Longtime observers of A Voice for Men have been wondering for some time why John “The Other” Hembling has vanished from that site. Hembling, once the site’s Editor in Chief and number two figure, was not at AVFM’s much ballyhooed conference this summer, and his name has mysteriously vanished from the masthead. AVFM has not, to the best of my knowledge, ever offered a public explanation for the falling-out with Hembling.
Now, after months of silence on the topic, Hembling is telling his side of the story.
In a video posted yesterday — and embedded at the top of this post — Hembling claims he was tossed overboard from the good ship AVFM because he was publicly critical of some of AVFM’s staffers and allies – in particular Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield, AVFM’s truth-challenged “social media director,” and Stefan Molyneux, long-winded YouTube “philosopher”and leader of the Cult of Stefan Molyneux.
Hembling starts off the video by challenging the “rumor” that he was kicked out of AVFM because he was planning on showing up to the group’s conference with a giant inflatable penis, a reference to Community Organized Compassion and Kindness — COCK – a group that he started with his girlfriend Diana Davison and which seems to count only the two of them as members. I have no idea if this is a real rumor, a joke, or something he actually was planning. I mean, this is a guy who runs a “human rights” group called COCK. In any case, he insists in the video that he had no such plans.
The real reasons he was “disinvited” from the conference and from AVFM itself? According to Hembling, it’s largely because, he hasn’t been shy about criticizing other AVFMers, as well as various articles on the site, including one from a trans man that Hembling thought was “bullshit,” and published only because AVFM was trying too hard to be inclusive.
But apparently his biggest crime in the eyes of Elam and other AVFMers was his criticism of AVFM PR maven Janet Bloomfield – not for being a liar with a propensity for calling her opponents “whores,” but for being … a stay-at-home mom.
When Hembling joined AVFM, he notes, the site was harshly critical of traditionalist conservatives, seeing the traditional roles of men as providers and women as stay-at-home wives and mothers as offering little more than “slavery” for men.
Indeed, Hembling quotes from one 2011 post by AVFM founder and big kahuna Paul Elam warning of the danger posed to men by, in Elam’s words
‘traditional” woman’… offering fellatio in exchange for indentured servitude, and reveling in her ‘traditional power,’ as a woman. … Traditionalism is the driving force behind male slavery. It is the psychological machine that socializes men into becoming fodder and into becoming lapdogs disguised as guard dogs.
But now, Hembling complains, AVFM has not only abandoned its disdain for traditionalist women, but has also appointed a traditionalist woman – Bloomfield – to serve as its PR representative. (Though Hembling doesn’t mention is, AVFM also brought traditionalist conservative Suzanne Venker to speak at its conference.) And when Hembling brought up this seeming contradiction while he was at AVFM, he says, his “relatively mild critiques” were seen as “blasphemy.”
“What happened, Paul,” Hembling asks. “Did your brains fall out?”
As Hembling sees it, the “final nail in my coffin at AVFM” was his criticism of Molyneux, a woman-hating libertarian “philosopher” with a cult following (literally) on YouTube who was one of the more memorable speakers at AVFM’s conference. (I highlighted some of the horrible things he said in that speech in a Misogyny Theater video here.) Hembling doesn’t specify what exactly he criticized Molyneux for, but insists that it was mild criticism compared to what the “philosopher” hears from others online.
Hembling adds that he also called MRA elder Warren Farrell “Professor Fuzzy Face. I think that might have ruffled some feathers too.”
So are these the real reasons Hembling was exiled from AVFM? Isn’t it possible that he was actually shitcanned because he’s a loose cannon and compulsive liar that no legitimate organization would want to have anything to do with?
He is, of course, all of those things, and if we were dealing with any entity other than AVFM I would assume this was the true explanation. But the plain fact is that AVFM is overflowing with loose cannons and compulsive liars, from the man at the top of the heap down to the footsoldiers in its Twitter army.
And, as hard as it might be to believe anything that someone as habitually truth-challenged as Hembling has to say, his explanation of his fall from grace is completely plausible. Elam is an egotist and an opportunist, and he’s not someone who likes being second-guessed by his followers. To have the ostensible number two at AVFM calling him out publicly for his hypocrisy and poor judgement? Well, I can’t imagine he was terribly happy about that.
Will Elam respond to this video with an “explanation” of his own? I can only hope so.
Does this remind anybody else of the Republicans/Libertarians/Tea Partiers denouncing and booting out anybody who even took a breath from outside the bubble as “RINOs”?
I’m sure Paul thinks all those things still about traditional women, and the second JB steps over the line (wherever that is), POOF! She’s gone.
I’m sure all of the things are true about why JtO was booted are true, and I can totally see Paul not taking an iota of criticism.
@ Hellkell – What would “stepping over the line” even look like? She’s got to be the most piss-poor PR rep in the history of ever.
“Stepping over the line” according to Paulie means disagreeing with him in anyway. As soon as JB does that, she’s out.
You know, I’ve become pretty calloused to MRA nonsense in my years of reading this site. Mostly, my eyes just sort of scan over it, and I get right on to the dissection. But every once in a while, I really read what they’ve written, and I’m completely gobsmacked.
These people can look at a “traditional woman” – offering fellatio…and other sexual services…and child care…and cooking…and housecleaning…in exchange for whatever part of her husband’s take home pay he chooses to give her (as an expense account to use for the above purposes) and think that she’s the one coming out ahead? The traditional patriarchal set-up screws over everyone, I’ll agree to that. If you argue that it screws over everyone equally, I’ll point out how you’re wrong, but to argue that it screws over only the man and benefits the woman? What world do these people even live in? They must be the most perspective-deficient people alive!
@ Alex – if that’s the only thing that counts as “stepping over the line”, I think she’s safe. JtO seemed to think that, as a man, he had a right to his own opinion. JB seems to be free of that illusion.
@seraph4377: True, but JB doesn’t criticize A Voice for Elam. As long as none of her little fairytales ever includes even the lightest deviation from the AVfM party line, they’ll enable her delusions of adequacy as a PR. The second she so much as wobbles, they’ll blow her out the airlock.
@seraph4377
If she starts acting like a decent or rational human being, perhaps? Grand Master Elam would never stand for such misandry.
Wow.
He thinks women only give BJs to their male lovers to get stuff. That means that he is unaware that many straight and bi ladies LOVE to give head and give it with enthusiasm.
I wonder why?
Meanwhile, I think it’s funny that he thinks SAHMs don’t work (I must have imagined all of the domestic labor I thought I did. Who knew? I guess I’ll imagine it again today. 😛 ) and that by doing the lions share of domestic labor and child rearing they are enslaving their partners. Does he not know that women had to fight for the right to be anything other than SAHMs? Does he not know that gay couples are a thing and that there are stay at home dads and moms in same sex relationships? Who is enslaving who in their families?
What a sad, bitter, confused asshole. He’s even been kicked out of the sad, confused asshole clubhouse.
That’s why I wondered where the line is. If she were my PR person, I’d have booted her long ago for utter failure. I’ll be interesting to see where her “I can’t do this shit anymore” point is when Paul says something awful enough for her not to keep quiet about.
Yep, every time I scrub someone else’s shit out of the toilet, pry the Rottie’s paws out from under his bulk to trim his nails (He’s scared of the claw clippers.) or fish hair out of the drain as I scrub soap scum, or a clean a hairball out of the rug, or a sick kids vomits on me, I feel just like I have cleverly enslaved my husband.
Muhahahahahaaaa!
All I had to do was go down on him to get this life of leisure and glamour! I’m an evil genius!
When I squeeze the dogs’ anal glands or clean the trap in the dishwasher, I almost can’t stifle my maniacal laughter. “The fool!” think I. “He is truly my thrall!”
http://stickerish.com/wp-content/themes/mio/sp-framework/timthumb/timthumb.php?src=http://stickerish.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TrueStoryBlackTextSS.png&h=500&w=500&zc=2&q=100&a=c&s=&f=&cc=&ct=
I too hope Paulie responds with a raging, spittle-flecked video.
Oh, yes, please, Paul–respond to these scurrilous allegations. Maybe if we’re really lucky, JB herself will weigh in on Twitter. *Preps popcorn makers.*
Oh man, it’s so hilarious when they fight with each other. They think they’re being big and bad, but it’s so completely ineffectual to anyone outside their little movement.
For some reason, I feel compelled to post this:
http://youtu.be/Pk28__1LnZs
A voice for men – but obviously, #notallmen.
I have to confess that when I was younger I got into a very morally questionable friendship with some people, in which the friendship consisted of mocking and otherwise being cruel to folks on the outside of the group. I’m not proud of this. It is, however, how I learned that being friends with cruel people is temporary, because eventually they always turn on you. Since then, I have seen this unfold several times in other groups, ones that I only saw from the outside and saw the fallout.
It’s quite apparent that this is the dynamic in AVFM. JtO got the idea that, because he was on the inside, he was safe from the group turning on him. Of course this is never true. I would not be at all surprised if this move was preceded by an informal inquisition, or a massive group-wide backchannel argument in which every person on the inside was informed of JtO’s outrageous independent thinking and invited to judge him.
I’d feel sorry for him, except that he is a terrible person who doesn’t deserve my pity.
Ugh. I caught a link to an interview with an author of a book about Nickelodeon because of the racial privilege it displayed, but it’s also reeking with male privilege and what about the menz butthurt. Sharing because seriously, this twit needs to have his ignorance exposed:
http://flavorwire.com/480990/pete-pete-was-all-white-people-slimed-author-mathew-klickstein-on-why-ren-and-stimpy-was-better-than-clarissa-and-nickelodeons-diversity-problem/
@starkidnina
Such a cute video! Though, to be fair, I spot at least a few definite advantages the rabbits have over AVfM:
1) They’re adorable, as opposed to, say, Paul not-sure-if-outraged-or-just-constipated Elam, and
2) clearly superior battle tactics, if the PR and organisational management skills of AVfM are any indication.
^this.
I made that mistake once and for a long time. We overlook character flaws in our friends because we love them and I did that. Then I stopped wanting to be a part of their “circle of trust” which was anything but and my number came up with a quickness. Never again.
“I learned that being friends with cruel people is temporary, because eventually they always turn on you.”
So so so true. That just happened to me recently, I always try and think the best of people and it keeps biting me in the butt. I’ll learn one of these days I’m sure, but I keep trying to think the best of people. Unlike Lea, I’m a slow learner!
Cannot think the best of these AVFM people though, good grief. I made the mistake of skimming through the first opinion piece on COCK’s charming little geocities website and I’m still picking lint off my lips from my jaw hitting the floor.
Definitely. It’s like Chris Christie losing his luster in the party not because he’s corrupt, but because he appointed a Muslim to a government position and doesn’t sufficiently hate them.
Yep. This little fight is definitely exposing their hypocrisy and inconsistency. Traditional stay at home wives are misandry because they’re supposedly enslaving their husbands by living off their money. So why do they hate feminists so much? Feminists, not MRAs are the ones responsible for making it so that women wouldn’t have to be SAHMs unless they want to be.
Of course, as we all know it’s misandry for women to want careers (except maybe in traditionally female occupations like waitress, secretary, nurse, primary school teacher) because they might take men’s jobs or even – horror of all horrors – become the boss of men. I would also have to assume they would consider it misandry when men in double income families are expected to do some of the domestic and child rearing work.
Will AVFM ever come out, as an organization and specifically say whether or not they want women to be housewives or work? Get married and be monogamous or not get married and have sex with whoever we want?
Of course they won’t. It changes every day so that no matter what the situation, the woman is wrong and evil and the man is oppressed. To acknowledge that they haven’t taken a consistent position would mean they would have to admit that they’re group is about misogyny, not helping men.
It’s impossible to take a side in this fight because they’re all so awful.
Shut up, Woody.
David –
Kathy Sierra posted an interesting (and disheartening) piece about the harassment she faced, and has faced for years and years. It’s worth a read.
http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point
You know that someone is apathetic and will proberly write worse love stories than fricking twilight when they treat relationships like prostitution.
Holy shit, freemage, that interview was painful. He thinks diversity is exploitative?