Let’s talk about sex! (With the icky, icky dudes of The Spearhead)
Those sneaky, sexy ladies, always up to something!
So over on The Spearhead, the fellas are discussing journalist Daniel Bergner’s sexy new sex book What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. It’s a book that challenges many conventional wisdoms, both scientific and popular, about sexuality and, as Salon puts it, portrays female sexuality as essentially “base, animalistic and ravenous.”
I haven’t read the book, but it’s worth pointing out that this is not exactly a new idea. Indeed, for long stretches of human history this was the conventional wisdom about female sexuality, a fact I can only presume that Bergner addresses in some form.
Of course, none of the fellows on The Spearhead have actually read the book either, including W.F. Price, so essentially they just use the occasion of its publication as an excuse to spout their own, er, theories about evil sex-desiring ladies.
Price, extremely old school himself, agrees that “women’s sexuality is a powerful and often disruptive force” that “can be terrible in its power.” But he also thinks that the good fellows in the “androsphere” — his preferred term for what others call the “manosphere” — have these sneaky sexy ladies all figured out, and that this “knowledge disarms much of that [evil sexy lady] power.”
So, he concludes, Bergner may actually be doing the dudes of the world a solid:
The Red Pill, in short, is simply the truth about female sexuality. All Bergner has done is repackage the red pill and make it look sexy, and even empowering to women. So I suppose we should give the guy credit for doing us a favor, because although it is being sold with some misleading advertising, at least his book will contribute to general knowledge about the ancient truths of the world.
Or so he assumes, anyway, not having read the book. (I wish I could get a job reviewing books without reading them.)
Naturally, the Spearhead commentariat has many, erm, intriguing thoughts on the matter. So let’s look at some highlights — by which, as always, I mean lowlights. (And it goes without saying that all these comments got numerous upvotes from Spearhead readers.)
DCM offers some thoughts on female brains, and why the ladies need to be held in check and, I guess, never told that they’re pretty (even if you want to bone them):
Females’ minds are slightly but noticeably more primitive than men’s. Few of them will achieve mental and emotional maturity till they are old and infertile.
There’s little hope of getting most females to be rational, however smart they may be; they can only be somewhat repressed via ethics enforced by other females and the law, or men can be educated from childhood to see them as they are and not give in to the semi-instinctive idealization of females that’s part of the mating urge.
The latter is probably simpler and better.
Joeb offers a long and admittedly baffling manifesto, filled with parables and mixed metaphors and words used in, well, let’s just call them idiosyncratic ways. I’m trimmed out some of the really confusing bits, so what is left should be merely confusing.
Human sexuality is a red herring for the female to divert the real issue
Men cringe and cower to the mere mention of sex . Females use this red herring the same way the Government uses feminism .
As a shield .
If ,we all stop thinking with the most basic human drive and start thinking with are Mind’s , We need to put away anything remotely attributed to the visualization of sex during the other 23 hours a day . and push the real issue’s that stem from these basic drives in overdrive …
As long as females can divert the argument to sex they win . …
The red pill gives us a release from this Bondage .
I like to call Blue pill males ” Males still tied to the mask . We are all on a ship with rules and a limited space . As soon as you wake to the horror of your enslavement to the mask , Doesn’t mean you are not still enslaved . Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence.
Does this sound familiar . …
Continue Taking the regiment of the red pill and you will start seeing Life boats , Islands and other men on the boat .
Its not a one time Pill its a regiment .
Being deprogrammed from Bondage is a painstaking task . All that’s needed to derail this process is The Captain to throw a few galley wags to the sailor and he calms down and works hard .
Don’t get sidetracked by sexual issue’s they have nothing , I say nothing to do with Men’s rights . The Government is the privateer and we are the conscripted Male .
Conscription have been used for Thousands of years , Hitler , pirates , the Chinese , Mongols , The British , To build army’s of slaves .
We still fall for that one every time And it never ends well .
Keyster is a tad more coherent, if equally backward:
The Red Pill is understanding female sexual power.
If you’re an unattractive woman or lesbian you might be a feminist because you have such limited sexual power – over men.
Women wanted “rights” and “liberation”, but insisted on keeping their sexual power, much to the dismay of strident feminists. The male needs to understand female sexual power. Most are entranced by it while not even knowing it. There are untold fables and metaphor for this, from The Fall to Odysseus to Cleopatra and Mark Anthony.
It’s a “backlash” against women wanting feminism AND sexual power. Their sexual power is diminishing every day. The more they behave like men, the less sexual power they have…the less power they have at all.
I confess I don’t really understand sven thomas’ deal at all. Oh, his argument I get. It’s his, well, vocabulary that puzzles me.
Ummmm
The Author is late to the party.
5,000 years ago we witnessed Eve being tempted by the serpents as she lusted after da lostasts cockasz.
About 2800 years ago we witnessed Helen deserting her family/husband and running off with a PUA and causing a war, whence tens of thousands perished.
The important thing for MEN to see here is why the Neoconsosnz banned the GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN–because they teach of the TRUE NATURE of women.
Women are only Virgins and nice and good when they are raised by STRICT, HEROIC MEN who reign over their fallen sexuality via their manly honor, as exalted in THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN.
zlozozozozzo
And a zlozozozozzo to you too, sven, whatever that is!
Posted on June 12, 2013, in a woman is always to blame, antifeminism, cock blockade, creepy, drama kings, evo psych fairy tales, female beep boop, grandiosity, homophobia, irony alert, literal nazis, mansplaining, masculinity, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, oppressed men, patriarchy, PUA, reactionary bullshit, red pill, sex, straw feminists, the spearhead and tagged anti-feminism, antifeminism, Daniel Bergner, female sexuality, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, PUA, sex, what do women want?. Bookmark the permalink. 219 Comments.
Fibinachi, write only in limericks for about a week. I find that cures that syndrome.
Also I hate when MRAs try to brush off every bad thing like “oh those aren’t mainstream”. Dude, those ARE the mainstream MRAs. Look at every major source of the MRM. Look at their best authors. Look at their posts which are upvoted more.
Now, in my experience, the more “moderate”(as in not having terrible/stupid ideas) they are usually the ones who aren’t familiar with any MRM things. Like basically people who hear “true equality” and then consider themselves a MRA. Those people are not “mainstream” at all, because of how they don’t know hardly anything about the MRM. They are fringe pretty much too, since they have almost no influence on most of the MRM, and there aren’t like any influential writers in the MRM that actually are for equality or don’t say horrible things.
This is what separates the MRM from actual social movements. Social movements have a good core, and then the fringe are the “bad” ones. With the MRM it’s like an inside out version of an actual social movement.
As soon as I heard about this book I knew manosphere dudes would be all over it, holding it up as undeniable PROOF! that all women are just chock fulla hypergamy and just waiting for the perfect time to ditch their good, decent beta male husband for a violent criminal alfalfa male (although I figured they would actually read the book first. I guess I was giving them too much credit.)
I love how they’re all patting themselves on the back for redpilling it up and “liberating” themselves, but yet they spend their ENTIRE day, day after day, whining about women and obsessing about sex. They’re all far more obsessed with women and sex than other guys are because their entire lives revolve around it and they have a community of likeminded douchebags who constantly reinforce it.
@auggziliary – I just got attacked on my FB wall because I badmouthed MRAs (I had just found out that there actually IS an anatomical structure called “vagina masculina”!) and this guy was so upset that I wasn’t looking at the “moderate MRAs who make up the mainstream”.
*sigh*
The “men’s rights movement” is a zombie social justice movement. It’s appropriated some of the language of social justice issues, without actually understanding or even caring what that language means, or the context or history of those issues. To some, looking at the mrm from a distance, it might almost seem like an actual social justice movement, but as it gets closer, it becomes apparent that the thing slowly lurching up the road towards you is just a rotting monstrosity, ravenous for attention, incoherently spewing ARGLEBARGLE and overblown assfax-laden manifestos to any and all who will listen, and evoking simultaneous feelings of revulsion and pity in anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it in blog comments sections.
Not to mention that it seems to have eaten the brains of most of its members.
I think it’s been a while since anybody’s brought up The Manboobz Challenge. Not sure if the Pervocracy is still involved with it, but there it is.
We’ve had this challenge for a while, giving MRAs the benefit of doubt that there is some moderate faction out there somewhere. As far as I know, the challenge has not been met as of yet. Which is very sad, considering how low the bar is set. Was that rhyme unintentional? You bet.
@Kittehs- SNARFLOL
I’ve got it! zlozozozozzo is a n-ononononno turned on it’s side! I’m a geniuz! ;P
M Dubz – thankyer, thankyerverymuch
@Fibinachi
Well, if saying that makes you sound silly, then I probably sound even sillier. I think that’s a very kind thing for you to say, especially since many people would never have the guts to say that say that, let alone do that to someone. Just my thoughts.
If it’s any comfort, I think the whole thing’s fake. It’s just another “cool story, dude” load of BS from an MRA who’s probably never been in a relationship with anything livelier than a deflated sex doll.
Kittehs, the original story may be (probably is) fake, but I would be willing to bet that much of the advice he’s getting is sincere.
Yeah, no question about that. Those douchecanoes would mean every word.
Is it just me, or is he phrasing it as if his imaginary wife is the racist/sexist stereotype of a dominant (domineering?) WoC? Every last detail about this saga sounds fake.
Just ran into some more misogyny on Facebook:
It’s seriously called “Actually Awesome Girlfriend.” V_V
@Kittehserf The possible reality of the story depends on your definition of domineering. Below I list some imagined scenes:
“Honey could you take out the trash for me?”
“HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! CAN’T YOU SEE HOW ALPHA I AM?”
“When we go to the family reunion, which was planned for the past 6 months, do you want to drive the first shift or should I?”
“HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! CAN’T YOU SEE HOW ALPHA I AM?”
“Honey, I noticed you and I have been communicating poorly of late. I am really hurt when you call me a hypergamous bitch. Could we please cut out the insults and start a meaningful dialogue?”
“HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! CAN’T YOU SEE HOW ALPHA I AM?”
I just get the feeling this guy, if he is real, could be overreacting to the normal give and take of an established relationship. Plus he is in the negative feedback loop of a restrictive masculinity. He is trying to prove how masculine he is by wondering how other men would perceive his actions. Which makes one wonder why the guy believes he has a deficiency also makes me wonder more about how real this is.
Wow. I have a few problems with the whole Eve and Helen thing. First off, the obvious one, both of those stories probably aren’t even fact, (historians are saying that while the Trojan War probably happened, the Iliad is pretty much all BS and it was really due to the Greeks being annoyed at having to pay tolls around Troy) but they don’t even fit what he’s trying to say. There was nothing even remotely sexual about Eve’s temptation in Genesis (and I have no idea what a “lostasts cockasz” is.) and Paris was hardly a PUA. Well, first he quite literally had the power of the gods with him which is hardly PUA at all. Next, it was more of the fact that the man Helen was supposed to marry was more than twice her age and ugly, while Paris was her age and attractive.
As a guy who really enjoys history, these things really annoy me about that (you know, in addition to all of the misogyny, obviously.)
@Tombcat and Bionicmummy:
I don’t really think these are contradictory prejudices, it’s the same prejudice from different angles. If you by “bi woman” means someone who thinks sex with another woman is as good and as much of “real sex” as sex with a man, and who actually falls in love with other women sometimes, they don’t exist. That’s just silly, how could another woman possibly replace A MAN? On the other hand, if by “bi woman” you mean a woman who has lesbian sex AT men in order to please their boners, then all women secretly wants this.
Has anyone else read Vagina by Naomi Wolf? I remember reading parts of the book and thinking if only some of the more “open” MRAs (if they exist at all) would read this! Especially the bits about rape which seems to be something MRAs are very callous about.
I think it’s interesting when all these different takes on Genesis come up in the comment threads, but personally I just don’t get these people who see eating of the forbidden fruit as liberating. My personal take is that eating the fruit symbolizes how (most) human beings lack a certain kind of innocence that other creatures might have. We have free will in the sense that we must actively choose what to do all the time, and think of things and actions in terms of good and bad, right and wrong in order to be able to choose. But that’s a pretty sucky part of being human, I think. I think my dogs have a way better life than I have; no troubles (except for incredibly trivial ones such as not being able to get what you want precisely ALL the time and at ANY moment) and such innocence. They can be thoroughly happy simply because they live in the moment and aren’t distracted by thoughts the way humans are, who can start worrying about the future, the general state of the world and other people even if things go swimmingly for ourselves right now.
I’m not saying all animals have a great time, obviously there are billions of animals in the world who suffer horribly in all kinds of way, and just as a non-human animal of limited intelligence can be more thoroughly happy than a human being if their life is good, so I think they can be more thoroughly miserable if their life is bad (since human-level intelligence allows one to daydream, and that can bring a, however small, relief to a horrible situation). But I think they do have a capacity for happiness that we lack due to our intelligence.
If the Bible had been literally true, obviously life in Eden before the fall were absolutely great. They’d just lounge around all day, eating fruits, among all these sweet and non-dangerous animals – it would be like one big super-cutesy youtube-video forever.
“The Red Pill, in short, is simply the truth about female sexuality.” Good to see it put so succinctly, and so honestly. MRA’s as they exist today are a movement largely driven by discomfort with female sexuality. I hardly hear them talk about divorce court anymore. It seems like it has to be a demographic shift among MRA’s, from middle-aged men to men aged 18-35–but that’s only a guess.
@Marcilannister: Emily at the Dirty Normal is reading it right now (she’s some kind of sex scientist who teaches university classes about sex), and she writes it’s frustrating because Wolf seems like such a genuinely nice woman, but she’s got a lot of the science wrong, apparently.
(Emily also read Sex At Dawn and wrote that these authors got lots of the science wrong as well besides coming off as total dicks.)
Regarding fundie porn, someone should make a porn movie featuring Adam and Eve banging before the fall and how Adam could totally move his dick about with his will, just like we can move our hands and feet. Because that’s how saint Augustine said sex would work before the fall, and who are we to doubt his theories?
@marcilannister – I read an excerpt from the book, but I’d be wary of recommending it, because apparently NW gets the science really badly wrong. Emily Nagowski has a couple of interesting articles on it on her blog the dirty normal if you’re interested.
Ninjaed! :D
Dvärghundspossen, I knew Augustine was weird, but that makes him sound like he’d have had a really interesting porn collection as well …
@Dvarghundspossen: I do not have a high level of education in science, so some of the science in the book could have been “dumbed-down” which tends to mess with the original intent. Overall though I thought her message was a good one.
marcilannister – I have no education in science, which is why I’m glad to be reading Emily’s comments on the book. It’s the sort of info I would like, because the excerpt I read was interesting (not enough to make me buy it, but interesting enough) and it’s good to have someone able to point out mistakes. She’s not having a go at NW, but if NW’s message is based on getting the science wrong, then it’s not going to stand up, is it?
@Kitteh and Dvar: Ooooh I think I am really going to like reading that blog! I read the posts about the book, and I recall feeling a bit twitchy about those parts in the book too! I am a totally omnivorous reader so I guess for me to really like a book it doesn’t have to be exactly perfect. I will take it all in and pick out the stuff I like. Thank you both for the recommended reading.
My pleasure, marcilannister! I like Emily’s blog too, she writes some really interesting stuff.
I’m one more person who hasn’t read the book, but I listen to an interview of the author:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/427037/june-11-2013/daniel-bergner
Here is what the guy mostly says about his book:
* women are a bit less adapted than men for monogamy
* women might be more attracted to stranger than close friend than they say (based on measuring blood flow in genitals)
* female monkeys do most of the sex initiating and get bored of their mates after a while.
* If you remove danger and stigma of casual sex, women’s sexuality would be different and stronger.
* Evolutionary psychology is wrong about some stuff.
So, while I don’t know what’s true or not in what he wrote and said, if his thesis was “women are terrible and lustful and hate men” he disguised it well in this interview.
That measuring blood flow in genitals as a way of measuring sexual attraction has been heavily criticized by various writers, including Emily at the Dirty Normal. Sure, you can’t always trust what people say about their sexual attraction since they may lie for various reasons, even lie to themselves. But it’s not like you can get an honest answer instead by measuring genital blood flow, since bodily arousal and sexual desire isn’t the same thing.
And, well, that makes perfect sense. I think it’s happened to most people that you had the bodily arousal thing going on for no apparent reason at all in a completely non-sexual situation, and also that there were instances where you really wanted to have sex although your body wasn’t up to it. It’s just stupid to assume that in ALL those situations, not merely some of them but ALL, your body showed you something about your desires that you didn’t want to admit for yourself.
Plus, the idea that swollen genitals show that you “really wanted it” has some pretty horrible implications for rape situations, since some people do get the bodily arousal reactions when they are raped.
I mean, I was a total slut myself before me and Husband became an item, I’ve been happy in a poly relationship, I still feel attracted to tons of different people (including complete strangers that I just see in public transport or whatever) so I’m all for breaking down prejudices according to which this is somehow abnormal for women. But I don’t think measuring blood flows through genitals with the assumption that this shows the Truth about attraction, and that genitals are more trustworthy than the words coming out of a person’s mouth, is the way to go.
Ditto with dvarghundspossen.
If blood flow was a good way to measure attraction then male teenagers must really love math class.
Dvärghundspossen, I just read a few article on the blog Dirty is Normal and I completely agree with you. Her distinction between liking and wanting, and arousal and desire is very interesting.
I wasn’t saying that I agree with the author, after all if you applied that methodology to me, you could find that what I really want is an unhealthy and violent relation with an unstable vampire. ^^
This. Zen exists to help the attempt to return to the innocence and greater “now” of existence without worries about the future and regrets concerning the past wearing us down.
Back when I was a fundie of sorts due to my sheltered upbringing in a religious family, I toyed with the idea of heaven and hell not being “eternal joy” and “eternal punishment” per se, but a “locked in the moment” type of deal. It didn’t seem so horrible to imagine hell as a place for eternal torment if it wasn’t strictly eternal, simply a moment that didn’t end (since time as we measure it has no meaning on the other side). Ultimately, not much better, but theologically speaking, made more sense to me than God with a thumb on a stop watch timer, saying: “Eternity starts… now!”
It was also a better reply to the intellectually lazy question “what did God do before He created the world?” What do you mean by “before” in a timeless state*, dumbass?
*This, of course, would raise some new questions, if being religious didn’t involve the awesome and constantly useful “Goddidit!” trump card.
“What women want” is basically “what I want to believe that all women want”.
dsfrogs: But the alliteration is lost in the translation process, as is the reference to Mel Gibson.
What I want to see is the wife’s letter.
“Dear Abbey. A while back my husband started spending lots of extra time on the internet, and being really strange and secretive about it. At first I thought he might be having an affair, but then he started babbling on about alphas and hamsters and hypergamy, whatever that is, and now I think he might have joined some sort of cult because he seems to be evaluating all of his decisions based on some sort of strange list of rules. Whatever the cause, he’s being a real asshole lately, and now he’s started talking shit about my family too. Should I leave him?”
@Radical Parrot,
I shouldn’t be starting a conversation when I’m about to go to bed, but this is really interesting:
“I toyed with the idea of heaven and hell not being “eternal joy” and “eternal punishment” per se, but a “locked in the moment” type of deal.”
That’s what it’s like for me crossing the veil of a night. If boredom and ennui don’t exist, the fear of time, or an expanded idea of time, sort of dries up. I can think “I wonder what we did last night?” (the memories don’t come spontaneously) and have a very earthly sense of “Oh, is it just more of the same?” – but when those very simple memories come through, the in the moment pleasure and lack of apprehension or anxiety of any sort comes with them. Who’d think it’s a real pleasure to experience, let alone remember, getting beaten at chess repeatedly, or the little breakfast routines, or trimming hedges, or repapering bedrooms? Yet that’s the sort of thing I recall most often, things I’ve never done or wanted to do, and there’s perfect pleasure in it.
Course it could just be the company over There. ;)
All I was saying was that the Spearhead commenters are a pretty weird bunch. I mean look at Joeb’s comment, I can’t even understand what he’s saying. You might disagree with AVfM’s tactics but at least they’re coherent.
What women want” is basically “what I want to believe that all women want.
Feminist entitlement is generally pretty predictable these days, is the thing.
@Kittehserf: Well, you know what they say: You go to Heaven to get the great weather, but you go to Hell to get the great company. Wait, maybe no one says that except me.
Memories certainly are interesting. Who was it that compared the memory to a little child walking along the beach: You never know which little rock she is going to pick up and add to the other treasures in her pocket.
I don’t know, inherently, it’s a very emotional thing. Things seem *right*, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe, if you were enlightened enough, even painful things, like the death of a beloved uncle, could show in a “that’s how it happened, and there’s no inherent evil in that” kind of way. Well, I’m certainly not enlightened enough yet to view many events in my life through that filter. Besides, I’m not sure if I understood your point correctly, since I’m drunk. Am I drunk too often now? Hey, it’s my first day off after a difficult week, I’m allowed to be a tad drunk. What? I’m not getting defensive, it’s YOU who’s getting defensive!
Interestingly, I have once experienced “the zone”, or whatever the martial arts experts like to call it, back when I played a lot of tennis: time seemed to slow down, it seemed I had all the time in the word to contemplate my next move, and I was, in essence, one with the moment. There was only me, the racquet (is that how you spell it?), and the ball – all were essentially an extension of me. My opponent was just a natural force that followed my lead and whose lead I followed. While I had all the time to think, I did not, I just went with the flow. Everything seemed so natural, so “right”. It’s a state I long to return to, especially since in regular life, I’m just a big-ass worrywart party-pooping poopyhead.
OT: Can anyone recall which thread Tom Martin has been posting his little updates in? I seem to remember him posting a comment a few months back about his new documentary projects… and other assorted wankery.
Hey David. Can you please write your next Blog about this: http://jezebel.com/australian-pm-described-on-menu-as-small-breasts-huge-512794598
“Social movements have a good core, and then the fringe are the “bad” ones. ”
I think I see what you’re driving at but I don’t think it’s literally true. I’ve been involved in antiwar activism my whole life and one of the key problems is that the people who form the core of many, many antiwar groups tend to be, not “bad” per se but certainly people who have a lot of delusions and tendencies that aren’t conducive to getting anything done.
That’s mainly; I think, for practical reasons – stable, productive people tend to have more responsibilities than unstable, unproductive people and activism is very time-consuming. So if you have an antiwar email list 80% of the posts are from people whose posts don’t make any sense, make assertions that are based on prejudice and lacking evidence, etc. Not too unlike an MRA blog comment section in that regard. BTW I was probably one of the unstable, unproductive people at the time.
To me the difference between MRA’s and a “real” social movement is that they don’t actually do anything. There’s no wheat, only chaff. What we accomplished (or didn’t, not like we stopped any wars) in DC and New York in the early 2000’s was not about strongly-worded emails but street protests and coordinated mass actions; actual ACTIVE activism, which is a lot of boring work mostly involving filing paperwork and making sure there are enough trash cans, etc. MRA’s seem to have no stomach for that sort of thing.
It’s also possible that despite Internet appearances there just aren’t that many of these guys. That happened to me once with another “social movement” I won’t name – it fizzled when we held what we expected to be a huge event and about six people showed up. Just because you imagine your movement is speaking for the silent majority doesn’t make it so.
Currently, in France, there have been quite a few angry divorced fathers (whom I don’t know if they are connected to MRAs, but they sound the same).
There modus operandi seems to be:
– get on tall thingy (like a crane or a church)
– wait for journalists to ask what’s going on
– complain that men are treated unfairly *
– get down from the tall thingy, (probably because at some point you want a bathroom)
*I’m still not sure what they’re complaining about, and what they want to be changed.
– Social vision of dads ? (that would be a fail, they mostly look silly by doing that)
– Changing laws ?
– Fighting bias in courts ?
– Fighting mothers who don’t obey the court decisions?
But each time it happens I can’t help to think: if this guys haven’t seen there kids** maybe a judge thought that was the best for the kid for a good reason.
**unless it’s the 4th option, in which case you should be fighting in a court, instead of sulking in front of journalists
@Yellaine:
Well, on the assumption (probably wrong) that these guys actually want to accomplish something other than just venting unproductive anger, the main recommendation I’d make is that they stop doing these one-man protests. One person alone can’t accomplish much of anything no matter how just the cause. You see these guys comparing themselves to Rosa Parks from time to time which is sad not only because that’s pathetic and dumb on its face but also because the idea that Rosa Parks was just this single person (whose feet hurt, as the story goes) is completely wrong. The Rosa Parks bus protest was the culmination of years of hard work and organizing.
The worst thing about these guys (and it’s a long list) is that to whatever degree there are real problems with the way family court systems treat men, MRA’s make it difficult to address these problems because anyone bringing them up will get lumped in with these violent yahoos.
Take that derivative, baby! Ooh yeah, you like that, don’t you, you dirty little tangent?
becausescience:
I’ve been referring to the MRM as a cargo-cult social justice movement for a bit, now. Same general idea–they think that if they just ape the actual SJMs, they’ll somehow get the same results. So they use the words (without understanding their meaning) and they take some small actions (without understanding the proper context for those actions) and they adopt a bunch of superficial similarities without any substantial elements underneath, then sit around looking confused because no one’s air-dropped a new Jeep on their lawn.
Pro for the zombie analogy: You get the fun dig about having their brains eaten. Common pop-cultural touchstone means that more people will ‘get’ the comparison at the outset.
Downside: Makes them look ‘scary’, which is a bit of an ego-stroke for them.
Pro for the cargo cult: Makes them look silly. Also, as it’s based on a real historical phenomenon, it’s easier to make the comparison stick.
Con: Less well-known, as time goes on, meaning you may have to explain the background.
@Falconer:
Probably NSFW:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2934#comic
Pharyngula posted a call for help for his video series from Tom Martin:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/13/television-science/
Drew Nighlok:
You did more than merely claim that the Spearhead was weird and outside the mainstream. You also suggested that our host ignores ‘mainstream’ sites like AVfM in order to paint the Spearhead as the primary face of the MRM.* This is, of course, a blatant lie. In fact, at times, David has posted so much about AVfM that he’s been accused of being obsessed with it. (The same has happened with several other MRM sites, actually.)
So we’ve now established that you are:
1: An ignorant asshat (speaking as if you know what David’s site contains when you don’t, even though such information is quite easily accessible);
2: A lying asshat (saying something you know to be untrue without any regard for the fact that the rest of us will know it for the lie that it is), or;
3: Both.
Regardless of which option comes up, curiously, you still end up being an asshat. So why should we give a flying ratfuck what you have to say, again?
*: Open to the floor–how badly do you have to suck that you need your own post explained back at you?
Their “coherence” is irrelevant because they’re awful people anyway.
Asking for equal treatment =/= entitlement
RE: Howard Bannister
That tumblr article has been debunked many times over. The poor woman has specifically requested that asshole soapboxers stop using her experience to push their agenda.
Re: Drew Nightlok
Feminist entitlement is generally pretty predictable these days, is the thing.
Hey, feminists got me my right to vote, divorce, birth control, and own property. If that’s entitlement, I can’t see that as a bad thing.
As for the dudes in OP quoting the Bible and the Iliad, they obviously skipped OTHER women in ancient literature. You know, like Judith, who saved her people by decapitating a general. The priestess in Gilgamesh who civilized Enkidu with sex. The Gorgon (who apparently was a protector of women in other stories). Ruth and Naomi, who endured hardship through love and devotion.
C’mon guys, I’m not even a good study of ancient work. Someone throw some Egyptian, Chinese, African myth in!
Ah. Day late, dollar short. Story of my life.
RE: Howard
It’s okay. Tumblr can be an everlasting circle jerk, and the nature of it allows myths to keep getting spread without the debunking. These days, I just don’t trust anything I see on it without independent collaboration or a debunking.
So Seth kills and dismembers Osiris, right? Isis tracks down all his bits and puts him back together, except she can’t find his penis (probably eaten by something) so she makes him a wooden one. And then she brings him back to life, and has sex with him, and conceives Horus.
When the peoples of Egypt stopped listening to the Word of Horus, he got angry, and convinced Hathor and Sekhmet to merge, descend to the Nile, and start killin’ dudes left, right and center. Well, it worked a little too well, and Horus got worried that there’d be no humans left, so he tried to stop Hathor-Sekhmet, but they/she wouldn’t listen, so he filled the Nile’s waters with beer, and when the rampaging goddesses grew thirsty and drank their fill from the river, they fell asleep and when they woke up they weren’t angry anymore. Hooray!
Ready for some nonfiction? Hatshepsut was regent for her stepson Thutmose III after Thutmose II died. And then she decided she wasn’t gonna be no regent. So she started wearing the official regalia of pharaoh (which included a false beard — but every male pharaoh wore a false beard, too) and adopted new official names as male pharaohs did.
And then everyone’s boner was sad.And when she died, she was entombed in the Valley of the Kings and at some point Thutmose III and Amenhotep undertook to erase her name from monuments, like the enemies of Akhenaten would 120 years later.What, the VJ-Day kiss tumblr post?
@Falconer: this
(which is to say, this)
Okay, thanks! I was confuse.
RE: Falconer
I am ashamed I forgot Hatshepsut. Cleopatra XIII is also a fascinating historical figure; from what I can tell, her reputation as a sluttyslutslut isn’t really historically supported, and she was in a pretty unenviable position.
Also yeah, the VJ kiss post. Unfortunately, tumblr being what it is, I can’t find any of the debunkings I saw previously, but from what I recall, pretty much the woman came back, said, “Look, guys, you know what, I now say it’s consensual. Now stop dragging up all my old history and turning it into your personal wankfest.”
Erm, I’m sorry, I think you mean Cleopatra VII Philopater.
I’ve long been of the opinion that her reputation has been at the mercy of the supporters of Augustus, all those pervy old white men in charge of European culture for two thousand years, and then all those pervy old white men in charge of Hollywood. She had the running of a troubled empire, and then she was trying to survive while the local superpower had several civil wars in succession. That she lasted as long as she did is not the mark of a dissipated vamp IMO.
… I actually enjoyed the idea of an Egyptian queen traveling with the Doctor from this past autumn’s episodes. Yes, please, more non-contemporary Companions, please.
RE: Falconer
Yes, of course, the seventh. I’m sorry, sick today and kind of out of it.
I mean, even besides all the Roman fights going on in that time, she was also fighting her siblings for the throne at all; she met Julius Caesar in the first place because he was going to vouch for her younger brother, so she decided to get to him first and persuade him to support her instead. (Not an easy thing; Caesar had political reasons to support her younger brother.)
From what I understand, back then you were constantly having to be on your toes and be friends with the right people, trying to stay one step ahead of the constant back-stabbing. Rome had wanted Egypt for quite some time, and there’d been a series of weak rulers. That Cleopatra lasted so long was definitely kudos to her. Plus, she actually SPOKE and READ Egyptian, which most of the Ptolemaic rulers (possibly all others?) never bothered to do. (Even in those days, hieroglyphs were hard.)
Yes please!
@LBT
I’m confused. By “debunked” do you mean that the 1945 photo wasn’t actually a picture of a real sexual assault? Or do you mean something else?
Aaliyah: The woman seems to be saying now that the kiss was consensual–but she’s using a definition of ‘consent’ that comes out of the 1940s, which isn’t very helpful.
They were strangers (in fact, his girlfriend is in the back of the photograph). He didn’t get any sort of approval. His grip was “like a vise”. However, probably in large part because of the era and standards of the time, she didn’t actively resist–so in her mind, she ‘consented’.
A bigger truth, though, seems to be that she would like her image to no longer be used by groups trying to fight rape culture. Regardless of how feminists might define what happened (and I do believe it’s fair to call it a sexual assault), it’s wrong to make her some kind of poster-child against her will, too.
So I wouldn’t say the Tumblr post is ‘debunked’ so much as ‘rude and objectifying’, at this point.
Ah, I see freemage. Thanks for clarifying.
One thing that never seems to get mentioned is that Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra II Selene was a successful queen in Mauretania. There was an article about her in History Today recently. It was the same old thing – tragic “failed” queen (especially with all that Sexy Sex nonsense thrown in) gets more attention than successful queen.
@LBT: Probably most of the Ptolemaic pharaohs considered the native Egyptians to be a conquered people, and their Macedonian/Greek heritage therefore superior.
I am kind of glad for the Rosetta Stone, though, because otherwise Pharaonic Egypt would be a closed book.
Oh, about VII or XIII — probably it was unnecessary to mention it, when ppl say “Cleopatra” informally there’s only one they ever mean. Sorry.
Oh, look what they found near Alexandria:
The experts say it’s Cleopatra’s palace, and I gotta admit a lot of those statues look classical Greek to me.