Woah! Just wanted to pass along this news from the Motor City Muckraker:
A controversial conference for a men’s rights group in Detroit appears to be in jeopardy after a fallout with downtown’s Hilton DoubleTree, which planned to host the event from June 26-28.
The inaugural conference at the DoubleTree has been canceled for unknown reasons, and organizers of the first International Conference on Men’s Issues haven’t said yet whether it will be moved to another hotel and conference center.
“At this time, they are not booked with us,” Larry Brown, manager of the DoubleTree, said this morning. He declined to elaborate on the cancelation.
There’s nothing on A Voice for Men about this latest development, though Esmay hinted during his Fox News appearance that they were possibly going to reconsider the Doubletree. But as of right now, AVFM is still selling tickets, as if the Doubletree convention is still a going concern.
Are they going to try to book the convention elsewhere? Or are they going to take the $29,000 they raised for “security” and, I dunno, send Esmay to a better stylist?
One other, ah, interesting detail in the Motor City Muckraker story:
When asked Tuesday whether the event would be moved, an organizer responded: “The DoubleTree GM (general manager) actually said that he has ‘feminist phobia’ and sort of laughed but in a nervous way. So its being discussed.”
It’s questionable whether this conversation ever occurred because the general manager is a woman.
Yeah. Seems like a lot of things about this convention have been pretty questionable from the start.
UPDATE: Well, one thing’s a bit clearer now, though. I called the Detroit Police and they confirmed that the Doubletree did indeed report to them that it had received threats. Who sent them, we still don’t know, but I think we can all agree that whether the threats came from some misguided feminist or “progressive” or from an MRA trying to stir shit and make feminists look bad, whoever made the threatening calls is a shithead who deserves to face the legal consequences for what they did.
UPDATE 2: According to the Detroit News, Elam says they’ve got another venue:
“We have scheduled another venue and will make an announcement on the site this evening,” group founder Paul Elam said in an email Wednesday.
So far no announcement on AVFM; I’ll post about it when there is one.
Sorry, Ally.
Thanks, David. It didn’t take long for that creep to make his rape apologia – or advocacy – obvious.
Hugs if you want them Ally.
Rapejandro,
What you said to Ally was completely disgusting and unacceptable. It is never, ever OK for a coach or a teacher to make advances on a student. Especially when that student is a minor. As far as I know, a 14 year old can not legally consent in any state.
I hope I didn’t sound too upset at you, Ann. I’m just really unstable right now and may sound like I’m snapping at people, and there are some folks here who continually refuse to be not disablist, so part of me was worried that you would react the same way since it’s common here. But I’m glad you understand. I’m not upset at anyone but the trolls…
Ninja’d by the ban hammer. Good. Thanks David.
Ally, so sorry.
Ann, I know this is a risk of letting these assholes comment in the first place.
Generally the consensus here is to let trolls post unless they’re abusive; I know people here like taking them down.
But I obviously none of us want situations like this happening.
So let me ask people here more generally: Should I be quicker to ban people? Stricter about who I let post in the first place?
There are actually a lot of people I don’t let post here at all; if their first comment is too aggressive or hostile or (obviously) contains a slur I don’t let their comments through. I’m especially strict when it comes to people posting in threads about women who’ve been harassed.
But I could be stricter, and I could ban more quickly if that’s what you think I should do. Obviously I don’t want what happened in this thread to happen.
Brain bleach – firefighters rescue kittens
Thanks David.
Ally, really sorry that you had to go through that. 🙁
Yes to both. It’s not like you have to ban all trolls, but a lot of them should be banned pretty quickly or even stopped from commenting altogether. Thank you for your consideration.
I think I’ll defer to others here. I never get triggered by trolls even when they’re completely repugnant but I know others feel differently. It is fun to use them as chew toys sometimes but I don’t want any non-trolls hurt either.
We can also take some of the responsibility and email you faster if someone is being gross. We know you can’t monitor every thread 24/7.
I’d like to see the banhammer come down a bit more quickly. The only outstanding example is Brz: I think he should have been banned long before he was.
RE: Alejandro
So let me see if I got this right, do you think a man who pulls out his penis in the presence of a woman just raped her??
That’s not what I said. You made a statement about a book you hadn’t read. I merely remarked that when someone quibbles about the EXACT definitions of sexual assault vs. rape, it tends to make them look creepy. And you’re a creep, Alejandro. A smug creep.
RE: trolls
Even when I get upset, honestly, just being able to fight back against them makes me feel like it was worth my upset. It lets me feel like I’m DOING something, instead of just grinning and bearing it the way I have to in… well, basically all other contexts.
“I’m just really unstable right now and may sound like I’m snapping at people”
Hon, you have every right to be. I was taken aback, sure, because I was using the term in the colloquial “lack any empathy” sense, but you were right to call me out. And I know better because I suffer from mental illness and hell, people have tried to use that against me.
I should have just said “lacks any empathy” and left it at that.
We’re good. But I need to lurk more, I think.
“Should I be quicker to ban people? Stricter about who I let post in the first place? ”
Yes and yes. That tosser showed his true colours pretty much in his first two comments, and should have been modded off. I’m used to more explicitly feminist spaces where tolerance of this is very low, though, because the women owners get directly harassed by these bastards as well.
Maybe you need more mods who can at least hide a comment until you make a final decision.
Dunno. I’m so not in favour of giving these creeps airtime because they have the entire *world* to play in. But I understand the enjoyment of bouncing them off walls too.
Ann, my reasoning is, I want these assholes exposed. Mocking them is cathartic for me. Sure, folks like Brz were just tedious as hell, so I wouldn’t mind seeing the “bannably boring” offense tightened up. But we haven’t had an entertaining troll in a while now.
I’m one in favour of the mocking of trolls here – I agree though that there’s been the odd one that should have been moderated/banned earlier. I feel that I’ve been silly in not emailing more quickly to alert David but then I felt like I’d been doing it a fair bit recently. Not a good reason for me not to alert him to problems – sorry.
I nearly emailed about Mike B’s DV joke since I found it pretty offensive & wondered if Mike B needed moderating.
Maybe a separate post for discussion of banning and moderation criteria would be in order? We could discuss and try to come with a list of things we mostly all agree is and isn’t a bannable offense. The comments policy as it stands is it bit vague. It’s mostly just up to David’s discretion right now, which of course is his right because it’s his blog. Just an idea.
Love that wording. Bouncy bouncy chew-toys!
http://youtu.be/AUOvN3HmJlY
I should add: I don’t get triggered by trolls. Scornful, sometimes angry or disgusted, mostly contemptuous, often can’t even be bothered reading their walls o’ text. I enjoy the mocking. But I would like them banned sooner when they’ve set people’s trolldars pinging – like that Erin loser.
Thanks, everyone. And, yeah, I was thinking this probably deserved a post of its own, so I’m going to put one up. Just a sec.
What Kittehs said. And it’s the early hours of the morning here & I should have been asleep hours ago.
Night all.
Enh, I get triggered every once in a while, but again, for me, it’s worth being able to DO something about it.
F’rex, I get triggered every fucking time I get an email or (worse) a phone call from my folks, and part of the upset is that I know that I MUST NOT RESPOND. All I can do is ignore them as hard as I can, and that doesn’t really leave me feeling an active participant in my own destiny, you know? The trolls, if they upset me, I can snark and mock and rant at them, which feels way better.
Alejandro: I said that what AVfM did was over the top rethoric instead of outright lying, but where on earth did I said that doing it was “totally OK”?? Go ahead and show me.
Here ya’ go.
The “child abusers” thing is also an example of over the top rethoric, but again, is not like they accused them of any specific child abuse incident
You said it was just, “over the top rhetoric”, and then dismissed by saying they didn’t concretise it to a speficially rebuttable charge, so “no-harm, no-foul”.
Thing is, I studied rhetoric (and libel), so I can see what tools, tricks, and tropes you are trying to employ. The subtle dodges to let the real effect of the words you are minimising slide past. All without actually coming right out and saying, “I’m totes ok with people on my side being slimey bastard”, so you can later claim, “I didn’t say that you are are putting words in my mouth.
Well, if we are, it’s just because that’s where they came from.
Anyone with half a brain can see the difference between over the top rethoric and a factual accusation.
Which is why you have no complaints about the rhetoric of 2nd wave radical feminists like McKinnon and Dworkin?, and the MRM never mentions them at all as examples of what evil things feminists what to do to men.
Right… I mean it’s just “over the top rhetoric” right?*
Feminist do it too. Remember when Kickstarter was funding this seduction manual that adviced pulling out your dick with a girl, and how nearly every single feminist went on refering to it as a “rape”manual? Newsflash: Pulling out your dick is not the same as raping a woman. At worst, it could be sexual assault, but it is not rape. So I will agree that the AVfM guy is a lier if you agree that all these feminist who refered to the kickstarter project as a rape manual are liers. Deal?
No deal.
Because you are being dishonest about what that book did, and about what, “rape manual” meant.
1: No one who is trying to sell a book about, “seduction” is going to write: Get her drunk, and when she’s passed out, fuck her, if she comes to, hold her down until you’re done. Don’t worry, if she presses charges you can say, “I thought she wanted it”.
2: No single passage in any “seduction” manual is going to look like a building block to rape. So unless you are going to introduce the entire book into evidence, you are lying through omission when you present one sentence as dispositive.
3:At worst, it could be sexual assault, but it is not rape.
So that makes it all right then?
Again, the devices you are using are really simple attempts at misdirection, You’ll have to do better than that.
*and the actual quotation of Elam is:
No, he didn’t say they, themselves, committed abuse, he is comparing them to those who cheered on the US Cavalry as they killed Native Americans, or the Good Russians, who said the policies which led to the Holodomor were “good for Russia”.
He is saying they connive at real abuse, and cheer it on. He is calling them collaborators, at least, and architects, at most. It’s more than “over the top rhetoric”
Moreover, the headline isn’t anywhere near that nuanced, and if one has no reason to wade through all of Elam’s wandering word-salad, all one sees it the bald-faced accusation of a criminal act.
Alejandro: Does anyone really want to argue that submissive men are more attractive to women than dominant men, or you just want to argue for the shake of it?
Agree with coming up with a list of criteria. I had also emailed David about him.
However, David’s obviously not around 24/7 because work and sleep and play, so even a prompt email isn’t always going to get a rapid response (for whatever definition of rapid).
I don’t know how comments end up in moderation, but is there some sort of “new person” plus certain words thing that can be modified to auto-send someone to moderation, where David can look at the posts to see if they should be let through.
Also: if you’re feeling triggered, please look after yourself first. There are at least two threads where I’ve said I’m being triggered and butting out. Please don’t feel that you need to keep reading a thread where there is someone being a complete arsehole to defend yourself – you don’t need to defend, survivors Didn’t. Fucking. Do. Anything. Wrong. And. Don’t. Need. To. Post. To. Justify. What. They. Did. Or. Didn’t. Do.
Fuck anyone who tries to pull someone into that type of commenting. It’s fucking cruel.
Alejandro: Sigh. This is what happens when a bunch of women and male feminist try to make sens of PUA advice. They fail to understand even the most basic concepts.
Actually… I take them at face value. I look at the whole of the oeuvre, and I see common theads. I see some who confess to commiting rape (because, “having sex is what I do”) and at least one who is in jail for assaulting a woman with a firearm.
I also have my sex life to look back at, and that of my friends, and that of my lovers, etc. I know that, not using any of the tripe in the PUA-bag-o’-tricks, I’ve had a pretty good sex life to date (with more than the average number of partners, not that this is relevant to me, or them, or any other person of wit, but in the “notch-count” mad world of PUA, I know I have ‘street-cred”).
So yes, I have read your works, and examined “the most basic concepts” and I reject them, as balderdash. They are full of confounded variables. The one truth in them is that if one doesn’t go out and risk rejection, one can’t get acceptance.
All the rest is, by and large, a recipe for commiting (at the very least) sexual assult, if not rape.
n fact, one of the core PUA concepts is that you need to generate attraction AND comfort with a woman in order to make her want to have sex with you, which is completely the opossite of scaring her.
Really?
So you think this is how you do that?
<i.The PUA manual advice should be read in that context
How convenient: the PUA manuals should be read in this a priori assumption that they are based on true and correct knowledge of women. This is based on what?
It’s certainly at odds with the somewhat more than 30 years of experience I have with women.