No long post today. Instead, I urge you to go over to the AgainstMensRights subreddit to read about how several long time Men’s Rights Redditors have doxxed and harassed a college student, with one of the regulars gleefully setting forth a plan to stalk her and ruin her life and another seeming to suggest he might want to pay her a visit to “debate” her.
Some screenshots from the original Men’s Rights subreddit discussion:
The thread (which remained up for many hours) has now been scrubbed by the Men’s Rights mods — I got these screenshots from u/Aceyjuan and u/TraceyMorganFreeman’s respective timelines — but as of right now none of the doxxers have been banned from the subreddit, or from Reddit itself.
The “crimes” of the woman in question? According to her main stalker — who has apparently been harassing her for months — she’s tweeted comments like “white men are like the gum on the bottom of my shoe” and “Jared Leto looks like the kind if guy that gives you herpes.”
Yep. Apparently the second-worst evil misandrist comment she made was … a joke about Jared Leto. For these comments, apparently she deserves to have her life ruined.
Here’s the thing: If you don’t like someone’s comments online, you are certainly well within your rights to quote them and point out why you don’t like what they said. That’s kind of the point of this blog. But it’s one thing to point out these comments, and another thing entirely to track down their identity and stalk them in real life. It’s another thing to whip up a virtual mob against them.
Doxxing by Men’s Rights Activists isn’t an accident; it’s the inevitable result of the peculiar style of Men’s Rights Activism.
MRAs, you see, seem utterly incapable of engaging in any kind of activism that might actually benefit men in the real world in any concrete manner. What they as a group specialize in is demonizing women, and in the case of too many MRAS, nothing gets their activist juices flowing faster than the opportunity to attack an individual woman.
That’s why A Voice for Men “activists” put up “wanted” style posters featuring their favorite feminist villains of the day; it’s why they started Register-Her.com. That’s why a certain red-haired Canadian activist who yelled at some MRAs once at a protest now finds her image splashed everywhere online as a visual representation of an evil feminist. That’s why MRAs show up at protests with cameras and threaten to expose the women they film — even if they’ve done nothing more than stand there with a sign.
And that’s why they doxx.
The Men’s Rights movement isn’t a civil rights movement. As it stands right now, it’s a union of abusers, and their enablers.
EDITED TO ADD: Lest anyone claim that the OP didn’t “really” dox the woman in question because he didn’t literally post all her personal details, he provided enough to allow anyone with even rudimentary Google skills to find out her real name and a great deal of other personal identifying information in less time than it would take to order a pizza online.
Worst possible situation – a threesome with a guitar player and a singer. You’d never get around to the sexing, they’d both be too busy looking at themselves in the mirror and arguing about whose vision was more important/original/insert wanky argument here.
There’s not a bed big enough for all the ego in that threesome.
The other ex who was a singer, and I wish I was joking about this, I once caught picking up a spoon in a restaurant and using the back of it to try to check himself out. Vain and dumb, not a great combination.
LOL, that’s why I’ve had a relatively firm no musicians dating policy. Mr. HK hasn’t been in a band in years, he just practices.
Yeah, I instituted that policy at the age of 19. I’d already had enough by that point.
My worst ex though? Artist.
Model, in my case.
RE: Kittehs and Octo
I actually like the term demisexual because I always felt like a failed gay man for having such a low rate of attraction. I was brought up to think that gay men were generally all about the anonymous constant sexing, and that’s a stereotype, but I actually really felt like some kinda defect for a while because I just really, REALLY didn’t want that. (It didn’t help that part of my sexual abuse was corrective — dude kept telling me he was “training” me to be more sexual.)
I don’t feel fully asexual, because I have a pretty happy, ordinary sex life with my husband now, but he’s still the only person I’m interested in being with, and I don’t like using the term single-target sexuality because it’s been used in hella homophobic ways around me in the past. (“I’m not a [slur] or anything, it’s just okay if it’s you! That way, my masculinity can go totally unquestioned!”) It’s like, no, I’m queer, I might as well own it and get the fuck over it.
Hi Gillian! Sorry to hear you’ve a rotten coughhackHURK bug. Hope it gets better soon. In the meantime, glad you’re stopping by. 🙂
LBT –
It’s pronounced Frahnkensteen …
Fibi –
The thought of a one-night stand turns me off completely; it sounds way too dangerous. Partly because the idea of instant sexual attraction to a stranger is totally alien, partly because casual sex is dangerous, moreso for women than men in a het situation, partly because it would be a waste of freaking time for me. I’d get nothing out of it; apprehension would kill any good feelings. I would never trust a stranger with my safety that way.
Catalpa –
LOL love it!
Is it just me, or does anyone else expect to hear allosexual in a really bad fake French accent?
katz – eeeee new Pierre! <3
LBT – cripes, that sounds a traumatic way to fall in love.
It was so different for me (duh). It was all through learning about Mr K's earthly days, and that meant reading a hella lot of contradictory stuff about him, and absolutely ACHING for him – not a happy state. Then there was the business of learning what he's like now once we got in contact. Mostly the feeling I remember was amazement/disbelief that he loved me, and had done all those years.
LBT – oh gross, is there ANY term that can’t get made homophobic? D:
I think a lot of the issue with communication between asexual and allosexual folks is society’s fixation with sex, and how it simultaneously idealizes and villainizes sex. People who have lots of sex are less pure, deviant, slutty, or objects of envy but at the same time don’t you know that sex can be the ultimate expression of love between people? And look at all these products meant to attract (sex) partners, don’t you want these? Better watch out though, you don’t want to catch any filthy STIs. But there’s definitely something wrong with you if people don’t want to have sex with you. Sex is the most peasurable experience there is! But don’t be a hedonist!
It’s a constant tug-of-war between the two extremes and I think it’s ridiculous. I really don’t think that sex is as good or as bad as it is made out to be, and the media definitely amps up the sexuality that is shown, because that sells.
Ace folks live in a culture that is saturated with sexuality and how important it should be and how people who don’t want to have sex are frigid, repressed, traumatized, etc.
Allosexual folks, on the other hand, have to deal with the other prong of this bullshit, where they are told they can’t/shouldn’t have sex the way they choose because IT’S DIRTY.
So when there is dialogue between the two, sometimes there’s misunderstandings, especially derived from media, wherein allosexuals come across as “You don’t want to have sex? Clearly there’s something wrong with you.” and asexuals come across as “Clearly nothing matters to you but having sex, it doesn’t even matter who they are!” When neither of these generalizations are right, and sometimes not even intended to come across that way.
::applauds::
So true.
With one single solitary exception, every guy I’ve dated has been a guitar player or a DJ. :/ I guess that’s why I’m still single?
@catalpa
I… think. Or at least I hope I have understood you. But I also think therein lies the problem. Basically, I feel it’s a bit of “overlabeling”. As you say, sexuality can be pretty fluid, and in any case, observing several people, will pretty much always be a gradual thing. But I kinda draw the opposite conclusion: Given that fact, do we need a label for every little bit of variance? Especially as such labels pretty much always imply a variance from “the standard” – what you call allosexuals, in this case. Personally, I think the variance between what you define as allosexuals and demisexuals is not that great to warrant own labels; certainly not when compared to the variances between hetero-, homo-, bi- and asexuals (hetero- via bi- to homosexuality might also be a gradual spectrum, but one with a great enough width to have those categories). I suppose our difference is how we look at these labels: You say they can be pretty helpful on a personal level, which sounds to me like a subjective approach. For me the question is rather how much use in observation and categorization they have, so a more descriptive approach.
Hm. This is an interesting question. There are women where my first mental reaction to seeing them is “She’s hot/cute”. But that doesn’t mean I’d imagine sexual acts involving me and such strangers (while there are some people who totally do this). Does this count as sexual attraction? If you really define it as “would imagine having sex with that person” vs “would not imagine such a thing”, then I suppose your distinction makes sense, but I still think that’s a very narrow difference. After all, it does not mean the ‘demisexual’ could not have sexual thoughts unrelated to any emotional bonds – sexual thoughts not focused on any specific person, or not even involving oneself, are a thing, after all.
@LBT
Ah, damn. That does sound bad. Good to hear that at least now things are better for you, especially love-wise. Yeah, okay, what you say makes sense. But it also kinda fits to what Kitteh says about pigeon-holing; in this case pigeon-holing gay men. I can see where simply choosing another pigeon hole can in fact be a helpful personal strategy. But that says nothing about the validity of those pigeon holes; not how much sense they make as observational categories. As I’ve said above, in discussing those terms I guess it depends on what you stress more.
I think that’s an alloallosexual.
Octo- I think that because sexuality is such a complicated and fluid thing, descriptive labels will always tend to fall short of the mark, and attempts to make them specific enough to apply to everyone’s interests will indeed lead to what you consider overlabelling.
My opinion on such things is: If someone finds a label that they identify with, that makes them feel more comfortable in their own skin, then all the power to them. If someone doesn’t feel the need to label themselves anything specific, that’s fine too. If two people with functionally identical sexualities decide on different labels for themselves, that’s up to them.
And I believe, when it comes down to labelling what sexualities other people have, you really don’t need to know it unless you’d like to be sexually involved with them, in which case you should ask if they are interested in doing that with you. Choosing a label for yourself and having one arbitrarily applied to you are two very different things, and I don’t think many people appreciate the latter.
But that’s just my two cents. *shrugs*
I think it’s a matter of “some do need it” and “some don’t”. It is fairly common for people to feel like they can’t get a mental handle on something unless they can name it. So putting a label on something that they’ve felt weird about and could never name can feel liberating. And sharing that label with others can make you feel less alone.
XD
This kind of shit makes me sick, and it scares the shit out of me on behalf of all feminist women (feminist men seldom have to worry about this kind of treatment, which only goes to prove that misogyny is the core of the MRM). It makes me sad, too, because as a man, I truly wish that there were a real sort of “men’s liberation” movement that sought to free men of the prescribed gender roles that continue to cage us — but this “men’s movement” (which is anything but) only seeks to perpetuate those gender roles while making sure that women are treated as much as possible as non-human, just things to be used as adjuncts to men’s lives.
Animals.
Hey! That’s not fair. My animals never try to enforce gender roles.
@mmn101
http://manboobz.com/2012/08/22/yo-dudes-alpha-males-are-a-myth-according-to-actual-experts-on-wolves/comment-page-8/#comment-443029
New Pierre! All the squees!
They haven’t time. It’s a full-time job enforcing species roles.
RE: Kittehs
LBT – cripes, that sounds a traumatic way to fall in love.
Well, let’s face it, I was not really in a condition to be falling in love in the first place. I was the exact opposite of thrilled. (And I still find the calmer, steadier love we have now to be much more pleasant! Seriously, fuck the butterflies.)
oh gross, is there ANY term that can’t get made homophobic? D:
NOPE.
For me (sorry, late response) I’m sometimes… not happy about being asexual. Probably because I think I’m aromantic as well, as it’s very rigid in both cases, there’s nothing fluid about it. So sometimes it makes me very depressed and and I feel like I have nothing to live for because I’ll never be sexually attracted to someone or want to date or fall in love, you know?
And I have to remind myself a lot that those are just things society tells me I’m SUPPOSED to want and that society has very narrow views about what humans are, want, and need. Still, I do often feel like I’m missing out on really important things in life, especially as my friends are mostly all married or in relationships (recently my best friend found like the PERFECT guy for her). And it’s not like someone who can’t get a date or sex, right now I have several guys pursuing me and I’m going out on a date with one of them next week to TRY and see if anything clicks romantically, but I don’t have high hopes. My friend who recently found the perfect guy has been encouraging me, that was the first time in her almost 21 years of life she’s felt romantically attracted to someone so maybe I just haven’t clicked with anyone yet but I do feel as though I really am aromantic even though I want her to be right.