Letter from the Editor:

Call me biased, but I believe this magazine, and the authors published in it, owe a lot to Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau. Without their invention, none of this would be possible. That invention, of course, being the World Wide Web. Think about that for a minute. Two men with a vision, a talent, and the will to act changed the world. And not in a small way either. It's nearly impossible for people to imagine life before their invention. The Web changed how we communicate, how we get our information (including who we trust to supply that information), how we conduct business...pretty much every single aspect of human civilization the world over. Two guys, with an idea. Without the work of these men, and countless other people who work daily on projects that others deem 'crazy', life would - quite literally - be poorer for it. What seems to be lost on many is that the 'Entrepreneurial Spirit' applies to much more than simply making money. The drive to succeed can, and does, extend to effecting social change. Contained within these pages are the musings of several of what I genuinely believe to be people of Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau's calibre. People who work tirelessly to make others aware of things the Powers-That-Be pay a lot of money to keep off the RADAR. And on their behalf, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read the fruits of their efforts.
Factory

Introduction to the Mens Movement

In This Issue:

4 8 10 14 18 22 26 28 24

Editorial:

Why We Write The Marriage Meltdown

Pat Tillman: Dying Like a Real Man
If the Presumptively Innocent are Given Anonymity.

Hiding In Plain Sight

The Problem With Women is Too Much Self Esteem

Legally Obscene
Shut Up and Shovel the Fuckin' Gravel

Contact:

menzmagazine@gmail.com

This magazine exists as a collection of blog posts considered compelling enough for publication here. The articles contained in this magazine are solely the views held by the author, and are written as opinion pieces only. Every effort is made to cite the original source, as all of the articles included in this collection are available in their original form online. All contributions, including the design and editing of this magazine, are provided on a volunteer basis. If you, or someone you know, would like to contribute their talents, please, let us know. MenZ Magazine is edited in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Introduction to the Mens Movement: Interview with Paul Elam of A Voice for Men
by:Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
shrink4men.wordpress.com

Last year, Paul Elam of A Voice for Men contacted me to ask if I would contribute to Mens News Daily, a mens movement website for which he is the editor. Intrigued, I read through the site and had some misgivings. Theres some material I agree with and some material that I found offputting. Like any movement, mens activism attracts different people with different ideologies and agendas. Primarily, I was put off by the extreme, neoconservative beliefs and rhetoric of some of its members. Paul and I discussed my reservations, which he kindly addressed. He allayed my misgivings and I agreed to republish some of my material on MND. I believe men and women need to organize and fight for fair legislation regarding domestic violence laws and divorce and custody legislation. Our system is sick and many people are stuck in sick workplaces and relationships that sap them of energy and the ability to make healthy decisions. When youre in a sick system, you think, this is just the way it is. The dysfunctional system is so pervasive, many people dont stop to think, this isnt how it should be and what can I do to change for the better. A sick system programs you to tolerate abuse and injustice and tells you that theres something wrong with you if you try to buck the system.

The postfeminist pendulum has swung too far to the other extreme. How is it just that a man can be forcibly removed from a home he paid for based on nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim of abuse? (Just do a search for how do I get my husband out of the house.) How is it just that one adult, by virtue of his sex, is financially responsible for another ablebodied adult just by virtue of her sex after the relationship ends and often for the rest of his lifetime? Even child support ends when a child becomes an adult. Why isnt custody automatically presumed 50/50 in every state? Why arent women required to pay support for the 50% of the time the children are with their fathers (if the father is lucky enough to get 50/50 custody)? Why arent women prosecuted for making false abuse claims and violating court orders? The present laws are unfair and theyre not going to change until the people who are the targets of this kind of injustice and the people who care about them organize, pitch in and fight to level the playing field. Both men and women need to join together to do this. To this end, I asked Paul if he would allow me to interview him to provide an introduction to the mens movement and he very generously agreed:

Q: Paul, in a nutshell, what is the mens movement, mens rights or mens activism?

A: Actually, it takes two nutshells, because we are talking about two areas that have some overlap with each other. The first is fathers rights and some other agendas that involve legislation and actual rights as we know them. Clearly, with the bias against men in family courts, and things like false accusation of rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment we are talking about clear cut violations of constitutional rights and due process.

The rest, and I think equally important area, is what I prefer to call the mens movement vs. calling it the mens rights movement. This is a movement that is well underway that is challenging men to examine their roles as men in modern times, and supports them for making more realistic choices about what they expect of themselves, particularly in their relationships with women.

This is the part of the movement to which I think you, Dr. T., make a particularly valuable contribution. So much of our frustrations as men come from trying to satisfy some very unrealistic and unhealthy expectations from women. That can come up for sure when we encounter personality disordered women in relationships, but also in our dealings with women that we would call normal. The fact is that the continued expectations for men to act according to old school gender roles for men are out of sync in a world where womens roles have changed so significantly. In fact, Id guess that many of the men you counsel were hobbled in dealing with borderline or narcissistic women, not just because those personalities are so good at manipulation, but because they are particularly adept at manipulating the pressures on men to man up and take it. I think the mens movement provides a lot of support to men for changing their expectations of themselves and certainly in placing some more realistic expectations on the women in their lives.

Q: Why do you think so many people, including men, dont take the mens movement seriously or write it off as a bunch of angry, conservative womenhaters, which, I have to admit was my blanket bias initially?
A: Its a complicated question, but I think the first part of it is answered by understanding sexual selection. The mens movement advocates for men learning how to take better care of their own lives. On the other hand, women tend to choose men who will sacrifice their own interests to them. So in a sense, taking the mens movement seriously is antithetical to competing for sexual selection. At least it appears that way on the surface.

The truth is that men with their own sense of identity, values and boundaries do just fine with women. But for most men the path of least resistance sacrifice appears to be their only option. That is why I am a big fan of some aspects of Game, or Zeta Game as I have written about in some of my articles. These concepts show men that having a more clearly defined set of expectations, and acting on them, can actually help them attract more and healthier women.

To the rest of your question, one of the reasons that the mens movement has been tagged with attracting a bunch of angry, conservative womenhaters is because some of those guys are out here and are very vocal. Every movement has usurpers that hang out and attempt to take advantage of any momentum gained by using it for a different agenda. It is to be expected. But unlike feminism, which was commandeered by leftist radicals and misandrists, I think the mens movement is doing a good job of evolving its mission in the right direction and disallowing political ideologues any significant foothold in the movement. Most modern MRAs are well aware of the fact that neither mainstream political party can be trusted because they both maintain and promote anti male policies.And luckily, since the growing non rights arm of the movement isnt dependent on politics for growth, it makes it easier to shake off the socons (social conservatives) and extreme left elements as we go along.

Q: Why should everyone reading this, whether theyre male or female, care about the mens movement?
A: Because we care about our sons, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, uncles and husbands. Allow me to take your question here and rephrase it. Why should anyone reading this, whether theyre male or female, care about men? That is a good bit easier to answer.

For instance, when I tell you that men now only represent 40% of college graduates, and that number is projected to significantly worsen over the next twenty years, or that male suicide rates are five times that of women, or that 80% of the jobs lost on the current bad economy were men, and remind you that we are talking about people we love, then the points become a little more personal. None of these issues have anything to do with rights per se, but they do have to do with our families and people we care about. It is just that as a culture, we have a very hard time seeing men as a monolithic group unless it is to vilify them or bemoan their having too much privilege. But thanks to people like you and others this is beginning to change.

And by pushing this message out there, we can confront an entire culture and challenge them to examine their own prejudices about men. Underneath it all, I do think people are good. Sometimes they just need a kick start. Men and boys are in trouble these days, and I think when most people become aware of it, they will open up to doing something to correct it.

Q: I think its natural for most people not to think much about their rights until theyre violated or experience some injustice. For men and women who reach this point, what can they do to get active, involved and make a difference?
A: The answers to this one are unlimited. There is much that needs to be done. The first thing I suggest is for people to work in the area that they feel passionate about. If you are a man who has lost everything to a corrupt family court system, or a woman who has seen this happen to a man you care about, then there are organizations like Fathers and Families that do good work and I am sure would like help. There is also Fathers4Justice, which operates internationally.

Also, there is a wide range of websites that push information regarding the mens movement. Angry Harry, The Spearhead, Misandry Review, and of course A Voice for Men. All these sites operate, often on shoestring budgets, but accept donations. If you can, donate to them. Or, If you can write effectively about your experiences, submit articles to them so that others may be able to identify with your circumstances. Just add your voice to the choir.

The one bit of personal advice I have is not to let anyone talk or shame you out of your anger. You have likely earned it and then some. But dont make everything you do just a product of being mad. Take whatever talents this life has brought you, whether it is computer skills, web development, graphic design, music (yes, we have our own genre of music in the MRM), writing, or other skills and let your indignation drive you to productive use of them. When all is said and done, nothing beats rolling up your sleeves and getting busy.For anyone interested in doing that, you can do so on your own, or there are certainly people in the movement that will help you find a place to plug in your talents and make a difference.

Thanks to Paul Elam of A Voice for Men for a very informative interview!

Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD shrink4men.wordpress.com

Why we

Many years ago, when I was first starting out my tenure of teaching at Temple U, I got into the poetry reading scene alright, I aint gonna front, it was a good way to meet chicks. But, as so often happens, I learned a lot about life, others, and most of all myself.

For those who may not be aware, there has been for some years a burgeoning poetry reading scene in certain pockets of Black America poets of all manner of interest and ability will gather and read their stuff. Much of it is good, some of it whacked, all of it interesting, in that they give a kind of window onto the world of others, how they think, and why they feel the way they do. One of the themes I saw very early on in m poetry going, was that of a steady stream of Sistas who would, in prose, discuss their love lives in general and Black Men in particular; this was something that invariably placed all the blame for whatever trouble they had in their lives squarely at the feet of the Brothas. And, because Men or all shades and colors, all walks of life, have been taught (read: browbeat) into being deferential to Women regardless as to how ridiculous some of them are and/or sound, very rarely did the Brothas react negatively or respond in kind; when time came for Brothas to get on the mic, they waxed slampoetic about the police, racism, or some other amorphous entity wreaking havoc in their lives. As always, women got a pass. Among other things, this raised my Archers hackles, and offended my Libran sensibilities after all, I was always taught it takes two to tango, and why werent Brothas speaking up for the other side of the story? In fact, I said to myself then, now that I think about it, how come we have so few black male

Writ
writers (blogs hadnt arrived on the scene just yet) of any particular stripe? Sure, we all can rattle a few names here and there, but for the most part, Black Lit is done by the Sistahood. I was livid. I stormed into my Dept Heads office one day, and vented my spleen. He listened intently for about 10 minutes, and then he said one word: Write! His move knocked me off my square. Write?, I asked. What do you mean? What he told me would stick with me all my days. One of the biggest problems Black Men have is they dont write. They dont convey to others their views or feelings or impressions of the world around them, and its a shame because the world needs to listen to what you have to say, and you have A LOT to say. Dont blame the Sistas because they got it going on blame yourselves because for whatever reason, you dont write. If you want to change things, you can start, by sitting down at your desk and writing. I bought a computer that day, and did just that. In fact, I decided to respond to what Id heard at so many poetry slams/readings around the city, even though I had no background in poetry whatsoever. I simply copied the style and cadence of the poets I heard especially the female ones and wrote about what we in the Game community calls the LJBF thing. I talked about the blatant hypocrisy so many Sistas

te!
engage in, how they lust after the bad boys then wanna cry victim when they get burnt. I talk about how they claim to want good guys but turn their nose up at them. I talked about all the pretty lies and blatant contradictions so many Sistas seem to revel in, daily, yet expect guys to adhere to some outmoded and anachronistic standard. I talked about the defile of the very word friend when they utter it to a man, because as men, we take such a word very, very seriously, when so many women do not. I decided to do my thing acapella, if you will; just the sound of my voice. The place roared. Brothas were on their feet. Of course, Sistas felt some kind of way. But so be it. The truth can often be like that. My Dept Head at Temple U had armed me with something more powerful than a Bomb for that night I truly learned that the pen is mightier than the sword. Much to the chagrin of many, Hip Hop a creation of and by Black Men is now a worldwide phenomenon. People the world over, want to hear what Black Men have to say. This is not lost on me, even now, and especially since the beginning of my own blogging effort. My blog is one Black Mans take on the world around him. It is from a perspective that not even some other fellow Black Americans may not be used to or even like. So be it. It is important that the record show, that there are quite a few Brothas who are willing to stand up, be counted, and most importantly, to be heard.

obsidianfiles.wordpress.com

by: Obsidian

What I find so very interesting, is in how when women blog, or write books, or read poetry, they arent assailed with demands to give stats or other forms of proof; it is simply and merely understood that theyre giving their take on things, on life. Yet, whenever Black Men speak, be it via a blog or a mixtape, all manner of feathers are ruffled. Dont tell me Brothas dont have power. One other thing Ive learned over all these years: I dont know about the notion that women are such better listeners than are men. My personal experience, including that of today, doesnt bear this out much at all. In fact, I would argue that Women can be horrible listeners, because when they hear something they dont like, they go bananas. This explains why so many black women lose it about certain forms of Hip Hop, never once asking why the rappers say it in the first place, and God forbid if they ever ask if what theyre saying has an iota of truth to it. Oh, no. For those who want to better understand where black men are coming from, why they think, feel and act as we do, what we feel and think about the great issues of the day, and to just hear a different take on things, this is the place to be, and youre most welcome. And for those who are a bit uncomfortable with what I have to say, I can only offer you the way out the door, for I will not change. Not. One. Bit. The world needs to hear more from Brothas. The Obsidian will do his part. That is, after all, why I write. Now adjourn your asses

The Marriage Meltdown: Gay Unions, Divorce and the Dysfunctional Family
By John W. Whitehead Despite the political firestorm surrounding the federal court decision that overturned Californias Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, little has been said about the real issues that are contributing to the dysfunctional American family. The disintegration of traditional marriage and the family, once the glue that kept society together, has set in motion a domino effect that, as it ripples outward, is relegating children to lives of poverty and servitude and destroying the foundations of freedom. those of nonChristians. And while the decline in divorce in recent years has been hailed as good news (it now stands at 40%, down from a high of nearly 60% in the 1980s), it is a false positive that is offset by falling marriage rates and surging cohabitations. As researcher George Barna observes, There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage. Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility. There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life.

Contrary to what critics might say, samesex marriage, while it may be a symptom of a cultural shift away from traditional marriage and all it has historically entailed, is not responsible for the collapse of marriage as a long revered institution in this country. That blame rests squarely on the shoulders of heterosexuals for whom marriageand the family unit that arises from ithas become a temporary arrangement at best, with divorce now seen as an immediate cureall and cohabitation a happy, less permanent, alternative. Even among professed evangelical Christians who tout traditional marriage, divorce rates are comparable to

The week of the decision on Proposition 8 was also the week of the decision on The Bachelorette. Ali Fedotowsky said yes to Roberto Martinez, one out of 25 who competed for the chanceThere could be no more perfect metaphor for the state of modern marriage this week. In the U.S., a couple who barely know each other can marry in a publicly validated media spectacle with a sound track, soft lighting, promotional deals and a cash prize, as long as they are a man and a woman. So far, since the shows inception in 2003, Trista Rehn is the only one of the annual contestants to still be married. Yet a couple who quietly have been together for 15 years and married twice, in California, each time it became legal, have had to see their relationship invalidated twice by the courts, by people claiming their marriage was threatening traditional marriage.Alexander Chee,

You Call This Marriage?

That said, divorce is not solely to blame for the collapse of the institution of marriage. Marriage generally seems to be falling out of favor everywhere except in the realm of reality TV. For the first time in American history, unmarried households now make up the majority of all U.S. households. Younger generations are also more inclined to live together. Where once the institution of marriage gave legitimacy

10

to sexual relations and children, it no longer serves as much of a gatekeeper. This can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution, which paved the way for sex outside of marriage; the feminist movement, which pushed to legalize abortion, thereby making pregnancy a womans problem to deal with as she sees fit; and the decreased role of religion in American life. Consequently, nearly 40% of all U.S. children are now born out of wedlock. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of unmarriedcouple households with children has risen to more than 1.7 millionup from under 200,000 in 1970. Moreover, there are 9.8 million single mothers versus 1.8 million single fathers. The ramifications of the breakdown of marriage and the subsequent rise in singleparent households are far reaching and alarming. For example, children living with a single mother are six times more likely to live in poverty than are children whose parents are married. The same study found that children in stepfamilies and singleparent families are almost three times more likely to drop out of school than children in intact families. And living in a single parent home can cause a disconnect among children between family and marriage. Moreover, as W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, notes in The Evolution of Divorce:

and voluntary associations. When they function as they should, mediating structures limit the growth of the government. But when these structures break down, societythat is, peoplelook to megastructures, such as the state, for help. According to Wilcox, the public costs of family breakdown among workingclass and poor communities exceed $112 billion a year as federal, state, and local governments spend more money on police, prisons, welfare, and court costs, trying to pick up the pieces of broken families.

Since 1974, about 1 million children per year have seen their parents divorceand children who are exposed to divorce are two to three times more likely than their peers in intact marriages to suffer from serious social or psychological pathologies. In their book Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, sociologists Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur found that 31% of adolescents with divorced parents dropped out of high school, compared to 13% of children from intact families. They also concluded that 33% of adolescent girls whose parents divorced became teen mothers, compared to 11% of girls from continuously married families. And McLanahan and her colleagues have found that 11% of boys who come from divorced families end up spending time in prison before the age of 32, compared to 5% of boys who come from intact homes. Sociologist Paul Amato estimates that if the United States enjoyed the same level of family stability today as it did in 1960, the nation would have 750,000 fewer children repeating grades, 1.2 million fewer school suspensions, approximately 500,000 fewer acts of teenage delinquency, about 600,000 fewer kids receiving therapy, and approximately 70,000 fewer suicides every year. These statistics tell some painful truths about America at the dawn of the new millennium. They show that our priorities have clearly shifted. Despite the billions we spend on childcare, toys, clothes, private lessons, etc., a concern for our children no longer seems to be a prime factor in how we live our lives. What are the consequences of all this? First, the loss of the traditional family structure has led to a destabilization in society of mediating structuresneighborhoods, families, churches, schools

Second, major religious institutions have virtually little to no moral or spiritual impact on American societyapart from politics, that is. The Christian church is a prime example. Intensely political, many Christian organizations today work feverishly to enact such antigay measures as samesex marriage amendments while doing little to impact the traditional family positively. Indeed, despite all the money ($40 million and counting), politicking, fundraising and energy that conservative Christian groups put into defeating gay marriage in California, nothing was accomplished in terms of shoring up the traditional family structure.

Third, the data supports the premise that the decline in the family leads to a decline in our democratic form of government. Indeed, the familynot schoolsis where children should learn selfgovernment, basic moral values and the beliefs that determine the future of democratic institutions. Thus, it stands to reason that without stable families, we can have no hope of producing selfreliant, responsible citizens. Finally, traditional marriage plays a critical role in the structure of free societies by interposing a significant legal

entity between the individual and the state. None other than D. H. Lawrence, author of Lady Chatterleys Lover, once recognized:

OutofWedlock Births as a Percentage of All Births: 1940 1999

The marriage bond is the fundamental connecting link in Christian society. Break it, and you will have to go back to the overwhelming dominance of the State, which existed before the Christian era. The Roman State was allpowerful, the Roman father represented the State, the Roman family was the fathers estate, held more or less in fee for the State itself. Now the question is, do we want to go back, or forward, to any of these forms of State control? Lawrence continued: It is marriage, perhaps, which has given man the best of his freedom, given him his little kingdom of his own within the big kingdom of the State, given him his foothold of independence on which to stand and resist an unjust State. Man and wife, a king and queen with one or two subjects, and a few square yards of territory of their own: this, really, is marriage. It is a true freedom because it is a true fulfillment, for man, woman, and children. There can be no easy fix for these problems. Certainly, there are no legislative or governmental solutions, and fighting gay marriage isnt going to do it. Morality and the decline of the family have become convenient platforms for those on both sides of the political aisle. Having reduced the very real problems plaguing Americas families to soundbites bandied about in the quest for political dominance, todays politicians, gay rights activists and traditional marriage activists are not providing a lasting solution to the marriage meltdown. The solution, if there is one, is to be found where the problems start: with each man, woman and child taking responsibility for keeping their family together. So lets forget about politics. Forget about the debates over who gets to marry whom. Instead, lets look around at whats left of our neighborhoods, our communities and our families, and put our children first. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

12

Lone Nut Comics: Dognitive Dissonance

Dyin

Note: I recently read an article that raised my hackles over at goodmenproject.com. It concerned the life and death of Pat Tillman. I was upset by it enough that I fired up an angry email to them about it. To my surprise, I got a cordial response back, inviting my opinion to be posted as a blog on their website.

should prove helpful, but only in discerning a path to avoid. I proceed with caution here. Pat Tillman was clearly a man of integrity and commitment to his own ideals. He sacrificed much, ultimately everything, to follow his convictions. Those that loved and needed him paid a crushing price as well.

I have to say I think the site leaves some things to be desired, primarily in what I see as the editorial assumption that it is more important to invest in making men better than they already are, rather than focusing on the very real problems they face in misandric culture. But the response from them about my concerns seemed genuine enough that I submitted this piece to them. We seldom find common ground in this arena of sexual politics, so I dont want to pass up any opportunities that might help that. PE

But when we look past the fanfare and accolades, and the understandable desire to lend meaning to his death, there are unsettling truths here that insist on our attention. His life was just another one of thousands of blood payments in an ill conceived war, fought for all the wrong reasons. Worse yet, the army in which he faithfully served sought to deceive the public about how he was killed in order to turn his death into good PR for the war effort. In short, they sought to capitalize on one of their fallen, and didnt mind lying about it to get the job done. This isnt anything new. The blood of men like Tillman has stained the pages of history since they started writing it on papyrus; men and boys routinely sacrificed for the sake of greed and/or misguided nationalism then touted as a heroes, mens men, to be idealized and emulated (hopefully with enlistment contracts).

In going through the recent tribute here to Pat Tillman, the former NFL star that gave up a lucrative career in football to serve his country, I found myself nodding my head a lot. I also experienced a kind of sick feeling. There were many references to his bravery and sacrifice as indicators of quintessential masculinity. In an age where men struggle to find the increasingly elusive meaning of manhood, the Tillman story

14

And that brings us to the first order of business if we want to legitimately resolve the issue of mens place in the modern world. The insane reverence for cannon fodder has to stop, and, in the bigger picture,

ng Like a

Pat Tillman:
avoiceformen.com

Real Man
by: Paul Elam attention simply for the sake of improving their lot in life. Everything we want men to be is somehow meant for the benefit of others. However well intended (and sometimes not), these efforts are doing little more than regarding men as human appliances. And aside from the sexist entitlement inherent in these ideas, none of it makes any real sense when you look at what has happened in western culture over the past half century.

the view of men as expendable.

They are all Pat Tillman

And that is precisely where we run in to a lot of problems. Understanding that requires some unabashed candor, not just about gender roles, but about gender politics. There is a lot of talk these days about making men good fathers, husbands and citizens. Much of this, of course, is predicated on the egregious myth that men are none of these things to begin with, and that their lives do not need or deserve compassionate

We embarked on a sexual revolution unlike anything seen before. Women, who were largely sequestered into the arguably limiting aspects of their gender roles, broke free like thoroughbreds at the starting gate. They have demolished barriers, entering all realms of employment, education and entrepreneurship. They have done so well, in fact, that they now make a solid majority on our college campuses and outnumber men in the workforce.

All of this hinged on the idea that women no longer could or should be confined to kitchens, housework and child rearing. I personally agree with this, but even if you are more traditionally minded the fact is that our culture has embraced it, and there certainly appears to be no squeezing that toothpaste back into the tube.

However, with the celebrated transcendence of women from their old school roles into supposedly

more self actualizing lives, we also turned our attention to men, examined their gender role and concluded: well, we concluded that we wouldnt conclude anything if it got in the way of getting men to provide whatever service we needed or wanted.

This doesnt just apply to the battlefield.

For men, there would be no liberation from their role. Rather we would just keep them trapped in it and start adding on the things we used to expect of women. Put down that remote pick up a mop. Unless, of course, we need you to carry a rifle. These recently added notions of real manhood, mostly about housework and enhanced chivalry, seem to define our only real interest in changing men. After all, sacrifice and death, as they apply to the male role, are pretty severe forms of limitation themselves. But that fact, inconvenient to a society that lauds phony equality, goes largely ignored. So while we gave women suffrage, we just gave men more suffering. The natural result of the liberation of women from the mandates of their sexual role should have been to do the same for men. And that alone would have brought women commensurate responsibilities and burdens with their increased rights. It would have, most unfortunately, brought them the increased death and suffering men have long endured. As we can plainly see, that did not happen, and it removes all credibility from the cause that purported to establish a more equal society. To help muddy things even more, we have, while valorizing mens ability to kill, and willingness to die, peppered them with shame and ridicule about their tendency to be violent. We have come to insist, with a familiar dishonesty, that the new masculinity is to be characterized by gentleness and sensitivity, while we treat them as though they are deserving of neither.

Men, for all our supposed efforts to produce a gender neutral society, remain 98% of all combat deaths, 93% of all workplace deaths and 79% of all suicides. And this reveals what we are so loathe to acknowledge about the lives of men. We see them as powerful and privileged, as the undeserving heirs to more than their share. And worse, as oppressive tyrants who take what they want from the weak in their midst. This is true for less than one percent of men and always has been. For the rest, including the Pat Tillmans of this world, their lives are about servitude and death. To maintain that as the status quo we habitually see them all as belonging to that fractional minority. We mistake what is most common, male powerlessness, for male power; male disposability for male dominance. And we hail them in their finest hour only as we lower them into the ground. And we have blinded ourselves to a reality we will have to wake up to if we are going to actually shape men into what we claim to want.

If we want to teach men to quit killing, we must first teach them to quit dying. And to do that, we first have to go where no one really wants to. We have to teach men to reject the pressures put on them to be protectors and providers first, self valuing human beings a distant second. No womens studies professor, nor attempts to mold men into socially convenient automatons, is going to get us out of that one. The answers to this are not easy, simple or likely to be realized any time soon. But getting off on the right foot is as simple as recognizing that men like Pat Tillman have a lot more to offer the world if they are still alive.

16

Modern Truths in Western Society

Women remove male role models from their sons' lives, then when their sons behave badly, women blame "patriarchy."

Stereotyping girls as inferior to boys in any respect is "misogyny"; stereotyping boys as potential batterers, rapists, predators, and deadbeat dads is a public service announcement. When girls supposedly were behind boys in educational achievement, most men agreed there was a problem with the schools; now that it's been proven boys are behind girls in every indicia of educational achievement, the problem is the boys, and the schools are just fine. Women say they want men to be less manly and more sensitive; those same women refuse to date actual men who are more sensitive because they aren't sufficiently manly. It is the mission of feminism to unshackle women so they can express their femininity in whatever manner they desire, and to shackle men so that they can express their masculinity only in the manner feminists approve.

Young men are harshly branded as commitmentphobes for being hesitant about marriage ; when women later end their marriages because they aren't feeling "fulfilled," their own "commitment" is not at all pertinent to the issue. When husbands and wives perform the same amount of work, but she performs more domestic chores while he performs more work at a paying job, she's oppressed and subjugated and he's undeservedly privileged. When a man buys his wife a gift she can use around the house, it is a sexist faux pas; when a woman buys a man a gift he can use around the house it is a loving and thoughtful gift.

Married men who have affairs are selfish pigs; married women who have affairs are seeking the fulfillment they are not getting in their marriages. Women seeking to enter the workforce are afforded all manner of special incentives to offer them encouragement; men seeking to enter the domestic sphere are afforded nothing, least of all encouragement.

When men work in dangerous, physically demanding jobs that few people want, it's their choice; when women work in safe, physically undemanding jobs that everyone wants, it's "discrimination" if she's paid less.

When men outearned women, women were oppressed because the wage differential could only mean discrimination; now that young women outearn young men in urban settings, women are still oppressed because they can't find mates who are their financial peers. And last, but not least, women insist that males are undeservedly "privileged," arrogating to themselves the right to define what "privileged" means.

Presumptively Innocent
by: Archivist
In one of the most despicable assertions ever uttered in the rape context, Chair of Women Against Rape Ruth Hall said the following: "There will be lots more rape victims" if the presumptively innocent accused of rape are afforded anonymity until they are charged. Women's groups and scores of MPs posit, with straight faces, that anonymity will deter victims coming from reporting their ordeal to police. Why will women be deterred? Well, the scattershot reasons posited in support of this epiphany are the proverbial moving target. First, they say, anonymity will somehow, some way, stigmatize women as liars, thus deterring actual rape victims from "coming forward." Second, it's often only publicity that makes rape victims "come forward," so it's important for victims to know that other women have also accused their rapist. This is dishonest fearmongering in the extreme, pure and simple. We need to put this underreporting assertion in context: Prior to the great wave of rape reforms starting in the 1970s, rape advocates reported, with seemingly infinite invention, that women were too scared, too embarrassed, too certain of its futility to report their own rapes. The sexual grievance industry insisted that rape was underreported, and that reforms were needed to do justice to countless women who suffered in silence the brutal indignity of rape. So we kowtowed to the sexual grievance industry to solve "the problem."

If the Presumptively Innocent are given anonymity,

sayso of any woman or girl if they can't produce corroborating evidence of their innocence.

That wasn't enough, they said. So we adopted rape shield laws that forbade almost any evidence of the accuser's prior sexual history with persons other than the accused, a rule that resulted in innumerable innocent men and boys being sent to prison for alleged rapes that never occurred. That wasn't enough, they said. So we adopted laws that eliminated the requirement of force, and innocent men and boys who misunderstood the acquiescence of a woman were sent to prison. That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted laws that eliminated the mens rea requirement for rape. Historically, in a rape prosecution, the guilty defendant must have had the intention to have intercourse with a woman without her consent. Too stringent, said the sexual grievance industry, and the requirement was lightened or dropped altogether. That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted laws (in the UK and a handful of US states) that legally forbade naming rape accusers. In the US, the news agencies and outlets have, by common consensus, agreed not to name rape accusers. The mere allegation of rape by the anonymous female, without any other evidence and no matter how farfetched, invites a man's name to be splashed all over the newspaper, TV, radio and Internet for the world to titillate at the details of his humiliation. That wasn't enough, they said.

First, we adopted laws that eliminated the requirement of corroboration, which de facto served to flip the old law on its head: now, women don't need any corroboration of their claims, but men and boys are arrested based solely on even the farfetched

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a rape advocate says there will be more rapes....

falserapesociety.blogspot.com

So we enacted laws that lengthened and even eliminated statutes of limitations for rape, and now, men are sometimes accused of and charged with alleged rapes that occurred 20, 30, 40 or more years after they supposedly occurred, effectively foreclosing the accused from mounting a meaningful defense because the evidence of their innocence has long disappeared. That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted VAWA which, among many other things, pays the legal bills of alleged victims of sexual assault. VAWA pays none of the legal bills of men accused of rape, the presumed innocent even those who were falsely accused. In the UK, it's worse. They compensate alleged rape victims, even the ones not subjected to any physical force, no matter how slight their injuries; the UK does not compensate men falsely accused of rape, no matter how egregious their harm. Sometimes false rape accusers are compensated. That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted laws that exempted rape accusers from taking polygraph tests as a condition to proceeding with the rape investigation. In contrast, using polygraphs on men accused of rape is routine, and often if men don't submit to them, even flimsy charges won't be dropped. (Moreover, polygraphs are routinely used to insure that sex offenders (predominantly male) are adhering to the terms of their probation, and a refusal to take the polygraph will land the person refusing in jail.) That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted Fed.R.Evid. 413 and many states adopted similar laws. Unlike any other criminal charge, including murder, assault, even planning the World Trade Center attacks, a rape trial in federal

court and in various states allows evidence of the defendant's commission of prior offenses (specifically, his prior offenses of sexual assault) to show that he has a propensity for committing the crime at issue. This rule, which is unique in all of American jurisprudence and widely condemned by legal scholars, allows the jury to hear about the defendant's prior acts whether or not the defendant takes the stand. Even accusations of prior sexual offenses that occurred years before and even crimes for which the defendant was acquitted are admissible if the alleged act is proven by just a preponderance of the evidence (far lower than beyond a reasonable doubt). This is sometimes all a jury needs to convict the man or boy of the crime at issue. That wasn't enough, they said. So we enacted rules on college campuses making it easier and easier to expel males accused of sexual wrongdoing, with kangaroo courts and inquisitorial hearing processes. Many college campuses adopted rules that say rape accusers can't be charged with underage drinking in connection with their accusation, thus providing yet one more motive to lie about rape for any young woman looking to evade an underage drinking charge. But surely these massive reforms must have cut into underreporting of rape? Surely after decades of one reform after the next to encourage women to come forward, the women must be lining up, right? Well, no, we are told.

Nothing has ever worked to curb alleged underreporting, and underreporting is supposedly still rampant. As but one example, on college campuses, the supposed hotbed for modern rape,

more than ninety five percent of students who are sexually assaulted supposedly remain silent, we are told. All the rape reforms, all the bending over backwards to get victims to "come forward" have been a waste of time. So what's really going on here? Here's the reality. No one knows the precise extent of underreporting, and no one ever has. The politicization of rape renders it impossible to discern whether underreporting even exists. See, J. Fennel, Punishment by Another Name: The Inherent Overreaching in Sexually Dangerous Person Commitments 35 N.E. J. on Crim. & Civ. Con. 37, 4951 (2009). The "proof" proffered for underreporting ranges from unreliable to nonexistent, and the truth is held hostage by radical feminist ideology. Yet underreporting remains the Excalibur of the sexual grievance industry, the secret weapon with magical powers that is whipped out and wielded to achieve any desired goal. Now alleged underreporting is being wielded in a last ditch effort to stop the plan for anonymity for the presumptively innocent. This plan, you must know, will not grant anonymity until conviction but only until a man is charged. It is, thus, the most modest reform imaginable to protect innocent men, scarcely a reform at all, if truth be told. But to the sexual grievance industry, any support for the presumptively innocent is too much support. The injection of underreporting into this discussion is a vile prevarication. Anonymity for the presumptively innocent has nothing to do with whether women come forward. Anonymity does not send a message that rape victims should not be believed any more than

anonymity for rape accusers sends a message that rape accusers should be believed over the men and boys they accuse. The message conveyed by this very limited anonymity plan is that the harm of publicly identifying falsely accused men is unconscionable, because a rape claim is loathsome and because, once a rape claim is alleged, unlike other allegations of criminality, it is nearly impossible to disprove. The sexual grievance industry doesn't bother discussing the harm to the presumptively innocent. Women will not stop coming forward to report rape even when the accused are anonymous. After all, women continue to come forward now even when the accused is a teen male who is legally anonymous. I have never heard any member of the sexual grievance industry claim that granting anonymity for teen males accused of rape somehow creates more rapists. In fact, it is likely that more women will come forward if men are anonymous. When women cry rape and the man is identified, it often isn't difficult to infer who the accuser is. It is reasonable to assume that most rape victims would prefer not to have their identities revealed by inference.

What the sexual grievance industry has never been able to explain is this: if there are, in fact, so many roadblocks for actual rape victims to reporting their rapes, why the hell are there so many false rape claims? There ain't no underreporting when it comes to false rapes. If the liars have no difficulty "coming forward," why is it so difficult for actual rape victims to report? Or are we not supposed to talk about that?

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Senator Charlie Justice Gateway Executive Center 8601 4th St. N. Suite 100 St. Petersburg, Fl. 33702 Dear Senator Justice, Thank you for the wonderful letter you sent to my son. Any words of encouragement are good for him to stay positive about his future. I was impressed to see you attend the graduation ceremony on September 26, 2010. I too am very proud of my son for his accomplishment. He knows how important it is to have a diploma and continue a higher education. Sadly, unlike most nineteen year old boys, my son does not have the same doors open to many possibilities in his life. He will not have the same opportunities as others and will struggle to be successful. He has a lot stacked against him.

Like many young men, my son trusted a girl he was seeing; when she told him she was on birth control. Little did he know, girls dont always tell the truth. Nine months later a baby was born. He knows he has nothing to offer a child, a child my son did not want, a child he did not agree to have, and a child he was tricked into conceiving. Tyler was recently ordered to pay $759.46 a month in child support. He works part time and makes minimum wage. The judge imputed income based on what she feels he could be making. Not based on any employment history. Along with the ridiculous high monthly child support order, he was also ordered to pay $10,000 in arrears. I can not believe this is happening in the United States. Most men with educations do not make enough to pay that much in child support.

As I looked into this issue further, I discovered what a huge problem this is in Florida and the entire US for that matter. Where are the mens rights? Why it is okay for a woman to make the decision to have an abortion, adoption, abandon, or keep their child? A man has none of those choices. Why are unwed men forced into being fathers when they never wanted to be? I thought there were equal rights for everyone. Sadly, I am finding this is very untrue. Along with hundreds of other men, my sons life is basically over. He has been given a death sentence. He will NEVER be able to meet the courts expectations. He can not continue his education because he needs to get a few more jobs to pay this debt he owes. As you know Florida is leading in unemployment. So when the judge told him he needs to get five jobs, I seriously think she forgot what state she is in. He will become so far behind in payments since he can not even come close to paying that amount. He will never be able to apply for a loan, save money, or obtain credit.

He risks having his driver license suspended and/or jail time if he gets too far behind. This is even more ridiculous. If these men have their licenses suspended and spend time in jail, this will put them even further behind. Senator Justice, I am sure you agree jail is for bad guys. It is not for men who are tricked into becoming fathers and who can not afford to pay such high amounts in child support. Men are being punished for having sex. Where is the womans responsibility? Why are women in control of a mans future? Why are women able to give up all rights to their child with no questions asked, but a man can not?

This is a major problem in our country. Young men are turning to lives of crime and some are committing suicide over this issue. Something needs to change. The ridiculously high support orders and the not so equal rights need to change. I feel the courts make it so high because they want these young men to fail. This isnt about a war on women and children & deadbeat dads. Women arent the victims here. This is about unfair treatment to men. These women need to stand up and take responsibility of there own bodies and their own lives. This letter to you is just the beginning of my journey to make people aware of this problem. The only thing that makes sense is there has to be a corruption between Child Support Enforcement and the Family Court system. I hope if this is true it will be discovered. All I want is for it to be equal and fair to both men and women. I am looking to you for guidance. We need to get our legislators aware of this issue. It has been overlooked for far too many years. There are way too many good men who are loosing everything, as President Obama stated during his election, We need CHANGE. I look forward to your reply. Respectfully, Beth Lang

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Hiding in Plain Sight

by: Toysoldier

toysoldier.wordpress.com

One of the more insidious elements about child abuse is how abusers often hide in plain sight. They mask their abusive behavior in normal activities, keeping prying eyes from questioning them and confusing their victims. Many abusers will teach or raise a child to believe that the abuse itself is normal. This is particularly true with female abusers. Women who abuse not only mask their bad acts in seemingly nurturing or motherly activities, but they also play on social norms and expectations about women. As a recent article notes: Female perpetrated abuse is often conducted in the context of an affectionate and loving relationship which children dare not risk losing. Studies into childhood sexual abuse have shown that young children have difficulty recognising the inappropriateness of a request when it is made by a good person, and research has shown that children can often feel loved, wanted and cared for by the parents who are abusing them. This makes it almost impossible for the child to assimilate what is happening to them. As [Marc] Alexander observes: Improper sexual behavior by women is grossly underreported, partly because children are scared of saying anything against the main nurturer in the home but also because it can so easily be hidden in caring activities such as bathing, dressing or consoling the victim.

emotional abuse, and mothers seeming both more abusive and more supportive than fathers. This betrayal damages a victims ability to trust women on a fundamental level because the very things women may do to show compassion for victims they know are often the same things female abusers use to control and manipulate their victims. It may also contribute to a victims willingness or ability to view the abusers actions as abuse:

The child remains trapped in a netherworld, potentially only recognising abuse decades later. [Dr. Robin] Fancourt, in her report on neglect and psychological abuse in childhood, makes the point well when she speaks of the rare ability of children to conceptualise, comprehend, or verbalise what is happening due both to their developmental barriers and as a result of these forms of maltreatment being the expected background of family life. While victims may not potentially recognize their experiences as abuse until much later, they do experience the effects of the abuse throughout their lives. It effects all their relationships, their focus, their work, and their interests.

The conflict between loving and abusive, appropriate and inappropriate is reflected in a 2005 study about maternal experiences of childhood of Pacific Island mothers in New Zealand which concluded that abusive and supportive behaviours coexist; physical abuse being recalled more strongly than

Societys unwillingness to view women as potential abusers perpetuates this code of silence. It allows people to believe that women never commit such violence or only do so because a man made them do it, or because the women are crazy. The latter typically comes in the form of women suffering from some mental illness or women being victims of abuse. It is true that most people who abuse were abused themselves as children. However, the issues a person suffers as a result of their

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abuse are not necessarily the cause for the person abusing others nor are they necessarily evidence of some sort of mental illness. The article also notes the victim as perpetrator dynamic. In some cases women who are abused by their male partners also abuse their children:

involved with womens shelters want to admit that women can be and often are just as violent as the men they left. This violence does not stop once the women reach the shelter, and it is possible that due to the nature of the shelters environments abusive women may have their violence reinforced.

There is a heated debate about gender parity in family violence. Many studies argue that male and female intimate partner violence is similar in frequency and severity. This is countered by researchers who believe for example that womens violence is exaggerated by bias and selective remembering. Yet one American study of womens refuge clients showed that 90 per cent of the women displayed aggressive behaviour toward their children. New Zealand government agency Child Youth and Family (CYF) also reports that about half of women who are physically abused by their partners also abuse their children, illustrating a key point which is that you can be a victim of violence and also a perpetrator of abuse.

Whether there is a direct correlation between domestic violence and child abuse remains to be seen. What does seem apparent is that women are just as willing to take out their anger and aggression on vulnerable people. This gets overlooked and sometimes denied in the domestic violence support community because of their politicized nature. Few

All of this goes to show that it is not so much that women do not abuse as it is that people are unwilling to view women as potential abusers. This results in a code of silence that extends from the victims to society at large. No one wants to talk about female abusers, which in turns prevents any services for victims of female abusers from being created, which in turn keeps victims of female abusers from coming forward. The code of silence reinforces the abusers argument that no one will believe the victims and it reinforces the abusers position that the abuse itself is harmless, normal, and acceptable. It is only by confronting this issue and speaking openly about it that we can combat it. Each year the number of reported victims of female abusers increases. Some take this as an increase in womens violence, but it is likely just an increase in the reporting of what already happens. The more we talk about this issue, the more victims come forward. The more victims come forward, the more we shatter the myth that violence is something only or mostly men do.

The Problem
The mantra for the past two generations in America has been that women suffer from low selfesteem brought on by a multitude of negative influences such as teacher bias, misogyny, old boys networks, parenting favoritism, double standards, gender stereotyped toys, etc.

Le Chateau representatives are here to tell you the low female selfesteem industry has been one giant scam perpetrated on gullible liberals and cowed conservatives. Women American women in particular dont have a low selfesteem problem; just the opposite they have a problem of unwarranted high selfesteem. What kind of woman do you get when you combine a cultural apparatus designed to maximally extol the virtues of womanhood and cast all fault for any female shortcomings on male bias and discrimination with a biologically innate evolutionary imperative that renders men more expendable than women? Answer: A woman with a big fat head. From the cradle, women are groomed by their peers, family, society and DNA coded algorithms alike to embrace the joys of bigheadedness. It used to be only beautiful women had this problem (and with at least a semblance of justification based on real value), but now ugly women, fat women, and lawyers are all riding the phony low selfesteem grievance chariot to the entitled princess winners circle. The result has been to produce a nation of broads hellbent on seeing themselves as gods gift to god himself.

The worst thing a man could do would be to feed this beast even further with traditional courtship game. Its not for nothing that modern game focuses so much attention on breaking down a womans selfesteem into manageable chunks negs, qualification, teasing, pushpull, takeaways, calculated indifference all are game tactics with

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With Women
is

the primary purpose of knocking bigheaded chicks off their royal, gilded vajshaped thrones. And these tactics are effective precisely because girls want to be dethroned by a man of higher value than themselves, whether they admit to this or not.

TooMuchSel f -Esteem
by: Roissy roissy.wordpress.com

good with kids, you will build him up with stuff like thats really cool. Can you draw it bigger? etc.

The funny thing about female selfesteem is that it doesnt take much to help it grow wildly beyond the bounds of the pot it was planted in. All women are born with a self entitlement complex preinstalled. Eggs are biologically more expensive than sperm, and the brain of each sex has evolved to reflect that immutable procreative reality; in women, their minds are primed from birth to regard themselves as the more valuable sex, and this regard is not without merit, at least in the reproductive realm, which is the realm that underpins all other realms. Men, by contrast, are primed to regard themselves as less individually valuable than women, and this manifests as a willingness to take more mortal risks. So now that we know that women start with a higher basal selfesteem than men, wouldnt it make more sense for a healthy, functioning society to turn its cultural apparatus toward the project of boosting mens selfesteem? In fact, this is what quasipatriarchal Western societies used to do, before they were infected with the late decadent, postmodern deconstructivism and victimology virii. Now the optimal pattern has been completely turned on its head intrinsically high selfesteem women are administered supercharged booster injections of ego stroking, while intrinsically low selfesteem men are, either deliberately or coincidentally, pushed further into ego deflating selfabnegation. See: March 2009 BOTM. The goals of this outpost of bristling reality are, one, to acquaint readers with the truth of the female (and male) condition that exists past the boundaries of mainstream approved polite discourse and, two, to arm the male readers (and, by extension, the female readers) with the tools to capitalize on that taboo knowledge. Thankfully, there are plenty of readers here who contribute to that knowledge base. Reader PA comments: Gentle and friendly teasing is not intimidating, and creates a sort of rapport that makes one feel at ease. Exactly. This is true even with nonsexual interaction. Think the last time you saw a man who is good with kids. He will neg the girl by saying stuff like: hey! youre cheating! no red crayon allowed! or whatever. Boys, on the other hand, dont like to be negged. If youre

If you have young nieces and nephews, you will quickly recognize the truth in PAs comment. Nieces respond positively with glee, even to prototype negs and teasing; the sort of banter that modern feminists would describe as demeaning. In contrast, little boys, with their fragile egos, wilt under negs and teasing, but respond well to compliments and encouragement. Mothers instinctively know this, as they will often reprimand the fathers for being too discouraging or too critical with their sons while giving the fathers a pass or a semiserious chiding when they tease the daughters. The great irony here is that what makes good parenting is exactly the opposite of what feminists claim is the best way to raise boys and girls. Parents know, deep down, that to raise a good daughter you must keep her ego judiciously pruned, and to raise a good son you must suffuse his ego with promise.

Game theory in fact, most social theory has much to owe to the instinctual rapport that emerges between father and child, before diseased memes intrude and sully the message. When you want to better understand the nature of game and how it helps attract women, think of how you treat your niece, or how a father you know treats his young daughter. Recall how effortlessly the negs and teasing spilled from your lips when you were goofing around with your little niece. Recall, too, how she squealed with delight. Then take that knowledge and apply it almost verbatim! to your seductions of adult women. Their vocal pitch may change, but the squeal remains the same. Today, in the era of the bloated female ego, the mark of a quality woman is a humble woman. Meet a pretty woman like this usually foreign, and usually from a strong lower to middle class family and marvel how refreshing she seems to the typical, mind and body bloated American chick you are used to dating. Unfortunately, more likely you will meet another egotistical bitch with selflove issues and will have to invest months training her (i.e. running game on her) to grace her with a proper and realistic humility. For those who love the game for what it is, this is not such a burdensome sacrifice. But for those who struggle to hear the strange tuning of womens feminine nature, the required training may be a cost too high to pay.

By TDOM

Statutory rape laws have often been controversial and unequally applied to male and female victims and perpetrators. While very few believe that sexual activity with minors who have not yet reached puberty (child molestation) is acceptable, many believe that once a child has reached puberty, the child should be capable of providing consent to sexual activity. Statutory rape laws are based on the premise that persons below a specified age or who suffer from certain mental deficiencies are incapable of providing consent. These laws make it illegal for adults to coerce children into having sex. Historically, statutory rape laws were designed to protect teenage girls from males who may take their virginity, impregnate them, and refuse to take responsibility and marry them. Thus, they served the purpose of protecting the honor of the girl and of preventing teenage pregnancy. They also helped to ensure the child would have a means of support. It wasn't until much later that these laws began to be applied to protect boys as well. However, the application remains quite uneven. According to the DOJ, 95% of statutory rape victims reported to law enforcement are female, yet many studies have determined that boys comprise a much higher percentage of the victims. For instance, Dorais estimates that one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 16.

Obscene

thedamnedoldeman.com

Law enforcement may not take such complaints seriously. In a previous post (Living in a Culture of Denial), I discussed the problems with the attitude of law enforcement towards male victims. Officers and other professionals may even redefine the act so as to make it acceptable. Even the male victims may view it as a positive experience and not a crime, leading to gross underreporting. In what may be the most bizarre denial of the existence of male victims, courts have held that male victims of rape can be held responsible for child support.

In California, an appellate court upheld an order (San Luis Obispo Count y v. Nathan J., 1996) forcing a 15 year old boy to pay child support to his rapist after she became pregnant and gave birth. The court ruled that although the boy was considered too young to provide consent to the sex act, he was an admitted willing participant and therefore liable to pay support stating that he was not an "innocent victim" because he had discussed it with his rapist prior to having sex. That this act was illegal and may have constituted coercion was apparently lost on the court. If the boy is considered legally incapable of providing consent, how can he be considered legally liable for giving that consent? Any consent or cooperation on his part should have been considered coercion and therefore not consent at all. California is not the only state where this is the case. Kansas, Texas, Ohio, and other states also force rape victims to pay child support to their rapists. In Kentucky, a prosecutor stated that he would help a woman collect child support from a man who was 14 at the time she raped him while neglecting to charge the woman with statutory rape. The state of Colorado attempted to recover AFDC payments from a man who was just 12 when he became a father with an older woman. Contrast this with the allowances made for abortion for women

Social attitudes are primarily responsible for the double standard. According to Miriam Denov, there is a myth of innocence surrounding female sexuality that frequently regards sex between a young male and an older female to be a rite of passage and that it is somehow acceptable or less harmful than when the other way around. Further, boys are taught not to view themselves as victims as this is unmanly.

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who are raped (including statutory rape) even from many who are opposed to abortion in other circumstances. Mothers are also permitted to give up their children for adoption, no questions asked, should they not want their children. In no case is a woman forced to raise or pay for a child conceived during a rape.

"[w]hile it is true that after conception a woman has more control than a man over the decision whether to bear a child, and may unilaterally refuse to obtain an abortion, those facts were known to the father at the time of conception. The choice available to a woman vests in her by the fact that she, and not the man, must carry the child and must undergo whatever traumas, physical and mental, may be attendant to either childbirth or abortion. Any differing treatment accorded men and women . . . is owed not to the operation of [state law] but to the operation of nature." While there may be natural differences between men and women, in this day and age, it is simply wrong to place all the rights in the hands of women and all the responsibility on the shoulders of men. Rights carry responsibilities. If a woman desires the right to choose, then the woman must be required to bear the responsibility for her decision. If, as the above court stated, the facts were known to the father at the time of conception then certainly they were also known to the mother. To hold her to a different standard simply because of biology is morally wrong. She should have the right to choose, but her decision should not be forced upon the father. She may have to bear the burden of either childbirth or abortion, but she also has a wide variety of options for birth control that the man simply doesnt have. Further, in this day and age, she also has career opportunities that will permit her to support a child on her own. This is especially true in circumstances where the father was a victim of rape or statutory rape. Ordering a victim of rape (even statutory rape) to pay child support to his rapist is tantamount to allowing the rapist to rape him over and over again. Not only is it a constant reminder, it is like he is being punished for being a victim of a crime. It is unthinkable that our court system not only condones, but has legalized this draconian practice. It is not only an injustice, it is an obscenity that is being perpetrated on male victims. It needs to end.

Image via Google

But this is not the case with fathers. Two separate cases indicate that even when sperm is stolen or a man is forcibly raped, the man remains liable for child support. In Louisiana a man was ordered to pay child support to a woman who had him wear a condom during oral sex. She then took the condom extracted the sperm and impregnated herself. In Alabama, a man was actually raped by a woman and was still ordered to pay child support. This man got drunk at a party and passed out. The next morning he awoke in bed, naked from the waist down. He testified that he did not remember having sex. Others testified that the mother had actually bragged about having sex with him when he was "passed out" and "wasn't even aware of it." This constitutes rape in most states, yet the man was ordered to pay support to the woman who was apparently not even criminally charged. The National Legal Research Group refers to this as "a strict liability theory of sperm," i.e. a man is liable for his sperm no matter what the circumstance. One court has attempted to justify its actions on the basis of biology rather than admit discrimination:

The Book of Zed:

Shut Up and Shovel the Fuckin' Gravel
by: Zed I wrote this some years ago and over the years quite a few people have gotten a chuckle out of it. The entire secret of life, of power, of everything, was taught to me when I was a teenager, by a man, a farmer. And he taught it to me in the way that is so typical of men: three sentences, no more. I contend that the real conflict today is not male versus female, but urban versus agrarian values. When people forget where their food and fiber comes from, when they forget the natural processes and timetables that produce them, when they start looking for someone else to hand over what they want and stop taking the responsibility for producing it themselves, when they replace hard work with belligerence and aggression, they lock themselves into downward spirals of helplessness, powerlessness, and anger. The farmers name was Griff, but it could have been Gruff, because he was. I was a townie (population 300) and made good money for a teenager as a hired hand. One day when I showed up for work he said Were going to pick up a new truck. We got in his car and the entire 40 minute ride to the dealer passed without either of us saying a word: one of those easy comfortable silences that men often use to communicate more than words ever can. We picked up a new 4wheel drive ton pickup and headed back to the farm. When we got back, he pointed to a large gravel pile by the barn and told me to fill the truck bed with gravel and go fill in a hole in the entrance to one of his fields. I said But that gravel will ruin the paint on the bed of this brand new truck. He looked at me silently for about a minute, his expression eloquently saying that I was the worst idiot hed ever been burdened with having to tolerate in his life. Without saying another word he picked up the shovel and, with a swing that would be the envy of any major

league baseball hitter, he swung it around and smacked the side of the truck sending paint chips flying in every direction and leaving a huge dent. He looked at me again with that same I cant believe you are such an idiot look and said: City boy this is a FARM truck. I didnt buy it to look pretty, I bought it to DO WORK, same reason Im payin you. Now it aint new no more, so shut up and shovel the fuckin gravel. Then he turned around and walked off, leaving me to feel foolish and gain wisdom. Of course it took the entire context and circumstances for me to understand the full significance of the lesson: not with my head but with my spirit. In the same way, cultures world wide and throughout history have used ritual space to teach the great lessons to the young. Complexity and too many words destroy the lesson, because the very heart and soul of the lesson is that words accomplish nothing. Words do not put in crops. Words do not harvest them or get them to market or prepare them or put them on our plates. No one eats unless someone shuts up and shovels the fuckin gravel. The entire secret of male power is that men do, and men have, shut up and shoveled the fuckin gravel. Men shoveled the gravel that built all the hydroelectric dams which provide the electric power which everyone today takes for granted some of that Patriarchal technology that some women are so fond of sneering at. Men put their sweat and, for about 50 of them, their very lives into Hoover dam. Then they handed over the result to women to make their lives more comfortable. The millions of tons of gravel which went into building the transcontinental railway were shoveled by men. And hundreds of their lives went into it as well. Women and men living today would have none of the conveniences which make their lives so comfortable if millions of men had not shut up and shoveled the fuckin gravel. All the lawsuits and affirmative action programs in the world could not have built them. Those men did not wait for someone to hand over those dams or that railroad to them, they shut up and shoveled the fuckin gravel and built them. Hoover dam is male dominated, the transcontinental railroad is male dominated because men put their time, their work, their sweat, and their very bodies into building them. Everything that we see in the world today, from business to the military, that is male dominated is so because men died to build it. That is both mens power and their powerlessness. They shut up and shoveled the fuckin gravel.

Zed

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Men's Issues Websites:

www.mensnewsdaily.com www.glennsacks.com www.standyourground.com www.mensactivism.org www.angryharry.com www.thespearhead.com www.avoiceformen.com www.mediaradar.org falserapesociety.blogspot.com counterfem.blogspot.com antimisandry.com

PUA: Pick Up Artist good with women, usually a practictioner of Game in one form or another.

Terms and Definitions:

Game: Practical understanding of the base natures of women, and what they respond to. MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way men who have decided women aren't worth the trouble. MRM: Mens Rights Movement MRA: Mens Rights Activist

Men today face more obstacles and barriers than ever before. Men face diminished employment prospects, barriers to obtaining a quality education, even demonization of their very masculinity. Socially, men as a group occupy increasingly devalued positions. The destruction of the 'Traditional' male role, along with the removal of the Father from the family, has led to generations of men with little guidance, save the voices of those who hate them. The everpresent media neither represents their views, nor does it even accurately portray them. Rather than being seen as half of society, men are increasingly portrayed as occupations, or archetypes, their humanity carefully hidden from view. For decades, men were forced to keep quiet. For decades, men thought they, and they alone, 'felt that way'. But no more. With MenZ Magazine, you will be exposed to ideas and arguments you will assuredly never hear on your television, or read in your local paper. These are the views of men, and women, who are tired of being spoon fed misinformation. People who want YOU to know that you, as a man, matter. So please, join us.
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