“Zed,” also known as “The Zen Priest,” was one of the originators of the Men Going Their Own Way “philosophy” and is treated as a wise elder by many longtime MRAs.
WF Price of The Spearhead described a compilation of Zed’s writings as “really quite profound as well as a great read” and used to give it out as a bonus for everyone who signed up for his email newsletter. Paul Elam of A Voice for Men laid it on a bit thicker, saying of the man he described as both a mentor and a friend:
You may know Heartiste as a reactionary, misogynistic, proudly racist dispenser of manipulative, sometimes abusive dating advice to would-be “alpha males.”
Did you also know that he was an open advocate of domestic violence against women?
Well, I didn’t, until a friend pointed out a strange little exchange on his Twitter account the other day.
Last Tuesday morning, apropos of nothing in particular, Heartiste made the following pronouncement:
Depriving men of the means to make credible mate retention threats will assure that women need more retaining. #evolutionaryarmsrace
The latter three items on the list (“Abandonment. Shame. Ostracism”) are standard techniques in Heartiste’s dating strategy, but the open advocacy of violence is, I think, new.
In addition to being repugnant, Heartiste’s argument here doesn’t even particularly make sense. Essentially, he seems to be saying that men need to be able to hit women to keep them in line so that they won’t have to … hit women to keep them in line.
Also, the phrase “mate retention strategy,” apparently popular with Evo Psych types, gives me the creeps. I’m pretty sure the best “mate retention strategy” is to be the sort of person your “mate” wants to be in a relationship with.
I did a quick search for the phrase, and found numerous references to two academic studies. One suggested that some women fake orgasms as a “mate retention strategy.” Another possibly more revealing one claimed that men of “low mate value” often insult their mates to lower their self-esteem so they won’t feel confident enough to leave. That seems more or less in line with what Heartiste’s general approach. And certainly, by any reasonable definition of the term, Heartiste and his followers are some pretty “low value” people, both as “mates” and as decent human beings generally.
I also found this reference to research by Evo Psych big daddy David Buss suggesting that violence — surprise! — isn’t actually a particularly effective “mate retention strategy.”
Also, beating up your mate is, you know, just generally a pretty shitty thing to do.
If Heartiste takes his tweets down, I’ve got screenshots.
EDITED TO ADD: Heartiste has really been going wild with the Twitter lately.
Here he claims to have invented the term “hivemind.”
Interesting that this pants-wetting manboob stole the Chateau Heartiste coinage "hivemind." A reader is outed! http://t.co/F729vnZLRe
Now, some WEAK ASS BETA MANGINAS think that you shouldn’t deliberately annoy waitstaff because, you know, they’re human beings like you and me simply trying to get through their work day, and why the fuck would you want to deliberately make their lives worse for no good reason, that sounds kind of pointlessly rude, I mean what the hell’s wrong with you? Heck, even I used to think that. But that was before I discovered the RED PILL subreddit.
More drama at A Voice for Men! Kristina Hansen — the excitable FeMRA videoblogger better known as TheWoolybumblebee — has been tossed off the good ship AVFM by Master and Commander Paul Elam for what he calls her “constant public conflicts with elements of our community.”
So I spent a little time reading through The Red Pill subreddit yesterday and if there’s one thing that Red Pill Redditors aren’t, it’s fucking betas. No fucking way. They’re like the total fucking opposite of betas. And by that I mean they are ALPHA DOGS 4 LIFE.
2) Post a story about a hilarious little prank you (allegedly) pulled on a sex partner that instantly transformed consensual sex into violent rape.
3) Oh, and throw in a gratuitous racial slur while you’re at it.
4) Then whine about how your partner’s negative response to your (alleged) little rape prank gave you “blue balls” and complain that you might have to pay her damages for “emotional distress” in civil court (allegedly).
You might think that this might be a bit much even for the morally undeveloped manchildren (and occasional womanchildren) who populate Reddit. But guess what? The poster of the tale in question got literally hundreds more upvotes than downvotes for his whiny “confession.”
Here’s the screenshot to prove it. (I’ve partically obscured the racial slur; click on image to see full-sized version.)
There were, of course, those who reacted like normal human beings to Mr. Dick Pic’s story. (I’ve obscured the homophobic slur that made up the entirely of his reply.)
Mr. Dick Pic was so offended that anyone was offended by his shitty (alleged) behavior that he rage-quit the thread, deleting his comment and — living up to his name — leaving only a dick pic in its place.
Now, Mr. Dick Pic may just be trolling, and I really hope that’s all there is to his terrible story, but his ridiculously pissy behavior after he got called out makes me think that his story, or at least parts of it, may actually be true.
Just another day on Reddit, the internet’s largest and most influential asshat aggregator.
Thanks to an anonymous Reddit informant for the heads-up, and the screenshots.
Earlier this week, as you may recall, Men’s Rights Redditors pretended they were shocked – shocked! – that anyone might think that MRAs had anything to do with the doxing and harassment of that red-haired Canadian activist we’ve been discussing. Couldn’t be them! Had to be … trolls!
Then on Wednesday the Men’s Rights Redditors found a blog post by a woman claiming to be a “conservative feminist” with a recently minted doctorate who was working in her alma mater’s admissions office — and, she claimed, rejecting out of hand all the applications that she thought were “dripping with white male privilege.”
Asha James – otherwise known as TyphonBlue – has taken issue with something I wrote about A Voice for Men, the hate site she has chosen to affiliate herself with. In my post detailing the hundreds of horrendous and disgusting threats and abusive comments one Canadian feminist has received after she appeared in a YouTube video that was heavily promoted on A Voice for Men and other Men’s Rights sites, I wrote that AVFM had only distanced itself in a “superficial way from some of the harassment it has played a central role in unleashing.”