Pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh is not only a terrible, terrible person. He is also an abuser of language.
In a post entitled Culture War Predictions For 2015, Roosh forecasts great things for the “manosphere” in the coming year. Or perhaps the coming 9 months?
Prepare yourself for the most belabored (heh heh) pregnancy metaphor the world has ever seen:
In 2013, we saw a large increase in manosphere readership that began to ejaculate our ideas onto the mainstream. In 2014, these ideas became the morning sickness that left the enemy unprepared and unwilling to respond with logic, reason, and facts. In 2015, you will see the birthing on our side of semi-formalized alliances between various groups that use more organized action to deal crushing blows upon panicked feminists and SJW’s. Media owners will reconsider their usefulness. At the same time, our mob will grow to a frightening size after growing big and strong on breast milk, and they will be lustful for blood.
Obviously, there is nothing in that paragraph that isn’t awful. But I’m a little hung up on that first sentence. Roosh: I know you probably watch a lot of porn, dude, but you are aware that in order to make a baby, you need to deposit your sperm into a woman, not onto her, like certain kinds of squid.
Actually, I’m a little confused about exactly what happens, with the squid in any case; their sex parties get pretty freaky. But I am pretty sure that to make human babies the sperm needs to get inside the woman somewhere in that whole region down there.
Could it be that Roosh learned everything he knows about reproduction from Men in Black?
Next time you feel the urge to play this little game of what if? Don’t.
I have been raped. Your questions weren’t uncomfortable, they were ignorant, offensive, and wrong. You are implicitly offering excuses and explanations for rape that lay outside the behavior of the rapist. That is not acceptable.
Your “apology” is weak and disingenuous, not to mention followed by petulant self justification that goes on far longer than any acknowledgement that you understand you were wrong, and as such it is not accepted.
These questions have already been answered. New ones about how we can excuse rapists as being victims of their environment are not needed.
Yes, because most rapes happen in the middle of a crowd. That’s not an absurd and offensive assumption at all.
Stop. Right now.
@cassandrakitty
Very well. This is a subject too volatile to discuss.
Again, I apologize.
Also, this:
That’s almost a textbook nonpology. If apologies are hard, go back to the first page where Dan kasteray will show you how it’s done.
Discussions about rape are quite possible, they’re just unproductive, offensive, and pointless when one of the participants has no clue what they’re talking about and is apparently incapable of realizing it.
Rape can be discussed. It must, if we are going to eradicate it.
What we can’t do is backtrack from what we absolutely already know in pursuit of some specious connection that shifts the focus from where it has to remain, laserlike, if we are going to address the toxic entitlement of rapists.
This is feminism 101.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had numerous productive discussions about rape, right here on this blog.
I’m very disappointed in Michelle’s comments.
Please, honey, just stop posting, log out, let yourself feel embarrassed, pause, reflect and maybe give an apology tomorrow.
We can tell you’re flustered, people are upset, I’m sure we can work it through, just give yourself some space to catch your breath and call it a night for now, ok?
You’ve said some dumb things. The thing to do is stop speaking.
And I’d be willing to have another such discussion, just not with someone who’s going to vomit harmful rape myths all over me.
You know, thanks Policy of Madness, for that reminder. We don’t often get such a perfect example of what it means to be a decent ally as Dan provided. You get it wrong, you apologize. You don’t minimize, you don’t backtrack, you don’t self-justify. You apologize and learn.
I’d like to sit on a hard chair and offer him the flavored bottled water of his choice if he comes back around. I’d even share one of my SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLES with him. One of the vanilla lavender ones that always seem to cost so damn much at the World Market.
Random but did I mention that I got an actual SCENTED CANDLE for Xmas? The person who gave it must have been so confused by how amusing I found that.
Yeah, I was really impressed by Dan. I hope he’s still around.
Steubenville offers a pretty clear cut example of a small town environment offering no protection from rape. I live in a biggish city and have never been raped. Why? Just good luck. Rape culture is everywhere and any rapist, no matter where he lives will find an opportunity to rape and will likely get away with it.
What the shit?
Uh…plantations, anyone? Rural, isolated, and fucking rape farms.
Jesus wept.
Wait, wait, wait! You’re saying that I don’t understand rape culture? Just today I was explaining rape culture to my mother. Rape culture is the culture that makes rapists feel safe and comfortable committing rapes because they KNOW they can get away with it.
Isn’t that rape culture? Because that’s the definition I’ve been using all this time.
I didn’t say most rapes happen in the middle of a crowd, although clearly some DO. And people film it. I said that most set-ups for rape happen…
Oh never mind. At this point, all I can say is “WHY THE HELL DIDN’T ANYONE IN THAT CROWD HELP ME?!” and “WHY THE HELL DIDN’T ANYONE IN THE CROWD HELP MY FRIEND?!”
As for familial rape – oh, yeah, I know about that, too! And why didn’t anyone stop THAT?! Because it wasn’t their responsibility. They were just innocent bystanders. Yep.
So, you’re hurting. I’m hurting. Anyone reading this who has experienced anything close to rape is hurting and I’m off now. No more apologies that won’t be accepted. No more offering to show you that I do get it, and I’m not an MRA spouting “zombie lies,” but a feeling person trying to find some meaning in suffering, and some way to avoid the problem in the future, and some way to protect the young people I care about who are growing up to face a life in this world of rape culture where CNN wrings their hands about the poor, poor rapist whose life is ruined, and vilifies the girl who drank too much at the party and had to deal with death threats afterward. I don’t want that for my young loved ones, and I want to give them every weapon possible to protect themselves, as well as teach them not to be rapists, themselves. But I won’t look for those answers here, because it’s just too painful for any of us to talk about.
We’re all seeing red.
Again, discussions about rape are possible, right here, with this same set of people. That’s not where you went wrong.
Yeah, you just care too much. That’s the problem.
I used to go out clubbing all the time in London, one of the world’s bigger and more crowded cities, and I was never raped. I guess the men around me must have been given the special crowded space anti-rape innoculation, which is convenient for me since I was so foolish as to place myself in such a “target rich environment”.
Come on Michelle. Your apologies weren’t accepted because they came with excuses and “sorry you were offended” nonsense. Don’t dig the hole deeper by trying to guilt trip everyone.
I know this is probably going to come off really rude but here it is anyway: Who the eff do you think you are talking to? When you choose to pontificate in the future I suggest you consider your audience before you dig yourself another gigantic hole.
Michelle, if you want to help the young women who you love keep themselves safe, please just admit that you know nothing whatsoever about this and have them go seek out someone who actually understands how rape culture works to talk to instead.
Also, I’m not hurting, I’m angry. Bullshit has a way of pissing me off.
I’m not seeing red. I’m seeing someone who still won’t acknowledge that
includes people who look for answers about how to end rape in anything other than the behavior of rapists.
Which is exactly what you were doing.
If you want to talk about the bystander effect and why people don’t step in to stop the kind of violence that happened to you, I’m with you. I’m 100% on your side on that one. But don’t try to hitch it up to rape prevention, especially not with utterly specious and demonstrably unfounded speculations about population density and stress that do little more than offer cover for rapists.