About

Daryush Valizadeh, better known by his online handle Roosh V, is an American blogger and pickup artist best known for running the manosphere website Return of Kings. Valizadeh has been widely criticized online for promoting misogyny and rape in written opinions on gender and sexuality.

Online History

In March 2005, Valizadeth created the blog DC Bachelor^[18] to provide dating advice for men living in the Washington, D.C. area. In November 2006, Valizadeth launched his personal blog RooshV,^[17] containing posts related to seduction and pickup artistry. In June 2007, Valizadeth uploaded the first video to his Roosh V^[20] YouTube channel, titled "How a Chef Cuts an Onion" (shown below).

In 2008, he published the book Bang, describing it as a "pickup textbook intended for men who wren't born with the natural ability to sleep with a lot of women."^[19] According to an interview with the men's rights blog A Voice For Men,^[21] Valizadeth became a full time writer after due to the book's commercial success. On February 19th, 2012, Valizadeth uploaded a video titled "Alpha Male vs Beta Male," comparing the dating strategies of two different types of men (shown below).

Return of Kings

On May 5th, 2012, Valizadeh launched the site Return of Kings,^[1] which describes itself as "a blog for heterosexual, masculine men" who believe in traditional gender roles.^[2] The site's "About" page previously criticized the Men's Rights Movement, saying "we are generally against men’s rights and how they portray men as victims in need of state assistance." The mention of men's rights was removed in 2016.

Southern Poverty Law Center Report

In March 2012, the non-profit advocacy organization Southern Poverty Law Center^[4] (SPLC) listed "Roosh V" in a report titled "Misogyny: The Sites," citing Valizadeh's pickup artist manuals and statements about "hate fucking" women as evidence of his misogyny:

"Roosh Vörek is a Maryland-raised PUA ("pick up artist") whose specialty is sex with foreign women; his blog is a sales vehicle for his books like Bang: The Pick Up Bible and Bang Iceland: How to Sleep With Icelandic Women in Iceland, which one Icelandic feminist group described as a 'rape guide.' Vörek likes to talk about his many 'notches' (seductions) and such things as 'American cunts who I want to hate fuck.' He adds: 'I'll be the first to admit that many of my bangs in the United States were hate fucks. The masculine attitude and lack of care these women put into their style or hair irritated me, so I made it a point to fuck them and never call again.'"

On March 9th, Business Insider published an op-ed by journalist Michael Dougherty titled "A Civil Rights Group Is Now Criticizing Random Jerks For Not Calling Women Back After Sex," which argued that the SPLC was ruining its reputation by going after pickup artists. On May 12th, the SPLC^[5] published a followup report titled "Intelligence Report Article Provokes Fury Among Men's Rights Activists," which claimed the purpose of the original report was to "call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence."

"How to Stop Rape" Article

On February 16th, 2015, Valizadeth published an article titled "How to Stop Rape" on his personal blog,^[6] which argued that rape should be legalized if done on the rapists private property.

"I thought about this problem and am sure I have the solution: make rape legal if done on private property. I propose that we make the violent taking of a woman not punishable by law when done off public grounds."

The article was widely condemned online, with many news sites criticizing Valizadeth for promoting sexual assault.^[7][8][9] On August 8th, The ConU YouTube channel uploaded footage of a woman throwing a beer in Valizadeth's face and yelling "this is the guy who thinks rape should be legal" at a bar in Montreal, Canada (shown below).

On February 2nd, 2016, Valizadeth posted a tweet^[16] claiming that the article was written as "satire," and that he did not believe rape should be legalized (shown below).

Petitions

In July 2015, a petition was created on Change.org^[12] to "DENY Roosh V Accommodation in Canada for the Purposes of Disseminating Hate." By the end of September, the petition garnered upwards of 46,900 supporters.

In August, a petition was created on Change.org^[13] urging Amazon to cease selling Valizadeth's pickup artist manuals, referring to them as "rape books." Within six months, the page accumulated more than 47,290 supporters.

Global Meetup Event

On January 6th, 2016, Valizadeth announced^[11] plans for an international "Tribal Meetup Day" to be held in 40 different countries on February 6th, describing the event as the first of what would be "regular meetups that serve men in their local communities in a way that internet platforms do not." On January 31st, a Change.org^[14] petition to prevent a meetup from occurring in Sydney, Australia was created, gaining over 100,241 supporters in five days.

On February 3rd, Valizadeth posted an announcement^[10] that the event was cancelled due to concerns about the "safety or privacy of the men who wants to attend." The following day, The Daily Mail reported that Valizadeh had called police after receiving death threats for planning the events, and that he was living in his mother's basement in Silver Springs, Maryland.

Personal Life

Valizadeh was born on June 14th, 1979 in the United States to parents that had immigrated from Armenia and Iran. In 2001, he received a bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Search Interest

External References