[TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of child rape]
Tom Martin is one of the most prominent Men’s Rights Activists in the UK. He’s best known for a failed lawsuit he launched against the London School of Economics, charging the school’s gender studies program with, you guessed it, misandry. The case was thrown out of court this March, and Martin celebrated his defeat by calling a lot of people whores on Twitter and, I am proud to say, in the comments here at Man Boobz.
While Martin, known perhaps ironically as @sexismbusters on Twitter, is clearly more famous in the UK than he is here in the states, this peculiar crusader against what he sees as sexism has been celebrated (and his defeat in court mourned) by numerous Men’s Rights sites on this side of the pond. He’s been discussed many times on the Men’s Rights subreddit, where one supporter declared:
And he’s gotten write-ups on an assortment of other MR sites from The Spearhead to MensActivism.org to one Man Boobz favorite, the now-defunct What Men Are Saying About Women. On the website of the National Coalition for Men, one enthusiastic commenter gushed:
Finaly a real man with balls !!! Not like the rest of us . Tom is my hero .
But the Men’s Rights site that has given Martin the most support has been A Voice for Men, which featured Martin on one of its “radio” shows, reposted an article on Martin’s crusade from his website that seems to have been written by Martin himself (in the third person), offered updates on his lawsuit, and even publicized a recent public debate of his in England. The site has also encouraged people to donate to Martin’s legal fund.
One wonders what these supporters will make of some of the strange and awful things Martin has been saying in the comments here on Man Boobz in recent days. (There is no question that it is really him; he confirmed his identity earlier by emailing me from the account associated with his website Sexismbusters.org, and anyone skeptical of any of this is invited to contact him directly through his website.)
Most of the comments he posted here during his first commenting binge were rather risibly misogynist, frequently punctuated with his favorite epithet “whore,” a designation he feels is an appropriate one for 97% of all women and (he had recently added) for 98% of Man Boobzers of either gender. You can see here or here for numerous examples of Martin’s wit and wisdom – including his argument that hard chairs are discriminatory towards men and his now famous declaration that “female penguins are whores.”
His more recent comments, though, haven’t been funny in the slightest. Martin’s new obsession? Child prostitutes – and why they aren’t victims so much as victimizers, willing participants in an activity that makes them big money. Let me put another TRIGGER WARNING here. This is some of the most repellant material I have ever featured on man Boobz.
Here’s Martin’s opening statement on the subject:
The latest establishment scam in the UK, is to describe child prostitutes as “vulnerable children groomed for sexual exploitation”, then talk about them being “passed around” etc, without mention of the fact that these young people agreed to be whores, and are getting paid for it.
In a followup, he elaborated on this logic:
“Yeah, she offered me a job as a prostitute abroad, which would involve me receiving lots of money for taking cock, so I accepted, became a prostitute, and therefor, according to the official fem definition, this makes me a sex slave”.
Grow up!
Even a 10 year old knows, if someone is paying you for sex, that makes you a whore.
And when he talks about ten year olds here, he means this literally; in his mind, trafficked ten year old children aren’t really victims, but economic actors making an economic choice:
I stand by my statement, that child prostitutes know what they are doing, and therefore deserve to be called prostitutes, not victims.
A progressive European country (either Holland or one of the Scandinavian countries, I remember hearing), introduced in the late 90s, the legal principle of no arbitrary minimum age for consent, rather, the legal requirement to ascertain whether lawful sex had taken place was to establish whether the child or young person ‘understands the meaning of consent’ …
Now, if a ten year old is for instance [specific sexual act redacted] for money up front, then there is very much less question whether that whore understands the meaning of consent or not.
In another comment, Martin suggests that ten-year-olds who have been the victims of what some people insist on calling “real rape” would be offended by anyone thinking that ten-year-old prostitutes suffer from rape – when, after all, the child prostitutes have “agreed” to it.
From the perspective of a child who has actually been raped by an adult, how must it seem, to hear the victim-feminist establishment conflate child rape with child prostitution? The raped child remembers having no choice about participating in the sexual activity, of being forced, and then is asked to consider his or her fate or level of agency as similar or the same as that of a child who marketed them self for sex to an adult, took payment, then performed the act.
I don’t think the average 10 year old genuine rape victim would buy the manboobz style analysis that all child prostitution is rape … .
Questions of genuine agency are complicated, but not complicated enough to pass a 10 year old genuine rape victim’s bullshitometer I posit.
Oh, Martin doesn’t actually think ten year olds should be prostitutes. He thinks they should wait a few years, until they’re at least 14.
Should child prostitution from the ages of 13 up be legal?
Nope. I think that prostitution is a potentially dangerous profession for which a basic qualification in health and safety be required, like an NVQ – and that kind of course would not be attainable until after the minimum of secondary school years are completed, so aged 14, 15, 16, 17 or even 18 or more depending on the country.
The real problem, in his mind, is that young girls try to enter into the business when they should be in school:
States with child prostitution problems should be forced to get these children back into schools to complete their education, and child prostitutes who persist should be treated as school truants, a misdemeanor, and given the carrot and stick approach to get them back on the straight and narrow or go to young offenders institutions. If they want to be prostitutes when they’re old enough, then they can go to the careers advise officer, where the pros and cons of the profession can be laid out, and an application for the training course and license can be given.
Martin mocks the very notion that child prostitutes are being exploited:
Imagine you caught your underage 15 year old daughter on the game, what would you say to her?
“Okay darling, obviously you played no part whatsoever in choosing to be a prostitute yourself, so mummy’s going to help catch the nasty pimp who put you up to this, because what you need to learn is when 15 year old girls accidentally suck cocks for money, they should be compensated, with a bit of victims of crime compensation, and, not forgetting, the original £12 cock-sucking bonanza from the punter. That’s right sweety. Double bubble time. Pass me the phone. Now how does this thing work?”
Or… would you ground the whore for 6 months until she passes all her GCSEs?
Well, given that approximately 98% of manboobzers are whores themselves, I’m guessing you’re probably going to want to blame it all on MRAs.
So prostitution should be legal. But since prostitutes are very bad, they should pay high taxes for the privilege of plying their trade, to keep them poor and in order to repay society for the damage they do:
Prostitutes need to be taxed and licensed so heavily, rendering the profession a relatively poor way of making money.
Anyone who practices as a prostitute without the necessary qualification and license, can go to young offenders institute/jail – just like any other persistent illegal unlicensed trader would.
Anyone working on the sly as an escort, should be hunted down by the taxwoman, and if caught, given a huge bill for tax evasion, as well as a fine, and prison for not having a license. Unlicensed tax-evading prostitutes should be hunted down (which would be easy enough).
Anyone choosing prostitution should pay the highest taxes, and know why those taxes are so high – because of the damage prostitution does to the prostitutes and their customers and their environment and the society.
In a followup comment, Martin sees a silver lining in the form of all the tax revenues that prostitution will bring in:
If licensed hookers pay for a massive license fee and heavy taxes, then some of that money can be ring-fenced to research how best to get women (and girls) to renounce prostitution in all its forms, because let’s face it, a lot of housewhores and princess wannabes could do with a little economic activity-inducing work ethic therapy themselves.
Meanwhile, the customers of underage prostitutes – in other words, the child rapists – should be treated gingerly:
[M]en who pay money to have sex with child prostitutes should not be criminalized – but taken out of circulation and treated compassionately for their condition. I’ve heard that most criminal activity peaks with testosterone levels, in the late teens, but paedophillia is the only crime that increases in frequency as these men get older, indicating a growing pathology for them rather than just a typical immature criminal act.
He offers this final summing up of his twisted argument:
[P]edophiles who pay children for sex are not really rapists, because the child consents, then performs the act, indicating they understand the nature of the contract. The elder is still a pedophiles, but the child prostitute is still a prostitute.
If the child is enslaved – it’s rape, or too young or stupid to know what he or she’s doing – rape. But poor, and in need of food? Not rape. A choice. Unwilling to do other hard labour paying 9 times less than the prostitution route? Not rape. A choice.
He then extends his argument to the rest of the alleged 97% of women who, in his mind, are whores:
Whatever your age, follow the golden rule, of never taking money for sex, then prostitution will be eradicated. Only the prostitute can stop charging for sex.
And of course, that means rejecting courtship gifts, engagement gifts, marriage gifts, divorce gifts, and government largess also.
I don’t think many of you are ready to renounce prostitution in all its forms. …
I know a whore when I see one.
He even returns momentarily to his earlier assertion that female penguins are whores:
Someone or other here said I was anthropomorphising human behaviour onto penguin behaviour by calling penguins whores or something.
But the point is, being a whore, is an animalistic trait, that human females should not need to resort to, given they’re at the top of the fucking food chain already. Google “nuptial gifts” and you can read studies about various animals granting sex to those males who provide the most food, or even the most glittery non-edible trinkets etc, or in the case of penguins, rocks to build nests and shelter with.
I’m saying women are better than penguins, or at least would be if they renounced prostitution in all its forms.
I’m sure the women of the world will be happy to hear that Mr. Martin thinks they are potentially better than penguins.
I doubt many of Mr. Martin’s American supporters are familiar with his elaborate apologia for child rape. I would like to invite Man Boobz readers to show this post, or at least some of the more repellant quotations from it, to the proprietors of the various MRA blogs and MRA forums I have mentioned above.
I wonder if any of his supporters will be willing to renounce him publicly once they know what he has said here – and apparently in some recent public debates as well. Surely no legitimate “human rights movement” would want to be associated with anyone who spouts filth like this.
Coyotes: I grew up in rural Idaho where, coyotes; I live in rural Texas, ditto coyotes (hearing the pack howl on dark starry nights in the summer is incredibly amazing).
Bar rabies, the problems with coyotes we had involved killing and eating chickens; there are also problems for small dogs and cats left outside (we don’t do that). But the same problems (even worse) come from abandoned or feral dogs who pack up (they would attack horses, and people).
The real problem we’re having hot long summer is BUGS. The bugs are all over, and trying to move in. MORE types of spiders than we’ve seen before. Wasply things. Ants invading (a few years ago, my partner found a fire ant hill IN HER CLOSET< AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA).
(Fire ants really bad–I've heard that they can swam and kill newborn animals in the fields if they're too close to a hill–and I've seen hills that are four and five feet high SHUDDER).
We are very interested, I assure you.
Tom’s account above seems a little lacking to me. Here’s a more accurate version.
Ithiliana — officially, psych says participants, period, we’re not having anymore of that Milgram nonsense. Unofficially…everyone still says subjects. It’s more about taking a pseudo ethical stand than wtf the words really mean, or that was the impression I got anyways.
“In my situation, I cite all the individual posts rather than a full blog or community–when I’m analyzing specific posts.”
Yeah, I would too, that might get damned annoying with Tom’s comments though — citing the analysis of them (the OP here) might be easier, I’m not sure it’d really be valid though.
Fire ants in her closet?! *shudder* This thread is causing me to appreciate mosquitoes, as they’re generally not dangerous this far north, and really only a minor pest (watch, I say that now, and doom myself to being a buffet the next time I go out, the little buggers think I’m delicious)
Tulgey Logger – I like how Tom’s little account actually includes several relevant questions he’s never answered, but he just sort of throws them out there like “well of course this is ridiculous.”
The problem – too many women are whoring it.
The solution – someone tries to highlight it to eradicate it.
The manboobzer solution – someone threatens to perform an analysis of the person complaining.
Feminists will never willingly face up to the prostitution ethic constituting so many women’s core.That’s why other more egalitarian groups have to force these pretenders do the work or lose any claim to legitimacy.
Feminists are deeply concerned with being the politically acceptable norm, but with the MRM, and Game, men are learning to call fems out on their hypocrisy – women can retreat, posting videos of fuzzy animals on the internet- or they can engage with the issues, and renounce their old problem – all other excuses are instantly seen through for what they are.
The problem – too many women are whoring it.
Haha nope
The solution – someone tries to highlight it to eradicate it.
That wouldn’t solve the problem even if it was real
The manboobzer solution – someone threatens to perform an analysis of the person complaining.
Because you’re so incredibly wrong that it would be interesting to study you
Finally, after all these centuries, a man brave enough to stand up to 97 percent of women and call them whores.
These are the days of legend.
Tom, what are some ways women can not whore it?
My best guesses are:
-Never receive any kinds of goods or services from another person, paid or unpaid
-Never have sex with anyone
-Never deny anyone sex
-Never ask anyone for anything
-Never want anything from anyone, regardless of whether you ask
Is that what it takes?
Or am I reading wayyyy too much into the ramblings of a guy who doesn’t have anything clearer in his own head than “whores everywhere whoring a whorey whore”?
My best guess: Homeboy’s feverishly taking notes as he reads everyone’s interpretation in an attempt to form some semblance of coherence.
So…the three percent of women who aren’t whores were concieved through cloning right? That way they’ve never had a father to take anything from.
Also, Martin, calling small children whores deserving of whatever treatment they get is disgusting. But nice derail, moving on to grown women as whores
@Cliff: The best I can tell, Tom wants a woman to declare that she has given up the core aspect of her being, WHORING, by which I guess he means we have to declare it all the time.
Maybe get a sign to wear in public?
It’s actually kind of bafflingly horrendously wrong in any realistic sense of the word–I think it’s just there so Tom can smugly declare we’re all whores because we’re not denouncing it.
I still haven’t figured out how feminists benefit from this, mind you, but then I’ve not given much time to it (have a clean kitchen floor though!)
I think you all just don’t understand the novelty and vision of a man trying to solve society’s problems by telling women what to do.
Figures!
Serious questions here Tom — my mother’s favorite anniversary gift (so far) was the time my father got her a vacuum cleaner, because, for once, he just got her what she’d asked for — “whoring it” or not?
And please, I’m dying to know, what’s the exchange rate on paintings to photography? How many hours does one painting buy me? (Does my gender, or the photographer’s, matter here? If so, please explain for all possible options)
Also, gifts — at what age does that start? Is this part of your justification of “child whores” — small children receiving birthday gifts and only giving crayon thank you cards as “payment”? At what age does a gift have to be reciprocated? And what’s the time period on the reciprocation, can it wait until the other person’s birthday? Do they have to cost exactly the same? Even if one person is making substantially more than the other? Even if neither party cares? Again, if gender matters here, explain for all possible options.
Oh and how does sex factor into this? That is, are birthday gifts more or less “whoring it” if they’re reciprocated in gifts, or sexytimes? And how what’s the ratio of dollars/pounds/whatever to orgasms?
And this is the biggie Tom — how is putting an exchange rate on any sex not “whoring it”?!
It’s kinda like, Tom’s misogyny is totally off the charts, but he doesn’t feel misogyny is inherently justifiable so he needs to rationalize it by using some incredibly convoluted mental gymnastics to imbed his misogyny within his whorephobia (also totally off of the charts). Nobody has told dear Tom that whorephobia is also not inherently justifiable.
It’s like he’s saying, “I hate kittens!” and people are like “um that’s fucked up dude” so he’s like “no no I hate them because they all secretly have orange fur!” and it’s like “okay, well, no, that’s pretty obviously wrong, but also what’s wrong with orange furred things” and then he’s like “YOU’RE ALL ORAAAANGE”
This was all much more amusing before he started blaming children for their own exploitation.
I wonder just how detailed Tom’s accounting is. (Presumably it’s a balance sheet with “THEY’RE ALL WHORES” scrawled on it in crayon.) Like, if I stay over at my boyfriend’s house, do I owe him for lodging? Am I a whore for taking up half his bed?
Or, okay, obviously it’s whoredom if my boyfriend lets me eat food out of his fridge. But what if he says “we better eat this today or it’ll go bad, and there’s too much for me to finish?” Am I still whoring away at his food or am I providing trash-disposal services I should get a credit for?
Say my boyfriend stays at my house about as often as I stay at his, but my house has slightly better amenities and is in a prettier neighborhood. Can I assign higher lodging value to my house than his?
Also, if my boyfriend gives me a free house all to myself because I asked real nice and teased that maybe I would show a little nipple, is that… a thing you seriously think ever happens on Earth?
It does bother me (and I know I’ve been doing it too… 🙁 ) that we’ve been answering him so much with “ha ha, obviously I’m not a whore.” Because, hey, some women (and non-women) do sell sex for money, and so what?
He really needs to answer the question of “why is having sex for money worse than, say, cutting hair for money?” before the whole “YOU’RE ALL WHORES” thing is even a bad thing.
Of course, Tom Martin may be on such a whole other level that he thinks cutting hair for money is whoring. Not sure where you go from that.
I think we just need to accept that we are all (well 97% of us at any rate) whores, and embrace the term, rather than rejecting it. Then we can free ourselves from the shackles of being exposed to Tom Martin’s drivel. We can even have our own pride parade:
“We’re whores,
We’re bored,
Get used to it!”
The child prostitute thing, however, is still massively fucked up.
Come to think of it, my wife paid for dinner and a movie on our first date, then 2 months later we had sex. I guess that makes me a whore. Woo hoo!
Some people keep mountain lions as pets too. I ran across this while looking at cat videos on YouTube.
“He really needs to answer the question of “why is having sex for money worse than, say, cutting hair for money?” before the whole “YOU’RE ALL WHORES” thing is even a bad thing.”
In principle, I get your point, in dealing with Tom, I honestly can’t work out how this gift-to-sex things works — is it “whoring it” if the office intern accepts a low-value gift card on zir birthday? Is ze then expected to have sex with the boss? Or are gifts of any sort only allowed if there are no sexytimes? Thus making anyone who’s ever forgotten their wallet into a whore?
Shorter version — I’m too confused to take it seriously, on a serious level though, you’re right.
Simple question here Tom — why are your (hypothetical) strippers worse than your (hypothetical) barber?
(Why does that feel like I just asked “why is a raven like a writing desk?”?)
“Some people keep mountain lions as pets too. I ran across this while looking at cat videos on YouTube.”
…o.O? I’m just going to repeat myself here — people, get fish! — there are plenty of exotic species that will not try to kill you (I still wish I’d had tank space for the $50 lungfish…a frikken’ lungfish!)
@ ShadetheDruid
“why is a raven like a writing desk?” – Argenti
Is this an actual joke/question with an answer? Either way, can you give us the answer so it doesn’t bug me for the next hour? 😛