So a couple of coffeeshop owners from Asheville, North Carolina just got outed as the two creepy, rapey, misogynistic assholes behind a skeezy pickup podcast, and, it turns out that a lot of their customers aren’t terribly happy about that.
The two have posted apologies (of sorts) and tried to buy forgiveness by donating to a local rape crisis center — which has refused to accept their money.
Given what the two have said — and allegedly done — that reaction is more than understandable. Read on for the details.
Jared Rutledge and Jacob Owens are the owners of a formerly popular coffeeshop called Waking Life Espresso; they were also, until recently, the two anonymous dudes behind the Holistic Game podcast, on which they shared their alleged dating experiences and showcased their contemptuous and contemptible views of women.
Oh, and during one of their podcast episodes, Owens seems to have confessed to raping a drugged-up woman in the hospital. Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript, as reported on Jezebel. (Content Warning, obviously.)
“It was still really fun because we had sex in the shower. Hospital sex is weird, when she’s drugged, it’s strange, but it’s really cool.”
“Could she give consent?” Rutledge asks. “Could she give consent, Jay?”
“Uh oh,” Owens laughs. “That’s my bad. That is my bad.”
“You might’ve violated some California laws. Good thing we don’t live in California.”
Lovely. And there are people who think rape culture isn’t real?
In addition to doing the podcast, Rutledge also kept himself busy on Twitter, spewing forth hateful and retrograde nonsense about women, liberally sprinkled with racism, homophobia, and a lot of “red pill” lingo. Some examples:
I didn’t even notice until proofreading this post that two of those Tweets were replies to @heartiste.
You can find much, much more of his nonsense posted on the JaredAndJacobSaid blog set up by a critic of theirs, and which is where I found the screenshots above. (You will also see that he follows Roosh’s Twitter account as well. Because of course he does.)
Rutledge, that busy boy, also ran a blog, on which he detailed his various “conquests,” which ranged from an “sexy little mid-twenties brunette with a thigh gap [who] was … dumb as a fucking brick” to a “late thirties MILF that I fucked in her basement while her kids were asleep.”
Since being outed, the two have gone into damage control mode. Owens, the one who seemingly confessed to rape, posted a groveling apology that doesn’t seem to have won over many of his critics. He started off by saying that
I would like to fully admit to what I have done. I would also like to receive the shame and necessary consequences for my actions. I am not hiding nor do I want to deflect.
But then he seemed to offer excuses, declaring that
I would do the podcast with Jared while we were kicking back and drinking whiskey. I had a persona and an ego that would come out while I tried to tell other men who might be listening how to be “successful” with women.
He also denied that he had anything to do with the blog or the podcast’s Twitter account, but sort of took responsibility for it as well:
I would like to be very clear that I did not author any of the posts of the blog or twitter. But just as worse, I knew they existed. I did not keep up with them, or fully know what was on them. But by knowing that it was going on, and knowing that I was associated however, I am complicit.
Rutledge’s “apology,” meanwhile, was barely an apology at all.
I know I’ve said and posted a lot of things that are offensive. Most of my life I’ve struggled with insecurities around dating. I felt like, in the past couple years, that I’d finally gotten a handle on this and experienced more success. So I made a twitter, blog, and got Jacob to podcast with me. We didn’t always say nice things, and sometimes we were downright mean. Sometimes I just vented about frustrating experiences in an immature, hateful, and foolish way. It was in particular a breach of trust to post intimate details about lovers. I was naive enough to think it’d stay anonymous, and I was wrong.
So here we are. I grew up in West Asheville and have disappointed and brought shame to the community that raised me, and there’s not really anything I can do to make it right. There are no excuses to be made. The way I’ve phrased and framed my private conduct in a sad and tawdry public way is humiliating. There’s nothing to do but ask your forgiveness for any harm I’ve caused. I’m sorry folks.
Well, actually, dude, there is a lot more to do than asking for forgiveness. Taking real responsibility for what you’ve done rather than trying to excuse it as somehow being caused by your former “insecurities around dating” would be a good first step.
OurVoice, the rape crisis intervention and prevention agency that the two tried to donate to, noted the evident insincerity of Rutledge’s “apology” as one of the reasons they turned down the money.
We were disturbed and outraged by what was posted by Jared and Jacob regarding women. We will not be taking their money because it is not our place to forgive. Our VOICE is not in a position of absolving them for their misogyny as it perpetuates a culture of danger to all women and girls. Jared’s and Jacob’s actions not only objectified women but also perpetuated rape culture and violence against women.
While Jared and Jacob apologized, Jared’s apology infers that he believes his inability to date well contributed to his actions. How damaged must our society be that he can reason in this manner and it be thought as an apology. It is disturbing to think he can rationalize violence against all women because he struggled with insecurities around dating.
If you would like to make a donation to OurVoice, you can do so here.
H/T — A number of people alerted me to this story. Thanks to all of them.
@AnonAnonAnon The simple truth is that noone owes trust or forgiveness to anyone else. Those are things that the truster/forgiver chooses to give of their own volition. I have done and said shitty,stupid things to others in my life and when I realized that they were stupid and shitty, I apologized and made a real effort to learn from my behavior. But even though I apologized and learned no one who was offended by my actions was obligated to forgive me. The truly apologetic person just makes sure that they don’t repeat the behavior.
Kat-Yeah, I noticed that to. I would have at least expected some quotes of some of their tweets, if not links or screen caps. Maybe they don’t want to cause offence to their readers, or did not want to harm the reputations of those douchebags even more? (that would be a poor excuse if that is the case) Or maybe there are legal reasons involved? I guess the laws would be more strict on news sights than it would be for blogs. I don’t know.
@Wetherby
Excellent point. I just had a look at Wikipedia, which says that Profumo cleaned toilets for a charity for many years, thus rehabilitating his reputation. OK, that’s the gold standard for demonstrating remorse.
@Paleo Cream Puff NOT okay.
I am a big fan of the idea that it’s possible for most people—even really scummy ones—to have a sudden miraculous realization that they have been a terrible human being, and that they would like to stop being a terrible human being now. I think someone who has genuinely reformed can be reintegrated into society. I think it’s good that there are therapists, counselors, and rehab-like organizations dedicated to doing just that.
But, firstly, that “genuinely reformed” bit is really, really important. “Genuinely reformed” doesn’t mean “wrote a good apology” (although a good apology is a crucial starting point). It means, “has demonstrated over time, with consistent behavior and speech, that they are no longer doing [Terrible Thing] and can start to be trusted within limited, super defined boundaries.”
And secondly—and very importantly—nobody is entitled to a second chance with the exact same people they’ve hurt. The harmed party cannot be expected to carry the baggage of trying to “fix” or “save” the person who harmed them. Part of genuine reform involves not only recognizing that you’ve done a terrible thing, but recognizing that you’ve done a terrible thing to someone. Broken trust is hard to repair. Sometimes it can’t be repaired. In cases of rape, of course it can’t be repaired.
If a person has done a terrible thing to someone—and/or to their community—they need to own up to the fact that nobody else is obligated to help them fix it, nor is anyone obligated to believe that they are sincere in wanting to fix it. That’s not because the other people are being unfair. That’s because the offender has created a no-win situation for themselves. This doesn’t mean they are doomed to live as a pariah for the rest of their life, but it may well mean that they have to start over in a new place with new people (and they’d better be really sure to not do the Terrible Thing again, or the cycle will repeat).
It’s even possible to forgive a person (in the sense of not hating them, and even sincerely wishing them well) without ever trusting them near you again. I had a friend for more than a decade, who recently turned against lots of our friends, including myself, causing a lot of pain in our mutual circles. Because of our long history, I still care about him and really do want him to snap out of it and be okay. But because of the awfulness of what he did (I can’t go into details), I’m 0% okay with the idea of hanging out with him ever again. I wish him healing and a good life, but he’s going to have to have those things with someone who isn’t me.
So in light of all that—these guys have yet to come up with a reasonable apology. They certainly haven’t had time to demonstrate sincere reform in how they act. They broke the trust of their community in general, and of an unknown number of women individually and specifically; anyone harmed or disgusted by their actions has every right to refuse to have anything to do with them.
I like to believe that there is hope for these guys to get a clue and become good human beings. I like to believe that there is hope for them to eventually have functional, happy families, and a business that brings a positive impact to their community. But it’s pretty unlikely that this will work out for them in Asheville—and that’s not Asheville’s problem.
@Paleo Cream Puff – Nope. Not okay. We don’t even joke about that kind of stuff.
Could I get a “Kootiepatra for President” t-shirt? I think I need one given the amount I agree with that post.
@Paleo Cream Puff, not appropriate. I deleted your comment.
Sometimes the stories on WHTM and brigaded comment sections on other sites can make me feel like the world is full of MRAs and RedPillers. It’s nice to see that when RedPill attitudes are exposed to ordinary people, the vast majority of them are repulsed.
Society as a whole is still more sexist than I’d like, but the hardcore misogynists are a tiny and shunned minority in the real world, no matter how loud they are online.
Glad they got caught. Now to see if the MRA brigade comes roaring into the comment section of that news article.
I’ll just leave this here…
http://www.yelp.com/biz/waking-life-espresso-asheville
On the subject of what could these disgusting men ‘do’ to make things better:
If they do not have genuine remorse there is nothing they can do. If they continue to have those same vile racist and misogynist views but just be more careful about where and how they express them then nothing has changed. People who have something to lose in a situation like this always do a bit of grovelling hoping that people will buy it, and most people see that as the blatant insincere manipulation it so obviously is.
They have been exposed and now the community will do whatever they see fit.
Maybe all the local MRA’s of North Carolina will make a point of using their business now.
@bvh I see a ‘proud’ non feminist (posting as Philthy V.) has shown up there to let people know he/she thinks rape is a-ok and it’s so funny and great that people are annoyed about all this.
*and by people, they mean ‘feminazi c*nts’ OF COURSE.
Ehh, I once had a cis-female “friend” who made a habit out of manipulating me with fake emergencies in order to test how dedicated I was to the relationship. Once I caught her at it, she immediately apologized. It wasn’t a nonpology either, but a genuine-sounding, correct-form apology.
I was not so easily mollified, and she became offended and angry that I wasn’t having it. This was many years ago and I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but now I realize what the problem was: what, exactly, changed between yesterday and today, other than now I know what she’d been doing? There was no hint that her attitude about our relationship, or her idea about what kind of actions were acceptable to take in a friendship as close as ours allegedly was had changed in the slightest. She did nothing to make it up to me, or even offer to do something. She thought her apology was enough and I now needed to forgive her.
The fact that she expected me to comfort her and make her feel better about having fucked around with my emotions on a regular basis did not make me any more accepting of her ostensible remorse.
I don’t think it’s a male thing, precisely, but more of a haven’t-really-grown-up-yet-emotionally thing. There are a lot, a lot, of folks who get to the legal age of maturity without learning basic stuff like “some mistakes can’t be undone.” It may manifest in men more frequently, just because cis men are often not required by their families to do any emotional maturation growing up. Girls are more likely to be trained to be caretakers of the emotions of others, especially when the “others” are men, while boys are trained to expect other people to manage their emotions for them, especially when “other people” are women. But women can do it, too.
@Policy of madness – fantastic comment!
Agree entirely with what katz and PoM said.
My experience is that there’s two types of apologies: the one wherein the person is seeking license to continue offending, and the one where they are not. I’ve also noticed that the first type is far more common when the apologising party feels that they are higher-status than the party they’re apologising to; and in that context it often feels less like a request for that license than a demand.
When this demand is refused, people often get extremely huffy and demand that you comfort them; and this is probably the surest sign of a bad-faith apology in my view.
Growing up with my mother, this was what I thought all apologies were, to the point where I became innately suspicious of them. It was an epiphany when I realised that some people, when they apologise, actually do not mean to continue offending.
Backing up the truck here a bit to say YES TO THIS. Steubenville, or “Stupidville”, as Traci Lords (who fled there after being raped in her teens) called it, is pretty much the microcosm for rape culture — it shuns victims and rewards perpetrators, repeatedly. Asheville’s response is VERY heartening. Wish more towns were like that instead of like Stupidville.
Urgh, small correction to myself: Traci Lords fled FROM Stupidville, not TO it. (Can you imagine anyone actually fleeing TO there?)
“We’ve said terrible and demeaning things — things that belie unhealthy thought patterns that do not contribute to a stable and equal society. Things our mothers and sisters had to hear. ”
It’s telling that Rutledge only said he was sorry for what he said, not what he did. He doesn’t regret manipulating a string of women into sex and then dumping them, or the fact that some of the sex was non-consensual, or using his business to further his notch count. He only regrets blabbing about it.
It’s also kind of a douchebag move to invoke his mother and sisters in order to illustrate how terrible these thought patterns are. Dude, what you said was shitty and inexcusable no matter who’s listening to it. Mothers and sisters don’t live on a special snowflake pedestal apart from the rest of the female population. Your “plates” are also mothers and sisters, with thoughts and feelings and inner lives of their own. They’re not just numbers and ages and conquests. How about acknowledging that ALL women find it demeaning to be talked about like damaged cuts of meat?
Even with all the flowery, grovelling language, it’s clear he still doesn’t understand what he did and why it was wrong. He’s just telling the town what he thinks they want to hear.
I think for these guys to truly be able to feel remorse for their actions, instead of remorse about getting caught, they need to recognize that women are people, not objects.
I notice that neither of their apologies are to any extent directed at the women they hurt. Jared’s apology is particularly noticable in this, as he specifically apologizes to the Asher community for shaming them (after blaming his behavior on not being able to get a date), instead of to the women who he abused, or the women who may have been abused by people who listened to his ‘ teachings’. I further suspect that in his perception, the Asher community is entirely male- not that he doesn’t believe that women exist in the town, but that they just don’t matter in any capacity.
In short, these guys are shitbuckets who do not, and likely never will, acknowledge that women are people and should be respected, and they absolutely deserve every once of shame, anger and ostracization that is heaped upon them.
Honestly, my main reaction to all this is that they are absolutely f-ing IDIOTS for not realizing the SYNERGIES!!
“Hey guys! You know what really gets girls in the mood? The smell of good coffee. That’s why I drink Waking Life Espresso before every date …..”
“This girl was smoking and I was totally in to doing her but she was getting tired and I thought she might bail, so I bought her a Waking Life Espresso and we banged all night long!”
” … I realized that if I did her in that condition I might be open to a rape charge, so I made her a cup of Waking Life Espresso to ‘sober her up’ (lol) before going for it… “
Freaking Amateurs!!!
I live in this area, about an hour away, even though I am in SC.
I think it’s common knowledge, but in case it isn’t, there is no worse place in either of the Carolinas for a person to own a business, and rely on the community for income, and act like this. Asheville is a small, southern town, but it is very progressive and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if these 2 asshats are unable to recover from their abhorrent behavior, especially after the half assed apology they put out.
Oh my, yet another douchebag who’s crying not because he is an abominable human being but because he was caught.
There is nothing they can do to rectify this in the short term. In the long term, they can START TREATING WOMEN AS PEOPLE AND NOT RECEPTACLES.
Bina,
I had no idea Traci Lords was from there. I really like her. She was so funny in Crybaby and Roseanne and I loved her as an uptight fundie mom in Incision (a really great horror/dark comedy that should have been seen more). I really wish she would get more roles, but I guess her history of doing porn must scare studios off.
With regards to expecting forgiveness for misogyny, it’s unfortunately expected even when there’s been no apology or semblance of remorse. There was a pretty frustrating conversation over at Gawker yesterday about Sean Penn. A lot of commenters seemed to think that we shouldn’t criticize him for abusing and holding Madonna captive because it happened 30 years ago. This is despite the fact that rather than being apologetic, he’s suing Lee Daniels for comparing him to other celebrity abuser Terrance Howard. Fuck that.