True Confessions Hour

Last week, over at Mightgodking.com, I started off my post by saying, "I don't seek out fights with angry misogynists." I've been thinking about that for a few days, and it's finally time to admit that this is not 100% true. I certainly do get tired of the constant fights with angry misogynists, and I do wish that they would hop on board the Clue Train and get wise to the fact that losing the freedom to be a sexist jerk is not, in fact, a form of oppression no matter how many jargon terms you invent to disguise that...but I'll admit, there's a part of me that loves to watch these guys whine.

Take this one, for instance, from the comments on a John Scalzi post. Is it not a thing of beauty to watch this flailing, desperate, impotent panic disguised as pompous, pseudo-intellectual bloviating? This is a man who cannot understand exactly what it is he cannot understand. He knows people are telling him that he doesn't get to ignore a woman's accusations of rape, for example, but the underlying logic of why escapes him in much the same way that my cat doesn't understand why it doesn't get to go outside. The door is closed, it's figured out that much. But when I explain about cars and coyotes, it's just sound.

And the jargon...isn't it wonderful? He describes his social circle as "the Manosphere". I presume it has some meaning to him and to the other people he's talking to, but to me it just describes a house where you can hang out in your full-length black robes with the pictures of hands on them, watch your seven or eight wives wrestle in their underwear, and occasionally torture a goat-man. (Actually, this might well be what it actually is, given the context provided in the rest of his comment...) These guys have invented all these terms for the things that the voices in their heads rant and cackle at them about, because they think it makes them sound smarter and more respectable, but all it does is code their language so thoroughly that they can't even talk to a normal human being. "You're a Delta-male White Knight!" they say, not realizing it takes fifteen minutes of research to even figure out that's an insult.

So yes, in that sense, I have to admit...I do kind of seek out fights with angry misogynists. Because they're so stupid it's actually funny to read their responses. But I'll still be glad when they go away.