All is not happy in the world of Roosh Valizadeh. The formerly amoral hedonist, who built his online fiefdom on a bunch of books urging men to “bang” women in an assortment of countries, is turning into a moralistic, hectoring scold only a few steps removed from the Taliban.
And some of his old fans are wondering what the hell has happened to him.
Earlier this week, Roosh posted an especially dour and authoritarian post titled “How To Stop The Fall Of Women,” telling his readers that
It is completely your responsibility to create the environment of a good home, a good city, and a good country to prevent the fall of your women. It’s your responsibility to create the right environment where all women remain good instead of succumbing to an evil where within a short amount of time she becomes a useless, tattooed, overweight, and masculine slut. It should be clear to you by now that women absolutely can not save themselves, and have no inherent resistance to the pollution that tempts them in this world. It’s solely up to us men to shield their natural virtue so that they become the wives and mothers that allow you to fulfill your biological destiny while furthering the health of your society.
He continues on in this vein for several hundred more words.
It’s a big change from his older PUA writings, but one thing is consistent: Roosh doesn’t think women have the right to control their own lives.
Still, some of his old fans are having none of it. A reader pointed me to this interesting exchange in the comments to Roosh’s post:
A lot of Roosh’s old fans — like “Former Banger” there — are sympathetic to his new direction. But clearly not all of them. Alexa (an admittedly imperfect cataloguer of web traffic) also suggests that Roosh’s sites are losing steam, and losing readers. He’s still a long way from irrelevant, but he gets closer every day.
No wonder Roosh is so grumpy.
I’m going to assume you’re here in good faith and you’re just new, so I’m going to explain this:
There are plenty of reasons that women don’t go to the cops when they’re raped.
– Rape victims don’t get justice because sometimes it’s hard to “prove” rape.
– Cops pressure rape victim into taking back their accusation
– Other people pressure rape victim into not making an accusation to either protect the rapist, or in a very sorry attempt to “protect” the victim (because it’s somehow shameful to be out about being raped).
– Rape victims aren’t believed due to Rape Culture narratives
– Victim Blaming
– Victim was gaslit to believe that
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Here’s some links that might help:
Woman Raped In LES Bar Says Cop Asked If She’s “A Party Girl”
Why don’t women report rape? Because most get no justice when they do
Why Victims of Rape in College Don’t Report to the Police
What Cops Are Really Thinking When a Woman Claims She Was Raped
Why Don’t Cops Believe Rape Victims?
Why Most Victims Don’t Report Rape
The Real Reason Women Don’t Report Rapes
These are from a few publications, and span the course of a couple of years back.
So, happy reading.
Whoopsie.
– Victim was gaslit to believe that they wanted what happened, or that they were at fault for some reason
Fix’d.
@Paradoxical Intention
I once heard a cop interview with a rape victim and the callousness of the cop to the women shocked me. It was so cold and unsympathetic.
It would be nice to be able to believe that Roosh has never managed to rape someone. It would be nice to believe that we lived in a world where all rapes were persecuted and that rapists faced justice the vast majority of the time.
That ain’t the world that I live in, though. And if Roosh blatantly admits to multiple counts of rape, I’m going to believe him, because his mindset and the mindset if his ilk is fucking dangerous and facilitates the rape of women worldwide. Ignoring that shit and dismissing it as harmless bravado isn’t going to help anyone but the rapists.
I can totally believe that Roosh never raped anyone.
His story might be a fictional brag.
We’ll never know, so the real point is that his books are rape guides. And sure, they might be used as wank material instead and nothing more. But they’re still rape guides.
Here’s my vote: Aris Boch is a concern troll.
He probably doesn’t even tell these women his real name. Maybe the woman he raped in Iceland did go to the police. How would we even know?
@Kat: I saw the comment that Aris made earlier on the Roosh post linked previously, and I don’t think they’re a troll, but they are definitely tone policing and possibly just super misinformed.
@Orion
Excellent point. After all, why would he tell them his real name.
Roosh might have a string of allegations made against him worldwide. And of course there are many, many reasons why a woman wouldn’t report a rape. All we know with any degree of confidence is that right now Roosh isn’t in prison.
@Paradoxical Intention
The above is what Aris Boch said. Omitted from this post: Exactly what is “f***ed up.”
He makes me want to be come Lydia the tattooed lady.
Alan
Hah! My mental image is always of a slapstick comedy joke with a marx bros-chaplin-buster keaton-esque figure having his seat pulled out from under him.
Of course, it’s only funny if you think bullying/hurting people is funny.
justlikeheaven
The big problem is that people think that anyone who’s experienced in interviewing crime suspects has the right background for interviewing crime victims. (Even cops who are helpful and sympathetic enough with, say, injured victims of car accidents to get good witness statements from them may not be up to the job of interviewing sexual assault victims.)
Once upon a time, I was given a group of people to organise/supervise for an enquiry service my govt dept needed because of a big change in our laws. We needed people who understood the law as it had been, as well as the details of the changes, and their effects. Who better than the experienced, degree-qualified people whose normal job was investigating breaches of the law?
Hell’s teeth! Most of them were, in fact, pretty good. The few others … bloody diabolical. They were suspicious and asked inappropriate questions instead of offering (very necessary) reassurance and support and, most important, an invitation to call again if there were any further queries. They just couldn’t resist their habitual urge to treat the people they spoke to as ne’er-do-wells hell bent on defrauding the taxpayer.
I’m going to have to disagree with an earlier comment on grudging respect for fundies at least applying their purity doctrine to both genders and so the concept of purity culture being part of rape culture doesn’t apply….Sure, they want both men and women to be virgins till marriage (which creates a whole new problem after marriage for a couple who struggles to switch from ‘no sex because it’s special and for marriage and don’t masturbate either’ to ‘ok you’re married so you now will have all kinds of fun and amazing awesome sex without any awkwardness at all’) but the responsibility of keeping all men at all times from ‘stumbling’ is placed upon women. It’s women who must dress modestly and ‘stay sweet’, else they might cause a man to lust, if a man rapes it’s because 1.) the woman dressed/behaved in a manner that caused him to lust 2.) his wife denies him sexually 3.) pornography. The CPM/fundy culture has so many women acting as enforcers it’s mind-boggling, and it’s insulting to men to believe they are totally incapable of controlling their behavior so women must cover themselves up and behave a certain way to prevent men from becoming slobbering and pawing rapist-beasts.
@Paradoxical Intention | October 10, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Which still doesn’t explain, why Valizadeh wasn’t not charged with rape, despite writing books with that kinda stuff written in them. You can’t explain everyone away like that, when Valizadeh does talk about it publicly in his books, under his real name. At least one or two women would’ve come forward, why did zero do?
C’mon, writing brainrottingly fucked up books is no proof of having committed crimes. Are there even rumors about him actually raping anyone? Any kind of evidence for his deeds? Anything? Besides speculation? Any evidence for his books being more then a product of a
sick mind? Just ’cause a book say it did happens doesn’t mean it happened, or else that’s be going down the road of Biblical inerrancy (the bible is teh word of god cause it sez it’s the word of god).
Yep, Aris Boch seems to be here in good faith to me. Case closed!
Related: Back before Slate changed their message boards to be unusable without my disabling all of my security plugins, something I am unwilling to do just to go around with idiots, I read a comment on an article about rape written by someone who identified as a member of a local prosecutor’s office. This person said that people who come in to report a rape usually do not display an affect that matches the one people expect/want rape victims to have. They may laugh, or be completely flat, or do any number of things other than convincingly cry like their life is over. For this reason, that prosecutor’s office has a rule of totally disregarding the person’s affect, and focusing entirely on whether the person is able to provide any usable evidence.
However, this policy is not in use at the police department, and the police (at least in that location) place almost religious significance on affect. If a victim doesn’t behave the way the cops expect a victim to behave, from the very start, the police assume the person making the report is lying and treat them accordingly. The person writing the post said this made it really difficult to charge anyone with rape, because the behavior of the police destroyed evidence.
In England judges now direct juries about rape myths during their summing up. They point out that women may not report straight away or necessarily burst into tears etc.
They have to do it in as neutral a way as possible so they don’t look like they’re supporting the prosecution of course.
Just ’cause a book say it did happens doesn’t mean it happened, or else that’s be going down the road of Biblical inerrancy
That’s right! Roosh’s books are all collections of lore than has been passed down orally for generations before being written down! The two things are directly comparable!
Yes it does explain it. She just explained it to you.
When somebody tells you who they are, believe them. Roosh tells us repeatedly that he’s a rapist. I believe him.
If you are in good faith (which I’m starting to doubt) you should read this. https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
Read the whole thing, but this is the most relevant part.
No, you’re not a victim that she’s a liar here. But by refusing to take it seriously when a man self reports as a rapist and “jokes” about how rape should be legal on private property, you are effectively implying every woman who didn’t report her rape to the police is a liar. Because surely real rapists would at some point be reported and charged. Nope. Not how it works.
Ugh. It was supposed to be you’re not telling a victim she’s a liar here in the last paragraph.
@weirwoodtreehugger | October 11, 2015 at 10:40 am
Why?
Oh for fuck’s sake. Well thanks for confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact a troll. I’m not going to even attempt to anything more than mock you if you’re going to use debate tactics favored by 10 year olds.
@weirwoodtreehugger | October 11, 2015 at 11:27 am
A troll? Why’d you think that?
To all the people who think we’re so mean around here, this is what happens when you give a chance to people who you have a bad feeling about. They waste your time and they waste your energy.
According to weirwoodtreehugger, anyone not agreeing with him/her must a troll, not, that this kinda attitude is rare on teh netz.