So the other day – on the day colloquially known as “April Fools Day” – a Redditor using a throwaway account posted a most unlikely story to the Men’s Rights subreddit. Under the self-explanatory headline “My girlfriend just tried to steal a used condom to impregnate herself and is now threatening to call the police on me. PLEASE Help!” the newly minted Redditor ineedhelpnow1234 told his tale of woe.
Earlier in the day, he wrote, he and his girlfriend
had sex and I got up to go the bathroom and throw the condom out and then went back to bed. She got dressed and also went to the bathroom. I could see when she stepped out that she had something in her hand. I asked her what it was and she started yelling how she had the used condom and she was “finally going to get the baby I deserve” and then started running for [the] door.
Apparently that’s how women talk in MRA-land.
And then ineedhelpnow1234 added a rather important detail he somehow neglected to include in the headline:
I freaked out and ran after her and caught her at the door. My mind was racing, and she was about to get out. I panicked and hit her in the stomach and then took the condom forcibly from her hands.
Emphasis mine. He continued:
I’m not proud of what I did, but I was FREAKED out in the moment and she was about to escape and I just did what I thought I needed to do.
She caught her breath and left and now she’s been calling (I haven’t answered) and texting me saying she’s going to call the police and have me arrested unless I have sex with her without a condom.
Later, she allegedly left him this alleged voicemail message:
You fucking bastard, how dare you punch me for what I’m entitled to! Call me the minute you get this god damn message or I’ll call the fucking police and end your future. CALL MEEEE
Naturally, there were more than a few readers who looked at this tale – filled with credibility-straining details that seemed tailor-made to arouse MRA indignation — with a skeptical eye, and called “troll” on the whole thing. But quite a few of the locals took the story seriously, and offered serious advice.
Some simply repeated the standard dude advice “don’t stick your dick in crazy” and others, with a little more imagination, suggested that in the future he carry around hot sauce to squirt into his used condoms lest another lass try the same dastardly sperm-stealing trick.
But quite a few of the advice-givers recommended that he simply lie about his assault, and pretend it never happened. DisRuptive1 thought that simple denial would be enough to get him off the hook:
HateAllThePeople suggested that he go on the offensive:
NotC – presumably also not a lawyer – suggested that the impending threat of spermjack-blackmail would allow him to get a pass on the whole punching-her-in-the-stomach thing. But that he should lie about the incident that never took place anyway, wink wink.
Others offered their heartfelt support:
And suggested that they would have done the same thing:
One commenter had the temerity to suggest it was a tad hypocritical for all these Men’s Rightsers to suggest that a man lie to protect himself. But that commenter was quickly shot down.
Luciansolaris was one of the few who suggested the OP fess up to the assault – and defend it in court both as a logical and justifiable reaction to the situation, and as a case of temporary insanity.
I may have missed it, but I don’t think there was a single comment suggesting that, even under the circumstances, punching a girl in the stomach so hard it leaves a bruise was a terrible thing for this probably fictitious spermjackee to do.
A most revealing discussion, Men’s Rightsers.
EDITED TO ADD: ineedhelpnow1234 has returned to r/mensrights to tell everyone that 1) he’s not a troll and that 2) he was arrested. Make of it what you will.
AntZ – Proving that someone else made it up is not the same as proving that it’s true.
“Look, here’s a video of someone telling the same lie!”
Super mega convincing.
Translated Antz: YOU ARE ALL SO IRRELEVANT AND DESPERATE LET ME MAKE IRRELEVANT, DESPERATE POSTS TO PROVE IT.
BIGOTS BIGOTS BIGOTS
Also, AntZ, FYI, that whole “I invented a male pill but the feminists suppressed it” thing is very typical quack bullshit.
Real medications aren’t invented by lone freedom fighters; real medications are invented, generally, by large collaborations among scientists who publish their work every step of the way.
Someone claiming they invented a medication alone, then claiming that they can’t show it to you because of an evil conspiracy, is a liar. The “it was a natural product so Big Pharma didn’t like it because they couldn’t make as much money as their evil synthetics” thing just makes me even more certain this guy’s a complete liar.
You can read more about the discovery of the male BC pill here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossypol
Here is the wiki page for the inventor of thsi technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsimar_M._Coutinho
Initial work with the MBC demonstrated a number of unacceptable side effects, but the low dose Nofertil pill had only one documented side effect (permenent infertility in 10% of users). This is an acceptable risk to many men. The pill is non-homronal, and should have been available long ago. Feminist opposition kept it off the market. Accrding to the man who invented it.
If you have any questions, ask me. I speak fluent portuguese.
Zarat, you speak fluent bullshit.
BIGOT.
Jesus, Zarat, I can’t figure out whether you’re mostly stupid or mostly gullible.
Meh. Why choose?
All that and I have a cape too!
Okay!
Por que está tão disposto a acreditar em mentiras aleatórias na internet, mas apenas os que fazem as mulheres ficarem mal?
…Anyway, I’m all for a male birth control pill, although not one that causes hypokalemia and unintended permanent sterility. I think men absolutely should have that option, for a whole host of reasons. So if Betty Friedan really said “OOGY BOOGY EAT ALL THE PENISES ALSO NO MALE BIRTH CONTROL”, then, well, I disagree with her.
Funny, the wiki on gossypol makes no mention of feminism keeping the male pill from market, it was the side effects that did that.
How dumb are you again, Zarat?
“in the mid-1990s, the Brazilian pharmaceutical company Hebron announced plans to market a low-dose gossypol pill called Nofertil, but the pill never came to market. Its release was indefinitely postponed due to unacceptably high rates of permanent infertility. Between five and twenty-five percent of the men remained azoospermic up to a year after stopping treatment. The longer the men had taken the drug and the higher their overall dosage, the more likely the men were to have lowered fertility or to become completely infertile. Researchers have suggested that gossypol might make a good non-invasive alternative to surgical vasectomy.[7]”
Maybe you think that men are okay with becoming infertile at the rate of 5-25% of them but I do not think that the average man would be that okay with it.
And the other side effects sound horrifying.
What do you say to a 13 year old boy who owes the woman who assaulted him a crippling 18 year ransom?
I had to Google this, as it sounded like one of the many axes that MRAs grind which turn out to be toothpicks when you actually look at the information.
Along the way, I found this fascinating case in The boundaries of her body: the troubling history of women’s rights in America, by Debran Rowland:
This was, apparently a birth control FAIL rather than spermjacking, but both seem to be treated equally in MRA eyes. Every sperm is sacred, before, during and after ejaculated into a thieving vagina.
With regard to the 13-year-old having to pay child support after being sexually assaulted, a Kansas court did in fact rule, in State ex rel. Hermesmann v. Seyer that Shane Seyer was liable for financial support of a child he fathered with Colleen Hermesmann, who was a 16 year old babysitter he was in a consensual “liaison” with for several months starting when he was 12.
Interestingly, it was the State of Kansas which brought suit when Hermesmann sought AFDC benefits. Hermesmann wasn’t gold-digging, just trying to support her child.
Translated Antz: NO READING COMPREHENSION AND LIES.
I DON’T SPEAK ASSHAT BUT I CAN IF YOU LIKE.
WTF ZARAT!!! You campaign all you want for that shit, I’m sticking to my condoms… as soon as i stop rocking in this corner.
Yo, show of hands, all the feminists here (the ones actually here, not the ones being quoted by a Yahoo Answers troll quoting a misogynist crackpot), who opposes male birth control?
I don’t!
RE: Anthony
Boy, you can’t even speak truth in English! Why the hell would Portuguese make any difference?
Also, totally unrelated, why the hell should it matter if it’s non-hormonal? Are cis men really so whiney about their precious testosterone levels that it can’t ever be touched? Sheesh, I wanna make ’em be trans for a week and have their health insurance ditch them.
I’m all for any male BC pill that doesnt have me playing russian roulette every time I pop it
RE: Holly
I HAVE my male birth control! It’s called testosterone. 😀
Oh wait, you mean cis men. Yeah, sure, they can have it too.
Go go male birth control! Go go people controlling their own bodies! But I have the same question as Rogan — why is hormonal BC for men so incredibly terrible? I mean, if something non-hormonal has less side-effects, then that’s awesome, but I take hormonal BC every day. I’d love it if there were better options out there for me, but there aren’t, so I’ll take what I can get.
I got the feeling the whole ‘non hormonal’ thing is basically Kaguya’s Impossible Requests: MRA Edition. Women wanted birth control pills; that they were hormonal can suck (And sometimes doesn’t), but not as much as having a kid. When non-hormonal pills aren’t instantly rolled out, they can cry MISANDRY. Heck, if there’s hormonal birth control they can, because OMG MY PRECIOUS TESTOSTERONE THE FEMINISTS ARE TRYING TO EMASCULATE US.
Male birth control: Absolutely for it! I just don’t want it to be horribly unsafe.
Not to derail all this amazing MRA fanfiction with actual news… but I am totally shocked to learn that the school shooter here in the East Bay had issues with women, and definitely did not see that coming the minute I heard about the shootings.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/04/MNLR1NU3F1.DTL
The teacher, Romie Delariman of San Leandro, said Goh didn’t fit in at a college where women make up the vast majority of the nursing faculty and student body.
Delariman said Goh – a former construction worker with a string of debts but no criminal record that would keep him from buying a gun – was a good and eager student. But he added, “He just can’t deal with women. … I always advised him, ‘You go to school to learn, not to make friends.’ “
Six of the seven people he murdered were women.
I’ve had a vasectomy since age 20 and never regretted it. However, if there were a reversible option I might have gone for it, just in case.
In every instance where I’ve played “what if” with a partner about conceiving, we’ve ended up on the side of “we wouldn’t do it even if it were possible.” But I’d like that option to be out there for other men, yeah.
I am a feminist, and I am in favor of safe pharmacological birth control options for men. In addition to condoms, which when used correctly are pretty damned effective. And you can fill them with tabasco to prevent spermjacking.
p.s. I invented thumbtacks, the umbrella, and water. Please look for my video on YouTube. If you have questions, ask me. I speak fluent Inuktitut.
I have female birth control, and you know what?
It’s hormonal.
It does affect people’s sex drives.
It does have side effects.
Some of which may be life-changing or potentially even life-ending.
So I’m not much impressed by the pearl-clutching over “male birth control must be totally perfect or no man will take it.” Although I’m not ready to go all the way over to “it’s okay if male birth control causes unintentional sterility and maybe death” like AntZ is, either.
If there were birth control out there for cis men that was moderately safe, I’d be all for it.
I invented the Internet.