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Note: This post is about a blog post on the Men-Factor blog that has already inspired some discussions in the comments here.
One of the most disturbing pieces of writing I’ve seen in the manosphere in recent days was actually written by someone who regularly posts comments here — an engineer in Reno who calls himself Scarecrow, and who runs a blog called Men-Factor. (You may have noticed it in my “Enemies List” in the sidebar.) His blog posts are typically puerile “humor” pieces — deliberately crude, and festooned with “wacky” pictures — directed at feminists and the like: here’s one example, a puzzling bit of japery entitled “Woman Purposely does Crossword Wrong; Hailed as Big Step for Women’s Rights!”
But earlier this week, he posted something that left me simply appalled, a weird and angry attack on what he called in the post’s title a “Dirty Skanky Whore with no Brains Who ‘Puts Out’ for Physically Abusive Men” — and who “is Missing and Probably Dead.” Unlike the fictional crossword-puzzle bungler, the women in this post is a real person, a Las Vegas dancer named Deborah Flores-Narvaez, who in fact has been missing since December 12 and who may well have been murdered.
This post comes complete with wacky pictures and all, but it’s essentially a rant celebrating the probable murder of Flores-Narvaez and the murder of “skanks” generally. Why? Because Flores-Narvaez was hot, was dating a man who may well have abused her, and because
she reminds me of those women who would brutally reject men … when being approached. You know – the woman who makes a total scene and makes heads turn – but not at me of course.
Scarecrow puts these words in the mouth of a fictional commenter, but it is clear this is his feeling towards her as well.
Then, rehashing the tired mansophere myth that women only like dating thugs, he writes:
Most American woman are now happy that another psychotic man has once again joined the singles scene and could make them a potential mate and possibly as an extra bonus – a murderer too!
He ends the piece with the phrase “live and let SKANKS die” in big red letters, a twisted reference to the Paul McCartney song with a similar title.
There is of course no possible justification for any of this, but Scarecrow, having been told by some of his friends he’d shown the post to that he’d gone too far, tries to offer one anyway:
I was raised to have respect for all life. … Perhaps I am turning into a sour old fart – but – I have seen crap like this way too often in my life – and it has actually bled over into my life on a few occasions …
I have met too many women like this – and – yes – been treated with hostility by them (or seen them treat other men like me with hostility) when no hostility was called for. Later of course – I hear stories about them getting beaten or killed by some psychotic dick-weed.
Do I still care?
NOPE.
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| From Men-Factor, Scarecrow’s blog. |
For the rest of this part of his rant, see the graphic on the right here, taken from his post.
Scarecrow then links to three blog posts relating events from his life that he says justify his attitude towards Flores-Narvaez and other so-called “skanks.”
The first link recounts what he rightly calls a “whale of a tale.” In brief: One late night about a decade ago, Scarecrow was waiting in line at a grocery store when he noticed that the “incredibly beautiful … busty brunette” in front of him in the line was buying the same odd assortment of items that he was. He made a remark to her about this, and, instead of laughing, as he had hoped, she snapped, and yelled at him. Which is, yes, one of the more likely outcomes you’ll get when you try chatting up a young woman who likely gets hit on all the time when she is shopping by herself late at night.
All of which would be an unremarkable tale had it not been for what happened next: the woman was murdered, her head bashed in with a cinder block, later that night. The police, having heard from a witness who happened to know Scarecrow that he had been “arguing” with her in the grocery store shortly before she was killed, questioned Scarecrow about the incident. Naturally, this freaked him the fuck out, as it would anyone who found themselves facing questioning from cops in a murder case. Having heard his story, they assured him he wasn’t the real suspect — her boyfriend was — and moved on.
Remarkably, instead of feeling sympathy for the murdered woman, Scarecrow instead blamed her, and all women like her, for making his life more difficult:
Why is it that a guy like me gets yelled and barked at by an incredibly beautiful woman like this – and a guy that ends up bashing her face in with a cinder block gets laid – lord only knows how many times – or what kind of fun and exciting sex acts she performed on him? …
This incident was a crucial turning point in my life. Not only was I not getting laid by these “mega-hottie” women, but they would go to extremes to be rude to me. And now, their f*cked up lives were seeping over into my own life. This pissed me off to no end. …
Clearly, something is wrong with some modern western females. SERIOUSLY WRONG!
That’s the conclusion he draws from all this?
The other stories Scarecrow cites as reasons for his rage against “skanks” are equally puzzling. One involves a male co-worker who sort-of-accused him of murdering a young woman named Brianna Denison. Though the “accuser” here was male (as was, it turns out, the actual murderer), Scarecrow directs much of the anger in his post at, again, the murdered woman, whom he describes as a “f*cked up b*tch, who was too good to talk to any ‘nice-guys.'” He also manages to work in a shot at the “heavy-set women” he saw in the TV coverage of a candle-light vigil for Denison:
Funny – since when do fat women care if a tiny woman drops off the face of the planet?
Oh wait – that’s right – silly me. There’s an awful lot of male-hatred that can be spread at such a thing, and of course – lots of money money money to be made. You can show everybody how much you cared about Brianna by donating money to various charities (CHA-CHING!), and remind everybody how ALL men are just beasts that want to rape and kill young women. HIP HIP HOORAY!
The other story involves — long story short — two Nazi skinheads he’d never even met who tried to blame him for drugs and weapons violations they’d committed. Seeing the skinheads for the first time at a pre-trial hearing, he directs his ire not at them but at their girlfriends:
The thing that pissed me off:
They [the skinheads] had their girlfriends with them: Two super-mega-hot women, a brunette and a blond. Both were busty, thin, and extraordinarily pretty in the face. … I wondered: Why do … losers get totally hot women, and men who are better off and “square” do not get the time of day from such women?
Once again: men commit a crime, and Scarecrow directs his anger at women, random women he doesn’t know — for being, in his mind, the type of women who would probably turn him down.
To restate an obvious point I’ve made in other posts: no one (male or female) has the right to sex and/or a relationship with the hottie of their choice, and anyone who walks around hating not only those women who’ve rejected them, but also all the other women who remind him of these women, is going to have that hate curdle inside of him. Everyone gets rejected. Some more than others, but that’s life. Life’s unfair. Yeah, some women go for assholes over “nice guys.” That’s their business, not yours.
But let’s pause for a moment on the issue of the “nice guy” — as in, for example, the “nice guys” who Scarecrow imagines were being cruelly rejected by the murdered Brianna Denison. How “nice,” exactly, is a guy who seethes with hatred of women because a relative handful of said women have responded negatively to his advances? If you blame and resent murdered women for inconveniencing your life, and celebrate the death of “skanks,” here’s the thing, and I shouldn’t really need to say this: you are not actually “nice.” You’re a creepy, angry, misogynistic asshole. And most women can sense that a mile away.
NOTE: I have not decided what I should ultimately do about the issue of Scarecrow posting comments here. Anyone — male or female, MRA or feminist — who posts comments celebrating the death of innocent people will have these comments deleted and will likely be quickly banned. But Scarecrow has not posted any comments like that here, and I am inclined, at least for now, to allow him to continue to comment here and, in particular, to respond to this post.
>Much ground has been covered since I last looked at the comments here, but there is one small issue that I would like to address — and that is the recurring complaint that boys suffer because they are told they can't hit girls.First of all, people, including boys, don't always do as they are told. Boys may be told not to hit girls, but some of them hit girls nonetheless.Second, while the general principle is that boys shouldn't hit girls, it is almost completely swallowed by the exception that for a boy to physically harass a girl, taunt her, subject her to physical pranks, damage her property and sabotage or destroy her school work is merely charming boyish behavior, or an acceptable expression of liking that particular girl. So yes, if a boy straight punches a girl in the mouth, there will be consequences. But short of that, boys are given a lot of leeway in assaulting and harassing girls "for fun", and both school administrations and parents go out of their way to characterize such behavior as "just a joke".There was a time in elementary school when my hair was cropped short, because boys in my class kept tugging at my pig tails. No, it's not "charming", and it's not "funny" when you are the one trying to do work in class and flinching at the slightest movement behind you, wondering when your hair is going to be yanked. Imagine if someone pulled YOUR hair on a regular basis. Or your son's hair (rather than your daughter's) — would you laugh? In fact, I submit that hair-pulling is where it all starts: by treating such behavior by boys as "normal" and "funny", adults send the message that women lack bodily autonomy and that men therefore are entitled to touch women's bodies if they feel the urge to do so; and when the problem is addressed by cutting off the girl's hair — rather than by forcing her tormentors to stop their behavior — that message is reinforced in that women are deemed to be uniquely responsible for physical harassment at the hands of men.There are other forms of physical harassment by boys against girls that are perfectly tolerated by schools and parents, including vandalism, destruction of school work, bra-snapping, sticking gum in hair, etc. And in all such situations, the victim is left with the choice of whether to change schools — in other words, endure tremendous inconveniences just because it would be too much to expect a boy to stop harassing her — or act "ladylike", which is to say, suck it up and be grateful someone likes her enough to break into her locker and deface it.
>Open your eyes Raul. Women do not and cannot respect house husbands. You're powerful wife will seek out a more powerful male for her feral sexual enjoyment. She will also take your kids and you can cry a river about how it's OK because she's a women and they are discriminated against.Sorry, but what a load of crap. "Feral sexual enjoyment"? Please. Powerful men who can't fuck provide exactly ZERO physical enjoyment. And narcissists (which includes men who are obsessed with "power" and masculinity) are lousy in bed, not the least because they are incapable of intimacy. However, I can understand how men who have problems in that department console themselves with the illusion that their pretense of "power" acts as compensation for their lack of sexual prowess.And by the way, I can and do respect househusbands — men who are secure enough in their sexuality and in their relationships that they can follow their inclinations without fear that child care will somehow emasculate them.
>@Amused. You got me! Women do not have Female Feral Sexual Cycles because you said it was so. Seems to me that 2/3 of female initiated divorce must mean that 2/3 of men are just dicks. Yes, you respect house husbands. I see. Now you're just speculating that you could continue to respect an emasculated man for more than four years. Raul, get a good lawyer because your wife will be banging a CEO or VIP within the next four years.BTW, as for your previous post, I too was chased and sexually harassed by girls in school and guess what, there was NO RECOURSE for me! I've had my hair pulled by girls and been picked on by them in school so cry me a river and suck it up princess. Start supporting laws and customs that say person/people instead of male/female and you'll have 100% support from me.Feminism cannot be about equal rights if it pushes a female agenda. It is pure and simple female domination of males that they want and it cannot stop until they get it. Even then, where is their motivation to stop when it is such a big industry? They'll need to make up more and more statistics and make the plight of girls worse than boys through dehumanization of the male.
>Witman your ideas about the nature of women are just baffling. And paranoid. Also your acceptance of the idea of "emasculation" is really sad to me. Stop making essentialist arguments about what I am and what I am not, that I am driven by biology to find "alpha males" or such nonsense. I am a multi-faceted human being, not a she-wolf. Thanks.
>"You got me! Women do not have Female Feral Sexual Cycles because you said it was so."Oh? Women have "female feral sexual cycles" because YOU said so? Your words have more validity than mine because … because you are male?Seems to me that 2/3 of female initiated divorce must mean that 2/3 of men are just dicks.Seems to me that just because the wife initiates the divorce, that doesn't mean she initiated the breakup of the marriage.Yes, you respect house husbands. I see. Now you're just speculating that you could continue to respect an emasculated man for more than four years.First of all, I don't consider a man who stays home to take care of the house and the kids emasculated. Second, my speculations about how I feel are certainly more likely to be accurate than your speculations about how I feel. You don't get to invalidate my experiences and dictate to me what I should think just because you are a guy.BTW, as for your previous post, I too was chased and sexually harassed by girls in school and guess what, there was NO RECOURSE for me!So what? Is your bodily autonomy somehow more precious than mine, that you consider your experiences tragic and mine nonsense? In any event, the point was that your statement that violence by boys against girls isn't tolerated is flat-out wrong.I've had my hair pulled by girls and been picked on by them in school so cry me a river and suck it up princess. Telling me to suck it up doesn't make you original. Girls are constantly told to suck it up, and so are women. Save the lectures for your daughter, though I'm sure she gets an earful already about how her brother is the important one. And — "princess"? Who the hell do you think you are? What do you know about my life? Based on your tale of woe, your life has been a cakewalk compared to mine and that of women in my family. You grew up middle class in one of the wealthiest and most liberal countries in the world — and we all should feel sorry for you? You think, that just because your first wife dumped you, you know hardship? That because you had to go to court a few times for custody, you know the true meaning of irrecoverable loss? That because someone made an unwanted pass at you, YOU are the authority on what it's like to be dehumanized? That because someone made you feel like you arent' the center of the universe by heaping praise on you for the accomplishments of other men, you know the dark side of life? My God, it's a regular Auschwitz, your existence! You poor dear, it's a shame you apparently haven't experienced much to put things in perspective for you. So methinks it's you who should suck it up, you whiny baby. Oh, noes, your hair got pulled! Omygod, how could they do this, that's only supposed to happen to broads — right?Start supporting laws and customs that say person/people instead of male/female and you'll have 100% support from me.Stop making gratuitous insinuations (so obviously wish-fulfillment, btw) about people's spouses, construing "female" things as insulting and degrading, and talking out of both sides of your mouth — then maybe your words will have some credibility with me, even when I disagree.They'll need to make up more and more statistics and make the plight of girls worse than boys through dehumanization of the male.This is another curious phenomenon that I noticed on the part of MRA's who claim they are all for equality. They perceive women as a narrow special interest despite the fact that women comprise half of humanity. Thus any discussion of problems faced by women is automatically "dehumanizing" to men, because men are the default people! And of course, there is no such thing as dehumanization when it comes to women, because women aren't human to begin with. Right?
>@witman: "You're powerful wife will seek out a more powerful male for her feral sexual enjoyment. She will also take your kids"This is one of the strangest arguments you've made yet. A woman DOESN'T do what you claim women do, so you basically declare her guilty anyway because you somehow know that she WILL do those things.If women are guilty not only for what they do but for what you hypothetically imagine they WILL do, no wonder you're angry at women. What if I were to say "I'm not going to listen to a word you say, witman, because you're a serial killer." You would reply that you hadn't killed anyone. Then I could say, "well, you WILL." Wouldn't that be, er, an incredibly stupid argument? Well, you're doing the exact same thing.
>Miranda: Well, guess what. Ya kinda are. Because you all hide. No one knows your real identity, which makes it that much easier for your hate-filled rants to clog up the hate-o-sphere with no claim of responsibility. Sorry, but even you guys have an acronym for that, don't you? And hey, from where I sit, you ARE ALL LIKE THAT. Ridiculous argument!Just checking out your empty profil.Isn't it you who is anonymous on the internet slandering the MRAs with your hateful drivel?it is you who is in hiding. Who are you?
>Raul Groom said… @YohanSo why are you here? You're not contributing anything useful. And who are you, Mr. Raul Groom?Do you consider yourself as a special kind of intelligent human or what?And do you really think, your comments are *useful*?All opinions which do not fit your narrow mindset … Well many do not agree with you and you will have to live with that… sorry, Sir…
>Yohan, the fact that Amptoon happens to buy its web hosting services from a company that also sells web hosting services to porn sites does not in any way mean that he has sold his web site to pornographers. I have taken down your slanderous comment. You, for example, have a blog up on blogger, right? Well, guess what, some people put up adult content on blogger. That doesn't make you a pornographer does it?
>@witman: "so cry me a river and suck it up princess."Uh, yeah. That might be considered a powerful argument on MRA web sites but in the real world, it's generally regarded as a sign that you're out of arguments, and kind of a dick.
>Yohan, if you have specific proof that what you are saying about amptoons is true, I will let you post it. Otherwise I will delete your comments.
>David: You, for example, have a blog up on blogger, right? Well, guess what, some people put up adult content on blogger. That doesn't make you a pornographer does it? You are grossly misinformed, David.Do you not read feminist websites?OK, so I give you now some links…http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/10/11/bad-ideas/http://witchywoo.wordpress.com/2006/10/10/fuckery-and-betrayal/http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/04/26/i-went-to-the-stumptown-comics-fest-and-all-i-got-was-this-awesome-book-about-an-11-year-old-troll-fighting-orthodox-jewish-girl/http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/10/11/i-sold-amptoonscom-comments-are-now-open/http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/10/22/update-on-the-amptoonscom-domain-sale/
>Yohan, since you provided the links, your comment is now up. FWIW, while my understanding of what Barry had done wasn't correct, I think your comments oversimplfied what was going on as well.
>To a lot of you guys: Uh, 80% of women are totally invisible to you. If we're not blonde, not noticably busty, and fat, you'd walk right by us. So, a lot of it is that you're after the western ideal of beauty, and said Western ideal would rather go about her day. Being noticed by guys is so rare to me that I'd hit '91' on my phone because I'd take his interest as pretty sinister. I don't even talk to guys on my daily rounds because I really really hate the idea of being raped/murdered. As a kid, I wanted to be beautiful and blonde. As an adult, I am so glad that I'm not either of those things.
>ohhhhh christ."I'm a nice guy! I never beat up or murdered a woman! (I might have THOUGHT about it-hey, who doesn't, those bitches? but I never did.) But hot women end up murdered by Bad Guys all the time! Fuck it; if the only reason for *not* murdering or raping women-i.e. the reward of a hot woman-isn't coming to me, I might as well join their ranks, am I right? What other *possible* reason could there be? for being a Nice i.e. Not Murdering or Rapist Guy?"brrrrrrrrrrr