You might not think that student orientation events would be an appropriate venue for chants celebrating the rape of underage girls. But such chants have apparently been something of a tradition at not one but two Canadian schools — and possibly more? Last week, a scandal erupted at the University of British Columbia after word got out that an orientation event at its Saunder School of Business had included a chant on this particular theme, led by orientation leaders from the Commerce Undergraduate Society.
According to one woman who disgustedly live-tweeted the event, it went something like this:
Y-O-U-N-G at UBC, we like ’em young, Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for go to jail.
Meanwhile, in Halifax, someone made a video — and posted it to YouTube — of student orientation leaders at Saint Mary’s University chanting a nearly identical chant.
Naturally, noted, er, human rights activist Paul Elam of A Voice for Men felt compelled to weigh in on the issue. He started off by expressing his deep disgust … with having to hear anything about the issue at all:
I swear if I read one more outraged “report” — aka feverish, paranoid rant — that twists something stupid into “evidence” of a “rape culture,” I am going to just lose it.
Yes, how outrageous that a chant joking about raping underage girls at an official school orientation event could possibly be construed as contributing in any way to rape culture! So sorry that your delicate sensitivities were offended, Paul.
After some more predictable histrionics on this “hyper-hipster-hysteria” from Mr. Elam, he got to his main point: blaming feminists for the rape chants.
No, really.
I am an older guy. I find it interesting, given that I came from a more “patriarchal” generation, that something like this when I was 18 would have been unthinkable. Why? Because other men, especially older ones, would have pulled those young people aside and said, “Hey, we don’t do that around here.” That would have been that, as they say, if it had even happened in the first place.
We can thank feminists for this. Through policy and governance they have eroded positive male role models, and male authority, right out of the culture. After feminist undermining of the family, removing fathers from the lives of children and demonizing male heroes, we have a population of young people, especially young men, growing more socially feral with each new generation.
And now what do we see? Feminists running around everywhere telling men they need to tell each other, “Don’t rape. Don’t abuse women. Don’t this. Don’t that.” …
You can’t assault the identity of half the human race, marginalize and disempower them, which is exactly what feminism has done, and expect anything in return but what you are getting.
In other words: You gals asked for it.
Paul Elam, you are rape culture.
And there’s something wrong with feeling like they were part of rock history, if any of them actually felt the way you thought they might?
Has it occurred to you that there might have been people there who’d followed LZ for ages, who might have had no other chance to see them, and were incredibly excited just for that reason? Plus, going back to what CassandraSaid: it’s a hard rock concert, it is NOT going to be like a classical concert! You already know this, so why harp on rock fans acting like rock fans?
@Cassandra – ha, Mr C with concerts sounds like me with historical-dress films or series. I avoid ’em for the most part, because I’m more likely to be appalled than pleased by the costuming.
I kind of love the idea of mark standing there all frowny because the rest of the audience are doing concert-going wrong and how dare they, and then wanting to give them a cookie because finally they’re doing things right for a moment!
(He knows this because telepathy.)
@ Kittehs
It’s just so funny, because he’s standing there all “this isn’t how it sounded on the record, right here there should be a…” and I’m going “honey, the only way to make it sound exactly the same is through excessive use of playback, and trust me, you don’t want that”.
markb — you are familiar with the first rule of holes right?
“I was annoyed because I had come there to hear the band, not the audience.”
That one I will half grant, in that it’s one thing I love about Emilie Autumn shows, besides the screaming when they first come on stage, and interactive bits, it is quiet. I mean, I have a live track that you can only tell is live because somebody sneezed.
Cassandra — is she the super nice person I’ve heard she is? Any of y’all over there meet her?
He should go see EA, Maggots will be happy to throw a baked good at him.
I would be kind of disappointed if I went to a live show that sounded exactly like the recorded version. What’s the point? (Not that Mr. C isn’t allowed to feel that way or anything!) I remember seeing a show by a musician who used a bunch of prerecorded tracks, and someone had brought a tiny child’s toy piano so he got that miked up and then improvised a little tune over the prerecorded tracks, and it was the most charming moment of the entire show even though it sounded nothing like the original.
I don’t get it either, and he’s such a grouch about it. I usually make a shaking-the-cane gesture at him and make jokes about wanting the kids to get off his lawn (he complains about shows being too crowded too). Also we have a couple of venues here where the acoustics are awful so shows always sound a bit weird.
(That one annoys me too, but it’s not the band’s fault.)
Oh and EA sounds better live, I need a few weeks after her shows before I can listen to her records and not miss the emotion poured into her shows.
/plugging Emilie Autumn, but really, go listen! Start with Fight Like A Girl, then Opheliac
Thing is, some albums you literally can’t reproduce live without a shit-ton of backing tapes. It’s those ones where my eyes start rolling at the “but why doesn’t it sound like the record” stuff.
Argenti – point taken. Listening to Emilie Autumn now. Cool!
Oh my, Mr C should take a real cane with him so he can shake it at the stage. “You kids aren’t playing it right!” I’m half thinking of him wanting to know why Mike Oldfield never did Tubular Bells live. 😛
I had another reason (apart from noise levels and expense) for not going to Mr S’s concerts out here: he’s 63 and he simply can’t belt out the songs like he could thirty years ago, however fit he is. I know there are too many drawbacks (for me) to make up for the pleasure of seeing The Boss aka The Photo Donor live, so I don’t go … it isn’t that complicated. 🙂
RE: daboys1215
Third I was talking about the garbage that feminism was, is and always will be
Nah. I like being able to vote, own property, and press charges against my rapist. I believe women should be able to do that.
This story (and the lack of guidance) is one of those things that feminism is responsible for.
No, the assholes who CREATED that slogan is responsible for it. You say I don’t read, but you’re the one saying this shit, buddy.
RE: concerts
I generally don’t go, because I’m sensitive to crowds and loud noises, which pretty much mean no concerts for me. I got to see Jason Webley at a quiet little venue once, and that was a BLAST, though. I have a big stack of Bruce Springsteen’s live performances, and I love those, but I doubt I would’ve enjoyed actually BEING at those performances.
Exactly. There are some shows I won’t go to because I just don’t want to deal with how violent I know the pit will be. If 95% of the audience want the show to go a certain way, and I know I don’t like that kind of show, it makes more sense for me to skip it than to go and spent the whole time shaking my head disapprovingly at everyone else.
So Mark, I’m asking this honestly: Why would you say a statement like this? I don’t know how you intended it, but it really sounds like “I have a massive superiority complex but no actual taste.” Which may well be true, but isn’t really the sort of thing that most people would announce publicly.
Regarding concerts, I’m iffy about them because the first one I went to ended up with me accidentally getting stuck in a mosh pit while I was in a very drunk state. The following morning I had large bruises on my body. Granted, it was a punk rock concert, but because of that experience I’m not comfortable with concerts.
Nope, not implicitly victim-blaming at all.
To clarify for anyone just coming in now, it was the fact that mark’s earlier comments appeared to be conflating groupies, women who happen to be really into music, and 10 year old girls with crushes on pop stars that sent me into go-for-the-throat mode.
Also, for bonus beyond-feminism-101 points, if women who’re specifically after sex and/or eye candy are more interested in musicians who’re really good looking or charismatic than musicians who’re technical geniuses, why is that a bad thing? Try to explain without invoking any double standards or weird sexist ideas that are a more polite way of saying “gina tingles, ew”, I dare you.
You know what else about this is very rape culture-y? The underlying notion that abusive things don’t happen because people decide to do them, but because other people don’t do enough to stop them.
Wow, just read this poetry:
“Like you said, men used to do just what feminists seem to want yet their movement is what destroyed it to begin with. As usual, feminists cannot accept accountability for their pathetic nonsense. Feminists, You reap what you sow.”
The person who posted this is a 13-year-old shit lord, right? Fourteen tops. Also has never passed an actual history class or read any actual feminist texts. Have some milk and go to bed, sonny. Dream of a world where all women died in some kind of apocalypse.
Ally, some concerts are very quiet. We’ve sat in on classical performances by local music students and such, and no bruising occurred there! And that Jason Webley concert was a lovely mix of audience participation without ever being too overstimulating for me. (There was probably about sixty people there, tops?)
Also, coming from a marching band background, I never quite understood the ‘music for the girls’ viewpoint. But then again, we marched around in circles on a parking lot in the heat of Texas summer, wearing silly hats and wooly uniforms. We were NOT known as the sex fiends of the high school.
Shiraz – he’s probably rageventing into his computer because his mom just sent him to bed without his dinner.
RE: Ally S
Victim blaming? I’m blaming feminists for being responsible for the complete lack of guidance these types of young men have. Accept accountability for your actions. i know feminists won’t since you aren’t capable of being a responsible adult but it’s a nice thought.
RE: LBT
The suffragettes (not feminists) lobbied for the right to vote. men (namely congress, if you live in the US) gave it to them.
Women have ALWAYS owned property. They even owned slaves. Your complete lack of knowledge of history is very telling of a movement knee deep in their own victimhood.
You don’t know how to read. Feminists usually don’t. Your mental capacity is less than that of a 5 year old. What Elam said and what I said is that because of feminism there is no one to guide them away from that. No parental guidance at all. That is the fault of feminists when they removed fathers from their children’s lives. Now you are paying the price for it.
Katz – because I like to poke fun at myself. Probably some kind of defense mechanism. And it’s not so much that I have a massive superiority complex as that I tend to focus on things that annoy me, which is actually starting to bother me since I’ve become aware of it (but habits are hard to break, especially mental ones).
RE: Shiraz
Oh lovely. Another feminist who can’t read.
Let’s see, concerts I’ve been to …
An early music group whose name I forget. Much laughage, especially when the audience did the medieval version of a conga line.
The Seekers’ reunion/farewell #268953. Also much laughage from a much older audience, such as when they did a medley of songs that weren’t theirs but people always thought were.
Loreena McKennitt – not that noisy, it was in the Concert Hall, which isn’t exactly your mosh pit venue.
The Chieftains – lots of clapping and a bit of whistling now and then. Like the Seekers, it was at the Palais, which isn’t built for lots of cavorting.
Not one of ’em was dead quiet, though.
markb – changing thought patterns can be a challenge, for sure. I went through months of cognitive behavioural therapy recently to work on that sort of thing (it was at stress/anxiety level).
Kitteh, apt visual. I approve. 🙂
The only concerts I’ve ever been to have been Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s. Now, they are VERY excellent concerts, you should probably go to at least one within your lifetime, but here’s the thing: They rarely, if ever, actually play their instruments, and it’s pretty obvious. They’re mostly a show-y band. They’ve got one of the best light systems I’ve ever seen, and their music is quite good. There’s no moshing in the audience, since it has pretty much all ages, from children to really old people.
Shiraz – I couldn’t have done it without you! 🙂
Scariest show was definitely Pantera, but it was my own fault for jumping into the pit. Funniest was the Metallica show where some guys picked me up and lifted me overhead for some impromptu crowd surfing. At first I was all HOLYSHITPUTMEDOWN, and then I realized the crowd was friendly and wasn’t going to drop me and I was all “this is actually kind of fun”.
And then on the other extreme we have the Interpol show where both band and audience just stood there like they were in a church, all quiet contemplation. I fell asleep leaning on Mr C’s shoulder for at least 3 songs, it was that boring.
Cassandra — two words: Justin Beiber. Two more: boy bands.
Granted, I don’t actually care other than regretting my taste in music ten-fifteen years ago (yes I’m of the Backstreet Boys generation, and then I went all Goo Goo Dolls and got progressively less shitty from there…and now anyone recognizing what I listen to makes me go YOU TOO?!? YOU ROCK!! [note the difference between this and the gamer thread…])
I never got the jitters at a concert. Though, this one time, at a Ministry concert, I got too close to the mosh pit and some dude accidentally rammed his elbow into my ear. He apologized — profusely. Shit happens.
RE: CassandraSays
Oh man, I could NEVER crowdsurf! So many people… touching me… *shudder*
RE: Kittehs
Woo, Chieftains!
kittehserf – I hope it’s helped. I’ve recently formed this theory that we form habits, even bad ones, because we have an instinctive need for predictability, and if we don’t find it in the outside world, we create it for ourselves. I suggested to my psychiatrist friend that this forms the basis for OCD, but she reacted with skepticism, so I’m probably wrong.
Concerts I’ve been to: Billy Joel (conclusive proof that I’m not a music snob), the Plant / Page one mentioned, Bruce Cockburn (beautiful! At the Orpheum theater in Boston, a place built for acoustics), David Byrne (ten-piece band with horn section in a tiny lecture hall for some reason. Not so good) and also the Chieftains. The audience at Symphony Hall was notably more sedate than the one at the Led Zep concert, despite its being St. Patrick’s Day. Then there was They Might Be Giants in Providence.
Yeah, one time I went to a black metal concert, and since I was not drunk (although I was high as a kite) and since I was away from the crowd, it was pretty nice. Granted, it wasn’t a quiet concert at all,
Also, during that same concert, there was a female black metal vocalist, and she was awesome. Her vocals were excellent as far as black metal is concerned. I felt bad for her, though, because she sounded like she was trying very hard to appeal to the male crowd because she knew she wouldn’t be taken as seriously as a male black metal vocalist by a lot of the guys there.
@me
“Granted, it wasn’t a quiet concert at all, but it was definitely peaceful.”
Fixed the sentence in my previous comment.
@ LBT
My initial panic was partly that we were visiting friends in a town with a naval base, so I got to the show and realized most of the crowd were young navy guys, and I was a 16 year old girl, by myself. So when two random guys picked me up I was really not happy about it. I calmed down once I realized they didn’t mean any harm, but I’ll admit that there was a moment of who the fuck are you and why are you touching me there.
@Ally: Wow, the female vocalist wasn’t taken as seriously? Was her act a part of a festival or were they opening for someone else? You’d think that if the audience paid to see a show, they wouldn’t mind a female vocalist.
Guess I’m just too naive.
@Argenti, if we’re doing musical confessions: My first record album (yes, I am that old) was this.
But honestly, most of the bands I like (symphonic, folk, and power metal), when they play in America, usually just play in a basement with 100-150 people at most there. Meanwhile, in Europe, they play for huge festivals with at least thousands of people. Further confirmation that my musical tastes are in the wrong nation.
@cloudiah: There could be worse. My sister’s first album was a Justin Bieber album. My dad’s first album was from KISS, whom he now hates.
This was mine:
Don’t ask.
She was opening for someone else, actually, but I still had this feeling that she wasn’t taken as seriously as everyone else.
My first three (bought at the same time because tapes were $1 each in Saudi) were Iron Maiden (Number of the Beast), The Police (Synchronicity), and Def Leppard (Pyromania).
Before the mockery for my buying a Def Leppard album commences (yeah, I know) I must point out that I was 9 years old at the time.
RE: CassandraSays
I don’t blame you. I’d be pretty alarmed myself, and I really don’t like people picking me up.
RE: Ally S
Yeah, I just can’t handle the usually requisite loud noise. One of my ears doesn’t function, but it tries anyway, so loud enough sounds, especially in bass, cause my ear to VIBRATE. It’s not painful, but really uncomfortable.
LBT – the Chieftains’ concert was great! They had a couple of dancers from the US, doing Irish-derived dance (can’t recall whereabouts they were from; mountain country, I think, though that’s still a pretty broad area). Anyway the dancers were terrific too.
markb – thank you, yes, it has. Part of what helped me with dealing with anxiety and focussing on triggers (ironically enough for this conversation, music) was learning the simple physical side of it – adrenaline, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous symptoms, and how our brains form patterns seeing something as a threat even when it isn’t. It builds up the sensitivity to the trigger, which was what your comment about focussing on things that annoy you brought to mind. I also saw a mention the other day (didn’t follow the link, unfortunately) about how our brains privilege bad memories over good ones, which probably ties in, too.
First albums?
Crumbs … probably either The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Rick Wakeman) or A New World Record (ELO).
I’m not counting Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse in “Dr Oh No!” ‘cos Mum paid for that.
“I also saw a mention the other day (didn’t follow the link, unfortunately) about how our brains privilege bad memories over good ones, which probably ties in, too.”
I saw an article about that on cracked.com. It did make me feel like less of a freak.
Anything but a freak – I think it’s pretty common.
Before I bought my first album, I used to have sleepovers with my best friend, Darci (with a heart over the “i” naturally), and we’d fall asleep listening to Pieces of Eight by Styx.
These confessions have been good for my soul. 😀