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.
“I wanna end the hatred.”
As long as you’re a dick shit, you will always be hated =)
@Joanna
I guess my “goodness” rating isn’t as high as it could be due to the quantity of women who accept me.
Ozy doesn’t seem to be at the computer right now. The GoogleTalk thingy is a little grey x.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s because of all the women who you’ve said deserve to be raped.
If this is you when you’re happy, NWO, I’d hate to see what your version of unhappy looks like.
“I guess my “goodness” rating isn’t as high as it could be due to the quantity of women who accept me.”
Well considering you wish bad things to happen to women, then yeah. Funny how that works.
@CassandraSays
Well, everyone here has told me I’m extremely unhappy, miserable… Oh just pick your negative trait alluding to unhappiness and insert it. Far be it from me to disagree. That’d drop not only my goodness rating but make me a misogynist as well. With undertones of misandry to boot. Along with a creepy, rapey mentality. How someone can be rapey without actually raping only a woman and her hairdresser can say for sure.
Did you since the vile filth of feminsim has been introduced into State policy in India, married mens suicide is up like 16 x as high as pre-feminist State policy?
Since Newt never gives citations, I took it upon myself to look up a few stats about suicide rates in India. There is some fairly alarming information about the rise of suicides — but I’m not finding any clear evidence that feminism is a cause (though I know that won’t convince Newt):
It is estimated that over 100,000 people die by suicide in India every year. India alone contributes to more than 10% of suicides in the world. The suicide rate in India has been increasing steadily and has reached 10.5 (per 100,000 of population) in 2006 registering a 67% increase over the value of 1980. Majority of suicides occur among men and in younger age groups. Despite the gravity of the problem, information about the causes and risk factors is insufficient.
Consensus: there has been a growing increase of suicide in India, but there seems to be no real consensus on the reasons.
Some of the reasons given for the especially high suicide rate in Southern India seem to be:
Emphisis mine: Hmmm, no feminists I know are the ones pimping like crazy for the nuclear family.
Amazingly enough, it seems hard to assign all of these to feminism per se (not to mention the fact that I’ve seen no indication that feminists have taken over India’s government–and not all the suicides are married men):
Indian teens have world’s highest suicide rate and it’s higher for young women than young men.
Nope, not seeing “feminists take over India But then again, Newt does not distinguish between “women” and “feminists.”
So, it’s clear that there are major social issues there–but I’d be more inclined to consider the colonial legacy of exploitation and the disruption that came in its wake plus the ways in which the US has pimped its obscene view of consumer capitalism all over the world than feminism.
However, as a feminist, I lack the objectivity that Newts have.
@Joanna
“Well considering you wish bad things to happen to women, then yeah. Funny how that works.”
Thankfully my wish powers don’t translate into reality. Only a fool would believe feelings translate into reality.
Rats, my emphasis didn’t bold the bit about nuclear families in the list. Ah, well, c’est la vie.
Don’t feed the trolls. NWO must be stuffed by now XD
I simply cannot believe that given how easy it is to google info (even saying we exclude Wikipedia) that trolls think they can dump bogus or taken out of context statistics into a discussion and NOT realize how easily they can be challenged.
Yeah, dude, you told me I’d enjoy being raped and that I was a liar for stating otherwise. It’s gone beyond undertones by now.
Do I think you’re happy NWO? I don’t think happy people spew the hate you do.
Then again, they say ignorance is bliss, and ignorant definitely applies to you.
He’s totally happy. Except women are actively ruining his life and the lives of countless men everywhere. But apart from that he’s happy.
@ithiliana
Even the commentors on the article in India are asking for sources. A skewed data from 20k over such an extended period that even the author said … “Bertolote cautions that the study group of 20,000 is too small to be extrapolated to India’s population of one billion and notes that there is an established “suicide gradient” in India which rises to the south.”
What is you teach again? It’s like you know every feminist organization in the world. I guess since every State, UN and charity organization is feminist it really isn’t that hard. What is it you teach?
@CassandraSays & the rest of the gang as well.
Am I happy?
I don’t know. What I do know is you are angry, and hateful, and prone to lying. You are ignorant, foolish, and prevaricating.
You support rape, and think you are in a war with women. You would be happy if women were slaves.
So I tend to think you are disappointed, and unhappy with the state of the world. I think that will continue, and get worse, for all the years of your life.
NWO: I wanna end the hatred.
See, there you go, lying again. You want a war. If women get something, you want to take it away. You think it would be alright to knife a woman who slaps you. You think it’s perfectly proper for a man who is attacked to leave the room, get a pipe, come back and fracture a woman’s skull.
You are all about escalating the hatred. But you say you are only trying to return the world to propriety, when that was “normal”. You think that would be equitable, and that keeping women as slaves wouldn’t be oppressing them.
The reason people don’t think you are good, is because you aren’t good.
Here, feminism kills.
http://www.merinews.com/article/skyrocketing-suicide-rate-of-married-men/153159.shtml
We actually need agencies to keep men from killing themselves from the effects of feminism.
@Pecunium
Presumbly the “pipe” in our little game of clue is the weapon used in the MccyDs defense? Those women persued an innocent men with intent to do harm, he was well within his right to defend himself, while you’d excuse their actions.
The Kangaroo court somehow magically lost the part of the video where the women jumped the counter to attack. “How’d that happen” was the prosecutions excuse. Luckily, for what may be the first time in history, those women were held accountable and an innocent man was set free. But not until after being jailed for being attacked.
Just dumb luck that no juror was of your caliber on the jury or he might be rotting in prison.
Please stop pretending you give a shit about men.
Well, they may not have yelled, they may have just whispered conspiratorially, but basically, yes, that is ,EXACTLY what he thinks. He thinks that those young girls planned to sexually arouse the young boy by taunting and teasing him with their “slutwear” (even though you can barely discern what any of them were wearing, owly KNOWS that it was “slutwear”), and then shame him for his lack of self-control (his sporting an erection, which owly KNOWS the young boy must have had, since owly had one goin’ on when watching the vid) by exposing his genitals.
Yes, those 8-year-old slatterns carousing on the beach in their swimsuits. How DARE they be so sexually irresponsible!!
NWO: You don’t get it. The difference between us is I think what he did was wrong, no matter to whom he did it. He was able to leave. They weren’t pursuing him. He got a weapon and attacked them.
That was a crime. You excuse his crime. The same way you excuse rape.
He happens to be in jail right now, because he can’t raise the bail needed to be released, pending his trial
So we don’t know yet what the jury will say.
If you define hatred as the dismantling of male primacy and supremacy in all things, then yes, I believe that you wanna end the hatred.
@Pam
Nice job excusing those girls actions. I guess they chose a boy to sexually humiliate because no girls were available at the time?
Well tell ya what. Why don’t you tell me what they were wearing and what their motivation was? Maybe those angels were victims? Why don’t you evaluate the video and you tell me?