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Optical Illusion: Perceptions of Race and Sexuality with Right-Wing Internet Personality Nick Fuentes, Part 2

[originally posted here]

Part 1

Sugar, Spice, and Nothing That Nice

A rare incident of Fuentes interacting with women as he poses with the female guests on his episode of Fresh&Fit

Fuentes has made many colorful statements on the subject of women and sex. It should not serve as a surprise to know that he has stated that he does not believe in sex outside of a marriage and has blamed many of modern society’s ills on promiscuity, access to pornography, and the growing acceptance of LGBT people. As for his own singleness, he claims to be waiting until he is ready to get married before he starts looking for a wife and identifies as an incel, that is an “involuntary celibate,” but his precise definition of that has changed over time. He does, however, still have plenty of thoughts on his potential future marriage and claim to be attracted to women. There is an often-noted disconnect between the women he claims to feel attracted to and the one he intends to marry. In a May 2023 episode, after a super chatter asked Fuentes if he found tomboys “based or gay.” Fuentes proceeded to go on a monologue about how he not only found tomboys very attractive, but also black and Asian women, followed by an assurance that he would “marry a perfectly normal girl because you have to,” with “normal” her presumably meaning “white” as well as conventionally feminine. Assuming everything he says is in earnest, it is a bit sad, thinking how someone could think that what they find attractive and what they think they should marry for the sake of “optics” are not the same.

A rare female involved in Fuentes’s circle earlier on was the aforementioned Brittany Venti. A Trump supporter and attendee of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally herself, along with former Fuentes associate Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet, Venti was known to toe the line between trolling and sincere social critique. Venti even stated in her appearance in Louis Theroux's Extreme and Online episode of Forbidden America that heavily focused on Fuentes and America First that she was not bothered by the “Jews will not replace us” chant, thinking it was “just trolling.” Her channel largely focuses on critiques of sex-positivity, feminism, sex work, pornography, and progressivism generally. She collaborated with Fuentes a few times, including the interview on her channel where the two discussed their ethnic identities. Fans were quick to notice a seemingly flirtatious rapport between the two. This would come to an end after an incident in which Fuentes alleges that Venti asked him to kiss her, for which he rejected her for being “non-white.” In the aftermath, Venti would accuse Fuentes of being gay on multiple platforms. In response, Fuentes associate Matt “Beardson” Evans made a stream graphically describing how he planned to anally rape Venti in revenge, laughing all the while. Venti appeared noticeably distraught as she shared this video with Louis Thereoux during her appearance in his series, though she assured him that she saw the humor in the exaggerated description. Out of context, Venti’s accusations could be read as the fury of a woman scorned, but she was not the first and would not be the last to hit Fuentes with such claims, which will be further discussed in the next section. With often claiming to find black women attractive, one would think Venti, a light-skinned, light-eyed biracial woman who read as only one third Sub-Saharan African on her 23andMe results and held right-wing ideologies to the point of attending the same event that Fuentes was pressured out of school for having attended would make an ideal compromise between his stated desires and what he viewed as optical.

Venti appearing in the “Extreme and Online” episode of Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America, describing the backlash she received from Fuentes’s followers after their falling out

Fuentes has identified himself as being an incel, though there is some dispute about the accuracy of describing himself as such. Formally, an incel, “involuntary celibate,” is someone unable to to excite the attractions of others to the point of leading to sexual activity, with the more modern usage specifying it to mean men who cannot spark the attraction of women specifically, others specifying it further to mean white women or just members of their particular race. Many have stated that they do not feel Fuentes fits into this aesthetically, with even those who criticize his appearance feeling he is not the worst looking person. Speculation aside, with minimal research, it is not difficult to find messageboards where netizens, including some female, admit to finding him attractive. He did receive a super chat once featuring a flirtatious message from someone who claimed to be a female viewer asking him on a date. While some would later speculate that it was a troll, Fuentes addressed the super chat in the moment in earnest, rejecting the offer, saying that, being “trad,” he would be the one to make any advances and a female making the offer was a turn off. Certainly, if the tale about Venti offering him a kiss is true, that offer alone would indicate his not incapable of attracting female attention, though perhaps her ethnicity makes her not count. He admitted in an episode to having once been kissed by a girl while he was in high school, leaving himself at the receiving end of taunts in his chat that he was a “fakecel.” He defended himself as a “born incel,” insisting that he lacked the interest, the involuntary part being that he “didn’t choose to be born.” He would go on to later describe himself as a “neo-incel,” on account that he technically could have a girlfriend if he really wanted to on account of his wealth and appearance, but is choosing not to for the time being.

Fuentes’s claimed disinterest in sex has often been present in his descriptions. He once notoriously went on a tirade about how sex with women was “gay” and would periodically go on spiels in following episodes about how pursuing sex and “simping” for women was a gateway to homosexuality. In a contemporary succession to Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones insisting he was the only truly heterosexual man in the world, Fuentes would insist that incels were the only truly straight men. One considers the influence of his traditionalist Catholic worldview and distaste for Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation. Luther was famously progressive for his time in his presentation of the desire for sex as a positive that could lead some to marriage and procreation, whereas traditionalist Catholics prior to him described sex as an awful act that one must tolerate for the sake of reproducing. Fuentes has repeatedly said how disgusting he thinks the act of sex in and of itself sounds and has reportedly said that he hopes to impregnate his future wife with his son as soon as possible so he does not have to endure the act too often.

In a surprising twist, Fuentes once posted a text he received from Mississippian right-wing Christian influencer Ella Maulding, describing how his ex-associate Jaden McNeil had allegedly attempted to pressure her into giving him oral sex after a makeout session when they met at a party during the White Boy Summer tour of 2021, allegations that McNeil fiercely denies. Fuentes’s initial presentation of this incident seemed surprisingly sympathetic to this young woman’s discomfort for someone so openly misogynistic and who often claimed that women’s claims of sexual misconduct by men were lies or that they deserved it, even likening McNeil’s alleged actions to those of another former associate in the circle who had been accused of sexual assault. Any illusions that Fuentes had gained an understanding towards women’s struggles were promptly wiped away during that night’s episode of America First in which Fuentes alluded to the incident as an example of some foolish non-incel, “simping for a…five out of ten.” Indeed, McNeil’s crime here according to Fuentes was not allegedly attempting to pressure a girl into a sexual act that she did not want to participate in; it was that he had (allegedly) been interested in sex at all.

The text from Ella Maulding posted by Fuentes to his Telegram with some sympathy, compared to when he would later mock “simps” on his show that night

The latest female to enter the Nick Fuentes Extended Universe is JustPearlyThings. JustPearlyThings is a TikTok and YouTube personality known for her advice to single women. She started off as a run-of-the-mill social media singer who played the acoustic guitar, but she did not take off until she started giving relationship advice to women. The majority of her audience appears to be members of the manosphere, such as the Fresh&Fit podcast on which she has been a guest multiple times, in addition to being accused of stealing material from to more easily appeal to men. She is known for extreme statements on how women should behave in relationships, famously suggesting the repeal of the nineteenth amendment. She advises marrying and becoming a housewife over being a professional. The fact that she herself is an unmarried professional being a fact that does not go unnoticed by her critics on different sides; she cites her tall stature, standing at somewhere between five-foot-ten and six-foot-one depending on the source, as the primary reason. Brittany Venti, for example, despite being a traditionalist anti-feminist herself, has been known to criticize JustPearlyThings for advising that women become “doormats” and take the blame for their husbands and boyfriends cheating on them. JustPearlyThings’s channel took off in far-rights spheres and she, a fellow Chicagoan, and Fuentes noticed each other and became friends. JustPearlyThings even returned to her roots as an acoustic guitar and vocals performer when she performed a song called “Why Can’t We Talk About the Jews,” which she dedicated to Fuentes, for which she received excessive backlash. Given his stated preference for the social company of males, it is definitely surprising that Fuentes would publicly declare a female his friend. JustPearlyThings may herself appear to be an optical female partner for Fuentes, a fellow Internet famous traditionalist who would let her man rule the house and one who is definitely white. However, she falls short - or perhaps, tall - in certain areas: JustPearlyThings is two years older than Fuentes as well as taller than him, with Fuentes standing somewhere between five-foot-five and five-foot-nine depending on the source. Most surprisingly for this circle, she has a stated preference for black men, her most famous ex-boyfriend being TikToker Oneya “angryreactions/Oneya D’Amelio” Johnson. This has caused some more race-based traditionalists to disavow JustPearlyThings, some even including Fuentes in the criticism for his association with her. Fuentes infamously lambasted the female host of an episode of Sosnick that he and JustPearlyThings appeared on, a friend of the latter, claiming he was “more Italian than [her]” on account of her Nigerian boyfriend. Considering much of her fanbase includes traditionalist-minded men of color who like the idea of being with a white woman, JustPearlyThings did publicly apologize to her fans who may have taken issue with Fuentes’s statement.

Fuentes and JustPearlyThings on a show together

It is clear that Fuentes is capable of socially interacting with some women. True, these are women who espouse views similar to his, but that does not make them any less women. That being said, there is an underlying discomfort that remains that has inevitably led to a certain type of speculation to arise.

Catastrophic Speculation

Fuentes holding up a crucifix at a rally to emphasize the movement’s focus on Jesus

As with many ardent traditionalists who decry degeneracy, it was only a matter of time before speculation began to build that Fuentes was compensating for something. The fact that Fuentes was ardent about not having and having never even had a girlfriend as a man in his early twenties raised eyebrows. As previously mentioned, Fuentes often asserts his lack of interest in sports or physical activity, claiming to prefer pursuits of the mind rather than the body. Between this and his characterful manner of speaking, rife with expressive hand gestures, some have read Fuentes as inadequately masculine. It would not take long for some critics to see this girlfriend-lacking, effeminate-by-their-definitions young man as potentially a closeted homosexual. Fuentes, who claims to be strongly opposed to homosexual activity - though he has stated that he has sympathy with “those struggling with same sex attraction” who choose not to act on it - has denied these claims, but that did not stop the speculation, which would only grow with the years.

Far-right commentators who espouse homophobia being accused of homsexuality is nothing new; Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Steven Crowder, and others have all faced such accusations themselves. Those men have all been married to women at some point, which they have used as a cover, but Fuentes himself claims to have never even had a girlfriend. To be truly homosexual, one would think Fuentes would have to actively express attraction to men. On the most literal level, he has never publicly admitted to having had sexual or romantic feelings for or relationships with men. Many of the initial pieces of evidence are merely stereotypes that lead him to being perceived as such. Having characterful gestures and a lack of athletic prowess does not indicate sexual preferences alone. He has described sex and relationships with women as something that distracts men, but that only suggests he is not currently involved with women. Certainly, the existence of asexuality, the way some have interpreted Fuentes, indicates that a lack of attraction to women does not necessarily indicate an attraction to men. Whether or not this has ever happened is up to interpretation. Fuentes definitely describes men in a far more positive light than women on an emotional and intellectual level, but the average misogynistic heterosexual male with a wife would likely do the same. There is a great deal of focus put on his appreciative approach to other men’s bodies. There was a rumor that a former Instagram account of his was following a page dedicated to “aesthetic boys,” featuring lots of fit, shirtless young men, though this is difficult to prove with his accounts all being deleted. He has periodically commented on the “physiques” of men he admires, such as Dr. Jordan Peterson, for the masculinity that they exude. It is important to note that none of these expressions explicitly included any statements of desire, but it was enough for some to infer those interpretations.

Some long-term followers of Fuentes’s antics will bring up his 2018 interview with Lucian Wintrich. Lucian Baxter Wintrich IV (né Einhorn and sans IV) is a prominent openly gay right-wing photographer, socialite, and former White House correspondent. Wintrich was known for being one of the youngest White House correspondents, beginning at the age of twenty-eight in 2017, but his notoriety began before then. In 2016, he created a photo series known as “Twinks4Trump,” featuring slim young men in Make America Great Again hats and in sultry poses, all taken in his very own apartment in the East Village. Later that year, he curated a conservative, pro-Trump art exhibition entitled “Daddy Will Save Us,” featuring art by various contributors and Milo Yiannopoulous himself in a bathtub of pig’s blood. His provocative antics eventually caught Fuentes’s eye and he had him appear on the show. Though many in Fuentes’s chat were less than kind to Wintrich, telling him to “die of AIDS” and such, Fuentes did refer to him as a “good friend.” The two discussed their generational differences, with Wintrich being a millennial and Fuentes being generation Z, and gently debated on the subject of how much immigration should be allowed, comparing their experiences with Fuentes coming from a suburban public school and Wintrich from private school. Some Fuentes critics felt that the discussion was flirtatious in nature and that Fuentes’s constant fidgeting and lip-biting throughout was on account of him being flustered; even Wintrich remarked on it and made a joke about Fuentes being “turned on,” which he simply laughed off. They were quick to notice Fuentes’s gleeful response when Wintrich called him “cute.” Alas, most followers took it as playful riffing and Fuentes did push back on a super chatter who left a sexually charged comment about Wintrich, claiming he did “not condone.” Even from the critics, this incident would not get nearly as much attention as one a bit over a year later.

Fuentes interviewing openly gay right-wing figure Lucian Wintrich in a 2018 episode of America First

When providing proof of Fuentes’s alleged homosexuality, critics are quick to bring up his previous friendship with Internet personality Tor Gustafsson Brookes, who has been known by various Internet pseudonyms over time. Brookes was born in Sweden in 1998, but was then raised in Brisbane, Australia by his single mother. Diagnosed as autistic in childhood, Brookes spent much of his youth online and playing video games with the username Kamikaze. He began streaming in 2019 under the name Lolisocks, as an intentionally inflammatory reference to “loli” pornography in anime, that is portrayals of what are supposed to resemble young, prepubescent girls. This provocative username was indicative of the sort of antics Brookes often displayed, essentially serving as the modern cyber equivalent of a 1990s shock jock such as Howard Stern or Tom Leykis. Being more contemporary and Internet-based, Brookes’ antics took it to a whole new level. Initially, he was most famous for his all-day streams, in which he would stream his entire day, mostly spent at home, including when he was sleeping. For most of these streams, he was wearing minimal clothing. His wall was noticeably covered in anime artwork, some of it salacious in nature and featuring what appeared to be quite young girls like the lolis alluded to in his username. He would leave sex toys lying around, sometimes using them as props for his shenanigans. A believer in white identitarian politics himself, Brookes found ways to post subtle “redpills” to his audience. Though many streaming platforms have rules against saying anything that could be explicitly deemed racist, he found ways around it, such as streaming his viewing of The Greatest Story Never Told, a six hour Hitler documentary deemed by many to be revisitionist in nature. There were several videos of him stating his views much more explicitly, just as telling black residents of the United States to go back to Africa if they want to avoid being called a certain slur, in which he used the word in question. His more famous streams involved him dressed in anime girl or maid outfits and cat ears in public to get a rise out of people.

Some of Brookes’s more safe for work Internet antics

At some point in 2019, Fuentes stumbled across one of Brookes’s streams. He was not initially aware of the fact that Brookes shared many of his ideologies, but he was fascinated by his antics. He became clued in over time by some of Brookes’s exploits, such as the streaming of The Greatest Story Never Told. Eventually Fuentes, who has admitted to having few friends and finding initiating social interactions difficult, mustered up the courage to leave a comment on one of Brookes’s streams. Brookes responded indicating that he was familiar with Fuentes and not in a negative way. This led to the two eventually beginning to communicate with each other online and developing a friendship. Fuentes would even successfully convince Brookes that Lolisocks was a deeply un-optical username, which led him to switching to the moniker of CatboyKami that he uses to this day. Fuentes was convinced that this tall, more conventionally attractive young man was exactly what the movement needed.

In December of 2019, Brookes decided to visit the United States. Over the course of his trip, he mainly participated in more inflammatory antics, such as trolling a furry convention and a stop in Portland, as well as visiting his online girlfriend in California. In the middle of this trip, he included a four-day stop in Chicago so that he and Fuentes could finally meet in person. The two claimed to have spent much of their time simply hanging out or “schmoozing,” as Fuentes would say, but the final day of Brookes’s stay in Chicago was actually streamed for his channel. The ten hour stream featured the two of them going out to eat, stopping at a mall so Brookes could get a jacket, playing at an arcade, and generally talking about various topics as they walked around in Chicago on that fine Sunday evening to early Monday morning. The two appeared to get along and agree on most topics, aside from the moments in which Brookes’s atheism and the fact that he felt women should be allowed in the movement, though not to vote or be leaders, came up. Fuentes politely debated Brookes on these topics, but the main focus of their conversations were what to do that night and life in general in their respective, quite different homelands. The viewers in Brookes’s live chat, many of which were Fuentes’s viewers who came over just for this, appeared thoroughly entertained by the antics between the two, leaving super chats throughout the stream.

Segments from the time Fuentes and Brookes spent together

Fuentes would upload the stream of his time spent socializing with Brookes on January 3, 2020. A few weeks later, it made it to the leftist sphere, in particular catching the attention of progressive political streamer and Fuentes critic Ian “Vaush” Kochinski. Vaush described the ten-hour stream as a “date,” insisting that the two told flirty jokes and “gaze[d] lovingly into each other’s eyes,” taking it all as a sign of attraction. He skimmed Brookes’s social media presence, especially focusing on an image of Brookes drinking water from a large squirting dildo that he sometimes used as a prop. While Vaush was the one to break the news to people across the political aisle, it is noteworthy that he admitted to only skimming the ten hour stream rather than watching the entire thing. He also appeared to not be overly familiar with Brookes’s social media presence. As a result, he did get a few facts wrong. He repeatedly referred to Brookes as a “gay sex worker” when, by all accounts, he was and only ever has been merely a streamer by profession, admittedly one known to engage in strange escapades in little clothing and costumes some may view as suggestive and, whatever his exact sexual orientation may be, he never identified himself as anything else than heterosexual and in a relationship with a woman. He claimed that Fuentes paid to fly Brookes out from Australia to see him specifically when the fact that Brookes had just paid a great deal of money to fly out himself was relevant to multiple conversations between the two, as were the other reasons for Brookes’s visit to the United States. The most specific yet incorrect claim Vaush made was saying that the stream ended in a hotel room and that Fuentes was there with Brookes at the time. Those who viewed the entire ten hours after the report by Vaush were disappointed to find that it in fact ended in the Air BnB where Brookes was staying alone and that Fuentes had dropped him off. Vaush, himself openly pansexual, ended his video challenging Fuentes to a debate on his stream on the subject that he (Fuentes) “is not a degenerate.” After this, word about the incident got out and rumors began to spread. While the falsehoods shared in Vaush’s stream were more likely genuine misunderstandings based on an incomplete viewing rather than intentional lies, it is interesting that the none of the Fuentes critics, including those on the far right and presumably in ideological opposition with Vaush, bothered to watch the stream for themselves and took all of these claims at face value. Many questioned why Fuentes, someone so concerned with optics, would publicly spend time with someone known to cross-dress and who took pictures posing with sex toys. Fuentes did eventually address the matter in an episode of America First, insisting that his friendship with Brookes, who he insisted was “based and redpilled” and “slays femoids,” was purely platonic and that the claims by Vaush were a “psyop.” This was enough to satisfy most of the groypers, but for some, the damage was done and Fuentes did reportedly experience a hit to his viewership. It did not matter that certain accusations may not have been true; what mattered is what seemed to be true and, by extension, because the truth to these people and as part of the general lore.

Brookes’s social media presence in the following months would not prove less controversial. In response to the rumors about him dating Fuentes, he found them hilarious and made jokes about having been his “first kiss.” As 2020 went on, his exploits became less subtle. With everyone being forced indoors, he took to using the random video chat website Omegle and troll people, including children, in racist costumes or as a police officer while kneeling on a specially made George Floyd doll. He would make multiple posts across his social media platforms, before they got removed, stating that men who say they are not attracted to “lolis” are either lying or gay. He even spent some time with Baked Alaska and attended right wing events in the US. After an incident where he was seen publicly praising Hitler, Fuentes formally disavowed him for his lack of “optics.” Brookes remained in the US on account of his eventual marriage to his girlfriend, with whom he fathered a child. It was speculated by some to be a green card marriage, as it did not last much longer than a year. Allegations floated around less savory parts of the Internet, claiming that the two split because Brookes was addicted to pills and that he had cheated on his wife with a fifteen-year-old girl. He carried on with his act as a provocateur on Omegle and in public until a 2023 arrest for disturbing the peace when he was found harassing women outside of a synagogue in New York, an incident he was live streaming.

In addition to accusations of being homosexual, Fuentes has also faced accusations of pedophilia. It is important to note that, for many of Fuentes’s far-right critics, pedophilia and homosexuality are one and the same, so existence of one is treated as proof of the other. Certainly, when discussing the friendship Fuentes had with aforementioned Tor Gustafsson Brookes, the alleged pedophilia of the latter is used as evidence of an apparent attraction to men, despite him never publicly discussing being attracted to any male people of any age, and that, by extension, the two must have been romantically or sexually involved with each other. Fuentes has, like many traditionalist influencers, supported lowering if not entirely doing away with the age of consent so that white citizens can focus on getting married and start making white babies as soon as possible. He has stated a desire for a “sixteen-year-old wife,” being age twenty-four himself at the time that this statement was made. He has specifically stated that he is putting off dating women so that he can start his search when he is in his thirties and can get the youngest wife legally possible with an ideal age gap. Aside from hoping that his future bride would be a virgin the way he himself claims to be, Fuentes has stated that all he wants from her is “a fertile womb and an innocent, childlike spirit.”

All things considered, Fuentes stating that he wants a teenage bride does not automatically mean that he is attracted to teenage girls. If anything, his statements about his feelings about sex and his attractions standing in contrast to an “optical” spouse implies that his ideal bride is someone who he is not attracted to. It would be reasonable to conclude that he considers teenagers to be good spouses for the sake of optics, though whether or not he is genuinely attracted to them is anyone’s guess. Given his previous statements about not wanting to have to deal with sex too much, it is possible that he, like many others, wrongly assumes that teens are more fertile, therefore would be easier to impregnate sooner. Darkly, one considers his other statements about not only not wanting to have to deal with sex too much, but not have to deal with his future spouse beyond their child and perhaps he is very aware that younger mothers are more susceptible to fatalities in childbirth and a young woman who dies after providing him with his son is the most optical way for him to have done the correct thing by getting married and reproducing, but not have to deal with her any further. Perhaps the truth lies in the middle and is in fact the usual reason adults seek teenage partners, not because they explicitly find teenagers more attractive than adults, but because teens are easier to persuade and convince to go along with what they are told. Someone who has been the leader of a movement primarily made up of teenagers would be well aware of just how easy young people are to sway.

Part 3

#Nick Fuentes #Fresh&Fit #Brittany Venti #JustPearlyThings #Lucian Wintrich #CatboyKami #groypers #AmericaFirst #Vaush #sexism #incel #Louis Theroux #catboy #tradwife

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