Ah, another refreshing dive into the mind of the MRA. Oh, wait, no — what’s the opposite of refreshing? Anyway, this guy calling himself Raywolf had this brilliant idea that the way to restore masculine dominance is to rape women anally. His justification: well, it works in prison. This kind of argument seems to sail blithely through the manosphere, but at least Dave Futrelle takes it apart.
Since Manboobz has handled a genuinely repugnant idea so well, I don’t have much to say other than to point out the biologically insane additional explanation Raywolf offered: apparently, semen is supposed to have a magical effect on the emotional part of a woman’s body, her digestive tract.
I was trying to think into why this might be and you can laugh at my theory, but the connection of the rectum to the digestive system which is in many ways the emotional brain of the human machine is clear and present. When someone says ‘he hasn’t got the stomach for it’ they mean it both literally and metaphorically. If you look at the intestines they look a lot like the curls of the brain. Being stressed or nervous can literally shut down your digestion, make you throw up or lose your appetite. It’s an emotional group of organs. The kidneys and lungs for example are a more logical organ, they just process all day long. The expression tight assed is another that springs to mind.
Thank you for the permission to laugh, but I’d do it with or without your agreement. I’m trying to picture a hierarchy of emotionality vs. logic in human organs right now, and am really wondering where the testicles of MRAs fall on the scale. Somewhere off the chart into the realm of total hysteria (word carefully chosen for its irony), no doubt.
Also, I’ve got to say that anyone who had ever seen brains and intestines would not consider them to have the slightest resemblance at all.
He blinded me with… er, well, something besides science.
“anyone who had ever seen brains and intestines would not consider them to have the slightest resemblance at all.”
Compared to a cloud or the inside of a star, giblets is just giblets.
Except in his case, it’s possible they can’t be told apart.
My organs have emotions? Yeah I’m blinded by something but it’s not science.
Well they both are made up of cells… But then so are the lungs and kidneys so there goes the resemblance theory.
Depressing. The word you’re looking for is depressing. I think the emotion originates in the pancreas.
For fuck sake!
Perhaps that title should be “Unsympathetic Magic”. If you can’t be real, be surreal.
Well, this guy’s brain and intestine are both full of shit…
Maybe he thinks brains are like digestive tracts because he pulls all his ideas transrectally?
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to finish in her mouth and make her swallow? And then let the real science of peristalsis take over. Isn’t it easier to make stuff go in the in and not in the out?
Full disclosure: I am not a biologist and Raywolf is despicable.
Perhaps a bit too obvious, but MRAs have been linking their intestines to their brains for years by keeping their heads securely up their asses. This theory was bound to come out sooner or later, even if their craniums have not.
Perhaps in this case, the guy’s brains are located in his intestines, since he obviously has his head up his ass.
Zeno @ 3
+1 ! ! !
I believe what the guy is referring to though is the mesenteric nervous system in the gut, having to do with serotonin 2b and spindle neurons, motility and emotion, etc., etc.
That paragraph is a work of art. Each sentence is dumber than the next.
The actual intestines, or their contents, Zeno?
I LOVED the quoted extract! I refuse to read the source because I don’t want to read anything so vile, but that biological account is just so… I dunno, Galen springs to mind. (I seriously doubt that Bicarbonate is on the money with ver suggestion that this actually has any scientific basis whatever, no matter how garbled.)
Another MRA who is at best oblivious to, but more likely simply callously disinterested in, the importance of consent.
And yet somehow they always claim to be surprised/outraged when more functional people are wary around them.
As for the explanation for why anal rape supposedly magically influences the victim’s emotions in a fashion monstrously considered ‘desireable’ by this jerk, I would laugh at the ridiculousness of it all if he wasn’t effectively advocating rape, or at least ignoring the issue of consent as if it is irrelevant, which amounts to the same thing.
As others have observed, his confusion between brain tissue and intestines may have something to do with the quality of his thinking closely resembling the contents of his bowels…
this was from someone who is living in a first world country and has had access to all the resources of the modern world including education, computers and the internet and he still is as ignorant and superstitious to any illiterate third-world shanty town inhabitant.
if this is the best we can do we are doomed!
uncle frogy
Raywolf’s major intestine, in a desperate bid to save all life, jumped up his neck and throttled his brain.
Don’t worry, unclefrogy. Raywolf is most definitely the worst we can do.
By definition, giblets are edible viscera of fowl, and therefore include neither the brain nor intestines (normally just the liver, heart, and gizzard).
Nah. While there are some interesting parallels between the brain and the gut’s enteric (not ‘mesenteric’) nervous systems (e.g., g**gle ‘brain-gut peptide’), any effects of emotion on the gut are from the brain mediated through the autonomic nervous system (via vagus nerve or the mesenteric plexus).
Besides, the guy is clearly too ignorant to know about the enteric NS anyway.
The guts-be-brains-too thing sounded like a very garbled version of something I was just reading about in In an Unspoken Voice by Peter A. Levine. I suspect it has also shown up in the writings of far, far woo-ier people (not that Levine is woo-free).
I’m mostly stumped as to why the intestines resembling the brain automatically makes it an “emotional” as opposed to “logical” center, even invoking sympathetic magic. I mean, the brain handles both modes of thought, and actually the uppermost portion, which is what most people think of when thinking about how the brain looks, is more associated with what you might call logical thinking than emotion. So… yeah, this doesn’t even make sense by the rules of magic, which is in itself a feat.
Right. Never mind such expressions as “it took my breath away” or “I was breathless with fear”. Breathing is clearly never affected by your state of mind.
And of course, the adrenal gland, located on top of the kidneys, has no impact on emotions at all. Nope. Purely a logical organ, right there.
Chas C. Petersen @21
I’m admittedly in over my head there but for what it’s worth got the words (including “mesenteric system”) from John Allman of Caltech in this.
Damn. Didn’t anyone catch what I did at #19.
And you all call yourselves geeks?
I got it, Goodbye Enemy Grunthos.
or he simply has them reversed.
@27
Quoting an almost irrelevant, but very obvious passage from a very popular book is sophomoric. Following it up with “Hey, didn’t you get my joke?!” is just an insult to Douglas Adams.
Ryan Cunningham #29
Bless your heart.
(see what I did there?)
Richard@2
The word you are looking for is chitlins.
The similarity between brains and intestines is that Southerners eat both of them.
Ekwhite @2: Southerners eat brains? Are you sure you’re not confusing Southerners with zombies?
@ChasCPeterson #21
Intestines I’ll give you, but why would the brain of a fowl be inedible?
The kidneys and lungs for example are a more logical organ, they just process all day long.
Ok, first off, this sentence makes my inner grammar cop want to curl up and cry*. Hasn’t this guy ever heard of matching subject and object? Second, the KIDNEYS and LUNGS are “logical” organs? The kidneys are the ultimate prima dona organs and inclined to fail at the least provocation. Your kidneys will have a fit if you don’t drink enough water to suit them. Not exactly an example of a reliable machine. And lungs? One of the major organs involved in panic attacks? What the? The man doesn’t know biology.
*My inner grammar cop spends a lot of time curled up and crying because it has to deal with me, but this is something extra special.
I love that “not having the stomach for it” is meant literally. Not, say, an outmoded expression that hasn’t quite gone the way of “lily livered”
50 Shades of Not Even Wrong
This article has inspired me to discover a new method of getting my boss to give me a pay rise.
BUM SEX!*
Yes that’s right, through the magic of bum sex I will be rich, Rich, RICH! Hurrah! Why did no one think of this earlier? I could be a millionaire.
Louis
* It will, of course, be consensual bum sex during which I whisper the words “mmmm pay rise” a lot. I now have to work out how to make my spunk more money inducing. THIS. IS. SCIENCE.
The word viscera doesn’t include the brain.
Louis, should your efforts result in a pay raise and you, inspired by your success, create a new drug, you are NOT allowed to suggest the same method to your sales people. At least, not unless they’re cute, very clear on consent issues, and willing to use non-latex condoms.