When is a false rape accusation not a false rape accusation? When it’s leveled against a feminist man.
That, in any case, is the logic behind an appalling post on A Voice for Men attempting to smear a male feminist blogger named Jason Thibeault, who posts on FreeThoughtBlogs as Lousy Canuck, by proclaiming him a rapist.
The post is a typical bit of AVFM “satire” — that is, sophistry — arguing that “by his own feminist standards” Thibeault is a rapist … because he was once accused of rape by a girlfriend, as he wrote about in a recent post. And since feminists believe that ALL accusations of rape are true, AVFM’s Birric Forcella argues, Thibeault is thus a “confessed rapist.”
Obviously, this argument is ludicrous on its face. Feminists don’t believe that all accusations of rape are automatically true. And Thibeault, for his part, says that he was falsely accused.
This doesn’t stop AVFM from giving their piece the frankly libelous headline: “FreeThoughtBlogs’ Jason Thibeault, confessed rapist.”
AVFM may defend its post as “satire” — they have a rather expansive definition of the word — but that headline is pure libel. It’s false — and would be so even if the accusations of rape were true, as Thibeault (who’s responded to the AVFM post here) maintains his innocence.
And AVFM’s intent is clearly malicious. In the first comment to the piece, AVFM founder and publisher Paul Elam declares frankly, and revealingly, “Karma is a BITCH.”
Thibeault’s real crime, in AVFM’s eyes, is that he has publicly supported women who have come forward in recent weeks to accuse prominent skeptic writer Michael Shermer of rape and sexual assault.
And so they have responded by making what is an unequivocally false accusation against him in a headline on their site.
Of course, this isn’t the first time A Voice for Men has falsely accused someone of something based on bad evidence or no evidence at all.
In April of this year, Elam (along with a number of other MRAs and an assortment of White Supremacists as well) worked himself into an uproar over a blog post from an alleged feminist allegedly working in a college admission office who claimed she was routinely trashing applications from white males.
Though even the most rudimentary amount of fact-checking would have revealed that the woman they blamed for the blog had nothing to do with it, she had her contact information posted online by MRAs and others, leaving her open to harassment and widespread vilification. Elam contributed to the hubbub by posting a vituperative post identifying the wrong woman by name — and only after being called on his mistake by numerous other MRAs did his finally retract the post.
You can read about the whole appalling affair here.
Elam has also made false accusations against little old me. In yet another case of libel-by-headline, he accused Jessica Valenti and me of being “child abusers” … because we’re feminists. (Seriously, that was the entire basis of his accusation.)
And at one point, either lying outright or misled by a troll, he put forth the absurd conspiracy theory that I was somehow responsible for an appalling Reddit forum known as the Beatingwomen subreddit.
In his post on the subject, he claimed to have “intel” from two separate sources that “confirm[ed]” my involvement in the subreddit — he provided none of this evidence — and promised that “further word” on the subject would be forthcoming.
Of course, this evidence never materialized — because it was fraudulent and/or imaginary. Elam dropped the subject. I had and have no connection to the subreddit.
And not long ago, AVFM’s Dean Esmay very publicly accused its former Canadian News Director Kristina Mendez (AKA TheWoolyBumblebee) of (maybe, possibly) running off with the money she collected for a center devoted to the memory of Earl Silverman, a Canadian MRA who committed suicide partially out of frustration over the difficulties he had in funding the DV shelter for men he ran out of his home. The folks at AVFM have admitted quite plainly that they have no evidence of wrongdoing here.
Apparently, AVFM’s strategy is to prove that false accusations are common by making as many of them as they possibly can.
EDIT: Added the bit about Valenti and me.
Bleh. Rape threads always tend to send me into emotional upset. The mass amount of apologism (HI THERE ANONGUY) still serves to send me into frothing rage sometimes.
LESS CREEPY ANONS, MORE KITTIES.
It’s the trolls’ ideas of grey areas that get the “you’re willing to be a rapist” response, Argenti. They’re seldom talking about two people wanting to do something, or getting consent before getting drunk, or getting ongoing consent. The few who are tend to get the response of “If in doubt, don’t,” when it’s about drunk sex on Pharyngula. Which seems fair: it’s not like Not Fucking Immediately ever killed anyone, and who would prefer to take the chance on genuine consent than leave it for another time except … someone who’s willing to be a rapist? But the majority are the usual rules-lawyers who want to know precisely how drunk they can get a woman before it might be called rape.
To add: not wannabe rapist but willing to be a rapist. Willing to go ahead even if they don’t know they’ve got real consent. Wiling to take that chance, though they might not even think much about it.
Yeah wannabe rapist is kinda one of those things that one can’t spend long wanting to be now is it? Your wording is definitely better.
And yeah, I figured you meant as much, I just don’t really like saying that all grey area sex means someone’s willing to be a rapist, not if LEGALLY grey but consensual is included in that definition. Which, you know, it isn’t with these tools.
Yeah, these creepsters are definitely looking for just-squeaked-in legality and ways to brush off the idea of consent. That non-consent is the default is something they do not want to hear. I’m not sure that legally grey but consensual got into it; the creepsters do what they always do when age comes into it, of course – talk as if adult-underage was comparable to kids very close in age. The situations talked about in these threads were broad, but each and every one was rape, not consensual fooling around that might be legally dubious but was between equals.
I tend to think of wannabe rapists as wanting to but being afraid they’ll get caught, or haven’t got past fantasising about it yet.
I’m 36 so I’m too young to have experienced that whole “sexual revolution” thing, but I’ve been told by people who did that basically it wasn’t that liberating for women. As someone already pointed out in this long comment thread (I think), it was about women no longer being allowed to say “no” because if they did they were prudes and not sexually liberated. So I guess (yeah this is obviously fairly simplifying) in the seventies you had these options
1. Traditional unmarried woman – weren’t allowed to say “yes” (or possibly could “give in” after the man had been insistent enough) or you were a HORRIBLE SLUT.
2. Traditional married woman – weren’t allowed to say “no” to her husband.
3. Sexually liberated woman – obligated to sleep with any “revolutionary” guy whatsoever, or else she was a HORRIBLE PRUDE.
As far as I understand things, the whole “there’s no such thing as real consent from women” was mostly aimed at 3, since it was presented as the grand alternative to the criticized 1. And it was probably very much needed criticism, I guess? I mean, I mentioned Simone de Beauvoir’s fucked-up views on sex in another thread, but I guess that’s basically her not realizing that 3 is as fucked-up as 1. A bit later we had feminists who did realize the enormous problems with 3, only that sort of caused them to give up and go “all hetero-sex is fucked-up”.
Regarding sex-negativity there’s at least the blogger “radtransfem” who uses it about herself, and I also saw a Swedish feminist use it… And I think their main point is that sex-positivism easily slips into 3 above (not that sex-positivists explicitly embrace 3, but that they in praxis tend to veer into that direction), and they want to criticize that. Possibly they do have a valid point with regards to at least some writers calling themselves sex-positivist?
Great summary, Dvarg! And yes, it does seem that some sex-positive feminists do slip into that, from what people mentioned upthread. The only sex-pos blogger I ever read is Cliff Pervocracy, who’s very good and doesn’t do that at all, so I couldn’t name names for others.
I don’t think it’s particularly emotionally healthy for me to keep fighting this fight right now, but I have a part 2 post up.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2013/09/01/a-voice-for-men-willing-to-publish-libel-to-prove-points-about-fake-rape-claims-part-2-logic-and-language/
You know. In case you want to watch me mud-wrestle an MRA over my own personal life experience for ~7500 words. :/
If not… I don’t blame you.
I haven’t personally run into any feminists calling themselves sex-positivists and then veering into 3, but since I don’t read lots of bloggers or authors calling themselves sex-positivists, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. What I can say for certain is that there does exist, in some circles/subcultures, prude-shaming. Someone mentioned Savage. Jezebel has also veered into that territory sometimes. Like, they’ve written pieces about anal sex which are basically about “all men and women who’ve actually tried to be anally penetrated loves it so everyone ought to try it whether they feel like or not!”. There are people who talk about vanilla sex as being “boring” and, by extension, people who engage in it as being boring. I know a couple of feminists who also write a lot about sex who actually came out as heterosexual, since everyone assumed that of course women like that are bisexual, since only prudes are straight (in one case she even managed to tell herself that she was bi for a while before she had to admit to herself that nope, lesbian sex really doesn’t do anything for me). There’s also this thing that if you’re a slut, you may feel a bit bad about turning down sex with some dude you’re not attracted to, like you have this nagging feel at the back of your head that maybe you’re being discriminating in some way or not open-minded enough or something… We have polyevangelists who argue that the only reason that someone could ever be in a monogamous relationship is because they regard a romantic partner as property.
So, well, gotta say “yes” to all sex or else you’re a bad person is definitely a pressure that still exists and needs to be talked about.
Dvarg, my eyes are rolling so hard right now at those people. I’ve heard of all of those nauseating attitudes you describe but not encountered them directly – I mean, not read the blogs (except Dan. Fucking. Savage) where this shit is trotted out.
It sounds like they’re just playing out rape culture and adding even more horrible twists, so there is no way any woman can refuse any sexual act from anyone, ever. Like they’ve absorbed Gor without even realising it, and have the hide to pretend this is feminist. (Did I just do a No True Scotsman then? But damned if I’m gonna acknowledge someone pushing any of that shit as caring one iota about other women.)
“We have polyevangelists who argue that the only reason that someone could ever be in a monogamous relationship is because they regard a romantic partner as property.”
My eye twitch is at it again. “Poly, it’s not for everyone!” should be a shirt or something, maybe with a smaller print “but it is for me” also available. Maybe a coffee mug, the only poly person I know who doesn’t live off the stuff is my now monogamous ex-FWB (who I can not, in any way, see regarding his girlfriend as property, I’m fairly sure he doesn’t even regard his cats as property [and they’re both super sweet and would be okay with that!])
Speaking of cats! Lousycanuck scroll up // back a page, cuteness is almost always good for one’s mental health.
Randomly, do we have any puffer fish experts? I was playing with mine earlier and I think the little guy may be a green spotted, not a figure 8, this isn’t a problem per se, but I’d like to know if I need to rearrange tanks so I can put the plants elsewhere since GSPs are marine as adults (I think?) Dude has the whole tank currently, and it’s 30g, so it’s fine either way, but both other tanks have catfish and catfish and plants *rolls eyes* I like my plants as not fish food!
Probably not, seeing how I’m the resident fish geek, but no harm asking? (Besides the derail but randomness is my calling in life)
Kitteh — I No True Scottsman about TERfs (see the little f? That’s because no true feminist…)
Good point about TERfs, Argenti, good point!
That whole poly thing … fuuuck. They talk about monogamous partners seeing each other as property ::exchanges baffled look with L:: but insisting that everyone must go poly is utterly denying other people’s choice, freedom, bodily autonomy, you name it. They’re fucking talking rape and slavery. That’s what it would be for me.
re the “sexual revolution” I came of sexual age in the tail end of it (herpes was the big scare, AIDS was only sort of on the radar [in a culture with a lot of LGBT people in it; I think I met my first openly trans person in 1980, or so. The first person I personally knew to being getting reassignment surgery was a friends husband in 1987]).
What I recall is that it was mixed; even in a moderately progressive, a bit more than moderately feminist grouping, is that women were allowed to be more free with what they wanted. I don’t think I initiated a sexual encounter for the first two, maybe three years, of my sex life. Some of those were fairly aggressive women, who had no problem saying no.
But then I look at the wider world, and the way Plato’s Retreat (and whomever’s Grotto, and the other open to the public sex clubs which existed here and there) where the policies were, “single women, and couples”.
The vibe that gives off is more than a touch creepy.
There was a lot of, “a liberated woman is down for anything”, but there was a lot more grey area too. It was sort of assumed (by the later ’70s/early ’80s, that women were having sex. It was sort of assumed that most women were having sex. Which meant some of the pressure was off (at the cost of some different pressures. The bar scene was PUA everywhere. “How to Pick-Up Girls was being advertised in mainstream magazines, as well as some skeevy ones; it’s a lot better now).
But once given, consent was pretty much assumed to be permanent. If you had six with a guy once, he was pretty much going to assume (and culture would back him up), that he could have sex anytime he wanted it. The first time was the important one. Until then the woman had “kept” something, and so had it to give. Once she had sex, she had, “given it up”, consent was no longer hers’ to control.
That’s what was being decried. It’s why the arguments about how society made all sex into rape; because consentual agency was a one way street.
kittehs: That whole poly thing … fuuuck. They talk about monogamous partners seeing each other as property ::exchanges baffled look with L:: but insisting that everyone must go poly is utterly denying other people’s choice, freedom, bodily autonomy, you name it. They’re fucking talking rape and slavery. That’s what it would be for me.
I think you are confusing religious polygamy, with secular “polyamory” (which is an ugly word, but the one we seem to be stuck with).
And now I have to go to work.
So why are TERfs called that and not TPRfs Because doxxing and harassing (see bugbrennan) and working to limit trans* rights is a bit more than just “exclusive”.
“Fidelbogen obviously has not met Tom Martin.
I kinda want to put the two of them together in a room. Just to see who would drown in verbiage first.”
THAT is your documentary, Martin, should you choose to accept it. Find fiddlebogen. Engage in conversation. Film. Sell. Gold.
And, what the heck… let’s throw Whoriarchy in there for good measure.
Thanks for the insight, Pecunium.
I don’t think Kitten is guilty of mixing up polyamory with something else; I just think she meant that if everyone were required to have several sex partners, it would be like rape and slavery for her since she’s got zero interest in having sex with anyone but her husband. (Correct me if I’m wrong, Kitten.)
Personally, I feel about polyamory the same way I feel about having children. I totally understand that other people want it, because there are tons of sexually attractive people in the world/children are cute and funny. But nowadays, I feel like it would be too much work and I just don’t have the energy; Nowadays I think life is simpler mono and childless.
I’ll have to watch a few Nova astronomy specials before I could answer that question. Or I could write a letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson to see if he knows.
That’s so sad, because there really is a need for spaces where people can discuss things like kink or anal sex without feeling embarrassed or judged. If someone has questions about that kind of stuff and goes to the Internet, they’ll either end up at medical sites or porn sites. Medical sites are boring and clinical, and porn is well, let’s just say it’s not a realistic how to guide for sex.
Folks, Elam has posted his 20/20.
Ooh, David, is it something you can host here so we don’t have to give them any traffic?
@LBT
Yep. It’s called “A Voice For Men”
@ Dvärghundspossen
There’s also the way sex-positive feminism has been embraced and evangelized (and too often, used to shame women into bed) by certain kinds of men. I’ve seen men who self-id as sex-positive go on at length about how important women’s sexual liberation is, and they give me the heebie-jeebies.
I’ve also seen people who try to have critical discussions of BDSM or object to people claiming pedophilia as a totally legit kink get immediately shouted down as kink-shaming, but that was mostly on Tumblr, which has a really problematic SJ culture.
RE: emilygoddess
I’ve also seen people who try to have critical discussions of BDSM or object to people claiming pedophilia as a totally legit kink get immediately shouted down as kink-shaming, but that was mostly on Tumblr, which has a really problematic SJ culture.
Ohhh god. Tumblr is just… fucking TUMBLR. It’s like a bunch of kids learned just enough about privilege theory to babble the jargon, without actually knowing shit about intersectionality, and then cranked it up to eleven. If I never have to see a ‘asexuals stealing our queer oppression’ fight ever fucking again…
As for the pedo stuff… it was about shota/loli, wasn’t it?
Pecunium – Dvarg has it right. I wasn’t even thinking of the situation that already exists with cults; I was thinking of precisely what she said, of what poly being demanded of everyone would be.
Dvarg – thanks! 🙂