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.
RE: misery
I want to apologize to David for hijacking this thread with this conversation which I shouldn’t have done. I don’t think I said anything bad tbh, but oh well. You have to expect some harsh language and some condescension when being so openly hostile to me anyway. *shrug*
Word to the wise. Don’t apologize unless you’re going to do it sincerely. Seriously, misery, I want to like you, but you need to stop digging your hole.
@alex, “purely emotionality”
I literally didn’t say anything of the sort or implied anything like that.
Sound of world’s smallest violin.
1) Nobody’s forcing you to be here.
2) If some dude came here saying “Rape is totes cool, get over it bitchez” would you complain about people calling him on it? Has it occurred to you (I ask again, not expecting an answer) that the reason your opinion is “inadmissible” is because it’s flat-out wrong and has precious little to do with the realities of rape?
Can the mainsplaining and go away and think, please. You’re just painting yourself as one of those “conditional allies” with all this whining.
“You have to expect some harsh language and some condescension when being so openly hostile to me anyway. *shrug*”
Flounce?
TRIGGER WARNING
Well I looked at that article AG linked, but I have to admit I was kind of floored by this:
In other words, if you are raped, you are a failure at avoiding being raped.
END TRIGGER WARNING
In other words, this kind of discussion is a minefield under the best conditions. These are not the best conditions. misery and AG are not making the best case, or making it in the best way (i.e. by avoiding snark, personal insults, condescension, equating criticism with bullying, etc.). Which makes it a clusterfuck, caused by misery and AG themselves. Talk about red flags!
I’m just going to mention the First Rule of Holes again and check out the new thread.
@misery,
Oh please! Nobody was hostile to you until you started with the condescension and patronizing bullshit.
Yeah, absolutely no idea why we sheeples are seeing the two of you as enemies. It’s a total mystery.
“I’m sorry, what’s the question? I would love to answer one.”
OK, what’s your favorite ice-cream flavor and why? Oh wait, not, that’s not what I wanted to ask….
Also, “openly hostile?” Hellkell said this:
Have you seen Hellkell when she’s actually mad?
@misery, You’re right; that was AnonymousGuy. It’s hard to tell between the two of you.
@LBT:
Well, it’s funny. I was a commenter here once before, some time ago. If you look back through the archives you can almost certainly identify me, and in so doing you could, in fact, discern my real identity, and if you wanted to you could use that information to escalate your bullying. But I don’t think you will do that as I think in general you are a compassionate and levelheaded bunch.
Anyway, there was someone who came along who I felt was being bullied, and I tried to speak up for them. The reaction among the regular commenters really surprised me and took me aback. Unfortunately as the thread continued I had a sinking feeling that I had backed the wrong horse, and that in fact the person I was defending was possibly a geniune troll or at the very least a real asshole. So I was chastened, and also a bit snakebit by the very intemperate and upsetting reaction of people whom I had a lot of respect and admiration for.
I don’t do the whole flounce-and-storm-off thing, so my post defending this commenter became my last. I kept reading the site, though, including the comment threads. And I thought a lot about what had happened and how I could handle it better next time. I care about standing up to cyber-bullying and I care about this website which is one of my favorites on the internet. I don’t know if this kind of thing can really be prevented but I lean into the wind because it’s something that’s important to me.
So I waited and thought it over, eventually creating a new handle and posting some innocuous comments. I waited until I was really quite sure that the person being bullied was a genuine feminist and ally of ManBoobz who was being unfairly attacked. I didn’t know when it was going to happen, or what exactly it would look like, but I knew my preparation and personal growth around the issue would serve me well and that things would be better this time.
And here we are.
Anon Dude and Misery are unique, but they do share certain characteristics.
(last post, sorry)
@LBT, the apology was to David for hijacking the thread, not to you.
What.
You’re Mr. Al.
Oh my God.
No, that’s not correct.
Ugh. So this what, Revenge of the Tedious?
So you are a sock, AnonDude. Why exactly should we care?
You just admitted socking, see ya.
Rozee and Koss (2001) note that attempted rapes are in fact instances of successful rape avoidance
Wait, what? That seems… just really WEIRD use of phrasing.
I mean, say my rapist was coming after me, only to be miraculously struck by lightning. I didn’t AVOID the rape. I got saved by deus ex machina!
That’s just BIZARRE. Are they trying to… I dunno, perversely empower folk who got almost raped, and thereby give them credit for making it out? Just what?
You’re waiting for a drumroll?
Anyone want some feral algae? It’s more pleasant than this thread!
In no particular order…
Considering the extreme lack of swearing compared to the norm around here, I’d say people are being surprisingly kind to this bullshit. Perhaps because we’ve heard it all before.
Red flags =/= shit like learn self-defense. They also don’t mean that responding to everyone displaying them in the same manner is helpful. That is, someone goes all “red flag! Might be rapist type X!” doesn’t mean that all rapists of type X will response to strategy Y the same.
Still not getting that this isn’t some formal debate where you response to your opponent (rapist) in Y manner and they use Q R or S, and then time’s up and class is over. No, we’re talking about how women are expected to live CONSTANTLY. Day in and day out.
Forgetting about people who can’t engage in self-defense — whether asleep, drunk, not physically able (eg I’d probably collapse if I tried kicking anyone today, my knee is staging a rebellion).
Forgetting people unable to make use of knowledge of red flags — asleep, etc, or mentally unable to use the info.
Completely fucking ignoring everyone’s questions of what we should’ve done differently.
…and I have email of importance and will have to get back to this.
Ffs (I feel I’ve been saying that a lot this thread), is it really?
The Trolls (Pathetically and Ineffectually) Strike Back?
Yeah, this one wasn’t worth getting pig-biting mad at. The song remains the same.
This is almost some Inception level troll/sock shit.