Loathsome Men's Rights Meetups Cancelled Over 'Safety' Concerns

By Mae Rice in News on Feb 4, 2016 3:03PM

Photo of the tunnel by the Morse Red Line stop, near where the Rogers Park Return of Kings meetup was scheduled to take place (via rwchicago on Flickr)

The gross men’s rights blog that planned two Chicago-area meetups as part of its “International Meetup Day,” prompting widespread outrage and plans for feminist counter-protests, has cancelled all meetups planned for Saturday.

Roosh Valizadeh, the founder of the blog in question—Return of Kings—said the following in a Wednesday post on the blog:

I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meetups can not be made private in time. While I can’t stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return Of Kings meetups. The listing page has been scrubbed of all locations. I apologize to all the supporters who are let down by my decision.

This will come as a relief to the Homewood restaurant Balagio Ristorante. To the owners’ horror, one meetup was scheduled to occur in their parking lot.

This full-blown cancellation comes after Return of Kings declared a state of emergency on their message board. Originally posted publicly, the declaration cited concerns about media attention and impostors, and laid out a numbered list of new forum rules, including one forbidding jokes about sexual assault.

Now, visitors can’t read that full post without first logging in, though a red bar at the top of the login screen still says, “The Forum Is In A State Of Emergency: Extra rules apply during the worldwide attack against our international meetup day.”

In closing, it is crazy hubris that Valizadeh thought he—one guy—could ever guarantee the safety or privacy, let alone both, of men at meetups across the world.