By David Futrelle
Pickup artist types tend to look on masturbation as a stumbling block in the way of true Red Pill greatness. If you’re not sexually frustrated pretty much all the time, you see, you’ll never have the “discipline” necessary to learn and try to use all the creepy sex-getting tactics taught in places like the Red Pill subreddit.
Naturally, Red Pillers get pretty inventive in coming up with reasons why masturbation is bad. But few have been quite so inventive as a devoted Red Pill Reddit no-Fapper called, ironically, faplordxd.
In a comment on the Red Pill subreddit today, he explains that
when you Fap to porn you’re essentially just cucking yourself because you’re jerking off to another guy fucking “your girl” so it makes you beta
Ingenious!
Happily. though I’m not sure faplordxd fully recognizes it, this logic can be extended to pretty much every situation in which you’re watching or reading about or hearing about someone doing something that you’re not doing.
If you’re watching the Superbowl, you’re Superbowl-Cucking yourself because YOU’RE NOT PLAYING IN THE SUPERBOWL.
When you’re reading about whoever invented the Post-it inventing the Post-it, you’re Post-it-Cucking yourself because YOU COULD BE INVENTING THE POST-IT!
When you notice your cat licking its own butt you are Cat-Butt-Cucking yourself because YOU COULD BE LICKING YOUR CAT’S BUTT!
Ok, that last example wasn’t such a good one.
But the point is simple: unless you want to be a cuck, you should either do EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME or maybe just staple your eyes and ears and mouth shut. That’s the ALPHA way.
I have to admit, I am interested in people’s accents — including US ones. If the person seems open and friendly, I will ask (I love it when I can find a Missourian with a hint of Wisconsin, say). But I have been interested in language and the way it is expressed since I was a very young minion. Maybe it’s because I speak TV accented English and can’t do other accents myself.
@axecalibur
True that. But you get what I’m saying.
@John
No harm done. You know I would always give you the benefit of the doubt, but being anemic and in pain right now I can completely understand nerves being on edge. TGIF. Time to enjoy some wine. 🙂
@runsinbackground
I’ve been reading this blog for 3 years, commenting for about 2, and have never seen anyone express this kind of sentiment, even taking into consideration you’re being hyperbolic. You clearly don’t want to understand where we’re coming from on this by how you’re tilting at this windmill.
Look, we know what causes it. A combination of toxic masculinity and patriarchal values in our society that have driven these individuals to extremes. There are additional issues, like consumer culture, confirmation bias, and ease of finding like-minded individuals who reinforce the toxicity. Feminism is trying to fix this by addressing the toxic masculinity and patriarchal values. We’re trying to fix it by making it so these men don’t have to always be the breadwinner, so they don’t always have to swallow their feelings, so they don’t have to be absent from parenting, so they can be equal partners and define relationships in a way that suits them as individuals rather than being forced into a specific role. We do a lot for men. And women, too, of course!
But this is not the place where we do that. We have a ton of other places where we work on that. This is where we unwind, support each other, trounce on trolls, and cry and laugh at the absurdity of this world together. If you want to work on fixing things, maybe try looking to Everyday Feminism?
@Mindi
If you could be so kind as to eschew the direct reply function on this site, I’d appreciate it. It’s been known to do some weird stuff to the comments. If possible, posting from the reply box at the bottom of the page is the best way to comment. Thanks 🙂
I do get what you’re saying, and you’re absolutely correct. You can’t placate or reason with bigots and oppressors. The correct course of action is to marginalize them as they’ve marginalized others. What’s that quote
Most men hate women to some, even minor, degree. It’s when they’re given a platform, a sympathetic ear, and/or a permissive culture that bad things happen. And I’m not prepared to give em any of those things…
For me, there’s that, and there is also the way that this focus treats Misogynist Pain as if it is some kind of unique suffering that can’t be understood without deep empathy and long discussion. This is just not true; the pain these guys are suffering – if any – is normal human pain that other people suffer just as acutely and with the same frequency. Any average human above the age of about 25 is fully equipped to understand Misogynist Pain, because with very few exceptions we’ve all been there at one time or another.
The fallacy is in assuming that because a misogynist is both A. a misogynist and B. suffering some kind of pain, it’s therefore reasonable to assume that B caused A in some way. But we can see that everyone at some point suffers pain in their life and misogyny does not result from that in most cases. Understanding misogynist pain doesn’t help to understand the misogyny, because the misogyny didn’t grow out of the pain. Misogynist pain is ordinary human pain. There’s nothing mysterious to it.
And, tbh? Nobody is saying that it’s not allowed for you (for any given value of “you”) to try to empathize with and understand misogynists. Just that it’s not reasonable to expect the victims of misogyny to help you with that. Maybe don’t try to drag people into thinking about misogyny with you, because those people already have to think about it a lot and might want a break every now and then.
Today I saw a mannequin that was doing a Hitler Salute at Walmart.
There’s also another issue I meant to bring up but forgot in my previous post: knowing the reason why they do these things doesn’t lessen the impact it has on us, its victims.
@Fran
I hate hate hate that Lord Dampnut has made people so bold in their displays of hatred lately. 🙁
I’ll illustrate and expand on the point in my last post and apologies if it’s bloviating.
It’s very common for people to express resent towards and dislike of wealthy business executives. Most people would probably say no if polled on how whether or not they like the CEOs of big corporations. Even a lot of conservatives understand that they screw us over. They just have ridiculous notions about how to fix it.
Yet, we don’t see massive internet hate movements against them. Wealthy businessmen are not besieged by trolls for daring to express an opinion in public. They don’t have to go into hiding because the wrath of the chans and Reddit have fallen on them. There aren’t theories about how they secretly enjoy rape or abuse.
Why don’t troubled young men who are hurting oh so much form anti-CEO hate movements? Because they aren’t easy targets. It’s not just that they can pay for bodyguards and the top lawyers and can afford to live in exclusive gated communities. Our capitalist culture completely supports them and by extension their right to live unmolested. Their humanity is never questioned. You hurt a wealthy businessman, few will support you they way they support you if you rape a drunk woman, shoot a black teenager armed with nothing but Skittles or beat a trans woman for expressing her gender in your presence.
If joining hate movements was all about working out psychological anguish in unhealthy ways, I’d expect their to be as much hate for say, cross country skiers or people with outie belly buttons as there is against marginalized demographics.
People who join the manosphere are assholes who target women because it’s safe to target us. You don’t have to resist your desire to harm people if you pick a socially acceptable target. If our culture didn’t tolerate bigotry, assholes would still exist, but they’d have to keep themselves in check. I’m not interested in turning shitty people into good people because I think it’s futile. I’m interested in reigning shitty people in so that they cause less harm.
@Francesca Torpedo, Femoid Special Forces Major
The Doll behind the nazi mannequin looks so tired of this shit.
@Kupo
Right? As soon as I saw it I decided to take a picture and show you guys.
I’m gonna start doing a small journalism project. I will document shit like this and post it on places like here, maybe get a standalone site for it. Just documenting the rise of fascist bullshit in the USA since 2016.
It offends me on a personal level, too, because art is supposed to be pure and a force of good, yet these fuckwads used a posing mannequin for their fascist bulllshit. I bet the dipshit that touched it probably never actually drew anything other than a swastika in his life.
I suppose that’s too much to ask, however. Fascist art has been a thing for a while – Leni Riefenstahl’s stupid movie about Nazi Germany comes to mind, here.
I was buying crayons and a sketchpad, which is how I came upon this.
@Everyone, re: Fate Stay/Night
The thing you have to remember about FSN is that it asks the important questions, like “What if King Arthur and Emperor Nero were actually cute blonde girls?” and that’s one of the reasons I like it a lot.
I eagerly await Sir Alan’s input about this. I don’t think he knows that the Japanese portrayed Arthur, King of the Britons as a cute blonde girl.
@Oogly-senpai
The thing that makes it even better is the doll is a small white girl. She is not amused by all this white nationalist bullshit, which neatly encapsulates how isolated these fashy people are from the real world. It really is splendid.
It seems a lot of the solutions to MRAs existing assume that MRAs will continue to exist. Might it not be productive to eliminate this assumption, both in theory and in practice?
I love that about it, too! Plus Saber wore armor that covered her skin! Look at this, everyone!
http://eskipaper.com/images/saber-fate-stay-night-1.jpg
Edit: @mywall
How do you mean?
@Kupo
She was the lucky one.
The other Saber in Fate: Extra – who is Emperor Nero – for some reason wore a ballgown instead of armor.
Her outfit is supposed to be reminiscent of a Roman Centurion’s armor, but I don’t recall the Centurions having their legs and chests that bare…
ETA:
Also, Rider (the Gorgon Medusa) wore an Aerobic Class Trainer’s outfit for some reason. One would think she might be wearing a chiton, a peplos, or something.
Edit time ran out:
Dejavu
http://i.imgur.com/flwxQsY.png
Another thing I liked about FSN was how it portrayed Medusa as the perpetually harassed older sister of the other two Gorgons, who were troublemaking little-sister types who perpetually got underfoot and generally made her life miserable.
The Greek myths don’t really talk about what the Gorgon sisters did when they weren’t killing people, and this was quite a clever insight on how they behaved when they were alone.
@Kupo
I’m thinking that sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc exist because society permits the existence of people who choose to do that bullshit. Perhaps things could be made better by not doing that.
Your post (which makes many excellent points, but I’ll just concentrate on this one) really got me thinking. Back in the 70s there were groups which kidnapped and killed businessmen. (I wouldn’t necessarily call them hate groups, although they could be anti-Semitism adjacent). Their actions were by no means universally disapproved of. It could at times seem like revolution was just around the corner.
But like you say, that just doesn’t happen now. You might get things like Occupy and maybe a few hackers disrupting sites and databases. But it does seem like neoliberalism is the mainstream now. Like here even lefty parties have moved to accept the EU (essentially a free-trade pro privatisation and big business organisation). It’s hard to remember that Jeremy Corbyn spent 30 years as a Bennite. I wonder why that is? Hopefully Dalillama or one of our other experts on economic history can chip in.
Sorry for the diversion, but (as is often the case round here) it just got me thinking.
As to the main issue. There’s no point trying to empathise with the MRA lot. They’re beyond redemption. This site especially is no place to appeal for sympathy or even empathy for them (except maybe for intelligence gathering purposes). It’s like popping down your local synagogue to ask ‘what can we do to reach out to Nazis?’
But even if you went to one of their own spaces to offer sympathy the only response would be “show us your tits or gtfo” or “fuck off normie”.
MRAs aren’t worth understanding; expect as maybe an assessment like the SPLC do.
Fran,
What kind of weird-ass toy doll is that, anyhow? I’ve never seen anything like that.
@PeeVee
It’s not a doll, technically; it’s for drawing human anatomy. You can arrange the limbs any way you like and use it as a model. We had one that my son drew all over; I think it ended up looking kind of punk 🙂
@mywall,
What are you getting at in those two comments?
Re all the Fate series (even the stupid annoying one where Shiro exclaims “People die when they get killed!!!”) – Saber for the win, every time. She’s the best <3
Also, has anyone else noticed that Caster from Fate/Zero looks exactly like Lord Monckton?
http://i.imgur.com/b3g9yyR.jpg
The answer to “Why are people bigoted?” is usually “Because they can get away with it.” Harsher punishments tend to have a positive impact on offense rates for bigots and abusers because people realize they can’t get away with harming socially oppressed people. Bigots tend to be self-deluded, so they’re unlikely to get help from something like therapy because they’re unwilling to admit that their attitudes are wrong (or they minimize the degree to which their attitudes are problematic and come up with excuses).
On the other hand, if you look at people who harm others because they have severe self-regulation issues, harsher punishments don’t have much of an impact on them. They’re much better candidates for something like anger management or various types of cognitive/behavioral therapy.
Off-topic but we’ve already ranged pretty far afield: before the Missouri Senate, and expected to pass, is a bill that would/will permit prospective employers and landlords to ask a woman whether she A) has ever had an abortion or B) uses birth control (I assume IUD or the pill, as those are considered abortifaciants). If they don’t like the answer, they can legally decline to hire her or rent to her.
If it passes, the governor will sign it with great glee.
This is just… I never thought. In this day and age.
This is not right.
So, you know what, I don’t care if misogynists feel misunderstood. Fuck ’em with their own dicks.
Gods, I’m tired.
@Mish,
Ah! Many thanks! I have literally never seen a figure like that before.
The mannequin doesn’t look amused either. I understand, I’d be pissed too if I had no muscles to move with, but then shmuck with no brain to think with just came and forced me into that salute.
Stay strong, wooden pal.
@mywall
So you mean basically doing what feminism’s been doing all along ?