UPDATED 7/10/19
Unmoderated or too-loosely moderated internet forums quickly become shitheaps, so we have a few rules here.
One thing to remember right off the bat: this is a feminist blog, designed (mostly) for a feminist audience. You don’t have to be a feminist to post here, but if you don’t think the world would be a better place without so much fascism and misogyny, you’re not going to fit in. You have a right to your opinions, but you don’t have a right to our attention.
First comments from new commenters – or old commenters changing their name – automatically go to moderation. Regardless of your politics, if you start off here with a jerky or tediously argumentative comment, or if you trigger some other red flag for me, your first comment will never see the light of day.
So what are the big no-nos?
You’re NOT welcome if you’re: a racist, a misogynist, an antisemite, a homophobe, a transphobe or TERF, a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump fan, a fat-phobe, an edgelord, an asshole, a bad-faith comment policy tester, or just a blathering dingus that no one wants to have to listen to. This list is not all-inclusive; I can ban you for being offensive and/or annoying in ways not specified here. Sending me long whiny emails afterwards won’t help your chances of being reinstated.
Some things to avoid: slurs (c*nt, tr*nny, etc; keep in mind that TERF is not a slur); piling on; blaming someone’s bad ideas and/or behavior on mental illness or other medical conditions (though it’s ok to mention mental illness if it’s relevant); disrespect towards working-class or poor people, old people, young people, disabled people, people with mental illnesses, people literally or figuratively living in their mom’s basement. Don’t attack people based on their physical appearance.
No threats or violent comments. That includes telling someone to “die in a fire” or remarking that so-and-so would probably be better off dead. No calls for violent revolution or political assassination or any of that bullshit.
No gratuitously nasty personal attacks. Yes, discussions can sometimes get a bit contentious. You’re not required to be perfectly nice all the time. Just don’t be a total asshole.
No doxxing or posting of personal identifying information. Don’t spread rumors or speculate without evidence on the possible criminal activity of anyone else. Don’t use this site to organize harassment of anyone.
No rape apologism, pedo apologism, victim blaming, and so forth. No slut-shaming; no virgin-shaming. (Suggesting that people with terrible ideas about women might have trouble getting dates is fine, however; it’s also true.)
Don’t misgender anyone. If you do it accidentally, apologize and get it right the next time. If you do it deliberately, you’re out.
Don’t attack anyone for their sexual preferences or kinks, so long as they involve consenting adults. Refrain from weird or creepy sexual oversharing. Whatever your opinion of sex work, don’t disparage sex workers, or use words like “whore” as a pejorative. (Feel free to talk about MRAs who are using the word pejoratively.)
Don’t attack people for their religion or their lack of religion.
Don’t be a mansplainer or indeed any kind of ‘splainer. That is, don’t lecture anyone on something they know better than you, particularly if that thing is their lived experience.
Don’t post too much or try to make threads all about you. Try to avoid drama.
Avoid giving unsolicited advice, particularly on medical or weight issues.
No sockpuppeting. No lying. No misrepresentation of yourself or other people. No posting in bad faith – e.g. posting friendly comments here while trashing the site and/or the people on it elsewhere.
Sometimes I do let trolls and MAGA-heads and MRAs through, but only if I think they might be kind of fun for the regular commenters to bat around for a while. I will ban them if they become more offensive/annoying than entertaining.
If someone is violating these rules or being a huge asshole in ways I haven’t specified, don’t just drop a note in the comments, SEND ME AN EMAIL at dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
That’s basically it. If you’re concerned that the rules seem too strict, please read on:
Regardless of all the rules, you don’t have to be perfect to comment here. As sociologist Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) has noted, very few people arrive “fully formed to the world of activism, the perfect agents of change, somehow entirely cognizant of the ever shifting morass of rules and prescribed or proscribed words, phrases, argot, and thought.”
I want this blog to be open to all those who genuinely oppose misogyny and bigotry more generally, even those who may slip up from time to time.
Still, if you’re new here, or new to feminism, and the regulars here are telling you to avoid certain words, or pointing out something that you’re doing that’s problematic, don’t take it as a personal attack (unless it is couched as a personal attack, in which case email me). If they tell you to avoid particular language, uh, avoid using that language, and don’t explain that in your country calling a person a something-or-other is perfectly fine.
You don’t have to agree with all the rules and/or cultural norms here; but while you’re commenting here you are expected to respect them. If you think a rule is really, really wrong or ridiculous, don’t argue about it in the comments; send me an email about it.
And this brings us to the issue of ableism, which has been a contentious one here.
NOTES ON “CRAZY”
Avoid “crazy” talk. That is, using words like “crazy,” “psycho” and the like to describe the terrible ideas and actions of people you don’t like. It’s stigmatizing to those dealing with mental illness, who really don’t need the extra indignity of being compared to MRAs. Try using words like “ridiculous” or “absurd” or “terrible” instead. Call someone an “asshole” instead of a “psycho.” Try to avoid internet diagnoses of mental illness, and don’t use autism or Aspergers as an excuse for someone’s shitty behavior.
Saying someone is “paranoid,” “delusional,” or “narcissistic” is fine, if you don’t mean it as a diagnosis; these are useful descriptive terms.
If there is evidence that someone you are discussing does indeed have a mental illness, and this is relevant to the discussion, it can be appropriate to bring this up, though you should keep in mind that a hunch is not evidence.
All this said, words like “crazy,” “psycho,” and the like are extremely common, and plenty of people (including feminists, progressives, and people dealing with mental illness themselves) use them casually without intending to stigmatize those with mental illnesses. There’s a difference between saying “crazy people should all be locked up” and “boy, Eraserhead sure was a crazy movie!”
If you’re someone who uses these terms casually, and doesn’t actually want all “crazy” people locked up, it doesn’t make you an evil person, but you need to refrain from doing it here. (Again, if you disagree with this policy, and feel a need to make this disagreement known, DO NOT ARGUE ABOUT IT IN THE COMMENTS, send me an email instead.)
If you are a regular commenter here, and someone uses a problematic term like “crazy” or “psycho,” remind them gently that this is not how we do things here, and send them a link to this comment policy (and possibly the Welcome Package as well). Unless what they have said is particularly egregious, do not insult them or question their motives.
If they argue, remind them that arguing about this rule is also not allowed. If they continue,do not argue back; send me or the mods a note and they will be banned. (This may take a little while, so be patient and please do not give in to the impulse to argue with them.)
If others have already reminded them of the rules, move on.
Again, if someone is acting really shitty in the comments, whether a troll or a regular, SEND ME AN EMAIL.
One other thing to keep in mind:
MRAs read this blog. So I would strongly urge you to comment here using an anonymous handle that cannot be traced to your real identity. And to be very careful about revealing any sort of personal information on this blog. If you inadvertently post something using the wrong account, or that otherwise reveals personal information, let the mods know so we can remove those comments.
Oh, wait, one other other thought:
Enjoy yourself!
No, my question is how you could feel anger. How could you possibly justify being angry at women for not holding a particular subjective opinion towards you (attraction)? What, because it made you feel bad? Sorry, but no. Nobody is obligated to feel attracted to you.
Anger at yourself, I can understand. It’s the result of toxic masculinity and expectations, but at least it’s more understandable than being angry at a gender for doing what 99% of that gender would do anyway (not date you).
If I was enraged at people not feeding me grapes randomly on the street (even when they’re carrying grocery bags, I can see the grapes right there!!!), that anger would certainly be real, but I could never hope to convince anyone that it was justified. It’d be my own responsibility to deal with this absurd angry reaction, not anyone else’s.
I didn’t read just the most recent comments on this thread, Dean Walker, because I’m sporadic about commenting here. I started reading from the top of the page.
What that has to do with the price of beer is that you made a comment about misogynistic comments coming from you until you went on meds on this very thread December 11, 2014. Putting that together with your 1 1/2 years with a girlfriend and others who know you “amazed” at your happiness, it seems that the math adds up to this: a year after, you made an announcement and didn’t get a response. Some five months later, you come back to add the little tidbit that you were angry at women because they didn’t want the unmedicated you.
If you’re not prepared to say “I shouldn’t have been angry at them for my problem,” then what’s to stop you from blaming women again should you again suffer some kind of reversal in your life? PLUS – the angry, misogynistic statements aren’t coming from here. Why not post your information about anti-androgen meds in MRA forums? Believe me, there’s a sure bet in this question: “Would David Futrelle or any of his commenters be given open-minded consideration if suggesting MRAs try unprescribed, non-FDA approved anti-androgen treatments, especially if adding a wondering note about Elliot Rodgers and George Sodini?”
And there’s no need to drag Emma the Emo into this. For all we know, she has a “pretty good relationship” with her angry guy because he’s come to realize he shouldn’t now be or have been angry in the first place.
Okay. Now you have a girlfriend. That means 1 woman is attracted to you.
That means that some 3.6 billion women in the world are still not attracted to you.
Why aren’t you still angry at them? They aren’t attracted to you! Where did your anger go when you got a girlfriend? The status of all those women has not actually changed, so why aren’t you still angry?
This is the difference between justifiable and unjustifiable rage. It’s justifiable to be angry at real injustice even if it doesn’t actually affect you. Many people are angry about poverty who have never personally experienced poverty. Many people are angry about racism who have never personally experienced racism.
Your rage was never justifiable, because it went away as soon as your personal situation changed. You were never angry about women not being attracted to you, because the number of women not attracted to you has only reduced by 1 woman. Your situation, with respect to women not being attracted to you, has barely changed at all.
I’m not saying this to rag on you, but because you need to think about it. What has actually changed significantly for you, to resolve that anger problem? I don’t know the answer to that question, but if you want to answer it for yourself, you can. Women are still not attracted to you, with one exception. What happened to your rage? Once you answer that question, you’ll answer this one as well:
Wow. Dean came back 6 months later to post pretty much the same comment? So sad.
All I need is one.
And yes, I strongly believe that the FDA should make a small change in their regulations.
@dhag85
and
@weirwoodtreehugger
May I be annoyed at doorknobs for not having a more well sorted book shelve?
Is that justifiable?
And that one resolved your problem. The vast, vast majority of women remain not-attracted to you, which is therefore not resolved.
This means that your problem was never that women are not attracted to you. If your problem is fixed (and it is, or you would still be angry), and yet the situation on which you blamed your anger is exactly the same, that means that you were placing blame on the wrong target.
Just to use an example: if someone says they are angry about poverty, and then suddenly they land a terrific job and are no longer poor, and subsequently stop caring about poverty, that means that “poverty” was never the source of the anger. People who are angry about poverty don’t even have to be poor, and they won’t stop being angry until all poverty is resolved.
If someone’s anger is resolved once they get some money, despite poverty still being an unresolved issue, that anger didn’t come from poverty. It came from not liking the personal experience of being poor. It came from a self-centered place.
Now, we are all self-centered in ways, and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with some self-centeredness. We all need to take care of ourselves first. You put on your own oxygen mask before you try to assist someone else with theirs. But when you experience emotions that come from self-centeredness, you have to recognize that. You cannot pass blame onto other parties for problems that originated in your head and are fully contained within your head. It’s not my responsibility to manage your emotions, and it’s not the responsibility of The Women Of The World.
You have to take responsibility for your own emotions and not pass that responsibility off onto someone else. People who expect other people to manage their emotions for them are childish and need to grow the fuck up and act like adults. Does this apply to you? I actually don’t know, but that is a question you need to seriously ask yourself.
@Dean:
You are getting a lot of good feedback here — hope you can use it to your benefit.
You ask:
“How could I not feel anger at women for not being attracted to me?”
See, when I read something like that, the question which arises in my mind is,
How could you feel anger at women for not being attracted to you?
IOW, what makes you believe that women should be attracted to you (or anyone else, for that matter)?
I’m genuinely curious where such belief originates.
@Lanariel
If the bookshelf won’t date you. 🙂
For all you men out there who are involuntarily celibate: Relief is available. That is all I wanted to say. Unfortunately I had to go over to Mexico and put myself in harm’s way to get it. I hope that the FDA will change their rules and make that no longer necessary.
In the Mexican pharmacist’s manual, there is a sentence that says “para el control do los impulsos sexuales” (translation: “for the control of sexual impulses”). As you know, there are many medications that supposedly help in the control of moods and impulses — e.g. prozac, effexor, calexa, thorazine, … etc. So why can’t the anti-androgens like cyproterone acetate be given the same status?
Once again: Did Elliot Rodgers and George Sodini know that there is such a thing as cyproterone acetate? I believe that they wouldn’t have done what they did, if they had known.
Incidently, dhag85, I don’t need to date any bookshelf.
Is there a place here to discuss sexist tendencies in Islam? I don’t see a blog post on the topic, but even the most raging manosphere website wouldn’t suggest girls not be allowed in school, forced marriage, honor killings, or gentile mutilation.
Genital .. Not gentile…
Dean – in your earlier post, you stated that before medicating yourself “I was talking the same misogynistic rhetoric that you see all too much of”
Do you not think that your lack of ability to attract women, and your inherent misogyny might – just might – be related. People can easily see past any insincere face you might put on to the real you behind.
So what we have is “women are not attracted to a misogynist douche who then blames them for not being attracted to him”
What changed?
You. You were/are the problem all along.
Dean, women are not obliged to find you attractive. I don’t know what influence you grew up under, but women are not robots who respond to a particular code. Women are individuals who respond to different men individually.
The reason that men with your attitude have to go to third world countries to find women is because those women are desperate and will do anything to improve their station in life. These women probably don’t love you, but go through the motions to get what THEY want…your money.
Your biggest problem is that you feel entitled to female attention and can’t understand why women aren’t attracted to you. However, instead of looking inward you choose to blame women for not being attracted to you. You seem to think that you are owed female attention when you are clearly not projecting something that women are attracted to.
Another issue with men like yourself is that you can very often be aiming for women that would never be interested in you at all and not focusing on women who will like you. You will aim at the supermodel glamour when the book nerd is actually interested, because you feel you are owed a beautiful woman, rather than look for a woman that will like you for who you are (and who is beautiful in a different way); but you don’t want that kind of woman, you want a glamour so you can show her off to all of your friends. Wake up!
Women owe you nothing, and if you are unattractive to the opposite sex then that is YOUR issue, not the women that don’t find you attractive.
You have clearly grown up thinking that you are owed female attention rather than having to do anything to achieve it.
You come off as a misogynist and most women can see that from a mile away these days, and simply won’t stand for it.
Make no mistake, the problem is with you, not women.
I never grew up thinking that I was owed a woman. What it takes for a man to achieve it, I don’t know. It comes easy to some. And others can’t get it, because women don’t find them attractive; and I have had the experience of being rejected even by the unattractive ones whom other men don’t want
To all the men faced with the above, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SUFFER. If all else fails, there is a way to reduce your libido. You’ll be able to say “Oh well, there are other things in life” and really MEAN it.
Since the medication needed is prohibited by the FDA, here in the USA, you have to go to a foriegn country to get it — like Mexico or France or … several other countries. Americans have gone there to get other medications they want/need, as you might have heard. I hope you will join me in a letter-writing effort to get the FDA to change its rules.
@Dean Walker
Mmmmm, how about no? Libidos are for Spideypool fanfiction.
https://youtu.be/7IkO4CM5kv4
You’re welcome by the way.
To achieve it?
To achieve it?
What is it? A woman?
We are people, not an it. A fact that you can not seem to grasp, no matter how many times we tell you.
Well, that was different.
http://callherhappy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/PicMonkey-Collage5-500×500.jpg
No
No
I recently watched Mary Poppins for the first time since childhood. I realized that movie is trippy as hell. Wtf is ever going on in that movie?
Once again: I never said that women have any obligation. I was talking about how a man can deal with the hard reality of being unattractive. And yes, taking the medication I took was changing myself — not trying to change the world.
*looks at the stoning thread*
Err, okay, that bolding is so subtle it looks like I meant to take whatever to the thread, oops. Hell no. It’s just supposed to have “Honour killings” highlighted.