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How to "win" group sex
A couple of weeks ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dennyd linked me to http://www.helpwinmybet.com. This site is now down, but consisted of a guy (Jim) who'd made a bet with his girlfriend (Allison):
"I said to my girlfriend that any stupid website could get tons of hits, simply because people are bored all the time. She said that I was an idiot and couldn’t make a website that could get tons of hits if I wanted to. After a long argument (mostly centered around the fact that she called me an idiot) we made a bet: If I could not make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, I would agree that I was an idiot; however, if I could make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, she would have a menage a trois (that's a threesome to you non french-speakers) with me and another girl."
So! Spread the link, up the hit count, help Jim get his threesome. There was a picture of blonde Allison at the top of the page. The hit counter was very nearly at 2 million, and looked set to reach it that evening. As the hitcount got higher Jim updated more frequently, boggling at having created a net phenomenon, and started joining dating sites to try and find their third partner. "Wanna be our third? Click on the link!" It was tacky, but he also posted about having had to update his bandwidth and needing to cover his costs, and was upfront that if you joined this dating site he'd get a bit of cash, and the teasing tone meant that it didn't actually grate.
"Reckon it's genuine?" I asked. "Probably", Denny said, "it doesn't look like it's making a profit." It was written with a kind of appealing ironic humour, and raised a smirk and a giggle when I first looked at it. Denny commented that the girlfriend probably had someone in mind and this was just an excuse, and I thought that you know, more people being open-minded about group sex is a good thing, even if they do go about it in stupid ways, so yeah, trendies making free with the bisexuality and sexual experimentation, that's kinda cool.
I forgot about it, and then yesterday my friendslist was spammed with links to http://www.helpwinthisbet.com. The hit count had been reset to zero, the more recent updates had been deleted; it was started again from scratch. The url was slightly different and the picture of the girl (and names of the characters) were changed, but the text was exactly the same. The other difference was that the contract link is broken - both sites linked to a scanned, handwritten contract, but "This Bet" didn't have the image, which suggested it was a copycat site rather than the newest incarnation of an ongoing hoax. I posted a few comments on the relevant entries pointing out it was a fake, and zotz directed me to an article about the original "My Bet" site on The Register, which not only provides evidence for the previous version's existence, but revealed that the site was for profit after all:
"If you look at the link properties for his links to metrodate.com and gamefly.com (well, the gamefly link is gone, but it did the same thing yesterday), the actual href link takes you through a redirection website! I looked up the owner of the sites that the links redirect through and came across a company named: ValueClick.com, an online advertising firm.
Now, this was before the statements listed for April 5 were posted. He has since stated that he is getting a financial bonus for signing people up for metrodate.com. However, with a click-through redirection system, he's actually making money from people simply clicking on the link to metrodate (not from having them sign up!)."
Why copycat it, then? Is the new "This Bet" site planning to use the same redirection scam? I did some research.
WHOIS doesn't have a listing for helpwinmybet.com: presumably the domain has expired or been deleted. The entry for helpwinthisbet.com is as follows:
Registrant:
Meter Systems
8469 E McDonald Dr
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
US
480 607-8572
Administrative and Techical Contact:
Hanson, Kevin metersystems@gmail.com
8469 E McDonald Dr
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
US
480 607-8572
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.LETSMEETUP.INFO 69.9.169.144
NS1.LETSMEETUP.INFO 69.9.169.145
Letsmeetup.info? Sounds like a dating site, I thought: and sure enough, if you go to it, it is indeed: the sexiest adult dating community on the web. Apparently. And a whois search on it brings up the following registry entry:
Domain ID: D11936192-LRMS
Domain Name: LETSMEETUP.INFO
Created On: 25-Jan-2006 07:31:43 UTC
Last Updated On: 26-Mar-2006 20:49:45 UTC
Expiration Date: 25-Jan-2007 07:31:43 UTC
Registrant Name: Kevin Hanson
Meter Systems
8469 E McDonald Dr
Scottsdale AZ
85250
US
+1.4806078572
metersystems@gmail.com
Admin, billing and technical details all point to the same guy, running off the same two nameservers. The bet site isn't just a funny hoax, it's owned and run by a for-profit dating community.
Which is, you know, sort of how the internet works and I'm not really surprised. Except that suddenly, the nature of the site becomes a lot more questionable. When I first saw it, I found it funny, and I thought that promoting sexual relaxation and freedom was probably a good thing. When I find out it's run by a male-dominated mid-Western personals and sex site, suddenly this whole assumption is called into question. The majority of people looking at that site won't read it as the girl's bisexuality or the couple's excuse for sexual liberation; they'll read it as clever guy fooling his girlfriend into being a hot lezbo sex object with another hot chick of his choice, all through his clever use of internet technologies (which of course she knows nothing about, being a girl).
The Register:
"By our reckoning, that's a quick ménage-à-trois with enough page impressions left over for Jim to demand the whole thing is videotaped for posterity. Well done that man."
Valhalla forums:
"this guy is a smart fellow, todays hooraa goes to him! although it really shouldnt considering any normal male will help any random complete other stranger to do what ever it takes to have a 3sum."
Demand? And all that language about "winning"? However carefully it's phrased as "all in good fun" and with the full consent of the girl, the implication is clear: what every guy wants is hot, anonymous lezbo action in his bed (does he care who the third girl is? No) and a girlfriend who will accede to his demands for same if he can prove his strength and cunning through use of modern technology. Help Jim get "his" threesome? HIS threesome? The character of Jim/Dan/whatever is gambling with his girlfriend for her own sexual autonomy, and he's capitalising on the fantasies of other males in order to do so. Why else would it get so many hits? Even if it wasn't planned and funded by a profiteering male-owned personals/sex site, it's still objectifying: not necessarily in itself (if the girl had been fully complicit, fine - although do we hear her voice? Only through the male writer) but in the assumptions and desires to which it's designed to appeal.
This isn't about the female body: Hell, I look at porn, I'm (occasionally) a nude model. I'm all for looking at and thinking about the naked women. What's unacceptable is the male urge to possess female queerness. Despite the FHM "threesome phwoar" attitude, the truth is that the fact that I sleep with women and have mixed-sex threesomes is not ethical or acceptable to the majority of society. In the pub the other day the barman overheard elise and I talking and reacted with a mixture of amusement, lechery and fear that is completely normal. Our sexual choices and autonomy, when viewed by the majority of society, only become okay if they are controlled and presented and normalised by men. Jim "winning" "his" threesome? Go Jim! Women wanting to snog each other in public without offending anyone and marry and raise kids? Well, if Jim isn't there to run the show, I just don't think we can accept that.
Interestingly, in the time it's taken me to write this, helpwinthisbet.com appears to have gone down. I'm not going to start forming conspiracy theories, I'll just be glad the internet is rid of it and hope it stays that way. There's a cached version here in case you haven't seen the site and the above entry makes no sense.
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Out of interest, have you ever been out with two butch women who show affection to each other in public? The kind of abuse that butch women get would certainly suggest that there are a lot of men who object to women's sexuality not being directed at them. Oh, and there's also the "What a waste!" attitude which non-butch queer women get - I've had that said to me several times when I've told someone that I have a girlfriend. I've never had it said to me when I've said I've got a boyfriend.
I don't think they should care, but a lot of them do.
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I'm not sure why a man objecting to gay women would be about the fact that they're not shagging men instead, when the exact same homophobe would probably object to gay men too - who obviously are shagging men. Is it not more likely that the objection is the same in each case, i.e. "it's not natural"?
What a waste!" [...] I've had that said to me several times when I've told someone that I have a girlfriend. I've never had it said to me when I've said I've got a boyfriend.
Well that pretty much proves your point then. :)
Anyway, I haven't been saying (I hope) that the world doesn't contain anyone with an odd attitude towards sex and sexuality, but rather that I'm not convinced that that kind of attitude is prevalent enough to regard it as the most likely motivation for an online con... I don't regard it as the simplest explanation, and so Occams Razor descends. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion though, I'm a man, so I'm almost part of the fascist heterosexual orthodoxy :) and I might just be lacking the life experiences that would let me know the truth.
I guess one way to investigate would be to set up a site where a woman was trying to win a bet with her boyfriend to get a MMF threesome, and see how well that one did. I'm quite strongly tempted to try it actually. :) I think the existence of the two sites now widely known to be cons would cripple the chances of a third one though, regardless of gender issues. I'm tempted to try it anyway...
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And it's not an uncommon or minority attitude. I can think of at least three occasions when I've had it said to me in the past couple of years, and I don't know many gay women who haven't heard it sometime or another.
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ICBW, but I thought that in saying the anecdotal evidence proved your point, he was acceding to you on this, at least :)
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Um, that's what I thought your point was. And I thought the snippet I quoted did pretty much prove it.
And it's not an uncommon or minority attitude.
In that case I guess I just hang around in the wrong places, or with the wrong people, or in the wrong body, to have experienced it as being that common. I suppose I should be pleased about at least the first two reasons.
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So you won't believe me... :P
Seriously, as I've been saying, we do deliberately insulate ourselves from this kind of threatening/insulting behaviour to a great extent. My main awareness that it exists was how much I've got it in the past, especially in Leicester (although usually I try and forget about it so as not to carry on feeling gross and angry and violated all day, which is why I don't have many off-hand examples - and of course I don't publically express affection with women anywhere near as often as I do with men) and the anecdotal evidence of lots of other people. I was hoping some of them would chime in to back me up.
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I'm not sure why a man objecting to gay women would be about the fact that they're not shagging men instead, when the exact same homophobe would probably object to gay men too - who obviously are shagging men. Is it not more likely that the objection is the same in each case, i.e. "it's not natural"?
I think people object on more than one level. There's the level of "it's not natural" but in the case of gay women, I think there's an additional aspect of "they aren't sleeping with me" and a desire to possess and own female sexuality.
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*nods* That's an extremely good point. It also backs up my argument. Having a bloke in the group tends to massively reduce casual comments from strangers. They just look a bit annoyed that you're there and loudly ignore you. It's women on their own or in couples that suddenly become a target. Not just from yobs - from any normal, thoughtless bloke who's had a bit to drink and feels good about himself. That's the point: half the time men don't think it's abusive and other men watching might not either, but it is indicative of a general underlying attitude which is unacceptable.
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Yes, as I said about four comments above: "I'm a man, so I'm almost part of the fascist heterosexual orthodoxy :) and I might just be lacking the life experiences that would let me know the truth."
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I've also had cars stop and scream abuse at me for holding hands with a girl, in Berlin and in Dublin, though I have to say it happens rarely. As
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Eww.
I've also had cars stop and scream abuse at me for holding hands with a girl, in Berlin and in Dublin
I have to admit I was thinking rather provincially, not having left the country since I was 16 years old. I see girls walking along holding hands all the time in this country, and it doesn't usually occur to me that they might be a couple... I know in at least some cases they're definitely not. Does friendly hand-holding not happen between girls in other countries?
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It's unfortunately that taking *any* self-preservation measures weakens this argument. The fact we're all quite good at avoiding hassle doesn't mean it's not a real risk. All that's seen from the outside is that we don't get much hassle any more; we know exactly how much thought and effort it takes to stay out of danger.
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But the abuse of the gay men in public wouldn't be sexual propositions of the "hey girls" variety. They want the gay men to not exist; they want the gay women to not exist unless their in their bed. Male homophobia takes a different form - that of possession rather than straight out rejection - when directed at women.
And you know, it's not just women: but there are differences. A bloke bullying a gay male (usually a boy) by telling them "suck my dick" (which I've seen a lot in the MEEJA and so presume is common enough to be a stereotype) is demonstrating a similar attitude through the threat of sexual violence.
The difference is that wen it's directed as blokes it's meant as a sarcastic insult; the victim is well aware that his propositioner wouldn't touch him, and any actual sexual violence would be contemptuous and power-seeking rather than desire-based. On the other hand, the same bloke sneering at a female couple and asking them if they want him to show them a good time is genuinely attracted to them, and would be willing to suspend his distaste for their interest in each other if it was for his benefit. This is fairly intuitive since the people making these sorts of comments are straight men, and the amount of girls snogging in men's mags and blokey films are indicative that "two girls for ME" is a totally common fantasy. When nipples aren't allowed on the front cover of a men's mag, they have poses which cover them up, like "hand bra". One of the standard terms is "boob bra"; covering her nipples by pressing them against another woman's breasts. It's *standard*.
Conclusion: homophobia when directed against men or women is contemptuous, disgusted and violent. When directed against women by straight men, it also contains an element of desire, to "show them what a real man is", to stop their transgression with his own sexual power. Butch women fall into the same category as gay men as people outside their sexual interest. Alongside distate for female queerness, their is a lust to possess it. If this is proved impossible the normal distate and fear and hatred take over; but the desire is strong enough that inviting g/g action is one of the commonest staples of male fantasy. The homophobia is suspended as long as, and only as long as, the girls are in his possession. Wanting the girls to be in their possession is therefore as hypocritical and damaging as any other kind of homophobia.
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Only if you aren't willing to consider perceptions and values different to your own, to consider the consensus of every woman who's replied to this thread to be significant, or to consider our claims worth fighting for.
This isn't about man-hating; it's the realistic (and well-demonstrated in this debate) observation that men aren't willing to take our claims seriously if their own experience differs. Even if they acknowledge they don't have the faculty to judge because it's not something they could have experienced. I don't understand why it's so hard or so unpleasant to accept that there are prevalent underlying sexist, heterosexist and hypocritical assumptions behind many of the sexual comments made by men about women, and that mainstream male ideas about queer behaviour aren't exempt from this sexism.
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Many people fail to take others claims seriously if their own experience differs. We form our views based on our own experiences and are reluctant to shift from them. I don't think it's helpful to portray it as a male/female divide.
Similarly, do you not think that women also subscribe to "sexist, heterosexist and hypocritical assumptions"?
This whole discussion is full of sweeping statements of the form, "Men do this," or, "Women think that," which are obviously not of universal validity, and often seem to amount to no more than "I'm a woman/man and this is my experience so it is the experience of women/men."
I think this "battle of the sexes" language is most unhelpful when what we're really talking about is a societal problem. Do you really think that women are all fine with female queerness?
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I also object to a male person saying "I haven't seen the sexism you describe in action" when they are protected from this *particular* form of social violence (not all forms) by their gender. Look at it this way:
- every single female respondent to this thread agrees with me and things my observations match their own experiences
- all but *one* of the male respondents to this thread feel that my observations are an over-reaction
I'm not talking about all men or all women or all forms of oppression, but the pattern is being demonstrated even as you disagree with me! When there is a male/female divide, in what way is it helpful to pretend it isn't there? I'm not proscribing anything - I'm shocked the divide exists and hadn't expected it to until I started getting replies. Looking at that pattern, and the fact that your gender protects you from the social violence under discussion, are you honestly telling me that your gender has nothing to do with your hesitance to believe my claims?
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I do recognise entirely what you're talking about in terms of how gay female sexuality is regarded as fine if it's in a 'phwoar, 3some' FHM style, and repellent if it's in a form which excludes it from being purely for male entertainment.
I've found myself in a number of very uncomfortable discussions with otherwise quite enlightened and 'right on' men when I've questioned this attitude with them when they've made the 'traditional' comments about it, and I've tended to disagree. I do entirely see that it's a case of people assuming that their attitude is apolitical and normal and shouldn't cause any offence.
I've definitely seen the kind of unpleasant behaviour you describe directed towards women displaying physical affection in public, both of the 'phwoar can we watch' variety, and of the 'ewww, horrible butch dykes' variety, depending on who was involved.
It is offensive. It is objectionable. It's perpetrated by both sexes too, as I've seen women indulge in much the same set of prejudices too, towards gay women.
I'm slightly horrified there haven't been more supportive male responses here to be honest.
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very very pleased to make your acquaintance! rock on!
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Delighted to meet you too :)
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"Supportive" is the word. Several of the male respondents do agree with me, I suspect, they just aren't willing to come out and say it, for some reason. They have less at stake in it. It's not their fight. *sighs*
Anyway, I'm glad you can see it too and I'm not actually going mad :)
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