An Open Letter To The Wife Of One Of Our Wall-Of-Shame Psychos.

Several years ago, a guy by the name of Travis started trolling our website, leaving horrific comments about our appearances (calling us Skeletor and Pudgepants and Buzzard Beak and Thunder Thighs, etc. etc.)  He’s a liberal dude (obvs) and disagrees with our politics, so naturally he has to rip on our appearance.

Keep in mind – this is him. That’s the guy who is making fun of the way we look.  Four years ago, he earned himself a block from commenting on our website after he went after my oldest son (who is severely disabled after suffering a brain injury during his premature birth).  When he called my kid a “disabled whatchamacallit” that was kind of the last straw.  And so I wrote a post about him, which you can read right here. 

A week or so ago, he turned up here again, cowardly using his wife’s WORK email address, and we blocked him again.

So what does an obsessive stalker-type do when that happens?  They go straight to Twitter to harass us, natch.

Here’s just a sampling of the crazy.

So that brings y’all up to speed.  This is who this guy is.  He’s a disgusting, cowardly, misogynistic wackjob.  I think that’s a pretty fair assessment, based on the comments above, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyway, my point in posting this is that I plan to send his wife this letter personally, to her work email (since he was kind enough to make it known to us), but also thought it might be helpful to post it publicly, in the hopes that other women who might be married to disgusting trolls can see fit to extricate themselves from their horrendous situations.  No woman should tolerate this level of vileness, and no woman should want this kind of guy near her children.

So here goes.

Dear V –

Hi – you may or may not be familiar with us  – we are the Chicks on the Right – and your husband Travis has been following us for the past four years.  It’s entirely likely that politically, you are aligned with your husband, which of course is the ideological opposite of where we stand, and that’s OK.  You’re entitled to your opinion, and it’s even OK if you feel the same level of visceral hatred towards us that he does.   We are quite used to being on the receiving end of vile, vulgar, and hateful comments from people who disagree with us politically.

But you should know, if you don’t already, that Travis used your work email address to comment on our website.  He uses his real name on Twitter, to post truly despicable comments about one of our kids, who’s severely disabled.  He calls us whores, stupid bitches, skanks and fuckwads.  He makes wildly inappropriate comments about our looks.

Your husband is easy to block on our social media, and he’s certainly easy to ignore.  The problem though, is that we’ve seen pictures of your children, V.  We even have a friend in common on Facebook, it seems.  In other words, the world is really small.  You work at a public university, probably providing for your family in a way that Travis doesn’t have the intellect to do himself.  You’re a career woman, you’re a mom, and hopefully, you are raising your son to be a kind, decent person who would never dream of speaking to women in the way your husband does,  and you’re raising your daughter to never tolerate being spoken to in the way your husband speaks to women with whom he disagrees about politics.

Nothing ever gets deleted from the internet, as you likely know.

We’re writing you, V, to implore you to consider what kind of example your husband is setting for your son and daughter.  We are writing you to consider having a discussion with Travis about the fact that his words on the internet will live forever, and your daughter will see them once she’s old enough to have access.  Your son will believe that it’s OK for him to speak to women he doesn’t know in the way that Travis speaks to us, that it’s OK for him to obsess for YEARS over two women that he’s never met, and that it’s OK for him to use the work email address of his future wife to post horrific comments on websites.

He’ll believe that because that’s the example his father is offering.

Your daughter will believe that this is how men speak to women with whom they disagree, and that it’s acceptable.  And you, if in fact you’re doing nothing to discourage this, will set an example for her that it’s acceptable to tolerate being spoken to in this way.   Your silence will someday speak volumes to your kids, because just like Travis’ messages will never be deleted, this post will also never be deleted.  Your husband’s name, which he chooses inexplicably to use openly on social media even as he’s behaving as a total neanderthal, will forever be attached to this post.  Travis Buntin will be searchable forever, and it’ll lead people (including your kids someday) riiiiight to this very post.

So we’re writing to implore you, V, to speak to your husband and get him the help he needs to get over his obsession with us, and learn how to treat women properly.  We’ve got plenty of experience obtaining restraining orders, and we’re certainly not above doing that again.  It’s an ugly thing to have on one’s record, I’d imagine.  Although assuming there’s just one Travis Buntin in Indiana, his rap sheet already is pretty full. 

Most of all, we’re writing to you as women, genuinely concerned for whether or not you’re safe in your marriage to what appears to be an unhinged maniac.  You don’t need to tolerate being mistreated, V.   You don’t deserve it – no woman does.   And your daughter certainly should NEVER believe that he sets an example for how men should treat women.

Respectfully,

The Chicks

Anyway, it’s entirely possible that Travis’ wife is every bit as hateful as he is, but I’m working from an angle of optimism here.

Never a dull moment for the Chicks!

UPDATE: 2.15pm ET.  Travis’s wife has responded:

I thanked her for her message, and let her know that we appreciated the financial contribution he was making to our site via the traffic to this post.  I also suggested that perhaps if he’s spending time trying to get a rise out of strangers on the internet, that he may need a new hobby.  And finally, I included the link to this post so she could see for herself what he’d written for her kids to stumble across in a few years.  She responded simply, “Not interested” as if she won’t click on it out of sheer morbid curiosity.  HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Oh V.

via GIPHY