Here’s a little one-question quiz to see how much you know about Reddit’s Atheism subreddit.
QUESTION ONE: A woman describes being raped by a “friend” while both were intoxicated (though she doesn’t call it rape). Do the r/atheism regulars:
a) Respond with sympathy and support
b) Attack her and furiously downvote her posts, with the assistance of one of the moderators of r/mensrights, then return to posting and upvoting rape jokes
BONUS QUESTION: True or False: Someone on r/menrights links to her comment as “an example of how and why many people believe that rape is everywhere… because their definition of rape includes every sexual misadventure.” The most heavily upvoted comment in the r/mensrights thread declares that the woman who was raped “sounds like a delusional sheltered teen.”
Yes, the correct answers here are the ones you assumed were correct.
Here’s the woman’s post describing what happened to her.
She gives more details on what happened in other, also-highly-downvoted comments.
One highly upvoted rape joke from elsewhere in the thread:
Hilarious!
Amazingly, despite all the jokes and the victim blaming/attacking going on, the thread also contains some highly upvoted comments lamenting the tendency of people to blame the victim in rape cases. Apparently, when a rape victim is drunk, it’s not rape, even when she repeatedly says “no” and gives in because she’s scared, so it’s fine to attack away, and even to accuse the victim of being a rapist too.
This enables Reddit Atheists not only to blame the victim of rape without feeling guilty, or admitting that this is what they’re doing, while simultaneously feeling self-righteous in their condemnation of religious people doing the exact same thing.
And because their rape jokes are also couched as jokes about religious people’s views on rape, they can feel self-righteous while making them too.
Sometimes the actions of Reddit Atheists cause me to begin to doubt just a teensy weensey bit that “atheists are a community that’s pre-selected for clear thinking and empiricism,” as one commenter in r/mensrights put it not that long ago.
EDITED TO ADD: Thanks again to ShitRedditSays for highlighting this awful thread.
EDITED TO ADD 2: More SRS discussion, courtesy of Holly.
I always love the “but if they’re both drunk did they rape each other?” Crap. I think people get hung up on the drunk part, because apparently consent and getting it is so hard.
Seriously, do women here really need to consider using Rape X to make lack of consent clear like radfems say? Its extreme and I doubt many women would use it because few women or men are prepared to maim or kill even if that’s what’s required to survive. This is a solution that may spare women, anyone got ideas on how to prevent male rape? Oh yeah! Teach people respect and to have empathy enough to get consent!
The sad thing about the consent strategy is that it only works for your average, compassion having human. I don’t believe that consent or the law would slow the sociopathic tendencies of rapists….
Can someone post some kitty pics? My last thought was truly depressing….
Oh Anthony… still with the lies based on willful blindness. Look at this very case we are talking about, it gives the lie to your entire premise. This was a “sexual adventure with some level of non-consent,” but there is no prison sentence. There is no registering of the offender. There is, in fact, nothing happening to him.
Show me where “feminists” don’t recognise the, “shades of gray in punishment,” since many of them are opposed to the ways in which registries of convicted offenders are made public, of the ways in which communities use them to make it impossible for offenders to live normal lives, and of the ways in which trivial crimes are equated to habitual predation.
What you are opposed to; and what your rhetorical distortions of the facts are meant to disguise, is that feminists want to change the tolerance of non-stranger rape.
That’s what really chaps your hide, that rapes society is willing to ignore, feminists seem to be convincing people are really rape. If that happens then the “shades of gray in punishment” will be a lot easier. Because your way, where only the stranger leaping out of the dark alley and brutally attacking someone is the modal form of “rape” means the way in which society sees someone convicted of rape mandates treating every rapist as the most violent and vicious of psychopaths.
Not all rape is like that, and not all rapists are like that; but sweeping the rest of the rapes under the rug is a sure way to see to it that all the rapists who get convicted are tainted with that sort of characterization (or it would, if people like you didn’t go around saying women who get raped by anyone who isn’t leaping out of the darkness wasn’t really raped and was actually a willing participant).
makomk captainbathrobe: the problem here is that if you’re male and too drunk to say no, then it’s still rape of her so long as she’s drunk too even if she comes on to you and you say no
Umn… no. If she is the initiator, and she is the one who is refusing to take no for an answer, she is the rapist. That people fail to treat rape as rape is the problem; and it’s not limited to the issue of females raping males. That’s a symptom of the larger problem this post is highlighting… that society doesn’t really think rape is rape.
“So hi AZ, what would be a fair sentence for making a false rape accusation? Show your work. Remember to define “fair”.”
Same thing. Shades of gray. Many “falsely” accused are actually “wrongly” accused. The accuser does not have the intent to fabricate. In some cases, the accuser is a genuine victim — sometimes a victim of the police. Examine this case:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/om70u/man_falsely_accused_of_rape_on_national/
* Man is a victim of the false accusation (millions wrongly think of him as a perpetrator)
* Woman is a victim of the false accusation (millions wrongly think of her as a false accuser)
* The actual wrongful accusation was made by a third party
* The third party who made the wrongful accusation did not have the intent to falsify
Two victims, one wrongful accusation, no perpetrators. No punishment for false accusation. The male victim of the wrongful accusation has been threatened, assaulted, and his property has been vandalized. The female victim faces fewer physical threats, but she is so universally reviled and loathed she cannot show her face in public.
Here’s a kitty pic
NWO slave said:
“Anyhoo, I figure since this thread is about alcohol and sex we can let science guide us to a brave new world of equality. Anytime sex occurs and alcohol is involved, the person with the highest alcohol content is the “vicitm.” Since the entire reasoning behind the whole rape aspect is loss of ones faculties. The person with the lowest blood alcohol content would be the responsible party.
Sounds like a pretty equitable solution to me. Somehow I doubt da crew will see it that way. Particularly if women are sent to prison for 10 of 15 years for having sex with an intoxicated man. Unless of course they get to go to a California spa prison. Might be a win-win scenario after all.”
That may have been the first reasonable thought you ever posted. I actually agree with you but then you go on to spoil it with that stupid comment about “spa prisons”. Personally, I have no problem at all with a woman going to prison for 10 to 15 years if she rapes or “envelops” an intoxicated man and a man should get the same sentence if he does it to a woman.
AntZ said:
“I forgot to mention that the adult woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison and life on registry for raping the 13 year old boy. I think a fair punisment would be 3 year sentence, 1 year served with good time, 2 years probation, and 5 years on the registry.”
You have to be kidding! Especially after your previous post where you quoted the the trauma that having been raped as a thirteen year old had on the male victim. You really think that woman only deserved a maximum sentence of three years? After doing that much damage you think she should get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist?
You have kangaroos loose in your upper paddock!
@ Everyone responding to Anthony Zarat
You’ll have already realised that he can’t be taken seriously by his words, but he’s a fraud on so many levels.
Ask him about the pharmacy, about the young woman who complimented his imaginary child. Ask him how he felt getting praise from his MRA (online) friend about frightening her. Ask him to tell you the truth about this encounter.
“You have to be kidding! Especially after your previous post where you quoted the the trauma that having been raped as a thirteen year old had on the male victim. ”
That was a description of what happened to me, not to the other boy. We were both 13 years old at the time of our respective assaults. The age coincidence is probably why you were confused. I am sorry for not being more clear.
In the Reddit case, the boy’s mother submitted a victim impact statement, but I do not know what it contains.
Happy: I know I’m not talking to Anthony. I’m talking about thinks he says. He’s a lost cause. He admits to lying, thinks his wife needs to be replaced with a computer program; advocates dividing the world into two halves, the male half, and the female half (and thinks the Mississippi river is the middle of the world, and a convenient dividing line), that teaching children not to abuse people is the most horrific of civil rights violations and that rape is no big deal; even when it’s painfully traumatic.
That, or he lies about his experiences.
But someone else might read his shit, and see only the, far too deserved, mockery, and think it we couldn’t respond to the actual nonsense he says.
“Oh Anthony… still with the lies based on willful blindness. Look at this very case we are talking about, it gives the lie to your entire premise. This was a “sexual adventure with some level of non-consent,” but there is no prison sentence. There is no registering of the offender. There is, in fact, nothing happening to him.”
The man who assaulted AppleGods is less culpable than the offender in the Reddit case. He mistook assent for consent, and the victim was not a minor.
His punishment, if any, should be light.
So Antz argument is basically, “People who rape should get light sentences! I was raped, and it still bothers me decades later! But people should still get light sentences for rape!”
Geez, and he keeps telling us that *feminists* hate male rape victims…
@Antz,
His punishment, if any, should be light.
Well, considering that rapes of this sort are rarely prosecuted, I’m fairly sure that you got your precious fucking wish.
AntZ, apparently your idea of a ‘heavy’ sentence is 3 fucking years (but out in 1 for good behaviour). So your ‘light’ sentence would in effect allow many rapists to get off almost completely.
You know when people say you don’t give a shit about rape victims, they’re telling the truth.
Maybe we should tell Antz to get therapy like we did with MRAL? Horrific nightmares at 41 are no way to live.
This whole thing…
SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T WANT SEX.
The “they were both drunk” thing becomes entirely irrelevant, because this is a case where if she’d been sober it would have also been rape. She said no.
Sometimes I hate the Internet so much.
(I also hate the ridiculous MRA idea–are they being this stupid on purpose–that drunkenness defines rape, so if two people are drunk then either they’re raping each other or no one is. No, initiating sex with a drunk person is rape. Having a drunk person initiate sex with you is not. It’s really not that goddamn complicated.)
Antz: There are two different crimes: rape of a minor, and rape of an adult.
I am confused though about what you mean by light. You think someone who rapes a child ought to get 1 year in custody, and 2 years of parole.
So what is light, in the context of someone who, contra your claim, was given a red-light: I refuse to accept the facile “mistook assent for consent”, when the victim says, “I said no.” You are further (I believe intentionally) confusing the matter by implying acquiescence = assent. Since assent is permission, you are, linguistically, erasing the rape.
If raping a child = 1/2, what is the, “lighter” sentence one should get for raping an adult? Why, since we are on the subject, should the inability of a child to consent be substantively different from the inability of anyone else to assent. If someone is incapable of consent, they are incapable of consent right?
You’ve been prattling about how the MRA is all about treating things which are the same as if they were the same; so why is it different when the victim can’t consent by reason of situational incapacity?
Oh, that’s right… she’s a woman, and you don’t give a shit; because you think (as you’ve often said) women are evil and men should get rid of them.
ozymandias42: as I understand it – never drunk that much myself thankfully – someone can be drunk enough to lose chunks of events or even not actually remember anything without being drunk enough to actually lose consciousness or incapacitated enough not to be sexually active, even aggressive. If one or both parties can’t remember events clearly, guess what gets assumed.
Pecunium: now calculate the odds that anyone would believe she was the initiator, even if she remembered and admitted to actions that constituted initiating sex or even forcible rape, let alone care.
pillowinhell: yes, consent and getting it does appear to be that hard. The funny thing is that women – including feminist women – actually seem to be really awful at dealing with consent and respecting their partner’s no too. It’s one of those things that’s attracted a certain amount of discomfort and hand-wringing in the feminist blogosphere every time it becomes obvious, but no-one’s actually tried to solve.
Makomk – SHE SAID NO.
SHE SAID SHE DID NOT WANT SEX.
Unless you think she’s just straight-up lying (in which case why quibble on details? maybe she never met the guy. maybe she’s a typing horse), this is not a maybe-maybe case. She said she did not want sex. That means that having sex with her anyway IS RAPE.
Being drunk is not considered an excuse for any other crime, so why should it be for rape? It’s not like drunk people are just falling by accident into other people’s vaginas or onto their penises. Having sex with a drunk person who either can’t consent or can’t resist requires a degree of intentionality and volition, just like driving a car, starting a fight, or pulling a trigger. Being a victim of rape, on the other hand, requires neither intentionality nor volition.
In the cases we’ve seen here, the victim refused consent, yet the perpetrator pressed on regardless. If that’s not rape, I don’t know what is–and I don’t care how drunk the perp was when zie did it.
Holly Pervocracy: yes that does mean she was raped, and the fact that she was drunk should’ve been just another minor detail, perhaps even a red herring. Now read her downvoted comment again – it’s the other way around. She talks about the fact that she was drunk first and foremost as the reason why it wasn’t consensual, then uses her experience of being raped in which she explicitly said no as a justification for why being drunk should automatically classify women as unable to consent, no matter how enthusiastic their “yes”.
It’s one of those things that’s attracted a certain amount of discomfort and hand-wringing in the feminist blogosphere every time it becomes obvious, but no-one’s actually tried to solve.
How much time have you actually spent reading the feminist blogosphere? Because the concept of Enthusiastic Consent gets discussed fairly regularly, and the consensus among feminists is that this should be the gold standard for all sexual encounters. No hand wringing going on that I can tell, except from the occassional MRA troll or hanger-on complaining that Enthusiastic Consent would mean that most men would never get laid.
Makomk – Being drunk should automatically classify people as being unable to consent.
It’s not a complicated concept here–initiating sex with a drunk person is rape. (Having someone else initiate sex with you when you’re not drunk is not rape, and I have trouble believing anyone actually thinks that and isn’t just using it to bolster their stupid victim-blaming arguments.)
How drunk is drunk? Yeah, at some point that’s a judgement call–I actually don’t think one sip of wine makes someone unable to give meaningful consent–but let’s say way less drunk than blackout drunk would be a good starting point.
Er, that should be “having someone else initiate sex with you when you’re drunk is not rape.”
An extra “not” snuck in there.
Oh well, it’s true either way.
Could someone paste the article
“Selling the MRM” from AVfM?
I can’t access the site right now, for some reason. Anyone else having trouble?