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Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the neverending struggle against imaginary feminists continues apace. Today, one brand-new Redditor, a self-described former feminist, won himself several dozen upvotes from the regulars by bringing them a literally unbelievable tale of his adventures with a coven of slap-happy feminists.
I stopped calling myself a feminist a few years ago when I went to a meeting and was told “men are inly allowed in this safe space if they participate in a slap circle.”
The idea was that it would be harder for me to intimidate with my six foot stature if all the women had a chance to slap me in the face. I left.
Another guy actually did it.
It’s all true. I WAS THAT GUY.
BUT WHO WAS PHONE?
Actually, no. If this dude’s story is true, I will literally eat my cats.
While most of the Men’s Rightsers commenting in the thread seem to have swallowed this story whole, “slap circles” aren’t actually a thing in feminism.
They are a thing, though, amongst bored and/or drunk young men (and sometimes women) around the world, as countless videos on YouTube can attest.
As as site called Hungry Teen explains, a “Slap Circle” is
A great way to bond with friends, release aggression and stimulate the face. The Slap Circle is a game made for the more hardcore, daring person and can be used as a test for finding the manliest of the group. Although adopting female fighting techniques, the slap circle appeals far more to men. Nothing is required for this game, other than a hand, a face and a set of balls.
All you do, is stand in a circle and slap the person to your right in the face, while waiting for a slap from the person on your left. If you’ve had enough, you step out of the circle and the last two standing fight it out for the winner.
I eagerly await stories in the Men’s Rights subreddit detailing Andrea Dworkin’s demand that all men and boys be forced to take the Cinnamon Challenge and all those insidious mandatory nut shot seminars being forced upon all college students unfortunate enough to be born with a pair of balls.
Thanks to Cloudiah for the heads up, and the good people of the AgainstMensRights subreddit for the Hungry Teen quote.
Thirded.
Can you really just pick up MSRAs by going in the water in Florida? And here I though sharks were the only thing I’d need to worry about.
Google really needs to have an no-image search option. Because googling some things is just incredibly inadvisable.
Everyone I know with tryphophobia found out by hearing about it and googling it (and consequently going AAAAAAHHHHHH). DO NOT GOOGLE THAT. It’s a fear of irregular holes and bumps and things like that. Seedpods and some skin diseases and sometimes honeycomb and that sort of thing sets it off. Googling it will bring up images of those things and they suck.
cassandra – well, if Wikipedia’s got it’s facts right, then yeah.
Just one more reason not to go to Florida, I guess.
Now for a questionnaire: which is more leg-crossingly awful and nauseating to contemplate: close contact with MSRA or MRAS?
I dunno, can coming into contact with B give you A?
It’s like, one is incredibly disgusting and the other might kill you. Now figure out which is which.
Citation needed.
‘cos I’m in the UK and I’m not aware of huge swathes of religious creationists homeschooling.
In fact, anecdata, the only homeschooled kids I’m aware of locally are getting a fantastic education by their parents who have formed a sort of teaching cooperative and appear to be giving them an education to be envied.
Tiredness doesn’t work as an excuse for bigoted politicians and it certainly doesn’t work now. So admit you have been wrong to smear the intelligence of children who have been home-schooled and apologise. Or fuck off.
It’s even worse, because both are incredibly disgusting and might kill you … I’d take the MSRA. At least it doesn’t whine on the internet about how nobody’s sexing it.
Lea:
(After looking up ACT and SAT) OK, I guess that’s what I meant by “voluntary testing”. I didn’t realize it could be all privately organized. Thank you for explaining.
Kittenserf (typo corrected in MRSA):
Unless…it’s a men’s rights Staphylococcus aureus!
World-renowned microbiologist Arctic Ape has isolated the Men’s Rights staph!
RE: Anarchonist
I love that you posted Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. It is the greatest cure for trans blues I’ve ever had, except for the movie Wild Zero. And I got to meet the creator at a con last year! She was very nice to me, and gave me sketches of Mr. Fish and Commander Badass.
RE: OB/GYN horror shows
This is so bizarre, because I’ve had people who just seem to assume I’m lying when I say I’m not sexually active. (Since, well, corporeally, I’m not.) I’ve had my own terrible experiences, like the surprise anal exam I got, and having to undergo a pelvic exam to have my mastectomy. (WHY?)
Fortunately, I seem to have a nice doctor now, who’s not being a colossal ass like doctors in the past. I actually felt at ease with him, which I’m normally not with doctors, and he handled the trans news and my eating disorder history really well. Here’s hoping he keeps up the good work and is like my pediatrician, who was really nice. (We were possibly the only small child who honest-to-god LIKED their pediatrician; somehow wee proto-us understood that he was giving us shots to make us better, even if they sucked. We gave him a polar bear Valentine one year and he kept it with our file.)
Oh, LBT! You’ll be as giddy as I am over this. Medicare and Medicare can no longer outright ban GRS surgeries! Idk what that’ll mean in practice, but this week, I love Obama.
You too? I had the same thing (at your age, too, oddly enough). Doctor insisted on doing a pap smear and only stopped, eventually, when I told her it was too painful to bear. Her comment? “I didn’t think any woman would be virgin at your age in this country.”
RE: Argenti
Oh, LBT! You’ll be as giddy as I am over this. Medicare and Medicare can no longer outright ban GRS surgeries!
I HAVE HEARD. I heart it meant they were going to start covering trans care, which means that if I so desire, I could maybe go on hormones again! (Not that I necessarily want to, but just knowing I COULD is really nice.)
RE: Kittehs
Yeah. Oddly, being certified batshit is now a pretty good excuse; I can credibly say, “Look, I have enough problems all on my own. Why on EARTH would I add someone else to the mix?” THAT, at least, they seem to believe. (Or maybe my current doctor is just a lot nicer than you’d expect a straight Christian cis doc to be.)
:: jumps up and down excitedly ::
Kittehs, count me in in that club. Only, I didn’t manage to keep to the resolute ‘No, thank you.”
It hurt like hell.
Doc’s response after?
“Well, everything looks perfect down there and there’s no reason this should have hurt. You might want to see a therapist about dealing with the vulvodynia, because it would be a shame for you to not be able to live a complete life. In the meantime, here’s a fact sheet you can read over.”
Bedside manner, she did not have.
contrapangloss, shit, she sounds as bad as the doc I saw. That one was faking the record to say I’d experienced pain because I hadn’t been sexually active for a long time, rather than tell the truth that she didn’t even bother to believe that “I am not sexually active” meant “not ever”.
Even worse than that she did that, and tried to fake the records? She had a go twice, second time with a smaller speculum she said she used on a child whose father was having sex with her.
She sounded like it was just routine and there was no suggestion she was going to report it.
Also, the “nobody’s a virgin at your age in this country” line – fuck you and take your internalised misogyny and stereotypes and shove them. Doctors with your attitudes we do not need.
Hi.
I was homeschooled.
For religious reasons.
And I was totally taught that evolution wasn’t real.
So I’m sensitive on this subject.
…
I got my Bachelor’s degree and program computers for a living. Others in my homeschooled cohort are in medical school, teach history, are LNAs, you know, the gamut.
I’m not the only one who’s decided the ‘evolution ain’t real’ is bullshit, I don’t think.
…
But that seems like an excessively polite reply for what feels like a very personal series of posts.
…
But I guess the meanest thing I could say now is that I think public/private schools and their brand of socialization are actually a breakdown of individual consciousness meant to drive conformity and stifle creativity.
But I’m only half serious about that. That’s American-style schooling, and I hope there are better ways being explored to teach children.
Can we not swing the offensive pendulum all the way to the other side and insult public/private schools and those who went to them? I don’t really appreciate the implication that I’m a mindless automaton because I went to public schools.
This conversation has been about as pleasant as our religion conversations are.
Every teacher I know (and I know a bunch) would confirm this. It’s possible to subvert the process, but administrators make it very difficult.
WWTH, I don’t think it’s an insult to the students that the system is set up this way, but I apologize if that’s how it came across.
I don’t think this is the goal, though. I think it’s just the result of trying to educate the maximum number of children for the minimum cost. Capitalism + chronic underfunding will never = quality education.
WWTH, yeah, every model has strengths and weaknesses and no one model will be right for every child and their family. Pretending one model is objectively terrible isn’t gonna get anyone anywhere.
Mindless automation? No. Constantly annoyed at being told my questions where irrelevant or to ask them elsewhere? Well, I made friends with the AP Bio teacher and a physics teacher. The latter did threaten to charge me rent for how much time I hung out in his classroom, but both would answer my questions…in their off period.
I had very few teachers who had time to answer all questions and stay on the curiculum. So I don’t think public schools (idk if private have this problem) are MEANT to stifle creativity, but it seems like the push to teach the test and perpetual lack of funding result in a case of “I have to get through this material so stop asking questions you don’t need to know the answer to”.
And I’ll save my rant about tracking, short version is that it’s a terrible system.