So you may have heard about that Kickstarter that raised $16,000 for a loathsome Reddit PUA’s “handbook on how to bully women who don’t like you into sex, while preserving your claims to believe you had consent should you need to tell the police,” as Amanda Marcotte aptly described it in her post on it yesterday. Slate’s Alyssa Rosenberg also has some thoughts on it.
I don’t really have anything to add.
There’s a petition up demanding that Kickstarter simply refuse to fund what is essentially a how-to guide to sexual assault. Last I checked, it had gotten nearly 60,000 signatures.
EDITED TO ADD: Casey Malone, who wrote the blog post that brought this awful project to the attention of people outside of the sleazier corners of Reddit, wrote Kickstarter about it and got a response suggesting that Kickstarter, while planning to go ahead and fund the project, will be reexamining its policies as a result of the controversy. Malone posted some further thoughts.
EDITED AGAIN: Kickstarter has offered an apology. You can find it here. But I’m just going to repost the whole thing:
Dear everybody,
On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.
We were wrong.
Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:
- The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.
- Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.
These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.
Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.
Where does this leave us?
First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.
Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.
Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.
Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.
We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.
That is an apology. Some people could learn a thing or two from this.
One community gives you the message that “no means no”. Another offers “no means you should try harder, maybe wait a little, and you might get a yes”. Can you see how one of these has an unfair advantage when selling to someone whose #1 priority is sticking his dick in someone else?
What’s that, boy? There are financial incentives for perpetuating patriarchy/rape culture?
I’ve signed the petition and left a comment on it that what this project advocates is illegal. Kickstarter needs to fix its rules so they don’t have things that might lead to a lawsuit or law enforcement going after them, as well as making people justifiably angry.
What the fuck does feminsm have to do with whether or not men meet women. I’ve read through your writing – I appreciate that you aren’t that critical a thinker. But come on.
There are feminists that have issues with varying aspects of the PUA community. And there are women who don’t identify as feminists who dislike it just as vehemently. If you don’t have any issues with, ostensibly, lonely men being huckstered out of their money by amoral snake oil salesman, so be it. To each his own, I guess.
But this particular “guide” even when read with contextual consideration, advocates for straight up sexual assault.
‘the biggest itch to scratch’, isn’t that implying that women actually have a sex-drive? I thought we weren’t interested in sex, just in money and status. Dammit, did I miss a memo again?
Sounds like this would have come in handy
Obs-
To fix this inherent flaw of feminism, I suggest we throw a big garage sale of women for this summer week-end. There’ll be lots of bargains, and assholes can come in a think ‘wow, feminism is awesome after all.’ I’ll put on a little bow on my head to increase my boner friendly level. Then we can all hug to the realization that women are contractually bound to please men. You can bring the coffee cakes, I’ll bring the whiskey.
(PUA dictionary:
Woman: cis, hetero, skinny, white (women who aren’t white are defined by their ethnicity, extra points if you get it wrong), under 24. Triggers the boner-happy in 100% of men.
Men: Cis men only, hetero, and that’s it. Must not be a mangina. Other requirement, having a penis. Nobody cares what women think, as long as they put out. If not white, a man needs to prove his man credentials to be included.)
Maude: under Women, you forgot “bi at the request of dudes.”
Dave: Why exactly are Amanda Marcotte and Lindy West required to provide men with pickup guides?
But Dave, since we say men ought not be allowed to force themselves on women, it’s incumbent on us to make sure the rapey dudes don’t get sad boners.
QED Feminism which doesn’t get them laid is DOING IT WRONG!
On the kickstarter, if they didn’t have enough time to think it through, couldn’t they just put the project on hold for a day or 2?
Hellkell –
You’re right, but they must not *really* be bi.
Um NEWT: What’s that, boy?
No. Just no. Wrong turn of phrase to use with that commenter.
DON’T RAPE THEM.
Using physical coercion over and over and over again until your target simply gives up is rape. Violating a person’s boundaries over and over again until they realize that they CAN’T say no even if they want to is rape. PERIOD.
It is extremely telling that after all of the publicity, the writer of this rape manual was busily scrubbing the rapiest parts off the internet. He knew it was wrong.
Also, you are full of shit. There are valid advice columnists out there, like Dan Savage and Dr. Nerdlove, who have great advice on how to meet people, and they manage to dispense it without advising you to rape them.
I mean, it sucks that they didn’t actually pull the project, but, damn, at least they had the steel ovaries to woman up and make one hell of an apology.
Here’s to hoping they don’t just stop at the apology, and instead make a real commitment to keeping filth like that off their site, regardless of the amount of press generated (or not) by said filth.
dustydeste: I’m giving them 3/5 marks. They could have done what they did with the Kobe Beef Jerky kickstarter, and suspended it while they investigated it. Instead they said, “it’s out of our hands”.
The apology isn’t fake, and the donation helps, and I’m waiting to see just what policy changes they make. It may rise to 3/4.
@Newt
Am I missing some reference here, and/or are you unaware of the problematic implications of referring to a black man as “boy”?
Hmm, didn’t know they had a history of suspending projects for investigative purposes. That does lower my opinion just a tad.
Then again, I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s ridiculous how appreciative I am of an actual legitimate apology, which I guess says a lot about the world these days (probably the world all days, but hey, I only know about the ones I’ve lived in.)
I’m gonna say–I get that KS was trapped by their current policies and the situation; the alteration going forward is a HUGE boost to my morale. Much like the FB policy-shift, this is demonstrating that speaking up WORKS.
Freemage: I am happy, but I am not convinced that this wasn’t, in part, done the way it was because it was an issue about treating women well.
Obsidian,
I didn’t realize PUA was about meeting women. I thought it was about separating gullible socially-awkward men from the their money.
Thanks for the clarification.
Wow.
Re: corrections.
Kickstarter: 1
AfVM: -4
Also, all those in Calgary be careful! I heard about the flooding last night and saw some pics some fam showed me. I don’t even think it was that bad a few years ago when it flooded then…
That is one hell of an apology. Kudos to Kickstarter!
Meanwhile a reprint of “Ghettopoly” has been up on the site twice. I guess we should be glad that it won’t come anywhere near being funded.
Hey there, I’m actually not sure where you got the idea I was in Calgary. I do have family in Camrose, outside Edmonton. I’m over in the Blue Mountain region of Ontario.
Thanks for thinking of me though. 🙂
Mind you, I’m one of those hardnosed no-fun feminists, so I’m still pissed this happened the way it did. “Heavily biased towards creators” — really? Are you fucking kidding me? Rape manuals are not works of art, rapists and their wannabe comrades do not act in good faith, and Kickstarter can kiss my creative, financially-struggling, multiple-sex-assault-surviving ass for that excuse.
But “$25k donation to RAINN” does make the bitter pill a little easier to swallow.