The so-called pickup artists who inhabit a large portion of this thing called the manosphere are a strange bunch: They devote much of their life to figuring out ways to appeal to women they don’t like or respect.
Apparently, for most of those who actually are out there “picking up” women and not just boasting about imaginary conquests on the internet, the sex is good enough (for them at least) to make their otherwise joyless endeavor worthwhile for them. And if the sex itself isn’t that great, well, at least they get to brag to their internet friends about how they conned some hot “slut” into having sex with them.
But what happens when the sex begins to lose its luster?
Well, we get what seems to be happening with pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh, who over the course of the last few months has been chronicling what amounts to an existential meltdown in a series of embittered posts on his blog. Roosh may not be self-aware enough to realize that’s what he’s been doing, but it’s pretty clear from the outside that he’s beginning to sense the fundamental hollowness of a life devoted to pursuing women he hates.
In these posts, Roosh spells out in detail just how resentful he feels to have to make even a small amount of effort to convince women to come home with him. In one post I wrote about earlier, he laments that his pursuit of women has turned him into a “clown” performing for the women he wants to fuck.
We are not men in the traditional sense—we are clowns. With our tight game we have to be entertainers who create drama and excitement in a girl’s life, just long enough so that she spreads her legs and makes sexy noises, and even though she did commit such an intimate act with us, she will soon lose interest or simply get bored, and then move on to the next shiny cock that catches her eye.
Huh. She’s using you, just as you’re using her? Poor baby.
In other posts, he seems almost ready to give up the lifestyle he makes a living promoting. In one, he complains about “expending labor and much more money to lay” a young women who looked a lot like one he had previously dated. Or, as he so charmingly describes her, like “an inferior version of a girl I had let go.” He complains that all of his options look bleak:
Unless I’m looking at an easy one-night stand opportunity, it’s illogical for me based on my experience to go on a date with a girl for any other reason than to enter some type of relationship with her, something that I don’t necessarily want. Otherwise it’s a waste of time that provides me with nothing more than entertainment. Even a one-night stand has lost its luster since the quality will be modest at best and condom use will be usually required, decreasing the overall sexual pleasure. It’s clear to me now that I don’t want what I used to want (as much), but at the same time I don’t care for something deeper. I’m afraid I may have already extracted the most satisfying rewards women could provide me in life, and that this particular oil well in running dry.
Emphasis mine.
In another, he wonders if, to paraphrase the old song, this is all there is:
Mini-relationships and harem maintenance are nothing more than entertainment and serious relationships are drudgery, one step away from slavery. Both are unsatisfactory.
So what’s the answer? Is it eternal bachelorhood, of banging a handful of new girls each season, hopping from one new mini-relationship to the next, but achieving no depth or novelty in what you haven’t achieved before, or is it making what could be the biggest mistake of your life by knocking a girl up and riding the fatherhood roller coaster for the next 20 years? … Or maybe the answer is that the happiness I have sought in women can’t be achieved at all, and whether I ride the slut carousel or settle down with one girl, I’ll still end up asking myself, “Is this it?”
Again, emphasis mine.
It’s a good question, and one I’m sure a lot of these women you “bang” ask themselves after you roll off them and go to sleep. Or possibly even during the sex itself.
But the strangest of Roosh’s many laments comes in a post titled “Men Must Groom More Than Cats To Get Laid,” in which he complains, in all seriousness, about having to clean the shit off his own ass.
The thesis of this odd little post of his is that these days straight men, in order to appeal to women, “have to groom more than women of 30 years ago,” a sad state of affairs that he fears “must make us the most feminized men to have ever existed.”
To make his case, he presents a long list of “the acts of grooming I’ve done at least once in the past week.”
You may notice that, despite the length of the list, most of the items on it aren’t exactly onerous tasks; indeed, many are pretty much the minimum required to function in a civilized society. I’ve bolded a few of them that caught my eye.
- Floss my teeth
- Brush my teeth
- Scrape my tongue
- Gargle with mouthwash
- Pluck extra long and curly eyebrow hair that began to obstruct my vision
- Trim my beard
- Shave my neck
- Trim ear hair
- Trim nose hair
- Apply baking soda to arm pits
- Apply and remove contact lenses
- Wipe my ass thoroughly
- Shower
- Stroke my balls with my hand and then smell it to ensure lack of odor
- Apply benzoyl peroxide to a pimple
- Apply lip moisturizer
- Apply face moisturizer
- Remove boogers and other debris form my nose
- Comb my hair
- Trim my sideburns
- Wash clothes
- Wash penis in bathroom sink after sex
- Trim my fingernails
- Trim armpit air
- Squeeze out blackheads on nose
- Remove residual sock fiber from underneath toe nails
- Remove ear wax using cotton swabs
- Remove eye gunk after waking up
- Dab off extra grease on forehead with napkin
That’s right. Roosh is literally complaining about having to pick boogers out of his nose and wipe his own ass “thoroughly” enough to keep skidmarks off his underoos. He thinks women are oppressing him by forcing him to clip his fingernails and brush his teeth.
A common belief in the manopshere is that women want masculine, alpha men, but what they really want is sexy clowns who are well-groomed. If you have bad breath, bad skin, or odorific armpits, you’re not getting far with women no matter how good your game is. The modern man has to essentially groom like women in order to attract them, because I highly doubt that tribesmen of ancient times cared if their breath smelled or not.
Your life has taken a wrong turn somewhere when you resent women for wanting you to smell better than a caveman.
H/T to @keithcalder for the graphic at the top of the post.
“They devote much of their life to figuring out ways to appeal to women they don’t like or respect.”
100% truth!!!
Hahahahahahahhahahaha this guy is unique. He feels oppressed for brushing his teeth, showering and cleaning his ass?
To hell with oppression! Live in the filth and catch some random infection!!! (it rhymes and everything)
You know what? Any day I’m feeling guilty for being too lazy, I’ll just come back and read his pathetic list of his to feel better about myself XD
I don’t feel bad for him either. He’s about my age and started out with a truckload of advantages that he’s pissed away on pure hatefulness. I think he’s finding out that hatefulness and hedonism tend to separate when you lose the energy to keep them shaken all the time. He could still turn it around if he wanted (fixing his google history would be hard but not impossible) …but I doubt he will. I think the hate etches a deep groove that’s hard to get out of. Meantime, life moves on.
You know what? My husband actually is a pretty sexy clown, and well-groomed even if he isn’t uber-dapper or anything. He makes me smile and laugh, and I love washing or combing his hair in the shower. MY PRECIOUS MASCULINITY!
RE: leftwingfox
(Warning, side effects of cock chroming include excessive knob polishing and disco balls)
My husband has threatened to pedazzle himself a few times. One day, I’m afraid I’ll find out he actually did it.
RE: andrea harris
I’m serious, this dude needs to see a doctor.
Psh, like he’d go. Doctors are for women and the French.
RE: kirbywarp
I missed your little kirby icon! It just didn’t feel like you without it, even though Bootsy be praised. (Maybe you need a Bootsy Kirby?)
RE: sparky
He’s like a real-life version of Alfie
He’s like this version of Alfie too.
RE: contrapangloss
Not even you deserve depression.
I dunno, I can’t imagine it happening to a more deserving person. My depression tends to be situational, my brain’s way of telling me, “YOU ARE DOING BAD THING STOP” and Roosh has PLENTY of bad things he’s doing.
You know, most people who have the means to do so shower and wipe their asses and brush their teeth even on days when they don’t plan to interact with any other humans. Not so that they can at some point in the future get laid, but because being clean feels good.
I thought boys generally got over the “no, Mom, I don’t want to shower and you can’t make me!” stage by their mid teens at the latest.
Welcome to Roosh’s world: where women don’t matter, and boogers assume outsized importance.
I like the idea that he could live happily with all the boogers and “debris” in his nose he wanted if it weren’t for those damned ladies and their stupid minimum hygiene requirements.
WHO WANTS A NOSE FULL OF DEBRIS?
hellkell, jeez, I forgot about skidmarks steve.
magnesium, I think he’s in Ukraine now? Not sure.
He does sound like he may well be suffering from depression, and as someone who’s dealt with depression of varying severity for decades, I know how shitty that is. But he’s certainly making it worse on himself by self-medicating with misogyny. Maybe that sounds flip, but I think it’s clear that his hatred of women is getting in the way of him even having the most basic insight about his condition.
It would be nice to think that if he got treatment for depression he wouldn’t be such a shitty guy, but sadly I don’t think that’s true.
“You mean getting my cock chromed won’t attract women?”
I would deny this guy three times before the cock chromed.
“Shiny cock made me giggle though. Sounds like some sort of horribly inappropriate pokemon.”
Shynikok, I choose you! This pokemon comes with TWO pokeballs!
Maybe we can make it a group effort?
Let’s see…
*Be thin, but not too thin.
*Curves in all the right places (how curvy and which places are acceptable curve-having places vary considerably depending on the month)
*Huge boobs that also manage to stay perfectly round and perky
*Blemish-free skin with an even tone
*Not too thin but no places where excessive fat is built up (like under the armpits when the arms are down like everyone has), no stretch marks anywhere, and no cellulite
*No scars, birthmarks, or tattoos
*Long and thick but easily manageable, never-tangled hair
*Shave, wax, and pluck all hair that isn’t on head on a regular basis
*Not aging past 30 (or 25 or 20 or 18)
*”Fertility”
*Lots of makeup meant to achieve perfection but not obvious or “whorish” makeup
*Well-dressed
*Sexily but not sluttily dressed
*Fit and toned with no visible muscle
*Must not have angular knees and or elbows
*Thin but not bones visible (including collar bones or ribs)
Bekabot, I’m a bit confused about what you mean here. Do you mean that women will refuse to date a man who’s really ripped and good-looking on the grounds that he’s a jerk? I agree with that, but I know plenty of men who aren’t like Roosh and who would reject a woman if they didn’t like her personality. I’ve also known men who aren’t interested in having sex without having first established a romantic and emotional connection.
I’m also not sure what to make of your explanation. What does “most women can get physical stuff” mean? Are you saying that most women can get really good-looking, ripped guys? I don’t think that that’s true for the average-looking woman. Or are you saying that it’s easy for women to get sex? Er…yeah, but usually only if she’ll have sex with literally any one, even a guy who isn’t attractive to her. I mean, I guess if you’e a congenitally attractive woman, you’ll do okay with random, average-looking men. The thing is, this is true for guys as well. You can certainly find someone out there who is willing to have sex with you, but finding someone who is attractive to you and then making the sex enjoyable actually does take some more effort. Could you clarify your meaning, I guess?
Curiously though, he actually never mentioned changing them.
I like to imagine that he just climbs into the washer wearing all of them when he does his laundry.
I figured he just stood in the shower fully clothed and figured that counted as washing both himself and the clothes, and that’s why washing his ass is such an inconvenience to him.
Wait, does that mean he doesn’t actually own a special set of clothes which he just washes over and over again?
Yeah, I like how oblivious he is to women’s grooming rituals. I reckon he thinks women smell like roses and look like they’ve never even heard of acne just naturally, without any effort or bathing!
Of course we do. The same way the lady in the illustration above was born with bleached and styled hair, perfect teeth, makeup, a tan, and a fit physique, so all she has to do to look the way she does in that photo is maybe skip the all-you-can-eat buffet at Applebee’s. Whereas the poor man had to put on a suit like a SLAVE.
The scary thing is that nothing on Roosh’s list is any kind of beautification process. It’s all basic hygiene that most of us do whether or not we’re trying to get laid. And yes, even men in ancient times bathed, washed their clothes, shaved or trimmed their beards, kept their teeth as clean as they could, and wiped their friggin’ asses. Even “cavemen” did most of the stuff on Roosh’s list.
This not wanting to do hygiene thing is a very, very, VERY bad sign that depression has set in. He needs a doctor and a therapist.
RE: Shaenon
Even “cavemen” did most of the stuff on Roosh’s list.
I don’t know nothing about caveman, but I know the Ancient Egyptians took their depilation and perfuming very seriously.
At this point, it’s kind of like, what do you want, Roosh? You don’t seem to be liking the women you bang, or the things you do to get them to bang you, but you also don’t seem to like the idea of change. I’d be sorry your head hurts, but if you keep banging it against a wall…
You know, I’ve always figured that the human instinct for some sort of universal justice or karma was an unfortunate instinct given that it’s so frequently utterly frustrated by reality. However, this post has in fact nearly met the requirements of a properly karmic fate. Rooshes seething hatred and pathological need to abuse women has finally started to show him the consequences of his own choices. I can only hope that he passed off Bona Dea, and that she let’s him suffer like this another twenty years or so before she finally springs the ultimate curse that no human can bear…complete and total self awareness.
I’ve had depression, and when I meet others who have suffered in life I usually have compassion for them. It makes me a terrible person to say this, but whatever is going on with Roosh, I’m satisfied with it. May he reap all the misery he has sown.
@ – Congratulations on living your dream, and thank you for not throwing child-free gays under the bus.
Wait a second…the “slut carousel?” I thought all the sluts were riding the cock carousel. Who is Roosh “riding” on the slut carousel? I’m so confused.
It’s almost like this greaseball didn’t even finish reading “The Game”, whose turning point was exactly that sort of existential meltdown. But that’s what you get when you base a pseudo-philosophy on a book that you didn’t realize was a cautionary tale.
What I mean is:*
1. Men mostly do the courting and women mostly get courted. The result is that women are in the position of being able to accept or refuse, while men have to do the propositioning. The result of that is that there is no body of lore among women which is analogous to the PUA mythos. I’m not saying that the PUA mythos is fantastically accurate, I’m saying that it’s there. It’s a Thing and it’s around. There are vaguely analogous traditions among women but nothing comparable to the brand of cabala practiced by the PUA’s. There’s no comparable brand of cabala because there’s been no need to develop one.
2. Physical beauty (in either sex) isn’t as rare as it’s reputed to be. That’s why guys who go to enormous lengths to hook up with certifiably gorgeous women often succeed in their quest. It’s not as amazing as they (sometimes) pretend, because certifiably gorgeous women, while not ‘average,’ are not something you have to go to Pluto and back to find. The analogous thing isn’t unheard of among women either but it’s taken much less note of because it has (little or) no symbolic value. There’s symbolic value in the idea that a sexy scientist can take off her glasses and be revealed as a knock-out and there’s symbolic value in the idea that the prom queen was looking for a (male) nerd all along. These are tropes which are tied into assumptions and truisms all over this culture. There’s no comparable support for the idea of a woman who goes around with a man who’s better-looking than she is (I used the word ‘ripped’ because Roosh did, which probably wasn’t the world’s best plan) although I’m certain everybody here knows people who fit that pattern. It’s just that it’s not a pattern which symbolizes anything anyone in this culture yearns to believe.
3. People in general (I’m leaving aside Roosh and his pals because in their gawdawful way they act on principle) have never been attracted to exactly the people they “should” be attracted to. Roosh and his pals lay down the law as to who ought to be around whom and who deserves what with the dogmatism of a Victorian archduchess, but with less success, because they lack the authority to arrange all the marriages. So yes, certainly, most women would not want to be around a man they really don’t like, no matter how good-looking he is, and most men are pretty much the same way, and don’t want to be around pretty women who strike them as shrill or silly. Nor do they want to spend time around men they don’t like if they’re gay, even if the men (they don’t like) are handsome. Which runs contrary to several brands of mythology including PUA mythology but is true all the same.
*Everything I’ve written here comes with a GIANT asterisk.
Best I can do.
Also, the longer he goes on like this, the more shit he’ll have to face if/when he decides to grow a conscience.
Can you not? There are multiple people IN THIS THREAD (let alone the site as a whole) talking about having problems with our brain chemistry, and most of us don’t appreciate being used as an insult.
I was thinking a conscience, a la Angel on Buffy (but without the stupid “Gypsy” backstory). But I wonder if self-awareness and/or conscience, in Roosh’s case, would be like reading the Necronomicon: more than a human mind can bear without breaking. Not that he doesn’t deserve it…
@Houyhnhnm, this may be a cultural or generational thing, but in many parts of the US, “greaseball” is an ethnic slur referring to Italians. It’s not used as much as it used to be, but it’s still considered pretty offensive. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way (Roosh is’t even Italian), but I thought you might want to know.
Err…Roosh? I’m not sure anyone else is requiring you to stroke your balls.
This is not the first time an MRA type has railed about how unfair it is that he has to wipe his own ass, but the ball-sniffing thing is new. And odd.
You know, my brain has a lot of issues and horrorshows in it. Also it’s a timeshare. But you know what, at least it’s HOSPITABLE. Roosh’s brain, now, that brain is like the system I knew whose headspace would actively try to murder them constantly. Only he’s alone in it and is a jerk to everyone around him.
I’m going to go hug my brain now and tell it that it is a good brain.