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Congratulations, A Voice for Men! You’ve caused me to feel an actual twinge of sympathy for a woman who once declared, on AVFM no less, that “[w]omen are facing a very real and grave problem in our culture: They are obnoxious [plural form of vagina-related slur redacted.]”
The c-word-slinging woman in question is former AVFM contributor and YouTube micro-celebrity Diana Davison, a friend to and frequent collaborator with another former AVFMer, the infamous “JohnTheOther” Hembling. The two have been sniping at AVFM in videos for months, and getting sniped back at in return, and have both become entangled in the wider war between AVFM and what seems to be virtually the entirety of the Men Going Their Own Way movement.
As Davison’s video above makes clear, this war is getting pretty ugly, with some AVFMers apparently circulating nude photos of Davison in an attempt to shut her up with some good old-fashioned slut-shaming.
The drama escalated dramatically about a week ago, when blabby antifeminist Youtuber Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan — a longtime AVFM ally and “contributing editor” — launched into Davison and Hembling in a series of nasty YouTube comments, accusing Hembling of using the nude pics of Davison in an attempt to seduce Straughan into making a video attacking Paul Elam.
No, really. Here’s the relevant bit of one of her comments. (You’ll have to dig through the comments here to find the whole thing, as well as an assortment of other, well, interesting thoughts on AVFM.) I’ve highlighted the important bits.
John the Other … asked me to if I’d be willing to film a clip of myself Chris Crocker style, sobbing, “Leave Paul Elam ALONE!!!” after I’d repeatedly told him I was staying out of his bullshit with Paul. I’ve seen his girlfriends tits exactly three times, which was three times more than I’d asked to see them, and each time I was shown them I was told, “you’re smart, like me and John, not stupid like Paul and Dean and Sage Gerard and all those other guys at AVFM…”
Oh, and BTW, I’ve seen Diana completely buck, ass, [vagina-related slur redacted] and all. Not because I asked, either, but because apparently they thought it would bring me to their side. I have yet to see Paul in the altogether, and have no real desire to. YMMV.
On that very last point, my mileage definitely does not vary.
In another comment, she wrote that
John the Other and his girlfriend attempted to convince me to attack Paul Elam by showing me her tits and then telling me how smart I am. … [H]e’s willing to put his girlfriend on the buffet table to lure me in, and she’s willing to offer herself up as lunch.
The idea that Hembling is using nude pics of Davison to lure Straughan away from AVFM is a bizarre accusation, and Hembling has what appears to be pretty conclusive evidence — in the form of Skype chat logs of conversations with Straughan — that it’s complete bullshit. (You can watch his rambling video on the subject here; the relevant stuff starts 3:24 in. Hembling, who was ejected from AVFM last year, sounds a lot like someone who has recently escaped a cult.)
Natually, the AVFM regulars have responded to Davison’s video with their customary tact and aplomb. Here’s AVFM “Assistant Managing Editor” and “Director, Disqus Moderation Team” Suzanne McCarley, in the comments to Davison’s video:
Elam, responding to McCarley’s comment, offered a slightly different assessment:
The comments continue on in this vein for some time, with AVFMers accusing Hembling of supporting yet another woman (who, like Davison, was embraced by and then tossed out of AVFM) because, in Elam’s words, “he was toying with the idea of fucking her at the time.”
This isn’t the first time that AVFMers have brought up Davison’s “chest.” Several months back, you may recall, AVFM’s “Chief Operations Officer” Dean Esmay accused Davison of using pics of her “titties” to lure MGTOWers to the anti-Paul-Elam Dark Side.
Now, it’s true that Davison is an anti-feminist ideologue with appalling ideas and a nasty rhetoricial style. She ends most of her YouTube videos with rape jokes. She regularly attacks other women as “cunts” and “narcissistic twats.” She thinks that men commit crimes mostly in order to get more stuff for the demanding women in their lives. She thinks that any woman who goes to sleep next to a man in bed is thereby giving him permission to penetrate her in her sleep. By joining up with the MGTOW movement as a weird sort of Female MGTOWer she’s siding with some of the internet’s skeeziest and most obsessive misogynists.
In other words, she’s at least as bad, ideologically speaking, as the AVFMers she now regularly attacks.
Nonetheless, she doesn’t deserve this sort of shit from AVFM assholes attempting to use attacks on her sexuality as a way to shut her up. No one does.
But apparently those at AVFM think this is how “human rights activism” is done.
I keep trying to figure out what the pictures were supposed to accomplish, but I got nothin’. It’s just horrible people being horrible to other horrible people in some kind of bizarre horrible-off. Or wait, is what’s her name, Straughan, gay? So she was supposed to keel over with lust if she saw a picture of a naked woman or something?
Nope, it’s still completely ridiculous. It’s all very Stalin and the purges, no? I wonder if they’re going to start making propaganda films showing how their GDP of plastic skulls is the world’s highest.
Oh. no — trouble in paradise! (Tittigate?)
It always pains me to see good relationships ripped apart by petty squabbling. Luckily, this isn’t such case.
Is there suddenly a desperate shortage of boob pics on the Internet?
@blanktie:
“How are her boobs going to lure people away from AVfM? It’s not like boob pictures are a well-constructed argument or anything. How would that even go…?”
It’s not just boobs, but boobs combined with ego-stroking for added irresistibility:
“John the Other and his girlfriend attempted to convince me to attack Paul Elam by showing me her tits and then telling me how smart I am.”
It’s a classic CIA recruitment technique. 😉
Paul Elam is totally sexy naked….for sure
Thats why he call other people “gross”
This woman is not a slut, she is a victim of stupid assholes.
I keep trying to figure out if this would be weirder if Straughn’s claims are true or false. It’s a bizarre accusation, but these are all such bizarre people that it can’t be ruled out. I do feel for Davison being subjected to the disgusting bullshit of revenge porn, though.
Of Paul’s blog, John and Diane ran from there.
Attempted to lure Straughan with pics of DD’s pair.
Said Elam with a frown,
“Now COCK’s now run out of town.
This mess did not come otter nowhere.”.
Sheer. Comedy. GOLD.
Yeah, Karen, you’re smart…about as smart as a moldy potato chip. But then, so are all the people you mention, so don’t give yourself too many airs.
Also, gotta love Suzy…she just jumps right in with the biggest dose of playground slut-shaming of all. If you’re not a “slut”, you’re a “tease who never puts out”. Suz, don’t forget, you’re a woman. If this gross slut/tease dichotomy is how you see your whole gender, then which of the two are YOU? That kind of shit-talk is a bit less shocking coming from a man like Paulie, because one expects no better of a misodge…but if I hear it from a woman, I’m invariably baffled as to just what mental gymnastics she’s doing there. Does she think she can just magically transcend gendered oppression by refusing to recognize it in her own world? There are no special snowflakes, no matter how hard one tries to be one.
And what a bizarre way to show one’s “independence” from feminism, too: by hanging extra hard on the worst kind of talk one hears from men. Yeah, Suzy, you don’t need feminism at all. When you can out-hate your own sex better than those guys who are all secretly hating you, too, where is there left for you to go…except under the bus when they’re tired of you riding along?
Davison apparently has very nice boobs, according to everyone other than Elam, who says they’re “gross”. I’m with everyone who doesn’t understand how this was supposed to tempt Straughan into anything. They could be perfect, and they’re still something almost every other woman has, too.
… Am I misunderstanding something, or is GWW accusing John and Diana of spreading Diana’s pictures when it’s the AVFM crowd that’s actually circulating them (and presumably dug them up from somewhere)?
Or is there literally an email with a photo attachment and a message body saying “you’re smart like us?”
I need to know so I know who to be disgusted at and how disgusted to be.
I think you can just be disgusted with all of them at a 7-9 out of 10, Kirby. Covers your bases and seems like it’d be more-or-less appropriate.
Can someone please help me?
I was recently sexually assaulted by my friend which opened a conversation with some people about another woman. In short, she was just talking to a guy at college and they to her dorm. At one point when they were talking he started groping her. She backed away and started saying they should go and talking about her bf but he didnt stop. She never said explicitly “no” or similar. Now to me it was clearly sexual assault and she was obviously uncomfortable. Everyone else disagreed with me and said since she didnt say no that it wasn’t molestation, EVEN OTHER FEMINISTS.
Now I’m feeling sick and confused even about my own assault (I woke up to being molested and my hand pressed to his crotch but I was too scared to say anything) does it really just stop being sexual assault because she didnt say no?
@Mewens:
Yeah, that’s probably about right. I’m kinda digging through the youtube comments where GWW said her piece, and christ… Makes me realize how isolated I am from these people both online and in real life when I have to keep reminding myself that these are real people that actually believe the things they believe.
It’s easier when it’s just petty sniping, but then they launch into a diatribe about the MRM and I have to remind myself that that bullshit is just as real as the sniping.
@Lam:
Then they are terrible people.
There is an open thread way back here if you want to talk about stuff in detail with folks. But long story short, consent requires a yes, not the absence of a no. That’s it.
But more importantly, assault doesn’t care about the words that were said. If you were not comfortable with what was happening, was not asked, are not willing, then that is assault. Nobody can invalidate your experience through what was or wasn’t said.
@kirbywarp thank you for the link
@Lam: Go talk to someone. Anyone. Get authority figures involved. Absence of a “no” is not consent.
Consent is a two things: Continued verbal agreement, and active participation.
Your friend kept talking about their boyfriend and how they should go (no verbal agreement, continued or otherwise), and they backed away and tried to break contact (this is actively trying to STOP the thing from happening).
Anyone who says it wasn’t sexual assault is a terrible person, feminist or otherwise.
Here’s a couple links to things that might help your case with other people.
Link one
Link two
@Lam:
No problem. It’s not very active at the moment, and I don’t tend to participate, but I’m sure if you post something people will respond. There’s a lot of great people who could probably offer awesome support.
Sorry about what happened to you. I hope you’re doing ok apart from the whole “people suddenly bringing out the random horrid beliefs” thing.
Now back to reading GWW explain how feminism is actually an extreme form of traditionalism.
… yeah.
Kirbywarp, from what I have read, deciphering all the back and forth bullshit and allegations, it sounds like John and Diana did give the pictures to at least a few friends. They don’t seem to have given them directly to GWW or Elam or the vast majority of the AVM assholes who are spreading them around without her consent.
It’s confusing, because Diana seems a lot more outraged about GWW lying and saying Diana and John gave them to her so she would leave AVM than about everyone passing around naked pictures of her.
I was reading through those comments last night and they kept going on about how Woolly Bumblebee got kicked of AVFM because she was appropriating money intended for the Earl Silverman fund? Does anyone know if there’s any truth to that? I thought she just fell from grace because she was upsetting the MGTOW?
@Shalimar:
That’s the sense I got as well. I haven’t watched Diana’s video yet, but if what GWW is saying is somewhat accurate, then Diana is mostly amused at the idea that her pictures are causing such discord and being blamed for bringing down AVFM.
What a bizarre bunch.
But yeah, to second David. “Nonetheless, she doesn’t deserve this sort of shit from AVFM assholes attempting to use attacks on her sexuality as a way to shut her up. No one does.”
Lam: One thing to include in future conversations, if need be: Many women will fear, justifiably, that saying “no” explicitly will cause their attacker to escalate. There’s a feeling that this will end ‘negotiations’, and just lead to physical force and harm. In addition, of course, there’s also the shock from having your trust violated by an acquaintance.
Both scenarios you describe are, in no uncertain terms, sexual assault. They would be nigh-impossible to prosecute in the current environment, and likely even in one that didn’t just suck like the one we have now, but that doesn’t change the fact that they represent a violation of consent and boundaries that SHOULD be inviolate. I’m sorry that happened to you, and to your friend, and hope you both have some sort of support available to you.
Lam, I am so sorry you went through that.
What you’ve described is totally and completely sexual assault.
Paradoxical Intention dropped some nice poetic links, that folks should read at least once, and Kirby did the nice succinct thing. If you want more resources, I can try to dig up a few.
Drop a line on the open thread (because trolls aren’t allowed there, and trolls can be awful) if you want them.
In the interim, can I offer you a floofy fox that wants to be your best friend?
Or kitty hugs:
http://1funny.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/46297__pic.jpg
Are they adults or 10 years old whiny children?
Poor woman….this is the true face of AVFM, they re shaming women they disagree with.
@Lam
Chiming in with everyone to say what you described was totally sexual assault, and those people who said it wasn’t are aweful people. I’m sorry that happened to you.
@Lam
I’m very sorry this happened to you. Consent is the presence of a “yes”, not an absence of a “no,” so yes, you and she were sexually assaulted. California, in fact, recently took legislative action to make “yes means yes” the official legal model for consent instead of “no means no.”
Are you in college as well? If you don’t want to report your assault (which is entirely understandable), you might want to see if your school has any counseling services for survivors. My college campus has several group counseling services, including one support group specifically for survivors of sexual assault.