Misogyny on the Web: ‘How to Smack a B----’
There’s war-of-the-sexes satire aplenty on the Internet, and much of it (including some that is very funny) borders on the offensive. The more effective satire is, the more likely it is to make you squirm. But then there’s just plain woman-hating.
The website Itsguycode.com was launched in 2008 as a “parody website for people who take their gender too seriously.” (It is not related to the MTV Reality Show Guy Code, which had its debut in 2011). Its impresarios describe themselves as “a group of men dedicated to preserving masculinity in a society trying to be pimped by feminism”; its name was inspired by a line spoken by Vince Vaughn in the 2003 movie “Old School”: “It’s guy code. Guys don’t tell on other guys. It’s something chicks do. You’re not a chick, are you?”
For the most part, the site’s content is tailored to the tastes of frat-house revelers of the sort you’d expect to find crowded around the TV watching “Girls Gone Wild.” Its features run the gamut from towel-snapping gross-out humor like “Code Names of Dumps” to the amiably loutish “dinner for sex conversion menu”(the sex acts you can expect in return for buying your date various dishes at a five-star restaurant), along with racy fare like “Hottie of the Month” and “Jailbait” videos.
But the articles that appear under the heading “Women’s Studies” and “Whiny Feminists” are overtly political — and grossly misogynistic. “How to Smack a B----” by “Matt Stone” (many of the site’s pieces are bylined “Matt Stone” and “Trey Parker,” which presumably are pseudonyms) seems more like a specimen from a sociopath’s case file than a satire — and it suggests a definition of masculinity that is troubling, to say the very least. There's an obvious similarity to some of the woman-bashing sites in the so-called "manosphere" of certain sectors of the men's rights movement.
Ostensibly, “How to Smack a B----” is a college research project by a former high school jock who was introduced to the subject when his weightlifting coach passed on this piece of wisdom: "Women need a heavy hand and when they become unstable, belligerent or argumentative you must put them back in line.” The word “women” is facetiously defined as “constructions of flesh made to give pleasure to men and their penis [sic]”; “a never ending cause to [sic] problems, turmoil, bankruptcy, heart ache, blue balls, fights, police, etc.”; “a never ending source of complaints and wheel barrow of regret”; and “a being not able to have accountability or rationality.”
Most of the essay consists of deadpan descriptions of the characteristics of 10 different “b---- slapping” techniques, each illustrated with a color photograph of a woman’s swollen, bruised and bleeding face: “The Classic B---- Smack”; “the Pimp Slap” (“if your woman was working and needed to be somewhat presentable the pimp smack takes place on the left or right side of the face without causing ocular damage”); “The Johnny Wad Slap” (“for those guys who are not pleased sexually in bed … first used in the early 1970s with female porn stars”); “The Where’s My Dinner B---- Slap”; “The Dun Told Her Twice Slap”; “The Open Hand Slap”; “The Forearm Ticonderoga Slap”; “The Scientology Slap”; “The Red Eye Gravy Slap” (“if done correctly will cause the white in the females eyes to turn blood red from the trapped blood vessels. Everywhere she goes she will be reminded of her insolence”); and finally, “The B---- You Gave Me Herpes Slap.”
Crude, cruel and dumbfoundingly unfunny, the tone and content of the piece is unambiguously misogynist. It is hateful and profoundly offensive — a fact that ItsGuyCode cheerfully acknowledges on its Facebook page. “We got a lot of hate mail for this article,” the site’s managers write above its link to the article.
Not surprisingly, ItsGuyCode’s managers hide behind a proxy domain registrant and cover themselves with this carelessly transcribed disclaimer: “GUY CODE, INC, is in no way responsible for the content posted here, and therefore cannot guarantee its accuracy, integrity, quality or if it is funny. By using this site, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable but it [sic] the humorous opinion of its users protected under the first amendment of the United States [sic]. Under no circumstances are we liable for content that includes errors or omissions, or for loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of using this site’s content.” They do, however, “reserve the right to remove any and all content posted on our (this) website or blog.”
