Our old nemesis The Pigman — the MRA blogger and one half of the cartooning team responsible for atrocities like this — has some thoughts on the Aurora shootings, specifically on the men who lost their lives to protect their girlfriends from gunfire. Their heroism makes him angry, much like the fellows on The Spearhead we looked at the other day. Here’s his complaint:
How’s that for inequity? How’s that for disposability? These guys appear to have sacrificed themselves for these people primarily because of their sex.
Well, no, I think they sacrificed themselves for their girlfriends because they loved their girlfriends.
After all, where are the guys who jumped in front of their best mate, or their dad or brother? And above all, where are the women who died saving their boyfriends?
There were many heroes in the Aurora shooting. Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves died protecting their girlfriends. Stephanie Davies risked her life to keep a friend shot in the neck from bleeding to death. Other acts of heroism had less storybook endings: Marcus Weaver tried to shield a female friend. He was wounded but lived; she died. Jennifer Seeger tried to drag a wounded victim to safety, but fled when the shooter returned.
But the Pigman is interested in none of this:
This isn’t heroism, this is male disposability at its worst and by praising it society is encouraging it.Cheering these men’s actions is as reprehensible as it is stupid and discriminatory.
The heroes in Aurora acted quickly, and on instinct; they didn’t have time to stop to think. Is it possible that, in the cases of those men who tried to shield the women with them, gender socialization had something to do with what their instincts told them to do? Almost certainly.
But “male disposability” has nothing to do with it. We live in a society in which heroism, as an idea and as a cultural ideal, has been gendered male for thousands of years. In the stories we tell ourselves, the video games we play, the movies we watch (including The Dark Knight Rises) , the “hero with a thousand faces” is almost always male, and the damsel in distress is, well, almost always a damsel.
The Pigman ignores all this, instead attacking the three dead men as
foolish enough and unfortunate enough to fall for a lifetime of anti-male propaganda telling them to die for the nearest woman whenever the shit hits the fan.
I have no doubt that many are concerned with the feelings of the dead men’s survivors and wish I would just shut up.
But then he barrels ahead anyway:
But this is a simple case of “What you praise, you encourage,” and I for one think calling out those who encourage men to waste their lives for people worth no more than themselves is more important than being “sensitive”. Die for a child if you must, die for some guy on the verge of finding a cure for cancer if you must – die for someone no better than you simply because you have been taught to and you are a fool.
Had these men died protecting male buddies, would The Pigman have applied this calculus of worthiness to the beneficiaries of their heroism? Would he have suggested that the dead men thought they were worth less than their friends? Of course not.
The three men didn’t do what they did because they thought they were worthless or disposable. They did what they did because they wanted to protect those they loved. Others in the theater, like Stephanie Davies, risked their lives for friends, or people they didn’t even know. There’s nothing foolish or “wasteful” about putting yourself on the line to protect others. In every major disaster, whether natural, or like this one man-made, ordinary people emerge as heroes precisely because they are willing to put the lives and safety of other people ahead of their own.
Do these real-life stories of heroism play out in gendered ways? Often times they do. Men may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their wives or girlfriends; mothers may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their children.
In real life crises, it’s hardly surprising that people sometimes act like characters in these stories we tell ourselves. If you want to change how people act, you need to change these stories.
MRAs like to pretend that men are the “disposable sex” but in their hearts they know that’s not true. They’re well aware, as are we all, that our cultural narratives of heroism privilege and glorify men and put them at the center of almost every story. MRAs like The Pigman aren’t interested in expan ding our cultural narratives of heroism to include female heroes — nor are they willing to even acknowledge that there are such things as female heroes in the real world. They certainly don’t want more stories, more games, more films featuring female protagonists.
Instead they’d rather wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood, and attack real heroes like Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves as “white knights” or “fools.”
How people react in a crises reveals a lot about them. How MRAs like The Pigman, and like the Spearhead commenters I quoted the other day reacted to the Aurora shootings has certainly revealed a lot about them, none of it good.
Unfortunately, attitudes like theirs aren’t confined to the fringe that is the manosphere.
After hearing the stories of Blunk, McQuinn, and Teves, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto tweeted “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”
After numerous readers responded to his remarks with outrage, Taranto offered an apology of sorts, along with an explanation that suggested he really didn’t understand why people were angry in the first place. When someone does something noble and heroic out of love, it’s not up to you to second guess their actions or their love. Taranto’s words not only dishonored “the the girls whose boyfriends died to save them;” it dishonored the heroes as well.
Like The Pigman, like the Spearhead commenters, Taranto has failed this test of his humanity.
@Nikan
So you agree that horny people are in control of their actions; but you deny that the same is true for sex offenders? Are sex offenders not people?
Look if you want to talk about original claims then clear your shit up:
Is masturbation a nonviable option for celibate men or is masturbation a nonviable option for sexual deviancy? You need to choose.
Also again, do you think the typical sex offender would stop if his/her mother and a cop walked into the room? If so, then my point’s made.
It’s always a strange moment when you realize that you’re explaining, to someone old enough to use the Internet, that violent criminals are responsible for the violence they do.
Nikan: I tell you that I’m absolutely not able to empathize with someone who is so desperately “driven” he has to **** that poor disabled woman instead of leaving her alone.
But you don’t devalue the disabled, nope, not a bit.
If you’re lying to yourself… well that’s your problem, but you are speaking in public, so you are going to be held to your words, and the inherent ideas in them.
@Ugh
Nothing in Nikan’s comments make sense except in the light of zir total shit-headedness.
Guys…. this is NIKAN! He don’t need no stinking facts, he has made up his mind.
That ejaculation reduces free testosterone in the blood can’t be proven, what you need is a womanly orifice. It doesn’t matter if she’s ugly, or crippled or repulsive, it’s that she’s a woman.
Realdolls, fleshlights, Rosie, all are inadequate to the pleasure you get from fucking someone you can’t stand.
Isn’t that obvious?
I think Dr. Zoidberg said it best:
“If you interrupt the human mating process, the human male will become enraged and maul you with his fearsome gonads!”
I asked for the evidence that deviant sexual urges can be successfully neutralized by masturbation.
And you say you don’t think ill of the disabled, don’t deny their humanity or value.
You’re worse than NWO.
About as obvious as the argument that some poor celibate guy was so desperate for sex that in the horror and chaos of the Aurora shooting he consciously thought to himself “Oh man, this is great, I’ll throw myself in front of this bullet and she’ll have to fuck me!”
This is the laziest troll I’ve ever seen in the history of my life.
I have to say, too lazy to masturbate is impressively lazy.
Really, though, I think we’re just dealing with a kid who’s apoplectic with jealousy that his brother has a cool girlfriend.
And… Nikan thinks his brother is a sexual deviant.
Man… this is some way to avoid the original topic of conversation (that guys got killed to get pussy, rather than risked their lives out of affection), and the second (that you hate disabled people).
It’s not just that you are worse than NWO, you are making him look good,and Tom Martin look forgettable.
For realzies. I didn’t get laid for 27 straight years. By your worldview, I should’ve imploded… I dunno, 13 years ago, at the least. Dude, if masturbation isn’t getting YOU off, that’s your problem. Nobody else’s. Sure, it ain’t always as much fun as with someone else, but if done right, suffices in the interim.
Plus, uh, if a dude really is that desperate for PIV sex, there is the option of hiring a sex worker.
I mean, it’s better than fucking a fatty, right? *eyeroll*
Good grief. It doesn’t matter what YOU think of your brother’s SO. What matters is what he thinks. I’ll ask again, since I don’t think you answered, at least not directly (though I could’ve missed it in the 600 comment shitstorm explosion) has your brother told you directly, “OMFG she is so fucking repulsive, but at least she’s a warm hole who’ll have me”? If not, then you are, at best, making shit up based on your worldview.
@Ugh:
Because there aren’t just “horny people” and “not horny people”, but different levels of horniness, maybe?
@Anathema:
When a crack-addict steals a charity box, is it because he has complete control about his actions and chooses to be an immoral thief, or because he’s the victim of the uncontrollable urge to consume crack?
All I wanted was to give you a vivid example of the desperation a T-fueled brain experiences after a few years of celibacy: a guy who always boasted to prefer the glamour model type, now has to settle for that.
Anecdata, I know, but my girlfriend had a very good male friend in high school who was part of the popular crowd. He was tall, handsome, and IIRC on the football team. He dated and professed to be attracted to conventionally attracted women, and dated the sorts of women you’d expect. Apparently, though, he was actually into fat women. He couldn’t talk about his honest attractions with most of this friends because, being the handsome popular kid, there was a lot of pressure on him to act the part. And “the part” includes dating people “on your level” (because as every fuckhead has tried to argue here, there is only one universal grading standard for attractiveness for women and it requires being skinny and white. BIOTRUTH).
By implicitly and explicitly devaluing people who don’t fit a conventional mold of beauty, our culture forces people to pretend to desires they may not have. To be attracted to fat people, disabled people, people of color, and gender variant people is considered deviant behavior, the evidence of which will be used to devalue the person exhibiting said behavior. Therefore often people who are concerned with status or the value judgments of their family, friends, and work community may not be as honest about their attractions as they might otherwise want to be.
Which is not to say that your brother was lying to you about liking models, but perhaps, given how judgmental you seem to be about sexuality, he didn’t explicate all of his attractions where you could judge him until he found a woman he decided he wanted to be with.
Block quote fail! That first paragraph was quoting Nikan.
Why is the media harping on the fact that (some of the)shooting victims who happened to be men sacrificed their lives for women??? I am not condemning the actions of these men. However, the fact that they as men gave their lives for women is of very little relevance. What matters is that they sacrificed themselves so that others may live. Whoever and WHATEVER those others may be.
Bets that Nikan is maybe in his early twenties at the oldest? It would explain a lot.
Ya know, I think some of the people who are so angry and hateful towards those who sacrificed their lives during the Aurora shooting just know that deep down no one would ever risk their lives for them. And it has nothing to do with being men (as much as they want the rest of us to believe). It’s because they’re not good people.
@Ugh
“Also again, do you think the typical sex offender would stop if his/her mother and a cop walked into the room? If so, then my point’s made.”
I don’t know what this conversation is about and I don’t really want to. I just want to point out this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of to make a point. Pretty much anybody is going to stop have sex if their mother walks into the room. Unless of course, “Hey mom, cmon and join the fun,” is part of your repertoire. With this group, I wouldn’t doubt it.
“Why is the MRM harping on the fact that (some of the)shooting victims who happened to be men sacrificed their lives for women??”
FTFY.
I haven’t read many articles, but I would bet they’re about these guys saving their girlfriends, not men sacrificing their life for women.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That was kinda the point of Ugh’s post Owly, but don’t let that stop you from dropping your truth bombs on us though!
This right here? The most honest NWO has ever been. Which so very, very sad.
Somebody said “rubric”. Man I have not heard that in ages. That definitely needs to be used more. Great word.
@ Dracula:
Given the quality of the average NWOslave comment, I think that that sentence may sum up Owly’s attitude towards every thread that he’s ever participated in on this site (and possibly even beyond).