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The brief history of the brief career of the (unofficial) goodwill ambassador from planet Good Men Project

On a fairly regular basis, Man Boobz is visited by commenters of an MRAish disposition. There are many varieties. Some start off by trying to post rape threats and other such unpleasantness, and their comments never see the light of day. Some leave a few irritated comments and head off, never to be seen again. Some manage to stick around long enough to become Man Boobz institutions.

One interesting variety: the ones who come here, they claim, to discuss the issues with us in good faith. In most cases it becomes quickly evident that they are not interested in real discussion at all, as they ignore what most of the commenters here say to them to instead argue with the straw feminists who live in their heads.

Soon many of these alleged good-faith arguers drop the pretense entirely and lash out with nasty personal attacks. At this point they go on moderation, or find themselves banned entirely.

The latest such meltdown was a fairly quick one. For those who don’t regularly read the comments, here’s a brief history of John Anderson’s brief career (so far) as an unofficial goodwill ambassador to Man Boobz from planet Good Men Project.

An anti-feminist dude who generally hangs out at the Good Men Project, Mr. Anderson arrived at Man Boobz Prime on July 2nd, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, eager to learn from and about the feminist commenters here, and to convince some of us to join him and the other commenters at the GMP in healthy and fruitful dialogue.

In one of his first comments here, he explained the reason for his coming here:

I promised some feminists, who I really admire, at The Good Men Project that I would initially engage feminists without assuming that they are misandrist, a very difficult task for me at least. I think that I’ve mostly lived up to that promise so far as I’ve asked for clarifications and I’ve used qualifiers like seems. I can understand if this comment was written in frustration, but understand that I and any new visitor to the site won’t understand the back story if there is one and the comment just comes off as being dismissive of male victimization.

In a further comment he explained that he was trying to do his part to save the Men’s Rights movement from the angry ideologues:

I was on a voice for men a while back. They had nothing but contempt for the GMPers. I’m certain that I’ll cross paths with them. It is my heartfelt intent to reclaim my movement from people who would disgrace it.

Five minutes later, alas, we learned that he had determined we were all a bunch of misandrists after all.

I only promised not to assume that feminists were misandrists. Once proven, it is no longer an assumption.

Oh, wait, not all of us. But we are a bunch of meanies:

I don’t think all the commentators hate men or are necessarily closed minded to other view points. I actually stepped away from a safe space to engage people who don’t see things the way I do. The feeling that I get is that there is great hostility to anyone who may consider men to be victims under any circumstance….

I’ve quoted DOJ and CDC statistics and included page numbers or links on an article that says that we shouldn’t be angry over truthful statistics. I’ve been told that the statistics have been spun. Maybe I should have refrained from that SHOCKED bit. I probably should have considered the feelings of the people on this site. I’d consider apologizing, but too many people here seem mean.

As far as I can tell, he determined that I was a misandrist because I downplayed the fact that more men are murdered than women by writing the following sentence in the OP:

While four times as many men are murdered than women, only 5% of murdered men are killed by “intimates.”

I remain a bit baffled as to how a sentence that starts by noting that four times as many men are murdered than women is downplaying the fact that, well, four times as many men are murdered than women. You can go read the whole discussion yourself and see if you can figure it out.

The meltdown followed not long afterwards. In one comment, Mr. Anderson suggested, as far as I can figure it, that [TW: RAPE APOLOGETICS] women regularly decide whether or not to charge a man with rape after they determine how good their rapist is in bed:

When is a woman responsible for her own rape because it wasn’t worth fighting over? Maybe she liked it and waited to see how good he was before deciding on whether to fight and that whole women don’t report rape thing can’t be a big deal if she didn’t think it was important enough to report. Feminists say you should never blame the victim. What feminists mean is that you should never blame the victim unless the victim is a man.

But he still hoped to lure some of us over to the Good Man Project for more scintillating discussion about how feminists are evil and mean and how dudes like him think women think  about rape. Oh, and that movie about the stripper dudes.

Come by and visit. Right now there are discussions focusing around the objectification of men because of the Magic Mike movie. There are also multiple discussions around men and feminism. Come and visit.

Then, for some reason, he decided to bring up his cock:

Kyrie says,

“Fuck. You.”

No thanks. Not sure if triple bagging it would help. I’m referring to both my cock and your face. I have to have some fun. 🙂

At this point, I put Mr. Anderson on permanent moderation.

Or  tried to anyway. Due to a little glitch, it didn’t take, so Mr. Anderson was able to post freely for a while. Among other things, he tried to explain away that previous comment with this:

David says,

“And that line about cocks and faces wins Mr. Anderson the prize of permanent moderation. Congrats!”

You forgot bags. It’s bags, cocks, and faces. You have to admit, that statement was a classic.

Not so much.

Then he whined about being moderated:

Dude, I can’t even keep up with the comments directed at me. If I have to deal with moderation, the situation would be unworkable. It should earn me props on a voice for men when I decide to return at least until I start commenting on their discussions. It only took two or was it three days to get semi-banned from the site. Gotta be a record.

The only record set was for how quickly Mr. Anderson devolved from an earnest man of alleged good faith to a cock-talking troll.

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Steele
Steele
13 years ago

Sharculese, nice to see you already attempting to goad me as you all did Anderson. I know that the feminists here are given license to spew all the invective they want while men’s rights commenters must tread on shards of glass. I accept that, and you won’t see me falling for your little games.

Snowy
Snowy
13 years ago

Without context, readers won’t be aware that the nasty atmosphere in your comments section, as well as the personal attacks specifically directed toward Mr. Anderson, could have reasonably led him to believe that such a tone was fair game.

Oh, you mean without the context of the comment thread? That David links to in his post? Umkaaay

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
13 years ago

I don’t understand the point of people here

It’s right up there in the masthead. Misogyny. We mock it.

If you come in a start spouting misogynist crap (that we’ve heard before, by the way), we’re going to mock you.

Kyrie
Kyrie
13 years ago

Steel, the context is all there: he wrote the horrible quote that David copied about rape, to which I answered “Fuck. You.” (short for “Go fuck yourself”, not “let’s fuck together”) plus a bit of explanation on why I was angry then Anderson wrote back… well it’s all there. If you think David hid things, find us the missing context.

I’m not sure what you could hope to find anyway. Unless we said something worse (we didn’t), the best you can hope is “they were mean to him which is what forced him to react like that”. Which, I hope you realize, is abuser logic.

Sharculese
Sharculese
13 years ago

Sharculese, nice to see you already attempting to goad me as you all did Anderson. I know that the feminists here are given license to spew all the invective they want while men’s rights commenters must tread on shards of glass. I accept that, and you won’t see me falling for your little games.

goad you? i dont care about you not even a little. but if you say dumb whiny things, im gonna make fun of them for being dumb and whiny. that is what i do.

but know that i know that you know that i know that she knows that youre totally above all the obsessing about a comedy blog that youre about to do anyway or whatever non-thought you were trying to waft my way.

Kyrie
Kyrie
13 years ago

“Well, it sure looks bad when you put it like this, Futrelle.”

At least we agree on that. Now, show in what way it doesn’t look bad.

Cliff Pervocracy
13 years ago

Sharculese, nice to see you already attempting to goad me as you all did Anderson. I know that the feminists here are given license to spew all the invective they want while men’s rights commenters must tread on shards of glass. I accept that, and you won’t see me falling for your little games.

Holy abuser-logic Batman. You know that no one can make you spew crude sexual insults? You know that’s your decision? Even if someone makes you angry, they don’t actually force you to type out in detail how they’re too ugly to fuck.

But, no, no, continue to pat yourself on the back for resisting those mean feminists who are trying to make you attack them.

Sharculese
Sharculese
13 years ago

apparently commenting on manboobz is a conspiracy to get people banned from… commenting on manboobz. because that makes sense.

also, to all incoming whiners, note that literally the second comment in this thread is from owlslave, who is on permanent moderation for among other things calling someone a ‘fuckdoll with a pulse’ and generally advocating beating women just as a general principle. most of his posts still make it through.

Sharculese
Sharculese
13 years ago

He didn’t genuflect or swear allegiance to the divine feminine. He was promptly exorcised and cast out.

owlslave, how is it your still allowed to post then?

Epiphany!
Epiphany!
13 years ago

“… while men’s rights commenters must tread on shards of glass.”

You came to comment at this site, where obviously mras (should) tend to ‘walk on egg shells,’ so, why are you complaining again? How is this a game Feminists play? It seems to me, this is exactly what you want to achieve in commenting here. I am not goading, just have a hard time following your mind set because it seems illogical.

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
13 years ago

So I see a guy trying [and failing] to use statistics and studies to show that there are needs for concern a men’s rights movement and a bunch of people ignoring him, making personal attacking and in general just being mean [pointing out his errors so that he can correct them, and then giving up when it became clear he was just here to derail].

Fixed that for ya.

Kyrie
Kyrie
13 years ago

Sharculese: we feminists are the best at conspiracy. It’s just as good as Anita’s scheme of attracting sexist gamers to get money to speak about sexism in games.

captainbathrobe
captainbathrobe
13 years ago

Skylar, why do you hate paragraphs so much? What have they ever done to you?

hellkell
hellkell
13 years ago

Skylar and Steele, same person? Either way, they’re representative of why I can’t read GMP for more than two seconds.

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
13 years ago

Kyrie, it’s amazing. It’s like he’s got his fingers stuck in his ears, and he just keeps repeating himself louder and louder, wondering why people aren’t bowing before him in awe at his amazing powers of argumentation.

Steele
Steele
13 years ago

The Good Men Project I’ve found to be in a shaky position. It’s occupying a middle ground between men’s activists and feminists, and thus is often reviled by extremists on both sides. Moderates, such as myself, enjoy the magazine.

BASTA!
BASTA!
13 years ago

I remain a bit baffled as to how a sentence that starts by noting that four times as many men are murdered than women is downplaying the fact that, well, four times as many men are murdered than women.

For context, this is the sentence in question:

While four times as many men are murdered than women, only 5% of murdered men are killed by “intimates.”

I’m a bit baffled how such a skilled debater could miss the subtle difference between downplaying and denying. Yes, you can very much acknowledge a fact and then downplay its significance in the next clause of the same sentence. Bonus points for the downplaying being fallacious like it is here. The fallacy becomes transparent when one realizes that someone killed by a stranger is not even a tiny bit less dead than someone killed by an intimate.

cloudiah
13 years ago

PASTA, you don’t seem to understand how words and sentences work. For that matter, you don’t seem to understand MEANING. In the context of a post on IPV, it is clear that ONLY MRAs could see that sentence as downplaying the murder of men.

Based on your position on shipwrecks and disaster responses, I am pretty sure your solution to the overall statistic on men being murdered at such a high rate is to kill more women. You know, to make things more fair.

Skylar Rouse
Skylar Rouse
13 years ago

So yeah I just wanted to make sure that this is indeed a place of holding your ears shut so that you’re thinking can never possibly evolve. It’s funny to think that you people actually think that somehow you make sense or are truly mocking anything. All you’re doing is standing in a circle letting someone say something dumb, offensive, or just ignorant and than turning to each to other for validation. Some weird ” Look Look I done good”. It saddens me that this can of ignorance is actually applauded and the only thing someone here needs to do to get validation is basically exclaim how anything that challenges feminism is evil and feminism is the be all end all of everything. It is easy to be around a lot of people who agree with you and be ignorant, it is incredibly difficult to try to challenges closed minded people’s views. So nothing you do here is “brave” or hell “important” but it does make me laugh. Personally I get all the validation I need simply from reading blogs like this and knowing at least I truly believe in equality and I truly want to change the world for the better. So yeah it’s amazing that the human mind let’s you guys think this is anything but ignorance being shouted back and forth among friends. Oh and as for why I would post, it’s not to pout( you guys actually have no bearing on my life, I don’t take offense from people I don’t respect) or to be passive aggressive( I like to think I’m pretty straight forward with my meanings,). I’ll leave you with a quote that I hope would explain why “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

hellkell
hellkell
13 years ago

Skylar: paragraphs, do you know them? If you want people to read your whining, make it easier for them to do so.

Sharculese
Sharculese
13 years ago

Oh and as for why I would post, it’s not to pout( you guys actually have no bearing on my life, I don’t take offense from people I don’t respect)

yeah, this is some bullshit. if you didn’t actually care, you wouldnt be over here telling us about how much you dont care (but still hate hate hate us). you’d be off, not caring.

this is indeed a place of holding your ears shut so that you’re thinking can never possibly evolve.

as opposed to you, who’s diligently responded to every comment on his original post. get over yourself.

cloudiah
13 years ago

@Skylar, That’s nice dear. Run along.

Sharculese
Sharculese
13 years ago

skylar is rilly rilly upset about people he totally doesnt care about at all.

who here is brave enough to soothe skylar’s wounded internet ego?

BASTA!
BASTA!
13 years ago

@cloudiah:

PASTA, you don’t seem to understand how words and sentences work. For that matter, you don’t seem to understand MEANING.

No, I am not a Chinese room. There is an actual conscious mind at this end of the wire, if that’s what you were trying to cast doubt on.

Based on your position on shipwrecks and disaster responses, I am pretty sure your solution to the overall statistic on men being murdered at such a high rate is to kill more women. You know, to make things more fair.

Keep digging.