Open Letter to Sophia Kelley

and others propagating her allegations against Blake Hutchison and Ethical Treatment of Children.

From a concerned anti-spanking advocate who stands by Blake Hutchison and Ethical Treatment of Children:

I have not always agreed with the militant stance Blake Hutchison appears to take on matters other than the anti-spanking movement, especially his support for the death penalty, which I vehemently oppose, and his admission that he leans pro-life, as I believe a woman should have the right to choose in regard to matters regarding her own body...though apparently he does too, since I've also heard him say that men have no place deciding on or passing legislation on women's health and body issues.

Sophia, you have your right to your anger in regard to Blake banning you from all Ethical Treatment of Children groups. What you do not have the right to do is try to destroy his reputation without more verifiable evidence. Your so-called "screen grabs" are not evidence. He's got a pretty damning screenshot too, which shows someone with the same Facebook photo as you, doing exactly what you told him you would. Who are we to believe, and why?

After seeing his screenshot, to be honest, I'm more inclined to believe him, not you.

Blake is a good man who has been active in the anti-spanking movement since 2001, before there even was a Facebook, and we were all just emailing back and forth. Yes, he sometimes says things that are controversial. I especially took issue with Chapter 82 of his novel Nobody's Property where he depicts a man in prison being told he deserves to be raped, even if the man being raped (and told he deserved it) happened to be in prison for kidnapping, and had a history of pedophilia.

It is obvious to everyone who has remained in Ethical Treatment of Children, and many who had never even heard of the group until you started with your nonsense trying to smear Blake on Facebook, that you are simply a disgruntled former member, who is trying to discredit a person who has fought for children's rights for nearly twenty years, WHO SUPPORTS EQUALITY, just not misandry or payback.

Did you think Blake was an easy target because he says things like it's assault if a woman hits a man outside the realm of self-defense, or it's OK for a man to defend himself against a woman?

I'm a feminist and I believe both of those things to be true!

I'm all for never "blaming the victim," and for believing those who accuse...when they have a valid allegation. Screenshots prove nothing, and by the way, Blake has one too. So whose are we to believe?

Through all of this, Blake has conducted himself with grace and courtesy I probably would not have extended to you if you had said similar things about my sons (I have three), and frankly, even your suggestion that people boycott Ethical Treatment of Children screams three possibilities to me:

1. You are just bitter because you were banned from the group for violating the rules - and let's be honest. You were violating a whole lot of them. I'm actually one of the people who complained to him.
2. You may be a spy or troll for Stephi Wagner, who may be bitter that Blake took Vivek's side in her dispute with Vivek Patel when she tried to allege things about him that were misinterpreted at best.
3. Or quite possibly, you are a spy or troll for Makis Pappas in the UK, Sharlene Risinger in Oregon, or any of the other pro-spanking lunatics who have been trying to discredit Blake for years because they fear how well-spoken he usually is, calm, cool, and collected, even when being called names by a pro-spanker who feels the need to be ruthlessly verbally abusive toward him when they are debating spanking. I hope this is not the case, but Sophia, if it is, we half expected someone to accuse Blake of SOMETHING in a feeble attempt try to discredit him for years now.

When you get a bunch of your friends to harass and bully somebody based on your own allegations (none of which are proven by any of your so-called screenshots), you are no better than those who murdered women during the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, or hell, even the Holocaust. In fact, you are just like the perpetrators of those events when you encourage a bunch of people to harass a good man with your filthy bullshit.

Or maybe you'll try to claim I'm a misogynist too. But at least I'm a self-hating one if that's the case...by the way, I'm a woman, and it's misandrists like you who abuse feminism for petty reasons like trying to completely discredit someone like some childish high-school jilted ex-lover trying to get even, who give feminism a bad name.

Real feminists aren't out to destroy all men...and unlike you, we don't try to make every dispute with a man a "feminist matter."

Even if Blake is proven to have said the B-word in a post like you claim...that's not misogyny, that's just one isolated use of a term he probably didn't even realize was a "gender slur." I'm not going to burn him at the stake for that. Leonardo DiCaprio also used the N-word in Django Unchained. Does that make him a racist? Of course not! He was an actor playing a role! Matt Damon spanked Hailee Steinfeld when she was a teenager, in True Grit. Does that make him a pedophile? Umm, no. In real life, Matt doesn't even spank his kids. He's said so. Even if Blake did say the B-word (which I doubt since even the post you claim is a valid screenshot clearly shows he used the word "moron"), and while I object to any man saying the B-word or the C-word outside of a fictional work, free speech is not a crime. One isolated allegation is certainly not worthy of trying to start a war on an otherwise good person which could cause threats to his livelihood and even his life. Some of your friends have actually sent him physical threats, which we both know you know about, because you did make a comment stating that you did not wish him harm.

You are calling the freaking author of Nobody's Property a misogynist. By the way, Nobody's Property is pretty much about an entire family full of empowered women who live life on their own terms, where misogynists are frequently faced with karma and retribution for their misdeeds, and one racist, misogynistic character in particular even meets his end at the hands of a teenage girl half his size who is defending her mother (or is that not feminist enough for you?), and you are trying to ruin his reputation without more proof than some (probably doctored) screen grabs. To me, what you are doing is almost akin to calling Harvey Milk a homophobe, or Martin Luther King Jr. a racist.

What I find most amusing is that all your slandering of Blake has failed...new memberships at ETC are through the roof, and Blake's apparently made a bunch of sales of Nobody's Property since, and possibly even as a direct result of, your little highschoolesque rant. I almost peed myself with laughter when I saw how he addressed that.

I will grant you, Blake is no Jordan Riak, Nadine Block, or even Robbyn Peters-Bennett. But he is a good man and I will not stand for people like you abusing so-called feminism to slander him when I know he is not the misogynist you accuse him of being.

By the way, even though he maintains he did not use the B-word that time, and I believe him, you should know that he has pledged to make sure he is not using it in everyday speech, outside the course of his fictional writings. So even if all of your allegations are true, at most, he isn't even going to do what you accused him of anymore anyway. So any continued efforts on your part to try to discredit him only make you look like exactly someone I WOULD call that word...but I won't. I'll just call you a moron instead like Blake probably would.

All you are doing is turning feminism into exactly what good men feared about it when you target good men over petty disputes, which will spawn more misogynists.

That is all. Have a nice day.