Dear Roosh V.,
When my rapist held me down, I begged him to stop.
He hadn’t read your manual on how to pick up women. He had never read a Return of Kings article like “Women Have Reduced Themselves To Sexual Commodities,” where you equate sleeping with a woman to drilling for oil, or “How To Stop Rape,” in which you “satirically” assert that rape should be legal on private property.
My rapist needed no instruction or encouragement; he would've raped me no matter what you published.
I’m writing this now—and not 18 months ago when I was assaulted—because Return of Kings has been in the news a lot this past week. Return of Kings is your spawn, I suppose. It's a blog filled with article after article denouncing feminism, insulting women, and providing borderline instructive essays like "How I Dealt With a False Rape Accusation.”
After organizing an international rally for men who want to legalize rape, the anticipated backlash from activists worldwide moved you to cancel the rally because you feared for the safety of those who would attend.
The irony of this is not lost on anyone. You're a self-proclaimed neo-masculinist who, according to the manifesto on your homepage, believes in male superiority and limiting women’s freedoms. You've written multiple books on the art of picking up women. Your first book, Bang, operated from the perspective that men are inherently primal, featuring pickup tips based on what you describe as "traditional sex roles." Each page makes it clear that you believe sleeping with women is a game to win. You're a hero among men who feel their inherent right to superiority is being threatened by women existing as your equals, and who believe that women manufacture stories of assault for attention.
I emailed you, as publisher of Return of Kings, and four other members of the blog's editorial staff, with submissive emails meant to bait you into speaking with me. I originally intended this piece to include quotes that would show how deluded you and men like you really are. To do this, I tried to play by your rules, which were strict, considering I'm a woman.
“If you are a female, house rules dictate that you must show us a photo of yourself," Return of Kings' contact page says. "I probably won’t answer your email unless you include a link to your picture (both face and body must be visible).”
You explain that this process is in place to determine whether or not correspondence with a woman is worth considering. Despite feelings of total disgust, I sent photos of myself, requested permission to speak with you, and said I'd be grateful for a reply. I demeaned myself to become the type of woman you might “approve" of.
I demeaned myself to become the type of woman you might “approve" of.
But I was selling you a lie. I wanted to trick you into trusting me. I realize you’ll never wake up screaming from your nightmares, and you’ll never know what it’s like to always sleep facing the door for fear that someone unwanted may enter your room, but maybe you can feel betrayal.
When my rapist entered my room after a party, I wasn't the woman I told you I was. I didn’t paint myself as meek, or make myself small and unassuming. I was an outspoken girl with messy hair and a love for politics, feminism, and fashion.
My rapist didn’t assert his masculinity. He didn’t follow any of the tips from your blog, where you discuss the necessity of machismo. I was asleep, and when I woke up to find him on top of me, he didn’t use a pickup line or yell at me. I don’t even know if he saw me. He just didn’t listen to me when I said, "No," when I said, "Stop," when I said, "Please don’t." My rapist said he had to finish, and he wasn’t going to stop until he did. When it was over, he tried to high-five me, and asked that I rate his “performance,” while grading me a solid "nine." A part of me wonders whether my one-point deduction had something to do with me resisting.
Roosh, you're perhaps most well-known for the article, “How To Stop Rape,” which you now claim is satirical. You say that anyone who takes it seriously is being manipulated by mainstream media and social justice warriors. But here’s my issue with that, which I hoped to explain to you, had I duped you into trusting me: You can’t satirize rape. Your "joke," which is clearly quite serious, will never be funny. There's no way to make light of rape. Every word you write—even if not explicitly pro-rape—still promotes the idea that women exist for your domination, and these ideas are toxic.
Men don’t need your advice on how to rape. They've done it long before you existed, and they'll continue to do it with or without you. But your actions, and those of men like you, do have consequences. Elliot Rodger, a member of misogynistic online forum PUAhate, used ideas like the ones promoted on Return of Kings to fortify the hateful perspective that inspired him to kill seven people, including himself.
Roosh, I cannot and will not blame you for my rape. But you’ve created a space where prospective rapists can have their vile ideas affirmed. And for that, my rapist could blame you.
This post originally appeared on NTRSCTN.com
