Live From Chicago 5!

Hey BlowjobTree. In the first couple years of RISK!, we had fans send in theme songs. After a couple of years, we decided the one created by Wormburner and John Sondericker that you hear at the very top of each episode was the cream of the crop. But there were literally dozens of absolutely fabulous songs with the word “risk” in them sent in to us for a couple years. I’ve talked about how we welcome people to be doing this again on the podcast a few times recently. Anyone who wants more info on how to do it should email me at kevin@risk-show.com.

I’m surprised there haven’t been more comments condemning the story by Emma Alamo. While it’s unfortunate that she was left unsatisfied by the guy in the tree, that’s certainly not justification for publicly shaming him and trying to emasculate him by telling a bar full of people about his sexual prowess. In my book, that’s no different (and just as despicable) as an angry ex-lover posting revenge porn.

The storyteller tries to justify her behavior by labeling the guy as a “Men’s Rights activist” who deserves no sympathy. But the fact that his values are so different from hers has no bearing on her actions.

Moreover, the storyteller admits (in so many words) that she is making bad choices on her dating app and pursuing men who — from the start — probably aren’t good for her. So, you’d think she wouldn’t be so surprised to learn that this dude wasn’t a stand-up gentleman and that the date didn’t go the way she wanted. I don’t want to be accused of “victim-blaming”, but she bears some of the responsibility of not knowing this guy better before she blew him, and of consequently getting upset when it wasn’t reciprocated. It’s not like the storyteller was duped by a guy pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

The storyteller seems upset — but only in hindsight — that she made a bad decision by meeting up with this guy in a tree. And she seems to be inappropriately transferring her feelings of poor judgment into resentment about this guy: his premature ejaculation, his beliefs, his behavior in the bar when they ran into each other again. I think it’s absolutely despicable that the storyteller goes out of her way to humiliate this guy because of misdirected feelings of her own bad decision-making. This isn’t about the tree guy; this is about her.

The storyteller’s actions are the same as slut-shaming. They’re the same as the old app Lulu. They’re the same as revenge porn. She is straight-up bullying. And if we don’t (and shouldn’t) accept men treating women this way, then we shouldn’t have a double-standard and allow women to treat men this way, either.

The storyteller may not like this tree guy, and she may have some reason not to. But she should at least show some basic human decency and respect. Her behavior in this story was totally unacceptable.