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.
I…honestly don’t understand how that’s supposed to be a reversal.
You actually did call women – all women – beasts, or at least said they should receive the same rights as beasts. Once again, you think they deserve to be enslaved.
you haven’t seen riled up NWO. Just try and make women slaves and wait and see what happens. And believe me, it wont just be “Big Daddy” out there to stop you. Decent human beings with even a shred of morality don’t accept slavery.
Guys, I think NWO is trying satire again! You see, he thinks that we think that women should be allowed to decide everything about a man’s life on a whim, so he thinks that… men should be able to decide everything about a woman’s life on a whim? Because SATIRE!
I’m so glad Shaenon taught him the concept of satire: it really just creates more lulz.
I actually don’t believe that. You, however, do believe what I stated you believe. You know how I know that? You outright said it, in no uncertain terms.
You’re not coming back from this, buddy.
Spearhavoc, isn’t it odd how he doesn’t even try to deny it?
actually, never mind. It’s not odd at all.
Again, turnabout is fair play would only apply here if reality synced up to NWO’s delusions. He think he’s making a point, when all he’s doing is reversing the polarity of his bullshit generator.
@ozymandias42
Maybe it’s the slavering beast within me. I do have it, from a reliable source, that while I may seem like a decent chap by the people who know me, (not by the crew of course), there’s a slavering beast within me.
One question if I may, oh perveyor of all that’s noble, how does one know who is lying in a he said/she said accusation where no violence took place?
Do the people who know you know that you want to enslave all women and rape the kids? Because that is important information for forming that kind of judgement.
Holly did not say there’s a ravenous beast within every man. She said that rapists don’t look like ravenous beasts, and thus can’t be identified on sight.
And you aren’t a decent chap. Decent chaps don’t believe slavery is right under any circumstances. You do.
Okay NWO, I seriously want to know, do you or do you not understand that the entire point of Holly’s post was that the Slavering Beast is a myth? That it was meant as a criticism of the notion that only Bad People do bad things?
@Bostonian
“Do the people who know you know that you want to enslave all women and rape the kids? Because that is important information for forming that kind of judgement.”
Why most definely they know what I’m about. After all, we DO live in a rape culture and I’d be derelict in my duties if I didn’t show my support.
By the by, any takers on the question I asked?
How does one know who is lying in a he said/she said accusation where no violence took place?
Brandon:
So what’s the strawman?
Shaenon:
In particular, guys who have no subjective experience of being the object of another’s attraction. If you think women like you, consent logically follows; if you think the only way you’ll get a woman to have sex with you is subterfuge or coercion, you obviously don’t want to hear that subterfuge and coercion are rapey, let alone illegal.
Seraph:
In fact, id does benefit us, at least in theory, precisely because it doesn’t work the way Slavey has intuited it does (and of course what you intuit is truer truth than anything you look up or get from a source).
I couldn’t find a good comment on which to hang the following PPQ:
Why would FRA be more devastating than false accusation of any other crime?
Why would FRA be more common than false accusations of any other crime that tends to come down to a swearing contest in court?
Why would the justice system continue to treat FRA with any legitimacy; in other words, how could it be that the MRM knows better than the system how common FRA is?
Why would a rape accusation harm someone’s reputation if it’s so overwhelmingly likely to be false?
@Spearhafoc
” And you aren’t a decent chap. Decent chaps don’t believe slavery is right under any circumstances. You do.”
Preponderance of evidence is slavery. What would you call punishment on someones say-so? You do support preponderance of evidence, don’t you?
I’ve never had any direct evidence that anyone I knew was actually attracted to me, but I still know the difference between rape and consent. It’s not a terribly hard subject.
And regarding my previous post: I meant “Slavering”, not “ravenous.”
I is tired*.
*Who wants to bet that NWOslave tries to correct the grammar in this sentence, saying “Turnabout is fair play”? That’s what he seems to be attempting to do in this thread. Who wants to bet that he does that despite what I wrote here after the asterisk?
you gather evidence, file a report and you take the case to court. The jury will decide. Is it really that hard to understand?
and that’s even if the case is lucky enough to get to court. That’s even if the victim goes to the police and the police believes the victim.
@Hershele Ostropoler
Ahhh, Ozy’s pavlovian pet is here. Perhaps you could answer my question. Or really anyone at all.
The question is quite simple, here it is, one more time.
In an accusation by a woman where the only evidence is her word, just a flat out he said/she said as the only proof and no violence took place. How does one tell who is lying? Schodingers rapist?
I’m in Canada. We don’t have Title IX here.
Nevertheless, “preponderance of evidence” is not slavery. You know what is slavery? The literal ownership of women. That’s what you were arguing for last night.
Do you have any idea what happens in a real-world rape trial? Any idea at all?
No, NWO, it isn’t. Speaking as one who is exactly as oppressed by the feminist-controlled System as you are, we are not slaves, and the fact that say so means you have no idea what real slavery and oppression are.
It is pretty inspiring, isn’t it?
I didn’t think about it that way, but I guess you totally can read this poem as the mental monologue of someone who’s tired of dealing with oppression and resolves to work for positive change. Nice insight.
The last two stanzas are exceptionally moving in this context:
@Quackers
“you gather evidence, file a report and you take the case to court. The jury will decide. Is it really that hard to understand?
and that’s even if the case is lucky enough to get to court. That’s even if the victim goes to the police and the police believes the victim.”
The only evidence is her accusation. Does it come down to who’ll cry in court? Although since you’ve used the term victim to describe the accuser I guess we know how you’ll cast your vote.
Lol @ me answering NWO’s question and him ignoring it.
Lol @ me for even bothering -_-
Preponderance of evidence is slavery.
…I cannot even begin to fathom how this makes sense in your head. Is the entire existence of civil law slavery? If your doctor screws up a medical procedure and you file a malpractice suit, did you enslave him, did he enslave you, or did the very existence of any lawsuit at all somehow enslave all of us?
dammit to slow.
Why are you so sure she’s lying? I guess we know how you’ll cast your vote seeing as you believe all victims, accusers, whatever…are dirty liars.
There are alibis. An investigation would take place. Even if there is seemingly no evidence, there will probably be something there to decide whether or not a rape occurred.
And I repeat again, that’s even IF the case is lucky enough to be taken to court or if the victim comes forward and an investigation is done.
@Seraph
“No, NWO, it isn’t. Speaking as one who is exactly as oppressed by the feminist-controlled System as you are, we are not slaves, and the fact that say so means you have no idea what real slavery and oppression are.”
A slave recieves punishment on the say-so of his master. A master tells a slave what behavior/speech is acceptable for the slaves while their own behavior/speech is permitted. A master has different laws than a slave. A master has entitlements and privileges the slave doesn’t enjoy.
According to him, yes. Look at what he’s said about the US government, and about how he’s so careful to avoid the really super-binding contracts, you know, that one with your name in capital letters.