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.
@Mags, Why do you feel the need to justify the behavior of abusive assholes? And why do you think people who criticize abusive assholes “don’t care about men?” Some of us criticize abusive assholes no matter the gender, and don’t make excuses because they’re “hurting and confused.”
as soon as you said “entitled” i pretty much knew your argument was going to be a polemic. That fact that you don’t care about men, but would take to the streets to help women, is just about as much as i need to know.
I didn’t say I would help women and not men. It’s interesting that you agree men are the more entitled group in this situation, even as you mock the idea of even talking about entitlement.
There’s a surefire way to never have a woman take a condom and impregnate herself.
Yep: have sex only with other men. One wonders why MRAs don’t advocate this more often.
I agree. For example, many feminists here on this site criticize Jezebel for its misandric and air-headed posts. Holly criticized Cracked.com on its whole “men are essentially more horny” etc. stuff (the Topic is Manboobz.freeforums). And when frustrated posters go too far in their comments other members will tell them its not cool.
And on YouTube as far as I know many prominent feminists there make it very clear that they are not radical feminists. And they are very critical of radical feminists like the infamous nuclearnight, who once bullied a man who had been raped because they disagreed on some trivial topic. Other radical feminists rebuked are Andrea Dworkin and Gail Dines.
Some even support “moderate MRAs” like Warren Ferral. I personally don’t agree with everything he says but he addresses men’s issues in a way that is constructive and intelligent and he wishes for both men and women to escape from harmful and restrictive gender roles.
So far, even the briefest of forays into the MRM via r/mensrights reveals it to be a den of misogyny, inverted priorities, and lack of critical thinking. I’m Whiffling_Tulger here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/rvp5f/ryan_gosling_saves_feminist_from_being_run_over/
You’ll notice my comment quoting the person whom the OP both concerns and pretty blatantly lies about has 0 points, and other voices of reason are consistently downvoted, while comments that simply agree with the OP and/or openly wish for Laurie Penny’s death are consistently upvoted.
How does this “movement” expect to gain traction when it is aggressively anti-reason?
This whole situation just keeps getting better and better.
Now, the MRAs are flooding everything related to it in order to squawk about how, of course, they didn’t believe the post. I kept an eye (a very amused one) on that post and nearly all of them were doing exactly as Eschaton described: lapping it up ferociously and calling any Evil Feminazi (re: non MRA) a horrible person and a victim blamer for noticing not only the date, but the beautifully crafted and ludicrous content of the post. They called SRS misandrists, etc for saying there’s no way that post was true. Now we’re misandrists because thanks to their embarassment- they’d like to pin the blame on us somehow. If just by proxy.
I thought of this stuff because I was reading an article about the modern Ku Klux Klan (which is about 60 really pathetic people), and they used almost exactly the same reasoning and excuses. “Sure, I’m hate-filled and bigoted and threaten violence against innocent people, but I have to be this way! Society has forced me! Because black people! I’m the victim here!”
@Tulgey
Because most people simply aren’t appealed to by reason. A visceral reaction is much more effective.
A single mensrights thread makes me appreciate Manboobz about ten times more.
I mean seriously: you guys are awesome, and they are aggressively crummy.
NEVER LET ME TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED AGAIN!
What happened to country and blues? Did they go extinct when I wasn’t looking?
Tulgey, I just looked at that thread. Holy moley. Also, that National Review piece was totally disgraceful.
Timid Atheist: the sperm stealing wasn’t rape. The bit where he claimed that his girlfriend was trying to blackmail him into having unprotected sexual intercourse with him by threatening to have him arrested if he didn’t – which David Futrelle completely omitted to mention – was the attempted rape.
The vast majority of MRAs (don’t throw innocent men in with that lot) are only against random violence against women. They’re against violence that has no justification.
But as soon as you throw in even the flimsiest, goofiest whisper of a possible excuse–she was fighting him for custody, she was going to spermjack him, she was uppity and mouthy, she acted in an offensive play, she wanted to be equal to men–then they’re all for violence.
They say “I wouldn’t hit a woman… unless I was provoked,” but fucking everything a woman does provokes them.
Meanwhile, neither the boob lord nor his flock could offer any response to this question:
We both know that the April fool’s theft was a hoax. However ..
As a thought experiment, what legal recourse did that young man have at the moment that his (fake) GF was running off with his (make believe) genetic material in order to impose a (nonexistent) 18 year sentence of indentured servitude?
You say a tummy punch is the WRONG thing to do. Fine. What is the RIGHT thing to do?
I don’t agree with violence, and I think anyone who condones the tummy punch is misguided (if anyone really believed the April fool’s joke, which I doubt). However, the (fake) story has made me think. What should a young man do (if such a thing really happened)?
What do YOU think? And what about your flock? What do THEY think?
Makomk – The blackmail happened after he’d punched her. (Also it’s a moot point because it’s a story made up specifically to troll MRAs, and none of this happened. Except the MRAs going “YAY AN EXCUSE TO PUNCH A WOMAN.”
—
AntZ – The right thing to do is nothing, because the odds of her getting pregnant that way are astronomical.
The right thing to do if she does is get a lawyer.
But if it makes you feel better, it’s okay to punch women who wear green shirts on a Thursday and use the word “irregardless” too much. Because I know you need some loophole, right?
1. Point out sperm are extremely fragile and that her chances of getting pregnant from a condom of jizz is nearly nil.
1a. Stall her and persuade her to drop the used condom. Gently, using words and similar arguements to 1. Dispose of condom.
2. Break up with her and never see her again.
I kinda based step 1 and 1a on how my partner gets me to put the computer down when I’m getting a bit obsessive. Step 2 for obsessive computer use is slightly excessive.
Also, for the millionth time, guys, $300/month for a literally 24/7 job? Not exactly a jackpot.
Paying $300/month in exchange for 24/7 care of your child, payable only if you can, not actually collected in more than half of cases? Not exactly indentured servitude.
I think it’s perfectly possible to hold people responsible for their actions while at the same time identifying social issues that might be one of the underlying causes for those actions being more or less prevalent. For instance, I think many men are ill-served by the standards of toxic masculinity we are subjected to, which may well lead to a higher incidence rate of violence than there would otherwise be.
AntZ…
If this was a real scenario… let me even change it up a bit…
I tell some guy that I am going to force him to bring a child into the world against his will… and one punch could stop that…
ABSOLUTELY he should punch to me stop that.
I didn’t bother commenting on that aspect because the whole thing is bullshit. Also taking a condom to get pregnant, I doubt that even works.
But yes, if I were to force someone to be parent to a child knowingly and completely against their will. That violence in my opinion is justified, and especially one punch.
It’s a LIFE. It’s forcing someone to be a parent against their will. It is a violation that would be tough to find a good analogy for, and one that justifies force. I’m not talking about when unprotected sex was had, I’m talking about a sperm stealing situation, if that could be done. I think it’s very very serious. It’s life. If someone got a woman pregnant and forced her to term, same thing. If that could be stopped with one punch, same thing.
I take having children very seriously and producing children very seriously, I’m actually an anti natalist.
@ indifferentsky
Thank you for your honesty.
I actually don’t know what I would do. If I lived in Britain, I could use a new law called the “Human Tissue Act”, which ironically was passed by feminists to prevent “fathers” from obtaining paternity tests. In this situation, the mother would be liable for 50,000 a pounds fine and 5 years in prison, which means the father-by-force could at least (probably) get custody of his child.
So it is said that MRA is a fringe movement, without any real influence.
But then it is said that there is a backlash against women’s rights.
How can this be possible?
@Talacaris: There have been social backlashes against women’s rights for over a century–LOTS of them.
The MRA is an extremist minority that takes the existing ideologies and magnifies them and spews them out openly–that is, they are NOT the only element of society that is against women’s rights.
It’s like how Rick Santorum says openly what the rest of the Republican politicians are too savvy to say straight out!
@Telacaris: Also using the syntax “is it said” is total bullshit.
If somebody says or writes something, attribute it.
Well at least they are somewhat open and honest about theit hatred, partial credit??
“If somebody says or writes something, attribute it.”
Is this a scholarly journal or something? No, so there is no need for proper citations. Besides, both backlashes and MRM influence can be considered common knowledge.