One man’s quest: to have sex with teenagers. His tools: misconceptions about biology, access to a meme-maker, and boundless self-pity. Ladies, meet Lucas Werner…and run away.
He’s an atheist in Washington state, going by the name “OlympiaAtheist” on facebook. I wish he wouldn’t. Atheists have enough reputation problems as it is.
His obsession — it really is an obsession, it’s basically all he writes about — is that he’s 37 years old, he wants a girlfriend who is less than half his age, and that he thinks he is biologically entitled to have sex with younger women. His strategy is to create terrible, terrible meme images and post them on the web, which I’m sure is going to draw in the high school girls like bees to honey. Here’s one example. There are many more.
You should have sex with him, because he has lower telomerase levels than younger men, and therefore he’s not going to give you cancer. And you’re a bigot and a hypocrite if you don’t take him up on his kind offer. Here’s a photo of a bridge.
I’m afraid that what jumped out at me first was not his privileged arrogance, but his bad biology. There is no such disease as “telomerase over abundance”. You can’t catch telomerase from other people. Telomerase is not a secreted protein. Even if it were, you’re not going to absorb it from contact. Telomerase is primarily produced in the germ line, in your gonads, and even there it is tightly regulated to be expressed during the synthesis phase of meiosis to lengthen telomeres, the ends of chromosomes. The absence of telomerase in somatic cells allows gradual telomere shortening with cell division to be a kind of countdown timer for senescence, which is actually a good thing: it means cell populations have a limited life time, which reduces the accumulation of mutations that can lead to cancer. Many cancers switch on telomerase as part of the process of immortalization. You want to learn more? read this short paper.
Telomerase is probably not a factor in determining the differences in aging rate among species. Telomere shortening resulting from the absence of telomerase activity may be a factor in determining some age-related properties of organs in humans. Reactivation of telomerase could be useful in some forms of cell therapy and does not appear to present a problem with safety. However, activation of telomerase removes a barrier to the continued growth of developing cancers; lack of telomerase activity provides a tumor suppressor function. Telomeres in the sperm of older men tend to be longer than the telomeres in younger men, due to the continued activity of telomerase, which may contribute to longevity of their offspring; however, their sperm also contain more mutations, which may offset that advantage.
OK? Telomerase levels are irrelevant in your interactions with other people. Somehow Mr Werner has got it in his head that it matters. He talks endlessly about it.
He has another pseudo-scientific biological justification. You should have sex with him because he’s diploid.
The claim that “no diploid species mates within its own age group” is complete nonsense. Most diploid species are short-lived and aren’t going to have a choice; can you imagine the mayfly that declares it cannot mate within its own cohort, it really wants to have sex with females from last year’s group?
At least he’s right on one thing: he is almost certainly diploid, as are all other adult humans.
But let’s get back to telomerase again. Telomerase is only expressed in human spermatogonia, which to Mr Werner’s sick sad mind implies that it is properly applied by…
You are permitted to be made mildly nauseated by both the terrible photo of unpleasant-looking food, and the suggestion that he’d like to do you the favor of putting his beneficent sperm into your oral and anal cavities.
Thus begins a deluge of non sequiturs ladled heavily over horrible photos of bad food.
If he’s still talking about telomerase, and I suspect that he is, that enzyme is not expressed in human skin. I don’t know why he thinks older fathers has anything to do with glasses and telescopes, and that whole business about “incest leading to inbreeding was…normal” is just weird. I have no idea what hes trying to get at with that.
Yes, he is talking about telomerase.
How can you disagree with him when our nation sent men to the moon?
Here’s my favorite pick-up line of all time.
Well, a conversation with an 18 year old woman is kind of like having a conversation with a 29 year old man and even slightly chubby nerdy chicks are both gorgeous and interesting so maybe there’s something to a more chromosomally endowed gender with a quicker processing brain in a smaller head space with a body that produces high amounts of progesterone at a young age like every other diploid species in the K-selective mate pattern of intergenerational love creating a far superior brand of human being
So much bullshit biology and condescension packed in there, I may die.
Actually, what’s going to kill me is his food photography. I have totally lost my appetite, I fear for ever.
The latest drama is that poor Mr Werner got banned from a Starbucks for hitting on a young barista.
He just left her a nice, innocent little note, which he unfortunately did not bother to include for posterity. The Spokane police said it was creepy. I’m not usually inclined to trust the police, but given the general tenor of what he writes, I know which side I’m inclined to believe. He probably did not ask her to have sex, but instead told her about the enzymatic virtues of Old Man Semen. It’s all her fault if she does not like Scientific Information.
I do find it reassuring that the police are now aware of him, and I think it’s a good idea for the women of Spokane to know that he’s hovering about, taking hideous photos of ugly fast food while fantasizing about coating your colons with his enzymatically potent semen. Just so you know, here’s his website (which is even more delusional than the crap on his memes), and here’s what he looks like.
DANGER DANGER AVOID AVOID AVOID.
Caine says
Wow. That’s a whole feast of bitter, with a crispy coating of creepy. From where I sit, Mr. Werner has serious control issues, and is looking for that special someone to control. Yikes.
Bonnie McDaniel says
He also needs to learn about the existence of punctuation, and how to write, apparently. That first meme is an incomprehensible mess.
Not that I would touch him with a ten-foot pole anyway.
FossilFishy (NOBODY, and proud of it!) says
The only place you’ll see more red flags is a Chinese military parade. i wonder if there’s any real way to keep him from escalating.
remyporter says
“Incest… was as normal as a date at a restaurant with a cartoon mascot.”
Um… a date at a restaurant with a cartoon mascot isn’t what I’d call “normal”. I don’t know why THAT point in specific is the one that I’m getting hung up on, but it is. It’s just so weirdly specific and completely insane.
Saad says
Yeah, what’s with the shitty food photos?
PZ Myers says
At a guess, this is a guy with low understanding of social conventions. He’s heard that people on social media take pictures of their food — it’s a stereotype — so he takes pictures of his food. He’s seen these ubiquitous sloppy “memes” so he thinks that is the preferred format for his manifestos. He thinks the sole purpose of talking with women is to convince them to have sex with him and become pregnant with his children.
He’s an uncomprehending alien trying to mimic the conventions of the culture he finds himself in, poorly.
richardelguru says
That is some disgusting food! …and you know what they say “You are what you eat.”
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
How did he lose 170 lbs on that diet?
OptimalCynic says
So, if we accept his logic… shouldn’t he be out looking for even older men to fill his oral and anal cavities with delicious life-giving seminal fluids? I’m sure there’s a 60 or 70 year old guy who could hold his nose long enough to “donate”.
Siobhan says
…wat
numerobis says
remporter: indeed!
Also, he gave $3000 to charity. This means he’s owed sex, clearly.
RettopNoj says
Fuck me, what will he be like when he hits 40?
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
Is he one of Trump’s speech-writers?
speed0spank says
I can’t imagine someone that bitter and entitled giving anything away, let alone $3000.
applehead says
Another fine atheist thought-leader!
rq says
He certainly doesn’t mince words. Or sentences. Just visually, he comes off as overly aggressive, tasteless and too needy (too much info in a small space because all of it is just so important to know right away!1!).
(Also, LOL, 37 = older man. Well, if he’s going for the teenagers, yes. Buuut he might want to look into that agism bit himself.)
One thing I will take away from this: henceforth, I shall refer to myself as “chromosomally endowed”. Sounds pretty good if you say it out loud.
Matrim says
You’d think he’d realize that if the note was enough to make this young woman report it to the police/management that he probably read the situation horribly wrong. But then, he obviously lacks even the most basic social awareness, so I suppose it’s not surprising.
ledasmom says
Well, that is now going through my head to the tune of “Old Man River”, so thanks a whole lot.
erichoug says
Does this guy not have anyone in his life that would tell him how extremely creepy and wrong all of this is?
Also, if a girl shoots you down so hard that the police are involved, just apologize, walk away and keep it to yourself. Nobody is going to feel sorry for you that your super creepy note freaked her out so much that she called the cops and they were so worried about it that they detailed an officer to come tell you to get bent.
leerudolph says
“Well, that is now going through my head to the tune of ‘Old Man River’, so thanks a whole lot.”
Oh, I am so glad I wasn’t the only one…
drken says
Ah, Poe’s law. If he isn’t serious, he’s a pretty funny guy. Of course, if he was joking he probably would have included the letter he gave the barista so we could laugh at him going for 3 pages or more on how he can tell she’s at least the age of consent, which is a social construct and totally unfair and how he gave $3000 in telomerases to homeless people.
The whole thing kind of reminds me of Jon Lovitz’s “Lower Your Standards” sketch from Saturday Night Live back in the ’80s. I’d link to a video of it, but the only one I could find was on Hulu and they wanted me to sign up.
Matrim says
Also, as an aside, he says she “said I was funny and that she liked me.” Given that this ended with the cops being involved, I’m willing to bet that she didn’t say either of those things. To hazard a guess, I suspect she laughed at something he said (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an awkward defusing laugh because she was uncomfortable and didn’t want to set him off). I’m sure most people understand here, but just for reference: DO NOT ASSUME SOMEONE LAUGHING IN RESPONSE TO SOMETHING YOU SAY IS FLIRTATION.
nelliebly says
I’m glad the management backed the young woman and told the guy to gtfo. I used to work bar jobs where the manager found girls having to deal with creepy old dudes funny, so I know how horrible it can be.
Good to hear she got support.
Holms says
Claim: No diploid species mates within its own age group.
Breezing past his shitty phrasing which seems to indicate that mating occurs between species rather than between individuals within a species, this is a pretty easy claim for him to check with his own eyes. Are any human couples observed to be of similar age? Yes? Claim disproven.
Greta Samsa says
“denied by a socialist generation”?
Socialism doesn’t require directed breeding, regardless of what Ayn Rand might think.
Or does he believe that socialists are just so generous that they’d have sex with any random person who asked?
PZ Myers says
#23: I don’t know, he might have a point. My wife is six months younger than I am.
Arawhon, So Tired of Everything says
Oh man, to see PZ talk about my town! But it’s about a creepy fucker :( .
That first pic is from the Downtown library aimed at the Monroe bridge which is near the Falls. The second looks like an internal shot probably near the computers. Id feel pity if he wasnt such a hazard for the women and girls here in town. We seem to have a pretty bad case of these types here. Seriously, downtown is filled with halfway houses and homeless shelters housing all the sex offenders that get come from nearby cities.
Saad @ 5
richardelguru @7
All that food looks like it’s from the downtown Red Robin and PF Chang’s across the street. It’s all fairly mediocre food from really cheap restaurants.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
Lucas seems to be using the “half your age plus 7” rule:
37 / 2 = 18.5
+ 7 = 25.5
Caine says
PZ:
I’m four years younger than my mate. Am I in trouble here?
multitool says
Is this guy a job for mental hospitals or jail?
He’s a thick mix of both scary and disoriented/pathetic.
Tabby Lavalamp says
drken @20
Nope.
Your sense of humour disturbs me if you think he’s funny. And there’s no reason to think he’s not serious. The number of men who feel like they are entitled to “hot” younger women is staggering, and through the years they have come up with any number of ways to explain it “scientifically”.
Saad says
multitool, #29
That took longer than I expected.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
Shit, I actually feel sorry for this guy. He talks about meditating in a homeless shelter. My pity thinks he’s not just visiting but a resident. All the bluster about being a creep may be a coping attempt after many creepitude events. Rather than deny it, claim it. Strongly implying everyone is stuck in stereotyping him by misinterpreting his #~#~~# actions.
He even prefaced his page with “I am a scientist with no science degree” meaning interested but incapable of achievement. Truly, I sympathize even though he is a creepy attitudes [NB rather than ‘creepy person’]
This guy has issues.
PZ Myers says
#28: What? You married a cradle-robber!
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
My bet is people avoid hooking up with a partner with whom they’d have to share a birthday. Hmmm (prove me wrong with names)
Biological driven or psychological? Oops psychology is biology so gotcha
Still precision ain’t the subject but approximation
Greta Samsa says
I see that his reason for seeking teenage girls is that they’re the next step in human evolution.
That’d be flattering, if it wasn’t crazy and stupid.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
Juliette (Romeo’s) was only 13
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
He uses japans bullet train as argument supporting their age of consent being 13.
Oooo creepy
Onamission5 says
@drkn #20:
It’s amazing to me how, when along comes a living representation of the kind of scary shit girls and women have to deal with in our lives, inevitably someone (usually who doesn’t have to deal with that scary shit) will declare that person a Poe or comedian. Minimization, it’s not just for computer screens! It does however assist in creating a social climate where people like this dude can get away with a lot of godawful behavior, and the targets of that behavior get told that we are overreacting, can’t take a joke, must have misheard, should give people benefit of the doubt, must have done something to lead the person on, should just ignore him, and so on. Make no mistake, this guy is not a joke, he isn’t a harmless sad sack. He is a ticking time bomb for at least one person he encounters over the course of his life.
At least the Starbucks employee’s manager had her back, as did the police. An improvement over many of my own food service employment experiences.
Greta Samsa says
We don’t know, slithey, maybe the lead engineer was married to a teenager at the time. According to Werner it enhances your intellect, even though he’s such a transparent counterexample.
Arawhon, So Tired of Everything says
Onamission5 @ 38
That would be a young teen girl from western Washington that he regularly brings up on his Facebook and which he more than likely initiated a bad encounter with. This is also probably why he’s now living in Spokane.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Guess you laugh at rape jokes as well. Don’t worry, the rapists laugh right with you.
+++
Dear Creepy Dude
It’S not your age. It’s not your size. It’s not the fact that you look like a serial killer. OK, it’s partly because you look like a serial killer, but I assure you that is mostly a matter of presentation on your part.
It’s you being a creepy asshole. I’d never trust anybody to treat my body well who does the things to sentences you do. Of course, I realise I’m way out of your age range, being exactly your age, so you might call it “sour grapes”, but let me assure you, apart from having been in a loving relationship for the last 17 years*, I wouldn’t want to touch you with a pole if you were begging me to, apart maybe to keep you in a safe distance.
+++
Fun fact: you would probably have considered us an ideal couple once with him being 29 and me just 20….
+++
Yeah, I’m totally going to trust the guy who’s telling strange women on the internet about the beneficial qualities of his sperm in their butts that this was not creepy…
microraptor says
Arahwon @26:
While I won’t call either of those restaurants good, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen either of them offer up anything that looked quite so disgusting, either. If he got the food from either of them then clearly he left it sitting in the sun too long.
lostbrit says
Well, I started reading this thinking the “memes” were just crappy jokes written by someone with zero understanding about how well jokes transfer outside your immediate peer group and a complete failure to recognise somethings just arent really funny.
However, when I clicked on the read more link, I think my brain flatlined.
I refuse to acknowledge this is written by a functioning human. If it is, then while I do genuinely applaud the police of Spokane in responding to the scary Starbucks situation, I think its a shameful indictment on the state of mental health care in the region. This is someone who really, really should be kept away from the public.
As #38 says, this feels like a ticking time bomb – and I really hope he doesnt have access to firearms.
Crimson Clupeidae says
I just hope that guy doesn’t escalate into the next mass murderer.
I don’t have anything against people of different ages dating. To me, it’s more about the intellectual and power balance in the relationship, and that’s where most relationships of large age differences fall down anyway. I’ve only known a few personally (large >~10 years) and none of them worked in the long run. I think the longest I knew personally made it almost 20 years, but they were quite literally never happy.
Trying to think back on all my relationships, I think the biggest age difference was slightly over 3 years, with one major exception, and we both knew that wasn’t going to be really long term anyway.
rietpluim says
I’m speechless. Really.
lostbrit says
On the subject of dating ages, I realise that some people here might think I am a weirdo because my wife is 9 years younger than I am, but in my defence she was well outside Mr Werner’s age range when we met and we’ve been together 23 years now.
I think XKCD put it best – https://xkcd.com/314/
Akira MacKenzie says
I was raised in a rather conservative Catholic family where my parents wouldn’t allow me to date in high school. Not that I ever got the chance. I was my school district’s geeky “mental case” and was shunned by my female peers. As a result, I didn’t get an opportunity to have experience with relationships when I was a teen, much less get over my fear of rejection and learn social graces. My first and only sexual relationship wasn’t until I was in college, and it didn’t end well. At 42, I haven’t had a SO since 1997.
At no point since did I blame some vast feminist conspiracy to deny me sex. My loneliness could be blamed on being a fat, ugly, moron who can’t scrape together enough cash to move out of his parents house. And while it’s very difficult to find a woman of within an “acceptable” age range who might like a nerdy, mentally defective, failure, I never once thought that resorting to pedastry to fulfill my desires.
I suppose in this asshole’s eyes that makes me a “beta” or a “chuck,” but while I’m likely to die (technically) a virgin, at least I’ll die without ending up on a sex offender registry.
Akira MacKenzie says
Edit: “cuck.”
gijoel says
I think that first image is the minimum sized bridge that people would jump off to avoid this creep.
Cat Mara says
Akira MacKenzie @ 47:
I’m kind of the same, though I didn’t grow up in a particularly conservative household or anything. I have lots of female relatives, though few enough female friends, mostly due to circumstances– attended single-sex schools, majored in a male-dominated discipline (engineering), work in a male-dominated profession (IT). Most of my hobbies are kind of solitary– walking, drawing, etc. I just don’t get the romance thing, partly because of the aforementioned tendency towards my own company, but also I’ve been overweight nearly my entire life and have serious issues with physical contact as a result. This is just how I am. I don’t believe anyone owes me intimacy and I don’t understand why people think they are. But then, stomping one’s online foot and making demands couched in the purest broscience is not a strategy that ever occurred to me either… ?
davidc1 says
Well ,if no one else is going to say it ,i will .
I bet he voted for fartface .
jy3, Social Justice Beguiler says
Dude, image macros are a visual medium with major space limits! Brevity is important! Either condense your message or go with an actual manifesto!
zenlike says
lostbrit
Well, I at least don’t find you a weirdo. There is a HUGE difference between on one hand meeting and falling in love with someone who just happens to have a “large” age difference with you, and on the other hand having a large age difference apparently being the sole factor you are looking for in a mate. The latter is creepalicious.
zenlike says
davidc1
And if he hasn’t, I bet you anything he uses that fact as a pickup line, to show a potential victim how much of a “good guy” he really is.
NathanL says
I’m no doctor, but it seems pretty clear that this guy has mental health issues. Might be more constructive to nicely suggest to him, and those around him, that he seek some help.
Tabby Lavalamp says
NathanL @55
Correct. You’re no doctor. Not that something like that has ever stopped anyone from doing a long distance mental health diagnosis.
The thing is, all he’s trying to do is justify why young women should have sex with him. Older straight men have been doing that for as long as there have been straight men (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s as prevalent amongst older gay men wanting to sleep with younger gay men).
NathanL says
Yeah right Tabby. When someone says “I’m going to kill myself” we can just assume it’s all hunky dory? If a relative of yours were to say that, would you assume something might be wrong and suggest they seek help, or just let it be because you’re “not a doctor”?
In any case, should the guy go top himself, just remember a lot of people here offered ridicule, instead of help.
BTW, I am in no way defending what he has written.
NathanL says
I find it quite fascinating that people here will attack someone for ridiculing a persons looks or sexual orientation or whatever, and rightly so, but then that same person will happily ridicule someone who would seem to be not well mentally.
By all means, ridicule most MRA dudebros. But in this particular case, I think a profession health care worker might be more suitable.
Tabby Lavalamp says
Context is everything, even (especially?) with “I’m going to kill myself.” A lot of people use that as a tool for manipulation with no intent to ever actually do it. Sure, sometimes they do mean it, but nobody should ever allow that threat to be used to keep them in a situation that they want to get out of.
NathanL says
So given that his suicide threats may or may not be real, we throw bile and ridicule just in case. Seems to be the best way to handle it… the internet is after all 90% hate and 10% bullshit. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em I guess.
lesherb says
Where did you find this guy’s memes? There’s obviously something wrong with him mentally. He’s either going to hurt himself or some poor innocent 18.5 year old.
Is there any way to notify his family/employer/psychiatrist? These memes are a BIG RED FLAG.
Krasnaya Koshka says
Once upon a time in my youth there was this guy who hounded me for sex because I had “good, strong corpuscles. I can tell by your nail beds. Do you know what corpuscles are? They’re important for strong progeny.” Besides being creepy and condescending, was he mentally unstable? He was my boss.
Later, I was constantly asked out by this guy who said our children would have perfect eyebrows. He was my boss’s boss. “Y’know, I’m a bit hirsute but you’re hairless and I think that would lead to perfect eyebrows for our kids.” Because that’s a thing I’ve ever thought about. Especially when I went to him to complain about my boss. Yes, I’m only thinking about my never-going-to-happen children.
I think men are just not privy to what other men say to women on the daily. This is the norm, in my experience. “OlympiaAtheist” sounds like nearly every dude in my youth.
Akira MacKenzie says
Cat Mara @ 50
I fear I’m a little on the codependent side, so I’m the exact opposite. When I was with my college girlfriend, it felt wonderful. After years of being picked-on, belittled, and rejected for who I am, I thought I was with someone who liked me and was interested in me despite me flaws. I felt so great that I didn’t realize our relationship was failing until she dumped me when she realized what a high maintenance train wreck my life is. It was the worst day of my life so far, but I’d give anything to be someone like that again.
However, the older I get, the more and more I realize that’s never going to be. How many single women are there out there who be attracted to an impoverished, middle-aged, possibly autistic, fat man with chronic depression, ADHD, and no prospects who plays RPGs and likes science fiction?
Not many, I’d wager.
CHARLES says
OK confession time. My partner of 13 years is 17 years younger than me but that still means she was 34 when we found each other. It was her choice to take up with me and it remains her choice to stay with me.
The idea that I would have even tried to date her when I was 34 and she was 17 is horrifying to me.
Akira Mackenzie @63 – there’s an excellent chance you will find someone, if a person with my mental issues can end up happy then there’s hope for everyone.
Caine says
NathanL @ 60:
I’ve read a whole lot of comments that are not bile and ridicule. I’ve known more than a few men like Mr. Werner. Entitlement is an actual thing, y’know. I’m not nearly as concerned about Mr. Werner as I am about any woman he decides to fix on. Like a number of people in this thread, my life experience informs me that this is not an uncommon attitude for some guys to have, and I’d seriously hesitate to play armchair psychiatrist.
That said, as you are so very concerned, as the local cop shop has already dealt with him, contact them and express your concern. Or, I’m sure you can find a way to contact Mr. Werner via his website, and express your concerns directly. Why you think sitting at your keyboard pointlessly castigating people for not sharing your exact viewpoint is the important thing to do, I don’t know. I have a theory or two, but I’ll refrain from expounding.
Karen Locke says
It isn’t the wanting a younger woman so much as the absolute, unadulterated CREEPINESS of this creature. I’m also not put off by him asking a barista out, so much as whatever he wrote must have been creepy as hell if police got involved. And he’s so creepy, he probably doesn’t have a clue as to what she objected to. What slime.
I know of a single man, traveling a regular route on business, who was enchanted by a young waitress at the restaurant where he stopped to eat. It turned out he was seven years older than she was. He didn’t ask her out while she was working, but he showed up at the end of her shift to invite her to dinner on her off night. I don’t know if she accepted right then or waited, thought about it, and called him. I do know he would have asked in such a way that she wouldn’t have felt pressured at all, since that would have chased her off very quickly. But he wasn’t creepy. He was a gentleman. And though she’d sworn off relationships, having grown up in a very dysfunctional household, she eventually dated him. They saw each other off and on for four years, whenever he was in town. They eventually married in 1942, two days before he went off to war. He did come home. These were my parents. The marriage lasted until her death in 2002, and was a reasonably happy one.
I compare my father’s gentlemanly behavior with this brazen creep’s memes, and he nauseates me all the more. Gah!
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says
Here‘s what that “innocent note” to the barista probably looked like (not the actual note, but to someone else who received a note from Lucas allegedly). Can’t verify the authenticity of the note, but I have no reason to doubt it either.
NathanL says
I didn’t say they were all bile and ridicule, now did I? Making shit up is the specialty of the right.
For me to suggest that they guy may have mental problems is not a psychiatric diagnosis. As I said earlier, I’d suggest anyone who expresses a desire to kill themselves should seek medical help. I wouldn’t point the finger and laugh. Maybe if Mr Werner were to get the help he quite possibly needs, it would save you needing to be concerned for anyone. Asside form the suicide ideation, they could also possibly treat his entitlement issues. As I said above, I in no way condone what he is saying.
“Why you think sitting at your keyboard pointlessly castigating people for not sharing your exact viewpoint is the important thing to do, I don’t know.”
That is extremely rich coming from a commenter on this blog. I have been a reader here for years, rarely comment for this exact reason. The reason being that there seems to be an unusually high number of self-righteous assholes. Expouse away.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
NathanL #68
spoing
Silentbob says
@ 68 NathanL
How does one expouse?
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says
How the fuck did I get lumped into the same group as this asshole? I have a “mental health” issue but I don’t want to do anything this guy does. He clearly knows it’s wrong and unacceptable but he chooses to reject those mores in place of his own. He even attempts (failingly) to justify them rationally. That doesn’t typify mental illness just because what he is attempting to justify behooves us to condemn the same.
NathanL says
@70
Apologies for my typo. I meant expound, clearly.
@71
I’ll assume that’s directed at me. I’m not sure where I stated that all people with mental health issues have the same thought processes as this guy. I also have had mental health issues throughout my life, and would never consider doing what he has done or write what he has written. I have also had direct experience of suicide, and think it’s better to at least try to help rather than point and laugh. I think it’s pretty clear this guy has issues that could do with being addressed by a competent mental health practitioner.
Anyway, I’m done. I would stick around to chat but foresee exactly how this will pan out.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
@NathanL
If you have the spine to point at mental illness you should have the spine to point at the features of mental illness present. Get to lazy piece of shit. Which mental illness? What features are present? How do they impact on reasoning abilities?
So far you are useless for more than painting all people labeled mentally ill with whatever undescribed shit lies in your mind.
spamamander, internet amphibian says
I have to wonder if he ever frequented the Spokane Daiquiri Factory- the one that featured the “Date Grape Koolaid” drink.
And… gtfo of my state please.
unclefrogy says
this guy I do not know what to say. there have been as with many subjects here opinions from all over place.
this subject brings to mind an old song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y
uncle frogy
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
NathanL #72
I doubt it.
You really have no clue how stupid you are.
Bless your heart and have a nice day.
NathanL says
@73
Did you just call me a piece of shit? Charming.
Did you read the link in the article?
I would have thought that someone saying they wish to kill themselves, and it’s not in the context of “If you don’t do this, I will kill myself” (although I’d assume that would point to a few issues as well), it’s just “I want to kill myself”, they might not be 100% OK. Would you not agree? As I’ve said, I’m no doctor, but I’d suggest to that person that they seek help.
If someone wishes to point out, nicely, why I am wrong, not just about the above paragraph, but the entire situation, then I will be happy to stand corrected.
NathanL says
@76
And you’re an asshole. You have a nice day also.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
golly
2 spoings in a single thread.
is there a spoing/bingo interface?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
You appear to have real problem with YOUR attitude.
I know I am waiting for you to understand the problem. Which is “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
You assert mental illness without evidence. So, we return the favor. Show us your data, and back it up with citations. Then you might be taken seriously.
NathanL says
He say many times on his page “I want to kill myself”. Is that not evidence?
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
NathanL #78
If you are saying that someone has a “mental illness”, you must say which “mental illness”.
And back it up with descriptions of which behaviours match the criteria in the DSM.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
@NathanL
So let’s get this straight. You are willing to sling “mental illness” at the person in the post despite the fact that the term covers a huge range of things, and the fact that non-mentally I’ll people are capable of terrible things. And I’m the bad guy for calling you a lazy piece of shit. Seriously, have you ever looked at human history? We are capable of fucked up shit. Pull your head out of your ass because it’s blinding your reasoning abilities where it is.
I’ll upgrade you to cowardly lazy piece of shit since you don’t have the guts to tie any of that stuff in your last comment to a diagnosis with actual diagnostic criteria. Did you think we just accepted any old application of medical labels here? Get the fuck over yourself.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
Nathan, if that’s evidence TIE IT TO A FUCKING DIAGNOSIS WITH DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA. Put you money where your fucking cowardly, ignorant, lazy mouth is.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Show me it isn’t a device simply to get attention, and he really means it.
NathanL says
I am not a medical practitioner. It is not for me to say what problems he might have. Although, anyone who says “I wan’t to kill myself”, in my opinion, should seek professional help. Do you disagree? Or do we just assume he’s fine, despite the fact that he has said multiple times in his own words on his own page that he wishes to die, and feel free to attack?
I apologize if I have somehow offended you. It was not my intention. I am in now way defending the quite horrible things he has said and done. My only point was that it might be better to offer help than hate.
NathanL says
@85
Well that it could well be. And if that is the case then ridicule away. I’ll err on the side of caution, as I have no way of knowing one way or the other.
microraptor says
Do you get that these two statements are mutually exclusive?
NathanL says
@88
Fair point.
Given the guy has expressed that he wishes to kill himself, whether that be for real or attention seeking, do you think it’s OK to go all out attack?
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
@NathanL
If you are not a medical practitioner don’t fucking apply a medical label and whine about people calling you out on it. Seeking professional help =/= “mentally ill”. You get sloppier and sloppier as pieces of shit on the internet tend to.
GET A FUCKING DIAGNOSIS OR PROVE YOURSELF A COWARD INCAPABLE OF HANDLING WHAT OUR KIND CAN REALLY BE LIKE. The hate I am offering is solely directed at your shitty reasoning ability and you are only being asked to defend your words.
It’s amazing the bullshit a mind under rational challenge can come up with.
NathanL says
Ok then. I was quite happy to have a discussion about where I was wrong. I don’t have the benefit of a university education unfortunately, but am happy to be corrected and learn.
But you are just a disgusting human being. I’m done. Go fuck yourself.
Silentbob says
@ NathanL
Thing is, it’s consistently, “have sex with me or I will kill myself”. That’s a paraphrase, here’s a direct quote:
Do you think it’s conceivable the suicide threat is a manipulative tactic?
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
NathanL
One way to would be to respond to people by their nym in addition to the comment number.
That way they may be more willing …
.
ofuknvermnd
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says
Seeing right through this attempt at tone trolling by allegedly sticking up for an alleged mentally ill person because everyone in the thread allegedly went too far. Just saying.
Rowan vet-tech says
@92, Silentbob-
That’s exactly the sort of thing my emotionally manipulative 2nd stalker would say. And he decided that he wanted me, and I clearly wanted him, because I was nice to him in class and during study groups. He never once intended to actually do it. He just wanted to try to make me do things.
No mental illness required at all, just being an asshole.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
Nathan wants a discussion?
They tie the behavior of the person in the post to mentally ill people broadly without any sign of having identified actual signs of mental illness that can be tied to actual diagnostic criteria. And they want a discussion. Yeah, I’m going have a discussion with the person who ties disturbing behavior to mental illness and whines about suicidal ideation AFTER they are called out on it.
@NathanL
Fun fact. People with mental illness have to put up with insulting bullshit from people like you on a regular basis. You leaving because you can’t take the same in return is no loss. It’s a weakness for you to be unable to deal with content and emotional intensity at the same time and that is a weakness I am happy to exploit when you act like you just did.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
throwaway #94
I don’t think that’s what happened…
maybe
oh dear …
Jeff Jones says
Jeff Jones says
Jeff Jones says
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
In the MRI run after her stroke that shows a large dark spot on her right side, and the residual paralysis on her left side. I have a copy of the MRI in the next room.
As for stroke: Hemorrhagic Stroke.
That is more than what Nathan is doing.
What do you really want, besides showing us you are an asshole?
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
So,
Jeff Jones #98, who are you, really?
Which returning troll?
What’s your issue?
Why does Nerd make you so whiney?
A. Noyd says
Oh, if only all of us mentally ill regulars could have someone come teach us how to be cautious as candyfloss in a cloudburst around “mentally ill” misogynists lest we, in our ill-mannered insensitivity, inadvertently goad them into carrying through with their manipulative threats.
Silentbob says
@ 100 Jeff Jones
Um… what? The link is in the OP. It’s his website that he promotes in every one of his weird memes.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
@Jeff Jonez
>”Hey, Nerd: show ME that your allegedly sick wife “isn’t a device simply to get attention”.”
I see we have another coward who can’t point out bad reasoning without irratuonally bringing other people into it. Insults attached to content are one thing, insults divorced from ones point are simple pissing on fences. Insults recruiting people not otherwise involved in the discussion at hand are the textual version of human shields. Fucking disgusting. Either Nerd is wrong or they are not. People can bring up thier family for rational reasons and you did no work in showing that there was any problem.
Lazy, disgusting, craven collection of lines on a screen.
Jeff Jones says
Jeff Jones says
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
déjà vu
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says
@Jeff
>”( I think we all know the answer to that)”
Leave me out of this. I find that people who need to rhetorically appeal to the crowd in such a manner are not people I actually agree with on average. I’ll take that gamble. Keep your appeals to yourself coward.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
So,
Jeff Jones, who are you, really?
Which returning troll?
What’s your current issue?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Look in the mirror Miles. Your assholery knows no bounds.
Show us with Peer Reviewed evidence you aren’t a grade “A” asshole.
I doubt if you know how to cite the literature, based on your previous assholery, and whether the literature backs up YOUR claims.
A. Noyd says
Jeff Jones (#106)
Or we could just ignore you as the irrelevant, bumbling, wanna-be provocateur you are as we wait for PZ to ban your pathetic ass for the who-knows-how-many-th time. Hahahaha.
chigau (ever-elliptical) says
Well
it’s late
PZ is asleep
tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow
FossilFishy (NOBODY, and proud of it!) says
….creeps in this petty pace from day to day until the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays lighted fool the way to dusty death. Out out brief candle. “Tis some poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It’s a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.*
Huh, fits our sockpuppet pretty well if you take it more literally than Willy intended.
*From memory. Pretty sure it isn’t completely correct. Apologies to the bard and any who care.
rq says
FossilFishy
‘Cept when it comes to trolls, the candle is rarely brief.
Silentbob says
@ 114 FossilFishy
That’s awesome, well done.
(source)
FossilFishy (NOBODY, and proud of it!) says
rg That made me laugh. Cheers. I hope things are well in your world.
Thanks Silentbob. Much closer than I thought it would be. Mind you actors memorise waaaay more than those few lines, and get it right. :)
petesh says
@ 117, FossilFishy: Richard Burton, in his youth (about 1953 IIRC), performed a notable Hamlet in London. One night, he later told an interviewer (Michael Parkinson?), he was a bit put off by a constant rumbling from the first row. Then he realized what it was: Winston Churchill, the then Prime Minister, had memorized the entire play and was reciting it, word for word, along with the actors on stage.
There sure has been some ruction on this thread. Pity about that.
Akira MacKenzie says
The scary thing is that as repugnant as I find the asshole’s overall behavior, there is part of me that can empathize with him. I know what it’s like to be lonely and sexually frustrated. While I realize that no one owes me their attention, much less sex, I still want to have it and it’s embarrassing, infuriating, and depressing that I can’t fulfill my desires when it seems that everyone can find a partner so easily. I wonder how often I get dubbed a “creep” after a stutter and stammer my way through a conversation with a woman whom I like.
Still, not an excuse.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
Where you’re wrong is that reflexively blaming every norm-deviant and harmful thing a [white] person does on “mental illness” harms people who are actually mentally ill by stigmatizing them, and tends to excuse people acting out of entitlement, prejudice, and disregard for the humanity of others as “just can’t help it.”
This ain’t rocket science.
Um, he (correct me if mistaken) did a thing you found shitty. Aren’t you being inconsistent by not assuming he’s “mentally ill” and treating him with kid gloves?
NathanL says
@120
Thank you for your at least civil post. I am in no way suggest that what he has said in excusable, mental illness or not. As mentioned earlier, there are plenty of creeps out there who do the same thing without the suicidal bent. For what it’s worth, I have a diagnosed history of chronic depression, and am on medication and have been for the last 20 odd years. I don’t say this to seek anyone’s sympathy, just a background of where I come at this from.
My only point I was trying to make, badly as it turns out, is that should he be legitimately expressing suicidal ideation, maybe the better option may be to atleast try to help him seek support, instead of ridicule.
One last point I’ll make here, is that should people here want others to see their point of view, and to learn when they make mistakes, they can do better than to verbally assault people by calling them ignorant fools, or whatever it was the two people above said.
I am now done with this blog. This is not a community I want any involvement with.
Cerberus is working overtime at the outrage factory says
That’s… a lot of child molester red flags he’s throwing up, including the gross attempt to justify trying to sleep with a 16-year-old.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Jeff Jones
It’s very easy: Are there any posts past the one where he threatens suicide? Is he still alive? If he is, he didn’t mean it.
+++
Wow, amazing. There’s this dude who is so creepy a poor barista had to call the cops on him, who threatens women with suicide, who is after teenagers (easy to manipulate targets), but of course there’s a legion of other dudes having all sympathy for him and not an ounce of sympathy for his victims and all the women who have to put up with that dude in their lives at one point or other.
They go for “mentally ill” to other the dude and pretend that he’s some sort of exception and not a dime a dozen, a kind of guy so common that almost all women here have a story to tell about some dude who tried to convince them that his dick and his alone was what they needed right now.
Of course what they never do is head over to his place and say “hey mate, you OK? Wanna talk about this? You seem to be in a bad place, can I get you help?”
PZ Myers says
“Jeff Jones” is the banned commenter “miles links”. Clean up in progress.
mickll says
@ Akira
Yeah lots of us have been there, I get loneliness, frustration et al but for me really, it makes no difference. The guy also says he’s currently homeless on his FB page-I’ve been there too. I’m still not sympathetic. Someone promoting an ideology that says it’s OK for 30 somethings to sexually prey on minors is a bad person, period.
CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice says
Who could have guessed?
Oh, right, we all did. Obvious troll is obvious.
lostbrit says
Are there any posts past the one where he threatens suicide? Is he still alive? If he is, he didn’t mean it.
Hmm. Around 750,000 people in the US attempt suicide every year and fortunately only around 35,000 die. Does this mean the others simply didn’t mean it? Yes, some of these will be cries for help and lots of people who “threaten” suicide are also crying out for help or trying to emotionally manipulate people. However none of this changes the fact that “help” is needed – although that help can range from restraining orders, prison time through to a lifetime in a care facility.
I am not sure that pointing out this person appears to have sufficiently non-normal behaviour / attitudes that it seems likely a mental health professional should be called in to assess him is the same as saying I have sympathy for him.
In this case, I really don’t. I don’t believe he should be allowed in public places and as he really needs to be prevented from having access to firearms. I feel this because I believe he has some genuine problems over and above being a dick.
Some examples of things which, as a non-professional, seem relevant are – Repetitive thoughts and behaviors, anger, depression, suicidal thoughts or the sociopathic approach to using threats of suicide to manipulate others. None of this is common behaviour, although the evidence here is that it isn’t as rare as it should be.
The point here, though, is I am not a doctor. I have no special insight into mental health assessments, I am merely expressing an opinion that the behaviour here seems to be in line with some form of mental health issue. Its just my opinion, if you don’t agree, I can live with that.
This isn’t trivialising people with mental health issues, it isn’t saying they are all the same, it isn’t saying he is excused for his actions because of it. If you have read it that way, then that might be more an issue with how you assume the world is interacting with you.
Of course what they never do is head over to his place and say “hey mate, you OK? Wanna talk about this? You seem to be in a bad place, can I get you help?”
Probably one of the best, most relevant, sentences I’ve ever read.
For me this is the biggest problem with saying “this person needs help” over the internet. It doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t achieve anything.
PZ Myers says
Don’t read his facebook fans. There are several other creepy dudes who think he is a hero chiming in.
Akira MacKenzie says
mickll @ 125
Agreed. Sometimes I need the rest of humanity to help me keep perspective.
Derek Vandivere says
#128: Some of whom are apparently (pretending to be?) women. Ick.
Whatever his issues are, I hope they get addressed before he hurts somebody or himself.
Derek Vandivere says
#127 / LostBrit:
In other words, it’s a comment on a blog. (:
numerobis says
Age difference isn’t a problem in and of itself. Power difference is. Dehumanization is.
This guy is creepy because he preys on women.
lindsay says
Even if the guy really means that he will kill himself if a particular woman won’t date him, he’s still a fucking asshole. Sometimes suicide is a last act of hostility.
jefrir says
lostbrit
And I could really do without the suggestion that people with mental health issues shouldn’t be allowed in public places.
Look, it might be that he is depressed as well as being an asshole (no other mental health issue would be indicated if the only symptom is suicide threats, and being an asshole isn’t a symptom). If that’s the case, he may benefit from some medication and/or therapy. With really good therapy and a lot of hard work from him, he might even change the asshole part – but I see no reason to think he’d put in the effort needed for that, especially when he’s surrounded by people, and a society, telling him he’s behaving reasonably and there’s nothing wrong with a middle-aged man feeling entitled to sex with teenagers.
I’ll save my sympathy for the women who have to put up with him and men like him.
unclefrogy says
it sure looks to me like there is an irrational reaction when someone mentions mental illness in connection with any subject here.
all cries for evidence are glossed over and people are written off and condemned in all directions.
I have not heard or read anyone here actually objectively explain just what mental illness means nor for that matter what emotionally disturbed might mean and what significance it has.
it always goes this way every time regardless of the subject. There might be some significance to that reaction you know like where there is smoke there is fire.
Gregory Greenwood says
The sheer extent of his sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, and the obvious resentment he feels over the way that women reasonably disagree with his assessment, is very much a cause for concern. Even if ‘all’ he is doing is shooting off his mouth, sometimes this kind of ongoing obsessive language can presage action, and even if he personally isn’t the type to do anything more than talk, he is still contributing to the toxic environment of ever increasingly strident and vitriolic misogyny that women everywhere have to wade through every day.
Then there is the possibility that his bigoted fellow travelers in MRA/PUA circles could have their own sexist preconceptions about gender relations further reinforced by his ranting, and there is always the chance that one or more of their number may be inclined to take that harmful reinforcement of their obsessions as impetus to do more than fulminate over how supposedly unfair their lot in life is and instead do something horrifying.
Ultimately, speculation as to his mental state is largely moot and runs the risk of unnecessary splash damage to innocent people – the public position he has adopted is sufficiently dangerous in itself that he should be avoided like the plague, and if law enforcement actually cared enough about women’s safety to get off their collective backside (a slim chance at best I know) then they would be watching him closely, just in case.
unclefrogy says
why?
what the hell is mental illness any way?
there are acceptable kinds of behavior are there acceptable kinds of mental illness? are there unacceptable kinds of mental illnesses?
what constitutes innocent people? At what time does one pass from innocent to guilty?
When does the innocent victim of say child abuse who later acts out there victimization with others go from innocent to guilty? Why?
uncle frogy
Cerberus is working overtime at the outrage factory says
Abusers sometimes threaten suicide to control. It’s horrible because suicide is a serious issue that people want to treat seriously, but it’s worth noting how someone is using it and if they’re trying to use it to work around a woman’s consent because that’s not uncommon (my ex was targeted by an abuser in her life who threatened to kill himself whenever she tried to escape him).
Jessica Whitaker says
Just over halfway through his odd website manifesto he claims he was diagnosed as bipolar in 2000 and remains unmedicated for it. I guess he receives disability payments because he says that’s why he has money.
Gregory Greenwood says
unclefrogy @ 137;
Attempted remote diagnosis, especially by unqualified persons, isn’t helpful because it plays into a discourse of associating any unethical or undesirable behaviour with mental illness, meaning here a broad catch all term for a range of diagnoseable psychological conditions, but all too often also vaguely employed to reference any behaviour considered aberrant by mainstream (and, lets not forget, hetero and cis normative, and often racist and ableist and generally socially regressive) society by default. On many, many occasions both in contemporary culture and throughout much of history, mental illness (and a wide range of other terms and colloquialisms amounting to the same thing) has been used as a lazy shorthand for ‘evil’, thus leaving those people who actually are diagnosed suffers of psychological conditions not only likely targets of undeserved opprobrium from society at large on the basis that if terrorists, criminals and assorted other forms of bad people are always ‘crazy’, and you are by your own admission ‘crazy’, then you must also be a bad person, and should be treated accordingly. This can lead to difficulty in people accessing the medical care they need for fear of the social (and, should the worldview spread far enough, legal) consequences of their condition becoming known, and can also further compound their condition through the internalization of the narrative that mental illness = personal moral failing of some kind, which would undermine self esteem and could further fracture whatever sense of self and stability they have been able to cultivate.
Then there is the related issue of the convenient othering that blaming mental illness can provide for those members of society who don’t have any diagnosed mental illness and generally conform to expected societal norms. If harmful social behaviouir is the result of mental illness – of difference – then those privileged by being able to readily identify with the mainstream of our culture can easily wash their hands of the whole issue, and pretend that only ‘crazies’ do that sort of thing, and so it is only an issue with regard to a handful of outliers on the fringes of society, and has no connection to deep seated social attitudes or mores. The likes of rapists and active paedophiles conveniently become just freaks and weirdos with strange, unknowably inhuman minds, and we don’t have to deal with the issues surrounding the rape culture that helped create these predators and helped them prey upon their targets with near impunity for years. Domestic abusers and those who murder women are just ‘violent thugs with a screw loose’ who just happen to hate women – no need to consider how our society’s layers of encrusted misogyny and narratives of the male sexual ownership of female spouses could have contributed to this situation. It’s all just ‘nutters’ drinking deep of the well of cray-cray, amiright? Sad, but what are you gong to do? it is just like being the victim of a natural disaster; tragic but next to impossible to predict, so it is just one of those day to day risks you should just try not to think about lest it blight your life unduly. This isn’t hypothetical – this is the way society was for decades with regards to all kinds of social issues that could easily be laid at the door of ‘madness’ and then safely and conveniently ignored.
And the damage doesn’t even stop there. When ‘madness’ is so broad a term that it is next to meaningless and can be redefined to cover whatever the social elite wish it to cover, then it becomes easy to, say, define homosexuality as a mental illness, with all the ugly judgemental attitudes and brutish oppression that can come with that label, as was the case in the United States until terrifyingly recently.
Throwing around the term ‘mentally ill’ (or any variant thereof) in a situation like this is not a value or consequence free statement. That is worth bearing in mind, especially when dealing with an individual whose attitudes are so repellent that our first, subconscious instinct might be to distance ourselves from him as quickly and comprehensively as possible, and the temptation of an easy (but as already noted, very dangerous) label to do so is always so very readily within reach.
WMDKitty -- Survivor says
And I see you all behaved exactly as NathanL predicted.
unclefrogy says
@140
that all sounds like a listing of the biases with regard to “mental illness” and the associated societal reactions to “it”.
wading around in all of that is wading in politics and the associated beliefs.
That is the starting place. The reality that people have effects on each other and people are mentally ill even if there is no agreement to what constitutes mental illness.
If as we have discussed here many times , are more strongly influenced by culture than genes. Then we learn how to think we learn who we are, we learn what the world is we learn we discover.
maybe I am asking something to fundamental here.
Nothing here offers any thing with regards mental illness certainly not the long list offered.
the reaction seems to resemble the reaction to sex and gender questions.
the question of mental illness seems to be a threatening question so we avoid the question with labels and reasons.
We do not shy away from the question of what is reality made of and build incredible machines that try to answer that question. Why is mental illness so troubling?
uncle frogy
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
And Nathan L never showed that the suicide threats were anything other than a tool to make women even look at him. I’ve know men who scared women off with their attitudes and behavior. Claiming to be suicidal to scare/coerce the woman into sex/marriage would be consistent with their evidenced behavior.
Which is what Nathan L needed to, from his computer and the on-line DSM, needed to be able to determine with some accuracy what the real reason for the threats were that the writer, and he was in fact, suicidal. Nathan L wouldn’t/couldn’t do it, not being a mental health professional. Which meant he should have backed down from any broad claims.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
I also want to add, at one time, it was fairly easy to “put away” some eccentric rich relative so that you could control/embezzle their estate. An example was seen in the vintage movie (which the Redhead on in the last week) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, where a crooked lawyer almost was able to get someone trying to do good (essentially homesteading for farmers in the Great Depression era) committed, since wasn’t keeping the estate intact to be embezzled if the land was used in that way.
Nowadays, unless the author of the OC idiocy is found to be a direct harm to himself or someone else, it is extremely difficult to “lock them up”, or even to require them to be medicated. My suspicions are that Nathan L would be for “locking him up for his good”.
whirlwitch says
For some reason I’m looking through this guy’s whole rambling whiny screed. And it’s pretty damn predictable, but my brain came to a bit of a screeching halt here:
“Think of the diploid pattern of all dual gendered life. The old apple rots until there are male seeds in the ground, so the young blossom can pollinate the new sapling with female pollen a generation newer. The old male stud horse mates with the young female filly a generation newer to bring a gelding child into the world. ”
THAT IS LITERALLY NOT AT ALL HOW THAT WORKS. I don’t care how dedicated to being creepy, entitled and wrongheaded you are, learn how apple trees work. And what a gelding is. Children – of “intra-ageil” relationships even! – can learn these basic facts. Why can’t you? And honestly, if your argument is that older fathers produce gelded children, that’s…not one that serves species survival all that well.
I’m not touching the rest. Blarf, and a murrain upon his telomeres.
WhiteHatLurker says
Okay, it’s just my reading ability, but the title threw me. I parsed that as the guy’s name is Spokane and he’s living in Washington (state, capital region, who cares). Is that comma really necessary?
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Again on the “mental illness” angle:
It works and inflicts harm in several ways:
First: As an othering device. As Gregory points out, it removes the responsibility of society. Just call this guy crazy and you don’t have to examine how Holliwood constantly casts young women and old men to play lovers. How many men are revered who basically raped children, from God himself to your kings and so on, and so on.
Second: Read some Foucault. Psychiatry has long played a vital role in supporting the status quo, in shaping the discourse on certain matters. I will grant that contemporary psychology and psychiatry are trying to do better, but that doesn’t erase the legacy, especially in public discourse.
Third: It does harm to people with mental illness to be lumped in with dudes like this. He may have bipolar, but that’s certainly not what makes him a misogynist.
Fourth: by stigmatising mental illness such it makes it much harder for people to recognise that they might need mental healthcare and it makes them afraid to seek it, because in public discourse it would make it one of them
+++
whirlwitch
That’s what I’ve been thinking as well. Uhm…
+++
Cerberus
Tell me about it. It’s one my abusive mother happily used against me, which is the reason why I’m not going to happily pat somebody who is obviously using it in such a manner on the back and ask nicely if I can do anything for him.
When somebody holds a knife to your throat you don’t have to wonder why they do so.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
You should ask yourselves: what does discussing “mental illness” add to the discourse, what does it remove, which purpose does it serve.
Of course it has already achieved one thing: we’re no longer discussing this dudes misogyny, entitlement and coercive tactics but whether or not we should talk about mental illness. I hope you’re being proud of it.
CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice says
Gregory Greenwood, thank you for that post @140. As someone living with several serious mental conditions (I got the family-size bucket of extra-craycray), it means a lot to me to see people standing up to say these things. Thank you.
lostbrit says
jefrir
This isn’t a suggestion I’ve made. I believe this person should be prevented from accessing public places not every single person who has any form of mental illness. The fact there are people with mental illnesses which make them a risk to others doesn’t mean that every person with any mental illness should be.
@Derek Vandivere #131
Exactly :-)
cartomancer says
One of the most pernicious and harmful cultural myths we harbour is at work here. The notion that those of us afflicted with sexual desires are incomplete and invalid unless we can realise them in the company of other people. The notion that the fantasy of sex is not enough, and must be supplemented with its analogue in re extra.
It’s a message that we are bombarded with ceaselessly. Sex must involve at least two people. Masturbation and fantasy are not enough. You must pursue others and have sex with them or it doesn’t count. It’s maddening nonsense, and the cause of no end of anguish, strife, social awkwardness and, in a few extreme cases like this guy, profound ickiness.
It’s a somewhat illogical message really. People enjoy the fantasy of Mad Max, but wouldn’t want to live in an actual post-apocalyptic wasteland killing bandits for food. Fantasy is good. Fantasy is exciting and fulfilling and safe. But where sex is concerned society has made a concerted effort to convince us that it is not sufficient. “Wanker” is used as a term of abuse, when really it shouldn’t be. We see people who don’t have sex as sad and pathetic, and do our damnedest to convince them that this state of affairs is something to be ashamed of. A situation they need to do everything they possibly can to change. This rankles with me something chronic.
I suspect it goes back to traditional patriarchal notions of masculinity, tied up with religious and cultural reproductive sanctions. But it’s well past time we ditched this nonsense now.
unclefrogy says
one thing that strikes me about the reaction to the use of mental illness in these discussions is the claim that it is othering the individual, maybe even turning them into an object at the same time it offers an excuse for the offensive behavior. I have a hard time understanding contradictory arguments.
It seems just as othering to assign unforgivable guilt and judgment to some individual for what they do. Then you no longer have to consider them to be someone like any of us and then we can react to them without feeling anything for them at all.
many subjects on this blog challenge me to really think about what I think and where the thoughts come from and does any of it make sense .
uncle frogy
khms says
Making this comment probably isn’t particularly wise, but then I never claimed to be wise. I don’t even have the excuse of being drunk, and yet I want to write this comment on a comment section that looks almost as bad as if it were on YouTube. And I certainly didn’t read more than maybe half (that was when the bile was rising a bit too rapidly).
In any case, I just want to remark on two things (and only on those two things), though given the climate I should probably first mention that I do not want to excuse the Creeper in any way, shape, or form. Or the food pictures.
So. Point one:
#80 Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
Oh wow. Talk about rich. (And I won’t even mention tone trolling.)
Point two: the diagnosis-or-shut-up debate (too many entries to pick just one).
Here’s an example, and you might ponder about where the analogy fails – or does it?
Say you see someone who’s throwing up, pale as a sheet. Can you say “hey, they should probably seek medical help”, if you don’t, at the same time, give an exact medical diagnosis? Maybe they’re just naturally pale and just throwing up as part of a bet?
Does the answer change when there’s an Ebola scare going on?
Charly says
khms, your comment has a point, but in the case of mental ilness being regularly thrown into topics like this one it misses many of the larger points being discussed. I think you should read all comments and try to pry the substance from the language you considers to be “bile”. There is a lot of substance to be found.
I am not going to repeat any points raised, but there is one point that I did not see anywhere in this topic yet:
Even anything else aside, there is one more reason why mental ilness does not need to be brought into the discussion at this level of evidence. That reason is parsimony principle, aka Occams razor.
There is one neat and simple explanation for all evidenced behaviour of this creep (including his threaths of self-harm) and that is his assholish entitlement and sense of owed privilege. There is absolutely no objective reason to seek additional explanation for only one part of the evidence (threats of self-harm), when there already is an explanation for all of it. It complicates the issue needlesly and brings the discussion here nowhere, because nothing usefull can be infered or deduced by bringing it up.
unclefrogy says
@154
I like simple answers to. no need for further thought or more information
yes indeed.
uncle frogy
Charly says
unlefrogy, yu are not usually being deliberately obtuse. You are being just that now.
Key phrases are “I am not going to repeat any points raised” and “at this level of evidence”.
If there is evidence that requires mental illness as an explanation, it should be presented prior to introducing mental illness into the discussion. Not vice versa. The parsimony principle applies to available evidence, it does not proclude seeking further evidence.
I do not see anyone proposing mental illness in this thread presenting any additional evidence for their claims. Only assertions.
John Morales says
Charly,
The sentiment seems to be that, if there’s any chance that it’s a mental health issue, then regardless of how bizarre and manipulative and unpleasant someone’s expressed positions, they should not be held personally responsible — and since bizarre and unpleasant positions can be a symptom of mental illness, there is such a chance, so that one should err on the side of caution before judging that person.
(cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_formulation )
unclefrogy says
If I am not mistaken the only time I have read on this thread that mental illness relieved one of personal responsibility was from those objecting to even bringing up mental illness. I could be wrong.
What I find interesting is the vehemence of the reaction of just bringing it up.
every f’n time it comes up
uncle frogy
microraptor says
Did you miss all the reasons listed for why there’s such vehemence against the suggestion? Because they’re also listed every f’n time it comes up.
unclefrogy says
OK I see that but the reaction seems to take that to imply that anything is OK if you are mentally ill which is kind of bizarre and irrational when what it seems to means is you wont be taken out and killed. correct?
uncle frogy
John Morales says
unclefrogy:
Go with that. Still means what’s being blamed is the illness, not the person themself.
Ctrl-F for ‘mental’ and you first find #29, with an appropriately snarky response from Saad.
Next one is #43, where the sentiment is that, because of the diagnosis of mental illness based on an explicit personal refusal to accept it might be other than that, the person should be kept away from the public. Note: the justification for that is not because of their actions, but because they’re mentally-ill as indicated by their actions.
In particular, next comes NathanL @55, who explicitly exculpates the pervert (suggesting he needs help rather than censure) on the basis of his purported mental illness (a comment which Tabby Lavalamp promptly punctures).
That comment is contrary to your quoted claim, no?
Perhaps people object to stigmatising mental illness on the basis of its facile attribution to such people as the featured specimen.
—
[addendum after refresh before posting]
No. It’s the objection to the stigmatisation of mental illness suggested by such facile attributions of it.
Again: that mentally-ill people may exhibit bizarre beliefs doesn’t entail that everyone with bizarre beliefs is therefore mentally-ill.
(Personally, I find many mainstream attitudes and beliefs rather bizarre)
—
As an aside, the sometime-commenter here SC makes a good case that much of what is considered to be mental illness is done so on a rather subjective basis (well, SC makes a much stronger claim than that, but that’s as far as I am persuaded).
snuffcurry says
@Akira, 63 and throughout
Probably about the same number of single men who would be attracted to impoverished, middle-aged [et al] women, single women to women, single men to men, and so forth. Being lonely, no longer sufficiently “young,” never physically attractive according to prevailing standards, having atypical interests from the mean, and so forth are general but not universal experiences; straight men don’t own them and theirs is not a plight more or less poignant because they are straight and male. Ugly, fat, “mentally ill” women exist and are not given pity shags and pity relationships. We hear less about and from them because they generally do not develop elaborate explanations for their condition or propagate complex philosophies that cast them as tragic and misunderstood heroines in a world that will rue the day it forgot or set them aside.
Women are used to being especially and disproportionately invisible; in discussions about men stalking, manipulating, and abusing women out of desperation, loneliness, misogyny, and entitlement, positioning the male experience as needing more, rather than less, elaboration is inadvisable.
I wonder why it is necessary to project uncharitable, judgmental feelings upon women you say you like* when there’s plenty of examples right here of “creepy” behavior that deserves the epithet and is in no way related to stuttering or stammering (which, again, are speech behaviors men do not own).
It would be peachy if we could not continue to subtly endorse the implication of women (their inconvenient choices, needs, desires, interests, attractions, ambitions, goals, orientations, identities, alignments, and own well-developed ideas about relationships and sex or lack thereof) being the reason some men are heterosocially and heteroromantically lonely, uncoupled, or not sexxxed-up enough for their liking. We do not damn the unacceptably high standards of individual men when we note the existence of Involuntarily Undersexed Women (whom we rarely note at all and never with empathy). This is particularly striking in cultures that judge women as accomplished only upon achieving benchmarks of interpersonal relationships (marriage, children) and men benchmarks of their professions, income, and possessions.
*meaning, there are reasons you like them, and their being otherwise uncharitable or judgmental are unlikely to rank among such reasons
khms says
What I see (correct me if I read this wrong) is a number of people vehemently asserting that any suspicion of mental illness (at least in a case of “bad” behavior), or that someone might profit from contact with relevant personnel, is automatically equivalent to an assertion that all mentally ill people exhibit bad behavior, and/or that mentally ill people are automatically excused for their bad behavior.
This is a claim that, sorry, I just cannot wrap my head around. If anything, I would expect that these passionate assertions lead exactly to the state they claim exist, because I don’t see anybody else intimating anything of the sort – and really, the so-called examples in this thread I find completely unconvincing.
Oh, I almost forgot, there is one other group of people I have heard at least complaining that mental health automatically excuses bad behavior: tough-on-crime conservatives.
John Morales says
khms, it’s about the linkages being made.
Here’s a post featuring a person with a kink and a sense of entitlement which nobody in the comments has disputed is nasty.
After a few dozen comments, the discussion became about mental illness, and pretty much has stayed there. (We’re in the meta stage now)
Clearly, the one led to the other. The why of it is what’s of interest.
I suggest that it’s because of the progressive ethos of this blog.
(In other blogs and forums, the discussion would have followed one of a number of different trajectories)
A. Noyd says
John Morales (#161)
To build on this: We don’t have a culture of restricting angry, entitled misogynists’ access to the rest of society. (Rather the opposite.) But we do have a culture of restricting mentally ill people’s access to the rest of society.
So if we can say Werner is mentally ill, we can far more easily justify keeping him away from people. We can feel good about trying to “protect” people without the bother of challenging whose freedoms it’s morally acceptable to restrict and whose we must hold sacred.
It doesn’t matter if you (generally speaking) say you aren’t using mental illness to excuse Werner’s behavior. It doesn’t matter if you recognize his transgressions are based in something other than mental illness. You’re still trying to exploit institutionalized inequality to create some kind of “solution.”*
Meanwhile, we have virulent misogynists like Milo Y. who don’t rate enough Timecubes to embody the popular conception of mental illness. He’s just been handed a $250K invitation to expand his platform. And that sort of bullshit happens because people more readily associate people like Werner with those like me rather than with Milo and his ilk.
And that is what happens when you bring the red herring of mental illness into the “solution” for misogyny. Focusing on mental illness just makes the wrong thing socially unacceptable. It doesn’t change what needs to be changed; it just ends up with the rest of us mentally ill folk incurring splash damage as society stays comfortable with tightening down our rights in the name of “security.”
…………
* And don’t bring up pragmatism. Pragmatism is for those with a realistic chance of intervening and a pressing need to do so. The rest of us, who are merely airing opinions, have no such excuse.
mesh says
It’s not about excusing bad behavior in the mentally ill but rather externalizing it from humanity to absolve society of any need to own it.
A good example of this in action is the media race to get white shooters diagnosed with something. Elliot Rodger’s hatred of women followed a very predictable pattern but by instead making it about the search for whatever sickness must have been plaguing his mind this element became completely erased and thus society was successfully exonerated of misogynistic ideas. What should have opened discussion about the cultural constructs that became part of his ideology instead became an echo chamber of how tragic it is that socially awkward loners can mysteriously become possessed by the mental illness demon and shoot people.
There is mental illness but there are also major social problems that many would see swept under the rug. “Suspicion” of mental illness becomes a very useful tool in support of the status quo because it effectively shuts down discussion with something completely unfalsifiable. Indications of cultural patterns in the development of the behavior can be hand-waved away as unrepresentative of the normal, healthy population while the assertion itself need not be defended with anything greater than “hey, I’m not an expert, man!”
The course of discussion once the mental illness bomb has been deployed is so predictable that it’s hard not to get irritated due to the history of mental illness being used as society’s dumpster under the guise of understanding.
Charly says
@John Morales #157
That should, and one would hope it would, apply in a court of law. That is one of the reasons why defending lawyers so often try to pin some mental illness on perpetrators of violent crimes, in order to make them personally less responsible for their actions. If we were to apply it in our day-to-day decisions and discussions, we would be essentialy paralyzed, never being able to discuss/judge amoral individuals and their actions, because mental illness is such a vague term in itself that there is always a possibility of it playing a role in any crime and any dangerous etc. behaviour.
Mind you, IANAL, but where I live there is a category of mental issues that even though being relevant to crime commited, still do not absolve the perpetrator of responsibility, because some vague mental illness does not make one automatically incapable to morally judge their own actions.
In the case of this one individual, even if he were to suffer from f.e. depression, it is still completely irrelevant to him being morally responsible for his creepy behaviour. And if society made a better job at educating him and bringing him up instead of feeding his sense of male pride and entitlement, he would be able to recognize that being attracted to people significantly younger than him might not be a choice, but being creepy towards them, making creepy memes is. I am glad Rodger was brought up, he was too an individual like Werner – and he killed people.
There is very real danger that Werner will go berserk. He has all the symptoms – entitled white middle aged male in USA with easy acces to guns.
In Wen diagram there would be an overlap between the group “Dangerous” and “Mentaly ill”. There also would be overlap between “Dangerous” and “Not mentaly ill”. There would be even bigger overlap between “Dangerous” and many other groups. But society concentrates on the first overlap to the detriment of looking on the other ones (like, for example, always bringing it into focus regardles of other, more significant overlaps being discussed), thus ignoring the real causes of dangerous behaviour in lieu of a convenient, pre-made one. “Mental ilness” is the sacrificial lamb on the altar of status quoe in these discussions, as so nicely explained by mesh in #165.
tl dr – “Mental illness” in these discussions is a red herring, and a very old one at that.
cartomancer says
Snuffcurry, #62
I think you are right in pointing out that it is not just straight men who suffer feelings of depression and inadequacy when they contemplate the problem of not being attractive to preferred mates. It is not a malady unique to them. However, I think there is an important difference with straight men in that they get bombarded with cultural messages that they are somehow entitled to love and sex if they keep up their end of the bargain. This is a dominant cultural narrative propagated in books, TV, films and inherited cultural standards. Straight women and non-straight people get different messages – no less harmful in their own way, but conducive to different responses and different negative feelings.
You point out yourself that straight men (and I think we probably ought to say straight white men) tend to be the ones who come up with these kinds of elaborate justificatory rationalisations, and that strikes me as evidence that their situation is somewhat different psychologically. Women and gay men seem much more likely to respond to the same situation with self-loathing and generalised shaking of the fist at the unfairness of it all than by getting angry, blaming others and constructing complex conspiracy theories to mollify themselves. There is a lot going on here, but the sense of entitlement is an obvious key factor. We need to stop giving straight men these messages about entitlement and a cultural contract that guarantees them romantic fulfilment, but until such messages are no longer ubiquitous I think we have to recognise that they place certain psychic strains on straight men that others might not recognise.
Does this mean that we should treat straight men’s anguish with these issues as somehow more valid and important and worthy of attention than anyone else’s? No, clearly not. And they certainly mustn’t be excused or exonerated when their actions harm others. But we should take different actions to address such problems than just telling straight men to grow up and stop doing it because nobody else behaves in this way. Their sense of entitlement is not something they sat down and decided to have by themselves – they acquired it unconsciously from their culture. Yes, they’re a privileged social group and they get the lion’s share of cultural and media attention already, but that brings its own impositions. Being in the spotlight all the time creates expectations, and large numbers of straight men have internalised these unhelpful expectations. It would be nice if we could just fix the social messages we’re giving about entitlement and stop talking about straight men so much, but that wouldn’t help the ones who have already been damaged. We ought to be providing straight men with the tools, understanding and social support needed to resist these harmful messages and see them for what they are – it’s not enough to stop doing any further damage, we need to fix the damage that has already been done.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
1. Funny how everything at some points turns into “what we should do to help straight white dudes”
2. It’s not like this isn’t already happening/existing
3. It’s not like we’re usually rewarded with graphic threats of rape and other violence for doing so…
mesh says
The problem is treating the social experience of straight white men as unique plays right into those harmful cultural messages.
In reality, everyone is burdened by social expectations that dictate conditions of success and failure in life. In some respects they can be even more damaging for those who aren’t in the spotlight. For example, an ambitious white man will likely enjoy a higher degree of mobility and self-realization compared to an ambitious woman.
To treat the social expectations of straight white men as a heavier cage, as a burden that marginalized groups will likely not be able to empathize with, is an implicit endorsement of the stratification, just another way of emphasizing the importance of straight white men.
unclefrogy says
we all humans all over the world in societies and cultures that are steeped superstitious belief in things that are not true and do not exist most here understand that. All of these societies are all so stuffed with irrationally base class, race and sex/gender distinctions and privilege. Wealth means power means better?
It is so common to say a society is sick that the politicians and moralists have made it a tiresome cliche
the issue of mental illness is smack dab in the middle the intersection of all of that mess.
all of it needs to be questioned and questioned rigorously just like any other aspect of reality
to say that it is out of bounds because the society/culture reacts irrationally and uses it in a discriminatory way will surely not change any thing.
I ain’t go’na sit in the back of this bus cause it makes some upset if I don’t, cause that is how they see it…..
uncle frogy
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Fuck you for this, really.
microraptor says
Funny thing: you’re not being edgy or demonstrating any sort of great moral character when you say you’re going to stand up to political correctness.
You’re just announcing that you’re an asshole.
Tethys says
No, conflating amoral sexual behavior of men with mental illness is normalizing predatory rapist behavior, and simply irrational. It is speculation. This particular behavior is fairly common, with an entire book and body of literature about said book. The fact that a story that can be summarized “pathetic creepy older man murders a young girls mother so he can own her and rape her” is classified as erotic literature and has all sorts of glowing reviews is the social norm of rape culture. It has nothing to do with mental illness.
unclefrogy says
says you !
unclefrogy says
@ 174
you seem to be implying that mental illness is normal?
uncle frogy
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Salty Current (SC) has made the point that much of what is considered “mental illness” is simply part of the continuum of the way the human brain manifests itself. What is mentally ill can be very culturally dependent. A warrior culture would consider pacifism a mental illness.
The reverse would also be true.
While I find the man in the OC as being slightly out of sync of my thinking, the question is, is he mentally ill based on the patriarchal/rape culture present in the US? I know people who use parts of his thinking, and who would not be classified as mentally ill.
So, how does one actually define what is and isn’t mentally ill? That is where we really need to show some humility.
Vivec says
@175
If your definition of mental illness is such that any negative action or break from normative behavior counts, it’s uselessly broad and arbitrary.
Charly says
unclefrogy, the whooshing sounds you heard were the points flying over your head.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
With a currently estimated 25% of people suffering from one during their lifetime, it’s about as normal as wearing glasses. Sometimes, a mental illness is also just a way to bill the health insurance. I received therapy through my university student services, so I never got diagnosed with anything and don’t have to disclose a mental illness when asked for health insurance etc.
You still keep missing the point I made up in #147/148: What does adding “mental illness” bring to the discussion?
But I recognise you’re somebody who equates being criticised on a blog with the institutionalised oppression of black people in the USA, so why do I keep trying?
mickll says
Late to the discussion but, uncle frogy, there is a simple alternative to vague psuedo-diagnoses of mental illness whenever someone makes, what appears to others to be a disjointed or downright weird case for sexual discrimination. It’s called ideology, and ideology is often used to buttress sexism and other forms of bigotry.
Sometimes that ideology is religious in nature, sometimes it comes from a misreading of biology or psychology that mysteriously fits in with the readers patriarchal and sexist attitudes.
Nobody in this comment thread who has proposed that this Lucas Werner chap makes his memes from a place of mental illness has come up with a smidgen of evidence for this theory. What is in evidence is a misreading of biology that just happens to fit in with Lucas’ pre-existing belief that he should be entitled to the bodies of teenagers. I propose what we have is a bloke desperately grasping at straws to justify what well knows is a repugnant and socially unacceptable belief. Others like him use bible verses, or evo devo, the end result is the same.
ld7412 says
All we know is that this guy threatened suicide.
AND
Threatening suicide MAY indicate mental illness.
AND
Threats of suicide and potential mental illness should be addressed by mental health professionals, rather than random internet flailing.
AND
Regardless of mental health status this guy’s behavior and comments are problematic.
Once the issue of “mental illness” was brought up in comment #55, the conversation was completely hijacked. Only a handful of comments address the original topic; that this guy and others who share his sense of entitlement are frollicing around where women and girls have to deal with them.
cartomancer says
Giliell, #169
1. It’s not the straight white men I’m primarily concerned about here – it’s the people their behaviour can harm. In order to stop that behaviour and help everyone else we need to help the straight white men. Because they do need help to stop doing this stuff. They’re not the ones who suffer most from it, but they are the ones who need to change, and helping people to change is far more effective than giving them an ultimatum and insisting they change anyway without addressing the underlying reasons they got that way in the first place. I’m concerned with what will be effective in changing the problematic behaviour.
2. Yes. there is a lot being done already. I never said there wasn’t. Clearly more needs doing because the problems still persist.
3. Obviously the kickback is atrocious and unconscionable. Obviously we need to come down hard when it happens. But whether the straight white men are grateful or not for being helped to become better human beings in this regard, they still need the help.
Mesh, #170
I tried as hard as I could not to suggest that straight white men had a heavier burden than anyone else. Merely that their burden was different. Even if it is a lighter burden (and in most cases I think it very much is), it is still a burden and it still needs lifting (because it causes all kinds of problems). In fact, I think that what needs to happen is that straight white men start seeing it as a burden and start realising that it needs work to address.
cartomancer says
I look at the straight male exprience as an outsider, but I would like to think that an outsider’s perspective can sometimes be helpful. As a gay male I know that I have struggled with unconsciously acquired cultural notions about what being a gay male is all about. Rationally I know that it’s not necessarily all about being hypersexualised, sleeping with as many people as possible and glorying in youth, beauty and hedonism, but somewhere these messages have stuck and I still find myself having to resist measuring my life by these standards. I find myself feeling that I’m a terrible gay because I don’t measure up to the stereotype, even though I want to discard and dismiss the stereotype as hard as I can. It’s a struggle, and it weighs heavily on me. Because I still don’t have a firm and comfortable notion of just how one succeeds at being gay in this world of mine, and I am thus susceptible to insidious influences.
So when I wonder what it must be like to be a straight man in the same culture, I wonder what it must be like to be bombarded with messages that success in the straight world is all about doing things for women and getting sex in return. I know I struggle not to be influenced, and get little help in that direction, so why should the straight men not be in the same boat? And I also know that if I were shouted at and told that my inability to resist the influences was all my fault and I should be ashamed of it then I would get rather angry and depressed and reject any help I was given.
snuffcurry says
@cartomancer, 184
Why wonder? Popular culture is drowning in white, straight male experiences that make men martyrs when they are undersexed. “Doing things for women” is doing devilish yeoman’s work.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
cartomancer
So, as a gay dude, is your primary concern helping homophobic straight people who think you should be in hell/reeducation camp/the morgue? Or would you rather extend a hand to the kid they just kicked out?
You know, I had to do all that work of understanding gender and stereotypes by myself. I don’t have the time to hold some dude’s hand, especially not if the wage for this is getting threatened with violence.
Onamission5 says
@cartomancer:
Hmmm. So, we should empathize with the creepy serial harasser and definitely tell him nothing is his fault, and we should do this, you’re saying, for the sake of his future victims?
Pretty sure he’s already gotten the message that he’s not at fault for anything he does. How do you think that’s working out for the girls he’s targeted?
cartomancer says
Snuffcurry, #185
I wonder what it must be like because it is not something I have ever experienced first-hand. Yes, there are plenty of cultural narratives around, but I have never experienced engaging with them as anything but an outsider. I seriously wonder whether, were I in that situation, I would be able to navigate the morass successfully. And if I couldn’t then what right have I to condemn others who actually haven’t? Even if I could, should I condemn others for not being able to?
Giliell, #185
No, the well-being of homophobic straight people is not my primary concern. But it is still on the list of my concerns. I think it is disingenuous to suggest that we can either help the victims or help the perpetrators to reform – we can and should do both (and by helping the perpetrators to reform reduce the number of future victims).
It is very tempting to say that many of us have figured out what is pernicious in our society’s messages about gender and stereotypes on our own, so everyone should be expected to. If it were simply a case of willful apathy on the part of those who have not then I would agree with you. But it isn’t. Part of the pernicious effect of privilege here is that an awful lot of straight men don’t realise that there is any need to approach society’s messages critically or resist them. When society is structured such that you’re catered to all the time and in all things, why would you be critical of it? I find it hard to blame people for this when they have been so throroughly conditioned to accept the status quo and so ill equipped by their culture to contemplate its flaws. It’s a problem. It’s their problem. But if they don’t have the tools and resources to solve it on their own then how can we expect them to?
Obviously if, as individuals, we feel unsafe or exhausted or threatened by reaching out in this manner then there is absolutely no obligation on us to do so. We are not personally responsible for helping them, and should not feel guilty for not doing so. But that doesn’t mean they don’t need help and it doesn’t mean that we can’t make a difference by helping them if we are in a safe position to do so.
Onamission, #187
The creepy man from Washington in the original post is an extreme example of what can emerge from a culture that tells straight men they deserve sex for being a certain way. I was actually more concerned with this culture in general, and the less extreme kinds of consequences that emerge from it. I was responding in particular to Snuffcurry’s gentle taking of Akira McKenzie to task, and the latter’s opening up about how this culture and these social messages have made him depressed. I think we should empathise with people who have become depressed and unhappy because society bombards them with messages that tell them they are a failure and entitled to things they are not. In particular I think we should recognise that being the target audience for such messages makes straight men engage with them in different ways to how others do. Akira McKenzie has suffered from engaging with the toxic cultural furniture, but he hasn’t victimised or hurt anyone – and I think that he deserves to be understood and helped.
What else is involved in turning a response like Akira McKenzie’s to the ubiquitous culture of straight male entitlement into a response like Lucas Werner’s I would not venture to speculate. But surely helping the Akira McKenzies of the world to better deal with these issues will go some way to preventing the rise of more Lucas Werners? As for Werner himself, clearly there are further public safety and law enforcement issues to consider. But, once we have protected other people from his excesses, should we just write him off as irretrievable or should we try to get to the heart of his issues and help him to change? And perhaps, in making the attempt, learn more about how it can be done?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Okay, look at the SCOTUS decisions on involuntary commitment, and tell us what can really do. It isn’t that hard to get a 48 hour commitment to somebody you consider dangerous, but what happens when after those 48 hours they are released because mental health professionals say they aren’t an immediate danger to themselves or the community, by previous SCOTUS decisions, which are essentially release until a crime is actually committed?
There is a problem with trying to commit people, and it has been abused in the past for nefarious reasons. Which is why the SCOTUS bar is so high.
snuffcurry says
@cartomancer, 188
What you’ve written, above and elsewhere in your commentary, is the age-old status quo, default position on misogyny — where women are given no such generosity or benefit of the doubt, where the question of their humanity and autonomy becomes a tricky, philosophical “morass” one must “navigate,” where failure to euphemistically “navigate” (meaning treat women as human and valuable and worthy of interest other than the desire to fuck, possess, and/or judge as inferior and other) probably should not be condemned for lazy casting-of-the-first-stone, tu-quoque reasons — which knows no gender, orientation, identity, or alignment. Your homosexuality does not make you immune to any of this, you are not “outside” these “cultural narratives,” so you can stop that right now. You already belong to and have been socialized by a culture that objectifies and infantilizes women, treats them as a subcategory, overlooks their contributions, essentializes them, treats their experiences largely as reflections of male action (as you have done repeatedly here, by framing women as nothing more than an audience for and recipient of sexualized male peacocking). You’re not exempt, especially not when expressing bogstandard apologia for the oppression of women as something that Happens to Men, that the solution to which must be the lifting up of chains burdening men.
As I say, if you are sincerely operating under the misapprehension that your questions about the male, het experience (as or as it does not relate to interactions with female humans) are novel or are unanswered, you are not listening or looking hard enough and I suggest a remedial humanities course or a browse through a grammar school syllabus in literature. You can’t move for all the existential handwringing men produce and receive on their own behalf.
And to repeat, the notion that such “questions” hinge on what men do for women remains almost unfathomably tone-deaf.
snuffcurry says
Sexualized violence, antagonism, abuse, and harassment directed towards girls and women: only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to female oppression, particularly other intersecting oppressions. Ignoring that (centering discussion around het male feelings and dilemmas aimed at absolving het men of responsibility because “navigational difficulties”) is to engage in further exercise of Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too derailing.
Toki Towairaito says
So, I only looked at Mr. Werner’s Facebook out of curiosity. Which by the way a lot of his posts are public. A lot of his posts are these crappy memes, but there are also posts where he blames millennial females for “why he can’t date a girl younger than him” but “he won’t stop until he’s dated a girl 16 to 18”. There are people out there who want him to get help and turn his life around but he ends up berating them (by literally calling them bigots or hypocrites) and blocking them on his profile. I’m sorry but who would want to date a guy that lives in a homeless shelter, with no job, and believes that his “sperm has healing properties”? That’s enough to drive anyone away. And here are some other things I heard about this situation: He wanted people to call the Starbucks and complain about the situation on his behalf, which obviously did not end well. He also joins dating sites and lies about his age so he can talk to younger women which ends up with him being rejected or blocked. I cannot find an accurate source on this one but apparently the barista posted the note that she received from him to Facebook on one of his posts and the note said “I haven’t had sex in five years. And I want to be inside of you.” And yeah, there are also people supporting him on his behalf which is just ludicrous. I understand that the age to consent is 16, but there has to be limits to what this guy can and can’t do. And I agree with comment 21, just because she laughed doesn’t automatically mean she likes you. He assumed “Oh, I said something and she laughed at it. She must like me!”. That isn’t the case.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
cartomancer
Good thing I didn’t say that. I said I had to do the work. Learning and unlearning are work and you have to be willing to do so. Doesn’t mean others can’t teach or help you, but not all teaching and helping will be in the form of “let me assure you it’s not your fault, let me hold your hand and walk you through this gently, babysteps.” You need to actively seek to enlarge your horizon and understand. Sometimes that learning will take place when somebody is in vehement opposition to you. Then you got a choice: You can take your ball and leave or you can still try to learn.
It’s not like there aren’t many people even willing to teach.
FIFY
And that’s exactly the thing: Everyone here is part of multiple groups. I’m a woman, but I’m also straight white married educated middle class which makes me pretty privileged. Funny enough, I still noticed that discrimination against gay people is wrong and learned how my personal behaviour reinforced heteronormativity.
Also, everything snuffcurry said.
Saad says
How many people bringing up the mental illness angle are only doing it after finding out about the suicide threat? And is a suicide threat for not receiving boner service more indicative of mental illness or of entitlement and toxic masculinity?
To those proposing the mental illness thing regardless of the suicide threat: What is it about his posts that are making you think mental illness instead of asshole dudebro? Is it the substance of it or the silly style he’s doing it in? How is the substance of what he’s saying any worse than the type of things MRA scum say? Atheist dudebros love using “science” to justify women being their sexual objects.
Saad says
cartomancer, #151
Yes. Yes. Yes.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
http://rare.us/story/a-man-asked-a-starbucks-barista-on-a-date-but-he-wound-up-meeting-with-the-police-instead/
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
What a crap article, just going for his side of the story.
Now of course this guy advertises his creepy and rapey desires all over the web and if the authors had wanted to, they could have easily found them and included them in the article.
Of course, a 37 year old asking a 16 year old out is creepy no matter how nicely the note is written.
Also, good for Starbucks. At least that one place has a redeeming feature.
alysdexia says
>What a crap article, just going for his side of the story.
Crap is a noun, crap-head.
>Now of course this guy advertises his creepy and rapey desires all over the web and if the authors had wanted to, they could have easily found them and included them in the article.
Do you even know what rape is? Not the fake statutory definition. Hint: Explicit penetration is not rape unless it expressedly continges on the patient’s disagreement.
>Of course, a 37 year old asking a 16 year old out is creepy no matter how nicely the note is written.
That sounds like a personal-cultural problem. You would that midlifers, teenagers, or dating didn’t exist. Why should the note be written nesciently?
>Also, good for Starbucks. At least that one place has a redeeming feature.
That hasn’t been proven in any official report, but if it shall be it’s one more good than you, who as you said went off only his side of the story (if adversely), ignored the barista’s reaction if any, and sided with the employer, similar to how stories of sexual misconduct or offense or abuse only represent the parents’ or other authority’s interests instead of the minor party’s where the former exposed the latter’s long relationship to the crooked [and illegal] law.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- says
Pit alert, pit alert, clean up on aisle #199 needed
Charly says
A brief google search shows, that alysdexia comments sympathetically on websites that call statutory rape a “feminist delusion”.
They effectively advocate child molestation. There is absolutely no point in discussing anything with such person.
I hope PZ takes a note of this.
alysdexia says
What in the hell is this? http;//google.com/search?q=%22pit+alert%22
No, you need to clean up.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Sorry pitter, also known a rape defenders. You need to clean up your act, and think of women as people equal to or better than you. They aren’t just fucktoys for immature assholes.
alysdexia says
This guestbook format doesn’t allow editing of comments. http://google.com/search?q=%22pit+alert%22
I’m not aware of what those websites say. I say that statutory rape is a religiose conservative legislator and constitutent delusion as it has the exemption clause of marriage. It doesn’t protect minors but those who hold power over them.
And no, halfwit, a child is someone’s son or dauhter; child refers to incest here. When you learn to respect words you can respect persons.
alysdexia says
Nerd, you use your own incoherent troll language and baiting and libel so don’t expect me to humor you or any other pathologhic liar.
alysdexia says
I had to look up this self-congratulatory-masturbatory jargon but couldn’t find the origin or definition: http://google.com/search?q=site:freethoughtblogs.com+pitter.
Anyway I had already been aware of PZ’s sexual ageism in a former blog post, and been much aware how sexually and mentally retarded the average person is. In the US the peak (mode) age for sex offenders is 14 which means the left shoulder includes a lot of kids and destroys the perniciose urban legend that kids don’t or can’t understand or initiate sex. Most online sexual solicitations of minors come from minors. And as the average age of sexual self-discovery (masturbation) occurs to antepubescents, under 1USC1 that means almost everyone is a felon sexual abuser of a minor; actually the earliest known masturbation and orgasm is for a brood still in the womb. So you could vilify underage sex all you want but that only proves how you see minors as subhuman property to disregard the interests and safety of so you could ignore what they may do and not bear the responsibility of teaching of how to deal with others, then be shocked when they do get taken advantage of. The ageist laws break the 1st, 13th, 14th, and 26th amendments. One cannot use the law to argue for the law; sodomy used to be illegal also, which cops heavily enforced for uranians, and until it was repealed worldwide same-sex contact was listed in the DSM as a mental or social disorder. What makes modern psychology a fraud is that delusional disorder, folie à deux, mass hysteria depend on the population fraction who disagree with a belief; therefore whether the APA classify a condition a disorder depends on social climate, much of whom include conservative prudes, breeders, and cretins who are slow to learn scientific-based diagnoses. And what makes the clinical definition of pedophilia a fraud is its prerequisite that the subject be 16; if that didn’t exist then it’d mean almost everyone is a “pedophile” (a misnomer should one learn the etýma; filia means friendship, not love eròs or lust lagneia, and the subject in the first stem means it’s a kid, not someone who befriends a kid).
alysdexia says
Also the urban legend that the brain doesn’t stop growing until age 25 was a fraudulent press release by Jay Giedd of the NIMH; if you look at his paper it says the test subjects were college students who, with above-average IQ, had their grey matter cortical depth plateau shrinking later than the average IQ’s brain, and there were passages in that paper and a chart in his early work that say the brain continues to develop into the 40s and 60s. Therefore the brain stops growing when it can’t learn any more, and retards’ brains develop sooner than geniuses’; brain growth is a /bad/ thing, seen in the loss of plasticity and ability to unlearn societal brainwash. To claim that kids’ brains aren’t fully developed yet, notwithstanding that there is no such thing until death, to rationalize the censorship, sheltering, excuses, dumbing-down, and other retrodictions that elders who are too stupid, inarticulate, and ignorant impose on the kids only harms them in a catch-22. There are single-digit ages who qualify for college or university, and plenty feler who are more intelligent than so-called adults. IQ and EQ should determine who has mental and social aptitude, not some Procrustean time mark. Myself I went to college at 11 and 12 alongside grownups and qualified for every entry-level class.
PZ Myers says
Bye, alysdexia.
Tethys says
Ew, I hate getting a peak into the mass of justifications that the Humbert Humbert’s of the world use to explain their criminal and perverted sexual entitlement to teenage girls and children. It isn’t that alysdexia is a creep of the slimiest and most vile degree, it’s just that society was gravely mistaken in criminalizing his ubercreep predatory sexual behavior.
I don’t think there is a rift deep enough.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
Bye alysdexia (1:15)
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says
So alysdexia deserves the boot for all the obvious reasons, but may I also just add a bit of contempt for this bit:
Way to fail to understand the myth of Procrustes, you pedophilic, rape-y jerk-face.
Jamie Leigh Fischer says
#NewVideo Lucas Werner A Public Warning | Jamie Leigh Fischer https://youtu.be/Er2QzI9nSZ0 #YouTuber #Subscribe #Share #BeCareful #SurfSafe