The Retribution of Lies: Rumour 2 of the Gone Girl Feminist Network

The second 'credible, untrue, irrefutable and thus also discrediting rumour' used to assault and drug men.

Whisper Networks were popularized during the #MeToo movement as many women felt they were forced to resort to their own devices. Initially, the “allegations and rumours” shared online came with a warning that women should, “Take everything with a grain of salt”. Most people did not see anything sinister in this. But what if I told you that whisper networks are now taking revenge on men who are rumoured to have cheated on a girlfriend, or inappropriately touched someone? What if I told you that these rumours are not started by anyone who has experienced the alleged misconduct themselves? What if the activists are starting the rumour, claiming to have heard about it from someone else, who had heard it from someone else? What if I said that these chains of Chinese whispers result in the men being emotionally abused and sexually harassed for years; that they are chased out of employment and out of accommodation; that the men are spiked in coffeeshops and bars and housed in flats that are set up to drug them for years. What if I told you I had been sexually assaulted by an activist in my workplace after 1.5 years of trying?

Despite the more invasive modern methods of digging dirt on me- after hacking my emails and my mobile, after searching my hard drive and my laptops- the whisper network has had need to fall back on some old-fashioned gossip. This gossip stems from my village from when I was a schoolboy. Back then it petered out no sooner that it started. As I have come back to the village over the years, I have always been well received by women in pubs, and I would be asked to dance at ceilidhs, and I have been invited back to women’s houses for a drink when the pubs shut. It was only after the whisper campaign in Berlin, over two decades later, that suddenly every woman put on that I was a predator. This had never been the gossip in the village. It wasn’t what was whispered about me in Berlin either. It is hard to explain this sudden disconnect between past and present, a rupture that re-writes the past and re-writes the present to determine my future.

This gossip is from the time before laptops, when home computers were rare, and you needed to call the world wide web and listen to it ‘ping, beep, and splutter’ while you waited for an answer. This gossip is from a rural community that could not be more different from the activist group in Berlin, and that is no bad thing. I’m from a small rural village in Scotland at the confluence of two rivers that wind down two parallel glens, to meet at the head of a loch that is over 30km long. There is a string of Munros that rise up from the north side of the loch and beyond these lie the Scottish Highlands. That’s the backdrop when looking north. If you head south you need to rise over a pass, but after that, it’s a couple of hours drive downhill to the central belt, where the towns and cities lie. So, we are in the heartland looking down on the lowlands, and there is about a thousand of us, including the farms and the odd Hotel in the surrounding area. There were seven bars dotted down the main street before Covid kicked in. Now there are four bars which are full of tourists in the summer. Most of them come for the castle, the waterfalls which are traversed by an old stone bridge, and the hill walking.

Each bar gets it’s time in the spotlight for a while as the locals favour it to regale themselves with stories of local heroes, characters and steamers. There is the classic hall at the heart of the village where the concerts and ceilidhs, and charity fundraisers are held. You might have a birthday bash in the hall if you were inviting whole the village, but for a family affair, you book the Hotel. ‘The Hotel’, the first in the village, was built in the 17^th century. It was renovated to accommodate Victorians arriving on the steam train, but the trains are long gone now. The hotel has a large breakfast hall with tartan flashes hanging on the wall and a solid wooden floor where Queen Victoria once dined. This is where we celebrated my Gran’s eightieth with a disco. On the night in question, I was celebrating my Gran’s birthday in the Hotel.

My Gran was from Lincoln and a lot of the family had made it up from down south. Four generations were on the dance floor. The grandads were in suits and tie, the uncles in a shirt and tie, and the cousins in a shirt with the top buttons undone. I was in my red tartan kilt, of course. I liked the kilt, but I was under strict instructions in any case. In the photos I am holding onto my sporn with my elbows sticking out either side for the Sassenachs to have their photo with me in the kilt. I was on my best behaviour for a seventeen-year-old, although all the family wanted to buy me a pint. It was a good night, I tried to pace myself, but my instincts at that age were to get steaming. As the night progressed, I felt I timed it well. That was until the Hotel curfew was called abruptly. It was normally my older cousins who were up to mischief, bringing their own gear up to the village, knowing as many locals as I did. This time I was on my own. Standing outside the entrance to the hotel I could hear the far-off sound of a rare thing in Scotland- a Barbeque.

As I walked up the Monoblock drive and around the side of the house, I seen the last people were leaving the dance floor patio on the right-hand side. While on my left, those who had made it into the wee hours were sitting drinking under the gazebo. I wanted to keep the party going so I asked the nearest woman to my left to dance, and she accepted. Even as I approached her some men began making a scene about this. It continued while we walked the 3 meters onto the patio dance floor and we turned back to look at them. I resented their attempt to shame us and so did she. I felt by the pause on the dance floor to look at these men that we both felt the same. So I mocked them. As soon as we started to dance, I started moved my hand a bit lower very slowly. I did this in an exaggerated manner and looked at Elisabeth to see that she was in on it. There was hardly any contact involved. When my hand was hovering over her bum she said very warmly, and conspiratorially, ‘You better move your hand Kieran before you get in trouble’. Elisabeth was in total control of that situation. She was being protective of me, which shows that she did not feel threatened while she played along.

I had a drink in my hand, and I chatted a bit, but the party was clearly over. As I went to leave the garden there was a football sitting up plump on beautifully flat bit of grass, like the left wing of a football field. The barbeque was in the grounds of the old Royal Bank of Scotland and the house had a huge stone gable end. I was quite a good footballer back in the day, so I gave it a kick with my left to collect the rebound on my right. I did not see the window in the kitchen extension at the back of the house. The ‘fitbaw’ went straight through the window. The barbeque was being held by the local metal worker who is about as wide as he is tall. He is a really nice cheery guy, but he has the reputation of being a bit wild with a drink in him. So, I bolted from the garden like a hare. This was quite serious, because I was in my kilt. I always thought those words from Hugh MacDiarmid about wearing red applied, above all else, to a red kilt:

WHY I CHOOSE RED

I fight in red for the same reasons

That Garibaldi chose the red shirt

-Because a few men in a field wearing red

Look like many men – if there are ten you will think

There are a hundred; if a hundred

You will believe them a thousand.

And the colour of red dances in the enemy’s rifle sights

And his aim will be bad- But, best reason of all,

A man in a red shirt can neither hide nor retreat.

This was not the end of the matter. Earlier that night, wee Tommy the painter who had moved from Glasgow had been refused entry to the Barbeque for being drunk, and some other gossip perhaps. When his window was broke, Gordon the metal working heard footsteps running at pace up the side street across the street. Poor Tommy the painter lived at the bottom of this side street. I estimate that 10 minutes after I kicked that fitbaw, Gordon was at tommy’s front door throttling the painter, presuming he had returned to break the window out of spite. When I called the next morning to apologise for breaking the window, and for legging it away, all this was relayed to me. Gordon’s wife had seen me running up the street in my kilt from the window upstairs, but she could not catch her husband as he took off to Tommy’s door. She decided not to tell him who the real culprit was until the morning.

I do not feel as bad about the incident with Elisabeth because I only made myself vulnerable to village gossip, while Elisabeth was the adult in control of the situation. I didn’t fear my reputation would be slighted to anyone who mattered to me. I had a lot of female friends at school who confided in me and looked to me for support. I even accompanied a friend on a couple of busses to the sexual health clinic in Stirling while I was at school. She wanted to go on the pill, but her older boyfriend would not go with her. As a 17-year-old before the days of social media, I felt my world was no bigger than all my friends. These women knew who I was, and they who would have my back. I was the class clown at school, and it was women who explained to me that I was being ironic about my masculinity. This has been said by a few women in different cities since, so I presume a lot of female friends have picked up on this as well. The accusation of these old men felt preposterous. I resented the old-fashioned men shaming me and Elisabeth for dancing together. My way of defeating men like that was always with ironic humour mocking their masculinity, and women always understood that, even if the men were oblivious.

I might have been arrogant when I dismissed and mocked those men, but I was a drunken teenager. However, I think Elisabeth knew that I was just acting the goat. Why else would she play along? Our society has been accused of infantilizing women- denying them any agency and treating them as helpless. It is worth considering all the ways a woman could communicate in Elisabeth’s situation, if the man were acting against her wishes.

A women can just look at a man to make him question his behaviour. Or, give him a look out the corner of her eyes, or raise her eyebrows, or tilt her head and glare. She might jolt her right hand down a little to get his attention, before making any of the above expressions. She might clear her throat, or make the thoughtful sound “ehhhh…?”. Maybe she would wait until the man’s hand had moved 2 or 3 cm to be sure, then she would say his name, or “no”, or “ehhh…. No”, or “excuse me?”. She could always speak in full sentence- “don’t even think about it”, “what are you doing?”. She could do this with a bit of humour, or not. You get the picture. Why would she pretend not to notice what the young man was doing, and that he was glancing at her for a response. Why did she wait until I had slowly moved my hand down to the top of her bottom, and then speak conspiratorially in full sentence?

I did not use any privilege over Elisabeth, nor any power or strength, nor any sudden movement. She was very much in control the whole time. I can’t be sure what Elisabeth was thinking as she danced with me. The point is Elisabeth did play along. I don’t think there was anything sensual in. I think she understood my reaction to those men because she felt the same. There was a context. My actions were a response to a group of men shaming us, we were looking at the men, there was direct contiguity between these men passing judgement on us, and me ironically acting the goat. It was clear she did not feel threatened, in fact, she felt protective of me.

We all know that taking things slowly is way to make sure everyone is happy with the direction things are going, and it gives time to check in on people. We all know this is a form of communication, we’ve all waited and wanted a response. In the end Elisabeth was protective of me. When Gone Girl feminists claim they are acting in Elisabeth’s name, when they drug me or when they sexually assaulted me, they are lying. When these adherents to feminism very few women know, claim that someone has reported being groped they are lying. This is more than just cynical use of whisper networks. It undermines their own demand, “Believe women!”, not because women are lying about their experience, but because they are lying about other women’s experience to support their campaign.

This is a central point. Elisabeth did not report this incident to the network of young activists who run campaigns abusing and drugging British men in Berlin, 15 years later when she was nearly 60, still in my rural village. Feminists have appealed to this incident, as an instance of groping or sexual assault, to stoke hatred of me in thousands of people online, but there is no woman who claims she was groped. There is no woman you should believe when she says she was groped or sexually assaulted. There is no woman saying this. Whatever has been said, has been said by the daughter of a friend of Elisabeth’s. This woman suffered an alcoholic father growing up and would become an active member of a network of women who take revenge on toxic men.

It is not unusual for activists to take ownership of other people’s experience and use it to rationalize their own actions and agenda. Many of the women I met in Berlin involved in these networks had a history of father absence, or an alcoholic father or a religious father. Most felt that they knew what men really are, and held normie women with contempt because of their ignorance. They feel justified in contradicting other women’s experience of events. When you read headlines of ‘1 in 4 women experience sexually assault’, the responses of these women have manipulated to mislead. Unwanted contact or touching while fully clothed has been counted as sexual assault in the survey. However, most people would not consider this sexual assault. The thousands of students dancing in clubs offering £1 shots every year during freshers’ week, do not all leave the club believe they have been sexually assaulted. People on packed public transport do not generally believe this unwanted touching is sexual assault. Activists naturally see it as their job to make people angry about the issue they are campaigning against. Adherents to a certain feminism are willing to appropriate and contradict the experience of women in this way to drive up hatred and anger. They want to justify, what they claim are, expedient measures- emotional and psychological abuse, systematic drugging, and sexually assault.

There is some context from my village that might explain why Elisabeth did play along. My sister told me years ago that some women in the village didn’t like my mum. They believe that she thinks she is better than them. Elisabeth and her friend Margaret are two such women. One night I went up to Margaret’s house after the pub and she betrayed as much. For some reason, her youngest daughter wanted me to go in and see the scene in the kitchen. Margaret’s husband was drunk with his head on the kitchen table, and she said smartly ‘what’s he doing here?’. Her husband’s drinking buddy, Donald, vouched for me since we had worked together, but Margaret said, ‘but he’ll tell his mother’. I think both Elisabeth and Margaret enjoy the idea of taking my mum down a peg or two. Elisabeth could see that I was just acting the goat, while wondering what my mother might think when she found out her golden boy was behaving this way. After that night, whenever I went to the village all with my folks on Hogmanay, and other occasions afterwards, they were conspiratorial in their mocking of my mum more than me.

Elisabeth was playing by the rules of village gossip in the 90’s. She could have no idea of the consequences this would have for me 20 years later when a younger generation took it out of context. As my harassment started in Glasgow, Margaret’s oldest daughter started to appear in the coffeeshop where I worked. She presented herself as my executioner. She was proud to have spread the gossip and sealed my fate for the network of women like her. She suffered at the hands of an alcoholic father growing up. The women behind Gone Girl feminism take great pleasure in being able to have, what they believe are, ‘such men’ exiled from every job, emotionally abused in every relationship, and systematically drugged for over a decade. The Gone Girl network reaps revenge for imaginary wrongs. This is not justice. The victims are not anyone’s abusive father. They are not abusers. It’s very likely they haven’t even cheated on a girlfriend. They are not the disgusting toxic Other.

A different story from my village

I was in a bar where the nurses from the retirement home were having their Christmas night out. There was one teenage girl amongst them who was already steaming. Her upper body swung hither and tither like an erratic pendulum. At some point she appeared to hover on the periphery of our group and then stumbled around asking for a kiss. All my friends ignored her or laughed it off. However, one guy spun round with, ”you want a kiss?”, put his hand behind her head, and gave her big slobbery kiss over half her mouth. A big “aww…” was let out as people recoiled. The man took a look at the young women and decided to do it again. This time holding her in while he gave her a sloppy forceful kiss. I stepped forward and in between them, saying, that that was enough. The guy was taken aback, asking my mates who I was. Of all my group, only one guy said that ‘that was not OK’. The rest gave me a hard time and called me a ‘timothy tight arse’. I ushered the young women stand beside me, and I kept her with me until her group left. A couple of women from her group came over to say she noticed what I was doing and thanked me for it. If women wanted to take one moment from my life it could just as well be this one.

Concluding Remarks

In the first of the Rumours series, I explained how the accusation that I was cheat came from something I said at a house party in 2013. What I had said, I said to protect my girlfriend. I explained that just before that, before I left for Berlin, I arranged to meet a man in my circled of friends to confront him about cheating on my friend and flatmate. Other guys criticized me for getting involved. I had to defend my character on that count. People might just as well remember me for that and put that front and centre. They might think it strange then, if I was alleged to be cheating on my own girlfriend only a few months later. Even stranger to hear that, according to anonymous activists online, cheating is what I have always done because it is my misogynist being. The activists are not reporting an experience they themselves have had but purporting to speak for someone else. A woman whose experience they contradict. There was never any woman who thought I had been cheating ; there was no woman claiming I had groped her backside. It’s easy to understand how passive and active supporters of this violent campaign have been caught up in a game of Chinese whispers. Their good will and trust are being abused. The adherents of Gone Girl feminism are lying to incite hatred and disgust. These moral emotions help mobilize people and increase the power and influence of the activists.

I believe I am being attacked because I rejected the sexual advances of these activists. I rejected some of their political opinions, and I refused to drug people for them as a barman. They believed that I was going to expose the activities of their network once I was finished my PhD. I had no such plans. Eventually I was sexually assaulted in the bar, after 3 years of the abusive campaign (see the Chronology Series). I quit my job and I cannot account for the next two years. I was given a one-bedroom flat under the affordable housing scheme in Berlin. This was too good to be true- the flat was set up to drug me. Except for the two Covid-lockdowns, I have been drugged almost every day since. That is, I have been chemically incapacitated to some degree, most days, for 9 years now. The drugs do not just make the men sleepy or anxious, as is sometimes supposed (See Spiked by Gone Girl Feminists?). I have been forced out of workplaces by drugging’s and harassment, to such effect, that I have been forced into unemployment and onto the benefits system. I am drugged in coffeeshops and bars, if I dare go out. And I am being drugged in my accommodation to this day. I hadn’t even cheated on a girlfriend. I was pro-active in my support of women. I have only made one mistake in my life, but it is nothing compared to the things I have suffered at the hands of women (See Rumour 3). We all make mistakes. We should all maintain our human rights regardless. I should have my life back, I should have my body back.