Conservative Christians versus Homosexuals

It is primary election season once again.  Time for the Republican (aka Conservative Christian) candidates to to try to surpass each other with the usual anti-gay vitriol.  This time around, the bar has been set quite high by Oklahoma's Scott Esk, who, in a Facebook conversation during 2013, had called for homosexuals to be executed.  He quoted the usual scriptures from Romans 1 and Leviticus 20, and wrote:

Adam asked about the fitness to judge others.  That right was given in verses like Leviticus 20:13.  Men were commanded to put to guilty parties to death who were guilty of certain acts, like homosexuality.  Laws to put people to death who were guilty of such practices have been in existence in various countries in Jesus' time and afterwards, too.  If men wink at such perversions, God may have no choice than to judge such nations with calamities.   

Mr. Esk remarked further:

I would hope that libertarians who don’t think perversion should be punished in any way between consenting adults would be open-minded and look at the different results between a state that ignores it and one that punishes it severely. And within a state, cities and communities may well have different policies, and I cheer that. That way, people can decide for themselves whether they want to live in a particular community based in part on how things like this are dealt with.

Well, that does sound like good Libertarian fun.  In a recent follow-up interview about these comments, Mr. Esk stated:

What I will tell you right now is that that was done in the Old Testament, under a law that came directly from God.  And in that time, it was totally just.  It came directly from God.  I have no plans to reinstitute that in Oklahoma law.  I do have some huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins.  I think that those kinds of sins will not do our country any good, and certainly doesn't do anything to preserve the family.  

 Mr. Esk seems actually to have outshone the Texas Republican Platform on homosexuality:

Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples.  We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin.  Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.  We recognize the legitimacy and value of counseling which offers reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle.  No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy.

While the Texans don't specifically call for state executions of homosexuals, they do "oppose criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values."  Presumably, if a mob of Texans, who opposed homosexuality out of faith, decided to murder a practitioner of homosexuality, then the Texas Republicans would oppose any criminal or civil penalties against any member of the mob.  Particularly if it were a faith-filled church mob, that sang sacred hymns and recited holy prayers during the lynching.

The Republican obsession with homosexuality is an obvious form of sexual objectification.  And, not the good kind of sexual objectification, where women doll themselves up, or sculpt their bikini bodies, to elicit the Patriarchal gaze.

For the Republicans, the homosexual fixation represents a form of sexual objectification that is much more dark and sinister.  The Republicans are projecting their own repressed homosexual urges outward, and directly onto relatively defenseless people.  Quite a LOT of Republican politicians, who built their careers around vociferously attacking homosexuals, have turned out to be flaming queers themselves.

If you look at Mr. Esk's photo above, he pretty much has G-A-Y written all over his face.  From his voice and mannerisms, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he kept some of his ex-wife's underwear to wear around the the house.  By vilifying open homosexuals, people are, of course, seeking to come out of the experience feeling redeemed, and better about themselves.  For the Conservative Christians, open homosexuals serve the role of the scapegoat described in Leviticus 16:

When Aaron has finished performing the ritual to purify the Most Holy Place, the rest of the Tent of the Lord's presence, and the altar, he shall present to the Lord the live goat chosen for Azazel.  He shall put both of his hands on the goat's head and confess over it all the evils, sins, and rebellions of the people of Israel, and so transfer them to the goat's head. Then the goat is to be driven off into the desert by someone appointed to do it. The goat will carry all their sins away with him into some uninhabited land.

The Christians who subscribe to this mentality, however, are missing the point of their religion, as described in Romans 3:

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence. But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people's sins are forgiven through their faith in him.

In principle, a Christian possesses no need to project his own shortcomings onto anyone but Jesus, who suffered and died for him already.  There is no more need to cause anyone else to suffer, or even for an animal to be sacrificed.  Jesus took care of it.  John states in the second chapter of his first letter: "Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but the sins of everyone."  Moreover, consider Luke 18:

Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, "I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income."  But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, "God, have pity on me, a sinner!"  I tell you,the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home. For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.

Christians who declare themselves to be in any way superior to--or holier than--anyone else (including tax collectors and open homosexuals) are in desperate need of humbling, provided they possess the least interest in being "in the right with God."

Regarding the death penalty for male homosexuality: the Bible contains no record of anyone ever being executed for this crime.  The Torah says nothing against female homosexuality, so Lesbians must have a pass.  The Bible does, however, contain a record of a man who was executed for having picked up sticks during the Sabbath.  Numbers 15:

Once, while the Israelites were still in the wilderness, a man was found gathering firewood on the Sabbath.  He was taken to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community, and was put under guard, because it was not clear what should be done with him.  Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must be put to death; the whole community is to stone him to death outside the camp.”  So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord had commanded.    

Clearly, the ancient Israelites were just as badass as the Islamic Jihadists and Conservative Christians are today.  Judaism, though, particularly since the Roman era, has evolved into a much more peaceful, civilized religion.  Israel has executed no-one since Adolf Eichmann in 1962, and only executed one other poor chap, Meir Tobianski, in 1948.    Still, if Conservative Christians are truly concerned with a conservative view of Biblical morality, then why aren't they as concerned with Sabbath desecration as they are with homosexuality?  Making it into what is popularly called the Decalogue is the following:

Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no one is to work—neither you, your children, your slaves, your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your country. In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the seas, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested. That is why I, the Lord, blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.

You see people publicly desecrating the Sabbath all over the place, but I doubt if anyone in the Republican Party even gives a hoot.  All that they ever want to think about all day is homosexuality.  As if buggery were the central theme of the religion.  Homosexuality isn't even mentioned in the Ten Commandments.  After the Torah, the topic doesn't come up again until David and Jonathan.  David not only had a fairly large number of wives and concubines, but was a notorious adulterer.  He was very fond of women.  But, just what did David mean when, in speaking of Jonathan (2 Samuel 1), he said "How wonderful was you love for me, better even than the love of women?"  Observe 1 Samuel 20:

And it came to pass in the morning, that Jonathan went out into the field at the time appointed with David, and a little lad with him. And he said unto his lad, "Run, find out now the arrows which I shoot." And as the lad ran, he shot an arrow beyond him.

And when the lad was come to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan cried after the lad, and said, "Is not the arrow beyond thee?"  And Jonathan cried after the lad, "Make speed, haste, stay not." And Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows, and came to his master.  But the lad knew not any thing: only Jonathan and David knew the matter.  And Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad, and said unto him, "Go, carry them to the city."

And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.

And Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, 'The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever.'"

 Other than the Song of Solomon, the Bible doesn't get a whole lot sexier than that.  Heck, David was known to cut loose and dance with all his might, while wearing nothing but a linen loin cloth.

When we come to the Gospels, here is what Jesus thinks about the Sabbath laws (Matthew 12):

Not long afterward Jesus was walking through some wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, so they began to pick heads of wheat and eat the grain. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to Jesus, “Look, it is against our Law for your disciples to do this on the Sabbath!”

 Jesus answered, “Have you never read what David did that time when he and his men were hungry?  He went into the house of God, and he and his men ate the bread offered to God, even though it was against the Law for them to eat it—only the priests were allowed to eat that bread.  Or have you not read in the Law of Moses that every Sabbath the priests in the Temple actually break the Sabbath law, yet they are not guilty? I tell you that there is something here greater than the Temple. The scripture says, ‘It is kindness that I want, not animal sacrifices.’ If you really knew what this means, you would not condemn people who are not guilty; for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus left that place and went to a synagogue, where there was a man who had a paralyzed hand. Some people were there who wanted to accuse Jesus of doing wrong, so they asked him, “Is it against our Law to heal on the Sabbath?”

Jesus answered, “What if one of you has a sheep and it falls into a deep hole on the Sabbath? Will you not take hold of it and lift it out? And a human being is worth much more than a sheep! So then, our Law does allow us to help someone on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man with the paralyzed hand, “Stretch out your hand.”

He stretched it out, and it became well again, just like the other one. Then the Pharisees left and made plans to kill Jesus.

Note the logic: David did it, so it was okay.  Moreover, keeping the Sabbath holy was a Commandment.  Not engaging in homosexuality was never a Commandment.  Heuristically, if David and Jonathan could play kissy-face until David exceeded, and swore that the Lord would be between their seed forever, then whatever it is that modern Sodomites do to each other should be okay.  Moreover, consider what Jesus says in Mark 7:  “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean.”  Jesus did say nothing: which would presumably include another man's ejaculant.

The Conservative Christians are always talking about executing (or otherwise chastising) homosexuals, but never seem to get bent out of shape about adulterers.  Perhaps more of them are tempted by adultery than by homosexuality.  Adultery (i.e., a man participating in sexual relations with a woman who was married or engaged to another man) was prohibited by both Law and Commandment.  Deuteronomy 22:

Suppose a man marries a young woman and later he decides he doesn't want her. So he makes up false charges against her, accusing her of not being a virgin when they got married.

If this happens, the young woman's parents are to take the blood-stained wedding sheet that proves she was a virgin, and they are to show it in court to the town leaders. Her father will say to them, "I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, and now he doesn't want her. He has made false charges against her, saying that she was not a virgin when he married her. But here is the proof that my daughter was a virgin; look at the bloodstains on the wedding sheet!"  Then the town leaders are to take the husband and beat him.  They are also to fine him a hundred pieces of silver and give the money to the young woman's father, because the man has brought disgrace on an Israelite woman. Moreover, she will continue to be his wife, and he can never divorce her as long as he lives.

But if the charge is true and there is no proof that she was a virgin, then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

If a man is caught having intercourse with another man's wife, both of them are to be put to death. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

Suppose a man is caught in a town having intercourse with a young woman who is engaged to someone else. You are to take them outside the town and stone them to death. She is to die because she did not cry out for help, although she was in a town, where she could have been heard. And the man is to die because he had intercourse with someone who was engaged. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

Suppose a man out in the countryside rapes a young woman who is engaged to someone else. Then only the man is to be put to death;  nothing is to be done to the woman, because she has not committed a sin worthy of death. This case is the same as when one man attacks another man and murders him.  The man raped the engaged woman in the countryside, and although she cried for help, there was no one to help her.

Suppose a man is caught raping a young woman who is not engaged.  He is to pay her father the bride price of fifty pieces of silver, and she is to become his wife, because he forced her to have intercourse with him. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

No man is to disgrace his father by having intercourse with any of his father's wives.

 Rape and adultery were essentially property crimes.  But, how did Jesus react when a woman was caught in adultery?  John 8:

Early the next morning he went back to the Temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and began to teach them.  The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery, and they made her stand before them all.  “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  In our Law Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say?”  They said this to trap Jesus, so that they could accuse him. But he bent over and wrote on the ground with his finger.  As they stood there asking him questions, he straightened up and said to them, “Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her.”  Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground.  When they heard this, they all left, one by one, the older ones first. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there.  He straightened up and said to her, “Where are they? Is there no one left to condemn you?”

“No one, sir,” she answered.

“Well, then,” Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either."

 If Jesus was cool with a woman who was caught in the act of adultery, then how unreasonable could he be with homosexuals?  Mr. Esk also cited the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans:

God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!  They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles.

And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other. They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen.

Because they do this, God has given them over to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way the men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing.

Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do. They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice; they are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip and speak evil of one another; they are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful; they think of more ways to do evil; they disobey their parents; they have no conscience; they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others.  They know that God's law says that people who live in this way deserve death. Yet, not only do they continue to do these very things, but they even approve of others who do them.

I've bolded the part that Mr. Esk quoted.  Shame on Mr. Esk.  He removed a chunk of Paul's words, to make it seem that Paul was calling for homosexuals to be executed, and ignored the bit about wickedness, evil, greed, jealously, murder, fighting, deceit, malice, gossiping, speaking evil of one another, being hateful to God, insolence, pride, boastfulness, thinking of more ways to do evil, disobeying one's parents, having no conscience, not keeping promises, and showing no kindness or pity for others.  According to Paul, people who commit any of these things deserve death: not just homosexuals.  A bit of wickedness, deceit and malice on Mr. Esk's part, there.  As Mr. Esk shows no kindness or pity for homosexuals, Mr. Esk also deserves death.

Paul's letter to the Romans seems to be the first Biblical mention of Lesbianism (although the story of Ruth and Naomi has continued to elicit a certain amount of speculation and gossip).  King Solomon had a personal copulation cabinet consisting of no fewer than 700 wives and 300 concubines.  While the King may have taken great pleasure in trying to service all of them on his own, a typical harem member might have gone years, or even decades, between royal refreshments.  Even in modern harems, women are secluded in the seraglio, and contact with men outside of the family is largely prevented.  Would King Solomon have had a problem with any of his wives or concubines engaging in a bit of tribadism or cunnilingus?  Since no penis would have been involved, there would have been no adultery.  Lady bonobos commit tribadism with each other about every two hours.  The act itself is perfectly natural.  At least in America, women are much more likely than men to report interest and participation in homosexual and bisexual activities.

I'll bet that even Mr. Esk enjoys watching Lesbian pornography.  As for the men burning with passion for each other: well, this was ancient Rome.

Paul was generally known to be something of a killjoy.  He was an asexual (who regarded his asexuality as a gift from God), and preferred that others also remain celibate.  It was with some degree of resignation that he concluded that it was "better to marry than to burn."  1 Corinthians 7:

A man does well not to marry.  But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband. A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs. A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is.  Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.

I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission.  Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.

Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do.  But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry—it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband;  but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce his wife.

Note that Paul presents his statements concerning marriage as merely his own opinions on the subject: not as commands attributable to God.  The Lord (Jesus) only commands that a wife must not leave her husband, and that a husband must not divorce his wife.  As mentioned in a previous post, socially-imposed monogamy had been established in Greek and Roman culture centuries before the advent of Christianity.  Some Jews who continue to live in Islamic countries still practice polygyny.  Paul was obviously tailoring this particular message to a Gentile audience. 

Regarding Mr. Esk's statement that "if men wink at such perversions, God may have no choice than to judge such nations with calamities": that's just plain silly and superstitious.  Executing homosexuals is not going to prevent an earthquake, hurricane, or other natural disaster.  Most people no longer practice human sacrifice.  As already mentioned, for the Christians, Jesus' stint on the cross already took care of everyone's need for atonement.  No-one is going to gain anything, or stop any natural disaster from occurring, by crucifying anyone else.

Concerning Mr. Esk's "hope that libertarians who don’t think perversion should be punished in any way between consenting adults would be open-minded and look at the different results between a state that ignores it and one that punishes it severely": well, the Nazis punished homosexuals quite severely.  Maybe that is the sort of society that Mr. Esk aspires to build, but I certainly wouldn't want any part of it.  Iran publicly hangs homosexuals (and other people) on a regular basis.   Just how "open minded" does Mr. Esk want his libertarian friends to be?

With regard to the Texas Republican statement: "We recognize the legitimacy and value of counseling which offers reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle": the Nazis developed a system for reparative therapy, of which some of the Republicans might approve:

Because some Nazis believed homosexuality was a sickness that could be cured, they designed policies to "cure" homosexuals of their "disease" through humiliation and hard work. Guards ridiculed and beat homosexual prisoners upon arrival, often separating them from other inmates. Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, wrote in his memoirs that homosexuals were segregated in order to prevent homosexuality from spreading to other inmates and guards. Personnel in charge of work details in the Dora-Mittelbau underground rocket factory or in the stone quarries at Flossenbürg and Buchenwald often gave deadly assignments to homosexuals.

If some people want to change their sexual orientation, from gay to straight of from straight to gay, then fine.  Humiliation and hard work might do the trick. But, the government (including the Republican Party) seems much more bent on turning straight people gay, than the other way around, through the federal and state prison systems.  The USA has the world's highest incarceration rate, with millions of people confined together in single-gender, over-crowded prisons.  Of course homosexuality is rampant. It is quite hypocritical to be, on the one hand, so critical of homosexuality, while, on the other, forcing millions of people into a homosexual lifestyle.

I think that what Mr. Esk and the Republican Party need to do is to get on their hands and knees, humble themselves, and pray to God for the forgiveness of their own sins.  Let God take care of judging the supposed sins of others.  They wouldn't stop any earthquakes, but they might make America a more tolerable place to live.

Feminists versus Roosh V

Daryush Valizadeh, better known by pseudonym Roosh V, is fairly well known for his writings on seduction and antifeminism.

   His books include

• Bang: The Pickup Bible That Helps You Get More Lays (2007)
• A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man's Peculiar Journey Through South America (2009)
• Bang Colombia: Textbook On How To Sleep With Colombian Women (2010)
• Roosh's Brazil Compendium: Pickup Tips, City Guides, And Stories (2010)
• Roosh's Argentina Compendium: Pickup Tips, City Guides, And Stories (2011)
• Day Bang: How To Casually Pick Up Girls During The Day (2011)
• Bang Iceland: How To Sleep With Icelandic Women In Iceland (2011)
• Don't Bang Denmark: How To Sleep With Danish Women In Denmark (If You Must) (2011)
• 30 Bangs: The Shaping Of One Man's Game From Patient Mouse To Rabid Wolf (2012)
• Bang Poland: How To Make Love With Polish Girls In Poland (2012)
• Don't Bang Latvia: How To Sleep With Latvian Women In Latvia Without Getting Scammed (2012)
• Bang Estonia: How To Sleep With Estonian Women In Estonia (2012)
• Bang Lithuania: How To Sleep With Lithuanian Women In Lithuania (2012)
• Bang Ukraine: How to Have Sex With Ukrainian Girls In Ukraine (2012)

Mr. Valizadeh also runs the website Return of Kings, where he publishes a variety of articles on related subjects.  In the About section, he writes

Return Of Kings is a blog for heterosexual, masculine men. It’s meant for a small but vocal collection of men in America today who believe men should be masculine and women should be feminine.

ROK aims to usher the return of the masculine man in a world where masculinity is being increasingly punished and shamed in favor of creating an androgynous and politically-correct society that allows women to assert superiority and control over men. Sadly, yesterday’s masculinity is today’s misogyny. The site intends to be a safe space on the web for those men who don’t agree with the direction that Western culture is headed....Women and homosexuals are prohibited from commenting here. They will be immediately banned, and anyone who replies to them will also be banned. This includes replying in any thread that they started.

  Which reminds me a lot of the Little Rascals and the He-Man Woman-Haters Club:

From an El País review of his book on how to sleep with Colombian women:

Un estadounidense de 32 años identificado como Roosh V....escribió un manual para llevar a la cama a las mujeres de Cali, Medellín y Bogotá.

El libro se llama 'Bang Colombia: Textbook on How to Sleep With Colombian Women' (Manual de cómo acostarse con mujeres colombianas), y explica en cinco capítulos las mejores estrategias con las que un extranjero puede acostarse con una colombiana.

Según explica el autor...el libro es la recopilación de seis meses de trabajo de campo en los que dedicó su "existencia a descifrar el código de las mujeres colombianas, que son el mayor desafío de la parte occidental del mundo".

En la guía sobre las mujeres colombianas...plantea 'tips' que van desde cómo aprender a coquetear en español hasta cómo lidiar cuando se sale con una 'prepago'.

También entrega recomendaciones sobre cómo realizar un viaje a nuestro país, tips de cómo superar la seguridad de los claustros universitarios para acceder a las cafeterías de los mismos, donde según él, es el mejor lugar para encontrar pareja.

Frases como "Las mujeres colombianas no son tan calientes como las gringas y comerse una no será tan fácil", "la luna y las estrellas deben estar perfectamente alineadas para que ellas accedan" y "No es fácil llevar una colombiana a la cama", son algunas de las frases que se encuentran en el libro....

Mr. Valizadeh spent six month in Colombia, doing field work to decipher the code of Colombian women, whom he characterizes as the "biggest challenge in the Western World."  His book provides tips from how to flirt in Spanish to how to deal with prepaid harlots.  Some of the phrases found in the book: "Colombian women are not as hot as gringas and seducing one won't be as easy", "the moon and stars have to be in perfect alignment before they will yield", and "it isn't easy to bring a Colombian woman to bed."  The reader comments to the article are hilarious, and pretty much refute Mr. Valizadeh's work:

--Este gringo debe ser o muy feo o muy pobre, de lo contrario no sé como pudo encontrar dificultad para levantarse un polvo en estas tres ciudades, o mejor dicho, en toda Colombia, donde no pueden ver un extranjero porque ya se le entregan en bandeja de plata.

--Al ser el autor "gringo" y encima decir que encontró gran dificultad para copular desmerita totalmente a este supuesto "experto."

But, anyway, if one can make a living from traveling around the world and seducing women, then why not?

Some of Mr. Valizadeh's articles on Return of Kings are quite amusing, and often provoke entertaining responses from Feminists.  For example, The 9 Ugliests Feminists in America generated rejoinders from Kasey Edwards, Rebecca Schoenkopf, and Desiree Meyers-Liebowitz. Callie Beusman wrote "Quit Paying Attention to That Vile Troll Website": a fairly lengthy commentary that included discussions of some of Mr. Valizadeh's juicier quotes.  I'm starting to think that Mr. Valizadeh is engaging in a bit of pigtail transfer--he was too shy to tease girls when he was in elementary school, so he is doing it now, and he knows that the girls can't smack him through the computer.  The Feminists need him, too, so that they can yell "Misogyny!" at someone.  

Mr. Valizadeh's article, published 25 May, 2014, and concerning Elliot Rodger's recent mass-murder/suicide, was a tad tacky (although I'm sure that he was going for tacky--his writing did generate some publicity).

No One Would Have Died If PUAHate Killer Elliot Rodger Learned Game

On Friday, May 23, Elliot Rodger killed six people because he was frustrated and angry from not being able to experience intimacy with women. He left a trail of Youtube videos, internet postings, and even a manifesto that clearly details how his sexual frustration was the principal reason for his murderous rampage.

Six lives would have been saved if there was a societal mechanism to steer sexually frustrated males like Rodger into learning self-improvement, game, and masculinity, the very values that are taught here and on many other manosphere sites that inexplicably have been attacked, disparaged, and even sought for eradication by the American media and blogosphere, men’s rights activists, “PUA haters”, and progressive organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. All these groups are complicit for creating a cultural environment that allowed this massacre to occur. It is them who must accept responsibility for these seven deaths and make the moral change to their ideologies in order to prevent such an act from happening again.

It’s important to state that Elliot Rodger was undoubtedly mentally unstable and required professional supervision. Diagnosed with Asperger’s, he clearly exhibited narcissistic and sociopathic traits that no doubt prevented him from empathizing with others. Nonetheless, his videos and writings do display an above-average intelligence and the propensity to connect with individuals in certain cases. He was not that much worse off than many socially awkward males who grew up isolated as teenagers, unable to perform well in social interactions. I’ve personally interacted with men who functioned lower than him, but were later able to successfully meet average-looking women and achieve intimacy with them.

Rodger’s manifesto clearly states that his utter failure with women drove him to murder. The problem that he experienced is not unique—many men in Western society graduate from high school or college to realize that they have absolutely no skill or ability to seduce the opposite sex. We live in a society where being shy, normal, or a little awkward is duly punished by entitled American women who have been encouraged to pursue exciting and fun casual sex in their prime with sexy and hot men as a way of “experimentation.” They are enabled by the culture to seek out bad boys while rejecting the nice guy who is “boring.” This behavior continues until they find that they are past their physical prime, whereby the nice guy is plucked from a spartan sexual existence and expected to keep his mouth shut when a trickle flow of informational torture reveals that his bride-to-be has experienced more than a dozen different penises in her vagina, anus, and mouth—the same mouth that is supposed to kiss his future children good night.

 The choices presented to Rodger

What options does a man like Rodger have if his existing social ability is simply not able to attract the women he wants? What should he do to enter a relationship with a reasonably attractive girl who has not yet had dozens of penises inside her, who is sweet and kind instead of bitter and jaded from becoming a professional attention whore on Facebook, Tinder, and OK Cupid via the iPhone that she’s addicted to? It depends on who you ask. Here are the answers that Rodger either received or could have received:

 His university

Rodger should have checked his male privilege at the door and atoned for the sins of thousands of years of “male patriarchy.” He was likely exposed to infantile “trigger warnings” during the course of his education. He received direct propaganda that insinuates all men are potential rapists. American universities are becoming firmly anti-male with their extreme left ideology and policies. Just recently, the Justice Department has ushered in directives that attempt to restrict the definition of consensual sex, making any attempt by Rodger to fornicate with a female at a college party a potential rape encounter that would have gotten him kicked out of school without a trial. Pro-female policies now dominate most American universities. Rodger would definitely not have received a sympathetic ear to his plight.

American media and organizations

They have been telling him for years that he’s a sexist creep without even knowing it, and that only feminism, the promotion of female needs above men, is the true path to “equality.” Before he would even find a useful resource that helps him learn how to meet women, he would have been exposed to endless articles demonizing those resources as racist, misogynist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and cis-normative (whatever that means). Think I’m exaggerating? Here are some examples:
Promotion of masculine ideals is trolling
The manosphere is misogynist
Return Of Kings is offensive
Private communications of “pickup artist” deserves mockery
Writing dating tips is misogynist
Game hurts “everybody”
Only sexist women are receptive to game
Misogynist web sites denounced by organization who shared information with the FBI
Yours truly nominated to be the worst person on the entire internet
Yours truly the most misogynist man in the world for teaching societal truths and game to men

The amount of negative publicity written about Return Of Kings, me, game, and the manosphere in general seems endless if you spend just a bit of time on Google and Twitter. It’s clear that any mention of game in the mainstream sources that Rodger would definitely have been exposed to (the sites above receive millions of unique visitors every month) clearly shows that he would have been inclined to develop a negative opinion of game before fully knowing what it’s about. It appears that a goal of many popular publications is to inoculate and brainwash men like Rodger into believing game is actually equivalent to rape.

PUA Hate and Men’s Rights Activists

Would Rodger have received help for his loneliness if he found MRA’s and PUA haters? Definitely not. MRA’s would simply sit him down and detail how male circumcision and male rape by women are the most pressing concerns of men today. They would have given him absolutely no aid on solving his loneliness problem, advocating for him to instead become a victim.

PUA haters, best exemplified by the forum PUAhate.com, are even more dangerous. As an active member of this site, Rodger was surrounded by a community of men who nurtured and cultivated his hate. These men don’t believe in game and instead think the only path to a healthy sex life is to be rich and good looking, two beliefs that Rodger actively believed. It is through PUA Hate where he was able to meet other virgins and mentally unstable men to provide him with comfort while encouraging his budding hatred not just against women for serving him rejections—something that pro-game advocates accept as normal—but also society as a whole for not giving him what he believed he deserved. To give you an idea how twisted the members of PUAHate are, his rampage was actually praised. There are not many sites on the internet where someone is lauded as a hero for killing others, but PUAHate is one of them:

PUA Hate suddenly went offline, but we must wonder if Rodger used the site to privately communicate with other men to actively plan out the killings, and if more of them are in the works. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out in the future that the site’s owner destroyed evidence that showed how Rodger’s PUA Hate friends knew of his intentions.

His parents, psychologists, and professors

They also did not provide Rodger with useful answers. His parents were aloof and his father never taught him how to be good with women (the manifesto details how supplicative his father was to Rodger’s stepmother). His psychiatrists likely wanted to pump him with meds to zombify him, maybe even trying to label his frustration with women as latent misogyny. His professors would push the leftist dogma where men are the source of all societal problems. He should humble himself, they’d prescribe, to others who don’t have as much inherent “privilege” as himself.

 Return Of Kings, The Red Pill, RVF, myself

If Rodger came to me, he would have received actionable and effective advice. He would have been exposed to material detailing how socially corrupt American society has become, and how being a beta male provider—his principal strategy in trying to get laid—is no longer useful in achieving intimacy with women who now see men as entertaining clowns that should provide them with excitement, drama, and tension. After these truths would be painfully delivered to Rodger, he would have to make the personal choice to accept them or not, but based on his intelligence level, I have little doubt that he would, as it would match what he saw on campus with what he termed “obnoxious” (i.e. “alpha”) men getting the girls he wanted.

After digesting the red pill (our sphere’s metaphor for truth), he would start his game training. I’ve clearly laid out a program that has helped thousands of men who were in almost the exact same situation as Rodger. There is no evidence that Rodger executed even basic game theory. We can’t say for sure if he would have been a good student of the game or achieved high success from using it, because his mental illness no doubt affected his faculties, but the bar to success for him was low. According to his manifesto, all he wanted was a date. As in… one date. Take a look at his own words:

I was hoping I would get some sort of answer from girls [from posting my Youtube videos]. IN fact, a small part of me was even hoping that a girl would see the video and contact me to give me a chance to go on a date. That alone would have prevented the Day of Retribution, if one girl had just given me one chance. But no…As expected, I got absolutely no response from any girls. [...] Women don’t care about me at all. They won’t even deign to tell my why they’ve mistreated me. This just shows how evil and sadistic they are. Oh well, they will realize the gravity of their crimes when I slaughter them all on the Day of Retribution.

Would the teachings that this part of the internet offer give him that one date? Would the advice of the men on RVF have given him the encouragement, motivation, and support to stop wallowing in self-pity and grandeur to approach women with the game that women today want? The answer is yes. I firmly believe that we would have given him his date, and it’s this date that would have quieted his deranged propensity to kill, or at least postponed it until an intervention could have occurred. Only game and red pill truths would have been sufficient in changing this deadly outcome. Everyone else, from his parents to his university and especially to the media he may have consumed, absolutely failed to help him in a way that we definitely could have.

Even after the killings, the media is parading out the phantom spirit of misogyny, perpetuating a tired cycle of shaming men in the name of protecting women, even though Rodger killed more men than women.
--Elizabeth Plank says we need to stamp out misogyny, even though Rodger developed a hatred for everyone in society
--Jessica Valenti says misogyny kills, even though four men died compared to two women

Who cares about the males that Rodger killed, because, like, misogyny! The disregard for any concern for men, including the ones killed by Rodger, means that more men will churn through this toxic anti-male culture, maybe one day deciding that killing is also their only option for deliverance.

 I was not in a different boat than Rodger

I know Rodger would have been helped because I experienced much of what he did. I was lonely and lacking in female affection, but this was way back in 2001, before game was treated as the devil it is today. There was no cultural barrier for me to learn its principles. There was no PUA Hate that would’ve allowed me to connect with other bitter, demented, and possibly criminal men. There was no Buzzfeed (everyday sexism!) and Huffington Post (homosexuality is great!) to brainwash me into thinking that approaching women and having masculine sexual desire is sexist or misogynist, or that I must embrace a pro-homosexual lifestyle and the needs of gays over my own. There was no institutional formula in attacking what I learned and what thankfully gave me the intimacy I desired.

Seven people are dead because society has decided that shy and awkward men like Elliot Rodger do not deserve a girlfriend and that there is absolutely no way to improve his loneliness and loserdom through learning game or any other social behavior. At the same time men like him are ostracized, there is no legal means for him to solicit prostitution (in California) to release his biological and very pressing urge for fornication. Current cultural dogma wants to sweep the millions of lonely men like Rodger under the rug while instead focusing on gay marriage, “street harassment,” lack of empowered girls in video games, “rape culture,” and the horrors of letting young girls wear pink and play with dolls.

The new “let them eat cake” is “let these socially awkward privileged losers have xbox and pornhub.” Yet we still feign outrage and surprise when every so often one of them picks up a gun and starts shooting. The same people who attack game refuse to give men like Rodger a way to achieve sexual happiness, and for that they are indirectly responsible for these deaths, which could have been avoided if Rodger was steered into game and not shamed for it.

More people will die unless you give men sexual options

Until you give men like Rodger a way to have sex, either by encouraging them to learn game, seek out a Thai wife, or engage in legalized prostitution—three things that the American media and cultural elite venomously attack, it’s inevitable for another massacre to occur. Even game itself, as useful as it is on an individual level, is a band-aid fix upon a culture which has stopped rewarding nice guys while encouraging female whoring to benefit only the top 10% of alpha males, all in the name of societal progress. Game is a tiny release valve on a cultural pressure cooker where meaningful relationships have become sick, fractured, and unfulfilling compared to the time of our grandparents when traditional sex roles existed. Game may not have led Rodger to find his dream girl and live happily ever after, but it would have given enough results to stop him from killing six innocent individuals and himself. Until you allow and encourage all men to get sex by some means, these massacres will be more commonplace as America’s cultural decline continues.

Mr. Rodger had an autism-spectrum disorder, and was probably also a member of WrongPlanet, an online community for people with autism-spectrum disorders. On that site, "Waahhh! I'm such a nice guy, but no girl wants to have sex with me! They only want to spread their legs for the jerks!" is a VERY common theme. In fact, they currently have plenty of ongoing discussions, where they see parallels between Mr. Rodger's sentiments and their own experiences. Autistic people often suffer from extreme bullying, as did Mr. Rodger. A lot of autistic men (especially in the USA) have a really hard time getting any sex. Both of these are big issues for a lot of them. And, some (very few) may turn deadly. Mr. Valizadeh mentioned narcissistic and sociopathic traits. Persons with Narcissistic Personality Disorders are interpersonally exploitive, and take advantage of others to achieve their own ends. This young man clearly did not have the social skills to turn on the artificial charm that narcissists use to become interpersonally exploitive.  Men who are narcissistic typically have absolutely no trouble getting laid. A lot of women actually find their attitudes to be quite sexy. Mr. Elliot's situation really didn't have anything to do with narcissism, men's rights activists, misogyny, patriarchy, or anything else. Some autistic people reach their breaking point, and that's it.  They snap.

Mr. Valizadeh's claim that his "game" techniques "would have given enough results to stop him from killing six innocent individuals and himself" is, of course, impossible to substantiate at this point.  On April 7, 2011 Wellington Menezes de Oliveira shot and killed 12 children, wounded 12 others, and then killed himself in a school in Rio de Janeiro. According to former schoolmates he was a strange, very reserved person who was constantly harassed by others. In a video he had recorded two days prior to the shooting, Mr. Menezes stated: "The struggle for which many brothers died in the past, and for which I will die, is not solely because of what is known as bullying. Our fight is against cruel people, cowards, who take advantage of the kindness, the weakness of people unable to defend themselves."

For Mr. Menezes, it was purely about the bullying, and there was nothing about a lack of sex.  In fact, I've never heard of a Brazilian man complain that he couldn't get laid.  Brazil is among the planet's most sexually-satisfied nations.  The United States among the least.  A bit of sex might have precluded Mr. Elliot's murder-suicide spree, and might prevent others, but there can be no guarantees.

According to a Danish Report,

...there is more sexual frustration in autistic men as a result of the discrepancy between their interest in sexual activity and their lack of sexual experience. This is not the case among the female residents who have more sexual experiences with others. This study also shows that sexual experience in a group of mentally retarded people was generally greater than in the group of autistic people....A few well-defined suggestions exist on how one can support, teach and bring up autistic people in relation to their sexual needs. When the question is one of satisfying a sexual need, efforts are mainly focused on the young person’s masturbatory practices and rarely on how the young person can be supported in his or her sexual contacts... 

Mentally-retarded people are doing better sexually than are autistic men.  Well, yes, many of the so-called "jerks" and "thugs" who garner plenty of female attention do seem to be somewhat intellectually challenged.  Autistic women, on the other hand, generally don't have much trouble getting laid, possibly because a lot of guys may perceive them as easy targets.

Mr. Valizadeh's article did generate quite a lot of responses, many of which were vitriolic.  Tom Boggioni wrote:

Anti-woman Website Predicts More Elliot Rodgers if Society Doesn’t Provide them with Sex

A website popular with the online Pick-up Artist community responded to Elliott Rodger’s murderous Santa Barbara rampage, saying it could have been avoided if Rodger had ‘game,’ like they profess to possess, before concluding that “more people will die” unless society provides men with more “sexual options.”

The Return of Kings article, written by ‘Roosh,’ goes to elaborate lengths to explain that the PUA-hate community that Rodger was a part of held him back from learning the “masculine” art of seduction – which they call “game” – and, combined with the “American media, the blogosphere, men’s rights activists, and progressive organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Rodger was encouraged to hate and ultimately murder women.

“All these groups are complicit for creating a cultural environment that allowed this massacre to occur, ” Roosh wrote. “It is them (sic) who must accept responsibility for these seven deaths and make the moral change to their ideologies in order to prevent such an act from happening again.

Stating that Rodger was “undoubtedly mentally unstable and required professional supervision,” Roosh concludes from watching Rodger’s YouTube videos that he displayed “an above-average intelligence and the propensity to connect with individuals in certain cases.”

He adds, “I’ve personally interacted with men who functioned lower than him, but were later able to successfully meet average-looking women and achieve intimacy with them.”

Roosh goes on to say, “We live in a society where being shy, normal, or a little awkward is duly punished by entitled American women who have been encouraged to pursue exciting and fun casual sex in their prime with sexy and hot men as a way of ‘experimentation.’”

He then explains that when women have “passed their physical prime” they then select a “nice guy” with whom to settle down, with the understanding that he is “expected to keep his mouth shut when a trickle flow of informational torture reveals that his bride-to-be has experienced more than a dozen different penises in her vagina, anus, and mouth—the same mouth that is supposed to kiss his future children good night.” ...

...“If Rodger came to me, he would have been received actionable and effective advice, ” Roosh explains. “He would have been exposed to material detailing how socially corrupt American society has become, and how being a beta male provider—his principal strategy in trying to get laid—is no longer useful in achieving intimacy with women who now see men as entertaining clowns that should provide them with excitement, drama, and tension.”

Admitting that he was once “no different than Rodger,” Roosh continued, “Seven people are dead because society has decided that shy and awkward men like Elliot Rodger do not deserve a girlfriend and that there is absolutely no way to improve his loneliness and loserdom through learning game or any other social behavior. At the same time men like him are ostracized, there is no legal means for him to solicit prostitution (in California) to release his biological and very pressing urge for fornication.”

Roosh recommends that society change its ways, warning: “More people will die unless you give men sexual options.”

“Until you give men like Rodger a way to have sex, either by encouraging him to learn game, seek out a Thai wife, or engage in legalized prostitution—three things that the American media and cultural elite venomously attack, it’s inevitable for another massacre to occur. Even game itself, as useful as it is on a individual level, is a band-aid fix upon a culture which has stopped rewarding nice guys while encouraging female whoring to benefit only the top 10% of alpha males, all in the name of societal progress.”

Ana Kasparian used Mr. Boggioni's commentary about Mr. Valizadeh's column in her video "Response to Disgusting UC Santa Barbara Shooter Supporter,", rather than Mr. Valizadeh's article itself.

Miss Kasparian starts off by stating quite emphatically that she doesn't like the idea of anyone feeling any sympathy for Mr. Rodger.  Then, Miss Kasparian goes through most of the quotes provided by Mr. Boggioni, in the order that they appeared in Mr. Boggioni's article.  Starting with:

“All these groups are complicit for creating a cultural environment that allowed this massacre to occur.  It is them (sic) who must accept responsibility for these seven deaths and make the moral change to their ideologies in order to prevent such an act from happening again."

Miss Kasparian even left Mr. Boggioni's "(sic)" in there, and stated that by "all these groups", Mr. Valizadeh was referring to "anti-pickup artists and Feminists."  In fact, in his original article, Mr. Valizadeh didn't state that Feminists were responsible "for creating a cultural environment that allowed this massacre to occur". Rather, he blamed " the American media, the blogosphere, men’s rights activists, and progressive organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center", for discouraging sexually frustrated males from learning "self-improvement, game and masculinity."  I think that there are quite a lot of young men (and older men) in America who do feel sexually frustrated, and who do share Roosh's perspective--at least some of the overall themes, if not the nitty-gritty details (what the heck does the Southern Policy Law Center have to do with anything?).  Mr. Valizadeh 's emphasis is on trying to get men to learn his "game" techniques, and to sell his books.  If this helps some men to get a bit of coitus, then great. For me, I think that most of the women in this country aren't worth the trouble.  However, I think that Mr. Rodger was smart enough that he should have been able to get past the Southern Poverty Law Center et al. to find out about various seduction techniques.  Or, at least he should have been able to figure out how to hire an escort, or how to drive his BMW to Tijuana.

Moreover, contrary to Miss Kasparian's assertion, Mr. Valizadeh didn't state that it was unacceptable for women to participate in casual sex.  Rather, he was merely pointing out the reality, that "we live in a society where being shy, normal, or a little awkward is duly punished by entitled American women who have been encouraged to pursue exciting and fun casual sex in their prime with sexy and hot men as a way of experimentation. They are enabled by the culture to seek out seek out bad boys while rejecting the nice guy who is boring. This behavior continues until they find that they are passed their physical prime, whereby the nice guy is selected from a Spartan sexual existence..."  And, he instructs men on how to deal with this reality.  Lori Gottlieb was basically saying the same things as Mr. Valizadeh, but from a woman's perspective:

...we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).

To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insist—vehemently, even—that we’re independent and self-sufficient and don’t believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren’t fish who can do without a bicycle, we’re women who want a traditional family. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried....

....Whether you acknowledge it or not, there’s good reason to worry. By the time 35th-birthday-brunch celebrations roll around for still-single women, serious, irreversible life issues masquerading as “jokes” creep into public conversation: Well, I don’t feel old, but my eggs sure do! or Maybe this year I’ll marry Todd. I’m not getting any younger!...Is it better to be alone, or to settle?

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.

By the age of 40, and well past her physical prime, a woman will be willing to settle for what Mr. Valizadeh calls a "nice guy" who has endured "a Spartan sexual existence."  A man whom she might have rejected 10-20 years earlier, because she was too busy being boned by the baaad boys.  Mr. Valizadeh claims to offer some techniques for allowing the "nice guys" to get some of that action, too, with women who are still in their physical prime.  And, Miss Gottlieb is advising the ladies to hold their noses, and condescend to settle for one of those unfortunate, wretched, annoying, low-status men, in lieu of facing lifelong spinsterhood.  Mr. Valizadeh and Miss Gottlieb are addressing the same phenomenon, but from opposite perspectives.

  

Miss Kasparian is almost 28 years old, which is somewhat past the age of nubility, but with a reasonable amount of residual reproductive value remaining.  At this point, she is no doubt still enjoying tremendous sex with a wide variety of handsome, well-endowed, high-status males.  Since she is a well-known celebrity, she will probably eventually marry another well-known celebrity.  They almost always do.  Maybe the Amazing Atheist,

or someone of similar status.  We'll see their pictures every week on the covers of the grocery-store magazines.  She won't have to settle for one of those disgusting low-lives who can't bring in a substantial salary to complement hers.

The final quote that Miss Kasparian used was:

Until you give men like Rodger a way to have sex, either by encouraging him to learn game, seek out a Thai wife, or engage in legalized prostitution—three things that the American media and cultural elite venomously attack, it’s inevitable for another massacre to occur.

With regard to this quote, Miss Kasparian stated that Mr. Valizadeh's tactic was to "shift the blame onto women.  Shift the blame onto, hey, this dude couldn't legally find a Thai wife.  And go ahead and blame the victims in this case."  Miss Kasparian stated further that "it is absolutely sick and maddening that there are people out there who think that kind of thought and that type of ideology is acceptable and okay."  Actually, Mr. Valizadeh wasn't blaming women, nor the victims.  Nor the fact that "this dude couldn't legally find a Thai wife."  Marrying a Thai woman is not illegal.  Mr. Valizadeh was blaming "the American media and cultural elite" for venomously attacking three possible ways for Mr. Rodger to acquire sex.

Miss Kasparian continues:

Someone needs to stand up, and give them a middle finger, and tell them "No!  That is NOT the right way.  You are NOT entitled to have sex with whomever you want.  You are NOT entitled to force or manipulate someone into having sex with you."  That goes for both men and women.  It has to be consensual.  And in a day and age when we're dealing with rapes on college campuses, and inaction when it comes to testing rape kits and actually prosecuting rapists, it makes me sick to my stomach that an [expletive] like this can post something about a tragic even that happened over the weekend.

Miss Kasparian is becoming hysterical at this point.  Mr. Valizadeh never said anything about raping anyone, nor that anyone was entitled to have coitus with whomever one wished. We aren't exactly bonobos.  And, this is trashy journalism.  She has the Feminist buzzwords "Sexual Entitlement" on the screen, apparently to emphasize the Feminist notion that women should be entitled to have sex with whomever they please, and that men should be content with masturbation.  At the end of the video, Miss Kasparian proposed "Maybe talking about comprehensive sex ed., and talking about how masturbation is a healthy way to relieve yourself of sexual frustration....We should have an open mind about this particular incident and what occurred that night..."   Miss Kasparian obviously never read Mr. Rodgers' manifesto, or she would have been aware of the fact that Mr. Rodger was already a fervent practitioner of the fine art of masturbation.  With her open mind, Miss Kasparian ought to be able to propose a better solution.

Maggie McNeill writes:

...male sexuality tends to get out of control when untended. I’m sure every sexually experienced female reader knows exactly what I’m talking about; if for some reason you can’t give your man any tail for a while his sexual fantasies and sex talk usually start to get stranger and more extreme as the days go by, and your normal man’s sexuality may go from vanilla to kinky to perverted to weird to just plain sick. Most men don’t really want to do the more unusual stuff they’re talking about, but they sure as hell think about it, and one can only imagine how bad it gets for men who don’t have regular bed partners. Whores, of course, don’t have to imagine; we see all the time what happens when an untended male fire spreads beyond its proper boundaries and endangers others. If the untended male is in the right (or rather, wrong) position these can even become wildfires which threaten entire populations and can cause millions of dollars of damage...

 Miss McNeill includes a sage quote attributed to Marlene Dietrich: "A country without bordellos is like a house without bathrooms."  Mr. Valizadeh's proposal, that we should give men like Mr. Rodger a way to have sex, by encouraging them either to learn how to seduce women, to seek out a Thai wife, or to engage in legalized prostitution, isn't at all unreasonable.   Results of a survey showed that, in the Northeast Isaan region of Thailand, more than 60% of the single women were interested in marrying a foreign husband.  So, why not?

Or, as Miss Kaspasian stated that "we should have an open mind", why don't the Feminists offer Free Sex Saturdays, specifically for men who can't get laid, with special invitations to the autistic?  The Feminists are already enjoying quite a lot of sex with a variety of handsome, high-status men every other day of the week.  What would be the harm in administering orgasms to some less fortunate men, for a few hours every Saturday afternoon?  So long as you didn't collect any fees or donations, there would be no basis for a prostitution charge.  It would be a benevolent act of charity and kindness, and could even result in a large number of conversions to male Feminism.  You might even consider it a form of proselytizing.

While this might reduce the number of sexually-frustrated autistic men going on murder-suicide rampages in the future, as an added precaution, it might be wise to keep them away from knives, guns, and other dangerous weapons. Just be very careful not to bully any autistic people, and keep them all sexually sated.  That ought to put an end to some of the vexations that can lead to killing sprees.

 

Sexual Assault in the Military

In a Yahoo News report today:

Chuck Hagel: Combatting Sexual Assault in Military 'As High a Priority as There Is'

At a time when sexual assault in the military is at an all-time high – with more than 5,000 reported incidents last year – Chuck Hagel says that fixing the problem is one of his highest priorities as defense secretary.

“If we can't protect our own people, then we're going to have a problem,” Hagel said. “We owe it to each other; it is accountability; it is a responsibility of all leaders at every level to deal with this.”...

...“We're not where we need to be yet. We will get there,” he said. “I've made it as high a priority as there is. I meet with all our sexual assault prevention office people once a week for an hour.”

“Our institution … is a different enterprise, the military, from any other,” Hagel also said. “That doesn't mean that they should not comply with laws. Sexual assault is a crime, pure, simple, no matter if it's on a military base or college campus. So you start there.”...

Note that no-one is mentioning the now widely-discredited estimate, from the Defense Manpower Data Center, of 26,000 service members experiencing "unwanted sexual contact."  The "more than 5,000" figure comes from a May 1, 2014 from the American Forces Press Service:

Hagel: Numbers Reflect Victim Confidence in Reporting Assaults

A 50-percent increase in sexual assaults in the armed forces reflected in the Defense Department’s latest annual report indicates growing willingness among victims to report the crime and increasing confidence the military is providing them with support and taking action against perpetrators, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said today.

The latest report -- which covers the period from Oct. 1, 2012, through Sept. 30, 2013 -- says there were 5,061 reports of sexual assault in the Defense Department, a 50-percent jump from the previous year. More than 70 percent of all cases in which the military had jurisdiction resulted in criminal charges, officials said.

“We have a long way to go before we get close to solving this problem,” Hagel said at a Pentagon news conference today where the report’s findings were announced, linking the sharp increase in reports of the crime to steps the military has taken to encourage reporting by victims and prosecution of offenders.

“We believe victims are growing more confident in our system,” the secretary said. “Because these crimes are underreported, we took steps to increase reporting, and that’s what we’re seeing.”

But Hagel said the nearly two dozen directives he has issued over the past year intended to reduce sexual assaults within the military -- including ensuring an appropriate command climate and improving victim support -- have not been enough. “We must do more,” he said, and he announced six additional directives.

“They include a departmentwide review of institutional alcohol policies, which will be revised where necessary to address risks that alcohol poses to others. … They also require new methods to better encourage male victims to report assaults and seek assistance,” he said, noting that DOD officials believe sexual assaults against men constitute half of all cases....

“When commanders took disciplinary action on sexual assault offenses, they moved to court-martial a record 71 percent of alleged perpetrators,” Hagel said. “These results indicated that our investments in training investigators and attorneys are continuing to make a difference in holding offenders accountable.”...

...Ultimately, military officials want to make the Defense Department “the last place a military offender wants to be,” Snow emphasized, adding that victims should know the department is doing everything it can to provide support and eliminate the threat.

“To the offenders: We don’t care who you are or what rank you hold. If you don’t understand our core values and are not prepared to live by and enforce those values every day, then we don’t want you in our military,” Snow concluded.

And, yesterday (May 15) the American Forces Press Service released a report on sexual harassment:

 DOD Releases Figures on Sexual Harassment in Military

Emphasizing that the Defense Department continues to encourage victims to come forward, Pentagon officials released a report today that says just under 1,400 cases of sexual harassment occurred in the military last year.

The congressionally mandated report defines sexual harassment as an unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favors or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that can affect a career, job performance or create an abuse workplace.

Of the 1,366 cases reported, 59 percent were substantiated, the report says. The numbers of people who formally reported a case of harassment and those who made informal complaints were split nearly evenly. Informal allegations are those that were not submitted through a service’s equal opportunity office, but reached commanders through other means.

In releasing the report, a senior Defense Department official told reporters those who alleged sexual harassment were predominately female enlisted members from the same unit as the alleged offender, with the majority holding the pay grades E-1 to E-4. The alleged offenders were predominantly male co-workers in pay grades from E-5 to E-9.

As with cases of sexual assault, DOD officials believe harassment in the military is often under-reported. “We want a climate where everybody reports whenever they’re offended,” one official said.

The reported harassment cases militarywide were significantly lower than the number of reported sexual assaults. Earlier this month, the department reported 5,061 cases of sexual assault for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2013, a 50-percent increase over the previous year. Defense officials said assaults often are preceded by harassment and that they are determined to stamp out both.

“We aren’t leaving any options off the table to prevent sexual harassment,” one DOD official said, with the department expected to place a greater emphasis on improving oversight and training, as well as putting stronger mechanisms in place for managing sexual harassment incidents.

Note that the term sexual harasssment includes actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.  According to the Department of Defense (DoD), there were a heck of a lot more cases of sexual assault in the armed forces than there were instances of sexual harassment.  Given that sexual assault is a subset of sexual harassment, there should have been at least as many cases of sexual harassment as there were of sexual assault.  When I asked Nick Simeone, the author of the above two articles, about the discrepancy, his response was that there was a "legal distinction."  As previously discussed, the DoD's lawyers aren't exactly the universe's most intelligent beings.  Mr. Simeone shouldn't really be paying any attention to them, if he takes his journalism at all seriously.

Of course, alarming stories of sexual assault in the military have been all over the news.  For example, the Deseret News:

'Clear Threat': Reports of Military Sexual Assault leap 50 percent

Reports of sexual assault in the military leapt by 50 percent last year, according to a much-anticipated Pentagon study that came out last week.

The report was released on the heels of a Pentagon campaign to get victims to come forward, but the startling numbers have the attention of politicians and activists...

...more than half of women in the military experience unwanted sexual contact during their service, but it's not only women who are victims: Of the 26,000 reports of sexual assault and harassment made from 2011 to 2012, some 52 percent came from men.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declared sexual assault a "clear threat" to both male and female service members.

A serious threat

New research shows that women in the military often experience trauma that's not battle related: Half of women that served in Iraq and Afghanistan reported being sexually harassed or assaulted by their peers,...

...the numbers have to be put in context, and include a range of behaviors. "Unwanted sexual touching could be hair stroking, groping, or an attempted or completed rape," she says. Unfortunately, she notes, young women in their early 20's report similar numbers that are alarmingly high in other situations, too. One in five college women report having been sexually assaulted, for example, prompting questions about "rape culture" and a plea from the White House last week asking colleges to seriously address the problem of campus rape.

Across organizations, Street says, those that are historically male-dominated and have a strong hierarchical culture are associated with more sexual harassment — from fire and police departments to Fortune 500 companies...

...The circumstances for sexual assault in a military setting might be especially problematic, says Street, especially in terms of the consequences of reporting attacks. "One of the things that's a real strength in the military is the esprit de corps and sacred purpose of the mission, but when [sexual trauma] happens, it can feel like quite a betrayal," Street says. "It can also make it difficult for victims to report and compromise their team, or make sense of it in the aftermath."

Women report "internal barriers" to reporting, she says. They may ask themselves, "If I report this will it have a negative effect on the mission, or the group's cohesion?"

"Women in the military take their jobs incredibly seriously and think carefully and cautiously," Street says.

There is also a history of "retaliation" toward women who report sexual misconduct, says Sarah Blum, a nurse psychotherapist and Vietnam veteran, and author of "Women Under Fire: Abuse in the Military."...

...Sexual assault in the military has been cast as a women's rights issue, but the latest data shows that men are affected as much as women — or more. In analyzing the Pentagon study's data, the Associated Press found that many more men were victims of assault in 2013 than women.

“About 6.8 percent of women surveyed said they were assaulted and 1.2 percent of the men,” according to the AP. “But there are vastly more men in the military; by the raw numbers, a bit more than 12,000 women said they were assaulted, compared with nearly 14,000 men."

"I think most men are embarrassed, especially because of homosexual stigma in the military," says Rinckey. He notes that men were especially silenced because of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," policy, which banned homosexual behavior in the military. More men may be coming forward now, he says, since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been lifted...in "insular" institutions like the military, it is sometimes easier for those in authority to sympathize with perpetrators. "People who find out about [a sexual assault] say, 'Do we want to ruin this guy's career? What about his family? He made a mistake.' Then sometimes people start to rally around the offender."...

The author, Lane Anderson, is using the numbers from the discredited-but-more-dramatic-looking Defense Manpower Data Center survey.  Half of the women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan reported being "sexually harassed or assaulted by their peers", and these instances of sexual harassment or assault may have included "hair stroking."  And, there were thousands of cases of men being buggered by their superior officers.  There weren't any women harassing men:  the clear implication is that men are rapists.

We seem to be operating under two somewhat contradictory assumptions, of which the first must remain understood but unspoken, or you're a "misogynist":

• women are poor, weak, delicate creatures who have to be protected and sheltered from the filthy habits and foul words of men; and
• women should be entitled to hold the exact same (or higher) positions as men in the military.

Has everyone forgotten about Lynndie England and Abu Ghraib?

Miss England was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act, and consequently spent 18 months in prison and received a dishonorable discharge from the Army.  And, she remains unrepentant:  "saying sorry to the victims of her ridicule would be 'like saying sorry to the enemy'."  The fact that she was involved in torturing people wouldn't ordinarily have bothered anybody.  Vice President (and celebrated chicken hawk) Dick Cheney was a big booster of torture.  Her only real crime was taking pictures that were circulated on the internet, and that embarrassed President Bush.  Particularly after President Bush had gone to so much trouble to portray Saddam Hussein as the evil villain who went around torturing people.  As Barton Gellman and Jo Becker point out:  "Many of the harsh measures [Dick Cheney] championed, and some of the broadest principles undergirding them, have survived intact but out of public view."  The photographs proved so distasteful that even The Economist, which ordinarily takes a pro-Republican view, called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign:

Yeah, right.  Fat chance of that happening.  Interestingly, rather than accusing Miss England of having committed "sexual objectification", Feminists like John Howard and Laura Prividera accuse the "media" of "sexually objectifying" Miss England,  for the sake of "obfuscating military culpability", "preserving patriarchal militarism", and "subordinating women in the US military."  From the Feminist perspective, a woman is never responsible for anything:  it is always "society", or the "patriarchy", or the "media" that are at fault.  Women can do no wrong.

Meanwhile, the US military is stepping up its actions against sex offenders:

US Military Punished Nearly 500 for Sexual Harassment

The US military fired or disciplined nearly 500 workers for sexual harassment in a 12-month period, and nearly 13 per cent of the complaints filed involved repeat offenders, according to new data.

The Pentagon on Thursday released its first formal report on sexual harassment amid months of criticism from Congress over how the department handles sexual assaults and related crimes. According to the report, there were 1,366 reports of sexual harassment filed in the fiscal year that ended September. 30, involving 496 offenders across the services and National Guard...

...The report reveals that in the vast majority of the cases the victim was a young, lower-ranking woman and the offender a senior enlisted male service member, often in the same unit. The most frequent location of the harassment was a military base. More than half of the complaints involved crude or offensive behavior, and another 40 per cent were described as unwanted sexual attention. Most involved verbal behavior. Nearly 60 percent of the complaints were substantiated, and the punishments ranged from court martial and firing to pay cuts, rank demotions, letters of reprimand and other administrative actions....

Oh, the military is on a serious mission, now.  Going after sexual deviants, who might have behaved crudely or offensively, in front of women.  Don't hold back, ladies:  Mr. Hagel wants you to report on them, so that he can gratify himself by hanging some more derrières on the line.  Soldiers: mind your P's and Q's.  Especially when ladies are present.  And, ladies are always going to be present.  Never touch a woman's hair!  And, don't bugger any of the male soldiers!  That's really poor taste!

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and was apparently complicit in a fair amount of murder and mayhem, including the machine-gunning of an orphanage.  He was a squad leader in the 9th Infantry Division, which systematically slaughtered huge numbers of people in the Mekong Delta.  Gang rapes “were a horrifyingly common occurrence.”  What sort of training did our soldiers receive regarding sexual conduct during those less-enlightened times?  Well, here is a training video from that epoch:

Most military recruits are 18-year-old boys who are away from home for the first time.  They have hormones surging through their bodies, and, these days, will have spent much of the previous six-or-so years watching porn clips on the internet.  Of course they want to touch a woman's hair.  And, probably more than that.

In fact, rape was routine during the Vietnam War.  As mentioned previously, since 2005, American soldiers are no longer permitted even to employ a prostitute.  Compared to the 1960s, American soldiers are already quite tame and docile.  From Daniel Denvir:

 ...Rape was also a weapon of war and an enormous number of Vietnamese women, including children, were forced into prostitution.

They were forced into catering to the US war machine one way or another, and one of the prime ways was prostitution. A lot of girls who were sent to it, their villages had been destroyed and they were forced into the cities. And this was a way to provide for their families. The Americans had lots of money to spend and these were young guys, 18, 19, 20 years old.

So it was this flourishing sex trade and then out in the countryside there was what seems to be a tremendous amount of rape and sexual assault.

What I found was extremely disturbing. I recount a few cases where the sexual violence is really shocking. A lot of times I found myself, I felt I didn't have the language to describe exactly what I found in the cases, because rape or even gang rape didn't seem to convey the level of sexual sadism. These are extremely violent gang rapes, or raping women with inanimate objects like bottles or even rifles...

 Now, we seem to have gone completely in the other direction, with a highly Feminized military force, where a man doesn't even dare touch a woman's hair.  The people who say that sexual assault in the military is "at an all time high" don't have the slightest idea what they are talking about.

In January, 2017, we will have a new president, who will choose a new chucklehead to serve as Secretary of Defense, who will have some new silly obsession that will cause a lot of military members to jump through metaphorical hoops.  If it is a Republican, then we will go back to enriching contractors. There is still plenty of time to superordinate women while smashing patriarchal militarism.  As Cynthia Enloe observed in 2000:

There are very few instances in any country of military wives joining in an alliance with military prostitutes and together devising a joint action along with women soldiers, all for the sake of dismantling the usually elaborate ideology of femininity constructed by military authorities to serve their own institutional interests.

Well, that day has come.  As previously mentioned, "women are both the objects and the subjects of their experience of sexual harassment."  The determination of whether a woman has endured "sexual harassment" or "sexual assault" is entirely at the discretion of the woman.  If she claims that you did, said, or thought something that she felt was "sexually harassing", then you're guilty.  There is no way around it.  Just get out of her way, and do your best to stay out of her way.  The women possess a very powerful instrument, entirely at their disposal, to get whatever they want.  In the present case, what they want is to smash the military patriarchy, and turn it into a full-blown matriarchy.

The military is becoming the "behavioral sink" described by John B. Calhoun in his rat experiments.  Aggressive females are taking over, while the males are withdrawing themselves, to engage in solitary pursuits, and to abstain from sex with females.  Glory, Hallelujah!