62 MILLION VIEWS

Fuck You Motherless. Fuck you for existing. Fuck you for making me write this.

We need to talk about Motherless, and the “Online Rape Academy.”

Photo by Kaur Kristjan on Unsplash

Motherless

62 million stories,
62 million betrayals,
62 million ways our society has failed.

62 million pics,
62 million clicks,
62 million led by their shriveled, little dicks.

62 Million daughters,
62 Million sons,
62 Million eyes averted while the marketing machinery hums.

62 Million hurts,
62 Million still asleep,
62 Million tears —
We weep,
and weep,
and weep.

62 million views.

20,000 videos.

and growing.

And more:

• Andrew Tate and his 1 MILLION Subscribers on Substack

• “Your body, MY choice.”

• The Mormon wives phenomenon and the resurgent ideal of the subservient, submissive “trad-wife.”

I’d rather be doing anything else than writing this. There are dozens of other topics I’d rather be writing about. If truth be told, a part of me wishes that I could “unknow” what I’ve learned of this darkness, and go on blissfully ignorant and asleep.

But the great teachers tell us there are no reversals of the awakening process. And once one is awake, there is no going back to sleep. No going back to dreaming.

So, here I am, writing what is likely an unnecessary and pointless post-mortem of horror, attempting to explain the unexplainable, provide comfort for the fearful, and love for the shattered.

The Story

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months or so, (which if you are, I certainly wouldn’t blame you - That sounds pretty good right now. I might even ask you to make me some space next to you!) you have undoubtedly heard about the shocking CNN expose, “Online Rape Academy.”

I won’t go into too much detail, as there are plenty of articles that dig into those. So suffice it to say that they uncovered a collection of websites where men post, brag, and teach about sexually assaulting unconscious women - wives, mothers, daughters, children, women in their own family, women they claim to love - in the most heinous ways conceivable.

A word of warning: this is not going to be a thoroughly researched piece with multiple references to the DSM-5 and scholarly journal articles. Instead, it will be entirely based on my candid thoughts from 50 years on this planet —reading, listening, and thinking about people.

If you know me at all, you know that I’m always watching documentaries on cults and crime, reading about history and the forces that shape it, and learning about sociopathic and psychopathic behavior. Because I want to understand. Because I want to know and understand what makes people tick. Because I want to know and understand what we can do to make things better.

I watch, not because of any lack of repulsion at the depravity of humanity, but because of an irresistible attraction to the vagrancies of the human psyche. Figuring out what makes us tick. What are our motivations? What are the forces that cause us to do evil things? So that, hopefully, we can set things right. Correct course where we have lost our way, where things have gone wrong.

Because something has gone very, very wrong.

In my podcast junkie days, one of my favorites was My Favorite Murder. A true-crime series featuring two female comedians who deftly walked the razor-thin line between humor and horrifically violent crime to dazzling effect.

It was something I made a conscious decision to give up, as a part of my quest for spiritual growth and enlightenment, looking to bring a little more light into my life, and not let the darkness weigh me down.

But now, with the recent revelations about Motherless, I find that side of me being drawn back in. Not because I want to, or choose to. But because I have to.

My instinct in this moment is to take on the role of an FBI Profiler and come up with a hypothesis for how this could happen. How large numbers of seemingly “normal” men could become so warped as to believe they were justified in drugging and raping their wives, girlfriends and even mothers, sisters and children, filming it, and even sharing, selling, and providing tips for others on how to do it without being detected.

Hard-Wired to Worry?

What has always stuck out to me is the popularity of shows like the aforementioned Murder, particularly among women. TV shows like 48 Hours. Entire networks devoted to dramatizing crime. The fascination with the whole Savannah Guthrie saga. What is going on here? Why are women so obsessed with true crime?

At one time, I listened to another podcaster, Adam Carolla, who also looked at this question and came up with his own answers. He hypothesized that females had evolved with an instinct toward hyper-vigilance. That they are, in essence, “hard-wired” to worry. A survival instinct that no longer serves us so well. He called it “First-world problems.” Basically the idea being that in our advanced civilization there was nothing “real” to worry about. Maslow’s essentials: Getting food, water, shelter — those are for the most part taken care of for many of us. So we create “Boogeymen”: Gluten. Allergies. micro-plastics. 5G wireless towers causing cancer. “Toxins.” Malevolent vaccines with mind-controlling microchips. The list goes on and on.

Like Don Quixote, “tilting at windmills.”

“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills.”

But what I’ve realized is that while there may be some truth to these ideas, it doesn’t account for everything. And some things that bring fear and give women cause to worry do not live only in imagination. Many arise from lived experience.

When my youngest daughter was in 9th or 10ᵗʰ grade, she did a paper on “Rape Culture.” Now bear in mind, this was before #MeToo. Though I hid it, or at least tried my best, I was nonetheless a bit taken aback and incredulous at the term. But as I read over what she had written, that initial resistance started to crumble.

This really was a thing. It was not isolated incidents. Not he-said, she-said arguments. It was a real problem. And then later, after that hashtag took up residence in the culture, I started reading the stories, and it was undeniable.

But still, my eyes were only cracked open.

I didn’t recognize how far the rot went.

The CNN article, and the subsequent discussion of it, was like someone shoving toothpicks in my eyes, forcing them fully open. And now forcing my hands to write about it.

What’s With All the Rape?

I used to read novels written by women, crime novels, thrillers, romances — and I always had the question — why so much rape?

I had the same question listening to true crime podcast, and history podcasts. And listening to the latter, I would think - thank God our girls don’t have to grow up in THAT world.

Mostly because I have warm blood beating through my veins and heart, they always disturbed me - but I never turned them off - even the absolute worst of them - which in my mind was probably the Karin Slaughter novel, Pretty Girls.

Recently listening to the latest Freida McFadden novel, Dear Debbie, I was again reminded of this. In it we find the protagonist explaining the turning point in her life. The moment when a promising future went to shit. And it’s the same story we’ve heard a thousand times. Second semester of her sophomore year, frat party, a drink accepted, and a uncomfortable night suffered through to appease a roommate turns in to a personal horror show.

We’ve head it so many times, its become a trope.

So much so, that we have become a bit inured or inoculated to it.

Some would say that writers use it for the shock value. To create a sense of fear in the reader or listener to be exploited.

But then #MeToo happened. My own daughter writing that report happened. And I started reading. I started listening to the REAL stories. And I listened to what my daughters were telling me about their experiences as not-yet-women.

And then I had an epiphany.

It’s there — because it’s a universal female experience.

It’s not the literary world that’s flooded with the savagery of rape and sexual assault —

It’s the world.

It’s not universal because it’s happened to every woman. But it has touched every woman. It has touched every person. No one is immune to the impacts. No one is spared the effects.

The truth is, it is not rare or infrequent or random. It happens constantly, consistently, repeatedly. We imagine it as rare because only a tiny fraction of them are even reported. And even less prosecuted.

Searching for Answers

I asked myself the question: How does this happen? What are the reasons behind the switch being flipped in the minds of so many men that this behavior somehow morphed into something acceptable?

I came up with several:

• Pure Hatred. A desire to degrade and to see women degraded

• Payback for a perceived trauma. Rejection or similar.

• Lack of love in childhood. Abuse - Emotional and Physical.

• Entitlement. - I’m a man, and this is my birthright!

• Shame and guilt. Distorted, convoluted ideas about sexuality and intimacy - from the church and society.

• Uncontrolled, animalistic urges given free reign - permitted and sanctioned by an accepting community.

I have had several women explain to me that I am on the wrong track — that it’s simply about hate, acquiring and holding power, exerting dominance, instilling fear…

And it is easy to leave it at those. These have indeed been shown to be powerful motivators. Responsible for far too much violence and trauma on women. And the entire species in general.

But the whole added matter of unconsciousness is greatly disturbing. And it leads me to believe there is something deeper. Something darker behind it.

So I dug deeper…

You Got a Girl???

As a man, I definitely have had my share of disturbing conversations with men about women. In locker rooms, in dorm rooms, in army barracks, and elsewhere.

I want to share one from my Army Basic Training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (“Misery”, as we affectionately termed it) that may seem innocuous at first, but possibly holds the secret to these awful things within it.

In our 8-man squad, there were two young black men who were battle buddies, and become good friends. Both tall and lanky, several inches taller than my 6’2” frame. One, a soft spoken fellow from Atlanta, named Patrick (Last names only, as is Army custom). And the other, from nearby St. Louis, McGowan.

In our little world, they were the shit. They possessed an urban slickness, a big-city, street-smart appeal that was totally novel to most of us from tiny towns and villages. And it was McGowan, with his loud, unapologetic, unfiltered boisterousness, who was the epitome of cool.

One day we were sitting in the barracks, chatting, cleaning our weapons, cleaning the barracks or some other such mundane activity when I heard McGowan, who was having an animated conversation with his friend.

"Maaaahhhhnnn, I can’t wait to get back to my girl…Get me some of that suuuwweeet Lovin’…”

and then a question — directed unexpectedly to me:

“Waddell, you got a girl?”

to which I responded truthfully, and a bit sheepishly:

“No. I don’t.”

“A big, tough dude like you, and you got no girl? Man, when you get back, you’d better take care of that!”

Now I’m sure that the actual conversation was plenty more vulgar.

But still, it seems like an innocent conversation between friends, right?

And it is - on the surface.

But between the lines is the fuel behind Andrew Tate, Motherless, “Your Body, My choice”, even MAGA.

It is performative.

driven by one thing — status.

Photo by Meritt Thomas on Unsplash - Jordon Perterson reader will get it

There is a school of psychology that attributes many our actions to the seeking of status. That is a secondary, but often domination behavior after the immediate survival needs are met.

The way it is explained it that we seek pleasure in the form of our perception in the eyes of others. Are were included in the in group. Are we perceived as powerful? Feared? Respected?

It’s clear that we will do heinous things to fit in and be part of the group.

Look at the horrors committed by the Germans and the Japanese in World War II. Look at Nanking. Look at Auschwitz. Look at Abu Ghraib and My Lai. And a thousand and one other atrocities.

Each speaks to just how powerfully the need for status talks.

And by posting their own content, by showing their knowledge, by being perceived as an EXPERT, even in a topic so depraved as this, they gain that respect. Are acknowleged as being at the top of their tiny “kingdom.”

It’s not about power. Or at least, not JUST about power. It’s about fitting in. It’s about respect. It’s about status.

The Economics of Sex

• It’s the reason prostitution is still illegal.

• It’s the reason why Trump was able to say dispicable things like “Grab ‘em by the pussy” with no repercussions.

• The reason that the Epstein Files are sitting in a room somewhere, collecting dust.

Now I’m really going to go off into the weeds a bit, and its probably going to piss of a lot of my female friends. Which I totally would understand.

So I’m going to approach it as delicately, yet as straight-forward as possible. so if you find yourself inclined to anger, please try to give me the benefit of the doubt, and remember that this is more of a hypothesis than a true theory, very much a work-in-progress, and, ultimately, we’re on the same side here!

The reason for sex playing such a large role in the status equation is that we assign it so high a value.

Now, this is not entirely without cause. And traditionally its been because women assume most, if not all the risk. The risk of raising a child. The risk of bodily harm. Even the risk of death.

But the risk, and consequently the value, has been greatly amplified by the institution of patriarchy.

The truth is that there have always been two sets of rules:

• Aristocracy and gentry vs the common folk

• Senators vs plebes,

• Kings and Lords vs serfs and peasants

These are the people who have traditionally held the power. That have established themselves perpetually at the top of a dominance hierarchy they constructed for the purpose of hoarding resources and consolidating power.

And one of the chief ways they have sought to hold that power is through the concepts of perceived scarcity and manufactured, artificial scarcity.

And one of the big ways they have done this is the church. Creating a stigma around sex. Especially sex outside of marriage. Stigmas around “illegitimate” children. Masturbation. Homosexuality. Transgender identification. “Provocative” dress.

Everything that takes a perfectly natural, miraculous biological process and expression of love and turns it into something rigidly defined and something both aspirational (especially for males) and shameful (for all). A “duty” and a “temptation,” instead of a blessing from God.

And so, If sex is seen not as a thing freely given and freely received, as a “precious” thing, a prized commodity, those who can have it immediately see a rise in perceived status. Not just have it. But have it on demand. With beautiful people. Much as what comes to mind when we think of a King or Sultan and his courtesans or harem.

Now that the idea is sold, they can placate and give good will. But not true power. FALSE power.

The patriarchy has long equated sexual dominion with power. It has corrupted minds, mostly make minds, to believe that the only true power lies in control. Controlling women, controlling resources, controlling other men.

But if you believe power lies in control. in controlling — a woman, a child, another person — You are the one being controlled.

The question to ask yourself is: By whom? And to what purpose?

VAMPIRES

The patriarchy is so
effective in its propaganda
that frail men cling to that vampire,
even as it kills them.

Sucks the blood from their bodies.
Sucks the marrow from their souls.

Holding back tears,
Behind great river locks,
They cling to it for meaning —

Instead of finding meaning within.

Finding meaning in service.
Finding meaning in kindness.
Finding meaning in love.

Photo by Luc Bercoth on Unsplash

In the end, it’s simple economics.

It works on the same laws of supply and demand that give us VIP sections at the club. limited reservations. Blocking of a section of a dining area.

We see it in blood-soaked diamond cartels, limited-edition, gold-plated phones that never get delivered, and coins minted with pictures of pedophiles on them.

So for those males who have been told a lie about “Rugged American Individualism” and white-supremecist, patriarchically-linked fables of their god-given, inherent worthiness, who have failed to manifest the life that lie promised them, who are stuck in the mud, who can’t get rich, who can’t have political power — could this type of control of another human being be the next best thing?

And when we elect lawmakers and executives to office who consistently undermine protections against women, indeed who have been accused and even CONVICTED of crimes against women, can we really be surprised when thousands, if not, millions of men feel emboldened enough to post videos of their own crimes against unconscious women on the Internet?

I am still convinced that what men actually want is connection. But they are to ashamed to admit it. They’ve been brainwashed to believe that desire makes them less of a man, less than they are. That as a gender, they must be tough, stoic providers, with little room for anything else.

They’ve been conditioned that sex is connection. The only man-approved form of connection. And if they are deprived of that, that the perceived deprivers, namely woman, must be the enemy. And enemies must be subdued, conquered, forced to submit. And a world of enemies is a world devoid of connection.

The Devil We Don’t Want to Talk About

(dealing with the affects of abuse)

Recently I came across a story in a book I was reading that horrified me. It indicated where we come from, and the societal trauma that we are in the process of healing. It informed a lot of my thinking about this topic and all areas of aberrant behavior.

In Dan Carlin‘s, The End is Always Near, the creator of the Hardcore History Podcast relates a story of how in times when public executions were commonplace, parents would not only bring their children to the site of the execution, but they would also beat the children at the same time, with the intent to forge a permanent link in their developing minds between the ideas of crime, punishment and pain.

What does this do to a person? What does it do to a society CREATED by such people? How long does it take for those effects to fade?

Opening of the Walnut Street Bridge, Chattanooga - A local fixture with a sordid past.

In the documentary, Crazy, not Insane, renowned clinical psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis discusses her life devoted to studying and interviewing serial killers. She shows how evidence of physical as well as emotional trauma is nearly universal among perpetrators of these seemingly “senseless crimes.”

It made me consider, what would we find if we looked at the brains of the people involved in the unspeakable crimes we see in the case of Motherless and related sites?

It made me consider, what would we find if we looked at the brains of the people involved in the unspeakable crimes we see in the case of Motherless and related sites?

We might say that the only ones unaffected are the perpetrators and the witnesses. But even that is a lie. Either they have suffered such abuse, or their minds have been poisoned by a society that openly condones or even tacitly encourages this abhorrent behavior.

Something we refuse to let go of as a society is the idea that there is a magical switch flipped when a human reaches the age of 18 and what we could before attribute to the effects of abuse in childhood, no matter how hideous that abuse was, now become solely that one person’s responsibility, and they must receive all the punishment for the resulting crimes.

In reality, we all share the responsibility.

And, shirking that responsibility, we all are duly punished.

The Virtualized World, Impersonalizing “Content”, and the True Cost of AI Slop

People say its 62 million views, not 62 million people committing the crimes. They are right. And that’s its own problem.

And it’s something we really need to understand as we move to heal the damage we have created.

If you are a bit older like I am, firmly Gen X, or possibly Gen Z, and don’t currently have pre-teens or teenagers and so are are not immersed in “youth culture,” you may not be familiar with what it’s like out there.

If you didn’t grow up on the internet, you may not fully realize just how immersed in the online world younger people, and how dominant a role social media has in their lives.

And because of that, you might not be fully cognizant of what that is doing to our youth. Or even the influence of it on older generations.

But it is all-pervasive.

Our young people are growing up in a society so far removed from anything our species has ever dealt with, it might as well be a different planet. They are growing up in a ocean of disconnection. A world that grinds down every raw end of their psyches. A world that is, not unintentionally, but FOCUSED on turning everything into objects - over-stimulation, over-selling, over-EVERYTHING is the new rule of the Day. AI, VR, a MILLION kinds of porn.

A Virtualized World - Normalized.

What is sold is not connection, but extraction.

And that is the thought that is invading and taking up root in impressionable minds. Every. Single. Day.

A Wake-Up Call

I started watching the acclaimed HBO series Euphoria, which came out in 2019, mind you - and it is both shocking and disturbing. It reminded me just what it is like for adolescents and young adults. Males especially.

Minds are literally flooded with conflicting messages, disturbing images, and ubiquitous porn. It’s something our brains are not equipped to handle. We have not had time to evolve mechanisms to defend our fragile psyches. And not only has it been shown to burn out our pleasure centers, the dopamine sensors which drive much of our behavior…

But even more, It blurs the lines of morality, muddling the concepts of wrong and right.

Indeed, it becomes harder and harder to get that rush that comes with the “forbidden fruit” and just as the junkie seeks a better fix, one that bring back that euphoric initial high, the voyeur seeks more extreme content. And they have been taught there is no harm is watching. Its already out there. it’s not harming anyone.

With every exposure to porn, particularly porn that portrays sex in a unrealistic manner, it chips away at our morality, associating the beauty of that creative, unifying, intensely spiritual act with violence and degradation.

Dissociation is inevitable. Disconnect is inevitable.

“Just one more kink”

This overwhelming surge of sexual content creates a world of sexual objects instead of people, where anything is admissible, where people don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Everything SEEMS staged, making every place A stage.

Everything gets lumped together in one amorphous blob of ‘internet porn” — ever-expanding, ever-escalating, ever-desensitizing.

Flashing images. Not persons. Not victims. No one exploited. No questions of consent and permission. Just a constant unending stream of sex.

People don’t even believe it’s real.

Justifications — reasons why it’s okay to watch are devised — propagating women-as-property thinking:

Whatever, it’s just another porn. It’s not real. It’s staged. It’s pretend.

They’re actors. They’re in on it. They are okay with it.

It’s not my concern.

Strawberry fields.
Nothing is real.
Nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields Forever.

The Beatles

If you don’t think this corrupts, if you don’t think this desensitizes, that it warps impressionable minds, then we’ve got even farther to go than I believed. And that is truly a disturbing thought.

One last thought: AI without guardrails — is it really a stretch?

Speaking of disturbing, recently, I watched an episode of the show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver — probably my favorite show on TV. The featured topic was the deluge of AI Chatbots that have been released on an unsuspecting public, and how they have come with few if any guardrails and have led in some cases, to delusions, psychosis, and even, in the most tragic of these, death by suicide. It is a scourge affecting as many as 500,000 people each WEEK.

You may ask: What does this have to do with the sick people on Motherless?

Everything.

If we have “intelligences” advocating for self-harm, is it really a stretch to think that they could advocate or at least rationalize harming and victimizing others?

What Now?

It is not enough for the Light to be brought to the darkness. The darkness must be brought to the Light.

Marrianne Williamson - paraphrasing A Course in Miracles

So, as we near the end of this, perhaps overly-long essay/treatise/rant, what was the point, past being merely the intellectual exercise of an aging mind shouting at passing clouds?

What do we do with this knowledge? Where do we go from here? What actions do we take?

Of course, we should support legislation against these sites.

Of course, we should listen to the stories of survivors — of all forms of abuse

Of course, we should advocate — for their care, for the persecution of the perpetrators of violence.

Of course, we should do all that.

Accountability and better enforcement of the laws can help.

Better monitoring of the internet can help.

But they can only be part of the solution.

We must go further.

We must assign stigma instead of status to who perpetrate age-old behaviors, who shame and ridicule women, who maintain the patriarchical systems of control.

We must flip the hierarchy by making status something gained by helping. By doing good. By sharing instead of hoarding. By valuing love over gold.

We must change the economics of sex. End the cycles of trauma and abuse. Find an antidote to the poison that has seeped into our minds and heal what has been broken for so long.

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash

We must see others not as objects but as ourselves. Not as barriers to success, but brothers in love.

All of this must happen.

But in order for it to happen, I ask you to go deeper.

I make what may be an impossible ask —

but I ask it anyway.

I ask that somehow, somewhere within you, you find compassion for all involved.

The victimized and the victimizers. The abused and the abusers.

That you see them all as Children of God.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

From Call Me By My Real Name - Thich Nhat Hanh

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2088

Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash

We are not separate.

This may upset you. Particularly if you, or someone you love, has suffered in this way. And I understand that — on a personal level.

I’m not attempting to apologize for the monstrous, only trying to make some sense of the senseless.

I want you to know that you are not alone in your suffering. None of us are alone in our suffering.

Remember we are only a few generations away from a time when public executions were commonplace, as was viewing people as property solely because of their skin color.

We are products of an age-old, decaying system. And these are the symptoms of the dysfunction of that doomed system that is now in its death knells, slated to fade away, leaving behind a better one.

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash

There are two kinds of people in the world.

Those who have learned to Love,

And those yet to.

The process of awakening is far from complete.

But it is necessary.

And it is inevitable.

In this, we pray.

In this, we put our faith for the future.

A world of hate can never be transformed by more hate.

Only by love.

Was this the first you heard of Motherless? What was your initial reaction? Anger? Shock? Dismay? Sadness? Has it changed? What about your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Disagree? Ready to end your subscription? Please share - your thoughts, your pain, your experience, your story.

Only by sharing, do we heal. Ourselves, each other — and the world.

Addendum:

In the weeks it took me to collect my thoughts and put this piece together, the website in question, Motherless, was, gratefully, taken down.

While this is great, wonderful news, undoubtedly worthy of being celebrated, it is not nearly the end of the story.

We must remind ourselves that this was but one outlet. One sealed crack in a festering, putrid, rotting pot. We must stay diligent, we must keep our eyes and ears open, even, and particular for what we find distasteful and repugnant-what we do not want to hear. We must prosecute. and hold accountable the perpetrators of violence and degradation: we must listen and believe the stories of the women brave enough to speak the truth. And, perhaps most important, we who consider ourselves “good men”must speak up against misogny and patriarchical thinking where ever we see it. Where ever it harms women. Where ever it gives the okay that behavior such as this could possibly be tolerated.

Others will rise up to take its place. The rot still exists. Those who believe that we can create a better world must stay vigilant.

It won’t be comfortable. Changing the world NEVER is. But the reward it SO worth it.

The devil is always busy.

Continue to be the Light.

Second Addendum:

So I spoke too soon. As Linda Caroll wrote about recently, Motherless is back online.

I’ll leave you to sit with that.

Motherless is back, can we talk?

Some more of my work you may like to read.

A note in closing:

Everything that I publish here on Substack is completely free for all to read and share - for the simple reason that I don’t want the pressure of having to churn out content to meet outside expectations. Only to share what I am called to from my heart.

If you’re wondering why I have cut my schedule to once a week, it’s simply because I know you are already inundated with demands on your time, and I don’t want to add more.

If you resonate with that idea and wish to support me in this journey, without expectation, I would be more than grateful.

You can read more about my philosophy and find other ways to support me in the following post.

Peace and blessings,

Aaron