WHAT LUCY LETBY TEACHES US ABOUT FEMALE-INSTIGATED VIOLENCE

 Dear All,

TW: REFERENCE TO VIOLENCE, ABUSE, AND MURDER OF CHILDREN

Unless you've been distracted by something very important or living under a rock, you'll probably be aware of the recent trial of Lucy Letby. If anyone isn't familiar, this is the general run-down.

Lucy Letby is a former neonatal nurse who was imprisoned for the murder of seven premature babies in the intensive care neonatal wing of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester. She was also accused of the attempted murder of six others, through injecting air, insulin or milk into her victims, or in one particularly grotesque case, ramming a metal instrument down the throat of one of her victims. Not only did she leave the families devastated and traumatized, but many of those victims who survived her assaults on them are left with life-changing injuries and disabilities.

The case has deeply shocked the UK, and possibly, the world. To the vast majority of human beings regardless of race, gender, sexuality and so on, tiny babies are helpless little lives to be cared for and looked after, much like one would small animals such as puppies and kittens, similarly small and defenceless creatures. Premature babies even more so, since some are so small, they could fit in the palm of your hand. And being premature, they are especially vulnerable to illness, deformities, health issues and even if not handled carefully. I myself was premature when I was born, according to my father (who told me when I was 11), I was the colour of a lobster when I came into the world, and even then with infection and breathing problems I had a fight on my hands in order to stay alive. I have only my family and the doctors and nurses present at the time to thank for my survival.

The idea that anyone would want to do lethal harm to any such tiny creatures is something that appalls us to our very core.

What's really telling though, is the reaction to the killings. While with the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by PC Wayne Cozens in 2021, the reaction was anger, which boiled into anti-male hatred in some cases (such as the Green Party in the House of Lords), or hatred (and already growing and in some ways understandable distrust) of the police in others. Further "measures", including punitive ones, were suggested to tackle so-called "toxic masculinity" as if that was the cause, rather than being fundamentally broken and disconnected with reality, and trapped in a cycle of violence.

With the case of nurse Letby however, the reaction is so strikingly different it's like water and oil.

"I don't know what Britain's most prolific child killer should look like. However, this isn't it."

That was one of the opinion-piece responses from a mainstream newspaper from the UK.

There seems to be a disbelief that a woman, a white woman, and one who is middle class, conventionally attractive, with a benign appearance and a nurse to boot, would be a murderer, and a child killer. They prefer to think of a killer as male, or poor, or non-white or ugly, just a nasty piece of work. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, most killers and rapists look very ordinary and more often than not get away with what they do not through being "powerful" but simply hiding in plain sight.

The truth is that female abusers and murderers are usually much more subtle than their male counterparts. While you do indeed get your Jolene Dohertys, Courtney Clenneys and Amber Heards out there, some of whose violence is brushed off by so-called "feminists" as being compared to male abusers to defend the indefensible. Female abusers are cited by skeptics of their existence as less likely to cause serious injury, or act outside of self defence or retaliation. Part of this is because said skeptics are uncomfortable with their assumptions being challenged and are lashing out, sometimes they feel that it ruins their theory about "patriarchy". Part of it is a failure to understand that intimate partner violence isn't always physical OR lethal, and distorting the picture of using the majority of male abusers being represented in high numbers in regards to physical and lethal violence.

Unfortunately for them, even the flawed and outdated Duluth Model refers to:

1) Emotional abuse

2) Isolation

3) Minimising, denying and blaming

4) Using children (see 'parental alienation')

5) Using coercion and threats.

All of these things are cited as being used by female abusers against male victims.

So what has this got to do with Lucy Letby?

Well, the answer to that question is that firstly, what female abusers and Lucy Letby have in common is that they are subtle. She was able to hide in plain sight for at least a year to carry out her despicable crimes. Her male counterparts are more obvious due to their less subtle, and more blatant and physical crimes (and so wider society is much more willing to accept their existence and consider tarring the male population as wholly evil without moral concerns). Is it really so far-fetched that female abusers don't also camouflage themselves in a similar way? And with statistical models carrying built-in biases, is it similarly inconceivable that female abusers wouldn't also fail to be picked up by stats in the same way that Letby wasn't picked up by hospital management?

Secondly, what's noticable is that Letby's victims were mostly male premature babies. Two girls did indeed fall victim to her, but it fits the pattern that abusers and predators mostly (though by no means exclusively) target the opposite sex. Predatory men mostly target women, predatory women mostly target men. And female abusers are the most commonly represented among child abusers according to U.S DHHS Child Maltreatment Reports 2001-2006, up to 70% of them.

Am I suggesting that we should treat women with contempt the same way we've treated men with contempt 'for mere suspicion of that kind will do as for surety'? No. It's morally unacceptable to do that with anyone, understandable if in a situation where your safety or that of someone else might be compromised otherwise, but in general society, absolutely not.

What I'm saying is that Lucy Letby proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone can be an abuser, a predator, a killer. We need to stop stereotyping people as potential dangers by crossing the road to avoid someone who's a POC (especially a male), treating every man as a "potential rapist", or completely overlooking people with evidence of terrible crimes because they happen to be female.

Personally, I just feel saddened that the benign picture of a nurse who cared for little babies, of a fashionable young lady who went out partying with her friends, was all a facade to hide someone who could've given Batman's Joker or Harry Potter's Voldemort a run for their money in malevolence.

I don't focus too much on the families in this case, because for one thing, picturing her horrible violence and the effect on those small children, and the grief of their families is something my mind just won't let me picture, it just shuts down because the picture is too awful, and secondly because frankly, I think they've been through enough.

I'd like to end this though, by saying that my heart goes out to the parents and families of the victims. There's nothing more painful in this world than a parent losing a child, and something that just shouldn't happen. I can't imagine what it must've been like for them, to lose their son or daughter after possibly seeing them develop and be born, and struggling with the curse of being premature just to have the chance to live, only for that chance of life, and that chance to become a mother or a father being cruelly snatched away. And all because of one selfish, narcissistic, and utterly pathetic human being.

Sincerely, 

The Invisible Man

ANDREW TATE AND A WARNING FROM (RECENT) HISTORY

 Dear Readers

So it's been a while since I fired up this blog, and for that I apologise. Times have been tough for me mentally in the last few months and ultimately it's easy to lose sight of the usual activities and leave them forgotten (I've lost count of how often I've done this when trying to stick to an exercise regime).

So ultimately unless you've been, in the words of Cecil Terwilliger from the Simpsons; 'in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears', then you'll have heard about the recent scandal surrounding Andrew Tate. Now, this guy has been vaguely in my zone of awareness and I knew of him as a motivational and inspirational figurehead as far as many young men are concerned. I've generally disliked him, especially with some rather unsavory and concerning implications against him (e.g. trafficking) and his derogatory comments about men who don't stand up to his "standards".

Now, while I won't say where for confidentiality reasons or disclose any incriminating details, I'm a youth worker in the UK, and mentoring young people such as children and adolescents of all races, genders, sexualities etc, and sticking up for the issues that affect them, is my job. Part of that involves 'masculinity' workshops that I haven't yet had a chance to get involved in, but we go around to schools to hold these and give the young men involved food for thought, and a guiding light to help them into a positive, productive and happy adulthood.

This week, my colleagues and I met up for our monthly get-together and update on the services we supply. Unfortunately two of the women on our team disclosed an incident in which they were mobbed by a group of 15 year olds who questioned them aggressively and set a tone and scenario that left them encircled and surrounded. They also talked openly about 'winning against the gays', and took a very aggressive and threatening approach to both women - a scenario that's while thankfully rare, still thoroughly unpleasant.

For many women - of course, for anyone but you can see what in particular a woman has to be concerned about in such a situation - this can be an intimidating scenario to be in, as Woodstock 99 horribly demonstrated. A couple of points were brought up such as that under peer pressure there's little to no chance of being able to break out of behaviour you'd never dream of committing on your own. This isn't to excuse any of this behaviour, rather to understand where it comes from, because ultimately we're still apes from the African plains. If you struck out from your troop or your tribe in the earliest days of mankind, you would die. I was never part of such a group until my late teens and I remember being a very easy target for bullies and much worse until I finally snapped and used violence to defend myself.

What surprised me was how they brought up that these lads were being given no leeway to express themselves, being controlled by the adults in society, not allowed to speak their minds, screamed at by teachers and generally treated like animals. So ultimately, if you're treated like an animal, you're more likely to act like an animal. Furthermore, what he pointed out was that these guys aren't given the chance to act like teenagers. They get excluded for what is arguably often normal teenage behavior. They're told to sit down, be silent and listen in classes, which while this works brilliantly for girls, isn't quite as productive for boys. A lack of male primary teachers in the UK means that many of them are lacking in role models, and while discipline and a firm and assertive approach is desirable, my colleagues have witnessed teachers screaming in these boys' faces and treating them with contempt as a problem to be fixed.

That being the case, are we entirely surprised that these young lads flock to a figure like Tate? What attracts many young men to Tate in their minds, is how he speaks out his mind, and in the circumstances of 'cancel culture' or to more accurately describe it, cyberbullying, this has become increasingly difficult in the past few years. The 'punching-up' and 'punching down' rules by left-wing post-modernists leave them subject to treatment from abusive 'girlboss' types that they'd get in serious trouble, possibly face jail time, if they were the ones doing it (such as sexual harassment, and verbal and domestic abuse broadcast on TikTok - for further details, see Chloe Roma from 'Roma Army' who has done sterling work documenting this toxicity), and it's not like there are any towering male figures who stand up for them on this matter, or not at least without being inappropriately smeared as a "misogynist" for the mildest of objections.

Ultimately we're not offering these men and boys any alternatives. In modern life we've come up with a twisted radfem empowerment approach to lift up women and girls, based on revenge against men and boys, emasculating them in media for decades and trying to get them to unlearn masculinity (a damaging and toxic exercise in futility). What cultural figures do they have to look up to? Male so-called "feminists" who tell them they're inferior to their female counterparts? If we treat them as naturally negative and inferior, what motivation is there for them to behave any other way? Let me also remind us all that these are the same abuse apologist men and women who supported (and still support) abuser Amber Heard and lamented her being held accountable by her male victim.

Of course, the same radfems in their infinite wisdom have claimed that the 'overcorrection' was a response to 'centuries of misogyny and patriarchy' (the latter being a useless and simplistic term if ever there was one), implying that collateral damage to those men in the poorer stratas of society wouldn't matter, and that the pendulum would 'swing back' (presumably over their dead bodies in a millenia). But are they right?

No.

This phenomenon has been grinding on, like I said, for decades, as post-modernist "thinkers" have tried to create a perfect world of equality. And yet we've still seen obstacles for women to overcome here and there, and if anything, under third and fourth wave so-called "feminists" we've seen women's rights go backwards. These useless postmodernists were already pushing their toxic agenda forward during the 2013-2015 period. Then in 2016 there was a vote in the UK, and a vote in the US, for an exit of the UK from the European Union and for Donald Trump to become Republican President of the United States, snatching the title from Democrat Hilary Clinton.

Of course, while the EU subject is a complicated subject that I won't dive into (trust me, we had four years of bickering and arguing over it and all got sick to the back teeth of it), Trump is not someone that I have a great liking for. He's arrogant, uncouth, unpleasant, oafish, cynical, race-baiting, a wannabe authoritarian, immature, and that's just the short list, hence I was massively relieved to see him go. At the same time, I saw him less of the driving force of the problem, but the symptom of a multitude of different issues - economical, social, financial, cultural etc. Seeing him go may leave many people thinking that it was the end of the issue but it isn't. This is a widespread issue of boys and men in wider society among the poorer and more destitute being left in the dust in a flawed progressiveness, and turning to extremism in response.

And I'm not the only one thinking this either. This isn't rhetoric, but much deeper rooted than that. As Richard V Reeves 2021 book 'Of Men and Boys' states on page 119-120:

'Across the world, men have been more likely than women to support right wing or protest parties. In Sweden for example, one in four men supported the far right Sweden Democrats in a 2015 poll, twice the level of support among women. In Germany, especially in the east, men have swung sharply to the political right. In 2017, a third of Saxon men voted for the far-right [AfD] party....In South Korea, young men are also swinging hard right, fuelled by anti-feminist sentiment...India's Prime Minister, Nerandra Modi, boasts of his 56-inch chest. There was alpha male Imran Khan in Pakistan, anti-feminist Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, and straight-out misogynist Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines.'

And what was the result of Trump being voted into the Oval Office? He started a pull-out from Afghanistan that, while no doubt a relief for the western world to not be stuck in a 20 year quagmire anymore, resulted in the Taliban very quickly taking back the country and reinstalling themselves as rulers of the country. And the successes of progression for women in the country installed during that time (all other issues with the war notwithstanding)? Disappeared overnight. Gone. In a puff of smoke. Meanwhile in the U.S. we had Trump installing anti-abortion judges, resulting in Roe vs Wade being revoked, meaning that all states that wished to do so almost immediately cancelling the legal right to abortion for women.

As an aside, despite the rhetoric of "no pussy no opinion", the reality is that U.S. men and women hold very similar views on abortion according to this poll from 2018:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-views.aspx 

Personally, while I see some flaws with abortion, I'd suggest scientific means to solve the problems (but that's another story), but not the outright elimination of abortion, which would result in increased teenage pregnancies, poverty, as well as bodily autonomy lost for women in low-income families in those states (if faced with a pregnancy that may cost them their lives, this is disastrous).

So how is this relevant? Because the pretend "progressives" have lied that leaving men essentially to rot is going to work out just fine, that they're fine because of their representation in the top 1% of society (the so-called "patriarchy") will mean they'll suffer no less than a bruised ego, that they'll be improved by being made more like the idealised "feminine", and yet the failing of the short-sighted education and political systems leave the poorer and less financially well off in the dirt. At the same time, they still have a vote, and you can cancel someone a million times over, but they don't have to tell you who they elect, and at that point there's nothing you can do to stop them. If their mind is made up to vote for someone who'll roll back progress for women, and if you can't persuade them otherwise and offer them a better alternative, then you're in trouble. If you think Trump's decisions were bad, he's just the beginning.

Now we have Tate, who my colleagues have reliably informed me not only comes up frequently as a figure of admiration for these young men, but now he's been imprisoned (for very serious allegations I might add), they see him as a martyr. It's on us as a wider society to offer them a better alternative than Tate as a role model, a figure of strength with masculine qualities that they can admire and look up to, but without the negative traits. Channel their energies into being a force for good, harnessing their strengths and desires to them living better lives rather than trying to merely thrash them into correct "feminine" behaviour (or worse, treating them the way you teach them not to treat women such as abuse, and filming it on TikTok). Show them by example a better way to interact with women and girls and how to express their masculinity and direct those desires into something brilliant such as leadership, inspire them to greater things, show them how a strong man interacts with women as opposed to this worrying mobbing behavior by these 15 year olds. If you don't, then these Tate-like behaviours and extremisms will continue, as has happened across history with countless other forms of extremism.

It's easy to say, as one twitter acquaintance of mine suggested to me, that these young men are merely incels who 'isolate themselves' but as a worldwide phenomenon, that's clearly not what's happening here. This isn't a problem that can be brushed away as jealousy of women's equality. This is a serious issue for two reasons.

1) These aren't inferior creatures to be crushed but fellow citizens who have a stake in society and the way it runs.

2) If the marginalized men and boys are sidelined they'll come back and haunt you, as they already are doing so politically, resulting in rise of far right politics and even strengthens dictatorships.

I may be dismissed as an "incel" (I seriously don't see how that makes sense anyway) or a "misogynist" or whatever, trust me, I've heard them all before, but you can't suppress anyone in society without it coming back to bite you in the arse. For those saying "but we're not obliged to cater to straight white cis men", tough. We all owe it to each other if we want a better functioning society. If equality isn't a zero sum game, then the onus is on you to make damned sure that you put your money where your mouth is. If all of this I've described is anything to go by, then we've got a lot of learning to do, and we'd better do it fast or be prepared to reap the whirlwinds.

To wrap up, I leave you with a famous African proverb to bear in mind for the future.

'A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.'

Mark. My. Words.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Man

INTERVIEW WITH THE GALA SISTERS

 https://youtu.be/ikvFY8tUgLw

REFLECTIONS ON ROE V WADE AND JUSTICE FOR JOHNNY DEPP

 Dear Readers,

Things have been pretty hectic recently with my madcap holiday in Amsterdam. Craziness galore and adventure abound including sleeping on a railway station bench on the way back home. So, it's pretty late for me to return, but a lot if stuff has happened this week thst I want to share my thoughts on.

Firstly, Johnny Depp's justice has officially been finalised and I couldn't be happier. I've also managed to join some chat boxes with some wonderful people so if I haven't mentioned you directly, please don't be downhearted, you've been great. And thank you to all who listened.

What concerns me about this trial though is that it's important not to just let it die. This isn't just about Johnny Depp but about other abused men and it's up to us to keep saying what Csmille Vasquez said, 'domestic violence doesn't have a gender'.

Obviously the extremists and naive who say otherwise won't go down without a fight. It'd suit them down to the ground if we just forgot and let it die off. This is also something that still affects abused women, and we need to make it clear that just because she lied (and abused) doesn't mean all women who come forward do so.

However, not all news is good news like Depp. War rages in Ukraine, cost of living post COVID skyrockets, and to crown it all, the US Supreme Court today overturned Roe vs Wade, the law enshrining abortion rights for women in the US.

This law is overturned largely because Donald Trump installed some individuals who were against it for years, just at an opportune moment, as a number of Supreme Court figures were retiring, so that now he's gone from office the U.S. is still experiencing the effects now.

Personally I'm in favour of abortion, not just on principle of women's right of autonomy of person, but also because of practical reasons, and driving it underground will only make it dangerous and increase poverty. Having said that, there are issues such as parenting decisions and if they would be performed for dubious reasons (such as if they're disabled, which has some unfortunate inplicstions). As such I always hoped that these questions would be answered by science and finding solutions to the problem. Not anymore now.

Fortunately, there are options, in that this won't mean a blanket outlawing, so some states will allow it to remain legal, so hopefully women who need an abortion can go to such states to arrange one, depending on what the laws in travelling through states for this reason specifically say.

Unfortunately, the usual misandrist radfem types will be convincing angry and disaffected women that this is a male oppression of women, that men are against abortions and women are for it. Such is how extremism spreads and infects those people vulnerable and gullible enough to fall for them.

Of course, it's not remotely true. According to a recent poll by Vox/PerryUndem, the percentage of men AND women who are pro choice is about 31% while male pro-lifers are at the 25% mark compared to female pro lifers who numbered roughly 28% to 29%. In the same poll, those who were neither were in the 21% mark. The only place this poll in which men outnumbered women was those who were 'both' pro-choice and pro life in which case men were about 18% and women about 16%.

Similarly, according to this poll from 2018, 60% of Americans are pro abortion within the first three months of a pregnancy, meaning both men and women feel the same way, while only 12% of both support abortions in the final three months of a pregnancy. https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-views.aspx 

In other words, "no pussy no opinion" is essentially a meaningless assumption since, like I've always said as a foreign observer, there are both men and women (etc) on both sides of the debate.

This being the case, we need to not allow it to form an excuse for the radfem types to oppose progress for abused men, nor will we allow them to support or give a pass to abusive women out of spite. 

Personally, I feel for the women who have supported Johnny Depp and abused men in the U.S. and suddenly have to deal with this. If you are such a woman, you deserve better. As a foreign observer, there's not really much I can do to influence this but if there are any petitions you wish for me to support or donations or important information pertaining to the subject that you'd like me to spread around, don't hesitate to contact me.

So that being the case, on the one hand we have a victory for humanity (Depp trial win) and on the other we have a defeat (Roe vs Wade overturned) and so we see a rather bittersweet week. But we carry on, for men, and for women, and so on. As one of my followers said, joy and tragedy come hand in hand.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Man

JUSTICE FOR JOHNNY DEPP - THE FIGHT GOES ON

 Dear Readers,

Well, he did it. They did it. Perhaps at some level, we did it depending on how much we affected the outcome or whether we just formed an emotional crutch, but Johnny Depp has won. Amber Heard has lost on all cases bar one in regard to a comment made by one of Johnny's representatives over a room in a hotel being trashed.

Having been on the #JusticeForJohnnyDepp train since 2019 I am needless to say, overjoyed by the result, but not just because of Johnny Depp. Initially I expressed "disappointment" in hearing the accusations in 2016, an opinion that I really regret now.

Of course, this isn't just about Johnny Depp. This isn't about Hollywood scandal or Pirates of the Caribbean or the Fantastic Beasts franchise. The DeppvsHeard case goes a lot deeper into society as to whether men can be accepted as victims of domestic abuse, especially if the perpetrator is a woman. My own abuse experiences happened in the early 2000s so obviously if you think it's bad now, back then it was much harder to find solace, comfort, support or justice. It's bad enough for women abused by men, but men abused by women didn't have any resources back then. Even ten years down the line from that you had the National Organisation for Men Against Sexism claiming that men aren't actually abuse victims.

As to be expected, the usual suspects started their oh so predictable temper tantrums in reaction to the result. I've been trolled a little by some Swedish idiot who accused me of being an extremist when frankly, I was too distracted to bother with him, though mercifully it doesn't happen often. Camille Vasquez has opened things up by pointing out when interviewed by ABC what abused men and our advocates have been crying out for people to recognise.

'Domestic violence doesn't have a gender.'

Make no mistake, this is definitely a turning point, and an opportunity to give other men in situations like Johnny Depp's the opportunity to recognise the abuse that is happening to them. There are very likely countless numbers of Amber Heards out there prolonguing the suffering of their own Johnny Depps out there.

Unfortunately there are still a few lingering dinosaurs unwilling to accept the inevitability of their fate, that we're going to have to take on. Make no mistake, they are definitely on the back foot now, we are the asteroid and they are the dinosaurs whose time has passed, but we're going to have to combat their lies if we want to see forward momentum for abused men (and likely abuse victims in general). They know deep down in their hearts that it's nearly over for them, but a cornered animal is a dangerous animal, as with these extremist idiots, so they're not going to go down without a fight. Be prepared.

One of the most revolting but also utterly fascinating examples is twitter user @JordanSUmbu who came up with his own little temper tantrum following the DeppvsHeard trial. He has a long thread and scores of tweets coming up with an ugly pile of hatred and lies aimed at male survivors that I've seen many times before from others like him (he's not unique unfortunately), so here is a textbook example of some of the misinformation that some of these extremists will likely throw back at you.

"Domestic abuse is gendered and statistically affects women more is a much better & truer statement than "domestic abuse has no gender", which not only vapid, diversionary, reeks of all lives matter energy, but also protects male abusers from accountability...we've been slowly entering an era of intellectual and moral regression because misogyny becoming more and more socially acceptable due to "men also being victims of domestic abuse" is bringing out the worst in people. Have some shame....You know there isn't a saying or claim that men can't be victims of domestic abuse. You know this. But all of a sudden global stats don't matter. History doesn't matter. Men being the main perpetrators of DV and sexual violence doesn't matter. Again you're pathetic."

It's an ugly and hideous pile of lies and misinformation, but it's time to break it down with a spot of fisking. Fortunately, this feeble pile of lies is very easy to debunk so if faced with this sort of ignorance, feel free to use these arguments as a counter.

"Domestic abuse is gendered and statistically affects women more is a much better & truer statement than "domestic abuse has no gender".

Domestic abuse isn't gendered at all. Statistics reflect women at a much higher rate, but those statistics are a poor means of measuring an absolute number of female victims, let alone male victims, simply because women under-report already, and men even more so, which is a commonly known fact. Added to that, the ugly myths that men are "lucky" if the perpetrator of sexual abuse is a woman (this one seems to be more commonly used by other men, women and feminist men tend to say other things that I'll get to later), ideas that women only commit abuse in self defence as we saw with Dr Dawn, and resources for survivors tend to dismiss it, or extremist men or women with an agenda behave in a despicably hostile way like our good friend Jordan here. Sometimes they're accused of being "gay" which actually happened to me when I disclosed, or even told that an erection is the same as consent (it's not, but I didn't realise that at the time it happened to me).

"This leads to an abysmal number of men willing to report abuse by women. Why report when so many of those people/organizations who are supposed to be advocating on behalf of survivors are willing to excuse, minimise or outright deny your experience on the basis of gender?

Awareness campaigns can even contribute to the suffering of male abuse survivors, particularly male victims of female sexual abuse, but this is also applies to male survivors/victims of domestic abuse and IPV. As James Landrith pointed out:

"For instance, campaigns targeting men that focus on how not to be a rapist or the difference between yes and no clearly promote the concept that rapists are men and survivors are women. While I understand that statistical models are often used to determine how to direct and target prevention campaigns, such models can also be their own worst enemies by influencing how and who reports, corrupting the very statistics themselves. In short, the numbers of men reporting are very low due to underreporting and most survivor organizations I've worked with or consulted acknowledge this and that a large part of the reason is public perception."

https://jameslandrith.com/2010/10/12/on-gendering-rape-the-statistics-defense/ 

The really rum thing is, I've only just started with Jordan the idiot and already it's taken half an essay to explain why he's either lying or stupid. But we have to be thorough so on we go.

 "[Domestic abuse has no Gender is] not only vapid, diversionary, reeks of all lives matter energy, but also protects male abusers from accountability"

This is an argument that I've seen before and I've never been impressed with it, and I'm still not impressed with it now. The reality of male victims of abuse being recognised is very much a positive, justified and long overdue step forward. Comparing it with all lives matter is self-evidently absurd, but the idea that helping abused men shields abusive men is trash. Where is the evidence? There's not an iota of proof that mankind initiative or oneinthree or male survivor is in any way helping the Harvey Weinsteins and Bill Cosbys of the world behind our backs. There's no point in entertaining this profoundly ridiculous and corrupt statement so we can just dismiss it out of hand. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (like Amber Heard's claims).

"we've been slowly entering an era of intellectual and moral regression because misogyny becoming more and more socially acceptable due to "men also being victims of domestic abuse" is bringing out the worst in people. Have some shame."

This is sensationalist lies and garbage, and no doubt a complete overreaction to the DeppvsHeard trial. To claim that helping abused men is making people bad is an outrageously malevolent lie and totally indefensible. It also fails to explain the very fact that legions of abused women came out in support of Johnny Depp. Women seem to be more emotionally tuned (no offence to any men reading this, we have our strengths and weaknesses individually and as groups) and that might be why they picked up on the signs that Amber Heard is quite clearly an aggressive and abusive individual while Johnny Depp is at worst, a bit reckless sometimes. Jordan, if you want to find anyone who must bow their heads in shame I suggest investing in a mirror and taking a good hard look in it.

"You know there isn't a saying or claim that men can't be victims of domestic abuse. You know this."

That's where you're wrong. I can give you a couple of examples out of the top of my head from just ten years ago:

(TW abuse apologism in the comments) https://jezebel.com/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have-294383

(TW This one actually has the brass neck to say as such out loud) https://nomas.org/not-a-two-way-street-men-are-not-the-victims-of-what-is-meant-by-domestic-violence-and-abuse/

"But all of a sudden global stats don't matter. History doesn't matter. Men being the main perpetrators of DV and sexual violence doesn't matter." 

That's right, they don't. As pointed out, global stats aren't accurate enough to paint a full picture and carry built in biases. History doesn't matter if someone is violating your basic human right to physical integrity, which is what abuse is. You don't think "I'm a victim of the patriarchy" if you're a woman or "I deserve this because statistically men are the main abusers", you go into shock, or you panic, or you go numb, however it happens. I hope it never happens to you because this is the real world. Time to acknowledge it and abandon your childish and stale ideas of dead 1970s feminist writers.

"Again you're pathetic."

Nothing to say here other than dog calling the cat hairy-arsed, Jordan. Go and take these to real people in the real world (especially women) and they'll almost certainly eat you alive and spit your bone fragments onto the ground.

Another reality as pointed out by James Landrith regarding the stats argument is as such, and while he was referring to rape, this very likely applies across the board to other forms of abuse:

"Campaigns that target males only as rapists continue to feed the public perception that only men can be rapists leading to fewer males reporting rapes and also negatively impacts female survivor reporting by silencing those who were hurt at the hands of other women, which further skews the numbers they used to justify the campaigns in the first place. It is a vicious cycle and one we need to break if survivor advocates are truly committed to ending sexual violence.* While the focus of such campaigns should rightfully be on the behaviour of the rapist and not the survivors,** we should not be further promoting the concept of the rapist = male and survivor = female."

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen (etc). If faced by fools and idiots like our very special friend who spout such nonsense on the subject, be it domestic abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse when referring to female on male abuse (or abused men in general), remember these guides. Good luck, and don't despair. We are winning, let's keep fighting to make it final.

And big congratulations Jordan for winning your idiot of the month. I couldn't have written this article without you. Please collect your wooden spoon by the door but don't let it hit you on the arse on the way out.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Man

*And arguably other forms of abuse and violence.

**I agree, other than offering some guides and options on how to protect one's safety in the worst case scenario.

HONEY AND VINEGAR

 Dear Readers

(TW abuse apologist quotes)

I can't remember the phrase "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" but it was probably an episode of the Simpsons where I first heard it. I think we all know what it means, persuasion is a much more effective tool of persuading others than force.

Sadly, in the western world in recent years we seem to have forgotten this basic fact. Part of the problem has been the internet, as well as news outlets looking for outrage for good copy, and reality TV of the 2000s giving people a sense of entitlement to vote on what they can and cannot see and hear (the Jade Goody controversy of 2007 and Russell Brand prank call of 2008 arguably early signs of this) and calling it "democracy in free speech" (which is basically mob rule). With aggressive so-called "woke" types and their right wing Alt-right counterparts, there's an intense desire still around to see other points of view as morally unacceptable. As someone who deals with anxiety and depression on a regular basis - and anyone suffering the same will probably know what I mean - it makes interacting with friends in social media doubly stressful. 

Issues like Brexit here in the UK and the era of President Donald Trump have been so divisive, and when faced with people reacting with my suggestions of being more willing to discuss and at least tolerate certain points of view by antagonistic responses, I dropped them as friends because I just wasn't certain if I could trust them or not anymore (for all I knew, if I stepped out of line or something was misinterpreted, my own friends could become my enemies, an idea that I found frightening).

Of course, nobody is exempt from this attitude, and no matter who you are, such an attitude seems to exist among people who agree with almost any points of view, including our own.

One recent example I came across was a woman on twitter among my followers who doubted that Johnny Depp was innocent and believed that he was just as guilty as she was. Now, I couldn't disagree more, I think that the evidence against him was laughable, and the UK court verdict was based on the fact that libel laws sided with her on the grounds that it was considered a strong possibility that he acted as such. However, I had no desire to just badmouth her since she was so supportive of male abuse victims anyway, I thought it'd be unwise and unfair to just drive her away. 

However, some of my followers told me that she wasn't on our side because she believed Johnny Depp to be as guilty as Amber Heard. I feel that this was unfair, and just another symptom of "if you're not with us, you're a terrible person" malarkey that we've seen too much of since 2013-2014. I thought to myself "you know, maybe we'd be able to actually persuade her to change her mind or at least let her see our point of view rather than just attack her"/

I also want to bring to your attention an exchange I had with someone on a comments section on a YouTube video regarding a genderflipped social experiment regarding domestic violence. I labelled the other person as 'Nikki' and my own comments as 'IM'. Some of the things I said I probably would word differently, but I'll put in a commentary in bold as well to give my current POV on this conversation that this person and I had.

NIKKI: 'The woman was an actress, the man was an actor. They both did the same thing. Yet vitriolic comments against the woman actress, male actor gets off Scott free. The only person who did the right thing was the woman who stepped in - no comment that she was a bit of a hero. Feminism has a long way to go. I can see why she might be frustrated, feeling that "hold on, a woman stepped up to intervene, why assume that all women are like the staged female abuser?" The simple answer is that it's not the point of the social experiment, and there are plenty of both genders (& other) who'd just look the other way as we see in various similar videos.

IM: From my experience, the majority of feminism almost certainly sides with her. They don't give a shit about male abuse victims/survivors and their attitudes are appalling, as a male abuse survivor the things I've heard from feminists about female on male abuse would shock you. Examples such as (TW) "Until men stop raping women worldwide I'll have no sympathy" or "A man never deserves pity for being raped..it was just a little lesson in what it's like to be treated as an object" just for starters (trust me, I've got tons more of these).

NIKKI: 'Very sorry for anyone who is a victim of abuse. And certainly no victim should be treated badly. However, many of the comments on this post - which relates to a staged event where male and female actors do the same thing are incredibly vicious towards the actress - but no comment on the man. Given this is staged, surely the question should be why was it only one woman that stepped in to stop the violence? That probably depends more on the individual than the gender dynamics, but like I said, that's not really the main point of the experiment. On three separate occasions I have stepped in where I have seen children being physically abused - on each occasion men were around and did nothing. And I've experienced times when women did nothing too. On one occasion a woman contacted the police to intervene when the abuser turned on me and said abuser was arrested - male police officers. All of us have the opportunity to step in and stop abuse and I have no interest in those who would ridicule a victim, not OK - Like I said[,] sorry you experienced that but as for comments inferring all feminists are anti male..it makes you sound like you are still angry (that's your right) (I agree, being told that as a man you deserve to be abused by a woman as "payback" or aren't a proper victim deserving support and empathy, does give one the right to be angry) but it lessens the credibility of your argument (I disagree with this, but it depends on what is said and how, if I fuck up, I fuck up)..and you come off as having the same angry energy you are accusing feminists of having (probably because I have)..maybe the women who have responded badly to you are also victims of abuse and that's why they're reacting badly - that type of anger usually has far more to do with unprocessed pain than the person the anger is directed at (probably right - underlying factors are the reason for any form of human communication, but it's not an excuse). Good luck to you.'

IM: I understand, and I appreciate your answer, it's very interesting and coherent and has a few things to consider.

IM: When it comes to stepping in, it's difficult to say, for example, people aren't confident in recognising abuse when they see it or knowing what to do when they do without making things worse for them or the victim. (I think inaction by other men in the past from knowing about this is because of lack of understanding or knowledge of what to look out for and how to react appropriately with minimum risk) I think that it'd be more productive if people were taught what to look out for and how to de-escalate. What really gets on some people's wicks - including yours truly - is when you see a woman abuse a man in public and seeing people giggle or cheer her on.

NIKKI: I agree, re-educating people so they are better able to see abuse and also teaching how to manage - social awakening can be a wonderful thing. (I agree too, just we're not seeing it for male abuse victims atm.) I relate to what you are saying re when people laugh at abuse. Women get this a lot with sexual harassment. (Basically bullying.) TBH I was super impressed with how the majority of men stepped up re the metoo movement (first time I've heard anyone say this - good though!), it felt like finally the light had been switched on and the shady behaviour was called out for what it was. (Again, good that it is, but it's only called out for female victims, not male victims.)

IM: Yeah, you're right. I've always suspected as such. And nobody should be laughed at regarding sexual harassment. From my experience I feel that people are more tolerant of it happening to men than women, probably through blindness, but I usually get my hackles raised when I hear people justifying or ignoring it or saying men deserve it as just desserts for what happens to women (which just isn't true).

That's [majority of men stepping up] heartening to hear and I'm very pleased you say so. Most men probably didn't notice because the sort of dirt bags who would do such a thing almost certainly do so either behind closed doors (that's why nonce wings exist in prisons, because even the worst of the worst and probably the world's best examples of so-called "toxic masculinity" find such behaviour abhorrent) or with their own cliques in tow, but I think what has improved is greater clarity and means to tackle it for women (and for men to recognise it more easily), which is a good step. Since I only ever came across that behaviour towards women twice in my time (once outside a nightclub with a girl I knew being followed by a really nasty piece of work and coming to me for help, and a milder version with a group of lads I work with pulling a girl around by the arm a bit too much for my liking), I've long suspected that such harassers have done so on the sly where nobody can see, or only with people too scared or compliant to stop them (certainly was true with people who sexually harassed me when I was a teenager).

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that female victims of abuse/harassment have better means to tackle the problem. My concern is that I hope that such a step can be taken for men who experienced the same because I meet an increasing number of men daily telling me that they've been sexually harassed or abused by a female at some point, and as a society we really need to recognise it and take it much more seriously than we do now.

NIKKI: I feel your frustration in terms of dismissal of abuse. There is a perception gap (totally agree with this), which results from what people can believe of people..most abusers come across as normal, and often charming - they have to be or they wouldn't get away with it. So the victim is not believed because a normal person would not do that...it is the nature of the abuse dynamic. (Like I like to say, we don't live in a rape culture, we live in a rape ignorance culture.) I become concerned when people are focusing on abuse as a competitively male or female problem. (Kind of what I'm getting at, I probably do it a bit myself but probably not without reason because I know that male abuse victims are undersupported - there's no #MeToo movement for them.) Having said that, for a lot of women, it is hard to hear men hold up a few personal experiences of abuse and then be told it is as bad for all males as it is for females - simply because most women have had more experiences than they can count by the time they are 30 and they know the statistics back this up (probably due to the perception gap). This is not to say all of them end as hospitalizations but I am talking about experiences that leave the victim in fear - unable to sleep, taking counter measures for safety (truthfully, awful though these described experiences are, they don't cover the entirety of abuse, which exists in other forms as well)...and 90% of this women don't talk about, because it is business as usual (yeah, that perception is an appalling one to carry about.). Simply put, 'it is the female right of passage' (!!!) - those were the words said to me when I was talking about significant abuse to another woman, it was horrid to hear but she's right, and at the same time it diminished abuse in an unintentionally toxic way (I agree). Abuse is personal and when it happens to you and when you're not believed/or people just don't get it - this is a second compound injury (I agree). So it's bad for all victims, and the reality is that unless someone sees it happen and deems it to be bad and/or you end up in hospital with serious injuries the likelihood is that you won't be believed - irrespective of your gender - not because people are bad, but because people don't want to believe it (especially if the abuser is a friend or someone they respect). The only real difference in gender seems to be that women know that odds are they won't be believed/taken seriously (sadly true, and they underreport). In contrast, when men aren't believed, many assume if they were a woman they would've been believed/taken seriously - the statistics do not back this up - most abuse is not reported and when it is it's not taken further (I respond to this below). And the common experience of victims is being ridiculed, not being believed, belittled, blamed, shamed, silenced, etc (absolutely). And the horrid thing for women is they have to listen that's spread around that women are believed..and they know better (it's not a well thought out claim to make, what would be better to say would be that women are often not believed or taken seriously, and men abused by women are even more unlikely to be believed, which is saying a lot). I feel strongly that, while it's an issue that statistically more women are victims of abuse, it is as important to see abuse as a stand alone issue and seek to understand its nature without getting into competitive gender issues (true, unfortunately mainstream feminism hasn't let this toxic idea go and doesn't appear to want to) - to use an analogy otherwise we are like a doctor who keeps treating the cuts, bruises, broken bones and nervous disposition of the patient while never asking the patient about the underlying cause (Agreed. For example, I believe that bullshit rhetoric about so-called "toxic masculinity", "rape culture" and "patriarchy" cover up the fact that abusers are a minority but something's snapped in their minds, in some cases through abuse experiences of their own that they've internalized such as Kristin Piper's son on Dr Phil https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7z32sns6u6afQ_6-ulNzxA/videos) and just one abuser will likely target multiple victims (Harvey Weinstein had a count of 127 women he'd victimised, and Bill Cosby over 60).

IM: I can understand what you say, nobody deserves to go through that sort of stress or assume that abuse is normal. I'm sure that such women find it confusing and bewildering to hear about male abuse victims to say the least. And I would agree that actual lethal abuse appears more often as male on female (just to reiterate, I'm referring to how it appears in the records, that male on female abuse just gets recorded more often, not that it barely happens).

From the perspective of a male abuse victim, the intention [probably] isn't to dismiss what happens to those women. More like when you're a man and you've gone through such a thing there's no reference to really understand what happened to you. You're not told that it can happen to men as well so you think that you're the only man that's ever happened to, and that something must be desperately, terribly wrong with you as a man, that it's your fault or that you did something to deserve it. When you realise that basically society has lied to you then you become desperate for more people to recognise it, especially since abuse doesn't just come out in the form of sexual assault or lethal violence, it comes also as mental torment, emotional mistreatment, financial manipulation and so on. It certainly appears to me that [male] violence is more obvious because it's much more blatant but female violence is more latent and more subtle, so harder for people to spot. When you're told that as a man you're collectively responsible for abusers, told that you have it easy, your abusers weren't women unless they were acting in self defence, called a crybaby or woman-hater while also battling daily trauma and pain from your own abusive experiences it kicks you when you're already down, kind of similar in a way to how you said women feel about other people telling them that women are always believed. It also confirms in your mind that you won't be believed and makes you worry that people will also take any abuse that happens to you as karma for abuse of women. 

Guys who say that women are always believed are probably misguidedly basing that on the fact that abuse of women has some form of recognition by society in the sense that while societal ignorance has no doubt done immeasurable harm to abused women, people at some level know that it exists, and the idea of a woman being abused by a man is more convincing to them than vice versa. Female on male abuse however is regarded as something of a joke, or at least if someone jokes about female abuse victims then people will come down very heavily on it. Male abuse victims you can pretty much mock to your heart's content and most of the time get off Scott-free (e.g. Bill Maher, Tina Fey, Melissa McCarthy) because society as a whole doesn't yet realise that it's a reality. 

Truth be told, it seems to me that abuse of females and abuse of males are at similar levels but they manifest in different ways, and both men and women (not sure about the experience of  any other genders) face ignorance from people telling them about their reality that they know by experience is different.

I bring this conversation up because since I didn't just verbally attack Nikki full-on and put her on the defensive, we were both able to offer our own perspectives and see what it was like to be in the other person's shoes (far more effectively than any high-heel protest, pussy march or slutwalk).

As my readers, you may disagree with some of either of our points (which is OK), you may think that I stuck my foot in it with a crap argument/was too compliant, or you might write Nikki off as talking bollocks and word salad. The point isn't so much the argument itself, but the fact that we were able to have a discussion and share our own points of view. That wouldn't have happened if we just started insulting one another.

When advocating for male abuse victims, we need to show that we are behind female abuse victims (no, not fakers like Amber Heard, I mean like Ambra Guiterrez and Natassia Malthe) and these insights of people with different points of view are invaluable to us. I'm sure that many of my female followers will concur about assuming that as a female, sexual harassment/assault to have happened frequently before the age of 30, so it's worth addressing that experience while still arguing that we still consider female on male abuse to be underreported, under-recognised and the victims to be under-supported (after all, compassion and empathy isn't a finite resource).

Sometimes we do need to stir things up, get people's attention and get people talking. Sometimes there are shitty abuse (of males) apologists and abuse (of males) denialists that we have to challenge and show that such ideas will be challenged. But sometimes, if someone holds a different point of view, attacking them is no good if they're open to listening. If they're being rude and unpleasant and just set in their ways then forget it.

However, let's not go down the road of cancel culture. Let's be a bit more careful and empathetic with people we might be able to open up, not merely to be nice, but because if we do, the more allies we get and the more success we enjoy.

Think about it.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Man

ABSENCE

 Dear Readers,

I've been off twitter for a few weeks now, and there's actually a reason behind it.

A short while back I was spending a lot of time on twitter, putting out tweets and pro male survivor content, sometimes inevitably clashing with people (because, twitter, duh), and one such clash with a Welsh TERF type resulted in me being locked out. For a while I didn't know which tweet was reported and I decided to spend the break settling into my new job, which I started in December before I came back and found which tweet it actually was.

The offending tweet that I put out was quoting the sort of pro-rape tweets I've heard from feminist extremists against men as to why I loathe TERF types, and twitter decided I'd violated their terms of abuse and harassment. I appealed, but it took ages for them to respond. I eventually conceded and deleted the tweet because I thought that it could be used as ammunition against me (like with the Nazi pug guy Count Dankula). This unfortunately is taken by twitter as an admission of guilt, who gave me a 'two-strikes-and-out' type warning, which I was needless to say, thrilled by.

Just when I was going to go back on twitter, I heard that not only had Putin sent Russian troops and bombs over the Ukrainian border, but a friend's mum was trapped in a bunker in Kyiv and couldn't get out. We're still waiting on finding out whether she's still alive or not, and how she can safely get to the UK.

This was a nasty shock for us all, and I was reeling so much from it that I forgot what day of the week it was, and I see signs of idiots panic buying growing in the shops, again (groan!). While I never bothered with hating Donald Trump as much as many others did, I really now despise Putin with the same passionate loathing that people had for Trump. The man has murdered - or attempted to murder - three of his enemies in my country, the latter case actually getting people killed. I am appalled at what he has done, and it fills me with rage over the suffering that he's putting Ukraine under, but also his own people. I am so angry that it is hard to express how much, Putin is a curse on humanity, a disgusting bully at the head of a cabal of lying scumbags, and deserves to end up dead and swinging from a lamp post by the ankles.

I am angry, I am scared - I have friends in Poland nearby to Ukraine, and my own country is much closer than, say, the U.S. is - and I applaud the sadly necessary financial squeezing that Russia is about to be put under, even though I hate what that's going to do to the innocent people who live in the country. I also hate the idea of ordinary Russians suffering hatred because of this piece of shit dictator, and I'd urge you all to oppose any and all hatred against ordinary Russian citizens who just want peace and prosperity like anyone else.

Do this absence and these new distractions mean I'm no longer speaking out? Of course not.

Just this evening my boss told me about being groped by a drunk woman at a gig, and he and I came across a bloke who left his girlfriend because she'd physically assaulted him and cheated on him. I'm actually seeing a growing number of men and boys disclosing to me about being abused by women, and the feminist movement has sadly - along with #MeToo - continued to willfully turn a blind eye to it. We won't let that stand. For what they're worth I'm also going to continue to express my views on sex worker's rights, and support that however possible.

Also I'd like you to not just spread the word, but support the Ukranian people and the Russian anti-war protesters however you can. While personally I think it is sort of thoughtful to offer prayers for the Ukrainians, at the same time as an atheist I'd urge you to not count on it and offer something more tangible such as donations or however ways of helping them emerge in the upcoming months. What those are, I don't know, but we will find out.

So in the meantime, continue to #SpreadTheWord about both male abuse victims and sex workers, but stand with Ukraine and the Russian protesters against the tyrant Putin however possible.

Sincerely, 

The Invisible Man