Cosmo magazine is running an article encouraging women to date feminist men (written by a man, of course) and I would like to take a moment to encourage women to think that one through. Dating a feminist man might boost your feminist street cred, but the actual dating part will suck. Here are 7 reasons you should never even think about dating a man who claims he is a feminist.
1. The sex will suck.
He will embrace the Yes Means Yes standard of sexual consent and any hopes you have of coming home after a long shitty day at work to be swept off your feet by a man overcome with his lust for you can be dumped in the circular file right now. He will greet you at the door, notice you are not in the best of moods (a good start, I admit) and then launch into enthusiastic consent. “May I place my arms around you and give you a consoling embrace? Are you comfortable with me kissing your cheek? May I assist you in removing your coat? This may involve some contact with the upper portion of my body. Do you feel at ease with that?” By the time he has your coat off, you will want to punch him in the face, but because you believe in true equality, you will understand that violence against everyone is wrong and you will refrain from doing so. The rest of the evening won’t get better. By the time he requests permission to remove your panties, you will be choking on disgust and you will go to sleep on the couch.
2. Your confidence will plummet as he encourages you to wallow in your victimhood and blame everyone but yourself for your failures.
When you start to talk about why your day was so shitty he will nod sympathetically and (after obtaining consent) pat you on the back tenderly and make soothing affirmative noises as you search for someone to blame. He will agree that it was the baristas fault you spilled latte all over that report you had to hand in to the senior management team because she made the coffee too hot. He will agree that the bitch in the next cubicle is vindictive and steals your ideas all the time. He will agree that nothing is ever your fault and in doing so, he will basically be saying that you are a child and your actions are futile and you might as well just give up now because there is no way you are strong enough and smart enough to navigate the world of grown-ups.
3. He will empower you by never letting you fall flat on your ass and you will never learn a goddamn thing.
Your feminist boyfriend will be your constant crutch. He will be there to support you no matter how stupid or irrational or just plain idiotic your actions. He will never hold you accountable and will always make excuses for you. He will defend you from critics, even when the critics are your bosses and you screwed up big time. He will demand that everyone make allowances for you and your bad habits will become so in-grained they will become second nature. He will accept you sulking and endlessly repeating the same stupid mistake, assuring you that everyone else is wrong and you are right. He will be supportive, loyal and make sure you never grow or evolve as a person.
4. You will look like hell as he encourages you to “reject patriarchal beauty standards.”
Your feminist boyfriend will encourage you to spend the 20 minutes you usually waste combing your hair and applying the bare minimum amount of make-up you need to look professionally groomed and polished in bed. He will go ahead and shave and keep his hair trimmed and neat but that’s just part of male privilege and it is always and only misogyny to suggest that women need to meet similar standards. He will reassure you that hair and sin oils are perfectly natural and feminine odors are always pleasing, except to those that genuinely hate women. Only insecure men are uncomfortable with a natural woman.
5. Your feminist boyfriend will want to share everything with you. No seriously, everything. He’ll even have sympathy menstrual cramps.
Your feminist boyfriend will reject traditional masculine pursuits such as any sports or entertainment that involves the glorification of violence or unrealistic body standards or the depiction of traditional gender roles. He will embrace My Little Pony and frown when you suggest playing Call of Duty. He will reject most movies and television shows as perpetuating harmful gender roles and promoting rape culture and you will have to hide your 50 Shades of Grey book under the mattress and sneak off on Sunday afternoons when he is volunteering at the homeless shelter to watch the latest Jennifer Aniston movie, which will probably suck as much as your boyfriend.
6. He’ll actually cut your sentences off and tell other people what your opinion is for you more often than an old-fashioned macho man will.
Your feminist boyfriend will know all the talking points and will insert himself into any conversation with catch-phrases like “wage gap” and “heteronormativity” and “cis-gendered” and “privilege” and when you fail to make mention of these important issues yourself, he will finish sentences for you, because he knows exactly how you feel on every subject and wants to show his support and admiration for you. You will really want to punch him now and you might question whether some people really are “asking for it”.
7. You will be a sad, lonely, cranky, selfish, teetering on the edge of insanity basket case when he leaves you for that hot chick in tight yoga pants who knows how to cook.
Eventually, your feminist boyfriend will decide adults are way more fun to hang around with than giant toddlers who have tantrums and blame everybody else for their own problems. Adults who understand how human sexuality work and who respect the differences between men and women are also a lot more fun to fuck. You’ll watch him throw his arm around her (without asking first!), steer her down the street towards the theater playing the latest film of the patriarchy and sigh and wonder where all the good men have gone. And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll realize the good men haven’t gone anywhere.
They just don’t want anything to do with you. 
