By David Futrelle
Director Bryan Singer — best known for The Usual Suspects and a succession of X-Men movies — has been dogged for decades by rumors, and then outright accusations, that he preys on underage boys. On Tuesday, The Atlantic dropped a massive, extensively researched piece offering the details of some of these accusations, including the stories of four men who have never come forward before.
“Some of the alleged victims say they were seduced by the director while underage,” The Atlantic reports,
others say they were raped. The victims we interviewed told us these experiences left them psychologically damaged, with substance-abuse problems, depression and PTSD.
You might expect that allegations like these– suggesting that a powerful Hollywood director has been sexually exploiting and assaulting vulnerable teen boys for years if not decades — would arouse the fury of the internet’s Men’s Rights Activists.
After all, MRAs claim often, and loudly, to care about male victims of sexual assault, particularly when the victims are boys. And they do, in some cases: whenever news breaks of a female teacher preying on underage boys, MRAs are quick to pass on the news and to denounce the female perps as loudly as they can.
So I took a look to see what MRAs were saying about Singer on the two most prominent Men’s Rights websites — the Men’s Rights subreddit, with more than 200,000 subscribers; and A Voice for Men, no longer the big daddy on the Men’s Rights scene, but a site which still retains some lingering influence.
Turns out they really weren’t saying anything at all. Here is a listing of every single Men’s Rights subreddit post devoted to Singer’s case in the last four years.
As you can see, there are only five posts in all, which have collectively earned 36 upvotes and inspired a grand total of seven comments. Seven. (A post that discussed male victimization in Hollywood more generally got a bit more attention than the posts about Singer in particular, but many of the comments were from men complaining that female predators weren’t getting as much attention as Singer and Kevin Spacey.)
In start contrast to the utter lack of interest in Singer or his victims, a post about the meme below, which has been up for less than 24 hours on the Men’s Rights subreddit, has garnered nearly 3000 upvotes and inspired 254 comments.
A Voice for Men, meanwhile, has published absolutely nothing on Singer, ever.
This sort of selective interest in male victims of sexual abuse — a 4-alarm fire when the perp (or accused perp) is a women, a bored sigh when the villain is a man — is rather typical of MRAs.
In a post last October, I noted my surprise at discovering that the Men’s Rights subreddit had literally never discussed the horrifying case of former Iowa youth basketball coach Greg Stephen, who had then just pled guilty to multiple child exploitation and child porn charges after admitting to sexual exploiting some 400 boys. (A post about his case went up on the subreddit after my post was published.)
As I noted in that post, it’s almost as if the Men’s Rights movement isn’t about helping men or boys at all but is rather an excuse for a never-ending tantrum about the alleged evils of women and feminism.
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Do they have posts about the children molested / sexually assaulted by priests ?
By all means, random guy on the Internet, the next time I see that a woman has offered oral sex in exchange for assaulting a child, I will certainly speak up.
Oh wait. This is the only time I’ve ever seen this kind of deal being offered. And it’s obviously a joke.
Looks like the world doesn’t need to worry about toxic femininity.
But hey, thanks for the super serious warning!
occasional reader, not many
kat, and of course the woman who posted that tweet has been getting death threatts
> David :
I can not say i am surprised. I guess they also do not speak much about children forced in a training to be soldier children in some countries, and any other form of child abuses ?
Hypocrisis is so engrained in their discourses that it is infurianting, and same for the usual bad faith.
The MRM will never, ever admit the truth. That the sexual abuse of boys is a big problem, but the majority of the abusers are men.
Why do Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer get more attention than female predators? Well, dudes, name female predators in the entertainment industry who have abused as prolifically. Asia Argento and Jamie Lunar have allegations against them, and they should be taken seriously, but I simply don’t know of anyone who has abused on the scale of the biggest male predators. MRAs, if you have some credible intel that says otherwise, journalists do take tips.
From the article:
Emphasis mine.
The MRM’s silence, along with their continuing resistance to any questioning of the status quo power relationships in our society and their “toxic masculinity don’t real” party line, ensures that more young men will end up abused by predators like Singer and the circle he moved in in Hollywood. They are complicit in this because they help prop up the worldview that makes shit like this possible, where bringing an underage boy to a party to be handed over to the host like he were a bottle of wine was a fucking normal thing to do. Because in the MRM world the power of alpha males is not to be questioned, ever.
The Men’s Rights Movement has always been, and will always be, about the subjugation of women and literally nothing else.
They only conveniently pipe up when a woman comes forth with credible accusations of sexual assault/rape, or when an article or statistics about toxic masculinity/femicide are released.
They go on an on with their “what about prison rape? what about male suicide? what about false rape allegations?” When asked about why they choose to deflect from the particular topic being discussed, they almost always defer to: “well, we are discussing rape and sexual assault and those happen to men too, why are you trying to exclude me from this thread, I thought feminism was inclusive?”
Their intent is more than obvious to anyone familiar with this type of rhetoric: they want nothing more than to silence victims. They are a collective of organized abusers and the tactics they employ all amount to gaslighting.
MRAs do not care about sexual assault of men. They only bitch about it as a means of derailing conversations abotu female sexual assault
content warning for “well, duh”…
It’s not about men, it’s not about boys, it’s not about abuse… it’s not about toxic feminity, it’s not even about feminity, per see….
It’s about self-centered man-children who aren’t getting laid, and blame women for not “servicing” them.
I’d say it’s not about getting laid, either. It’s all about superiority, though sex could be one way to feel superior.
Their egos are too big (but fragile) to even accept equality to other people. They have to be better in all ways. But they’re not very good people to begin with, so they have to put everyone else down to keep up the narcissistic illusion.
They have to tell themselves (and each other) that women are worse in every way, because so much of their ego hinges on their warped idea of masculinity (and usually white- cis- and straightness). Cherry picking data helps with that.
They want women to service them not because they want to get laid, but because anything less undermines their god complex.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I read somewhere that 80% of male victims name a female abuser. That seems to disprove your comment.
(I still dislike MRAs)
Ah, yes, that luminous academic journal, somewhere.
@Eldridge the Cleaver : that somewhere need actual source. Because that’s the first time I hear that, and that seem way too convenient to me.
OT: Pride narrowly votes to ban police officers from marching in uniform.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4877398/pride-toronto-police-uniformed/
Already, the concern trolling is deafening. “Maybe they shouldn’t protect you people!” “Let’s all stop funding them if this is how they act!” I can’t help but feel a tad gaslit when internet randos are trying to shame me into accepting the good intentions of the Toronto Police Services when Bruce McArthur was murdering people like me a mere ten minute walk from where I live. To them, it’s academic. To me… well, after being in the exact spot Alek Minassian conducted his rampage not 24 hours before… feels like I’ve had my grave stepped on a couple times last year.
It speaks of just how tenuous “acceptance” is when the minute the LGBT community try to assert their own humanity in the wake of ongoing injustice, everybody yanks all funding while yelling “Ingrates!” over their shoulders. As if the Pride Parade exists at the behest of them and they permit us to celebrate our identities. I think Pride Toronto is starting to wise up to the fact that these people and corporations and organizations who claim to be allies aren’t really as accepting as they claim to be.
@Ohlmann
That gave me a bit of a “What?!!” as well, so I did a quick dig. Seems to be from one study.
Study is here if you have access: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178916301446?_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_origin=gateway&_docanchor=&md5=b8429449ccfc9c30159a5f9aeaa92ffb&dgcid=raven_sd_via_email
I do not have access, so have no comment on the study itself.
Article on it here: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-sex-offenders-more-common-gender-bias-statistics-rape-abuse-a7839361.html
Article mentions in cases of the victim being forced to penetrate someone else, 79.8% of the time, the perpetrator were a woman.
Edit for wrong word used.
Yeah, gonna need a source on that one.
It’s true that there’s been a huge jump in the number of men reporting domestic violence against them from their partners. The Guardian reported that at 150%. Sounds scary, but the baseline was tiny, so all that means is that reporting has gone up, not the number of incidences.
We’ve always said that some men are subject to domestic violence. Of course that’s true – some women are terrible to their husbands, because women are human. We want men to be able to report that, to talk about their feelings, to escape that situation with dignity. That’s feminist.
@Ohlmann, @Eldridge the Cleaver
I assume you’re referring to this:
That’s a very specific subset of male rape victims. Let’s look at the bigger picture.
And let’s not forget that the vast majority of victims are women and girls.
@Eldridge the Cleaver
Is there a reason you decided to quote a misleading statistic at us without even verifying it?
¹ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sexual-victimization-by-women-is-more-common-than-previously-known/
² https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
I have access to that. lemme do a lookie-loo. Did a skim and it looks decent!
I started a project when I was 16 of going to different schools in my district. Talking to kids ages 13 to 17 about how abusive relationships work. I wanted both girls and boys in my class so I could talk to them about sexual abuse and pressure. There were a disturbing amount (far more then I expected) of boys that came up to talk about different problems in their lives that happened. I was surprised at all that they talked to me but it was the first time in their lives someone had told them it was wrong. It was the first time someone had said they could be a victim of abuse instead of the predator. There were also young boys who couldn’t look me in the eyes because they knew I was calling out their behavior and young girls that had to leave the room crying. It’s a heart breaking experience that I wouldn’t want to change though.
Thank you! 🙂
Not over fond of relying on a journalist’s interpretation of a study (life on Mars, anyone?) – hence the caveat. 😛
@Lainy Thank you for doing that. <3
@Shadowplay
I was confused what this has to do with that TV show for a second. ?
@kupo
🙂 I’d forgotten how good that series was! Well, first series. Missed the second one.
@Shadowplay
I loved the US version and am working through the British version.
There’s a US version! Had no idea, and that is on the watch list now. I really want to compare. 🙂
Two of the kids were still living at home when it were on over here, and they couldn’t believe how different society was. Got proper horrified when I told them that the show toned down a lot of it too. 😛