By David Futrelle
The MaleForeverAlone subreddit describes itself as “a support group for people who lack romantic relationships and sex, but mostly geared towards those lacking a girlfriend or seeking marriage.”
But the people who run it have a very strange notion of what exactly a “support group” is. A quick browse through the subreddit reveals that there is very little about it that is “supportive” of anyone. Oh, sure, you can find a few links in the sidebar to some genuinely supportive subreddits designed to help those dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts. As for the posts in the subreddit itself — well, take a look at some sitting at or near the top of the front page today.
It’s true that these posts all have zero upvotes, but that’s likely the result of downvotes from people coming from elsewhere on Reddit. These posts are some of the highest ranked on the subreddit right now, and both HeavensAbove and Lookismisreal are subreddit mods.
The posts from Lookismisreal — or at least the ones I’ve checked out so far — are reposts of things he originally posted on Incels.me, a haven for incels too extreme for Reddit, making me wonder if r/MaleForverAlone is less of a “support group” than an attempt to sneak the violent misogyny of Incels.me onto Reddit without the site admins noticing it.
So I’ve decided to do a short series highlighting the, er, “best” of r/MaleForeverAlone. Let’s start with a post from Lookismisreal dealing with sex and farm animals (but not the way you might think).
Here’s the full text:
Women should be treated like farm animals (self.MaleForeverAlone)
submitted 14 days ago by Lookismisreal
Femoids are a hive mind, who are incapable of any kind of rationality. They are simply untamed beasts that act solely on primal instincts and urges, which is why they cannot be considered as humans in whatever manner. Therefore, they should be treated as resources, in which, they’re only purposes should be satisfying men’s desires and serving men whenever they are asked to. However, this does not mean that cum dumpsters would be raised in very harsh environments and such, because what’s the point of a broken resource that doesn’t supply what you need whenever you require it?
To achieve this kind of egalitarian society where femoid sexual and reproductive resources are optimally utilized, all bitches must first be raised with a single purpose since birth; which is, serving men. It is then that Indifference in affection towards men can be conditioned to femoids, in which they will have sexual intercourse with men, regardless of the mans appearance. It is then that Inceldom will finally be cured and Incels themselves would no longer exist.
When Ross Douhat and Robin Hanson talk about the “redistribution of sex,” it’s these guys that the sex would be “redistributed” to — and this is the sort of “redistribution of sex” that would make many of them happiest, one that involves seeing women as the literal equivalent of animals bred to fulfill the sexual needs of the world’s worst men. Which underscores once again just how utterly terrible an idea the “redistribution of sex” really is.
These guys not only shouldn’t have access to women, but also no pets and no livestock. Because they’re exactly the type that fucks cows, goats, dogs, sheep…and frightens the poor animals to death.
@epitome:
Like a tennis ball. Schwack!
They wont be alone forever. No one lives forever.
Exactly who is going to “condition women from birth to serve men”. I can’t see incels changing nappies, or explaining to a toddler that her purpose is to serve men. (Although actually I would love to see that debate. “Why?” “Because it’s what women are for.” “Why?” “Because I say so.” “BUT I DON’T WANT TO.”)
So you are going to expect today’s women to just obediently brainwash an entire generation of girls….
Dude, umm, there’s a flaw in that plan. We’re not going to do it.
I think what I find most interesting about these guys is that they’ve put themselves in a terrible bind:
1. They fantasize about an intensely patriarchal society in which women are property and their sexuality is seen as solely a resource for male lust and convenience, BUT
2. They really hate that key aspect of most intensely patriarchal societies in which women are property–ie, that the dominant males of the society, be they rich, or powerful, or heavily armed, or with killer canthal tilt or whatever, get more access to women, and to ‘better’ women, whether it be in the form of multiple wives, or concubines, or prizes of war, or just a lot of willing secretaries. They HATE it.
3. They freely admit to being not just ordinary, but, in their own minds, deeply substandard. They attribute their lack of sex to women being able to not choose them, but they can’t seem to grasp that in a world in which women don’t get to choose, stronger men wouldn’t ‘redistribute’ sex for them.
They wouldn’t be Agamemnon at Troy, or a Commander in Gilead, or JFK in the White House, or an old dude with connections in the church in an FLDS compound. Their ONLY FUCKING HOPE for sex and companionship is to stick with a fairly egalitarian society, get over their disdain of women who are non-virgins who don’t look like supermodels, and try to get a girlfriend, but they’ve already decided that’s the least realistic option.
Poor assholes. What have they wrought?
Of course, what I find really interesting is that now Peterson and Douthat and them are gabbling along with this line that somehow where feminism went wrong is that 90% of women will only fuck the top 10% of men, which, given that eighty-something percent of Americans marry by the time they’re forty CAN’T actually be true.
I can’t decide whether I want to vomit or cry.
Egalitarian.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
If I were more tech-savvy, there’d be a Princess Bride gif now. But I’m not so you’ll just have to imagine it.
I’m always amazed at the level of disconnect from regular life. Don’t they have friends and relatives who are married? Don’t they have parents?
Even if their parents are separated, surely they weren’t all fathered by ‘Chads’? Or is there an exception to the ‘all women are like that’ rule for their own mothers?
Ugh I’m glad these guys are single.
Our society already conditions women into serving men. Also women in partnerships with men are doing most of the unpaid work in the shared households, statistically speaking.
So i don’t see how more conditioning could help these guys. They don’t just want a girlfriend. They want sexslaves who can’t leave their abuse. And thanks to Peterson and his bullshit too many people think these entitled manbabies should have access to womens bodies. Wich is just gross.
@ Nanny Oggs Busom
I was stuck on the vomit/cry nexus until I read misophistry’s post.
Now laughing, and wiping coffee off the screen…
Sometimes – usually after reading crap like this – I have the loveliest little vision. In this vision, I am standing in a sea of women. We are laughing, talking, holding our children. There are so many of us that we seem to go on and on in an endless ocean of wonderful faces. Some of us are singing, some are telling stories…you get the idea.
Suddenly, the sky gets very dark and stormy. We all fall silent, even the kids. We look around, trying to find the causes for the change. Then I hear some voices calling “Here they come. Get ready!”
I hear heavy footsteps…masculine voices demanding that we go home, make sandwiches, do what we are told and shut up. For a moment, we tremble, move as if to do what we are ordered to do. Fear is a tangible force, threatening to crush us. I can almost smell the fires and the stench of burning flesh. Oh, it is a TERRIBLE thing!
Then, I hear a laugh. A beautiful woman voice, laughing from the belly. It is not long before one voice becomes a few, becomes many, becomes a mighty avalanche of joy and freedom. The sun and the moon both appear in the newly cleared sky. The enraged masculine roaring starts to give way to the confused, angry and fearful mewling of the boy-men and the women begin to walk away.
We turn back to give a final wave to the rapidly fading, insubstantial forms of the the men. And, much to our delighted surprise, a few real men remain, laughing with us, holding children’s hands. Fear has no place. It is a good beginning.
It may not be much, but little visions help.
Peterson sure didn’t HELP, but he certainly isn’t the root cause of men believing they’re entitled to women’s bodies. That’s a nasty idea that’s been embedded in a large portion of our culture for a long, long time. Peterson is just encouraging these assholes and telling them what they already want to hear.
These fucking guys… You can’t get much purer evil than wanting to breed and confine human beings like livestock. If even the idea doesn’t make you want to cry, scream, and/or vomit, there’s something very wrong with you.
Unfortunately in my experience, that’s something very wrong with a lot of men. Talk to a lot of guys about stuff like axolotl tanks and they’re like “Yeah that’s nasty, it’s fiction, what of it?” It’s like the visceral reaction never happens. They think it’s messed up but they don’t FEEL how evil it is; it’s just another wrong thing to them, not something that makes them want to scream just to think about.
Tell them to imagine their loved ones being treated like literal breeding cattle and they’re like: “What? But it’s fiction! Relax!”
They talk, they intellectualize, but they don’t feel. It’s hard for me not to see that callousness as the thin end of the misogynistic wedge.
…..
On a slightly related note. I know the mention of Silence of the Lambs was well back in the discussion, but I wish (presumably cis) people would stop bringing that up whenever there’s a discussion of creepy misogyny. That film is basically the transphobe’s version of the Nun’s Tale, has probably played a role in actual murders of trans women, and is used rhetorically by TERFs on the regular. I know this is probably going to draw anger, but seriously, cis folks: please stop using it as your go to example. Especially when equally creepy media examples abound.
*sigh* Lookismisreal has been reading those Ross Perot pamphlets again, hasn’t he?
@cyborgette
Further to your comments about The Silence of The Lambs, I need to put my geek hat on and add my own little rant to yours, because I think it gets a bit of a bad press.
It is made explicitly clear – both in the film and the book – that Jame Gumb is not a transsexual. He is a sociopath pretending to be one. Basically, he’s stolen that identity because it plays into his rituals around killing. In fact, that’s how the FBI plans to catch him (comb through files of people who have applied for trans surgery and been denied because they were not considered to be genuine). At one point, in the book, he’s even described as making a “hateful mockery” of trans women.
That film/book has become a touch-stone for all kinds of horrible abuse of trans people and nothing will change that. Also, it is of its time and not particularly politically correct by our standards.
But it’s not what it has been made out to be by TERFs, transphobes etc, and they bug me even more when I consider that they’re using this story an excuse for abuse while not even doing the minimal research required to get the story right
Anyway. Grumble over. *takes off geek hat*
Why do all of these MRA idea of utopias always sound like the setting for one of those poorly thought out sci-fi movies that you see during movie theater previews but never actually go watch?
Yeah, guy; it’s your looks that drive women away.
…hey, don’t you shitweasels get all pissed off at the thought that women treat men as nothing but financial resources?
@ Catalpa
You are right. Peterson is not the root.
(I didn’t wanted to say that, maybe i didn’t use the correct words since English is not my first language)
But i hate that he helps to normalise the idea that women just need to serve incels and than they will stop being hatefull misogynists. It makes me afraid that so many people show more empathy towards incels than their victims.
@Violet: I understand this, but. Thomas Harris is a man. The director of the film was a man. Buffalo Bill has a cross dressing routine with a nice ref to autogynephilia. Etc.
He’s still a caricature of a trans woman as much as Svengali is a caricature of a Jew. Saying “actually he’s explicitly a guy” doesn’t fix that. He’s Harris’ brainchild, and like it or not it’s his specific trans-woman-like characteristics that have made the film into a transphobic Passion Play.
Add to this the long history of trans women being defined out of existence by the medical establishment. (Oh you can’t be trans, you’re attracted to women! You don’t want to be weak! You’re not submissive! You don’t want to undergo major surgery ASAP so you can have a vagina! Get out, ya pervert!) It’s an ugly picture. And that most of us at some point face danger from being typed as predators…
I see what you’re saying here, and I respect that understanding. But IMO that film is what it’s become, and the good intentions of the people involved won’t change that. Some of the worst abuse I’ve personally experienced was done with very good intentions, so… Yeah.
Thank you for taking the time/initiative to reply in the issue though. And sorry for taking up discussion space with this.
@Violet, bit of an elaboration
“comb through files of people who have applied for trans surgery and been denied because they were not considered to be genuine”
That’d be a very large number of people because of medical gatekeeping. Doctors have always been super picky about who can get surgery, and having informed consent access to hormones is still a very new thing (and not a thing in all states in the US, at least).
I’m super lucky to live in this age TBH. Trans women I’ve met who transitioned in the 90s or early 2000s had to do the Real Life Test, where they lived and tried to pass as women for a year without hormones; fail that, no hormones for you. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Likewise there are still countries (including some otherwise very progressive ones) where you will be denied hormones unless you claim to be attracted to men.
Meanwhile the daily reality of a lot of my friends is being jobless because nobody likes to hire trans people, scared of losing housing, scared of not having money for meds and hormones, scared of dealing with medical and mental health professionals due to traumatic gatekeeping and abuse experiences…
Basically trans people tend to get hit by this awful triple combo of capitalism, medical gatekeeping, and being assumed implicitly dangerous.
IDK, I should stop ranting about this now. But yeah, that’s where I’m coming from. Hope I’m not coming across too angry here; I promise I’m not angry at anyone here, just at patriarchy and capitalism and whatnot.
@Cyborgette
Men do, in general, have a lower capacity to empathize with others than women. 🙁
Incels: Women are inferior. Women should be treated like property. Women should be killed for sex before marriage.
Also Incels: I’M SUCH A NICE GUY! WHY DON’T I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?!?!?! WHY WILL NO ONE HAVE SEX WITH ME?! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Sorry, replied before seeing your latest
OK, I’m now going to say something that will sound like I’m making it up and everyone will roll their eyes. But it is, in fact, true. My best friend is MtoF transgender. (cringes; honestly, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t want to mention it because it sounds too much like “BUT ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS IS BLACK SO I CAN’T BE RACIST!”)
(and no, she doesn’t like silence of the lambs either. We have had that argument)
Through her, I know a lot of trans people, and I’ve also witnessed first hand some of the stuff that happens. We’ve had a lot of discussions about hormones; my friend works with young trans people and one of the real problems she faces is that they will buy themselves hormones off the internet and take them without proper medical advice, thus putting themselves at risk of osteoporosis etc. She was very upset recently because one of the kids who comes to her group was basically imprisoned by abusive parents. I’ve also seen some of the discrimination she has faced in jobs (ie in one job she had to stand up in front of the whole office and explain her gender status to well-meaning idiots)
So yes. I understand absolutely where you are coming from. And you don’t come off as angry, at least not any more than is reasonable. I’m angry about it too. The fuck does your gender have to do with whether you can run the accounts (I’m still pissed off about that)
In terms of “going through the files” yeah, I have no idea how they intended to actually do that. It never got to that point. I think there was a bit of writerly “a wizard did it” there (I like this book, I never said it was perfect haha)
What?! My other post has gone! I wrote another super long post before the one which starts “sorry replied too soon”
Oh I can’t be bothered to type it all out again. It basically boiled down to: “I don’t agree with you about the character, but I respect your opinion; I do agree with you that the film is what it has become, and what it’s become is bloody awful”
The one thing that does bear repeating is: I’m really sad bad shit has happened to you, and I hope you’ve made peace with that and your life is better now.
OK, so the gremlins in the mammoth site have now swallowed not one, but two comments.
Or possibly I spelt my own nym wrong, it’s not impossible.
Either way, the post above (starts: sorry, I replied without seeing your latest) was an add-on to a very long post I wrote in response to your first post @cyborgette. That post has been eaten, apparently.
I really cannot be bothered to type it all out again; it basically boiled down to “I disagree with you about the character, but in the end it is a piece of art and we can all have different opinions and I respect yours; I totally agree with you that it is what it has become – and what it has become is awful, and while I like it in itself, I do not like the people it apparently represents now.”
I think the only bit I want to repeat was the one where I said “I’m really sad to hear that you have been abused. I hope you have made some peace with that and you are building a better life now.”
And with that I too will say “sorry for taking up discussion space with this”.
@David – if the other two comments (one very long post, and one saying roughly the same as this) do emerge, I think we can dispense with them if that’s okay with you?