[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.
Why should any sensible person devote more than a millisecond to the question of whether sex with ten-year-old children constitutes rape? You’d have more luck sustaining an argument about whether water is wet.
@cloudiah *blush*, thank you. (i could barely type when i wrote that comment, i shouldn’t let him get to me)
I am so fuckin’ glad I didn’t donate anything to you, Tom Martin. I considered it when I first heard about your lawsuit, but cash was verrrry tight at the time, so I waited… And then I heard more… and more… and more of your opinions, and now? Fuck off. Seriously.
No video, Tom? 🙁 🙁 🙁
Did the camera get slapped out of your hand by your very first “interview subject”? Bum luck.
I don’t think you really want to pursue this line of reasoning, Tom, given that you’re a child rape apologist.
Alcohol killed the video star?
The First Joe, you are labouring under the illusion that prostitutes don’t get to keep their earnings currently, as if they are “sex slaves” or something. For a men’s rights activist, you’re strongly replicating the dominant discourse, but not the factual discourse. Yes, they pay their pimps a finders fee, or their madam for the room, but that’s the same with all other self-employed people:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
Now Joe, as you’re a men’s rights activist, I expect you to stick to the argument, and tell me exactly why the child prostitutes I quoted earlier who do not feel like rape victims or victims, and understand their business very well… I want you to explain to me why they are lying or wrong. It’s a double standard I know, but as an MRA, I hold you to a higher standard.
Child prostitutes do not get to keep their earnings.
Tom, you do realize that you didn’t actually provide a link to this supposed study about how Mexican children just love to be prostitutes*? Even if someone actually wanted to debate you, they wouldn’t really be able to seeing as how we have no evidence you didn’t make this study up out of thin air.
*I can’t believe I just typed that. Ugh. *vomits* Seriously, how can you think that? Like, how do you have the thought “children like to be prostitutes” and not immediately have your conscience fire off “abort! abort!”?
Incidentally Joe, The English Collective of Prostitutes agree, that prostitution should be regulated and taxed – I’m saying, bring it on – and throw in a training programme to get that license.
If you need to do a criminal background and health check etc to get a minicab license (which costs £400), then you should need more than that to be a sex worker.
Just because you’re an MRA, doesn’t mean you’ve grasped the right end of the stick.
“I don’t think you really want to pursue this line of reasoning, Tom, given that you’re a child rape apologist.”
And see, I was nice enough not to draw that conclusion, because one doesn’t always necessarily follow the other, and in this case I think the child prostitution thing is just an extension of Tom’s general misogyny and obsession with the idea that omg there are whores everywhere and a whore is the worst thing a person can be (plus an added soupcon of racism). But hey, if he’s going to set up that paradigm…
Also, Tom? Read what Joe wrote. That’s a potential paying customer who might have supported your “vocation” who you just lost. You are not doing your movement any favors at all.
Holy shit guys, we might have an actual moderate MRA here! I was beginning to think I’d find a unicorn faster than one of them.
Tom — “Being a prostitute apologist is the same as being a prostitute. Only people who renounce prostitution in all its forms, can be considered non-whore humans.” — I ask you, yet again, what’s so terrible about sex work anyways? As The First Joe pointed out, it’s men that tend to benefit from it, you’d think legalizing and regulating would be on the MRM’s to do list.
The First Joe — yeah, he really said all that, if you follow the links in the OP you can see it in context (where, frankly, it actually looks worse, we were ignoring his mildly annoying claims in favor of more stupid shit from trolls, and then *poof* child rape apologia!) You have kids, or care for kids? It was like a small child’s “look at me, I’m going to stand on the back of the couch” type stunt.
Now, I have a kitten video to go watch, as that divorced cousin’s girlfriend spotted a teeny one on the side of the road, and they now have a teeny tiny rescue kitten. (Should I manage to figure out if the video will link off FB, yes, I’ll share the D’AWW)
i don’t know how to do the fancy link thing so here is the link to a page on the issue facing mexican street children (the first is aimed more at street kids with a learning disability due to the higher incidence of being abandoned, hmmm how would that fact affect your notion of the fully autonomous child eagerly taking up prostitution)
http://www.mexico-child-link.org/street-children-definition-statistics.htm
this second link talks about the high prevalence overall of drug use and HIV
http://www.thebody.com/content/art29534.html
hmmm, quite the jet set lifestyle
oh yeah, it’s just getting better and better
sounds like they are really exercising their agency.
“If your 10 year old doesn’t know what a whore is, but is one, then something’s wrong with that kid’s education. Perhaps they’ve been reading manboobz articles and taking Cuntrelle literally in between poundings.
I think Cuntrelle and his followers are prostitution apologists.”
This sounds like something a really piss poor troll would put up on 4Chan or YouTube. There is no way anyone can take you seriously when you are this painfully obvious in your trolling but I’ll play along anyhow. I think you are a million times worse than a whore Tom. I’ve known prostitutes (in the literal sense) who were not vapid, self-absorbed, delusional or hateful human beings. Go back to pretending to be a ‘big shot’ on your obscure website and brood about people not seeing things the way emotional cripples like you do. No one here is buying what you are selling so just fuck off already, whore.
Err, no I’m not Tom. For a start pimps and madams are a great deal rarer in the sex trade than is commonly supposed, I refer you to http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/ for all your understanding-sex-work(ers) issues.
When I refer to prostitutes being persecuted I’m talking about thieves and/or the COPPERS stealing their earnings.
E.g. A recent case in Norwich (as I recall):
Three women sex workers called the cops when a bunch of thugs robbed them. The cops arrived, and because the women were working together for their safety, seized ALL their property (including a car) under the laws against brothels / pimping*. The cops didn’t bother to look for the robbers, btw.
Decriminalization of prostitution stops that^.
It also reduces the opportunities for coppers to extort “freebies” or just plain old rape prostitutes under threat of arrest – plenty of such cases in the US – again see Maggie McNeil’s blog and linked sources from there.
(*For US readers: adult prostitution is legal in the UK. Running a brothel, or pimping is not. Laws against these things basically mean that if more than one sex worker operates out of a flat, they can be prosecuted, these laws also open up drivers, cleaners and boyfriends to prosecution.)
And no Tom, I’m not going to bother explaining to you why someone who is mentally / emotionally incompetent (e.g. a child or an adult with serious learning difficulties) is not competent to engage in an adult contract for adult services. It’s OBVIOUS that any “contract” with a ten year old is as invalid as e.g. buying a seriously retarded man’s house from him in return for half a chocolate bar. Your refusal to admit this is just WILLFUL ignorance.
Tell me Tom, do you think child soldiers – who are far more often boys than girls, btw – are mentally / emotionally competent to kill and be killed? … Civilized countries attempt to protect their children from becoming child soldiers, for exactly the same reasons they attempt to protect them from “selling”** sex.
(** In quotes, because a vaild sale assumes a valid contract, no valid contract is possible with a child and so on – see above).
Can’t get a direct link for the video, but one very lucky, very tiny, kitty.
Also: a recent bit of work in New York found that underage street kids who “sold” sex to get by were mostly boys (by a narrow majority).
Men’s Rights should mean include looking out for the best interests of boys* who will, after all grow to be men – Tom, I reckon you’re doing those lads who are stuck in that shitty situation a grave disservice.
(*as a paralell / balance to Women’s Rights peeps who look out for girls)
Bostonian said:
Child prostitutes do not get to keep their earnings.
Well, according to this study, they do:
http://www.readperiodicals.com/201010/2337139671.html#b
It’s the same study that gives the accounts of child prostitutes that I quoted earlier. It’s written for a Women’s and Gender Studies journal, so it’s couched in Marxist victimological strategic frames, but it does not hide, that the child prostitutes themselves do not consider themselves victims, or rape victims.
I trust several child’s accounts, over any additional contexualizational spin from a gender studies journal. Given that gender studies professionals openly admit their use of spin stories:
http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=45732
“i don’t know how to do the fancy link thing…”
<a href=”link”>text</a>
Joe? I know the DSM/ICD still use the term retarded, but it’s mentally handicapped these days (DSM-5 will be updating to that, I’m pretty sure, idk ICD standards though). Your point, it is valid, just probably not to Tom.
The First Joe, thank you very much for speaking out. You and I disagree about a lot, but if the MRM is ever going to actually speak for gender equality with a healthy, productive focus on mens’ issues, one of the first step is getting rid of extremists and fuckers like Tom Martin. I appreciated your comments.
Cheers, and have a happy day.
And this is right on:
Tom, imagine that you have a son.
Imagine that one day about age ten he comes home and tells you that your neighbour / an adult at school gave him a chocolate bar / a transformer / 50p in exchange for a sex act.
How would you feel?
What would you do?
And how would you justify your actions to yourself intellectually after the fact?
“Men’s Rights should mean include looking out for the best interests of boys* who will, after all grow to be men – Tom, I reckon you’re doing those lads who are stuck in that shitty situation a grave disservice.”
You must’ve missed the thread that caused this OP — he said something about anorexia claims made by feminists, I went to find stats on the gender ratio, and he went of about how fat women are now — completely ignored wtf I was saying about anorexia in men, instead ranted about how women are too fat and anorexia isn’t that deadly.
In other words, should you actually be a caring person at all (which you seem to be, from what little you’ve said so far), Tom is not on your side, at all. He’s whole thing is about disservicing anyone who isn’t Tom Martin.
(I’m just going to ignore that claim about trusting anecdotes over data, I already went off about BRAINFAX once today >.< )
Tom, would you trust children’s accounts of meeting Santa Claus as factual evidence?
Seems like asking Tom about the video is like asking Steele about men’s shelters–great way to make your post instantly turn invisible.
Anyway, from the article Tom just linked:
So, yes, it does describe child prostitution as a survival choice that children make (not a free choice, but a choice made to survive desperate poverty), but that’s not exactly saying “child prostitutes love whoring because they’re all whorey whores.”