Author Archives: David Futrelle
Who designed A Voice for Men’s new commemorative coins, Judy Chicago?
![Screen Shot 2014-07-11 at Fri, [Jul 11], 14 6](http://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-11-at-fri-jul-11-14-6.png)
This is a picture of A Voice for Men’s new commemorative coin. No, really, they have a commemorative coin. It was designed by Peter Vinczer, father of A Voice for Men’s Attila Vinczer, possibly — I suspect — with the help of Judy Chicago. The coins cost $58.88, and will be issued in a first edition of 10,000.
In the comments to AVFM’s announcement, six people have proudly announced that they’ve purchased a coin. So get yours quickly, because there are only 9,994 left before the first edition runs out!
The only real question is what exactly is being depicted on the coin:
Is it:
1) An otter in a manhole
2) A man levitating a carrot over a milkshake
3) A vagina
4) A vagina
5) Come on, it’s obviously a vagina
ANSWER: I have no fucking clue. Seriously, I’ve been staring at this for like ten minutes and I have no idea what on earth this could be. What is the round thing? Why is there a tiny hand? If that thing above the circle thing is a raindrop or a teardrop or whatever, why is it upside-down? Why would AVFM issue a goddamn commemorative coin in the first place.
I do know one thing, though: If you can afford to waste $$58.88 on this piece of crap, you are not oppressed in any way. And you should probably have your right to vote stripped from you.
Just kidding about that last bit. You should still be allowed to vote even if you buy vagina coins from a dude named Attila.
How to Lose a Debate in 45 Minutes: Paul Elam fumbles his debate with Matt Binder
So, that happened.
The debate between Matt Binder (from the Majority Report) and Paul Elam (from A Pile of Money for Paul Elam) went off yesterday. I can’t say it went off without a hitch, because it was actually quite hitch-full. Indeed, it was kind of a disaster — at least for one Paul Elam.
Paul’s the one who wanted the debate. He chose the topic, he chose the format, he controlled the venue. And he lost the debate rather spectacularly, grimly reading a succession of prepared statements while Binder shot down his arguments with common-sensical one-lines and raised issues that Elam didn’t or couldn’t address.
Binder rattled Elam early by presenting him with an unattributed quote that sounded virtually identical to Elliot Rodger’s misogynistic rants and which Elam dismissed as something that no MRA would ever say; Binder then revealed that it was a quote from Stefan Molyneux, the MRA “philosopher” who was one of the featured speakers at AVFM’s recent conference. (Indeed, it was a quote that I highlighted in my first Misogyny Theater videos on Mr. M.)
The Tiny Kitten Comment on YouTube: My Explanation
Ok, this is a little embarrassing, but I would like to offer my explanation of this comment that was posted on my most recent video about Stefan Molyneux:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at Thu, [Jul 10], 14 3](https://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-10-at-thu-jul-10-14-3.png)
Now, I admit this looks bad. It looks like I was trying to pretend to be an adorable tiny kitten posting a comment praising my video, and that I screwed up and posted it from the wrong account, revealing that it was actually me posting the comment and not a tiny kitten at all.
Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I was not pretending to be a tiny kitten. I am a tiny kitten. And I like watching my own videos more than I like playing with laser pointers. (But not more than playing with wand toys. I mean, those things are AMAZING.)
Ooh, what was that?
OMFG, BIRD!! BIRD OUTSIDE THE WINDOW!!
Do you guys SEE THIS??!
Oh, flew away.
Time to lick myself I guess.
Debate: Matt Binder of the Majority Report vs. Paul Elam of A Voice for Paul Elam
So there’s a LIVE debate tonight between Matt Binder of the Majority Report with Sam Seder and a fellow you may have heard of by the name of Paul Elam. Since Elam evidently refused to debate on the Majority Report — for some reason he doesn’t like to debate people when he doesn’t control the venue — Matt Binder agreed to debate on A Voice for Men, with Dean Esmay as the, ahem, neutral moderator. It’s at 6 PM Eastern.
I expect some shenanigans.
Here’s the video that inspired Elam’s debate challenge:
Here’s Matt’s video accepting the challenge:
Check out Matt’s other videos on Men’s Rightsers and our dear friend Stefan Molyneux.
Stefan Molyneux’s Secret Life as a Hot Babe Who Loves Stefan Molyneux
In the comments section to philosopher-douchebag Stefan Molyneux’s review of Frozen, a self-described “attractive young woman” posts a review of his hour-long review that is so effusively positive that it almost sounds like it was posted by the man himself.
Oh, wait: he did post it himself.
![Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at Thu, [Jul 10], 14 1](https://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-10-at-thu-jul-10-14-1.png)
Can this be real? I mean, it is real; I just went and got the screenshot. But is it really possible that Mr. M tried to sockpuppet in the comments to his own video, posing as his own biggest fan? Or did some worshipful young hottie sneak onto his laptop when he wasn’t looking and post the comment? What kind of “philosopher” does that? Did Jean-Paul Sartre send love letters to himself? Did Kierkegaard leave gushing messages on his own answering machine?
I think we can safely say “no,” at least to the latter, given that Mr. K died in 1855.
But what the hell, Stefan? I eagerly await your two-hour video explaining this one.
Also, if you could explain why my cell phone keeps randomly beeping, that would be great too. It’s really annoying.
(Thanks to everyone who sent this to me.)
UPDATE: I figured out the problem with my cell phone! Oh, and I have also been told that Stef’s self-congratulatory comment was actually a repost of a comment from someone else. He wasn’t pretending to be a young hottie. He was posting a quote from a young hottie without indicating in any way that it was a quote from someone other than him. Good job! So I’ve changed “written” to “posted” in the text above.
Now, though, I’m wondering if that person also wrote the comment that Stef used to introduce his video:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at Thu, [Jul 10], 14 2](https://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-10-at-thu-jul-10-14-2.png)
I mean, that has to be written by someone else, because what kind of arrogant douchenozzle would not only write about himself in the third person but also describe his own video as “must watch?” David Futrelle needs to know.
Dean Esmay’s Secret Plan to Fight Sexism by Calling Everyone a Whore
Let’s say that you’re the “Managing Editor” of a website known far and wide for calling women “whores,” as well as an assortment of other 4- and 5-letter words generally considered crude sexist slurs. Let’s just say that you had a convention, and that during this convention your official spokeswoman went on a bit of a name calling rampage on Twitter, repeatedly attacking a woman who had tried to report on said convention as an “attention whore,” a “fame whore,” and a “little whore,” and offering similar “whore”-based assessments to other critics of the site.
And let’s just say that despite all this you also had a desire to convince the world that your site was not actually the misogynistic cesspit that it so obviously is. Would you:
1) Apologize for using the words “whore” and “bitch” and “c*nt” and other similar sexist epithets against women.
2) In your capacity as editor, quietly remove the word “whore” (and “bitch” and “c*nt”) from future postings on the site, and tell your PR maven to maybe come up with a less misogynistic insult of choice.
3) Start calling men whores so that no one can accuse you of hating women because, see we use “whore” to refer to men too!
The answer, of course, is 3 — at least if you’re Dean Esmay, “Managing Editor” of A Voice for Men. In a recent comment thread on AVFM, he declared:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 5](https://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-5.png)
CONFIDENTIAL TO D— E—-: No one is buying your bullshit. Also, if you want to try to convince the world that you’re a Friend of Sex Workers, you should probably stop using the word “whore” as an insult for women or men.
Paul Elam: All Your Donations Are Belong to Me
Paul Elam, in his hovel.
Heh. I’m on my annual semi-vacation this week, and was planning on keeping my postings here fairly light. But the news waits for no one. And by “news” I mean the daily parade of ridiculousness coming from the Men’s “Human Rights” camp. So here’s a quick report on the latest bit of high irony involving A Voice for Men.
Well, I was wrong. I’ve often noted that the Men’s Rights movement in general, and A Voice for Men in particular, doesn’t actually provide any real help for any real men. Sure, as far as I can tell, precisely zero of the hundreds of thousands of dollars A Voice for Men has raised from donors over the years has gone into providing actual services for men — say, funding a hotline for troubled men or some other practical program that doesn’t primarily involve yelling at women online. But never let it be said that none of this money gods to help men.
Because, it turns out, that money has been going to help men. Or at least that subset of men that consists of one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.
After being pressed for details about A Voice for Men’s finances by anonymous commenters on Reddit, a certain Twitterer named @DavidFutrelle and a journalist from MSNBC, Elam has finally fessed up and admitted that all the money donated to his website goes directly to him. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Elam had to say in a post from yesterday:
MRA “philosopher” Stefan Molyneux: “If you don’t have a husband … to keep the child is abusive.”
Misogyny Theater takes another look at the charming philosopher-king-asshole Stefan Molyneux, who seems to be carving out quite a spot for himself in the world of the lady-haters.
In this episode, some audio excerpts from Stefan Molyneux’s frighteningly well-received talk ostensibly on circumcision at A Voice for Men’s June 2014 conference, as presented in his video “Shocking Misogynist Attacks Feminism, Defends Rape Culture.” Despite the ironic title, this is pretty much an accurate description of his talk, even a bit of an understatement.
The title of my video is a shortened version of something he says in his talk (and in my video). The full quote: “If you don’t have a husband, if you chose the wrong guy, to keep the child is abusive, almost always.”
That’s right: according to Stefan M., being a single mother is, in itself, abusive.
The audio excerpts are drawn from an hour-long talk, so naturally I did some editing. In the interests of transparency, I marked each edit with a little snipping sound.
If you just can’t get enough of this guy, see my previous Molyneux video for more exciting women-blaming.
Scissors sounds and weird background noises courtesy of FreeSFX.
AVFM’s Paul Elam posts attack on the Doubletree Fort Shelby Hotel, suggests that the alleged threats to the hotel were phony
The fur and accusations are flying!
A Voice for Men’s grandly titled First International Conference on Men’s Issues wound down a week ago. But the drama continues.
Today, in a post on AVFM, maximum leader Paul Elam set forth a series of accusations against the Doubletree Fort Shelby Hotel (where the conference was originally going to be held); against an unnamed security contracting company in Houston; and even against some hypothetical “privileged little college girls” who might have had the conference booted from the Doubletree by simply making a couple of irate phone calls, because, at least in Elam’s imagination, “privileged little college girls” have that power.
But the bulk of Elam’s complaints lie with the Doubletree, as the typically understated title of his post makes clear:
