Reno calls a domestic violence hotline: The MRA Reality Distortion Field in action [UPDATED with transcript]
Today, a fascinating – and infuriating – case study in how Men’s Rights Activists twist reality around in order to fit their peculiar ideology. Obviously, they do this all the time, but it’s hard to find a clearer example of the MRA Reality Distortion field in action than the video I’ve pasted in below from A Voice for Men.
The video features a recording of one of AVFM’s regular commenters calling a domestic violence hotline, pretending to be a man named “Reno” who has been abused by his wife. In reality, Reno is Ian Williams, a puckish Australian who has made himself AVFM’s go-to guy for prank calls; you can find several other prank calls from him on his AVFM contributor page.
Here’s what Williams, who also goes by the pseudonym Dr. F, has to say about the call:
If you’re a man and you are a victim of violence from your partner you may face difficulties finding help. Don’t listen to me, here’s the guy himself who called. His name is Reno.
Reno calls a battered women’s shelter and is denied help.
He is denied help, even though he tells the person on the other end of the phone that he is worried his wife will return with a cricket bat.
That sounds pretty damning, and, in the comments, the regulars at AVFM responded with predictable outrage.
“No concern for a beaten man or a boy that could also be a victim and, only able to help(willing) women,” wrote Raven01. “It makes the hate filled ideology apparent to all.”
“[Go] feminism- the humanitarian justice movement brought to you by the modern KKK!” Perseus added. “Sieg Heil, cunts!”
Not one of them seemed to care that everything Williams says about the phone call is false. “Reno” was offered help many times. He was the one who refused it.
If you listen to the call, here’s what you’ll find:
Williams, pretending to be “Reno,” called a Domestic Violence counseling line, not a battered women’s shelter. He told the counselor he’d been attacked by his wife and that he needed a place to go. The counselor explained to him that he’d called a counseling line and that she personally couldn’t arrange for shelter, but that if he called the men’s help line, they could arrange for him and his 6-year-old son to get free hotel accommodations at a location unknown to his wife. The counselor offered several times to connect him directly to the men’s help line.
Williams also told the counselor that he was thinking of calling the police. She told him she could connect him directly to the police, and would be happy to explain his situation to them and to make sure he reached an officer who specializes in domestic violence.
Ignoring all her offers to assist him in getting shelter and further help, Williams insisted that he wanted to be housed in a battered woman’s shelter instead. The counselor, naturally, was puzzled by this strange insistence on his part, and explained to him again that he could get free shelter at a local hotel for as long as he needed. She again offered to connect him directly to someone who could get him immediate help.
Having refused all of her offers of assistance, Reno abruptly ended the call — to the obvious distress of the counselor, who despite the patent weirdness of his behavior on the call had been patiently trying her best to get “Reno” the help he claimed he needed. (I suspect she sensed that his story was phony, but tried to help anyway in case it was true.)
Listen to the call yourself. It’s utterly surreal. What’s even more surreal is that Williams would make the bald claim that he had been “denied help” — and then put up a recording that clearly reveals that this claim is complete and utter bullshit. And I can’t tell if he’s lying or delusional.
That’s always the question with MRAs, isn’t it?
EDITED TO ADD: A commenter here has prepared a rough transcript of the call. There are a few moments where it was impossible to figure out a word or two, but otherwise this seems to pretty accurately match my memory of the call, which I’ve listened to several times. Let me know if I need to make any corrections.
Recorded message:
Family Violence Counseling Line. Please note for training and quality improvement purposes only, your call may be monitored. If you do not want your call to be monitored, please let the counselor know. If you wish to listen to ? regarding our privacy policy if you are already speaking to a counselor press one now, otherwise hold on the line for next available counselor.
[Ringing sound]
Counselor: Hello, this is *redacted* speaking, how can I help you?
“Reno”: Oh, hello. I um, was speaking to someone a short while ago called Maria,
Counselor: Uh huh…
“Reno”: And, and my name is Reno. And, um…
Counselor: Uh huh…
“Reno”: I was explaining, I was explaining to her that my, my wife, uh, is violent towards me with a cricket bat and other things.
Counselor: Mmhmm…
“Reno”: And, uh, she gave me a phone number to call, and uh…
Counselor: Mmhmm…
“Reno”: I called them and um…
Counselor: A phone number for what?
“Reno”: Uh… Uh, it was to help, it was a, um… Pardon me, it was 1-800-015-188. It was a…
Counselor: I don’t know what that number is, so what is it for?
“Reno”: Uh, it’s a helpli-, it’s a possible, it’s a place where they might be able to tell me where I can get some shelter for the night. But there’s none of the… DV places ? are gonna help me, because I’m a man, you see.
Counselor: Have you called the men’s line? ‘Cause they’re the ones who specialize in, because in Australia unfortunately most of the, um… Services. Well not unfortunately, fortunately though, most of the services are for women, because 95% of domestic violence is perpetrated by men. So that’s why they don’t really have um… They don’t really have… So many refuges for wom-, for men. They do have places where men can go, but they’re normally um, like overnight men’s, um, places, like… Which state are you in?
“Reno”: Victoria.
Counselor: Victoria. I don’t know the ones in Victoria but there’s quite a few, for example, in Sydney um, that provide um, overnight accommodation but they don’t call them refuges as such because um… It’s the different situation only for women ’cause often they’re, well normally they’re fleeing with children. So um, normally the men’s ones aren’t, they’re not called refuges, they’re called like, a men’s hostel or an overnight, um, men’s overnight um, shelter, or they’ll call them different names but they don’t call them refuges. So, um, if you’re looking for men’s refuge that’s probably not in existence, but there are a lot of men’s shelters.
“Reno”: Will they take me and my boy?
Counselor: If you’ve got a child, um, they’ll probably prioritize you, I would say. Um, have you rung men’s line? Because they’re the ones who really have this type of information, um because they specialize in helping men. While general lines, like, we’re a counseling line, so we don’t actually have access to phone numbers for, um, directly for refuges. We can connect you to the refuge line. How old’s your, how old’s your son?
“Reno”: Six.
Counselor: How old?
“Reno”: He’s six.
Counselor: He’s six. And where is he right now?
“Reno”: He’s with me. My wife’s gonna be coming home in about three hours, and she’s gonna, she’s gonna beat me.
Counselor: And he, and your son’s not asleep now?
“Reno”: No, he’s with me now.
Counselor: Why isn’t he in bed at 8.40, 8.48 in the-… Sorry Reno, but why is he awake at this time of night?
“Reno”: Because we’re about to just go somewhere, anywhere, out of the house because we just… We’re terrifed. He, we’re ready to go, so. We, we’re ready to go.
Counselor: Reno, this is really concerning me. Is he listening to you as you’re speaking on the phone?
“Reno”: No.
Counselor: Where is he right now?
“Reno”: He’s got some headphones on. He’s watching…
Counselor: What’s he doing?
“Reno”: He’s watching television now, he can’t hear any talk. I made sure of that.
Counselor: Yeah, I’m really concerned that he’s um, awake at this time of night. Um, the other organization that could most likely help you find accommodation and probably would be your best option would be ? Community Services, because they deal especially with children and families in crisis, and so they would definitely keep you together, they would probably actually put you in, normally they pay for a hotel or motel. A men’s shelter wouldn’t be the appropriate place to go with a child, definitely not. So, um, ? they give you, they have a lot of motels and hotels that they deal with, and put they in those instead of accommodation until they can find you permanent accommodation.
“Reno”: Okay.
Counselor: Like, normally they’d pay for a flat or something instead, they wouldnt, they don’t continue to keep you in a, you know, holding pattern in a hotel. Sometimes they make you stay for, like, two weeks in a hotel.
“Reno”: Mm.
Counselor: That would be a good option for you, wouldn’t it?
“Reno”: Yeah. And they wouldn’t let my wife know that, where I’m living? Staying?
Counselor: No, they wouldn’t do that.
“Reno”: ‘Cause she’s really violent. Really violent.
Counselor: They definitely wouldn’t. Um, they definitely wouldn’t let your wife know where you’re staying. I can help you with the phone call. I can introduce you, explain the situation, and see what they can do for you, if you’d like.
“Reno”: Hmm… Possibly, tha-, thank you. I think I might, actually what I might do is call the police now and then see how it goes in there.
Counselor: But your best option is calling the police and then asking to speak to a domestic violence officer.
“Reno”: Okay.
Counselor: They’re the ones that are the most specialized in this, so they deal with this day in and day out, and that’s probably stationed… Are you in area, in an open area? Are you in Melbourne, or are you in a town, or…?
“Reno”: Uh, I’m in Melbourne.
Counselor: Well, if you’re in Melbourne, most Melbourne police stations will have a domestic violence officer, and they specialize in domestic violence, and um, what you can get is to get a detective to come over, or a domestic violence officer, and say that you’d like to um, that you have um, fear of, um, harm of your wife who’s been abusing you. And what they’ll do is, they might um, even try and get an AVO so that she has to move out of the house and you guys can stay in the house.
“Reno”: Mm.
Counselor: They’ll try probably to do that so that you and the child can stay there. Or um, if you move, they’ll um, it would be, that she can’t actually have legal contact with you.
“Reno”: Yeah… No, we have to actually get away from her, we can’t stay here. So there’s nowh-, there’s no um, women’s shelter I could stay in, we could stay in tonight?
Counselor: Well, women’s, women’s shelter’s don’t take men.
“Reno”: They don’t take men.
Counselor: Why don’t you ring men’s lines? They would be able to tell you where you can go. Why don’t you ring the men’s line? Do you want me to connect you through to the men’s line? They deal with men. Men and women’s shelters are two totally different issues. Why do you want to go [to] a women’s shelter?
“Reno”: I just need somewhere where I can just get away from her, somewhere whe-
Counselor: Yeah, but why wouldn’t you, why wouldn’t you wanna go? Why aren’t you accepting this offer that ? will pay for hotel accommodations for you and your son?
“Reno”: Oh, because I…
Counselor: Why do you…
“Reno: Because I need to get out now.
Counselor: Yeah, but they would organize it now, they’ll probably organize someone to come and get you now. People work 24/7.
“Reno”: Oh, okay. I didn’t know what. Okay.
Counselor: ? Services work 24/7, or do you want me to put you through to your local um, police station and explain it to the domestic violence officer so that I can introduce you and explain your situation and see how they can help you?
“Reno”: No, I’ll, I’ll give them a call myself. Okay, thanks.
Counselor: Are you sure?
“Reno”: Absolutely.
Counselor: I’m happy to do it, Reno. I’m very concerned about your son.
“Reno”: No, that, that’s okay. I, I’ll go now.
Posted on April 2, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, domestic violence, facepalm, imaginary backwards land, imaginary oppression, lying liars, misogyny, MRA, shit that never happened, the c-word and tagged a voice for men, antifeminism, domestic violence, men's rights, misogyny, MRA. Bookmark the permalink. 1,158 Comments.
You know, if she’d connected the call to the cops, this ‘prankster’ could likely have been arrested for creating a bogus police call. That would’ve given me a happy.
He is both lying and delusional.
Of course the suckers at AvfM fall for this. They’ll fall for anything. Critical thinkers they aren’t–all you have to do is say “women” and they charge like half assed bulls.
“Reno” can go step on all the legos and pet all the cacti. What kind of sick fuck does this for lulz?
Wow…the vast majority of the call was taken up with the hotline person explaining several options and offering repeatedly to connect him. When he brought up the police, she even said (paraphrasing), “Calling the police and filing a complaint against your wife is the best idea, the police will probably make her leave the house so you and your child can stay,” so there goes the “they don’t take DV against men seriously” argument.
I also like how he mentioned his gender in the first couple of sentences (“they won’t take me because I’m a man”) but didn’t bring up the fact that he had a young child until several minutes into the conversation, after she’d already given him a couple of options. I’d be concerned about his parenting skills too, hotline operator.
Disgusting. I’ve called a women’s shelter exactly once, for an acquaintance who had been battered and was currently homeless, and they didn’t have room for her because she wasn’t currently being abused, but they gave me other numbers to try at various shelters. (She ended up staying the night in a hotel — her car, where she usually slept, was in the shop.) Shelter’s are up to their ears in need and have such scarce resources but they do their best; the fact that an MRA would take up some of those precious resources just to fail to make a point really galls me.
I think this call requires Pierre.
I guess technically he’s right that the battered women’s shelter wouldn’t take him but it is ridiculous for him to say that he was denied help when he was given alternatives.
What about all the women whose safety would be compromised if he went to the battered women’s shelter? Why should his desire to be housed there override the safety of the women there when there are alternatives?
Wait – did I get this wrong? He posted the recording of the call – so the MRAs could listen to it, listen to all those offers of help and STILL spout nonsense about how battered women’s shelters won’t help men? Sounds like he’s not the only one who is delusional or lying… Yeesh.
I dunno…maybe the same kind that used an alleged mental illness to justify not just trolling, but actually triggering people, on a feminist site where many of the participants have publically stated their own mental health issues, some related to being victims of violent crime, and use each other for support. Someone without morals and a true sociopath whose only intent is to harm people he believes are vulnerable.
…just saying
The confirmation bias is STRONGER THAN ANYTHING ELSE with these guys.
And, yes, there’s some damn good reasons we wouldn’t let a man who says he’s being battered into the battered womens’ shelter, dude. DAMN good reasons.
But, nope, ‘they won’t help me.’ I mean, hotels! Police!
If I was the person he was talking to and listening to him insist on where he wanted to be put my first thought would be ‘abuser.’ Like a great big blaring siren.
You know what harms men? Lying to them about their options if they are being abused. Congratu-fucking-lations.
Also nice to see you care enough about victims of abuse to tie up crisis lines you work.
Worm, work. Potato, potako.
An understatement.
The woman on the other end of the call was concerned, courteous, and engaged. She offered him multiple options for the situation he presented and offered to connect him to various services several times. This guy didn’t even edit the recording, ala Breitbart, to make it seem like she wasn’t professional and/or doing her job.
Just. So. Odd.
It’s unusual to see AVfM going for spin rather than lying outright. Reno did ask to be housed in a battered women’s shelter, and he was refused. Sure, the counselor’s efforts to put him in a shelter that is not specifically for women was elided, but the thing they said happened actually happened, in a different context.
(And the problems that single-gender or single-sex shelters fail to address, and the problems they exacerbate, have been brought up here, and in any case are not what AVfM is concerned with.)
Was he thinking the act of the phonecall would teleport him to a ‘battered womens shelter’? (is that really what they’re called?) and they refused to engage the teleporters because he’s a man?
Good work, Sherlock. Logic wins out again.
Howard, that was my thought as well. Especially since “Reno” wasn’t a very good actor and so the call was unusual from the start. I wouldn’t be surprised if that operator hung up the phone thinking that’s exactly what went down–some abuser was trying to find his partner who was hiding in a women’s shelter. She was very professional though and I was quite impressed at how she handled his odd behavior.
Although I have to ask, is it really that unusual for 6-year-olds to still be awake at 8:45 PM? Most kids that age I know go to bed between 8:30 and 9:00 PM, but I think school might start a little later here too. I’m just curious, so everyone feel free to ignore this if it’s derailing. ;)
You know how when you go to the doctor and say “I’m having pain, give me Vicodin,” she offers to actually treat the cause of the pain, or give you other painkillers, or give you exercises that might help? I guess he figured that just as if you insist on Vicodin she’ll eventually just give you Vicodin, the same tactic would work here.
Also notice that he opens the call by saying that the shelters wouldn’t take him because he’s a man. That’s like the first thing he says. MRAs can’t stop flogging their pet issues even when they’re tying to fake a persona. By the end of the call she’s totally onto him, maybe not that it’s a prank call but at least that it’s a weirdo who wants to sneak into a women’s shelter for some reason.
I also like the fumble with the son. “He’s, uh, wearing headphones. While he watches TV.”
That was more or less a rhetorical question, Joanimal, but thanks for the ‘splanation.
@Viscaria
You know what harms men? Lying to them about their options if they are being abused. Congratu-fucking-lations.
Seriously. This. Again and again, this.
This makes me feel sick in my tummy :(
“Having refused all of her offers of assistance, Reno abruptly ended the call — to the obvious distress of the counselor, who despite the patent weirdness of his behavior on the call had been patiently trying her best to get “Reno” the help he claimed he needed. ”
I imagine a lot of these hotline counselors are volunteers. I feel badly for the woman who took the call. I know people who have volunteered at other similar crisis hotlines, and the work can really weigh upon you, especially when you’re unable to help someone.
The counselor did everything right, even though this asshole expected her to magic up a shelter for him.
This deserves highlighting, because trans folks are very poorly served by many/most DV shelters in the US, and AVfM does not care about that in the slightest.
These guys should all have to get “citation needed” tattooed on their foreheads, so that everyone knows not to trust anything that comes out of their mouths, ever.
David, you might want to write something about this…http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/04/01/two-marriages-two-postmortems/
Especially the notation he makes at the bottom about marital rape.
Kinda makes me wanna throw up. These resources have better uses than prank calls. I’m not sure where he is, but I know that our local call line often has a waiting time to get through (it serves a variety of needs beyond just dv).
One of my guy friends in high school came out to his parents and got kicked out (his dad also threw stuff at him). He ended up in a shelter for a few days until his aunt came to get him.
If this guy was really concerned about men getting proper shelter from abusive women, he wouldn’t be insisting that he gets into a women’s shelter. If he’d given two seconds of thought to it, he’d realize that hey, the abusive woman could easily get access to the shelter so it’d really not be safe for an abused man to stay there. But of course, he’s doesn’t actually want to help men who are abused by women. He’s just mad that there’s an institution that dares to not make it all about the menz.
@pillowinhell What the hell did I just read. Im not sure I’m understanding the hamster metaphor. It is a metaphor right?
And I love how he doesn’t think rape and abuse are valid reasons for divorce.
@melody
O_O wow. I am not regretting deciding to skip that article.
What were valid reasons, in his mind? (if he had any)
He lists this as a reason he and his friend’s marriages were doomed to fail…
So ladies, don’t go asking for a divorce if your husband beats or rapes you. That’s fine. But god forbid you be intelligent or have a career. Think of your husband.
I’m going to go throw up now.
The guy has a biblical marriage now. By those rules, the only way you leave the marriage is in a pine box.
And his post is a hairsbreath from admitting that he was what his first wife accused him of being.
As for the asshat in the post… I’ve had to make that emergency call at one point in my life and there was no space for locally so I would have had to move to an entirely new city with nothing more than the clothes on my back and losing my very good job.
I stayed and fought.
I’ve set up Firefox so that AVfM automatically redirects to A Voice for Pierre. I think I will set up the Spreadhead to automatically redirect to something even more pleasant. Any suggestions?
Melody, this is what arationalization hamster is. (And I really need to learn to spell hamster someday. It’s not a thing you put your dirty clothes in, clairedammit.)
Also, I need to learn to close my tags.
Cloudiah, is zooborns too obvious?
@augochlorella
This is true of MRAs in general. They don’t really want shelter options for abused men, because they don’t think the appropriate response to an abusive woman is to seek shelter elsewhere. They think men should respond to violence from women with more and worse violence. Presumably any man who actually fled a violent woman would be considered a “pussy” and all moral support would be revoked.
“If he’d given two seconds of thought to it, he’d realize that hey, the abusive woman could easily get access to the shelter so it’d really not be safe for an abused man to stay there.”
Seriously! This is the most bizarre thing about the MRM to me. It’s not about helping guys at all. It would at least make a bit of sense if they were honestly trying to get help for guys being abused, or male rape survivors, etc. But it’s really just about hurting women.
So in Wapiti’s world (scary place), men never get “unhaaapy” and leave? Really? Pull the other one, dude.
MRAs: making things worse for everyone.
I haven’t read the article (everyone made is sound despicable), but if he’s like any other MRA, my guess is either
A) of course they don’t! Females can get a man any time she wants, but MEN have to be content with whatever female they have and would do anything not to be single and fuckmachine, I mean female, -less.*
or
B) Well, if a man is unhappy it’s because the woman is not performing her womanly duties correctly, so therefore it’s her fault if he leaves.
*Forgive my ridiculous use of female, i was trying to imitate an MRA.
Wow…that Spearhead article…I want to give a little love to the part where he specifically says that his first wife got resentful because she was pursuing her career and they had “less than egalitarian” childcare duties. In other words, because he expected her to do the bulk of the chores in addition to her career. And then he complained about the sex dropping off. No, really? That’s what happens when your wife is exhausted from working all day and then doing the majority of the childcare/housework at night.
I have a friend who’s a chemist and her husband made her quit her job because he thinks chemicals are too dangerous.
Dude. You knew she was a chemist when you married her.
I’m not going to burn brain cells listening to this piece of fish shit, but this bit in Dave’s summary caught me:
“Ignoring all her offers to assist him in getting shelter and further help, Williams insisted that he wanted to be housed in a battered woman’s shelter instead. The counselor, naturally, was puzzled by this strange insistence on his part, and explained to him again that he could get free shelter at a local hotel for as long as he needed.”
I would bet my boots counsellors – this one, or anyone on a shelter’s phone line – has heard male abusers ask for this in an effort to catch, beat and maybe murder the women sheltering from them.
@Katz.
Yuck at your friends husband. Hope she is doing okay living with that… jerkwad.
This reminds me of how much my mom gave up in her career, even though my dad never tried to force her to stop working. She moved with him when he moved, which cost her some good opportunities in research (she’s a scientist, though biochemist, not a chemist), and she had a big gap in her resume from being a stay at home mom for a couple years.
Zooborns is a very good redirect for Spreadhead.
Here’s a bit of brain bleach.
@ Kitteh –
Yes, her voice completely changed at that request (I thought). I mean, the guy sounded sinister as all holy hell anyway, and WOULDN’T answer her when she suggested the men’s line… Then that request just made her hairs stand on end. That’s how it came across to me, anyway.
@ AK
Right?? You make your career-driven intelligent wife come home from her demanding job, and do all (or most of) the housework and childcare, I’m pretty sure she’s too tired to suck your dick at the end of it all. And its not exactly aphrodisiac behaviour either. “Oooh yeah baby – you make yourself comfy on that sofa – as soon as I’ve washed all the dishes from the meal i cooked you, and changed all the nappies, and vacuumed, and put the kids to bed, I’m gonna want to jump your bones and rock your world. Cos you look HAWT slouched on that sofa with that beer”
@katz, it amazes me how many people think like that. I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people about whether Mr. AK is going to “make” me give up my dangerous job, or expressions of surprise that he “lets” me keep doing it. I’m like, seriously? I was doing it before I met him; there’s no “let” involved. Of course Mr. AK is awesome and would never ask me to quit, but simply the fact that so many people apparently think he has the right to stop me from doing something I love and was doing before I even knew him is absolutely unbelievable to me. I figure that if a guy has a problem with my career, he probably should have dumped me back when we first started getting serious and had all those “I don’t plan to quit my job, like, ever” conversations.
Kitteh’s Unpaid Help: And the shelters are VERY aware of that danger. I work for a company that gets a lot of clothing samples. We tried to arrange a donation to a women’s shelter, but it was actually made too difficult for the company to manage because we only had men available to take donations out, and they couldn’t let us come except during certain narrow windows of time with lots of pre-warning, and we didn’t have that flexibility.
In MRA-land, I’m sure this would be viewed as a major example of misandry; to me, it was just proof-positive of just how fucked up Domestic Violence can make life.
(Ultimately, we included the clothing as part of an internal auction; all the money raised went to a bunch of charities, so it was still going to a good cause, but not as directly.)
Exactly. As long as MRAs cannot emphasize with people who are vulnerable, they’re allies to no one – least of all abused men.
This too. If MRAs actually wanted to help men, they’d be fighting for men’s shelters that helped protect men in homosexual relationships from abusive partners – because that’s actually a real issue that’s often overlooked. But you’ll never hear a peep about that from MRAs because it doesn’t involve screwing over women.
I hit ‘submit’ too soon on my last comment…I also meant to include that Mr. AK has a potentially very dangerous job himself (seriously, it involves explosives), but no one ever asks him if I let him do it, or if I’m going to make him stop when (if) we have kids. Bit unfair, if you ask me.
What really gets to me is that he probably thinks he did a service to others with this shit. ’cause people gotta know the truth…*shudder*
David, what do you think of the planned “militant” actions to take place at UofT this week?
@augochlorella
Wow O_O Article guy is truly a shit stain of humanity. Also, with an extreme, extreme case of lack of perspective.
@pillowinhell
ugh. All the jedi hugs to you, if you want.
@AK
Wow O_o I wonder what he expected to happen…
@katz
Wow. Her husband sounds like a real asshat.
@cloudiah
So cute! Cats and rats living together… my life is complete <3
@AK
Ugh. I hate hearing the assholes are so common in meat space. I feel like if anyone told me that I’d laugh in their face and tell them they’re an asshole (I hope. I’m kinda shy irl). Then again, probably don’t have to worry about it, since I’m a lesbian :/
Yeah, double standards >:( Though on a side note, I feel like explosives, while not something I’d tell other people to stop doing, is definitely a job I’d never want to do ;) Way too scared of any potential disaster.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzero: WTF are you on about?
zzzzzero thinks this is a Q&A, rather than a blog. But you know what? Interrogating David could be fun.
So…
David, what do you think of the AP’s decision to drop the use of “illegal immigrant” from its style book?
When I started out in my career, my first job was on a telephone DV helpline and working in refuges. You betcha that we had men phoning the line with all sorts of tricks to find the location of the refuges. Sometimes, they asked female relatives and friends to phone up to be taken in to the refuges and would then track their partner down that way.
I’ve never understood why MRAs are so insistent on being housed in a woman’s refuge as proof of equality of treatment with regards to DV. Well, I do have theories but none of them make ANY FUCKING SENSE.
I’m too tired to understand zero. Would it help if I got caffinated? I may leap to more weird conclusions that way.
David, what do you think about Obama’s funding of a research initiative, starting with $100 million in 2014, to invent and refine new technologies to understand the human brain?
I’ll join in the Q&A session!
David, what do you think of conditional probability?*
*I hate math, and don’t worry, I’m not expecting an answer. XD
David, would you rather have hands for feet, or feet for hands?
David, I’ve long suspected that vegan food is not necessarily health food. What do you think of that? David?
Clearly he is not answering me because he is TERRIFIED by the implications of my questions!
David, what do you think of my haircut? I went in for a trim, but I think they cut it too short.
David, can you, perchance, tell me how to get to Sesame Street?
David, would you rather fight one hundred ant-sized Daleks, or one horse-sized package of Camel cigarettes miraculously brought to life?
I am not David, but I would rather have hands for feet! Twice as much grabbing power!
@deezers
Well, I don’t know about David, but I like my hands and my feet right where they are, thankyouverymuch ;)
David, can you tell if I need to shower today? I really think I should, but am also kinda lazy. My hair is in a ponytail, if that makes any difference.
@Marie, yeah, I’m not very comfortable with the explosives myself. Mr. AK doesn’t handle them directly and the risks are fairly low (he’s a safety engineer), but you know…he has a framed photo on his desk of him standing on top of an 800-pound chunk of concrete that landed in the spectator area when a test went wrong. On the other hand, I broke my neck at work.
I’m queer and I was in a LTR with a woman before meeting Mr. AK (not like I left her for him, I didn’t know him when she and I broke up), and the creepy thing is that back then, people treated my job like it was a natural thing for a lesbian (because of course anyone who is in a committed relationship with a same-sex partner is full-on gay) to do. Now it’s this surprising thing for a lot of people, and the only thing that has changed is the gender of my partner. Bit eye-opening, really.
@Fade – Totally with you there – but imagine the cartwheel capabilities if you had four feet?!
@Marie – Yes, I am hoping I will never actually have to make the choice ;)
Wow, AK — I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by your experience, but I am. People are so … weird about this shit.
Cartwheels shall not be missed. I am not a cartwheel person. ;)
Gah, my cold medicine is so frying my brain today. I meant to add after the random sentence about me breaking my neck: “So, you know, only one of us has actually suffered a serious injury at work.” No one except my family and friends at the time really knows about that injury though, so that’s not what’s influencing the “he lets you do it?!” comments.