Issue N° 16 || Torment

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TORMENT TORMENT

issue № 16 issue № 16
MAGA ZINE MAGA ZINE
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CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT 06 08 14 22 EDITOR’S LETTER CONTRIBUTOR’S PAGE THE COMPLEXITY OF BEING SELF-RULING WORLD’S WORST ROOMATE 4
CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT 28 34 40 46 THE RIGHT TO NOT HAVE A CHILD VIRGINITY (DOESN’T) ROCK: INCELS ON MISOGYNY AND VIOLENCE THE DARK SIDE OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS MEN ARE RUINING MY LIFE! 5
EDITOR’S LETTER EDITOR’S LETTER 6

Dear Reader,

As ALT once again welcomes in a new generation of members, it is important for us to reflect our founding ideals and our mission statement: uplifting and platforming the voices and narratives of marginalized groups on campus and across the greater Madison community. Given severity of events which transpired over the summer (the overturning of Roe V. Wade, the disestablishment of rights for LBGTQ individuals, etc.), we have committed ourselves to acknowledging the wellbeing of those subsequently affected.

In light of this, ALT chose editor in chief Ginger Townsend’s theme “Torment” for our Fall 2022 issue. Ginger was inspired by the aesthetic and atmosphere of classic 1960s horror movies and aimed to highlight the torment and fear that is experienced in these movies, especially by women and marginalized individuals.

Torment approaches both the tormenter and tormented like, analyzing dangerous patterns and detrimental effects, while also uplifting hope amidst the chaos for those most impacted. The issue has captured fear but also courage and, moreso, the knowledge to overcome it.

I would like to extend a big thank you to all of our readers for your continued support, and to all of our members who put so much energy into producing this issue. You have made all of this possible.

Enjoy Alt Magazine’s 16th issue, Torment.

- Panagioti Tsiamis (CEO) and Ginger Townsend (EIC)

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CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS

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EXECUTIVE BOARD Chief Executive Officer Pete Tsiamis Editor in Chief Ginger Townsend Secretary Rachel Navasier Graphics Director Aishwarya Gouthaman Makeup Director Sophia Egge Fashion Director Ella Cunz Writing Director Charlene Huynh | Emily Hirsch Photography Director Natalie Pricer Social Media Director Sofia Irigoyen PHOTOGRAPHY Natalie Pricer Kaelin Silas Tien Showers Bria Caldecott Lucy Gillard Van Tran Bridget Flannery FASHION Reena Singhal Forrest Rivers Grace McKinstry Jane Houseal Lily Mihelich Olivia Mabbott Jayda Bessel Redet Dereje WRITING Jilian Turner Lauren Tamborino Katja Fair Honor Durham Lincoln Miller Leah Maitland Zack Zens CiCi Cox BUSINESS Avery Opland Sydney Walters GRAPHICS Annika Carter Ian Vailliencourt VIDEOGRAPHY Luke Canning MAKEUP Macy Chen Xaver Davey Kaitlyn Tran Anna Dirksmeyer Sydney David Emma Warne MODELS Hiram Diez Iris Baurceanu Tess Reonitz Sydney David 9
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THE COMPLEXITY OF BEING SELF-RULING

According to Robert Paul Wolff’s In Defense of Anarchism, one of the most basic principles of philosophy is that individuals are liable for their actions and have the freedom to make personal choices, short of doing harm to others. It is vital that each one of us is able to make those decisions to shape our lives in the way that we desire. However, the inescapable pressure to conform to the aspirations of culture and society can prevent human beings from truly feeling self-ruling.

As people, we all feel more comfortable if we are able to be part of some sort of group or community, but that can lead to a loss of our own personal autonomy. We do not necessarily act based on what would be best for us, but on what would be

best for the faction we belong to. A part of this can come from pressure to act like everyone else and to “not go against the group,” even if the group is not doing the objectively right thing. An extreme but important example is the situation of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the FLDS Church. The recent Netflix documentary called Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey highlighted how radical theology led to condoning abusive behavior towards underaged girls and illegal practices like child marriage. It was depicted in the documentary that it was extremely difficult for those in the FLDS to confront the abuses within their group because they were conditioned from young ages to trust their leader and not question the religion they lived by.

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Now, as some of them leave the church and are learning to live independently of a group identity, they gain a better idea of what it means to be autonomous and choose how to live based on their own set of morals. A more common example is how difficult it is to break from the common political beliefs of one’s family and neighbors. Understanding both sides of political arguments is becoming increasingly difficult as media becomes more polarized. Therefore, it is harder to determine what one’s views might be if they received multiple unbiased perspectives. It illustrates how community mentality can sway the individual to make decisions that they would not make on their own.

The pressure to conform can additionally extend to how we pressure ourselves to act in certain ways that are not always natural for us. Tormenting ourselves into thinking that we should be something else can especially apply when we experience growing pains. Transitioning from one life phase to another can be extremely overwhelming because we are thrust into new expectations of where we should be at a certain physical life stage, even though our age does not necessarily correlate

with our maturity and what place we think we should be at. It is so easy to compare ourselves to other people in our age bracket because we have been conditioned to believe that we should be living similar experiences and dividing our time with similar activities. Recognizing that individual upbringings and environments likely shape people more than their age is crucial to breaking the habit of comparison with those in the same life stage. The inclination to change personal habits in favor of what is “cool” or “trendy” is also advanced by social media. It is easy to come across posts online that have made one question the way they choose to live life. The problem with that is social media only provides a snapshot into a person’s existence so it is not an accurate comparison to judge your life with only a sliver of theirs. But, it is easy to try to juxtapose them!

Group decision-making and individual comparison or pressure can easily deter us from the way we choose to live. If you believe in your own autonomy and want to exercise it, it is important to recognize the potential distractions from it and free yourself from the pressures that tell you to live in a way that you do not wish to.

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World’s Worst Roommate

When I was four, I became hyper-aware and therefore terrified of the fact that everybody dies and death stops for no one. Not something that is appropriate to share with your peers at the lunch table over your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and boxed milk. This fear became so strong that my mother had to start telling me that the deceased people in my life actually just up and left for Las Vegas, which marks one of the four times my mother lied to me and I eventually found out. The other three? Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. I don’t want to talk about it.

I’m not sure why she chose Las Vegas to be the city in which the undead congregate, but I think it’s because she figured that if I was young enough to

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believe her, then I was too young to go tour casinos.

But I digress.

I learned to worry before I learned to walk. As a result, I spent many days of my childhood playing with sandboxes in front of doctors and talking to them as they told me in kind, somewhat patronizing, voices to just not be nervous about the things that made me nervous.

I don’t know if any of the doctors discovered anything particularly groundbreaking about me, except that I was exceptionally gifted at generating fears, rationalizing these fears, and defending these fears. That I worry just like my father does. That I exhaust my mother. That while most families have a necklace or a recipe as their family heirloom, mine has nerves and I was the lucky heiress.

holds it against you, distorting it in a way that corrupts what you care about so dearly. It’s a hateful and falsely calculated entity, constructing an argument of nonsensical information in a way that somehow sounds real. It’s an essay that I BS-ed just enough to receive an A. It’s the “what if?” whisper in your ear, it’s the older kid on halloween telling you not to go to the house down the street because the guy who lives there chases trick-ortreaters with a chainsaw. It’s also the person who will chase you with a chainsaw with no blade. But you don’t know that it’s harmless when you’re running, and not even when you’re catching your breath (in through the nose…2…3…out through the mouth…2…3…). But most of all, it’s annoying! Like a fire alarm low on batteries beeping all night every night. And you eventually learn to live with its presence and you eventually learn that you have the power to talk back to it, taunt it, and rise to the challenge that is fear itself. And you learn to say “screw you I’m making toast this morning and the toaster won’t blow up!” And you learn that even though anxiety is a bitch, and astoundingly so, you are too. And it gets smaller and smaller and bigger again and then smaller and smaller then bigger then smaller, and such is life. Maybe it will never go away, maybe it will. For me, it probably won’t and that’s okay, most of the time. Because I can’t let a bad roommate, or a guy with a fake chainsaw, or a bad essay pull me away from the things I love. I can’t and I won’t, and that’s a decision that I have made, and one that I continue to make.

I wish that I could say it went away (It didn’t. Sorry kiddo) and I wish that believing in Las Vegas heaven still worked on calming me down, but anxiety doesn’t stop for anything. It is always with me, most of the time in my periphery, some of the time in the center of my scope. I compare it to a bad roommate. One that talks your ear off until three in the morning and wakes you up with tornado sirens. One that leaves passive-aggressive post-it notes all over your room like “Hey girlie, I love love love how outgoing you are but I can’t stop thinking about that time in biology discussion when you said orgasm instead of organism. You should be embarrassed of yourself <3!” One that knows every detail about what you love and what you hope to accomplish and 23
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Virginity (Doesn’t)

Incels on Misogyny

“I cannot kill every single female on earth, but I can deliver a devastating blow that will shake all of them to the core of their wicked hearts,” preached Elliot Rodger, a former student at UC Santa Barbara, who killed 6 people and attempted to kill over 24 others in 2014. Elliot planned this killing spree as his “Day of Retribution,” to project his overwhelming despair over not receiving sexual attention from women. Specifically, he targeted the Alpha Phi sorority at school–the sorority he deemed to be the most attractive–because he was unable to obtain their attention. In the middle of his spree, Elliot sent out a 141page document that detailed his upbringing, mental health struggles, and violently misogynistic views that were all fed by his feral frustration surrounding his virginity.

Elliot is and was not alone in his struggle; in fact, there exists an entire online community of such men known as incels, or involuntary celibates. The incel community finds solace within each other on online forums such as 4chan, incel.

is, and Reddit (the incel subreddit was banned, however). A distinguishing feature that separates incels from virgins is their deep-rooted misogyny, a feeling of entitlement to women’s attention, usage of archetypes such as Chads, Stacys, and femoids to dehumanize non-incels and women, acceptance of their “fate,” and violent tendencies. Elliot Rodger and other infamous incel murderers are on the complete extreme end of the incel pipeline; however, if violent and disturbing tendencies don’t manifest in real life, they absolutely do online. The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that on average, a post about rape was uploaded every 29 minutes on a large unnamed incel forum, boasting 17,000 members. Concerningly, the CCDH also found that violent rhetoric mentioning incel mass murders increased by 59% between 2021 and 2022. They also found that a distinct majority of posts were supportive of rape, and 53% of discussions about pedophilia were supported

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(Doesn’t) Rock: Misogyny and Violence

by the posters. A 2022 Secret Service report revealed that misogynistic incel terrorism is on the rise, perhaps signifying that the accessibility of the Internet allows people to find others similar to them, enabling incels, as well as the increasing boldness of the conservative ideology in public spheres.

In going through some incel forums myself, to no surprise did I find much disturbing content. Just one click on a website, and I found some discussion forums titled, “Women are currency,” “I think it’s funny how dikes and normies only attack fags and incels not women,” and “We men are the reason women exist.” One user states:

We men are the first ones to go to space, we men invented the internet and modern digital technology. All important positions are largely filled by men. Women are too emotional and will lead to disasterous results if they’re given any shade of power (such as right now)...Also we men pay most of the taxes while the money goes to fucking single moms. We are being

cucked out of our wallets, and that isn’t fair. Next time a woman comes up and gets uppity, simply put them in their place by saying “I pay and work so you exist”. Sick of those stupid arrogant narcissist Chihuahuas. Their bark is worse than their bite. Clearly, there is a continuously growing incel community that attracts vulnerable young boys and insecure virgins. Although they are a perturbing group of men that should be handled with seriousness, the overarching issue lurks behind the backdrop of male supremacy, misogyny, and harmful ideas indoctrinated through gender socialization. We cannot fix these issues in a week, a month, or even in centuries to come, but our best bet to dismantling toxic masculinity and preventing young men from becoming like Elliot is through comprehensive gender and inclusivity education starting from a young age, and showing compassion and empathy for others so they don’t start down a pipeline towards inceldom.

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Charlene Huynh
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Men Are Ruining My Life!

Men Are Ruining My Life!

With the Halloween season coming up people are feeling the spookiness in the air. Goblins and ghouls are in full force. Vampires and werewolves are on everyone’s minds. The extra bit of fear perhaps has you on high alert. Do you feel like you’re being watched? It just might be the most shocking thing of all…MEN. In horror films, a classic trope is the stalker watching the innocent woman undress or shower, just doing everyday things. While this is going on screen, I always wonder how the main character never feels the eyes on her, never has the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. I always seem to chalk it up to suspension of disbelief or–in a more misogynistic vein–she is just dumb, but perhaps this reaction, or lack thereof, is more believable than I previously thought.

I present to you, the male gaze.

This concept and term was coined in 1975 by Laura Mulvey in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. It describes and empowers male voyeurism, which emphasizes on woman’s sexual objectification and ability to be looked at passively by heterosexual men. Mulvey’s theory was primarily applied to film and television on the idea that the dominant audience demographic was the heterosexual male meaning that directors, producers, and writers were creating movies and shows to sell to the largest audience. Common depictions of this are found in characters like Lara Croft, any female superhero, or Margot Robbie’s character from The Wolf of Wall Street. Or any Margot Robbie character, actually. Also, see any Sydney Sweeney movie, tv show, or advertisement. You get it. Horror movies often contain moments of such obvious female objectification like a woman being snooped on while taking a shower; a sensual silhouette seen through the steam, or

the woman being chased in a barely-there towel after taking said shower. A personal favorite is someone getting killed while a couple is either making out or getting down to the nitty gritty. It’s always predictable and always uncomfortable.

The male gaze disappears when men start to act like the world does not exist for them. When they start to act like women do not exist for them. ”

We learn many things from the entertainment industry because we become what we consume. Take Mean Girls for example, a classic film for any young person today, there are still jokes being made from that movie. People are still saying “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.” On October 3rd, people say it’s “Mean Girls Day”. Movies and TV shows have an impact whether for the worse or the better and it should come as no surprise this horror movie method of film creation and female objectification has seeped its way into the subconscious of many.

I often find myself standing taller, fixing my hair, or almost posing while out in public even though there is no one watching me or talking to me. Subconsciously, I decide to make myself presentable for eyes that aren’t there. Even acts of protest to escape the male gaze from women cater to the male gaze! Recent waves of feminism have aimed to reclaim insults like “slut” or “c*nt” by dressing in clothes that would be deemed slutty or more revealing. Unfortunately, this trend still seems to benefit the same male gaze that women are trying to free themselves from.

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How—in a society fundamentally built on catering to heterosexual male pleasure and female objectification—do women win? Do we start dressing more conservatively? Do we try to blend into the background? Do we never leave our homes again? No. None of those things are going to happen because women should not be punished for the way society perceives us or how we act, or how we dress. The answer lies, not with women, but with men. The male gaze disappears when men start to act like the world does not exist for them. When they start to act like women do not exist for them. Not when they learn it, but when they act like it.

What does that look like? I do not know. I am not a scientist. However, it does not take a scientist to know there are some serious changes that need to be made because I look crazy fixing my hair and arching my back a little bit when there is no one else in the room.

Abolish the male gaze. Help me not look crazy.

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