So the other day, Canadian Men’s Rights activist and all-around crank Dan Perrins apparently noticed for the first time that gay men face massive bigotry in Jamaica. He reported his findings in a post on A Voice for Men:
Right now in Jamaica lesbian sex is legal while male homosexual sex acts can get you up to 10 years in prison at hard labor.
In other words, homosexual women are accepted as a normal part of society. Homosexual men are criminals, for just existing.
Wait, what?
Yes, it’s true that Jamaica’s sodomy laws make gay male sex — “buggery” — illegal. And it is true that gay men are often the targets of violence. But Jamaican lesbians also face tremendous bigotry and terrible violence — often in the form of “corrective rape.” (You can find several gruesome examples of this detailed in this US State Department report.) As do others who stray from traditional gender and sexual roles: last month, a gender-nonconforming* teenager was brutally “chopped and stabbed” to death by an angry mob after attending a party dressed as a woman.
But of course Perrins and his AVFM pals aren’t really interested in what’s actually happening to gays or lesbians or trans* folk in Jamaica. They’re interested in making hay out of what they see as another example of evil anti-male bigotry. Here’s how the site is promoting Perrins’ post on its front page:
In Jamaica, you can go to jail for being a gay male, but not for being a lesbian. It is time to quit rewarding this country with tourist dollars that they will use to persecute men for not being of utility to women. Had enough of this shit?
Homophobia has about as much relation to male “utility to women” as the Men’s Rights movement has to a legitimate civil rights movement. That is, approximately none.
Naturally, Perrins doesn’t let his complete ignorance of Jamaican culture — or LGBT issues — get in the way of his grandstanding on the issue, which seems mainly intended as a weird sort of “gotcha” aimed at feminists.
Jamaica’s legal system is in serious need of redress. And folks, since the feminist community, you know, the one that keeps telling us to shut the fuck up because they have teh menz covered, is apparently too busy slut walking to notice this injustice, we need to take up the slack.
And so, with the help of his “activist” friends at A Voice for Men, he’s decided to lead an international boycott against the country. As he puts it:
Folks, it is time to Boycott Jamaica, and to do so for the sake of Equality. And to create an eye-catching ‘hashtag’ in one move ‘#BJ4Equality’.
Yep. AVFM is taking on the Jamaican tourist industry all by itself. And using a hashtag created quite deliberately to evoke the word “blowjob” rather than “boycott” or “jamaica” at first glance.
He’s even put up a little petition you can sign. Last I checked, it had gotten 78 signatures. The Jamaican tourist industry will surely be quaking in its boots.
I doubt that even Perrins is delusional enough to think that AVFM’s petition will make any difference at all to Jamaica’s economy or to the lives of its gay citizens. But he is delusional enough to think that he’s somehow scoring points against feminists.
Feminists are … wrong in their constantly regurgitated claim that the MHRM is homophobic and racist. You are about to help me prove them wrong, again, and also to provide all the ‘nice feminists’ [with an opportunity] to ‘sign up’ or ‘stfu’ about men’s issues.
Actually, Perrins’ little crusade itself offers ample evidence of both homophobia and racism.
The idea that a white dude in Canada — with basically no knowledge or understanding of Jamaican culture beyond what he’s managed to Google in a few minutes — can swoop in and save Jamaican gays from homophobia reflects a stunning sort of colonialist arrogance and, yes, racism.
What real activists do when they want to help those in other countries is that they look for existing activist groups — both in country and internationally — in order to understand what they’re doing already to fight the problem and how someone outside the country can best aid their efforts.
In the case of Jamaica, the most prominent LGBT activist group is the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG) — which has in the past been strenuously opposed to boycotts like that proposed by Perrins.
Indeed, when a group of American LGBT activists tried to launch a Boycott Jamaica campaign in 2009 — also without checking in with JFLAG first — the Jamaican group found itself having to explain in detail why a boycott was not in the best interest of those the boycott was ostensibly trying to help:
Jamaica’s deeply ingrained antipathy towards homosexuality and homosexuals is a social phenomenon that will not be undone by boycott campaigns or government dictate. It requires the painstaking effort of confronting the society and talking to social actors who can bring change in the way society sees LGBT people. We have been doing this through a small but growing group of increasingly aware opinion leaders who are concerned about the damage homophobia does to our society. We need those ears to continue being open to us and we need the relative safety that some of us have been given to speak to them.
The group also took the American activists to task for their obvious ignorance about gay activism in Jamaica — as evidenced by their targeting of Red Stripe beer, despite Red Stripe’s cooperation with Jamaican LGBT activists and its refusal to sponsor anti-gay reggae performers.
We believe that any overseas entity or organisation seeking to agitate for change in a context with which it has only passing familiarity should first do its homework to ensure that it does not do harm to its credibility and ultimately to the cause of the local community whose interest it seeks to defend.
So, yeah. White people, try not to assume that you know better than black people how to solve the problems of black people. Especially when you don’t actually know shit. Because that’s racist.
As for homophobia, well, I think it’s pretty clear that any (alleged) gay rights campaign that starts from the assumption that Jamaican lesbians have it great is pretty homophobic. AVFMers are the only (alleged) gay rights activists I’ve ever run across who not only think it’s ok to ignore the L, B and T of LGBT but who also enjoy attacking transwomen as self-hating self-castrators and tossing around anti-lesbian slurs for fun. (Indeed, see this anti-lesbian screed from an AVFM regular in the comments to Perrins’ post.)
Meanwhile, the 2nd most energetic Twitter propagandist for the #BJ4Equality campaign, our old friend Fidelbogen, is a fellow who, only a day before the campaign launched was tossing around slurs on Twitter aimed at gay and/or effeminate men. In Jamaica, one of the standard slurs for gay men is “batty boy.” Fidelbogen likes the similar term “poodle boy.”
Men who support #feminism are, for the most part, brown-nosers, self-loathers.and poodle-boys. #profeminism #profeminist #FeministArmy
— Fidelbogen – gab.ai/Fidelbogen (@fidelbogen) August 11, 2013
According to Urban Dictionary, “Poodle Boy” means
A guy who’s a little too much in touch with his fem side. Walks with a sashey and holds his left wrist to his upper chest while gliding forward with his right. Understands house plants and window dressings.
Fidelbogen, mocking gay men one day before launching his career as a putative gay rights activist.
A Voice for Men, so full of hatred and bigotry that they can’t even pull off a momentarily convincing simulacrum of social justice activism.
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* The murdered teen has been identified in news accounts as a crossdressing gay male. Some have also described the teen as a transwoman, but it isn’t clear from what I’ve read if the teen identified as one. Hence my use of the term “gender-nonconforming,” which is the terminology used by JFLAG in its statements on the case.
@ally
“it doesn’t even try to explore any possible gender dynamic.”
Glad you said so. What is exactly the gender dynamic which we need to explore that somehow justifies these law against gay men?
On the other hand, how is gender dynamic to be considered then in western society, where “men” are in the power positions (i.e. 0.00001% of men to be correct, the others are scum like anyone else and worse), but they are told since the day they are born that that’s the only way they can get a woman or be valued as a man? You think I’m talking shit? Why do you think so many men are driven to succeed in their career?
Note that you apply gender dynamic in Jamaica where there’s a law that imprisons gays, in western society there are no laws against women in top careers.
@katz
your comment was pertinent and to the point, clearly pointed out exactly what you’re criticizing of my posts.
@Carlo,
Hey Carlo.
This report submitted to the Department of Justice puts the prevelance of rape at 18 %, and the report is from 2007.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf
One in five sounds about right when you take that. You say 20 million people is a lot (and I agree, it is, that would take a lot of rapists, yes), the report says…
“Our findings indicate that about 20 million out of 112 million women (18.0%) in the U.S. have
ever been raped during their lifetime”
So, yep. About 20 million. Quite a lot.
There are, of course, some problems with the report (sampling methods for instance, legal definition, numbers, how exactly to account for un-reported crimes), but this is just one report, and it pegs the number in the range you selected to be a lot. ANd it was submitted to the Department of Justice, so I assume that also means it was peer reviewed and vetted to a decent standard.
Incidentally, that wouldn’t be “Feminism”; that would be “Researchers”, in this case.
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As for “Logic” and usage thereof, I would point out that Perrins, in the quoted section above, said the following:
When the department of Justice report, also linked, clearly has direct evidence for corrective rape of lesbians, violence and murder. Jamacia is not persecuting men because they are not of utility to women, Jamacia is persecuting men because they are gay and apparently, also, women because they are lesbians.
Dan Perrins is, in fact, complaining that men are punished more than women for the same act (“Homosexuality”), and he is, in fact, complaining that male homosexuality is demonised more than female homosexuality. Conjecture on what his stance would be if the reverse was the case is only that, conjecture, and kind of outside the realm of logic.
—
The gender dynamic we need to explore is the one about how being gay is an offensie thing to be, and the one about how definitions of binary usefulness need not always apply to humans. Their explanation for why men are punished for their sexuality (Their percieved lack of utility to women) is… bullshit. And that’s kind of what Ally was talking about.
IN WESTERN COUNTRIES, to move on and use your terms, men are often told they need to be “Providers” or “Protectors” or “Proceators” and often by the part of the blogosphere that specializes in talking about male issues (MRA and PUA circles, I will link to them if you want me to), and this is also based on judging their worth by their “Utility to women”.
The same bullshit gender dynamic that ALly was talking about. It’s just as shit whether used as an excuse to impugn the modus operandi of Jamacian women and as a stick to beat up men in the western world.
Anything else?
To avoid confusion, I should clarify that when I write “the gender dynamic we need to explore” in the third part, following the —, it is meant to be understood that that is a dynamic we should explore for the express purpose of making sure that laws specifically against male homosexuality, the punishment thereof by the state, and the socially sanctioned violence against those who identify as such should be seriously, utterly and entirely rooted out by conversation and proper dialogue and a restructuring of assumed worthy goals. ALso a lot of talk about “Accepting” and “I’m okay, you’re okay”.
We shouldn’t do this, as Carlo writes, to “somehow justify those laws against gay men“.
I hope for your sake, Carlo, that that was a jest, and not some kind of quip about how you’re actually fine with the Jamacian governents handling of male homosexuality.
As for how many men are rapists — http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
6-13%, with about 2/3rds being repeat offenders, who averaged 5~6 rapes each. That’s enough to cover 18% of women being raped at some point in their lifetimes.
Pro tip, never act like we don’t have stats to back up our claims, some of us enjoy stats.
So, you’ve already been given your stats so I won’t waste time repeating what others have said. That said, if you’re going to criticise other people’s use of logic* you probably shouldn’t follow that statement up by saying what amounts to “if that was true, it would be terrible, therefore it’s BS,” because, well, can you figure out which logical fallacy you’re invoking? (Hint: it rhymes with cappeal to monsequences.)
*In that particular case, I’d suggest it was based on the observation of the behaviour of MRAs: While they like to point out that men also have our own issues to deal with whenever women’s issues are being mentioned, they don’t seem to actually do anything to fix those issues, only attempting to undo the progress made in women’s rights issues. Thus their complaint about the abuse of gay men in Jamaica is more likely to simply be something to bring up to silence discussion of women’s issues, rather than a topic that they actually give a fuck about.
Cuz I like math, the average of the 6% and 13% is 9.5%. We’ll round down to 9% because then 2/3ths is an even 6%. So 6% of men average 5~ rapes each. Using 300 million as the US population (seems to be the number used to arrive at 30 million women being raped, and makes sense as that number excludes those under 18)
That’s 150m men total, of whom 13.5m are rapists. That 6% of men that commit multiple rapes acccount for, well, more women than are raped. Which works, cuz that’s women who were (or will be) raped, not insistances of rape. So women who are raped more than on e are only counted once.
In short, even if I low ball it to 6% of men are rapists and 2/3rds of that makes 4% of men repeat offenders, that covers 9 million men total. Factoring the number of repeat offenders give us 33 million rapes. Which, if 3 million women (or 1% of women who are raped) are raped more that once, works out just fine mathematically.
Care to try again? I’ll be here all night.
I don’t knwo why you guys are bothering with all your fancy “math” and “statistics”. If Carlo isn’t already familiar with it, it can’t possibly be true!
BECAUSE MATH!!
Seriously though, of all the troll math I’ve done, that might’ve been the easiest.
But yeah, math and statistics are misandry, so really, I only do it because I enjoy it.
I know it’s old…but duh fuck?
As an white American dude, I certainly can’t speak for Jamaican LGBT groups, but as a gay man, I don’t want this guy anywhere near LGBT causes, he could not be more clueless, and if he tries to appropriate one (which is exactly what what he just tried to do) I really hope someone gives him a good smack.
Also:
“Homophobia has about as much relation to male “utility to women” as the Men’s Rights movement has to a legitimate civil rights movement. That is, approximately none.”
Yup, it really has FAR, FAR more to do with women’s utility to men. Actually, shitty cherry-picked bible verses aside, that pretty much describes the overwhelming majority of homophobia out there…but MRA’s seem to live in bizarro world. And, if I’m going to continue, a great number of the men’s issues out there largely seem to be a result of patriarchy and women’s utility to men as well. See also: Subtractive Identities.
And “poodle boy”….wtf? Actually, not that it matters, but I grew up with poodles, my family still owns one, I see him whenever I visit my parents. Whatever the popular stereotype may be, the truth is, they’re just dogs. Pretty smart dogs, but totally not above humping anything in sight or eating poop and vomit.
“Seriously though, of all the troll math I’ve done, that might’ve been the easiest.”
I stand corrected. The one that managed to make 6 in 200 into 0.33% was the easiest to correct, and I damned well hope I never find one stupider.
“See also: Subtractive Identities.”
And also: Toxic Masculinity.