Here’s a bit of, er, “wisdom” about women, plucked from the “Best Of” forum on NiceGuy’s MGTOW forum, and highlighted by our dear friend MarkyMark on his blog. Forgive the melodramatic phrasing; All MGTOWers Are Like That.
Take it away, TQR:
Your eyes are open now. You have finally put 2 and 2 together and realized the “modern woman” and everything about her is an illusion. Everything you, me, and millions of other men, both young and old have been raised to believe is a lie. Women really are the weaker sex. They aren’t equal and the worst part? They never were. …
For those who have the courage to face the truth about modern society, women, relationships, and marriage there is an upside. You’ll begin to gain a greater sense of self as a man and you will begin to understand your own worth. You’ll no longer find desperate fulfillment in the arms of a woman, but instead you’ll find fulfillment in your beliefs, your faith, your principles, your intelligence, your strength, and your natural authority. You are a man. You are the Father, the Husband, and the Adult. You lead, women follow. …
You are like a parent that has realized how spoiled, selfish, and arrogant the children have become. You begin to see them for what they are and instead of giving in to their selfish demands, whining, and temper tantrums you start setting rules, defining boundaries for behavior, and exacting discipline. You become a rock that cannot be moved or manipulated by them. Naturally the child will kick and scream and yell and fight you. But ultimately, the child will appreciate the fact that you have given their life what they’ve needed all along – order. Modern woman are no different . Though they may deny it, they are, in essence, overgrown children crying out for leadership because order brings comfort, security, and safety – everything women today desperately seek. Ironically, the very thing women rage against the most – submission – is the very thing they need.
Also, as you regain your manhood, don’t be surprised if women actually find you more attractive now. We are men. We have been raised to believe that being a man is bad – that masculinity is offensive. That testosterone is a disease men need to be cured of because it offends and scares women. No. Masculinity only scares women because it reminds them of what they aren’t and what they will never be….MEN. We already are what women want – by birth. Unfortunately, once you see women for what they are, it’s hard to say the same about them.
Yeah, I’m sure women are totally beating down TQR’s door, hungering for his manly mixture of misogyny and desperate self-delusion.
Maybe it’s just that my academic background is in psychology, but this was one of the most disturbing things to me in terms of reading up on dominionist groups.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/15/515505/-Cell-churches-personality-changes-and-coercion
Basically this harks back to the discussions we had about The Forum a while back – any kind of organized event/training program that can create a sharp change in personality type within a short period of time falls firmly under the heading of “brainwashing”.
(Also probably explains why I always found the behavior of people in those groups so baffling – I’m INTP, which doesn’t seem to exist within that setting, at least not after people have been through the conversion process.)
@CassandraSays:
Okay, so I generally lurk around here and all, but that article was definitely scary. I didn’t realize they could manipulate personalities like that.
I’m glad they mentioned the International Church of Christ as one of the creepy cults. When I was a freshman at college, I got invited to the [City Name] Church: the girl told me they were “non-denominational”. Since I’d gone to a non-denominational church for a while as a kid, I thought, “sure, why not”.
I have never been more creeped out by a church. When I first walked in, all sorts of congregants there came up to me to greet me and *hug* me, to welcome me to the church. Then the pressure! They pressured me into going to a “bible-study” group, which turned out to be a one-on-one recruitment session. I felt like I was just another tally mark on the recruiter’s wall! They use a guide book for recruitment called a “discipling” handbook full of leading questions and out of context bible quotes to pressure prospective members into agreeing with them. In particular, they are really agressive about the idea that there is only one way to interpret the bible, which really irked me even then. Oh, and they NEVER told me they were actually ICOC, bunch of lying skeezes. (When I looked them up later and found out they were not only a denomination, but also generally considered a cult, I was PISSED!)
I am SOSOSO glad I was super obstinate about what I believed. After I told them I wasn’t going to change my mind about baptism, they prayed for me to have my eyes opened so I wouldn’t be cast into hell, and then left me alone.
@quantamsparkles: ahh, ICOC. The slightly MORE culty cousins of my cult.
@quantumsparkles
Eek! I managed to avoid attempts to recruit me as a young person by deadpanning “I’m a Satanist” (works well if you’re a surly goth), but there sure were a lot of them while my family was in Texas.
Some friends of ours from Guatemala got caught up in the dominionist church that took power there for a while, and at one point they took my parents to a service. I spoke to my mother on the phone shortly afterwards, and remember her going “what the hell did I just sit through? what was that?” over and over again.
Well, there’s my next round of strange nightmares: cultists* who hug**, berating me for not finishing their social link.
*My main idea of ‘cultist’ comes from fantasy.
** No-one is allowed to hug me for religious reasons. They can hug for friendship reasons.
Also, I’m starting to think my religious-building-phobia is incredibly justified. Fortunately I live in pretty CofE areas…
Oh, it gets way more weird than just hugging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flirty_Fishing
I believe the Children of God was the group River Phoenix was involved with as a child. Poor guy, no wonder he was so unhappy as an adult.
aaaaaaaaaaa nooooooo that is awful
haha, … I kinda like to think “beep boop, I like science” would have turned them off somewhat, too.
Oddly enough, the service itself wasn’t particularly weird or memorable the day I visited. It was the before and after that set off my alarm bells. Like, why did they insist I meet the pastor after the service? And the weirdly overly friendly thing really felt like they wanted something or were trying to con me. It was that over-eager used car salesman vibe. And seriously, hugging is not welcoming for me if I don’t know you.
But that “flirty fishing”? WTF is this shit?? I am just… Damn. Regular old love bombing is more than creepy enough.
The Children of God still exist, by the way, though they’re now known as The Family.
The polygamy part I don’t care about at all (which makes talking to most people about the problem with that particular cult difficult, since they get hung up on that). It’s the fact that a very large percentage of the kids in the group were being molested that was a problem, along with the whole be a flirty fisher or get guilt tripped about how you’re letting the group down and not loving God enough crap.
I’m very huggy but would still find love-bombing uncomfortable. I experienced a mild version of that a few times via the parents of friends who were involved in various weird religious groups (one of whom decided to burn all her younger daughter’s fantasy novels, which I suppose is a good thing in the long run since it pushed both kids firmly into the “this is not for me” camp), and it was really creepy and uncomfortable. As soon as I met their parents I understood why they always wanted to come over to my house instead of hanging out at theirs.
(Well, also that my mum was a big fan of the “feed all the people delicious things any time they enter your home” school of hostessing.)
I’ve known about flirty fishing for so long that I’m like, wait, you don’t know what that is? at first.
Then it’s all can I come live with you?!
I haven’t seen flirty fishing first-hand, but I would spend time with friends of mine who had recently become very Christian, and they would say things like, “We missed you in church this week!” My stock response to their invitations was a kind, “no, thanks!” but it got to feel awfully pushy.
They don’t do it anymore. They have a toddler, and spend all their affection on her, singing her religious songs and reciting John 3:16 at bedtime. I kinda wish they wouldn’t, but I don’t think they’re into the Pearls or would do anything to harm their kid.
CassandraSays, for a moment I thought the Children of God reboot was the same The Family as that secretive religious group that sponsors the annual National Prayer Breakfast in DC.
A quick Google nixed the horror, but for a moment I thought my brain was about to explode from Too Much Badness.
Argh, didn’t even think of that! No, much as I don’t like the Children of God, they’re not in any way linked to nefarious ultra-conservative religious groups that want to take over the world, as far as I know. In fact I really don’t think that the people who run the Prayer Breakfasts would be down with the whole free love thing.
For some reason I read ICOC as iCock.
Oh, I kind of assumed that they were the same The Family as that other The Family.
If they were that would be comic book supervillain level evil. Would be an odd mix, though, between CoGs chaotic evil and the usual fundie tendency towards lawful evil.
Is one of these “the Family” groups associated with the whole C-Street group? When I Google the name I get a different cult, an Australian one, or a group of murderers from Adelaide. I know the American ones must be in there somewhere but I’m feeling lazy …
@Kitteh’s: Yeah, one of the The Familys is associated with C Street and putting up Congresspersons free of charge. They’re the ones who host the prayer breakfasts for the government (which people go to because demonstrative piety is the 900-lb gorilla in the room).
The flirty-fishing The Family is another group, but I hadn’t heard of them until today.
The non-Prayer Breakfast group is this one, formerly known as the Children of God, founded in California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_God_%28cult%29
And if you want an idea of what happened to the kids raised in the cult and you have a strong stomach, 3 siblings who eventually escaped wrote a book.
http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Not_Without_My_Sister
Random creepiness – one of the women who wrote that book was constantly abused as a child, and one of her abusers used to be in Fleetwood Mac.
Falconer, thanks. The name rang some bells with C Street – filthy low-lifes they are.
I remember the phrase flirty fishing from years ago (presumably when it was around; I may have overheard it from some Assembly of God bods I worked with in the early 90s) but didn’t know until now that it was actual forced prostitution aka rape. So stinking typical, isn’t it – the old “you don’t own your body, some man does” line in one of its many guises. Somehow I don’t see JC being hugely impressed with that sort of thing.
Cassandra – ta for the links, though I don’t know if my stomach is up to that.
Fleetwood Mac? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit …
Also, cynical me has to point out that as different as the Assembly and the CoG might look on the surface, the only real difference is that one thinks women are personal property and the other thinks women are communal property.
I just read an excerpt from Not Without My Sister.
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck scumbags
The kid was 11 when this started happening.
Welp… I am never listening to Fleetwood Mac again. (Confession: I do not listen to Fleetwood Mac now, so this is no great sacrifice.)