The article below is an excerpt from the weekly Independent Women newsletter. To get it delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email into the box above (and to check out The Independent’s full range of other newsletters), click here.
Have you seen Louis Theroux’s new Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere?
If you have, you’ll probably have some strong opinions about it. My colleague Adam White recently bemoaned the fact that Theroux inadvertently gave these toxic men an extra boost to their platforms simply by making the documentary, while a friend who’s a TV critic on BBC’s Must Watch reviewed the show and said she felt Theroux wasn’t asking the kind of direct, probing – and brave – questions he used to ask in his previous documentaries; that he gave them, effectively, an easy ride.
Emma Flint pointed out the irony of people only taking the dangers of misogyny seriously when a man makes a film about it, while Chloe Combi interviewed several teenage boys – some of whom admitted to following manosphere content creators (but mostly for fitness tips) – and their parents.
“A lot of the content was well-worn manosphere fare: women are second-class citizens and only useful for washing up and sex; it’s fine to make money from OnlyFans models while calling them ‘slags’ and ‘whores’; men can be unfaithful but their partners can’t be; wealth is king, provided it doesn’t come from conventional jobs – real men make money from crypto,” Chloe writes. And it’s on this third point that I want to pick up here.
I wanted to find out what the women who come into closest contact with the men in the manosphere really think about them. For some, this means their wives and girlfriends, but for others – such as American adult content creator Skylar Mae, who became a self-made millionaire on OnlyFans aged just 22 – it’s through working with them, or alongside them. This is what she told me:
‘These men are insecure and a joke’
“These guys are such douchebags. They are obviously against the feminist idea of women working. They still hold old, 1900-era beliefs: that a woman should just be cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids while the men work. But now, in this day and age, women should be able to work – and they can also cook and clean if they decide to. These men think women should be caged in the house, taking care of everything, which is completely wrong.
Manosphere influencers claim they know what’s best for women. I watched one guy say he knew ‘more about women than they know about themselves’. The one thing I took from that was that all women want to be dominated, and that men are entitled to put themselves inside their women as they please. For a young boy to hear that, it could seem to condone sexual assault – and might make them think it’s okay. While some women do like to be dominated in the bedroom, the way they are selling this idea to the world is that men should be dominant in all aspects of life, which I think teaches young men the wrong way that a woman should be treated.
I view myself as a lioness. No man could just have a normal conversation with me and think he’s dominating me. I generally don’t even associate myself with frat-type men who think they’re superior to women. I can’t stand the sheer stupidity – especially when I make even more than they do. My advice to men trying to find a relationship? Act normally. Outside of the bedroom (and sometimes not even then), most women absolutely do not want to be dominated and told what to do. That is 1,000 per cent my advice for people trying to get into a relationship.
I think these manosphere ‘influencers’ are insane for believing they can go off and sleep with other women, but women can’t go and sleep with other men. If it’s going to be an open relationship, it needs to be open from both sides – and if they can’t handle that, then they’re losers. Also, the fact that some of them own OnlyFans agencies, yet talk s**t about OnlyFans creators and roast them – whether it’s for content or not – shows how insecure they are.
Some of these men seem to get all excited about £5,000, when I literally make that in an hour on my OnlyFans account. They have to spend their time streaming all day long – for 23 or 24 hours – and they’re acting like they’re on top of the world, doing better than most of us OnlyFans models, which is so wrong. They just can’t handle women doing well; they’re so insecure. They’re a joke.”
Get the Independent Women newsletter
To receive the Independent Women newsletter, simply enter your email address in the box at the top of this page.
You can also head to our newsletter preference centre to sign up for the email. Once there, all you need to do is press the ‘+’ button and enter your email address to sign up.
You can also write to me at [email protected] – or to my alter-ego, Dear Vix, at [email protected].
