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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@Eric
Good thing I don’t live in New York, then.
@Mabret
Yeah, I think he thinks it makes him sound smart.
Re: @Igormgtow, I imagine he’s filling up the blog moderation queue as we speak.
@Buttercup
Stubbed my toe on a table leg, just like the bombing of Hiroshima.
I’m pretty confident that Lainy has nothing to prove here.
@Eric
That’s okay baby boy, just swallow your bitter medicine and take it like the man you want to be.
@Eric
Yikes. You really need this intervention.
Incels are part of the manosphere. He was an incel.
Then why did you come here?
For the record, Elliot Roger is the god of incels, who are very much manospherians. They literally call him “Saint Elliot,” ffs.
@eric
I will do you a soft kindness though and mention to your mother that you said you feel anxious and depressed so she can get you mental help that you need and I will talk to her about resources if you need them. There are programs that help make anxiety and antidrepssion medications affordable if that is a problem. and it might be, judging on the photos of your house I’ve seen. This is tough love and concern kid. Kid and tantrum all you want. It’s happening.
You’re not a Palaiologos, but pretty much the opposite to that. Cenohubris, perhaps?
Your autonomy isn’t being taken away fro you, because as a child you’ve never had more autonomy than you have now. You weren’t born in purple, you’re just now learning to write purple prose.
@Eric
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and fantasizes about mass revenge shooting sprees, it’s an incel duck.
The PUA hate group was for people who shared the PUA sense of entitlement to sexual attention from women but were disappointed that PUA techniques are mostly nonsense and not video game cheat codes.
You can hate all you want Eric, I’ve made you my target to help. When i was a few years older then you, I got raped and was let down by almost ever single adult in my life with dealing with it. I refuse to be an adult that lets you down, even if you think I’m doing this to hurt you. Buckle up baby boy, I might just save your soul.
@Eric
False.
It’s a big red flag when a kid is reading a manifesto advocating murder.
@Eric
The Communist Manifesto is a rather different book than Rodger’s book, isn’t it?
@Lainy
Looks like Eric wrote a blog post about us.
@Eric
Given that I never threatened anything, that post is libel, which is illegal. Please remove the post.
This is definitely something your mom needs to know about.
@Eric
And here we have it, murder apologia.
And no, I never threatened to contact your parents. I said it was a possibility but didn’t say I would do it.
While we’re talking, do you know how many people capitalism has killed?
@Eric
How is saying two books are different murder apologia? I didn’t defend either book. I don’t think you know what that phrase means anyway.
@Eric The fact that you think the Communist Manifesto is equivalent to the Eliot Rodger manifesto is a pretty clear indication that you read it without understanding it.
@Eric
So you’re an ancap too? Do you know what happened after that?
Every ancap doesn’t seem to realize that it would very quickly be taken over by whoever can make a private army, then you have either a monarchy or military dictatorship.
Pretty sure Eric is just saying whatever at this point. 1/10 low-quality trolling, would not buy again.
@Naglfarce
Are you even dimly aware of the fact that private militaries engaging aggressively with others is a violation of the NAP? Private militaries wouldn’t actually do shit to anyone, because it wouldn’t be in their best interest to do so; more than likely, they would actively prolong any conflict by sitting on their asses and doing nothing, so as to keep the money flowing for their services. Read some Machiavelli, for christ’s sake.
Capitalism has killed and enslaved tens of millions. Look up the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company and what Belgium did in the Congo.
@Eric
Yay, unregulated lead, cocaine and radium in food is awesome! Let’s hear it for 6 day work weeks and child labor!
I’m sure you think you’d be at the top of the pyramid in your Ayn Rand paradise, but much more likely you’d be a wage serf, working for pennies in a mine or a factory, with a fifth grade education and no hope of improving your lot.
@The Depletionist
Back so soon?
Who is going to enforce that in the absence of regulation? Have you ever noticed how this plays out IRL?
Presumably that also gives whoever wants to the opportunity to throw used tampons onto your property.
@Eric
A social liberal who hates women and thinks trans people don’t exist. Some social liberal you are.
There are mercenaries doing their thing right now, and they don’t care about any namby-pamby NAP.
@Eric
Who decides which genders are real or not, then? Probably shouldn’t be a cis boy.
That means fuck all today.