YOU MAY HAVE heard of Julien Blanc.

He is a notorious pick-up artist who, along with his group Real Social Dynamics, travels the world teaching men how to “pick up women”. In his seminars, he condones behaviours that many view as promoting rape culture and aggression towards women.

Blanc initially came to prominence when a video of him detailing his strategy for picking up women in Japan went viral. In the since-deleted video, Blanc described grabbing a woman’s head and placing it in front of his crotch.

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Furthermore, he has previously tweeted about choking women and once shared a photo of himself on Instagram with the caption “#chokingwomenaroundtheworld”.

He also recently came under fire for tweeting a photo from a domestic violence charity and captioning it, “#HowToMakeHerStay”.

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The backlash recently resulted in his visa for Australia being revoked and there have been several other cancellations in the likes of Brazil and Canada.

An online petition asking the UK Home Office to deny Blanc a visa ahead of a number of scheduled tour dates in London has amassed over 156,000 signatures and has picked up significant traction online, with the Labour Party even stepping in.

As the petition says.

To allow this man into the UK legitimises sexual assault and predation, and sends a message that women are playthings or objects without agency.

So, why should we care?

Well, according to his website, his tour is scheduled to visit Dublin from June 4-6 2015.

Real Social Dynamics Real Social Dynamics

On the implications of someone like Julien Blanc visiting Ireland, Margaret Martin, director of Women’s Aid, told DailyEdge.ie:

Women’s Aid does not comment on individual cases. However, in our 40 years’ experience as a national support organisation for women experiencing domestic violence, we know that abusive men use a wide range of manipulative tactics in order to gain and maintain power and control over their partners. These tactics are insidious and very hard to identify by the women on the receiving end. Quite often it is only when the woman is free from abuse that she is able to look back and see a complex picture of coercive control emerge.

Society must understand that coercive control makes shadows of the most intelligent independent women and we must challenge men’s violence and abuse against women on every level.

For his part, Blanc appears to be attempting to salvage his reputation. He appeared on CNN yesterday to apologise for his “horrible attempt at humour” and said that certain images were “taken out of context”.

An online petition to deny Julien Blanc an Irish visa has attracted nearly 400 signatures.

And if the backlash continues, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be here any time soon.

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