An alert reader pointed me to this amazing “map” from the 1830s, posted on Ptak Science Books and originally found here. Described as “A Map of the Open Country of a Woman’s Heart,” it presents a less-than-flattering picture of the supposed shallowness, vanity and selfishness of the female of the species. Click on the pic above to see it full size.
It’s amazing how closely this resembles so many Manosphere “critiques” of evil modern women; the main difference is that it’s a bit more polite in its language. Also, no mention of stinky vaginas.
Manospherians love to talk about “taking the red pill,” as if their ideas are all new and cool and Matrixy. Actually, of course, their ideas are old as fuck. It’s more like they are taking a gulp of Dr. Flimflam’s Electro Magnetic Misogyny Fluid.
Below, another amazing picture also found on Ptak, which presents data on where women’s eyes linger when looking at men. (Again, click on it to see it full size.) I suspect this one would be a bit more confounding to the Manospherians of today, in that it doesn’t show women looking only at the dude’s wallet. The post on Ptak offers a more detailed explanation of what this picture is about.
The Camel Spider in Caraz’s photo looks pretty Jim Henson-esque to me.
@Caraz
WTF IS THAT?!!! It’s like proof of life on other planets or some shit! I for one welcome our spidery overlords.
@ersatzmoons
I like homeboy’s pose: “I’m too sexy for my clothes, too sexy for my clothes… also, pugs.”
You know, I haven’t wet the bed in thirteen years; maybe it’s time to take it back up.
@lowquacks
oh I know, but even one alone is friggen huge O_O
actually they reminds me a bit of the coconut crab, which is as close as we’ll get to seeing a real life Dr. Zoidberg http://izismile.com/2009/06/01/giant_coconut_crab_27_pics.html
Thank you, Lauralot! Kittenss are always good. XD
@Quackers Non-euclidean is not adhering to the usual rules of geometry. I guess flying in circles isn’t terribly non-euclidean, but it is also a Lovecraft reference.
Now snakes, those are awesome and fascinating from a distance and not at all scary in controlled circumstances. But in the wild…if Shadow’s situation the peeing myself bit would have been quite literal. The biggest snake I ever saw was in Kuala Lumpur – we were all having breakfast in the kitchen when it showed up in my friend’s garden. It was REALLY big, though none of us had the nerve to go outside and try to measure it. We just watched and were grateful that snakes don’t know how to open sliding doors. Thailand is also blessed with some interesting wildlife, but I don’t remember anything particularly horrifying other than unusually aggressive mosquitos.
I did once briefly date a guy who owned a boa. I say briefly because I refused to sleep at his house out of fear that I would wake up in the middle of the night with the snake wrapped around me. It wasn’t caged in any way, it just kind of hung out and wandered around. He also had a very big, very exciteable Doberman, and the snake would hide from the dog. I could never figure out of it was scared of the dog or if it just found the constant barking and attempts to play annoying.
Australian here. I live opposite a nature reserve so I see a lot if wildlife, particularly snakes and spiders. I’ve seen black snakes, red bellied black snakes, carpet snakes and brown snakes. Carpet snakes are so fierce that they will come after you if you piss them off. The rest slither off if you make a noise. I’ve had lots of huntsman spiders in my house and found a red back in my bath the other day. Usually they stay under the front steps but I think this one wanted water and climbed in through the window.
They don’t particularly bother me, I just trap them in a glass and take them outside and let them go. The possums that fall through the ceiling vents are more of a problem, though. Very cute but they have sharp claws and teeth and will fight if they feel cornered.
The bogong moths are pretty nice, though but we see less of them than we used too.
Kind of OT, but I think MRAL may now be attempting to troll Jezebel too, If you’re a starred commenter over there take a look at some of the pink comments, especially in the teen sex thread.
(I am now attempting to wash my mind of any and all thoughts of giant hairy spiders.)
CassandraSays: As much as I loathe and fear spiders — am better than I used to be due to amazing number of spiders here — I’ll take spiders over MRAL any day.
I don’t read at Jezabel–do you have to be starred to see some comments? (Apprently they were unstarring commenters who were critical of Hugo)?
Is MRAL bravely fighting the pro-Hugo stance there, or is he railing about being spat upon?
The Camel Spiders 1: aren’t spiders. They have no venom. 2: Are nowhere near as large as that photo makes them look. Not more than about 4″, tip of pedi-palp to back of leg. The strangest bug I saw in Iraq was a mole-cricket. They are vegetarian, and move like electric locomotives. I can post a photo if anyone is interested.
The scariest thing I saw as a red wasp. Red like Evil Witch Fingernails. About the length of my index finger and a sting which looked like a 16 ga needle. It landed in the fly bait and the venom was coming out in visible droplets. It took a long time to die. Thankfully we never saw another one. I have slide somewhere.
I’ve kept/bred several types of snakes. Snakes are nice. I won’t keep, “hot” snakes. Sooner or later a mistake of some sort gets made, and a snake will nip at you… not so good if anti-venin is the next thing one needs to do.
I’ve met a few rattlesnakes in the wild, Here’s one.
My ex kept spiders. She actually did work as a spider wrangler. She knew the guy who did the spiders for Arachnaphobia (he’s a swell guy) and while she was too young to work on that with him, she did work on Spiderman (the red, white, and blue, spiders were not CGI. they were black widows, which had been painted). She got a mention in the book about the making of the film). Steve wasn’t able to do a gig, and called to see if she wanted to do it.
So we got a pallet of tarantulas, and headed to where they were shooting the inserts for a season of “Ripley’s Believe It, or Not!” and provided a Mexican Rose Knee for Dean Kane to handle. I was unwilling to let him show me up, so I actually helped wrangle the spider, and let it crawl on me. The only time I have ever been willing to do that. It wasn’t bad, not at all what I thought. Not tickly, not heavy, not scary. I’d still rather handle birds.
I also got to drink “weasel shit coffee”, which is great coffee, but not worth $600 a lb.
Pecunium – Kopi Luwak, or something, right? It was one of my favorite Straight Dope columns.
PS. my kitties are fine, and seem to harbor no lasting resentments, huzzah! Ty all for the well-wishing.
ah! one of my favorite straight dopes ever! On the ass ends of civets in the production of perfume and overpriced coffee!!1
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2306/does-civet-come-from-tortured-cats
Oh, ass ends of mongoose relatives, what would we do without you…
@ithiliana
On all of the Gawker sites there are comments that you can only see if you’re a starred commenter. Newcomers basically have to audition to become commenters, so starred commenters can see their comments and approve them if we want to. Approving trollish comments is strongly discouraged, because then the troll is able to comment again and be seen by everyone. The starred commenters are basically the filtration system – if we all think someone is a troll, or an idiot, in theory they’ll never be approved to comment.
(Though sometimes people approve troll comments if they’re so annoyed that they can’t help restrain themselves from responding, which also approves the comment.)
@ Pecunium
Red wasps are horrible, terrifying creatures. Stinging insects that fly in general are really not my favorite thing, but wasps and hornets are more alarming than bees unless the bees are a swarm.
I would think that the manboobzettes here would LIKE spiders! They are kindred spirits! It is female spiders, after all, which are the deadliest, and some even kill and eat their mates!
I wonder why none of you even bothered to mention that!
As far as the original topic is concerned, maybe this Ptak knew something in the 1830’s that we have forgotten! Women, even at their best, are often vacuous, overemotional, given to fits of hysteria (especially, I suppose at their time of the month, hence the name “hysteria” derived from the ancient Greek word for womb), and often given to trickery, deceit, and sly manipulation…
Not that any of you on manboobz.com have any reason to resent or challenge my observations. You aren’t women, after all, only feminists!
Go join your sister spiders! The only difference between them and feminists is that most spiders won’t attack unless threatened (or hungry). Feminists and modern women are vicious, spiteful, and hateful for no reason at all! Being that the most vicious spiders(and many insects) are female, youall have more in common with them anyhow.
I love the logic here. Women are horrible, and you should be very insulted that I said you weren’t a woman.
“No, no, mister, please don’t say that, I can be vacuous and hysterical with the best of them!”
[David K. Meller], even at [his] best, [is] often vacuous, overemotional, given to fits of hysteria…
Fixed that for ya.
Yes, if only we could go back in time to the 1830’s and converse with this mysterious Ptak to find out… (Is there no text so brief you can’t utterly mangle it in comprehension? XD )
Feminists and modern women are vicious, spiteful, and hateful [to David K. Meller, because he’s an asshole]!
And again.
Also, hysteria meant “moving womb”, and was thought to be caused by a disturbed womb. Had shit to do with the period.
Wait, so for once Meller’s brand of sugary bullshit would actually be perfect relevant in regards to the original post, and he doesn’t even address it?
Is there anything DKM doesn’t fail at?
Failure? Applying just the right amount of perfume on his women?
“Applying just the right amount of perfume on his women?”
What is the right of a person who’s always wrong? 😉
Yes, Meller, because you and your vapors over modern women aren’t hysterical AT ALL.
My mother claims I learned my fear of spiders from seeing my father scream and flee the room from a young age!
I am getting better–I can appreciate the benign house spiders who build lovely webs on our house and eat crickets (as long as they stay outside).
But I’d take SPIDERS over DKM OR MRAL any day.