Over on A Voice for Men, noted human rights advocate Paul Elam has responded to criticism from a fellow antifeminist internet warrior in his typically logical, understated manner. Some highlights:
He’s whining, about jack shit, on behalf of a misandric cunt. …
Matt Forney just jerked off all over his bed sheets. And now it appears he is standing there like a virtual ‘tard, grinning about it and drooling.
At issue? Mr. Forney wrote a post some months back critical of the faux “offenders registry” called Register-Her, a pet project of A Voice for Men’s JohnTheOther in which female “bigots” – that is, feminists – are “registered” as “offenders” alongside female criminals. (Forney’s post originally appeared on the thankfully now-defunct blog In Mala Fide, but Elam only discovered it after Forney posted it on his own blog.)
In particular, Forney disagreed with Elam’s decision to “register” actress Katherine Heigl as a “bigot” after she made a Funny or Die PSA about spaying dogs and cats. The problem, for Elam and crew? That in the video she pretended to be a crazed testicle-hater obsessed with cutting off all balls, including those of human males. The AVFM crowd whipped themselves into a frenzy over this one, with Elam’s Number One Stooge JohnTheOther writing, in all seriousness:
Katherine Heigl’s supposedly humorous claim; that her advocacy of neutering pets is an outlet for her desire to chop human male’s balls off shouldn’t be taken out of context. The context being that she’s a creature of hollywood who lives in california – the same state which earlier this year saw Katherine Becker cut her husband’s penis off for the “offense” of wanting a divorce. …
We know it’s a joke. That’s the point. It’s both shocking, and plausibly deniable. It also wouldn’t be funny to most people if there was not an element of truth in it. Heigl’s “joke” included the word “yet”. This is an obvious nod to her awareness of increasing cultural acceptance of male-targeted violence and mutilation.
No, I have no fucking clue what on earth he means by that bit about the word “yet.” He goes on:
Male targeting violence persists and escalates because in the unconscious reptile corner of men’s minds, they think nodding along with whatever vile , violent, murderous shit the nearest vacuous barbie utters in her you-go-girl bubble of social enablement might get him approved for access to the magic vagina.
Like Elam, JohnTheOther apparently writes all his posts for AVFM with steam literally coming out of his ears.
Here’s the video in question. (Sorry, it won’t embed.) As you can see, the real butt of the joke is Heigl herself, and more generally narcissistic celebs who glom onto fashionable causes for all the wrong reasons. It’s not really a castration joke; it’s an actress making fun of her own reputation for narcissism. (And the video is also a serious attempt to raise awareness about the need to spay and neuter pets.)
Forney, in the blog post that roused Elam’s incredibly easy-to-rouse fury, suggested that AVFM’s claimed outrage about Heigl’s video was both silly and a bit unconvincing:
Were you honestly offended? Did that video get you mad? It didn’t get me mad. I thought it was stupid and unfunny, but aside from that, I don’t care about it. After watching it, I just shrugged my shoulders and closed the tab.
Forney went on to suggest that any MRAs who were offended by the video were, well, basically a bunch of “phony pussies,” a virtual mirror-image of the Politically Correct:
In trying to gin up indignation over Heigl’s ball-cutting comments, Register-Her.com and the MRM are seeking to perpetuate our politically correct regime, not burn it to the ground and piss on its ashes. …
The men’s rights movement wants men to keep picking at their scabs, to wallow in self-pity for all eternity. That’s not a satisfying goal for me, or countless other men who want to rise out of the mud. Until MRAs address this issue, their movement will be stuck in neutral, regardless of their occasional victories.
Yes, that’s right. A dude posting on In Mala Fide — which was known for its blatant misogyny and its proud racism, among other terrible things — is the closest we’ve got to a “voice of reason” in this particular debate.
Elam, an MRA scab-picker extraordinaire, lashed out in barely coherent rage to Forney’s charges:
[T]his kind of chicken-shit nit picking by a supposed sympathizer is far more pathetic that the Heigl video could have ever hoped to be.
Why would the Heigl video hope to be pathetic? Also, how exactly can a video hope?
I write people like you off all the time. But then you have the gumption to parrot a bunch of keyboard courage about crushing your enemies? And you make fun of guys who get fucked over by the system? What a laugh. I don’t mean what you said, but you, personally.
You may be every bit as brave as your words. I doubt it, but I don’t know. What I do know is that your article is a misandric piece of shit. Based on your rhetoric, though, I would lay dollars to doughnuts you have never crushed so much as a Dixie Cup at a water cooler. Your kind of man never does.
Says the man whose entire life is devoted to bashing out angry internet screeds, and whose only known attempt at real-world organizing collapsed before it really even began.
You just shit on those out there taking the hits and doing the work, likely because you lack the conviction to stick your neck out for anything really important to anyone but yourself.
Personally, I would not talk to MRA’s about picking scabs until you quit being one.
I’m not sure if Elam is calling Forney a “scab” as a sort of random insult referring back to his mention of scabs, or if Elam thinks that Forney is a “scab” violating some imaginary MRA “sex strike” – or “cock blockade” – by not hating on the ladies every second of every day. I’m guessing it’s the latter, because Elam really is that delusional.
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EDITED TO ADD: Matt Forney has responded to Elam’s little tantrum here. At the end, he says this:
And since I can’t end this post without mentioning that David Futrelle has (reluctantly) defended me on this issue, mainly because Elam’s neckbeard fans are going to brandish Futrelle’s article as proof that I’m an evil crypto-feminist racist mangina, let me just say that Futrelle is an even more pathetic bitch than Elam, and I don’t want his support.
Don’t worry, lil dude. I don’t actually support you. I simply agree with you on a couple of points: that Elam is a total drama king, and that anyone who believes (or purports to believe) that Heigl’s video is something to get ENRAGED about is a twit.
Paul Elam is a cranky old man who is always being a smart-ass and generally is a bitter cranky old man who no one would hang out with if he did not pwn everyone on Youtube. His radio show is fondly remembered for the comedy occasions when he soils himself on-air, implores his unlucky daughter not to take him to the nursing home, rails incoherently against effeminate Men and spout meaningless, profane gibberish that nobody can tell apart from the pre-done scripts.
Oh look, it’s our angry little friend, Antz, in the comments:
I think he wanted to make that correction because the original quote wasn’t rapey enough for Antz. And so that he could use the phrase vaginal vaults.
FGM, overwhelmingly perpetrated by women on young girls, happens in the real world in cultures that feminists usually have nothing to do with. Circumcision on males, on the other hand, happens more routinely in the real world in cultures in which feminists are more likely to be directly involved. It would be helpful if feminists concerned themselves with the culture in which they lived rather than meddling in cultures of which they know nothing about. And I hope that “!=” is an attempt at shorthand for “not equal to”, because FGM relates to the external genitalia (clitoris and labia), not ovaries or uterus. Just a minor point, I know… but one that can have significant consequences, as the removal of ovaries or uteri would have rather disastrous consequences when conducted with a rusted or dirty implement in a tribal jungle setting. Just sayin’ 🙂
Sounds like there’s trouble in paradise.
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3piixr/
“Radfems” make me almost ashamed to call myself an Amazon sometimes, because they have co-opted the image of the Amazon and her labrys as symbols of essentialist and often hateful politics that are curiously neither feminist nor particularly radical.
I think they meant for it to be like the opposite of bona fide. So the blog title means “Bad Faith,” though I’m not sure why.
wait, you haven’t even seen the ad in question and youre still trying to tell us what it is and isnt?
maybe the problem here is that your another pretentious internet dweeb trying to cover up his lack of substance by going all marshall mcluhan on a youtube clip.
here’s a tip misogynist- youre the ones who decided it was the height of comedy to call assertive women ‘ballbusters’ and what not. you don’t get to scream not fair when people turn your own insults back on you.
*misogynists
That Heigl video and that one time Sharon Osbourne was on the Talk seem to compose about 65% of all Atrocities Against Men.
Get some new material, dudes.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am sworn to crush the patriarchy and subdue the wretched male horde. But that doesn’t require transphobia.
the main lesson here is never disagree with paul-e for any reason or face the brunt of his righteous hissy fit (delivered exclusively where he has total control of the conversation). that is a true mark of leadership.
“Here is the original quote by the mongol warlord (known also as the world’s champion contributor of semen to the largest number of vaginal vaults):”
Holy fuck Antz what the hell is wrong with you?
I hope that as long as you live your semen sees nothing but your crusty old sheets and the back of your hand.
Lol DIS;
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pnxgx/
y’know, there’s nothing in the heigl video that’s even half this lurid, so it’s kind of telling that you had to add that in
To be fair to Antsy, vaginal vaults is a pretty nice consonance. He’s just such a poetic soul he had to find somewhere to use it, and the context just doesn’t matter to him.
This whole thing has me imagining the Incredible Hulk as Paul Elam. Watch as he turns green, goes to the watercooler, and silently smashes each and every Dixie cup one by one.
http://m.quickmeme.com/meme/3pnxi7/
also, you make want to brush up on the differences between the testicles and the clitoris
@ Cliff: “That Heigl video and that one time Sharon Osbourne was on the Talk seem to compose about 65% of all Atrocities Against Men.”
Yep – and the Titanic is most of the rest.
I can’t help but notice Paul takes the chance in the article to explain to his audience how important he is:
GUYS I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL YOU GUYS.
Ooh ooh I missed some!
NO SERIOUSLY I’M PRETTY FAMOUS.
THREE INTERNET RADIO SHOWS!
that’s what david’s been doing?
GUYS SERIOUSLY I’M MAKING ORZO, THIS IS IMPORTANT GUYS!!!!1!!1!
I think that my main problem is the whole video in general is that it’s supposed to be about SPAYING AND NEUTERING, yet it only focuses on the neutering aspect.
Spaying female animals is incredibly important- puppy mills force female dogs to breed and breed until their uteruses are practically prolapsed. Many female cats allowed outside while not spayed can get pregnant even as kittens.
Seriously, the most important thing a person can do for their pets (female or male) is to sterilize them. They live longer, happier lives. They are less susceptible to cancers too.
I don’t understand why people don’t seem to understand that the their own “manliness” isn’t connected to their animals. They even have a website to help male dogs that have been neutered to feel “better” about it (er, I mean the owners): http://www.neuticles.com/
The joke isn’t really that funny when it goes further into the whole “oh, cut off men’s balls” thing (and the end part is really not funny because it plays into the sexist trope of women holding onto men’s balls when they’re in a relationship, and generally all of the sexist stuff that implies).
In the end, the video is tasteless, but is it any more tasteless to similarly sexist videos in which women are portrayed as stupid, slutty, or golddiggers?
In general, I didn’t like the video, but I don’t think it’s the END OF TEH WORLD scenario that these MRAs are going on about.
Oh sorry, I thought we were just talking about the important things we’re doing. My bad. Here’s a relevant meme: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pnxvb/
Christine Noble: Wow, ummmmm… they know that “mala” is not Latin for “male” or “men” right? I don’t even think it’s a word, though if it is, I’m pretty sure “sickness” would be the closest translation.
It’s latin. It means “bad”, it’s the root word for “malice” and related to “malus” because of how bitter/acidic apples were in the Classical age; it’s the root for, “malic acid” and has connotations of “caustic”.
Greg ” Not all feminists are radical feminists” and indeed Not all MRA are fringe lunatics either David.
Ok, put your money where your mouth is.
Link to some of those non, “fringe lunatics”.