For the past week, I’ve been following a story that has appeared on Manboobz and Jezebel about a jaw-dropping thread in Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit (which was recently designated a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center). The thread was posted on April 1 and was obviously shitthatneverhappened.txt: a man was asking for help because a woman he had sex with grabbed the used condom and ran for the door screaming about how she was going to impregnate herself with his baby. The man in the story tried to stop her, even going so far as to punch her hard enough in the stomach to bruise, but she got away and threatened to call the cops on him. What shall he do, r/mensrights?
To you, me, and every non-paranoid normal person on the planet, that is an obviously made-up story. Women aren’t hysterical shrews driven to birth children regardless of where the sperm comes from. We’re not Loki, planning great Rube Goldbergian machinations to enslave men into becoming hapless fathers who will pay us a grand sum each month for the rest of our lives. That obviously is not a common occurrence.
Unless you’re in the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM) hate group – then it becomes the scary story you tell one another around campfires with the flashlight positioned under your chin. “And then, in the dark of night, the evil whore slipped out of bed unseen, crawled to the bathroom, pulled the used condom out of the trash, and injected the sperm into her . . . with a turkey baster.” Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) believe sperm-jacking to be one of the worst injustices men face. Seriously:
I normally try to stay neutral as best I can in matters relating to the men’s rights/feminism debate, but this has me grinding my teeth.
So this is what feminists think about one of our most pressing issues.
Now you can start to understand why the MRAs not only believed the story of the sperm-stealing girlfriend but vociferously defended the poor man in the story, especially to the point of excusing his violence:
There’s only two people who know you punched your girlfriend, and your girlfriend doesn’t have a lot of credibility nor does she have any proof. Any evidence that does come to light can be assumed to be self-inflicted. You’re safe.
You were about to be enslaved for 18 years… you’re NOT a bad person for protecting yourself.
Etc. If you look through that thread (FSM help you) you’ll find a handful of people calling “troll,” and many, many, many more trying to help the poor OP get away from the spermburgler and hide the fact that he punched her. No one decried the use of violence.
Well, today, the OP has finally come clean and admitted that s/he is a troll.
I wanted to reveal just how twisted these men can be in the pursuit of their agenda so I came up with a story they could not resist . . .
The spermjacker trope is irresistible to “men’s rights” activists because they believe they are perfect Darwinian examples of masculinity and as a result are irresistible to the hormonally irrational schemers that make up womankind. Narcissism and misogyny collide to make a toxic brew.
In an update, the blogger added:
The “men’s rights” activists think I’ve unfairly distorted them. Take Reddit user Pooballs for example:, who had his “skin crawling” over my post:
This sums up the “men’s rights” movement pretty succinctly. Shoddy “logic” about how much harder men are treated followed by an affirmation of violence against women:
“Plus this rabid attacking of punching a woman.. omg. We’re not all delicate perfect little flowers who will die if somebody hits us. Honestly I think if I’d witnessed, or if this type of thing happened to me, I probably would’ve punched her too.”
You lose MRAs. Your movement’s intellectual underpinnings are just a veneer to cover up your seething hatred of women. Check mate.
It’s not a nail in the coffin, sadly – the MRAs are now stumbling over themselves to declare that they weren’t really fooled and besides, spermburgling is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. They’ll take this as one more sign that there is a grand conspiracy mobilizing against them, feeding into their absurd paranoid fantasies. But at least the rest of us have something to chuckle about before going back to being super depressed that these people actually believe this shit.
Featured image jacked from Manboobz (click through for the wonderful animated version).
We interrupt this comment thread to announce that "spermburglar" has now been added to my phone's auto-complete dictionary.
We thank you for your attention.
I always found Spermburglar to be the least successful McDonald's character.
oops, someone already made that joke.
Quit being such a spermburglar.
Wow, just goes to show how easy it is to fall for stories that reinforce your delusion. This spermburglar thing is the MRA equivalent of the "guy invented a car that runs on water but the gu'ment killed him" or "NASA employee got fired for investigating UFOs" or "Big Pharma is suppressing the cure for cancer" stories.
Also, Spermburglar? Worst McDonaldland character ever.
people, let's not lose sight of what this really is;
An amazing business opportunity.
REAL MEN – Want to protect yourself from the prospect of scheming females making off with your precious baby-making fluids so they can self-impregnate and con you out of years of child support? Want to be truly master of your domain, and save up your potent genetic ointment for your one true love who can play skyrim and make you a sandwich at the same time?
For maximum security of your life creating essences, look no further than THE JIZZ-CINERATOR 2000!
The Jizz-cinerator 2000 is a miniature furnace that can be powerd from any USB socket, mains outlet, or car cigarette lighter. simply take your used condom, place it in the JC2000, hit the big red button, and the crazy impregnazis will never ever tie you down.
Order today and we'll throw in the JC2000 screw-on fleshlight attachment. Next time you're watching Gundam hentai and looking to get a little romantic, simply attach the JC2000 to the base of the fleshlight, wait until the train has left the station, and hit the big red button for easy disposal (note, the JC2000's actions do not constitute cleaning, JC2000 technologies are not responsible for any disease you may contract from an unwashed fleshlight, or for any burns sustained if the JC2000 is used while the owner is inside the fleshlight).
Cool idea. Unfortunately, I think you're making this more complicated than it has to be. If MRA's really want to prevent spermburglary with 100% accuracy, there's a simple, natural, organic, time-honored way of doing so: they can cut their balls off.
No sperm, no theft, no problem! Everyone Wins!
Three comments in and I'm already lolling. This bodes well for this thread.
Well, I laughed at the mental image of the MRA-camp and them sitting around the campfire telling scary stories about hysterical women stealing their flow… pollen. What an image!
I'm going to bring the tone down by being serious for a moment.
There <i>are</i> a number of serious issues which men face disproportionately compared to women. Some of them are bloody serious, like the fact that men from your country are disproportionately harmed when your country decides to send soldiers overseas. (Wherever "your country" is, of course. Not saying that women aren't also killed, injured or suffer from PTSD in wartime, merely that <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22452.pdf">men are disproportionally represented</a>. I also don't wish to understate the suffering of civilians in a war zone.) Or the phenomenon of rape in custody, which also disproportionately affects men. Men are far more likely to be the victim of an assult committed by a stranger than women are. Men are disproportionately more likely to have a false confession extracted from them. And so on.
My point is this: If you're going to champion "Men's Rights", why aren't you taking an interest in the multitude of <i>actual</i> serious issues that face men? There are plenty of <i>real</i> injustices in the world facing men. <i>You don't have to make shit up.</i>
OK, I'm done. You can resume the mockery now.
Erm… I should have checked the formatting there before posting. Sorry.
Oh, give me a fuckin' break, pal. Your argument is bullshit on its face, but let me count the ways it sucks in other ways:
1. Men have made combat a necessity in obtaining promotions.
2. Men have denied combat arms to women.
3. Men have set the standards based on men, so women are restricted from jobs which would otherwise be a fast track to promotion.
4. Because of this, men dominate the fields in which one is most likely to advance.
5. In some of the services, women are RESTRICTED BY LAW TO FORM NO MORE OF THE FORCE THAN A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE. This is a policy set by MEN.
6. Men are not raped more in custody than women are in general or whatever the hell the latest MRA bullshit claim is. Men commit more violent acts than women do, which results in more men in prision than women, after facing a male-dominated legal and judiciary system which has looked leniently on men who commit crimes against women.
7. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN OMG OMG OMG ?
8. Even though they set the situation—military service—-to their advantage, and design it so women are excluded—–they then have the gall to whine when it turns out it's not as great as they imagined.
9. The hierarchy in the military is male-dominated and rape and sexual assault is common. One case of gang rape in the Air Force wound up with the victim being convicted and the rapists offered immunity to testify against her. Shockingly enough, very few rape complaints in the military result in actual punishment for the rapists. It's often the victim who's drummed out.
10. I served in the US military for twenty years, I was in combat, and I got the same medals as some REMF assholes who spent the whole tour behind the wire, folding cots and trying to find porn on the Internet.
If men want to set up situations where they get all the advantages and women get screwed, at the very least they should have the grace not to whine about it. They created this problem; how come one never hears about this anywhere but FEMINIST boards, when the dudes start to get nervous about how teh wimmens are talking too much about themselves?
Just to be clear, all I'm doing here is having ago at this so-called "Men's Rights Movement" by thinking about what a legitimate "men's rights" movement would look like. I am not proposing that there is an urgent and pressing need to go out and start one. All I'm saying is that if you do start one, you could at least deal with real issues rather than fake ones.
Here are two things which I didn't say, because they didn't seem relevant to the point I was trying to make, but since the question has been brought up, I should add them for clarification.
1. Any legitimate "men's rights" movement should not minimise pressing and urgent issues of women's rights. Women do not have it easier, especially in the less-developed world.
2. Any legitimate "men's rights" movement should recognise that almost all of the subset of oppression and victimisation which is disproportionately inflicted upon men is perpetrated by other men. You correctly pointed this out, and I hope I didn't give the impression that I believed otherwise.
That last point is important, because in a sense, these are issues rooted in power rather gender. But then, that's true of most oppression of women, too.
By the way, I don't live in the US and never have. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the US military experience specifically. In fact, the US military probably has it better than some other countries in some respects, such as those with a draft.
Yeah, you're missing one major thing. Exactly what rights are men deprived of? It's ridiculous.
Your second point answers the question of why they don't focus on those issues. They want to degrade and vilify women. They don't want to talk about the cult of masculinity and how to change it. That would require admitting that the culture rewards and embraces masculinity while denigrating and punishing femininity. They believe the opposite. They believe that women are the oppressing class and men are the victims of female supremacy.
A funny thing happens when you have a supposed Mens' Rights Group——where bashing women and feminists is not allowed. "Seriously But What About the Men" actually has topics where they allow feminist bashing because otherwise, guys just don't comment. There's communities for discussing mens' issues—–but they die on the vine, if blaming all mens' problems on women aren't allowed.
Well look at the title "Men's Rights" saying that men are somehow deprived of rights others have. And any Men's Rights group always villifies women.
Men DO have issues (single fatherhood, maybe a very narrow set of career issues and I guess other things) but there definitely are support groups for these type of things that actually address the issue at hand without some stupid statement that men somehow are being oppressed and villifying women.
In short, I think the limited range of stuff men experience actually does have a support network in society, so not sure why we need a Men's Rights movement.
There are of course legitimate issues facing men. For instance Japanese custody laws amount to legalized kidnapping and its usally the man who loses out.
But the solution isn't to create a new 'men's rights' movement, but to fold these concerns more explictly into feminism. Many of the legitmate issues brought up the 'men's rights' folks would fit right in. Like you brought up prison-rape, obviously this is a feminist issue.
Like others who have responded, I agree with you that a "men's rights" group strictly speaking makes no sense, in that there is practically nowhere in the world where men don't have a useful right which women do not. (I don't know about Japanese custody laws enough to comment, hence the "practically" proviso.) So yes, this is one of several reasons why I don't like the phrase "men's rights".
But here's the thing. The laws and institutions that we have were set up by powerful men. Powerful men don't just make laws which promote the interests of men to the exclusion of women. They make laws which promote the interests of powerful men to the exclusion of everyone else, and the more like a powerful man you are, the better your deal. If you're a powerful man, you have a good deal. If you're a powerful woman, you have a slightly worse deal. If you're a non-powerful man, you get an even worse deal. If you're a non-powerful woman, you get the worst deal of all.
ginmar, have a said lately that I love you?
Well shit, spermburglar ain't got nothing on my female oppressor.
One time I had a female boss, and for the year I worked there, she was always telling me what to do and shit. I didn't see how that was okay…
Don't listen to these femimeaniepoopooheads, we got to stick together bros. Stay strong!
*BROFIST!!*
LOL, that pic made me lose my shit. Amazing.
I'm really tickled by that "you were about to be enslaved for 18 years" comment, since two other big MR issues are child custody and their lack of legal right to stop women from aborting fetuses to which they contributed genetic material. Do you want the kids or not?
Only if the women say they can't have them!
And lo, we tread upon the dangerous waters of Crazy, at the edges of the Internet where the seas boil and churn with the fitful rage of the Unknowing, those poor, damaged souls subsiding solely on hatred and bile. The Unknowing are some of the most dangerous beasts to be found on the Internet, for when they attack they do so relentlessly, without heed for their own lives or of those around them. They will suffer not any intrusion or attempt at logic or reasoning: the Unknowing form tight clans untouched by the outside world. Even any of their own Unknowing who dare to deviate are attacked and cannibalized. The slightest deviations are punished. Your only hope when encountering the Unknowing (for they always travel in packs, if you have spotted one, there are more soon to come), is to pit them against one another. Keep them occupied with cannibalism and you may escape. However, you must be warned: few escape the Unknowing unscathed.
Should you wish to journey to the land of Unknowing for the sake of Science, do so with great caution and ensure your armour is strong and well-fitted as they will seek the smallest of cracks to wound you. Should you wish to travel for the sake of Curiosity, I must sincerely caution you against it. Many an innocent traveller has been wounded or destroyed by these unconscionable beasts, and at worst they have been converted; turned into one of these hideous creatures to swell the ranks. Should you seek the Unknowing for the sake of Salvation: turn back. It cannot be done. While they writhe in the seas, no Unknowing can be changed. Merely position your Salvation as a beacon on the shore, and await those brave souls strong enough to sneak away from the clans, for while among the Unknowing, they are trapped.
Heed these words, and tread carefully in the land of the Troll, the Commenters, the dark forests of Conspiracy. No sane person should cross the mountains to the country of Hate.
-MadFish's Guide to the Internet, chapter 4
Wonderful :)
The problem, though, is that I've known people like this in real life. Most aren't quite as … vocal in real life, but you know if you saw their posts on Reddit (and you KNOW they post on Reddit), this is the kind of shit you'd be reading. I can think of two guys (boyfriends of girl friends, of course) who think like this. UGH.
Yeah a lot of those kinds of people keep it in, until something gives them an opportuniry to vent it. IRL, sometimes it's a few drinks to loosen the tongue, or someone else says something horrible first.
The good thing is, in real life, you can actually smack them instead of that frustrating urge to reach through the screen and do it.
To put this in terms most of the reader hears can best understand, IIUC, the Unkowning combine the worst features of the Borg (who are at least rational and logical) and the Reevers (who at least can be killed by flushing them out an airlock)?
Unknowning? Why doesn't my spell-checker work in the edit boxes here?
If ONLY we had an airlock to flush them out of!
So is the general stance over here that this absolutely never happens? Or, that anyone who believes it is crazy? I should say up front that I am not affiliated with /mensrights, or any movement like it. This is the first I've heard of it. But, I have personally witnessed an attempted "spermburglaring". Thank the FSM it resulted in nothing more than a month of fear and depression. I wouldn't pretend to know how often that kind of thing occurs, maybe it's like being struck by lightning. Either way, it has happened, and this post/thread appears to be more about how dumb /mensrights are for believing it instead of how violent they appear to be towards women.
That's why I've started the support and activism organization for victims of spermburglaring, your can learn more about what we do here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rz8udZBmQ, because you're right, it happens and these feminists turn a blind eye towards it and the lives it has stolen.
Actually, this post and thread are mocking r/MensRights for being super stupid AND for excusing violence against women. Did you even read the sperm-burgler post?
And surely you don't think that because it happened to you (or a friend? A friend of a cousin's boyfriend?) that this ranks as one of the most pressing issues concerning men today.
I read it, and agree with it. I'm not trolling here, it was a genuine question. I don't believe that spermburlaring is a problem. My only question was with the appearant tone that it is impossible it ever happens at all.
It has happened five times. There was a disputed sixth occurrence, but the court ruled that since the woman had bought the condoms and that the man had put the sperm inside it willingly, it was not spermburgled.