On Saturday, February 6th Daryush Valizadeh (commonly known as Roosh V) had plans to set up 165 different rallies worldwide in support of what many feminists call a “pro rape” movement. Roosh V and his supporters, on the other hand, considered the gathering as more of a “happy hour” where like-minded heterosexual men could come together and chat about the struggle of picking up women. Roosh V classifies himself as a “neomasculinist,” being quoted as saying that “a woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty. A man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect, and character.”
This philosophy hasn’t left all women drooling over him. Womens’ rights advocates, Canadian politicians, and even a Toronto female boxing team threated to counteract Roosh V’s happy hour, causing him ultimately to cancel the worldwide initiative because he couldn’t assure the safety of his followers.
Roosh V started his career blogging on his site, “The DC Bachelor” and has since self-published 15 books including “Bang,” “Day Bang,” and “Poosy Paradise.” These books include graphic and shocking scences like the following one describing what sounds like nonconsentual sex taking place: “She tried to squirm away while I was laying down my strokes so I had to use some muscle to prevent her from escaping. I was able to finish, but my orgasm was weak.”
Aggressive sexual assault is just one of many tips that Roosh V publishes to his supporters. His books are essentially a collection of “How To’s” to help men who are looking for sex. He claims that his collection of titles will teach men “How to deal with the dreaded ‘R’ word: resistance. I teach you an effective strategy to steamroll her resistance so you don’t go home blue-balled.”
Resistance? Or rape? This seems to be the question hotly debated by critics. The biggest uproar came when Roosh V published a blog post titled “How to Stop Rape,” where he outlines his solution to end violence against women. However, don’t get too excited. This isn’t Roosh V all of a sudden changing his position on sexual assault. Rather, he calls for the legalization of rape on private property. Yikes.
Only after massive amounts of criticism from the public did Roosh V tweet that the piece was “satire.” Because who doesn’t love a good rape joke? Apparently not Emily Crockett of Vox news. The writer responded to the tweet in a recent article accusing Roosh V of implying that women are responsible for assaults against them.
A close second place for most insensitive blog post goes to another one of Roosh V’s pieces: “5 Reasons to Date a Girl with an Eating Disorder.” Anorexia, low self-confidence, and mental illness really does just scream romantic to Roosh V. The Huffington Post disagreed, calling the post “the dark underbelly of the internet, full of venom and vitriol.”
Roosh V seems to have no intention of stopping his campaign anytime soon, though his cancellation this weekend might indicate otherwise. Petitions around the world are circulating to ban the contentious blogger from speaking in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Time will tell whether Roosh V will have to find a new vendetta because he doesn’t appear to be responding well to public rejection already. It looks like he might need to figure out a new way to handle resistance.