[CONTENT WARNING: Misogynistic violence, rape apologia]
His complaint was a familiar one:
I think every girl is a type of slut, they are fussy with men nowadays, they do not give boys like us a chance.
You can find nearly identical laments in the profiles of self-described “nice guys” on OkCupid, on Men’s Rights blogs, and on forums for self-described “Incels” comisserating about their “involuntary celibacy” and what they see as the shallowness of young women.
But these words actually come from a video filmed by Ben Moynihan, a British teenager who was convicted of attempted murder earlier this week after stabbing three women in an attempt to take a sort of revenge upon the “weaker” gender he felt had made his life miserable by denying him sex. Another young man trying to punish women with violence for the “crime” of not dating him.
“I am still a virgin,” he wrote in one note. “Everyone is losing it before me, that’s why you are my chosen target.” In another note, he declared that “all women needs to die and hopefully next time I can gauge [sic] their eyes out.”
Moynihan’s twisted logic is of course eerily similar to that of Elliot Rodger, who went on a shooting spree in Isla Vista last spring in an attempt to “punish” women for their lack of interest in dating him, which he declared to be “a crime that can never be forgiven.”
Thankfully, Moynihan, unlike Rodger, was captured by police before he actually succeeded in killing anyone.
Not so thankfully, both of these men have their fans, including some amongst the usual suspects I write about on this blog. On the incel hangout slutHATE – the successor to PUAhate, on which Elliot Rodger was an occasional commenter – both Rodger and Moynihan have become heroes of a sort to some of the more bitter commenters. Or at least the source of much amusement.
In response to news about Moynihan’s trial, one slutHATEr posted a thread asking “Okay, which one of you did this?” “A new supreme gentleman rises,” wrote another in a different thread devoted to the would-be killer.
A third commenter, going by the name Homesick Alien, asked the question “Are Females days numbered?” listing an assortment of incels who’d killed “females” in an act of twisted “revenge” for their lackluster or nonexistent dating lives. In the comments, Homesick Alien chillingly wrote that
I’m sure someone somehow is rightfully very rageful currently planning the next shooting spree . We can only hope it’ll be more elaborate. Female entitlement is off the charts now, they are out of control,. It’s about time they are put in their fucking place.
Another posted a link to Rodger’s 150-page manifesto, suggesting that “it has the potential to motivate incels to damage the females.”
In a thread from several months ago, a slutHATEr calling himselt NewGenious119 went after fellow incels for not supporting shooting sprees enthusiastically enough.
Seriously, is there something mentally wrong with you? Thinking that a school full of sluts and frat stars getting slain by an incel is a bad thing is characteristic of a normalfag mindset. Our ONLY hope for ever getting to fuck multiple hot sluts is if there are enough incels in the western world who snap and cause bloodshed. It’s the only way that sluts and alphas will realize and accept that there are serious consequences for allowing so many males to live their lives in misery.
Emphasis mine.
As it turned out, there was no need for him to worry that other incels didn’t support spree killngs aimed at “sluts,” as assorted commenters soon let him know.
The rogue MRA and American-Women-Boycotter who calls himself John Rambo seconded his sentiment, writing
I wouldn’t do one myself. But I wouldn’t prevent one from happening if I knew it would as long as I wouldn’t die or a girl that willing to fuck me would. …
Honestly, I truly have very little sympathy for the victims.
A commenter calling himself Worthless Trash only had one complaint: that the death tolls weren’t higher.
I just wish these guys would make better plans and kill their targets and more of them, but sadly most of them have a weakened will-power after all the years of rejections and maybe bullying.
Also i don’t care if it will solve the problem or not, i just feel better hearing this, it’s like divine justice, they feel so superior but in the end they die like worms, just like they treat other guys, like worms, so in the end we are all equal.
Still others offered their assent:
I personally rejoice whenever I hear news of a school shooting.
The higher the death count, the better
i like their kill count high, because it’s always satisfying seeing someone arrogant going from rich to poor, beautiful too ugly from popular to dead
While a few commenters spoke out against the idea of mass murder as a reasonable response to a lack of dates, they were in the distinct minority.
And then there was this guy:
i support ERism [Elliot Rodgerism], but I would never do it myself, my brother is a doctor and his career would be ruined if our family name ever got tarnished
It would be a little easier to dismiss all this as merely internet dumbassery, were it not for the fact that Rodger went out and killed 6 people after posting similar comments on the message board that later became slutHATE.
While commenters like these are a distinct minority even in the sordid world of the manosphere, the sad and scary fact is that there are a frightening number of young and not-so-young men who have embraced one of the central assumptions of the murder-spree-supporting incels of slutHATE – the notion that women who put “nice guys” in the “friend zone” are committing some kind of crime against them, and deserve to be punished for it, individually or collectively.
You can see variations on this in assorted memes attacking women – much as Moynihan and Rodgers did – for supposedly preferring “bad boys” and assholes over the “nice guys” of the world.
Other “friend zone” memes are a bit darker.
And darker still:
And somehow even darker than that:
And we’re just begun to scratch the surface here.
In a followup post, I will look at the ways in which the rampant “slutbashing” of Men’s Rights Activists and other manosphere denizens helps to feed the toxic culture of aggrieved sexual entitlement that has contributed to violence against women.
Chiming in late but hey. It’s Almost Period Time Sick-and-Migrainey Day so. Imma be kind to myself.
I’m going to echo everyone on “don’t wish death-by-depression on anyone,” ever. I am a survivor of death-by-depression awfulness, and I seriously would not wish that on my worst enemy, even in jest.
Speaking of jest, OMG THAT DANCING SPIDER ON ALL CAPS. That guy is my hero. I’m mildly obsessive about birds, and there is this great series on Netflix called “The Life of Birds,” narrorated by Sir David A., patron saint of ADHD kid who can’t sleep and like to learn about nature. Birds, overwhelmingly, put the sexy-dance responcibility on the males. Nice Guys should try out some moves from pretty much any bird native to South America.
I forget who mentioned it, but echoing dating Nice a Guys turning in to a shitshow. In high school and early college, I was on-again-off-again with a Nice Guy who, only when I was unavailable (dating someone else or just not dating), was all about “why don’t you date me, I am a nice guy, I would treat you so so so good, wah.”
When I actually tried it out in earnest with Nice Guy, it was the shittiest, most emotionally abusive relationship I have ever been in (in that I was supposed to never talk to any of my guy or lesbian friends, had to run everything I did even with family by him, and had to check in several times a day, so on)…for TWO. WEEKS. And then he never called me again. And moved across the country.
So Nice. Very Guy. Much m’lady. Wow.
Sunnysombrera, I know how you feel. the year after I graduated from college, a student was abducted, raped and murdered from the main street downtown by a man who’d been living (and abusing women) in town for years. How easily that could have been me or one of my friends…
@WatermelonSugar
Yes! Exactly! They’re almost inevitably massively insecure, but they consider their insecurity issues to be your problem and your responsibility; they don’t need to learn to manage those feelings. YOU need to prevent them from having them in the first place.
I didn’t realize the bolting thing was a pattern until much later, and the whole fiasco was confusing and hurtful to seventeen year old me. “But…you were telling me I should date you because you’d treat me right for like four years. You’ve known me all this time, so I mean, you knew what you were getting into. I don’t understand. What did I do? You said you loved me…” It wasn’t until I read about Nice Guys that I finally understood that it wasn’t ever about me as a person, and that it wasn’t a bizarre isolated incident indicative of some horrible flaw in me.
You always hear about the Nice Guy hovering around girls who turn him down, but I think it’s worth talking about what happens when the lady says yes. It’s pretty traumatizing, and really undermines all the Nice Guy rhetoric.
It’s pretty well known that abusers start out as romantic and nice and caring. Then they start in with the obsessive and controlling behavior. Just because a man is nice during the pursuit, doesn’t mean he’ll stay nice. To me incels and Nice Guys are just abusers who unsuccessful in getting their target into a relationship.
Mouse Farts (teehee!) and WWTH–
Yes. This.
The way my teen/early twenties brain dealt with it was “why date Nice Guys when they turn out to be assholes? I will just date assholes, because at least they are upfront with their shittiness.”
I have thankfully ended up with an actual nice guy, and have been talking about Nice Guy-age with him.
We started dating when we were both 25. While I had dating/romance/sexual experience, my (now) husband did not. He had never been kissed, even. In honesty, his life experience had been pretty much what the Nice Guy camp bitches about–he had several female friends who he was romantically attracted to, even, and one of them even did the whole date-an-asshole-and-whine-about-how-he-is-not-more-like-you thing. One even pretty harshly broke his heart when he said he like-liked her. Hell, he even has an identical twin brother (identical! twin! brother!) who got married in his early twenties to his high school sweetheart. He had all the same troubles as these Nice Guys. When I asked him if he ever bought in to this Nice Guy stuff, want to know his responce?
“Hell no. Women don’t owe me sex. Even you don’t, and we are married.”
Annnnnd that is why I love my husband, one. And two, that is why I know from personal experience that Nice Guys are full of shit.
Emily goddess : holy cow that’s frightening. It can be surprising in a not nice way what things can happen on your doorstep. This is only slightly relevant, but I remember watching a reality TV show about UK police (“Brit Cops” I think it was called) and they raided a brothel that was literally down the street from the home I was in. The thing is that road was full of big and expensive Georgian terraced houses and I was like “there’s a brothel THERE??”
But then the sex industry has many types of customers.
Also, using Husband WatermelonSugar as an example again:
Instead of being fussy about all the sex he wasn’t getting, he used his single time to figure out who he was as a person–what he liked and what he believed and all that good human stuff–and to get comfortable with who he is as an individual, independent of relationship status with either a romantic partner or what he is “supposed” to have. Like, to actually realize he is a cool individual and be ok with that.
I think that is a critical element lacking in Nice Guy Code.
Also, sorry for the gratuitous use of the word “husband;” we are just over two months married and it is still a magical word to me.
I can curb it if it upsets anyone.
Nyawww, WatermelonSugar, congratulations!
Thank you, Mouse Farts (teehee–I am apparently a five year old and still teehee at farts). The whole getting-married part was absolute hell, but being married is awesome. I am thankful to have a partner who is not only a really cool person who with the cutest butt in the world, but totally gets all of my feminist-isms and is happy to discuss WHTM-centric ideas with me at length when I am having trouble processing it all.
/gush.
Dude, farts are funny. It’s just a fact. A biotroof, even.
Saturday night was babyfarts’s birthday party, and on the drive over to the ice skating rink (not my idea, good lord) the carful of six year olds could be kept endlessly entertained simply by saying “farts.”
I’m new to commenting in general, but I wanted to say I understand where these guys are coming from. I don’t agree with the whole stabbing aspect, but I get the anger and frustration.
From what I gathered from myself and others is its a combination of insecurity, fear of rejection, and resentment that cause said anger.
They are insecure because sex is extremely important to them and quite possibly the only means of validation they have. Being able to be with someone conventionally attractive means so much more, because it garners respect from both genders and opens the door for more opportunities with other attractive women.
Fear of rejection is due to women talking and throwing around the word “creepy” and the like. As someone above has stated, Women talk, alot. So when men are expected to approach often because “it’s a numbers game”, they get labeled creepy or desperate if they fail, often publicly. And women would rather be alone than with someone deemed “desperate” apparently.
Finally, They resent the options women have, namely the option of being proactive or passive. To many men, the ability to be passive and still get favorable (to them) results is the best situation they can think of. Even if those options were not what they ideally want, it’s still something. If others disagree, ok, but that’s how these men think, at least the ones that I read and know.
If the majority of men had the options most women have in their youth, a lot of this anger towards women would be nullified, in my opinion.
I liked the part where Tom Saw had, of course, never been a Nice Guy in his entire life, but two of his friends had been through, and Tom just knew how hard it was for him…I mean them…because he’s just so empathetic, y’all, and not totally, TOTALLY, not because he had ever been a nice guy.
I also liked the part where Tom equated women complaining about abusive exes and guys who harassed them or were otherwise outright nasty to them (but not fantasizing about murdering or raping all men in the name of Great Justice and Revenge or something) to men complaining about how women are all sluts because they’re having sex with that other dudes or dudes or somebody who isn’t them or just not having sex at all because strange women lying in bed distributing sex is no basis for a sexual market (and totally fantasizing about murdering or raping all women in the name of Great Justice and Revenge or something).
Great thread I am glad I came back and caught up. This guy Tom, wow, what the hell is he thinking. I only want to add 3 points
1) The bad boy myth is just pure bullshit. I didn’t chase after jocks or bad boys and neither did any of my friends. I believe earlier in this thread someone or several people really were talking about how movies have affected the way these characters view relationships and how unrealistic this is. I believe that is where this myth comes from because I don’t know of anyone who has that experience (girls only chasing jocks or bad boys) so that is stupid and we should challenge that kind of talk. This myth needs to die and with it perhaps a little of the resentment they hold because it is stupid.
2) Free speech is fine but they want to freedom to harass pure and simple. They DO NOT GET TO CRITICIZE OUR LIFE CHOICES. Women do not go around slut shaming men and demanding that men explain themselves or assume that they are all sleeping around and look down at them. When someone openly verbally assaults you by questioning your choices it is ABUSE. I mean what stranger has the right to walk up to me in public and criticize me for buying birth control or having an abortion or choosing to live in a commune? No one, their logic is they reserve the right to judge us and I call bullshit on that too. It is none of their business.
3) The nice guys are getting laid. These cretins are trying to appropriate a term that they think will get them sex. The nice guys are not having a problem these characters are wolves in sheeps clothing. I hope that they never breed since I truly feel that feminism needs to work to breed awful out of the human race and a part of me thinks that is really what is happening here. Women being able to chose their partners is a natural weeding out process and some of these guys are mad simply because they know they are a genetic dead end, (I have literally read them saying this on different sites)
Thanks
My favorite part is how Tommy and people like him seem to think that we’d admit that their behavior was reasonable and justified if we’d only listen and understand their position. They don’t seem to get that nothing can make their behavior acceptable.
That ploy was a favorite of the ‘gaters, remember? As if ethics in gaming journalism somehow made doxxing and harassment acceptable.
Nice Guys™ are false advertising. In case you haven’t heard it yet, if you see a guy actually describe himself on a website (eg. dating profile, social networking or the like) as such, RUN LIKE HELL. Especially if his Niceness™ is accompanied by all kinds of traditional-values blahblah, or talk about how a woman owes a man sex if he spent a lot on their date and whatnot.
On the other hand, THIS…
…is what I sincerely wish all Nice Guys™ would actually do, because then they would emerge from their cocoon of cluelessness as a genuinely nice social butterfly. It’s what I did when I was alone and seemingly doomed to it. I figured that if the Fates gave me no choice in the matter, I might as well make good use of that time. And lo and behold, it IS good for one. I discovered many things about myself that I would otherwise never have had the opportunity to learn. Women who marry too young, and/or get tied down with children too soon, often end up missing out and having to develop self-confidence much later in life than those who don’t get snapped up like hotcakes while they’re still in their teens or twenties.
And that emotional backwardness tends to cost them dearly later on, because if they’re “suddenly single” at 35, 40, 50, etc., the dating pool is that much harder to get back into. All these Nice Guys™ who are still angling for women 20-30 years old when they’re in that age range or older are making matters worse on that front, too…and unless you yourself happen to like younger men (which, fortunately, I do — and that’s just one of the many things I discovered about myself while not-so-Forever Alone), the prospects look dim and bleak. One might end up having to resign oneself to muddling along as a single lady for much longer than one had hoped. And it’s all because of these Nice Guys™ who think a woman past a certain age (and the state of inexperience that goes with it) as being Damaged Goods.
So yeah…fuck these Nice Guys™ and the moral high horses they keep riding in on. If they took a closer look, they’d see that their lily-white charger is sure collecting a lot of flies around the tail, if you know what I mean.
WatermelonSugar said:
No worries on my end 😀
Five years in on this end and I *know* I annoy people with “my husband’s awesome, my husband’s so great, my husband’s an actual nice guy, my husband ^allthethings^”.
He’s just my benchmark for fantastic men, so he comes to my mind a lot with these topics.
Example: My message to “misunderstood” Nice Guys™:
My husband is Aspie and has serious cystic acne, but has consistently had women pursuing /him/ because he’s also a genuine person who treats women as /considers women to be *gasp* other people, not means to an end.
Has he had heartbreak?
Yes, because he’s a person.
Has he had moments of rejection?
Again, yes – because he’s a person.
But he’s used these experiences to learn and grow, not fold in and fester with negativity.
Young “incels”, et al: Follow his example.
Buttercup
It’s always awkward when you see this on dating sites too. You always have a guy who will only say that he’s a “nice guy”, and he’ll treat you very well, and he’s a “gentleman”, but that’s all he really has to offer. (And even then when you turn him down, he turns on you and turns out he’s only nice when he gets his way and you worship the ground he walks on.)
The thing is though, there’s a myriad of actual nice men on that dating site too, and they’ll not only treat me nice, but they can do other things too. They like the same kinds of video games I like, or the same comic books, maybe they’re really good cooks, or they play guitar.
I keep seeing the “incels” bemoan how nice they are without actually being nice, or having anything else to mention about their personality. Yeah, you’re “nice”, but what else can you offer to this relationship? I can’t have enough personality for the both of us!
Mouse Farts
Too many Nice Guys looking for their Manic Pixie Dream Girl to “fix” what’s wrong with them.
Relationships don’t “fix” anyone, dudebros. Hollywood lied to you. You need to “fix” you. If you have a problem with yourself, address it.
Especially when I imagine mice farting. It’s just like a little “poof” or a tiny “squeak”.
ParadoxicalIntention
The Story of My Nickname:
I was a super quiet kid (and grew up into a super quiet adult – weird, right?), and didn’t talk a lot, or at least wasn’t often heard; that happens when you have eight younger siblings. But every once in a while, when we were in the car and it got real quiet, I’d yawn. When I yawn, I emit a tiny squeak. I don’t know why. It just happens. Every single time my dad heard it, he’d go “what on earth was that? Did a mouse fart?”
It stuck.
Omgs I squeak too! And Darwin does my wake up, crawl out of bed, yawn-stretch, put head back down thing — minus then squeak — and d’aww tortoise yawn!
Also, congrats!
“since I truly feel that feminism needs to work to breed awful out of the human race…”
Okay, since I haven’t been around and you are thus new to me, I’m going to assume the best here — you do mean work to kill off awful ideas right? Not stop people who have them from reproducing?
I met a (nice) Guy in university who gave me the “Why don’t I have a girlfriend?” talk. He felt that his school certificate award for politeness should count as a glowing recommendation for being good boyfriend material. I mean, he’s somewhat endearingly sweet and not one of those whiny little shit-stains who should remain far away from women. He actually has good qualities and has since found a steady long-term relationship with someone who shares his interests.
But I was bemused that he had brought up the most minor of secondary-school accolades as if it embellished his dating CV.
Bless his cotton socks, though. He’s an all-right kind of guy, really, just… he once came out with that stupid thing. And now that’s the most salient thing I know about him.
I was working with sugar gliders the other day and one actually sneezed. It was the tiniest ah-CHOO you ever heard.
@Mouse Farts
Fun Fact: I was nicknamed “Squeakers” in Junior High School because I had (and still kind of have) a very high-pitched voice.
And for those of you who liked my bingo card, I coincidentally came across this on my tumblr dashboard:
http://feministbingo.tumblr.com/
Enjoy.
@Mouse Farts: that’s such a sweet story 🙂
It has probably been said in this comment section before but I wonder how many of the “Nice Guys” have never thought about the idea that maybe, only maybe, the men women choose to date aren’t that bad at all. they may only look bad to THEM because they themselves are jealous. yes of course, there are assholes who treat their partners awful but I don’t think those “Nice Guys” really have a problem with that sort of behaviour…
On nicknames–
I was nicknamed “Cat” in early high school due to the way I sneeze–very small, and many in a row. I have always sneezed like that, and if I ever do it in public someone always says “OMG YOU SNEEZE JUST LIKE A CAT.” Or counts my sneezes. The highest so far has been 23.
On farts–
Yes, farts are always funny. I am 28 and I would be laughing along with fart car talk. Because I am an adult, naturally.
On taking time to do you/Nice Guys not doing that–
I also spent a good three single years “figuring myself out,” as it were, after a string of crap relationships. I didn’t like where my relationships were going, so I felt the need to examine my hand in that, which led to introspection and figuring out what was important to me in a partner.
I think maybe one of the reasons Nice Guys don’t is that they feel they don’t have to–kind of by the same thought process that makes them feel entitled to All The Hawt Babes. It seems to me like it flows from the same place, at least. As in, why would they feel the need for self-examination (even if it leads to self appreciation and self-worth), when they are Obviously Not The Problem No Not At All It’s Women.