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.
“Because there ARE few problems that can’t be solved with a suitable application of tentacles.”
@ blitzgal: Heavenly days, it’s catching. It must be typo fever.
@Falconer: Because then you won’t mind being eaten by Cthulhu, presumably. It’s the classic insanity defense.
http://mrparallel.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/trial-offer/#jp-carousel-4810
Well, the insanity defense is used to explain all those cults in fantasy RPGs trying to wake or release a dead/imprisoned god who would then try to destroy everything.
Never did buy it.
I wonder what they think about the practice in Japan, where girls give boys chocolate on February 14, and boys reciprocate on March 14.
Typo fever, lol.
Here is good news (reversing previous horrendously bad news): New York has finally gotten around to updating their rape laws to include all kinds of forcible sex. Previously, state law included only vaginal penetration as rape, resulting in the initial hung jury in the first rape trial of Michael Pena (jurists apparently were skeptical that his victim could really remember if she’d been penetrated, because she couldn’t remember the color of the car parked across the street).
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/14/new-york-bill-finally-expands-legal-definition-of-rape-to-include-any-forced-sexual-contact/
So with this law and the California law that stated rape by fraud only exists for married women, I have a really bad feeling that most states probably need to revisit their existent rape laws and bring them into the 21st century.
Valentine’s Day in my current relationship means a small bottle of expensive-ish champagne and a solid spanking session. I approve of this tradition.
And I don’t have to be bribed to go down, the squeals of happiness and pleasure are payment enough. But then again, I live in a loving, caring and equal relationship with The Husband Elect. I feel sorry for MRAs who are too paranoid for that.
On one hand you have the MRA’s decrying the Hallmark version of this holiday, and on the other you have some feminists decrying the Hallmark version of this holiday–is this the full circle where they meet? Can we agree *no one* likes the Hallmark “hearts jewelery and teddy bears” version of Valentine’s Day?
Then again, St. Valentine was supposedly jailed for performing forbidden marriage ceremonies. Equality!!!
Then again again. I made this (probably NSFW) greeting for the pre-Christian version of the whole thing, with a link to a more modern-day account of it.
@Falconer: I’m just amused by tentacles.
Regarding oral sex, my brain just goes “cultural dirty bits versus teeth…teeth obviously win!”
This is typical of my thought processes, though. I often find other people utterly mystifying.
@blitzgal: So, anal rape was not legally prosecutable rape in New York? I wish I was surprised by this. Sadly, I’m not.
@Ellex: it was prosecutable as an assault–so, basically, a lesser offence. So, yeah, modernizing it is kind of a big deal.
Best gift? The narcissist ex insisted on doing the ritual, I said fine, donate something then — I got trees 🙂
As for chocolate…I love the stuff, trying to act like it magically because special because society says so, well, at least that’s a cute sort of cultural ritual fail (seriously, anyone want chocolate? I’m got two boxes of mixed chocolates, chocolate covered cherries, chocolate covered walnuts, two different dark chcolate and chili pepper bars and Ferrero Rondnoir’s…and that’s from Christmas!)
Oh, and I could happily scrounge Dan Savage for many things, but apropos to this conversation, he’s said before that all loving relationships need to include oral because it’s a sign of being completely in love and comfortable with someone.
So thanks for making someone I know feel like a bad lover, Dan. Thanks so much.
Argenti, aren’t all cultural rituals just making something special because society says so?
oh Dan Savage.
Anyone who has their teeth near my genitals has power.
Cripes, Dan Savage. Here’s a giant collection of ‘this has been true in my life and has worked for me,’ feel free to append them to the beginning of everything from now on, kthx.
Not going to do a New Media Lady of the Lake
Not going to do a New Media Lady of the Lake
Not going to do a New Media Lady of the Lake
Just got spam about a “Fibromyalgia Outbreak!” Like it’s communicable. Fucking fearmongering spammers.
And completely OT, here is the utter horror of leaving a vicious rottweiler with a tiny little kitten. TW for the daaaawwwwww…..
Happy VD.
No, no, it’s the typos that are catching!
All the spam I get involves discounted Viagra and Cialis from Canada, or promises to enlarge my (nonexistent) manhood. I can’t help but think that they wouldn’t spam this stuff so enthusiastically if there weren’t a significant number of people who fall for it.
I gave my sister some candles for Single Awareness Day since she has been having such a bad couple of days. And an ex-boyfriend sent me roses since he knows I love roses. Otherwise no one really cares about Arizona Statehood Day.
huh, you’d think Dan Savage of all people would appreciate how arbitrary and idiosyncratic the meanings different people ascribe to different sex acts can be
@Ellex
Of course you needed to know! Everyone needs to know about the cuddly wormies! <3
(That feeling is them hugging you with their teeth.)
katz — eh, probably? I’m wary of saying all of them, but most anyways. Christmas, Valentine’s and birthdays are the ones that bother me as being culturally expected. Even thanksgiving is optional (didn’t do anything at all while living by myself) — Halloween, Easter, New Year’s are all easily avoidable.
Birthdays you’re expected to get at least a card, and see all the “you forgot my birthday!?” BS. Christmas you can get out of if not Christian / claiming not to be, but Christian families expect quite the show (and my mother always acted like I was offending her deeply when I stayed in Pittsburgh). Valentine’s Day…see birthdays, but with more materialism.
…sounds like we’re about to be “celebrating” tax day.
@Ellex: I was trawling through old threads and I encountered a guy who was all PENIS ENVY IS BECAUSE GURLZ HAVE TINY TINY PENISES AND THEY KNOW THEY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SATISFY A WOMAN LIKE MY 10 INCHES OF MAN MEAT.
It was weird.
@Argenti: My dad had a birthday recently, and I got him a card. It had a kitten in a pot on the cover, and said something about growing him a cat for his birthday.
You would not believe how hard it is to find a sweet card to send to your father. If I were a Vulcan who only had these cards to go on, I would logically conclude that men of earth communicated via farts and drunken confessions of affection.