Accused Influencer Clavicular: Misogyny in the form of the perfect jawline

Surprise: A man who sells contempt for women, racist and eugenic ideas on the Internet under the guise of self-optimization is said to have also implemented his misogynistic fantasies offline. American looksmaxxing influencer Braden Peters aka Clavicular is charged with rape in Massachusetts.

According to then-17-year-old Aleksandra Mendoza, known online as Alorah Ziva, Peters encouraged her to drink alcohol during a visit to his family's Cape Cod home in May 2025. That night he had sex with her even though she was too drunk to consent. The next morning, Mendoza said, he raped her again. Peters has not yet commented on the allegations. He is scheduled to appear in Orleans District Court on October 14.

The influencer is considered an important figure in the looksmaxxing scene. What once began as an online subculture in the depths of misogynistic incel forums (“involuntary celibate”) now dominates the For You Pages of millions of young users. At first glance, this is a harmless trend that is about radical self-optimization of male appearance.

Looksmaxxers put up with a lot to achieve this: in “bonemashing” they hit the jaw or cheekbones with hammers in order to achieve more pronounced contours through microfractures; in “hardmaxxing” they resort to cosmetic procedures and operations. The 20-year-old Clavicular shows his more than 1 million followers on Instagram and Tiktok how they can “level up”, i.e. become more attractive, for example with steroids to build muscle or crystal meth to suppress appetite.

The influencers film the Maxxing and upload it to social media, where the face and body are broken down into angle degrees and symmetry values ​​in a ethnic-eugenic manner and judged according to quality. People with inharmonious facial features are considered “subhuman” in the scene.

The biological staging of the “steel” body goes hand in hand with neo-fascist and alt-right ideologies. Braden Peters is also close to right-wing extremist Manosphere influencers such as Andrew Tate or the right-wing extremist US activist Nick Fuentes. In a video from January 2026, Peters dances with right-wing influencers, including Tate, in a nightclub to Kanye West's anti-Semitic song "Heil Hitler"; Hitler salutes can be seen in the recordings.

The fixation on physical optimization is also riddled with sexism. The belief behind this is that men who are physically superior have more status and power and can suppress women better.

The allegations against Peters have not yet been proven. This is now in the hands of the courts. But his hatred of women is publicly documented; millions of people subject him to it every day. Patriarchal violence does not just begin with rape or femicide, but also with depictions on social media. It is also up to society to deal with this.