Category: taking pleasure in women’s pain

"proxy violence" #gamergate a new woman to hate a voice for men antifeminism antifeminist women creepy emotional abuse empathy deficit entitled babies harassment hate imaginary oppression men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam playing the victim taking pleasure in women's pain threats

7 Tactics of Highly Effective Harassers: How A Voice for Men's Internet Hate Machine works

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 27, 2015
181 Comments on 7 Tactics of Highly Effective Harassers: How A Voice for Men's Internet Hate Machine works

A Voice for Men mocks the fears of one of its targets of harassment

The self-described “Men’s Human Rights” site A Voice for Men is a hate site trying — admittedly not very hard, or convincingly — to pose as a human rights organization. In reality, as I and various other writers have documented in considerable detail, it’s an organizer and amplifier of hatred, directed at feminists and women more generally.

Much of this hatred is directed at specific targets, mostly though not always feminist women who have offended A Voice for Men’s founder Paul Elam. The aim is generally to terrorize feminists into silence.

I’ve written at length about AVFM’s campaigns of vilification and intimidation in the past; for a recent example as well as numerous links to discussions of past examples, see here.

Today I will look at some of the specific tactics that AVFM uses against its targets – providing, in each case, a recent example.

This, in other words, is how AVFM’s Hate Machine functions. [TRIGGER WARNING for abusive language, discussion of abusive tactics]

#gamergate a new woman to hate a voice for men antifeminism antifeminist women attention seeking bullying creepy doubling down doxing edmonton entitled babies harassment hate judgybitch lying liars men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam playing the victim racism taking pleasure in women's pain the poster revolution has begun YouTube

Paul Elam, you're no MLK: A Voice for Men offers a $100 bounty for a clear photo of its latest feminist foe

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 19, 2015
522 Comments on Paul Elam, you're no MLK: A Voice for Men offers a $100 bounty for a clear photo of its latest feminist foe

Cartoon by Sage Gerard. aka "Victor Zen," AVFM's golen boy of campus activism — Cartoon by Sage Gerard, AVFM’s golden boy of campus activism

Today I’d like to share with you two quotations. One is from Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose legacy we honor today. The other is from someone who considers himself the leader of a human rights movement that follows in the footsteps of King.

The first quote:

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

The second:

a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism crackpottery creepy empathy deficit entitled babies evil fat fatties evil sexy ladies evil women feminist dudes hypocrisy irony alert memes men created civilization men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misogyny MRA nice guys reactionary bullshit red pill sexualization straw feminists straw futrelle taking pleasure in women's pain the olden days unsolicited penis updates

How A Voice for Men's Facebook memes inadvertently reveal the deep sexual insecurities underlying the misogyny of the Men's Rights movement

Detail of a perhaps inadertently revealing A Voice for Men meme — Detail of an unintentionally revealing A Voice for Men meme

The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!

From time to time I like to check in on the Facebook page for A Voice for Men, to see how that eminent men’s human rights organization’s program to advance the human man rights of human men through badly designed and even more poorly conceived graphic “memes” is going.

Well, I can report that this program is going, and going, and going, a bit like a famous battery-powered bunny.

Looking through them today, I couldn’t help but notice the weird sexual undertones — and overtones — of many of the memes, and realized that, while none of the memes tell us much about the world, they do, in an altogehter accidental way, offer some pretty interesting insights into the ids of those making and “liking” them on Facebook.

You don’t have to be a trained psychoanalyst to see the not-very-well-hidden straight male sexual insecurities that lie behind a large number of AVFM’s memes — both the ones they create themselves and the others that seem to have arrived on the AVFM page after being forwarded via email from someone’s cranky misogynistic uncle. Let’s take a look at some of them.

#gamergate a voice for men a woman is always to blame advocacy of violence antifeminism boner rage consent is hard domestic violence drama kings evil sexy ladies evil wives evil women harassment men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA nice guys paul elam rape culture taking pleasure in women's pain why can't men punch women?

Is the Men's Rights Movement driven by the rage of the rejected?

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date October 27, 2014
467 Comments on Is the Men's Rights Movement driven by the rage of the rejected?

Memorial in Marysville

Was Marysville school shooter Jaylen Fryberg trying to exact revenge on a girl who had rejected him? Various news accounts suggest that Fryberg was reeling from a recent breakup; a number of angry, anguished, and frustratingly enigmatic recent comments on Fryberg’s Twitter account seem to back this up.

So it may be that the shootings on Friday were yet another reworking of an old story.

It’s no secret that many men, for an assortment of reasons, react badly and often violently to romantic and sexual rejection. This can range from self-described “nice guys” of OkCupid sending vicious messages to women who say no all the way to angry men who stalk and harass and sometimes kill ex-wives and girlfriends. Women who leave abusive relationships often suffer greater violence at the hands of exes unwilling to let them go.

I’ve written before of the striking ways that Men’s Rights Activism recapitulates the logic of domestic abuse; it’s no coincidence that so much MRA “activism” consists of harassment of individual women. So the question naturally follows: does the rage that drives so many MRAs come from the same dark place in the psyche as the rage that so many romantically and sexually rejected feel towards their exes?

#gamergate advocacy of violence antifeminism boner rage empathy deficit evil sexy ladies evil SJWs gamebros imaginary oppression men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA rape rape culture reddit sarkeesian! sexual assault sexualization taking pleasure in women's pain

These Men's Rights Activists and GamerGaters get off — literally — by fantasizing about sexually humiliating feminists.

Every MRAs not-so-secret fantasy. (From a vintage cigar ad.)

[TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of rape, violent misogyny]

Today, the easy winner in my informal “Worst Thing I Saw On The Internet” contest is a horrendous little hangout for dudes with a very particular sexual fetish: they like to fantasize about raping and sexually humiliating feminists.

The Breaking Feminist Superheroines subreddit (r/breakfeminazis), with 865 subscribers, describes itself as

#gamergate a woman is always to blame advocacy of violence antifeminism grandiosity men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny oppressed men sarkeesian! sympathy for murderers taking pleasure in women's pain terrorism threats video games

Anita Sarkeesian Cancels Talk at Utah State After Receiving Threat of Another "Montreal Massacre." [UPDATED with more info from Sarkeesian]

Utah State University has just announced that Anita Sarkeesian has canceled a talk she was scheduled to give at the school tomorrow after receiving a threat of a “Montreal Massacre-style attack” by someone promising ““the deadliest school shooting in American history” if the cultural critic was allowed to speak.

Here’s the official announcement:

Anita Sarkeesian has canceled her scheduled speech for tomorrow following a discussion with Utah State University police regarding an email threat that was sent to Utah State University. During the discussion, Sarkeesian asked if weapons will be permitted at the speaking venue. Sarkeesian was informed that, in accordance with the State of Utah law regarding the carrying of firearms, if a person has a valid concealed firearm permit and is carrying a weapon, they are permitted to have it at the venue.

Emphasis added. That’s right: the school received threats from someone promising to shoot people at a public event, but because of Utah’s gun laws, authorities would not be able to prohibit audience members from BRINGING GUNS to the talk.

#gamergate a voice for men antifeminism antifeminist women attention seeking doubling down evil SJWs FemRAs gamebros gross incompetence gullibility harassment judgybitch lying liars misogyny MRA racism radfems oh my sarkeesian! taking pleasure in women's pain twitter yeah that's the ticket

A Voice for Men's Janet Bloomfield libels Anita Sarkeesian with an obviously fake "screenshot" of a Tweet that never was

Janet Bloomfield: Unapologetic asshole. Profile picture for one of her Twitter accounts.

EDIT: Bloomfield says she found the screenshot on Facebook. Details below.

Janet Bloomfield – A Voice for Men’s compulsively lying “social media director” – is at it again.

A couple of months back, Bloomfield – who goes by JudgyBitch1 on Twitter – decided for some reason that she could best serve AVFM’s social media directing needs by straight-up libeling feminist writer Jessica Valenti – by making up inflammatory quotes and attributing them to Valenti in a series of Tweets. She later boasted in on her blog that the quotes – which she admitted she’d conjured out of thin air – had inflamed hatred of Valenti and caused her to catch “a bit of hell.”

Now Bloomfield is pulling the exact same stunt again. This time, her target is feminist cultural critic and #GamerGate bete noire Anita Sarkeesian.

On Saturday, Bloomfield tweeted an obviously doctored “screenshot” of a tweet that Sarkeesian never made.

a woman is always to blame advocacy of violence antifeminism attention seeking crackpottery creepy elliot rodger empathy deficit evil sexy ladies grandiosity hate speech incel literal nazis men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA racism rape rape culture reactionary bullshit red pill sympathy for murderers taking pleasure in women's pain the sound of his own voice threats women are children

Reddit hits a new low with a subreddit promoting the "corrective" rape of "sluts" and "harlots."

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date October 1, 2014
178 Comments on Reddit hits a new low with a subreddit promoting the "corrective" rape of "sluts" and "harlots."

Collage of images from the PhilosophyOfRape subreddit

For a social media site with pretensions to respectability, Reddit shows an astounding tolerance for hate. As anyone who has ever explored the site’s dark underbelly knows well, the site hosts a vast array of subreddits devoted to celebrations of such things as “white pride” and violence against women.

The latest addition to this archipelago of awfulness is a 3-day-old subreddit with the pretentious and appalling name PhilosophyOfRape, set up by a user of the same name in order to promote and celebrate “corrective” rape of “sluts” and “harlots.”

In a manifesto announcing the subreddit to the world, the user known as PhilosophyOfRape set forth his basic thesis, which he insists is as “serious as a heart attack.”

#gamergate 4chan a new woman to hate actual activism antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? creepy doxing empathy deficit entitled babies evil sexy ladies gamebros harassment men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats taking pleasure in women's pain your time will come zoe quinn

The "Emma You Are Next" site can't be dismissed only as a lulzy prank; it's an assault on the civil rights of women [UPDATED: Hoaxer revealed]

Emma Watson, U.N. Women Global Goodwill Ambassador

UPDATE 2: See here for my updated take on the hoax.

UPDATE: It appears the Emma You Are Next site is indeed a hoax, put online not by a 4chan hacker but by a sleazy internet “marketing” company known for similar hoaxes in the past. That said, it was a hoax designed to take advantage of two disturbing trends — not only the widespread public demand for leaked celebrity nudes but also the antifeminist backlash culture of the internet. Emma Watson was already being denounced and derided by internet misogynists even before the Emma You Are Next Site went online. I have made some changes in my original post below; strikeouts indicate the original text. I have also rewritten the conclusion, and taken down the video version of this post.

You already know the basic facts, I imagine: This past weekend, actress Emma Watson gave an eloquent speech at the United Nations about the necessity of feminism, and how the fight for gender equality can benefit both women and men.

Then some asshole or assholes apparently associated with ~~4chan~~ a sleazy internet “marketing” firm decided to ~~punish her for her opinions~~ exploit the widespread desire for stolen nudes of female celebrities and the antifeminist backlash that was already developing in the wake of Watson’s speech by threatening to release stolen nude pictures of her, setting up a page entitled Emma You Are Next featuring a photo of Watson alongside an ominous countdown clock, presumably highlighting just when she can look forward to her privacy being egregiously violated.

There’s been a lot of debate over whether or not this threat is a real one or a “hoax.” [It appears that it is a hoax.] Business Insider declares that

advocacy of violence alpha males antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? bad boys beta males creepy dark enlightenment domestic violence doubling down emotional abuse empathy deficit evil sexy ladies evil SJWs excusing abuse gaslighting heartiste men who should not ever be with women ever PUA red pill taking pleasure in women's pain victim blaming

You'll be horrified to learn where one popular pickup guru has found some, er, dating tips

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date September 20, 2014
215 Comments on You'll be horrified to learn where one popular pickup guru has found some, er, dating tips

Heartiste – real name James Wiedmann – is a proudly racist, woman-hating “pickup artist” guru known for advocating manipulative and often quite abusive “game” techniques to give men the upper hand in relationships and in the dating market. These run the gamut from emotional abuse – what he calls “dread game,” an elaborate portfolio of gaslighting ploys to keep women feeling insecure and off-balance – to straightforward physical abuse – slapping women “when necessary” to assert “alpha male” dominance.

Now he’s suggesting that wannabe lotharios borrow some tips on how to “game” women from the Duluth Power and Control Wheel, a widely used violence intervention tool designed to fight abuse, not provide a blueprint for it.

The Duluth Wheel highlights some of the most prevalent kinds of abusive behavior. Heartiste mines its descriptions of abuse for dating tips, claiming to find in it “a few curious nuggets of anti-feminist truth about relationships and how to keep them going.”

In his recent post, Heartiste goes through some of the descriptions of abusive behavior on the Duluth Wheel – and recasts them as handy tools for would-be “alpha males.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: