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.
Thanks for understanding that much, @Violet. I don’t really feel like continuing this conversation because beating a dead horse, and also because both my partners are doing really badly today. But thanks.
And yeah, everyone has their problematic faves. I’m no exception. E.g. “The Power” by Naomi Alderman is one of mine, and I’ve seen a lot of discomfort with it from Muslim readers re how it deals with ingrained power structures in the Islamic world.
Thanks re abuse. Yes, I’m definitely building a better life. Thank gods.
@Cindy: so I’ve heard. I think it’s cultural, not hormonal, but in any case IMO it doesn’t excuse their blase attitudes; we all have gaps in our empathy, decent people learn to work around those.
@Cyborgette, @Violet,
Just wanted to chime in a bit. Sometimes in dicussions of SOTL, I find people forget that the book was written in the 80s. Admittedly, I’m a straight cis male, so my views aren’t to be trusted on this, but I always got the sense that Harris was going out of his way to make sure trans people weren’t attacked. Possibly he was a bit clumsy about it, even for the time: I’m not well-versed enough in trans history to know what the general consensus about transness was back then, and things like “You’ll be able to tell that this applicant isn’t trans because he drew a creepy house instead of a happy one” seem really wierd, but it felt like Harris was using the accepted medical standards of the day to make his point. Intentions aren’t magic and all, but sometimes changes in social standards make old things seem worse than they were. A favorite instance of this is a book from the 50s I read once that talked about Oscar Wilde and how “They hadn’t realized at the time that homosexuality was a matter for the psychiatrist, not the police.” That was liberal at the time. It’s a bit less so now.
The film of SOTL, on the other hand, just plain fucked up. They actually filmed the scene where Crawford explicitly states that Gumb isn’t trans, but cut it. And so you got a stereotypical limp-wristed gay guy who likes to dress up like a woman, cuz we all know that’s what the gays do, right?
To his credit, when the protests erupted, Jonathan Demme actually acknowledged that the protestors had a point, which is why his next film was Philadelphia, which is basically his apology to the gay community. Which probably has its own problems I’m not aware of, but is important because Demme insisted on making an AIDS film with a gay protagonist, despite people asking him to make him straight. And while there are probably people who argue that they should have got a gay actor to play the lead instead of Tom Hanks, I’d argue that at the time, it was actually important to have a straight actor willing to play such an unambiguously queer hero, both to show support to the queer community and to get it across to people that gay people with AIDS was a human story, not a gay story. But, again, straight cis male here, so it’s not really my opinion to have.
I also like the evidence that when writing Philadelphia, the production team was definitely trying to avoid stereotyping (though I don’t know if there were any queer writers involved). At one point, apparently someone raised concerns about the opera scene: “It’s great, but aren’t we playing into the stereotype of the opera-loving gay guy?” They admitted that was true, and thought about it for a few moments, before someone suddenly went, “Wait a minute, that one’s not a bad stereotype.” And it stayed.
@rabid rabbit
I think @cyborgette wants to leave this one now, as it’s clearly something they have strong feelings about. But thanks for your post, that was interesting; I read the book several times before I saw the film, so it’s definitely quite possible I saw the film differently because I was aware of everyone’s backstory. That’s not something that occurred to me before, but yes the film I saw probably wasn’t what someone who came to it fresh would see. If you know what I mean.
@cyborgette, I hope your partners (and you) are feeling a bit better and you enjoy your evening (or day – I don’t know where you are).
@Violet,
I definitely know what you mean. It’s like how watching Hannibal must be a very different experience for someone who hasn’t read any of the books or seen any of the movies, and therefore doesn’t catch half the jokes or sense what’s coming due to how the show plays with the source material.
@cyborgette
Sorry if I seem to be trying to revive a conversation you wanted ended, that wasn’t my intention at all. Speaking of intentions not being magic…
As a lesbian, I can inform these—erm—gentlemen that lesbians definitely are real.
I wonder if this farm animal guy is a Piers Anthony fan…
@Citerior Motive
If these men where all that was available, I’D be a lesbian, and I am actually pretty much 90% straight*.
*By that I mean that I rarely find myself having sexual thoughts about women, but there are one or two exceptions. I’d do Lucy Liu in anytime she wanted (acknowledging here that there is no way that would ever happen, I’m just being emphatic).
Gee, I finally see the plight of the “nice guy” clearly! What gal wouldn’t want to hook up with someone who didn’t think she was a human being?
Thanks, creepy loner guyz!
@ bacon
Nope.
https://incels.me/threads/speaking-of-foids-to-hate-your-mother.48387/
I keep wondering when somebody will finally nail the hide of low key MRA scumbag Rusty Doubt-that to the wall.
@Nequam
I was wondering that myself. It brought to mind a deeply disturbing short story of Anthony’s.