Photo: Roosh V via YouTube

In terms of well-known pickup artists, there are few people more infamous on the web than RooshV. Roosh, as he’s known to his followers. RooshV. Roosh has spent years extolling the virtues of pickup artistry and treating women like crap, preaching a philosophy he calls “neomasculinity.” It’s kind of like scientific misogyny with a dash of libertarianism. He has often been a proponent of red-pilling.

Roosh (real name: Daryush Valizadeh) is a popular figure within incel culture, and he has often been accurately described as a rape apologist. He has written and self-published many books on pickup artistry, including Game, Day Bang, and Poosy Paradise, as well as geographically focused advice books like Bang Iceland. In 2016, after his multicity speaking tour was torpedoed owing to the outcry over his comments about rape, the Daily Mail found him living in his mom’s basement in Maryland. Last year, his books were delisted from Amazon, turning him into a cause célèbre on far-right corners of the internet.

Game, slang for pickup artistry, is a primary discussion topic in the forums on Roosh’s website. Yet today he outlawed discussion of the topic almost entirely. In a thread, he announced, “NEW RULES: Casual sex and hooking up can no longer be discussed on the forum.” He elaborated:

Things you can discuss: -Meeting women with the intention of entering a relationship with them -Attracting women -Going on dates -How to enter relationships -Using technology to meet women -How to maintain relationships -Sexual activity while married

Things you can no longer discuss: -Meeting women with the intention of fornicating with them -How to bang -Physical intimacy with women you’re not married to beyond the act of kissing -Maintaining relationships with multiple women (i.e. spinning plates) -Cheating on significant others (adultery) -Using technology to fornicate -Discussion of travel destinations which are best for fornication -Stories of sexual activity while not married -Promoting masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, etc.

He elaborated that pornographic and vulgar language was also banned. “I created this forum in 2008 to help men fornicate, so I don’t know if it’s possible to ‘retrofit’ it for another purpose, but it’s worth a try,” he said. “In the meanwhile, I will gradually lock threads that break these new rules if they become active.”

The reason for this, Roosh explained, is he had recently taken “the God pill” — which, as we all know, comes after the blue, red, and black pills (the black pill, if you didn’t know, is the acceptance of one’s powerlessness and withdrawal from materialism). He seems to have adopted Orthodox Christianity as his God pill of choice. At the end of March, Roosh explained his religious awakening, writing on the forums:

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ll notice I’ve been warning [sic] up to faith in God over the years, especially the past year. This is due to witnessing the growth of evil in society, my personal experiences with unbridled hedonism, and my sister’s death. This reached a climax when I received a message while on mushrooms which cemented that faith further, an experience which I will share in the future after I’m done processing it. Sure of my path, I decided to publicly “come out.”

The change to the forums has been greeted less with rage and anger and more with congratulations and confusion, with some wondering where they’ll go to get tips on harassing women once the rules go into effect in June. In the meantime, though Roosh’s newfound faith (assuming it’s not some long con) forced him to adopt new views on extramarital sex, his broader views on sexuality and female autonomy don’t have to change. His Twitter feed still contains plenty of alt-right figures, transphobia, criticisms of female sexuality, and an endorsement of abortion bans.