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.
Lol. Marie, did you miss the part where I said I work in obstetrics? I know what I’m talking about. Unless you have something to add, you can fuck off.
RE: Ally
I know, right? If you’d ask me, I guess I WOULD say I’m pro-death–I mean, I voted to pass that local thing of the right for the terminally ill to die with dignity–but that’s not nearly the same as abortion at all. WTF.
Also, goddammit, why can’t I make long dashes here? It makes my comment looks like I’m really, really into hyphenating random sentences.
.. Well yes. What, you expect medical professionals to leave dead organic matter inside someone else? That’s a recipe for infection and and suffering if I’ve ever heard one. You need the vacuum. It’s far more hygenic than just scraping things out.
Seriously. Is that the brunt of your argument?
Anyway, the reason females aren’t using birth control… Hmhm… Sandra Fluke springs to mind?
As for the six months, yeah, I can’t really say much there. Who knows? Accidents of timing, lowest common denominator. It’s why you have a generalized limit on time and spacing, held against emergencies.
Or, I don’t fucking know, because after 6 months they suddenly realize their inability to bring a child into the world with the current ongoing situation they are experiencing and are perfectly within their rights to change their bloody minds?
Do you normally come across as favoring eternal servitude and slavery against other people’s sense of least harm done?
And for the sake of lurkers who, for some reason, aren’t aware of this, no. It has never been legal to kill an infant, and I can’t conceive of a situation in which doing so would save its mother’s life.
Aborting a fetus to save the mother’s life, however, is legal, except where it’s not (see, for example, Ireland, until they had to address the issue after the very public outcry over their refusal to abort a non-viable fetus and thereby killed its mother).
I can easily think of reasons abortions get post-poned six months.
1. The pregnant person is a child, who needs to get parental permission, ride, or money.
2. The pregnant person is in the military.
3. The pregnant person has been raped, and doesn’t want to have to tell anyone.
4. The pregnant person is far away from appropriate medical care.
5. The pregnant person was financially stable, then had a huge crisis and lost everything.
6. The pregnant person discovers a major health problem they weren’t previously aware of.
7. The pregnant person is in such a wretched condition, they actually have to prioritize other things above their pregnancy.
8. The pregnant person changes their mind.
People act like getting an abortion is easy. It’s really not. One of the things I am deeply thankful for was that my rapist never got me pregnant.
Ugh, go die in a fire, Marie.
Actually, the 6 months thing — fuck it. 6 months in OB time is 24 weeks, or point of viability. It’s the start of the 3rd trimester. I’m going to call it 24 weeks like it is because 6 months is disingenuous given how development and OB works. 24 weeks is generally considered the earliest that a baby will have a decent chance of survival outside the womb. At this point, they’re fucking 500g. They’re about the size of a can of soda. Their survival rate is about 15%, and those who survive have major health problems. @28 wks survival is about 50%, @32wks ~75%, term is 37wks, full term is 40wks, overdue is 41+wks, 42+wks is cause for concern.
At 18-22wks, people go in for an anatomy scan – this is the scan that checks to make sure that everything is there and working, also the time people can find out gender. Many places won’t take you if you’re less than 20 wks, because the more developed, the better the views. It’s from this scan that people learn if there is something life-threateningly wrong with the development of their baby. It’s from this scan that people decide to terminate if there’s something that will lead to a short, hard-suffering life. It’s a horrific decision to have to make.
You cannot get a late term abortion if there is nothing wrong with the fetus. No one will do it. Most “by option” abortions happen prior to 14wks. Since you only usually learn you’re pregnant at about 6-8wks (skipped period), then have to go through a decision process, that’s not unreasonable. Even the late end of that 12-14wks is usually because of something seen on a scan or a diagnosed chromosome or congenital disorder.
A large number (of the small number) of late-term abortions are also done because the fetus is discovered to have severe birth defects (things like anencephaly) which aren’t detectable until late in the pregnancy. Those stupid women, not magically knowing that something is wrong with the fetus they’re carrying!
Beaten by SittieKitty. 😉 Great explanation!
If a female is unconscious, or even paralysed and can’t move, or is slipped a “micky finn” to knock her out then it would be rape under the law.
However, if a female goes out and gets blind drunk under the law that is voluntary intoxication which means that you caused the risk and must suffer from any results. Bad luck and learn from your stupidity.That’s the law and you will not change it because it would open too many possibilities to break the law. Every one arrested for DWI or running up a million dollar credit card bill or committing some crime would use the defence that they were always drunk and not aware of what they were doing. So voluntary intoxication is not going to change just for alleged rape. Besides, most females who drink are sexually inhibited and repressed and drink so they have the nerve to get laid which is what they really want.That has been my experience and perhaps some of you should get out of the house occasionally and observe how normal people behave.
And btw, we communicate nonverbally and when it comes to something like sex we’re not too different from a baboon. Don’t drink with men and then go home with them at 3am because that is a consent to sex. Why else would he be taking you home? To have a game of backgammon? lol
You young naive girls need to listen to older women and take our advice and stop listening to feminists and lesbians who believe they can legislate human nature because it’s not going to happen.
LBT, there’s also those who have irregular cycles, or PCOS, who don’t even know they’re pregnant.
This abortion thing is SO 20h century. Let’s now talk about the reasons one could be able to have a post-natal abortion, shall we?
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full
RE: SittieKitty
Thank you! One of the things I love about Manboobz; it seems a decent bet that there’s SOMEONE with specialized knowledge in the house, and then I get to feel all edumacated.
(By the way, Sittie, you do great work. I’m glad you do it, because I don’t think I ever could!)
Haha, thanks AK, having a degree in the topic helps! I can smell OB bullshit a mile away.
Thanks LBT ^.^ I try to make complicated things a little simpler, and because I’m dealing with clients who (obviously) likely don’t have a degree in this stuff I’m pretty good at explaining it in colloquial non-jargon terms.
RE: Marie
Are you still here? Seriously, go fuck a cactus. I don’t need your rape apologist self here. “Men can’t tell the difference between offering a ride and having sex,” my ass.
RE: Brz
Are YOU still here? Please, go join Douche!Marie at the cactus.
Also, Marie, guess what? I’m a man. I don’t have a car anymore, but back when I did, I gave my female friends rides home, because sometimes, they didn’t have cars. Sometimes, I did this late at night.
For you to just ASSUME that as a man, I think, “Aha, I am taking her home at night, this means SEX!” is offensive to me. You must think I’m some kind of rapist at worst, or some kind of idiot at best. You act so fucking smug, like it’s women’s jobs to never get drunk in the presence of men, because apparently my dick is just SO POWERFUL that I will abuse any woman around me in its honor.
The fuck is wrong with you? FUCK OFF.
It seems rather difficult to fuck a cactus someone else has already begun to fuck.
And everything I said to Petey can be said to Marie, and I’m not about to repeat that long ass comment. Marie, go back and look at it. I’d ask you all the same questions.
“It seems rather difficult to fuck a cactus someone else has already begun to fuck.”
Problem solved:
http://mlblogsthehappyyoungster.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/cactus20pic1.jpg
RE: Brz
Then choose one of the really big saguaro. I’m sure it’ll cheerfully accomodate the both of you.
Yeah, no. I don’t know where you live, but I sure am glad that I don’t live there.
Normal people don’t call women and girls “females”.
Off the top my head:
To look at a stamp collection.
To look at a collection of interesting artifacts.
To give guitar lessons.
To catch a late night train.
To fix a broken pipe.
To play cards.
To play backgammon.
Because he didn’t have a partner for the Hammerwatch beta, and Hammerwatch is bloody difficult alone.
To loan a couch.
To loan a floor.
To loan a matress.
To loan a matress, on the couch, on the floor.
To go to bed in separate rooms because the person out drinking with the guy is his sister.
To read a book.
To read two books, together.
To engage in carnal relations repeatedly throughout the next 48 hours until dehydration and friction related burns and strange, light lacerations force the two to visit a ER suite.
Because they spent the night talking and decided to go watch a movie
Because watching the sunrise is great fun with another person
For hot coco
For hot tea
For hot any beverages.
—
Doesn’t change jack-nothing, Marie.
You are incorrect. We are quite different from a baboon. Because as a human being, we can measure and respond to abstract concepts. It’s not a consent to sex unless it’s a consent to sex, and that is ain’t without people consenting. Merely going home with someone is no more and no less than simply going home with them.
Try again you silly person.
I do like how Marie’s whole comment does basically prove the point in response to Petey’s, about how apparently these issues of consent are confusing and the posters are helpful in clearing that up. Lovely case-in-point there.