By Bernard Thompson
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| UberMan: A frightened Valizadeh called police from his mother's basement |
One is smart, successful and athletic, one is Latin, not-bad-looking and funny, one has a rich daddy, a bit of patter and, well, a rich daddy.
But they all have something else in common: they have all referred to a manual known as “The Game”, in order to pursue women as sexual conquests.
The Game is a guide to seducing women – any woman – whether she wants to have sex with the man or not. It utilises selected elements of psychology and neurolinguistic programming to create a system of manoeuvres intended to disarm a woman, thus rendering her pliable and powerless.
The Game introduced to the lexicon of dating, “Negging”, paying a woman a compliment in a way secretly designed to undermine her self-confidence sufficiently to seek reassurance from the man who has just insulted her.
Ever wondered why arseholes all get girls? Peacock Theory, which states that any attention is good attention and can be used as a currency for any knowledgable male to snare some unsuspecting female who will sleep with him and discover that he is indeed an arsehole.
It is from this school that the ridiculous Daryush Valizadeh sprang forth to enrich the popular consciousness with his philosophical take on the world. Styling himself Roosh V and currently claiming the status of “Innovative Casanova” on his own forum, Valizadeh is now revelling in the sort of notoriety that he has surely always pursued.
Deep
Valizadeh's websites make for some comical reading.In the “Deep Forum”, for “Intellectual discussion that includes books, essays, documentaries, science, philosophy, and other weighty topics,” one poster – Pitt, a “True player” asks if anyone has ever read a good book by a woman, having been disappointed by a purchase.
“When I started reading the book, I noticed a lot of non sense [sic] as if the writer had no idea on how to engage with strangers. I swear that I didn't even know the book was written by a woman by the time I started reading the book and then while reading it, I just thought to myself 'this book was probably written by a woman, no way a man would write such non sense'. I had decided to check out the authors name and boom, it was written by a woman.”
Pitt's impressive ability to discern the gender of an author by her words alone was offset only by his failing to infer that a writer named Susan may be female.
Valizadeh is currently declaring a “State of Emergency” – with appropriate measures – on the forum, due to recent attacks and fears of infiltrators, including “feminist agents”. His website uses imagery reminiscent of fantasy role-playing games and Valizadeh leads “tribes” with “Chiefs” and “Elders”.
And yet his followers wonder why they have been unsuccessful with women.
But the risible and contemptible becomes truly sinister when Valizadeh ventures into more serious territory and his now much-discussed pronouncements on rape:
“By attempting to teach men not to rape, what we have actually done is teach women not to care about being raped, not to protect themselves from easily preventable acts, and not to take responsibility for their actions.”
Thus he advocates the legalisation of rape on private property, being careful to distance himself from “those seedy and deranged men who randomly select their rape victims on alleys and jogging trails”.
It is for good reason that concern is being expressed about Valizadeh's International Meetup Day On February 6th. It is also understandable that some would wish to ban events celebrating such obnoxious and dangerous attitudes. The charges that Valizadeh is flitting on the edges of incitement to rape are not without merit, though precedents banning freedom of assembly by the likes of his followers would surely be used against more benign and progressive meetings in future.
And another good reason for allowing them to proceed is that it would be instructive to observe the types of men who would choose to spend their Saturday evening in the company of misogynistic inadequates, seeking to bolster their paltry senses of self-esteem with some reassurance that there are others who have comparably failed in life.
It would be reassuring to find that, instead of the online threats which are never to be tolerated, Scottish men condemned the movement to death simply through their refusal to attend.
However, that would be a naïve hope. Wherever there is an aberrant view espoused by a despotic or psychopathic leader, there are damaged and feeble-minded acolytes. They can be the laughable, like the followers of David Icke, or the truly murderous like the Manson Family. (It may be noted that Charles Manson has always denied ordering the murders carried out by his members, but not that those who committed them believed they were fulfilling his wishes.)
This is where the interface between the views of Valizadeh and the intellect of followers, like Pitt creates the potential for something truly alarming. We have a “neomasculinist” in Valizadeh conflating masculinity with the manipulation and sexual exploitation of women, using dehumanising language, validating women being demeaned as “targets”.
At the same time, he tries to create a distinction between "unacceptable rape" and the other kind, explicitly holding rape victims responsible for the crimes (through drinking, for example).
However, men who are hate-filled, damaged or vulnerable – with the reasoning abilities of Pitt – are apparently expected to recognise that their leader does not want to encourage the notion that rape is the tool with which they assert themselves as men.
Yet this takes place in an atmosphere in which the “norms” of acceptable behaviour are constantly being challenged and former taboos being considered mainstream.
I have never been an advocate of censoriousness towards pornography or of the view that it need always be inherently harmful. And yet porn that would once have been considered “extreme” and even criminal can now be easily accessed by any 10-year-old.
Likewise, I have always believed that we should respect the rule that what fully-consenting adults do in the privacy of their own space is no one else's business. If that involves spanking and whipping, then who should have the right to intervene?
Yet couldn't the phenomenon that was 50 Shades of Grey, while probably harmless in itself, contribute to a rapidly-evolving sexual landscape, one that could be argued to be reinforcing the notion that all women secretly want to be dominated by a man who hates them?
When history shows us that the bluntest, most boorish, brutish, messages hit home with those of limited powers of reasoning, can we really be confident that some men would not be oblivious to nuance, consider consent to be an ethereal concept and convince themselves that women are not people with feelings to be considered but rather “things” to be used and abused?
Reasonable concerns have been raised about “masculinity in crisis”. And I have some sympathy with that view. Having lived in the Czech Republic for some time, I have had to relearn some of the things I had unlearned, such as addressing groups of women as “ladies” – polite when I was a child, patronising when I was entering manhood, more-or-less required by the most educated, successful and assertive Czech women I have met.
What I see are parallels with radical “Islamism” and Daesh. The word “Islamism” was coined in order to emphasise that it was a radical and fundamentally warped movement, purporting to act in the interests of Islam but not representative of the religion or its people.
So perhaps we should at least be thankful that Valizadeh chooses to use “neomasculinist”, so that we can make similar distinctions between it and the more representative terms – masculinity, manliness, male or men.
And, just maybe, the responses to Islamism and Daesh give us a blueprint for responding to Valizadeh and those in his thrall. There are many suggested right-wing responses to Islamism, including carpet-bombing, removal of travel privileges and spying on campuses.
More progressive voices tend to say: “Yes, we must fight against militant Islamism but also reach out to those who may be attracted to it – let's show the young men and women who are impressed by it that there are more positive alternatives.”
So, while the conduct of people like Valizadeh – and the existence of his community – might be pounced on by people who would choose to believe that disrespect for women, control, abuse and even rape of women, are things for which men may secretly yearn, shouldn't we take a different approach?
There exists amongst men a tiny-but-hardcore minority of incorrigible misogynists. I believe that and I also believe that they are unrepresentative of the massive majority of men.
But, aside from them, what of the others? The damaged, the hurt, the confused. Those lacking direction as well as self-confidence. Those who have either never had a male role-model who had positive, respectful relationships with women or those whose better examples were drowned out in a sea of arseholes?
Wouldn't it be better to starve Valizadeh of followers by offering a better way? Do we really want gender polarisation to the extent that physical and emotional intimacy are denigrated to the extent that they must become a zero-sum game?
This is clearly, in my view, a problem which all men must address, though only a very few are guilty and I do not believe that men, in general, have collective responsibility for the actions of the worst of men. I say it pragmatically – women telling men how to be men will never work.
For my part, probably inspired by St Jude Thaddeus, I attempted to reach the three men I mentioned at the beginning of this piece – me being a shining example of manhood, of course.
At one point, I even questioned whether suggesting developing self-confidence, being yourself, listening, being interested in what the woman has to say, mastering the art of conversation and being good company, rather than aiming for instant, disposable sexual gratification, could be seen as manipulative in its own right.
When one asked if I could guarantee success, any ambitions I might have nurtured to write a New York Times bestseller on my “programme” were scuppered. I didn't even have a terminology to match negging & sarging, far less anecdotal evidence of improbable successes based on my “game”.
But I tried, albeit with mixed results.
Valizadeh is an unpleasant character, highlighting the parts of our society that most of us would rather didn't exist. And yet the attention focused on him can be seen as an opportunity. Men can be positive role models in a way that is respectful of women as different-but-equal, without necessarily being emasculated.
But that will only be truly effective in an environment that allows such men to be respected. Nice guys do get stepped on but that doesn't mean that society shouldn't celebrate them, instead of considering them to be boring while the bastards and arseholes rut like stags in mating season.
Perhaps we need to create a world fit for good guys. Being able to drink, swear, cry, play rugby, watch football, admire someone's body and have your heart go all-a-flutter for someone should all be acceptable and outwardly-expressible, consistent with being men.
Strength-without-dominating; confidence-without-disrespect; assertiveness-without-controling, sex-without-rape-abuse-or-coercion: these, I would posit, should be expressible without hostility (and, of course, they need not be exclusive to men, nor to heterosexual relationships).
Valizadeh is a boil on the arse of gender discussion – small, but sufficiently irritating to command more attention than his importance merits.
The most powerful attack we could make to heighten his state of emergency would be to starve him of recruits.
Of the three men I mentioned at the beginning, Rodrigo is being rejected by his male friends who are increasingly disgusted by his exploits; Honza has fallen in love and (metaphorically) thrown out the book. Michal is, I presume, still doing what he wants to do, actually enjoying the hurt and humiliation he brings women.
I never claimed that I had a high success rate or that I was much of a role model for younger men.
But I gave it a shot and I will do so again. And, in all modesty, I believe that most men I know could be better role models than Daryush Valizadeh.
Arseholes, misogynists, manipulators, rapists: none of these terms are representative of men.
Men must paint the images of the better articulations of the male gender. Maybe with the right canvass, we'll finish the painting.
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