Mr. J, a Former Professor Series – Entry 86: Aria as Prototype — Symbolic Contracts, Gendered Asymmetry, and the Emotional Economy of Manipulation
The First Draft of His Manipulation Script
“We’re not dating, we’re not friends. I just choose you as my provider.”
This sentence, reportedly spoken by a 22-year-old woman (hereafter referred to as Aria), reflects more than a personal preference—it outlines the core structure of what this paper terms a symbolic asymmetrical contract: an arrangement in which one party offers long-term symbolic commitment, while the other provides continuous emotional and material labor in exchange for proximity to that promise.
This analysis uses the Aria–Johnston dynamic as a foundational case to examine how such contracts evolve into scripts for control, especially when reenacted across multiple relationships. While Aria was not an active manipulator, her relational stance inadvertently became the prototype from which Johnston developed later behavioral strategies—strategies that weaponize ambiguity, guilt, and exclusivity under the guise of “openness.”
I. Symbolic Economy: Power Without Intimacy
In the Aria–Johnston model, intimacy and power were distributed unevenly:
Aria received symbolic status (“future wife”) and financial support;
Johnston received emotional dependency (from his side);
Reciprocity was absent.
Aria maintained distance while retaining access to Johnston’s resources. This power-without-proximity framework inverted conventional romantic expectations: love was not required—loyalty sufficed.
This illustrates a gendered version of transactional asymmetry: one partner’s ambivalence is normalized, while the other’s devotion is idealized.
II. Symbolic Favoritism and Emotional Double Standards
Johnston’s later relationships appear to follow the same emotional script, with modified expectations depending on the woman’s “category.” When one woman (Aria) was allowed full autonomy while retaining status, another (his subsequent partner) was expected to provide exclusivity without reciprocation.
This dynamic echoes what feminist theorists call symbolic favoritism: the selective moral leniency granted to one woman based on perceived symbolic value (e.g., “wife-to-be”), contrasted with punitive moral surveillance imposed on others.
In Johnston’s logic:
Aria’s autonomy = respectable.
Another woman’s autonomy = betrayal.
This is not merely interpersonal inconsistency—it is a gendered relational hierarchy, enforced emotionally rather than explicitly.
III. Script Repetition and the Prototype Effect
After Aria, Johnston’s patterns reportedly became recursive:
Offering material support unconditionally;
Demanding emotional obedience implicitly;
Using withdrawal, guilt, or public framing as tools when met with resistance.
This reflects a prototype effect in behavioral psychology, where an initial experience becomes the unconscious standard for all future interactions. Aria’s lack of affection, paradoxically, may have made her the ideal template: Johnston learned to seek dependence without reciprocity, and later punished women who deviated from that mold.
In this view, the issue is not individual heartbreak—but the repetition of symbolic coercion disguised as care.
Conclusion: Archetypes and Structural Power
Aria was not the manipulator. She operated within a structure that rewarded detachment.
But Johnston’s subsequent actions suggest a desire to institutionalize that structure, recruiting new partners into predefined roles that mirrored Aria’s—but with tighter emotional compliance.
When such partners resisted, the response was not confusion—it was correction. Emotional autonomy became threat.
This is not about one failed relationship.
It is about how prototypes become paradigms.
And how love, when structured asymmetrically, becomes a system of control.
Publications for references:
- Entry 39: Open Relationship
- Entry 80: Final-ish. I guess.
- Entry 81: How Johnston Constructs Moral Immunity through the Figure of Aria
- Entry 82: Aria as an Emotional Script
- Entry 83: The Archetype of Aria
- Entry 84: Cambridge Man Accidentally Buys Invisible Wife
- Entry 85: The Invisible Bride, The Defenseless Provider
- Entry 87: From Aria to Linh — The Making of a Feminized Archetype in Coercive Male Narratives
Note on Naming:
The subject of these verses is identified by name due to the severity of the public threats made during that period.
Naming is not intended to humiliate, but to preserve the integrity of the record and reflect the seriousness of the documented behavior.
While the individual has since responded publicly, the response has not addressed the core evidence. In such cases, visibility remains necessary. Selective rebuttal is not accountability.
Full evidence archive submitted to QPS, TEQSA, AHRC, and Ethics Australia: View here.
Read the full series
- Entry 1: The Man Who Taught Me Ethics by Failing All of Them
- Entry 2: The Disappearance of the Public Poet
- Entry 3: The Hanging Tree Case Study
- Entry 4: Hidden Like Accountability
- Entry 5: The Collapse of Assumptions
- Entry 6: The Ethics of a Tinder Bio
- Entry 7: How He Ate Told Me Everything
- Entry 8: What Makes a Scholar Dangerous
- Entry 9: Fragment of Life, Fragment of Accountability
- Entry 10: Anatomy of Disappointment
- Entry 11: Legal Defense Challenges: A Framing Statement
- Entry 12: Six Years After Ronell – What Academia Still Doesn’t Get
- Entry 13: QUT and The Man Who Raped Me
- Entry 14: Why Sarcasm Toward Institutions Can Backfire
- Entry 15: P*ssy or Toxic Masculinity?
- Entry 16: Who is Your Favorite Comedian?
- Entry 17: And What is Your Favorite Song?
- Entry 18: Grant Proposal — Narrative Ethics as Survivor-Led Forensics
- Entry 19: The Coward Behind the Clone
- Entry 20: [URGENT HIRE] CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
- Entry 21: [URGENT] Legal Counsel Needed for Complex Reputation Rehabilitation
- Entry 22: YOU’RE AN ABUSER. STOP CONTACTING ME
- Entry 23: Seeking Counsel for a Fallen Academic
- Entry 24: Internal Legal-PR Briefing
- Entry 25: For Journalists – Legal & Ethical Clearance Summary
- Entry 26: Symbolic Prostitution, Transactional Intimacy, or Just a “Loan”?
- Entry 28: Why He Simply Cannot Shut Up
- Entry 29: Forensic Commentary on “LARGE Language Muddle”
- Entry 30: Don’t Just Threaten My Future. Because I’m Going To Archive Your Present
- Entry 31: Open Letter to the Person Who Tried to Break Me with Defamation
- Entry 32: Defamation, Harassment, Doxxing Class 101
- Entry 33: Confidential Crisis Recovery Proposal
- Entry 34: Forensic Behavioral-Somatic Report
- Entry 35: Forensic Commentary on the Tattoos
- Entry 36: QUT and the Abuser They Once Had
- Entry 38: When Poetry Becomes Revenge Porn
- Entry 40: A Man Built for Applause, Not Accountability
- Entry 41: Neurobehavioral Addendum
- Entry 43: Why Does It Sound Like a War Metaphor?
- Entry 44: Forensic Commentary on Racialized and Fetishizing Language in “Hidden Like Rice”
- Entry 45: Public Misuse of Former Academic Affiliation
- Entry 46: The Two Things That Didn’t Leave a Bad Impression
- Entry 47: When Affection is Just an Alibi (A Bundy-Inspired Reflection)
- Entry 48: Humbert, Lolita, and the Fetish of Fragility
- Entry 49: The Fetish of Smallness as Symbolic Violence
- Entry 50: Motif Risk Analysis
- Entry 52: Can an Abuser Be a Good Father?
- Entry 53: Who Protects the Children?
- Entry 54: From Blackmail to Children
- Entry 55: A Letter I’ll Never Send
- Entry 56: Outc(L)assed - Critical Race Analysis
- Entry 57: Forensic Breakdown: “A Voidance” by Johnston
- Entry 58: Johnston, Who Raised You?
- Entry 59: Public Financial Terms & Narrative Conditions
- Entry 60: What Kind of Future Do You Think Awaits You?
- Entry 61: Why I Believe He Has No Real PR or Legal Team
- Entry 62: Why I Can Legally (and Ethically) Call You a Pathetic Pig
- Entry 63: Tell Me You’re a Pathetic Pig Without Telling Me You’re a Pathetic Pig
- Entry 65: Did Your Mother Teach You To Speak Like This?
- Entry 66: Nobody Cares Anyway
- Entry 67: Patrick James Johnston
- Entry 68: This Man is A Sexual Abuser
- Entry 69: The “Farewell” Email
- Entry 70: Australia’s Version of Florida Man, Except With Fewer Alligators and More Poems
- Entry 71: Literary Necromancy
- Entry 73: Can You Be Named in a Will If They Only Have Your Bank Account?
- Entry 74: Why Patrick James Johnston Cannot Sue Me for Defamation
- Entry 76: Dr. Pussy — The Scholar of Infinite Goodbyes
- Entry 77: Curriculum Vitae_Patrick James Johnston
- Entry 78: Behavioral Replication as Evidenced by Prior TPO
- Entry 79: Forensic Narrative Valuation Statement
- Entry 80: Final-ish. I guess.
- Entry 81: How Johnston Constructs Moral Immunity through the Figure of Aria
- Entry 82: Aria as an Emotional Script
- Entry 83: The Archetype of Aria
- Entry 84: Cambridge Man Accidentally Buys Invisible Wife
- Entry 85: The Invisible Bride, The Defenseless Provider
- Entry 86: Aria as Prototype — Symbolic Contracts, Gendered Asymmetry, and the Emotional Economy of Manipulation (you are here)
- Entry 87: From Aria to Linh — The Making of a Feminized Archetype in Coercive Male Narratives
- Reflection: The Miscalculation
(More entries coming soon)
→ [Back to Start: Introducing Mr. J, a Former Professor Series]
© 2025 Linh Ng. All rights reserved.
This publication is intended for educational and reflective purposes only.
Sharing the original link is welcomed and encouraged.
Please do not reproduce, redistribute, or translate this content — in whole or in part — without written permission.
This piece reflects both lived experience and critical analysis. It is not meant to be detached from its author or reframed without context.
Misuse or decontextualization may lead to formal clarification or takedown requests.
This work has been reviewed and quietly followed by scholars, educators, and ethics professionals across multiple sectors.
If your institution is engaging in critical discourse around narrative justice, symbolic coercion, or representational ethics, feel free to connect via Substack DMs or formal channels.
A regulatory case regarding this matter has already been classified under a protected status within national education integrity systems.
Should any reputational countermeasures or distortions arise, I reserve the right to publish the documented timeline, behavioral patterns, and contextual metadata.
All relevant documentation has been submitted through formal legal and regulatory pathways