So a helpful Twitterer told me that I was a frequent topic of conversation on A Voice for Men’s Honey Badger “radio” show last night — that’s the one hosted by Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What) and Alison Tieman (Typhon Blue) and a newer addition to AVFM’s FeMRA stable named Della Burton. Bored, I went over to take a listen to the archived show. Well, bits and pieces of it, anyway. Life is short, and every minute of this show felt about an hour long.
Anyway, I missed most of whatever it was they said about me, but I did manage to force myself to sit through a good chunk of the segment featuring none other than Nick Reading, the guy who’s running a joke campaign for city council of Edmonton Alberta as the “Patriarchy Party” candidate. You know, the dude we talked about just yesterday.
The gals did their best to play along with his over-the-top patriarchal schtick, proclaiming themselves submissive inferior females unworthy of his manly phallus, and so on. It was as gratingly unfunny as you might imagine, and it went on and on. Even the Honey Badgers, perhaps wondering if this whole segment wasn’t a rather apt metaphor for their own role within A Voice for Men and the Men’s Rights movement at large, couldn’t quite bring themselves to laugh at any of Nick’s, er, humor.
At least not until, about 49 minutes into the show, he brought out the rape jokes.
Take a listen:
Paul “The Thought of Fucking Your Shit Up Gives Me an Erection” Elam, meet Nick “If They Didn’t Scream No, How Else Would I Get an Erection” Reading.
In case you weren’t able to make all that out, due to the clear-as-mud sound engineering job of AVFM’s James Huff — you may remember him as the guy responsible for this amazing rant — I have transcribed the exchange below as best I could, cutting out a few repeated phrases and ignoring some remarks that got buried under other remarks.
Nick Reading: No never means no. It only means yes. That’s an understanding that we have within the patriarchy.
Karen Straughan: It is.
Alison Tieman: That’s true. Actually “no” should be stricken from the English language because it simply makes no sense. How could any woman ever say no to the holy phallus unless she was criminally insane?
Nick: Criminally insane, yes.
Della Burton [?]: Criminally, yes.
Karen: But, but we shouldn’t strike “no” from all the dictionaries and the lexicons of language simply because there are numerous times in the course of a day when a man loves to say “no” to a woman.
Nick: I would almost insist on striking it from the non-male vernacular but if they didn’t scream it, how else would I get an erection?
[Awkward pause]
[Laughter]
Della [?]: Oh my goodness.
Karen: Right, you’re right.
Della: I hadn’t even thought of that.
Karen: So no is still in.
A Voice for Men: Promoting Human Rights, One Rape Joke at a Time
EDITED TO ADD: Below, a video on YouTube about this episode of Honey Badger radio, which not only looks at the show itself but at what was going on in the official chatroom for the show at the time, which turns out to be even creepier than the stuff said by Nick Reading on the show itself.
Along with the standard MRA misogyny from some of AVFM’s regulars, there were bizarre sexualized comments directed at the so-called Honey Badgers themselves: one commenter went on at length about how he wanted to use Karen Straughan’s breast milk in his coffee (and spike her coffee with his semen). Palani provides screenshots and everything. Some of her commentary is a bit problematic — she refers to them as “retards” at one point — but if you’ve got 15 minutes it’s worth a watch.
[VIDEO REMOVED BY REQUEST OF VIDEOMAKER]
If physical attraction was something that could be harnessed to generate electricity I could power a whole city, and I’ve been that way since I was a tweener. Which is just one of many reasons why reading PUA and MRA attempts to analyze women’s reasons for choosing the sexual partners we do is such a surreal experience.
Heh, that’s a wonderful picture. Love Wil’s expression.
Speaking as a more or less heterosexual more or less male, Nathan Fillian is teh secks. As is Sexypants Wheaton for that matter.
Fillion… apparently I’ve been spelling his name wrong for as long as I’ve known of him…
@Lionicle: I think it’s insensitive to just go “white women were like slaves!”, but if you specify, as I did, that they were LEGALLY similar although obviously in praxis being TREATED much better by MOST husbands, you’re just pointing out a certain set of facts, and I can’t see how that’s wrong. I think that if you make the point I made that carefully and people still go “way to dismiss the slave experience!” I think it’s probably because they can’t wrap their heads around how far we’ve come feminist-wise and how utterly lacking of rights women were back then – it was NOT just about not being allowed to own property. It was about your husband, if he was abusive, being able to rape you, beat you horribly, lock you up or whatever and he was legally in the right to do so.
@Augzilliary: I can’t find where you posted this now, but I think you asked whether the strength difference between men and women is based on the average population or not, and how social factors play into that? My PT once said that the 30 % difference in muscle strength you sometimes here cited IS based on the general population, and yeah, the fact that women tend to do slimming exercises when they work out and mostly work out their legs while men want strong upper bodies probably do play a part in it. If you look at top athletes the differences is a bit smaller, but it’s still there. The difference you see between top athletes is probably mostly due to sheer testosteron differences – it’s not like female top athletes don’t exercise properly and are therefore weaker than they need to be. Plus it’s quite obvious that doping does affect strength, and it does so by affecting hormones, and also you can see that trans men suddenly build muscle more easily after going on hormone treatment… So testosteron is important for muscle strength, but exercise habits obviously play a part too, as do general social pressure on women not to show themselves too strong because that’s unfeminine and yada yada.
No prizes for guessing who’s on eleventy thousand screensaver shots and my desktop background (with all icons shoved out of the way or deleted) at home and work. 😉 Or whose photos are stickytaped to the walls around my desk, also at work.
Justin Bieber, obviously.
cloudiah – HEARSAY! It’s obviously Paul Elam and Nick Reading. *nod*
[/is-joking]
Not visual, huh?
My 88 year old mother can have Phwoarr! type discussions with me and my 60+ sister about men in films and magazines.
@Bee, you make some good points about Louis C. K. and that video. The only thing I’d point out is that he did eventually get why people were so upset with Tosh, and apologized for his earlier comments. Which is, like, baseline human decency, but some people never even made it there, so…
@Fidelbogen
And that’s real.
By the way, did we ever figure out what his name was supposed to mean?
Faithful drug user!
“Justin Bieber, obviously.”
Incredibly well diguised! :/
I reckon having pics of MRAs around would make every other bloke in the world in space look like the hottest dude in the history of ever.
@ kittehs
You saw the pics in the thread about the rally, huh?
(Is evil)
Are any of these folks really worthy of being called “misogynists” anymore? Seems like they’re just caricatures now.
Caricatures of men’s rights activists sure, but they’re still misogynists. Being ineffective doesn’t mean they hate women any less.
Isn’t the idea that women/girls aren’t “visual” in their sexuality a fairly recent one? I remember when I grew up in the eighties, the girl mags always had “page three boys” and pin up boy posters and stuff… And “okej”, the number one teen music magazine in Scandinavia, became as popular as they were partly by convincing celebrities of BOTH genders to throw their clothes and be photographed half naked. I can’t remember anyone questioning back then that straight girls and women liked to check out hot men – but then suddenly everyone agreed on the meme that women “aren’t visual”.
True. They just seem ineffectual, maybe. I’m feeling my oats today so it’s probably just me. This is just..pathetic. This little snippet of the “show”. There’s nothing new, nothing ground-breaking; just the same old, different day. Hmmm, perhaps this is a time when I wouldn’t take them seriously..which may be a mistake? I don’t want to give them much credit…bu-ut…make sense?
“You saw the pics in the thread about the rally, huh?”
Correct! 😀
“back off” is not a threat. The rest of the responses to me stating my positions were word salad. The person who made the initial comment is who I’m responding to. Not the entire forum. Got it? Oh wait, that’s a THREAT!
Oh for pity’s sake, will you settle down? You come in ranting and hostile about a mistake you said was made by someone who’s as far from aggressive or abusive as possible, and expect no response? You’re coming across as just another troll at this point.
But… This is a forum where “The person who made the initial comment” is named, by nomiker, in the comment wherein that person did that. Your position boils down to “Back off, I’m not what you say I am, and I can prove it, and you’re possibly the minion of someone I’m having a fight with”.
Is it really that much effort to name the person you’re attempting to have a one sided conversation with and then point out where and how they’re wrong in a, you know, tone of communication that doesn’t run smack against the wall of surprisingly angry ranting laced with an undercurrent of threat? (“I am not a TERF” sums it up?)
And I’m choosing to respond to you, joyintorah18, anyway, despite whether or whether not you’re only addressing one part of the forum and regardless of how you might prefer your public dialogue because you’re acting like a bully. Please don’t. It’s… kind of strange.
Mangos are delicious, so back off on your mango hate or this minion walks!
How dare you reply to me, clearly I was speaking to Sir Pecunium!
*dies laughing* I have a case of the sillies! that I’ll be harassing Sir Pecunium in person in under 48 hours isn’t helping. (I promise I’m not bringing a mango)
Auggz — http://queerdictionary.tumblr.com/post/3891289414/terf
@lionicle
Coming on a forum where one of my vids was featured and leaving a comment about me personally, accusing me of opinions I don’t hold is NOT constructive criticism. It’s downright name calling and trying to start up the old crap on Youtube and bring it here to this forum. This is why I told that person to back off. They know I have all the information to show them to be troublemaking. The comment they offered was nothing about the video I made. It wasn’t even on topic.
So no, I will not take that as constructive criticism when it wasn’t intended to be. It was a rude attempt to slander me and make up positions I don’t hold.
Oh and I know what intersectionality is. If you have a problem with the fact I used the word ‘retard’ in reference to MRA’s then that’s your opinion. It doesn’t mean I have to study intersectionality. I’m aware of what that is.
I get she’s not a TERF. I believe that she is within reason to correct someone if they think she is. But the off-the-handle hostility is . . . just weird. Why?