Well, here’s a new twist on the whole “women love assholes” thing. According to the blogger known as Vox Day – a sort of right-wing/PUA hybrid – the best way for a fella to capture the attention of a comely lass is to rape and murder another comely lass. Yep. He seems to have confused “Game” — that is, pick-up artist trickery — with The Most Dangerous Game. Oh, Vox stops short of recommending that his readers actually go out and murder women, but he argues this women-love-killers argument in all seriousness:
I don’t believe I could recommend this as a strategy for most men, but it is surely educational to learn that raping and killing a woman is demonstrably more attractive to women than behaving like a gentleman. And women, before all the inevitable snowflaking commences, please note that there is absolutely nothing to argue about here. It is an established empirical fact.
His empirical “proof” of this assertion? The fact that some Japanese women have set up online fan clubs for Tatsuya Ichihashi, an accused murderer.
From this one data point, Vox seems to have made a somewhat hasty generalization based on the notion that all women are the same person – that is, if one woman thinks or does something, all women think or do that same thing.
Yes, there are women — and men — who find themselves attracted to vile human beings. Some women idolize murderers. Some men think Ann Coulter is hot. That doesn’t mean that all women idolize murderers or that all men want to get it on with Ms. Coulter. It just means that some people have really, really, really appalling taste.
But let’s just assume for a moment that Vox’s basic premise is true: all women love violent psycopaths,. If you’ want to get with the ladies, but aren’t so hard up for a date that you’re actually willing to resort to homicide, is there some other way you convey what a violent psychopath you are to the ladies of the world? Yep, says Vox:
[I]f you are being introduced to a woman you find attractive, she will be more attracted to you if you slap her in the face without warning and walk away without explanation than if you smile and tell her that you are very pleased to meet her. Now this, being a mere hypothesis, can be argued. And tested, if you’re feeling especially scientific this weekend.
I really hope none of his readers take him up on this.
Is Vox being altogether serious about this? Yes and no. About the idea that women love killers? Absolutely serious. About actually assaulting women? He’s a bit more cagey. On his blog Alpha Game, Vox elaborates:
Women find it sexier for you to rape and kill a woman than putting them on pedestals and being a nice guy. I’m not saying that you should rape and kill anyone, but I would recommend, at the very least, dropping the nice guy routine and pushing over the pedestals.
Women have plenty of positive attributes. But they’re not angels, and when it comes to what sexually attracts them, even the nice, well-bred ones are more insanely twisted, from the male perspective, than the average serial killer.
So apparently the only truly happy couples in the world are those in which both partners think like serial killers.
What a romantic!
Rutee:
In principle, Elevator Guy might not have been wrong to talk to Watson as long as he was willing to take “no” for an answer. In practice, talking to her in particular in that elevator in particular at that time indicated an unwillingness to take “no” for an answer, since she’d just said “leave me alone when I’m in the elevator.”
On Second Avenue last week I encountered a driver who felt about red lights the way Elevator Guy felt about Watson’s speech; fortunately I got out of the way in time.
Hengist:
That’s … not actually what it says. The contradiction of the central thesis of SR is not “some men are not rapists.” It’s either “no men are rapists” or “rapists are easily identifiable at a distance,” neither of which has a huge amount of evidence behind it.
PFKAElizabeth
Though it can be noted that stereotypical women would love that. Actually, first-date proposals are classic Nice-Guy™-ism in the sense of addressing what some imaginary construct of what women are like wants without at all addressing the needs/wants/tastes of the individual woman in question.
Cassandra:
I want to point out to Hengist that there’s one pseudonymous Manboobz commenter whose real name I know I know, from the person knowingly revealing enough information to find it without really digging (not CassandraSays). This was a while ago, and I’ve managed not to say anything until now, because it’s fucking creepy and implicitly threatening. I guess that’s why you take issue with advice not to be creepy: it strikes at the heart of who you are.
(I will say there’s a song the person has undoubedly either adopted as an anthem or grown to absolutely loathe.)
Pecunium:
Someone tried to insult me once by pointing out the source of my handle, like I’d somehow managed to choose it without knowing who the original Hershel of Ostropol was.
@ VoiP, KatherineB, Hellkell, thebionicmommy, red_locker: Thank you! Most of our cats were rescues from the street, but Tamar (and her brother CB) were adopted at the local humane association’s children’s pet show (I was a judge). That was September 1993 when I first moved to Texas.
Dracula, I’m so sorry to hear that you have to have your cat euthanized–when I took Tamar in Thursday, I knew it was time. We had our big adoption spree within a couple of years, and so we had a large aging population and have lost quite a few the last couple of years. Still, considering how many were rescue cats, the fact that they’re all living to at leasat 15 or more means they had good lives with us.
Pecunium: thank you! I still mourn the horses my mother had to sell at my father’s demand (before he decided to leave with his girlfriend and go through the divorce after all) and that was back in 1975. She and I don’t even want to think about what hapened to them.
@DEVELOPERS ^3
Re: the feminist response (as you call it) to “elevator guy.”
Please read this blog post by Rebecca Watson about the continued harassment she is receiving and tell me what you think about it.
http://skepchick.org/2011/09/mom-dont-read-this/
The feminists didn’t condemn the man in the elevator–they did condemn the MEN from Richard Dawkins on down who began attacking Watson for daring to talk about the reason why many women don’t want anything to do with the athetist movement. And by “the feminists,” I mean all the feminist blogs I follow, and all the feminists whose posts I read on the internet. If you have evidence of others, please link.
And in terms of the xkcd comic: “is this really the model we want..” Depends upon who you mean by “we” white man! Who can you speak for–in terms of what sort of model of human relationships “we” might want. You assume that your rightful centrality in the “human relationship” model has been yanked away from you:
What I’m objecting to is the fact that I can’t express my desires AND that I can no longer assume my desires are universal. At least you realize that you could never have done any more than assume–yes, white straight men are no longer assumed by all to to the universal human default. And it seems to me you’re expressing your desire just fine, right here. I agree with the others, if you spout off TMI on a first date, then a second may be unlikely, but given the infinite kaleidoscope of human desires, I refuse to believe that there are not women who share your values and belief systems. Blaming feminism for creating this social system which totally oppresses monogamous straight people is…..pretty silly if you ask me.
If you want to change significant changes to our culture, it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to ask “If you do that, how am I supposed to get what I want from life?”. If you want to change the rules of how courtship works, then it’s perfectly right for someone to ask, “Okay then, how am I supposed to find a spouse?”.
Well, see, I was born in 1955. I didn’t even LEARN about homosexuality as a concept until I found Mary Renault’s novels about classical Greece in the university library when I was in college. It took even longer for the discourses about the QUILTBAG spectrum to start circulating (look it up if you want).
No sex education, no information from anybody. Everybody just knew you didn’t do it before marriage (except that at least five young women in my graduating class were pregnant during our senior year, and then there was that weird year my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary six months before my father’s 50th birthday….hmmm. My grandmother was sixteen when she married my grandfather). I didn’t figure out I wasn’t heterosexual until I was in my late 20s (thank you Emma Samms)–or should I say I didn’t consciously articulate it to myself and think, wow I could act on this. The fact I had to completely suppress any conscious knowledge of my intense crush on specific girls I knew not to mention the choir teacher in the Presbyterian church for fear or what would happen to me was one reason I spent so much time reading. I figured out I didn’t want to get married early on because I looked at the ‘wives’ in our neighborhood (including the ones who had to work because their husbands’ salary wasn’t sufficient even then), and said, oh, no, I ain’t doing that–not enough time for reading. I lived firsthand decades of not being able to express my desires or pleasures and trying to bury my sexuality six feet under. It sucked. So you’d think I’d feel some sympathy for you, but I don’t.
Not because you’re a man! I’d feel the same way if a woman was voicing this, though I’d be terminally surprised if any woman did, not because they don’t feel it, but because “good girls don’t say that sort of thing” (at least in the traditionalist space I grew up in, where a girl could never call a boy, where a woman could never got into a bar or restaurant along unless she wanted to be taken for a whore, where a woman could never say no to a man.) Because YOUR stated desires which were presented as universal but really weren’t in the lived reality even back then were what I had to fight against. I don’t blame you for having them: the fault isn’t your desire, but the fact that they were assumed to be dominant, universal, etc. Everybody else had to suffer in silence–we couldn’t even NAME what we were or how we wanted to live thank goodness for books, and later on, getting out of the state of Idaho). And plus, I don’t really believe that what you want is that impossible (well, the stay at home partner, but blame the economic mess in this country that has meant for some time that middle-class families could stay in that status only with two wage-earners, not feminism).
I live and work in Texas. Rural Texas. The stated ideal of this state is chastity before marriage (but gee, look at the statistics not only for teen pregnancy, but for teens having a second pregnancy!). You don’t have to find that Christian a space–you have to find a rural space, I’m thinking. Heterosexual marriage is the norm: when I moved down here, in order to get an apartment, I had to get a letter from my department head saying “yes, Dr. Ithiliana will have a job and will earn money to pay for her apartment this fall.” Since I could not tell the managers when my non-existent husband would show up, nobody would rent to me.
That was 1993.
@Developers^3: the rules of courtship changing.
You know, feminist movements in the US in the last 2 centuries has focused on things like the vote for women, women being able to own property, access to divorce, equal rights in the workplace, etc. Very few feminist rallies are “change the rules of courtship,” but they have changed–because women had options to live that are not limited to “marry the first man who will ask you and be grateful any man will have you, you hussy.”
You cannot assume that the women around you have to marry — but you know, that means that there’s a greater chance that the woman you marry will want to marry YOU, not a wallet (and I’m not saying women were or are golddiggers–but if you cannot earn a living by your own skills, then the economic issue of marriage is foregrounded–by the patriarchy, not the women).
I’m still gobsmacked over the “oh woes is me, women have more rights, but it’s harder for me to get married the way I want to, woes” bit.
@Hengist: Is it still a stereotype if it actually describes the person? Admittedly I had the wrong person, it was ithilianna I was thinking of.
It is a stereotype if you assume every member of a group (in this case, the group might be “feminists” OR might be “regulars on Manboobz”) is X, and that is what you did. In fact, you’re not the only MRA to assume that everybody here is a woman, everybody here is a feminist (not sure they are), and that everybody here has been corrupted by “women’s studies” which seem apparently have taken over all the univesties and shut down all the manly programs like engineering and computer science, in their fevered imaginations.
It’s a stereotype when it’s phrased in such cliched language that is in fact WRONG.
You got just about all the salient points WRONG–so it is a stereotype. I’m not a lesbian (the shift from the binary assumption that people are straight OR gay/lesbian has been around for some time.). I’m a queer woman, and I’m in a queer partnership. It’s nether straight, nor lesbian.
I’m not a “women’s studies” professor: I’m in a department of Literature and Languages, and know feminist faculty (not all of them women) in a number of departments. As I said, my small extremely rural university doesn’t even have a women’s studies program. So wrong about the specifics of MY life, and also, bringing it up as a way (if I reall correctly, not gonna backtrack right now) to discredit Hellkell’s argument is another example of stereotyping: it’s “I don’t hafta listen to what you say because you’re X.”
And it’s a stereotype because you weren’t able to remember the actual individual (what did all the “L”s in hellkell and ithiliana confuse you?), and were just using it as a smack down.
I just want to say that I greatly appreciate everyone’s kind word and condolences, and to Pecunium in particular, I can’t think of a way to say this doesn’t feel trite to me, but you have my sympathies. I’ve dealt with loss before, but I can’t imagine what that kind of separation is like.
Honestly, I feel a bit guilty talking about this kind of personal stuff on here, especially since it’s kind of off-topic, but it’s been weighing on me lately. Sorry if I’m derailing.
The thing that’s most confusing to me about Hengist’s behavior here is that he seems to have conflated bullying and sex in some strange and creepy way. He basically tried to call me out as not who I say I am and actually a women’s studies professor/cat lady/whatever, right? Which is an act of aggression and an attempt at bullying – basically, it has nothing to do with sex. And then when I said “hey, poor internet etiquette, stop that” he defaulted to “yeah well I wouldn’t want to fuck you don’t flatter yourself”. Which is like…um, I don’t know about you, but generally if every conversation I have with someone turns into an argument and it’s quite clear that we don’t like each other it’s kind of assumed that sex/dating is not on the menu. So why even bring that up? Is it like the “not motherly” thing, where I’m supposed to be chastened because I have failed in my female duty of making every man in the world want to fuck me? Why am I supposed to want strangers on the internet to want to fuck me anyway? I’m not sure if it’s purely a childish attempt to bully or if he honestly thinks that all women really do base their self esteem around whether or not random men (who can’t even see them, and who they don’t like) find them desirable or not.
Hey, Dracula, I got a bit distracted there but my sympathies too. I lost my 19 year old cat to cancer in April, and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever been through other than the death of my mother.
(Internet hugs if you want them)
Hengist is an ass who’s using his supposed “knowledge” of who you are as a beatstick so that us bitches will fall in line and be nice to him. That about right, Hengist?
It’s cheap, and against the comment policy if he really wants to go for it.
Hengist probably bases his worth on how many women want to fuck him, so I’m sure he thinks that women do the same. He’s not real bright.
Meh. He’s already done it twice.
What triggers me is he;s shown that he’s willing to use it as a bullying technique.
Between reading my Facebook interactions with my racist nephew and his not-so-sly “How do you know we haven’t already met?”
Honestly these are the actions of a person who doesn’t respect boundaries and in my opinion a threat to people around him. Behavior like this is why restraining orders and sex offender lists exist.
*accepts hugs* Thanks, Cassandra.
I find Hengist’s particular choice of stereotypes especially funny considering that snarky, sarcastic and feminist are all items on my list of attributes I find appealing in women. Which probably explains why I’m attracted to a lot of women who do stand-up comedy, come to think of it.
Jeez, I don’t like the guy but I wouldn’t wish that level of low self-esteem on anyone.
Oh, on the “dating advice” thing I thought of a bit that was applicable to me recently: when you ask a woman online if she’s “cute” and she tells you “no one’s ever vomited upon seeing me, but my younger sister is probably cuter (although she’s too young for you)” don’t respond with “lol, send me a pic? Or maybe your sister isn’t too much younger.”
Because then she will never respond, but she will fantasize about murdering you a little bit. Don’t fuck with big sisters, feminists or otherwise. :p
“lol, send me a pic? Or maybe your sister isn’t too much younger.”
Charming. I’m not exactly a misanthrope or anything, but FUCK am I ashamed of humanity sometimes.
Ithiliana and Dracula, so sorry about your kitties. That’s tough.
Hengist is going on moderation for Google creepiness, and I’m deleting his earlier creepy comment.
I know, right? He seemed like a nerdy dude, so I didn’t expect the smoothest lines or anything, but he was also 31 years old. Can an adult not read over the things he writes to see if they are incredibly stupid/slightly creepy before sending them? Not talking about hitting on someone’s younger sister seems like a low bar. :p
Thanks! Cassandra handled it like a total boss, natch, but I was unnerved just by the reflection of its creepiness. Ick ick. Dudes like that make me less keen on dipping into the dating pool.
@Bagelsan – Well, to be honest, I did have a moment of “is there any way he could figure out where I live and how strong are my locks?” there. I agree with cynikal – comments like that do indicate a complete lack of respect for boundaries. Which I guess explains why he needs dating advice, but any advice given is going to be of very limited use until he masters the whole boundary thing.
I realize that this thread has run its course now and further commenting would be beating a dead horse, so I’ll just close by saying I’m rather amazed at the level of sheer hypocrisy, dishonesty and just plain disconnect from reality exhibited by the Boob Gang here.
From Shora “showing” me where I insulted people and completely ignoring the context, or the fact that only a few posts earlier I’d tried making a point in a calm and polite manner only to receive insults and name-calling in return, to Pecunium going on and on about I don’t-even-know what because his posts put me to sleep*, to being accused by random people of saying things I never said and of having views I never held, to Cassandra freaking out because I said she’s not the motherly type, which was actually in response to her snarking at me “I’m not your mommy”!
And now I’m put on moderation for “Google creepiness” which apparently equates to finding out a few facts about a Boober which were freely available on her blog, as a response to her snarky challenge of “learn to internet”.
Just… wow. If you weren’t just a small community of weird nutjobs, I’d actually be worried.
*and yes, I can imagine where the nickname comes from. Another geek who did a tour in army and now sees himself as a romanticized warrior-poet, samurai, soldier-of-fortune guy. Internet forums are full of them. :p
By the way, I honestly don’t care if these comments ever show up or not, because I’m pretty much done with this place; it’s fucking poisonous. What the hell am I still doing here when not a single one of you is somebody I’d remotely enjoy hanging out with in real life? Enjoy your hypocritical, smug circle-jerks, Boob Gang.
Oooh, another flounce. I’m not sure you’ve heard about the scoring system, Hengist: You get a base difficulty for your flounce, that’s the minimum score. If you stick the landing – that is, you never darken our door again – you get full points. If you can’t manage to stay away, you get deductions based on how long you stayed away and how much of an ass you make of yourself upon return. I’m going to give this a base difficulty of 9. Good luck, and remember to stick the landing!
Please let it be an actual flounce this time and not the kind of boomerang flounce that MRAL keeps doing.
He will be back in two days, tops. Most likely less than 24 hours.
Well, that was a messy puddle Hengist made there.
*pulls out a mop and bucket*
Enjoy your hypocritical, smug circle-jerks, Boob Gang.
If we’re boobs, can it be a “circle-lactation” or something? 😀