REMEMBER, SOCIAL-JUSTICE WARRIORS ARE THE ANGRY PEASANTS WITH PITCHFORKS, MASQUERADING AS THE VOICES OF MORALITY AND REASON: Elizabeth Nolan Brown: How Maryland ‘Neomasculinity’ Blogger Roosh V Became an International ‘Pro-Rape’ Villain; A case study of collective catharsis through call-out culture and moral panic as meme.
The bottom line, though, is that “not a single woman has been hurt by me,” says Roosh. “I’ve never been accused of rape, I’ve never been charged. No follower of mine has read something of [mine], and then gone on to rape, because I know if they did hurt a woman it’d be all over the news.”
The whole thing calls to mind two more male writers: Matt Taibbi, probably best known for his work at Rolling Stone, and Mark Ames, who now writes for outlets such as Pando. The pair worked together at an English-language newspaper in Russia in the late ’90s and subsequently published a book about the experience called The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia. Within this book, there are scenes of the mostly-male Exile editors sexually harassing their administrative staff—going so far as to tell secretaries they must sleep with them to keep their jobs—and Ames threatening to kill his pregnant Russian girlfriend if she doesn’t get an abortion. The men never claimed it was satire or nonfiction. In explaining, Ames was prone to saying things like “Russian women, especially on the first date, expect you to rape them.”
Despite this, Taibbi and Ames have continued to flourish as leftist writers, and as far as I know no feminist groups or Canadian mayors have tried to prevent either from visiting the country. Perhaps they’re just lucky to have come of age in a different Internet era. Perhaps it helps that their politics and progressive credentials are otherwise right. . . .
As much as we might hate to admit it, Roosh is a journalist. His main site, Return of Kings—one of the hubs of what’s sometimes called the “Manosphere”—and its forums get two million visits per month. As neither Roosh nor any writers or readers of Return of Kings were under suspicion of criminal behavior, it is at the very least bizarre that law-enforcement officials would feel the need to comment and keep an eye on their gathers. And it’s probably the kind of thing we should condemn, those of us interested in freedom of speech, press, movement, and association.
People will object that these groups were “pro-rape” meetups. But outside media misinformation, there was nothing about the proposed happy hours to suggest they had anything to do with rape.
Well, if he were — seriously, not satirically — writing “pro-rape” manifestos in the name of Islam, his right would be zealously protected by the same people who subjected him to a high-tech lynching.
And, meanwhile, Bill Clinton, who has actually been accused of rape, is out campaigning for Hillary.