When I saw the headline on Return of Kings, PUA scuzzball Roosh V’s garbage site, I braced for the worst.
Men Benefit From Acting Potentially Violent And Explosive Around Women
Because the not-so-secret truth about domestic abuse is that abusive men do benefit in various ways from being abusive, just as bullies benefit from stealing other kids’ lunch money.
Happily, in this instance at least, Return of Kings refrains from explicitly endorsing domestic abuse.
It turns out that this post. by regular RoK contributor David Garrett, is mostly about running into people on sidewalks.
On purpose. To show what a total alpha badass you are. Or at least what a total alpha badass you are pretending to be.
As Garrett sees it, women go weak in the knees around “bad boys” because they think these “bad boys would be willing to use or have used physical force in expressing their badness.”
Trouble is, dudes who go around punching people tend to get punched back. So the real trick, Garret writes, is
to be seen as potentially violent and explosive, without the regular drawbacks of spending time in prison, getting badly beaten up by five other guys, or some other event you don’t particularly want to experience.Â
The key word is “potentially.” And in case you missed his point, Garrett repeats it, with the word “potentially” in bold:
There’s a distinction here, as you can see, between being violent and acting potentially violent around women and others.
So how do you convince the Hot Babes you’re potentially a big tough guy … without ever having to get into an actual fight to prove it?
Well, here’s where the whole “running into people on sidewalks” thing comes in.
If you want to be seen as a big tough guy who never apologizes for taking up space in the world, what better way to show this (in a reasonably safe way) than by running into people on sidewalks? Or at least by running into people you’re pretty sure won’t punch you for it.
When you walk in large cities, you might notice the propensity of people, especially young women, not to move around you when you’re walking towards one another. Sometimes they will deliberately try and cut you off, expecting you’ll concede space. Don’t. Aside from those with infirmities, the elderly or parents with young children, plough through.
Last month, one middle-aged woman …Â refused to make way … Oh well, my bag ran into her. And it hurt. Too bad for her.
TOTAL ALPHA MOVE.
Oh, and for maximum benefit, do this in front of the Hot Babes you’re trying to impress. I mean, duh.
When you’re with your girl, a female target or just female friends, try things like this out. There’s a time and place for etiquette and politeness but at least 90% of the time, barring those with mobility issues, it isn’t on the streets you walk.
You can also try getting mad at people who blow cigarette smoke in your general direction.
I also (calmly) confront those who blow tobacco smoke in my face accidentally, half- or full-daring them to try again (depending on whether I’m being sarcastic or plain condescending).
After explicitly telling his readers to do all this in front of “your girl, a female target or just female friends” in order to convince them in a low-risk way how potentially violent they are, Garrett assures us that he totally acts this way even when there are no HB8’s in sight.Â
If an alpha male falls in the forest, and there’s no HB8 to hear him, does he make a sound? Garrett says YES and pumps his fists.
Rather than being a staged action, it’s who I am, someone utterly repulsed by cigarette fumes. I would do the same thing alone or with a girl. … The context is more like becoming who you really are, rather than what society has demanded you be: the timid, ball-less gentleman.
Oh, but don’t do any of this with, you know, black dudes, or anyone else who might actually punch you.
I am going to suggest to you that making retaliatory or wisecracking comments to abrasive males in the projects of Detroit or the Bronx, or the non-tourist suburbs of Moscow, is maybe not worth the effort (or the dental bill).
I mean, BECOME WHO YOU ARE but only with people smaller than you, and who probably don’t have friends in the vicinity who might punch you. Seriously, you may want to stick to middle-aged women you can “accidentally” hit with your bag.
Because nothing turns the hot babes on more than a dude who “accidentally” hits middle-aged women with his bag.
Falconer,
In ASOIAF and Game of Thrones, the Arryn sigil is a falcon and their words are “high as honor.” So there’s a reference he can use next time.
Autosoma:
I don’t have a reply to what you said, but I did want to tell you that I really enjoyed your original comment on this thread. It’s nice to know that people can change, and acknowledge wrongness. I am wrong all the time, I am continually learning. I also say that as a woman that was married to a very violent man, in my first marriage, that lasted less than year, 20 years ago. He went on to marry someone else, and he had kids with her, in addition to the kids she already had. I hope he has changed, for the sake of her and the kids, and people like you give me hope.
Alan Robertshaw :
YES! I laughed when he told me all of that, I don’t think I have ever been on a date where a guy was trying to sell himself to me. It’s not a business transaction, for God’s sake.
As a side note, I picked up “against our will” by Susan brownmiller, and am wondering if you have read it? Someone, somewhere mentioned it, so I got it. Just curious.
@raysa, sad thing is violence is everywhere in society, how often do we see two doctors punching each other out in a TV hospital drama and it’s OK, boys letting off steam.
I grew up with violence and with survivors of violence and it took me a long, long time to realise that the perpetration of violence is endemic, in culture and society, aggrandised by media and acted upon by people who don’t understand the effects.
These redpillers don’t seem to understand the pain that violence causes, even the ones who claim to have served in the West’s current crop of military adventures.
It’s just second hand experiences with no real understanding
@ raysa
Must confess hadn’t even heard of it. Just done a quick Google. Seems worth a read if only from a historical perspective. Looks like there’s some criticism of her thesis but it was obviously an influential book.
Funny, I’ve been trying to work on not letting people push ME out of my space when I’m walking, as a woman who used to timidly jump out of everyone’s way, no matter how senseless that made my own path. Walking in a straight line on the “correct” side of the pavement, taking up only as much space as I need, I still get loads of people who want to play chicken. It’s interesting to observe how long it takes before they accept that I’m not moving for them. Of course, unlike Mr. Garrett, I’ve mostly noticed wide-striding MEN getting right up into my face before they see I have nowhere else to go and am not about to hop onto the street in deference to them. So one or both of us has confirmation bias or maybe there’s a big secret sidewalk gender war going on.
And, with respect, I actually consider smoking an inherently inconsiderate thing to do because it makes me physically ill each and every time (and there are many times) I encounter cigarette smoke. I happen to know I’m not the only one, and I don’t even have asthma or anything. I would never moralize about someone else’s private choices and/or addictions, but it’s no longer private when it involves my air, my burning eyes and skin, my irritated lungs, and my nausea. Even quite a distance from the smoke cloud I can smell it, and sometimes hours later I can smell it lingering in my hair, clothes, stuff, and in extreme cases in my skin (including the skin right under my nose). The slightest whiff makes me – literally, not figuratively – sick to my stomach. I can’t breathe, eat, talk, or concentrate normally around cigarettes. So I reserve the right to call smoking wrong, even as I maintain love and respect for the smokers I know.
But this guy can be right about two things and still be a terrible PUA asshat.
@amused
I’m attracted to alpha males — not “alpha” males — but actually highly masculine dudes and I’m none of those categories. I’m a pretty physically dominant person (25+ yrs of martial arts, MMA and high level Kali stick fighter, purple belt BJJ) and I can’t relax much with a guy when I can snap him in half.
I personally need a partner who is my superior in some way, physically or intellectually, for which I can neither offer an explanation nor apologize for.
But I don’t like macho–not in the least. The difference to me is this:
A masculine guy knows he is a man.
A macho dude is terrified he’s NOT
MRA/PUA are all macho children filled with terror
David Garrett sounds an awful lot like like this guy. Just sayin’.
Everyone always says talk to them and listen to what they say. That sure hasn’t worked for me so far, but, and this is important, my conscience is clear and, even if I haven’t found a partner the women who’ve turned me at least will have something to do with me (although no one should befriend women hoping to get set-up with her single friends, that doesn’t happen anymore, you get recommendations on dating websites not fix-ups for the under 50 generations).
Nothing says overcompensating alpha tool like confidently striding down the street while not making reasonable attempts to avoid walking into non-threatening looking people.
It’d be interesting to see how this would work out for ‘Garret’, not that it’s likely he’d actually try it; somehow I doubt women and the ‘betas’ are just going to dutifully make way for His Majesty.
@renya
Indeed! Glad it worked out for your husband.
I can hypothesize, as loads of guys experience these exact same pressures. So here’s a teal deer of several trains of thought I’ve encountered (and in some cases exhibited myself before I knew any better)
1. Male Entitlement.
A lot of these guys believe that society ‘owes’ them a hot chick. We’re taught (from movies/tv/culture/shittyPUAguides) that if we act a certain way, that women will be all over us (see every movie where the guy improves his life and is ‘rewarded’ with attraction from a woman). I.E. The idea that a woman’s attraction has everything to do with how we, as men, present ourselves. It took me a while to recognize this and unpack it to realize how fucking sexist this really is. A lot of MRAs never question this assumption. They are convinced that the way they see the world must be how the world is. Many are incapable of ever being wrong in their head (see: many male-dominated internet culture spaces, it’s often a clusterfuck of condescension, elitism and egoism)
Conversely, when I recognized my own entitlement (MRAs deny that this is entitlement, they call it ‘the natural order’ or some bullshit). My reaction was “what the hell, movies, you’re all full of shit”. Also, when I grew up, I played Final Fantasy X, a story of young love where the two mutually attract each other. This actually had a very strong influence on how I viewed relationships because it flew in the face of every rom-com movie I had seen, and it helped me understand that attraction has to be mutual. Tidus didn’t have to ‘become a true man’ for Yuna to fall for her, nor was he not ‘rewarded’ with her affection. The two just… started as friends and got progressively closer.
2. Seeing rejection as a personal failure.
Related to #1 (these are all kinda-sorta related as they all have the same roots in toxic masculinity), the idea that when a woman rejects a man. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t like him, it means that the man “failed” to attract her. This is INCREDIBLY toxic, yet you see it everywhere. Again, this completely takes the agency away from the woman, implying her feelings don’t matter. It also makes the man feel like shit because suddenly every rejection is taken personally and, of course, when his ‘manilness’ is determined by how many women he can attract, rejection literally chips away at his self-image.
Typically there are two (equally toxic) outcomes for the guy. Either he wallows in self-pity and becomes depressed over a lack of attraction (see: r9k and the ‘beta uprising’) or he lash out and decide that it’s the woman’s fault for not liking him (see: Isla Vista shooting and the terrifying tumblr blog “When women say no” among countless examples).
3. Fear of emasculation (aka #masculinitysofragile)
It’s extremely hard for a lot of men to open up about these problems, to express their emotions, to accept rejection because toxic masculinity tells them that if they EVER do these things, they status as a man could be revoked. That’s the general metaphor. In reality, when men (or even boys, it’s scary how young the pressures go) act in ways considered feminine, their peers will immediately label them as “gay”. Hence why so many guys feel the need to say “no homo” when expressing any sort of vulnerability or emotion.
To make matters even worse, toxic masculinity says that if you wanna ‘prove you’re a man’ you need to either A) Have lots of sex or B) be violent/aggressive
I did a lot of dangerous sports when I was young because I was insecure of my masculinity (I have a slim shape, I’m naturally an emotional person). I felt that, by doing these sports, I was proving my manhood even if I didn’t really enjoy most of these sports to begin with. I was lucky to have picked a hobby where the only risk was myself.
4. Assholes are celebrated as “manly men”… by other men.
There are people who look up to Walter White as a symbol of masculinity. How he gets people to fear him, how he intimidates others, how he literally abuses and manipulates those around him are cheered on. “He doesn’t take shit from others, like a true alpha should!” They don’t see him as a diabolical anti-hero, they see him as an inspiration.
I actually have a theory about this whole “women are attracted to assholes myth” now that I think about it. It’s all circular reasoning:
-Manliness = Using violent threats, fearing and intimidating others to establish dominance
-Manly men must be the most attractive to women (assumption made by guys)
-Therefore clearly women must find those traits attractive (erronious conclusion)
-Therefore women find assholes attractive
I get it now. The whole reason this myth spread is because it’s basically a bunch of guys telling each other what women find attractive (hey it’s not like they could, y’know, ask women or anything, that would be treating women as people!). It’s propagated by guys among themselves, so confirmation bias takes care of the rest.
There’s, of course, the whole aspect where a pushy asshole is going to at least be trying more than a shy wall-flower who’s terrified about the prospect of ever talking to a woman. So naturally, the asshole is bound to have more success.
And then there’s the fact that sexist men don’t value women as people so their oponions mean as much as dirt to them. THe idea (tooted by red pillers) of “you don’t ask fish what makes good bait” pretty much embodies this.
5. Manly men use manly logic; emotions are for women!*
This topic is a clusterfuck of sexism in and of itself, but there are several assumptions at play:
-The (false) idea that logic and emotion are somehow mutually exclusive
-The (false) idea that men are inherently logical.
-The (false) idea that women are inherently emotional.
This is why “red pill theory” or “pua game” is framed as some sort of science, with it’s field reports and it’s endless stupid terminology like “female target”, or why they try to make flow-charts that dictate social interactions.
Sometimes I do enjoy looking at “purple pill” subreddit (a space for debate between Red pill assholes and the rest of the world) to see countless women say “holy shit no, I’m not attracted to that at all, that actually sounds revolting” and see the red pill idiots scramble for a rationalization to explain why this woman flies in the face of their ‘teachings’.
6. The glorious female hivemind (all hail Katie)
Some guys literally think all women act a certain way. I did as well for a while. It’s sexism, plain and simple. Women in media are represented as “the female character” as opposed to “a character who’s gender just oh-so-happens to be female” is one of many causes. Many men get their ideas of how women act from these stereotypes, or from other men. Many of these men have very poor social skills so they don’t really understand that people are individuals who are each shaped in different ways and like/dislike different stuff. They believe that all women must be X or all men must be Y.
I remember reading an article by my favorite cracked.com columnist, Christina H (aka Mortal Wombat) where she addressed exactly this in an article called (paraphrased) 5 wrong questions guys typically ask about dating.
One of them was basically “guys typically ask ‘how do I attract women?’ instead of asking ‘how do I attract this specific woman'”. I remember reading it at the time and it completely blew my mind. I had made that mistake; I thought there was a single list of specific traits that women, as a group, would find attractive. Reading her article helped me realize that women are individuals.
*This isn’t entirely accurate, they usually refer to women a “girls”, but I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable to referring to adult women as “girls” (a habit I’ve learned from this blog) so I don’t even want to use the term – even sarcastically.
Phew. Sorry for the massive massive post, I just find this topic fascinating and I hope this answers your question to some degree.
I don’t know if anyone needs brain bleach because this is hardly the worst hate ever written about on this site, but I know nobody is going to turn down snow leopard cubs.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/apix/snowleopards.jpg
Wow, of all the things to mess up, I screwed up your username >.<. My apologies, raysa.
WWTH: Oh, lordy, those two are beautiful. Seriously, my favorite animal. They even beat out red pandas (by a smidge).
Saw one at the Kansas City zoo–it was a bit chilly that day, so while all the other animals were hunkered down shivering, he was sitting out in his cage, happy as a lark, giving these little barking noises at any passerby.
Maybe this is why they get so mad when women defy their theories and reject, leave or otherwise fail to put up with asshole behavior from. To use your Walter White example, this perhaps partially explains why the same types of guys seethe and rage at Skylar, constantly calling her a cunt and a bitch. I see reasonable behavior. Who would be happy that their spouse is getting involved with meth dealing? They are aghast at her behavior. They say their problem is she got in Walter’s way or didn’t appreciate the money he brought in. But maybe they’re really upset that she loved him more when he was a beta schoolteacher than when he was an alpha crime lord. That goes against the narrative. She’s not womaning properly.
A real life example would be the way men entrenched in toxic masculinity talked about War Machine attempting to murder Kristy Mack. War Machine is the ultimate alpha. He’s big, he’s volatile and violent, he even wears a shirt advertising how alpha he is. So how dare Kristy Mack want to leave him? It’s all too easy for them to talk about a whore she is because she’s just the sort of woman being an alpha male should attract. Her leaving him disrupts that narrative and therefore she must be punished.
It could also explain why they’re so determined to believe that the prevalence of domestic abuse proves that women do like abusive assholes. They steadfastly ignore that abusers are manipulative and in the beginning of the relationship they present themselves as passionate, romantic and loving. It’s not like they walk up to women and say “I beat women. Can I have your number?”
Not on topic but “you don’t ask fish what makes good bait”? Maybe not bait, and I can’t say that asking has ever gotten me anywhere (there’s a bit of a language barrier!), but damnit you do fucking listen to what the fish want for dinner! Why? Because they’re all different!
Except catfish, they’ll eat anything.
“But remember everyone women are the heartless and entitled ones.”
Nothing says “I’m an entitled and cowardly (insert any insult that isn’t offensive to minorities here) than ramming into elderly women but avoid doing the same to anyone else you know who will hit you back.
The myth of women going for a-holes is becuase we teach girls that if a guy treats them bad like harassing them then it means they like them and should stop complaining and just take the “compliments” then when girls have developed such low self esteem they will go for a-holes and then we get onto them for that. No matter what we do we are wrong.
And also a-holes just want to make up the myth that women likes a-holes becuase it excuses their actions.
Thomas
I can’t even with your stupidity. That woman shot at two people when she could have just taken pictures of their car and called the police. That has nothing to do with feminism and white people (mostly white men) are already getting away with gun violence. Still rambling about random stuff I see and “Planned Parenthood Drones”? So helping women and girls who are pregnant and at risk of dying and other things is something to make fun of? Go step on a Lego, you heartless pr*ck.
cretaceouskitteh78
Please don’t use the “B” word or “insane” here. Those are misognist and ableist slurs.
Funny about the “women go for a-holes” when there are tv shows like Bridezillas and men out there who are in abusive relationships. They really don’t care about men at all and it’s always a woman’s fault.
This thread needs more snow leopard kitties
http://cdn4.sci-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image_155_1.jpg
http://www.zoo.org/view.image?Id=4676
Moocow:
I find your post very informative! And please, no worries about my user name being incorrect. Autocorrect is not my friend, either. 🙂
About male entitlement. This is the one that I see the most of in daily life. No one wants to give time/attention to anyone else, based only on the receiving party thinking they are owed it. That’s as much fun as it sounds. And, video games can teach something very worthwhile.
Rejection is not the only thing that men see as a personal failure. I’m poor, and my husband largely blames himself. Unemployment in our county is always around 20%, 10 people for every 7 jobs, etc, but he is a manly failure because he doesn’t make a lot of money. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way, it doesn’t make a person a failure.
Fear of being emasculated is a crock. These guys worry so much about what other guys think, like this random macho group can somehow make a person NOT a man. I don’t think a person can ever be happy if they are so invested in what other people think. That, in and of itself, is a weakness. Number 4 bleeds into that, for me.
Men are logical, women are emotional. Big blanket statement. I appear to lack compassion in my daily life. APPEAR being the key word, I am actually very compassionate, I just can’t express it. And yet, I have boobs, long hair and a vagina. That doesn’t make me less woman, or something stupid like that. Any more than emotions make one less manly.
The hive mind. So, basically, they learn from each other that we are all the same. And if we aren’t, we are lying about our true nature. GAAH!
Now that we have been discussing this, it appears that the biggest problem is the group. It all seems to come back to what they think of each other. Of course, the way to be successful with women is to listen to advice from a group of men that hate them.
I enjoyed your post. So much so, that I created my own teal deer!
WWTH:
The actress that played Skylar wrote a letter about what you were saying…
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?referer=&_r=0
David Garret seems to not understand how human interaction works. I mean even moreso than your average MRA. Bowling people over on the sidewalk does not make you look tough and assertive, it makes you look like a huge prick. Hell it makes you actually a huge prick. And you know, some people are just like that and I can understand an asshole not caring that he just laid out a jogger with his big beefy man-shoulders.
But think that doing so will turn women on, or make witnesses of any gender think anything other than “wow what an asshole” is just baffling to me.
The whole shoving thing is why I used to be so delighted when I was a wee punk to discover that jackets with spikes on them stop guys shoving you randomly.
At least, they would only shove you once.
It was utter bliss.
raysa,
I remember reading that back when it was published. It was good to revisit it. This is the quote that stuck out the most
Great life? It just goes to show how little empathy some men have for women. Skylar is afraid that Walter’s involvement with crime will get her children hurt. As the series progresses, Walter becomes more scary and volatile. He acts abusively to her many times and at one point even rapes her, but that’s okay because in their minds rape and domestic violence are an acceptable punishment for cheating. See also the tendency of some ASOIAF fans to say they think Robert was justified in raping Cersei because of her incestuous relationship with Jaime and because Rhaegar Targaryen was the one she really wanted to marry. Skylar’s pain either doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist to them because Walter is bringing in money and money is what matters the most.
Funny how misogynists complain that women only see men as walking ATMs but they become enraged when a woman doesn’t want to be with a man who is rich or buys her things/pays for fancy dinners because he doesn’t treat her kindly or she isn’t attracted to him.
Vaguely relevant, mildly interesting article. It’s an interview with the writer of “The Game”, 10 years on.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/neil-strauss-the-game/409789/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter
@Moocow
The idea that men “Must have a girlfriend”(which I likewise spent A LONG time unlearning) from my view is pushed not just from RomCom movies and the like but also by alot of society seeming to say the only meaningful deep relationship for a Man is a purely romantic one between a man and a women. The idea of platonic relationships with women are completely alien to alot of Men who have been taught to see women as goals to be won and not actual human beings.
This even stems into platonic relationships between males. Truly deep loving relationships between males are very rare(which you can put on how men are taught to see showing affection especially to other men is a weakness). I had a buddy who in gradeschool was constantly called a “f**” cause he had a very close friendship between him and a fellow student.
I play roller derby, and my first thought was Yay, it will be really fun to knock over PUAs, MRAs, and MGTOWs when they try this on me. But seriously, women not getting out of your way is a that big of a threat to your masculinity!? Ugh.