Paul Elam has so far refrained from responding to the halfway-on-the-mark, halfway-completely-ridiculous criticism of the Men’s Rights movement leveled by rapey PUA douchenozzle Roosh that we discussed yesterday. Not even that bit comparing the very serious dudes reading A Voice for Men to silly ladies reading Cosmo was enough to provoke the oh-so-easily provoked Elam. Either he’s gotten very Zen about criticism from PUAs, or he’s spent the last several days punching pillows and muttering under his breath about evil “pussy beggars.”
But some of Elam’s acolytes took it upon themselves to respond for him. My favorite comment is this bait-and-switcher from MrStodern, which starts off with a vaguely reasonable observation before descending into misogynist nonsense.
Apparently feminists love pickup artists, and the only legitimate reason for dudes to have sex with women is to teach them a lesson. Who knew?
Our dear friend Roosh, the pickup guru, has written some (self-published) books! One of them is called Day Bang. It’s an instructional manual for dudes who want to know how to convince ladies to have sex with them … in the daytime. It contains this bit of wisdom:
When it comes to how you view the girls you’re approaching, I’d be careful about having too much respect for them. While I’m not saying you should hate women, my initial impression of them is that they’re lubricated holes that exist mostly for a man’s sexual pleasure.
Yeah, nothing even vaguely hateful about reducing women to a body part.
I know all too well that putting them on a pedestal will make it challenging to get to sex within a short amount of time since girls can literally feel when you value their pussy. It’s a fact that nothing dries up an individual pussy more than if it suspects it’s being idolized by a man.
And nothing makes a woman’s vagina dry up and sew itself shut faster than learning that the guy macking on her is relying on a book that describes women as if they are their vaginas, and vice versa.
Yeah, why would anyone want gamer dudes to modify their behavior in any way? From Fat, Ugly or Slutty. Click image for the original post.
So the top post in the Men’s Rights subreddit for a time yesterday, with hundreds of upvotes, was a post devoted to the question: “Why should male gamers change their behavior?” Yep, apparently the sacred right of men and boys to harass women and girls on Xbox live is one of the most important Men’s Rights issues of the day. Here’s how the OP, IsItRacistToAsk, framed the issue:
[G]amers themselves (until relatively recently) were a 90% male community. This goes back really far if you count non-video-game games (like Dungeons and Dragons and the like). Now all of a sudden they’re expected to just behave differently because some girls want to join?
I’m not saying girls shouldn’t be welcome in gaming communities, I’m just comparing them to someone who shows up, uninvited, to a house party and demands everyone go out and get blue plastic cups because red offends her.
I used to think it was just because the large majority of users are men, but it’s not pro-men it’s becoming more and more anti-women.
Outside of the friendzoned crap, any comment that leans towards any kind of talk of womens issues, equal rights etc gets downvoted to hell so it’s not even capable of being discussed. It seems like it’s an US vs THEM mentality more and more. Was it always like this?
The thread that followed is nearly 2000 comments long, so far, and has gotten written up on TheAtlanticWire. The discussion is surprisingly … good? Not perfect — after all, this is Reddit we’re talking about here — but not terrible.
So naturally our friends in the Men’s Rights subreddit are complaining about it.
JohnTheOther, blabby videoblogger and Number Two at A Voice for Men, has now weighed in with his own, slightly tardy, manifesto on the Aurora shooting and the evils of supposed male “disposability.” I didn’t read the whole thing – seriously, dude, OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS – but a few things stood out when I skimmed it. For example, this lovely passage, which seems to be a longer and fouler version of that ill-advised tweet from the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto that I mentioned in my last post.
Our mainstream, which is to say, our corporate media – that which bends and fawns for access to the corrupt elected officials and modern robber barons of corporate statehood – is telling you, young man, that in order to be worthwhile, a real man, you’d better be prepared to die without complaint for the child, or the little old lady, or the drug addled slut in the next seat.
But Mr. TheOther is having none of it:
The instinct – expressing itself variously as chivalry or as fatal self sacrifice — is just one more that no longer has any discernable benefit. It is an encumbrance to any real pursuit of a civilized society in which one class of humans is not legally and socially elevated over another.
Sorry, kids; sorry, old ladies; sorry “drug addled sluts” — you’re on your own. Apparently, in a truly civilized society, no one ever looks out for anyone else. Altruism is for barbarians and Bill Bennett!
Here’s JtO’s stirring conclusion:
Those three men are not heroes, they’re just dead. The calculus of death, where one life is traded in celebration for another by preference of a vagina, is pathological and regressive. It must be recognized as the sickness it is. Those who lionized these men, whose fatal and unexamined instinct led to self-destruction; those who held them up as a heroic example to follow, are cordially invited to go first — or to go fuck themselves.
Charming as always, Mr. TheOther.
In the discussion of Mr. TheOther’s post in the Men’s Rights Subreddit, AVFM’s Paul Elam expands on the whole they aren’t heroes” theme, arguing that we need to retroactively strip away the hero status of the three men who died protecting their girlfriends — because they died protecting women.
Picture from the AdultFriendFinder profile of James Holmes.
In the wake of the shootings in Aurora Colorado, pickup guru Roosh “No Means Yes” Valizedah quipped on Twitter: “I bet $100 the shooter was getting no play.” The implication being: had the shooter been trained in the fine art of “game,” and thus presumably scoring with women, the massacre would never have happened.
There are a few problems, to say the least, with Roosh’s crass comment, one of the most obvious being that training the sort of person who becomes a mass murderer in a set of manipulative techniques of sexual aggression in which a woman’s “no” is treated as “last-minute resistance” seems a little less than wise. Best case scenario? He becomes a serial rapist rather than a mass killer.
The other obvious problem is that it suggests the murders are, in a way, the fault of women for not paying the shooter more attention. The logic here is abuser logic: if you gals don’t put out for awkward nerds, there will be hell to pay, and the blood will be on your hands.
Yesterday, someone calling himself Throwaway72212 brought Roosh’s “meme” to the attention of the Men’s Rights subreddit. His concern? That this kind of “vagina-pedestaling” (!) from pickup artists makes sexually frustrated men look bad; it’s a “virulent form of creep shaming.”
Yeah, really. Apparently the true victims here are “creep-shamed” dudes.
Yesterday I wrote about a vile online game in which players were invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian,” the feminist cultural critic who’s faced endless harassment because she had the temerity to ask for donations to fund a video project looking at sexist tropes in video games.
The game, which (happily) has been removed from Newgrounds.com, where it was originally posted, was put together by a young Canadian gamer named Bendilin Spurr. On the game’s page, he offered this explanation as to why he created the game:
Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her.
She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.
That doesn’t really explain much, as asking people for voluntary donations to a video project is a far cry from “scamming,” especially since she’d asked for far less, and that the misogynist backlash to her project began long before she’d collected anywhere near this amount.
It also doesn’t quite explain why Bendilin felt that a Sarkessian-punching game was the best format to make this, er, critique.
Last night, after learning from the comments here that young Bendilin had a profile on Steam and a Twitter account, I decided to peruse both to see if I could find more clues that might explain his foul game.
On his Steam profile, he’s set forth his basic philosophy of life, video games, and how much women suck:
I think it’s just adorable how absolutely no girls are any good at video games, just like how no woman has ever written a good novel. They are nothing but talk and no action, probably because girls are such emotional creatures and base everything they do on their current feelings and then try to rationalize their actions later. How pathetic.
You know what’s priceless? When a gamer girl posts a pic of herself looking as slutty as possible and then throws a fake fit when people talk to her like she’s a whore. What did you think was going to happen, you dumb broad? Lose thirty pounds.
Sadly, these aren’t terribly rare or original opinions for a young male gamer.
Over on Twitter, Bendilin has offered a number of conflicting explanations for why he felt so much hostility for Sarkeesian and her video project that he felt justified in creating a video game devoted to punching her in the face.
There’s the fiscal argument:
There’s the laziness argument:
There’s the rather strange argument that Sarkeesian is not taking the proper time to research the subject, although she has not yet started the project. (Also, one of the reasons she was asking for money was so that she could take the time to research the subject properly.)
The “nuh-uh you’re wrong” argument:
The “she won’t listen to me argument.” Part one: The Lego Incident
And Part 2, in which our hero explains that making a video game about punching someone in the face is a great way to open a dialogue with them:
Naturally, Bendilin, like most misogynists, fervently denies that he’s a misogynist:
Yep, that’s right. The guy whose Steam profile claims that “absolutely no girls are any good at video games” and that “no woman has ever written a good novel,” and who decided to express his criticism for a video project that hasn’t even started by making a video game in which players punch the woman behind it in the face, is angry that anyone might conclude that he hates women.
Well, Bendilin, if you wanted to defend video games and the gaming community at large from charges of sexism, you’ve done a bang-up job of it.
The sexy robot ladies are back! Not so much in real life, where they are still more scary than sexy, but in the fervid imagination of dudes who hate real ladies. Like Eric here, on The Spearhead:
When I first came to the MRM, there was a story in the news about a Japanese robotics engineer who had made a female android. It really wasn’t much more than a fairly realistic-looking doll; although there was quite a bit of discussion at the time for the potential to improve on the design. The main thing was that it’s invention caused a fury from the feminists. Even at that early stage in my MRA days, I could see the reason: for the first time women were looking the very real possibility that they could become expendable.
Well, “expendable” only if you view women as little more than support systems for their vaginas.
Personally, I’m more into foreign girls than virtual sex. But the same principle applies: as long as there are alternatives to feminists, the feminists are expendable. They don’t have the power to convert every woman on the planet; and even if they could they can’t stop men from building robots.
Please, build those robots, and lock yourselves away with them forever, and leave the rest of us alone.
Elsewhere in the same thread on The Spearhead we get some examples of why it’s a problem when Men Who Really Should Be Going Their Own way … don’t. A fellow calling himself Rmaxd apparently suggested that men who feel themselves to have been mistreated by the courts should: “Lynch a judge as you would any traitor or dictator.”
His comment was deleted, and heavily criticized — apparently for not being circumspect enough in his threatening language. After all, our dear friend JeremiahMRA got mostly upvotes on The Spearhead for a similarly threatening remark just the other day. And elsewhere in the very same thread as Rmaxd’s now-deleted comment we find a fellow called freebird suggesting that men who have allegedly suffered because of women should
share this pain with those inflicting it. cue up “blood on the plow”
Meanwhile, again in the same thread, a commenter called walking in hell brings up the example of Thomas Ball, the MRA who self-immolated on the steps of a Keene, New Hampshire courthouse a year ago in hopes that his dramatic death would inspire other men to (quite literally) burn down police stations and courthouses using Molotov cocktails. (You can read Ball’s manifesto, complete with its call for MRA terrorism though without the specific instructions on how to make effective Molotov cocktails, on A Voice for Men, in its “activism” section; search the page for “burn” to go directly to his advocacy of terrorism.) Walking in hell also thinks family court judges should be “punished” for their alleged “crimes,” by which he means denying some fathers visitation.
[R]esponsibility for such heinous crimes against children can behold an individual to a special kind of punishment.
We see the nervous squirming by judges in the Australia case marked by the judge issuing an apology. We also see nervous squirming in the UK with the evildoers trying to issue fake political gestures to angry people.
The evildoers must smell something besides fire and brimstone. The sooner they get to the fire and brimstone, the better off children and fathers will be.
Apparently this vaguely threatening language was vague enough to pass muster on The Spearhead; this comment got more than a dozen upvotes.
The sooner you fuckers build those sexbots you like to talk about so much, the better for all of us.
Over on Reddit, an MRA named AryoBarzan sets the feminist slut ladies straight on the BIOTRUTH about their ever-growing and FAR less pleasurable vaginas. (Ignore the rude person replying to his message; clearly Aryo is the real penis and vagina expert here.)
Wait, you say to yourself, how is it that this bold truth-teller is being downvoted, on Reddit? He posted in the antimensrights subreddit, that’s why. In the Men’s Rights subreddit he normally gets the upvotes he so richly deserves.
Well, this is … interesting. So JohnTheOther has plopped out another rambling diatribe about evil feminists. This time he accuses them not only of “attacking male sexuality” but also (if I’m reading him correctly) of being a bunch of evil homophobes jealous that some men don’t want to have sex with women. You read this and tell me what you think he’s implying here:
Male sexuality is of course both demonized and treated as a form of predation, but also strictly limited to a narrow set of acceptable expressions. Outside of sexual identities which place men in positions to benefit women as sexual gate-keepers, masculine sexuality is generally condemned.
JTO would love to compare these alleged gay-man-hating feminists to the proudly gay-male-affirming Men’s Rights Movement. There’s just one problem: As even JTO has to force himself to admit, there are more than a few homophobic dudes lurking around in the Men’s Rights movement. As JTO acknowledges:
[T]here is a thread of opinion with a growing currency among some MRAs which rejects the legitimacy of men whose self identity and sexuality is gay or bisexual, or I suppose, transsexual.
JTO doesn’t like this, and says so:
[There] are men (and women) whose sexuality, either chosen or not, doesn’t conform to an acceptable standard – and some within the MRM would demonize them. Gentlemen and ladies – this is nothing short of stupid.
At what point does who an individual finds sexually attractive diminish their value as a human? How is it that a man whose preference doesn’t include vagina becomes less of a man? Conversely, are we going to pretend the sexual preferences of our female colleagues matter in the context of partnership in the fight for the human rights of men and boys?
So: JohnTheOther has explicitly decided to speak up in favor of “the gay agenda.” (Yes, that’s the phrase he used.) And he’s even included lesbians in the deal – something allegedly pro-gay MRAs often have trouble doing – even though he sort of suggests at the end that he’s only willing to accept lesbians who are also MRAs.
But, hey, baby steps, right?
Well, John, if you really want to toss the homophobes out of the Men’s Rights movement, you’re going to have to start with A Voice for Men itself.
If you go to read JTO’s whole post over on AVFM, you’ll see a couple of “featured videos” in the sidebar from longtime AVFM friend and contributor Bernard Chapin. One of them bears the intriguing title “Feminist Professor Gloats Over Lesbian Chic.” The description, presumably written by AVFM head honcho Paul Elam, reads:
Bernard’s on a roll here with this one. And you will be rolling to [sic] as he delivers another thorough fisking, Inferno style.
Watch the video, here or there, or as much of it as you can stand. As you’ll see, it’s basically eight minutes of gratingly “humorous” lesbian bashing from good old Bern – whose preferred term for “lesbian,” incidentally, is “lesbobo.” (Evidently adding an extra “bo” to the old slur “lesbo” is hilarious.)
Chapin has produced more than 1200 videos; this is one of the two that AVFM has chosen to feature.
You want to stand up to homophobia, John? Take down that video. Apologize for hosting it. Apologize for featuring it. Demand that Chapin apologize for it — or kick him to the curb.
Meanwhile, AVFM is helping the guy behind the website Artistry Against Misandry publicize and raise money for an upcoming event; Elam himself says he’s already sent along a hundred dollars. Here are some examples of the sort of “artistry” that’s featured on the site:
This second graphic is not only homophobic but confused: Chaz Bono is a trans man, not a lesbian.
John, I suggest you ask your boss at AVFM to get his money back from Artistry Against Misandry. Because, here’s the thing: if you actively support hate like this, people might just get the impression you’re a hate site.
EDITED TO ADD: In the comments, Elam proudly announces his own support of the “gay agenda” as well. Well, with 0.1% of it.
I don’t like most gay activists very much, and I oppose 99.9% of what passes as gay activism, but I don’t think it is very smart to forget that part of the reason they were led astray is because most “normal” men never gave them the dignity of being regarded as a man.
Forget gay marriage, forget bullying, forget AIDS: apparently the only real issue for gay men is evil feminist ladies calling them “fags” for not wanting to have sex with them.
Gay men are bashed, when all is said and done, because they are not of utilitarian value to women, and because they are perceived as not having enough strength to be of utilitarian value to the elites.
Yeah, that’s probably it.
What about homophobia against lesbians? That’s easy: “lesbobos” are just naturally ugly and hilarious.
