The dating coach giving conferences worldwide on ‘pick-up artistry’ sanitises and normalises sexual assaults. Refusing him yet more platforms to spread his message is essential
Julien Blanc, a “dating coach” working for US company Real Social Dynamics, is visiting Australia this week to host a series of pick-up artistry seminars.
Through a program comprising online videos and in-person classes, the company has built a business model which preys on lonely desperate men, offering them the promise of female sexual attention through force when it doesn’t exist by will. The instruction and promotion of abuse and the total violation of consent is this company’s stock in trade.
Blanc’s “PhD in female attraction” involves a disturbing fixation with physical violence. Blanc proudly posts photos across social media of him propositioning women in chokeholds using the hashtag “#ChokingGirlsAroundTheWorld”.
In a video that has amassed over 50,000 views (and since switched to “private”), he teaches men how to sexually assault women in Japan, where he is apparently headed in two weeks. “Just go through Tokyo, grab girls and yell ‘Pikachu’ and put her head on your dick”, Blanc instructs his audience before showing footage of himself doing just that. This is nothing short of a lesson teaching how to rape.
Asian women, consistently hypersexualised by western culture, have long been the targets of a predatory, booming sex-tourism industry. White western men travel to Asian countries to sexually exploit women on whom they project their orientalist, racist fetishes. In doing so, he actively instructs men to exploit their white male status to assault women, declaring that “if you’re a white male, you can do what you want”.
That Blanc can sustain a profitable business out of promoting sexual violence with total impunity is a testament to the extent to which our society accepts rampant rape culture and abusive attitudes towards women. These men epitomise the rabid culture of male entitlement and the toxic social enabling of violent hypermasculinity that puts women in danger every day.
Here in Australia, one woman is killed by her own male partner every week. The leading cause of death, disability and ill health for women aged 15-44 is intimate partner violence. Just yesterday it was acknowledged by the nation’s police commissioners that vulgar attitudes towards women are the primary cause of such abominations, and yet men like Blanc are able to commit and even teach sexual violence unrestrained. These “pick-up artists” hunt women as sport, referring to women as “game”. This is how sexual violence becomes normalised.
Backlash has mounted rapidly. Japanese activists have been warning women and the hashtag #takedownjulienblanc has been circulated widely. Most significantly, Hotel Como Melbourne this morning announced its decision to cancel Blanc’s planned seminar this week after an online petition generated over 10,000 signatures and hundreds of social media posts pressured the hotel to refuse Blanc the venue.
Blanc has several more seminars planned in Australia this month and again in December, for which the venues are yet to be made public. Once they are publicised, they can expect the same public backlash and PR disaster. As the public campaign against Blanc has made clear, this man and his company’s business are based on a heinous model of promoting rape culture under a phony label of “pick-up artistry” to sanitise and normalise their behaviour.
For now, refusing him yet more platforms for his harmful views should be of the utmost priority to send the resounding message that the promotion and glorification of sexual violence is unacceptable.
