So that was A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam’s response to a recent post of mine talking about Christopher Cantwell, an AVFM contributor who also likes to tell people to kill themselves.
In an AVFM post also titled David Futrelle: Please kill yourself, Elam waxed eloquent upon this theme:
David, please go kill yourself.
You should, however, before you slip away into the dark void that resembles your capacity for logic, consider that you may want to get out more. A lot more, actually.
“Please kill yourself,” in the context of Twitter and a lot of other internet exchanges is par for the course.
That is sadly true, Paul. I see that as a problem; you apparently see it as an excuse for the harassment and abuse you and your followers so enjoy heaping upon your opponents in the name of “Men’s Human Rights.”
Apparently, in Elam’s world, the best way to fight male suicide is by telling other men to kill themselves.
Oh, but one of Elam’s fans has an answer to that, too:
Human rights advocates at work!
I wonder if the ‘kill yourself’ bollocks is a cowardly death threat? Knowing that saying ‘I will kill you’ might actually be actionable if done enough and in particular circumstances they fall back on the ‘kill yourself’ as a way of saying ‘I didn’t make no threats no way no how!’
I have often thought of suicide, but these idiots make no impression on that whatsoever. In fact to be told that by such an obvious degenerate is uplifting, because the last person I want to be ‘on my side’ is a misogynist wanker.
These people continue to prove that misandry is pretty much only found among MRAs 😀
So they can just define “male” however they feel like?
It’s A Voice For True Scotsmen!
Having slept on it further, a misogynist like Elam using the word “partner” to describe a woman still strikes me as very odd and unlikely.
I don’t understand how it happens, but it does happen. I went on a first (and last) date with a certain other guy a couple years ago. Said guy managed to spew an amazing amount of misogyny over a half hour dinner between two guys.
@bmillette
Why are you apologizing for what others have done? Each of us has enough carrying our own crosses to bear other people’s burdens.
From what you tell, you did nothing remotely close to what was done to me. Not at all. There’s no point of comparison. Don’t punish yourself. You don’t deserve it.
You make an extremely important point here. I can still recall myself being ableist (and also sexist, amongst many other hurtful attitudes) in the past, and I used to say many things and use specific words that I deeply regret now.
The good thing is that I realized of it and decided to change, and so have many, and we’re all still works in progress, as other commenters mentioned.
We can’t erase the past, but that’s alright, it’s what builds us. The embarassment we feel when we remember it is our daily reminder to be the best people we can be. And we’ll probably be better tomorrow, and even more in a month, and further more through time.
@Shalimar
I believe there was a point where someone in the AVFM comments was asking why the donation paypal went to someone named “Stacey”, and Elam indicated that this was his female partner who does behind the scenes work for AVFM. (nothing weird about having donations to your company sent to some third party’s personal account)
Interestingly, a google search doesn’t turn up anything about her. I think this article mentions her being his wife http://www.avoiceformen.com/a-voice-for-men/paul-elam-presentation-to-the-international-conference-on-mens-issues-2014-icmi14-nomra/
But the damn thing is so ramblingly long that I’m not even sure. It’s curious how she never shows up to anything or is an open participant in any of their work. Perhaps she’s not so much a real person as some sort of elaborate tax dodge?
On thinking about the shittyness of the past:
Personally I just have to look through all the stuff I used to do* to get an idea of who I used to be, and who I want to avoid being again. It induces a lot of facepalms and depressive thinking about how I used to treat people, but it’s far better than just forgetting I was a dumbass and doing it all over again.
I mean, there’s no blatantly obvious things like full blown racism or misogyny, but looking through things I wrote all those years ago I can immediately see a good chunk of the problematic things I used to think. Especially when it comes to characters**. Like all the things you just pick up from being in a society that believes them.
It can actually be quite fun and productive to go through and try to rework all the shittyness out of things. It makes me laugh when people complain that social justice issues are ruining fiction, because it’s been the total opposite for me. Thinking about ideas in terms of social justice also means they turn out way more developed in general. Not that my ideas are super amazing or anything, but still.
*For reference, i’m a huge fanasty/sci fi/D&D nerd and i’ve spent the last 10-15 years filling pages, folders, notepads and various other things with all sorts of random ideas – all of which I still have and can go through any time I want.
**A good example from recently was me looking through my list of characters and realising that a good proportion of them were unintentionally “defaulted” to being some variation of white skinned just because I hadn’t thought to add diversity anywhere (being white myself). That’s something I can (and am) working to fix now.
Well, I proofread that about 20 times and still missed a typo. *Cry*
Right? But “toxic masculinity” isn’t a thing.
Yup. Paul should change his blurb to “men’s rights are human rights, unless they’re men we don’t like”. A+ human rights activism, totally not rage-driven or self-centered at all.
I love this.
Magnesium: tis a mystery indeed. I have a feeling she is a tax dodge “employee” (read: non existent) dressed up as a “female partner” so Elam doesn’t look like he’s going against his “Women shouldn’t work” stance. And he avoids using the term girlfriend or wife to appease the MGTOWs in the audience. (Remember, marriage is oppression! Relationships less so but still).
Wouldn’t it be comedy gold if “Stacy” is the woman who built and maintains their website because Elam is too techdumb to do it himself?
Isn’t there another manurespherian who has a possibly made up wife? Spacebunny or something like that?
Nice human rightsing there, Paul!
David, you know you’re living right when Paul Elam doesn’t like you.
<3 to you, David, and (please) keep up the good work!
Why is there a space photo as his background? Is he trying to sell himself as some sort of Carl Sagan-like figure now?
Cassandrakitty: it does appear he’s trying to give the impression that he is intelligent. His photo seems designed to look like he is part of a university faculty although in reality he’s probably only ever worn a suit and tie twice a year, max. Nice try “Professor Elam”.
Elam telling you to kill yourself is surely the very proof that you are doing something right.
Elam is pretty much singular proof that the MRM is a total crock.
So for my daily act of misandry today I raised my eyebrow all Spock like at the eyefuckingme mirroring creepy PUA on public transit until he quit leering at me. Misandry Forever!
@ sunnysombrera, I actually thought he looked like some kind of vermin, like a gopher.
It would! Funnier still if she got sick of his shit and broke it on her way out.
This post makes me sick. I was going to remark on how he’s/they’ve gone outside the norm in attacking a man, which I know they do sometimes, but it’s not the norm. but I guess I have no argument, because apparently David is not a man.
I was already nauseaous today.
What is that saying? Judge me by my enemies. If a bunch of vile bigots hate you, that means you’re doing something right! What they said was obviously childish and hateful but it makes me smile that you’re pissing them off so much.
The hypocrisy is strong with this one. And so’s the toxic masculinity.
“Male suicide is a huge problem that I’m not going to do a single thing about except whine and use it to shit on feminists!”
“Oh, this guy said something against me? HE MUST NOT BE MALE AND HE MUST TAKE HIS OWN LIFE AS RECOMPENSE.”
Part of me wants to live in his deluded little fantasy world for a while, like a scientist going among the wildlife to study them, but then I remember I don’t have a penis so I wouldn’t be welcome anyway.
“Look, I’m opposed to how society expects men to act and how it’s a sour deal. But you don’t act like how I expect men to act, so you’re not a man.”
“I care deeply about suicide rates, but kill yourself”
“My beliefs are deeply held and intellectually valid”