I really can’t help it — when astrology is mentioned, my lip curls into a sneer, my gorge rises, my vision is clouded over with red, and I start snarling out profanity. But you can’t even imagine how outraged I can be when astrologers start predicting and blaming rape on the stars. Seriously. I think I cut my tongue on my newly erupting fangs, which is why I started spitting blood.
There’s a whole collection of rage-inducing lies at that link. Here’s one example:
…Astrologically there are a number of red flags that can suggest the high potential for a physical attack, rape, and murder, or all combinations. Although these “astrological signatures” are from data listing female assaults, these same signatures can apply to men by simply interchanging Venus for Mars…
For women, and for girls, some of the prime indicators for assault is the Venus and Pluto hard aspects (conjunction, square and opposition) and any variables that include the 2nd, 7th, and 8th houses (houses naturally ruled by Venus and Pluto)…
My intention here is to alert Astrologers, counselors, and medical/legal professionals to the potential for sexual assault that is held in the timing of one’s own natal, and progressed charts.
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Astrology does not work.
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Telling women when they’re likely to be raped based on the random date of their birth is going to lead to many false positives, increasing fear, and have many false negatives, leading to unwarranted confidence and greater risk. This hurts the potential victims of assault.
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What possible use could this have in a courtroom or doctor’s office? “Her Venus and Pluto were in opposition, therefore it was fate that she would be raped”? Destiny is not a legal criterion.
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What about the rapist? Are astrologers now going to suggest that not only are you under the control of the stars, but that your actions are dictated by the stars effect on other people?
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Astrology does not fucking work.
Oh, never mind. There’s no rational arguing with these kooks — I might as well just transcribe a bunch of howling and grunting, for all the effect it will have.
I know PZ mentioned this a couple of times, but as an astronomer the union requires me to reiterate that astrology is bunk, bogus, phoney, fraud, woo and any other adjective you can think of with similar meaning.
Aaarrgggh! I am so sick of the whole Venus/Mars business.
I expect your intention is to get attention, no matter what. Utterly disgusting.
Clearly you are suffering from a lycanthropic onset episode. I blame the full moon.
Ah, yes. the influence of Pluto, scorpio, and the 8th house. I remember this. about 20 years ago I learned quite a bit about astrology. I forgot all about this, but this particular saw has been going on a long time.
there are so many different factors that can be “interpreted” into any particular chart calculation that you can come up with almost anything you want.
Which is the 1st house? Baratheon?
No, Saad- the Targaryns were before the Baratheon “dynasty”.
Rape prone
Rape prone
Rape prone?!
Worse, this distracts from the rapes that are actually the fault of the stars:
Bill Cosby
Roman Polanksi
Jimmy Savile
Woody Allen
Vile. Pure and simple. Vile.
Josh wins this one.
NitricAcid, ah of course.
Oh, sure, but you’re a (Googles PZ Myers’ DOB) PISCES! That’s just what a Pisces would say in this situation.
Let’s see, Pisces are “…perceptive, emotional, and receptive. Notorious for being highly sensitive, they are also said to be desperately afraid of ridicule, as the sign is deemed “unfortunate.” The sign is also, I shit you not, associated with feet.
Describes you perfectly, right?
How the hell is Pisces, the fish, associated with feet?
Anything people can do to take the focus away from the sole cause of rape: rapists’ choices.
It’s like there’s a sort of culture dedicated to maintaining the ease of rapists. What could we call it? Hm.
Now, now PZ. Don’t be such a strident skeptic. I’ve been researching astrology, and did you know that a test of astrology was published in the famous peer-reviewed journal Nature?
Yes, indeed: Astrology does not work.
More seriously: For those who have done more research on astrology than I have as yet, do you think it would be correct to say that a fundamental tenet of astrology is that the planets have something like personalities?
It’s called “made up”, as in pulled out of someone’s arse, possibly several thousand years ago… Back when raping the slaves was approved behaver and consulting the local toad-swallower a ritual. Since those times we’ve stomped on chattel slavery, consider toad-swallowing animal cruelty, but seem to continue to think rape is “legitimate”.
Owlmirror
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about astrology, but
It would at least seem planets have genders, with the whole Venus and Mars thing. People who actually research astrology have way more patience than I do. *facedesk*
I would like to see a photo, or a video, of PZ spitting blood. A closeup of the fangs would be nice, too.
I’ve always liked PZ, but a blood-spitting, fanged PZ would be even more lovable.
As an side, I didn’t need another reason to dislike astrology, but now I have one. Lip-curling can be seen in my household.
Interesting that today’s astrologers have added Uranus, Neptune & Pluto which were obviously unknown to the ancients and therefore today’s shysters must have concocted new “influences” associated with them (was human nature incomplete before Hershel’s time?) , and have still ignored the 13th constellation the ecliptic passes through. The whole thing remains a total pile of dingo’s kidneys.
oh that’s just the beginning. you can chart asteroids, too.
I’d say it’s more bizarre than that. They aren’t agents themselves, with intentions, ideas, experiences, etc., but maybe you could say the arrangements of them are. Or something like that. The whole solar system is effectively like a deity with magic powers that propagate into our lives, the planets being mental faculties or manifestations of its different and conflicting personality features. And it’s a shithead. But I guess the last bit is par for the course for gods.
When the mooooooooooooon is in the seventh house… and Jupiter aligns with Mars… people will talk some utter shit…
I have a special solar calendar that delineates the days where rape is likely to happen. Between the calendar’s start and end dates there are 365 of these days.
Which reminds me: When NASA’s Deep Impact mission walloped a comet some years back, a Russian scam artist announced she was going to sue NASA for “endangering her livelihood” or some such horseshite.
According to Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge, this was not very successful:
So when Canis Major is at its highest does that mean doggy-style rape is more likely?
Does Pluto also count that way considering his association with Mickey Mouse?
If Pluto isn’t in a hard aspect does that cause male impotence?
And just what IS the rapiest day to be born on?
So many questions for astrology to study.
I saw an obit for an astrologer today. Dead at 66.
Didn’t say if she saw it coming.
Nice one, busterggi. Very empathetic. Because what a thread about rape needs is some adolescent sex humour.
Rape fucking culture indeed.
The idea is, you take an image of the body and divide it up, top to bottom, with all 12 signs, each sign taking a part. The first sign, Aries, is associated with the head, Taurus with the neck, etc, all the way down to Pisces, which gets the feet because it’s the 12th sign. (Scorpio gets the gonads.) Astrologers then make up BS about that body part to pad their columns when it’s a slow day in the cosmos, or something.
The planets are kind of given personalities (and genders), which also sort of correlate with aspects of the deity the planet is named for, and each sign is said to be “ruled” by a planet (Pisces gets Neptune, which at least makes more sense than the feet even by astrology logic), and sometimes there’s some crossover between sign and planet attributes for when astrologers run out of vague adjectives; Aquarius, Pisces and Scorpio (ruled by Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, respectively) have had their planets change due to the discovery of these planets, but that’s conveniently forgotten.
(Source: my misspent youth)
So, the contention here would be that some women are just born to be raped? And…what…send out telepathic “Rape Me!” imperatives into the blameless Minds of Men, taking over their bodies and forcing them to rape against their will?
*ptui!*
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busterggi,
This makes me feel a bit sick.
There’s dark humour and then there’s not humour at all.
busterggi:
Not funny, you fucking asshole. You obviously did not stop to think about how those of us who have been raped might feel about your idiocy. You obviously did not stop to think about how your idiocy would come across to anyone who isn’t a flaming doucheweasel. Rape is not funny, and it is not a suitable subject for joking.
@peterh #18:
Isn’t that Draco, the one which inconveniently spans about four other astrological asterisms? They should include it, if only because it would shorten the newspaper astroshit columns by 25%.
I’m still waiting for news about how the planets affect humans. Magnetic influences? Bollocks, the earth’s magnetic field (not to mention that of my fridge and my power drill) would swamp it. Gravitic? A quick calculation suggests that a clenched fist at arm’s length exerts the same magnitude of gravitational influence on the body as does Jupiter, and considerably greater tidal forces. Magical? Ah, well, now, you’ve got me there…
cicely #28 wrote:
Apparently a lot of people are very soothed by the idea that “everything happens for a reason” (meaning not a chain of physical causation but according to a moral plan and purpose behind everything.) From what I’ve seen they claim the stars do not define one’s destiny and you can avoid negative outcomes. UNLESS it’s already happened … in which case there was no way to avoid it so it’s not your fault. Plus, it’s all for the best in the long run. Chin up.
It is one thing to try to deal with horrible things as effectively and positively as possible. Whatever works. Yet this gets mixed up with the idea that horrible things happened precisely in order for people to learn to deal with them and get stronger — or accept them as inevitable and take comfort from being part of a cosmic drama! Both options get disturbing very quickly.
Of course, only Vedic astrology is truly scientific. How foolish are the skeptics to go after easy targets.
/sarcasm
Rich Woods @#31 — Perhaps you’re thinking of Ophiucus which is on the ecliptic and sometimes included as a 13th sign, in fact now: Nov. 30 to Dec. 17.
busterggi, *facepalm* do not pass Go, do not collect 200 bucks.
Ophiuchus, the snake-bearer.
that gotta be a big part of the popularity of not just astrology, but ALL religions.
You erupted fangs?
Do you give lessons? I can’t pay much, but maybe we can barter.
busterggi, WTF? Look, I’m a cis, white male who’s never had so much as an unwelcome hand placed upon his person.* And I cringed when I saw your post. We all make mistakes, own it and grow is all you can do now.
*Well, at least not in a sexual manner that is, fists are another matter.
peterh #18
Oh yes, I love this line of argument. If astrology were true then why didn’t astrologers discover the three outer planets before astronomers did? Shouldn’t there have been something in the charts that they couldn’t account for, something that pointed to three more influences?
The inability of any of this nonsense to work in reverse should be enough to tell folks that it’s bullshit. But no, just last week I had a numerologist in the shop. His response when I suggested that he could determine my “numbers” by observing my attributes was to randomly spew things and hope something stuck. He missed completely and when I pointed that he was obviously guessing, badly, he replied: “It doesn’t work that way.” I couldn’t for the life of me get him to understand that that was an evidential nail in the coffin of his belief system. Mind you, when I later discovered a Jesus tract on the counter I realised that this was a case of crank magnetism. Folks that far down the woo path aren’t going to be swayed easily, if at all.
@cicely
Oh lord, the movie “The Secret” says exactly that, people send out ‘rape vibes.’ But do you want to know how? By worrying about being raped, or by focusing on the problem of rape in society. You’re supposed to ignore it and it will magically go away. Whatever you focus on you attract, it’s a ‘the Law of Attraction.’
Here she tells a woman that she attracted sexual abuse not only in her life but her children:
Attracted Abuse to Self and Children
http://youtu.be/BBbaraOgFYg
So modern astrologers pull their predictions from Uranus? I’ll be over here, being ashamed of myself…
Seriously though, some women are born to be raped? Way to blame the victims yet again. We women just can’t win.
To continue what Sastra said @32, lots of people take comfort in thinking that bad things “are not your fault.” Whether it’s what the stars determine or it’s part of God’s plan or whatever else may seem appropriate to blame. It’s so much easier and emotionally satisfying to blame God or Scorpio rising in Jupiter for all the nasty stuff that happens. This can get particularly confusing when an all-lovingGod “gave you cancer.” Somehow the contradiction gets handwaved away.
Sili@25 there’s a good chance she didn’t. Or would claim she didn’t. With psychics at least the claim is often made that they can’t use their powers to benefit themselves, only others. Which of course brings up the question of why psychic powers would be of benefit to have.
tim, see, what you do is have LOTS of people be psychic, so then the psychic person can go to another psychic person and be helped.
Hmmn, how come those psychics never seem to go to other psychics?
Of course we all know this is bullshit, but recently I had a bit of a coup de foudre about exactly how much bullshit it is. I was listening to Terry Gross interview Chris Hatfield, the astronaut famous for releasing a youtube video of him performing “Major Tom” in the space station, about his new book. One of the things he talked about a fair bit was how, in order to maintain mental equilibrium yet still be prepared in emergencies, he and the entire crew and support team obsessed, for years on end, about every single possible thing that could go wrong. They would mentally rehearse every possible bad outcome, and then also the steps that they would need to take should the bad outcome occur. Over and over and over again. It was precisely that process of intently focusing on possible disasters, down to the smallest detail, that allows them to stay not just alive but also have a positive outlook despite risking their lives on a regular basis.
Interesting, huh?? Anyway, I thought so.
@theoreticalgrrrl, #39:
AKA “Don’t feed the trolls”.
And it’s so far from new, it’s ridiculous. Classic example? Helen.
Helen’s face, if you remember the proverb, launched a thousand ships.
Not her stalker-ex and his brother’s obscenaean wealth. Helen’s face.
Fuck, even Einstein, brilliant in many ways, fucking told Marie Curie to roll over and play dead when France decided that the only winner of 2 Nobels in 2 different disciplines was, shall we say, a bit under-endowed for a member of its national academy of sciences in the midst of #gamergate1911 (one presumes this was right after the publication of thecuriepost).
“which is why I started spitting blood.”
What would really be neat is if you could squirt it out your eyes.
The shittiest part of this is it, once again, perpetuates the lie that rape just happens to people. That people are ‘rape-prone’, that there is some magical way to avoid attack. Again erasing fact that there is a thing called a rapist who ACTUALLY causes rape. These are all things perpetuated by rape culture.
I am a survivor of rape. Shit like this is exactly what made it so hard to get where I am now – in a strong position where I can finally reject this for the victim blaming poison that it is.
Chris Hadfield’s book is brilliant.
*sigh*
wrong blog
still true
Chigau
I thought you were commenting on Sally Strange’s remark. I had never seen the pure awesome that is Chris Hadfield performing Space Oddity from the ISS. It must be the hivemind at work again.
Tethys
I may have really been on the correct blog but you are correct:
Hadfield is every level of awesome.
@Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
And then Helen gets blamed and hated for all the soldiers who died because Menelaus just had to retrieve his property, I mean wife.
Crip Dyke, theoreticalgrrl
The way I read the myth makes Paris look an awful lot like a kidnapper, frankly, in which case he gets the major share of the blame, but of course the usual form of the story punts responsibility for that over to the jealous goddesses having a beauty contest, just to add more misogyny to the tale.
It’s something that lets people sleep at night. At least women. I know it ’cause I’ve been there and done that. I’m sorry I was that stupid, but it was a damn effective coping mechanism in a horrible world.
If I just did the right things, if I followed the rules, if I didn’t give off “rape vibes”, I would be OK.
Sure, it didn’t stop the guy from following me to the car park (I made it to the car just in time, so I escaped shaken but physically unharmed), but that was my fault, too, as my friend was quick to inform me. I should have known better than to park the car there.
I’m about as peaceable a chap as you’re likely to meet, but I have to admit that whenever somebody trots out this line of bullshit in my presence, I get a really strong urge to punch them in the face, and then ask why they made me do that.
Thankfully, I’ve always been able to resist, in spite of their overwhelming “please punch me in the face” vibes. Where does that leave their bullshit, I wonder?
“The planets made me do it!”
Could that be a functioning legal defense? Like when somebody argues that killing their children through their views on faith healing should not be punishable? At best arguments like that should work for an insanity plea.
I have to admit that I’m a big fan of astrology. I read the horoscope every day in order to determine what path I should take.
Of course, I do it a little bit differently … I read all of the horoscopes and then follow the one that I like the best. Today, I’m Aquarius. Yesterday, Leo.
Works great!
@Kevin Kehres #57:
I knew you were going to say that.
Galileo vs. Francesco Sizzi in Pictures Galileo describing his discovery of Jupiter’s 4 big moons vs. Sizzi’s arguing that they could not exist. The 7 traditional planets correspond to the 7 openings in the head, the 7 metals, the 7 days of the week, etc. and what would those supposed moons correspond to?
In the macrocosm, there are two beneficient stars, two maleficient ones, two luminaries, and unique Mercury, erratic and indifferent.
In the microcosm, there are two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth.
Astrology is based on macrocosm-microcosm correspondences, even if many of them look like ass-pulls.
Signs of the zodiac correspond with parts of our bodies by going from top to bottom: Aries-head to Pisces-feet. Anatomically, this isn’t very justified, because the arms and legs are offshoots of the trunk, and the trunk ends at the coccyx.
Not only astrology, but also alchemy and medieval medicine are based on cosmic correspondences. Not just Western astrology, but also Chinese astrology, which has a separate set of correspondences.
Steve Farmer article download page He’s speculated that the forms of a lot of premodern cosmologies are due to how our minds work, and he claims that simulated evolution of conceptual systems supports that hypothesis.
Such systems include correspondence or correlative cosmologies, like what’s in astrology. So it may not be an accident that both Western and Chinese astrology are based on correspondences — even if very different correspondences.
He notes that correspondence cosmologies reached their height in the European Renaissance, then soon collapsed from the emergence of the “mechanical philosophy”, as it was called back then.