ipomoeaandthestarstealers:

garlandgrey:

1.

I tend to stay out of free form Internet Campaigns to attack public figures, for a host of reasons. Some of those reasons are Feminist and some are pragmatic and personal.

2.

These sorts of things tend to grind everyone down, on both sides. One side is subject to an escalating level of personal attacks in which their opponents attempt to externalize the other person’s self-worth, to say “Your worth as a human being is bound up in these things you wrote,” by using a set of rhetorical techniques that Internet commenters identify as a “takedown,” like we’re all Dog the Goddamn Bounty Hunter.

A discussion about the role of Male Feminists in the movement seems like it would be something I could say some important things about, but this whole thing is wearying by design. There is a real person, named Hugo Schwyzer, who exists and which you must move against for the good of Feminist spaces. But because Hugo is such a smooooth operator, he’s always going to have readers. We can’t evict him from the Internet, nor would I want to, but we have to do something, I would argue, for his own benefit.

As a “reformed” abuser and predator (I am not trying to be inflammatory; I am simply stating the facts) Hugo should understand why his relationship with Scarleteen was inappropriate. How hard would it be for Hugo when all of those readers matured and had been primed by “the best sex ed site for teens there is” to trust and value his voice? Wait, I wrote a funny bit about this when I tried to write a piece about being a Male Feminist and failed and instead wrote about how a Predator within Feminism would behave:

He would gravitate toward work that would allow him to build personal relationships with a wide range of targets, to maintain and expand a base of people that are in his thrall. He would work slowly, in stages, and he would be very careful while harvesting his crops. He’d find a way to meet young women and parrot the work of other Feminists at them, and then when they were in college and he came around on a lecture tour he could scribble his e-mail address in the signed copy of his book (How To Hunt Feminists — And Get Away With It!) and by the time all of this was over she would WANT to sleep with him, and because he’s carefully groomed her, writing articles about what he likes and doesn’t like in the bedroom and why it is totally Feminist and empowered to do exactly as he says and do what make him happy, his hard work can pay off.

One of the things that I deleted from my original response to the Jizzabel piece was a line about how Schwyzer seems to be “mass-grooming his audience for having sex with him, specifically.” I nixed it because I thought it was too mean-spirited, but I don’t think that is it at all. I think Hugo came to Feminism for access to a sexual demographic, not to edify anyone. From that same piece:

Feminism is the perfect choice for the Predator. He can build up a cabal of high-level supporters, finely calibrate the sexual expectations of his readers (“15 Things To Remember When Your Favorite Male Feminist Gives You A Copy Of His Room Key in a Handshake”) normalize the sacrifice of comfort and safety to the interests of one’s sexual partner, (“I Have Found A Way To Atomize My Semen and Would Like You To Spray Yourself In The Face With It Whenever You Think Of Doubting Me”) and marginalize the voices of his critics with his “Narrative of Transformation.” “Quit complaining,” his supporters cry, “we’re watching a white man genuflect in front of an alter of misappropriated reconciliation, that’s a THOUSAND TIMES more feminist than whatever you are doing. Have you seen what it is like out there for white men, writing? Bleak. The only way a man can make his way in this cold, hard world is to pen articles that could have been cowritten by the Bloodhound Gang, about how awesome it is when men get everything they want sexually, about how women are washed in the blood by accepting those sexual demands without question. This is a Salvation Story, with a Sexual Predator as Jesus, Feminism as God, and Silence as the Holy Ghost. And we poor sinners can save ourselves by accepting the Predator as Our Savior, Believing he is the Son of Feminism, and trusting that Silence will protect us.

3.

The other thing I’d like to say about Hugo Schwyzer is that he scares the shit out of me. I barely made it through the Feminist Theologian interviews because something about him just totally wrecks my shit. I’m telling the world (and him) this to illustrate how important this is and why we cannot drop this. Once this dies down he will have an identity to build off of, he’ll be TOO HOT FOR FEMINISM and a RENEGADE and he’ll back on top in no time. Somebody needs to name an endgame — some tangible thing that can happen to cap off this protest. This isn’t Shakespeare or The Bible, we can’t just attack until The House of Schwyzer falls into the sea and he spends the rest of his life crying snot bubbles into the dust. Not because he isn’t abusive, but because an internet campaign without an objective is just a lot of commentary and a lot of passive aggressive shit on the Tumz and people getting burnt out because they can’t measure progress and are stuck in the immediacy of the first initial push to organize said campaign.

4.

Also, OH GOD I’M GOING TO BLACKBALLED, all of my Feminist icons will scorn me and his supporters will whiz on my tombstone after I die of being SHUT OUT OF ALL THE PLACES. But then I remember how nice people are to Male Feminists and persevere, somehow.

5. 

I’m angry because I bought it. I bought the whole redemption and forgiveness act, until it was made clear to me that I didn’t know shit about shit and I needed to shut up and learn something. Which is How To Be a Male Feminist, 101, simple stuff “shutting-the-fuck-up-and-listening”, should have internalized it by now if you were ever going to.

At any rate someone who is more fluent in abuse dynamics than I needs to write a guide to interacting with Hugo, explaining how abusers manipulate their victims and including a list of red flags to watch for. “So You’ve Gotten An E-Mail From Hugo Schwyzer” would be a good title, and it would explain that because Hugz is in recovery we want to make certain he hasn’t relapsed, hasn’t fallen into his old nasty habit of using and abusing. Then we need to GOOGLEBOMB the shit out of it so it is a top hit for his name.

6.

Because we care.

Point #2, everything.  It feels like he’s grooming a predominantly female audience.