A Voice for Men’s embattled Grand Wizard Paul Elam and his followers have responded to Buzzfeed’s devastating profile of him in some predictable ways, and in a few less predictable ones.
If you’re read the Buzzfeed piece – and if you haven’t, you really, really should – you know that it devoted a lot of time to the sad and sordid history of Elam’s three marriages and the even more sad and sordid story of the daughter he abandoned.
In a long and rambling post on Buzzfeed’s piece, Elam – all too predictably – goes after “Susan,” his first wife and the only one of his three ex-wives who was willing to talk on the record, trying his best to destroy her credibility by portraying her, essentially, as a lying slut.
Elam miraculously, and probably with considerable effort, managed to avoid the s-word – a favorite of writers on his site. But his attempts to slut-shame her are as transparent as glass.
Over the course of his post, he describes her as “very enthusiastic about sex,” “indeed very enthusiastic about sex,” and “a promiscuous wife.” He alleges that during their brief marriage “her sexual enthusiasm wasn’t limited to me,” and repeats the accusation that he leveled at her at the time – that she lied about being raped in order to cover up her own infidelity. He declares her to be a “habitual liar,” someone who “cheated and lied constantly.”
Elam also suggests that Buzzfeed paid his ex-wife and daughter to talk trash about him; and he makes several other serious allegations against his ex-wife that I won’t repeat. (EDIT: Buzzfeed’s Editorial Standards and Ethics policy forbids paying sources.]
A decade ago, you may recall from Buzzfeed’s piece, Elam reunited with the daughter he had abandoned as a baby, only to drive her away several years later after, she claims, spanking one of his grandsons for opening the refrigerator.
In his post, while referring to her as his daughter, he resurrects an old accusation, writing that “I need to point out that it has not been established that I actually have a daughter.”
Buzzfeed quotes what it says is an email Elam sent to his daughter in 2005, in which he apologized to her and to his brother. “I owe both of you a tremendous debt,” he wrote. “I just said some unflattering things involving [his ex-wife], but the more important truth here is that I failed both of you.”
In his post, though, Elam declares that “I did not, as alleged, tell Bonnie [his daughter] that I was sorry that I had failed her. I told her that I was sorry such misfortune had been her lot.”
If the email quoted by Buzzfeed is authentic, this is a blatant lie.
While the attacks on his ex (and his halfway renunciation of his daughter) are sadly predictable, Elam also resorts to a desperate if inventive diversionary tactic, suggesting that the art used to illustrate Buzzfeed’s post is somehow … anti-Semitic, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. Uh, no. I’m pretty sure that one or both of the authors of the Buzzfeed article, Adam Serwer and Katie Baker, would have said something if this were even remotely the case; they’re both Jewish.
Judge for yourself. Here’s the picture AVFM used to illustrate Elam’s post:
In the comments to his post on AVFM, meanwhile, Elam’s supporters circle the wagons and lash out at pretty much anyone they can think of who’s ever said less-than-flattering things about their dear leader. They are considerably less careful with their language than Elam.
In the post’s “Featured Comment,” with close to 70 upvotes at the moment, AVFM contributor “Andybob” lashes out at Elam’s enemies:
A disgruntled ex from decades ago and a brainwashed daughter that probably isn’t his who were doubtlessly given some kind of monetary incentive to say that Paul Elam won’t be getting their votes for Man of the Year any time soon. After months of sleepless nights planning his cunning revenge, the best Serwer could come up with was to drag out this pair of bitter malcontents who were probably chomping on the bit to take a swipe a man who chose not to serve them in the ways to which they obviously feel entitled.
Suzie McCarley, AVFM’s “Assistant Managing Editor,” says of the Buzzfeed article that “it will be quoted by skanks and bitches of both sexes for years to come.” She snidely writes of Serwer that “I hope the blow job his ho Katie B. owes him in exchange for his credibility, is worth it.”
Several others cleverly refer to Serwer as “Sewer.”
Very few of the commenters deal with any of Buzzfeed’s specific allegations. Instead, they resort to evasive euphemism.
AVFM’s social media director, who writes under the name Janet Bloomfield, laments what she calls “the hysterical ad hominem attacks on a man who turns out to be ….SHOCK…. human.” “I’m shocked! Who would think that an ex-wife might have shit to talk about her ex? Amazeballz!” AVFM contributor Jason Gregory writes sarcastically. “Overlord Elam is a human man?” jokes someone called ComradePrescott. “I can’t serve any master that isn’t a reptilian monster!!!!”
Others offer excuses, making clear that they would probably forgive Elam for anything short of mass murder:
In a separate post, AVFM’s Sage Gerard offers an even less coherent “rebuttal” to Buzzfeed’s post, filled with vague accusations against Buzzfeed and weirdly evasive defenses of Elam that if anything make him look worse.
Gerard declares that Buzzfeed’s
“evidence” is opinion carefully framed to manipulate, not persuade. This is David Futrelle’s style of toxic propoganda: Distort context until the target and all supporters appear inhuman.
It’s hard to tell what on earth Gerard even means by any of this, and of course he provides no examples.
He then goes on to offer this oddly backhanded defense of Elam’s terrible behavior:
In terms of his difficult decisions during his youth, Paul had to live with choices that only prove that he is human. Today, Paul faithfully operates within the boundaries of the law as an advocate.
Even more strangely, Gerard praises Elam for … not pocketing money from fundraisers intended for others.
Another money fact that keeps slipping by unreported is that Paul has allowed others to feed off his main revenue stream. Paul hosts fundraisers on this site where AVfM gains no money. I offered Paul a percentage in Zen Men’s last fundraiser, and he refused the money. He also gave Dean Esmay money for private dental work in public view. …
Between Dean and Zen Men, AVfM gave up access to over $10,000, which means Paul gave up more than AVfM itself raised in its last fundraiser. …
Greedy people out to exploit the masses don’t give away money.
Actually, lots of them do. Are you kidding?
If these are the best defenses that Elam and his allies can muster, he’s going to have a hard time rebounding from Buzzfeed’s report.
Right. That was more violent than WHTM generally likes. Sorry. I think I shall step out now.
Why? That seems excessive to me.
Lea & re: spanking/abuse in general: My Grandmother apparently did the same with her children, but with willow switches. They’d have to go pick their own switch. If it was too small, *she’d* go pick it (and none of them wanted that).
I can’t find it in myself to blame her too much, though. She was a single Mom to three boys with one year in age separating each (she kicked out her drunken husband when he moved from savagely beating her to savagely beating the kids), and from what I understand she only resorted to it when their actions (to each other) were about to result in a broken limb or neck.
My Dad says that the Vice Principal had a board with holes hanging up in his office that he’d use for formal punishments (in front of the your peers if it was bad enough), so it was a different time and mindset.
I got a handful of spankings in the 1980s, but remember thinking that they were weird more than anything else; and my grandparents /never/ spanked me, not even when I’d go to visit them for a week during the summer.
My elementary school had a form parents could sign authorizing corporal punishment by the principal (my parents did, but I was an annoyingly good kid and it never happened). [Note: Both my and my father’s experiences were in Virginia.]
My husband says that he had several teachers who’d routinely spank or even hit kids and one who’d twist your ear. [North Florida – which is really just southern Georgia – and North Carolina in the 1980s.]
But, then, my maternal Grandmother said that neither of her parents ever laid a hand (or anything else) on her (born in 1929 in Virginia). Her father was Blackfoot and Crow (maybe a mix, but could never grow a beard – it wasn’t really talked about since the marriage of he and my Great-Grandmother, a tiny little lady with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, was technically illegal in the state back then). She said that his irises would seem solid black when he was angry, but he’s just get very quiet and calm and explain his disappointment and hurt in his child’s actions. In those moments she’s wish for him to hit her like her friends’ dads would just to make the weight of it stop.
He explained to her when she was older that if you get angry with and yell at or hit a child, that fuels their outrage and they end up feeling justified in their behaviors; but if you remain quiet and calm with a child who’s misbehaved, you force them them to get quiet and to think about their actions and their impacts.
I did not say that it wasn’t child abuse. I said that my parents would have that opinion. I think I also mentioned that I thought that was fucked up. I don’t think I communicated support of any sort of violence.
I’m afraid some folks here are so aghast that they are kind of taking an offensive posture. When I speak of my experiences and my culture and I say definitively that they are fucked up and deserve trigger warnings, I don’t think that suggests denial. I think it suggests a openness and trust in the people I’m having this discussion with. I almost said nothing, but I don’t like it when people start denying that hitting kids is uncommon. It isn’t. That and a whole lot worse are commonplace the world over. It is not just where I live. Here, people are just less careful about what they do in public. Just because you grew up unaware of people being abused, it doesn’t mean they weren’t being abused. I really do not want to be judged or reprimanded when talking about this from my personal point of view. It makes me feel very vulnerable.
As does my home being called hell or me being called evil for living in it.
^ None of the above’s meant to glorify memories of corporal punishment, but is in answer to questions about historical and locational context.
I agree. Humanity is like that. Life is way more David Lynch than Steven Spielberg.
I grew up, as I’m sure my parents and their parents on back through the years grew up, being told how easy I had it. Each generation tell their tales of walking to school in the snow, uphill, both ways. That’s all those stories are. One generation bragging to the next about how much better they are than their parents and how grateful their children should be.
Lea – I get where you were going (I started composing my post above before the other replies came in, though my clarification was typed after I saw those replies).
You can talk about corporal punishment – even its contexts and commonness – without condoning it and certainly without meaning to glorify or revel in it.
If nothing else, it’s part of understanding and processing your history, of reconciling the virtues of those you love (or don’t, as the case may be) and their understanding of their actions with your current understanding of and thoughts on their actions.
To say, “This was done and this was the context,” is to acknowledge that people’s perceptions and attitudes are shaped by their cultures, their environment, and their experiences, not to excuse them.
proxieme,
So true. Kids mimic almost automatically. I was reading while 2 of my kids were playing a game and I overheard one of them say, “Dude, what are you thinking?”
It was like hearing an echo. That’s me. He’s picked that phrase up from me. It’s cute, but also intimidating. It reminds me that so much of what the kids learn happens while we are all unaware of it. That raises the hair on my neck, but its also really neat. Humans are neat.
Looks like spankings were indeed still very much a thing in the 1990s, at least in fundie communities. I found this. Apparently, the first edition of the vile pro-beating book To Train Up a Child was published in 1994. Ain’t nothin’ like some good ol’ religious justification for the unjustifiable, eh?
As for me, I was born in ’67, and yes, I got spanked sometimes. Not often, because I was basically quiet and well behaved anyway. The worst was getting it with the handle of a flyswatter. I put it down to being an immigrant’s kid, not to when I was born, though; I really have no frame of reference as to how many other kids’ parents did it when I was in school. Having German parents is no fun, BTW; they are strict as hell. And it sure did make us stick out like sore thumbs from the rest of the kids, who were almost all of Anglo-Irish-Scots descent — especially when we had to wear hand-me-downs from previous generations to school. I had the damnedest time of it convincing my folks to buy me jeans and stop making me wear those old-fashioned hand-knit sailor dresses, because I was being ostracized for it. (To this day I cringe whenever the “nautical look” comes back in fashion. Good times…good times.)
My grandparents? As far as I can recall, a light smack on the butt was the worst I got from them. They always were more lenient than my folks were, at least with us grandkids.
And for the “turned out all right” bit: Yes, I did. But I did so in spite of spankings, not BECAUSE of them. And I don’t believe in them, either. I find that the best way to teach my nieces and nephews* not to do stupid things, is to inform them of the consequences before they even try it. When they know that you’re not supposed to fiddle with knobs on the stove because you can burn yourself, they don’t NEED to be hit to drive it home. So my dad’s belief that spankings make kids “see clearly” just doesn’t hold water, and never did for me. They can see just fine when you take a moment to explain to them how things work.
I suspect that the threat of corporal punishment actually makes rebellious kids act worse; it certainly did with my dad’s two younger brothers, who were real little hellraisers back in Germany, and almost never did what they were told. One of them just HAD to touch a hot clothes-iron to find out that it really does burn; the other nearly drank undiluted vinegar (in Germany, before the war, they used to sell it concentrated, and dangerously so), and would have burned his gullet out if my grandpa hadn’t caught him and yanked the bottle away in time. Both of them got their butts blistered for it, but it didn’t stop them acting out in other ways. Sometimes I marvel that neither of them ever got killed in a brawl, or even a stupid accident caused by sheer spite, as an adult. Pure dumb luck that neither one did…but all the spankings in the world never taught them a damn thing. Except, maybe, to be more sneaky next time.
*I’m child-free by choice, but I still have plenty of contact with my sisters’ kids. And thus, plenty of opportunities to teach them a thing or two.
This topic is just so dark. This is a comedy site, but the content is often very seriously sickeningly fucked up. It’s hard to find the balance between being off hand about a topic and serious about it. I know I err on the side of being glib and I shouldn’t. Its probably a coping mechanism gone awry. I’ll try to dial it back.
And *goes to get shovel to dig self deeper into a hole* honestly, I can’t even get chuffed at people who may fondly remember some forms of punishment as administered by a loved one.
I’ve had so many Hispanic friends laughingly and lovingly recount having shoes thrown at them by their Mothers and Grandmothers.
Do I get it?
No.
But these are their memories of their experiences with their loved ones.
I wasn’t there, I wasn’t a part of that cultural and familial context, and they’re not my experiences to process.
Indeed. That argument is completely empty for the reason you say. It also shows what I think is a really wrong attitude to take towards the issue of raising children: That *all* that matters is their success and status in life once they’re adults… and not you know, their current (or also future) happiness. Which is not to say kids should be spoiled, just that they have a life right at the moment as children. Their life doesn’t only start when they move out of the house. So, really, “turned out all right” is also an insufficient argument.
The thing is, those stories are connected to childhood. People often go nostalgic about childhood, and the good aspects blur out the bad ones. And as long as we’re “only” talking about light corporal punishment and misguided but still loving parents, that really was just *one* aspect about the childhood, hardly the entirety of it all. Basically just one drawback among a pile of good stuff. Corporal punishment still shouldn’t happen, but I can see why people would be vexing nostalgic.
I did receive smacks on the face as child, but was never spanked. I would probably have thought the latter to be much worse than a quick smack, and I still kinda do. Not that I’d defend any of it, but to my personal sensibilities, any form spanking that is not just a quick hit on the butt has this weird ritualistic element that pushes it deeper into abuse territory. So, yeah, what I’m saying is, attitudes about these matters, what is thought acceptable and what not, are definitely culturally ingrained and hence often a local matter.
As it stands, purely legally, corporal punishment is outlawed in Germany, and I’m quite content with that. However, IIRC, there has been a single actual prosecution about this so far, and to a degree that is also the intent: More to set a legal guideline, and for the youth welfare service to intervene if need be, then a tool to prosecute people with. OTOH, according to surveys, a majority of people still agrees with light corporal punishments in child rearing, so hmpf.
Lea re: mimicry –
This was our 2 1/2 year-old this past weekend (faces blurred for privacy):
http://imgur.com/slMxn1q
Sometimes they’re just little mirrors.
Also, I am nostalgic over some pretty creepy things now that I think about it. Alot of my fond memories are also somewhat twisted, as I am somewhat twisted and I’m sure plenty of people find that repulsive.
I’m OK with that. I think that’s fair.
I still have a hard time thinking corporal punishment is inherently, in all forms and circumstances, abusive.
I mean, I’ve heard it said that it damages people emotionally, which I– having actually been spanked– really kind of scoff at (…no, I do not think I would have been better off if someone had put my mom in a wheelchair, what the heck is that?! ha!) Today she and and I have a mutually respectful, loving relationship: she does not try to tell me what to do, we disagree openly on a lot of topics, etc. Same with my husband and his parents.
And I’ve also been told that it is the same thing as partner violence, which I can’t take seriously either.
I mean, what if a man told you he was grounding his wife and banning her from social media because she’d sent a really nasty email to someone at work? That would be completely bizarre and abusive in a partner context… but normal and responsible in a parenting context.
You aren’t responsible for what your partner does or doesn’t do, or for teaching them life lessons, or for knowing their whereabouts, but you ARE responsible for almost everything your kids do. You can break up with your partner, too, but… not really with your kids. (unless you’re Paul Elam, ‘course.) Neh?
I was spanked as a kid, and after the age of four the pain stops meaning anything, it’s just the feeling of NEVER being safe that got to me. When I heard of that “picking your own stick” thing, I dreamed that my mother would do that to me, so I’d bring her the biggest rock I could carry, so that she would crush my skull, and all of it would finally be over.
I was also spanked a few times in the 90’s, but didn’t Elam hit the kid in 2008? Hardly what you’d call a different era.
It teaches that violence is okay, and that is not something that should be taught. Sure, you need some forceful measures in raising a child, as you can’t completely go without punishments. But force in its more general meaning is something used every day in society, while physical force is still seen as something apart from that, something that must not be done. So why should this be different in regards to children? And really, IMO, no non-violent form of force demonstrates “I’m the boss, and you have to put up with me” like physical force, and ingraining such attitudes (acceptance of schemes of dominance and subservience) into our children is, I think, also not something we want.
@ceebarks great distinction between what’s appropriate for a adult and a child. It’s why I get so creeped out and concerned when MRAs say that women are like children – that mindset turns into justification for controlling us. And some pretty awful treatment of whoever is unlucky enough to fall into a relationship with them, ESPECIALLY if they follow Elam’s footsteps in thinking that “justified” partner violence is okay. “Justification”, of course, being entirely subjective to the abuser and his whims.
To throw my childhood story into the mix, me and my brother only got spanked if we had such huge tantrums that my parents couldn’t think of any other way to get a hold of things. It didn’t happen often and we were no longer spanked after age 6. Discipline was usually verbal or being sent to time out, or having a privilege revoked for a while, like TV.
@katz, 2011, and for opening a fridge door. That really is ridiculous. With, presumably, the child’s parents present; it’s not like they’d gone off and left Elam in charge for a month (thank heavens.)
If his precious fridge was that important, he should have talked to the parents and let them deal with it. That’s a pretty major boundary violation.
To clarify – when I say spanked I mean once, on the butt/upper leg, and then done.
Also I think it was more age 4/5 it stopped, I can’t remember.
I don’t think it is, but I don’t want to argue about gray areas etc. about something so potentially hurtful and dismissive.
It might not be the best idea to scoff at people who claim to have been damaged emotionally from being physically abused by their parents. (Hope that doesn’t start a shitstorm.)
I’ve never commented (that I can recall) but I’ve been reading this site for months. I think I almost have a unique perspective on spanking: I’m from a spanking culture: I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s in Texas. My father had been literally scarred by the strap his father used, and so he had sworn he would never discipline us with violence. My parents divorced when I was 4, and my mom’s house was a spanking house and my dad’s was a “talking” house.
I was much, much better behaved for my father than my mother.
Also, my grandmother switched me once, but she was so upset about having to do it she cried and begged me not to be naughty any more because it broke her heart to “have to” hit me. I was way more upset that she was crying, and I behaved for her after that, too.
Obviously, I’m not spanking my son. I’m going to give him the same boring lectures my dad did.
@Bina
I remember seeing that “to train up a child” book on http://theworstthingsforsale.com/ a while ago, and scrolling through the reviews on amazon. Pretty disturbing stuff.