Stop Blaming Elliot Rodger’s ‘Virginity’ For His Killing Spree

One fact I keep seeing in conjunction with Elliot Rodger is that, according to his own manifesto entitled My Twisted World, is he was a virgin. He had never had sex before. From his own manifesto, he was incredibly angry and dismayed at this fact, and he mentions it numerous times, and media headlines are taking advantage of this by now trying to dub him “The Virgin Killer.”

There are many other things mentioned in his manifesto that could lead to nicknames for him, The World Of Warcraft Loving Killer, The Gucci Sunglasses Loving Killer, The College Class Dropout Killer, The BMW 3 Series Coupe Killer, and probably most aptly, due to what he wrote in how own words, that The Day Of Retribution could have been prevented if girls had only given me one chance – The Woman Hating Killer. The fact that Rodger was a virgin and media outlets are trying to use his virginity as a nickname not only stigmatizes people who have never had sex before, but also places blame on any woman or girl who rejected Rodger by implying that if only one of you would have had sex with him, this killing spree could have all been avoided. 

Plenty of people are virgins, for whatever reason, and don’t go on murderous rampages. Plenty of people are virgins, for whatever reason, and don’t have extreme anger about it.  Plenty of people are virgins, for whatever reason, and don’t write 141 page manifestos about how they hate whatever gender they are interested in losing their virginity with.

Elliot Rodger could have had sex with thousands of girls and still committed the horrible act he did.

A lone college girl asking him out on a date may not have prevented this. By calling him the Virgin Killer it’s implying that being a virgin is wrong, that people who don’t have sex are destined to become monsters, and that making the choice not to have sex or being unable to find someone to have sex with for whatever reason makes someone inherently flawed and capable of extreme violence. I’m sort of shocked that the ‘Purity Brigade’ hasn’t taken issue with this yet.

Elliot Rodger was, by his own words, extremely angry that he had never kissed a girl, didn’t have a girlfriend, hadn’t had sex, and was a virgin. But there are many virgins in this world who don’t have that same sort of anger about it. He hated women for many reasons, including the fact he wasn’t able to find one to have sex with him, much less share a cup of coffee with him at his beloved Starbucks.

I guess calling him the virgin killer is more catchy then calling him what he really was, a woman hater.