Paul Elam manages to snag Paul Elam as a speaker for upcoming A Voice for Men conference

As A Voice for Men’s latest failed fundraiser whimpered towards its sad ending last week — with less than half of its target amount raised — everyone’s favorite Men’s Rights hate site did have a little bit of good news to report: AVFM’s Paul Elam has managed to snag Paul Elam as a speaker for AVFM’s upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference and probable fiasco.

As the official conference site notes, Mr. Elam is the prestigious “founvder [sic] and publisher of A Voice for Men.”

At the conference, Elam promises, attendees will be able to 

[h]ear provocative, fascinating speakers and enjoy shared meals and social festivities with the idea in mind that we can put society back on track to move forward instead of just continuing to set bridges ablaze.

Wait, they’ve been doing what to bridges? I’m just going to assume that’s a metaphor.

So who are these “provocative, fascinating speakers” that AVFM promises will be on tap? Brace yourself, as AVFM has managed to score a number of other speakers who are nearly as notable as Elam, including:

• August Løvenskiolds, A Voice for Men’s food columnist
• Tara (“Dr. T”) Palmatier, a therapist who does an online “radio” show with Paul Elam
• Tom (“Licensed Clinical Social Worker T”) Golden, a therapist who does online “radio” shows with Paul Elam
• Jonathan Taylor, a “former college instructor” and blogger at AVoiceForMaleStudents.com
• “Andy Bob,” some dude from Australia who comments on A Voice for Men a lot

The keynote speaker will be none other than Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men, an organization whose website, according to Alexa, gets roughly the same amount of traffic as Brony.com (and considerably less than this blog).

They did manage to convince Men’s Rights granddaddy Warren Farrell to stop by as well.

So what important “Men’s Issues” is this conference going to take up?

The shameful epidemic of rape in our nation’s prison system, which, given the demographics of the prison population, mostly affects men? No.

The drug war, which has led to the incarceration of millions of young men of color? Nah.

“Stop and Frisk” and other police policies that disproportionately affect young men of color? Nope!

As Elam explains on the conference web site:

On October 30 and 31, 2015 in Houston, Texas we will start corrective measures in earnest by initiating a more complete and honest dialogue; one that includes key factors that have literally been elbowed out of the way for half a century. That is male disposability and female sexual power.

Yep, that’s right, they’re cribbing both “key factors” from a Warren Farrell book written more than two decades ago. Apparently feminists have “literally been elbow[ing]” men trying to talk about these issues, with their literal elbows.

“Male disposability” is Farrell’s upside-down notion that historical restrictions on the jobs women were allowed to do, as well as on military service, were in fact a sort of female privilege.

“Female sexual power” is a slightly fancier way of talking about what Farrell once called “miniskirt power, cleavage power and flirtation power.”

That’s right: he thinks that women control men through the hypnotic powers of their boobs and butts.

Farrell is especially obsessed with women’s ass power. The e-book edition of his “The Myth of Male Power” features the word “Power” in the title being shattered by the nude posterior of a woman. During an “Ask Me Anything” appearance on Reddit, Farrell explained why he chose this image:

Good to know that when it comes to the deadly threat of sexy lady parts, A Voice for Men is on the case.

But that does raise a question: when members of AVFM’s Twitter squad recently Tweeted a topless photo of one of their female colleagues at AVFM to an assortment of feminists, including me, were they trying to hypnotize us?