Call Me! We'll Do Lunch!

It seems that folks in Hollywood are paying attention to the manosphere, as well they should: A person couldn't find a richer vein of dramatic inspiration to tap. Talk about the dark underbelly of the American psyche! Simmering resentments, mysteries, feuds, fascinating back stories, loads of sexual shame and fantasy, and a pervading sense that at any moment all hell will break loose. You couldn't dream up a crazier cast of characters, and they write their own dialogue, so think what producers will save on screenwriters. 

Sunshine Mary and her husband the Holy Hand Grenade could carry an entire weekly sitcom by themselves. (Some episodes they would have two daughters; some episodes they would have five; audiences love "inside" jokes.) The ladies from Return of Queens could play SSM's trailer trash cousins, popping in to deliver casseroles and pious homilies at crucially inopportune moments. Dalrock is the minister of SSM's congregation, of course, but he's got some dark secrets, not least of which nobody has actually seen his wife in years, although he continually refers to her in the most exalting terms.  

Paul Elam (AVFM) is the corrupt mayor who rules the town with an iron fist. Those who cross him tend to disappear mysteriously. Citing his "compassion for men and boys," he insists on leading the Boy Scout troop; the residents are bullied into signing up their sons despite their apprehensions. Dean Esmay is his bumbling, sycophantic police chief who claims to have been abducted by aliens and is secretly in love with his AA sponsor. Karen Straughan is his tough-talking deputy and minder. Janet Bloomfield is Elam's PR Chief, the villainous who lords it over the other Honey Badgers at City Hall and has half the menfolk in her thrall. She's also a loose cannon. She butts heads with the town librarian (a bluestocking post-marital spinster, of course), and scandalizes everyone by calling all the high school teachers, regardless of gender or girth, "fat feminist whores." What transpires when one of the PUAs seduces her teenage daughter will be the first season cliff-hanger.

Danger & Play is the athletic club. The manager supplements his income selling testosterone under the counter. A lot of the town lotharios hang out there, sometimes pumping iron, but more often gathering at the juice bar, swapping tips on how to "bang" the local hotties. (When one intrepid girl has the gumption to challenge the "no ladies hours" policy, she is threatened with rape; fortunately, a chivalrous beta comes to her rescue, and their ensuing tender romance becomes one of the ongoing subplots.) We get to follow the "game boys" on some of their club adventures; lots of humor and pathos to be found in the way they spin the reality of their various encounters or their lives at home in their moms' basements.

Well, you get the picture. There's a reason series like "Peyton Place" and "Desperate Housewives" ran so long. There's a reason some people are "hooked" on the manosphere. People love these kinds of melodramas. There is nothing more entertaining, or reassuring, than watching people whose lives are even more dysfunctional than our own. In fact, this idea is such a winner I'm almost reluctant to share it. But I'm totally cool with collaborating with others in the anti-anti-feminist community.

The question is casting. Who to cast in these meaty roles?

We will need strong character actors the likes of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jon Lovitz, who played passive-aggressive misogynists so brilliantly in Todd Solondz's "Happiness," a movie I positively loved, and most of my friends positively loathed. (Warning: extremely dark humor and definitely NSFW!)

Dalrock Is Not an MRA!

I don't really follow Dalrock, a "Christian" blogger who describes himself as a "happily married" family man while pontificating endlessly about divorce and the perfidious, slutty ways of American women (excepting that paragon of feminine virtue, the often-referred-to-but-never-seen "Mrs. Dalrock").
  
David Futrelle has described him as a "nitwit with a penchant for pseudoscientific defenses of old-fashioned misogyny," but then, that describes 99% of the manosphere. What distinguishes Dalrock is that his targeting and "slut-shaming" of various young hussies is "justified" by his conservative Christian scruples. Not that there's anything new about that, either. I mean, WWJD? (never mind, let's not go there...)

Mathematically proven to reduce out of wedlock pregnancies,

The auditory equivalent of reading a blog like Dalrock is the whine of a dentist drill, something I'm willing to subject myself to on a strictly "as needed" basis.

I'm an agnostic, or a nominal Christian myself (depending on the day you poll me) and find faith-based arguments about as fruitful and pleasant as repeatedly sticking my wet finger into an electrical socket. Freedom of religion means freedom from religion, thank God the Founding Fathers. And although I appreciate the pious' concern for the state of my eternal soul, I do wish they'd take my word for it: I'll take my chances.

I am also not very invested in the topics of marriage or divorce, maybe because I have never been married or ever been particularly interested in becoming so. As Groucho Marx once quipped, "Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?" (Marx himself married three times, so he was perhaps not as cynical as that famous quote implies. And that marriage is a socioeconomic contract that benefits many people in many circumstances is patently obvious.)  Of course, I may very well change my mind up the road:

My sentiments exactly!

And I'm a liberal, in the sense that I support every individual's right to organize their personal lives according to their own values, providing their choices do not impinge on the rights of others to exercise the same freedom.

In other words, there isn't much a pompous gasbag like Dalrock has to say that is relevant to me. He is probably younger than I am, yet even in my cataract-clouded eyes, he's a dusty relic.

And last but not least, he simply isn't very amusing. I have trouble following Dalrock because his writing style is so verbose and ponderous. This is a man who takes himself very seriously. (Occasionally he can be oddly inventive: among his contributions to the current vernacular are phrases like "post-marital spinsterhood.") Like most "manosphere" bloggers, he is, in short, an Utter Bore to everyone in the universe except that handful of Angry White Guys who share his particular obsessions and drink from the same wellspring of bitterness... These are the kinds of unlucky-at-love divorcees that, if they corner you at a party, recite variations on the theme "I got the shaft / she got the gold mine" until you are forced to practically chew off your arm to escape.

What I do know about Dalrock -- without even reading him -- is that not only is he a boorish bore, he is a hypocrite of the first order.

Back when I was doxed, Matt Forney tried mightily to make his piece "go viral." The attempt fell noticeably flat. Most of the manosphere studiously ignored it, partly because it (I) wasn't interesting, and partly because most of these pseudonymous bloggers are very leery about publicizing doxings. They know that if they were doxed themselves, they would face the ridicule (at least) or dire socioeconomic consequences (at worst) of being linked to their secret lives online. Being doxed would expose to the world their horrible ideas virulent misogyny, which chances are -- assuming that most of them are functioning in modern society -- is an aspect of their inner psyches carefully cordoned-off from public view.

Not Mister Dalrock! Perhaps he's too arrogant to worry about being doxed. Of course, he's too passive-aggressive to link to Forney's piece directly; instead, he posted several readers' comments that did so. Like many of these guys, he gets his minions followers to do his dirty work. Then he can hold up his clean hands and claim he is only promoting "freeze peach." Cuz that's how hypocrites roll...

Anyway, not to belabor my own story, but all this is in keeping with his recent behavior regarding Rebecca Vipond Brink. Brink writes short, breezy, irreverent pieces for The Frisky, XOJane, and other sites that appeal to young women. Taking umbrage with a piece in which she wrote about dating-while-not-yet-legally-divorced,* he decided to "slut shame" her big-time, and his fan-boys obliged by trawling the internet for any smidgen of dirt personal information about Brink they could dig up and post to his comments feed. The frenzy of comments are vile, obscene, and, well, not exactly "Christian." But hey, Dalrock has a moral duty to subject such harlots to an improving session of "shaming," doesn't he?

The manosphere is all about "slut-shaming" because it's all about "sour grapes." If these men cannot possess a beautiful, intelligent, sexually autonomous young woman for themselves, they can sure as hell try to tarnish her reputation. It's standard, textbook abusive behavior, in other words.

Although "slut-shaming" is a pathetically transparent way that socially impotent men vent their frustration, and Ms. Brink hardly needs anyone to rescue her from being "slimed" on the Internet, it needs to be called out when we see it. I've had a long lifetime of watching men (and plenty of other women) "slut-shame" girls for the "crime" of being sexually autonomous beings: I'm sick of this shit!

Fortunately, the volley of verbal assaults against Brink did not go unnoticed; a small campaign was launched by Adam Lee aka The Daylight Atheist asking that Dalrock's Wordpress site be reported for abuse. Lee admits he didn't expect Wordpress to take any real action, but wanted to send a message that bullies will be socially sanctioned.

Dalrock responded with a self-righteous, pearl-clutching post the other day in which he claimed that it was Dalrock himself -- that fine upstanding Christian husband and father! -- who was being victimized by evil atheists simply because of his efforts to "promote Christian morality." 

It's also amusing to note how distressed he was to be identified as "an MRA." You see, he's not an MRA himself; he's "a Christian" who just happens to have a large MRA readership. There's a world of difference. Bear that in mind while you watch the following clip from Monty Python's "Life of Brian."

Of course, my mentioning Dalrock on my blog is like throwing chum to the sharks. Like most of the manosphere bloggers, who are addicted to any attention whether positive or negative, I imagine Dalrock scours the internet on a daily basis looking for any mention of his name. Oh well, in for a penny, in for pound, I say: Bring on the flying monkeys.
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* Personally not recommended, but meh! It happens. See How to Survive Your Boyfriend's Divorce if you find yourself in this unfortunate but common situation.

These Guys...

UPDATE: A couple of commenters have reminded me that the reason my story is significant to anyone except me is because it represents a broader pattern of harassment and intimidation by various manospherians of women bloggers or critics. The significance of my story is that it represents part of a deliberate malicious campaign to silence women by using the technology of self-publishing -- which, ironically, gives everyone an equal "voice" -- as a weapon against them.
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Attila Vinczer's recent attempt to intimidate David Futrelle via Twitter by threatening to post scandalous revelations about him is pretty funny.  After all, Futrelle has nothing to fear from AVFM's attempts to "smear" him, being, as he is, an established (male) journalist who is recognized as such by the mainstream media. 

But for someone who has been the victim of "these guys," and who is an obscure female (non-professional journalist) internet "voice," it's not something to be lightly mocked, is it?

Several months ago, I was the target of another "manospherian," Matt Forney, who revealed my IRL identity, including my Facebook pictures, my home address and phone number, and my employer, and attempted to paint me (carefully couched in the language of "opinion") as "a dangerous feminist stalker."  I had annoyed Mr. Forney by mocking and critiquing his blog; in response, he attempted to frighten me into removing my blog and to discredit my words by scurrilously questioning my sanity.

The most intimidating aspect of being doxed, as Mr. Forney did me, is that I was initially very afraid of physical harm. The point in identifying me as "the enemy" and publishing my photos and home address was to send me a clear warning that I was being targeted for potential violence. The fact that Forney issued a "retraction" the following day via Twitter (that he did NOT wish me physical harm) was an acknowledgement of this: an intent to absolve himself from liability, in case a follower interpreted the dissemination of such personal information, along with my identification as "the enemy," as a kind of "call to action."

And initially Forney's plan worked: For several weeks, I patiently awaited the sniper through my living room window, the bullet in my back as I walked to my class, or, at the least, the message from my employers that they were being inundated with calls for my immediate expulsion. I'll admit here, once and forever: I was fucking terrified.
  
And make no mistake: That was precisely Matt Forney's intent.
 
What Forney failed to consider (because these guys really aren't that smart) is that his actions forced me into a defensive corner. In other words, had Matt Forney warned me, "Take down your blog or else...!" To be honest? I would have taken it down in a New York minute. However, I was not given that option (which would, of course, have constituted actionable extortion). After the fact, the damage (to my "google-able identity") was already irrevocably done. And once I had consulted with a handful of local attorneys, and realized that I had little legal remedy under current U.S. law (and being disinclined to throw money at a slender chance of proving that at least part of his post was pure "libel"), I had no practical recourse other than to mitigate the damage done to my online reputation.

I did so in the time-honored (or perhaps hard-wired) "female" tradition: I sought the protection of the group.  I couldn't "fight" nor could I "flee"; I could only immediately appeal to people whom I sensed would be willing and able to come to my aid. In other words, I appealed to bloggers whose internet voices were "louder" than my own. Since my own blog was pseudonymous, I had virtually no internet presence whatsoever. How hard could it be to find a more prominent blogger to publish a "favorable" post that would outweigh Matt Forney's hit job? Well...

I sent messages to a number of people whose blogs I followed or websites I routinely commented on and admired. Very few responded, and of the few that were kind enough to at least express sympathy via e-mail, no one was willing to devote even a line to remedying my personal (and admittedly very trivial, in the broad scope of things) "problem."

My dilemma was this: I was (and still am, and will forever be) a Big Fat Nobody. I was not someone who was worthy of A Story under anyone else's byline.  My tiny audience of twenty-odd regular readers could hardly help me either although a few bravely tried (and I -- and Google -- acknowledges your efforts).

I am not complaining, or indulging in self-pity here, by the way: I am simply acknowledging the unvarnished reality of what it means to be have an online voice as a woman. 

Nor was I willing or able to make my pathetic little tale into a story that would excite the interest of commercial websites like Jezebel or XOJane.  However, I thought that my very obscurity might, in itself, make this A Story. The fact is, groups like A Voice for Men or notorious misogynists like Roosh, very deliberately target female bloggers that are "nobodies," because we are vulnerable in ways that professional journalists or celebrities are not. The idea that ordinary female bloggers are being forced off the internet appeared to me -- and still does -- a very important story indeed. Unfortunately, Mother Jones could not care less.

P.Z. Myers did agree to post something that puts the whole contretemps into some kind of palatable perspective. Approaching him was the smartest, or luckiest, move I made during this curious, furious month of "damage control": His little post on Pharyngula "saved" my Google-able identify by putting the Forney smear job into a context that most employers will understand. It also spoke volumes about Myers' personal character.* 

I also quickly slapped my legal name on my hitherto-pseudonymous blog, confident that there is nothing here that was likely to compromise my modest professional opportunities. Let's face it, my blog is (in Lindy West's words), "pretty innocuous" stuff. I called out a handful of the manosphere for being liars, and misogynists, and being pretty much dreadful, all-around evil people, and I stand by pretty much everything I have written here. I shared aspects of my personal life that were true and that are not particularly damning or even surprising to anyone who knows me. Let history be the judge.

The only question future employers might have for me is this: Why did I devote so much of my free time in the past eighteen months to an online "movement" that is so marginal and patently unworthy of my attention? That is the topic of another post, but suffice to say right now that I didn't necessarily find it as "marginal" as most people would like to believe: Rather, I found the "manosphere" to be a kind of window into a hidden subculture of seething misogyny and masculine entitlement. It has not been a perverse waste of time; it has, rather, been a journey to the edge of the abyss of human dysfunction, one which has fundamentally transformed my perspective on the state of gender relations in the West today. It would not be an over-statement that these guys have made me the self-identified "feminist" I am today. The New Misogynists have taught me a lot more than they could ever guess, and there is nothing I have read in their blogs that I haven't, on some level, "recognized" from my personal experience. Are the manosphere blogs "triggering?" Hell, yes!

Meanwhile, I hearken to the words of Arthur Goldswag, the SPLC writer whom I had initially approached who was unable to "help" me in the fashion I had hoped he would:** 

If you really care about gender equity and empowerment, then the Andrea Dworkins and Paul Elams of the world are mostly a distraction. It's easy to demonize MRAs, but they don't do anywhere near the damage to women that, say, the Hobby Lobby is trying to do, or the GOP. They're easy to hate, but engaging with them is about as useful as it is for LGBT activists to fight with the Westboro Baptist Church.

I cannot help but feel that Mr. Goldwag is speaking directly to me here, as when, in his rather condescending personal e-mail to me, he admonished me to "try not to let these guys get under your skin."
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* Prof. Myers is one of those people who is willing to make a difference in one stranded starfish's life, even while the beach is littered with them. A small act of generosity, perhaps, but he can never know how much it meant to me.

**I expected that the SPLC would report specifically on the ways that online female writers were being targeted, harassed, and intimidated by misogynists. I was very disappointed that responses to my reports to this organization consisted solely of relentless solicitations for donations and an unwanted copy of Morris Dee's biography.

Foreign Brides

It's summer, and being at the moment much distracted by matters of love & real estate, I have decided to do a little "recycling." I wrote this about ten years ago, in response to seeing the following post on Seattle Craigslist Rants'n'Raves (which was the masochistic pleasure I indulged in before discovering the "manosphere").
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Guys if you want a Real lady Thailand is the place to find them! The bitches here ( I wont call them ladies) are a bunch of fucking Flakes 

Ah, yes, the enduring allure of the Asian wife: slender, petite, soft-spoken, submissive. 

I don't see my neighbor Frank much, even though he lives right across the street. He's a bit reclusive... or whatever you call someone who keeps all the windows in his house papered over with aluminum foil. But I hear (through my kindly neighbor, who's really in the loop on our cul-de-sac) that he was so set on marrying a virgin that he sent for one by mail, all the way from the Philippines. Unfortunately, after several years of marital bliss, she high-tailed it back to Manila. He still sends her money, though, so he must remember her fondly.

Fresh, tender cherry blossoms... or iron butterflies? 

In my line of work, I get to meet quite a few of these odd couples. A few years ago, a middle-aged Boeing machinist with a pronounced limp and one crusty eye swaggered into the office, towing a tiny, limpid Vietnamese girl who looked barely pubescent. "She needs to learn her some English," he growled. "I warn you, though, she's a real beginner. She no speak English good," he bellowed the last pidgin sentence into her ear.

I began to assess her proficiency by asking her name. She looked at me, mute and apparently bewildered, although, as is often the case, her control of the language increased exponentially once Big Daddy was banished from the room.

It didn't surprise me that she turned out to be a stellar student and is now enrolled in college studying to be an RN. In another year she will graduate and be ready to dump the lame-ass who brought her here and subsidized her education. Sure, his heart will be broken at first, but then hoo boy! will he be pissed off! Especially since Washington is a community property state.

It's easy to feel contemptuous of these suckers and to hate their beyond-patriarchal attitudes ("I paid for her, she's mine") which are rooted in a generalized misogyny and -- let's face it -- demonstrate a sound rejection of American women. (I mean, it's not like I want to marry a mean, stupid, toothless Boeing machinist, but still...)

It's easy to feel sorry for their wives, at least initially: vulnerable, exploited girls who should still be under the protection of their loving families and enjoying their care-free youths back home instead of sexually indenturing themselves to old coots. Local murders like that of Susana Blackwell (shot in a Seattle courthouse by her estranged American husband), or, more recently, that of Anastasia King, are not very common, but underscore how vulnerable these women are.

I'm not without a measure of compassion for both parties, actually: Everyone needs love and everyone needs money. On the face of it, these marriages should be win/win arrangements. And I suppose most marriages are compromises of some sort. We all make "deals." Hell, I'm not even married, and my sexual/romantic life is just one rather unsatisfactory "deal" after another. [Update: Glad to report that is no longer true since I climbed off the "cock carousel" and found my soul-mate alpha bitch.]

But these marriages are deals with the devil. The difference is that one party doesn't get it, at least not right away (and maybe never -- I heard Frank is courting another Filipina through one of the thousands of internet sites available for just that purpose). The other party is under no illusions, although perhaps underestimates the physical risk by underestimating the potential danger of violence. She jumps at the best chance life offers her: winner take all.

A reader followed up to this post by asking, "What is it about the Russian mail-order brides on which these guys hitch their fantasies?" 

That's an easy one: They are white. 

Guys who look to the former Soviet Union are a little different. They tend to be slightly higher in class (not high class, mind you, just white-collar rather than blue-collar). They are liberal enough not to require their wives be virgins; a surprising number marry divorcees with children. Their dream is to acquire the trappings of upward mobility (house, boat, trophy wife) for which they lack the personal means (looks, charm, income). Therefore, they are bargain hunters.

Former satellite states such as Moldava, Ukraine, and Kirghistan are, for them, a shopper's paradise. Nowhere can they get more bang for their buck. The women are beautiful in all the ways they, and the peers they want to impress, most value: statuesque, blonde, fashion-conscious. (Even though their fashion aesthetic owes more to Las Vegas than to Vogue, and on our suburban campus they stand out like very expensive call girls who have wandered into a Walmart.)

One can only squirm as their proud husbands gush about how well these women "fit in" with their families here in the States. After all, they already "look like" Americans (that is to say, white)!

These men are a bit too "evolved" and far too romantic to openly value submission in their wives. Instead, they will allude to other qualities: loyalty, beauty, maternal potential. Russian (or Ukrainaian or Moldavan) wives make good mothers, you see, because they (unlike American women) understand the importance of family. (Never mind that Russia has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, significantly higher than the U.S.)

The fantasy element these guys have in common with all American men who marry women from poor countries is that they are White Knights. They assume that the women will be grateful for having been rescued. And even more fatally, they believe that this gratitude will morph into love. Only in the movies, kids! 

They are ignoring a fundamental principle of human nature: We are not automatically grateful to those to whom we are economically beholden. In fact, we often resent and despise them. (My experience as a foster parent, which I'll write about later, taught me this.)

I see quite a few of these eastern bloc ladies in my classes, though lately fewer Russians, which makes me wonder if conditions there are picking up. Often well-educated in their own countries -- especially likely if they are Russian -- they tend to place high on entry and make rapid progress through the system. I find them to be excellent students and terrifying forces of nature. They are the least sentimental, most brazenly opportunistic, of the mail order wives. They're relatively easy to talk to -- forthright, articulate, poised -- and relatively difficult to like. They come with the attitude I've gotten this far, just don't get in my way, bitch. 

I've never met one who even pretended to like her American husband. It's not unusual, although no less bizarre, to see a Russian surgeon mated to a used car dealer. He's bursting with pride at her accomplishment, but what was he thinking? (She makes no bones what she's thinking: the more English she learns, the more he displeases her.) She encourages him to adopt her adolescent children and bring them over, which he practically bankrupts himself to do. But she isn't having any kids with him any time soon. Once she gets her permanent residency and is reunited with as many members of her biological family as possible, it's all over but the shoutin'. If she remarries (though why should she?) it will be to a fellow immigrant, one she recognizes as a peer, often someone from her hometown.

What's Your Name? Who's Your Daddy?

One of the most cherished delusions of the manosphere is that women "hit the wall" (somewhere at the tail end of their twenties), while men go on and on and on, just getting more deliciously seasoned with age.  Apparently, this may not be true.  According to The Daily Mail, the age at which most men become "invisible" to younger women is 39.  Yep, that's the age at which girls begin to perceive men as "father figures." And who wants to be ogled by Daddy? I mean, like, ee-yewww... 

Roosh himself acknowledged recently that the party doesn't go on forever, even for experts of game:

No matter how good your game gets, a 23-year-old girl will have less primal attraction for your 53-year-old self than when you were 33. This suggests that there is definitely a peak for men, and while there is some argument about the exact age, consensus among men I’ve talked to suggests it’s around 43.

43? When I was 23, I thought 30 was plenty older, and 43 downright "old." But perhaps Roosh has a few good years of chasing nubile young poosy before he has to either "settle" or "sponsor a gold-digger" (which, unless he plans to come into an inheritance, he'll be hard-pressed to do on the slender living he ekes out from hawking his wretched little rape manuals). Hope he's making the best of his time in Russia, cuz any way you slice it, Roosh, it's all downhill from here...

Edward Leedskalnin, Early MGHOW

Last summer, my partner and I spent a couple of weeks in Florida.  We loved St. Augustine, loathed Miami, and I spent a lot of time either soaking in the pool or making friends with the hotel bartender while my partner and her son enjoyed the Orlando theme parks. One morning my partner, who is a very spontaneous travel companion, woke me up at what I call "zero dark thirty" (it was probably around seven, the crack of dawn in vacation time) to excitedly announce we were going to make a pilgrimage to something called "The Coral Castle," which my partner recalled from the old "Ripley's Believe It or Not" column that used to be featured in the "funny pages" of local newspapers.

Several hours later, we arrived at the gates of this marvelous monstrosity:

Prepare to be amazed.

Edward Leedskalnin was a Latvian immigrant at the turn of the last century who, like many MGTOW, was disappointed in love. When the gal he'd set his cap for permanently and irrevocably "friend-zoned" him, he made his way to Southern Florida, where he devoted the rest of his life to building a "coral rock" Taj Mahal in order to win her affections. He worked tirelessly, mostly at night and behind a tall wall, so the townsfolk of Homestead couldn't see exactly what, or how, he was doing it, but he managed to heave great blocks of coral into place all by himself. He included within this compound all the amenities his lady love would require, too, including a bath tub, his'n'her thrones, and even a creepy little chamber in which he planned to "discipline" their future offspring. Not a detail was overlooked, and not a surface could one sit on without risking serious abrasions.  

Sadly, but not surprisingly, Ed died a bachelor, but his monument endures and and draws thousands of visitors to the pleasant, sleepy hamlet of Homestead, Florida: a testament to the awesome feats a single, ordinary man can achieve when He Goes His Own Way.

Dear Mr. Barnes...

So over at A Voice For Men, Jack Barnes critiqued Matt Forney's latest and most desperate attempt to garner attention, an ode to spanking in order to control women.  I will try to summarize it here as MRAs are notably long-winded, but the gist of it is that Forney is too EASY on women.  By proposing that women's bad behavior must be controlled by men (by physical discipline), he is actually letting women off the hook. And I think Mr. Barnes has an important point. 

Barnes starts by explaining that "strict gender roles, once necessary for human survival" restricted both men and women, but that it was modern women who "chose to case [these] aside... However, they have been reluctant to accept the responsibilities that come with being a fully realized and capable adult."

I myself have come across a few entitled princesses who thought that they should be able to enjoy both "equality" and the dubious benefits of "chivalry."  Whether they are representative of most self-identified "feminists" I doubt.  

I am a never-married woman nearly sixty who has been fully self-supporting since the age of twenty. I may have occasionally been "reluctant to accept the responsibilities," but I had little alternative. Although I often longed to be "equally yoked" to a caring spouse, the men who wanted to marry me were not capable or willing to pull their share of the freight. I put one boyfriend through college, another through truck-driving school, hoping they would prove to be the "responsible spouse" I longed for, but when, after considerable financial and emotional investment, neither came through, I had to cut them off and walk away, not because I didn't care about them, but because my resources were limited: it was literally a matter of survival.  But maybe I've just been unusually unlucky or inept at husband-hunting? I don't shirk responsibility for my own poor choices here, just telling you very frankly what the reality of my life has been.

The fact is, at the time, I loved each of these men, and wanted nothing more than to contribute to their happiness and success. That they turned out to be poor investments of my money and energy does not change that reality. I take some comfort in knowing that in my long, checkered history of pair-bonding attempts, I have at least never left any man worse off for having known me. Yeah, I may be a "snowflake" but I don't think my experience makes me particularly "special."

"Despite what feminists would have you believe, men are, in fact, human beings and deserve to be treated as such."

Mr. Barnes, you have a very warped perception of what a feminist is. 

Mr. Barnes, I am a "feminist" who strongly supports, among other MRM causes, fathers' rights, and the protection of boys and incarcerated men from sexual assault or other forms of violence. I hate those commercials and sit-coms that portray men as bumbling idiots as much as you do. I rail against an economy and a military industrial complex that treats working-class males as cannon fodder. I have no beef with couples who choose to organize their personal lives according to "traditional" gender roles either. I do not believe in the inherent superiority of either gender.

Here's the deal with Men's Rights Activists like you, Mr. Barnes. You simply do not understand what (mainstream) "feminism" is. If you did, you would see that our goals are very much aligned. It's ridiculous for you to allow your "movement" to be infiltrated with misogynists. You complain that Matt Forney's ideas are immoral and loathsome, and I agree. What are you doing to disavow those same loathsome and immoral ideas from being broadcast by A Voice For Men?

"Women need to grow up. They are adults, which means they and they alone are responsible for themselves."

I couldn't agree more.

"Forney’s belief that it is a man’s responsibility to shape and mold an adult woman into behaving like an adult is a burden that no man should have placed on him. It is a burden that any intelligent man would swiftly reject along with the woman who doesn’t know how to behave."

I absolutely agree.

"Let’s try the radical notion that women are adults... Let’s expect women to behave as adults, and when they don’t, we find another woman to spend time with."

Yes, yes, let's!

So remind me... What is it, exactly, that we're fighting about?

Hitting the Wall Softly

It goes without saying that I am so far beyond "The Wall," I am practically knocking on Heaven's Gate. But if The Wall is defined as the moment a woman realizes that she no longer commands the Male Gaze, I reckon I didn't hit it until I was in my early forties. I was about 45 when, for the first time in my adult life, I found I could walk into a bar unaccompanied and nurse a drink for a full hour in uninterrupted solitude.  Suddenly -- it seemed overnight -- I was as invisible as a ghost, passing unseen in streets, browsing undetected in stores, attracting neither positive nor negative attention everywhere I went.

As we all know, it is a basic tenet of the manosphere that American women spend their twenties "riding the cock carousel" until they see thirty candles on their cake, and realize the day has come when they must resign themselves to dusty spinsterhood, fill the yawning void of their barren lives with either cats or sperm-jacked infants -- or else settle for some "beta" chump and start pumping out the requisite 2.5 kids to fill a tract house in the suburbs. You know, I really have no right to deride Roosh for extending his own adolescence into his mid-thirties; I did exactly the same thing. I was at least 35 when it dawned on me that maybe I should start looking around for an agreeable man to knock me up. Oops!

Fortunately, Roosh has had a revelation: "The Wall Is Softer Than We Think."  Which is good news for older women, bad news for guys like Roosh: "The wall for women is more like a speed bump that any woman with half a brain can easily pass at high speed."

You see, savvy spinsters 35-85 have technology to efficiently sift through the remainder bins of available mates, "while forcing the bottom 90% of men to lower themselves through clown game or copy pasta begging on OK Cupid." It's true that a male friend of mine who dipped his toe in Our Time reported a rush of attention --  primarily from the septuagenarian ladies.

"We all want to believe that women will be punished for their bad decisions in life, because there’s no doubt that as men we are punished for ours." Hmm... I'm not sure which "bad decisions" Roosh feels he is being punished for, but I imagine abandoning a career as a biologist in order to pursue "poosy" full-time -- and then blogging about it under his real name -- must be among them. Double oops!

"We want to think that women will be reprimanded for passing on good men in their prime to have sex with bad boys who don’t care about them. But very few will. They will have their cake and eat it too, simply because they have a vagina in a time and place where vagina has the highest value it has ever had." Hey, does this mean we're heading for a "vagina bubble" in the near future?  How will a "vagina crash" impact the global economy? (As for having my cake and eating it too, that reminds me: I still have some left over from my birthday in the freezer. Yay me!)

"In my recent stay in America I was shocked to see the nearly unlimited choice that women over 30 still have to at least get sex, and if you tell them about the wall they would not understand what you speak of. The wall, we must now admit to ourselves, has just as much power in our minds as in reality." Actually, Roosh has been stewing about Elder Sluts for years.

"There will be no redemption. There will be no comeuppance. For most of their lives, women will have it easier than us..." 

I don't know about that. The opportunity to get laid any night of the week does not necessarily "the good life" make. And furthermore, I see little evidence that one gender has it much harder than the other, and how would one quantify respective degrees of hardship, and what does it matter anyway? I used to think that wearing heels and hose everyday was a far greater burden than having to shave every morning or change my own tires. Now I'm compulsively plucking my chin hairs and wearing flat, velcro-strapped mary janes with everything I own like some superannuated toddler, so... 

Let's just agree that being a human is hard, and that sooner or later, everyone eats his (or her) peck of shit. We all have needs, sometimes competing needs: the need for freedom, the need for security; the need for recognition, the need for privacy; the need to find love, the pain of losing that love. We all get old -- that is, if we're lucky -- and we all will experience the physical deterioration that is part of the normal aging process. It's tempting to envy the heirs to great fortunes and Hollywood stars for their "easy" lives, but even Casey Kasem, grossly neglected by his once beautiful blonde trophy wife, died, in the end, of a bedsore. 

"The truth is that any woman who rejects me today will never regret it."

Now that I believe! I'll even take it so far as to declare that any woman who "bangs" Roosh will always regret it.

But getting back to "the wall" metaphor, it occurs to me that what we often think of as "walls" really are more like "doors." About a decade ago, I went out the door of youthful, fertile femininity and emerged in another country called Middle Age Cronedom. Once I had overcome the "culture shock," I began to perceive certain advantages of escaping the male gaze, a freedom and dignity that I had only hitherto experienced as a small child or when wearing an abaya and veil in the middle east. This new "invisibility" can be exhilarating, not unlike discovering a latent "super power." Security and customs officials wave me through lines without meeting my eyes; I wouldn't be altogether surprised to discover that security cameras can no longer capture my image. Certainly, this is the time in my life to consider a second career as a world-class thief, con artist, or terrorist. Strange men, who no longer find me sexually viable, either ignore me completely or initiate oddly frank and self-disclosing conversations: I have, it appears, become everyone's favorite maiden aunt. Students have become more respectful as I have become more direct and authoritative. I can get away with all sorts of bossy behaviors and displays of temperament without causing offense. Although I care less about being found "pleasing," I am certainly kinder in my intentions. In short, an aging female finally enjoys the opportunity to be her most authentic self.

I'm happily coupled and hope to remain so for the rest of my life, but if I were to find myself a lonely singleton, I would have pretty much the same options I had twenty years ago. I could look for a new love amongst my current social circle, or once more brave the trenches of online dating. The same choices are there, although given that I am not the same person with the same needs I had at 35 or 40, I might choose another path altogether: I could simply embrace the joys of single life. After all, what more does anyone need to be happy than a little dog, a stack of books, music to listen to, a small garden to tend, and meals occasionally enlivened by wine and conversation?

Solipsistic Females Invading Men's Spaces!

Red Cross nurses landing on Normandy Beach in 1944

Is A Voice For Men A Cult?

Lately I've been reading American Crucifixion by Alex Beam.  My fascination with the early history of the LDS Church is rooted in my genealogy: my mother's family were (and mostly are) devout Mormons and I was raised to take great pride in the fact that some of my ancestors were members of Brigham Young's first party of pioneers to settle the Salt Lake Valley.  My mother attended Brigham Young University on scholarship, where she met her first husband.  However, in her early twenties she divorced frivorced him to run off with my father, who she judged had better financial prospects.  (Turns out she judged wrong on that count, but what could she do, driven as all women are by the mandates of hypergamy?)  At the same time, she officially renounced her ties to the LDS Church. 

And so I was born to a mother who was deeply ambivalent about her religious heritage.  On one hand, she taught me that the LDS Church was a cult that was based on a bizarre doctrine; that the prophet himself was a fraud and a plagiarist; that polygamy was an evil institution that oppressed the women and exhausted the men.  On the other hand, she taught me that Mormon pioneers were the strongest, most admirable people that had ever lived, whose work and spiritual ethics and dedication to The Great Idea wrought a virtual Eden from some of the most inhospitable country imaginable; that they had been unfairly maligned, persecuted, and suffered because of the envy and bigotry of the Gentiles.

My mother's legacy has left me struggling with a lot of questions about my forebears.  My biggest question has always been, What compelled my ancestors to embrace such a cult?  What persuades anyone to join cults?  And why haven't I, despite my genetic predisposition (as evidenced by a serious flirtation with various religions) ever been remotely tempted to join a cult?

One of the most interesting revelations in Beam's biography is that Joseph Smith was not an entirely admired figure even within his own band of devotees.  His "martyrdom" contributed mightily to his subsequent idealization.  There was considerable dismay and criticism about Smith's revelations concerning polygamy ("celestial marriage"), and the principle was not shared outside the closest ranks for years (his wife Emma never acknowledged it).  Even his closest acolytes saw something sinister and self-serving in Smith's insistence that polygyny was God's will.  Yet they eventually accepted the commandment, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, set forth to enter into plural marriages themselves. And later they embarked on many other dark chapters, including the political shenanigans that led to their violent expulsion first from Missouri, and then from Illinois, and later still, the infamous, long-denied Mountain Meadows Massacre.  No, it's not hard to understand why, after reading Beam's book, they were so hated and feared by the frontier residents who had first welcomed them.

Over the last century, the Church has sought to assimilate itself within mainstream Christianity although, Mitt Romney's campaign notwithstanding, it has a way to go to escape its early reputation as a cult, partly because its members persist in wearing "garments," baptizing by proxy Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and indulging in other undeniably odd and -- to many non-Mormons -- offensive practices, not the least of which is to control state politics in ways that clearly violate the will of the majority (and echo the behavior that got them burned out of Nauvoo back in 1844).

What Beam is unable to do is depict the powerful charisma I'd always assumed Joseph Smith must have had.  Aside from his bright blue eyes, and a certain way with the ladies (he was nothing if not persistent once he'd identified a likely romantic prospect), he seemed about as charismatic as an insurance salesman.  The majority of people who met him were impervious to his charms.  And, of course, a few people, including his father-in-law, positively despised him.  Perhaps personal charisma cannot adequately explain the success of cult leaders.

And so it was in this frame of mind that I found myself pondering the nature of cults, and wondering if we could fairly characterize various "manosphere" related communities (Dark Enlightenment and other neo-reactionaries, the weird "Christian submissive wife" networks of blogs) as "cults?"

I was watching local activist Lissie's (sworebytheprecious) telephone call with Dean Esmay last night, and it dawned on me: Dean Esmay was speaking like someone who was caught in a cult.  Of course, knowing that Esmay has a long history documented online of getting caught up in various forms of quackery (i.e., AIDS denial) probably informs my perception. His need to reach out to "the enemy" at 4 a.m., while at the same time evincing fear that he would be punished for doing so was striking, and may be why Lissie found the conversation so unnerving.  The paranoid notion that Esmay espouses that David Futrelle is a kind of "puppetmaster" (or "puppet") of a vast feminist conspiracy is also rather extraordinary: 

It's not hard to understand why Paul Elam, with his fierce, grizzled face and Old Testament-style rages, inspires followers to accept him as a kind of prophet, summoned from above to restore the patriarchy.  In the manner of most cult leaders, he rules his followers by alternately exalting or expelling them.  

Here is what David Futrelle has recently observed:

AVFMers are expected not only to accept Elam’s leadership; they’re expected to accept his distinctly non-consensus reality – a world turned upside down in which men are the real victims of domestic violence and rape and pretty much everything else, a world in which the Southern Poverty Law Center is a collection of evil bigots and his motley collection of misogynists is the true human rights movement of the twenty-first century. 

Like a lot of cult leaders, Elam keeps his troops too busy to think straight in a continual frenzy of pseudo-activism. AVFMers are forever brigading comment sections of newspaper articles and YouTube videos in little squads (AVFMers almost always travel in packs), all reciting the same few talking points.

Weirdly, the dynamics of internet discussions can actually reinforce this kind of intellectual conformity, much as Stalin’s control of the media did in his day. No, AVFMers can’t avoid being exposed to facts that contradict the shared (un)reality of their ideological bubble.

But in internet discussions you don’t have to be right in order to convince yourself you’ve won an argument. You just have to be loud and persistent and unwilling to ever give in. You don’t have to convince anyone else of your arguments so long as you convince yourself. MRAs don’t win many arguments on their merits, but they manage to convince themselves they win every one.

The trouble is that when they step outside of their regular stomping grounds on the internet, this strategy – so effective in generating ideological conformity amongst cult members – falls completely apart.

Like most successful cult leaders, Paul Elam has solidified his cult base by recruiting women.  "The Honey Badgers Brigade" are an integral part of his self-styled position as grand patriarch and prophet.  Cults cannot survive without female converts; they are the most fervent, loyal members and the most willing to sublimate their own egos to ensure the survival of the group.  Within any burgeoning religious or political movement, women are the worker bees, zealously serving the agents of their own oppression. Plus they bring the male converts on board! Although I have to admit paying $5000+ to be "love bombed" by typhonblue doesn't sound all that enticing... 

In fact, watching the Honey Badger Brigade, I am reminded of Mark Twain's visit to Salt Lake City as a young man in 1861.  Finding Mormon women not much to his taste, Twain remarked, "The man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure, and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."

Your Looks, Your Call

Susan Walsh of hookingupsmart.com dispenses the kind of crisp, common-sense matronly advice about dating and relationships that I wish I'd had access to when I was a young woman (instead of letting Helen Gurley Brown so seriously fuck with my head).  Today in a post titled "Your Looks, Your Call," she points out that women shape their own appearances to appeal to the specific men they wish to attract.

Pretty obvious, no?  Yet it's a great response to the readership of sites like Return of Kings that rail about the "unfeminine" look of many American girls: the tattoos, the short haircuts, the refusal to wear high heels or any of the other trappings of conventional "femininity."  These choices baffle and enrage young men who feel entitled to fantasy "cookie-cutter" ideals of feminine beauty they see in advertising and porn.

Walsh characterizes the deliberate tweaking of one's appearance as appealing to a "niche market."  Since my background is in anthropology, not economics, I am more inclined to see the way people adorn themselves and the artifacts they surround themselves with as tribal markings.  They signal that the bearers are only available for mating within their own tribes.  That girl with the full sleeve of tattoos and assorted facial piercings is no more aroused by a random dude's six-pack abs or Axe body spray than an African grey parrot is sexually stimulated by the flash of a blue-crowned conure's tail feathers.  SMV (sexual marketplace value) is a meaningless concept unless one recognizes that there many different markets.

This phenomenon applies to all genders, BTW.  Jezebel yesterday reported a story about a teenage boy whose drivers license picture was rejected because he was wearing eye makeup.  The women who commented on the story mostly remarked how attractive they found him.  Yes, there is a small but significant "niche market" for men who transgress conventional gendered norms too, as many young male cross-dressers bold enough to sally forth into a Capitol Hill nightclub are apt to discover. (Of course, that gender variant individual has to screw up the courage to present himself/herself in public in order to be identified by members of his/her "tribe" as a potential mate.)

The well-spring of the New Misogynists' fury stems from the fact that, on some level, they cannot fail to see that these choices in attire and body modification are deliberately made not only to attract members of the same subculture, but to explicitly repel "outsiders" (which is to say them).  It's evident that Matt Forney, for example, wants nothing more than to be recognized as an "intellectual," and part of the cool music crowd, and his obsessive hatred of "hipsters" and mainstream writers, and the girls who are part of those scenes, is a direct measure of how wretched he is to be excluded.  (The problem is, contrary to what a guy like Forney believes, it is not the deficits in his own physical appearance that are shutting him out of that specific market: it's the anger and self-loathing he wears on his own sleeve.) 

Walsh concludes by reminding her female readers, "You’re not trying to lock down all the boys on the boy tree. You only need one."  This is the best advice ever for both men and women looking for love, friendship, or even a vocation.  Figure out who you are, what you want, and tailor your image accordingly.

Of course, the challenge of adolescence and emerging adulthood is just that: to figure out, as individuals, who we are and what we want.  Indeed, some of us spend the best part of our lives endlessly experimenting in an effort to nail that critical element down!  

It Always Rains On My Birthday

But more terrible to love nothing.

That's not strictly true.  Sometimes it's just overcast and gloomy.  And sometimes, as it did this year, my birthday falls on Father's Day.  Since I lost my father over twenty years ago, Father's Day is a rather melancholy occasion, and since I am now within spitting distance of sixty, my birthdays are becoming less welcome events.

This birthday was one of the sadder days of my life, unfortunately.  In fact, I have been bawling so hard and so continuously the past twenty four hours that my teeth ache and my eyes are nearly swollen shut.

Today, after weeks of dithering, I finally put down both of my dogs.  Tux, a Black Lab mix, was eighteen.  Cosmo, the little white bichon, had recently passed his sixteenth birthday.  Both had been suffering from the various, inevitable ailments of old age: blind, deaf, incontinent, arthritic.  The writing had been on the wall for a while, and yet I resisted, because I sensed that both of them still had strong wills to live, and still had some "quality of life" (if such a thing can be measured by robust appetites, naps in the sun, the pleasure and comfort they took in greeting me at the door every evening).

There seemed no pressing reason to take the fatal step until last week, when the vet discovered a sarcoma on Cosmo's side.  At sixteen, and in fragile overall health, Cosmo was not a candidate for surgery and radiation.  The tumor wasn't painful, but she warned me it would eventually rupture; the result would be a bloody open wound that would necessitate immediate euthanasia.  And yet still I resisted...  

I have, over the course of my life, put down four dogs previous to these, so you might think I would have an easier time deciding when to take action.  Truth be told, I wanted someone else to make the decision for me -- my girlfriend, my vet -- but all they would tell me is, "You'll know when the time is right."  So for days (well, months really)  I've been much preoccupied with the matter of when.

This morning, I awoke and roused them to go outside, initiating the first step in our longstanding daily routine.  However, this morning neither dog could be persuaded to get up off the bed where they always slept next to my own, nestled belly-to-back, "ebony and ivory, together in perfect harmony."  And that's when I decided that, birthday or no, this was the day that I would have them put down. 

I called the vet and made the appointment.  Then I defrosted a package of ground beef for their last meal.  The smell of warm greasy raw meat was enough of an inducement to bring them shakily to their feet.  They staggered to their bowls.  Ah, food!  That most elementary, dependable pleasure!  I watched them devour the rare treat with gusto, their tails wagging stiffly in unison, like metronomes.  We had a couple of quiet hours together (that is, they dozed while I sobbed) before I bundled them into the car for their final trip to the vet.

I was grateful that my favorite doctor was attending today.  She and her tech inserted the catheters and, per my request, administered preliminary sedatives.  (When I asked her for a sedative for myself, she kindly explained it was outside her scope of practice.)  "Do you need more time?" she asked.  I didn't want more time.  I was doing my best to stay calm, so as not to distress the dogs unduly.  I was determined not to give full rein to my grief until they were gone.

The injection took effect almost immediately.  Little Cosmo's heart stopped beating first, stalwart Tux's a moment later.  The entire procedure, from start to finish, took less than five minutes, and was entirely peaceful.  It's shocking how easily and quickly life can be extinguished, little more than pinching out the flame of a candle.

I was surprised to see that the vet and the tech -- for whom this is a routine part of their jobs -- were weeping.  "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," they repeated.  "Thank you," I said. "But this is part of the game, isn't it?"  We know this going in, when we enter a relationship with another -- whether human or animal -- the day will come when we must part. And it's going to hurt like hell. 

There's no escape from death.  What we cannot escape, we must endure.  There's no way to tunnel around the pain of loss.  Love will, sooner or later, exact its toll in tears.  Not for the first time I am reminded that grief is just plain hard work.

I made arrangements for their individual cremations.  I'm amassing quite a collection of little urns.  I have given instructions that they will some day be tucked into the foot of my own casket.  (Please don't tell the cemetery, which officially frowns on interring animal remains with human.)  Silly, isn't it?  I don't believe in an after-life, and yet take comfort in imagining myself lying for eternity, surrounded by my menagerie who will guard me in my endless sleep as they guarded me in life.

I paid my last hefty vet bill, and drove home with the windows open, the chilly rain pelting my cheek, slowly and carefully as a drunk.

I returned home, the dogs' leashes in hand, my house as cold, dark, and silent as a tomb.  I dragged the dogs' beds outside so that I wouldn't see them empty tomorrow morning.  A friend called, but I couldn't talk for fear of triggering a fresh volley of tears, and my headache was already ferocious.  My girlfriend called to check in.  She assured me that I had done the right thing at the right time, which was really all I wanted to hear.  I found a stray vicodin, leftover from a previous surgery, washed it down with a shot of bourbon, and fell asleep for several hours, listening to the gentle rain thrumming on the eaves. 

For the first time in more than twenty years, I am dog-less.  It's going to take some time to adjust.

Roosh Calls For "Retrenchment"

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

("For What It's Worth" -- Buffalo Springfield)

Acknowledging that Return of Kings (and similar Red Pill sites) have suffered "quite a beating in the wake of the Elliot Roger's [shooting]," Roosh is calling on his troops to lay low, "burrow within society," and "attack only when we have a clear advantage." In other words, quit publishing click-bait that only gives young women something to furiously re-tweet, and which gives the "megaphone of the cultural elite" more ways to paint the fine young men who make up his readership as "cannibals." 

"We must only attack when victory is assured -- when we can isolate a liberal blogger or reporter and hurt their credibility in the eyes of Google."

Ah yes, that fail-safe strategy favored by the manosphereans: publish smear posts that will mess up the online names of obscure bloggers (teachers, students, beginning journalists).  I suppose it's futile for me to point out to Roosh and his followers how very ineffective that strategy has proven to be?  Or to suggest that most people recognize how ephemeral -- and notoriously untrustworthy -- Google-able information is?  There is a reason that college students are discouraged from relying on Google for their research papers!

And while being the victim of such a campaign is unpleasant, it certainly doesn't shut critics up.  If anything, it suggests the "target" was "on to" something, and the perpetrator(s) look like unscrupulous crackpots.  The professional journalists he has targeted appear to be carrying on doing their professional journalist thing, utterly indifferent and unfazed -- this sort of attention goes with their territory, doesn't it?  Getting epic hate mail from the New Misogynists is, if anything, a pretty fair litmus test that a writer is on the side of the angels (or at least on the side of common sense and decency).

As for a big nobody like me, the fallout of having my name smeared online has been... well, zero.  Apparently nobody Googles me!  Even my friends and colleagues, when I informed them of this terrible blight to my reputation, couldn't be bothered.  Certainly no one has come to my little blog by searching my legal name yet; the only unfriendly visitors appear to have been linked directly via Matt Forney himself.  Since the "attack" on my "credibility," I have managed to get a promotion at work and pre-qualified for a mortgage and no one has looked at me askance. The real world -- or at least the world I live in -- doesn't give a shit what Google says any more than it cares who Roosh is or the cranky online cult he seems intent on creating.

Rather than face the overwhelming evidence that the world at large is pretty much repulsed by, or indifferent to, his philosophy, Roosh continues to frame its rejection in terms of an epic underground ideological war in which he (and his followers) must bide their time, harness their resources, and patiently await the day when they will ultimately rise up to vanquish their enemies (the girls?), be crowned with laurels and awarded scores of houris (the perpetual virgins of an Islamic paradise).

Meanwhile, Roosh concedes that not only is Red Pill victory impossible in the short term, but survival itself is not a given, and is therefore recommending that like-minded neo-reactionaries ally themselves with "traditional conservatives" while vigilantly (but discreetly) seeking opportunities to recruit "masculine men" to their fantasy Fight Club.

Maybe that's what he's doing in Siberia?  

The End of the Manosphere?

I think Bodycrimes called it last week when she announced that "the manosphere is cooked."  Certainly, the manosphere is becoming a sadder and much more self-pitying place based on my random forays into it recently.  It's been one calamity after another.

First, Dean Esmay used a rare opportunity for mainstream media exposure of Men's Rights issues to complain about his missing tooth.  Then A Voice for Men announced that the First Annual (International) Conference on Men's Issues had been moved from the downtown Detroit Doubletree Inn to a suburban VFW Hall where they will be less "threatened" by feminist protestors, but will now have to fight the bingo crowd for tables.  Matt Forney is off to the Philippines next month.  Ever the hustler, he also announced he will be available for online "consultations" (at $60/hour) while he basks on the beach.  (Nice work if you can get it.)  Naughty Nomad was doxed by a "vindictive stalker" who had taken a leaf out of the Matt Forney playbook by using facial recognition software and Facebook to reveal the Nomad's identity (like anyone cares).  And poor old Roosh (has everyone forgotten about him?) is languishing in a cheap furnished flat in Siberia, where he assures us in a Youtube dispatch there are girls in Siberia, too -- but then pretty much convinces us that he couldn't care less.  And so it seems to be ending: not with a bang, but a hundred whimpers.  

Meanwhile, men who are credible masculine role models are stepping forth and publicly denouncing misogyny, not only because it's bad for women, but because it's so damaging to the angry young guys who get caught up in it. Comedians are starting to have their way with "dude bro culture." And the New Misogynists themselves are quickly going from total obscurity to being a joke that even your Fox-watching grandma can laugh at.

Roosh ‏@rooshv

Since when did @collegehumor start hiring faggots like @caldy? http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6973833/7-things-only-guys-will-get … Feminist bullshit everywhere you turn!

Guys and Dolls. And Booze.

Washington State privatized the sale of alcohol two years ago. Other states are following suit. "Getting the state out of the liquor business" was a popular notion, partly because backers of deregulation (like Costco) promised more competition and hence, lower prices passed on to consumers. Ironically, the cost of spirits has gone up ten percent although, on the upside (I suppose) tax revenue has increased proportionately.  

I voted against closing the state liquor stores. I thought the old system was working just fine. The stores were impeccably clean and orderly, the clerks were helpful, and there was something about the ritualized formality of buying alcohol through the state that always reminded one that alcohol purchase and consumption was meant to be the privilege of serious, responsible adults. I was troubled at the possibility of making liquor even more available to drivers and minors. But I was in the minority -- even my partner voted against me -- so here we are...

And now you cannot go into any retail outfit without seeing booze: rows and rows and stacks of booze. My neighborhood Rite-Aid, a drugstore chain, has devoted more than a third of its floor space to wine, spirits, and snacks. We have our own brewery in town, and there is talk of licensing neighborhood distilleries soon.

My local convenience store has jumped on the bandwagon and is doing a brisk business selling "growlers"  -- but clearly the owner is greedy for even more custom.  As I was passing the store today, I was startled to see a young woman standing in the bushes on the corner, energetically waving a sign that read "Growlers Here!" She was wearing sunglasses, tiny denim shorts, and her long mane of glossy strawberry blonde hair streamed in the breeze.

Something didn't look quite right, though. For one thing, she looked too small to be legally advertising beer. At first glance, she appeared to be about twelve years old.  I pulled into the parking lot and quickly ascertained she wasn't a woman at all: she was a rather crude animatronic figure. I approached the shop owner, a Korean immigrant, while he was busy adjusting her base so she wouldn't topple over in the wind. I remarked that this new addition to his store was rather "weird."  

"Guys like it," he replied. 

"But she's not a real person," I persisted, feeling faintly ridiculous.

The shop keeper shrugged. "Don't matter. They stop."

Why did it bother me more that they were stopping for an animated doll than if they had been stopping for a real, live girl? Did the men who pulled over resent this cynical exploitation of their reptilian brains? Did they even recognize how they were being manipulated?

It was one thing to see this sort of ploy on billboards or in the pages of magazines; it was another to see it on the street of my quiet, family-friendly residential neighborhood.

A few years ago, neighborhoods like mine had outlawed "bikini baristas" at drive-through expresso stands. I was kind of relieved when they disappeared; I would have been humiliated to have found myself accidentally pulling into one for my morning latte.  For some reason, this mannequin seemed equally objectionable, and I wondered how long it would take for the Cavalry Temple families to set up a squall.

If the figure had been a cute animal -- say a dog or a tiger or a squirrel -- it wouldn't have bothered me so much. Is it possible I've become one of those rabid, hypersensitive, humorless feminists?

James Fell Rocks

I can't believe I've added a men's fitness guru to my reading list, but James Fell defies the muscle-bound, testosterone-addled stereotype: a skeptic in the fitness and dietary industry AND an outspoken critic of the Men's Rights Movement.  You can tell by the photo on his blog that this is a guy who doesn't take himself as seriously as he does his commitment to science and education.  Read his take-down of the Paleolithic Diet which he humorously dubs "the Scientology of Diets." 

In my fitful way, I'm back to swimming laps three times a week and plan to gradually increase my walking.  Huffing five blocks up a downtown hill the other night to see PZ Myer's talk at Town Hall convinced me I had to start doing something to regain my stamina.  Perhaps some sensible weight loss / exercise advice will bolster my resolve.

Close to Home

The instant that Aaron Ybarra's face flashed across the television screen, I recognized him.  I'd seen this young man dozens of time, passing him in the corridor at the college where I teach and he studied.  His family live in the same suburban neighborhood that I do. He always looked like a nice enough kid, perhaps a bit more unkempt than average.  I never spoke with him, but we exchanged friendly smiles at least once.

Apparently he'd had a history with the local police for minor, non-violent offenses and been taken to the local hospital for "evaluation," but there seemed no reason to believe he was a potential danger to himself or others.

Chatting about the case in the elevator with another teacher, I remarked (not for the first time) that maybe we needed to think about locking our classrooms while teaching.  An instructor from another department jumped in, told me to "chill out" and said something to the effect that I was fear-mongering.  Then she flounced off, her sandals slapping the floor as she strode down the hall.  I was a bit stung by her response.  

I'll admit I can be something of a "nervous nellie."  Perhaps I do suffer from a degree of PTSD, having, years ago in Teheran, experienced shots being aimed in my direction and seen slogans painted in blood on my garden wall.  Blithely turning a corner to find oneself facing the business end of a row of firing rifles leaves a person with a certain degree of hyper-vigilance, and an enduring awareness that awful things can happen most randomly.

Of course the possibility of being caught in an event like the shootings yesterday is scary, however remote the statistical probability.  Some people like me respond by anxiously pre-calculating how to reduce the odds; some people respond with angry denial. Meanwhile, the official administrative recommendations (to run away if possible, hide if escape is not possible, and fight if cornered) are so obvious that they hardly justify communicating.  

Not to mention that they seem to ignore the fact that the only reason that the shooter's tally wasn't greater was because at least one person on the scene did not follow the "official guidelines," but instead risked his own life by overpowering Ybarra, wrestling him to the ground, and subduing him with pepper spray until police arrived.

Judgy Bitch Needs You!

Since Sunshine Mary has been run off the internet -- at least for the moment -- Janet Bloomfield AKA Judgy Bitch is the clear runner up for the title of First Lady of the Manosphere.  She is the MRA version of Ann Coulter: blonde, outrageous, racist, and as dumb as a box of rocks (but a whole lot louder).

Here she is, in her position of Social Media Director (!) of AVfM's upcoming conference in Detroit, raising funds for the additional security she claims Doubletree Inn has demanded as a result of "feminist threats." The jury is still out as to whether the letter from Doubletree that she produces is genuine, but many are inclined to believe it is a fraud designed to extract more money from deluded MRM supporters to line the pockets of Paul Elam and his curious cabinet.

I haven't seen any credible evidence of "death threats" although obviously if there were any I would want the authorities to investigate them seriously. Trust me, the last thing I want is for some MRA to enjoy martyrdom at the hands of a non-MRA.

But do "feminists" want to "silence" the MRM? 

On one hand, I'll admit I DO silence Janet Bloomfield in the sense that after about fifteen seconds of her snarky, grating, affected delivery I have to turn the audio off. I can't watch Typhonblue for a different reason, one which I will not disclose for fear of being accused of being an "ableist" (sorry, I'm a very imperfect feminist).

I don't want to silence the MRM. I want to criticize them, mock them, and expose them for the assholes and aberrations they generally are. 

And speaking strictly for myself, I welcome all the attention MRM is getting from the mainstream media. For over a year I've been running around like Chicken Little warning people about these loonies, but I'm afraid they thought I was just a bit demented myself for paying them any mind. The bigger the platform these people get, the better: the more their cracked ideology is exposed to the general public, the more quickly and decisively their "human rights movement" is revealed for what it is. It won't be radical feminists who bring down the MRM. Exposed to the strong sunlight of mainstream attention, they will melt down on their own.