Polliwog: To be more precise about decimate, it was a punishment in the Roman legions and it meant “punish by making a group kill one in ten of their number by lot.”

lj4adotcomdan, I think the fundamental issue is that you’re defining “culture” (and “prevalent”) in a way that doesn’t actually make sense. By the definition you seem to be espousing, there are no negative aspects of our culture whatsoever, because most people, if asked, would say that they are not at all racist or sexist. But those self-same people will get a little more nervous walking through a “black” neighborhood at night than they would walking through a “white” neighborhood. Without really considering why, they’ll be more likely to hire someone named “Roger” than someone named “Shaniqua,” even if Shaniqua is just as qualified for the job. They’ll be less likely to buy products if the people in the ads for them are of a different skin color, and they’ll find it startling – and possibly downright upsetting – if a commercial for Barbie shows a little boy or a commercial for Hot Wheels features a little girl. They’ll mostly be friends with people the same color as them. They’ll criticize a female politician, employee, or coworker’s clothing, hairdo, physical fitness, and general attractiveness as if those are relevant to her ability to perform her job, while not even thinking about the same qualities in a man. These are all thing the average person does – generally not consciously or maliciously, and even the best of us does some of them, because racism and sexism are so deeply ingrained into our culture that they pretty much can’t be completely escaped.

Attitudes that allow, condone, and sometimes outright promote rape are similarly deeply ingrained. Very few people go around saying, “I support rape,” just like very few people go around saying, “I support racism” – but they keep right on calling Roger instead of Shaniqua for an interview, and they also keep right on quietly, tacitly condoning rape without really recognizing that that’s what they’re doing. That’s what rape culture means – not some consensus of people openly saying, “yay, rape!” or even THINKING “yay, rape!”, but the myraid of ways, subtle and overt, in which rape is excused, condoned, and overlooked by people who honestly believe they’re anti-rape even as they’re saying, “But how could you have expected him to stop just because you told him to? You’d gotten him all turned on, and he had to finish!” or something similarly repugnant.

peniculum:

So (see above about rape culture) a false accusation has a far smaller effect than an actual rape, and has a higher rate of conviction.

The false accusation made against me made it more likely for me to be victimized again by a woman who refused to take me home unless I put out.

So sorry if you think the impact of false accusations is not worthy of your note.

PosterformalyknownasElizabeth: How on earth can you say I am not open minded when I have pretty much confirmed that I am changing my mind on the issue?

Person A disagrees with a topic.
Person B provides logical argument in defense of the topic.
Person A changes mind and now agrees with topic.

Doesn’t sound like Person A has a closed mind at all. But hey, what the hell do I know. I am a fucking MRA rape apologist who is like Sarah Palin. (just a couple of the choice things said about me in this discussion that I take as being treated as garbage)

I think I need to stop posting for the night. Allow the people making comments to catch up to more recent comments, and then respond again tomorrow once people have caught up.

“What I am doing here, right now, is reaching an agreement with them. How on earth is that hurting other people? ”

They have told you that what you have been saying during this thread is hurting them. If you are too self-focused to notice or care, that is an issue with you, not them.

lj4dotcomdan: So sorry if you think the impact of false accusations is not worthy of your note.

So sorry if you didn’t distinguish between the prevalence of rape, and the prevalence of false accusations.

1: I’ve been raped. It was my partner. It was nonconsensual sex. It’s (going on 25 years now) not yet stopped having effect on my life.

2: I’ve been falsely accused of stalking/assaulting someone.

3: So I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I feel for you, but you are clueless about the level of prevalence of the one versus the other.

Stephanie: Honestly, I accepted it because of the logical argument made and not because of the connection to my personal life. I tend to try and deal with issues using logic and reason. So when someone made an irrefutable argument, I had to accept it as true.

(That I can connected it to a life experience helps (and I am sure would help others).

Cassandra: I really did not get that people were getting hurt by what was going on on this thread. Nobody said “what you post hurts me because I am a rape survivor”. So I really do not know how I was supposed to have known what I was saying was being hurtful.

peniculum: I have said, MANY TIMES, on this thread that the frequency of false accusations is MUCH LESS than the frequency of rape. How many more times do I have to say it for people to actually read it?

Viscaria: Yes, I think you are right about taking the rest of the night off. Though, I had described it as rape fairly shortly afterwards. So I knew what it was. I just didn’t connect the reason I didn’t report it with my past experiences or with an overlying problem in our culture.

PosterformalyknownasElizabeth: How on earth can you say I am not open minded when I have pretty much confirmed that I am changing my mind on the issue?

Person A disagrees with a topic.
Person B provides logical argument in defense of the topic.
Person A changes mind and now agrees with topic.

Doesn’t sound like Person A has a closed mind at all. But hey, what the hell do I know. I am a fucking MRA rape apologist who is like Sarah Palin. (just a couple of the choice things said about me in this discussion that I take as being treated as garbage)

That is not what happened here. This is what happened:

Person A disagrees with topic.
After Persons B, C, D, E, F, H, I, and J all provide dozens of examples, studies, media stories, and other things, Person A still refuses to agree. While claiming something that is quite literally not true (that Person A is open minded.)
Persons B, C, D, E, F, H, I and J point out that Person A is being a rude person and flatly call Person A out for the behavior. Person A, sensing Person A is losing the audience and attention, suddenly agrees with the topic.

You were not treated like garbage-you were treated incredibly well even after being completely, and repeatedly dismissive of every bit of evidence you were given. Even the people who were pointing out that you were trolling (and that is certainly what you were doing) still were giving you information. Your sudden claim to be agreeing with the concept of the rape culture is suspect because it has no sincerity to it and because it was becoming clear no one was going to talk to you about it again.

Hey, if one man learned something new who cares how many women got hurt along the way, right? We are but props in his personal vision quest.

All this talk about female rape victims………….Have you no compassion for these poor helpless dudents who fall victim to the insidious Bro Rape culture???

[video removed by DF]

Oh Bee: The thing about us menz is that we are actually able to not take ourselves(and are ishoos) so damn srsly. Lighten up, will ya! :-P

I have been reading MRM sites long enough to know exactly what jovial fucking bastards you all are. I’m just saying that maybe if you really want your mommy to pay attention to you, you should try doing something nice to get positive attention and stop hitting your sister in the hopes that someone will yell at you.

First off, thank you, everyone, for your empathy and kindness. It really means a lot to me, especially because I know that should I have reported it, I more than likely wouldn’t have received anything similar to that. I don’t know if I consider him dangerous – the way things happened with me were a little weird, and his shock and pain about the situation seemed real. Of course, that could all be an act. I’m not sure what I want to do – I think I just want to put it behind me and let it go.

Secondly, I am sincerely sorry to everyone else that has experienced something similar – there were a lot of stories about non-violent rape. Coercion still counts as rape. If your “no” has no meaning to someone, then how can your “yes” have meaning? You weren’t allowed to say you didn’t want something, so how valid is the “consent”? It’s not.

Rape and sexual assault are huge problems, for both men and women. Women are disproportionately affected, which is part of the reason that male victims of sexual assault and rape are not taken seriously (which is absolutely a fucking tragedy and should be corrected). Women are seen as flighty, emotional, irrational, and unsure of what they want, which undermines her testimony when she says something happened that she didn’t want. Men are seen as always wanting sex, so how could he have NOT wanted it (especially if his attacker was a form of socially-acceptable “attractive”)? These are tiny pieces of rape culture that all fit together to form a strange, pervasive, almost invisible veil over how we perceive rape.

I can’t think of anyone that is in FAVOR of rape – most people would say it’s horrifying and terrible, BUT… [some people deserve it, zie should have been more careful, what was zie thinking, etc. etc.]. Those hedgings are the little pieces of rape culture that people don’t think about or extend through. What happens when YOU are the one who “should have been more careful”? But it won’t be you, because you’re more careful and you’d only be with people you trust, and your friends aren’t like that.

That’s rape culture, and that’s why it’s so damaging.

Dan:

Try thinking of it as a complex of threats designed to control us. Rapists are a very small proportion of the male population but the threat that they represent goes far beyond their victims. We are constantly being reminded of the threat they pose to us and that sows the seed of distrust against any man who we don’t know extremely well (who, ironically actually pose the greatest threat). We don’t have to remind ourselves to be wary of men, after a while it becomes second nature and we spend our lives tied up in knots trying to follow all the well meant advice that restricts our lives. It’s also made very clear to us that men can’t really be held responsible for their sexual behaviour, that if we “encourage” them in any way then the fault is ours and we’re expected to take responsibility for their sexuality as well as our own.

“Don’t go out alone after dark because you’ll get raped.”
“Don’t go out dressed like that, you’ll give the guys the wrong impression.”
“Don’t go jogging with earphones on.”
“Why were you alone with him?”
“Why did you open the door?”
“You were too trusting.”
“You were asking for it.”
“The only way to be safe is to carry a gun.”
“You left your bedroom window open, you should have been more careful.”

All of this is designed to shift the blame from the rapist to the victim. It may sound like well meant, genuinely concerned advice and often comes most strongly from the people we love and trust but the people who tell us these things are as embroiled in these ideas as we are and, with the best of intentions, they hobble us while trying to keep us safe.

All of this crap seriously effects the way most women live and think about their actions. Put all these things together, the threat itself and the hundreds of ways it’s reinforced every day and you have a rape culture.

And in case you were wondering all the comments mentioned above were either said me personally, friends or someone I met in the course of my work.

monsieur noname – Here are Me and Ami (AND TRISH!) Joking our asses off about Rape.

http://ami-rants.blogspot.com/2011/05/justice-avengers-of-cat-doom-ami-trish.html

http://ami-rants.blogspot.com/2011/07/ami-trish-and-zhinxy-snarkle-rape.html

Hmmmm… seems like there might differences here, though, between the jokes women tell about rape, and the jokes women so very humorlessly think aren’t funny. And no, the difference is not “women are doing it” – Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I know, blah blah blah etc Yawn.

Sorry, I was tired, I meant to say 1/5 of one of my male acquaintance being falsely accused of rape.

@LJ4: What happened to you was rape. I am sorry that you suffered not only the original assault, but the doubts after. As someone else upthread said, that is part of rape culture.

* * *

HOWEVER, you have done much more than fail to agree there is a rape culture: You ask me and others: Why do you just assume that everyone who does not agree that there is a rape culture is a horrible person that must be treated like garbage?

First of all, I challenge the notion that anonymous person on the internet calling you a troll and saying snarky and even nasty things about what you say is treating you like garbage: if that’s your definition of horrible, bad treatment, then man, you are privileged.

Second of all, you have done MUCH more than “fail to agree” there is a rape culture. I’m too lazy to link back to all the crap you spewed (especially the nitpicking about 1 in 6 being “prevalent” or not), but it is not just lack of agreement.

Third of all, while you claim to just be this one lone individual being treated like garbage, the fact that you don’t realize that EVERY feminist blog, every women’s space, where women are talking about rape ALWAYS has an unknown troll (NOT a member of the community, a stranger) blowing in to demand that false rape accusations OR rape of men (by WOMEN not by men) be made the central focus of the discussion. I know you think you should have the privilege of being taken solely on your own merits and not because your pattern of behavior is indicative of male privilege and rape apologism (i.e. MANYMANY men have said the same thing in mostly the same way), but you know, sucks doesn’t it? That’s how life works, and if you come to a place where you’re not known and behave in ways that are just like the assholish troll ways of others (DESPITE your intention–intention doesn’t count, impact does), then this sort of thing will happen. IF you in fact are honest in your desire to learn, and IF in fact you are now willing to be convinced, THEN you’ll shut up, read more, learn more, and maybe, oh, I don’t know, do something.

For example: back to my question: how much do you know about the Innocence Project and what are you doing to help them?

@LJ4: Some survivors of rape or attempted rape say you are hurting them.

You deny it: What I am doing here, right now, is reaching an agreement with them. How on earth is that hurting other people?

Do you realize HOW your refusal to accept what they say differs from our acceptance of what you say? Do you realize how viciously unredeemably garbage nasty your stance is?

You are hurting people. You refuse to believe it. Rape Troll.

Now he sees the light and thinks there’s a rape culture. That’s awesome, Dan, but you’re still a royal asshole.

As Ithiliana and others have said, you have no idea how many men come into feminist spaces and demand to be educated and make everything about them. It’s really tiresome to deal with some dude with sub-par Google skills and a giant sense of entitlement.

And when people tell you to stop triggering them? Fucking stop triggering them.

@LJ4: Another link about rape culture–this time in the US military.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military

Cassandra:

Hey, if one man learned something new who cares how many women got hurt along the way, right? We are but props in his personal vision quest.

I already said that

A) it was not my intent to hurt anyone
B) if I did that I was sorry

Incredible….

Ithiliana: “First of all, I challenge the notion that anonymous person on the internet calling you a troll and saying snarky and even nasty things about what you say is treating you like garbage: if that’s your definition of horrible, bad treatment, then man, you are privileged.”

Anonymous people can treat others like garbage. In fact, I have found that the anonymity on the net enables more people to treat others like garbage.

“Second of all, you have done MUCH more than “fail to agree” there is a rape culture. I’m too lazy to link back to all the crap you spewed (especially the nitpicking about 1 in 6 being “prevalent” or not), but it is not just lack of agreement.”

It is a lack of agreement. I was not agreeing with the concept. Now I do, because of a logical argument made to me that refuted the comments I was stating.

“Third of all, while you claim to just be this one lone individual being treated like garbage, the fact that you don’t realize that EVERY feminist blog, every women’s space, where women are talking about rape ALWAYS has an unknown troll (NOT a member of the community, a stranger) blowing in to demand that false rape accusations OR rape of men (by WOMEN not by men) be made the central focus of the discussion.”

I never once demanded that false accusations be made the central focus of the discussion. I never once demanded the rape of men be made the central focus of the discussion.
And I have been posting on the manboobz forums for a few months. I did not think I would be labelled a “stranger”. But I guess not everyone here posts over there.

But here you are making a definition of what a troll is, but I do not meet your own definition.

“For example: back to my question: how much do you know about the Innocence Project and what are you doing to help them?”

I am very familiar with (and admire) the innocence project and I have previously posted links to their work around the internet. I could (and should) do much more.

zhinxy:

Seconding Ithiliana here, on all of it, even though I’m “one of the good ones” on your list, LJ4 – I gave you a lot of benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t required of me, by a long shot, and the reactions of the people here were understandable considering your statements. Ithiliana is very far from the trolling or persecuting type, yes, believe me, even in the case of you.

I never said it was required to give me the benefit of the doubt.

I can also understand why someone who is passionate about eliminating the rape culture might be leery of someone who doubts its existence in the first place, especially because there are so many actual MRA who deny it because it harms their own misogynistic causes.

However, you responded to my posts with links that you felt might help persuade me that I was incorrect. Ithiliania responded to me by misrepresenting what I was saying, labeling me as a rape apologist and as much of a feminist as Sarah Palin, etc.

Can you see why I might view Ithiliana’s behavior as trollish considering this has been my only interaction so far?

I can only hope that perhaps Ithiliana is only acting that way because of “jumping the gun” and perhaps I jumped the gun as well. Perhaps some day in the future, after continued discussions on the other issues brought up on this site, we will determine that we both just misunderstood each other with a bad first impression.

I am open to that possibility. And if Ithiliana is as well, then I will admit I was wrong there too .

hershele:

When you say things like that on a feminist blog, it sounds kind of sexist, not because feminists or women are incapable of logic and reason or inherently emotional but because misogynists say things like that, and you don’t have a really solid track record of non-misogyny.

I do not have a solid track record of non-misogyny? Are you kidding me? Wow.

I also must suggest that you go educate yourself about my views on womens rights before jumping to that awful conclusion.

http://blog.lj4a.com/category/women/

http://blog.lj4a.com/category/national-issues/abortion/

http://blog.lj4a.com/category/rape/ (obvious trigger warning, it contains the story of the ex-girlfriend of a friend of mine who was raped)

@SaruGoku:

That vid was an arsehole move and I hope Dave bans you for it.

I almost said something last night, about how if this were my blog he would be out on his ass, but since it’s obviously not my blog I didn’t want to be rude to David so I let it be. I’m not a rape survivor, and I found that video (played for comedy) deeply upsetting. I can’t imagine what an actual survivor would have felt.

Dan, just so you know, it’s pretty poor netiquette to dominate the comments like that. Writing a blog post and linking to it may have been better.
/Queen of the Internet

pecunium: How on earth did I miss this?

“You said you think false accusations: which are far less rare; as you admit, than rape, are more damaging than something you say happens to one in six women. ”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO NO NO NO NO. I have never ever ever said that. I would never ever ever say that. EVER. PERIOD.

I have said the EXACT opposite.

“I have two active lovers, several inactive lovers and five sisters ans several female friends I am close to, let’s say that’s a total of 18 [which is a low number], you think three of them being raped is less of a problem than 1/5th of 100 male acquaintances being raped, yet you think the latter is more damaging to society. Even with that you have the gall to be offended at being called a rape apologist.”

When people call me a rape apologist based on false information, then yes I will be offended!

Here is a link to my words directly representing your false claims about my beliefs: http://manboobz.com/2011/12/11/rapists-lad-mags-and-the-mens-rights-subreddit/comment-page-7/#comment-96625

And just in case you choose to not link back, here are my words.

“I NEVER, I repeat NEVER… I repeat again NEVER said that I am equally concerned about rape and false accusations of rape. That is YOUR strawman argument that you keep repeating over and over again (ad nauseum) and it is absolutely untrue.

Rape is a much more dangerous and much more frequent crime than the crime of making a false accusation of rape. The crime of rape deserves much more attention and much more of an effort in prevention than the crime of a false accusation of rape. That I believe the crime of false accusation of rape deserves more attention than it currently gets in no way makes me a rape apologist. “

pecunium: “It’s interesting, all things considered, that you chose not to address anything else I said.

How about my telling you that the rapes were an ongoing thing (because I was too young and inexperienced to be able to stop them)?”

I have missed several posts because of the number of posts I am responding to. I am very sorry that you had to deal with such things once, let alone over a long time.

I was also too young to stop some of what happened to me previously. I wonder how much of my life was impacted by what happened to me as a young child as well. (still not ready to talk about it beyond that)

LJ4: Before you yet again declare that “it is not/was not my intent,” please read the following post:

http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/intent-its-fucking-magic/

And stop trollsplaining to us that it was not your intent.

Hershele: Did you say here? I thought I might give you expanded examples of arguments I have made previously so you could get to know me and what I actually believe in and not the limited exposure you may have had with me on manboobz and the forums.

Perhaps a few examples from the forums?

http://manboobz.forummotion.com/t430-roosh-v-rape-apologist-tw-all-over-the-place#12719

http://manboobz.forummotion.com/t257-here-is-a-topic-the-mra-will-run-with#8499 (clear example of me showing that I embrace the idea that a woman has autonomy over her body)

And my “wow” was a statement of disbelief that you said it…. it should be taken that I disagree with you.

ithiliana: I do not know how else I can explain that I don’t wish to cause harm or pain to people by seeking to understand why anything I said would be taken as hurtful as others so I can make sure to not duplicate the pain at some later date.

If I am ignorant that actions x, y and z cause pain, how am I supposed to prevent myself from causing pain in the future?

And yes, I had explained previously that I accepted that certain subcultures had rape cultures. The military being one. The Catholic Church hierarchy (the one I mentioned earlier in this thread) being another. That a sub-culture may have a rape culture does not require it to be on another planet. I have since moved on to accept the broader overlapping rape culture.

Your call is, again, wrong. Just as your explanation of false equivalency. Just as was your misrepresentation of my arguments. Wrong, wrong wrong.

Ithiliana: It is possible that someone could fail to explain something clearly multiple times. However, there are several things that I have said clearly and people still are getting it wrong. In that case, the problem is on them. (Like how some people have said that I think false rape accusations are deserving of equal time and concern as rape when I not only have said nothing coming close to this, I have specifically said that I do not agree with it at all)

I think it is obvious how a sub-culture could have a defining element that is not representative of the greater culture at large

I will go with this m-w dictionary definition as to what a culture is

“the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time ”

There are elements to Jewish Culture that are not representative of the greater culture as a whole.

hellkell: If I say “Rape is much more serious and much more harmful than false accusations of rape” and then someone later says “You said that false accusations are much more serious than rape”, I think it is clear the latter person is the one at fault.

And yes, that happened right here on this thread.

Yes, I am using a simple definition of culture and applying it to explain how I could once believe that something was a strong aspect of a subculture while not being something that is not part of the culture as a whole.

Not sure how that makes me dense. I fear asking why because then some might say I am being “demanding”.