What can you do when you realize that you’re losing the war of ideas? You can rethink some or all of your ideas, seriously considering the unnerving possibility that you might be, well, wrong. You can reconsider how you present your ideas.
Or you can give up on ideas entirely, and attempt to pressure or harass or even terrorize others into some form of surrender. That’s what the the uber-radical Weathermen did in the 1960s and 70s, turning first to violent direct action in the aptly named “days of rage” and then to bombs when the revolution that many in the New Left had been prophesying failed to materialize. That’s what the anti-abortion movement has been doing for decades now, with some in the movement harassing women trying to get abortions while more radical antis bomb clinics and kill doctors. .
And now we’re seeing rhetoric from Men’s Rights Activists that suggests some in that movement may also be giving up on talk. Consider A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam, who declared in a fundraising letter a couple of months back that:
Progress for men will not be gained by debate, reason or typical channels of grievance available to segments of the population that the world actually gives a damn about. The progress we need will only be realized by inflicting enough pain on the agents of hate, in public view, that it literally shocks society out of its current coma.
Elam is – presumably deliberately — vague about what exactly he means when he talks about “inflicting … pain,” and as far as I know he has never explicitly endorsed violence. But he has spoken openly about “stalking” individual feminists and otherwise “fucking their shit up” by, among other things, posting personal information about them on the AVfM-sponsored site Register-Her.com for all would be vigilantes to see. And in the “activism” section of his website he has reprinted a manifesto explicitly calling for the firebombing of courthouses and police stations.
Elam isn’t the only MRA who has officially given up on “debate and reason” in favor of “inflicting … pain” on feminists. The “counter-feminist” wannabe philosopher who calls himself Fidelbogen makes a similar argument in a recent post on his blog:
Feminism is your enemy, and the obligation to treat feminists as fellow human beings is officially waived. They are not fellow human beings, they are ALIENS.
Dehumanizing the enemy always a good start.
[L]et’s not hear any crap about so-called “hate speech”. You see, there is simply no way that you can resist evil, denounce tyranny, or call pernicious things by their right names, without crossing a fine line into “hate speech” or something very like it. Extremism against a bully is no vice, and since bullies have their own moral economy, you are entitled to pay them in their own coin.
It’s not hate speech if you really do hate them?
The important thing to understand about the feminists is, that they will not change their outward behavior unless social heat and pressure are inflicted upon them.
Fidelbogen, a sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, is also vague about what exactly he means by this “social heat and pressure.” He continues:
What, do you think they will stop what they are doing just because somebody intellectually convinces them they are mistaken? They will do no such thing, because they are people with an agenda who know they are “right”, and they lack the gift to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.
IRONY ALERT. IRONY ALERT.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, the charming JeremiahMRA – who used to post comments here as Things Are Bad – thinks the “inflict pain” policy should be extended to all women, any time they engage in “bad behavior.” Responding to a poster asking how to handle a disagreement with his mother, he explained his theory in (sometimes redundant) detail, receiving several dozen net upvotes for his post:
The ONLY way you change women’s bad behavior is by punishing them if they won’t start acting like adults. …
The only way you change a woman’s bad behavior is by making sure they know it hurts them. …
Reasoning with her will not work. The only answer is to use the power he has as her SON to threaten to hurt her emotionally. Women are emotional creatures. Nothing else will work. This is what it means to be a man: you do what you have to do so that things will be better in the end, even if you don’t like it. …
It isn’t about convincing her what’s right, it’s about showing her she will suffer if she doesn’t do what’s right. That is the only thing that will work.
The Men’s Rights Movement likes to pretend that is it a civil rights movement. But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement. These are the tactics of angry narcissists clinging to retrograde prejudices, who have given up on the war of ideas because on some level they know that history is against them, and that they will never win.
This is probably a better section anyway.
You know, Roberta, I am of the somewhat uncommon opinion that lawyers are unfairly maligned and that they are necessary for the correct functioning of the legal system.
People like you give me cause to reconsider that opinion.
Ahh yes – I’d hate for someone to just consent to sex with someone who’s badgering them in a non-genuine way, when they have other options.
“Did you know you could say ‘no’ to that guy?”
“Oh shit Tammy, if only I knew about the genuine way to stop someone from badgering me into having sex. Wish I woulda know about my human agency!”
I don’t think you get to harp on anyone’s reading comprehension, chump!
I do find Roberta’s dedication to the cause of making sure that people can get away with as much coercion as possible without it being considered rape fascinating. What an, um, interesting thing to devote so much time and energy to.
@debbaa
Ok, you’re a moron who’s only hearing what you want to hear. Go argue with a ludicrous strawman of someone else’s position. I’m done responding to you.
Roberta, either you did not read this article or you need a 101 on the underlying concepts of consent and power systems as well as intersectionality. The fact that the author was able to accurately predict your arguments and that you use them anyways is quIte telling.
And I kinda figured you go running for Radfem work. Its the favorite of anti feminists.
So how does it feel defending the points of view of a group of men who would call you a lawyercunt or define you as the useless skin around a vagina? Especially as you claim to be a lawyer, so you have benefitted quite directly from feminism. Since you do not stay at home as a traditional woman would do and have an education and financial independance, how do you rationalize your circumstance?
I’m just going to leave that here.
CassandraSays:
Okay, lemme practice my new blockquoting skillz.
Roberta said:
I was actually going to defend the long-term relationship and say that there should be a little more leniency in that scenario, but I realized the way I was going to word it would have made it a sh*t argument. I think it is important, however, to acknowledge that rape can very much happen within a long-term relationship, therefore the singularly most important aspect within that context is clear communication and respect by BOTH parties.
In other words, it should hopefully look like the position I outlined when I stated what my personal comfort was: If the propositioner asks for sex and the proposed refuses, the propositioner can ask again, but if the proposed gives a second clear “no”, the propositioner should not pursue it further, as it could quickly become a rape.
Did the blockquotes work?
They did! Squeeee!!!
I have no interest in seriously engaging you, Roberta. Mockery it is! That’s all you really deserve.
@pillow
And you need a 101 on human psychology and behavioral science. Human decision making is influenced by all kinds of factors. Free will is largely an illusion, but why narrowly put this focus on the choice to consent to sex? This argument could just as legitimately be applied to any other kind of choice in any other kind of context.
It’s not even possible to adequately delineate between what we **want** to do or what we feel pressured to do. The whole idea of *want* is actually somewhat baseless. Human desire is subjective, complex, and self-contradictory. We are not rational creatures.
We can’t enshrine *desire* into the law, as it’s not falsifiable and not even concretely defined. The standard before the law can only ever be: were you forcibly compelled by these objective definitions? If not, then no crime has occurred. Sexual assault legislation can’t be some clearing house for every less sub-optimal sexual encounter.
@Roberta:
I… but…
…
*breathe*
The whole notion of consent is dedicated towards being able to communicate whether or not you actually want to have sex!
@Roberta:
… therefore consent doesn’t exit, therefore rape?
Also, NO U! Your debating skills astonish me. Truly you are to lawyers what the joke “what do you call the guy who graduated last in his class at med school? Doctor!” is to the medical profession.
Nope.
Consent is a term with it’s roots in contract law.
Consent is agreement, not desire. See above.
You seem to be questioning whether anyone’s choices are every truly voluntary given the pressures that always exist on our choices. This is an interesting and worthwhile philosophical discussion. The problem is that you are narrowly focusing on this idea as a question of consent to sex and rape without providing the proper philosophical background or looking at agency in other contexts. This is misleading and, quite frankly, stupid.
It’s one thing to have a philosophical discussion. It’s quite another to call people rapists by selectively applying an esoteric philosophical question.
There’s always consequences to saying “no”, to anything, and in any context. So long as those consequences aren’t criminally severe (actual violence, severe economic harm, some other unlawful harm), then a free and voluntary choice has still been made.
If a man refuses to lend his daughter money despite her persistent nagging, his consequence will be his daughter’s anger and resentment. That is a consequence, but not a consequence so severe that it strips the man of his agency or his ability to make a voluntary choice. Likewise, a pouty boyfriend isn’t enough of a consequence to compel anyone to consent to sex.
“Have sex with me, or I’m breaking up with you.” for instance. This is indeed pressure on consent, but not enough to render the consent involuntary or to render the following sex, rape. Why? Because you don’t have an inherent right to be in a relationship with a given person, so threatening to end that relationship if certain demands aren’t met isn’t coercion. You do have an inherent right to bodily autonomy, so threatening violence if you don’t consent to sex is coercion.
My issue is that you seem to believe a decision to agree to an activity or transaction can only be properly made in some kind of bubble that is free from any kind of cultural, personal, or relational pressure. The problem is that such a bubble does not exist. Ever.
You throw terms like rape, consent, and duress around very loosely and with a poor understanding of their meaning.
There are situations in which the consequences of saying “no” would be so severe that they would be enough to compel a “yes” (actual violence is threatened, termination of employment is threatened, etc), but this is not true in the vast majority of circumstances. Insisting that consent is only legitimate when there are exactly ZERO consequences to saying “no” is moronic. There’s ALWAYS consequences to saying “no.” To anything. For anyone. In any context.
The consequences are generally quite mild (your friends disapproval if you refuse to help her move), but they are always there. Unless the consequences are severe and unlawful, then your consent is still completely voluntary. Every choice has consequences to one degree or another, but your choice is still your choice. You don’t seem to have any idea what the term consent actually means, and seem to think it means something much more than it actually does.
Yet more evidence that Roberta is not a lawyer. What counts as coercion and unfair intimidation varies between different areas of law. Conducting a poll can be considered to coercive under the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act). There are a variety of social and other situations short of a threat of violence that can be considered coercive to the point of rendering a contract moot. There are jurisdictions which require cops to expressly inform people that they may say no in order for a search to be considered consensual. Roberta, like most rape apologists, thinks that things which would be considered undue pressure and unfair advantage when negotiating a general fucking contract are suddenly okay when it comes to “negotiating” (this is a fucked up notion to apply to sex) for sex. Suddenly, things that could easily be considered duress in a contract or labor deal, duress in medical issues, etc. are not duress in rape? Only threats of violence count as “duress” in rape in your fucked up asshole brain, huh?
Roberta, I understand human nature just fine thank you. By your understanding…there should be no justice system as we have no free will and therefore cannot be held accountable for our actions or inactions.
Consent as applied to contract law is one thing. Consent as applied to interactions between humans is another. If the second definition matched up to feminist points of view we as feminists would not be needing to discuss consent at all. Human beings are neither objects nor animals and to apply the laws pertaining to objects and animals to us is a gross misscarriage of justice.
More from Roberta’s link:
The last point I found very enlightening.
@Roberta:
So were we arguing about what consent means and what rape is, or what can be enforced by law? Cause I was arguing the former, and you were too until your last bit.
Why is negotiating sex a fucked up notion? Everyone in a longterm relationship has negotiated their sex life with their partner.
It’s also clear that you have no idea what constitutes duress with regard to any kind of legal contract. It’s not just threats of violence. Threats of confinement and certain kinds of blackmail can also fall under the purview of duress.
But that doesn’t change the fact that no amount of nagging is enough to constitute duress unless the nagging is objectively threatening or can’t be escaped in any other way.
@pillow
No, that is precisely the opposite of my point. These things are always murky, and free will is an illusion, but in order for society to function we must pretend that individual agency exists.
If someone appears to freely consent to something (even if they were influenced by outside factors and cultural pressures), we must take that consent at face value. My point was that this deep probing into sexual consent is stupid because it could just as legitimately be applied to anything else. We have to treat people as free actors unless there is a clear and immediate forcible compulsion. The law simply can’t do anything else.
“Why is negotiating sex a fucked up notion? Everyone in a longterm relationship has negotiated their sex life with their partner.”
Hey, she actually changed her generalized assertion slightly in response to criticism! It’s a Troll Miracle.
@Lauralot:
Holy crap! A Troll in Central Park!!! (Saw it in the suggested videos) I saw that movie so long ago and couldn’t remember for the life of me what it was! There’s this really climatic scene where the girl has a spell cast on her that causes her to cry, and a troll with a literal green thumb and and and…
Nostalgia. 🙂