Reddit user Ken Hoinsky was running a successful Kickstarter campaign for his book Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome With Women when controversy erupted over what some saw as the sexist and potentially dangerous nature of its contents – as a “guide for rape.” In response, Kickstarter issued an apology, banned “seduction guides” from its platform, and donated $25,000 to RAINN. Hoinsky, seen above, was disappointed in Kickstarter’s decision:
They’re a private company and they can do whatever they want, but it’s a cop-out, and it’s an overreaction on their part.
Maria Bustillos sympathizes with his situation:
No one has a “right” to Kickstarter. Out in the real world, however, we know that the rights to publish and speak are ten thousand times more important than the overheated rantings of some fool who can’t read. As PUA [pick up artist] guides go, Hoinsky’s is very, very far from being the most aggressive or objectifying. It is an entirely harmless book—as all books are. … [I]t is wrong and dangerous to suggest that shutting someone up is the best answer to any problem, ever.
Kat Stoeffel counters that “it’s okay to hate” Above the Game:
Hoinsky’s book may not be a rape manual, but it is a guide to exploiting the less-than-ideal conditions under which women have sex. It doesn’t hamper anyone’s free speech to say he’s unqualified to write about women to the point of being bad for them — or criticize Kickstarter for profiting from it.
Emily Greenhouse zooms out:
[T]he removal of Hoinsky’s project from Kickstarter might initially seem like a violation of free speech. But the right to publish is quite different from the right to speak, particularly on a platform like the Web. It’s the difference between a fundamental right and a market proposition. … It isn’t Kickstarter’s responsibility to endorse every project that it posts, and it isn’t Twitter’s responsibility to stand behind everything that’s tweeted. But their business models are built on the creations of others. Kickstarter skims money off of each successful project. What Kickstarter was made to realize, and what these other companies have already learned, is that when you profit from something, even if you don’t condone it, you’re complicit.
The Dish 