When Harry Styles agreed to model a series of dresses and skirts for a Vogue cover shoot, he knew it would stir up controversy. He probably didn’t think he was going to be blamed for undermining civilization itself. But that’s what some right-wing opinion-havers would have you believe.
“Blexit” leader Candace Owens started the brouhaha with this melodramatic tweet:
She followed up with a swipe at feminism:
It wasn’t long until fast-talking dunderhead Ben Shapiro decided to chime in.
But Ben wasn’t content to simply share a couple of tweets on the issue, and so he took it to his podcast today, delivering a nearly half-hour rant on the subject, interrupted only by Shapiro reading out ads for luxury bedsheets and his publication the Daily Wire.
He began by not-so-subtly suggesting that men wearing dresses might deserve a punch in the mouth, and followed with a rambling, repetitive rant taking on what he, likes Owens, sees as a dire threat to western civilization: men in “floofy” frocks.
This excerpt will give you some of the flavor of the thing:
But Shapiro wasn’t just annoyed; he presented himself as a noble guardian of civilization fighting off the cross-dressing barbarians.
“This stuff matters,” he declared.
It matters. Because these are fundamental ideas for the preservation of civilization. Boys and girls are different. Boys and girls are different. And it’s important to inculcate in your children that boys and girls are different. And any parents who fail to inculcate in a boy that manliness is a good thing, and that responsible manliness helped build civilizations … any parent that does not teach their girls that femininity, meaning the protection of hearth and home in a different way than masculinity, is a good thing. Any parent that doesn’t teach their girls that is not doing their kid any favors. They’re undermining the civilizational compact that men and women [have], based on biology and in every human culture.
Dude, it’s just a man in a dress. Cis male musicians have been donning dresses for decades — from David Bowie to Kurt Cobain — and somehow civilization hasn’t come tumbling down.
But Shapiro thinks this is a Very Important Topic.
We shouldn’t be shy about discussing these issuesl the left certainly isn’t shy about discussing these issues. They’ll put these [ideas] in public schools, they’ll tell your kindergartener that real men wear dresses. And then you’ll be explaining to a five year old that real men don’t wear dresses. And I don’t feel that’s an acceptable ramification of our cultural discussion.
I really don’t think there’s much discussion of cross-dressing in kindergarten.
Shapiro throws in a weird racial aside:
Harry Styles is a free man, living in a western country, in a west by the way that is defended by white masculine men, as a general rule.
Shapiro insists he has nothing against Harry Styles. It’s just that when Styles puts on a dress he is TEARING APART THE VERY FABRIC OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
I’m not saying don’t pick up his CDs; I’m not saying don’t listen to his music; I’m not saying don’t watch the movies he’s in. All I’m saying is that when you put out an argument that men ought to act like women and that this is a good thing you’re doing something that tears at the fabric of not only civilization but family and the fabric of childrearing and everybody with half a brain knows this.
Again, Ben, it’s just a man in a dress, a playful tweak of conventional notions of masculinity. How fragile is masculinity — how fragile is civilization itself — if it can be brought to its knees by a handful of pictures of a man in a dress?
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@Depletionist
Oh? Here’s a few cult characteristics. See if any of them sound familiar.
I’d say MGTOW checks all those boxes, and more. It’s not a traditional religious cult based around a charismatic leader, but it’s definitely a cultic environment. Debate and disagreement are strictly forbidden. I can’t imagine going to a MGTOW site and being allowed to stay as long as you have at WHTM, for example, or having anybody engage in good faith.
Ah, the Galileo fallacy. Just because an idea is widely mocked and detested doesn’t make it true. Many unpopular ideas are unpopular for a good reason.
@PoM
I’m going to fucking ignore you from here on out, because it’s become patently obvious to me that you’ve got nothing beating at all behind those frozen, flaccid milkers of yours. If you could make being a snide, condescending Gen X bitch into an art, you’d be the fucking Mona Lisa. Cut down on the self-important bullshit and maybe, you’d fall asleep next to something other than a cat and an empty wine bottle for a change.
@naglfar
I think if someone obsessively scoured this blog they would find bits and pieces about stuff about me but nothing anyone can use to track me down. Like wow you found my wedding vows and my anniversary and maybe my birthday. Good job
I want in on the class action suit! Eric can have some of my helium, but he isn’t getting my cupcake.
@dumbass
I’m gen z and you know what sometimes my husband and i have sex while I’m on my period. No condom. Bloody dick after wards and blood going down my legs. Enjoy
Oh no. A random on the Internet is going to ignore me. Whatever shall I do. Where did I leave my fainting couch?
Oh no. A random on the Internet who abuses the thesaurus thinks I’m heartless. Whatever shall I do. I better put on my pearls so I can clutch them.
Here’s an idea, dipshit. Why don’t you ignore ALL of us, and go your own way? Go on. Go your own way. Shoo. Or is female attention, even negative attention, just so much catnip you can’t resist it?
@The Dumbass
Definitely not a cult…
What is it with you and other people’s body parts? In your head rent free you’ve got Lainy’s husband’s dick, a lot of vaginas, and now Policy’s breasts. I submit for consideration next my left elbow and my uvula.
@Lainy
Same here. They could probably know what state I live in, what kind of dog I have, and maybe what general field I’m in, but none of that would really help them find my real name or address.
@Lainy
Has anyone ever told you that you talk so much shit, that if you trained your ass to eat, you couldn’t tell one from the other? Fuck you.
@ depletionist
Heliocentrism had been around since at least the 3rd century BC. By the Middle Ages it was accepted by most European astronomers; and astronomers in India and the Arab world. Even the Catholic Church accepted it initially. Pope Clement actually encouraged Copernicus to publish his theories. Later Pope Urban encouraged Galileo to publish a treatise on the pros and cons of the Heliocentric model.
It was actually religious factions that were up in arms about it rather than scientists. That caused problems for Urban; especially with the rise of Lutheranism; which was very much against the idea. The church was worried about being seen as challenging the inerrancy of the Bible and losing punters to the Protestants.
A compromise was reached in that people were allowed to publish works on Heliocentrism so long as they prefaced their writings with a disclaimer stating in effect “It appears that…” but not actually stating Heliocentrism as fact.
Where Galileo fell out of favour was refusing to do that, and publishing empirical evidence from his observations confirming it was a real world phenomenon.
Banning the depletionist too for general unpleasantness
lol I’m gonna miss dumbass, it’s funny how upset he got over little things like sex and menstruation. Such a delicate flower.
Thanks David. His detailed sexual fantasies/meltdowns were starting to get tedious. Sheesh. I feel like we need to smudge the dictionary.
I’m not going to cry over the dipshit getting banned. His meltdown was pretty hilarious but he was just tedious today.
@Lainy
Thank you for what you did with Eric’s parents. It may be too late for him, or this may lead to his maturation. Either way, you’ve at least likely put a roadblock before anyone trying to groom him.
@Allandrel
Yeah allandrel, I hope so too. Adults couldn’t protect me when I was a little bit older and the fear of that child being groomed really got to me. I just want him to be safe, even if he’s to far gone, I don’t want him to experience the horrible trauma of sexual abuse.
Out of morbid curiosity, I looked to see who this igormgtow was that our erstwhile troll kept calling upon; he appears to be the kid’s alter ego/sockpuppet, which would explain why he still hasn’t turned up in person.
@Dalillama
He’s got some videos on his blog talking to Igor, so I think he’s a real person, but IDK.
Speaking of the blog, he’s now got another post after consultation with “Igor” where he tells his followers to come here and harass Lainy. Idk if that violates WordPress’s terms of service, but David should be extra careful with the moderation queue (I’ll send him an email) and this might warrant another call to his family.
@Naglfar
I’ll call again monday if I have too I suppose. I feel bad about tying up the line because it’s his mom work number I called, But hey if I have to I have too.
@Naglfar
He’s got 3 followers. I’m not too worried about getting brigaded, but it does pay to be vigilant. He’ll almost certainly attempt to sock here at some point.
@Lainy
His latest post claims his mom doesn’t have a Facebook page and couldn’t have been contacted that way. Is he telling the truth? I did a quick search to verify and nothing turned up, but then I’m pretty bad at google.
@Buttercup
I had found a Facebook page with their family on it which I think is his sister, Which gave me his mother name and when I searched it I got her work number because she is a attorney I believe.
And then I had to go and confirm it with sadly a obituary post. So the one I did find was either a sister or a cousin.
@Lainy
Wow, you’re a lot better than me at finding info. I hope his mom wasn’t having to be in the office on Saturday of Thanksgiving.
@Buttercup
I sent David an email alerting him to it just in case. He would probably also know about whether it violates the WordPress terms of service since he uses WordPress.
Edit: Just remembered that Eric said his mom does use Facebook on another page, so we caught him in a contradiction.
@Buttercup
I think it was a work from home phone cause I wasn’t redirected from anyone else like what normally happens when you call a company. But also I searched with Facebook messenger and since it’s become tied with Instagram’s, you can get a lot more information while searching.
We’ll know he got his Internet privilege revoked if his blog stops updating.