Question for Pierce Harlan, the guy behind the False Rape Society blog: Do you really think this is the best way to fight false rape allegations?
The real problem here isn’t that he’s recycled an old rape joke; it’s that he’s pretending that rapists are somehow a species apart from ordinary men. His big complaint is that the PSA in question “passes off a criminal deviant as a typical guy.”
Pierce, what do you think rapists look like? They’re not villains out of some silent-movie melodrama, twirling their whiskers and cackling with glee. They don’t have giant R’s tattooed on their foreheads. No, they look like “ordinary” guys. Exactly like them. Rape prevention — and crime prevention in general — would be a lot more effective if criminals could be easily identified at a glance. But the world doesn’t work that way. Most criminals look pretty ordinary, actually.
But the problem with Harlan’s stance here go beyond that. The fact is that most rapists aren’t sinister strangers hiding in an alleyway; the overwhelming majority – something like 70% — are people known to their victims. As someone who writes regularly about rape, Pierce is presumably aware of this, which means either that he’s being completely disingenuous, or that he’s simply pretending that date rape (and non-stranger rape in general) doesn’t exist.
The PSA in question is far from perfect. Aside from the terrible acting, the main problem with it is that it it’s victim-blaming. Its depiction of a rapist as an ordinary-looking guy – and a friend of the victim — is the one thing it gets right.
To get an idea of the sort of person who reads (and agrees with) The False Rape Society blog, here are a couple of comments on the, er, “controversy.”
Here’s a comment from YouTube, posted by someone who obviously got there from Harlan’s blog (it appeared after the video was linked at the FRS; before the recent batch of comments, the video hadn’t had a comment for three years).
So the message is that if a guy is being helpful at a party, he’s probably a rapist? This is not a fair psa. It did better than some though, by highlighting the fact that the female friend ditched her.
Apparently, in this guy’s mind, trying to remove the clothes of a woman almost completely incapacitated by alcohol is just a way of being “helpful.”
Meanwhile, on the FRS blog itself:
Anonymous said…
Wow- just like TV- apparently the only people on earth who ever do ANYTHING wrong are white males- preferably fat ones to give feminists a little extra to hate.
While we’re on the subject of false accusations, here’s a strange bit of paranoid word-salad on the subject that I ran across recently from a Reddit Men’s Rightser.
Is it really possible that anyone – including the author and the people upvoting the comment — could actually believe this nonsense? If so, what a strange, sad world they must live in.
EDITED TO ADD: Holly Pervocracy just wrote a great and highly relevant post on what she calls “Slavering Beast Theory.” As she explains:
In the Slavering Beast Theory, there are two kinds of men. Two species, nearly. … There are ordinary guys and there are Slavering Beasts. And they are very, very easy to tell apart. They act different, even look different, to the point where any adult should be able to distinguish them in any casual social setting. …
This dichotomy is how someone can simultaneously believe that women shouldn’t go out after dark because rape is such a big problem and believe that tons of rape accusations are false. It makes perfect sense if you believe there are Slavering Beasts out in the dark, but if an ordinary guy is accused of rape, there must be more to the story. It explains why people are angered by rape prevention tips aimed at men–those are insulting to ordinary guys, and Slavering Beasts won’t listen. And it justifies the belief that abuse victims had it coming: either they were abused by a Slavering Beast and should have known better, or they were abused by an ordinary guy and must have done something terrible to provoke him.
And, NWO, is here right on cue. If it’s a thread about women’s clothing he’ll rant, endlessly, about women being unable to control their sexuality and teasing men through their (as yet only murkily defined) overtly sexual clothes and demeanors. And, sure those clothes can include snow suits. And, no, he’s yet to provide examples of clothing, and mannerisms that would render a woman objectively asexual in the eyes of all men. But why bother with details?
Because NWO is a hypocrite of the highest magnitude. He’ll argue that rape is inevitable as a result of women’s constant teasing of men and boys and is nothing more than the result of sexual frustration. When providing examples of this teasing he’ll happily post pictures of eight year olds in one pieces at the beach. But he’ll turn right around and argue, out of the other side of his mouth, that most rape allegations are false; the result of the malice and regret of drunken sluts. A category of women he clearly feels are unrapeable.
And running through it all is his fundamental disbelief in the very concept of consent and therefore no real respect for the concept of its absence. All women are whores (even little girls) constantly teasing men and causing sexual frustration. And the only women who consent are drunken sluts who will cry rape for no good reason.
Of course the rapist wannabe is in here cheerleading his favorite cause, rapists. I sincerely hope that a dad catches you looking at his kid and [redacted] you.
*redaction provided by me
False rape accusations are common and devastating. The blood of thousands of falsely accused men will never wash off of the hands of feminists.
Seeing feminist cheer false accusers, and jeer the falsely accused, is indicative of the complete moral vacuum in which you all live.
What have any of you ever done to fight against the epidemic of false rape accusations?
Poke fun at Harlan all you want. His work has advanced civil rights and human dignity more than all of you put together.
Shame on you.
@Seraph
“What Hellkell said, NWOSlave. You came right out and told us last night that you believed all women should be assigned to men (through a process you failed to specify) as rape-slaves. Did you think we’d forget that quickly? Your opinions on justice aren’t worth a damn thing anymore.”
And you tell me everyday you support/wield State violence which does the same thing. You deny Title IX is using preponderance of evidence as law in colleges, soon to be extended into grade school. You deny all the Laws of privilege and violence. Just because the State uses violence on your behalf doesn’t absolve you of innocense. That’s like saying the person who orders violence isn’t equally guilty of the crime. Oh goodness me, a State slave is so much better than a personal slave. Yippee!
False rape accusations are common and devastating.
Prove it.
False rape accusations are common and devastating.
Citation sorely needed.
What have you ever done to fight against the epidemic of actual rape? besides, you know, call the victims sluts and liars who were asking for it.
Shame on you.
There is no epidemic of false rape accusations. The False Rape Society is a cheerleading organization for rapists.
You are an idiot, AZ with a fictional (I sincerely hope) family and delusions of sanity.
No one here has cheered false rape accusers. And I’ve supported and advocated for the work done by the Innocence Project for years. What have you ever done?
Epidemic, my ass, AntZ. Only in your fevered virtual reality dreams.
You know, if false rape accusations were such an epidemic, as they claim, you’d think the majority of men would live in fear of false accusations (they don’t) and rise up against these evil woman (they haven’t).
Why is that? Because they’re so brainwashed and emotionally castrated by the eeevil feminists? Or because the entire false rape society is a bunch of crap invented by misogynists to give rapists a pat o n the back?
That’s because this is a willful misunderstanding of both the nature of civil vs. criminal trials as well as your complete ignorance of how the law works.
Also: if false rape accusations are such an epidemic, Antz and NWO ought to be able to list men they know personally who have been accused by these evil women. With links to a news site to prove it, because of course these evil accusations are all over the media.
I’ll be waiting.
@Nobinayamu
“And, no, he’s yet to provide examples of clothing, and mannerisms that would render a woman objectively asexual in the eyes of all men. But why bother with details?”
I told you yesterday.
Women should act exactly as men as a whole and individual men say they should act.
Men will tell you what hurts our feelings and you will comply.
Men will tell you how to act.
Men will tell when you’re speaking offends us.
Men will tell you what you can think.
If one man tells you not to speak in an elevator and you do, you are in error. If another man tells you it’s OK to speak in an elevator then it’s OK.
It’s a zero sum game, remember? Whatever you believe you can dictate to men, men can dictate to you. And since all men are individuals, you best be on your guard at all times. One wrong word lands you in prison, evicted from your home, divorced and paying child support with some visitation rights if a man is feeling generous.
Well, there’s ignorant, and then there’s NWO ignorant. He’s been told numerous times what Title IX is about, so his Not Getting It is comical at this point. It’s OK to say you were wrong, NWO.
Apparently “zero-sum” is his phrase of the evening.
NWO, did you suffer a head injury or is this some sort of degenerative brain disease you’re suffering from?
I’m male, dumbass. Even if Title IX really did work like it does in your deranged fantasies, it wouldn’t benefit me.
I am not the former, and the fact that you want to turn my mother, sisters, niece, aunts, cousins, friends, and even my exes into the latter makes me your enemy.
So, NWO, by your own logic, your mother would be a slave to the men around her. Do you not care for her well being at all?
@Nobinayamu
“That’s because this is a willful misunderstanding of both the nature of civil vs. criminal trials as well as your complete ignorance of how the law works.”
And true to form; DENIAL!
I’m sure the lad whose kicked out of college by Title IX gender police, judge and trained jury will be most relieved to know it was the State operating thru Title IX, rather than the State operating thru “official channels.”
Is NWO out to demonstrate once and for all he’s not worth arguing with? Does he imagine this will somehow work in his favor? He’s basically just laying out the gender-swapped version of the reality he only pretends to live in.
And true to form; DENIAL!
The irony, it burns.
Que the Duke Lacrosse case in 3…2…1
it’s ALWAYS the Duke Lacrosse case. One, two or ten cases equals epidemic for these freaks.
And yea, I was wondering the same thing myself. How come more men aren’t living in fear of FRAs? how come I’ve never heard any of the men I know talk about them? how come I never even heard about how common they are or how they supposedly are at epidemic proportions until I found out about the MRA? How come there are no hard numbers on FRAs?
Yeah, I added “know personally” in attempts to avoid the Duke Lacrosse case, but you know it’s going to come up anyway.
This seems like it would be easy to test. One of us ladies here could say “oh noes, NWOslave like totally raped me fer real” and then the FBI would promptly show up at your door and imprison you forever, right? And then you could simultaneously live on a grate and be locked up in prison. But despite the total devastating realism of this threat to your well being you seem weirdly unconcerned about this possibility… Is it maybe not as easy as that to get a dude locked up on false rape charges? :p