For a certain subset of horrible men, there are few things more infuriating than the fact that women they find undesirable can turn down men for sex. For this upsets their primitive sense of justice: such women should be so grateful for any male attention, these men think, that turning down even the most boorish of men shouldn’t even be an option for them.
Consider the reactions of some of the regulars on date-rapey pickup guru Roosh V’s forum to the story of Josh and Mary on the dating site Plenty of Fish. One fine December evening, you see, Josh decided to try a little “direct game” on Mary.
That’s what the fellas on Roosh’s forum call it, anyway. The rest of us would call it sexual harassment.
Josh started off by asking Mary if she “wanted to be fuck buddies.” She said “nope,” and the conversation went downhill from there, with Josh sending a series of increasingly explicit comments to Mary, despite getting nothing but negative replies from her.
After eight messages from Josh, with the last one suggesting he would pay her $50 to “come over right now and swallow my load,” Mary turned the tables, noting that she’d been able to deduce his real identity from his PoF profile, and asking him if he wanted her to send screenshots of the chat to his mother and grandmother. He begged her not to.
As you may have already figured out, from the fact that we’re talking about this story in public, Mary did indeed pass along the screenshots, and posted them online.
Poetic justice? Not to the fellas on Roosh’s forum. Because, you see, Mary is … a fat chick.
While dismissing Josh as a “chode” with “atrocious game,” Scorpion saved most of his anger for the harassed woman:
Look how much she relishes not only shooting him down, but damaging his reputation with his own family. She’s positively intoxicated with her power. Simply spitting bad direct game is enough to unleash her vindictive fury.
“Bad direct game.” I’m pretty sure even Clarence Thomas would consider what Josh did sexual harassment.
At any point, she could have pressed a single button and blocked the man from communicating with her, but she didn’t. She didn’t because she enjoys the feeling of power she gets from receiving attention from guys like this and then brutally shooting them down. It makes her feel much hotter and more desirable than she actually is in real life. She’s not there to meet men; she’s there to virtually castrate them for her own amusement.
I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty sure that nowhere in Mary’s profile did she encourage the men of PoF to send her explicit sexual propositions out of the blue. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t hold a gun to Josh’s head and force him to send a half-dozen sexually explicit harassing messages to a woman he didn’t know.
Athlone McGinnis also relies heavily on euphemism when describing Josh’s appalling behavior:
I don’t think its primarily the revenge she’s after, its the validation. She is enjoying the power she has over this guy and wielding it brutally because it shows she can maintain standards despite her weight and the doubtless numerous confidence issues that stem from it. In blowing up this guy for being too direct in his evaluation of her sexuality, she affirms the value of her own sexuality.
Oh, so he was just being “direct in his evaluation of her sexuality.”
In short: “I am wanted, but I have standards and can choose. I have so much agency despite my weight that I can go as far as to punish those who approach me in a way I do not like rather than simply blocking them. I’m teaching them a lesson, because I’m valuable enough to provide such lessons.
So apparently in Mr. McGinnis’ world women who are fat aren’t supposed to have agency? They’re not supposed to be able to choose? They’re supposed to drop their panties to any guy who offers to be their fuck buddy or tells them to “suck my dick?”
Also, I’m a victim bravely standing up against online bullying/harassment-look at me!”
Yeah, actually, she is. Get used to it, guys, because you’re going to see a lot more of this in the future.
This isn’t just a laughing matter for her. She needs to be able to do this in order to feel worthwhile. She has to be able to show that even she is able to maintain standards and doesn’t have to settle for just any old guy asking for any old sexual favor simply because she resembles a beached manatee.
And it’s not a laughing matter for you either, is it? You’re actually angry that a woman said no to a sexual harasser — because you don’t find her attractive. And because Josh — from his picture, a conventionally attractive, non-fat fellow — did.
Mr. McGinnis, may a fat person sit on your dreams, and crush them.
I’m not playing devil’s advocate, by the way. I’m espousing a sincerely held position in good faith. I am 100% opposed to sexual violence, place 100% of the blame on the rapist, and believe quite strongly that the correct public policy response to rape should focus disproportionately (perhaps even exclusively) on altering the behavior of perpetrators, and not targets, of sexual assault and rape.
I believe that women should be able to play by the same rules as men, which means they should be able to go out alone to anyplace they like and do whatever they like without fear that someone will assault them. I believe this is a fundamental human right. I am one of you.
I just happen to have a different opinion than most of you on the specific question of whether it can be useful to investigate assault resistance strategies.
@Alex – it works out conveniently for the acquaintance rapists, doesn’t it? Focus all the attention on the Stranger In The Bushes and whether or not a woman should carry a gun (an issue not relevant to every society – yes, shock, not everywhere is the USA) and all the other “how not to” tips, and totally ignore where most of the danger lies.
So much this.
misery – disagreeing with you and being angry at the implications of all this shit (especially when it’s framed as some sort of academic exercise) =/= anti-intellectualism.
For that matter, I’m pretty damned contemptuous of it being framed as an intellectual/anti-intellectual matter at all.
Which is a strange view in any case, but a particularly strange one for the conservatives who make that argument, since they also love talking about crime waves and the need to crack down on them as a racist dogwhistle.
@kittehserf, Proud non-gun-owning Canadian right here. And how many people would pull a gun on a friend, family member, or even an acquaintance? Yep, so again, only applies to stranger rapes.
If you need to say this, you have already failed. Of course you already failed by being a total asshole here:
Sorry, one of us wouldn’t say people were silly for having feelings about rape.
@kittehserf, you’re out of luck. Like I said, Security is an academic field and hence it’s also an intellectual matter, but I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. I don’t see why it should be acceptable to say something that’s false just because it supports a good cause.
misery, I don’t actually give a flying fuck about Security and whether or not it’s an academic field. You’re reducing real people’s lives and the horrific things done to them by rapists to some sort of mental exercise with all these posts, and by declaring people disagreeing with you are “anti intellectual” you are belittling them. Have you actually read any of the points about how irrelevant and actively harmful so many of these “self help tips for not getting raped” are in real life?
Okay, misery. Show us statistics, then. Please tell what these magical tips are that statistically work to successfully prevent and/or resist sexual assault. Because from what I’ve read on the subject? None of them work except in individual cases, you know, anecdotes.
“And carrying a gun is pertinent to the matter of acquaintance rape how?”
Pecunium and I could probably discuss both until we ended up on a tangent?
It isn’t in other words.
Since we’re relating anecdotes, here’s mine. I was walking back from a friend’s house at about 1 a.m. It’s wasn’t the proverbial “bad part of town” but it wasn’t, you know, a nice part of town. It was just a normal street in a normal mid-sized American city. As it happens I like to walk around in urban areas after dark and normally it’s not a problem.
However, this particular night I was walking along a sidewalk in front of a city middle school. There were no streetlights on that side of the street and it was quite dark. Suddenly I saw two very large (6’5″+) men walking shoulder to shoulder toward me. There was something strange about them but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought about crossing over to the other side of the street, but I felt silly, and I was pretty close to them and I felt it would be obvious I was afraid of them, so I continued.
As I passed them they split so I could walk between them, but strangely one of them turned slightly and put his finger into the air. It was extremely weird and offputting. I quickly crossed to the lit side of the street. There was a smallish man there sitting on his porch with a cigarette in his mouth. He asked me for a light, and I was relieved to have someone to interact with. I pulled out a book of matches. Then another man walked up and said he needed a light too, and I knew I was in trouble. Not knowing what to do, I struck the match. As I touched it to guy #2’s cigarette, I sensed two people come up behind me, and guy #1 punched me in the left side of my jaw.
At that point the two men behind me grabbed me and two to four other men started punching me all over my body. I panicked and lunged through the line of parked cars into the street, and we all fell over into the street as traffic, thank god, screeched to a halt, and REALLY thank god, one of the cars’ doors opened and two cops popped out. My attackers scattered.
So that’s obviously a weird situation, and it’s quite possible there’s nothing I could have done about any of it. But I have thought quite a bit about it, and I believe (maybe I’m wrong, but I believe it) that thinking has helped me in other situations.
Now, I’m a dude, so in the aftermath of this attack exactly ZERO people ever implied that the attack was my fault, that I should have done something differently, that I shouldn’t walk around by myself at night, etc. And that’s as it should be. No one should tell a victim of crime what they should have done differently.
But I, as a victim of assault, do in fact have a right to ask “is there some optimal response to such a situation?” Because it’s a situation I might encounter again. There’s no crime in asking the question. It’s a valid one, even if it upsets you to ask it.
Misery, take out “rape” and replace it with “drunk driving.” Then tell us all how we can make ourselves less attractive targets to drunk drivers.
@Misery:
Your suggestions (for instance, having some academic group brainstorm lists of tips for women to follow to prevent rape) are only valid or appropriate when there is literally nothing else to be done, when there is no recourse that can be taken to reduce the incidence of rape. Only when there is no way to reduce the number of criminals or crimes committed does it become acceptable to posit ways for victims to try to protect themselves.
In short, giving tips and putting the onus on the victim is a sign of having given up.
We aren’t even close to there yet. Teaching people what rape actually is, combatting rape culture in all its forms, these are the things that need to be done now. This is why your suggestions are wrong and insulting.
Argenti – exactly. Like Alex said, who, even in countries where gun ownership seems to be ubiquitous, goes armed when they’re at home?
“Security is an academic field”
Trufax, it’s also a field my favorite commenter has experience in (sorry guys!) — he’s been emailed, but idk if pecunium’s actually around to comment on said academic field.
Victims of assault and rape ask this of themselves all the time. It’s a natural response; “What could I have done differently, how should I protect myself in the future?” There is a world of difference between a victim asking the question and other people demanding that victims act a certain way.
You claim that “many of these self help tips are irrelevant and actively harmful.” I agree, that’s why I said that you can evaluate them using academic concepts from the Security field. I don’t see the controversy. I say it’s anti-intellectual because people are actually offended when I point out purely false statements.
There is an initiative called RapeResistance.org that is really good that focuses I would say at least 90% of its information on ending rape culture, teaching men not to rape, empowering survivors, etc. You can check it out for yourself.
They link to this paper which is very good and which makes many of the points I think misery and I are driving at, perhaps hamhandedly. It’s worth reading, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions.
http://www.raperesistance.org/research/Teaching_womens_resistance.pdf
AnonymousGuy, if you want to search for the “optimal response”, be my guest. Doesn’t mean you get to tell people, who survived a different crime than you did, that we should listen to people like misery who think it’s cool to play with people’s lived experiences.
“Like Alex said, who, even in countries where gun ownership seems to be ubiquitous, goes armed when they’re at home?”
More people than who go out armed, but that’s irrelevant to whether one could shoot a relative, lover, etc. (FTR, I’ve had access to a gun in my domicile for 3 of the last 4 years — I have no intent to get a carry permit though, and am really more comfortable with blunt objects. But I’m definitely not the only one who’s got firearm access but doesn’t carry)
Anonymous Guy – I am sorry that happened to you. But asking “is there some optimal way to respond” sounds horribly like you are blaming yourself to some degree, or that there’s some magic key to responding to an attack. No two attacks are going to be the same, and you’re still ignoring that the vast majority of rapes are NOT CARRIED OUT BY STRANGERS.
Yes, I’m using caps, because this is at least the third time I’ve said this to you in one thread. Stranger rape scenarios are the rarest rapes and the hope of avoiding them is irrelevant to most. Plus, it talks as if the rapist only has one way of responding, and it’s a binary rape/won’t rape. What makes you think even stranger-rapists can’t adapt and still do what they intend? They’re not machines, they’re people (men, overwhelmingly) who have chosen to rape and most likely have thought it out in advance.
“There is a world of difference between a victim asking the question and other people demanding that victims act a certain way.”
Yes. But misery has not done that second thing. You are putting that on him/her, for reasons that are not clear to me.
Well, again, I’ve been assaulted by acquaintances as well. I could tell one of those stories if you like. But you’re missing the point.
Read the linked paper and maybe we can find some common ground. Obviously I’m not coming across.
Argenti – armed as in carrying the thing on the hip at home, or having access to one? I was thinking of the former, ie. the gun’s immediately to hand, not that it’s … well, locked up and not loaded, the way it’s supposed to be (here, that is – dunno what the rules are in the US, obvs). A gun put safely away to prevent accidents doesn’t strike me as particularly helpful if one’s being attacked.