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.
Point of order: FtB came into existence September 2011. The slime pit predates it, as others have said being formed in the comment thread of a blog at Scienceblogs, ERV.
Actually Jason, since by your logic I am forced to presume you a rapist, I admit I find your presence here at a feminist safe space rather unsettling.
“please leave. The mere presence of beings like yourselves is intensely painful to us.”
One final thought Jason, just to help you out, note in David’s post that even David recognizes the AVFM piece was satire. Terrible satire yes, but satire.
I’m not a regular FTB person so I hope some of you are, lest I get more details wrong.
By my logic? Please point to anything I wrote that even HINTS that as soon as someone is accused, they are definitely guilty.
One of my fears is that the MRA identity becomes mainstream. I am thankful that they discredit themselves so wholly.
Blinded by Science, are you seriously telling Jason to leave the comments here? You can say that, of course, but it means absolutely nothing. You’re not speaking for me, for one.
Blinded by Science, at least pretend to be arguing in good faith, okay? If you can’t do that, go away.
@serrana, actually I was quoting from Star Trek’s Errand of Mercy.
You can do your own research into Jason’s posts at his blog, but they are quite insane and contradictory. Even here you can see him justifying why it’s okay for PZ to use anonymous sources and unverified claims to call Shermer a rapist, but that it is horrible for a terrible piece of obvious satire to name Jason a rapist.
@cloudiah, I am indeed going away (lunch over, back to work.)
p.s. The idea that this is a “feminist safe space” is itself laughable.
I’m not entirely sure on this one, but I think that math is not quite right. It’s correct for the odds of “these two people” both being falsely accused, but presumably there are a shit ton more commenters over there? Which would make the odds of two of them being falsely accused fairly high (you familiar with shared birthdays? You and I probably don’t share a birthday, but we both probably [actually, almost certainly] share a birthday with someone who read manboobz [I got 1,640 survey results])
The hard part for the 20/20 editors will be choosing what to put into their small time slot. They’d have to make a six hour mini series to address all the ways AVfM is terrible. I don’t know when the special will air, but I’ll be checking the abc website frequently to find out, so I can watch it.
And it sounds like the slymepit is aptly named, that’s for sure, if they are the atheist version of AVfM.
Also, what are the odds of male feminist bloggers being falsely accused of rape over their lifetimes? PZ and Jason aren’t a randomly chosen pair. (I know nothing about statistics, though.)
Blinded by Science, you came in here looking like you were gonna argue in good faith, but your reply to Jason sorta clarifies that misconception.
Blinded by Science is a returning troll with a history of bad-faith, deliberately disruptive posting, so bye bye.
Why do you have to use his logic? Don’t you have any of your own?
Blinded by Science: who the fuck are you, exactly? Some random unknown a-hole. Your presence is making my ass itch, so please do flounce. Forever.
Thanks, David.
…popcorn?
PZ’s false rape accusation was made in retaliation for the Shermer thing. Someone found an account of someone online naming-and-shaming a man named Bruce, and replaced every instance with Paul and posting it as a comment on his blog. A slimer throwing up chaff.
Avicenna’s was entirely substance-free — just another slimer throwing up chaff. That apparently almost got him suspended from his medical license and his visa was in jeopardy as a result.
Mine is the closest they have to an actual case, where I was accused publicly but absolutely no legal proceedings resulted. I shared it in 2009 for my own catharsis, and someone dredged it up a few weeks ago as a club to use to destroy my credibility because they didn’t like that I’m a feminist, nor that I believe the allegations against Shermer because of the web of trust behind them.
And so I get attacked. And this is the closest to traction they can get.
With hundreds of thousands of assaults/rape allegations, 6% is a lot of people. Some of them are going to have stories like mine. That doesn’t universalize the experience. It just proves some people know nothing about statistics.
Aw, no popcorn. Though what a surprise, some ass who just waltzes in claiming another new commenter can’t post without any links of proof isn’t welcome here. COLOR ME SHOCKED.
@Blinded-by-science-and-then-logic-flew-out-of-the-window: The 6% of false rape accusations are in cases where the accuser goes to the police to log a complaint. In Jason’s case, as in Shermer’s case, nobody went to the police, so all bets are off.
I always hate the “by your logic…” line of argument because it’s another obnoxious, slippery way to avoid stating what you actually think, or even whether you think their logic is good nor not.
I’m new and thought maybe @BlindedByScience had a point, but almost the first thing I saw on this blog was a warning that this is not a “safe space.” Pro tip, snottiness detracts from attempts to be A Voice of Reason In the Wilderness.
AVfM has such a nasty, mean spirited feel to it. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And I’ve read stuff by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Well, I was kinda hoping for a popcorn fight, but seeing as I really didn’t have a clue what was going on, it’s probably just as well it didn’t happen.
@Argenti Aertheri
AFAIK the math is technically right, even though presented incorrectly. It makes no sense to apply the 6% to a random sampling since it’s “6% of accusations are false”, not “6% of people are accused falsely”. But in any case, If there’s a 6% chance that an event occurrs, there’s a 0.36% chance that it occurrs twice. So if there’s a 6% chance that A OR B are false, there’s a 0.36% chance that A AND B are false.
Though I’d argue that applying a statistic like this to individual cases is quite nearly useless. And, as girlscientist pointed out, the 6% stat doesn’t even apply in these cases, so it’s all very very moot.