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.
Argenti – oh strewth, that character ::rolls eyes::.
I’ve only heard of Less Wrong when someone on Pharyngula was wanking about it and getting all upset about people being dismissive of it (sounds familiar). That’s all I know about it. It doesn’t sound like the kind of site, or subjects, rather, I’d stumble across normally – not my area of interest at all.
Now if anyone knows a site where one can get good photos of nude men that are NOT porny* (no erections being waved at the camera, kthnx) and not flamin’ body-builder types, that info would be useful!
/more fun derail than anything misery could provide
*that’s poRny not pony
Cares or is enjoying snarking? Cuz I’m still having fun with this one.
Argenti: And 5150 is Cali for involuntary commitment right? Pretty much a sure bet anyone being involuntarily committed is going to be particularly thrilled about it. Email me, I love a good hospital horror story.
I was unclear: These were people who showed up, for whatever reason, and were observeably in need of committment. We had to keep them on the grounds until a qualified observer could get a chance to talk to them, and then get a hold of a judge to get the order.
I can still recall “God’s Own Marine” (his words) bouncing like an overclocked Tigger, and telling us what wrath was going to be coming down on our heads, and he was the instrument of it, and this went on for 2 and a half hours, in/out of the ER.
When they got him four-pointed, and were getting the Haldol, Thorazine and Phenobarb set to inject he went all limp, saying they didn’t need to do that, “I’ll be good”.
It was scary.
Cares as in considers hir opinion important.
Fuck, besides mangos not many things scare you do they?
I have issues with the definitions of observably in need of commitment, but seeing how I don’t feel like regaling the thread with my insanity, I’m emailing you (should this be deemed interesting to anyone else the conversation may certainly continue here of course, I don’t want to pull a misery)
Cassandra — *sits on hands*
Cassandra – nope! Misery’s opinon is trivial and irrelevant in itself, but potentially harmful as in contributing to rape culture.
Argenti: It was rare. It required (so far as I recall) someone to be pretty plainly a danger to others (though I suspect if someone told a nurse they wanted/planned to kill themselves, they’d be committed).
The hairy parts of the job related to the problems of potential gang-related violence spilling over. I don’t know that the ER wasn’t seen as a safe zone, but I doubt the parking lots really were off limits.
The hard part was having to be there as people were trying to cope with not knowing what was going on on the other side of the double-doors to the treatment space.
“though I suspect if someone told a nurse they wanted/planned to kill themselves, they’d be committed”
It’s just as legally required, yep (and if you have tried is dicey)
Said people coping with said doors…patients or friends/family? Curiosity killed the cat.
friends/family. (I’m talking about the ER, the psych ward was a separate wing, with locked doors; We weren’t allowed to take anything but a radio, and keys when we went in. The ward attendants were the one’s who dealt with anyone acting out. Mostly it was pretty quiet; and the violent patients were in a sub-ward)
That sounds surprisingly well run, remind me to be on the other coast if I ever need committing.
Wasn’t sure about posting this here, but the whole ‘red flags’ shit got to me, so I’m gonna. TW for rape/violence and harassment.
I was approached by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka when I was a teenager (I doscovered who they were after the fact). If you don’t know, Bernardo was a blitz-attack serial rapist, then hooked up with Homolka and they raped, tortured and murdered at least three young women, one of whom was Homolka’s younger sister.
Nothing happened to me. I was walking home very late at night, car pulls over beside me. Guy driving. Woman leans out of the window and asks me where ‘Leisure Lady’ is – struck me as really bizarre, since it was an older woman’s clothing store, which was closed, and I was directly in front of it. I thought they were idiots, and answered snarkily ‘Uh, it’s right there’, and the guy guns the car and screeches away, up the street. Always remembered it, one of those ‘weird thing that happened on my way home’ anecdotes. Always remembered her, bc of her hair (she had what we called ‘skid’ or ‘rocker’ hair, very out of style at the time in my town at least) and heavy makeup.
Anyway, when they were arrested later… 1-2 years? I saw their picture and was like – – – –
Point being – no red flags there. Point being – they changed their tactic in subsequent attacks,, and it worked. Point being – this red flag shit doesn’t cover IMO most situations (where you know the person) or even many stranger-danger situations (a couple; a blitz attacker; others).
Someone mentioned red flag stuff being more helpful to bystanders, and I’d agree there. Although having escaped a situation where someone (who’d asked for a light… red flag?) was following me down the street, grabbing me, trying to drag me off the sidewalk with his genitals exposed… and NONE of the passers-by did ANYTHING… I’m a tad cynical; however, I am supportive of bystander education, bc they bloody well need it sometimes.
Sorry, just this whole thing has really pissed me off. Misery, if the attractive young couple has pulled over and asked me something more realistic (directions to somewhere that made sense), I may have ended up attacked and there would have been very little I could have done about it, and nothing to set off any warning bells. That would not have been my fault, nor would it have been an interesting intellectual discussion later (for you ‘security’ experts) about how to best prevent it from happening again.
RE: Tracy
Oh man, that’s terrifying. I’m glad nothing happened to you!
RE: katz
At the risk of sounding totally pretentious, Seattle has a really good independent rap scene. Have you heard the Blue Scholars?
No, I haven’t! Thanks for the link; I’m trying to get into rap, so I really appreciate getting hooked into some new things. (And unfortunately, while it’s not hard to find links for ‘good rap,’ it’s harder to find things I like and don’t give me the skeeves.) I enjoyed these guys.
Shit, glad they asked such a stupid question, and fuck that guy and the people who stood there watching. And misery.
Is asking for a light a red flag? Cuz I’ve been on both sides of that plenty and it’s really a perfectly normal interaction if either smoking, somewhere where that occurs, or your generic bus stop type “fuck, mine’s dead, you have a lighter?” (Hell, I did nearly that to pecunium when mine refused to work — took the both of us to get my damned clove lit, that’s some red flag for something besides shitty weather?)
Point here? Quite obviously it’s not a perfectly safe question, but seeing how it is very often exactly what it says in the tin, why would anyone go all RED FLAG!! about it?
Tracy, holy hell, that’s terrifying – I’m so glad you weren’t attacked!
Argenti – “Is asking for a light a red flag?”
For me it is, but in the “Don’t Fucking Smoke Near Me” sense. 😉
Tracy, yikes! Glad nothing happened to you!
In other news related to the OP, evidently Roosh’s fans have started harassing Mary, with the support of Roosh. (see the final page of the thread on his site to see Roosh mocking her for demanding the he take down her personal info.)
I’d like to reach out to offer her some sort of support, not sure the best way to do that, and I actually need to get to sleep at the moment, If any of you want to contact her on facebook and offer support that would be great. Her facebook info is already up in the Roosh forum thread, I don’t want to spread it more by posting it here.
The more I encounter lesswrongers, the more convinced I become that it’s a breeding ground for the Dunning-Kruger effect. “I read/post at lesswrong! I must be an expert!”
You too!?!
They’re the Dunning-Kruger Squad!
Freemage: Given the oddities of the founder/guru/cultic figure which they revere, you have hit it on the head.
He realised what he needed to do with with his life at 16 (create a Friendly AI, so that when The Singularity happened it wouldn’t destroy mankind). So he immediately set out to focus all his ends on this; by dropping out of school.
So he works now to “create the environment in which a Friendly AI can be created”. If it’s an unfriendly AI, well that’s the breaks, but creating an AI is the point of human existence, so we have to do it (even if it destroys us) because that’s our destiny.
One of the Mantra at Less Wrong is that no one else is really working on the important aspects of AI (because they discount the Yudkowski). They discount him because he doesn’t know jack-shit about how computers really work (he’s proud of not knowing a single programming language… it would, as I recall the explanation, be too limiting to constrain himself to limited ways of making computers respond to input, and so he won’t do it.
It’s not that he’s stupid, it’s that he is completely self-taught, and has found a group of people willing to pay him in the general neighborhood of 80K a year to tell them 1: they are more rational than anyone else, and 2: if they listen to him they will be able to cheat death.
It’s a breeding ground for Dunning-Kruger.
It looks like Mary’s FB page is not publicly accessible right now – not really surprised to see that. If we do come up with another way to offer her our support I would really like to pass along a big “thank you” to her. I feel like she took a brave stand for everyone who’s been sexually harassed.
“2: if they listen to him they will be able to cheat death”
2a) In either really classist, or really colonist ways — either you’ll have to buy this tech, or it’ll be forced on everyone cuz computer knows best
2b) Really. Fucking. Creepy.
3) Pure utilitarianism, as in, causing one person severe suffering is acceptable if it negates tiny amounts of suffering in large numbers of people (tiny amounts, like, I think his example was a grain of sand in your eye versus torturing someone…fucked up)
3a) All deaths are equally bad and thus the fact heart disease kills far more people than things like genocide makes it more important to stop. And murder of poor people is more important than murder of trans* people cuz more poor people (this may not be him, both of these are from one of his minions…who, in entirely coldly rational things, suddenly started caring about trans* murders when I reminded him I’m not cis…)
4) In addition to his salary, he’s got his Dunning-Kruger Squad convinced that friendly AI is the only solution and not doing everything possible to advance it is unethical and since he’s the only one working on it…give him as much money as possible
Tracy, that is really scary. 0_o Glad you’re okay.
>>>I was approached by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka when I was a teenager
O. M. G.
To our American friends, just understand that to this Montreal/Canadian dude, that was the sort of weird chill you’d get if somebody just dropped on you the bomb that they once were approached by Ted Bundy.
Homolka is free now too, and walking about in my city last I heard. She was able to convince a jury that Bernardo was basically coercing her into helping him get victims. Not sure if the evidence truly was credible but I guess I’ll have to accept that 12 of my peers thought so.
Glad you’re okay.
BlackBloc: to this American (who does, admittedly spend a moderate amount of time in Canada) the name Homolka was pretty memorable.
Argenti: 3) Pure utilitarianism, as in, causing one person severe suffering is acceptable if it negates tiny amounts of suffering in large numbers of people (tiny amounts, like, I think his example was a grain of sand in your eye versus torturing someone…fucked up)
It was, “a practically unoticed speck of dust, which is gone in one blink”, but happens to millions of people, over all of time; vs. one man tortured for all his life to prevent the pain of the practically unnoticed.