Today I’m going to talk about Janet Bloomfield — AKA JudgyBitch — and her bizarre attack on the original Don’t Be That Guy anti-rape posters in Edmonton. But I’m going to take a bit of a detour first, so bear with me.
I recently picked up a copy of Arthur Koestler’s The Case of the Midwife Toad, a nonfiction account of a scientific feud that provided me with some diverting travel reading and put me in the mood to read more of Koestler’s nonfiction.
But doing some rudimentary Googling I made a rather horrifying discovery about Koestler, whom I’d admired since reading his bracing account of breaking with Communism in the classic The God That Failed anthology: according to a recent biographer, Koestler was a serial rapist and abuser of women.
While some doubt the evidence of rape, even his supporters have had to acknowledge, as one reviewer has written, that Koestler’s “treatment of the many women in his life [was] – even without the ‘rape’ – deeply unpleasant. He was manipulative, demanding, sexually voracious and utterly faithless.”
Koestler himself doesn’t exactly make a persuasive witness for his own defense, having once written to his second wife that “without an element of initial rape there is no delight.”
But in some ways as eye-opening as these revelations has been the response of some of Koestler’s defenders. Case in point: Michael Scammell, the author of a nearly 700-page biography of Koestler. After detailing many instances of Koestler’s mistreatment of women, he writes of the accusations of violent rape:
The exercise of male strength to gain sexual satisfaction wasn’t exactly uncommon at that time … The line between consensual and forced sex was often blurred.
Hey, it was the 1950s. EVERYBODY raped women back then.
The sad fact is that, while this is no defense of Koestler’s alleged behavior, there is an element of truth to Scammell’s claims. The line between consensual sex and rape was often blurred back then. Women were often cajoled, pressured, manipulated, and forced into sex by more physically powerful men. And neither party necessarily recognized what had happened as rape.
The fact that the line between consensual sex and rape is a lot clearer today — and that the rate of rape has declined markedly in the past several decades — is largely due to feminism. Feminism challenged older attitudes and definitions of rape and worked at changing these attitudes through education and awareness campaigns.
Feminist activists worked on teaching — and reteaching — both men and women what is and what isn’t acceptable sexual behavior.
It’s an ongoing process, which continues in awareness campaigns like this one, the Don’t Be That Guy campaign launched in Edmonton (and elsewhere):
It’s pretty clear that there’s a lot more work to be done, as the reactions to this campaign have pretty clearly shown.
Anyone who has read much in the so-called manosphere — on MRA and PUA sites alike — will have noticed a lot of alarmist nonsense about the alleged difficulties men have in determining if a sex act with a woman is consensual or not, as if it is simply impossible, if there is any confusion, for men to open their mouths and ask. MRAs and PUAs act as if obtaining consent “the way feminists want it” would consist of some complicated legalistic procedure that would ruin sex forever.
This is patent nonsense. Clarifying issues of consent about (and during) sex — making anything that’s blurry clear — can be done in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
“Do you like this?” “Yes.”
“Do you want me to [incredibly dirty thing]?” “Yes.”
But, as I said, the MRAs and PUAs complaining about the alleged difficulties of consent don’t really seem to be interested in making things clear. They would, it seems, rather have things as blurry as possible.
And that’s because a lot of them want to return to a world in which, to paraphrase that quote from Scammell above, the exercise of male strength to gain sexual satisfaction isn’t exactly uncommon, and in which the line between consensual and forced sex is often blurred.
They would prefer to return to a world in which it’s considered fair game to “take advantage” of seriously drunk women. One in which all accusations of date rape could be dismissed as the result of a fickle woman changing her mind later.
And that, I think, is why MRAs have such a problem with date rape awareness campaigns like Edmonton’s Don’t Be That Guy campaign — which they try to both ridicule as unnecessary and denounce as an exercise in Nazi-style anti-male propaganda. Sometimes both at the same time.
Consider, for example, Janet Bloomfield/JudgyBitch’s recent A Voice for Men post on the Edmonton poster controversies. Bloomfield — who apparently likes to think of herself as one of those no-nonsense women who can get by just fine without any help from feminists, thank you very much — begins by trying to ridicule the original Don’t Be That Guy posters as simple-minded, obvious and utterly unnecessary.
Referring to several specific posters from the original campaign, she writes:
No, obviously, you should not be having sex with a woman so drunk she is passed out face down on the couch with her ass in the air. …
Obviously, helping a drunk woman home does not entitle you to sex.
And in what is going to come as SHOCKING news to everyone, if someone doesn’t want to have sex with you, you should not have sex with them.
I’ll give you a while to process that information, because I’m sure that until this clever campaign came along, you were all busy screwing comatose girls at parties and gleefully hailing cabs so you could help ladies home and then rape them.
That would be very witty and pointed but for the fact that, guess what, men do attempt to “have sex” with women who are passed out or asleep, and that there are plenty of men who seem to think that this counts as a sort of “no harm, no foul, no rape” situation.
Take a look at the discussion whenever this topic comes up on Reddit, for example. Or consider all those supporters of Julian Assange who pretend that the issue is women changing their mind after sex when in fact one of the things he’s been accused of is penetrating a woman sans condom while she was sleeping.
And as for “taking advantage” of seriously drunk women, well, there are plenty of men who think this is perfectly fine — and some who make this the centerpiece of their “seduction” technique. Indeed, one prominent PUA — Roosh V — has confessed to doing just that with one woman who was clearly too drunk to consent:
While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she legally couldn’t give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated. I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do.
Somehow this confession — boast? — hasn’t, to my knowledge, earned him any condemnations from manosphere or MRA bloggers, or even, it seems, cost him any fans.
Meanwhile, on the very site Bloomfield is publishing her post, Paul Elam blames drunk women for being sexually assaulted, writing (as I pointed out yesterday) that women who drink with men are, “freaking begging” to be raped,
Damn near demanding it. … walk[ing] though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.
After dismissing the Don’t Be That Guy campaign as so much silliness, Bloomfield makes a sudden 180 degree turn and declares it the virtual equivalent of Nazi propaganda against Jews.
Which would be offensive if it weren’t so manifestly absurd. The Don’t Be That Guy campaign isn’t directed at men, per se. It’s directed at men WHO THINK IT’S OK TO RAPE WOMEN and/or MEN WHO MAKE EXCUSES FOR RAPISTS.
A good number of these men — and some women with similar beliefs — seem to spend much of their time reading and/or writing for manosphere sites like Roosh V’s blog and A Voice for Men.
Petey on, “Open Source”:
I know Skud.
You have (at best, and it’s a shocker, lemme tellya), a massive case of constipated confirmation bias.
I already told you. Because I’m tired of being shamed for being a man and because I’m tired of the double standard that allows women to accuse men of being rapists while a man can’t accuse women of being liars.
Never watched a rape trial, have you.
“Anyone who’s done anything great…never needed anyone to show them the way.”
What? Your ignorance is showing.
There was this dude, wrote a book. Took him awhile, it was a question about orbital mechanics; and a problem with Halley’s Comet. So he did this treatise (you might have heard it, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Science; more commonly called, just, the Principia Mathematica). Dude’s name (which you are more likely to have heard) was Newton.
He said, about all of his work (Opticks, etc.) “If I have achieved anything of greatness, it is because I was able to stand on the shoulders of giants”.
So, that banality you were blathering, is bullshit.
Just about everybody lies.
And Petey is a person, a member of the class, “everybody”.
What has he been lying about? Perhaps an item in his past? Something relating to a question of consent?
Could be.
Utterly randomly, tonight’s bug count stands at one ladybug, a click beetle, and a (seemingly drunk) June bug.
…and whatever is crawling across my pack of cloves…
Now now, everybody lies, for example, you don’t really hate mangos 🙂 (nope, never going to let that go)
Consider: if I go to a car dealership and a slick salesman sells me a car I neither need nor want, who’s fault is that, mine or the dealers?
Leaving aside that the “sex = thing men buy from women” framework is all kinds of messed up:
If a salesman convinces you to sign a contract while you’re drunk, he’s breaking the law.
If a salesman happens upon you while you’re asleep, puts a pen in your hand, and moves it across the contract to make you “sign” it, he’s breaking the law.
If you tell a salesman you don’t want to buy a car from him, but he ignores you and keeps grabbing your hand and trying to force a pen into it, he’s breaking the law.
If a salesman uses threats to push you into signing a contract, he’s breaking the law.
If a salesman sells you a car, then tries to demand that you pay for a speedboat as well because he thinks it’s unfair of you to just buy a car and go home, he’s breaking the law.
Also, if a salesman rapes you, he’s breaking the law. No matter how confused he claims to be.
So Petey was a tail-end skier who was still able to keep up with the best women in the sport:
Lets looks at some of those collegiate records (at the top of the sport).
2012 Mens’ Giant Slalom: Record was 1:31.80.2
Womens’ was 1:41.2
So you are telling me you, at the back of the pack, were less than 10 seconds back of the leaders? Not bad.
When I look at regular slalom the women have better times than the men .
Record (again NCAA, 2012) for men was 148.28. For women it was 135.17
So, unless that was on a (significantly) different length of course (I can’t find the NCAA requirements: if any, for a Giant Slalom run), it seems the women are at least as good as the men.
This, of course is assuming a spherical cow of uniform density. Women, as class, tend to be less dense then men (as a class) and mass = downward pressure (Newton, law of gravity), which means, when “falling” against a resistant medium (i.e. sliding down a pile of snow, while standing on two sticks) the denser mass will accelerate better (because that mass makes it a little easier to overcome the inertia), and the greater muscle mass in the upper body makes it easier to add impetus.
So, at a purely athletic level, that the women manage to be so close to the men implies a greater athleticism.
Petey:
Shit, that means your going to be here a damned long time.
? I spent my first year university hanging out with born agains and just about every meeting I debated evolution with them. Learned a lot.
If true, it’s sad.
have I been anything other than civil in this debate?
Yes.
You really think I’m going to debate every point?
If you bring them up, you have to, otherwise the judge regards it as dropped, and gives it to the other side. Luckily (for you) we are more fogiving, and will let you retrieve dropped points. Unluckily for you, it seems you are dropping them becaus you can’t support them.
Argenti: Is 9/11 truther a fallacy?
No more than any other stupid is.
You missed one, sort of, in that he equivocates; and that is it’s own form of formal fallacy, but he’s not building syllogism, so it’s informal logic, which means I think I’m actually conflating.
Argenti: Now now, everybody lies, for example, you don’t really hate mangos 🙂 (nope, never going to let that go)
And you secretly adore spiders.
Of course women can do it. Or rather, a select few of them can. But the reason that it’s mostly men probably–and I say probably because I’m not sure–has little to do with discrimination.
So what’s the reason?
Ha! If you believe that 9/11 is anything other than an inside job, then you will believe anything. The only evidence I’m basing this on is how the buildings fell–they could only have fallen that way if they had been deliberately demolished. I know what the result of this statement will be: more insults and more mockery. I’m just telling you this for your own benefit. Ignore me at your own peril. But when the shit finally hits the fan, when WWIII commences and N. America becomes a prison planet, don’t say that you weren’t warned.
It really is incredible though. People are so brainwashed by Hollywood-style physics. It’s almost like the government is mocking the populous because once you see it, it’s so obvious…
He’s one of those “truthers!” This is hilarious, I’m stocking up on popcorn and settling in. And also going to sleep, and letting the night owls take care of him.
“Ignore me at your own peril.”
What are you, some kind of Disney villain?
Petey:
“This is hilarious”
No, no it’s not hilarious. It is fucking terrifying. That the government could so callously lie to the people, that they could murder 3000 of their own countrymen all in the name of power. And that people are so blind that they can’t see the obvious. Like I said, almost as if they were mocking them. Open your fucking eyes… Because if you don’t do so soon, I promise you it will be too late….
But he doesn’t believe in a young earth, because that would just be ridiculous.
Damned blockquote monster.
augzillary: “Nope. If person A isn’t in the mood, and Person B proceeds, it’s rape.”
Well, there are some people who will still do sexual things even if they aren’t horny. Like giving oral sex on birthdays and such. “In the mood” could be taken multiple ways, I’m not sure what you meant.
If the person not in the mood does things, that’s consent.
As framed, Person A is not in the mood. I am implying (in the use of the verb, proceeds) Person A has communicated that lack of mood.
(In case anyone’s unclear: It is ridiculous. But no more ridiculous than “America becomes a prison planet.”)
I know it’s a travesty to compare this joker to the great Jeremy Irons, but I can’t resist.
Petey, can you make like the hero of A Boy and His Dog and go your own way pls? Kthnx.
“Ffs, we are not mocking 9/11, we are mocking YOU.”
Of course I know that. Go ahead then. Keep laughing.
“But no more ridiculous than “America becomes a prison planet.”
Yes of course. You are absolutely right. That is ridiculous. Could never happen. Neither could WWIII.
Yup, keep laughing. I enjoin you to.
“And you secretly adore spiders.”
Unless you run terrified from mangos, that’s not fair. I secretly love eggplant would be more apt (or mayo, since I’m pretty sure you know I hate the stuff!)
Petey, oh Petey, where to begin? Oh, I know!
The plane that hit the pentagon! So if it wasn’t a plane, there’s a plane unaccounted for. Which itself isn’t a problem, repaint the numbers, etc. No no, it’s the people on that plane that are the problem. Wtf happened to them if they didn’t die in a plane hits pentagon crash? And whatever scenario you’re about to concoct, you also have to explain how it’s easier to pull off than, you know, crashing a plane into a building (which is fairly easy, given it happens accidentally ever now and again)
Next up, the towers! You know they had bomb sniffing dogs right? That did nightly rounds? Which means either all those handlers are in on it (we’ll get back to the issues with conspiracies in general) or the demolition charges where planted in a matter of hours. Enough to bring down two large buildings. Without being noticed by anyone during that morning. So again, if it’d even be possible to have them go unnoticed (which it isn’t) you’d need dozens, if not hundreds, of people to plant them in such a short time frame.
Which brings us to…the more people in on a conspiracy, the more likely it is they’ll blab. As you said, everybody lies. You know why we know that? Most people are shitty liars. Like, exceptionally shitty. And that’s about simple shit. Keeping a secret that involves the death of thousands? Living with what you did? Someone, probably lots of someones, would’ve spilled the beans.
——
Oh and btw? 18 points, you shifted the burden of proof again.
Pecunium — yeah I’m not sure what to do with his BS equivocation. If he ever went anywhere with anything, that’d be one thing, but he doesn’t. Hmm…19 points, kettle logic.
You’re just angry that you don’t have an army of Nazi hyenas.
Petey: No, no it’s not hilarious. It is fucking terrifying. That the government could so callously lie to the people, that they could murder 3000 of their own countrymen all in the name of power. And that people are so blind that they can’t see the obvious. Like I said, almost as if they were mocking them. Open your fucking eyes… Because if you don’t do so soon, I promise you it will be too late….
It’s hilarious because of the tone you take. (it’s a sad, and pathetic sort of hilarity, but risible nonetheless). You make an incredible claim. Incredible claims require extraordinary evidence. All you have offered is your incredulity (this is all you’ve offered on anything, but that’s a different one of your problems, which are legion).
I have some understanding of metallurgy. I know a little bit about architecture. I know a lot about how the Gov’t works (including a fair bit about how the spook side of the house does things). I know a lot about how conspiracies work.
And I know why they fail.
For yours to work enough people to pull it off: and it’s a lot to pull off, two or three different Mission Impossible operations [the show, not the piece of shit movies], over the course of years.
The plans for the WTC, and the Pentagon would need to be gone over. The locations for the charges estimated. The siting positions surveyed, mapped, analysed. Then the charges procured, and the detonation waves recalculated, against the actual structures(because the one was some forty years old, and the other going on sixty, there were lots of changes from the plans). Then the charges set, and the det-cables laid.
Also the “highjackers” had to be recruited, trained, and launched (and they had to get away with it, that, or the conspiracy has to be larger). The demo-triggering crews had to have good line of sight on the impact, so as to fire the charges at the right time.
The charges also had to be in places that the planes wouldn’t disrupt the blasts.
All of that had to be done in such a way the people involved thought it was important enough to kill 3,000 people to carry it out, and they all had to be satisfied with the actual outcome that none of them has pulled a Bradly Manning on the plan.
Given that it all happened less than a year after Bush was elected, either you are positing a cabal which not only doesn’t care (per se) who is in office, but is deep enough in the bureaucratic aspects of the gov’t that it can be that it can start those sorts of plans while Clinton is in office,and execute them when Bush was (since it was pulled off not quite nine months after he took office).
That’s not plausible. It’s sure as fuck not convincing.
So have you got evidence? Or is it like the allegation of false rape being equal to real rape; just something you have a gut feeling about?
Argenti: Unless you run terrified from mangos, that’s not fair.
I do recoil in horror.
Argenti: this is also Petey’s idea of lying, where all lies are the same, and telling lies is worse than committing rape.
So…