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.
Shit, this is wrong in so many ways… fractal, even.
No. Rape prevention is great!
Here’s one. Tell guys that they ought to not rape! Mentioned several times. Look up the numbers–good measurable effects.
Here’s one. Tell guys that they need to stop giving cover to rapists! Eliminate the social license to operate.
And if the term ‘social license to operate’ isn’t familiar to you… THEN YOU HAVEN’T EVEN DONE THE FUCKING 101-LEVEL READING.
misery, fuck off. You’ve had your whining and insults time, now go and annoy someone else. Your bullshit about academic sloppiness and intellectualism says you don’t actually give a shit about women’s lived reality, when you reduce our lives to some sort of academic exercise. The fact that you had a troll coming in to defend you with his mansplaining and All The Tips For Every Rape crap should alert you, O mighty brain, to the fact that your ideas are off.
Neither of you listened to any of the people here telling you what was wrong with your claims. You’re just trolling now and trying to salve your ego.
Show some respect for boundaries (yes! Those things rapists and harassers violate!) and
GO AWAY.
“If the victims of a particular crime tell you over and over again that the strategy you’re suggesting to solve it doesn’t and wouldn’t work, you take that into account and reconsider your strategy” is also crime-prevention 101. Odd that someone seeking a degree in security doesn’t know this, isn’t it?
[Content note: victim-blaming advice]
My older sister currently lives in Manchester, NH, which has a lot of crime. She told me that she’s scared and wants to get a can of mace, avoid going outside late at night, etc.
And you know what? I’m fine with that. It’s her call. But I never tell her “If you go outside at night, you might get raped” or “I’m sure a can of mace will keep a rapist away!”
TOTALLY OT but what address do I send a beautiful picture of a misandrist whore penguin that I drew to? I made it for the artistry for misandry page.
misery, You made an argument. Your argument failed. Your intent is meaningless in the face of how you argued with actual rape survivors. That is, with condescension and patronization, and with ridiculous accusations. If you think you’re saving face by trying to align yourself with the points made by freemage and others, you’re wrong. As a self-proclaimed intellectual, you should know how to gracefully admit you made a point badly and that you behaved inappropriately in this community. An apology and concession at this point doesn’t really even make up for you being an asshat, but at least it would be a step in not continuing to be one. But go ahead, keep getting defensive.
@ Kittehs
Well, as an expert in security, with a degree and everything, I think that the best way for people to have boundaries is for me to tell them what those boundaries should be. You would be able to see this if you were more rational and willing to put aside your theoretically unsound emotions.
(As a general suggestion, if you ever find yourself writing in the above way and you’re not attempting sarcasm? You’re being an asshole, and you should really stop that. You should also be aware that it’s obvious to everyone how motivated by emotions your behavior is, just for extra bonus irony.)
IIRC, the original sentiment was less “‘rape prevention strategy’ is harmful” and more “calling these these techniques ‘rape prevention tips’ is harmful, because they focus on avoiding rape, not preventing it”
Which would be totally meaningful if you actually linked to studies evaluating their effectiveness, but you didn’t. Although I’m rather charmed by the fact that you don’t even mention “judged as true” as an option.
But just announcing that something is false with no evidence is totally intellectual, right?
Look, just asserting a position and then announcing that everyone who disagrees is “anti-intellectual” is not an argument.
But, you see, I’m right, and I know this because I’m not emotional. What, smugness isn’t a sign of intellectualism?
Cloudiah (not going to post her email address for obvious reasons); don’t forget to add it to our deviantart group too.
RE: bullshit about emotionality
We rejected all rape preventation strategies? Didn’t I give a list like three pages back that was a mix of preventing rape (things what Howard just said) and preventing rapistd from getting away with it (which, considering the number of repeat rapists, is also preventing rape)?
Cuz I seem to recall saying things like not asking what she was wearing and teaching people that if you aren’t sure you have consent, stop and find out, or just plain stop…
Oh and that self-defense courses should be available to everyone, not pushed as a thing women should do as rape avoidance.
Text version: http://lesswrong.com/lw/90n/summary_of_the_straw_vulcan/
Cassandra – perfect! 😀
But you see, if we talk about prevention that’s focused on the rapist then…look, over there, a bird! Now, back to talking about what women can do to avoid being the victims of this unstoppable force of nature.
Dvarghundspossen — if you remember my email from when I was doing the survey, I can forward it to cloudiah.
Thanks Katz! I mailed it to Cloudiah and sent a join-the-group request to the art page.
Argenti, I don’t remember you giving out your email in the survey? I just ticked all the boxes online. Nevermind, I think I have Cloudiah’s email… If not, I’ve just randomly sent the pic into cyberspace.
They could add “Straw Vulcan: emotions bad, rationality good is overwhelmingly used by misogynist or sexist men against women when those women disagree with them.”
Argenti: You totally do “take it to email” though, assuming, you know, you want to talk to the person in question.
No. If it’s a public conversation, then I keep it public. I am perfectly willing to have private conversations with people, and they may end up paralleling ongoing conversations, but if someone attempts to move a conversational response to me from a public forum to a private one, I don’t.
I have several reasons for this, not all of which I am willing to share right now, as there are some of them which are based on imputing dishonest motives to the people who do such things.
Misery: Entitled, really?
I didn’t want to continue the discussion on manboobz since I felt that I was disrupting the atmosphere here, but I thought it would be civil for me to respond to pecunium’s arguments since he/she came late to the conversation. That’s why I asked that innocent question on that blog site.
Yes, entitled.
You felt you had the right to take a public conversation private. You felt you had the right to (your words) hijack a post of mine, in another venue to do it.
And you felt you should be allowed to only talk to me. It would be civil to ask before you did such a thing. It would also be civil to assume that, had I wanted a private conversation on the subject I would have invited it: barring that, asking first would be the civil thing to do.
You didn’t, which is why I say you were acting entitled.
Less wrong, really? Having had debates, in person, with Yudkowsky, the idea that he has any good tips to offer is laughable. His understanding of basic logic is weak, his understanding of the actual structures of formal debate is lacking. His millions of words trying to re-invent the wheel (and so give his followers odd, quasi-parallel terms for things which were argued out, and settled [more or less] in the past is wasteful of both their time, and the effort of those argue with them/him on subjects for which there is a vast body of literature.
I’d like to address this point of yours: 2. claims about the effectiveness of rape prevention strategy can be evaluated on their merits using frameworks from academic security
1: No, they can’t. Because their “merits” are purely in how well they work at preventing rape.
1a: That requires data; either longitudinal studies of parallel groups who do/don’t use those strategies in an otherwise equivalent cultural and social environments, or the results of valid experiments with good operational definitions.
1b: You’ve not cited any such.
2: You’ve made lots of allusions to this “academic discipline” but we’ve seen fuck all to show what schools are teaching/studying it.
2a: that makes it seem more an appeal to authority than a testable claim.
2b: as such it’s completely rejectable on it’s face.
2c: Which is why it’s gotten such short shrift here.
1. calling all rape prevention strategy harmful is theoretically unsound
good thing that’s not happening. Several people have posited rape preventions strategies. Some (guys, don’t rape, and “Don’t be That Guy”) are pretty much universally agreed as being good, and fitting and proper; in that they address the agent, not the target (i.e. strategies which work to reduce the number of rapes which are attempted).
So your 4 is bullshit, since there is no logical fail (on our part).
I’m still not sure if the antagonist in this particular conversation has even asked hirself the question that I asked earlier, ie, why this is the hill that zie wants to (publicly, with as much collateral damage as necessary) die on.
I concur!
Dvarghundspossen — it wasn’t in the survey, I alluded to it when recruiting testers. It’s the obvious guess at gmail.