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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.
A dog’s sense of smell is clearly not our sense of smell but merely amped up. I think it’s more analogous to our eye-sight. We have good eye-sight, but we have a lot of choice about what we want to focus on. If I go into a room decorated in glaring, neon colours, specifically looking for a grey sock, I can focus on and find the grey amidst all the neon.Also, if I spend enough time in that room, I will get used to all the glaring neon colours, but that doesn’t mean that I can no longer see them if I want to focus on them. A dog’s sense of smell seems to work in analogous ways. I train one of my dogs in track and search, and she can clearly choose to focus on a very, very, very faint smell among much stronger ones… and the smell doesn’t “disappear” for her just because she has smelt it for a long time. I don’t think it’s really possible for us to imagine what it would be like to have their sense of smell. If we try to imagine our own sense amped up, that’s clearly not how it works.
RE: egalitarianism
In a perfect world where every word meant exactly what it said, egalitarianism would be a great movement. (Not sure it would be needed in a perfect world, but I digress.) By the same token, the men’s rights movement would also be a good organization that focused on helping men overcome issues with toxic masculinity, suicide, racism, homophobia, etc, instead of a movement based around harming everyone who isn’t a cis het white dude who toes the party line. We don’t live in that world.
Basically, there’s a good reason why people who support bigoted and awful causes pick nice, euphemistic names for their movement.
@Paradoxical Intention, I have a friend who calls those days “the Feast of St. Markdowns.”
Cats pick up proteins when they smell and taste things and proteins are pleasant to them. We distinguish between the smell of bacon frying and stinky, sweaty shoe. For a cat they both smell good because both the sweat and the meat contain proteins. That’s why cats like to eat ear wax and sniff your feet. Maybe it’s similar for dogs?
Happy birthday to all the August birthdays out there!
Sorry I’m late to the comments here, but I just wanted to comment about VD. I don’t personally know any woman who thinks the holiday is *only* about a man buying her a bunch of expensive gifts and taking her to dinner. Everyone is different. Lots of people don’t even celebrate it, really, but those that do see it as a moment to take a little time for their relationship. (As well as a lot of parents give their kids candy.)
I really don’t like the commercial aspect of all the holidays and I don’t like the pressure to attain some kind of social status by spending money on junk you don’t need. My husband has given me the same card for about a decade now. He’s got it hidden away somewhere and he pulls it out when he brings me a morning coffee. He thinks it’s hilarious that he just gives me the same card! I usually get out a card from another occasion (we get lots from charities looking for a donation) and cross out “birthday” and put in “Valentine’s”. We do this fro all holidays: cross out “Thinking of you” and put in “Happy anniversary” or “Sympathies” and write in “Happy Birthday!” We sometimes reuse a card someone has sent us, cross out their names and put ours on the signature. It’s best to give this to the original sender.
My favorite “Christmas” card was a picture of a great horned owl on a perch. When you opened it, my husband had written as the text “blow it out your ass!” Merry Christmas indeed!
@Catalpa
A fair point. I can’t think of a single right-wing organization with an honest name.
Oh, and about those women who would leave a man because he didn’t get her something on VD – if this is true, and I’m sure for some women it is – it may be more about “what a thoughtless jerk” than “why didn’t my walking wallet buy me a diamond and champagne?” This would especially be the case if the woman regularly bought the guy little gifts including something for VD, and he just shrugged his shoulders.
Also, it’s amazing that these dudes think that the woman is exchanging sex for gifts. How about she feels that VD is a time of bonding and thinks of your gifs as a sign of regard for her, a sign of your relationship, and she is happy and wanting to share intimacy?
Weirwoodhugger: Maybe that’s part of the explanation. I also remember reading in a book by an etologist specializing in dogs that they have so much more brain power devoted to analyzing and dealing with scents than we have. If I remember correctly, the brain tissue in our brains that is devoted to dealing with an analyzing smells, if spread out so that the wrinkles go smooth, would be about the size of two stamps. The corresponding tissue in a dog’s brain, when spread out smoothly, would cover seven square meters. So whereas smells just hit us, we’re largely just passive receivers of them, dogs can probably handle them in a whole different way.
Some sculptor made models of various creatures where the body parts were proportional in size to the amount of brain that was dedicated to them.
Dogs unsurprisingly were mainly nose.
People of course had huge…..hands 😉
AVfM calls itself “Humanist Counter-Theory in the Age of Misandry.” This is obviously classic bafflegab for “Women who don’t recognize the superiority of men are evil harpies.” But the truth won’t sell.
I have a Great Pyrenees that I use as a livestock guardian and I often wonder if she rolls in pig manure to disguise her own scent. Coyotes and wolves have a strong sense of smell but it might help cover her from raccoons, fishers and other assorted poultry killers?
I got some good sturdy plastic cups a couple years back from target with some lovely skulls on them.
I’m happy that these big-box stores are getting in on making better Halloween decor, for those of us who want to live like the Addams family on the cheap. :3
Ah, Saint Markdowns, the patron saint of discounts, sales, and BOGOs.
Though, while Black Fridays are in the spirit of Saint Markdowns, I don’t appreciate the way we’ve turned it into a bloodbath. Saint Markdowns wouldn’t approve of such violence.
About the John Piper link, and dealing with men in general: I once had a (very complementarian) professor who spent half an hour trying to convince me and another young woman that what women really want in relationships is to be protected by men. Listening to a middle-aged man trying to convince two young women that he knows what young women want better than they do was exactly as ridiculous as you think is was.
On a more fun subject, my mum and I are making liqueur out of the black currents that she grows. Right now it’s just a massive jar of mashed fruit and vodka sitting in a dark cupboard until October. 🙂
I must thank this Elam person. he just reminded me to calendar Valentine’s day right now so I don’t have to run around like I always do looking for a last minute gift.
> 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.
You know, I might actually agree with that sentiment if he wasn’t so goddamn sexist about it. And since Elam’s the type who wouldn’t think twice about dumping someone who “doesn’t put out enough,” it’s a bit hypocritical, too.
If it were me, the jar would never last. Snitching from it would just be too tempting.
I would not be surprised if some reasonable percentage of women (or people in general) would consider ending a relationship if they didn’t get anything for Valentine’s Day. For better or for worse, it’s a gift-giving holiday and people general expect something unless they’ve agreed not to exchange gifts. It’d be nearly like not getting your significant other something for their birthday or Christmas. You have a right to be kind of upset about it.
But on the other hand, I seriously doubt there are many women who would consider ending a relationship if their partner didn’t get them chocolate, flowers, jewelry, and an expensive meal. Most people who celebrate Valentine’s Day don’t bankrupt themselves to do it, and the women typically give something as well (other than “poon”).
If there is any villain in the Valentine’s Day story, it is jewelry sellers who try to convince people that giving expensive jewelry is expected. No, you do not have to buy your girlfriend or wife a diamond bracelet every holiday. Your wife doesn’t expect it (unless you are, like, bazillionaires). The unpleasant pressure you are getting is from advertising, not women in general.
It’s Al Capone surely?
@Alan: I remember a TV special with Nigel Marven where CGI was used to give him the proportions of the sensory homunculus (yeah, those proportionate sculptures have a name).
It was creepy as FUCK.
Is it the case in other people’s relationships that only the woman gets special stuff on valentine’s day? Because in both my marriage and my previous long-term relationship, it’s always been, you know, joint? Reciprocated? Hubby and I kind of go back and forth on who makes it a bigger deal one year or the next but we always do something for one another, it’s never one-sided. Then again, I’ve never seen any MRA description of relationships that matches the way any relationships I’ve seen in reality actually work.
@snOrkmaiden
You’re welcome.
My local independent bookstore can get me just about anything I want. But I know that not everybody has one nearby.
And I totally, totally, totally agree with you about the Pearls. Their child abuse manuals actually upset me more than Roosh’s rape manuals do. If you start a petition against their books, let us know.
I had not heard of the Pearls. I was shocked but not surprised. Organized religion (particularly the fundie kind) seems to attract sadsts who would like to pass their criminality off as god’s will.
Funny play on words Michael Brew 🙂 I’m not generally especially into Valentines Day (we have Feb 1, 17, and 20th birthdays so usually kind of broke in February) however my hubby proposed to me on Valentines Day (6 months after we were married but that’s beside the point) with pink and white M&Ms that said will you marry me, so I do have nice thoughts in general about the day. I was a single mom for a lot of years so totally with everybody on the day after holidays. I always bought my kids costumes after Haloween to play dress up in.
Wasn’t the idea of diamond engagement rings also a jewelry company thing too?
I know that there have been engagement rings for centuries (Victorian times saw rings made of human hair, those sillies), but I don’t recall diamond ones being too popular until around the 1900s, a century after the DeBeers Mining Company found their huge-ass diamond mine in Cape Cod and would later control 90% of the world’s diamond production.
Yes. It was, what are their names? De Beers? Yeah, it was the De Beers in the 1910s-20s that started pushing diamond engagement rings.
They also hold either a monopoly or close to one on diamonds and there’s a SHIT TON out there they are holding back to cause artificial inflation.