SPECIFIC examples of “reasonable” things that could be done by an individual to reduce her (or his) chance of being raped.
EVIDENCE that they work, and QUANTIFICATION of HOW WELL they work, how MUCH they reduce the chance of being raped.
DETAILS of exactly what needs to be done.
Then, and only then, it is legitimate to talk about it. Then we can discuss whether or not this SPECIFIC DETAILS of what is done is reasonable, or practical, for people in general to follow. Then we can discuss if it is fair or reasonable to expect people in general to do this. Then and only then can we discuss whether to degree that it is effective the statistical number of how much it reduces the chance of being raped (preferably with standard deviations) is worth the effort/cost of what implementing that precaution entails.
THAT would be a useful, non-victim blaming discussion of “reasonable” avoidance.
CTsays
Pteryxx
16 June 2012 at 11:30 am
CT, you’ve nothing to apologize to *me* for. I should have known better, and I’m sorry for causing you pain.
yeah, i’m backing away from teh keyboard for a while…been totally obsessing with this shit– never really thought about it until yesterday how much bullshit that victim blaming people say applies to child abusers — or even how they don’t realize they are saying the same fucking things child abusers say.
/************ TRIGGER ****************/
“you don’t like that? then hit me! fucking hit me and I’ll stop”!! yeah, k, I’m gonna soak up some sun now. ya’ll continue kickign people in the ass.
mythbrisays
@millss99 #498
Nope. Walk that back, and do it immediately. Wishing rape on the perpetrators of rape might feel like just desserts. It might make the original crime seem less horrible. But, and please read this slowly and more than once so that you understand it, rape culture is not solved by MORE rape. Encouraging rape as punishment PERPETUATES rape culture. YOU believing that’s appropriate perpetuates rape culture.
Gnumannsays
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker. Right now we have to live with just the clinker part although often even that isn’t long enough.
Y o u u t t e r p a t h e t h i c f u c k i n g e x c u s e f o r a h u m a n b e e i n g
I would like to state my admiration for those commenters who have bared their souls in order to better convey why it is that the ‘take precautions’ position is so harmful.
I cannot imagine the sheer amount of courage it must take to discuss your experience of rape openly in a forum like this.
While I cannot begin to imagine what you have been through, for whatever it is worth, you have my most sincere sympathies.
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker. Right now we have to live with just the clinker part although often even that isn’t long enough.
Like I said. You are rooting for team rapist. As long as it’s in the time and place that fits Da Rulez.
Pteryxxsays
Not appropriate.
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker. Right now we have to live with just the clinker part although often even that isn’t long enough.
No, THIS makes you a crap excuse for a human being. Nobody DESERVES to be raped – not for dressing slutty, not for being born into the wrong family, and not even for being a shitty cruel violent rotten excuse for a human being. NOBODY.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker. Right now we have to live with just the clinker part although often even that isn’t long enough.
Jesus fuck, no. It’s not okay to wish rape on someone! Even if they did bad things! That’s part of a culture that approves of rape! It says that in certain circumstances, (person raped someone, person did something bad, person didn’t adequately protect themselves, person did/didn’t XYZ) rape is okay. RAPE IS NEVER OKAY! NEVER! EVER! NO EXCEPTIONS AT ALL!
Christ on a pogostick.
“I think I should be able to walk around in any part of town at night alone waving cash and jewelry around. Anybody who suggests otherwise is contributing to mugging culture and blaming the victim.”
That is you. Making them equivalent actions.
So now, not only are you an idiot, you are also a proven liar. Thank you for playing. Here is your decayed porcupine. Ya’ll don’t come back now, ya hear?
freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/15/heres-the-situation/comment-page-1/#comment-365303 let’s say my 6 year old goes to school everyday and leaves his lunch money on his desk in plain view. After he comes in from recess his money is gone – every day. Every day he comes home and cries because he lost his lunch money. I have been trying to prevent blaming him so I haven’t suggested he keep it hidden. However finally in order to prevent this from happening in the future I tell him to keep his money hidden in his pocket or wherever.
By doing so I’m I contributing to “lunch money stealing culture”. I am saying he is at fault? Am I saying that the person who stole it is not 100% at fault?
See, this is you equating leaving money unattended on a desk with existing while female. WHY do you think they are equivalent actions?
“Rape is always wrong, except when it’s funny. gigitygigitygoo”
Amphioxsays
No one deserves to be raped, not even a rapist.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Quite frankly, unapologetic rape apologists/fantasists like mullsy are far more dangerous and worrisome than an actual convicted rapist. At least with the convicted rapist, you know who it is, and that person, by lieu of being convicted, is hopefully incarcerated and/or monitored.
But with creatures like mullsy, you don’t know who he is, or where he is, or what he looks like, and when and how whatever restraints he puts on himself can be snapped, and he goes off.
A nuclear missile that is well guarded and maintained, and whose location you know is less dangerous than a hand grenade hidden in an open field.
Beatricesays
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
Do you really think that suggesting rape as an appropriate punishment isn’t just further feeding into the rape culture?
Gnumannsays
Ok, I somewhat recovered from the pure shock of the unabashed rape apology now – so let’s turn to another part of the apologists “arguments”.
I think there are actions people can take to protect themselves to some degree and that people can avoid some particularly dangerous situations. While reading these comments it seems all but a few don’t dispute that.
I seriously want a list of names here – I don’t see any except the trolls, and I trust my reading comprehension far more than yours apologist.
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
I don’t think the solution to rape culture is more rape.
Nobody deserves to be torn apart by savage dogs either, but I admit that if someone told me it happened to a person like Michael Vicks, I fully admit my first reaction would not be sympathy.
I don’t like that part of me. I’m working on it, but it is still there. It is the number one reason I declined to go into the field of law enforcement.
Kalliopesays
Mills just advocated rape as a means of punishment and behavior control.
Holy shit. He’s a rape advocate!
millssg99says
Amphiox in regards 494, that’s fair on the part of the private discussion with someone you know.
The part I disagree with is that for example people shouldn’t tell young women they should avoid certain situations at a party for example or what they should do if they find themselves in those situations and so on.
Now if someone wants to make an argument that those aren’t effective or that they cause greater harm than the help, then that is a legitimate position to take and argue. I just don’t agree with that at this point.
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people. By constantly saying they do enhances the very effect that they do. I might be wrong about that, but that is where I stand right now.
Nightjarsays
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker
Well, congratulations on removing all doubts that you are indeed a crap excuse for a human being and a rape apologist. Now please fuck off.
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people. By constantly saying they do enhances the very effect that they do. I might be wrong about that, but that is where I stand right now.
Go die in a fire made out of smaller angrier fires
Now if someone wants to make an argument that those aren’t effective or that they cause greater harm than the help, then that is a legitimate position to take and argue. I just don’t agree with that at this point.
Yeah cause you’re such a fucking expert. Hey no offense, but convincing you is not a reasonable standard
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people. By constantly saying they do enhances the very effect that they do. I might be wrong about that, but that is where I stand right now.
Hey Mills, did you know also that women discussing the harassment they faced at skeptic and atheist conferences are the reason for the drop in women attending conferences? They scare women away with their self-fulfilling prophesies of horror.
I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people.
Unfortunately in the real world, rather than the Platonic ponies and unicorns world of your imagination, they are not separated. When people come out with this stuff in public it looks like victim-blaming and by gosh many victims take it as victim-blaming.
You seem to be the only one here who does not. I rather think you are deluding yourself.
“I don’t give a shit, some people should be raped, here’s my cock ignore the spit on it it’s just my mums, oogie boogie woo!”
mythbrisays
@millss99 #19
No, they CANNOT be separated. Not in the way you want them to be. These “rape prevention tips” are nothing but re-statements of things that women are already told, and precautions that they already take. You can’t expect women to act differently than they are socialized to do ALL THE TIME in the specific circumstance of being under threat of rape. You probably missed this when I linked before, but I really think you should read it:
You know we should be able to talk about the greed of the Jews without promoting antisemitism
Pteryxxsays
So to recap Mills knows what he says is hurting people, is told BY people it is, but refuses to stop because he’s not convinced he’s wrong.
He even admitted that was a “legitimate position to take and argue.” Gee, thanks for the stamp of approval.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
millssg99, nobody gives a fuck where you stand right now. You are not welcome here. Leave.
millssg99says
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.”
OK, I will walk that one back. I can see it was not appropriate and it offended people and I apologize for that. I’m sorry. Everything everyone said about that is accepted.
This comes from my punishment and restitution philosophy, that whatever you inflict on somebody else you deserve in return. You can see that in you steal $100 and you then have to pay it back and lose $100 of your own. That’s obviously easier to accept in monetary crimes. It’s easy to hold in theory but obviously is not so simple in practice.
I also think the victims desires for appropriate punishment within certain guidelines should carry heavy weight. You have to take the order of society into account, but I think victims rights are ignored to a inexcusable degree in our criminal justice system.
I also think the victims desires for appropriate punishment within certain guidelines should carry heavy weight. You have to take the order of society into account, but I think victims rights are ignored to a inexcusable degree in our criminal justice system.
I assure you. you would not do well under such a world
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
*Mills pokes someone in a place that’s already sore due to repeated past pokings and other trauma to the spot. He may or may not be poking with enough force to cause actual pain in even a person whose spot is NOT already sore*
Person: Ouch, that hurts. Don’t do that.
MILLS: What do you mean it hurts? It can’t hurt? Other people get poked all the time and it doesn’t hurt them!
Person: It’s hurting me here and now because that spot is already sore from previous pokings by previous assholes.
MILLS: I think you’re making this into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you keep saying it hurts when people poke you, soon enough this idea will exist that it hurts to poke people and that it’s okay to say so!
Person: Yeah, because why the fuck are you poking people in any case?
MILLS: God damn it, why can’t you separate the fucking issue of poking from the issue of people complaining about poking?
FIN.
Gnumannsays
I just don’t agree with that at this point.
So, the rape apologist thinks that the mere fact that he thinks something legitimizes him spouting hurtful and harmful nonsense after he’s been told by every reasonable participant in the conversation that he’s spouting hurtful and harmful nonsense. Colour me surprised. Will the next thing be that we are hurting his freedom of expression and legal rights by telling him that he is hurting people?
(This is by the way not in any shape or form meant to encourage the apologist to try to substantiate his “thoughts” since I seriously think he’s incapable of meaningful human interaction and just want him to get the fuck away*)
(*No, that’s not really want I want to. What I want to do is to be able to tell every single human being he knows what he is, and that they better get the fuck away from him as soon as humanly possible – but that option isn’t open to me, so I would settle for him to go away)
Tethyssays
I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
Oh look everyone, Mills has given us conclusive evidence that he advocates rape, with a side order of racism.
I look forward to his forthcoming evisceration and banning.
……
Mills
Fuck you! You are a fucking festering cancer of putrescent fucking pus, and you should shove this rusty porcupine in the orifice of choice and fuck right off you Fucking asshole
andreadorkinsays
I’m a longtime lurker making my first comment now, because these comments about rape prevention “tips” have finally pushed me into the kind of anger that can only be let out by speaking.
I mean, this is pretty basic logic, that if you tell women that not doing X will stop them from being raped, you’re telling them that by doing X they’re in some way causing people to rape them and ascribing them with a false sense of agency. And of course the dingleberry on top of that shit sundae is the fact that X usually stands for everyday activities like walking outside and having a drink that people would NEVER consider asking men to give up because Jesus Christ, those are just normal things a person does to enjoy life in a free society.
Also, these “tips” are at best completely useless tautologies. Saying “If you hadn’t been out jogging on that path that night, that dude wouldn’t have raped you” is like saying “If you hadn’t been standing in that exact spot on the sidewalk at that exact moment in time, that drunk driver would never have hit you when they crashed.” Well, obviously, but that’s not the reason someone got hurt, and the solution is definitely not to advise people to stop using sidewalks, you stupid assholes.
I was raped in my apartment by a friend. I wonder what brilliant tips these clowns will come up with for me so I won’t be attacked next time. Should I not have friends? Never let anyone inside my home? Give up on having any kind of life whatsoever? Because that seems to be the theme with these tips so far.
This comes from my punishment and restitution philosophy, that whatever you inflict on somebody else you deserve in return. You can see that in you steal $100 and you then have to pay it back and lose $100 of your own. That’s obviously easier to accept in monetary crimes. It’s easy to hold in theory but obviously is not so simple in practice.
So to punish say a torturer we torture them? And to punish genocide we commit genocide?
Why is it not surprising that your ethical philosophy is grotesquely simple minded.
That’s not a philosophy, philosophy implies thought, that’s just thugishness.
Oh btw if you missed the obvious problems
a) at minor infraction level there’s no deterrent as it’s catch and release, no harm no foul, punishments of just returning items when caught
b) at major levels it’s committing unacceptable crimes to teach people those crimes are wrong
On close up resolution it’s laughably pathetic and in the big picture it’s monstrous. good job asshole you managed to choose a philosophy that can only hurt people and provides no protection.
Beatricesays
but I think victims rights are ignored to a inexcusable degree in our criminal justice system.
Yeah, like when the victim is told that the case against her rapist is too weak because she obviously wasn’t taking all the reasonable precautions that would have prevented her from being raped.
But the important thing is that no one forgets that the way to fight rape is to teach women how to take reasonable precautions. They are rape-erasing magic!
Palladium Knightsays
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people. By constantly saying they do enhances the very effect that they do. I might be wrong about that, but that is where I stand right now.
HOW CAN YOU SEPARATE THEM!? They are intrinsically linked, you daft, stupid motherfucker, and multiple FUCKING RAPE VICTIMS have told you how. By asserting that all women should take vague, impossible-to-always-follow precautions that make very little difference in the grand scheme of things, you are implicitly making the statement that if they don’t do those things, and they get raped, they are at fault for no following the precautions. Or even that if they did follow the precautions, but got raped anyway, they didn’t take enough precautions! Because making it acceptable to say “take these precautions to not get raped” puts the onus on women to somehow avoid rape.
You can WISH that you could separate the two, but you won’t ever be fucking able to because it’s goddamn impossible. Now, like someone said earlier, it might be okay to offer this advise to someone you know, someone you’re close to, in person, in certain circumstances. Sometimes. I can’t think of any situation personally, but it could happen. But a blanket statement of “women should take precautions to not get raped: don’t wear revealing clothing, don’t go out at night or in alleys, especially in bad neighbourhoods, etc” in a public forum or to people you don’t know? It’s not fucking acceptable.
This isn’t even comparable to your stupid fucking lunch-money analogy. Leaving your lunch-money sitting in plain view of dozens of people is not comparable to “being a woman at night” or “wearing clothing that makes you attractive”. God damnit you’re such an insensitive, insufferable, fucking colostomy bag, I can only echo Ing’s earlier statement about dying and fire and smaller angrier fires at this point.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Echoing WithinThisMind’s question with reference to her quotes in 10 and 11 here (in other words 1010 and 1011 overall) where she demonstrates exactly how you do do this, your protests notwithstanding.
Mills,
Why though, do you think existing while female and leaving money unattended on a table are comparable actions?
Well, Mills?
You also haven’t yet answered Cipher’s question that I so carefully re-posted. Is it because you can’t because you know your argument is actually bankrupt or do you just need me to post it again? Inquiring minds and all that.
millssg99says
WithinTheMind in regards to 10 an 11. I am not making them equivalent. I explained exactly what I was doing in my response of 498. It’s why people use analogies. It’s not equating them. You can claim I did but I did not and it is you who are not listening. You asked the question and I tried to answer it and you just ignored my response and repeated it.
Hey didn’t Straus Khan’s victim have DNA and forensics showing force and linking to him? But that still wasn’t enough because she didn’t take the right precautions of being white!
And now he’s suspected of gang rape IIRC.
Gnumannsays
Lex Talion and victim-driven criminal justice…
The two absolute ass-ends of human legal history – why am I not surprised the apologist favour those..?
Nightjarsays
I was going to say we need Walton here, but frankly what we need is this asshole out of here.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Oh wait.
*Mills pokes someone in a place that’s already sore due to repeated past pokings and other trauma to the spot. He may or may not be poking with enough force to cause actual pain in even a person whose spot is NOT already sore*
Person: Ouch, that hurts. Don’t do that.
MILLS: What do you mean it hurts? It can’t hurt! Other people get poked all the time and it doesn’t hurt them! I don’t think it hurts and that’s my position, where I stand right now.
Person: It’s hurting me here and now because that spot is already sore from previous pokings by previous assholes.
MILLS: I think you’re making this into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you keep saying it hurts when people poke you, soon enough this idea will exist that it hurts to poke people and that it’s okay to say so! And besides, it doesn’t even hurt in the first place!
Person: Yeah, because why the fuck are you poking people in any case?
MILLS: God damn it, why can’t you separate the fucking issue of poking from the issue of people complaining about poking?
FIN.
(FTFM)
Pteryxxsays
Millss, I have news for you. I have never *once* wanted to rape the person who raped me. I don’t want to rape anyone else, ever. I don’t even want *my rapist* to get raped. Rape is not a freaking $100 bill that can buy a couple weeks’ worth of groceries or a car repair. Rape is WORTHLESS to me; it’s contemptible, it’s horrific, and I don’t want any of that shit in my world.
Where the fuck do you get off presenting someone else’s rape to me as if it’s a gift?
dysomniaksays
> In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
I’m reminded of the Simpsons where Mr Burns tried to be nice, and as a gift to Lisa wound up harvesting whale to grind them into paste. he expected her to be happy because he wasn’t wasting anything and was recycling and it was all natural.
PZ, can I kidly request an orbital banhammer strike on mills? He is obtuse to the 179th degree.
dysomniaksays
Gah, stupid reddit habits.
Emrysmyrddinsays
No one agrees with you, mills. No one. There is no ‘silent majority’ who are nodding along with your every word. We all think you’re a fucking disgrace. Congratulations, you have finally achieved what was thought unpossible – herding the Horde. Now learn or fuck off.
WithinTheMind in regards to 10 an 11. I am not making them equivalent. I explained exactly what I was doing in my response of 498. It’s why people use analogies. It’s not equating them. You can claim I did but I did not and it is you who are not listening. You asked the question and I tried to answer it and you just ignored my response and repeated it.
Yes, it is.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy?s=t analogy
[uh-nal-uh-jee] Origin
a·nal·o·gy
[uh-nal-uh-jee] Show IPA
noun, plural a·nal·o·gies.
1.
a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.
2.
similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your problem and mine.
You are saying that existing while female and leaving money unguarded on a table are similar and comparable actions.
com·pa·ra·ble
[kom-per-uh-buhl or, sometimes, kuhm-pair-] Show IPA
adjective
1.
capable of being compared; having features in common with something else to permit or suggest comparison: He considered the Roman and British empires to be comparable.
2.
worthy of comparison: shops comparable to those on Fifth Avenue.
Why do you feel existing while female and leaving money unguarded on a table are similar and/or comparable actions? What is similar and/or comparable about them?
***trigger warning****
Why are you comparing casually pocketing some unguarded money with forcibly violating a woman as she screams ‘no’ and fights back? How are those two situations remotely similar?
How does ‘existing while female’ have a comparable level of ‘carelessness’ as ‘leaving money unguarded on a public table’?
mythbrisays
@millss99
If you believe that rape is acceptable due to the character of the victim, you are a rape apologist. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if that victim is also a rapist. That doesn’t lessen the original crime in any way. As others have said, it PERPETUATES the rape culture by reinforcing the idea that rape is acceptable in some cases. And if it’s acceptable in some cases, it’s not a leap to make it “acceptable” in other cases. No line can be drawn that makes THIS rape okay, and THAT rape not-okay. Punishing a rapist with rape is not so different than punishing a victim who wasn’t following “common sense rape prevention tips”. Blaming the victim cannot be separated from putting the onus on potential victims to “prevent rape from happening to them.” Rape doesn’t “happen” to people. Someone CHOOSES to rape them.
If SGBM or anyone knowing psyche research is here, has anything been done on the actual likelyhood of normal people to take things left unattended? Like leaving a lap top abandoned in a public place and seeing how many people ignore it, how many try to take it and how many turn it into a reference desk?
Because I personally have been robbed via the “unattended for a minute” method but it turned out to be someone who was actively robbing people and looking for opportunities. Every other time I’ve forgotten something important someplace it’s either left alone, turned into the nearest authority or put to the side.
jenny6833asays
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combined says:
15 June 2012 at 8:30 pm
Crime (not just rape) does happen at that time in that situation more than it does if you choose to stay the night at a trusted friend’s house instead. If she ignores your advice and gets hurt, she’s not to blame, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t warn people anyway.
Because the concepts that you’re presenting here are mutually exclusive. “Take responsibility for your safety” and “if anything bad happens to you, it’s not your fault” are not compatible. How can I only take responsibility if I succeed?
How silly! The victim (who has been raped, robbed, or whatever) is not responsible for the criminal actions of another. That applies whether or not the victim tried to prevent the crime.
Also, it’s been pointed out more than once that the majority of rapes occur in situations that “rape prevention tipz” will not help with, and you and the others of your ilk continue to ignore that point.
Although I’ll accept that the majority of crimes can’t be prevented by ‘reasonable precautions,’ you’d need to prove that’s the case for 100% of crimes to have a point worth discussing.
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
My hypothesis is that people will pocket something of small enough value that they presume no one would notice it or is unlikely to come looking for and either leave alone or turn in something sufficiently valuable. I also suspect you’ll see more honesty if there’s a Lost and Found nearby to give the primer and reminder to be honest.
Cause I work at a uni and I find lost electronics all the time. I never have been tempted or felt justified in keeping someone’s cellphone.
millssg99says
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.
I can’t get to them all at the same or even any at the same time.
Hey Mills, why don’t you answer Cipher‘s question to you in 489? Here, let me repost it for you:
I am pretty certain that staying in my room alone with the door locked, which I do, decreases the likelihood of my being raped. Do you think everyone should teach their children to stay in their rooms with their doors locked? Why or why not?
Absolutely not and in fact I answered that before it was even asked. I said people can’t be bolted into their room and they have to live. I also said they I tend toward the non-precaution end of the continuum on safety vs. living. That is what I believe.
However there is a place between being bolted behind steel doors your whole life and complete disregard of reasonable precautions. One that everyone has to make for themselves. That doesn’t mean you can’t make suggestions to other people about where that line might reasonably lie.
I accept that within broad ranges parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit. However that doesn’t mean I think that “stranger danger” hysteria and preventing kids from being kids and learning responsibility is the right approach. I say that publicly as my opinion. It’s not the way I raised my daughter. However I didn’t say do whatever you want and don’t ever take reasonable precautions for you safety because the odds of anything happening are so low you can ignore it.
Although I’ll accept that the majority of crimes can’t be prevented by ‘reasonable precautions,’ you’d need to prove that’s the case for 100% of crimes to have a point worth discussing.
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
Ah ok. Tell you what. Come back in 80 years or so when you’re on your death bed and we’ll see if you’ve ever been raped. Then we’ll know if you did the right things or not.
pensnestsays
jenny6833a #268
I asked for a plan to solve the problem. You’re offering mutterings from a thread that almost no one reads and that no mainstream publication would print. Bubba, that ain’t no plan!
I agree, of course, that the focus should be on rapists. More importantly the focus should be on jailing rapists and preventing potential rapists from becoming rapists.
I’m advocating exactly that, but you don’t want to hear it.
In fact, you have no plan. You just want to bewail.
If everyone who has read this comic and/or any of the comments to the post goes out into the world determined to point out victim-blaming as wrong wherever they see it happening, that will help.
If everyone, particularly the men (because other men don’t seem to want to listen to women on the subject), treats with contempt every person they encounter who makes a rape joke or suggests in any context whatever that rape is appropriate, that will help.
If people just keep asking for a plan, that probably won’t help. So what are you going to do?
amaclean #359
If I were at all told I were a bad person in real life, yes, I would take a look at it. But this teh internetz. A lot of important aspects are missing from this communication, and the opinions on this board are very particular, and very set in one direction. I’m sure if I went to the “world is flat” board, and posted my opinions there, I would be called an ignorant idiot. Wouldn’t take it to heart though. I do hold Pharyngula above that, of course, but nevertheless unless I’m hearing this from more than one source (or from a source who knows ME, like a husband or parent), then I see no reason to let it bother me.
Many people have told you, plainly and bravely, about the horrible things that were done to them, and you have the ability to stay detached enough to say ‘this teh internetz’ instead of attempting to understand your fellow human beings who are trying to communicate with you.
I started out with some sympathy for the fact that you were not prepared for or able to cope with the response you received here, but from now on I see no reason to let it bother me.
And meanwhile, there’s millssg99 who appears to think it is appropriate to use rape as a punishment (see #498) Although, possibly there is hope, millssg99 does appear to have recognised the complete outrageousness of that position.
I’m so glad the regular commenters here are fierce and strong. You have to be, and you are *brilliant*.
However there is a place between being bolted behind steel doors your whole life and complete disregard of reasonable precautions. One that everyone has to make for themselves. That doesn’t mean you can’t make suggestions to other people about where that line might reasonably lie.
Like a burka. or a golden star
I accept that within broad ranges parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit. However that doesn’t mean I think that “stranger danger” hysteria
Wait wait wait. You honestly think stranger danger is hysteria…and yet you still go on about these precautions? You honestly think women are less responsible and need more protection than children?
Emrysmyrddinsays
Although I’ll accept that the majority of crimes can’t be prevented by ‘reasonable precautions,’ you’d need to prove that’s the case for 100% of crimes to have a point worth discussing.
No, you’d need to. You’re the one making the claim. You have been provided with ample reading material as to why REASONABLE PRECAUTIONZ!!11! are fallacious, useless and often actively harmful to the victim. Fuck, it’s like a broken record.
millssg99: you keep going around and around, not really listening to what people tell you…and the Bubba rape suggestion and your barbaric “punishment and restitution philosophy” is simply way over the line, marking you as a simplistic cretin. You’re out. Don’t post in this thread anymore, under pain of the banhammer.
Honestly, your “restitution philosophy” has me hoping you’ll violate these terms, because I’m not enthusiastic about having you around anywhere.
millssg99says
Wait wait wait. You honestly think stranger danger is hysteria…and yet you still go on about these precautions? You honestly think women are less responsible and need more protection than children?
No. I think stranger danger to children is hysterically out of control in regards to real instances. On the other hand the number of rapes compared to for example stranger abductions of children are monstrously more likely.
cardinal.says
No one agrees with you, mills. No one.
Delurking after years of reading in order to make sure my vote is counted. I, too, think you’re a fucking disgrace mills.
Thank you to the horde for having the strength to keep battling these idiots.
Palladium Knightsays
This whole thing really hits home for me, particularly because, out of many of my friends who were victims of rape (I know an unfortunate number, but that’s not surprising, giving the statistics of women who are raped (ONE IN FOUR FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WHY?)), the vast majority were raped by members of their family, or people who were meant to take care of them. Only one of my friends, out of the multiple rape victims I know, has had an incident of stranger rape. She followed all the precautions people trot out.
She was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, she was walking down the street in the middle of the day in a fairly neighbourhood. She was dragged into an alley by a guy who shoved her down and started striping and hitting her. It was stopped. She fought back and cried out for help. She got fucking shot in the abdomen by her would-be rapist. And her parents blamed her for the incident, and she blamed herself for it, even though SHE DID NOTHING WRONG. That’s what this fucking rape culture does. That’s what your fucking “take precautions” fucking nonsense does, millss. Fuck you.
Fuck YOU. I hate you and people like you. You’re as good as a rapist yourself you scum-sucking sack of shit, FUCK OFF.
Kalliopesays
By advocating rape our other violence against others, you are doing exactly what violent criminals do. You are making a judgment about that person’s status as a human being. You’re just like a judge who throws out a rape case because the victim was, in his view, trash for, say, having a long sexual history. You’re only quibbling about the factors that make sometime trash.
I’m also confused about this staff of sadists the state should employ to carry out your plan of criminal enterprise.
You’re really no different than that guy who said that lesbians should be raped straight.
millssg99says
PZ Myers. I guess the “not allowed” to disagree from last night is now an actually physical reality. As you wish.
[You know, I wish these morons would realize that I don’t need them to give me a pissy, stupid reply. Just shut up and go away. –pzm]
Emrysmyrddinsays
Cleanup on post #69 – I can almost feel the air getting fresher.
Emrysmyrddinsays
You had your run, arsehole. Too bad it was on a hamster wheel.
PZ Myers. I guess the “not allowed” to disagree from last night is now an actually physical reality. As you wish.
Spare us the martyr act. I have no sympathy for persistent trolls.
Beatricesays
My vision is begging to turn all red and weird whenever I read the words “reasonable precautions”.
Strange, that.
—–
You know, I’m quite often not taking these reasonable precautions. I don’t have anyone to walk me home so if I go out with a friend in the evening, I’ll be taking at least a short walk by myself, in the dark, empty streets.
By not taking reasonable precautions, like not going to the movies or for drinks (yes, there might even be alcohol involved) in the evening, am I inviting rapists? I’m obviously not following the “rape avoiding” rules, so would any possible assault be my own fault?
Emrysmyrddinsays
Not if you separate the two, Beatrice. It’s all about the separation!1!
Kalliopesays
Jenny,
We all have weaknesses which we try to recognize. I’m hopeless at playing racket sports for instance. Really just so bad at it. So I’m going to recognize that I’ll never beat someone like Serena Williams, or even my cousin. Sure, I’ll play with my cousin, and I’ll get better at playing as a result, but she will always be better than me because she is more talented.
I’m guessing you weren’t at the top of your class in school. I’m guessing that despite the many talents and abilities you do possess, you were never marked for being especially intelligent among your peers. Your inability to understand the concepts discussed in this thread are evidence of this.
You’re outclassed intellectually here. You’re never going to get the upper hand. You might grow if you realized that and listen to what smarter people are saying. I’ll never be Stephen Hawkings, but I can learn something from him if I accept that he has a grasp of things I never will and let myself struggle to understand just a small part of what he does.
Gnumannsays
PZ Myers. I guess the “not allowed” to disagree from last night is now an actually physical reality. As you wish.
No mention of the first amendment? The apologist disappoints me…
Gnumannsays
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
No you’re not. If the precautions rob you of many things in life, and still just lowers the odds marginally or not at all (and we’ve been over why ad nauseam) you’re worse off.
You’re even worse off when the general expectation that all “good girls” should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape again.
Pteryxxsays
Point of order: intelligent people absolutely can be clueless and obstinate, especially in matters of privilege. It doesn’t require brains, just more empathy than ego. That’s an unfair line of argument to take, and disturbing to some of us who were subjected to performance-based shaming in school.
jenny6833asays
Amphiox says:
16 June 2012 at 11:38 am
And I’ll just repeat this once more:
SPECIFIC examples of “reasonable” things that could be done by an individual to reduce her (or his) chance of being raped.
EVIDENCE that they work, and QUANTIFICATION of HOW WELL they work, how MUCH they reduce the chance of being raped.
DETAILS of exactly what needs to be done.
Then, and only then, it is legitimate to talk about it. Then we can discuss whether or not this SPECIFIC DETAILS of what is done is reasonable, or practical, for people in general to follow. Then we can discuss if it is fair or reasonable to expect people in general to do this. Then and only then can we discuss whether to degree that it is effective the statistical number of how much it reduces the chance of being raped (preferably with standard deviations) is worth the effort/cost of what implementing that precaution entails.
THAT would be a useful, non-victim blaming discussion of “reasonable” avoidance.
You’re being silly. Again.
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
My judgment — and only I can make it — is that the precautions I choose to take do move the odds in my favor. I then get on with life without worrying about that which I cannot prevent.
None of that is in any way related to the blame game you and so many others are obsessed with.
Whether or not I take precautions, I am not to blame for the criminal actions of others.
Tethyssays
Jenny
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
The horde has explained to you over and over that unless your precautions consist of;
Not having any family.
Not having any friends.
Never dating or going out in public.
etc….
They are statistically unlikely to make you safer from rape.
Repeating the myth that women should police every facet of their lives take safety precautions reinforces the basic tenet of rape culture. You are reinforcing the despicable meme that women should expect to be raped in certain situations.
This also has the effect that should you be raped by an acquaintance (this is the most likely scenario statistically speaking) you will not have the ability to recognize it as rape because it has zero resemblance to the unlikely scenario of stranger rape that your precautions are supposed to prevent.
Heliantussays
@ mills
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
Funny you should say that.
In my country, a few years ago, we had the case of this guy in jail for anger issues who decided to punish his jailmate, who was a pedophile. So he raped him. And failed to understand why everybody was so angry at him; after all, this pervert “dserved it”.
A few months later, this “Punisher” walks out of jail (our prisons are full, so every months some criminals get lucky). He start dating a woman. And on their first evening, he raped her and killed her.
“Punishing” his cellmate opened a door. Yeah, approving of jail rape is going to do wonder on rape issues.
Emrysmyrddinsays
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
And these clueless idiots wonder why we’re telling them that they’re living in a bubble.
Kalliopesays
Apologies for offense. I don’t think there us anything wrong with being less appt in certain areas, and I think if we were more comfortable – and less shamed as you say – about it, we would all do a lot better.
Jenny really doesn’t seem to understand what we’re saying, and she’s not alone, although her misreadings of posts stands out. You’re right that obstinance is its own barrier, but just because I literally don’t understand half of what Hawkings is talking about doesn’t mean that I should walk around pretending I have all puff his capacity and therefore should argue with him about some detail when he’s really talking about the universe.
There’s no shame in not being brilliant in all things, but we should strive to recognize when we’re in the company of someone better equipped. That’s not about insults or bad grades, it’s about or own desire to learn as much as w can for or own sakes.
But as you say, there’s no way to
Amphioxsays
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
If your purpose is to recommend these precautions to others, then YES YOU DO.
If your purpose is NOT to recommend them to others, then YOU DON’T NEED TO TALK ABOUT THEM.
So WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THEM?
My judgment — and only I can make it — is that the precautions I choose to take do move the odds in my favor. I then get on with life without worrying about that which I cannot prevent.
Good for you. Go and do it, in private.
Again, WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THEM HERE?
unclefrogysays
OK I’m confused not for the first time though. I can understand I guess why the comments have to switch pages or files or what ever it is but why does the numbering system have to start with one all over again without a page number I have no idea where I am, it might as well be random. Not that is new or different.
I hate everything about this subject! I hate the fact that rape exists in the human. I hate that sexual abuse is learned by being abused, not that rape is always about sex I understand but often about power. I hate it that in many situations everyone needs to take all kinds of measures to be safe from our fellow humans and not just the leopard.
But here I am in this world today glad it is not 16th century, I do not want to have to go around armed and ready to fight all the fucking time. This subject is hard to talk about without getting emotional.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out what is safe to say on this subject but I can’t. That is to bad.
uncle frogy
Kalliopesays
seperate that from shame. Of course, we tell her that she-s of bad character for not getting it, which I don’t think is true at all.
Amphioxsays
PZ Myers. I guess the “not allowed” to disagree from last night is now an actually physical reality. As you wish.
Pitiful, self-righteous fool.
You can still post on another thread and still disagree. Any other thread. You haven’t even been quarantined to the TZT yet. Though I suspect at the rate you’re going, you soon will be.
Pathetic.
Amphioxsays
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
And if your purpose is the argue that talking about these precautions is a valid and appropriate strategy that is more helpful than harmful in the context of this subject, then YES YOU DO.
The “I don’t have to prove” reply to a request for evidence is the indelible mark of someone who does not intend to engage in discussion in an honest fashion.
jenny6833asays
“We Are Ing The Matrimonial Collective” says:
16 June 2012 at 12:32 pm
Although I’ll accept that the majority of crimes can’t be prevented by ‘reasonable precautions,’ you’d need to prove that’s the case for 100% of crimes to have a point worth discussing.
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
Ah ok. Tell you what. Come back in 80 years or so when you’re on your death bed and we’ll see if you’ve ever been raped. Then we’ll know if you did the right things or not.
That’s a totally incoherent response that in no way even attempts to deal with my remarks.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
My judgment — and only I can make it — is that the precautions I choose to take do move the odds in my favor. I then get on with life without worrying about that which I cannot prevent.
Well then jenny, if you are doing anything more than simply praying not to be raped, I think you’re exerting far too much effort.
It’s nice to know that this is so much about your own happiness and confidence, though. It has been explained to you over and over again that the harping on these so called ‘reasonable precautions’ contributes to victim-blaming, which has enormous costs not just for you but for every other person on earth, especially women-people . As much as you want that not to be the case, you cannot make it so by sheer insistence.
But hey, as long as you feel okay, right?
jenny6833asays
Kalliope says:
16 June 2012 at 12:52 pm
Jenny,
We all have weaknesses which we try to recognize. I’m hopeless at playing racket sports for instance. Really just so bad at it. So I’m going to recognize that I’ll never beat someone like Serena Williams, or even my cousin. Sure, I’ll play with my cousin, and I’ll get better at playing as a result, but she will always be better than me because she is more talented.
I’m guessing you weren’t at the top of your class in school. I’m guessing that despite the many talents and abilities you do possess, you were never marked for being especially intelligent among your peers. Your inability to understand the concepts discussed in this thread are evidence of this.
You’re outclassed intellectually here. You’re never going to get the upper hand. You might grow if you realized that and listen to what smarter people are saying. I’ll never be Stephen Hawkings, but I can learn something from him if I accept that he has a grasp of things I never will and let myself struggle to understand just a small part of what he does.
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I’ve had to say.
Clearly you can’t, or you would.
Emrysmyrddinsays
Fucking hell. What Ing is trying to get through to you, what we’re all trying to get through to you, is that you cannot ‘improve the odds’ on not getting raped because rape happens everywhere and is carried out by ‘normal-looking’ people. Even sealing yourself up in your Ivory Tower is no protection if your partner or your roommate turns out to be deaf to ‘no’. Fuck’s sake.
I’m not saying you’re a ‘bad person’, or ‘of bad character’. I’m saying you’re an idiot, and possibly wilfully obtuse, and after all these posts explaining to you why you are wrong you still continue to bleat, very very possibly posting in bloody bad faith.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Ugh, blockquote fail. But nevermind.
To everyone who shared their experiences, I am awed. I come here for things like that. The courage, and also, the eloquence.
Beatricesays
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
That is a whole ‘nother pair of fish than recommending them to others as a part of the “Avoid rape – getting you primed for self-blaming if you get yourself raped anyway” pack.
You are not just doing whatever makes you feel safer, you are advertising it as good and working advice. Which it is not, as people have been explaining for hundreds of comments.
Emrysmyrddinsays
Severe trigger warning for stories from rape survivors.
Fuck off and read if you can stomach more than one. Look at all the different situations. Look at the sheer range of stories, places, people, times, ages – none of these criminals had ‘RAPIST’ tattooed on their foreheads. Tell us all how these survivors could have ‘improved their odds’, when the only continual fucking qualifying factor in a rape is the presence of a rapist
Amphioxsays
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I’ve had to say.
That which you’ve said that is worth refuting has already been, long ago.
The rest is incoherent gibberish.
An argument that is incoherently expressed neither requires nor deserves a reasoned refutation. It need only be dismissed.
Amphioxsays
I’m not saying you’re a ‘bad person’, or ‘of bad character’. I’m saying you’re an idiot, and possibly wilfully obtuse, and after all these posts explaining to you why you are wrong you still continue to bleat, very very possibly posting in bloody bad faith.
I, on the other hand, am.
Someone who posts in bad faith is, by my definition, someone of bad character.
Amphioxsays
I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
Then why do you feel the need to pathetically reassure yourself? Cause that’s all you could possibly be doing by posting your tips here.
dysomniaksays
That was meant for 102, but it works here too.
Beatricesays
Amphiox,
I really like your comments on this thread.
Pteryxxsays
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I’ve had to say.
Clearly you can’t, or you would.
[meta] I learned the other day that “ad nauseam” really is a form of fallacious argument: someone just keeps repeating themselves over and over without substantially engaging the topic until all their opponents are too disgusted to continue, and thereby declares victory.
carliesays
millssg99, please state what YOU think people here are mad at you for. Where do you think their anger comes from? Do you even understand that?
millss really should have taken precautions to avoid getting called mean things on the Internet.
Really. If only they’d not said stupid things, noöne would have had to tell them to shut up and listen.
I ♥ you, Sili.
ischemgeeksays
@Pterryx #54 (previous page)
Really, I don’t expect too many 11-year-olds are reading this thread, much less that said 11-year-olds haven’t already internalized the cultural narrative of victim-blaming and secrecy. (And, no small number of said hypothetical 11-year-olds of whatever gender have already been raped.)
^ This. I was raped by two separate assholes on several occasions each by the time I was six. And I’ll second the chorus of people asking what precautions we missed. Should I have not lived in a house with an exchange student? Should I have not had parents who sent me to daycare? Please, tell me what I could have missed when I was two and three. Tell me what I missed when I was five and six.
Tell me how I could have avoided being sexually assaulted (not raped, assaulted – though from experience, there’s not much difference in the emotional impact) on the school bus at eight. Tell me how I could have avoided any of the so-many-I’ve-lost-count times I’ve been groped in public areas, in broad daylight, by complete strangers, in the middle of a crowd.
Because I spent all of my formative years being told about all these “precautions” and “tricks” and “tips” and… guess what?
Not a fucking one of them would have ‘prevented’ the assaults I’ve experienced. Not even being a shut-in, because the assaults from ages 5-6 happened in my home.
But by all means, keep telling me how I can avoid sexual assault if I just follow your advice. And keep telling me you’re totes not blaming the victim, you’re just sayin’ that if they took all of the dozens of often-contradictory bits of advice we get dispensed at once, it wouldn’t have happened.
Go to hell.
jenny6833asays
Gnumann says:
16 June 2012 at 12:59 pm
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
No you’re not. If the precautions rob you of many things in life, and still just lowers the odds marginally or not at all (and we’ve been over why ad nauseam) you’re worse off.
You appear to be determined to substitute your judgment for mine in matters affecting me. Sorry, but I don’t accept your right to do that.
You’re even worse off when the general expectation that all “good girls” should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape again.
Are you really suggesting that I make no effort to protect myself?
How would leaving myself totally at the mercy of criminals change what you (but not I) call “the general expectation that all ‘good girls’ should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape. again”?
You and a lot of others are full of complaints about how things are, but totally silent as to how to solve the problems that you claim exist.
Do you have a plan? If so, what is it?
Or do you just want to bewail, bewail, bewail?
Tethyssays
Jenny (the term used to describe a female ass or donkey)
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I had to say at #85?
Clearly you can’t, or you would.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Are you really suggesting that I make no effort to protect myself?
How would leaving myself totally at the mercy of criminals change what you (but not I) call “the general expectation that all ‘good girls’ should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape. again”?
Why look. jenny’s invented the StrawGnumann.
Emrysmyrddinsays
Or do you just want to bewail, bewail, bewail?
OK, I take it back. You’re a bad person. In fact, you’re a shitstain on humanity.
This whole thread has been riddled with solutions. Stop laughing at rape jokes. Teach people from a very young age about consent and autonomy and bodily respect. Remove the harmful trope of REASONABLE PRECAUTIONZ!!1! that creates and propagates a blame culture around the victim. Report people in your social circle who brag about their latest conquest being ‘out of it’. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk about it so that people realise their harmful fucking enculturation (that’s YOU, cupcake, YOU) is part of the entire fucking avalanche of a problem.
But as long as you ‘feel safe’ while chanting your mantras and fingering your prayer beads and waving your magic ribbons in the air (all your PRECAUTIONZZ!!1!) ultimately boil down to this magical thinking – why are you on this site, again?), it’s all good.
Fuckface.
carliesays
What ischemgeek wrote about school buses just jogged my memory; I’ve never been sexually assaulted, but the closest I got was being grabbed on the ass by one of the soccer jocks in high school. What terribly stupid thing was I doing to not properly prevent it from happening? I was sitting at my desk in class. The teacher stepped out for a minute, he was sitting behind me, and all of a sudden I felt his hand sliding between me and the chair as he and his buddies guffawed about it.
And then there was the time that I was about 14, and at home, and answered the phone to hear a guy saying he was doing a phone survey of teenagers and pop culture, and I kept answering his questions until they turned uncomfortable but I kept answering like the polite girl I was supposed to be and then somehow the questions were about the kinds of clothes I wore and then suddenly he asked how much pubic hair I had and if I would take my clothes off right now and I frantically hung up scared and felt dirty and like crap for days for being stupid enough to be at home and answer the phone and believe that someone was doing a phone survey just like people do all the time and somehow it was my fault for not realizing what he was doing right at the beginning.
I still feel squicked out by those experiences, and they are nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a footnote, compared to what people everywhere, people here, have gone through. And those were things that happened regardless of any precautions anyone could take, period. Precautions don’t protect you from harassment.
Beatricesays
You and a lot of others are full of complaints about how things are, but totally silent as to how to solve the problems that you claim exist.
Bloody fucking hell, you think you are giving some great solutions? Your solution is “Vigilance!!!” which is nice and all, except that it doesn’t prevent rape from happening, as it’s been explained numerous times in the last 1000+ comments.
Also, people are working on solving the problem. Putting the onus of stopping rape on the rapist instead of the victim is one of the steps. And more has been mentioned and explained, but you are obviously too busy admiring your own intelligence to read what people have written.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
Jenny, you’re not worth arguing with. As someone else said, if you wanna take precautions for yourself and that’s all you’re saying, fine, then fuck off and do that. If you want other people to take your precautions too, you’re a presumptuous, victim-blaming moron and you should fuck off. Fucking off is really your only option at this point. Just because you’re able to get people to respond to you who find themselves unable to disengage doesn’t mean they want to talk to you or find you interesting, intelligent, knowledgeable, credible, or anything other than a turd circling the bowl. It means you’re a provoking ignoramus taking advantage of SIWOTI Syndrome.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
…what you (but not I) call “the general expectation that all ‘good girls’ should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape. again”?
Just out of curiosity, jenny, what do you call the routine dismissal of victims’ complaints on the grounds of “well what did you expect?” Because this is a real thing that happens incessantly.
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
You and a lot of others are full of complaints about how things are, but totally silent as to how to solve the problems that you claim exist.
Oh, look! Jenny’s not reading the thread! SURPRISE
I’m glad you’re soooooo much happier and feel sooooo much safer because you’re taking Reasonable Precautions that restrict your life and don’t prevent rape, telling other people that they ought to be doing the same thing to prevent themselves being raped, and then blithely shitting on the numerous (with Susannah, Palladium Knight, andreadorkin, and ischemgeek we appear to be at 20) rape and sexual assault survivors who are telling you why it’s harmful to do that. I’m so glad you can “get on with life without worrying about that which [you] cannot prevent.” Must be nice to have that luxury.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
Seriously, can we do a Herp-a-Derp boycott on Jenny now? Like anytime she says anything, we all just go HERP-A-DERP!
Beatricesays
I am now imagining Alastor Moody yelling “Constant vigilance!”. It’s helping with the anger.
Except that now I’ve remembered that even fucking Harry Potter treats rape jokingly -> Umbridge & centaurs. But nooooo, there is no rape culture. Treating rape as a joke or promoting rape as valid punishment for bad people does nothing for that nonexistent rape culture. No. We’re just imagining things. And not being careful enough with our valuables.
One thing, because I am not absolutely certain of what gender is represented by each name, although I am reasonably sure that jenny### is a woman.
I am really uncomfortable with men telling women what they should or should not do to make themselves feel safer. Even if you’re a guy who has done lots of research, and knows the odds of stranger rape, acquaintance rape, date rape, etc etc, I still don’t think it is your place to tell a woman that what makes her feel safer is useless.
It is not clear to me whether this is happening here, or close to happening here, at, say, 82 or 85 (on this, the third page). What jenny### does to make herself feel safer is her business.
And I do realize that she is not always talking only in terms of herself, but to the degree she is, it really is all about her, because she is the one running a 1 in 4 chance of sexual assault in her lifetime. She gets to decide how to negotiate that.
That’s all.
Amphioxsays
Our solution, Jenny, is to RAISE AWARENESS, to keep talking about this issue until, mind by mind by mind by mind, until individuals no longer consider the rape culture acceptable, until people will express social disapproval and ACT when they see such things happening, when the number of men who think being a rapist is accepted and acceptable drops towards zero, when the CULTURE changes, just as cultural approval of dueling, public torture, secondhand smoke and so forth have changed.
And THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING, right now, on this blog, spreading the word as widely as possible, via as many mediums as possible, including, right now, the Internet. Many of us also do this in real life, every single day.
Are you really suggesting that I make no effort to protect myself?
We’re suggesting that you refrain from derailing threads discussing the underlying causes of rape with your goddamn helpful hints that you can’t even begin to show the usefulness of.
Even if they do make you more safe (rather than merely making you feel confident and safe), they merely leave the rapists out there, looking for other victims.
Who, if they do get raped, are then routinely forced to demonstrate that they took enough precautions–which shifts the blame and deters victims from reporting the crime.
You want a plan? The first thing we do is not jump in with supposedly helpful hints every time somebody starts talking about the deeper causes.
The plan starts with education, and if you read all these comments, you’ll notice some people popping in to tell us they learned something.
You’ll also notice that the victims telling their stories here would not have been helped by your “solution,” which seems to be all about keeping you safe. That’s a part of that education.
But people like you keep sticking your noses in, perpetuating the notion that it’s all about “reasonable precautions,” which many here have demonstrated to be an unhelpful myth in many or most cases, and which perpetuate the whole “victim could have prevented this” meme that is in fact a big part of the fucking problem.
And I’ve noticed you’re terribly selective in who you respond to. In fact, it looks like you’re responding to the same comment over and over again. Fortunately you’re mostly just fooling yourself.
jenny6833asays
pensnest says:
16 June 2012 at 12:32 pm
jenny6833a #268
I asked for a plan to solve the problem. You’re offering mutterings from a thread that almost no one reads and that no mainstream publication would print. Bubba, that ain’t no plan!
I agree, of course, that the focus should be on rapists. More importantly the focus should be on jailing rapists and preventing potential rapists from becoming rapists.
I’m advocating exactly that, but you don’t want to hear it.
In fact, you have no plan. You just want to bewail.
If everyone who has read this comic and/or any of the comments to the post goes out into the world determined to point out victim-blaming as wrong wherever they see it happening, that will help.
Agreed. However, I didn’t need a comic or a bunch of ranting dolts to persuade me to do that. I’ve been doing it for 30 years or more.
If everyone, particularly the men (because other men don’t seem to want to listen to women on the subject), treats with contempt every person they encounter who makes a rape joke or suggests in any context whatever that rape is appropriate, that will help.
I do NOT agree with your assessment of ‘other men.’ Other than that, we agree. I’ve been doing that too for at least 30 years.
And,in the meantime, I’ve been taking what I, in MY judgment, regard as reasonable precautions in behalf of MY OWN safety and urging others to exercise their own judgment as to their own personal safety.
There’s zero relationship between acting in behalf of a long term solution and acting in behalf of short term personal safety.
The two are 100% compatible.
Emrysmyrddinsays
The Umbridge thing genuinely didn’t click with me for a while. I was re-reading a few years ago and suddenly thought… “er…centaurs. Ohshit,” and had to put the book down for a long while.
It’s a genuine puzzle to me as to why it’s there – there’s nothing like that anywhere else in the series – and I can’t ‘give it a pass’ as ‘it’s-just-HP-canon-that-centaurs-aren’t-rape-machines’ because JK damn well did her research on mythical creatures in every other instance.
You appear to be determined to substitute your judgment for mine in matters affecting me. Sorry, but I don’t accept your right to do that.
Holy shit. You actually just said that. YOU actually just said that.
'Tis Himselfsays
And,in the meantime, I’ve been taking what I, in MY judgment, regard as reasonable precautions in behalf of MY OWN safety and urging others to exercise their own judgment as to their own personal safety.
Who, besides you, gives a rat’s ass about what YOU do? Contrary to your belief, this thread is not about YOU and, quite frankly, most of us are tired of hearing about YOU talking about YOU. So why don’t you just shut the fuck up?
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
I’ve been taking what I, in MY judgment, regard as reasonable precautions in behalf of MY OWN safety and urging others to exercise their own judgment as to their own personal safety.
That’s what you sound like with your pointless, mindless, oxygen-sucking blather. Your entire position is “I do what I want and others can do what they want and nobody should be judged”? HURRAH! NOW SHUT UP AND STOP MAKING THIS ABOUT YOU.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
@ jenny6833a;
You appear to be determined to substitute your judgment for mine in matters affecting me. Sorry, but I don’t accept your right to do that.
Gnumann is not doing that – xe is pointing out that any ‘precautions’ one might try to take will likely have a statistically insignificant effect in reducing the risk of rape, given that over 70% of rapes are acquaintance rapes against which no precautions can realistically be taken.
Also, Xe is pointing out that, given the fact that there is no way for a person to know what rapists look like (because there are no rules governing the appearance of rapists, as is demonstrated by the concept of Shrodinger’s Rapist), then any precautions taken will either be ineffective or will require a person to sacrifice such a large component of their own lives (like entirely avoiding the society of men, never having a drink while socialising, never going out after dark) that they are worse off, in terms of their quality of life, then if they did not take those precautions, doubly so when you consider that, as demonstrated by the several terrible accounts of rape on this thread, those precautions are unlikely to even work anyway.
Are you really suggesting that I make no effort to protect myself?
No one is suggesting that – they are saying that women are already aware of all these ‘precautions’, that the evidence indicates that most of the precautions suggested by posters such as yourself aren’t actually effective at preventing rape, and that by coming to a public forum and reiterating several times the importance of taking these (as already discussed, largely ineffective) precautions, you are contributing to an environment that shames wthe victims of rape by propagating the idea that the fact that they were raped means that they failed to take necesary precautions, and that as such they are (at least in part) reponsible for what happened to them. This plays into the rape culture, and leads to a society that scrutinises the behaviour of a rape victim more closely, and more judgementally, that that of their rapist.
How would leaving myself totally at the mercy of criminals change what you (but not I) call “the general expectation that all ‘good girls’ should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape. again”?
No one has suggested that you should ‘leave yourself defenceless’ – they are saying that by coming here, to a public forum that you must by now know is frequented by rape survivors, and constantly reiterating the importance of ‘taking precautions’ you are effectively shaming those rape survivors by implying that the reason, at least in part, for their rape was their failure to take the precautions you advocate, or to pursue those precautions to a sufficiently high degree. Whether or not that is your intent is not relevant – intent is not magic. The shaming of rape survivors is the practical effect of your words whether you wish to acknolwedge the fact or not.
You and a lot of others are full of complaints about how things are, but totally silent as to how to solve the problems that you claim exist.
Do you have a plan? If so, what is it?
Or do you just want to bewail, bewail, bewail?
That which you dismiss as ‘bewailing’ is part of the effort to change things for the better – the only way to tackle a pervasive social phenomenon like rape culture is to change society’s attitude. You have to delegitimise the idea that rape victims must somehow be responsible in some way for their own rapes. This stuff cannot be legislated away or ended by dictat – the proces is long, slow and hard, much the same way as ending racism and homophobia is long, slow and hard. There are no silver bullet solutions; no quick fixes.
Only when the attitudes change can things get better – the attitudes that underpin the culture that excuses rapists and blames victims must be dismantled before things have any chance to get better. Until that happens, rape victims will contnue to be met with doubt and moral judgement from police, family, friends and society at large.
Amphioxsays
What precautions that can be taken against rape are EXACTLY THE SAME as what precautions that can be taken against murder. Because if someone gets sufficient power over you to rape you they also have enough power over you to kill you, and your fate is entirely at their mercy.
So seriously, Jenny, do you think “try to avoid getting murdered” is a piece of advice that actually needs to be said? You think women are blissfully naive idiots who cannot and will not try to protect themselves unless you tell them to? That they are like the poor Kakapos, and have lost all instincts for self preservation after evolving in an isolated utopia free of rapists(we wish) for thousands of years?
There’s zero relationship between acting in behalf of a long term solution and acting in behalf of short term personal safety.
So why keep mucking up threads discussing the underlying causes of the problem? At best, you’re off topic. At worst, you’re delaying any solution by perpetuating the “victim could have prevented this” idea.
Amphioxsays
Sensible people generally recognize that the advice to “try not to get gruesomely raped/killed” is implicit in the standard greetings, such as “see you later”, and “take care”.
One doesn’t have to make a big deal about specifically mentioning it.
That’s what your entire argument boils down to, Jenny. Two words. That everyone already says. That everyone already knows. Two words. Over which you have wasting three iterations of this blog thread over. Nothing else that you have said is even worth the effort of responding to.
On the precautions comments (the sarcasm ones): I was also molested by the son of a preacher when I was 6. He was 16 and three times my size, and my little brother was in the room. His parents and mine were having dinner in the other room, and he was apparently known to be a pedophile.
I guess I should have known better than to be alive and female. I have pictures of myself from that period. I was all of three feet or so tall and weighed 70 pounds. Tell me, was it the ankle length dresses my family insisted I wear, because they were religious. Or maybe it was the fact that I spent so much time reading. Or maybe it was because I liked the grooming he’d done before that because I thought I had a friend.
And afterward, as my father was beating me for being a little whore (I ran to the dinner table and told everyone) and embarrassing the preacher, I should have just kept accepting that at about six, I was more than old enough to have ‘forced’ the preacher’s son to molest me?
Or, goodness, there was the time I went out with a group of kids from the religious high school I went to and one of them dosed what I was drinking and proceeded to molest me in front of the group, as an entertainment. Silly me, thinking that in a group of six, I’d be okay to share a drink with a friend and relax.
Or when I was homeless and 16, and people kept trying to lure me into cars with the promise of food. I should have known better to be homeless. Ever so often, someone would pretend to be my friend in order to score. After all, why would they help me out of compassion?
Or my second husband, who spent all the time before we moved in together being super sweet and helpful, and once we were out in the boonies, turned into a wife-beating son of a bitch. Why in the world should I trust someone who spent almost a year coming over to help me manage laundry, or run errands, or just to hang out and watch movies, who kept telling me he loved me?
Or the gentleman I listed earlier, who promised me that we were just going out as friends, because why should you trust your friend?
Or the fucking billion people who’ve groped me, jumped out of the bushes at me, told me they were my friend and tried to pressure me into sex, bosses who kept grabbing me and people who’ve exposed themselves to me. How should I have known better than to talk to a colleague, or hang out with people I know, or try to have a job and support myself, or walk to work, or go to the movies and get up to go to the bathroom, or go to a Harry Potter movie, or get up and teach things people don’t want to hear, or try to have a conference with my students: how shall I know to avoid them?
Tell me, oh oracles, how I should have prevented these incidents. What magic words and gestures could have prevented me from being molested, drugged, raped, assaulted and beaten?
Erista (aka Eris)says
I’m going to tell a story. When I was a freshman in college, there was another woman who attended the same college. I never met her, never saw her, never spoke a single word to her. But I would come to know of her. You see, she worked in the mall while attending school. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, she was walking to her car from the mall. Her car was in the middle of the mall parking lot. It was board daylight. The parking lot was full of people. She was on the phone with her boyfriend for at least part of the walk.
We don’t know exactly what happened next, but we do have some idea. At some point in that mall parking lot, a man grabbed her and forced her into her car, possibly at knife-point. He then drove her (or forced her to drive) to a secluded area. He then raped and murdered her.
I also had a job that year, but it was at the school library, not the mall. When I was working there one day, some people were discussing what had happened. One of the senior staff at the library commented, “I hope this teaches women to not walk by themselves late at night.”
I’m surprised my jaw didn’t shatter from the force of hitting the floor. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t remember if I said anything or if I was too stunned. But there is one thing that I took from that moment that I will remember forever: women who are raped will be held accountable for not following these “safety rules” and “rape prevention tips” even if they actually followed them. When this girl was raped and murdered, it was not night (it was the middle the afternoon and broad daylight), she was not walking around instead of taking a car (she was walking to her car), she was not alone (she was in a busy mall parking lot with a cellphone connection to her boyfriend). But that didn’t stop people from going on about how she should have just done what she was supposed to do. It didn’t matter that no one would have ever advised her against walking to her car in the mall parking lot from the mall in broad daylight. In fact, if she had expressed fear at doing such a thing, people surely would have sneered at her. But in the end it didn’t make a difference; the trope of finding fault with the woman was too strong for people to resist passing judgement.
It’s truly awful.
jonmilnesays
Mr Myers:
Allow me to be the first person to make this request, and I deeply hope that others who have been affected deeply by the flat-out monstrous comments of the rape victim blamers also follow suit with making the same request as I’m about to make:
Please close this thread. There are some threads that at least retain a sense of good humour and not really be overwhelmingly upsetting when there’s someone on the thread you disagree with (eg: the Zombie threads, or any other threads where Godbots pop up with some inane evidence and incoherancy that’s been debunked several times to great amusement).
This thread is not one of them. Any humour and awesomeness that existed in this thread has long since gone, and what we’re seeing instead are some genuinely heart-wrenching stories about people and their experiences with rape being met by some utterly cold hearted bastards who insist on considering women as “property” that shouldn’t do things that will do apparently “provoke” a rapist into raping them.
This thread has been overtaken by tone and concern trolls, as well as some of the most sickening comments I’ve ever read in my history of reading this website.
Please, Mr Myers, speaking as someone whose cousin became a victim of someone who was supposed to be one of her best friends, I am begging you to please close this thread for commenting.
Much thanks,
Jon Milne
Gregory Greenwoodsays
@ jonmilne;
I can see where you are coming from, and I am very sorry to hear about what happened to your cousin, but if this thread is closed to commenting, then the discussion is halted, the topic abandoned, and the trolls who are so determined to silence the voices of rape survivors and shut down discussion of this topic entirely so that they can continue to self-righteously judge the victims of rape get their way – they acheive that which has been their objective all along, and they are confirmesd in their belief that if they troll obnoxiously enough, for long enough, that they are able to control the parameters of the discussion.
I don’t think we can allow that to happen.
The regulars who spend time eviscerating the moronic non-arguments of these misogynist idiots aren’t just doing it for themsleves – they are doing it for the lurkers. They are doing it to demonstrate why attitudes like ‘just take precautions’ are harmful. They are doing it to show everyone that Pharyngula is a safe place where this kind of slut-shaming victimisation of rape victims will not go unanswered. They are doing it to do their bit, however small it may be, to change attitudes and start shifting the public discourse away from the dominant rape culture model.
I think that these are worthwhile goals and as painful as threads like these are to read, even for someone like me who has no personal experience with rape, they are necessary.
What the hell is wrong with Jenny? It’s like there’s some kind of bizarre mental block, which renders her completely incapable of comprehending other people’s arguments.
She’s like a creationist, who after being endlessly lectured on speciation, asks why monkeys haven’t all turned into humans. She’s like a climate change denier, who after being endlessly lectured on the difference between global climate and local weather, pronounces the latest cold snap as evidence against global warming. She’s like a quack medicine devotee, who after being endlessly lectured on clinical trials and the placebo effect, states that homeopathic pills must work, because they made her headache go away.
She’s arguing against a bizarre fantasy opponent, who only exists in her own head.
Pteryxxsays
Gregory: while I see your point, there are three pages of this, and it WILL come up again the next time PZ posts anything supportive of survivors. IMHO, there’s a time for recovery, there will be other chances; and survivors are always welcome in TET.
Kalliopesays
Jenny,
You HAVE been refuted. Over and over and over ahain. Everyone else understands the arguments against yours.
The fault is not with the transmitter, it’s with the reciever.
You appear incapable of understanding what is being said to you. My several dozen people from several dozen angles.
It’s you. The problem is inside your brain.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
@ Pteryxx;
Maybe you are right, but it grates with me that closing the thread might embolden these cretins the next time around.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Ing,
If SGBM or anyone knowing psych research is here, has anything been done on the actual likelihood of normal people to take things left unattended? Like leaving a lap top abandoned in a public place and seeing how many people ignore it, how many try to take it and how many turn it into a reference desk?
If there’s much research like this, it’s not trivial for me to find. (It’s much more common to have a fake thief and fake victim, and then study whether bystanders intervene in some way.)
It would be a hard experiment to design. If you just leave something unattended in public and count how many people go by before it’s stolen, then you still don’t know if the thief is making a spur-of-the-moment decision, or if they came to this public area with the hope of finding something to steal. If you select a random sample of people and put them into a situation where they can steal, then you get around the previous problem, but they know they’re in a contrived experiment of some kind and may feel justified in stealing because it’s part of the “game” (or perhaps they’d be more inhibited).
Milgram and Shotland did the latter, and in one experiment they got as many as 1 in 5 subjects to steal at least one dollar dangling out of a charity donation box, but I don’t have access to the whole thing and I don’t know exactly what they did to get the proportion that high. They did other experiments where the proportion was as low as 1 in 15.
Tethyssays
mouthyb
*usb hugs, chocolate,bacon, soft kitties, anything helpful should be arriving any moment*
……
I seem to recall from a previous thread that religious fundamentalism was a common trait among convicted rapists.
horacesays
Neither Jenny not 99 have said anything that condones rape or victim blaming, they have just said that there are reasonable
precautions that you can take to reduce your chances of being a victim of rape (or any violent crime).
It is really amusing to see 40 or so posters work themselves up into a rightious rage as they attempt to turn this into condoning rape. Thanks guys (Pitbull, amphiox… others too numerous to name), you have written some of the most entertaining material that I have read on Pharyngula for a long time. The posters that believe that WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS WILL PREVENT RAPE have been the best.
If you are serious about the subject though, go back to the last batch of 500 messages and see #32 where I linked to a site that discusses violence and rape. The author says that most rape of women occurs between the ages of 15 and 26 and involves acquantences (sorry for spelling). He suggests that young women look for certain character traits in the men that they hang around with (domineering, vindicitiveness, controlling etc) and avoid men like this, no matter how otherwise attractive the guys are.
This sounds like good advice whether it prevents rape or not, but then I am a man with limited experience of violent crime . Does anyone here think that it is useful advice for rape prevention ? Do rapists tend to be amoral in all aspects of their life ? or can they compartmentalize.
Tethys: it is, because it’s highly correlated with investment in traditional gender roles, something which the Lisak studies detailed in the “Meet the Predator” posts demonstrates is a strong motivating factor for rapists (especially serial rapists.)
And thank you. I’m just fucking annoyed with the volume of stupid bullshit which some posters appear to believe needed to be spread on the subject.
Erista (aka Eris)says
@horace
Did you even read the responses of any of the people who actually went to your @32 post? Because a lot of us went there and looked at the incredible vileness that its creators spewed and you are promoting.
Horace: The rapist looks like (and often appears to be to many people) a nice guy. Not controlling, not dominating: kind and gentle and helpful and everything someone might want.
The predators know to disguise themselves and do it well. They practice quite a bit.
As many have said, it’s not like they have a tattoo, or wear dirty trenchcoats and drool on people. They look and act normal because they believe themselves to be normal.
Really, you should be reading “Yes Means Yes”.
horacesays
Erista,
Yes, good point. Perhaps you could engage with the arguments that the site make rather than just saying that it is vile ? Besides, are you saying that there is not a singe useful piece of advice on the site ? There is certainly plenty for you to disagree with and explain why it is wrong.
It would also make a welcome change from piling on 99, Jenny and that other young women on the last page.
If you are serious about the subject though, go back to the last batch of 500 messages and see #32 where I linked to a site that discusses violence and rape. The author says that most rape of women occurs between the ages of 15 and 26 and involves acquantences (sorry for spelling). He suggests that young women look for certain character traits in the men that they hang around with (domineering, vindicitiveness, controlling etc) and avoid men like this, no matter how otherwise attractive the guys are.
Did you read what else he said? about women getting raped because they annoyed men?
Waltonsays
In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
No. This is exactly the kind of comment that makes me despair of humanity.
This comes from my punishment and restitution philosophy, that whatever you inflict on somebody else you deserve in return. You can see that in you steal $100 and you then have to pay it back and lose $100 of your own. That’s obviously easier to accept in monetary crimes. It’s easy to hold in theory but obviously is not so simple in practice.
This is idiotic. How does taking revenge on the rapist make the situation any better? The desire for vengeance is irrational, a brute instinct of our ape brains, something that we ought to be able to outgrow in civilized societies. If you punish a murderer by killing hir, you’ve achieved nothing positive, and done nothing to heal the harm; you simply have two dead bodies and two bereaved families, rather than one. As Gandhi put it, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
(And if we accept a rational materialist worldview, the concept of “moral desert” must itself be an irrational fantasy, since we cannot and do not have free will. I’m not going to expound on that subject here because it would be a derail, though.)
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
horace, the guy who wrote your link is probably a rapist.
At the point where he says ‘that old saw “It takes two to fight” comes home to roost’, he’s clearly stating that sometimes the victim deserved to be raped. Er, excuse me, I mean the “victim” as he puts it; he seriously put that word in scare-quotes because he doesn’t believe there are many if any victims of rape, only mutual particpants in an it-takes-two-to-tango-get-raped interpersonal dispute.
So yeah, he’s probably a rapist, and you’re definitely a victim-blamer for endorsing him.
Waltonsays
I should add that prison rape is a widespread and horrific atrocity, and it makes me really depressed when people turn up on these threads wishing rape on those who are sent to prison. No one ever “deserves” to be raped. Ever.
Neither Jenny not 99 have said anything that condones rape or victim blaming, they have just said that there are reasonable
precautions that you can take to reduce your chances of being a victim of rape (or any violent crime).
AND AGAIN, that’s off-topic at best, and, at worst, certainly perpetuates the “victim could have prevented this” idea. Which is harmful.
And wasn’t it you who posted the link to this piece of crap?
What we discovered in approximately 80% of the assaults the woman initiated the physical violence. That is to say that even though he touched her first the woman either threw the first blow or broke free from the grip with extreme force. In these circumstances, those actions provoke an attack.
Do you really need an explanation as to why this is wrong? Does it get any clearer than “the woman initiated the physical violence” by “breaking free from the grip with extreme force?”
Dipshit.
Pteryxxsays
At this point Horace is just spamming that horrible “advice” site ze praises so highly. It’s so triggering that just the excerpts are painful to read. It’s possible ze gets a kick out of sending rape survivors there… such things have happened before.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
@ horace;
Neither Jenny not 99 have said anything that condones rape or victim blaming, they have just said that there are reasonable
precautions that you can take to reduce your chances of being a victim of rape (or any violent crime).
I think you need to read the thread again – the way in which the ‘just take precautions’ trope plays into victim blaming has been addressed dozens of times on this thread.
The author says that most rape of women occurs between the ages of 15 and 26 and involves acquantences (sorry for spelling). He suggests that young women look for certain character traits in the men that they hang around with (domineering, vindicitiveness, controlling etc) and avoid men like this, no matter how otherwise attractive the guys are.
Do you really think that rapists telegraph their intent so obviously? There is no singular ‘type’ of person who is a rapist, no simple check list that one can go over to find ‘warning signs’ – not all rapists even realise they are rapists, they have marionated for so long in rape culture that they honestly don’t see their actions as problematic. It is doubtful that they would fit such a profile. Then there are the out and out predators, who know exactly what they are doing and are very good at hiding their intent until they strike. How do you look for these ‘character traits’ in a person who is an expert disembler?
The very idea that there is this list of attributes that women should be looking for in men in order to avoid rape still places the responsibility for avoiding being raped on women, rather than stating that raping someone os always unacceptable.
Far from being ‘good advice’, this myth of an easily identifiable set of character traits that women can use to identify rapists simply plays yet further into the victim blaming aspect of rape culture.
What the hell is wrong with Jenny? It’s like there’s some kind of bizarre mental block, which renders her completely incapable of comprehending other people’s arguments.
Lots of women believe that there are rules that work, so then they don’t have to deal with the ugly horrible reality of rape as a form of terrorism. it is much easier to believe that “good” women are safe if they just obey the rules.
Erista (aka Eris)says
@horace
Oh for the love of . . . I already DID deal with the stupidity on that site, but I suppose I will give you a specific example. [Warning for triggers, because someone said they were having trouble with this earlier]
First the complete morons of that site say that, in order avoid violence, women should follow Peyton’s the five causes of violence.
1) Don’t Insult Him
2) Don’t Challenge Him
3) Don’t Threaten Him
4) Don’t Deny It’s Happening
5) Give Him A Face Saving Exit (1)
Then the glorious examples of humanity declare that
) We have done both formal and informal interviews with hundreds of women who have been raped by people they knew. What we discovered in approximately 80% of the assaults the woman initiated the physical violence. That is to say that even though he touched her first the woman either threw the first blow or broke free from the grip with extreme force. In these circumstances, those actions provoke an attack. When advocates hear this they immediately start squealing about us blaming the victim. We’re not. Our problem isn’t with the fact that she engaged in a course of violent behavior. Our problem is that she didn’t break his jaw. Had she done that, there’s a good chance that he never would have mustered an attack. By throwing an ineffective blow and/or defensive reaction without a counter attack is the green light for him to attack. Anger and words are not going to work to stop someone in such circumstances. Unfortunately, most women do not have the experience with violence to engage in the explosive action necessary to stop a man in such a state. Instead, by using less effective measures they give an attacker the green light.
If you can’t understand the problem with that, I’ll try to make it clear:
The creators of that site are declaring that women should not challenge, insult, or otherwise threaten a man who may commit violence against her, but that women should initiate extreme violent against a man who may commit violence against them. Believe it or not, you cannot both not “provoke” violence by a man by not fighting back and “initiate violence” so intense that the man will not counter attack. Plus, they count breaking away from someone who has grabbed you as “initiating violence.” They are placing women in a catch 22; if she is aggressive, she is provoking him, but if she is passive, she’s not fighting back enough.
And if you think I’m going to scan through the entirety of a misogynistic site to see if it has even one reasonable thing to say, you are mistaken.
carliesays
What we discovered in approximately 80% of the assaults the woman initiated the physical violence. That is to say that even though he touched her first the woman either threw the first blow or broke free from the grip with extreme force. In these circumstances, those actions provoke an attack.
So women are supposed to fight back against a rapist, or else they’re asking for it, and secretly like it, and aren’t being moral enough to protect their honor. But when they do fight back, then they’re initiating the physical violence?
Someone trying to defend themselves is the one initiating the physical violence? Do you actually not see how wrong that is, Horace?
Pteryxxsays
Also, grabbing a person to hold them down, hold them in place, or prevent their escape, or blocking their exit from a room or other small enclosed space, are often considered assault under domestic violence laws.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Fuck fuck fuck. Horace is back. Now I’m almost ready to throw in my vote with those wishing for comments to be closed. Just to stop Horace from further promoting that site on this skeptical blog.
Hey Horace: yeah I checked it out. Its creators dismiss the Lisak study. They are affronted because, after hearing some men admit to actions that fit a definition of rape, the researchers had the temerity to refer to those men as PEOPLE WHO HAD RAPED! Those big bad researchers labelled them rapists without benefit of proper jury trial!!11!! Rapey-ness insufficiently proven!!
I would recommend that absolutely no one visit that site for tips on anything, whether self preservation, gender relations, or thinking. Its creators are authoritarian bozos of the first water, and they have no qualms about publishing some of the vilest stuff ever.
I should add that prison rape is a widespread and horrific atrocity, and it makes me really depressed when people turn up on these threads wishing rape on those who are sent to prison. No one ever “deserves” to be raped. Ever.
not to mention that it doesn’t take into account what victims want at all. I doubt most of victims want that. shouldn’t the wishes of victims that be what matters to people who claim to be wanting revenge?
Erista (aka Eris)says
Trigger warning once again:
I found what mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehell is refering to.
First off, Lisak did not survey convicted inmates. He surveyed college students. Of the 1882 students interviewed 120 answered questions that met an expanded criteria for rape/attempted rape. A criteria that may or may not have stood up in court (i.e. the individual may or may not be found guilty). Basically the survey asked people to admit to criminal behavior without using terms that would identify it as such. Then, without the benefit of a court trial, the study proceeded to identify the individuals who answered ‘yes’ as rapists.
o_O
'Tis Himselfsays
Pteryxx #155
It’s possible [Horace] gets a kick out of sending rape survivors there…such things have happened before.
The same thought occurred to me. Ever since Horace first gave a link to that website, people have been explaining why it’s victim-blaming and the authors are rape-apologists. Instead of saying “I didn’t realize an asshole thinks a woman breaking out of a man’s grasp is ‘initiating violence’, how stupid is that?”, Horace keeps telling people to visit the site.
Horace, if you’re not a rape apologist, then you’re doing an excellent imitation of one. Why don’t you get a nice, ripe, decaying porcupine and shove it up your rosy-red rectum.?
Erista (aka Eris)says
Oh, and I think I found the questions Lisak asked:
(1) Have you ever been in a situation where you tried, but for various reasons did not succeed, in having sexual intercourse with an adult by using or threatening to use physical force (twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.) if they did not cooperate?
(2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing their clothes)?
(3) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
(4) Have you ever had oral sex with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Erista (aka Eris) at 165. Thanks for finding that. I was sitting there searching for it again and getting distracted by the rest of the O_o material for an actual quarter of an hour, I think. Then I just gave up.
Nightjarsays
Instead, by using less effective measures they give an attacker the green light.
What? Did I read that right? A “green light”? A failed attempt to resist an assault is a fucking green light, now?
Fuck you, horace. Fuck you for linking to and promoting that disgusting, sickening site.
Pteryxxsays
…Of course Lisak didn’t survey *convicted* rapists. The point of the study was to start finding out how many undetected rapists are in the population who have never been charged with any crime.
No wonder these guys are so bent on disavowing any level of evidence short of a courtroom conviction; as long as victim-blaming and shaming weeds out more than 90% of rape cases before they ever see a prosecutor’s desk, they can go on pretending “real rape” is rare as unicorns and has nothing to do with ordinary people like them.
Pteryxxsays
*correction: IIRC, to find rapists who have not been charged with rape or sexual assault. I think Lisak did find correlations with other charges such as partner violence.
Erista (aka Eris)says
@Nightjar Yep, and the emphasis (italics) is in the original text; I did not add it.
pensnestsays
Erista (aka Eris) #136 (third page)
You are so right. Innocent victims, blamed for being murdered.
My mother went out in the early summer evening to walk the dog. (Said dog was an Irish Setter/Rhodesian Ridgeback cross.) The man who raped her and then strangled her with her own scarf took the precaution of tethering the dog to a tree first.
And back in our home town, my grandmother had to endure people gossiping about this deliciously horrible murder and suggesting that my mother was “no better than she should be”. After all, she had been raped—she must have been a Bad Girl.
(1) Have you ever been in a situation where you tried, but for various reasons did not succeed, in having sexual intercourse with an adult by using or threatening to use physical force (twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.) if they did not cooperate?
(2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing their clothes)?
(3) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
(4) Have you ever had oral sex with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
That’s a pretty narrow definition of rape – I wonder what numbers he would have gotten if he had used a more inclusive one :(
omg not a link to that self defense website. a relative of mine sent me that and I just about shit a brick at the victim blaming on there.
I watched an episode of the people’s court awhile back where a little girl’s dog gets killed by a roaming pit bull. the neighbor owning the pit claimed it wasn’t her fault because she ran around warning everyone her dog had escaped and that he was territorial. Witnesses said no one warned anyone, but its beside the point. If there were tons of people threatening each of us unless we went indoors, and we all obeyed, we would give up our right to walk down the fucking street. And so it is with rape. Women absolutely have the right to behave like and be treated as human beings. We have the right to say no half way through a sex act or to drink when we want to. It doesn’t make us idiots, it makes us brave. I don’t know why that self-defense asshole doesn’t take his argument to its logical conclusion- islamic fundamentalist style society, like in saudi arabia. If women should just obey every man in the name of personal safety and forget the political implications of it then that is the rational conclusion of such a position. I’m not going to let sexual terrorists win, frighten me with their horse shit. I’m a rape victim and I walk alone at night, have for years. I refuse to apologize for it. Every woman I know lives in fear, and it fucks up her life. Women don’t know a different way to be so they don’t know what they are missing. It takes a god damned toll.
The site Horace has been spamming has been added to the blacklist. Comments that reference it will be automatically trashed as spam.
Horace has been a pain in the ass for a long time. You are now confined to TZT. Any appearance elsewhere will result in immediate banhammering.
Erista (aka Eris)says
Jesus, pensnest, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.
vaiytsays
Your reasonable precautions are bullshit.
Because they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
And they implicitly make it acceptable for rape to occur in those “must avoid this to not be raped” situations.
Thus blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
Louissays
I just read this entire thread. I just lost the majority of my good feeling about humanity again. That’s not good.
Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight and rape apologists. It just staggers me that the “precautions” crowd aren’t getting the simple fact that it’s the responsibility of the rapist to not touch his* intended victim with his peepee.
Ohhhhh I know that boners are hard (pun unintended). I get them too. They make things really really complicated. But please, fellow men, don’t touch ladies or other gentlemen with your peepee unless they say “please touch me with your peepee”. If they say “don’t touch me with your peepee” cease and desist all peepee related activities immediately. And of nearly equal importance, try to realise that if your intended victim has had a beer or is wearing a really short skirt, that is not the same thing as saying “please touch me with your peepee”. Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, if you really think it is.
I saw a very pretty lady just hours ago. I managed not to touch her with my peepee. You too can not touch people with your peepee if you try very hard. You can also realise that even if the very pretty lady is wearing a very short skirt, that unless she comes over to you and says “please touch me with your peepee”, touching her with your peepee is a bad idea.
Why I have even been to the beach and seen ladies in bikinis. I know, peepee madness, right! But none of them asked me to touch them with my peepee so I didn’t touch them with it. Amazeballs! And if I had touched them with my peepee, it would have been, like, totally my fault and everything. Because their bikini is not a peepee touching invitation.
And with this in mind I have invented the Peepee Cross Code:
1) Stop.
2) Look.
3) Listen.
4) Sniff.
5) Do not touch anything with your peepee.
6) Ask very nicely, if it is appropriate to do so, if peepee touching would be an enjoyable experience.
7) If you get the reply that “Yes I would very much like you to touch me with your peepee” proceed slowly/rapidly (as appropriate) to peepee touching.
8) If you get the reply “No I would not like you to touch me with your peepee” make a classy apology for inconveniencing the person of your peepee’s desire and withdraw with some dignity. Calling them “frigid lesbian manhating feminazi castrating bitches” does not do this. If appropriate, smile, shake hands and say “thank you for your consideration”, then move away.
9) Listen. Sometimes, juuuuuuuust, sometimes, someone might be saying “don’t touch me with your peepee” very subtly. For example, after giving a lecture on the subject of unwanted peepee touching requests and several hours of conversation about the subject.
10) If you are touching someone with your peepee right now, it’s probably not the best time, double check.
11) Drinking beer and wearing short skirts and being in an alley is not the same thing as a request to be touched by your peepee. I have drunk beer, worn short skirts (hey, I played rugby, we had to do things like that) and been in alleys, and very rarely did I want to be touched by a peepee during those times. I imagine the same applies to you.
12) It is your peepee, it belongs to you. You are in charge of your peepee. No one else is. Keep that peepee under control. Ladies and suitable gentlemen do not have magic control over your peepee. It’s a peepee not a puppet. You have the power to not touch people with it, even when you really want to.
There you go. Simple peepee management and non-victim blaming for the peepee confused. No no. No need for thanks.
Louis
*Because, you know, it is overwhelmingly a “him”.
Louissays
OHhhhhh fuckety fuckety fuck! TYPO!!!!!!!
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight and rape apologists”
Should read:
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight against rape apologists”
Motherfucker!
I go now to pickle my testicles as some means to assuage the shame brought to my laser printer. My ancestors already having deserted me.
Louis
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Louis. You shouldn’t worry. I think you just made an accidental zeugma of some sort. It was intelligible.
Nightjarsays
There you go. Simple peepee management and non-victim blaming for the peepee confused. No no. No need for thanks.
No, sorry, but I do have to thank you for making me laugh. After this thread, I was definitely needing that.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
Than you admit that ‘sensible precautions’ really are a mind game? That is a step in the right direction.
You appear to be determined to substitute your judgment for mine in matters affecting me. Sorry, but I don’t accept your right to do that.
Yet you have the right to tell me, and others, that if we had taken proper precautions, we would not have been raped? Fuck off.
You have been telling me, and others, that, because we didn’t take precautions, we got raped. That it is our fault. So your judgement is good for us but not vice versa?
Louissays
Nightjar,
Well, peepees are confusing. I have one. I should know. I could write a book called “Capers My Peepee and I Have Got Up To”. Or even a book with a good title.
I have decided to found the Peepee Owners Empowerment Movement (POEM for short, I like it). It empowers peepee owners to love their peepees, to respect their peepees and take responsibility for their peepees. My peepee is my friend, I want it to be happy, and the happiest my peepee has ever been is when it is friends with someone who really loves it. Ohhhh peepee friends who are there for one night are fun too, I’m not judging, I’ve had a few. I prefer enthusiastic friends of my peepee, that can happen for a night, but it’s funner (a perfectly cromulent word) for a week or two. I guess I’m weird that way. I think enthusiasm is a good thing.
Peepee enthusiasm can be misplaced, as the topic of this thread has shown. Sometimes silly people think that things that are not explicit requests for peepee touching are actually requests for peepee touching. Ay caramba! This makes my peepee sad. And I prefer a happy peepee. This is because due to Rushes Of Blood To The Peepee™ we peepee owners can sometimes forget that wanting to touch someone with our peepee very very much does not equate to them wanting to be touched with our peepee.
This is sad, but also should make us peepee owners resolve to find a more enthusiastic peepee friend. Hence why I am founding POEM. We peepee owners need to take responsibility for our peepees, to stand up for our peepees. Because they stand up for us.
{Exit to triumphalist music. Played on things shaped like peepees}
Louis
Patricia, OMsays
There, there Louis. Your peepee code of conduct was wonderful even with typo.
Holy crap! I was just reading up on the past comments and the thread exploded.
I’m guessing this means that more assholes joined in.
mythbrisays
@Louis #185
“We peepee owners need to take responsibility for our peepees, to stand up for our peepees. Because they stand up for us.”
*Snortle*
Thanks, Louis. Your blend of humor and incisiveness is always appreciated.
'Tis Himselfsays
Bravo Louis.
This shows that even after years of playing rugby, your brain isn’t completely addled.
chigau (違う)says
Rugby!
He was talking about rugby!
Amphioxsays
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight and rape apologists”
Should read:
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight against rape apologists”
A substitution mutation!
Note, though, that there is meaning in both versions, and though subtly different, they still work for the intended purpose.
Amphioxsays
I saw a very pretty lady just hours ago. I managed not to touch her with my peepee. You too can not touch people with your peepee if you try very hard.
Perhaps it is time to talk about the “reasonable” precautions the menfolk out to be taking, in order to prevent them from succumbing to the possibility of becoming rapists.
Always carry a canister of cold, icy water, within easy reach. A hip holster would be ideal. Use a pop-top, not a screw-top (screw tops take too long to remove – you have to make sure that you can also act quickly enough, before the urges overpower your weak, weak male willpower). Self-douse liberally as needed.
Amphioxsays
And men, never, ever, ever go out alone in dark alleys.
‘Cause you never know when you might bump into some lone woman out there who’s dressed in just the right way set off your personal lust-meter, and before you know it, you’ll be jumping her and raping her.
And never buy any alcholic beverage for your date. That way there will never be the irresistable temptation to plop a roofie into her drink, or even to just get her drunk. That way you’ll never end up being a date rapist.
Better yet, don’t go on dates.
And don’t go out, period.
Or associate with any female relatives, either.
Or male ones, for that matter.
Louissays
I have observed that when I wear a short skirt* people are dragged almost magnetically towards me by their peepees. Perhaps it is a hitherto unknown force that can be exploited for perpetual motion machines. After all, no effort was expended in the wearing of a short skirt. The breeze on my gentleman vegetables was most pleasant.
In retrospect some sort of underpant might have prevented me spending so much time in the cells that evening. But I digress. They do a marvellous cooked breakfast do the Police Service. Bloody lovely. I got two eggs with my sausage. Never figured out why, I had to have the scrum half explain it to me.
Perhaps, juuuuuuust perhaps, the rape apologists and sundry peepee puppetry advocates** are not informing us that ladies should be sober and modest for their own safety, but because they are in the pay of Big Oil and are trying to prevent humanity from achieving the singularity and the Timecube.
Hey, I’m asking Important Questions. Don’t let the space lizards prevent us from getting perpetual motion.
Fuck I’m drunk.
Health kick failed yet again.
I blame pubs.
Pubs, with their oh so inviting beer pumps and their saucy little crisp selection. “Oh come inside me and have a pint” they seem to say, the dirty, dirty vendors of alcohol. “Just have a double rum chaser with your pint of 49er” they moan into my ear, with their whorish, wicked, ethanol selling doors and piss covered toilets. They know what they want. They want me inside them, buying beer, drinking beer, doing Jagerbombs and Tequila Suicides. They even want me to have pitchers of foamy, frothing beer, pints of it, litres of it. They want me to leave them at closing time and go to the kebab house. You heard me, the kebab house. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’ve had a kebab. DON’T JUDGE ME!
Filthy pubs. They love it.***
* I am a large rugby player type man. This has only ever been done for Comedy Purposes&atrade; as is the duty and nature of gentlemen like myself. We wear the short skirts and drink pints of creme de menthe so you don’t have to. We take those liver bullets on your behalf. Wherever something really fucking stupid needs doing, we are the people to send in. Sensible people of the world go back to your sensible lives, we drunken idiots will be in a corner vomiting on each other to save you the bother.
** MRA? NO! Rape Apologist? NO! These people are advocates of the Peepee Puppetry Theory! They believe that peepees are magic, wild, uncontrollable things that are drawn inexorably to people wearing short skirts and/or in alleys/bars. Call them what they are.
*** Incidentally, rape apologists, oh so concerned precautionists and sundry semi human detritus, this is exactly your argument. I am only currently drunk because of slutty, slutty pubs. Perhaps pubs should be modestly clad, no music, no beer gardens, shuttered windows, hushed conversation, smaller measures, no signs outside, only open during the day and on main well lit streets. Not showy buildings, and certainly never in converted churches… Think about it.
Erista (aka Eris)says
Perhaps it is time to talk about the “reasonable” precautions the menfolk out to be taking, in order to prevent them from succumbing to the possibility of becoming rapists.
2. When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone.
3. If you pull over to help a woman whose car has broken down, remember not to rape her.
4. If you are in an elevator and a woman gets in, don’t rape her.
5. When you encounter a woman who is asleep, the safest course of action is to not rape her.
6. Never creep into a woman’s home through an unlocked door or window, or spring out at her from between parked cars, or rape her.
7. Remember, people go to the laundry room to do their laundry. Do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
8. Use the Buddy System! If it is inconvenient for you to stop yourself from raping women, ask a trusted friend to accompany you at all times.
9. Carry a rape whistle. If you find that you are about to rape someone, blow the whistle until someone comes to stop you.
10. Don’t forget: Honesty is the best policy. When asking a woman out on a date, don’t pretend that you are interested in her as a person; tell her straight up that you expect to be raping her later. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the woman may take it as a sign that you do not plan to rape her.
Louissays
Amphiox,
I heard something funny recently…I’m trying to remember where…
Something like “I’m sure you’re a really good person, on the inside. And until you fix yourself, you should stay, INSIDE”
I know Horace has been exiled, but in case he’s reading, this:
It is really amusing to see 40 or so posters work themselves up into a rightious rage as they attempt to turn this into condoning rape. Thanks guys (Pitbull, amphiox… others too numerous to name), you have written some of the most entertaining material that I have read on Pharyngula for a long time.
leaves me sick and almost speechless.
Horace; you know the drill. Porcupine. Well rotted. Insert.
One. Quill. At. A. Time.
Louissays
Amphiox/Erista,
You both make excellent points and I wish to subscribe to your newsletters.
I think a series of letters to PPAs (Peepee Puppetry Advocates) needs writing:
“Dear PPAs,
My wife was not in the mood for sex last night and yet has quite fabulous tits. I felt the stirrings of a fairly sizeable lob on on my nether regions, and yet I did not rape her. Was I wrong not to allow her magnificent lady’s top bollocks to remotely cause my penis to unwittingly leap into her vagina?”
“Dear PPAs,
I was skulking in a dark alley the other night when I saw an incredibly attractive young lady tottering home on ridiculous heels and wearing what looked more like a hairband than a skirt. I discovered that my penis had become moderately tumescent at the sight of so inebriated a young lady and yet despite this inconvenience I managed not to leap from my hiding spot and place my penis repeatedly in her vagina. Have I violated some law of physics or morality?”
Enquiring minds want to know. After all I feel as a founder member of POEM I need to understand just how little responsibility for my peepee these PPAs think I should have.
Seriously, back in my party days we had rules about the guys not cornering drunk gals in empty bedrooms or taking them outside to “talk” alone. If you were there past a certain hour, you had to either stay the night or go home with your predetermined ride. Also stuff about separating and cutting off rowdy people before fights broke out and keeping a couple of people sober to handle things and/or talk to the cops, but the point is that we created a safe environment by focusing on the behavior of the potential perpetrators, not by forcing their potential victims to change their behavior.
People should be able to feel safe because there’s safe places for them to be, not because they’ve wrapped themselves in a billion precautions. What’s so hard to understand about that?
horacesays
Hi PZ,
I have decided to let you and MacYoung work out your differences together without my help. See you in the Slimepit if you ever decide to visit.
[NEW RULE: parting snipes get you banned. You’re on watch, Horace: show your snide, dumb ass around here again, and yeah, banned. –pzm]
chigau (違う)says
bye-bye horace
Erista (aka Eris)says
Ah, the parting shot. So clever.
*rolls her eyes*
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
The only visit the Slimepit needs is from the Biohazardous Material Removal Squad, complete with high-temperature sterilizing flamethrowers and troll suppression foam.
Haven’t caught up with the last 400 or so comments, so I may have been ninja’d already, but there was a request for a definitive resource on the rhetorical weaseling happening in a not-pology/fauxpology.
horace, that was the feeblest flounce I ever did see.
(You have decided, eh? <snicker>)
'Tis Himselfsays
Horace is nowhere near as smart as he likes to think he is.
Erista (aka Eris)says
@John Morales
I second that!
If you’re going to do a parting shot, it should be clever, biting, and memorable! Not . . . *glances at Horace’s post* . . . whatever that was meant to be.
opposablethumbssays
we created a safe environment by focusing on the behavior of the potential perpetrators, not by forcing their potential victims to change their behavior.
Yes. This.
Erista (aka Eris)says
@tigtog
Ooh, I like that link.
Patricia, OMsays
A bucket of grog will clear that stain right up.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
@ mills numbers #20
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here is why that’s wrong. It’s not a prophecy. It’s a fact. It is happening right now, right here, and that would be you doing it. A self-fulfilling prophecy would be telling people that using the sequence 1357 in a lotto ticket will result in winners. If people believe, then indeed there will be winners using the sequence. Confirmation bias covers the rest. A future event “predicted” by a self-fulfilling prophecy. NOT current behavior and consequences excused.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Jennynumbers 84
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
My judgment — and only I can make it — is that the precautions I choose to take do move the odds in my favor. I then get on with life without worrying about that which I cannot prevent.
None of that is in any way related to the blame game you and so many others are obsessed with.
Whether or not I take precautions, I am not to blame for the criminal actions of others.
Please note the careful quoting here. And yet you are still wrong. Look at your words. You take the position that All I need to do is SAY I FEEL better and therefore precautions work TO PREVENT AN ACTUAL RAPE. Can you not see the discontinuity?
John Moralessays
Erista, to use an Ing zing: “You can’t fire me — I quit!”
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
OK, I’m caught up. I see that jenny numbers altered her position to indicate that when she was saying “these precautions prevent rape”, she was really saying “these precautions make me feel as if they will prevent my rape”. I also got the bit where she stated that no one had the right to tell her that her decisions for herself were in any way wrong.
I am puzzled by why she comments here, if it is wrong to indicate to a person that his/her decisions about his or her own behaviour are in any way wrong. It sure looked like that was what she was saying by proposing what she presumed was behaviour the aforesaid persons had not used, and therefore, at a minimum, implying that the aforesaid person had not cut the odds on being raped.
I am also relieved to hear that this is not victim blaming. *Whew* I was confused.
Of course, I must be mis-quoting her. And yet she is still wrong.
Amphioxsays
I know Horace has been exiled, but in case he’s reading, this:
It is really amusing to see 40 or so posters work themselves up into a rightious rage as they attempt to turn this into condoning rape. Thanks guys (Pitbull, amphiox… others too numerous to name), you have written some of the most entertaining material that I have read on Pharyngula for a long time.
leaves me sick and almost speechless.
I look at it differently.
Knowing that a “person” possessing of the moral character that horace displays should be so offended by what I have written as to name me, (directly!) in a crudely attempted snark….
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
What better validation that you’ve done something worthwhile than this?
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
horace
[NEW RULE: parting snipes get you banned. You’re on watch, Horace: show your snide, dumb ass around here again, and yeah, banned. –pzm]
Well if you do so they will finally accept me as one of them on the ERV blog, so thanks in advance.
@ PZ, gee poopyhead, are you going to deny him his deepest wish and fantasy for validation? You ARE a poopyhead.
Although, you almost have to feel sorry for a guy who can’t get accepted at ERV. Nearly.
Personally my first instinct isn’t pity, it’s to sprinkle some penicillin on the bastard just to make sure bacteria hasn’t learned how to mold itself into human shape
Seriously, what’s with these idiots? It’s not like someone over at Cracked didn’t already make a list of “these are behaviors you do if you’re a fucking idiot” and pretty much said “hey idiots look at this list you’re an idiot!” only much more witty because they’re made comic writers and I’m not. It’s a true testament to mankind’s obliviousness and stubbornness that anyone pulls the “I dare you to ban me” game after that list was published. If we all didn’t have the collective reasoning and awareness of an inebriated gibbon we’d have all cut that shit out and researched new ways to look like assholes in our desperate effort to not look like assholes despite being caverns excavated out of burros…again not a paid writer.
Would you please answer the questions I posed earlier to mills999?
Erista (aka Eris)says
Well if you do so they will finally accept me as one of them on the ERV blog, so thanks in advance.
Dear God that’s . . . pathetic. There really isn’t another word for it. “[A bunch of anonymous people on the internet] will finally accept me?”
I mean, wow, Horace has said a bunch of vile things, but to be fiercely longing for the acceptance of a bunch of people whose names he doesn’t know and whose faces he’s never seen? And “finally?” Just how long has he been trying and failing to gain their acceptance? And he’s bragging about it?
Jesus, that’s a dark place to be. What has to be going on inside of a person to be eager to degrade and humiliate yourself like that? Or to be willing to degrade and humiliate yourself like that while thinking it’s some kind of badge of honor?
Rip Steakfacesays
@WithinThisMind
Horace is banned, so no, he won’t.
simonprimersays
If I park an expensive car in bad neighborhood. The car would most likely be stolen or vandalized over night.
Does that make me responsible? Or is the thief responsible?
The answer would have been obvious only a generation ago.
The thief is morally responsible for stealing the car. I, on the other hand, would be responsible for the foolish act of leaving a car over night in a bad neighborhood.
It is the same with women who get raped. The chances of getting raped differ depending on your location and behavior. You can act recklessly and get raped. The rapist would be morally responsible and you would be responsible for acting foolishly.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
@simon
Rethink your comment, shitbrick. PZ’s on a roll today with the bans.
Pteryxxsays
Jeezombie on a stick, here comes another one. Impervious to learning, didn’t read the thread and just HAD to drop a turd on the rug.
John Moralessays
[meta]
simonprimer, your first comment, I think.
(I suspect you haven’t read this thread, when you post that)
—
Here’s the situation: Been adduced, been addressed already.
You can act recklessly and get raped. The rapist would be morally responsible and you would be responsible for acting foolishly.
I see you’ve been busy attending oneplus999’s tea parties. Please take the time to read just eth first page of comments at least. Don’t worry about reading all of it, a lot of the material repeats
Simon, don’t start with that shit. Be smart, read the OP and each and every one of the more than 1200 comments, and think if you really have something to add.
simonprimersays
I’m sorry but the comments are all over the place. Am I comparing a car with a woman? No. The logic holds.
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
Erista (aka Eris)says
*groans and places her head in her hands*
Will people ever stop explicitly comparing women to unfeeling, unthinking, inanimate objects that are property? Or are we really going to have to live with this forever?
simonprimersays
1200 comments? Let me sum it up:
Feminist women want all the benefits of being equal to men, while at the same time having the moral responsibility of children.
Dear Simon, you’re making me break my internet rule of trying not to be obscene, but I’m finding typing the following to be oddly satisfying: if your analogy is correct, women are cars to you.
I’d like to invite you to fuck a hot tail pipe, in lieu of bothering anyone with what is undoubtedly a sad, sad time.
I am grateful not to be your mechanic.
simonprimersays
Erista,
The owner of a stolen care has thoughts and feelings. What if the owner was carjacked and beaten too. Would that help?
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
Obvious troll is way too obvious. Thanks for letting me know that I can mentally ignore you for the rest of the thread. Enjoy your inevitable ban, assclam.
The chances of getting raped differ depending on your location and behavior.
Yeah, I understand your sex affects the odds a bit, too.
The USB hatpin you will shortly be receiving is to be inserted into your frontal lobe, if you don’t have one there already.
simonprimersays
mouthyb,
It’s just an analogy. There is no reason to get so worked up.
What if the analogy was to a guy who gets beaten up in a bad neighborhood? Would that work for you?
I’m sorry but the comments are all over the place. Am I comparing a car with a woman? No. The logic holds.
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
Women not being people, and unable to work that out regardless. Yep, a certified, simonprimer-b-pure nutbag full of turds.
I trust that was clear enough, simonprimer? I only have ladybrains.
Erista (aka Eris)says
I’m sorry but the comments are all over the place. Am I comparing a car with a woman? No. The logic holds.
Yes, actually, you are.
And here is a little hint: I can choose not to own an expensive car. I cannot choose not to be a woman. I can choose to not park a car in a bad neighborhood. I cannot choose not to be born into a bad neighborhood, or not to be forced into moving into one due to a loss of my job or being forced to travel through one because something I need is on the other side.
Women are just too emotional to think clearly.
O_O
Erista,
The owner of a stolen care has thoughts and feelings. What if the owner was carjacked and beaten too. Would that help?
So, what, now the analogy is that owning an expensive car is foolish because maybe someone will carjack me and beat me up?
simonprimersays
Why is it that people who claim to be against rape always wish sexual violence on me, whenever I try to give women sensible advice?
You’ll notice, Simon, that it was an invitation. You can take care of the fucking yourself.
Erista (aka Eris)says
You haven’t given any advise at all. You’ve just compared having our bodies raped to having our car stolen. You know, because our bodies are enough like material possessions to make the comparison hold in your mind.
Why is it that people who claim to be against rape always wish sexual violence on me, whenever I try to give women sensible advice?
There is no evidence of sensible advice.
And this is really, really dumb shit. Killfile it is. (Simon, kill file is not actually killing, just in case you got all dim over that.)
John Moralessays
simonprimer, I see that your third comment is up:
1200[*] comments? Let me sum it up:
Feminist women want all the benefits of being equal to men, while at the same time having the moral responsibility of children.
Yes, feminist women want the moral responsibility of children.
Very clever you are, noticing that.
—
* 1200 comments you haven’t read, because you’re a lazy incompetent who is unaware that your stupidities have been well and truly (and redundantly) addressed already.
simonprimersays
Erista,
I understand that some women are born into bad neighborhoods. But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood. Those are the foolish ones. What’s so hard to understand?
I do agree with you that reality is sexist, and women are born on average weaker than men. There is nothing you or I can do about that. Why not save the ones we can save?
John Moralessays
[meta]
all the benefits of being equal to men
Such an idiotic specimen, it imagines it doesn’t reveal itself.
Neither one is morally responsible, but they are both foolish to walk in that neighborhood if they knew in advance that it was dangerous.
See I’d say the fucking police are responsible for letting an area turn into a no man’s land. And the people are for letting the police sit on their hams.
I’d also say that Simon very likely gets jollies from this.
Erista (aka Eris)says
I understand that some women are born into bad neighborhoods. But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood. Those are the foolish ones. What’s so hard to understand?
Oh, and do tell what it is exactly that women do that is like parking an expensive car in a bad neighborhood. Walking by ourselves? Going out at night? Living on the ground floor of a building? Getting drunk at a frat party? Wearing revealing clothing? Having a ground floor to our house? Not carrying a gun? Being alone with male family members? Being alone with men we are dating? Being alone with men we are just friends with? Drinking in a public place? Drinking at a friend’s house while men are present? Letting a man we know walk us home at night? Walking from our workplace to our car in a crowded parking lot?
Because I’ll give you a little hint. I know three women who were explicitly raped, and each one was raped in a situation I named above. Care to guess which ones?
I do agree with you that reality is sexist, and women are born on average weaker than men. There is nothing you or I can do about that. Why not save the ones we can save?
You aren’t saving anyone by comparing women’s bodies to cars.
simonprimersays
The problem with you people is that you think you address a point by calling someone sexist.
I do appreciate Simon showing up, cause now when we talk about predators and enablers we’re able to go “pretty much that there, oy”
Amphioxsays
You can act recklessly and get raped.
HOLD THE PRESSES! WHAT A SCOOP!
There are times when it is neither necessary, useful, OR APPROPRIATE to state the obvious that everyone already knows.
Is it necessary begin every geology discussion by pointing down and declaring “remember, everyone, this thingy here I’m pointing at, it’s called the Earth”?
But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood.
No, that is NOT the issue, and never was. Maybe YOU want to derail into this issue, but we DO NOT.
John Moralessays
simonprimer:
But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood. Those are the foolish ones.
You realise you’ve just asserted that any woman in any “bad neighborhood” is a foolish woman?
(She shoulda be wise, instead!)
simonprimersays
Erista,
There is no precaution that will prevent rape entirely other than total isolation, but obviously there are measures all women can take to reduce their chances. Such as avoiding certain neighborhoods.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
But if:
Neither one is morally responsible , but they are both foolish to walk in that neighborhood if they knew in advance that it was dangerous.
Then why:
Feminist women want all the benefits of being equal to men, while at the same time having the moral responsibility of children.
?
Go back to troll school, SimpleSimon.
lilimsays
I would assume simon is trolling, but I’ve read enough Pharyngula comments to know that anything is possible.
Amphioxsays
The chances of getting raped differ depending on your location and behavior.
Do they now?
So what locations? What behaviors?
How are the chances changed? By how much? What’s the percent risk per lumen for the dark alley? How exactly is a “bad neighborhood” defined?
Without these details and the citations to back them up, with numbers and statistical parameters, this is another one of those obvious things that do not need to be said, and should not be said. Not without the numbers.
Amphioxsays
There is no precaution that will prevent rape entirely other than total isolation, but obviously there are measures all women can take to reduce their chances. Such as avoiding certain neighborhoods.
Is there a list of reasonable precautions I can take to avoid people like SimpleSimon?
simonprimersays
mehitabel,
There is no contradiction. One is referring to women in general and one to feminist. Feminist are morally responsible for rape by encouraging risky behavior.
What is it with you people? Do you honestly think that anybody who doesn’t agree with you is a troll?
Amphioxsays
By the way, simon, those statistics must exclude anything related to the women who live in those neighbourhoods and cannot leave. You must extract the statistics relevant ONLY to those women who CHOOSE to go into those neighbourhoods, and could have chosen otherwise.
No statistics, no valid argument.
Amphioxsays
Do you honestly think that anybody who doesn’t agree with you is a troll?
No, but anyone who thinks as you do is a morally reprehensible excuse for a human being.
John Moralessays
Well, I’ve caught up.
simonprimer, you are a naked troll and everyone knows it.
(Hey, better than being an ignorant, conceited idiotic nobody who honestly believes the bullshit you froth forth, no?)
I look forward to seeing ya in TZT, where you belong.
—
lilim, your naiveté is cute.
Erista (aka Eris)says
Ah, simonprimer, but you see, that is a lie, and it is a lie for the reason that you did not guess. And so I shall tell you.
Woman #1: Raped by her cousin in the basement of her own house with her parents upstairs.
Woman #2: Kidnapped while walking to her car from the mall where she worked through a crowded mall parking lot. Subsequently raped and murdered.
Woman #3: Woman raped in her own home after a man she knew offered to walk her home.
You see, I do not personally know one woman who has been raped for being in a “bad neighborhood.” Not one. Every last woman I have known who was out and out raped was in a “good neighborhood.” And statistics bear this out; almost all women are raped by men they know and trust not to rape them. It is only a slim majority of women who are raped by not following the rules that people like you so love to make up.
So let’s be honest. I am safer by myself in the middle of the night in a secluded area than I would be with a man I trust in my own home. But people don’t like admitting that.
Simon @265, avoiding a certain neighbourhood is not an option if you live in that certain neighbourhood, therefore avoiding it is not an option that every woman can take. You plonker.
Amphioxsays
Feminist are morally responsible for rape by encouraging risky behavior.
Evidence, with statistics of quantified relative risk, standard deviations and p-values, and direct linkage to “feminist” activities.
Provide those now, or admit to lying.
Now.
John Moralessays
Jafafa Hots, duh.
You can avoid such specimens by taking an axe to your internet interaction implement, whatever it may be.
(Else you’re just (ahem) being foolish)
simonprimersays
Amphiox,
You are trying to say that if something cannot be measured with an accurate metric than it doesn’t exist.
If I told you that you should drink water on a hot day, would you be confused? Would you ask how hot and how much water?
As a general rule I would advise women to avoid black neighborhoods and carry a gun. That’s the advice I would give to men too.
No, my mother was a car. I understand.
Seriously, you dumb jerk, read the comments. Read the stories. Look up the data. Rape doesn’t just happen in dark alleys in bad neighborhoods, you dumb jerk, it happens in nice hotels, and lovely parks in the middle of the fucking day, and in your own home.
As for bad neighborhoods, do you really think women are just stupidly wandering into bad situations by accident? They live in those neighborhoods. They work in those neighborhoods. They are there for perfectly legitimate goddamn reasons, just like the nice hotels and parks and homes.
And when they do get raped, nimrods like you show up with assumptions about them being “foolish.” Blaming them. And knowing that makes it less likely that a victim will report the crime. So it goes unpunished, the vast majority of the time.
And we can’t even talk about the underlying causes, the cultural shit that perpetuates the problem without some bunghole coming along with his rape prevention tips, which focus on changing the behavior of the victims, rather than the perpetrators.
We’ve had this fucking discussion in those 1200 comments that you can’t be arsed to read. You deserve the abuse and the banning you will receive here.
Amphioxsays
I look forward to seeing ya in TZT, where you belong.
simon really doesn’t belong in TZT, I think. He belongs where horace and mullsy ended up.
John Moralessays
Amphiox, perhaps, but I suspect my cruelty quotient exceeds yours.
thunk = ∫ SQRRAWK! d(MQG) + Csays
Simon, you fuckwit:
Why is it that people who claim to be against rape always wish sexual violence on me
No they haven’t. There is a difference between porcupining and this, you dense fuckwit.
whenever I try to give women sensible advice?
.
You haven’t been, and that has been apparent to everyone except you.
Enough. What shithole are these dumbasses crawling out of? Simonprimer has been banned. I’m out of patience, and further incursions by sexist, racist assholes will simply be met with an immediate smack of the banhammer, no warnings.
John Moralessays
feralboy12 repeats the obvious yet again:
We’ve had this fucking discussion in those 1200 comments that you can’t be arsed to read.
(Troll duly carries on trolling, is my prediction)
FossilFishysays
Simon, read the fucking thread. You are not unique. Your arguments are not unique. They are garden variety, victim blaming idiocy that has been thoroughly dealt with in this very thread. I mean really, really? You think that your point hasn’t already been made in a thread of over 1000 comments? Fuck, you’re stupid.
Every post you place here without having read all that comes before paints you as someone so unwilling to consider other peoples arguments that there is no point in even addressing you.
Amphioxsays
You are trying to say that if something cannot be measured with an accurate metric than it doesn’t exist.
No you pathetic idiot. I am saying that if something cannot be measured then you cannot argue that it is important, like you, in your pitifully dishonest fashion, are trying to do. Because if the decrease in risk is quantifiably lower than the inconvenience of changing one’s behavior, then IT IS NOT WORTH TAKING THAT PRECAUTION.
Therefore, if you want to argue that such a precaution should be taken, YOU MUST QUANTIFY THE RISK.
No numbers, no argument for you.
If I told you that you should drink water on a hot day, would you be confused?
No. I would tell you that what you have is so stupidly obvious that you have wasted your breath saying it, and my time for having to listen to you. Time which I could have instead been spending looking for water to drink.
Would you ask how hot and how much water?
If you actually gave me a temperature and a volume, then your statement to me might actually be useful to me, because I can compare what you suggest with what I was intending to do already, and see if they are the same or different. If they are different, I can then ask you why you advise differently, and from that exchange you might provide some useful information to me.
But without a temperature and a volume, your statement is useless to me, and a waste of my time.
thepintsays
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
Oh FFS. I’ve been lurking the whole thread because it’s just too damned much more of the same shit that comes up every frakking time we try to have a decent discussion about sexism and misogyny but this is the absolute limit. Simonprimer, why don’t you go fuck yourself with the sharpest, rustiest implement you can find – and yes, I’m a woman, and yes, I’m emotional because it’s MY FUCKING LIFE AND BODY THAT GETS AFFECTED BY THIS SHIT and I’m allowed to be upset about it, damn it! And when I say you can go fuck yourself, I’m saying it with a clear mind as to why you are a despicable, victim-blaming, rape apologist asshole who makes me ashamed to share the same species label with shitheads like you – comments like
You can act recklessly and get raped.
But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood. Those are the foolish ones.
reality is sexist, and women are born on average weaker than men. There is nothing you or I can do about that. Why not save the ones we can save?
are obvious indications that you haven’t bothered to read this thread, or anything at all about rape culture or victim-blaming because they would divert from the pathetically predictable same old shit line of thinking that says “If women just did X, they would be less likely to get raped, therefore any women who don’t do X and do get raped, well, it’s their own fault, isn’t it?”.
Too many people here, more than I can count, have explained why this is wrong and why ultimately any “advice” given to women about how they can “avoid being raped” perpetuates rape culture by putting the onus on women to prevent rape and taking it off of potential rapists and the culture at large when THEY are the ones who bear the brunt of responsibility for preventing rape in the first place.
Seriously, it’s not that hard to understand, but then again, my lady-brain is just so full of pesky emotion and incapable of remaining dispassionately academic about a subject that I live every fucking day by virtue of being a woman. Clearly my mental faculties are deficient and untrustworthy because I get angry about how rape culture affects the life I live every day, instead of regarding the many ways I could be blamed, shamed and outright pilloried if I should ever be raped and have the gall to report it and confront my rapist in a court of law, with a cool and detached eye. Fuck the fuck off already if you’re not going to bother learning anything because you clearly have nothing substantial to contribute to the conversation.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
There is no contradiction. One is referring to women in general and one to feminist. Feminist are morally responsible for rape by encouraging risky behavior.
What is it with you people? Do you honestly think that anybody who doesn’t agree with you is a troll?
But Simon, you have not read the comments*. People here have been trying to explain that those things that you believe to be so very, very, risky do not apply to the circumstances of most cases of sexual assault. But (sad face) the grown-ups always go around talking and talking and talking about the things you want to talk about, and not so much talking about all the other times and places the very, very bad things happen. It makes a lot of problems. But then they do not like to talk about those problems. Instead, they just talk about the things you want to talk about some more. We wonder why they do that. We are sad.
*Really, you walked in here and declared you hadn’t read the comments. The kindest interpretation of *YOU*, not “anyone who disagrees,” is troll.
But you say you are not. So I’m trying simple, simple words now. You like simple.
thunk = ∫ SQRRAWK! d(MQG) + Csays
Simon the fuckwit:
You are trying to say that if something cannot be measured with an accurate metric than it doesn’t exist.
Hey, nice strawman. How about not derailing and providing facts to back your idiotic opinions up?
If I told you that you should drink water on a hot day, would you be confused? Would you ask how hot and how much water?
My my, that’s a very nice analogy you got there.
The poor thing, being shanghaied into your bigoted little worldview?
You should just shut up now, and stop digging your own grave here.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Hmmmmm. Sudden banhammering. Gotta come back just to watch that.
Hands out popcorn
Various toppings over there. Help yourselves.
Snuggles into couch to watch
Erista (aka Eris)says
I wish people like simonprimer could be banned from my real life, not just my internet one.
Or, John, it could be that I was being sarcastic because I didn’t feel like reiterating for the 1001th time what others have said better than I can only to be deliberately ignored.
John Moralessays
[meta]
Inevitable inertia is evident, but I note each is an individual independent input.
(groupthink!)
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
Well, it only took nearly 1300 comments before instantaneous troll purging started happening. I approve! Now, that being the case, does anyone thing we can finally have a discussion about…whatever the topic was? Because honestly, I’m not even sure anymore.
That’s exactly what these anti-feminist trolls love to do. They come into any discussion and make it about them and their stupidity until I can’t even recall the topic of the conversation anymore other than it being about their total fucking malignant idiocy.
I mean, this thread wasn’t even about rape, the comic in the OP brings up at least a dozen other topics.
What a Maroon, Applied Linguist of Slight Forebodingsays
Apologies for not reading every post in this thread, but I think I’ve got it. I think I’ve got it. One simple precaution that everyone can take so that no one gets raped.
Here it is:
DON’T RAPE!
OK, I know what you’re thinking. There you go, blaming the perpetrator. Well, you know what?
You’re fucking right.
The perpetrator is at fault. ALWAYS.
OK? Can we end this discussion now?
John Moralessays
[meta]
Jafafa Hots, hey! I was riffing of ya.
Patricia, OMsays
I hope this doesn’t sound too emotional, thanks PZ, that banhammer needed dropping.
A. Rsays
simonprimer: I’m not sure what you think you are doing here, but I have two theories:
1. You are a troll trying to anger/trigger people
My response: Please leave now. Or do something stupid enough to get banned.
2. You are a misogynist who genuinely thinks that women (who are apparently possessions, like cars, that can be owned) who don’t “take precautions” deserve to be raped.
My response: Please take some time to think about your beliefs. Do they seem like something a good person would adhere to? Are your actions those of a caring, decent person who deserves the respect of others? If not, (and believe me, they are not), perhaps you should consider rethinking your philosophy. Otherwise, please consider inserting a decaying porcupine into your orifice of choice sideways.
But seriously, these kinds of threads make me wonder about the people I meet in real life? Is he one of them, one of the people who will rush to search for ways to blame me if I’m raped? What about her? Or that person across the street? How many of them are around me, making me unsafe?
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
@John
My point was how anti-feminist trolls always manage to totally distort the conversation that feminists have into an unrecognizable mess. You either missed or ignored that with your typical pedantic panache.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
I must say, I was very emotional. Mostly laughing myself all but sick, though.
Do you suppose he thinks that pretending to have no feelings, ignoring what is said in a conversation and then puking loudly actually represents … well anything but auto-troll?
John Moralessays
RahXephon,
My point was how anti-feminist trolls always manage to totally distort the conversation that feminists have into an unrecognizable mess.
I don’t ignore your point now.
Amphioxsays
Obviously we should be advising men to stay out of dangerous, seedy neighborhoods, in order to reduce their risk of becoming rapists.
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
I must say, I was very emotional. Mostly laughing myself all but sick, though.
I enjoyed that one too. I think the brevity of his stay added to the glory.
A. Rsays
Argh! I missed the latest misogynist! My comment to it came in after the banhammer. I haz a sad…
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Oh mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehell, it made it tasty as good cheddar.
By the way, I do like that nym. Archie and Mehitabel should not be lost to time.
John Moralessays
[Sardonic, possibly triggering]
Amphiox @309, at the risk of throwing a hand-grenade into the conversation, it also reduces their risk of the ubiquitous false rape accusations.
So, clearly, both men and women should stay out of bad neighbourhoods — I mean, one could have a false rape accusation made against and the other could be raped.
Palladium Knightsays
I’m glad I didn’t come along until he’d already been banned. Just reading his posts after the fact nearly gave me a rage aneurysm. Holy fuck, he made the previous misogynist scumbags look almost reasonable by comparison, which is not saying anything good about them, but is saying something very, very bad about him, because those people were so unreasonable that to even jest about the reasonability of their posts makes me feel fucking DIRTY.
chigau (違う)says
What if you live in a “bad” neighbourhood?
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
Lyn M,
(I wish I had thought of Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death)
I grew up on Archy and Mehitabel, for reasons that have never been explained.
If you have never read Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers, check it out.
Obviously we should be advising men to stay out of dangerous, seedy neighborhoods, in order to reduce their risk of becoming rapists.
That last idiot was advising black men and women to avoid their own neighborhoods and carry guns, I think. I don’t know. Maybe I’m confusing him with Stokely Carmichael or Eldridge Cleaver or somebody.
Or maybe he doesn’t care if black people rape each other, and doesn’t think white guys rape.
Yeah, these fuckers derail threads, but I think we’ve got a healthy bunch of antibodies here to handle infections like that. They’re often unable to hide behind any facade of reasonable behavior for very long, and start dumping their ridiculous misogyny and racism all over the place. I’m pretty sure they don’t come off looking very good to a lot of people.
I’d like to think we’re still able to do something useful on these occasions.
1. You are a troll trying to anger/trigger people
My response: Please leave now. Or do something stupid enough to get banned.
2. You are a misogynist who genuinely thinks that women (who are apparently possessions, like cars, that can be owned) who don’t “take precautions” deserve to be raped.
My response: Please take some time to think about your beliefs. Do they seem like something a good person would adhere to? Are your actions those of a caring, decent person who deserves the respect of others? If not, (and believe me, they are not), perhaps you should consider rethinking your philosophy. Otherwise, please consider inserting a decaying porcupine into your orifice of choice sideways.
Why do you think 1 disqualifies 2? 1 implies 2.
I mean, do you know any people who actually like cats but think it’s fun to torture them for lulz?
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Thanks Mehitabel. Others have gone before me with great nyms, so I kept trying to follow them. I read a bunch of the strips in the 70s when I had 4 hours between classes three days out of the week, and no way to get home and back in a reasonable time. I sat in the library and read all kinds of stuff. (After I finished my assignments, of course. Seriously. Really. OK, MOSTLY after I finished my assignments.)
By the way, chigau (違う), I think I was channelling jenny numbers there.
Erista (aka Eris)says
[possible trigger]
@Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
No, no, no. You don’t understand. Of course people live there. They just aren’t important enough to talk about. After all, if they were worthy discussing, they wouldn’t live in a bad neighborhood.
/I wish I could say people didn’t really act like this.
A. Rsays
Ing: Perhaps, but I’ve learned that sometimes people genuinely say shit they don’t believe just to piss people off. Our misogynist friend was probably both though.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Yes, Erista, I fully agree.
jenny numbers had a real “I’m all right, Jack” attitude, and could well have had trouble taking your point.
Ing: Perhaps, but I’ve learned that sometimes people genuinely say shit they don’t believe just to piss people off. Our misogynist friend was probably both though.
Do they? I mean if you actually cared about gay rights would you think it’s funny to go around calling people fagots and mocking them?
A. Rsays
Ing: True, perhaps what I meant was that people will sometimes say things well beyond their stance on an issue to piss people off (i.e. a person who is only mildly homophobic posting something worthy of Jerry Fallwell on Pharyngula)
Ing: True, perhaps what I meant was that people will sometimes say things well beyond their stance on an issue to piss people off (i.e. a person who is only mildly homophobic posting something worthy of Jerry Fallwell on Pharyngula)
Ok I’m sure we went through this before.
They aren’t joking. They’re only mildly homophobic because someone will punch them in meat space. They are serious.
Wowbagger, Vile Demagoguesays
What if you live in a “bad” neighbourhood?
Then you probably deserve it for not working hard enough to get out of the bad neighbourhood. Duh!
</sarcasm>
A. Rsays
Ing: Hmm that’s actually something I hadn’t considered (my brain is not fully functional right now due to Talisker 10 yo and sleep loss). Let’s pretend that this exhibition of my extreme stupidity never happened!
Where I work (not for long anymore, just three days to go — the following has helped in making that decision), some of my male co-workers have a hbit of discussing our female co-workers during lunch. Not just “she looks mighty fine today”, but also “I would like to do some things to her”, implying that the speaker isn’t too bothered about her consent. Also, “if it doesn’t stretch, it’ll tear” has been said more than once.
And I have kept quiet. I just shut down, I didn’t know what to say. I should’ve spoken up and said something, but I didn’t. Feeling intimidated by them, I was scared to stir the pot. I’m sorry.
Amphioxsays
So, clearly, both men and women should stay out of bad neighbourhoods — I mean, one could have a false rape accusation made against and the other could be raped.
And if we could only get all men and women to leave bad neighborhoods, there wouldn’t be anymore bad neighborhoods! (Except for the children, I guess we can turn all that empty real estate into playgrounds or something)
TWO social birds killed with one stone!
Amphioxsays
Perhaps, but I’ve learned that sometimes people genuinely say shit they don’t believe just to piss people off.
From an ethical perspective I do not see why any distinction needs to be made between the two, though.
Gnumannsays
From an ethical perspective I do not see why any distinction needs to be made between the two, though.
It’s a quite interesting paradox: Can you say misogynic and/or misanthropic shit just to piss of women or people in general without being a misogynist or a misanthrope?
My answer is that: No, it isn’t a paradox. You can’t, and the likely explanation is that the trolls are merely lying about being trolls. They might not mean the exact misogynic shit they are spouting, but they are deeply misogynic – or they wouldn’t be trolling about feminism*.
(*Feminism here being used with the “women are people”-definition)
Amphioxsays
My answer is that: No, it isn’t a paradox. You can’t
I agree. To me, the act of thinking it appropriate or acceptable to use misogynistic crap can be used to rile people for one’s own amusement, is itself misogynistic.
If a person refuses to read comments that are already sitting there on the page, I don’t have any faith that they will read comments written in response to whatever they’ve decided to ask either. Also, it’s just plain rude. Some sites even automatically ban people who obviously haven’t read all the comments on a topic before weighing in.
SQB, if you’re quitting this week, I’d just write it off. There are assholes everywhere, and it won’t do you any good to beat yourself up over missing one chance at whack-a-mole. Sadly, there will probably be many more to encounter in the future.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Seconding what Carlie said, SQB. We do what we can when we can, but all too often there’s simply too much risk and then we try again at the next opportunity.
Louissays
I am very, very, VERY glad that this simonprimer person was banned before I woke up (well, to be more accurate, woke up to the internet this morn…afternoon). I have a hangover and my spleen is primed to vent.
Those slutty pubs, being in easy walking distance, made me do it. They were wearing short beer gardens and had tarted themselves up with barrels of beer. It’s, like, TOTALLY, not my fault for going into them and putting my money on the bar and ordering the beer and then drinking the beer and partying with my wife and some friends before getting home to relieve the baby sitter. Totally not my fault. How could it be? If only those pubs had stayed away from areas near where I live they’d have been safe and I wouldn’t have a hangover. Pubinazi liverhating beerists.
Louis
Louissays
And SQB, thirding what Carlie and Gen said. Sometimes the harm and risk of speaking up is greater for you than the harm perpetrated by shutting up.
It’s a sad fact I have learned the very hard way to my detriment in real life. Well, I say “learned”. I haven’t actually learned it, but I know it exists!
Louis
'Tis Himselfsays
Sometimes the harm and risk of speaking up is greater for you than the harm perpetrated by shutting up.
The only two times in the past ten years I’ve been threatened with violence is when I told one man that his misogynist joke wasn’t funny and when I told a homophobe he was being homophobic.
I’m getting sick and tired of these trolls showing up to compare rape to theft. When I do that and point out that they wouldn’t doubt a report of theft automatically they trip over themselves to say how it cannot be compared.
it seems to me a lot of the crimes being used for comparison are a result of overwhelming economic inequality within a capitalist society. As if capitalism has nothing in common with patriarchy… there is an interesting analysis to be made, but it certainly isn’t regarding how privileged people can avoid having to brush up against the negative effects of these power systems.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
Sigh.
Society has spent all of recorded history trying to prevent rapes (though the definition of rape keeps changing and becoming more inclusive). During all of that time, the rape prevention has focused, almost exclusively, on what women should and should not do. Don’t go outside without a chaperone. Don’t wear revealing clothing. Don’t expose your ankle. Don’t drink. And if they did get raped, well, it was obviously their fault. And this was the accepted paradigm for, what, 3,500 years?
Over the last century, the radical idea that rapists are actually responsible for their actions has taken hold. Women do not need to change their behaviour. Schroedinger’s rapist existed in the minds of women long before Schroedinger was born.
And I am amazed, and sickened, by those who insist that we keep trying the failed rape-prevention strategy and tactics of the past. Making women responsible for the actions of rapists is not acceptable and it never prevented rapes. As has been shown in this thread, through myriad examples presented by some very brave people, it actually makes rape easier.
Trying the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome is a great definition of insanity. Are we, as a society, insane?
No Onesays
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
That’s a great pickup line. I am so blinded by your brilliance that I am moved to contribute to you vasectomy fund.
No Onesays
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
That’s a great pickup line. I am so blinded by your brilliance that I am moved to contribute to your vasectomy fund.
No Onesays
Double post so simon can see with his 3D glasses.
'Tis Himselfsays
skeptifem #341
it seems to me a lot of the crimes being used for comparison are a result of overwhelming economic inequality within a capitalist society. As if capitalism has nothing in common with patriarchy… there is an interesting analysis to be made
Now this is something I can sink my teeth into.
Pre-capitalist economies also had built-in inequalities. Consider feudalism, where essentially the king owned everything and everyone and rented his property to the top layer of nobles, who in turn rented their properties to the next level and on down to the serfs who didn’t own anything including themselves. According to Marx, and in this case most historical economists agree with him, capitalism rose from feudalism with the emergence of a bourgeoisie who claimed ownership of property and more importantly money (capital) independently of the king.
Note this is a vast simplification. I’d be happy to take this discussion to TZT to avoid derailing this thread any more.
Society has spent all of recorded history trying to prevent rapes
american slaves. “comfort women” in ww2. vietnamese women. wives. prostitutes.
I think society has tried to channel rape onto “acceptable” women, not prevent rapes. Rape was only a property crime until very recently.
Drolfesays
Delurking a little (and don’t let me distract from where Skeptifem and Og were going because that’s interesting). I think we’re mostly done with Jenny et al, but this gave me a real giggle:
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
Because this is the “I don’t have to outrun the bear” argument that was shot down on the first page still getting repeated. (I’m better off, but the next woman is worse off because when the rape I avoid falls to her, womp womp, the police do fuck all because she didn’t have a big dog!)
Now pardon me for playing a on a trope, but as a parent shouldn’t one be a little more willing to perhaps improve the environment (in this case not promoting rape-culture) for their daughters’ sake rather than keep doubling down on this eff you I’ve got mine bullshit? (Sounds familiar, huh? Go Galt, already, please.)
I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun my daughter! It sounds a little fucked up. Do something about the bear.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
american slaves. “comfort women” in ww2. vietnamese women. wives. prostitutes.
Sorry. I phrased that poorly. Society has spent all of recorded history preventing the rape of that social group’s women.
I think society has tried to channel rape onto “acceptable” women, not prevent rapes. Rape was only a property crime until very recently.
It is still thought of as a property crime by many here in the US. Some of them have been gracious enough to inflict their presence on this thread.
CTsays
It is still thought of as a property crime by many here in the US. Some of them have been gracious enough to inflict their presence on this thread.
Thereby reinforcing my pathological incapability of trusting anyone.
As a guess, you could say that the rise of feminism is a function of belonging to a society where for the first time in history the majority of people have significant leisure time and a relatively high level of basic education. It is probably hard to dwell on social justice issues when you live a bare subsistence lifestyle. I don’t think it is a coincidence that so many of the people who are dismissive of rape specifically and feminism more generally are the same people who hold political positions that have the obvious outcome of pushing more and more people back into poverty, and into deeper and deeper vulnerability to the predations of the privileged.
Sarahfacesays
Just read all 1350-odd comments.Holy fuck, I’ve missed out on a lot of arguing.
To all those who shared stories, got profane, argued for post after post after post: Thank you. Y’all are various combinations of brave and awesome.
To all the trolls, fuck you. Fuck you very much. Don’t forget to hand in your Decent Human Being card at the door, you don’t deserve it. The only thing you do deserve is a putrefied porcupine to be applied to your orifice of choice. Repeatedly.
Rape does tend to come in flavors per group, at least from my cross-demographic sample. :/
Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhDsays
Just about caught up. To all who tried to explain to those who just don’t get it, thank you. For those who shared their experiences, thank you. And Louis, for explaining so clearly the rules around the peepee, thank you very much.
I am very lucky in that so far I’ve only had the low level sexism that seems to be the ground state for most women. I am aware of this. I know that I have been lucky, and that if I had been targeted, chances are that no precautions I had made would have been enough. So the trolls, whether they think of themselves as that or not, who think that it’s up to them person getting raped to prevent it, I would like to restate Sarahface’s suggestion re: porcupine.
ginmarsays
Society has spent all of recorded history trying to prevent rapes (though the definition of rape keeps changing and becoming more inclusive). During all of that time, the rape prevention has focused, almost exclusively, on what women should and should not do. Don’t go outside without a chaperone. Don’t wear revealing clothing. Don’t expose your ankle. Don’t drink. And if they did get raped, well, it was obviously their fault. And this was the accepted paradigm for, what, 3,500 years?
Prevent rapes? Hell, no! Society—meaning men—-has silenced women and made rape possible for just about every group of men that existed, if they chose their victims wisely. Rape is still not defined in a sensible way and rape laws make it ridiculously easy for rapists to get away. I take that back: rape laws make it practically impossible to do anything to rapists, but they sure are great for attacking women and ruining their lives. Until recently it was all about which group of men attacked which other group of mens’ property. Rape for too many guys to this day is no more significant than keying another guy’s car, because we’re still possessions. Pick a woman from a lower group than you, and she’s a gold digging whore who wants your money. (And women from the lower classes, on top of being women, are always assumed to be whores since an extremely young age.) Pick a woman from a higher social group, and it’s the way you can take down a woman who shouldn’t be that high up. No matter what class a dude is, he knows he can still attack a woman and rape her and show her who’s boss. He might not be able to do that to another guy in that searing way, but he can do that to his women.
That, by the way, is why I’m not fond of that tactic where people say to some scumbag, “What if it was your daughter, wife, sister, etc.,etc.,?” Because that just reinforces the idea that a woman is somebody’s property, where if she’s daring to go to work and live her life she’s obviously not somebody’s property but a woman who’s existing while female. Plus these guys, more often than not, would happily jettison their own female relatives at the drop of a hat if any of them got uppity with them.
They’re right about one thing. Comparing women to cars makes sense because we are vehicles to them, and they can’t hide that that’s the way they think of us: vehicles for revenge, for hurting another guy, for making himself feel better than at least he’s not a woman……
Most chilling and horrible thing I ever heard a rapist say was this dude in court, looking at the victim on the stand and shaking his head. “Did I do her?!” So much for clothes and all that being provocation. She crossed the path of a rapist. He wasn’t looking at her clothes or anything. She was there.
Mattirsays
Sarahface:
Just to be clear, the porcupine is not to be forcibly administered by another person, the troll is invited to self-adminster the porcupine. Porcupine samples and instructions are provided, but the actual procedure is to be performed by the troll, preferably without an audience.
ginmarsays
Our daughters? Why don’t we change the way we’re raising our sons? But the whole point of the ‘outrun the bear’ idea is that the bear gets to do what it wants. Having to raise the sons so they’re not sexist would mean the dad can’t be sexist either. If the son sees Dad sitting on his ass while Mom does the house work or else the housework magically gets done, he’s going to pick up on that. The messages get pounded in from birth, and frankly, I read Arlie Hochschild a while ago and the percentages haven’t budged much in twenty years.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
ginmar:
I apologize. I obviously cannot write. I had assumed that my last paragraph in the comment from which you quoted had made it clear that the rules women are meant to obey makes rape more likely to happen and less likely to be punished.
Drolfesays
I used daughter specifically to appeal to Jenny’s mention of her own daughter and her training thereof. I obviously am not implying men and boys aren’t raped. That would be stupid.
(And I wasn’t mentioning training of daughters or sons I don’t think, but yes, all varieties of children should be brought up to fight these toxic memes. That’s one of our best hopes for improving our culture. I’m trying to be the best dad I can be.)
Apologies though for being unclear!
joeljacobsonsays
I’ve known three women who were raped and every instance involved either large quantities of alcohol and/or hard drugs. Staying away from hard drugs or hard drug users and a avoiding heavy drinking around strangers probably greatly reduces a woman’s chance of being raped.
I don’t use hard drugs and rarely drink heavily and I would guess that these would contribute to a man’s lowering their inhibitions regarding sexual aggression. Statistically, rape has declined coincidental the rise in young men incarcerated for simple drug possession, and I suspect that it is a causal tie. Put young men who use drugs into prison and you are likely to reduce the number of rapes.
ginmarsays
After reading some of the crap on this thread, I think it’s pretty clear that rape is mostly legal in all but a few cases, and has been that way forever. Most women just don’t count. As our little troll friends make clear, most if not all women just don’t count, period.
ginmarsays
360, you are a moron of such stupendous perfection that they bring other morons up to you to compare them with you. Go fuck yourself. Plainly, nobody should have to fuck you.
joeljacobson, you are about to receive a thunderous volley of “fuck you’s” and you deserve it.
chigau (違う)says
Fuck.
I was going to take a nap.
Emrysmyrddinsays
#305 Erista (aka Eris)
16 June 2012 at 11:51 pm
But seriously, these kinds of threads make me wonder about the people I meet in real life? Is he one of them, one of the people who will rush to search for ways to blame me if I’m raped? What about her? Or that person across the street? How many of them are around me, making me unsafe?
QFFT
#323 Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
17 June 2012 at 12:20 am
Yes, Erista, I fully agree.
jenny numbers had a real “I’m all right, Jack” attitude, and could well have had trouble taking your point.
Unfortunately this attitude seems to be rising in all areas of my spheres of existence, be it economic or social or political. The sort of people who want to build a wall around their spot, and everyone else can go get fucked – but strangely enough are the loudest complainants when it comes to, yanno, actually coming out from behind that wall and interacting with the society produced by such ‘fuck-you-I’ve-got-mine’ attitudes. In the UK we’re more likely to use the phrase ‘I’m alright, Jack’, shortened from ‘Pull the ladder up behind me, I’m alright, Jack[everyman]’. Telling, I think.
joeljacobsonsays
@gimmar
The vast majority of men will never rape anyone, and I doubt that rape is randomly spread through the male population. In other words, we can create a profile of the type of man likely to engage in rape. Right of the top of my head I would guess that men who use drugs and were raised without a father are far more likely to rape than the general population. If we put men fitting that profile into prison until thirty we would almost certainly see a precipitous decline in rapes.
Also, what’s this crap about raising “our sons” differently. The way boys are raised in the US is not homogenous. I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman, so, men like us are already being raised right. It is infuriating that you ignore the legion of men who are already being raised right and focus on the minority who are not.
As of my writing, this thread is 1364 comments long. Your point has been discussed to death, joeljacobson, although you’ve managed to express it in a singularly stupid and offensive way.
Don’t bother to comment here again until you’ve read through all 1364 comments, ‘K?
Emrysmyrddinsays
Oh, look, another fucking idiot. There must be a trollpen with a busted panel somewhere, letting them wander around chewing cud and shitting all over the interwebz.
Martasays
@simonprimer:
“Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.”
Well, right. It’s not like this trope hasn’t been peddled for a century. Why would a woman find it provocative?
If you could fuck right off, that would be splendid.
joeljacobson: I’m going to open with fuck you, you fucking fuck, and refer you to the research studies linked in the comments and the testimonials, of which mine was one.
Those poor women who told you about being raped. Tell me, how long could you resist telling them why they bought their own rapes on?
What a friend you are.
Emrysmyrddinsays
I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman
Explain to us how you know this. Did they not show you their Official Rapist Tattoo?
Number one drug used to justify rape: alcohol. Yes, let’s ban alcohol and those annoying beer commercials. Let’s jail all those beer-swilling rednecks until they’re 30. Our privatized prisons would love that.
Given that most rapes are by friends and family of the victim, the “fatherless” delusion is also likely to be a red herring.
joeljacobsonsays
@ PZ Myers
What’s wrong with pointing out the connections between rape and substance abuse?
What this entire thread looks like is that people care about “rape culture” and don’t actually give a shit about the individual women who get raped. You do understand that this is what you dweebs look like outside of your little fish bowl, right?
Normal people, unlike you all, are interested in making sure that he women in their lives are not raped. Frankly, if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care – I’m not cheering it on, it’s just not my concern.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it. I don’t care about some metaphysical “rape culture”. Further, I would add that if more people thought like me there would likely be fare fewer individual rapes.
Emrysmyrddinsays
It is infuriating that you ignore the legion of men who are already being raised right and focus on the minority who are not.
Shorter joeljacobson: “Sniff! Sniff! WAAAAAHH! YOU’RE SAYING WE’RE ALL RAPISTS!”
I give you a .2 for effort; the vintage of your sentiment just wipes out the rest.
chigau (違う)says
Don’t talk to joeljacobson.
PZ assigned him some homework.
Go ahead and fuck yourself with that pile of porcupines. The ones on top have been marinated in habanero.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
In other words, we can create a profile of the type of man likely to engage in rape.
Right of the top of my head I would guess that men who use drugs and were raised without a father are far more likely to rape than the general population.
The man who raped my best friend was a middle-class teetotaler with a psychology degree from a state university and two very nice parents. You’re a fucking moron whose only purpose currently is to prevent grass from photosynthesizing due to the shadow cast by your pigheaded ignorance.
I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman
Yeah, cuz guys admit to committing felonies all the time. Tell me, did you ask all of your male friends this in private, or did you just distribute a questionnaire?
Emrysmyrddinsays
Don’t talk to joeljacobson.
PZ assigned him some homework.
But, but, he’s just so squishy.
Awright, I’ll let him hang himself.
joeljacobsonsays
@ PZ
You must not be very familiar with the nature of substance abuse. Substance abuse is a trigger for all sorts of anti-social behavior. If I go out and rob someone to buy meth my need to acquire meth does not justify the robbery.
You are confusing cause and justification.
chigau (違う)says
meh.
Just send him straight to TZT.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman
Odds are also good that you don’t have a clue anywhere near how many women you know have been raped.
Drolfesays
What’s weird is, joeljacobson, if roughly one in five average, never-convicted college dudes sampled (you’d know the cite if you read the comments, if you were commenting in good faith) are self-admittedly rapey, but you’ve never met a single one in your whole life, the concentrations in other places not around you must be really, really bad.
Can one in five college dudes be drug-users raised by single moms? Seems outlandish! Could you be talking out of your butt?
joeljacobsonsays
@ Emrysmyrddin
No one’s “crying” about anything. The problem is that what you all are doing will induce cynicism. I don’t rape. I can’t anything about the vast majority of rapes. Yet, “rape culture” is supposed to be my problem.
That is going to make me even more apathetic about rapes that happen outside of my immediate social sphere. I just don’t care very much, and this entire conversation makes me care even less. This is going to be the normal human male response to conversations such as this.
thepintsays
joeljacobson –
Fuck you, asshole. There are just as many people who are able to enjoy drinking and smoking a joint without turning into ebil rapists – trying to pin rape on substance abuse is just that much handwaving to avoid having to dig into the real meat of the problem: deeply entrenched sexist and misogynist attitudes perpetuated by a patriarchal culture. There are over 1300 comments on this thread, many of which were spent dismantling the same basic batshit stupid argument you’re trying to push right now. Go back, read the damned thread and then see if there’s anything substantial that you can contribute to the conversation. As it is, I’m not holding my breath and eagerly anticipate the evisceration your comments thus far have shown you richly deserve.
theoblivionmachinesays
Jeebus, after having slogged through all those comments, again some ignorant arsehole crawls out of his cesspit.
Frankly, if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care – I’m not cheering it on, it’s just not my concern.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it. I don’t care about some metaphysical “rape culture”.
Shorter joel: I got mine*, fuck you.
*No, he doesn’t, it’s a delusion.
carliesays
I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman,
The normal male reaction is to not care when told that rapists are wrong and are to blame for rape….
Is anyone else feeling like joel is a creeper?
joeljacobsonsays
If rape is a product of patriarchy then why is it that rape isn’t randomly distributed throughout the male population? Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
Hell, when I put it that way it would appear that patriarchy is created by men who are poor and substance abusers.
Drolfesays
In my defense… I hadn’t expected SGBM to cite that right before my comment. Refresh before submitting, people!
Emrysmyrddinsays
“I’ll only be your ally if you pander to me.” Fuckface.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
Keep saying it and maybe someday it’ll be true!
carliesays
What this entire thread looks like is that people care about “rape culture” and don’t actually give a shit about the individual women who get raped. You do understand that this is what you dweebs look like outside of your little fish bowl, right?
You piece of shit. You haven’t read this thread at all, or you’d know that a large percentage of the people commenting are people who have been raped.
That is going to make me even more apathetic about rapes that happen outside of my immediate social sphere. I just don’t care very much, and this entire conversation makes me care even less. This is going to be the normal human male response to conversations such as this.
No, that is the aberrant response of a sociopath.
carliesays
Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
No, they’re much more likely to get arrested and convicted of rape. That’s not the same thing.
joeljacobsonsays
@mouthyb
Wow! Intellectual dishonest much? I don’t care about rapes that happen in rape capitals like South Africa, either. It just doesn’t register on my radar. I don’t even think about it. No one talks about it around men, so, it’s not even an issue.
In that same vein, I don’t care very much about most rapes that happen in the US because their lie far outside of my social environment. They simply don’t affect me and mine. As for good and bad … they are what happens in what is my social environment, the things I care about. If no one around me is getting raped, that’s pretty much what I care about.
The rapes that do happen are not a good thing but they just don’t hold any meaning for men, so, I’m not going to expend the effort to say they’re “bad”, either. I just don’t care
You haven’t followed my order to read the previous comments, joeljacobson. Also, your assertion that rape is a problem of “men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father” is unsupported and unlikely.
Your suggestion that you are apathetic about rape and about to become even more apathetic is contemptible, and I ought to ban you on the general principle that I don’t want to associate with pro-rape assholes. But I’ve already banned a whole bunch of similar jerks in this thread.
Therefore, you are now confined to only posting in the TZT thread. Posting anywhere else on this blog will get you immediately banned.
Do not reply here, do not toss in a snarky parting shot, just restrict yourself to posting there.
thepintsays
Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
Citation fucking needed, asswipe. Haven’t you paid attention to any of the stories that have been shared in this thread, some of whom by people who were raped BY FAMILY MEMBERS!?!? Have you even bothered looking up stories of rape survivors? They are all over the frakking spectrum in terms of who their rapists were, but every piece of fucking evidence points to women having a HIGHER RISK of being raped by friends and family rather than by total strangers. Try the fuck again after you do some research.
Martasays
@384
“This is going to be the normal human male response to conversations such as this.”
As far as “normal” is defined, I strongly urge you to avoid using yourself as a measuring stick.
Funny, I thought it was you who was being intellectually dishonest. You care about rape, but only with your relatives, but you don’t care enough to do anything about it, or do any sort of reading or research about it, and told us that your female friends who had told you about rape should have known to avoid drinking and drugs, and besides nobody you know is a rapist and people who care about rape are not normal.
I’m going to go ahead and call that full of intellectual dishonesty, cause brother, you obviously don’t care about rape at all if those are your responses.
Emrysmyrddinsays
It’s that old ‘this is an academic debate for me’ thing again, isn’t it? “There are two equal sides, and something petty and irrelevant can switch me from one side to the other like an oversized pendulum, regardless of the real-world impact of my decision on other human beings.”
Immediate reg flag for an empathy-free arsehole.
Hmmm, we’ve been discussing the genesis of empathy-free arseholes and the environments in which they propagate, somewhere, haven’t we? I seem to vaguely recall abaout 1,300 posts on the subject somewhere…
Erista (aka Eris)says
Normal people, unlike you all, are interested in making sure that he women in their lives are not raped. Frankly, if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care – I’m not cheering it on, it’s just not my concern.
If you don’t care if women outside of your “circle” are raped, then why the fuck are you here? Do you get off on poking at rape victims or something? Does it please you to make them feel bad, to trigger them, to fantasize over ways to make them responsible for their own trauma? Are you in fact an emotional sadist?
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it. I don’t care about some metaphysical “rape culture”. Further, I would add that if more people thought like me there would likely be fare fewer individual rapes.
Rape culture makes your daughter, wife, sisters, nieces, and immediate friends more likely to be raped, oh mighty one. Like when my best friend was raped in her basement by her cousin when neither one of them had been using any type of drug at all.
ginmarsays
So we have two choices: these assholes are serious, or they’re doing it for the lulz. Either way they’re assholes, and I fear for the effect they have on women in their company. They are rapist enablers. They let rapists know that rape is okay and that victims can’t be trusted to define crimes committed against them. I think they’re conscious of what they’re doing. They are so vehement in their denials that you know they’re thinking about it. Do they envy rapists? Do they admire them? Do they wish they had the guts? The point is, they are on the side of the rapist. They always attack the victim. They avoid talking about the rapist at all costs, except to defend the idea that rape is rare and mostly over-reported.
* These are the guys you work with, if you’re unlucky.
*I worked for a private security company that had the habit of hiring people before their FBI check came through. One assignment I was the only woman in thirteen guys, and the client picked me over my supervisor’s objections. It soon became clear why. (I served nearly twenty years in the Army, fought in Iraq, speak two languages, and only left the service when I got injured in the line of duty.) The boss was the biggest Mary Sue you ever saw. He claimed he was the grandson of an English Duke, an ex-CIA agent….you get the drill. And he only hired people—-male people—-who were stupid enough to believe him.
*So this new guy got hired and right away there were problems. He had opinions about women. He said they asked to get raped. He said I was asking to get raped right then and there, by giving him orders. (I was the assistant supervisor, so it was part of my job.) I reported this and other incidents to the site supervisor, the Gary Stu.
*The new hire’s record came back and he was instantly fired. He had pages and pages of crimes against women, including three pages of stuff that he’d committed in the short time he’d lived in this city, perhaps eighteen months. Domestic violence, attempted rape, sexual assault, and so on. And he was a big guy; he was more than a foot taller than me.
* The men blamed me for his firing. My written statement was circulated among the men, and when our contract was bought out, I was the only one who didn’t come along. My boss sabotaged my job. It was thirteen against one. The EEOC asked me if I had video. My boss didn’t tell me I was essentially fired, either: I found out my last day when my key card didn’t work. I caught him at the elevator and told him if he had been all those things, he wouldn’t have taken such a chickenshit way to do it, and oh by the way, none of the English dukes had had a grandchild that matched his description, and unless he meant Culinary Institute of America, he was just a pathetic little poseur who couldn’t even tell interesting lies. I can hear his voice in some of these troll comments.
*I can also hear the voice of a male acquaintance to whom I related all this as it was going on. He was astonished. “But that doesn’t happen any more!” He spluttered. (When the subject of some feminist complaint comes up, he stops, pauses, and then says in a very significant voice, “Gee, I wonder how I turned out so different from those other guys.” Of course you’re supposed to start verbally fellating him then.)
I cannot figure out how to make the damned paragraph breaks bigger.
Erista (aka Eris)says
Hmmm, my block quoting seems to have disappeared in my last post. Sorry, the second and forth paragraph are mine, the first and third are ones I meant to quote
carliesays
The rapes that do happen are not a good thing but they just don’t hold any meaning for men, so, I’m not going to expend the effort to say they’re “bad”, either. I just don’t care
I feel like I’m a normal human male, give or take… and the more people talk about serious individual and societal problems like rape and sexual abuse, the MORE I care. Hearing about the horrible things happening to people in general, and to the people in conversations like this in particular, puts the problem front and center in my mind. Only some sort of sociopath would see a conversation about this, turn it around and make it all about them, and then become more dismissive of the problem the more they read about it.
joeljacobson is a misogynistic sociopath, as near as I can tell. I’m sure he’s off to some MRA-friendly site to brag about how everyone here is being mean to him simply because he disagrees with us.
Amphioxsays
Statistically, rape has declined coincidental the rise in young men incarcerated for simple drug possession,
</qO
Citation, with relevant statistical parameters (p-value, standard deviation, 95% confidence interval), required.
What’s wrong with pointing out the connections between rape and substance abuse?
That there is none, except in the minds of apologists.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it.
Well, at least that means you aren’t going to rape them. That’s so good of you!
ginmarsays
I’d be more inclined to believe that the most common rapist—-because their privilege protects them—-are the guys who have all the privilege—-straight, white, ‘he-doesn’t-NEED-to-rape’ types. Kind of like bullies aren’t tortured Heathcliffs but arrogant little shits upholding the status quo. I’m always puzzled when people defend a rich guy with the notion that he can have any girl he wants, or whatever. He wants the ones who say no. And of course these guys never think it’s rape. “Hey, I bought dinner.”
They are rapist enablers. They let rapists know that rape is okay and that victims can’t be trusted to define crimes committed against them. I think they’re conscious of what they’re doing. They are so vehement in their denials that you know they’re thinking about it. Do they envy rapists? Do they admire them? Do they wish they had the guts? The point is, they are on the side of the rapist. They always attack the victim. They avoid talking about the rapist at all costs, except to defend the idea that rape is rare and mostly over-reported.
There are a few I strongly suspect are actually rapists themselves. Those that aren’t are either fucking selfish idiots or are cyber rapists (the ones I call rapist ramoras). they basically want the same power trip as rapists without all that physical effort (note anyone here that is an actual rapist would also be a cyber rapist).
If you’re going to ask joeljacobson questions, please redirect him to TZT, because if he answers here, he will be splatted by the banhammer.
ginmarsays
They’re rapist fans, if not rapists themselves. Or they’re going to become rapists, or they’re going to be the guys who watch women get raped. They totally do not talk about rapists on these threads at all——unless it’s to defend them.
I have to say, I’m astonished at the amount of shit they pull out of their asses. Absolutely astonishing.
opposablethumbssays
No one talks about it around men, so, it’s not even an issue.
.
Short of actually taking out full-page ads in every paper and on every website in the world saying that “I, joeljacobson, am scum in superficially human form” in letters a foot high, that’s probably about as clear as he could have made it really. What a piece of excrement.
There are a few I strongly suspect are actually rapists themselves. Those that aren’t are either fucking selfish idiots or are cyber rapists (the ones I call rapist ramoras). they basically want the same power trip as rapists without all that physical effort (note anyone here that is an actual rapist would also be a cyber rapist).
By the strength and consistency of their “convictions” I’d guess a few serial date-rapists and/or workplace harassers are in the mix. For rationalization purposes, the flip-side of “if they would only do X, they wouldn’t get raped” is “if they didn’t do X, it couldn’t have been rape.” You have to assume based on the statistics that at least some of the people saying “well, it is a woman’s fault if she gets drunk” would also believe “well, if she got drunk she was asking for it.”
… and now I feel sick and like I need a shower.
carliesays
Sorry PZ, I was typing while you were posting. Mine was more of a rhetorical question, anyway. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
Mattirsays
I would say that alcohol and drug use IS related to rape, but not in the way that apatheticjoeltheasshole thinks: alcohol and drug intoxication is used by predators to subdue their victims. I’m a sober alcoholic and know lots of women with drug and alcohol abuse histories. Every single woman alcoholic I have ever known has been raped while drunk.
They’re rapist fans, if not rapists themselves. Or they’re going to become rapists, or they’re going to be the guys who watch women get raped. They totally do not talk about rapists on these threads at all——unless it’s to defend them.
Except that this little game, the trolling, is an attempt to create cyber rape. It’s the idea of hurting someone for the sake of feeling power. The ones who aren’t just egotistical idiots, are rapists. rape isn’t about sex. They come to topics like this because they are looking for prey.
ginmarsays
I don’t if one can compare words to actual physical violation. Sorry. There’s no such thing as cyber rape. I had somebody use the term “cyber genocide” to describe Amazon’s decision to corral badly-behaved authors in one of the fora just for authors because they’d pissed off so many readers with stuff that was just this side of fraud. Hey, I’m rambling and sleep-deprived, let’s roll with it! “Cyber Genocide.” Just try and wrap your head around that, after the people in question had made up fake accounts, reviewed their own books, roped in family and friends, and more shit than you can shake a stick at. Sorry. Time to go beddy bye for me, I think.
But it comes back to the question of are they trolling or are they serious? Either way, they’re assholes, and either way, they’re sociopaths who relish womens’ pain. My life is not a social experiment unless my fist is their wake up call.
ginmarsays
Oh and 415: the Army likes to tout this horrible drinking statistic in its sexual assault briefing: 52% of rapes happen while one or both of the parties is drunk. That means…..48% are committed while sober. Huh. Four % difference there. There is also the fact that male alcoholics are treated as funny or tragic, but women who drink are treated as disgusting, slovenly, whorish, and so forth. The double standard isn’t just a double standard: that’s too kind. It’s an opposite standard, where men are good and are given every benefit of the doubt, while women are bad and cannot be redeemed and have to be viewed with suspicion at all times because they might snap and accuse you of something.
I don’t if one can compare words to actual physical violation. Sorry. There’s no such thing as cyber rape.
I had somebody use the term “cyber genocide” to describe Amazon’s decision to corral badly-behaved authors in one of the fora just for authors because they’d pissed off so many readers with stuff that was just this side of fraud. Hey, I’m rambling and sleep-deprived, let’s roll with it! “Cyber Genocide.” Just try and wrap your head around that, after the people in question had made up fake accounts, reviewed their own books, roped in family and friends, and more shit than you can shake a stick at. Sorry. Time to go beddy bye for me, I think.
I’d say that that’s fascinating but irrelevant but I’d be lying about the first part
Drolfesays
I feel like I’m a normal human male, give or take… and the more people talk about serious individual and societal problems like rape and sexual abuse, the MORE I care.
Hey, I want to echo this. Reading all of these comments has made me care more.
(And I want to add, that in much the same way I don’t really know you Improbable Joe, but I feel bad hearing about the grief caused by your neighborhood situation and the demands it’s putting on you.)
That’s the normal you response you assholes. Empathy. You don’t haz it.
Except that this little game, the trolling, is an attempt to create cyber rape. It’s the idea of hurting someone for the sake of feeling power. The ones who aren’t just egotistical idiots, are rapists. rape isn’t about sex. They come to topics like this because they are looking for prey.
That’s it! That explains the rage I (we?) feel, reading their garbage; it feels like being raped again.
But it’s just the internet, just words on the internet, they’ll say; not real, what are we getting so angry about? They’ve done nothing wrong. Just asking questions, is all.
I don’t if one can compare words to actual physical violation. Sorry. There’s no such thing as cyber rape.
Why not? We recognize psychological torture and verbal abuse, and neither of those necessarily require physical contact to be used in the same conversation as their physical counterparts.
Sarahfacesays
@Mattir, #356:
I was aware of the self-applied nature of the porcupine, however on re-reading my comment, I see that I didn’t make this clear, so my apologies.
Short of actually taking out full-page ads in every paper and on every website in the world saying that “I, joeljacobson, am scum in superficially human form” in letters a foot high, that’s probably about as clear as he could have made it really.
Seconded, so much.
It just doesn’t register on my radar. I don’t even think about it. No one talks about it around men, so, it’s not even an issue.
I know you’ve all picked up on this already, but wow, way to make it all about you, joelwhoeverthefuckyouare. If you don’t know about something, it isn’t an issue at all? Is your world so small and self-centred that the only important things that happen either happen to you, or to your family? (Don’t answer that, we all know the answer is yes.)
By extension, does this mean that the only important issues in the world are ones that men know about? What next, nothing said by a women is important unless it is *also* said by a man? Nothing done by a woman is important unless it is done on the orders of a man?
The fact that you don’t even think about it shows how much privilege you have – for a lot of us, it’s *not a fucking option* to not think about it.
Fuck you, your Decent Human Being card is being confiscated and destroyed.
Forrest Phelpssays
As a lurker, I’d like to come out and say the following:
****
To posters like joeljacobson, millssg99, simonprimer, horace, and jenny6833a, and others of their ilk: you may be intelligent, and have other good and fine qualities. It’s a shame you weren’t able to display them here. All that comes across is your ego.
****
To the “regular” posters here: a LOT of your ego comes across, too. Fortunately, you add in compassion, and empathy, and a willingness to listen to others, even when it is obvious they are so deaf to anything but the sound of their own words. And you all do it with such . . . well, in such an interesting way.
****
Conclusion: I know which group I’d like to share a beer or a cup of coffee with.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
I’ve known three women who were raped and every instance involved either large quantities of alcohol and/or hard drugs. Staying away from hard drugs or hard drug users and a avoiding heavy drinking around strangers probably greatly reduces a woman’s chance of being raped.
Once again, blaming the victims. Amazing.
So, joeljacobson, tell me what I did wrong? I was ten years old. A cub scout. And I was raped, repeatedly, by my scout leader. No alcohol was involved. No drugs. Hell, he was a Mormon stakeholder so alcohol and drugs were against the rules for him, too. So, asshole, what was I supposed to do? What did I do wrong that made him decide to be a rapist? Because, obviously, you think it is the victim’s fault, right?
In other words, we can create a profile of the type of man likely to engage in rape.
If it is so easy to do, why has it not been done? Which type of rape do you profile for? Date rape? Violent assault? Child rape? Raping a women who has been drinking? How would you do this?
What a fucking idiot.
What’s wrong with pointing out the connections between rape and substance abuse?
Because it is used to blame the victim you heartless asshole.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it.
And you are fully prepared to protect them, right? Restrict their movements, govern who they can and cannot see, chaperone them, treat them as less than fully human, deny them the pleasure of a good drink? Ah, you’re such a nice guy. And you take such good care of your property, too.
Don’t talk to joeljacobson.
PZ assigned him some homework.
Sorry, I started this rant before PZ stepped in. I’m gonna keep going.
Yet, “rape culture” is supposed to be my problem.
It is your problem because you are helping to perpetuate it. Read the fucking thread. Look at how many times the link has been demonstrated between ‘taking precautions’ and blaming the victim. You are making it easier for men to rape women and helping to make it more difficult to get a conviction.
Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
You do, of course, have statistics to back that up? They may far more likely to be convicted of rape than a rich white man, but, in case you haven’t noticed, when you are rich, you can get away with murder.
They are so vehement in their denials that you know they’re thinking about it. Do they envy rapists? Do they admire them? Do they wish they had the guts?
I think some of them do.
When I was in high school, there were three or four uber-alpha males who had a well-deserved reputation for refusing to take no for an answer when on a date. Girls still went out with them because they were the Creme-de-la-Creme of the high school pyramid. And they went through girl friends like they were disposable. Their motto was, “Date ’em, fuck ’em, dump ’em.”
And I think that, easily, half the boys in the school wanted to be those three or four rapists. No, we didn’t think of what they did as rape — good girls always say no even when they mean yes (after all, in high school, the definition of a slut was a girl who likes fucking). We (and yes, I include myself) were jealous because 3% of the boys seemed to get 90% of the sex. I was a stupid little shit back then and, looking back, I am ashamed at who I was.
And I think that people like joeljacobson do envy rapists. Commitment free sex, disposable partners, a fuck for the price of a dinner, a few drinks and a little drugs. So yeah, I think he does wish it were him.
I feel like I’m a normal human male, give or take… and the more people talk about serious individual and societal problems like rape and sexual abuse, the MORE I care.
Seconded.
When I was an ignorant little asshole in high school, rape meant only the violent stranger-in-the-ally rape. The more I learn, the more angry and concerned I become about the boys I grew up with who thought that no always meant yes.
It’s the idea of hurting someone for the sake of feeling power.
Well, if that is the dipshit’s plan, xe succeeded.
Then again, these threads, and idiots like hir, are useful.
I spent most of my life blaming myself for what happened that summer. Men don’t do things like that to little boys, so I must have done something to make it happen. And year after year after year, I knew that it was my fault. All mine.
When I came to Pharyngula a few years ago (different ‘nym), I enjoyed the repartee, the atmosphere, the jokes, the vitriol. It was fun.
Then Rebecca Watson got hit by the fan. And I dove right in even though I had almost no clue about the sexual dynamics, the idea of victim blaming, how the pernicious idea of ‘being careful’ destroys lives, or the entire MRA/PUA/rape-is-good culture. And that, my friends (and you are), was a wake-up call of epic proportions.
I don’t remember exactly when I decided to first tell about that part of my history here, but I think it was during one of the threads following the 3d5k fiasco. And I realized, as I actually committed it to electrons for that first time, that it really wasn’t my fault. None of it was. That rapist made the decision to become a youth leader to gain access to victims.
Now, when I read the sickening dreck of joeljacobson (and others), I see my old scout leader — a man who was willing to use force, threats, and coercion in order to fulfill his ideas, his goals, his pleasure with no regard to how others may feel. He treated me, and probably others, as objects for his enjoyment. And I suspect that joeljacobson, and horace, and the other assholes who have filled this thread with hate and fear, are much the same kind of person.
I don’t if one can compare words to actual physical violation. Sorry. There’s no such thing as cyber rape.
Rape is about power. Specifically, a sexual feeling, a sexual release, gained by forcing someone else to react to your ego, your wants.
My scout leader once told us that there are two kinds of people on earth — men and children. Some children grow up to be men. And children have one use on the earth — a way for men to have fun. He told me he was making sure that I knew what a real man was supposed to do so I didn’t grow up and become an adult without also becoming a man.
Read through the comments dropped by the rape apologists. They are, from my reading, using the pain and fear and horror of victims, telling the victims that they really are at fault for what happened, to have fun. They are gaining a release, a power release, a sexual release, by making me, and others, react to their wants.
That’s it! That explains the rage I (we?) feel, reading their garbage; it feels like being raped again.
Bingo. Every time one of these shitstains explains, in their oh-so-reasonable tones, how if the victim had only been careful, if she hadn’t gone to that spot, it would have been different. The mental pain I have inflicted on myself for around 35 years has been exactly the same thing — what did I do wrong.
And I get hit with it again and again and again. This is one reason I am still here, still writing, because if I write it out, I help to settle myself down and reinforce that no, despite what I am being told, it really was not my fault.
The physical pain hurt. That was a matter of size. I was small, skinny. But that was a walk in the park compared to what my own brain created.
Amphioxsays
But it’s just the internet, just words on the internet, they’ll say
“The pen is mightier than the sword” is not just a trite saying.
Words have power.
Rape-apologizing words on the internet can do more harm in the end than any single rapist can, even a serial one.
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
Eight space downs?
Sorry.
Anger and fear and working it out in my mind at work.
Emrysmyrddinsays
*oh so many through-the-screen hugs if you want them* I value you very highly as a commenter here, Ogvorbis, and the eloquence of above just reinforces that for me; thank you for being so open.
Momo Elektrasays
@ginmar #418
The double standard isn’t just a double standard: that’s too kind. It’s an opposite standard, where men are good and are given every benefit of the doubt, while women are bad and cannot be redeemed and have to be viewed with suspicion at all times because they might snap and accuse you of something.
Kind of sounds like the view on men and women of some religions we know… right?
So many atheists have already shaken off other religious views, but to this one and others like it some cling to with a passion.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it.
The keyword here is MY. He doesn’t like people touching his things
Drolfesays
I don’t know a better way to say it, but my sincere sympathies to everyone that’s posted their stories. (And to Caine and others too, who have posted elsewhere before.) Across the years Pharyngula has opened my eyes to some pretty harrowing tales outside of my experience and I think I’m better for it. I’m grateful, thankful.
Cheers, Og! (Don’t feel bad about word counts (everyone wins)!)
Drolfesays
“(Don’t feel bad about word counts (everyone wins)!)” That sounded better in my head before I read it. I can explain, but apologies in advance.
The keyword here is MY. He doesn’t like people touching his things
Yep, that’s why I can be pretty sure to be safe from cat-calling, groping and other advances when I’m with my husband: I’m already somebody’s property. Yet f I’m alone it’s kind of finders-keepers.
ginmarsays
There’s got to be a better way to put it. These guys specially target women, rape victims, friends of rape victims, women who have suffered abuse and harassment, and cyber rape just feels so facile. But then I have PTSD that leaves me with two speeds: numb or enraged, so who knows.
Ing, my point was that tacking a ‘cyber’ on a term that in real life refers to a specific thing—-like a sexual assault or an ethnic cleansing—-that causes physical damage to people, at the very least, is…..not the best way of describing something. My own emotional response to the trolls is a sort of shock at cruelty that simply needs its own description. Of course, all over the internet one sees various people describing things like being defeated in a video game as ‘being raped’, or having one’s movie edited against one’s wishes as ‘being raped’, and stuff like that.
One thing I notice is that these guys attack singly, one by one, on a site like this, but individual women get attacked in packs, and are openly threatened with the very thing they’re complaining about. Ever since Elevatorgate there’s been a constant stream of blowups wherein huge groups of men attack a lone woman with utter viciousness, and that dynamic stays with you. It’s a threat.
#425….I have read the trolls’ comments. I’ve been on the internet 14 years now. I’m a woman. I get death and rape threats at my house because a guy said another guy asked him to find out where I lived, and it was my fault I made it easy for him.
For some of these guys commenting here, I have a really hard time, based on their comments, picturing this as a sexual release.
The scariest thing about these guys is that beyond boasting to their doods about how they totally made that chick online loose her cool, they’re completely and utterly indifferent. That’s the worst thing of all. They’re as indifferent to the victims commenting here as they would be if they knocked over a chair. Women are just objects to them—-break one, bend one, well, just go get a new one. In the cases where there were packs of guys attacking one female blogger the dynamic seemed different. They attacked in a gang and gained strength from one another, focused on a single target, and they whipped themselves up. Here, they’re being driven back and some of them tried to make face-saving comments—social experiment and all. But, yeah, so many of them…..they just don’t care. They’re indifferent. I think that’s worse than hatred, almost. How do you describe an absence? They have an absence of feeling for women and other rape victims. The reason they won’t listen is because they just can’t be bothered. Unless a woman is what they need at the moment, they spend not a moment thinking about us at all.
Drolfesays
Yet f I’m alone it’s kind of finders-keepers.
^ This stuff gives me the creeps.
But it’s only the magic of his immediate presence (peepee forcefield?) C.f.:
“I’ve gotta man!”
“What’s ya man got to do with me?”
Ogvorbis: Ignorant sycophantic magpie.says
I have read the trolls’ comments. I’ve been on the internet 14 years now. I’m a woman. I get death and rape threats at my house because a guy said another guy asked him to find out where I lived, and it was my fault I made it easy for him.
I’m sorry. Once again, I phrased that poorly. When I read the commments in this thread, and the myriad others like it, I get hit right in the pain, fear and emotions. I did not mean to imply you had not read the thread. Sorry.
I have a really hard time, based on their comments, picturing this as a sexual release.
It is more of a power release, which, in some people, has a definate sexual component.
The reason they won’t listen is because they just can’t be bothered.
This is why I think some of them are looking for a release — power, sex, whatever — because they do come to a thread like this and they do try to make the thread all about them, and their feelings. They don’t care about me as a person, but as someone who is a victim, I, and others, are a potential source of release. They do think about us, just not as people.
I agree with you, though, that this place is damned impressive. It is one of the few unmoderated (well, except in egregious circumstances) sites in which the MRAs and PUAs don’t seem to be able to maintain traction, and I thank you and everyone else who make this a safe place.
Drolfesays
The scariest thing about these guys is that beyond boasting to their doods about how they totally made that chick online loose her cool, they’re completely and utterly indifferent. That’s the worst thing of all. They’re as indifferent to the victims commenting here as they would be if they knocked over a chair. Women are just objects to them—-break one, bend one, well, just go get a new one.
^ This is my experience as well. I roll in a geek/gaming culture (just to distinguish that from say skeptic societies or college frats; the interactions involved are therefore mostly online, in text or voice chat). It’s like a game to them. The female voices they are responding to are npcs. Free to be abused in any of the same ways. It’s startlingly, um, I want to say sociopathic but I don’t know — IANAPsycologist.
So sorry. What can I say except to reiterate what you already know; it wasn’t your fault. It never was your fault.
When I was 3 or 4, a man I’d never seen before came into the old haybarn in the backyard, where my kid brother and I used to play. He told us to watch, then jacked off. I didn’t know what was going on; the previous attempt at abduction, in a different province, had been stopped, the man arrested, before he actually did anything. This time, no-one showed up.
Afterwards, he threatened us; if we ever talked, he’d “get us”. We didn’t. I didn’t even talk it over with my brother. I never told, until this moment.
And for years and years and decades, I felt guilty. As if I should have stopped him. Or told my parents. But I was ashamed and afraid, ashamed of and dirtied by the new knowledge, believing his threats. So I told myself for years, I was a coward, as well as stupid; I should have run screaming as soon as I saw him in the barn. I should not have looked at him. I should … I should …
We never played in the haybarn again. And I never saw the man, except in nightmares; he’s there, still, going on 65 years later.
At least, now I don’t feel guilty. Just icky.
Come to think of it, it’s strange that of all the rapes and abuse in years that followed, this molestation is the one that made me feel most guilty; as though I were now so besmirched that anything else that happened was inevitable. So all the self-blame went back to that moment, when I was 4.
No Onesays
It’s amazing how accurate and downright prophetic the cartoon really is.
Emptyellsays
I finally caught up with y’all here. I can’t believe I made it through all three pages (with a bit of tl;dr skimming here and there).
I’m mainly piping in to say cheers for the tireless troll whacking. The passion, wit, intellect, honesty and knowledge you bring to the discussion are welcome and enlightening. The openness and courage of those who have shared their experiences of rape and abuse are impressive and generous. The experiences of real people who have dealt with actual assault stands in such stark contrast to the imaginary dark alleys, parked cars and special precautions that the apologists are so obsessed with.
To all of you for taking on this thankless task, I would like to make it a little less so by saying thank you.
As a card carrying member of the privileged elite there isn’t much I can add to what has already been said, but (after reading all of this I can’t help being a little bit of a but-head)…
@jenny####
Just because you’ve been lucky doesn’t mean your precaution have worked and sure doesn’t give you the authority to tell rape victims “Hey, just be lucky like me and you won’t get raped.” Your presumption that these thing have worked for you and that this is somehow useful to others is worse than useless. It is insulting and condescending to the people you are presumably trying to communicate with.
@alltheotherscumbagapologists
Thank you for providing such an extraordinary variety of examples of how privilege, cluelessness, denial, etc are part of the endemic rape culture. It’s hard to be sure from this end of the tubes but it seems like we’ve had the full range from the well intended but misinformed who are still figuring our what’s wrong with “just asking questions” to the willfully ignorant and disingenuous who are here to get their card punched so they can go whine somewhere about the Pharygumeanies.
. . .
For what little it’s worth I have learned a lot from reading through this. I now have a much more detailed and nuanced appreciation for how rape culture and victim blaming are subtly and blatantly interwoven with the status quo. I have also filled in a few of the Troll Trading Cards that were missing from my collection. Particularly the “Magical Intention Troll” and the genuinely clueless “I Am Not a Troll” (not to be confused with the disingenuous variety).
I suspect there are many more like me lurking in the wings. You guys are making a difference and this thread is an example of what needs doing.
…oh and one other thing, I know it’s been said but I just have to repeat…
If you find yourself having to tell people “I hate, hate, hate rapists.” you’re probable well past the point where this statement will have any value. When people feel the need to tell me how much I can trust them I am inclined to presume the opposite. Regardless of how real your cognitive dissonance is to you doesn’t mean I have to accept what appear to be delusions as fact. My privileged status allows my the luxury of trust and decency as the presumed default behavior, but when someone fails to speak and act accordingly no amount of assurances of trustworthiness and human decency can put it back.
. . .
Finally…
@402 ginmar
“I cannot figure out how to make the damned paragraph breaks bigger.”
AFAIK you can’t. I just use
. . .
an ellipsis.
andreadorkinsays
Hot damn, I come back and there’s yet more idiotic rape apologism. I wish I could say I was surprised.
It never seems to occur to knuckledraggers like joeljacobson to wonder why rapists might target drunk women. They seem to believe that alcohol, when ingested by a woman, creates some kind of magical aura in the air around them that only rapists can see, which spells out “Please Assault Me” in mystical shimmering 72 point font letters.
Of course, the truth is that rapists pick drunk women to assault because the world is full of pious dumbfucks willing to give them a pass for it. So Joel, when you say “if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care” — rapists are listening. Because of what you think and say, rapists know it’s safe for them to attack these women. And so, not surprisingly, they keep on doing it. And getting away with it.
That’s not something drunk women cause. That’s something YOU cause. Think about it.
CTsays
These guys specially target women, rape victims, friends of rape victims, women who have suffered abuse and harassment, and cyber rape just feels so facile.
I don’t know if I’d equate word on a screen with rape either. I can tell you that words on a screen to someone who has suffered mental abuse are very much a violation. Like the list I mentioned some pages back. Just reading makes those words resonate out loud in a voice I hate. Hell just fucking typing those words just now mentioning that fucking list make me hear the words.
so, no, that’s not rape but words on a screen is pretty fucking effective as a trigger.
Holmssays
As an extreme latecomer to this conversation, and being the victim of a burst of morbid curiosity to see the bullshit spewed herein, how the hell do I access the previous pages of comments?
Musesays
Right above the Leave a Reply line on the comment box there is a hyperlink that says “Older Comments” Click on it.
Ze Madmaxsays
Holms @ 443:
At the very end of the comments there should be a link to “Older Comments.” Go there.
Look, if someone who is a victim of rape writes that the actions of rape apologist victim blaming commenters feel like rape, I cannot argue with that. Listen to people.
These conversations have not recreated the physical sensations of the rape, but they have brought back the guilt, the anguish, and the what ifs in no trump redoubled.
sinnoun
2. any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle.
I do believe sins exist. I ignore the religious aspect and just consider the moral aspect. To me, the greatest sin is treating people as objects.
Not only do rapists treat their victims as things but the rape apologists see victims as things as well. The last troll made it obvious he considers all women to be things, some of them being his things. Empathy is something completely missing from these folks.
The PTSD I carry (from the molestation, rape, and to an even more insidious extent, fundamentalist brainwashing (aka emotional abuse) as a child) can certainly be stimulated from words on the screen, and there are places on the internet I simply will not go to because if I do, I risk flashbacks that can range from feeling mildly out-of-sorts to full-blown obsessive mental loops that more or less kidnap me from reality for however long it takes for me to talk myself back down.
One of the reasons I can come to Pharyngula and read the words of rape apologists and outright abusive sociapaths like the last one is that I know that rhetorical first aid is almost always immediately administered to the thread. That actually helps quite a bit to calm my own reactions and help my brain arm itself with words that will dispel the effects of reading these parrots of rape culture, or, in other threads, the babbling double-binds and circular logic loops from fundie land.
Which is why I have been reading here for several years, actually. It’s not exactly a safe space, but it is a very useful one for me.
Mattirsays
It never seems to occur to knuckledraggers like joeljacobson to wonder why rapists might target drunk women. They seem to believe that alcohol, when ingested by a woman, creates some kind of magical aura in the air around them that only rapists can see, which spells out “Please Assault Me” in mystical shimmering 72 point font letters.
This. And bear in mind that women who abuse alcohol to the point of meriting an alcohol dependence/alcoholism diagnosis have not chosen to have that disease. Generally they’re dealing with genetic vulnerabilities and a fuckton of untreated trauma. So way to go, rape apologists, making a really really bad and humiliating disease EVEN WORSE.
ginmarsays
Org, I’m sorry, I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed some rest. And you know what? After decades of this shit, in real life and beyond, I flinched when disagreeing with one of the good folks, because it’s one thing to fight with trolls, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve had so many so-called good people destroy my faith in humanity that it makes me quail back sometimes. I want to re-iterate what others said: Not only were you not at fault, but to be here and fighting the good fight makes you one of the warriors.
I think the war broke something in me. I don’t seem to have anything left but anger and nothing. Which sometimes feels like a mercy. There’s one memory that resurfaced after years, about a night with alleged friends, being given booze after months of not drinking at all, and on top of that, after losing dozens of pounds. That’s all I can say. I will not think about that. I can’t think about that. The minute somebody opens their mouth about ‘gee, women should take more precautions’ I know what I’m dealing with. But so many ‘good people’ have this huge exception where women and other victims that they target for whatever reason are fair game.
………
These guys and their utter indifference…..I find the idea of a power release interesting, because it reminds me of reading about prison rape and thinking that that’s what rapists on the outside think. In prison the rape defines the victim, not the rapist. It’s an act of conquest. The rapist can alter the victim’s identity by the act of rape. Rape is sex to them, because sex is how you conquer people. It’s one person doing to another person, and that person gets lessened. Sex is not something two people do together. It’s what one person does to another person. And on the outside, it’s exactly the same for a large segment of the population.
…….
Part of their contempt for taking rape seriously is based on their view that rape is useful for them, and that women are utterly worthless and interchangeable—–even the ones they own. And if a guy they dislike has a pretty possession they can hurt him by hurting her. (Abusers do that to things and pets and people their primary victim cares about.) They’re just astonished that women dare to speak up as if they’re, you know, people. And men who ally themselves with women (!) of all things are treated as equally contemptible.
earwigsays
amaclean:
and also hopefully, someday getting people who do rape to realize what a horrible thing it is they do.
This. That they rape.
But the more that rape prevention tips tell women (and victims aren’t only women) things they’ve been hearing since they were little children, things they do as a matter of course, and how they are at fault if they don’t take these commonsense precautions, and the more the focus is placed on stranger rape, the less likely it is that men who rape friends or acquaintances or fellow students will recognise that what they are doing is RAPE. The jocks reported way upthread who were heroes at school for not taking No for an answer, Clint Eastwood’s character in his film (High Plains Drifter) at #398, ginmar’s higher-ranking NCO at #1243 – good grief, even Sally Strange’s corrective-raping enthusiast of a radio host at #1238, let alone the men who interpret a short skirt as implied consent – none of them self-identify as rapists. And what’s worse, a lot of ordinary, otherwise decent but utterly clueless people out there, even some who serve on juries, don’t identify them as rapists either.
So there’s this
Here’s the thing. Nobody on this thread have identified themselves as a rapist for me to direct my attention to.
So mills99 and jenny6833a from the goodness of their hearts insist you must take common sense precautions. (They have to tell you this because maybe you weren’t listening when you were a little kid.) But honestly, they are not rape apologists. They hate-hate-hate rape.
So you went on a date with the guy: you were asking for it. So you kinda fancied him: you must have enjoyed it. So he was a hero: how could you resist him? So you’re a sexy woman who likes sex: so why might you care to discriminate who you have sex with? So you changed your mind? You crazy bitch.
So you walked down a dark alley in a short skirt at 3 am? Whoa, didn’t you know there could be a Strange Man in a Bush out there?
Thanks for the penetrating insight, we never thought of that.
But all this is only touching on the small minority of cases where adult females are out in the wild where lesser-spotted rapists may be at large. It doesn’t begin to deal with the domestic, common or garden species, let alone those who prey on juveniles. Thanks to all who have shared their experiences here. It is brave of you, and shocking and humbling for the rest of us. I know there are many others out there who from fear and hurt or shame are saying nothing about what they have endured.
Ginmar @1256, Cipher @1265 QFT.
Erista (aka Eris), those ten rape prevention tips are pure gold. Yes, it’s rapists’ behaviour we should be concentrating on, and all the excuses society makes for them.
So Horace, jenny6833a, and especially mills99 – please STFU and LISTEN to what people here are telling you.
jenny6833asays
So Horace, jenny6833a, and especially mills99 – please STFU and LISTEN to what people here are telling you.
I do listen, but most of it (like the stuff I didn’t quote) misrepersents what others have said, breaks every rule of formal logic, and is filled with 12-year old behind-the-barn gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use. I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
I do listen, but most of it (like the stuff I didn’t quote) misrepersents what others have said, breaks every rule of formal logic, and is filled with 12-year old behind-the-barn gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use. I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
Charming. Jenny goes the “NUUGH YOU’RE A RAPIST!” to me.
Btw, Jenny. Ad Hom.
ginmarsays
Expletives are a quite reasonable response when confronted with somebody who’s perfectly willing to smugly toss other women on the altar as long as she’s kept safe when they’re between her and the rapist. STFU, Jenny.
You’ve filled this thread reciting shit that you’ve heard, without thought or consideration. That it happens to be bigoted sexist crap has constantly eluded your notice.
Because rapists are well known for using foul language. Oh wait no they’re not. If anything it would be sexist language…which isn’t tolerated.
So really all Jenny is doing is trying to hurt people. What a delightful little scamp.
Amphioxsays
I do listen
No, you don’t. If you actually had listened, you would not be making the kinds of comments you are continuing to make.
You have not listened to anything.
And you have learned nothing.
breaks every rule of formal logic
You have not demonstrated the slightest ability to even recognize what formal logic is, even if it smacked you upside the head with a two by four.
I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
Another classic example of cargo cult accusation throwing. She sees the accusation, doesn’t understand what it is and why it is used AT ALL, and just copies it mindlessly.
echidnasays
gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use
Oh, Jenny, just stop and think for a moment. The rapists-are-vulgar meme has protected countless priests, teachers, mayors, princes and presidents and other nice, upstanding citizens such as the Sanduskys of the world.
If you can control language, you can control thought. The Puritans knew this, and George Orwell explained it masterfully. Avoidance of certain words is not the marker of intelligence, class and morality that you seem to think it is.
I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
If that includes me, fuck off.
If it doesn’t include me, fuck off.
Hey, we already know you require no evidence for your beliefs. You admitted that. That’s how we know you’re full of shit.
We’ve explained repeatedly why your helpful hints don’t apply to most rapes, and how they feed the “victim could have prevented this” meme that is actively harmful to fixing the underlying causes of the problem. You’ve heard from victims, and you ignored them.
And now you’re throwing out baseless accusations.
Fuck off.
I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
OK, you fucking genius, why have none of the people in this thread who’ve been raped spoken out against them? If precautions really were the be-all-and-end-all, that group would have gone ballistic against anyone who doubted their efficacy. But they didn’t.
I’m making the very safe assumption that anyone who’s been raped doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else. If you doubt that, then you’ve dug to a new substrate in the Terrible Human Being column.
chigau (違う)says
jenny6833a
You are a bad person, perhaps even evil.
You are disgusting.
Go away.
#449 ‘Tis Himself, Granny Weatherwax knows this too (emphasis added).
“…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” [asked Granny Weatherwax.]
“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.” [answered Mightily Oats.]
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things…” –from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
@ jenny numbers
I do listen, but most of it (like the stuff I didn’t quote) misrepersents what others have said, breaks every rule of formal logic, and is filled with 12-year old behind-the-barn gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use. I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
Please note, still quoting you entire, and yet you are still wrong. You are also not responding.
Of course, in this comment, you really showed everyone how wrong they were by saying they were probably rapists. Even the people who were raped. Sure. That makes sense and is in no way the act of a poo flinging illogical 12 year old.
Jenny, what next? Comparisons to Hitler? Because so far there has been no sense.
#454 jenny,
It takes quite a lot to surprise me on Threads of Doom, but that last effort did. I sincerely hope you are not really an active naturist for the last several decades, because I grew up as one, and the thought that someone like you is presumably an auntie figure to some of the youngsters in your naturist community fills me with fear for their mental wellbeing if they are ever raped and come to you expecting comfort. Your mealy-mouthed advice on how to avoid it happening again will absolutely devastate them, because you’re more invested in your conviction of false security than you are in truly understanding that all you have been is lucky, and not everybody can be.
Jenny, I hope the uniformity of the disgust in response to your last post makes some kind of impression on you. If your words as typed in this forum accurately reflect the kind of person you are, then you are a terrible person. Please isolate yourself from other humans so as to avoid hurting them. Also, fuck you. That is all.
jenny6833asays
It takes quite a lot to surprise me on Threads of Doom, but that last effort did. I sincerely hope you are not really an active naturist for the last several decades, because I grew up as one, and the thought that someone like you is presumably an auntie figure to some of the youngsters in your naturist community fills me with fear for their mental wellbeing if they are ever raped and come to you expecting comfort.
You’re changing the subject. My remarks have been solely about reducing the odds of being raped or otherwise attacked and about fighting off an attack if it happens. Your response is an example of the misrepresentation I spoke of and of the gross illogic of many responses. I’m sad if you’ve done so deliberately and appalled if you don’t know you’re doing it.
Comfort is part of the healing process. Reasonable precautions are part of the prevention process. I’ve spoken only about the latter.
Your mealy-mouthed advice on how to avoid it happening again will absolutely devastate them, because you’re more invested in your conviction of false security than you are in truly understanding that all you have been is lucky, and not everybody can be.
I’m saddened that you invented a bunch of garbage that has no basis in anything I’ve said. I’d concentrate on comfort during the comfort phase all the while discouraging lifelong self pity. When it came time for dealing with the future, I’d talk about lowering the odds of it happening again.
I’ll add that you don’t know if I’ve been lucky or unlucky — or smart or careless. Perhaps I’ve been all four. More specifically, you don’t know whether I’ve been attacked and, if so, what the result may have been. You’re just spewing out invective, although I must admit your invective is a lot more literate than most. :-)
Are you still a naturist? If so, we may well have met. We may even be friends.
Have a nice nude day, or a clammy cloth-constricted day, whichever you prefer.
Beatricesays
jenny6833a,
What, no apology for calling people, many of them who have bared their hearts on this thread, rapists?
Well, aren’t you a polite little piece of shit? I’m sure it makes you feel really righteous that you don’t use any naughty words. And yet, you seem oblivious to sewage waste that is spilling from your mouth.
Emrysmyrddinsays
Here we have another illustrative example of hatefulness and inhumanity cloaked in the veneer of civility. Turns out (again and again!) that you don’t need to use ‘gutter language’ to act like a complete arsehole. These people are tone over substance every time, and are so unselfaware and empathyless that they’ll never understand the difference.
dogeared, spotted and foxedsays
jenny6833a, you may have convinced yourself that you’re “safe” because you know the rules. Rules, btw, which are complete and utter crap, based on nothing more than after-the-fact blaming. I honestly hope that you never, ever learn how totally wrong you are.
I do hope that someday you’ll find a way to feel good about yourself with having to tear other women down because they were raped. Aim a little higher.
dogeared, spotted and foxedsays
and I just read jenny6833a @454. Gah! Why are people so comfortable showing off that part of their psyche?
vaiytsays
My remarks have been solely about reducing the odds of being raped
And you and the others of your ilk have been repeatedly told (with data) that your advice doesn’t work.
Yet you keep repeating it. What’s your interest in doing that?
Emrysmyrddinsays
Yet you keep repeating it. What’s your interest in doing that?
Jennyblah’s obviously an active proponent of The Secret method.
“If I wish really, really hard, the laws of reality won’t apply to meeeee! (And everyone hurt In Reality just wasn’t wishing hard enough!)”
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
I do listen, but most of it (like the stuff I didn’t quote) misrepersents what others have said, breaks every rule of formal logic, and is filled with 12-year old behind-the-barn gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use. I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
Have a nice day. :-)
You are a disgusting human being and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
@ Cipher #475 possible trigger warning, although this is fairly distilled sarcasm.
Hey now, you have to ease back. She’s only talking about reducing the odds of being raped, using no evidence whatsoever but her mockery of the concept of evidence. I mean we all know she’s right, because she says so, many, many times so it’s like SUPER right. I don’t understand why on earth we even speak up against what she says. It’s not like it’s unsupported twaddle spouted by someone who can’t manage to keep her argument straight as to whom she is addressing.
I mean fortunately there are no actual people here who … oh, wait.
*jenny anynumbers, this time I won’t quote your every asinine word, and yet you are still wrong. Further, you owe an apology to everyone on this thread who had the guts to speak up even when someone like you was spewing in the thread.*
Are you still a naturist? If so, we may well have met. We may even be friends.
I’ve never lived in your country, so I doubt we’ve ever met. I’m not feeling any disappointment about that at all.
I also surmise that if we were friends, and I heard you pull this bullshit “reasonable precautions” crap in real life, the friendship would be unlikely to survive me challenging you on it for the huge harm that bullshit does to rape survivors vs the nugatory benefit to potential rape targets (because rapists aren’t cunning enough to circumvent the “reasonable precautions” that “everybody knows” in your world). That surmise derives solely from how you have responded to challenges here.
I’m saddened that you invented a bunch of garbage that has no basis in anything I’ve said. I’d concentrate on comfort during the comfort phase* all the while discouraging lifelong self pity**. When it came time for dealing with the future, I’d talk about lowering the odds*** of it happening again.
* So, there is an appropriate “comfort phase” you expect survivors to work through, and then be done with? How do you identify it?
** What behaviour on this thread exactly seems to you like “lifelong self pity”? Haven’t you noticed that the primary emotion of the rape survivors here is anger and determination? Often despite living with PTSD?
*** Because you could be absolutely sure that the “comfort phase” was finished and you couldn’t possibly trigger a panic attack or a depressive spiral, right? The importance of giving them advice that (a) they’ve already heard thousands of times, and (b) has not been actually shown to “lower the odds” outweighs that possibility of you doing direct harm to them, does it?
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
tigtog, that was breath-taking. I find it so hard to wade through the twaddle that I sometimes forget that even twaddle can be deconstructed. Nice job!
Louissays
I’ve just caught up and read the comments from {recently TZT-ed} commenter about not caring about rapes outside an immediate social circle.
That’s it. That’s the nadir for me. HOW? HOW THE FUCK? Seriously, how do you get here?
I might not be able to do much about {remote rape in far flung land}, but not care? That’s the definition of inhuman as far as I am concerned. The tale of human history is the gradual expansion of individual moral circles, the realisation that in the awesome expanse of the universe how little our world really is and how much we depend on each other. How anyone can come to the conclusion that the violation of other human beings is somehow not their problem is beyond me.
I’m going for a coffee and a series of dick jokes in the lab. I badly feel the need to pretend people like this commenter don’t exist for a few minutes. Then I’ll return to reality.
Louis
'Tis Himselfsays
Jenny,
When you’re saying one thing and everyone else is disagreeing with you, there is a slight possibility that you’re the one who’s wrong. I realize your hubris is so strong that you won’t even consider the possibility, but it does exist.
Louissays
‘Tis,
Ahhh yes, the Sagan Caveat!
“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
Or this, attributed to Robert L Park:
“It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right.”
I’m thinking Jenny is neither right, nor really that persecuted. But she is being laughed at.
Louis
mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehellsays
NOOOOO. It’s still going. And dear jenny came back. And insinuated that everyone here is a rapist. Did I really just read that or did I have an especially special bottle for Father’s Day?
Well, if it’s time for the internet psychologizing…nah, I won’t. Instead, I’ll just copy and paste this, and then relate a little story:
More specifically, you don’t know whether I’ve been attacked and, if so, what the result may have been
One of the most fervent proponents of the ‘reasonable precautions’ school I’ve ever known had been molested herself, and she very much wanted that not to have happened. However, she was not so much in denial as in certainty…that she could stop it happening ever again by following some rules.
jenny, i invite you to take another gander at the many splendid people here who have been wise enough to include seeing the problem and seeing it whole in their recovery. (And I rather think we are talking about lifelong recovery here, not lifelong self pity as you so obnoxiously imply.) They have said over and over how wounding this just-be-common-sensical babble is to them, and you just popped back in to take a shit all over them. And to call them rapists, apparently. (Nice logic, btw.) I’d expect exactly that much taste from someone genteel enough to go all pious over “gutter language,” but still
…congratulations, you are actually the first person on this thread who’s made me shake with anger.
And may I add: fuckbucket shitwhistle doucheblossom.
Compliments,
mehitabel
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
And may I add: fuckbucket shitwhistle doucheblossom.
For further amusement, I highly recommend the emotional posturing in which various Pharyngulans are engaging as they attempt to demonstrate which one of them is the anti-rapiest of all.
Gotta love the fruits of the holy spirit eh? What a wonderful witness for jebus this guy is.
RahXephon, worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, the Antichrist, Stalin, and Mao combinedsays
For further amusement, I highly recommend the emotional posturing in which various Pharyngulans are engaging as they attempt to demonstrate which one of them is the anti-rapiest of all.
Vox Day, I hope you’re reading this, because I just wanted you to know you’re a pathetic, impotent shitweasel. When you act as if people being against rape is A. stupid and B. a fucking contest, then you don’t have the moral high ground. You’re not even in the same galaxy as morals.
Beatricesays
Ew, ew, ew. I started reading the comments on that sorry excuse of an article.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
For further amusement, I highly recommend the emotional posturing in which various Pharyngulans are engaging as they attempt to demonstrate which one of them is the anti-rapiest of all.
Because no one could possibly care about such things. And of course, emotionality is completely wrong.
Uh huh. Brilliant insight from the “god is love” crowd. I’m sure all the women in his church feel cared for and safe.
Wow, so that Vox Douchecanoe is an open and proud racist on top of being a misogynist. Lovely.
Beatricesays
I’m sure all the women in his church feel cared for and safe.
Well, he’s probably making sure none of those nasty non-white men feel welcome there. That should make the women safe.
keenacatsays
Vox Day, you fucking assclown, stick your flaming sword of mush-brained hatefulness up your rectum and follow with a rotten porcupine, thank you.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Beatrice, if only my lady brains could have worked that out myself. Gosh I feel so fuzzy and pink. Thank you for helping out!
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Also, to add to Louis’s 480, just FYI, {remote rapes in far off lands} actually affect the people who live there. People who do visit these threads and do post here and do live in countries like South Africa, Rape Capitol of the World. And people just dismissing the very real stuff of my everyday life as *shrug, whatever, it’s not MY country so fuck you I got mine”?
Well, if I believed in rape prevention and just went by the facts we know about rape the reasonable steps would be this:
-cut all unnecessary contact to men. No male friends, no contact with male family members, no male partner.
-buy a vibrator*
-walk the streets at night at my leisure.
Because although that was the only time I was ever threatened with rape (oh, wait, it wasn’t reall night), statistically I’m safer out there than in here with my husband.
Yet I haven’t seen anybody advocating that I get a divorce.
Mattit
This. And bear in mind that women who abuse alcohol to the point of meriting an alcohol dependence/alcoholism diagnosis have not chosen to have that disease. Generally they’re dealing with genetic vulnerabilities and a fuckton of untreated trauma.
I know this is a tangent but so. true.
My mum’s an alcoholic, and I think I have a pretty good idea how she became one. And I’m pretty aware that I was at a crossroads where one sunny path could have led there as well, in many years.
The difference between me and her is that I did not take my issues as a moral failure, that I had learned (thank you, Horde!) that getting help doesn’t mean I’m weak. So, to stay in that picture, other people had cleared the other path of the debris and hung up some lights.
Stigmatizing mental health issues and alcoholism as moral failures makes it harder and harder for people to get help. Blaming them for the bad things that happen to them when they’re ill is just disgusting.
*this can be done independently
Beatricesays
Beatrice, if only my lady brains could have worked that out myself. Gosh I feel so fuzzy and pink. Thank you for helping out!
No problem, but I promise I didn’t really have an original idea of my own. I was completely under the influence of wise men over at Vox Day’s site.
Imagine coming to any sort of conclusion by myself. My poor little lady brain would probably explode in a rain of sparkly glitters.
Shall we paint each other’s nails pink now?
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
Ooooo, PINK!
I’m sure you understand when I say, sqeeeee! No fucking way.
Louissays
Can you paint my eyelids shut so I never see Vox Day’s site or contributions again?
That individual causes me to have severely unpleasant thoughts that involve his testicles, my size 13 steel toe capped boot clad feet and a re-enactment of the particularly stampy bits of a River Dance and Stomp mash up.
I can just, just mind you, maintain pacifism in the face of stupidity and/or being cut up in traffic. I doubt the spliced and drugged progeny of Gandhi, MLK, and the Dalai Lama could manage a lick of pacifism when encountering Vox Day.
Fuck, I’m going to have to go to the calming booth again aren’t I?
{Claps hands}
Maidens! My brow furrows, I need soothing. Call Miguel and tell him to prepare one of the Master’s Special Cocktails. And bring the unguents, this is a two hour temple rub minimum. Hold my calls, scrub my balls and generally attend to my needs lest my spleen be split in twain and cause a wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout the land.
It’s nice enough of Vox Day to give himself a sufficiently signifying name ala a Star Trek villain. I suggest we start showing him the proper respect and refer to him as Gull Day; that way nerds can snicker at him and non nerds can imagine he’s a seagull, which is rather fitting because he makes a lot of noise and spreads shit everywhere he perches.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Deathsays
*Silently hands Louis her Tonker Stomper™ Spike heels.*
It’s better this way.
thepintsays
For further amusement, I highly recommend the emotional posturing in which various Pharyngulans are engaging as they attempt to demonstrate which one of them is the anti-rapiest of all.
Because hating the fact that people get raped and that our culture makes rape that much more traumatic by throwing up barriers to having rapists prosecuted and victims cared for is “emotional posturing.” Because the harm caused by rape and rape culture isn’t something to be upset about.
Dear Vox Day: You are miserable excuse for a human being. Go fuck yourself with a rotting porcupine, twice. And then twice more for good measure.
And I’ll just repeat this once more:
SPECIFIC examples of “reasonable” things that could be done by an individual to reduce her (or his) chance of being raped.
EVIDENCE that they work, and QUANTIFICATION of HOW WELL they work, how MUCH they reduce the chance of being raped.
DETAILS of exactly what needs to be done.
Then, and only then, it is legitimate to talk about it. Then we can discuss whether or not this SPECIFIC DETAILS of what is done is reasonable, or practical, for people in general to follow. Then we can discuss if it is fair or reasonable to expect people in general to do this. Then and only then can we discuss whether to degree that it is effective the statistical number of how much it reduces the chance of being raped (preferably with standard deviations) is worth the effort/cost of what implementing that precaution entails.
THAT would be a useful, non-victim blaming discussion of “reasonable” avoidance.
yeah, i’m backing away from teh keyboard for a while…been totally obsessing with this shit– never really thought about it until yesterday how much bullshit that victim blaming people say applies to child abusers — or even how they don’t realize they are saying the same fucking things child abusers say.
/************ TRIGGER ****************/
“you don’t like that? then hit me! fucking hit me and I’ll stop”!! yeah, k, I’m gonna soak up some sun now. ya’ll continue kickign people in the ass.
@millss99 #498
Nope. Walk that back, and do it immediately. Wishing rape on the perpetrators of rape might feel like just desserts. It might make the original crime seem less horrible. But, and please read this slowly and more than once so that you understand it, rape culture is not solved by MORE rape. Encouraging rape as punishment PERPETUATES rape culture. YOU believing that’s appropriate perpetuates rape culture.
Y o u u t t e r p a t h e t h i c f u c k i n g e x c u s e f o r a h u m a n b e e i n g
Page 3 of comments
All recreating the cartoon.
I hate you. I realy really do.
I would like to state my admiration for those commenters who have bared their souls in order to better convey why it is that the ‘take precautions’ position is so harmful.
I cannot imagine the sheer amount of courage it must take to discuss your experience of rape openly in a forum like this.
While I cannot begin to imagine what you have been through, for whatever it is worth, you have my most sincere sympathies.
Like I said. You are rooting for team rapist. As long as it’s in the time and place that fits Da Rulez.
Not appropriate.
No, THIS makes you a crap excuse for a human being. Nobody DESERVES to be raped – not for dressing slutty, not for being born into the wrong family, and not even for being a shitty cruel violent rotten excuse for a human being. NOBODY.
Jesus fuck, no. It’s not okay to wish rape on someone! Even if they did bad things! That’s part of a culture that approves of rape! It says that in certain circumstances, (person raped someone, person did something bad, person didn’t adequately protect themselves, person did/didn’t XYZ) rape is okay. RAPE IS NEVER OKAY! NEVER! EVER! NO EXCEPTIONS AT ALL!
Christ on a pogostick.
JUST NO.
Really?
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/06/15/heres-the-situation/comment-page-1/#comment-365253
Ahem:
“I think I should be able to walk around in any part of town at night alone waving cash and jewelry around. Anybody who suggests otherwise is contributing to mugging culture and blaming the victim.”
That is you. Making them equivalent actions.
So now, not only are you an idiot, you are also a proven liar. Thank you for playing. Here is your decayed porcupine. Ya’ll don’t come back now, ya hear?
Ooh, look, here is you doing it again:
freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/15/heres-the-situation/comment-page-1/#comment-365303
let’s say my 6 year old goes to school everyday and leaves his lunch money on his desk in plain view. After he comes in from recess his money is gone – every day. Every day he comes home and cries because he lost his lunch money. I have been trying to prevent blaming him so I haven’t suggested he keep it hidden. However finally in order to prevent this from happening in the future I tell him to keep his money hidden in his pocket or wherever.
By doing so I’m I contributing to “lunch money stealing culture”. I am saying he is at fault? Am I saying that the person who stole it is not 100% at fault?
See, this is you equating leaving money unattended on a desk with existing while female. WHY do you think they are equivalent actions?
Shorter Mills
“Rape is always wrong, except when it’s funny. gigitygigitygoo”
No one deserves to be raped, not even a rapist.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Quite frankly, unapologetic rape apologists/fantasists like mullsy are far more dangerous and worrisome than an actual convicted rapist. At least with the convicted rapist, you know who it is, and that person, by lieu of being convicted, is hopefully incarcerated and/or monitored.
But with creatures like mullsy, you don’t know who he is, or where he is, or what he looks like, and when and how whatever restraints he puts on himself can be snapped, and he goes off.
A nuclear missile that is well guarded and maintained, and whose location you know is less dangerous than a hand grenade hidden in an open field.
Do you really think that suggesting rape as an appropriate punishment isn’t just further feeding into the rape culture?
Ok, I somewhat recovered from the pure shock of the unabashed rape apology now – so let’s turn to another part of the apologists “arguments”.
I seriously want a list of names here – I don’t see any except the trolls, and I trust my reading comprehension far more than yours apologist.
I don’t think the solution to rape culture is more rape.
Nobody deserves to be torn apart by savage dogs either, but I admit that if someone told me it happened to a person like Michael Vicks, I fully admit my first reaction would not be sympathy.
I don’t like that part of me. I’m working on it, but it is still there. It is the number one reason I declined to go into the field of law enforcement.
Mills just advocated rape as a means of punishment and behavior control.
Holy shit. He’s a rape advocate!
Amphiox in regards 494, that’s fair on the part of the private discussion with someone you know.
The part I disagree with is that for example people shouldn’t tell young women they should avoid certain situations at a party for example or what they should do if they find themselves in those situations and so on.
Now if someone wants to make an argument that those aren’t effective or that they cause greater harm than the help, then that is a legitimate position to take and argue. I just don’t agree with that at this point.
I also think that emphasis on you should say such and such because it is blaming the victim can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we should attempt to separate those issues and I believe they can be separated and by doing so we can lessen the effect they have on people. By constantly saying they do enhances the very effect that they do. I might be wrong about that, but that is where I stand right now.
Well, congratulations on removing all doubts that you are indeed a crap excuse for a human being and a rape apologist. Now please fuck off.
Go die in a fire made out of smaller angrier fires
Yeah cause you’re such a fucking expert. Hey no offense, but convincing you is not a reasonable standard
Hey Mills, did you know also that women discussing the harassment they faced at skeptic and atheist conferences are the reason for the drop in women attending conferences? They scare women away with their self-fulfilling prophesies of horror.
Truefax, bra. Same
shitargument, different day.So to recap Mills knows what he says is hurting people, is told BY people it is, but refuses to stop because he’s not convinced he’s wrong.
Unfortunately in the real world, rather than the Platonic ponies and unicorns world of your imagination, they are not separated. When people come out with this stuff in public it looks like victim-blaming and by gosh many victims take it as victim-blaming.
You seem to be the only one here who does not. I rather think you are deluding yourself.
shorter Mill
“I don’t give a shit, some people should be raped, here’s my cock ignore the spit on it it’s just my mums, oogie boogie woo!”
@millss99 #19
No, they CANNOT be separated. Not in the way you want them to be. These “rape prevention tips” are nothing but re-statements of things that women are already told, and precautions that they already take. You can’t expect women to act differently than they are socialized to do ALL THE TIME in the specific circumstance of being under threat of rape. You probably missed this when I linked before, but I really think you should read it:
http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/another-post-about-rape-3/
Again, possible TRIGGER warning for things discussed in the link.
You know we should be able to talk about the greed of the Jews without promoting antisemitism
He even admitted that was a “legitimate position to take and argue.” Gee, thanks for the stamp of approval.
millssg99, nobody gives a fuck where you stand right now. You are not welcome here. Leave.
OK, I will walk that one back. I can see it was not appropriate and it offended people and I apologize for that. I’m sorry. Everything everyone said about that is accepted.
This comes from my punishment and restitution philosophy, that whatever you inflict on somebody else you deserve in return. You can see that in you steal $100 and you then have to pay it back and lose $100 of your own. That’s obviously easier to accept in monetary crimes. It’s easy to hold in theory but obviously is not so simple in practice.
I also think the victims desires for appropriate punishment within certain guidelines should carry heavy weight. You have to take the order of society into account, but I think victims rights are ignored to a inexcusable degree in our criminal justice system.
I assure you. you would not do well under such a world
*Mills pokes someone in a place that’s already sore due to repeated past pokings and other trauma to the spot. He may or may not be poking with enough force to cause actual pain in even a person whose spot is NOT already sore*
Person: Ouch, that hurts. Don’t do that.
MILLS: What do you mean it hurts? It can’t hurt? Other people get poked all the time and it doesn’t hurt them!
Person: It’s hurting me here and now because that spot is already sore from previous pokings by previous assholes.
MILLS: I think you’re making this into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you keep saying it hurts when people poke you, soon enough this idea will exist that it hurts to poke people and that it’s okay to say so!
Person: Yeah, because why the fuck are you poking people in any case?
MILLS: God damn it, why can’t you separate the fucking issue of poking from the issue of people complaining about poking?
FIN.
So, the rape apologist thinks that the mere fact that he thinks something legitimizes him spouting hurtful and harmful nonsense after he’s been told by every reasonable participant in the conversation that he’s spouting hurtful and harmful nonsense. Colour me surprised. Will the next thing be that we are hurting his freedom of expression and legal rights by telling him that he is hurting people?
(This is by the way not in any shape or form meant to encourage the apologist to try to substantiate his “thoughts” since I seriously think he’s incapable of meaningful human interaction and just want him to get the fuck away*)
(*No, that’s not really want I want to. What I want to do is to be able to tell every single human being he knows what he is, and that they better get the fuck away from him as soon as humanly possible – but that option isn’t open to me, so I would settle for him to go away)
Oh look everyone, Mills has given us conclusive evidence that he advocates rape, with a side order of racism.
I look forward to his forthcoming evisceration and banning.
……
Mills
Fuck you! You are a fucking festering cancer of putrescent fucking pus, and you should shove this rusty porcupine in the orifice of choice and fuck right off you Fucking asshole
I’m a longtime lurker making my first comment now, because these comments about rape prevention “tips” have finally pushed me into the kind of anger that can only be let out by speaking.
I mean, this is pretty basic logic, that if you tell women that not doing X will stop them from being raped, you’re telling them that by doing X they’re in some way causing people to rape them and ascribing them with a false sense of agency. And of course the dingleberry on top of that shit sundae is the fact that X usually stands for everyday activities like walking outside and having a drink that people would NEVER consider asking men to give up because Jesus Christ, those are just normal things a person does to enjoy life in a free society.
Also, these “tips” are at best completely useless tautologies. Saying “If you hadn’t been out jogging on that path that night, that dude wouldn’t have raped you” is like saying “If you hadn’t been standing in that exact spot on the sidewalk at that exact moment in time, that drunk driver would never have hit you when they crashed.” Well, obviously, but that’s not the reason someone got hurt, and the solution is definitely not to advise people to stop using sidewalks, you stupid assholes.
I was raped in my apartment by a friend. I wonder what brilliant tips these clowns will come up with for me so I won’t be attacked next time. Should I not have friends? Never let anyone inside my home? Give up on having any kind of life whatsoever? Because that seems to be the theme with these tips so far.
Mills,
Why though, do you think existing while female and leaving money unattended on a table are comparable actions?
Biblical principles like ‘an eye for an eye’ do not a good system of justice make.
So to punish say a torturer we torture them? And to punish genocide we commit genocide?
Why is it not surprising that your ethical philosophy is grotesquely simple minded.
That’s not a philosophy, philosophy implies thought, that’s just thugishness.
Oh btw if you missed the obvious problems
a) at minor infraction level there’s no deterrent as it’s catch and release, no harm no foul, punishments of just returning items when caught
b) at major levels it’s committing unacceptable crimes to teach people those crimes are wrong
On close up resolution it’s laughably pathetic and in the big picture it’s monstrous. good job asshole you managed to choose a philosophy that can only hurt people and provides no protection.
Yeah, like when the victim is told that the case against her rapist is too weak because she obviously wasn’t taking all the reasonable precautions that would have prevented her from being raped.
But the important thing is that no one forgets that the way to fight rape is to teach women how to take reasonable precautions. They are rape-erasing magic!
HOW CAN YOU SEPARATE THEM!? They are intrinsically linked, you daft, stupid motherfucker, and multiple FUCKING RAPE VICTIMS have told you how. By asserting that all women should take vague, impossible-to-always-follow precautions that make very little difference in the grand scheme of things, you are implicitly making the statement that if they don’t do those things, and they get raped, they are at fault for no following the precautions. Or even that if they did follow the precautions, but got raped anyway, they didn’t take enough precautions! Because making it acceptable to say “take these precautions to not get raped” puts the onus on women to somehow avoid rape.
You can WISH that you could separate the two, but you won’t ever be fucking able to because it’s goddamn impossible. Now, like someone said earlier, it might be okay to offer this advise to someone you know, someone you’re close to, in person, in certain circumstances. Sometimes. I can’t think of any situation personally, but it could happen. But a blanket statement of “women should take precautions to not get raped: don’t wear revealing clothing, don’t go out at night or in alleys, especially in bad neighbourhoods, etc” in a public forum or to people you don’t know? It’s not fucking acceptable.
This isn’t even comparable to your stupid fucking lunch-money analogy. Leaving your lunch-money sitting in plain view of dozens of people is not comparable to “being a woman at night” or “wearing clothing that makes you attractive”. God damnit you’re such an insensitive, insufferable, fucking colostomy bag, I can only echo Ing’s earlier statement about dying and fire and smaller angrier fires at this point.
Echoing WithinThisMind’s question with reference to her quotes in 10 and 11 here (in other words 1010 and 1011 overall) where she demonstrates exactly how you do do this, your protests notwithstanding.
Well, Mills?
You also haven’t yet answered Cipher’s question that I so carefully re-posted. Is it because you can’t because you know your argument is actually bankrupt or do you just need me to post it again? Inquiring minds and all that.
WithinTheMind in regards to 10 an 11. I am not making them equivalent. I explained exactly what I was doing in my response of 498. It’s why people use analogies. It’s not equating them. You can claim I did but I did not and it is you who are not listening. You asked the question and I tried to answer it and you just ignored my response and repeated it.
Hey didn’t Straus Khan’s victim have DNA and forensics showing force and linking to him? But that still wasn’t enough because she didn’t take the right precautions of being white!
And now he’s suspected of gang rape IIRC.
Lex Talion and victim-driven criminal justice…
The two absolute ass-ends of human legal history – why am I not surprised the apologist favour those..?
I was going to say we need Walton here, but frankly what we need is this asshole out of here.
Oh wait.
(FTFM)
Millss, I have news for you. I have never *once* wanted to rape the person who raped me. I don’t want to rape anyone else, ever. I don’t even want *my rapist* to get raped. Rape is not a freaking $100 bill that can buy a couple weeks’ worth of groceries or a car repair. Rape is WORTHLESS to me; it’s contemptible, it’s horrific, and I don’t want any of that shit in my world.
Where the fuck do you get off presenting someone else’s rape to me as if it’s a gift?
> In the second case I think an appropriate punishment would be the rapist suffering exactly the same thing by a couple of big ugly Bubba’s and then thrown into the clinker.
And now you are literally advocating rape.
@Pteryxx
I’m reminded of the Simpsons where Mr Burns tried to be nice, and as a gift to Lisa wound up harvesting whale to grind them into paste. he expected her to be happy because he wasn’t wasting anything and was recycling and it was all natural.
PZ, can I kidly request an orbital banhammer strike on mills? He is obtuse to the 179th degree.
Gah, stupid reddit habits.
No one agrees with you, mills. No one. There is no ‘silent majority’ who are nodding along with your every word. We all think you’re a fucking disgrace. Congratulations, you have finally achieved what was thought unpossible – herding the Horde. Now learn or fuck off.
…or even ‘kindly’. Damn blunt typing fingers.
Yes, it is.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy?s=t
analogy
[uh-nal-uh-jee] Origin
a·nal·o·gy
[uh-nal-uh-jee] Show IPA
noun, plural a·nal·o·gies.
1.
a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.
2.
similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your problem and mine.
You are saying that existing while female and leaving money unguarded on a table are similar and comparable actions.
com·pa·ra·ble
[kom-per-uh-buhl or, sometimes, kuhm-pair-] Show IPA
adjective
1.
capable of being compared; having features in common with something else to permit or suggest comparison: He considered the Roman and British empires to be comparable.
2.
worthy of comparison: shops comparable to those on Fifth Avenue.
Why do you feel existing while female and leaving money unguarded on a table are similar and/or comparable actions? What is similar and/or comparable about them?
***trigger warning****
Why are you comparing casually pocketing some unguarded money with forcibly violating a woman as she screams ‘no’ and fights back? How are those two situations remotely similar?
How does ‘existing while female’ have a comparable level of ‘carelessness’ as ‘leaving money unguarded on a public table’?
@millss99
If you believe that rape is acceptable due to the character of the victim, you are a rape apologist. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if that victim is also a rapist. That doesn’t lessen the original crime in any way. As others have said, it PERPETUATES the rape culture by reinforcing the idea that rape is acceptable in some cases. And if it’s acceptable in some cases, it’s not a leap to make it “acceptable” in other cases. No line can be drawn that makes THIS rape okay, and THAT rape not-okay. Punishing a rapist with rape is not so different than punishing a victim who wasn’t following “common sense rape prevention tips”. Blaming the victim cannot be separated from putting the onus on potential victims to “prevent rape from happening to them.” Rape doesn’t “happen” to people. Someone CHOOSES to rape them.
I’d also like an answer to this as well:
Please state for the record what actions a woman could take that would provoke you personally into sexually violating her against her will.
After all, if her actions are a factor, it should be an easy enough question for you to answer, right?
If SGBM or anyone knowing psyche research is here, has anything been done on the actual likelyhood of normal people to take things left unattended? Like leaving a lap top abandoned in a public place and seeing how many people ignore it, how many try to take it and how many turn it into a reference desk?
Because I personally have been robbed via the “unattended for a minute” method but it turned out to be someone who was actively robbing people and looking for opportunities. Every other time I’ve forgotten something important someplace it’s either left alone, turned into the nearest authority or put to the side.
How silly! The victim (who has been raped, robbed, or whatever) is not responsible for the criminal actions of another. That applies whether or not the victim tried to prevent the crime.
Although I’ll accept that the majority of crimes can’t be prevented by ‘reasonable precautions,’ you’d need to prove that’s the case for 100% of crimes to have a point worth discussing.
If the precautions I choose change the odds even mildly in my favor, I’m better off.
My hypothesis is that people will pocket something of small enough value that they presume no one would notice it or is unlikely to come looking for and either leave alone or turn in something sufficiently valuable. I also suspect you’ll see more honesty if there’s a Lost and Found nearby to give the primer and reminder to be honest.
Cause I work at a uni and I find lost electronics all the time. I never have been tempted or felt justified in keeping someone’s cellphone.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.
I can’t get to them all at the same or even any at the same time.
Absolutely not and in fact I answered that before it was even asked. I said people can’t be bolted into their room and they have to live. I also said they I tend toward the non-precaution end of the continuum on safety vs. living. That is what I believe.
However there is a place between being bolted behind steel doors your whole life and complete disregard of reasonable precautions. One that everyone has to make for themselves. That doesn’t mean you can’t make suggestions to other people about where that line might reasonably lie.
I accept that within broad ranges parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit. However that doesn’t mean I think that “stranger danger” hysteria and preventing kids from being kids and learning responsibility is the right approach. I say that publicly as my opinion. It’s not the way I raised my daughter. However I didn’t say do whatever you want and don’t ever take reasonable precautions for you safety because the odds of anything happening are so low you can ignore it.
Ah ok. Tell you what. Come back in 80 years or so when you’re on your death bed and we’ll see if you’ve ever been raped. Then we’ll know if you did the right things or not.
jenny6833a #268
If everyone who has read this comic and/or any of the comments to the post goes out into the world determined to point out victim-blaming as wrong wherever they see it happening, that will help.
If everyone, particularly the men (because other men don’t seem to want to listen to women on the subject), treats with contempt every person they encounter who makes a rape joke or suggests in any context whatever that rape is appropriate, that will help.
If people just keep asking for a plan, that probably won’t help. So what are you going to do?
amaclean #359
Many people have told you, plainly and bravely, about the horrible things that were done to them, and you have the ability to stay detached enough to say ‘this teh internetz’ instead of attempting to understand your fellow human beings who are trying to communicate with you.
I started out with some sympathy for the fact that you were not prepared for or able to cope with the response you received here, but from now on I see no reason to let it bother me.
And meanwhile, there’s millssg99 who appears to think it is appropriate to use rape as a punishment (see #498) Although, possibly there is hope, millssg99 does appear to have recognised the complete outrageousness of that position.
I’m so glad the regular commenters here are fierce and strong. You have to be, and you are *brilliant*.
Like a burka. or a golden star
Wait wait wait. You honestly think stranger danger is hysteria…and yet you still go on about these precautions? You honestly think women are less responsible and need more protection than children?
No, you’d need to. You’re the one making the claim. You have been provided with ample reading material as to why REASONABLE PRECAUTIONZ!!11! are fallacious, useless and often actively harmful to the victim. Fuck, it’s like a broken record.
Mills, why did you regard this as a game before?
also maybe I’m paranoid ( I KNOW YOUR ALL THINKING I AM!!!!!) but g99 is a lot like 999
millssg99: you keep going around and around, not really listening to what people tell you…and the Bubba rape suggestion and your barbaric “punishment and restitution philosophy” is simply way over the line, marking you as a simplistic cretin. You’re out. Don’t post in this thread anymore, under pain of the banhammer.
Honestly, your “restitution philosophy” has me hoping you’ll violate these terms, because I’m not enthusiastic about having you around anywhere.
Delurking after years of reading in order to make sure my vote is counted. I, too, think you’re a fucking disgrace mills.
Thank you to the horde for having the strength to keep battling these idiots.
This whole thing really hits home for me, particularly because, out of many of my friends who were victims of rape (I know an unfortunate number, but that’s not surprising, giving the statistics of women who are raped (ONE IN FOUR FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WHY?)), the vast majority were raped by members of their family, or people who were meant to take care of them. Only one of my friends, out of the multiple rape victims I know, has had an incident of stranger rape. She followed all the precautions people trot out.
She was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, she was walking down the street in the middle of the day in a fairly neighbourhood. She was dragged into an alley by a guy who shoved her down and started striping and hitting her. It was stopped. She fought back and cried out for help. She got fucking shot in the abdomen by her would-be rapist. And her parents blamed her for the incident, and she blamed herself for it, even though SHE DID NOTHING WRONG. That’s what this fucking rape culture does. That’s what your fucking “take precautions” fucking nonsense does, millss. Fuck you.
Fuck YOU. I hate you and people like you. You’re as good as a rapist yourself you scum-sucking sack of shit, FUCK OFF.
By advocating rape our other violence against others, you are doing exactly what violent criminals do. You are making a judgment about that person’s status as a human being. You’re just like a judge who throws out a rape case because the victim was, in his view, trash for, say, having a long sexual history. You’re only quibbling about the factors that make sometime trash.
I’m also confused about this staff of sadists the state should employ to carry out your plan of criminal enterprise.
You’re really no different than that guy who said that lesbians should be raped straight.
PZ Myers. I guess the “not allowed” to disagree from last night is now an actually physical reality. As you wish.
[You know, I wish these morons would realize that I don’t need them to give me a pissy, stupid reply. Just shut up and go away. –pzm]
Cleanup on post #69 – I can almost feel the air getting fresher.
You had your run, arsehole. Too bad it was on a hamster wheel.
Well, looks like I got my wish.
Spare us the martyr act. I have no sympathy for persistent trolls.
My vision is begging to turn all red and weird whenever I read the words “reasonable precautions”.
Strange, that.
—–
You know, I’m quite often not taking these reasonable precautions. I don’t have anyone to walk me home so if I go out with a friend in the evening, I’ll be taking at least a short walk by myself, in the dark, empty streets.
By not taking reasonable precautions, like not going to the movies or for drinks (yes, there might even be alcohol involved) in the evening, am I inviting rapists? I’m obviously not following the “rape avoiding” rules, so would any possible assault be my own fault?
Not if you separate the two, Beatrice. It’s all about the separation!1!
Jenny,
We all have weaknesses which we try to recognize. I’m hopeless at playing racket sports for instance. Really just so bad at it. So I’m going to recognize that I’ll never beat someone like Serena Williams, or even my cousin. Sure, I’ll play with my cousin, and I’ll get better at playing as a result, but she will always be better than me because she is more talented.
I’m guessing you weren’t at the top of your class in school. I’m guessing that despite the many talents and abilities you do possess, you were never marked for being especially intelligent among your peers. Your inability to understand the concepts discussed in this thread are evidence of this.
You’re outclassed intellectually here. You’re never going to get the upper hand. You might grow if you realized that and listen to what smarter people are saying. I’ll never be Stephen Hawkings, but I can learn something from him if I accept that he has a grasp of things I never will and let myself struggle to understand just a small part of what he does.
No mention of the first amendment? The apologist disappoints me…
No you’re not. If the precautions rob you of many things in life, and still just lowers the odds marginally or not at all (and we’ve been over why ad nauseam) you’re worse off.
You’re even worse off when the general expectation that all “good girls” should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape again.
Point of order: intelligent people absolutely can be clueless and obstinate, especially in matters of privilege. It doesn’t require brains, just more empathy than ego. That’s an unfair line of argument to take, and disturbing to some of us who were subjected to performance-based shaming in school.
You’re being silly. Again.
I don’t have to prove that the precautions I choose to take are effective. I need only state that I’m more confident, more at ease, and happier for having taken them.
My judgment — and only I can make it — is that the precautions I choose to take do move the odds in my favor. I then get on with life without worrying about that which I cannot prevent.
None of that is in any way related to the blame game you and so many others are obsessed with.
Whether or not I take precautions, I am not to blame for the criminal actions of others.
Jenny
The horde has explained to you over and over that unless your precautions consist of;
Not having any family.
Not having any friends.
Never dating or going out in public.
etc….
They are statistically unlikely to make you safer from rape.
Repeating the myth that women should
police every facet of their livestake safety precautions reinforces the basic tenet of rape culture. You are reinforcing the despicable meme that women should expect to be raped in certain situations.This also has the effect that should you be raped by an acquaintance (this is the most likely scenario statistically speaking) you will not have the ability to recognize it as rape because it has zero resemblance to the unlikely scenario of stranger rape that your precautions are supposed to prevent.
@ mills
Funny you should say that.
In my country, a few years ago, we had the case of this guy in jail for anger issues who decided to punish his jailmate, who was a pedophile. So he raped him. And failed to understand why everybody was so angry at him; after all, this pervert “dserved it”.
A few months later, this “Punisher” walks out of jail (our prisons are full, so every months some criminals get lucky). He start dating a woman. And on their first evening, he raped her and killed her.
“Punishing” his cellmate opened a door. Yeah, approving of jail rape is going to do wonder on rape issues.
And these clueless idiots wonder why we’re telling them that they’re living in a bubble.
Apologies for offense. I don’t think there us anything wrong with being less appt in certain areas, and I think if we were more comfortable – and less shamed as you say – about it, we would all do a lot better.
Jenny really doesn’t seem to understand what we’re saying, and she’s not alone, although her misreadings of posts stands out. You’re right that obstinance is its own barrier, but just because I literally don’t understand half of what Hawkings is talking about doesn’t mean that I should walk around pretending I have all puff his capacity and therefore should argue with him about some detail when he’s really talking about the universe.
There’s no shame in not being brilliant in all things, but we should strive to recognize when we’re in the company of someone better equipped. That’s not about insults or bad grades, it’s about or own desire to learn as much as w can for or own sakes.
But as you say, there’s no way to
If your purpose is to recommend these precautions to others, then YES YOU DO.
If your purpose is NOT to recommend them to others, then YOU DON’T NEED TO TALK ABOUT THEM.
So WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THEM?
Good for you. Go and do it, in private.
Again, WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THEM HERE?
OK I’m confused not for the first time though. I can understand I guess why the comments have to switch pages or files or what ever it is but why does the numbering system have to start with one all over again without a page number I have no idea where I am, it might as well be random. Not that is new or different.
I hate everything about this subject! I hate the fact that rape exists in the human. I hate that sexual abuse is learned by being abused, not that rape is always about sex I understand but often about power. I hate it that in many situations everyone needs to take all kinds of measures to be safe from our fellow humans and not just the leopard.
But here I am in this world today glad it is not 16th century, I do not want to have to go around armed and ready to fight all the fucking time. This subject is hard to talk about without getting emotional.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out what is safe to say on this subject but I can’t. That is to bad.
uncle frogy
seperate that from shame. Of course, we tell her that she-s of bad character for not getting it, which I don’t think is true at all.
Pitiful, self-righteous fool.
You can still post on another thread and still disagree. Any other thread. You haven’t even been quarantined to the TZT yet. Though I suspect at the rate you’re going, you soon will be.
Pathetic.
And if your purpose is the argue that talking about these precautions is a valid and appropriate strategy that is more helpful than harmful in the context of this subject, then YES YOU DO.
The “I don’t have to prove” reply to a request for evidence is the indelible mark of someone who does not intend to engage in discussion in an honest fashion.
That’s a totally incoherent response that in no way even attempts to deal with my remarks.
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I’ve had to say.
Clearly you can’t, or you would.
Fucking hell. What Ing is trying to get through to you, what we’re all trying to get through to you, is that you cannot ‘improve the odds’ on not getting raped because rape happens everywhere and is carried out by ‘normal-looking’ people. Even sealing yourself up in your Ivory Tower is no protection if your partner or your roommate turns out to be deaf to ‘no’. Fuck’s sake.
I’m not saying you’re a ‘bad person’, or ‘of bad character’. I’m saying you’re an idiot, and possibly wilfully obtuse, and after all these posts explaining to you why you are wrong you still continue to bleat, very very possibly posting in bloody bad faith.
Ugh, blockquote fail. But nevermind.
To everyone who shared their experiences, I am awed. I come here for things like that. The courage, and also, the eloquence.
That is a whole ‘nother pair of fish than recommending them to others as a part of the “Avoid rape – getting you primed for self-blaming if you get yourself raped anyway” pack.
You are not just doing whatever makes you feel safer, you are advertising it as good and working advice. Which it is not, as people have been explaining for hundreds of comments.
Severe trigger warning for stories from rape survivors.
Dancing In The Darkness
Fuck off and read if you can stomach more than one. Look at all the different situations. Look at the sheer range of stories, places, people, times, ages – none of these criminals had ‘RAPIST’ tattooed on their foreheads. Tell us all how these survivors could have ‘improved their odds’, when the only continual fucking qualifying factor in a rape is the presence of a rapist
That which you’ve said that is worth refuting has already been, long ago.
The rest is incoherent gibberish.
An argument that is incoherently expressed neither requires nor deserves a reasoned refutation. It need only be dismissed.
I, on the other hand, am.
Someone who posts in bad faith is, by my definition, someone of bad character.
In other words, it’s all about Jenny.
^ +1
Then why do you feel the need to pathetically reassure yourself? Cause that’s all you could possibly be doing by posting your tips here.
That was meant for 102, but it works here too.
Amphiox,
I really like your comments on this thread.
[meta] I learned the other day that “ad nauseam” really is a form of fallacious argument: someone just keeps repeating themselves over and over without substantially engaging the topic until all their opponents are too disgusted to continue, and thereby declares victory.
millssg99, please state what YOU think people here are mad at you for. Where do you think their anger comes from? Do you even understand that?
I ♥ you, Sili.
@Pterryx #54 (previous page)
^ This. I was raped by two separate assholes on several occasions each by the time I was six. And I’ll second the chorus of people asking what precautions we missed. Should I have not lived in a house with an exchange student? Should I have not had parents who sent me to daycare? Please, tell me what I could have missed when I was two and three. Tell me what I missed when I was five and six.
Tell me how I could have avoided being sexually assaulted (not raped, assaulted – though from experience, there’s not much difference in the emotional impact) on the school bus at eight. Tell me how I could have avoided any of the so-many-I’ve-lost-count times I’ve been groped in public areas, in broad daylight, by complete strangers, in the middle of a crowd.
Because I spent all of my formative years being told about all these “precautions” and “tricks” and “tips” and… guess what?
Not a fucking one of them would have ‘prevented’ the assaults I’ve experienced. Not even being a shut-in, because the assaults from ages 5-6 happened in my home.
But by all means, keep telling me how I can avoid sexual assault if I just follow your advice. And keep telling me you’re totes not blaming the victim, you’re just sayin’ that if they took all of the dozens of often-contradictory bits of advice we get dispensed at once, it wouldn’t have happened.
Go to hell.
You appear to be determined to substitute your judgment for mine in matters affecting me. Sorry, but I don’t accept your right to do that.
Are you really suggesting that I make no effort to protect myself?
How would leaving myself totally at the mercy of criminals change what you (but not I) call “the general expectation that all ‘good girls’ should do this leads to rapists being acquitted, free to rape. again”?
You and a lot of others are full of complaints about how things are, but totally silent as to how to solve the problems that you claim exist.
Do you have a plan? If so, what is it?
Or do you just want to bewail, bewail, bewail?
Jenny (the term used to describe a female ass or donkey)
Howzaboutcha try refuting what I had to say at #85?
Clearly you can’t, or you would.
Why look. jenny’s invented the StrawGnumann.
OK, I take it back. You’re a bad person. In fact, you’re a shitstain on humanity.
This whole thread has been riddled with solutions. Stop laughing at rape jokes. Teach people from a very young age about consent and autonomy and bodily respect. Remove the harmful trope of REASONABLE PRECAUTIONZ!!1! that creates and propagates a blame culture around the victim. Report people in your social circle who brag about their latest conquest being ‘out of it’. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk about it so that people realise their harmful fucking enculturation (that’s YOU, cupcake, YOU) is part of the entire fucking avalanche of a problem.
But as long as you ‘feel safe’ while chanting your mantras and fingering your prayer beads and waving your magic ribbons in the air (all your PRECAUTIONZZ!!1!) ultimately boil down to this magical thinking – why are you on this site, again?), it’s all good.
Fuckface.
What ischemgeek wrote about school buses just jogged my memory; I’ve never been sexually assaulted, but the closest I got was being grabbed on the ass by one of the soccer jocks in high school. What terribly stupid thing was I doing to not properly prevent it from happening? I was sitting at my desk in class. The teacher stepped out for a minute, he was sitting behind me, and all of a sudden I felt his hand sliding between me and the chair as he and his buddies guffawed about it.
And then there was the time that I was about 14, and at home, and answered the phone to hear a guy saying he was doing a phone survey of teenagers and pop culture, and I kept answering his questions until they turned uncomfortable but I kept answering like the polite girl I was supposed to be and then somehow the questions were about the kinds of clothes I wore and then suddenly he asked how much pubic hair I had and if I would take my clothes off right now and I frantically hung up scared and felt dirty and like crap for days for being stupid enough to be at home and answer the phone and believe that someone was doing a phone survey just like people do all the time and somehow it was my fault for not realizing what he was doing right at the beginning.
I still feel squicked out by those experiences, and they are nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a footnote, compared to what people everywhere, people here, have gone through. And those were things that happened regardless of any precautions anyone could take, period. Precautions don’t protect you from harassment.
Bloody fucking hell, you think you are giving some great solutions? Your solution is “Vigilance!!!” which is nice and all, except that it doesn’t prevent rape from happening, as it’s been explained numerous times in the last 1000+ comments.
Also, people are working on solving the problem. Putting the onus of stopping rape on the rapist instead of the victim is one of the steps. And more has been mentioned and explained, but you are obviously too busy admiring your own intelligence to read what people have written.
Jenny, you’re not worth arguing with. As someone else said, if you wanna take precautions for yourself and that’s all you’re saying, fine, then fuck off and do that. If you want other people to take your precautions too, you’re a presumptuous, victim-blaming moron and you should fuck off. Fucking off is really your only option at this point. Just because you’re able to get people to respond to you who find themselves unable to disengage doesn’t mean they want to talk to you or find you interesting, intelligent, knowledgeable, credible, or anything other than a turd circling the bowl. It means you’re a provoking ignoramus taking advantage of SIWOTI Syndrome.
Just out of curiosity, jenny, what do you call the routine dismissal of victims’ complaints on the grounds of “well what did you expect?” Because this is a real thing that happens incessantly.
Oh, look! Jenny’s not reading the thread! SURPRISE
I’m glad you’re soooooo much happier and feel sooooo much safer because you’re taking Reasonable Precautions that restrict your life and don’t prevent rape, telling other people that they ought to be doing the same thing to prevent themselves being raped, and then blithely shitting on the numerous (with Susannah, Palladium Knight, andreadorkin, and ischemgeek we appear to be at 20) rape and sexual assault survivors who are telling you why it’s harmful to do that. I’m so glad you can “get on with life without worrying about that which [you] cannot prevent.” Must be nice to have that luxury.
Seriously, can we do a Herp-a-Derp boycott on Jenny now? Like anytime she says anything, we all just go HERP-A-DERP!
I am now imagining Alastor Moody yelling “Constant vigilance!”. It’s helping with the anger.
Except that now I’ve remembered that even fucking Harry Potter treats rape jokingly -> Umbridge & centaurs. But nooooo, there is no rape culture. Treating rape as a joke or promoting rape as valid punishment for bad people does nothing for that nonexistent rape culture. No. We’re just imagining things. And not being careful enough with our valuables.
A third page. Stunning.
One thing, because I am not absolutely certain of what gender is represented by each name, although I am reasonably sure that jenny### is a woman.
I am really uncomfortable with men telling women what they should or should not do to make themselves feel safer. Even if you’re a guy who has done lots of research, and knows the odds of stranger rape, acquaintance rape, date rape, etc etc, I still don’t think it is your place to tell a woman that what makes her feel safer is useless.
It is not clear to me whether this is happening here, or close to happening here, at, say, 82 or 85 (on this, the third page). What jenny### does to make herself feel safer is her business.
And I do realize that she is not always talking only in terms of herself, but to the degree she is, it really is all about her, because she is the one running a 1 in 4 chance of sexual assault in her lifetime. She gets to decide how to negotiate that.
That’s all.
Our solution, Jenny, is to RAISE AWARENESS, to keep talking about this issue until, mind by mind by mind by mind, until individuals no longer consider the rape culture acceptable, until people will express social disapproval and ACT when they see such things happening, when the number of men who think being a rapist is accepted and acceptable drops towards zero, when the CULTURE changes, just as cultural approval of dueling, public torture, secondhand smoke and so forth have changed.
And THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING, right now, on this blog, spreading the word as widely as possible, via as many mediums as possible, including, right now, the Internet. Many of us also do this in real life, every single day.
So kindly, STOP GETTING IN THE WAY.
We’re suggesting that you refrain from derailing threads discussing the underlying causes of rape with your goddamn helpful hints that you can’t even begin to show the usefulness of.
Even if they do make you more safe (rather than merely making you feel confident and safe), they merely leave the rapists out there, looking for other victims.
Who, if they do get raped, are then routinely forced to demonstrate that they took enough precautions–which shifts the blame and deters victims from reporting the crime.
You want a plan? The first thing we do is not jump in with supposedly helpful hints every time somebody starts talking about the deeper causes.
The plan starts with education, and if you read all these comments, you’ll notice some people popping in to tell us they learned something.
You’ll also notice that the victims telling their stories here would not have been helped by your “solution,” which seems to be all about keeping you safe. That’s a part of that education.
But people like you keep sticking your noses in, perpetuating the notion that it’s all about “reasonable precautions,” which many here have demonstrated to be an unhelpful myth in many or most cases, and which perpetuate the whole “victim could have prevented this” meme that is in fact a big part of the fucking problem.
And I’ve noticed you’re terribly selective in who you respond to. In fact, it looks like you’re responding to the same comment over and over again. Fortunately you’re mostly just fooling yourself.
Agreed. However, I didn’t need a comic or a bunch of ranting dolts to persuade me to do that. I’ve been doing it for 30 years or more.
I do NOT agree with your assessment of ‘other men.’ Other than that, we agree. I’ve been doing that too for at least 30 years.
And,in the meantime, I’ve been taking what I, in MY judgment, regard as reasonable precautions in behalf of MY OWN safety and urging others to exercise their own judgment as to their own personal safety.
There’s zero relationship between acting in behalf of a long term solution and acting in behalf of short term personal safety.
The two are 100% compatible.
The Umbridge thing genuinely didn’t click with me for a while. I was re-reading a few years ago and suddenly thought… “er…centaurs. Ohshit,” and had to put the book down for a long while.
It’s a genuine puzzle to me as to why it’s there – there’s nothing like that anywhere else in the series – and I can’t ‘give it a pass’ as ‘it’s-just-HP-canon-that-centaurs-aren’t-rape-machines’ because JK damn well did her research on mythical creatures in every other instance.
Holy shit. You actually just said that. YOU actually just said that.
Who, besides you, gives a rat’s ass about what YOU do? Contrary to your belief, this thread is not about YOU and, quite frankly, most of us are tired of hearing about YOU talking about YOU. So why don’t you just shut the fuck up?
HERP-A-DERP! HERP-A-HERP-A-DERPY-DERP! DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERP!
That’s what you sound like with your pointless, mindless, oxygen-sucking blather. Your entire position is “I do what I want and others can do what they want and nobody should be judged”? HURRAH! NOW SHUT UP AND STOP MAKING THIS ABOUT YOU.
@ jenny6833a;
Gnumann is not doing that – xe is pointing out that any ‘precautions’ one might try to take will likely have a statistically insignificant effect in reducing the risk of rape, given that over 70% of rapes are acquaintance rapes against which no precautions can realistically be taken.
Also, Xe is pointing out that, given the fact that there is no way for a person to know what rapists look like (because there are no rules governing the appearance of rapists, as is demonstrated by the concept of Shrodinger’s Rapist), then any precautions taken will either be ineffective or will require a person to sacrifice such a large component of their own lives (like entirely avoiding the society of men, never having a drink while socialising, never going out after dark) that they are worse off, in terms of their quality of life, then if they did not take those precautions, doubly so when you consider that, as demonstrated by the several terrible accounts of rape on this thread, those precautions are unlikely to even work anyway.
No one is suggesting that – they are saying that women are already aware of all these ‘precautions’, that the evidence indicates that most of the precautions suggested by posters such as yourself aren’t actually effective at preventing rape, and that by coming to a public forum and reiterating several times the importance of taking these (as already discussed, largely ineffective) precautions, you are contributing to an environment that shames wthe victims of rape by propagating the idea that the fact that they were raped means that they failed to take necesary precautions, and that as such they are (at least in part) reponsible for what happened to them. This plays into the rape culture, and leads to a society that scrutinises the behaviour of a rape victim more closely, and more judgementally, that that of their rapist.
No one has suggested that you should ‘leave yourself defenceless’ – they are saying that by coming here, to a public forum that you must by now know is frequented by rape survivors, and constantly reiterating the importance of ‘taking precautions’ you are effectively shaming those rape survivors by implying that the reason, at least in part, for their rape was their failure to take the precautions you advocate, or to pursue those precautions to a sufficiently high degree. Whether or not that is your intent is not relevant – intent is not magic. The shaming of rape survivors is the practical effect of your words whether you wish to acknolwedge the fact or not.
That which you dismiss as ‘bewailing’ is part of the effort to change things for the better – the only way to tackle a pervasive social phenomenon like rape culture is to change society’s attitude. You have to delegitimise the idea that rape victims must somehow be responsible in some way for their own rapes. This stuff cannot be legislated away or ended by dictat – the proces is long, slow and hard, much the same way as ending racism and homophobia is long, slow and hard. There are no silver bullet solutions; no quick fixes.
Only when the attitudes change can things get better – the attitudes that underpin the culture that excuses rapists and blames victims must be dismantled before things have any chance to get better. Until that happens, rape victims will contnue to be met with doubt and moral judgement from police, family, friends and society at large.
What precautions that can be taken against rape are EXACTLY THE SAME as what precautions that can be taken against murder. Because if someone gets sufficient power over you to rape you they also have enough power over you to kill you, and your fate is entirely at their mercy.
So seriously, Jenny, do you think “try to avoid getting murdered” is a piece of advice that actually needs to be said? You think women are blissfully naive idiots who cannot and will not try to protect themselves unless you tell them to? That they are like the poor Kakapos, and have lost all instincts for self preservation after evolving in an isolated utopia free of rapists(we wish) for thousands of years?
At least they learned to
Sort of.
So why keep mucking up threads discussing the underlying causes of the problem? At best, you’re off topic. At worst, you’re delaying any solution by perpetuating the “victim could have prevented this” idea.
Sensible people generally recognize that the advice to “try not to get gruesomely raped/killed” is implicit in the standard greetings, such as “see you later”, and “take care”.
One doesn’t have to make a big deal about specifically mentioning it.
That’s what your entire argument boils down to, Jenny. Two words. That everyone already says. That everyone already knows. Two words. Over which you have wasting three iterations of this blog thread over. Nothing else that you have said is even worth the effort of responding to.
Two words, Jenny.
That’s it.
On the precautions comments (the sarcasm ones): I was also molested by the son of a preacher when I was 6. He was 16 and three times my size, and my little brother was in the room. His parents and mine were having dinner in the other room, and he was apparently known to be a pedophile.
I guess I should have known better than to be alive and female. I have pictures of myself from that period. I was all of three feet or so tall and weighed 70 pounds. Tell me, was it the ankle length dresses my family insisted I wear, because they were religious. Or maybe it was the fact that I spent so much time reading. Or maybe it was because I liked the grooming he’d done before that because I thought I had a friend.
And afterward, as my father was beating me for being a little whore (I ran to the dinner table and told everyone) and embarrassing the preacher, I should have just kept accepting that at about six, I was more than old enough to have ‘forced’ the preacher’s son to molest me?
Or, goodness, there was the time I went out with a group of kids from the religious high school I went to and one of them dosed what I was drinking and proceeded to molest me in front of the group, as an entertainment. Silly me, thinking that in a group of six, I’d be okay to share a drink with a friend and relax.
Or when I was homeless and 16, and people kept trying to lure me into cars with the promise of food. I should have known better to be homeless. Ever so often, someone would pretend to be my friend in order to score. After all, why would they help me out of compassion?
Or my second husband, who spent all the time before we moved in together being super sweet and helpful, and once we were out in the boonies, turned into a wife-beating son of a bitch. Why in the world should I trust someone who spent almost a year coming over to help me manage laundry, or run errands, or just to hang out and watch movies, who kept telling me he loved me?
Or the gentleman I listed earlier, who promised me that we were just going out as friends, because why should you trust your friend?
Or the fucking billion people who’ve groped me, jumped out of the bushes at me, told me they were my friend and tried to pressure me into sex, bosses who kept grabbing me and people who’ve exposed themselves to me. How should I have known better than to talk to a colleague, or hang out with people I know, or try to have a job and support myself, or walk to work, or go to the movies and get up to go to the bathroom, or go to a Harry Potter movie, or get up and teach things people don’t want to hear, or try to have a conference with my students: how shall I know to avoid them?
Tell me, oh oracles, how I should have prevented these incidents. What magic words and gestures could have prevented me from being molested, drugged, raped, assaulted and beaten?
I’m going to tell a story. When I was a freshman in college, there was another woman who attended the same college. I never met her, never saw her, never spoke a single word to her. But I would come to know of her. You see, she worked in the mall while attending school. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, she was walking to her car from the mall. Her car was in the middle of the mall parking lot. It was board daylight. The parking lot was full of people. She was on the phone with her boyfriend for at least part of the walk.
We don’t know exactly what happened next, but we do have some idea. At some point in that mall parking lot, a man grabbed her and forced her into her car, possibly at knife-point. He then drove her (or forced her to drive) to a secluded area. He then raped and murdered her.
I also had a job that year, but it was at the school library, not the mall. When I was working there one day, some people were discussing what had happened. One of the senior staff at the library commented, “I hope this teaches women to not walk by themselves late at night.”
I’m surprised my jaw didn’t shatter from the force of hitting the floor. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t remember if I said anything or if I was too stunned. But there is one thing that I took from that moment that I will remember forever: women who are raped will be held accountable for not following these “safety rules” and “rape prevention tips” even if they actually followed them. When this girl was raped and murdered, it was not night (it was the middle the afternoon and broad daylight), she was not walking around instead of taking a car (she was walking to her car), she was not alone (she was in a busy mall parking lot with a cellphone connection to her boyfriend). But that didn’t stop people from going on about how she should have just done what she was supposed to do. It didn’t matter that no one would have ever advised her against walking to her car in the mall parking lot from the mall in broad daylight. In fact, if she had expressed fear at doing such a thing, people surely would have sneered at her. But in the end it didn’t make a difference; the trope of finding fault with the woman was too strong for people to resist passing judgement.
It’s truly awful.
Mr Myers:
Allow me to be the first person to make this request, and I deeply hope that others who have been affected deeply by the flat-out monstrous comments of the rape victim blamers also follow suit with making the same request as I’m about to make:
Please close this thread. There are some threads that at least retain a sense of good humour and not really be overwhelmingly upsetting when there’s someone on the thread you disagree with (eg: the Zombie threads, or any other threads where Godbots pop up with some inane evidence and incoherancy that’s been debunked several times to great amusement).
This thread is not one of them. Any humour and awesomeness that existed in this thread has long since gone, and what we’re seeing instead are some genuinely heart-wrenching stories about people and their experiences with rape being met by some utterly cold hearted bastards who insist on considering women as “property” that shouldn’t do things that will do apparently “provoke” a rapist into raping them.
This thread has been overtaken by tone and concern trolls, as well as some of the most sickening comments I’ve ever read in my history of reading this website.
Please, Mr Myers, speaking as someone whose cousin became a victim of someone who was supposed to be one of her best friends, I am begging you to please close this thread for commenting.
Much thanks,
Jon Milne
@ jonmilne;
I can see where you are coming from, and I am very sorry to hear about what happened to your cousin, but if this thread is closed to commenting, then the discussion is halted, the topic abandoned, and the trolls who are so determined to silence the voices of rape survivors and shut down discussion of this topic entirely so that they can continue to self-righteously judge the victims of rape get their way – they acheive that which has been their objective all along, and they are confirmesd in their belief that if they troll obnoxiously enough, for long enough, that they are able to control the parameters of the discussion.
I don’t think we can allow that to happen.
The regulars who spend time eviscerating the moronic non-arguments of these misogynist idiots aren’t just doing it for themsleves – they are doing it for the lurkers. They are doing it to demonstrate why attitudes like ‘just take precautions’ are harmful. They are doing it to show everyone that Pharyngula is a safe place where this kind of slut-shaming victimisation of rape victims will not go unanswered. They are doing it to do their bit, however small it may be, to change attitudes and start shifting the public discourse away from the dominant rape culture model.
I think that these are worthwhile goals and as painful as threads like these are to read, even for someone like me who has no personal experience with rape, they are necessary.
What the hell is wrong with Jenny? It’s like there’s some kind of bizarre mental block, which renders her completely incapable of comprehending other people’s arguments.
She’s like a creationist, who after being endlessly lectured on speciation, asks why monkeys haven’t all turned into humans. She’s like a climate change denier, who after being endlessly lectured on the difference between global climate and local weather, pronounces the latest cold snap as evidence against global warming. She’s like a quack medicine devotee, who after being endlessly lectured on clinical trials and the placebo effect, states that homeopathic pills must work, because they made her headache go away.
She’s arguing against a bizarre fantasy opponent, who only exists in her own head.
Gregory: while I see your point, there are three pages of this, and it WILL come up again the next time PZ posts anything supportive of survivors. IMHO, there’s a time for recovery, there will be other chances; and survivors are always welcome in TET.
Jenny,
You HAVE been refuted. Over and over and over ahain. Everyone else understands the arguments against yours.
The fault is not with the transmitter, it’s with the reciever.
You appear incapable of understanding what is being said to you. My several dozen people from several dozen angles.
It’s you. The problem is inside your brain.
@ Pteryxx;
Maybe you are right, but it grates with me that closing the thread might embolden these cretins the next time around.
Ing,
If there’s much research like this, it’s not trivial for me to find. (It’s much more common to have a fake thief and fake victim, and then study whether bystanders intervene in some way.)
It would be a hard experiment to design. If you just leave something unattended in public and count how many people go by before it’s stolen, then you still don’t know if the thief is making a spur-of-the-moment decision, or if they came to this public area with the hope of finding something to steal. If you select a random sample of people and put them into a situation where they can steal, then you get around the previous problem, but they know they’re in a contrived experiment of some kind and may feel justified in stealing because it’s part of the “game” (or perhaps they’d be more inhibited).
Milgram and Shotland did the latter, and in one experiment they got as many as 1 in 5 subjects to steal at least one dollar dangling out of a charity donation box, but I don’t have access to the whole thing and I don’t know exactly what they did to get the proportion that high. They did other experiments where the proportion was as low as 1 in 15.
mouthyb
*usb hugs, chocolate,bacon, soft kitties, anything helpful should be arriving any moment*
……
I seem to recall from a previous thread that religious fundamentalism was a common trait among convicted rapists.
Neither Jenny not 99 have said anything that condones rape or victim blaming, they have just said that there are reasonable
precautions that you can take to reduce your chances of being a victim of rape (or any violent crime).
It is really amusing to see 40 or so posters work themselves up into a rightious rage as they attempt to turn this into condoning rape. Thanks guys (Pitbull, amphiox… others too numerous to name), you have written some of the most entertaining material that I have read on Pharyngula for a long time. The posters that believe that WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS WILL PREVENT RAPE have been the best.
If you are serious about the subject though, go back to the last batch of 500 messages and see #32 where I linked to a site that discusses violence and rape. The author says that most rape of women occurs between the ages of 15 and 26 and involves acquantences (sorry for spelling). He suggests that young women look for certain character traits in the men that they hang around with (domineering, vindicitiveness, controlling etc) and avoid men like this, no matter how otherwise attractive the guys are.
This sounds like good advice whether it prevents rape or not, but then I am a man with limited experience of violent crime . Does anyone here think that it is useful advice for rape prevention ? Do rapists tend to be amoral in all aspects of their life ? or can they compartmentalize.
Tethys: it is, because it’s highly correlated with investment in traditional gender roles, something which the Lisak studies detailed in the “Meet the Predator” posts demonstrates is a strong motivating factor for rapists (especially serial rapists.)
And thank you. I’m just fucking annoyed with the volume of stupid bullshit which some posters appear to believe needed to be spread on the subject.
@horace
Did you even read the responses of any of the people who actually went to your @32 post? Because a lot of us went there and looked at the incredible vileness that its creators spewed and you are promoting.
Horace: The rapist looks like (and often appears to be to many people) a nice guy. Not controlling, not dominating: kind and gentle and helpful and everything someone might want.
The predators know to disguise themselves and do it well. They practice quite a bit.
As many have said, it’s not like they have a tattoo, or wear dirty trenchcoats and drool on people. They look and act normal because they believe themselves to be normal.
Really, you should be reading “Yes Means Yes”.
Erista,
Yes, good point. Perhaps you could engage with the arguments that the site make rather than just saying that it is vile ? Besides, are you saying that there is not a singe useful piece of advice on the site ? There is certainly plenty for you to disagree with and explain why it is wrong.
It would also make a welcome change from piling on 99, Jenny and that other young women on the last page.
Did you read what else he said? about women getting raped because they annoyed men?
No. This is exactly the kind of comment that makes me despair of humanity.
This is idiotic. How does taking revenge on the rapist make the situation any better? The desire for vengeance is irrational, a brute instinct of our ape brains, something that we ought to be able to outgrow in civilized societies. If you punish a murderer by killing hir, you’ve achieved nothing positive, and done nothing to heal the harm; you simply have two dead bodies and two bereaved families, rather than one. As Gandhi put it, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
(And if we accept a rational materialist worldview, the concept of “moral desert” must itself be an irrational fantasy, since we cannot and do not have free will. I’m not going to expound on that subject here because it would be a derail, though.)
horace, the guy who wrote your link is probably a rapist.
At the point where he says ‘that old saw “It takes two to fight” comes home to roost’, he’s clearly stating that sometimes the victim deserved to be raped. Er, excuse me, I mean the “victim” as he puts it; he seriously put that word in scare-quotes because he doesn’t believe there are many if any victims of rape, only mutual particpants in an it-takes-two-to-
tango-get-raped interpersonal dispute.So yeah, he’s probably a rapist, and you’re definitely a victim-blamer for endorsing him.
I should add that prison rape is a widespread and horrific atrocity, and it makes me really depressed when people turn up on these threads wishing rape on those who are sent to prison. No one ever “deserves” to be raped. Ever.
AND AGAIN, that’s off-topic at best, and, at worst, certainly perpetuates the “victim could have prevented this” idea. Which is harmful.
And wasn’t it you who posted the link to this piece of crap?
Do you really need an explanation as to why this is wrong? Does it get any clearer than “the woman initiated the physical violence” by “breaking free from the grip with extreme force?”
Dipshit.
At this point Horace is just spamming that horrible “advice” site ze praises so highly. It’s so triggering that just the excerpts are painful to read. It’s possible ze gets a kick out of sending rape survivors there… such things have happened before.
@ horace;
I think you need to read the thread again – the way in which the ‘just take precautions’ trope plays into victim blaming has been addressed dozens of times on this thread.
Do you really think that rapists telegraph their intent so obviously? There is no singular ‘type’ of person who is a rapist, no simple check list that one can go over to find ‘warning signs’ – not all rapists even realise they are rapists, they have marionated for so long in rape culture that they honestly don’t see their actions as problematic. It is doubtful that they would fit such a profile. Then there are the out and out predators, who know exactly what they are doing and are very good at hiding their intent until they strike. How do you look for these ‘character traits’ in a person who is an expert disembler?
The very idea that there is this list of attributes that women should be looking for in men in order to avoid rape still places the responsibility for avoiding being raped on women, rather than stating that raping someone os always unacceptable.
Far from being ‘good advice’, this myth of an easily identifiable set of character traits that women can use to identify rapists simply plays yet further into the victim blaming aspect of rape culture.
millssg99
Having learnt what you’ve posted since I was gone, I now wholeheartedly retract what I said earlier in the thread.
You are a fucking Team Rapist cheerleader.
Love the ribbon.
Lots of women believe that there are rules that work, so then they don’t have to deal with the ugly horrible reality of rape as a form of terrorism. it is much easier to believe that “good” women are safe if they just obey the rules.
@horace
Oh for the love of . . . I already DID deal with the stupidity on that site, but I suppose I will give you a specific example. [Warning for triggers, because someone said they were having trouble with this earlier]
First the complete morons of that site say that, in order avoid violence, women should follow Peyton’s the five causes of violence.
Then the glorious examples of humanity declare that
If you can’t understand the problem with that, I’ll try to make it clear:
The creators of that site are declaring that women should not challenge, insult, or otherwise threaten a man who may commit violence against her, but that women should initiate extreme violent against a man who may commit violence against them. Believe it or not, you cannot both not “provoke” violence by a man by not fighting back and “initiate violence” so intense that the man will not counter attack. Plus, they count breaking away from someone who has grabbed you as “initiating violence.” They are placing women in a catch 22; if she is aggressive, she is provoking him, but if she is passive, she’s not fighting back enough.
And if you think I’m going to scan through the entirety of a misogynistic site to see if it has even one reasonable thing to say, you are mistaken.
So women are supposed to fight back against a rapist, or else they’re asking for it, and secretly like it, and aren’t being moral enough to protect their honor. But when they do fight back, then they’re initiating the physical violence?
Someone trying to defend themselves is the one initiating the physical violence? Do you actually not see how wrong that is, Horace?
Also, grabbing a person to hold them down, hold them in place, or prevent their escape, or blocking their exit from a room or other small enclosed space, are often considered assault under domestic violence laws.
Fuck fuck fuck. Horace is back. Now I’m almost ready to throw in my vote with those wishing for comments to be closed. Just to stop Horace from further promoting that site on this skeptical blog.
Hey Horace: yeah I checked it out. Its creators dismiss the Lisak study. They are affronted because, after hearing some men admit to actions that fit a definition of rape, the researchers had the temerity to refer to those men as PEOPLE WHO HAD RAPED! Those big bad researchers labelled them rapists without benefit of proper jury trial!!11!! Rapey-ness insufficiently proven!!
I would recommend that absolutely no one visit that site for tips on anything, whether self preservation, gender relations, or thinking. Its creators are authoritarian bozos of the first water, and they have no qualms about publishing some of the vilest stuff ever.
I have found Horace to be Juvenal.
@wallace
not to mention that it doesn’t take into account what victims want at all. I doubt most of victims want that. shouldn’t the wishes of victims that be what matters to people who claim to be wanting revenge?
Trigger warning once again:
I found what mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehell is refering to.
o_O
Pteryxx #155
The same thought occurred to me. Ever since Horace first gave a link to that website, people have been explaining why it’s victim-blaming and the authors are rape-apologists. Instead of saying “I didn’t realize an asshole thinks a woman breaking out of a man’s grasp is ‘initiating violence’, how stupid is that?”, Horace keeps telling people to visit the site.
Horace, if you’re not a rape apologist, then you’re doing an excellent imitation of one. Why don’t you get a nice, ripe, decaying porcupine and shove it up your rosy-red rectum.?
Oh, and I think I found the questions Lisak asked:
Erista (aka Eris) at 165. Thanks for finding that. I was sitting there searching for it again and getting distracted by the rest of the O_o material for an actual quarter of an hour, I think. Then I just gave up.
What? Did I read that right? A “green light”? A failed attempt to resist an assault is a fucking green light, now?
Fuck you, horace. Fuck you for linking to and promoting that disgusting, sickening site.
…Of course Lisak didn’t survey *convicted* rapists. The point of the study was to start finding out how many undetected rapists are in the population who have never been charged with any crime.
No wonder these guys are so bent on disavowing any level of evidence short of a courtroom conviction; as long as victim-blaming and shaming weeds out more than 90% of rape cases before they ever see a prosecutor’s desk, they can go on pretending “real rape” is rare as unicorns and has nothing to do with ordinary people like them.
*correction: IIRC, to find rapists who have not been charged with rape or sexual assault. I think Lisak did find correlations with other charges such as partner violence.
@Nightjar Yep, and the emphasis (italics) is in the original text; I did not add it.
Erista (aka Eris) #136 (third page)
You are so right. Innocent victims, blamed for being murdered.
My mother went out in the early summer evening to walk the dog. (Said dog was an Irish Setter/Rhodesian Ridgeback cross.) The man who raped her and then strangled her with her own scarf took the precaution of tethering the dog to a tree first.
And back in our home town, my grandmother had to endure people gossiping about this deliciously horrible murder and suggesting that my mother was “no better than she should be”. After all, she had been raped—she must have been a Bad Girl.
Lisak’s research discussed at Yes Means Yes:
Original:
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
Follow-up:
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/predator-redux/
That’s a pretty narrow definition of rape – I wonder what numbers he would have gotten if he had used a more inclusive one :(
omg not a link to that self defense website. a relative of mine sent me that and I just about shit a brick at the victim blaming on there.
I watched an episode of the people’s court awhile back where a little girl’s dog gets killed by a roaming pit bull. the neighbor owning the pit claimed it wasn’t her fault because she ran around warning everyone her dog had escaped and that he was territorial. Witnesses said no one warned anyone, but its beside the point. If there were tons of people threatening each of us unless we went indoors, and we all obeyed, we would give up our right to walk down the fucking street. And so it is with rape. Women absolutely have the right to behave like and be treated as human beings. We have the right to say no half way through a sex act or to drink when we want to. It doesn’t make us idiots, it makes us brave. I don’t know why that self-defense asshole doesn’t take his argument to its logical conclusion- islamic fundamentalist style society, like in saudi arabia. If women should just obey every man in the name of personal safety and forget the political implications of it then that is the rational conclusion of such a position. I’m not going to let sexual terrorists win, frighten me with their horse shit. I’m a rape victim and I walk alone at night, have for years. I refuse to apologize for it. Every woman I know lives in fear, and it fucks up her life. Women don’t know a different way to be so they don’t know what they are missing. It takes a god damned toll.
The site Horace has been spamming has been added to the blacklist. Comments that reference it will be automatically trashed as spam.
Horace has been a pain in the ass for a long time. You are now confined to TZT. Any appearance elsewhere will result in immediate banhammering.
Jesus, pensnest, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.
Your reasonable precautions are bullshit.
Because they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
they don’t work.
And they implicitly make it acceptable for rape to occur in those “must avoid this to not be raped” situations.
Thus blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
blaming the victim.
I just read this entire thread. I just lost the majority of my good feeling about humanity again. That’s not good.
Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight and rape apologists. It just staggers me that the “precautions” crowd aren’t getting the simple fact that it’s the responsibility of the rapist to not touch his* intended victim with his peepee.
Ohhhhh I know that boners are hard (pun unintended). I get them too. They make things really really complicated. But please, fellow men, don’t touch ladies or other gentlemen with your peepee unless they say “please touch me with your peepee”. If they say “don’t touch me with your peepee” cease and desist all peepee related activities immediately. And of nearly equal importance, try to realise that if your intended victim has had a beer or is wearing a really short skirt, that is not the same thing as saying “please touch me with your peepee”. Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, if you really think it is.
I saw a very pretty lady just hours ago. I managed not to touch her with my peepee. You too can not touch people with your peepee if you try very hard. You can also realise that even if the very pretty lady is wearing a very short skirt, that unless she comes over to you and says “please touch me with your peepee”, touching her with your peepee is a bad idea.
Why I have even been to the beach and seen ladies in bikinis. I know, peepee madness, right! But none of them asked me to touch them with my peepee so I didn’t touch them with it. Amazeballs! And if I had touched them with my peepee, it would have been, like, totally my fault and everything. Because their bikini is not a peepee touching invitation.
And with this in mind I have invented the Peepee Cross Code:
1) Stop.
2) Look.
3) Listen.
4) Sniff.
5) Do not touch anything with your peepee.
6) Ask very nicely, if it is appropriate to do so, if peepee touching would be an enjoyable experience.
7) If you get the reply that “Yes I would very much like you to touch me with your peepee” proceed slowly/rapidly (as appropriate) to peepee touching.
8) If you get the reply “No I would not like you to touch me with your peepee” make a classy apology for inconveniencing the person of your peepee’s desire and withdraw with some dignity. Calling them “frigid lesbian manhating feminazi castrating bitches” does not do this. If appropriate, smile, shake hands and say “thank you for your consideration”, then move away.
9) Listen. Sometimes, juuuuuuuust, sometimes, someone might be saying “don’t touch me with your peepee” very subtly. For example, after giving a lecture on the subject of unwanted peepee touching requests and several hours of conversation about the subject.
10) If you are touching someone with your peepee right now, it’s probably not the best time, double check.
11) Drinking beer and wearing short skirts and being in an alley is not the same thing as a request to be touched by your peepee. I have drunk beer, worn short skirts (hey, I played rugby, we had to do things like that) and been in alleys, and very rarely did I want to be touched by a peepee during those times. I imagine the same applies to you.
12) It is your peepee, it belongs to you. You are in charge of your peepee. No one else is. Keep that peepee under control. Ladies and suitable gentlemen do not have magic control over your peepee. It’s a peepee not a puppet. You have the power to not touch people with it, even when you really want to.
There you go. Simple peepee management and non-victim blaming for the peepee confused. No no. No need for thanks.
Louis
*Because, you know, it is overwhelmingly a “him”.
OHhhhhh fuckety fuckety fuck! TYPO!!!!!!!
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight and rape apologists”
Should read:
“Well done to all who’ve been fighting the good fight against rape apologists”
Motherfucker!
I go now to pickle my testicles as some means to assuage the shame brought to my laser printer. My ancestors already having deserted me.
Louis
Louis. You shouldn’t worry. I think you just made an accidental zeugma of some sort. It was intelligible.
No, sorry, but I do have to thank you for making me laugh. After this thread, I was definitely needing that.
Than you admit that ‘sensible precautions’ really are a mind game? That is a step in the right direction.
Yet you have the right to tell me, and others, that if we had taken proper precautions, we would not have been raped? Fuck off.
You have been telling me, and others, that, because we didn’t take precautions, we got raped. That it is our fault. So your judgement is good for us but not vice versa?
Nightjar,
Well, peepees are confusing. I have one. I should know. I could write a book called “Capers My Peepee and I Have Got Up To”. Or even a book with a good title.
I have decided to found the Peepee Owners Empowerment Movement (POEM for short, I like it). It empowers peepee owners to love their peepees, to respect their peepees and take responsibility for their peepees. My peepee is my friend, I want it to be happy, and the happiest my peepee has ever been is when it is friends with someone who really loves it. Ohhhh peepee friends who are there for one night are fun too, I’m not judging, I’ve had a few. I prefer enthusiastic friends of my peepee, that can happen for a night, but it’s funner (a perfectly cromulent word) for a week or two. I guess I’m weird that way. I think enthusiasm is a good thing.
Peepee enthusiasm can be misplaced, as the topic of this thread has shown. Sometimes silly people think that things that are not explicit requests for peepee touching are actually requests for peepee touching. Ay caramba! This makes my peepee sad. And I prefer a happy peepee. This is because due to Rushes Of Blood To The Peepee™ we peepee owners can sometimes forget that wanting to touch someone with our peepee very very much does not equate to them wanting to be touched with our peepee.
This is sad, but also should make us peepee owners resolve to find a more enthusiastic peepee friend. Hence why I am founding POEM. We peepee owners need to take responsibility for our peepees, to stand up for our peepees. Because they stand up for us.
{Exit to triumphalist music. Played on things shaped like peepees}
Louis
There, there Louis. Your peepee code of conduct was wonderful even with typo.
Holy crap! I was just reading up on the past comments and the thread exploded.
I’m guessing this means that more assholes joined in.
@Louis #185
“We peepee owners need to take responsibility for our peepees, to stand up for our peepees. Because they stand up for us.”
*Snortle*
Thanks, Louis. Your blend of humor and incisiveness is always appreciated.
Bravo Louis.
This shows that even after years of playing rugby, your brain isn’t completely addled.
Rugby!
He was talking about rugby!
A substitution mutation!
Note, though, that there is meaning in both versions, and though subtly different, they still work for the intended purpose.
Perhaps it is time to talk about the “reasonable” precautions the menfolk out to be taking, in order to prevent them from succumbing to the possibility of becoming rapists.
Always carry a canister of cold, icy water, within easy reach. A hip holster would be ideal. Use a pop-top, not a screw-top (screw tops take too long to remove – you have to make sure that you can also act quickly enough, before the urges overpower your weak, weak male willpower). Self-douse liberally as needed.
And men, never, ever, ever go out alone in dark alleys.
‘Cause you never know when you might bump into some lone woman out there who’s dressed in just the right way set off your personal lust-meter, and before you know it, you’ll be jumping her and raping her.
And never buy any alcholic beverage for your date. That way there will never be the irresistable temptation to plop a roofie into her drink, or even to just get her drunk. That way you’ll never end up being a date rapist.
Better yet, don’t go on dates.
And don’t go out, period.
Or associate with any female relatives, either.
Or male ones, for that matter.
I have observed that when I wear a short skirt* people are dragged almost magnetically towards me by their peepees. Perhaps it is a hitherto unknown force that can be exploited for perpetual motion machines. After all, no effort was expended in the wearing of a short skirt. The breeze on my gentleman vegetables was most pleasant.
In retrospect some sort of underpant might have prevented me spending so much time in the cells that evening. But I digress. They do a marvellous cooked breakfast do the Police Service. Bloody lovely. I got two eggs with my sausage. Never figured out why, I had to have the scrum half explain it to me.
Perhaps, juuuuuuust perhaps, the rape apologists and sundry peepee puppetry advocates** are not informing us that ladies should be sober and modest for their own safety, but because they are in the pay of Big Oil and are trying to prevent humanity from achieving the singularity and the Timecube.
Hey, I’m asking Important Questions. Don’t let the space lizards prevent us from getting perpetual motion.
Fuck I’m drunk.
Health kick failed yet again.
I blame pubs.
Pubs, with their oh so inviting beer pumps and their saucy little crisp selection. “Oh come inside me and have a pint” they seem to say, the dirty, dirty vendors of alcohol. “Just have a double rum chaser with your pint of 49er” they moan into my ear, with their whorish, wicked, ethanol selling doors and piss covered toilets. They know what they want. They want me inside them, buying beer, drinking beer, doing Jagerbombs and Tequila Suicides. They even want me to have pitchers of foamy, frothing beer, pints of it, litres of it. They want me to leave them at closing time and go to the kebab house. You heard me, the kebab house. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’ve had a kebab. DON’T JUDGE ME!
Filthy pubs. They love it.***
* I am a large rugby player type man. This has only ever been done for Comedy Purposes&atrade; as is the duty and nature of gentlemen like myself. We wear the short skirts and drink pints of creme de menthe so you don’t have to. We take those liver bullets on your behalf. Wherever something really fucking stupid needs doing, we are the people to send in. Sensible people of the world go back to your sensible lives, we drunken idiots will be in a corner vomiting on each other to save you the bother.
** MRA? NO! Rape Apologist? NO! These people are advocates of the Peepee Puppetry Theory! They believe that peepees are magic, wild, uncontrollable things that are drawn inexorably to people wearing short skirts and/or in alleys/bars. Call them what they are.
*** Incidentally, rape apologists, oh so concerned precautionists and sundry semi human detritus, this is exactly your argument. I am only currently drunk because of slutty, slutty pubs. Perhaps pubs should be modestly clad, no music, no beer gardens, shuttered windows, hushed conversation, smaller measures, no signs outside, only open during the day and on main well lit streets. Not showy buildings, and certainly never in converted churches… Think about it.
Oooh, I think that’s a cue to post my favorite rape prevention tips!
Amphiox,
I heard something funny recently…I’m trying to remember where…
Something like “I’m sure you’re a really good person, on the inside. And until you fix yourself, you should stay, INSIDE”
Your comment reminded me of that. I loled.
Louis
I know Horace has been exiled, but in case he’s reading, this:
leaves me sick and almost speechless.
Horace; you know the drill. Porcupine. Well rotted. Insert.
One. Quill. At. A. Time.
Amphiox/Erista,
You both make excellent points and I wish to subscribe to your newsletters.
I think a series of letters to PPAs (Peepee Puppetry Advocates) needs writing:
“Dear PPAs,
My wife was not in the mood for sex last night and yet has quite fabulous tits. I felt the stirrings of a fairly sizeable lob on on my nether regions, and yet I did not rape her. Was I wrong not to allow her magnificent lady’s top bollocks to remotely cause my penis to unwittingly leap into her vagina?”
“Dear PPAs,
I was skulking in a dark alley the other night when I saw an incredibly attractive young lady tottering home on ridiculous heels and wearing what looked more like a hairband than a skirt. I discovered that my penis had become moderately tumescent at the sight of so inebriated a young lady and yet despite this inconvenience I managed not to leap from my hiding spot and place my penis repeatedly in her vagina. Have I violated some law of physics or morality?”
Enquiring minds want to know. After all I feel as a founder member of POEM I need to understand just how little responsibility for my peepee these PPAs think I should have.
Louis
Friends don’t let friends rape people.
Seriously, back in my party days we had rules about the guys not cornering drunk gals in empty bedrooms or taking them outside to “talk” alone. If you were there past a certain hour, you had to either stay the night or go home with your predetermined ride. Also stuff about separating and cutting off rowdy people before fights broke out and keeping a couple of people sober to handle things and/or talk to the cops, but the point is that we created a safe environment by focusing on the behavior of the potential perpetrators, not by forcing their potential victims to change their behavior.
People should be able to feel safe because there’s safe places for them to be, not because they’ve wrapped themselves in a billion precautions. What’s so hard to understand about that?
Hi PZ,
I have decided to let you and MacYoung work out your differences together without my help. See you in the Slimepit if you ever decide to visit.
[NEW RULE: parting snipes get you banned. You’re on watch, Horace: show your snide, dumb ass around here again, and yeah, banned. –pzm]
bye-bye horace
Ah, the parting shot. So clever.
*rolls her eyes*
The only visit the Slimepit needs is from the Biohazardous Material Removal Squad, complete with high-temperature sterilizing flamethrowers and troll suppression foam.
Haven’t caught up with the last 400 or so comments, so I may have been ninja’d already, but there was a request for a definitive resource on the rhetorical weaseling happening in a not-pology/fauxpology.
The Idealistic Pragmatist wrote this back in 2005: When an apology is not an apology
[meta]
horace, that was the feeblest flounce I ever did see.
(You have , eh? <snicker>)
Horace is nowhere near as smart as he likes to think he is.
@John Morales
I second that!
If you’re going to do a parting shot, it should be clever, biting, and memorable! Not . . . *glances at Horace’s post* . . . whatever that was meant to be.
Yes. This.
@tigtog
Ooh, I like that link.
A bucket of grog will clear that stain right up.
@ mills numbers #20
Here is why that’s wrong. It’s not a prophecy. It’s a fact. It is happening right now, right here, and that would be you doing it. A self-fulfilling prophecy would be telling people that using the sequence 1357 in a lotto ticket will result in winners. If people believe, then indeed there will be winners using the sequence. Confirmation bias covers the rest. A future event “predicted” by a self-fulfilling prophecy. NOT current behavior and consequences excused.
Jennynumbers 84
Please note the careful quoting here. And yet you are still wrong. Look at your words. You take the position that All I need to do is SAY I FEEL better and therefore precautions work TO PREVENT AN ACTUAL RAPE. Can you not see the discontinuity?
Erista, to use an Ing zing: “You can’t fire me — I quit!”
OK, I’m caught up. I see that jenny numbers altered her position to indicate that when she was saying “these precautions prevent rape”, she was really saying “these precautions make me feel as if they will prevent my rape”. I also got the bit where she stated that no one had the right to tell her that her decisions for herself were in any way wrong.
I am puzzled by why she comments here, if it is wrong to indicate to a person that his/her decisions about his or her own behaviour are in any way wrong. It sure looked like that was what she was saying by proposing what she presumed was behaviour the aforesaid persons had not used, and therefore, at a minimum, implying that the aforesaid person had not cut the odds on being raped.
I am also relieved to hear that this is not victim blaming. *Whew* I was confused.
Of course, I must be mis-quoting her. And yet she is still wrong.
I look at it differently.
Knowing that a “person” possessing of the moral character that horace displays should be so offended by what I have written as to name me, (directly!) in a crudely attempted snark….
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
What better validation that you’ve done something worthwhile than this?
horace
@ PZ, gee poopyhead, are you going to deny him his deepest wish and fantasy for validation? You ARE a poopyhead.
DING: Hotel California
DING: Winning by Losing
Yes, Horace, even now they’re over there chanting “one of us, one of us, one of us…”
Horace sees his boyhood dream fulfilled. Now he can claim to be a genuwhine, officially recognized, certified asshole.
Although, you almost have to feel sorry for a guy who can’t get accepted at ERV. Nearly.
Personally my first instinct isn’t pity, it’s to sprinkle some penicillin on the bastard just to make sure bacteria hasn’t learned how to mold itself into human shape
Horace has been banned. I’m sure he’ll fit in perfectly at ERV.
221 And that’s why you are Ing.
And I did say almost with the perky italics and all. I mean, a guy like horace who can’t get down with his homies at ERV? My, my.
At least the chances of his reproducing are minimal.
*Does the happy dance*
Another satisfied customer!
It is left to the reader to determine who that might be.
Seriously, what’s with these idiots? It’s not like someone over at Cracked didn’t already make a list of “these are behaviors you do if you’re a fucking idiot” and pretty much said “hey idiots look at this list you’re an idiot!” only much more witty because they’re made comic writers and I’m not. It’s a true testament to mankind’s obliviousness and stubbornness that anyone pulls the “I dare you to ban me” game after that list was published. If we all didn’t have the collective reasoning and awareness of an inebriated gibbon we’d have all cut that shit out and researched new ways to look like assholes in our desperate effort to not look like assholes despite being caverns excavated out of burros…again not a paid writer.
Jenny, Horace,
Would you please answer the questions I posed earlier to mills999?
Dear God that’s . . . pathetic. There really isn’t another word for it. “[A bunch of anonymous people on the internet] will finally accept me?”
I mean, wow, Horace has said a bunch of vile things, but to be fiercely longing for the acceptance of a bunch of people whose names he doesn’t know and whose faces he’s never seen? And “finally?” Just how long has he been trying and failing to gain their acceptance? And he’s bragging about it?
Jesus, that’s a dark place to be. What has to be going on inside of a person to be eager to degrade and humiliate yourself like that? Or to be willing to degrade and humiliate yourself like that while thinking it’s some kind of badge of honor?
@WithinThisMind
Horace is banned, so no, he won’t.
If I park an expensive car in bad neighborhood. The car would most likely be stolen or vandalized over night.
Does that make me responsible? Or is the thief responsible?
The answer would have been obvious only a generation ago.
The thief is morally responsible for stealing the car. I, on the other hand, would be responsible for the foolish act of leaving a car over night in a bad neighborhood.
It is the same with women who get raped. The chances of getting raped differ depending on your location and behavior. You can act recklessly and get raped. The rapist would be morally responsible and you would be responsible for acting foolishly.
@simon
Rethink your comment, shitbrick. PZ’s on a roll today with the bans.
Jeezombie on a stick, here comes another one. Impervious to learning, didn’t read the thread and just HAD to drop a turd on the rug.
[meta]
simonprimer, your first comment, I think.
(I suspect you haven’t read this thread, when you post that)
—
Here’s the situation: Been adduced, been addressed already.
I see you’ve been busy attending oneplus999’s tea parties. Please take the time to read just eth first page of comments at least. Don’t worry about reading all of it, a lot of the material repeats
simonprimer
A sock puppet or just another non-reader?
Simon, don’t start with that shit. Be smart, read the OP and each and every one of the more than 1200 comments, and think if you really have something to add.
I’m sorry but the comments are all over the place. Am I comparing a car with a woman? No. The logic holds.
Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
*groans and places her head in her hands*
Will people ever stop explicitly comparing women to unfeeling, unthinking, inanimate objects that are property? Or are we really going to have to live with this forever?
1200 comments? Let me sum it up:
Feminist women want all the benefits of being equal to men, while at the same time having the moral responsibility of children.
Oh look, it’s another game of whack-a-fuck.
Dear Simon, you’re making me break my internet rule of trying not to be obscene, but I’m finding typing the following to be oddly satisfying: if your analogy is correct, women are cars to you.
I’d like to invite you to fuck a hot tail pipe, in lieu of bothering anyone with what is undoubtedly a sad, sad time.
I am grateful not to be your mechanic.
Erista,
The owner of a stolen care has thoughts and feelings. What if the owner was carjacked and beaten too. Would that help?
Obvious troll is way too obvious. Thanks for letting me know that I can mentally ignore you for the rest of the thread. Enjoy your inevitable ban, assclam.
Yeah, I understand your sex affects the odds a bit, too.
The USB hatpin you will shortly be receiving is to be inserted into your frontal lobe, if you don’t have one there already.
mouthyb,
It’s just an analogy. There is no reason to get so worked up.
What if the analogy was to a guy who gets beaten up in a bad neighborhood? Would that work for you?
Nope. Someone still chooses to beat the guy up.
simonprimer
Women not being people, and unable to work that out regardless. Yep, a certified, simonprimer-b-pure nutbag full of turds.
I trust that was clear enough, simonprimer? I only have ladybrains.
Yes, actually, you are.
And here is a little hint: I can choose not to own an expensive car. I cannot choose not to be a woman. I can choose to not park a car in a bad neighborhood. I cannot choose not to be born into a bad neighborhood, or not to be forced into moving into one due to a loss of my job or being forced to travel through one because something I need is on the other side.
O_O
So, what, now the analogy is that owning an expensive car is foolish because maybe someone will carjack me and beat me up?
Why is it that people who claim to be against rape always wish sexual violence on me, whenever I try to give women sensible advice?
You’ll notice, Simon, that it was an invitation. You can take care of the fucking yourself.
You haven’t given any advise at all. You’ve just compared having our bodies raped to having our car stolen. You know, because our bodies are enough like material possessions to make the comparison hold in your mind.
Tag-Team Shithead Troll Expo 2012.
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY.
simponprimer
There is no evidence of sensible advice.
And this is really, really dumb shit. Killfile it is. (Simon, kill file is not actually killing, just in case you got all dim over that.)
simonprimer, I see that your third comment is up:
Yes, feminist women want the moral responsibility of children.
Very clever you are, noticing that.
—
* 1200 comments you haven’t read, because you’re a lazy incompetent who is unaware that your stupidities have been well and truly (and redundantly) addressed already.
Erista,
I understand that some women are born into bad neighborhoods. But the issue is about women who make a choice to be in a bad neighborhood. Those are the foolish ones. What’s so hard to understand?
I do agree with you that reality is sexist, and women are born on average weaker than men. There is nothing you or I can do about that. Why not save the ones we can save?
[meta]
Such an idiotic specimen, it imagines it doesn’t reveal itself.
(Way to admit the patriarchy’s reality!)
It isn’t very bright, admitting it didn’t read the comments.
Even dumber, it appears to think people deliberately choose to live in bad neighborhoods. (Fuck this whole reality of economics thing.)
PZ we need you to ban Simon. He’s one of those assholes I mentioned who is now blatantly just trying to be a triggering dick.
Fucking Rape Remoras
Maybe the car analogy doesn’t work for you.
Let me break it down for you:
A man walks into a neighborhood that is known to be high in crime and gets stabbed to death.
A woman walks into the same neighborhood and gets raped.
Neither one is morally responsible, but they are both foolish to walk in that neighborhood if they knew in advance that it was dangerous.
It would be a good thing to warn both men and women not to act in certain ways or be in certain areas that would make them targets.
Simple enough?
See I’d say the fucking police are responsible for letting an area turn into a no man’s land. And the people are for letting the police sit on their hams.
I’d also say that Simon very likely gets jollies from this.
Oh, and do tell what it is exactly that women do that is like parking an expensive car in a bad neighborhood. Walking by ourselves? Going out at night? Living on the ground floor of a building? Getting drunk at a frat party? Wearing revealing clothing? Having a ground floor to our house? Not carrying a gun? Being alone with male family members? Being alone with men we are dating? Being alone with men we are just friends with? Drinking in a public place? Drinking at a friend’s house while men are present? Letting a man we know walk us home at night? Walking from our workplace to our car in a crowded parking lot?
Because I’ll give you a little hint. I know three women who were explicitly raped, and each one was raped in a situation I named above. Care to guess which ones?
You aren’t saving anyone by comparing women’s bodies to cars.
The problem with you people is that you think you address a point by calling someone sexist.
Ing: Well that’s a lovely thought…. @.o
I do appreciate Simon showing up, cause now when we talk about predators and enablers we’re able to go “pretty much that there, oy”
HOLD THE PRESSES! WHAT A SCOOP!
There are times when it is neither necessary, useful, OR APPROPRIATE to state the obvious that everyone already knows.
Is it necessary begin every geology discussion by pointing down and declaring “remember, everyone, this thingy here I’m pointing at, it’s called the Earth”?
No, that is NOT the issue, and never was. Maybe YOU want to derail into this issue, but we DO NOT.
simonprimer:
You realise you’ve just asserted that any woman in any “bad neighborhood” is a foolish woman?
(She shoulda be wise, instead!)
Erista,
There is no precaution that will prevent rape entirely other than total isolation, but obviously there are measures all women can take to reduce their chances. Such as avoiding certain neighborhoods.
But if:
Then why:
?
Go back to troll school, SimpleSimon.
I would assume simon is trolling, but I’ve read enough Pharyngula comments to know that anything is possible.
Do they now?
So what locations? What behaviors?
How are the chances changed? By how much? What’s the percent risk per lumen for the dark alley? How exactly is a “bad neighborhood” defined?
Without these details and the citations to back them up, with numbers and statistical parameters, this is another one of those obvious things that do not need to be said, and should not be said. Not without the numbers.
Which neighborhoods?
Names with statistics, please.
Is there a list of reasonable precautions I can take to avoid people like SimpleSimon?
mehitabel,
There is no contradiction. One is referring to women in general and one to feminist. Feminist are morally responsible for rape by encouraging risky behavior.
What is it with you people? Do you honestly think that anybody who doesn’t agree with you is a troll?
By the way, simon, those statistics must exclude anything related to the women who live in those neighbourhoods and cannot leave. You must extract the statistics relevant ONLY to those women who CHOOSE to go into those neighbourhoods, and could have chosen otherwise.
No statistics, no valid argument.
No, but anyone who thinks as you do is a morally reprehensible excuse for a human being.
Well, I’ve caught up.
simonprimer, you are a naked troll and everyone knows it.
(Hey, better than being an ignorant, conceited idiotic nobody who honestly believes the bullshit you froth forth, no?)
I look forward to seeing ya in TZT, where you belong.
—
lilim, your naiveté is cute.
Ah, simonprimer, but you see, that is a lie, and it is a lie for the reason that you did not guess. And so I shall tell you.
Woman #1: Raped by her cousin in the basement of her own house with her parents upstairs.
Woman #2: Kidnapped while walking to her car from the mall where she worked through a crowded mall parking lot. Subsequently raped and murdered.
Woman #3: Woman raped in her own home after a man she knew offered to walk her home.
You see, I do not personally know one woman who has been raped for being in a “bad neighborhood.” Not one. Every last woman I have known who was out and out raped was in a “good neighborhood.” And statistics bear this out; almost all women are raped by men they know and trust not to rape them. It is only a slim majority of women who are raped by not following the rules that people like you so love to make up.
So let’s be honest. I am safer by myself in the middle of the night in a secluded area than I would be with a man I trust in my own home. But people don’t like admitting that.
Simon @265, avoiding a certain neighbourhood is not an option if you live in that certain neighbourhood, therefore avoiding it is not an option that every woman can take. You plonker.
Evidence, with statistics of quantified relative risk, standard deviations and p-values, and direct linkage to “feminist” activities.
Provide those now, or admit to lying.
Now.
Jafafa Hots, duh.
You can avoid such specimens by taking an axe to your internet interaction implement, whatever it may be.
(Else you’re just (ahem) being foolish)
Amphiox,
You are trying to say that if something cannot be measured with an accurate metric than it doesn’t exist.
If I told you that you should drink water on a hot day, would you be confused? Would you ask how hot and how much water?
As a general rule I would advise women to avoid black neighborhoods and carry a gun. That’s the advice I would give to men too.
No, my mother was a car. I understand.
Seriously, you dumb jerk, read the comments. Read the stories. Look up the data. Rape doesn’t just happen in dark alleys in bad neighborhoods, you dumb jerk, it happens in nice hotels, and lovely parks in the middle of the fucking day, and in your own home.
As for bad neighborhoods, do you really think women are just stupidly wandering into bad situations by accident? They live in those neighborhoods. They work in those neighborhoods. They are there for perfectly legitimate goddamn reasons, just like the nice hotels and parks and homes.
And when they do get raped, nimrods like you show up with assumptions about them being “foolish.” Blaming them. And knowing that makes it less likely that a victim will report the crime. So it goes unpunished, the vast majority of the time.
And we can’t even talk about the underlying causes, the cultural shit that perpetuates the problem without some bunghole coming along with his rape prevention tips, which focus on changing the behavior of the victims, rather than the perpetrators.
We’ve had this fucking discussion in those 1200 comments that you can’t be arsed to read. You deserve the abuse and the banning you will receive here.
simon really doesn’t belong in TZT, I think. He belongs where horace and mullsy ended up.
Amphiox, perhaps, but I suspect my cruelty quotient exceeds yours.
Simon, you fuckwit:
No they haven’t. There is a difference between porcupining and this, you dense fuckwit.
.
You haven’t been, and that has been apparent to everyone except you.
simonprimer, please stop.
He’s just reading from an MRA site list… Fucking gross
Enough. What shithole are these dumbasses crawling out of? Simonprimer has been banned. I’m out of patience, and further incursions by sexist, racist assholes will simply be met with an immediate smack of the banhammer, no warnings.
feralboy12 repeats the obvious yet again:
(Troll duly carries on trolling, is my prediction)
Simon, read the fucking thread. You are not unique. Your arguments are not unique. They are garden variety, victim blaming idiocy that has been thoroughly dealt with in this very thread. I mean really, really? You think that your point hasn’t already been made in a thread of over 1000 comments? Fuck, you’re stupid.
Every post you place here without having read all that comes before paints you as someone so unwilling to consider other peoples arguments that there is no point in even addressing you.
No you pathetic idiot. I am saying that if something cannot be measured then you cannot argue that it is important, like you, in your pitifully dishonest fashion, are trying to do. Because if the decrease in risk is quantifiably lower than the inconvenience of changing one’s behavior, then IT IS NOT WORTH TAKING THAT PRECAUTION.
Therefore, if you want to argue that such a precaution should be taken, YOU MUST QUANTIFY THE RISK.
No numbers, no argument for you.
No. I would tell you that what you have is so stupidly obvious that you have wasted your breath saying it, and my time for having to listen to you. Time which I could have instead been spending looking for water to drink.
If you actually gave me a temperature and a volume, then your statement to me might actually be useful to me, because I can compare what you suggest with what I was intending to do already, and see if they are the same or different. If they are different, I can then ask you why you advise differently, and from that exchange you might provide some useful information to me.
But without a temperature and a volume, your statement is useless to me, and a waste of my time.
Oh FFS. I’ve been lurking the whole thread because it’s just too damned much more of the same shit that comes up every frakking time we try to have a decent discussion about sexism and misogyny but this is the absolute limit. Simonprimer, why don’t you go fuck yourself with the sharpest, rustiest implement you can find – and yes, I’m a woman, and yes, I’m emotional because it’s MY FUCKING LIFE AND BODY THAT GETS AFFECTED BY THIS SHIT and I’m allowed to be upset about it, damn it! And when I say you can go fuck yourself, I’m saying it with a clear mind as to why you are a despicable, victim-blaming, rape apologist asshole who makes me ashamed to share the same species label with shitheads like you – comments like
are obvious indications that you haven’t bothered to read this thread, or anything at all about rape culture or victim-blaming because they would divert from the pathetically predictable same old shit line of thinking that says “If women just did X, they would be less likely to get raped, therefore any women who don’t do X and do get raped, well, it’s their own fault, isn’t it?”.
Too many people here, more than I can count, have explained why this is wrong and why ultimately any “advice” given to women about how they can “avoid being raped” perpetuates rape culture by putting the onus on women to prevent rape and taking it off of potential rapists and the culture at large when THEY are the ones who bear the brunt of responsibility for preventing rape in the first place.
Seriously, it’s not that hard to understand, but then again, my lady-brain is just so full of pesky emotion and incapable of remaining dispassionately academic about a subject that I live every fucking day by virtue of being a woman. Clearly my mental faculties are deficient and untrustworthy because I get angry about how rape culture affects the life I live every day, instead of regarding the many ways I could be blamed, shamed and outright pilloried if I should ever be raped and have the gall to report it and confront my rapist in a court of law, with a cool and detached eye. Fuck the fuck off already if you’re not going to bother learning anything because you clearly have nothing substantial to contribute to the conversation.
But Simon, you have not read the comments*. People here have been trying to explain that those things that you believe to be so very, very, risky do not apply to the circumstances of most cases of sexual assault. But (sad face) the grown-ups always go around talking and talking and talking about the things you want to talk about, and not so much talking about all the other times and places the very, very bad things happen. It makes a lot of problems. But then they do not like to talk about those problems. Instead, they just talk about the things you want to talk about some more. We wonder why they do that. We are sad.
*Really, you walked in here and declared you hadn’t read the comments. The kindest interpretation of *YOU*, not “anyone who disagrees,” is troll.
But you say you are not. So I’m trying simple, simple words now. You like simple.
Simon the fuckwit:
Hey, nice strawman. How about not derailing and providing facts to back your idiotic opinions up?
My my, that’s a very nice analogy you got there.
The poor thing, being shanghaied into your bigoted little worldview?
You should just shut up now, and stop digging your own grave here.
Hmmmmm. Sudden banhammering. Gotta come back just to watch that.
Hands out popcorn
Various toppings over there. Help yourselves.
Snuggles into couch to watch
I wish people like simonprimer could be banned from my real life, not just my internet one.
*sigh*
Or, John, it could be that I was being sarcastic because I didn’t feel like reiterating for the 1001th time what others have said better than I can only to be deliberately ignored.
[meta]
Inevitable inertia is evident, but I note each is an individual independent input.
(groupthink!)
Well, it only took nearly 1300 comments before instantaneous troll purging started happening. I approve! Now, that being the case, does anyone thing we can finally have a discussion about…whatever the topic was? Because honestly, I’m not even sure anymore.
That’s exactly what these anti-feminist trolls love to do. They come into any discussion and make it about them and their stupidity until I can’t even recall the topic of the conversation anymore other than it being about their total fucking malignant idiocy.
I mean, this thread wasn’t even about rape, the comic in the OP brings up at least a dozen other topics.
Apologies for not reading every post in this thread, but I think I’ve got it. I think I’ve got it. One simple precaution that everyone can take so that no one gets raped.
Here it is:
DON’T RAPE!
OK, I know what you’re thinking. There you go, blaming the perpetrator. Well, you know what?
You’re fucking right.
The perpetrator is at fault. ALWAYS.
OK? Can we end this discussion now?
[meta]
Jafafa Hots, hey! I was riffing of ya.
I hope this doesn’t sound too emotional, thanks PZ, that banhammer needed dropping.
simonprimer: I’m not sure what you think you are doing here, but I have two theories:
1. You are a troll trying to anger/trigger people
My response: Please leave now. Or do something stupid enough to get banned.
2. You are a misogynist who genuinely thinks that women (who are apparently possessions, like cars, that can be owned) who don’t “take precautions” deserve to be raped.
My response: Please take some time to think about your beliefs. Do they seem like something a good person would adhere to? Are your actions those of a caring, decent person who deserves the respect of others? If not, (and believe me, they are not), perhaps you should consider rethinking your philosophy. Otherwise, please consider inserting a decaying porcupine into your orifice of choice sideways.
And add a dose of racism to that misogyny.
Someone please remind me once again not to respond to such people with sarcasm.
Oh well, fuck it, I said my piece on page one. Re-exiling myself.
John, I just read above, ok, thanks, my misunderstanding. Still re-exiling though because it’s best for my mental health, I’ve found.
RahXephon,
The topic?
Title: Here’s the situation
Tag: Equality
—
Perhaps PZ is not making any claims, but rather doing some consciousness-raising*?
(Posts do take on a life of their own, and the topic is dynamite)
—
* With a side order of a hat-tip to Kate or Die.
But seriously, these kinds of threads make me wonder about the people I meet in real life? Is he one of them, one of the people who will rush to search for ways to blame me if I’m raped? What about her? Or that person across the street? How many of them are around me, making me unsafe?
@John
My point was how anti-feminist trolls always manage to totally distort the conversation that feminists have into an unrecognizable mess. You either missed or ignored that with your typical pedantic panache.
I must say, I was very emotional. Mostly laughing myself all but sick, though.
Do you suppose he thinks that pretending to have no feelings, ignoring what is said in a conversation and then puking loudly actually represents … well anything but auto-troll?
RahXephon,
I don’t ignore your point now.
Obviously we should be advising men to stay out of dangerous, seedy neighborhoods, in order to reduce their risk of becoming rapists.
I enjoyed that one too. I think the brevity of his stay added to the glory.
Argh! I missed the latest misogynist! My comment to it came in after the banhammer. I haz a sad…
Oh mehitabel, wotthehell wotthehell, it made it tasty as good cheddar.
By the way, I do like that nym. Archie and Mehitabel should not be lost to time.
[Sardonic, possibly triggering]
Amphiox @309, at the risk of throwing a hand-grenade into the conversation, it also reduces their risk of the ubiquitous false rape accusations.
So, clearly, both men and women should stay out of bad neighbourhoods — I mean, one could have a false rape accusation made against and the other could be raped.
I’m glad I didn’t come along until he’d already been banned. Just reading his posts after the fact nearly gave me a rage aneurysm. Holy fuck, he made the previous misogynist scumbags look almost reasonable by comparison, which is not saying anything good about them, but is saying something very, very bad about him, because those people were so unreasonable that to even jest about the reasonability of their posts makes me feel fucking DIRTY.
What if you live in a “bad” neighbourhood?
Lyn M,
(I wish I had thought of Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death)
I grew up on Archy and Mehitabel, for reasons that have never been explained.
If you have never read Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers, check it out.
That last idiot was advising black men and women to avoid their own neighborhoods and carry guns, I think. I don’t know. Maybe I’m confusing him with Stokely Carmichael or Eldridge Cleaver or somebody.
Or maybe he doesn’t care if black people rape each other, and doesn’t think white guys rape.
Yeah, these fuckers derail threads, but I think we’ve got a healthy bunch of antibodies here to handle infections like that. They’re often unable to hide behind any facade of reasonable behavior for very long, and start dumping their ridiculous misogyny and racism all over the place. I’m pretty sure they don’t come off looking very good to a lot of people.
I’d like to think we’re still able to do something useful on these occasions.
@ chigau (違う)
Oh, don’t be silly! No one lives there!
Why do you think 1 disqualifies 2? 1 implies 2.
I mean, do you know any people who actually like cats but think it’s fun to torture them for lulz?
Thanks Mehitabel. Others have gone before me with great nyms, so I kept trying to follow them. I read a bunch of the strips in the 70s when I had 4 hours between classes three days out of the week, and no way to get home and back in a reasonable time. I sat in the library and read all kinds of stuff. (After I finished my assignments, of course. Seriously. Really. OK, MOSTLY after I finished my assignments.)
By the way, chigau (違う), I think I was channelling jenny numbers there.
[possible trigger]
@Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
No, no, no. You don’t understand. Of course people live there. They just aren’t important enough to talk about. After all, if they were worthy discussing, they wouldn’t live in a bad neighborhood.
/I wish I could say people didn’t really act like this.
Ing: Perhaps, but I’ve learned that sometimes people genuinely say shit they don’t believe just to piss people off. Our misogynist friend was probably both though.
Yes, Erista, I fully agree.
jenny numbers had a real “I’m all right, Jack” attitude, and could well have had trouble taking your point.
Do they? I mean if you actually cared about gay rights would you think it’s funny to go around calling people fagots and mocking them?
Ing: True, perhaps what I meant was that people will sometimes say things well beyond their stance on an issue to piss people off (i.e. a person who is only mildly homophobic posting something worthy of Jerry Fallwell on Pharyngula)
Ok I’m sure we went through this before.
They aren’t joking. They’re only mildly homophobic because someone will punch them in meat space. They are serious.
Then you probably deserve it for not working hard enough to get out of the bad neighbourhood. Duh!
</sarcasm>
Ing: Hmm that’s actually something I hadn’t considered (my brain is not fully functional right now due to Talisker 10 yo and sleep loss). Let’s pretend that this exhibition of my extreme stupidity never happened!
You are just too stupid to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.
I have a confession to make.
Where I work (not for long anymore, just three days to go — the following has helped in making that decision), some of my male co-workers have a hbit of discussing our female co-workers during lunch. Not just “she looks mighty fine today”, but also “I would like to do some things to her”, implying that the speaker isn’t too bothered about her consent. Also, “if it doesn’t stretch, it’ll tear” has been said more than once.
And I have kept quiet. I just shut down, I didn’t know what to say. I should’ve spoken up and said something, but I didn’t. Feeling intimidated by them, I was scared to stir the pot. I’m sorry.
And if we could only get all men and women to leave bad neighborhoods, there wouldn’t be anymore bad neighborhoods! (Except for the children, I guess we can turn all that empty real estate into playgrounds or something)
TWO social birds killed with one stone!
From an ethical perspective I do not see why any distinction needs to be made between the two, though.
It’s a quite interesting paradox: Can you say misogynic and/or misanthropic shit just to piss of women or people in general without being a misogynist or a misanthrope?
My answer is that: No, it isn’t a paradox. You can’t, and the likely explanation is that the trolls are merely lying about being trolls. They might not mean the exact misogynic shit they are spouting, but they are deeply misogynic – or they wouldn’t be trolling about feminism*.
(*Feminism here being used with the “women are people”-definition)
I agree. To me, the act of thinking it appropriate or acceptable to use misogynistic crap can be used to rile people for one’s own amusement, is itself misogynistic.
Pensnest, I’m so sorry.
If a person refuses to read comments that are already sitting there on the page, I don’t have any faith that they will read comments written in response to whatever they’ve decided to ask either. Also, it’s just plain rude. Some sites even automatically ban people who obviously haven’t read all the comments on a topic before weighing in.
SQB, if you’re quitting this week, I’d just write it off. There are assholes everywhere, and it won’t do you any good to beat yourself up over missing one chance at whack-a-mole. Sadly, there will probably be many more to encounter in the future.
Seconding what Carlie said, SQB. We do what we can when we can, but all too often there’s simply too much risk and then we try again at the next opportunity.
I am very, very, VERY glad that this simonprimer person was banned before I woke up (well, to be more accurate, woke up to the internet this morn…afternoon). I have a hangover and my spleen is primed to vent.
Those slutty pubs, being in easy walking distance, made me do it. They were wearing short beer gardens and had tarted themselves up with barrels of beer. It’s, like, TOTALLY, not my fault for going into them and putting my money on the bar and ordering the beer and then drinking the beer and partying with my wife and some friends before getting home to relieve the baby sitter. Totally not my fault. How could it be? If only those pubs had stayed away from areas near where I live they’d have been safe and I wouldn’t have a hangover. Pubinazi liverhating beerists.
Louis
And SQB, thirding what Carlie and Gen said. Sometimes the harm and risk of speaking up is greater for you than the harm perpetrated by shutting up.
It’s a sad fact I have learned the very hard way to my detriment in real life. Well, I say “learned”. I haven’t actually learned it, but I know it exists!
Louis
The only two times in the past ten years I’ve been threatened with violence is when I told one man that his misogynist joke wasn’t funny and when I told a homophobe he was being homophobic.
I’m getting sick and tired of these trolls showing up to compare rape to theft. When I do that and point out that they wouldn’t doubt a report of theft automatically they trip over themselves to say how it cannot be compared.
it seems to me a lot of the crimes being used for comparison are a result of overwhelming economic inequality within a capitalist society. As if capitalism has nothing in common with patriarchy… there is an interesting analysis to be made, but it certainly isn’t regarding how privileged people can avoid having to brush up against the negative effects of these power systems.
Sigh.
Society has spent all of recorded history trying to prevent rapes (though the definition of rape keeps changing and becoming more inclusive). During all of that time, the rape prevention has focused, almost exclusively, on what women should and should not do. Don’t go outside without a chaperone. Don’t wear revealing clothing. Don’t expose your ankle. Don’t drink. And if they did get raped, well, it was obviously their fault. And this was the accepted paradigm for, what, 3,500 years?
Over the last century, the radical idea that rapists are actually responsible for their actions has taken hold. Women do not need to change their behaviour. Schroedinger’s rapist existed in the minds of women long before Schroedinger was born.
And I am amazed, and sickened, by those who insist that we keep trying the failed rape-prevention strategy and tactics of the past. Making women responsible for the actions of rapists is not acceptable and it never prevented rapes. As has been shown in this thread, through myriad examples presented by some very brave people, it actually makes rape easier.
Trying the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome is a great definition of insanity. Are we, as a society, insane?
That’s a great pickup line. I am so blinded by your brilliance that I am moved to contribute to you vasectomy fund.
That’s a great pickup line. I am so blinded by your brilliance that I am moved to contribute to your vasectomy fund.
Double post so simon can see with his 3D glasses.
skeptifem #341
Now this is something I can sink my teeth into.
Pre-capitalist economies also had built-in inequalities. Consider feudalism, where essentially the king owned everything and everyone and rented his property to the top layer of nobles, who in turn rented their properties to the next level and on down to the serfs who didn’t own anything including themselves. According to Marx, and in this case most historical economists agree with him, capitalism rose from feudalism with the emergence of a bourgeoisie who claimed ownership of property and more importantly money (capital) independently of the king.
Note this is a vast simplification. I’d be happy to take this discussion to TZT to avoid derailing this thread any more.
american slaves. “comfort women” in ww2. vietnamese women. wives. prostitutes.
I think society has tried to channel rape onto “acceptable” women, not prevent rapes. Rape was only a property crime until very recently.
Delurking a little (and don’t let me distract from where Skeptifem and Og were going because that’s interesting). I think we’re mostly done with Jenny et al, but this gave me a real giggle:
Because this is the “I don’t have to outrun the bear” argument that was shot down on the first page still getting repeated. (I’m better off, but the next woman is worse off because when the rape I avoid falls to her, womp womp, the police do fuck all because she didn’t have a big dog!)
Now pardon me for playing a on a trope, but as a parent shouldn’t one be a little more willing to perhaps improve the environment (in this case not promoting rape-culture) for their daughters’ sake rather than keep doubling down on this eff you I’ve got mine bullshit? (Sounds familiar, huh? Go Galt, already, please.)
I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun my daughter! It sounds a little fucked up. Do something about the bear.
Sorry. I phrased that poorly. Society has spent all of recorded history preventing the rape of that social group’s women.
It is still thought of as a property crime by many here in the US. Some of them have been gracious enough to inflict their presence on this thread.
Thereby reinforcing my pathological incapability of trusting anyone.
As a guess, you could say that the rise of feminism is a function of belonging to a society where for the first time in history the majority of people have significant leisure time and a relatively high level of basic education. It is probably hard to dwell on social justice issues when you live a bare subsistence lifestyle. I don’t think it is a coincidence that so many of the people who are dismissive of rape specifically and feminism more generally are the same people who hold political positions that have the obvious outcome of pushing more and more people back into poverty, and into deeper and deeper vulnerability to the predations of the privileged.
Just read all 1350-odd comments.Holy fuck, I’ve missed out on a lot of arguing.
To all those who shared stories, got profane, argued for post after post after post: Thank you. Y’all are various combinations of brave and awesome.
To all the trolls, fuck you. Fuck you very much. Don’t forget to hand in your Decent Human Being card at the door, you don’t deserve it. The only thing you do deserve is a putrefied porcupine to be applied to your orifice of choice. Repeatedly.
Rape does tend to come in flavors per group, at least from my cross-demographic sample. :/
Just about caught up. To all who tried to explain to those who just don’t get it, thank you. For those who shared their experiences, thank you. And Louis, for explaining so clearly the rules around the peepee, thank you very much.
I am very lucky in that so far I’ve only had the low level sexism that seems to be the ground state for most women. I am aware of this. I know that I have been lucky, and that if I had been targeted, chances are that no precautions I had made would have been enough. So the trolls, whether they think of themselves as that or not, who think that it’s up to them person getting raped to prevent it, I would like to restate Sarahface’s suggestion re: porcupine.
Prevent rapes? Hell, no! Society—meaning men—-has silenced women and made rape possible for just about every group of men that existed, if they chose their victims wisely. Rape is still not defined in a sensible way and rape laws make it ridiculously easy for rapists to get away. I take that back: rape laws make it practically impossible to do anything to rapists, but they sure are great for attacking women and ruining their lives. Until recently it was all about which group of men attacked which other group of mens’ property. Rape for too many guys to this day is no more significant than keying another guy’s car, because we’re still possessions. Pick a woman from a lower group than you, and she’s a gold digging whore who wants your money. (And women from the lower classes, on top of being women, are always assumed to be whores since an extremely young age.) Pick a woman from a higher social group, and it’s the way you can take down a woman who shouldn’t be that high up. No matter what class a dude is, he knows he can still attack a woman and rape her and show her who’s boss. He might not be able to do that to another guy in that searing way, but he can do that to his women.
That, by the way, is why I’m not fond of that tactic where people say to some scumbag, “What if it was your daughter, wife, sister, etc.,etc.,?” Because that just reinforces the idea that a woman is somebody’s property, where if she’s daring to go to work and live her life she’s obviously not somebody’s property but a woman who’s existing while female. Plus these guys, more often than not, would happily jettison their own female relatives at the drop of a hat if any of them got uppity with them.
They’re right about one thing. Comparing women to cars makes sense because we are vehicles to them, and they can’t hide that that’s the way they think of us: vehicles for revenge, for hurting another guy, for making himself feel better than at least he’s not a woman……
Most chilling and horrible thing I ever heard a rapist say was this dude in court, looking at the victim on the stand and shaking his head. “Did I do her?!” So much for clothes and all that being provocation. She crossed the path of a rapist. He wasn’t looking at her clothes or anything. She was there.
Sarahface:
Just to be clear, the porcupine is not to be forcibly administered by another person, the troll is invited to self-adminster the porcupine. Porcupine samples and instructions are provided, but the actual procedure is to be performed by the troll, preferably without an audience.
Our daughters? Why don’t we change the way we’re raising our sons? But the whole point of the ‘outrun the bear’ idea is that the bear gets to do what it wants. Having to raise the sons so they’re not sexist would mean the dad can’t be sexist either. If the son sees Dad sitting on his ass while Mom does the house work or else the housework magically gets done, he’s going to pick up on that. The messages get pounded in from birth, and frankly, I read Arlie Hochschild a while ago and the percentages haven’t budged much in twenty years.
ginmar:
I apologize. I obviously cannot write. I had assumed that my last paragraph in the comment from which you quoted had made it clear that the rules women are meant to obey makes rape more likely to happen and less likely to be punished.
I used daughter specifically to appeal to Jenny’s mention of her own daughter and her training thereof. I obviously am not implying men and boys aren’t raped. That would be stupid.
(And I wasn’t mentioning training of daughters or sons I don’t think, but yes, all varieties of children should be brought up to fight these toxic memes. That’s one of our best hopes for improving our culture. I’m trying to be the best dad I can be.)
Apologies though for being unclear!
I’ve known three women who were raped and every instance involved either large quantities of alcohol and/or hard drugs. Staying away from hard drugs or hard drug users and a avoiding heavy drinking around strangers probably greatly reduces a woman’s chance of being raped.
I don’t use hard drugs and rarely drink heavily and I would guess that these would contribute to a man’s lowering their inhibitions regarding sexual aggression. Statistically, rape has declined coincidental the rise in young men incarcerated for simple drug possession, and I suspect that it is a causal tie. Put young men who use drugs into prison and you are likely to reduce the number of rapes.
After reading some of the crap on this thread, I think it’s pretty clear that rape is mostly legal in all but a few cases, and has been that way forever. Most women just don’t count. As our little troll friends make clear, most if not all women just don’t count, period.
360, you are a moron of such stupendous perfection that they bring other morons up to you to compare them with you. Go fuck yourself. Plainly, nobody should have to fuck you.
joeljacobson, you are about to receive a thunderous volley of “fuck you’s” and you deserve it.
Fuck.
I was going to take a nap.
QFFT
Unfortunately this attitude seems to be rising in all areas of my spheres of existence, be it economic or social or political. The sort of people who want to build a wall around their spot, and everyone else can go get fucked – but strangely enough are the loudest complainants when it comes to, yanno, actually coming out from behind that wall and interacting with the society produced by such ‘fuck-you-I’ve-got-mine’ attitudes. In the UK we’re more likely to use the phrase ‘I’m alright, Jack’, shortened from ‘Pull the ladder up behind me, I’m alright, Jack[everyman]’. Telling, I think.
@gimmar
The vast majority of men will never rape anyone, and I doubt that rape is randomly spread through the male population. In other words, we can create a profile of the type of man likely to engage in rape. Right of the top of my head I would guess that men who use drugs and were raised without a father are far more likely to rape than the general population. If we put men fitting that profile into prison until thirty we would almost certainly see a precipitous decline in rapes.
Also, what’s this crap about raising “our sons” differently. The way boys are raised in the US is not homogenous. I don’t currently know one man who has ever raped a woman, so, men like us are already being raised right. It is infuriating that you ignore the legion of men who are already being raised right and focus on the minority who are not.
Frankly, it’s intellectually dishonest.
As of my writing, this thread is 1364 comments long. Your point has been discussed to death, joeljacobson, although you’ve managed to express it in a singularly stupid and offensive way.
Don’t bother to comment here again until you’ve read through all 1364 comments, ‘K?
Oh, look, another fucking idiot. There must be a trollpen with a busted panel somewhere, letting them wander around chewing cud and shitting all over the interwebz.
@simonprimer:
“Women are just too emotional to think clearly. I’m not saying this to provoke anybody.”
Well, right. It’s not like this trope hasn’t been peddled for a century. Why would a woman find it provocative?
If you could fuck right off, that would be splendid.
Stop now, joeljacobson. I told you to go read the rest of the thread before commenting.
Also, I can tell where you’re argument is going, asshole, and I’m just waiting for the racist to peek out from under the hood to ban you.
joeljacobson: I’m going to open with fuck you, you fucking fuck, and refer you to the research studies linked in the comments and the testimonials, of which mine was one.
Those poor women who told you about being raped. Tell me, how long could you resist telling them why they bought their own rapes on?
What a friend you are.
Explain to us how you know this. Did they not show you their Official Rapist Tattoo?
Number one drug used to justify rape: alcohol. Yes, let’s ban alcohol and those annoying beer commercials. Let’s jail all those beer-swilling rednecks until they’re 30. Our privatized prisons would love that.
Given that most rapes are by friends and family of the victim, the “fatherless” delusion is also likely to be a red herring.
@ PZ Myers
What’s wrong with pointing out the connections between rape and substance abuse?
What this entire thread looks like is that people care about “rape culture” and don’t actually give a shit about the individual women who get raped. You do understand that this is what you dweebs look like outside of your little fish bowl, right?
Normal people, unlike you all, are interested in making sure that he women in their lives are not raped. Frankly, if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care – I’m not cheering it on, it’s just not my concern.
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it. I don’t care about some metaphysical “rape culture”. Further, I would add that if more people thought like me there would likely be fare fewer individual rapes.
Shorter joeljacobson: “Sniff! Sniff! WAAAAAHH! YOU’RE SAYING WE’RE ALL RAPISTS!”
I give you a .2 for effort; the vintage of your sentiment just wipes out the rest.
Don’t talk to joeljacobson.
PZ assigned him some homework.
Normal people? NORMAL PEOPLE?
Go ahead and fuck yourself with that pile of porcupines. The ones on top have been marinated in habanero.
The man who raped my best friend was a middle-class teetotaler with a psychology degree from a state university and two very nice parents. You’re a fucking moron whose only purpose currently is to prevent grass from photosynthesizing due to the shadow cast by your pigheaded ignorance.
Yeah, cuz guys admit to committing felonies all the time. Tell me, did you ask all of your male friends this in private, or did you just distribute a questionnaire?
But, but, he’s just so squishy.
Awright, I’ll let him hang himself.
@ PZ
You must not be very familiar with the nature of substance abuse. Substance abuse is a trigger for all sorts of anti-social behavior. If I go out and rob someone to buy meth my need to acquire meth does not justify the robbery.
You are confusing cause and justification.
meh.
Just send him straight to TZT.
Odds are good that you do.
Odds are also good that you don’t have a clue anywhere near how many women you know have been raped.
What’s weird is, joeljacobson, if roughly one in five average, never-convicted college dudes sampled (you’d know the cite if you read the comments, if you were commenting in good faith) are self-admittedly rapey, but you’ve never met a single one in your whole life, the concentrations in other places not around you must be really, really bad.
Can one in five college dudes be drug-users raised by single moms? Seems outlandish! Could you be talking out of your butt?
@ Emrysmyrddin
No one’s “crying” about anything. The problem is that what you all are doing will induce cynicism. I don’t rape. I can’t anything about the vast majority of rapes. Yet, “rape culture” is supposed to be my problem.
That is going to make me even more apathetic about rapes that happen outside of my immediate social sphere. I just don’t care very much, and this entire conversation makes me care even less. This is going to be the normal human male response to conversations such as this.
joeljacobson –
Fuck you, asshole. There are just as many people who are able to enjoy drinking and smoking a joint without turning into ebil rapists – trying to pin rape on substance abuse is just that much handwaving to avoid having to dig into the real meat of the problem: deeply entrenched sexist and misogynist attitudes perpetuated by a patriarchal culture. There are over 1300 comments on this thread, many of which were spent dismantling the same basic batshit stupid argument you’re trying to push right now. Go back, read the damned thread and then see if there’s anything substantial that you can contribute to the conversation. As it is, I’m not holding my breath and eagerly anticipate the evisceration your comments thus far have shown you richly deserve.
Jeebus, after having slogged through all those comments, again some ignorant arsehole crawls out of his cesspit.
Shorter joel: I got mine*, fuck you.
*No, he doesn’t, it’s a delusion.
Oh, I’m pretty sure that you do. In fact, it’s pretty much statistically impossible that you don’t. Also see here for a more extensive analysis with more recent references.
The normal male reaction is to not care when told that rapists are wrong and are to blame for rape….
Is anyone else feeling like joel is a creeper?
If rape is a product of patriarchy then why is it that rape isn’t randomly distributed throughout the male population? Men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father in the home are much more likely to rape than the general population.
Hell, when I put it that way it would appear that patriarchy is created by men who are poor and substance abusers.
In my defense… I hadn’t expected SGBM to cite that right before my comment. Refresh before submitting, people!
“I’ll only be your ally if you pander to me.” Fuckface.
Keep saying it and maybe someday it’ll be true!
You piece of shit. You haven’t read this thread at all, or you’d know that a large percentage of the people commenting are people who have been raped.
No, that is the aberrant response of a sociopath.
No, they’re much more likely to get arrested and convicted of rape. That’s not the same thing.
@mouthyb
Wow! Intellectual dishonest much? I don’t care about rapes that happen in rape capitals like South Africa, either. It just doesn’t register on my radar. I don’t even think about it. No one talks about it around men, so, it’s not even an issue.
In that same vein, I don’t care very much about most rapes that happen in the US because their lie far outside of my social environment. They simply don’t affect me and mine. As for good and bad … they are what happens in what is my social environment, the things I care about. If no one around me is getting raped, that’s pretty much what I care about.
The rapes that do happen are not a good thing but they just don’t hold any meaning for men, so, I’m not going to expend the effort to say they’re “bad”, either. I just don’t care
You haven’t followed my order to read the previous comments, joeljacobson. Also, your assertion that rape is a problem of “men who are poor, engage in substance abuse and were raise without a father” is unsupported and unlikely.
Your suggestion that you are apathetic about rape and about to become even more apathetic is contemptible, and I ought to ban you on the general principle that I don’t want to associate with pro-rape assholes. But I’ve already banned a whole bunch of similar jerks in this thread.
Therefore, you are now confined to only posting in the TZT thread. Posting anywhere else on this blog will get you immediately banned.
Do not reply here, do not toss in a snarky parting shot, just restrict yourself to posting there.
Citation fucking needed, asswipe. Haven’t you paid attention to any of the stories that have been shared in this thread, some of whom by people who were raped BY FAMILY MEMBERS!?!? Have you even bothered looking up stories of rape survivors? They are all over the frakking spectrum in terms of who their rapists were, but every piece of fucking evidence points to women having a HIGHER RISK of being raped by friends and family rather than by total strangers. Try the fuck again after you do some research.
@384
“This is going to be the normal human male response to conversations such as this.”
As far as “normal” is defined, I strongly urge you to avoid using yourself as a measuring stick.
Your comments on this topic are worthless.
Funny, I thought it was you who was being intellectually dishonest. You care about rape, but only with your relatives, but you don’t care enough to do anything about it, or do any sort of reading or research about it, and told us that your female friends who had told you about rape should have known to avoid drinking and drugs, and besides nobody you know is a rapist and people who care about rape are not normal.
I’m going to go ahead and call that full of intellectual dishonesty, cause brother, you obviously don’t care about rape at all if those are your responses.
It’s that old ‘this is an academic debate for me’ thing again, isn’t it?
“There are two equal sides, and something petty and irrelevant can switch me from one side to the other like an oversized pendulum, regardless of the real-world impact of my decision on other human beings.”
Immediate reg flag for an empathy-free arsehole.
Hmmm, we’ve been discussing the genesis of empathy-free arseholes and the environments in which they propagate, somewhere, haven’t we? I seem to vaguely recall abaout 1,300 posts on the subject somewhere…
Normal people, unlike you all, are interested in making sure that he women in their lives are not raped. Frankly, if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care – I’m not cheering it on, it’s just not my concern.
If you don’t care if women outside of your “circle” are raped, then why the fuck are you here? Do you get off on poking at rape victims or something? Does it please you to make them feel bad, to trigger them, to fantasize over ways to make them responsible for their own trauma? Are you in fact an emotional sadist?
I care that my daughter, wife, sisters, nieces and immediate friends are not raped. That’s it. I don’t care about some metaphysical “rape culture”. Further, I would add that if more people thought like me there would likely be fare fewer individual rapes.
Rape culture makes your daughter, wife, sisters, nieces, and immediate friends more likely to be raped, oh mighty one. Like when my best friend was raped in her basement by her cousin when neither one of them had been using any type of drug at all.
So we have two choices: these assholes are serious, or they’re doing it for the lulz. Either way they’re assholes, and I fear for the effect they have on women in their company. They are rapist enablers. They let rapists know that rape is okay and that victims can’t be trusted to define crimes committed against them. I think they’re conscious of what they’re doing. They are so vehement in their denials that you know they’re thinking about it. Do they envy rapists? Do they admire them? Do they wish they had the guts? The point is, they are on the side of the rapist. They always attack the victim. They avoid talking about the rapist at all costs, except to defend the idea that rape is rare and mostly over-reported.
* These are the guys you work with, if you’re unlucky.
*I worked for a private security company that had the habit of hiring people before their FBI check came through. One assignment I was the only woman in thirteen guys, and the client picked me over my supervisor’s objections. It soon became clear why. (I served nearly twenty years in the Army, fought in Iraq, speak two languages, and only left the service when I got injured in the line of duty.) The boss was the biggest Mary Sue you ever saw. He claimed he was the grandson of an English Duke, an ex-CIA agent….you get the drill. And he only hired people—-male people—-who were stupid enough to believe him.
*So this new guy got hired and right away there were problems. He had opinions about women. He said they asked to get raped. He said I was asking to get raped right then and there, by giving him orders. (I was the assistant supervisor, so it was part of my job.) I reported this and other incidents to the site supervisor, the Gary Stu.
*The new hire’s record came back and he was instantly fired. He had pages and pages of crimes against women, including three pages of stuff that he’d committed in the short time he’d lived in this city, perhaps eighteen months. Domestic violence, attempted rape, sexual assault, and so on. And he was a big guy; he was more than a foot taller than me.
* The men blamed me for his firing. My written statement was circulated among the men, and when our contract was bought out, I was the only one who didn’t come along. My boss sabotaged my job. It was thirteen against one. The EEOC asked me if I had video. My boss didn’t tell me I was essentially fired, either: I found out my last day when my key card didn’t work. I caught him at the elevator and told him if he had been all those things, he wouldn’t have taken such a chickenshit way to do it, and oh by the way, none of the English dukes had had a grandchild that matched his description, and unless he meant Culinary Institute of America, he was just a pathetic little poseur who couldn’t even tell interesting lies. I can hear his voice in some of these troll comments.
*I can also hear the voice of a male acquaintance to whom I related all this as it was going on. He was astonished. “But that doesn’t happen any more!” He spluttered. (When the subject of some feminist complaint comes up, he stops, pauses, and then says in a very significant voice, “Gee, I wonder how I turned out so different from those other guys.” Of course you’re supposed to start verbally fellating him then.)
I cannot figure out how to make the damned paragraph breaks bigger.
Hmmm, my block quoting seems to have disappeared in my last post. Sorry, the second and forth paragraph are mine, the first and third are ones I meant to quote
Yep, sociopath. Let me guess, also a libertarian?
I feel like I’m a normal human male, give or take… and the more people talk about serious individual and societal problems like rape and sexual abuse, the MORE I care. Hearing about the horrible things happening to people in general, and to the people in conversations like this in particular, puts the problem front and center in my mind. Only some sort of sociopath would see a conversation about this, turn it around and make it all about them, and then become more dismissive of the problem the more they read about it.
joeljacobson is a misogynistic sociopath, as near as I can tell. I’m sure he’s off to some MRA-friendly site to brag about how everyone here is being mean to him simply because he disagrees with us.
</qO
Citation, with relevant statistical parameters (p-value, standard deviation, 95% confidence interval), required.
Evidence for causality required.
Joeljacobson, 374
That there is none, except in the minds of apologists.
Well, at least that means you aren’t going to rape them. That’s so good of you!
I’d be more inclined to believe that the most common rapist—-because their privilege protects them—-are the guys who have all the privilege—-straight, white, ‘he-doesn’t-NEED-to-rape’ types. Kind of like bullies aren’t tortured Heathcliffs but arrogant little shits upholding the status quo. I’m always puzzled when people defend a rich guy with the notion that he can have any girl he wants, or whatever. He wants the ones who say no. And of course these guys never think it’s rape. “Hey, I bought dinner.”
There are a few I strongly suspect are actually rapists themselves. Those that aren’t are either fucking selfish idiots or are cyber rapists (the ones I call rapist ramoras). they basically want the same power trip as rapists without all that physical effort (note anyone here that is an actual rapist would also be a cyber rapist).
If you’re going to ask joeljacobson questions, please redirect him to TZT, because if he answers here, he will be splatted by the banhammer.
They’re rapist fans, if not rapists themselves. Or they’re going to become rapists, or they’re going to be the guys who watch women get raped. They totally do not talk about rapists on these threads at all——unless it’s to defend them.
I have to say, I’m astonished at the amount of shit they pull out of their asses. Absolutely astonishing.
.
Short of actually taking out full-page ads in every paper and on every website in the world saying that “I, joeljacobson, am scum in superficially human form” in letters a foot high, that’s probably about as clear as he could have made it really. What a piece of excrement.
By the strength and consistency of their “convictions” I’d guess a few serial date-rapists and/or workplace harassers are in the mix. For rationalization purposes, the flip-side of “if they would only do X, they wouldn’t get raped” is “if they didn’t do X, it couldn’t have been rape.” You have to assume based on the statistics that at least some of the people saying “well, it is a woman’s fault if she gets drunk” would also believe “well, if she got drunk she was asking for it.”
… and now I feel sick and like I need a shower.
Sorry PZ, I was typing while you were posting. Mine was more of a rhetorical question, anyway. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
I would say that alcohol and drug use IS related to rape, but not in the way that apatheticjoeltheasshole thinks: alcohol and drug intoxication is used by predators to subdue their victims. I’m a sober alcoholic and know lots of women with drug and alcohol abuse histories. Every single woman alcoholic I have ever known has been raped while drunk.
Every. Single. One.
Most more than once.
Fuck you and everyone who thinks like you.
Except that this little game, the trolling, is an attempt to create cyber rape. It’s the idea of hurting someone for the sake of feeling power. The ones who aren’t just egotistical idiots, are rapists. rape isn’t about sex. They come to topics like this because they are looking for prey.
I don’t if one can compare words to actual physical violation. Sorry. There’s no such thing as cyber rape. I had somebody use the term “cyber genocide” to describe Amazon’s decision to corral badly-behaved authors in one of the fora just for authors because they’d pissed off so many readers with stuff that was just this side of fraud. Hey, I’m rambling and sleep-deprived, let’s roll with it! “Cyber Genocide.” Just try and wrap your head around that, after the people in question had made up fake accounts, reviewed their own books, roped in family and friends, and more shit than you can shake a stick at. Sorry. Time to go beddy bye for me, I think.
But it comes back to the question of are they trolling or are they serious? Either way, they’re assholes, and either way, they’re sociopaths who relish womens’ pain. My life is not a social experiment unless my fist is their wake up call.
Oh and 415: the Army likes to tout this horrible drinking statistic in its sexual assault briefing: 52% of rapes happen while one or both of the parties is drunk. That means…..48% are committed while sober. Huh. Four % difference there. There is also the fact that male alcoholics are treated as funny or tragic, but women who drink are treated as disgusting, slovenly, whorish, and so forth. The double standard isn’t just a double standard: that’s too kind. It’s an opposite standard, where men are good and are given every benefit of the doubt, while women are bad and cannot be redeemed and have to be viewed with suspicion at all times because they might snap and accuse you of something.
I’d say that that’s fascinating but irrelevant but I’d be lying about the first part
Hey, I want to echo this. Reading all of these comments has made me care more.
(And I want to add, that in much the same way I don’t really know you Improbable Joe, but I feel bad hearing about the grief caused by your neighborhood situation and the demands it’s putting on you.)
That’s the normal you response you assholes. Empathy. You don’t haz it.
Ing, 416
That’s it! That explains the rage I (we?) feel, reading their garbage; it feels like being raped again.
But it’s just the internet, just words on the internet, they’ll say; not real, what are we getting so angry about? They’ve done nothing wrong. Just asking questions, is all.
Sometimes I wish that I could believe in hell.
Why not? We recognize psychological torture and verbal abuse, and neither of those necessarily require physical contact to be used in the same conversation as their physical counterparts.
@Mattir, #356:
I was aware of the self-applied nature of the porcupine, however on re-reading my comment, I see that I didn’t make this clear, so my apologies.
Seconded, so much.
I know you’ve all picked up on this already, but wow, way to make it all about you, joelwhoeverthefuckyouare. If you don’t know about something, it isn’t an issue at all? Is your world so small and self-centred that the only important things that happen either happen to you, or to your family? (Don’t answer that, we all know the answer is yes.)
By extension, does this mean that the only important issues in the world are ones that men know about? What next, nothing said by a women is important unless it is *also* said by a man? Nothing done by a woman is important unless it is done on the orders of a man?
The fact that you don’t even think about it shows how much privilege you have – for a lot of us, it’s *not a fucking option* to not think about it.
Fuck you, your Decent Human Being card is being confiscated and destroyed.
As a lurker, I’d like to come out and say the following:
****
To posters like joeljacobson, millssg99, simonprimer, horace, and jenny6833a, and others of their ilk: you may be intelligent, and have other good and fine qualities. It’s a shame you weren’t able to display them here. All that comes across is your ego.
****
To the “regular” posters here: a LOT of your ego comes across, too. Fortunately, you add in compassion, and empathy, and a willingness to listen to others, even when it is obvious they are so deaf to anything but the sound of their own words. And you all do it with such . . . well, in such an interesting way.
****
Conclusion: I know which group I’d like to share a beer or a cup of coffee with.
Once again, blaming the victims. Amazing.
So, joeljacobson, tell me what I did wrong? I was ten years old. A cub scout. And I was raped, repeatedly, by my scout leader. No alcohol was involved. No drugs. Hell, he was a Mormon stakeholder so alcohol and drugs were against the rules for him, too. So, asshole, what was I supposed to do? What did I do wrong that made him decide to be a rapist? Because, obviously, you think it is the victim’s fault, right?
If it is so easy to do, why has it not been done? Which type of rape do you profile for? Date rape? Violent assault? Child rape? Raping a women who has been drinking? How would you do this?
What a fucking idiot.
Because it is used to blame the victim you heartless asshole.
And you are fully prepared to protect them, right? Restrict their movements, govern who they can and cannot see, chaperone them, treat them as less than fully human, deny them the pleasure of a good drink? Ah, you’re such a nice guy. And you take such good care of your property, too.
Sorry, I started this rant before PZ stepped in. I’m gonna keep going.
It is your problem because you are helping to perpetuate it. Read the fucking thread. Look at how many times the link has been demonstrated between ‘taking precautions’ and blaming the victim. You are making it easier for men to rape women and helping to make it more difficult to get a conviction.
You do, of course, have statistics to back that up? They may far more likely to be convicted of rape than a rich white man, but, in case you haven’t noticed, when you are rich, you can get away with murder.
I think some of them do.
When I was in high school, there were three or four uber-alpha males who had a well-deserved reputation for refusing to take no for an answer when on a date. Girls still went out with them because they were the Creme-de-la-Creme of the high school pyramid. And they went through girl friends like they were disposable. Their motto was, “Date ’em, fuck ’em, dump ’em.”
And I think that, easily, half the boys in the school wanted to be those three or four rapists. No, we didn’t think of what they did as rape — good girls always say no even when they mean yes (after all, in high school, the definition of a slut was a girl who likes fucking). We (and yes, I include myself) were jealous because 3% of the boys seemed to get 90% of the sex. I was a stupid little shit back then and, looking back, I am ashamed at who I was.
And I think that people like joeljacobson do envy rapists. Commitment free sex, disposable partners, a fuck for the price of a dinner, a few drinks and a little drugs. So yeah, I think he does wish it were him.
Seconded.
When I was an ignorant little asshole in high school, rape meant only the violent stranger-in-the-ally rape. The more I learn, the more angry and concerned I become about the boys I grew up with who thought that no always meant yes.
Well, if that is the dipshit’s plan, xe succeeded.
Then again, these threads, and idiots like hir, are useful.
I spent most of my life blaming myself for what happened that summer. Men don’t do things like that to little boys, so I must have done something to make it happen. And year after year after year, I knew that it was my fault. All mine.
When I came to Pharyngula a few years ago (different ‘nym), I enjoyed the repartee, the atmosphere, the jokes, the vitriol. It was fun.
Then Rebecca Watson got hit by the fan. And I dove right in even though I had almost no clue about the sexual dynamics, the idea of victim blaming, how the pernicious idea of ‘being careful’ destroys lives, or the entire MRA/PUA/rape-is-good culture. And that, my friends (and you are), was a wake-up call of epic proportions.
I don’t remember exactly when I decided to first tell about that part of my history here, but I think it was during one of the threads following the 3d5k fiasco. And I realized, as I actually committed it to electrons for that first time, that it really wasn’t my fault. None of it was. That rapist made the decision to become a youth leader to gain access to victims.
Now, when I read the sickening dreck of joeljacobson (and others), I see my old scout leader — a man who was willing to use force, threats, and coercion in order to fulfill his ideas, his goals, his pleasure with no regard to how others may feel. He treated me, and probably others, as objects for his enjoyment. And I suspect that joeljacobson, and horace, and the other assholes who have filled this thread with hate and fear, are much the same kind of person.
Rape is about power. Specifically, a sexual feeling, a sexual release, gained by forcing someone else to react to your ego, your wants.
My scout leader once told us that there are two kinds of people on earth — men and children. Some children grow up to be men. And children have one use on the earth — a way for men to have fun. He told me he was making sure that I knew what a real man was supposed to do so I didn’t grow up and become an adult without also becoming a man.
Read through the comments dropped by the rape apologists. They are, from my reading, using the pain and fear and horror of victims, telling the victims that they really are at fault for what happened, to have fun. They are gaining a release, a power release, a sexual release, by making me, and others, react to their wants.
Bingo. Every time one of these shitstains explains, in their oh-so-reasonable tones, how if the victim had only been careful, if she hadn’t gone to that spot, it would have been different. The mental pain I have inflicted on myself for around 35 years has been exactly the same thing — what did I do wrong.
And I get hit with it again and again and again. This is one reason I am still here, still writing, because if I write it out, I help to settle myself down and reinforce that no, despite what I am being told, it really was not my fault.
The physical pain hurt. That was a matter of size. I was small, skinny. But that was a walk in the park compared to what my own brain created.
“The pen is mightier than the sword” is not just a trite saying.
Words have power.
Rape-apologizing words on the internet can do more harm in the end than any single rapist can, even a serial one.
Eight space downs?
Sorry.
Anger and fear and working it out in my mind at work.
*oh so many through-the-screen hugs if you want them* I value you very highly as a commenter here, Ogvorbis, and the eloquence of above just reinforces that for me; thank you for being so open.
@ginmar #418
Kind of sounds like the view on men and women of some religions we know… right?
So many atheists have already shaken off other religious views, but to this one and others like it some cling to with a passion.
The keyword here is MY. He doesn’t like people touching his things
I don’t know a better way to say it, but my sincere sympathies to everyone that’s posted their stories. (And to Caine and others too, who have posted elsewhere before.) Across the years Pharyngula has opened my eyes to some pretty harrowing tales outside of my experience and I think I’m better for it. I’m grateful, thankful.
Cheers, Og! (Don’t feel bad about word counts (everyone wins)!)
“(Don’t feel bad about word counts (everyone wins)!)” That sounded better in my head before I read it. I can explain, but apologies in advance.
Yep, that’s why I can be pretty sure to be safe from cat-calling, groping and other advances when I’m with my husband: I’m already somebody’s property. Yet f I’m alone it’s kind of finders-keepers.
There’s got to be a better way to put it. These guys specially target women, rape victims, friends of rape victims, women who have suffered abuse and harassment, and cyber rape just feels so facile. But then I have PTSD that leaves me with two speeds: numb or enraged, so who knows.
Ing, my point was that tacking a ‘cyber’ on a term that in real life refers to a specific thing—-like a sexual assault or an ethnic cleansing—-that causes physical damage to people, at the very least, is…..not the best way of describing something. My own emotional response to the trolls is a sort of shock at cruelty that simply needs its own description. Of course, all over the internet one sees various people describing things like being defeated in a video game as ‘being raped’, or having one’s movie edited against one’s wishes as ‘being raped’, and stuff like that.
One thing I notice is that these guys attack singly, one by one, on a site like this, but individual women get attacked in packs, and are openly threatened with the very thing they’re complaining about. Ever since Elevatorgate there’s been a constant stream of blowups wherein huge groups of men attack a lone woman with utter viciousness, and that dynamic stays with you. It’s a threat.
#425….I have read the trolls’ comments. I’ve been on the internet 14 years now. I’m a woman. I get death and rape threats at my house because a guy said another guy asked him to find out where I lived, and it was my fault I made it easy for him.
For some of these guys commenting here, I have a really hard time, based on their comments, picturing this as a sexual release.
The scariest thing about these guys is that beyond boasting to their doods about how they totally made that chick online loose her cool, they’re completely and utterly indifferent. That’s the worst thing of all. They’re as indifferent to the victims commenting here as they would be if they knocked over a chair. Women are just objects to them—-break one, bend one, well, just go get a new one. In the cases where there were packs of guys attacking one female blogger the dynamic seemed different. They attacked in a gang and gained strength from one another, focused on a single target, and they whipped themselves up. Here, they’re being driven back and some of them tried to make face-saving comments—social experiment and all. But, yeah, so many of them…..they just don’t care. They’re indifferent. I think that’s worse than hatred, almost. How do you describe an absence? They have an absence of feeling for women and other rape victims. The reason they won’t listen is because they just can’t be bothered. Unless a woman is what they need at the moment, they spend not a moment thinking about us at all.
^ This stuff gives me the creeps.
But it’s only the magic of his immediate presence (peepee forcefield?) C.f.:
“I’ve gotta man!”
“What’s ya man got to do with me?”
I’m sorry. Once again, I phrased that poorly. When I read the commments in this thread, and the myriad others like it, I get hit right in the pain, fear and emotions. I did not mean to imply you had not read the thread. Sorry.
It is more of a power release, which, in some people, has a definate sexual component.
This is why I think some of them are looking for a release — power, sex, whatever — because they do come to a thread like this and they do try to make the thread all about them, and their feelings. They don’t care about me as a person, but as someone who is a victim, I, and others, are a potential source of release. They do think about us, just not as people.
I agree with you, though, that this place is damned impressive. It is one of the few unmoderated (well, except in egregious circumstances) sites in which the MRAs and PUAs don’t seem to be able to maintain traction, and I thank you and everyone else who make this a safe place.
^ This is my experience as well. I roll in a geek/gaming culture (just to distinguish that from say skeptic societies or college frats; the interactions involved are therefore mostly online, in text or voice chat). It’s like a game to them. The female voices they are responding to are npcs. Free to be abused in any of the same ways. It’s startlingly, um, I want to say sociopathic but I don’t know — IANAPsycologist.
Ogvorbis,
So sorry. What can I say except to reiterate what you already know; it wasn’t your fault. It never was your fault.
When I was 3 or 4, a man I’d never seen before came into the old haybarn in the backyard, where my kid brother and I used to play. He told us to watch, then jacked off. I didn’t know what was going on; the previous attempt at abduction, in a different province, had been stopped, the man arrested, before he actually did anything. This time, no-one showed up.
Afterwards, he threatened us; if we ever talked, he’d “get us”. We didn’t. I didn’t even talk it over with my brother. I never told, until this moment.
And for years and years and decades, I felt guilty. As if I should have stopped him. Or told my parents. But I was ashamed and afraid, ashamed of and dirtied by the new knowledge, believing his threats. So I told myself for years, I was a coward, as well as stupid; I should have run screaming as soon as I saw him in the barn. I should not have looked at him. I should … I should …
We never played in the haybarn again. And I never saw the man, except in nightmares; he’s there, still, going on 65 years later.
At least, now I don’t feel guilty. Just icky.
Come to think of it, it’s strange that of all the rapes and abuse in years that followed, this molestation is the one that made me feel most guilty; as though I were now so besmirched that anything else that happened was inevitable. So all the self-blame went back to that moment, when I was 4.
It’s amazing how accurate and downright prophetic the cartoon really is.
I finally caught up with y’all here. I can’t believe I made it through all three pages (with a bit of tl;dr skimming here and there).
I’m mainly piping in to say cheers for the tireless troll whacking. The passion, wit, intellect, honesty and knowledge you bring to the discussion are welcome and enlightening. The openness and courage of those who have shared their experiences of rape and abuse are impressive and generous. The experiences of real people who have dealt with actual assault stands in such stark contrast to the imaginary dark alleys, parked cars and special precautions that the apologists are so obsessed with.
To all of you for taking on this thankless task, I would like to make it a little less so by saying thank you.
As a card carrying member of the privileged elite there isn’t much I can add to what has already been said, but (after reading all of this I can’t help being a little bit of a but-head)…
@jenny####
Just because you’ve been lucky doesn’t mean your precaution have worked and sure doesn’t give you the authority to tell rape victims “Hey, just be lucky like me and you won’t get raped.” Your presumption that these thing have worked for you and that this is somehow useful to others is worse than useless. It is insulting and condescending to the people you are presumably trying to communicate with.
@alltheotherscumbagapologists
Thank you for providing such an extraordinary variety of examples of how privilege, cluelessness, denial, etc are part of the endemic rape culture. It’s hard to be sure from this end of the tubes but it seems like we’ve had the full range from the well intended but misinformed who are still figuring our what’s wrong with “just asking questions” to the willfully ignorant and disingenuous who are here to get their card punched so they can go whine somewhere about the Pharygumeanies.
. . .
For what little it’s worth I have learned a lot from reading through this. I now have a much more detailed and nuanced appreciation for how rape culture and victim blaming are subtly and blatantly interwoven with the status quo. I have also filled in a few of the Troll Trading Cards that were missing from my collection. Particularly the “Magical Intention Troll” and the genuinely clueless “I Am Not a Troll” (not to be confused with the disingenuous variety).
I suspect there are many more like me lurking in the wings. You guys are making a difference and this thread is an example of what needs doing.
…oh and one other thing, I know it’s been said but I just have to repeat…
If you find yourself having to tell people “I hate, hate, hate rapists.” you’re probable well past the point where this statement will have any value. When people feel the need to tell me how much I can trust them I am inclined to presume the opposite. Regardless of how real your cognitive dissonance is to you doesn’t mean I have to accept what appear to be delusions as fact. My privileged status allows my the luxury of trust and decency as the presumed default behavior, but when someone fails to speak and act accordingly no amount of assurances of trustworthiness and human decency can put it back.
. . .
Finally…
@402 ginmar
“I cannot figure out how to make the damned paragraph breaks bigger.”
AFAIK you can’t. I just use
. . .
an ellipsis.
Hot damn, I come back and there’s yet more idiotic rape apologism. I wish I could say I was surprised.
It never seems to occur to knuckledraggers like joeljacobson to wonder why rapists might target drunk women. They seem to believe that alcohol, when ingested by a woman, creates some kind of magical aura in the air around them that only rapists can see, which spells out “Please Assault Me” in mystical shimmering 72 point font letters.
Of course, the truth is that rapists pick drunk women to assault because the world is full of pious dumbfucks willing to give them a pass for it. So Joel, when you say “if some woman gets high at a party in Fulton County and gets raped I really don’t care” — rapists are listening. Because of what you think and say, rapists know it’s safe for them to attack these women. And so, not surprisingly, they keep on doing it. And getting away with it.
That’s not something drunk women cause. That’s something YOU cause. Think about it.
I don’t know if I’d equate word on a screen with rape either. I can tell you that words on a screen to someone who has suffered mental abuse are very much a violation. Like the list I mentioned some pages back. Just reading makes those words resonate out loud in a voice I hate. Hell just fucking typing those words just now mentioning that fucking list make me hear the words.
so, no, that’s not rape but words on a screen is pretty fucking effective as a trigger.
As an extreme latecomer to this conversation, and being the victim of a burst of morbid curiosity to see the bullshit spewed herein, how the hell do I access the previous pages of comments?
Right above the Leave a Reply line on the comment box there is a hyperlink that says “Older Comments” Click on it.
Holms @ 443:
At the very end of the comments there should be a link to “Older Comments.” Go there.
Alternatively, you can go
Here for page 1 (Comments 1-500):https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/06/15/heres-the-situation/comment-page-1
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Jesus fuck, I’m blind.
Look, if someone who is a victim of rape writes that the actions of rape apologist victim blaming commenters feel like rape, I cannot argue with that. Listen to people.
These conversations have not recreated the physical sensations of the rape, but they have brought back the guilt, the anguish, and the what ifs in no trump redoubled.
@Obvorbis
Which was my point. Granted they may be closer psychologically to flashers, but their choice of targets still makes them a kin to fat lazy ramoras
dictionary.com has the following definition:
sin noun
2. any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle.
I do believe sins exist. I ignore the religious aspect and just consider the moral aspect. To me, the greatest sin is treating people as objects.
Not only do rapists treat their victims as things but the rape apologists see victims as things as well. The last troll made it obvious he considers all women to be things, some of them being his things. Empathy is something completely missing from these folks.
The PTSD I carry (from the molestation, rape, and to an even more insidious extent, fundamentalist brainwashing (aka emotional abuse) as a child) can certainly be stimulated from words on the screen, and there are places on the internet I simply will not go to because if I do, I risk flashbacks that can range from feeling mildly out-of-sorts to full-blown obsessive mental loops that more or less kidnap me from reality for however long it takes for me to talk myself back down.
One of the reasons I can come to Pharyngula and read the words of rape apologists and outright abusive sociapaths like the last one is that I know that rhetorical first aid is almost always immediately administered to the thread. That actually helps quite a bit to calm my own reactions and help my brain arm itself with words that will dispel the effects of reading these parrots of rape culture, or, in other threads, the babbling double-binds and circular logic loops from fundie land.
Which is why I have been reading here for several years, actually. It’s not exactly a safe space, but it is a very useful one for me.
This. And bear in mind that women who abuse alcohol to the point of meriting an alcohol dependence/alcoholism diagnosis have not chosen to have that disease. Generally they’re dealing with genetic vulnerabilities and a fuckton of untreated trauma. So way to go, rape apologists, making a really really bad and humiliating disease EVEN WORSE.
Org, I’m sorry, I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed some rest. And you know what? After decades of this shit, in real life and beyond, I flinched when disagreeing with one of the good folks, because it’s one thing to fight with trolls, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve had so many so-called good people destroy my faith in humanity that it makes me quail back sometimes. I want to re-iterate what others said: Not only were you not at fault, but to be here and fighting the good fight makes you one of the warriors.
I think the war broke something in me. I don’t seem to have anything left but anger and nothing. Which sometimes feels like a mercy. There’s one memory that resurfaced after years, about a night with alleged friends, being given booze after months of not drinking at all, and on top of that, after losing dozens of pounds. That’s all I can say. I will not think about that. I can’t think about that. The minute somebody opens their mouth about ‘gee, women should take more precautions’ I know what I’m dealing with. But so many ‘good people’ have this huge exception where women and other victims that they target for whatever reason are fair game.
………
These guys and their utter indifference…..I find the idea of a power release interesting, because it reminds me of reading about prison rape and thinking that that’s what rapists on the outside think. In prison the rape defines the victim, not the rapist. It’s an act of conquest. The rapist can alter the victim’s identity by the act of rape. Rape is sex to them, because sex is how you conquer people. It’s one person doing to another person, and that person gets lessened. Sex is not something two people do together. It’s what one person does to another person. And on the outside, it’s exactly the same for a large segment of the population.
…….
Part of their contempt for taking rape seriously is based on their view that rape is useful for them, and that women are utterly worthless and interchangeable—–even the ones they own. And if a guy they dislike has a pretty possession they can hurt him by hurting her. (Abusers do that to things and pets and people their primary victim cares about.) They’re just astonished that women dare to speak up as if they’re, you know, people. And men who ally themselves with women (!) of all things are treated as equally contemptible.
This. That they rape.
But the more that rape prevention tips tell women (and victims aren’t only women) things they’ve been hearing since they were little children, things they do as a matter of course, and how they are at fault if they don’t take these commonsense precautions, and the more the focus is placed on stranger rape, the less likely it is that men who rape friends or acquaintances or fellow students will recognise that what they are doing is RAPE. The jocks reported way upthread who were heroes at school for not taking No for an answer, Clint Eastwood’s character in his film (High Plains Drifter) at #398, ginmar’s higher-ranking NCO at #1243 – good grief, even Sally Strange’s corrective-raping enthusiast of a radio host at #1238, let alone the men who interpret a short skirt as implied consent – none of them self-identify as rapists. And what’s worse, a lot of ordinary, otherwise decent but utterly clueless people out there, even some who serve on juries, don’t identify them as rapists either.
So there’s this
So mills99 and jenny6833a from the goodness of their hearts insist you must take common sense precautions. (They have to tell you this because maybe you weren’t listening when you were a little kid.) But honestly, they are not rape apologists. They hate-hate-hate rape.
So you went on a date with the guy: you were asking for it. So you kinda fancied him: you must have enjoyed it. So he was a hero: how could you resist him? So you’re a sexy woman who likes sex: so why might you care to discriminate who you have sex with? So you changed your mind? You crazy bitch.
So you walked down a dark alley in a short skirt at 3 am? Whoa, didn’t you know there could be a Strange Man in a Bush out there?
Thanks for the penetrating insight, we never thought of that.
But all this is only touching on the small minority of cases where adult females are out in the wild where lesser-spotted rapists may be at large. It doesn’t begin to deal with the domestic, common or garden species, let alone those who prey on juveniles. Thanks to all who have shared their experiences here. It is brave of you, and shocking and humbling for the rest of us. I know there are many others out there who from fear and hurt or shame are saying nothing about what they have endured.
Ginmar @1256, Cipher @1265 QFT.
Erista (aka Eris), those ten rape prevention tips are pure gold. Yes, it’s rapists’ behaviour we should be concentrating on, and all the excuses society makes for them.
So Horace, jenny6833a, and especially mills99 – please STFU and LISTEN to what people here are telling you.
I do listen, but most of it (like the stuff I didn’t quote) misrepersents what others have said, breaks every rule of formal logic, and is filled with 12-year old behind-the-barn gutter language of the kind rapists are said to use. I’m beginning to suspect that the authors of such stuff are rapists or wannabe rapists aiming to lower the defenses of their targets.
Have a nice day. :-)
Charming. Jenny goes the “NUUGH YOU’RE A RAPIST!” to me.
Btw, Jenny. Ad Hom.
Expletives are a quite reasonable response when confronted with somebody who’s perfectly willing to smugly toss other women on the altar as long as she’s kept safe when they’re between her and the rapist. STFU, Jenny.
You’ve filled this thread reciting shit that you’ve heard, without thought or consideration. That it happens to be bigoted sexist crap has constantly eluded your notice.
Because rapists are well known for using foul language. Oh wait no they’re not. If anything it would be sexist language…which isn’t tolerated.
So really all Jenny is doing is trying to hurt people. What a delightful little scamp.
No, you don’t. If you actually had listened, you would not be making the kinds of comments you are continuing to make.
You have not listened to anything.
And you have learned nothing.
You have not demonstrated the slightest ability to even recognize what formal logic is, even if it smacked you upside the head with a two by four.
Another classic example of cargo cult accusation throwing. She sees the accusation, doesn’t understand what it is and why it is used AT ALL, and just copies it mindlessly.
Oh, Jenny, just stop and think for a moment. The rapists-are-vulgar meme has protected countless priests, teachers, mayors, princes and presidents and other nice, upstanding citizens such as the Sanduskys of the world.
If you can control language, you can control thought. The Puritans knew this, and George Orwell explained it masterfully. Avoidance of certain words is not the marker of intelligence, class and morality that you seem to think it is.
If that includes me, fuck off.
If it doesn’t include me, fuck off.
Hey, we already know you require no evidence for your beliefs. You admitted that. That’s how we know you’re full of shit.
We’ve explained repeatedly why your helpful hints don’t apply to most rapes, and how they feed the “victim could have prevented this” meme that is actively harmful to fixing the underlying causes of the problem. You’ve heard from victims, and you ignored them.
And now you’re throwing out baseless accusations.
Fuck off.
Jenny, we already know you’re a horrible person. You can stop posting.
Please. Stop posting.
OK, you fucking genius, why have none of the people in this thread who’ve been raped spoken out against them? If precautions really were the be-all-and-end-all, that group would have gone ballistic against anyone who doubted their efficacy. But they didn’t.
I’m making the very safe assumption that anyone who’s been raped doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else. If you doubt that, then you’ve dug to a new substrate in the Terrible Human Being column.
jenny6833a
You are a bad person, perhaps even evil.
You are disgusting.
Go away.
#449 ‘Tis Himself, Granny Weatherwax knows this too (emphasis added).
@ jenny numbers
Please note, still quoting you entire, and yet you are still wrong. You are also not responding.
Of course, in this comment, you really showed everyone how wrong they were by saying they were probably rapists. Even the people who were raped. Sure. That makes sense and is in no way the act of a poo flinging illogical 12 year old.
Jenny, what next? Comparisons to Hitler? Because so far there has been no sense.
#454 jenny,
It takes quite a lot to surprise me on Threads of Doom, but that last effort did. I sincerely hope you are not really an active naturist for the last several decades, because I grew up as one, and the thought that someone like you is presumably an auntie figure to some of the youngsters in your naturist community fills me with fear for their mental wellbeing if they are ever raped and come to you expecting comfort. Your mealy-mouthed advice on how to avoid it happening again will absolutely devastate them, because you’re more invested in your conviction of false security than you are in truly understanding that all you have been is lucky, and not everybody can be.
Jenny, I hope the uniformity of the disgust in response to your last post makes some kind of impression on you. If your words as typed in this forum accurately reflect the kind of person you are, then you are a terrible person. Please isolate yourself from other humans so as to avoid hurting them. Also, fuck you. That is all.
You’re changing the subject. My remarks have been solely about reducing the odds of being raped or otherwise attacked and about fighting off an attack if it happens. Your response is an example of the misrepresentation I spoke of and of the gross illogic of many responses. I’m sad if you’ve done so deliberately and appalled if you don’t know you’re doing it.
Comfort is part of the healing process. Reasonable precautions are part of the prevention process. I’ve spoken only about the latter.
I’m saddened that you invented a bunch of garbage that has no basis in anything I’ve said. I’d concentrate on comfort during the comfort phase all the while discouraging lifelong self pity. When it came time for dealing with the future, I’d talk about lowering the odds of it happening again.
I’ll add that you don’t know if I’ve been lucky or unlucky — or smart or careless. Perhaps I’ve been all four. More specifically, you don’t know whether I’ve been attacked and, if so, what the result may have been. You’re just spewing out invective, although I must admit your invective is a lot more literate than most. :-)
Are you still a naturist? If so, we may well have met. We may even be friends.
Have a nice nude day, or a clammy cloth-constricted day, whichever you prefer.
jenny6833a,
What, no apology for calling people, many of them who have bared their hearts on this thread, rapists?
Well, aren’t you a polite little piece of shit? I’m sure it makes you feel really righteous that you don’t use any naughty words. And yet, you seem oblivious to sewage waste that is spilling from your mouth.
Here we have another illustrative example of hatefulness and inhumanity cloaked in the veneer of civility. Turns out (again and again!) that you don’t need to use ‘gutter language’ to act like a complete arsehole. These people are tone over substance every time, and are so unselfaware and empathyless that they’ll never understand the difference.
jenny6833a, you may have convinced yourself that you’re “safe” because you know the rules. Rules, btw, which are complete and utter crap, based on nothing more than after-the-fact blaming. I honestly hope that you never, ever learn how totally wrong you are.
I do hope that someday you’ll find a way to feel good about yourself with having to tear other women down because they were raped. Aim a little higher.
and I just read jenny6833a @454. Gah! Why are people so comfortable showing off that part of their psyche?
And you and the others of your ilk have been repeatedly told (with data) that your advice doesn’t work.
Yet you keep repeating it. What’s your interest in doing that?
Jennyblah’s obviously an active proponent of The Secret method.
“If I wish really, really hard, the laws of reality won’t apply to meeeee! (And everyone hurt In Reality just wasn’t wishing hard enough!)”
You are a disgusting human being and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
@ Cipher #475 possible trigger warning, although this is fairly distilled sarcasm.
Hey now, you have to ease back. She’s only talking about reducing the odds of being raped, using no evidence whatsoever but her mockery of the concept of evidence. I mean we all know she’s right, because she says so, many, many times so it’s like SUPER right. I don’t understand why on earth we even speak up against what she says. It’s not like it’s unsupported twaddle spouted by someone who can’t manage to keep her argument straight as to whom she is addressing.
I mean fortunately there are no actual people here who … oh, wait.
*jenny anynumbers, this time I won’t quote your every asinine word, and yet you are still wrong. Further, you owe an apology to everyone on this thread who had the guts to speak up even when someone like you was spewing in the thread.*
#468 Jenny
I’ve never lived in your country, so I doubt we’ve ever met. I’m not feeling any disappointment about that at all.
I also surmise that if we were friends, and I heard you pull this bullshit “reasonable precautions” crap in real life, the friendship would be unlikely to survive me challenging you on it for the huge harm that bullshit does to rape survivors vs the nugatory benefit to potential rape targets (because rapists aren’t cunning enough to circumvent the “reasonable precautions” that “everybody knows” in your world). That surmise derives solely from how you have responded to challenges here.
P.S. to my #477 to Jenny (my asterisks):
* So, there is an appropriate “comfort phase” you expect survivors to work through, and then be done with? How do you identify it?
** What behaviour on this thread exactly seems to you like “lifelong self pity”? Haven’t you noticed that the primary emotion of the rape survivors here is anger and determination? Often despite living with PTSD?
*** Because you could be absolutely sure that the “comfort phase” was finished and you couldn’t possibly trigger a panic attack or a depressive spiral, right? The importance of giving them advice that (a) they’ve already heard thousands of times, and (b) has not been actually shown to “lower the odds” outweighs that possibility of you doing direct harm to them, does it?
tigtog, that was breath-taking. I find it so hard to wade through the twaddle that I sometimes forget that even twaddle can be deconstructed. Nice job!
I’ve just caught up and read the comments from {recently TZT-ed} commenter about not caring about rapes outside an immediate social circle.
That’s it. That’s the nadir for me. HOW? HOW THE FUCK? Seriously, how do you get here?
I might not be able to do much about {remote rape in far flung land}, but not care? That’s the definition of inhuman as far as I am concerned. The tale of human history is the gradual expansion of individual moral circles, the realisation that in the awesome expanse of the universe how little our world really is and how much we depend on each other. How anyone can come to the conclusion that the violation of other human beings is somehow not their problem is beyond me.
I’m going for a coffee and a series of dick jokes in the lab. I badly feel the need to pretend people like this commenter don’t exist for a few minutes. Then I’ll return to reality.
Louis
Jenny,
When you’re saying one thing and everyone else is disagreeing with you, there is a slight possibility that you’re the one who’s wrong. I realize your hubris is so strong that you won’t even consider the possibility, but it does exist.
‘Tis,
Ahhh yes, the Sagan Caveat!
“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
Or this, attributed to Robert L Park:
“It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right.”
I’m thinking Jenny is neither right, nor really that persecuted. But she is being laughed at.
Louis
NOOOOO. It’s still going. And dear jenny came back. And insinuated that everyone here is a rapist. Did I really just read that or did I have an especially special bottle for Father’s Day?
Well, if it’s time for the internet psychologizing…nah, I won’t. Instead, I’ll just copy and paste this, and then relate a little story:
One of the most fervent proponents of the ‘reasonable precautions’ school I’ve ever known had been molested herself, and she very much wanted that not to have happened. However, she was not so much in denial as in certainty…that she could stop it happening ever again by following some rules.
jenny, i invite you to take another gander at the many splendid people here who have been wise enough to include seeing the problem and seeing it whole in their recovery. (And I rather think we are talking about lifelong recovery here, not lifelong self pity as you so obnoxiously imply.) They have said over and over how wounding this just-be-common-sensical babble is to them, and you just popped back in to take a shit all over them. And to call them rapists, apparently. (Nice logic, btw.) I’d expect exactly that much taste from someone genteel enough to go all pious over “gutter language,” but still
…congratulations, you are actually the first person on this thread who’s made me shake with anger.
And may I add: fuckbucket shitwhistle doucheblossom.
Compliments,
mehitabel
I sense hostility.
Good.
Oh look who just weighed in on this.
It’s his usual blame the victim shit again.
Seems he’s been reading the comments over here:
Gotta love the fruits of the holy spirit eh? What a wonderful witness for jebus this guy is.
Vox Day, I hope you’re reading this, because I just wanted you to know you’re a pathetic, impotent shitweasel. When you act as if people being against rape is A. stupid and B. a fucking contest, then you don’t have the moral high ground. You’re not even in the same galaxy as morals.
Ew, ew, ew. I started reading the comments on that sorry excuse of an article.
Because no one could possibly care about such things. And of course, emotionality is completely wrong.
Uh huh. Brilliant insight from the “god is love” crowd. I’m sure all the women in his church feel cared for and safe.
Wow, so that Vox Douchecanoe is an open and proud racist on top of being a misogynist. Lovely.
Well, he’s probably making sure none of those nasty non-white men feel welcome there. That should make the women safe.
Vox Day, you fucking assclown, stick your flaming sword of mush-brained hatefulness up your rectum and follow with a rotten porcupine, thank you.
Beatrice, if only my lady brains could have worked that out myself. Gosh I feel so fuzzy and pink. Thank you for helping out!
Also, to add to Louis’s 480, just FYI, {remote rapes in far off lands} actually affect the people who live there. People who do visit these threads and do post here and do live in countries like South Africa, Rape Capitol of the World. And people just dismissing the very real stuff of my everyday life as *shrug, whatever, it’s not MY country so fuck you I got mine”?
Not okay. Indeed, very, very horrible.
Well, if I believed in rape prevention and just went by the facts we know about rape the reasonable steps would be this:
-cut all unnecessary contact to men. No male friends, no contact with male family members, no male partner.
-buy a vibrator*
-walk the streets at night at my leisure.
Because although that was the only time I was ever threatened with rape (oh, wait, it wasn’t reall night), statistically I’m safer out there than in here with my husband.
Yet I haven’t seen anybody advocating that I get a divorce.
Mattit
I know this is a tangent but so. true.
My mum’s an alcoholic, and I think I have a pretty good idea how she became one. And I’m pretty aware that I was at a crossroads where one sunny path could have led there as well, in many years.
The difference between me and her is that I did not take my issues as a moral failure, that I had learned (thank you, Horde!) that getting help doesn’t mean I’m weak. So, to stay in that picture, other people had cleared the other path of the debris and hung up some lights.
Stigmatizing mental health issues and alcoholism as moral failures makes it harder and harder for people to get help. Blaming them for the bad things that happen to them when they’re ill is just disgusting.
*this can be done independently
No problem, but I promise I didn’t really have an original idea of my own. I was completely under the influence of wise men over at Vox Day’s site.
Imagine coming to any sort of conclusion by myself. My poor little lady brain would probably explode in a rain of sparkly glitters.
Shall we paint each other’s nails pink now?
Ooooo, PINK!
I’m sure you understand when I say, sqeeeee! No fucking way.
Can you paint my eyelids shut so I never see Vox Day’s site or contributions again?
That individual causes me to have severely unpleasant thoughts that involve his testicles, my size 13 steel toe capped boot clad feet and a re-enactment of the particularly stampy bits of a River Dance and Stomp mash up.
I can just, just mind you, maintain pacifism in the face of stupidity and/or being cut up in traffic. I doubt the spliced and drugged progeny of Gandhi, MLK, and the Dalai Lama could manage a lick of pacifism when encountering Vox Day.
Fuck, I’m going to have to go to the calming booth again aren’t I?
{Claps hands}
Maidens! My brow furrows, I need soothing. Call Miguel and tell him to prepare one of the Master’s Special Cocktails. And bring the unguents, this is a two hour temple rub minimum. Hold my calls, scrub my balls and generally attend to my needs lest my spleen be split in twain and cause a wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout the land.
Louis
It’s nice enough of Vox Day to give himself a sufficiently signifying name ala a Star Trek villain. I suggest we start showing him the proper respect and refer to him as Gull Day; that way nerds can snicker at him and non nerds can imagine he’s a seagull, which is rather fitting because he makes a lot of noise and spreads shit everywhere he perches.
*Silently hands Louis her Tonker Stomper™ Spike heels.*
It’s better this way.
Because hating the fact that people get raped and that our culture makes rape that much more traumatic by throwing up barriers to having rapists prosecuted and victims cared for is “emotional posturing.” Because the harm caused by rape and rape culture isn’t something to be upset about.
Dear Vox Day: You are miserable excuse for a human being. Go fuck yourself with a rotting porcupine, twice. And then twice more for good measure.