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The news of misogynistic marriage-hater Mark Minter’s upcoming nuptials has been ricocheting around the manosphere for about a week now. In my previous post on the subject, I looked at the manosphere’s initial reaction to this startling — and for many, disillusioning — development. Today, a followup, looking at how the manosphere has begun to adjust to the idea of a married Minty.
Over on the blog he’s modestly named MATT FORNEY, Matt Forney uses the whole brouhaha as an opportunity to chide manosphere dudes for their incredible gullibility and childish hero-worship.
The manoblogs are all a-twitter with righteous outrage. Mark Minter is a fraud! A liar! A hypocrite! How could a guy who railed against marriage, called it an institution for “pussies,” go back on his words? With a single mother no doubt? Why did he lie about the fact that he’s a penniless bum who’s been living with his sister for the past few years?
Why? Why? WHY?
You’ll notice that I haven’t joined in the ritual witch-burning, and that’s because I didn’t care for Minter to begin with. …
He was just a pissed-off guy who found a forum to vent in. By any objective measure he made out pretty good, seeing as he’s getting married to a groupie nearly half his age. … Toss in the fact that he’s a broke deadbeat and from his perspective, he’s practically won the lottery.
So who do I blame? I blame you.
You credulous cronies. You gullible dipshits. You idol-worshipping nimrods. You’re no different than the legions of Oprah-watching soccer moms who turned on James Frey after his fabrications were revealed. “But-but-but he LIED to me!!!!!1″ No asshole, you lied to yourself. …
Same with Mark Minter. The evidence of him being a broke basement dweller was sitting in plain view, but no one bothered to do a basic Google search before they decided to deify him. Why? Because he sold a vision of life that the manospambots found appealing, where marriage is always doomed to fail and divorce is always the woman’s fault. …
If you don’t want to get fooled again, stop being so easy to fool. Stop building shrines to every halfwit who assuages your prejudices.
Forney is a bigot and an asshole and an all-around terrible person, but he’s got a little bit of a point here.
Over on The Black Pill — formerly Omega Virgin Revolt — Mr. Pill has a unique theory: Minty decided to renounce his marriage-hating manosphere ways to marry a single mom because he was sick of running into dumb conspiracy theorists on manosphere blogs. Yep, that’s right: the manosphere got too weird for Mark Minter.
[W]hat happened to Mark Minter? He didn’t just get married after being a stalwart against marriage. He married a single mother. Only he knows, but one possibility (assuming that he didn’t troll the manosphere or something like that) is that he came to the realization that the so called manosphere is insane and ran back to his old life (in a manner of speaking). A few months ago Minter had a problem with a Return of Court Jesters … article about how Obamacare mandated that everyone have a RFID chip in them and that this was going to lead to the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. (This is completely false.)
Oh really? Obamacare ISN’T going to lead to all of us being branded with the Mark of the Beast? Thanks for clarifying that, Mr. Black Pill!
This is something that I suspect happens to a lot of the men who vanished from the so called manosphere or suffer from so called “player burnout”. These men come across some aspect of the manosphere that is too insane for them which causes them to run back to their old (likely feminist derived) ideology because it appears sane in comparison. Minter just chose a way of dealing with this that didn’t involve vanishing (at least not right away) or coming up with a contrived explanation like “player burnout”.
I don’t know what will happen next, but my guess is that Minter will use the ensuing criticism to exit the so called manosphere completely. After that, in a few months no one in the so called manosphere will remember who Mark Minter was … .
So getting married is sort of the manosphere version of faking your own death? Huh.
Over on The Soul is Not a Smithy, “Francis Begbie” writes (in dialect):
[B]asically, that Mark Minter guy, the most staunch, anti conjugal bells motherfucker residing in the manosphere … That guy, well yeah, he’s got himself hitched up with … a single mother. This has disappointed many a cunt in this here parts as of late. But the thing is kind of sobering too, in its one perverted little way.
Oh, a note on usage: In Begbie’s writing, the word “cunt” generally refers to men.
A cunt has learned:
A man will do anything for some snatch. This is why a lot of the MGTOW bozo the clown types can be funny goofy motherfuckers at times. The second the whiff of pussy enflames de nostrils, they’re just like the preacher and mustache Charlie.
There be a lot of paper alpha types doing the rounds. …
[Y]ou need to be a man of your word, not this paper alpha shite. And that is why this whole debacle with Minter is so bloody insinuating. Minter was not a man of his word …
As de Captain would say, stay frosty lads. Nothing more powerful on the planet then pussy ken…
Unless you’re David Futrelle.
Wait, what? I totally did not see that coming!
But of course the best response to the whole brouhaha comes from Minty himself. In the comments to Roosh’s post labeling him a “phony” and essentially drumming him out of the manosphere, Minty replies with a mixture of indignation, defensiveness and self-pity:
If you find me a hypocrite then that it your choice. You all are searching for some path.
I am 58, and I promise all of you, things will change for you dramatically once you do cross 50.
My financial situation has become most public. Divorce took me from a prosperous upper middle class suburbanite to my bottom some one year ago when I found this manosphere. Yes, you can go and find my ex-wife jumping up and down over money, and lack of my ability to pay. Economic forces, my age, and some of the actions I took under the cloud of depression in the first years after divorce caused jobs that I could get with a snap of a finger before 2001 to become few and far between. Interviews that were mere formalities before become inquisitions. And I aggravated my situation by trying to leave the country without guidance, to find how to do it own my own.
And also, unlike almost all of you I never hid behind a pen name, And I have paid the price for my participation. I have been ostracized by family and anyone that searched by name before, particularly any woman, immediately leaped to conclusions about me that preclude from any corporate job for the rest of my life.
Uh oh, he’s started monologuing.
After explaining at length why his impending marriage doesn’t in any way contradict his endless antimarriage rants — because he’s an old dude without many options and women (like his new internet girlfriend) prefer to be married — he suggests that this wonderful new relationship might not survive all these mean comments on the internet.
To be “Branded” like this, to have ensigns of rank ripped of my shoulders, to be drummed out like this, for marrying a manosphere woman, is going to be quite a shock. And frankly I don’t think the relationship will withstand so public a humiliation.
Really? Your relationship can’t take your online buddies actually knowing about it? It can’t withstand some douchebag on the internet that you used to think was super cool calling you a “phony?”
Maybe you shouldn’t have devoted the past year of your life to seeking validation from a bunch of hateful assholes.
Dvarghundspossen, you are in Sweden, correct? Is the man taking the woman’s name something that’s common there? Like LBT said, in the U.S. that is *very* rare, and although I know of a few men who have hyphenated or “portmanteaud” their names I can’t think of a single case I’m personally aware of where the man took on the woman’s name.
I’m glad Minty cleared that up. The way the ex-Mrs. Minty portrayed it she made it sound like a foolish trip to another continent with the contents of a 401(k) was the cause of his financial ruin.
And he went there to marry another woman he’d only known over the Internet. I’m starting to think the guys on Roosh’s blog may not be the pumpin’ and dumpin’ alpha dawgs they claim to be.
I was starting to think the relationship could work out. She’s into pretending to be inferior to give men meaningless ego pumps, and he talks big but knows he’s lucky that any woman would even consider putting up with his crap. They could build something out of that. But if he’s going to cancel the engagement because his online buddies are jealous that he’s almost had contact with a real live woman, I don’t know if this marriage can be saved.
I personally have seen ‘woman changes name’, ‘neither change name’ and ‘both change name’ but the only ‘man changes name’ story I credibly know about is the one where a Florida DMV official decided that a guy who changed his name to his wife’s just HAD to be committing fraud because why else? For the most part I don’t know of laws against it, but it’s so widely NOT done that it gets a side eye when it happens.
All the men I actually know who applied to change their names have been gay and wanting a new name to reflect their newly married status, but in all cases it was a blended name with their husband’s.
I wonder if I don’t hear about it because in states where marriage is not restricted to hetero couples, the government folks have gotten used to men wanting to change their names, so it doesn’t raise eyebrows or incite comment as to who they are changing it for. It’s just a thing you can do or not as you choose after you get married (whoever ‘you’ happen to be), which is how this particular feminist likes it.
I also find it hard to believe that Kate is real. I can envisage two ways that this is likely to end: it’s some sort of scam/cat-fishing, or it’s an actual marriage – albeit so unfounded that it collapses rapidly under the weight of everything.
Minty’s reaction will probably depend on whether he is able to find a woman to blame. Without one, he may even engage in a little self-reflection.
I found this recent article on the “marriage name change issue” at The Atlantic (U.S. publication): Men Should Consider Changing Their Last Names When They Get Married.
The author doesn’t specifically advocate the man changing his last name to the woman’s last name, and does support both couples having the same name (to which I do not necessarily agree), but he asks: why not make it either her name or a completely new name?
I must say, that second to last paragraph of MATT FORNEY’s really hits the nail on the button.
(These dudes and their idiosyncratic language make me nostalgic for Owly.)
I think “barstrap” is “bastard.” But squished and misspelled.
Yargh. The lack of caffeine, it keels me! I meant ‘both change name to something new’ up there, and that it’s so widely NOT done in some places…
I do think it ties back to the meaning of the symbolic gesture, though. Women were historically considered chattel, and it was perfectly reasonable that the owner would put his (it was always his, then) name on his property. So first, women refused to be treated like property anymore and insisted that their identity did not automatically need to be subsumed into that of their husband, and that caused some consternation. Then, it was men who seemed to be choosing to put themselves into the ‘shameful’ societal position usually held by women when they give up their names that caused consternation, and I think you’d be surprised how powerful that taboo is for some people.
I have actually had conversations with people who didn’t seem to mind the idea of gay people existing in themselves, and didn’t seem to mind the idea of non-penetrative gay sex, but who were horrified by the idea, the VERY IDEA, of a male bodied person putting themselves in a role/position usually/traditionally/typically occupied by a woman, because that choice was so against nature and the intentions of God that it could not but be an abomination.
The idea seemed to be that there are two, and only two, roles to inhabit in society. Either you are master (exalted, good, and, of course, male) or you are other (subject, slave, abject, impure, female but also gay or bi or trans or simply not normatively male). Women could only approach the good by being ideal slaves, exalting in subservience to the master, no other existence was acceptable.
I was never sure whether it was more terrifying or more sad that people actually saw the world that way.
Dvärghundspossen, I’m US American in origin at least, and my husband would’ve changed his name if that’s what I’d wanted. The way I saw it, though, was that both of my siblings are much more likely to marry and/or have kids than his brother is, so as far as the whole “carrying on the family name” thing goes, it’s not unreasonable for our family to go by his name. Beyond that, though, one of us going for the name change seemed advisable in the effort of convincing immigration that we don’t have a sham marriage, and I’m less attached to my family than he is to his. If it had been the other way around, we’d both have my family’s name, I think. I do wonder why we don’t see it more, to an extent, but really I think that generally the answer is “BUT TRADITION!”
That said, I did keep my “maiden” (lolololol) name as a second middle name, and I’ll probably give it to any kids I may have as their middle name as well.
RE: gillyrosebee
All the men I actually know who applied to change their names have been gay and wanting a new name to reflect their newly married status, but in all cases it was a blended name with their husband’s.
I know a guy who when him and his partner (a woman) got their domestic partnership license, they squished their last names together. They went from Campbell and Seamen to Seabell, which I have to say is a pretty sweet name. And they gave me a beautifully-designed T-shirt commemorating it! 😀
Hubby and I debated changing our names when we got married but seeing as how we’re both attached to our surnames (mine isn’t the legal one; it’s from my predecessor), and hyphenation would’ve made my full name Rogan Randy MacIntire-Lee, we decided it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. (If you don’t get it, try saying my full name aloud.)
How terribly cruel if “Kate” is actually a catfish. I think it is good and right to attack the ideas, but that kind of fuckery is just not decent, in my mind.
(Also keep in mind my husband commonly goes by Mac.)
OT: At Ariel Castro’s sentencing hearing:
How much do you want to bet these were MRA activists who were contacting him to let him know that he has “parental rights?” I’m going to fucking puke, I mean it.
Now that I’ve had a closer look at “BASTARP,” I think this is a case of the spray-painter realizing he (yeah, I think I can go with that pronoun) had misspelled the word about halfway through and then tried to correct somehow at the ending. The final “p” is supposed to be a “d,” but the vandal hedged his bets with a halfway non-letter to try to distract from mangling the earlier part of the word.
Seabell is actually quite lovely!
Two friends of mine decided to change their last names to Branwell, because at the time (1997) it was still not possible anywhere for them to get married and yet they had been together since they met in freshman English Lit.
LBT, I feel you on the name combo thing. I won’t give out what mine would be because I don’t want my names all up in here, but the combined surname would be five syllables and look like this: De Somelet-Tershere, and that is just way more name than I want to actually have to sign on anything. Also we found the combination of Italian and bastardized German to be kind of jarring and weird.
[TRIGGER WARNING: ARIEL CASTRO STATEMENT, RAPE APOLOGIA, VICTIM BLAMING]
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/08/01/ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapping-sentencing-face-victim?hpt=hp_t1
My cousin changed his name to match his wife’s. His mother has refused to speak to him for the last five years or so over it. She believes changing his name “ends” the line for his family name, despite the fact that she’s been divorced from her husband for years and hasn’t spoken to him or his family since the divorce.
I support men taking their wives’ names because I know a lady whose last name is “Blackstorm”. I would marry her entirely so that I could be “John Blackstorm”, like some sort of weather-themed supervillian.
Thanks for the responses to something I’ve been curious about, everyone.
Yes, I’m in Sweden. I just googled the statistics for man-woman marriages here, and it looks like this:
64 % woman taking man’s name.
21 % both keep their name.
10 % man taking woman’s name.
4 % both change their names to a new one.
My father-in-law still has the name of his ex-wife. They simply liked her name better than his when they got married. It’s not like people think this is weird or anything, even if it’s a minority thing.
Obviously it’s sexist that people still think “woman taking man’s name” is the default option, and you need a reason to deviate from it. But my idea is that in a feminist society, all these options would still be on the table, only “woman taking man’s name” and “man taking woman’s name” would be more or less equally common. I don’t think everyone would keep their old names in a feminist society.
(Me and husband knew all along that we wanted the same name to show that we were an item. We thought making up a brand new name seemed a bit pretentious, so we choose between his name and mine. I wanted my name and he wanted his name. Eventually we settled the matter by playing a stupid children’s game that we both remembered from school, and his name won out – and that’s why I have his name.)
Here in Quebec both parties automatically keep their own names in a marriage, and if anyone wants to change their name they have to go through the legal process. Offspring of marrieds automatically get the father’s name, though, which I find a bit weird. Then again, there’s also no “filing jointly” tax benefit, so there are a lot of cohabiting couples.
When I see “MATT FORNEY”, it immediately makes me think of “Matt Damon!” from Team America.
Okay, I just threw up a little at that one.
“Sure, I was holding them in the house against their will, including sometimes locking them in rooms or in the basement, and subjecting them to intimidation and outright physical abuse, but the sex was totally consensual! And besides, it’s not like they were virgins and therefore worth something, you know?”
There are times that I really don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
All the Ariel Castro news coverage today and everything coming out of his mouth needs gigantic trigger warnings. Including this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/01/seven-crazy-things-ariel-castro-said-today.html
If you are seen having fun at a concert, that’s proof you’ve never gone through anything traumatic.