Men's rights activists call for rape 'accuse-a-thon' to smear sex assault victims advocate

A men’s rights group is encouraging its followers to falsely accuse a sexual assault victims advocate of rape in a stunt intended to undermine the veracity of all rape accusations.

Paul Elam, founder of the website A Voice For Men, hosted an online discussion Wednesday with his site’s editor-in-chief, John Hembling, and feminist critic Karen Straughn to discuss their plan to harass executive director of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton.

“I have looked at a number of cases where people have reported alien abductions were they were prodded and poked and had different orifices in their bodies explored by aliens in spaceships, and a common theme among these is that it turns out, in most of these cases, it was Karen Smith,” Elam said. “It wasn’t aliens.”

The men’s rights movement has been angry at Smith since at least this summer, when she helped promote the “Don’t Be That Guy” rape prevention campaign that inspired imitators in other cities and a counter campaign blaming women for their own sexual assaults.

Men’s rights activists also conspired to shut down a website that allowed the anonymous reporting of sexual assaults by flooding the system with false complaints.

An Edmonton men’s rights activist, Eric Duckman – who goes by the more dashing nom de net Nick Reading – suggested the stunt to punish Smith for her claim that false rape accusations were exceedingly rare because embarrassing physical examinations and other scrutiny acted as a deterrent to sexual assault victims.

Elam cited a well-known book for survivors of child sexual abuse to attack Smith personally under the guise of addressing her claim.

“If you read Courage to Heal you’d know that if you think you might remember something, then it actually happened, so if you think you possibly remember being violated sexually by Karen Smith, you were,” Elam said.

The men’s rights activist said his group will offer a free T-shirts for the most creative accusations, the most number of claimed victims or the highest profile of the accused offender.

“So if you accuse the university dean of raping you or raping a bunch of other people, you might end up with a free AVFM T-shirt,” Elam said.

The contest, such that it is, is supposed to run throughout January, and Elam plainly spelled out the group’s intention to protect accused rapists behind the illusion that false claims are prevalent.

“We know that once it’s reported, it’s true, and we’re really doing some good rape prevention work with this ‘accuse-a-thon,’” Elam said.

[Image: angry man via Shutterstock]