The ‘Philosophy’ of Rape

In an online world that is increasingly fraught with extreme hatred of women, the subreddit named PhilosophyOfRape may actually be the most vile and malicious English-language expression of misogyny on the Internet. 

The subreddit, a forum that was created by an anonymous user last Sept. 28, promotes the “corrective” rape of “s----,” “harlots” and just about any other woman or girl, and promises to help readers get away with it. Its founder reportedly claims to have personally raped seven women, and a visitor to the site recently bemoaned his own arrest and 10-year sentence after following the site’s advice.

“These harpies need to be humbled,” the forum’s creator, who also goes by PhilosophyOfRape, wrote in his opening statement, which he described as “serious as a heart attack.” “We’re talking about filthy, unmitigated s----. Obvious and loud. Shameless. Belligerent. Entitled. Selfie taking, Tindr-whoring, Teenage-walking-herpes-sores. We are talking about bad, bad individuals. Unruly, neglicted [sic], children, run-amok. That badly need to be punished. Badly. For the good of society, these women need to be raped. Here we will teach how to do it safely.”

Reddit, which has been contacted by numerous users over the last few months, has declined to shut down the subreddit, even after it was reported to the FBI and “Jaghut_rapist” wrote in to describe his own experience after visiting it.

 “I did myself some correction after reading this sub,” that user said in a comment headed “F--- this sub and all it’s [sic] ideas.” “It really seemed like a good idea. Now the police are after me. DON’T rape women. You WILL be caught. Goddam. I’m just going to kill myself.” Days later, the same user wrote to say he’d been arrested and pleaded guilty after being threatened with 20 years in prison.

While some have speculated that PhilosophyOfRape is satire, that seems clearly untrue. The site really does offer rape advice — the claim, for example, that Halloween is the No. 2 day of the year for unsolved rapes because going masked that night will not attract police interest — and its founder’s vicious diatribes are unrelieved by any attempt at humor. PhilosophyOfRape has even proposed finding a way to “crowd fund” the “correction” of women, but worried about how to make sure that rewards only go to those who commit verifiable rapes.

The site reasons that while rape indeed harms women, it is “absolutely justifiable” because men have a right to sex. “Sex is a basic human need,” it says. “So if a man is having that withheld from him, it is justifiable that he would take it by force if necessary.” It also argues that women are stupid and promiscuous, and that they need to be put back in their place by violent sexual assault.

The site attracts more than its share of the criminally minded. “Do you think fathers should f--- their daughters?” one wrote in, adding without irony that that “would ingrain in them a healthy view of men.” Another user asked when a girl is too young to rape and was told that “9-15 is a decent range to start corrections.” And still another user who said he had “f----- a girl while she was unconscious” was told by someone else on the site that if that were true, he had “done good.”

The site’s founder has not detailed his own attacks on women on the site, but did do so on The Red Pill subreddit, according to an article on the We Hunted the Mammoth website. “I so far have Corrected 7,” PhilosophyOfRape reportedly wrote before his comment was deleted. “Two last year but over five already in 2014 and a brother I’ve brought into the fold has already Corrected his first one.”

Reddit, which also houses numerous savagely anti-black subreddits (see story, p. 14), prides itself on untrammelled free speech, although it has occasionally shut down subreddits. But even many of its libertarian-minded users have found PhilosophyOfRape, which had 110 subscribers at press time, deserving of banning.

“Reddit is an enormous influence on the culture, and it has been a pretty nasty influence of late,” one user wrote on the site. Many pointed to Elliot Rodger, the sex-starved 22-year-old who murdered six people in a fit of misogynistic rage during a California rampage last May, and who had earlier posted misogynistic comments on another woman-bashing website. As one PhilosophyOfRape visitor concluded during a discussion of Reddit’s reluctance to police even the most despicable content, “They want to host a training school for violent criminals.”