There are a lot of good reasons to give Valentine’s Day the side-eye. It’s a holiday, as many people dutifully point out every year, that’s more about selling candies, cards and jewelry than it is about love, promoting a backwards version of (hetero)sexuality in which men trade expensive gifts for sex – a philosophy perhaps most crassly expressed in the ad slogan for Kay Jewelers: “Every Kiss Begins With Kay.”
It’s a day that causes stress for a lot of couples and resentment amongst the single. And those little chalky heart candies with the words on them, whatever their kitschy charm, are really kind of crappy as candy.
But there are bad reasons to dislike Valentine’s Day as well. Amongst the Men Going Their Own Way of the world, “National Vagina Worship day” is the holiday they most love to hate; in their minds, the “bitches” don’t deserve any kind of respect at all, much less flowers and candy.
The folks at MGTOW.com has decided to fight back against V-Day, sort of, by inventing a holiday of their own. Here’s a semi-official annoucement:
FEB 14th is INTERNATIONAL MGTOW DAY and it is 17 centuries too late!
That’s ok cunts of the universe. We have the Future Covered Bitches. Fuck You!
The MGTOW.com regulars are celebrating the day (they claim) by treating themselves to nice dinners and new power tools and whatever else they can think of. As Soul Man put it on the MGTOW.com forums,
It’s gonna be a GREEEEEAAAAATTTTT DAY!!!
I am going to treat myself to whatever the fuck pleases me! I think I’m going to have a big fat steak and go ride my crorch rocket at very excessive speeds! If I’m feeling altruisric, I will find some cheap trollop to toss on the back and give her a couple of miles of “Mr. Wrong”! HAHAHA!
Yeah, that’s gonna happen.
Ned Trent, reporting in from Germany, has similar plans, minus the motorcycle ride:
For this evening I am going to take myself out for a substantial meal like a big Schnitzel with fries in a cool restaurant which specializes in this at a pre-ordered table for one person (myself), before heading out to a local nightclub on a mission: taking the piss out of /pissing off any female that I may encounter during that night over there, whilst having a great time myself on my own…
Mostly, though, as you may have already gathered from these two comments, the MGTOW.com regulars seem to be using the day as an excuse to do the same thing they do every day: try to take over the world kvetch about women and fantasize about making them miserable.
Mycocaine, writing back in January, allowed himself to dream:
This will be first 2.14 I am looking forward to. Rubbing my hands together. What say all men in unison dump that bitch on Feb 13. and go buy themselves a car.
GoneGalt had a somewhat more labor-intensive plan:
We ought to start some campaigns to counter women, small or large or just funny. One might be to derive a list of chick flick movies and then use it as a guide to rate all such movies as ‘1’ star on Netflix/IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes to bring the ratings down, and every now and then write a review that’s generic (so you can cut and paste it) and extremely insulting of that movie (something like ‘typical female drama and romantic garbage – amazing how women view themselves as soooo special’) 🙂
ListenUp! announced an equally, er, creative way to punish the women of the world on their (allegedly) special day. It involved a photo of celebrity feminist lawyer Gloria Allred.
Tonight after printing 30 pages all with this photo on it, I’m going to the gym to tape this photo on every punching bag in the place. Carry on men!
Machiavelli tried to live up to his namesake with a proposal to ignore women real hard:
Studies have show that [ostracism] creates the same effect in the brain as physical pain (google it). People become co-operative when ostracised to win back approval. … It’s hard wired into us for evolutionary reasons.
Women are particularly sensitive to being ostracised.
The more guys that become mgtow the more women will be ostracised for mistreating men (either yourself or another man). …
14 February 2015, it’s a “nice day for an ostracism” for women everywhere.
We (men) are 50% of the population, so let’s see what women think when this half of the population starts ostracising them until they treat all men with equality and respect.
As I read through all of these little fantasies, none of which seem at all likely to ever be implemented in the real world, I found myself thinking of the title of an old album by the eccentric British post-punk band Television Personalities: “Mummy Your Not Watching Me.”
Because the one insurmoutable problem of all these plans is that they depend on women actually giving a shit about what these guys do. And as most of these guys in their hearts probably realize, no one really cares if they eat a nice steak dinner (go for it, dudes) or waste their evening giving “chick flicks” one-star ratings on Netflix (knock yourselves out).
If they were decent human beings, being ignored by them actually would hurt. Of course, if they were decent human beings, they wouldn’t be giddily fantasizing about ostrasizing the women of the world for being women.
Maybe the MGTOWers need to replace their clumsy five-letter acronym with a new one: MYNWM (Mummy You’re Not Watching Me, pronounced “minwim”).
Here’s the actual song “Mummy Your Not Watching Me,” by Television Personalities (music only), followed by a video of them pretending to perform their song Painted Word. Happy Vagina Worship Day!
First of all: “crorch rocket”??? I am still chuckling over that.
Next, I second, third, fourth or more other comments: hugs to people having rough times and many, many kittens to you too!; ditto on the I don’t care about Valentine’s really. I don’t like the commercial aspect of any holiday and tend to rebel against it. We do a sort of anti–Christmas, for example, in our house, giving things we already own (yes, wrapped up and all) or buying the most outlandish ugliest crap ever at the Dollar Store to give a laugh. It’s great fun.
One thing I don’t get: do these dudes take seriously the idea that Valentine’s is only men giving women gifts? One look at this thread will show an exchange of gifts: men and women (in cis-het relationships) giving each other gifts. Obviously for people of other orientations and genders and in poly relationships, if they celebrate, there is an EXCHANGE of gifts. Not sex for a diamond ring.
It may seem stupid to dwell on that, but I think it is one of the concepts absent from these idiots brains along with the concept of consent. I want to say to them really slowly: people are in relationships because they like each other and they talk and give to each other. It’s not that hard.
Also Valentine’s is often celebrated between family members and children. It really doesn’t have to be romantic at all. One of my students brought in heart-shaped cookies to share with the class. (This is a university, so such an event is rare and students are thrilled!)
My husband has given me the same Valentine’s Day card for 10 years: a dog with heart-shaped sunglasses. He brings it to me with my morning coffee. He’s very proud to hide this card from me all year. It cracks me up. I gave him some card with horrible puns – it was a free card sent by a charity and it wasn’t meant for Valentine’s. He loved it. He also bought me some Godiva chocolate liqueur and we went out for sushi.
Finally, why do these MGTOW idiots waste so much time on things that don’t matter in the least: one-star reviews of movies? Even assuming I would want to watch these rom-coms, I care about the one-star reviews because…? There are lots of movies and genres I’m not interested in or even despise. I won’t waste time on them to spite some group.
As people have said: dudes, go your own way! Don’t worry about the rest of us. Really. Yeah, we’re weeping. Uh-huh. Can’t you see the tears?
In my experience it is common for Valentine’s Day to be “celebrated” amongst friends and family. When I lived with my parents they would usually get candy for us. I have a few friends who sent me Valentine’s Day cards or gave me things. My boss gave chocolate to everyone and our work had a Valentine’s Day thing where we could decorate cookies and give them to each other.
Personally I’d rather pretend it didn’t exist. I wasn’t a fan of it when I was in a relationship and I’m extra not a fan of it as a bitter single person 🙂
Anyone who’s going to burst into tears over their favorite film getting a slightly lower rating was probably already in tears from the rating it had before they messed with it. They also likely don’t exist. People just aren’t that invested in a number, how does a film getting a rating of 1 change how much you enjoyed it?
Just went and checked the rating of a film I like on IMDb and it’s a 2.9. All that tells me is that lots of other people didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. They can go their own way and watch a movie they enjoy.
As a biker myself I’ve only ever heard the term ‘crotch rocket’ used to disparage someone else’s clearly-compensatory bike.
Many, many hugs and goodies to those having a hard time.
@Wetherby, my partner and I are in the middle of a similar situation now. He’s been out of work for six months, and I’m a full-time grad student. He was supporting me for a good while. Thankfully, due to some scholarship money, a fellowship that I busted my ass for, and his U/I benefits, financially we’re okay. He was hating on himself for the U/I because rugged American individualism (oh, fuck a bunch of that noise), until I reminded him rather forcefully that he paid into U/I insurance for over a decade and that’s what that is fucking FOR. In the end, I’ll wind up being the primary breadwinner in our family, and that is a-ok.
In spite of being close to broke we had a nice day of it. I bought chocolate and beer and cooked a nice dinner, we watched a movie of his choosing, and did what the average couple does after chocolate and mind-altering substances are consumed. And there was much rejoicing. Yay.
Which would put a whole new spin on his intention to “find some cheap trollop to toss on the back and give her a couple of miles of ‘Mr. Wrong’!”
And a spin not particularly flattering to Mr. Wrong, at that.
SpinDrift
“If you’re still feeling lonely and you feel like chatting, I could drop an email address and we could have a back and forth, like penpals :)”
Thanks that would be great though I don’t know what we could talk about I’m pretty bad at conversations involving just everyday things.
About the talk of bikes my mom actually like Harley davidsons and my brother wants a ninja. Now that I think about it ‘crorch rocket’ sounds like a band name or an anime attack.
@Fruitloopsie
I’m pretty bad at those too, so the awkwardness should balance out 🙂
You can reach me at [email protected]
Weird, didn’t expect that to turn into some sort of link. I really don’t internet well, hehe
“This will be first 2.14 I am looking forward to. Rubbing my hands together. What say all men in unison dump that bitch on Feb 13. and go buy themselves a car.”
What do you think the odds are that this guy’s a car salesman?
And everyone knows that some genres skew higher or lower in the reviews. If they actually managed to lower film ratings appreciably this way, they’d just create a perception that chick flicks are always rated lower than their actual quality, and people would get used to assuming that chick flicks will be better than their ratings suggest.
Spindrift
Ok thanks
Now I’m picturing someone who likes 1 genre and reviews all films as though they were meant to be part of that genre. “Romance plot was good, acting also good, but no lasers or aliens! I give it 1.5 stars, would not watch again”
Getting sleepy, time to hunt some dream mammoths.
Just to annoy them then, I think I’ll go give a five star review to “Enough” on the ground that the heroine kills her husband.
A used car salesman. In a plaid jacket.
http://www.engageq.com/wp-content/uploads/car_salesman_sleezy.bmp
Or maybe this guy:
http://wordsbymelissa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Used-Cars-trailer-still.jpg
I… don’t get it anyways? “Vagina worship day”? Do they not realize women do things for their boyfriends/girlfriends too on valentine’s day? Hell, my last boyfriend I friggin’ watercolored some illustrations and made a little mini book full of poems for him for the vday. If that’s not a big gesture or gift, I don’t know what is.
Also, this year I wrote some shitty haikus for my brother and mom and we went out to dinner. And I bought my guy friend an R2D2 pipe because he got me a stuffed bear. I’m single and I had a great time.
So someone should alert that, uh… it’s not just for girl’s getting stuff? And also it’s not just for lovers/bfs/gfs??? And it’s also cool for single people??
(It’s just sad because them going out for steaks and dinner and stuff should be GREAT! I want to say, “Yeah, that’s right! The holiday isn’t just for couples you SHOULD treat yourself!” But… they are only doing it to be spiteful… which doesn’t that defeat the purpose and detract from doing something nice just for yourself in the first place? Talk about taking something that should be fun and making it miserable.)
But anyways, yeah… I’ve always somehow managed to do things for other people on vday even though I’m a girl. Was I not supposed to be able to do that?? Did I break some cardinal rule of valentine’s day? Does vagina =/= capable of doing gifts?? Did I break the universe by doing something I shouldn’t??
Where did they get the idea that it’s “vagina worship day”… oh yeah, nevermind, that’s right. Because any excuse to bash women is great and they can’t just go their own way already. -.-
Or this guy
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i9Z5C9Rw7pc/T85Bldl7WVI/AAAAAAAAAF0/PfrBwx5wmEo/s1600/danny+devito.png
I think “queer” and “hetero-flexible” are both useful, in different contexts. Queer is a good social identifier in contexts that aren’t particularly sexual. It lets people know you’re outside the sexual mainstream and doesn’t go into more detail than necessary. Think like heteroflexible, bi- or homo-curious, homoflexible, and so on — I usually see them used on dating sites or at kink events or in other spaces where people expect to meet potential partners. That’s where it’s helpful to give out a lot more detail to help people evaluate their chances with you.
This is especially true if you go with one gender 90% of the time. In everyday communication, you probably want to highlight the 90%, because it gives people a much better idea of how your life works. In a dating/kink/sex-pos context you might very much emphasize the 10% if that was your agenda for the night.
The Q in LGBTQ can also be “questioning”. 🙂
Great plan for voluntary extinction. First the men get tired of being ignored (read: not blown) by the women so they ignore all the women back. They’re so good at this that women are really sad and try to get their attention but they keep ignoring them. Then women are fed up and start ignoring them again and then everybody ignores everybody and nobody has babies. The end
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/monkeyisland/images/1/16/Stan_vessels.gif/revision/latest?cb=20120508160429
We’re supposed to get up to half an inch of ice and 1 or 2 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow.
I hope everyone stays safe and warm (or cool, for our antipodean Mammotheers).
Thanks for responses. I’ll continue not understanding Valentine’s Day 🙂
Exactly. If they want to have a big steak or schnitzel or whatever, that’s fine. But that’s not the response they want. They want the response to be ‘stop enjoying that and pay attention to me’ because that’s what they want – for women to stop enjoying things and start paying attention. That’s why so many of their plans for enjoying the day revolved around provoking and annoying women and ruining the day for them.
So I’ve been interested in Analogue: A Hate Story and Long Live the Queen, so I got the bundle.
I also discovered this on twitter:
http://thehues.alexheberling.com/comic/chapter01/
I am not that far into it, but it looks interesting.