I hate thinking about mass killings, but if we become numb to them, nothing will ever change. I find them too depressing to write about myself, though.
TBogg has a very good piece on the rise of gun nut culture.
Amanda Hess writes about the strange Pick Up Artist Community language that the killer used. I wasn’t aware of where all the “beta male”, “high T”, “low T” stuff I see on on the internets came from before, but I had noticed that wingers love to use it (Pajama Boy was called a “low T liberal” by Goldberg or Lowry or someone). Birds of a feather, I guess.
Vixen Strangely writes about the culture of men who hate women. The comments she digs up from “Men’s Right Activists” are very disturbing.
This isn’t to blame what happened on MRAs or PUAs (I just learned these terms) or the NRA. But these murders certainly cast a light on some unsavory parts of our culture.
Hunter Gathers
It’s what I like to call Fearful Contempt. These guys are scared to death of women, yet are incredibly pissed off that the women that they are scared of won’t bang them.
DougJ
@Hunter Gathers:
That’s an interesting analysis.
gbear
I’ve already read TBoggs great piece, but I don’t have the stomach for your other two links. Creep fatigue today.
I watched that shooting victim’s father’s statement this morning via a People magazine link and then I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments. I’ve felt like shit since.
PopeRatzy
Before you kids and yer interewebs we had USENET. On USENET there was a newsgroup called soc.men. Well over a decade of misogyny and blame the evil womens for everything. Those that might have trolled the soc.men newsgroup fully expected something of this nature long ago. The single events that occurred no one in the media seemed to notice, just a *family* affair doncha know. It takes something like that for people to notice the danger the Men’s Rights Movement is. All those posts are still available on Google Groups.
seabe
How have you not heard of them, Doug? The SPLC keeps tabs on them.
trollhattan
It’s apparently our destiny to be gunned down by mentally ill, financially comfortable young men. How they achieved their precious status is a wonderful, but I’ll guess Hannity will continue to save us from the Delta smelt instead. That’s the real enemy.
trollhattan
@trollhattan: “wonder”
Stupid auto-complete.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Ugh, men’s rights activists and pickup artists. They’re obsessed with unlocking women’s programming as if women were just robots.
FlipYrWhig
I remember feeling depressed that girls didn’t like me. Then I turned 15. Girls still didn’t like me, and I was still depressed, but not about that. The idea that some people live their whole lives with the mindset of a 14-year-old dork is kind of pitiful. Try, I dunno, thinking about something else. I don’t get it.
FlipYrWhig
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I think it was a commenter at Amanda Marcotte’s place who said it was a subculture that viewed women as vending machines. You could either put money into them or hit them on just the right spot and they’d give you what you wanted, and if neither of those was working, you might as well keep hitting the machine in different ways, because there was nothing else to try.
greennotGreen
The great majority of mass murders have been carried out by white males with guns. Sort of by definition, they are mentally ill. It’s hard to diagnose mental illness in many people without careful examination, and the gun manufacturers won’t let us sensibly limit gun ownership. How about we compromise and limit gun ownership only among white males?
Yes, I am being facetious.
A lot of commentary has focused on the shooter’s misogyny. I really don’t care about that in this case. He was just desperately mentally ill. Fewer guns, people. The fewer guns we have in this society, the less likely it is that crazy people will get hold of them.
Seven more families get to join my friends who lost their six year old daughter at Sandy Hook. In this case, it seems we are watering the tree of “liberty” not with the blood of patriots, but with the blood of innocents.
Baud
I’ve heard of MRAs, but PUAs is new to me. I don’t know how useful it is to distinguish between the two.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of innocent bystanders.
– Wayne LaPierre
Emma
I had only a vague idea of the existence of these people. Now that I know them better, I think I prefer rabid werewolves.
MikeJ
@Baud: I think a lot of the PUAs are just misguided. They want contact with women but don’t know how to get it. There’s a chance they could actually meet a nice woman who taught them how to interact with humans. The MRAs are just evil. They believe that any rights granted to women must come at the expense of men.
PUAs: stupid
MRAs: evil
with crossover in each direction.
PopeRatzy
@Baud: One big difference is the view of marriage. MRA are usually divorcee and carry a LOT of anger from the divorce yet are still looking for the *right* woman. PUA abhor marriage and are only looking for short term relationships.
Their basic view of women as a commodity that should be available to them in their preferred type and style is pretty much the same.
shelley
I wonder if Brent Bozell might be rethinking his recent rant-filled article. Course, cause he used the word ‘feminists’ instead of just ‘women’, I guess that makes it okay.
aimai
@Baud: They are actually slightly different. MRAs tend to be dissapointed divorced men who are angry at the court system, angry at their ex wives, and angry at their children for being expensive. They tend to be focused on what they see as the inequality of the duties that are expected of men (fighting in armies, inventing shit, ruling the world, paying child support) and resent their ex wives for being able to extract child support without giving them sex and deference.
PUAs tend to be focused on getting sex with women. They are not interested in marriage and they don’t care about issues like child support.
ETA Pope Ratzy got there first.
Higgs Boson's Mate
PUA? Pitiful Unlaid Assholes?
Ruckus
@greennotGreen:
Blood of innocents.
Three very powerful words. I wonder how many would even understand them as an idea, let alone agree that this is not a good thing. My other idea is that the blood of innocents is also the cost of most wars.
wil
Just legalize prostitution and make it acceptable. That would solve 90% of these issues with angry lonely men.
That said, this kid had means and a dad with Hollywood connections. Don’t know why he couldn’t have just found a way to pay to get laid.
El Caganer
My first thought was “What a weird collection of emotionally stunted freaks.” My second – and much scarier – thought was “And there seem to be a hell of a lot of them.”
WaynersT
They should regulate guns like cars. License, Vin numbers, pink slips… And if you want something more than a basic shotgun you have to get an advanced license, like a truck driver’s CDL.
No one ever complains about the constitutional oppression of buying a car. It would be a policy proposal easy to understand by the moron masses.
seabe
@wil: Can’t tell if serious, or sarcastic (re prostitution). Either one doesn’t reflect well.
Hungry Joe
This was my comment in Soonergrunt’s post, and I’m pasting it in here because I just fucking feel like it. I can’t remember the last time I was this angry:
Maybe I’m hypersensitive because 1) before transferring to Berkeley I was at UCSB and even lived in Isla Vista for a few months, and 2) our daughter is a freshman at UC Davis. But as far as I’m concerned everyone who has opposed severe restrictions on gun ownership is complicit in these murders.
I understand that there are responsible gun owners. Tough. I understand that people like their guns. Tough. Let’s have a trade-off: You don’t get to have your guns, and our children don’t get slaughtered.
Target shooting sound like fun. Keep your goddam gun at the range. Hunting doesn’t sound like fun, but if you gotta do it, keep your goddam gun at the range. If you live in the boonies and need it to plunk critters … I don’t know squat about guns, but the words “single-shot” and “low-calibre” sound good to me. I probably misused them, but I am way beyond caring. The father of one of the murdered kids, grief-stricken, shattered, said, “We don’t have to live this way.” And our children don’t have to die this way. Fuck the NRA. Let’s take them on. Full-frontal assault: Repeal the Second Amendment. We just wrote a check to an anti-gun organization, and we’ll be writing more. Enough of this madness.
Vixen Strangely
Thanks for the link, DougJ, I linked this screencap of MRA hate–but I admit this was just a small sample of what was out there–and was actually a sample of what other feminist bloggers were already tweeting about. So I can’t take credit for uncovering that, exactly. But what I will add is that the deliberately harsh misogyny of PUA/MRA groups making the acts of an actual killer seem plausible is a distinctive evil. I can look at them, but understanding why they think having a vagina and not letting it be their dip-bowl is evil is just this whole other thing.
sharl
“Pick-up artists” (PUAs) are not always non-evil. Some of them are not beyond using date rape drugs.
The “mens’ rights association” (MRA) types are as described above, and they along with the PUAs are covered by David Futrelle at his blog*, which very much deserves the TW banner that he has placed at the top of the site.
[*For folks who have a long familiarity with this dreary neighborhood of the the internet, originally the blog was called Manboobz.com, maybe just to rile up the subjects of Futrelle’s posts. Only just discovered the renaming myself.]
srv
That brat will soon be the poster child for the anti-feminization crowd.
That said, if some of the excerpts of his writings at reddit/youtube are true, he didn’t have a real mother figure (dad tossed her aside, and he had a lot of anger about that) and the step-mom was quite the monster.
Baud
Thanks for the explanations. Too many flavors of losers to keep track of.
Sly
The killer was a self-identified “Incel,” or “Involuntarily Celebate.” Though they often clash, Incels and PUAs are basically two sides of the same coin; both sexually objectify women, but whereas PUAs channel that objectification into deceit (being able to deceive one’s way into sex is the established goal of all PUAs), Incels channel it into whining about how life is unfair because bitches don’t drop trow and swoon every time an Incel walks by.
Rodger’s manifesto is littered with a perceived entitlement to sex, which he likely got from being a part of the Incel cult. Troubled kid with lots of resentment finds an echo-chamber that reinforces his worst assumptions about himself and the objects of his paranoid fantasies. Add in lethal weapons, and the results are deadly. We’re not exactly surprised when some white supremacist shoots up a Jewish community center, so we shouldn’t be surprised when some douchebag “redpiller” with delusions of victimhood does the same at a sorority house.
wil
@seabe:
Only if you have some issue with sex work or sex workers.
shelley
Ain’t it funny? Some in the crowd of pushers of Voter ID (‘What’s the problem? You need and ID/license to drive a car don’t ya?) are the same who are horrified at the thought of a gun license.
Pogonip
@DougJ: That’s what I said the other day. These guys love pussy but hate women. That’s quite a bind to be in.
Mnemosyne
@Sly:
There was lots of debate here yesterday about if it was somehow letting Rodgers off the hook by talking about his mental problems (some sources now saying he may also have been on the autism spectrum in additional to his other problems). IMO, the point is more that websites like these reinforce and encourage delusional thinking, so it shouldn’t be any surprise when a few of their less stable members actually carry out the fantasies that everyone else on the site is spinning.
Hungry Joe
There are more than 300 million people in this country. You can have free mental-health clinics on every corner, but there’s always going to be a certain small percentage of the population that’s going to go bug-fuck crazy and want to kill people. This sad, damaged, twisted, ultimately evil young man walked into a gun store, filled out forms, endured the waiting period, walked back in, and then out with guns and ammunition. An arsenal. Then he killed people. NO. We have to stop this. No guns. You can’t own one. We have police. We have a military. You are safe. You can’t have guns, because if you can have guns, so can he, and … NO. No more.
Sorry if I’m coming across as unhinged today. If so, it’s because that’s the way I’m feeling. I saw that video of the grieving father, lost it, and haven’t gotten it back yet.
Brandon
@trollhattan: I watched the kids last video on Gawker. Okay, I only watched a few minutes, but what I saw was a self-entitled, sociopathic asshole who thought he deserved women’s attention because of his entitlement. His dad is in Hollywood and he drove a Beemer ya know. I know his parents say he had Aspergers. But I am sorry, he knew what he was doing and his supposed illness was no excuse. I am sure this dipshit could’ve found a nice girl who was attracted to him, but his fixation on blondes indicates that he was focused on one type that was just unobainable to him and frankly 90% of men. Most men realize this when they are 12 and move their attentions elsewhere, but not this entitled prick. He seemed to assume that he should have any woman he wanted and was legitimately surprised that no one wanted him. For most, some self-reflection would be in order, but not him. As a father, I’d hate to lay blame on the parents, but frankly they seem to share some responsibility in rearing, coddling and spoiling this kid to the point that the moment his self-entitlement finally and violently clashed with reality to tragic results.
aimai
@wil: He could have found a way to get laid but he wanted something else–adulation from women he thought were high status. Amanda Marcotte said this about Rape, but it pertains here. Men don’t Rape women because they can’t get the kind of sex they want. Rape is the kind of sex they want. This kid didn’t kill all these people because he couldn’t get sex with women. He killed people because he wanted to kill people and he enjoyed imagining it was retribution on all the people around him who seemed happier than he was. He explicitly killed men because they were competition for him with his imaginary potential lovers. And he killed the women because they symbolized other women. Someone who kills complete strangers to make a point about his power and alpha status is interested in power and alpha status. He thought those things would go along with having sex with particular women. Not with just having sex.
Mnemosyne
@wil:
Reinforcing a mentally ill guy’s belief that he should have access to any woman he wants, at any time, by providing sex workers probably isn’t going to help very much. You may even be putting those sex workers in danger as the guy becomes more delusional and angry because the only thing these bitches want is money.
Legalizing prostitution and other kinds of sex work is defensible for other reasons, but I really doubt that trying to make prostitutes practice psychiatry on delusional men is going to work very well.
raven
@Hungry Joe: It’s just great to say all that but it is not going to happen. Somehow something more creative needs to be figured out.
PurpleGirl
Making prostitution legal would not change a thing. These PUAs and MRAs don’t want to pay for sex. They feel that they are entitled to sex from any woman by virtue of being male.
Silencio
Michael Kimmel writes about the malignancy and proto-derangement of MRA’s in Angry White Men and Manhood in America. Sadly, I just learned about that cult — “men’s movement” — this past week. Then this happens. His term is “aggrieved entitlement”: like some whites, some men feel entitled to — insert impulsive desire — and get furious when they don’t get what they want.
Oh, and I think gun control is less the issue in this case than old-fashioned misogyny.
Frankensteinbeck
I have seen racism decrease slowly through my life. Even the current freakout just demonstrates how overall it’s been going down. Sentiments that are now offensive were pretty common in the 80s. Completely endemic racism has turned into a vicious battleground. That’s a decrease, so much so that the racists are utterly terrified and becoming extremist.
Misogyny seems to have increased. Women were getting the token treatment in the 80s, and in media who they were romantically engaged with was one of the most important questions, but they were also shown as being competitively intelligent and independent with men, and their sex life was subjected to very little judgment, even if it was focused on too much. Now there’s a huge cultural obsession with whether or not women are sluts. They’re allowed to have sex more, but judged for it much more harshly.
I don’t know why, but it’s disgusting.
Hungry Joe
@raven: Yeah. I know. But today … no rational thought possible. Just sadness and rage, taking turns.
ruemara
@sharl: Oh, my. Manboobz had to change names? That is news. I’ve heard about it before and I’ve read Manbooz before on this stuff. It makes my stomach roil.
@wil: When will people like you learn? This is not about sex. This is about owning women. All a prostitute would do is confirm their views on women as a resource they are entitled to.
wil
@PurpleGirl:
Part of this guy’s issue seemed to be that he couldn’t find any women to have sex with him. He seemed to care enough about that to mention it prominently.
I’m not trying to get into the head of a psychopath the way some other commenters are, I’m just going by what he said. If he was part of the “incel” (involutarily celibate) community as mentioned in one of the articles linked above, that indicates more than just “these particular women won’t sleep with me.”
This is where sex workers come in.
seabe
@wil: That doesn’t even get to the root of the problems with your initial statement. First, this isn’t just about sex, as aimai notes above. Second, it reinforces this dude’s views on women that they be there for him, when he wants on demand, how he wants, etc.
And of course, thirdly, your glossing over the problems that already exist with prostitution as if they’re not highly debated outside of the moralizer’s/RR circles (many of which exist whether legal or not).
Brandon
@Mnemosyne: I refuse to accede to this pricks supposed mental illness. It lets him off the hook to easily and takes away from the core issues, like his massive entitlement.
wil
@ruemara:
Sounds like you are reading more into this guy than was really there. From what he said in his video, it was more about revenge than ‘owning women’.
Mnemosyne
@wil:
He couldn’t find any women to have sex with him for free. Paying for sex would have just increased his resentment and antipathy, because it wasn’t about sex or lack thereof. It was about women not sufficiently pumping up his ego by falling all over him.
@Brandon:
And by assigning the blame solely to him, you’re letting all of his MRA and PUA buddies who encouraged and deepened his delusions off the hook. After all, it’s not their fault he snapped because clearly he was a bad person, so there’s no need for them to examine their own, extremely similar beliefs, right?
muddy
@Frankensteinbeck: These assholes used to be called “happily” married in the past. Good provider! When it was legal and acceptable that they could beat them or rape them any time they pleased. Now women are allowed to have their own credit ratings, take birth control, the gods know how far they will go in their mad equality. These guys no longer have a captive audience for their shit, and thus they are quite oppressed.
rikyrah
he killed 6 people because he didn’t have game and couldn’t get laid.
How DARE they just didn’t fall at his feet when he rolled up in his BMW.
HOW DARE these women have freedom of CHOICE as to whom they would date.
HOW DARE these women actually think that they should be able to decide who should share their company.
What do they think they are —-free?
wil
@Mnemosyne:
That’s an assumption on your part.
ruemara
@wil: You think that the demand for adulation and immediate gratification isn’t part of ownership? You brought this argument here? You’re dumber than I thought.
sharl
I certainly don’t know the details on this guy’s history up to his murderous rampage. And I dunno, mental health issues may have been a significant factor – I assume we’ll learn more as investigations progress.
I just think of my sweet, goofy nephew – now a young adult around the age of the murderer – who is on the autism spectrum, and who has had (and lost) girlfriends, and has friends who are also on the spectrum, and despite that (pretty much normal) history, has never lost his sweetness or that infectious laugh of his. Neither he nor his friends on the spectrum have shown such murderous impulses. So when I see such broad brush strokes invoking mental health issues, I reflexively get irked.
Now schizophrenia is maybe another story, if that is involved here, and I’ve read that when it expresses itself, it is often (usually?) in young men around the age of this guy. Well I’m not a mental health pro, but this tweet from Rebecca Schoenkopf (the Editrix of Wonkette) hit me hard:
[She wrote a full post about her brother some time ago.]
So, yeah, mental health issues could be a major component of this. But it’s the broad brush invoking MH issues I hate. And of course, also rage-inducing is the fact that it diverts attention from our bugfuck insane gun culture, the one TBogg saw come into being up close and personal.
wil
@rikyrah:
What seems to make him more of a nutcase is that in Hollywood pulling up in a BMW and saying that your dad is a Hollywood director should have resulted in a car full of wannabe actresses….but apparently he just couldn’t figure out how to do it right.
It’s like Bush….being born with lots of advantages and still being a total screwup.
Brandon
@Mnemosyne: doesn’t presuming mental illness also absolve these groups of blame too?
Ash Can
@wil: This was not about sex. This was about power and control, and the seizure of it by force — just like any other violent crime.
wil
@ruemara:
I get tired of that sort of whining, sorry. And if you want to just be insulting, I guess you’re dumber than I thought. Clear enough?
Scott S.
I suspect by the end of this next week, the talking points on Fox and the teabag congresscritters are going to coalesce around something very similar to what the MRA freaks are saying about it. :(
ruemara
@wil: Oh, you’re not even on my level on my worst day. And I’m guessing on how you consider that whining, you’re one of the MRA/PUA freaks.
wil
@Ash Can:
Sounds more like it was about murder and revenge.
Getting the boy laid before it got to that point might have averted the whole thing. Or not.
Crusty Dem
@wil:
Apparently people are unimpressed with “this wouldn’t be a problem if we legalized prosecution”. I, for one, could bask in the fount of your infinite wisdom forever. Really genius stuff.
wil
@ruemara:
No hon, I’m far above your level, ant. You started being insulting, not me. You can stop.
We can disagree without being disagreeable. At least I can. Can you?
Emma
@wil: I don’t think you get it. He wouldn’t want to pay for it. Men like that want “his due.” Willing women. Just because they’re men.
EDIT: I should have read more. You’re just a jerk.
wil
@Emma:
Just making assumptions, again.
And oh look, another namecaller. Jerks calling people jerks. Cute.
Crusty Dem
@wil:
So you’re reasoning (to be generous) is that it’s impossible for someone with means to find a prostitute in California. And I guess a trip to Nevada for a legal rendezvous is impossible..
Dolt
wil
@Crusty Dem:
There’s a stigma attached that wouldn’t be there if it were legal, yes. Beyond that, I’m not as willing to climb into this kid’s head as you people are.
Dolt.
Silencio
@wil: Do you realize that some men kill prostitutes out of the same sort of vengeful loser-frustration?
gbear
@wil:
Only thing you’ve written so far that isn’t full of shit. Quit digging.
greennotGreen
I somewhat doubt that employing a prostitute would have helped the shooter. One of the real bonuses of life as a prostitute is the increased chance of getting murdered because the john is a misogynistic guy with mental health issues.
And no name calling, okay? We’re not Red State.
Crusty Dem
@wil:
You’re rubber and everyone else is glue. You’re way above your weight class, champ.
Nora Carrington
Why not? I mean the question seriously. We speak, politically at least, as if “blame” has to be physics. As in, the blame for the trajectory of the 8 ball is the force and angle with which the cue ball was struck.
Blame doesn’t need to be understood that way. We have a culture saturated with guns, and an identification of guns with penile penetration and masculinity more generally. The MRAs and PUAs have been adequately described in previous comments but in sum they represent the pustule on the boil of woman hatred and rape culture we’re also saturated with.
And we’re *surprised*, *shocked* when something like this happens? I’m astonished it doesn’t happen once a week. Aren’t we averaging one mass shooting a month for the last 18 or so? Seem that way. Not all are motivated by misogyny, of course. We have racism to blame for more than a few. Xenophobia for a few other public masturbations with guns (I’m looking at you, Cliven Bundy).
wil
@greennotGreen:
I have not called anyone a name that hasn’t started it first, but thank you for the rational response.
You might address your comment about not calling names and not being Redstate to some of these others here.
RSA
@Ash Can:
I happened to see a tweet from someone who made a good point about suggestions for violent men to visit sex workers: they have enough risks to deal with as it is. And if the problem is men who treat women as commodities, then sex-as-a-commodity doesn’t do anything to change that.
wil
@Crusty Dem:
You are making me feel guilty for having to punch so far down to reach you, junior.
ruemara
@greennotGreen: Respectfully, you have someone claiming that legal prostitution would have resolved a sociopath’s desire for control. Said person also finds that the very simple fact that violence against women is primarily about dominance and control and, yes, ownership, to be “whining”. I applaud your politeness, but an idiot is an idiot.
Nora Carrington
Can somebody fish my first comment out of moderation? Because it’s more interesting that the p*ssing match going on at the moment.
scav
Rather enjoying knowing what Will means in Elizabeathan slang. Adds a whole extra layer to the acting out of our lastest alpha.
Tokyokie
@Ash Can:
It’s about sex in the same way that men who oppose abortion are concerned about unborn babies: In both cases, the men are trying to exercise dominion over women by claiming it’s something else.
Crusty Dem
@wil:
Once again, just to note, your solution to a paranoid, violent, misogynist going on a shooting rampage is legalized prostitution, and this is necessary because someone who kills 6 people won’t be able to handle the stigma of illegal prostitution (or legal prostitution in Nevada).
I assume you have a doctorate, this is very well thought out, please send a link to your thesis, I’m sure it’s outstanding.
Shalimar
@wil: No. He could have found a prostitute if all he wanted was to get laid, legal or not. He didn’t. He wanted a certain type of blonde to be subservient to him.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@wil:
In other words, you didn’t bother to read his widely published manifesto and are making assumptions based on absolutely no information. And we’re supposed to respect your uninformed opinion why, again?
wil
@ruemara:
Would have? No, I believe what I said is that it might have prevented this situation from coming to the place that it did.
Unlike you, I’m not pretending to know what is going on in everybody’s head based on some pop psychology.
Good job toning down the insults and adopting a more respectful tone.
Shalimar
@wil:
Yeah, all that rage would have disappeared if only one gorgeous blonde had taken one for the team and fucked him. Have you actually read his manifesto?
Ash Can
@raven:
@Hungry Joe:
Fuck creativity. Hungry Joe is right. The Second Amendment has long since ceased being useful and has become a suicide pact. It needs to be flushed. Period. And once it’s repealed, proper gun usage and ownership laws need to be put in place just like in all the truly civilized nations in the world. Like to hunt? Fine. Here’s the kind of gun you can own, with a limit of two, maybe three, so that you have a backup in case one goes on the fritz. Lawmakers can convene with actual, responsible hunters to determine how much ammo is needed for the hunting season, then limit annual ammo purchases to that. Maybe the folks on food stamps out in rural areas can get a slightly larger allotment. Like to shoot at targets? No problem. But leave your guns and ammo locked up at the range. Like to collect antique firearms? Great. But no ammo at home. If you want to actually shoot any of those period pieces, take them to the range, and buy and use your ammo there. Want a gun for self-protection? You’d better have a pretty damned good, demonstrable reason. Being afraid of the blahs or being butthurt over your favorite candidate losing an election doesn’t cut it. Oh, and stick some fucking teeth in the stalker laws and other measures that are ostensibly designed to help people being threatened without them feeling as though they need to take the law into their own hands.
There’s no way to change our society’s view of guns as long as the Second Amendment is in place. Given the current legal interpretations of it, it would take generations upon generations of legal precedents to reverse all the bullshit, even assuming our society could head in that direction without a push. Unfortunately, our politicians are too cowardly and our citizens too brainwashed to do the right thing.
greennotGreen
You know, the dude had mental health issues. I don’t care what they were. I care that there are seven dead people who might not be dead if a crazy guy hadn’t been able to buy a gun.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Shalimar:
I seem to remember Tyrion making that assumption on “Game of Thrones” when it came to his nephew, Joffrey. I don’t think it turned out very well for the sex workers in that case.
wil
@Shalimar:
And if it were legal, finding what he wanted would have been even easier. Apparently negotiating those social barriers was too much for him to want to tackle.
With means, money and a dad in the business, he was in a position to get those blondes if he’d known how to go about it, which points to other issues besides just ‘wanting to own’ or ‘wanting to control’.
Fact is, there is no shortage of blondes in Hollywood willing to sleep with a director’s son to have a chance at getting in.
Woodrowfan
@Shalimar: Indeed, he was a rich kid in Hollywood. Finding an expensive “escort” was well within his means. But he didn’t think he had to pay for it. He thought some girl should submit to his “charms” willingly. Apparently the girls he met were smart enough to recognize a creep when they saw one…
Shalimar
@wil:
Then why do you think he needed legal prostitution?
wil
@Shalimar:
Because what really seemed to hang him up was his inability to cross that boundary and get some. For whatever reason, he got hung up on this one thing (granted, sex is a pretty big thing, especially at that age), and it just contributed to all these other things.
Granted, just getting some (blonde) hooker to help him out in this area might not have prevented this tragedy, but who knows?
There is no shortage of weird control freaks who want to own women in Hollywood. But most of them become movie producers or get some other role in the business and ‘own’ their own bevy of beauties that way. Heck, look at Hugh Hefner and his rotating harem.
They don’t all become so screwed up that they have to slaughter them.
Chet
Yeah, the “why didn’t he just hire a prostitute?” argument doesn’t make sense with guys like this. Besides the power and control issues mentioned by others above, I think there also may have been an element of sex-as-validation and sex-as-badge-of-“normal”-adulthood (with a concomitant cultural stigmatization of adult virginity, particularly male virginity) at work.
http://daviduzumeri.tumblr.com/post/86703794787/virginity-experience-and-shame-this-is-where-the-mra
ruemara
@wil: Oh no, I’m still quite insulting to you. You’re not greenNotGreen. Don’t break your hand congratulating yourself.
wil
@Chet:
Nevertheless, getting laid has a wonderful way of calming the mind, and if one of this guy’s big hangups was “I’m 22 and can’t get laid” that would have at least helped on that front, perhaps. Obviously, the guy needed more help than just that.
El Caganer
Sex workers and psychopaths? Perfect together – no problemo. I mean, take Jack the Ripper…..hmmm, well, maybe not, then.
And if this dude’s problem was sexual frustration rather than an overwhelming need to dominate, he should have spent more time squeezing his weasel instead of squeezing the trigger.
wil
@ruemara:
I understand that’s all you’ve got. It’s okay, I won’t hold it against you.
Shalimar
@wil: who knows?
Jesus.
wil
@Shalimar:
No, Jesus doesn’t know, and neither do you. Thus, who knows indeed?
gwangung
@wil: There are those of us with IQs above room temperature who can add 2 and 2.
Your refusal to do so says doesn’t change the facts, nor what the shooter actually said.
El Caganer
@wil: Lamont Cranston
Shalimar
@wil: The point was, he spent 138 pages and a handful of videos explaining just how he felt and why. But who fucking knows, indeed. We can only guess what was in that boy’s head.
Wil
@gwangung:
“He wrote that he also planned to kill his younger brother, “denying him of the chance to grow up to surpass me”,”
This speaks of a deeper issue than simply wanting to own or control women.
Again, no need to be insulting.
Wil
@Shalimar:
“I will torture some of the good looking people before I kill them, assuming that the good looking ones had the best sex lives.”
Again, it all comes back to sex and his inability to have it/get it.
shalimar
@Wil: Interesting point. I’m not really sure how it relates to the “getting him a legal whore might have prevented this” idiocy you have been defending the whole thread
Wil
@shalimar:
Sex is core. It’s as core as evolution, and as core as the titanic battles waged by male animals just to be able to mate.
This attempt to dismiss such a core and basic part of humanity into some kind of silly pop psychology about power and control while pretending the sex part just doesn’t exist is foolish.
Here’s another quote from the kid: “I realized that I would be a virgin forever, condemned to suffer rejection and humiliation at the hands of women because they don’t fancy me, because their sexual attractions are flawed.”
Clearly this kid had serious mental illness…in another paragraph he calls himself a god…but to read that and pretend that not being able to get sex doesn’t play a central role is ridiculous. It certainly seemed to play a central role for him.
If we lived in a different kind of society, where sex is available to anyone for a fee without stigma or fear of arrest, it might have meant a different outcome in this case.
It’s not such a far-fetched idea. Those who dismiss it seem more wedded to the idea that sex should not be commodified because women, rather than actually considering the idea rationally.
shalimar
@Wil: His problem with “getting sex” was an entitlement problem. He was special, all the gorgeous blondes who didn’t notice him were things. Getting to dig in a fancy hole wasn’t going to magically make all the rage disappear and result in him seeing all the other things with holes as human beings.
Wil
@shalimar:
More of his words:
If only one pretty girl had shown some form of attraction to me, the Day of Retribution would never happen. I’d never even consider it. The Day of Retribution is mainly my war against women for rejecting me and depriving me of sex and love. If only one girl had given me a chance, tried to get to know me, let me take her out on a date.
His whole manifesto is so wrapped up in rejection and loneliness and rage over the rejection and loneliness, it just seems obvious that at least getting him laid by a nice, decent sex worker would have rocked his world.
But apparently nothing happened to rock his world and it just spiraled up and up (or down and down) until he snapped.
shalimar
@Wil: I don’t even begin to comprehend your faith that paying a prostitute for sex would somehow help this rage-filled young man feel less rejected and lonely the next day.
Ash Can
@El Caganer: Forgot to say this earlier, and you probably won’t see it now, but props for the Golden Age of Radio reference.
Gian
@Baud:
Some of the MR people come from a genuine place of wanting to parent kids post divorce and being blocked in courts. I’d guess a minority. But that can be a genuine reason to be angry.
The PUA folks well by definition want one thing for themselves and are sociopaths about the pain they cause.
I do think the majority of the MRA peeps try to hide their hate for child support in a false claim of wanting to parent
At least that’s why I would distinguish them.
Ksmiami
@Ash Can: I will help fund a repeal movement. Seriously fuc@&$ the NRA, the GOP and all the pathetic cowards who feel the need to be fully armed in a goddam burrito chain. Burn up the 2nd amendment like yesterday
gbear
@Wil: You haven’t read a word anyone’s written to you so you still don’t get it. It’s not about the sex – it’s about control and power and subjugation. Do you realize that it’s the prostitute (and the pimp) that have the power in an encounter with a loser like this? They’re fucking sex professionals. The loser has to ask for a specific service in advance and negotiate the fee and they give less of a shit about him than he gives about her. She’s not going to marvel at what a cool guy he is, and if he goes off-script he’s going to get his ass kicked to the curb. Going to a prostitute would not have rocked his world.
BC
My biggest fear is that we allow the NRA and others in gun culture to scapegoat the mentally ill as a way of avoiding all personal responsibility and not do anything for the mentally ill people who might become violent. I would have more respect if any of the NRA supporters would suggest any policy of providing mentally ill people with the means of recovering rather than just blaming all mass shootings on mentally ill people and then shrug it off as one of those things we will have to learn to live with – or, worse, making the public fearful of mentally ill people or of being diagnosed as mentally ill. Scapegoating is all the response they have.
Wil
@gbear: And if you had read anything I’ve said, you’d know that I’m referring to sex work being legalized, so the whole demeaning scenario and danger of dealing with a hooker and a pimp and the whole situation you outline would not happen that way.
“It’s not about the sex – it’s about control and power and subjugation.”…you guys need to quit saying this as though you have some kind of expertise in this specific situation. In fact, you just don’t know.
Quite a lot of what this kid wrote makes it appear that a great deal of it was indeed “about the sex.”
Clearly, he had other very serious issues, but why are you so hung up on the idea that one of the most fundamental drives in the animal kingdom plays no part at all?
HR Progressive
There is literally zero reason for anyone to think that men need more “rights”. Men have got plenty of rights, and frankly, given the discussion I’ve seen on the Twitter all weekend, more than they should really have.
Wil
@shalimar:
That’s okay. And it’s not my ‘faith’ at all, but just the idea that it may have helped, and if sex work was legal, and safe, and not stigmatized.
I find the rejection of that basic idea to be exceedingly narrow-minded, the result of an attitude that sex is not important and therefore any reasons relating to sex or lack of sex cannot be considered as valid.
And that just seems like idealistic nonsense.
DougJ
@Wil:
It’s about him wanting to be an alpha male and all that. He says so explicitly.
Wil
@DougJ:
He says a lot of things explicitly. He also talks explicitly about wanting sex.
Go figure…he’s a 22 year old virgin that is afraid to talk to girls. Or he was.
jc
Am I the only one who had to look up what “high-T” means? Testosterone. I guess that puts me in the low-T category.
planetjanet
@Wil: Women were status symbols that he felt entitled to because he was such a catch. If they weren’t fawning over his obvious awesomeness, it must only be because they were evil. This is the definition of expecting him to have power over women. They are the same.
Mnemosyne
@Wil:
That’s not, Oh, God, I need to ejaculate. That’s I want a relationship. You don’t get a relationship with a sex worker. You get an ejaculation. So, no, one night with a sex worker was not going to solve the problem of him being angry that other people had relationships and girlfriends.
ulee
@Mnemosyne: Have you ever seen Louis CK? He talks about masterbation as trying to lance a boil. Try not to be so obtuse. Yes, this guy wanted a girlfriend. He believed he was superior. He was so sick he killed people. But please don’t be so willfully ignorant.
ulee
And since you’re commenting. Cole has posted that he gets angry seeing happy couples in public. He is sexually frustrated and wants to have a relationship. Is Cole engaged in a war against women?
Wil
@Mnemosyne:
Only if you ignore the parts about sex, and all the other stuff he wrote pertaining to wanting sex. Kid was a 22-year-old virgin. Sure he wanted love, who doesn’t, but what was on his mind 24/7 was SEX.
You know what eases that itch? Having sex. Dismissing it as ‘an ejaculation’ shows more that you just have no idea.
I think you just don’t like the idea that sex workers could be a positive thing, period. You are biased against the idea of sex workers being a good thing simply because it goes against the way you think. You don’t like it that, yes, sex is a commodity and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
However in this case, while clearly this boy’s problems were far greater, at least relieving this ONE problem might have at least given him something more positive to think about than killing people. Hard to think about killing people when you’ve got the memory of nice soft boobs in your hands instead.
As I said, who knows, but the need to dismiss the idea out of hand reveals more about you and your view than you perhaps realize.
HRA
“But these murders certainly cast a light on some unsavory parts of our culture.”
This has been a part of our culture for a long time. It reminded me of my teen years when it was before prom time and choices were made in asking someone to the prom. There were 3 of us girls who were close inseparable friends. Two of us got asked to the prom. As we waited, we never expected the third to not be asked. I asked a good male friend why she was not asked by anyone. His answer was no one wants to be with someone who is nasty, highly opinionated and cruel. He also said she makes herself ugly.
demit
@Wil: I know this thread is pretty much over, but Rodger talked about his parents arranging social coaches for him. He said it was nice hanging out with them, but he discounted the effort as ‘hiring friends’ for him. I also recall his saying something at one point about prostitution being out of the question. He wanted adoration, adulation, and it had to be from one of those beautiful blonde women.
He’s quite forthcoming about what it is he wanted in that 138-page manifesto. Which is an excruciating read but it puts the lie to some of your suppositions.
Rex Everything
Most commentary I read on this incident carries this disclaimer in some form. May I ask why, Doug?
I think the “PUA” mentality is certainly deserving of some of the blame. It fosters a whole way of thinking in which the frustrations of the blue-balled male are projected outward in the form of misogyny. It channels frustration into an attitude of aggression. It’s obvious from a short perusal of its Web culture that it has this effect; it must be obvious (on some level) to the movement’s leaders that it has this effect.
They teach a way of thinking that leads, directly & predictably, to woman-hating. They’re to blame for that.
Wil
@demit:
He needed a different kind of ‘coach’, not a ‘social coach’.
I’ve been reading through his manifesto too, and he hits on the topic of wanting sex far too often to think that a good sex worker could not have helped him.
Again, I am not talking about the situation we have today, where it is illegal and shameful, and you can get arrested or get an STD and even going to pick up a prostitute carries an aura of shame about it…which is clearly not what this kid would have been able to handle nor what he would have been up for.
I’m talking a very different situation of legal and above-board sex work, where it’s safe and just a part of normal life…as I’ve made clear more than once on this thread.
chuck
I’ve now read way too many comments on this, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr. Roger and Mr Lanza are simply post-natal abortions with collateral casualties.
The Clinton’s comment on abortion being “legal, available, and rare” is just wrong. It should be “legal, free, and frequent.”
The best abortions are pre-natal ones.
lawnorder
@Wil: If you really want to understand things I suggest you read Echidine’s well researched and well thought out post.
Basically after reading his manifesto she comes to the conclusion that Elliot viewed anything but complete and perfect attendance to his wishes as “rejection”.
Curiously – and relevant to your theory that prostitution would help – it doesn’t seem that Elliot ever asked any girl out on a date, there is no rejection story about ANY girl in particular. The closer he gets is describing himself sitting on a table at a popular cafe and having no blondes approaching him.
I believe this passage shows what he expected: voluntary sex from those gorgeous blondes who should ask him out while he made no effort to get their attention (besides “looking fabulous” and being white while driving a BMW)
Having to pay for a prostitute is completely “off character” from the narrative he wanted. If he was unwilling to even talk to a woman and expected she to initiate contact, paying would make the entire thing about his money, not about his superiority, whiteness and style.
Do read the post by Echidine, if you are interested in the matter. If not, troll away
Wil
@lawnorder:
It’s sweet but rather condescending of you to send me to someone’s blog so I can get ‘womansplained’ and read her opinion.
Thanks, but I’ll stick with my own. I don’t find her opinion particularly valid, certainly no more than mine. However I did find it interesting that she speculates that his involvement with the PUA and other sites might have played a role (or might not) in turning his views from mere views into action.
In other words, something might have caused him to act on his views….just as I have been saying that something (like legalized sex workers) might have caused him to NOT act on his views, at least not in a shower-of-bullets way.
The only POV shared by both Echidine and myself is that we do not know if anything could have influenced him in any direction, or if nothing could have. We merely speculate.
I have also been reading his manifesto, and I have come to a different conclusion.
Thanks for the attempt to womansplain, but I’ll stick with my own views, and you are as much a troll as I am. Not sure why simply having a different view makes me a troll.