Attention tiny ladies! Paul Elam wants you to know that if you attack him, he will totally punch you right back. And not in a satirical way, either. With his actual, non-satirical fists.
A Voice for Men’s maximum leader has long insisted that his notorious “Bash a Violent Bitch Month” post was nothing more than misunderstood “satire.” That is, when he argued that men who are abused by women would be totally justified if they “beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall,” this was somehow a “Juvenalian” satire of some sort. There’s a famous quote from The Princess Bride that might be appropriate here.
Well, now Mr. Elam has announced to the world that every month is a potential “Bash a Violent Bitch Month” for him. Even if the “Violent Bitch” in question is less than half his size. In a post that he insists is super serious, he writes:
I want to offer a few words on this subject, and this time not in satire. I want to convey as honestly as possible, how I feel on the subject of violence between the sexes, from one man’s point of view.
I am 6’8” tall and 285 pounds. If a woman five feet tall and 110 pounds soaking wet hits me, I am going to hit her back.
Now, Elam does stop short of saying he would “beat the living shit” out of this hypothetical tiny woman, but, you know, in the heat of battle with someone less than half his size, he suggests that he might not be able to control his non-satirical fists:
I would do my best to return the violence proportionally, to just use enough force to stop the attack, but I can make no guarantees. Depending on the suddenness of the attack, the level of fear or threat I might feel, the impulse to self-defend in measured amounts is difficult, if not impossible to predict with any accuracy.
So, if there are any tiny ladies out there who might be considering jumping in a pool and then punching Paul Elam, I would suggest you not do that. Of course, I would suggest you not do that even if he weren’t going to hit back, because hitting people is generally a very bad thing.
Don’t worry, dudes – tiny or otherwise – Elam would totally punch you too!
It is the same reaction I would have to a man. No more and no less. The only way to prevent this and the consequences that may result is for people to keep their hands off me.
Presumably this would also apply to bears, giant squids, killer robots and anyone or anything else that tried to put its hands or paws or tentacles on him.
Now, if someone less than half my size were to attack me, and the situation weren’t life-threatening, I might, you know, back off and call the police instead. But apparently, this isn’t an option for men, because we’re all slaves, or something:
Most people who frequent this site know that men who call for help from police when being assaulted by female intimate partners are likely to be arrested for their troubles. … [T]here are prosecutors that will happily give the victim a criminal record and make them pay dearly for having been attacked.
This idea is completely insane on its face. Not only that, it is the closest thing we have today to the mentality of slave owners who could flog their slaves because they were property.
Never mind that women, who make up the vast majority of the victims of severe domestic violence, make up 20% of those arrested for DV. Never mind that even where there are mandatory arrest laws in effect, police still need probable or reasonable cause to show that domestic violence occurred – like physical evidence of injuries – before arresting a suspect. Never mind that even in states with “dual arrrest” policies, only about half of all domestic violence calls result in any arrests.
And never mind that if you use disproportionate force against someone less than half your size – as Elam suggests he very well might do – you deserve to go to jail, and for more than a night. “Beating the living shit” out of someone much smaller than you isn’t actually self-defense at all. It’s beating the living shit out of someone much smaller than you.
Now, Elam isn’t the only Men’s Rights Activist who seems to spend a lot of time imagining scenarios in which it would be ok for them to hit women. It’s a subject that comes up on the Men’s Rights subreddit all the time; the misogynistic douchebags who populate Reddit’s Videos subreddit are if anything even worse. And don’t ever do a Google image search for “equal rights equal lefts” unless you want to be really depressed.
The Men’s Rights movement: bravely fighting for the right of men to punch women half their size.
Were you alcohol tested for every job you’ve worked? Or asked to sign an agreement stating you would not consume alcohol at all during the pendency of your employment? I wonder why not, given that drunk people are liabilities.
Re Boob Comic Guy, the artist had this hilariously clueless response:
@LBT
Ah, having roommates helps a lot. I’m glad you have that option. Housing is such a drain on money if you have to go it alone.
Your positive attitude is so great! I’m sniffling here a bit at how awesome you are.
RE: Auntie Alias
Well roommates are kinda a necessity. We’ve never lived alone. (Though we did move to a much cheaper part of the country, and with rent being a third to a half of what it was in Boston, we might be able to have our own place in April!)
I’ve never had really expensive tastes, so I think I do okay.
RE: mythago
Lolz. Well, yes, dude, if you draw boobs on all your comics, a lot of women might not be all that into it. It might indeed cause you trouble in finding an audience, especially if you have no prior reputation to reassure the women that the boobs will just be on the cover.
OK, I have to start by saying that I am currently in a really good situation, not much due to the government.
I live off disability benefit, Income Support and parental help.
Cos I am on income support (for people with no, or very low income), I do not have to pay most taxes (Water bill and VAT on purchases basically).
I live in Scotland, so free health care for all! (Also free prescriptions, which I wouldn’t get in the rest of the UK). Health care includes Pychologists and psychiatrists, but it’s about a year waiting, and only 6 months for some reason. No other medical care is limited by time, not need.
My Aunt died, and I inherited enough to buy a place to live, and her furniture. My parents pay water, heating, electricity and internet bills (Yes, I feel guilty about this), so my major expenditure is food/daily expenses.
Which is a good thing. I get £5421 a year.
Currently the UK govt is conducting a war on disabled people, on the grounds all of us, even the ones with blatant physical disabilities are con artists playing the system.
So far, I haven’t had the new tests for disability benefits which have been around for about 5 years now. When I do, I expect to be told I am fit to work, despite the previous tests saying I am not for over 20 years. (normally I would have had a test in the past 5 years..at least one test, but they’ve messed up the new system so much it hasn’t happened.)
You can imagine the long line of people willing to pretend to be disabled to live on the luxury of 5k a year, can’t you ?
And it is all our fault the economy crashed. And people are lined up waiting eagerly to employ people who have zero work experience at 43 and mental health issues. And ‘Love is a thing which can never go wrong / and I am Marie of Roumania’…
Speaking of boobs on comic book covers, has anyone stumbled across Grimm Fairy Tales? Turn off safesearch and do a Google image search, if your stomach is feeling strong. I’ve never read the books, and I never will (despite having been a fan of Fables and of retold fairy tales in general), because the covers make me want to set the whole comics industry on fire. They just scream “women don’t read comics and men will fork over money for the merest hint of sex”.
The discussion on the use of force on Just4Guys to put those allegedly rampantly violent (= uppity) women in their place continues with entries like this:
SfcTon says:
August 9, 2014 at 1:56 pm
“The objective is to destroy any potential threat.
The best way for a woman not to get beaten to a bloody pulp is not to attack or disrespect men. Woman want equality so welcome to boots to the ribs and fists to the face.
Personally no I will not live with a woman who shows that level of contempt. So your question is irrelevant”
http://www.donotlink.com/b37d
BTW, the J4G blogger who wrote the OP, an African-American man who uses the handle Obsidian, calls Paul Elam’s post discussed here “excellent.”
J4G, with Obsidian in particular, along with several regular commenters, have a history of advocating violence against women (although they deny it when taken to task for it). Here is another sample of what can be found there as a matter of course (TW):
Arevo says:
June 13, 2014 at 11:58 am
“In Africa this [uppity women disrespecting men — AE] does not happen because if a black woman ever gets out of line with a man the man simply disabuses her of the notion that she is “Just as strong as he is!!!” In America, men are forbidden from defending themselves from women and the problems that this causes are far worse in undisciplined, less intelligent women i.e. black women.
A sheboon will be the first to retreat and cry and carry on if you smack her down but you can’t expect the thing to have any notion of propriety, boundaries, or social etiquette. For the sheboon – these are not natural things, they must taught, backed up by force because that is what blacks understand, it is the only thing they understand. The natural state of blacks is too live as they do in Africa – in filthy dingy slums wallowing in their own shit. They are not naturally civilized and if they are given the chance, will act like animals which is what black women now do.
Other than to remove all the stupid laws protecting these beasts and let nature take its course (i.e. allow men to firmly discipline them using violence as this is all sheboons ultimately respond too) you will have this behavior. You are dealing with a dog that enjoys crapping in the middle of the house. In order to stop this behavior you either crate train the dog or you discipline it and this is what your typical black woman needs (black men too but that’s another topic).”
http://www.donotlink.com/b3la
Again, when confronted with their open advocacy of abuse, the blog authors and their sycophantic regulars vehemently denied it.
This attitude, of casual dehumanization of women and equally casual advocacy of violence as the best way to control them and their “animalistic” urges, is, with small variations, the standard fare on manospheric blogs, including “Christian” Dalrock and The (ir)Rational Male.
Dalrock stated recently that he does not allow any comments advocating violence against women stand on his blog, but when presented with evidence to the contrary, he attacked the poster who confronted him with it.
And so the ‘sphere turns, with MRA and their ilk valiantly fighting for their “human” rights to abuse women every possible way.
I’ve seen it, emilygoddess! Very Jim Balent.
I wonder if straight men ever feel offended how grossly they’re pandered to. I dunno, I just feel like I’d be kinda grossed out if every product pushed at me had beefcake all over it, even the stuff that wasn’t supposed to be porn.
@LBT
Fingers crossed! 😀
@gilshalos
I know, right? Here, people get $250 a month for housing when on welfare or disability. Even the shittiest apartments start at around $400. Yet the whiners act like these people live in the lap of luxury. Gah.
I wish you all the best and hope you can continue to stay off their radar.
@Aunt Edna
Holy crap, that’s some ugly hatred. Bad enough to use questionable self-defence to pound the shit out of women (Elam) but for not giving the menz their due respect? The racist slurs are beyond the pale.
I can’t speak for other men, of course, but the stuff that’s supposedly marketed hardest to appeal to men is the stuff that usually skeeves me out the most. I’m sure there must be guys out there who see Lynx/Axe ads and think “Hah! This is awesome!” but I just get creeped out at the implied transactional nature of so many of those commercials – “Buy our product and women will bang you!”
Tangent: Mind you I could write a thesis on the stereotypes in commercials that piss me off. The “dumb husband/smart housewife” cliche is particularly irritating me at the moment, especially as a superficially female-positive trope (women can be smarter than men yay!) is actually being used to perpetuate women being held to a higher standard than men when it comes to taking responsibility for shared obligations like insurance, household cleaning, etc.
I just think those commercials are silly.
I also tend to not like so much when every female character in a series is a “sexy” stereotype because VARIATION, PEOPLE. IT’S A GOOD THING. Is it much to want my series to have sexy women, awesome women, weird women, terrifying women, all kinds of women – instead of eleventy iterations of the same thing?
If I want to get myself off, I can look at actual porn.
Well said valyt. Particularly in movies or TV series where a woman who’s *slightly* less conventionally pretty/traditionally made-up & coiffed is portrayed as “the ugly one”. I mean I’m sure that shit is meant to pander to me as a straight male who likes looking at pretty women but honestly? It’s just tedious seeing the same narrow definition of beauty and the ridiculous threshold for meeting it.
Same thing that pisses me off with the PUA types and their talk about “market value” and “high-status females” – as if there’s a universal objective scale of attractiveness.
Yeah. It’s like straight guys are presumed not to buy things unless sex is dangled in front of their faces like a cat toy. Gross.
Cousin’s dude body wash label:
“The cleaner you are, the dirtier you get” with a girl in a short skirt outline.
Not cool, for the record.
Also not cool: the line in the song that’s been stuck in my head all night about:
“My momma she told me don’t worry about your size; because the boys like a little more booty to hold at night.”
That’s the only reason not to care about your size? Really?
The song’s actually pretty good overall, but that line rubs me in all the wrong ways.
I just looked it up on YouTube. I made the mistake of looking at the comments. A size 2 can be still very thin, I wouldn’t call a 2 or a 4 curvy at all (depending on height). That’s more the bit that rubbed me the wrong way.
Just drove and that song played. Cancel my previous comment about I not being bad overall.
You can be body positive without saying people who aren’t like you are default “Skinny B——“. Or Barbies.
Growl.
Why do all the bouncy songs have awful lyrics?
@ gilshalos…Will keep my fingers crossed for you and all my other online peeps who depend on the…ehrm…benevolence of the UK government.
I’m able to work despite both asthma and a righteous case of brain cooties, in this I am fortunate.
Aunt Edna: If it’s the same Obsidian, he was an awful, tiresome blowhard when he decided to come here. He didn’t last.
I wonder how many of these men who go on about beating women at the slightest hint of “disrespect” actually do that to other men for the same terrible crime?
I’m guessing none.
*Raises hand* I did… and I so wanted to give it a chance as I like fractured/retold fairy tales. Actually I had several instances where I was all: “Now I will actually read some of this thing!” just to do an impression of the nopetopus when I looked at the cover.
So here I’m admitting, that I’m shallow and judge the book by its cover. Or at least a book should not intentionally repulse me with its cover, damn it.
@hellkell:
That sounds accurate.
And the explanation for the boob comic:
Oh, to have the privilege to be that oblivious.
@ LBT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/11/09/too-much-of-too-little/
Appears to be mainly a confluence of two things: simple carbs are way cheaper, and the people don’t have easy access to good sources of produce.
It’s a food desert issue.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert )
I’m not necessarily blaming my fellow poor people for eating like that. They have limited resources, limited time, limited energy, and holee shit do I know what that’s like.
The rest of my family eats all sorts of crap and they are financially just fine. Very large though.
I don’t wish type 2 diabetes on anybody, it’s evil.
I would like the people receiving assistance to not be stuck eating a bad diet.
Furthermore, it’s incredibly stupid public policy to cut bennies to the point that the people getting them will end up with health problems.
…I blame national agricultural policy that subsidizes the shit out of junk food, and fucking corn syrup. Corn syrup Is evil shit.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100322204628.htm
I no horseshit, LBT.
Maybe WaPo does though, I make no assertion about their journalistic integrity.
(actually..I don’t *knowingly* horseshit. I reserve the right to be mistaken)