You’ve all seen the famous quote attributed to German religious leader Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Now one embittered “Nice Guy” on Tumblr who goes by the name joetomcollins has written his own version, with feminists as the Nazis, rapists as the communists, and, well, just read it yourself:
When the Feminists came for the Rapists,
I remained silent;
I was not a Rapist.
When they locked up the stalkers,
I remained silent;
I was not a stalker.
When they came for the Players,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Player.
When they came for the men who they got bored of,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t some one they were bored of yet.
When they came for me, the nice guy,
there was no one left to speak out.
So, yeah. Let’s think this through a little bit. When Niemöller made his now famous remarks, he was expressing his own sorrow for not standing up to Hitler when he started arresting Communists. So is joetomcollins suggesting that he – and we – should have stopped “the feminists” from going after rapists and stalkers?
Joetomcollins doesn’t say, but he does have a lot more to say on the evilness of feminists and stuck-up women in general:
[I]f I’m going to be the bad guy no matter what I do… might as well get it the fuck out the way right up front.
I might as well ENJOY being the villain.
The FemeNazi messsage is LOUD AND CLEAR!
I am an average normal guy. I am never going to be good enough.
Especially in NYC where you only personalities you get are native “rats” who have learned to survive to being ruthless, and Type “A” psychopaths who come here to conquer everything.
Dude, if you don’t like the people in New York, then maybe, just maybe, you should move out of New York. It’s a high-pressure place and, well, you don’t seem to respond well to pressure, let’s put it that way.
He continues on with a refrain that I suspect will sound awfully familiar to a lot of you:
Man hasn’t had the ability to choose his woman for at least the last 150 years. The woman chooses the man. ALWAYS.
Now even showing interest is offensive to the FemeNAZI.
We aren’t talking about DOING anything but telling someone you think they are attractive. If a guy YOU liked rejected you, he would be Satan incarnate, but when a woman rejects a guy…
“HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!!!”
“HOW DARE HE THINK HE WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!!!!!”
… and we’re supposed to nod sheepishly and apologize for bothering you as we leave with a smile.
When I read shit like this I have to wonder: who exactly are you approaching, and what exactly are you saying to them? I’ve made some awkward passes in my day, but I’ve never gotten this response from anyone.
Could it be that you’re a dick? Your post seems to suggest that you are — an angry, self-obsessed dick almost completely lacking in self-awareness and empathy.
I mean, seriously, comparing your inability to get laid to the fucking Holocaust? Your bad luck with women to the murder of millions? Douche move, my man.
If you embrace your dickhood, as you seem to want to do, and become much more straightforward about your sexual desires, instead of trying to hide behind a nice-guy facade, you might actually get laid more often than you’re getting now. But you’re not likely to get a lot of repeat customers. And for good reason: no woman wants (or deserves) to be saddled with all your bullshit.
So let’s assume, for the purpose of argument, that you’re not a full-blown dick; you’re just a horny young guy on a sexual losing streak lashing out at women for your own failures. Let’s assume you are willing to work on actually reducing your dickishness. (Readers: All I ask is a little temporary suspension of disbelief.)
Reading your account of your romantic failures, and bearing in mind that most straight men don’t get this sort of response from the women they approach, there are several possibilities:
- either you are exaggerating the alleged awfulness of the rejections you’ve gotten, or
- there is something desperately wrong with your approach — perhaps you’re cornering women in elevators at 4 AM, or otherwise transgressing their boundaries in inappropriate ways — or
- the women you are approaching are, you know, bitches.
You really only have two choices here: you can spend the rest of your life wallowing in bitterness at women, or you can reconsider your approach. Find some woman you are friendly with – one you are not obsessed with fucking – and explain to her what’s going on, and ask her where you think you’re going wrong. If it’s your approach, learn to better respect people’s boundaries and read their body language; some women don’t want to be bugged by anyone when they are, you know, on the way to work. If it’s your selection of women, select different women.
And stop posting tirades on the internet about how women are a bunch of evil Nazis out to oppress you and your poor lonely penis. You know how, when you jump into cold water, your genitals shrink in horror from the cold? Something similar happens to the vaginas of most women when they read shit like you just wrote.
@Ami: you get a little PTSD for a couple months maybe, don’t talk about it, then you move on w/ your life…
I had a guy try to kidnap me off the street when I was twelve. When I didn’t get into his car, he exposed himself to me. I still have panic attacks when I hear about kids getting kidnapped or molested – what if it was that guy? What if I have to testify after he gets another girl, maybe one a little more trusting that I was?
He got caught (didn’t expect me to notice the fliers he was distributing, the piles in the back of his car, or the store they were advertising). He confessed, got six moths in jail. But I’m thirty three and still a little bit afraid to watch the news. I hope he thinks his thirty seconds of fun were worth my twenty years of fear.
Oh my gosh, Kathleen. That is terrible. I’m sorry that happened to you.
Kathleen- that’s terrifying. I lived in a large city for a long time and was completely stunned when the exhibitionist guys would do their exposure thing. And I was an adult at the time! I remember once just being completely icked out and unable to concentrate at work for a whole day after the first incident…after a while it does become part of the landscape…
Worst part? The guys who worked for the train wouldn’t do anything about it and just shrugged when people told them.
@NF4ever: It’s what a lot of people would call ‘little stuff’ that can cause lasting damage. Jezebel had a thread about a website that gave guys tips on exposing themselves to unsuspecting women – they honestly thought that not only was it fun for them, that women actually want to see dicks all the time. The comment thread got epic, and a lot of women spoke of having ptsd-like symptoms after guys had exposed themselves.
And I’ll point out that there are times when I really appreciate seeing a naked man – but these are also times that I’ve consented to the sight. Even if I were to consent to nudity in a public place, it would be wrong, wrong, WRONG because the people around us haven’t. And it’s, you know, gross.
I didn’t realize the reason feminists wanted rapists locked up was because we were bored with them…
You know, in my life’s travels it has occurred that I have turned down women. I’ll admit to having some pretty strict guidelines for attractiveness, so if a girl’s outside of those I’m not likely to respond to her advances. I’ve never been harassed for this, and with good reason since I’ve always been polite in my dismissal. I’ve gotten a few friends of the girl telling me I should go after her, etc. but when I explained my lack of interest plainly I was left alone. It’s actually totally acceptable to say no to a girl. Men actually do have that right. I’m not sure how he ever got this idea. Maybe some girl reacted by flipping out at him, in which case it was her who was in the wrong. Fucking Nice Guys thinking they have any grasp of societal protocol…
Rape is just so passé. It’s been done to death by this point.
C’mon, guys, think of a new way to express your utter contempt for the personal autonomy of another human being. Something different and exciting!
@Kathleen omg I’m so sorry that happened to you 🙁 *offers hugs if that’s ok*
Yeah… ppl who have never been through something like that.. it’s easy for them to say “geez suck it up” or that it only lasts 90 seconds or w/e >: But they’re not the ones who are living w/ the damage and trauma those events cause >:|
It’s also toxic b/c it adds another layer of victim blaming to survivors.. that it wasn’t a big deal and if you HAVEN’T gotten over it in a few months, or a year or 10 years… then there’s something wrong w/ you, or you’re being over-sensitive or something >:O
@no more mr nice guy that’s the one
hi manboobz. i appreciate the stomach-churning work you do for us all, and I’ve lifted a few of your links for my own blog, with credit, at toofatforourpants.blogspot.com
Yeah, I’m in no way prudish, Kathleen. I have a pretty healthy appetite, and I don’t mind nudity in the least. But there’s always something so creepy in their eyes. Really creepy, vacant and violent. Like they’re trying to offend your sensibilities, not titilate you.
I’m also not a typical “friendly” nice girl type, so I don’t think the problem is that these guys are magnetically attracted to my amazing personality. From what I’ve seen, this stuff happens to whoever is handy. If you live in a big enough city, it’s an inevitability. The trick is to learn how to recognize these guys from far away and avoid, avoid, avoid. My advice to women: if you see a guy espousing the typical NiceGuy(tm) views, run, don’t walk, in the opposite direction. But women are already doing that, aren’t they?
@Ami: So true. The expectation that you recover totally from trauma after a certain period of time is such bullshit. Even worse is the ‘you’re just trying to get attention’ or better yet, ‘you’re just using x injury/trauma as an excuse to get out of school/work/whatever.’ Because hey, you look mostly fine on the outside!
Off-topic: there is a dog sitting in my lap licking my face. That’s her picture on the left.
Our dog is lying upside down on the couch, while I am pretending to work on the computer. On the plus side, she has not started farting yet, but since she got some chicken skin tonight, it shouldn’t be long.
Also, every time David posts the results of his spelunking efforts, my theory that MRAs and PUAs ans the other misogynistic assholes just have absolutely no capacity to understand that women are people too, just as valid as they are, with the same autonomy and actual consciousness and stuff.
I just now got around to reading the link that No More Mr. Nice Guy posted about cuckoldry vs. butt rape and I am fucking seething. Couple of facts about me: 1. I suffered sexual abuse as a child, Sexual abuse that could be called butt rape as roissy ever so fucking eloquently put it. 2. I was adopted. I was raised by a wonderful father and mother with whom I share no genetic connection. Both of these things have me seriously pissed off about this post. But the fact that he is trivializing rape (which does anger me, make no mistake) isn’t nearly as infuriating as the idea that someone is not a father to a child just because that child doesn’t have his genes.
I’m going to go ahead and apologize for the poor writing of this post right now. I’ve been drinking and I’m angry about this. It doesn’t lend itself to eloquence.
Damn pi male, I hope you’re ok. 🙁 No one should have to go through that type of shit.
*supportive fist bump*
That roissy link is disgusting. The first thing I thought of is, what do they think of adopted/fostered kids (nothing?).
And what of a victim impact statement of a male sexual abuse victim? Sexual confusion, future relationship disfunction, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide…
My spidey senses tell me David is working on an epic post as we speak that will likely need a trigger warning. Ami points out all the “good stuff” once again.
@pi male: Non of that is actually objectionable, except that he manifestly dosn’t live like that. It’s not particularly original or clever or sophisticated, but you don’t need any of those things in moral philosophy, particularly originality.
@shaenon:
What “telepathically”? They’re hot and he’s not making crude remarks or hand gestures at them, how could they not recogniize that as interest?
@budmin:
Which, as we all know, leads to the Dark Side.
@Alex_P:
You have the right, but given how uninterested (these people think) women are in sex, and consequently how seldom the opportunity arises, the calculus is completely different.
My right to say no only matters if I have the opportunity to exercise it. If it were true that all women had a neverending supply of appealing men interested in them and women never showed interest — and they’d hardly need to — on the rare occasion a man was hit on he’d be stupid to say no, since it might be his only chance to have sex (that is, without competing with all the other men in some woman’s neverending supply), and for most men the right would be extremely abstract.
Hm, quick question – what does cultural Marxism mean? This word gets thrown around the Manopshere a lot, and I somehow suspect it has some connection to those evul feminazis, but it somehow intrigues me. Someone cares to explain?
Aaron Swanson: Bilderbergers? Really. OK.
But, in a serious response to your idiocy:
It’s the needle. I don’t really think this will cure your stupid, but others might find it useful.
“Cultural Marxism” is a fairly stupid term, and the way it’s used by right-wing bloggers with no understanding of actual Marxism doesn’t correspond to its real meaning (to the extent that it even has one). A “cultural Marxist” would be somebody who analyses culture(s) in Marxian terms, and so “cultural Marxism” would refer to the (Marxist) analysis of culture. It doesn’t really have anything to do with feminism or “multiculturalism”, contrary to the claims of deeply confused right-wingers.
Hi! Afraid, I see a way not to interpret that hateful drivel as pro-rape: He might actually believe Hitler was being sensible in „coming after“ the communists and trade unionists, that just him killing all those jews was where he went wrong.
But that is not really any nicer of a reading, by any stretch…
So, back to lurking.
@Holly
Maybe it’s the spitting…
(wait… how many periods am I supposed to use here..?)
HAWT!!!
You just need to know where their buttons are.
… and not be creepy.
… or a stalker.
… and bathe occasionally
… and maybe develop some interests that aren’t “WYMYN SUX0RZ!!!11!!
Something like Going Their Own Way?
I think “Cultural Marxism” refers to attempts to alter cultural depictions of people in order to address class inequalities that intersect with culture.
If you believe that culture happened “naturally” and its manifestations in your favour are your birthright, then “cultural Marxism” is a form of robbery. It’s similar to the relationship between “vanilla” Marxism and property-rights libertarianism.