[Content note: sexual assault]

There’s a project that’s just gotten funded through Kickstarter. It’s a book called Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome With Women and it’s being written by a Redditor and pickup artist named Ken Hoinsky. Predictably, the book promises to help men meet and hook up with women.

Some quotes from the book:

5) Get CLOSE to her, damn it! To quote Rob Judge, “Personal space is for pussies.” I already told you that the most successful seducers are those who can’t keep their hands off of women. Well you’re not gonna be able to do that if you aren’t in close!

All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality. Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That’s hot. It arouses her physically and psychologically.

Decide that you’re going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.

Sex Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick.

Guess what! That’s sexual assault. “Forcing” her to “rebuff your advances” is sexual assault. “Grabbing her hand” and “putting it right on your dick” unless she’s consented is sexual assault. And while many people do indeed find it arousing when someone desires them, sexual assault is not arousing; it is assault, it is violation of others’ bodies, and it is a crime.

Wow, the year is 2013 and I really did just have to say that.

The idea that deep down, women want to be raped is some bullshit we can thank Sigmund Freud for. But it’s time for it to go.

Now, I know that some of you dudes are gonna be like “Yeah but it might help me get laid!” Sorry, but that’s completely fucking irrelevant. The reason crimes like sexual assault are crimes is not because committing them doesn’t benefit anyone, it’s because we’ve decided that they either 1) hurt others or 2) hurt society or both. Claiming that it should be okay to sexually assault someone because then you might get laid is like saying that it’s okay to steal because then you’ll get free stuff. (The point isn’t that sexual assault is equivalent to theft, but rather that the reasoning is just as morally and intellectually bankrupt.)

And no, it’s not enough to say that it’s the woman’s “job” to just “keep saying no.” It is your job not to touch people without their consent. If you can’t do that, then you’ve failed to meet the minimum standards for being a decent human being. Sorry!

Of course, Hoinsky knows he’s being a creepy asshole. These guys always do. He’s been spamming a Jezebel writer about it, hoping to get written up on the blog because “I showed it to my brother’s Jezebel-addicted ex-girlfriend and she went on a 3 hour diatribe about it. Your readers will eat it up!”

Giving attention to a person like this makes me feel desperately in need of a shower, but it’s also pretty important to me that this project not get funded. Here’s where Kickstarter comes in. Every project funded through the site has to be approved first, and the site approved this one. However, Kickstarter’s guidelines prohibit “offensive material (hate speech, etc.).” As we have seen with Facebook, sometimes companies don’t seem to realize that sexual assault is offensive and advocating sexual assault of women is hate speech. So, it seems that Kickstarter has fucked up a little here.

Sign this petition to ask them not to release the funds for the project. Also, go to the project page, scroll all the way to the bottom, and click on the button that says “Report this project to Kickstarter.” You might literally prevent a few sexual assaults. And if not, you’ll at the very least send a message that this is 2013 and this shit isn’t okay anymore. Not that it ever was.