NOTE: “Bardamu” was ultimately revealed to be the pseudonym of the unlovely and untalented Matt Forney.
We talked a bit yesterday about pick-up artists and domestic violence – specifically, Heartiste’s suggestion that aspiring alpha males look to Chris Brown as a role model. So today I thought I would take the opportunity to write about one of the skeeviest and most notorious posts the manosphere has generated thus far – Ferdinand Bardamu’s “The Necessity of Domestic Violence.”
Bardamu took down his blog In Mala Fide some months back – I found the text of his post up on Manosphere Copies, a blog set up by the even skeevier MRA who goes by the name Jeremiah (aka JeremiahMRA, aka Things Are Bad) to host posts from manosphere blogs that are no more. In Mala Fide, which combined elements of PUA, Men’s Rights activism and “Human Biological Diversity” style racism, had a great deal of influence in the manosphere in its day. Bardamu published reprehensible things with regularity – see here, here and here for examples – so his defense of domestic violence is hardly unexpected.
The post is a sprawling, disorderly mess. Much of it is devoted to telling the allegedly true story of the time Bardamu “smacked [a girlfriend] across the face” – and was, he says, rewarded for this bit of alpha behavior with what he describes as “the most intense make-up sex I’ve ever had in my life,” sex so intense it literally broke his bed. Allegedly.
The rest of the post is devoted to a rather convoluted – sometimes frank, sometimes weasel-worded – apologia for domestic violence.
He starts off by suggesting that those concerned with violence against women are hypocrites who aren’t truly feminist:
I have absolutely zero sympathy for women who are the victims of domestic violence, for a multitude of reasons. … If women have all the same rights and responsibilities as men, if denying privileges to someone because of the shape of their genitals is morally wrong, then that means there’s nothing wrong with bashing a woman’s face in — or, more accurately, it’s no more wrong than bashing a man’s face in.
Uh, there’s a lot wrong with bashing anyone’s face in, except in self-defense.
Then he argues – well, asserts – that women who are abused bring this abuse upon themselves. First, by deliberately choosing to be with abusers:
Women are masters of refusing to accept the consequences of their own behavior. Girls who habitually end up in relationships with abusive men do so because they are attracted to men who abuse them. … If you paid attention, you could have seen signs that your man was an abuser, but you ignored them because unconsciously, that’s what turns you on, what gets you wet.
And second, by egging them on:
I have no sympathy for most abused women because a great many of them deliberately incite their men into attacking them, if not by being physically abusive themselves, then by creating drama. Extreme cases of this are diagnosed as borderline personality disorder, but a great percentage of the normal female population engages in this behavior as a matter of course.
Still, despite this, and despite his own proud confession of abuse, Bardamu doesn’t advocate domestic violence explicitly – if only because it might get his readers arrested.
Despite all this, I do NOT recommend you start hitting the girls in your rotation, mainly because the risks are too great. For every one girl who’ll pounce on your dick after a good backhand, there are three more who’ll dial 911 without a second thought. I got lucky. But unless you exclusively fuck single moms, cougars and spinsters, you’ve likely had girls either try to physically hurt you or bait you into hitting them.
After a brief defense of corporal punishment for children, Bardamu suggests that similar “discipline” can help to keep girlfriends in line:
Slapping a girl across the face isn’t just about hurting her, it’s a kind of neg. It says, “I can crush you like an insect, but you aren’t worth the effort.” It’s a tacit acknowledgment that she’s weaker than you, beneath you, and if she crosses you again, you’ll put her in the hospital. You treat her like she’s a child throwing a temper tantrum, not an equal.
And then we come to the money quote:
Like I said already, you should NOT hit women, not unless you want to end up in jail. But the principle still stands. Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.
Let me repeat that last sentence for emphasis:
Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.
He ends by suggesting that “far too many” female victims of domestic violence are
conniving, manipulative cunts who wear their men down for the gina tingles, then trick bystanders into squirting tears to their sob stories. They are slapped, punched, and kicked because they inflict emotional violence on their husbands and boyfriends, fueling a never-ending cycle of drama and pain. They are just as abusive and twisted as the thugs and jerks they get wet for.
They deserve each other.
No, Ferdinand, no one deserves you.
In the comments, JeremiahMRA manages to do Bardamu one better – by which I mean one worse.
The truth is that sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave, just like Sean Connery said. There are two main problems today: 1) Society has taught men to be ashamed for disciplining their women, and 2) Men with guns are always at the ready to take men away who dare discipline their women. So the actual effect of this is that women have become more abusive, more controlling, more crazy in relationships, because few men are willing to lay down the law with them. So they keep going on in their lives, entitled, never being called on their bullshit, never being disciplined like they need to be. Just as you must discipline a child, you must sometimes discipline a woman. When a man is not able to discipline his child, the child misbehaves, he loses control of the household, and he is not respected. The same happens when a man is not able to discipline his woman. Instead of just giving her a slap when she’s being ridiculous, you have to play fucking mind games nowadays, and they are never as effective. You have to remain the alpha male if you want her to respect you, and it is a pain in the ass to do that when you can’t smack her even when she KNOWS she’s being ridiculous. Just another example of politically correct “progressive” bullshit ruining the relationship between men and women and replacing the man as head of household with government intrusion into our lives.
Tomorrow, I will take a look at one of Bardamu’s unexpected defenders on Reddit.
See, if a woman makes a man hit her, this is “female-initiated violence.”
Just like if you get mad at a puppy and hit it, that would be “puppy-initiated violence.”
@Cassandra
I’ve thought of this too. Debunking Solanas, the “all sex is rape” bollocks, etc.
@fembot
I just can’t be bothered to have the same conversation over and over again, you know? I’m at the same point with arguments about abortion – can’t be bothered to repeat all the things I’ve said hundreds of times before just because some jackass is too lazy to google “how does the contraceptive pill work”.
“See, if a woman makes a man hit her, this is “female-initiated violence.””
The woman initiated actions that are classically defined as physical violence. This does not give the man permission to hit her.
Neither does it give you permission to deny what she did.
Stop being a DV apologist.
It it unfortunate that Solanas’ wry wit was buried by her assassination attempts. Such is the life of an artist.
Stop projecting, asshammer.
Like I said: lazy rhetorical club.
So says you, Mr Bias Man.
BROlepathy: the ability of MRAs to know exactly who initiated violence in a dispute from a brief second-hand account of something someone heard and did not see.
1.) No, you don’t have to read it. No one is forcing you to click on the link and read that dreck. No one is forcing you to read this site either. You can go away any time you like.
2.) No, it would not be reasonable to compare the post David quoted with the SCUM Manifesto (at least, I assume that’s what you were referring to when you mentioned “the crap Valerie Solanas wrote”). The SCUM Manifesto was meant as satire. The post David quoted was dead serious. (And no, the fact that the SCUM Manifesto was satire does not automatically excuse everything else Valerie Solanas did.)
3.) I’m not sure what “similar stuff from cranks associated with feminism” you are specifically referring too, but given that there are some feminist extremists who have said downright stupid and awful things, yes, it’s fairly reasonable to ask what makes that different from the original post.
And the answer to that question is this:
The difference is that those extremists feminists are only a fringe minority of feminists. I can find plenty of moderate feminists more than willing to condemn the statements of the extremists. But the views expressed in the original post are par for the course with MRAs. Where are the MRAs willing to step forward and condemn domestic violence against women? Where are the moderate MRAs?
Anathema, as you look for moderate MRAs consider that in this forum, none of you moderate feminists have been able to acknowledge that the woman in GWW’s scenario was the initiator of domestic violence.
I could ignore your presence and generalize from Futrelle’s blog that there are thus no moderate feminists because they all defend woman initiated domestic violence, or I could look deeper and find you in the comments.
There are many moderate MRAs and many moderate men associated with the Fathers Rights Movement. Instead of acknowledging them and focusing on them and dialogueing with them, David, NOW, Salon, Double XX, Pandagon, feministing, feministe, etc., keep insisting on lumping them in with the Ferdinand Bardamus. You can confirm this merely by scanning down David’s “boobroll” and in particular just by observing David’s day to day schtick.
But she wasn’t. If GWW is right about the woman screaming and throwing things, she was abusive, but still didn’t initiate physical violence.
Also, GWW has no idea that it was the woman throwing things and the whole scenario never happened.
Why do we have to acknowledge anything for MRAs to come out against domestic violence?
Shouldn’t that be a GIVEN?
Okay, champ, tell us which of the sites on the boobroll are bastions of thoughtful, moderate MRA dialogue. I mean, unless it’s your intention to keep that list vague so that you can immediately distance yourself from any MRA that says anything awful, but I’m sure you would never be so dishonest.
Such as . . . ?
Simply asserting that moderate MRAs exist is different from demonstrating it. Give me examples. Name names. Tell me who the moderate MRAs are.
I see Some Guy… has just decided to switch threads rather than acknowledge that GGW did in fact, advocate women being slapped around. Classy and predictable.
So, to be clear, you want to comment in the thread about Ferdinand Bardamu’s essay, but you don’t want to read what he actually wrote. And you wanted to comment on the reddit exchange involving GGW but you wanted to ignore half of what she said.
Why should anyone here engage with you in good faith?
Some Guy, fuck off. You’re just here to be a pain in the ass. Good job, now go.
Lawgirl: Depending on where one is, “aggressively yelling in someone’s face” may be assault, or not.
Frex, in Calif. “mere words” does not equal assault. A credible threat has to be communicated in some form of action.
A “reasonable person” would have to have a reasonable fear of bodily harm. As such, again in Calif., and, to the best of my knowledge, in most of the US, there has to be an actual threat of physical contact to constitute assault.
@nanasha
as someone who is a mandatory reporter to child protection services, and has been for for over 15years as part of my job, please let me reassure you that you did the right thing. it’s not your job to have proof, it’s CPS’ job to figure that bit out. you did the right thing in calling them to highlight your concerns.
i’m not going to get into the can of worms that is the CPS, but their focus is on maintaining the family unit where possible (or it should be). a decent worker should assess the family and work with them to address what is going on. only in the most severe cases should the children be removed.
some guy: There are many moderate MRAs and many moderate men associated with the Fathers Rights Movement.
Ok. I’m willing to grant that possibility. But I’m not willing to wipe the slate clear of the Bardamus, the Roissys, the Paul Elams, the Peter Andrew-Nolan©s, just because you say so.
Because you don’t have to look to comments to find feminists who decry DV against men. When you say, I could ignore your presence and generalize from Futrelle’s blog that there are thus no moderate feminists because they all defend woman initiated domestic violence, you are being disingenuous, not least because Dave has decried female on male DV.
Not least because the forms of justifiable violence feminists allow to women are forms it allows to men (i.e. self-defense), it’s just that the sorts of long-standing, life-threatening abuse, which are required to make a “burning bed” defense are much less common with a male victim.
So please, show us where, and who, these moderates are. All you need to do to show “ David, NOW, Salon, Double XX, Pandagon, feministing, feministe, etc.“to be wrong is present them.
But just telling me they exist, and asserting they make up the majority of “The Movement” doesn’t cut it. First: My experience contradicts the claim. Second: You haven’t done anything more than assert it. Third: until I know who you think is moderate, I don’t know what you mean by the word.
I can’t agree, with you, that there are “lots” of moderate MRA unless I know what you think a moderate MRA looks like. I certainly can’t say the MRM is full of them until I have a good working definition.
On a tangential note, I find it interesting that this guy, whose blog “combined elements of PUA, Men’s Rights activism and “Human Biological Diversity” style racism” choose the nickname “Ferdinand Bardamu”. It comes from a classic French novel whose writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, became famous for being a rabid anti-Semite.
Enquiring minds want to know: why do MRAs think it’s legal to bash in the faces of men? Women do get arrested for that, and since men have been the ones in control for a seriously huge chunk of human history, why do they think that women are the ones who decided that dudes who get beat up by women should be laughed at? These are pretty much rhetorical questions, but come the fuck on.
“why do MRAs think it’s legal to bash in the faces of men? Women do get arrested for that”
Never seen it once
I know it’s an old piece but it just strikes me as bizarre that violence is the only solution in this man’s perscription… Because, ya know, you could never TELL her that she was upsetting you, nope. You gotta hit ‘er. Christ.
Sickening.