Last week I shared two stories regarding this event on FB. The first was a call to report an offensive Kickstarter campaign that promoted “pick-up culture” and sexual assault. The second was an apology from Kickstarter.
Ken Hoinsky disgusts me. In every way, shape, and form. He disgusts me because he’s a rapist. He disgusts me because he habitually sexually assaults women by his own admission, and he disgusts me because he’s making money teaching other desperate men (read: horny misogynists that view women as objects to conquer and control) how to disregard women and assault them as well.
In his book and Reddit posts, he give men advice on how to “seduce” a woman. His definition of “seduction” looks like sexual assault to me. He talks about “cavemaning” a woman by throwing her against the wall and kissing her. You’ve just sexually assaulted her, and if she didn’t want it, you’ve just traumatized her, too. He tells men to whip out their cock and put her hand on it, and he makes a point in saying not to ask for permission, just do it. This is sexual assault. His advice includes being aggressive and not asking for permission to grope and continue to escalate, as well as tips on how to keep her off balance and not feeling safe. He does put that if anytime the woman says STOP or NO to back off, but the problem is this puts all the responsibility on the woman to stop something instead of giving her the respect and choice to say YES in the first place. At this point, especially with women who have already been victims of sexualized violence, they might already freeze up. They might be terrified to say NO, or, if they do say NO, those NOs are ignored because they’re not “forceful” enough NOs. If a person doesn’t stop with an indication of a NO, like pushing away or even a flat hand against him, or even a whisper of NO, it’s sexual assault. If these interactions result in sexual penetration, oral, digital, genital, or otherwise, it’s rape.
Perhaps what disgusts me most of all is that he’s getting money thrown at him for doing so. This, it seems, is what our culture values.
A dear friend and colleague wrote this great piece on these events. Here’s an excerpt:
And what about Kickstarter and their apology? They claim that there was “no time” to pull the funding on Hoinsky’s project and regretfully allowed him to be paid for his crowd funded book. But Deirdre Moen rips apart their excuses. Why couldn’t the site extend their timeline? Why did they and Hoinsky both bandaid the entire controversy by “donating funds” to rape prevention organizations as though their temporary altruism at all excuses the notion that a book like this is written and funded in a matter of hours?
What does that say about the men in our culture? What does it say about our society when women are raped publicly? When rape victims are shamed byother females for reporting their assaults? What does it say about the thousands of mothers who believe they have raised upstanding, respectful men?
Read the entire article, peppered with informative links, at LitStack.
Be sure to read Deirdre Moen’s post as well. Excellent points along with what would be enough restitution in the wake of this horrendous snafu.
-_Q
Olivia M. Grey lives in the cobwebbed corners of her mind writing paranormal romance with a Steampunk twist, like the Amazon Gothic Romance bestseller Avalon Revisited. Her short stories and poetry have been published in various magazines and anthologies, like SNM Horror Magazine and How the West Was Wicked. Ms. Grey also blogs and podcasts relationship essays covering such topics as alternative lifestyles, deepening intimacy, ending a relationship with love and respect, and other deliciously dark and decadent matters of the heart and soul.
Read more by O. M. Grey on her blog Caught in the Cogs, http://omgrey.wordpress.com
The Order of the White Feather 