So I was wondering if any of A Voice for Men’s readers had spoken up in the comments there about a rather sensitive subject: the fact that the supposed “human rights” site recently published a post that was not only 1) an apologia for marital rape but also, 2) written by a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan.
When I took at look at the comments there this morning, the answer was (of course) no: there was no mention of AVFM contributor Amartya Talukdar’s numerous Tweets describing the Holocaust as a hoax, Hitler as a great man, and Hillary Clinton as a “Jewess.”
Instead, I found that those who challenged Talukdar’s post (archived here) — which defended the Indian government’s refusal to see marital rape as rape — got harsh rebukes from other AVFM commenters and the site’s moderators, who went so far as to actually ban two commenters unhappy with Talukdar’s rape apologia.
No, really.
Take a look at the response one Donald J. Kingsbury got when he challenged Talukdar’s post.
It didn’t take long for Kingsbury’s prediction to come true.
![donald j kingsbury • 2 days ago This page is shifty comedy. Just because you are married to someone doesn't mean they owe you sex, or even have to have kids with you. If she doesn't want to have sex, she doesn't want to have sex. She is not an object to be controlled, or something that is owned. And just because yr married doesn't mean she owes you sex when you want, go masturbate and get over yourselves. 1 • Reply•Share › Avatar Grumpy Old Man Mod donald j kingsbury • 2 days ago You have been banned because of a serious and direct violation of Comment Policy (derailing and trolling). [Ref: 4895] Additional remarks: Yup,and no one is contesting that here.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/avfmcommentbannedmarrape.png?resize=580%2C231&ssl=1)
This is what happens if you challenge the consensus at AVFM. Even if what you are challenging is an article by a Holocaust denier arguing that marital rape doesn’t exist because “marriage is consent.”
One commenter was unhappy with Grumpy Old Man’s response:
His candid comment earned him this rebuke from AVFM’s top mod:
Never mind that the article in question defended the “right” of men to sex-on-demand from their wives by lamenting that if women in India were allowed to say no to their husbands, these poor fellows might have to resort to masturbation. Because in Talukdar’s view, evidently, it’s better for men to rape their wives than for them to be “forced” to masturbate.
There’s a lot more terribleness in the comments there, but to me the worst comes from a regular AVFM commenter who calls himself Shrek6, who has evidently convinced himself that “rape is not that bad a crime against a woman or human being.”
“A woman or human being.” That’s actually what he wrote.
Heck, he explains in another comment, vaginas are tough, so most women don’t really suffer all that much from rape. As he sees it, most women can get over rape pretty easily if they can be convinced to forgive their rapists.
No, that’s what he really thinks:
These two comments are considered acceptable discourse at AVFM. Comments bluntly challenging an apologia for marital rape aren’t.
AVFM, “not a hate site”? Oh Suzie, you crack me up! Give it time. Keep on in that vein, and it soon will be listed on the SPLC’s page. And then we’ll REALLY see the spittle fly…
Oh, and LOL at that “pretty egalitarian” bit, too. Yeah, equal-opportunity hate. You get to rape your HUSBAND, too! Compassion for Men and Boys…try and find it.
Ugh at the description of rape as “sex without paying for it”. Like that’s what they see as the natural exchange: sex for money. Not pleasure for pleasure or shared experience.
Money for sex.
Whole lotta NOPE.
Oh sorry, “actually egalitarian”. Yeah. Unless you’re a dissenter, in which case you get called a mangina and banned.
Oh, and Shrekky-boy? Hate to break it to you, son, but WOMEN GET RAPED UP THE ASS TOO. Because sodomy is “egalitarian”, don’tcha know?
MRAs are often accusing David of lying about them and shedding a negative light on them, but with these kinds of articles and comments, they don’t need anyone outside the movement to ruin their reputation. It seems they are doing it themselves. Don’t kill the messenger, right?
It really is fucking ironic for a movement which contains “human rights” in its name to publish rape apologist bullshit like this and ban people who disagree and criticize and yet allow comments such as Shrek’s. They accuse feminists of banning criticism and calling everyone who disagrees with them a misogynist, but it seems that the MRAs are doing exactly that, banning criticism and calling everyone who disagrees a feminazi/white knight/a mangina. That is one of the great ironies of the movement, allegedly fighting for men’s rights, but emasculating and insulting every man who expresses a different opinion. I suppose they’re fighting only for the rights of those men who agree 100% with their ideology.
Another handy-dandy thing they did is that they categorized accusations of misogyny as a “shaming tactic”. So basically, you can’t even call them out for their blatant and obvious misogyny because they will label it as a shaming tactic and claim you’re the one who is immature or childish. Fucking hell.
As for the false rape accusations, is it really rampant in the USA or the MRAs are exaggerating it? I’ll do some research myself, but I would appreciate if someone provided me with reliable and unbiased information.
As for the occurrence of false rape accusations, it’s difficult to calculate. I recall the estimates varying from around 2 or 3% (which is about the same for any other crime) up to about 8% but the higher estimates had a few problems.
For example, they would call any accusation that was later retracted as “false”, even if the woman was just pressured to drop the charges and say she lied.
There is also the fact that such a low percentage of rapes actually get reported, which would inflate numbers.
Sorry no links.
Good lord, she’s not serious, is she?
“a solid, well read site”? Really? And “You can come in here and make objections when you have been here forever like I have! And no, I’m not just saying this because you’re not agreeing with me!”
Yes she is.I can’t even handle Shrek’s comments. What a gross individual. Trolling or no.
I will never forgive my rapist. Ever. He made the concious decision to hurt me, he took years of my childhood away from me, and I still suffer every day because of what he did. Fuck him. He’s getting what he deserves in prison, and the world’s better off without him participating in society at large.
Rape isn’t just a fucking “injury”, it’s a fucking attack on your body and your mind. It’s very psychological. There’s no “moving on with their lives”, it’s always going to be there. It’s been eleven years for me now, and I’m still not “over it”, and I never will be. What happened to me is going to color my interactions with men for the rest of my fucking life.
Forgiveness is not an option. It’s not going to “heal” me, it’s only going to allow him to feel like what he did wasn’t that big of a deal. Fuck you Shrek.
______________________________________________________________________
Because when David bans someone, apparently he is the government stomping all over their FREEZE PEACH, but when someone says “Hey, this is kinda fucked up” to them, in a very polite way, suddenly it’s totally okay for them to ban someone for “derailing”.
MRAs only listen to the other side when it’s nodding along and agreeing with them. So, never.
And the only “common ground” they want is one where they get to have the high ground.
And yet, we’ll still have some MRA scampering in here to shriek “CONTEXT!” about it all. Because somehow, more of this will make it all make sense and sound reasonable?
You might try this BloombergView article.
TL;DR: We don’t actually know, because there’s so many people who don’t come forward, or there’s people who never get to trial to find out if it was “fake” or not, or how many people lie about lying about being raped for whatever reason.
There’s too many variables.
Though, from what I’ve seen: It’s really not that rampant, and I’d rather take every rape accusation as being truthful until proven otherwise. This isn’t “guilty until proven innocent”, mind, but rather “I’d like to look into what this person is saying and make sure it’s true, rather than just assume they’re lying because of some bullshit Rape Culture nonsense”.
When I was raped it was vaginal then anal. Do I still have to forgive him?
Seriously, I hope this guy gets repeated urinary infections forever.
Yes, you heard right.
AVFM commenter Shrek6 basically told women marital rape survivors to “shake it off” and “it’s not that bad” while then trying to find out who has it worse: men raped by women, women raped by men, or men raped by men …
… like rape is the default that’s just gonna happen so you gotta ration out your concern for who’s got it worse …
… instead of, oh, I don’t know … working towards a world without rape … period.
Praise his microscopic, shriveled heart.
nthing that the AVfMers don’t seem to understand the concept of derailing at all.
The only thing that really surprised me about the original pro-rape article and the subsequent pro-rape behaviour of the folks at AVFM is that they are apparently now opposed to masturbation? They seem to think that it’s a bad thing that men are forced to do out of desperation, now? Weird.
Nope.
And I’m not about to forgive the guy who stuck his dick in my mouth unbidden, either.
Wow. Just. . . Do they behave this horribly to other people when interacting in meatspace? Somehow, I doubt it. I am trying to, at any rate.
@Paradoxical Intention
That article seems pretty reasonable. I read this one recently. http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2013/08/23/i-am-a-false-rape-allegation-statistic/
So basically this case counted as a false rape allegation when really it wasn’t. And on the other hand, innocent people end up in prison because of actual false rape allegations. It’s a mess overall, but it seems to me that some MRAs are pushing the narrative that all women are evil lying bitches just waiting for the opportunity to ruin a man’s life. The other day I read a comment by a radical MRA from my country who is a total misogynist by the way and who claimed that 90% of all rape allegations are false. Fucking idiot.
When a couple gets married and agrees to have a monogamous relationship, there is an obligation on both parties to fulfill each other’s sexual needs. If one party is withholding intimacy that the other needs, that is a serious relationship problem.
To entertain the thought, even for a fraction of a second, that forcing or coercing your partner into sex is a solution to that problem is vile and it’s nonsense.
These people couldn’t give two shits about people in real marriages that face sexual issues. This isn’t about fixing relationship dynamics, it’s about defending the power they want to have over women and insisting that they have the right to abuse that power.
I could really get behind a movement that helps marriages by improving relationship dynamics and opening up a dialog to find real solutions. Oh hey, there already is one, it’s called feminism!
@Hypatia,
I get why it happened too. She fit the profile of a false allegation. Mental disorders, claims of excessive violence, and involvement of a stranger. (The only other thing police are told to watch out for is blaming it on minority perpetrators)
The fact that those factors all happened to be true didn’t stop their profiler from making assumptions.
That’s shitty. That’s really shitty.
@WWTH “Pointing out again that the article in question said both the husband and wife have a duty to provide sex. AVFM is saying it’s okay to rape your husband. A position that is apparently okay if you really hate women.”
For that they’d have to believe men really can be raped by women, and I think that at least on some level they don’t.
They say they do, but I get the feeling that’s more about trying to come up with some sort of gotcha or to excuse rape in general, not because they recognise rape as a bad thing.
I imagine it’d be hard to believe you could be raped by a woman when you buy into ideas like “real rape is always forcefull”, “men are stronger than women”, “men are always up for sex cause evopsych”, “men want sex, women want money”, etc.
This seems to be all about ignoring victims (including male victims who they really don’t care about either) in order to protect men’s marital rape license. They fail so hard at being human rights activists.
MRA = Misogynist Rape Advocates. As if there was any doubt about it.
@Bina
As many internet hugs as you want. I’m sorry you experienced such a jerk.
According to this expert in WTFology, I should probably forgive my rapist because I’m feeeemale and probably somehow designed to withstand anal rape. Anal rape is only bad when it happens to teh menz. I wonder if he’d even class oral stuff as rape as long as it happens to a woman.
I’m proud to be raising sons who understand consent.
Spindrift,
As near as I can tell they claim to be concerned about male rape victims but it’s only as a cudgel to use against feminists because they think we only believe that women can be raped. Or because they want to derail (actually derail!) and change the subject by saying what about the menz?
@WWTH
Or they want to play the “women are just as bad if not worse” card by stating figures, whether true or not, that women rape as many boys/men as men rape women/girls.
Ugh… I think it’s time for kittens with bottles.
http://nardio.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Baby-Kittens-drinking-milk.png
http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/3819519323_3388796137_b.jpg
http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/kitten-milk-bottle.jpg
http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1383858143_052181550f_o1.jpg
And a snuggle for good measure.
I saw episode 1 of “Black Mirror,” a British sci-fi anthology show, positing that the British Prime Minister is presented with ransom demands from the kidnapper of a popular Diana/Kate Middleton-type princess. He has to have sex with a pig on live TV, or the princess will die. Due to public opinion, he has to do it, and of course every single person is watching TV; even if they’re not, that image is in everyone’s head.
So I guess Shrek6 would find that perfectly OK. After all, the PM doesn’t suffer physical injury (neither does the pig). All he’d need is “proper care” and “positive reinforcement.” Get over it!
“Rape without assault.” Seriously? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!
So, if a gun is pointed at you and you decide not to risk your life by resisting, and your rapist just forces his penis into your vagina*, that’s not assault? Fucking hell, that Shrek6 is a giant, gaping asshole.
*Skrek6, “knowing the anatomical structures and what they look like on the inside,” is well-acquainted with how vaginas actually work: They’re always primed and ready for painless penetration, so unless the rape is “brutal”, the vagina is subject to neither pain nor damage, and the only suffering a woman experiences from this not-assault are “psych and emotional”.
Thank you, Sarity; those kittens helped tremendously. >^”^<