Thursday, June 11, 2009

M@ Did Not Rape You. He Just Drew a Diagram About It!

My goodness, free speech is hard. Just this morning, I was reading a REALLY REALLY EXCELLENT PIECE by the really really excellent blogger Amanda Hess, which drove home to me precisely how hard it can be! It concerns a young blogger named M@ (no, really: he is named M@), who, on the blog Why I Hate D.C., wrote the following:

*** TRIGGER WARNING, TRIGGER WARNING, A THOUSAND TIMES TRIGGER WARNING ***
As I continue along the bridge, a young woman, too, comes straight at me and I think of Ralph Ellison and his Invisible Man and wonder why they cannot see my white skin gleaming under the towering lights. She comes straight at me in a game of chicken I cannot now lose... she’s just my type: thin, pretty, white with brown hair. A feeling arises in me hitherto fore unknown. I want to rape her.

In my animal mind, I force her against the railing and push into her, afterward tossing her over the side, burying her in the cold and the wet and the deep—satiating, for now, my love for the city, my hatred.
Okay. Raping a lady? Check. Killing a lady after you've raped her? Check. Rape framed as compliment (she is just his type!), and also as totally impersonal way for dude to work out his aggression? Check! Young white man citing his "gleaming white skin" as evidence of his kinship with RALPH ELLISON?!? Check-mate, my friends. Yes, we have determined, on a highly scientific basis, that this blog post is Very Offensive. The scale goes, 0 (Not Offensive), 5 (Kind of a Tool), 10 (What the Hell is Wrong With You?), 20,073 (M@). Oh, and did I mention that he included A DIAGRAM? He did! He included A DIAGRAM!


This is the diagram! See if you can spot the lady he wanted to rape! I know, I know: it's subtle and complicated, like all the art that flows from M@'s fertile brain.

Say, you know what is just as offensive as the rape fantasy described above? All of the graphic rape and death threats M@ has received since then! I'm not printing them here, because they're gross and even more super triggering (there is stuff about entrails and things going into other things that they're pretty much anatomically designed not to have things go into). Amanda Hess has covered many of them, if you are curious. M@ has responded with rape jokes and comments about "feminazis," of course! ("I’ve read my feminist literature and I know my shit better than most women on that subject," also, is a thing he wrote, because HA HAHAHAHAHA ohhhhhhhhh, shit, I can't even finish that sentence, HAHAHAHA, ohhhhhhhhh, we have fun.) Because he is such a grown-up!

What I will say, after much careful reflection, is this: sending a man who writes publicly about his rape fantasies YOUR rape and/or murder fantasies, starring Rape Fantasy Writer Dude, is wrong. It is wrong even though there is some poetic justice to it: these comments may actually prove to him, better than anything else could, that words (especially words about raping!) matter and can be scary and upsetting. HOWEVER. Framing rape as an appropriate punishment, for anyone, is very bad. So are death threats.

Fortunately, I am a professional Insulter of People on the Internet! I have, like, a Ph.D. in that! (DISCLOSURE: I do not actually have a Ph.D. It is a metaphor!) Therefore, I will share with you several more appropriate - yet still insulting! - things that you can write to M@.

  • As I read "Why I Hate DC," I come across M@'s graphic rape fantasy. It's just my type: poorly written and pretentious. It contains a reference to Ralph Ellison right next to an allusion to his "gleaming white skin." I want to make him take a literature course in which he actually reads The Invisible Man. The required term paper will be very long. He will not like it. Afterwards, I will give him an F, because he is a bad writer.
  • While I peruse various blog posts, written by people with various screen names and pseudonyms, I come across "M@." It's just my type: stupid beyond the point of comprehension. I imagine pushing him up to his laptop and forcing him to edit his profile so that there are actual letters in his name. As he weeps gently for the loss of what he no doubt believes to be a clever pun, I will personally delete that fucking "@" symbol. "Your name is Matt. We get it," I will say, showing no remorse whatsoever. He will be surprised that I have figured it out.
  • As I skim my blog reader, noting and enjoying blogs by many intelligent and funny feminists, I come across Amanda Hess's article about, and interview with, M@. He's just my type: an entitled, self-absorbed, narcissistic dickweed with no self-awareness, who will continue defending himself, no matter how wrong he is. A hitherto well-known desire overcomes me: I want to take him to a rape crisis center. I also want to take him to a women's shelter. The women will come forth to tell him their stories, one by one, speaking softly and simply: about the attacks, about their injuries, about what went through their minds, what their attackers said, how hard they have to work each day not to be overcome by the shame and guilt and terror this world seems happy to thrust upon them. They will speak of the failures of the criminal justice system to prosecute and convict their attackers, the failure of communities and families and friends to support them or to understand that they did not "bring this upon themselves" somehow, the failure of us all, as citizens, to notice and care about and refuse to trivialize the huge numbers of women who are made subject to violence, this violence, this intimate violence, this betrayal which befalls our gender so disproportionately. As they speak, M@ will slowly, but surely, come to know what many of us know already: that there is much suffering in this world, that his concerns and troubles are petty and insignificant compared to theirs, and that his tiny, trivial, privileged existence is not the most important one on the planet. He will not be able to handle this, as it invalidates his entire worldview, so his head will explode. Whoops.
  • As I read the Internet, I come across M@. He's just my type: the sort of dude who writes graphic fantasies about raping and killing women, then is surprised and petulant when people are angry about that. I want to lure him to my matriarchal bee colony. I imagine arranging a ridiculous series of coincidences through my chicanery, which will inevitably end with him in a bear suit, screaming about "BITCHES!" I will then sacrifice him to my pagan nature gods. "Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey," he will exclaim! No matter. The drone must die. The drone must die. The drone must die, satiating my love for bees, my hatred (for M@).
Okay, so that last one was pretty violent. Sorry, M@! Nevertheless, I am sure that we could find many more appropriate punishments for M@. For example, what if we arranged some sort of panel discussion, featuring M@, Aaron P. Taylor, and Seth Rogen? It would be called "Stupid Dicks: How They Live Today," and would feature questions such as, "no, seriously, what is wrong with you?" Or, "Jesus Christ, how dumb can you get?" Afterward, we could send them all out to a nice farm, where they could chase rabbits. Wouldn't that be non-violent?

29 comments:

  1. you make my life worth living with posts like this. confirming once again that you are the smartest funniest person I know. wait that is too limiting, smartest funniest person who writes on the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, now, hey there, rabbits are gentle herbivores and prey animals, and I think it's not at all nice to subject them to chasing, because it will stress them out, and that is not good for the rabbits. Maybe they could chase raccoons? I think those are not prey.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love It.

    That is all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your blog makes me very happy.

    I have nothing else substantive to say right now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gotta agree with Kelly. And I wish I could be as funny when actually speaking to an asshat of this caliber.

    ReplyDelete
  6. another excellent post as always, Sady.

    It just makes me think of how many people like him are out there who are incapable of understanding the barbarity of rape.
    When will it end.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Now that I have read through all of the comments at Amanda's post, I take that back. Fortunately, I have never met an asshat of (quite) that calibre. What a steaming pile of hate-spewing, self-aggrandizing crap he is.

    Oh! Sady, don't apologize for the violent image in the last one--simply explain that is wasn't a fantasy, but something that you actually wanted to see happen to him! That will make it all better, as M@ so helpfully explained in his own defense.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "“I’ve been tracking the IP address with three different services, and over the seven-month period, the addresses were static and exactly the same,” he says. “I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on this,” says M@.... “I’ve been online for a while. I’m good at forming mental pictures of people. And I believe it is a 28-year-old African American woman who is employed at Howard University,” M@ says. “I just have that feeling.”

    What the WHAT? There is too much for me to deal with there.

    ReplyDelete
  9. That post by M@ (ugh that name) was the entire reason I stopped reading whyihatedc. No matter how much I hate DC (hint: it's a lot!), I'm not reading his rape fantasies.

    The real kicker was that M@ was hit by both a man and a woman, but only the woman gets raped and murdered. Classy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I know, right? "It actually happened and some woman was actually rude to me and I had a thought in my head I’d never, ever act upon. It was a momentary thought of an animal."

    JESUS CHRISTOS KYRIE ELEISON, Matt! I live in New York fucking City. If I got all murdery every time someone bumped into me on the street (that's all that happened, right? She bumped into him? Or, no: he grabbed her because he THOUGHT she was going to bump into him. RUDE!) I would be Ed Gein. What kind of self-obsessed, narcissistic little prick do you have to be to think this is in any way appropriate?

    Although, to be fair, when men I don't know touch me without my permission I am known to unleash the hounds of Take Your Hand Off Me Before I TAKE It Off Motherfucker. But, you know. Mostly that's because I worry that they think like M@.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow, my jaw doesn't usually LITERALLY drop.

    And don't pull that farm shit on me, Sady. We all know Fluffy isn't coming back.

    ReplyDelete
  12. HOLY CRAP ON A STICK.

    That does it. The warpaint and frowzy shapeless dresses are ON! I've got the big-ass wicker sculpture AND sacrificial animals all ready to go! You bring the hammer, I'll bring potato salad! (What? Pagans get hungry too!)

    (Have I mentioned how much I love your Wicker Man references, Sady? Because they just make my day! The same day I read another post of yours where you quoted that movie, my dad incinerated a slice of pizza by accident. Which led to yelling, "HOW'D IT GET BURNED? HOW'D IT GET BURNNED, HOW'D IT GET BUUUURRRNNED!")

    Anyway.

    Matt makes me want to throw up. That's all I can say. He is the reason that pepper spray exists. I think he could benefit from your teachings. (He knows more about feminism than women do? REALLY? Even Gloria Steinem? Alice Walker? *snort* Oh, he's funny. Can we keep him?*)

    *In a box, preferably.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Let me tell you about my life.

    Every single day I endure things like this. I work with men who I know would find this sort of thing funny and would probably do some kind of graphic highly innapropriate group reading of this (AT WORK)

    AND THE WOMEN WOULD LAUGH(because who wants to be a cold stuck up cunt?)

    THANK YOU for reaffirming that I am a human being and deserve being treated as such.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I have just one comment on your plans, Sady:

    HADDAGEBURNED?? HADDAGEBURNED??

    I bet that M@ would totally punch a random woman in a bear costume, too.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Exactly why I detest the use of rape-as-punishment language to retaliate to the M@s of this world. Rape can never be deserved or justified PERIOD.

    Awesome post, Sady. And thanks for the much needed humour-injection!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Matt (I refuse to type his douchebaggy version of his name), is an idiot.

    He keeps responding to the comments on the article there and every comment is like a puzzle piece revealing more and more dickery.

    Like, say, writing that he has "female best friends (typed breast friends)" - fucking really? In a comment trying to convince people you don't hate women? Fucking really? God.

    Yeah, somehow I remain unconvinced of his positive attitudes towards women, outside of vagg and breast support systems.

    What a tool.

    ReplyDelete
  17. well. I posted this on the Sexist comments which he is trolling HARDCORE. I'm sure he read this but he hasn't commented. The dude spends all his time now responding to comments about this thing he wrote. It's like...just stop. Not even an apology could make up for the horrific thing he wrote, but, you know, he might want to at least try.

    Except he doesn't! Even still he will not admit that what he wrote was the wrongest of all wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  18. How dare he use Invisible Man for evil! D:

    ReplyDelete
  19. In reading about this whole debacle since the original "fantasy" post I can't help but thinking that nobody could have so little self-awareness or humility in the face of such an outcry. Could a person who is not only barely anonymous, but actually permitted his photograph to be published alongside the spectacle, really be so separated from the reality of what he is writing? Be so narcissistic that he really believes the things he is saying - that he is a feminist, that he is misunderstood, that he is embracing a taboo for a greater good, using it as an analogy, rather than simply creating shock with the public exploration of his own dark thoughts?

    I can't help but thinking that all this is intentional, specifically designed to create this shit storm. He's purposely trying to make a name for himself in some insignificant journalistic pool, maybe even get print media coverage. Any press is good press, right?

    But in the end, I don't believe that. Because if this is in fact a big joke on us, a clever manipulation, there is no way it can work. Because I can't think of anyone who would touch him with a ten foot pole when this is done. And he should realize that. So the conclusion that remains is that he really is just as out there as he seems to be.

    ReplyDelete
  20. You’re right Sady, that last one was violent. I almost died laughing, and I definitely have a stitch in my side.

    But the one before that, with your proposal to take him to a rape crisis center and actually confront the fact that the women he so sneeringly brags about wanting to destroy are actual fucking human beings? Brilliant, beautiful, and sobering. If we could figure out a way to make this actually sink in (exploding heads would be a bonus), I think it would be an excellent part of a rehabilitation program. *wanders off to bug her friends in the psychology field*

    Keep on being awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Wicker Man! The best movie EVER. Not the bees!

    Sady, you and the many fans of Wicker Man who read your blog may not be aware of this, but there is a free screening and heckling of Wicker Man tonight in Jersey City--about 10 minutes from the Christopher St. PATH station in NYC (get out at Grove St.).

    http://www.facebook.com/events.php?ref=sb#/event.php?eid=103384809600

    It is on a giant screen with surround sound.

    I can't tell you how exciting I find this.

    ReplyDelete
  22. What about the woman in matt’s diagram? The woman he labeled “cunt”? She is a real person, not a fantasy. Where did matt get that woman’s photo?

    ReplyDelete
  23. I lived in DC for 4 years, and that blog used to be hilarious. The second proprietor was actually a feminist man (or feminist ally, whichever you prefer). He was pretty great in calling out sexist shit.

    I haven't gone to the site of the trainwreck yet (busy at work). I'd like to think of a witty bon mot to comment, but I'm so appalled that I really just can't. That guy is a terrible person who needs therapy.

    By the way, I'm very confused by the commenting system! I'm not really anonymous...
    -EmmATX

    ReplyDelete
  24. OK, but just one thing. I've been seeing this motif come up lately of wanting, perhaps hypothetically, to make rape apologists go to a rape crisis center, volunteer and witness and so forth. I hope no one is really advocating that as a course of treatment. A rape crisis center is not Empathy 101 or Scared Straight for Douches or a zoo. I wouldn't want one of those empathy-impaired wannabe shockjocks anywhere near a person who had survived trauma. Not trying to cut down the post or any of you all, I just thought it should be said. I don't believe it would work. I don't believe that people who eroticize genuine suffering and humiliation have the wherewithal to gain any wisdom from witnessing women in the worst pain of their lives. At best, they would probably fail to see how it was something they should care about unless it was happening to a woman they considered part of their personal lives, in which case "I'll kill the bastard who did this" but not become conscious of rape and gender-based abuse as a global problem. "Terrible things happen because of human nature, so what am I supposed to do about it? I didn't rape anyone, I just think it's amusing to shock people and make uptight women upset with my postfeminist hipster carnival of misogynistic tropes." My point is, bring on the bear suits and the bees.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Wasn't the last one a reference to that one movie?

    ReplyDelete
  26. @ Adrianna , if not laughing at this garbage makes us cold stuck up cunts (ugh! hate that word BTW) then we wear that label proudly :-)

    Those women that you describe sound like classic cases of stockholm syndrome.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I've been seeing this motif come up lately of wanting, perhaps hypothetically, to make rape apologists go to a rape crisis center, volunteer and witness and so forth. I hope no one is really advocating that as a course of treatment. A rape crisis center is not Empathy 101 or Scared Straight for Douches or a zoo. I wouldn't want one of those empathy-impaired wannabe shockjocks anywhere near a person who had survived trauma. Not trying to cut down the post or any of you all, I just thought it should be said. I don't believe it would work. I don't believe that people who eroticize genuine suffering and humiliation have the wherewithal to gain any wisdom from witnessing women in the worst pain of their lives.

    Seconded. Horrible case in point: Kyle Payne.

    ReplyDelete