An Orlando man, Faron Thompson, was recently charged with battery and child neglect after an altercation in which he allegedly tried to force his fiancée to swallow her engagement ring when she tried to leave him. (More details here.)
This sort of abuse is depressingly commonplace when women try to free themselves from abusive and controlling men; indeed, if I posted every news account along these lines on this blog I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
No, I mention this case because something that Thompson reportedly told police reveals a lot about the mindset of abusers. When they arrested him, police say, Thompson complained that:
Women always claim assault, but never accept responsibility for provoking someone.
That is how abusers think.
It’s also how a lot of MRAs think.
Indeed, when I read Thomson’s reported remarks, the y immediately brought to mind something written not that long ago by Karen Straughan, the YouTube videoblogger who goes by the name of Girl Writes What. Straughan describes herself in her A Voice for Men bio as “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” and given the rapturous reception her videos get on You Tube and on Reddit, this may not be an idle boast.
In the rather revealing Reddit comment I’m thinking of (which I blogged about earlier), Straughan suggested not only that abused women regularly “demand” the abuse they receive, but that many of them also get some sort of sexual charge from it. Oh, I’m sure she’ll deny that she really meant all that, but I can’t see any other way to read the following.
Oh, and in case you were wondering what article she’s referring to in the last paragraph — the one she says isn’t “seriously ethically questionable” — it’s a post from the repugnant Ferdinand Bardamu arguing that men should “terrorize” their partners because that’s the “the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.” For more about that charming piece, titled “The Necessity of Domestic Violence,” see my post here.
I’m having less and less of a problem with calling the Men’s Rights movement “the abusers lobby.”
I’m sure there are some MRAs who are as repulsed by Straughan’s argument as I am. If you’re one of them, and want your movement, such as it is, to be remembered as something other than “the abusers lobby,” you need to call out all those MRAs who make such arguments. Might I suggest that you start by challenging the “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” otherwise known as Girl Writes What?
Shorter DispoBore: I’m so disappointed that the people I was an asshole to did not try to earnestly communicate with me. What’s the world coming to, ectetera, ectetera.
All praise to
Disposable: Anyway, I wish you all well and bid you adieu.
And now you convert your previous failure into a trifecta of loss.
Primus: You said you were not coming back, and you did. Ergo you have lost once.
Secundus: You have by coming back, failed to live up to the ultimatum you pretended you could impose. Ergo you have lost twice.
Tertius: You have yet to actually answer any of the rebuttals to the silly things you said. Ergo you have lost thrice.
And all done in a trice.
Argenti: Kitteh — Cassie replied to me at least once or twice, not sure she ever replied to Pecunium, but I think he got here after she left.
I came late to the party, but (as of this morning when I left for work) she had not replied, in the least, to my detailed replies to her positions, despite her making the effort to reply to less topical comments made by others well after my comments.
-_- And DisposableMan completely ignored what I said. Again.
Dude, how can I engage if you don’t engage with me, and then claim nobody’s engaging with you?
It’s about the best we can expect of DisposableNappies, I guess.
Say, how’s this for weirdness: I just did a new blog post, and WordPress thought a useful tag would be “Race and Ethnicity in the US Census.”
The blog is about a photo of Louis, cats sitting on laps causing Feline Paralysis, and toast and tea.
Dafuq?
Pecunium — Forget / didn’t realize she’d replied after your comments, no clue why she ignored you then (besides the obvious, she couldn’t just goalpost shift / condescend to you)
LBT — By being excessively
dumbcocky.Btw, I advice against sticking what looks like a spider bite into a fish tank, my forger is not happy with me! I really doubt it’d get infected, but leaking plasma is awesome!
Eeeek!
I wonder if it would respond well to the hot salty water treatment? I’ve done that with minor finger infections, but not bites (never had a spider bite, thanktheallmercifulCeilingCatabove).
It’ll be fine, my ooze is nice and clear, just kinda messy!
Oh well, as long as it’s nice clear ooze!
Say, is that NiceOoze(TM)?
Honestly, I suspect she glassed over. I also have to admit to a mistake. The 1969 draft lottery was 366 numbers, because it was an aggregate of all the males 18-22 who were eligible, so Feb. 29th had to be in the mix.
Which means a slightly smaller percentage of the total were actually called up than I thought.
NiceOoze(TM)
Sure, why not!
Pecunium — correcting to include leap day, there’s a level of intellectual honesty the trolls never show! And maybe she did just miss your comments, that’d be the least BS option.
Not miss; ignored.
LOL wow. Hatred of misogynist assholes is not the same as hatred of men standing up for other men. And we’re not inclined to concede anything because we’re feminists? Yeah, no. Talk about a baseless generalization.
Having a “caustic” tone is not what you should be apologizing for. In fact, you have nothing to apologize for. But if you insist you have to apologize for something, then apologize for being a terrible commenter.
In what universe can feminists not admit their wrong.
Feminists as a collective don’t agree on everything.
Random: I’m watching the magic school bus.
I have no idea what trolls are talking about, so here is a guinea pig with butter on it.
melody — awesome, in all the awesome-ist ways!
Pecunium — then I’m sticking with “ignored you because she had no reply, and knew derision wouldn’t work” (not that it worked on me, see how she ignored my long ass comment!)
Is that guinea pig an appetiser for a hot buttered manatee?
Hot buttered manatees need to eat.
“I’m having less and less of a problem with calling the Men’s Rights movement “the abusers lobby.””…presumably you’d take issue with the following statement by one of your supportive commenters then? “Feminists as a collective don’t agree on everything”.
You state that MRAs don’t voice their objection often enough to counter extreme views within their number, yet nor do feminists…except their silence is not taken as complicity because, hey, it’s a given that “feminists don’t agree on everything” whilst the MRAs obviously give each other a “bro fist” every time one of them says or does anything. That’s just the way men are…all the same- stupid, violently aggressive & misogynistic…hey except for David & all the other feminists, right?
Why do the trolls think they can sneak into old threads and not get noticed? Is it that vital to you fools to be able to smugly feel like you got the last word? Even knowing that you had to SNEAK IN to do it, ergo it’s not really valid?
The trolls here are by definition stupid, so it sort of follows …
@(Sic) Male
*Sigh* What would you like feminists to voice an objection to that they aren’t?