We Hunted The Mammoth
I haven’t been paying much attention to the recent brouhaha over Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book. But I feel safe in saying that MRA lackwit Christian J.’s “Sheryl Sandberg, Your Usual “Modern” Crass, Arrogant, Sexist, Biased Female” may be the dumbest thing anyone has written, or ever will write, on the subject.
One reason so-called Nice Guys ™ seem so creepy to so many people is that it’s easy to see the rage and the bitterness and the weird sort of self-hating entitlement that is so often lurking underneath – and sometimes not that far underneath – the “nice guy” exterior.
So there’s an old school type of Pickup Artistry called Speed Seduction in which, instead of simply trying to manipulate the ladies into bed, our would-be seducers try to literally hypnotize their prey by repeating prefabricated “patterns” that supposedly work on people’s subconscious minds without them realizing it. The whole thing is based on something called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which most scientists seem to think is quackery. Most of the pickup techniques inspired by NLP are beyond ridiculous.
One NLP-inspired PUA “pattern,” for example, involves using the phrase “below me” when talking to the Hot Babes. Since “below me” sounds vaguely like “blow me,” you see, the Hot Babe you’re talking to will be subconsciously primed to want to give you a blow job. And no, I’m not making this up.
So Anita Sarkeesian, who apparently didn’t run off with all her Kickstarter money to found a Misandist Gynarchy in the wilds of Canada, has released the first video in her Tropes vs Women in Video Games project. (I’ve embedded it below.)
Naturally, this is causing great consternation in certain corners of the Internet (*cough* Reddit *cough cough* everywhere else that misogynistic nerds congregate *cough*). In the Man Boobz forum, Katz has started a contest to see who can find “the whiniest, brattiest, most entitled response” to Sarkeesian’s video on the Internet. So far Katz and Myoo have found a couple classic comments from irate Sarkeeianaphobes:
[H]ow does one go about stating that genders and gender roles are social constructs? I mean is evolution nothing to her? Does the patriarchy make male peacocks dress provocatively?
Yes. Yes it does.
And:
I’m gradually losing respect for the opposite sex. I’ve unfollowed people on tumblr who talk about how great she is, because it actually causes bile to rise in to my throat.
Yeah, that’s a totally reasonable response to a woman making a video about video games.
So anyway, I’m thinking we should bring the contest over here.
See what you can find! Consider it a sort of scavenger hunt.
Here’s my contribution, from the Men’s Rights subreddit, complaining that Damsels in Distress are the truly privileged ones:
Amazingly, this acutally got called out on r/mr as being pretty damn stupid.
Also, I have another question, to add to the stack of other questions I’ve been asking lately: Just why do you think so many guys get so angry when girls and women invade what they consider a male sphere, like gaming? (Also, why do they consider gaming to belong to boys and men?)
Oh, and here’s the video that’s causing all this hubbub:
I’m still officially on my Man Boobz staycation, but I felt I needed to mention yet another example of a woman saying that men can stop rape … and getting rape threats in return.
Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell went on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News earlier this week and made the terrible mistake of suggesting to a hostile audience that men aren’t really doing any favors to women by telling them to arm themselves against rapists. Instead, as Salon notes, she said this:
“I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there.” She told Hannity, “You’re talking about this as if it’s some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it’s someone you know and trust,” adding, “If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.”
Indeed, increased rape awareness has contributed to a dramatic decrease in rape over the last thirty years.
But apparently a lot of men were shocked – shocked! – that a woman would suggest that their patronizing advice was less likely to prevent rape than rape prevention education aimed at the demographic group that is responsible for the overwhelmng majority of rapes. That is, men.
So, naturally, the angriest of these men decided they would show Maxwell just how wrong she was … by threatening her with rape on Twitter.
Here’s just one example:
Rape culture in action.
Maxwell’s supporters have stepped up to defend her and her remarks, and have started a hashtag — #TYZerlina — to continue the discussion. If you’re on Twitter, join in .
Here’s the Fox News segment in question featuring Maxwell:
I spend more time on YouTube than I probably should. Most of the time I’m on the site, I’m tracking down strange and awesome music videos. But I also love cat videos (big surprise), ridiculous fake alien and UFO videos, videos of people behaving in incredibly unwise ways that are somehow not lethal to them, and pretty much anything that’s got Yackety Sax as its soundtrack.
What do MRAs enjoy watching? As far as I can tell, when they’re not watching videos of other MRAs, or flooding the comments of feminist videos, they like watching videos of women getting punched.
PUAHAte.com is an … interesting place. A site for debunking the ridiculous claims and shitty behavior of Pickup Artists? Sounds great – at least until you realize that the denizens are mostly dudes who hate PUAs for all the wrong reasons. That is, they hate PUAs not so much for being manipulative scumbags but for being ineffective manipulative scumbags — whose alleged magic formulas for bedding the hot babes don’t really work.
The other day I was introduced to a fledgling Twitter account, @puahate_txt, which reposts hilariously awful comments from PUAhate.com. This inspired me to take another look at the site and do a little poking around for awful quotes on my own. They weren’t hard to find. (It’s harder, really, to find comments that aren’t awful.)
Here’s one charming fellow, who calls himself ToadLookingMaggot, and who holds a grudge against the entire female gender because of a $3 loan gone awry.
After reading ” The manipulated man ” i saw women really for what they where, little selfish Moneysucking vampire Whores.
This rinsing stuff starts in high school if not earlier they try to leech money, food, free rides and basically anything that benefits them in some kind of form. I borrowed a female 3 dollars for meal a meal one time, for months she said that she was going to let me have it and in the end i never got them back.
It doesn’t matter if it’s 2 dollars or 2.000 dollars there freaks never pay you back. Only idiots buy drinks for women.
Men are ruining women because they let them get away with anything. Never in my life will i ever spend money on women unless we pay 5050 on a date.
Uh, obvious question here, but if you hate women, and think that they’re all “Moneysucking vampire Whores,” WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DATE THEM? I’m pretty sure that you’re not going to find many interested in you either, at least not after they get a whiff of your personality.
And that’s your PERSONALITY, not your looks. PUAhaters seem obsessed with the notion that women only date male models, and spend a lot of time bemoaning their own looks – I just quoted a guy who describes himself as a ToadLookingMaggot, after all. Yet whenever they post pictures of themselves they seem to be completely normal, average, not-actually-bad-looking-at-all guys. Guys, your problem isn’t your lack of beauty on the outside. What’s ugly is your attitudes.
Speaking of which, here’s RomanCitizen, a self-described Incel, lamenting that life is sad to all but the “top 10%” of men? Why? Because ladies walk around looking all pretty, yet for some reason they do not allow RomanCitizen to fuck them.
The life of man is a sad one
Excluding the top 10%.
Born into a world of plenty, of abundance, of denial.
See, smell, imagine.
Do not taste, touch, feel.
Like a caged animal in a harem, fed only occasionally fish heads (scraps in the game).
And when the caged animal gets the fish head (scrap), he is happy and rationalizes his pitiful existence, like many men …
But, the cage is still a cage. A fish head – still a fish head.
PROTIP: If you think of the women you don’t find sufficiently desirable as “fish heads,” and walk around in a perpetual boner-rage, you’re probably not going to seem especially charming to the women you do find desirable. Or to anyone else except perhaps the denizens of PUAHate.com. And not all of them, either.
So @catches_stars on Twitter is pretty hilarious. She’s also got an OkCupid account, and regularly posts snippets of her conversations with some of the more problematic dudes who contact her, some on her main Twitter account and some on @okcupid_TXT. With her permission, and because I’m too lazy to actually write a post today, I’m passing along a few of my favorites.
This overeager fellow has a rather sudden change of heart when his stated plan runs into an obstacle, that obstacle being that @catches_stars finds him completely repulsive.
In not-quite spring, a young MRA’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and how women are all a bunch of moneygrubbing whores that get uglier and uglier as they get older.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, discussions of marriage are busting out all over, like the buds of new spring flowers or the skidmarks in an MRA’s underpants. The fellows are not too keen on this whole marriage thing, which is an obvious female trick to rob men of their money and sperm and tie them to rapidly depreciating assets (women) who are only going to get uglier as time goes by.
In one thread, a fellow named wrez shares these thoughts, to much acclaim (or at least a few dozen upvotes):
In another, a fellow named rathum2323 suggests that any women interested in marriage is clearly up to something nefarious.
All that said, I am pleased that Reddit MRAs are managing to convince their friends not to marry. Because if you’re someone who turns to MRAs for marriage advice, it’s probably best for all concerned that you never marry anyone or anything.
Even after all the time I’ve spent on this blog, I can still be astounded by the appalling hatefulness of the manosphere. The latest example? This post from the influential far-right manospherian who calls himself Vox Day, in which he argues, seriously, that encouraging rape is better for society than encouraging (white) women to work.
No, really.