In No Nut November, the question “To fap or not to fap?” has become fraught with legal danger. This whimsical internet challenge has grown in popularity over the years alongside the scientific battle over whether or not pornography can become addictive.
By mid-November, those would-be abstainers who don’t take the challenge seriously likely already failed to remain the “masters of their domain” but the academic war will continue long after the end of the month.
Neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist Dr. Nicole Prause is currently facing two defamation lawsuits filed in US courts as a result of this battle. On Twitter, Prause has declared herself to be the victim of multiple SLAPP suits (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) after years of ongoing harassment. Prause has also claimed that her anti-porn adversaries have stalked her, threatened to rape her, and engaged in general misogyny including falsely accusing her of being paid by the porn industry.
The defamation suits accuse Prause of lying about being stalked, threatened, or harassed by them in any way. The statements of claim say that these are false accusations by Prause and that her public accusations are the only actual harassment taking place. In affidavits attached to the lawsuits, ten different people, including four women, claim to be personal victims of Dr. Prause.
This is not just a Twitter war.
Most people think anti-porn activists to be radical feminists like Catharine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who sought to censor pornography as a civil rights violation and form of human trafficking.
In a strange twist of events, over the last decade, it has been a growing number of young men who have turned against the near limitless fap machine of internet pornography. This quickly increasing demographic has flooded websites like NoFap.com, seeking help for what they have self-described as an addiction to porn.
For some experts, like Prause, the claim that people can become addicted to porn is not only scientifically unsound but, she says, potentially dangerous. Those who oppose porn are often painted as religious science deniers, causing damage to people by morally shaming natural human sexuality. But other experts disagree.
The question of whether or not excessive pornography use can lead to addiction, actually causing physical changes to the brain, has yet to be decided. In the meantime, thousands of mostly young men seeking help online are being demonized as misogynistic for identifying pornography as a cause of their distress.
The complaints from these men include, but are not limited to, erectile dysfunction in the presence of a real-life partner, difficulty achieving orgasm during intercourse, social anxiety and escalation in their viewing habits which causes them to seek out more and more extreme forms of pornography in order to maintain their physical and psychological arousal.
The variety of pornography available online certainly ranges into extremely concerning areas, like rectal prolapse, and most people clicking from one video to the next are bound to quickly come across something this shocking.
In an email exchange with The Post Millennial, Dr. Prause commented “We know it is a low-desire behaviour, people do not actually engage in rosebudding play very much at all. I wonder to what extent some videos on “porn” websites really are just clickbait not expecting a sexual response. That is, all the pornographers want is clicks. It’s how they make money. If you see ‘anus actually falls out’ I would be really horrified…and really curious.”
For those who are struggling with a pornography consumption habit they feel has taken over their enjoyment of life, their curiosity has led many of them to believe they have an addiction.
But, how did this academic dispute escalate into civil lawsuits? It depends on who you ask.
The battle between Nicole Prause and her adversaries seems to have kicked off in March 2013 when an article by Dr. David Ley, titled “Your Brain On Porn: It’s Not Addictive,” was published in Psychology Today promoting a Prause study that had not yet been published. After a critical blog response was published, both posts were removed pending the publication of the research. The author of the response blog, Gary Wilson, also happened to be the owner of a website called “Your Brain On Porn” which was mentioned by name in the original article.
Wilson has chronicled the six-year dispute on his website and, when put on a timeline, which includes Prause’s complaints to licensing boards and attempts to have people fired for sexual harassment or academic fraud, most of the events appear to be initiated by Prause herself.
For example, on January 29, 2019, Prause attempted to take trademark ownership of the website name and domain “Your Brain On Porn.” Gary Wilson, who has regularly been accused of stalking Prause, took this move as another attack upon his work.
When asked about this event, Wilson told The Post Millennial that he received an anonymous tip that Prause had filed an application for his domain, which he then opposed. Without this tip, he may have lost his website and body of research. Prause finally withdrew her application on October 18, 2019.
Meanwhile, in April 2019 a website called “Real Your Brain On Porn” and a matching Twitter account were created which were ultimately found to be connected to Nicole Prause, though registered under the name of someone else. Prause provided The Post Millennial with the final report from the intellectual property investigation by WIPO and confirmed that this is one of the actions against her which Prause is calling a “SLAPP suit.”
Prause explained her motivation to acquire Wilson’s website as an effort to eliminate what she believes are defamatory accusations about her and which she considers to be evidence of a cyber-stalking behaviour. The website currently hosts a lengthy compilation of events and documentation in which Wilson presents Prause as the harasser.
The first defamation suit was filed against Dr. Prause and her business, Liberos LLC, in May 2019 but it was not Gary Wilson who took this legal action. It was filed by neurosurgeon Dr. Donald Hilton Jr after Prause contacted the university where he teaches as an adjunct professor and made a complaint alleging, among other things, that Hilton had engaged in sexual harassment.
Hilton’s own research on behavioural addiction stands in stark contrast to Prause’s conclusions and they have frequently clashed over the pros and cons of pornography use. Hilton was one of the first to criticize Prause’s EEG study released in 2013.
In his lawsuit, Hilton vehemently denies having harassed Prause and claims that her accusations were designed to cause maximum damage to his reputation. Prause’s motion to dismiss appears to admit to the contents of the emails she sent but claims freedom of speech and “the right to petition” as her defence.
Hilton’s lawyer, Dan Packard, told The Post Millennial that “no person can falsely accuse an academic rival of sexual harassment in a deliberate attempt to silence that rival and then successfully hide behind the First Amendment. ‘Free speech’ can never be used as a sword to silence academic discussion and debate.”
An article published in Reason heavily questions the way Prause framed her claims of sexual harassment. Interviewed for that article, “UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment specialist, questions Prause’s ‘novel and pretty dangerous’ definition of sexual harassment.” In the context of her complaint, it reads as if all criticism of her scientific work has been reconstructed as an attack on her as “a female scientist.”
But the second lawsuit moves well beyond an academic dispute.
The founder of NoFap.com, Alexander Rhodes, states in his lawsuit that he was caught in the crosshairs after he was featured in a July 6, 2016, New York Times article called “Internet Porn Nearly Ruined His Life. Now He Wants To Help.” Two days after publication, Prause and a colleague, Dr. David Ley, appear to ridicule Rhodes on Twitter and, in a now-deleted tweet, Prause described Rhodes as a “neckbeard.”
Rhodes’ statement of claim says the harassment escalated two years after this event when he alleges Prause began publicly accusing him of stalking and threatening her – an allegation which he denies. In an affidavit Rhodes states “I would never willingly subject myself to unnecessary communication with Dr. Prause.”
Prause has also publicly alleged that she filed FBI complaints against both Rhodes and Gary Wilson but in both cases, an FOI filed by the accused failed to produce any evidence of the reports. On the other hand, Wilson has posted evidence on his website that he filed a complaint against Prause after speaking with an FBI agent in December 2018.
The legal system is still struggling to determine where free speech crosses the line into actionable defamation in online disputes. The question of who “started it” can lead to an endless rabbit hole in which all involved are accused of “sock puppetry” (creating multiple fake usernames) and online mobbing. Most certainly, things have gone too far when employers are being contacted, lawsuits are being filed in court, and it starts to involve the FBI.
Dr. Prause recently tweeted that she reported a fundraiser aimed at helping Rhodes raise money for his legal bills. Prause alleges, despite the existence of the lawsuit, that this fundraiser is fraudulent.
While Rhodes’ personal Twitter account has been set to private, the NoFap account tweeted their astonishment over these events saying “This is like the alcohol industry trying to take down Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Rhodes’ lawyer Andrew Stebbins provided The Post Millennial with the following statement:
“Mr. Rhodes is and always has been an eager and willing participant in the provocative debate surrounding pornography addiction, and is openly receptive of honest and fair criticism of his work, views, and opinions. He will not, however, tolerate malicious personal attacks from those who seek to discredit, disparage and otherwise injure him through false statements designed to assassinate his character and reputation. This case is brought solely in response, and properly limited in scope, to such attacks.”
In a recent Vice article, Prause is quoted saying “”Alexander Rhodes and NoFap’s lawsuit has no merit nor do his libelous and unfounded assertions regarding me, my character, or my business,” adding that Rhodes is “entitled to his opinions, however he is not entitled to spread complete falsehoods about me to profit himself and silence speech.”
The author of the same Vice article then goes on to call NoFap’s principles “slippery,” and attempts to link Rhodes to white supremacists by citing an April 2016 interview with Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, despite that group being founded many months later. Ironically, McInnes was a co-founder of Vice and thus has a much stronger connection to their own publication than to Alexander Rhodes or NoFap.
And, in a way, that leads us back to the original question: To fap or not to fap?
For the thousands of people, both men and women, who are asking themselves that very question, it is doubtful that mockery and insults from pornography supportive researchers will stop them from visiting the websites, like NoFap and Your Brain On Porn, who take their concerns more seriously.
The academic battle over whether or not their problem is technically an addiction is less important to them then getting help to change a habit they feel is destroying their lives.
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Five rules from the Bible: Revisiting Jordan Peterson's viral lecture series
Jordan Peterson gave his first biblical lecture in the spring of 2017. From the beginning, he designed the lectures to educate himself, along with his listeners, in the rudiments of Western civilization.
“When I’m lecturing, I’m thinking. I’m not trying to tell you what I know for sure to be the case, because there’s lots of things that I don’t know for sure to be the case. I’m trying to make sense out of this… This is part of the process by which I’m doing that, and so I’m doing my best to think on my feet. I come prepared, but I’m trying to stay on the edge of my capacity to generate knowledge, to make this continually clear, and to get to the bottom of things.
“The idea is to see if there’s something at the bottom of this amazing civilization that we’ve managed to structure, and that I think is in peril, for a variety of reasons. Maybe, if we understand it a little bit better, we won’t be so prone just to throw the damn thing away, which I think would be a big mistake. And to throw it away because of resentment, hatred, bitterness, historical ignorance, jealousy, the desire for destruction, and all of that… I don’t want to go there. It’s a bad idea, to go there. We need to be better grounded.” – Biblical Series I
Jordan’s latest University of Toronto course had ended two weeks prior; his Patreon page boomed with new donors; the media buzzed with his hard-nosed approach to free speech detractors. He finally had the trifecta of time, capital, and platform for his deepest ideas to reach an international audience.
But in a time of internet porn, video games, and church closures, who would care about a dense, technically-worded, two-hour lecture on Adam and Eve? Explained with a fusion of evolutionary biology, behavioural psychology, a smattering of world mythology, and Jungian psychoanalysis, the lectures may have seemed suited for a stuffy university classroom, rather than a 500-seat public theatre.
In the eyes of YouTube’s censorship team, a culture apathetic to biblical stories was insurance too cheap. Perhaps sensing a threat to their radical leftist dogma, they sought to stymie Jordan’s popularity. On August 1, 2017, he was locked from his YouTube account, without explanation, as he attempted to upload a two-hour lecture on Abraham. That same day, after popular uproar and a flurry of online articles, his account was reinstated—again, without explanation.
In enforcement, such censorship has been softened by modern technology. In intent, it remains in lockstep with the raison-d’être of Thinkpol. This is hardly surprising, as the Bible depicts stories of absolute moral rights and absolute moral wrongs: ironic as it may be, these strictures are anathema to those who hold moral relativity above all else.
“God, in the Old Testament, is frequently cruel, arbitrary, demanding, and paradoxical, which is one of the things that really gives the book life. It wasn’t edited by a committee that was concerned with not offending anyone. That’s for sure.” – Biblical Series I
Apathy for the Bible could never last in a culture grown from Christian values. Jordan’s biblical lectures sold out; a fact that astonished the now-best-selling author. Moreover, the 15 lectures have been viewed 21 million times on his YouTube channel. But the strangest part was the focused silence of his live audience, and how they unfailingly filled each lecture’s final half-hour with carefully-worded existential questions.
As Jordan’s supporters well know, his psychological analysis can move from ancient Mesopotamian politics in one sentence to lobsters in the next, and then finish by tying it all to a Jean Piaget theory. But there are core messages — rules, if you will — about being that he has extracted from the Bible and colloquially explained, making those who care to listen all the wiser.
Rule 1: Never resent the structure of existence
Life is a “catastrophe from beginning to end”, suffering is the default mode of existence, and our ever-changing environment demands that we toil in order to persist. You will be betrayed, your loved ones will become terminally ill, and whatever beauty you possess will wither and be forgotten in a matter of decades. Equity is unknown to nature. To make matters worse, be resentful, ruminating on the tragedy of it all and cursing the force that made this mess.
Everyone understands these sentiments. But the most successful among us acknowledge the horror of life, along with their capacity to contribute to it, and decide to hold faith that they can improve reality. They are alive, after all. What else is there to do? Opposed to nihilism, we could say that every action alters reality and that we may as well spend our time aiming at the Good.
The dangers of resentment have been told for millennia through the hostile brothers motif. In the Cain and Abel story, Cain fails to achieve an aim. He becomes resentful towards the seemingly unfair structure of existence, while his brother, Abel, uses proper sacrifice to thrive. Abel is simultaneously the embodiment of Cain’s ideal, a glowing reminder of Cain’s failure, and a target for revenge. Fueled by resentment, Cain lashes out and murders Abel. But Cain’s ideal, abstract beyond its manifestation in Abel, lives on and judges him with a punishment too great for him to bear.
Resentment is destructive in any form, only adding to our shared plight. When it comes to alleviating suffering, it simply isn’t practical. Neither is passive nihilism (a supposedly careless and neutral state), which causes a lack of meaningful engagement in the world that is both depressing and anxiety-provoking. Depression then causes the amygdala to grow, increasing emotional sensitivity. Suffering intensifies, and thus, reason for resentment. We fragment in the absence of a unifying aim, and our subpersonalities run amok in the cracks.
Rule 2: Listen to your subpersonalities and be wary of their advice
It has been known since the ancient Greeks — and undoubtedly before — that the human psyche is comprised of a multitude of spirits, gods, or subpersonalities. As Jordan noted, “you’re a loose collection of living subpersonalities, each with its own set of motivations, perceptions, emotions, and rationales, and you have limited control over that. You’re like a plurality of internal personalities that’s loosely linked into a unity.”
Some subpersonalities manifest as raw impulses — heated anger, raw lust, arrogant rationale — while others are more subtle manipulations. A timid child, for example, can decide to enter into an “unholy alliance” with an over-dependent parent, to avoid the pains of personal development.
When such voices arise, it is of the utmost importance to hear them for what they are: forces constantly warring for supremacy. Unchecked, they can guide us down a path of resentment. As Carl Jung said, “everybody acts out a myth, but very few people know what their myth is.”
What we consider to be subpersonalities were, to the ancient Greeks, manifestations of gods, giving rise to both creative and destructive instinct. So, the next time you find yourself inexplicably drawn to a hobby, you can think of it as a divine message, delivered by Mercury, to guide you down a mythical path. The key is to listen and determine if it aids your unified aim, rather than to be blindly led.
Rule 3: Direct personal development with your worst experiences
Order and chaos. Known and unknown. Yin and yang. Darkness and light. These are dichotomies used to describe the abstract field in which we function, and the two sides of a prosperous balance. For those of us living in a democracy, order is usually well managed. The easy part. The task of delving into chaos and using our discoveries to update the order is what puts us at risk. But, uncomfortable as it may be, that is the only way to generate wealth for oneself and one’s community.
No matter the scale of the incident, our worst experiences are, intrinsically, the most instructive. That is because it is within the unknown when we are fools, novices, and most easily dissuaded by anxiety and self-doubt. If a bad experience causes retreat into bitterness and resentment, then chaos has won the battle. But if the experience gives rise to constructive analysis and tenacity, then a new tool has been forged. Superficially, defeat has been the short-term outcome: an aim missed, a pitch rejected, a relationship denied. That could be the end of it. Spiritual defeat, as well as material. But for an individual with faith in their aim, it becomes a lesson that makes them stronger. Wealth has been scavenged from the chaos.
This rule is given to us in the story of Joseph. Betrayed by his brothers, Joseph is sold into slavery, and he later becomes a prisoner in Egypt. However brutal, these experiences do not embitter him. He continues to believe in the good and never uses his misfortune as an excuse to transgress his morals. Each misfortunate strengthens him, and, as a result, his competency becomes indisputable and rewarded.
Rule 4: Have a clear aim, and make it the best conceivable aim
Knowingly or not, everyone interprets reality through an overlaying value structure. Subpersonalities can distort those values and take us down paths against our better judgement. But values can also be clarified by aiming at an ideal. In either case, values limit action, and, as such, they play a substantial role in the creation of aims.
An ideal sits at the top of our value structure, and our relationship to it can cause a great deal of positive and negative emotion. In one example, Cain could not bear to see his brother succeed where he had failed, and so, like a jealous lover, he used his brother’s flesh as a means to attack his own set of values. Immediately, Cain judged that he had become ultimately reprehensible, an inhabitant of the deepest hell, for attacking the successful embodiment of his own ideal.
The opposite of that would be to pursue the best conceivable aim and keep faith that it is worth any sacrifice. But the more ambitious an aim, the more sacrifice and faith required. To make matters more complicated, if one’s aim is merely a crude mimicking of an ideal, motivation (willingness to sacrifice) also proves difficult. Challenging as it may be, the axiom is to embody the best possible set of abstract, transcendent values, and to thereby unite heaven and earth.
“The horrors of life are, of course, that everything eats everything else, and that everything dies, and that everything’s born, and that the whole bloody place is a charnel house, and it’s a catastrophe from beginning to end. This is the vision of it being other than that.” -Biblical Series IV
To enjoy life is to have so much faith in an aim that we are excited to make the necessary sacrifices. This outweighs the default horror of existence and makes living a net positive. In other words, aiming for the highest Good makes life not only bearable, but desirable. Biologically, this maintains the health of the hippocampus and its inhibition of emotional sensitivity. At the same time, taking action against chaos causes dopaminergic activation: the suppression of anxiety and pain. These reactions may be considered an evolutionary basis for fortune favouring the bold.
Unfortunately, the transcendent alignment that comes with pursuing a worthy aim disappears when it is achieved. A vacuum follows, ready to be filled with another aim. We can think of this as having a singular, ever-transforming aim that clarifies as a result of our effort to reach it. But it also means that an ideal can never be fully realized. This could be considered a consequence of our ability to conceptualize the future, and the meaning of original sin.
Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche disagreed on how to conceive a transcendent aim. Nietzsche believed that Westerners, having lost faith in Christianity, had to create their own values. Jung thought the lack of unity within the human psyche made that impossible. Instead, individuals should utilize their subpersonalities and cultural history to make a “supreme moral effort” in their lives.
Following Jung’s advice, we engage in an evolutionary process of discovering a transcendent ideal. The bible is a guide: “these [biblical] stories are trying to express what you might describe as an unchanging, transcendent reality. It’s something like what’s common across all human experience, across all time.” Along the way, cultures have represented their ideals in artistic form. That which remains can and should be used to inform our behaviour.
Rule 5: Maintain a cultural locus
Jordan highlighted the practical reason for having a cultural locus during the 2018 Munk debate: “we need something approximating a low resolution grand narrative to unite us. Otherwise we don’t have peace.”
Thousands of years ago, a cultural locus could have been as simple as an upright stone in the center of a village. Representing that shared values existed, and that their embodiment resulted in prosperity, was enough. Today, the Chartres Cathedral is one example of a cultural locus, representing, with its labyrinth and cross-shaped structure, that voluntary sacrifice leads to salvation. Another is the Pietà, representing the role of the archetypal Mother.
These works of art speak to an optimum human experience. As such, they are densely packed with information on how to embody a set of values that the creator’s culture deemed transcendent, practical, and divine.
Faith in shared values makes cultures strong and united — confident enough, for example, to start 200-year construction projects that represent the divinity of those values. But if that faith is lost, a person or culture will fragment internally and lose its peace. Cultural loci protect against that by reminding us of the value of faith, and by giving us stable measures for recalibrating our aims. From this perspective, art can be seen as a tool to stave off chaos.
We should study and maintain our traditional art and places of worship, because there is too much about the human experience for us to learn in a single lifetime. We are historical creatures, and it would be disastrous to disregard the behavioural patterns by which we arrived at our current standard of living. But relying too heavily on the lessons of the dead would be to “live on the corpse of your ancestors,” reneging the duty of cultural revivification and inviting the same kind of chaos that comes to those who live too long under parental control. Therefore, we must maintain cultural loci by combining traditional values and new discoveries, updating the loci as we clarify our conception of a transcendent ideal.
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YouTube influencer mobbed for speaking the truth about morbid obesity
The media’s efforts to glorify morbid obesity as “beauty” and the push for the so-called Health At Every Size (HAES) and body positivity movements have been met with resistance from fitness guru Jillian Michaels and others in the fitness scene. The latest influencer to take on the unhealthy lifestyle, Xiaxue, is now the subject of social media cancellation after she spoke out against the horrendous practice.
The popular Singaporean YouTuber and influencer, whose real name is Wendy Cheng, mocked the unhealthy standard after a post glorifying a morbidly obese model trended on Instagram.
“It’s one thing to be chubby or fat but this is way past that. Most morbidly obese people don’t live past 40. They gorge themselves with 30 burgers a day and when they inevitably get a clogged artery or diabetes taxpayers have to help foot their medical bills when their health conditions are entirely caused by their irresponsible behavior,” she wrote. “Disgusting. The morbidly obese (like this woman) should never have been seen as attractive because death and disease isn’t attractive full stop. Irresponsibility isn’t attractive.”
“Even when they die [they] need 3 [people] to carry the corpse please,” she joked. “Fucking stop glorifying this shit @instagram, shame on you.”
The post, which was widely reported by offended social justice activists, was deleted by Instagram for harassment. Fat activists are now mocking Xiaxue for undergoing plastic surgery and have called upon each other to report her account in an effort to suspend her.
Xiaxue has continued to call out morbid obesity in a series of posts and videos decrying the Instagram community’s double standards in enforcing its harassment policy. In screenshotted DMs, Xiaxue captured the vitriol sent to her by numerous social justice activists, many of which called her “fatphobic.”
“Skinny people die from stroke and diseases too lmao. I hope u die one day,” wrote one user named soft.sapphire.
Explaining herself, Xiaxue wrote that she wasn’t “fat shaming” anyone and that she was expressing concern about the glorification of morbid obesity.
“What concerns me is that the media is constantly glorifying morbid obesity, trying to say it’s perfectly attractive (which we all know it isn’t). It’s fine to have an eating disorder. But we don’t glorify anorexia as being sexy so why the other end of the spectrum? Both are really unhealthy,” she wrote. “If you see your friend get addicted to smoking which will slowly kill him will you tell him his lifestyle is perfectly acceptable and his behavior is beautiful? No, you tell him to stop or reduce. So why isn’t it OK to say that morbidly obese people should not obstinately be PROUD of their size and should do something about it?”
“It’s OK to love and accept someone whatever size they are, but being the rough size and shape of Jupiter should NOT be glorified,” Xiaxue continued. “If people cannot get the difference and think this is the same as fat shaming then so be it, I refuse to pretend that being so big you can’t even get out of bed and you can’t even wipe your own arse is fine and dandy because it’s disgusting and unhealthy.”
Xiaxue continued in a separate post: “Why is it my business and why must I be so mean? Why can’t I let these people be deluded and happy? Because I don’t think we should encourage obesity, which is a disease. I think people weighing 500lbs should go on a freaking diet instead of living in a delusion held up by enablers that the fatter they are the ‘braver’ they are and the more beautiful they are,” she said. “They need to know the truth and that is that people aren’t ‘fatphobic’ if they find obesity unattractive. It’s natural to want to breed with healthy people to ensure the survival of your kids. No matter how you try to drum the beauty of obesity into our minds, it will never work.”
“So stop lying to yourself. You are being selfish [because] you want to look kind online and feel good about being ‘nice.’ But your lies are harming people,” she concluded.
As I’ve previously written on Twitter, there’s no such thing as “fatphobia.” It’s just another one of those terms designed to pathologize the natural dislike of obesity as a form of mental illness—as if you’re abnormal for preferring fitness and health.
The postmodern left uses science-y sounding faux clinical terms designed to validate and normalize unhealthy lifestyles, degeneracy and inhumanity while disenfranchising decency as a “social construct”—as if what they promote aren’t social constructs from a counter-narrative.
There are firm biological foundations to preexisting social constructs—fitness primary among them. If you’re physically and/or mentally unfit, you’re a burden to society and everyone around you. Period.
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WATCH: Child drag queen 'Desmond Is Amazing' is in real danger
Disturbing allegations are floating around the internet about “Desmond is Amazing,” the famed 12-year-old drag queen. Described as a “trailblazer” by Good Morning America, Desmond is popular amongst LGBT circles, but many both in and out of the community are becoming concerned for the safety and health of Desmond.
The first moment of controversy for the tween came when he performed in an adult gay club. Many found the performance too sexual to be appropriate for a child, and the adults throwing him dollar bills as though he were a stripper did not make the situation any better. His mother defended the performance, blasting criticism as “blatant homophobia.”
However, darker allegations surround Desmond. In a disturbing livestream with an adult livestream, he is seen joking about ketamine use and displays a “snorting” notion, indicating he knows how to use it. See below.
Furthermore, he is seen doing an interview with notorious convicted murderer Michael Alig, who served 17 years in prison for the killing of Angel Melendez. Alig and his roommate killed Angel during a heated argument, dismembered his body, and disposed of him in the Hudson River. Not exactly a character that any mother of sane mind would allow around their child alone. See below, circled is Alig.
It’s clear that surface-level issues people have with Desmond such as inappropriate outfits and performances are only the tip of the iceberg. At best, he is experiencing severe neglect. At worst, abuse.
I chronicled all of these allegations and more in the video below. I hope people can begin focusing on these far more urgent aspects of Desmond’s story rather than just the fact that he is a drag kid.
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If your Valentine’s Day plans fall through, there’s a Bernie Sanders phone sex line
I’ve been trying to get through to the Bernie phone sex hotline 1-833-NOT ME US all day, but I keep getting the busy signal. I’ve had to sate myself with the few videos on Instagram, because there’s nothing more progressive than a woman playing up her sex appeal to advocate for social justice.
In a take-off on the campy phone sex ads of yore, a woman lounges before a fire, writhing about in tiger print. With serious eye shadow, accompanied by a 70s beat, she gazes seductively into the camera.
“The best part of a fantasy,” she whispers breathlessly, stroking a rose across her cheek, “is someone there to share it with. Don’t you agree? My fantasy is Medicare for all. For just $27 you can make my fantasy a reality. Donate today. Feel the Bern.”
A blonde in leopard print holds a phone to her ear and coos to the viewer to “come closer. Closer. Closer. Closer. Okay, that’s fine. Sorry, I couldn’t see you so well. My prescription isn’t covered by my healthcare plan. But if you call and donate today, we could have a president that believes in Medicare for all. Don’t be shy. Do you feel the Bern? I sure do. And I should probably go get it checked out. Another reason why we all need healthcare. Call today, I’ll be waiting.”
Launched by comedian, writer and director Amber Schaefer, this campaign, released on Valentine’s Day, is meant to draw viewers in with a little comic sex appeal. Schaefer was also the brains behind The People’s Perfume campaign, another pro-Bernie ad. This was a take-off on the absurd perfume spots that show careless wealthy pretty people frolicking about in nature. The ad touts “Medicare for all,” and features a perfume bottle topped with a bobble-head Bernie.
Schaefer is also responsible for #HotGirlsForBernie, and is part of a group called Titsout4Bernie, in which women from both coasts team up on the best ways to do hot grassroots organizing for the 78-year-old Senator from Vermont. They want to show that his supporters aren’t just bros. Although, this kind of advertising might be just the thing to draw more bros to the cause.
Speaking to Refinery 29, Schaefer said “I wanted to make sure the ads feel luxurious. I think there’s a misconception about socialism that it means we can’t have nice things. I love nice clothes, I love designer clothes, I love perfume, I love lipstick. I also love talking about income inequality and prison reform. Democratic socialism is really just asking people not to economically oppress each other.”
Though her ads may be titilating, Schaefer definitely has the wrong idea about socialism. Socialism is not typically known as the political system that allows for everyone to have luxury. Instead, socialism advocates for equity, wherein everyone has the same things, and that has typically resulted in everyone having the same reduction in lifestyle as opposed to elevation.
Putting the word “democratic” in front of “socialism” doesn’t actually change anything. But it sure does sex it up a little. If only all the socialists in history facilitated lingerie limousine lipstick parties for the lumpenproletariat, maybe the gulags would have had more lasting power.
While Bernie supporters like Schaefer independently craft memes and campaigns in support of his socialist message, Mike Bloomberg has been paying influencers to make memes for him. Bloomberg, who will be officially entering the race come Super Tuesday on March 3, has jumped into the social media verse using the best tool he has on hand: his giant pile of cash.
After it was revealed that the new Bloomie memes were not naturally occurring, but a product of the campaign’s efforts, Instagram launched a new “branded content” tag that will show on posts made by paid influencers. To his credit, Bloomberg was not shy about owning the fact that he hired creators to create for his campaign.
The campaigns and their supporters know that the kind of typical political advertising that has been shown to date is inadequate in its reach and message. Quippy, sexy, fun, creative messaging across platforms is the only thing that many voters, especially young ones, are apt to pay attention to. Whether they care if those ads are naturally occurring from a creative supporter base or rise fully formed and funded by the campaigns themselves is yet to be seen.
For now, I’m gonna keep trying to dial the Bernie phone sex line, because there’s nothing more enticing than political pillow talk. Oops. The line’s still busy. I guess lots of people want to hear the erotic messaging of socialist ideology.
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