the minaret

By Kam Dadhwal

Last Saturday, the International Meetup Day organized by the Return of Kings was cancelled because of the title, “Pro-rape group,” that they have received from the media. Besides being recognized as a pro-rape group, there is not much else people know about what or who the Return of Kings refers to.

Here’s what I know, can infer, and think about them. Returnofkings.com is a blog that is acting as a forum for misogynists, or “heterosexual, masculine men” as they like to call themselves, to speak their filthy minds about what they think American society is becoming. Created by Daryush Valizadeh, better known as Roosh V, Return of Kings in an attempt to bring together spokespersons for the barbaric patriarchal ideology called Neomasculinity. For the purposes of this article, we will refer to these gender-role extremists as Rooshians.

The website is full of articles about what masculinity is, why men and women should have different and hierarchical positions in society, how “a woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty and a man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect, and character.” The list of appalling articles and chauvinistic nonsense goes on and on. Roosh V himself has been publicly defamed on many occasions due to his propagation of anti-feminist notions. Nonetheless, he has been able to self-publish 15 different books, almost all of which are about how to have casual sex with women in specific countries. What’s disappointing is that, believe it or not, these books are less offensive than the blog posts.

The blog strongly discourages women and homosexuals from commenting on posts while the Rooshians, contributing as writers for the website, keep posting on topics such as, ‘5 Reasons To Date A Girl With An Eating Disorder,’ ‘Rape Culture Was Manufactured To Wage An Unjust War Against Men,’ and (NOT) my personal favorite, ‘5 Reasons Why You Should Not Date Indian Girls.’ Other Rooshians, who read this sexist jargon, comment on it in the most objectifying fashion one could possibly imagine. To some writers of the blog such as Blair Naso, these comments are “kind of beautiful.” To be perfectly honest though, most of them will make any sane person lose most of the small faith they have left in humanity.

Return of Kings projects the kind of rubbish that one wouldn’t expect a respectful human with a modern, rational brain would believe in, let alone write for the whole world to see and learn from. The website claims to want to change American society to become the way it was naturally intended to be– a binary gender hierarchy with males on the top. However, it is plain to see what Roosh V and his “grown, truly masculine” followers really want. The same thing that adolescents with poor brain myelination want: attention.

We all know perfectly well that rape, under any circumstance, is wrong. We also know that equality and liberty are worthwhile causes of democracy. It is extremely evident to us that men and women are born equal, even though they may not have the same bodily structure, strength, and functions. If Neomasculinity was worth talking about, it would appeal to our intuitions just as the concepts of equality, justice, and democracy do. The truth is that the Neomasculine philosophy is just an outlet for cowards who cannot embrace the fact that a woman has the power in today’s society to speak her mind. These Rooshians seem to be compelled to write in order to protect their revered idea of masculinity. Obviously a real “man” would never admit to his own insecurities, so he has to write about how women are self-entitled in America, how homosexuals are a disgrace to masculinity, and how real men are biologically and intellectually better than everyone else.

Hence, what do I think of Return of Kings? Nothing. This article may seem like it is trying to call the reader’s attention to the preposterous blog itself, but that is far from my intention. My attempt is to make the reader realize just how foolish and attention seeking this group of men is. Wasting one’s time discussing them and protesting their ideologies is giving them exactly what they want. Instead, we are all better off not giving a rat’s derriere about them or their blog.