Male Entitlement to Sex: "Nice Guys" Edition

A moment of silence for our brother in the friend zone, because girls only like Bad Boys and Nice Guys get ignored.

I think I successfully summed up modern attitudes of male entitlement to sex in one sentence. Let’s just get straight into it:

What is male entitlement to sex?

We live in a world where men control sex, and as can be seen by the horrifying statistics on rape, women are largely powerless against male desire. Contrary to popular belief, men’s “all powerful” sexual libido has little to do with biology and a lot to do with influential social attitudes. Since civilisations began all those thousands of years ago, men have been granted sexual freedom by society – or at least “freedom” relative to women’s lack thereof. Masculinity endorses hypersexuality, whereas femininity condemns it. Phallic references denote strength and power, while vaginas indicate weakness at best, and are a social taboo at worst. Basically through every time period and every area of a sexual society, men are encouraged to have sex while women are not only discouraged, but shamed, vilified, and occasionally burnt at the stake for being sexual beings at all. And because of this social mentality, throughout history men have been entitled to sex. Entitled to prostitutes, wives, skimpily dressed girls, or to rape the women of the conquered town.

So what does this look like in today’s society?

Male entitlement comes in all shapes and sizes, some of which have already been discussed on this blog (like here), but today let’s chat about Nice Guys. Because Nice Guys aren’t nice.

A quick search on Urban Dictionary gives a comprehensive definition of a Nice Guy:

“A young male who will give up countless hours of his time listening to the problems of his very attractive female friends because they need someone to… The nice guy will eventually realize that his dependability and empathy will never be appreciated and all his relationships with females are all one-sided…”

It doesn’t sound particularly problematic until you dig a little deeper. Nice Guys are only talked about in a context of relationships with girls. You’re not a nice guy because you cooked dinner for your mum, or because you’re a good mate or donate to charity. You’re only a Nice Guy when you give girls friendship. This of course wouldn’t be too much of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that this friendship has strings attached. Nice Guys feel cheated of their dues - “friendzoned” - when their girl friends don’t want to have sex with them. Being comforting, caring, empathetic, and all other basic qualities of a half decent friend means a guy deserves sex after all that effort. (That was sarcastic). Sometimes people need a reminder than women’s sole purpose is not to dish out sex in gratitude for male friendship.

Furthermore, when men bring up the “friendzone” or bemoan their “Nice Guy” status, it is usually done in a way that degrades women. These topics are usually brought up while complaining about women, or criticising women from not giving enough sex to men who “deserve” it. This is so harmful because it encourages the idea that men should have sex regardless of how women feel, or what they want.

Love Actually’s character Colin “God of sex” is a prime example of male entitlement to sex in this way. He blames British women for his lack of sexual success, and regards British women as stupid and cold for not giving him what he deserves, rather than reflecting on himself and his poor attitude. He is also depicted only ever giving (pretty confronting, sleazy) attention to attractive women, and then laments how women never like Nice Guys like him. It is an understandable human character trait to be frustrated at not having a relationship, or sex, or any romantic attention, but the problem lies when it exists as part of a system that limits and controls female sexuality.

Friendship, relationships and sex come more easily to some people than others. But to create an empirical link between frustrated men and women’s inherent ignorance of who to have sex with is just plain wrong. Women live in fear of rape, because through history and pop culture, men have been told they are entitled to a woman’s body.

Comment below!

Hannah