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.
Hope your luck keeps improving, WWTH. Enjoy that trashy goodness!
wwth – Ramen (w/ only <half of the spice packet) + frozen spinach + dehydrated onions + garlic (fresh or powdered) = surprisingly good.
I mean, it's not *great* for you -most cheap food isn't – but has some goodness from the spinach. When times are flush, it's worth it to splurge on a giant bag of frozen chicken (breasts or thighs, whichever' cheaper at the moment). You can then defrost as needed, pan grill with pepper, and cut up into weeee tiny pieces to add some protein to the soup.
I learned some skillz after developing malnutrition as a college student.
Also, I'll shout out http://www.budgetbytes.com for flavorful/"Yay! I'm eating good food but I don't feel poor!" ideas.
And I’m having a good day I this front, too.
It’s a snow day here and we just made cupcakes. I’m letting my kiddos alternate 30 minutes of Minecraft / 30 minutes of chores (I’ve made lists – they can either chose one long one or two shorter ones to do in that time). Giving the suckage a definite time frame + allowing an element of choice seems to considerably cut down on the whine factor.
The weird thing about Lolita is, pretty much everyone knows Humbert Humbert is supposed to be an unreliable narrator. And yet a frighteningly large number of scholars *still* interpret Lolita as a “spoiled brat”, a “monster”, “corrupt”, and–yes–responsible for seducing Humbert. Even while simultaneously acknowledging that her statutory rapist narrating the story is unreliable. *takes a step away from desk to smash household objects* Honestly, even if you believe in Death of the Author the worst thing you can reliably conclude about Lolita is nothing at all, since Humbert all but obliterates Dolores Haze to create his magic pixie dream nymphet.
Interestingly enough, not only did Nabokov despise his creation–he called Humbert a “vain, cruel wretch”–but his wife Vera considered Lolita not only sympathetic but heroic, a survivor. By all accounts Vlad pretty much wrote for Vera first and foremost and saw Vera as his “editor, muse, and first reader”, and dedicated all his books to her–if she not only pitied but admired Lolita, that’s as strong an insight as any as to how Nabokov intended the character.
This rant got a little long, but gah. I love, love, love Lolita and it dismays me so much how many assholes misinterpret it to justify heinous things.
If only this were true. Then we could rest assured that MRAs would epically screw up any murders they might attempt in the future (and with Mr. “I should have killed the bitch five years go” up there, I wouldn’t put it past them at all). Pretentious, verbose, and long-winded as H.H.’s prose is, he has a definite knack for words. The MRAs have the pretentious, verbose, long-winded part down pat, but not the actual talent with language. Compare “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” to “Bang Ukraine: How to Sleep with Ukrainian Women in Ukraine.” [But tragically, as Elliot Rodger and Marc Lepine proved, we have no guarantee of this.]
RE: adult men vs. teenage boys: well, I think it goes without saying that grown men *are* better lovers in their adult years than when they were teenagers, due to greater experience and maturity–but since the vast majority of men are decent people who would be horrified at raping preteens, this only applies to other adults, not 12-year-olds. Preteen boys can be pretty immature, but they’d be much better lovers for preteen girls than “adult sexual predators preying on children’s inexperience and vulnerability.”
If the US went to war with any country that was formidable enough to require a draft, it would rapidly escalate into a nuclear war, which would not require a draft. A professional, volunteer force works better for the kinds of conflicts that we’re going to engage in, and the military does not need or want a bunch of untrained, unwilling conscripts.
I literally don’t know a single feminist that doesn’t support either making the draft gender neutral or getting rid of it (though it’s not a huge issue for most of them because it doesn’t actually affect people’s lives). If you really care about changing the draft, feminists are probably your biggest allies, and traditional patriarchy types are your biggest opponents.
MRAs bringing up the draft as some sort of gotcha is mind-meltingly stupid. Bringing up such a negligible non-issue as one of men’s central problems just makes it seem like men don’t have very serious problems.
@zoon Men have significant problems but the MRAs don’t address them, or only address them as a weapon against feminists and women. Significant problems for men include dismissal as rape or DV victims, the pressure to prove a very set definition of masculinity and deny their real selves. Not draft, not false rape accusations, not spermjacking or hypergamy or whatever bullshit AVFM drones on about while actively furthering the real issues.
And, you know, if you’re really all that concerned about teenaged girls, then maybe the thing to do is to help socialize boys so they’re considerate and gentle?
But that is literally the opposite of what MRAs wants to teach, so….
@Davidknewton
That’s perfect, isn’t it. Meninism, the social movement for men! Bit only traditionally masculine ones, because screw the rest.
Loved the Charleston video! It reminded me of when I used to go hear these guys:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Leviathan_Oriental_Fox-Trot_Orchestra
and the audience was a hilarious combination of youngsters who were into it and oldsters who remembered this fad the first time around! I was pleased to see the Woollaton Hall cameo too…!
Re: Nabokov’s Lolita
I thought Lolita was supposed to be read as satirical commentary on the toxic culture of entitlement prevalent in the U.S at the time, or at least satirizes how even the most despicable individuals are still capable of viewing, through sheer feelings of entitlement, themselves and their actions favourably. Nabokov explores the tools used by such predatory individuals (such as Humbert Humbert’s narcissistic re-writing of history in his favour, or his clearly distorted concepts of himself, what he feels he is entitled to have and to do, and how this distorts his concepts of the rights and freedoms of others) to fool everyone into liking him or buying into his (clearly) unreliable narration of events.
On a personal level I also read it as a nod to the methods and mindset engaged by those who choose to commit abusive acts (sexual violence, intimate partner abuse, etc): in the descriptions of Humbert’s increasing attempts to isolate Lolita from any potentially concerned others during their travels; the threats of abandonment to emotionally blackmail her into not straying; alternately pedastalizing her and vilifying her so that she is never seen as a fully realized human being in her own right.
Kind of seeing a lot of Humbert Humbert throughout the Manosphere right now, tbh.
Um, maybe “Imagine coming back from war to find out your wife has been cheating on you repeatedly with a whole bunch of guys you hate”? I don’t understand why you need to have cute metaphors?
Oh wait, I get it. He wants to point out that he’s racist without it sounding “bad”. Yeah, not gonna happen.
How does that work? Even through Humbert’s narration it was pretty clear that she was a girl who’d barely started into puberty and he a rapist who abducted her shortly after her mother had died. His main worry after that was to keep her pacified enough for her to give him handjobs while he was running from the cops with her in tow.
@Dvärghundspossen
I remember being called for the draft thingy at age 19. This is the conversation:
Douchebag Army Dude (DAD): So, what sort of service should I sign you up for?
Me: None. I’m not doing it.
DAD: It’s mandatory. You can’t just say you won’t do it.
Me: Yeah, I can.
DAD: No, it’s the law.
Me: Yeah, I’m not doing it.
*crickets*
DAD: So, reserves?
Me: Bye.
Mississippi didn’t ratify the 19th Amendment until 1993. Their rationale was that the amendment encroached on States’ Rights because it mandated the loss of property (slaves) without funding any reimbursement to the slaveowners for the loss of not owning people anymore. Evolution is an unfunded mandate.
Yeah, “cuckoo for cocoa penis puffs” is not a thing. If she slept with a black guy, it’s because she LIKED that guy, not because she lost her mind over a (supposedly) Big Black Dick. Ladybits don’t stay shaped like whatever was in ’em last, after all…
Bina: Never say never. I have heard some Caucasian women fetishize men of color in a similar manner to how some Caucasian men fetishize women of color–and yes, the usual classic stereotypes of black men are one of the most frequent.
Of course, it’s been about twenty times more common from men on the subject of almost any specific ethnicity as it I’ve encountered women who do it, period. (So, twenty times as likely to hear a guy talk JUST about ‘Asian women’ as I am to hear a woman talk about any non-white group of men.)
Lady bits don’t stay shaped as whoever was there last, nor do they retain sperm/DNA, nor do they (necessarily) gradually fall apart after repeated use.
I’m starting to think that manospherians think vaginas are made of sticky tack.
No not sticky tack. Silly putty.
I’ve come across that attitude elsewhere and it never ceases to be creepy and grotesque.
Again, this need to have coitus with underage girls baffles me as a man who is almost thirty. I’ve generally found women in my age group, even some a decade or more my senior, to be attractive. Having relations with a young girl who may’ve just had their menarche as something desirable was bad enough in ages past, where women in general were chattel whether they were slaves or not, but it’s disturbing to see that survive in the modern day as well as this notion that women lose their “worth” by their early twenties – all coming from men in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s.
It’s hard not to see it as a power and domination thing: girls going through puberty are vulnerable and still immature in some way, which Manosphereans seem to prize as traits – because having to deal with a matured young woman who knows better is harder for them, as they can’t be manipulated and exploited the same way.
I can’t imagine being attracted to a kid, even one who has developed secondary sex characteristics either. Some creep once told me it was because I am a “female.” So I only like older men. Um, no. I actually like slightly younger men usually. But I don’t want to take advantage of a kid. Because I’m not a gross predator!
No offense guys, gals and other distinguished commentators, but could we not refer to vaginas as “lady bits” or any other gendered variation? It’s kinda exclusionary language to those among us who are not cisgendered. (After all, there are men with vaginas and women with penises! : D)
Vagina or any other variation on that would work just fine, I think.
NickNameNick – It certainly is a domination thing. In the parts of the world where girls are married off before 15 it is not because they are at their most fertile (that is 18 – 25), it is made explicit that a girl is easier to control. She is also more likely to be a virgin.
The virgin thing is still highly important to some men. I had a conversation with a sex worker once who had a client who said that he wanted to have sex with a girl as young as 8 because he ‘wanted to be the first man to touch her’ – so not a paedophile as such, just someone with a disgusting proprietorial desire.
“I would rather err on the side of 12-year-olds having sex than on the side of ruining men’s lives.”
So many terrible things you could apply that sort of “logic” to. For example “I would rather err on the side of a man waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney missing than on the side of ruining doctors’ careers” or the obvious “I would rather err on the side of murderers getting away with murder than on the side of ruining people’s (suspected murderers) lives”.