So it turns out that the heartbreaking yet highly implausible story of attempted spermburgling that got the Men’s Rights subreddit so riled up on the first of the month … was in fact fake.
Mr. ineedhelpnow1234 himself wrote me a note today alerting me to a post on his blog explaining the whole thing, and why he did it. Some highlights:
I wanted to reveal just how twisted these men can be in the pursuit of their agenda so I came up with a story they could not resist. …
The spermjacker trope is irresistible to “men’s rights” activists because they believe they are perfect Darwinian examples of masculinity and as a result are irresistible to the hormonally irrational schemers that make up womankind. Narcissism and misogyny collide to make a toxic brew.
Oh, and I added the twist that this man punched his girlfriend so hard in the stomach that she bruised. Surely such fierce proponents of “gender equality” would not support violence against women. Right?
Well, we all know how that turned out. Ineedhelpnow1234/the blogger Eschatology continued:
The “men’s rights” movement is morally bankrupt. It is made up of people who support hitting women. It is made up of people who refuse to say it is wrong to hit women. It is made up of people who are so paranoid of women that they think people actually talk like this:
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.
Attention MRA’s: You have all exposed yourselves as rotten human beings and you have discredited your movement (again). …
I wrote this story by stitching together nearly every cliche I have ever come across in the “men’s rights” movement. I tried to see if the MRAs had any line they would not cross. Apparently they do not. Looks like the SPLC made a good call.
Heck, even after they got called out for supporting the (imaginary) puncher, both here and on Jezebel, and were roundly mocked for believing such an utterly ridiculous tall tale, this is about as close as any Men’s Rights redditor got to criticizing the punch that never was:
He panicked and hit her. Sure he should have just have restrained her and took the condom out of her hands but we’re human and its not like he continually beat her into a pulp.
Yep, no big deal, “its not like he continually beat her into a pulp.”
The comment containing that line got 11 upvotes, and zero downvotes.
The Men’s Rights Movement, beyond the pale — but also beyond parody.
EDITED TO ADD: The Men’s Rights regulars respond to the big reveal here. They are apparently determined to learn absolutely nothing from the whole episode. At the moment this is the most highly upvoted comment:
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: Ineedhelpnow1234/Eschatology posted about this in the TwoXChromosomes subreddit, Naturally, a small horde of r/mensrightsers invaded the thread and pooped all over it.
While Mags is right that most men are against violence, most MRAs are not. Thankfully, MRAs are a fringe element outside the internet.
“…most MRAs are not [against violence]…”
Based on nothing more than your bias against MRAs.
“The genius of feminism is poisening the political culture into believe that most men are violent and rapists.”
For someone who knows so much about feminism, you sure have a difficulty acknowledging the numerous instances in which your misconceptions about it have been corrected by people on this very blog, Mags.
And by knows so much, I mean “apparently not a lot so I’m not actually surprised by the rest of this paragraph.”
Not grammatical, but you get my point.
Mags, keep telling yourself that MRAs are powerful, maybe it’ll happen someday. I may grow wings and fly. You never know.
Based on I can fucking read their words and realize that they don’t like women.
Hellkell, tell your fabled analysis to the propogandists infuriated that federal money is not yet forthcoming to fund their hate speach from the reenactment of of VAWA.
Is this a reaction to Agent Orange (an elderly Pompano Beach man) lying about being a man, a rabid MRA man, snaking into a private thread on a site limited to women, and copying the stuff he didn’t like, then trumpeting it around like a male elephant in musth? I don’t know Eschatology, but the karma thing keeps happening to these MRAs lately.
WTF, Mags? Was that English? Got a link clarifying your gibberish?
What VAWA-funded hate speech is that?
Hmm. I would consider anyone who sabotaged birth control – whether an abusive boyfriend is poking holes in condoms or an obsessive girlfriend secretly stops taking the Pill – to be committing rape by deception. The partner consented to sex on the understanding that it was protected; they wouldn’t have consented if they’d known it was not.
Stealing a used condom out of the garbage in hopes of using it for a kind of half-assed in vitro? Still a terrible thing to do on the slim chance it works, but rape? More of a stretch.
Tulgey, I guess we can start with the Duluth Model…
No. It doesn’t.
Indeed; we are only mortal, after all.
I see nothing indicating the Duluth Model is ‘hate speech’. I mean, not that you give a shit, you happily endorse it by MRAs, but your fictions are apparently extending further and further.
I’m not seeing anything on theduluthmodel.org that comes anywhere near hate speech.
it’s telling that these are the things you point to instead of any actual achievements or successes. (since you don’t have any, and all)
people pointing out that you’re hateful whiners isn’t evidence of anything except that people have noticed that you’re a bunch of hateful whiners
but seriously, keep thumping your chest and demanding admittance to the big kids club. like i said, it’s actually kind of adorable.
Rutee, go sell in on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.
Tell it to Dutton and Corvo:
“Duluth believes in gender shaming as an intervention technique. We believe that it is based on an extreme, negative, and polarized view both of men and abusive men. For a review of the bedrock fundamentalist ideology of radical feminism, see Corvo and Johnson (2003).”
The Duluth Model is gendered when it really shouldn’t be, but the solution there is to MAKE A FUCKING VERSION OF THE DULUTH MODEL THAT USES THEY INSTEAD.
I mean. Christ.
As far as making a bad call, huh. I got out of the boat and was reading one of the very right-wing blogs the other day about the death of Andrew Breitbart. The comments were about how he was obviously murdered (by causing a heart attack). The views were: if he was found to have a suspicious drug in his system, he was murdered. If he was found to have no suspicious drug in his system, he was murdered because the left-wing obviously would use a drug that couldn’t be detected. When you’re dealing with people like that, there is no way to change their minds.
I think many MRAs are like that. Yes, they will probably remember only the story, not that it was a troll on them, but it did show how quick they are to believe a man, even one posting such a silly story, as long as he reinforces all their hatreds and fears of women.
i’ve only ever seen this particular bit of nonsense from owlslave, and i’m actually kind of surprised that anyone less bugfuck than him believes it. although i guess he has to get his fever dreams from somewhere.
like any other coalition of bigots, mra’s try extremely hard to co-opt the language of anti-oppression. like with every other coalition of bigots, the whole world notices how transparent this is, and doesn’t give it any credence.
It made me laugh, which is +250 lifetime happiness points and gets you a “made random Internet person laugh” moodlet.
guys did you know that appending some academic looking citations to something automatically makes it credible*
*this message brought to you by the high council of gullible-land
“[O]ut of context assertions mean nothing to me.”
-Myself, Just Now (2012)
If you want context, sweet cheeks, feel free.
Dutton, D. G., & Corvo, K. (2007). The Duluth model: A data-impervious paradigm and a failed strategy. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(6), 658-667
Here is apparently the citation in that quote:
http://lab.drdondutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CORVO-K.-DUTTON-D.G-CHEN-W.Y.-2008-TOWARDS-EVIDENCE-BASED-PRACTICE-WITH-DOMESTIC-VIOLENCE-PERPETRATORS.pdf
I can tell that quote is routinely used, because when you type “corvo and johnson” into google, the second suggestions is “corvo and johnson 2003” and that link is the top result.