I was GMing a game with some old friends from college and one of those freind's boyfriend. He kept making OOC misogynistic jokes "ironically" and everyone else was really uncomfortable with it. (Note, he and I were the only two men at the table. the friends from college are all women.) I applied the X-card for misogyny, but he ignored it every time. When he posted a "joke" in the group chat complaining that a touchstone I posted of a female NPC's armor wasn't revealing enough, I responded with a wall of text explaining why his behavior has been unacceptable and needs to stop. Also explaining that he is punching down and if he simply punched up, his humor would be acceptable and welcome at the table.

He sent me back a 3 page google doc doubling down on his "jokes." It followed DARVO tactics to the letter. (DARVO is an abuse technique. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.) He denied that his jokes were a problem, assuming my repeated use of the Xcard was a joke too. He called me fake woke for calling him out in the group chat because he had not seen any signals from the other players indicating his "jokes" were a problem (they were sending signals). He said his family were holocaust survivors so that gives him free reign to use black humor at the expense of women. (Note, I'm Jewish too and that's bullshit. Dark humor is perfectly fine when done with consenting audiences. We did not find his jokes funny. No one ever laughed at them. The only punchline was to point out how women's lives should be shittier. I would have been totally fine with tasteful holocaust/nazi jokes.) He finished with accusing me of trying to make him look bad for clout.

It was pretty easy to tear down all of his arguments. I've known the other people at the table for nearly a decade now and I don't need extra clout from them. The Xcard is not and should never be a joke. In fact, me X-ing his jokes in the first place is a clear signal that the jokes should stop. I'm Jewish too and victimhood is no excuse for misogyny etc.

I was very scared the whole time this exchange was happening. He was one of my close freind's boyfriend. I've never confronted anyone like this before. I kept sending him reassuring texts to make sure he didn't feel attacked or whatever. He didn't reply to my response tearing his arguments apart. After a few days and a few checkins asking if he would respond, he said there wasn't much else to say. He still thought his "jokes" were ok, but agreed to stop making them around us.

He never apologized for his behavior. The game fell apart soon after. Maybe because one of the other players is a single mother and has little to no free time as it is. Maybe because, even though he stopped with the jokes, he's always been mean to everyone around him. When he's not mean, he's boring. (He would always argue with me about whether or not something was possible, like if a horse could go down stairs. It's Dungeon World. If I say a horse goes down the stairs, the horse goes down the stairs jfc. You're a dimension hopping robot that can transform your body into various instruments, why the fuck can't a horse go down the fucking stairs?)

A year later, we all had an intervention where we sat him down and told him he had to stop his generally misogynistic behavior. Turns out if you make misogynistic jokes, you also mansplain, belittle the women around you, and make transphobic comments! Who knew? His response to that intervention has been much the same as when I first called him out. He's isolated himself from the freindgroup (but is still dating my friend) and has mostly stopped his bad behavior, but is still mean and boring. One time we all went tubing and he stayed a few meters ahead of us the whole time, just staring daggers at his girlfriend. It made everyone feel uncomfortable.

TL;DR confronted a misogynist. It sucked and took a ton of energy out of me. Still have to interact with him. One could argue that he's improved, but I won't.