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.
Just picking up on this one piece of the Auntie Alias quote from AVfM website:
How sweet. So while commenters on their sites are routinely encouraged to do this (e.g. through reinforcing replies and upvotes), just don’t do it at the conference.
If they’re having to issue instructions to get people to change their normal behaviour, which is otherwise actively reinforced, maybe they should fucking look at whether that behaviour should exist at all.
Considering MRA’s track record and regular crossover with white supremacists, I really wouldn’t be surprised if many of the speakers at the conference are racists as well…
A serious question for Matheus, or any MRAs who care to respond: If a prominent feminist (say Jessica Valenti or Jill Filipovic) wanted to speak at the conference about a topic they agreed with you on (like cultural attitudes towards male rape survivors), would you be OK with that?
Possibly TMI from me here, I’m not interested in anal sex either, but no way would I use that as a reason to stop others from participating in an activity they enjoy. I don’t like aubergines either, by this logic I would be justified in trying to get them banned and arresting farmers as aubergine pushers.
I absolutely hate the way that a number of our societies are so pigheaded ignorant when it comes to matters sexual, yet see very little problem with encouraging violence (e.g. compare the level of violence versus the level of sex permitted in PG or M rated movies). In the interests of full disclosure, I am a pro-pornography* feminist.
*I have issues with certain areas of pornography, but not against pornography generally.
Behold, my campaign to stop the world from eating durian! I mean, I don’t like it, so why should it exist?
These people are idiots.
I don’t suppose it crosses their mind that any journalist who wanted to make them look bad by quoting their words could simply read their comment threads and quote them from that, eh?
brooked, I’m with you. My reaction to this was, Wut? What is “the salve that heals” gay men? Regarding men as human beings? How does that heal the ravages of homophobia?
AVfM. The first to provide vacuous sound-bites in response to serious social problems!
Also, if you selectively quote only the bad stuff then that is putting a spin on the event, but if the bad stuff is 90% of what people are saying and any reporters present report it as such then they’re just, you know, reporting. MRAs seem to have an ongoing issue where they believe that reporting exactly what they say/do is spin doctoring, and, um, no.
It is the Newt Gingrich retort. Anyone who quotes me is lying.
Right, I’m sure the AVFM crowd will be able to self-police their own misogyny. Because they are very self aware and know how they sound to outsiders.
Took the words right out of my mouth (or keyboard?). They know that misogyny is a feature not a bug in their sad little movement but they also know they have to feign innocence if any media is around.
I wonder how many rule violators there will be? Especially if they start drinking. I’m having a hard time believing the actual speakers will be able to follow the no trashing women out loud rule though. Especially if one of the speeches is about rape accusations.
What kind of official statement you want? A blog post at AVfM? A prominent MRA (Janet Bloomfield) already made it clear that she disagrees with the anti-gay agenda. Many others have also said that in the past. And just because most of us don’t agree with Cools on this aspect, it doesn’t mean that none of her opinions are worth listening to.
For the record, I’m gay, too. I also don’t hate women (and, no, disagreeing with feminists doesn’t qualify as misogyny).
“A serious question for Matheus, or any MRAs who care to respond: If a prominent feminist (say Jessica Valenti or Jill Filipovic) wanted to speak at the conference about a topic they agreed with you on (like cultural attitudes towards male rape survivors), would you be OK with that?”
Actually, yes, we would. And we wouldn’t mind having people who disagree with us speak, either, as long as they don’t try to silence us, like so many have before.
Now, a question for the ones who take David Futrelle seriously: he loves to talk about the so called “misogyny” in the MHRM, treating satire and comments made by random individuals as serious representatives of the movement’s opinions, but why doesn’t he treat the far more hateful comments left by many feminists with the same standards? Here’s some context: http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/is-david-futrelle-covering-for-violent-feminists/
@zoon echon logon
Sure, they may sound extreme to some, but that’s only because the majority of people are either poodle manginas or pussy-pass trading, bon-bon eating child stealers.
Oh look. Another MRA who doesn’t understand what satire means.
“if you hear anyone saying anything that can be used against us, or that makes our gathering toxic”
So does this mean they’re going to sit around in total silence, I hope, I hope? No? Oh, shit!
On sex vs violence: Thirty years ago I walked into my local grocery store, and the cover of a “True Crime” magazine caught my eye. It was a beautiful girl in a bikini lying on a bed, with a pile of what looked like bloody animal intestines on her stomach, with a sinister-looking man bending over her with a blood-dripping dagger in his hand. Obviously it was meant to imply that the man had disemboweled her. This was at a level on the magazine rack where is could easily be examined by children. I called over the manager and he agreed that it was inappropriate for his store and took it off the rack, commenting that it had probably been there for a few days and I was the first to complain.
But if the girl had been shown topless — or even with one nipple peeking out — I’ll bet he would have heard about it very promptly.
“Oh look. Another MRA who doesn’t understand what satire means.”
I do understand what it means, and you didn’t answer the question.
::snort:: another MRA who’s dumb as a box of rocks. I am shocked, shocked I say.
Another idiot who can’t answer a simple question.
You can’t say that David’s only reporting on fringe members of the MRM when so much of what he posts is from major MRAs like JB, Paul Elam, and Warren Farrell. Or are you saying that every awful thing they’ve said is “satire”, including everything in The Myth of Male Power?
Matheus,
Are you sure you understand what satire means? It’s not a synonym for ‘joke’ or ‘hyperbole.’
Copypasta from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire
Since AVFM is an anti-feminist group, things like Elam’s “bash a violent b*tch month” can’t be satire. Because it was targeted at feminists. He can claim it was a joke. He can claim it was hyperbole. Satire it isn’t.
Stop trying to claim everything offensive an MRA says is satire. It’s a bullshit cop out. Paul Elam is no Stephen Colbert. If he’s trying satire, he’s failing miserably and should stop because it’s making him look even worse than he otherwise would.
I would just be tickled if you could give us an example of satire from AVFM that we have taken literally, and let us know 1) what it’s satirizing and 2) what its real message is.
Matheus maybe you should ask David rather than us because we are actually not him? Actually don’t do that he doesn’t deserve to be exposed to your stupidity.
You still didn’t answer the fucking question, and I’m starting to guess that none of you have the intellectual honesty (or capacity) for it. Read the link I provided. How is anything said in AVfM worse than what the feminists referred to in the link have said?
And I haven’t read The Myth of Male Power, so I don’t know what’s so terrible about it.
I was listening to the “We Hate Movies” podcast about the movie Swordfish this morning. They quoted Travolta as saying “Soon you’ll be on a yacht with your daughter, eating bonbons” which Travolta’s character seems to think is the American dream.
Co-incidence?
“Since AVFM is an anti-feminist group, things like Elam’s “bash a violent b*tch month” can’t be satire. Because it was targeted at feminists. He can claim it was a joke. He can claim it was hyperbole. Satire it isn’t.”
The link covers that. “Bash a violent b*tch month” is a response to a Jezebel article called “Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have”: http://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have