A Voice for Men likes to present itself as a voice for gay men as well as straight ones. In a recent post, site founder and chief fulminator Paul Elam declared that
We regard men as human beings, regardless of their sexuality. And most of us feel that this is the salve that heals what has in recent history been inflicted on gay men.
No mention of lesbians, but of course they’re women, and Elam does not seem to like women very much.
AVFM managing editor Dean Esmay, meanwhile, likes to present himself as a champion not only of gay men but of lesbians as well, boasting in one recent tweet that “I have been lesbian-supporting since the ’80s.”
So why is AVFM giving a platform to one of Canada’s most influential opponents of same-sex marriage — and gay and lesbian rights in general?
Canadian Senator Anne Cools, one of the scheduled speakers at AVFM’s upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, has been a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage for decades.
Her objection? That only heterosexual marriage deserves legal protection because gay people can’t make babies – at least not with each other – thus making their interest in sex all about lust.
In a speech before the Canadian senate, she argued that
The public interest in marriage is reproduction, the continuation of the species, the offspring. There is no public interest in sex or the gratification of sexual impulses for their own sake. …
[L]ust, like all human passions, is not to be trusted. Lust and sex on their own have no public character and contain no public interest or public good. Marriage is about man and woman in a peculiar act of bringing forth offspring.
Never mind that plenty of stright couples don’t, or can’t, have kids. Or that some trans men can.
She’s not simply an opponent of same-sex marriage. Cools has consistently opposed other legislation designed to afford gays and lesbians the same basic rights as straight people — and the same legal protections as other victims of bigotry and discrimination.
She opposed adding “sexual orientation” to hate speech legislation, warning that doing so would expose “millions of Canadians…who hold moral opinions about sexuality, to criminal prosecution.” (Needless to say, the passage of the bill in question did not lead to millions of Canadians being rounded up and arrested.)
She also worried that adding “sexual orientation” to hate speech legislation would somehow – I don’t quite understand the logic – encourage the “depathologizing the paraphilias” and ultimately lead to children being “seduced” into dangerous sexual activities. Here’s her argument:
The fact of the matter is, honourable senators, that we discourage children from smoking cigarettes because tobacco is harmful. I would submit that we are talking about some sexual activities that are dangerous and life-threatening. The committee should have the moral courage to hear something of it. I have lost a lot of beloved friends to a variety of these conditions. I have made it my business to instruct myself. That is the first question. You can think about that.
Ms. Landolt, your concern that the term “sexual orientation” is so wide as to involve a wide range of sexual behaviours is well founded. I would like to put on the record here for this committee a document called the Journal of Homosexuality, particularly, volume 20 in 1990. The subject of the entire volume is pedophilia and male intergenerational intimacy, historical, social, psychological and legal perspectives. If you were to open up this text, the foreword is the debate on pedophilia, and the second article is “Man-Boy Relationships: Different Concepts for a Diversity of Phenomena.” It continues with “Pederasty Among Primitives and Institutionalized Initiation.”
She continued:
I want to know about these children out there and the impact that this is having on them, and, in addition to that, all of these children who are being seduced at youthful ages and who are discovering what is happening to them two or three years later. I have done a lot of counselling. I would like to get a greater picture of the problems out there for children on these grounds, because this sexual orientation debate is going on here as though children do not exist.
She also tried to raise the question of “the medical consequences to individuals who involve themselves in activities such as ‘rimming,’ … sado-masochism and so on.”
In explaining her opposition to adding sexual orientation ito the Canadian Human Rights Act, she offered a similar “slippery slope” argument:
The concern is that pederasts and paedophiles will advance claims to engage in adult/child sexual relationships as a matter of human rights; that claims will be advanced on the legal grounds that pederasty and paedophilia are sexual orientations having entitlements.
For more on her various backwards views, as well as the source of that last quote, see here.
On Twitter, I asked Esmay to explain why AVFM is providing a platform for a woman who opposes same-sex marriage. He hasn’t replied.
Another curious Twitterer asked the same question of Janet Bloomfield, the official spokeswoman for the upcoming AVFM conference. She handled the question with her usual (lack of) aplomb.
Apparently AVFM’s much vaunted “compassion for men and boys” doesn’t apply to gay men who want the same basic rights as straight men.
For more on AVFM’s tolerance of homophobia – and Elam’s notorious attack on one trans women, see here.
EDIT: After I put this post up, I decided to see if I might have better luck at getting answers from Bloomfield on Twitter. The conversation went about as well as could be expected. Remember, Bloomfield is AVFM’s offical “social media” spokeswoman for the conference.
I didn’t see her comment about harassment until after I tweeted a couple more times.
Some more bang-up public relations work from Ms. Bloomfield here.
This has nothing to do with “an alternative to divorce.”
So, you didn’t really have anything but non-specific arguments about easily disproved notions and incendiary insults about fanaticism, dishonest debate tactics and slams against perceived hyperbolic hypocriticism.
We know PUA’s aren’t MRA’s aren’t MHRA’s aren’t ABC’s. Yet, the stuff constantly intertwines (“bitches and whores”). So, yeah.
Sod off q:
Because you are secretly everyone at AVFM David! Did you forget that you were? I know it’s difficult to keep track of all your false identities.
@markxneil
That’s actually not Sheehy’s argument about self-defense, but whatever cupcake.
Gods these trolls are so boooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnng
Also, David isn’t as an expert or spokesperson for feminism, he’s a journalist blogging about misogyny on the internet. You can critique and question his coverage because that’s out there to be judged, but demanding him to also cover bad feminist behavior because fairness doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Ok, I admit, I said I was done, but I couldn’t pass this up, since David himself decided to respond…
“This is why that whole twitter discussion was so surreal. I started the whole thing off by saying that a some of the things said in the “agent orange” files were indeed terrible. Somehow this didn’t count as a criticism of them. Which meant I was “supporting them, at least through my silence.” Which wasn’t actually silence, but never mind.”
The problem is, David, that you included a “but…”, and then proceeded to defend them. You didn’t simply denounce them and leave it at that. It’s like saying “the KKK have said some horrible things, but … [defend],[defend],[defend]”, or “the Nazi’s have done some horrible things, but … [defend],[defend],[defend]” It goes from the realm of denouncing them, to trivializing the bad they’ve done in to the point they are undeserving of repercussions.
“And now I’m said to be defending them because, after criticizing them, I said they shouldn’t be doxxed and harassed.”
No, that’s not how you worded it. You didn’t criticize, you merely said “despite doing bad things, they should not be XYZ”. That isn’t denouncing what they did, it’s merely acknowledging it, and the follow up defense of them is condoning it. If you want to take credit for denouncing it, do so. Don’t pretend that merely acknowledging it is the same as denouncing it.
And oddly enough, you even acknowledge Judgy denouncing any anti-gay rhetoric, and without any defense within the same post, and yet, you do to Judgy precisely what you’re whining about here. Did judgy not say “I vigorously denounce the anti-gay rights agenda. I don’t have to agree with 100% of her beliefs”… and yet, you assert she never denounced the anti-gay agenda. Why doesn’t that count, when, in you’re view, simply acknowledging the radfems said bad things (but not actually saying you denounce them) seems to count for you? Why do you hold others to a higher standard than yourself?
“Guess what dudes, I don’t think MRAs should be doxxed and harassed either! I don’t think anyone should be harassed!”
Grow up.
“Fact is, it doesn’t matter what I do or say; MRAs will find some way to interpret my words and my behavior as eeeeeeevil.”
Oh no, that’s not projection at all. It’s not like you’ve actually made a career out of doing precisely that to the MRM. It’s not like you now have a financially vested interesting in pushing the idea the MRM is evil, to the point that you are actually slandering a Canadian Senator, who will be attending a conference with several openly gay men and women, who seem not to have a problem with her presence. This seems to be a little projecting your own agenda onto others, then playing the victim to it. Not atypical for a feminist, just a little out of character for male feminists, who typically play the white knight role. Good for you, breaking the gender roles and playing the womanly victim. Way to stick it to the patriarchy.
” Even if they have to resort to bizarre non-logic like arguing that I support evil “through my silence.” Which isn’t silence. ”
Isn’t that the very argument you’re currently making against the MRM?
“I’ve said over and over again: I’m not a radfem. I disasgree violently with a lot of radical feminism.”
I could harp on the “violently” part, but I won’t, instead I’ll simply point out that radfems aren’t the only feminist ideas that need to be denounced. There is a lot of none radical rhetoric out there, and you have actually defended a lot of it with some of your misrepresentation attack articles. When you chose not to acknowledge the underlying issues an AVFM article is addressing, and instead tone troll them and cherry pick to make them out to be monsters. Did you ever condemn Jezebel for writing an article celebrating their physically abusing their boyfriends? Or did you just attack the way AVFM choose to address it?
“I mean, I made clear to the AVFM folks I have no connection to radfemhub but Elam et al are still posting shit saying I’m “tied to genocidal ideologies.” How exactly?”
You seem to think radfems are the only hateful feminists out there… of course, I’ve seen you make excuses and rationalize hatred against men on more than a few occasions over the years. But you keep playing the victim.
Now I’m done.
Wow, it’s so immature not to want anyone to be harassed. Try to be as mature as mark is, David.
I was trying to work out what mark’s point was, and decided he didn’t have one other than to attack David.
Mark needs to learn Venn diagrams.
Playing the victim? Come on.
David starts from the non-violence position (that everybody else here sticks to as well). That is, read carefully now, no one should ever be harassed. More importantly, no one should ever be doxxed. Just because, and entirely because, doxxing makes someone’s identity and contact and location information public. Public is a word with a meaning. It means p.u.b.l.i.c.
Once it’s out there, there’s no way of controlling who can see the information, even less can they be controlled in what they decide to do with that information. And that can be dangerous.
David makes the point that the opinions expressed by some people, who happen to be feminists, are vile and should be rejected by anyone and everyone, feminist or otherwise. Being committed to non-violence as well as to mainstream feminism, he also makes the point that these people should not be doxxed or harassed.
How hard is that?
Now now, mildlymagnificent. Don’t be so immature. Grow up! It’s incredibly childish to claim that massive sprouting on about people’s real life identities can in some instances be dangerous! That’s just so… immature.
What you should do is be like markxneil here, who wants someone to word things in excrutiatingtly perfect detail in order to vigorously denounce it
but who yet seems to think that
Precisely wording your stance on doxxing and harassment is immature and means someone should grow up.
That’s the kind of mature, thoughtful consistency you should strive to emulate, mildlymagnificent!
———-
I joke.
Seriously, dude, markxneil, come on. Cooomeee oooooon.
Soooo..
sooooooooooo….
I’m back with that.
Markxneil, you haven’t said that you support the rights of dragons to co-exist with goblins. Are you some kind of anti-dragonist? You haven’t talked about why the Khmer Rouge were wrong for murdering millions, are you some kind of genocide supporter? I haven’t seen you EVEN ONCE bring up that nazism was terrible, so, what are you, a neonazi?
That’s the level you’re bringing here. That’s how intelligently you’re trying to make your point, and, as a bonus, slamming in a whole bunch of bullshit gender ideology in that same heaping trash of complete tomfoolery.
I mean shit, dude, really:
Yeaaah. Yeaaaah, mr. Human Right’s Activist, mr. MRA, way to support people there. Way to think of men and women as individuals, wow, such activism, such understanding.
Who cares? Other people’s acceptance or non-acceptance of Senator Cools words do not change those words or the impact her activities and work has on people. Whether or whether not other people, hell, other gay people, accept her presence there or do not accept her presence there, how does that change her words? How does that change the assumptions of her beliefs, which seem to be that a “gay agenda” leads inexorably towards pederasty and pedophilia? “This other dude is okay with it” is not and has never been a good way to explain the ethical value of something.
You know, we had a troll once.
His argument was, essentially, that any feminist should spend 10 % of the time of their activism calling out other feminists. This would somehow keep everyone on the right track, ensure ideological purity.
It’s a silly way of doing activism.
In case you’re somehow going to claim you’ve missed it, I’d just like to point out that in response to this Jezebel article (An article, just by the way, I personally find repugnant), AVFM choose to publish a response called “Bash A Violent Bitch Month”.
They then claimed it was satire.
Only, they did so, when in the article itself, instructions for beating someone up was followed by an admission that this wasn’t wrong, and the only reason not to beat someone up was because it would entail jail time.
Great. So now we’re all stuck with the suck. Jezebel and AFVM both. And here you are, trying to somehow… paint everyone as a hypocrite, despite your initial conditions having long-since been satisfied. And suddenly you’re down to what you considered “dishonest and transparent debate technique”, enumerating various lists of terrible things feminists or would-be feminists have done and asking if David has somehow argued against it, because if he hasn’t, then oh no, he’s a terrible person.
You are like a paper-thin caricature of a tiny child pointing and going “GOT’CHA!”. Boring.
I can’t believe how many AVfM fanboys try to sidestep addressing “Bash the Bitch Month” by pointing out the existence of that stupid Jezebel article. It’s a terrible article but last time I checked it wasn’t written by the most visible head of a supposed human rights movement. Plenty of articles that the Gawker empire vomits out suck in a variety of ways, it’s not the New Yorker. Elam should be held to a higher standard, even if he, JudgeyB and his nitwit followers don’t seem to understand that.
As I wrote before, why does David have to write about Jezebel when the blog is about misogyny found in the online manosphere?
He “actually defended a lot of it” when and how exactly? He’s a journalist, not an ideologue. You have to come up with actual examples.
Oh dear, are you bitter that Aunty Alias proved what a moron you are on Disqus? Never mind, sweetie, I sure you’ll get used to it since it must happen a lot.
@politicalcynic
Gay men are treated like shit by MRAs. That they may be nice to a few of them is besides the point, given that they analyze gender and sexuality in ways that contribute to the marginalization of homosexual folks. A good example is their espousal of evolutionary psychology, which not only uncritically accepts the gender binary but also rarely ever takes into account human beings who aren’t heterosexual.
Moreover, the same MRAs who claim to be supportive of gay men also support misogynist gay men’s views and liberally use the anti-gay f-word to describe anyone who isn’t perfectly heteronormative and cis. MRAs are the same people who also support drag queens who appropriate the word “tr*nny” for the sake of “irony” or some other stupid, transmisogynistic bullshit despite the protests of trans women to whom the right to use that word solely belongs.
The MRM is not pro-gay. It’s a reactionary force that has the weak pretense of being progressive.
I don’t recall anyone mentioning that AVFM posted a rebuttal to David’s article: “David Futrelle falsely accuses Canadian Senator Anne Cools of homophobia”. Naturally, the article defended Cools while tearing into David and us “man-hating, trigger-prone hypochondriacs” who post here.
The author, Andy Bob, reiterated Cools’ arguments about free speech and her definition of marriage. Out of 100 comments, two gay men objected. Paul Elam was like, “Yeah, that’s just your opinion.” Fuck.
Note to angry MRAs: The fact that Andy Bob is gay doesn’t legitimize his opinions any more than the participation of the Honey Badgers proves AVFM isn’t a misogynist site.
@Auntie Alias
Andy Bob upvoted this comment:
“GLB&T is even better, I find, because transsexualism disorders have nothing to do with sexual orientation, apart from being congenitally determined.
The fact that gender disphoria is a thing to be treated is kind of a tip to that fact.”
So,much for being supportive of men and boys.
Why did I go to bed? I missed out on the chance to learn that the position that nobody should be harassed or doxxed is a sign of immaturity.
Mark dropped ever so much wisdom on us! s/
I wonder how much longer MRAs are going to whine about that stupid Jezebel article. It’s seven years old! If feminists were equally as hateful as MRAs they’d be able to constantly find fresh examples.
But no, they have a seven year old Jezebel article, 5 year old radfemhub posts and of course the 50 year old SCUM manifesto. That’s it.
Mark or any other MRA who’s reading this, please come up with some more recent examples of evil feminists. Otherwise someone might think you’re reaching when you make the “both sides do it!” claim.
@sarah
Argh. And it was in response to Paul Elam saying:
WTF?
Literally the exact opposite has happened, lol. Gay men’s misogyny is precisely why lesbian seperatism started.
PoliticalCynic, that’s nice I guess. Meanwhile there are gay men here who find the MRM homophobic. There are also lesbians who feel that way, but they’re women, so I guess their opinions don’t count. And I know I’m drowning in passing privilege ATM, but as a bi woman I do have some idea of what homophobia looks like.
I’m not sure why you’re pointing out that feminists (and other progressives, because apparently no we’re responsible for everyone who’s approximately on “our side”) can also be homophobic. You think we don’t know that? You think we’re somehow blind to homophobia when it’s coming from our alleged allies? Some “gotcha”.
How is it Elam’s place to decide what the terms are? He’s cis and straight. He doesn’t get to decide that GLBT is the correct label. If he thinks he does get to decide, he’s not a very good ally.
Oh look, another truscum MRA who thinks that dysphoria is a requisite for transness.
I’d offer a critique of the AVfM article but it’s super long misreading of David’s post and just isn’t worth the effort. I thought I’d share this gem of an exchange in the comments instead.
Most AVfM posters are pushing the idea that being anti-gay marriage is okey dokey because marriage is so very awful, but the commentary takes some wacky turns like the above exchange. I’ve seen many people buy into the male-female role playing gay relationship dynamic, but I haven’t seen it used because someone is convinced that the court system requires a male stand-in to screw over.
The OP and other posters repeatedly blame lesbian feminist for hijacking the GLBT movement and ruining everything. I’ve occasionally heard gay men whine like this before. I’ve also occasionally heard lesbians whine that they helped gay men during the AIDS crisis yet gay men aren’t grateful or some such shit. My response is big whiney adult babies should shove off and let mature people run gay communities.
Why I had no idea Elam was so magnanimous! What a guy.
Love.
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