If the almost universally despised pickup artist and rape legalization proponent Roosh Valizadeh is able to deliver his planned talk tomorrow at some as-yet-undisclosed venue in Toronto, he won’t just be talking about the unoriginal blend of warmed-over misogyny he perplexingly calls “neomasculinity.”
He will also be selling his infamous “Bang” books, a series of pickup guides aimed mostly at North American tourists hoping to score easy sex in an assortment of countries in Europe and South America. These guides seem to have been Roosh’s main source of income for the past several years.
So it is worth asking what exactly Roosh is selling here.
Most of the “Bang” books are country-specific guides offering Roosh’s, er, insights into each country’s nightlife, dating mores, and women. “The best way to describe a Ukrainian girl’s personality is that of a corpse,” he explains in Bang Ukraine. “They really don’t show any emotion, interest, or spark when you first approach them. They just stand still with their eyes darting around.”
Alongside Roosh’s recommendations on cities to visit, bars to prowl, and dating “logistics” (rent an apartment near the bars you intend to frequent so you can easily get “girls” back to your place before, you know, they change their minds), Roosh also provides case studies of his sexual, er, conquests of women in each country.
Judging from Roosh’s own descriptions of them, many of these alleged conquests might better be described as rapes.
Again and again in these stories, presented as true, Roosh literally won’t take no for an answer, pressuring reluctant and resistant women into giving him what he wants, in one case using outright physical force in order to continue intercourse with a woman who had changed her mind.
In many of these cases Roosh tells us or at least implies that the woman in question consented to sex, but it is worth asking what kind of “consent” is preceded by literally hours of struggle against a physically imposing man who refuses to believe that no means no. It’s also worth asking what the woman’s own account of the experience would look like.
Are Roosh’s Bang books essentially how-to guides to date rape? Read some of his stories and decide for yourself. [Trigger Warning for the quotes that follow.]
The most notorious passage in any of Roosh’s Bang books comes from Bang Iceland, in which Roosh describes sex with a drunk woman he ushered to his apartment after she was left behind by her friends at a bar.
While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she couldn’t legally give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated.
I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do.
Sex with women too drunk to consent is considered rape in Iceland as well as in the US.
Roosh continues:
If a girl is willing to walk home with me, she’s going to get the dick no matter how much she has drunk. …
I figure my dick was inside her about forty minutes after meeting her, likely my fastest bang ever. The sex was as good as drunken sex can get, but I did notice her pussy was drier than the Sahara desert.
Roosh’s sense of self-awareness is as underdeveloped as his conscience.
With another Icelandic woman, Roosh reports:
In the middle of the night I got another boner, put on a condom, and jammed it back in while she was half-asleep. I came and passed out again with the condom still on my dick….
Roosh’s accounts of his sexual escapades in Iceland are sadly rather typical for him. In Bang Poland, he makes clear that the word “no,” won’t stop him, no matter how many times it’s repeated.
We moved to my bed. I got her down to her bra and panties, but she kept saying, “No, no.” I was so turned on by her beauty and petite figure that I told myself she’s not walking out my door without getting fucked. At that moment I accepted the idea of getting locked up in a Polish prison to make it happen.
After more such “foreplay,” Roosh gets what he wants:
I put on a condom, lubed up, and finally got her consent to put it in. … I put her on her stomach and went deep, pounding her pussy like a pedophile. She took it like a champ even though I imagine it must have felt like being fucked by a telescope. My orgasm was from another world.
This is what passes for a happy ending in Roosh’s stories.
In 30 Bangs, a collection of Rooshian case studies, Roosh gives his excruciating account of “sex” with an anonymous Catholic girl a similarly “upbeat” ending:
After dinner we went upstairs and I eased her onto my king-size bed. It took four hours of foreplay and at least thirty repetitions of “No, Roosh, no” until she allowed my penis to enter her vagina. No means no—until it means yes.
The sex was painful for her. I was only the second guy she’d ever had sex with. … She whimpered like a wounded puppy dog the entire time, but I really wanted to have an orgasm, so I was “almost there” for about ten minutes. After sex she sobbed for a good while, talking about how she had sinned in the eyes of God, but in an hour she got horny again and we went at it once more.
In Bang Ukraine, Roosh describes how he used “some muscle” to hold a woman down after she changed her mind during sex.
I was fucking her from behind, getting to the end in the way I normally did, when all of a sudden she said, “Wait stop, I want to go back on top.” I refused and we argued. … She tried to squirm away while I was laying down my strokes so I had to use some muscle to prevent her from escaping. I was able to finish, but my orgasm was weak.
Afterwards I told her she was selfish and that she couldn’t call an audible so late in the game.
Again and again in these stories – and there are more of them — Roosh misleads, manipulates, cajoles, pressures and intimidates women until he gets what he wants. The women could not be clearer in their refusals, telling Roosh no and pushing him away. He doesn’t care.
To judge from his own accounts of his sexual exploits in the books he published himself, Roosh is a dangerous sexual predator who has been getting away with it for years. In his Bang books, he teaches young men that they can get away with it too.
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Looking for an exit, and not moving, since predators are attracted to movement.
Holy shitnuggets, Roosh really deserves to be investigated by the powers that be, to find out if there’s an actual string of crimes (because some sliver of me clings to hope that these are just his bizarre fantasies he vomited in book form) which should be prosecuted.
Tanya – and most men that size are not pleased that they have caused pain to their partner – they are pretty keen to avoid it in my (years ago!) experience.
@ EJ
Well, in England all his comments would probably be admissible in any prosecution for rape where consent was in issue as evidence that he’s not bothered about consent.
It would have to be a prosecution for a specific rape (or rapes) though. There’s no offence of ‘being a rapist’ if you get my drift.
Wouldn’t matter if he tried some ‘it’s a fantasy’ disclaimer. That’s an argument he can run but it doesn’t make the statements inadmissible. You may recall that recent case here of the kid who wanted to blow up his college for example. He tried that one; no dice.
This is fucking grotesque. I’m starting a petition to ban this bullshit book, and I’m taking bets on how long it takes the MRA crowd to claim it’s simply because I’m fat, ugly, and unfuckable.
On the subject of ‘are these ALL fantasies?’ I would say no. I think that perhaps there are some exaggerations to make him sound more Alpha – anything he thinks the poor little boys will lap up as oh so dominant and manly – but (I dread to think that) realistically it is ALL fairly plausible. It is obvious from just a few quotes that he has targeted as young women as possible, and lack of experience is highly desirable as then they will have little comparison, and likely be quite nervous. It is also obvious that he likes them small to maximise his options of physical control.
I have decided that I am going to avoid all Roosh themed posts from now on because I just want to kill the scumbag now. And what makes it worse is that I know that there are no shortage of men like this – whether they have adopted ‘game’ or not.
Oh. I did not need to start my day with this.
Dear God…
Hey David,
Still not seeing the trigger warnings?
Thanks Alan. Procrastinating hard I see?
If (say) someone were to come forwards and lay rape charges against Valizadeh, saying that a particular passage in a book was his narrative of the event, would the existence of the book make it harder for him to plead innocence?
Grrrr. I’m finding this very triggering. The old, pre-feminist parts of my mind are shouting at me that physically small, young, emotionally vulnerable women must be defended at all costs. This fucker cannot be allowed to get away with this. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can do to stop him doing it. Aaaagh.
That’s not their personalities…that’s just how they react to him. I’m Canadian, of German descent. And if I found myself approached by a Roosh, I’d be acting all uninterested, darting my eyes around, looking for an escape route, too. Because with him, the creep vibe is just so unmistakable. No one wants to be in a room with him, much less alone, for any longer than she absolutely has to.
Notice the split in that sentence? He IS rationalizing his actions when he says “having sex is what I do”. No, Roosh, having sex is NOT what you do. RAPING is what you do. And by the looks of things, it is the whole of what you do. If you were actually having sex, you’d be looking for an enthusiastic “yes” before you did anything. Not a halfhearted “I guess” or a “Fine, have it your way, then fuck off”.
Pretty sure that wasn’t sex there.
Pretty sure that wasn’t sex, either.
Quite sure THAT wasn’t sex.
This rejected Penthouse Letter was most certainly NOT sex, and I’m pretty sure he did not get consent, but merely resignation, which is not the same thing. And, ew, a reference to pedophilia, which is ALSO not sex. (I’m hoping that this really didn’t happen, and that it was just his own masturbatory fantasy, because YUCK. I honestly feel sorry for any girl who’s had to endure even a minute of Roosh in person, fully clothed and just talking.)
Drunk ≠ willing to go anywhere with you, Roosh, you motherfucking rapist. How dare you take advantage of someone’s incapacity and claim she was “willing”?
This is rape. And I hope to whatever Gods are listening that this didn’t really happen. That wasn’t “foreplay”, that was a FIGHT. When she says no, you get up and leave her alone, you asshole. She didn’t “allow” anything, you FORCED her. And you should be locked up.
Okay, now I KNOW he’s lying, because nothing like this ever really happens. Outside of his kick-worthy skull, that is.
Yeah, no, that’s NOT sex. That is RAPE. And I’m glad it wasn’t satisfying for you, scumbag.
Who’s the selfish one? HE FORCED HER. And what the fuck is an “audible”?
Christ, this monster belongs behind bars. He should have his passport revoked and never get another.
I sincerely doubt the stories are made-up. If they’re exaggerated, then they’re exaggerated in the way that everyone exaggerates their accounts of events — in a way that they believe makes them look better.
These are actual words in actual books meant to be guides and accounts of Roosh’s experiences. Not only is he proud of those words, but he believes they are instructional. He has literally no motivation to lie; otherwise you’d have to posit that he thinks that women saying “no” to him repeatedly is something that he thinks would be worth making up.
Given the way he described the woman who threw beer in his face (“she was seducing me and rubbing her sexy, sexy legs all over me”), I think it’s pretty clear his fantasy stories would be very different.
If I were a betting man, I’d take any bet you want that Roosh is an actual, serial rapist. He needs to be in jail.
@Bina:
“Audible” is an american football term. When the players have decided on their play and line up, there’s a couple seconds where one person can shout out last minute codes to change the play slightly (when they can see how the defense/offense is lined up).
Which… for fucks sakes. Sex is a continuous process, not something set in stone and played out mechanically for the next two minutes. Even ignoring the rape and consent issues, that’s just terrible form.
@ EJ(TOO)
I haven’t got round to procrastination yet; but it’s on my to-do list.
As to the book passage, basically we’re into the plot of Basic Instinct. It would be easy for the defence to argue that the complainant was just repeating what was in the public domain.
If however there were some particular hallmarks or identifying features (say the description of the interior of the complainant’s home or some other personal detail) that would raise the “how did you know that?” questions.
Where a complainant could show a record of the same event that preceded the RV account, say a diary entry, that RV could not know about that would also raise pertinent questions.
It was hard to read this, but valuable to have these quotes all in one place for the next time we get the Rhoosh fans in here claiming he isn’t a rapist, just an alpha who gets laid a lot.
Ah, I see. I’m a sports agnostic, so that one was unfamiliar to me.
And yeah. What a stupid way of putting it. Rape is not a “game”. Much less like football. Maybe Roosh needs to get defensively tackled more, preferably by a 300-pound bone-crusher. And I’m not talking women.
I am curious of if Roosh has entered the various countries on his “world tour”, and now Canada on a BUSINESS VISA vs. a Tourist Visa as would be expected if one is sell tickets to a paid event?
If you enter most countries on a Tourist Visa you are prohibited from transacting business or engaging in a commercial enterprise.
The TW is there now, not sure what happened when I tried to add it before.
@ EJ(TOO)
Well, you know we had an interesting discussion about benevolent sexism just recently.
I am with you on this one though, with the caveat that the bit in italics isn’t necessary.
I’m not suggesting men should always charge in with a “Step aside ladies, let me handle this” attitude; but on the few occasions I’ve had to use my “I’m a pretty big bloke who’s not too bad at fighting” privilege in order to stop a woman getting hurt I’ve not felt guilty about it afterwards. But as I’ve pointed out, I’m not a very good pro-feminist anyway.
This is sickening. So fucking sickening. I’ve got literally nothing except tears and vomit, so here’s some brain bleach in the form of kittens in a bathtub.
“I put her on her stomach and went deep, pounding her pussy like a pedophile”
Uh
What
Welp, anything I would say to that would get me in trouble because of the posting rules on this site, so I won’t say anything but what on earth does his mother think of him?
@EJ (TOO), Alan Robertshaw
Nothing wrong with that. Just be sure to read the signals. If she can handle the situation, let her do it.
When I see a guy threatening a woman, I find that just stopping (even several yards away) and just observing them can really discourage that guy. A cellphone in my hand helps, too.
As far as Roosh’s writing goes, he’s actually careful to suggest that all his sex acts are rape. He chooses his words v e r y deliberately (or, more likely, he has his ghostwriter choose those words–but Roosh sets the tone). The words are calculated to add up to the theme of rape. That’s why you feel sad, sick, enraged, and slimed.
Tanya, I agree with you about the selfish remark being the most disturbing. It brings flashbacks of moments I’ve had like that where I was made to feel bad or guilty for changing my mind and wanting to stop. I had a boyfriend in high school that wouldn’t stop when I asked, so I said “what are you gonna rape me?” And he flipped the fuck out, dragged me outside, threw me into his car, and drove me home, stopping first to wash his car at gas station and threatening to open the passenger side window so I could get pressure washed. I was crying and apologizing, I had terrible self esteem. Rooshs tactics remind me of so many shitweasels I’ve had to contend with in my tumultuous youth. Sickening.
Hammock kitties! Bathtub kitties! SQUEEEEEEE!
And that reminds me: It’s thundering out, and am I ever glad my own two kitties are in.
So basically, roosh isn’t skilled at getting laid. He’s skilled at getting women to go somewhere with him alone and then he gets rejected, and then he rapes them. These are rejection stories.
Researching this post must have taken some serious gastrointestinal fortitude. I just hope you didn’t actually have to buy his books.