Category: advocacy of violence

When anonymous threats are not-so anonymous

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date May 17, 2014
83 Comments on When anonymous threats are not-so anonymous

kindofadick

When feminists are besieged with threatening messages after being targeted by Men’s Rights Activists, MRAs sometimes ask how we know for sure that the messages (or at least a good portion of them) are being sent by MRAs. And the answer is that, in most cases, we don’t, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt, because most people sending threatening messages have the good sense to do so anonymously.

So it is possible, at least theoretically, that when, say, a feminist blogger gets threatening messages shortly after MRAs start posting nasty things about her on their blogs and in their various forums, it is not MRAs sending the messages but angry ornithologists who, for no reason whatsoever, collectively decided to pick on a feminist blogger that day. Seems unlikely, but it’s possible.

Other times, though, we do know who is sending the threats, because, conveniently enough, they do so under their own name or using their MRA identity online.

That was the case, you might recall, when Australian MRA and fanatical A Voice for Men supporter Frank James Spencer, also known as KARMA MRA MGTOW, left me a creepy, vaguely threatening voicemail message one night at 1:38 AM. That was the case with many of those posting threatening YouTube comments about a certain inadvertently famous Canadian feminist.

And that was the case last night when a longtime MRA known as Masculist Man tried to post a threatening message in the comments to a post of mine about a threatening comment directed at me on The Spearhead. The Spearhead comment, you may remember, involved a weird and elaborate anal rape fantasy. I noted in my post that the comment had gotten 10 upvotes, no downvotes.

Masculist Man added his two cents (click for larger version):

Submitted on 2014/05/16 at 9:07 pm Actually 17 upvotes,including mine. I could ask the entire manosphere to vote on this. We should have that up to 500 upvotes by morning. Eat shit asshole

He’s probably right about the 500 upvotes. Apparently rape threats are a form of Human Rights activism.

I wrote about a ranty blog post of Mr. Man’s some time ago, and he’s written several posts about me, or at least about someone he calls Dave Fooltrelle. I let him comment here for a time as well. He was always obnoxious, though never quite this obnoxious.

Mr. Man’s blog is called, creatively, Men’s Rights Blog. In addition to the aforementioned ranty post, it features a cartoony avatar of himself wearing a fedora and brandishing a sword, with the caption “I’ll cut ya.” As part of his “activism,” he’s put up a page of anti-feminist “memes,” many based on photos of real feminists, including me. The blog has been around since 2007.

In his profile on Blogger, he declares

I’ve been a masculist for over 20 years and have been very activist,both on and offline. I’ve debated phonies and feminists and have prevailed over both.

He lists Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power as one of his favorite books, and Neil LaBute’s misogynistic fantasy In The Company of Men as one of his favorite films.

And if you follow the link to Mr. Man’s Facebook page, you can take a look at his small collection of Facebook friends, including AVFM’s Paul Elam and MRA lawyer Roy Den Hollander, as well as the groups he supports, including the National Coalition for Men, the Men’s Human Rights Movement Facebook group, and assorted anti-VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) groups.

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this threatening comment came from an MRA.

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W.F. Price of The Spearhead accuses me of supporting violence against women … by opposing violence against women

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date May 9, 2014
103 Comments on W.F. Price of The Spearhead accuses me of supporting violence against women … by opposing violence against women

W.F. Price (not pictured) believes the best way to prevent domestic violence is to put men in charge of households, and to keep police out

W. F. Price of The Spearhead isn’t very happy about my recent suggestion that the Men’s Rights movement encourages abusive ways of thinking towards women. It’s a strange claim for him to make, coming as it is from a guy who presides over one of the most notorious outposts of vicious, virulent misogyny in the Men’s Rights universe. Even stranger is his claim that by opposing violence against women and children I am therefore … supporting policies that lead to more violence against women and children.

It’s going to take a little while to work our way through his convoluted argument. So let’s start at the beginning. Here’s the quote of mine he objects to, from my post the other day about Lundy Bancroft:

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Hugo-nominated Vox Day: Even worse than you think

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 24, 2014
171 Comments on Hugo-nominated Vox Day: Even worse than you think

Strike up the band! Vox Day has been nominated for a Hugo!

So our old friend Vox Day – the proudly bigoted science fiction/fantasy writer and self-professed expert on all things “Alpha” – is in the news again. This time, it’s not for declaring most date rape imaginary or writing a racist diatribe against a fellow author. Nope! It’s because another of his literary efforts, a novelette entitled Opera Vita Aeterna, just got nominated for a Hugo award.

In other news, apparently it’s not that hard to get nominated for a Hugo if you have a coterie of hard-core fans who are perhaps still pissed that you got kicked out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and you suggest on your blog beforehand that it would be cool if they voted to nominate you.

Anyway, there’s already plenty of discussion of the news amongst the science-fiction set, most of them understandably displeased that a racist, misogynistic, homophobic asshole got a nomination. Here’s a bit more about the racist attack on black fantasy writer NK Jemisin (and misuse of the SFWA Twitter account) that got him tossed from the organization. If you’ve never seen what he wrote about Jemisin, I’ll just quote some of the more memorable passages again here, because, wow. I’ve bolded the best — that is, worst — bits:

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Pickup artist: "If God ever created a better replacement for women, we'd exterminate them overnight."

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 2, 2014
224 Comments on Pickup artist: "If God ever created a better replacement for women, we'd exterminate them overnight."

The problem — well, one of the many problems — with a lot of so-called pickup artists is that they think with their dicks, and then use their relatively underpowered brains to rationalize their dickular preferences as The Way The World Should Be.

By contrast, the problems with Lance Christopher, a so-called pickup artist who hangs out in the comments section on Roosh V’s Return of Kings blog, really start when he stops thinking with his dick.

Some dudes roll over and fall asleep the moment after they come; Mr. Christopher contemplates genocide because women don’t want to hear him pontificate about Ukrainian history.

In case you’re wondering, no one else in the discussion suggests that Mr. Christopher’s opinion here might be a teensy bit extreme.

No, the commenters happily share terrible opinion after terrible opinion about the inferior creatures known as women.

Oh, it gets worse.

Cleanup in the pompous misogyny aisle!

You’ll notice that all of these comments have upvotes, by the way.

There may be some even more terrible comments in that thread, but I gave up reading them after a few screens full of this sort of garbage.

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After a feminist activist at Queen’s University reports being attacked, possibly by an MRA, the king of “f their sh*t up” responds with angry denial

Paul Elam: Anger is “pulsing through my veins like molten lava.”

A student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, says she was attacked and beaten by a strange man after receiving threatening messages about her opposition to a Men’s Rights group on campus. On Thursday, Danielle d’Entremont posted a picture of her bruised face to Facebook along with this explanation:

Just walked out of my house and got attacked by a stranger. I was punched in the face multiple times and lost half my tooth. This was after a few threatening emails regarding my support for feminist activities on campus. I can’t say for sure if the two are connected, however the attacker was a male who knew my name.

The campus Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS) – the group d’Entremont has been fighting – has condemned the attack, as has the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), which co-sponsored a talk the MIAS put on Thursday. The police are investigating.

Right now, this is pretty much all we know about the story. Not that it this has stopped MRAs from offering their very fervent opinions on the matter.

Before we get to them, here are a few of my own:

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Some of the comments I don’t let through

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date February 10, 2014
324 Comments on Some of the comments I don’t let through

How comments are moderated at Man Boobz.

So I had to re-ban a couple of long-banned trolls today, who had returned with new names and slightly different IP addresses but who gave themselves away with their behavior. And that got me thinking about the people — well, the MRAs and PUAs and other such charming folks — who regularly denounce me as an evil censor of FREE SPEECH.

In fact, when I ban people, I do so for good reasons: one of the two trolls I banned today was a longtime MRAish commenter here who eventually creeped everyone out by boasting about having sex with underage prostitutes; the other was a man of many sockpuppets known for angry, abusive meltdowns full of slurs.

Anyway, so I thought I’d give you all a glimpse into my “trash” folder. Here’s a sampling of comments from would-be first time commenters at Man Boobz that I felt would not add anything to the discourse here. But in the interests of FREE SPEECH I thought I’d give these “ideas” an airing today.

TRIGGER WARNING for violent and offensive language. (Sorry about the quality of the last two; you can click on them to see larger versions.)

Not all of the comments I trash are quite this awful. Some are only mildly violent or abusive. I tend to be a bit picky with people’s first comments, assuming that if someone posts a shitty first comment it’s not likely to get any better after that. There are a few banned commenters who stop by and try to post anyway, including one fellow who leaves endless comments trying to prove, as far as I can tell, that teenage girls are objectively hotter than women in their twenties and older.

And, of course, there are comments targeting individual women, whether these are giant cut-and-pasted rants about Anita Sarkeesian, vaguely threatening remarks aimed at other well-known internet feminists, or bizarre sexual comments about female MRAs from fans of theirs.

Once in a while I will get a comment from a feminist that resorts to violent language; I don’t let those comments through either.

And then there are the pictures people try to post in the comments. Below, one of the ones I actually let through, depicting me in a dress with some extremely tall dude. A quick Google image search reveals that it was originally posted online by regular A Voice for Men contributor Janet Bloomfield, in a blog post of hers from last year on Disney princesses. Stay classy, Men’s “Human Rights” Movement!

I don't actually own a dress like this. — I don’t actually own a dress like this.

Anyway, the pictures I don’t let through are worse.

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Attention-seeking manosphere douchebag offers how-to guide for abusive boyfriends

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date February 5, 2014
468 Comments on Attention-seeking manosphere douchebag offers how-to guide for abusive boyfriends

Not the model for a happy and successful relationship

Apparently hoping to gin up another flood of hate-traffic to his blog, the attention-seeking human stain whose name rhymes with Batt Gorney has posted what is essentially a how-to guide for would-be abusive boyfriends under the charming title “How to Crush a Girl’s Self-Esteem.”

“Gorney” has conveniently arranged his suggestions into a numbered list, so let’s proceed through them one by one. (If you’re triggered by explicit discussions of psychological and physical abuse, please stop reading now.)

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A Man Going His Own Way offers a plan for gender equality. It involves killing hundreds of thousands of women

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 17, 2014
311 Comments on A Man Going His Own Way offers a plan for gender equality. It involves killing hundreds of thousands of women

A woman at work. But shouldn’t she be DEAD?

This blog gets a lot of drive-by commenters, usually hostile, who drop one comment and then vanish, never to return. A lot of these comments are insults and one-liners, but a good number of these one-shot numbers, apparently seeking to maximize the impact of their one bit of input on this blog, deposit mini-manifestos setting forth their grand visions of what Men’s Rights stands for, why feminism is evil, or whatever it is that has them most riled up that day.

The most recent of these manifesto-droppers was a self-described Man Going His Own Way called Disgruntled, who set forth at some length his own rather punitive version of gender equality. It’s a rather revealing document, so I thought I would share it with you all.

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Become a total Alpha Male sex god by spitting in women’s mouths

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 16, 2014
889 Comments on Become a total Alpha Male sex god by spitting in women’s mouths

Always practice safe saliva sex

Hey ladies! Better not read today’s post, as it’s only for ALPHA DUDES and would-be ALPHA DUDES. For while I was out looking for Man Boobz material I happened to run across some excellent and not-at-all ridiculous advice from a dude called FISTO on how ALPHA DUDES can use sex to totally control the ladies.

This advice is so totally ALPHA I feel I can only dispense it in small doses, so here are a few tips. Only after you have totally mastered these tips to totally master the ladies should you even consider reading the rest of the post I got them from. (Also, to be serious for a moment, it’s also fucked up and possibly triggery, so you may not even want to read my post.)

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Men’s Rights Redditors respond to imaginary plot to force men to pee sitting down with proposals to kill, pee on feminists

So Reddit’s Men’s Rightsers are in a tizzy over a bullshitty piece in the Daily Telegraph warning of an evil worldwide plot to force men to pee sitting down.

The evidence for the existence of such a plot is a bit on the skimpy side — the Telegraph writer leads off with a reference to a 2012 proposal from a County Council member in Sormland, Sweden that doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere legislatively but that’s been a favorite evil-feminist story on conservative websites ever since.

The very notion that some evil feminist might force them to sit while they spray has Men’s Rights Redditors in an unusually combative mood. Heck, it’s got some of the regulars thinking that it might well be time to start doing some good-old fashioned murdering. No, really.

Yep. In case you’ve been wondering, suggesting “a campaign to assassinate feminist figures” because some local council member in Sweden had a dumb idea will in fact win you upvotes on the Men’s Rights subreddit.

Strikerfm1, by contrast, seems almost moderate with his “tie feminists down and urinate on them” proposal.

The World’s Greatest 21st Century Human Rights Movement, folks!

Thanks to the AgainstMensRights subreddit for pointing me to this horrible crap.

EDIT: The “let’s murder feminists” comment has been taken down by the subreddit mods, though the user hasn’t been banned for it; the “I want to tie a feminist down and pee on her” comment remains up, and still boasts upvotes.