If the Men’s Rights movement is looking for a celebrity endorser, I think I’ve found just the guy for them: the mixed martial arts fighter, and erstwhile porn actor, War Machine, currently sitting in jail on charges of brutally beating and attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack.
Men’s Rights activists should be able to look past these criminal charges; after all, as they remind us all the time, women are forever falsely accusing innocent men of all sorts of terrible things.
And in so many ways War Machine is perfect for them. An MMA fighter, he’s already only one letter away from being an MRA. A misogynistic asshole with rage issues, he’ll have no trouble fitting in with the Men’s Rights crowd. And, especialy important for a movement that has a lot of trouble getting any good PR, he’s a bit more comfortable on camera than the Paul Elams and Dean Esmays of the world, with experience on television (on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra), and in seven films (albeit pornographic ones).
Best of all: he’ll need no ideological education from what A Voice for Men likes to call Fuck Shit Up University. War Machine – real name Jonathan Koppenhaver – is already an outspoken proponent of many of the Men’s Rights Movement’s core beliefs.
Consider these selections from a little Men’s Rights manifesto War Machine wrote a few years ago during a previous stint behind bars, serving time for felony assault after two bloody bar fights. His rant, which a friend posted to the internet, would fit right in with the sort of stuff we’ve seen regularly posted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, or The Spearhead, or A Voice for Men. I’ve bolded some of the Men’s Rightsiest bits:
The oppression of MEN is worse than oppression of Jews in Nazi germany, worse than the slavery of Blacks in early America…
There has always been the oppressor and always the oppressed. Before, it was blatant … NOW the oppressor has learned to disguise his evil. You can see man, but you can not see MEN. How easy it is to oppress a minority that is invisible to the eye! How genius of the oppressor! And what a better target too! …
Men challenge injustice from Government, MEN fight for their Constitutional rights, that are slowly being taken away every year. …
And they don’t just oppress us by making more laws and taking away more freedom, they are far more clever than that! Ask yourself what your REAL dream was?? If you gave up on this dream, why? Because of the brainwashing of the Government, that’s why! They taught you to “play it safe.” They told us a responsible man has ONE wife, a house, good credit, good job, and kids. How are you supposed to chase your dreams while maintaining all of that!?
Men are supposed to take risks and be aggressive! What accomplishments have ever come of a man scared to risk it all!? None!? Where would the world be? Still ‘flat!’ Still ‘Earth at the center of the universe!’
If any of you have your Men’s Rights Bingo cards out, I’m guessing you might already be close to scoring a bingo. We’ve got a comparison to slavery that could have come straight from the pages of A Voice for Men, a marriage-is-death-to-male-dreams rant that could have been borrowed from any MGTOW forum, and an evo-psych-esque argument that men are the true risk-takers and the world’s real innovators.
And I don’t think War Machine would have much trouble with Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” either.
[I]t’s Christmas day and I’m laying in my bunk wondering “Why in the hell do American men get married!?” … If your wife is being a bitch you can’t slap her, if your wife is yelling at you, God forbid you yell back … Next thing you know it will be illegal to fuck your wife! LMAO! Maybe then, MEN in this country will get the fucking hint and MOVE! This country forces you to be a bitch!
In another online posting, War Machine touched on another Men’s Rights hobbyhorse, the notion that the justice system is stacked against men:
[L]ook at the prisons, they are FULL of MEN, not women. Are men “evil” and women not? Or do the laws target and attempt to restrict NATURAL MEN’S BEHAVIOR? How many of the HEROES in American history would avoid prison if they lived today? Davey Crockett? Thomas Jefferson? David Bowie? General Grant & General Lee? Shit, George Washington. … Laws target MEN and men’s behavior. Women want to bitch and cry about their rights and equality… LMAO! MEN are the ones locked away like animals, while women run free!
Someone might have to explain to War Machine that David Bowie is not actually a famous American HERO but a famously androgynous British musician who once recorded an album called “Heroes.” (Mr. Machine may be thinking of James Bowie, a well-known 19th century American frontiersman and slave trader, and the guy the Bowie Knife is named after.)
But other than that, he seems ready to go.
There is, of course, that whole attempted murder charge to deal with.
It’s true the Men’s Rights Movement has had few problems in the past rallying behind men with histories of violence. But War Machine might be a harder sell as a Men’s Rights hero. His alleged attack on Mack left her with a cracked rib, a ruptured liver, numerous broken bones, missing teeth and her eyes swollen shut. (See here for photos of her injuries; obviously this link is NSFW and could be triggering.)
While Mr. Machine denies attacking Mack, he joked to a TV host last year that if she were to leave him “I would just kill her” and get a tattoo saying “Rest In Peace” above the tattoo of her name he has on his neck.
And several hours after allegedly trying to murder her, War Machine tweeted this lovely message about his ex:
https://twitter.com/WarMachine170/statuses/497663075831787521
War Machine does seem to be at a low point in his life. Even aside from the charges he faces, and the time he seems likely to serve, his career in porn is almost certainly over. The “Alpha Male” clothing line he helped start wants nothing to do with him. Nobody but the prison system seems to want this guy.
In other words: Men’s Rights activists, this is your chance! War Machine may not be the, er, hero you want. But he’s certainly the hero you deserve.
Did you still want to be Ursula? Because I saw the best Ursula costume ever in a (really weird) music video.
Back from class and catching up, again.
Unimaginative, standing ovation for your comment here. You said what I’m thinking much better than could.
Standing ovations to WWTH and marinerachel, also.
daintydougal, hugs! Those were the sweetest things to say. The blog will survive – it’s survived worse meltdowns than this before – but it’s extremely heartening to know one’s wanted, because I, and others, had the real fear that there’d be a lot of hostility towards us.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying, now.
Don’t worry about not remembering my blog address, you’re not missing anything – I’ve hardly posted in months. 😛
The one person in question is Ally, yes. And I think Nova put it extremely well here:
For calling spades rude shovels: I’ll stay since it seems Ally’s decided to leave, or at the very least, if threads don’t centre around her issues all the time. My issues were with her, not anyone else – and at least now I know there were more than three people unhappy with the way conversations were being policed or people were self-censoring to a ridiculous degree.
Nova, thank you for speaking up, especially in a thread whose OP was so horribly close to your own experiences. Hugs if they’re welcome.
gillyrosebee, HUGS, and more hugs!
Robert, I’ve never heard that saying but I love it – makes me think of all those Brueghel paintings of peasant weddings where everyone’s whooping it up. 😀
O_O
Good grief. When did we stop coming on heat in order to breed, then?
coffee, thank you for your comment. It is good to have another trans woman’s voice here. The trouble, for me and I think others, is the predators out there who don’t hate their own genitals; the ones who brag about how their penises are, in their own words, so much better than other women’s genitals, oh and btw some of us lesbians don’t like vaginas (!!!); the trans women who actually are rapists. A vanishingly small minority, I hope, but it’s like any predators: they’re taking cover and using the broader conversation to gaslight women, just as cassandrakitty described. I was feeling very dubious about some of Ally’s talk, and raising that whole “but lesbians should consider penises!” in any way was the last straw. I don’t care whose penis it is, if a woman’s not attracted to ’em, that should be the end of the conversation, exactly as cassandrakitty said above.
gillyrosebee:
Oh god yes, THIS. Our intent – even when Ally knew full well what it was and said so – nope, not good enough. But hers? Magic.
QFT. Silencing tactics and the conversation being directed by her were entirely how I read it.
… I’m going to end up quoting your entire comment at this rate! Yes, yes, yes, to all of it.
I don’t know, maybe it isn’t possible, but I’m in a ‘screaming into a windstorm’ phase in my life right now, though, so there is that.
Yes, I do completely see how people can feel that they are being unfairly accused of being coercive and advocating the violation of consent. I can see how, from their perspective, that seems both supremely clear and utterly unreasonable (especially since they absolutely know that they totally don’t intend, nor would they want to be associated with those who might actually be doing so).
Here’s the thing, though, cloudiah. I read you writing that one side ‘feels like’ while the other side “are being” accused; that is to say you are taking a side and arguing it as if it is about the feelings of the individuals involved, but I’m saying (and I literally just walked into this tonight, so maybe I am missing out on some of the build up to this explosion) that the key is not who feels most wronged or most justified in their stance, but whether or not we are going to tolerate one group policing the sexuality of another for its own purposes. I am saying that this insistence on minutely examining the (potential, hypothetical) biases and motivations behind lesbian women’s sexuality, particularly their degree of sexual attraction to transwomen, comes with a long history and is highly problematic, and to operate as if it isn’t is profoundly dishonest.
I can’t speak for lesbians, but I know that as a bi woman, I have often had the experience of listening to folk, both gay and cis, opine at great length about how ‘odd’ and ‘strange’ bi identities are, and inquiring (in a purely general and sociological way, of course, no personal offense meant, ahem, ahem) about the “pathology” inherent in being ‘unable to settle one way or the other’ or ‘sexually unstable’ or ‘in a phase’ or etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. From that experience, I find it distasteful in the extreme to sit by and see the propriety of anyone’s sexuality policed for being distasteful or infelicitous to someone else.
Let’s be clear about this; the issue is not ‘gee, society has some shitty and oppressive expectations with regard to gender identity and the expression of sexuality,’ because I think that’s something we all agree with. The problem comes up when the conversation moves to ‘lesbians are shitty because some of them don’t find trans women sexually attractive due to their inherent transmisogyny.’ Not ‘here’s an issue facing my community’ but ‘here’s why your community sucks from the perspective of my needs.’
Maybe this boils down to ‘not all lesbians’ but it doesn’t feel like it, because the question is still not about whether shitty lesbians and TERFs exist (sadly, they do, because there is no shortage of shitty people in the world) but whether or not person A is justified in policing the sexuality of people of identity B, because it suits their interests to do so.
I always think that, too! 😀
Hell yeah, I’m Ursula.
Auntie Alias, don’t shut up. There’s been enough of people being silenced or scared to say things here – that’s what this is all about.
I hope I haven’t contributed to that! Ally’s the catalyst but everything I’ve been reading elsewhere lately has me asking why the FUCK this hasn’t ever been discussed here. (Oh, but I know, of course: because people who knew anything about this didn’t dare raise it.) I’m straight … or is that narrow … but the idea of being told “You should consider my penis because reasons” screams of nothing less than bog-standard misogyny and, yes, male entitlement, to me – regardless of who it’s coming from. It’s inherently rapey, regardless of the intent.
Hey Fibi, wanna snark to me too? ::makes puppy dog eyes:: Drop a line to the mods, I can get your email addy that way.
gillyrosebee, another great comment!
Even if it were “not all lesbians,” it still boils down to TOUGH LUCK. A group of women have their boundaries about their own spaces and their own bodies? Nobody gets to argue their way into either.
YAY! 😀 I love your cheerful presence here!
How are your classes, kittehserf?
Argh, I’m not sure now that makes sense even to me. Ramble, ramble, blort, ramble, blargh.
Thanks for the hugs, kittehs. I’m gonna go try to get some sleep.
BTW David and/or hellkell passed a couple of people’s emails on to me, so check your inboxes.
If my comments contributed to any part of this
my apologies.
Auntie Alias, thank ‘ee!
The classes are nearly over, Ceiling Cat be praised. Two more days! We all had to do PowerPoint presentations this morning. Mine was the shortest ever. I was pretending to have a fantastically successful knitting pattern website I wanted to expand into crochet, and this was to get designers on board. I claimed my accountant had made me use PP, and I was only doing so to keep him happy, so the audience could ignore my four pathetic slides and look at MEEEEEE in my splendid knitted skirt.
The rest of the day was fun, too: went into town, had chocolate and orange crepes at my favourite French cafe, then wandered through the Botanic Gardens with Mr K.
gillyrosebee, you’re speakin’ my language! 😀
Nah, gillyrosebee, I didn’t mean you. My irritation was with Cloudiah trying to steer the conversation back to whether or not Ally’s intentions were good, when that’s actually kind of beside the point in terms of the issue of whether or not the basic idea that started this mess is a problem. Part of the problem is that there are at least two different conversations going on here and they keep getting tangled up.
BTW, didn’t you say that you were bi? A new version of the same argument is now being aimed at us (I’m bi too), in fact there’s a comment making the rounds on Tumblr about how bi women who aren’t interested in trans women should have our heads bashed in with rocks. I think that one was meant to be about social exclusion as well as sex, but still – bashing people’s heads in with rocks? Really? This is why I don’t have a Tumblr account, that sort of “if you see a social problem, solve it with violence!” attitude seems to thrive there.
Whew, glad to hear it!
Thanks for speaking up, kittehserf.
I don’t even want Ally to leave. I appreciate many of her contributions. I wish her the best. It’s been exhausting though being constantly anxious about potentially stepping on her toes knowing the degree to which she’ll spin out if I do and that I’ll be slapped down with disproportionate force by people who believe not setting her off should be my primary goal when posting here. It’s not a two way street either. She doesn’t extend the same excessive courtesy and understanding to people who might have their own needs or unknowingly push one of her buttons.
Her habit of monopolising discussions, while usually just frustrating, is really hurtful when those of us who grumble irregularly come here seeking a little understanding and she almost immediately redirects the conversation to being about her own struggles with total disregard for anything we’ve shared. It’s incredibly invalidating.
Ugh, Tumblr. If Twitter is bad (despite my addiction to it) in terms of fostering shallow-minded idiocy, Tumblr is twenty times worse. It seems that every crappy idea I run into these days IRL is being propagated by some dank corner of Tumblr. Sure, there’s some good porn and some great geekery, but it sometimes hardly seems worth the rest of it.
Half the cruddy, shallow pseudo-feminist memes MRAs use as proof that feminism is ‘evil’ and ‘over’ and whatthehell else wouldn’t exist if not for Tumblr.
So, yeah, not really a fan.
That sounded like a great day, kitteh!
Yeah, any time I run into something absurd masquerading as a social justice idea nowadays I just assume it probably came from Tumblr.
http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/r645/Fibinaut/Ursachel_zpsf042fc29.jpg
Not to say that there aren’t some good people on Tumblr, btw. It’s just that in general, if I was to try to explain how it fits into the rest of the net, I’d say “go home and sleep it off, Tumblr, you’re drunk”.
This should be written in big flashing letters, I swear. It was a pattern, particularly once the open threads started. Someone has a problem they want to vent about, or get a bit of sympathy, or actual advice? Nope, Ally’s got something much worse to talk about and everyone must look there. Got something exciting or just plain happy to share? Can’t have that, it’s buzzkill time. It wears out sympathy, eventually, and just feels manipulative.
katz, thanks and hugs! I really did not want to leave; I love this community. But damn, the frustrations that were building up, and felt like one wasn’t allowed to say anything or one would be labelled transphobic, or – horror of horrors – a TERF. I cannot express how relieved I am to see other people shared these frustrations, and that they can be spoken about.
Love it, Fibinachi.
Should I be ashamed that I still can’t figure out how to upload an avatar?
It was, Auntie Alias!
But, but, Confused Cats!
marinerachel – d’you have a Gravatar account? They’re free, that’s how I upload mine.
But but but, people who think that they’re ferns.