She's A Maaaan Eater!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
, Posted by JD at 3:25 PM
I remember when Nelly Furtato released the single "Maneater." I loved it IMMEDIATELY.
A taste of the lyrics:
Maneater, make you work hard
Make you spend hard
Make you want all, of her love
She's a maneater
make you buy cars
make you cut cards
make you fall, real hard in love
She's a Maneater, make you work hard
Make you spend hard
Make you want all, of her love
She's a maneater
make you buy cars
make you cut cards
Wish you never ever met her at all!
Make you want all, of her love
She's a maneater
make you buy cars
make you cut cards
make you fall, real hard in love
She's a Maneater, make you work hard
Make you spend hard
Make you want all, of her love
She's a maneater
make you buy cars
make you cut cards
Wish you never ever met her at all!
I thought it was great to hear a woman sing about dating freely and putting men through a few innocent paces. I didn't really think about the song's implications.
But recently this topic has come up quite a bit.
A few weeks ago, Tillshow issued a string of tweets about maneaters, a group of women he defines as those "who consciously use sex appeal & flirtatious ways for self-satisfaction without care for males' feelings."
A month or so ago, I guy I was seeing at the time said I "chew men up and spit them out." I've been called out on my maneating ways many times over the years, and have dismissed people's comments out of hand. I figured that if a man came along who could actually hold my attention longer than 5 minutes my urge to cop and drop men will subside.
But that's not really true. I can't speak for all women who may fall under the maneating umbrella, but I can say that when it comes to making playthings out of the men I date, it's not that I disregard their feelings. To disregard men's feelings I would first have to believe that men actually have feelings.
And I do...sort of.
I have been influenced by the barrage of messages that say men care about very little. In fact, men are the biggest purveyors of those messages. Men are constantly simplifying themselves to the lowest denominator e.g. telling women that men don't care if they are used for sex, that men aren't as 'into' relationships as women are, that men just don't get as 'worked up' about things as women do, or that men just do stuff 'to get the booty.'
Don't even get me started on the anti-male dating advice that men tend to dish out freely. I will never understand why so many men choose to portray themselves as simple-minded chest-beating lowlifes who are happy so long as they have a big sandwhich and a bigger ass on which to rest their drink.
Eventually, these messages can lead a woman to believe that it doesn't matter how you treat a man, he doesn't have the capacity to give a fuck about you anyway. Combine that with having a bunch of friends who have all been cheated on, lied to, and in come cases smacked around, and it becomes kind of hard to see a man as a human being rather than some predatory wild horse whose spirit you are obligated to break by the very fact that you have the ability to so. How can I pass up such a challenge!
When I look back over my dating history, I can say that I have a history of dating men who were nice to me. They showed me feelings that I ignored. Truth is, when you intrigue and charm a man they can actually fall for you pretty fast and hard. I have left a trail of hurt feelings behind me all the while thinking that the men who professed to care for me were being fake and weird. I can remember one guy I dated who was so so so so very sweet. He told me he loved me over the phone to which I responded, and I quote, "Okay I gotta go" and I hung up the phone thinking what the hell is his problem??
This is not to say that I don't place any blame on myself. I love boys and I love me and I love when boys do nice things for me. It's going to be really hard to break the habit of taking advantage of that. But I'm a lot older and smarter now, I'm not listening to all the messages in society (from rap music to male relationship bloggers) that reduce men's feelings to rare occurrences. I'm resolving myself to see most men as the fragile, sensitive, multi dimensional human beings they are, and hopefully making a commitment to one will come a little bit easier for me.
[After I'd written this post @MauiMescudi posted the following quote to twitter from an episode (21) of the TV Show Bones entitled "The Soldier On the Grave." I'd be interested to know what men think...
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