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.
“No harm, no foul.”
There’s female privilege for you. How dare you dismiss other people’s suffering while safe from ever experiencing it yourself. Shame on you! That’s on the level of men saying “rape isn’t bad – no harm done”. You don’t even know what it’s like to live in fear of false accusations but I’m sure you’ll dismiss that too as not bad.
Because no woman, ever, anywhere has been accused of a crime she didn’t commit. or convicted. Amanda Knox is just, what, a figment of our collective hysterical imaginations?
Right… no woman has ever been accused of sleeping around when she hasn’t. Or of having a secret abortion, or of cheating on her spouse.
Nope, never happens.
I’m a man, my thoughts on it are that, as with any other thing that does no legal harm, it’s no foul. What would you do to, “Fix” this non-problem. Put women in jail if someone says they falsely accused someone of rape in the form of gossip.
That might lead to more actual charges filed, but I don’t think that’s really what you want either. You are just using it as a stick to beat women.
@ KathleenB
You’re saying that false rape accusations happen similarly frequently to men as they do to women. At least similar enough to (badly) make the case that women fear false rape accusations as much as men do. Right?
Anyone who believes that cannot be reasoned with. So I won’t try.
“You are just using it as a stick to beat women”
No, and take your unfounded accusations elsewhere.
“I’m a man, my thoughts on it are that, as with any other thing that does no legal harm, it’s no foul. ”
Interesting. How about misogyny? You think that those MRA quotes are all acceptable and not worth dealing with?
Like Pecunium says, what would you like done about women who spread false rumors of rape? They’re not filing a false police report. They’re not wasting city or state money or emergency services time. They’re not putting the man in jail.
You could sue them for slander, I guess, but then you’d have to get in court and prove that they said it, that it harmed you, and that it wasn’t true.
It’s shitty but non-criminal on the level of any other gossip. And while I have the female “privilege” to be more likely to be raped than accused of rape–yay?–women are often the recipients of vicious and sometimes life-ruining gossip.
Adi: You are saying women aren’t at risk of false gossip of a nature which harms their reputation. Anyone who tries to conflate that with specific gossip, as if there is no thing which could possibly destroy a woman’s reputation in the way that a false one of rape could hurt a man’s (which is, from the available evidence, more one of myth than fact) cannot be reasoned with.
Actually, yes. They’re within their First Amendment rights.
We disagree with them, we disagree vehemently, but we don’t try to silence them.
Unfounded? You just used it to insult Bee because she disagreed with you. You did it by making a false equivalence.
As I said, you are using it as a means to beat women with; and you are proud of that.
Interesting. How about misogyny? You think that those MRA quotes are all acceptable and not worth dealing with?
Depends on what you mean by, “dealing with”. I’ll mock them. I’ll shame them (and proud to do it). I’ll call them morons, fools, and dickbiscuits, as mood, need, and effect strike me.
But make it actionable? No. Not in any legal sense; which is the implication you made in your first question.
Adi: No, I’m saying that you’re an asshat for claiming that only men need to worry about being falsely accused of a crime.
It’s certainly not impossible for a woman to be falsely accused of rape, but if the accuser is male the odds of the cause going to trial are microscopic(literally). It’s asinine to believe that men and women are equal under the law; especially when it comes to laws governing sexual conduct which still perceive women as potential victims.
You know, I’m a lot more sympathetic to people falsely accused of rape when they don’t say that this means that rape is not bad. It’s sort of like how I have sympathy for someone with a broken leg, unless zie then says “My broken leg hurts worse than your so-called Rwandan genocide!”
@Holly
“Like Pecunium says, what would you like done about women who spread false rumors of rape?”
I would like to see more help for the victims of such accusations which can destroy lives, entire families and drive innocent people to suicide. I would also like to see some more acknowledgement of the harm that this can cause in particular from feminists. I would also like to see people who dare to draw attention to this problem not automatically dismissed as misogynists (like Pecunium did). … if that’s not too much trouble.
“Adi: No, I’m saying that you’re an asshat for claiming that only men need to worry about being falsely accused of a crime.”
No, I am saying that fear of being falsely accused of rape is an experience that women are pretty much spared. That’s a good thing of course, but it does make it very cynical when you dismiss other people’s suffering knowing that the likelihood of you ever experiencing it yourself is so small that you never need to fear it and probably never have in your life.
@ Pecunium
“Adi: You are saying women aren’t at risk of false gossip of a nature which harms their reputation.”
No I’m not. I specifically said false rape accusations.
“Unfounded? You just used it to insult Bee because she disagreed with you. You did it by making a false equivalence.“
Yes unfounded. I asked (in short) if she thought women are falsely accused of rape as much as men and, if so, then said she cannot be reasoned with. She didn’t answer directly but implicitly conceded that she does not think so. Therefore my judgement about being able to reason with her never took effect.
“As I said, you are using it as a means to beat women with; and you are proud of that.”
That’s such a low way to try to make a point. You just want to quarrel. Well I don’t so find someone else.
“No. Not in any legal sense; which is the implication you made in your first question.”
I did not. But given the way you’ve been reasoning so far, this comes as no surprise. What if I behaved as you do and called you a racist who’s proud of it because you implied that a few comments back?
You might enjoy such a mud slinging fest but I do not. So I must stop reading your crap.
Treating “culture” as an upward slope of increasing moral refinement is silly. Every culture is a culture in the same way as any other culture. It’s what humans do. Some cultures have more time to elaborate on thought and art than others, but such luxuries by no means necessarily produce “better” cultures: “better” cultures, in this sense, have been driving the pointy end of the spear for millennia. Some configurations of culture are morally better than others but it is not a matter of the level of acculturation. Andreus Capellanus (sp?) was probably pretty damn cultured, but he still said it was okay for noble men to rape peasant women they wanted.
@ Ozy
“You know, I’m a lot more sympathetic to people falsely accused of rape when they don’t say that this means that rape is not bad.”
My problem with your statement is that, pretty much any attempt to talk about false rape accusations results in people painting you as though you were making a judgement on how bad rape is not. I said absolutely nothing about rape itself and yet this is now the second time that someone is throwing rape into the argument.
What I suspect is that people are oversensitive in this matter and take any attention drawn to victims of false rape accusation as an undermining of the problem of rape itself. It’s of course nonsense, because false accusations are indirectly harmful to rape victims too because they make investigators more skeptical than they perhaps should be.
And I do not care for for analogy to the Rwandan genocide. Like I said above, such accusations can end up killing people. You are, though more subtly, also dismissing the suffering it can cause. Shame on you too!
I honestly–no ideology here even, just what I think–don’t think false rape accusations are this big ol’ problem. I think they’re a problem about on a level with slander in general.
And (okay, being a little ideological now) I also think that the stuff about “false rape accusations, the scourge of our times!” was largely drummed up by people who want to plant a seed of doubt in real rape cases. I don’t think everyone who believes it is a rapist or rapist sympathizer–I think some of them just heard it and believed it–but I do think that’s where it started.
I also wonder if some of the hype about false rape accusations has to do with the thing that was making NWO so nervous–the fact that rape is no longer narrowly defined as an act of brutal stranger violence but is recognized any time there’s sex without consent. I think that makes a lot of guys who don’t really understand consent very nervous that they’ll be accused of rape and not know what they did wrong.
It’s unfortunate when they choose to become defensive rather than educate themselves.
“Nah, we like gay men in general. ”
And we like you too!
++
“I don’t think everyone who believes it is a rapist or rapist sympathizer”
I do think that’s exactly what they are. What other reason would a man have to deny the reality of rape, if not because he’s guilty of it and wants to pretend he isn’t, can’t get a woman to spend five seconds with him (all the time he’ll need!) and he’s really angry at women for that, so he sympathizes with rapists who don’t bother with that whole consent thing?
Well, I guess, its possible that they’re just garden variety spineless bigots.
“I honestly–no ideology here even, just what I think–don’t think false rape accusations are this big ol’ problem.”
And I don’t think periods or menopause are uncomfortable
“I don’t think everyone who believes it is a rapist or rapist sympathizer”
You’re talking about it as though it’s some vague theory like the creationists talk about evolution and how people “believe” in evolution. Not very helpful.
I think it’s telling that most MRA concern about false rape accusations (in general, not singling you out, Adi) is about accusations from women they’ve slept with.
When if women are really so prone to making shit up, why would that be necessary? We could false-accuse someone we’d never met. (There wouldn’t be DNA evidence, but rape exams don’t always find DNA evidence, and anyway it wouldn’t stop you from making an accusation.)
So I don’t think this is just about thinking women will accuse you at random or to get out of a parking ticket or something. I think this plays right back into the fear that you’ll have sex with a woman and not know if she’s consenting or not (that’s normal, right?) and then she’ll “falsely” accuse you of rape.
…Do you get false-rape-accused every month?
It’s not a normal male experience.
Is it Winter Break or something? Where did these immature trolls sprout up from? Must be the Winter Running of the Trolls.
Lesbian separatism is a topic I’ve engaged with in the past, and I can’t agree with it entirely. MGTOW has noble goals – escape from legal, financial and emotional tyranny, showing women we won’t play by their rules, letting men pursue more fulfilling lives, and so on. Whereas to me, lesbian separatism just seems like more coal into the furnace of the hypergamy engine, removing two perfectly usable women from the fanny market and thus raising the value of the ones that remain within it. Less available women means more male competition, more male competition means more freedom of choice for women and thus more efficient hypergamy. Not something I agree with.
Thankfully I can see the MGTOW movement being far more successful than the secret dykey treehouse club ever was for a number of reasons, both emotional and sexual. A relationship without a man is like an army without a general or a football team without a coach, destined to flounder about and collapse. Sexually speaking we’ve also got the phenomena of “lesbian bed death,” well-known by this point and which I believe to be a consequence of denying the primacy of intercourse and the phallus. I just don’t think women are equipped to handle what us MGTOW do.
@ Holly
“I think that makes a lot of guys who don’t really understand consent very nervous that they’ll be accused of rape and not know what they did wrong.”
By that new definition of rape, I have even been a rape victim on numerous occasions not to mention sexual assault. I’m not a sexually aggressive person so I haven’t done anything that could possibly lead to even a suspicion of a sexual crime. I’m as passive as they come. Even if everything was allowed and every fantasy of mine could be fulfilled, nobody would come to harm (except perhaps myself). Yet I have had people dropping innuendos when it helped them in an argument. Yet, I live in fear of false accusations. If somebody like me feels that way and I’m not the only one, then there is clearly something out of order.