Showing newest 5 of 7 posts from April 2011. Show older posts
Showing newest 5 of 7 posts from April 2011. Show older posts

Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Brief Reign of the Feminist Troll Queen

Who died and made you Queen of the trolls?
So the MRA who calls himself Troll King - but who is not actually a troll - recently decided he would create some lulz by trolling Reddit’s Mens Rights subreddit as a pretend feminist calling “herself” feministtrollqueen. What followed was perhaps the worst impersonation of a feminist the world has seen since, well, Sarah Palin called herself one. But the whole embarrassing spectacle is worth looking at, as it reveals a great deal, not about feminism, but about some of the strange things rattling around in the heads of some of feminism’s most ardent and addled critics.

During her brief reign, feministtrollqueen posted a series of long rambling comments filled with what “she” evidently thought was a highly witty parody of feminist-speak, but which bears about as much relationship to feminism as what’s inside Glenn Beck’s head does to reality. Here's a chunk of her first post::

WHY can't us feminsits and mens misogynists get along? ...

I LOVE men so much that I want to help you "nice guys" and I want you to become real men so that women, like me, will want to have crazy and hot and slutty sex with you. Don't be losers and creeps….
Us feminists, we don't want to hurt you...we probably want to suck your dick, 'cause we LOVE men and their dicks...Just because you have unjust privilege doesn't mean you are evil or bad...it just means you need to lose your patriarchal privilege and become feminist men....then you will be good men. Then you won't be virginal losers, once you except and deny your privilege you will get SEX and be valuable
Naturally, some of the locals assumed that this was a real feminist talking - all but one of those who commented on this post seemed to think it was real -- and set out to school her on a thing or two. One wrote a lengthy point-by-point "rebuttal," ending it with:
[S]ince you are female (presumably), don't presume to tell men what a "real man" is. …  [W]hile you claim to "love men", you're posting shows you are actually closer to a misandrist who thinks the only good man is the one beneath her feet.

Feministtrollqueen then  began posting even more obviously loopy comments. Far from being the sex-negative Dworkin-ite  stereotype of yesteryear, she seemed, if anything, rather obsessed with sex and how much she loved it:

OMG!!! You guys are such misogynists. You need to realize that I am a feminist and I know what feminism is cause I am a feminist. HOW dare you talk about such a movement in such a bad way, you are evil penis wearing misogynists! Those evil penises of yours cause RAAAAPPPEEEEE and that is all men's fault.
Those testicles of yours create woman hating, aka misogynistic, thoughts. NOW, understand that I LOOOVE men.... I just think you misogynists need to understand that you can be better, real men. Until you step up and be real men, you will always be manchildren.
Now, I love men. I really do. I have sexes with many, many men. I luvs casual sexes with men. I do it all the time. I just don't like it when you men make me feel bad by exercising your own sexual rights and opinions and call me fat. I am not fat, I AM BIG AND BEAUTIFUL!....

Warming to her subject, she continued: 

You pathetic virgins in the MRM are just bitter and lonely and can't get any pussy cause you live in yo mommas basement. How pathetic.
I read all of your posts and I still won't have nasty and sexy butts sexts with you. I am simply too sexy for you and even if you wanted it you couldn't get it. I am that much bettar than you but unlike you I actually believe in equality.
You little boys need to grow up and become real men and learn about feminism and how us women will actually help you and solve your problems for you. I am for equality! I want men to be free and feminine like me, you little boys just want to whine and moan and need to call a waahhbulance
Even at this point there were some who thought it was still possible that this was a real feminist. Presumably, even these gullible souls realized something was afoot when feministtrollqueen started going on about how much she liked “casual sexes with da manchilds!! I like their pee pees” while also claiming that men “want to rape you and kill you and eat your dead pussy.”
The brief and insignificant reign of the feministtrollqueen is in many ways instructive. 

Given the obsessive discussion of sex, and feminsittrollqueen’s endless nattering about how she doesn’t want to have sex with non-feminist non-real-men, Troll King seems to conflate “feminists” with “women who don’t want to have sex with him.” While I can’t imagine that many feminists do want to have sex with him, I can’t believe they are the only ones. (A Venn diagram of the two groups would consist of two concentric circles, with the “feminist” circle entirely within the larger group of “women who don’t want to have sex with Troll King.)

Like many MRAs and MGTOWers. Troll King seems to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, and getting angry about, women having sex, particularly those having sex with people other than him. As we’ve seen again and again, manosphere men seem to take it personally when women fuck anyone but them. When attractive women have sex with confident, attractive men, they’re denounced as hypergamous, gold-digging and/or thug-loving sluts. But manosphere dudes’  hatred of women having sex goes well beyond sour grapes, as they also tend to be furious when women they consider unattractive have sex. If any woman out there is having sex with anyone who is not them, it is somehow a personal affront to all men who aren’t having sex at that very moment.
If that woman is also a feminist, well, their heads nearly explode. Forget the old stereotype of feminists as dour, hairy-legged, man-hating, cat-owning lesbian bluestockings. Troll King is obsessed with what seems to be the new stereotype: the sex-positive feminist as wanton slut. And he’s not the only one. Manosphere dudes regularly attack prominent feminist bloggers as “sluts” and “whores” and worse. Sometimes their minds become so addled by it all that they get the old and new stereotypes mixed up into one weird misogynist soufflé --- like the commenter on Antimisandry.com who denounced one famous feminist blogger as both a “super slut” and a “worthless, dried up, spinster whore.”

One commenter on Hooking Up Smart set forth what seems to be the general manosphere “theory” about feminist sluthood:

they want to suppress male “patriarchal” mating preferences

they want to have their cake and eat it too, i.e. want the option to be as slutty as they want but also want the respect and social status that was never given to such women

they want to neuter men because they only want the biggest alpha assholes to initiate sex, since these are the only type of men they are attracted to
 
As you may have noticed, this theory makes no fucking sense at all: feminists criticize asshole guys because they only want to have sex with the most assholish of men? Yet I’ve seen variants of this "argument" all over the mansophere. 

Troll King also seems to conflate feminists with all women who ever criticize men for any reason. His faux feminist creation continually refers to men as “manchildren,” an obvious reference to the arguments set forth recently by cultural critic Kay Hymowitz, who has denounced young men today as perpetual adolescents obsessed with video games and pop culture, while celebrating the supposedly more masculine men of yore. Trouble is, as I've pointed out before, Hymowitz isn’t a feminist at all; she’s an anti-feminist, and some of the most pointed critiques of her retrograde ideas have come from feminists. (Here’s one recent example.)

There’s really no way around it: the obsessions of the Troll King’s faux feminist identity seem to be driven mainly by masculine insecurity and sexual jealousy - and rage at women displaying autonomy or in any way challenging male prerogatives: How dare women refuse to have sex with us! How dare they call our masculinity into question! It’s no wonder his feminist parody reveals so much more about himself than it does about feminism.  


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*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.

A Mammoth Undertaking



Fast forward to about 13 minutes in, and start watching. All seems lost for the intrepid neanderthal hunting party, but wait! Could it be? Is it? It is!!!

Aw, yeah!

T-shirts are available to commemorate this (pre)historic victory.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sex-ed for assholes. And non-assholes, too.

Note: Girlfriend pillows are not actual girlfriends.
Men Going Their Own Way have some problems with sex. One of the biggest? Despite their best efforts to totally and completely avoid women -- which some reason always seems to involve spending hours online every day talking about women -- sometimes it will somehow come to pass that hapless MGTOWers will find themselves actually having sex with a woman. As you might imagine, this experience may not be altogether pleasant for either party involved.  Indeed, in my most recent post, I quoted one poor non-virgin MGTOWer who declared that “having sex with a woman is like humping a moist pillow: It doesn't join in and you can hardly tell the difference.”


What this young man has described is not “sex” so much as “really, really bad sex.” Fortunately, it can be prevented! The most obvious way, already hit upon by many MGTOWers, is to not have sex with women at all. If you despise and resent the entire female gender, it is probably best to not get naked with individual members of that gender. The women of the world will be happy to go along with you on this point, trust me.


But on the off chance that some MGTOWers might be willing to dial down their woman-hatred enough to actually contemplate sex with women, I would like to offer some tips on how to improve the experience for everyone.


First, to make absolutely sure that sex won’t come to resemble “humping a moist pillow,” make sure that your sexual partner is not, in fact, a moist pillow. 


This is a simple fix, and one that is often overlooked. 


If your partner is not actually a pillow but a live human woman, well, I will now give the floor to Ozymandias, who recently posted an extremely helpful list of suggestions in the comments here. Here it is again for anyone who might have missed it::



OZYMANDIAS SEX EDUCATION TIEMZ GO!

So all the sex you've had with women, Zaku, has vaguely resembled fucking a moist pillow. I understand and empathize with your sadness about your sex life. However, young padawan, there are methods of solving this.

*Are all of your partners virgins or in high school? Virgins and high schoolers are terrible at sex, particularly if both are inexperienced. I personally was on my third partner before I was any good in bed.


FIX: Find your local cougar, slut or sexually assertive woman.


*Was your partner someone with sexual hang-ups? Slut-shaming often makes women think that enthusiasm makes them "bad girls", and ideas of men-earning-sex often make women think that lying there is their contribution to sex.


FIX: Have sex with feminists.


*Are you simply not that good in bed? This is a common problem among inexperienced men, and can lead to women not enjoying sex because it is not that enjoyable.


FIX: Learn the location of the clit (with an anatomy chart, if necessary). Listen to her instructions about sex. If she's moaning, KEEP DOING THAT. Try to give her at least one orgasm before you stick your dick in (be reasonable, if she's begging "stick it in me", go ahead, but it's a good guideline). Suck it up about the taste and learn to love eating pussy. Make sure you give her adequate foreplay (AT LEAST five minutes). Touch and kiss parts of her besides her breasts and pussy. Most of all, confidence and joy, confidence and joy.  [Editor’s Note: As briget has noted in the comments, if you really, really don’t like the taste of pussy, you can always use a dental dam; google the term if you don’t know what that is.]


*Was your partner very, very drunk? Bad sign. Sober people participate more.


FIX: If she's passed out or puking, don't fuck her.


*Was your partner freezing up, softly repeating "no, no, no", or otherwise clearly not enjoying herself? Then you may have had what is technically referred to as "nonconsensual sex," or by us Femicunt Queens of Nofunnington, "rape."


FIX: Seek affirmative, enthusiastic consent. This is shown by her, for example, ripping off your clothes, chanting "yes", sucking your cock without being asked, etc. If you are confused if she is consenting, feel free to ask "do you want to (have sex, make out, have me suck your tits, etc.)?" If you hear words like "no" and "stop," STOP IMMEDIATELY.

OZYMANDIAS SEX EDUCATION TIEMZ OVER.


Generally speaking, this is good advice for all inexperienced hetero dudes interested in improving their sex lives and the sex lives of their partners. (PROTIP: Improving the sex life of your partner will dramatically improve your sex life too.) With a few changes in wording to reflect different anatomies, as Oz herself points out, this is also good advice for straight women, gay women, gay men, trans men and women, bisexuals, and everyone else who is interested in having sex with some subset of their fellow human beings.


Just to reiterate one point: no one is a sexual expert from the get-go. There’s no shame in sexual inexperience. But it is sort of a douchebag move to blame the entire opposite sex for bad sex if you don’t know what the fuck you are doing in bed.  It takes some time, and some actual giving-a-shit-about-what-the-other-person-likes in order to get good at it. Generally speaking, if you like and respect your sexual partners, gaining this experience and expertise should be a highly enjoyable endeavor. Even if you don’t yet have much in the way of skills, a little bit of enthusiasm can go a long way. Also: you’re allowed to actually ask the other person what he or she likes and doesn’t like. This can prevent all sorts of awkwardness and encourage all sorts of fun sexy times.


Which brings us to another point worth reiterating: if there’s no shame in sexual inexperience, there’s no shame in sexual experience either. Sexually inexperienced women don’t know what they’re doing any more than sexually inexperienced guys do. So, guys, if you want to get with women who actually do know what they are doing, don’t look down on women for having sexual experience. If you’re a slut shamer, you basically have no right to complain if your partners are bad in bed. If you’re one of those dickheads who thinks women all become hags the instant they hit 25, or 30, guess what: you’ve ruled out having sex with the overwhelming majority of the women who are actually really really good at it. 


And while we’re at it: Taking the time to sit down and read about sexual techniques can speed up the process of getting good at sex enormously. If you don’t know how to find the g-spot, well, here you go.  You’re welcome. Lots more useful shit here and here, along with plenty of suggestions for awesome sexy-time book learnin. If you think you’re somehow above reading about sex, well, too bad: that’s what you’ve just been doing! 


If after all this you find that your partner is still lying there like a moist pillow, and you’ve ruled out sexual hangups, sexual inexperience and/or less-than-enthusiastic consent, there are a few other possibilities to look at: 


      1) She (or he) might be having libido problems because of depression - or due to side effects of depression meds - or for some other medical or biological reason. Time to see a doctor.


      2) She (or he) might be asexual. Some people just aren’t into sex. You’ll have to figure out yourselves what this means for your relationship. And that might mean: no more relationship. If you’re really into sex, and partner isn't, neither one of you is doing the other a favor by sticking around. 


3) She (or he) might actually be a selfish asshole. Selfish assholes tend to suck at sex. Try not to have sex with them. And don’t blame their entire gender for it. And if you're a selfish asshole, try not to have sex with anyone yourself.

Feel free to share your own tips (and links) in the comments. Learning more about sex and sexuality = good for everybody.

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*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Non-haters gonna non-hate: NiceGuy Edition

From NiceGuy's MGTOW forum.
Once upon a time one of the guys over at NiceGuy’s MGTOW forum set up a little poll asking his fellow “nice guys” whether or not they actually consider themselves to be misogynists; it’s been up there for years, and the site’s resident MGTOWers have been adding votes and comments all along.  The wording of the poll is sufficiently, ah, flexible enough to give respondents a lot of ways to wiggle out of saying explicitly that they really were misogynists:

* I despise the entire female sex. Period.
* I hate only "western" women.
* I only hate feminists and women who take advantage of sexism.
* I just blame feminists.
* I don't hate women; I just don't like being around them.
* I have no animosity towards women of any group. I'm only here to learn more about MRAs.

Still, given the amount of angry and explicit and completely straightforward misogyny you can find in the forms there, which after all are an outgrowth of a site devoted to the notion that "American women suck," I’m a little bit surprised by how many of the regulars claim not to hate women - as you can see from the graphic above, the most popular answer is the one about “feminists and women who take advantage of sexism,” whatever that means. 

Conveniently, though, many of those who voted in the poll also posted comments explaining their, er, reasoning. And it’s pretty clear that they have a radically different definition of hate than, you know, the dictionary, and/or what everyone else in the world means when they use the word hate. 

Here are some of the comments from guys there who say that they aren’t misogynist. Again, just to make myself clear: these are entirely NON-HATEFUL comments from those who say they DON’T hate women.

Let's start with the completely non-hateful non-hater who calls himself Alpha:
  
I'm not one who hates ... I find that I don't enjoy the company of women very much, as they tend to talk about things I really don't give a crap about. Besides, they really wouldn't like to hear what comes out of my mouth since, if I were to really say what I thought around them without restraint, they would go into knee-jerk, defensive mode. They've been so conditioned to fight and argue with what is simply, to me, a male point of view on things. It's like being around children. ..

I will say this, I love ladies, the female equivalent of a gentleman, a gentlewoman. Unfortunately, that's a rare breed these days. What we have are a bunch of emotionally immature, emotionally unrestrained, emotionally violent, toxic, unappreciative, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-serving, unempathetic, exploitive, arrested adolescents with vaginas, bad attitudes, and an incredible amount of contempt.

Now, I don't mind holding my tongue around ladies. But the moment women declared themselves equal to men, they opened the door to being talked to as men.

And here is committed non-misogynist Zaku:

I voted: "I don't hate women; I just don't like being around them."

Mostly because they have nothing to offer other than whining usually. …

When women talk they make me "ZZZ".
Tiny kitties are honest about their hatreds.
In a followup comment Zaku offered this, well, revealing take on sex with women: 

Maybe it's because I've only done american chicks but to be blunt having sex with a woman is like humping a moist pillow: It doesn't join in and you can hardly tell the difference.
There is something I would dearly like to tell young Zaku at this point but I really can’t think of a delicate way to put it. Hmm. I’ll do it the Dear Abby way. 
  
CONFIDENTIAL TO Z--- on N—G—‘sM---- F---- : You may be doing it wrong. 
 
Our friend MarkyMark popped in to offer his two cents: 

I don't hate women, but, after working with a bunch of them and seeing their true colors, I don't care to be around them. I don't hate sewers, either; I just don't care to spend time in them..
Now if this were anyone but our friend MarkyMark making this comment, I would assume he was making a little joke here. But as far as I have been able to determine, MarkyMark does not actually have a sense of humor. This is, after all, a guy who once devoted a blog post to rebutting, point by point, an article in The Onion. Joke or no, I think we can all agree it's 1) not actually, you know, funny and 2) kind of a douchey thing to say.

Djc added this utterly non-misogynistic comment to the pile: 

I can't stand to be around them for too long. It's not hatred. I just can't stand stupid people. Male, or female. And there is no question most American females are dripping with delusions, which in my book makes them stupid. And I'm at a point where women have nothing I really need. So it's a complete waste of my time to even talk to one
And then there is this, from strigoi:

i merely hate feminists, those women who latch onto sexism and how it has infected most of society. I aim for the cancer at the heart of the problem, they are the ones that need to be hanged.
I guess technically, that’s not misogyny. But I don't think I'll be inviting this guy over for dinner any time soon.

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*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I'm going off the rails on an [ableist slur redacted] train. Also: Cat poll!

Well, discussions about my second Scott Adams piece over on Feministe (which was basically identical to my post here) have now been completely derailed by a number of commenters who’ve decided I’m “ableist” because I used the word … “idiot.”  That word, they have decided, is offensive to the “cognitively impaired.” If you want to wade into the mess, here’s the comment that, while polite in itself, started the long slide down this particular rabbit hole. You can see my responses in blue further down in the comments.

I consider this kind of language policing to the EXTREME! to be bad for feminism (and frankly insulting to people with disabilities), and I’m glad a number of others have stood up against it in the comments there.  I don’t think that the language police are in the majority at Feministe, much less in feminism at large. But these debates are so frustrating that many feminists who disagree with the language police end up biting their tongues and/or just walking away. At some point I may post more about this fraught topic here.

In the meantime, I’m am conducting a little poll about cats. Please click the appropriate button in the graphic above. Clicking it won’t actually do anything, but I’m pretty sure what the results are going to be anyway. Go kitties!

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*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.

Sociable

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