The SlutWalks have not just driven many MRAs to distraction; they’ve also driven one of the bloggers at the Gates of Vienna to set aside her usual Islam-bashing for a few moments to take on the awful bullies marching in the SlutWalks. Yes, bullies, for how else can we describe young women who go out of their way to highlight their foul sexiness whilst denying their bodies to the helpless males who happen to catch sight of them?
According to the blogger who calls herself Dymphna:
Women who walk around in slutty clothing in order to “voice” their opinion about male sexual aggression are indeed acting out a hugely immature power trip. … Call it for what it is. Strutting your stuff and daring anyone to stop you isn’t real freedom. It’s a sneaking, sadistic bully-girl game.
So evil is the behavior of these slutbullies that if any man decides, upon catching sight of one of them, to grope or otherwise assault her, well, she’s at least as much to blame as the dude who lays his hands on her.
If the act of strutting your stuff results in an equal reaction, a girl must take at least half the responsibility for whatever transpires as a result.
Dymphna seems to mean this quite literally, suggesting that a slut who gets assaulted should be charged
as an accessory before the fact — i.e., if some dolt grabs her, then at the very least she is his partner in crime. And the offense in which they both participate is a serious transgression against civil order. Sadistic provocation is a breach of the peace.
Ironically, Dymphna the blogger has apparently named herself after Saint Dymphna, a 7th century Irishwoman who, legend has it, was murdered by her father after she refused to marry him.
In the light of Dymphna the blogger’s airtight logic, we have to wonder if Saint Dymphna was wearing something really, really slutty. I mean, what else could have inspired her father’s foul desires?
Actually, it doesn’t matter what Saint Dymphna was wearing, specifically–if she sadistically manipulated her father into a lustful rage (it’s unclear what benefit this gave to her, but perhaps it was just funny or something), then we know her clothing, whatever it was, was too slutty.
That’s the wonderful thing about “slutty”–it’s judged post facto, by the “effects.”
Oh, this shit again. Cue the mewling of our resident MRAs about steak and car theft.
I love the concept of “slutty” clothing. In my experience, the biggest sluts tend to dress in blue jeans and T-shirts.
OHMIGOD YOU ARE WEARING A STAR WARS SHIRT YOU ARE JUST ASKING TO BE RAPED
“as an accessory before the fact — i.e., if some dolt grabs her, then at the very least she is his partner in crime. And the offense in which they both participate is a serious transgression against civil order. Sadistic provocation is a breach of the peace.”
Actually, provocation is never a crime. In fact, provocation doesn’t even provide a defense to assault charges. The most provocation can do is remove your right to a self defense claim. So no, this is still stupid, even if we accept the premises as accurate.
Also this isn’t Britain; we don’t actually have amazingly permissive Breach of the Peace laws.
I’m skeptical that the sight of half-clad bosoms and bare thighs turns the average heterosexual man raving mad. In a world permeated with pornography, where anyone who wants to can look at much more explicit stuff all day long, I don’t think slutwalkers are causing temptation so much as anger. Women aren’t supposed to object to objectification. The times I’ve had some angry or pervy man grab me on the street, his action hasn’t seemed to have any relation to how I am dressed. One time I was wearing khaki pants and a hoodie, deliberately dressed to avoid attention. I get filthy or just forward comments when wearing ladylike dresses. So, while slutwalkers are stating that scanty clothes are not an excuse for assault, I would go further and say they are rarely the reason for assault either.
Maybe I’d believe that nonsense about sexy clothes contributing to assault and harassment, if I hadn’t had the same experiences in any sort of clothing.
This is the problem with getting off on outrage and indignation. One starts to see every instance where zhe could take offense as an opportunity. To me, it sounds like Dymphna wants to get groped on the bus, not because she likes getting groped, but because it would give her an excuse to berate someone. Instead she has to settle for taking offense at the people clever enough to come up with the idea before she did.
From what she tells us, she can’t imagine any other reason for people to do a slutwalk.
I get filthy or just forward comments when wearing ladylike dresses.
congratulations. you may have met dkm irl.
The misogynists who object to slutwalks are trying, I know, to put their finger on something and don’t quite know what it is. How do you define a slut, as in, a woman who deserves to get catcalled, insulted, groped and possibly raped? I’ve been in some places in the world where wearing “nice Church-going girl” garb is actually a sure way to invite that kind of male attention; men in those cultures see it as a challenge and some of them want to signal that women who are dressed like that are moralizing hypocrites. And of course, rape has been used as a way to retaliate against an opinion or a political act that has nothing to do with how a woman is dressed. So I offer my own definition of “slut” as embraced by a misogynist:
Slut: a woman who draws attention to herself.
That’s it, really. It’s a definition that, I think, covers all those contradictory characteristics that misogynists take such pains to describe as slutty. In their view, the only proper way for a woman to behave is to be unseen and unheard. I now understand what Pericles meant when he said that a virtuous woman is one about whom no one ever says anything, neither good nor bad.
So terrible people do this in the name of St Dymphna, while decent people do this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheel#A_model_of_psychiatric_care
In May 2010, a 41 year old man in Hastings, MN raped a 9 month old girl. In February 2006, a 98 year old Australian woman was raped by a staff member at her nursing home. I found these two cases in less than ten seconds on Google.
Babies get raped. Elderly women get raped. Women in burkas get raped. If rape was truly caused by provocative attire, these other instances would not happen.
(Please note that I am not for one instant trying to say that men and boys do not experience sexual assault. I only list females in my above examples because in general, only women are told that they’ve caused their sexual assaults by dressing a certain way.)
SSDD. You’d think these people could at least try to be original but no dice.
Basically all I’m hearing is that “slut” = woman who refuses to disappear into the woodwork/woman who refuses to give her body to me. And really, if that’s all a slut is I see absolutely no problem with being labeled one.
Isn’t St. Dymphna the patron saint of people who have mental problems? That’s what I hear. Of course, I am (used to be) a Protestant, so what I hear may not be reliable.
If Dymphna is not the patron saint of loony people, what a waste of a super opportunity, whereas if she is, how cool is that?
Would love to be more informed on this subject than I am.
As a man, I am sick of the “men can’t control themselves” rhetoric. It’s complete bullshit. What these people are essentially saying is: “men shouldn’t have to control themselves,” which is as misandrist and infantalizing to men as anything I’ve ever heard.
Of course, no one is really objecting to the display of female sexuality here. I seriously doubt that those who find the Slutwalk infuriating would have any objection to, say, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. It’s the assertion of female control over their own sexuality that sends so many around the bend.
The “display of female sexuality” thing is kind of impossible to get away from, anyway. I can’t go out and leave my sexuality at home. If I wear a long-sleeved high-collared floor-length dress, I’m still making a statement about my sexuality.
(In fact, I might get more shit for that dress, because some guys will harass a woman who looks meek, or like she doesn’t fit in, or like she’s “withholding” her charms.)
Ultimately, “female sexuality” is on display any time a female body is, and I can’t go anywhere without taking my female body along.
Guys are just going to have to deal with that. And the funny thing is, most of them do. The vast majority of guys could see a woman walking down the street buck-ass naked, and they might be confused or worried or offended by the sight, but they wouldn’t be uncontrollably aroused. The number of guys who feel a “uh oh, I didn’t want to, but now I have to assault her” urge under any circumstances is just not as large as these anti-Slutwalk misandrists would have us believe.
A man called me a slut in the street once. I was clothed neck-to-ankle, with long sleeves, in several loose layers of thick, navy blue fabric. However, my bad – the bare head and hands were sadistic provocation.
I find it really interesting and amusing what a stir the Slutwalks have caused. I just…don’t understand how some people think, I guess.
Y’know, I wander around SCA events in a very cleavage-y Italian Renaissance dress. The rest of me is pretty well covered, but the cleavage is pretty impressive. I have yet to meet, among the thousands who have seen me over the years, a man who couldn’t control himself at the sight of bosoms. I refuse to believe that all SCAdian men are paragons of virtue or that we have a statistically higher percentage of gay or asexual men, so why can men in the Society control their lustful urges without whining, when many MRAs can’t?
re St Dymphna: She is the patron saint of the mentally ill.
It was not long, however, until an unexpected cloud overshadowed the happy childhood of the beautiful girl. She lost her good mother by death. Many were the secret tears she shed over this bereavement, but at the same time she found great comfort in the Divine Faith which, though she was still of a tender age, already had taken deep root.
Dymphna’s father, too, greatly mourned his deceased wife and for a long time continued prostrate with grief. At length he was persuaded by his counselors to seek solace in a second marriage. So he commissioned certain ones of his court to seek out for him a lady who would be like his first spouse in beauty and character. After visiting many countries in vain, the messengers returned saying that they could find none so charming and amiable as his own lovely daughter, Dymphna. …
She fled, he followed. She spurned him, he killed her. Some of this is probably parablaic; her father was a pagan remnant in 7th cent. Ireland, which was almost completely Catholic.
The effects of her sanctification are actually manifest in the present day.
Gradually St. Dymphna’s fame as patroness of victims of nervous diseases and mental disorders was spread from country to country. More and more mentally afflicted persons were brought to the shrine by relatives and friends, many coming in pilgrimages from far-distant places. Novenas were made, and St. Dymphna’s relic was applied to the patients. The remarkable cures reported caused confidence in the saint to grow daily. At first the patients were lodged in a small annex built onto the church. Then gradually it came about that the patients were place in the homes of the families living in Gheel. From this beginning Gheel developed into a town world-famed for its care of the insane and mentally afflicted. An institution, called the “Infirmary of St. Elizabeth,” which was conducted by the Sisters of St. Augustine was later built for the hospital care of the patients. Most of the latter, after some time spent in the institution, are placed in one or other of the families of Gheel, where they lead a comparatively normal life. Every home in Gheel is proud to welcome to its inmost family circle such patients as are ready to return to the environment of family life. Generations of experience have given to the people of Gheel an intimate and tender skill in dealing with their charges, and their remarkable spirit of charity and Christlike love for these afflicted members of society gives to our modern-day world, so prone to put its whole reliance on science and to forge the principles of true Christian charity, a lesson the practice of which would do much to restore certain types of mentally afflicted individuals to an almost normal outlook on life.
KathleenB: Imagine how they would react if you showed shoulders, or ankles.
🙂
I’m sure Dymphna will start commenting on Hookingupsmart.
KathleenB: Imagine how they would react if you showed shoulders, or ankles.
I am a modest matron, good sir! Ankles, what do you take me for?!?
Wow, that was almost painful to read. Sadistic provocation? What exactly does she think the purpose of Slutwalk is, that women are purposely trying to rile up random men on the street? And how is being assaulted an equal reaction to dressing “slutty”? I think a more equal reaction would be decking a guy who gropes me…if I weren’t small and rather weak and afraid of getting my ass kicked.
Also, a guy made kissing noises at me and then wolf-whistled when I was on my way back from jury duty. Yes I was dressed up a bit but I was also dressed very conservatively, so I wasn’t “provoking” anyone, but they certainly ruined my day by breaching my peace.
“slutwalk” is now what you think it is. I had a Taco Bell encounter two weeks ago that told me everything I needed to know about slutwalks. I posted about it on A Voice For Men:
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I also experienced an event that I want to share on Thursday at the local Taco Bell. A young woman dressed in a micro-skirt and see-through tube top (nothing wrong with either) was offended when a man in a passing pickup truck glared at her and honked. The woman called the police AND THEY CAME. Apparently, “street harassment” is now illegal. Catcalls and even glaring are against the law. What the FUCK is this?!?
If it is a woman’s body to do with as she pleases (which I support), then it is my fucking mouth and eyes to do with as I please.
It was suffolk county trooper car #702, and I want to write a complaint to the police. What kind of moron wastes police resources investigating CATCALLS and GLARING?
A woman wants to show her tits in public? I support that, it is her right. It is also MY right to look, or say, whatever I want about it, as long as I do not threaten her.
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In case you thought I “made this up”, look at the reply to this post from two weeks ago:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/activism/avfm-2-0-recap-and-some-thank-yous/#comment-62518
antz we totally believe you filed a complaint against a police officer for doing his job. you dont have to prove it to us.
“Manboobz is actually unusually tolerant, for a feminist site.”
awwww antz you like us :3