For a certain subset of horrible men, there are few things more infuriating than the fact that women they find undesirable can turn down men for sex. For this upsets their primitive sense of justice: such women should be so grateful for any male attention, these men think, that turning down even the most boorish of men shouldn’t even be an option for them.
Consider the reactions of some of the regulars on date-rapey pickup guru Roosh V’s forum to the story of Josh and Mary on the dating site Plenty of Fish. One fine December evening, you see, Josh decided to try a little “direct game” on Mary.
That’s what the fellas on Roosh’s forum call it, anyway. The rest of us would call it sexual harassment.
Josh started off by asking Mary if she “wanted to be fuck buddies.” She said “nope,” and the conversation went downhill from there, with Josh sending a series of increasingly explicit comments to Mary, despite getting nothing but negative replies from her.
After eight messages from Josh, with the last one suggesting he would pay her $50 to “come over right now and swallow my load,” Mary turned the tables, noting that she’d been able to deduce his real identity from his PoF profile, and asking him if he wanted her to send screenshots of the chat to his mother and grandmother. He begged her not to.
As you may have already figured out, from the fact that we’re talking about this story in public, Mary did indeed pass along the screenshots, and posted them online.
Poetic justice? Not to the fellas on Roosh’s forum. Because, you see, Mary is … a fat chick.
While dismissing Josh as a “chode” with “atrocious game,” Scorpion saved most of his anger for the harassed woman:
Look how much she relishes not only shooting him down, but damaging his reputation with his own family. She’s positively intoxicated with her power. Simply spitting bad direct game is enough to unleash her vindictive fury.
“Bad direct game.” I’m pretty sure even Clarence Thomas would consider what Josh did sexual harassment.
At any point, she could have pressed a single button and blocked the man from communicating with her, but she didn’t. She didn’t because she enjoys the feeling of power she gets from receiving attention from guys like this and then brutally shooting them down. It makes her feel much hotter and more desirable than she actually is in real life. She’s not there to meet men; she’s there to virtually castrate them for her own amusement.
I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty sure that nowhere in Mary’s profile did she encourage the men of PoF to send her explicit sexual propositions out of the blue. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t hold a gun to Josh’s head and force him to send a half-dozen sexually explicit harassing messages to a woman he didn’t know.
Athlone McGinnis also relies heavily on euphemism when describing Josh’s appalling behavior:
I don’t think its primarily the revenge she’s after, its the validation. She is enjoying the power she has over this guy and wielding it brutally because it shows she can maintain standards despite her weight and the doubtless numerous confidence issues that stem from it. In blowing up this guy for being too direct in his evaluation of her sexuality, she affirms the value of her own sexuality.
Oh, so he was just being “direct in his evaluation of her sexuality.”
In short: “I am wanted, but I have standards and can choose. I have so much agency despite my weight that I can go as far as to punish those who approach me in a way I do not like rather than simply blocking them. I’m teaching them a lesson, because I’m valuable enough to provide such lessons.
So apparently in Mr. McGinnis’ world women who are fat aren’t supposed to have agency? They’re not supposed to be able to choose? They’re supposed to drop their panties to any guy who offers to be their fuck buddy or tells them to “suck my dick?”
Also, I’m a victim bravely standing up against online bullying/harassment-look at me!”
Yeah, actually, she is. Get used to it, guys, because you’re going to see a lot more of this in the future.
This isn’t just a laughing matter for her. She needs to be able to do this in order to feel worthwhile. She has to be able to show that even she is able to maintain standards and doesn’t have to settle for just any old guy asking for any old sexual favor simply because she resembles a beached manatee.
And it’s not a laughing matter for you either, is it? You’re actually angry that a woman said no to a sexual harasser — because you don’t find her attractive. And because Josh — from his picture, a conventionally attractive, non-fat fellow — did.
Mr. McGinnis, may a fat person sit on your dreams, and crush them.
Turkey sounds fabulous. <>
In 2008, I was sexually harassed by a client where I was working at the time. He made very unwelcome romantic & sexual advancements & propositions towards me, with much unwanted touching of my hair, face, arms & hands. The worst part is that I was alone at work, & was afraid of being violently groped or even assaulted by my antagonist. I could have called building security, but I was afraid to.
I was afraid of telling anyone or having anyone find out for 1 reason – I’m overweight & unattractive, & I was scared of being told that what happened wasn’t sexual harrassment, & that I was a stupid fool for turning this guy down because he was good looking.
I’m also a survivor of sexual molestation & sexual assault, & I am always afraid of my experiences clouding my judgment regarding guys coming onto me. I was afraid that I was wrong. I was second guessing myself about the harrassment incident for a few years after it happened.
This jerk came onto me because he thought I would be an easy & grateful lay simply because he *was* coming onto me, an unattractive, overweight woman, & because he wanted to humiliate me. I was right in rejecting his advances on every single turn. It didn’t matter what I looked like. He was the one who was sick & wrong & pathetic, not me.
@Tristan Gareth-Grey: That’s awful. Jedi hugs if you want them.
And jedi hugs to everyone else who wants them re: bullying. I was bullied for a good part of my school years because of my weight and physical characteristics. I still have trouble looking in the mirror without flinching from disgust. That’s how bad it can get you.
Seriously, fuck the victim-blamers and the willfully unempathetic assholes who think bullying builds character. Fuck them all to Legoland*.
*No, not really. Legoland is pretty awesome, actually. I don’t want assholes cluttering up the place.
@Tristan: That’s awful. I’m really sorry about that. *hugs*
I’m also a survivor of sexual molestation & sexual assault, & I am always afraid of my experiences clouding my judgment regarding guys coming onto me.
I have that, too. Broken radar = not helpful.
Oh, that is… beyond awful.
A million times YES.
@Tristan, I’m very sorry you had to go through that. It wasn’t your fault, and you did the right thing not giving in to him.
I’ve been thinking a little more about the whole “he likes you, that’s why he’s mean to you” advice that so many girls are told in their formative years, and realizing that that advice does a lot of harm on many levels. It gives young girls the message that abusive/controlling behavior from boys is romantic and a necessary component of True Love (which is one of the things that bugs me about the Twilight/50 Shades of Grey phenomenon, beyond the terrible writing). I can easily see going from that to “he stalks me because he loves me”, and putting up with all kinds of terrible behavior and manipulation in the context of a relationship. It’s disturbing that so many women are conditioned from an early age to think that way.
Mostly boys made fun of me for the deadly social trifecta of being brainy, tall, and athletic (none of which fit into the “how to be a girl” box at our middle school). I always wanted to know, if these boys supposedly liked me so much, what would they do if they hated me?
Tristan, that guy was nothing but a predator. Hugs if you want them.
@Tristan Gareth-Grey
Ugh, that’s awful 🙁 All the internet hugs, if you want them.
Skullpants:
Bravo. What’s with this “get used to him pullin’ your pigtails” shit. There’s always this, women-should-endure-in-silence thing that is creepy beyond belief.
So I know it was awhile ago, but that Stig Greybeard story by Roosh is something special. It is just so absurd on so many levels.
My favorite part were the comments, though. Like half of them were something along the lines of, “This just confirms my conviction to never get married!” and, “So true! I wish all men would read this!” I’m not sure those guys understand the concept of fiction, which TBH would explain a lot.
At age 5: little boy shoves little girl.
“Aww, stop crying, he likes you.”
At age 10: boy yanks on girl’s hair
“Aww, stop crying, he likes you.”
At age 18: boy grabs girl’s hair and shoves her
“That’s abusive. Why didn’t you hit him back? Why don’t you stop crying and just leave him?”
The way we raise kids to interact, and teach them about love, romance, bodily autonomy, etc., is appalling from start to finish and until we recognize that, it’s not going to get better.
That Stig Greybeard thing was definitely one of the more hilarious pieces of manosphere prose I’ve ever seen. If one of you had pasted it here without attribution, I totally would have scarfed it up for my blog as a primo example of how to parody bad writing.
Tristan – that’s horrible. All the internet hugs and furry-critter-of-your-choice cuddles.
Have you had your Official Welcome Package yet?
I can’t imagine Stig’s furious two-handed beard stroking without laughing my ass off. What a bizarre mental image. That and the fact that this is basically “A Christmas Carol.” He’s even got Stig doing the silent pointing thing in the future vision.
I also can’t get myself to hate Andrea the way the story expects me to. This line:
I know Roosh is doing the Alpha Cock Carousel thing, but honestly? That expectation of sex without regards to Andrea’s preferences is exactly the sort of thing that would sour a relationship. It’s almost self-aware, though a real woman would be less bored and more fed-up.
“I want my heart to beat hard”? Wow, that’s stilted.
Also, jeesh, if my dates could be that easily summed up, I’d probably be bored too. (Though this reminds me, I need to clear out my bonus sketches and go hiking with hubby.)
… Why are people in the comments cringing at the fact that Daniel suggested at the end to go to an exhibit on herbivorous dinosaurs? Should it have been ferocious carnivores, would that have been more manly/exciting?
That was my thought exactly. He takes her out to dinner so he expects her to put out no matter what she feels like? Yeah, no shit she’s getting tired of this guy. Between that and it explicitly stating that he arranged his proposal to be at a stadium so that she’d be strongly pressured into saying yes because so many people were watching, I think he deserves whatever he gets.
And yeah, Stig furiously stroking his beard during the tentacle masturbation scene was just weird. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a joke or what…it was pretty funny though.
@kirby, that’s the only explanation I can think of. These guys spend way too much time categorizing things into “alpha” and “beta.” Dinosaurs are cool no matter what they eat, guys.
Holy crap there’s more. Recommended from the comments section; Patricia’s Smartphone
There is one thing I like about this one; reading it gives you a claustrophobic thing, as if you’re looking at the world through a pinhole. It meshes really well with the characters who are supposed to be obvlious to the real world, only interacting through their phones.
Other than that, though, you’ve got a slog of a story wtih laughably stereotypical party girl characters, really odd details and story elements (who the hell is the “I” character that keeps popping up? Never explained…”), and a bit of heavy-handed preaching at the end.
Just to piss off Roosh, I used my smartphone to take a picture of my cats, applied a filter to it, and now I’m uploading it here in a shameless attempt to get your collective approval:
http://i.imgur.com/zDd4PZS.jpg
(Buster has her arm around Hazel, and it’s adorable.)
p.s. As I read Patricia’s Smartphone, I just kept thinking “Who is this creepy stalker keeping tabs on her every movement, even inside her own apartment? Is the end revelation going to be that he works for the NSA?”
@cloudiah
D’awww. What cute kitties! 😀
@cloudiah:
I thought it was either going to be Roosh going through someone’s facebook profile or some manly alpha manly man that was going to swoop in at the end, break the smartphone, and alpha her into sex.
Which, by the way, is pretty much what happens in the comments. Look for a guy named “Rambo;” he’s written some… very explicit fan fiction that details exactly what the MRAs are getting out of the story.
The comments baffle me, by the way. We read the same story, right? Not only are all the responses foreign to me, not only are they freaking out at details that hardly got onto my radar and calling it brilliant, but all of them have pretty much the same reaction. It’s like another universe over there.
Auuuugh. Trying to read through it for the lulz, but the constant tense-switching and weird use of ‘you’ keep hauling me right out of it. What’d the spacetime continuum ever do to you, Roosh? And I can’t figure out what the narration is supposed to be; the only time I see people use ‘you’ in narration is if the story’s tone is as though you’re sitting with the narrator, who’s telling you the story. Roald Dahl does it, and so does Spider Robinson. With Roosh, I just keep getting distracted with wondering exactly how this story is supposed to be told.
I write better shit than this! And I write about giant robots and aliens!
Maybe it’s supposed to be a Choose Your Own Adventure story?
This story is most certainly NOT an adventure. Urgh.