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.
@wildeyes
I dunno… I don’t really think matters of taste have much to do with whether a response is rational or not. In my alternate capacity as a viciously militant atheist (not only do I not believe, I tell people so when they assert that I should, and then…. it gets worse… then I disagree when they assert that I have no reason to be moral) I get a lot of complaints about how the use of swear words makes discussions impossibly unpleasant and impossible to endure. Does that mean we should never swear? Of course not, nor does it mean that refusing to swear makes what you have to say pleasant. I’d rather be told that I’m wearing a fucking silly shirt, than that I’m the lowest of the low, that I’m condemned to an eternal punishment by the command of a perfect and loving being. If asked which is the more offensive statement, honestly, I’m going with the second – some of my shirts are fucking silly.
So, does sharing a cat picture in a discussion make a rational take-down come to a screeching halt? No. No more than the lack of cat pictures allows MRA rantings to begin to be rational. Besides, the cats are usually introduced outside of the arguments.
It’s a good this is a MOCKING blog then, isn’t it wild eyes?
If you want rational takedowns of irrational ideas, there are other places that do not have as many cat pictures.
Geez, read the header, people! Misogyny, I MOCK IT.
RE: titianblue
a poultry forum,
THESE EXIST? Wait, what am I talking about, of course they exist, it’s the internet.
RE: skater
Can you all send me a picture of yourselves and the most attractive partner you have been with?
Sweetheart, you want porn that hot, you have to PAY me for it, just like everyone else.
RE: Bostonion
They never read the tagline. *shakes head sadly* I wonder if the MST3K guys ever got chastised for not being serious enough in their film criticism.
Re: Bostonian
“If you want rational takedowns of irrational ideas, there are other places that do not have as many cat pictures.”
Maybe you’re right. See ya.
Flounce is an 8/10. Demonstrates not-caring by actually leaving instead of going on and on about it. Will remove 8 of 8 points if they return.
I wish I could say that was different >.<
@lamashtu
Ugh, that’s terrible 🙁 All the internet hugs from me, if you want them.
@skater
Nope 😛
Cry harder. you’re boring. Ps: nice ableism.
@gia
Um, we don’t really need to respond to ableism with ableism. Sure there are plenty of people who are insane who think it’s disgusting too…
@wildeyes
This isn’t a rational take-down of manoshpere nonsense though. It’s right there at the top of the page. We mock misogyny. I’m not going to sit down and politely explain to someone why women are people too, kthnxby.
@lamashtu
Ugh, that’s terrible 🙁 All the internet hugs from me, if you want them.
@skater
Nope 😛
Cry harder. you’re boring. Ps: nice ableism.
@gia
Um, we don’t really need to respond to ableism with ableism. Sure there are plenty of people who are insane who think it’s disgusting too…
@wildeyes
This isn’t a rational take-down of manoshpere nonsense though. It’s right there at the top of the page. We mock misogyny. I’m not going to sit down and politely explain to someone why women are people too, kthnxby.
And, posting again cuz I forgot to asterik out the slurs :/ whoops.
And now I realize that I automatically read it as “poultry farm.”
RE: katz
Really, that’s the sensible presumption!
I would guess they have a subforum called “Nobody here but us chickens.”
That was a FOWL joke, opium4themasses. I goose you just couldn’t resist, but do it again, and the results will not be pheasant.
You couldn’t sparrow laugh? I’m no starling, and I don’t want to crow about it. Still, that joke was no turkey.
Hey, we have a subforum called “Why did the chicken …” devoted to fowl jokes. 🙂
Opium4, I’ve read the book your nym is from!
Oh you’re all a bunch of boobies!
…the blue footed kind of course (does my pun fail and cross into offensive? Sorry if it does but blue footed boobies!)
omfg, ilu all. 10/10 puns. Actually made me laugh out loud, my cat was like wtf??
if you weren’t ashamed of yourselves or your ability to attract members of the opposite sex then posting an image wouldn’t be a problem. Way to prove my point you fools. If you weren’t ashamed about your bodies or your social lives, its hard to see why you all would sit here and cry about people who are clearly enjoying their lives more than you.
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but I did get quite a laugh out of your responses
Ooh, a spooky Halloweeen necro-troll! But don’t worry guys, he’s not trying to convince anyone of anything with his statements in the format “If you weren’t X, then you would Y.”
Take note, commenters – it’s your fault that skater’s manipulation skills aren’t up to par.
I’m glad skater came back because otherwise I would have missed the fowl puns. “The results will not be pheasant” is my personal favorite.
LOL skater thinks MRAs are enjoying life? Welcome to Bizarro World.
cloudiah – odds are that skater’s no pheasant plucker, too.
I’m trying to think of the last time I encountered a person who seemed less happy than Roosh and drawing a blank.
Yeah, I’d be struggling with that one.