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.
@Cassandra, I’ve actually been wondering that for a while. I mean, he describes how much he hates female bodies in such florid prose it’s really hard to imagine that he’s also attracted to them. But I didn’t want to end up going in some homophobic “ha ha it’s funny because you’re GAY” kind of direction, so I left it be (until now, obviously).
@Arks, fun fact: I am a woman, and I am not attracted to felons. Am I a) some sort of freak, b) deliberately lying to undermine you, c) ignorant of what I actually want because only Arks knows the truth about what women look for in a man, or d) actually telling the truth and directly contradicting your sweeping declaration about all women everywhere?
I thought maybe he had some dominatrix/sub male thing going on, but I missed the post where he said he found women’s bodies disgusting.
@ Viscaria: there is an old saying “don’t listen to what a woman says, just what she responds to.” In this case what is being responded to is violent, sociopathic men, so people will draw the natural conclusions.
Also, for champions of social justice you guys sure seem to like your gay-bashing. This isn’t the first time this has happened. If you want I can change it to a straighter icon but I think it’s a perfectly fine metaphor for the modern shackled male.
Nah, we like gay men in general. I was serious when I said that there may be a reason you find women’s bodies disgusting, and if so that’s OK, but you’d really be happier if you acknowleged it, since most straight men do not in fact find women’s bodies repulsive. You could be asexual too, so you might want to do some reading on that possibility also.
Dude, you are aware that TV Shows =/= reality, right?
And since you hate women and think that they are barely even human anyway, why do you care so much about their assumed preferences/kinks in the first place?
I don’t really hang out with people (including women – yes, I went there!) who are into criminals. In fact, I wouldn’t even know how and where to find them. So maybe you should look for a different social circle?
Or, you know, maybe you should just go your own way? Because to me, it seem like you still think about women. Like, a lot.
The lad doth protest too much, methinks.
Women’s bodies can be attractive, they’re usually not, and vaginas are certainly not, but the potential is there. The problem is a kind of mirror version of the halo effect coming into play, where a woman’s (lack of) qualities drags down the rest of her. For me, reflecting on what women are, how they think and act and what goals they have in society, is a lot like finding out that someone died in the clothes you are wearing. Real primal revulsion to get that shit away from you.
And what you’re suggesting isn’t some amazing new discovery. I have expressed my support of male love and phallocentrism on the forums and comment threads in the past, and given my sympathies to straight MGTOWs who don’t have the option to ‘cheat’ while still supporting the cause, by using other outlets.
I went to a college with no frats. Believe it or not, there were still rapes on campus.
Arks, please keep your sexy icon for my personal entertainment. It keeps the lady gravy flowing.
Funny. I feel the same way when I read each of your posts. It’s a win win situation!
It must really suck to live in Arks’ head. I suppose I should feel sorry for him, but he’s just too ridiculous.
for every one Arks, there are 50 men who don’t find women repulsive. And even in some crazy alternate reality where all men were like Arks, women would be so disgusted we’d probably just separate anyway.
Poor MGTOWS. Lesbian separatists thought of it first 😀
Poor MGTOWS. Lesbian separatists thought of it first.
Sure, but they didn’t come up with nearly as many fourth-grade-level insults for the genitalia of the opposite sex. Manly ingenuity in action!
Good point! Though I think that lesbian separatists usually don’t make a habit of going to spaces were a lot of men tend to be, just to tell them, over and over again, how they totally don’t need those stupid, disgusting men and that they are way happier now while listing things that they don’t like about men, even though no one asked them.
You can learn a lot from them, MGTOW!
Quackers said@ at 9:06 pm
“ah yes, the Kanin study. The one study that MRAs regard as irrefutable and God sent and so methodologically flawed its not even funny. He doesn’t even name the police department or city he based the study on so you can’t even check if his findings are true. And we all know how unbiased police are when it comes to rape!
I can link you to more reasons why that study is flawed, but you won’t even read them since you are committed to your own world view. Actually I think David did a post on it ”
True, that study of Kanin’s has been taken to pieces so often that I don’t understand why people believe it, except that they desperately want to. The fact that he doesn’t name the city or the department should be enough to sink it but then there’s the issue of the polygraph tests that were used to determine if the women were lying. Polygraph tests are notorious for the inaccuracy of their results, any kind of anxiety or stress can give a false reading and because of this they can’t be used in court so why they bothered to use them is anyone’s guess. Unless, of course, they knew that the tests would give them the answers they wanted.
Here’s your problem. The FBI merely stats flatly that around 25 of suspects are excluded due to DNA evidence. Your logic is faulty when you try to claim that means every one of those cases was a FALSE REPORT of a rape. I have two examples for you off the top of my head. Stephen Avery in Wisconsin was falsely convicted of rape. This was not due to the victim’s testimony, because she’d been beaten nearly to death and could not identify her attacker. It was prosecutorial misconduct. Similarly, the Central Park rape victim was also beaten so badly she could not identify her attackers. It was the police who decided she was raped by a group of young black men. Both of those cases would be included in your stat there. Neither one of them was a false rape report.
@shaenon and kollege messerschmitt
Haha yea I know. MGTOWs just added their own unique brand of asshole-ness to it.
@Sorka
It’s confirmation bias. Simply as you said, they desperately want to believe it regardless.
oops, that last one was meant to be addressed to SaruGoku haha
No, it wasn’t polygraph testing, “recantation” was the determining factor for classification as false accusation. That means investigators coerced those women into recanting with the use of polygraphs. Kanin made no effort to independently review those cases.
With regard to the FBI results: I would say that the FBI results probably do not constitute a statistically valid sampling of all rape accusations in the U.S. Semen samples that are referred to the FBI lab for analysis are going to be those where there is sufficient doubt about the identity of the perpetrator to warrant a DNA test. This would exclude those where the accused pleads guilty, those where the evidence is strong enough to convict without the need for a DNA sample, and those where a sample cannot be obtained. It would be like saying that, since x% of all paternity tests indicate that the father of the child is someone else, therefore x% of the general population of fathers is raising someone else’s child. The sample of fathers asking for paternity tests is very different from the sample of fathers in the general population.
In the absence of more information regarding the data used, I would tend to be skeptical of the author’s conclusions, not to mention her ability to interpret raw data of this sort. After all, later in the article she remarks that Kanin seemed to be doing solid research in his notorious 41% study. If this is an indication of her ability to interpret data, I’d be skeptical of everything else she says on the subject.
This all leaves aside the fact that Wends McElroy, who describes herself as an Individualist Feminist, is a commentator for Fox News and a huge fan of Ayn Rand. Her website reads like it was written by the love-child of Milton Friedman and Paul Elam.
So, no, I’m not willing to take this article as “proof” that 25% of rape cases involve false allegations, especially in the face of many other studies that consistently show the rate of false rape accusation to be around 5-8%. This is not to say that the data would not be useful in informing the debate, but I’d like to see a professional statistician analyze that data first, at the very least.
There’s no rape culture. Quite the opposite. Rape is a consequence of too little culture.
^^what the fuck does that even mean?
oh and according to the comments on harlan’s response piece, i’m the ‘chief zombie’.
Concerning the false rape accusations stats, what (if anything) do they say about the number of false accusations that don’t result in a trial or in charges pressed?
“No harm, no foul.”
(Yes, there can be social harm, but I’ve also seen people socially harmed by rumors that they got an abortion or that they belonged to a cult.)
@Holly: (Yes, there can be social harm, but I’ve also seen people socially harmed by rumors that they got an abortion or that they belonged to a cult.)
Not to mention rumors that they are gay or lesbian!
“False rumors” can be all sorts of socially harmful–the insistence that “false accusations” are somehow more or less so is dubious.
Maybe I’m a cynic, but I see something like this and I figure it really means “too little Aryan culture.”
Either that or the person just flat doesn’t know what “culture” means.
I’m all for rape prevention, HOWEVER……From what I’ve read, heard, and observed the persuasive approach to preventing rape-that is, trying to convince men not to do it int he first place-is just not effective. This behavior continues as it always has.
Now I’m sure pretty much everyone else here believes that humans have free will, I on the other hand, really don’t. But if anyone else has doubts about free will do feel free to say “I”.