Pity the poor MRAs who travelled hundreds — if not thousands — of miles to AVFM’s big weekend in Toronto hoping for a confrontation with the evil feminazis that never happened. They wanted footage of angry women they could watch again and again on YouTube. They wanted new names and faces to put up on Register-Her. In short, they wanted new women to hate.
But alas, the feminists, for the most part, stayed home. And the ones who showed up were mostly dudes, from the LBGT activist group BashBack. Making things even worse, they didn’t block any doors or try to crash AVFM’s rally. What they did, mostly, was chant things the MRAs didn’t like.
No, it was the MRAs who ignored the explicit instructions of the police to stay away from their opponents. Evidently hoping to provoke the confrontation that had been denied them thus far, a sizeable proportion of the AVFMers and Mens Rights Edmontoners in Toronto that day leave the spot designated for their rally to face off against the BashBack counter-protest.
How do we know this? Because Men’s Rights Edmonton filmed them doing it and put it on YouTube. And AVFM posted it on their site as well.
It’s kind of remarkable that they did. For one thing, it provides even more proof of how tiny the rally itself was. And it shows pretty clearly what an immature misogynistic buffoon Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton really is.
For those who don’t have the patience to watch the whole thing, here’s a quick summary:
The video starts over near where the MRA rally itself is being organized (or had just finished up). Nick Reading introduces himself.
Then, in the distance, the counterprotesters begin chanting “racist, sexist, anti-gay, MRA, go away.”
“What’s wrong with being racist and sexist?” Nick shouts in response. “It’s awesome!”
No, really. It’s about 40 seconds in.
Shortly afterwards he marches over and into the small crowd of counterprotesters, clearly itching for some kind of ideological smackdown. He’s followed by Dean Esmay, who’s indignant that MRAs are being called “anti-gay.” Which makes me wonder if he ever actually reads the website he’s the “Managing Editor” of. He yells about this for a time, then leaves. An assortment of others from the MRA crowd also show up. Some yell, others film.
Nick, who remains in the midst of the BashBackers, does his best to try to provoke, explaining his Patriarchy Party candidacy and generally acting like an ass. Eventually he elicits an angry reaction from several group members by declaring, roughly 5:50 into the video, that rape is funny; indeed, that “sometimes it’s hilarious.”
But that’s as close as he gets to provoking the confrontation he’s clearly itching for. After several minutes, apparently having run out of inspiration, he finally decides to leave.
And, scene.
This embarrassing video is in fact the first real footage of the events in Toronto that AVFM has put online so far — all the others they’ve put up have been interviews after the rally.
But I guess the folks at AVFM figured that posting this was preferable to posting video of the anemic rally itself.
And it’s true that the counterprotesters don’t exactly come across brilliantly in the video either. Despite their admirable restraint in the face of the MRA provocations, their overheated rhetoric is often way off the mark, and their old-school chants seem faintly ridiculous in an age of YouTube. And, seriously, wearing pink hammers and sickles to show support for LBGT folks being persecuted in Russia today? Stalin made male homosexuality punishable by five years in a labor camp; that law wasn’t repealed until 1993.
But it is really hard to see how Nick Reading telling a group of mostly gay men that rape is “hilarious” helps to solve the “crisis” facing men and boys– the ostensible reason for the rally in the first place.
Even more interesting than Reading’s abortive attempts to bait the BashBack protesters in Toronto were the reactions of AVFM readers to the video itself. Deprived of new women to hate, they turned instead to bashing the gay men in the video instead.
Mike Hunt — oh, very funny! — offers this totally not homophobic at all assessment of the BashBack activists:
I fully support gay rights and I am the last person to discriminate against gays, but did anyone else notice that all of these protesters seem to be gay? And not self assured, confident in who they are gay, but feminine and completely out of touch with any aspect of themselves that is masculine gay?
JinnBottle, meanwhile, claimed that AVFM had cured his homophobia — no, really — but that these protesters were making him think that maybe he should return to his old ways.
I came to AVfM definitely not “the last person to discriminate against Gays” – at least in my thinking. That thinking specifically took the form of repellence to the ubiquitous ball-busting of (mostly straight, but even other gay) men by gay guys I’d witnessed for 35-plus years in both the politico-social and personal spheres, ever since gay men had “come out”, about 1969.
Subsequently I saw that some of the clearest thinkers, potent social observers and eloquent writers on AVfM are gay – and bi … I rethought my thinking, and thought … the Radfem/Misandric Gay Guy was becoming a thing passing.
Now along come this fresh troupe of Gay misandrists and feminist allies representative of the old notion that, if not *all* gay males are self-hating masochist insulated style-boys, then a majority are.
Riku, meanwhile, didn’t hem or haw or pretend that he was anything but a bigot — and went right for the rape jokes:
You should have raped them guys. These guys literally begged for it. That’s what you were there for, no? 🙁 Thought I’d see some rapes on the event.
AVFM: Where jokes about raping gay men are a form of human rights activism.
There’s also the fact that there’s no reason to assume that “speech issues”, whatever conditions are being rolled into that description, would show up in the way someone writes. I have a cousin who stutters really badly when he talks, for example, and this is not something you’d be aware of if you read things that he writes.
Being a pompous blowhard who’s never met a metaphor that he can’t mangle, and who loves purple so much that Prince would tell him to be more subtle, is not a speech issue.
On how question of much bullshit would be too much even for a FeMRA to accept without snapping back at the guy saying it – there is no practical limit, as far as I can tell. I’m pretty sure this is because they know that if they ever did call out any of the guys in their movement that would make them the next target of the cyber-bullying.
I’ve recently been wondering how aware they(FeMRA’s) are of this. I could see not initially realizing the extent of the MRM’s hatred of women, but I can’t imagine the likes of GWW don’t realize what a risky position they’re in.
Still catching up on comments, but are we sure Riku wasn’t being sarcastic? Or am I just assuming that because the alternative is too disgusting to contemplate?
Oh man, band camp… There was no way in hell we could have gotten away with bikini tops, even on muggy, 95 F days on the tarmac. We couldn’t even wear bikinis at carwashes.
Not that I would’ve worn them anyways, between the absolute shit self-esteem I had going on at the time and the complete inability of bathing suit people to ever make a bikini that accommodates big boobs. But still, what stupid rules.
I think I read that article (will link if I can find it again) and actually, no, her son wasn’t kicked off campus, not even close. I’m pretty sure nothing happened to him aside from being accused and having to go through a community standards process at his school (which is basically the LEAST the college could have done). I’m pretty sure he was deemed not guilty and got off scott free. The comments section was basically a veritable MRA rat’s nest of nastiness, basically saying that the woman (a self-described former feminist) “reaped what she sowed”. Yeah, lots of helping boys and men there. /sarcasm
I know I’m going to sound like the sort of straw feminist MRAs think all feminists are (you know, the kind that assume “all” men are rapists), but based on the article, I’m not really convinced that the woman’s son WAS in fact not guilty. It sounded more to me that it was just something the college felt they needed to address, but didn’t want to have to actually sink any teeth into, especially given the mother’s involvemnt. In the article, the mother talks about “he said, she said” and accuses her son’s accuser of manipulating and pressuring friends into lying for her. She talks about how she’s appalled that the college administrators don’t seem to consider that peer pressure could play a part in people’s testimonies*. Nevermind that peer pressure happens ALL the fucking time in rape cases, only it’s often slanted for the rapist (see also, Stuebenville, etc). She also claims that the accusation was “revenge” from an ex-girlfriend of her son’s. It sounds scarily similar to the MRA fanfiction you can see any given day on the MRA sites.
Basically, she doesn’t talk at all about how she’s convinced he’s innocent, just focuses on how the college wasn’t fair to her son and he only got off because she’s a lawyer, blah blah blah. To me it read more like she was trying to convince herself that her son wasn’t a rapist, and even if he was, he totally deserved due process, etc, but totally not a rapist, because, he’s HER son. It honestly made me really sad for her, because I can’t imagine what it would be like to realize you’ve raised a rapist. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want more rape in the world, so I’m really hoping he didn’t in fact rape his accuser (especially since he did evade any punishment). Just, I’ve read entirely too many articles that detail trials for what is absolutely rape, with the rapist getting away with it. I’m cynical, certainly, because we live in an extremely shitty world.
Anyway, yeah, the comments for that article also made me weep for the human race. People really seemed to like kicking that woman while she was down. It was really disgusting. I’m not at all surprised that GWW felt the need to be an asshole about it too.
*Certainly there are a LOT of things wrong with how most colleges tend to handle rape cases, but being too vigilant against the accused rapists is generally not one of those things.
No, but with all the practice he gets sockpuppeting here I assume he must be pretty good at crashing parties…
Actually, can we be honest for a second? We all know he’s the guy who stands in the corner at parties looking scared and vaguely petulant, which nobody notices. They don’t notice when he leaves either, because who cares?
RE: sparky
LBT: Please give my thanks to your husband. I made his macaroni and cheese last night for dinner
He is DELIGHTED to hear this, and uber-pleased to have spread his recipe to someone else. He encourages you to feast on it often.
RE: Kittehs
I still wish people would lose the “lived to 25″ trope as if reaching forty was incredibly old
Oh god, reminds me of the g0ys pedopologia of pederasty involved them claiming the average Roman died at nineteen. No stats, of course.
RE: The Dark Lord
Also, everyone, I banned MRAL/Thomas Moore.
And there was much rejoicing. (Yay.)
Seriously, newbies, I know you found him funny… but THREE YEARS of this guy socking, coming back, and having no sense of boundaries or propriety whatsoever. He’s like that creeper who’s a little funny at first, except he keeps staring in your windows at night. FOR YEARS.
RE: Quackers
in summer the only thing that could be deemed “slutty” by people like that are really short shorts.
I lived in an area of the country where women would exercise in sports bras and short shorts. But that’s because it was a fucking hundred and ten outside and they didn’t want to fucking keel over. Men would do their jogging shirtless, the cads!
And then fondles your bras in the laundry room.
Yeah. I know some people have a soft spot for Al, but he actually brings out more disgust and revulsion from me than fucking Tom Martin or NWO.
But…if the average Roman died at 19, how could they even have pederasty?
RE: katz
That was the point they were claiming, that pederasty was really between younger teenagers and older teenagers and ergo no children were ever involved or misused SO THERE.
And then the buttsex destroyed everything. (Yes. That’s their argument. I read and MSTed the whole thing, god help me.)
@ LBT
Probably because truly colorful weirdos like Tom Martin are relatively rare, while pathetic creeps with no sense of boundaries like Al are sadly not uncommon, and you’ve probably been pestered by at least one at some point.
RE: CassandraSays
Yeah. He honestly reminds me of the Nice Guy brigade I had to beat off with a stick for years, until the top surgery and haircut erased them from my life.
For me, it’s just the knowledge that nowadays everything he says is for the sole purpose of getting attention. Most of our other trolls at least have some kind of point they’re trying to make, but this one will say literally anything if he thinks it will get a response. So anything you say, even “ha ha, that’s so stupid,” is just giving him what he wants.
RE: katz
It’s true. Wasn’t that why he got banned in the first place, to try and break that cycle? *sigh*
Has anyone ever seen the old Lassie movies, where the cliche “little Timmy has fallen down the well!” comes from.
In this case we should just ignore little Timmy, hopefully he’ll drown and then that will be the end of it.
Yeah, we need to stop engaging with sockpuppets the minute there’s a suspicion of who they are.
auggz – re: Fidelbogen, what CassandraSaysSaid. 😉 Speech difficulties don’t show up in writing. Fiddlyboger’s problem is willfull ignorance, same as the rest of these turds. Or, in the great word I saw on Pharyngula yesterday, smugnorance.
“…gathered in unprecedented numbers…”
LOL.
these guys are filled with unwarranted self importance.
Go the fuck away with your “someone alerted me to this thread” crap. Don’t come back.
I’m not sure how MRAL’s comment got through.
He actually sent me a note asking me to delete it. And so I have.
Wow. That guy…really needs help.
Some kind psychiatrist really needs to design some sort of trolling withdrawal therapy. First step – when people tell you to get lost, do so. Second step – repeat first step. Third step – no, really, what part of the first step wasn’t clear?
Finally! Someone has heeded my suggestion to own their bigotry. Why be ashamed of who you are? I mean, aside from the obvious reasons.
You have got to be kidding me. That kids needs serious help.