So you may have seen the story yesterday about the University of Vermont fraternity that was suspended for sending out a charming little survey that allegedly asked, among other things, “If you could rape someone, who would it be?” (FWIW, the frat now says it was the work of an individual frat member, not the chapter.)
Reading about this incident, I’m guessing that you probably didn’t ask yourself: “I wonder how the guys at the False Rape Society will use this news to push their own agenda?” Heck, I didn’t even think to ask myself that question. But while doing the rounds of the MRA blogs I’ve discovered the answer to that question, and here it is: FRS head honcho Pierce Harlan described the survey as “perhaps a poke at feminism’s fascination with rape,” then denounced it as “indefensible,” then ranted about the evils of false rape accusations. I guess that isn’t really shocking at all.
First, Harlan offered this take on the “who would you rape” question:
I assume the survey was sick humor, a crude satire of the fratboy culture, and perhaps a poke at feminism’s fascination with rape.
Yes, because any time men make rape jokes it’s probably because, you know, feminism, and its wacky obsession with rape.
Then Harlan went on to suggest that rape was no laughing matter – especially when it comes to rape that doesn’t happen:
Whatever it was intended to be, ultimately it is indefensible, because trivializing the word “rape” is no laughing matter, whether it’s a joke about the rape of male prisoners, or the fantasy “rape” of women, or a false rape claim intended to get a guy in, or a woman out of, trouble.
Well, that was quick. Let’s not talk about the trivialization of real rape. Let’s talk about the epidemic of “false rape accusations” that Harlan has convinced himself is the real problem here.
With nary a pause, Harlan moved on to complain about hypothetical feminists making a big deal out of this survey instead of joining him on his crusade:
There most certainly will be an outcry in the feminist blogosphere over this isolated incident
This what incident?
and it will be cited as proof positive to support the myth that ours is a “rape culture.”
Yeah, I wonder why casual jokes about rape would possibly be considered as part of “rape culture.”
A “rape culture,” of course, not only would tolerate but would condone such a puerile survey. Our society does neither. The only “rape” jokes our society condones concerns prison rape — and that’s because society actually encourages prison rape as a sort of “added bonus” punishment for any hapless male who lands in prison. It is ironic that actual prison rape does not garner the outrage that this this sick fratboy humor is generating. Go figure.
This from a guy who doesn’t seem to have ever even bothered to mention the leading anti-prison rape organization, Just Detention, on his web site. (See here for more on the issue on Man Boobz.) Though he does offer three links on his main page to information about the statute of limitation for rape charges, in case anyone reading is worried about getting caught being falsely accused for something they did didn’t do a long time ago.
Meanwhile,rape jokes — and not just prison rape jokes — are everywhere. Harlan, I assume you are at least somewhat familiar with a little site called Reddit, where people not only laugh at rape jokes – they laugh at actual rape!
Meanwhile, in the comments on Harlan’s article, some False Rape Society readers don’t even bother to pretend that the “rape survey” bothers them. According to the commenter called “bad,”
We should be celebrating young men who stand up against misandry. We should be celebrating the frat that said “no means yes” and we should be celebrating the frat that created this survey, if it’s a real story.
An anonymous commenter takes it a step further:
I do not condemn this action,
in fact, I wish I’d thought of it.
It is a brilliant and very appropriate response to the way young men are being treated by college campuses.
When the answer to “who would you like to treat like a rapist” is “all college men”, I think that asking them who they’d like to rape is more than fair.
But it is Harlan’s response to these comments that is the most revealing:
By the way, I read the reaction of Bad and others as a natural backlash … against the unconscionable PC culture of misandry on campus. I happen to disagree with those who suggest this was acceptable, but their remarks should not be construed as evidence that we live in a “rape culture.” Like Steve, I read their comments more as an affirmation that we live in a false rape culture–a culture that more and more men are finding intolerable.
I, on the other hand, doubt that these young men have the first clue about misandry, feminism, or how colleges run roughshod over the rights of young men. I am always amazed when we hear from falsely accused people who “had not idea this goes on.” My guess is they were just being being “funny.” I would, frankly, love to find out I am wrong, and that not only would they never call for a woman to be actually raped, but that this was a protest against the pendulum swinging too far. In that case, I am still not sure I could find it acceptable but it would initiate an entirely different dialogue.
So the survey is “indefensible,” yet a totally understandable reaction to, and protest against, an “unconscionable PC culture of misandry.”
Got it.
EDITED TO ADD: Harlan has written a response, of sorts, to this post. It is a bit — what’s the word I’m looking for here? — zany.
@lj4a, true. My sarcasm detector has already been overloaded in threads around this topic.
Thus endeth the brief career of Billy Williams as Man Boobz commenter.
R.I.P. Billy Williams
10:36 pm, December 15th, 2011-11:03 pm, December 15th, 2011
LOL @ Crumbelievable! He didn’t even last as long as a fruit fly – gone in 27 minutes.
Damn it, should have been “16th”
Oh well.
No wait, I was right. My clock is an hour ahead of the clock here–I guess this website is based out of Ohio/Illinois?
oh shit. the tantrum baby declared himself the winner. what the fuck am i gonna do now?
LOL, Sexbots. I’ll just leave these here:
The middle quote is particularly heinous.
that’s not being hostile to women. that’s just the hard, whiny truth that people who take responsibility for their own lives don’t wanna hear.
david, i don’t have twitter on account of i would use it to destroy any credibility i have left irl, so i wanna respond to your latest post:
here with the thing it most needs in response.
The last response you quoted, kladle, is a particularly off-the-wall reply to a point I made – women (and some men who are at a disadvantage for whatever reason) already have mental checklists of things they don’t do or try to avoid, to the point where many of them are unconscious and ingrained:
* If you can, avoid travelling by yourself.
* If you can, avoid going outside after dark.
* Don’t visit certain areas.
* Don’t wear certain clothes.
* Never open your door until you know who is outside it.
But apparently this is paranoia, rather than risk management. I frequently travel alone on Melbourne public transport late at night and inviting an assault from a “non-top-10% male” is not actually on my agenda – getting home safely is. (I do see a fair amount of strange behaviour out there — the later in the evening it gets, frequently it’s more bizarre. It’s not always men doing this either, so there’s not a monopoly on ‘creepiness’, but such men often act in a much more entitled way than women.)
It freaked me out when my dad and brother said “women who do [such and such] DESERVE to get raped”.
The word ‘deserve’ means you SHOULD get it, right? So therefore it is right and proper to give someone what they deserve, so therefore it is every man’s moral duty to rape women who do [such and such].
It’s scary when you follow it through like that.
I went over what I wrote there a couple of times and changed words, but it’s still incoherent. 🙁
No, no, Magpie the meaning comes through clearly enough. (Or otherwise I’m just as incoherent as you 😉
pretty much. it’s punishment fantasies for women who don’t conform to their standards, but you can’t say that so it’s dressed as concern for ‘oh why don’t these poor stupid women understand the risks theyre taking’ without understanding how that comes off
No offense, Mapgie, but your dad sounds like he has some really messed up ideas about women.
Yeah, Dad’s other greatest hit was “8 year old girls can be absolute sluts because this girl went through all the boys at school behind the weather shed”.
maybe that’s what the big boys told him when he was 8, but he’s had 70 years to think about it since then, and raised daughters and grand-daughters. 🙁
and at the same time, he’s always been there for me, and would do anything for anyone and I know he loves me.
Your father is NWOslave, Magpie?
NWO said:
“@Polliwog
There was no rape. They were both drunk and had sex. Neither party did anything wrong.”
No, it depends on who initiated the sex and if they had the consent of their partner. If the partner was to drunk to consent (eg: one of them was only semiconscious or unconscious) then it was rape, regardles of which of them initiated it.
You may follow the Old Testament view but the rest of society has moved on from that. The legal issue here is consent, not whether anyone was injured or force was used. Doubtless you dislike that but frankly I don’t care if you like it or not.
Also, it’s not uP to me to make that judgement. It’s entirely up to a jury, who (hopefully) have access to all the facts of the case. If a friend (of either sex) told me that they’d been raped I would commiserate, take them to Casualty and help them if they wanted to press charges. It’s not up to me make a judgement, my responsibility is to be a good and caring friend.
LOL 🙂 Sometimes I wonder! If NWO ever starts ranting about Fabians and Romans as well as Jews, well …
SexBots, really? Someone who passes out at a party should just expect that people will hurt them? That seems pretty unreasonable. I agree that frat houses are shitty and possibly dangerous places, but that’s no excuse whatsoever. And yes, I do think that if I go into a shitty part of town, waving my money about (which is absolutely NO comparison to what, waving my body about?), that I will not be robbed. Why? Because stealing is wrong, and people know that. And there’s the whole “what counts as ‘waving my body about’ thing.
I don’t go to frat houses. I don’t really “party”. But I was still raped. You know who raped me? A fellow graduate student (dare I say, in a rather nerdy field), who works with immigrant kids from Africa (he teaches soccer, and in true sitcom-humor-fashion, sex ed.). His life goals include getting a job in the field, marrying, and having kids. He’s really good with them, and has talked extensively about wanted to be a dad (which was actually sort of freaky to me, because I have zero desire to be a parent). He was a smart, funny, well-traveled person who went on an internship with me to South America. We’d known each other for nearly a year, and I’d consented to certain sexual acts. He went with ones I had explicitly said I didn’t want to do. And later, he claimed I’d consented. I didn’t.
Rape is complicated. There isn’t a single guideline that can be followed, other than “consent was not given”, but that’s not always clear-cut, either. That’s part of human interaction – we see things somewhat differently. My rapist would not say what happened was rape. He’d place it in that “well, maybe it wasn’t totally okay, but it’s not like I held her down and forced her” category. Because when he admits to himself that it WAS rape, that makes him a rapist and forces him to look at himself in a different way. People don’t like to think of themselves as monsters (and for the record, I do not consider him a monster, but I do consider him a rapist).
@ SexRobots: “The crazy thing is that most women don’t care if a dude has raped, killed, etc. As long as he is “hot” according to the media (and her friends of course).”
To be fair, while the compulsive female obsession with sociopaths is well documented, I know plenty of men who wanted to fuck Casey Anthony as well. Where men and women differ, and where you get things wrong is that generally it’s *men* who think people can be hot in spite of their criminal history – while for women, male hotness is more often a *result* of it. Even an average looking guy can really get the lady gravy flowing if he has a few felonies under his belt.
If you want to get laid, you need to be less ‘Prince Charming’ and more ‘Pyramid Head.’
hmm…that’s a very interesting icon you got there Arks
I’m thinking we may now know why Arks doesn’t find women’s bodies all that appealing. Arks, this is great! Just embrace your true preferences and you’ll be a much happier person, I promise.
Arks: As it happens, in my experience, criminal records tend to turn people OFF. Some people are exceptional; but then, some people think Dubya is the height of sexiness. People are different, yo.