Dean Esmay is really kind of amazing. The Men’s Rights Twitter “activist” and former A Voice for Men Number Two Boy has finally managed to position himself on the right side of an issue — the issue being whether or not the repugnant Roosh V is repugnant. But many of his reasons for hating Roosh are frankly pretty bizarre.
Last week, you may recall, Esmay penned an impassioned attack on those media outlets that has misidentified Roosh as an MRA. “[E]very MRA I know,” Esmay insisted,
views him as a crackpot, a loon, a con artist and snake oil salesman, and a self-serving liar and weasel who likely lies about most of the rapeantasy sexcapade books he sells … .
Apparently, Esmay had somehow managed to forget that a year ago AVFM ran a puffball interview with Roosh, by a friend of Esmay’s, describing the wayward PUA as
a layered, tempered and earnest guy, who truly wants to help other men in their most basic and primal of life goals; a deep thinker, a powerful communicator and, … a gracious host.
Best to forget about that. AVFM has always been at war with Roosh.
Anyhoo, so Esmay has now penned a second attack on Roosh, this one even wilder and more Esmay-esque than the first, setting forth in some detail his case against the widely hated PUA asshat.
You might think that there would be no way even someone as addled as Esmay could screw up a critique of Roosh. But somehow he manages to, attacking Roosh for an assortment of oddball reasons and ratcheting up his often ridiculous rhetoric to eleven.
Esmay starts off by informing his fellow men that Roosh “wants you dead even more than feminists do.”
Er, who wants what now?
Whether it’s chemical or ideological poison they want to sell you, following RooshV and Return of Kings advice can land you in jail or dead. If you’re lucky, you may just wind up with multiple Sexually Transmitted Diseases, a dick that no longer works, womanly breasts, and a lonely broken life.
Womanly breasts, you say?
Even worse than the womanly man boobs, Esmay warns, are the womanly women that Roosh will bring into your life.
[F]ollowing Rooshly advice might get you jailed for false (or real!!) allegations. It may also get you physically attacked by those damaged, dysfunctional women they stupidly advise you to share a bed with.
After all, psychotic women are the only type you’ll ever meet if you follow the “NeoMasculinity” path … .
Esmay claims he’s got proof of the allegedly life-ruining actions of these allegedly “damaged, dysfunctional women.”
People should know that I have spoken to unfortunate Return of Kings fans who told me their secret stories of being beaten and abused and even jailed by the type of women the RoK cultists encouraged them to seek out. …
Indeed, Esmay suggests, some of these men “were stabbed in their sleep, set on fire, or arrested after a false accusation.”
Set on fire?
Sadly, Esmay continues, some of these poor fellows have also suffered from the terrible indignity of getting arrested for rapes they actually did commit after “they stupidly got drunk and followed Roosh’s advice and raped a drunk girl who then legitimately had them jailed.”
Esmay of course provides no actual evidence of any Roosh followers getting stabbed or set on fire or jailed for rape. I don’t know about the set-on-fire stuff, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Roosh fans were raping women on a regular basis. But we have no evidence here beyond Esmay’s word. And that, frankly, is not worth much.
Esmay wants us to feel bad for these poor fellows — apparently, even the men he considers to be Roosh-inspired rapists.
All I can do when talking to the poor fools who took Return of Kings/RooshV advice was shake my head and give them the same advice I give to so many other abused men facing physical and emotional scars and legal trouble.
I used to try to refrain from bluntly telling these poor unfortunates that they were fools to follow the bizarre Return Of Kings cult, that they got suckered and swindled by a cult leader named Roosh, but it seemed rude …
But I was wrong. Someone needs to tell them. So listen up, you fools in the RooshV circle: there is nothing but misery and death down the Return of Kings path.
Wait, so now Roosh’s fans are dying as well?
Esmay then explains at length why he and other AVFMers somehow never managed to get around to pointing out that Roosh was the terrible person he really is. As Esmay explains it, they were just being “trying to be charitable” towards someone who dislikes feminism as much as they do.
Only now, apparently, has Esmay realized that maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so nice to a dude he now sees as a “sociopath” and a “serial rapist.”
“So here’s the truth,” Esmay writes.
In many of his books, you find what are undeniably confessions of Roosh raping multiple women. In fact, the words “serial rapist” are not too harsh to describe Roosh, at least if his own published, public writings are to be believed.
Esmay, repeating claims he made in an earlier post, also describes longtime Roosh pal Matt Forney as “a confessed rapist by any sane standard.”
None of these apparent confessions of Roosh’s are particularly new; I started writing about them in 2013, and I was hardly the first to notice them. So why is Esmay, so long silent on all of this, speaking up now?
[R]ecent evidence has come to my attention on the matter to leave me convinced that there’s no reason to believe any of this is fiction, that all of it is real. You’ll probably be reading about it in the coming weeks if certain things I hope come to pass, including my hope that a few of their victims will step forward and we can get some of these sleazebags put away by legal authorities.
If Esmay actually has evidence of any of this, and can get it into the hands of the appropriate authorities, more power to him. But Esmay’s track record of providing evidence for his claims is not exactly great.
After this relatively brief discussion of Roosh’s alleged rapes, Esmay devotes most of the rest of his sprawling screed to arguing that
following Return of Kings advice isn’t just a good way to put lethal women in your life. It’s a good way to put lethal chemicals in your body.
Esmay seems particularly obsessed with a couple possible side effects of these “lethal chemicals.” I think you’ll see what I mean.
[I]f you want your dick to shrink and your mantits to grow to a shapely C-cup, and to become an opiate addict who lands in a hospital from liver failure and intestinal rupture from bowel obstruction, keep following the Return of Kings advice on “nutritional” supplements and “testosterone.” …
Seriously man, did you want your dick to fall off and massive tits to sprout on your chest while you lie in a hospital bed shuddering from withdrawal symptoms and liver and kidney damage that you may never be able to undo while your dick rots off? …
Return of Kings-recommended supplements are frequently sold in forms where purity is in no way guaranteed and thus may also contain additional chemicals they don’t even have to tell you about. Have fun with that while both your biceps and your juicy new tits get bigger.
So far, it’s a tie: four mentions of man tits and four mentions of dicks getting smaller and/or falling off.
Esmay then remembers that whole rape thing:
I am not accusing Roosh of “advocating” rape. I am accusing him of confessing to rape, rape that is rape by any sane person’s standards.
And then it’s back to the tits and the dicks:
I am accusing him of selling chemical poisons that’ll help you grow tits, have a smaller dick, and die of liver failure while you shudder from opiate withdrawals and the AIDS symptoms you got from the crazy bitch who stuck a knife in your ribs before she falsely accused you of rape.
Final score: five pairs of man tits, five smaller/detachable penises, three liver failures, two stabbings by “crazy bitches,” and one partridge in a pear tree (that’s been set on fire).
Only Dean Esmay could take a perfectly legitimate critique of Roosh and Esmay it up this badly.
@bina
Oh I thought kratom was a plant. Not surprised roosh is peddling it. As for using it for an opiate thing to help you come off is the same as methodone I suppose which is almost as bad as the drug your trying to come off. That and diazepam.
Considering that “Neomasculinity” is just Roosh’s trademarkable name for the Red Pill…
Steroids don’t make your dick shrink – your balls, yes, but I’m pretty sure those are different parts of the anatomy – and they don’t make it fall off – impotent, sure, but again, not really the same thing. Honestly, how hard is it to Google basic facts before spouting off – oh, right, MRAs.
@Tragedy of the Commas
Yeah, I would say it’s transphobic and also ableist. Plenty of men already have breasts like many trans men and some cis men with certain medical conditions. Their breasts aren’t “womanly” because they, in fact, are men. So it’s transphobic and ableist to insinuate that having breasts automatically makes someone womanly.
Also, I do think Esmay’s obsessive fear about having breasts and a shrinking penis could reflect a desire to have nothing in common with women (trans women included). So it’s maybe a bit transphobic from that angle as well.
It’s definitely possible that Roosh’s rape confessions are embellished. But his actual advice is to use pressure to get away with as much as you can, which is the type of mindset serial rapists can have. Plus his mindset more or less allows serial rapists to convince themselves that what they’re doing shouldn’t be considered rape.
Well, I did mention that we did condemn her actions either way, and she did apologize for them, regardless of how they affected him.
The point I was trying to make by saying that was that he decided that this huge backlash of siccing his fanbase on her was totally okay, totally not over-the-top, and totally necessary, despite the fact that it literally did nothing to him. My focus was on what he did in the name of petty revenge, not in the name of what was actually done to him (that we all agreed was wrong and that it shouldn’t have happened).
I honestly have no idea about that. I’m really only aware of what happened in this comments section and what David wrote in his article about the subject, which was so very helpfully linked by Shadow.
Tragedy of the Commas: I have nothing to add; I just want to applaud your screen name.
The “Roosh is not an MRA” mantra seems like it’s more embarrassing than just ignoring Roosh.
@ dlouwe
The only way, I see, that Roosh’s advice would put a man in a greater risk of allegations is to constantly bed and hang out with those who like making such allegations for whatever reason. According to the Red Piller/PUA movement philosophy All Women Are Inferior TM, and a man’s status increases in proportion to how many women he manipulates, controls, and beds. Such a man may intentionally seek out the especially “damaged” women to boost his ego, or perhaps to “prove” that those women can’t possibility make those allegations because he’s so superior.
However, like others said, there’s no evidence (yet) that Roosh’s advice causes women to make false allegations against the men.
Yup.
And methadone, diazepam, etc., are all addictive drugs in and of themselves, too. And ironically, they’re marketed as drugs to help you get off other drugs…heroin was originally invented and sold to help cure morphine addiction. Oopsie!
And on that note, maybe Roosh would like a visit from the DEA. I’d say they’re interested in getting kratom-peddlers out of business, no?
I feel silly asking this, but what was the 1984 reference? I’m just completely blanking out here.
@Dreadnought:
Mason sent his followers to harass Laughing Witch a few months ago. He was kicked off of Freethought Blogs a few years ago because he wouldn’t shut up about how having sexual harassment policies at conventions was the worst thing ever.
@ Bina
Yep, I’m familiar with the kratom quackery. There’s almost no research to verify its claims; indeed, there’s more information on potential side effects than anything else, which only amounts to a couple papers.
As an anecdote, I know of those who took kratom … And promptly got stomach aches and constipation. Not surprising, considered to potential impurities.
I would love the government to crack down on kratom peddlers, too. We’ve got enough quacks and unethical sellers as is.
@Anathema
Thanks for clearing that up and for putting up with my infinite stupidity. Apparently this isn’t the first time mason has doxxed someone, if I remember correctly, before he was kicked off Free Thought Blogs he released the private info. of a creationist he didn’t like.
@ Becca.
All good points.
@ katz
Thanks!
@ Mels
When Futrelle wrote, “Best to forget about that. AVFM has always been at war with Roosh,” it was a reference to the following passage from 1984: “Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.” Although, to be fair, the “had always been at war with” statement comes up more than once.
I have had a thousand angry gnomes trying to cleave my head today so all the incisive commentary I can really give is that that picture of Esmay looks like he’s leaning back while taking a huge, constipated dump.
Also that misogynists are awfully fixated on their dicks. Probably because it’s the only thing giving them any sense of self-worth. Which is an awful lot to put on about 5-6 inches of flesh.
@ Dreandought, iirc it was after Mason’s invitation to use the FTB blogging platform to post from was rescinded and he was asked to move his activities back to where they’d been before instead. (I’m open to correction re the timing, of course. My memory is crap)
(A lot of people, especially at the time, seemed to think FTB was some kind of “job” or position he was “fired” from (and even suggested that he was – ha! coughYouTubecough – “silenced”); obviously I’m not suggesting that you think that, but just thought I’d mention it)
Forgot to refresh before posting … ::hangs head in shame::
@History Nerd
I agree. For all I know, Roosh is a virgin. All I know for sure is that I haven’t had sex with him (shudder).
But his books are rape manuals.
IMHO For All I Know, Roosh Is A Virgin would make a great bumper sticker, T-shirt, and coffee mug.
Short.
Snappy.
Hits him where it hurts.
Kat, you are a genius.
After Mason left FTB, he went on reading the back channel: he exploited a security loophole and must have known that he wasn’t welcome and that people didn’t know he was listening in: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/08/10/what-thunderf00t-did-and-how/)
He threatened to dox one trans blogger, who left FTB, atheism and blogging.
That was 2012.
You might want to grab some popcorn: Roosh is now claiming to be an MRA in order to annoy MRAs.
@EJ (The Other One)
Finally! After years of toiling in obscurity, my genius is…
Er, that is, thanks!
Oh no, muh Kleenex!
Seriously though, this is going to stick in someone’s craw.
Maybe it’ll be AVfM. Maybe it’ll be some random MRA YouTuber. Who knows.
@Kat:
You’ll show them, you’ll show them all?
@ Tragedy of the Commas
Seconded the applause about your screen name: that is great.
And the transphobia – I quite agree.
And isn’t there an awful lot of body hatred in Esmay in particular and the manosphere in general? Misogyny of course – a woman has got to be either a HB8 or a “landwhale”, with literally nothing in between.
But also this endless obsession with whether or not people “lift”, or that men have breasts, or are overweight, or the semi-pornographic obsession with the supposed damage Other Men’s Dicks can do to “ruin” the ladyparts.
They seem disgusted with everybody’s bodies – not least their own and ones like theirs. Especially the inevitable aging process, which affects us all unless we die young (that was my original plan, but I’ve left it way too late).
It is a sad way to view the world – if they weren’t quite so appalling to everyone they come into contact with, I’d feel more sorry for them.