Roosh V forum members baffled that fat woman doesn’t welcome sexual harassment
Online dating: It doesn’t always work like this.
For a certain subset of horrible men, there are few things more infuriating than the fact that women they find undesirable can turn down men for sex. For this upsets their primitive sense of justice: such women should be so grateful for any male attention, these men think, that turning down even the most boorish of men shouldn’t even be an option for them.
Consider the reactions of some of the regulars on date-rapey pickup guru Roosh V’s forum to the story of Josh and Mary on the dating site Plenty of Fish. One fine December evening, you see, Josh decided to try a little “direct game” on Mary.
That’s what the fellas on Roosh’s forum call it, anyway. The rest of us would call it sexual harassment.
Josh started off by asking Mary if she “wanted to be fuck buddies.” She said “nope,” and the conversation went downhill from there, with Josh sending a series of increasingly explicit comments to Mary, despite getting nothing but negative replies from her.
After eight messages from Josh, with the last one suggesting he would pay her $50 to “come over right now and swallow my load,” Mary turned the tables, noting that she’d been able to deduce his real identity from his PoF profile, and asking him if he wanted her to send screenshots of the chat to his mother and grandmother. He begged her not to.
As you may have already figured out, from the fact that we’re talking about this story in public, Mary did indeed pass along the screenshots, and posted them online.
Poetic justice? Not to the fellas on Roosh’s forum. Because, you see, Mary is … a fat chick.
While dismissing Josh as a “chode” with “atrocious game,” Scorpion saved most of his anger for the harassed woman:
Look how much she relishes not only shooting him down, but damaging his reputation with his own family. She’s positively intoxicated with her power. Simply spitting bad direct game is enough to unleash her vindictive fury.
“Bad direct game.” I’m pretty sure even Clarence Thomas would consider what Josh did sexual harassment.
At any point, she could have pressed a single button and blocked the man from communicating with her, but she didn’t. She didn’t because she enjoys the feeling of power she gets from receiving attention from guys like this and then brutally shooting them down. It makes her feel much hotter and more desirable than she actually is in real life. She’s not there to meet men; she’s there to virtually castrate them for her own amusement.
I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty sure that nowhere in Mary’s profile did she encourage the men of PoF to send her explicit sexual propositions out of the blue. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t hold a gun to Josh’s head and force him to send a half-dozen sexually explicit harassing messages to a woman he didn’t know.
Athlone McGinnis also relies heavily on euphemism when describing Josh’s appalling behavior:
I don’t think its primarily the revenge she’s after, its the validation. She is enjoying the power she has over this guy and wielding it brutally because it shows she can maintain standards despite her weight and the doubtless numerous confidence issues that stem from it. In blowing up this guy for being too direct in his evaluation of her sexuality, she affirms the value of her own sexuality.
Oh, so he was just being “direct in his evaluation of her sexuality.”
In short: “I am wanted, but I have standards and can choose. I have so much agency despite my weight that I can go as far as to punish those who approach me in a way I do not like rather than simply blocking them. I’m teaching them a lesson, because I’m valuable enough to provide such lessons.
So apparently in Mr. McGinnis’ world women who are fat aren’t supposed to have agency? They’re not supposed to be able to choose? They’re supposed to drop their panties to any guy who offers to be their fuck buddy or tells them to “suck my dick?”
Also, I’m a victim bravely standing up against online bullying/harassment-look at me!”
Yeah, actually, she is. Get used to it, guys, because you’re going to see a lot more of this in the future.
This isn’t just a laughing matter for her. She needs to be able to do this in order to feel worthwhile. She has to be able to show that even she is able to maintain standards and doesn’t have to settle for just any old guy asking for any old sexual favor simply because she resembles a beached manatee.
And it’s not a laughing matter for you either, is it? You’re actually angry that a woman said no to a sexual harasser — because you don’t find her attractive. And because Josh — from his picture, a conventionally attractive, non-fat fellow — did.
Mr. McGinnis, may a fat person sit on your dreams, and crush them.
Posted on August 23, 2013, in a woman is always to blame, evil fat fatties, excusing abuse, harassment, mansplaining, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, PUA and tagged misogyny, online harassment, pickup artists, PUA, sexual harassment. Bookmark the permalink. 1,116 Comments.
Not to mention that the anti-rape advice ignores that it’s not theft, it’s not taking stuff for money or whatever; it’s an attack on you, on your body, your personhood. You can’t leave those safely locked up when you go out.
Obligatory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5pjSRSLGQ
I get a 404 error with that page, Howard.
Who’s the new dude in you avatar, btw?
Was it Wanda Sykes and her “detachable pussy” bit? I love that.
It was indeed that particular sketch. Let me try again. (trying to link without actually clicking on the Youtube link myself… tricky) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_7KWGGAbgA
That’s Ryan O’Neal, from the screwball comedy with Barbara Streisand, What’s Up Doc?, from whom I have borrowed the name Howard Bannister.
My nymsake, if you will.
Oh, I see the problem. Firefox isn’t copying the HTTP:// portion of the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_7KWGGAbgA
Infuriating.
Don’t know if anyone remembers this, but Operation: Cookies has been a success, despite the road crew accidentally cutting off my water midway through. My mood has improved somewhat, as well.
Dvärghundspossen: One more to add to your excellent comment:
“Rape-prevention tips” aren’t. That is, they don’t prevent rape. Rather, at best, they redirect the rapist to find an easier target–because that’s how predators operate. They establish the most vulnerable targets they can perceive and go after them. So all you’re really doing with ‘tip’ lists is telling a particular person that they can change the odds of the predator selecting them, as opposed to someone else.
Thing is, these tips have a diminishing rate of return as they become more commonly adopted. Predators rarely, if ever, decide that no available target is suitably undefended, so they’ll just go home. Instead, if a particular defense is so ubiquitous that they cannot escape it, they’ll adapt their approach to work around that particular defense.
Thus, as women became wise to the dangers of letting other people mix your drinks out of sight (because predators would mix them extra-strong, if not slip in a drug), the douchebags developed the ‘ever-full glass’ technique–which occurs in full view of the woman, but in such a way as to be subtle about how much she’s had to drink until it’s too late.
DireSloth: Excellent, and glad to hear it! Hope things continue to look up for you.
Three cheers for cookies and mood improvements!
DireSloth, Glad your cunning plan worked! And you get cookies! :-D
@freemage
The parallel I always found particularly nonsensical was telling women not to wear short skirts, etc. and comparing that to telling people not to show off cash or expensive possessions in a poor neighborhood in order to avoid the attention of muggers. You don’t even have to know that interviews with convicted rapists show that most of them have little to no recollection of what their victim was wearing to see what’s wrong with that analogy, yet people keep on using it even after having the difference explained to them. That’s how pervasive the notion that rapists are just regular guys who lose control of their urges is.
Also a terrible metaphor because if you didn’t flash the money around, they wouldn’t know you even had money, whereas they’re pretty sure you have a vag whether or not you show it off.
I don’t really like the notion that there are literally no useful rape prevention tips for women. I would say that if you look purely at effectiveness, there are a few classes of such advice:
1. advice that’s not useful at all
2. advice that prevents individuals from being targeted
3. advice that saves you after being targeted
Of course there is an important note that all such advice can play into the hands of victim blaming, so you really have to make a cost/benefit analysis.
In any case, looking at those three classes, #1 really has no positive benefits and is purely harmful.
#2 will be proper in some cases, prevention will sometimes only force rapists to pick their secondary target, but sometimes there won’t be one and then there will be less rape. Not all rape might be based purely on opportunity, but certainly some of it will. In those cases, reducing opportunities will be effective prevention.
#3 seems very useful, since it will also deter rapists from attacking women since it will increase the risk factor of getting caught. However, they can still change tactics. Using the example of self-defense training, maybe rapists will now start to carry weapons to more easily overpower victims, increasing violent rape. However, rapists are not some group that come together to theorize about how to best rape people and there really is a limit to how effectively they can adapt their tactics.
This can be generalized from advice to general anti-rape policy.
My main concern with this is that I followed some classes on Security in terms of it being an academic discipline and it’s easy to see rape as something that can be sought to be prevented with security policies. It’s common to see people handwave any advice away as ‘oh they can just change tactics’ or ‘they’ll just pick someone else’, but that’s sloppy thinking from an academic standpoint. And I think that if you leave this sort of thing to professionals with proper training that they can come up with policies that are well thought out in terms of cost vs benefit and that can reduce instances of rape.
I think one of the reasons that claiming that not drinking will reduce instances of rape is so offensive is that it really matters who is saying these things. If some politician claims this to be true then he’s giving inappropriate advice since he should rather address the culture that allows so many women to be raped and that makes them so fearful to trust authorities to follow up on it. It’s patronizing, but that’s also due to his position and the context of the situation. Women don’t need his advice, but I don’t think that means we should stop giving advice altogether. We still teach children about the dangers of alcohol and how it’s important to take alcohol in a safe environment and I don’t think anyone worries about how that’s dangerously patronizing and we should stop doing those things.
@katz
Exactly.
It’s an assumption that needs to die – especially when considering there’s plenty of men who, day in and day out, wouldn’t do such. I doubt most rapists became rapists just because of “urges”, it’s like saying murderers become murderers because people push them to the edge (rather than, y’know, considering the fact they’re either mentally unstable or just a sociopath).
I’m sick of how most of the rape prevention advice I hear puts all the responsibility on the person who was sexually assaulted, while never bothering to consider the perpetrator should bear even though…well, they’re the one who committed the act. Maybe if such advice admonished those who have a lax attitude towards rape and how they’d be punished for doing such – there might be less of it happening than expecting the victims to be on alert 24/7 (given they aren’t fucking psychic and can somehow predict when it will happen).
Every time I hear advice about how to dress, I want to smack the person who gave it and remind them rapists don’t care how their victim is dressed. Even if the victim was wearing thick clothing that covered them almost completely – that’s not going to prevent someone from attempting sexual assault. Same goes with drinking and ignoring the shitty behavior of men when it comes to their drunkenness. So, as far as I can tell, all the advice is “don’t dress up, have fun, or go outside – it’s your fault if you do and it happens…unless you’re a guy, then it’s totally fine. That’s not hypocritical, like, at all…”
I think the best rape prevention advice is “don’t rape people.” Period, full stop.
misery: The strongest rape-prevention advice out there is “Teach rapists that rape is wrong.” There’s a few ways to go about this.
1: Education campaigns, like the “Don’t be that guy” posters from awhile back. They actually seemed to reduce the number of cases where young people (mostly young men), confused about where the ‘consent’ line actually occurs, take a course of action that leads to becoming a rapist without ever actually thinking of themselves as such. It did this by teaching about consent, and by making sure that people understood, “If you aren’t sure if you have consent, you’re taking the chance of waking up and learning that you’re a rapist. Is it really worth it?”
2: Actual enforcement and penalties; supporting victims and pursuing offenders. If education is the carrot approach, this is the stick. Again, it targets the actual source of the problem.
Personal conduct tips to potential victims really don’t help. They might, in areas of universal compliance, lead to a short-term dip in the frequency of rapes, but every bit of evidence we have makes it pretty clear that that’s all it is–look at Islamic countries where all those tips are followed, not by choice, but by actual legal enforcement: prohibitions against being alone with a man, against ‘immodest’ dress, against intoxicants, enforced as a criminal matter against any woman who engages in that activity. And yet, somehow, Islamic nations are not rape-free paradises. Instead, they happen, and happen frequently.
One thing that can be targeted to potential victims is not prevention tips, but rather awareness campaigns about their right to not be assaulted. It’s sad that such a thing is still needed, but they are, and they can be very useful. A woman who has been taught clearly, “Getting drunk is not consent” will be more likely to report the morning after; if she’s in a culture that supports that basic notion, she’ll be more confident in being taken seriously and treated compassionately.
Yeah, I’m pretty jaded about those ‘rape prevention tips’ too. But that’s because I come from a family with child molesters, and because even though we followed those steps religiously, we STILL didn’t make it to adulthood unraped. The only way us or our family members could’ve avoided that rape was to have no familial or romantic relationships whatsoever… and most people would consider that, if not impossible, a miserable way to live.
Also, hey, katz and perchta! We Are The Revolution won the bonus sketch poll!
It’s still putting the onus on victims, not on changing the culture, on changing bystander behaviour, on changing the default acceptance of rape as just “something that happens if you’re not careful” like it was an avalanche or something.
Also I found the line “sloppy thinking from an academic standpoint” REALLY offensive. This isn’t some hypothetical or mind game or abstruse academic problem.It’s real people’s lives.
The only causal factor of rape is being unlucky enough to be in the presence of a rapist.
I think it a pretty standard way of thinking in the US that “you can’t do anything about a criminal’s actions.” You hear it all the time in gun legislation battles; if you make guns illegal, the only people who’ll have guns are criminals! Basically, it’s just a known fact that criminals will do what they do no matter what, and there is nothing you can do to change this.
I feel like something about this encourages people to act in a way so that, as long as they don’t get caught, they get rewarded for bad behavior…
“Rape prevention” tips aimed at women follow the same pattern. Rapists will do what they do; literally the only thing you can do is try to make sure they don’t do it to you (and cue the bad and misleading advice as well as the “welp, don’t go to parties or drink” stuff). But of course, rapists can be taught not to rape, because most rapes are the result of not know what rape is, or that rape is a permissable thing to do to get laid.
No it’s not. These kind of rape prevention suggestions happen in the context of reducing the number of rapes, yet if a rapist just picks another victim or changes tactics, the number of rapes isn’t reduced.
Yeah, I uh really don’t give a fuck how “academic” it sounds or not. In addition to putting the onus on the victim, none of the advice actually works all the time, and you have no way of knowing which advice is going to work and when.
I could dye my hair blonde tomorrow and it might keep me safe from rapists who specifically fetishize brunettes. On the other hand, it won’t save me from one who doesn’t care, and might make me the victim of one who prefers blondes. I could stay in my apartment tomorrow and be safe from any rapist who selects victims on the street or at the coffee shop, but I’ll be screwed if there’s a rapist around who’s good at breaking into apartments and chooses mine.
Fact of the matter is, none of these scenarios happen often enough for me to change my behaviour to avoid them. But because sexual assault can come in many different scenarios, I have been sexually assaulted multiple times in my life. I can’t exactly have been not a child incapable of protecting herself. I’m not a mind-reader, so I couldn’t have known one of my friends was going to assault me. I suppose I could have not gone to my best friend’s party, but that would have been shitty since I had no prior reason not to. I could have not used public transport, too, but then I couldn’t get to work.
You can call it not academic, you can say we handwave “advice” off, but in the lived experiences of a lot of us, this shit just doesn’t work. As others have said, it just redirects.
This. So-called rape prevention tips are largely focussed on stranger rape. They don’t help one iota in dealing with intimates, friends, colleagues, relatives … the ones who commit most rapes.They don’t even acknowledge that an aggressor has the immediate advantage because of the victim’s shock and fear, or the aggressor’s likely greater social position and capital, the unlikelihood of the victim being believed … yeah, these “tips” are bullshit.
But it’s MISANDRY to tell a man how not to rape, because it assumes all men are idiots. Obviously, rapists are a subspecies, and “normal” men never rape because they all know what rape is, duh, and they all know it’s bad, always and in any context.
Or so the very offended men and boys at university said, when a feminist group had a discussion about the success of the “don’t be that guy” campaign.
The same men and boys of campus who responded to a poll about sexual assault which indicated pretty strongly that many of them, as well as women and girls, really don’t know what constitutes rape/sexual assault. Urgh.
Yeah, there’s certain subjects where the “academic standpoint” isn’t valid. Especially when it deals purely with hypotheticals that don’t necessarily reflect real-life incidences, which has a drastic effect on a person. I’ve certainly seen people argue from an “academic standpoint” why torturing another human being is okay or why getting rid of minimum wage is a good idea – that doesn’t take away the fact they’re degrading the very real outcome for many people for the sake of a rhetorical game.
I don’t want to sound anti-intellectual, but there’s some shit you just can’t be utterly dispassionate and distant about. Being told I need to be “polite” in a discussion with someone who plays “Devil’s Advocate” for shits and giggles doesn’t hold any water to me, particular when the other person is justifying horrible things. Being civil to uncivil ideas just enables the people who hold those ideals to push them onto others – and that shouldn’t happen when it is that detrimental to our thinking as a society.
QFT, amen, rock the fuck on with your bad self.
QFFT
hellkell – awww. ;)
Most of this is nonresponsive to what misery is saying. The plain fact is there certainly is a “best” way to resist an ongoing physical attack, just as there is a “best” way to deal with a stalker, etc. This is true whether you’re talking about a sexual assault or just vanilla assault.
Training yourself to deal with pressure situations can result in clear thinking and good strategic choices in those situations. That’s a good thing, and in fact you don’t even need to have the OPTIMAL tactical response; any plan is better than no plan. Now, the best any strategy can do is improve your statistical outcomes. Nothing is going to work every time, and yes, almost any strategy has a cost. Anything can happen in a fight. But there are strategies that have MUCH better outcomes than others, and people ought to know what those are. There have been good studies done on it and the findings are interesting (and indeed, the emotionally satisfying “kick him in the balls and then run” scores pretty well in a lot of situations.)
Unfortunately we usually only talk about this in the context to telling women it’s their fault if they get raped, which tarnishes the whole subject. But misery explicitly acknowledged that problem and is trying to make a valid point despite it.
Anti-intellectualism has its place and is a fine tradition, particularly in American thought. But it is not anti-intellectual to say “there cannot be dispassionate analysis of boop-de-boop thing because I have big feelings about it.” It’s pure emotionalism, which is a silly way to approach any serious problem.
Since when?
Anonymous Guy, saying ” The plain fact is there certainly is a “best” way to resist an ongoing physical attack, just as there is a “best” way to deal with a stalker, etc. This is true whether you’re talking about a sexual assault or just vanilla assault” seems to assume that stalkers, rapists and attackers in general are a monolithic entity. What works against one person, or one situation, might well escalate it in another. What one targeted person is capable of doing, emotionally or physically, is not the same for everyone.
And calling anger and compassion for actual rape victims “pure emotionalism” is an asshole move. It’s exactly what’s trotted out by every fucking rape apologist who wants to play Devil’s Advocate and tell rape survivors they’re just being too angry and they’re offputting to guys who’d totally be on their side if they weren’t being so nasty!
Don’t put yourself in their camp, please.
Academic standpoint eh? Let’s see, in no particular order:
– not acting like rape reports are more likely to be false than reports of other crimes
– not assuming that if the victim doesn’t behave like X then it’s not real because not traumatized enough // too upset, must be faking // etc
– not acting like “boys will be boys”
– things like “don’t be that guy” — teach wtf consent is and that if you aren’t sure you have it, stop and make sure you do, or just plain stop
– teach cops proper interview techniques, as they aren’t the same for all crimes (pecunium’s got a decent article on that one, I can probably find it if you want, short version is that open ended questions will get more useful info)
– as a society, not allowing questions like “what was she wearing?” to be common place
– not acting like this is why WOMEN need to learn self-defense — either it’s good to know, full stop, or it isn’t; not it’s good for women to know in case of rape
– dropping the notion that rapists are some sort of slavering beasts with signs on their foreheads
– changing rape laws so things like withdraw of consent are rape, and removing ones saying that the rapist had to get the victim drunk // impaired with intent to rape for it to be rape (I’m looking at you CT)
I’d continue, but dinner’s ready.
Ooops, blockquote monster.
Oh and kick him in the balls? What if he’s one of those guys who doesn’t find that painful immediately, if at all?
saintnick86 re: aced amid debate on torture — ask pecunium sometime if you want the academic counter to those people, because there are solid ones (and, the one you’re eluding to is the simple “be ause the Geneva convention forbids it”)
Uh, dude, as someone who’s tried the “kick him in the balls and then run” approach, guys expect that. You rarely actually hit home. So what exactly would this “best” way to resist sexual assault be? Also, if you’re resisting an attack, there’s no prevention because it’s already happening.
princessbonbon — oh this is one of those times I wish going all scarlet letter wouldn’t result in it getting slippery slope. And, well, they’ve done their time.
But add “make rape sentences not a joke” to my list.
Oh and “acknowledge that sometimes not resisting is safer than resisting, and that’s entirely the victim’s call to make”
They can have lifetime probation and it is a requirement of their probation that they have it marked on their forehead. But I agree, too open to abuse.
Plus there’s the little problem that not everyone is able to kick their attacker in the balls. I know I couldn’t, these days. (I’d rather get ‘em with a flamethrower, but I don’t generally have one handy.)
Furthermore, if we want to talk academics, Henry Groth listed three types of rapists. That’s simplistic in itself, but even to assume there are only three kinds of rapists that don’t overlap, it still means that your method of resistance has to be different for each one, and you wouldn’t know which kind of rapist you had until you were already about to be or already being raped.
And as I said before – which most people here know, but some seem to need reminding – the overwhelming majority of rapes are acquaintance rapes.
[TW rape content]
.
What good are these “tips” when you’re attacked by a family member? Or a lover, a spouse, a friend, a colleague, a boss? What good are they when you’re attacked by the fucking police answering a call? What good are they when you’re a child, or physically unable to fight, or simply too terrified to do so, or have a gun or knife to your head, or the threat of further violence in an abusive relationship?
Yeah, fuck off with the whole “These tips are totes good and will work!” bullshit. They may be well intentioned but they’re just adding to the steaming pile of victim blaming.
Take it away from sexual assault for a moment. I personally have never been sexually assaulted AFAIK, so let’s just talk about plain old assault.
I have, however, been assaulted a few times, both by acquaintances and by strangers. Now, let’s say that I decided that my strategy for protecting myself from a future assault would be to get a concealed carry permit and start carrying a firearm.
Well, there’s a good bit of data to suggest that is not a good idea because it’s going to increase the chances that I will be shot to death, and only very marginally affect the likelihood that I’ll be assaulted again, if at all.
Is there some reason you can think of that someone shouldn’t inform me of that information? And yes, it is “the victim’s call” as to whether to pursue that strategy or some other strategy. But I can’t think of any good reason I shouldn’t be told of the available information that I should not arm myself if my intention is to increase my physical safety, because it is known with some certainly that doesn’t work.
I’m not implying (yet) any connection with the original assertion that misery made, but I wonder, can we agree so far?
RE: AnonymousGuy
Training yourself to deal with pressure situations can result in clear thinking and good strategic choices in those situations.
Cool story, bro, but I was a child. So was my mother. And my uncle. And I’m willing to bet ditto with my aunts. And they all happened with people we were SUPPOSED to trust, which happens a whole lot.
We were nine, sixteen. How exactly were we supposed to “train ourselves to deal with pressure situations”? And even if I DID train myself to deal with that… these rapists were our fathers, our boyfriends. You know, the people you’re supposed to trust. Even with training, I don’t know that I could instantly, immediately realize that they’re violating my boundaries, shove them off, and run. (And if they get violent? What then? Because my mom’s rapist was her stepdad AND A MARINE.)
Dude, you’re just trotting out the same old shit I see over and over. Tell me, what would’ve been the “best” way we could’ve dealt with our rapes? You sure seem sure of yourself. When’s the last time YOU trained yourself to fight rape from your parents or your lovers? And how did you do it? I’d like to take notes.
And carrying a gun is pertinent to the matter of acquaintance rape how?
Also, what kittehserf said. Not everyone can lift a leg high enough to kick an attacker in the balls. And, of course, even if you can, what if you’re attacked while you’re asleep or otherwise incapacitated? How about if it’s a trusted friend or family member? These “prevention” and “resistance” tips only ever seem to apply to stranger rapes and *some* date rapes. People keep pointing that out, and I really don’t like how it’s just brushed under the rug by those who insist the tips work.
RE: AnonGuy
I personally have never been sexually assaulted AFAIK,
I AM SO SHOCKED BY THIS NEWS
NO REALLY I AM SHOCKED I NEVER COULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TELL
Seriously dude, from one man to another, shut up. Just shut the fuck up.
But there is an actual field called “Security” and they have useful things to say about this. I’m not an expert by any means, but I do think that some of the reactions here are purely anti-intellectualism.
You can agree that victim blaming is evil, that feminism is great etc. and I agree to all of those things and I’m not suggesting otherwise, but once you start saying purely false statements like “rape prevention advice just has rapists redirect targets” please don’t call me the bad guy for pointing that out.
I’m not playing devil’s advocate, by the way. I’m espousing a sincerely held position in good faith. I am 100% opposed to sexual violence, place 100% of the blame on the rapist, and believe quite strongly that the correct public policy response to rape should focus disproportionately (perhaps even exclusively) on altering the behavior of perpetrators, and not targets, of sexual assault and rape.
I believe that women should be able to play by the same rules as men, which means they should be able to go out alone to anyplace they like and do whatever they like without fear that someone will assault them. I believe this is a fundamental human right. I am one of you.
I just happen to have a different opinion than most of you on the specific question of whether it can be useful to investigate assault resistance strategies.
@Alex – it works out conveniently for the acquaintance rapists, doesn’t it? Focus all the attention on the Stranger In The Bushes and whether or not a woman should carry a gun (an issue not relevant to every society – yes, shock, not everywhere is the USA) and all the other “how not to” tips, and totally ignore where most of the danger lies.
So much this.
misery – disagreeing with you and being angry at the implications of all this shit (especially when it’s framed as some sort of academic exercise) =/= anti-intellectualism.
For that matter, I’m pretty damned contemptuous of it being framed as an intellectual/anti-intellectual matter at all.
Which is a strange view in any case, but a particularly strange one for the conservatives who make that argument, since they also love talking about crime waves and the need to crack down on them as a racist dogwhistle.
@kittehserf, Proud non-gun-owning Canadian right here. And how many people would pull a gun on a friend, family member, or even an acquaintance? Yep, so again, only applies to stranger rapes.
If you need to say this, you have already failed. Of course you already failed by being a total asshole here:
Sorry, one of us wouldn’t say people were silly for having feelings about rape.
@kittehserf, you’re out of luck. Like I said, Security is an academic field and hence it’s also an intellectual matter, but I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. I don’t see why it should be acceptable to say something that’s false just because it supports a good cause.
misery, I don’t actually give a flying fuck about Security and whether or not it’s an academic field. You’re reducing real people’s lives and the horrific things done to them by rapists to some sort of mental exercise with all these posts, and by declaring people disagreeing with you are “anti intellectual” you are belittling them. Have you actually read any of the points about how irrelevant and actively harmful so many of these “self help tips for not getting raped” are in real life?
Okay, misery. Show us statistics, then. Please tell what these magical tips are that statistically work to successfully prevent and/or resist sexual assault. Because from what I’ve read on the subject? None of them work except in individual cases, you know, anecdotes.
“And carrying a gun is pertinent to the matter of acquaintance rape how?”
Pecunium and I could probably discuss both until we ended up on a tangent?
It isn’t in other words.
Since we’re relating anecdotes, here’s mine. I was walking back from a friend’s house at about 1 a.m. It’s wasn’t the proverbial “bad part of town” but it wasn’t, you know, a nice part of town. It was just a normal street in a normal mid-sized American city. As it happens I like to walk around in urban areas after dark and normally it’s not a problem.
However, this particular night I was walking along a sidewalk in front of a city middle school. There were no streetlights on that side of the street and it was quite dark. Suddenly I saw two very large (6’5″+) men walking shoulder to shoulder toward me. There was something strange about them but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought about crossing over to the other side of the street, but I felt silly, and I was pretty close to them and I felt it would be obvious I was afraid of them, so I continued.
As I passed them they split so I could walk between them, but strangely one of them turned slightly and put his finger into the air. It was extremely weird and offputting. I quickly crossed to the lit side of the street. There was a smallish man there sitting on his porch with a cigarette in his mouth. He asked me for a light, and I was relieved to have someone to interact with. I pulled out a book of matches. Then another man walked up and said he needed a light too, and I knew I was in trouble. Not knowing what to do, I struck the match. As I touched it to guy #2’s cigarette, I sensed two people come up behind me, and guy #1 punched me in the left side of my jaw.
At that point the two men behind me grabbed me and two to four other men started punching me all over my body. I panicked and lunged through the line of parked cars into the street, and we all fell over into the street as traffic, thank god, screeched to a halt, and REALLY thank god, one of the cars’ doors opened and two cops popped out. My attackers scattered.
So that’s obviously a weird situation, and it’s quite possible there’s nothing I could have done about any of it. But I have thought quite a bit about it, and I believe (maybe I’m wrong, but I believe it) that thinking has helped me in other situations.
Now, I’m a dude, so in the aftermath of this attack exactly ZERO people ever implied that the attack was my fault, that I should have done something differently, that I shouldn’t walk around by myself at night, etc. And that’s as it should be. No one should tell a victim of crime what they should have done differently.
But I, as a victim of assault, do in fact have a right to ask “is there some optimal response to such a situation?” Because it’s a situation I might encounter again. There’s no crime in asking the question. It’s a valid one, even if it upsets you to ask it.
Misery, take out “rape” and replace it with “drunk driving.” Then tell us all how we can make ourselves less attractive targets to drunk drivers.
@Misery:
Your suggestions (for instance, having some academic group brainstorm lists of tips for women to follow to prevent rape) are only valid or appropriate when there is literally nothing else to be done, when there is no recourse that can be taken to reduce the incidence of rape. Only when there is no way to reduce the number of criminals or crimes committed does it become acceptable to posit ways for victims to try to protect themselves.
In short, giving tips and putting the onus on the victim is a sign of having given up.
We aren’t even close to there yet. Teaching people what rape actually is, combatting rape culture in all its forms, these are the things that need to be done now. This is why your suggestions are wrong and insulting.
Argenti – exactly. Like Alex said, who, even in countries where gun ownership seems to be ubiquitous, goes armed when they’re at home?
“Security is an academic field”
Trufax, it’s also a field my favorite commenter has experience in (sorry guys!) — he’s been emailed, but idk if pecunium’s actually around to comment on said academic field.
Victims of assault and rape ask this of themselves all the time. It’s a natural response; “What could I have done differently, how should I protect myself in the future?” There is a world of difference between a victim asking the question and other people demanding that victims act a certain way.
You claim that “many of these self help tips are irrelevant and actively harmful.” I agree, that’s why I said that you can evaluate them using academic concepts from the Security field. I don’t see the controversy. I say it’s anti-intellectual because people are actually offended when I point out purely false statements.
There is an initiative called RapeResistance.org that is really good that focuses I would say at least 90% of its information on ending rape culture, teaching men not to rape, empowering survivors, etc. You can check it out for yourself.
They link to this paper which is very good and which makes many of the points I think misery and I are driving at, perhaps hamhandedly. It’s worth reading, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions.
http://www.raperesistance.org/research/Teaching_womens_resistance.pdf
AnonymousGuy, if you want to search for the “optimal response”, be my guest. Doesn’t mean you get to tell people, who survived a different crime than you did, that we should listen to people like misery who think it’s cool to play with people’s lived experiences.