The other day, you may recall, I wrote about a little slut-shaming campaign that a number of A Voice for Men staffers, including top banana Paul Elam, were waging against a former AVFMer who’s turned into a critic of the site. Her crime? She had put some topless photos of herself online — or, to be more precise, had sent them to someone who’d passed them along to others.
The horror.
Now Elam and his AVFM buddies have launched a campaign to frame feminists for allegedly getting topless photos of the pseudonymous AVFM “social media director” Janet Bloomfield taken down on Facebook.
Yep. That’s right. They’re not mad at feminists for putting up topless photos of Bloomfield. They’re accusing feminists of getting Facebook to remove them.
This bizarre little faux controversy started yesterday when Bloomfield posted a topless photo of herself on Facebook. Other AVFMers tweeted a link to her post on Facebook, directing some of their Tweets at a number of their least favorite online feminists, including Anita Sarkeesian, Amanda Marcotte, and me.
At the time, I was puzzled as to why Jack Barnes, a particularly rabid AVFMer who has me blocked on Twitter, felt it necessary to send me a link to a topless photo of his colleague. I figured the two of them were up to something, but I couldn’t figure out what.
Well, it now appears they were trying to gin up a controversy they could blame on feminism.
Because today, that picture was taken down by Facebook. Or perhaps by Bloomfield, who has a long history of dirty tricks, in an attempt to frame feminists for the takedown.
Who knows? What I do know is that AVFM’s flying Twitter monkeys are flitting about Twitter blaming “hateful feminists” for allegedly flagging Bloomfield’s pic. (Pics blurred because some of you access this blog at work.)
You can’t make this shit up. Well, you could, but who would believe you?
Men’s Rights Activists, once again stranger than fiction.
If she hasn’t already, I’m guessing there’s going to be a series of posts about how feminists wanted to take the pictures down because we’re all fat and ugly and jealous of her. I think it’s a (not particularly) subtle attempt to fat shame us and strengthen that crappy stereotype in the MRA crowd.
@yutolia
I agree. We’re all jelly because, even though we’re whores (according to her), we’re fat ugly whores who NoRealMan would ever wanna bang. So take, that, feminists! Er….
I wonder if they thought they could trap actual feminists into posting their own nude shots as a kind of “gotcha”? If so, fail. I don’t take nude selfies, and I don’t let anyone else photograph me naked, either. Not because I’m ashamed of what I’ve got or jealous of what anyone else has, but because I just know that it will not end well if I do. Privacy is a high price to pay for a bit of silly sexual validation.
Meanwhile, anything that keeps the likes of Paulie and the Witless Hun from wanting to sex me can only be a very good thing. I think I’ll keep on doing that.
Here’s JB’s explanation: http://judgybitch.com/2015/03/31/freethenipple-but-only-when-its-a-feminist-nipple/ (use David’s Do Not Link link on the right).
It’s as I suspected: embarrassing exhibitionism disguised as anti-feminism. And somebody upthread mentioned also spoiling for a fight. But she’s too pathetic and too obviously melting down to fight. Reminds me of Hugo Schwyzer’s meltdown.
Shaenon:
I think it’s gone beyond “weird” and into “sad”. I’m actually starting to feel sorry for JB at this point. Watching a clown fall over might be funny the first few times, but after a while it begins to seem more like tragedy.
“They’re breasts, Mother. Everybody has them.”
This strange conviction that ‘feminists’ hate and fear everything that JB supports or encourages reminds me of the RWNM* trope that liberals LOVE Sharia law. Since the straw liberals in their heads hate Truth, Justice and the Murkin Way, you know.
*Right Wing Noise Machine.
@freemage, I didn’t know Davis Aurini had a cat!
@Moggie I know what you mean, but I can’t feel sad for her. The impression I get is that she’s thoroughly enjoying herself. That in itself is sad, but… ugh. I just can’t for her. I can read Karen Straughn (sp) and disagree vehemently, but still see a human being there – with JB I really can’t. There’s no there there.
I don’t mind Janet flashing her boobs, body whatever–it’s hers to do with as she pleases. But to draw attention to the flaws; that is, ‘note the stretch marks from having breastfed three children; tummy which has carried four babies …’ whilst trying to photograph her body from the best possible angle is hilarious–‘look at me; look at me’. Millions of women all over the world have breastfed their babies, carried and lost babies (omg, even feminists!) and we don’t feel the need to share it in the hope that scummy MRAs like Attila or Jack Barnes will say ‘JB’s hot’. imo, JB’s just being JB-famewhoring.
I don’t care what JB’s motivation is, from my/FB’s POV *should* there a difference between what she posted and breastfeeding pics that show just as much skin?
I think that whether her photo is sexualized or not is in the eye of the beholder. If I’m going to bitch about FB taking down breastfeeding pics, I’m going to bitch about FB taking down pics of JB’s boobs as well. I don’t think that the argument that men may masturbate to it holds water. Some men masturbate to pics of women’s ankles. The first step to desexualizing women’s breasts is to stop treating pics of them as something special.
Yeah I remember her posting this on Twitter about 4-5 months ago.People screenshoted it i think.around the time of her first ban with some comment like “i hope david futrelle doesn’t report me for nudity”
Honestly it didn’t make much sense beyond “pay attention to me”..Her behavior had started becoming increasingly unhinged and had really started spiraling into incoherence around this time on twitter.
Oh for the record the original picture said nothing about breastfeeding or babies and just had some vague comment about looking sexy.
@Robert
For some reason when I read “Murkin Way” all I could think of was merkins
(I know this comment is old, but I would like to make a point, kthx.)
Why is it that feminists’ value is tied to how attractive we are? Why is it that the moment it’s revealed that a woman is a feminist, she must be “unattractive”?
And why do feminists jump in with pictures of Emma Watson or Beyonce to defend ourselves?
Yeah, some feminists are fat, some are hairy, some are “ugly”, some are even lesbians. But you know what? Our “attractiveness” to cishet dudebros shouldn’t fucking matter. What matters is what we’re trying to say.
If I said I discounted everything Paul Elam said because he looks like a googly-eyed, hairy white raisin, and I wouldn’t sleep with him, I’d be torn to pieces by AVfMers. They’d tell me to pay attention to what he has to say, not what he looks like.
The fact that they discount feminist thoughts and/or opinions based on what their strawperson feminist looks like (and what some actual feminists look like) is really fucking telling.
Feminism shouldn’t be based on how many cishet peens we can make stand at attention. It shouldn’t be based on looks. Because Feminism isn’t about looks, it about women’s lives.
A troll on Gawker told me I have a fetid ham wallet because I made a comment in support of reproductive rights. So apparently, if you’re a feminist, you are not ugly but also don’t wash your vulva.
point of fact: female nipples have never actually been against FBs T&Cs, they specifically said nudity was OK in certain instances like art in both the old and current T&Cs…. they just punish them anyway.