A few days before alleged “men’s human rights” website A Voice for Men held its first convention last summer, the site’s founder and head boy Paul Elam put up a post imploring the alleged human rights activists planning to attend the event not to go around calling women bitches and whores and cunts, because the news media would be there, and this might make his little human rights movement look bad.
I’m paraphrasing here; Elam was a teensy bit more euphemistic, telling his followers that anyone caught “trash-talking women, men, making violent statements … anything that can be used against us” would get a very stern talking-to and, if they persisted, would be asked to leave.
Elam’s warning didn’t stick. Indeed, the woman in charge of publicity for the event – you may know her as JudgyBitch or Janet Bloomfield, neither of which is her real name – went on a bit of a Twitter rampage, happily denouncing critics of the group as, yep, “whores.”
As GQ magazine’s long-awaited, finally published account of the conference makes abundantly clear, JB wasn’t the only one who broke Elam’s rule. Elam himself broke it, as did, apparently, almost everyone who came within shouting distance of GQ correspondent Jeff Sharlet, and the infractions went well beyond slurs and “bitch make me a sammich” jokes.
So I present to you The 5 Creepiest Details from GQ’s Account of AVFM’s Conference Last Summer
1) The Men’s Rights Activist who boasted that he would have disowned his daughter if she had pressed charges against the man she said raped her.
Af a convention afterparty, the man in question told this little story to Sharlet, Elam, and a few others:
When one of his daughters came home one night and said she’d been raped, he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Sitting with us, he hikes his voice up to a falsetto in imitation: ” ‘Oh, I just got raped.’ ” He laughs. There’s a moment of silence. A bridge too far? “I told her if she pressed charges, I’d disown her.”
Elam, whose attention has drifted, grins through his beard. “That’s good fathering,” he says.
2) The presentation on male suicide in which the presenter referred to a woman’s alleged propensity for “cocoa penis puffs,” by which he evidently meant black penises.
Speaking about male suicide and the troubles faced by returning veterans, conference speaker Terrence Popp asked the men in the room to
“imagine coming back from war to find out your wife, I’m trying to think of a good way to say this, but, uh, you know, went cuckoo for cocoa penis puffs.” I think Popp, who is white, means the wife in question had sex with a black man. “Crazy for some Rice Krispies treats,” he continues, “and a couple Polish sausages thrown in there.”
3) The Men’s Rights Activist/sex offender who thinks the age of consent should be 12, because “I would rather err on the side of 12-year-olds having sex than on the side of ruining men’s lives.”
4) Sage Gerard’s “unconsensual hug.”
GQ’s Sharlet brought his friend Blair along with him to the convention, where the 26-year old evidently attracted a good deal of attention from the men there, receiving, Sharlet says, “several marriage proposals” (presumably unserious) and some hands-on attention from AVFM’s “Collegiate Activism Director” Sage Gerard, including what Blair later described as “the most unconsensual hug I have ever known.”
If Blair’s account of her encounter with Gerard is any indication, the AVFM collegiate organizer has been reading up on pickup artistry; in addition to a good deal of touching – what PUAs call “kino” – he tried to “isolate” her by drawing her away from the crowd to … write a poem. (His idea.)
Here’s how Sharlet, relying on Blair’s notes, described what happened after their awkward hug:
Sage loosens his grip. “I apologize for dragging you away,” he says. “I wasn’t going to feel okay until I talked to you.” He warns her not to send mixed messages. For instance, she shouldn’t put her hand on a man’s knee if she doesn’t want to have sex with him. Sage puts his hand on Blair’s knee. This is not a mixed message, he wants her to understand. She’s here, in the VFW. She’s taken the red pill. She needs another hug. He needs to give it to her.
Blair, I should note, is not the only one to report creepy, predatory behavior on the part of conference attendees.
5) Rape jokes, rape jokes, and more rape jokes.
I’ll just mention this one. When Sharlet arrived at the conference afterparty with Blair, who had successfully managed to escape Gerard’s unconsensual embraces, Elam asked her a question:
“I’m curious,” Elam says. “What did your friends think when you told them you were coming here?”
“To be honest?” Blair asks. Elam nods. She says, “I had friends who said I’d get raped.”
Blink. You can almost see the struggle in Elam’s bones: Play the nice guy? Or the perv? No question. “All right!” he booms, swinging his arms together. “Let’s get started!”
Jazz winces.
“Get the video camera!” Factory yells at his girlfriend, who giggles weakly.
I should be very clear here: At no point does it seem like Elam or Factory is actually going to rape Blair. We know they’re joking. Just a couple of middle-aged guys joking around about rape with a young woman they’ve never met before in a hotel room at one in the morning.
You can read the rest of Sharlet’s account of this groudbreaking human rights conference here. And you should.
Speaking of the belief that corporations can’t oppress people, a bunch of conservatives on twitter are freaking out about net neutrality leading to the loss of free speech. Because they have no fucking clue what they are talking about.
I mean, the telecom companies are just terrible, customer service wise, and in much of the country have a local monopoly. WHY DO YOU WANT THEM CONTROLLING YOUR INTERNET. But no, Obama is for it so it must be bad. We’ll protect the corporate interest of Comcast above all.
Only in conservative America is a law that says “You can’t stop people from saying and doing what they like on the internet” interpreted as stopping people from saying and doing what they like on the internet.
The sign is surprisingly self-aware, but he’s probably not aware of that…
He EXPECTS them to act this way, but this implies that the feels that they DON’T. So, in other words:
“Misogynist: A man who thinks women do not act like intelligent, rational, accountable human beings.”
We could even add “because he thinks they are clearly evil” (as they are intelligent, rational, etc. but don’t behave that way, so they must do that by choice, which would be evil.).
Well, yes, believing that is certainly a part of being a misogynist, true. Well done. There must be a cookie somewhere for you…
They’re also all like “Stop the government from regulating the Internet,” which is kind of like “Government hands off my medicare.” The government has always supported and regulated the internet. The question is how will it regulate the internet? In ways that benefit telecom companies (which can use their control to manipulate how customers can access it) or ways that benefit ordinary people.
“You can read the rest of Sharlet’s account of this groudbreaking human rights conference here.”
I really don’t want to, I’m raging too much already 🙁
The cock and balls diagram has an overlap between PUA/Game and MGTOW… Not sure how that works, since I thought MGTOW folks avoided interacting with women.
Though apparently some people can have a wife/girlfriend and still be MGTOW, so what do I know.
Has anyone checked out Elam’s response on AVFM?
http://www.donotlink.com/durb
How typical he should respond by posting photos of the woman involved, and giving details of her full name and links to her web page. Not that he wants anyone to start harassing her or anything, perish the thought.
Ain’t nothing more fun than the comments section. It’s mostly been overtaken by suz10 though, who I’m assuming is DriverSuz (I think she’s one of AVfM’s editors?). Yeah, suz needs to learn to share comment space.
And her posts (and gawd there are many) are just precious (TW for awful ahead). In response to the noted presence of a sex offender at the conference: “There are more pedophiles working in day care centers than there are attending men’s rights events.” So…there?
Ah, the stoopid, the lack of concern or disgust. It doth burn.
Or when someone points out the obvious regarding the tired MRA talking point that men are oppressed and women privileged because conscription (that the US hasn’t in fact conscripted for decades), suz10 makes another stunning gotcha. “Ah, but they MIGHT be! The fact that nobody has been drafted in the US for half a century is irrelevant”.
Oh, and also the previous definition of women as property within the institution of marriage was yet another female-interests driven conspiracy. Men never owned women, you sillys, they protected them! How daft all this feminism is! Back to traditional family values everyone, for suz10 has spoken.
Esmay, Attila and Typhonblue also make an appearance. So heartwarming when they hold their get-togethers like this.
The histrionics in the GQ comment section are kind of baffling. I mean, the article wasn’t flattering, but was also nowhere near as unkind as it could have been. I thought Sharlet actually did a fair job of humanizing his subjects and trying to provide context for who they are and how they think. But as usual, it’s the direct quotes from real-life MRAs that paint the most damning picture of their movement. There’s no possible context that could make “I dismissed my daughter out of hand when she told me she’d been raped” seem any less than appalling.
And there was no deception. They knew they were hanging out with a member of the press and they knew his purpose for being there was to report what he saw and heard. If this is honestly the Misters on their best behaviour… *shudder*
@Bina
An egregious aside to take my mind off the egregiousness of MRAs:
The idea that Brits are essentially of Germanic stock as per the waves of conquerors and settlers has actually been discarded following modern genetic research. It turns out that (in Europe, where this has been studied in depth) the genetic inheritance basically follows ancient lines. So in Britain, we’re basically ancient Celtiberian, with only a little contribution from Saxons, Vikings and so forth. Which implies that the various ‘invasions’ amounted to not much more than a change of ruler, culture and language (the latter two taking longer, of course). Which in turn makes some of the historical racial distinctions (Irish vs English, for example), even more meaningless than we thought.
It’s a fascinating topic.
With Sage and the Humbert Humbert in the “Free My Friend Humber Humbert” shirt, note that they both make sure the Honey Badgers can’t hear them. The Badgers are thundering about all these MRA issues and are used for propaganda and all that, but behind their backs their chosen allies are being creeps and talking about sex with minors. (I think I said “creeps” twice) How much are they unaware of? (How much are they ensuring they’re unaware…?)
@Misha:
That can’t be true, others in the same thread explicitly denied that MRM and AVFM are trying to force women to accept subservient roles by default. While accusing every dissenter in sight of being the sock puppet of just one woman they were scarily desperate to discredit. Like really WOW-do-you-ever-stop-with-the-sock-puppet thing desperate. And how many times are they going to post the same videos instead of actually discussing the topic? Oh, all of the times.
@tinyorc:
I think a lot of the comments just made the MRM look worse. It was entirely denials, attacks and distraction/smear tactics, no arguments of any actual value or based on actual facts (without being twisted to suit).
I suppose there were also the patronising comments but I guess they come under ‘denials’.
Related note and question:
I generally just ignore comments that assume I’m female (because I’m arguing for women’s rights so obviously I must be) and I don’t feel the need to correct them because whatever.
Should I be? I mean, is that something I ought to do? I’m just aware that it can sound a bit, “Now you listen to me ’cause I’m a dude, not one of these wimmin-folk” and frankly it makes not the slightest difference to me what gender they think I am.
Actually I’ll admit to some small amusement when they “dear” and “sweetheart” me. To be fair “mangina” and “embarrassment to your gender” made my day so meh. I guess I just like it when they feel the need to resort to playground tactics instead of actual argument.
Anyway…
Considering there has been plenty of international conflict in the last 50 years I think the lack of draft actually says that men aren’t at meaningful risk of being forced into battle. Unless a president wants to get impeached immediately (pretty sure people will argue the draft is unconstitutional) the only time the draft would ever be enforced is if America faces an “all hands on deck or our country is fucked” situation. Since the US military is already mahoosive and very well funded, and few countries will want to challenge America The Trigger Happy Superpower as it is, I don’t see an emergency situation happening for another many decades. Centuries maybe.
Meanwhile, if we’re going to play the “who has it worse” game, women are at a much much higher risk of having their reproductive rights wiped off the table.
In these particular comment sections with these particular douchecanoes, I would.
If nothing else, it’ll let casual observers see more of their asshattery at play.
@Lith –
Firstly, I’ve been really enjoying your comments over there!
Secondly, I think it’s totally up to you whether you correct them on your gender or not. I mean, the outcome is either that they don’t believe you (since I’m guessing they consider you one of the infinite sockpuppets), or they simply switch which invectives they use. They’re worked up into such an unthinking lather that I don’t imagine it will affect how seriously they take you. And as far as everyone else is concerned, I think it’s definitely possible to point out that they’re wrong without it coming across as a superiority thing.
Although it’s definitely amusing that they have assumed you to be feeeeemale based on the fact that you disagree with them. 😀
And if America DOES ever find itself in an “everyone in or we’re all doomed” situation, doesn’t the kind of make the draft justified? To save the nation? Or don’t these MRAs think about anyone other than themselves?
Oh wait.
P.s no offence to Americans in my last comment. :/
By Jove, he is!
I second the recommendation of that book, if only (to tie it back into this site) for the hard paternalist line taken by the subjects.
Especially if you’re from/in the US, it’s by turns horrifying and wholly unsurprising.
If any of you are on FB, there’s a PUA douche linking all over the comments section of a PBS Newshour Women in Tech piece:
https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153114124113675
I haven’t had comments assuming I’m female because of using an obviously male name online, but I did get “Someone with a cartoon rabbit avatar wouldn’t understand meninism” once, which was sort of hilarious. I experimentally changed it to a picture of Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor, but I still wasn’t really feeling it.
Regarding the draft – I _do_ think it’s unequal that men sign up for it in America but not women – but what they never think of is who caused that inequality? It’s not like women are the ones enforcing it – it, like all MRA problems, are caused by men, for men.
Nah, they’ve thought about it, and decided to blame women’s butts.
On the topic of the draft: The suffragettes lobbied for women to be included in the draft. The all-male court denied them. MRAs are bad at history.
I’m all for getting rid of the draft entirely.
The comments section continues to be hilarious. I got into a back-and-forth with “Honey Badger” Alison Tieman (with apologies to the noble House of Hufflepuff) over her misrepresentation of CDC statistics on rape. After I smashed every last one of her “arguments” she proceeded to throw an epic tantrum, accusing me of “raping fear into women.” Classy!
And ugh the creepy pedophile guy. M., Paradoxicalintention, I’m so sorry to hear what you went through and angry that there are people who minimize and rationalize abuse of minors. The way he extolled the virtues of older men as romantic prospects for teenagers immediately reminded me of the awesome essay, Why I Deeply Dislike Your Older Boyfriend. http://m.scarleteen.com/article/abuse_assault/why_i_deeply_dislike_your_older_boyfriend
In his response Elam calls Blair, “Pretty young Blair” and makes a bestiality joke about her.
Because human rights?
It’s sure something to behold. It’s truly awful and certainly does not help him look any less like an unhinged bigot. You can tell he is just seething that she told on him. He clearly wants her to be added to the list of women harassed and threatened by his fans.
Meanwhile, the featured comment is all about how they won’t forget who slandered them when the MRM sweeps the world.
No self awareness. None.