Is MRA thinking simply beyond satire?
Cartoonist Rebecca Cohen (@GynoStar on Twitter) recently decided to offer a satirical take on the false rape accusation paranoia that’s endemic in Men’s Rights circles, producing the list of tips below, designed to mirror some of the terrible advice that’s regularly given to women on how to avoid rape.
It turns out that Men’s Rights Redditors think she has some good ideas.
In a recent thread on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars considered her list and decided to add some suggestions of their own. Only their suggestions weren’t meant as jokes.
Ted8367 offered six “Real tips to keep yourself safe” inspired directly by Cohen’s originals.
- Always Be Recording. That’s your real buddy.
- Try not to go out alone at any time. The more potential witnesses there are around, the better.
- If you must walk alone at night … stay on well-lighted paths where your camera will work better.
- If you meet a woman who has been drinking, leave immediately.
- I couldn’t think of one for this. How do false rape accusers dress anyway?
- Maybe just avoid college campuses altogether for social events. Go into town instead.
(Emphasis mine, because, woah.)
Elebrin had six suggestions of his own, “essentially for college students.”
- live off campus
- don’t date girls at your school
- don’t pick up women at bars or places that are serving alcohol
- keep your head down so the administration doesn’t have a reason to be watching you
- When you do go out, dress in a way that isn’t intimidating. The black hoodie pulled tightly around your face or the muscle shirt that shows off your gorilla arms is probably a bad plan. Your best bet is to learn to dress “professionally” and do that the majority of the time.
- know who the potentially dangerous people and groups are and stay away from them. If they are going to be protesting an event, don’t go to that event. Don’t participate in protests yourself – keep your honest opinions about controversial subjects behind a wall of anonymity.
If you see this woman, RUN LIKE THE WIND, obviously.
Other MRAs piped up with suggestions of their own.
don’t talk to women on campus unless its about school/work/emergency.
videorecord all your activities, even sex acts, using bodycam
I’m sure your dates will be thrilled when you strip down to nothing but socks and a plainly visible bodycam.
[N]ever touch an American woman under circumstances, and try not to be alone with them, always have witnesses.
Don’t fuck women in college. Ever.
Don’t fuck SJWs, ever.
avoid feminist women, outside of the classroom or the workplace, just stay away from them.
avoid women like the plague and never talk to them except for school and work related issues and topics.
I was going to make a comment about the incredible paranoia going on here, but, you know, it probably would be a good thing if all of the world’s MRAs actually did decide to avoid women altogether and perhaps all went and lived on an island together.
In another thread on “false accusations” a couple of weeks ago, other Men’s Rights Redditors offered some strikingly similar advice:
If you’re going to be intimate with a woman, make sure you have some sort of video evidence of the act.
Stay away from college girls. You can record and CYA all year long, but many times evidence won’t save you. The emotional maturity of women is plummeting. Obviously they’re not worth having anything to do with until they’re older. Probaby MUCH older, if at all.
Keep a camera running in your room if you have a female guest. Do not (obviously) share such recordings with any person other than for giving evidence. Do keep it stored safely in case of a later accusation.
Keep an alibi app running on your smartphone (there are many, but Alibi is one I know of on Android that’s good) and switch it on when in an intimate situation with a woman. This will give you extra audio evidence.
If a woman shows even the most minimal sign of reservation with you during intimacy, walk away immediately.
Still others had more original advice:
If you break up with a girl try to make it look that she broke up with you and not the other way around
Er, ok.
Turn gay. Worked pretty well for me.
Well, at least one of these guys is thinking outside the box.
If a woman shows even the most minimal sign of reservation with you during intimacy, walk away immediately.
—
Isn’t this what we’ve been saying all along? CONSENT, it’s not that hard of a concept!
Reminds me of the Canadian MP who had similar helpful advice after sexual harassment of female MP’s was discovered in Parliament:
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/politics/peter-goldring-retracts-statement-advising-mps-to-wear-body-cameras-1.2851472
Um… never mind that recording people during sexytimes (even fun and safe sexytimes) without their consent isn’t okay. And given how our intrepid posters feel about revenge porn (blame the victim! Don’t get recorded!) … my brain is exploding.
… I know I’m overthinking this. I *know!*
Also, the best part is 5. “How do false rape accusers dress anyway?” lol.
I was going to say the same thing. I mean seriously, if your response to “make sure your partner is willing to do something with you before you do it with them” is to swear off any interaction whatsoever, that’s a very very good thing.
I am morbidly curious about the age of the people who are recommending everyone stay clear of college campuses though… I need to know how skeeved out to feel.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/thumbs-up.gif
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/zgtu.gif
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/LOKI_approves.gif
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/seal-of-approval2.gif
I’m good with the idea of MRAs leaving women alone. Recording people you have sex with without consent is illegal (at least in New York and may vary depending on where you are).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellecitron/2014/05/15/nonconsensual-taping-of-sex-partners-is-a-crime/
Considering that women who have been drinking are frequently the target of rapists, I’m really, really okay with these rapey, creepy fucks avoiding places where women are drinking. As a bonus, it makes the bar/club/party better for everyone else because nobody wants to be around an MRA anyway.
This is actually great. Stay away from young women and keep staying away from women over 25 because we’ve hit the wall. Keep narrowing the acceptable pool of datable women until you have nobody left to pursue. Brilliant!
Congratulations. You finally learned consent! In the most backwards way possible, but hey. I’ll take it.
I’m okay with every tip here except for the filming sex without the consent of their partner one. I’m sure the video will end up on the internet and these same assholes will blame the woman.
I’ve noticed that the best way to avoid false rape accusations is not to be a creeper. Really, it’s that easy. And I say this as a guy who likes to spend time with his friends, male and female. I don’t even want to think about the thought processes (if any) of the guys who think that any and all women they spend time with would want to falsely accuse them of rape.
It is really sad that actually respecting consent is something they’re proposing as some sort of last resort they’re only doing because they’re backed into a corner by the evil wimminz though.
@wwth et al, don’t call it consent where they can see it, though, they’ll back off from it immediately because they find having consent a turn off.
I must protest, Mr. Futrelle! Reddit is, to quote a man whose work I follow and who is a devoted disciple of free speech, “the sewer” of the internet. The people and postings there are some of the lowest-hanging fruit ever grown from ignorance, misdirected anger and wanting to be like those Cool Chansies!
But that original list is solid gold, and it’s a shame its audience has such astoundingly thick skulls the message still bounces off.
anemone kind of ninja’d me about the whole “secretly record sex” and “revenge porn is the woman’s fault” paradox here. Wouldn’t surprise me if someone records an encounter without consent, she offends him in some way (maybe she asks him to wear a condom), he releases the video and they blame HER for, what, agreeing to sex in the first place?
Being posted somewhere known for terrible things doesn’t make a thing less terrible. It doesn’t make the people who say it less real. There are no Reddit fairies pulling horrible out of the ether. People say worse things when they can expect not to be socially censured for it, because they believe those worse things.
And if they don’t, they’re providing some fucking amazing camoflage for the ones who do. They don’t get a pass.
Although, I’d be amused if one of these guys actually DOES rape a woman and when she’s in court he brings up the video as “evidence” of his innocence. “See, your honour, she was too drunk to say no! That means yes, right?”
Oh, good. I’m glad we cleared that up. I’m just going to go ahead and only fuck people who see me as a whole person and treats me accordingly.
Okay, it’s gotten to the point where I WANT to encounter one of these weirdos in real life. I have to see for myself how a man who’s this terrified of women functions in everyday situations. How does he receive medical care? Most nurses, phlebotomists and techs of various sorts are women. How does he shop? Many if not the majority of retail employees are women. How does he walk down the street? He’s going to pass within touching distance of women.
It would be hilarious to see a man be afraid to get on an elevator with me because he was worried I’d claim he raped me. It would be disturbing to have a man deny me entrance to his hospital room because he was worried I’d accuse my own patient.
In some ways it’s not funny, because it’s a turnabout on the legitimate fear of being raped when in a vulnerable situation. But these guys’ complete inability to realize who’s legitimately vulnerable in most situations is just… I don’t get it. I guess confirmation bias accounts for their entire critical thinking.
The best way to avoid rape accusations is to not rape. I’m glad that men are finally afraid of the consequences.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Reddit. Where acting like a human being (un-consented-to recordings notwithstanding) is considered a “great tip for keeping yourself safe” from sinister women, instead of, you know, just something you should do at all times because we’re trying to live in a society over here.
Also, recording someone during sex without their consent isn’t *technically* rape, but it’s certainly in a similar spirit. Congratulations, you’re proving you didn’t do the thing by… proving you all but did the thing?
What is this guy, some kind of SJW???
Sounds like one of our previous trolls… the guy who was given a troll challenge because he couldn’t stop talking about himself, I think.
Why do I feel like I’m reading the verbal equivalent of a picture processed by Google’s DeepDream?
Well, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons, but if followed to the letter, this is still the best thing to come out of MRAs by a million miles.
If anyone is not familiar with Rebecca Cohen, she does the fabulous comic Gyno-Star. I quite like this arc where a guy uses his male gaze powers to make everything look like a bad action movie.
I do actually know men, who I once called friends, who actually behave in the ways you describe. They are pretty difficult to get along with and this comes from a bloke who has sat in boozers having a few pints with them.
I can genuinely tell you they are as bad as you belive, if not worse. I consider myself quite broad and open minded and they’ve pushed me to the limit if my tolerance and I’ve often had difficulties getting them to understand how they’ve crossed my boundaries and that they are in shakey ground.
Stories, oh how I could tell you stories, the nice guy ™ who couldn’t understand that sex trafficed girls aren’t prostitutes by choice. Mr. Sensitive who would crawl around under pub tables looking up girls skirts, who called the police on me because he was frightened that I was going to hit him because he did that to my wife and it was my fault. I could go on but…
They are as bad as you think