…the tradition of recognizing the Satanic nature of women’s existence. He apparently authored a little tract that he posted as a Christmas message.
"How often do we see girls and mature women going around scantily dressed and in provocative clothes?" Piero Corsi said in a Christmas message posted on the door of his church in the small town of San Terenzio in northwest Italy.
"They provoke the worst instincts, which end in violence or sexual abuse. They should search their consciences and ask: did we bring this on ourselves?" it read.
The leaflet, a copy of which was posted online sparking a wave of outrage across the country, said the 118 women killed in acts of domestic violence in Italy in 2012 had pushed men to their limits.
"Is it possible that all of a sudden men have gone mad? We don’t believe it," Corsi wrote.
"The fact is that women are increasingly provocative, they become arrogant, they believe themselves to be self-sufficient and end up exacerbating the situation," he said.
"Children are abandoned to their own devices, homes are dirty, meals are cold or fast food, clothes are filthy," he added.
…
"I don’t know whether you’re a queer or not, but what do you feel when you see a naked woman?" he asked a reporter for Rai Radio.
"Are women themselves not causing harm by unveiling themselves like this?"
I’m one of those not-queer people, and yeah, I do feel rather tingly when I see a naked woman…but it doesn’t inspire me to kill them, or abuse them, or commit violence and blame it on women’s bodies.
Must be because I’m not a Catholic.
Holy shit!!!! The stupid just doesn’t get any better than that.
Victim blaming at its best.
“Did we [women] bring this on ourselves?”
“No.”
“The asshole men who abused us chose, of their own free will, to violate our bodily integrity.”
“They provoke the worst instincts, which end in violence or sexual abuse” right here he admits he’s blaming the victim.
Sorry guy, noone can make anyone feel or do anything. You can’t blame the choices of men on women.
Of course, men are helpless beasts with so little self-control that a look at an impressive enough cleavage can easily push them into a violent frenzy. They have to appeal to women‘s conscience to keep the helpless men folks in check.
Ugh, there is so much wrong with that tract.
It is always the victim’s fault: they wouldn’t be victims if they didn’t deserve it.
Yes, yes, the nerve of those damn
cowswomen acting as if they were human beings! Why the poor, poor men, they have reached their limit, their very manliness is threatened! Kill thosecowswomen.And here we’ve been hearing, repeatedly, that patriarchy doesn’t exist, it’s all nonsense, what the fuck are we stupid women whinging about now?
This is in the fine (human, not just Catholic) tradition of finding a nugget of truth and tossing it overboard rather than see where it might lead. Because he’s right about one thing:
It is not plausible that men have suddenly gone mad. They haven’t. Rather, predators, rapists, and would-be slave-holders are being identified and talked about. Murder victims are being seen as murder victims, and talked about as such.
I was going for sarcasm, but I just made myself sick.
So I’ll just sit here in the corner for a while, puking in the general direction of the catlickers.
I don’t believe in god but I think I’ll blame him for thinking up sex in the first place.
Hey, don’t criticise mitosis if you haven’t tried it!
Gnumann:
The problem extends well past Catholics. There are a fucktonne of non-Catholics who will happily agree with Corsi’s assessment.
“Is it possible that all of a sudden men have gone mad? We don’t believe it,”
“All of a sudden”? There’s the unbelievable part.
Translation: They deserved it.
Translation: They deserved it because men have no self control when they see those enticing things.
Translation: See previous
Translation: They deserve it because they’re sufficiently arrogant as to think they don’t need a big, strong man to help them.
Translation: They deserve it because they’re too busy fornicating to watch their children.
Translation: Crap, I almost forgot to harangue the queers. What do you know about women anyway, homo? If you were straight, you’d rape them too.
Translation: They deserve it because they dress like whores.
Well, that sounds like the whole bingo card.
Excuse me while I ragepuke.
If the issue is an increase in domestic killings, which I assume means husbands murdering their wives, what does women dressing scantily in public have to do with it? Men get jealous that their wives are being looked at by other men in public, so they kill them? Me no understand.
In me they bring out the best instincts.
billygutter01:
Yeah, that was one hell of an afterthought to toss in there.
Elysehart, I am also clueless to the exact proceedings of how wanton harlotry leads straight to domestic violence. Does he have to take me home and live with me for twenty-five years before the violence starts?
The reality, of course, is that in Catholic discourse the description and incidence of rape is described as so vanishingly rare that is in no way a real and present threat to most normal women doing most normal lady-things. Domestic violence is simply not spoken of; there is no language for the description of fear or coercion, as there is no language for the description of consent.
There is no such thing as domestic violence. There’s just men handling their property. When men damage other men’s property, now that’s a problem.
Hey, Piero Corsi.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
Fuck the Catholic Church. These monsters should be locked up for life and their monstrous organization’s assets seized. That’s it. No more kid fuckers. Go home. Oh, what a joyous day would that be!
Obviously, Catholic women need to start wearing burkas. Given his assumptions, that should solve the problem.
Caine:
No worries Caine, given the amount of nausea I got from this text I got plenty to spare, and my aim is not too good. I’m not sure I can reach Northern India, but we’ll ship some over. And I can definitely leave some for my next-door neighbour.
South of our border, where Catholicism permeates the culture, it is sometimes the case that rape victims are considered to have shamed their families by “luring” their rapists into sexually assaulting them (because, you know, really macho men cannot control their masculine lusts if wanton women flaunt themselves). It is not a uniquely Catholic perspective, but the Church has long been an enabler of this warped point of view.
Raw meat
—Taj El-Din Hilaly, October 2006
A misogynist, homophobic priest has skeletons in the closet? There’s a shocker.
Seize:
That’s what happens when the concept of submission is above all else. Women are chattel, and the mere notion they may have agency is beyond sinful. They become what drives sin itself.
I know. I’ve never wanted to punch a priest right to Jesus’ loving embrace more than now.
mobius, one of the most significant concepts of Catholic thought is the idea of the omnipresent heathen. As a young girl, what I struggled with as a part of the Catholic concept of rape prevention was that there would ALWAYS be heathen women walking around uncovered, and this would always start the mysterious chain reaction of men raping regular-seeming women and girls for no obvious cause. There were saints in my Book of Saits whose entire career was being raped – clearly, rape had been around for a while, and it seemed fairly problematic, even for those women who aren’t doing the unveiling. It was around this time that I decided catlicking was not for me.
Nice John – the guy who vandalized his own mosque.
I’m sure Corsi’s housekeeper (a woman) keeps his rectory clean, has meals on the table on a regular basis, and wears dresses covering her from midcalf to neck,
@ John Morales #23
Just when I thought I had spelunked the depths of crapulence…
*shudder*
I so wish them to come out (as long as no innocent parties are harmed).
Seize:
I grew up with that whole Catholic “good girl” nonsense too. One of the things highlighted in Steve Well’s Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible is that God quite approved of rape. It was one of his favourite things to command when he was pissed off at someone, which was pretty much all the time. “Kill so and so, but before you do, have men take his wives” and so on. It was also a God approved way to deal with mobs who wanted to rape a particular person (mobs always seemed to have a hard on for visiting men in the bible) – eh, toss a daughter and a concubine out there, let them get raped to death. No problem. The sheer amount of rape in the bible is damn near overwhelming.
Surprise! Women are as self-sufficient as men. I know, right?
Of course it’s always the womenz fault.
I mean, if Rebecca Watson hadn’t had the temerity to say “guys don’t do that”, think of how better the world would be right now…
The sad fact is that this kind of thinking represents the norm far far beyond the confines of the Vatican.
God created Adam in His own image. He created Eve naked.
Sooooo, God is a rapist?
“The fact is that women are increasingly provocative, they become arrogant, they believe themselves to be self-sufficient and end up exacerbating the situation,” he said.
Piero Corsi is right. You simply cannot have sentient men and, at the same time, expect [groups of] women to refrain from inserting iron rods in random men’s rectums in order to tear their internal organs and major vessels to shreds.
Because I don’t know about you weirdo, queero people, but when a, you know, real woman sees a man’s naked derriere all she feels is the need to cause major tissue damage, an MI, and some brain trauma.
Last night, we had yet an other fool who claimed to be an atheist but felt the need to call Richard Dawkins and Atheist+ fundamentalists. After much sneering on his part, he went off about how being accommodating works best in spreading secularism.
I would like this fool to stop by and explain how being accommodating would help in dealing with the likes of Piero Corsi. Or does that only work with people who are not as outspoken about their hatred of humans.
Voltaire (the singer) nailed that one.
So, by his own admission, men are never responsible for their actions and prone to violence.
Mmmmm… People who are not responsible for their actions and who are prone to violence should not be left to go free without supervision. Or have driving licences and jobs that involve even minimal levels of stress.
Basically he’s arguing that men should not be considered adults.
It always mystifies me how those who make these arguments never seem to think them through.
@mobius #20 “Obviously, Catholic women need to start wearing burkas. Given his assumptions, that should solve the problem.”
I would not be surprised if Maladict is already drafting an encyclical on “the need for female modesty” which mandates head-to-ground coverage.
And now death.
Kemist:
It’s not a matter of not thinking it through. If you go with the idea that adult men are responsible people, you lose that whole “women are to be submissive chattel” business and there’s no convenient scapegoat for all that nasty, sinful behaviour. The whole foundation of xianity is rather dependent on that women = evil paradigm.
Well, there’s talk of one episode in Gallilea. He didn’t even pay the father 30 shekels.
This Oglaf strip must have been based on this guy: NSFW!
Feel sexually aroused by a woman, want to murder her. It only makes sense to misogynists and cartoon characters.
Caine, what kind of Catholic educators let you actually read the actual Bible!? When you start thinking they usually send you to the Jesuits, and the Jesuits know better than to let an argumentative one get a hold of the actual text.
And now death.
Ugh, I didn’t know. I can’t even process what this poor medical student and her family and loved ones went through.
Caine:
The thing is, “being a responsible adult” is not a premise, it means something – it means that you’re aware that your actions are criminal, understand that you’ve done something wrong and therefore are the sole party responsible for your actions.
They’ve really not thought this through at all. If you point to somebody (or something, as they tend to think women are not people) else as responsible for your criminal behaviour, and insist that it is out of your control, then you cannot describe yourself as a responsible adult.
Jesus -fucking- Christ.
It’s really not surprising that an organization that knowingly and willingly covers up the sexual abuse and rape of children would blame women for being abused and murdered. I mean, if priests can’t control themselves, how can regular men be expected to?
*spits!*
Seize:
None of them. I had all the little missals and the other approved crap. I had my own KJV bible at home and my grandmother had a Douay bible on the bookshelf in the front room. I got very curious when I was around 8.5/ 9 years old, because I had a very bad experience at that time. We had to go to church 3 times a week. I was in church one Wednesday morning, took communion and went to sit down. Then I started to choke on Jesus. I had been taught it was a mortal sin for anyone except a priest to touch the eucharist, so as I was choking, I tried to figure out what to do. If I stuck my finger down my throat and dislodged Jesus, go to hell. If I sat there and choked to death, but could save myself, that would be suicide, so…go to hell. In the end, I thought “the hell with Jesus” and saved my life.
After spending a night in terror, tears streaming down my face, clutching my bible and in fear of eternity of hell, I decided to investigate the whole business more closely. I read the KJV first, cover to cover. I wasn’t fucking impressed. Then I moved to the Douay, which had many more books. I wasn’t fucking impressed with that, either. Then I went on to find out why there were two different versions with different books and I’m sure you know what I found out. Lots more than two. The history of cobbling the stupid book together. Goodness!
I was sent to the principal’s office (or home) by the nuns a lot.
No one thinks as little of men as all the groups like the Church or the MRAs. Everything they say about “how men are” is insulting to men. This is just sad and pathetic.
At least it proves once again that most believers are better than their belief, or their religious leaders.
sumdum:
Not by much when they continue to support the church and their religious leaders.
“the 118 women killed in acts of domestic violence in Italy in 2012 had pushed men to their limits”
There are people in India who said the New Delhi rape victim should not have been using a bus late in the evening. I suppose Corsi would agree with them.
— — — — — —
The Delhi rape victim just died in a hospital in Singapore.
RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE
I hope more priests come up with stuff like this. This is why the Nones are taking over. Please church, keep self-destructing. It’s not like many people go to church anymore anyhow ;)
You cannot imagine how glad I am to see the news spread so wide and fast. I’ve lived to see the day when the men in the crow costumes get a ton of flak for speaking their true mind.
Believe me, Caine, we have little choice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Treaty
I’ve tried it, but I’m a bit beside myself right now as to a final judgement on it
Is Piero campaigning for Pope? Ratzy’s pretty old…maybe Piero knows something. But I guess his sort of a small town priest. Amusing how he posted his sermon on the door of his church, just like Martin Luther.
Oh…and isn’t this amusing: ‘while an elderly female resident told Sky Italia television that Corsi “should keep a low profile as he has lots of secrets he would not wish to come out”.’ A priest with secrets!? Oh my, imagine that. I wonder what she means?
It is just a little creepy to think of what lurks behind someone who starts out with “How often do we see…” Is that a clerical “we” or is he truly including himself? What is it that he sees that he thinks is “scantily dressed”? And why is he looking? How does he, a priest, come to notice these things? Is that some sort of violation of his vow of chastity and celibacy?
Where I live, we see a fair number of scantily dressed men. In fact, we even have a small but obvious public nudist club who appear around town now and again. I wonder how the good padre would feel about that.
I’m sure that there are good catholic people out there who don’t preach stupidity and hatred, and don’t bugger little boys, so if anybody finds one please let us all know so that we can witness a true miracle.
Beautiful!
I’m pretty sure reading the various children’s bibles are approved, even encouraged (I was raised lutheran, not catholic, though). You know, the ones with all the nasty bits expunged, and the rest spun into something really nice.
I don’t care if women are stark naked and masturbating on every street corner – rape is never the fault of the victim. The choice to rape lies with the rapist alone, and so does the blame for their actions.
Wow – can’t you just feel the love? Not to mention the supposedly absolute moral authority that allows disgusting arseholes – like this peice of vaguely human-shaped excrement – to tell everyone else how they should live?
Rape and domestic violence are nothing new, and neither are repellent arsehats who are prepared to spew rape apologia, whether from a pulpit or otherwise. The difference is that society is slowly becoming more aware of the true, horrifying prevalance of rape, and are beginning to see rapists as the violent criminals they are rather that automatically looking for reasons to declare that the attack was ‘not rape really’. And so misogynistic creatures like Corsi are crawling out of the woodwork to defend the ‘right’ of the dregs of male humanity to continue to use woman as alternately disposeable sex toys and ambulatory incubators.
He actually says, almost in as many words, that women who suffer abuse and sexual violence bring it on themselves by trying to be more than the property of men. It should beggar belief, but sadly this attitude is not exactly rare among MRAs, god bothering or otherwise, and yet people keep saying that the patriarchy is a myth and feminism is a man-hating waste of time.
On the subject of misandry, Corsi’s misogyny is obvious, but he is also – like many vitriolic misogynists – unintentionally genuinely misandranistic. If we look at what he says again;
He essentially says that the victims of rape are to blame because avoiding such violence must be the woman’s responsibility. And why? Because, in Corsi’s sick and twisted world, most (if not all) men are such subhuman, bestial abberations that they are wholly incapable of exercising even the smallest iota of self control, and if exposed to a little cleavage or a glimpse of a leg will instantly revert to a monstrous, mindless rape-beast that lacks the cognitive faculties to be held responsible for their actions. It is, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional view of manhood, and yet Corsi is in such a rush to try to slut-shame women in general, and rape and domestic violence victims in particular, that he probably is not even aware of the extremely negative light in which he casts men.
Even where this is true, it takes a truly sick mind to think that rape and murder are appropriate responses to a failure to be sufficiently house-proud.
Well, it would be downright lax to waste the golden opportunity to have a go at gay people during your bigoted, misogynistic screed.
So, burka-envy – rather than fatwah-envy – this time. What a refreshing change. Not that Corsi wouldn’t almost certainly just love to be able to launch a nice little crusade or two of his own as well…
Excuse me. I seem to have developed an overwhelming need to go and vomit and/or punch something all of a sudden.
christopherphillips:
Do you imagine this sort of comment helps in any way? The majority of Catholic people are no different than any other people, religious or not. They work, they play, they take care of their families and so on. I don’t expect most of them bugger little boys on their days off for fun.
By the way, sexual abuse by priests and others in power in the church was (and is) by no means confined to boys. This sort of abuse isn’t confined to Catholics, either. It’s a problem endemic to religion. All religion.
I have to side with Piero Corsi* on this. Those wanton women are as guilty as the children of Newtown, CT who so brazenly went to school wearing paper targets.
*dickcheese
I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I find I have to bate my master at least six or seven times a day, just to keep my baser instincts in check.
And I’m not even catholic.
Aw, shit, there goes my secretary past my door again… excuse me a moment.
Ragutis! C’mon, lose the gendered insults, please.
I’m surprised no one has brought up the institutional connection between:
1. those kids totally led the priests on, they can’t help it if they rape a kid who is so obviously looking, y’know, youthful in the priests’ presence.
2. those womenz totally led the menz on, they can’t help it if they rape a woman wo is so obviously looking, y’know, womanly in the presence of those menz.
Sick, yes. Unexpected given the organizational imperative to see the powerful as innocent? Not at all.
err… sorry.
Asshat? Shit stain? Pustulent sore?
Ragutis:
All workable and apt, I’d say.
Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden @ 66;
Good point – this is a known pattern with the Catholic church; always blame the victim, because the privileged and powerful are automatically above reproach.
They have always cared about protecting their privilege – as clerics and also as (predominantly white) old men – rather more than they have cared about the values of ‘justice, charity and ethics’ (if such terms can be used with regard to bible bashing bigots) that they claim not merely to stand for, but to embody.
@robro
As opposed to the inconspicuous public nudist club? :-p
—
@Caine
Ah, but abusing little girls is SOP. When it’s boys, then it’s shocking and outrageous and also gay.*
*In that very not gay way.
—
@Ragutis
Smegmarmalade means the same thing, is anatomy neutral, and is a pun. Bonuses all around.
Wow, seriously? Sooo wrong. Meanwhile guys can walk around in boxers, and if they get raped in that, no one says anything about their lack of clothing. I’ll walk around in my birthday suit if I want. Doesn’t mean it’s my problem if someone rapes me. And I won’t be raped just for wearing my god damn birthday suit.
Nepenthe:
And it sounds disgusting. Win all the way around.
That is so win. Writing that one down.
Jebus, Caine, if you didn’t already have a Molly, I’d nominate you for one just based on that.
@Esteleth
*cough*
*facepalm*
*throws confetti on Nepenthe*
Sorry!
*enjoys confetti shower*
You forgot the second part of the translation: They deserve it because they aren’t keeping to the god-given script; kitchen, bedroom, nursery. No woman has any business letting her attention stray from this Prime Directive.
–
And also, what vaiyt said.
–
At least, this should solve the problem where are concerned…because when women in burkas are raped by Muslim men, it’s because they are sub-human animals. The situations really aren’t parallel at all.
–
A split decision?
–
Of course the poor menz can’t help themselves! After all, they are all, each and every one, steeped in Original Sin from birth, which is totally Eve’s fault, so all wimmenz must bear the burden of her guilt, world without end, amen.
Of course, following this line of reasoning, the wimmenz should also be excused their wantonness because they are Originally Sinners, too, and therefore also can’t help themselves…but again, Eve’s fault.
–
“Smegmarmalade”. Nepenthe, where do you want your sniny new Internet delivered?
–
When I read nonsense like Corsi’s i feel a very strong urge to hit the author repeatedly over the head with a large piece of wood with a nail in the end of it.
I could argue that people shouldn’t be allowed to make stupid remarks because of the violence they might inspire me to commit.
Fortunately I have been brought up and taught not to do things like that, no matter how great the provocation.
Nepenthe — I get your point, but there could be a public nudist club that didn’t make themselves conspicuous, as these gentlemen do. They could be in public but out in the park or at the beach, for example, rather than standing at the bus stop at the corner of 18th and Castro Streets. Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t care if they are conspicuously nude in public or not. I just wonder what the Padre from San Terenzio might say about it. What does he think these men have brought upon themselves because they are running around in public so “scantily dressed.”
This is just too fucking much – we are ending this year out on a spectacular fucking note. I feel tired, in my bones. The Newton massacre still knocks me to my knees daily – bad news, more bad news, more bad news, toddler shoots himself in face with Dad’s gun, more bad news, more bad news, the Indian woman suffered about the must brutal torture and death one could possibly endure – it’s positively sickening. How dare these people suggest she (and all the other victims of domestic violence and rape) had that coming. My response is so beyond snickering at their stupidity, I’m plain terrified at the lack of compassion and reason. And tired.
Are the thousands of boys and girls raped by priests bringing it upon themselves because they are so provocatively dressed? LouisCK Learns about the Catholic Church
It doesn’t matter whether it is possible as there was nothing sudden about it. Instead it is a question of frequently (if not always) having people like Corsi bemoaning the victim’s conduct instead of the perpetrator’s conduct, thus putting in the collective psyche the idea that whatever the victim did was as bad or worse than what the assailer(s) did.
Sure they don’t go and say that explicitely but merely spending so much time on claiming that the victim did something wrong instead of spending it on condemning the rapists has exactly that effect.
Given that it’s not surpsising that some men get the message that not wearing a nun’s outfit* is a worse crime than rape and act accordingly.
* which wouldn’t work anyway.
@ fabianocaccin
In similar vein: Reichskonkordat
@ Julien Roussou
What is “sudden”, and is being misread by Corsi, is the rise of digital media and the empowerment that it brings with it. Part of this is the bringing to light of abuse. What was always hidden (and often endorsed by the church) has “suddenly” been brought to light.
Wow, what a worthless piece of human shit that priest is. He’s provoking some bad instincts in me, let me tell you!
This was a typical example of the catholic church to women. The church will use any excuse to keep women out of the hierarchy of the church. Accusing women of causing their own abuse does not surprise me. It is disgusting.
Smegmarmalade, that’s better than Christophers Moore’s “Festering pile of camel snot”. Seriously though, does being a priest in the catlick church turn one into a fecally encephalized assclam or are fecally encephalized assclams naturally drawn to it? Between stuff like Corsi’s bilge and the pederasty cover-up/enabling I can’t understand how anyone with two adjacent neurons can stay involved in that organization without the cognitive dissonance blowing their head apart.
Does anyone know if there are any reliable statistics for rape/sexual assaults in countries which have strictly enforced dress standards for women?.
Obviously this is beside the point, but it would be interesting to know if it’s even true that assaults
are more common the more scantily clad the ladies are.
No, it’s because you weren’t repeatedly taught that women (and abuse victims) were/are less than human scum who not only don’t deserve any respect, but also deserved/earned all of the evils heaped upon them, nor were you systematically drained dry of your senses of empathy, sympathy and human decency.
Oh, wait, you were being sarcastic. Pardon.
sundiver
It’s scary. This came on the news at Xmas and all the Catholic ppl in my family went on to decry Corsi’s inappropriate tone, but wouldn’t comment on the content. They were actively trying to block it out and when prompted they wouldn’t admit that Corsi’s words were disgusting and wrong.
Foliage, such stats would be hard to come by, given that most of those countries also have social stigmas where women who report rape are liable to be severely punished for being raped.
If evolution works to fill niches, one can hope that it eventually builds a situation where the Bad Guys mentioned on Pharyngula start feeling an appropriate amount of shame and embarrassment to match the degree of Teh Stupid they utter. Corsi would have to be hospitalized for weeks for what was quoted here.
@ foliage
IMHO there is no relationship between level of clothing and levels of rape in either direction. It has everything to do with social failure.
Really skimpy clothes is the order of the day in (sub)tropical countries. Nothing to do with anything but very high temperatures.
Example: Hong Kong has about 7 million people. There were on average 90 rapes in the last two years (http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/09_statistics/csc.html). Compare South Africa, where people are far more clad (figures 2009/2010) 68332 for 50 million people.
Poorly clad Hong Kongers are >100 times less likely to get raped than (generally) well clad South Africans.
(You could also just take it from my personal experience, that it is a shitload safer for everyone, hot pants and all, in Hong Kong.)
@ foliage
Esteleth raises another important point. In countries with many rapes, cases might be significantly under-reported.
What is it about the priesthood that only seems to attract raging assholes? It’s almost like the position was set up to maintain a certain status quo among the flock rather than to actually help anyone but the church itself.
(I’m sure the “being forbidden from sex [with women]” thing doesn’t help either)
Yet more toxic crazy coming from the funny hat brigade. When are these people going to get laughed out of their positions of power and influence? They’ve transcended satire. They are a borg that assimilates irony – it just gets turned into part of the collective.
I’m hovering at the border between hetero and asexual, so I would likely feel some level of arousal at the sight of a naked woman, though maybe not quite as much as a more typical hetero male. However, unlike insects, such displays do not reflexively trigger a unilateral sexual advance because I am capable of cognition, and I possess conflicting social instincts and learned behaviors that regulate my sexual behavior. I am an adult human male. I am a sapient being with a reasonable measure of intelligence, maturity, and experience. As a human raised in a stable human society, I am a social animal who has a combination of learned and instinctive social behaviors that cause me to sympathize with other sapient, social beings. I have been taught the concept of responsibility because humans have persistent memories and because, as an intelligent social animal, I’m aware of how my actions affect other humans and with it, human society and how society views me. I derive benefits from society, so it is in my own interest to abide by the rules so that others will be encouraged to follow my example. Society’s benefits break down when enough people disregard the rules that protect its members. I am responsible for my behavior because I am aware of the consequences, and I know other humans generally expect me to restrain instincts if mindlessly following them would lead to harming other human beings. If I get angry with someone, I am expected to restrain any urges to initiate violence. Similarly, if I get aroused by someone who does not wish to engage in sexual intercourse with me, I am expected to respect that person’s autonomy. We set up these expectations so that people will strive to live up to them, and punish people who fall short by various measures from criticism and shunning all the way up to the measures taken by the criminal justice system. Because of all this, I would not even think to rape a naked woman just because I saw her in that state. It’s supposed to be a societal norm that I obtain informed consent before engaging in sex with someone. That’s why rapists are supposed to be seen as dangerous, untrustworthy deviants. Besides, I think it’d be easier and more pleasing to know that a sex act is a cooperative, mutually beneficial act, which is why I consider informed consent a necessary factor. As a sapient, social animal, I’d feel guilt and shame otherwise.
Blaming the victim for being raped or assaulted subverts the society-reinforcing notion that men are responsible for their own actions. It subverts the safety that society provides and thus the motivation for people to act civilized. It subverts the idea that people can and should strive to be more moral. It subverts the default assumption that the perpetrator of a crime should be the one to bear the blame by treating him like a mindless beast instead of a thinking person. It subverts the notion of innocence because it encourages people to look for a way to criminalize victims for being victims, thus it subverts the notion that criminal behavior is something to be discouraged and it subverts sympathetic instincts that allow us to feel compassion towards the less fortunate and offer help and protection to our fellow humans. It subverts the notion that there is such a thing as morality by rejecting the premises behind the formation of human societies and by treating every bad event as the result of a lone human being unprepared for a particular contingency in a hostile, violent, anarchic world where every other human must be assumed to be a threat by default. I have no desire to live in such a world.
That’s why I hate rape apologists.
Well, I don’t know what my grandma did wrong.
She always cooked, cleaned, cared for the children and the most provocative dress she probably ever wore was that late 70’s early 80’s polyester-monster dress which was still knee-length.
Didn’t save her from my grandpa beating her, going astray and let’s not get started on marital rape because such a thing didn’t exist back then…
A Molly for Bronze Dog, please!
Bronze Dog #97
Hear hear!
Corsi and the other rape apologists refuse to accept that people are responsible for their actions. Rape is not caused by the victim, it’s caused by someone making a conscious decision to rape someone else.
You have to remember this guy believes the mythology that he would be a perfect angle…if it wasn’t for someone else fucking everything up. That alone would lead to a fucked up ethos, but that person is also the template for all women
Veryly I say, fuckith upon me! Angel not angle. I’m sure he is crooked though and needs to get bent.
@Rodney Nelson (#29):
When he’s not fucking her.
There’s a lot of priests fucking their housekeepers/secretaries/other employees.
Interesting article here:
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gfe_rape.htm
Bronze Dog @ 97;
You are right on the money here. Rape is not only a monstrous crime because of the immediate, gross harm it does to the specific victim, but also because of the toxic effect that rape, rape culture and rape apologetics have upon the very fabric of society and the unwritten social contracts and societal norms by which everyone lives. It is poisonous to the very ideal of a culture where men and women possess equality of interests and are equal before the law, and where people are expected to take responsibility for their own actions and urges.
I agree with Emrysmyrddin @ 99 – a mollification is required for this metallic canine methinks…
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
― Margaret Atwood
The victim-blaming sentiment for rape victims strikes me as an odd fusion of the Madonna-whore complex and modern notions of chivalry. Apparently, women are delicate flowers that have to rely on men to protect them and do everything for them, except when it comes to rape. I’m surprised rape apologists don’t claim that it’s the women’s fault because they aren’t married, and thus they are advertising their availability. (If someone has actually argued that, don’t tell me. My tolerance for idiots is wearing thin today.)
And on the note of rape statistics and their relation to dress, I imagine that there would be little connection, because in so many other crimes, the perpetrator and the victim know each other.
I also approve of a Molly for Bronze Dog.
I’ve read through all the comments on this post and I’ve noticed that there hasn’t been one MRA comment supporting the priest’s allegation that women bring rape or domestic violence on themselves. So, I guess the limit of atheist MRA misogyny is when it’s a religious person saing the misogynist bullshit.
That’s good to know because, frankly, I fully expected the ususal suspects to be arguing in support of Priest Asshole here.
Also, this is quite brilliant:
Sambarge:
It’s not a limit at all. Much of what the MRAs espouse is the same as what Corsi said, they simply don’t like coming right out and saying it off their own sites. If you’ve ever bothered to read AVFM, frinst., you’d find like sentiments.
Oh yeah, that’s what I meant. It’s not what Priest Moron said, it’s just that he’s a priest. I assume that’s what’s stopping them from congratulating him on his insight re. women and their wicked, wicked ways.
Sambarge:
More than likely. Don’t want to get religion all stuck in their nice, clean whinging about women.
Bobo:
It’s also the method by which David got Bathsheba. And about every other male in the OT. Rape has always been fine in the xian God’s eyes. Not a problem at all, as long as you do one of the three acceptable things afterward: marry your victim, pay daddy for your victim or stone your victim to death. Hey, it’s all good! It’s just women, after all.
Caine, what freaked me out the most was that this behaviour continued, in the western world at least, up until so very very recently. Fucking italy!!! FFS!
I still expect this kind of shit from muslim societies but…Italy?
Truly truly frightening. Makes me so sad.
Why?
Bobo:
That’s a little silly, but it does highlight our ingrained biases. It’s the same god, after all, so why would the same behaviour surprise you?
Caine and Ing:
We are constantly told that the rest of the world is bad and backwards, and that we have it good here. That life is now perfect. That sexism is a thing of the past. So it just ‘feels’ natural to expect this kind of behaviour from non-western societies. I believe this is probably one reason why rape culture persists, we are in denial. One reason why MRA’s persist, they refuse to see the truth of what really happens behind the scenes.
@bobo
I’m just surprised anyone would actually buy that exceptionalism
Ing, I don’t think Bobo buys into it, but she’s been learning a lot about the world lately and taking the red pill has shown her many surprising things. Things which still have the power to shock, I think.
Oh, forgot to add. Bible law isn’t much different from Sharia law now is it? Sharia law is BASED on the bible, no? So funny to see fundies shitting bricks over sharia law, when the book they keep thumping – the theocracy they want to install – is not that far removed from sharia law…
bobo:
I think the Christian Dominionists in the US see Iran as a wonderful model. Just replace Islam with Christianity and they would be happier than a rudist clam. And if they were as common as rudist clams, life would be so much better.
But, but, it’s sophistimatcated theology/morality versus pagan authority…;)
Ogvorbis:
Yes, they do. All one has to do is look to the evangelicals, the quiverfulls, the fundamentalists who believe in the whole modestly clothing bit…it is a dream for them.
Ogvorbis: useless:
OT:
This geologist thanks you. It’s the 1st time I’ve seen this in FTB or SciBlogs.
Yes, they do. All one has to do is look to the evangelicals, the quiverfulls, the fundamentalists who believe in the whole modestly clothing bit…it is a dream for them.
“But isn’t modesty a good thing?”
——————-
I have had to try to explain to various idiots on Yahoo comments (I love yahoo, lots of fundies and crazy pro-life morons there) that enforced *modesty* really just sexualizes the person who is being ‘modest’. That forcing women to cover up turns them into objects, that long skirts and niqabs draw MORE attention to female sexuality, rather than hide it.
p.s. and my grammar and punctuation are horrible on yahoo comments. Shoot me, I really don’t care. When anti-choicers tell me that they would love to see me get my body ripped apart simply b/c I am pro-choice, I could care less if I put the effort into crafting perfectly formed sentences for them! (and often, I am too angry:p)
Well depending on what you mean by Sharia, Sharia Law might actually be fairly new rather than some ancient part of the culture
Ing: http://amestrib.com/sections/opinion/columns/hector-avalos-shariah-law-also-biblical-law.html
Caine, Fleur du mal wrote:
It’s a bit ironic, given that the “misandry” they constantly complain about is actually being displayed by this priest who apparently believes men have less control over sexual impulses than animals with fewer reasoning capabilities. It’s not surprising. They don’t really give a shit about any of the problems men face except as a cudgel to be used against feminists.
But you’re wrong about them not coming right out and saying it. It doesn’t take long to find some by clicking through some of the things David Futrelle highlights on his site (I honestly don’t know how the guy manages to sifting through that much crap without losing it).
@bobo
yes but the degree of institutionalizing and formalizing them as law is less clear. Afghanistan and Egypt where not always the way they were.
ckitching:
Yes, I know. It seems this is clear to everyone except them. Of course, if you start denouncing the unfortunate and incorrect idea that men are raving lust monsters incapable of self-control with no sense of responsibility or ethics, you can’t simply keep pointing to women as the primary evil.
I think you may have misunderstood (or misread). I stated that they do say it, they just don’t like to say it outside of their own sites, where they can safely rant without disagreement. We have had the occasional MRA here, who will posit that rape is generally the fault of the victim, but it’s more common for them to decry the rape stats when posting here.
bobo @ 119;
But this is less about the toxic notions of ‘morality’ the xians keep pedaling than it is about power. A theocracy is only any good to them if it empowers and privileges them and members of their ingroup. A theocracy that empowers and privileges other groups – even one whose basic attitudes and worldview doesn’t differ significantly from their own – is frightening to them. They are hatred-fueled, xenophobic bigots, afterall, and they are worried about how they might be treated if what they automatically assume are the equally (if not even moreso) hatred-fueled, xenophobic opposite numbers from religions followed by *que dramatic music* scary foreign people */dramatic music* get into power.
Plus it is an easy way to rally their base by drumming up paranoia about a ridiculously unlikely scenario of scary foreigners coming to take their freedoms and property (women definitely falling into the latter category in their eyes) – it is just another example of the intersection between religious fundamentalism, reactionary nationalism and racism.
#130
Precisely.
In my former days as a Catholic, at Mass I often witnessed many delightful derrières framed in tight slacks or clingy dresses.
Marriage by abduction is still a common practice in Ethiopia. The link is such bleak reading that I won’t put any excerpts here, and add a Trigger Warning!
There is also an award winning documentary on PBS called A Walk to Beautiful which I highly recommend. especially if you are depressed from reading the first link.
Caine
The story completely omits Bathsheba’s opinion, but according to the phht she was married to Uriah the Hittite when David first saw her
It boggles the mind that people can be aware of stories like this, and the hateful opinion of Corsi, and still equate being religious with good morals.
Tethys, yes, I know. It’s interesting to note that David’s killing of Uriah was the only one of his massive amounts of killings that psychogod disapproved of – probably because David didn’t ask god about it first.
And Ethiopia prides itself on being a devoutly Christian country no less!
I first learned about fistulas a few months ago and it makes me sooo sad. I want to fucking punch all the assholes who say that childbirth has no risks. Fucking punch them in the fucking face.
Hard to find much to defend there. Though jealousy is at least hypothesized to evolve from a man’s need to control a woman’s sexuality, so I guess on a certain level the priest’s comments make some sense (with regard to domestic violence), even if they aren’t indicative of where we want to go as a society.
I wonder if Bathsheba had the option of saying no to David? Did he have kings rights?
___
*nods in sad agreement* Indeed. It’s always a risk, even more so for girls who aren’t even fully grown.
The fistula documentary somehow manages to be uplifting. I avoided watching it for a long time because I thought it would make me all ragey, but it really was enjoyable and informative.
Bobo:
But that’s the whole point, Bobo. If one is going to be a biblically* devout Christian, rape is perfectly acceptable.
*Those who take that idiotic collection of stories to be trufax.
Edward Gemmer:
Citation needed. Seriously. That statement is utterly ignoring the fact that woman also get jealous – that’s a human thing. Same sex couples also experience jealousy. If you’re going to drag evo-psych crap into this, back it up.
Tethys:
I’m pretty sure there was no option for women at all. When you read the account in the OT, David spies Bathsheba bathing and sends his men to go grab her. Of course, the bible is utterly dismal in recording anything to do with women. There are the odd cases, such as Deborah or Jael, but outside of that, they’re lucky if their name is mentioned.
In Judges, there’s the bizarre story of the Benjamite slaughter, killing 25,100 of them, but 600 survived. After all that slaughter and completely destroying the city in god approved manner, they remembered the 600 survivors. Now there was a huge problem – how were these guys gonna find wives? The non-Benjamites killed all the Benjamite women and swore to God that they wouldn’t “give” any of their daughters to the Benjamites. So, they decided to find out who didn’t show up to fight and found Jabeshgilead absent. They sent soldiers to Jabeshgilead to kill everyone except the virgin women. This brought about the result of 400 virgins, who were delivered to the Benjamite survivors.
Problem, though: they were short 200 virgins. They told the virgin-less Benjamites about this dancing festival in Shiloh and that the men should hide in the bushes and catch the girls when they came out to dance.
I don’t imagine there was any consent to all this – 600 women, 400 of them subjected to the slaughter of everyone they knew, kidnapped and tossed to men, then 200 more kidnapped. That’s just one example, there are an overwhelming amount of similar situations.
Caine:
And how did god decide to punish David for killing Uriah? By killing the baby. But the deaths of two innocent people were made totally okay because David was granted forgiveness after sufficient repenting. Ah, such a heartwarming tale.
Yes, true, jealousy is clearly not limited to men. Googling “jealousy evolve” will sprout a number of links. Here is one: http://www.ulm.edu/~palmer/JealousyandMate.htm. I am hopeless at html so bear with me on that. Also, the link provided has interesting info but is hardly conclusive about the issue.
Regardless, I work with a lot of criminals and am really trying to understand their motivation. I’m not Italian and I’ve never been to Italy, but a stereotypical view of the population is that the males pride themselves on being virile and manly, loyal to their families, and religious. So it could be expected that they could have higher than average rates of domestic violence as the country becomes more secular.
Jessa:
Yes. Killed the baby extra slow, too, so there was plenty of suffering. There’s the aftermath of the death, too. After the baby died, David had a wash, changed his clothes, worshiped the god who killed his infant and had something to eat. Then he goes to comfort his wife:
Which is bible speak for David’s idea of comforting his wife being to fuck her. I’m sure she was right in the mood, eh?
Caine, Fleur du mal wrote:
I must’ve. I thought you were referring to the tendency of people to pretend to sympathize with the victim and hide their victim blaming in dog whistles.
Edward Gemmer wrote:
Really? Women also get jealous, too, in case you were going to forget about half of the population. Besides, humans get possessive over all sorts of things, including, bizarrely enough, abstract ideas.
ckitching:
Well, there’s plenty of that crap going around too.
I am aware that jealousy isn’t limited to gender, but I was referring to the context of the priest’s comments (which honestly could be applied in the United States, too, as men are far more likely to be perps of domestic violence than women in the U.S.). Also, please enlighten me on how to quote people so my posts make an ounce of sense.
Aren’t you scientific. Also the blacks are really good at basketball!
Edward:
Like this:
<blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote>
Edward Gemmer:
Entering
<blockquote> Quoted text.</blockquote>
gives
Whether or not quoting will make your posts make sense, though, remains to be seen.
And I get caught a bit too late again.
My kids will be happy to know that.
Edward:
NO. I’m sorry, but you don’t have a leg to stand on here. Men commit more acts of domestic violence for a number of reasons, the primary ones being the patriarchal structure we’re all living in and toxic masculinity. It’s more about the power dynamic than anything, which is exactly what you’ll see in cases of the woman being the abuser in a relationship – same thing. It’s a form of control, yes. However, such behaviour is silently condoned and encouraged by sexist thought and attitudes.
This is not something which “evolved in men”, it’s simply how humans work. As ckitching pointed out, people get jealous and possessive over all kinds of things – this is hardly an emotional framework which only applies to other people.
BURN!
Caine:
I dunno. It is hard for me to see that “it’s simply how humans work” without immediately thinking there could be a biological basis for it. Society could certainly be a reason, but the society explanation can fail on several counts. For one, jealousy is widespread among all countries and all cultures and all people, so to say jealousy has no root to biology seems unlikely. Second, violence trends among men more than women pretty much everywhere, so to say that violence is a societal construct also seems unlikely. Men also seem more jealous of other men, at least insofar as violence reaction goes.
Done a lot of study on that? A lot of things seem right if not for the little problem of actually being wrong. Can you tell me where you got your doctorate of Seemslikeology?
No. You don’t
Ing:
Sure. In the U.S., men are 9 times as likely to be incarcerated as women, 10 times as likely to commit murder, and are four times as likely to be murdered. Per the Bureau of Justice, 65% of homicides are committed by males against another male. Women are more likely to be killed by a close male, while males are more likely to be murdered by a random male.
Ohio State. Go Bucks.
At least Edward Gemmer is funny. And he is not a terrible person like me, with my ‘bad grammar’ and all:P
Edward:
No, it doesn’t. Societal constructs from all over the world are similar. You’re like many of those looking to evo-psych, desperately grasping at non-existent straws in an effort to put up your hands and say “whoops, biological!”
There are reasons that, when things like toxic masculinity are approached in a rational manner and people are educated, that the results are positive. Such as the addressing of toxic masculinity among oil platform workers radically reduced behaviour which resulted in accidents and deaths.
Now we circle back to religion – most religion is patriarchy based, which resulted in a majority of societies and cultures being so based. (This includes the often mistaken for enlightened Buddhism.) Religiously based patriarchy has a lot to say about being submissive and who should be submissive to what. Men are to be submissive to god. Women are to be submissive to men (and god, of course, but the head of the family is the man, who deals directly with god). You now have a whole cultural expectation of women submitting. We have barely begun to deal with the depth of all this – women have been steadily fighting for the right to be considered fully human for a very long time now. Even if you only want to go back as far as suffrage, that’s 148 years and we still have to fight, every. fucking. day. to be seen and treated as full humans.
You don’t want to see or deal with the fact that we’re living with the fallout of challenging the status quo – the patriarchal system we live in. We’re currently experiencing a nasty backlash where there are new laws made every day to restrict womens’ autonomy. A majority of women do not and will not sit down and be silent, and a lot of men are having a very difficult time with that. They do not want their privilege* in life challenged.
*If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of privilege, try reading this.**
** Yes, top of the heap are straight, white men. If you aren’t straight or white, that doesn’t mean you don’t still enjoy the benefit of privilege. It’s something we all have to differing degrees. The trick is to be aware of it and change your thinking.
Note: If you’re unfamiliar with toxic masculinity, try reading here.
Bobo:
No he isn’t. He’s woefully under-educated and misinformed. It’s not fucking funny at all to have to do Reality 101 for the millionth time.
Yes, I know what you meant, Bobo. I’m not in the mood after reading too much idiocy already.
Edward: if you care, do read Caine’s links. She knows what she is talking about!
And Edward, take a look at this:
https://proxy.freethought.online/reasonabledoubts/2012/12/15/episode-109-the-biology-of-religious-patriarchy/
Download the podcast and listen to it. Some more food for thought!
Edward:
Your statistics may be right, but you’re drawing a conclusion from them that isn’t in evidence.
Where is your evidence that the male on male homicide rate IS BECAUSE of jealousy?
Also there is a slight idea of males having, on the biological front, more testosterone (associated with greater aggression) and dimorphism of being larger. That combined with men being the privileged class (and raised to be aggressive while women are raised to be more passive) readily explains any slanted rates.
Ing:
Yes, thank you for bringing that up. Again, societal and cultural expectations. We all attempt (or have attempted) to live up to them. It’s why it’s important to be educated in such matters, else there’s little chance of countering such crap in our day to day lives.
I don’t necessarily disagree, except with the caveat that there is no reason that both factors aren’t both true. There is such a thing as a positive feedback loop. In climatology, there is the fear that the release on carbon dioxide will cause more heat, which will cause oceans to release more carbon dioxide, which will cause more heat, until we are basically living (or not) on a fireball. Conversely, there is the old fear that a cold summer will lead to more snow which will lead to more heat being reflected, which will lead to more cold, which will lead to more snow, until we are living on an ice ball.
To say that society causes men to be aggressive is probably wrong and definitely feels wrong. I love boxing, football, and feel real anger towards other men who cause me some sort of embarassment. That’s not a source of pride, but I can’t look to anything that has ever happened to me and say, “oh, but for society doing such and such, I would never be irrationally angry.” OTOH, being angry and committing violence are two different things. If it was expected of me to act out on my anger and beat up someone who caused me some grief, I would imagine the odds of it happening would be much higher.
To sum up, so you know where I am coming from, I’m a criminal defense attorney and I mostly work with juveniles. Criminals often do things that make no sense at all, except that I think giving more weight to impulses and feelings is probably important to understanding how people operate.
That’s great. However, statistics also kill this as well. As I listed beforemales are far more likely to be in prison, commit murder, and be murdered. They are also more likely to commit suicide. While there is no doubt that males are more privileged politically and economically, it is clearly wrong to say they are absolutely more privileged. We need a framework to understand why people end up in the places they are. Saying men are privileged would be a surprise to black men, who are incarcerated at an eye-popping rate.
Thank you; I will. Not yet, because I’m watching football, and my new daughter is asleep next to me. But I’ve always surmised that a big part of religion is to control women’s sexual activity, “not only do I want you to be a virgin, but God wants that, too.”
Wow like no one ever said that before. Fucking dumb ass
Tony,
A good question, and one difficult to answer. What are the possible reasons a person kills another person? War is a reason, and clearly this is a factor, especially when talking about rival gangs. Economics is one, as killing a drug dealer may get you more money. “Jealousy” may be a poor term for men, as I doubt you will find too many guys who admit to being jealous of another man. However, framed another way, men can fiercely protective of their image, and the emotion triggered by threats to their image can be massive. This may not be what we think of as jealousy, but it operates in more or less the same way. Irrational disputes between men over next to nothing are fairly common, sometimes lead to death, and seem influences more by men being “macho” than anything else.
Ing,
So…I take it you agree that biological, evolved factors can be very important in looking at behavior in people? Or am I reading that wrong?
Sir, I’ll have you know that donkeys are intelligent animals and don’t take kindly to their name being used in vain.
Things Happen to Men Too
Stop with the fucking stupid MRA talking points. Click and do a lot of reading. Once you’ve read every single thing linked, read it again. Read it yet again until it starts sinking into that atrophied brain and you start fucking thinking instead of parroting crap. We have heard all this shit before. Hundreds of times before. You are not saying anything new.
I think Ing’s point is that it’s extremely difficult to tease out how much sexual dimorphism contributes versus how much cultural influence contributes. Apologies to Ing if I’ve interpreted the comment incorrectly.
I haven’t claimed to say anything new. Or even fucking new. Nor am I into MRA, whatever that is. And I like your link but it seems better suited for an actual feminist blog, and not one about “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations,” So I’m terribly sorry to challenge your beliefs but I do enjoy a good debate about a great many things and feel strongly that a good debate can lead people to to understand their positions as well as other’s. Of course, 150 posts about how stupid people are can also be fun, if not terribly useful.
We’re being trolled, calling it now. Don’t care going away
Ing:
Me too. Not my job to educate a willful idiot.
The thing is, it is immensely difficult (if not downright impossible) to tease out which behaviours are innate (biological) and which are largely a societal construct, because there simply aren’t any men or women who weren’t raised, from birth, to conform to their society’s expectations of appropriate masculine/feminine behaviours.
Even those of us who aren’t innately part of the traditional gender binary find it impossible to behave ‘naturally’ (i.e. according to our inner natures) because of the ways other members of our society have of pushing us back into the roles our perceived gender is supposed to occupy.
From birth, different behaviours are encouraged in those perceived to be boys, compared to those perceived to be girls. The same behaviour in either is often punished in one and encouraged in the other.
In a species like ours, which has had extremely complex culture for a very long time indeed, the only thing that can be said to be largely true biologically of ‘men’ as opposed to ‘women’, as a group, is, as Ing said, that men tend to be larger and have more testosterone.
But that is a very vague generalisation and the range difference between the sexes is rather smaller than the range of differences between individuals of the same sex, even if you exclude non-gender-binary-specific individuals.
P.S. Edward, read the links, PLEASE!!!! Merely being a member of a privileged group doesn’t mean that you are immune to ALSO being a member of an under-privileged group! Sheesh. Else there’d be no white* women** OR men*** with disabilities****.
(*privileged compared to other races)
(**under-privileged compared to men)
(***privileged compared to women)
(****under-privileged compared to able-bodied individuals)
Is anyone else getting a chuckle out of this? He “enjoys a good debate”, but evidence that disproves him doesn’t belong here. And he’s “sorry he challenged your beliefs”, despite being told by multiple people that he hasn’t posted anything that hasn’t already been defeated.
he’s like MRA magnetic poetry. Throw lots of MRA bullshit on the floor and type whatever it says, logical consistency be damned!
Tigger:
You know, I handily explained that fact to Edward in the very post I included a link to the privilege checklist. I’m 1) female 2) bisexual 3) mixed race 4) a ‘senior’, age-wise and I have a fucktonne more privilege than many people.
I went out of my way to explain it’s a matter of degree and power dynamics. I am not about to continue coddling someone who is more comfortable with a head full of smegmarmalade.
O.m.g. You’re like a Snark Yogi. I want to be your initiate!
Illuminata:
It’s rather obvious he’s oblivious to the fact that this is a feminist blog and the years worth of posts about feminism, sexism and patriarchy. I guess if it isn’t delineated in the banner, it ain’t so.
A good debate does not involve people ignoring others because of rules lawyering. This is trolling. I’m done.
Illuminata:
You want to be Nepenthe’s initiate – see post # 70, this thread. :D
Citation, not your feelings, are needed. Either be scientific, or shut the fuck up. This is a science blog, not a mental wanking blog. Quit mental wanking and present real evidence. Try here.
Then quit sounding like an MRA (men’s rights asshole). You do that by shutting the fuck up if you can’t prove your case. Mental wanking is all they do. No evidence whatsoever…
Yes, Caine, you are right. It’s a waste of time addressing him. He’s not going to read those links however many of us point out how stupid his concept of privilege is. He doesn’t want to be educated, just have his preconceptions confirmed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back on topic, the OP makes me even more glad I got to rant at a real priest while I was in hospital. =^_^=
One of the things I told him was that the hierarchy of the RCC has totally lost the right to claim the high moral ground since they dare to condemn women as evil for wanting to plan their pregnancies and protect their health, whilst hiding and moving child rapists so that they both escape justice AND get a new supply of victims.
Now here’s a priest blatantly blaming the victims!
I’ve left the church already, but (craftily) the RCC stopped the process of self-excommunication a while ago (afraid of losing the power-by-numbers, probably).
I’m even more pleased that I told said priest that I fully intend to ask the bishop brother of my old school friend to excommunicate me properly.
Edward Gemmer
Well, it might be totally unrelated to the fact that men still see women as their personal property, who are not allowed to go their own ways, have their own ideas, needs and opinions and who are most importantly not allowed to leave them. I admit there’s a freak chance that these cultural notions have totally nothing to do with domestic violence and that domestic violence might be due to some underlying biological factors.
But unless I’ll have some solid evidence for that (while there’s solid evidence that changing the culture reduces dometic violence), I’ll just call it bullshit.
There’s your problem: You treat rape and domestic violence like shitting and peeing and then wonder what you can do about it.
Go learn to deal with your personal issues like other grown-ups instead of hiding behind your biology.
It would’ve been a much shorter “Christmas message” if Piero Corsi just said, “Put on a sweatsuit and bake me a pie, bitch!”
(Yes, I am picturing him as Cartman from South Park.)
Me @ #108
Well, I guess I spoke too soon. 28 posts later we get Edward who isn’t a MRA (he doesn’t even know what that means, apparently) but thinks jealousy and male violence arising from it are natural and evolved and refuses to look at evidence to the contrary because it comes from a site that appears to be feminist and therefore not rational or skeptical.
Excellent.
One of the problems with evopsych is that large numbers of people try to explain away various human behaviors, usually reprehensible behavior, as being “innate” and “biological”. Is there a biological component of jealousy? I don’t know and nobody else does either. Is there a sociological component? Most certainly. People are taught from early on that what’s their’s is their’s and nobody better try to take it away from them.
Right now I’ve listening to a YouTube playlist. One of the songs is “Jean O’ Bethelnie” sung by Scottish folksingers Old Blind Dogs. This song is about a young woman who’s in love with a man (who happens to be engaged to someone else). She throws a massive snit until he discards his previous engagement and declares himself “hers”. Jean O’ Bethelnie is sympathetically portrayed in the song and gets the man she desires because she’s decided she deserves him. This song is just one minor example of social reinforcement of a component of jealousy.
I understand that. My question is why do men who belong to a privileged class do dumb things that get them incarcerated? Society tells them to do it seems like a poor reason since it is society which is causing the privilege in the first place.
Maybe I clicked the wrong link. The link I clicked talked about how people on feminist blogs do not like to hear that bad things happen to men. That;s understandable. Regardless, I’m not talking about bad things that happen to men. I’m talking to bad things that happen to women caused by men and why the men might do these things. Taboo subject, I know. The priest makes his comments and everyone harps on how horrible he is. That’s fine, they are pretty horrible. But even so, they might give us insight into why this stuff happens at all. Statements can have value, even if you don’t agree with them.
Genes and aggression: http://www.livescience.com/18983-gene-male-stress-response.html
Hormones and aggression: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/200907/sex-violence-and-hormones
Why not? Shitting and peeing are clearly biological processes, yet most people can master their impulses to shit and pee by age 2 or 3. Maybe because we have a process for actually teaching kids where to pee and poo instead of sitting them down and telling them how wanting to pee and poo makes them terrible, terrible people and then arresting them? Who knows, just a thought.
Maybe I missed something because I didn’t see any links about that. Refresh me with a link or a post number with the link I missed. I may have just skimmed over the part I was supposed to read and thought it was about something else.
Why is this a problem? Sociological explanations for crime are always poor and never lead to much that is useful, mostly because we have huge expensive systems in place to tell people how bad their actions are and yet they persist in doing them. A little biology helps things fit together much better, but this is controversial. I do not understand why, except perhaps that it can interfere with everyone’s ability to judge others with which they disagree.
So, what, rape and domestic violence would be just fine if we just learnt to do them in the appropriate place?
“I’m one of those not-queer people, and yeah, I do feel rather tingly when I see a naked woman…but it doesn’t inspire me to kill them, or abuse them, or commit violence and blame it on women’s bodies.”
The same for me, even if I’m Italian.
It’s a straight up lie, but don’t let truth sink into your bank vault thick skull.
LOL wow, you really are a dipshit.
It might give *you* insight, because you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about and yet for some reason think we all need to hear about how entirely clueless you are. We already know what “this stuff happens”. And some even tried to explain it to you.
Statements born out of ignorance, bigotry and cowardice have no value. Kinda like every comment you’ve made here.
Definitely not. However, our criminal justice system is set up in a way that doesn’t really address root causes of behavior. It is more or less consigning things to “being bad,” and tells people to stop being bad and start doing good. It has always been ineffective, and moreso when people are acting on impulses that they can’t control and which are never adequately explained to them. “Stop hitting your girlfriend,” is fine, but I think treatment could be more effective if someone understood why they wanted to hit their girlfriend in the first place. As someone who deals with criminals on a constant basis, it’s an area I’m interested in.
Well, I checked it again and it talks about patriarchy and feminist frustrations when men bring up that the patriarchy hurts men, too. Neither of which are areas I am really talking about, so please explain where I am lying.
ZING
That isn’t a question. Humans do dumb things. DUH. End of story.
Given your first inane question, more inane questions. Until YOU provide real scientific answers, they remain inane mental wanking questions.
Actually, not all statements, like many of those you make, have no value. They are bullshit. As you prove.
No, just mental wanking.
It is speculation without proper scientific links to the genes in question. In other words, the mental wanking to justify something. Worthless bullshit, like your evidence.
jefrir
No, wanting to rape women and beat the shit out of them doesn’t make you a bad person.
Saying “guys, don’t do that”, OTOH, clearly does.
And you know, we should really cut those poor rapists some slack. Because clearly people have understanding for you relieving yourself against a wall after you searched for a toilet for a long time, and if there’s something medically wrong with your bowel people clearly pardon that, because we all know that you just can’t help yourself.
So, if those damn bitches don’t provide enough fuckholes voluntarily and artificially increase the fuckneed by wearing skimpy clothing, then you really can’t blame the guy for rape, because that’s obviously just like peeing against the wall.
Then quit mental wanking about it here, and do real scientific research on the subject. Take it criminal boards, where experts post. Publish papers in real scientific journals, not evopsych journals.
This thread is fucking sad.
(just putting that opinion on record before leaving y’all to your rational skepticism here.)
I’ll give you some food for thought:
Why did 200 years ago about 100% of men in the western world do these bad things and nobody even considered them bad things?
Why is it now a minority of men who do these things and why are they seen as bad?
Did our genes change or did society change?
Very, very easy question…
Yes, yes I understand that your opinions need not be supported by anything and mine need mathematical proofs.
Imaginative, but mostly uslesss. See, why you get to sit at your keyboard and think up new ways to insult rapists and consign them to whatever the atheist version of hell is, other people actually have to work with them and think up ways to prevent them from raping people (or beating them, or whatever else they want to do). The self-righteous routine is older than dirt and practiced very well across all societies, especially very religious ones.
Great advice. I’ll get right on that.
It’s a good question. OTOH, if society has changed, why aren’t zero men doing these things?
Gee, your OPINIONS are obvious, and not very well supported. Get over yourself.
Another inane unintelligent mental wanking question. Which is why an intelligent discussion can’t be had.
Gee, you didn’t, ergo your honesty and integrity are called into question.
BEACAUSE SOCIETY HASN’T CHANGED ENOUGH AND YOU PERSONALLY ARE HOLDING IT BACK
What an idiot.
So close, yet so far.
And so idiotic and self-absorbed.
How come that’s the only thing Chas manages to write when somebody is flat out using evopsych to justify and rationalize rape and violence against women but manages to write lengthy treatieses when somebody dares to criticise his pet subject?
Edward Gemmer #192
It’s a problem because certain people then say “behavior X, while deplorable, is hardwired into humans and so there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Social changes do happen. In my lifetime in certain parts of the US it was socially acceptable to burn crosses and lynch blacks to intimidate black people. Nowadays if you did that someone with a badge and a gun, often a black, will explain to you in no uncertain terms why that is not acceptable behavior.
Incidentally, sociological explanations for crime are not “always poor”. For instance there is a good correlation between poverty and certain crimes.
Nerd
He reminds me a lot of those gun-nuts we had recently who, when pointed towards places like Austria or Germany where there is gun-control and a different culture, will then claim that since those laws and changes didn’t prevent 100% of gun murders and accidents but only say 80% they’re proven to be a failure and waste of time. Instead, let’s look at some genes, nothing to see here.
Edward @170:
All of what you say may be true, but you cannot draw a conclusion about the reasons for male on male homicide from speculation or personal feelings. You keep making the mistake of using your personal feelings and experiences to create causal links between personality traits and crimes. You cannot do that.
It is not good science.
Oh and EDWARD—this is a feminist blog. If you believe anything by the
Mens
Rights
Movement
You are going to be ridiculed and heavily castigated. Deservedly so.
Edward @192:
Most people are unaware of their privilege.
As a man, I have the privilege of knowing I can easy obtain contraception.
As a man, I have the privilege of not having to deal with sexual harassment day in, day out.
As a man, I have the privilege of not having my bad mood be written off as “my time of the month”
As a man, I have the privilege-barring imprisonment-of not facing the danger of being raped in my life.
As a man, I have the privilege of knowing my opinion will not be dismissed due to my gender.
These are just a few examples of male privilege. I have it. You have it. Men across the world have male privilege. You don’t earn it. You can’t get rid of it. But privilege is neither a good, nor bad thing. Becoming aware of how you are privileged in life-and how others are not-can increase your empathy for others.
Later, in the advanced feminist class, we will cover the areas I am disadvantaged (being a queer man of color), while still retaining male privilege.
Edward Gemmer’s last few posts are clearly fishing for an answer, presumably “We bow to you and your wisdom oh intellectual majesty, tell us your baseless truths so we may inscribe them into the new bible of the world because your unevidenced assertions are far superior to any reality based exploration of a problem!”
Giliell @208:
I don’t know but I am getting sick of it.
QFT.
I don’t know why the likes of EG spend so much effort pretending to be “the authority”, which never works here, than just simply stating “this is what I believe, and this (link) is the evidence to support my conclusion”. But then, maybe his evidence is weak, and he knows that, and wants what he says to be accepted without question. Pitiful in either circumstance.
Edward Gemmer has uses the word ‘evidence’ like a lawyer.
Maybe that’s why he’s confused.
At least his grammar’s good.
chigau (違う) wrote:
Perhaps that’s also why he refuses to accept “social” as a possible explanation for behaviours — they wouldn’t be accepted by a jury in court.
I never understood the argument blaming a woman for being assaulted because of the way she is dressed. All it does is try to rationalize subhuman behavior on the part of the male.
Very long ago, at a Grateful Dead concert, a naked woman quite literally fell into my lap.
“Hello”, I said. “Glurk”, she replied.
I admit, had she been somewhat more lucid, I might have asked for a phone number. Instead, I got her a blanket, and took her to a first aid station. While that’s a great story for the grandkids (when they get older), it also serves to illustrate how someone who would call themselves a good person is expected to act.
If, for whatever reason, I have power over another human being, then I consider it my responsibility to ensure that they come to no harm. To me, it’s part of the definition of being human. I don’t believe I’m alone in feeling this way.
Compassion, honor, reason. They aren’t just words.
Hey Chas how about an experiment where you don’t post until you have something of a point. We have enough spiteful mean trolls ok?
Well, I agree that people can turn data into arguments for darn near anything, much of it useless and often very harmful. Evolution is no stranger to that. However, we know that just because something is rooted in biology doesn’t necessarily mean it is hardwired and there is nothing we can do about. Even things like height can be affected mightily by the society in which one lives, even though height is generally thought to be very much rooted in genetics. So long as we are clear on that point, I think it is fair game for discussion.
It does, but it doesn’t really give a good clue as to why that is so. For example, there is the age old hypothetical over whether it is wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family. Where I do think “evpsych” has made a contribution is to add to the equation. In the United States, starvation is relatively rare, but theft isn’t. So how about the hypothetical: is it wrong for a man to steal a cool shirt to make himself more attractive and to therefore increase his chances of having a family? Most people would say no, I bet, but I think it’s a question that makes sense, when factoring in evolutionary pressures.
It’s terrible science as far as drawing a conclusion, but it is just fine for trying to determine the right questions. I agree, looking at statistics doesn’t get you clear answers. For example, the talk about “privilege” is fine and makes sense, but is hardly conclusive or scientific. But I wouldn’t say “never talk about privilege” just because it isn’t based clearly in scientific fact.
You caught me! Why isn’t everyone here impressed by my vast knowledge about everything everywhere? If you are impressed, don’t worry about telling me so. Just send me cash.
When I was in middle school (late 1970s, early 1980s), a girl (I think she was a year ahead of me) of 13 was raped by a man in his 20s. The rape (nonviolent (so for the GOP it wasn’t a real rape)) happened during the summer. Amazingly, she reported the rape. Amazingly, the police investigated, found and arrested the guy. Even more amazingly, the DA chose to prosecute. During the trial, the defense lawyer showed the judge the clothing she was wearing — halter top and shorts — and the case was dismissed. Italy, the US, India, the whole damned world! is so fucking deep in rape culture that most of us consider it normal and unremarkable. We go 100 steps forward and about 99.9 back each year.
And without evidence of the differences, it is nothing but mental wanking. All you have is mental wanking, and we know that. We don’t care to participate in your masturbations.
Philosophical question, not a scientific question. More mental wanking. Take it to a “sophistry R us” web site.
Mental wanking/sophistry can ask questions. Answers come from evidence. Your questions are irrelevant until you supply hard scientific evidence for answers. Until then, nothing but more mental wanking.
Gee, it tries to be funny, but falls flat per normal. No sense of comedy. Typical.
Now, go elsewhere in private and finish your mental masturbating. Then wash your hands before returning to public areas.
Thank the Lord, or somebody, that great scientists have more imagination than that.
“Say, let’s build a telescope and see what we find!”
Nerd: “Poo on that. There is no evidence of anything out there farther than I can see so you are just masturbating. If I don’t understand it, it doesn’t exist.”
Edward Gemmer #222
Sorry but I fail to see how stealing a cool shirt is a biological function rather than a sociological function. Is coolness an evolutionary or a social utility?
This is another reason I’m not impressed by evopsych. Many of its proponents try to squeeze too many behaviors out of it. Many of these behaviors are quite obviously social. What was “cool” clothing in the early 17th Century (King James I of England and VI of Scotland) would be considered ludicrous in the 21st.
QFT.
In fact, all human behaviors should be considered social as the null hypothesis until a true genetic link is found to explain said behavior. That would make evopsych much more scientific, instead of acting like a pseudoscience with vague easily refuted assertions.
Proof that rape culture exists to control and silence women:
In dictatorships, Iran for example – rape is used on both men and women for this exact purpose. If rape is specifically used as a method of control, then duh, rape culture serves the same purpose.
Ogvorbis:
Yeah, it’s all too common. In my case, if the perp hadn’t also been a serial rapist and murderer, my particular case probably would have been dumped in the dustbin, too, for the same reason. For the two years of the trial, I constantly heard about being out after dark in a dress. Ooooh, askin’ for it, ya know! Gee, the two months I spent in the hospital? “Whatever, why were you out after dark wearing a dress!!1!?” I’d like to think things have radically changed since then and that can’t happen anymore, but it still does. Wasn’t it just last year that a rapist was given a slap on the hand because the victim was wearing a mini-skirt, heels and had had a drink or two?
Caine: a rapist was recently let off for raping a girl with cerebral palsy b/c the girl did not ‘fight’ hard enough
the thing is, the girl couldn’t fight, she couldnt.fucking.move.
Edward Gemmer at 225 has moved from merely bad sarcasm to straight intellectual dishonesty. If you seriously can’t tell the difference between asking someone to show their evidence and going out to find evidence I don’t even know where to start. Nerd called out your utter lack of evidence and you painted Nerd as narrowminded and small. I suppose it’s possible you don’t realize that your own ideas aren’t the same as evidence no matter how solid or predictive or accurate you think they are, but I doubt that. I’m going to err on the side of malice since you’re very intelligent with your sophistry.
Protip Edward Gemmer: Evidence. If you think X then prove it. The burden of proof is on you. You can theorize and philosophize all you like, but you will not win the acclaim you seem to be fishing for until you have something hard and fast to tie your sophistry to. Until then use all the passive-aggressive sarcasm you like but don’t assume that people will take your ideas as fact just because you put up a veneer of self-effacement.
No fool. Great scientists had evidence to back up their claims. Darwin was meticulous in documenting the evidence for his idea of evolution. Pseudoscientists use just imagination, the hell with evidence. What you are doing is at best pseudoscience, at worst nothing but mental wanking. Definitely not science, and never will be science. Where evidence leads the ideas, and ideas aren’t verified without conclusive evidence to support the idea. Preferable conclusive physical evidence. So, where is your conclusive, not just suggestive, physical evidence?
The time that perp went after me in the car park*?
I only ever told one person in meatspace. Her reaction? “Why on earth were you parking your car there?”
*So, not to malign some poor innocent guy who followed me from a well-lit street to a dark car park after he cat-called me and who then started to run after me as I made a dash to my car: Since I wasn’t actually raped, it is entirely possible that he could have wanted to ask for the time [/sarcasm]
Guess Edward Gemmer would be very interested in why said guy felt like he had to go after me, because gosh that’s interesting and isn’t biology strange and there probably is some evopsych paper about this and he most likely also had a difficult childhood while completely ignoring the person who feared for her safety and her life that night.
Giliell:
Yep, it is automatic, the assumption that the victim must have done *something* to cause or warrant the action. If it’s not how you were dressed, it’s where you were, if it’s not that, it’s being out after dark, if not that, you had a drink!1!!, if not that, you were out alone, without a ManlyMan™ escort, if it’s not that, it’s that you’re the one who went on that date!!1! and the fucking list goes on and on and on and on.
You’re acting as if it takes “imagination” to posit a biological basis for sexism. As if the biological theory hasn’t been proposed and debunked in various arenas, over and over again, ever since the ancient Greeks proposed that women were unsuited for intellectual pursuits because of their wandering uteri.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/30/italian-women-protest-misogynistic-priest-violence-against-women-an-emergency/
good!!!!!
Would have been right nice if men had been out protesting too, wouldn’t it?
Caine @ 237
Sadly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if an awful lot of Italian men agreed with the asshole, at least a little bit. I’m (short version) half Italian and half Italian-American, and grew up in both countries. In my experience (anecdotes ahead!) Italian family structures and gender roles are only quite recently becoming more flexible, and even now, with women working out of the house, traditional “women’s work” is still almost exclusively their responsibility on top of their actual paid work. Before I left Italy for good, I was an English teacher (well, I still am, just not in Italy) and often did company courses (that is, I’d go to people’s workplaces and give lessons to groups and individuals in their offices or board rooms during their work day). My female students would tell me stories about how they’d get home at 10pm and still have to cook a proper dinner while keeping an eye on the kids, because no way would their husbands dream of helping out with that stuff. Men often still live at home until they’re married, so their mothers can do it all for them until they find a woman who’ll replace her, though this is starting to change (albeit slowly, like anything else in Italy changes).
#237 Caine:
Great point!
la tricoteuse:
I already assumed they did, to some degree or another. It’s not something they’ll come out and say, but it will be part of their thought processes and attitude. Which all goes back and contributes to the atmosphere of toxic sexism. For a lot of men, not being able to come right out and say such things without finding a lot of disagreement is yet one more sign of how out of control women have gotten and gives them yet more to grumble about in discontent. Losing privilege is a hard row to hoe.
I think coolness is definitely both. But more broadly, I don’t know why society and evolution are necessarily different. People are predisposed to heart disease, cancer, alcoholism, and all sorts of nasty ailments. But being predisposed to alcoholism is mostly irrelevant if you don’t have access to alcohol. Weight problems exist, but can be controlled via diet and exercise. Our biology couldn’t possibly tell us to pick trendy clothes as a matter of instinct, but I think it could drive us to be more attractive, and after that things can screw off into a million different directions.
I guess my point is that when it comes to criminality, we haven’t traditionally weighted potential mates as reason for the choices people make. Evolution teaches us that the two primary factors in the perpetuation of life is the drive to survive and the drive to reproduce. When it comes to criminality, I think a lot of it makes more sense putting more weight on reproduction than survival.
That seems unwise. If we are studying a new species of beetle, would we assume that any behavior it has must be due to sociality rather than genetics until we are certain of the clear genetic basis such behavior has?
Such is the nature of good debate. I say X, you say Y. We then challenge each other’s assertions and hopefully scramble to find evidence to support our claims. Someone calling me a dumbass doesn’t inspire me to google to find links to things that said person will never read. It’s just lazy and uninspiring.
Bobo:
It’s a depressing point, actually. Even though a bishop came along to denounce Corsi, it won’t matter much. The tenets of Catholicism are damaging enough to women without the Corsis, but it’s rather obvious that outside of the bishop*, the only people decrying Corsi are women.
*Even here, the bishop wasn’t defending women so much as he was busy trying to defend Catholicism and doing some fast spin doctoring.
Caine @240:
Indeed. On this and other issues plaguing Italy recently, I have some hope in the younger generations though, at least in part because they’re more likely to learn to speak English, which gives them access to news sources outside of Italy (and Berlusconi’s influence, which isn’t gone yet), which gives them a better idea of how Italy is perceived by the world outside, which makes them take a harder look at their culture, which is a step towards changing it. Baby steps. I am cautiously optimistic, though Berlusconi is apparently trying to get his grubby paws on the government again (apparently being “too old to go to prison” does not mean he’s too old to run the country. Shocker), which is worrying. /tangent
la tricoteuse:
There is always hope in younger generations. It’s one reason for optimism in the face of so much fuckin’ awful. It’s like here in the States, it’s the younger generations who are fully in favour of gay marriage. Their parents and/or grandparents may be against it, but to (most) younger people, that’s absurd.
Stop talking. You are too dumb.
How about instead of looking for more links, you read the ones you have been provided with? And if you were actually interested in the truth you wouldn’t just be looking for evidence in favour of your opinion, you’d be looking for evidence against it too.
And wanting to rape or hit someone are not “irresistable urges” dumbass. People don’t do this shit because they just can’t help themselves. They do it because they want to.
Sally Strange:
Why, Sally! Everyone knows beetles are much more relevant than the foundations of societies and culture. Goodness me, those simply have no effect on anyone, ever.
@Caine
Well yeah, that’s why Kingsy who was seeking to study humans like they were beetles explicitly gave a biological reason for everything he saw!
So why are you even here? No seriously, if you’re tone trolling and whining that no one will take you seriously why are you here? If you’re being passive-aggressive about the meanies here who won’t take you seriously then why remain? You can leave you know, no one here is holding you against your will.
Also you seem to have misunderstood how this blog works. The Pharyngulites aren’t interested in debating forms or rhetoric, we care about evidence. This is a Science blog and in Science the rule is that if you make a claim YOU back it up. So far all you’ve done is fish for agreement and make assertions. If you’ve got evidence then share it with the crowd. No seriously, try us. If you have evidence then bring it out. If and only if no one bothers to read it (and/or refute it) then you have a case that everyone here is being a big meanie to you.
Ing:
I guess we know who Gemmer’s hero is, eh?
Omnicrom:
The recent influx of idiots has had me providing this handy link all too much, but here we go again (emphasised for the hard of thinking):
BURDEN OF PROOF.
If someone is willing to throw out contradicting points because of irrelevant criteria like some sleazy lawyer then they’re not interested in debate or discussion; they are playing a game; and I *HATE* multiplayer games
If we observed said species of beetle living in large groups, engaging in beetle art, speaking and writing beetle language with transmission of abstract ideas of interest to beetles, waging war against other beetle groups, etc., and furthermore that the structures of group life, art, and language varied widely among conspecific beetle groups, then yes, yes we would.
Your understanding of the objections to EP is pathetic.
That is how mental wankers (sophist philosophers)‚ debate, with empty, evidenceless, and meaningless nonsense. In a SCIENTIFIC debate, the ideas are secondary compared to the evidence to back up the ideas. You have no evidence and have presented essentially none. Ergo, you either shut the fuck up if you have honesty and integrity, or you continue to try to debate while we know you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter. Your choice cricket. Silence is your best friend in this debate.
huh
“Evolution” didn’t teach me that.
Gemmer’s little hypotheses are similar to that of religion as a world view hypothesis – he can twist and turn it to accommodate whatever bit of smegmarmalade he decides to pull out of his head. In other words, completely useless.
Chigau:
I think we can safely add evolution to the list of things Edward doesn’t comprehend.
Even on the face of it this is false. There are Mayflys for example for whom birth is fatal…not much of a drive to survive there :-p
Nematomorphs don’t even have guts. They do nothing as adults but screw, vigorously. Not a huge premium put on survival in that phylum.
Additionally a lot of critters seem to have picked up “glitches” as they evolved greater complexity and do behavior that seems to have nothing to do with survival or reproduction!
googles Nematomorphs
heh
That God guy is such a kidder.
@Chigau
google shistosoma for a real good look at some WTF coupling. Imagine if you were like much bigger than a male…and when you decided to hook up he moved in with you. And by with you I mean into you living permanently in a fleshy envelope in your body.
That’s not what you were doing. Here’s a better analogy.
“Say, there’s a flying squid out in the sky that says I’m god!”
Nerd: “Poo on that. There’s no evidence of such a thing so you’re just masturbating. Build a fucking telescope and point me to the flying squid, then we can talk.”
Not “hopefully”. Evidence is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCESS.
If you don’t go after the fucking evidence, then you have no debate and no science, just sophistry. Mental masturbation.
Now that’s a pretty sad insult. I would think you guys can do better than that.
Do they? What is the difference between having an urge to do something and wanting to do it?
It certainly isn’t false, but it doesn’t mean that the drive to live and breed are always equal. They are definitely not always equal, and if you are aware of the existence of mayflies then I assume you know there are literally countless ways species can fiddle the knobs to as to which is more important.
Yeah, that is a common misconception. For me to provide even more evidence that you will ignore, you have to present some semblance of a reason to suggest I am wrong. Just calling me stupid is probably a go to move, but proves nothing to me.
I’d like to see if you are either honest or intelligent enough to actually think of an answer to this one yourself.
And why it’s totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Go on ahead, I’ll wait.
Something makes me doubt you’ll admit to being smart enough to answer this yourself. If you’re honestly not smart enough, well, that’s one thing, but in that case, this discussion is well beyond you. If you are smart enough, then you’re arguing in bad faith.
You proud of that?
Nope, try again. This time provide some actual evidence since you haven’t yet. In fact it’s very strange when you whine about how the meanies are ignoring the evidence you provide when you haven’t provided any evidence. Oh and learn what “The Burden of Proof is” and who carries it (Hint: You). And stop tone trolling. And lose the ego. And again recognize this is a Science blog that plays by the rules of Science. Another hint: it’s not a “Common Misconception” that someone who makes a claim needs to provide evidence for their claim, that’s how Science works.
@Ing 262
It’s the other way around. The male schistosome has a gynecophorous canal in which the longer female sits. An SEM of Schistosoma mansoni en copula.
/parasitology geekery
Nope. Also, you misunderstand. I’m not whining, I’m explaining that giving you more evidence that you will ignore or dismiss without explanation or analysis is a waste of both of our times. I’m just trying to engage in some debate with a few people who enjoy that sort of thing. Obviously, there is a lot of worthless noise out there about how Science Works and how dumb I am and the usual internet comment rabble. What’s really fun is if people actually make points and we try to support and refute. Maybe not as much fun as thinking up insults, but still fun.
I’m not smart enough to understand this post.
It’s even more fun if you don’t decide to do your intellectual jacking off about psychology in the comments of a post about sexual violence. Hie thee hence to Thunderdome!
Gee, sounding like an evidenceless pseudofuckwittted idjit. Either cite your evidence or shut the fuck up. That’s what people of honesty and integrity do. Which tells us you are tacitly acknowledging being a liar and bullshitter. Grow up.
Put up or shut the fuck up.
We can. Why do you think you’re worth the effort?
Yes, God forbid we try to understand why sexual and domestic violence happen. No time for that when we can be self-righteous!
The psychology and biology of it is interesting and practical to me. I’m sorry if that offends you.
That won’t happen with you present. It requires an understanding of the difference between mental wanking, real scientific evidence, and scientific methodology. All you offer is unsophistimacated mental wanking. Take to “sophistry R us” web site, where your evidenceless approach won’t be noticed.
Yeah Edward, none of us here have any interest in understanding why sexual violence happens. It’s a purely theoretical debate exercise for us; a nice excuse to be self-righteous and nothing personal or practical.
Any negative response you’ve received is purely we sheeple not being willing to accept your great powers of argumentation and the fantastic evidence you’ve presented.
*goes to fetch eyes, as they have rolled out of her head* Goddamn cat! Come back with that!
Rabble rabble SCIENCE rabble rabble WANKING rabble rabble SOPHISTRY
Is there a point to this or are your computer comments on autoplay? Yes, I understand, you want hard evidence of everything everyone says that you disagree with. I did provide statistics as well as some links suggesting a biological basis for male aggression and that it is related to sexuality. These were quickly dismissed without reason so you could continue to talk about masturbation. This blog isn’t a journal of science. I understand that you want to to be that way for all viewpoints that you don’t like, but believe it or not, not everyone agrees with you or your personal definition of science. Frankly, I don’t have the faintest idea what you disagree with, other than everything I say, which has less to do with science and logic and more to do with the groupthink that pervades and your allegiance to it.
I knew it! 100 internet points to me!
Whoopie shit. Suggestive, not conclusive. What a fuckwitted idjit.
Proof you are doing nothing but trolling at this stage. What a loser.
YOU. An egotistical over opinionated person who doesn’t understand how science works, which requires more than your ideas, and then tries to define science into something it isn’t.
If you aren’t stupid, you know nobody here is interested in discussing your idiocy. Your continued presence is your ego getting in the way of acknowledging that fact. Just move along to the next blog for you to infest.
I see. Can you please give me a link to the God you follow who has two groups of evidence and how He/She classifies them? I’m curious as to how suggestive evidence is worthless and should never be talked about.
Translation: If I keep being an asswipe, girls will talk to me, right?
I’ve got a fiance, an ex-wife, and two daughters. I need something that makes women not want to talk to me.
Who says YOU can’t talk about it. Just do it elsewhere, as we aren’t interested. What you can’t do is force us to talk about it, which is what you are trying to do. Put that ego back in your pants and cover up.
Misogynist fuckwit.
Poor kids.
My god is a beetle.
The point sailed a little over to the left. You were positing a biological basis for men to be jealous and possessive of women, in response you were reminded that both men and women get jealous and possessive, not only of each other (and across genders) but also about things and even ideas.
Edward Gemmer,
Was “irresistible” too long a word for you?
Now about this evidence thing. I’ve gone through the thread, searching for your name, and found just three links, all of them pretty weak sauce. The first starts with the following:
So “jealousy”* is both universal, at least among “pair-bonding species… that live in social groups”, and unique to human beings among primates. So you’d think that if a case were to be made for the biological basis of the human phenomena we classify under that name, a comparison with other (presumably non-primate) “pair-bonding species… that live in social groups” would be in order – to see if the stereotypes paraded in the rest of the article hold true for them. Where is it? Without it, all the article appears to consist of is the usual EP trope of claiming that perceived gender differences in some aspect of behaviour across a small number of societies (a “cross-cultural comparison of the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States” – srsly?) follow from “evolutionary logic”. David J. Buller, in his Adapting Minds:
Evolutionary Psychology And The Persistent Quest For Human Nature takes apart the EP work on jealousy quite effectively. His objections are summarised in one section of an article in a Scientific American “Special Collector’s Edition: What Makes Us Human”, recently published.
The other two links are both to pop-psychology articles, the first about an admittedly speculative claim that the SRY gene on the Y-chromosome is responsible for men being more physically aggressive than women, the second
about how testosterone makes male robins more aggressive and horny so must do the same for men. Yes, testosterone is necessary to libido (in both sexes), but the article itself shows the links between testosterone levels and aggression in men are weak. It is clear that young men commit most violent crimes, and AFAIK this is true across all societies, but there’s a clear alternative explanation to the claim that this is due to a biologically-based difference in psychology: young men are most likely to profit from violence, because they are on average physically stronger than any other demographic group (which almost certainly does have a biological basis, although social factors undoubtedly enhance it), so even in the absence of relevant psychological differences between the sexes, they would be expected to use violent strategies more often. We also know that levels of interpersonal violence vary by orders of magnitude across societies – so any biological basis is, contrary to your original contention, simply irrelevant to Corsi’s vile idiocies. If we want to reduce violence against women, we emphatically do not need to know whether there are biologically-based psychological differences between the sexes (interesting as this might be scientifically): we need to change the societal structures and belief systems that allow men to get away with it – which include the lazy stereotyping that makes up most of EP.
Now, how about pointing us to some real evidence?
If you have any.
*Note that EP always starts with some human social phenomenon named by an everyday word (“jealousy”, “rape”, “cooperation”, “dominance”), then assumes without argument that it makes sense to apply that word to behaviour in other species.
True. There are some theories out there that women get jealous of emotional infidelity and men of physical infidelity. Not being a woman it is hard for me to have insight into whether those theories carry weight or not, and certainly I don’t think anything conclusive has been shown. OTOH, I do think the evidence is very strong that men’s jealousy leads to more violent outcomes than women’s jealousy.
CITATION NEEDED. Your OPINION is irrelevant to science. Besides, nobody wants to mentally wank with you, and Nick Gotts showed how intellectually bankrupt EP is (but you didn’t seem to notice the thrust of his post). Which is why we don’t discuss it here.
I think you’re irresistible. That was awesome.
It’s a good question. Why might people be jealous and other species not so much?
Dogs being jealous: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7771259.stm
Chimps being jealous: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/chimps-keep-quiet-during-sex-980679
Gibbon jealousy: (not at all scientific but kind of interesting – http://www.haaretz.com/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-gibbon-s-jealousy-1.79729
I know you asked about pair bonding non-primate species. The black-backed jackal should fit that bill and is social enough to warrant consideration. A small print primer (sorry)
http://www.science.smith.edu/msi/pdf/715_Canis_mesomelas.pdf
No mention of jealousy is listed at all, though it is clear that within a group their are pairs, there are more dominant males, and there are nonbreeding adults. This nonbreeding adult is a trigger for me – controlling the sexuality of those within the group seems can be theorized as the purpose of jealousy. Perhaps jackals do it differently? I don’t know.
Finally, David Buller surmises that jealousy exists but is uniform among the sexes.
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/sex-jealousy-and-violence/ (His Sexual Jealousy)
He calls it the relationship jealousy hypothesis. This makes sense, though really isn’t relevant to my point. If you feel convinced that men are prone to more violence than women, then it would make sense that men and women could feel the same impulses of jealousy but have very different reactions.
Maybe, though if being physically stronger was the extent, there should be a correlation between men being physically stronger and being more violent. I’m not sure this exists.
Maybe. I can certainly tell you that in many places in the United States, domestic violence is taken very seriously, almost to a fault. What is hard to explain is why even after prosecution and jail and “treatment,” there are still substantial amounts of domestic violence and recidivism.
http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2066/Treatment-Male-Batterers-RECIDIVISM-RATES.html
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/sac/nchip/DV_sentencing_conditions_recidivism.pdf
Clearly, just “getting away with it” or not isn’t the only thing contributing here.
You’re really making things too easy here – it’s like shooting paralysed fish in a very small barrel. You cannot assess whether psychological “theories” (“claims” would be better here) “carry weight” by introspection, so the fact that you’re not a woman is completely irrelevant.
I used to think so, but have found that not to be the case. I know how I feel when I’m feeling angry/jealous, etc. You know how you feel when you feel that same way. Unfortunately, I can’t become a woman and compare the feelings to see if they feel the same, so it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea of people having different feelings of jealousy. Of course, I don’t claim that my feelings are conclusively anything except for my feelings, but it gives me a good starting point for trying to figure things out.
Edward Gemmer @290:
Why do you assume that you can divide these feelings along gender lines? You don’t know how Nick feels if/when he experiences jealousy or anger any more than you know how *insert random woman here* feels, but instead of assuming that the feelings might manifest differently along individual lines, you assume that they differ by gender, with no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. Why? You can’t become Nick any more than you can become a woman, so why is this relevant?
What shitty thinking. It’s called empathy. Missing from MRA types. Besides, you need to cite your work, or its nothing but mental masturbation. We both know you have nothing but OPINION, which won’t work here.
I don’t. I said earlier that it has been hypothesized that women and men have different forms of jealousy. I said I don’t necessarily agree with that based on the evidence, and my position of not being a woman gives me no insight into the matter.
I wrote a long post. The website says it is awaiting moderation. Not sure why that is.
Yeah that’s not what’s being debated. Not that you’re really debating
Again the fact that dimorphism makes males larger would just explain that. You know Pitbull attacks have more violent outcomes than Chihuahua attacks right? Interestingly though in the past some breeds that are now known as Pitbulls were seen as nanny dogs or nurse dogs; ones with a disposition fitting for watching children (for the sake of this argument ignore that since then such breeds have been selected for more aggression). Culturally men are conditioned to be more aggressive and violent. so there’s your biological reasoning. Dimorphism makes men bigger so past cultures gave them tasks that required such traits (often aggressive ones like hunting defending etc) and thus cultural evolution continues the idea that men are to be conditioned to be aggressive because that’s how things are.
Also since I mentioned it and I know there’s some Pitt detractors here let me clarify that Yes I know Pitts are potentially dangerous. I was attacked by a Pitbull.
I said:
Ed said:
Translation:
“Yep, damn proud of arguing in bad faith.”
This means Ed wins, you see.
He has demonstrated that his ironic indifference to the topic he’s arguing about is far, far stronger than any real desire to engage the actual subject. It’s all just a foil for Ed to crack jokes off of, while pretending to be just engaged enough to have plausible deniability.
That’s why we should listen to him, y’see.
Sorry to double post, but I just noticed this little gem:
Well, here’s a suggestion – go to your fiance, and let her know that you’re looking for things that will prevent women from wanting to talk to you. You may just find that expressing the problem creates the solution.
Failing that, you could always direct her here.
Translation: Look! Look! I am a ManlyMan™ surrounded by wimmin! Hear me roar, man! Bitchez never shut up, yo.
It was actually a joke to deflect against a bunch of ignorant generalizations someone made about me based on my gender and status as someone new here that they disagreed with. I’m sure you sympathize.
Edward Gemmer@300,
A joke is supposed to be funny. Did no-one ever tell you that?
we don’t appreciate attempts at humor around these parts, Mr. Gemmer.
No, this is not a matter of opinion. Empirical claims about gender (or other group) differences in psychology have to be assessed by data gathering and statistical testing; introspection is completely useless for the purpose.
Speak for yourself, Mt. Peterson.
Edward Gemmer
Try reading what I wrote. That wasn’t the question.
That’s a bizarre claim. You raised the notion that men and women are jealous in different ways, and the item you linked to speculated that this was due to adaptive gender differences in psychology. Buller proposes an alternative view, so it clearly is relevant to a point you made.
I am, since young men are on average both stronger and more violent than old men.
In the first place, you can’t tell me that and expect me to take it seriously, unless you have some evidence to back that claim up. Second, that “almost to a fault” is a very telling phrase.
Who said it was? And “getting away with it” is not simply a legal matter: there is also the question of how such behaviour is viewed by the batterer’s peers.
But, here’s a quote from the first of your recidivism links:
So it looks as though being caught and punished (including a compulsory treatment programme) did make a considerable difference.
Corsi just wants to be the Martin Luther of Piggiedom. Obviously there is no god as he would have been struck by lightning for those remarks!