By David Futrelle
Several days ago, a strange fellow named Mark Judge made his debut as a bit player in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination tragicomedy that now grips the nation. Judge, a hard-partying pal of Kavanaugh back in his Georgetown Prep days in the early 1980s, was allegedly on the scene when his then 17-year-old buddy Brett allegedly tried to rape the then-15 year old Christine Blasey Ford.
According to Ford, as reported in the Washington Post, Judge helped his friend “corral” her into a bedroom at a party, then watched (apparently quite amused by the spectacle) as the future Supreme Court nominee held her down and tried to rip off her clothes.
As it turns out, Judge’s alleged behavior in this alleged incident is merely the tip of the creepy iceberg when it comes to Kavanaugh’s prep school pal. Over the past several days, journalists and curious internet sleuths have pored over the articles Judge has written for assorted D-list right-wing websites — and a strange oeuvre of exceedingly creepy videos Judge posted on (then abruptly removed from) YouTube and Vimeo.
Several readers pointed out to me that I had in fact written about one of Judge’s especially icky articles way back in 2015, an attack on allegedly spoiled white women in the west, whom the very white Judge feels have “lost the capacity to appreciate and create beauty, to wonder and delight, to genuinely love,” unlike their (allegedly) more “receptive” — and apparently quite easily impressed — foreign counterparts.
In the piece, published in Real Clear Religion, Judge fondly recalled one alleged former girlfriend from India who, he said, “clutched my hand in delight at dance concerts and wept when she saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.”
This turns out to be fairly tame compared to some of Judge’s other writings about women. In one piece on hardboiled crime fiction for Splice Today, Judge complained that Social Justice Warriors don’t properly appreciate men’s “dark, horny, creative and a bit crazy” shadow side. And he seemed to come awfully close to endorsing date rape:
Every man who’s fit to live has his own stories about the time … he ducked the police, got in over his head with money, or abandoned himself in pursuit of love or sex. We’ve all climbed up windowsills, driven all night, and gotten into fights over a girl.
Er, speak for yourself, dude.
Of course, a man must be able to read a woman’s signals, and it’s a good thing that feminism is teaching young men that no means no and yes means yes. But there’s also that ambiguous middle ground, where the woman seems interested and indicates, whether verbally or not, that the man needs to prove himself to her. And if that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion.
Let’s just luxuriate a little longer in the sheer awfulness of that last sentence:
And if that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion.
This is why the Senate judiciary Committee needs to call Judge to the stand, to explain if his and Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior at that prep school party was an example of the alleged “wonderful beauty” of “uncontrollable male passion.” Does Judge think that Kavanaugh “need[ed] to prove himself” to Ford by trying to rip off her clothes?
Evidently Judge — now in his fifties — still has a bit of a thing for very young women. In a 2012 piece for Real Clear Religion with the cringey title “I Am a Catholic Bikini Paparazzo,” Judge related with a certain predatory glee how he had been asked “to spend three hours taking pictures of beautiful women in bikinis — and get paid for it.”
Checking out a weekly pool party at the Capitol Skyline Hotel pool in Washington,DC, ostensibly to see if it would be a good location for a future field trip for the high-school-age kids in a local university’s summer program, Judge was apparently shooting some, er, “reference” shots when a party organizer asked him to fill in for their regular photographer, who had apparently flaked out on them that day.
“I looked around,” Judge wrote.
Dancing, hula-hooping, champaign [sic] on ice. My every Motley Crue fantasy come to life, twenty years too late.
We shook on it.
In the rest of the extremely horny post, Judge alternates between salacious (if less-than-inspired) descriptions of the “very, very attractive women. Dancing. In sexy bathing suits” that he’d been asked to photograph and weird meditations about whether or not he was being an awful sinner for wanting to bone them all. If anything, Judge’s moralizing is even hornier than his reference to his “Motley Crue fantas[ies] come to life.”
I tried to pray to my favorite saint, St. Teresa of Avila, for guidance. Teresa understood the link between eros and agape (erotic love and divine love), and compared God’s desire for us to that of a relentless lover. And what was wrong with with [sic] spending a sunny afternoon at a pool party photographing hot women and getting a check at the end?
I literally just shuddered. And it just gets worse and worse.
As I Catholic and author of a book about John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, I knew that it is immoral to look at another with lust. Yet that same Catholicism, the religion of Michelangelo, the “Song of Songs,” and Walker Percy, had taught me that the human form, particularly the female form, is a divine work of art that offers us a chance to love how God loves.
Somehow this devolves into a discussion of the theological implications of bikinis.
A recent article explored how men prefer regular bathing suits to string bikinis; they like something to be left up to the imagination. I think a Christ-centered man with a healthy appreciation of women can admire the female form, and express that admiration in a sacramental way, if the form is respect [sic] by him and the woman who owns it. …
There really is quite a difference between a string bikini and a one-piece. And someone who has mastered his passions can appreciate the form without it degrading into lust. I think.
Yes, I’m sure you are quite the master of your domain, dude who 100 percent was sporting a boner the entire time he was writing that. I mean, horniness isn’t a crime, and these days pretty much everyone watches porn , but Jesus Christ, dude, no one needs to hear your bizarre inner monologue about your “sacramental” appreciation of scantily clad women half your age.
So this has all been pretty bad so far. But somehow the videos — did I mention the videos? — are even worse. So bad, in fact, that Judge rushed to take them down from YouTube and Vimeo after he found himself in the limelight this week, but not before some enterprising soul saved them to his or her hard drive and re-uploaded at least the highlights of Judge’s collection. (The re-uploaded videos do seem to be authentic, matching the titles of videos whose ghosts linger on in Google webcache.)
The Majority Report with Sam Seder played some excerpts of these videos yesterday.
But these excerpts, as unsettlingly grody as they are, still may not prepare you for the sheer squickiness of the full length videos. Here’s one that Judge apparently intended as a tribute to the legendary comic Little Nemo in Slumberland. An extremely horny tribute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udo1Uf5IpB0
His “Subconscious (Outtakes)” are even more baffling and creeptacular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVfQzTdAD2c
IS THIS REAL LIFE
Assuming that it is, what the hell even is the point of these videos, besides giving Judge an excuse to film very young women in their underwear? How much was he spending to make them? Are there even creepier ones out there that he didn’t post?
Seriously, senators, you need to talk to this guy.
@Dvärghundspossen
If this is the Rationalism I think it is, then it’s actually a no-shit cult, and less skeptic/atheist than rapturist and Singularitarian. They’re the folks who gave us Roko’s Basilisk (invented, incidentally, by a known manipulative rapist). And the founder, Eliazel Yudkowski, is also IIRC a known abuser.
Yudkowskian Rationalism from what I’ve seen also tends to be pretty into evo-psych and biological essentialism, and looooooves to make apologies for the far right. It and Neoreactionary stuff kind of diverged in the not-too-distant past, and they still have traces of each other.
Here’s a telling quote from Mark Judge’s brother: “Mark claims in his book that we all lived in terror of my father’s drunken outbursts. I can only say that he is right in one thing; my family did come to fear one of its members. As another member of our family commented during one of many meetings about Mark’s behavior, “Mark went to Markland a long time ago.” He still lives there. Sadly for my mother, that still means home.
And that’s it, that’s the real problem—not alcoholism or a lousy childhood or an abusive father. Mark is a solipsist: spoiled as a child, gazing always inward, unable to recognize any pain but his own…”
That’s the mindset of the douchey entitled Reagan-era prep school boy in a nutshell. I grew up around these types, I recognize them instantly. From birth they’re groomed to be Masters of the Universe, but at the same time they’re never required to grow up and take responsibility for themselves. The Guardian had a good piece on this awhile back: Why Boarding Schools Produce Bad Leaders.
And so we find ourselves in the position of considering someone for the highest court in the land who has never even begun to develop any sense of personal accountability. A federal judge who thinks “I was never at that party, but if I was, nothing happened, and if it did happen, it wasn’t wrong” is a perfectly valid legal defense. A thoroughly corrupt judge who applies the rule of law selectively, to everybody else except him and his buddies.
The really disgusting thing about Kavanaugh is that it isn’t just Roe v. Wade driving the GOP’s desperation to ram him through. After all, there’s any number of Federalist Society-vetted judges who could do that. No, they need five conservative men on the bench to rule that it’s legal to accept foreign donations for campaign contributions. This is about keeping their own hides outta jail. They’re willing to throw untold numbers of women, minorities, children, employees, consumers, and other future victims of the Kavanaugh Court under the bus to do that.
@opposablethumbs
But then that would ruin the entire point of dominating and demeaning women. These guys are only interested in sex as a zero sum game. Someone has to win, which means the other person has to lose. It’s no fun if women actually want it. It’s also no fun if the woman doesn’t suffer some sort of consequence afterwards (pregnancy, shame, etc.)
I wish that was sarcasm.
@Cyborgette: Yeah I also thought of those people, they’re the ones who actually refer to themselves as “rationalists”, right? Rather than, say, sceptics. From what I gather, not everyone calling themselves rationalist is a direct disciple and unquestioning fan of Yudkowski, but they’re all like part of the same loosely defined movement…
@Pie: Yeah I guess there’s a happy ending, I was just horrified reading through their posts that so much pure horror had been going on for such a long time with most people having some kind of insight into what was happening and yet taking years to slowly realize that this was bad, and even then seemingly failing at realizing how bad.
I think there’s real danger in thinking of yourself as so much more rational and enlightened than the “sheeple”, because then you might be prone not to just question things (which is good) but to quickly dismiss everything “the sheeple” believe, even when it’s perfectly sound moral norms.
Doesn’t surprise me to hear that Yudkowski is an abuser. He’s already a living avatar of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, valuing his own ignorant ponderings over others’ education. So the idea that he would also have an abuser’s mindset fits with that.
The Onion nails it again:
… these are the people taking over the world right now.
It’s because those men don’t want EVERYONE to get to have lots of sex. If you view sex as something that’s supposed to increase your social standing and affirm your manhood instead of being a mutually enjoyable activity that is engaged in by two or more people.
If sex is freely given away by people who want to have sex with you, then it’s meaningless. Like a participation trophy. But if you
coerceconvince a woman who is reluctant to have sex because she might risk pregnancy or STDs or social ostracism, then you’ve really proven that you earned that sex and the respect of your peers. And you get to feel superior those lesser men who won’t get over those hurdles.I think we need some baby pygmy hippo. It’s always time for baby pygmy hippo.
https://youtu.be/Sx979foyT9s
Now that the public can see her, I need to go to the zoo.
And the scary part is that Yudkowski is one of the better folks in parts of that ecosystem, which is part of why he diverged from the Neoreactionary sorts when he realized which directions they were going in. (While not realizing just how easy it was to go from his direction to theirs.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it again, I consider Yudkowski to be Exhibit A of ‘why STEM students need to be taught more philosophy so they stop trying to reinvent it badly’. He was practically patient zero of a lot of the modern ‘techbro’ culture. Convinced he was smarter than everyone else, that he didn’t need to learn anything from centuries of accumulated wisdom of what works and what doesn’t, that he could be a ‘maverick’ and break through to a new system… and in the process not only making new mistakes but re-making a lot of the old ones and giving them new names so that nobody outside their little discussion groups can easily figure out what they’re talking about.
Sure, jargon exists, but creating a parallel jargon because you refuse to learn enough of the original to realize what they actually mean is just a waste.
But unfortunately, ‘closing ranks to protect our own’ happens in just about any group. That’s what most of the ‘Geek Social Fallacies’ are about, but they’re hardly unique to fandom groups.
@Jenora Feuer
Yeah, Yudkowski’s most “impressive” accomplishments seem to consist of reinventing the wheel while calling everything by new names because he doesn’t actually know what wheels, axles, and hubs are.
I may be remembering wrong, but isn’t a lot of this due to Yudkowski having no formal education whatsoever? Like, both homeschooled and then “self-educated” rather than attending secondary education? It makes a lot of sense re: his ignorance of his own ignorance – he’s never even learned how to learn.
Semi naked lady covered in copies of…”Obama’s betrayal of Israel.”
Is this what conservatives think art looks like?
Positional goods ruin all the things.
Toxicly masculine people who treat (access to) sex as a positional good ruin it for those of us who just want to have fun.
Rich people who treat big fancy houses and having multiple houses as a positional good ruin it for those of us who just want to have a roof over our heads at a reasonable rate.
Same applies to taking something with actual use-value and buying and holding it for the exchange-value, i.e. using it as currency. That’s also contributed to the housing cost crisis, and it shows up in sex as well this time mainly as the subset of women, steeped in patriarchal norms, who do actually fit the gold-digger trope. And who slut-shame other women for lowering the market value of sex by having it for fun. (You’ll find these women at your local polling place this November, Xing the circle for the Republican candidate in their district. When they’re not embarrassing the country by claiming they can see Russia from their house…)
Hold up, I missed this story. What did Roko do?
Tina Fey is an embarrassment?
Add Franklin Graham to the creepy list if you hadn’t already. Apparently being unable to complete your attempted rape means you’ve respected your victim
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/19/1797143/-Graham-Attempted-rape-not-a-crime-Kavanaugh-respected-his-victim-by-not-finishing?detail=facebook
Once again I’ll say it. White women need to wake up and stop voting Republican and stop attending conservative churches. Right wing men hate us. Every one of us. Don’t think being one of the “good” women will protect you.
Not that anyone here needs to be told that. Just feel like screaming. I cannot believe that there are still Republican women after all we’ve seen these last couple of years.
@Shadowplay I think the reference was to Sarah Palin.
@Fishy Goat – I know. Just prefer to mock Palin for the shit she DID come out with, not shit she didn’t.
In other news:
Milo rejoined twitter (@_yiannopoulos), posted for a bit (about 10 days) and got suspended again.
Guess he’s bored of being in the weeds.
@Surplus
“… subset of women, steeped in patriarchal norms, who do actually fit the gold-digger trope.”
IDK, from here it looks less like embracing patriarchal norms, and more like a legitimate survival strategy under a system intent on destroying us. I probably couldn’t hack it myself because trauma and misandry (and a chronic inability to keep my mouth shut even for my own good), and like, just in general this thing where women act as sexual and emotional support animals in exchange for Manly Male Protection… ugh. Being a rich man’s plaything would be my death, I’ve been used by others too much already.
But people will do what they feel they have to, and being a woman in patriarchy has always entailed being forced into shitty decisions. Even for women who understand completely the scale and shape of the shittiness.
TW: Discussion of rape
Man Who Strangled Woman Unconscious Won’t Serve Jail Time Because Judge Thinks It Won’t Happen Again
Hazel Cills
Nice suit and tie.
https://jezebel.com/man-who-strangled-woman-unconscious-wont-serve-jail-tim-1829192899
TW: Discussion of rape
@Buttercup
@Catalpa
You are both of course, sadly, absolutely right. They say they want sex, but what they really want is to hurt women/make themselves feel better by putting someone else down – sex is just a way for doing that.
@ Catalpa
GOOD question!
My guess is it’s “uncontrollable” when he needs to roll out the “I couldn’t help it: really, y’r honour, it’s she who raped ME by being female in my vicinity,” defence in court.
Up until then, and especially when inviting co-workers, fellow students, employees etc round to his hotel room, it’s “mastered.”
“Totally mastered, ladies: I’ve got it pinned down and gagged with the sound system on high to drown out any protests … ooh, did I say that? I meant mastered. Totally. You can trust me.”
@Diptych
Whoops sorry I missed your reply…
Be warned, the following is a *SUICIDE NOTE*, describes multiple cases of sexual abuse, and furthermore showcase just how deep into evo-psych fallacies Rationalism goes. I wasn’t able to more than skim it TBH, because it is very very triggering material for me.
But yeah, one of the many abusers Kathy Forth outed was Roko. And this is not the only reference I’ve seen to him being a shit. (Though honestly, one could draw the conclusion just from his introducing the Basilisk.)
https://medium.com/@itai.ilyich/if-i-cant-have-me-no-one-can-kathleen-rebecca-forth-born-april-11-1980-31c49ed15121
I just read a summary of the Roko’s Basilisk thing on RationalWiki, and…it may be the most bizarre thing I’ve ever come across. I just…what?
@Cyborgette: God’s teeth. That’s awful. Thanks for answering.