So it seems that some Men’s Rightsers and manospherians, reveling in the negative attention they’ve managed to get from the mainstream for some of their more reprehensible postings, have decided to up the ante a bit, posting stuff that’s so deliberately over the top in its despicableness that even some of their readers have been taken aback.
A case in point: A paean to child abuse recently posted on Roosh’s Return of Kings blog. (Let me put a big TRIGGER WARNING on all the quotes from it that follow.)
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In Why You Should Beat Your Kids, guest poster Rebel Yell argues — well, asserts — that
Beating builds character, and in my estimation, is the solution for today’s flabby, emasculated, and gynocentric culture.
The piece is filled with such wisdom as:
If you don’t beat your kids your son will end up banging some dude and your daughter will become an anarcha-feminist with an unshorn vag.
Yep. For you see, the beatings being advocated here are intended to enforce the patriarchal, homophobic, antifeminist, and even the fatphobic views favored by Roosh and his readers:
[T]oday’s kids … should be beat constantly until they realize that they can’t get away and have to fight back to survive. Beat until they lose their narcissistic attitude and accept that weakness is never an option. Beat until she loses weight and he stops playing with Barbie dolls.
Rebel Yell devotes much of the post to an obviously fictional tale of his own upbringing — which naturally involved a lot of beatings at the hands of his dad — before concluding with an exceedingly vicious attack on some favorite manosphere villains. Who happen to be real people.
Do us all a favor: beat your kids from time to time. If this simple rule was followed Miley Cyrus would shut the fuck up because Billy Ray laid a black eye on his slut daughter, Perez Hilton would be shamed to suicide, and Lindy West would die an ignoble death somewhere in the hinterlands of Hell. After all, Satan is male, right?
This is just straight up harassment.
Like some Men’s Rights activists who revel in saying vile things but try to wriggle out of taking moral responsibility for what they say, Roosh has declared that Rebel Yell’s post was “meant to be satire.”
Clearly Roosh has no idea what satire is. So here is a brief refresher. Satire is
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
In other words, you need to actually disagree with the views you are satirizing. As I’ve pointed out before, when Jonathan Swift wrote his famous Modest Proposal, he didn’t actually believe that eating babies was a good idea. If he had, it wouldn’t have been satire, just a really fucked up essay by a really fucked up weirdo.
The only way Rebel Yell’s post would be satire would be if it were intended as a takedown of misogynist assholes who believe that beatings and bullying are an appropriate response to such supposed social ills as feminism, homosexuality, sluttiness, and obesity, and who hate Jezebel writer Lindy West so much they like to imagine her dead.
But that’s not a description of the sort of people who Roosh and his readers are against; that’s a description of who they are. Indeed, Roosh and his pals in the manosphere just devoted a week to a celebration of anti-fat bullying.
These guys are in many ways beyond satire. It’s hard to imagine anyone more exaggeratedly awful than they already are.
EDIT: And it turns out that this allegedly “humorous” post — as a number of people have pointed out — seems to have been plagiarized in part from a post by misogynistic “humorist” Maddox. Some similar passages:
MADDOX: If you don’t beat your kids when they fall out of line, the next thing you know your son will go off and bang some dude in the ass just out of spite.
REBEL YELL: If you don’t beat your kids your son will end up banging some dude and your daughter will become an anarcha-feminist with an unshorn vag.
MADDOX: The problem is that kids today think their opinions matter. By not beating your kids, they get a skewed perspective of reality … .
REBEL YELL: Beat until they realize that their opinions don’t matter.
And then there’s this. [TRIGGER WARNING for graphics even worse than the quotes so far.]
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Maddox illustrated his post with this graphic, now available as a t-shirt:
Return of Kings illustrated its post with this picture and a nearly identical caption.
So Return of Kings is not even original in its offensiveness.
Rebel Yell is the wrong name for this guy: he should call himself Rebel Echo. Glenn Beck did this rant first he (RebYel) is copying it.
“Glenn Beck did this rant first he (RebYel) is copying it.”
Sorry. Glenn Beck did this rant first and he (RebYel) is copying it.
This “it’s all satire” response isn’t going to fool anyone. What I don’t understand is why they’re posting this kind of even more than usually extremist shit now when they know they’re being watched by the mainstream media. Their comments on those articles show quite clearly that this is not satire, they aren’t kidding and a really close watch needs to be kept on them.
I’m never gonna look at elephants the same way again …
I definitely think there is something to the whole rationalizing your own trauma from being beaten by saying how you turned out fine and in fact you turned out great because of the beatings. It isn’t any fun admitting that you might be messed up because of something you totally couldn’t have controlled. That being said, that article is just awful.
TW: child abuse
As I said when this was discussed in the comments yesterday, beating your kid until they fight back can also result in beating your kid until they stop trying to do anything because anything they do could “earn” them a beating.
Occasionally, just occasionally, beating your child until they’re big enough to fight back ends up with them killing you, rather than the more common vice-versa.
Bet Mr Big Dick doesn’t consider that.
Hugs if you want them, auggziliary; I went through something similar with my depression, though my parents A) wouldn’t admit that it was depression and B) thought that my “sulky and antisocial misbehavior” could be cured by the church counselor Jesusing at me and forcing me to verbally thank people constantly for inconsequential things because I clearly wasn’t “thankful” enough for all the good things in life.
You should have publicly thanked Jesus for your depression, just to see if he had any sense of irony at all.
(I really hate the whole social dynamic of that particular form of Christianity, where people are shamed into shutting up about stuff that’s causing them problems so that everyone else doesn’t have to deal with it. Those kinds of churches seem to work a lot like an abusive family.)
To be entirely fair, I did my thesis on Jonathan Swift, and he was kind of a messed up weirdo. Not a baby-eating one, but still.
I was diagnosed with double depression when I finally got competent treatment in college; I suspect there’s some social anxiety all mixed up with it, too, but I don’t want to self-diagnose, and that bit’s usually manageable for me unless I’m on a really crowded bus or whatever so I haven’t really ever brought it up in a session. I’m just glad that I haven’t had much more than brief periods with the major depression in the last few years, and the dysthymia seems to have been situational in that being permanently-not-at-my-parents seems to have cleared it up for me. I’m so thankful it’s more manageable now, but it made my life hell for ten years or so and I really feel for anyone who’s also gone through that as a kid. It’s just awful and life-fucking-up.
I still hate thanking my parents for anything, though. It pisses me off to no end that my mom fucking minored in psychology but couldn’t see that I was depressed as hell for years and years, and didn’t believe me when I flat-out told her in no uncertain terms that I was suicidal and hated my life and was pretty damn sure I should see a psychiatrist or at least someone who wasn’t employed by the church.
Anyways, thanks for the hugs! I’m off to a costume party now, though; I’ll catch you all later? Sorry for feelingsbarfing all over here (I know, I know! We’re not supposed to be sorry! Does it help if I’m sorry for being sorry?) but srsly hard feels for people who grew up with stuff like that; it’s why I majored in psych in the first place, even though it’s turned out that I don’t feel like I really should pursue that career.
@Ally
Ugh, what a horrible teacher 🙁
That sucks. 🙁 You can have all the internet hugs you want from me.
@chie satonaka
I’m so sorry that happened to you and your mother. 🙁 Glad to hear she changed, though. And internet hugs from me, if you want them.
@kittehs
Pass the mental image on, why don’t you 😛
@auggz
🙁 that sucks. Internet hugs, if you want them.
@dustydeste
Well that sucks 🙁 Internet hugs for you, too, if you want them.
If we’re sharing stories, when I had (what I think was) my first, big depressive flare up when I was in 6th grade, and got depressed enough I plain stopped going to school. Their solution was to send me to kiddy asylum, which. Well, idk what to say about. :/ Mostly it just scared me into being good, in the case that they’d do it again.
And more internet hugs, again, for anyone who wants them.
Free Internet hugs and virtual ice cream here if anyone wants! I have strawberry and pumpkin spice (mmmmm). Also, virtual cookie butter!
RE: stories – [TW: child abuse, depression]
I recall when I was a little kid, my mother would lock me outside of the house when I was four because I didn’t know what 9+3 was. I also recall my mother trying to drag me out of the house because I was a bad kid. I used to have little mental breakdowns when I was a little kid, and my mom would punish me because I made her look bad. Recall her smacking me with what she could get her hands on: a 2×4, a coat hanger, a book, whatever. So long as it was hard and can be used to smack someone with, she’d use it. She’d also pull on my ears if I misbehaved, slap me in the face (even in public), look through my private things without my permission, constantly asked me how many friends I had and what they looked like, and threaten to disown me.
I remember locking myself in the bathroom and crying all the time too.
When I was in sixth grade, my mother smacked me with a coat hanger. I don’t remember why. But I went to school and had another mental breakdown, and then social workers were called. I had to translate the English to my mother, who was not thrilled. Then the police came, took the 2×4 away from us. I locked myself up in the bathroom that night, not wanting to face both my mom’s anger and my dad’s anger when he got home from work. Social services sent a social worker for a year after that.
I went to therapy for about three or four years (for a different mental health issue). My mother would shame me for going to therapy and say “you can never tell, because it makes me look bad”. So I knew that I can’t tell her anything about mental health issues. I was ashamed of going, and I hated myself.
My brother still lives at home, and about to graduate (if he has enough high school units that is). Whenever he got bad grades, my mom would threaten to disown him and to kick him out of the house. It happens every single damn time.
If we were bad, she would punish us for making her look bad. That was the reason she gave us: “you make me look like a bad parent, and how would I ever show face to my friends?”. Not because we were acting like little shits and because that in itself was bad, but because we were making her look bad.
There was this one incident day of my high school graduation. My mother didn’t tell me that she was going to invite my aunt and my grandmother and my great-aunt to my graduation, so I gave away three extra tickets to a friend of mine who needed it. She made me walk over there and get them back, and then when I told her I wanted to go home because I was feeling upset, she wouldn’t let me. Instead, she drove me and my brother and the people she was carpooling at the time to Hometown Buffet, miles away from home. I told her that I didn’t want to go, I wanted to go home, I was too upset. When she finally got a parking space, she got out of the car and slapped me in the face.
Shit. Now I’m crying now. 🙁
Anyways, I now live two hours away from home, but I’m paranoid and I can’t tell her anything meaningful about my life because I know she’ll never understand. So when she calls my phone, I always tell her I’m doing homework, just so that she could quickly hang up.
I hate abusive people, and this is why that manosphere article pisses me off, because that’s not cool. I’m fucked up, partially because of mental health problems and partially because of this.
Sorry if it seems scattered. I’m just sad now.
@alice
God that sucks. Your mother sounds horrible 🙁 You can have all the internet hugs from me that you want.
(First comment, I hope I do this correctly).
Oh, but David, you failed to mentioned what Rebel Yell said at the beginning of his article:
See? Rebel Yell has said so zirself, belLIEve zir. Child abuse has nothing to do with beating your children senseless, that’s just daily discipline!
More hugs and kittens and puppies to everyone who wants them. These stories are hard to read, but thank you for sharing them. I know it can’t be easy.
Here’s a picture of Maru wearing a crab hat, if it helps:
http://cuteoverload.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dsc_1015.jpg?w=560
Hi, this is Angela Gibbons. I have nothing constructive to offer, I’m just showing off my new profile and kitty avatar! 😀
These personal stories are really sad. To think these things happen even in this day and age is just… depressing. The people who promote shit like this make me furious.
Thank you guys for sharing. Hugs to everyone who wants them, and all the sympathy to those who don’t.
Adorable kittens for everyone!
Apart from all the hate and cruelty, fundamentally it’s just stupid. I mean these guys are hell bent on getting everything wrong and ignoring all facts and credible research. There is absolutely no evidence that beating kids will de-gay them, de-“pussify” them, toughen them, prepare them for the harsh world, and make them fit snugly into narrow gender roles. None.
There IS evidence however that any hitting of a child for any reason at any age only hurts, humiliates, and damages trust. It is never a good idea to hit, slap, spank, let alone beat. Spankings occur because the parent has lost his/her temper. In that moment, there is no interest for the betterment of that child – it is all about the adult losing control. Period.
Radical Parrot, omg so cute! ::iz ded::
All your anger suggests a heapin’ helping of denial.
Since we’re doing story time…
First, hugs to Ally, dustydeste, auggz, Marie, Alice, and anyone else I’ve missed or who wants one.
Second…TW: child abuse, self-injury, suicide, and uh, ranting about my psych which counts as? (I’m gonna channel pecunium on that one — malpractice and negligence)
“and being “negative”(wouldn’t it be great if we could solve decade long depression with some positive thinking?!)”
My fucking meds psych pulled that in a joint session with talk psych, her, me, and my mother. A little meeting that was supposed to be about getting my mother’s take on my day-to-day functioning since she sees me far more. Agreed to that, spent an hour basically being berated for being too negative and rejecting things without trying them (like applying for programming jobs, because I’m good without computers, with exactly zero related things on my resume…saying it won’t work is rejecting things without trying and sometimes you have to apply to hundreds of places!)
And this is my fucking psych (thank the gods I’m getting an intern instead of having to see her again!)
When I was younger it was that from my parents, plus a dose of religion — fucking pastor had these verses I was supposed to recite. Honestly it reminds me a lot of saying the rosary…except the bead part might’ve actually keep me distracted. Yeah, I’m another one who just ended up cutting privately since anyone knowing, or knowing I was suicidal, just got me in trouble.
My father wasn’t usually physically abusive, but yeah, studying at the table? Cool! Next day? Go somewhere else! (In far more angry and long winded terms) I got to be a damned good liar from dodging his anger. Anything and everything could set him off, or nothing would, and what sort of day it was was (is) utterly unpredictable (these days we tend to just ignore him and retreat to our own rooms and he can’ treacly climb stairs so it works)
Got threatened with being disowned so many times I ended up snapping at him one day “good, do it!”…that went over badly. My favorite though? If they divorce it will be my fault. These days I’m like “divorce him already mom!” (Which isn’t going to happen currently since his father’s in a retirement home cuz dementia and my father is an asshole so she’s doing the shopping for his diapers and the snacks his special diet allows and all that [can’t remember what he had to eat half an hour ago, but knows he’s got the best daughter in law in the world…it’s a sort of dementia I can deal with])
Back in topic! He’d rant and rave about how no one listens and why are we asking permission we’ll just do what we want anyways and no one wants him around and he should just go kill himself already and then devolve into whatever method he was threatening that day. Fucking terrifying as a kid. (And this is why Hugo. Fucking. Schwyzer. blaming feminists for him attempting suicide makes me want to kill him myself)
…I think I’m done…thanks guys, y’all really are more helpful than my psychs.
Nitram — I’m going to have to disagree that all spankings, ever, are the parent loosing their temper. I know people who were spanked just a couple of times after they’d done something that could’ em gotten them killed. And in those cases I’m okay with just enough of a smack on the backside to associate what they did with pain, but if, and only if, what they tried to do could be seriously dangerous or fatal. (Of course, if he kid is mature enough to be lectured, that is preferable but I can see the argument that the truly rare, honest to goodness spanking — not abuse, can be used to condition a kid out of endangering their life)
Over stupid shit or because you’re pissed? No, not okay. Because your kid just did something potentially fatal? It’s an argument I can see as viable, and certainly isn’t inherently the parent loosing their temper.
HUGE hugs to everyone, with added cat furs (Fribbie’s been sitting on me).
I hope my “it’s okay to tell your stories and you’ve nothing to feel sorry about!” rant didn’t come across as like that “think positive and depression will disappear” tripe. I know it’s not easy and ingrained thinking patterns are hella difficult to fight – been there, too – I just want to have it in black and white from someone else here that is is okay, something to show jerkbrain and say “See? See that?” as a bit of help (hopefully), something to refer to.
(Did I get the run-on sentence prize yet, huh, huh?)
Marie – “Pass the mental image on, why don’t you :P”
That comment made my day! 😀
Baby ducks on a water slide: