Please ignore the following, as I have had anal sex.
Feminists once had noble goals of securing voting rights, achieving educational parity, and opening employment channels for women. But once these goals were met and even exceeded, the activists did not want to lose relevance. Now, they tirelessly and ruthlessly lobby for changes in legislation that is blatantly discriminatory against men (not to mention unconstitutional and downright cruel).
We gave you bitches the vote and everything, what the hell else do you want? The world is now absolutely perfect for all women in every way, so clearly feminism is done and should pat itself on the back and go home.
Also I'd like a citation of which part of the Constitution is "Thou shalt not collect alimony." (Is alimony a major feminist thing? I don't see it mentioned much in feminist circles. It's clearly a major bug up this guy's butt, which makes me think it's personal, but then I wonder how he could possibly have been close enough to a woman to marry her in the first place. Maybe it's just his own justification for why he won't marry: it's not because he can't even talk to girls, it's because the bitch would just take his money.)
Despite my acute ability to detect and deconstruct leftists, I was unprepared for the level of unhinged lunacy that 'feminism' had sunk to, which revealed itself in late 2008 when Sarah Palin emerged onto the national scene. Here was a woman who actually achieved all the aspirations that feminists claim to value : a highly successful career as a Governor and VP candidate, a large number of children, a loving marriage to a supportive yet ruggedly masculine husband, and an attractive appearance despite being in her 40s.
Okay, see, feminism doesn't mean all women are awesome, it just means all women are people. (Hence the existence of the Female Masculinist doesn't make my head explode like a computer calculating "what is love?", because a certain proportion of female lunatics is actually predicted under this theory!) Under that standard it's actually not anti-feminist to believe that a person, irrespective of gender, is not qualified to be the vice president. Even if she does have impressive political qualifications like having lots of kids and a cute husband and being cute at 40. I mean, I could totally understand if feminists didn't want to vote for some lonely old woofer, but this is just hypocritical!
This reveals one of the darkest depths of the human mind - when a group is utterly convinced that they are the 'victims' of another group, they can rationalize any level of evil against their perceived oppressors.
And you perceive yourself as oppressed by women. You see why I worry.
Go to any major 'feminist' website, such as feministing.com or Jezebel.com, and ask polite questions about the fairness of divorce laws, or the injustice of innocent men being jailed on false accusations of rape without due process. You will quickly be called a 'misogynist' and banned from commenting. The same is not true for any major men's site, where even heated arguments and blatant misandry are tolerated in the spirit of free speech and human dignity.
Oh, you weren't trolling, you were just asking polite questions! Ones that you were sincerely curious about and willing to hear even unexpected answers to! That sounds likely as fuck!
Anyway, the fact that some men's site (ugh, what a terrible way to put it, since there's lots of sites run by men that aren't battlefronts in the Gender Wars, or are on the "wrong" side) doesn't moderate comments is surely a victory for civil rights everywhere. They like to argue, woo hoo for them. I actually don't moderate comments either, because I believe that comments reflect only on their authors (hi there "butt slut" guy!), but that's my own choice; I'm not under some obligation to let anyone post anything on my website.
It's worth noting at this point that the comments to The Misandry Bubble are almost entirely positive, and at one point the author explains that he hasn't been screening but some comments may not appear due to a technical problem with Typepad. A very selective technical problem.
Ever-tightening groupthink that enforces an ever-escalating narrative of victimhood ensures that projection becomes the normal mode of misandrist thought. The word 'misogynist' has expanded to such an extreme that it is the Pavlovian response to anything a 'feminist' feels bad about, but cannot articulate in an adult-like manner.
This is another one of those one-sentence wonders. "Women are screaming idiot children--why would they think I hate them?"
A man who refuses to find obese women attractive is also a 'misogynist', as are gay men who do not spend money on women. The male non-compliance labeled as 'misogyny' thus becomes a reaction to many years of unopposed misandry heaped on him first, when he initially harbored no such sentiments. Kick a friendly dog enough times, and you get a nasty dog.
And you're a nasty fucking dog, mister.
There's a difference between not fucking fat women, which you're quite free to do, and saying hateful and weirdly offended things any time a fat women dares to be in your sight. Also, guys don't "agree" to find fat women attractive, some of them just do. And "gay men who do not spend money on women" are called misogynist? BUH?
There are laws such as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), that blatantly declares that violence against women is far worse than violence against men. VAWA is very different from ordinary assault laws, because under VAWA, a man can be removed from his home at gunpoint if the woman makes a single phonecall.
Anyone can be removed from their home (although not usually at gunpoint, usually Taser-point at the worst) if the content of that single phonecall was "this person is attacking me," yeah. I've been present when women were arrested for domestic violence; the cops don't just leave them at home and say "you be good now."
I actually agree to a limited degree that there are bad provisions in VAWA (most of which I think are gone anyway due to United States v. Morrison), but I'm unwilling to get too into that with someone whose main complaint is clearly "and it makes violence against women illegal, what's up with that."
Rape legislation has also bypassed the US Constitution, leaving a man guilty until he proves himself innocent, while the accusing woman faces no penalty for falsely sending a man to prison for 15 years, where he himsef will get raped. The Duke Lacrosse case was a prominent example of such abuse, but hundreds of others occur in America each year. The laws have been changed so that a victim has 1 month to 'decide' if she has been raped, and such flexibility predicatably leads to instances of a woman reporting rape just so that she does not have to tell her husband that she cheated on him (until it becomes profitable to divorce him).
Ugh. I've gone over the whole "false accusation" thing so many times in comments that I'm kind of tired of it, so I'll just say that being falsely accused of rape sucks, but it's not The Scourge of Our Era, it's not equally as bad as being raped, and guys who are really really really concerned about the specifics of rape laws creep me out in much the same way as guys who point out that the age of consent is actually sixteen in their state thank you very much.
And let's hear it for our old friend the One-Sentence Wonder! "Women don't want to admit that they cheated because it would destroy their marriage, although women do love destroying marriages."
But, unimaginably, it gets even worse. Polls of men have shown that there is one thing men fear even more than being raped themselves, and that is being cuckolded.
If this is true, you polled some serious dumbshits. Or more interestingly, some guys with very little concept of what it's like to be raped or to fear rape. Yes, cuckolding sucks, but very few people have been cuckolded to death. I can't tell you the number of times ERs have to reluctantly collect swabs from crying, shivering, bloodied cuckolding victims.
So, to review, if a woman has second thoughts about a tryst a few days later, she can, without penalty, ruin a man financially and send him to prison for 15 years. 'Feminists' consider this acceptable. At the same time, even though men consider being cuckolded a worse fate than being raped, 'feminists' want to make this easier for a woman to do, by preventing paternity testing. They already have rigged laws so that the man, upon 'no fault' divorce, has to pay alimony, to a woman who cuckolded him.
Wah wah wah cuckolding. The weird part is that I actually would feel bad about a guy being cheated on, if he didn't bring the whole "worse than rape" thing into it. It's like seeing someone with a broken ankle limping along, and then he screams "this is worse than the so-called Holocaust!"--kind of interferes with my sympathy a little.
Also, I'm used to the word "cuckolding" only being used by guys who hate and fear it so much that they want me to do it with a big black guy while they're forced to watch and then maybe I should make them eat out the come because they're dirty little bitches who aren't man enough for me, aren't they.
This is pure evil, ranking right up there with the evil of Nazi Germany, Al-Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein. Modern misandry masking itself as 'feminism' is, without equal, the most hypocritical ideology in the world today.
TOTAL LACK OF PERSPECTIVE FIVE, BRO!
And once again, I've only taken a tiny chip off the surface when I must go back to work at the Vagina Dentata Factory. Mention in the comments that I have had anal sex!
Holly's had anal sex!
ReplyDeleteThe whole "cuckolding is worse than rape" thing comes straight out of roissy, which means it comes straight out of WTFBumfuckville.
I think that everyone should be forced to read feminist blogs for three months before they can say anything about "What Feminists Believe." Because, seriously, no one thinks that gay men are misogynistic. Gay people and feminists are kind of allies, you know.
So, to review, if a woman has second thoughts about a tryst a few days later, she can, without penalty, ruin a man financially and send him to prison for 15 years.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know more about the justice system no longer holding trials or requiring proof before sending someone to prison.
Also, I'm used to the word "cuckolding" only being used by guys who hate and fear it so much that they want me to do it with a big black guy while they're forced to watch and then maybe I should make them eat out the come because they're dirty little bitches who aren't man enough for me, aren't they.
I think that's this guy. His fantasies of being a cuckold are seeping into his sense of reality, and he either believes that or wants desperately to convince himself that everyone else has similar fanasies and finds them similarly repellent-exciting.
Because, seriously, no one thinks that gay men are misogynistic
The idea has floated around the fringes of radical feminism in the past. Like (some) lesbian separatism and (quite a bit of) homophobia, it stems from the idea that homosexuality is a completely free choice--in this case, the choice of men who hate women so much, they won't even have sex with them.
It is in no way a common, typical, or mainstream feminist belief.
I kind of feel like you should start using "butt slut" the way Dan Savage used to use "fag". (Let's ignore the fact he's an ass for a moment.) So people can start off messages to you, "Hey, Butt Slut!" It has such a nice ring to it.
ReplyDeleteDespite my acute ability to detect and deconstruct rightists, the idea that "gay men who do not spend money on women" are considered misogynists confused me. That's the sort of thing you really need to elaborate on, I have to say. Gay men who don't go to establishments run by women? Gay men who don't fuel women's "orgy of consumption"? (I totally ate two or three unbaked cookies the other day. AN ORGY, I tell you.) What?! I just don't understand.
Also, I don't think feminists actually claim to care very much about being attractive when you're middle-aged. Some feminists think it's very nifty, but I don't think it's ever held to be a big deal feminism-wise.
"crying, shivering, bloodied cuckolding victims"
But they grow horns, the poor things! As a Jew, I know how much that hurts.
Where is this guy getting the idea that rapists go to jail for 15 years? He mentions that particular number several times. He must have had to rummage really deep inside his ass for that.
ReplyDeleteOf course, "Now a woman can falsely accuse a guy of rape and - after every aspect of her behaviour and appearance that night is publicly scrutinized and a bunch of people accuse her of lying - the guy might be sent to jail for eight months or so but get off on parole after two!" doesn't have the same ring to it.
Here's the thing: the vast majority of rapes aren't a stranger dragging you into the bushes; they're a guy at a party getting you drunk, separating you from the pack and fucking you - often when you're pretty much passed out. The perpetrators are overwhelmingly repeat offenders. Their friends see them select a girl, ply her with drinks, and take her to a secluded place over and over and over again; the friends are either too afraid to call it rape and ostracize the guy, or they don't understand that rape is what's happening. A lot of the victims are so busy blaming themselves or being slut-shamed by their friends that they don't think to call the rape what it is, either. And I've seen many instances where a woman who did come forward was ostracized from her social group and the rapist's life went on just fine.
If a woman makes formal charges of rape (instead of just trying to get her social circle to understand what happened), she may have to go to the doctor and get a rape kit done (a stranger sticking a cotton swab inside you 24 hours after a guy stuck his unwelcome dick inside you, what fun!) and then have the police or the courts subtly blame her for what happened to her. This in addition to a lot of her friends going all weird and not wanting to talk to her anymore - or siding with her attacker.
Being falsely accused of rape would suck. What a lot of people seem to be missing is that leveling that accusation at someone is usually a horrible and grueling experience. There is no way in hell hoards of women are throwing themselves into that situation for no reason. You'd have to be one seriously disturbed bitch, and contrary to Bubblehead's belief, there aren't really that many chicks out there who are that mentally ill.
@ Anonymous 11:43
ReplyDeleteYES! Thank you!
-Marissa
Because, seriously, no one thinks that gay men are misogynistic.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Though I did live with a gay dude who was totally misogynistic, that was like, one time, one dude, and yeah, no. Definitely not representative of gay men in general.
doesn't make my head explode like a computer calculating "what is love?",
Just thought I'd let you know that after reading this I had "What Is Love? (Baby don't hurt me)" by Haddaway going through my head as I read the rest of your post.
Which was awesome [the post]. Couldn't agree more.
Yay buttsecks!
Hey Holly, you missed this one: "...all the aspirations that feminists claim to value : ... ruggedly masculine husband..."
ReplyDeleteI mean, wasn't he explicitly claiming that feminists wanted wussy wimpy compliant guys a couple paragraphs back, not "ruggedly masculine" ones?
(Also, "large number of children" is a feminist goal now? Man, I miss all the developments since I turned in my ID card and stopped getting the newsletter; that reversal shoulda made the news at least. I see Anon above has covered the "and she's still fulfilling the important feminist goal of being hot for random dudes" bit.)
Because, seriously, no one thinks that gay men are misogynistic.
ReplyDeleteThere has been some writing about the tendency of some gay men to marginalize the concerns of lesbians, and to not see how "women's issues" intersect with gay issues. Example. The idea is not, however, that gay men are inherently misogynistic; rather that being gay does not erase male privilege, or preclude the possibility that guys will do or say anti-woman stuff.
@ Dw3t-Hthr
I was amused by the "ruggedly masculine" part. You just know that these guys see Todd as an avatar for themselves.
"Their friends see them select a girl, ply her with drinks, and take her to a secluded place over and over and over again; the friends are either too afraid to call it rape and ostracize the guy, or they don't understand that rape is what's happening."
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but, even as a woman, I wouldn't look at that scenrio and think "He's gonna rape her".
I'm at a party and a friend of mine is sitting at the bar with a man she's evidently attracted to (they're sitting together willingly, talking, laughing and he's buying her drinks). They are getting along well. She's getting tipsy/drunk but they're also both grown adults and he's not pouring the drinks down her throat or threatening her if she doesn't drink them. After sitting there together long enough for her to feel the affects of alcohol (however long that takes for the individual) they get up and go in search of somewhere quiet and private. How does that look like rape?
When a woman willingly gets drunk, and then leaves the public area to be alone with a man, I'm afraid I don't see how any rape has taken place. He hasn't forced her in any way. He hasn't persisted after she said no. Of course, should they get to a private place and things start to happen and she's says "No" then yeah, all bets are off, game over, end of the evening and everyone shakes hands says "Nice to meet you" and goes home. If she says "No" and he doesn't immediately stop then absolutely he's in the wrong and anything after that is certainly rape.
Rape is a horrible thing to have happen and no one should have to go through that and no one should get away with raping someone. But, when does the line get crossesd from "I went to a party and got drunk and fucked some Dude I wouldn't normally give the time of day" to "I went to a party and some Dude got me drunk and took advantage of that and raped me"?
A person who has been raped has no fault in the situation. They didn't ask for it or cause it and shouldn't be treated like they did. But, where does personal responsibility begin and end? A woman old enough to be legally drinking is also old enough to know that if she goes to a party, and accepts drink after drink for someone, she is going to get drunk and may end up doing things should wouldn't normally do. If she then leaves the party to go in search of privacy and has sex with the person who bought/gave her the drinks, and has sex with that person, how is that considered rape? She's not unconsious and didn't say no. Is eh supposed to have a breathalizer and check her before having sex and say "Oh, I'm sorry, you're too drunk to be making this kind of decision"?
I'm sorry but the whole scenario is a little too "Poor little ol' me" for my liking. I am an adult and I am responsible for myself. If a woman is willingly drinking with someone and willingly leaves with them and participates in sex with them (specifically participates. Not laid there unconscious while he had sex with her) even if she regrets the decision the next day, that's exactly what it was; a decision. Maybe a bad one but that certainly doesn't make it a rape.
June Clever - There's three things that could be going on in that scenario.
ReplyDelete1) Tipsy sex. This is where the woman is under the influence, but basically aware of herself; she might be a little sloppy and disihibited, but she's physically and mentally capable of saying "no" and she'll remember what happened. I'm fine with this, it's pretty normal and frankly sometimes kinda fun.
2) Drunk sex. This is where the woman is flat-out smashed and has no goddamn idea what's going on. (Yes, she may have gotten herself that way. That changes nothing.) A woman who's incoherent staggering blackout drunk, or passed out, cannot consent to sex, and sex with her is rape.
3) Tipsy rape. This is where a woman tipsily agrees to go to a guy's house, but doesn't consent to sex (or to a specific sex act), and she does say no. But because of the combination of alcohol (even though she's still aware), the "well I did go to his house" factor, and some fuzziness about the events (did I just sort of mumble "no"? did he think I was kidding? was he just trying to please me and I was being difficult with him?), she may not report this as rape or she may not be believed when she says it was rape. This is absolutely clear-cut rape--she said no!--and shouldn't be conflated with just regretting tipsy sex.
I think most cases of drunk rape are cases 2 and 3, and that reports of girls deciding that one beer makes them incapable of consent has been greatly exaggerated.
According to a semi-recent study, 61% of serial rapists use intoxication of part of their modus operandi. Yes Means Yes covers the research in this and a few other posts.
ReplyDeleteAnd they use responses like the above comment to continue to get away with it.
ReplyDeleteJune Clever: I don't think your hypothetical is the same as the one you're responding to. Specifically, you've had to emphasize:
ReplyDelete* That she's "evidently attracted to" him.
* That her state of inebriation is "tipsy/drunk."
* She's in control of how much she drinks ("he's not pouring the drinks down her throat")
* She's actively looking for somewhere "quiet and private" in order "to be alone with a man."
* She "specifically participates" in sex.
Thing is, the following also fits the original fact pattern, and I suspect is closer to what the original poster was talking about (and which, back in college, were often the sort of things that I was supposed to watch out for as part of party risk management):
* She's not particularly attracted to him, but is unable or unwilling to disengage (because he's not taking the hint and she doesn't want to make a scene, for example).
* He's getting/refilling her drinks at a pace which is under his control, not hers.
* Her state of inebriation is "falling down/feeling sick/passing out."
* She's looking to leave, not to be with this or any other guy, but to recover from the effects of the alcohol.
* She doesn't actively participate in sex.
(Also, see others beat me to the punch, so to speak.)
Dw3t-Hthr - Yeah. I think it's important to remember that rapists also know the rules of "rape rape" vs. "gray rape;" they know that jumping out of the bushes at a woman is rape rape, but if she voluntarily goes somewhere alone with you--that's consent to absolutely anything he can think of, in way too many people's minds.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, "gray rape" isn't always something that just happens when "things go to far"--it can absolutely be premeditated.
As for what friends should do about a tipsy girl getting alone with a guy, I have to admit that's something of a judgement call, because a lot of people do consensually hook up that way. But if there's any hint of fishiness, if the guy is creepy or the girl uncomfortable or out of it, I would absolutely cockblock the shit out of that.
The laws have been changed so that a victim has 1 month to 'decide' if she has been raped
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Bubble Boy would react to learn what the statute of limitations *really* is for rape.
Dw3t-Hthr - great, I was just about to mention the Yes Means Yes posts. There's also a video from CBS news of the psychologist who has done all the studies of these serial rapists, and the gist is: We are covering for these guys and helping them get away with it. Because despite this fear that gets pumped up that ANY dude is at risk of accidentally becoming a rapist if he misjudges the intoxication of what he thought was a willing partner, these rapes are planned, repeated actions by rapists who look like upstanding citizens and use the cover of doubt like that of June Cleaver above (not to pick on you, since your response is typical). We hear about these rape charges and think, "huh, I've had drunk sex, I've regretted sleeping with someone before, and it would have been really evil of me to call it rape, and it sounds like that could be what happened there." Well, that is NOT what happened. A rapist picked out a victim who is already intoxicated and can be encouraged to get more so, isolated from the crowd, and raped, and particularly would be the kind of woman (i.e. slutty) who is not believed.
ReplyDeleteEverybody please read that Meet the Predators post, if you haven't before - it's incredibly illuminating.
Ah, here's the video:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/23/david-lisak-on-acquaintance-rapists-were-giving-a-free-pass-to-sexual-predators/
So it kills me that the misandry crowd wants to identify with and sympathize with and defend these rapists. They are not "any man" or misunderstood victims. They know exactly what they're doing.
But because of the combination of alcohol ... and some fuzziness about the events (did I just sort of mumble "no"? did he think I was kidding? was he just trying to please me and I was being difficult with him?)....
ReplyDeleteThis makes me wonder, what if he is equally drunk? If he drunkenly mistakes drunken refusal for drunken consent, is that accidental rape, rather like manslaughter vs. murder?
That aside, I think we as a society need a few more terms of opprobrium in this scenario; maybe resurrect some old ones. We need some disrespect for the man who tries to get women drunk in order to get consent to sleep with them (cad?). We need some disrespect for anyone who keeps drinking as long as their drink gets refilled (drunkard?).
I think sometimes in abstract discussions like this we tend to ignore what might be contemptible behavior on the part of the victim because we don't want to cloud the issue to let the rapist off the hook. Obviously it should be ignored talking to a woman who's been raped; when your child burns himself on the stove is not the time to yell at him about not climbing onto the countertop.
But this pair together:
* She's not particularly attracted to him, but is unable or unwilling to disengage (because he's not taking the hint and she doesn't want to make a scene, for example).
* He's getting/refilling her drinks at a pace which is under his control, not hers.
* Her state of inebriation is "falling down/feeling sick/passing out."
Given that the pace at which she EMPTIES the drink is under her control, getting drunk there is just such obviously stupid behavior that if she gets rescued by friends as I hope she does, she needs some verbal swift kicks.
As for the cad, the men in my circle would seriously hate him. Why on earth is that insult considered quaint and obsolete when the behavior is still around? Seems like now that so many behaviors are crimes, e.g. beating up a cad, nothing that isn't a crime really counts as bad behavior.
Why is being drunk automatically negative behavior? Sure, it may gross you personally out, it may be unwise, and it may be unhealthy to do often - but so are a lot of activities. Please don't impose your views on public decorum/morality on others.
DeleteDamnit, I can't remember the search terms for the piece that's, in part, "Look, we punish women for speaking up and making a scene, and then we say 'but why didn't you scream, raise a commotion, throw a scene? How do you expect anyone to believe you?' when someone's raped". It's not 'The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck' and it's not 'Schroedinger's Rapist', and I can't remember what the damn thing's called or come up with a search term.
ReplyDeleteMousie00 - Rape is not some fifty-fifty deal where the rapist and rape victim are equally to blame.
ReplyDeleteDw3t-Hthr, I think you mean Fugitivus:
ReplyDeletehttp://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/another-post-about-rape-3/
quoting from a much longer piece:
"Another post about rape
June 26, 2009 by Harriet J
If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:
* it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
* it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
* it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
* it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
* it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
* it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
* it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
* it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”)
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways."
@Mousieoo
ReplyDeleteHe's not a "cad", he's a rapist. Any other word is just obscuring the facts
And, wow, great job victim-blaming there. If someone chooses to get drunk, that's their own business. The second they hurt someone else, then it's a problem.
I just read the post Dw3t-Hthr linked. The author says, "Women are already doing what they can to prevent rape; brokering a peace with the fear is part of their lives that we can never fully understand. We’re the ones who are not doing our jobs." Speak for yourself, dude. The "sadistic religious conservatives" (in Bubble Boy's terms) that I hang out with are miles ahead of what this guy recommends. We don't even actually approve of guys having sex outside marriage, let alone getting the girl too drunk to refuse. "The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity" is not getting cover in my crowd.
ReplyDeleteIs it worth giving up what Holly called tipsy sex to eliminate most rape? Sure women shouldn't have to, but the need that shouldn't be there is anyway. Just like men shouldn't have to police other men, but the need is still there anyway.
Dude, you're missing the point. What you're advocating is STILL a "don't get raped" tip, as opposed to a "don't rape" tip. You may think it's anti-rape or empowering, but really, it's just asking the victim/potential victim to accommodate the rapist/potential rapist. I think this is a case of you confusing your personal moral code with "ways to live safely that are both mostly effective and universally beneficial."
DeleteRepeat after me: MY MORAL BELIEFS, ABOUT ALCOHOL OR MOST OTHER ISSUES SHORT OF VIOLENT CRIME, ARE NO MORE OR LESS RELEVANT OR RIGHT THAN ANYONE ELSE'S. Thank you.
Thank you, chi, that is in fact the post I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteMousie00:
Is it worth giving up what Holly called tipsy sex to eliminate most rape?
That's not the question.
The question is "Why should women be expected to never go out at all, never drink alcohol, never attend parties, never wear certain clothing, or any of the other things that they 'shouldn't have to' do in order to socially pass for having adequately prevented the rapes that are 100% caused by men deciding to rape?"
If I give up tipsy sex, what else am I going to have to give up? It's not like if every woman decided not to drink and fuck (oh man, good luck with that) the rapists would just go "oh darn" and take up Parcheesi.
ReplyDeleteWomen would still get alone with men--we want to make out, we want to just hang out, we think he's a friend, we accepted a ride, we weren't sure if we were up for sex but thought we still had the option to back out, we were up for sex but not like that--and we'd still get told "it's not blame or anything, but you could have been more responsible" when we get raped.
Holly, Marissa, please reread what I wrote. The "cad" is the "man who tries to get women drunk in order to get consent". That's definitely not a rapist.
ReplyDeleteThe sentence "I think sometimes in abstract discussions like this we tend to ignore what might be contemptible behavior on the part of the victim because we don't want to cloud the issue to let the rapist off the hook." was too unclear. I admit it's pretty poorly written. And when there are rape apologists out there, I ought to write more carefully.
Absolutely, rape is not some fifty-fifty deal where the rapist and rape victim are equally to blame. No amount of contemptible behavior on the victim's part makes her less of a victim or him less of a rapist. The rape is just not the only bad behavior present.
What I want to say is only rape does not make all the victim's behavior OK. Rape apologists and defense attorneys try to shift the blame from the rapist to the victim, so we are rightly touchy as hell about this area. But if the victim stole some guy's wallet unbeknown to the rapist just before the attack, the victim did something wrong even though she was raped.
I claim getting drunk because some guy you don't like has cornered you and keeps refilling your drink is not OK behavior, despite the fact it doesn't mitigate the rapist's crime one iota. He's still 100% rapist, she's still 100% victim. That she's at least 60% dumbass drunk doesn't change anything about the rape at all. And of course you'd be a heartless bastard to mention it after she was raped. But she should be told she's a dumbass drunk before she gets raped.
"man who tries to get women drunk in order to get consent". That's definitely not a rapist.
ReplyDeleteThat definitely IS a rapist. If the drunkenness is necessary for the consent, it's not legitimate consent and he's a rapist.
Mousie00, I believe you're speaking in good faith, but that well is just too poisoned.
ReplyDeleteMousie00, you appear to be operating under the delusion that it is possible to gain consent from someone who has been "gotten drunk", and thus that a person doing so is not a rapist.
ReplyDeleteI would gently suggest to you that you are mistaken.
I think it's possible that a tipsy person might give consent they otherwise wouldn't, and I actually (if the tipsy person is not smashed-drunk and if it is in fact "consent" rather than "not resisting") would consider that consent.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this is not the stuff of which rape accusations are made. (You know, when I regret fucking a guy, I'm more likely to get dressed and leave real fast and then avert eye contact if we pass on the sidewalk. "Initiate police proceedings, receive medical exam, subject self to endless judgement" seems like a much more labor-intensive solution.) Most rape accusations--even by the fucking Bubble Boy's number's it's still a majority!--originate not in sketchy consent but in no consent.
@ Mousieoo
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to say is only rape does not make all the victim's behavior OK.
If the victim's behaviour is irrelevant to whether or not a rape occured, then who the fuck cares about the victim's behaviour? It's immaterial, it doesn't matter.
Heh. I'm exactly the kind of cautious, sober-sided, conservative woman Mousie seems to think is behaving acceptably- I'm not doing it because I'm religious, I'm doing it because I've got a Rottweiller's attitude to the kindness of strangers. I push back when my boundaries are pushed rather than backing up, I never drink any further than tipsy in public and before I was married I would not have allowed any man to buy me or get me more than one drink. I get more agreeable the more I drink, and that means I recognized early on that I should never, ever be drunk in the company of anyone I did not absolutely and completely trust. Soberest college co-ed in New Orleans, at least outside the company of either myself, my long-time boyfriend (now husband), or my roommate.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten everything on chi/Harriet J's list for it. Mean bitch, frigid bitch, dyke, angry, antisocial, stuck-up, etcetera. Some of it from people presenting it as "friendly concern" about how I just didn't seem to fit social norms and was there anything wrong with me. I don't care, I've always been a bit of a loner anyway, it doesn't bother me if I don't fit in. To this day perfectly friendly people I'm trying to be friendly TO can interpret me as being more standoffish than I actually am- and there are still men willing to try pressing my boundaries.
The social norms absolutely support the "opportunistic rapist", who maybe thinks that if you can trick her into "consenting", then that really counts as consent. They support him to the hilt. If you want to act like I- or a randomly selected fundamentalist- do, you absolutely pay a social cost for it and I understand why so many don't, given they may still never be raped.
I knew women in college who absolutely used alcohol to excuse sex to themselves as not really counting if they were drinking. Funny how they seemed roughly as perturbed by the "date rape" as by dates, and never reported. Big, epic fucking difference between them and girls who were actually raped at parties.
"Be careful at parties and in public, some people will rape you even if they seem nice" is a good lesson to teach daughters. (So are shooting lessons.) It has no fucking place in the aftermath of rape. Our job should be to see to it that men who are willing to rape are fucking locked up, not given the cold shoulder.
And when there are rape apologists out there, I ought to write more carefully.
ReplyDeleteIt's a thought, yes.
But if the victim stole some guy's wallet unbeknown to the rapist just before the attack, the victim did something wrong even though she was raped.
Sending time with men isn't wrong whether or not one is raped. No one is saying "women shouldn't be alone or go out drinking with men, but if they get raped it wipes the slate clean." That's worse than what rape apologists generally say openly; it suggests the rape is expiatory. So it's not a good analogy because stealing is illegal and you're not going to get a lot of agreement here that spending time with or drinking with men is even immoral or unethical.
Also, getting drunk and theft of a wallet are, uh, pretty different.
DeleteHole-y,
ReplyDeleteAt least we agree that you have no skills other than anal sex. Hence, 'Butt Slut' will be the title we agree to refer to you as.
You really seem to be stretching your pea-brain quite a bit to really confirm what The Misandry Bubble says. You are thus helping to pop the Misandry Bubble (which does exist, given how much you obsess over castration).
I see you are too much of a misogynist to go read Female Masculinist (from whom you could learn about actual womanhood). Typical.
Okay, I KNOW this one is a joke.
ReplyDeleteDisregard that, I suck cocks.
ReplyDelete<3
ReplyDeleteThe "cad" is the "man who tries to get women drunk in order to get consent". That's definitely not a rapist.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of consent, akin to "the man who never asks so that she doesn't say no and make him a rapist."
As for your response to the drink thing: If you've got a full drink in front of you, you're likely to at least keep sipping. It's similar to this study which used self-refilling bowls to demonstrate that we rely on external measures of consumption much more than we think. The "have some madeira, m'dear" predators rely on that cognitive bias to get their target to imbibe more than they otherwise would. (There are other tricks, too, like giving one person a strong drink while keeping a less strong one for one's self; we tend to "match" what we drink to what the people around us are doing.)
I've been in situations where I've lost precise track of how much I've had, because I kept "topping off" (and this was *me* doing it; were it someone else I'd have had no idea at all). Not everyone is sufficiently experienced with alcohol to know when they've hit their limit, how to stay there, etc., or to overcome cognitive biases (especially while inebriated). To say "she should be verbally kicked for falling for that" is just plain victim-blaming and rapist-excusing.
* She's not particularly attracted to him, but is unable or unwilling to disengage (because he's not taking the hint and she doesn't want to make a scene, for example).
ReplyDelete* He's getting/refilling her drinks at a pace which is under his control, not hers.
* Her state of inebriation is "falling down/feeling sick/passing out."
* She's looking to leave, not to be with this or any other guy, but to recover from the effects of the alcohol.
* She doesn't actively participate in sex.
THANK YOU, jfpbookworm, this was the sort of situation I was talking about (I would add that probably a lot of rapists play the nice guy and offer to take the drunk girl to a secluded place under the guise of taking care of her: "here, let's get you to a quiet place and you can lie down until you feel better").
It irritates me that someone assumed, right off the bat, that my initial comment was referring to two people who are hitting it off just fine, get tipsy, and head off to be alone together. I know the difference, goddammit.
Maybe that initial comment wasn't clear enough in its intent, but that would've been a good time for someone to ask for clarification rather than assume I'm a puritanical dumbass who thinks liquor is eeeeevil and nobody should ever hook up at a party.
And for those who are trying to fault the women in these hypothetical scenarios, let me quote another bit from Yes Means Yes blog: the one constant in every single rape scenario - the thing they all have in common - is the presence of a rapist. Dressing in a fucking burqa, eschewing alcohol and going everywhere with a chaperone isn't going to prevent rape (last time I checked, rape still happens even in countries where women do those things). The key to preventing rape is, you know, for dudes to stop raping.
Marissa said "If the victim's behaviour is irrelevant to whether or not a rape occured, then who the fuck cares about the victim's behaviour? It's immaterial, it doesn't matter."
ReplyDeleteIt is absolutely immaterial to whether a rape occurred. It would absolutely be immaterial at a rape trial.
However, life is not merely a matter of raped vs. not raped; if someone keeps a journal a normal day's entry is not just "Not raped today". If your friend drinks as long as her glass is kept filled, she may experience any number of problems; an elevated risk of being a victim of a crime (which she is absolutely NOT causing or asking for or any such bullshit) is only one of them.
chi says that well is too poisoned. I certainly see what she means. However, we cannot give up that well. Everything here not written by LabRat or myself is about nothing but who gets the blame after a rape. The rapist gets the blame. The victim is not to blame for the rape. No one here is arguing about that.
You know what's even better than not blaming the victim for being raped? The rape not occurring. LabRat and I are the only ones saying anything about what might help someone not get raped. And I just can't accept the idea that what I'm saying is even controversial. It's not smart to keep drinking what the creepy guy who has you cornered keeps handing you. Seriously? This is a problem? Hershele? Is that just normal "spending time with or drinking with men"? Dw3t-Hthr? There's nothing between that and the burqa?
Anonymous @ 6:55:
ReplyDelete"If the drunkenness is necessary for the consent, it's not legitimate consent and he's a rapist."
Dw3t-Hthr:
"Mousie00, you appear to be operating under the delusion that it is possible to gain consent from someone who has been "gotten drunk", and thus that a person doing so is not a rapist."
Ok. A woman has a mild STD. She decides she isn't going to sleep with anyone until it's cured. She doesn't feel like mentioning it, though. She meets an attractive guy who she really likes. He sees her attraction, and it's mutual. While they talk, he buys her several drinks, drinking an equal number himself. After getting a buzz on, she figures "What the heck? He probably won't contract it." She sleeps with him. He's a rapist?
Anonymous at 10:04:
ReplyDelete"The key to preventing rape is, you know, for dudes to stop raping."
Oh good. Here I was thinking it was going to be something HARD.
To return to an earlier point -- Holly's had anal sex!
ReplyDeleteOr at least, so I hear; it's not like I have an action maquette documenting the dirty deed sitting around my evil lair or anything.
Also, Holly, I'd quibble with one possible conclusion that I -think- you're making:
"Kick a friendly dog enough times, and you get a nasty dog.
And you're a nasty fucking dog, mister."
Unless I'm misreading you, you're assuming that he was initially a friendly semi-decent human being, then got mistreated/rejected, and THEN became nasty.
I'd offer the alternative idea that maybe he was just a nasty turd from the get-go (aka suffering from Turdinthewombosis), and doesn't even have the pseudo-excuse of "I got TURNED DOWN FOR SEX AND LOVE AND RECOGNITION BY WOMEN IN MY LIFE OH THE HORRO OHTHEAGONYOMGBBQPOTATOCHIPSAAAIIIEeeeeeEE!!!!!!!" to fall back on.
Just a hunch based on his/her/its comments, offered from my Wondrous Throne of White Male Privilege And Having Been Laid Enough Times To Not Be Insecure About It, which is located in my secret underground harem-filled lair. In L.A.
Mousie00 - It may be good to remember that some of the commenters here have been sexually assaulted themselves. So when you say "I wouldn't say this to someone after they'd been raped," well, you are.
ReplyDeleteJack - Oh no, I just meant he was a nasty dog, there was no implication that I was following the rest of his "logic." These guys do often evolve from the kind of "nice guy" who's really an asshole to being plain assholes, but there's no actual niceness anywhere.
Mousie: I am saying there are things you can reduce your risk of rape by this model of rapist, yes. What I'm also saying is that part of that is accepting most of the rest of society thinking you're antisocial, mean, or angry. I'm okay with that, most people aren't.
ReplyDeleteThere are things people can do to reduce their risk of predation in almost all classes of crime, due to the fact that criminals mainly victimize other criminals. But rape is very unique in that it's one of the very few crimes in which we start immediately analyzing how the victim could have avoided it instead of going "THAT MONSTER". And the only one in which a large number of people are willing to defend the good intentions of the attacker as a default.
Mousie00 - It may be good to remember that some of the commenters here have been sexually assaulted themselves. So when you say "I wouldn't say this to someone after they'd been raped," well, you are.
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing this out, as, y'know, if I point this sort of thing out I get treated like a histrionic nutbar as often as not. But, that been said, I am going to uncork my sexual assault survivor bitchtasticness now.
Thus:
mousie00, kindly actually read what I said. "Has been 'gotten drunk'" is what I said, in response to a comment about people deliberately inducing intoxication sufficient to coerce false consent. "Mutual attraction" and "becoming a dumbass after tippling" are not a part of that scenario.
A woman who has been "gotten drunk" has been fed an intoxicant by someone else in order to damage her cognitive capacity. That is what the phrase means. It is specifically, in this context, a route to avoid fiddly matters like "consent" by incapacitating a potential victim.
Which brings me to: you are the one who is making the burka-justifying, as what I am saying is SHE SHOULD NOT BE RAPED, AND SHOULD NOT BE REQUIRED TO CLOISTER HERSELF AWAY so that other people won't sneer at her -- like you are doing. "What can you expect if you drink?" or "What can you expect when you go to his place?" or "What can you expect if you wear that?" is the game that you are playing here, not me.
It is not possible to prevent rape with the actions of targetted women. Period. Rapists go out with the deliberate intent to disable, compromise, and coerce sex, and will pick targets and methodologies until they succeed. They are counting on you and people like you to continue spouting your rape-apologist bullshit so that they can claim plausible deniability and so that the women will get caught out in doubt and wonder if hey, was it their fault, did they mislead the poor guy, or what.
So, y'know, when you replied to the "Women are doing everything they can, we need to do more" with "I'm doing fine, speak for yourself, buster"? You are not. Fucking. Doing fine.
You are providing excellent cover for rapist scum.
Do better.
Holly said - 'It may be good to remember that some of the commenters here have been sexually assaulted themselves. So when you say "I wouldn't say this to someone after they'd been raped," well, you are.'
ReplyDeleteAh. I see. My apologies to Dw3t-Hthr and anyone else. It's different when it's personal. As we saw in part 2, I'm not at my most understanding on the "false accusation" front, and that's a much less severe experience.
To clarify, I was a suspicious little creature from early on (one of my earlier memories is, in response to scary noise at night when I was eight or so, getting up to get a knife rather than hiding under the covers or even calling for my mom), and "don't drink in public" went along with "don't walk alone at night unarmed", "avoid all sketchy areas", and everything else you're supposed to do to prevent victimization.
ReplyDeleteThe difference is I'm socially rewarded and sanctioned to do all the other things rather than punished and shamed, and if I got victimized anyway people would be outraged- AND if someone caught me alone and tried, the same class of people whose values you represent wouldn't mind if I unholstered and plugged the perp rather than just getting victimized.
If I shot a man who'd maneuvered me into a bedroom when I was feeling sick and my judgment compromised (whether I had had any control over how that happened or not) and had just my word on if he was going to rape me? Even if I weren't convicted of murder or manslaughter, a majority of society would regard me as one anyway.
There are steps you can take and avoid victimization. Okay. Done. The point is, people are so fucking sensitive about dwelling on that because it's of whole cloth with the same social structures the rapist uses to be a predator in the first place.
Dude, I get that a crazy ass woman can really fuck you over. I really do, because my stepmother is one of them. She wasn't borderline, but damned if she isn't a pathological something or other. She absolutely used these kinds of things to manipulate and victimize- but so do rapists, and the rapists do rather more harm.
I do see what people are saying about avoiding certain situations in order not to get raped. But if you start down that road of "well it'll reduce the likelihood of it happening if..." then you inevitably end up at "...and that's why women should never leave the house, socialize, or have fun."
ReplyDeleteBut, again: a woman doesn't get raped because she was acting slutty/drinking too much/etc.: she gets raped because a guy decided to rape her. Yes, the party situation I talked about is how most rapes happen, but 80 year olds do get raped sometimes. Mentally handicapped people get raped. Women who are literally wearing burqas get raped. Women have had a guy break into their fucking house and rape them when they were sitting there fully clothed minding their own business.
And, interestingly, I can't even imagine a guy getting mugged, catching his mugger, pressing charges, and then getting grilled by the court about whether he was walking in a dark neighbourhood or flaunting his big bloated wallet in a too-tight pants pocket. I would also bet that nobody ever said "Hey, that guy's always buying rounds of drinks for his friends...he's obviously the type of guy who's really loose with his money. I bet he wasn't really mugged. He probably gave that guy his wallet but then regretted it afterward so now he's changing his story."
Mentally handicapped people can be partiers too :(
Delete@ Mousieoo
ReplyDeleteHowever, life is not merely a matter of raped vs. not raped; if someone keeps a journal a normal day's entry is not just "Not raped today". If your friend drinks as long as her glass is kept filled, she may experience any number of problems; an elevated risk of being a victim of a crime (which she is absolutely NOT causing or asking for or any such bullshit) is only one of them.
So, your point is...? That you're trying to turn a discussion about rape into a discussion about the evils of alcohol?
And I just can't accept the idea that what I'm saying is even controversial. It's not smart to keep drinking what the creepy guy who has you cornered keeps handing you.
You claim that you're not victim blaming, and yet, that's exactly what these sorts of statements do. You're saying that if the victim had behaved differently, she would not have been raped. That is victim blaming.
I had a longer response, but then I read Dw3t-Hthr's comment. So now I'm just going to point, and say, what Dw3t-Hthr said.
And now that I've calmed down a wee bit, an addendum:
ReplyDeleteSomeone who has done most of "the right things" can wind up not actually believing that she was raped when surrounded with the "it wasn't smart to" snow job.
I tell you something: one of the clearest memories I have of my own assault was trying to figure out how someone could seriously believe that a barely-adolescent girl who hadn't reached menarche yet would be interested in fucking. My mind freaking looped on that, over and over again: "But I don't have my periods yet!"
I wasn't drinking, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I was a just-shy-of-straight-A fourteen-year-old. But it took me nearly a decade to recognise what happened to me as a sexual assault.
Why? Because it was my boyfriend. And what do you expect from accepting an invitation to watch that movie? You know, it's not smart to do that sort of thing.
I'm sorry, I can't come up with a good anal sex joke to cap this one off.
Dw3t-Hthr:
ReplyDeleteI remember walking somewhere after dark one winter and some guys catcalled/intimidated me...my first thought was "but I'm not even wearing anything skimpy!"
You've made me remember that all this "you should do this or that to avoid getting raped" bullshit doesn't just make other people victim-blame; it makes the victims blame themselves. Whereas if I'd grown up hearing over and over again that rape is the rapist's fault and some guys are just twisted, violent assholes...well, getting catcalled that night would still have been kind of scary, but at least I wouldn't have had the additional trauma of assuming it was somehow my fault and wracking my brain to figure out what I did.
(I figured it out, btw. It was the giant knitted toque that made the guys sexually harass me. Everyone knows that big, bouncing pompoms make men lose control!)
Anyway. Your sexual assault story makes me want to hug you. And beat your ex boyfriend's face with a shovel.
And beat your ex boyfriend's face with a shovel.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous... are you Willow?
(Sorry, sorry. That brief mention of Buffy a couple of posts back, reminded me of this exchange.)
I am so sorry for everyone that feels that I've been making tacit accusations of complicity for anyone who has been raped. For a long time after I was falsely accused of wifebeating, I didn't want to hear anything about the behavior patterns of wifebeaters, because I felt like they were tacit accusations even though they didn't match. And that false accusation was a much less traumatic experience.
ReplyDeleteDid you just compare getting falsely accused of committing a violent crime to actually suffering through a violent crime being committed against you? Doesn't that seem just a bit MRA-ish?
DeleteMarissa: thank you for reminding me of that! I had a good giggle. :D
ReplyDeleteThe way these things go, this is the only scenario I can think of where a rape victim would not be hit with some people saying "Here's what you should have done better", and I'm sure that that would only be because I am not creative enough to come up with ways she would be blamed:
ReplyDeleteShe must be a white middle-to-upper-class woman, reasonably attractive but not stunningly beautiful, with a conservatively feminine job. She must wear sensible shoes, no makeup, and figure-obscuring clothing that is not too frumpy. She is teetotal, one of: a virgin, chastely dating a respectable professional-class man, or monogamously married (probably in a church) to that respectable middle-class man (perhaps with small children who were present), and not someone who attends social gatherings at which liscentiousness is rumored. Her attack took place in broad daylight in a populated public area; she was jumped by a stranger with a weapon when she was out walking her well-trained Doberman while holding a can of mace in the other hand. She must have screamed and called for help; she also must have fought back, though she cannot have had any self-defense training prior to the assault. She has visible injuries. She is upset about the experience and displays it in demurely feminine ways; however, she is not traumatised to the point of incapacity. Her attacker is poor, black or Hispanic, and probably on drugs.
ANYONE ELSE gets blamed.
And as I said, she probably gets blamed too, I'm just not clever enough to figure out what trait indicates she was "not smart" or otherwise begging to be victimised.
Dw3t-Hthr, I'm very sorry for your horrible experience. And I'm very sorry that apparently people implied you might bear any share of responsibility. I can't imagine how people think that way, especially in the case of a 14 year old. Statutory rape laws are good thing.
ReplyDeleteYou are right to reject any taint of responsibility for the victim. All responsibility is the rapist's, no matter what the victim's wearing or drinking or armed with or not. The rapist ought to be stoned to death in a pit, even if the victim drunk on her own dime until she passed out on a pool table in her underwear.
Ability does not equal responsibility. With some power does not come some responsibility to prevent the actions of a rapist. If someone doesn't install fire extingushers and smoke alarms, that doesn't make them even partly at fault for a house fire.
You are so rightly rejecting any taint of responsibility on the part of the victim, but you are taking it further and explicitly rejecting any ability on the part of women. Your narrative states flat-out that women are utterly helpless and ineffective against rapists and only men can save them. Some contemptible fools obviously gave you the idea when you were young that anything other than helplessness meant you deserved a share of the blame. That's bullshit. What women do or don't do does not make them deserve any share of the blame. And if they can do something effective, but didn't, they still don't deserve any tiniest share of the blame.
Whoever told you that the only choices for women were ineffective or at fault really deserves a share of that "bitchtasticness".
Mousieoo
ReplyDeleteThe point is that we are always always always telling women what they should do to avoid being raped. The focus is always on the victim, not the rapist. That needs to change.
If you don't install fire alarms or smoke detectors in a building, you can be held liable for damages resulting from the fire. Bad analogy.
Oh, quit making up bullshit and claiming that it's my beliefs. Really. Just stop. Now you've flipped into "oh, pity the poor misguided victim" mode and it's disgusting.
ReplyDeleteThe real point is: rapes happen to sober people. They happen to underage people. They happen to conservatively dressed people. They happen to churchgoing upstanding pillars of the community. They happen to "nice girls".
So obviously, doing all that stuff does not prevent rape.
The absolute best a woman can do is make it more likely a rapist will pick someone else to victimise. This is not a guarantee of not being raped oneself - and it just means that the rapist will move on to someone with better odds, so a rape happens anyway. Just to someone else.
I CANNOT CHANGE THIS.
That you think that there is something I can do to change it is - guess what? MORE BLAMING WOMEN FOR THINGS RAPISTS DO.
And even if I could magically pick my behaviours so I sailed through the world blissfully immune to further sexual assault, impervious to street harassment, and all, without losing any part of my life that I consider valuable, it would not fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteBecause the problem is not just "will I, personally, be targetted for rape, assault, or harassment". If I become made of magic and thus never have to worry about it again, rapes will still happen. This, you know, bothers me. And until not only I but every potential rape victim in the world is similarly made of magic, the real issue will be and will remain the existence of rapists.
The distinction *I've* been trying to make is that in virtually all other circumstances of crime, we focus first on the perpetrator and in other contexts on what may be done to avoid crime.
ReplyDeleteWe also have this really disturbing tendency to act like the rapists, if they don't fit the jump-out-of-the-bush-with-a-knife model but instead the "manipulate social mores so she's never sure what's going on until it's too late", are committing some sort of boyish peccadillo rather than a crime.
I remember when I was in school there was a fraternity that had been kicked off campus and officially stripped of their recognition as a fraternity for drink-doping and raping some of their party guests. They still existed as a house where college men all lived together and they threw parties, which remained infamous for the risk of date rape. If you went to a Pi Kappa Epsilon party, well, you were just asking for it, right? Or at least, that was the prevailing attitude. Apparently, the problem wasn't that the Pikes were rapists, but that people were still stupid enough to go near them.
If they had doped their guests and stolen their wallets instead, I tend to think that wouldn't have been the reaction, nor would the boys in question have remained free for long. If we're playing the "which would you rather" game, I'd rather have my wallet taken than be raped by quite a long shot. But if someone did take my wallet, chances are no one involved with processing me would ask if I didn't really mean to give the thief my money, seeing as how I often give my friends money, or whether the thief might have misunderstood my willingness to give him money given that we were partying together and all. And- key point- people would probably assume I'd learned whatever lesson about being careful with my damn wallet without feeling the need to explain there are things I can do to avoid this.
We're not saying there aren't ways women can lower their chances of being raped and every rape is an unforseeable bolt from the blue. We're saying the way we societally react to rape is a constant reinforcement of the idea that the victim is at least partially to blame for being stupid, because this stuff always starts instantly and pervasively in a way it does for no other crime on earth- even though there are also ways to make other kinds of crimes, even much less traumatic ones, less likely to make you personally a victim.
And, there are guys out there, the author of the Bubble being one of them and apparently our own Eurosabra being another, who are focused on the idea that rape's not really that bad and it's as likely to be an understandable mistake or the rapee just overreacting as anything. After all, they have sex, and sex is fun. Women just have to avoid confusing and exciting men so much, and-
I'm not sure how else I can get across that there's a very fucking good reason we're so sensitive about victim-blaming even when it's not, technically, blaming.
If I were attempt to relate it to something you've actually experienced, it would be having everyone continually react to your claims of being victimized by someone who painted you as a wife-beater with some variant on:
ReplyDelete"Okay, yes, she's crazy, but you really couldn't see it coming? Not at all? I mean, that kind of instability isn't exactly possible to hide 24/7. Marrying crazy is just reckless even if the sex was good. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but next time don't think with your dick and make sure she's sane before you go anywhere near her."
I'm not technically wrong. Letting crazy people in your life opens you up to a world of hurt. I'm not technically blaming you. She's the one that opened up a can of crazy to hurt you. How constructive would it actually be to tell you this, and how much would it help other men avoid the same?
LabRat said "Okay, yes, she's crazy, but you really couldn't see it coming? Not at all? I mean, that kind of instability isn't exactly possible to hide 24/7. Marrying crazy is just reckless even if the sex was good. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but next time don't think with your dick and make sure she's sane before you go anywhere near her."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember that. It wasn't everyone continually, but it sure did happen, and I was often reminded of how my parents had a bad feeling and advised me to stop the engagement.
Marissa said -
ReplyDelete"The point is that we are always always always telling women what they should do to avoid being raped."
I guess part of the problem is that I'm not getting the same information as women are. I hear very little about how to prevent rape; I hear more about how to prevent home breakins. LabRat and I were the only ones that said anything about it in this thread.
"The focus is always on the victim, not the rapist. That needs to change."
Apparently a lot more needs to be said about the rapist's culpability. It seems so obvious to me. I hate rapists.
I admit I don't like to spend time thinking about the rapist's blame because I don't like to remember how much time I spent thinking about murdering one accused rapist; accused of a no-force, lack-of-consent rape. I wasn't thinking a shovel to the face; I was thinking a bullet to the heart, using an MO very similar to what the DC Sniper would use years later. I wanted to make sure he'd never do it again. He was the accused by the same woman who would later accuse me of beating her; of course, at that point I trusted her implicitly. Now, of course, I feel horribly guilty about plotting this almost certainly innocent guy's death in my head, so I tend to avoid thinking about it. But when I thought he was a rapist, I didn't feel bad about it at all. (How I felt about him is another big feeder for my false accusation awareness.)
If you hear about a petition to restore rape as a capital crime, count me in. I don't favor castration as a punishment because A) women do rape sometimes, and castration doesn't apply well, and B) then you have a bunch of emasculated women-hating crazies running around. For rape only, in the best-proved cases, I'd like to see the Old Testament punishment of stoning brought back.
You know what's even better than not blaming the victim for being raped? The rape not occurring.
ReplyDeleteOk, we're in agreement so far...
LabRat and I are the only ones saying anything about what might help someone not get raped. And I just can't accept the idea that what I'm saying is even controversial.
And you lost me. What you're saying is that normal social interaction such as men do is something that, if women engage in it, an explanation for rape. And if that's not putting the responsibility for the rape on the victim, it's hard to tell the difference even in a really good light. And if male-male interactions among heterosexuals include "shall I refresh your drink?" and the like -- and it's my observation that such is the case -- that puts it in the category of "normal spending time or drinking with." Because if it's normal for men, it's (ideally) normal for women.
You're, again, going beyond rape apologist rhetoric: most rape apologists merely explain after the fact that a victim's behavior led directly to the attack (and therefre it doesn't really count). You seem to be saying that even if she doesn't get attacked, she's setting herself up for it.
It's different when it's personal.
You mean, if you knew for a fact that no rape survivor would hear you, you'd hold back still less on the victim-blaming? I see. Do you understand why saying that isn't really an adequate apology? Or any?
Mousie00 - Stop posting about this. I believe that you're posting in good faith and even open-mindedly; you've even Changed Your Mind On The Internet to some small degree, and that's a damn hard thing to do. That said... stop posting about rape in this thread. At this point, no matter what you say, you look too much like a man in about twenty feet over his head who just keeps digging.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would not want rape to be a capital crime, or punishable by stoning. Cause of the whole Eighth Amendment thing. And frankly because that's barbaric and really not okay. The point of the justice system is to contain and punish criminals, not to vent our bile on them or prove how much we really really really really not a little bit but really a lot hate them.
I'm not mad at you, this isn't a command, it's just advice: stop digging.
Holly - Thanks, it's good advice, I'll take it.
ReplyDeleteBack on an earlier thread: is the author of this one "Jack Donovan?" Because that IS a misogynistic-well, don't call him "gay;" gay just sounds so...gay. He's an entirely butch sorry MASCULINE "androphile" thankewverymuch. Basically he's this one MRA who actually takes the barely subtext of "let's all go back to the ancient primal manly days of Spartan Fight Club; men can fulfill all of mens' needs, including fucking!" and makes it, well, text. He's also a Satanist, a humorless, self-important dweeb (duh) and delightfully thin-skinned in close encounters of the virtual kind. But Manly. Very Manly.
ReplyDeletep.s. BUTTSECKS ZOMG BUTTSECKS GET UR BUTTSECKS HEER
ReplyDelete