Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

like as long as you don't slide something into an orifice then it's cool nbd ugh

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.
Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.
These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.

Thank you,

Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong

good for them for responding; it would have been better had they acted sooner but better late etc

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong

Bit ambitious to assume this is the only time.

Elmo otm

http://jezebel.com/fox-news-talking-head-to-tamara-holder-know-your-plac-534569484

man, i can't watch that shit even just to be a witness

the PUA phenomenon is about men who can't think

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:53 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

not sure how to embed tweets on ilx but i enjoyed this one https://twitter.com/ceejoyner/status/339765081485238272

Jordan Rivas ‏@sortiv 29 May
@ceejoyner I don't think you we're as clever as you'd hoped. Did you mean to imply women are like garbage? Not a fan of PUA's either but...

Jordan Rivas ‏@sortiv 29 May
@ceejoyner ...careful with the jokes, maybe? Sanitation workers are real people with a hard, necessary job. PUA's are selfish manipulators.

http://www.theawl.com/2013/06/ken-hoinsky-on-rape-culture-women-and-mistakes

was this somehow not discussed here?

it wasn't, partially because of fatigue but mostly because it was the dumbest fucking thing possible

I mean, when the actual author comes out and says "it wasn't at all my intent but reading back and listening to the arguments, I understand how people drew those conclusions, so I'm going to work with the people who complained to clarify the language I'm using so that dudes don't use my advice as a date rape primer", your "only a total moron and idiot would conclude that this advice promoted date rape" argument has even less strength than it did when you first made it, and it was completely toothless and wrong from the beginning

(obv "you" being the incredibly stupid writer who conducted that interview)

well, i don't think that was maria's goal w/ the interview

maybe she's misguided in approaching it this way but this seemed like an attempt to create some kind of understanding so PUA n3rds dont feel attacked & instead can be reasoned with

but it seems like it backfired & just annoyed ppl who feel like she's making it OK for those n3rds to badger women incessently

Have you read any of her tweets about this, or her responses in the comments? She is wholeheaertedly taking the position that this whole thing was blown out of proportion and that nothing that dude wrote could be taken as advice on how to sexually assault someone.

from what i've read, she's arguing that his poor writing has mangled his intent. and that the two quotes taken out of context amount to a witch hunt.

the 2nd quote for ex., in context (she argues) (i haven't read it myself) is written after consent has taken place; she links a video of the kind of idea that he's trying to write about.

idk, it's super-dangerous territory b/c it would be completely fucked up to enable speech that OKs rape-y behavior but i think she's trying to get him to come around & understand this w/out demonizing him.

which, you argue, "not worth the effort," but the continued success of that subreddit suggests this is a v real population

idk i haven't had a chance to read through both of the arguments completely so my devil's advocating here is based on a cursory understanding

i will also freely admit to giving maria bustillos some benefit of the doubt due to her being maria bustillos

for me, that awl article pretty much elides the central problem here, in that patriarchy is indeed a thing and the communicational playing field is already stacked against women in both directions. It's a double bind--you get to be a slut or a tease, no middle ground. "Consent" is already highly fraught from the very beginning because it doesn't take place in a vacuum. the PUA stuff isn't so much a handbook for meeting women and forming satisfying relationships but re-establishing that patriarchal dominance. notice how much pressure is put on the women to be explicit in her rejection and how slippery an idea that is. it replaces the ambiguity and risk of communicating with another person with the near-assault required to elicit a direct response. it is violence--and all the moreso for being cast as the prerogative in a unilateral fashion on the man as the LEADER or whatever.

the basic strategy is simply: "put as much pressure as you possibly can on another person and be amazed at how much you can get away with before they are forced to stand up for themselves."

The thing that squicks me most about even his "read it in context!" explanation is he still says effectively "if she says no... try again later"

NO.

Dude announced that he is working with the people who complained to rewrite his book so it isn't advocating date rape:

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/pickup_artist_ken_hoinsky_apologizes_for_promoting_sexual_assault/singleton/

Here is what Bustillos is saying about this guide on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/mariabustillos/status/349245202860482564

Maria Bustillos
‏@mariabustillos
@thebestjasmine @Nicole_Cliffe No: I don't think his book promotes sexual assault. I really do not.

Here is the thing everyone got up in arms over:

http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/

The problem is that the entire thing is written from the standpoint that the guy reading this advice is owed sex and these are the things he needs to do in order to get the woman he's with to give him some. The parts where Hoisky says to back off aren't written from the standpoint of "no one wants to rape someone"; he in fact specifically says to wait and try again later and describes telling a woman that you don't want to do anything she's uncomfortable with as a line, which is not the most sincere way of honoring a woman's refusal of consent. Bustillos has a point that dude's language is garbled and it's very likely that it wasn't his intent to write a guide that could lead people to getting raped but that doesn't change the end result.

The problem is that people are debating this shit, surely?

That too

Bustillos has a point that dude's language is garbled and it's very likely that it wasn't his intent to write a guide that could lead people to getting raped but that doesn't change the end result.

i was taking this as her primary point.

from what i've read, it does appear that she has been overstrenuously defending his book considering what a rhetorical fail it is

I get that shy guys need to be encouraged to be bolder for better success. I get that! And I think that is what she thinks she is defending? But yeah as Dan said, women - heck, *anyone* - is not a machine you put nicecoins into and sex comes out if you do it properly.

bitcoins on the other hand

:D

i think fwiw that the impulse to understand/empathize with some of the guys that world is not a bad one & prefer it to blanket dismissiveness b/c i genuinely don't believe that most of the guys in that world are sociopaths, they're just kinda lame, and while i would not kiw i think there's nothing wrong w/ recognizing that these guys (the non-sociopath ones anyway) are suffering from patriarchical expectations of masculinity which is to say they too can be liberated from its chains etc. which is not intended to be captain save a straight dude, more that understanding it leads to better ways of explaining why PUA culture is ultimately hurting them not helping, or that "just be honest and straightforward about your interest" is a better way to go about it than "be an aggressive alpha"

i mean, or we can just be like "those guys are assholes" which they are but hey

im not, fwiw, suggesting that maria was able to do that effectively per se

cap'n save-a-pua

i agree with everything you said D-40 (deej?). that was much more eloquent than what i said on the privilege thread, which was similar in intent but landed me in hot water. PUA and MRA culture are awful, irredeemable, and fraught with misogyny, but the people involved in these communities are still people, and many of them are confused, unhappy people. they are trying to train themselves to be sociopaths only because patriarchal culture has taught them that this is in their interest and are, in a sense, victims too.

that said, fuck this ken guy, in addition to the rapey-ness of his comments, he is preying on vulnerable nerds and filling their heads with nonsense. idk why this maria felt the need to defend him.

that said, i don't really have any better advice to these guys if they want to get laid. i think going out into the world with this intent seems like it would just lead to problems. they should just be chill and talk to people and at some point things will work out.

i would write off anyone with as sophomoric a world view as a pick up artist

do PUAs hate the movie magnolia or do they not see themselves in that caricature?

fuck this ken guy, in addition to the rapey-ness of his comments, he is preying on vulnerable nerds and filling their heads with nonsense. idk why this maria felt the need to defend him.

because he is also a vulnerable nerd? the first nerd whose head he has filled with nonsense is himself, i feel like that's pretty clear.

i'm sorry, i realize that men are victims of patriarchy as well but i am having difficulty summoning much sympathy in this particular instance

I don't think the reaction to this guy's work was unjustified and I see it as a credit to him that, after his shocked denial, he reread what he wrote with a different perspective and recognized what people were reacting to and engaged them to help him fix it. That's the point where I feel like going ham on him now misses the point; he appears to get where he went wrong and is trying to fix it. Meanwhile, people with no interest in this aside from a nebulous attachment to an ill-defined, contradictory definition of "free speech" are bending over backwards to protect the right of people to sell instructions on how to sexually assault someone.

i'm sorry, i realize that men are victims of patriarchy as well but i am having difficulty summoning much sympathy in this particular instance

i don't think it's really a question of sympathy so much as understanding this thing in its proper context. the man isn't "preying" on his fellow nerds: he is coming from the same place as them, which is why his guide struck such a chord, because he and they are similarly thinking of "finding a person who will sleep with you" as a social interaction that can be hacked using this series of weird tips.

huh, maybe elmo's comment was more to treeship than to me.

A response to the Bustillos piece, which she to her credit then shared out:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/okay-to-hate-the-kickstarter-rape-manual.html

“If she says 'STOP,' or 'GET AWAY FROM ME,' or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens.”

Oh, it happens, does it? I'm inclined to dismiss the discussion that follows this quote in the article, because this is significant enough: he's saying it's okay to be the cause of a woman having to forcefully stop you or get you away from her. That is pretty game over to me.

i was p surprised that bustillos came out in defense of this, from following her on twitter etc. she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would. but i can see the free speech angle

in orbit otm

i feel like bustillos has similarly challopsed before, though i can't remember where. it didn't seem super out of place for her.

I actually had the pleasure of meeting Bustillos a few weeks ago at a party in LA, though she and I are both positive we've met each other somewhere else along the line. It could just be my recognizing her name from past Awl pieces. In any event, she struck me as a very sharp, engaging and funny conversationalist. She and her partner, a British fellow, are both a few years older than me and I think both have adult or near-adult kids from previous relationships, which I bring up because a few of the Roiphe comparison comments I've seen around the Net seem to imply she's some young ingenue. Not the case!

in any event i really like the stuff she wrote on DFW and highly encourage everybody itt to seek it out

i think Bustillos has perhaps fallen into the trap of thinking that some nebulous notion of "consent" resolves all these issues of force and coercion--so i suppose it's not terribly surprising that she can justify, at least in her own logic, a PUA manual which pushes "consent" about as far as it can possibly go.

there is something dangerous in the understanding of consent underlying this and other seduction guides, that anything less than a loud, forceful "NO" is license to proceed with aggression; that acquiescence is the same thing as willing participation; that consent is durable and continuous once sexual contact begins

Yeah, I mean obviously there are some elements of romance that begin without express verbal permission (i.e., the first time you kiss a girl you're seeing), but there's always some kind of implied approval via signs in those cases. This guy's manual basically insists to you SHE WANTS IT, EVEN IF SHE ACTS LIKE SHE DOESN'T.

It was weird, but when I was in 8th grade, we had a sexual harassment discussion in our homeroom class, and the teacher warned everybody in the class that if people were making inappropriate, unwanted physical contact with them, they needed to tell them to "Stop!", or else the perpetrator technically didn't have to stop. Which seemed horribly RONG to me at the time that basically the teacher was implying "Everybody is allowed to take advantage of you until you've made it clear that you don't want it", rather than perhaps suggesting that the perpetrators not go around pawing unsuspecting women in the first place. Fortunately, the school's interpretation did not match the teacher's.