The Men’s Rights subreddit has a new favorite lady! The one in the pictures above, if you haven’t guessed. Her name is Sonia Verstappen, and until recently she was a sex worker in Brussels; she’s also an activist for the legalization of sex work. The stills above are apparently from a documentary called Sex Workers and Proud.
The Men’s Rights Redditors who love her don’t actually know any of this. They just love her because she’s a women who apparently thinks hysterical, man-destroying American lesbians have taken over feminism.
This little set of screenshots has been posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit several times before, and I’m pretty sure it’s always gotten a positive response, but never quite as positive as it’s gotten this time: as I write this, it’s been sitting comfortably in the #1 spot on the subreddit’s main page for some time, and has garnered more than twelve hundred net upvotes. The headline? “Wise words.”
[EDITED TO ADD: I stand corrected: On one previous occasion three months ago, the same collection of screenshots recieved more than 1900 upvotes and generated more than 500 comments, making it the 18th most popular post of all time in the Men’s Rights subreddit. Men’s Rights Redditors can’t get enough of this lady they don’t know anything about!]
The main debate going on amongst the regulars is whether or not the man-hating feminists in question are really lesbians or not. No, really. The regulars have all sorts of interesting theories on the subject. And by “interesting,” I mean “ignorant and homophobic and generally just … well, read it.”
I mean, even setting aside Idiopathic77’s rather limited understanding of the mechanics of lesbian sex (and sex in general, come to think of it), that’s just … weird. I guess this sort of discussion is what happens when you learn about feminism entirely from the Men’s Rights subreddit and YouTube trolls. It’s a bit like learning about Jewish people entirely from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and this clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
But where exactly is Whisper here running across all these “lesbian separatists” and heterosexual-women-turned-lesbian-for-political-reasons?
I mean, there was once upon a time in that wild and wacky era called “the seventies” a thing called “political lesbianism” that was based on the idea of lesbianism as a choice, but it got pushed to the fringes fairly quickly, because, you know, sexuality doesn’t really work that way.
Has Whisper developed some sort of time machine? Or do women just declare themselves lesbians when he starts talking to them because it’s a quicker way to get rid of him than giving him a fake phone number? That could also explain those 20% of Florida women who apparently gave Idiopathic77 the impression that they were lesbians of the phony, man-hating sort.
@emilygoddess and Nepenthe, yeah, the “gold star lesbian” and the stripper lines bothered me too. Overall though I had to laugh.
I’ve been pretty involved in the queer scene and I’ve actually never heard the term “gold star lesbian” before (although I’ve definitely run into the attitude that created it). Either it’s regional or my friends know it would piss me off and don’t say it around me.
Oh and the Jodi Arias stuff made me think of a comment I saw on an article about this really horrible press release HLN released about their coverage of her trial. It was basically gloating that they were the most-watched cable network for the 2 hours that Jodi Arias was “pleading for her life” (and yes, those were their exact words). It was really appalling.
The comment section somehow turned into MRAs criticizing feminists for not denouncing Nancy Grace and the other exploitative female “journalists” on that network. I’m like, since when is that a feminist issue? And also, since when have feminists liked Nancy freaking Grace? It’s like they can’t read anything even vaguely related to a woman without trying to attack feminism with it, which just makes them look silly.
She isn’t exactly wrong, I think. The idea “you have to be this lesbian to be a feminist”-idea used to have a lot more credit maybe… thirty years or so ago? But I don’t see the problem with that. I mean, they’re rare these days, the movement has moved on to more inclusive positions since the 70s. Meanwhile, the MRA sound like they’re stuck in the 1870s.
No idea if that actually was such a specifically anglo-saxon thing though. I mostly figured that she was simply parroting common european prejudice regarding the role of the US in world politics in a very unreflected manner.
Meanwhile, in the real world, liberal feminists back in the 70s were actually often throwing their lesbian sisters under the bus in order to defuse conservative attacks on feminism being a den of lesbianism. (This is not a dig on feminism qua feminism, we know that in general progressive orgs were poor on intersectionality back then, and sadly often they still are today).
@AK
What are the normal odds for gay dating? /just curious.
@cloudiah
Wow. Also, paraphrasing quote time! ‘I’m not saying all feminist hate men, I’m just saying all feminists tolerate hate of men.’
Who is Jodi Arias? I missed the hivemind update.
On Jodi Arias: I… am really glad I’ve been avoiding the whole mess. I just now got the full scoop by going to wikipedia (I recommend this approach to ‘big name’ trials, actually; you get most of the facts, and fairly little editorializing). It’s… ugly. I suppose the MRAs argument is something along the lines of, “Jodi Arias was claiming self-defense and domestic violence, even though it’s obvious she was planning to kill him, so therefor all claims of DV and rape made by any woman, ever, are just as false.”
Marie: The estimates are a bit fuzzy, depending on what definitions you use and where you ask, but even San Francisco, generally regarded as having the highest percentage of homosexuals in the population in the U.S., clocks in at about 15-16%. For most areas, though, 2-3% is the common number of self-identified homosexuals, with maybe up to 10% having some sort of same-sex conduct in the past.
Interestingly, the ‘consolidated metropolitan area’ (ie, cities so close together that you can kind of count them as one big metropolis) in the U.S. with the highest percentage of self-identified homosexuals is in southern Florida–at 4-5%. A segment of Georgia is right behind them, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States
@freemage
Nuts. Well, thanks for the info 🙂
Oh, and Jodi Arias is a woman who killed her ex-boyfriend, then tried to claim it was self-defense (and accused him of raping her). However, there’s a… LOT of evidence that she went to see him very explicitly planning to seduce and kill him. So, yeah, pretty much the MRA dream-case. *Sigh*
@freemage
and thanks for info again. Hadn’t heard. Not surprised those over at the AVFM think all feminist support her >:/ Fits their whole ‘feminists just hate men’ view though.
Karalora, that’s exactly what I thought.
Why do they think gay guys are safe from false rape accusations? I thought all men had to do to be accused of rape was walk
In order to know what feminists are and aren’t denouncing, they would have to actually read feminist blogs or columns, and given their rampant misconceptions about feminism I’m gonna guess they’re talking out their asses again.
So much this. Not only to diffuse the conservatives, but out of straight-up ignorance.
Funny, I thought lesbians were imaginary to MRAs. But like POC, I guess they serve as great beatstick when they can be assed to pay attention to anyone who isn’t a straight cis white dude.
It’s telling that he thinks not wanting to fuck members of a group renders you immune to abuse or exploitation by said group. Also, the fact that he lumps “friendzoning” in with their supposedly important political issues. They really are trying to make women not fucking them into some sort of important political issue.
beacusescience: this makes me think they’ve never had any friends, or they’d know that sometimes non-sexual relationships can get weird and toxic too.
RE: becausescience
By this logic, asexuals are the least abusable people on earth. GENIUS!
Why would feminists be denouncing Nancy Grace? Isn’t she calling for Arias’ summary execution, as is her usual practice? That is what MRAs have been doing, since long before she was convicted.
Why am I trying to understand MRA “logic”? I don’t want to break my brain in advance of a 3-day weekend (even though I will be spending most of that weekend working on a stupid journal article on a stupid subject that I stupidly agreed to help write because I am stupid).
Oh, dear, I suspect we’re going to have a visitation by the BuRZing one, he was very fond of quoting this woman.
It’s not like “corrective” rape has never been a thing, of course.
*has ever been a thing. Not “never”.
Also, hey guys! Fantastic news! WE HAVE HOUSING! Four walls and a motherfucking WINDOW, y’all! Plus three tiny random closets, an AC, a weird window seat/nook/thing, and a secret chamber through a panel in the wall! IT IS AWESOME!
In honor of our regaining of housing, we have started another writeathon! The theme, naturally, is Home! Come celebrate with us!
@LBT
That’s great! 😀 Congrats!
LBT: HOORAY! Big fistbump. I hope that it ends up being a more stable situation.
You got a window!?! CONGRATS!!
If Sneak tries to talk you into getting
a petfish, ignore the “start with a tetra” advice, catfish are far hardier and that matters while the tank cycles (total biased selection — cories)…I hope I didn’t just inspire a round of begging for a pet…sorry!
*sends a virtual cake for the virtual housewarming party*