The votes are in and the winner of the highly coveted Man Boobz Troll of the Year Award for 2012 is … MRAL!
Wait, you say, he wasn’t even on the ballot?
Well, no. The troll that got the most votes from you, my dear readers, was the verbose anti-Man Boobz crusader known as Steele — also known as Mikhael Varpole and, briefly, as Torvus Butthorn. Indeed, Steele cruised to victory, getting 47% of the vote, as compared with the 33% received by Tom Martin, his only real competitor. (Dr. Pell came in third, with a mere 6% of the total.)
But as it turns out we’ve been played, big time. The troll we know and love as Steele turns out to have been MRAL all along.
Yes, that MRAL – the long banned commenter who cannot seem to walk away from this blog. We’ve uncovered and banned many of his previous sockpuppets, but somehow he managed to slip his boldest sockpuppet right by us.
Oh, sure. I and others here often wondered if Steele was for real; it seemed pretty clear to me that he couldn’t possibly believe everything he said. But it wasn’t until I went back to some of “Steele’s” earliest comments here, in preparation for this post, that I discovered how justified these suspicions had been. Turns out that one of “Mikhael Varpole’s” IP addresses matched one used by an earlier troll, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, who had been outed as MRAL a couple of months earlier.
D’OH!
“Torvus Butthorn” really should have been a dead giveaway. But otherwise the highly dedicated MRAL did a masterful job of keeping his troll character consistently ridiculous yet plausible enough to not be an obvious phony, and of hiding his particular obsessions in such a way that he didn’t give himself away.
So, congrats, MRAL, and you’re banned again.
After this, the rest of the results are a bit of an anticlimax.
Sunshine Mary wins the Special-est Snowflake award for Female MRA Trolls, with 52% of the vote. Driversuz comes in second with 32%.
Tom Martin easily wins the Worst Human Being award with a stunning 73% to David K Meller’s 22%.
Some Guy Bored With Your Schtick wins Most Tiresome with 58% of the vote; Diogenes is a distant second with 24%.
And JudgyBitch wins Most Pathetic Vote Beggar.
I hope they’re not all MRAL too.
Oh my giddy female relatives!!! All of them.
Is coming out of left field a suitable expression when it’s really barrelling out of the archives?
And steele was the only one I found in the least bit amusing. (But probably not for the same reason he thought he was funny.) The thought of now being stuck in the bus with talacaris et al in the back seats maundering on about stuff they don’t understand is beyond tedious.
Might have to up the video quota to supply tedium relief rather than brain bleach.
What was Mr. Al’s final meltdown, anyway? The last thing I remember he was losing his shit about bra sizes in the Katy Perry thread, but I know he was around for a while after that.
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
I don’t think this guy even understands what a serious, big time asshole he is. Imagine if any of us did this to an MRA site — use DOZENS of IP addresses to conceal our identities, show up in a dozen different guises, just to stir shit and harass them. They would lose their shit, and it would be all about how the feminazi matriarchy is exerting control over them.
IDK, I can imagine how what started as another sockpuppet turned into an extended RP session when it turned out to be successful. Then again, Steele was always just the tiniest bit sympathetic, so maybe that’s clouding my judgment and I’m giving him too much benefit of the doubt.
I dimly remember Mr Al from my early lurking days, and I know I can use the search function to find him, but if anyone has any favorite Mr Al threads I’d like to see them.
How am I not surprised that Sunshine Mary won in the Special Snowflake category? Back when I was a MRA, I used to post over there in her comments. Needless to say, she hated anyone who had an opinion other than “women are, by nature, deceitful and weak creatures who need the guidance of a strong Christian husband…else they become stubborn trollops of the land”.
I made such points as;
1. If a man can leave a room during an argument with his wife to take a break from the fighting, then a woman should be able to as well. (Its what I do!) But no, I learned that when a MAN does it, he’s clearing his head…when a woman does it, she’s being childish and avoiding the problem. SSM even said that her husband takes her by the shoulders and sits her down like a frickkin toddler when she tries to leave the room. If someone prevented me from leaving during a heated argument, I’d probably (and unfortunately) turn mean.
2. She had up a post about the importance of a married couple being willing to take care of each other sexually. I do agree with this…I know enough men who cheated only because their wives made them wait for sex for 3, 5 and in one case 8 months between “sessions”. As none of these were medical/psychiatric/physical reasons, I do think it is very unfair to those men. But on SSMs blog, I made the point that spouses should attempt to remain sexually healthy, so long as neither was raped in the process. I was told, quite sternly and by many members, that it is actually *impossible* for rape to occur in marriage, because they are “one flesh” and you can’t rape yourself. That, and the “fact” that the marriage contract means that each spouse has essentially given complete use of their body to the other at any time. Yeah…
3. Another post dealt with MGTOW, and I said that if there are men who (for whatever reason) want to remain single, then that’s fine. After all, *I* wish to stay single…why shouldn’t some menfolk wish to also? Nobody, male OR female, should be scorned for their life choices. SSM herself never replied, but one of her slightly Fundie followers made sure I “knew” that only men could Go Their Own Way…women are incapable of such, and ones like me are simply pretending. I’m not sure how I can pretend to work 55 hrs each week to pay off my college loans/car/credit cards while also pretending to maintain my tiny home that has no other humans in it…I guess I’m just *that damn good*.
If I’m honest, it was SSM’s blog that finally opened my eyes to the horrible extreme that the MRA was. She may not “be an MRA” but she attracts a LOT of them…to see people arguing so passionately that women are inferior, and using quotes from the Bible to “prove” it…it really, truly scares me. These are not unintelligent discussions. The vast majority are well thought out, have numerous Biblical quotes, and are aptly written. They simply spout out beliefs that would make most modern/free thinking people cringe.
People like that are the reason why I became Wiccan 14 years ago…and why I dropped MRA beliefs this year.
Sorry for the long rant, feel free to completely ignore it. I just needed to get my dealings with her off my mind!
I thought David was being silly until I saw his comment. Damn that’s impressively creepy.
@Evito
I wouldn’t be truly scared by the commenters on SSM’s blog. They don’t have well thought out arguments, they have misogynist, hypocritical diatribes and cherrypick Bible quotations to go with them. If you’re not Christian, they have nothing other than “but women are STUPID and weak”, and you’ve proven that you know that’s not true.
Every time the awful woman’s been challenged on her interpretation of the Bible by people over here who are more knowledgeable on the subject than her (Pecunium and Howard Bann1ster spring to mind) she turns tail and runs to her blog to crow about how we’re all just so gosh darn MEAN for not treating her like the sun shines out of her lying arse when she tells us we should ‘submit’ to being raped, abused and unhappy; or tells us that our lives have no meaning because we’re not part of her hideous little sect.
That’s not the markings of a well thought-out argument, and just because she sounds like some of the more extremist-misogynist politicians (a lot of whom I think have lost their seats recently), doesn’t mean her pukeworthy prattling has any merit to it. She’s just a fucking creep who wants everyone to partake in her sexual fantasy, the abusive little monster that she is.
Evito: That, and the “fact” that the marriage contract means that each spouse has essentially given complete use of their body to the other at any time.
Except she doesn’t mean that. She doesn’t think a woman has a right to make a man listen to her when she’s upset. He want’s to leave, he can.
She also thinks a man can refuse sex. He’s the man.
I do see SteAL’s horror at being “doxxed”. He was afraid it would cause his strings to show. Funny that being a success is what tripped him up.
Evito, I agree with what you’re saying, except for a little quibble about your second point, which is that I feel cheating on a spouse is a pretty shitty thing to do, even in that circumstance.
I absolutely agree that it’s important for both partners to ensure they are sexually compatible before getting into a relationship, and that some give and take is necessary. Once in that relationship though, both partners need to work out those incompatibilities.
What if the reason she’s not interested is because he’s only interested in his own pleasure, and is not willing to make the same concessions for her pleasure? What if she’s overworked with an unfair share of housework, leaving her too tired to be interested in sex? Denying him sex without explaining might be passive-agressive, but the solution to that is communication, not cheating.
Ultimately, the terms of the relationship are up to the couple. I have no problem with open relationships, or porn as a marital aid if the two partners have incompatible sex drives. After all; it’s not cheating if it’s not against the rules. The couple sets the rules though, and if both can’t abide by them, then they probably shouldn’t be a couple.
@the natfantastic
I noticed that, as more and more comments were directed towards me rather than the topics. It just scares me that someone can be THAT brainwashed into truly believing they are inherently inferior. It makes me weep for us as a species…
@pecunium
Honestly, sometimes I don’t understand WHAT her points are supposed to be. I mean, she starts off with a topic, writes about it, then submissively bows to all her male commentors if she inadvertently made a “mistake” about how women are. Never before have I seen a blog where the author doesn’t defend her beliefs, and instead lets her readers tell her how unintelligent and wrong she is. Boggles my mind.
@leftwingfox
I didn’t say that I wholeheartedly approve of the sexual cheating, just that I can understand why it would happen. The men I know who have done this are good people…they work two (sometimes three) jobs to give their families nice lives, don’t go to movies/dinner if their wives tell them to come home, take their kids to dance/scouts/sports on their single day off, and are not allowed to have porn in the house (even discreetly hidden).
I’ve seen these men actually cry, real tears and all, from sheer frustration. I’m not saying their wives don’t have a difficult time between work and kids…but I find it very hard to believe they can only have sex 2 to 5 times a year.
Again, I absolutely don’t approve of forcing someone into having sex, and I 100% recognize that the wives have difficulties to contend with…but is it really so hard to give your husband sex once a month? Or reverse it too, is it difficult to give your wife sex once a month, if you don’t allow any other outlets?
That’s where I’m coming from.
ALL the gifs.
I agree with Leftwingfox, sexual frustration isn’t an excuse to cheat on a spouse I’m afraid.
If a couple are so sexually incompatible that one feels the temptation to cheat then they either need to communicate with their partner and try to find a solution to the problem or they need to end the relationship.
Sexual incompatibility is is a perfectly acceptable reason to end a relationship (of course you don’t NEED a reason to end a relationship, that you want to is enough but you get my meaning) but it is something that is not usually acceptable.
If a couple are ill partnered sexually it’s usually portrayed as the woman’s fault since she must not be giving him enough sex yada yada and then they are often blamed if their partner cheats (being heteronormative on purpose here because I don’t think there are the same cultural narratives and stereotypes surrounding same-sex or non-cis relationships).
But it all feeds in from the same toxic notion that men are not expected to control or be responsible for their sexual urges and desires, and that women as the “gatekeepers” of sex are the ones who are responsible for pandering to or fending off men’s sexual desires.
@evito: Fair enough.
Evito, sex is something you “give” another person it is something that people do together.
And if one member of a couple is only having sex because they see it as a duty or if they see it as a chore rather than something they want to do then there are bigger problems in that relationship than the sexual frustration of one half.
And plenty of people only have sex 2 to 5 times a year,many have even less or are completely celibate and they are not reduced to tears.
No-one owes sex to anyone else, even in a relationship, even when married.
*sex is NOT something
Eeesh:
“I’ve seen these men actually cry, real tears and all, from sheer frustration. I’m not saying their wives don’t have a difficult time between work and kids…but I find it very hard to believe they can only have sex 2 to 5 times a year.
Again, I absolutely don’t approve of forcing someone into having sex, and I 100% recognize that the wives have difficulties to contend with…but is it really so hard to give your husband sex once a month? Or reverse it too, is it difficult to give your wife sex once a month, if you don’t allow any other outlets?”
What leftwingfox said. And what Historophilia said. Mainly this:
“If a couple are ill partnered sexually it’s usually portrayed as the woman’s fault since she must not be giving him enough sex yada yada and then they are often blamed if their partner cheats (being heteronormative on purpose here because I don’t think there are the same cultural narratives and stereotypes surrounding same-sex or non-cis relationships).
But it all feeds in from the same toxic notion that men are not expected to control or be responsible for their sexual urges and desires, and that women as the “gatekeepers” of sex are the ones who are responsible for pandering to or fending off men’s sexual desires.”
I genuinely found this interesting, Evito:
“People like that are the reason why I became Wiccan 14 years ago…and why I dropped MRA beliefs this year.”
It must have been hard to take up such a woman-firendly belief system while still maintaining MRA beliefs. Can you give us any insights into that?
I’m actually really curious to hear from, and eager to speak to, ex-MRAs. I mean, surely for most sane-but-just-a-bit-scorned-and-bitter men who join the MR ‘movement’, there is a shelf-life? A point at which the hate and misogyny and sheer dumbassery just gets a bit much? I couldn’t hack the websites for very long, even looking at them in mockery and bemusement. It’s just too. Much. Stupid. That’s not to say I don’t love all the very scientifical word-vomits about the true nature of females and feminazis – but still. The stupid burns after a while.
I’d love to hear some exit stories from those who have seen the light…
I used to be sunshinemary, so I’m particularly hard on her.
And I know from experience that the load of cognitive dissonance is hard to let go of.
(hey, sunshinemary, still breaking one of the ten commandments openly and fragrantly? You know which one. God hates liars. The lake of fire is reserved for them. Think it over)
This. If a couple is mis-matched sexually there’s loads of stuff they can do to balance that out. But having a conversation about it like adults is totally off the table, right? Because if we talked about it like adults that’d be too darn easy.
Evito I’d forgotten that you had been an MRA, that explains why you hold this view and makes me more sympathetic.
However your argument does hold traces of MRA views still.
The idea of sex being a thing that women do for men rather than being an activity between people.
The idea of women “witholding” sex. You didn’t use that word exactly but it comes to much the same. It comes from the views MRA’s have that women owe men sex, that sex is owed in relationships and also that women manipulate men using sex and that if they do not have sex with them then they are cheating them out of something that is rightfully theirs.
These are very toxic ideas, I’m full of admiration at how far you’ve come from your MRA days but there is still work you need to do to rid yourself of MRA views. Partly because a lot of MRA’s views are held by society at large.
But don’t think I’m not sympathetic to people in sexually incompatible relationships. I spent a year and a half in a relationship with a guy who I simply didn’t find sexually attractive, I normally have a very high sex drive but I ended up with next to no sexual desires because of how much I didn’t want to sleep with him.
I did the whole “giving” him sex thing because I felt guilty and ashamed (just to note, he never in any way, ever pressured me or guilted me or even mentioned the issue until a few weeks before we broke up).
I would never, ever have cheated on him though,how I addressed the issue was to end the relationship.
Being in my situation was horrible, and I know it was horrible for him as well. But neither of us cheated.
I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye about the sex thing, so I’ll take a page from leftwingfox and just say “Fair enough”.
As for my beliefs, I’m 27 now and converted from Catholic to Wiccan when I was 13. I only became a MRA about 4 or 5 years ago.
Initially, I only knew about what was going on in the lives of my friends (all guys) and coworkers (95% guys), and then found individual blogs or sites like the Good Men Project. What I heard from all these sources made sense…none of this people tried to show me weird alternate histories where men were all oppressed by women, or told me that 98% of rape cases were false, etc.
Instead, I heard/read stories of being wrongfully judged, of being feared simply for being male, of being used as nothing more than a wallet by girlfriends/wives, of the sexual harrasment at other jobs/colleges that they were expected to either laugh off or enjoy…and many other examples. Thus, I previously saw my “becoming an MRA” to be in full alignment with Wicca. After all, I pray to the Lady and the Lord…why shouldn’t society ALSO see that the sexes are equally deserving of respect?
It wasn’t til this past year that I began to see the worse side of the MRA. In other forums and sites, I was told that AWALT…that I was a pretender…a troll…a Fem spy…that women (other than Asian ones) are all revolting, hateful, disgusting, obese wallet pillering scum. And far, far worse…
Now I’ve grown up some, and I know that I’m not a Feminist OR an MRA. I’m egalitarian.
Hope that answers people’s questions for now, as I need to head off for another wonderful 9 hour shift. Have a good day, all!
OK. Thanks for the insight, Evito. Now, I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but it’s curious that you resist the feminist label — since you think both sexes are equal. That’s what feminism is (See “patriarchy hurts men too.”). But I the fear of the “f” word is so rampant, that even some women who prove every day to be empowered, reject the label. I have to assume these people don’t really know what feminism is — or what they believe to be feminism is just a bunch of negative stereotypes circulated by people who don’t really understand what feminism is. Other times I think people can’t get passed the fem part of the word. The very idea of a movement about women issues, started by women is just too oft-putting…which is sad.
PS: on the whole sex thing, the talking about sex thing, the mis-matched sex drives thing, have you discovered Captain Awkward yet, Evito?
Shiraz, I discussed that in a thread a little while back. And I agree, people are so unused to anything being female-centric and concerned with women that anything that is unashamedly so is a threat to their world-view.
I’m very wary of trying to “make” women identify as feminists and I don’t like the way that when someone like Taylor Swift says she is not one many Feminists are quick to rubbish this and say things like “all women today are feminists” or says she’s stupid for not identifying as one. That rubs me up the wrong way.
But I am curious as well, it’s fine saying you’re an egalitarian but what Feminism has that Egalitarianism doesn’t is a set of tools for analyzing and explaining the world around us and why the inequality and prejudice that we can observe exists. And by explaining and looking at the root cause of prejudice Feminism is much better equipped to tackle it.
Egalitarianism doesn’t really go into any real analysis of society,it’s a good sweeping statement but it doesn’t achieve much because it doesn’t try to understand.
This is a huge part of why I am a Feminist, because when I see things that I dislike about the way women and other groups are treated that I see as wrong, Feminism gives me the tools I need to understand it, and by understanding it,work against it.
Feminism and Feminists analysis (most of the time) just makes so much gorram sense.