If you missed my talk at Northwestern on the Friend Zone, and most of you did, I go over a lot of what I said in it in my interview with Amanda Marcotte here. My segment of the podcast starts about 8 minutes in. (The rest of the podcast is interesting, too.)
The one thing missing from the podcast that my talk had was … a gazillion terrible Friend Zone memes to illustrate all my points. So here are a couple of the ones I refer to in the interview.
@LBT
[CN: sexual assault]
I’ve never been touched and/or kissed by a stranger against my will, and yet even when I go to places where I remember seeing certain abusers, that’s enough to make me lose my composure. So I can understand why you would lose your composure in such a situation. Please take care of yourself and don’t listen to jerkbrain.
LET, I wish I could go around with you and growl at those people.
RE: katz
*laughs* I know a system with a Logan in it (as in, X-men’s Wolverine) and he said pretty much the exact same thing.
God I wish I was doing better at making friends in this damn city. Any Ohio Mammoths?
And we’ve told you, over and over: we are afraid. Our lives are at stake and we do what we must to be safe. That you think a little white lie like “I’m busy” is a terrible injustice while demanding that women endanger themselves for the sake of your fee-fees says everything I need to know about you.
Shit, son, a guy just murdered a bunch of women for the terrible crime of sharing a gender with people who rejected him, and you’re telling us to stuff our fear and coddle your precious ego. Do you even hear yourself?
Anyway…
*puts hugs in the barrel for LBT*
You shouldn’t have to handle it, and freaking out is a completely normal reaction. I’d freak the fuck out, too. You’re not doing anything wrong.
Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.
I just hate that now I have as many creepers with stalker complexes (who I’m fucking having to change my behavior to avoid!) as I do decent friends in this fucking city.
Troll to English: you’re a het dude, ergo a person.
fromafar2013:
Hey, sometimes autocorrect gets it right!
“I’m always going to be too busy, even if I’m watching paint dry” would be my favoured response, if I didn’t think I was risking rape or worse by giving it.
Is anyone else thinking Racnad the Rancid is due for the banhammer after that “but were they hard or soft noes” response to the links about women being murdered?
@LBT
::Offers more hugs::
@kittehs
I gave Rancid the way-more-lenient-than-he-deserved interpretation: that he just took cussing to mean hostile and not cussing to mean not hostile. But this is so a possibility, too.
re: banhammer
I certainly wouldn’t mind. I’m feeling better than earlier, but still strangly empty and not good with decisions, though, so I’m not very….decision-makey.
“You just made a “yes but” reply to people being killed, and then said that isn’t good evidence to support women being afraid of the reaction to them turning someone down.
So what, if they were killed after saying, “Sorry, but I’m going to the prom with my boyfriend” that’s different from, “Sorry, I don’t want to go to the prom with you?”
On what planet is this even possible to argue? What does it matter the form the rejection took? If it “clear”, or “soft” the asshole killed her.
You just argued that being killed for rejecting someone is only relevant if the rejection was made, “the wrong way”. So what.. the attacker wouldn’t have done it if…
There was no possibility of, “romance” in the future?
Or if there was?
Which of those makes it somehow ambiguous that rejecting men is dangerous?
And now, being late to work, I have to run, so others will have to explain just how fuckheadedly stupid you are.”
I still trying to decipher what you’re asking here. When I challenged the notion that turning down a guy by implying a date in the future that will never happen was less likely to trigger to violence than a more honest approach, Someone responded with these stories. If each of these cases in involved a victim who was honest and was killed for it, then maybe they’d have a point. But the rejection is usually not described in the story, so we just don’t know.
Of course the style of the rejection has no bearing on whether the victim deserved it or how guilty the perpetrator was, if that’s the meaning you tried to insert into my words.
“And we’ve told you, over and over: we are afraid. Our lives are at stake and we do what we must to be safe. That you think a little white lie like “I’m busy” is a terrible injustice while demanding that women endanger themselves for the sake of your fee-fees says everything I need to know about you.
Shit, son, a guy just murdered a bunch of women for the terrible crime of sharing a gender with people who rejected him, and you’re telling us to stuff our fear and coddle your precious ego. Do you even hear yourself?”
Do you think the guy in Santa Barbara only murdered women who have him hard no’s and this wouldn’t have happened if they said “Maybe after finals week” or something. This was a seriously disturbed individual who has had emotional problems for years – completely outside the scope of what I’m talking about.
“You have a non-hostile thoughtful response, so I will address your points:
Troll to English: you’re a het dude, ergo a person.
I gave Rancid the way-more-lenient-than-he-deserved interpretation: that he just took cussing to mean hostile and not cussing to mean not hostile. But this is so a possibility, too.”
First, what does orientation have to do with anything? Yes I write from a hetero perspective because that’s what I’m familiar with. I have nothing against the LGBT perspective. It’s a legitimate perspective as any, but I don’t know enough about it to say much about it.
Marie, you and everyone else may wonder why I’m here. All my life I’ve enjoyed seeking out views different from my own and engaging them. I welcome people challenging my views because it forces me to re-examine them, and sometimes leads to me modifying my views. For example, I’ve been re-examining my views on exactly what defines creepiness, soft no’s vrs. hard no’s etc. I feel this helps one arrive a little closer to the truth.
Unfortunately, “Go fuck off” gives me little to chew on, so I prefer people who intelligently try to pick apart my ideas (hopefully without obsessively mis-interpreting them as seems to be the rule here.)
There’s actually more in feminism I agree with than disagree with. Equal pay, marriage equality, reproductive rights – YES! Slut-shaming, politicians talking about “legitimate rape,” Leykis101 – misogyny!
Too many people in these days sit in there own ideological bubbles, only talking to people they agree with, which re-enforces any biases and misunderstandings of other views they have. I wish more people would venture from their bubbles to talk to people with different views, and learn to do so with civility.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I am under no obligation to be nice to shitheads with the same bullshit talking points over and over again. None of their views deserve respect or consideration.
racnad: Of course the style of the rejection has no bearing on whether the victim deserved it or how guilty the perpetrator was, if that’s the meaning you tried to insert into my words.
I didn’t put them there. You did. You raised the issue of the nature of the rejection which led to the attacks. That means you think there was some sort of mistake on the part of the women who were hurt, or killed, for saying they weren’t interested.
Let me repeat what you said:
A lost cause.
rancid
why would i go into an annoying misogynists bubble w/ civility? I already deal w/ enough of that shit IRL
@racnad
His only problem was his massive fucking entitlement.
Well, in your examples/ blabberings you talk exclusively of hets. You don’t even act like queer people could exist.
Well you’re not wrong.
How often do we have to tell you
-you arern’t entitled to a polite response from us
-this isn’t the ‘debate misogyny’ it’s the ‘mock misogyny’ site.
Sounds like privilege cishet white guy talk. Cuz I talk to plenty of people I disagree with. I Go here to relax, and hang out with my friends, and mock misogynists. I never owe them a debate, and certainly won’t do it here.
Nobody owes you civility, rancid, because you make it screamingly obvious you think women are fuckholes, not people.
Here’s a crowbar. Try extracting your head from your arse, you misogynistic, murder-apologist little piece of shit.
racnad: Do you think the guy in Santa Barbara only murdered women who have him hard no’s and this wouldn’t have happened if they said “Maybe after finals week” or something. This was a seriously disturbed individual who has had emotional problems for years – completely outside the scope of what I’m talking about.
More special pleading.
Tell me, what rejections would have helped?
What he complained about was not getting laid.
It was any rejection.
Let me clear it up for you.
The “crime” for which he wanted to punish all women, is that the one’s he wanted to fuck didn’t want to fuck him.
You may want to pretend it’s “outside the scope”, but you are the idiot who said, “if women just took the time to tell the men they reject how to be more attractive to women, then there would be fewer frustrated guys, and less harassment… win-win”.
So this sure as fuck is, “inside the scope”.
He just dialed his “harassment” up to 50, and pulled a Marc Lepine, instead of a racnad (what with the bullshit of you putting at least one woman on the spot about being gentle to you when she didn’t want to go on a date).
I welcome people challenging my views
This is either a delusion or a lie. Every challenge to your views has led to your reply of, “nunh-unh”. Look at this bit. When told the women had reasons to engage in “soft no” you said, “those aren’t real reasons, those dudes who killed women for turning them down might not have done it if she had used the “right” formula”.
When women tell you, “this is what I experience”, you say, “well those assholes don’t count”.
When told “these are ways to avoid being creepy”, you said, “those don’t work”. When told they do work you said, “for attractive guys”.
Not once have you show the least inclination to examine an argument. When presented with studies about how men refuse to use the same criteria for judging a “soft no” outside the desire for sex from that they used inside a desire for sex, you said, “yes, but this was about a date, not sex; so that’s not applicable”.
You are one special pleading after another.
You
Aren’t
Special.
You are an asshole.
You are a creep.
What a fucking shock. Even right after a horrific act of misogynist violence, Rancid is still doubling down. He’s still begrudging whatever strategies we employ to feel just a little bit safer because there isn’t enough empirical research. I for one am shocked, shocked! that he still doesn’t get it. :/
BTW Rancid, there is no way to experimental research on whether men are more likely to get abusive after hard nos than sofe nos because it is unlikely that subjects would act so inappropriately in the presence of a team of researchers. The only way to study the subject is through surveys. Since you refuse to believe anything women say to you about their experiences, it seems unlikely that a study would sway you. You might as well stop pretending it would.
Fuck off with the tone policing. You don’t get to tell us to not be fucking pissed off.
Pecunium,
Harasshole is classic 😀
Stealing that if you don’t mind.
No. Just no. You are being willfully obtuse here.
Here it is, spelled out as plainly as it can be spelled out:
Women can’t tell how any given man is going to react to rejection. We do not know if that man is going to calmly accept it, or verbally abuse us, or physically harm us, or just not take no for an answer. We do not know. We are not mind readers. We also do not know what kind of “no” any given man will accept. We do not know if this man will accept a straight forward no without reacting violently because we didn’t sufficiently coddle his feelings. You know what all those articles about women being killed and/or physically harmed after rejecting men proves? It proves that some men will hurt women for rejecting them. And you know what else? It really doesn’t matter how those men were rejected. What matters is that this is a thing that happens with enough regularity that women feel this fear. Being verbally abused, being called b*tches or c*nts or sl*ts, happens with alarming frequency. This is part of the background noise of women’s lives.
So, racnad, what would you do in that situation? How would you attempt to negotiate this scenario? Would you not attempt the most diplomatic way possible to extricate yourself from the situation?
And of course, women also know that if a rejection goes badly the onus is on them. You, racnad, with your “women aren’t clear enough” and “we don’t how those men who hurt women after a rejection were rejected, so that means it doesn’t prove the point that women are afraid of rejecting men with a clear no.” I mean, seriously, do you even read what you writing here? You are saying that women’s fear of violence from a rejected man is unfounded even though numerous examples of men doing violence to women who rejected them has been provided.
And we’re not even touching on how men know that a “soft no” IS a no, but just choose not to accept it coming from a woman.
I wish more people would venture from their bubbles to talk to people with different views, and learn to do so with civility.
You could try to refrain from being an incivil twit. I find it’s quite common for intentional rudeness to be met with hostility.
The same is true for intellectual dishonesty.
That you are thick as a brick doesn’t help. Again, you mistake a lack of “four-letter words” for an absence of hostility.
It happens that I know your ilk. I know how to express myself in ways you will pay some, slight, attention to. I also know how to keep my loathing (mostly) in check. But it’s there. If you were to ask someone with an education, or even some intellect, to read what I wrote and tell you how I feel about you it might be enlightening.
Because the vastness of your misunderstanding the tenor of the comments I have directed at you (alongside those I directed to you) rivals the Marianas Trench. You have plumbed new depths of vapidity.
You rival Brandon for self-involvement. Your solipsism is on a par with Antz and your lack of self-awareness is on the same plane as Meller. You have raised the bar when it comes to being a failure as a human being: you have attained the status of apotheosis.
i’m a little too tired and worn out to catch up all the way on comments…
but for someone who allegedly is so welcome to worldviews challenging his own, racnad will just not listen to people w/ these different worldviews.
And he’s boring as all get-out.