Every few days, it seems, Reddit has some thread asking the regulars there what horrible thing they would do if they could get away with it. And invariably someone says rape.
The good folks in ShitRedditSays recently highlighted one such comment, from a fellow calling himself nickfromredcliff. As you can see from the edits to his comment below, poor Nick felt somewhat embarrassed and even affronted by the attention.
When I checked his comment again this morning while writing this post, I found he’d edited it again. Gone was his plaintive plea for tolerance; in its place, a bunch of new rape jokes. (You can find a screenshot of his original comment here; at the time it had 39 upvotes.)
Let’s all use this as a learning experience.
And while we’re at it, let’s have a toast for the douchebag.
Here she is addressing the “Nice Guys” of the world:
[S]omewhere along the line, you’ve got it into your head that if you’re romantically interested in a girl who sees you only as a friend, her failure to reciprocate your feelings is just that: a failing. That because you’re nice and treat her well, she therefore owes you at least one opportunity to present yourself as a viable sexual candidate, even if she’s already made it clear that this isn’t what she wants. That because she legitimately enjoys a friendship that you find painful (and which you’re under no obligation to continue), she is using you. That if a man wants more than friendship with a woman, then the friendship itself doesn’t even attain the status of a consolation prize, but is instead viewed as hell: a punishment to be endured because, so long as he thinks she owes him that golden opportunity, he is bound to persist in an association that hurts him – not because he cares about the friendship, but because he feels he’s invested too much kindness not to stick around for the (surely inevitable, albeit delayed) payoff.
Seriously, Nice Guys, if you think of your friendship with a woman as a means to an end, or some kind of purgatory, then it’s not really a friendship, and you’re doing both yourself and your crush a disservice by persisting in it. (I learned this lesson myself the hard way, a long time before there were helpful internet posts explaining to me why Nice Guying was a recipe for crappiness all around.)
Speaking of learning: I also learned from Foz Meadows’ post that there is a Wikipedia entry for “friend zone,” complete with advice on how dudes can avoid getting “friendzoned” in the first place.
Several advisers urged men, during the initial dates, to touch women physically in appropriate places such as elbows or shoulders as a means of increasing the sexual tension. … Adviser Ali Binazir agrees, and suggested for the man to be a “little bit dangerous”, not in a violent sense, but “with a bit of an edge to them”, and be unpredictable and feel “comfortable in their skin as sexual beings.”
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia … for Your Penis*.
Also: Here is the official Friend Zone anthem, “Consolation Prize” by Orange Juice. Lyrics here.
I‘m not feeling the whole “reading blogs by assholes and making a post about it” thing at the moment (because it involves more “reading blogs by assholes” than I care to at present), so let’s kick it old school and new school with (respectively) Roxanne Shante …
Up until now, as you all know, I’ve been a strong supporter of the gynofascist ladytopia. But after watching the following video I am beginning to reconsider. Three seconds is too short. This lady is too bossy. And I really, really don’t want to have to learn how to line dance. Also, why does everyone have to wear a white shirt? Watch, and you’ll see what I mean. If this is the ladytopia, I want none of it!
Look out, Jade Michael and the Fuck Their Shit Up Crew! Sure, your Men’s Rights theme song “Go My Own Way” was hailed by MRAs around the internet as a work of genius, and, in the words of one eminent critic angry misogynist dude,
a veritable anthem for the red pill crowd … replete with a great, purist rock sound, a touch of humor, attitude, and a ton of gut level, red pill honesty.
It’s Red Pill-riffic! But now Jade and the one other guy who makes up his, er, “crew” now have competition in the Men’s Rights anthem business!
Without futher ado, here is Slumberwall, with a little song called “The Hatred of Women.”
Did any of you make it past the one minute mark? I couldn’t.
Happily, Slumberwall has transcribed the terrible lyrics to the song, so you don’t have to listen to the whole thing in order to appreciate its true Men’s Rightsy awfulness. Here are the best bits, by which I mean the bits most likely to make you want to puncture your eardrums with knitting needles.
Men have no doubt
Just what they’re for
We die at work
We die in war
We die at sea
As the lifeboats float ashore
Women & children,
all aboard
Never mind that, as I pointed out yesterday, “women and children first” isn’t really a thing.
Anyway, back to Slumberwall:
We take the strain
We bear the load
Build the bridges
Sweep the roads
Make the houses
That make the homes
Pay for others
But live alone
And the more that it happens
The more I see
The hatred of women
For men like me
Well, if by “men like me” you mean “men who write and sing the shittiest music that has ever been made by human beings,” I have to say that I kind of understand this hatred.
I haven’t had a favorite song in a very long time. But I think this is it.
TheAetherspeak declares
Awesome Song. The voice all purveyors of patriarchy theory remain ignorant of.
Gamenode explains:
Women have never been oppressed but through their reproductive monopoly have exploited men and seen us butchered and enslaved for their own privilege. Fuck ’em all.
KellyJones00 adds,
Don’t fuck them at all. Just leave them alone. Don’t even donate sperm.
Time for a little bit of a musical palate cleanser.
Make sure to listen to all ten hours of that for the full palate-cleansing effect.
Well, not really. But here on this lazy Saturday let’s set aside the Boobz for a while and watch this video for the Bush Tetras’ 1982 punk-funk classic “Too Many Creeps.”
And if that’s too dour for you, well, have some Bananarama, offering a somewhat more cheerful take on life in Manhattan. It kind of feels like summer already.
It’s Saturday, so I guess that would make it time for Steely Dan Cover Band Saturday, something I just made up. Here are a couple of Steely Dan cover bands doing their Steely Danniest versions of two Steely Dan classics. It’s Steely Dannerific! With an added bonus of what may literally be the worst band in the world playing Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine.”
Don’t feel obligated to watch them. It might be better for everyone if you didn’t. If you’re only going to watch one, watch the last one.
The Men’s Rights Movement now has a theme song! A couple of talented young men calling themselves Jade Michael and the FTSU Singers Crew have put together a catchy little grunge rock number they call Go My Own Way, which will now serve as the opening music for the A Voice for Men internet radio show.
As AVfM head cheese Paul Elam puts it, straining his prose-generating abilities to the breaking point as he attempts to find words eloquent enough to describe this new musical masterpiece:
Jade Michael, artist, professional musician and MRA, founder of Artistry Against Misandry, has taken his talent hammer and given it a mighty swing to our benefit. He has forged, in the fires of his own passion, the new theme song for AVfM Radio, titled Go My Own Way. It is not to be confused with the similarly titled offering from Fleetwood Mac, Go Your Own Way. No, not in the least. Jade, with his band, Jade Michael and the FTSU Crew, have produced a veritable anthem for the red pill crowd. It is replete with a great, purist rock sound, a touch of humor, attitude, and a ton of gut level, red pill honesty. Pay close attention to the end for the invocation of Thomas James Ball.
Without further ado, here’s the song:
You can find the full lyrics on YouTube and on AVfM. But I thought I’d share a few of my favorite bits.
The song starts off by addressing one of the most savage injustices faced by men today: evil ladies who expect men to hold doors open for them.
And we’re through with holding doors Entitlements abound You say that we still hold you down And you cop that attitude No remorse or gratitude
Seriously, ladies, would it hurt you to say “thank you” once in a while, to the men who literally enable you to walk through walls, by holding open the doors you would otherwise be unable to open? To paraphrase Barbie: Doors are hard!
Then there’s this bit:
You’re obsessed with my ability I won’t be your utility I’ll never carry you And I sure won’t marry you
Women around the world, consider what you’re losing here: no longer can you expect to marry guys who hate you so much they made a song about how they won’t hold doors open for you!
And let’s not forget:
Cos’ the time has come to fuck your shit up The time has come to fuck your shit up The time has come to fuck your shit up
Perhaps I’m missing some of the subtleties here, but this sort of suggests to me that Jade and the Gang are not so much Men Going Their Own Way as they are Men Still Hanging Around Acting Like Assholes — not MGTOW but MSHAALA.
I appreciate the efforts of Jade Michael and the MSHAALA, but I can’t really help but think of this little song-and-dance number, from the excellent Belgian horror film Calviare (The Ordeal), as the Men’s Rights movement’s unofficial anthem.
In case you’re wondering, this scene makes a little bit more sense in the context of the movie itself. A little bit. It’s actually quite a brilliant little film with some interesting gender stuff going on in it, if you can deal with fairly violent horror films. But, oh my lord, TRIGGER WARNINGS for pretty much every trigger there is.
NOTE: In case you’re wondering about the song’s reference to Thomas Ball: Ball burned himself to death outside a courthouse in Keane, New Hampshire last year in a protest against what he saw as unfair treatment in family court. He hoped that his suicide would inspire other men to start firebombing courthouses and police stations. (This wasn’t mere rhetoric; in the lengthy manifesto he left behind he provided tips on how to make effective Molotov cocktails.) Naturally, many in the MRM have hailed him as a martyr for Men’s Rights.
I have a certain fondness for old-timey hillbilly music, the kind of stuff you can find on any number of great compilations on Yazoo records. But sometimes, alas, the lyrics to the songs reflect some old-timey bigotries that are much less charming than the music itself. Poking around on YouTube earlier today looking for the stuff I ran across this little ditty:
The lyrics:
Well, it’s a shame to whip your wife on Sunday.
Yes, it’s a shame to whip your wife on Sunday.
When you’ve got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
It’s a shame to whip your wife on Sunday.
It’s a shame to get drunk on Sunday.
Yes, it’s a shame to get drunk on Sunday.
When you’ve got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
It’s a shame to get drunk on Sunday.
Pity about the lyrics, because it’s got such a nice little banjo riff.
Cleanse your ears out with this song, a perky little number called “Hallelujah to the Lamb,” that I think would leave even Satan himself tapping his cloven hooves.
So on this lazy Sunday I have decided to forgo the pleasures of mocking the manosphere in favor of this little musical interlude. Here’s an interesting performance by Malian musicians Daouda ‘Flani’ Sangaré and Alou Fané of their signature song, “Keleya.” I found it on the excellent African/Latin music blog WorldService. The blogger explains:
The song is about the jealousy (“keleya”) between co-épouses (co-wifes) in a polygamous marriage. When performing the song Flani would dress up as a woman, and would at times improvise to add to the comical effect of the song.
So is Flani’s cross-dressing a challenge to gender roles, or a comical reaffirmation of patriarchal power? I really don’t know. Gender is complicated. But this is a killer song. Today, the Boobz can wait.
