Happy Valentine’s Day Boycott Day! Every year on Valentine’s Day, MRAs around the world unite in a sacred ritual: the annual Valentine’s Day Blaming of the Ladies parade.
For, you see, Valentine’s Day is little more than a plot by the ladies to extract fancy chocolate and diamonds and other pricey romantic goods from the world’s men. That’s why, for the past I’m-not-going-to-look-up-the-number of years, the lady hating radio personality Marc Rudov has been trying to get other men to boycott the holiday to show the ladies of the world what’s what.
And plenty of manosphere dudes, from MRAs to MGTOWers, are happy to join in. I’ve highlighted some of their silliness in previous Valentine’s Day posts here, here and here. But, though I mentioned it, I never really did full justice to the denunciation of V-day that a certain Paul Elam posted on A Voice for Men a couple of years back.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Elam starts off with a brief statement of his overall thesis:
Valentines Day is to be avoided for what it is; a socially coerced day of hyper-entitlement for a generation of princess leeches.
See card above. (Pretty good, huh? I ACTUALLY FOUND A VALENTINE’S DAY CARD FEATURING A LADY LEECH!!)
[I]f you think loving someone means your wallet comes out while her purse remains closed then you will delighted to know that A Voice for Men will be selling monogrammed knee pads in the near future. All we need is the circumference of your knees and what sort of flooring is in your bedroom. We expect an endorsement from Joe Biden.
Actually, I just checked the A Voice for Men store, and the promised knee-pads are nowhere to be found. Though the John The Other mugs, sporting “JtO’s signature chainsaw,” look lovely! (And what better symbol of AVFM’s steadfast stance against violence than a lumberjacking tool also famous for its use in cinematic massacres!)
It’s not long before Elam turns his attention to that infamous slogan of a certain jeweler which MRAs seem to think originated as a feminist bumper sticker: “Every Kiss Begins With Kay.”
It would be better to say that every blowjob begins with Kay. After all, those full, moist lips they are promising you on the ad can go in quite a few places, and likely will if the tennis bracelet has enough carats.
That’s right fellas: Forget the old “Whitman’s Sampler” box of chocolates and wilted roses bought at the grocery store on the way home from work because you forgot it was Valentine’s Day. These days. each and every woman in America expects a diamond-encrusted tennis bracelet picked out by a dude who has no idea what sort of jewelry she likes. (Reward: One blowjob, the only one you will get all year.)
But underneath all this is something actually a little darker. Not all men are getting blowjobs and other forms of sex for the presents on Valentines Day so much as they are getting a reprieve from constant nagging and criticism, if they happen to get the right present. Nobody wants to talk about it, but Valentines Day, for far too many men, is actually Lighten Up and Don’t be such an Insufferable Bitch Day, but only if you get the present right.
Ah, the Blaming of the Ladies parade is in full swing! Next up, the Entitled Bitches Who Are Sort of Like Winos float, sponsored by A Voice for Men.
It is not just a matter of entitlement, but one of self esteem. And as most readers of this site already know, anyone who depends someone else making a trip to Zales or FTD in order to feel good about themselves has serious fucking issues. Feeding that on Valentines Day is like handle a bottle of Jack Daniels to your local sot.
He is only going to come back looking for more, and he won’t quit till his liver gives out.
All this talk of winos gets Elam thinking about the good old days, when he worked with substance abusers, and evidently spent much of his time trying to get them to blame women for all of their problems.
I used to counsel groups of men. It was a tough job getting them to be honest about women because of fears that putting reality on the table would drive women away. But with time almost all of them came to admit their constant frustrations with the pressures to to keep pleasing their women, especially where it concerns materialism. …
Almost without exception the men who were the most frustrated with financial pressures were also men who had entered those relationships wallet first, making sure Princess felt like a princess every minute of the day.
In other words, they went fishing with stink bait and caught bottom dwellers. And then they ended up silently stewing over it.
They got exactly what they paid for and nothing less.
What a wonderful counselor you must have been, Paul. So much empathy. So much insight. So much caring.
So, gentlemen, if you want your kisses to begin with Kay, please allow me to suggest a prostitute, or at least a woman that admits that is what she is. They may not actually kiss you, but I am thinking their skills in the fellatio department are considerably more developed. And when they are done they will go away!
How cool is that?
For Elam, every kiss begins with rage.
Why is VD called a holiday? I don’t get the day off work. Also, I have a policy of now of getting something not mass produced as a pressie for my partner. He asked what I wanted and I said I couldn’t think of anything. I still can’t. We’ve been together for 12 years and I don’t think we’ve ever done the “traditional” valentines stuff.
@Falconer
The wiki bracelet page does have one image of a tennis bracelet that they refer to as an “in-line” bracelet. It is the fourth image down on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracelet
@katz wow that is a LOT of love. 🙂
So, for MRAs, is Hate Women Day today or every day?
@Kiwi girl
It’s a holiday because it is a holy day, the Feast of Saint Valentine. It is one of the holidays that has just become so secularized that people of all faiths recognize it.
I’m familiar with the problems in the diamond and chocolate industries, but what are the problems in the flower industry?
@Kiwi Girl: Apart from today being the Feast of St. Valentine, I dunno why it’s a holiday.
Wikipedia’s entry on Saint Valentine says that this feast day was associated with lurve as early as the 14th Century, and that Chaucer and his mates made up some stories about the saint.
Then, in the 18th century, some English historians decided that the day had been used to hijack the non-Christian holiday of Lupercalia, but that’s been contested recently.
@blitzgal: That’s the page I was talking about, sorry if I was unclear.
Ah, those pesky apocryphal apostrophes. Have you had any epiphanies on how to deal with them? I don’t think you need to worry too much, unless it’s an apostolic apostrophe.
(Pardon me, this is a thing we do in my family. It’s great fun on road trips.)
@Nepenthe: I did not need to know that (shudder). However, if I’m ever on Jeopardy and that’s a question, I will thank you.
I’m in favor of any holiday that involves discounted candy afterwards. Most guys I know feel much the same way.
And here’s a Valentine Slenderman for you all:
http://faedragon.deviantart.com/art/Slenderman-Valentine-284669105
And a Cthulhu Valentine for good measure:
http://intbride.blogspot.com/2011/02/cthulhu-valentine-spam.html
Because there a few problems that can’t be solved with a practical application of tentacles (or kitties).
Hmm, maybe the MGTOWs should be happy to know I got my boyfriend a couple V-Day presents, after I convinced him to go out with his other girlfriend since he doesn’t get to spend weekends with her. I guess NAWALT?
For me?
Right, I just meant the label under the photo indicates that it is an “in-line bracelet, aka tennis bracelet.” I saw the Chris Evert story in a few places — here it is on Livestrong:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/148725-why-are-tennis-bracelets-called-tennis-bracelets/
Why is it disgusting that men might perform oral sex on women? Why is that dehumanizing to men and not women?
Also, aren’t substance abusers NOTORIOUS for spending all their money on drugs? Why the ever loving fuck would you convince an addict to hate his supportive spouse because she’s upset he spent all their money on drugs? What the hell are you trying to accomplish?
@Karak: Because women are only good for sex.
Because one more man who hates women is a victory for Paul Elam. He doesn’t give a fuck about the addict.
I think it’s more that it’s humiliating to be the person giving oral, and empowering to be the person receiving it.
cf. “Suck my dick!” as an aggression.
@Cthulhu’s Intern
For you…and for anyone who will appreciate it.
I must say that I find your handle immensely amusing. I have to wonder what’s on your resume that got you the position, though.
Yeah, the cultural attitude is that it’s a position of submission, which in term is interpreted to be “weak” and thus “unmanly.”
*in turn. My goodness, my typos today.
Why be Cthulhu’s Valentine, though? Will he eat you first?
I’ve never understood the power dynamic of oral sex. You’d think the person with their teeth near the other person’s tender bits would be the person with the power.
Because Cthulhu is a pretty cool guy when you get to know him. Even if commuting to R’lyeh is as expensive as hell and he pays me in some ancient currency that’s no good anymore.
Re: Oral sex:
Also, isn’t one of the whole appeals of giving oral that you have the ability to make your partner feel good, basically making you the one in “power,” in their words.
@Ellex: I think it has to do with the cultural narrative that the tender bits are dirty.
Oops, for some reason, I put some fake HTML close tag as meta-commentary at the end, saying that I wouldn’t actually know because I’m a virgin, but apparently, WordPress recognizes it as a real HTML tag and removed it. Oops.
Also, three comments in a row.
@Ellex
I’ve heard men describe it in particularly degrading terms, like enjoying it when the woman gags, enjoying it if her jaw creaks, and of course the whole sense of triumph that comes with finishing on her face. This is not in any way to say that all men are getting off thinking that it’s domination. And I’ve also heard women describe feeling powerful when they are doing it, for the very reasons you imply — they are controlling the pleasure, etc.