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What Men’s Rights guru Warren Farrell actually said about the allegedly positive aspects of incest. (Note: it’s even more repugnant than that sounds.)

So there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the recent talk that old school Men’s Rights guru Warren Farrell gave at the University of Toronto. Protesters troubled by Farrell’s repugnant views on incest and date rape, among other things, blocked the entrance to the building holding the talk; police broke up the blockade. You can find various videos of what went down on YouTube. I’m not going to try to sort out all the various claims and counterclaims about what happened.

I personally don’t approve of blocking people from giving talks, even if their ideas are repugnant. But I certainly do approve of holding people responsible for what they say, and Farrell – in addition to being wrong about nearly every aspect of relations between men and women – has said some truly awful things over the years.

Exhibit A: A notorious interview he gave Penthouse magazine in the 1970s in which he discussed a book he was researching about incest, tetatively titled The Last Taboo: The Three Faces of Incest.

Let me put a giant TRIGGER WARNING here for disturbing discussion of incest and child sexual abuse.

In the interview, he argued that incest could be a good thing for everyone involved. Indeed, he waxed poetic about the possible positive effects:

“Incest is like a magnifying glass,” he told interviewer Philip Nobile. “In some circumstances it magnifies the beauty of the relationship, and in others it magnifies the trauma.”

The book Farrell was working on never appeared, and Farrell would apparently prefer it if what he said in that interview simply vanished into the memory hole, but a radical feminist site called the Liz Library has a copy of the original 1977 magazine in which it appeared, and has put high quality scans of it online. You can find them here.

Here are some of the things Farrell said in that interview. I’ve put the direct quotes from Farrell in bold; the rest is Nobile’s summary of what Farrell told him.

The article summarized the “findings” of Farrell’s (at that time incomplete) incest research, starting with his take on mother-son incest:

Mother-son incest represents 10 percent of the incidence and is 70 percent positive, 20 percent mixed, and 10 percent negative for the son. For the mother it is mostly positive. Farrell points out that boys don’t seem to suffer, not even from the negative experience. “Girls are much more influenced by the dictates of society and are more willing to take on sexual guilt.”

Apparently, in his view, girls feel bad about the abuse not so much because abuse is inherently bad, but because “society” tells them it’s bad; he returns to this theme repeatedly.

Apparently Farrell’s “findings” about father-daughter incest were not quite as cheery:

The father-daughter scene, ineluctably complicated by feelings of dominance and control, is not nearly so sanguine. Despite some advertisements, calling explicitly for positive female experiences, Farrell discovered that 85 percent of the daughters admitted to having negative attitudes toward their incest. Only 15 percent felt positive about the experience. On the other hand, statistics from the vantage of the fathers involved were almost the reverse — 60 percent positive 10 percent mixed, and 20 percent negative. “Either men see these relationships differently,” comments Farrell, “or I am getting selective reporting from women.”

Yea, that’s right. He’s saying that the overwhelming majority of the abusive men he interviewed enjoyed sexually abusing their daughters, but for some baffling reason their daughters generally didn’t enjoy the abuse. And the explanation for this is that perhaps the daughters are lying – er, sorry, “selectively reporting?”

The bit about advertisements seems to suggest that Farrell went out of his way to try to find and interview women who felt positively about being sexually abused, but still was unable to find more than a small percentage who did.

The article continues. (This is Nobile summarzing Farrell, not Farrell’s direct words.)

In a typical traumatic case, an authoritarian father, unhappily married in a sexually repressed household and probably unemployed, drunkenly imposes himself on his young daughter. Genital petting may have started as early as age eight with first intercourse occurring around twelve. Since the father otherwise extends very little attention to his daughter, his sexual advances may be one of the few pleasant experiences she has with him.

Let’s just repeat that last sentence for emphasis:

Since the father otherwise extends very little attention to his daughter, his sexual advances may be one of the few pleasant experiences she has with him.

The article continues:

If she is unaware of society’s taboo and if the mother does not intervene, she has no reason to suspect the enormity of the aberration. But when she grows up and learns of the taboo, she feels cheapened.

So the incest “taboo” is the main problem, not the abuse itself?

And here is a doozy of a quote from Farrell directly:

“When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200,” says Farrell, “the incest is part of the family’s open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve — and in one or two cases to join in.”

(Note: I’m relying on the Liz Library’s transcription of this quote; some of the text in their scan of this page is blurry.)

Farrell told Nobile that he was feeling hesitant about publishing his book, because it might encourage exploitation of daughters, but that he felt compelled to continue researching it for two main reasons:

“First, because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t. My book should at least begin the exploration.”

“Second, I’m finding that thousands of people in therapy for incest are being told, in essence , that their lives have been ruined by incest. In fact, their lives have not generally been affected as much by the incest as by the overall atmosphere.

Farrell also hopes to change public attitudes so that participants in incest will no longer be automatically perceived as victims. “The average incest participant can’t evaluate his or her experience for what it was. As soon as society gets into the picture, they have to tell themselves it was bad. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. “

According to The Liz Library, Farrell now claims that the bit about “genitally caressing” children is a misquote, and that what he really said was “generally caressing.” You can see the scan of the page here; Penthouse clearly has him saying “genitally.”

But let’s assume that Farrell is telling the truth and Nobile misheard the word. Here’s the quote again, with that one word changed.

First, because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and generally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves.

I’m not sure that’s much better; he’s still talking about “touching, holding, and … caressing” children in a sexual context.

Farrell has not, to my knowledge, challenged any of the other quotes in this interview besides that one. Nor, again to the best of my knowledge, has he forthrightly repudiated the substance of what he said. If he wishes to clarify or challenge any of this I will happily give him space here on this blog to do so.

I should note that in the interview Farrell stopped short of actually advocating incest. But his reasoning here is curious, to say the least:

“I’m not recommending incest between parent and child, and especially not between father and daughter. The great majority of fathers can grasp the dynamics of positive incest intellectually. But in a society that encourages looking at women in almost purely sexual terms, I don’t believe they can translate this understanding into practice.”

So apparently father-daughter incest – ie, sexual abuse – isn’t a good idea because in a sexist society fathers are likely to do it wrong?

I encourage everyone with the stomach for it to read the entire Penthouse piece, which also discusses the incredibly creepy views of some other incest “researchers” at the time.

I will highlight more of Farrell’s problematic views in future posts.

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Falconer
11 years ago

Hugs for Trix, if you want them!

katz
11 years ago

Jodioli, every thread is the women authors thread. It’s like cat pictures.

BASTA!
BASTA!
11 years ago

> And I’ll believe you’ll find that the election results
> from earlier this month are good news for Mitt Romney.

You also believe Warren Farrell is evil. No inconsistency here.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

PASTA, of course I believe Farrell is–if not evil, ethically challenged, to say the very least–because I CAN READ AND UNDERSTAND what I read.

Tulgey Logger
Tulgey Logger
11 years ago

The context is Warren Farrell’s book, ‘The Myth of Male Power,’ chapter 14, page 314-315. Yes, I was paraphrasing; however, it gets worse in context. Here’s even a screenshot for you:

http://i.imgur.com/cwSoc.png

driversuz
driversuz
11 years ago

*SnorK*
“Billions of tax dollars?” Have you never heard of “Women’s Studies” departments in publicly funded universities? Or the Violence Against Women Act? Um, it takes shitloads of money to keep innocent men in jail and to keep useless women employed.

“No male pill exists.” Really? On what planet?

Oh teh ignorance! It burns! It burns!
Go take your meds, Grrlz.

Ugh
Ugh
11 years ago

@driversuz

Haha yes it would be so much cheaper if we didn’t have laws making domestic violence legal.

Soes it bother you that the only consistent feature of your “movement” has been an attempt to remove the consequences for rape, domestic abuse, and child abuse?

katz
11 years ago

I’m just waiting for someone to try defending a shooter one of these days by saying “All those people in the crowd probably think gunfights in movies are exciting! Why are they getting so upset when someone shoots at them in real life?”

Tulgey Logger
Tulgey Logger
11 years ago

Feminism: all about jailing innocent men and employing women uselessly. Apparently.

You know, driversuz, it is a generally accepted tenet of rhetoric that one cannot establish one piece of bullshit with another piece of bullshit. It is adorable that you keep on trying, though.

All in all, this thread has been a revealing exercise in establishing what misogynists will not deign to condemn if a Men’s Rights Advocate™ says it.

thenatfantastic
11 years ago

There are two comments from new commenters on the second to last page that people should probably see (Bingo and Evito).

thenatfantastic
11 years ago

Meds…grrlz… Pell?

Ugh
Ugh
11 years ago

@Bingo

Can you explain his more recent quotes, like “what we call date rape is what we used to call exciting” and “unemployment to a man is the pyschological equivalent of rape to a woman.”

The byline of this website is Misogyny: we mock it, not Eric Clapton: we mock him.

katz
11 years ago

Evito, I am so sorry that you went through all that! I don’t know how Farrell could have listened to real stories like yours and not been horrified about everything.

ithiliana
11 years ago

Have you never heard of “Women’s Studies” departments in publicly funded universities?

*heh* Small potatoes, my dipshit drivers

It’s darn near impossible to find budget information for universities (I cannot even get to the one for my university, though they are supposed to be public information), but I can guarantee you that much less is spent on Womens Studies than on football (for men).

Not all universities have them–mine doesn’t–and often, they’re staffed in part with faculty from other departments doing interdisciplinary work on top of their own departmental requirements, so the salaries are restricted to administrative staff.

For example, let’s take the one at Dartmouth just because it came up high on my Google search.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wstudies/faculty/

Look at all the departments listed that contribute faculty (HINT: if you don’t have a DEPARTMENT on a university, or an equivalent administrative unit on the administrative side, you don’t get an operating budget).

con’t in next post to avoid moderation

ithiliana
11 years ago

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wstudies/courses/

Wow, ten courses this fall, TEN!

They offer a degree, and an honors degree, and minors: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wstudies/requirements/wgst_requirements.html

They have a chair and a coordinator: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wstudies/office/

Undergrad only, looks like.

Now let’s go look at the full undergraduate offerings at Dartmouth:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/academics/undergraduate_departments.html

African and African American Studies*
Anthropology
Art History
Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures* (DAMELL)
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Biological Sciences
Chemistry
Classics
Comparative Literature*
Computer Science
Earth Sciences
Economics
Education
Engineering Sciences
English

con’tEnvironmental Studies*
Film and Media Studies
French and Italian Languages and Literatures
Geography
German Studies
Government
History
Jewish Studies*
Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies*
Linguistics and Cognitive Science*
Mathematics
Mathematics and Social Sciences*
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Music
Native American Studies*
Philosophy
Physics and Astronomy
Psychological and Brain Sciences
Religion
Russian Language and Literature
Sociology
Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures
Studio Art
Theater
Women’s and Gender Studies*

So, let’s pick say a department likely to be dominated b men and see how different it is.

con’t

ithiliana
11 years ago

Computer science

Tenure track faculty:

Chris Bailey-Kellogg Computational Biology, Scientific Data Mining
Devin Balkcom (Undergrad Advisor) Robotics, Geometry
Andrew Campbell Wireless Sensor Network Systems
Amit Chakrabarti Complexity Theory, Algorithms
Thomas H. Cormen (Chair) Algorithm Engineering, Parallel Computing
Robert L. (Scot) Drysdale, III Computational Geometry, Algorithms
Hany Farid Image Processing, Computer Vision
Lisa Fleischer Algorithms, Game Theory, Combinatorial Optimization
Gevorg Grigoryan Computational Biology
Prasad Jayanti (Ph.D. Program Advisor) Distributed Algorithms
David Kotz Security & Privacy, Mobile Healthcare, Wireless Networks
Fabio Pellacini Computer Graphics
Daniel Rockmore Computational Harmonic Analysis, Image Processing, Complex Systems, Network Dynamics
Sean Smith (M.S. Program Advisor) Security, Privacy, Trusted Computing, PKI
Lorenzo Torresani Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Computer Animation
Peter Winkler Algorithms, Theory, Probability, Discrete Mathematics

Adjuncts and Research faculty

Adjunct and Research Faculty

Sergey Bratus Modern Network and OS Exploitation Techniques, UNIX & Linux Kernel Security and Rootkits, Reverse Engineering, Machine Learning and Data Organization for Security-Related Data Analysis
Michael Casey Digital Music
Tanzeem Choudhury Machine Learning, Activity Recognition, Social Networks
Edward A. Feustel Security for Distributed Computing – Applications and Infrastructure
Andrew Gettinger Informatics, Privacy, Electronic Health Records, Critical Care Medicine, Transfusion
Richard Granger Computational Neuroscience, Brain Engineering, Robotics
Lorie Loeb Digital Arts, Motion Study, Animation
Chris McDonald Network Simulation, Wireless Networks, Security
Doug McIlroy Programming Methodology, Security
Bill McKeeman Compilers
Charles Palmer Security and Privacy
Afra Zomorodian Computational Topology

I bet you at any university that has a women’s and gender studies, there is a computer science department with a shitload more faculty (and a huge amount of university budget goes into faculty), and a hugely bigger budget. Just to keep (mostly) men employed.

Ugh
Ugh
11 years ago

@Ilithiana

But don’t you see, Art History and Religion are totally neccessary subjects that society needs!

Studying the gender roles and relations at the core of every person’s self-image and expectations is just some weird additional thing that we don’t need to think about.

Ugh
Ugh
11 years ago

@Evito

I’m so sorry you went through that.

ithiliana
11 years ago

@Evito: Welcome to manboobz!

You are incredibly brave to share your experiences here, and I am so sorry that you were abused by that man.

I am glad that you have been able to get help, and are surviving and building your own life.

ithiliana
11 years ago

@Binbo: Way to show comprehension and reading fail!

SHowing physical affection for children is not the same as sexually abusing them–and if you cannot see the difference (and no, I don’t think that the PENTHOUSE reporter misquoted Farrell–since he never seemed to demand any retraction or put out any clarification), then, you’re a rape apologist along with him.

ithiliana
11 years ago

OOPS< sorry, BINGO!

sorry, Bingo.

But be careful or you might get a card named after you, heh.

thenatfantastic
11 years ago

@Evito

Echoing what ithiliana said. Welcome, thanks for sharing your story.

Now am I missing something or does driversuz really think there is a male pill that teh eebil feminazis are suppressing?

ithiliana
11 years ago

@thenatfantastic: he does seem to think there is a male pill (I’m not sure what kind of male pill? red? blue)? I was talking about the male contraceptive pill, but who knows what pill he’s talking about.

cloudiah
11 years ago

Mashed potatoes are done! Male pill: I think there’s a MRA talking point about some Brazilian doctor who invented one but then Betty Friedan had him assassinated or something. Can’t be bothered to Google it. I remember getting into a hilarious argument with Antz about it…

Evito, welcome. So sorry you went through that.

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