Yes All Men

Misogyny extends far beyond overt violence and rape. It survives in subtler, more pernicious forms, and all men remain complicit.

The Substack Rapist

Recently, social media lit up with a lurid claim: 62 million men had visited an online “rape academy.” The phrase spread because CNN had uncovered something vile and real. Reporters traced thousands of videos of women unconscious during sex acts to Motherless, a user-generated porn site that gets more than 60 million visits a month. CNN also infiltrated a private Telegram group with almost a thousand members devoted to sharing so-called “sleep content.” Inside that group, one man admitted crushing pills into his wife’s drink and raping her in her sleep.

Snopes later flagged the “62-million-men” claim as false. But the scandal points to a worse truth: the fringe rape academy was a small private Telegram group but the mainstream version now lives on Substack.

Since this came to light, the Substack news feed has been in an uproar over professional misogynist Andrew Tate’s prominent position on the platform. A groundswell of writers are now discussing moving their content elsewhere in protest. Their anger is justified, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.

I hope Substack removes this actual monster instead.

Andrew Tate built a subscription business around victimizing women. ABC News reported in 2022 that Hustler’s University had more than 100,000 subscribers paying $49 a month. That’s nearly $5,000,000 a month—a corporate juggernaut making $60M annually, from Tate’s advocacy for the humiliation, trafficking and objectification of women. His loyalty program rewarded members for reposting Tate clips across TikTok and other platforms.

His followers functioned as his sales force.

Tate’s entire public persona consists of reinforcing male coercive control over women. That message drew a mass audience and made him one of the top figures in the filthy, violent “manosphere.”

His legal record is long and damning. Reuters reported in May 2025 that British prosecutors had authorized ten charges against Tate, including rape, human trafficking, actual bodily harm and controlling prostitution for gain. Reuters also reported that four women are suing him in Britain over alleged physical abuse, sexual violence and coercion. Trial is set for June 2026. In the United States, Reuters reported a civil suit accusing Andrew and Tristan Tate of coercing a woman into sex work.

Substack looked at that record and promoted him anyway. Tate’s official page carried the label “#3 Rising in News.” The company put one of the world’s most visible misogynists in front of more readers and ranked him as a “rising news voice.”

Despicable.

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie framed the company’s position in December 2023, when he wrote that Substack would protect expression “even when it hurts.” So far as I can verify, Substack has issued no Tate-specific public defense. It’s hiding behind this diabolical fig leaf: keep the platform open to “controversial” voices and resist pressure campaigns to suppress them.

This kind of overbroad free-speech radicalism is an insane copout. Even though Substack guidelines clearly forbid inciting violence toward protected classes, they aren’t following them. By allowing Tate, Substack would struggle for consistency in deplatforming actual Nazis, pedophiles, white supremacists, or those promoting ethnic cleansing. Because what is misogyny—really—stripped of its self-serving rationales? Softening up the world to justify atrocities against the four billion women who live on Earth.

This cannot—and must not—stand.

Why Women Choose The Bear

There’s a large swath of the human experience that we men never even have to contemplate.

We seldom have to worry when walking alone at night, or in a dark parking lot. We can defend ourselves. We don’t have predators twice our size stalking us. We rarely fear not coming home from a date. We don’t have to text all our friends a picture of the woman we’re meeting, or let them know to come check on us if they haven’t heard back within a prearranged period of time. We don’t have to worry about scheduling a first meeting in a public place.

Why is that?

Because female violence against men is extremely rare. Any violence we might have experienced usually came from other men, and unless we were in prison, didn’t involve a man forcing his penis into our bodies. We are oblivious to the common feminine experience, through which most girls have heard scary tales of violation—by the time they’re ten or twelve—if they haven’t already been violated themselves.

To convey this in terms men can understand, TikTok account Screenshot HQ popularized the widely-shared thought experiment for women: Given the choice to confront a strange man in the wilderness or a bear, which would she choose?

After millions of reactions, it became clear that most women chose the bear.

Think about this. Really think about it. A bear is one of nature’s finest killing machines. A full-grown grizzly stands over eight feet tall on its hind legs, and can weigh up to 800 pounds. Its claws are like 3-inch knives that can slice through flesh like butter. Its jaws clamp down with more than 2,000 pounds per square inch of pressure. And they don’t scare easily. They will chase you right up a tree. Heaven help you if you get between that bear and her cubs.

Men are more terrifying than the bear because men can hide what they are. A bear makes no secret that it will maul you. Men will charm and cajole and wheedle their way into a woman’s life under false pretenses. A man can offer aid and comfort. Then he can strike without warning when she least expects it. A spiked drink. A violent turn in bed. An attack in a car or her apartment.

Now imagine why women are more terrified of men than nature’s top killing machine, and you will begin to glimpse the barest outline of this problem. Think about what that means, and you’ll realize the horrific severity of rape. Some women would prefer death to the sheer terror of bodily violation. It’s not just “unwanted sex.” She is also wondering if she is about to die.

Then the ultimate violation: rape that leads to pregnancy in a state without abortion rights. A woman might be forced to carry her rapist’s child, being reminded of him every day for the rest of her life. In some states, rapists even have paternity rights!

If I were half the size of men—and could get pregnant—I would choose the bear too.

What Was She Wearing?

Far more common than the crime of rape, casual misogyny is so rampant that women simply can’t avoid it. A main vector is men trying to police women’s appearance. And these daily aggressions run the gamut, from telling women to “smile,” to more overtly hostile behavior and street harassment.

Some men will ogle and leer at an attractive woman because they desire her. Others will look at the same woman and decide she’s out of their league and therefore a “slut.” Or first they ogle, then they flirt, then they get rejected and then refer to the woman as THOT (“that ho over there”). It almost always ends the same: a failed bid for possession/control followed by a brutal kiss-off.

Instead of respecting another human being’s freedom of association—along with her right to have an independent existence—the men usually take it personally. “She was sour grapes, anyway.” Or: “She’s not my type.” i.e., “She’s not rapable.” As if these desperate men had a type and wouldn’t jump on anything that moves.

Then the body shaming begins. “Thunder thighs,” or “she’s a heifer,” or worse. Often comments about a woman’s weight will be couched in terms of “concern” for her health. But it goes far beyond that. In many men’s eyes, any woman who’s not model-thin has a moral obligation to be ashamed of her body. Should “hit the gym.” Should “lay off the pastries.” Shouldn’t wear swimsuits. Shouldn’t “pretend” to be sexy when she’s “obviously disgusting.”

Can you even imagine?

Sadly, some women also pile on shame about other women’s bodies, demonstrating their own internalized misogyny. It’s a terrible disease that afflicts too many.

There’s also an age component. That women of a “certain age” should stop wearing their hair long, or stop wearing makeup or crop tops, or whatever offends the narrow sensibilities of men who only want to look at “ideal” specimens—the younger the better.

“Over the hill at 25.”

Women can’t win. Some men don’t want women wearing makeup at all, calling them “fake.” Others will ignore the significant expense and work it takes for a woman to be presentable in professional attire, or on a date, reasoning that “she should pay half.”

Those guys rarely get a second date.

Men who struggle in the dating scene also tend to engage in what I call “fantasy selection,” ruling out most women ahead of time, so they won’t have to be rejected. It creates a double bind, since their “standards” are much higher than their own social value. They refuse to even consider less attractive or lower-status women who might actually be in their league. And that is why “involuntary celibates” (incels) are virtually guaranteed to stay that way.

Let’s take this example from Threads. I’ve seen multiple versions of this little shit-missile directed at women over the past several years, some comparing women to cows. It seems like caricature until you imagine what it must be like to be a woman reading this filth over and over:

The guy just doesn’t like nose rings, right? A personal aesthetic choice. He has the “free speech” right to express his “preference.” Except it’s not remotely just that. It’s overt hostility. The “man” (and I use the term loosely) is prioritizing what he wants to see over the freedom and self-expression of women. It’s blatant solipsism—the idea that only he exists in this universe. That only his feelings matter. Then he tries to play the hopeless romantic with flowery language about “gazing into your beautiful faces.” This is bullshit on steroids. Anyone who talks like this is waving an entire halyard of “incel” red flags. Strip away the mask and it’s a declaration of intended ownership. Fortunately, this post was badly ratioed with over 6,000 comments telling that toxic male to fuck right off.

The pushback doesn’t excuse the sentiment. In some ways it makes it worse to know that there are still “men” walking around believing they have the unfettered right to comment on women’s bodies and appearance, even in the face of sustained social condemnation. He didn’t delete the post.

This must change.

My reply:

Misogynistic Assholes Glorifying Abuse (MAGA)

In 2016, over half of American men voted for a presidential candidate who was on tape bragging about sexual assault. 52% of American men didn’t care—at all. Instead of feeling the appropriate revulsion at the depravity of Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” claim, they heard permission.

Houston, we have a massive misogyny problem.

This isn’t debatable. There’s no way to spin it into any other conclusion. And it’s no fluke. The 2024 election repeated the same pathology. Within a single decade, American men rejected two of the most qualified candidates ever to run for our highest office, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

The result has been towering corruption, normalization of public lying, war, and utter devastation for women.

What about the men who voted Democratic?

They’re certainly less culpable for America’s downfall than Trump voters. But there’s no way any man gets off the hook for the terrible misogyny that remains widespread in the United States.

I include myself in that diagnosis. Until we men solve this problem together, we are each individually responsible.

How many men reading this are willing to own up? I’m asking you to dig deep. I’m asking for brutal, radical self-honesty. Because there’s no shame in admitting we’ve gone astray, only shame in trying to hide it. We don’t have to lose status in order to admit we’re the problem. In my experience, women have been incredibly forgiving of men who own up to their complicity and make improvements.

Why can’t we all just get along?

Because we’re collectively enmeshed in a patriarchal system that has normalized misogyny as a significant component of what it means to be a man. This includes the knowing looks, the nervous laughter, the back slapping over derogatory comments. It’s all part of the perpetuation of a sickness that ritually devalues half the human race—arguably the most important half—since everyone alive came from a uterus.

What Are We Men Going To Do About It?

Misogyny can only be stopped when we men actually put a stop to it. It’s not enough to believe ourselves to be “good men.” We must EARN the definition through daily action.

First and foremost, we need to work on ourselves, and that’s a lifelong commitment. I can only speak from my own experience, which began in a bastion of patriarchy. I grew up imbibing misogyny like it was the air I breathed.

My case wasn’t as obvious as some.

I didn’t have an abusive dad or a sadistic uncle or any other authority figure who openly disrespected women. The religious cult in which I was raised was led by my mother, Elizabeth Clare Prophet—so we were always taught to be deeply reverent toward women in power. But that respect did not extend to women as a class. And this exposes how even female-led hierarchical cults reinforce patriarchy.

I described this in detail in my book My Cult Your Cult.

It all came through her male alter ego—and fantasy enforcer—a dour “ascended master” named El Morya. He was her internalized father figure and macho patriarch. Under “El Morya’s” rules, women were dress-coded constantly, forced to wear baggy clothing, sexualized then neutered by having their hair cropped short, and generally relegated to caregiving and subservient roles. It was a mirror of the common traumatic religious environment in which women pay the price for the “original sin” of Eve.

I absorbed those archetypes more deeply than I understood at the time. They followed me out of my cult and straight into my marriage.

I inherited the same story about women’s roles that millions of men acquire in far more conventional homes. A wife was not only required to do housework, she was supposed to hold the emotional center of the family. She was expected to absorb stress, smooth conflict, manage feelings, carry the invisible burden and keep everything running. It wasn’t my script. I didn’t hate or disrespect women. I simply absorbed the rot from those around me. Then I acted it out.

This led to a painful family separation ten years into my marriage that lasted a year, then later to divorce.

My wife and I had both inherited these toxic archetypes, and neither of us knew how to rise above them. For her it was the long-suffering sacrificial mother, inattentive to her body and emotions. For me it was the patriarchal strict-father, pawning off physical and emotional labor onto my wife.

These are deadly—most of all to love itself.

By the time I matured enough to understand how badly I had failed, I recognized how deeply the patriarchy had damaged me. It’s one of its most ruthless tricks. It taught me to ignore a woman’s suffering. It made me dangerous in ordinary ways long before I understood what I was carrying. I only recognized the extent of the damage after the woman I loved had already paid the price.

And there were deeper layers I was still unaware of. Even though it’s necessary to write the following paragraph, it pains me to admit the truth. As recently as twelve years ago, I was dating a new girlfriend when she told me her rape story. I minimized it. I casually downplayed what had happened to her in high school because the boy was someone she knew, the assault wasn’t violent—not what “real rape” is supposed to be like. No alley. No stranger. No cinematic violence. Instead of offering compassion, I processed her story with the ears of a rape culture I didn’t even recognize. I filtered her experience through a set of terrible male assumptions so old and so common that they still fooled a man of fifty who was earnestly trying to do better. I regret my failure profoundly.

The same patriarchal bullshit that taught me to expect physical and emotional labor from my wife—had also taught me to misread the record of a woman’s violation—even after she trusted me deeply enough to reveal it.

What Andrew Tate monetizes in public, what vicious creeps on X or Threads perform in miniature, what Trump normalized at the level of national politics, I had also absorbed in quieter and more seemingly “respectable” forms.

Misogyny survives through monsters—yes. It also survives through ordinary men like me, carrying ordinary but damning assumptions.

The image at the beginning of this article demonstrates the problem: most men picture the social environment as a long field of decent guys with a tiny patch at the far end reserved for crazed evil men. That is one of the central lies of the patriarchy and it’s what people mean when they say “not all men.”

The reality of male pathology looks much closer to a spectrum. At one end are the rare heroic men who will reliably come to a woman’s defense. Next come the well-meaning men who underestimate the severity of misogyny. Then the men who treat predation as an ugly but permanent fact of life. Then the men who think women “had it coming.” Then the men who passively enjoy rape culture—who consume it, laugh at it, normalize it, circulate it and encourage it. Only after that do we arrive at the textbook sexual predators everyone claims to despise, and beyond them the monsters so cruel most of us do not even want to imagine them.

This is why male denial has to stop. Yes all men.

The problem has always been the entire gradient. It lives in the shrug, the minimization, the cruel joke, the click, the share, the silence, the rationalization and the decision to treat women’s fear as exaggeration. It lives in men like the husband I was in my first marriage, expecting emotional labor as though it were a natural female function. It lived in the man I became again years later, when I downgraded a rape story. I was not a monster. I was something far more common, a man insufficiently conscious of women’s experience.

So the first task for men is simple: stop the denial about the terrible harm caused by casual misogyny. Stop acting as if the problem begins with rapists, traffickers and open sadists. Stop pretending that a man earns moral innocence because he never crossed the worst possible line into sexual assault.

Look harder. Look at the labor you expect from women. Look at the emotional weight you hand them. Look at the contempt men bond over. Look at the way women get labeled “oversensitive,” and their pain gets sorted into categories before men decide how seriously to take it.

Men built this culture. Men enforce it. Men excuse it.

Only men can stop it.

That work starts in dating, friendship, sex, work, marriage, family life and politics. When we stop expecting women to absorb our immaturity, soothe our egos and translate our failures into something more flattering—when we believe women the first time, when we stop using misogyny to build male camaraderie, whether that misogyny arrives as a joke, a shrug, a sneer, a slur, degrading a woman’s appearance—or a vote.

Until that happens, every man remains implicated. That includes me. That includes all of us.

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