Hugo Danger on the comeback trail

Ann Althouse notices a familiar pattern in Hugo Danger's latest schtick.

This raises the question whether he promoted ideology he didn't actually believe or whether he merely failed to live up to his own principles. He hedges at first, saying he's "very confused," but soon he saying he's "guilty of hypocrisy" and "the fact that I am guilty of hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate the truth of what I was saying. I was just too weak to live up to what it was I was writing." So, in short, there's no repudiation of his stature as a tenured professor, the aptness of writing for the popular media, and the truth of everything he's written. He's just a guy that got caught misbehaving, and he's making the best of it. Doing a damned good job of it!

The Daily Beast interviewer invites him to admit that he was really writing for women and telling them what they wanted to hear, and he admits that:

I always wrote for women but wrote in a really backhanded way where it appeared I was writing for men so that it would not appear too presumptuous and instead it would make me look better. And that required presenting myself as the ideal husband, father, and reformed bad boy. My point is that I was writing for women because I wanted validation from women. The way to get validation from women was to present an idealized picture of what is possible for men.

And he's getting away with an almost identical strategy now with this big breakdown and confession. It's for the women, whose favor he wants, and who he knows will be massively pissed off that he had sex with that younger woman. He's the bad boy again, and he's got to reform again.

I taught a course in men and masculinity, and I cited male authors, but the whole way of designing the course was to get women excited about the possibility for male change, that they would then transfer some of that hope onto me. That is what I was doing.

And he's doing it again! Hilarious. There are some more confessions, but I'm stopping here. I really shouldn't give this guy more attention, but I'm writing this because I'm afraid people are falling for his bullshit.

I have no doubt Hugo will eventually be able to find "redemption" and start writing and lecturing again for feminist audiences eager to buy what he's selling.  Feminists are, by definition, the sort of women who repeatedly fall for outrageous lies and incoherent and irrational nonsense.