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Showing posts with label Matt Forney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Forney. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Who Cares What Women Think?

Not the "manosphere", that's for darn sure!  I mean, do I have to spell it out for you?  "MAN-o-sphere." 

I so wish, like Matt Forney, I could learn to disregard the opinions of people for whom I have no respect.  (Even if, as in this case, that group constitutes 52% of the population.)  I'd definitely be happier and probably a lot more productive.

On the other hand... For a fellow who considers females' opinions of no consequence whatsoever, Matt F. sure does spend a lot of time tracking down any negative reactions to his opinions.  And then declaring those who dare mock him to be his "enemy" and compiling dossiers on them.  And then plotting revenge, pronouncing his sentence, and meting out his own special version of Wild West justice.

For a guy who proudly proclaims himself "the most hated man on the Internet" and who churns out bestsellers like Trolling For A Living, Matt Forney is shockingly thin-skinned.

In the same post, he re-publishes his own tweets explaining whose opinions do matter:

Matthew Forney @realmattforney
The manosphere is for MEN, young men in particular. The opinions of everyone else are irrelevant.

Unfortunately, this particular tweet didn't go down too well with one of his readers, some old geezer who positions himself as a kind of General in the War On Women:

"Ultimately, it’s the old guys who have the political connections and money who hire the young men and provide resources to make things happen. Don’t ignore the old guys. If daddy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy."

And then of course our favorite ray of "Christian" sunshine jumps in, to blather on about the gender norming of IQ tests, like anyone there gives a hoot that she "administers them as a part of my job" (that is, when she isn't crashing the boys' parties).  

Oh Mary, dear Mary, can't you read?  Even Red Pill girls haz got cooties!

Friday, February 28, 2014

"Barren" vs. "Child-Free"

Several of my colleagues are dealing with the travails of parenting adolescent children, and whenever I overhear them complaining, I can't help but think, "There but for the Grace of God..."  For some of them, the workplace is a refuge from the incessant demands of the ungrateful, surly rebels in their care.  How fortunate I feel to go home and have only to tend to loving pets and a kind, supportive human companion.

Yet the New Misogynists darkly warn young women to avoid the fate of spinsters like me, who wind up alone and unloved.  Having failed to fulfill our biological destiny, we are almost worse than useless.  I have even recently been described, without irony, as "barren", one of those portentous biblical terms (like "fornicate") the manosphereans like to fling about in a futile attempt at gravitas.  It never fails to amuse me. 

Like most women of my generation, I vaguely assumed that some day I would have a biological family -- when I was good and ready, that is.  Unfortunately, by the time I was psychologically and financially prepared to take such a momentous leap of faith, I had developed a medical condition that prevented conception.  That was sad.  It took me several years to make peace with the loss of that dream.  Yet however wistfully I have viewed my childless state, I have never regretted not becoming a mother in my twenties: That would have been an unmitigated disaster for everyone involved!  Nor have I ever thought human evolution has suffered from my failure to reproduce, since it has always been evident to me that what the world needs is greater investment in fewer people.

Not having one's own biological children is just that: the loss of a dream.  Because it strikes me that the longing to become a parent is based on a kind of fantasy.  In my dream, of course, my children would be healthy, attractive, intelligent, and moral.  They would be perfected versions of myself.  In my dream, I would be an exemplary mother: nurturing, stimulating, endlessly patient.  Of course, with the hindsight of age, I can see that I would probably have been a well-meaning but highly imperfect parent.  There is no guarantee that any child I might have had would have turned out to be either happy or successful.  Furthermore, there is no guarantee that we would even have liked each other.  Few of us are always grateful to our parents for conceiving us, the "gift of life" being the very mixed bag that it is.  In fact, parents are fortunate if their children finally come to understand and appreciate the efforts that they made on their behalf.*

One colleague worries that her teenager is a "narcissist" who is "full of rage". We hasten to assure her that these unpleasant traits are part and parcel of normal adolescent development, and that he is bound to "grow out of it".  Then, of course, I wonder, "But what if he doesn't?"

What if I had had a son who had turned out like Roosh, or Matt Forney, or any of the men who admire them?  I have no reason to believe that their parents were any worse or better than most.  While it is clear to me that these young men have been failed in some terrible ways, I do not assume the failure is their parents', or at least not exclusively their parents'.

Although these men are now adults, I imagine their families must be deeply disappointed and aggrieved to see their only sons, who started out in life so bright, shiny and full of promise, take such wrong turns.   

I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
--Lady Macbeth
_______________________________________________________________________

*  Does the curious fact that the following poem by Philip Larkin was one of my mother's favorites hold some kind of key here?

They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were sloppy stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have have any kids yourself. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I'll Admit I'm Kind of Impressed

Ironically, I am probably the only person who visited this blog this week who had not read Matt Forney's "justification" for doxxing me last Sunday.  It took me a few days to summon the steel to do more than glance at it.  I'm sure you can understand. 

I have only just read it in its entirety tonight, and...  and...  Oh, how can I put this?  I have to admit that he demonstrates an exceptional flair for...  this particular kind of thing.  (I'm not sure what to call it -- character assassination?  I'm not being snarky BTW  -- I'm absolutely sincere.  If he weren't so emotionally crippled, he could be the Karl Rove of his generation.  

I mean, Holy Moly!  By the time I had finished reading, I was scared of myself.  I'm not sure I come across as a narcissist, though -- more like a someone with severe Borderline Personality Disorder. I had to go back and read what I had written over the past year just to reassure myself that I was actually pretty lucid (at least most of the time).

What strikes me is how much effort Forney put into this.  It must have taken him days, if not weeks, to compile.  And none of those hours were compensated, not even at his modest advertised rates.  In a way, it's a shame, because trying to make this thing "go viral" turned out to be a complete bust, and if he attempts to milk it further, he's really going to look desperate. 

Not only do I expect that his fan base found the "expose" rather boring, but, on some level, the whole episode must have made some of them downright queasy.  My rather white-bread, matronly mug probably reminded them of their own moms'.  And something tells me that the last thing a typical Matt Forney reader wants to be reminded of is his mom.

Face it, 99.9% of the "manosphere" participate anonymously.  How can they fail to acknowledge how vulnerable their identities are?  This is not to be construed by any paranoiacs out there as a veiled threat BTW.  If I have ever "doxed" anyone (this is Mr. Forney's justification for behavior that violates even the norms of his own community) it was not intentional and I have apologized and rectified the error.  

See, I'll admit I'm kind of a dope about technology (blame age + lack of interest).  I can barely operate the media console in my classroom!  Obviously my own naivete contributed to my own doxing.  Live and learn.

In closing, I must say it's been a strange and singular experience to see an image of myself planted at the foot of a manosphere blog home page, kind of like it would feel to unexpectedly glimpse myself in someone else's movie.  The picture, BTW, was taken at a local restaurant a couple of years ago, at a birthday celebration.  I recall that I was a little tired, but having a nice time with my friends. I'm grateful that I at least look pleasant.  If he'd found my old faculty picture, everyone would think that I was an elderly Korean man on a bender.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

On Doxxing

Doxxing: a new word for a new social phenomenon.  I was just reading an interesting article about it.

My students are always amazed when I tell them of the "old days" (when I was their age), before the age of personal computers and the internet.  They simply cannot conceive that there was a time when people communicated by hand-written letters or expensive long-distance phone calls, when "self-publishing" involved mimeograph machines.

Who imagined back in the seventies that one day anyone could "publish" anything globally, instantaneously, and... anonymously?  

Because of this, it has always been hard for me to wrap my head around the way people take "anonymity" for granted nowadays.  I'm very ambivalent about it.  I'm not sure if it's a positive social element.  In fact, I've often sensed that, at least as it has been practiced on the internet recently, it can be downright pernicious.  The freedom to say anything one damn well pleases without the risk of social disapprobation brings out the most careless and cowardly behavior.  It divorces actions from consequences.  (And yeah, I'm including myself here.)

I believe public discourse probably functions better when opinions are attached to real people.

What would happen to the "manosphere" if everyone was simultaneously and forcibly "doxxed" as I have been?  How would they react if they had their names, their addresses and phone numbers, their work and sexual histories revealed and disseminated to the most hostile imaginable audience?  Would these tough-talking guys just slink back into the woodwork, or would their "movement" finally evolve into a reality-based force for change? We'll probably never know, but I find it amusing to speculate.

I once had a conversation with the writer Joanne Greenburg, who published her first and most successful book, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, under the pseudonym "Hannah Green" in order to protect her parents' privacy.  She told me that she regretted it, and that pseudonyms generally caused more trouble than they were worth.

If I were to do it over again, I must say that I would not have used a pseudonym.  Of course, that means I might have been a mite more circumspect about the personal information I revealed!  But on the other hand, maybe not.  Truth is, I'm just getting too old to be very self-protective of my "image" or to present myself as anything other than what I am.  Call me crazy, ugly, fat, old, barren (!) -- I really don't care, you're probably right, it just doesn't matter.  See, I have pretty much lost all my vanity.  There's a great deal of freedom, as well as time-honored patriarchal tradition, in becoming a shameless crone operating on the margins of polite society.  That freedom is, perhaps, the greatest consolation of age.  And it has ever been thus. 

Roosh
*Standing ovation*
This post now comes up #4 in a search for her name.  The sad thing is I bet she is above-average looking compared to the other posters on manboobz.

Hmm...  "above average in appearance"... Am I damned by faint praise here?
 
Ruin my reputation?  I don't have a "reputation" to ruin.  In fact, I am so completely inconsequential, so utterly without influence or public recognition, that even if you littered the internet with slander about me, no one would care one bit.  I've been employed at the same institution for fifteen years, and the admin there already know I'm a mixed bag of nuts.  And contrary to what Forney may believe, critical thinkers do "consider the source".  Anyone whose opinion I care about is unlikely to give much weight to online attacks from noxious trolls. 

The real mystery is why Matt Forney et al care what I say.  After all, in their world, I have long outlived whatever usefulness I once served as a woman, and now hardly count as a human being at all.  I reckon I'm about as much a threat to Matt Forney as a mosquito. A mosquito with bad knees, a full-time job, and a mortgage.  Who lives on the opposite coast.

So life proceeds apace at Casa La Strega.  After a flurry of hits on my blog (though I suspect no one hung around long enough to read anything, unfortunately), and a handful of inane, anonymous comments, nothing much is different.  I awake each morning and find there are no flying monkeys circling my roof, after all. I go to school and plod, more or less cheerfully, through my daily grind, I make plans for Valentine's Day with my sweetie, I chuckle at the characterization of myself as "a dangerous narcissist" as I clean up dog poop, drive my neighbor's kids to school, pay utility bills.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Too Bad I No Longer Smoke!

Because damn it, I used to love a cigarette with my morning coffee.

I'm just going to ask you to consider this:  If someone were being "stalked" by a "dangerous narcissist" -- if he only suspected it -- wouldn't the rational response be to contact law enforcement authorities?  Wouldn't it be rather irrational to instead write and promote a post that really is tantamount to a borderline libelous character assassination?

I think you know as well as I do that Mr. Forney is lying when he claims to be motivated by a need to "protect the public."  And some of you must surely recognize that this was the action of a very little, very vindictive person.

I will quote another MRA on this issue:

"If there is a serious risk to the public the correct action is to call the authorities. Anyone with half a brain cell could tell you that is what responsible people do. They do not go onto their blog and give out any personal information on that person, hand their readers pitchforks and torches, and then expect any real justice to be served. The only thing that will come out of that course of action is the very real risk that someone will get hurt, or worse.

Could it be that AVFM never reported the Femetheist to the authorities because they know the authorities would not see her as any sort of risk to the public? Of course they did, and that is why they doxxed her so that their form of 'justice' can be exacted since the real world would never take their concerns seriously - because the cornerstone of western jurisprudence is that a person is innocent until proven guilty - in a court of law - not on the internets."

Friday, February 7, 2014

The Manosphere Runs on Porn


Mary McCarthy was famously sued for libel for claiming that "Everything Lillian Hellman writes is a lie, including and and the."  Hellman died before the suit went to court, her reputation rather the worse for wear; McCarthy never had to pay damages nor do I believe she ever regretted making the initial accusation.

Let me summon the shade of McCarthy this morning by stating categorically that everything Matt Forney writes about sex is, well, pretty much a lie too.  It has to be.  Because this is a guy who has had very little sexual experience with women, especially not with the women who meet his exacting standards.  Over the years, perhaps, a handful of fat girls have tossed him a bone, which is partly why he rants so much about fat girls (even though & especially because he himself is rather fat).  He can hardly live with the fact that the only young women who would deign to fuck him are fat themselves.

Self-disclosure:  To be honest, I wasn't much different than Matt when I was in my early twenties.  I was rather chubby, the typical "fat girl with a pretty face," and as such, found myself on the margins of the dating market.  I compensated ferociously in various ways, and always managed to keep my dance card full, but I refused to consider the attentions of any man who was fatter or less attractive than myself.  To go out with a fat guy was to admit defeat, to admit I couldn't compete, either.  Until I was well into twenties, I only went after men whom I considered to have a higher "SMV" than I did because until then, the primary purpose of sex for me was to validate my own sense of worth.  (Fast forward to age forty, when I fell madly in love with a guy who weighed 400#, but that's another story...) 

Almost everything Matt Forney knows about sex is based on watching movies. 

He actually rates movies based on which ones have "the best rape scene."  No, you don't have to scratch the surface hard to find the perverse adolescent who is the "Real Matt Forney."

The influence of porn seeps into every nook and cranny of the manosphere -- and, to be fair, of popular American culture in general.  None of us is immune to its influence.  But nowhere is that influence so blatant and striking as in the writing of the New Misogynists.
Think Raquel Welch as Myra Breckenridge.
The physical ideal of femininity for Roosh, for example, looks more like a call girl from the sixties than a Vogue model: big hair, loads of makeup, talon-like nails, surgically augmented breasts, high heels glued to her feet. I'm always amused by the way he and other lady's men like Nick Krauser crib photos of porn actresses or models to illustrate their alleged escapades with captions like, "And she looked just like this!"

Krauser Girls

hmmm.... blocked are we?
Dark and sultry

Sure she did, sonny.  Now pull the other one.

The sex the manosphereans describe involves lots of tried-and-true porn moves:  choking women (with either hands or mighty dick), spitting, squirting, ejaculating on faces or clothing, overcoming resistance through physical force.  The women are often reported to scream with ecstasy as the author bangs away like a jackhammer -- and that one last detail, boys, is a sure tip off that someone is lying exaggerating.  (You have seen "When Harry Met Sally", haven't you?  Or the classic "fake, fake, fake" scene between Jerry and Elaine on Seinfeld?  If you want to learn about the true nature of sex from the silver screen, start with those two clips!)

Look, I'm not bragging, but I had quite a bit of sex in my day, and although I am now retired, I proudly maintain my Elder Slut status, yet none of my adventures resembled a porn movie (unless my partners and I were consciously "acting out" a scene, which happened almost never).  

I would bet any amount of money that our "most hated man on the internet" has had extremely limited intimacy with a woman.  Like most of his readers, he is relying on a combination of years of absorbing violent, sexualized imagery and experienced frustration to fuel his fire.  And like most of these "leaders of men", he relies on the fact that his readers are even more naive and limited in their experiences, even more dependent on their wishful imaginations, than he is.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Giving Matt Forney a Break


I'm feeling remorseful about my treatment of Matt Forney after an exchange with a gal on "Jezebel" who knew him in high school.



This guy went to my high school. It actually makes me laugh when I read this stuff because the image he creates for himself is SO HILARIOUSLY FAR from reality. I remember him as an overweight, pants up to his boobs, trombone player who ran to class like a duck and couldn't look any attractive girl in the eye. 

and also this:

It is pretty sad when I think about it. I'm not sure he was ever categorically bullied but he was certainly socially excluded in school. I'd be surprised to learn he had any friends. If he actually believes any of what he writes, it will be because for years he recognized what other people saw him as, a band geek that looked 12 when he was 17. A weirdo who could never get a girl's attention, an outsider. Even calling himself "the most hated man on the internet" is telling, everything he writes is a cry for acknowledgment. He doesn't care if you hate him as long as you see him! It's a way for him to collect some personal power that he hasn't owned his whole life. I'd be curious to know what his family life was like...

My heart cracks a little to know that at seventeen, he looked twelve.  And now at 25, he looks forty.  Has this guy ever caught a break in the looks department?  The only compensation for premature balding is that when he actually is forty, he probably won't look much different.

Of course, I wouldn't have seen her comments if he hadn't linked to them on his own twitter feed.  But that's the perverse rationale of these would-be provocateurs:  there's no such thing as "bad" attention.  Indeed, they seem to find it highly stimulating.

Her words threw into sharp relief the pain that drives guys like Matt Forney.  Not for the first time, I feel remorse for mocking him.  You see, I can empathize with the high school reject he was.  I hated high school too.  I wasn't bullied, or a social pariah, but I was a perennial outsider who attended four schools in three years.  Somehow, despite skipping as much class as I attended, I managed to graduate, most likely because I had made myself so "invisible" that my teachers never noticed I was missing.  I would be amazed if any of my graduating class could even recall my name or face.  What sustained me, as I drifted through late adolescence in a kind of fugue state, was the conviction that everything would change once I got to college and my "real" life began.  (Yes, I had my own "It Gets Better" campaign running through my head long before Dan Savage dreamed that mantra up.)

Do any of us completely recover from the trauma of early social rejection?  It certainly shapes our personalities, for better or worse (and, unfortunately, as Forney demonstrates, usually worse).  Forney himself once described me as someone suffering from "narcissistic injury" and I thought, Yeah, well, right back at ya, kid!  I'm honestly not sure what that bit of psychoanalytical jargon even means, but maybe he was right.  I don't know; I don't care.  I am older than guys like Matt, and I ought to be wiser.  And more compassionate.

I think again of the epiphany Lindy West experienced when she saw Forney's former "vlog" on Youtube (now removed).  Although she doesn't refer to him by name, it is obvious she is referring to this particular "troll" when she explains how she realized, while watching it, that there was nothing he could say that could hurt her worse than the hurt he himself lives every day.  And of course she is absolutely right.

2h
Only losers obsess over the past. Fuck what you were like as a teenager; what are you doing NOW? THAT is what defines who you are.

True enough, but when what you are doing now is widely viewed as destructive, people are apt to scrutinize your formative years in an effort to identify the source of your pathology.  And what Matt seems to be doing now is playing out a script that was written in his own troubled and not-so-distant adolescence.

Damn, life is sad, isn't it?  And complicated too.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The Lies the New Misogynists Tell Each Other

4h
in my experience self identifying as a feminist correlates very strongly with liking to get choked during sex

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Get Groupies By Blogging!


MattForney
Giving female fans a face for their fantasies.
This week Matt Forney teaches readers how to "get groupies by blogging."  No, really.  By following Matt's seven easy steps, any man can "enjoy a rock star life." 

You see, women are "hardwired to mate with winners" and nothing signals "conquering hero" better than a soft, goofy-looking guy who makes almost no money and sits in front of a computer most of the day cranking out vitriol while deluding himself that playing in "a crappy local band" makes him a professional musician.  See, we live in such a celebrity-crazed culture that it isn't necessary to be good at something: it's only necessary that one has a recognizable name: like, say, "Matt Forney".

Matt refers to a girl that once "not only made me breakfast, but insisted on doing my dishes, vacuuming out my living room, and dumping Drano in my toilet."  I have little doubt this happened to Matt, but he refers to the incident so often (always with the telling Drano detail), it's obvious it was a fairly singular event in his life.  Furthermore, what he takes as a girl being "suppliant" I take as a girl feeling sorry for him.  At any rate, it's not a very erotic memory, is it?  I mean, how bad does a toilet have to get to call for Drano?

Of course, Matt lays down certain caveats.  First, "most groupies reside in the middle of the attractiveness spectrum."  Really?  So Kate Hudson-as-Penny Lane was just a Hollywood fantasy after all?
 http://woodstockwardrobe.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/almost-famous.jpeg

Second, groupies don't make good long-term girlfriends because they are all "ho's" ("ho's," let it be noted, who occasionally provide fanatically high levels of housekeeping service).  

Third, geography is a major "cockblocker" for bloggers, since potential groupies tend to be dispersed around the world of Matt's imagination.  Easy to see why that presents a serious obstacle for a guy like Matt, who relies on hitch-hiking to get across the country.

Once he has responsibly forewarned his readers, Matt gets down to the business of getting girls by building blogs.  See, if Matt knows anything, it's how to get women's attention.  Apparently women on the internet like blogs about game, self-improvement (i.e., weight lifting), and punk rock because those interests make a man look "cool."  "Unacceptable topics include politics, video games and anything that makes you look angry, bitter, or nerdy."  (It's almost hard to type that last quote because even my fingers are laughing so hard.)

Then there is the matter of style.  Bloggers who attract groupies "convey strength, confidence, and mastery," just like Matt.  On the other hand, indulging in a "negative, carping tone" a la Paul Elam is the kiss of death.  Girls want winners, not whiners!  Writers like Matt himself, who project "unapologetic masculinity... establishing ourselves as dominant men who put women in their place."  Don't squander logic and reason on the likes of women, and instead engage their erotic imaginations by describing "hot" sexual encounters.  Look at the success of 50 Shades of Grey -- how difficult can it be?

But, wait, there's more!  Read Aristotle's Rhetoric (I'll put that on my reading list immediately) for the fundamentals.  Find your own voice -- but make sure that voice is deep and commanding.  Blog regularly (alternate, perhaps, with lifting?).  Network with other bloggers (cuz "no man is an island" yadda yadda yadda).  Oh, and by the way, please buy Matt's e-book on the subject (of course!).

Curiously, Matt claims it is "absolutely vital" for bloggers to post pictures of themselves.  I say this is curious advice from Matt because as far as I know, there are only two photos of Matt in the public domain, and they are only used by bloggers like me who want to mock him.  In fact, Matt took down his old "vlog" because Youtubers made such relentless fun of his, uhm, less-than-dominant presentation.

Finally, Matt cautions would-be rock stars bloggers who dream of following in his trail-blazing footsteps to "be patient."  This isn't going to happen overnight (or probably ever), but when your manosphere blog takes off, it will all be worth it.  One day you too will lie back on your satin upholstered, circular bed, like the returned king you were destined to be, and "bask in the attention of your lady fans."

Friday, October 18, 2013

Matt Forney Can't Go Home Again


I think there is a general consensus that Matt Forney is a Terrible Person, no?

After reading one of his recent posts, it's also clear that he is a Complete Wuss.

In "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within," he recounts a terrifying experience in which, while visiting a convenience store in upstate New York, he is forced to interact with a black guy.  Forney knows the black guy is "a bum" because he is "clad in a plaid shirt and dirty jeans."  Forney assumes he is being "hustled" because he is "dressed like a rich guy."  (Now I've seen at least three pictures of Forney, and in none of them does he look like someone who has more than two nickels to rub together.  If this guy was indeed targeting Forney in order to menace him, it is more likely because he sensed Forney's fear, which made him seem vulnerable.)

 Forney reports that his old Rochester neighborhood is becoming gentrified, whilst the "sprawling ghetto" surrounding it is being invaded by "scum" "emboldened" to "terrorize" nice [white?] neighborhoods.

As far as I know, Forney has only lived in three states: New York, North Dakota, and Oregon (and the latter two quite briefly).  However, based on this vast experience, he can declare that the entire nation is quickly morphing into one huge coast-to-coast Portland.  [Sigh! If only!]

Forney feels himself to be a stranger in a strange land... "like a soldier [!] returning home from a war to find the same people doing the same things, still going nowhere in life..."

The reader wonders how a few months tasting the music scene and railing about fat girls in Portland equates to a tour of combat, but the part of "still going nowhere in life" would seem consistent with Forney's own lack of direction.   

Forney muses, "While I'm a success in my personal life [again, I really need some photographic evidence here], there's one urge I'll never be able to fulfill: the desire to belong."  

I'm such a softie that I find Forney's claim of "personal success" heart-breakingly delusional. 

Anyway, having had this epiphany -- that he will never belong anywhere -- Forney announces he will be undertaking a second hitch-hiking trip, even though "the optimism, the joy of discovery is gone" (since he already knows the whole country is actually just Portland after all).

It's not simple curiosity or desire to visit "California, the Grand Canyon, the South and whatnot [sic]... " that sends ol' Forney down that ribbon of highway, but rather "a compulsion to insert myself into stressful, life-threatening situations... because I'm a junkie searching for an adrenaline high."

(BTW, unless Forney is planning to bungie-jump into the Grand Canyon, I can assure him that a visit to our national treasure is actually a pretty low-risk venture.  I was there a few months ago, along with about a dozen other seniors in various stages of decrepitude.)

Then Forney adds, "And because if you feel like an outsider no matter where you are, one place is as good as the next." 

Oh really?  Cuz that's not been true in my experience.  For example, having lived in both Italy and Saudi Arabia, I can attest that I found Italy to be a much better place to be an "outsider" in.  Just take my word on this.

Forney caps this post by musing, "If you romanticize this kind of thing [?], I'm pretty sure you're missing the point."  Of course, romanticizing his own lack of direction, his inability to connect with people, to establish or even maintain relationships, is exactly what he is doing here.

Now why do I call Matt Forney a wuss?  Well, I'll have you know that I myself was rather an adventurous traveler back in the day.  For example, when I was twenty-two -- younger than the intrepid MF himself -- I traveled solo from Kabul to Istanbul on buses and third class trains.  ("Midnight Express," anyone?) And I was a girl.  Sure, there were some tense moments, which made for great "stories" later, but I can proudly declare that I never "lost" my "bearings" the way Forney did when he was approached by a black man on a busy street in Rochester in broad daylight.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Irreversible


Note bene:  Since posting this, Forney removed the image I refer to, and also wrote that "a bunch of feminists" (who, me?) had complained about it -- which just demonstrated how "weak" women were.  What impressed me was that it showed how Forney is constantly crawling the internet and twitter for any references to himself.  Yeah, he's that narcissistic and/or starved for attention!

Does anyone recognize the image below, of a woman entering a sottopassagio to cross a Parisian street?  It's from a 2002 French film, "Irreversible."  The movie concerns the brutal rape and beating of a young woman, and the aftermath of that trauma on her boyfriend. The prolonged (real time) rape scene which follows this image is so harrowing that it is scored into my brain.  The night I saw this film in a theatre, several members of the audience had to step out into the lobby.


Post image for Matt Forney’s Podcast Extravaganza, Episode Seven: The Game Within
I hadn't thought about that movie much until I stumbled upon this image on Matt Forney's blog (stolen, out of context, as a decorative graphic for promotion of his podcasts or some such nonsense).

To know what this image is meant to represent -- a woman unknowingly and literally walking into hell -- and to see it used so casually took me aback.   I wouldn't expect Forney's readers to recognize it; I doubt many of them are foreign film buffs.  But Forney somehow found it and planted it in his blog, and I doubt it was an accident.  How could Forney have purloined this image without knowing its origin?  Or had he, at some point, watched the movie and thought, "Wow, that chick is hawt!"?  WTF is WRONG WITH THESE GUYS?! 








Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Matt Forney Declares Jihad on Female Self Confidence!

According to Matt Forney, American women have way too much self-esteem, and it is killing his boner.  (Well, not literally, he hastily amends -- he'd still "bang" a cocky bitch if her figure was "slamming" -- "but a crucial part of the attraction [would be] lost.")

Apparently, the state of Matt Forney's libido is crucial to the health of the State at large  Therefore, "There needs to be a massive and concerted war on female self-esteem." 

You know, it all kinda makes sense when you consider that only a woman with pitifully low self-esteem would be attracted to a guy like Matt Forney.

I work with a lot of international students who tend to believe that Americans in general, of both genders, suffer from an excess of self-esteem, and sometimes I am inclined to agree with them.  It's certainly become common for Baby Boomers to complain about the Millenials' inflated opinion of themselves, which goes hand in hand with their inflated senses of entitlement.  (Although sometimes I reckon that's just what the old folks always say about the young'uns, and the fact is, I can't get too exorcised about it:  Time has a way of bringing us all down a peg or two.)

Forney also writes, "Most girls’ so-called achievements, the ones they take pride in, are complete jokes," citing as examples liberal arts degrees and "fluff" jobs in "human resources" or elementary education. (What's with these guys and their fixation on women in human resources?  I mean, I know dozens of women who all work, and none of them are in HR.)   Anyway, I'd hate to see family farms and the military try to function a week without the cadres of women who are employed in these so-called "masculine" fields.

I'd also love to know exactly how Mr. Forney makes his livelihood.  I'm willing to bet it is not in a STEM field nor in mining or construction.  Cab driver, maybe?  Fork lift operator?  Parking garage attendant?  Something along those lines, I imagine...

"If every man lost his job tomorrow, the country would collapse."  I wouldn't count on that.  Didn't WWII prove that women are perfectly capable of picking up the slack when necessary, or was Rosie the Riveter just liberal propaganda?

"If girls want to play in our world, they'll have to obey our rules."  Ha ha ha!  First of all, the world does not belong to a handful of angry, sexually frustrated, unskilled men (not even when they're white).  Your "rules" are irrelevant.  If the world belongs to anyone, it is to those who are flexible, forward-thinking, and who can adapt to a rapidly changing playing field.  And that does not describe the standard ass-backward reactionary who frequents your blog.

Forney states that "Insecurity is integral to femininity" and that "Insecurity is the natural state of woman."  Hmm.  I posit that "insecurity" is the natural state of all rational human beings. 

Forney reasons that women would be frightened without men to protect them.  I counter that this is true only to the degree that women need men to protect them from other men.  I haven't been physically threatened by another female since Chantelle threatened to beat me up after 8th grade gym class. And come to think of it, most men rely on other men (military, police, etc.) for protection too. 

"Confidence doesn't give men erections; vulnerability does."  In my experience, both men and women are attracted to partners who exhibit both qualities in appealingly appropriate measures.  Confidence is not the opposite of vulnerability.  Anyway, I've never worried about my ability to give a man an erection; it strikes me as just about the easiest part of relating to men.

Then Forney takes a U turn in his own logic, arguing that the problem is not, after all, a woman's self-confidence, but rather her "inborn insecurity," which causes her to view a man as "a life support system for a penis, an accoutrement... incapable of viewing men as human beings."  So, make up your mind, Matt Forney!  Are we too confident, or not confident enough?

The essay goes on, but I can't be bothered to do more than skim the rest.  Essentially, I am left with the impression that Matt Forney really, really wishes he could play the guitar -- or meet some extremely insecure woman who could -- and they could pursue "worthy" careers together as street buskers.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Is Matt Forney a Closeted FA?



I ran across this graph right after making the mistake of reading a "fat rant" by Matt Forney.  For a guy who professes to find fat women repulsive, he sure spends a lot of time fulminating about them.

I'm perplexed by the obsession with fat girls.  I don't find extreme obesity attractive or "healthy" either, but I don't find the people who suffer from this to be "undeserving of love" or deserving of abuse ("shaming," "shunning").  Nor did it stop me from falling madly in love with a guy who was once pushing 400 lbs (he's slimmed down considerably since, courtesy of two bouts of oral cancer).  I've never thought it was my mission in life to persuade prospective sexual partners to eat less (unless, perhaps, we were sharing a pizza LOL).  Nor do I begrudge my thin friends their svelte physiques (unless we're browsing the sales racks together).

My "fatness" is my personal issue.  It's between my doctor and me -- and a handful of intimates in whom I choose to confide.  Unless some random stranger is forced to sit next to me on a crowded plane, I fail to see why my girth affects him in any real way.

If it's a matter of his being offended aesthetically, well boo-hoo.  I'm potentially "offended" every single day I venture out in public:  I happen to think anyone over the age of eighteen who wears a baseball cap looks like a moron.  I am not a fan of the shaved head + goatee look either.  I loathe clothing with logos on it.  Public spitting turns my stomach.  And don't get me started about all the truly terrible writing I have to read!  

For the most part, I try to ignore these affronts to my delicate sensibilities because (1) they're trivial, and (2) otherwise I would be in a chronic state of rage -- and that's just not a place where I want to live (not to mention it's worse for one's heart than cheerfully schlepping around an extra fifty pounds).

The fact that Matt Forney and his readers don't want to fuck women who look like me isn't really a problem for any of us, is it?  In fact, if my rotund body actively and magically repels them, it's kind of a plus in my book.

Look, kiddos, let me lay it on you:  No person is obligated to be physically attractive to another person.  You are not "owed" a supermodel girlfriend despite what television commercials have been teaching you.  The sooner you get this reality through your noggins, the better off you'll be.  The only body a person gets to control is his/her own -- and even then, not always (see cancer, above).

Perhaps the crux of the issue is that misogynists don't recognize women's personal autonomy.  In their infantile minds, every woman is put on the earth for the sole purpose of pleasing them.  It's a little bit narcissistic, wouldn't you say?   

Still, the way they natter on about how teh fat kills their boners!  Although they claim that they enjoy joking about fat women, they don't seem to be having much fun with it.  Indeed, the topic sends them into paroxysms of rage.

And what really enrages them is that when they do decide to "bang" a fat chick (out of sheer desperation, apparently), those "ugly bitches" don't want to be banged by them.  How dare an "imperfect female" reject them!  How dare anuglyfatchick have any standards of her own?

It seems like Mr. Forney spends an awful lot of time haunting the "fatshionista" blogs and stewing about the fact that a lot of these young women manage to have some well-documented sexy fun despite their excess poundage.  Personally, I love seeing a fat girl rocking a bikini.  That is not because I think all fat girls should wear bikinis, or because every fat girl turns me on (some do / some don't), but because, well, why the hell shouldn't she? 

Self-acceptance and self-confidence do not encourage people to be fat.  Probably the opposite is truer.  People who like themselves tend to be more active and socially engaged, as well as more tolerant and compassionate of others. 

And I am willing to lay odds that if Forney and Friends tried to publicly "shame" these girls they would be met with great belly laughs of derision.  Personally, if someone jeered or tried to humiliate me within my earshot, in a bar or a club or anywhere but from a fast-moving vehicle, they'd get a dose of their own medicine. 

Some people speculate that Forney is a closeted gay.  I don't know about that, but I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't a closeted FA. (That's "Fat Admirer" in BBW circles, a subculture I suspect Matt Forney is already quite familiar with). 

Anyway, I stole the graphic from Helen Boyd's En/gender site.  I used to read her blog faithfully and participate in the forum, but after a while, suffering from "trans ally fatigue," I fell away.  I am now adding her to my blog roll as a personal reminder to check in more often.  I am so annoyed that I missed her recent trip to my city.  I would have enjoyed going to the event.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Another Response to Matt Forney's Rape "Satires"

Dear Matt,

This post is in response to your recent attempts to write humorously about a topic we can all agree is loaded.  Yeah, I mean both of your rape "satires", not just the one you quickly took down and "apologized" for.

I can see you're struggling with the genre, so I thought I'd helpfully link you up to a writer you'll recognize, Lindy West, who wrote a brilliant piece about How To Tell A Rape Joke.

Oops, my bad!  I know how much you dislike feedback from women females on any subject whatsoever (especially if the subject is women females themselves), so let me link you instead to a male masculine comic you might relate too.  Like you, Louis CK is bald, pale, pudgy, and has built a stellar career on charting his trouble with girls.
   
Louis CK has done several bits concerning rape but this one is my personal favorite.  (In case you don't "get it," the "butt" of the joke here is the girl and / or rape culture itself -- yet women find it as funny as men do.)

Enjoy

La Strega

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

I am the cancer that is killing American academia...

Or so says Matt Forney, in response to a comment I left on his blog giving his most recent post a C-.   

"Herds of rabbits???" I wrote in imaginary red ink in the imaginary margins of his unimaginably weak essay.  "Logic?" "Over generalizing!" and "Please support this assertion."

I know, I know: quit picking on Matt Forney!  He has enough problems, especially now that half of Portland Reddit is about to tar, feather, and ride him out of town on a rail.  And God knows I have enough grading to do without taking on another recalcitrant student; it's not like I'm getting paid by the head.

Yet I can't help laughingCancer!  Really?  In typically hyperbolic, manospheric fashion, Matt will never reach for a fly-swatter when he can fire his really big cannon.  
  
Now I realize I'm not just some overworked, underpaid, ineffectual frump with a crummy M.A.  Rather, I am a curiously powerful, even dangerous creature, part of a vast malignancy invading the highest portals of learning, stealthily inserting the tentacles of feminism and liberalism into every nook and crannyThe horror! The horror!

In fact, when I say that I "toil in the basement of academe," even that's a stretch:  I teach remedial English in a community college (or, as one wag put it, "13th grade with ashtrays").  Which means that going to the manosphere for recreational reading is, for me, a kind of busman's holiday.  It also means that Young Matt greatly overestimates my Power to influence young minds, either for Good or Evil.

Trust me, had I such powers, my students would recognize comma splices by now.

Cancer is no joke, of course.  At the moment, I have four-count 'em-four friends who are either in treatment for, or in remission from, cancers of various lethal sorts plus two peers who have died in the past two years (I really don't have many friends, so that is a lot.)   And since everyone in my circle is aging at an even faster rate than I am, "cancer" is likely to become an ever-increasing presence in all our lives Bummer.

"Everybody's dead or dying and I don't feel so well myself," as my mother used to grimly chirp -- before she died too.

Back to grading essays!  I am twenty down, fifty to go.  Each essay takes at least 15 minutes to read and mark: you do the math.


Thursday, March 28, 2013

It's A Big Country

I haven't read Matt Forney's blog much, mainly because when he isn't trolling for hits with outrageous posts, he's really, really boring.

He's an acolyte of Roosh, and religiously reviews everything Roosh writes, but never writes about his own adventures putting "game" into practice.  He comes across as the prototypical "forty year old virgin."  He seems deeply cynical about politics although he leans toward libertarianism.  He is very interested in the male-bonding aspect of being an MRA, and his writing about the need for male friendship is his most original and poignant.   His current preoccupation is how to make a living as a blogger.  Good luck!

For a while he was working in the oil fields of North Dakota before he did a mini-Jack Kerouac and hitch-hiked to Portland.  I understand that Williston is about the worst place in the world for horny guys (with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia).  But my burning question to Matt is, Why Portland?

For a guy who really hates social liberals and radical feminists, Portland seems an odd choice indeed.

Why don't these lonely guys move where the odds are more in their favor?

If you are an introverted, deeply conservative guy who wants to meet women, why leave the midwest?  Why not head for, I dunno, Wichita or Tulsa? Why not join a fundamentalist church (where there are loads of pretty, virtuous girls who are busting to become full time home makers for some traditional, manly-man)?

If you want a woman who looks and comports herself like a bimbo a starlet, why not take up pimping photography and move to Los Angeles?

If you are a guy who is only attracted to women with <7.5 body fat, join a coed sports team or start running marathons.  

If you don't like dissolute women, stay out of bars.  (Hint:  Bars are where barflies hang out.)  On the other hand, if you believe only drunk women will "bang" you, but hate gold-diggers, stay away from the clubs where "venture capitalists" and attorneys hang out.

If you yourself are overweight, quit whining that only fat chicks will date you.  Or perhaps entertain the possibility that equity of physical attractiveness is a good predictor of long term stable relationships.

If you know in your heart-of-hearts that you can't compete for top-drawer "talent" but refuse to "settle," well, instead of zipping off to Moldava, why not save your pennies and occasionally treat yourself to a really high class call girl?  

My point is, to sit around and complain about the dearth of models in your basement is pretty silly, isn't it? 
.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Reckless Blogging

The prevalence of false rape accusations is one of the central obsessions of the MRM.  In response, fervent Roosh fan Matt Forney recently posted "tongue in cheek" advice to would-be rapists.  Yeah, it's obviously meant to be read as Swiftian "satire," a la American Psycho (which I didn't think was funny either).   He admits he has gotten his ideas from watching movies, and there is nothing very interesting here beyond a rehash of morbid cinematic fantasies.

For the record, I don't find jokes or ruminations about humiliating or castrating men amusing either. Neutering my dogs is more traumatic for me than for them!

Rape is the ultimate act of domination, whether male over female or male over other male. (I acknowledge women also occasionally rape men, particularly in cases of statutory rape, and these acts are just as reprehensible.)  Nobody is going to argue that rape is worse than murder or mutilation, but it violates an individual's sovereignty in a way that few crimes do.  And it strikes me as an act of terrorism, because the fear it engenders affects all women all the time.


Although the legal definition of rape has broadened, the rate of rape appears to have declined in the U.S.  This is good news, albeit a trend no one has been able to explain.  People do seem to be more sensitive and knowledgeable about what rape is / is not, possibly thanks to the fact that it has been a feminist concern for a generation.

We don't know why humans are sexually aroused by the imagery, suggestion or reality of violence.  There are almost certainly biochemical mechanisms at work here:  somehow, the wires for aggressive and sexual impulses get crossed in the limbic system.  Furthermore, we are awash in imagery that promotes violent sexual fantasy and horror.  The disappearance, violation and murder of attractive  white women is such a pervasive theme in entertainment and popular media that it is hardly shocking anymore.

What stuns me is that young men like Matt Forney are putting their fantasies out there on the Internet with their legal names attached.  What compels people to burn their social and professional bridges in this reckless way?  I don't buy that it's "ballsy" to commit social suicide.  It's tragic.  

Perhaps he is so young that he cannot envisage a day when he wishes more than anything that he hadn't done so.  Perhaps the ego stroke of Internet "celebrity" is as addictive and self-destructive as crack?  Or do these men feel so hopeless and despairing about their futures that they really have nothing to lose?

Update:  Forney has removed the piece from his blog and (sort of) apologized for it.  I've also ascertained Mr. Forney is forty years old, not as young as I had assumed.  (In other words, old enough to know better.)