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.
Do you realize how fucking creepy it is to ask this question? How many seconds do you want to keep fucking someone who told you to stop?
Ugh.
This isn’t “officer, the light was yellow when I entered the intersection!” This is a human being’s body.
@Kendra, the bionic mommy
Your zie pronoun means nothing.
Rape is penetration. A man can be totally shitfaced drunk and still get an erection, while the woman is totally straight. The next day he could tell her she’s a bitch and he can’t stand her. She can go to the authorities and claim rape. He was drunk and he raped. Case closed.
“And the young man didn’t stop for 5 seconds after consent was withdrawn?”
Yeah that sounds like rape to me.
NWO is going to add, “But WHAT IF the guy has a strange hearing impairment that causes him to take 5 seconds to process spoken words?”
Just speaking hypothetically here.
Slavey,
it’s entirely possible for consent to be withdrawn while in the middle of a sexual act: if the person being asked to stop doesn’t stop, then it’s rape. Pretty obvious, huh?
@Holly Pervocracy
Well then how many seconds while in the throes of passion, if a woman changes her mind is it rape?
What makes you so certain that there are fewer rapes inside prison walls than outside prison walls? Until recently, inmates could rape each other with impunity and without any certainty that they’d face unpleasant consequences if the authorities found out about what they did. For all practical purposes, raping another inmate while doin’ time was perfectly legal! Rape also happens to female prisoners at the hands of male prison guards. But it’s easier to hold guards accountable for how they treat inmates than it is to hold inmates accountable for any crimes they commit against each other while behind bars. I’ve read that for a long time. On the outside, rape is a crime that american law currently takes VERY seriously. In prison however, the law really doesn’t give a shit.
Crumbelievable – What frustrates me is:
A) Once he hair-splits us down to saying that 4.5 seconds of continuation if the man is drunk and has a hearing impediment isn’t rape, he’ll declare that every reported rape ever is clearly a “4.5 seconds etcetera” situation.
B) He thinks women all lie, anyway. Which makes this all moot. If women are going to make shit up, then can’t we just make up that it was 6 seconds?
Yes you are.
No you are not.
Yes you are.
No you are not.
Please do not. We already have ample proof you believe that a woman who goes to a fraternity party and passes out, for whatever reason, is at fault for whatever the persons at the party do to her.
Regardless if it is having sex with her inert body, shaving her head, slitting her throat, or whatever else wanders into their minds at the time.
After all, she went to a party at a frat house and passed out. Her fault-not the person who chose to rape her. Or shave her head. Or slit her throat.
@Crumbelievable
“Yeah that sounds like rape to me.”
So how many years will you personally recommend incarceration for that 5 second infraction?
NWO: how often do you think it is that a woman will suddenly change her mind “while in the throes of passion”? And anyway, as I’m sure has already been said to you many, many times, women tend not to “change their minds” just for shits and giggles — the majority of cases when someone asks the other to stop in the throes of passion is because something hur(s)t. If you think it’s fine to ignore that because “we were in the throes of passion!” then you are an unbelievably huge asshole. Though I’m sure you already knew that.
Zero. You stop. No one’s got a fucking stopwatch, but you stop. You don’t go for a couple more strokes, you don’t say “but I’m almost there,” you don’t pretend not to hear the first time.
It’s not complicated at all if you give a shit about the people you fuck.
If the person you’re having sex with asks you to stop and you don’t, you’re an asshole. Let’s put it in these terms, because this is an injury that can and does happen to men. A man and a woman are having consensual sex. She’s on top. She twists the wrong way and the man’s penis is sprained. Now imagine that she doesn’t stop, and furthermore, argues later that she couldn’t have been expected to stop because they were already in the midst of it. That woman would be a terrible person. And so would a man who refuses to stop if his partner asks him to.
hurt(s)*. Sigh.
LOL – here is yet another clueless reply. Did you even read my post? If so, it appears you need to brush up on comprehension of the English language.
Nowhere was I “hostile towards women”. If you still erroneously believe I was being “hostile towards women” can you quote the exact post where you feel I was being that way and describe what makes you feel that I was being “hostile towards women”?
Also, you claim that I am “victim blaming”. Care to quote the exact post where you feel I was being that way and describe what makes you feel that I was “victim blaming”?
Yes. Being “douchey” is being “bad”. Is rape not bad to you? Just because you have a lighthearted usage of the word “douchey”, “douche bag”, etc. does not mean that everyone shares that same meaning. Douche bags commit murder too you know. What is worse in your eyes, murder or rape?
This is purely a semantic argument on your part. It in no way adds to the actual discussion some are attempting to conduct here.
Also, name calling in no way adds to this discussion. It only goes to show that you fall back on the worn old crutch of the Ad Hominem fallacy in a feeble attempt to discredit what someone who you don’t agree with may have typed. Please try harder.
@Xanthe Yes questioning methodology is a pretty common method of censorship and I am not trying to deny the right fo the study to examine what it has, but when something as obvious as Envelopment isn’t considered rape it points to pretty shoddy methodology. I’m certain when this study is examined academically they will point out other flaws.
This study has came up with the figure that 1 in 5 women suffer from rape and or attempted rape, which is a vast improvement on the 1 in 4 that used to be very common. Again I repeat that either we are making huge gains in the fight against rape which is fantastic or the studies are more closely starting to reflect the real figure.
“So how many years will you personally recommend incarceration for that 5 second infraction?”
I don’t know. I don’t know anything about legal matters. Here’s a better question: Why didn’t the young man in your situation stop when he was told to?
great. that doesnt change the fact that prison rape and other forms of rape are phenomenologically different and conflating them isn’t going to help you do that. why do you want cdc to do bad science?
which policy makers? why are they looking at this study? what’s the objective? these are questions that have to be answered before you
no dude. as someone who takes an academic interest in rape this is so backward. rape, like all crimes, is an artificially constructed event. we define which acts of sexual violence fall within the concept of rape. i support a much broader understanding of what rape is, but i also recognize that defining rape is going to be subject to debate, and i can’t be ‘offended’ about the inclusion of certain phenomena.
saying ‘rape is when a rapists rapes someone’ is unhelpful and intellectually lazy. i could assign any act to the word rape and it would make sense it that sentence. rape could mean handshake under your definition. i recognize that you mean well and you want to be part of the discussion, but you need to take way more time and think these things through, and stop getting your information from reddit. that is not helping you.
You know what the word is for someone who wants to negotiate how many seconds it’s OK to keep fucking someone for after they’ve told you to stop?
Creepy. Very, very creepy.
(See, it does have an objective meaning and that meaning is not “ugly” or “short”.)
And like Herp Derp said, women don’t get off on playing “Red Light, Green Light.”
If we tell you to stop, it’s usually more like “Green Light, Ow You Hurt Something” or “Green Light, Panic Attack,” or even something as simple as “Green Light, Hang On A Second You’re Making My Leg Fall Asleep.”
But if you keep on thrusting after that, it’s no longer just a matter of putting her leg to sleep. It’s a matter of putting her leg to sleep and making her completely powerless to stop you from having sex with her, and that’s also called rape.
@Herp Derp
“NWO: how often do you think it is that a woman will suddenly change her mind “while in the throes of passion”?”
I don’t know, but I’m sure it does occasionally happen. You’re going to lump maybe a 15 or 16 year old kid in the same category as a violent rapist. Are you gonna throw some 15 year old kid in juvie for 5 seconds? Hell, give him another 3 seconds and he’ll be done.
NWO, have you ever had sex?
I’m not trying to make a “LOL are u a virgin?” joke here. I’m really just trying to fathom what sort of sexual relations you might have had, if any, with the kind of understanding of consent (and of human relations in general) that you possess.
‘When I throw a tantrum about a word,’ SexBots said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I scream at you it means — neither more nor less.’
Ullere, I suspect that some of the separation of items as being rape / non-rape is because of US criminal law. If rape includes sexual coercion, then there would be the various overlappings* of the dual 18.3% rape / 13.0% sexual coercion statistics for women; likewise, 1.4% rape / 4.8% envelopment / 6.0% sexual coercion stats for men.
* In other words, some victims can be in both (women) or two or three (men) of the statistical categories listed, so one cannot obtain a combined figure by addition of the separate percentages.
sexbots, in case you need a picture drawn for you that was me not taking your kindergarten sophistry seriously. just because you demand to be seen as a victim doesn’t mean anyone has to acquiesce.