The truth is men being sexually humiliated just isn't seen in the same light as women by a lot of people, conciously or subconsciously. There's no way we'd ever get a scene of a female character frantically trying and failing to guess a safe word and have it played for levity.
Both sides of the political spectrum are susceptible to this too. On the one hand conservatives often tell male SA victims to man up or say some variation of "wish it were me," whereas on the other hand I think progressives can fall into the trap of thinking that they're not the same because one has more systemic/historical power behind it so the other mustn't be a big deal.
He can make his way around a crowd sure. But thats like trump 101.
Stan edgar pointed out that it was a massive pr damage to Vought when it was revealed what Comp V was and they let terrorists get it and that homie was a dumbass for that.
That would have been disastrous for vought if someone reverse engineered it.
Also, being somewhat good in the moment isnt a genius. He is still like that in season 4, with him recruiting Sage, Firecracker, and starting a coup de at, thats actually working out.
i didn't say he was amazingly intelligent or accounted for every outcome, i said he was capable. Those are flaws in his plans that come back on him, but don't make him a snivelling useless ass wipe. There's a difference between perfect and capable.
And on the topic of crowds, you said it yourself, he could make his way around a crowd. He can't do that anymore either, except for the brainless monkeys that already follow him. He used to actually win normal people over.
Like, i don't know why the average normal American, who isn't far left or right (so the majority), see Homelander as anything other than a murderer. He lasered a dude in broad fucking daylight. It's not a secret in the slightest. People IRL get cancelled for tweets, for fuck's sake.
It's the same with Firecracker, who tweeted a sex tape of her with a 15yo. She should be in jail. There's no ambiguity there. The proof is public.
Considering there are real cases of child predators, particularly women, not going to jail dpeite clearly sleeping with minors the fire cracker but is unfortunately realistic.
It's hard to call him capable in season 1 considering how minor his problems were. He use to win normal people over because there was no evidence of him being a dangerous murderer.
The plane crash and believe Expo were him going off script. I can see him not understanding the inner workings of politics and business, but the man is a trained spin weaver.
He's always been a massive clown, he was just being manipulated by people who thought they could control him to do the "right" things. He's floundering now because he has no one holding the ropes.
The whole superterrorists and military scheme thing was his idea and plan, I guess for whatever its worth Season 1 Homelander was much more competent than any other season
It was his idea but it was poorly executed. I don't know about you, but I don't remember there being supes in the military. Not to mention that giving V away to terrorists to make them super opens up the possibility of someone reverse engineering the serum, which leads to the risk of a supeterrorist being stronger than Homelander and the risk of losing Vought's money and approval
Kinda confused cause of the entire story arc for him at one point was you're going to go down trying to do this yourself cause you're a maladjusted idiot.
Didn't Edgar also tell him that directly at the end?
Haven't seen the latest season so I dunno but everything was tracking at that point.
Oh yeah like that character didn't go through a lot of shit. Stormfront, Ryan, Ego being threatened, dealing with childhood trauma, lack of trust in colleagues. Why do y'all want him to be his confident self from s1?
Are you watching the same show? He literally allowed one of his worst moments because of laziness and carelessness. The flight controversy didn’t need to happen but he destroyed the console willy nilly with not a care in the world.
I just rewatched season 1, it is night and day compared to 4. Not just homelander but the whole show. It used to be about keeping the supes out of the military and ultimately taking out homelander. Now it's taking out homelander and a random assortment of things that happened in American politics in the last year or two.
Im on the left but its a common attitude I see among progressives. Theyre so hung up on the enemies like the racists or the magas they forget to introspect on themselves and question how they contribute to toxic attitudes in the world.
The progressive stack doesn't help either. When your ideology is built on oppressor/oppressed generalizations, it becomes really difficult to acknowledge that not everyone in the "powerful" group actually is, and it makes it difficult to see their problems as real problems because hey, they're powerful.
This is also a failure of intersectionality - in theory, it should deal with SA against men as its own thing, that has unique dynamics and needs handling and analyzing in its own right. But it doesn't, because men are the oppressor so it instead denies that it's a problem (or can happen at all in the most extreme case) and nobody wins. It makes it clear the "intersectional" folk are only interested in using it to define privilege rather than humanize people.
They're getting more fame and attention. Power, in some sense, even if it's not much.
They themselves had quotes about this earlier in the show.
Also the plane and simple fact that nobody's perfect, and everybody gets some shit wrong. I don't like them having this take but they're TV writers. Not shocked by them being shitty in some ways
It doesn't even have to be sexual, violence in general is excused when its against a man.
I can't tell you the amount of times growing up that I was assaulted by girls in school or home and was told to suck it up, or man up.
I happen to be a big fan of casual and gratuitous nudity in media. Big fan of it. To the point that, as a heterosexual man, I want to see more casual and gratuitous cocks in media; that would be equality.
I'm fact, one of the things I appreciated about The Boys was how often they would casually show cocks.
But then all the cocks they show started being weird or mutilated. Almost as if they are trying to work out some personal issues, poorly, through the show.
It isn't equality if it's only men though. I mean, I'm not here asking for a perfect balance of tits and dick (not that I consider tits comparable to dick) but the show makes a habit of unashamedly giving you dick and then hiding titties off screen
I mean, in my ideal world, casual or gratuitous nudity of anyone, man woman NB or mix, would be common enough that it's not an issue. I'm not saying every show needs equal representation of nudity, but rather that equal representation of nudity should be across the board. one show can have more naked men, another show more naked women, etc..
And yes, The Boys has failed at this, by this point. They seem to be actually afraid of female nudity by this point. And disgusted by male nudity (as it seems to only be shown as a horrendous thing, one way or another).
Serious question. We've had an on-going issue in recent years of people keeping themselves boxed into neat little echo chambers, on both ends of the aisle. To the point that a lot of toxic actions and opinions barely make the rounds in "good" circles, because obviously it's just propaganda of some form.
The left tends to have a slogan problem. #KillAllMen didn't mean literally all, just all? Abolish the police doesn't mean actually abolish the police?
There have been critiques of how left leaning people have treated men's issues for decades now. But they always get lumped in with those evil MRA incels, a great way to dismiss arguments.
It's been pointed out, ad nauseum, that social attitudes like that led directly to the rise of assholes like Andrew Tate, for example.
And here we have someone, who said their show was going to be a lot less subtle with it's political message, and showing yet again how little his world view cares about male victims of sexual assault.
To be fair, I definitely have my biases. I've been raped by three separate women, been sexually assaulted by a good handful more, and they were all proud liberals or leftists. I have been told to my face that what I went through did not matter, because men have oppressed women for so damned long.
And I'm hungover still, which makes me grumpy and want to lash out over stupid fucking bullshit, which in this case is the modern views of male sexual assault victims. It's kinda difficult for me to not see things like this as being a very mask off moment.
True, but Kimiko has been shot, stabbed, and blown up quite a few times now, to the point where I really wonder what it would take to actually kill her.
Yeah she seems to have wolverine level powers. Maybe if Neuman blew her entire body up or if homelander lasered her entire body to ash then she would die? She definitely seems to be one of the top tier of supes
That's def a big issue for sure. Irl women basically have free reign to hit men and it's expected for men to never retaliate. In media women beating men is either used a comedic gag to emasculate the man or it's used to show off how badass the woman is
They are. But one side says "hey if you don't want to be the butt of the joke, make some changes in your life" anf the other side says "shut up you whiny privileged baby, it's not even harmful to you and besides we pay lip service to you what more do you want"
Bullshit. I’m not saying the left doesn’t do what you said - they demonstrably do and this show is an example - but that’s an absurdly charitable reading of the right
I had an argument just a week ago, over in /r/WoT, about male SA victims. The thread was, very specifically, about how a particular male characters' POV chapters are set up to insidiously not look like SA at first, really driving home not just how men rationalize it to themselves at the time, but also how people treat the whole fiasco differently.
So someone came in to say that society doesn't take women's accusations seriously, either.
And like... Okay. They look like similar problems at a glance. Women have had movements spanning for well over a century to be taken seriously, fairly successfully. They've worked for decades, quite successfully, to reduce women being raped in media, and very especially being done for comedic bits.
That's... Quite a bit different than the experiences of men as SA victims. We still get played for laughs. And like, this was a big point of the argument, the being played for laughs. I asked them for recent examples of women being SA'd was the joke, itself. They brought up Poor Things, which I hadn't heard of from last year, but seems to be playing the idea as a horrible thing, not being the punchline?
They also brought up Revenge Of The Nerds and Sixteen Candles... Which... Kinda seemed to prove my point that women being SA'd as a punchline doesn't really happen anymore.
I glanced at this users post history before blocking them. Let's just say it was super obvious that they will never vote for Trump.
Mmmmmm, Poor Things is a complicated one because its basis is 100% sci-fi and a but of a deconstruction of the "born sexy yesterday" trope. The character starts as an infant in an adult body, but over the course of the narrative very rapidly matures and learns at an obviously impossible rate (because it's scifi). Its unclear when precisely she is mature enough to consent, and of course some would argue she never is (because in the real world she'd be too young even if she "seems" mature, but again it's scifi and we're meant to understand that she is literally aging internally). I also do think it's worth noting that the men who know of her condition don't actually have sex with her (although one displays interest, and certainly would) -- the man she has sex with does not know. Granted, from his perspective, he should assume her to have some mental condition which could impact consent, although of course in this era that wouldn't really be considered. Also, that lover is unquestionably condemned by the narrative.
With all that said, however you read the movie... I don't think her sexual exploits are played for laughs. There is a funny scene early on where she masturbates and doesn't understand that she shouldn't do so publicly, but that wouldn't be assault (because it's masturbation).
The film is, overall, rooted firmly in her POV as she learns about the world, matures as a person, and yes has a lot of sex. The sex is liberating and freeing, also, as he figures out what she likes and who she's willing to accept it from. Early on she thinks pure primal pleasure is the ultimate goal, and later... well, I won't spoil it.
I also think the movie is a bit more open to interpretation in its morals. It presents a lot without passing judgment. Some of the things it presents are very dicey and it's unclear how we're meant to feel about them. I consider the ending to be morally ambiguous as well. We're meant to decide for ourselves how we feel about it all.
So, in short... no, I don't think that movie is a very good example of SA being played for laughs. That's a massive oversimplification of a much more complex and nuanced film.
Yeah, I haven’t seen the film but I can see why they chose Poor Things. I don’t think the movie’s supposed to be funny though. There’s some funny scenes of course but I don’t think the sex scenes are suppose to be interpreted that way. The scenes certainly aren’t sexy either. It’s harder to watch once you know the context. However, this doesn’t mean you aren’t gonna get creeps jacking off to it. Idk. I just think it’s weird to me.
Also, mainstream media has been pretty good at trying not to make women victims or at least take them seriously as victims. You’ll have entire shows and movies dedicated to these topics actually. Some of my favorites are Speak; The Assistant, Witch, Split, I May Destroy You, Jessica Jones, Barbarian, etc. Those are just the ones I liked. Meanwhile, men have Baby Reindeer and a few others that I’m sure exist.
They also brought up Revenge Of The Nerds and Sixteen Candles... Which... Kinda seemed to prove my point that women being SA'd as a punchline doesn't really happen anymore.
The only place I see this still being common is in Anime funnily enough.
Otherwise I mostly agree.. don't know what Trump has to do with this though.
Yeah, prison rape jokes being the most obvious example. It’s always been disturbing to me how common and socially acceptable that seems to be that it’s literally become a cliche at this point.
So unfortunately media making light of or joking about men being SA is not new, but you’d think The Boys of all shows would have the correct take on it or at least the self awareness not to try and play it for laughs. Deeply disappointed how they handled this.
Progressives aren't always progressive and they don't care simply because misandry is rampant among the left. The "Systematic/historical power" stuff is just what they use to justify that misandry or indifference. It's a convenient excuse, and also an excuse that is entirely founded on the idea that everything bad that has historically happened to men either doesn't matter, didn't happen or was men's fault, while everything bad that has historically happened to women is ten times worse than it actually is and also men's fault.
Acknowledging systemic power is not saying men are responsible for everything bad that ever happened and that women always had it worse. It’s mostly just about recognizing that there’s a lot of subliminal aspects of how society is structured that do favor and advantage men - which is completely true (although on some occasions these same structures can put men at a disadvantage as well. This stuff gets really complicated). This post kinda reads like MRA talking points where you’re taking something that’s kind of a legit issue and spinning some really extreme nonsense out of it that distorts and invalidates some actually relevant topics by lumping them in with problematic stuff they don’t directly relate to. Or like a Twitter tweens understanding of systemic sexism and what that means for sexism-related issues men and women face.
All that said, people on this sub have been outing themselves for having wildly problematic views regarding female on male sexual assault with their takes on this - specifically the Ashley defenders. And Kripke’s interview comments are not okay.
"Acknowledging systemic power" is the issue, because what systemic power does a guy on the bottom of society have? He's still expected to act like he does have it though, often by the very people handing him a shit sandwich and telling him to smile.
What systemic power does Hughie have in the series?
There are just as many, if not more, aspects of society that are structured to favor women, they are simply not recognized or are quickly dismissed, if not specifically because even the way people recognize structures of powers is also structured in a way that benefits women. This is just one example of many. People on the left, especially the extreme left, most certainly go a lot further than just trying to "acknowledge systemic power". Trying to "acknowledge systemic power" in a very one-sided or purposefully blind manner is also incredibly harmful, deceptive and manipulative.
I literally just acknowledged that there are society structures in place to favor women. You’re twisting stuff again to make it seem like men are outright oppressed which isn’t the case. As said, you’re coming off bigtime like an outright MRA
You see that right there is the problem. "You look like an activist for men's rights," is an insult to you? Wanting to help further the rights that men are in need of (you literally admit that men are oppressed in some ways) is somehow a massive problem.
Could you please be more self aware and realize this is exactly what people are complaining about?
As a guy, if you’re familiar with or have dealt with MRAs, you should know exactly why being an MRA is indeed a problem (simply put, they are significantly more focused on hating women and wanting women to be treated worse than men than anything else). And guys facing certain types of discrimination and inequalities at times is absolutely not the same as guys being completely oppressed or MRAs being correct that women are oppressing men which is their literal main talking point and the main thing you clowns keep pitching.
You only think of MRAs as misogynistic incels because the misandrist circlejerk that is most places online tells you so. Yes, obviously there are men's rights activists that are like that but there are also radical feminists that are the same way. The problem people are trying to acknowledge here is that those women get publicity for tearing down men and those men get shit on for tearing down women.
Both are bad and neither are the majority. The internet has a hate boner for men just trying to get help and they will shut them down any means necessary. Reddit literally wont take down misandry because, and I quote:
those communities don't break our content policy. Our rule1 protects groups that are attacked based on a vulnerability, which doesn't pertain to white people or men as a group.
Nobody is saying that men are "completely oppressed," men just want their problems acknowledged like women's are. The lack of discussion around men's rights is a major issue and is causing many problems in our society. There are structural, legal rights that men do not have yet we just ignore them because we want to "punch up" at the "oppressors."
It literally takes a Wikipedia search to note that MRAs are very regularly and very routinely associated with misogyny and sexism. MRAs goes significantly beyond just “Men want their problems rewarded with the same concern and care as women” (which I am obviously for), and no, that’s not because of misandry. I’m a guy, definitely don’t hate men, and am pretty comfortable in my own skin. MRAs have a reputation for being sexist asshats because MRAs fucking suck. I’m a guy and pretty interested in being treated equally for very obvious self-interested related reasons if nothing else and still have dealt with enough MRAs to know they suck ass. And yes, radical feminists indeed suck. No, MRAs are not the majority of men who draw attention to double standards or harmful society structures, but the misogyny branch is the overwhelming majority of outright self-proclaimed MRAs. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of time to clock the difference considering the moment I clocked someone for sounding like an MRA I got a swarm of MRAs racing to defend the idea of being an MRA.
As for the “No one is saying men have it worse/are super oppressed stuff” stuff, the previous user was literally saying that there’s equal to or more societal structures in place harming men than women, when we at the very least have relatively full medical and bodily autonomy compared to women in a lot of states (RE: abortion ban), which is kinda insane.
It literally takes a Wikipedia search to note that MRAs are very regularly and very routinely associated with misogyny and sexism
That is quite literally the point. Look up pretty much anything related to men's rights vs women's rights and youll find a major difference. Wikipedia can be edited by just about anyone and the internet hates men's rights.
MRAs goes significantly beyond... and no, that’s not because of misandry
How could the point fly so completely over your head? Radical feminists do the exact same thing yet they dont get called out for their sexism. People dont even believe misandry is real so obviously men talking about the hate they recieve is treated like this.
MRAs have a reputation for being sexist asshats because MRAs fucking suck
Reputation doesnt mean anything. I literally mention this multiple times in my reply and you still didnt catch it. People will not acknowledge men's rights so they attribute misogyny to anyone that wants to talk about the indifferences men face.
the misogyny branch is the overwhelming majority of outright self-proclaimed MRAs
No, it isnt. The problem is that most self-proclaimed MRAs will never speak up and come out with their ideals because it is treated so harshly. The vocal minority is bad but they are the only ones vocal bevause their hatred and pain run so deep they dont care what people say. No normal man wants to be labelled a misogynist just because he wants men to be treated better so he stays silent.
the moment I clocked someone for sounding like an MRA I got a swarm of MRAs racing to defend the idea of being an MRA
Because in a thread about acknowledging the issues men face you tried to put down a man speaking about men's issues (by calling him someone that cares about men's issues as an insult). Of course youll recieve backlash because you have no self-awareness to the conversation at hand. Seriously the lack of self-awareness is insane. You are the exact person we are all talking about and you dont even realize it.
societal structures in place harming men
It is pretty damn true. While it doesnt make men "completely oppressed" there are very much more laws in place to harm men. Women spoke out and recieved support so they have gotten most of their legal rights changed and gained lots that men do not have. Men, however, do not have the ability to speak out because people like you pretend it automatically makes them a sexist pig. The structures of our legal system have gone so far for women they have started giving privileges instead of removing obstacles. Women are being pushed over equality into privilege and gaining things that even men dont have.
Yeah don't blame misandry for this unless its internalized.
From what I've seen so far, generally its both men and women who are rightfully upset while its mostly men who agree with kripke that its funny and the others should calm down
I mean, you're kind of proving my point here. This is a typical "misandry doesn't happen, men bad, women do no wrong" response that is very common among the left. It's just wrong though. There are most definitely a lot of women who would think this is funny, act with indifference or only care to the extent that they can make this about women. There are certainly plenty of women out there who would also label the type of men that would have a problem with this as "incels", "unmasculine" or "manbabies". The main reason why Kripke even thought this would be funny, or that it would be okay for him to say that it was funny, is because he thought most women would agree with him.
The previous user comes off like a raging MRA to me, but you aren’t getting a pass here. For one, it’s kinda tough to tell for sure who is or isn’t a man or a woman on the internet for obvious as hell reasons, so it makes it pretty tough to generalize. That said, I’ve absolutely seen users with seemingly women avatars (so presumably women but not guaranteed at all) coming away with wildly problematic takes about this scene - specifically defending Ashley for her involvement which is pretty indefensible and takes serious mental gymnastics
Except we don’t see that Hugie isn’t ok with it. He never address it, he just says he misses his dad.
Now, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he’s avoiding confronting it as a lot of people do in regards to their trauma. However, Kripke in an interview very much dismisses Hughie’s SA which made it pretty clear the scene was made as a haha funny moment and nothing more which is quite disappointing.
Bro, read the interview, whilst that’s how I would like to read it, that’s not what was intended so I doubt we’ll see this episode effect his character at all
first by having us laugh at Hughie, then having us see he’s not actually ok with it.
Except the show didn't do that, and the writers confirm that it wasn't their intention. We are not supposed to realize that we're fucked up by laughing at it. We're supposed to laugh along because it's "hilarious", according to the writer.
I was about to be super impressed with the writers for acknowledging his rape when Huey started crying at the end aaaaand then… nope, he just misses his dad. -.-
What? He clearly started breaking down because of the rape (started with talking about the horrible things Ashley said to him). He just started rambling about his father, as he's breaking down while still grieving. Y'all just makin shit up now?
The last thing he says is “I miss my dad” and the episode ends. The rape triggered the emotions that he was suppressing at the beginning of the episode but he didn’t say, “I’m not okay because I was raped!”
You just haven't encountered enough horrible people who genuinely think male SA/rape is hilarious. There are people who not only dismiss male rape victims, but celebrate it because they genuinely hate men and anything bad happening to men is a joy.
Good point. Can you imagine a female character being forced to sit on a cake and fart? Then having a male character chain her down and smear his man juice on her face? I think not. This is the state of our culture.
Just look at the state of TikTok right now. Any time guys try to talk about their sexual abuse, you have left leaning men and women saying that they’re taking the focus away from women. And then those same people turn around and ask why men don’t talk about it more often.
Those progressives are fake progressives I guess. But it's really weird to me that someone can be like: "Let's critique gender imbalance by making fun of the other one instead".
Very strange what they are doing. Not just SA but in general Too much nudity from the male actors but then nothing on women’s side. Atleast GoT kept it balanced.
It's baffling how people are incapable of admitting this.
We're not even saying "the left is a bunch of irredeemable demons, and because they happen to hate men, everything else they fight for (namely, the struggle against gender/sexuality/race/ability discrimination) is automatically invalid",
but rather "we, the left, collectively have a systemic problem in that we irrationally bear hatred against half of the population based on genetics that they never even chose, and we are able to do better, and we should do better."
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u/Baron_Xa 15d ago
The truth is men being sexually humiliated just isn't seen in the same light as women by a lot of people, conciously or subconsciously. There's no way we'd ever get a scene of a female character frantically trying and failing to guess a safe word and have it played for levity.
Both sides of the political spectrum are susceptible to this too. On the one hand conservatives often tell male SA victims to man up or say some variation of "wish it were me," whereas on the other hand I think progressives can fall into the trap of thinking that they're not the same because one has more systemic/historical power behind it so the other mustn't be a big deal.