But in Michael Crook’s case, I’ll make an exception.
A trigger warning applies to that post for Stuebenville, rape culture, rape defenders, rape supporters, and entitled male pseudonintellectual shitwads marching under a stolen “freethinking atheist” banner.
Ugh , why are you giving oxygen to one of the internet’s most notorious trolls? If everyone just stopped clapping, he’d die.
According to some comments I’ve received over at Feministe, he’s a long-time shitwad who argues for a broad array of obnoxiously contrarian positions and has thereby managed to get himself on Fox a few times.
He is sadly probably going to be chortling over the attention, but some trolls deserve to be harshly spotlit, even if they confuse it with feeding time.
adrianluca, that whole Don’t Feed The Trolls thing is not the magic bullet it’s touted as.
adrianluca, no one’s keeping you from just dusting that layer of ash off your windowsill every day.
I’m more concerned about CNN. Their coverage was all teary sympathy for the rapists, not a bit of rachmones (compassion, fellow feeling, sympathy) for the victim. Michael Crook only influences the pre-trolled. CNN influences millions
Wow! Just… Just wow.
This is too much. have to bail on this topic for my own sanity. Sorry. Vile scumbags like this piss me off.
oh my, what the…
@ chris
a quick google search informed me about what Michael Crook does on the internet
That guy is clearly about attention seeking, harassment and causing trouble.
Why do you give him that attention by creating that post instead of ignoring his “efforts”???
You can’t kill him, you can’t make him shut up, why not just ignore him? That would hurt him most, no matter how much he tries to escalate, let him talk to empty space.
No reward, see Pavlov.
Why yes! Let’s just whistle and hope he gets another hobby! Clearly I’m making things worse by calling attention to that guy saying horrible shit!
What rape culture?
For the record, I’m not even a little interested in Crook’s response, reaction, or feelings. This shit keeps happening because men don’t call it out. You have a problem with me calling it out, you can find another place to comment.
Which is not to say anuran doesn’t have a point. But fuck. This is the last place I’d have expected to have people fucking SCOLD me for calling attention to a man supporting rape under the banner of atheism.
Chris, Michael Crook does indeed deserve a good kicking. In fact, he deserves worse – to know that nobody listens to him.
I’m not scolding you for calling attention to his nastiness. I’m simply more concerned about the harm a couple of reporters (women, if you can believe it) with an enormous worldwide audience can do.
People who thrive on negative attention present a real conundrum. I have no idea whether calling them out hurts, helps or has no effect. If Crook is under the banner of atheism, it seems to me that atheism, in itself, doesn’t make much of a banner. I read a little of his blog — he doesn’t appear to have a coherent position on *anything* (for example, he quotes “LDS leaders” in support of his views).
But I have to +million what anuran says in #5. The benefit of calling that behavior out is clear. Media establishments reflect/amplify/reinforce our culture in a way that no individual does. It is essential to call them out, in a way that makes it clear that they’re essentially on the same page as people like Crook.
Look, spreading rape culture hurts people. Who fucking cares if you give some troll a jolly or two in the process of identifying rape culture in action? It’s more important that we who want to end rape culture agree on what it is and spread the word that it’s fucking unacceptable. Sweeping it under the rug is exactly what allows it to continue uninterrupted.
@ Chris
I wouldn’t have known about this twitter post unless you (or someone else) would have posted it on the media I frequent.
Like it or not (I know you don’t), but you are spreading his word. You play his game.
Why are you doing this?
Rebuttal of and kicking Michael Crook is not going to help in any way whatsoever. He is thriving on that. This way it is not going to stop. People re-posing his stuff and talking about it is his aim and you help him to archive it.
Ignore him = hurt him.
He lusts for the hate. Don’t reward him. I know it is hard.
(permanently out of this thread by the way because this is…oh my…sick stuff)
I think we need to start calling this type of comment out as often as possible. We need to make sure that we don’t give tacit approval by our silence.
“Hey look folks, there are some sexists in the atheist community and it’s causing problems for a lot of women and some non-sexist men.”
“What? No way! Sexism is irrational, and atheists are rational. Obviously the atheist community has no problem with sexism.”
“Yes, it definitely does! I’ve experienced it and so have many others.”
“No it doesn’t, show some evidence because claiming things are sexist is a very extraordinary claim in this very egalitarian society!”
“Okay fine, look over here, here’s an atheist promoting rape and letting rapists get away.”
“JEEEEZ, shut up, willya, you’re just playing the troll’s game, the trick is to ignore him!!!”
———————-
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
adrianluca:
No, he wouldn’t. He also isn’t just some “internet troll”. I’m getting damn
tiredwearyfuriously exhausted with all the people like yourself, who decide to play the hand wave idiot, because this makes you an active, harmful part of rape culture. You slide apathetically down the rape apologist slope, managing to make time to scold those of us who are active in raising consciousness about rape culture, about the plight of those who have been raped and are insistent on dragging this immoral, wrong and rotten crap into the light of day. We’ll keep doing that until people have no choice but to pay attention.If you prefer to wallow in your personal puddle of shallow apathy, have at it. Do not, however, pretend to be a decent human being who is just giving us guidance on how to navigate the ‘net, let alone life.
This guy’s as much a piece of shit as the two convicted rapists he’s defending.
And FTR: fuck this “don’t feed the trolls” bollocks – I prefer to call out bastardry when I see it, lest any particular bastard thinks they can fly under the radar.
yubal:
Do us all a favour, yubal, and shut. the. fuck. up. In every discussion like this, you’re on the stupid side of the fence. You couldn’t possibly be more wrong as it stands. Silence gives assent. I will not aid and assist rape culture by refusing to call people out on rape apologetics. As someone who has been raped, and know a whole lot of other people who have been raped, it helps to call rape apologia out, the more often the better. It helps to refuse to be silenced. It’s empowering, it provides strength and it has the added benefit of getting through to a lot of people who have never thought about it before.
We are legion and we will not be silenced.
Do us all a favour, yubal, and shut. the. fuck. up. […] We are legion and we will not be silenced.
The irony, spot it.
It didn’t elude me when I wrote it. Tonight, after being involved in the Steubenville thread, the Do you deny rape culture thread and a few other discussions on the matter, I’m more tired and irritated than usual of people attempting to silence those of us who choose to speak out on rape apologetics. I don’t make it a practice to follow yubal about, trying to silence him. Yubal isn’t surrounded by people every single day of his life who think he’s an uppity bitch who is a professional victim who really needs to get the fuck over being raped and shut up about it already.
I hope you feel better for making a point of it though. Whatever gets you through.
[meta]
yubal:
You might consider whether it is you who is playing his game.
You are very confused; Chris is not trying to induce a conditioned reflex in this Crook specimen.
(Bah)
Oh, for goodness sake. Now I’m part of the rape culture because i point out that this jerk has been adopting disgusting positions on issues for the better part of a decade in order to bathe in the attention?
Fuck off , seriously. Accuse me of being pro-rape once more and I will fucking launch legal action.
@ phoenicianromans
The irony lies with yubal raising hir voice to silence people. Caine’s comment is perfectly consistent with her intentions. I fail to spot the irony in saying “don’t try and silence us”.
That Crook looks like an awful, dyed-in-the-wool troll. And extremely verbose at that. Our staying silent won’t change that. I shall gladly call him out. Along with fucking CNN.
@ adrianluca
Please go ahead and try, it will get very entertaining.
(Hint: First try posting comments under your full name, as it appears in your passport. Secondly ensure that the person you are addressing is posting anonymously.)
In my opinion this threat of yours is bullying and cowardly.
Sue me.
One doesn’t have to be consciously/deliberately pro-rape to be an actively harmful participant in rape culture. Most rape culture involves trivialising and minimising the experience of rape, not promoting the practice of it.
Many people feel that the rigorous calling out of toxic victim-blaming and rape apologetics is a hugely important process contributiong towards the goal of dismantling rape culture. When you tell them to stop doing it just because you think that this one particular person’s statements are less important than Some V.V. Important Thing Which Is Gained By Ignoring Him, then you trivialising and minimising the experience of rape, by framing the naming and shaming of rape apologia as less important than the satisfaction you gain by ignoring this guy.
I absolutely believe that you are not personally/deliberately pro-rape. Telling others to ignore somebody who clearly is pro-rape doesn’t help you look like an effective anti-rape ally though.
@adrianluca
Nobody said that, you incredible doofus. You were not chastised because you pointed out that he is a troll, but because of this pearl of idiocy in your first post:
And noboby said that you were pro-rape either. But you can be part of the rape culture without being “pro-rape”, by say being silent on something vile like this because you are obviously above “feeding the trolls”, without seeing that you are part of the goddam fucking reason people feel like those kind of “joke” are ok and edgy
This problem is not like Tinkerbell: it exists and it affects real people.
…
Are you serious (or seven years-old)?
You’ll launch nothing. Quit your tantrum.
Crook is probably fapping away happily in his new Pharyngula spotlight right now.
@adrianluca
Why is it so important to you that one shitty griefer doesn’t get his jollies from this?
Why is it so much more important to you than the promulgation of community standards via the spaced repetition of articulations of examples of unacceptable behaviour and analysis of why they are so unacceptable? How else do you think community standards are maintained or how they evolve?
I have yet to read the entirety of the judges ruling statement on this case, but what I have read and heard indicates he is of the opinion that we need to talk to our children about what is OK to share on social media. . . . . . . And yeah the sobfest for the perps on the news is appalling. I hate watching people cry cause they got caught. I’m sure they were all teary-eyed the day after right?
If it wasn’t for folks on the internet highlighting their vileness relentlessly for years and years, there probably wouldn’t be a cadre of volunteers to act as a buffer zone between the mourners at funerals and the WBC pickets, and the WBC would be spouting their vileness without opposing voices.
Clear strong opposing voices are much more comforting to the targeted than a dignified silence which opposes nothing.
When you make such an effort to earn condescension (even contempt) it only fair that I oblige.
As I told you earlier, you will not do anything. It wasn’t an order, it was a simple statement. You can’t do anything. What kind of recourse do you think you have here? Which is why I asked if you were new to internet.
Now to your main point:
Why does it matter to you?! Like Tigtog said, this is not about about him, it is was never about him and it should not be about him. It is about speaking against those comments, saying that they’re not OK, that it is not a joke, that it is part of something bigger and horrible.
You want silence so as not to help him, while we are asking you to speak to help everybody else.
That Crook looks like an awful, dyed-in-the-wool troll.
You do sorta wanna steal his computer, don’t you? Hey – his window was open. It was implied consent. Really, he’s just asking for it…
If that guy was a singular occurance, I would be all for ignoring him.
But he isn’t. There are a lot – too many – that think and talk like him.
And these people have to be exposed to the “undecided” mass. He has to be presented as the beast he is.
Not uncommented, not “given a platform”. Exposed and accused for the hate he spreads.
adrianluca won’t be posting here again until he apologizes for his threat of legal action.
Theophontes, I like you. But when a commenter threatens to sue me and your response is
it makes me feel like it’s financially irresponsible for me to continue posting here. PLease don’t make me feel that way again.
PhoenicianRomans, it’s been a long time. I’d like it to be longer. Door’s that way.
adrianluca,
it was pointed out to you that
and also that bullies and rape enablers and the messages they send just don’t go away by simply ignoring them, whether some think they are mere trolls or not. And instead of thinking about this and maybe learning something, you throw a tantrum and threaten to sue. It’s not a very impressive display.
The “don’t feed the trolls” meme is fine for trolls eager for attention. That isn’t Crook’s motive. He’s spreading vileness which needs replies to show large numbers of people disagree with him. Silence doesn’t marginalize Crook. Evidence that his is a minority position does.
Ulysses, good point.
Even with trolls eager for attention, the “don’t feed the trolls” injunction is about not getting sucked into their framing of the arguments, because that is what derails discussions. Pointing out their egregious wrong-wrongitty-wrongness in a way that reinforces the central points of the OP and/or central themes of the forum has always been, and will always be, an effective rebuttal technique that actively resists derail attempts.
@adrianluca #23
Wait, I’ll call the Waaahmbulance…
Being part of the rape culture does not necessarily mean you are “pro-rape”. All you’ve proven with that post is that you don’t understand what rape culture is.
Silence is tacit endorsement. Pointing this out and loudly disagreeing with it is the right thing to do.
Ok, he has a twitter following, so you can’t make that happen.
Since we’ve settled that point, what next?
He and his cohorts are just fine by you? If not, how will he, they, or anyone else at all ever know if you keep silent?
Quick question: Will they will do
A) more
B) less
damage if everyone remains silent in regards to them?
The “Me Like Noise!” type of troll is annoying, but I am perfectly willing to satisfy the pitiful desire of a thousand of them to get a single important issue into the limelight. When we feed the trolls, we’re showing not only the trolls but the world in general that whatever the issue might be, it’s important, and there are people passionately concerned about it.
You can argue that in so doing, we’re playing the troll’s game. And you might very well be right. But in giving the issue attention, and raising awareness of it, we’re also forcing the trolls to play our game – the important one, the social awareness one.
If they get off as a reward, that’s actually fine by me.
Shite like Crook need to be dogpiled on, not because of the effect that it has on him but because of the effect that it has on the larger community. Silence, in this case, is not golden by any means. He is a guy who says that there is no such thing as rape.
Who gives a rat’s ass if he gets his jollies from traffic. This verdict at Steubenville isn’t about him, it is a refutation of the idea that “boys will be boys” sort of innocence that has allowed rapists to get away with their crimes time and again. It means that those who supported the rapists because by criminalizing their acts their lives would be ruined. Rape trials and criminal law have always shown bias towards the defendant, and the sports culture of their home town was going to put these kids above the law once again because they were “heroes.” This may be a turning of the tide in the way that the criminal justice system approaches rape.
I am glad Crook is getting a lot of traffic from this. It gives more of an opportunity to show that such vileness exists and that we can’t be complacent, especially wrt a segment of atheists who really are complicit in the continuance of the rape culture.
Yea, there’s no real harm in playing the troll’s game other than wasting time, really. He’s going to continue trolling regardless of whether he gets dogpiled on. Come on.
There is the small chance that he might rethink doing the same next time if he gets a sufficient response. So go ahead and dogpile. What’s the problem?
A general comment to yubal and the “don’t feed the troll” crowd:
There are many reasons to respond to trolls. Good responses help shape attitudes of other people. It’s fun. It’s cathartic. It’s a helluva lot more helpful than your annoying whining about feeding the trolls.
This isn’t about the trolls. It’s about a culture that allows trolls to spout their idiocy to an audience willing to listen. A large number of folks listen to fuckbrained assholes like Crook. If we stay silent, that vocal minority begins to sound like the majority. Other folks start to take them (or their ideas, at least) more seriously. Their caustic attitudes become normalized, infecting the brains of weaker-willed folks who would otherwise oppose it.
And that’s how you end up with Republicans.
So, as long as the trolls have an audience, we do more harm than good by ignoring them.
If you would like to ignore us not ignoring the trolls, though, that’d be great.
To all the “Ignore him and he’ll go away” folks. Do you not know that in every damn thread on the internet about rape culture and misogyny there are people who claim that such things do not exist because they have never seen it?
They say harassment isn’t a problem, because they haven’t seen it. Sexism and racism are over, because they’ve never seen it.
So guess what? We need to be sure that people see this. I’m sick of those privileged enough to miss the hate that gets spewed at other people telling us that the victims are lying or overreacting because the deniers have been lucky enough not to be targeted.
Also, what makes you think he’ll stop if we stay silent? If we remain silent the only feedback he’ll get is from supporters. Then he gets to assume that all our silence means he has even more support than he sees, because these asshats aren’t exactly humble.
And in this case, silence is support. Yubal, you’ve never seen him. How nice for you. Plenty of people are inundated with the same rape enabling culture that this shitweasel espouses. When you stop seeing it, that doesn’t mean it goes away. So, don’t shame the people who are dragging rape culture and misogyny into the light. If you want to shame someone, go shame the vile Mr. Cook. Or, if you think silence makes things you don’t like go away, then why not test that out and remain silent when someone points out rape culture and you don’t like that? At least be consistent.
There goes my appetite, what a vile little man. At least all the comments on his Twit seem to be calling him what he is.
# 41 & 43,
Too right.
You know, I’ve been surrounded by people who go uncomfortably silent or just try to ignore nasty rape apologia for years. That silence has been every bit as damaging and hurtful as anything nasty someone could say, because either they are silently supporting the bad stuff or they just don’t care to provide support and defense to victims.
So when you say “Don’t Feed the Trolls”, you’re not just suggesting that you should deny a troll attention (and people seem to think anybody who disagrees with them is a “troll” only seeking attention instead of a genuinely hateful asshat, of which there are millions on this planet). You’re also suggesting that you should deny all of the survivors support. You’re suggesting that you should ignore the pain people are being caused. You’re suggesting that because you are lucky enough to not be hurt by those words, it’s the fault of a rape survivor for being upset by them.
Fuck that. I will continue calling it out every chance I get. Will it change the mind of the one spouting it? Probably not. But it might change the minds of all those assholes who sit around quietly refusing to take a stance. And–most important of all–it will make other survivors feel a little less alone and marginalized.
And that last one is a fucking hell lot more important than “oh no, some troll got attention.” That last one saves lives.
As bad as his tweets are, his blog seems worse. He denies that rape even exists. In his putrid blog post he asserts that all rape is just buyer’s remorse, and women who cry rape are all just lying. He then goes on to make all the usual apologies for rapists: she voluntarily got drunk, she dressed provocatively, her attackers were helpless to resist their natural hormones, and so on.
To top things off, he proudly states that when he encountered a distraught young woman being “aggressively pursued by a man”, to the point where she was crying, he just walked on by, because, as he said “it’s bro’s before ho’s”. He also says “although I’m not a Mormon, I agree with the Mormon leaders who say that women who dress provocatively bring rape on themselves”.
Reading his blog post, I’m of the opinion that there is a decent chance that not only is Crook a rape apologist, he’s probably committed a rape himself. He probably just excused it as “natural hormones”. He’s a vile human being.
I’m afraid to ask but…. did he actually say “bros before hos”? I can’t look.
Sometimes I’d be surprised if any of the sex guys like Crook have had was consensual.
Yeah. With some people, I believe their attitude toward rape and sex is so toxic that there isn’t any difference in their eyes at all.
Sorry Chris.
My face is flushed red now. I did not think I was implicating you when I posted that sentence, but I see now the implication is there. (Obviously, as the threat was directed at you.)
…
For the good order, it is my own personal opinion that people, who post under their own names, with the intention of bullying through threats of legal action, are cowards.
nigelTheBold:
It’s also how we’ve ended up with the current view in the US that Christianity = Evangelical Fundamentalism: because liberal and moderate Christians (the actual majority) never seem to speak up about the excesses of the aforementioned fringe.
You guys have actually changed my mind about the DNFTT thing. I started this thread (weary of all drama) kind of leaning that way myself, but now I’ve done a 180. Bring on the spotlight!
I love that Jay Smooth video. But then, I love pretty much everything he says.
An interesting comparison just occurred to me: a lot of atheists criticize “moderate muslims” from not speaking up against the violent minority of Islamists (an unfair criticism, by and large, but that’s a different post).
Here we have a vocal minority (?) of atheists and “free-thinkers” expressing violently misogynistic beliefs (and supporting violent actions, e.g. rape), and another group of atheists and “freethinkers” telling people who criticize the first group to “not feed the trolls”, that it is better not to give them “attention”. That we should “compromise” and be less “angry”.
Hmmm. Is that hypocrisy I smell?
Thankfully, Pharygula has (by and large) become a bastion of people who believe in speaking out against injustice and misogyny, no matter who says it.
Barefoot Bree:
Exactly! The greatest accomplice to verbal toxicity is silence.
I’m glad we could help you come around.
I’m afraid to ask but…. did he actually say “bros before hos”? I can’t look.
Yes. He used those exact words.
As near as I can figure out, he thinks it violates the “guy code” to prevent another man from raping a woman.
Chris, thanks for calling this douchecanoe out. We need more of this in atheist spaces!
To those who are saying “don’t feed the trolls”. Remember that post just 3 days ago, where PZ Myers linked Melissa McEwan’s post with Advice to Atheist Men? Remember how one of the pieces of advice was
That’s what Chris is doing here. It’s a good thing. Even if we ignored the troll, lots of other people won’t ignore it, and will take our silence as tacit support. In that same thread, several people described Pharyngula’s model as “feeding trolls until they explode.” So let’s keep calling trolls like this out until they explode!
why is trolling like this itself not seen as a problem worth addressing. griefers like this are bad people. know who this reminds me of a bit? Breitbert: teaparty troll taken 1005 seriously because no one in liberal media fact checked or challenged their pet conservative.
@Barefoot Bree
When you (general non-specific you) come to the conclusion that filth like this can’t go unchallenged – because silence implies indifference at best, agreement or acceptance at worst – it seems kind of overwhelming, because there’s so damn much of it. And it’s everywhere. There are plenty of places on the internet where in order to challenge this shit, you first have to get buy-in from other commenters that rape is bad. Seriously. And then it’s all “Oh yeah, of course rape is bad, but that wasn’t rape.”
And just one thing – using the word “drama” in the context of a discussion about calling out rape culture is perhaps not the best choice of words. I don’t think you meant it like that, but perhaps avoid it in the future.
I can tell you one thing I’ve never seen happen in 20 years on the internet: A troll go away by people ignoring them.
I have seen communities successfully drive trolls away, though. Two tactics I have seen work:
1. Report troll’s threats, ill behavior, etc. to someone who has direct, physical contact with and authority over the troll. Example: the woman who sent a harrasser’s texts to his mother. Another example: years ago on a mailing list we had a troll who issued threats. He was a college student. One of the ML members forwarded the threats and emails to the Dean of Students at his university.
2. Relentless campaign of mockery. One of the characteristics of trolls is that they think they’re very important and have valuable things to say. But when met by a uniform wall of mockery, they follow a predictable pattern of (a) establishing sockpuppets to defend them, and then (b) flouncing off when people recognize the sockpuppets and add mockery about that to the general derision.
It is imperative that one not use option #2 unless one is certain the person is in fact a troll and not just some gormless gobshite. Fortunately, this is not hard to determine.
Yet another reason for me to speak up and fight the trolls — according to him, I do not exist.
If he’s a troll, he’s not a very successful one. I don’t use this newfangled Twitter thingie at all, but this particular tweet has all of 46 retweets, and this toxic person appears to have all of 239 followers.
Which is to say that this isn’t exactly a big-name troll, and a pile on could very well overwhelm his indefensible argument. Attention drawn seems more likely to go to the tweets that point out that he doesn’t believe rape exists, which I would think would cause jaw droppage to those who didn’t know him.
Which would be a great outcome, from my leadership perspective in the atheist community (ha!). Deep Rifts and all that — this should be a fucking Deep Chasm. Seems like one of the goals here should be to make this asshole feel completely unwelcome in the atheist community. At which point he’ll scream about Free Speeeeeech or something, of course, which is entertaining in its own morbid way.
Almost makes me want to sign up for Twitter, but … I just can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t use Twitter, so the fuck do I know/might have gotten stuff wrong. Also not fully caffeinated this morning, so I hope I made sense.
Here’s the thing what has he said that’s so different from Rush or Coulter?
If you don’t call out people like this, and you don’t join in the dogpile, and you discourage other people from calling them out, they will still have fans, and they will still have victims. The only thing that they won’t have is people standing against them. Which maybe doesn’t matter from the perspective of the abusive shithead…
… but what about from the perspective of the victim? If the target of this sort of abuse sees a vocal abusive shithead, and that shithead’s pack of fans, and NO ONE ELSE, what does that tell them about the world they live in? That they can be abused without penalty, and even that society as a whole approves of that abuse by their silence. FUCK THAT!
So fuck Michael Crook, and also fuck his enablers with their weak sauce “I don’t agree with him, BUT let’s not anyone say so too loudly in public.”
What is the difference between a cult and a religion? If this troll gains the popularity of Rush or Coulter or any of the other hate-mongers infesting the right-wing media he will no longer be a troll, he will become a Respected Conservative Thinker (or whatever he aspires to be). Just as Christianity, Mormonism, and even Scientology have become religions because they have enough followers to move them out of cultdom.
So this jerk actually believes crud like:
“…her attackers were helpless to resist their natural hormones, and so on.” and that dressing provocatively is the same as a punch in the nose?!
Well if these jerks / criminals can’t resist their “natural impulses” then their cocks and balls must be surgically removed because they obviously have no control over their impulses.
#40 Ani –
Please read what I read
Chris, Michael Crook does indeed deserve a good kicking. In fact, he deserves worse – to know that nobody listens to him.
I’m not scolding you for calling attention to his nastiness.
Chris did absolutely the right thing by speaking up. I added to the dog pile as soon as I heard about it. A worse punishment in a truly just world would be for nobody to listen to anything he says, ever. Failing that, he needs to be named and shamed.
This “natural impulse” stuff never seems to justify good men pulling men like Crook into an alley and letting hormones take it from there. When it comes to speech, we’re all supposed to easily repress our murderous drives, sit on our hands, and listen politely.
It’s a load of shit.
Bet $50 Michael Crook decries ‘tribalism’—a natural human impulse—in the atheist community.
One of the problems there is that these boys were taught that they do not need to control themselves. Part of football (this is anecdotal) was, for me, running through the other player, forcing the other player to submit, using willpower to overcome the other player. These are things that I don’t think come naturally to people. When I played football, forcing the other player to submit to my will was the key to the game — make the other player your bitch, hurt the other player, make the other player afraid, make the other player your girl — while, of course, being obnoxiously heterosexual about it.
I left football before I hit varsity, but I knew the high school players. They carried that lack of control (some of them, not all) right over into all their activities. And, because they were football players, their behaviour, which would have gotten a band member, or a chorus and drama geek, or a math whiz (I was all of those), tossed out of school, was overlooked by the powers that be.
So these are not ‘natural urges.’ These are urges taught to some football players in some programmes (not all, but way too many) as the way to play football and the way to go through life. And the school, the coaches, all let them get away with it as long as they weren’t too obvious about it. So, yes, these privileged assholes decided to rape a young woman. But their coaches, their teachers, their role models, their trainers, all taught them that they need to overcome their reticence and be willing to hurt others to get what they want.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this. I see rape culture and high school football culture as inextricably interlinked. Steubenville is only different because the players, who did what was expected of them by football culture, made it impossible for the powers that be to ignore it.
Thank you, Chris, for highlighting and roundly refuting this asshole’s rape apologism. Those who criticise your decision to call out the overt ugliness of Chris’ attitude seem to miss the fact that this is exactly the set of beliefs that creates real, physical danger for women. It’s not that common that an unknown boogieman pops out of the bushes and rapes women. It’s far, far more often the case that the victim of rape knows and even trusts her rapist before she is raped. This is a poster case for rapists, and the fact that these little shits have been convicted is incredibly important.
How sad is that? That there is doubt in the minds of many people that a clear-cut gang rape of a teenage girl caught on video and bragged about by the perpetrators publically even counts as rape? Sometimes it’s overwhelming how far we have to go. But certainly it’s important to call out those who crassly and grossly continue to sow seeds of doubt that even the most clear and blatant cases of rape do indeed exist, and I thank you for doing so.
^oh, no, I of course meant “the ugliness of Crook’s attitude”! Sorry sorry sorry.
that whole Don’t Feed The Trolls thing is not the magic bullet it’s touted as.
(offers the troll a silver tray containing a small object) Mint? It’s waffer-theeen!
Ogvorbis:
Sports culture definitely played into the Steubenville case, however, this ignores the effect of rape culture in general. All manner of people choose to rape and all manner of people do get away with it. Remember that case in Canada last year, where the judge gave the rapist a slap on the wrist and let him go, because the woman raped was wearing a short skirt and heels and had a couple of drinks?
Rape culture is older than sports culture and runs very, very deep. It’s a reflection of misogynistic views which have gripped society for thousands of years. The notion that women (primarily) are a commodity which can be taken and used at will is at the heart of it all.
I apologize. I’m kinda upset right now and my writing shows it. I did not intend to imply that rape culture is much larger and older than sports culture. I was trying to show that a part of rape culture is the perversion of sports which creates these privileged rapists. Sorry.
No worries, Ogvorbis. I know Steubenville is on everyone’s minds right now, including mine.
it kinda scares me because I find myself wondering who I would be if I had stayed in football (this seems a theme for me lately — wondering who I would be if that didn’t happen or if this did, etc.),
Ogvorbis:
That’s a scary line of thought. Football culture is incredibly toxic. Mister played a year of HS football and abandoned it for track, he didn’t care for the culture of it, and that was a long time ago.
*offers hugs to Ogvorbis*
Steubenville coverage from Yahoo Sports. It’s imperfect and still focusing on the rapists, but about how privileged and arrogant they were because of their football status, along with their friends who laughed and took pictures instead of trying to stop them or help the girl.
*Trigger warning for descriptions of the incident*
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/highschool–steubenville-high-school-football-players-found-guilty-of-raping-16-year-old-girl-164129528.html
oh heck, that was badly timed of me. Ogvorbis, I posted that to help buttress the points you raise about sports culture feeding into (or being a manifestation of) rape culture. I don’t think you of all people need to think of yourself so harshly.
Oh, that I got out of. I was never one of the high school privileged jocks. Matter of fact, I was even lower than a non-jock because I left football to stay in band. Besides, I don’t look at my fears of what-might-have-been as harsh. Just trying to be honest with me.
Ogvorbis (& Caine) – It’s an interesting and useful exercise to reflect on “what if I had stayed in football” and to what extent culture (rape culture, football culture, sports culture, religious culture, Western culture, human culture, etc. ad nauseum…) contributed to the actions of the rapists. But I think your statements about these not being “natural urges” may unintentionally elide something important. You were naturally reticent to physically dominate another person, even though you were raised in the same culture as rapists were. But some non-zero number of people, even very young children, really do seem to naturally come by a compulsion to dominate and a willingness (or indifference) to harming other people. Football culture elevates, exacerbates and celebrates this of course, but I am not sure we can chalk all of it up to nurture as opposed to nature. :|
Ogvorbis: “Just trying to be honest with me.”
Some people seem utterly and completely incapable of this. Again, one’s culture may contribute to a mindset that encourages or discourages this kind of self-reflection, but there may well be something biological (or developmental?) at work here as well.
irisvanderpluym:
If dominating others is natural, why does culture, our sports programmes, our military, our churches, spend so much time training me that dominating someone else, forcing someone else to submit? I suspect that there are natural predators. Whether all predators are natural? that I’m not sure about.
I really think a sense of entitlement, along with the steady stream of unconscious and both internalized and externalized sexism is more responsible for the choice to rape than a desire to dominate, although yes, there are those who are naturally dominant and/or predatory.
Ogvorbis 83: Good point. I think we are in agreement on the whole: I am not suggesting that predatory impulses comes naturally to everyone, or culturally to no one. Only that in some people there seems to be a natural inclination.
I think the answer to your question about why “culture, our sports programmes, our military, our churches” have to train you to overcome your reticence to dominate by force is that it says more about you than it does the institutions themselves. One might even broaden the inquiry and ask why throughout recorded history humans have so frequently organized themselves into strict hierarchies, enforced with violence whenever necessary (which is apparently quite often). The whole “all men are created equal” paradigm is a very recent development, and even a cursory glance at our society belies any claim to its success.
Football in particular and sports in general are by no means the only or even the primary places where a cult of masculinity allows sexism and rape to go unpunished. Politics, academia, college campuses, religion, bar culture, gaming culture, geek culture, and yes, movement athiesm, as has been discussed a lot recently — these are all places where similar attitudes and biases have a huge effect on the ability of women to participate. The fact that sports focus on the physical aspects of masculinity does not mean that other aspects are not very visibly present in spaces where the physical is not so glorified. Gender is taught extremely early in almost every culture, and not playing peewee football does not insulate from the lessons society teaches about male dominance.
Again, I did not intend for my writing to give the impression that this was my stance. I apologize for my poor writing. I was trying to use my life experience, coupled with the not-so-unique situation in Steubenville, Ohio, to make a more general statement. Sorry for my unclear writing.
A while back I read a very interesting interview at Alternet with science journalist John Horgan about his book The End of War, in which he “applies the scientific method to reach a unique conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent.” A few passages really struck me:
and:
If he is right, war and misogyny travel together in lockstep. (It hardly needs pointing out that football culture mirrors warrior culture.) This adds weight to culture being a primary source of predatory behavior, but it leaves unexamined the spark by which war “emerges.” Altemeyer’s work strongly suggests there is an intractable, authoritarian, social-dominance oriented personality — and that when such people are empowered, war is practically inevitable.
Thanks for the interesting discussion!
And thank you Chris for calling out this crap when you see it. It is absolutely necessary if we want to stop the ashes piling up on our windowsills from being created in the first place.
Rape Culture is exactly that: a self-perpetuating meme that finds succor in football, beer commercials and Islamic countries.
Unfortunately, it is not limited to men. I have heard women state, “It’s like she was encouraging it, dressing like that,” and “She should have known better than to get drunk.”
Rape Culture cannot end unless it is called out every time. EVERY TIME. Trolls or not.
Women MUST give assent every single time. Women cannot give assent drunk. Women do not give assent by the way they dress. EVER
Being ‘provocative’ is always in the eyes of the beholder, regardless of the intent of the actor. Assent still must be granted.
It is never the fault of the woman if a man misreads her intent. Assent must still always be granted.
The problem for me was adolescence was a time of extreme horniness – where even rolling donuts and vacuum cleaners were provocative – AND I had poor judgment skills. I am quite sure that this was not unique to me. As such, I needed the guidance of a culture that would allow reasonable outlets (like masturbation without shame) and strict, well-demarcated controls on sexual interactions.
Rape Culture is alive and well. It’s time to end it.
Just dropping in to add to the dogpile. Crook is an utter scumbag, and has no part in any movement I’m involved in.
Irisvandyrplum #81
While this is true, those tendencies can be exacerbated or blunted by acculturation. It’s obvious which should be preferred, and unfortunately also which actually happens.
From Melissa McEwan at Shakesville: much good reading among the comments, too.
http://www.shakesville.com/2013/03/steubenville-trial-two-found-guilty.html
And from deep in the comments:
#89, barfy,
Is it just me or does the short list including only Islam…feel off to anyone else?
I don’t know if you just picked the first things you thought of or if the list is non-exhaustive (it does sound to me like those are the only places you think rape culture is) but it sounds really handy to just dismiss it to those three areas.
Rape culture is everywhere including those bastions of education and supposed enlightenment, being colleges and atheism. Now I know it would be really long and pointless to name every place rape culture is but that short list rubs me the wrong way. Like it’s the convenient shunning I’ve seen others do, Well, of course rape culture find succor with those violent sports brutes, drunken fools and barbaric brown people.. That slogging off of rape culture to the, assumed, less educated when in fact we see it empowered in every sphere including universities, supposed humanists, etc.
Again, it’s something I’ve seen others do and your list reminds me of them. I’m extra sensitive lately so I’m wondering if it’s just a hair trigger or others get the same feeling from your comment as me. I really hope I’m wrong but it is making me uncomfortable.
If anything, this guy needs to be in a list of haters, with little supporting citations just so you’re sure it’s not sarcasm.
That way he’s both minimized and the greater problem is pointed out.
a bit late, but i just have to pile on (heh) here…
Did you even for one second, stop to consider that was the point? To get people just like YOU aware of how unfortunately common attitudes like Crook’s really are out there?
of course you didn’t, because the internet, you see, is all about your own sense of personal comfort!
and.. just to be repetitious, I second sally’s #16.
ROFLMAO
Oh, dayamnnn! that has to be the funniest thing I will see posted on the interwebs today.
JAL – It’s not just you.
You know, I remember a substantial contingent castigating PZ for “calling unnecessary attention” to the “Expelled” movie when it came out.
PZ gave a masterful response to that in a later post that certainly changed a lot of minds on the subject back then.
anyone still have a link to that?
Well, now that it is pointed out to me, yeah.
@92
Huh?
Talk about trying to find fault.
Of course the list is not exhaustive. In that very post I speak to how some women can add to Rape Culture. I could go on and on and on about all sorts of others. I was just speaking to the broad brush of Rape Culture in America as well as the world.
And to the person who talks about Islam being “Brown” people… I don’t even know what a “Brown” person is. Vijay Singh? The over-tanned New Jersey lady?
Sometimes youse people are really fucked up.
Wait…what did I mean by “youse people?” In my defense, I have some of Youse people as friends. Well, at least one. And I’ve had her over to my house. So, no, I can’t be prejudiced. Wait… maybe I am. I need some sensitivity training. Or a lot.
Or I could just worry about speaking to Rape Culture. That might be productive.
I’m pulling over something I wrote on B&W plus adding something:
Human beings have empathy, pretty much from the time they notice the world isn’t just them.
But they also have shitty assholishness.
I see it in my kids every day: They will spontaneously be nice, comforting, supportive. They will make you little gifts and they will try to comfort you and cheer you up whenever you’re hurting.
Under one condition: This doesn’t conflict with their desires.
If they need to hurt other children in order to get the toy, they’ll do so.
It’s then the job of the adults to tell them that this is not OK, that hurting other people is bad and that no, they don’t exist for your gratification but are people in their own right.
Obviously, those kids were taught the other way round.
Did fotball add to it? Probably, but the root lies deeper. It lies in hero-worship. Since when have the great and powerful been held accountable by the same standards as everyone else.
And misogyny. The idea that a guy could get “any woman” implies that women’s consent is really not important, that they aren’t independent agents.
And clearly, since he can get any woman, any woman he fucks must have consented, duh. Why would a guy like him rape, he can get any woman.
Those kids, their parents, their community, they suck. They aren’t the only ones who glorified male domination and women as comodities. Doesn’t make them suck any less.
anuran:
Yeah, sorry about not better separating the two points I was trying to make.
My only point to you is that, as we can’t make it so no-one listens to him, we should indeed feed the troll. Which, of course, you were also saying.
More generally, I was voicing the useless counter-productiveness of ignoring trolls in the hope they’ll dry up and blow away naturally in the wind.
My apologies for the mish-mash.
barfy — It’s quite common that people use the fact that women are part of the rape culture (women grow up in it too!) as a way to deny that it is a problem — if women do it too, so the narrative goes, it must not be misogynistic. It’s also common that people use the obvious, overt rape elements within things like sports teams, commercials aimed specifically at men, and extreme religious groups to deny that it exists in places where the rape-culture elements are less obvious (like academia or geek culture or STEM workplaces, etc). These are arguments heard so commonly as dog whistles for rape culture denial that having both of them in close succession in your comment set off a few alarm bells.
I certainly don’t know you well enough to make an assessment if that was intended on your part, and the rest of your comment seems to go against that, but maybe keep in mind in the future that talking about both of those issues without qualification can easily be interpreted in ways you may not have intended.
In other words, barfy, explaining that you didn’t mean it the way it came off would maybe be a better way at making yourself clear than telling people that they are super fucked up after you’ve just set off not one but two dog whistles that are so commonly linked with rape culture denial.
In honor of the dearly departed of a year ago this week.
Well, what do you know. Trolls can be silenced on occasion.
https://twitter.com/Michael_Crook/
@Michael_Crook’s tweets are protected.
Only confirmed followers have access to @Michael_Crook’s Tweets and complete profile. Click the “Follow” button to send a follow request.
barfy — You’re welcome, but I’d like to propose that instead of my being “too sensitive”, that instead you are not sensitive enough. That’s a big part of your privilege here.
Imangine this, if you will. I come here, I’ve commented a number of times in the past, but certainly not often enough for you to remember me (this is true). Let’s say we’re in a post about evolution, and I say something like “well you know there are holes in the evolutionary chain that we haven’t fully explained”. Strictly true, of course. But my guess is that the regular commentariat here has heard this argument from people not trying to make an actual point about evolution, but from people who are trying to “disprove” that evolution exists. You’ve heard it so many times, and anyone who’s been around for 3 minutes on this site is probably ready to jump on the troll and call them an idiot. Even if I am actually an evolutionary biologist in training who is doing undergraduate work now — a noob, but certainly not a non-believer — if I just come on here and call everyone an asshole for jumping down my throat, tell you you’re all WRONG and I’m RIGHT and you people are just so goddamned SENSITIVE for just assuming that I’m the same as everyone else who has said the exact same words a thousand times, that’s not going to be cool of me, and I’m not going to get a good reception. You kind of did a less egregious version of this, and you were called on it.
I’d also like to propose that “I’m truly sorry you’re so sensitive” is not an apology, and is not something you say if you’re trying to “be a nice guy”. If you really want to be a good ally, accept the criticism, apologize (not for the reaction of people who know more about this than you, but because you know less), and then go on knowing more than you did before. I’d like to point out that the reaction was “I have a problem with this”, not “OMFG THIS GUY IS SOME SORT OF FUCKED UP ASSHOLE SHITHEAD WHO HATES WOMEN”. Right? (Hate to say it, but who’s too sensitive here?) It’s ok that you’re not an expert at this, it’s ok if you’re new to feminism and being a good ally. It’s not ok to blame the “sensitivity” of people who do know more, who have fought the same fights a bazillion times in the past. This can be a good thing, a step toward being a better ally, but not if you insist you know more than experts in feminism on the subject of feminism, and not if you are insistent that you know what’s ok for women to feel uncomfortable about. I hope that’s clear?
….and maybe feigning magnanimity for “not blaming me” for knowing more about feminism than you do, and therefore being more sensitively attuned to the dog whistles? Yeah, that’s all kinds of condescending.
Roro, barfy is a known troll.
And barfy won a particular honor.
Good call Chris, Thistle is so much nicer to look at.
Chris:
Aaaaaaaaaaaw. Much, much nicer.
Chris
re: barfy’s bunny video
That’s not [shudder] cilantro, is it?
also
You seem to have uploaded 47 videos there.