions were malicious or anti-female. At all. In fact, it's difficult to determine if he's making an attempt at irony, being tongue-in-cheek, or just trying to soften a serious subject with humor. Either way, we can agree there's a better way to broach this subject—with sensitivity. With grace. Without feeling the need to be witty and pander to your audience to the point of neutering—and even mocking—what you've set out to say in the first place.
All men’s magazines are guilty of falling into similar traps. In exalting women—showcasing their bodies, scrutinizing who they currently share them with—we forget that we're leaving out: the full scope of what it means to be a modern woman, what it means to be the owner of that body. The struggle for equality in the workplace, the daily injustices she shrugs off, the leering she’s forced to laugh at (even though, sometimes, she's clutching her key like a dagger, genuinely terrified).
We need to stop couching serious conversations about the issues affecting women in humor, even (especially?) if it's directed at a male reading it in a men’s magazine. We have to assume they care as much as Jezebel’s audience does when a woman is date raped by a man she considered a friend or followed for ten blocks because she chose to wear a skirt that day. We have to assume this, because the idea men don't care about women is too, too terrifying. Let's give our readers the benefit of the doubt and assume their decency and thoughtfulness, rather than approaching it as if we're shilling something so unworthy of their attention in its own right, we need to cloak it in comedy for it to be palatable. Believe they can handle the truth in all its ugly unfunnyness.
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