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It must be strange indeed to live inside the head of Paul Elam, founder of Men’s Rights garbage site A Voice for Men. What must it be like to be so filled with hatred of women — and flowers, and candy — that you find yourself writing a 1300-word denunciation of Valentine’s Day, not on the holiday itself, but six months early?
In a recent post with the lovely title “Time for a National Whore’s Day or something,” Elam warns us of the impending approach (some six months from now) of the dreaded holiday, which he describes as “another manufactured binge of male shame-spending on women who claim to love them.”
And he’s just getting started.
There are many aspects to The Big Day financially. Candy, flowers, jewelry, fine dining, champagne, romantic getaways and a lot of other things that mandate men to empty their wallets. That’s so the women in their lives can be reminded of their speshulness and maybe give a little poon in return.
It is fair and accurate to say that offering up the poon is about the only expectation of women on this day of “romance.”
Apparently on some terrible Valentine’s day in the distant past Elam sprung for a half-dozen wilted roses and a deluxe Whitman’s Sampler and his, er, beloved refused to “offer up” the obligatory “poon.” And he’s been furious about it ever since.
Elam cites an unnamed survey claiming that
over half of women surveyed said they would end a relationship if they were not given something on Valentine’s Day – which is to say that 53% of the women surveyed are whores, and just like more garden variety whores, they will take a hike when they aren’t being paid.
This alleged statistic is the prime bit of “evidence” for Elam’s “argument” that women are a bunch of flower-obsessed “whores.”
So where did he get it? Elam cites a dubious site called “Statistics Brain,” which claims to have gotten it from a 2015 survey conducted for the “Retail Advertising and Marketing Associatio [sic].”
I tracked down the group’s 2015 survey, and the numbers on “Statistics Brain” don’t match the numbers in the original. Nor is there any mention of what percentage of women would leave their partners if they didn’t get V-Day presents.
Doing a bit of Googling, I found multiple references to this 53%, sometimes attributed to Statistics Brain, but without any hint as to where it actually originated. An article earlier this year in the New York Daily News claimed it came from a survey by WalletHub, but that “survey” turned out to be nothing more than an infographic, which didn’t give sources for any of its specific figures, attributing the bunch of them to a variety of sources including “news reports.”
So am I saying that Mr. Elam grabbed onto a questionable stat of uncertain provenance because it matched his misogyistic preconceptions, without bothering to check where it came from?
Survey says … yes!
Naturally, Elam returns to this dubious factoid later in his post.
What happens to roses after you shell out some hard-earned cash so you can give them to a woman who will kick you to the curb if you don’t cough up her petals? That’s right, they look and smell good for a very short period of time. Then they become useless discards, like the majority of relationships and at least 53% of surveyed vaginas.
Nice. And again:
If the woman who “loves” you hinges that love on whether you shower her with frivolous, wasteful presents; if she will leave you if she doesn’t get them, then just stick a C-note in her whorish little bra, show her the door, and find yourself another whore who is a lot more honest about how she does business.
And if the man who “loves” you writes 1300 word rants about Valentine’s Day … in AUGUST, run like the wind.
I’ve never actually been a big fan of Valentine’s Day myself, but the fact that it makes Elam this pig-biting mad makes me feel a bit warmer about it, I have to say.
For real, the interesting thing about that Piper article is that the woman asks him a clear, simple question and it’s obvious that his opinion is “No. Absolutely not. Not if your life depended on it.” But he doesn’t actually say so. Instead he frames it as if it’s a personal decision.
That’s why I was taken in by the complementarians for so long; they’re experts at applying strong pressure for people to behave specific ways while always pulling their punches and not actually telling you what to do, so it’s very easy to absorb their message without being able to point to anything specific they said that you’re sure was wrong.
Back in a mo; just Googling ‘complementarian’
Valentine’s Day?
Don’t really care about it.
Now, Half-Priced Chocolate Day (Feb 15th)?
That’s a holiday I can get behind.
Anemonerosie: Yes, Roscoe is the name of a tomcat who moved himself into my house, nearly 2 years ago now.
I probably DO do V-Day wrong…I never felt the point of it was expensive gifts from either party, just small tokens of affection. As in, bake my spouse his favorite cake, which happens to be carrot.
Fruitloopsie: Congrats! I turned 21 too, in 1988:(
@Katz- i’m an RN…one of the most stereotypically nurturing, girly jobs EVER. I spend all damn day ordering men around. I wonder if I could make that guy’s head asplode…
*reads above comments*
And I see I’m not alone.
Patriarchal evangelical Christians. Mark Driscoll is a famous one.
@ Katz
Ah, now I see. So it’s not just someone who goes around saying things like “Your hair looks nice”.
Now I’m no theologian but this is the bit I don’t understand:
“God made men and women equal. Therefore the bloke’s in charge”
What am I missing?
The association of nursing as a “feminine” job makes me LMAO. Picking people up and dealing with bodily fluids. But tell me again how these “man” jobs are too dirty or require too much strength?
Probably comes from the idea that nursing involves me in a white dress and a silly cap gently laying my hands on the poor menz and dabbing their fevered brows…instead of gently restraining them so they dont self-extubate, and saying things like “someone get the crash cart and page the doc and get me an OR RIGHT NOW!”
And nursing is risky. Remember how the only people to catch Ebola in the United States were (female) nurses. Whenever there’s a dangerous infectious disease, they’re on the front lines.
I like getting the cheap holiday socks on sale and then wear them all year. I’ve got reindeer socks on right now.
Just remember kids: DONT LICK THE EBOLA PATIENTS! (this has been a public service announcment). RIsky doesn’t mean the fundies dont want women to do it- they’re fans of continual pregnancy and childbirth, and that’s risky as hell!
@Alpine, RN: Fist bump! I was an ICU RN for several years before going back to school to become an anesthetist. It’s funny how people stereotype nurses as these sweet, nurturing angels. Nope, folds. We are college educated, do a heck of a lot of dirty work, getting our hands in it, thinking all the way through it to benefit our patients. We’re advocates, and we’d go to the mat to protect the people under our care.
Back on topic: VD has not been a big deal for my husband and I. Sometimes he makes me these baked pears with those little Red Hot cinnamon candies on them. Yum! But, we’re cheesy little romantics all the time, and we don’t need a day for it.
valentines day for us is an excuse to watch a fantasy movie marathon (or BBC murder mystery marathon) eat chinese takeout, and build a pillow fort.
An attack on Valentine’s Day in August? The usual “whores”. Aka goblins?
Right, no news today, none to come for a long time? No news because there’s no content, no issue, nothing going on?
Site falling apart?
All this is about the income flow for Elam. When donations go down he’ll pop up with mythical whores, every tmie.
Dude’s as predictable as the tides.
Rile up the other losers.
And the eventual deflation comes — but he thinks up some other whore-stuff. Yessir, whores. Let’s repeat tthat word over and over, it assaults women readers and gives male readers a thrill.
Love to hate whores. Actually they all love whores on the site. Prostitution under male control, yay! But then some whores are kinda independent. They act whorish and aren’t like proper whores like in porn where they smile while they’re getting it.
So like these bad whores sit around waiting for some cheap flowers to arrive one day a year.
This is unconscionable! Those whores need to be degraded with an AVFM article putting them in their place!
Thank the father for AVFM!
Well, if you wanted to be generous about it, Christianity (theoretically) has a rather different conception of leadership, last shall be first and all that, so being the leader wouldn’t necessarily mean you were more important.
Of course the most patriarchal branches of Christianity are the ones that follow the “servant leadership” concept the least. And then there’s the whole “a husband and wife are like Christ and the church” thing; I don’t think many of them believe Christ and the church are equals.
So at the end of the day the only hermeneutic they seem to be following is “interpret the Bible however protects my delicate manfeels.”
Do you get kickbacks every time I have to Google something? 🙂
Well, if you’re willing to go further, I think it’s just a matter of finding things you find tasty.
I’m not a fan of beer, and wine is a “hell no” for me, but I’m a fan of strawberry daiquiris and mojitos and other fruity drinks, and I like flavored vodkas (Marshmallow and cake!). Sometimes it’s just a matter of trying drinks until you find something you like.
This is slightly off topic: But Bing is bribing people to use their search engine. Every time you search for something on Bing, you get points that can go to giftcards and such.
All humans are equal, but some are more qual than others?
I tend to find that when someone feels the need to obfuscate an answer to a simple question in piles of mealy-mouthed bullshit, whatever answer they have to give is too assholish/frowned upon to utter directly, and they know it.
Alan, you’re ruining your “I’m a lawyer and know all things” mystique, here.
BRB, writing a script.
It’s true. But it’s surprisingly hard to pick up on when you’re young and impressionable and really want to believe that he isn’t saying what he’s obviously saying. (This is all personal experience, of course.)
@ Contrapanglos
He, the list of topics I know bugger all about would fill a pretty large filing cabinet.
I should know something about religion, I’ve even got an RE ‘A’ level; but I suspect somewhere there’s a nun crying.
Ah, PI, alas I lack the desire and motivation. I’m sure there’s something out there that tastes delicious… but I’m not sure my tolerance of the proper testing environments (aka bars/restaurants) for such things would hold up.
So much noise.
So much people.
So much smell of stale beer.
It’s a little overwhelming.
The town I’m in doesn’t really have anything that doesn’t have the above three things, because yay small town. And experimenting at home is straight out until I stop living in a City owned building.