Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton: “If they didn’t scream [no], how else would I get an erection?”
Nick Reading: Men’s Rights rape joker
So a helpful Twitterer told me that I was a frequent topic of conversation on A Voice for Men’s Honey Badger “radio” show last night — that’s the one hosted by Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What) and Alison Tieman (Typhon Blue) and a newer addition to AVFM’s FeMRA stable named Della Burton. Bored, I went over to take a listen to the archived show. Well, bits and pieces of it, anyway. Life is short, and every minute of this show felt about an hour long.
Anyway, I missed most of whatever it was they said about me, but I did manage to force myself to sit through a good chunk of the segment featuring none other than Nick Reading, the guy who’s running a joke campaign for city council of Edmonton Alberta as the “Patriarchy Party” candidate. You know, the dude we talked about just yesterday.
The gals did their best to play along with his over-the-top patriarchal schtick, proclaiming themselves submissive inferior females unworthy of his manly phallus, and so on. It was as gratingly unfunny as you might imagine, and it went on and on. Even the Honey Badgers, perhaps wondering if this whole segment wasn’t a rather apt metaphor for their own role within A Voice for Men and the Men’s Rights movement at large, couldn’t quite bring themselves to laugh at any of Nick’s, er, humor.
At least not until, about 49 minutes into the show, he brought out the rape jokes.
Take a listen:
Paul “The Thought of Fucking Your Shit Up Gives Me an Erection” Elam, meet Nick “If They Didn’t Scream No, How Else Would I Get an Erection” Reading.
In case you weren’t able to make all that out, due to the clear-as-mud sound engineering job of AVFM’s James Huff — you may remember him as the guy responsible for this amazing rant — I have transcribed the exchange below as best I could, cutting out a few repeated phrases and ignoring some remarks that got buried under other remarks.
Nick Reading: No never means no. It only means yes. That’s an understanding that we have within the patriarchy.
Karen Straughan: It is.
Alison Tieman: That’s true. Actually “no” should be stricken from the English language because it simply makes no sense. How could any woman ever say no to the holy phallus unless she was criminally insane?
Nick: Criminally insane, yes.
Della Burton [?]: Criminally, yes.
Karen: But, but we shouldn’t strike “no” from all the dictionaries and the lexicons of language simply because there are numerous times in the course of a day when a man loves to say “no” to a woman.
Nick: I would almost insist on striking it from the non-male vernacular but if they didn’t scream it, how else would I get an erection?
[Awkward pause]
[Laughter]
Della [?]: Oh my goodness.
Karen: Right, you’re right.
Della: I hadn’t even thought of that.
Karen: So no is still in.
A Voice for Men: Promoting Human Rights, One Rape Joke at a Time
EDITED TO ADD: Below, a video from SaelPalani on YouTube about this episode of Honey Badger radio, which not only looks at the show itself but at what was going on in the official chatroom for the show at the time, which turns out to be even creepier than the stuff said by Nick Reading on the show itself.
Along with the standard MRA misogyny from some of AVFM’s regulars, there were bizarre sexualized comments directed at the so-called Honey Badgers themselves: one commenter went on at length about how he wanted to use Karen Straughan’s breast milk in his coffee (and spike her coffee with his semen). Palani provides screenshots and everything. Some of her commentary is a bit problematic — she refers to them as “retards” at one point — but if you’ve got 15 minutes it’s worth a watch.
//www.youtube.com/embed/
Posted on September 27, 2013, in a voice for men, creepy, edmonton, FemRAs, GirlWritesWhat, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, patriarchy, rape culture, rape jokes, that's not funny!, trigger warning, TyphonBlue and tagged a voice for men, edmonton, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, rape culture, rape jokes. Bookmark the permalink. 268 Comments.
When this misguided morons go on about how women will be forced back to servitude when society collapses they for get Samuel Colt.
God created all men [persons] equal, Sam Colt made it stick.
Women aren’t stupid, and it doesn’t take brawn to close a finger ’round 5 lbs. of trigger pull. This shortsighted idiots are in for a rude (if brief) awakening before it’s lights out.
Of course these yahoos won’t understand why the “apocalypse” doesn’t happen. When there are disasters, people pull together. They help each other (even strangers). It’s outliers who go on rampages. And it’s decent people who stop it.
And they do stop it.
fidelbogen: I speak with authority as an insider. I know these people well, so my analysis trumps all of yours.
I’ve read your writing. You can’t do analysis. My little sister (who is 15) makes you look like a toddler trying to master comparative structures (e.g., This is betterer than that).
Try selling your authority to people who’ve not looked at what you fob off as writing.
I think his point was that they’re idiots who needed that much time to process the depth of humour being presented to them.
Is that taking into comsideration the fact that women’s fitness regimes are geared more toward slimming than building strength, or is it a kind of base level thing?
To the poster who called me a TERF:
I didn’t even know what that meant. Oh and you’re wrong about that btw. Totally wrong. Instead of spreading vicious crap about me it’s better if you just ask me and I will tell you what I think. It’s no secret that I am a radical feminist in the sense that I’m against the selling and purchasing of women for sex and am also against pornography. My arguments on that can be found in my video catalogue for anyone interested.
I am not a TERF. I am NOT. I don’t think transwomen aren’t women. That little rumour got started by the same woman who spent an hour talking about my vagina in the blogtv room and who then made a youtube account pretending to be an abused young girl in order to gather dox of all the radical feminists she could find on Youtube. This is also the same youtuber who called the damn cops on me because I exposed her fraudulent account she used to gather dox.
IOW, quit perpetuating this crazy bullshit b/c I can back up EVERYTHING that I’ve said here.
Oh and the pro-porn, pro-prostitution Youtuber who started all these rumours about me, did the blogtv, made the fraudulent account was Divinity33372. There is no love lost there. I can’t stand her. She hasn’t been on Youtube in a long time. Hell, you just might be her for all I know or one of her minions.
Back off. Got it?
For those who think it’s merely fierearms… Julie D’Aubigny… La Maupin
There was meant to be a generally in that last sentence… I appear to have left it in reserve.
joyintorah18: You’d be doing your case better credit if you weren’t making completely baseless accusations of sockpuppetry/false pretenses by way of your defensive ranting about your non-terfness.
I have spoken with TyphonBlue, and she very much concurs with my previous remark about the “awkward pause”.
This is the longest response to multiple comments ever. I’m sorry in advance.
@myeyestheyburn fuuuuuuuuuuckkkkk. After reading articles like that it is so difficult to even think about trusting men when I know for a fact that he’s just an embarrassment to men and doesn’t represent them all or even most of them. It’s the same issue I have when reading youtube comments sections, having to remind myself that decent people exist in this world, these are not all people. It’s just so depressing. Why do some people seemingly exist just to make you doubt all that is good in the world?
And when he talks about how it’s not attractive that a woman could take him or leave him, it’s like, he doesn’t get that he’s such a repulsive human being that no woman has ever felt passion for him as a partner. Someone who really loved him wouldn’t be thinking, “Meh, I could take him or leave him.” Someone who was using him for money and security might though because maybe she could always find an upgrade.
@quackers, I don’t know who started the rumor that women don’t get turned on by the sight of men, but it’s obnoxious that it caught on like wild fire. If I see a guy who is well dressed, hair that brings out his bone structure, his thin but toned arms, etc, I’m gonna think, “Damn, he’s hot.” I’ll probably even think about him in class or at work when I should be focused on other things. So what is my solution? No hot men allowed in my presence lest they distract me? Guys are gonna be distracted by girls they find hot in the exact same way, whether they’re wearing a short skirt of not. There’s nothing we can do about this human condition besides learn to cope with it. Hiding women’s bodies away from men is certainly not going to make them learn how to cope when they’re adults with jobs. The problem, also, is that it’s not the fact that you find someone attractive that is wrong, it’s how you act on that attraction. Just like I don’t sit there slack jawed and drooling when I see a good looking man, men can do the same.
If I can’t wear short shorts next summer, I better not see any guys walking around shirtless. I’m Irish in a hot climate. I NEED short shorts to survive.
This is the part about chivalry that sets me off because my family’s history was full of women being abused by men. Women having to be at their husband’s beck and call because they could have them involuntarily committed at any time. Women being beaten and raped because they had no other choice. Chivalry was probably a pretty great trade off for a woman who had a loving and supportive husband, but for those whose husbands took advantage of their power in society, chivalry just meant being beaten and raped by your husband in exchange for not getting beaten and raped by a stranger. It’s hard to convey to people who currently miss chivalry that it was a system put in place for men to protect women from other men. Something that some men perpetuate and exaggerate knowing it gives them power. There is so much wrong with it when it becomes something that is owed rather than something that people do out of love or common courtesy. I don’t know if I explained that well, I’m getting so many thoughts rushing through my head about it that I could write an essay right now.
@Dvärghundspossen I struggle to discuss the “white women had the same rights as slaves” issue because I can’t figure out a way to discuss what it really meant for so many women without it being a slap in the face to actual slaves. It’s a topic that I don’t know how to approach as an intersectional feminist because I’ve been told that it’s an insult to discuss white women’s lack of rights when slaves had it so much worse.
One specific instance was where the conversation started off about me talking about the plight of my female ancestors at which point I was told that I was being insensitive to black people for even complaining, because they had it worse. The person who brought this up was a black, anti-feminist man. He said to me, “women couldn’t own property, but black people were property,” so any word that alluded to property was completely off limits when discussing anything but black slaves. When I told him that there was more to it and that writing their suffering off completely with the fallacy of relative privation wasn’t cool, he told me I was a typical white feminist accusing black people of being divisive. It didn’t seem as though he was speaking to me in order to share his experience, but that he just hates feminists (this wasn’t the first time he’d come at me for being a feminist) and wanted to take that opportunity to silence me.
While I honestly don’t believe HE was arguing in good faith, I do want to avoid being completely insensitive to those that are. I KNOW the very clear difference between the two, and wouldn’t dream of saying they were exactly the same. So my issue is, how do I discuss these circumstances without using words that could be misinterpreted as me believing that white women had it as bad as slaves?
This is exactly the problem with things like the free trade. It’s hard because I’m more of a libertarian in spirit, but in reality it just doesn’t work.
@ignotussomnium I need to see this and link it to every MRA ever. What was the show called?
@SittieKitty Maybe MRA’s watch way too many Mad Max, post-apocalyptic movies and shows where society completely devolves. The don’t understand these movies are fiction. It also says a lot about their individual states of mind. They don’t do bad things because they’ll go to jail for it, not because they believe it’s wrong.
Um, wow. Could “no, I’m not a TERF. Your information is not accurate and I can show you the information that is accurate” not have sufficed?
We definitely value what TB has to say! Not.
So, she agrees with you that she’s amazingly stupid.
This sounds right.
Fidel Bogen: I have spoken with TyphonBlue, and she very much concurs with my previous remark about the “awkward pause”.
She sort of has to, unless she wants to be kicked out of the club.
This is why we aren’t impressed with what you pass off as analysis.
@joyintorah18
No. I respond badly to threats.
Try telling me “The information you provided was incorrect, and I have the sources to prove it. My actual stance is so and so, and I personally believe this and this. When you say I am such and such, you are thus somewhat incorrect and mistaken.”
For the record, thank you for the correct. I am sure people will keep it in mind next time.
As for next time, try not to insinuate that anyone is your old nemesis or one of their minions. For all I know, you could be my old guildmate from World of Warcraft still out to catch me making a mistake between figuratively and literally, and that will literally never happen or I will figuratively eat my own hat.
This can’t be Fidelbogen, it’s too coherent. That said, Fiddles: you are an insider with a bunch of assholes. I’m sure that makes you feel great, but don’t try to pass that off as anything else.
What’s this “I am not a TERF shit?”
takshak — sorry, I should’ve said “not legal HERE” and I’m in the US and oh hey, we are not the whole world! My apologies. And lower abortion rate…let me guess, your sex ed includes proper birth control not just “don’t have sex”?
And just call me Argenti (and since we don’t seem to have been properly introduced, I use gender neutral pronouns — ze // zir, and don’t mind well meaning questions). *waves* so hi there person I’ve seen but apparently never spoken to directly
fibinachi: I thought about responding to that aspect of it, but decided I would wait. Threats, esp. in such a forum as this where credence is a function of reputation (for which pseudonymity is as good as veronymity) are a poor, even stupid, way to go about things.
What, after all, can the offended party do… yell at you? If they go too far the hose will ban them. In any case they can’t enforce the threat, so it is, de facto empty, and therefore creates a loss of moral power.
As you say, a simple statement of the erroneous nature of the initial charge is the best course; as it avoids the impression there is something being hidden, and the evidence of impotence.
@joyintorah18 YIKES!
While I obviously agree with you on certain fundamental principles and the sheer absudity of what the MRA’s in the video you critiqued were saying, you need to read up on intersectionality like, immediately. I knew in watching your videos that people would take issue with all the crazy talk, but beyond that, I think it would be wise to learn how to take constructive criticism in regards to how you’re simultaneously hurting others in an attempt to help women. The way you responded makes you seem kinda guilty and hyper-defensive in a weird way. Additionally, some of the comments on your video that went uncontested were really…. off.
@fidelbogen there was literally nothing to mull over with that joke. That joke was standard misogyny. I hear that joke on the internet regularly. You’re really trying to sit here and act as though they had to consider one of the most basic misogynistic jokes out there, as if it was some ground breaking new bit of humor? I can guarantee you that they’ve heard that joke before.
I would say I’m nobody’s minion, but as one of sir Pecunium’s Royal Assassins he may beg to differ on that. (An honor so granted by my invention of Spot! That! Fallacy! and my Victorian Time Traveller persona)
Speaking of which…
Pray tell, women are allowed to own property in this strange new era of yours, and have legal recourse if beaten or forced into sexual relations? Even if those sexual relations are with their own husband? I suppose this is the logical conclusion of granting them the vote. An inquiry, what has resulted from emancipation? I imagine former slaves can now own property as well? A far cry from being property! The vote, has it been granted to them as well? What of the other races?
Why you mean to tell me that in the eyes of the law neither race nor gender limits ones rights? What a strange change that is!
/Victorian
Honestly, besides slaves being called property and women not, I’m having a hard time finding a legal difference. Other than the fathers paid husbands in dowry systems to take the daughters, now wives, off their hands. Lots of things like that — where on paper slaves had it far worse than women, but in practice the differences where far less. Of course, there were the social mores and abusing your slaves, raping them and selling their children, all that shit was seen as commonplace, whereas selling your wife’s children wouldn’t have gone over well in polite society. And far more husbands did love and care for their wives than slave owners did their slaves. But legally speaking women had little more rights than slaves.
Now, things like children…knock up a slave and it’s her kid that you can sell or whatever as you please. Knock up your wife and it’s your kid that she has no rights to. So yeah, I’m not trying to say they were literally the same, but that legally the differences are small enough that discussing the fucked up seems valid.
That should be Sir Percunium, my apologies good sir for the lost capitalization!
Percunium?
I need a better sort of lackeys (I don’t do minions).
I blame auto correct!
Or that I seem up throw stray r’s into my Latin (see Ae*R*theri)
And what if I wanna be a minion? I like the sound of it better than lackey! (Also, one of my loach babies was Miss Minion so yeah, can I be minion?)
@faithfulbooger (and typhoidblue by proxy), An awkward pause would actually make you look better as human beings, but if you want to go with “it was a period of calm reflection after which we remembered rape is totally hilarious” well that’s your choice. #asswaffles_suck #feministarmyrising #what’s_for_dessert
Am I the only one who doesn’t give a shit if GWW, Typhon and all those other feMRAs were uncomfortable or not? they’re big girls, they know exactly the type of creeps they ally themselves with, hell they are those creeps themselves. They make a big stink about how feminists supposedly make women out as victims all the time, lets not do that to them. They’re assholes, plain and simple.
@Lionicle
I’m very “visual” which apparently, is usually only what men are according to PUAs and evopsych. I can’t be in a relationship with a man I don’t find physically attractive, even if his personality is amazing. Of course, this will enrage manosphere dudes, because only men can dismiss women who are awesome but aren’t attractive, it’s their biooolooogy. But women? on no, they are not allowed to. That being said, what I find physically attractive in a man varies. I’ve been attracted to skinny guys and chubby guys alike. I look at faces, I like faces lol.
I’m really sorry to hear about all the abuse women in your family have suffered through too
Hugs if you want them!
“I listened carefully to the sound clip, and no, the pause in question was not “awkward”. It was reflective. They were just processing slowly, and mentally chewing on it. I speak with authority as an insider. I know these people well, so my analysis trumps all of yours.”
Ugh, what the fuck is there to be reflected? If it was reflective then that just makes them look really stupid. If you think a joke heard from 14 year olds is some thought provoking statement, then you’re pretty damn stupid. Or fucked up. I guess both, given how GWW and the rest aren’t really bright or morally sensible.
Way to make them look shitty and stupid(not that they didn’t already).
So Fidelbogan thinks people not being uncomfortable or disgusted, by a man “joking” that raping someone’s the only way he gets an erection is a good thing?
C’mon, fiddles, what’s so funny about rape? Tell us, we’re listening. Tell us why anyone should “reflect” on that so-called joke. Tell us why someone claiming they only get off on hurting or terrorising others is funny.
…Is anyone else just hearing this?
“I speak with authority as an insider. I know these people well, so my analysis trumps all of yours.”
I was just thinking about how funny this comment is if this is the real flickabooger.
Didn’t he say that Feminists could never “comprehend” themselves because they are inside the Feminist movement? Hilarious.
Oh, are we back on the ridiculous idea that women aren’t visual? Because I’d be happy to spam the thread with pics/videos of men I like to drool over to demonstrate otherwise.
(I won’t, but out of politeness and the wish not to bore the regulars, not because I don’t have eleventy billion relevant links to hand.)
I’m with Quackers in not really caring whether or not GWW and Typhon Blue are uncomfortable, embarrassed, or just awkwardly reaching for a response that attempts to make their movement look less horrible in the clip. Regardless of their emotional states at the time, the general awfulness remains.
Speaking of visual… I used to make powerpoint presentations of all the people I found attractive, they used to play as my screen saver…
I hope I’m not the only one who used to do that…
I’m not even going to admit how much space on my hard drive is taken up by images of men I find hot, but it’s a lot.
Don’t you know that being attracted to people is misogyny!? Some feminists you are!
I have been reliably informed by many men that being attracted to hot men is in fact misandry, somehow. Apparently the category “men” does not include men who are attractive for protecting-men’s-rights purposes.
Oh fuck. What am I going to do? ::Goes back to Google Images:: M’oh well…
Can’t I just say it’s in my nature? If society collapsed I’m afraid all my walls would be covered in pictures of people I’m attracted to… You know, like they’re totally not now >.> <.<
Nope. I had a college friend who did that with her large collection of mostly Nathan Fillion.
Relevant.
If physical attraction was something that could be harnessed to generate electricity I could power a whole city, and I’ve been that way since I was a tweener. Which is just one of many reasons why reading PUA and MRA attempts to analyze women’s reasons for choosing the sexual partners we do is such a surreal experience.
Heh, that’s a wonderful picture. Love Wil’s expression.
Speaking as a more or less heterosexual more or less male, Nathan Fillian is teh secks. As is Sexypants Wheaton for that matter.
Fillion… apparently I’ve been spelling his name wrong for as long as I’ve known of him…
@Lionicle: I think it’s insensitive to just go “white women were like slaves!”, but if you specify, as I did, that they were LEGALLY similar although obviously in praxis being TREATED much better by MOST husbands, you’re just pointing out a certain set of facts, and I can’t see how that’s wrong. I think that if you make the point I made that carefully and people still go “way to dismiss the slave experience!” I think it’s probably because they can’t wrap their heads around how far we’ve come feminist-wise and how utterly lacking of rights women were back then - it was NOT just about not being allowed to own property. It was about your husband, if he was abusive, being able to rape you, beat you horribly, lock you up or whatever and he was legally in the right to do so.
@Augzilliary: I can’t find where you posted this now, but I think you asked whether the strength difference between men and women is based on the average population or not, and how social factors play into that? My PT once said that the 30 % difference in muscle strength you sometimes here cited IS based on the general population, and yeah, the fact that women tend to do slimming exercises when they work out and mostly work out their legs while men want strong upper bodies probably do play a part in it. If you look at top athletes the differences is a bit smaller, but it’s still there. The difference you see between top athletes is probably mostly due to sheer testosteron differences - it’s not like female top athletes don’t exercise properly and are therefore weaker than they need to be. Plus it’s quite obvious that doping does affect strength, and it does so by affecting hormones, and also you can see that trans men suddenly build muscle more easily after going on hormone treatment… So testosteron is important for muscle strength, but exercise habits obviously play a part too, as do general social pressure on women not to show themselves too strong because that’s unfeminine and yada yada.
No prizes for guessing who’s on eleventy thousand screensaver shots and my desktop background (with all icons shoved out of the way or deleted) at home and work.
Or whose photos are stickytaped to the walls around my desk, also at work.
Justin Bieber, obviously.
cloudiah - HEARSAY! It’s obviously Paul Elam and Nick Reading. *nod*
[/is-joking]
Not visual, huh?
My 88 year old mother can have Phwoarr! type discussions with me and my 60+ sister about men in films and magazines.
@Bee, you make some good points about Louis C. K. and that video. The only thing I’d point out is that he did eventually get why people were so upset with Tosh, and apologized for his earlier comments. Which is, like, baseline human decency, but some people never even made it there, so…
@Fidelbogen
And that’s real.
By the way, did we ever figure out what his name was supposed to mean?
Fidel bogen? Fidel is a name, idk about bogen. It means “arc” in German. It’s also a speaker company.
Or this: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bogen
“A dirty native who usually trys to act black and trys to do drugs.”
“fidel” means faithful.
So far my theories are:
faithful-arc.
faithful-racist slur
fidel castro doing a bridge stretch
fidel castro as a drug user who tries to act “black”
To be fair, this is all just as coherent as most his posts anyways.
Faithful drug user!
^Well that explains his bizarre metaphors and incoherent posts.
“Justin Bieber, obviously.”
Incredibly well diguised! :/
I reckon having pics of MRAs around would make every other bloke in the world in space look like the hottest dude in the history of ever.
@ kittehs
You saw the pics in the thread about the rally, huh?
(Is evil)
Are any of these folks really worthy of being called “misogynists” anymore? Seems like they’re just caricatures now.
Caricatures of men’s rights activists sure, but they’re still misogynists. Being ineffective doesn’t mean they hate women any less.
Isn’t the idea that women/girls aren’t “visual” in their sexuality a fairly recent one? I remember when I grew up in the eighties, the girl mags always had “page three boys” and pin up boy posters and stuff… And “okej”, the number one teen music magazine in Scandinavia, became as popular as they were partly by convincing celebrities of BOTH genders to throw their clothes and be photographed half naked. I can’t remember anyone questioning back then that straight girls and women liked to check out hot men - but then suddenly everyone agreed on the meme that women “aren’t visual”.
True. They just seem ineffectual, maybe. I’m feeling my oats today so it’s probably just me. This is just..pathetic. This little snippet of the “show”. There’s nothing new, nothing ground-breaking; just the same old, different day. Hmmm, perhaps this is a time when I wouldn’t take them seriously..which may be a mistake? I don’t want to give them much credit…bu-ut…make sense?