Ugh. No jokes this time, just an appalling little exchange on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit. First, a Redditor called xbyiu offers some unsolicited, and pretty pig-ignorant, thoughts about SlutWalks. The basic thesis:
Personally, I think a lot of feminists just don’t care about rape victims. They’d much rather see women as a whole being a victim of the patriarchy and fight against that sort of abstract idea then deal with the reality of rape, which can be fought against with simple tips on how to protect yourself.
Hold on; it gets worse.
To this the r/mr regular EvilPundit replied (in a comment that, last I checked, had gotten three times more upvotes than downvotes):
I’d go even further, and say that many feminists love rape. For them, it’s a perfect way to demonise men in general.
If rape didn’t exist, feminism would invent it. In fact, feminism does invent a lot of rape, with its imaginary statistics such as “1 in 4”, and so on.
In other words, feminists don’t really want to prevent rape. But most rape is imaginary. So feminists are trying to not prevent something that doesn’t much happen anyway. Brilliant.
A note on the “1 in 4” thing: EvilPundit’s insinuation that it’s an “imaginary statistic” is a common MRA talking point. It’s not imaginary, but it’s not quite accurate either. The one-in-four number comes from a study conducted in the 80s by researcher Mary Koss: based on a detailed survey of college women, she found that roughly one in four of her respondent had been a victim of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14. This is often simplified – and distorted – into “one in four female college students are raped while in college.”
In fact, Koss’ survey found that one in eight college women answering her survey, not one in four, had been the victim of completed rape. Other studies have reported numbers not far off from this. The National Violence Against Women Survey, for example, found that roughly one in six of female respondents reported being the victim of rape in their lifetime.
The fact that some people have misrepresented Koss’ study doesn’t mean that her findings are “imaginary.”
I’m not even sure why I’m writing all this, given that as a feminist I presumably don’t care at all about rape.
Pic above taken from here.
EDITED TO ADD: EvilPundit’s comment has gotten some downvotes since I posted this, but it still has more upvotes than downvotes.
He was? Damn, I actually missed that. Not surprising considering the rate at which these threads grow (I hate to use the ‘no life’ cliche but… seriously). And I never said I made it up, just thought it was funny. :p
The boob gang: “Blah blah, here is a long boring explanation detailing why you’re not funny. HA, OWNED! *high-fives all around*”
MVP award: The most ironically nicknamed Amused.
Can you post a picture so I can decide whether to be sad or grateful for that? :p
Every second time the key goes in the lock, it would lock again, wouldn’t it? And what if you locked your self out, with the key inside? Or left the key in your other trousers? Should we switch to a keypad lock? 🙂
The only locks one might have trouble with are the modern ones, which require swiping your credit card before opening. :p
“A clever saying proves nothing.” (Voltaire)
(To say nothing of a dumb saying.)
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Love the impotent misogyny there, “the boob gang”. This, coming from the same flaccid knob who only a day or so ago made wistful comments about gratuitous insults.
Pterygorus: I have to say, no matter how virginal you are, it’s hard to imagine how slut-shaming will get you MORE laid. For one thing, you’re discouraging women from being promiscuous, which means that all the heterosexual men have fewer sex partners; for another, you’re annoying all the promiscuous women, who are statistically more likely to sleep with you than the non-promiscuous women.
Come to think of it, I don’t know why misogynists use the Keys and Locks analogy. If that was actually how it worked, it would be in more or less everyone’s best interests to destroy keys that work too well. Really, who wants to think of someone with a universal key, one mugging and duplication away from 1000s of the damn things floating around. Better to destroy these abnormal skeleton keys.
Why is this considered the go-to? I mean, that’s not how it works really, but wouldn’t you want an analogy wherein the male doesn’t represent a threat that should be destroyed?
You fail humor. Take some tips from, I don’t know, Shaenon.
Hey, I was right! And some added misogyny with “boob gang” and a “let me return here to tell you guys how you have no life even though I’ll continue to argue with you!”
It’s like Christmas. Shitty, shitty Christmas.
“How the MRAs stole Christmas.” This might have potential.
Woohoo! I’d like a virtual chocolate tart, filled with internets and topped with MRA-tears :D!
And I really don’t understand the logic of guys like Pterygorus. I agree with ozy.
Discouraging women from having sex just because they won’t sleep with YOU is… stupid. And childish. Do you really want others to be as miserable as you are?
How would that even help you get laid?
As for the key and lock analogy, it also, once again, totally ignores non-straight people – unless it’s meant to imply that having two keys or two locks is useless. Fuck this.
It’s “misogyny” to call you by the name of the site now? And yeah, considering I spend upwards of half an hour in the morning and evening on here while you each write, I dunno, about 500 posts per day, I’m comfortable saying some of you have no lives. Deal with it. :p
“Come to think of it, I don’t know why misogynists use the Keys and Locks analogy. If that was actually how it worked, it would be in more or less everyone’s best interests to destroy keys that work too well. Really, who wants to think of someone with a universal key, one mugging and duplication away from 1000s of the damn things floating around. Better to destroy these abnormal skeleton keys.”
Isn’t that exactly what they’re trying to do with all the pissing and moaning about jerks, wherein “jerk” means “any man more attractive and/or socially skilled than me”?
Imagine, if you will, an electric pencil sharpener that sharpens lots of pencils. It would be a very good pencil sharpener, right? Now, imagine a pencil that is constantly being sharpened by pencil sharpeners. Why, it would quickly shrink to uselessness and then disappear. Therefore, women who have sex are good and men who have sex will shrink their penises until they’re gone! Q.E.D.
Now some people might argue that there is absolutely no relationship between heterosexual sex and how pencil sharpeners work, but see, pencils go into pencil sharpeners, and penises go into vaginas! So it’s the same! That’s how analogies work, right guys? Guys??
Viscaria, have a big bowl of feminist popcorn 🙂
Felix:
And yet so often MRAs seem to be living in a post-patriarchy: if MRA statements of how the world should be make more sense if you don’t think people are equal, a lot of their statements about how the world is make more sense if you believe total equality has been achieved (though not necessarily that it’s a good thing).
Ha! Ha!
U dumb gurlz R talking about thingz that I don’t like!
Obviously U hav no life or U’d be able to do just 1 thing at a time, like me!
If you must stick to the heteronormative “men do an action to women” thing, then why not have it be men as readers, women as books. A man who can read all books would be awesome. A book that can be read by all men, *JUST* as awesome.
And thinking about the motivation to limit women’s sexuality to one man, I think maybe this is a strategy for men familiar with Game but unsuccessful at it to keep women from having sex with men they “know” outrank them, that they could never have as permanent partners.
One of their theories is that alpha males are swimming in it and this HAS TO STOP because it’s using up all the average and inferior women who, clearly, aren’t going to settle for average or inferior men if they can get alphas even temporarily or in a shared arrangement.
If those women know they only get one shot at it, they will save it for the guy they are going to marry.
They have a point (aside from the one at the top of their heads) but that point evaporates once you realize women are human beings and not natural resources to be mined, allocated and controlled.
It’s like they know people are having a party and admission is either being an alpha male or having a vagina. They feel left out. Some are left out because they are innately miserable shitheads, who couldn’t be fuckable unless they got an empathy implant. Others are convinced or convince themselves that women are another species and that normal rules of friendship can’t possibly apply to women. Plenty of them get invitations every day that they just don’t see because they expect them to come in a pink flowery envelope with perfume billowing out of it, and instead it’s in a plain white envelope, or on a Post-It on the refrigerator, or even wrapped around a brick and thrown through the window.
Hey, maybe this is the new analogy — parties and invitations. An invitation that gets you into lots of parties is awesome. A party that lets in a lot of invitations is also awesome. And there’s no shame in going to a small party versus a big party, or being a small party or a big party. Personal choice.
I love the party and book analogies.
Yes, I guess so, but there are still a certain percentage of men “doing everything right” and being turned down by all women. I did a hell of a lot better when I was younger, more cheerful, and denser, but women still wanted me to take all the initiative, refused to communicate consent explicitly, and changed their answer to “No” because I asked, whenever I asked. Oddly, unlike the situation of a lot of manocomplainers on this blog, women sometimes seem naturally attracted to me, I estimate that about 1 in 50 don’t require me to “do” anything other than be myself. I am fairly marginal in a lot of ways, with a combination of physical impairments and intellectual over-endowment, and I still have to take the initiative in all respects, even with those who are supposedly cognizant of human physical limitations because they possess them themselves and who supposedly have some investment in feminism because of their academic/intellectual self-actualization.
Oldfeminist comes close to the realization that women are naturally attracted to only a small minority of men but falls back on the idea that lonely men are doing something to deserve it.
Eurosabra: I’m… not quite sure I have any fucking clue what you’re talking about. Are men attracted to all women? Should they be? Should women be attracted to all men, thus giving all lonely men an equal shot?
Eurosabra: Yes, I guess so, but there are still a certain percentage of men “doing everything right” and being turned down by all women.
This is logically false. If they were “doing everything right” then they wouldn’t be turned down by “all women”. Sooner or later (and more sooner than later, IME), they would find one who shared enough interest to get some sort of relationship going.
Eurosabra, after all this time, you’re still treating this as a system. You are treating it like Le Mans when it’s just driving.
In other words, by definition “doing everything right” leads to “success” (and I hate using that term, it implies a woman is an inert trophy). So people who aren’t “successful” aren’t “doing everything right” even if they’re following the system perfectly.
I can’t recall the last time Hengist didn’t end his comments with a :p. Is that his “peace and freedom” now? Or is it his license to say that anything that he says that winds up being dumb is actually just a joke and you feminists need to grow a sense of humor?
:p
Wait… I thought dating was a cross between Mine Craft and Angry Birds.
Eurosabra: “Oldfeminist comes close to the realization that women are naturally attracted to only a small minority of men but falls back on the idea that lonely men are doing something to deserve it.”
I don’t remember saying anything like this. In fact I don’t believe that women are naturally attracted to only a small minority of men. A woman may be naturally attracted to only a few men, though not all are like that. But each woman has a different set of requirements.
While a woman may swoon over the Hollywood image of Brad Pitt, for example, many of them would probably find the “real thing” uninteresting. Most women are able to separate fantasy from reality and would not be interested in dating a vampire, either, no matter how ubiquitous the fantasy seems to be right now. If that was what they really wanted, there’d be a totally different vibe to the dating scene.
You find that about 1 in 50 are attracted to you “naturally.” You attribute this to physical problems and intelligence, but you don’t say anything about your personality, which makes me wonder if that might be a stumbling block as well. If you’re walking around going “I’m an INTJ and that’s just the way I am, fuck you if you don’t like it,” for example, that’s a losing “strategy.” At least I can tell you it didn’t work for me. Though women are beaten out of thinking they can act like that pretty quickly and firmly; men are often admired for it, though it doesn’t get them dates. Plus eventually you have to learn how to use all those other functions, might as well start now.
Bottom line, though, is that women aren’t prizes. As Pecunium and Hershele Ostropoler said, there is no one effective “system” because women aren’t non-player characters (and feminists aren’t bosses).
As for “deserving it”? No one is punishing you. They are simply not choosing you. There is no “deserve.”