The “scold’s bridle” in use
I’ve often recommended that the terrible human beings who call themselves Men Going Their Own Way should literally go, preferably to some uninhabited island — some frozen rock off the coast of Antarctica or a remote atoll in the Pacific where they could prove their mettle by catching and eating any seagulls that stopped by.
So far no MGTOWs have gotten on board with this suggestion. And so I’d like to offer another possible solution: MGTOWs could simply dig themselves a deep hole in the middle of a desert somewhere and hunker down in it forever.
I got to thinking about these possible MGTOW solutions today after taking yet another look into the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit, and running across this dude calling for the return of a centuries-old torture device called the “Scold’s Bridle,” basically an iron harness designed to keep women from talking .
![Ximkai[S] 8 points 4 hours ago* This is a Scold's bridle. Women may call it a medieval torture device (because being forcefully stopped from bitching probably does sound like torture for them), others call it a witch hunting tool. In reality, this is one of the many contraptions that helped keep the peace all the way up until the late 1800's. Almost exclusively used on women, it was a form of punishment for shrewish gals who just found too much joy in causing a scene in public. They would be court ordered to wear this mask for whatever period of time. And to put it lightly, it was simply designed to shut a bitch up so that everyone may continue their business in a polite and quite society. While some may have you think that this is some type of torture, all it would simply do is depress the tongue of the wearer to make speech impossible. Of course, once witch hunts became a thing, some more brutal devices were created that would cause pain with metal spikes on the tongue depresser. This just goes to show that even in history AWALT. However, back in the day, society was allowed to do something about it and could police everyday headaches with public humiliation.](https://i2.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/hhjhjhjhjhjt.png)
Please, dude — and all the other dudes who upvoted this — go dig a hole and live in it.
![The violence at Trump rallies keeps getting worse. Now a Trump staffer has assaulted a reporter [UPDATED]](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trumpfists_phixr.png?resize=50%2C50)
These MGTOWs…all they DO is b–ch about women. It’s an endless circle jerk for them.
Has anyone else noticed the proliferation of MGTOW You Tube channels? I’m a masochist, I guess…sometimes, I go to one of them, and read the comments. I’m hoping some of the commenters are very young men, and they’ll hopefully mature out of it.
I wonder if it ever occurs to them, the numbers of women who’ve written off men, and “gone their own way,” but weren’t so pretentious to consider it a social movement.
@Troubelle: If you’re reading this, I’ve really been enjoying your posts. I can hardly believe you’re as young as you say you are! Keep writing!!
@Dormousing_It
Thanks. I guess I’m something of an oddity, but as long as I have some reasonable output, I’ll do my best to offer it.
@Rhuu yes it is pretty scary.
( possible trigger warning, bullying)
When I was younger, I never said much at school, due to shyness and pretty severe social anxiety. Of course, the bullies would try to bother me until I said something. They would steal my books, spit on me, and try to trip me in the hallway. This only made me want to shut down more. It really sucked.
Fast forward and long story short, I am a lot better now than I was, but I still sometimes have nightmares about losing my voice/not being able to speak above a whisper.
So yeah, anyone who thinks this sort of punishment is a good idea is an asshole who can go fuck themselves.
Did anyone else note the irony in non-traditional-male-presenting Milo worrying about bathroom safety?
If he showed up in my very conservative part of the world with his Rachel Maddow haircut with Rachel Green frosted tips, festooned with pearls on wrist and neck, with his posh accent and brittle Deputy-Head-of-Sixth-form false confidence he would have to worry about his own bathroom safety. Some horrible bigot might beat him up in the bar bathroom because, “I don’t know what you’re supposed to be”.
He’s a henchman, not even a provocateur. He’s the weak guy that stands with the bullies, with the hope they might forget *he’s everything they hate*.
Let him talk. Let him talk everywhere. The longer he talks to anyone, the more closely his views begin to align with theirs, he’s just that shallow.
Looks like after 20 hours the original Reddit post has only five distinct commenters. One of them is a bot, one goes “fuck yeah”, one rants about women in generic off-topic fashion, one jokingly points out that gags don’t work on people using keyboards. One actually calls it out like “this is too sick for even Reddit”.
See if they get banned for “concern trolling”, which is apparently against the subreddit’s rules.
@Petal
*seethes*
Imma go shower away the memory of having read that. Does anyone have any pointers on how to loofah one’s brain without a surgical saw?
Might I suggest the tinykittens livestream?
I really fucking hate it when men pontificate on how I need to be protected from peeing in a stall next to a trans woman. Don’t drag me into this shit. I’ve never been threatened by a trans woman in a bathroom or anywhere else and I do not care if a trans woman uses a bathroom with me. When I’m in a public bathroom I am not worried about anyone’s bits. I’m worried that the bathroom will be sufficiently clean. I’m worried that I’ll forget to check for toilet paper and there won’t be any there. If conservative men are so worried about making my bathroom experience more pleasant, they should advocate for more plentiful and clean public bathrooms.
Okay. Now I’m rambling. I’m just saying, speak for yourselves dudes. Don’t do bigotry in my name.
I also hate the notion that trans people are just confused. I’d be willing to bet the average trans person thinks a lot more about gender and knows a lot more about the research done on the subject than the average cis person. And doesn’t Milo, as a gay person, realize that a lot of gay people are told they’re just confused and will snap out it when they meet the right person of the opposite sex.
I’m so glad I stopped watching Real Time a few years ago. Who even still watches it? Just in case any lurking MRAs come in here to defend Bill Maher, they should know that one of the reasons I finally got fed up with him and quit watching was when he said boys can’t be raped by their teachers, they’ve just gotten lucky because they got to have sex with the hot teacher.
This part always scares me. I expect Maher to be a twerp who gets to play cool dude with ‘edgy’ guests. And I understand the audience is self-selecting.
But man, so many people are just flat out assholes.
As a fan of all things Apollo mission related can I take this opportunity to recommend the new film “Hidden Figures”?
I don’t want to say why people here might enjoy it, as that might be a bit a spoiler. If you’re unfamiliar with the ‘behind the scenes’ aspects of the space race you might be in for some surprises. The film really addresses what I call ‘Tommy Flowers Syndrome’ but with particular emphasis (although it’s not ‘in your face’) on some remarkable but undersung people.
It also has the best ‘mathematics as action sequence’ scenes since ‘Apollo 13’.
@Hu’s On First: I read the article you linked to.
So, it’s come to that. I’m a nonpracticing Catholic – Catholic by birth. Some parishioners of the Catholic church my husband belongs to, want to have armed guards stationed around the church during Sunday services. Not surprisingly, they began to discuss this after Dylan Roof’s shooting spree.
OK, there’s some prejudice against Catholics, here in rural Pennsyltucky. But, ARMED GUARDS? This is out in the sticks, not in Philly.
@wwth
My Bernie-loving, Anita Sarkeesian-hating brother thinks Maher is not just the bees knees, but a legitimate source of unbiased news. Unbiased. News. He also thinks Bernie is the biggest civil rights hero and Nixon’s war on drugs primarily targeted hippies. I’ve tried to talk with him about these things, but he’s so utterly convinced he dismisses anything that contradicts his worldview as ‘biased’ therefore ‘false’.
Idk what to do.
@The Adjunct
But
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56f16a0ae4b03a640a6bbda1/amp?client=safari
The Drug war literally did target black people and was even admitted to be specifically to target black people.
@Adjunct
It’s a fuckin comedy show! Then again, people voting for Trump thought he was a good businessman, cos he played one in a game show
John Muthafuckin Lewis (his real middle name, true story…) would like a word. He’s in Congress too, so he can still fawn over a politician if he wants
As oblivious as Sanders can be vis a vis racial issues, I’ve heard him say, on multiple occasions, that the drug war is racist. As with most bros (puns), Bernie serves as a buffet of ‘radical’ ideas for them. They take what they want and leave the rest. Not that he makes it difficult for em to do so, but whatevs…
@oogly, @axe
I know… my brother admits ‘yeah i can see how it could be racist, but really, those poor hippies were the biggest threat to nixon.’ He just puts blinkers on and ignores evidence contradicts his beliefs.
Also,
Yep. I personally don’t disagree with Sanders on a lot of things, just his priorities. I also am most frustrated with his supporters. I know, #not all, but enough of them. Bernie also pleaded with supporters to vote for Hillary, and some turned on him for that. It must be exhausting to be so pure. I like your buffet analogy, so true.
Sorry for derailing… I’m still upset at the whole milo/maher thing. Bill maher is so good at making bigotry so easy and fun. Ha ha yes let’s just laugh at those people, those ‘weirdos’, say we’re only ‘joking’ when people get upset, and then victim blame vulnerable populations about what happens to them. Fuck milo/maher, seething misogynists using women to justify their hatred for transpeople and muslims. But we must all remember who the real victims are, white cis men!!
@The Adjunct
February 18, 2017 at 1:5
Don’t be. Stay as mad at Maher as long as you’d like. Never really liked the prick myself even before this. He was the quintessential brogressive who gives lip service to progressivism when he isn’t sucking up to boomers.
HOLY SHIT. WE LITERALLY TALKED ABOUT THE SCOLD’S BRIDLE IN HISTORY CLASS ON WEDNESDAY. (Our current area of study is crime & punishment during the 16th and 17th centuries.) The thought of the “manosphere” and what their response to it would probably be was a thought that crossed my mind multiple times. Sickening.
Bill Maher thinks that comedy is the highest form of free speech and that it should be completely above any kind of criticism aside from the “did it make someone laugh” variety. I know this because he has said as much, back when he was defending Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a c-nt. He had a routine in which the punchline was that he called Sarah Palin a c-nt, and the audience laughed which made it A-OK. That was his argument. People laugh, therefore nobody can criticize it.
I wonder if Maher is bitter because with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert leaving their political comedy shows, he assumed he would be the king of that genre. But then John Oliver and Samantha Bee came along and are both funnier and do progressivism better. They’re the ones people talk about while Maher is only talked about because people are rolling their eyes at his cranky smugness.
Why does anyone think Bill Maher is liberal?
@Laugher
Because he made fun of Dubya and Palin and some other republicans.
Better still, get ye a scold’s bridle and WEAR IT, dudes…because if anyone’s kvetching the shit out of everyone’s ears, it’s yourselves.
(And get a couple more for your fingers, too.)
@IP
OUCH ! Losing a save is the worst thing ever 🙁
Hugs and pancakes.
@wwth
He’s the one who keeps saying gay people are confused and/or sinners because reasons. Also he became gay to not have to deal with “nutty broads”.
I dunno why even logic anymore.
That poor save game :C All those pokecritters. That’s awful!
Bill Maher is hideous and I’ve never liked him. He may say some progressive things, but really, he’s just a bully who will pick on anyone he think he can pick on. Progressive comedy punches up, and makes you feel good afterwards – maybe not awesome, but perhaps energized, and certainly feeling more aware of the world. Conservative comedy punches down, and doesn’t make you feel anything but perhaps a little smug about your own superiority. Maher? He just punches everyone.
Fuck that guy. Maher and Milo, made for each other. They’re just different generations of trolls.
@wwth: That’s what gets me about the whole bathroom thing too! How would I know if the person next to me was a trans lady? Here’s a newsflash to all of the conservatives worried about this: THERE ARE NO URINALS IN WOMEN’S BATHROOMS. No one can see anyone else’s junk. We go into the bathroom, choose a stall, check if it’s been flushed, check if there’s toilet paper, then we CLOSE THE DOOR.
After we’re done whatever we came in there to do, we flush, open the door, and wash our hands.
When am I going to know that the person next to me was trans, in this? We are all in little locked cubicles the entire time!
Here’s something that will really blow people’s minds… I have a non-gendered bathroom at work. There are two totally enclosed rooms that share a sink. The WORST part is that people who pee standing up don’t always put the seat back down, which means that I have to touch it so I can pee.
Also sometimes there is no toilet paper. D: And sometimes you need to wait so you can wash your hands.
But no other problems…?
Fuck Bill Maher, because he dated the Coultergeist, and she’s the world’s official most horrible woman. Also, he’s not a liberal. He’s just an asshole who thinks he’s edgy sometimes. Like Milo, in other words.
Fuck Milo, too. Because obvious reasons.
Oh, and Brian? That’s the name of the “popular” asshole who pretended to be interested in me when I was 12 (and he was 13), as part of some elaborate prank he and his clique were playing on me, the school loser/loner. (For shits ‘n’ giggles, because kids that age are all assholes, especially the ones who go around in cliques.) Eventually he “left” me for someone who’d been his real girlfriend all along. Joke was on him, though: I knew what he was doing and didn’t give a shit, because I actually liked someone else (who really DID break my heart, and who was a much bigger asshole for it, too). I just pretended to go along in order to turn it around on him and all his buddies. And since I was a good little actress, my counter-prank worked like a charm. I think he was kind of baffled that I didn’t react when he fake-dumped me in front of everyone, and it totally ruined all their little jollies for his buddies, but it was his prank, and he could go rub his own nose in it for all I cared.
So yeah, fuck Brian. Fuck all the Brians. Why ARE there so many fucking wankers named Brian, anyway?
Brian is in the kitchen.
That’s for the other French Mammotheers, who’ll understand right away and weep. Otherwise, I feel that Kevin is more of an asshole name (for men anyway), but then again there aren’t that many Brians where I live. Women assholes seem to go by Marine.
And of course, there’s Jean. The French male name, that is. Everyone who’s called Jean or whose name starts with Jean (Jean-Marie, etc) is a fucking asshole.
I mean, yeah alright it’s my name, but there’s a loophole so there.
@Sinkable John:
CHECKMATE
JJ STYLE
@ sinkable john
“Jean has a long moustache”
@Rhuu
I… don’t get it. Am a bit slow right now, admittedly.
@Alan Robertshaw
That’s from a time where it was a still a popular enough name that it wasn’t given only by idiotic, holier-than-thou, wannabe-aristocrat bigots who want their kids’ names to sound royalty-ish. Those times had the best Jeans.
Bina, I have another double asshole Brian story!
While I was learning Russian in the USAF, a Brian in my class asked me out *after* telling me all about how he drove home EVERY weekend (an 8 hour drive!) just to hang out by his old high school and try to pick up high school girls. We were all of 19 at the time, but I still found it creepy. I never did date him, but since his parents lived not far from my parents’ house, I pitched him gas money and rode down and back with him* once a month or so. My mom thought he was “a great catch” and kept asking if we were dating even after I told her about the high school thing. Really, mom?? >.<
The other Brian was an Army dude I was really attracted to (still at the Defense Language Institute) but he wouldn't give me the time of day unless most of his other companions were unavailable. Of course, I didn't know why he was so hard to get in touch with until I got filled in by another of his lower-down-the-list girlfriends. We both promptly cut him loose and filled in the rest of the AF women's dorm which cut his dating pool by at least a third. A real proto-PUA, that one! (this was 1979.)
*He had a few people who would do this and I never made the trip with fewer than 3 people in the car. The only bad trip was the one where the other guy who was riding down had just gotten the latest Rush album on cassette and they played it at top volume the whole way down.
It took me a couple of decades, but I quite like Rush now.
@sinkable John: Okay so that was mainly an excuse to post ‘King JJ’ from Yuri On Ice, because I love that the Canadian in the show is a really confident jerk.
His name is Jean-Jacques Leroy, so it sort of ties in. Does it prove the point that all Jeans are jerks? YES IT PROBABLY DOES.
(Here’s an American figure skater showing off the JJ style:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonIce/status/822598263039787008
Because that is hilarious)
… OMG to bring both conversations together, here’s a tweet from Kelly Turnbull:
https://twitter.com/Coelasquid/status/801905481593720832
@Hambeast:
Eeeeeee! I love asshole stories!
(And no, that was not sarcastic. I really do love them.)
Uff. Moms sometimes…
Thankfully, mine never shoved me at an asshole just because she wanted me to “find someone”, get married, give her grandkids, etc. I do appreciate that…
And yeah. That thing with picking up high-schoolers is creepy-eepy-deeply-creepy. Also reeks of insecurity and an inability to handle relationships on an equal footing. You dodged a bullet there.
Ugh, that’s more than just a PUA, that’s a POS. Maybe it’s just as well to be snubbed by one of those. ‘Fact, I’d rather be…it would cure me of my dumb infatuation in no time. The guy I really liked instead of Brian didn’t just snub me, he INSULTED me at full volume in front of a roomful of other kids…and boy, did I ever hate him from that moment on. Sure, I wanted the ground to swallow me up in that very instant, but the upside to all the awfulness (and the years-long loss of self-esteem and social and sexual backwardness that ensued) is that I was no longer stupidly stuck on that little snotball. (Plus I got back at him years later…by making HIM wish the ground would open up and swallow him, for a change. And I did it without saying a word!)
PUAs and MGTOW secretly reading this, take note: Insulting and mistreating women doesn’t make them want you more, it makes them hate your fucking guts and want no part of you. Especially THAT one. And if they remember you at all, it will be as “that fucking bastard who damn near ruined my life”, not The One That Got Away.
PS: Re Rush: I’m lucky in that the band has no associations to any person in my life. I first heard them on the radio when “Limelight” came out, and just instantly loved the song. Thank Goddess, no Brians!
@Bina
Or maybe The One That Got Away — Thank All the Lucky Stars in the Sky!
I’ve felt that way about a few exes. In one case, Another Woman did me an enormous favor by taking a guy off my hands.
@Alan Saw Hidden Figures last night and loved it (obligatory ‘liberties with the actual history’ caveat, apparently)–definitely recommend. Though to my surprise it brought up a lot more personal feels than I’d expected, as I grew up in that environment (my dad was one of those young guys in the white short-sleeved shirts…).
These guys need lockable mittens so they can’t type…or wank over their women-hatin’ screeds.
I’ve got even a better suggestion regarding the MGTOW Residence hole.
The MGTOWs can go dig a hole, jump in, and pull the dirt in after themselves.
Regarding Bill Maher, I was done with him when I heard him using things like “schoolgirl” as an insult. At that point, to me he was just another man that thinks of anything that smacks of womanhood as being lesser and, therefore, an insult. He is a misogynist in liberal’s clothing.
@The Real Cie
Eh, liberals in general are misogynistic, racist, etc. I mean, I don’t doubt that Maher is a liberal, which is to say that he favours ‘capitalism with a human face’. But as long as cishet white men aren’t in visible distress, liberals are generally happy.
@The Real Cie:
@Dalillama:
From what little I’ve seen, Maher is only a liberal inasmuch as he’s an asshole looking for a cause to be assholish about, and arbitrarily chose to identify with the blue team rather than the red team. I doubt he’s read Popper.
He’s not the only self-identified liberal that’s like this, of course.
That’s my point. Basically all self-identified liberals are like that.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee:
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman (who identified themselves as such) claiming to be afraid of sharing a bathroom with a trans woman. Of course, women can be incredibly transphobic, but I’ve never seen one who demonstrated some sort of fear of the nightmare scenario that the person who pees in the other stall might have different equipment.
There’s also the “hilarity” that… well, what are the transphobes afraid of (or trying to scare other people with), when it comes down to it? Rape. They assume that if you put a trans woman in a room with cis women, the trans woman will turn out to be a rapist (and not be deterred by the fact that she is in a public space).
But if a woman feels unsafe being around a man at any occasion? That’s sexist, that’s slandering him with false rape allegations, #NOTALLMEN!
@ guest
Well it is a better narrative if you pretend there really was a moon landing. 🙂
I do have a real affection and admiration for the ‘steely eyed rocket men (and women’) of that time though. ‘Failure is not an option’ and “to be made of a material (which will need to be invented)” and all that. And also control stations with built-in ashtrays. (Can’t help but think there’s a connection there.)
Bina – I’ve never been dissed in public like that and I’ve always had the utmost contempt for people who do that kind of thing. That’s a real POS, right there! I’ve also never understood how some people respond to things like that by aspiring to do the same to others, either.
Brian #1 wasn’t so much a bullet dodged as much as me watching a bullet roll past my feet. I mean, the guy straight-up bragged about what he was doing even though most of the guys listening to him were rolling their eyes! And now that I think about it, he was as much (or maybe more) of a PUA as Brian #2 because his attitude was “You guys are so dumb to work so hard at trying to date these female military peers of yours!”
And to paint my deer a deeper shade of teal, I also had a female friend* who liked to brag that she used sex to get stuff she wanted from men. As in, her favorite story was how she slept with her History teacher in high school in order to pass the class. This was a few years after the language school when I was stationed in Italy. I think of her whenever the word “cringeworthy” comes up in conversation.
*more like friend of a friend, or actually, co-worker of a friend who tagged along a lot…
Quite true. Because we know what actually goes on in women’s bathrooms. We know it’s an absurd argument.
This ‘rape in the bathroom’ (wank) fantasy that some men have, well, if a public restroom is so isolated that it would be a good place for a sexual assault, the attacker would have no need to dress as a woman. If someone just wants to spy on women performing bodily functions, that’s usually done with hidden cameras.
Hello.
SOMEONE HAS SOMETHING AGAINST BRIANS ?
I do not see what is their problem with toilets. In general, when you go there, you have other things in mind than looking at who is exactly in (unless you are a spy in a movie). So, having trans-gendered people in toilets corresponding to their trans-genre can not be a problem. And about toilets, i am more concerned about the general lack of free public toilets : cities have less and less of those, while that should be considered as a usual public service. Nobody has an infinitely extensible bladder. And there should also be booths for changing children stuff. Damn !
Have a nice day.
So, I guess feeling left out because there haven’t been (AFAIK) any specific “bathroom bills” in Canada, some shitheads have been latching on to Bill C-16 (basically extending discrimination protection to “gender identity and gender expression”) as an excuse to promote their transphobia.
http://womanmeanssomething.com/
Surprise surprise: it’s run by a dude trying to pass off his bigotry with a thin veneer of science and faux-feminism. He’s a local pastor, and recently did a misleading flyer campaign pushing the idea that the bill somehow strips protections from women.
Also, to this, and the ongoing conversation about bathroom safety, it’s really telling how nobody speaks up to protect boys. If men are such dangerous perverts (nice misandry, dudes!), then what about the ones who would prey on young boys? Why do we allow more than one person into public washrooms at a time ever? But no, they never follow their thoughts through to their conclusion – just up until the point where they can justify their transphobia.
Bina:
Sinkable John : Pansy Ass Pinko, Regicidal Beast-of-Burden:
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
These statements made me laugh so hard!
Why?
Well, my name is Kevin.
One of my brothers is named Brian.
Sincerest apologies to you for all the asshole Kevin’s and Brian’s out there.
And I promise you that I will try to keep all my own assholishness to myself.