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.
NWO: Please explain to me why I should give one shit whether you’re happy or not. You would be overjoyed to see me and mine forced into slavery and reduced to fucktoys – that doesn’t exactly encourage warm and fuzzy feelings. You have brought every single ounce of hatred and bitterness in your life through your own actions.
NWOslave, was the question you wanted answered, “If women couldn’t arouse a man, how could women reproduce without the aid of modern technology?” It is a strange and unlikely hypothetical, but if it were the case the man could become aroused through manual stimulation and then have sex with a woman once aroused. As I said it is a strange hypothetical, but that is a way for reproduction to take place if it were the case.
Now, I understand that you would rather be raped than teased, which kind of blows my mind. If “wanton sexual teasing” causes you suffering on the level of what rape victims suffer you’re responses to stimuli are at such variance from my own that I don’t know if mutually understandable communication between us is possible. I have been sexually teased, but it never really seemed that bad, just momentarily uncomfortable. I am trying to envision what someone raping me would be like, and it seems like it would be so much worse than teasing. Fear, pain, shock, helplessness, exposure to disease, it seems so intensely awful that sexual teasing seems so mild to me.
NWOSLAVE
You are nothing more then what is popularly called an attention slut. Look at you and all the attention you’re getting. Like a small child beaten it doesn’t matter if it’s negative it is simply for you the attention you are so lacking in your life.
I have no doubt that you have some similarities to MRAL. DId you read his post or were you unable to because it hit so close to home? With no attention in your real life you’ve taken to the internet for hours a day saying the vilest things that can come from a humans mouth (or typed) then reloading and reloading with a smile on your face for every reaction you get.
Unlike MRAL I have no doubt you mean much of what you say to some level. You hate women, or I should say you hate that you cannot have them.
Interesting though how this is getting you off, yet there is no scantly clad female child in front of you. Perhaps your own sexuality is also complex.
@Pecunium
Jumping the counter and going after him is persuit. How many miles should he have ran? The only reason you won’t say he defended himself is because he is a man and they are women.
@NWO: I’ve told you what I teach and if you don’t remember, too bad, so sad.
I am an English teacher–I am not trained in statistics–or in social science methodology in general. You made an unsourced claim; I googled suicide statistics in India and skimmed a few which seem to support the idea that suicide among a number of demographic groups in India may be on the rise — and yet case doubts on the “feminism is the only cause” routine.
didn’t even pull out the Female Genocide in India stuff yet.
So, no, I’m not an expert, but neither are you–kudos, btw, in actually linking to an actual source.
You can care about the men.
I care about the women.
I’ve been reading feminist works since 1982. A couple of the courses I teach are about women’s literature and gender theory. But I also teach grant writing, creative writing, stylistics, and Tolkien.
So nothing more than a bit of google and curiosity after one of your wildass claims — but I bet I know more than you do at this point about the topic.
Nobody is excusing their actions. They should be punished. But, they should be punished for attacking the boy, not for allegedly arousing him first.
Let’s go back to that rape you say I would enjoy so much. You seem to think the perpetrator should get a lighter sentence for raping me than if she just did a strip-tease in front of me and then left. Do you not see how fucked up that is?
I wonder if it would totally blow NWOslave’s mind to find out that a lot of men go to clubs and actually pay women to sexually tease them.
They often then pay extra for the woman to rub her butt all over his crotch and wave it in his face…and that’s it. No sexual release. Just a whole lot of teasing.
NWO – How hard is it to explain to you that, no, if the genders were reversed in the McDonald’s case, I would not condone a woman who was able to leave the room coming back with a weapon, because THAT IS NOT SELF DEFENSE? Why is this so difficult for you to believe?
NWO: He went into another room. They weren’t chasing him anymore. He came back. That’s not self-defense, that’s an initiated action. It’s a new attack. It’s a crime.
If it had been a man who was attacking a woman, and she left the room and came back to beat him, she’d be committing a crime, and ought to be punished.
The same way I say the girls in the incident being discussed deserve to be punished; because what they did is wrong.
The only reason you are defending him is that he attacked women. The only reason you are angry with the girls is they are female; and they attacked a male.
NWO prolly thinks Allen Andrade was justified too. I have a question… if nwo walked in on any person viciously wailing with a weapon on unarmed ppl… would he stop it of call the police of is it important to him to fid out who “started it”? xD
Although it would have been perfectly all right if they then proceeded to rape that boy.
continuing –
If you reply to us to prove we’re not all about the self defense…
You may be about to bring up battered person’s syndrome, the common MRA version of the “burning bed” case, and attacks in the home on abusers. I consider this quite different, especially from a libertarian perspective. Here we have a persistent pattern of violence IN ONE’S OWN HOME. And there is no obligation to retreat on one’s own property… As Roderick Long says :
” In a number of recent cases, a woman has killed or maimed her abusive husband because she feared a continuation of abuse, even though he was not abusing her at the precise moment she attacked him. Our legal system tends to treat these women as criminals, on the grounds that violent self-defense is justified only when the threat is immediate (except when it’s government that is doing the defending, at which point the criteria for justifiable pre-emptive violence seem to become extremely lax). The argument is that an abused woman should flee the home rather than staying and assaulting her abuser. But why should she have to leave her own home, simply because it is also the abuser’s home? Even our degraded legal system generally recognizes that one has no duty to retreat from an attacker when one is in one’s own home. If you are the victim of a persistent pattern of severe rights-violations, a pattern you have every reason to expect will continue, and if external authorities offer no reliable protection, it seems to me that you are justified in undertaking your own defense, and that a libertarian court should recognize this. A competitive legal system would allow women’s perspectives a greater voice in deciding the treatment of such cases than is possible under our monopolistic system.”
Of course, considering your previous statements about “a man’s home, and a man’s children,” I think I’m over your head here. Though I think that argument applies to abused men as well.
Casandra: He’s not willing to accept it because he’s happy a woman was beaten (it’s his idea of, “escalation”). He thinks that slapping a man is something which justifies a man stabbing a woman; or in this case fracturing her skull.
It’s how he thinks the “war” against women needs to be fought. If it were a woman who did that, he’d say she needs to be locked up. He’d be happy if a man in that situation (a woman whom he had beaten going to another room and coming back) had killed the woman. He’d say the man was acting in self-defense.
He hates women. He wants to enslave them. He’s willing to kill them to do that, and he boasts that it needs to happen.
“Although it would have been perfectly all right if they then proceeded to rape that boy”
Well, it would be just horrific to leave him high and dry, spearhafoc, right, NWO?
@Kavette
That would be attention whore. You can tell them by the way they dress and act. Are they trolling for compliments or trolling for cock?
Everyone here is always here. My comments pale in comparison to all of you. How is my commenting in time, which is far less then your’s an indicator of my lack of attention? What does that say about you? Do you need validation for whatever your actions are by the gang 24/7?
Let’s all send e-hugs and nod our heads in unison like boblehead dolls to show how progressive and tolerant we are. The sad part is when I sign off, everyone says I’m running away like a coward or flouncing.
Such a pathetic attempt at pop-psychology. Am I getting off? Is there no scantly clad female child in front of me? Do I hate women? Do I hate that I cannot have them?
Everyone here no so much about me, but oh horrors if I say anything about anyonw here lest I not see them as human. Gee, I wish I could be more feminist like you!
On that note. I’ll say goodnight. And I do sleep so well. My concience is like rockin my world clear. I had off today and I slept till noon. Tommorow, maybe I’ll sleep till past noon.
Because without a conscience of any kind, sleeping is easy!
I have literally no idea what you’re trying to say here.
Goodnight NWOslave, maybe tomorrow seeing people that you find attractive will be less nightmarishly awful for you. Good luck…
I do wonder what NWOslave thought of the Christina Hendricks pictures. I assume she’s not his type, what with her being over 16 and all.
Still, if the pictures did arouse him, am I to be blamed for his arousal (which is worse than rape)? I wonder.
You said goodbye a number of times today, I’ve skimmed the thread. Yet you keep coming back.
Whores get paid for it, all you get is the any attention you need so much. By your own admission you are the slut that you so despise. I have found in life that people hate what they hate in themselves.
Put into plainer words you hate women and girls who get attention because you yourself need attention. Simpler words if you had the chance to be a cute twelve year old girl you would be wearing a bikini to the mall.
Isn’t it hilarious how much it bugs Slavey when we all send hugs to each other, express warmth and affection and support, etc?
Group hug, everyone! Even you, MRAL, as long as you promise not to start babbling about how gross vaginas are again.
This has been… an insane thread to read through.
Remember last weekend when Ozy reached out to him with sincere sympathy and he made up that ridiculously pathetic story about his work friends hanging out at his house and watching him post on manboobz? And he asks us if we think he’s happy.
You know, I am often doing work of some sort on Saturday. Today, I had the day off and couldn’t wait to make the most of it. I spent today: making chipotle mac and cheese, singing carols with my cubscouts at the holiday party, standing in line at the grocery store, hugging my dad, talking Christmas dinner plans with my mom, listening to my sisters recount -hilariously- their experience at a terrible Christmas concert, baking holiday cookies with two of my best friends like we do every year (just wrapped up; four types of cookies, three types of no-bake treats), planning a baby shower, and buying one of several presents for my man, At some point I showered.
NWO spent his day off arguing that capri-pants on a 12 year old are slut wear and exposing us all the the filth-strewn gutter of his atrophied soul.
And the asks us if we think he’s happy.
Wow.
PS – This is another reason why we think you’re an unhappy person, NWO. Happy people don’t get annoyed when they see other people being warm and affectionate to each other.
I will spend tomorrow with my ex, who may at some point be current again. See, what happened is that we broke up, and then both proceeded to miss each other so much that after a brief period of sulking (a few months) we ended up hanging out all the time, because we just really enjoy each other’s company. And then about a year later he asked me if we could get back together, and I’m thinking about it. Even if I end up saying no, we’ll still be best friends, and we’ll still hang out.
Should I put on a burqua before I go see him tomorrow, Slavey? I guess I better not hug him, because that would be taunting if it doesn’t lead to sex. He’s not going to like this no hugging thing, but I’ll tell him a not at all unhappy dude on the internet insisted and it’s for his own good.
Only someone like NWO would think that “You guys respect and support each other.” is some kind of vicious insult.