Over on the A Voice for Men forums – yes, they have forums – one Man Going His Own Way spells out exactly what he means by His Own Way. Here’s misterbill:
For me, MGTOW has three major components:
1. Refusal to cohabitate with a woman
2. Avoidance of fatherhood like the plague
3. Avoidance of being alone in a room with a strange woman (for fear of false accusations)
These are the core elements, IMO.
I’m not celibate, I get sexual satisfaction from several call-girls that I’ve built good rapport with over a few years. I’ll visit one of these women whenever I feel like it, usually once a month or so.
I have what I would describe as a female companion who others would describe as my girlfriend. We don’t have sex, not because I’m not attracted to her, but because my fear of possibly getting her pregnant petrifies me beyond belief. So we hang out 2 days a week and have very nice times together, going on about 5 years. She understands my beliefs and that we will never live together and that I don’t believe in the myth of love.
So I’m MGHOW, but not without women.
I’m 41 and fairly wealthy. In my 20s and through to of my early 30s ( although I wasn’t a PUA) I studied game theory and in combination with other aspects of my life, I had no trouble getting laid. Then a woman made a false accusation against me (and was further slandered by another), and I began to wake up to the perils of having sex with (and interacting with) strange women. The risks outweighed the benefits, and I turned to going my own way.
I travel on business frequently and the one exception to my rule with being alone with strange women is the easy pickings while traveling. There is a rule amongst many women that if you’re 500 miles away from home, it’s not cheating. I see this a lot with many married women. Gents, her vows mean NOTHING once she gets on a plane without you. Although I wouldn’t allow any of these women into my home, I accept the risk when I’m traveling. And there is always a risk of running into a psycho who is ready to explode.
I don’t really have any jokes here. But I will note that his story doesn’t make a lick of sense; I find it literally unbelievable.
He’s so paranoid about women because of a “false accusation” leveled against him back when he pursued women using “game theory” that he literally refuses to be in the same room with “strange women” – or even interact with them. Yet when he’s traveling he suggests he routinely has sex with “strange” married women. Huh? These women could still get pregnant; these women could still make accusations, false or otherwise, against him. Does he feel safe because he can skip town in a hurry to avoid the possible consequences of his actions?
He’s (allegedly) been involved in a 2-day-a-week relationship, for five years, with a woman he’s sexually attracted to. But he refuses to have sex with her because he’s terrified of getting her pregnant. If he’s that worried about getting her pregnant, and generally wants to “avoid … fatherhood like the plague,” why doesn’t he get a vasectomy? If, after he sleeps with a married woman in a strange city, she gets pregnant with his child, does he simply assume she’ll never be able to track him down?
I’m going to assume that most if not all of what misterbill is saying here is bullshit. But if he does indeed live his life in way that even vaguely resembles how he says he does, it’s a rather sad and strange and paranoid way to live.
I wonder if this guy’s “girlfriend” considers herself his girlfriend, or more likely considers herself just a friend, or casual acquaintance, or the cashier at the store where he shops a couple times a week.
But of course I’m sure this psycho calls himself “pro-life”.
pssh. Yeah right. Nobody is interested in anything Amanda has to say. She can’t write unless she’s plagiarizing Latina bloggers. If there was a secret ballot on who goes and who stays I would win even with this crowd.
I can see how very disinterested you are in Amanda. Please, tell us more about everything she’s ever written and every website where she posts.
Anyway, I’m so popular that if there were a secret ballot I would be named President of Manboobz and a twenty-pound smoked salmon would be shipped to my house free of charge. So there!
Shaenon, the salmon is on its way.
I don’t have any salmon, but could I interest you in some pumpkin macarons?
No, no, Shaenon, you can’t possibly be President of Manboobz when everyone KNOWS you stole the Book of Learnin’ from Owly!
@Zanana
@Sandy, your comments about “a waste of good men” jolted me – do you really feel that way? It seems like a really utilitarian view of another person to suggest that their life is wasted if they aren’t doing a certain thing with it, such as marrying, or parenting, or working for the space program, or whatever. I think MGHOWs are funny, but I don’t begrudge them their autonomy in the slightest. If someone is doing what they want with their life, then it’s not wasted, IMO.
No zanana I did not mean to imply that these MGTOW men should get married or start dating women because it is a better path in life. Celibacy is as valid a path in life as any if that is your thing.
However, what I implied is that if some of these MGTOW guys just had a darn change of heart , attitude and not lump all women as bad inasmuch as a few have hurt them in the past, they may actually make good boyfriends.husbands to some women out there..
These inane MGTOW guys should realize that they are creating their own misery by being resentful to women and refusing to date.Perhaps these MGTOW guys are past the point of know return and will always be miserable in life or perhaps they have not met the right understanding woman who could help change their attitudes.
After all the dating world is so messed up these days, we need men and women out there who understand gender relations and what’s going on out there.
Otis, you’re not on moderation. Your comments are getting snagged because you keep using a word that’s in the moderation filter; hint, it starts with R and ends with D.
I’ve been letting the offending comments through but in the future I won’t. Please expand your vocabulary.
Also, if you don’t want to go on moderation, you should probably stop posting obsessive, untrue OT comments about particular feminist bloggers. Move on.
Nepenthe, one of your comments got caught by the actual spam filter (which I have no control of, unlike the moderation filter); I let it through.
Drew, I’m not sure where that gif is from, there wasn’t any contexxt for it that I remember.
But if you’re looking for more gifs of female musicians with dark, frizzy 80s hair, might I suggest http://bushygifs.tumblr.com/ ?
@Sandy,
Oh ok, that’s a different issue. I think you and I are coming from really different places if you think these guys sound like they’d make good boyfriends. (Unless you’re talking about some other MGTOWers I’ve never read about. Which, I don’t think that’s the case.)
Sandy – they’d have to dump their entire misogynistic mindset to be worth spending any time with, and while it can happen, it’d take a lot more self-awareness and desire to change than most of them show.
Amen, The Kittehs’, it’s not just about misogyny – it’s the basic lack of empathy, of concern for fairness, of kindergarten-level ethics…
there’s gotta be other stuff wrong with someone if they can just demonize and dismiss half the world like that.
“Drew, I’m not sure where that gif is from, there wasn’t any contexxt for it that I remember.”
I’m pretty sure it’s a mis-subtitled bit from the video for the ’80s new wave semi-classic “I Eat Cannibals” by Total Coelo.
About a minute and a half into this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4O1A-mmBWw
I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of myself for knowing that.
Thanks Dave!
Heeee! That comment was just step one in my grand plan to get you all to buy boner-enhancing sugar pills. I just wonder how the filter got me.
Lawndart, might as well be proud. Shame won’t make you forget the ’80s.
Aye to that! They’d say they were driven to it by CROOOL WIMMINZ but somehow I just don’t believe them. Even if their attitudes are formed by experience, it’s a hell of a leap from “I have trouble trusting women after having these bad relationships; I know there are nice women out there but I haven’t had a happy relationship yet” to “women are evil/subhuman/running the world/depriving all men/hypergamous/misandrist/shouldn’t be allowed to vote or own property or use birth control or have custody or … or …”
And it’s the latter that the MGTOW and MRM in general go for.
Oh wow, just got to the bit where it was we who got otis put on moderation, not his bad behavior. Nifty. And taking your harrasment of this amanda person over to this thread? Not going to fly. The ‘she just couldn’t handle the truth’ bit? Sounds suspiciously like a dude who was talking at someone. Perpetually and loudly. With friends. Dude, you are gross. Oh, and dude, social anxiety and other emotional disorders does not cause you to hate women. You cause you to hate women.
Rebecca Watson’s article on Slate is fantastic, but for the love of Non-God do not read the comments. The He-Man Woman-Haters Atheist Club is out in full force, eager and willing to prove every single point Watson makes in the article.
Ah man, Amanda stopped posting! Shit, I wanted to have a conversation with her, she seemed cool. I guess she’s one of those healthy people who comment once and then move on to another article. How boring.
link us up, shaenon- the trolls here are pretty dull
Vitamin D, if you want to read what Amanda Marcotte has to say, she has a blog.
Thanks falconer, will do
Rebecca Watson is and remains a joke; the Slate article further cements said status. If you want an atheist/skeptic woman of substance, I’d take a gander at Abbie Smith, who blogs at “ERV” on NatGeo. She’s also the founder of the “Slyme Pit”, a loose collective of atheists working toward mutual goals of reason, science and humanism.
Dear lord I’m so glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that. And now that I’ve read that, I wish I were drinking.
I didn’t realize that harassment campaigns were considered humanism now. Or are they science?
Need we mention that the “Slyme Pit” absolutely abhors Watson and her defenders, including PZ Myers (him especially for “inviting Thunderf00t onto FTB with the intent of kicking him off again”)?
I still boggle at the notion you have that we take anything you have to say at face value.
I read the article on Slate and skimmed through huge sections of the comments thread. As usual, Steele, you’re wrong. Is it possible that you read as poorly as you write?