"The election of Donald Trump has sparked a surge of interest in the United States in South Korea’s 4B movement, a radical feminist crusade that preaches the four B’s: bi-hon (no marriage), bi-yeonae (no dating), bi-sekseu (no sex) and bi-chulsan (no childbirth),” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Since Nov. 5, there have been more than 500,000 Google searches for ‘4b movement,’ while on TikTok, Instagram and X, support for the cause has been trending among young women voters who are vowing to swear off men.”
Makes a lot of sense. Think about it this way: there’s a slightly better than 50 percent chance that the random dude you walked past on the street voluntarily chose to vote against your most basic rights as a person. Why the fuck would you go near them again, let alone let them touch you without some serious national reconciliation?
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
You’re saying the random dude you walked past, you didn’t want to go near again or touch? Because of something they might have done?
I’m saying since 59% of white men voted for Trump, when you walk by a random dude on the street there’s around a 1 in 2 chance that that random dude voted against you being a full person. Since that percentage is so high, it’s not unreasonable for women to swear off all men until after a serious reckoning.
It was just a silly and imprecise thought experiment to make tangible some distressing statistics about what millions of men think about women.
Just FYI, there is strong terf energy in this movement if you look into its primary supporters. I’m all for withholding from men who don’t support your basic human rights, that is literally why the curve from young men to mid 20s and early 30s drastically shift left, but be careful about your associations.
So jettison the terf component, it isn’t germane to the overall goal or purpose and need not be carried over just because it is part of the South Korean 4B.
I see the right has found another culture war issue to distract voters from the fact that they’re getting fucked by the billionaire class.
I understand why they’re doing this, but Magoos are going to be laughing their asses off absolutely loving this. In their minds they wouldn’t want “a blue haired bisexual cat lady” anyway so to them the only people getting “hurt” are liberal guys who would be these women’s allies anyway.
Naturally they aren’t considering the actual safety aspect of it since they don’t give a shit… God I hate those people… :(
Plus, they think they have the green light to rape women.
I’m not following the logic here. The only thing I can see is it would drive a wedge between feminists and sympathetic men. Seems like the sort of thing that would only make sense to someone uninterested in men or withdrawing from the guy they are with.
If someone has a take I’m missing, I’m all ears. I’m married 15 years and I don’t have a dog in the fight, so if I’m wrong just explain how.
If you were a woman in today’s world, why would you take the risk of dating someone who can rape, impregnate, and either leave or stay and dominate your life?
The reality is that tender, gentle, trusting relationships will still form… and the rest of the men will have to decide whether to try to be better men or not.
It makes sense to me to not date men who won’t stand up for your rights, but that’s not my read of 4B.
How do you know you’re with one of those men, really? What happens when they change their tune?
A lot of men will say whatever they need to so they can get laid. Or think they really believe it until the relationship is threatened.
It’s not that women can’t do all that too but that women now have less ways to extricate themselves from such relationships.
Why risk it?
I feel like a person would know, or at least could know. But I guess you have a point. I have a much different perspective on dating at fifty than would have at twenty.
I’m fifty as well, and I can be fairly certain my wife would not have risked dating me in the current political climate.
We were both a bit older and she had never had a very serious relationship prior to meeting me.
Who knows how the math would’ve played out? My life was a wreck and she took a gamble on me.
I’ve made sure that gamble paid off.
But nowadays the odds have changed.
I can identify with a lot of that. She was a recent divorcee, though, and I was supposedly the one with my shit together.
But I will say that there was a point in my late tens or early twenties where maybe I was going to go a different path. I could’ve turned bitter had I had to deal with loneliness at the time.
I was doing a lot of work on myself and it was messy, trying to figure out who I was. So I guess maybe I feel a certain amount of sympathy for young men in that situation. But also I’m really beyond such things at this point. It just struck me as something that gets attention but sufferers from fundamental flaws (like either they are going to find the one and have sex anyway, or they just aren’t all that interested in sex with men to begin with and this is just a way to sort of turn their lack of interest into leverage).
But I’m just not twenty any more. Times are different. Kinda glad I don’t have to navigate it.
I absolutely feel sympathy for young men. They didn’t ask for any of this either. And they might have to do some work on themselves to get to a healthier place.
I certainly struggled with relationships, to the point of not understanding signs of clear interest.
It’s hard to notice this stuff when your head is down with despair.
Why risk it? Because human companionship can be an extremely rewarding thing.
People can find all sorts of reasons to shut themselves off and create walls to protect themselves from “what if”. I hope they are happy with their decision, but in my experience, that road is a one way ticket to loneliness, ineffectiveness, and resentful feelings.
I’m a sympathetic man and this makes total sense and I support them fully.
There is no wedge.
Here here!
Are you in a relationship?
Yes but it wouldn’t change my opinion. Because I don’t need to be getting my dick wet to support women.
I’m asking because you seem to be an ally. How would your partner withholding sex from you improve the national situation at all? How does lack of sex enhance your already current position of being a supportive ally? How does others knowing that your partner is denying you sex entice them to adopt your views as their own?
My point is that the people this is likely to be deployed against are not the ones causing the problem.
If my partner were part of this movement she’d be breaking up with me entirely, not just withholding sex. But if she was withholding sex from me because of this there’s not really anything I can do because I’m not going to force her to do it because I’m not an asshole. Plus I’m not with her just for sex so withholding sex wouldn’t severely impact our relationship or my wanting to be an ally.
My point is that the people this is likely to be deployed against are not the ones causing the problem.
Maybe if the ones not causing the problem caused more problems for the ones causing the problem they would stop causing problems.
Short of shooting people, what step should the average man take beyond voting, protesting, donating, and holding other men in our circle accountable? Trump gained ground with women too.
Maybe not shooting. Maybe it’s a swift kick in the nards. /s
Clearly all those things haven’t been working, so now we need to be more radical. Hence these women taking this radical approach.
The logic is to prevent pregnancy in an environment that has become hostile towards women’s rights. Sex becomes far more dangerous if you don’t have access to contraceptives and abortion.
Fwiw, I’m in a LTR with a “4B ally” (and also consider myself an ally). A key points here is that I’ve also had a vasectomy.
I know it doesn’t seem fair, and if you look at it through the lens of punishing men then maybe it isn’t. But if you view it as women protecting themselves (e.g. from pregnancy) then it makes perfect sense.
I’m not really looking at it through the lens of fairness, I think, other than maybe sympathetic. I’m just not sure it addresses the problem. Seems to be the biggest issue for liberal men who wouldn’t date a conservative woman. And they aren’t likely to be the problem, nor is creating a rift the solution.
But I can 100% see a woman who is simply unwilling to risk pregnancy in this environment regardless of partner.
support for the cause has been trending among young women voters who are vowing to swear off men.
hell yeah
This idea is so stupid, in my opinion. Liberal women are likely with liberal partners—they will be punishing their allies. Punishing allied men for things that other people have done is a good way to radicalize them into becoming republicans.
The more we solve our problems by withdrawing from each other and punishing each other, especially those who are not the direct cause of our problems, the more we exacerbate the division in this country.
The only people who should be withholding sex from loving partners when they would otherwise be interested are people who are sleeping with a Musk or a Trump. Everyone else is just causing more hurt with no positive outcome.
It’s to protect against pregnancy in an environment where women’s rights have been eroded.
If Project 2025 takes away abortion rights and even contraceptives, sex becomes a really big risk.
The movement is to deny sex, not specifically to deny pregnancy. If it was about that, then sterile men and women would be excluded from this movement, but there is no mention of that at all. It’s just “swear off men, swear off sex”.
There’s what is stated and what is implied. In the absence of any sort of formal or “official” organization, participants get to choose their own level of involvement.
I often refer to “birthstrike” as a conceptually similar and related group.
Well they should consider making the implication clearer, because I honestly feel that the way it is stated will do more harm than good. If it is a birth strike aimed at abortion risks, then call it that.
I have supported women’s rights in every way I know how in my lifetime, but I can’t go along with this movement as it is currently stated—to me that suggests that they need to refine the messaging a little, or explain the desired outcome more clearly.
Agreed
Punishing allied men for things that other people have done is a good way to radicalize them into becoming republicans.
If not getting your dick wet turns you into a republican you were never a real ally.
That is reducing my point to the most inflammatory interpretation.
Some men have been very negatively impacted by the political climate of the last 10 years too. They have weathered a lot of “white man” blame while trying to be a force for good. They have voted as an ally, protested as an ally, and held their peers accountable. And now their partner cuts off physical affection.
A man doesn’t have to be a false ally for those realities to put him in a psychological place that will make him vulnerable to conservative manipulators. It opens the door to the question “how’s your liberalism working for you?”
Denial of physical affection is a real grievance, and outside of this protest, it is usually considered an issue that needs to be fixed in a relationship. Think hard before intentionally creating relationship issues to prove a political/moral point.
And now their partner cuts off physical affection.
Sex is not the only form of physical affection.
A man doesn’t have to be a false ally for those realities to put him in a psychological place that will make him vulnerable to conservative manipulators.
If he can’t recognize conservative manipulation then he’s maybe not a false ally, but a pretty terrible one.
The reason I hate that your response is so common is it perpetuates the stereotype of men requiring sex to prevent then from becoming animals. It’s a subtle form of misandry that so many men force on others.
You are taking only the most inflammatory version of what I’m saying. Sex isn’t the only intimacy, but it is a very powerful tool for that. There are strong biological drives for sexual expression and satisfaction, and denying those leads to emotional problems—we see this all the time with homosexuals who can’t be happy in a heterosexual box. If someone has been manipulated by one of the most advanced propaganda machines ever created, that isn’t a sign that they are a “terrible” ally.
I’m not saying men only want sex, I’m saying that suddenly taking away a biological tool for human connection that they have typically had, while also living though really difficult times, while also acting like the continued desire for sex is somehow selfish on the man’s part, is a really effective way to make someone listen to the opposing side when they are promising a fiction where men have it good again.
tl;dr - If men don’t get their dick wet they’ll become republicans.
Choosing not to date is now radical?
Same situation should be applied to our LGBTQ+, like last time he was president. No sexual gratification.
reposting:
American chicks love to fuck. A lot. This is not the 1600 peasant community sworn to one man, any longer, where the denial of “marriage rights” is at the forefront of the Feminist reality. Yet. The reality of the loss of Roe really hasn’t been felt yet in the majority of female spaces, especially Liberal states, but with an oncoming expected Trump/Congress push for nationwide Ban on Abortion, along with all the other and various sundry Misogynistic legislation coming in the next couple years, it will get there, and American girls and women will then be ready to swear off. But it’s going to be a long time coming. I agree, the time is now, but the wave is so far off we can’t even see it yet.
I do not really see how that would help, as i hope these people would not have sex with right wingers in the first place but if they want to not have sex and all that other stuff power to them i guess.
Don’t women like and need sex too? I thought it was a chauvinistic talking point that only guys need and are supposed to enjoy sex.
I feel like this is more of a strike kind of thing.
Ok, that makes sense: like a hunger strike, not like withholding the sex “commodity”.
Women can take care of themselves or each other.
But yeah, the human libido will take charge sometimes. They’re just worried it’ll be men taking charge regardless of their wishes.
Men can take care of themselves if they decide to and there is something like this (or there ued to be, I haven’t heard of it lately), called MGTOW. But it wasn’t particularly useful. Whereas it was useful to draw attention to the suffragettes, so it worked there.
