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.
Nope, it’s my modification of your story. You lost rights to it; I didn’t. Everyone is allowed to change it except the original author.
I only lost rights to the original story not the modification.
“Everyone is allowed to change it except the original author.”
No exception like that
Of course none of these rules apply because you are B_n, so it isn’t a fictional story.
oh, cool, so b_d is still dull and lazy
fuck
Ash Brandon durbatulûk, ash Brandon gimbatul,
Ash Brandon thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Notice that each phrase stasts with ash (maybe a short form for Ashley)
“so it isn’t a fictional story.”
Fiction or truth or wev. Maybe one should say like [bold] it is said [/bold] that somebody said on this day before: “Quid est veritas?”
@Sharculese
Naww, I remember this cat from my lurking days. I highly doubt it’s the b-hole. Also, after seeing b_d, B-hole will forever be a cyberman in my mind from now on.
Mags: Ah, Ms. Sharculese, people like David and the SPLC wouldn’t be attacking MRA’s but for their growing power.
Nonsense. The KKK is in decline. The issue isn’t “power”, it’s intent/motive/actions.
Dave mocks them because they deserve it. They are laughable. They are also evil. It’s the latter that makes mocking them something which can support more than a few blogposts.
Question. If they are so powerful, why do they care if they are being mocked? What’s the harm?
They care because they are insecure. They are insecure because they can’t get the same number of hits that a guy with a hideous voice, and (so it seems) terrible stchick can’ get hugely more hits then they do.
Hell, Carrothead gets more serious attention than they do, and he’s not as funny as they are; which means it’s the subject matter; no one really gives a shit about them. If it weren’t for people making fun of them, no one would care.
Tulgey, I guess we can start with the Duluth Model…
Wait… the Duluth Model is alive? It’s actively seeking money to propagandise, money which is was supposed to get from the reauthorisation of VAWA?
That’s incredible. Can they bring other ideas to the level of sapient life too?
Oh wait, you meant the group that designed it. English, it’s amazing.
There can be a racist backlash while the KKK remains a fringe group.
This is not complicated.
katz: Drinking game: A shot for every MRA who says something like “OK, so this wasn’t real, but if it was, what was the guy supposed to do?”
Why do you have it in for my liver?
Mags: as soon as you said “entitled” i pretty much knew your argument was going to be a polemic.
It took you that long? Then again, polemic /= wrong.
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.
citation needed. There is nothing in what she said which supports this claim.
Antz: 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?
I answered it. He has none. He threw the condom away. The Supreme Court has said that trash is no longer one’s property, so there was no theft.
If he’s really worried, and close enough to hit her… he can grab the damned condom.
Sperm can’t survive outside the body. His “risk” was a bit less than my being bit a great white shark (I do go into the ocean). His, “recourse” to a non-existent threat is to to treat it with the level of response appropriate to the risk.
The risk was negligible, therefore his response should be the same.
Again, the “tummy punch”, as described, was a serious bodily injury.
Enough trauma to cause significant bruising on the abdomen would be a time that you really need to be seen by a physician pretty fast.
That’s from a physician. A guy who deals with sports medicine. That’s what you are so cutely calling a, “tummy punch”.
But you, Mr. Science, with 21 publications you dare not give titles to (why? Is your worry that your views on VR, and gender separtism might come to light; perhaps your wife might find out about them, or your mother?), can’t be arsed to take five minutes and look at the facts.
Rather you would pose loaded questions about, “involuntary servitude” based on ridiculous hypotheses (you, the guy who was sad that his student chose a, “dead end” science of observation and analysis, rather than the manly one of drug design you wanted her to. It gave you a sad).
That’s why you get laughed at. It’s not that you are an MRA; it’s that even for an MRA you fail at logic, reasoning and consistency.
talacris: “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
Nope, it’s a place where people debate. “It is said” is a dodge. It’s a chickenshit way to say your piece, while pretending it’s, “common knowledge”. It’s dismissible on it’s face. It will get you laughed at more than being wrong will be, because you don’t any of the courage of your convictions. A position which isn’t controversial (that there is an apparent disparity between thing A [The MRM being a fringe] and thing B [a backlash against women being equal]) you choose to use weasel words to keep from being responsible for.
What is it you think will happen? That people will be mean to you? Not for that.
For being an idiot, and trying the passive aggressive shit in the comment that heads this comment, yes. The actual question you posed, no.
Jefrret: The flaw isn’t. MRA’s think hitting women is ok. It’s not that the rest of us think hitting women is off limits, but hitting men isn’t.
Me, I think there are situations in which violence is acceptable I don’t make a distinction. MRAs do. Our very own David K Meller (super genius), says “violence against women is wrong, and no man who love his woman would use it, because there are better ways to train her, but if a man is violent, we have to take into account the ways in which she pushed him into it.”
Why?
Because any man who hits a woman has to have been goaded. He even says women do it on purpose, to make the man hit her. He thinks they like.
NWO says men need to hit women. That any offense a woman commits needs to be responded to with more force than she used. If she speaks out of turn, hit her. If she hits a man, he should knife her.
If she’s too sexy, she should be raped.
That’s what’s wrong. That they make the disctintion that hitting men is bad, but hitting women is ok.
Holly Pervocracy: unless I’m missing something, he claimed that she was using him punching her to blackmail him into having sex with her. He also claimed that he was desperate and thinking of giving into that blackmail. The troll then went and – apparently successfully – portrayed r/MensRights as misogynist for not calling him hitting her evil when the only plausible consequence of them doing so would’ve been to convince him that he deserved to be raped.
Very effective, since the members were understandably unwilling to take the risk that he might not be lying. Would probably have worked just as well if the troll was claiming to be a woman to be honest.
the part you’re not understanding is where you think this is the ‘only plausible consequence’.
except for the part where every sane person noticed how completely fake the story sounded. it’s almost as if r/mensrights will believe anything so long as it makes women look sinister…
Another shot, I think.
A whole bunch of them did conclude trolling at the time. In fact, let me quote how one of the regulars who was offering advice replied at the time to the suggestions that it was a troll: “It could be a troll. It could also be a really dumb kid who’s got himself into a dumb predicament. If it’s the former, well, I’ve just wasted a little time. If it’s the latter, he needs the help.”
makomk: r/MensRights as misogynist for not calling him hitting her evil when the only plausible consequence of them doing so would’ve been to convince him that he deserved to be raped.
False dichotomy.
It’s perfectly legitimate to say, hitting her was wrong, and she was wrong to then try to extort him into unprotected sex.
Had they said that, then no such charge of misogyny as you say was inevitable, would have been possible.
He would need the help because he beat someone and is now concerned with a ‘false accusation’ of violence.
That word does not mean what you think it means.
Others have covered how implausible your plausible consequence is, so I’m just going to go with ….. WHAT?
@pecunium: legitimate but ineffective. The troll was insisting that he was already considering giving into her blackmail; making a big deal out of him hitting her could only increase the risk of that in the off-chance he wasn’t trolling. It’s not like it would even have helped their reputation. The way SRS and Manboobz work is that they just pretend any evidence that contradicts their viewpoint doesn’t exist and none of their readers hear about it; that’s why the comments suspecting him of trolling weren’t mentioned here, and you don’t hear about r/MensRights discussions like the one where a woman posted claiming to have been raped and asking for advice. The only difference is that the troll would have had to stick to just accusing r/MensRights of not caring about him hitting her instead of accusing them of failing to call him out on it. Big difference.
@Rutee Katreya: he would need the help because his girlfriend would’ve been using the threat of having him arrested to try and coerce him into sex. That’s way up there on the list of warning signs that your partner is an abuser.
It is said is not always a dodge…after all it is said cookies are good.
😛
MAKOMK SAYS:
LIAR
“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.” -DAVID FUTRELLE AUTHOR OF MANBOOBZ
this quote can be found HERE
http://manboobz.com/2012/04/03/mens-rights-redditors-defend-a-guy-who-says-he-punched-his-sperm-stealing-girlfriend/
Exactly in the spot where you claim it’s not.
FUCK OFF.
From David’s first post about the trolling :
http://manboobz.com/2012/04/03/mens-rights-redditors-defend-a-guy-who-says-he-punched-his-sperm-stealing-girlfriend/