A couple of days ago, Rachel Swirsky — an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who posts at Alas, A Blog and sometimes comments here on Man Boobz as well — sent along a link to a brilliant, brutal, and horrifying short story she’d recently published in Apex Magazine. Titled “Abomination Rises on Filthy Wings,” the story is essentially her attempt to get inside the mind of a violent misogynist.
As the editor’s note to her story explains:
Swirsky wrote this piece after talking to multiple editors who worked with horror stories, all of whom reported receiving many submissions about men murdering their wives or ex–wives. Despite the fictional veneer and supernatural justification [for the murder], many have the feel of personal revenge fantasies, and most characterize the women through disturbing, misogynist stereotypes. Swirsky wanted to see if it was possible to write a story that included all the markers of the trope but nevertheless subverted it.
In writing the story, Swirsky told me, “I drew heavily on Manboobz for mood and imagery, to try to get the sense of the narrator.”
So, enjoy. But first, I should warn you that the story is very violent, very disturbing, and could very well be triggering. So giant TRIGGER WARNING.
Here’s the LINK.
I think that’s what Star Trek was for?
Pon farr and klingons biting each other. I lost my train of thought…
I’m not an expert in the genre, but I liked the story. I haven’t read much revenge porn or anything like that (though I am dying for a full copy of ‘Comfort Girls’ – so, so, sooooooo bad). Great imagery, and very creepy. I was especially struck by the fact that he hadn’t noticed she was a zombie at first, but now she was causing him to rot at well, and he can’t escape because her friends are patrolling the house.
I think if I had simply come across it, I would have understood the author’s intent, more or less. That the “author” was a sick, angry, bitter man who blamed his ex-wife for the state of his life. The fact that her presence was literally killing him in the fiction, but he was so furious with her for leaving, I thought that was telling. I don’t know that the general public sees enough bad MRA writing to really see it as a political or subversive story.
One thing I didn’t like, was the switch between zombie and harpy. That threw me.
Which is really the vibe she was going for. This is not meant to be a professional-quality author; it’s someone channeling his misogyny and hatred for his ex- into a badly written story about how all women are evil and deserve to die, and then denying what he’s doing.
On other news: I was just listening to NPR while driving around just now and heard about a really cool program–it’s a summer camp for kids whose fathers are in prison; it’s set in a prison, and the kids get to spend time with their dads and vice-versa. It’s well-run (eligibility requires good conduct and those convicted of crimes against kids are not eligible, and the mothers have equal say in the process). End result? The kid gets a connection with an otherwise absent parent (while getting to do a lot of ‘traditional’ summer camp activities); the father gets a chance to make a connection with the outside world, which both helps him maintain a reason for keeping his nose clean inside, AND helps him reestablish his ties when he returns to the outside world. They’ve got a massively lower recidivism rate (not zero, but dramatically improved) than the general population as a result. In addition, the fathers invariably take the opportunity to give the kids the very important, “I made mistakes and ended up here. This is not a place you ever want to be,” speech.
This is the kind of thing that a REAL MRM would be trumpeting to the moons, and calling for expansion of. (The woman who was the spokesperson for the program explained that there’s actually a lot more programs for women inmates seeing their kids; this is almost unique in targeting fathers, and is the only program of its kind in the nation.)
Link: http://www.hopehousedc.org/programs/father-to-child-summer-camp-behind-bars/
aimai, hi and welcome. Have you had your Official Welcome Package yet? (This question will be answered when I actually get to the next page of comments.) 😛
Couldn’t agree more. I read the first sentence or two and that was enough.
I also have no interest in the whole unreliable narrator thing. I want to read a story without having to play damn guessing games about whether I’m being lied to within it.
I can see how it would be a useful exercise if that perspective wasn’t already so widely available, but unfortunately anyone who’s ever used the internet while female has had plenty of exposure to that particular perspective. Why, many people give it away for free, just because you have a female-sounding screen-name!
For what it’s worth (and please don’t take this as me trying to convince you to read it; I can definitely see why a lot of people do not want to and would never encourage someone to read something so graphic if they aren’t interested), there wasn’t really any guessing involved in this story. The fictional author makes his misogyny extremely clear to the reader; he just doesn’t seem to realize it. It isn’t like the classic example of Humbert Humbert, who justifies his reprehensible views so well that a shocking amount of readers take him at his word.
Thinking about the story more, another thing I liked was the horror/disgust with the body, which I associate with narcissism and misogyny. The fact that our bodies age, fatten, sag, to the point where both of them are decaying zombies does seem to disgust and frighten a lot of PUA types.
I’m pretty sure it was Heartiste who wrote a hypothetical from the point of view of a husband watching his wife get fatter, and then later on showing how this fat wife won’t even give her beleaguered husband a handjob. I remember there was a weird detail about how he had to go to the pharmacy because she had some serious illness, maybe even cancer, and this was presented as entirely her husband’s burden, that his wife was not only fat and frigid, but also had the nerve to be sick.
So again, the hatred of the corporeal, the obsession with nubile teens, somehow coupled with resentment that your ugly wife can still deny you sex: very manosphere, and I think well represented in the story.
Yeah, “unreliable narrator” doesn’t necessarily mean “you can’t possibly tell what’s actually going on,” although those can make great narrators as well (eg, Bromden in the first part of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). There are plenty of cases where a narrator is unreliable but it’s perfectly obvious what’s actually going on, like the “aliens come to Earth and observe humans and come to hilarious conclusions about what human life is like” story type, for instance.
@YoullNeverGuess, I noticed that too. Early on in the story, the complaints about her body even lined up pretty well with real misogynists’ complaints. One thing that struck me was the constant references to her eyes as dead, empty, vacuous. I’ve often heard people describe a woman’s “vapid stare,” and things like that.
I also liked that the narrator seemed absolutely sure that all the women (both his “real” ex and the three women in the story-within-a-story) were obsessed with him. It seemed very like a very accurate representation of the fact that a lot of these violent misogynists assume that women’s lives revolve completely around men, and men are all we think about.
Projection is a hell of a drug.
(I only think about men in a can’t-stop-thinking-about way if I really want to fuck them. So that would be about 1% of the male population. The kind of vengeful obsessive thinking MRAs specialize in – nope, not even right after a break-up.)
John Byrne once commented that during his brief stint as an editor at DC, he got sick of receiving unsolicited submissions that all began “So Wonder Woman gets raped…”
I’m going to defend that old Alien Sex anthology. It’s definitely a collection of disturbing sex stories rather than sexy sex stories, but some of them are classics: James Tiptree’s “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side,” Connie Willis’s “All My Darling Daughters” (extremely unpleasant…but good), Pat Murphy’s “Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates.” However, I will not defend the sex blob story. That’s Harlan Ellison’s “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?”, which gets reprinted in anthologies ALL THE DAMN TIME for some reason. Any time Harlan Ellison tries to be funny it’s just horrible.
Also, random – a good friend of mine once tried to fuck a guy who had that sort of obsessive fear and loathing of human bodies thing going on. He was really hot, so she figured she could deal with the weirdness. Going by what she says about how that worked out I really wouldn’t recommend it.
CassandraSays: I remember my worst break-up well. And I remember the feelings I had after it. Specifically, I remember that all–and I do mean ALL–of my ‘revenge fantasies’ were based around the notion of doing well and being happy. I didn’t even care if she was happy or not; just that I was able to establish that I, myself, could be happy without her, because her belief that she was somehow essential to my well-being was a key aspect of her egoism.
(For the record, so this doesn’t come across as a “b**** be crazy” story: we BOTH were pretty horrible people in different ways during that relationship; I generally regard it as mutually toxic, as opposed to abusive. Our respective failings just had a really bad synergistic effect that caused spiraling increases in bad behavior, and neither of us was willing to actually end it until something finally went ‘pop’ in my head and I left her.)
@ Freemage
That’s part of what occasionally makes me feel sorry for some MRAs, the fact that they obviously don’t realize how self-destructive hating their exes is.
Freemage: At least judging by pop culture, running into your ex while you’re doing really well is a very popular “revenge” fantasy. And it doesn’t involve anything bad happening to your ex at all!
The most popular revenge fantasy seems to be running into your ex while in the company of your far more awesome new partner, which while maybe a little childish is also a big improvement over “and then I kill her and mutilate the body”.
@AK: ah yes, the Thousand Cock Stare!
I saw the World’s End this weekend. It was really funny and the resolution to the robot/alien invasion was great.
@Freemage: That makes sense. I guess I’ve read so many stories with the author notes in the middle it’s become a source of annoyance for me at the expense of any lessons that they might have in them. Besides, I’m also still trying to figure out my feelings about the story as a whole.
I’ve also had “revenge fantasies” that only had to do with being happy and well when I met with my ex again. I don’t know of anyone who has ever fantasized about mutilating and killing their exes either. But then, I don’t know anyone who thinks of their exes as unfeeling things that sucked their life out, either.
At least… I hope I don’t.
I read the story, and I’ll probably have to read it again to really get more insights but, my first impressions were:
It’s not all that successful as ‘subverting the trope’ – I know, this one of those ‘Is it art?’ type things, but if the majority of readers (including those sympathetic to the goal) don’t get it, then it didn’t work. I’d go into more detail on this, but I have to get back to work, sigh.
2nd impression – the depth of imagery and descriptive details was amazing! Looking forward to reading other stuff by this author.
My revenge fantasies all involve me losing 10 lbs, and looking super hot in stylish clothes with great hair and running into my ex. Ha ha ha. Looking good (and living well) is the best revenge.
I don’t want my exes to feel pain or suffer. I just want them to think “damn, she looks hot!”
Even the stalker ex I wouldn’t want to see harmed, I just don’t want to see him again.
I have to admit that I had a few fantasies about murdering my abusive ex, but it was always in the context of self-defense. In other words, he attacked me (as he had in the past), and I was armed and turned the tables.
But I quickly realized that wasn’t healthy, and made myself drop those fantasies and focus on thinking about things that actually brought me happiness and improved my life.
I also think that’s a far cry from fantasizing about an ex who simply wronged you without becoming violent. I’ve had some other shitty (but not abusive) exes in the past, and they didn’t get any murder fantasies.
I can understand that, as a form of self-therapy, a person might write down a violent revenge fantasy against an ex. And then burn it, maybe. But send it to a publisher? Really? That is seriously creepy.