Dear Kickstarter CEO Perry Chen,

We need to talk. Yesterday I would have considered myself your biggest fan. Now I’m not so sure about you. Why? Because you allowed Ken Hoinsky to raise $16,000 to teach men how to rape women.

I know, you may not see it that way, you’re just a conduit for entrepreneurship. Someone approved this project, after all. I guess he didn’t include the same excerpts that he had on Reddit in his application, which make it abundantly clear how abhorrent his ideas and this project are. (TW for sexual assault after the jump). Here’s a taste: “Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.” There’s more that can be read via links on dosomething.org’s excellent petition, but they need a trigger warning because they are describing full-on sexual assault.

(EDIT: The petition page seems to be down as of press time. Feministing is asking you to Tweet the following to @kickstarter instead: Hey @kickstarter, “Above the Game” promotes sexual assault. Take down the page NOW and refuse to fund the book http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tofutofu/above-the-game-a-guide-to-getting-awesome-with-wom?ref=home_popular)

You do have a Terms of Use policy for a reason, which prohibits “threatening, abusive” or “offensive” material. 35,000 people and counting (as of about 9 AM today) are telling you that this is offensive. And yet you still won’t take it down, because he was exposed for the douchebag he is on Reddit and not on your site? Shame on you.

That’s why I’m going to make this about something that you clearly understand: money. I’ve personally funded 45 Kickstarter projects and dozens more on other crowdfunding sites, to the tune of hundreds of dollars. I’m practically a Kickstarter evangelist, personally devoted to THE CROWDFUNDING MODEL itself, not just particular projects. My friends ask for my advice on which platform they should pick for their projects. And I’m going to have to stop using your service, and tell my friends to also. It breaks my heart, because I believe in 99% of what you’re doing, but you need to know that promoting rape is a terrible business decision. And the numbers are on our side. This guy had, what, a couple hundred backers to make $16,000, so you made $640? Let’s take another famous Kickstarter example, Anita Sarkeesian’s “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.” She made almost $160,000, ten times this project, via almost 7,000 backers. Feminism made you ten times as much money as rape apologetics. Feminists are ten times the market share that misogynist rapists are, and if you allow this project to go through you’ll lose a whole bunch of us.

Women are supposed to be obsessed with shopping? We may only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, but we know how to fight on the economics front.

So, have your lawyers parse your Terms of Use policy and find a way to give Ken Hoinsky’s douchebag backers back their money. Then, apologize to your customers that this trash was allowed onto Kickstarter in the first place, and let us know what you’re doing to stop it from happening again.


A Concerned Kickstarter Fan


Bonus! Ken thinks that women naturally want to be dominated. As a woman who sometimes wants to be dominated, I’ve written a FREE guide to how to dominate women. Unlike Ken’s, mine has a hope in hell of getting you laid. More importantly, it won’t make you a rapist.

1. Meet a woman you like. Get to know her a bit, behave like a person who respects women in general and her in particular.

2. Ask her out on a date, to a public place.

3. At some point during this or a later date, as appropriate, mention some things you’re interested in sexually. Listen to her reaction. If she’s into it, suggest a more in depth discussion of her likes, dislikes, and boundaries at a later date. If she’s not into it, you are sexually incompatible. Thank her for her time and return to step 1.

4. Have the in depth discussion, SOBER, and as yourselves. Ask her about her boundaries. Reassure her that it’s totally ok to have boundaries, or to not know what they are yet. Go over safewords, safer sex practices, and expectations for the experience.

5. Play time! Be sure to obtain verbal consent, again, for each of the things you talked about before doing them. This is totally possible to do in dominant role. Describe something from your discussion that she wanted to do, followed by “you’d like that, don’t you? You want me to do that to you.” Or “what would you say if I told you I wanted to do XXX to you?” Or “tell me what you’d do to show how much you want me.” Surprises = bad. Forcing = bad.

6. If she says “STOP GET AWAY FROM ME,” Ken Hoinsky would have you believe that this is NBD, and you should just tell her to chill and that you don’t want to do anything she doesn’t want you to do, WHILE CONTINUING TO DO THINGS . This is not true. If she says “STOP GET AWAY FROM ME” you have failed*. Stop, get away from her, see a therapist, and don’t attempt to date another woman until you have resolved your issues.

7. Upon reaching a mutually satisfactory conclusion, cuddle, get her anything she needs, and go back to treating her like a person you respect.

You’re welcome. Now go tweet Kickstarter and sign the petition if it’s back up.

* “But Jan what about rape play?” If you actually learned anything from this guide, don’t do rape play. I’m serious. You have an entire blogosphere on consent in kink to read first.