The digital closet, p.28
The Digital Closet, page 28
26. Roosh V, “Return of Kings Is Going on Hiatus,” Return of Kings, October 1, 2018, accessed February 9, 2019, http://www.returnofkings.com/195790/return-of-kings-is-going-on-hiatus.
27. For instance, his guides to “banging” in various countries are often in the top fifty to one hundred bestsellers for English-language books about those countries.
28. Calla Wahlquist and Josh Halliday, “Daryush ‘Roosh V’ Valizadeh Cancels Neomasculinist Meetings over Safety,” Guardian, February 4, 2016, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/04/daryush-roosh-v-valizadeh-cancels-neo-masculinist-meetings-over-safety.
29. Lindy West, “Now Roosh V and His Band of Sad Men in Dark Rooms Know How It Feels to Be Bombarded with Bile,” Guardian, February 7, 2016, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/07/daryush-roosh-v-valizadeh-and-his-acolytes-pilloried.
30. Roosh V, “Everything You Wanted to Know about Daryush ‘Roosh’ Valizadeh but Were Afraid to Ask,” Rooshv.com, February 4, 2016, accessed February 9, 2019. https://www.rooshv.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-daryush-valizadeh-but-were-afraid-to-ask.
31. Ginger Gorman, Troll Hunting: Inside the World of Online Hate and Its Human Fallout (Prahan, Australia: Hardie Grant Publishing, 2019); Whitney Phillips, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).
32. Roosh V, “Neomasculinity,” Rooshv.com, March 4, 2015, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.rooshv.com/neomasculinity.
33. Quintus Curtius, “The Origins of Neomasculinity,” Return of Kings, March 9, 2015, accessed February 9, 2019, http://www.returnofkings.com/58237/the-origins-of-neomasculinity. N.B., for Quintus Curtius, the promise of the ’80s was exemplified by fantasy-laden epics like Back to the Future, Sylvester Stallone’s action films, Bruce Springsteen’s music, and hair metal, and its loss was equally visible in the appearance in the ’90s and ’00s of bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains and films like The Matrix, Fight Club, and Being John Malkovich.
34. Curtius, “The Origins.”
35. Roosh V, “Neomasculinity” (emphases mine).
36. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?” Rooshv.com, May 6, 2015, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.rooshv.com/what-is-neomasculinity.
37. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
38. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
39. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
40. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
41. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?” It is both amusing and distressing to note that a group of people so deeply influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche can so plainly express ressentiment and bad conscience. As Nietzsche wrote, “But thus I counsel you my friends: mistrust all in whom the drive to punish is strong!” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, eds. Adrian del Caro and Robert B. Pippin, trans. Adrian del Caro (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 77.
42. Roosh does cite some evidence that single-parent homes lead to increased crime rates and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnoses but interprets the evidence deterministically, refusing to examine the correlations between class and income in single-parent households with these behaviors. His faith in the nuclear family is just that. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
43. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
44. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
45. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?” For evidence, Roosh links to an overview of a University of Pennsylvania Medicine study that found neurological differences between men and women that were theorized to be connected to men’s superior performance at learning and performing single tasks and women’s superior performance at memory and social cognition. It is worth noting that this was a preliminary, not a conclusive, study, and that the differences were much more pronounced in people over the age of fourteen and thus are potentially due in part to nurture. Given our knowledge of neural plasticity, it is reading against the grain of contemporary neurology to so brashly assume that these neurological differences are due solely to genetic factors rather than the internalization of gender roles through nurture. See Madhura Ingalhalikar, Alex Smith, Drew Parker, Theodore D. Satterthwaite, Mark A. Elliott, Kosha Ruparel, Hakon Hakonarson, Raquel E. Gur, Ruben C. Gur, and Ragini Verma, “Sex Differences in the Structural Connectome of the Human Brain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 2 (January 14, 2014): 823–828.
46. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
47. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?” Further, Roosh is extremely concerned about environmental pollution and dystopian regulation that might reduce the amount of testosterone in society, an idea that belies the close connection between the alt-right and conspiratorial or paranoid thinking.
48. See, for example, David C. Geary, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009); Linda Mealey, Sex Differences: Developmental and Evolutionary Strategies (New York: Academic Press, 2000).
49. Melanie Blackless, Anthony Charuvastra, Amanda Derryck, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Karl Lauzanne, and Ellen Lee, “How Sexually Dimorphic Are We? Review and Synthesis,” American Journal of Human Biology 12, no. 2 (March 2000): 151–166.
50. Anatomical sex correlates to things like height, weight, distribution of fat cells, metabolism, and so on, but not perfectly. An anatomical man with all five markers of the sex will not necessarily manifest all or any of these traits. All of this has little necessary connection with gender roles (socially prescribed norms based on sexual dimorphism) and gender identity (how one interprets and lives one’s life according to those roles, some of which one may accept, reject, invert, and so on). The biggest takeaway here is that people ought to check their essentialism at the door and express a bit more humility about the limits of their personal knowledge when it comes to sex, gender, and sexuality, especially when they are not trained experts in genetics, neurology, or any other field they are cherry-picking their supporting evidence from.
51. Roosh V, “What Is Neomasculinity?”
52. Eric Vilain, John C. Achermann, Erica Eugster, Vincent R. Harley, Yves Morel, Jean D. Wilson, and Olaf Hiort, “We Used to Call Them Hermaphrodites,” Genetics in Medicine 9, no. 2 (2007): 65–66.
53. Here Roosh links to two news article write-ups of scientific studies linking transgender identity to drug use and suicide and one (outdated) survey of studies of postoperative studies of “transsexual” life satisfaction. See, respectively, Jerome Hunt, “Why the Gay and Transgender Population Experiences Higher Rates of Substance Use,” Center for American Progress, March 9, 2012, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/reports/2012/03/09/11228/why-the-gay-and-transgender-population-experiences-higher-rates-of-substance-use/; Emily Alpert Reyes, “Transgender Study Looks at ‘Exceptionally High’ Suicide-Attempt Rate,” Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2014, accessed February 9, 2019, http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/28/local/la-me-ln-suicide-attempts-alarming-transgender-20140127; David Batty, “Sex Changes Are not Effective, Say Researchers,” Guardian, July 30, 2004, accessed February 9, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth.
54. See Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015).
55. He cites no comparable data to the studies on trans populations for other LGBTQIA+ populations.
56. Roosh cites evidence that marriages fail if women have had more than two sex partners, that female promiscuity leads to substance abuse, and that birth control impairs fertility. There are no corresponding negative outcomes for men outside of them having less time and energy to pursue other tasks.
57. See Roosh V, “Amazon Has Banned 9 of My Books without Explanation,” Rooshv.com, September 10, 2018, accessed February 9, 2019, http://www.rooshv.com/amazon-has-banned-9-of-my-books-without-explanation; Roosh V, “Return of Kings Is Going on Hiatus.”
58. “r/NoFap,” Reddit, accessed June 14, 2019, https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap.
59. Anisa Subedar, “The Online Groups of Men Who Avoid Masturbation,” BBC News, June 24, 2017, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-40382766.
60. David J. Lee, “The NoFap Phenomenon: There’s Nothing New about This Fight against Self-Love,” Psychology Today, March 3, 2015, accessed June 14, 2019, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201503/the-nofap-phenomenon.
61. American Medical Association, Human Sexuality (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1972).
62. Planned Parenthood, “Masturbation,” Planned Parenthood, accessed June 14, 2019, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sex-and-relationships/masturbation; Cf. Jon Knowles, “Masturbation—From Stigma to Sexual Health,” Planned Parenthood, November 2002, accessed June 14, 2019, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/5513/9611/7867/masturbation_11-02.pdf.
63. Aniruddha Das, “Masturbation in the United States,” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 33, no. 4 (2007): 301–317.
64. Brian Y. Park, Gary Wilson, Jonathan Berger, Matthew Christman, Bryn Reina, Frank Bishop, Warren P. Klam, and Andrew P. Doan, “Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports,” Behavioral Sciences 6, no. 3 (2016): 17.
65. Nicole Prause and James Pfaus, “Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, not Erectile Dysfunction.” Sexual Medicine 3, no. 2 (2015): 90–98; Nicole Prause, Vaughn R. Steele, Cameron Staley, Dean Sabatinelli, and Greg Hajcak, “Modulation of Late Positive Potentials by Sexual Images in Problem Users and Controls Inconsistent with ‘Porn Addiction,’” Biological Psychology 109 (2015): 192–199.
66. Michael S. Exton, Tillmann H. C. Krüger, Norbert Bursch, Philip Haake, Wolfram Knapp, Manfred Schedlowski, and Uwe Hartmann, “Endocrine Response to Masturbation-Induced Orgasm in Healthy Men following a 3-Week Sexual Abstinence,” World Journal of Urology 19, no. 5 (2001): 377–382.
67. Kris Taylor and Sue Jackson, “‘I Want That Power Back’: Discourses of Masculinity within an Online Pornography Abstinence Forum,” Sexualities 21, no. 4 (2018): 621–639.
68. Gary Wilson, Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction (Kent: Commonwealth Publishing, 2014).
69. Gary Wilson, “The Great Porn Experiment,” May 16, 2012, TEDx Talks video, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU.
70. Wilson, “The Great Porn Experiment.
71. Taylor and Jackson, “‘I Want That Power Back.’”
72. Thomas W. Laqueur, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2004).
73. Onania: Or, the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and All Its Frightful Consequences (in Both Sexes) Considered (London: Printed for H. Cooke, 1712).
74. Stephen Greenblatt, “My, Myself, and I,” New York Review of Books, April 8, 2004, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2004/04/08/me-myself-and-i.
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76. John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012/1988).
77. Edward L. Rowan, The Joy of Self-Pleasuring: Why Feel Guilty about Feeling Good? (New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 117.
78. Michael S. Patton, “Twentieth-Century Attitudes toward Masturbation,” Journal of Religion and Health 25, no. 4 (1986): 291–302.
79. Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994), 161.
80. Knowles, “Masturbation—From Stigma to Sexual Health.” Cf. William H. Masters, Virginia E. Johnson, and Robert C. Kolodny, Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1986); Warren McNab, “Masturbation: The Neglected Topic in Sexuality Education,” Family Life Education 12, no. 2 (1993): 10–15.
81. Thomas McBee, “A Sociological Investigation of #NoWanks,” New York Magazine, December 14, 2018, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.thecut.com/2018/12/a-sociological-investigation-of-nowanks.html.
82. Stanley G. Hall, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education, Vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), 445.
83. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, “G. Stanley Hall’s Adolescence: Brilliance and Nonsense,” History of Psychology 9, no. 3 (2006): 186–197.
84. Edward L. Rowan, “Editorial: Masturbation According to the Boy Scout Handbook,” Journal of Sex Education & Therapy 15, no. 2 (1989): 77–81.
85. Jesse Singal, “Why We’re Scared of Masturbation,” New York Magazine, August 4, 2014, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.thecut.com/2014/08/why-were-scared-of-masturbation.html.
86. Singal, “Why We’re Scared.”
87. Robert Weiss, “Is ‘No Fap’ Movement Start of Tech Backlash?,” Huffington Post, May 19, 2013, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weiss/no-fap-movement_b_3302874.html.
88. Sarah Sharma, “Going to Work in Mommy’s Basement,” Boston Review, June 19, 2018, accessed June 15, 2019, http://bostonreview.net/gender-sexuality/sarah-sharma-going-work-mommys-basement.
89. Gavin McInnes, “Introducing: The Proud Boys,” Taki’s Magazine, September 15, 2016, June 19, 2019, https://www.takimag.com/article/introducing_the_proud_boys_gavin_mcinnes.
90. Gavin McInnes, “We Are Not Alt-Right,” OfficialProudBoys.com, August 21, 2017, accessed February 28, 2019, https://officialproudboys.com/proud-boys/we-are-not-alt-right.
91. Robert Culkin, “Proud Boys: Who Are They?” OfficialProudBoys.com, August 24, 2017, accessed February 28, 2019, https://officialproudboys.com/proud-boys/whoaretheproudboys.
92. Gavin McInnes, “Introducing: The Proud Boys,” Taki’s Magazine, September 15, 2016, accessed June 19, 2019, https://www.takimag.com/article/introducing_the_proud_boys_gavin_mcinnes.
93. Jason Wilson, “Who Are the Proud Boys, ‘Western Chauvinists’ involved in Political Violence?” Guardian, July 14, 2018, accessed February 28, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/14/proud-boys-far-right-portland-oregon.
94. Simon Houpt, “Everything Inside Gavin McInnes,” Globe and Mail, August 18, 2017, accessed June 19, 2019, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/gavin-mcinnes-path-to-the-far-rightfrontier/article36024918.
95. “Proud Boys,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed February 28, 2019, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys; John Paul Tasker, “Canada Labels the Proud Boys, Neo-Nazi Groups as Terrorists,” CBC News, February 03, 2021, accessed February 6, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-proud-boys-terrorists-1.5899186.
96. Southern Poverty Law Center, “Proud Boys”; Tasker, “Canada Labels Proud Boys.”
97. Vanessa Grigoriadis, “The Edge of Hip: Vice, the Brand,” New York Times, September 28, 2003, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/style/the-edge-of-hip-vice-the-brand.html.
98. Matt Forney, “10 Signs You Might be a Cuckservative,” Return of Kings, July 27, 2015, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.returnofkings.com/68170/10-signs-you-might-be-a-cuckservative.
99. Gavin McInnes, “‘Cuckservatism’ Explained: What This New Political Meme Gets Right—and Wrong,” Rebel, August 5, 2015, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.therebel.media/_cuckservatism_explained.
100. Gavin McInnes, “Transphobia Is Perfectly Natural,” Thought Catalog, August 8, 2014, accessed June 16, 2019, https://thoughtcatalog.com/gavin-mcinnes/2014/08/transphobia-is-perfectly-natural.
101. I spent some time deliberating on how to approach using this quote and have opted to keep it in because of its importance for demonstrating the depth of Proud Boydom’s hatred and cisnormativity but used asterisks to avoid putting the racial slur into print. Source: “Proud Boys,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed February 28, 2019, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys.
102. Gavin McInnes, “The Gavin McInnes Show 375,” Compound Media, June 28, 2017, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.compoundmedia.com/shows/the-gavin-mcinnes-show/954.
103. McInnes, “The Gavin McInnes Show.”
104. McInnes, “The Gavin McInnes Show.” N.B., the distance from a woman required for watching pornography and masturbating seems pliable. In an interview for This American Life, Franklin Wright, digital media strategist and staff writer for the official Proud Boy Magazine described the rule as requiring Proud Boys to only be within ten yards of a woman, “White Haze,” This American Life, September 22, 2017, accessed June 16, 2019, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/626/white-haze.
