Gender feminism harms all women
Apr 7th, 2011 by Unamused
The SlutWalk debate rages on, and everywhere I look, I see the same fundamental fallacy — or, to be blunt, the same fundamental stupidity — from gender feminists. For example, from the Trent Arthur, a front-runner in the Most Biased Reporting competition: “No means no, unless you’re a ‘slut,'” by Hazel Wheeler.
That was the message sent out on January 24, 2011, when the Toronto Police addressed community members at a safety forum at York University’s Osgoode Hall. The comment put forth by one of the officers, that women should “avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized,” has caused outrage throughout the Osgoode community and beyond, and has made national news headlines.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the police officer was actually pointing out that if you don’t dress in a manner designed to make men sexually aroused, it is less likely that you will attract the attention of a man whose arousal is greater than his respect for your rights plus his fear of the possible consequences of raping you (injury, prison, etc.).
I applaud this girl's choice of attire. However, it puts her at a higher risk of being sexually assaulted.
The fundamental stupidity is to misinterpret this as “if you are a slut, then you don’t have any rights, and your assailant should not suffer any consequences.” Where feminists get this idea is a mystery to me. Almost every man they’ve ever met wholeheartedly agrees that women have the rights they keep harping on about, and that rapists should be caught and punished — severely. (We also think they’re crazy for doubting us.)
But you should keep in mind that evil people do exist. You cannot reason with them. You cannot make them empathize. You can only try to avoid them.
Shark rape: as if we didn’t have enough to worry about
Think of them as sharks. You wouldn’t ask a shark to respect your right not to get eaten, would you? Don’t ask rapists to respect your right not to get raped. They don’t care. That’s what makes them rapists. Just stay away from them. Since feminists have proven to be childlike in their reading comprehension skills, I suppose I should emphasize that I wrote “rapists,” not “men in general.”
Dressing modestly probably helps avoid rape. It seems plausible. But it’s your choice. Nobody is trying to take away your right to dress like a slut or act like a slut or call yourself a big ol’ slut. No one has come remotely close to suggesting it. Feminists are all just being hysterical.
There are many myths surrounding sexual assault, one of them being that a woman’s clothing or behaviour may increase her chances of becoming a target.
Madness. Feminists expect us to believe that a woman’s behavior doesn’t increase her chance of becoming a target? So a young woman walking home alone, late at night, drunk, in a poor part of town, is just as likely to be raped as the same woman sitting at home with a couple of friends, at ten in the morning, in a rich neighborhood?
"Swimming increases your risk of being eaten by a shark? VIIIIIIICTIM BLAAAAAAAMING!"
Note: if your first instinct is to say “she could get raped too, here is an example of a woman who did everything right but got raped anyway,” then you don’t know the definition of chance or likely. Look them up. I’ll wait.
In a few words: she’s asking for it. This line of thinking, where a woman’s rape is at least partly her fault, has generally been widely discredited; the only person who is responsible for an assault is the perpetrator. Period.
Same fallacy. Same stupidity. No one said she’s asking for it — that’s a feminist delusion. They see sexism everywhere.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the actual line of thinking is: there are things you can do to make yourself safer. Fault and blame don’t enter into this thought. Again, almost every man you have ever met agrees that the perpetrator is responsible. They don’t like rapists any more than you do. They may not shriek about it all the time, but they do have girlfriends and wives and mothers and sisters and daughters and enough brain cells to make the necessary connections. On the other hand, the few exceptions to the male rule will not be convinced otherwise, by you or anyone else. Period.
Wheeler writes: “no one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault.” The good news is, no one is. The bad news (for feminism) is, they are equating attracting sexual assault with attracting sexual assault.
Rape is about sex
The implications of these ideas are that men are mindless, sex-crazed animals, and that rape is born from a desire to have sex. If I were a man, I would take serious offense to the former, and to address the latter: rape is not about sex, but rather power and control.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the actual implication is that men are not one-dimensional beings. There is a great deal of variety among men: in height, weight, intelligence, sex drive, and even moral scruples. Acknowledge this variety and understand which end of which spectrum you need to be worried about, instead of screaming at the opposite end about sluts.
Much more important is acknowledging that rape is about sex. This is perhaps the most obviously true statement we can make about rape. Stephen Pinker, for one, has thoroughly debunked the feminist power-and-control myth in his book “The Blank Slate,” as I mentioned in an earlier post. Consider date rape, for instance: “Most people agree that women have the right to say no at any point during sexual activity, and that if the man persists he is a rapist — but should we also believe that his motive has instantaneously changed from wanting sex to oppressing women?”
"I want to have sex with you, but if you say no, I will stop wanting sex, and start wanting to oppress all women everywhere... which, coincidentally, I will accomplish by having sex with you."
I will list some more of his (fairly obvious) reasons why rape is about sex, not power or control.
- Rapists “rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury, which would preclude conception and birth.” This is not consistent with the power-and-control theory.
Note: if your first instinct is to say “rapists are violent, here is an example of a violent rapist,” then you don’t know what rarely means.
- Rapists are “overwhelmingly young men, the age of the most intense sexual competitiveness.” Also not consistent with the power-and-control theory.
Note: if your first instinct is to say “old men commit rape too, here is one old rapist,” then you don’t know what overwhelmingly means.
- “Victims of rape are mostly in the peak reproductive years for women, between thirteen and thirty-five,” as if we needed to be told, “with a mean in most data sets of twenty-four. Though many rape victims are classified as children (under the age of sixteen), most of these are adolescents, with a median age of fourteen. The age distribution is very different from that of victims of other violent crimes, and is the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability [younger or older] or by their likelihood of holding positions of power [older].”
Note: if your first instinct is to say anything other than “I agree,” then you don’t know the meaning of mostly, most, mean, median, distribution, or likelihood.
- Although rape is found in all human societies, “[c]ountries with far more rigid [traditional] gender roles, such as Japan, have far lower rates of rape” than less patriarchal countries, including the United States of America. So much for the evils of patriarchy.
Again: rates. Please consult your dictionary.
Feminist sanity
You don’t have to take my word for it, though. Let’s ask a feminist. An equity feminist, that is: Camille Paglia, to be precise. Twenty years ago she made exactly the same point I did yesterday. (A clear case of time-travel plagiarism — as if shark rape wasn’t bad enough.)
For a decade, feminists have drilled their disciples to say, “Rape is a crime of violence but not sex.” This sugar-coated Shirley Temple nonsense has exposed young women to disaster. Misled by feminism, they do not expect rape from the nice boys from good homes who sit next to them in class. …
These girls say, “Well, I should be able to get to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy’s room without anything happening.” And I say, “Oh, really? And when you drive your car to New York City, do you leave your keys on the hood?” My point is that if your car is stolen after you do something like that, yes, the police should pursue the thief and he should be punished. But at the same time, the police — and I — have the right to say to you, “You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?”
You stupid idiots, what the hell are you thinking? Why are you doing this?
Why they are doing this, and what they are really doing
From the original article:
SlutWalk is not about hate, nor seeing the offending officer fired, but rather demanding accountability from the Toronto Police Force, since, in [SlutWalk co-founder Heather Jarvis’] view, “they allowed him to go out as a representative, so his actions speak to the lack of training in dealing with rape culture and these sorts of stereotypes.”
SlutWalk is about feminist lies and willful ignorance. It is only making Toronto less safe for women. Congratulations, Heather, you’ve taught the police not to be honest about rape risk factors. (Actually, they already knew that, but you’ve hammered the point home.) They know you will not abide reality, if reality says: “you may do as you please, but I will impose consequences on you.”
There is no cause for alarm. Feminists assure me, walking alone through this park at night cannot possibly increase your chances of being assaulted.
Bring it on home, Heather.
“This is something that people want and need. Yes, there is criticism, and there always will be, but hundreds of people are showing their support for this initiative, and I think that speaks strongly to something that people are sick and tired of and want to do something about.”
Sadly, they’re not doing anything to stop rape or to help rape victims. All they’re doing is suppressing information — information that might actually do some good — in order to advance their slut-positive, sex-worshiping, reality-denying, criminally irresponsible gender feminist ideology.
The ‘rape is about power’ myth and the ‘rape culture’ myth speak more to the eternal solipsism of the female mind.
Rape is clearly about sex, but to a woman sex is about power. That’s how they view it. Therefore, forcibly taking sex from a woman is taking away her power. From a woman’s perspective, their loss of power is the man’s gain. They believe men have to see sex in the same way they do.
As the Chateau recently pointed out, close to 2/3 of women have rape fantasies. Since they clearly think about it often, they believe men fantasize about raping women just as often. Therefore, most men must want to rape women. Clearly, to them anyway, there is a ‘rape culture.’
[…] 1)“, “Hatred II: Victim Blaming“, “Victim Blaming Update“, “Gender Feminism Harms All Women“, “Part 2“, “The First Law of Race and Crime“, “A Confederacy […]
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This comment by Temüjin is one of those rare ideas that makes more and more sense the longer I think about it.
I agree, despite my initial bristling at the phrase “eternal solipsism of the female mind.”
It’s true that for many women, sex is power. For much of history, it’s been just about the only power women had. Unfortunately, the gender feminists don’t seem to have noticed that this isn’t really the case anymore. Women today can become physicists, engineers or electricians (not that they DO of course, because a PhD in women’s studies is so much more EMPOWERING.)
I’ve scratched my head for years at the feminist drive to defend a woman’s right to dress like a whore. For the love of god, why?! But this sort of clears it up; for WOMEN, sex is about power. Dressing to sexually arouse men and then denying sex gives them power over men. Gaining the sexual attraction and attention of men gives them power over other women. And then, when it backfires, all you have to do is invoke the powers of your level 10 superfeminist shriek.
This thread clarified a lot of fuzzy ideas I’ve had swimming around in my head. I’d offer to pass it on, but since I’m a future elementary school teacher who took time off from my education to stay home with my husband’s baby, I don’t think the feminists would listen to me.
As a teacher, you’ll be in a good position to pass it on in a much more meaningful way than just arguing with feminists (a futile endeavor). Simply avoid indoctrinating your students in any reality-denying radical politics. That would be plenty.
If I may borrow from Susan Brownmiller:
Ideological stupidity has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of stultification and titillation by which all leftists keep many women in a state of adolescence.
There’s a few things you said that are moronically stupid:
1) “Don’t ask rapists to respect your right not to get raped. They don’t care. That’s what makes them rapists. Just stay away from them. …I suppose I should emphasize that I wrote “rapists,” not “men in general.”
How do you differentiate “rapists” from “non-rapists”? Rapists generally don’t brand that into their forehead. Next time you are at the mall, identify the first five rapists you meet, with no false picks.
2) “They know you will not abide reality, if reality says: ‘you may do as you please, but I will impose consequences on you.'”
Let’s be clear about this “reality” that imposes the “consequences”. Punishment (aka “consequences”) is meted out by men (who rape sluts) and the justice system (who excuse the rapists, since they can’t help themselves). That is the “rape culture” feminists are talking about.
One of the flaws in your analysis is confusing “what does happen” with “what should happen”. What should happen is that rapists who rape women (even those going out with their boyfriend*, dressed like a slut) should be treated as an real criminal, and not someone who was hood-winked into committing a crime.
*women are much more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger
I’ll just rebut all your points now.
I don’t see the point in the article where I said “you can tell a rapist on sight with 100 percent accuracy.”
The unbiased reader will be able to decipher my meaning: first, it’s quite “moronically stupid” to prattle on about a woman’s “right to not get raped,” instead of helping women avoid rapists (who do not care about your rights or your silly feminist theories). Second, on the subject of rapist avoidance, rapists display predictable behaviors — which is the reason we all know it’s dangerous to be out on the street, alone, at night, in a bad part of town — and you can plan accordingly.
There’s no such thing as “rape culture.” Men do not punish sluts by raping them. Rapists attack women because they want to have sex with them.
And the Justice System is about the only thing protecting you from that, since you think the “right to act like a slut” is more important than dealing with the real world (which, last time I checked, includes rapists).
This is the problem with gender feminists: no matter how clearly you spell it out for them, they still won’t get it.
I haven’t confused what happens with what should happen (durrrrr). Here is a quote from this article:
From the earlier “Hatred II: Victim blaming”:
On the matter of being “hood-winked into committing a crime”:
The rapist is a real criminal. That doesn’t mean the victim wasn’t being a real idiot. (“You jumped in the shark tank in a suit made of raw meat? Oh, I’m so sorry you got bitten! No, no, of course it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done. Shark attacks are about power and control, not about hunger. Come on, sweetie. Let’s stage a Slut Swim.”)
Stop telling women your moronically stupid feminist theories. You are only helping rapists.
damn Terry, you got pwnd. probably shouldn’t have opened up with wording as strong as “moronically stupid” when your critical reasoning and reading comprehension skills are that weak. you got burned hard on every weak ass point you half-assed together
After reading this thread the other day, I thought to myself, “I wonder how many of my friends are stupid gender feminists?” I created a Facebook poll in regards to slutwalks. My options were:
Slutwalks?
A) A good lesson for that nasty, victim-blaming Toronto police officer.
B) A good, productive activity, which will help decrease sexual violence in the future.
C) Proof that feminists don’t understand reality in regards to sexual assault.
D) A-OK as long as the women are hot and dress like sluts while they march.
To my tremendous disappointment, NO ONE answered C (or D). Some people actually DID answer B (how they think these marches are going to increase women’s safety is absolutely beyond me). And one responder, who answered B (a guy no less), actually took the trouble to comment that that police officer needs to learn that rape is about violence, not sex, AND went so far as to say that he predicted that if that policeman were investigated, it would be found he has a history of violence against women. I am absolutely floored.
I am thankful beyond measure that I was raised by a mom who was as pro-reality as she was pro-woman.
Many of us in the Reactosphere started out as good little right-thinking leftists. I know I did. Alright, I probably never bought into the rape/power myth, but I was otherwise impeccably liberal.
So if they were my friends, I wouldn’t give up on them. They may surprise you.
Of course, I don’t have any friends, because when I’m not working in Unamusement Park’s secret hate laboratory, I’m hiding out in my fortified bunker complex in Vermont. But still.
unamused, please help me out here…
http://www.facebook.com/SlutWalkToronto/posts/223327294344128
Oooh… I LOVE the “There’s no such thing as ‘date rape'” chick. Because OF COURSE the guy who thinks a girl is giving implied consent when she takes her top off and doesn’t specifically say no is EXACTLY the same as the guy with a knife waiting behind a pillar in the parking garage.
Sorry, matt. It’s too far gone. Plus it’s Facebook.
I wrote a summary of my own on this organization, would love to hear if you agree. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders unamused.
http://slutwalkphenomenon.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-experience-with-slutwalk-ladies.html
yeah, she was fun
I had a comment but blogger wouldn’t accept it. (Blogger sucks.) I’ll try again later.
Slutwalk girl: Matthew, it is impractical for people to constantly travel in groups and trust the people they are with. Adult humans have to leave the house, often alone, and associate with other people who may or may not be trustworthy. This cannot be avoided- we must work, buy food, etc. Telling people to avoid “bad neightbourhoods” and “untrustworthy people” is implying that they have to take responsibility for keeping potential attackers away from them, which is a way of placing responsibility/ blame on the victim
Me: I’m not recommending those things as rock solid do-it-every-time solutions. They’re options that will help your chances of avoiding assault. I recognize that certain options that are safe are not ALWAYS going to be practical, so an alternative has to be chosen. Your example of always traveling in groups is dead on, you can’t ALWAYS do that, so what are some alternatives? If you know you have to walk home in a dangerous neighborhood, and no one is willing to drive you, and you can’t afford a taxi, maybe keep a pepperspray handy, or think of something else. Don’t just throw caution to the wind on the grounds that “nobody is allowed to assault you”, cuz that’s just ignorant.
SWG: Telling people to avoid “bad neightbourhoods” and “untrustworthy people” is implying that they have to take responsibility for keeping potential attackers away from them, which is a way of placing responsibility/ blame on the victim.
Me: You can’t keep yourself 100% safe from rapists, but you can make decisions that will make you *safer* from rapists. Can you agree with that?
SWG: I agree you can be born with a penis, which while does not preclude you from being raped, greatly lowers the possibility.
Me: wow. ok. this is from the university of georgia’s web site, here is a link http://www.gcsu.edu/womenscenter/projectcare/sexualassault.htm:
What can I do to reduce the risk of sexual assault?
This is reasonable advice. what you girls are saying is retarded tho.
And so on…
You know there are countries where if a woman doesn’t have her face covered and she gets raped, it’s considered entirely her own fault and she is punished accordingly (generally by death). That’s clearly far more extreme but it comes from the same basic attitude.
There is absolutely no evidence that wearing revealing clothing makes women more likely to be raped, and besides, women are most likely to be raped by someone they know anyway, so it’s a pretty moot in those cases.
The whole point of the “slut walk” thing is that, when it comes to anti-rape promotion it is always aimed at the women, at the victims, telling them the same things they have been told since they were little girls. This clearly doesn’t actually stop anyone being raped, and puts all the guilt and blame on the victim. What we need is to educate boys (and girls) about consent and communication within relationships, and respect for women.
Kris, you’re [silly]. Education is the answer to many problems, but it will not lower rape rates. The rapist knows its wrong, but he’s doing it anyway. Your proposal is equivalent to educating people that murder is wrong in the hopes that they won’t kill anyone. Do you really think Paul Bernardo would have been like “oh, murdering people is wrong? Even if they hang out in a dangerous neighborhood all alone? Really? Sorry, I didn’t know that. Now I know, and knowing is power, thank you education!”
As for this:
This may be true, however, as I pointed out on my blog…
I am aware that most rape cases are mostly done by guys the girl knows, but the ratio of rapes caused by strangers would probably shoot up if it all of a sudden became a popular pastime for girls to walk alone late at night in the dark alleys of unsafe neighborhoods dressed like prostitutes.
And as for this:
There is this, also from my blog:
In short, every argument you put forward is terrible and has huge flaws.
Well, Kris, that was 100 times more sensible than anything the (other?) feminists said.
1. America isn’t one of those countries, and I don’t think I share the “same basic attitude” with Muslims. (That’s who you meant, right?)
2. As far as revealing clothes go, the police officer seems to think that plays a role, and he would know. At the very least it’s not unreasonable to think clothing designed specifically to arouse men might affect the odds of being assaulted. It’s a very difficult theory to test, though. Hence the apparent lack of evidence.
3. Anyway, the important point is to acknowledge that there are lots of things women can do to make themselves safer, and noticing those things is not the same as “victim blaming.”
Whoa, there. Really? Telling women how to be safer (and this applies to more than one kind of crime) doesn’t stop anyone becoming a victim? I don’t buy it.
4.
Aaaaaand now you lost me. Consent and communication and respect for women? Okay… but in the meantime, here is CCTV camera footage of a black guy walking down the street in broad daylight, turns and sees a pretty girl, immediately grabs her, drags her to a van, and rapes her for seven minutes.
Admittedly this is only one example, but still… I’m not ready to say that safety advice “clearly doesn’t actually stop anyone being raped.”
In short Kris, I can refer you to slutwalk’s facebook page, where your [silly] comments like that will be cheered on by various naive feminist extremists.
If you post [stuff] like that here though, rational people will poke holes in your arguments, and you will experience a critical reasoning smackdown equivalent to the [thing] you just experienced.
[Unamused: Well, let’s not be too hard on him. He isn’t insulting anyone, so he’s protected under the Comments Policy.]
This is true for rapes that are done by men who prowl around at night and get their kicks out following young women and then violently attacking them. However, it has been shown that these kinds of attacks only actually contribute to about 1% of rapes committed. It’s much more likely that a woman will be attacked by someone she knows, and it will often be a situation where she clearly doesn’t want to but the man thinks he’s entitled to it and doesn’t see a problem with his behaviour. It’s much more likely that a man will just not stop when a woman says “stop”. These are the kinds of rapes that will be prevented with education.
And in a world where there is large amounts of porn that involves a woman initially saying “no”, and is then convinced into various sex acts (and enjoys them), and where this is the *only* place boys are learning anything about what consent is (or in this case isn’t), I certainly think that educating people about what consent is, why it’s important and how you go about making sure you have it would make a lot of difference.
Well, the “basic attitude” is that men are such ravenous beasts that the slightest flash of skin is going to make them have sex with you whether you want them to or not.
The reason it clearly doesn’t stop people being raped is because women and girls have been being told this (“don’t dress like a slut or you’ll get what’s coming to you”) for decades (probably much longer) and women are still getting raped. All the women I know who are rape survivors rarely wear anything that would be considered “sexy”, and it didn’t stop them being raped.
[Unamused: Just because some women get raped, that doesn’t mean information on staying safe doesn’t stop anyone from becoming a victim.
You might as well say: “People [tiny numbers of people] are still getting leprosy. Clearly, modern medicine isn’t stopping anyone from getting the disease.”]
So you're saying that this man raped that woman simply because he is pure evil? [YES.] That it has nothing to do with what he has learnt from culture about women and their worth? We live in a culture where we are taught that killing people is a bad thing, which means we get very few murders compared to when it was thought of as a noble thing to have duels and the like. [And yet lots of murder, especially by blacks, continues to occur… I wonder why. Maybe some people cannot be taught.] If we lived in a culture where respect for women (*all* women, even those who choose to wear revealing clothes) was valued and going ahead with having sex with a woman even after she’d said “no” was culturally seen as a universally bad thing (rather than the grey area that seems to exist around it at the moment) then I believe rapes of all kinds would go down.
[You believe the rates would go down based on your theory that (1) teaching people that “killing is a bad thing” reduced murder rates (citation needed), and (2) “respect for women” exists in a “grey area.” Yet you cannot see how safety advice could make the rates go down in a much more direct way.]
And the fact that you linked to a white supremacist website tells me a lot about where you’re coming from here…
[Feel free to comment on one of my race posts, such as “Flyer: Black People Are More Criminal Than White People.” I’d be glad to teach you all about race.]
Oh. I thought the basic attitude was that RAPISTS are such ravenous beasts that sexually suggestive clothing might make them have sex with you whether you want them to or not. The feminist attitude that all men are rapists and the same rules are going to suffice across the board is simply insulting. We live in a society that cannot stop trumpeting the value of “cultural diversity,” but then people get mad when their personal values clash against the values of some other culture. People are not all the same. Cultural values are not all the same, and living in a country that’s a multicultural free-for-all means that we cannot expect the same attitudes and behavior from all men. And in that kind of environment, the best possible thing we can do in regards to young women (because it is, overwhelmingly, young women who are raped), is give them all the tools we can to protect themselves.
This isn’t victim blaming, because, by definition, there has to be a VICTIM in order for their to be victim blaming. The Toronto police officer was, at least theoretically, speaking to women who weren’t victims YET, and was trying to help prevent them from becoming victims.
Telling a rape victim she was more likely to be raped because of what she was wearing is, of course, a grossly inappropriate thing to say. Just like it would be grossly inappropriate to tell the parent of a drowned child that it wouldn’t have happened if they had locked the gate to the pool. But that doesn’t stop us from warning parents whose children are still alive that they SHOULD lock the pool gates. It would be phenomenally irresponsible not to issue that warning.
You’ve totally missed my point – I never said that all men are rapists and of course they aren’t (I’m a man myself so I know). I’m saying that the implication that if a woman’s not covered up then a man won’t be able to help himself is, in itself, saying that all men have the potential to be rapists in the right circumstances, if they are triggerd by a woman’s behaviour/dress. This is clearly untrue, and the fact that the majority of rapes are commited when the woman is not in fact behaving or dressing in a “sexy” way, but instead by someone they know, proves this.
I seriously object to the implication that rapists are some sort of other species with different drives and desires than humans, who are inherently evil simply because that’s the way they are. People who commit rape are also people (usually men), who have raped because of learnt behaviour and attitudes. I’m not saying that we should have sympathy with people who rape, in fact I think sentencing needs to be much greater than it is, but it’s only by recognising the cultural and social environment that makes people more likely to commit rape and tackling that that we will be able to prevent these things from happening.
[It sounds like you think there’s some evidence for your position that people are never inherently evil, they’re just taught to do bad things by society. Citation needed.]
This is the real issue I have with the initial advice given by the police officer (as well as all other rape prevention things I’ve seen which, with very little exception, are always about the woman’s behaviour); rather than making any attempt at tackling the actual cause of rape, which is certain men’s attitudes to women, it puts the entirety of the responsibility (and implicity the blame) on the woman.
This bit perplexes me. Firstly, I’d be interested to know where you’re getting your data, because I was under the impression that reporting of sexual trauma was so erratic and varied (for example, a significant number of my friends have been assaulted and NOT ONE of them reported it) that there was very little by way of reliable statistics.
Secondly, this sentence seems to indicate that behaving/dressing in a sexy way is mutually exclusive with being raped by an acquaintance. I’m betting that quite a lot of times a woman is dressing sexy AND raped by someone she knows. After all, women often try to dress and behave sexily on dates and “date rape” has its own category.
hey. i’m kinda unsure on how to react to your posts. i graduated from a feminism class and am quite disillusioned and in strong disagreement with many many feminist theories. so at one level i agree with u in blasting feminists for ALWAYS over reacting, but at the same time i think rights are important too. so here are a few comments –
i dont understand why anyone doesnt have the right to be alone, in any part of town, wearing whatever they feel like. yes, i agree with you that it is dangerous in certain spaces, but we do need to make these spaces safe right?
[Stop making up fake rights. In fact, stop talking about rights. You can declare that you have the right to go swimming without getting eaten by a shark, but since the shark does not assign you the same right, there is no point.
As far as making spaces safe goes: we tried. It doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. So you can either keep wishing and hoping and praying that the entire world will magically become a safe place for women to be alone, or you can deal with the world as it is. You don’t have to like reality, but you do have to live in it.]
“Rapists attack women because they want to have sex with them.”
“Many people think that rape and sexual abuse is about the rapist trying to get sex. However, studies conducted with convicted rapists show that this isn’t the case. Research shows that men who sexually offend often do so to gain a sense of power and authority, while women sexually offend often to either maintain or establish an emotional relationship. Sexual activity is the means by which this is achieved, not the reason for the rape.” — http://www.rapecrisis.org.nz/content.aspx?id=53
[Yeah, ask rapists why they did it: “I wanted to gain a sense of power and authority! It’s just a coincidence that I accomplished that through sex! And it’s just a coincidence I chose a woman between 18 and 34!” Re-read my list of reasons why rape is about sex, not power and control. PS A rape crisis center is the worst place to go for real information, because it’s certainly run by feminists.]
“I pictured an attractive female college student walking around downtown Toronto naked. I did this for strictly scientific purposes, of course. ”
yes. i can see how people use science as an excuse to visually strip people. did u ever ask her how whether she wanted u to visually strip her for ‘scientific purposes’??
[It’s a joke. PS Men like naked girls. They like them more than power and control.]
definitely, if she had batman riding shotgun, very few people would even think of raping her. but i dont see how wearing a snowsuit or being naked makes a difference.
http://blog.blanknoise.org
this website showcases the clothing worn by women when sexually harassed in the streets. very few of the women were naked/skimpily dressed. how people are dressed, how they walk, talk etc is NOT an excuse for another to harass them.
[You can’t see how a naked girl is more likely to get raped than a girl in a snowsuit? (I don’t see what you claim is on that website.) And there you go again with this “excuse” bullshit. I’ve addressed this about a hundred times and I’m tired of it. READ MY POST.]
how can u label some clothes as ‘slutty’? who are you, or anyone to decide what clothes are ‘slutty’? i’m in India, and there are some places i could wear a bikini and no one would bat an eyelid. in other places, i could wear a salwaar kameez (something that totally covers me from head to toe) and i could still get harassed/raped. the indian sari is apparently a very modest item of clothing. guess what – it reveals the stomach, midriff, back, cleavage and the maharashtrian (a state in India) version of the sari shows off the legs, thighs, almost the entire back… so who decides what is modest/slutty etc? why arent people allowed to wear what they are comfortable in?
[Shut the fuck up. Seriously. I’m tired of this feminist horseshit. “Why aren’t I allowed to wear what I’m comfortable in? WAAAAAAAH!” Shut the fuck up. You are allowed. But if you get raped, I promise you I won’t give a shit. My patience for this feminist idiocy has run out.]
your not talking in an indian context at all, i’m not saying i’m gonna go into a traditional event wearing inappropriate clothing, but i AM asking for the right to walk the streets without getting stared at, whistled at etc. i dont mind the cute guy in the bar checking me out, but i would mind if he thought it’s ok to come over and touch my ass.
[You don’t have the right not to get stared or whistled at, and you shouldn’t either. I might as well tell you I have the right not to look at you, so you have to stay inside all day.]
on many occasions you cant do much about looking [No kidding. “On many occasions you can’t help looking at me, and I understand that, but it’s still basically rape.”], but you can prevent touching. it is highly inappropriate for ANY ONE to touch without permission. and that’s what i’m angry about. i am NOT to blame if i wear certain clothing, i am NOT to blame if i’m wearing clothes revealing my cleavage – i can go naked, no one has the right to touch. [Blah blah blah more about “blame” — as if you hadn’t actually read anything I’ve written on the subject… Hm.] yes, rapists wont care about rights and all of that, but i feel society as a whole can really work together to prevent rape. and slut walk brought an important issue to the front, and that everybody needs to think about it.
[Society as a whole is working together to prevent rape. Want to meet us halfway, or make it as difficult as possible? Never mind. I already know.]
“how can u label some clothes as ‘slutty’?”
It’s actually a sliding scale. Here are two links, each on opposite ends of the spectrum. If you can identify which is which, then you are probably able to answer your own question:
image 1 -> http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gdV2qN5ie3B9/340x.jpg [NSFW]
image 2 -> http://www.remnantraiment.com/images/lilies1.jpg
Were you able to identify which group of girls was dressed sluttier than the other?
did u read the entire paragraph matt? you should. if the girls in either pic are cool wearing what they are, what’s wrong with it??
When did I say there was anything wrong with dressing in any way?
lol! u got me! i should have been more careful in writing. the cop who made unnecessary comments should have been more careful and should not have judged women/people actually on the kind of clothes they wear!
:)
[The cop tried so hard to give useful advice to feminists. Unfortunately, feminists are too stupid to know what’s good for them.]
I’m saying that at a certain extreme, you can unanimously identify some clothes as slutty, just as easily as you could identify a t-shirt as black.
But some clothes are less slutty, so it becomes subjective. Even a black t shirt, if faded, could be described as grey. It’s all relative. But don’t be delusional about it, some clothes are slutty, just as some shirts are black.
I didn’t make any comment about what the cop said.
“Feminists expect us to believe that a woman’s behavior doesn’t increase her chance of becoming a target? So a young woman walking home alone, late at night, drunk, in a poor part of town, is just as likely to be raped as the same woman sitting at home with a couple of friends, at ten in the morning, in a rich neighborhood?”
given that most women who are raped are actually raped by people they know and not by random people in the street, I would say this is not actually that far off the mark.
Hey Matt,
So… I probably should have guessed this from your description of the two links as “opposite ends of the spectrum,” but, in the future, it would be a tremendous kindness if you would tack on a nice big NSFW for those of us who are caffeine crashing (half asleep) as we browse the web on our breaks.
Well, you’re wrong.
Here you go: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
Yes, black people are treated like they are more likey to be criminals. Black people are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, I have seen statistics that black people are often given tougher sentences for the same crimes. Also black people are more likely to live in poorer areas, and poverty is a great catalyst for creating criminals. Racism certainly is alive and well (as is sexism).
I think untill you can show me the “evil gene” or whatever, you’re the one who needs evidence to say that someone can be inerantly “evil” in a way that is in no way influenced by society. Everything has motives and reasoning behind it, even Hitler thought what he was doing was right. men who rape do so because they think they have the right to, because they think so little of women (or certain women, like sex workers or women who dress “sllutty”) that they think it’s perfectly ok to abuse them. And where do you think they’ve learnt this from?
PS. Please don’t respond to me in the actual message, it’s really irritating and means that I don’t get told when you’ve responded.
[Ignorance is even more irritating.]
“Well, you’re wrong.”
Evidence?
[If you can’t grasp by now how a woman’s behavior can affect her odds of being the victim of crime, then nothing I say can convince you. Willful ignorance trumps evidence any day.]
“given that most women who are raped are actually raped by people they know and not by random people in the street, I would say this is not actually that far off the mark.”
Let me deconstruct your implication with a parallel:
– Most rapes are done by men already known to the victim.
– Most car accidents are non-alcohol related.
– Slutty clothing attracts men of all sorts, including rapists.
– Alcohol lowers motor skills.
– Rapists who know the victim will strike regardless of what they are wearing.
– Motorists can get in accidents, regardless of how much they drank.
– Slutty clothing does not impact the probability of being raped since most rapes are done by men the victim knows.
– Alcohol does not impact the probability of getting in an accident since most accidents are non alcohol related.
Juniecat, are you trying to imply that the ladies in one of the pictures are dressed inappropriately somehow?
So provide the statistics. As for racial profiling, statistical discrimination makes sense as they are far more likely to commit crime.
Unfortunately, there are average differences in general mental ability that mean this poverty discrepancy will never go away (short of genetic engineering).
Also, controlling for poverty you still get large group disparities.
http://tinyurl.com/6z523pb
I watched Pinker’s talk (and read his essay) a long time ago. It doesn’t support your argument.
You’re absolutely wrong about Black crime. Black people are simply more criminal than White people. Read my flyer. It disproves every one of your assertions: that police target Blacks, that poverty accounts for the crime gap, that racism is alive and well… They’re all demonstrably wrong.
Learn genetics. Then you will know why talking about an “evil gene” is idiotic. And stop making excuses for evil behavior by evil people.
“- Slutty clothing does not impact the probability of being raped since most rapes are done by men the victim knows
– Alcohol does not impact the probability of getting in an accident since most accidents are non alcohol related”
That’s a completley rediculous analogy, in the case of a drink-driving accident the accident is caused by the person being drunk and not being in control, but a rape, however the woman is dressed, is caused by a man not having respect for her and thinking he can do what he want. The point is that we won’t ever stop rapes happening by only focussing on women and women’s behaviour, it’s (generally) men who are commiting the rapes and so it’s men who primarily need to be engaged with on the subject.
[You fail at understanding the analogy. It doesn’t make any difference who’s at fault. You’re the one who’s myopically focused on who to blame.]
While it’s true that you might tell people to keep their doors and windows locked to stop their house being broken into, this isn’t going to stop people burgalerising if they really want to, and at some point you’ve got to look at the demographic who are commiting the crimes, find out why they’re doing it and address the source of the problem.
[“Rate.” “Probability.” Look up the definitions.
By the way, you just explained why we should use racial profiling to target Blacks.]
I have a problem with the “raped by people they know” argument. Namely, it is a freakin’ huge superset. So big as to be almost meaningless. There are guys whose names and faces I know because I passed them in the hall daily in high school, but I never said more than two words to them, and now I haven’t seen them in 15 years. Still, if someone asked “Do you know so-and-so?” I would say yes. My best friend, my neighbor, the local librarian, and the mailman are also all people I would say that I know, but the degree of knowledge is so varied that saying “I know someone” in that kind of context means very little.
I’ve been to parties where I could say I knew everyone there, but in terms of any depth, I didn’t actually know anyone. And those kinds of circumstances are when women most particularly NEED to be aware of the measures that they can take to protect themselves, because a woman is going to be at her most vulnerable if she’s with a bunch of men she thinks she knows, whom she really doesn’t know at all.
“Unfortunately, there are average differences in general mental ability that mean this poverty discrepancy will never go away (short of genetic engineering).”
Oh look, I appear to be trying to have a reasonable conversation with a massive racist. My mistake.
[He’s right. You’re ignorant. Read my flyer on the subject.]
Well, I know at least 3 women who were raped by men they were in a relationship with at the time. And then there are women who are raped by their fathers, brothers, uncles, family friends, brother in law, housemate, etc etc… I have heard many accounts of all these occurances from women. And only a couple from women who have been raped by random men in the street, and a few by people who they vaugely knew.
“And those kinds of circumstances are when women most particularly NEED to be aware of the measures that they can take to protect themselves, because a woman is going to be at her most vulnerable if she’s with a bunch of men she thinks she knows, whom she really doesn’t know at all.”
I think in these situations, if the men think little enough of her to rape her, they’re not going to be that bothered about what she’s wearing at the time.
Well… I think it’s a fact that blacks lag behind in a lot of statistically verifiable ways relative to other races (income, crime rates, academics). Is this genetic, or can we perpetually blame society somehow, or some other factor? Maybe it’s a combination?
This stuff is tougher to make a conclusion about, and also very uncomfortable to discuss, especially if you’re white.
“Juniecat, are you trying to imply that the ladies in one of the pictures are dressed inappropriately somehow?”
Oh, wait a minute! Ummmm… I mean… uh… if the girls in either pic are cool wearing what they are, what’s wrong with it??
o_-
*reads flyer*
Oh look, I appear to be trying to have a reasonable debate on a website run by a massive racist. My mistake.
If you don’t understand why that flyer is a load of bull then you clearly don’t look at the complexities of society and how they affect people, which explains your attitude on this particular subject also.
[Translation: you skimmed the flyer, didn’t understand it, and now you’re applying your amazing “waaaaaaaah you’re a massive racist” counter-argument to me, as well.
Here’s the difference between me and you: I know all about this subject, so I show the data that proves me right. You are totally ignorant, so you say meaningless things like “the complexities of society and how they affect people” and try to attack my “attitude” instead of my evidence.
That sad thing is, you probably think you’re debating.]
You think something is especially hard for whites?!?!
RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not really harder, we have eyes and ears like anybody else. It’s just more uncomfortable for us to talk about it because things we say have to be far more PC because the backlash against a white person who says something that could be interpreted as racially insensitive is a lot greater than what it would be if a minority were to make the same comment. Stand-up comedy is a great example of that.
I also think that anti-white comments/slurs are more tolerated than anti-any-other-race comments; see Dave Chappelle and Carlos Mencia as examples.
I regard the postures of the young ladies in the first photo as being inappropriate. They would be quite appropriate as an overture to one’s lover, but I don’t really buy that the cameraman is their lover. They are striking a cartoonish sexual pose to provoke a reaction, which I regard as immature. That’s my opinion. (Their clothing is highly suggestive party clothing, which may be perfectly appropriate or grossly inappropriate to the situation… I wouldn’t know.
Actually, I read the flyer and thought that it didn’t take into account the massive ammount of racism that still exists in the western world which means that less is expected of black people and that black people are expected to be criminals, and how if you tell someone that they are something enough times then they’ll start to be that.
[Translation: I don’t have any statistics or evidence of any kind, but I think White people are mean to Black people, which makes it okay for Black people to commit so much murder, rape, assault, robbery, arson, and vandalism.
You’ve just admitted that Blacks are more criminal than Whites. But you’ve decided to blame that on mean old White people telling Black people how criminal they are. That’s pure speculation, with no supporting evidence. And it essentially says that all Blacks are childlike and do whatever White people tell them to do.
Racism is dead. The only people who haven’t figured that out are ignorant, like you, or making money off it, like the $PLC. You live in a bizarre fantasy world where the NAACP, the NBA, and the President don’t exist. And all because you can’t stand the fact that Whites are objectively superior to Blacks in a number of ways.]
I’m too busy to wonder about where you’ve learned that from, particularly the part in bold face. You really think you understand the mind of a rapist? Why are you so sure?
Does a rapist think he has the right to rape a tree? Is he likely to rape a tree? People without morals do what the rest of us want to do without regard for the law, or whether they are hurting people, or whether what they are doing is fair.
People without morals aren’t the same thing as postmodern artists. People without morals take money and sex and the lives of others, because it’s what they want to do. A postmodern artist puts himself in a luggage locker, drinks water through a tube from a bottle in the locker above them, and urinates it through a tube into a bottle in the locker below him, because it’s something he has a right to do. See the difference?
Olave… one group is dressed sluttier than the other. Agree or disagree?
Kris, do you think poverty causes rape?
Well, why do you think men rape? Because they think they *don’t* have the right to?
Men who rape do so because they think that it’s ok for them to do so, because they care about and respect the woman so little that they think it’s alright for them to do. Especially if the woman is their partner, their daughter, their niece, or if they are in some other position of power over them.
[Men rape because they want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with them. Rape: EXPLAINED.]
Agree.
Also it doesn’t take into account that the IQ tests were most likely designed by white people and therefore will most likely be easier for white people because of cultural differences.
[Pure speculation. You don’t actually know anything about intelligence testing. You don’t actually have any examples of cultural bias on the WAIS or Stanford-Binet, nor do you actually know what those things are. You are, quite simply, full of shit. And you’ve just proved that you didn’t read my flyer on race differences in intelligence, which addressed this very point.
You are banned until you can demonstrate, in a comment, that you’ve actually read my flyers on crime and intelligence.
I know: outrageous, right? That I would expect you to actually know the facts and understand the issues before shooting your mouth off about them?]
You agree that one group of those women is superior to the other? Misogynist!
Unamused,
I would do it myself, but I can’t remember which post you referenced it in. So, might I suggest directing Kris to that charming flow chart you linked to regarding “what constitutes a discussion.” I think he would benefit from it.
I agree that Juniecat is such a girly-girl that she needs a big friggin hug.
Wait a second… misogynists don’t hug girly-girls! Who do you think you are, walking around claiming to be a misogynist when you can’t even fight the good fight?
I’m rehashing, but I believe that most crimes are caused by people not caring about the rights of others. All rapes committed by western men are in this category. Men from other cultures may have such a different (or, as I would say, messed up) view of rights that they think they have the right to do so. The former category have to be pretty much hunted down and imprisoned, but fortunately the latter category can be turned away at the border.
Are you with me in wanting to turn men from cultures where forced sex is considered acceptable, away at the border? (Now I see that you’ve been banned and can’t answer.)
“Alright”? Meaning they can get away with it? I agree with you there. Lots of rapists think they can get away with it, and they’re right all too often, because of the liberal law enforcement policies you people push. If you mean “morally acceptable,” see above.
Plenty of women have the misfortune to be related to dirtbags. I can think of 550 million of them without scratching my head. I truly feel compassion for them, but then again, the mothers of Black September (Munich), the Death Angels (San Francisco), and Amiri Baraka (New Jersey) fit into that category as well.
I hug the good fight. I USUALLY bathe first.
Here it is: http://goldchat.blogspot.com/2011/05/rational-discussion.html
To keep it from being a big, smelly hobo hug.
Excellent parallel, matt. I am astonished that you are willing to keep being reasonable with these people.
@ Kris,
The existence of average differences in general mental ability is well documented in psychology. The only dispute is how much this is due to genetic rather than environmental variation.
A small minority of researchers polled consider differences are purely environmental. Far more consider it to be a product of genetic and environmental variation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IQ_Controversy,_the_Media_and_Public_Policy_(book)
As genes linked to cognitive abilities are identified these discussions will be pretty moot:
“The dragon’s DNA: The next advances in genomics may happen in China” (The Economist, June 17 2010).
thanks unamused. I actually like it, not because I find the topic all that interesting, but I think there are a lot of areas where people are willfully ignorant for the purpose of holding on to some naive notion they have, so they come up with flawed arguments to support their stances, and delude themselves into believing them. That’s my theory, anyway, on why someone would put forward these kinds of flawed arguments.
It’s a fun exercise to come up with fair analogies and parallels, and it keeps your critical thinking in check when you’re able to do so. Although I’m never ever ever able to dissuade an opponent in an argument, I do like countering their arguments.
I find this is doable a lot on the following topics:
– Race relations
– Women’s rights
– Religion (actually my favorite)
– Economics
– Political Science
– Gay rights
For each of the topics above, there are groups that believe a lot of questionable things with certainty, despite strong contradictory evidence. In my free time, I like to pick arguments with them. The best is when you take a line of reasoning they’ve constructed themselves, and replicate it exactly in a different context to derive a conclusion that you know they disagree with (as I’ve done here). That’s really fun.
My Dad is a humanist and believes in promoting rational thought and getting people to think critically about things. I diverge from him on that. Sure, I’ll argue with nobodies at the bar or on the internet, and that’s fun. For anyone in my ‘real life’ though, I just keep my mouth shut on these topics, unless I already know the person agrees with me.
unamused: it’s ridiculous trying to have a decent conversation with you because u think ur so fucking awesome and such a lil know it all. i love the way ur happily solving major world problems by make sweeping comments like “racism is over”. ur completely blind if u think so. ur blind if u think rape is just about sex. u have no cultural contexts in mind and i think u really need to learn a few things from matt who actually talks sense.
And yes, people WILL talk about rights because they still don’t have many of the rights you take for granted. Simply because u can sit online all day long trashing people doesn’t mean everyone has similar privileges.
Yes, I know I have to live in reality. I would like to be able to change it. The blank noise website (if u knew how to go thru a website without someone spoon feeding you) has showcased the clothes women from all over India have been wearing when they got assaulted/harassed. They include clothes that cover up more than reveal. If you would read comments more carefully I have explained that. But no, u are more interested in figuring out how to be a complete jerk! And If u have the right not to look at me – YOU stay in. coz it is my right and anyone else’s right to access public spaces. Just coz ur a jerk doesn’t mean other people stay in.
i will refrain from commenting on ur post any further because any discussion with u is futile. u are narrow minded and have just decided to label and hate certain people coz u have nothing better to do. However, if u ever decide to get outta that hate filled world of urs and come to India, do lemme know, I’d love to show u around and show u what I’m talking about. It’s a whole new world out here, and the cultural contexts are totally different. Maybe u would learn to well…shut up and learn!
Don’t care.
PS Way to miss the point. It’s their right to stare and whistle at you.
PPS Not gonna trawl through your one single link looking for your one single piece of evidence. Cite your source or GTFO. Actually, just GTFO.
PPPS Racism is over. It’s just that the races are different. Black people, for instance, are stupider and more criminal than White people. They fail in society for those reasons. But their failure looks like racism, if you don’t know those simple facts.
Indians aren’t too bright either. What’s their average IQ? Like 90? Something like that.
PPPPS I think I’m so fucking awesome because, well, I am so fucking awesome. Part of that is being able to construct valid arguments in proper English.
*81, actually, MR. KNOW IT ALL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations
oh snap
When I am queen of the world, I will pass a law that says: If you are losing an argument, and your response is to keep talking, but just to babble incoherently and throw out personal insults, your opponent has the right to punch you in the face. AND, just for good measure, you will have to wear a T-shirt with an arrow pointing to the black eye and a caption which reads, “I deserved this.”
It’s a satisfying daydream.
But juniecat, if you did that, Fox news would have no way of using all their broadcast time, and their staff would get all bruised up.
By the way, guys and gals, I know I’m being very mean to radhika and Kris, but I’ve completely run out of patience for the same old non-arguments about feminism, and I don’t believe they’re going to contribute anything new.
radhika isn’t banned or anything, I’ve just chased her off for not reading the damn post. And Kris is free to come back and keep arguing with/at you, but first he has to demonstrate that he has read my flyers, since he decided to accuse me and Kiwiguy of being “massive racists” for citing them.
I actually thought you were remarkably civil to radhika considering the childish tantrum and mudslinging she threw your way.
Are we even sure rad hickey is a real person? To me that piece read like something computer-generated, using leftist buzzwords.
[Bad spelling and grammar, chat-room-style sentence structure] cultural contexts [blah blah] hate [blah blah] rights [blah blah] racisss [blah blah]
Hey there,
I apologize for being a little late to join in the discussion, but as a matter of fact I just happened to come across this site, while researching “SlutWalks”. I read the whole post plus the pervious discussion and could not help but wonder, why everybody is so obsessed with clothing being “slutty“ or not, instead of questioning the authors very general label “sex”, that rape is supposed to be all about
First things first: “Slut” is a pejorative term labeling individuals with “loose sexual morals”, commonly used as an insult by individuals with (self-proclaimed) “high morals”. Since we all know, that clothes tend to have no morals at all (simply because they are non-living objects), it is perfectly ridiculous to describe them with character adjectives. Clothes can be bright, short, covering, colored, cotton, synthetic, thick… but not slutty, intelligent, or chaste. It might be convenient to transfer people’s characteristics on clothes. It’s also pretty shallow. “Sluts” come in any shades of color and cloth – same is for any other “group” of people.
I guess it’s this perception, that SlutWalks are supposed to fight in theory – at this point I’ll leave it open whether they are the best mean to do so.
Now to the main course: “Sex”
It is out of question, that rapists rape, in order to satisfy their sexual urge. But it is not the rapists’ sexuality, people are criticizing, condemning rapists – but the way they meet their desires. Forcing a sexual act is not just like that considered a crime: Forcing (in general) is about power abuse. And feminists actually do not make up any fake rights, when claiming a basic human right called physical integrity. I do not understand what’s supposed to be “silly” about that, or wrong with the idea that morals, rights and respect are something that people need to be taught (similar thought as Kris’ oversimplified and slightly discriminating “we need to educate boys (and girls)…”).
Back to sex, “the most profound and intimate way to express your love for someone” (http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/sex), – that’s another thing that needs to be talked about in todays sexualized society, in order to prevent porn stars from becoming the only role models and short skirts legitimate, allegorical red rags (instead of regular clothing items).
There’s a variety of sexual practices out there, but I highly object definitions that range rape on the same level as any intercourse-made-under-mutual-agreement.
That’s basically all I felt like saying at this point. :)
That is the most ludicrously romantic and dewy-eyed definition of sex I have ever seen. I mean, I think it’s a sweet description of what sex CAN be, but to call that a definition is absolutely preposterous.
Going by that definition, you can’t have sex with someone you don’t love. And, if that is in fact what you’re saying, then you’re just hijacking my language and I’d like you to give it back, please.
Of course…we’ve already established around here that Psychology Today isn’t exactly trustworthy on the whole “definition” thing…
http://unamusementpark.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/want-to-know-what-race-is-or-isnt-dont-ask-a-radical-social-scientist/
Oh well… I thought I that my point was not that hard to grasp.
Guess I should have used some sort of smiley to indicate irony at the consciously kitschy “definition,” I thought quotation marks+source was enough to indicate distance. Sorry.
What I actually said was that sex should be made under mutual consent. Point. That kind of excludes rape from my sex definition.
I do not recall talking defining anything else. I do not really care about the participants or their reasons, as long as everybody involved is okay with doing it.
That’s why I think, that rape should not be treated the same as ‘regular sex.’
Oh you have figured that much out? Good for you!
:)
@ arinanira
1. Slutty clothes: clothes designed to arouse men, usually worn by sluts. Slutty clothes are relevant because the SlutWalk is about feminists becoming hysterical (a wonderfully sexist term) over a police officer who said that in his experience, slutty clothes increase a woman’s chance of getting assaulted.
My take: feminists deny reality in favor of radical ideology. Their attitude is very dangerous for women.
2. Feminists make up fake rights all the time. There is no “right to dress like a slut.” There is no “right to not get raped.” Go ahead, look them up in the USA’s Bill of Rights, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
3. It sounds like we are in agreement on rapists, and also on sex.
3 It looks like we are, indeed. Nice. :)
It’s just that I dislike bold assertions like “rape is about sex”, especially when they are accompanied by random insults towards opinions that are actually not exactly mutually exclusive. Don’t get me wrong – I agree that hysteric people (male & female) are annoying. But I also doubt that there is any value added to a statement if it flays somebody else’s. It is ignorant to deny that rape is about sex, same is for denying that a forceful act (keyword rape) is not about power at all.
2 “Feminists making up fake rights like the right not to get raped” is from my point of view just an awkward formulation of the very basic right “physical integrity” (which is BTW native to pretty much every (democratic) bill of rights).
1 You still have not convinced me about the existence of a slut uniform as such. Simply, because clothes do not behave slutty – people do. And since sexuality does not hold the monopoly of being expressed through dress (over aesthetics, fashion, religion etc…) and “sluts come in any shade of color or cloth” – I can comprehend why people are furious about the police officers choice of words, while applauding his intention.
0 Perception and Language: “Too Far Afield” to argue about commenting. Being careful about ones choice of words might prevent unnecessary misunderstandings. That goes for the officer, you, me, and everyone else communicating through language. That’s the essence of my critique I guess!
Good night!
“Oh well… I thought I that my point was not that hard to grasp.”
I wasn’t hard to grasp. I just disagreed.
“Guess I should have used some sort of smiley to indicate irony at the consciously kitschy “definition,” I thought quotation marks+source was enough to indicate distance. Sorry.”
I thought the quotation marks+source indicated you were citing a reference that you agreed with. That is, after all, why people usually cite references. You didn’t say anything to indicate that you found any irony in that definition.
“What I actually said was that sex should be made under mutual consent. Point. That kind of excludes rape from my sex definition.”
Oh. Your definition. I see.
“That’s why I think, that rape should not be treated the same as ‘regular sex.’”
Who said it should be treated the same? That rape is a type of sex is simply factual, unless you are deliberately redefining a word to suit your own purposes. And, quite frankly, it’s a pet peeve of mine when people do that. THAT was MY point.
“Oh you have figured that much out? Good for you!”
I have figured out that you’re someone who talks to people who disagree with you as though they are brainless children. Lovely.
“Slut” is a pejorative term labeling individuals with “loose sexual morals”, commonly used as an insult by individuals with (self-proclaimed) “high morals”.
Please cite an instance of someone who uses the term slut proclaiming that he has “high morals”. Please use a direct quotation.
Thank you.
Re-reading this thread it is clear to me that feminists just use rape as a bludgeon with which to bash people. There is no exchange of ideas on this issue. Feminists thing arguing about rape is a sport and that they are supposed to shout “Ra ra!” for their team. Trouble is their ideology tells them that it is an ideological debate, and that the other team must disagree with them on everything. Thus feminists believe that being against rape is their sole intellectual property, and they more or less try to forbid everyone else from being against it.
You are ESPECIALLY forbidden to be anti-rape if you’re the sort of non-feminist who would actually train women to protect themselves from rape and a variety of other acts of violence. (Surely avoiding dim streets will make you safer from everyone from a purse-snatcher to a axe murderer.) There is nothing a feminists hates worse than a non-feminist who could directly, immediately make the world better for women.
I was wrong to think that feminists are just misguided and annoying. Feminists are active agents of evil who vigorously support lifestyles that put girls directly into harm’s way, knowing full well that the result will create trauma and more feminism.
Feminists have incalculable amounts of blood on their hands. Susan Sonntag wishing for the end of white people is just the tip of the iceberg.
@ annie: There was no offense meant, honey – none at all. Honestly!
It’s just that your reply conveyed that you have not read/understand my comment. Since you decided to bloat and misinterpret one little phrase I quoted – instead of seeing it in context. There’s nothing wrong with you-not-agreeing-with-every-word-I-say. I like pluralism. But at that point I thought that there was some further explanation needed. Again I did not mean to insult you by doing so.
“…rape should not be treated the same as ‘regular sex.’”, is just an unfortunately formulated statement. My mistake. What I meant, is that it should be not treated the same linguistically – by oversimplifying and “ranging [it] on the same level as any intercourse-made-under-mutual-agreement.”
@ olave: The quote you are referring to is an generalization I felt free to make in order to state my point, while simultaneously distancing myself from rating morality. If you like to have a quote that supports my position, you’re welcome to consult basically any religious fanatic. Christians for instance are a good pick. Since I feel somewhat generous today I’ll give you one link – http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=35502. There you go!
And about the second statement of yours… (I guess it was directed at me?) Interesting breed, these “feminists” you are talking about. As usual I don’t like generalizations and assumptions about groups as big and divers as them. And I do not quite get why you feel to be in a position to give me orders about what kind of attitudes I am allowed/forbidden to have. “You are ESPECIALLY forbidden to be anti-rape if you’re the sort of non-feminist […]” that piece was kind of funny.
I do not believe that it does any good to limit freedom in order to –theoretically- prevent crime. If our society starts forbidding any objects or characteristics that could potentially attract attention – one day people will be punished for standing out in whatever means. For instance wearing black after Labor Day, or having an outstandingly attractive/ugly physique. That would be some kind of communism ad absurdum.
BTW it would have been funnier, if the officer had not concluded slutty clothing to be the key factor for being raped, but the lack of self-defense mastery. That’s my take on giving “real-world” advice. :)
arinanira, I was not including you in the category of non-feminists.
I have been yelled at by feminists many times, starting in about 1987. You may not like me to generalize about my experience, but I will anyway.
In my experience, feminists believe that being against rape is their sole intellectual property, and they more or less try to forbid everyone else from being against it. You are ESPECIALLY forbidden to be anti-rape if you’re the sort of non-feminist who would actually train women to protect themselves from rape and a variety of other acts of violence. I remember this distinctly being the position of many feminists, starting with “discussions” I had with feminists starting in the late 1980s, and culminating with the Slut March controversy of 2011.
The “sort of non-feminist who would actually train women to protect themselves” refers to the Toronto policeman who is under attack by loads of feminists for having given women advice on how to protect themselves. Since his advice differed from that of the feminists, the feminists decided he was pro-rape. This is irrational and wrong, and it is wicked for them to try to harm his career.
But I think you really must not be serious about any of this, because you posted a link to a parody of a Christian church, set in a fictional town in Iowa. If you’ve been having us on this whole time, bravo, well played. You totally had me fooled.
If, on the other hand, you think that anti-rape training is pro-rape, that dressing like a slut is anti-rape, and that Landover friggin Baptist is a real church, then someone has you fooled.
Oh my! It looks like we’re talking past each other.
Your original “[…] ESPECIALLY […]”-formulation does not look like a “feminist”-quote to me at all, but your normative talk on anti-feminists necessarily being pro-rape. Since you claim that’s the feminists’ view you’re criticizing-quoting, I am the first one to agree with you on that that illogical position is, indeed, very questionable.
My link parodies religious fanatics and you asked for a quote where “high moral individuals” describe their superiority to “sluts”. What’s wrong with making a little fun over some fuss? :)
If you insist I’ll spell out point for you: Clothes are clothes and rapists will rape anyone they can get (given the “object” fits their scheme – some like “sluts” or just women in general, others children – it’s about the individual rapists’ preferences) – unless their potential victim is “empowered” by some style of material art and crosses their plans by making use of another very basic right of self-defense.
It is nice to have police officers being concerned about the well-being of their protégés. Too bad that the advice our particular officer’s offering is not good enough to be carved in stone and joyfully passed on by everybody!
I’m going to have to bow out of this discussion now. I can’t make head or tail out of arinanira’s last post.
He really just said women should “avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized,” as opposed to calling slutty clothes a key factor. Maybe he mentioned self-defense too. I agree that he should have.
The problem here, frankly, is that the (gender) feminists don’t seem to have understood his point about risk factors, such as it was. They still don’t understand it after I’ve spelled it out for them (see original post). They hear the word “sluts” and freak out.
Viiiiiiiictiiim blaaaaaaamiiiiiiing!
These types of arguments always remind me of one scene in Idiocracy, where Luke Wilson tries to convince the cabinet that water would be better than Brawndo at feeding plants.
Pvt. Joe Bowers: I’m pretty sure what’s killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.
Secretary of State: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.
Pvt. Joe Bowers: What *are* these electrolytes? Do you even know?
Secretary of State: They’re… what they use to make Brawndo!
Pvt. Joe Bowers: But *why* do they use them to make Brawndo?
Secretary of Defense: [raises hand after a pause] Because Brawndo’s got electrolytes.
Repeat for five minutes, or interminably.
I realise this thread has quite a beard now, but here goes:
@ The people who believe they have the right to wear sexy clothes.
Why do women wear them? They aren’t exactly comfortable, are they? “because I like to wear things I feel pretty in” one might say.
Well, I, a woman, for the life of me cannot think of any lazy lonely sunday on which I decided I was going to wear my prettiest dress whilst gobbling up some pizza and staring at the TV.
When I wear clothes I like, even when alone, I ALWAYS do so with the prospect of wearing them on a social event.
(Being in a relationship, however, I save my nice clothes for when I visit my boyfriend and the occcasional family reunion/birthday/whatever. The only people who get to see my legs, neckline, fancy clothes are the people I trust.)
However, I do recall being single and wearing clothes that fitted tight and flattered me in.. wel.. um..yes..that way.
When I did, I never failed to get the attention I craved for. However,
I also received the attention I didn’t want.
You see, when you set out to walk around n clothes that distinctly point out the parts of your body that are considered in basically ALL cultures, as sexual, you cannot control who looks and who doesn’t.
You cannot say “well, that pretty boy can stare at me all he wants but that creepy guy with the glasses is a sexist creep”.
I’m not saying agirl who dresses sexy WANTS to be grabbed or raped, but she does want attention, and she cannot control what kind of attention that will be. She CAN control what kind of message she sends. I have to cycle alot to and from work, half of the time in the dark. But I have NEVER, ever been even looked at by men becouse I look like a very clean a-sexual hobo on a bycicle.
A predatory rapist or a family member with incestual tendencies will also rape that which is, for normal people, not considered especially sexual: Old people, children, unattractive women. But believe me, of all the friends I knew that had been groped, whistled at and even raped by a guy they knew in a pub, or dormitory, or by
a male-friend, I can track back the behaviour that caused it. Women want everyone to like them, to want to be with them, to want to be them.
But when I suggested techniques
that proved VERY effective when dealing with a clingy guy, namely, picking my nose in front of them,
(this was a last resort: other methods are: telling them you are not and are not ever going to be interested in them, not taking drinks, not wearing hot pants or belly button shirts or anything like that) and they would go “EWWWWW, what will people think”.
Well, obviously, not “there goes that poor girl who’s been raped by that guy she invited over to ‘watchamovieorsomething'”.
But being very honest with ourselves: most girls won’t even apply any of those other advices either. They want guys to WANT them but not to TAKE them. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just a thin line you’re walking.
I agree that rape SHOULDN’t exist, and that every rapist should be punished. But if rape is something you do not want to experience,then there are certain ways of making sure that at least the percentage of guys who do not rape for the power, but simply becouse they have low impulse control when they see something that arouses them, will deem you unnatractive.
For the other cases: learn self defence and lobby for SEVERE punishment for rapists.
That’s it.
I have some data on the facts suggested in my posts, if anyone decides to bring this thread back to life, Id be happy to look them up.
P.S. English isn’t my native language, so excuse for the grammar and such.