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.
Trigger Warning, sorry:
Um, Anon, sometimes when you resist, the rapist gets super pissed and starts hitting you harder — like, in the face. “Wow, this guy is going to fucking kill me,” the victims thinks, then decides to stop fighting, because they’d rather be alive.
Anyway, you need to stop posting about this. You’re being really insensitive and ignorant. You need to stop. Stop now. It’s not funny.
MGTOW rapping?
That gives real point to the joke about “rap” having a silent C.
I suspect that AnonymousGuy is an attention leech. Let’s ignore him; maybe that’ll make him go away.
RE: kittehserf
Aw, don’t speak bad about rap. There’s a lot of good rap! And to be fair, I’d take it over slam poetry any day of the week.
LBT – I know, I was thinking the joke really applies to MGTOW rap. Rap’s so far from my taste I wouldn’t actually know what’s good and what’s bad, but anything with MGTOW in front of it could be safely assumed to be garbage. 🙂
Niters Hippodameia!
I can’t believe I actually listened to that whole thing.
There’s a lot of really awesome African rap. I should dig up some of my links and post, but I’m sleepy and that would be too much work.
Have your brains dribbled out your ears yet, Alex? 😀
Eh, don’t worry on my account, cloudiah, if that’s what you had in mind.
I’m sleepy, but I can handle copypasta. Here are the lyrics to that rap video:
Nope, but I’m pretty sure I lost a few cells. I’ll never get those back.
Here, to wash your brain out, lemme put up some GOOD rap. (Though warning, there is one mention of ‘ho,’ mostly sneering at people who get into rap with the intent of getting them.)
Strewth, my eyes glazed over about a third (turd?) of the way through.
“Bewildered women askin’ bout where all the good men gone
The ones who die to fuel the world and make their pussies feel strong”
Good men are Kegel exercises?
Thing is with me, rap has a sound I find very triggering. It all comes under the heading of “doof doof” and we’re talking vomiting-level stress from that stuff in the past, stress that still has me on antidepressants. So thanks, but no, I’m not going to listen to it, however good the lyrics may be.
kittehserf, I get that. Not necessarily with rap, but certain beats I find very uncomfortable, though not to the same extent.
Bass in general gets me, but the whole range of stuff that can come under “doof doof” is the really nasty stuff. It’s one of several reasons I wouldn’t go to one of Mr Springsteen’s concerts – much as I love his music, I know it wouldn’t work!
I can’t quite place which beat, but if I go into a place and certain music is playing, I get my hackles up. Just seems like it sets an atmosphere for bad shit to happen even if it hasn’t for a long time. I’m always able to just get used to it, though, so hugs if you want them because that must really suck.
“Doesn’t help if you feel there’s something wrong about someone, but everyone in your circle minimizes your feelings.”
Urgh 🙁
Can I just say that a man who assaulted me, who I wasn’t confident enough to take to court (it was such a long time after the incident when I realised he worked at this place – he’d attacked me in a different location), works in a place where a lot of women my age come and go on a regular basis. Just the other day, some women were talking about some “comments” he’s made directly to them that were really inappropriate and some were laughing. But when a few women said that he made them really uncomfortable with his remarks (like I had been), there was a lot of “don’t be silly!”, “he’s just being funny!”, “he’s a little weird, but he’s harmless”, “you’re being paranoid”…
I wished I could warn them. But that would be illegal :/
It must suck to be someone that gives others the creeps when you’re actually a nice person, I can relate to that. But sometimes you should put more trust in your instincts. Being told that you’re horrible because someone makes you feel uncomfortable is really messed up.
Hugs to everyone.
Except AnonymousGuy, who seems like kind of an asshat. No hugs for you. (I am such a bully.)
“You didn’t even fucking READ what Pecunium said, did you, doucheweasel?”
That about sums it up, yes.
I had this long rant typed up, but AnonGuy doesn’t warrant it. It sums to — self-defense, effective self-defense, means the application of overwhelming force. Which will very probably leave you explaining to the cops that it was, in fact, self-defense. Assuming you’re both physically and mentally capable of it.
And you can practice all day and not be mentally able to do it when you’re talking a friend, lover, relative — the people who make up the majority of rapists.
Not that any of it is useful if you’re asleep, drunk, physically disabled (whether chronic condition or you sprained your ankle jumping off a handicap ramp [my brother is just special like that])
The point, I suspect you still won’t get it.
@myeyestheyburn,
I was going to go to sleep, but I saw your comment
And I wanted to say YES. YES.
Women are really taught to ignore their instincts (Ha ha, women’s “intuition”) while men are taught to heed them (“My gut told me to…”)
There is no magic bullet, but I want women to feel like they should trust gut instincts more than they worry about hurting someone else’s feelings. This is where I feel like there is a germ of truth in what misery posted (though AG managed to shit all over it), even though it was poorly expressed. I might be being too generous to misery. I have this tendency to bend over backwards trying to be as fair as possible to my enemies…
I hate to think I should have done anything differently and I’d hate to be told that, too. I don’t want to be a hypocrite or an asshole in saying that.
I was trying hard to seem polite, especially since the conversation I had been having with the man in question at the time had started out fine before the really, really creepy comments and questions. I wish I’d just left the second I felt uncomfortable, but maybe that wouldn’t have been possible anyway. I have no idea.
I’m just surprised we are encouraged to “listen to our hearts” in some circumstances, but when your heart is telling you that someone is a creepy asshole and you need to get away from them then you’re being a “paranoid bitch”, especially if you did get away and are talking about it in retrospect, apparently.
Hugs for others who’ve shared today, too.
I did some reading, and found out that the majority of victims surveyed in victimization surveys are victims of completed rape rather than attempted rape. So even if you, as AG would suggest, count attempted rapes as instances of successful rape avoidance (which doesn’t make any sense in the first place), a victim is much more likely to be raped than to get close to being raped.
Sources: http://www2.binghamton.edu/counseling/documents/RAPE_FACT_SHEET1.pdf
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/210346.pdf
1) “Nick” is just fine.
2) “Semi-unapologetically”? It has nothing to do with being apologetic or unapologetic – I’m just pointing out there are times where turning an issue into a thought exercise is diminishing it’s importance. As much as I like academic analysis on (say) Art or Philosophy, it is disturbing to see people act as if you can talk about certain subjects – which includes rape – into masturbatory armchair discourse that often deals with hypotheticals than it does actual incidences. It’s one reason I get sick of hearing business and econ majors treat the issue of labor rights as if it’s purely just an abstract concept than a real-life issue with real-life consequences. It just makes it easier for them to dismiss those said laborers when they’re reduced to being pieces in a game of rhetorical chess.
3) It’s hilarious to hear the accusation of “emotionalism” from someone who, not liking the fact people are disagreeing with him strongly, claims to be “bullied.” No, you made comments and people reacted to the comments negatively – which is going to happen in a discussion on a blog. We aren’t a forum at a university that needs to entertain every idea they come across.
4) As Katz said, there’s no pride in being that detached about an issue nor should being passionate about a subject – either due to personal experience or a sense of principle – be seen as some personal flaw. To act as if one should separate their mind from their heart on social issues is a disservice to that subject and what it involves, since promoting moral/ethical policy is big part of why such issues are talked about in the first place. It wasn’t done entirely out of intellectual curiosity or having heart-strings tugged.
So I just read through this wank-fest and just for the record, Raul? You’re not exactly making yourself look good here. “Tedious, manipulative weirdo with a grudge” is about the most charitable possible interpretation of the way you’re presenting yourself here.
Well, if you say you’re not mansplaining, then you can’t possibly be.
Some days I think if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t shoot Hitler. I would shoot Jonathan Swift for spawning a bunch of obnoxious manchildren who think they’re subversive literary geniuses.