Column: The ‘friend zone’ isn’t too friendly

By Imaani Cain

Misogyny crops up in all areas, but it’s becoming increasingly prevalent in college settings. It no longer appears to be outright, but instead blanketed underneath acceptable behavior, such as in things like the “friend zone.”

The “Friend Zone” is a conceptual space that many men (and sometimes women) feel that they have been dumped in after being turned down by a friend that they considered a potential partner. This causes the friendship to take on a much more one-sided, resentful nature directed at the former friend for either not putting out or being unwilling to enter a sexual relationship. The bitterness is only heightened when the one responsible for “friend zoning” starts to maintain a relationship with a person that the other deems inappropriate.

This goes hand-in-hand with Nice Guy Syndrome, wherein men feel they are entitled to a woman’s body because they have been cordial towards them. Both are actually examples of internalized misogynistic behavior, wherein these men fervently believe that they are actually displaying better conduct than those other “jerks,” and deserve to be gratified in some way. Either way, these acts contribute towards a desire to claim women as their own, without considering the girls’ personal feelings or their receptiveness to furthering the relationship.

Internalized misogyny frequently crops up in places where men believe they are either respecting women, being “sex positive,” or are actually unconcerned with how their treatment of the female gender comes off. This is found frequently in pornography, especially ones that display the dominant/submissive subtype, as well as BDSM and other kinks and fetishes. Although these acts are demonstrated as being consensual in porn (and remain so in the bedroom), there is an underlying theme of male dominance, power play and the sexualization of violence and/or ownership of another human being. The women usually play a submissive role, and are tied up or gagged in the interest of it providing fun for both partners, but it carries with it a strong sense of desiring a fearful partner, or causing some sort of fear during the sexual act. The role of the submissive woman also ties into antiquated gender roles in the vein of “Lie Back and Think of England,” wherein women were supposed to yield to their male counterparts in sex in order to insure their orgasm.

Why are we as a nation still encouraging fetishes and kinks that serve to debase women? Why are we still allowing things like Nice Guy Syndrome and the “Friend Zone” to be excused time and time again, and even supporting it and trying to guilt women into accepting their affections? This all builds into the idea that women somehow owe men something, and that their payment must come in the form of submission.

Read more here: http://www.dailycampus.com/sex-and-the-university-the-friend-zone-isn-t-too-friendly-1.2929094#.UH5waYXiPHw
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