Lady said "men kill for sex" to me

Deemed as Normal

I happened to be talking to a lady about shoplifting from a store. She said "and who'd be stealing? young men?". I pointed out that statistically women steal more. She was surprised. Perhaps I would have been too a few years ago... after all men probably commit more crimes in general. I asked her why she was surprised and she said "oh just wishful thinking". A bit later she went on to say that women steal for more noble reasons. So I pointed out that cosmetics are most commonly stolen item, and there's nothing noble about stealing that! She pondered deeper into the psychology of why women commit crimes, and preceded to talk about how mothers who kill their kids (although crazy) often do so for reasons to do with love. I didn't really agree, but yet didn't know what to say right away. The next thing she said was a bit bizarre. "men however kill for all sorts of reasons; money, and sex!" I didn't mind her mentioning money, but it was the mention of sex that got to me. It would have been different if she had said "men kill because of jealousy" or something like that.

Now it wasn't the sort of situation where either of us wanted to get into a passionate debate (and that's why she should have known not to make such a remark), so I don't think I really said anything back. If I knew the right zinger I would have said it, but I didn't want to get into a debate. It's funny as I do happen to feel equally as strong about the subject as her, but from the opposite perspective. It was hard for me not to say anything.

I don't think anyone kills for sex though? As in someone saying to a pimp "Hey I'm really horny there, if you let me have sex with one of your girls I'll kill that fella who's bribing you". Now of course, men who rape women may kill them after the act, so maybe that's what she meant?

At one point I said that the idea of men being considered more evil than women is often based on a misconception; "that if a man wants to hurt/kill someone he'll use a tool... if a woman wants to hurt someone she'll use a man". I don't think it really went in when I said it though.

iptba

This came to mind:

Women-are-wonderful effect

The women-are-wonderful effect is the phenomenon found in psychological and sociological research which suggests that people associate more positive attributes with women compared to men. This bias reflects an emotional bias toward women as a general case. The phrase was coined by Alice Eagly and Antonio Mladinic in 1994 after finding that both male and female participants tend to assign positive traits to women, with female participants showing a far more pronounced bias. Positive traits were assigned to men by participants of both genders, but to a lesser degree.

The authors supposed that the positive general evaluation of women might derive from the association between women and nurturing characteristics. This bias is suggested as a form of misandry/'benevolent misogyny', the latter being a concept within the theoretical framework of ambivalent sexism.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

Dunfyy

In uk men steal more than woman and higher value amounts

Kaybaykwah

Dunfyy wrote: »

In uk men steal more than woman and higher value amounts

Yes, but that is due to lack of nurturing mothers and partners.

iptba

When I was younger I did some voluntary work with kids from disadvantaged areas. It was surprising to me how many girls as well as boys shop-lifted. I had associated such behaviour more with males.

beveragelady

Well we know this isn't Mr F's new account, ladies never talk to Mr F.

Kaybaykwah

iptba wrote: »

When I was younger I did some voluntary work with kids from disadvantaged areas. It was surprising to me how many girls as well as boys shop-lifted. I had associated such behaviour more with males.

Plenty of people from "advantaged" areas do it too. I had a lady friend who had just immigrated to Canada from Paris thirty years ago. She was an only child from a very well to do family, her old man a successful engineer. We went shopping for materials for a project we were working on a couple of times, and she kept snatching things in the stores. I was pretty pissed off at that, and she wasn't fazed, had all kinds of reasons for lifting, had always done it and claimed it was "normal". That relationship I cut short.

GarIT

Deemed as Normal wrote: »

after all men probably commit more crimes in general.

It's hard to know for certain but men do get convicted of crimes more often.

McGinniesta

Flawless lady logic.

It's either the statement of a person who is a sh1t stirrer or a moron.To be avoided either way.

McGinniesta

GarIT wrote: »

It's hard to know for certain but men do get convicted of crimes more often.

I read an article recently about research into an idea called the greater male variability hypothesis.

The TLDR is that data taken for a substantial number of psychological, intellectual and physical traits for men were more scattered than for females. The one that was highlighted was IQ.

A trend emerged that the while there were more male geniuses than women, there were more men that who had really low IQ. They also noticed that this trend was repeated elsewhere. Another statistic that was quoted was the crime statistics. Men were more likely to be violent, hardened or career criminals and the evidence suggested that a man was more likely to receive a longer sentence for an identical crime.

Given the current pc climate i don't think anyone should be surprised that this research was not published because certain female academics believed that this research was "sexist" against women that only looked at the positive traits although the research was there to support the conclusions drawn.

Peregrinus

There has been loads of published research into the greater male variability hypothesis, as can be verified by simply typing the phrase into Google Scholar and browsing through the first few pages of the 1.6 million hits that result. MGinniesta's counter-factual belief that the research has been supressed because of "the current pc climate" may itself be an instance of the well-known male victim delusion.

Going back to the OP, I think you'd have to ask the woman in question what she meant by suggesting that men kill for sex.

If she meant that men kill in order to get sex, I'd say that's flat-out wrong; if all you want is sex, you can get that much more easily and much more reliably simply by paying a sex worker; why risk a murder charge to avoid that? I can't off-hand think of any cases that could be described as killing just to get laid.

If she meant that men kill because they are refused sex, that might be a bit closer to the mark. As already noted in the thread, men do kill out of jealousy - e.g. a man may kill his former spouse/lover when she leaves him and takes up with a new partner. But, while sex may be a part of that, it's usually a small part. These kilings are more about possession and control than they are about sex.

You've also got the occasional phenomenon of men who kill not because they are jealous of a particular woman but because they feel they are rejected by women in general. in 2014 Elliott Rodger went on a shooting spree in which he killed 7 (including himself) and injured 14, leaving behind a video which explained that his motivation was hatred of women for consistently rejecting him and envy of men for having the sexual relations from which he felt excluded. But the truth is probably not that he was driven to violence by lack of sex, but rather than his lack of sexual and romantic success was itself the result of long-standing misogyny and social alienation resulting from profound personality disorder - the personality disorder was the cause both of his relationship issues and of his tendency to violence.

But I suspect what the woman was really getting at was that men kill their sexual/romantic partners; they kill in the context of sexual and/or romantic relationships. And this, sadly, is true. Not that all men do this, obviously; we don't. Nor do we mostly go around heroically resisting the temptation to do this. But it does happen; it happens often enough to be a recognisable phenomenon, and it's something that men do to women far, far, far more than women do to men - with the result that a woman entering a relationship with a man she doesn't know that well yet will always have this possiblity, if not at the front of her mind, then at the back in a way that men, I think, simply don't.

iptba

Peregrinus wrote: »

There has been loads of published research into the greater male variability hypothesis, as can be verified by simply typing the phrase into Google Scholar and browsing through the first few pages of the 1.6 million hits that result. MGinniesta's counter-factual belief that the research has been supressed because of "the current pc climate" may itself be an instance of the well-known male victim delusion.

It may show up a lot in the published literature but that doesn’t mean people such as politicians (who one might say are the origin of the phrase “politically correct”) can feel comfortable mentioning it in discussions. Similarly an undergraduate with many lecturers might be taking a risk referring to it in an exam paper unless to disagree with it. If the model is correct, one might expect more men at the top of some fields but there is a big push for gender quotas and claims that if there are fewer women at the top it is evidence of discrimination.

Peregrinus

iptba wrote: »

It may show up a lot in the published literature but that doesn’t mean people such as politicians (who one might say are the origin of the phrase “politically correct”) . . .

One might say that, but one would be wrong. The phrase was coined by left-wing protestors/activists to describe trends or positions that were aligned with their own views and principles, but it didn't last very long, being almost immediately eclipsed by terms like "right on". For the past 40 years or so it has been used almost eclusively in a pejorative sense, by right and alt-right critics of mainstream and progressive positions. It is frequently used about politicians by their critics, but rarely used by politicians, except on the right.

iptba wrote: »

. . . can feel comfortable mentioning it in discussions. Similarly an undergraduate with many lecturers might be taking a risk referring to it in an exam paper unless to disagree with it.

Ah, male victim syndrome again! If you can find somebody who has been penalised for "referring to it in an exam paper, except to disagree with it", now would be a good time to point to them. A student might be marked down for referring to the thesis as correct or established; it is contested, and critical thinkers would be expected to note this.

iptba wrote: »

If the model is correct, one might expect more men at the top of some fields but there is a big push for gender quotas and claims that if there are fewer women at the top it is evidence of discrimination.

Well, if the model is correct. But, as noted, it's contested. Plus, even if the model is correct, under-representation of women could still be the result of discrimination; this isn't a simple binary. In fact it's highly unlikely that the under-representation of women has a single cause.