When you think they can’t get any creepier, they do. Here’s a disturbing new Men’s Rights meme-in-formation I’ve recently run across.
In a late-December rant about anti-porn feminist Gale Dines, the self-proclaimed “Male Renaissance Agitator” who calls himself Fidelbogen wrote:
In olden days of rough village justice she’d have gotten the scold’s bridle, or the the ducking stool, or the stocks. And quite right.
A couple of days later, regular A Voice for Men commenter DruidV, perhaps inspired by Fidebogen’s post, made a strikingly similar suggestion on that site:
I urge all Men here to have a look at wiki’s description of what was commonly known as a scold’s bridle, or the Branks. For whatever foolish reason, this item was done away with some time ago. This invention to end Men’s suffering, needs to be brought back into public acceptance and application, post haste, imo.
So let’s take a look at the Wikipedia page he linked to and see just what exactly this “Scold’s Bridle” was:
A scold’s bridle, sometimes called “the branks”, as well as “brank’s bridle” was a punishment device used primarily on women, as a form of torture and public humiliation.[1] It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head. The bridle-bit (or curb-plate) was about 2 inches long and 1 inch broad, projected into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue[2]. The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible.[3] Wives that were seen as witches, shrews and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.
Emphasis mine.
I will be charitable and assume that both Fidelbogen and DruidV were joking. That is, they don’t literally want to strap women’s heads into ghastly torture devices, smear them with shit and beat them to death. They just think that the very notion is hilarious.
Whether the suggestions were made seriously or not, they’re still pretty hateful. Given that Fidelbogen was recently taken aboard as a regular writer for A Voice for Men, and that DruidV’s comment on that site got mostly upvotes (and no criticism) from the regulars there, would it be fair to call A Voice for Men the “underbelly of a hate movement?”
I’m not sure why that particular phrase popped into my head, but somehow it seems all too appropriate.
“you’re so amazing” ? what about “OMG, it’s so BIG!”?
The latter is merely a subset/variant of the former.
And by the way, while 5 upvotes is certainly more than 2 downvotes, it is hardly the whopping level of support from Voice’s regulars that you implied.
Well Fidelbogen, who originally brought up the idea, is one of AVFM’s staff writers. If AVFM doesn’t want the idea of torturing women to reflect on their site as a whole, then they should stop hiring him immediately. But they won’t.
Let me ask you, TS, do you think that MRAs should carry out public acts of violence against feminists to make the MRM message heard? Because it sure seems like AVFM members love that idea.
i’ve had the privilege of taking courses with Gail Dines and she totally rocks and is far from crazy. plenty of people in the courses didn’t 100% agree with her and it led to civil discussion, nothing else, she didn’t hold it against them. i didn’t know any of her writing when i took the courses with her and it’s kinda amazing for me to see the vile hate some people have against her on the internet. just wanted to say that!
Well, any woman who tries to take away a man’s boner is gonna get hammered. The Boner must be respected.
It’s cute* that Meller’s objection isn’t that it’s horrible and inhumane and bad and such but that it might not work. And he says he doesn’t hate women.
*Where by “cute” I mean “disgusting”.
LyssatakeaBow – I respect that, but I also personally know sex workers that have found her very, VERY dismissive, if not personally hostile. When it’s not her students, but the sex workers and especially porn performers she claims to speak for who she is addressing that disagree with her, she can show a very, very different side, from all I have ever heard.
As a scholar of the Fidebogian school myself, I would argue that the use of scold’s bridles was neither a good nor a bad thing, but rather a morally indifferent state of affairs, based on a cultural consensus that was shared by all of the men. [W]as it really such an unspeakable crime that these women had absolutely no voice–by which I mean, they were in too much unbearable pain to form words– during that comparatively trifling span of years? Furthermore, feminists were never at any time deprived of any rights. You see, feminism simply didn’t exist in the first place — or not during the period when the so-called deprivation occurred. I mean that “rights” are only a figment. Only a mentation. Only a notion. Only a construct. Rights do not exist in their own right. They are not some mystical pure essence which hangs in the air all by itself — they must be conjured into existence by a strictly human will-to-power, and fixed by law or custom.
/trolling
I’m hardly a Gail Dines fan, but yeah, that’s…pretty fucking loathsome. And telling.
Separately: David, have you ever covered this dude? Old post, but I find it kind of Special.
http://eivindberge.blogspot.com/2009/10/feminists-believe-women-can-rape-men.html
Mr. Meller, your comments went into moderation because you logged in with different info than you usually use — for example, leaving out the middle initial — so wordpress considered you a first-time commenter. I’ve let all your comments through and you shouldn’t have any trouble from this point. PEACE AND FREEDOM! FLIES AND VINEGAR!
@belledame
That guy came up just the other day, because this one girl calling herself “Emma the emo” claimed to be his girlfriend. I hope she doesn’t come back.
!! oh yeah, THAT one. What a stroke of luck that was for ol Eiven, there, the formerly “incel:” a very cute young woman who happens to agree with all his positions, and will even take up the banner on feminist blogs! Why, it almost seems too good to be true!
Also, toysoldier, I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: no one here mocked Tom Ball (with the exception of one commenter who was roundly criticized by the regulars). We criticized him for ADVOCATING TERRORISTIC FIREBOMBING OF COURTS AND POLICE STATIONS.
You’ve repeated this lie several times, even after being corrected on it by me and others. Either you’re oblivious to what others say, or you’re simply being dishonest. This is why it’s impossible to have real discussion with you.
Yeah, Meller, you say all that stuff, but then you follow it up with some OTHER stuff about how if a woman provokes a man, well, that’s too bad, but you can totally see where he was coming from.
That’s only one of many reasons we find you repellent.
Oh, and another thing about Fidelbogen’s piece: He makes a big deal of saying that Dines is NOT a radical feminist.
Which is odd, because she, er, IS a radical feminist. For example, in this interview, which I found on her web site after one simple Google search, she says:
http://gaildines.com/2009/09/so-you-think-you-know-what-porn-is/
And, oh wait here’s another:
http://gaildines.com/2009/09/pornography-is-a-left-issue/
MRAs: if they ever get anything right about feminism, it’ll be by accident.
In addition, I point out to readers how inappropriate and unsuitable torture is for obtaining the means desired to further discourage expressions of misbehavior that I consider barbaric! 0-
You also HAVE mentioned chastisement of women by their husbands to obtain proper behavior, then just went on and on about how abuse was different. You never did go back and elaborate.
As for not reading very well, Okay. Yeah, you got me. You are the lord of comprehension. All Hail.
Meller, when it comes to comprehension, simple, straightforward articles and statements I have linked you to have come back so garbled in meaning from your end that I’d almost swear there was a chain of whispering third graders involved in your connection to the internet.
Given Meller’s refusal to place the the blame for abuse squarely where it belongs (“Sure it was wrong, but she must’ve provoked the poor guy!”), coupled with his refusal to accept women as genuine humans, I find it extremely difficult to believe he’s actually against abuse and torture at all.
I suspect the only thing that makes him claim to disagree with it is some twisted sense of propriety.
Whispering third graders would explain a LOT, zhinxy.
Seriously, though. I’m glad that you denounce extreme torture. But really, do you think that means we should all… Applaud you? It’s kind of… Basic, isn’t it?
The question this raises, Meller, is this:
Would you, David K. Meller, be in favor of torturing women if it were an effective means of getting them to behave the way you want them to and think they should behave? That is, do you find torture immoral all the time, or only when it is ineffective?
Hey! It’s my favorite show “I’m Totally Making Shit Up!”
@Cassandrasays
Well, that *is* so much easier than actually putting in the time and energy to actually work to become and amazing person.
@Futrelle:
I’ve see AVFM recently try to say, “Well, we know that not all feminists are like these radicals and that some are decent people!” as if to cover their tracks, but just as many times, I’ve seen them make no such distinction. Elam didn’t write that RADICAL feminists are vile pieces of human garbage and that fucking up radical feminist’s shit sexually arouses him (not that the alternate statement is any less horrifying, of course).
Also, Meller, you were gone, (And I DO hope you were well.) so I think you might have missed a longer response I had promised you, left here:
http://manboobz.com/2011/12/29/man-boobz-troll-and-trollhunter-of-the-year-awards-send-in-your-nominations/comment-page-6/#comment-107440