I don’t want to make this blog the A Voice for Men Show, but that little hangout of angry dudes has really been outdoing itself in recent days. Take site founder and chief egomaniac Paul Elam’s post the other day reading the riot act to another Men’s Rights activist for being a homophobic asshole.
Specifically, an Australian bloke named Chris Key, whom Elam describes as “a true misogynist, homophobe and all around asshole who claims to be an MRA.”
Regular readers of this blog may recall Key from a visit he paid to the comments section here recently, lambasting “feminazi dykes and cunts — as well as the mangina losers who were sniffing around for a sympathy fuck” for, among other things, for using “foul, aggressive language.” Yes, there is a teensy bit of irony there.
[Let me just put a trigger warning here for the violently homophobic language in the next couple of quotes from Key.]
Key is indeed a pretty foul excuse for a human being. On his site, Men’s Rights Online, his avatar is an animated gif of a boot, captioned “these boots were made for kicking feminists in the cunt.” In addition to kicking virtual feminists he devotes much of his attention to attacking “fags” and “dykes.” In one recent thread in the subforum devoted to “The Militant Fag/Dyke Agenda,” he offered this bit of wisdom:
I think the death penalty should be assigned to all persons who practice faggotry and dykism. The people who practice that lifestyle are destroying society.
The law system might have decriminalised faggotry, but nature hasn’t. HIV is a stark reminder that nature does not tolerate faggotry
In another comment he went even further. You might ask: how is it possible to go further than that? Here’s how. Responding to another commenter who had suggested that “fags are better off nailed to a fence post,” Key added:
Only problem with nailing fags to a fence post is it might allow one of their contagious diseases to infect a normal Human. The best thing the government can do is kill them and burn their carcasses. Society needs to be protected from these monsters.
Shortly after his visit to Man Boobz, Key stopped in to visit with his comrades over in the comments section of AVFM, where he aroused Elam’s ire by calling one of AVFM’s female followers a “fag enabler.”
And so Elam, who seems to think he’s the Emperor of MRALand, has declared him persona non grata in the Men’s Rights movement.
But that’s a good thing, right? I mean, Key is such a noxious shit he should probably be thrown out of any movement he’s a part of, right? (Except perhaps organizations promoting gay-bashing and “cunt-kicking” in Eastern Australia.) Haven’t I been arguing since, like, forever that Men’s Rightsers who need to get rid of the real haters?
Well, yes. It’s just that there is a eensy weensy teensy tiny bit of hypocrisy in Elam’s moralizing. Because A Voice for Men, in addition to being a misogynist cesspool, is itself overflowing with homophobia and transphobia, much of it coming from Elam himself. Elam’s description of Key as “a true misogynist, homophobe and all around asshole” is a perfect description of himself as well.
Consider: The site’s slur of choice for men who aren’t raging misogynists is, you may recall, “mangina,” an insult that pulls off a veritable trifecta of bigotry, being homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic all at once. It’s telling that Elam et al can’t really think of a worse insult than to suggest that men they don’t like are effeminate not-quite-men with feminized genitalia. (Elam says he’s been trying to move away from this term, which I guess he thinks is too obvious in its bigotry, but you’d hardly know it from looking at the number of articles featuring the slur on his site.)
As for homophobia, you may recall the bizarre “humorous” post in which he imagined me and a rather outspoken YouTube critic of MRAs having sex:
I am not in the least bit homophobic, but if Hannibal Barca ever takes refuge in the loving arms of David Futrelle, I might have to reconsider. I will spare you any attempts to construct a visual. I’m heartless at times, but not sadistic. …
[I]f Barca and Futrelle took their shirts off and kissed, would it be lesbian porn? Sorry, I should have issued a trigger warning.
Yeah, that’s not in the least bit homophobic.
But Elam’s homophobia towards gay men (or straight men he wants to insult by calling them gay and/or lesbian) seems to be somewhat tempered, as homophobia goes, largely because gay men are, in fact, men. Indeed, while Elam’s ideas about gay men and gay activism are all kinds of fucked up, the main reason for this seems to be his intense misogyny rather than a hatred of gay male sexuality. Several gay men write for the site.
AVFM is a bit less friendly towards lesbians – who are, as you know, not only gay but women.
For months, AVFM featured a lesbian-bashing video by far-right YouTube jackass Bernard Chapin in its sidebar, with this description, presumably written by Elam:
Bernard’s on a roll here with this one. And you will be rolling to [sic] as he delivers another thorough fisking, Inferno style.
Fun fact: Chapin’s favorite term for lesbians is “lesbobo,” with one more “bo” than the standard slur “lesbo.”
Elam is now involved in some sort of feud with Chapin, and the video is down. Elam apparently loved Chapin’s anti-“lesbobo” videos, but didn’t like him criticizing AVFM, or imitating him in one of his trademark unfunny funny voices.
And then of course was this little bit of “humor” from regular commenter Andybob, which Elam decided was so brilliant it needed to be immortalized in a post:
Lesbians barged into gay men’s spaces in droves jabbing their stubby fingers at everyone. Predictably, they proceeded to boss everyone around, making the gay rights movement about them. Note that homosexuality was a criminal offence for MEN ONLY. Lesbianism was never against the law. They had jackshit to whinge about, but they made gay rights about them anyway, and used it as a propaganda vehicle to support feminism.
Notice that GLTT became LGTT? How’s that for petty entitlement? Gay men should have fought back, but, to our everlasting shame, we didn’t. The only gay men who remained in GLTT were slimy political types seeking personal aggrandizement, zeta poodle carriers and moronic party boys who don’t give a shit about anything except the pattern on the umbrella in their drinks. Of course, the MSM focus entirely on this noisy, spangled disco version of real gay men like me: men who know exactly how greedy, relentless and downright shady those lezziefems are and don’t trust them one iota.
Yep, that’s right, Andybob is a gay man who hates lesbians and, it seems, most other gay men.
If you search through the AVFM archives, you will find lesbians appearing in its posts largely as negative examples – allies of evil feminists, perpetrators of domestic violence, destroyers of the family. In some cases, as in this post from YouTube MRA Barbarossaaaa, lesbian-bashing is basically the cherry on top of the misogyny pie:
Sure, not all women are fat lesbian man haters that pen scum manifestos on their free time. However, how many women have trapped men via child support and alimony; a form of legalized slavery?
But in other case lesbians are a main course. Take this, from a contributor known only as Dusty:
Feminists are on a campaign against heterosexuality, because they see it as the core value of the patriarchy. Not only do they constantly attack heterosexuality in the media and the classroom, but they constantly exalt homosexuality- particularly lesbianism. Most feminists are lesbians, so by pushing lesbianism onto heterosexual women, feminists simultaneously discourage marriage and open more avenues for female companionship. They praise male homosexuality, because they see it as a subversion of patriarchal, white, heterosexual, male values (whatever those are). Homosexuals are seen as a safe alternative to threatening, violent, predatory, heterosexual men, and are thus “honorary women.” Here, feminists prey on the occasional alienation that gay men feel at the hands of heterosexual men who have been raised to think that homosexuality is immoral or even pathological. However, this support is only in theory, and feminist love is entirely conditional. If a homosexual chooses to live his life as a proud man rather than a feminist lapdog, feminists have no use for him and quietly reject him.
Well, that’s a clusterfuck of terrible right there.
As bad as all this is, it really doesn’t hold a candle to Elam’s virulent transphobia, most evident in his bizarre attack against sociologist and Men’s Studies scholar Raewyn Connell, a trans woman. In a long and bizarre rant posted on Men’s News Daily, which he used to edit, Elam attacked Connell for having “the masculinity cut from his body like a malignant tumor.”
Demonstrating both hatred and ignorance, Elam suggested that Connell’s very existence as a trans woman
calls on us at the very least to question the objectivity of her work, as well as the motivations behind it.
Is it possible that an individual so hated the sex they were born with that it sparked a life long academic quest to deconstruct it into something that did not disgust them? Is it possible that the fruits of those efforts were easily embraced by others who may have had issues of their own with traditional masculinity? Not intellectual issues, but intrapersonal ones. …
One thing is certain. Raewyn Connell’s view of masculinity is not a product of scholarly pursuit, but of mental illness; a pathological hatred of a particular sex, in this case male. And when that is true of the preeminent authority in a field of study with such far reaching sociological ramifications, then it is time to make a change.
Let us hope that the idea of male studies cannot be cut off as easily as an unwanted penis.
So, yeah. If Elam really wants to free the good ship Men’s Rights Movement of bigotry, he should probably throw himself and his fellow AVFM sailors overboard immediately.
Wow, that’s one hell of a shit sandwich they’ve got there. At least he’s got some awareness that being an asshole bigot is wrong, if only he would look at himself when he comes to that conclusion.
“This is what a feminist looks like”. I need that poster printed STAT!
Carley, the picture is apparently boxer Jack Dempsey getting into a fight with a referee. I don’t know the details.
@McKenzie – I always say that second m in Mormon is a typo. 😀
Presumably it’s also a stark reminder that nature does not tolerate haemophiliacs and loves lesbians.
Ack. Sorry, I shoulda bowdlerized that word.
Geez, if even a puke-pile like Elan won’t have you, you’re not up to much.
I’m trying to get over the idea of a bunch of misogynists who don’t love “lesbian” porn.
@Evito: No. In fact, it’s legally not allowed to have a sex change for that reason. First, one has to have a diagnosed case of feeling they’re the wrong gender, there’s a name for it, I forgot what it is, before the doctors will even consider giving a sex change.
Key would be right at home the the Westboro Baptists.
“with” the Westboro Baptists, even.
These guys are amazing. If you tried to write a character like them your writing teacher would basically slap you upside the head and shout “too unrealistic!”
Well, that was informative. I never realized that all transgender people hate everyone whose a member of the sex they were assigned at birth.
I really should have known, I supposed. I mean, my roommate during my first year of college was a trans man. He always treated me, as cis woman, with kindness and respect. Even if we were never close friends, we got along fairly well. A couple of his best friends were women. Clearly, this was because he had a deep and abiding hatred of all women.
Besides, my parents are friends with a trans man who goes to their church who has two daughters who he helped homeschool. Clearly, the only reason that he was involved in his daughters lives was because he secretly hated them for being girls and wanted to ruin their lives.
How did I not realize before that these men only treated women fairly and believed in gender equality only because they hated women?!
Still having a hard time getting past the fact that there are people alive who think LGBTQIA people actually deserve to be killed (in disturbing ways) for what they do with other consenting adults and their own bodies. I knew about it, I just never get used to hearing it anew.
no Anathema don’t you see, that was justified hatred because ~misandry~ so neither of your examples really hated the relevant women at all
Given I know men who have had the fact theyre gay used as the reason they could have no contact with their children, you’d think the MRM would be crusading on their behalf. But no, cos buttsex is icky.
I think you guys are all being way too hard on these dudes. Look, I’ve been a feminist for years, and it wasn’t until I was exposed to AVFM and the rest that I realised I was doing it wrong this whole time.
I’m not a lesbian, I’ve not added any fake rapes to my rape-count, I haven’t even trapped ONE man by stealing his seed. I keep forgetting to call every man I meet a rapist, I haven’t violently murdered someone who didn’t agree with me, I’ve had the nerve to care about men who have been raped, and I’ve been too lazy to get around to falsely accusing men of stuff so I can get rich.
Worst. Feminist. Ever, amirite?
I am really glad that the guys over at AVFM are tirelessly working to remind me what and who I am. Rock out with your cock out, Elam.
I sense a dynamic here. Part of it seems calculated, part unconscious. Like a lot of alcoholics, Elam seems to go on abusive uncontrolled rages that he posts. Then he gets reactions, realizes he’s blown it, and tries to rehabilitate himself and his site by posting a sort of goodygoody piece written in a pseudo-rational style full of disclaimers and claims to love all humanity including those he has just vilified. I’ve also seen a post-rage self-pity mode where he posts a poor-me article about how he is misunderstood, just like a typical abuser who can’t believe people would hold him responsible for whatever vicious thing he just wrote. That he’s an abuser isn’t in question, is it? He’ll go down in mrm history as the dude who said hurting women gives him an erection. And that’s all anyone will remember of him.
@ Deezers: Ooh! New troll, hi! Just as clueless as all the others too. Daaaaaaaaaw!
longshan gui: You basically summarized any given MRM hub moderator. Also, that was amazing. 😀 Also, I never knew Paul was alcaholic.
CatBeast, are you calling deezers a troll? I thought they were being sarcastic. I mean, “Rock out with your cock out, Elam.”? That’s awesome.
@CatBeast: I think deezers was being hella sarcastic.
To Deezer:
A woman has a right to be a lesbian. What of it.
Most women have never falsely accused a man of rape.
Most women have not trapped even ONE man by getting pregnant.
Most women do not believe every man they meet is a rapist.
Most women have not violently murdered someone who disagreed with them.
Most women do care about rape of both men and women.
Most women have never falsely accused men of domestic violence to exploit them for money.
Unlike you, most women do not need the MRM to teach them what and who they are. Or how to be decent human beings.
A Voice for Men is dedicated to teaching men and boys that nearly all women, except the ones who advocate for them, are selfish, gold-digging, dishonest, uncaring, bitches who exploit men for their own gain and shop too much – and that we must be kept under control.
No, thank you.
Hi, CatBeast, I don’t know that he’s an alcoholic, dry or wet. I’m looking at his behavior. And he has discussed his background as an alcoholism counselor. So many of these are former alcoholics, and have to struggle with old behavior patterns.
Mmmmm, cheeseburgers.