The other day we took a look at some of the more reprehensible opinions of Tom Martin, one of the UK’s most prominent Men’s Rights Activists and a man who evidently believes that child prostitutes are taking the easy way out to avoid having to get real jobs. He returned with even worse stuff, which I highlighted in my previous post.
Happily for all of us, not all of Martin’s views are this reprehensible. Many are merely ridiculous. So, today, let’s look at the Lighter Side of Tom Martin, as evidenced by some of his recent comments here on Man Boobz.
Martin apparently spent last Sunday working on a video project which involved him buttonholing passers-by on the streets of London and asking them questions in order to “prove” his various crackpot theories about gender. Here’s how he explained one aspect of his video research:
After shooting my video experiment tomorrow to discover who is more sexist on the street, women or women, I will be shooting another short, investigating if there is a correlation between unfunny women and prostitution ethic. I believe women could be as funny as men on average if they tried, but instead, invest in whoring strategies. I have a reliable street experiment to investigate this hypothesis also …
If I can establish that women can be as funny as men (in a zero prostitution environment), then this video experiment will be released in a news piece, and used as a springboard to pre-sell the feature-length documentary it will form a part of, on a related topic.
Good luck with that!
Martin also took on the contentious (to him) subject of male baldness, a topic of intense interest to him, due to certain factors with regard to gender and misandry … er, long story short, he’s bald. Sorry, balding.
After one commenter here suggested that Martin’s ambition was to become a sort of “Ann Coulter … with less hair and more swearing,” he took umbrage – not at the comparison to Coulter but at the bit about hair.
Well Cassandra, there are five new baldness treatments in the pipeline, but no drugs for treating a receding personality, so what are you going to do?
In a followup comment, the man whose favorite word in the English language is “whore,” used as an insult, declared we were being a bunch of evil meanies for even mentioning the whole (lack of) hair thing:
Cassandra, thanks to your receding personality (for which there is already a cure – renunciation therapy), I have decided for my filmed experiment tomorrow to also measure the degree to which each sex is prepared to make physical insults about the other sex.
Even if you specifically were fat for instance, and it was all your own fault because you refuse to get a job, I would never mention it in a debate with you. I debated an obese woman once. She ordered a pizza whilst we were still on stage, but I did not refer to it at the time, because of the most basic standards of decorum.
This I believe was an attempt at a joke.
How many manboobzers are prepared now to concur that Cassandra was being a douche by picking on an involuntary physiological characteristic of a debating opponent? And then encouraging others to do the same?
Of course, in Martin’s mind, mocking women as fat whores is totally cool, because:
Fatness is a choice, ladies, and so is being a whore. Going bald (currently) is not, due to poor efficacy of available treatments, including transplants. That will change, if Aderans, Histogen, Replicel, Allergen and Tsuji-Lab among others have anything to do with it. All you need to do in the meantime is shut the fuck up until they sort it out. The apparent acceptability of attacking the bald though, is a great example of the lack of equality men have. People do not generally attack or humiliate women who are going bald – but when it’s a man…
Uh, yeah, that’s why virtually every bald or balding woman wears a hat or a wig, while bald or balding men just comb it over or shave it all off.
Evidently Martin feels that even a mention of his lack of hair is some kind of hate crime. Here, prominent Bald Rights Activist Larry David tries to convince authorities to investigate a similar hate crime against him.
Note to Martin: Larry David’s show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is fictional.
(Note: Tom Martin has confirmed that this is indeed him posting comments here on Man Boobz by sending an email from the account associated with his website Sexismbusters.org. Also, he’s retweeted quotes from his comments here. Contact him via his web site if you are skeptical.)
This blogger is up in arms about the male supremacy of it all bless her:
https://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/tom-martin-is-an-apologist-for-child-rape-and-child-prostitution/#comment-2509
Here’s my comment to her (she’ll probs delete it for being to oppressive there)
Read the original article in full before commenting. Manboobz has selectively picked quotes and excluded others in a misleading fashion. You will see that I am against child prostitution – and think the most effective way to reduce it is to hold the child more accountable for their actions, as well as holding the adult accountable for theirs. Rather than criminalizing the adult, they should be treated as sick, given the pathalogical elements of pedophilia.
The above article appears to be taking a Marxist victim-feminist position on many points, labouring under the idea that women are automatically oppressed by men, and that prostitution is primarily due to lack of choice and poverty.
Read Temporarily Yours, by Elizebeth Bernstein (2007). She argues:
“Generations of social thinkers have assumed that access to legitimate paid employment and a decline in the double standard would eliminate the reasons behind women’s participation in prostitution. Yet in both the developing world and in post-industrial cities of the West, sexual commerce has continued to flourish.”
Yep. Better than ever opportunities for women, in a time of continued economic growth (pre-credit crunch) – but the w***ing never stopped or slowed.
Feminist stories about sex trafficking and sex slavery, a success?
Tom, the problem is not that you are against child prostitution (…good?!?!) but that you would dare try to blame children at ALL for being sexually exploited.
I mean, sure, children have some minimal sense of agency, we do hold them responsible if they punch their little brother or steal a candy bar or something, but even then we recognize that they are children and don’t have the full mental and emotional capacity to understand what is wrong and to be able to make good choices all the time.
But in order to hold children responsible (in the sense of “punishing them” legally or otherwise) for becoming child prostitutes you’d have to
1. Think that sex work is morally wrong
2. Think that children can make a fully informed decision about performing sex work as a child and understand its dangers and potential effects on them
3. Think that children make a genuinely free decision to become sex workers as opposed to being under coercion by others (i.e. being trafficked or enslaved or “pimped”) or by their circumstances (extreme poverty)
4. Think that children had another freely available option to do something else other than to do sex work and that they deliberated and then chose to do sex work instead of that
1. is not the case (no matter what you like to say about “whoring”) and 2,3, and 4 totally fail to understand the nature of child prostitution.
Also there’s the fact that you would hold child rapists (this is what you are if you have any sexual contact with a child) *less accountable* than the child who was raped. Even if you would grant that children have some sort of minimal agency in becoming child prostitutes the fact of the matter is that adults are *adults*, they are more capable mentally, emotionally, and so on to make decisions and unless they are being forced to rape a child at gunpoint or something they hold the burden of responsibility to not have sexual contact with children. People who molest children often do need some sort of rehabilitation or treatment, but this does not make them free of responsibility for what they did, and for God’s fucking sake it does not make them less responsible for any given act of child prostitution (CHILD RAPE) than the child. This right here is what is so reprehensible about what you are saying and why anyone with any grain of sense (even other MRAs) will reject your viewpoint entirely.
And fuck it, I hate to cite anti-sex work/porn people but if you think “whoring” is so despicable maybe you should look at where the demand for it is coming from (mostly men) and clean up your own house before you come barging into ours.
I can’t decide what’s funnier: Steele thinking Martin is a feminist plant or Steele thinking “prominent figures” in the MRM give a shit what he thinks.
Obviously, it’s the idea that the MRM has “prominent figures.”
This MRA-on-MRA battle is simultaneously the most hilarious and vomit-inducingly awful thing I’ve ever seen.
Tom said this over on Toysoldier’s:
Dude, sorry to break it to you, but no one here respects you in the slightest.
Not even Torvus Steelebuttpole, who’s normally happy to outdo a circus contortionist in attempting to defend the indefensible.
[blockquote]…children have some minimal sense of agency… but even then we recognize that they are children and don’t have the full mental and emotional capacity to understand what is wrong and to be able to make good choices all the time…[/blockquote]
kladle, this is a thing I’ve noticed about other amoral people: They often have difficulty understanding the difference between the level of agency that’s possible in a child vs. an adult.
David, I’m saddened but not terribly surprised to see TS making excuses for Tom Martin’s outrageous nonsense… at least some of his regular commenters are pushing back, though, and saying that the sexual exploitation of a child is wrong, full stop.
@Tom Martin:
“So, if he was indeed a child prostitute, I’d say his opinion about whether it was child prostitution or child exploitation or both, might be tinged. Most child prostitutes seem to think it isn’t exploitation”
So if they were a child prostitute and they don’t agree with you then their worldview is skewed from their experiences and must be taken with a grain of salt but if they were a child prostitute and do agree with you then all that skewed perception shit is right out the window. Funny that.
Curse you, sleep. This may be the greatest thread ever. Who wants to start the “Covert Manginas” with me? I’m on lead vocal and cowbell.
Can we do a filter for “vile” like Tom’s “w” filter?
I have a nascent theory niggling the back of my brain, and I don’t have the resources today to coax it out in a coherent fashion, so here it is in raw form.
– MRAs tend to be privileged (mostly white, male, middle class).
– They think that anything they want that they don’t get (pussy) is discrimination against them.
– There is a small but vocal cadre of evangelical christians who think that, in North America and England, they are being discriminated against for being christian.
– Many of these people are anti-feminist.
– Many of these people have expressed that, if they like something, then everyone does.
I think everything is tied into privilege and recognition of agency. More specifically, failure to recognize their own privilege, and failure to understand that everybody doesn’t have the same choices they do.
/incoherence
every time i see mikeys ‘feminism denied me the writing career i deserved’ shit, my first thought is ‘this is what privilege looks like
every time i see mikeys ‘feminism denied me the writing career i deserved’ shit, my first thought is ‘this is what privilege looks like
Excuse me? Feminists are the ones who spend an inordinate amount of time moaning and groaning about “cultural pressures” or “sexist Old Boys” who have kept them from doing what they desire. This of course makes sense- since there aren’t any tangible, legal inequities to complain about, the feminists have to refer vaguely to anecdotal evidence of “misogyny”. How is this any different? Revolting hypocrites.
Tom Martin is a scumbag. But even if he is sincere, for every Martin there are dozens of revolting, misandrist mainstream feminists who dismiss and minimize misandry, men’s issues and men’s pain. I am aware that I’m an awful, horrible, evil white male with Original Sin out the wazoo, but nonetheless, I have as much right as anyone else to express myself. I choose to align with the MRM, and I won’t be silenced because of one kook.
lol
This is funny because I just got done reading this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSWomen/comments/wnpmn/to_my_women_in_the_workforce_you_are_not_alone_i/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSWomen/comments/wnr99/to_my_ladies_in_the_workplace_part_2/
Your shitlordery is both painfully predictable and fucking atrocious.
Good lord, toysoldier, what a pile of poop. Hypocrite.
@Steele
The reason why we think you’re a privileged, full-of-shit whiner is that, whenever feminists discuss actual problems that real people face, you start complaining about your sore hair, and how your sore hair is all women’s fault, and having sore hair has completely destroyed your ability to have a good job–
Oh wait! No, you have a wonderful job, and your life is excellent, and your girlfriend is hot. And yet, your sore hair is just so very debilitating that you have made it your mission to attempt to shut down conversations about wage inequity, sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence, and a whole class of people being shut out of lucrative, interesting careers so that you can talk about what an injustice it is that you have sore hair.
The thing is, this incessant complaining that MRAs do about their sore hair, and how it’s so much more important than feminists’ quadruple amputations, is that it completely derails any helpful, productive conversations that could address real problems that men face.
Asshat.
So why’d you shut down your blog?
feminists dont get bored and give up after two months so they can spend more time blog stalking
Sharculese said,
feminists dont get bored and give up after two months so they can spend more time blog stalking.
I agree, that feminists are prepared to persevere for longer, at what ever usually bland thing they are banging on about.
I spent six months explaining my court case to the university, my lawyers, their lawyers, the media, MRAs, feminists, journalists, and so on… and I found the whole repetitive process, to be one even more stupefying than the gender studies course itself.
I did a couple of IQ tests before and after the case, and after, found my IQ had gone down by 10 points.
The manboobz culture is a perfect example of intellectual inertia and regression. I explain something, they misinterpret it. I explain something again. They harden their misrepresentation. And so it goes.
The head of the Gender Institute at LSE who I sued, wrote a book, called Why Stories Matter, in which she explains that to her, feminism’s job, is to play around cyclically, deliberately playing dumb. It’s certainly what happens with Manboobzers.
I think feminists can probably stick at it longer because:
a) Feminist groups are funded.
b) Women seem more prepared to do mundane things.
c) Opponents of feminism argue properly.
d) Chivalrous instincts placate and reward things said by women, more so than men.
e) Women’s groups will agree with each other on principle (in-group morality) where as
men’s groups will argue the issues and stick to principles rather than form convenient block opinions..
f) Women’s groups do seem to take some collective strength from blocking male discourse, and from being amoral about it.
g) Women in women’s groups are conforming to the dominant discourse, and know they will not be singled out as inappropriate humans. They know they can still get laid at the drop of a hat as soon as they walk into the nearest public place. Men’s activists are seriously stigmatized as mass rapists, or pedophiles, or losers, etc for being MRAs, and this damages their social standing. Only a few MRAs are capable of ploughing through all the flak, to find a happy place.
h) Women seem happier hanging out in single sex political groups than men.
J) Women seem more content to say stupid things, and so don’t mind the stupefying effects
of the whole repetitive process.
i) Women seem happier to play the victims, which single gender advocacy ultimately
involves.
K) There are more jobs for the girls in gender politics than for the boys, so talking crap in women’s groups might actually be a transferable skill towards one of those jobs, where as for men, you need to be an entrepreneur to make any money in gender politics.
Anyway, I’m glad to say, my IQ is now recovering, as I spend my time preparing for documentary work, informed by men’s rights knowledge, but stepping round the feminist quagmire of stupidity, to speak to the general public. Make sense to the people, and feminism will be forced to up it’s game, if it wants to remain relevant and in the mix at all.
I love the juxtaposition of these paragraphs.
It’s good to know that you’re vain enough to just keep taking IQ tests over and over, though. It explains quite a lot. Thanks for the info would read again 8/10.
Congrats on being just our second troll to bring up his IQ out of pure vanity, though. I’m astounded more haven’t done it. Now try using that big manly brain of yours to question how well IQ tests are suited for pinpointing month-to-month changes in the “intelligence” of the same healthy brain, or just what “intelligence” really is and how good IQ tests are at measuring it.
yeah, that’s true, your problem is more the blinding lack of competence
I guess teh dudez have to brag about size of IQ since they cannot flash us?
Speaking of IQ issues (I am not sure what the standardized IQ tests measure, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “intelligence” whatever that means, but what they hay):
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/07/16/women-beat-men-on-iq-tests-for-first-time/
Women beating men, ahahahahhaha, Tom Martin, suck it–women are beating men on IQ tests!
Not quite caught up on this yet, but summary —
Varpole — Martin must be a feminist plant!
TS — Everyone but me is wrong (that isn’t exactly a new opinion of his, is it?)
Martin — ToySoldier was a wh*re, that explains it!
Cassandra — Manic Street Preachers
Martin — Not them!
Me — w00t, yes them! (In fact, I think I’m going to play that one again while I finish catching up)
I’m sure Tom has a Logic, Reason, and Science explanation which reveals that women, being prostitutes, actually have an Adjusted Real IQ 5 points below men. See item J on his list.
I just noticed that TM has re-ordered the alphabet so that J now comes before I. There must be some significance to that.
Re: IQ tests — yeah they don’t work like that…
“…how well IQ tests are suited for pinpointing month-to-month changes in the “intelligence” of the same healthy brain” = not at all suited for that
“…or just what “intelligence” really is and how good IQ tests are at measuring it.” — um, yeah that’s an open question in psychology, but known answers? Taking the same test again should result in a slightly higher score, since most people would remember the questions.