Recently Roosh wrote an article proclaiming that the MRM was dead. It was the kind of piece that even 6 months ago I would have likely allowed to immediately bait me into a response article. And it was so full of fallacy and self-promoting claptrap that I would have had some fun doing it.
But that was 6 months and about a million years ago.
It was at a time when I still felt connected in some way to the phenomena we sometimes call the man-o-sphere. We were, in days past, a loosely associated collection of thinkers and writers, who at times shared some mutual ambitions to improve the state of men and boys, and often tore at each other like siblings reared in a whore house. It was stimulating and often messy, but it helped pass time in a world where waiting on progress for men was like waiting for a raise from a cheap boss.
But in case anyone hasn’t noticed, things in the sphere have changed a lot in recent times. Ferdinand Bardamu, after letting In Mala Fide devolve from a rigorously thoughtful source of counter-theory into a cesspool of white supremacy and anti-Semitism, mercifully checked out for good.
What remains, with some few exceptions, are not worth mentioning by name. There are some collections of decent writing, squandered by rudderless, self-serving management with no interest in activism. They serve a purpose, but not a cause.
And then there are the PUAs and Gamers, about whom this will be the last time I write, or that will ever again appear in an article on this site. They are comprised mostly of men who bear the deepest afflictions of a fatherless culture. Abandoned to feminist governance by their male elders and bereft of masculine guidance, they have been dropped into the solipsistic void that was the only existence feminism ever could have offered them outside direct servitude. Stripped of values and consciousness and the ability to be circumspect, they have turned feral; so unable to form community or embrace brotherhood that they have shrugged off the desire for either.
I don’t blame them, given the way they were fucked out of relevance. They never had a chance. They are the walking wounded; the children left behind from a sexual war in which their fathers refused to fight. I have been personally wrong to have engaged in conflict with them when I could have, should have, been working harder to provide them an alternative.
I aim to remedy that mistake.
The very expression, man-o-sphere, implicitly paints an image of connectivity; of shared purpose and identity. Aside from distaste for feminism, which anyone capable of critical thought will share, there is no real or abiding connection; no universality or even commonality, and that lacking manifests in how we tear ourselves, and each other, down, and always have.
In the comments of the Roosh piece I mentioned at the start of this article, there came a summation from zed, who has studied this society longer than most all of us, and longer than some of us have been alive. It is most sobering and well worth posting here.
I see this same argument raging a couple of dozen places around the net right now. It appears that men are Balkanizing into half a dozen “tribes” of mutually hostile social, cultural, and political values.
It is that phenomenon alone which accounts for the fact that no coherent Men’s Rights Movement has ever gelled. Terms get flung around with no agreed-upon definition behind them. If MRAs were a political party, we have spent the last 40 years arguing over what our platform should be.
For someone who understands politics, that should not be surprising. The favored method of the human race throughout history for resolving such conflicts over what people believe is to reach for the guns – and before guns were invented, spears, knives, swords, and clubs.
In the US, slavery existed for 300 years before it got ended by the bloodiest war in US history. It took a lot of Abolitionist Activists dying to even reach the point where the war broke out.
Pointing out that MRAs have not made much progress because they have not already solved the problem politically without having to resort to the ultimate form of activism – war – is silly.
There have been tons of good MRAs over the years doing what they could to make a difference – without guns. Every last one of them got taken down by the very men whose rights those MRAs thought that were fighting for.
A guy like Paul Elam stands up, tries to do something, and “men” from all over the place attack him because 1) he is not doing things exactly like they would do them, if they had done anything, which they never do, and 2) he hasn’t already solved the problem so they wouldn’t have to be bothered with it.
I quit being any sort of MRA because I got so sick to death of having to argue with men over how to split a hair 10,000 different ways. I got so sick of listening to armchair quarterbacks bitching that the free beer wasn’t cold enough, that I quit serving it at all.
With a handful of people and a little spare change, Paul Elam has launched the most successful Men’s Rights initiative to date. Do “men” appreciate that? Hell no!
Instead of pitching in and adding their own “activism” to his effort, men just pick at him and piss him off enough that he feels the need to come over here and defend what he is doing to the very group he is doing it for.
If “men” were a football team, the opposing team would not even have to put anyone on the field because they spend all their time and energy tripping their own ball carriers instead of blocking for him.
What I don’t get about “men” is why – if they are so certain that their way is the right way – they don’t just go do it and leave everyone else alone. Instead of spending their time doing what they claim they believe in, they spend it attacking every man who is not a clone of them.
There are lots of good MRAs, but there is no MRM. Men won’t allow one to get formed, because every time some MRA starts to get some traction, other men take him down.
While I appreciate zed’s very kind words about me, that isn’t why I reposted his thoughts. I did it because reading them was a personal turning point. It was the point that just accepted the fact that a handful non activist, essentially blue pill bloggers, and their blue pill acolytes, are as useful to the idea of an MRM as eggshells in an omelet.
The man-o-sphere is worthless to men’s rights activism.
The man-o-sphere itself is a misnomer, a façade hidden behind an illusion. Looking for unity or support or action in that non entity is nothing more than looking for water in an empty bucket. Similarly futile is the idea that friction or conflict with those ghosts is detrimental to the cause. It isn’t detrimental because these men have nothing more to do with the cause of men’s rights than feminist bloggers or volleyball coaches. Pearl clutching over a badly needed division between them and activists is foolish. They are just another, and a comparatively minor, source of attempts to bring us down. We do not have to be bothered with them, even if we are advocating on their behalf.
If there is a real men’s movement that will spring from the online world, it is here and nowhere else.
In fact, we already see it happening. But continuing to buy into the false unity of a non-existent entity will only slow us down.
I have always taken care, and still to, to point out that AVfM is not synonymous with the men’s movement. And after mulling this over one more time of thousands, I am really glad that I have taken this approach.
I don’t know what the men’s movement is, in all honesty. I don’t even know that it exists. But I do know what AVfM is. And I know we have created a culture here that is moving toward a bona fide movement. I know we are prone to occasional squabbles, but the circular diatribes outlining 10,000 ways to split a hair, the ones that drove men like zed to wash their hands of other MRAs, are not part of the program here.
We have succeeded here because we do not allow other men to come in and drag us down with whatever they imagine their justification or “better way” to be.
We don’t allow our writers or supporters or other activists to be personally insulted. We invite everyone with better ideas than ours to prove it by doing them, or to find the donation button so we can do it, or hold their silly tongues. We systematically ban people who are not here to support our growth because that is the only way among men it can be done.
We recognize, as zed surely does, that the majority of men will always be their own worst enemy, so we let the minority of men (and women) who are cognizant enough to overcome that stupidity to carry the leverage of authority here.
And it is working. We now have a robust community of men and women who are starting to make it happen on the ground.
Now we can move ahead with that, the few with a fighting chance at changing the world in spite of the many, by refusing to try to drag dead wood with us as we go.
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Gordon Wadsworth:
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Thanks Paul
As AVfM has evolved I notice the special interest spruikers (those insisting on singular, reductionist dogmas) appearing more and more out of place – painfully so. A polycentric approach to men’s issues has evolved here that is a wonder to behold…. and its getting things done.
AVfM as a great place for new people to get involved, a cherished forum for the regulars, and a place also for those MRAs who had previously given up hope in finding a healthy MRM the chance to try again.
The thing is the misandrists trolls are at the table on all levels of government having their twats kissed by the greedy turds capitalising on the destruction of good men and children … just a thought … our solution is? (was that to graphic?lol)
The only solution I’ve ever actually seen anyone come up with is to ride it out until the system collapses, then pick up the pieces. Trouble is, we might have to wait 50 years for that.
The wonderful thing about activism is that there is no need to split hairs or count angels on pin heads.
Activism is a pursuit of the possible. Ideological purity becomes irrelevant on the battlefield of real life, where MRAs have real opponents and face real harassment.
There is a job to do. Lets do it.
Wish I could upvote this some more… activism trumps a lot of needless hair-splitting.
I would qualify this with one important point- some hairs need to be split because those hairs are in our heads and therefore guide any vision and activism we engage in. Bad ideas = bad activism.
I’m reminded of a comment by Carl Jung regarding unexamined ideology which read, “sometimes we don’t have ideas, ideas have us!”. Hence the reason we need to examine them and check if they are accurate and useful.
In the final analysis activism is that for the sake of which we examine ideas. Activism as goal.
I read Roosh’s post. To me all it sounded like was bravado over perfecting the art of enslaving oneself. Whenever I see a man spending all his time chasing after lust, I see him as a slave, and the rejection of that enslavement does not make anyone a loser.
No matter how many women I have sex with, no matter whether they are domestic or foreign, it will not help my brother if he is falsely accused of rape. It will not help the next generation of boys, and the prospect of me flying to exotic locations to have sex with women while they remain in danger here doesn’t sound right to me. Roosh either lives in a fantasy world, or promotes a very dangerous fairy tale, where he thinks the common man will always be able to make and live by his own rules in the age of radically expansive government power.
Really though, good riddance. This is the self-purification we need.
“lives in a fantasy world, or promotes a very dangerous fairy tale, where he thinks the common man will always be able to make and live by his own rules in the age of radically expansive government power.”
I’d add “and radically expansive corporate power” but spot on.
Yeah, good addition. I agree.
There’s a difference?!
Yes. There is government that gives us the, EPA, the FDA, and OSHA and government that gives us VAWA, and The Patriot Act and the travesty of family law. Corporations spend money lobbying against which of those?
Paul, a great article.
Hard to me to find a single sentence I do not agree with.
What many MRAs fail to recognize is that a change cannot happen overnight. Many feel frustrated because their initial efforts do not translate in an immediate result, so they often fall in a sort of individualistic battle against an enemy they cannot catch, overwhelmed by negative media messages and thus reacting impulsively, leaving space to personal beliefs that in some case have little to deal with men’s rights and misandry; so blogs and initiative arise but they sometimes reflect pretty unique views of life that cannot be shared by other individuals coming from other cultures, as well as political and ethical views. In some cases frustration and anger leads to harsh attitudes, that in some cases can be also considered evidences of hate and misogyny, used as trojan horses against themselves and the whole MRA community.
The strength of AvFM is that we stay on topic, we are not indoctrinating others about a supposed shared view of society. We address issues, and we fight the common pattern that produce them, feminims/misandry.
Let’s stay cool and use logic and coherence, respectfully of others, that will make us greater.
After all we are just paving the ground for others to come.
Stay on target.
I came across Roosh’s article the other day and was disappointed. I’m all for improving oneself but running away to a foreign country isn’t the answer, nor is gauging your masculinity by how many one night stands you have. If game helps some guys out there feel more confident and able to talk to girls then that is great. But don’t disparage the good men who are actively trying to raise awareness of the problems you acknowledge exist.
Seems that Roosh, along with some misdirected MRAs, think the issue is centered on the man/woman relationship. That is like saying that German National Socialism was centered on the Aryan/non-Aryan issue. It was not. It was centered on coercion through government. All collectivist schemes gather power by using tribalism to destabilize the social fabric and always require a scapegoat. Massive crimes against humanity — always justified by “theory” — are the goal and the outcome.
I do not care what particular sociopathic ideology is being used by some control-freak in their attempt to strip me of my humanity, I will fight it. The focus in on the “ism” part in in “feminism,” not the femme part. The focus is on freedom and the love of one’s offspring, not on sexual recreation (PUA).
Couldn’t have said it better, Robert.
As the impetus and support behind what is called feminism comes from multiple sources, each pursuing its own perceived interests under various ideological labels, we could waste an enormous amount of time trying to identify and deal with each of them individually, and with a very small probability of finding any cure for that entire spectrum of sociopathy.
As you say, we need to focus on fighting their combined attack on us as men and on our fundamental human rights. To hell with their alleged motives and “philosophical” self-justifications in some abstract ideologies.
I would add, however, that identifying and cutting off some of their resources could be a worthwhile undertaking wherever possible.
“identifying and cutting off some of their resources could be a worthwhile undertaking wherever possible.” ABSOLUTELY. Unfortunately our TV-addled misled “conservatives” have been seduced by big-gov’t neo-cons who want to continue the fiat money Ponzi scheme and spend, spend, spend our grandchildren’s money.
The more the feminist fraud is undermined the more likely we will de-fund their organized crime operations. But the young folks, indoctrinated by behaviorist moral relativism and immediate gratification training are a great difficulty in that they have been deliberately dumbed down by the US Dept. of Education (under UNESCO formulated dumbing-down protocols) so that they are conformist consumers of corporate/gov’t propaganda. They have been trained to NOT be able to think critically.
An example of what you are talking about is the exposure of the ACORN marxist social destabilization operation: a brilliant guerrilla journalism campaign done on pennies by James O’Keefe.
Here, here!
Brilliant statements, which almost brought tears to my eyes.
We have succeeded because we all recognize the fact that we’re in this shitty boat together, and we’re going to sink soon, unless we start pouring water over the side in a hurry.
Together.
I loved zed’s analogy about the football team, and that is really all you need to know about the man-o-sphere, and why it has not made any substantial progress during the past 30 or 40 years.
Stay the course and FTSU.
Noone can come around now and claim it is not working, which is all the reason you need to continue, and preferably up the ante.
If it doesn’t expand and grows, -it dies.
I always wondered why MRA have to severely fight among themselves. I totally agree that unity would be good. Unity within main topics, mild disagreement on other topics.
And I cannot hold back, feel compelled to blurt out the truth:
the major source of militant MRA dis-unity stems right from the corner of avoiceformen’s supporters.
It is the MRAs that agree with one of the main tenets of feminism: increased age of consent and repression of male sexuality. These MRA viciously oppose the sexual liberation MRA movement.
These MRA agree with one of the main issues feminism always fought for: imprisonment for mostly men who have sex with 17 year old wife to be, for 15 year old boys that have sex with 14 year old girls. Even for men who checked ID, who were falsified by the proper government. It is called strict liability: it does not matter if you picked up that mature looking 17 year old in a 21 and over bar. Go to prison.
These MRA agree with feminists that it is ok to mete out decades of prison, up to life imprisonment for men that possess files of 0 and 1 depicting nude 16 year old girls.
These MRA who agree with feminists and manginas who re-defined childhood as up to 17 year olds.
These MRA who accept feminist re-definition of child porn as 15 year old non-nudes dressed in lyotards, gyrating sensuously in dances. (google Knox vs. USA)
Those MRA who accept and actively favor that laws against underage sex now are applied to underage KISSING and other “indecencies”
Those who prompted Jay Hammers to close down his blog for his sacrilege of opposing Gulags for adolescent sex.
Note that the sexual liberation MRA do not fight fathers rights. They do not fight for imprisonment for child support default. They do not oppose any issues that father’s rights MRA here fight for.
The moralist father’s rights MRA actively repress and fight MRA who are for sexual liberation. These sexual liberation MRA actually have similar goals then a major part of 1960′s sexual liberation feminists.
I want to stress that lowering age of consent does not mean that you have to be in favor of your daugher having sex with older guys. It means that the government should stay out of such private affairs and that fathers are responsible for educating their daughters, accepting their daughter’s choices or keeping an eye on them.
It also does not mean that you don’t have to accept any crazy idea of Jay Hammers, agree with every point of the antifeminist.com or of crazy Human-Stupidity.com
But one should stress the shared goals and politely discuss divergences. Preferably also not favor imprisonment of men for thought crimes such as possession of pictures.
Feminists have no problem embracing and supporting murderous women, dick slicers, husband killers and scum writers. They are united. They know how to carefully disagree with husband killers then then support reduced responsibility.
Male MRA create factions and fights about minor issues.
Sorry, I could not keep quiet and read this unopposed.
Rather, I agree totally to the content, that MRA should be united.
I want to point out that the active hostile division or MRA comes from RIGHT HERE.
Stop hostilizing other MRA and stop dividing the movement and actively promote unity. Stop siding with part of feminist agenda fighting against other MRA.
Stop appeasing the coalition of conservative religious right and moralistic feminists. You were taken in by their shaming agenda.
Scared of being seen in the company of “pedophiles” (as re-defined by feminists).
Pedophiles, before re-definition meant those attracted to pre-pubertal CHILDREN (before re-definition of “children” as up to 17). Pedophilia is a very diferent issue then de-criminalization of adolescent sexuality. Of keeping police out of adolescent bedrooms, preventing them from what most of your grand-grandmothers and fathers did.
I rest my case. Now delete this, kick me out, …..
I understand that human beings used to “come of age” earlier than 18, but this is greatly related to how they are socialized. As long as we treat 17 year-olds(whose brains are still developing) like non-adults, I strongly oppose lowering the age of consent. Also, I strongly oppose treating 17 year-olds like adults.
Of course, we all remember what it was like to have sex with 16 year-olds. But we were 16 year old as well, and we didn’t have the type of power over them that could abuse their vulnerabilities.
What does infuriate me, is that we punish male statutory rapists far worse than the avalanche of female statutory rapists that are flooding the education system.
I have heard some decent arguments against using the term rape in this type of consensual relationship. But I feel it’s necessary in order to protect impressionable mid and early teenagers. Especially at a time when so many women are abusing the shit out of them.
… MRAs that agree with one of the main tenets of feminism: increased age of consent and repression of male sexuality.
That’s what I call the “American divorced fathers syndrome”. Especially fathers with daughters. Or more accurately, who had daughters before losing them to their ex-wives.
To be fair, American divorced fathers are the most desperate of MRAs and they’re the MRM’s best troops. If feminist violence escalates, American fathers will be the first, or the only ones, to retaliate. Unlike childless bachelors, they have nowhere to go.
If I remember right Fidelbogen has a Youtube video about the MRM being a motley crowd and why this may be a source of strength.
JFinn, if you strongly oppose treating 17 year-olds like adults, what do you want to treat them as? Don’t you see the continuum between the paradigm of the female as a perpetual child and the imposition of unbiological ages of consent?
Sexuality, violence, and labor are tied to the way we view adulthood. I don’t want to open the gate to a path that would eventually enlist boys into armed forces, or have boys and girls work 10 hour days of physical labor. There is already precedent for this.
I understand that “slippery slope” logic is often fallacious. Certainly I don’t agree, for instance, that marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin. And I didn’t mean that teenagers should be treated like babies. I simply like a certain level of segregation and infantilization to keep teens protected from some of the punishments of adulthood. They’re still too vulnerable to emotional abuse.
My usage of the words “strongly oppose” was probably not conducive to a healthy debate. Your opinions are valid.
“To be fair, American divorced fathers are the most desperate of MRAs and they’re the MRM’s best troops.”
I agree with the first part. The second part not so much. I won’t pretend to speak for all divorced fathers but I can certainly speak for myself and maybe a few others.
I was a lot more effective fighting the advances of feminism when I still felt integrated in the community. I was never particularly popular but I didn’t need to be. I knew that what I was doing was right because two plus two still equaled four. But two plus two no longer equals four.
There are approximately thirty-million divorced fathers in the US who have little or no contact with their children. About half of those are still paying child support and about one-quarter are in arrears and likely living at or below poverty.
Of those thirty-million, more than 250,000 are dead from suicide (probably a lot more). Approximately 50,000 are in prison and many more have been. Approximately eight-million are below poverty.
What makes these circumstances so bad is that there were alternatives to these developments which would have prevented this death-toll, and incidence of incarceration and poverty. Shared parenting and reasonable orders for child support to name a few.
At least half of these men who are divorced and have been forcibly separated from their children by the malevolent tactics of a brutal feminist regime are more concerned with feeding themselves, finding shelter and acquiring necessary medical care.
They probably don’t make the MRM’s best troops as they have been worn down by attrition and they have more immediate concerns. That’s the strategy of feminists. Hate to say it’s working. Having already been in this fight for decades, gotta tell you me and I’m sure others are worn pretty thin by now.
Regarding a lot of this post: WTF?
However, it does touch on something that I see as a men’s rights issue: those cases of men, say, eighteen years of age who have consensual sex with slightly underage girls. They have been sentenced in ways so harsh that it boggles the mind, their young lives ruined. There is a scattering of groups across states in the U.S., consisting largely of concerned relatives of these men, who are trying change how these cases are dealt with.
Why would I kick you out with you doing so well at alienating yourself?
How you took this discussion where you did is beyond me.
You just lived up to your url.
OK, I think you are peddling some agenda of your own here.
In America, the age of consent might be 18. In many other places it is 16…so for the sake of argument I am going to work within the cultural context I am most familiar with – one where consenting sexual contact is legal at age 16.
When are humans ready to have sex? Although conception is possible for many girls as young as age 11, there is strong evidence that there is significant complications for both mother and child if the conception and birth occur under the age of 16, even when the lack of medical assistance in the early pregnancy is controlled for in the research. Why is this? Although the reproductive system is working, there are ongoing physiological and biochemical changes during adolescence – these kids are still growing, and the nutritional resources needed for both growth and making a baby are hard to obtain.
From a psychosocial perspective, I believe humans are capable of having sex when they are capable of considering rationally the long-term consequences of their actions and are prepared to take appropriate actions to mediate against negative consequences. I can remember at 14 dragging one of my girlfriends off to Family Planning, because I knew that she was likely to be getting into having sex, and I doubted she would look after herself. We are still friends now, and she is grateful for the care I took and agrees my assessment of her lack of ability to make appropriate decisions was spot on.
Because we can not individually test for cognitive preparadness we have to draw a line somewhere. My own country says 16 – and I must say that around 50% of kids I know of that age are ready. The other half – I just hope they team up with a kid who is ready and/or they get a small dose of religion and get some time to grow and be ready.
I believe one of the issues around adolescent sexuality is the pervasivness of sexual imagery. Kids get the idea that everyone is having sex and if they don’t have it, they are somehow strange and different.
Talking about sex, sexuality and sexual restraint is not about shaming, it is about expressing that as adults we have values we want to transmit to our children. I’m not a mother, but as an auntie (both biological and chosen), I have had many conversations about sexuality with youngsters. My approach is always to give facts and frame the opinions I have in terms of the youngster’s whole well-being. So when my nieces asked me at age 13 about crotchless knickers and peek-a-bo bras (always interesting walking past windows in a red light district), I said that some people liked seeing their partners in them, some people liked wearing them as part of sexual expression, but that no one should be forced in a sexual relationship to do something they were uncomfortable with, and that included dressing in a particular way. One of these girls who is now in her 20s said that those words helped her identify a potentially toxic relationship and move to end it before she had become committed to it.
In my opinion, we do continue to infantalise children for way too long, but lowering the age of consent is not the first step to stopping this. Working to establish ways to ensure that there is the opportunity for “good enough” parents to parent their children, even if their relationships end is an important first step.
Age of consent in America varies wildly by state. In one state it’s actually 14. In others it’s 15, 16, 17, 18… in still other states, it’s actually more sophisticated, wherein age difference is taken into account, so a 16 year old boy having sex with a 14 year old girl will not have committed a crime but a 30 year old who does so will have.
There is gender disparity where female adults who prey on young boys are rarely treated as harshly or severely,which I see as a big problem.
Agree 100000% on the gender disparity being a big problem.
I also know there is a degree of tolerance within NZ law around two underage kids having sex, but there is no guarantee on tolerance.
Just recently I was supporting a fellow Quaker about his position on the definition of a Young Friend. This group has always been in NZ aged 16-35. There was some moves to get the lower age limit reduced to 14, but he responded to this by pointing out that by maintaining the age at the age of consent, we avoided the conflagration of unsupervised attendance at gatherings with legal age of consent. His challenge was pithy and succinct.
“If we want to work towards advocating a reduced age of consent, this is separate work from deciding when our young people can go gatherings unsupervised by parents. By reducing the age of our YF group, we as a faith community could be criticised as condoning the abuse of children.”
… consenting sexual contact is legal at age 16
But does that mean that any man over 16 (aged from 16 to infinity) can have sex with a 16 year-old if the 16 year-old is consenting? No it doesn’t and everyone bandying about those nominal 16s and 14s know it. As said above, age difference is taken into account and this hollows out the very notion of an “age of consent” and deprives it of any universality and fairness. If it’s legal for A to do something with B, why isn’t it OK for C to do it with B and A? Ages of consent are not “unfair to boys”, they are devised to entrap men, with special emphasis on ageing heterosexual men.
In NZ, there is no crime if both consent and are past their 16th birthday. There may be shaming and ‘ick’ factor but no illegality.
A good male friend of mine was dating a 17 year old when he was in his mid-30s, and we made real efforts to make her feel welcome and included in our gatherings, after all it was his choice and it was not illegal.
A few months in, I asked him whether the relationship was working for him, and he gave a big sigh and said “The scenery is great, but the conversation is a bit lacking and she had god-awful taste in music.”
It didn’t last long from that point. She ditched him. Apparently he couldn’t keep up the partying enough.
“the major source of militant MRA dis-unity stems right from the corner of avoiceformen’s supporters.”
Thats simply not true.
The only individuals hurt by AVfM are those insisting on singular, reductionist dogmas. But the fault is entirely with the individual pushing thier narrow agendas.
I get what Human Stupidity is trying to say. He’s just bringing up sexual maturity and rights as an idea and notes how many people will shut it down immediately because of the emotional bias.
I’ve read his blog and he’s very much an astute individual who sees the world in all it’s inglorious bullshit and wants to make a difference for men.
Some truths are extremely painful and some realities bear fruit we didn’t dream of. There is no common sense approach to sex, just fear and shame.
Men bear the brunt of most of this and are punished far more and the feminist know this.
But I also know why we don’t go there. Emotional shaming and pedophilia are not good bedfellows for a movement in its infancy.
One step at a time, I think Human-Stupidity and you’re trying to make a difference on your blog, which is a good read. I just think we can’t attack some issues yet until we get a better footing.
I put up a reply for you but by mistake put the reply to the post below, by 100percent cotton.
I understand if AVM wants to stay away from these topics, even has different opinions.
But not to the point of total hostility and banning.
They just totally agree to some main points that feminism has fought for and achieved in the last century. Brutal violent repression of male sexuality with the help of government manginas.
This IS a turning point. I well remember when the feminist movement began to gell – it was with the same “we have seen the enemy and it it us” realization.
Awareness campaigns making a serious emergence, and…possibly reaching out to polititians(?) …even FEMALE politicians, perhaps, is the next step?
Males are a HUGE voting bloc, and UNITED they are a force to be reckoned with.
AVFM is the ONLY MRA site that welcomes women as equals, and enlists their aid in partnering against the forces of injustice.
AVFM is the ONLY MRA site I’ve ever encountered that respected the reality that men DO have Mothers, Sisters, Daughters ready to fight in solidarity with men, for the love of family, brother/sisterhood, fairness and JUSTICE.
Onward, and upward…
Thanks, you are getting the point.
I understand if AVM does not want to touch these issues of age of consent and cp.
It is sad, though, that these anti-sexuality MRA are not satisfied with silence. Agree on what we agree on and shut up about divergence. They could quietly disagree.
Rather they have to actively fight the MRA who are for a free sexual market and sexual liberties. For how society worked for thousands of years, before feminism.
And once more: we are talking about the compulsive need to have government imprison men for these “crimes”. Not about fathers imposing rules on their daughters which is their individual right.
Another thing I see very positive In this current US election cycle, it seems to have become officially acceptable and trendy for conservative and libertarian women to criticize the Feminist movement. If a sizable enough group of women do that, it starts to give men permission to do it as well, and the sentiment builds.
I realize anti-feminism does not = pro-men’s rights and conservatism has their own problems with female privilege, but it becomes much harder for feminists to maintain the narrative if a bunch of smart women are ridiculing them with facts and logic.
It would be nice if men could get mainstream acceptance for our opinions without female approval, but this is the world we live in.
Phyllis Schlafly, Erin Pizzey, Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young do not, in my view, represent the “approval” of women. Nor do they merely represent a reaction to the horrors of marxist feminism. They are, like many men, brave decent moral people who refuse to cooperate with sociopathic authoritarianism and opportunism.
Such women have been heard from before. See some early 20th quotations from honest women at
“A Woman’s Voice”
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2012/06/womans-voice.html
Many women courageously stood against earlier incarnations of marxist authoritarianism manifested in Bolshevism, Maoism, Fascism, National Socialism (yes, fascism and nazism were directly influenced and inspired by marxism. Your professors lied.) Khymer Rouge, and recently, the Burmese military dictatorship.
We should throw off that rhetoric of woman vs. man created by marxist agitators that causes us to think there is some great profound difference between men and women who are honest courageous, liberty-loving and pro-family (or: anti-State control by coercion of child-rearing) and posess self-mastery and good character.
You’re preaching to the choir.
The cool thing is, that much of the new opposition I’m seeing is from young conservative and libertarian women. It’s not just Schlafly’s generation anymore.
Feminists did not get mainstream approval without the aiding and abetting of MEN.
Why should men’s issues be exclusively dominated by men only?
No man is an island. Every women who harmed a man harmed the women who loved that man.
It’s time for those women to draw a line in the sand and get fighting mad at those injustices – not be shut out because they are considered “guilty” for sharing the same genitalia.
Together we stand. Divided, we’ll all end up a bunch of fucking slaves.
“Pro-men’s rights” is our key stone and focus would be nice to have posters, bumper stickers and discussion with this central concept please … “pro-men’s rights” … it is nice friendly and acceptable message.
If the MRM really is dead, then the author of that article’s definition of the MRM must be completely different than I thought it was. With the recent attacks from the SPLC on AVfM and other sites, and the recent postering campaigns, men’s rights is shooting up more publicity than it ever has in the past.
Good point! There’s no need to attack something that’s dead, now is there?
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” –Thomas Paine
There is always the danger in a political movement becoming a “cult of personality.” That’s pretty easily avoided here, with too many strong personalities to let that happen.
There is always a danger in a political movement becoming fractured by divisiveness. People here disagree with each other all the time but that doesn’t stop them from coming back and taking action.
There is always danger in a movement of people who strongly agree on some things splintering into secondary groups due to infighting or to irrelevance. With any luck, those exact things will happen to A Voice For Men within 10 years or so, after most of its main objectives have been attained.
I hereby propose a first draft of what the working, operating agenda should look like:
—
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women deserve the same rights and considerations as any other; that girls are no better or more important or more oppressed than boys; that the Patriarchy Theory that men have oppressed women for thousands of years is a sexist, bigoted lie; that the men and women depend upon each other, should like and appreciate and respect and love each other; and that the modern world has lost sight of these fundamental, self-evident truths. We propose the following:
1) An end to debtor’s prison for men (and the few women also found there)
2) An end to the arrest, prosecution, and sentencing discount for women in criminal matters, and the presumption of guilt placed upon men when accused by women.
3) Recognition that perjury in family court is a crime that needs to be punished with fines and/or imprisonment.
4) Recognizing the complexity of, but fundamental parity in, domestic violence issues, and opposition to all forms of domestic abuse.
5) Recognizing that parental kidnapping and alienation are insidious and despicable forms of child abuse that must be stopped.
6) Recognizing that men deserve the same reproductive freedom that women do, and that “use a condom” or “don’t have sex” are not sufficient answers to that issue.
7) Recognizing the horrific and growing crisis in education for boys, and the need for immediate efforts to address it.
8) Recognizing the toxically demeaning culture toward men and boys, and opposing it.
9) Recognizing the serious health issues that disproportionately affect men, including mental health problems such as suicide and chemical dependency, stress and stress-related illness, and other medical issues that disproportionately affect men should receive as much attention and resources as health issues related to women.
9) An end to the toxic division of men by race or creed or religion: Jewish men, black men, Asian men, Hispanic men, all men, have one thing in common: they are men, and they all suffer from the same discrimination and disparities in this civilization. Some more than others, but the most important factor they share is not their “race,” it’s their SEX.
10) Opposition to genital mutilation of children of either sex. Those who wish to practice genital mutilation may do so when they are adults.
11) Recognition that 90% of the long-term homeless population is male, and a commitment to devoting more resources to helping them.
12) We support those who support these goals. We reject any person or group who opposes these goals or attempts to hijack them for other purposes.
—
That’s a draft, others may wish to add or subtract from it or quibble about wording but I hereby submit it for consideration, as a first draft, for a statement of mission and principles for A Voice For Men, with the goal of making it a permanent reference article for anyone interested in participating here.
Hmmm. How does an “operating agenda” differ from the posted statement of this site’s mission and values that has already been modified at least one since I started frequenting the place? If I recall correctly, it used to state quite unapologetically that AVfM is a “pro-male” effort as its title suggests.
I guess I have a bit of problem with what appears to me to be a continual trend toward diliution and compromising of the original AVfM mission (as I understood it) in the name of more “political correctness” or some such PR concession.
Are Paul and the rest of AVfM’s “editorial board” happy with this proposal for further modification? I certainly see no similar compromise proposals from the other side and the ultimate consequences of “unilateral disarmament” are sufficiently notorious to require no elaboration by me.
Well I would say that there’s a difference between a “mission statement” and an actual list of specific issues that we believe require activism.
What I’ve proposed here is pretty concrete, although it could certainly be modified. It’s only a first draft after all.
Well, I dunno, but the “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” preamble sure sounds much more to me like a set of overriding AVfM mission values than just a list of specific issues that need to be addressed.
To say, for example, that “girls are no better or more important or more oppressed than boys” would seem to concede that girls are oppressed. Where does that fit in AVfM’s “operating agenda”? Unless I’m completely blind to current realities, boys are the ones who are now badly oppressed and who need every bit of pro-active (dare I say pro-male) recognition of the facts that AVfM can provide.
Pro-female sites abound, but this singularity known as AVfM = A Voice FOR MEN = pro-male as I’ve understood it. If I’ve misunderstood that, then I’m obviously in the wrong place.
Fine, that can be taken out as unnecessary fluff. I don’t care. My point is that specific action items need addressing, in my view.
Of course no one’s obliged to agree with me.
Dean, it is NOT my intention to pick little holes in your suggestions, and certainly not to pick on you in particular. Please don’t take it personally. I’m just deeply concerned by what I see as an increasingly defensive and apologetic position overall. If anything, we should be forging ahead with a much more positive and even aggressive pro-male posture. But that too is just one person’s opinion.
“Pro-female sites abound”
But are they? Promoting something that is verifiably toxic to women–ie. disproportionate victimhood–is not pro-female, it’s anti-female.
The only really pro-female blogs around are the ones who are fighting against the tide of viewing women as victims and saying that this, in and of itself, is the primary problem women face (and need to triumph over via their own efforts, not through being ‘saved’ either by men or by an organization that preys on their self-imposed weakness).
Heh. You nailed that one dead on, typhonblue. Very sloppy terminology on my part. Mea culpa.
I should, of course, have said that anti-male sites abound (quite a different thing) which is why, IMO, we so badly need at least one effort that is unapologetically and positively pro-male.
In fact, male space of any kind at all is a precious and vanishingly small residual resource that we men (and sympathetic women) need to defend at all costs and without any further compromise whatsoever.
Absolutely men should have their own spaces. However I think what paul wants to do with avfm should be respected.
I think the changes reflect more of an expansion in scope rather then a concession. You can incorporate the view that victim-mongering hurts women while being unequivocal about men being shafted by society refusing to see their victimhood.
This isn’t a zero sum game, IMHO, and incorporating the additional pro-female message (pro-female but anti-female-victim-mongering) only strengthens and adds to avfm’s validity while offering purple pillers an emotional stepping stone to full red pill enlightenment.
It’s not just that gynocentrism is bad for men, it’s that it’s bad for women, for children, and _everyone_. Although the fact that it’s bad for men should absolutely be enough to dismantle the entire vicious monstrosity, for many people they need the emotional bridge of ‘hey this doesn’t work for the traditional victim classes either’ to get over to the side that’s pro-compassion for men.
Even writing that out pisses me off no end, but I want to make progress, not serve my own moral desires.
My opinion in no way constitutes disrespect for Paul or what he wants to do, IF that’s what he (or anyone else) wants to do. I suppose the whole AVfM program’s inclusiveness/exclusiveness angle is one part of what I’m trying to get clear in my own mind with some degree of certainty. Frankly, both this article itself and some of the follow-up ideas have me quite puzzled in that regard.
In any case, if you do agree that men should have their own pro-male spaces, where would you suggest I find one if not here?
I’m pretty sure there is an all-male forum floating around out there. I wouldn’t know how you’d get to it for obvious reasons.
Did you mean all-male pro-male or just pro-male?
The latter, of course. I would have thought that my appreciation for genuine pro-male support from ANY source must be obvious by now.
On the other hand, I also think that “males only” spaces are at least as important and as legitimate as their female counterparts and are in desparate need of some last-ditch defense before they disappear completely. They’re damned difficult to find now — nearly impossible in fact.
I am happy with any reasonable discussion about pretty much anything, but with all respect the idea there is a “continual trend toward diliution and compromising of the original AVfM mission,” strikes me as less than reasonable.
Not saying you might not have a point, just that this is a pretty significant statement, for which you have offered absolutely no support.
Certainly no intention to be unreasonable, Paul, but as I said, I do seem to recall a somewhat more explicitly pro-male mission statement when I first “arrived” here before you (in your own words) ‘decided to overhaul the content of the “Mission and Values” page.’ In fact, I think it used exactly those words: pro-male.
Unfortunately I kept no copy of that earlier statement and I’ll readily admit that my memory may not be 100% accurate. So, if I’m wrong about that specificity, I can only apologise. Just looking for reassurance that my “interpretation” IS WRONG, I suppose. If you say so, that’s good enough for me.
I think you are probably right in your memory. I think the words “pro-male” were there, and now they are not.
But there was no philosophical purpose in removing those words. The choice just fit better with the writing style at the moment. I don’t think a rational argument can be made that the mission itself has been watered down; that we are, in effect, less “pro-male” now than before I revised the statement.
I think what happened, without my really thinking about it, is that we focused some language around being more pro justice, than pro demographic. I think that serves men very well, in hindsight.
And I will address Dean here, as well. I agree that some sort of stated list, and agenda if you will, is probably in order, in addition to the mission statement. Bob brought this up with me recently as well in one of our conversations.
That being said, I like some of the stuff you have down there, but parts of it not so much. For one, I vehemently oppose any language that identifies issues of discrimination against women. It is not that I support such discrimination, but the purpose of this place is rooted in the fact that concerns about women’s issues have been drummed, beaten into the cultural consciousness past the point of rhyme or reason. I don’t think we need to add to that echo chamber when so many issues that affect men are still ignored.
Also, I think it is important to remember that in some ways, mission statements, agendas, mottos, slogans and other attempts to express the raison d’etre of any give cause are handy items that can be used for statements to the media and material for newcomers.
They also make nice little placards put up on the walls of fast food chains to tell us how they are committed to serving the best, most morally ethical high-fat, low nutrition sandwich in a world of junk food.
We always have to remember that our purpose is in what we do. If someone asks me what our mission is, I would like to be able to point them to a nice, compact and pithily worded list of talking point, for their education and interest. But I know they will learn a lot more about our mission if I point them here:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/updates/news-updates/cop-101-lessons-for-delaware-state-police/
MANY THANKS for that clarification, Paul. It does indeed help to provide a more positive framework in my own mind at least.
I will still argue, however, that the public position should be more positively assertive (aggressive is probably a bad word) on behalf of males and less apologetic about being so. Yeah, I know. I’m never satisfied and I hear you saying go out and do it yourself.
I’ll try.
That works for me Paul. It’s why it’s a first draft.
“I embrace the radical notion that women are human beings–and thus are as capable of despicable behavior as anyone else” is a phrase I tend to use though…
Hi Dean,
Have you read the mission statement that we have in place now?
Yah. Other than my well-known, probably-beating-a-dead-horse view that calling out feminism in particular when male disposability and misandry are thousands of years old, and that all attacking “feminism” does is attack a word and can allow the gender ideologues to just change what they call themselves without changing their policies (because the word literally doesn’t fucking mean anything, or rather, means whatever the speaker wants it to mean and whatever the listener wants to infer it to mean simultaneously), I don’t have a problem with that mission statement.
I was perhaps grandiose with the “we hold these truths” thing, but my purpose was to call out a group of very specific, concrete action items. “Opposing misandry and gender ideologues” is great. Opposing violence is great. But what are we for? An end to X, Y, and Z, and this is an attempt to fill out those blanks with a list of specific items. Reproductive rights, shared parenting, educational disparities, homelessness, victims of violence, victims of sexual assault: these are more specific things.
It’s tempting to call it a “list of demands” but that would be pompous.
I like your list. I would include specific reference to two fundamental principles of law: habeus corpus and mens rea. These seem to have been neglected in much of the legislation drafted during the past forty-four years. I don’t think calling it a list of demands is pompus at all. By now, the world needs real men more than we need it. That puts us in a position to make demands. Most people have become habituated to the benefits of paid or voluntary labor by men and do not understand that slavery is a very inefficient way to coerce that labor.
I like your list too.
There are always two sides to any game…the ‘ideality’ and the ‘reality’. The more clearly one states the ‘ideality’ (the ‘rights’) the more clearly ‘reality’ (the wrongs) comes into focus…and the more distinct the gap between them becomes.
Since that gap is the primary driver of ‘activism’, it’s definitely worth the time to clarify both sides…before jumping mindlessly into the fray. It’s also helpful in terms of building shared accountability so that everyone knows what the game is on the front end. Finally, it’s an invaluable help in terms of focusing/concentrating finite power on first things first.
For instance, if loving males is right…misandry (the hatred of males) is obviously wrong. Spending time on stating what ‘loving males’ looks like (comfortable or not for those of us conditioned to be ‘expendables’) is essential because it kills many birds with one stone. As soon as the ‘love of males’ is described clearly, misandry becomes ever more obvious…and so do the tactics needed to move from ‘hatred’ to ‘love.’
That’s precisely why the Constitution is a beacon to the world…and a curse to totalitarian feminists…among others. We can certainly quibble about which ‘self evident truths’ are most important to include here but the key thing is to create a complete list. That said, grandiose is great. There were probably no more grandiose a group than the founding FATHER’s who wrote the US Constitution.
Bottom line: the sooner some sort of solid consensus is created on POSITIVE ‘self-evident’ truths…the more likely that some serious shared commitment will happen. And at THAT point the competition becomes between WHO is better able to the shared job DONE rather than who is better at fighting about WHICH job should/shouldn’t be done in the first place.
All right, since no one is saying “forget about it,” then based on feedback from Paul, Daryl, and Primal, here’s a second draft. I once again note that this is a draft. One change is that this is not a “mission statement” (which was sloppy wording on my part) it is an Activism Goals List:
–
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are human beings deserving the same rights and considerations as all other human beings; that the Patriarchy Theory that men have oppressed women for thousands of years is a sexist, bigoted lie; and that men in today’s world face routine discrimination in law and government policy as a result of this lie.
1) Recognition that men in themselves are a class of human being. End the toxic division of men by race or creed or religion. Men have one thing in common: they are men, and they all suffer from the same discrimination and disparities in this civilization. Some more than others, but the most important factor they share is not their “race,” it’s their SEX.
2) An end to debtor’s prison for men under the guise of “child support enforcement.”
3) An end to the arrest, prosecution, and sentencing discount for women in criminal matters.
4) An end to the presumption of guilt placed upon men when accused by women. The restoration of the rules of Habeus Corpus and Mens Rea must be restored to men in all areas of law, including family law.
5) Recognition that perjury in family court is a crime that needs to be punished with fines and/or imprisonment.
6) Recognition of the complexity of, but fundamental parity in, domestic violence issues, and opposition to all forms of domestic abuse, including holding women fully accountable for committing any form of domestic abuse.
7) Recognition that kidnapping and alienation of children from fathers are insidious and despicable forms of child abuse that must be stopped.
8) Recognition that men deserve the same reproductive freedom that women do, and that “use a condom” or “don’t have sex” are not sufficient answers to that issue.
9) Recognition of the horrific and growing crisis in education for boys, and the need for immediate efforts to address it.
10) Recognition of the toxically demeaning culture toward men and boys, and opposing it.
11) Recognition of the serious health issues that disproportionately affect men, including mental health problems such as suicide and chemical dependency, stress and stress-related illness, and other medical issues that should receive as much attention and resources as health issues related to women.
12) An end to routine genital mutilation of boys. Those who wish to practice genital mutilation may do so when they are adults.
13) Recognition that 90% of the long-term homeless population is male, and a commitment to devoting more resources to helping them.
–
That’s a second go on an Action list. Further feedback is welcome.
Having responded somewhat negatively yesterday, Dean, I should at least say here that this revised version seems to me like a significant improvement. Is the intention to make it “official” as AVfM’s operating agenda at some point?
This is a great exercise, Dean. I tightened up some of the language and made some changes. Let me know what you think.
1) I took out this item on the list because some men support discrimination against other men
2) Cease and desist with the incarceration of men for issues related to child support and emancipate all those who are presently incarcerated and expunge the records of all those who have been incarcerated
4) The principles of law including Habeus Corpus and Mens Rea have precluded men since around 1967 and must be reestablished and presumption of innocence must resume
5) All divorces or matters concerning child custody will start and end with a presumption of shared parenting and family courts must be eliminated
a) there is no child support because it is child trafficking and slavery for fathers
b) allegations of criminal behavior with potential of endangering children will be adjudicated in a real court (not family court)
c) perjury and false allegations will be punished to the fullest extent of the law (by a real court)
6) Men and women will be sentenced equally for the same crimes
7) Kidnapping, paternal alienation and hostile parent veto are child abuse and will be prosecuted as such
8) There are no rights without responsibilities
a) Men and women have the same rights to parent their children unless otherwise determined by a legitimate court concerning criminal conviction (not family court)
b) Women have the same responsibilities as men for supporting their children financially
9) Parity in educational opportunities
a) fewer girls than boys are drugged into submission and incoherence and at the expense of their ability to learn and are therefore at greater disadvantage in K-12
b) curricula and evaluation of performance and intellect and creativity and skills and teaching standards are sex-based in favor of girls instead of merit based
c) too many educational opportunities at the college and graduate level are available for women but not men and too many obstacles to an education target specifically men but not women
10) Presently, women earn more than men for the same job, hazard, hours, tenure and education but income must be based upon merit instead of sex
11) Presently, women consume more than men, with a greater proportion of a family’s income spent on themselves than on the family, wasting inordinate amounts of resources
12) Presently, much more resources are invested in women’s health issues than on men’s health issues even though more men suffer or die from the same health problems that afflict women and women live longer
13) End to involuntary and forced circumcision and other forms of genital mutilation of boys or force upon girls the same circumcision or genital mutilation or allow both girls and boys to make the decision for themselves as adults
13) Elimination of homelessness
a) more than 90% of the homeless population is males and most of those below the threshold for poverty are males and were condemned there by unfair and predatory government programs so since the government created the problem then the government can fix it without imposing more upon those same men
b) less than 10% of homeless are female and less than half of those below the threshold for poverty are female and they are there by their own devices and excesses and should not be afforded any further assistance
14) False allegations of rape, domestic violence and child abuse will be punished with the same sentence as the accused had he been found guilty
While I agree that women who perjure themselves in order to make their claims of sexual assault and rape seem more viable should face the same punishment as the man would he have been convicted, it most likely will not happen.
I would think that instead of phrasing it quite like that we demand an immediate end to Judges prerogative in perjury cases and demand that a mandatory minimum of 2.5 years in prison and a maximum of 10 years be enforced. Also making it mandatory that each perjury offence related to a false rape/sexual assault/stalking/harassment claim be a separate charge carrying with it the full penalty for each. Also amending to carry with it a version of the three strike law. (i.e. any person that is convicted of perjury in sexual assault/rape/stalking claims on three separate occasions be immediately sentenced to 25 years.)
I stated that we will most likely never see the perjury laws change to the point where they punish with the same veracity as rape or sexual assault. The law treats violent crimes as a far worse crime then slander/perjury/defamation regardless of the possible consequences of said actions.
Thanks, Bellator. You’re right. I was just trying to keep it simple and make a point that false allegations have real consequences for the accused and that something needs to be done to discourage them.
An important quality for a list like this is that it be simple and that the causes it addresses be ones that are easily demonstrated and addressed with simple and practical and obvious solutions.
That’s why I don’t like the education issue. It’s very complicated. Parents can homeschool and if that isn’t possible, then parents can to some degree counter any inadequacies of the education system (at least K-12). But I would defer to Dean on that.
Still it’s a good list and if the language can be simplified into some powerful but factual soundbites, then it can be more easily remembered and acted on by anyone who cares.
Things like emancipation of men in jail for child support or reinstatement of driver licenses and passports. Shared parenting. Eliminate family courts and child support. Get the government out of our families unless there is real criminal behavior that has been adjudicated in a real court (not family court).
I forgot 1 b): Reinstate all passports, driver and business and recreational licenses which have been suspended or revoked for child support related issues because men can’t support or parent their children if they don’t have passports, driver or business or recreational licences
Try to state this as an endpoint vision in simple, positive, inspiring terms. For instance, ‘Every man has a home go to’, ‘mother’s respect fathers, boys get every bit as good an education as girls do, the culture honors males/men for the horrors we routinely suffer to protect or provide for that culture. You can always use ‘equity’ and ‘justice’, and ‘human rights’ as well. Just go for the highest, the best, and the most commonly shared vision for what men as human beings deserve so that the reality of what we have now is easily seen as the ugly opposite. Call forth self-evident truths. Let the lies be other-evident.
It has been several months since I have been on here. Paul, I want to thank you personally for all of the sacrifices you have had to make and all of the fair weather AVfM MRA’s that you have seen through. (I myself am admittedly one of them.) I work in an office for a work comp consulting firm. The entire firm seems to be comprised of extreme liberals and radical feminists. I thought if I backed off the MRA thing I might be able to fit in better. Maybe get that promotion and raise I had been hoping for.
When one of the feminists brought up the topic of how some political figure was going to take away their rights to abortion I lost it. I told her off and explained to her how that might lean things a little bit more towards equality. (By explained I mean slammed my hand down on the table and sputtered and glared until it all came out.) I almost lost my job but after explaining to him how I had had to listen to their diatribe for months on end without so much as mentioning anything because I knew they would submit a formal complaint against me for sexism he dropped it and adopted a new company policy that any and all discussion of personal beleifs on company property was prohibited.
Seems like a little win but it was more of a loss. Though the sputtering and hitting of the table felt good it was counter productive to the other points that we are trying to get across. Anywho I have decided that I will no longer hold my tongue when someone starts spouting that kind of nonsense and I will not hide my true values and beliefs. If they don’t like it they can fire me. I would rather go back to construction than have to listen to more falsities and misstated facts and just nod and smile as if I actual bought into the nonsense.
I guess what I am saying is thank you for keeping this place together for all of us. I greatly appreciate it and I just hope that this is the last time I take one of those damned blue pills or turn my back on my dignity for acceptance. If you guys will take a fair weather AVfM MRA back I would greatly appreciate it!
BNP, I’m a believer that sometimes you got to walk away for a time to know what’s important to you…so think that we should welcome everyone who wants to identify as an MRA regardless of where they are on their activist journey.
AMEN PAUL!
I agree wholeheartedly. Recognizing men’s inherent tendancy to compete, one up, or tear down other men & rising above all that primal instinct crap to work together & get shit done has (to me at least) always been a part of what “taking the red pill” means.
There are times I have dissagreed with other MRAs. Sometimes very strongly. But I don’t,…no, I REFUSE to lose sight of the greater cause & engage in a heated argument with other MRAs. Especially not in public forums of all places.
Come together on our common ground. Do not be splintered by minor differences in opinion.
We are now well familiar with two kinds of feminist men… white knights and manginas. They are chivalrous fools that pedestalize women. We should count PUAs among them. They too are chivalrous fools that pedestalize women. Their defense will likely rest on their interpretation that in their conquest of woman, they’ve extracted booty that the other two categories have not. But have they really? What manner of conquest is there in extracting sex from a typical lay? And who is it that is being conquested? What level of numbers game must the typical PUA play? At what effort? At what cost? Hasn’t he anything better to do? Doesn’t this endless, predictable round of supplication to strangers harm him somehow? Of course it does, but he won’t see it, because of his working paradigm. He won’t even see it as supplication.
Not to mention the damage that lays in his wake… the cultural damage, the bad karma as the cultural toxin spreads, and the inferences that women learn to attribute to men and their motives. And it’s not enough for our PUAs to confine this disease within the Anglosphere… some of them want to infect other cultures with it. But of course this is of secondary concern, at best, to the PUA. Because in his evo-psych paradigm with nature red in tooth and claw, he perceives himself to be the alpha at the top of the food chain, so he perceives himself to be the victor. Trouble is, that’s not how culture works. Is he really a higher level of human, an Übermensch? Or has he become something less than human, a gollum?
Feminism would never have occurred without the sexual revolution and the contraceptive technologies that made it possible. The idea of sex as a leisure activity, kick-started during the sexual revolution, played a crucial role in the rise of feminism. And it is integral to the PUA’s life purpose. The PUA was destined to emerge from the festering sore that is feminism, for he is a logical extension of feminism, the self-fulfilling reality of woman’s loathing of men. PUAs and feminists are like a dysfunctional brother and sister… they might despise one another, but they are two of a kind.
“We should count PUAs among them”
Absolutely! A man who builds his whole life around getting women to like him is a man who is being led around by women, whether he’s a white knight or a PUA. It doesn’t matter whether he gets 30 minutes in bed with her for every 23 1/2 hours he spends giving her whatever she wants, he’s still chained to her.
PUAs are basically a new, shiny dildo for female entertainment and pleasure. And any notion they have of being a “punishment” for women comes out of the female supremacist worldview.
One of the biggest problems that I have with PUAs is their belief that their lifestyle “punishes” women. This view comes from the paradigm that male sexuality is something evil, and that sex is something a man “takes” from a woman.
In reality, men have MUCH more to offer women than the other way around, and a healthy male awareness would see their own sexuality as a blessing to offer women worthy of it.
Paul you have found your center, the correct path so to speak. You are focusing on your own voice and have dismissed the internal dialogue that was written by your critics. You have fought the enemy, survived learned who are your allies and emerged victorious. Your revelation has clarified your mission. No longer lost in the wilderness. Okay enough cliches. Perhaps now is the time to write an official platform. By the way how is your health?
“Paul you have found your center, the correct path so to speak.”
Profound statement, that. When I find myself “out in the weeds”, foundering under attack and in danger of being baited into saying something I will later regret, I will come to AVFM first, read through the various thoughts and discussions, and I am able to return to the firing line with confidence, my thoughts in order, my heart in the right place, and truth on my side.
AVFM has never let me down yet, never veered off in a wrong direction or made a stand I could not support.
The inevitable result is ad hominen attacks and accusations of “you’re really a man pretending to be a woman”.
Ad hominen attacks are good. It means what I said was irrefutable.
“You’re really a man” grieves me. What it says to me is “women never tell the truth”, a premise accepted by so many women they don’t even realize they insulted/exposed themselves.
That last bit, in particular, really does hit the nail on the head. How can so many feminist adherants be so blind to the insults they’re heaping upon themselves and women in general?! Do you think they may actually be more accurate than they (or we) realise?
At this point in time – they are dead accurate.
thank you. I am still sucking air, have made some major improvements, though I have not found a solution to getting old
But I figure to have (hopefully) a couple of decades to FTSU before life does the same to me.
Right on brother. I’m asthmatic and these dog days in San Antonio are rough. I’m looking forward to the cooler air. Much easier to breath.
PUA blogs are a good source of recruits to the MRM since the people reading them seem to be disillusioned by male-female relations and open to the idea that things are not as they seem.
That said, PUA bloggers seem to make snarky, unhelpful criticisms of the MRM with undue regularity.
It could have been a useful alliance, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
I credit Game for making me wise to the wicked ways of women, before I came across men’s rights.
Yes.
Reaching the point of wanting to be productive in a balanced, logical manner, is a process. AVfM was not my first stop in the “Manosphere.” I followed Captain Capitalism’s links to Dalrock, and I spent months reading men’s sites, exploring and discussing various issues, problems, proposed solutions, and attitudes. THEN I ended up here as a supporter because the activism here points toward a better future for all men (women and children will benefit from it by default.) But make no mistake; it was that exploration and discovery that showed me how necessary activism is.
Slow, incremental activism isn’t a band-aid and it doesn’t sell a fantasy. Understanding “Game” cultivates Red Pill thinking, and GTOW withholds resources from feminist society, but neither addresses the future needs of civilization, and as we are inherently social creatures, civilization will continue, with or without our participation. PUA and GTOW are ways to cope with the present society that feminism has created. AVfM recognizes that society wasn’t always this way and society will continue to evolve, and that activism is a way to influence this evolution. PUA and GTOW can change individuals’ lives immediately, but activism can change EVERYBODY’S lives. Eventually. It will take time, patience, maturity and dedication.
Most men come to the Manosphere out of anger and fear, and they do a lot of venting as they absorb the reality of the Red Pill. Writers who depend on this anger and fear for an audience, have a lot of nerve calling it “whining.” I myself have used the word, but only to describe the men who never get past the “whining” stage. Those men are still choking on the Pill and might never fully swallow it, but they don’t represent the PUAs, the MGTOWs or the activists. For one writer to tell his own whiners how lame other writers’ whiners are, is pure hypocrisy.
Since the goals of the separate “branches” of the Manosphere are different, maybe unity is impossible, but enmity is just foolish.
The splintering of the MRM is not a bad thing..it is a sign that the movement is starting to grow and subgroups are forming to fill the niches.
I doubt it will surprise you much to see my personal opposition to this particular tack, Paul. I am a proponent of Game Theory, and believe a huge swath of the MRM could use an awful lot of education on women and their behaviour.
And why things went the way they did in their own lives.
The real value in Game theory is not in becoming a PUA (although, as I have said many times, the ‘starved for affection folks’ are the ones easily manipulated into selling men out wholesale), it is in understanding the basic drives in all of us, and how those drives tend to make us act.
Basically, Game theory picks up where the politically correct Masters and Johnson crowd feared to tread. Game theory utterly destroys many of the cultural myths indoctrinated into our society nearly from birth.
And anyone who has ever paid attention to the theory knows exactly how hard it is to penetrate the initial resistance to the ideas, as well as the sick feeling when Game is proven right.
And the even sicker feeling when you see all the spots you fucked up in previous encounters. Oh so painfully clearly.
Game is an essential component of the Red Pill, and in many cases is more then enough counter-cultural medicine to do the job.
Consider this very recent quote from a ‘game’ site…
Any of this sound familiar yet Paul?
They do what they do because to them, it is the most pressing social issue they have the power to help with.
Sort of exactly like us.
And frankly, there is a massive need to educate men on their own sexuality, the social apparatus erected to hem them in, and all the rest of it.
And nothing, but NOTHING will get a man’s attention like making him more attractive to women.
So tell me this, which ‘Mens Movement’ is more likely to grow:
“Gender Warriors” that understand and debate every nuance of the ‘-archy’ of the day, utterly sensitive to balance and political decorum, intellectual to a fault;
or
a bunch of guys that say “I don’t give a fuck what you want, Hell, YOU are the reason I have to do this in the first place’?
More to the point, the ‘special interest group’, or the guy waving his middle finger in the face of politicians and making demands?
We both know which has a better draw factor. Same shit applies to Game Theory.
Anyone who dismisses it as ‘pussy begging’ is doing nothing more than ‘justifying’ their own beliefs to themselves. PUAs, sure…they spend way too much time picking up women. They say we spend too much time hating on them.
I think we’re both right.
I’ve always thought that game and men’s rights were synergistic. My introduction to Heartiste via “The Misandry Bubble” was one of my most eye-opening and false-paradigm-shattering red pills. I don’t see why we can’t all partake of the buffet without sniveling about what others choose to add to their plates.
The short answer is because we can’t. That is not meant to be snarky toward you. The fact is that when one man goes to fill his plate, there will always be another trying slap it out of his hand and push his way into the food line.
Keep this in mind. The Misandry Bubble is a fantastic essay. The man who wrote it came to this site about a year ago, posting that I was the only real MRA in the movement, and outright disrespecting Angry Harry, who was an MRA long before I ever heard the term. I actually had to ban the author of the Misandry Bubble from this site. Well, rather I chose to, because, as I said, working MRAs have a place here where they will be treated with respect, or those screwing the pooh will be ousted.
Believe me, I wish things were different. I wish men in general were different. But hell, if they were we would not need a movement because Feminism would have been bitch slapped out of existence very early in the game.
Men are afflicted with mywayisrightism. It is only a small percentage that can see through that and work together in an environment that does not also stifle their individuality. I am shocked that we have managed so much of it here.
The good news is that the shit mongering never comes from MRAs that are doing real work. The Misandry Bubble? Great article. Great, single, article. What has he done since?
The shit stirrers in this movement are NEVER MRAs. Do you see Bob O’hara pissing on other MRAs? How about James Huff? John the Other? Dr. T? Typhonblue? Dan Moore? GWW? Dean Esmay? Agent Orange? Angry Harry? Robert St. Estephe? Fidelbogen?
Those that work constantly at this job don’t spend any of their time pissing on the others doing the same thing. They are too busy being actual MRAs to bother with it, and they are generally smart enough to see what a pointless endeavor it is.
But then go to the Game and PUA community and tell me what you see.
Wow. Thank you for taking the time to break that down for me, Paul. I had no idea about the author of the Misandry Bubble and what transpired with him here.
In the spirit of things, I’ll demonstrate my immense and renewed appreciation through postering. On a shoestring budget for money and time, so material gathering has been slow-going, but he who limps still moves forward.
Frankly, I don’t see strong positive visions ANYWHERE in this particular world. If the visions were strong, powerful, and complete, it’d be pretty hard to piss on the authors of or protagonists for those visions….at least without looking really really foolish (feminist) that is. Course, co-creating those shared visions depends on questioning the myth that “there will always be another trying slap it out of his hand and push his way into the food line.” In this particular dining hall, there’s more than enough ‘food’ to go around for everyone who is likely to ‘line up’ for the foreseeable future.
“that’s just the concept. I actually walk over, put my arm around her, kiss her on the forehead while holding her face with both of my hands in a semi-dominant manner, and say “Babe, just stop. Now let’s go. We’re going to be late for XYZ.””
And the MRM gives guys the tools to walk right past her and out the door saying, ‘I don’t need this abusive shit in my life.’
The problem is that this guy is _allowing_ this woman to continue to be part of his life. Unless she’s showing some sort of progress towards adulthood, why is he doing that? Why is he tolerating her behaviour and essentially living his life in reaction to her?
In my experience on AVFM radio, PUAs believe that the way women rank men reflects men’s real worth. They are deeply invested in the idea that men who get lots of pussy are better men then men who don’t. That this reflects some essential truth about their worth rather then a meaningless dance for approval.
IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with game theory. Where the wrong comes in is the belief that men’s value is reflected, in anyway, in the social approval granted by women.
It’s whoring. Except not for something with actual value like money, but for something men have been told all their lives that they can’t give themselves or each other. Social approval.
Game theory gives men the tools to seduce women successfully by learning the social dance that women are attracted to, thus stripping women of their ‘mystery’. But PUAs fail to take the next step and realize that seducing women is pointless approval seeking.
Why engage in an activity that’s often no more pleasurable then masturbation and quite often considerably less pleasurable? If you have no real intimacy with the woman you’re fucking, what exactly makes feral pussy better then masturbation? The only thing that women offer over fleshlights or hands-free masturbation strokers or tenga eggs is intimacy and the immature asshats that these men are placating don’t seem capable of understanding or cultivating intimacy.
What you describe there Typhon is the symbiotic nature of the MGTOW/MRM end of the sphere (and the MRM is decidedly leaning towards MGTOWish thinking) and the PUA end of the sphere.
You are absolutely right the PUA tendency to look at female approval as the yardstick by which we measure ourselves is overblown. They also have a point when they say “Hey, Biology man” right back at us. In Evolutionary terms, they are exactly right…he who fucks most, wins.
But this is where the Traditionalists have a point when they say “Yeah, but Civilization is the triumph of Reason over Biology”.
And the MRAs and MGTOWs then say “Civilizations like this aren’t worth preserving”.
At which point the PUA folds his hands and smiles.
We go around and around like this because the ‘answer’ doesn’t lie in any one camp. The center of gravity the various groups cannot escape is what I call the Zeta Point.
The point of balance between the need for female approval, and enough self worth to walk away from disrespect. Between the need to maintain some form of civilization, and the strength to throw the parts that are destructive on the trash heap. Between love for women as counterparts, and the reality they have become competitors.
MRAs can teach others valuable lessons. But it’s imperative we remember that others have just as many lessons, that are just as important, to teach us.
This is why I went MGTOW in a nutshell.
1. Sex with women is often less fun than masturbation.
2. Sex with women is profoundly more dangerous than masturbation.
3. The only unique selling point that sex with women has over masturbation is the intimacy factor.
4. How many women are available with whom I would even want to have an intimate relationship? How do I sort those molecules out of the landfill?
5. Thus, MGTOW.
I think that you are overlooking that sometimes men do need this shit. Sometimes its not about intimacy beyond the simple human touch that elevates casual sex above someones own hand, and sometimes all that is available to fill a need is that feral pussy, as you put it.
I also think its important that we recognize shit tests as a way an abuser can test out their power, slapping them down with a swift “just stop it” effectively show an abuser that they are powerless. This sort of behaviour, the simple act of teaching men to stand up and disarm their abuser could help countless men end the abuse and force the abusers to either grow up or do without.
Sounds like game theory is more about the interpersonal dynamics between individuals. Sounds like Paul is leaning more towards big picture, executive decisions, global perspective…etc. That’s actually fine. He’s just promoted himself from field lieutenant to general. For a man in his position (a crossroads of sorts) his decision makes perfect sense.
The Big Picture is nothing more than a mosaic made up of a whole bunch of little pictures. Read Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series for a better understanding of the concept.
Hey Dan,
I was watching my watch till you showed up.
Let me just clarify. As you can see in the article, this has absolutely nothing to do with a critique of Game theory, PUAs in general, or anything like that. It is simply the observation that the entity we know as the man-o-sphere is useless to us as activists. I hold by that and figure it can’t be reasonably refuted.
And even if they were just philosophical dead weight, it still goes back to the fact that these guys are not only not allies, they are quick with a shiv in the back to MRAs any time they suspect it may serve them to be that way.
No thanks, AVfM is passing.
I see the value in what you’re doing here, sure…just think the execution is a bit…extreme. Roosh V is no friend to the MRM, sure…but then he hardly ever get referenced in the MRM either, and frankly I think he’s jealous a bit. Roissy sure as fuck benefited from the cross pollination though.
A lot of the criticisms I see coming from the ‘game’ end of the sphere are more the form of a big brother telling someone to tone it down, or a friend smacking a buddy who is getting out of hand. Sort of like we do right back at them.
But my main point really is that ‘divorcing’ the MRM (or even AVfM) from the Manosphere is an impossibility. We are a small, pointy part on a much larger body.
I see the futility of trying to drag the rest along with us, and if it’s the refusal of that burden you’re getting at here, I’m right with you.
But this sudden move to censorship outright of even lines of thinking that is seemingly rushing over the Mens Movement is both scary as fuck, and a huge limiting force on our future growth and influence.
Like the shit going on at r/mensrights, the limitation of discourse inherent in this sort of stance, the UNAVOIDABLE thouight policing that will result, is anathema to what this whole movement is about.
We are FOUNDED upon asking the difficult questions. Our whole movement is based on accepting seemingly unrelated truths, making connections that are ‘unpopular’, etc.
Do I really have to draw a conclusion here for you Paul? This ‘focus’ needs to be more about taking on the knowledge applicable, and less about personal feelings and the preservation of myths.
Game theory is essential to the Mens Movement having any success at all.
“Game theory is essential to the Mens Movement having any success at all.”
We seem to be making things happen here with posters and home made glue. I don’t see Game figuring in.
Sorry Dan, I have to remove a couple of beers from the case I know I owe you.
Not so fast beer thief!
The very same social forces that make Game so ‘unacceptable’ are he same ones driving White Knights, and Manginas – as well as the vast majority of nebulous ‘social support’ for ‘womens issues’.
The popping of the Princess is achieved better, and quicker, through the dissemination of Game than anything else.
In fact, without a realistic view of women in place, the MRM is viewed almost universally as ‘misogynistic’, as you well know. So the MRM is not the one doing the educating.
One feeds, and betters, the other. That’s the carroty bit. The sticky bit, is that censorship leads to dogma leads to thought policing leads to totalitarian attitudes.
So it all comes down to intent really. If you’re simply saying we’ve got our hands full with the activism stuff, and theory can find another home…well, there’s sense in that. And hopefully that’s it. Because I hate the idea of trying to ‘ideologically hone’ the MRM in such a manner.
@ Factory
“So it all comes down to intent really. If you’re simply saying we’ve got our hands full with the activism stuff, and theory can find another home…well, there’s sense in that.”
Yep, and especially when the theorists and their brainwashed little followers are so fond of the idea that trashing us is good for the art of pussy begging and looking tough.
It is time we put aside the theory for a moment and just recognize that the doosh bags selling it, who are the ones who have the pulpit, are no more aligned with us than GMP.
Fuck ‘em.
I think I feel a man crush brewing Paul, lol. You tell em!
Pro-mens rights = Pro-men … what would the world be like with out us, what if we left ?
I agree quolls, I hate how Feminists have taken the genuine care one man can have for another and turned it into a negative. I am taking it back. I will use “Man Crush” Freely and openly. If they can have girlfriends and bff’s then I can have a fucking man crush!
Nothing wrong with a multi pronged approach. Effect change at the interpersonal level with game theory. Broadcast the message through mass media. Seems perfectly sensible to me.
I assume we are attributing an altogether new meaning to “Game Theory” for the purpose of this discussion. Game Theory (Prisoner’s dilemma, Nash equilibrium, that kind of stuff) has little to do with Game in the PUA sense. Evolutionary Psychology draws heavily on Game Theory. Manyard Smith for example was hardly classifiable as a PUA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Theory_of_Games
As a methodology for analysing social interactions, Game Theory is unobjectionable.
Only thing is that these teachers/bloggers never actually teach what is happening behind the curtain. They know there are social issues, but out of ignorance or whatever, they simply don’t care about the plights of other men. They’re too busy fighting over eachother to get pussy.
I did “game” for 5 years of college. It was fun, sure. I got laid, yeah… but with that came everything wrong. Health issues/STD’s…. (wrapping up doesn’t stop infection)
I took that knowledge of game and women’s nature to my advantage and focused it onto my career at the time. It worked, I got ahead in life. It was then that I stopped caring about women and became a leader.
Then I found this site and learned about the men/women actually doing work to change the system.
The real activists.
Game can be good… but fuck these assholes for attempting to shame us for not conforming. I feel sorry for them.
I’m not a PUA, I’m not an MRA…. I’m just one man trying to make sense of this world.
PUAs and MGTOWs are the same damned thin in my books…so that might help in understanding where I come from on this sort of thing. I think for the most part, PUAs simply deal with the reality in front of them, and don’t worry about the future ramifications (while others are fully aware of the destructive effects of Game, and take nihilistic glee in the knowledge).
I truly do think PUAs are just another coping mechanism, and thus a symptom as well as part of a solution. Hell, being a PUA doesn’t preclude being an MGTOW at all, except for some reason MGTOW has become associated with celibacy.
But the simple truth is it’s not an argument worth having. Unless censorship…in which case also disappointment.
I haven’t notice the schism. There’s too much good work to be done for me to entertain the banal grumblings of internet-stimulation junkies, and AVfM is the one site that brings it all together and makes it seem worthwhile to me. It’s like the old saying, “The dogs will bark, but the caravan moves on.”
The posters will keep going up. Eyes will continue to open. Pressure will continue to grow against injustices worldwide. When it comes to men’s rights, I have no time to think or care about anything less than inevitable and total victory, regardless of whether it’s realized in my lifetime or not.
I think to the spirit of this article we are largely past the point where it makes sense anymore to engage in internecine bickering (which all groups, of all kinds, are all guilty of, by the way, nothing special about men here, else there would be no such four-dollar word as “internecine”).
It is time to claim nobility. Claim the mantle of leadership offered when others show up to follow but when leadership was not requested and has even been until now turned down.
Time as a noble would to decline the provocations and side-shows and simply “rise above the fray” without continuing to respond to any of this, in fact demonstrate nobility by being above it. Given sufficient leadership any splintering will likely turn out to be as significant as the NOI slitting from the larger Civil Rights movement, and otherwise largely illusory in the long run.
Folks are here to follow – to contribute and sometimes disagree – but to follow and drive change. It’s a watershed. A “strategic inflection”. Paul, I think people are ready to follow, you.
I have been a fan of yours from the start Paul.
You have an amazing team.
I have got over my own crazy, with AVFMs red pill help.
Our London Group may have 8 MRAs men and woman in our next meeting. A lot of us boys have been pretty screwed up, but were still here.
When we are more set up you’ll hear more.
If you want to start up a group in your town/city advertise on the MRA sites for one, I did and its brought some special people together all with red pill understanding only.
Here is our one rule.
Our only Rule so far.
Subject priory is given to the activist who is doing something now.
All topical discussions come secondary, and are welcome in respect to this.
It will keep us sharper, and our most active MRAs from loosing interest in the group purpose.
You sir, will succeed, and succeed for all of us. This is precisely how you do it.
My hat is off to you.
This is the first time in the history of civilization (that I know of), where men have attempted to organize a social movement writ large against women. The over-reach of the feminist movement necessitated it.
It’s natural to want to gather arms and mount an attack against an enemy tribe (of men and women), but one gender against another? It seems absurd until feminists were able to so adeptly pull it off, before anyone even noticed. And now they’re so powerful financially and politically, they have too much to lose if they declare victory and march home. So they create little battles where none exist…only furthering the demise of fathers and sons.
This is the perception whereas the reality is we’re not fighting women or even feminism. We’re just fighting the myths and lies propogated throughout pop culture and influencing politics/policy. We’re merely asking for some intellectual honesty here. Dropping the pretext of victimhood, to swing the bias your way. Hey it’s worked for five thousand years!
But you see it FEELS like it’s men organizing an attack against Team Woman, because if you’re exposing feminist lies, you must be against feminism and if you’re against feminism you must hate women…because that’s how they so brilliantly set it up; regardless of the fact there are more women than ever claiming “Feminists don’t speak for ALL women!”.
“Men’s Rights”; what the very term alone seems to convey, is tricky business. To the extent anyone comprehends it at all, they think it’s insane. It’s as if a re-branding is in order which contains neither the word “Men” or “Rights” in it. But at the same time speaks truth to (feminist) power.
You can’t model the MRM from any other social movement before it, including feminism. Because “Men” and “Rights” is a complete paradigm shift in consciousness. This will take a long time. We just need a break; keep probing like an insurgency might. It could happen.
“It seems absurd until feminists were able to so adeptly pull it off, before anyone even noticed.”
But did they, keyster? Was it, in fact, the original “up-front” feminists themselves who were so adept? I’m inclined to suppose not, but that they were more like the dumb instruments of much larger and more adept influences and manipulators.
Just my own assessment, of course. I could be wrong. What do you think?
Feminism was a part of the overall huge cultural shift that took place in the 1960′s. From the traditional, evil, “Establishment” to the hip, cool, laid back social justice movement.
The free sex, the groovy drugs and the righteous protest music. Feminism rode the cultural tide into the shore and remained. Big Money keeps them entrenched.
I can live with that. We may differ very slightly with regard to “cause and effect”, but I think we’re quite closely in agreement on the essentials. Somewhat amazing as our nominal politics are probably not similar.
Jeez, do you think there’s a chance that “left” and “right” fragmentation might be a part of the plot and that we advocates for men’s human rights might collectively find overwhelmly common ground?
The women’s movement hijacked the civil rights movement, which was anything BUT “hip, cool, OR laid back.”
Once the attack dogs, fire bombings, beatings and fire hoses were safely tucked away, THEN women stepped in to snatch the ultimate prize away from the men who earned it.
Women have NEVER broken a nail, much less taken a bullet for their “rights”.
‘Men’ and ‘rights’ are a paradigm shift with the potential to radically change culture in more profound ways than feminism. As such, men’s rights will be bitterly resisted by the powers that be. A change in culture requires activism that reinforces ideas that reinforces activism. MRAs can be judged by the strength of their opponents.
”It’s natural to want to gather arms and mount an attack against an enemy tribe (of men and women), but one gender against another? It seems absurd until feminists were able to so adeptly pull it off, before anyone even noticed.”
I don’t know keyster, only, as you say, men organizing against women seems absurd. Women are always in a constant state of doing as much damage as they possibly can to men as a group. All they do with any power they have is attack men, always. We always say it, feminism isn’t anything new, it’s the old (one sided) battle of the sexes, ‘feminism’ is really just the name we give to women’s crushing victories of every front.
I’d definately agree that this is the first time men have organized anything that even remotely resembles an real effort to resist or retaliate, I guess it either works out or it’s off to join the Romans.
Like the old IRA saying “Tiocfaidh ár lá!”, “Our day will come!”
The fattest and stinkiest truth will win, always.
MRA, PUA, MGTOW are all still Men regardless of political belief or personality type. Though we build, create and thrive through mutual cooperation and teamwork, the fact is that Men have been mercilessly set upon each other to compete for the almighty vag, since before the dawn of time. This is and always will be a tough social hurdle for us to overcome. The idea of subsisting under the herd or socialist mindset, just makes most of us want to retch, quite honestly.
Bottom line is we just don’t like to lean on or put too much trust in others. Especially other Men, who according to our social programming should always be seen as potential threats in our perpetual pursuit of pussy.
According to our socially engineered hard wiring, we Men can and should be able to do it all ourselves anyway, without any charity or help from others and certainly not other Men and we should consider said charity or help as a deviant weakness, just as all of society does, as long as it is Men who are on the receiving end of it.
This archaic and absurd notion of Males as adversarial to each other for mating rights by default, has to be done away with completely and permanently and it will be, eventually.
For now though, the trends I mentioned still seem pretty prevalent.
At 40 I like sex just as much as I did when I was 20. At twenty though the urge was almost too distracting. Now I have no patience for the pretense of the construct of courtship. All I ever wanted was a woman to love and have a family with. I never wanted a competitor for the rewards of the family dynamic. I want friendship someone to trust to cover my back not stab me in it. Reality was a bitter pill. I am painfully disappointed.
OT
Another article about not finding Mr Right. I think these are opportunities to keep sending our message, because they keep ignoring the elephant in the room.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/do-you-suffer-from-emotional-infertility/story-fnet09p2-1226465410740
My Comment, which they posted.
“One of the many problems caused by our completely Feminized society is that the Family unit has been decimated. Marriage and children has become the most dangerous things a man can do in his life. With the divorce rate at over 50% in most of the western world, and the savage financial and emotional beatings handed to Fathers and their children on a daily basis by Feminist inspired Family Courts, Marriage and Cohabitation are being avoided by men. More and more men are going their own way, and this phenomenon will only grow until Fathers rights are restored.”
Silly boy. The answer comes from Joan of Melbourne:
“Men today are so horrible – they dont want comittment, just porn, hookers, booze and anything else they fancy. How the hell can they be marriage material ???”
Now don’t you feel ridiculous about interjecting your frivolous male concerns into such a serious discussion of women’s emotional infertility? Or was that emotional immaturity? One can never be quite sure.
Thanks for the link, Turbo. I decided to pile on too … though I’m not expecting this to be published:
‘Emotional infertility?’ Might there be a possibility that it’s caused by the emotional immaturity that today’s society enables and even promotes among women? A society that gives women the ‘right’ to disavow, renounce, escape the consequences of their actions; a society that gives all the privilege to the women and all the responsibility to the men; that constantly sells the viewpoint that men are less-than-human, fit to be cheated and lied to and fleeced and hated and mutilated even at birth, fit to be milked dry and then casually discarded, and still expected to be the draft horses drawing forth some ‘have it all’ woman’s Disney-princess fantasies? Good luck with that.
Sounds like a “Glen Sacks” moment
What’s next …. a board of directors
Appointing a publicist spin doctor
Forming positions …………
(yes we here at AVFM recognize the problem referred to as “rape culture” but we do not believe that it should grow into a “prison culture” we are looking at reform or recycling if you will. We cannot afford male landfill. So we are thinking green on “rape culture”)
Registering a non-profit.
Shaping campaigns
Networking with other groups and bloggers
I’m a *** fearing man but an atheist when it comes to feminism and the MRM.
Feminism is a movement to create a layer of entitled alpha females. Another layer of corrupt bureaucratic succubus in contrast to the incubus already installed.
It does not benefit women.
MRM is an echo chamber used to justify a feminist agenda……they control the narrative.
PUA sell themselves as benevolent sexists, just like the white knights and manginas.
Sorry I’ll shut up now.
LOL. I think i just heard Sacks groan.
I know I did, but for very different reasons.
I don’t think integrity is a one size fits all, but it is a common motivator. I agree with your article position.
Not every man is a father, or a PUA, or a rapist. But in the manosphere every man is an idiot and there is no escape.
Nothing against putting up posters around town but what the men’s rights movement needs to start doing is putting up full page adds in the New York Times on a weekly basis and keep doing it for the next 30 years. Ram this shit down their throats.
That is an excellent idea. The donation button is on the right side of the home page. Your substantial donation will help toward realizing your plan.
Your talking a 2 hundred thousand dollar a year + campaign local to one city. As part of a business model you need to be pulling 2 mil annual to justify that expenditure. Which would take 8-12 months to achieve if the will existed. (non-profit)
Learn to use other peoples money to advertise the controversial side of the argument. Go green to get red.
We could also hire banner-towing planes but these things cost money. In the meantime we can resort to ant smuggling tactics. Go to the poster page, download, print and disseminate. There are men out there who’ve been frustrated with feminism for years but who don’t even know there’s such a thing as a men’s movement. If you can recruit 5 of them within the next 5 years you will have earned your keep.
Its clear men women and children are hurting because of feminism. Perhaps this site can broaden its scope. A Voice for Humanity perhaps?
Making it Right Movement a personal destination in a sea of political obfuscation.
If you don’t make the political personal Who will budget your future and the future of your children?
Nope. This is a voice for men. Every where else is a voice for women, and children, and dogs, and single cell organisms of the lowest order.
Agreed.
As long as men are outed from the rest of humanity, this should continue being a voice for men.
Agree AVFM should remain a melting pot of male consciousness
Dedicate a different website then. What effects men impacts society. Its clear the things we read and discuss here has impacted our families horribly. From the time we were children until now. I agree we need AVfM. My life has improved dramatically since I found this site. My marriage is improving as well. The wife is starting to realize she isn’t royalty and I’m not the butler. Shit tests are less frequent and less intense. She is becoming more cooperative and less combative. She is realizing il not the asshole society has told her I would be.
‘Dedicate a different website then.’
Wonderful idea, jms5762. I eagerly await your bringing it forth. I might even link to your website from mine. Paul might even link to your website from here!
Well, someone can dedicate a different website, and that site can join the zillion others that cater for all those things.
I see it like this. Someone might come in here and say for example……you guys spend all of your time fighting for men’s rights…..and only men’s rights….like there is not another thing in the world that matters. I say, there are plenty of other things in the world that matter, and those things are being dealt with by other sites……when they dedicate some of their resources to fighting injustice against men……maybe we can give some attention to the plight of the whales for instance. Their site is set up to fight for that…….ours is set up to fight for men’s rights. That is what I give my hard earned dollars and time for……and that is all I want it used for.
The day we start worrying about children starving in some third world country, or some woman’s problem somewhere, anywhere……is the day we start to be co-opted. Avoiceformen doesn’t need to devote one single cent, or one single word to any other causes….because they are all being dealt with elsewhere, and with much more funding, time, and concern for all of them then men will ever get on the best day we have in the history of the universe.
Do you know why we have such amazing women at avoiceformen, and have no un-amazing women here. I know. I’ll share the secret with you, and it’s something very similar to what I have used in my personal life for many years. You decide what sort of women you want in your life…..or……at avoiceformen……..same thing. Then…..you behave in a way…..that will drive all but the type of women you want…….away. You don’t budge from your position….not one inch. The result is that the only women you have sticking around….are the ones you want. You allow no cracks for others to stick a jimmy in and force open.
If we for instance started sucking up to…..women’s problems….and spent either time, money, or other resources attending to them…..we would have a whole bunch of new women coming and joining. And they would be legitimate, because we would be officially concerned with the things that concern them. And we would end up co-opted.
There is nothing else to do here except fight for men’s rights…..and fight against feminism. That is the gig……there is nothing else…..there is no reason to be here if that is not your agenda.
When women come here and start saying…..but what about the womenz……my attitude is to say…..fuck off and die bitch. And I’m a brick wall……I just don’t want to fucking hear about it……..no cracks to open up…..no place to worm in. Fight for us guys…..or fuck off. I see it exactly like someone complaining to a bum in the street who has just scored himself a sandwich out of bin, that only has one bite taken out of it, and someone saying to him……hey….you greedy bastard…..what about those rich dudes over there…..they are hungry too…….give some to them.
I know that sounds a bit like….I have no interest in women’s issues at all….and they can serve our purpose…..or die. Well, no……I have a wife….I have several intimate female friends etc etc. And I’ve spent most of my life…putting some woman’s interests ahead of my own. But this place is where we put men’s interests ahead of everything else…….for me….it’s the total exclusion of everything else.
In the rest of my life, my money is co-opted for the benefit of others, my time, my labour, my taxes etc etc. The MRM side of my life, is one area where all my efforts and anything I give is going to be for the benefit of guess who…….men….and nobody else.
Having said that, if any female MRA was in need, my hand goes straight out to help if I can. Because they’re worth it
You know what I would like for the future, and what I think will happen eventually. The MRM grows, to massive size, and gains a degree of social, political, and legal influence. At some point after that, as soon as possible, we morph into an egalitarian movement, which we actually are anyway. We become known as the “Zetarians” or something along those lines, which is truly concerned with equity between people…not outcomes….opportunities….and in accountability and responsibility as well. But we have a ways to go before that happens. I reckon it’s possible that we could reach that point in ten years. It all depends on our rate of growth and the motivation of those we are taking on board.
Who knows how long it will take, but I know one thing, it is not now.
Wish I could give you a whole lot more upvotes for that comment, Stu.
Standing ovation, man.
“There are lots of good MRAs, but there is no MRM. Men won’t allow one to get formed, because every time some MRA starts to get some traction, other men take him down.”
Not so fast. Groups always tend to go through a ‘storm, form, and norm’ process. Given the incredibly complicated nature of this work, it’s likely that that process will be longer, stormier and more drawn out…than say your average pickup ball game. Leadership is about using every bit of constructive/destructive criticism possible…however ‘stormy’, to form the norm….so that the largest group of people as is possible can be brought into the norm. (In fact, great organizations often have black teams to constantly FTSU as INSIDERS for the white teams’ benefit…and to strengthen the organization in terms of better anticipating real world risks AFTER THE NORM IF FORMED. This tends to breakdown the kind of stupid cult-like group think that our favorite ‘friends’ are infamous for.) The key here is not to take things personally but to USE the stormiest stuff to improve the game…and to form shared consensus which will create powerful norms. There’s a big difference between taking someone down…and taking SOME of his/her ideas down.
Loads of up votes on your comment. Groups which are heavy in activist personalities are tough work to find the sweet spot for performance, in part because finding the norm is a tough ask when you got gobby folk with strong opinions (I’m counting myself in that description!)
Yet I know from experience if you can get there activist heavy groups move fast and cover huge ground.
In my workplace 80% are reflectors, with one or two each of theorists, activists and pragmatists. I’m even on the last two…and I regularly lose the will to live in team meetings
“Regularly lose the will to live in team meetings.”
Love that statement. Moving effectively, quickly and covering the right ground is what I’m interested in here. By concentrating power on rapid movements toward the heart of the beast before the beast is able to react…means less need to waste precious blood on taking and holding huge ground. That’s why Vision for Males/Men is so important.
Which is exactly why I don’t believe in politics. It’s all a scam designed to distract men and women from what’s happening behind the curtain…. It gets society to fight eachother instead of making changes in the world. It’s a waste of HUMAN potential.
We have those tribes of people fighting eachother. It’s all these groups, politicians, nationhood, races, feminists, pua’s, white-knights, mra’s. All at eachothers throats… I’m just tired.
I don’t want to spam the video here but if you search up “Joe Rogan – American War Machine” then you’ll know exactly how I think.
If that makes me an extremist… then so be it. I will happily sleek off into the darkness and continue going my own way until there is daylight again.
Men are disposable. Society can lose millions and carry on regardless. Women are more reproductively valuable, and are therefore protected, and pandered to.
It was ever thus, and I personally don’t believe it will ever change. All that’s happened in the last 40+ years in the west is that feminists have exploited the technological shift ushered in by the invention of the pill to take an already-existing tendency and push it completely over the top. I do not believe it is possible to over-emphasise enough the paradigm shift which the introduction of The Pill in the mid-60s represented. It simply changed everything.
I don’t think there’s much purpose in even trying to change things now. It’s naive and pointless; all we should be focused on is educating men, especially young men and boys, so that they can make informed choices in the full understanding of the reality of their situation.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to become PUAs or MGTOW, they’ll just be able to call bullshit when they see it, and that will give them the ability to prioritise their needs.
When I look at the – frankly pathetic – young men holding up signs as part of that Australian university’s anti-AvFM campaign, I see immediately what the problem is.
These young men have not been properly fathered.
I have three wonderful young boys who I adore beyond anything. If I caught one of them doing such I thing I would be utterly speechless. My reaction would be completely beyond revulsion, it would be sheer disbelief. If I found out my son had taken part in a ‘walk a mile in her shoes event’ I would – well to be honest it just wouldn’t happen – I cannot imagine what the fathers of these young men are thinking. To perform such an act of self-hating gender debasement would lead me to believe I’d utterly failed as a father.
Education should be our focus.
I disagree Sasha. Men will stop prioritizing women because they will be forced too. I don’t know what point it will be when that is reached, every guy has a different threshold. But feminism is never going to draw a line in the sand and say, this is the line we do not cross. They will push on and on forever, wanting more for them…..less for men. And as they do that, more men, and fair minded women will join us. Their support base is shrinking now, and ours is growing, and the more they ramp up their meat grinding machine of draconian laws, the faster they will turn out enemies for themselves.
I agree, it is things like the pill, and a whole heap of other male invented technology that has enabled feminism. But believe me, it will all be taken away if feminism isn’t stopped, because none of it can be maintained without the vast majority of men having the incentive to continue maintaining this extremely complex society, with it’s extremely long supply chains……and all it takes…..is some broken links.
You see what happened in Greece when the government tried to introduce austerity measures. Well the whole western world is heading the way Greece has gone…..and the only thing that saved Greece from devolving into perpetual riots and mayhem…..is bailouts. Who do you think will bail out the entire western world? I’ll answer that…..nobody. Nobody could even if they wanted to.
I’ll give you another clue. In world that is over populated…and consuming every resource at a pace that can not go on…..women’s fertility is not worth a cracker. In fact, it’s a detriment. Even with the pill…..which apparantly women can be trusted with…..and men can not…..and even with abortions…..of which millions are carried out every year…..the worlds population has grown faster then at any time in history. No matter what feminists say….men will have to get their own pill sooner or later……and then…..you’ll see another game changer.
For one, our message and our information, is going to get out to men. Most men aren’t even aware of how fucked up family law is…..and that is the only reason most are still willing to marry and have kids. As the news of what a shit sandwich gets out…..and the male pill comes along…….the west is going to be faced with two options…….get rid of all the anti male laws……or rely on massive immigration of third worlders to maintain our population. And that means….our culture….and everything in it……eventually passing into history…and maybe even the white race……becoming extinct. And you know something…..if we can’t rise up and get rid of feminism any other way……i say bring it on….the sooner the better.
Well said Stu…I wait with great anticipation for the day the male pill or injection or IUD is invented!
Not so fast! As we speak loads of men are already paying alimony for children everyone knows are not theirs. No amount of technology can keep out of danger you in a cesspool of corruption.
I see women increasingly resorting to sperm banks and parternity 1.0 (biological paternity) giving way to paternity 2.0 (man pays no matter what).
The male pill will rock the boat for a while if it ever gets marketed. But the fems will regroup like an oil slick when you punch a whole in it.
… and that’s the hard thing about talking to the masses, Paul, unless you talk very superficial things.
A few really understand what is been saying, a lot want to twist it, and some even pays the second group to do so.
Every activism, even those successful, face this hard reality.
Courage and move always forward.
I see some anti-feminist value in what gamers do, but if bagging girls is your goal in life, you have a sad life.
Anyway, like I said in their blogs, I see this war as useless.
Keep up the good job, Paul. Your work is catching on (I am typing from Lisbon, Portugal).
Thank you, and will do, brother!
This site sure feels like the phoenix of the online men’s world.
In mala fide and heartiste were a bit like our Andrea Dworkin; batshit insane, but shocking enough to grab attention and begin the debate
The PUA people are generally scam artists. The endless debates over who is an alpha male were embarrassing to everyone.
By contrast, everything on here is well-reasoned and free of vitriol. It can only be a matter of time before the basic assumptions of the movement begin to filter down into pop-culture
Terms get flung around with no agreed-upon definition behind them
————————————-
Zed said that. And good grief do I agree. It breaks out here in these comments regularly, this tendency to intellectual peacockery we men have. Irony, zed is as bad or worse about it as the rest of us. he spent an entire day splitting hairs over my screen name one day and didn’t know a damn thing about me.
NOT ONE can take the position of looking down on it from above, but man is that a coveted position.
Its dangerous pointing out that others are pointing you out, having said that I can say that you Paul do manage to keep your boat steering in more meaningful ways than most, maybe than all, and you get things done besides prattling.
Im done prattling ’bout that.
The way ‘Human Stupidity’ writes, it comes off as promoting his own personal sexual tastes & rules, and not really a men’s movement deal. Maybe its the style of writing but that’s how I read it. Just seems out there and not directly to supporting our cause.
Regarding Paul’s piece. Personally, I’m scared to death and angry as hell. Scared b/c I don’t want to become a brute, uncaring or indifferent to others plights, yet I’m angry b/c my good nature is ALWAYS being taking advantage of especially by women. So should I be an asshole or a nice guy? I feel pissed too b/c I feel like I’m forced to choose between the two, rather than balancing fighting for what’s right and being assertive, with being a good citizen and decent human being.
Seems like everytime I’m ‘nice’ I get fucked. And I’m tired of it. So I get Paul and I do get the tough stances he takes – this is a war; a societal and cultural and legal and emotional war it is. You don’t win wars being ‘nice’. I don’t know if any of this makes sense to anyone or not…just what I’ve been feeling for awhile.
The way ‘Human Stupidity’ writes, it comes off as promoting his own personal sexual tastes & rules, and not really a men’s movement deal.
You imply HS is pushing his own agenda. Why shouldn’t he? The only agenda common to all MRAs is to get feminism off our backs. This doesn’t prevent me from pushing other men’s agenda along with mine. I have no children. I shall retire in a couple of years to a country yet unplagued by feminism. If I had only my own agenda at heart I would say to hell with divorced men and their child custody battles. They were stupid enough to marry and procreate while I myself had a vasectomy. Indeed, the more such men get married and taken to the cleaners, the better for me. Let women finance their lazy asses by skinning husbands, ex-husbands and divorded fathers. Let men marry in droves and have children. When men stop falling into the trap, the State will come after MY pension.
Only I realise everyone who has an axe to grind with feminism is my ally and my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Should issues like age-gap laws and prostitution laws be kept on a back burner for tactical reasons? Maybe they should but IMHO not in the comments section whose purpose is to allow internal discussion and prevent us from being blinded by our own propaganda (propaganda should be directed at the enemy, not at each other).
The attitude of the more conservative, family-oriented MRAs to age-gap issue illustrates the way men all too often dig their own graves. They will easily gang up on an other man lucky enough to land a wife or a lover 20 years his junior because “it’s a shame: he’s old enough to be her father”! That’s it folks: old enough to be her father!. Then you wonder you get kicked out of your daughters’ life by the family court. Because to the marriage whore it matters not that you are your daughter’s father (you aren’t 20% of the time according to DNA studies). The marriage whore wants you out. You are, after all, old enough to be, remember, you are an aging male, you look at porn don’t you (court exhibit n° 1, copy of the hard drive), father or not you can’t be trusted around teenage females, why should you? You so badly wanted other men to be kept away as long as possible from your daughters through all kind of legal trickery, now you’re out yourself.
The age-gap laws are not meant to prevent American men from approaching younger American women. They are meant to make it illegal for American men to go abroad for sex and love. As such they should be resisted by any MRM worthy of the name. The fems should not be left to decide the sexual agenda of men!
Being dumb here, can you direct me to any law that says that a man or woman can not have an intimate relationship with someone over the age of consent who is more than 20 years their junior?
There are social pressures not to…but laws?
“Maybe they should but IMHO not in the comments section whose purpose is to allow internal discussion and prevent us from being blinded by our own propaganda (propaganda should be directed at the enemy, not at each other).”
Need to correct you here. In the most basic sense, the comment section, being that I own it, is for whatever purpose I designate. That is not meant to be a chip on my shoulder, but just a statement of fact about my rights to my own intellectual property.
That being said, I will tell you what the comment section is for, indeed, why I even have one here at all. It is because it is part of the propaganda.
I think if you will check around that the method of choice for gender ideologues is to comment mine for their propaganda about us. They do this because our article content is slim pickings for tools to use against us, so they go to where the community voice is more diverse and subject to instantaneous outbursts of thoughtlessness, which anyone can do.
That was the case with HS, in my opinion. Nothing mind you that warranted banning him or other action, but that did provide a seriously choice opportunity for ideologues to paint the entire environment in the most egregious of ways.
And let’s be honest here, shall we? You don’t mean “age gap” laws. No such thing as that. What you are talking about are “age of consent” laws, as was HS.
Age of consent laws may be appropriate to be challenged and vetted in other arenas, I don’t know, but here they are a lose-lose.
There are other examples of this, like abortion. It is another no win, especially since AVfM has no editorial stand on the issue. Like the matter of age of consent, it can only bring division, and for an issue that will garner nothing for the men’s movement in the current climate.
All it can do is provide a wide streak of surface level ore for comment miners, and gains us nothing.
I urge you to remember, this is an activist website. Though it provides a lot of intellectual stimulation, its purpose is not as a think tank. Though there is quite a bit of latitude on posting, it is not a free speech zone. One thing it is not for sure is a silver platter for the singularly focused to present discussion on ideas that can only hurt us.
Not too long ago I banned someone for attacking gay men, rather for refusing to stop (I did give him a chance). He wrote me just a couple of days ago indicating he would like permission to post again, but could not promise that he would not assert his religiously based ideas that homosexuality was wrong.
He will not be joining us again.
I take the same view of anyone gratuitously trashing religion. And I say that as an Atheist.
The reason for this goes right back to the fact that this is about the activism and the propaganda.
I know it pisses some off, but of course I am not here to be popular.
AVfM is its own corner of the men’s movement. And here, this is the way we do it. I hold no grudges against others that want to do it differently, but they have to do it elsewhere.
This is a rare occasion, not only do I disagree with you Paul. I do so strongly enough that I must express it.
“Age of consent laws may be appropriate to be challenged and vetted in other arenas, I don’t know, but here they are a lose-lose.”
Granted, the manner in which some attempt to discuss this issue, it is not in our best interest to “go there” at all. But, it is an activist issue that we really need to look at and figure out a better plan than any currently in place.
What I mean is for starters, having a birthday should never turn a boy from a boyfriend into a sex offender. As happens whenever government is involved in anything, they tend to create a whole bunch of new problems where none existed before in an effort to curtail a single problem.
California surprisingly has made an attempt at addressing this issue with a floating years difference/based on age- age of consent statute. I found this when looking into the false paternity accuser of one Justin Beiber (can’t stand the kids music), the statutes in the locale the false accuser named and the ages of the people involved meant that under the law, by her own accusation that woman should have been booked on the spot and charged with statutory rape. She was not. This strikes me as very similar to the discrimination that P. Emeritus discusses in his latest article. The law says something very plainly but it is applied in a very biased manner.
http://www.ageofconsent.com/california.htm
That is their statute as it stands today. Where if a 21 year old turns 22 before their boyfriend/girlfriend turns 18 is automatically guilty of an offence and will be fined upto $5000(the greater the age difference the higher the fine).
While the premise of the floating age difference could be a reasonable solution there are 2 quotes from that webpage that bear scrutiny.
“(2) The district attorney may bring actions to recover civil
penalties pursuant to this subdivision. From the amounts collected
for each case, an amount equal to the costs of pursuing the action
shall be deposited with the treasurer of the county in which the
judgment was entered, and the remainder shall be deposited in the
Underage Pregnancy Prevention Fund, which is hereby created in the
State Treasury. Amounts deposited in the Underage Pregnancy
Prevention Fund may be used only for the purpose of preventing
underage pregnancy upon appropriation by the Legislature”
“WHY SO MUCH ATTENTION TO STATUTORY RAPE?
California has the highest teen birth rate in the U.S.
Every 8 minutes, a teenager in California has a baby.
3 of 4 births to High School girls are fathered by adults. ”
So, as you can see men will be prosecuted (because they are men), while women will not, in order to fund promiscuous girls that have not mastered birth control.
To my mind that makes the persecution of men and boys under the auspices of age of consent a very valid MRA issue. Especially, when combined with the slap on the wrist the seemingly ever increasing number of female teachers “seducing” male and female students alike seem to be getting. Another example of anti-male prejudice.
A quote I missed earlier that has convinced me that this law was created by bastard coated bastards with a bastard center.
“First, the court held that American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16
Cal.4th 307, did not confer upon children the right to engage in consensual sexual intercourse. “While we do not ignore
the reality that many California teenagers are sexually active, that fact alone does not establish that minors have a
right to privacy to engage in sexual intercourse. We accept the premise that due to age and immaturity, minors often
lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take account of both immediate and long-range consequences.”
The court further found that the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists for a child deciding whether to have an
abortion (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p.373), “cannot be imputed to their
decision to engage in consensual sexual intercourse.” On the child’s second contention, the court noted that the
legislative intent behind the statutory rape law was to make illegal sexual intercourse both between children and adults
and between children. Although children cannot be prosecuted for felony statutory rape (unlawful intercourse between
an adult and a child) because the child is the victim in such a crime, there is no parallel with regard to misdemeanor
statutory rape, which by its terms involves sexual intercourse between two children.”
In essence they will criminalize only male children for taking part in an act that required two juveniles to “consent” as much as their maturity allows.
Black and white proof that you can be a criminal solely for being born with a penis.
Jack, if you think the age of consent should be lowered, I can tell you one thing. No 16 y/o girl I’ve ever met would be a zeta…including myself in this.
Yes, I was an activist with CND and did my share of consciousness raising on that topic at that age but I would have been a total nightmare to date as I didn’t know anything about life. Awful music taste too.