There’s a post on the AgainstMensRights subreddit today highlighting a comment from a Men’s Rights Redditor that offers some, well, interesting theories about why feminists are “obsessed” with rape and abortion, even though he thinks they are very ugly.
Actually, in his mind, it’s because they are very ugly, and secretly wish someone would be attracted enough to them to rape them.
I’m sure there are MRAs out there who would like to dismiss his posting as the ravings of a random Redditor. Sadly, it’s not. Despite the terribleness of his “explanation,” or perhaps because of it, it seems to be a common one amongst Manosphereians and Men’s Rightsers.
Indeed, in one notorious post a couple of years ago, A Voice for Men founder and all-around garbage human Paul Elam — probably the most important person in the Men’s Rights movement today — offered a much cruder version of this argument. [TRIGGER WARNING for some primo rape apologism. I have bolded the worst bits, and archived the post here in case Elam decides to take it down, as he has been doing with some of his more repellant posts].
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Isn’t it more than just a little fascinating that underneath all this hoopla about rape is a whole lot of women who, when thinking about some guy pinning them down in a kitchen and forcing a hand up their blouse, generally tend to do so with their own hand or a vibrator between their legs? …
And isn’t it also interesting that the most rape obsessive morons on the planet also happen to be some of the ugliest morons on the planet?
Consider this. If rape awareness was a religion, Andrea Dworkin was The Fucking Pope. The 300+ lb. basilisk of man-hate had a face big enough and pockmarked enough to be used to fake a lunar landing. Her body was roughly the size and shape of a small sperm whale.
And she thought of little else in her life other than rape. The subject drove almost everything she said and did.
She even claimed to have been drugged and raped in 1999 in Paris, an accusation that was never proven and which came under a great deal of scrutiny, apparently for damned good reason.
C’mon people, Dworkin’s problem wasn’t that she was raped. Her problem, and I mean all along, was that she wasn’t.
Oh, it gets worse:
Like a corrupt televangelist who only shuts up about sexual purity and morality long enough to secure the services of a five dollar hooker, Dworkin was the poster child for “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Or, in other words, she was obsessed with rape, quite possibly even creating the illusion it happened to her, precisely because her worth on the sexual market was measured in pesos.
Dworkin wanted to be raped, which in her mind meant being sexually desired, but didn’t have the goods to make that happen so she made a career of hating both the source of her rejection, men, and the source of her competition, attractive women.
In the end, the most narcissistic of all Men’s Rightsers concludes that rape is all about female narcissism:
The concept of rape has a lot of utility for women. One, it feeds their narcissistic need to feel irresistible. Two, if feeds their narcissistic need to feel irresistible. That level of irresistibility is the pinnacle of a woman’s sexual viability and worth. And for a whole lot of women, sexual worth is the only self-worth they know.
A Voice for Men’s domestic violence mascot Erin Pizzey seconded Elam’s argument during an appearance of hers last year on Reddit.
If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this
This is an “insight” that many other manosphereians keep reinventing and announcing to the world. In a 2013 post, for example, the “Red Pill” blogger and sometime Return of Kings contributor who calls himself TheMaskAndRose offered a very similar take on the subject.
Feminists are ugly women. They are fat, old, masculine, aggressive, hateful, sociopathic, unattractive, or any combination of those things. Attractive women tend not to be Feminists, so I encourage you to think about why that’s the case. So keeping in mind that they’re not the type of women who normal men desire or pay any attention to, here’s my theory:
Rape culture is the ugly woman’s rape fantasy. …
I think the true heart of a rape fantasy is narcissism.
I think it’s about the idea of saying NO to a man, over and over, but he throws caution to the wind and gives into the animal instinct to just overtake you–because you’re so attractive, so beautiful, so alluring, so irresistible that he just can’t help himself.
It’s about being wanted, more than anything else. Wanted so badly that a man would risk throwing his whole life away just for the chance to put his penis in you.
So, since Feminists and unattractive women generally don’t have men paying any attention to them at all–at least not the sexual kind of attention they crave but won’t admit to … they instead cast themselves in the role of heroine in a cultural narrative whereby men think they’re just so fucking deliciously hot that they can’t wait for the chance to rape them.
They project that insanity onto the world around them, and voila–“rape culture.” A world full of scary men so overtaken with lust and desire for these fat, ugly, manly cow-beasts that you never know when one of them is going to risk his career, family, money, and life outside of prison just to have sex with you.
There is, of course, a much simpler explanation for why feminists tend to be “obsessed” with rape: because it happens all the fucking time.
I eye-roll so hard at the way “shaming” is used for any expression of disapproval or distaste of someone’s preferences, sexual or otherwise, with nary an acknowledgement that yes, a lot of things humans think or do are shameful. If one has appalling fantasies, why should one expect other people not to say they’re appalled? Why should nodding and approving, or being silent, be the norm?
Seriously.
I’m reading this comic, Zombie Powder(not great, but kinda interesting take on Western tropes), and the leads’ big sister dies in the first volume to give him a reason to go looking for the titular powder(which can revive the dead/grant immortality).
What makes this comical and not sad is that at no point does the writer even mention what her name is. I am not even kidding, if at some point it’s brought up I never saw it, and I scoured the book trying to figure out what her name was!
So…the Women in Refrigerators trope is not just lazy, it is VERY lazy, and all too easy a crutch to lean on and be even lazier than normal about female characters. If you’re a writer and one of the ladies in the story dying to provide emotional weight and pathos to what’s going on, think about all the everything else in the universe that could be done besides that.
Curse me for a novice! In that last paragraph, last sentence: “…and considering the option of one od the ladies in the story dying…”
Ah! Finally found the TV tropes page.
The author is Holly Lisle.
The character whose name starts with v is Vincalis.
The novel where the love interest dies is Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood.
Akk, that just reminded me of the Indigo series. Heroine spends the whole series trying to make up for letting demons loose, and trying to rescue her lover from them – and then the last book tells us oh, no, there weren’t any demons, it was a plague, and btw her lover (who’s never been portrayed as anything but good) is an arsehole and if they’d stayed together they’d have murdered her family, so there. And he’s not been captured, he’s old. I think she kills him at the end. Totally ruined what had been a pretty good series until then, like turning it into an incredibly heavy-handed political screed.
Vinculous sounds like some sort of virus, possibly wine related. Talk to your doctor about Vinculous today.
Ira Shantz-Kreutzkamp
I’ve read that too! It’s alright, in my opinion. I rather enjoy Tite Kubo’s works. (I first got into him with Bleach.) I have to admit though, I’m a little sad he dropped working on that one. It’ll never have a proper finish…
The sister’s name is Sheryl Shepherd!
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100826131246/zombiepowder/images/thumb/6/6b/Naked_Monkeys_4.jpg/180px-Naked_Monkeys_4.jpg
It was mentioned in a character bio page (I think they were used as separators chapter to chapter), but I can’t recall if it was mentioned in the story.
Though I agree, fridging her to give John an excuse to go looking for the Zombie Powder was silly.
Frag nabbit, that image link is too bad.
http://zombiepowder.wikia.com/wiki/Sheryl_Shepherd
http://zombiepowder.wikia.com/wiki/Sheryl_Shepherd?file=Naked_Monkeys_4.jpg
“I feel like conversations about sexy men between women very rarely lose track of the fact that there’s a person attached to the body you’re appreciating, whereas the same conversations between men often seem resentful of the fact that the person exists and is getting in the way of their access to the body.”
“On the echo chamber effect, basically what I think is happening is that those guys are performing masculinity for each other. It has pretty much nothing to do with women, except in that we’re serving as the thing they define themselves in opposition to”
Absolutely correct in both cases. Cassandrakitty, you’re dangerous. You understand men too well.
Also, as a result of the educational effect of being married to a large-breasted woman for 30+ years, seeing a large-breasted woman do gymnastic stunts with inadequate support would make ME wince.
I seem to remember that there were a lot of sitcoms (starting, I think, with My Three Sons) that used the plot device of father raising children (but not without a housekeeper, of course) after mother dies.
When comics have busty women bouncing around apparently braless I keep expecting the character to give herself a black eye.
I’m large breasted and even with a bra on it hurts to run and jump.
Ah, yes, mens’ righters standing up for the rights of fictional women everywhere (at least those created by living men) to protect them from evil feminazis who want to slut-shame them (or rather, point out that they’re being portrayed as sex-objects) for wearing what they want to (or rather, what these fictional women have been drawn wearing). Jesus tap-dancing Christ, talk about blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
Movies/tv shows with male being iced and subsequent female character development:
Terminator
Buffy (Angel gets killed, brought back, but there is character development of Buffy due to Angel being killed)
Fringe
Being Human (British version) did this to both male and female characters
Eureka – not so much as the lead is the male sheriff and not the female scientist, whose partner is removed
La Femme Nikita
Run Lola Run kind of did a play on this as the main theme
Resident Evil (Apocalyse in particular)
Underworld (especially the first and third movies)
Game of Thrones – Arya and Daeneyrs in particular are strongly affected by the loss of their male relatives.
“When comics have busty women bouncing around apparently braless I keep expecting the character to give herself a black eye.”
Or maybe a broken jaw? My wife has always enjoyed hiking and biking but could never do anything that required running or jumping even with the best available sports bra. Maybe people drawing cartoons or characters for video games ought to be required to pass a course in the “Physics of Boobs.”
The new “Agent Carter” have Captain America as the fridged love interest.
@ GOM
Does your wife know about this bra? It’s not going to win any awards for being pretty, but it’s the best one I know of in terms of keeping bouncing under control so sports can be done.
http://www.titlenine.com/product/313801.do
Re the other conversation, which I pretty much missed being at work and all, I have noticed a trend where Every. Single. Post. About. Rape. Of. Women. Has. People. Posting. Pro-BDSM. Comments. In. It.
If the key argument is that BDSM =/= rape, then bringing that point up In. Every. Single. Rape. Thread is starting to be protesting too much. Especially when nobody else is bringing it up.
In Captain America’s case, “fridged” is an excellent term.
And brain bleach:
http://www.savagechickens.com/wp-content/uploads/chickenplaytime.jpg
@ParadoxicalIntention
Oh wow. Thanks a lot! Shery Ann Shepardl, huh? That’s a disappointingly normal name beside Elwood John Shepard, but at least I can mentally insert it into John’s “I have to resurrect my sis…” moments.
I read BLEACH as well. At least until they finally killed off the first damned big overarching supervillain, because screw it, we’ve been here for like a decade and that was as lovely and good an ending as I could hope for. Almost a shame that it’s still going and Zombie Powder will never have a resolution, though Zombie was cut short by a serious breakdown, so kind of an uncharitable attitude I guess.
EDIT: Defeated, not killed off. Nobody Dies in Bleach, after all…
@Pallygirl,
I couldn’t agree more.
Also QFT because I side-eye this shit every damned time, too. And as was said before, if a man started posting notes from his boner about how he and his mates joked about kidnapping a woman (oh but totes consenually!!!) he’d be called a rapey creep and heading for the banhammer in no time flat.
@CK: I’ve passed your link along to wife — don’t know if she’ll do anything about it, but thanks. Big boobs are certainly at best a mixed blessing — her only cousin on her mother’s side had to have breast reduction surgery at the age of 25 due to chronic back pain.
I showed my wife a cartoon about one of the disadvantages of big boobs is that you buy stylish new shoes and never get to enjoy seeing them on your feet. She looked at me, a bit surprised, and commented that it never occurred to her that there were women who could see their feet.
Aside from fridged women, that is. I don’t think Ichigo’s mom ever makes a reappearance, even after they travel to the afterlife/soul society.
Though maybe that’s because she was eaten by a hollow and they prevent souls from moving on or something, don’t they? Haven’t followed Bleach in ages.