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narcissism open thread playing the victim rape culture trigger warning victim blaming

Open Thread for discussion of Ariel Castro statement, sentencing. TRIGGER WARNING for whole thread.

Some commenters here have started discussing the Ariel Castro sentencing — and the remarkable, delusional, self-pitying, victim-blaming statement he made before being sentenced — in the Minter Meltdown thread. Because so much of what he said — and so many of the issues raised — are potentially triggering, I thought it would be good to open up a separate thread for this.

Here’s a piece at the Daily Beast with some of the most astounding quotes from Castro’s statement today.

Consider this whole thread to have a TRIGGER WARNING on it for discussions of Castro’s rape apologias and victim blaming.

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actual activism advocacy of violence all about the menz antifeminism harassment hate men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny no girls allowed oppressed white men rape culture rape jokes sexual harassment threats twitter

Jane Austen and the Rape-Threatening Men

The face that launched a thousand threatening tweets.
The face that launched a thousand threatening tweets.

NOTE: Today is Day Two of the Man Boobz Pledge Drive. If you haven’t already, please consider clicking the little button below and sending some bucks my way.

Thanks! (And thanks again to all who’ve already donated.) Now back to our regularly scheduled programming:

So what sorts of things make some men so furious that they feel the need to send women they’ve never met literal death and rape threats on the internet? It doesn’t take much, apparently. A woman suggesting that it’s not such a good idea to hit on women in elevators at 4 AM. A woman making  videos suggesting that there’s sexism in video games. A woman captured on video telling some men to shut the fuck up. A woman complaining about sexist jokes at a tech conference.

Add to this: a woman campaigning successfully to have Jane Austen’s face put on the Bank of England’s ten pound notes.

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a voice for men all about the menz antifeminism grandiosity imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression misogyny MRA oppressed men oppressed white men playing the victim rape culture that's completely wrong the poster revolution has begun

Canada: Land of Terror for Men? A Photoshop contest

Ooh, scary!
Ooh, scary!

Men’s Rights activists have discovered something that Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps and the rest of his gang at the Westboro Baptist Church learned a long time ago: outrageously offensive signs can mean media coverage.

Canadian MRAs associated with A Voice for Men recently got attention in Edmonton for posters mocking a date rape awareness campaign. Now some of their compatriots have captured the attention of the media with posters in Saskatoon.

This time the MRAs toned down the offensiveness in favor of simple outrageousness, combined with a healthy dose of incomprehensibility. The most incomprehensible of the current lot is probably this one, which comes straight from the A Voice for Men poster page:

currency

But my favorite is this one:

canadafrighteningplace

I was originally going to write a sort of rebuttal to this, pointing out that by most measures Canada is, generally speaking, a rather unfrightening place for men (and women), what with its high standard of living, decent health care, relatively low crime rate, and so on.

I mean, if I were to pick a frightening country to live in, as a man (or a woman), I would probably pick someplace like, you know, Somalia, North Korea, Sudan or South Sudan, someplace like that. Syria’s probably not a great place to visit at the moment either.

But then I was thinking: Canada’s main problem, in terms of its international reputation, is that people tend to think of it as boring, not frightening.

Maybe Canada should embrace the whole “most frightening place to be a man” thing, and take advantage of this silly quote from Erin Pizzy to promote itself as scary, edgy, intense, EXTREEEEEMMME!

Maybe with some posters like the one at the top of this post?

I don’t know. I’m not that great at photoshop. Perhaps some of you would like to have a go at it? I know we’ve got some talented MRA poster-parodists here.

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are these guys 12 years old? atheism minus douchebaggery misogyny MRA oppressed men playing the victim rape culture

I’ve got mail!

emailcampaign

This email from a non-fan was so thoughtful I thought I’d share it, and my responses to it, with you all. This is the whole email, by the way. No, “Dear David” or any other niceties at the start.

1. Why do you represent yourself as a head of a creepy fucking child?

Because the “creepy fucking child” in the picture is me? It’s sort of my favorite picture of me.

2. How can you honestly believe that we live under a patriarchy, at least in modern western society? I mean, men hold no where near as much power as they’ve had in the past. Women nowadays have pretty much all the rights and opportunities that men have (hell, they probably have MORE rights, privileges and opportunities than men have).

Huh. How on earth could I possibly have come to the conclusion that perhaps men have more than their share of power in society today?

3. So what do you think of the Amazing Atheist?

Why don’t you just go and read what I’ve written about him? Do you not know how to use Google, or the search box on this page?

You two do have your similarities to each other: you’re both fat, have beards, wear glasses, are very opinionated, and both enjoy insulting the people you don’t like (feminists/MRA’s) and naturally attract a lot trolls from those respective groups. But, you two are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to feminism and gender politics.

Huh. How could that possibly be, with both of us being fat and wearing glasses? I’ll have to bring it up at the next meeting of the Bespectacled Fat Elders of the Internet.

Also, there is a bit of a difference between bullying people you don’t like (a la Amazing Atheist) and QUOTING WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAY (a la me).

And no, DO NOT bring up his sexual exploits, trying focusing exclusively on his merits as a video blogger, and as a person who gives his opinions on YouTube.

I don’t give a shit about his “sexual exploits,” whatever they are. And I don’t have much to say about his “merits as a video blogger,” because I’ve only watched a handful of his terrible videos. What I do know. from what I have seen from him, is that he’s a nasty, hateful, misogynistic asshole who bullies rape victims online and mocked a teenage girl who was bullied into committing suicide.

That kind of outweighs (get it? get it?) any fat solidarity I might have for him because of his fatness.

Hope that helps!

Yours, in fatness,

David Futrelle

EDITED TO ADD: My correspondent has responded to this post! Here is his reply. You may notice certain ironies.

That’s fine, go ahead and post all my emails to you on your website. All it’s gonna do is show how much of a colossal douchebag you are. And nice job on having your army of worms and insects crawl from the woodworks to attack me. Just goes to show how much feminists and the people who support them DO NOT deserve to be taken seriously, when all they do is stoop to personal insult and just linking to articles when someone questions them.

On the abortion thing, yeah that’s a problem, but how does it prove that’s there’s a patriarchy in western society? How do you explain the states that do allow abortion, how do you explain the modern western countries where abortions are legal? All it proves is that , yes, there are some states that continue to live in the dark ages and are run by assholes. How bout next time, try to actually answer my question instead of linking to an article and hoping that I’ll be satisfied. But then again, I guess that’s too much to ask out the modern-day feminist simpletons in society.

Oh yeah, and about the Amazing Atheist, he actually bothers to refute what the feminists. It’s not like he just looks at a feminist and says “haha your ugly, your fat, etc.” You on the other hand, stoop to nothing but personal insults. Pretty much all you do is find people you don’t like, hold them up and say “haha look at these people I don’t like, now point and laugh my personal army of woodworms.” You don’t even bother to explain why you think they’re wrong. It clear to me that somebody doesn’t know how to use the search feature on Youtube.

Woodworms?

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a voice for men actual activism antifeminism domestic violence excusing abuse FemRAs judgybitch ladies against women life before feminism men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA paul elam PUA rape rape culture reactionary bullshit rhymes with roosh

Don’t Be That Rape Apologist: Arthur Koestler, Judgy Bitch, and why MRAs hate rape awareness campaigns

Arthur Koestler: Brilliant writer, serial rapist?
Arthur Koestler: Brilliant writer, serial rapist?

Today I’m going to talk about Janet Bloomfield — AKA JudgyBitch — and her bizarre attack on the original Don’t Be That Guy anti-rape posters in Edmonton. But I’m going to take a bit of a detour first, so bear with me.

I recently picked up a copy of Arthur Koestler’s The Case of the Midwife Toad, a nonfiction account of a scientific feud that provided me with some diverting travel reading and put me in the mood to read more of Koestler’s nonfiction.

But doing some rudimentary Googling I made a rather horrifying discovery about Koestler, whom I’d admired since reading his bracing account of breaking with Communism in the classic The God That Failed anthology: according to a recent biographer, Koestler was a serial rapist and abuser of women.

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a voice for men antifeminism consent is hard creepy evil sexy ladies evil women false accusations FemRAs GirlWritesWhat hate johntheother men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA paul elam playing the victim rape rape culture rape jokes the poster revolution has begun

The “Don’t Be That Girl” Poster Controversy in Edmonton, and A Voice for Men’s History of Rape Apologia

Two of the Don't Be that Girl posters
Two of the Don’t Be that Girl posters

I‘ve been traveling, so I’m a bit late getting to the whole “Don’t Be That Girl” poster controversy in Edmonton. For those of you who don’t already know all about it: A group called Men’s Rights Edmonton, closely associated with our favorite Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, has been putting up some pretty obnoxious posters parodying an anti-rape poster campaign called “Don’t Be That Guy,” turning the anti-date rape message into one that targets alleged false accusers of rape.

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are these guys 12 years old? comics consent is hard creepy evil old ladies evil sexy ladies funny life before feminism masculinity no girls allowed patriarchy PUA rape culture rape jokes Uncategorized

Sexist cartoons get dada

Today, a guest post from Etelka, the blogger behind the hilarious Wretched Refuse blog, which you all should read every day.

***

Thanks for letting me sit in, David! As I was telling you, I recently did some rooting around in a unique cranny of pre-manosphere media: sexist vintage cartoons. In the late ’40s and ’50s there were a lot of them published in books like this. (Some of the book covers that follow have been borrowed from the Vintage Sleaze blog here.)

 crapd02

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antifeminism feminism inspiring misogyny MRA oppressed white men PUA rape rape culture

Up from misogyny?

9

A couple of interesting reads:

Check out Escaping the Friendzone: The story of a former right-wing MRA on Jezebel Groupthink, a confessional mini-memoir by a dude who traces his “transition from misogynist, homophobic, right-wing MRA to raging intersectional feminist atheist leftist.”

Meanwhile, that guy who just got that rapey pickup manual funded by Kickstarter, Ken Hoinsky? Well, he’s apparently been quite upset by the criticism and is now pledging to make the manual entirely non-rapey. No, really. He met with the guy who started the petition about his book, and released an apology of sorts saying, among other things:

The concept that someone could interpret what I was writing to be a rape guide shocked me at first. But I took a long look in the mirror and absorbed all the great feedback coming in from across the Internet…

Here is what I realized: In the most offensive and controversial parts, I chose my words poorly. Very, very poorly. I meant one thing and people were reading another. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. I needed to seriously evaluate every last word of my writing to make sure I wasn’t encouraging sexual assault in any way, shape, or form.

Ben Kassoy of DoSomething.Org … graciously offered to meet with me to provide alternate opinions and insights to help remove all of the potentially harmful advice. I am proud to say that his was the first of many meetings I will be having with anti-rape and anti-abuse organizations and experts to make sure that the advice I am offering is free of any tinge of sexual assault or rape vibes. I will be rewriting Above The Game under their guidance and insight.

Right here, on abovethegame.info, I will be starting an international dialogue on how we remove the negative stigma and shame that drives men to seek out seduction advice in the first place. My name may have been martyred in the press, but I will be using this opportunity for good.

The answer isn’t censoring all dialogue surrounding the issue ala Kickstarter’s statement on banning all men’s dating guide projects. Women’s rights and “male seduction guides” can and should coexist

P.S. To my loyal followers from reddit, you should already be aware my writings are not intended to encourage rape. So rest assured the final book will be in the same style you are used to. I’m just taking us to the next level.

Frankly, it doesn’t sound like he’s really learned much of anything from the experience yet, but if he actually follows through with his promised meetings with anti-rape activists he might. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

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a voice for men creepy grandiosity hate irony alert johntheother lying liars mansplaining misogyny MRA rape rape culture straw feminists taking pleasure in women's pain the eternal solipsism of the MRA mind the sound of his own voice

John The Other debates John The Other on MRA misogyny, loses

John Hembling: Open mouth, insert foot.
John Hembling: Open mouth, insert foot.

So the other day someone asked the Men’s Rights subreddit “Why do people think you guys hate women?”

There were a lot of ridiculous answers to that question, but one of the most ridiculous (and one of the most highly upvoted) responses came from our old friend John Hembling, the blabby Canadian videoblogger and A Voice for Men “Editor in Chief” also known for some dopey reason as John The Other. He explained:

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antifeminism domestic violence I'm totally being sarcastic misogyny MRA radfems oh my rape rape culture straw feminists that's completely wrong

The History of Feminism, as told by the Men’s Rights Subreddit

Let’s take a trip down memory lane with this short history of feminism, helpfully prepared for us by mountainmansOG in the Men’s Rights subreddit.

mountain1mountain2

I learn new things about feminism every day! Thanks, Men’s Rights subreddit!