Over on Reddit, a regular on the Blue Pill subreddit — devoted to mocking Red Pill ridiculousness — recently reposted the cartoon above, one of The Onion’s brilliant parodies of the terrible political cartoons that are pretty much omnipresent in every second-string newspaper in the country. I don’t think I’ve ever posted it here before — I’m not sure I ever saw it until today — so I thought I’d share it here as well.
What makes this particular cartoon extra delicious is that its “argument,” such as it is, is one that a lot of Men’s Rights Activists actually believe. Indeed, it calls to mind the cover of the revised ebook edition of Warren Farrell‘s seminal MRA manifesto The Myth of Male Power, in which a picture of a woman’s posterior is presented as if it truly is, somehow, a threat to the rights of men:
Hell, as you can see, that woman’s butt is literally shattering the word “power.” The only question in my mind is whether the butt-damage was caused by some overenthusiastic twerking, or by a particularly powerful fart.
But Farrell — who is essentially the Founding Father of the Men’s Rights movement — didn’t mean it as a joke. As he explained in the new introduction to his book, he intended the cover to highlight the power “genetic celebrities” — his term for attractive women — have over hapless horny men:
When asked about the cover in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, Farrell doubled down:
MRA’s: when the arguments of your most famous “intellectual” are indistinguishable from a parody editorial cartoon in The Onion, it might be time to rethink your whole movement.
Ah, I ate my own reply.
… meanders.
The idea that men make bad choices sometimes, and make decisions in part because they’re “influenced” or “drunk” on “beautiful women” isn’t all that mindblowing. It’s sort of a commonly asserted fact – lots of people (people, that is, men and women) do silly stupid things with beautiful, attractive people that they then, in retrospect, come to regret.
Warren’s point isn’t that. It’s that literally all of civilization is a conspiracy against male desire, and that all men at all times in all places are ever the slaves of their attractions to genetic celebrities, who turn poor men into success objects just like men turn women into sex objects and there is no difference between those two.
I mean, sure, beautiful people can be charming and you might do dumb stuff to cater to them. From there it doesn’t follow that all the people in government have no power because they might be attracted to their secretaries.
No, moron, we’re saying that men aren’t tyrannised by their desires. And that claiming they are is simply giving a “Get out of Jail Free” card to men who commit sexual harassment and worse.
Read for comprehension, fool.
KKW’s photo going viral has nothing to do with tyranny and everything to do with prurient curiosity. Nice attempt at a derail, though.
Her claiming that her butt broke the Internet in a transparent, failed attempt to make the pictures go viral isn’t really the same thing as it actually breaking the Internet. Otherwise I could post “I’m a millionaire” and it would magically come true.
Farrell’s so keen on men “unchaining” themselves that he thinks father-daughter incest is fine dandy.
Yeah, that’s really someone who has the good of society at heart.
I like that we unrepentant misandrists consider men to be human beings just like anybody else while the Men’s Rightsers don’t.
(Note to trolls: “Unrepentant misandrists” was sarcasm.)
Oh come on Kate. Get a grip.
Men and women both make poor decisions on partner choice for whole hosts of reasons. Appearance is just one of those issues that some people, both men and women, place more importance on than they should. Other people make other bad choices for equally simplistic or shallow or irrelevant reasons.
The idea that all men who find themselves with an unsuitable partner are in that position entirely and only because of attraction to conventional good looks is pure rubbish. There are some men who do that. There are other men who chose a partner because she seemed quiet and timid and she turns out to have opinions of her own. Or they chose someone who seemed to be a life of the party, and it turns out that she’s not so keen on partying all night when she has other responsibilities for a family or whatever.
The fact that you know a man who has made bad choices based on appearances is only a description of him. Not of all men.
(And, let’s be honest. None of us is a wonderfully reliable analyst of our own behaviour and motivations. So this self description might not even be an accurate description of what happened.)
All these poor unenlightened men, with their not “responsible decisions” about “mate selections” and “mate choices”, may be incapable of self-improvement and we, as a wise society, should probably just have breeders make these choices for the men who can’t get over their desire for a partner they find sexually attractive. Thank goodness we women aren’t burdened with this “desire” and “tingles” affliction, it sounds absolutely dreadful.
Of course, some “feminists” may make noises about not policing people’s sexuality, but they clearly don’t get the ongoing threat of poor mate selection. In fact, they may want school sex education and outreach programs to focus on teaching people how to have a healthier relationships and increase awareness about domestic abuse. That’s silly, why focus on helping people have healthy adult relationships with the people they choose to be with, when we can instead shame them for past bad relationships and criticize their personal choices?
Oh, and if anyone doubted it, yes, this is that Kate Minter – wife to Mark Minter, one of the stranger MRAs or MGTOW or whichever it was. So asswaffle is to be expected.
I’m pretty neutral towards Kate Middleton and Kim Kardashian, so I don’t see how the former is Ms. Gallant and the latter is Ms. Goofus (or Ms. Yucky Slutty). While I’m a lifelong Anglophone, I couldn’t give a rats ass about the modern royals, so there’s that. You should also probably try to get over the fact that people make sex tapes with their partners. I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t see how it’s an unforgivable crime against society either,
Does the lower brain mean penis?
Seriously? Men are supposed to lack any free will? Elizabeth 1 and Catherine the Great went round bare assed to enforce their control of all those poor, innocent men??
I suppose this fits in with Farrell’s assumptions about child sexual abuse; dood is bathing his infant daughter and the mere sight of her ass drives him into a sexual frenzy which he satisfies at some point in time. Of course in this evil fantasy mothers are supposed to assist in the rape of their daughters.so that it can be a “positive” experience.
Doesn’t this count as incitement to commit criminal acts?
I’d have thought that if there was one area where there really is no difference between the sexes, it’s the capacity to make a poor choice of partner based on superficial surface issues.
I can think of untold numbers of women who’ve done it. We all can. So what on earth is Kate Minter trying to prove?
Kate’s gravatar seems very inner beauty related, I now totally get why she thinks Kim Kardashian’s racy glamour shot are bane to society and did actually harm to the Internet.
In all seriousness, I only saw the Paper Magazine photos for the first time this weekend, on television no less, so I can confidently report my sector of the Internet sustained no real damage. Whew!
Also, if you think a man makes a “bad mate selection”, didn’t the woman he mate with, assuming it’s consensual, also poorly select a mate? I’m confused why we must only blame the men, when it seems very productive, and morally right natch, to heap blame and cast aspersions on everyone who ends up in a bad relationship. How else will they learn? Judgmental strangers are way more excellent teacher than experience and maturity.
Genetic celebrity sounds like an X-Men character who can make people look at him or her all the time.
This plus his talk of men being powerless to their instincts and women being oppressive with their sexiness makes me wonder if he isn’t trying to subtly push a very disturbing agenda. Everything he says along these lines sounds like it came from the Rapist’s Excuse Manual.
Once after my oldest daughter had hopped into my bed and demanded we rise and make her pancakes and was refused, she crumpled up in a ball and sobbed. When we asked her what was wrong she responded, “I no like it when you say those words to me.” I said, “What words?” She replied (still crying), “N-n-no pan-n-n-cakes!”
We have never let her live that down.
You’re right. MRAs think men operate at exactly that level of maturity. They are “oppressed” by not being able to do whatever they want to any woman they want. All people can be starry-eyed in the presence of people they find attractive. That isn’t oppression.
When we were at school Hubby used to look forward to warm weather because the heavy jackets came off and the shorts and Ts came out. He once compared it to flowers blooming in the spring. He was delighted, not embittered. What’s wrong with these guys that they can’t just be happy to appreciate beauty and move on like the rest of us? It isn’t a hardship for anyone.
If men are truly powerless before the butt, why don’t they behave like powerless puppets at all times? If this “tyranny of desire” exists, why aren’t men literally following attractive women around like children after the Pied Piper, or attempting rape in broad daylight on a busy street because they just can’t help themselves?
The reason is because men actually do have self-control and can choose when to act on their attraction. If men have self-control and can choose when to act on their attraction, that kind of destroys the argument that they are powerless.
So the first part of your argument here, about what would be in women’s best interest, is also destroyed because the “tyranny of desire” doesn’t actually exist.
Most men and most women who want to find partners actually do find partners.
Even stone-cold rapists make the responsible decision not to rape in broad daylight on a busy street. They have self-control. It’s not a lack of self-control that leads men to rape, and you’re going to have a tough time arguing that men who don’t rape somehow have less self-control than rapists do.
Why do you think so little of men? You really have no respect for them, do you?
If you hate a word, don’t use it. Also: this sentence has sufficiently mangled grammar that I can’t understand what it’s meant to convey. All I can gather from it is that you think women who are not conventionally attractive are constantly walking around spluttering from gaping mouths because they can’t get laid, and I can assure you that spending any amount of time with other people will prove to you that this is incorrect. Women who want to get laid do get laid, and women who want to find partners do find partners.
Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to watch a porn tape instead of looking at photos of Kate Middleton?
@Lea
God damn that is good daughter-teasing material.
I also completely agree with her that “No pancakes” is a truly terrible thing to hear.
I know it’s trendy in some circles to mock the Kardashians because they’re considered “low-brow”, but you’ve got to admit that they’ve been quite successful as entrepreneurs.
Kate Middleton had a brief stint as a buyer for a clothing chain, but really she’s best known for marrying into a rich family and then using that family connection to get a job doing government-sponsored PR work. The rich family is considered “old money” so she’s popular among the sort of crowd that cares about things like that.
Anyway, if you want to use her as a role mode, then that’s your choice. But personally I’d much rather see more photos of Elizabeth Warren, or, even better, more coverage of her speeches.
Men’s rights activists: “Please stereotype men more, as stereotypes are the only framework within which our ideas work”. Also we’re for equality.
Also, something else is rubbing me wrong. Is it just me, or does this
sound awfully entitled to Kate Middleton?
There is some serious victim blaming crapola in this thread. Also, some serious infantalising of teh menz (from Farrell and the MRA/MGTOW/ABCD wateveh crowd).
Seriously, knock it the f*ck off.
Grown-ups are responsible for their own actions, no matter how awesome dat ass is. And, furthermore, don’t blame your own immaturity/entitlement issues on the target of your abuse! That is f*cked up on so many damned levels.
(end rant, insert multiple frowny faces)
@Kate Minter, KKW’s but didn’t *actually* break the internet. That’s just something an editor wrote on the cover of a magazine.
Well, *I* could blame me, but then, as you say, I’m too nice. I was really too damn nice for my own good, back then. The health thing was not known yet, though; this was the early ’90s. But when I learned it a few years ago, that my big ol’ butt was actually protecting me against heart disease because it wasn’t a big ol’ gut, well…I felt VINDICATED. And I cannot lie.
Wait, wut? Now we have to diet our labia down to size, too? Oh HELL no!
QFGDT. That “clumsy initiation” myth has got to go die in a fucking fire. If two people genuinely like one another, the one is not going to reject the other for his maladroit conversation openers. Nor will the other reject the one because she’s somehow not perfect enough. They will both, shockingly, just not care about all that shit at all, because they like each other too much!
Bring it ON, baybay!
