Longtime observers of A Voice for Men have been wondering for some time why John “The Other” Hembling has vanished from that site. Hembling, once the site’s Editor in Chief and number two figure, was not at AVFM’s much ballyhooed conference this summer, and his name has mysteriously vanished from the masthead. AVFM has not, to the best of my knowledge, ever offered a public explanation for the falling-out with Hembling.

Now, after months of silence on the topic, Hembling is telling his side of the story.

In a video posted yesterday — and embedded at the top of this post —  Hembling claims he was tossed overboard from the good ship AVFM because he was publicly critical of some of AVFM’s staffers and allies – in particular Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield, AVFM’s truth-challenged “social media director,” and Stefan Molyneux, long-winded YouTube “philosopher”and leader of the Cult of Stefan Molyneux.

Hembling starts off the video by challenging the “rumor” that he was kicked out of AVFM because he was planning on showing up to the group’s conference with a giant inflatable penis, a reference to Community Organized Compassion and Kindness — COCK – a group that he started with his girlfriend Diana Davison and which seems to count only the two of them as members. I have no idea if this is a real rumor, a joke, or something he actually was planning. I mean, this is a guy who runs a “human rights” group called COCK. In any case, he insists in the video that he had no such plans.

The real reasons he was “disinvited” from the conference and from AVFM itself? According to Hembling, it’s largely because, he hasn’t been shy about criticizing other AVFMers, as well as various articles on the site, including one from a trans man that Hembling thought was “bullshit,” and published only because AVFM was trying too hard to be inclusive.

But apparently his biggest crime in the eyes of Elam and other AVFMers was his criticism of AVFM PR maven Janet Bloomfield – not for being a liar with a propensity for calling her opponents “whores,” but for being … a stay-at-home mom.

When Hembling joined AVFM, he notes, the site was harshly critical of traditionalist conservatives, seeing the traditional roles of men as providers and women as stay-at-home wives and mothers as offering little more than “slavery” for men.

Indeed, Hembling quotes from one 2011 post by AVFM founder and big kahuna Paul Elam warning of the danger posed to men by, in Elam’s words

‘traditional” woman’… offering fellatio in exchange for indentured servitude, and reveling in her ‘traditional power,’ as a woman. … Traditionalism is the driving force behind male slavery. It is the psychological machine that socializes men into becoming fodder and into becoming lapdogs disguised as guard dogs.

But now, Hembling complains, AVFM has not only abandoned its disdain for traditionalist women, but has also appointed a traditionalist woman – Bloomfield – to serve as its PR representative. (Though Hembling doesn’t mention is, AVFM also brought traditionalist conservative Suzanne Venker to speak at its conference.) And when Hembling brought up this seeming contradiction while he was at AVFM, he says, his “relatively mild critiques” were seen as “blasphemy.”

“What happened, Paul,” Hembling asks. “Did your brains fall out?”

As Hembling sees it, the “final nail in my coffin at AVFM” was his criticism of Molyneux, a woman-hating libertarian “philosopher” with a cult following (literally) on YouTube who was one of the more memorable speakers at AVFM’s conference. (I highlighted some of the horrible things he said in that speech in a Misogyny Theater video here.) Hembling doesn’t specify what exactly he criticized Molyneux for, but insists that it was mild criticism compared to what the “philosopher” hears from others online.

Hembling adds that he also called MRA elder Warren Farrell “Professor Fuzzy Face. I think that might have ruffled some feathers too.”

So are these the real reasons Hembling was exiled from AVFM? Isn’t it possible that he was actually shitcanned because he’s a loose cannon and compulsive liar that no legitimate organization would want to have anything to do with?

He is, of course, all of those things, and if we were dealing with any entity other than AVFM I would assume this was the true explanation. But the plain fact is that AVFM is overflowing with loose cannons and compulsive liars, from the man at the top of the heap down to the footsoldiers in its Twitter army.

And, as hard as it might be to believe anything that someone as habitually truth-challenged as Hembling has to say, his explanation of his fall from grace is completely plausible. Elam is an egotist and an opportunist, and he’s not someone who likes being second-guessed by his followers. To have the ostensible number two at AVFM calling him out publicly for his hypocrisy and poor judgement? Well, I can’t imagine he was terribly happy about that.

Will Elam respond to this video with an “explanation” of his own? I can only hope so.

Kids listening to the radio. Or perhaps an armoire.

So I was interviewed a while back by All Things Considered for a segment on men’s rights activism. The segment, part of their “Men in America” series, will be running today. All Things Considered starts at 4 PM — at least in my time zone (Central); you’ll have to do the time zone math to figure out when it starts for you.

You can listen online here. The segment will also be archived on the “Men in America” web page; it should go up sometime this evening.

Hopefully the segment will include some comments from me. But you never know. Should be interesting regardless.

EDIT: The transcript is up here; audio will be posted on the same page at 7 PM eastern. They included a couple of quotes from me.

I haven’t heard the segment yet, but reading the transcript i have to say the piece is pretty poor, giving MRAs in general and Warren Farrell in particular way too much credence. More on this later.

The price of ladies is plummeting!

Some thoughts on the economics of sex from the fellas over at MGTOWHQ.com.

It’s not looking good for the ladies, at least according to the guys who’ve decided they’re totally over women, honest, but who somehow can’t stop talking about how totally over women they are, honest.

A fellow called TheShaman offers some thoughts on the complete worthlessness of women after they hit the proverbial “wall” somewhere shy of age 40 and are suddenly transformed from swans back into ugly ducklings. He starts off with an idea cribbed directly from good old Warren Farrell before moving on to more advanced Cock Carousel Theory (CCT):

A woman, traditionally, would have used her youth and beauty as a down-payment to a man, to secure his loyalty so that he would stay with her for what could be as long as 50 years of Post-Wall woman.

Nowadays women squander their SMV wealth on bad boys, giving away all their value to Alpha Fucks, and then expect that Beta’s to provide the bucks to settle their massive debts. Especially women in the West- all of the sweetness once expected from women is gone- no ability to cook, no desire to please, no willingness to make a man’s life better. These cock carousel riders only feel like settling down and getting married when they have maybe 1-3 years of decent youth left to her.

A woman truly only has, maybe, 20 good years to her. Afterward, she becomes an aging monster, increasingly bitter over the fact that her best years are behind her.

Women- NEVER BUY.

Not all of the assembled MGTOWers are willing to agree with TheShaman’s radical proposition – that is, that women ever have any value.

As Hank Moody sees it, women are worthless long before they hit the wall:

The economic of Sex for women is at 0%. Its over for cunts, the cat is out of the bag. No sane man will pay for some used slut.

Wallkeeper, meanwhile, reminds the fellas that they’re the real prize. Hooray for fellas!

men must realize that we’re the prize, women are just a sexual fantasy, an accessory, a luxury.
a man can live without sex and without women, a woman cannot live without men.

In return for these valuable insights, I would like to offer all Men Going Their Own Way some concrete suggestions on where exactly they might go. How about one of these lovely islands, all conveniently devoid of women and other humans?

Some guys aren’t freaked out by tampons.

Jessica Valenti – Guardian columnist, Feministing founder, non-man-hating feminist – has been fending off an unending torrent of harassment and abuse since she tweeted a picture of herself wearing an ironic t-shirt a couple of weeks ago.

Last weekend, a seemingly innocent tweet from her– asking her readers if they knew any countries that provided free tampons – set off yet another wave of abuse. Her question, and the cogent column she ultimately wrote on the subject, arguing that there are legitimate health concerns that justify government subsidies for tampons, inspired countless thoughtful comments from her critics. Like these:

These sorts of comments (and there were many more along these lines) are sadly typical of the sorts of things feminists – particularly those of the female variety – get whenever they happen to state their opinion about anything online. (If you click on the second one you can see the Tweeter defending his vagina remarks against assorted critics.)

But a reader pointed me to something, well, interesting about that second tweet: It came from a fellow named Adam McPhee, a self-professed “egalitarian” who just happens to be a board member, and the official spokesperson, for a group we’ve discussed here before: the Canadian Association For Equality (CAFE).

CAFE has won itself a certain notoriety in recent months. In May, you might recall, the group’s planned E-Day festival fell apart after its sponsors and some of the musicians scheduled to perform at it discovered that they had unwittingly signed on to a Men’s Rights event.

The group has also organized talks by antifeminist speakers, including the now-notorious appearance of Warren Farrell at the University of Toronto, which inspired some, well, let’s just call them counterproductive protests that we’ve been hearing about endlessly ever since.

But CAFE has been working hard to gain itself a bit of respectability. It somehow managed to win itself charity status from the Candadian government, and has raised money to start up some sort of men’s center. And it has been trying to distance itself from one formerly close ally, A Voice for Men.

Indeed, McPhee himself recently gave an interview to the Toronto Star in which he described AVFM’s harassment of some of those who protested Warren Farrell’s talk as “completely wrong.”

So it seems just a tad ironic, to say the least, to see McPhee happily harassing Jessica Valenti on Twitter.

PS: Adam, I agree with Jessica on that whole tampon thing. So feel free to Tweet me your thoughts about my gaping vagina.

Evil woman preparing for battle.

Ladies, watch out! Men’s Rights Redditor warspite88 is on to you! Your painted faces don’t fool him! Your concealer cannot conceal the truth! He knows your lips aren’t really that red! He knows your eyelids aren’t really that blue!

Yes, that’s right: it’s time for another angry MRA rant explaining to us why women wearing makeup oppresses men, somehow.

In a post with the delightfully over-the-top title “Men’s rights are directly tied to the power of paint and powder. Ill explain,” warspite88 sets forth his theory:

It is my belief that women have become so beautiful through the use of makeup that most women and men are influenced dramatically and view women more as goddess and men as dogs. The power of makeup has helped to fuel a war against men’s basic human rights.

Uh, what?

Lets face it, men are ugly compared to women, right? Many men feel sorry for women or think it is oppressive that so many women wear makeup.

I’m pretty sure most men don’t get angry when a woman puts on lipstick. That’s just you, dude. Well, you and a thousand other MRAs.

Well, if you dig really deep into history and our modern use of makeup, you will see it points to one key element of humanity, Power.

Wait. I thought female power resided in the ass, not the face. Didn’t Warren Farrell write a book about that or something?

Power to attract those you want (or label unwanted attention as harassment as a result of powder power)

Powder power? Is that like miniskirt power? You are Warren Farrell, aren’t you?

Power to influence Power to feel good about yourself (vain or not) Just a few examples

Dude, sorry to interupt your little rant here, but would it kill you to put periods at the end of your sentences?

Makeup is expensive, a huge industry, so money and making others pay for your power is in high demand.

I had no idea the women were so devious. Making men pay for their makeup, which they then use to make men pay for … more makeup. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s ingenious. At least until the makeup-using manipulator is found dead in her apartment, lipstick tube still in her hand, crushed by the gigantic boxes of makeup she conned poor male suckers into buying for her.

[W]e see it in every day life, in relationship, those trying to get relationships. we see it in business, court rooms, churches, places of power. We see it in schools, young girls even. We see it in the media oh yes those sexy Fox women, wonder why those women were hired? Why they put on so much makeup? Take a guess boys, take a guess white knights. Take a guess MRMs.

You seem a little fixated on the Fox News women.

The power of paint and powder to influence others minds, their reactions, their actions, it is one of the most deeply rooted human aspects of power projection yet few ever take it seriously. The power of makeup to make women beautiful to seduce and control a horny man or a white knight has built kingdoms, it has destroyed kingdoms, it has had major political influence around the world for all of history.

Behold, the most powerful woman in history:

Hey there fellas!

Weird. I feel an almost irresistible urge to buy that woman some more makeup. MUS T RESIST.

There is a reason why most women use makeup, because it gives them power, subtle, acceptable power that few men can ignore.

Women’s sexuality, it is natural and men are pawns to it because men are wired to view women as sexual objects. … So when men see a woman dolled up with makeup more often than not his head falls head over heels with lust (not love) desire (not caring).

His HEAD falls HEAD over HEELS with LUST.

His HEAD.

Let’s just think about this for a second. How does a HEAD fall head over heels? A HEAD DOESN’T HAVE HEELS IT IS JUST A HEAD.

Does it borrow some heels for the occasion? Does it hold the heels in its mouth? So many questions.

The power of beauty and charisma that comes with paint and powder changes the world.

So how is it related to mens rights?

Oh, this oughtta be good.

Go outside, yes leave your computer. Go to any public place and watch people. Watch how men react to women who are dressed sexy or wear more makeup.

Uh, ok. But then I’d have to put on some pants.

Or just watch this stuff on TV.

Yeah, on second thought, let’s not go outside at all. Let’s base our entire knowledge of how men and women interact on old sitcoms and Fox News. You know, the news channel with all those sexy Fox women.

Anyway, so how does this relate to Men’s Rights?

Men are ugly compared to women with paint and powder right? How dare men show attraction to beautiful women, they must be pigs! Right?

Uh, what? Is this your actual argument? Are you actually trying to make some sort of sense? Or are you just typing?

White Knights love beautiful women on the outside , oh yes the white knight shield of justice is like a mirror to reflect the beauty of any female even a woman who murders her husband or rapes a boy.

Wat.

But a white knights sword is dripping with the blood of innocent men who dare even attempt equality with a beautiful woman.

Damn, this got dark, really dark, all of a sudden.

The power of paint and powder, it has affected every one of you reading this at some point in your life. it will again.

Well, not if one of those white knights has stabbed you to death, I mean, yikes! But let’s not get hung up on details.

It is not evil or wrong to wear makeup in my opinion but it is important that we become aware of how much of a paint and powder worshiping society we have become.

Is it any wonder men’s rights and well being have been left far behind in society that craves women and their paint and powder? Just saying.

Just saying?

JUST SAYING?!!

THAT’S how your ending this post?

Dude, your cockamamie thesis is that evil makeup-wearing, husband-murdering, boy-raping women rule the world, while easily manipulated white knights are going around wantonly stabbing any Men’s Rights Activists they can find.

And you end your rant with “just saying?”

Really? I mean, if you’re going to put it out there, fucking put it out there! Commit to it! End with something, you know, dramatic.

“By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!”

You know, something like that. Something cool.

End strong! End big!

Just saying.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that Grabthar’s hammer thing:

–

Click my kitty to see the smash hit new blog!

Fox News host Jessie Watters: seemed to be channeling Warren Farrell with some particularly obtuse remarks he made recently on the Fox show “Outnumbered” on the “single ladies” vote.

Hillary Clinton needs the single ladies vote. I call them ‘The Beyoncé Voters’ — the single ladies. Obama won single ladies by 76% last time, and made up about a quarter of the electorate. They depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.

If we ignore the implicit racism of his castigating “Beyonce voters” for being welfare “takers,” Watters is more or less rehashing an old, bad argument that Farrell made in The Myth of Male Power. In a section of the book called “Government as Substitute Husband,” Farrell wrote that “when divorces left women without husband-as-savior, many women looked for substitute saviors … .”

While New Age women turned to gurus and traditional women turned to God the Father or his alleged earthly representatives, Farrell wrote, feminist women either opted

to save themselves or to turn to the biggest savior of all – government as substitute husband. … Divorces led bodies of men (called legislatures) protecting women collectively as other men (called husbands) failed to protest women individually. This meant raising taxes mostly on other men to provide money mostly for women. When divorces deprive women of husbands to protect them, then, our collective unconscious still wants to protect women.

Farrell attempted to hand-wave away the inconvenient fact that the overwhelming majority of those running the government are men by suggesting that

a legislator is to the voter what a chauffeur is to the employer – both look like they’re in charge but both can be fired if they don’t go where they’re told.

So apparently the “chauffeurs” in government are completely at the mercy of women voters, since women make up a small majority of voters.

Given how laughably simplistic – and just plain wrong — this argument is, it’s kind of astounding to think that Farrell has a degree in Political Science.

Farrell’s “Big Daddy” government theory was also popular with one of this blog’s most prolific trolls, a fellow calling himself NWOSlave. Some sample comments (each paragraph is from a different comment of his; click on them for links).

Are all you gals sexually empowered now? How’s the new feminist family workin out? Woman + children and man is seperate. Big Daddy done up and took his place. If a man’s got no rights to his family, don’t expect him to have obligations either. You gals are the head of the household now.

Big Daddy will suck every last penny from the serfs to satisfy your slightest whim. The vote is your’s and the western world is exactly the way you’ve created it.

If a precious woman cries sexual harrassment ya call Big Daddy to punish the bad man. Dontcha? Men stand up individually for themselves. Women run to the State and demand punishment.

Exactly like a spoiled little child, women walk around slutwalking and demand Big Daddy spend lotsa time and money to guard their precious feelings. Big Daddy says, “sure” I’ll take your money and bill it to the people. Next, these same moronic women tromp about in their idiotic wallstreet protest. None of them have a clue as to why anyone is poor, (think entitlements).

There’s plenty more where that came from, but you get the idea. He went on and on and on about this. Then again, he went on and on and on about everything.

NOTE: Quotes from Farrell taken from pages 237-238 of the original hardback edition of The Myth of Male Power.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you run a site that appeals to raving misogynists given to launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat. And let’s just say that you have gone to great trouble to organize a conference that is designed to play down the fact that a significant amount of your fanbase is made up of raving misogynists given to launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat.

Well, you probably shouldn’t post a public announcement warning the raving misogynists who will be attending your conference to refrain from launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat because someone might hear them. Because the fact that you feel it necessary to issue such a warning is kind of a giant clue that a significant number of the conference attendees are raving misogynists given to launching into anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat.

I bring this up because Paul Elam posted just such a warning on his site last night in a post that he labeled “Important Message for AVFM Conference Ticket Holders.”

[T]here will be ideological opponents to the MHRM, including some members of the media, present at the event. Some will be looking for anything they can to hurt us with. They will be listening, eavesdropping, and if they can, gathering things to harm us with.

For that reason, ANYONE sitting around trash-talking women, men, making violent statements, even jokingly, will be brought to the attention of security who will issue ONE warning (or less). After that, they will be directed by security to leave. There are no exceptions.

Please, for all here who are attending, keep this in mind with everything you do and say. Even at after-hours social events, if you hear anyone saying anything that can be used against us, or that makes our gathering toxic, pull them aside politely and say, “Hey, you are hurting us with this. If you want to hang with this group you have to stop it.”

Oh, I suppose I should acknowledge that technically Elam also warned his attendees not to “trash-talk” men either, but the only kinds of men that ever get “trash-talked” on A Voice for Men are men that Elam and his cronies have decided have shown too much respect for women.

I’ve never run across this sort of warning at any other conference I’ve been to, or read about. I’m guessing that when the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery holds its annual trade show it doesn’t have to warn attendees not to bad-mouth their sworn enemies: Ear, Nose and Throat specialists. Or that the Electronic Transactions Association has to specifically forbid its convention-goers from publicly threatening to kill people who still like to pay with cash.

Maybe they do. Maybe they’re just a bit more discreet about it.

At least one of AVFM’s misogynistic fans wasn’t thrilled by the ban on overt women-hating rants.

In the comments to Elam’s post, someone called MGTOW-man complained that,

Of course I understand why attendees can’t be honest about women and men while at venue but what is to stop those ideologues from cherry-picking and distorting things said on AVfM? What is the difference?

Also, bummer! Isn’t part of the reason mhra’s are gathering…to learn more about each other, confirm similarities, discuss philosophies and potential solutions, and forge bonds, etc—especially during socializing time? It will be excruciatingly hard to do this if attendees lips must be sealed.

Will attendees have to take their talk elsewhere if/when they need to be honest but in which outsiders obliviously cry ” hate” because they do not want the truth to be told?

How come outsiders will be allowed in socializing time? Will attendees be allowed any time to gather WITHOUT snooping idiots probing for things to be mean and clueless?

I feel for these poor fellows, trying to come up with topics of conversation that don’t involve how much women suck.

In the comments here on We Hunted the Mammoth, Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III has offered some suggestions as to what AVFM conference goerscan can talk about if they can’t talk shit about women:

• the weather
• incomprehensible poster design
• the weather
• correct etiquette for eating cold stew from a can
• the weather
• hey do you think Warren Farrell is related to Colin Farrell or is it just a coincidence
• tie knots — the Windsor vs the Esmay
• ellipses and the rule of two
• why all women are bloodsucking monsters. I mean the weather! The weather! Shit.

Hope that helps!

Curious about the views of the people scheduled to speak at A Voice for Men’s “Men’s Issues” conference next week? Here’s a little video guide. CONTENT WARNING: Domestic violence, rape, incest.

If you’d like to have their quotes in writing for future reference, here’s a transcript of the quotes used in the video. I’ve linked to the source of each quote (or to posts of mine that discuss the quotes in greater detail). Enjoy!

Mike Buchanan has said:

I believe girls learn at a young age that whining gets them what they want, especially from over-indulgent parents who might later wonder why their daughters became Entitlement Princesses. Inevitably these girls continue whining into adolescence and adulthood because they continue to get what they want. It’s up to men to break the cycle …

Men living in houses with cellars can put a sign on the cellar door, ‘The Whine Cellar’, and politely direct whining women towards it. In houses without a cellar, the smallest room in the house – or possibly the garden shed – could be designated ‘The Whine Box’.

Mike Buchanan is a speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men

Mike Buchanan is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Buchanan’s quote

Stefan Molyneux has said:

Women who choose the assholes will fucking end this race. They will fucking end this human race, if we don’t start holding them a-fucking-ccountable. … Women who choose assholes guarantee child abuse. Women who choose assholes guarantee criminality, sociopathy. Politicians, all the cold-hearted jerks who run the world came out of the vaginas of women who married assholes.

And I don’t know how to make the world a better place without holding women accountable for choosing assholes. Your dad was an asshole because your mother chose him. Because it works on so many women. If “asshole” wasn’t a great reproductive strategy it would have been gone long ago. Women keep that black bastard flame alive. They cup their hands around it, they protect it with their bodies. They keep the evil of the species going by continually choosing these guys.

If being an asshole didn’t get women, there would be no assholes left. If women chose nice guys over assholes we would have a glorious and peaceful world in one generation. Women determine the personality traits of the men because women choose who to have sex with, and who to have children with, and who to expose those children to. …

Your dad is who he is fundamentally because your mother was willing to fuck him and have you. Willing and eager to fuck the monster. Stop fucking monsters and we get a great world. Keep fucking monsters, we get catastrophes, we get war, we get nuclear weapons, we get national debt, we get incarcerations … Women worship at the feet of the devil and wonder why the world is evil. And then you know what they say? We’re victims!

Stefan Molyneux is a scheduled speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men.

Stefan Molyneux is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Molyneux’s quote. NOTE: The text above is a more complete version of the slightly truncated quote used in the video, which was edited for clarity, for length, and to remove some repetition.

Erin Pizzey has said:

If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this–I didn’t know her but I knew of her, and I knew Susan Browmiller and you can just read her stuff to see it there.

Erin Pizzey is a scheduled speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men

Erin Pizzey is a voice of hatred

SOURCE of Pizzey’s quote. NOTE: The text above is a complete version of the slightly truncated quote used in the video, which was edited for clarity.

Karen Straughan has written:

I used to live under a young couple with a baby. I’d listen as she followed him from room to room upstairs, stomping, slamming things, throwing things, screaming. After about an hour, he’d eventually hit her, and everything would go quiet. An hour after that, they’d be out with the baby in the stroller, looking perfectly content with each other.

A man I know who has experience with men in abusive relationships would get his clients to answer a questionnaire. Things like, “after the violence, did you have sex?” “If so, how would you rate the sex?” 100% of men in reciprocally abusive relationships said “yes” to the first, and “scorching” to the second.

He also posited that the much-quoted cycle of violence–the build-up, the explosion, the honeymoon period–correlates with foreplay, orgasm and post-coital bliss.

Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”, and said in the main, that was the type she’d see at her shelter. It is also the type that results in the most severe injuries in women, surprise surprise, likely because our “never EVER hit a woman” mentality has those men waiting until they completely lose control of their emotions before giving their women what they’re demanding.

Karen Straughan is a speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men

Karen Straughan is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Straughan’s quote.

Warren Farrell has said:

The worst aspect of dating from the perspective of many men is how dating can feel to a man like robbery by social custom …

Evenings of paying to be rejected can feel like a male version of date rape.

If a man ignoring a woman’s verbal “no” is committing date rape, then a woman who says “no” with her verbal language but “yes” with her body language is committing date fraud. …

We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting.

Somehow, women’s romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said “No”. They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. …

It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal “yeses” … conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.” He might just be trying to become her fantasy.

Warren Farrell is a speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men

Warren Farrell is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Farrell’s quote.

Warren Farrell has said:

Incest is like a magnifying glass. In some circumstances it magnifies the beauty of the relationship, and in others it magnifies the trauma. …

When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200, the incest is part of the family’s open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. …

[M]illions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and … caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t.

Warren Farrell is a speaker at the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit organized by A Voice for Men

Warren Farrell is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Farrell’s quote. I have removed a word that appears in the original interview but that Farrell insists he did not say.

Paul Elam has said:

In the name of equality and fairness, I am proclaiming October to be Bash a Violent Bitch Month.

I’d like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women – to beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.

And then make them clean up the mess.

Now, am I serious about this?

No. Not because it’s wrong. It’s not wrong.

But it isn’t worth the time behind bars or the abuse of anger management training that men must endure if they are uppity enough to defend themselves from female attackers.

Paul Elam is the central organizer of the “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, and the founder of A Voice for Men

Paul Elam is a voice of hatred

SOURCE for Elam’s quote.

For a detailed look at the homophobia of Anne Cools, another speaker at the conference, see here.

Big thanks to everyone who helped with the video!

Paul Elam, Man of Peace

Well, you have to admit, he’s got chutzpah.

You may have heard that A Voice for Men is sponsoring what it calls the First International Conference on Men’s Issues later this month in Detroit, featuring such notable celebrity speakers as “internationally recognized writer, lecturer and videographer” Karen “Girl Writes What” Straughan, “former mental health professional” Paul “Boy Yells A Lot” Elam, Warren “Boys Aren’t Hurt By Incest a Lot” Farrell, and, well, a collection of other equally exciting names.

But there have been some doubts about it happening from the start. It took some time for the AVFMers to sell enough tickets to enable them to cover the costs of the event.

And now it the costs of the event are going up further: according to a letter that Elam has posted to his site, the hotel that will be hosting the conference has gotten “numerous calls and threats” of a violent nature because of the conference, and is demanding that AVFM cover the costs of additional security at the event.

So Elam has decided that feminists should pay some of these costs, in order to prove they’re “not like that.”

The death threats from feminists, in the attempt to silence these esteemed speakers, has resulted in the conference incurring tens of thousands of dollars in additional security costs.

We plan on launching a fundraiser tomorrow to address those needs, but I want to give the feminists who stand by free speech and assert decisively that these thugs do not represent what feminism is about, to have an early shot at helping us address the gender issues that impact men and boys in an open forum.

He’s even set up a special Paypal button “for feminists only.”

Excuse me?

Let’s be clear here: Death threats are bad. Other sorts of threats are bad. Harassment is bad. Shutting down talks given by people you don’t like is bad. Whoever made the threats against AVFM’s conference, feminist or not, deserves to be prosecuted.

But as someone who has never promoted violence or threats of violence or any form of harassment aimed at MRAs, and who has in fact spoken out against this on numerous occasions, I’m not actually responsible, even indirectly, for the threats against AVFM’s conference. (I haven’t even written about the conference before.) And neither is any other feminist who’s “not like that.”

Indeed, the idea that we should bankroll AVFM’s conference is a bit like asking anti-racist activists to fund a KKK rally because someone or other sent threats to the Klan.

AVFM, as I have documented rather throroughly, is a hateful organization motivated by a deeply misogynistic ideology. Its rhetoric is consistently threatening, designed to intimidate opponents into shutting up and going away. Elam himself — the master of the not-quite-legally actionable threat — once famously told one opponent that

I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection. …

Your only real hope is to keep your mouth shut and pretend AVfM and register-her.com does not exist for as long as you can. …

We are coming for you … .

It’s a group whose main form of “activism” has always been harassing individual women; indeed, the Register-Her.com sitte referenced in the above quote (currently offline and being rebuilt) was a phony “offenders registry” that posted the names and some of the personal information of AVFM’s female enemies alongside profiles of serial killers and sexual abusers. AVFM seemed to make a special point of picking vulnerable targets, often college students, evidently feeling that these women would be easier to intimidate.

AVFM has tried to destroy the lives and livelihoods of numerous other enemies, in at least one case through allegedly illegal means.

The site has also participated enthusiastically in misogynistic internet hate-orgies directed at outspoken women like Rebecca Watson and Anita Sarkeesian, women who received and who are still receiving numerous violent threats of rape and murder.

On one occasion, joining up with a hate campaign already heavily populated with white supremacists, Elam targeted a recent college grad for allegedly boasting on her blog that she’s been actively discriminating against white men in her job at the Georgetown Admissions Office. The blog was an obvious hoax and the woman in question had nothing to do with it. Even former KKK leader David Duke realized this before Elam did.

And we can’t forget that AVFM hosted a terrorist manifesto in its activism section for several years, written by Thomas Ball, a Men’s Rights Activist who hoped that his dramatic suicide – he burned himself to death on the steps of a courthouse – would inspire other MRAs to start firebombing courthouses and police stations.

So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. … the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out. …

You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!

(Emphasis mine.)

AVFM finally removed the manifesto from its “activism” section shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing brought the issue of domestic terrorism back into the limelight. But the site still hosts numerous articles glorifying the author of this manifesto.

Oh, and those associated with AVFM are not above harassing their male critics as well. I get a lot of weird, creepy and threatening emails and comments. It’s rare that the senders are dumb enough to do it under their own name. But that was the case with a creepy and threatening voicemail message I received at 1:38 AM one winter night from a longtime AVFM fan and tireless poster-paster that Elam once described as a “One Man Army” and “an MRA’s MRA.”

And this is the organization that expects feminists like me to pay for its security costs?

I don’t think so.

Memorial in Santa Barbara

Leave it to Dr. Helen – psychologist, right-wing blogger, friend of A Voice for Men – to come up with what has got to be the most transparent attempt to distract public attention from the obvious parallels between the misogyny of spree killer Elliot Rodgers and the misogyny of the Men’s Rights movement she supports.

In a blog post on PJ Media, she suggests half-seriously that “If Pick-Up Artists Are Guilty,[of inspiring Elliot Rodger] Then So Are the Feminists.”

The good Doctor starts by accusing Slate’s Amanda Hess of blaming pickup artists for Elliot’s rampage. Her proof? Several passages from Hess in which Hess makes very clear that she is not blaming PUAs – or the anti-PUAs at PUAhate — for the deaths in Santa Barbara, or even for Rodger’s misogyny.

Dr. Helen then quotes eminent mental health expert “JudgyBitch,” who wrote of the case:

The fact is that Elliot’s outburst does indeed highlight an issue of central importance to the MHRM – the inadequate, almost non-existent treatment of mental health problems for young men.

Well yes, speaking as someone who’s been dealing with depression most of my life, I agree that mental health services could be improved for young men. And old men. And everyone else.

What difference this would have made in Elliot Rodger’s case, though, is unclear. Though he’s being routinely described in the media and in online discussions of the case as “mentally ill,” “freaking nuts,” a “deranged lunatic,” and numerous other variations on this theme, we don’t actually know much for sure about his brain chemistry; claims that he “suffered from extreme paranoia and heard voices” haven’t been confirmed.

In any case, Rodger himself wasn’t suffering from a lack of mental health support. He had been treated by several therapists, and was seeing a psychiatrist. He chose not to take the meds he was prescribed.

What we do know is that Rodger was a young man driven by intense, murderous misogyny, and by what sociologists Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel call “aggrieved entitlement” (pdf here), a personality trait he shares in common with a number of young spree killers in recent years. It’s also pretty much a default personality trait for Men’s Rights activists – but we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, let’s return to Dr. Helen, who’s just getting to the main point of her post: The Blaming of the Feminists.

Perhaps it is the feminists and their supporters who block funding and education going to boys’ and men’s issues that are to blame. Case in point? Warren Farrell tried to give a talk in Toronto about suicide in young men and other topics and was accosted by nasty feminists who did not want him to speak.

Now, I don’t support shutting down lectures of those I disagree with, and I think the protestors who shut down Farrell’s lecture not only acted in an unprincipled way but also, unintentionally, provided the Men’s Rights movement with the greatest recruitment tool it’s ever had.

That said, the protesters didn’t shut down Farrell’s lecture because they opposed mental health funding for men and boys. They shut it down because Farrell has, in the past, offered creepy apologias for date rape and for incest – including the sexual abuse of underage boys and girls by their parents.

Indeed, in a notorious interview he gave about his research exploring the supposed “positive” side of incest in the 1970s, Farrell told Penthouse magazine that most of the boys he studies actually enjoyed being abused by – sorry, participating in incest with – their mothers.

The author summarized Farrell’s claims:

Mother-son incest represents 10 percent of the incidence and is 70 percent positive, 20 percent mixed, and 10 percent negative for the son. For the mother it is mostly positive. Farrell points out the boys don’t seem to suffer, not even from the negative experience.

So, yeah, the man Dr. Smith is holding up as a compassionate hero for boys, the man who essentially invented the Men’s Rights movement we know and don’t love today, has argued publicly that boys not only aren’t harmed by sexual abuse, but that most of them like it.

I’m not sure the men and boys of the world need this brand of “compassion.”

But this is not the only thing about Dr. Helen’s post that is deeply hypocritical.

Rodger’s murders were clearly driven by “aggrieved entitlement.” He believed he deserved a “beautiful blonde girlfriend,” and that the world had wronged him by not giving him one. And so he set out to take his “retribution” upon the girls who had rejected him – as symbolized by the “blonde sluts” of the sorority he targeted – and upon the world at large.

As Kalish and Kimmel write,

What transforms the aggrieved into mass murderers is also a sense of entitlement, a sense of using violence against others, making others hurt as you, yourself, might hurt. aggrieved entitlement inspires revenge against those who have wronged you; it is the compensation for humiliation. Humiliation is emasculation … For many men, humiliation must be avenged, or you cease to be a man.

Like virtually all spree killings by young men driven by “aggrieved entitlement,” Rodger’s rampage was also a suicide; he ended it with a bullet in his own head. Kalish and Kimmel would define this as “suicide by mass murder,” a way for aggrieved young men to use their own suicides to reaffirm their masculinity and take revenge upon their supposed tormenters.

The trouble is, even while Dr. Helen condemns Rodger’s murders, and tries to blame feminists for them, she herself has joined many other Men’s Rights activists in glorifying a man who attempted something very much like a “suicide by mass murder” himself.

I am talking, of course, about Thomas Ball– an angry MRA, estranged father and admitted child abuser – who several years ago set himself aflame on the steps of a New Hampshire courthouse, leaving behind a manifesto urging fellow MRAs inspired by his suicide to start firebombing courthouses and police stations, acts of terrorism which he admitted quite plainly could lead to deaths.

So what did Dr. Helen have to say about this manifesto, which among other things contained helpful tips on how to make effective Molotov cocktails? On her blog, she waxed poetic:

His statement is not the ramblings of a madman, it is the mission of a warrior in some sense. …

Mr. Ball’s death should serve as a wake-up call to the men and their supporters in this country to continue to fight for equal rights in the area of marriage and family law.

Like Rodger, Thomas Ball was driven by a sense of aggrieved entitlement. Like Rodger, Thomas Ball hoped for a “Day of Retribution” in which his enemies would die violent deaths.

Unlike Rodger, he did not kill anyone else himself; instead, he hoped that others would do the killing for him. But the impulse behind Rodger’s manifesto was largely the same. He sought to fight what he considered a grave “injustice” through violence.

And Men’s Rights activists turned him into a martyr. A Voice for Men posted his manifesto – complete with its calls to firebomb government buildings – in its “activism” section for several years; it was finally removed only after the Boston Marathon bombings brought media attention back to the issue of domestic terrorism. The theme song for AVFM’s flagship radio show contains an “invocation” celebrating Ball as a fallen hero and declaring that “his death will not go in vain.”

No, the Men’s Rights movement didn’t cause Rodger’s rampage; there’s no evidence that he ever even came into contact with it, though he was clearly steeped in misogynstic online subcultures like those of PUAhate. But there are a frightening number of MRAs who think a lot like Rodger. And that is far more worrying.