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.
I am so confused by everything in this comment thread.
RE: Historophilia
Oh good, it’s not just me.
On the part about David being a child abuser (in that Elam article):
………WTF?
I guess I could probably try to help clear up some of the confusion.
The atheist/skeptical online communities are undergoing something of a sea change, where we’re actively fighting harassers and antifeminists and actually gaining some ground. We gained enough ground that some people who’ve been harassed and abused actually started naming names. There has been a violent backlash against this from the antifeminist quarters.
A timeline of the names being named is here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2013/08/12/sexual-harassment-accusations-in-the-skeptical-and-secular-communities-a-timeline-of-major-events/
Everything in this comment thread appears to be reactions to one person “in the know” who’s actually as far as I’d guess an antifeminist, trying to muddy the waters about whether or not AVfM’s accusation against me holds any water. The suggestion is that because we at Freethought Blogs have a hand in publicizing the names being named, we’re publishing false rape claims, or third-party “telephone game” accusations with zero evidence, when in actuality, *someone* knows each of the people who are coming forward and is vouching for them personally. PZ Myers is the focal point, and Michael Shermer, one of the names being named, even threatened to sue. So far, no suit. But all the antifeminists are at peak frenzy.
The Slymepit is our A Voice For Men. FtB is regularly vilified by them (and even by supposed fence-sitters) as the shrill, feminist-infested cancer that will kill the atheist/skeptical movements. That there’s overlap between the Slymepit and their non-affiliated antifeminist bretheren, and the AVfM braintrusts, is absolutely no surprise.
So now it’s all hands on deck trying to shore up the pro-harassment crowd’s defenses, and they’re launching evidence-free broadsides at our bloggers in an effort to prove just how bad evidence-free accusations can be. As though we didn’t know. As though we didn’t take that into account before weighing the evidence in front of us.
Anyway. Sorry for threadhogging. Hope that helps.
I can understand why. I have a hard time keeping up with all of this, and I have been following it all for the last two years. The relevant facts are that Jason is not a rapist, and that AVFM are real shitty people.
I won’t be surprised if more pitters will make their way to this thread. One thing they do very well is obsess over every little word and every little action by a member of FtBs. And considering that David has some overlap with readers of Manboobz, FtBs, and other pro-feminist sites, it’s probably just a matter of time. :/
I’m actually an infrequent lurker here myself, including the comments. I’ve seen Pitchguest show up once. He’s definitely one of the metastasized obsessives.
Yeah, I’m sure the Slymers have Google alerts on “lousycanuck” and other variations.
Everyone, if you see bannable (as opposed to regular) trolling, remember to email David! I know we think of him as all-seeing and all-knowing, but he could probably use a little help. 😀
I love “metastasized obsessives,” and will be stealing.
I think Pitchguest got his ass banned from here, IIRC.
Not to worry about threadhogging, Jason. Pretty sure you can’t hog a thread about yourself.
I’ve never seen him to be gross or overtly abusive, but he is an overly pedantic, obtuse, tedious, disingenuous, dishonest, and tiresome MRA and anti-feminist sympathizer. Whenever he shows up, a giant sucking sound is heard and any enjoyment you may be getting from the dialogue disappears into the void, never to be seen again (until someone gets fed up enough and bans his ass).
I’m glad David applied the hammer.
@lousycanuck
Your gravatar looks familiar.
theladyzombie: Yup. That’s his schtick, socratic assholitude. Of course, he’s really poor at logic and reading comprehension, even where he’s long on vocabulary and verbiage, so all he has is asking questions about every little turn of phrase until he thinks he has you on a technicality.
Yup. And then blames it on English not being his first language and him simply “misunderstanding” you. Yup yup!
Me: Reads title. Says: “Oh man, this is gonna be GOOD!” Grabs food. Sits down. Prepares for hilarity.
LBT and others who are confused. Jason/Loucy Canuck’s timeline of the most recent events is useful, but it also helps to have some of the big-picture history. For those who find New Atheist Movement in-fighting, even over social justice issues to be boring, please feel free to skip this (I know now that I’m calling up the Great Old One, Wal’Loft-Ext, but sometimes, I just can’t help myself.
*****
Back in the day, there were some blogs about science, on a site called, appropriately enough, “ScienceBlogs” (started in 2006). Some were hyperfocused on their scientific fields; others addressed science and how it relates to the larger community, or issues within the scientific community. And it was good. Three of these blogs concern us: Pharyngula (hosted by PZ Myers); ERV (hosted by Abbie Smith) and Dispatches from the Creationist Wars (hosted by Ed Brayton).
All three of these were strong supporters of what is commonly referred to by the media as “The New Atheist Movement”–which is pretty much the old atheist movement getting more press.
Meanwhile, another blog site, Skepchick, started up in 2005 with a specific focus on issues of skepticism and feminism. The founder, Rebecca Watson, was the key blogger, but there have been several others as well. As is common with the internet, they received some pushback for their feminism, but as a collective, they were in a better position than many to deflect it and support one another, so they remained strong and vibrant in the community. The two sites had several bloggers with strong ties and mutual respect.
Then 2011 happened.
In April, National Geographic bought ScienceBlogs. While a good fit for the most part, some of the more… colorful bloggers expressed concerns almost immediately that NatGeo was going to want them to adopt a gentler, more ‘civilized’ tone, and they began discussing options.
In June, Rebecca Watson went to the World Atheist Convention in Ireland. After giving a speech about the difficulties faced by women in the movement and the difficulty of dealing with the ‘meat market’ vibe that many of the conferences have, and spending an evening in the hotel bar, further expounding on the points in her speech, she announced at three in the morning that she was tired and going to bed. Someone in the bar, who’d been there for the conversation, followed her into the elevator, and invited her back to his room, ‘to talk over coffee’. Watson, recognizing a proposition when she heard one, declined.
She then described the encounter in a vlog entry, finishing with the comment, “Guys, don’t do that.” The atheist/skeptical blogosphere, bastion of rationality and intellectualism on the internet, promptly lost. It’s fucking. Mind.
Elevatorgate, as it came to be known, consisted of increasingly hostile posts, counter-posts and harassment campaigns waged between various bloggers. Myers, who’d already been supporting diversity in the movement, came down squarely on Watson’s side; Abbie Smith and the folks at ERV were at the lead of the hyperskeptic movement that insisted that Watson was going to be the death of sex in the universe, or something. During this time, the comments section at ERV, in reaction to being called a slime pit, adopted the nickname “The Slymepit” in an effort at reclamation or irony or something.
The heat of the conflict turned the concerns about NatGeo’s management into a self-fulfilling prophecy–several sciblogs writers got told to shape up or ship out. Brayton and Myers had already developed a bailout plan, and launched Freethought Blogs in November of 2011. Meanwhile, the Slymepitters eventually formed a separate forum and website which took on that name.
Since then, whenever the subject of feminism and harassment in the movement has come up*, the leading sides in the battle have been FtB and the ‘Pit. Some individuals who are not technically posters in the ‘Pit are still frequently regarded as members by the FtB folks, simply because the ‘Pit is so forceful in their praise of these people. JT Eberhard, for instance, insists that he’s not a slymepitter–he just makes rape jokes, writes badly reasoned arguments in defense of others privilege, and insists that the only great wrong is speaking angrily (about feminism or racism–but as a white gay atheist with an eating disorder, rage about religious overreach, homophobia or ableism is totes okay–because those issues are actually important; seriously, the guys is like the poster child for partial privilege).
*: There’s been a few major battles in the post-Elevatorgate era:
1: An effort to get conferences and groups to establish clear policies barring harassment–including enforcement of those policies. This has led to a couple of
2: The ‘civility’ conflict, in which one fails to understand that insisting on the right to treat women as inherently inferior is already uncivil, so FUCK THAT NOISE. The pinnacle of this was the speech by Ron Lindsay at Women In Secularism 2, where he spent the entire welcoming speech telling the attendees that he was worried they might be getting too aggressive in tone lately.
3: The Grenade–we’ve talked about that one here, in which PZ Myers published an accusation of rape against Michael Shermer, an author and speaker in the skeptic community, made to Myers by a woman he knew. The context of this accusation has been repeatedly distorted by the ‘Pitters and their allies, who desperately want to make it seem like Myers just posted it ‘for the blog hits’. (I think you might remember that convo, LBT.)
*****
Okay, I’m done. Sorry for that.
Man, I was not disappointed. Fighting false rape accusations with more false rape accusations is a “tactic” I’ve never heard of before.
They do realize that it’s not the same as fighting fire with fire, right?
Hey! So, I’m going to take a perhaps controversial stand here. I don’t know anything about Jason/lousycanuck except for his “confession” from 2009, which I just read.
Just going to say: (1) Paul Elam is a lying loathsome despicable misogynistic liar who lies all the time. However, (2) just because the person who is accused of rape now identifies as a feminist, I’m not going to automatically trust his story that he didn’t actually rape someone. The fact that his ex wanted to get back together with her accused rapist also does not exactly work to clear his name (since that’s a common reaction to trauma), and the fact that his ex claimed to have been raped in a somewhat hard-to-believe manner doesn’t automatically make me think that the entire story’s a lie.
I think it’s gross that Elam gleefully used this piece of LC’s history against him while at the same time caring absolutely nothing for rape victims. I also think it’s gross that people tend to disbelieve oppressed people’s claims of rape on the basis of the non-oppressed accused rapist claiming innocence and seeming like a “nice” person who would never do that.
Freemage… couple points of clarification. It was 4 am, not 3. Also, the vlog she posted was about the conference as whole; Watson spent maybe 5% of the vlog on the incident, and even laughed it off like it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I think she, like me, thought “guys, don’t do that” (which has become the actual catch-phrase of this in-fighting) was an agreeable thing to say. Apparently, a holy hell of a lot of dude-bro atheists disagreed with her because… I guess… they felt that elevators were the only settings in which they could get any sexy timez… or something.
Otherwise, though, you’re write-up is probably the best summary I’ve seen on this whole issue. So good job.
@lousycanuck – hi, thanks for commenting here. I read PZ’s column so am a little bit aware of what’s going on.
The irony is, if you weren’t a feminist, Elam and his little abuser-lobby mates would be wanting to give you virtual back-slaps if they thought you’d raped a woman. This is, after all, the man who’s declared he would vote “not guilty” in a rape trial even if he was convinced the (male) defendant was guilty.
Glad to see that cretinous Blinded By Science got the heave early. Those posts had TROLL TROLL TROLL written all over them from the first.
OMG, I know Birric Forcella through Second Life. He’s this hack of a “philosopher” who is largely incapable of making a cohesive, internally consistent argument. I had noticed he ignored people with female avatars a lot, but somehow it never occurred to me he was an MRA. I royally pissed him off once by mocking his arguments in a round table, and then when he insulted me saying thank you (He chose bitch, I believe, which I take as a complement from strangers as it seems to fall in the same category as feminist – “Oh no, a woman has an OPINION and thinks she can say it in PUBLIC”).
I gave up on the SL philosophy scene a long while ago, but I am shocked to run into my Furry Dog “friend” here.
Bee, it’s a fair point to raise. And of course that the women herself isn’t here to either confirm or retract the original accusation.
We do know that Paul Elam is guilty of being one of the world’s worst shitheels, and a serial liar, and that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
Eh, several errors in that last comment, but I think you can figure out my meaning. Looooong day.
Bee, I absolutely don’t see a problem with your reacting that way. I’ve advocated since the beginning of my blogging on the topic that one must trust alleged victims but verify. My own story counts too. You only have my side of the story. Memory is imperfect. Hell, I’ve beaten myself up for years and years about consent in fear that I might actually get it wrong with someone, and though I consider that psychological damage, it’s not exactly the worst outcome in the world, being 100% certain of enthusiastic continuous consent every time I have a willing partner.
Wow. I can imagine people reading the ‘pitter POV and thinking ‘finally, folks who think like me!’. But dang if it doesn’t nauseate me. There’s so much overlap between them and the MRA crowd as to alarm the indifferent observer.