Today in Did That Really Get 196 Upvotes on Reddit: A Redditor claiming to be the owner of a brothel in Thailand explains how what he euphemistically calls the “problems in the sex industry” are mostly the fault of evil, lazy whores. Literally.
Let’s join the discussion already in progress. (ChaChaKrahp is the alleged brothel owner.)
A little further on in the discussion he makes this charming claim:
According to him, sex trafficking isn’t really a big issue, but when it does occur it “is more likely to victimize men” than women. (The main victims in his mind being trafficked men (by which I assume he means transwomen) … and male sex tourists.)
Those poor, poor Western sex tourists, suffering so at the hands of women and girls who’ve been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery!
But let’s just put this whole “trafficking” thing out of our heads. As ChaChaKrahp explains it, prostitution in Thailand is just a way for lazy ladies to make money. It’s totally on the up and up – “[j]ust like college girls in the US that work as strippers for $300 per night instead of picking strawberries for $50 per day.”
The only real problem is all those evil ladies ripping off dudes.
Did that last bit sound a little … MRAish to you?
Though this discussion isn’t in the Men’s Rights subreddit., ChaChaKrahp shares a lot of opinions and obsessions with the MRA crowd, peppering the discussion with MRA talking points on everything from dangerous jobs and breast cancer funding to false rape accusations and paternity fraud. While he claims not to “give a shit about MRA groups,” he links to prominent Father’s Rights site fathersandfamilies.com, and rails endlessly about the evils of feminism. He walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
While ChaChaKrahp seems quite sincere in his beliefs, this is the Internet, and so there’s a chance that this “brothel owner” is not actually a brothel owner at all, just some dude making this all up for Reddit karma points and lulz.
Even if that’s the case, we still have all those hundreds of Redditors who read his comments and happily upvoted them, either because they thought what he said was sensible or true, or because the thought of owning a brothel in Thailand gave them boners.
The question remains: does Reddit attract the worst representatives of those in its heavily young, male, geek demographic, or is this how most of these (mostly) guys really think — even if they don’t usually say so out loud?
(Thanks to ShitRedditSays for pointing me to this lovely thread.)
EDITED TO ADD: Brothel Owner under attack (by a few people)! Send in the r/mensrights upvote brigade to upvote him even more than he’s already being upvoted!!!
Predicted genre whiplash occured btw, if anyone’s interested. Currently: Lushlife’s “Adult Goth” with Heems.
While we’re on Heems, any Das Racist fans here? They’re one of my favourite currently-going-somewhere groups at the moment.
Lauralot, listening to Brigitte Fontaine, “Les beaux animaux”
Marvo Ging by The Chemical Brothers
“Look, I guess we’d just disagree. I don’t find his story to be that big of a deal.”
And that tells us everything that we need to know about you. Now go away and get the therapy that you so desperately need.
Moving on, I just made a really awesome stir fry – chicken and mushrooms in black bean sauce.
Ooh, ooh, a music conversation! I can do that.
I have lately been rotating between Florence + the Machine and the Muppets soundtrack. Was anyone else disappointed in the second Florence album relative to the first? Also, the other day I followed a recommendation on iTunes and ended up downloading an album by The National, whom I had never previously heard of. For someone who was totally obsessive about musicians when she was younger, there is something oddly refreshing about listening to someone I know absolutely nothing about. I don’t know the names of the musicians, or where they’re from, or what other stuff they’ve done, or what they look like, or anything. The songs are entirely free from any sort of context.
Oh, and I’m also putting together a… can I still call it a mixtape? I think of them as mixtapes, even though I’ll be burning it to CD… anyway, I’m putting together a playlist for my boyfriend, since his birthday and our 6-month anniversary are both coming up. Finding relatively lighthearted, non-codependent love songs is actually quite challenging. Anyone have any suggestions? I’m including stuff like:
– Talking Heads, “This Must be the Place”
– Florence + the Machine, “All This and Heaven Too”
– Lightning Seeds, “Pure”
– Muppets soundtrack, “Life’s a Happy Song”
My task is complicated by the fact that I have made similar playlists for other people, and don’t feel comfortable repeating songs. This is not a downside of polyamory that people often mention.
And now I’m listening to…
(PS, in reference to the other thread – feminists are totally anti-sex, you guys, which explains why I would like to rip the main singer here’s pants off with my teeth.)
Mix CDs! I still do those, for use on car trips. It’s fun finding old ones, since it tells me what I was listening to during particular time periods.
P.M. Dawn, On a clear day
Let’s just agree to disagree, people. You think being murdered is a big deal, I think it isn’t, OK?
@ burgandy
The Cure – Friday I’m In Love
I’m currently listening to keyboard cat 🙂
MRAL, posting this for your reference, please do yourself a favour as men are notoriously bad at seeking help: http://bu.edu/cwc/contact.html
Also Just Like Heaven.
And I’ve decided that industrial isn’t the best thing to listen to before I try to sleep, so I’ve switched to the ever wonderful They Might Be Giants:
Lowquacks, that’s the way to do it. It’s like you’re listening to the world’s craziest DJ, except they’re somehow magically only playing songs you like.
After Ms.Fontaine, some completely obscure African music I found on a blog. Then an old Bollywood song sung by Asha Bhosle. Now Jane’s Addiction.
We could do best non-creeptastic songs about sex…
PJ Harvey and Liz Phair both have some pretty awesome songs about sex. Look up the lyrics for “Flower”, but not at work.
Also Just Like Heaven.
I love that song so fucking much.
@burgundy
I’m surprised you haven’t heard of The National. They had a #1 album and saturation-level hype in at least the part of the internet I frequent.
Interesting question with the mixtape thing. I’m making a few for friends who are going away to university at the moment based around their chosen majors, and I’m having similar trouble getting everything just right.
I had a playlist of essentially “relatively lighthearted, non-codepedent love songs” somewhere, but it looks to have disappeared. Sorry about that. I think it opened with Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “How Do You Do It?”, if that helps.
lowquacks – I love maine coons too! My dad has three, Sa, Bob and Tom, they are the sweetest, fluffy, purr-muffins in the universe. Sam is the only cat I’ve ever met that comes when called and greets everyone at the door.
katz – my Encyclopedia of Cats book lists Siberians as Siberian Forest Cats, so I would make a guess that Siberians are Russian versions of the Norwegians or vice versa.
Ma Rabu , the Maccabeats