Unfortunately, Googling “return of the king” no longer just links you to Lord of the Rings results.

The brainchild of Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh, Return of Kings is a “neomasculine” group. It champions beliefs including that a woman’s value depends on her physical being while a man’s value is structured from intellect and that traditional gender roles are needed to prevent promiscuity in women, to name a few.

The organization recently had to cancel its 165 planned meetups — one of which was scheduled to happen in Syracuse last week — due to threats that their ever-fragile masculinity couldn’t handle.

The Syracuse meetup, scheduled for Return of Kings’ International Meetup Day on Feb. 6, was to take place at Columbus Circle, “next to the statue” on East Onondaga Street, before threats and counter-protests erupted against the members. Opposition against the group, aside from its atypical meninist mantra, really caught fire after a blog post from Valizadeh outwardly promoted “legal rape.”

While controversy has arisen from the public, others have defended ROK’s actions in stating that the group’s outrageous speeches are seeking a response as opposed to calling for action. But the fact of the matter is, trolling or not, rape is never a joke. When proclaiming satire as free speech, it must be known that it only goes so far, considering anything that is intended to harm the person in regard to their physical well-being, mental health or safety is illegal.

In the pro-rape post, Valizadeh claims to have figured out how to put an end to rape. His solution is to make rape legal if done on private property, stating that “If rape becomes legal, a girl will not enter an impaired state of mind where she can’t resist being dragged off to a bedroom with a man who she is unsure of — she’ll scream, yell or kick at his attempt while bystanders are still around.”

Although Valizadeh later claimed the post to be satirical, unlike Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” he has previously backed up his promoted values in other blog posts on his site.

Apparently, the only men we need to pay attention to are those who feel the need to aggressively portray their heterosexuality. Gay men, transgender men and “meninists” — despite their active promotion of domestic violence and values aptly described by Urban Dictionary as being “a mockery of feminism that proves that we can’t request equality without white men making everything about themselves” — have been considered too unmasculine for the likes of ROK.

It’s hard enough to prevent women from being raped, let alone prosecute those who commit this vile act. It is almost unspeakable to know that there was such a positive acknowledgement of these terrifying ideals so close to the school we call our home.

These acts come in spite of positive male involvement in the anti-sexual assault campaign with movements such as “It’s On Us,” “The Hunting Ground” and Vice President Joe Biden’s speeches on college campuses. Even fraternities are taking a stand and this shows us that violent misogyny still lies outside the comfort of the Internet with tangible manifestations of assault. If anything, the attempted meetup should shed light on the dangers of toxic masculinity and progressively shift the focus to the change that is trying to be made by others.

As women, we are taught not to walk alone, not to take a drink from anyone and to be on guard at all times. I walk with a self-defense tool because, as a woman, I was taught that I need to know how to fight for my life because there are men who think rape is their right.

As women, we already face enough of a fight before a man comes along with a need to kindle his masculinity through the societal promotion of violence. Writing even this much was difficult, not just because of the disgusting and utterly immoral actions that this group promotes, but because in acknowledging their values, we give them more power.

These events should encourage countries to follow in the footsteps of Australia and ban this miserable excuse of a man and his followers from entering, and that we as a society take Valizadeh’s speeches with the complete disregard of attention that they deserve.

And when it comes to the conversation of sexual assault, men should mobilize to help women and other men in the fight against gendered violence, rather than networking to perpetuate rape culture.

Brontë Schmit is a sophomore magazine journalism major and marketing, english and textual studies, and LGBT Studies minor. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at bkschmit@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @brontekincaid.

Published on February 11, 2016 at 12:33 am