A prominent social media influencer at the center of the viral ‘looksmaxxing’ trend for young men has entered a not guilty plea to serious felony charges including rape, bringing heightened attention to the legal and cultural issues surrounding controversial internet personalities.
Twenty-year-old Braden Peters, who posts online under the pseudonym Clavicular, was formally charged in September with three offenses: felony rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and illegally providing alcohol to a minor. The allegations date back to an alleged incident in May 2025 at Peters’ family home in Chatham, Massachusetts, where he is accused of assaulting a 17-year-old girl.
According to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s partner outlet in the United States, the accuser told law enforcement that Peters ordered her an Uber to his family residence, where the pair drank alcohol and filmed a live stream before the alleged assault occurred. The investigating officer told reporters he concluded the teenager was unable to give legal consent, due both to her age below the Massachusetts legal drinking age of 21 and her visible level of intoxication during the live stream.
Peters has repeatedly denied all allegations, asserting that the sexual encounter was entirely consensual. Following his arraignment hearing on Thursday, a Massachusetts judge granted Peters release on $10,000 bail. As conditions of his release, Peters was ordered to have no contact of any kind with his accuser, barred from posting any content about her online, and required to surrender his passport to authorities.
Clavicular has amassed more than one million followers across TikTok and Instagram, building his platform around the ‘looksmaxxing’ trend — a movement that encourages young men to take extreme steps to maximize their physical attractiveness. He has publicly admitted to extreme cosmetic measures, including hitting his own face and jawline with a hammer to alter his bone structure, as well as using anabolic steroids, cosmetic injections, and other pharmaceuticals to alter his physique. Beyond his aesthetic advice focused on conventional masculine presentation, he also creates viral stunt content designed to shock his audience.
This is not the first time Peters has run afoul of the law. Earlier this year, he pleaded no contest to a charge of unlawfully discharging a firearm in public after a viral video showed him shooting at what appeared to be a dead alligator in Florida. In March, he was arrested on suspicion of battery after he was accused of inciting a physical fight between two women, but prosecutors declined to file charges against him in July.
In a characteristically surreal post-arraignment move, Peters posted a photo to his social media channels Thursday showing himself in the black suit and tie he wore to court, holding the pet dog he brought with him to the hearing. The case is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on November 24, when a judge will rule on whether there is sufficient evidence to move the case forward to a full trial.