You might not think that student orientation events would be an appropriate venue for chants celebrating the rape of underage girls. But such chants have apparently been something of a tradition at not one but two Canadian schools — and possibly more? Last week, a scandal erupted at the University of British Columbia after word got out that an orientation event at its Saunder School of Business had included a chant on this particular theme, led by orientation leaders from the Commerce Undergraduate Society.
According to one woman who disgustedly live-tweeted the event, it went something like this:
Y-O-U-N-G at UBC, we like ’em young, Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for go to jail.
Meanwhile, in Halifax, someone made a video — and posted it to YouTube — of student orientation leaders at Saint Mary’s University chanting a nearly identical chant.
Naturally, noted, er, human rights activist Paul Elam of A Voice for Men felt compelled to weigh in on the issue. He started off by expressing his deep disgust … with having to hear anything about the issue at all:
I swear if I read one more outraged “report” — aka feverish, paranoid rant — that twists something stupid into “evidence” of a “rape culture,” I am going to just lose it.
Yes, how outrageous that a chant joking about raping underage girls at an official school orientation event could possibly be construed as contributing in any way to rape culture! So sorry that your delicate sensitivities were offended, Paul.
After some more predictable histrionics on this “hyper-hipster-hysteria” from Mr. Elam, he got to his main point: blaming feminists for the rape chants.
No, really.
I am an older guy. I find it interesting, given that I came from a more “patriarchal” generation, that something like this when I was 18 would have been unthinkable. Why? Because other men, especially older ones, would have pulled those young people aside and said, “Hey, we don’t do that around here.” That would have been that, as they say, if it had even happened in the first place.
We can thank feminists for this. Through policy and governance they have eroded positive male role models, and male authority, right out of the culture. After feminist undermining of the family, removing fathers from the lives of children and demonizing male heroes, we have a population of young people, especially young men, growing more socially feral with each new generation.
And now what do we see? Feminists running around everywhere telling men they need to tell each other, “Don’t rape. Don’t abuse women. Don’t this. Don’t that.” …
You can’t assault the identity of half the human race, marginalize and disempower them, which is exactly what feminism has done, and expect anything in return but what you are getting.
In other words: You gals asked for it.
Paul Elam, you are rape culture.
Heh, heh. If he stepped on legos, he might even be right.
I agree that they are referencing someone young and that the entire chant is immature, stupid and an attempt to get attention. But the video caption showed the word “consent” even though it seems that they are saying something totally different and this hurts the credibility of those reporting it.
Now you said “getting her drunk”. Was alcohol mentioned in the chant or are you sharing the opinion that “underage” referred to drinking? Canada’s law allows 14 or 15 year olds to have sex with someone less than 5 years older. So a 19 year old college student can apparently legally have sex with a 15 year old. So do you feel that they are talking about underage drinking or underage sex?
Oh god, I’m so sorry. The worst I had to deal with was Kentucky summers, and we didn’t march in our (polyester) uniforms until August evenings at football and September Saturdays at competitions. And even then I found the uniform jacket uncomfortably hot in the heat and really crap at staying warm in the cold.
When I went to see the Chieftains at my college, it wasn’t all cheering and yelling, but there was a big dance group down front.
When I went to see Weird Al in concert, at some points I couldn’t hear him at all really.
Good, I’m not sure why I added the “get her drunk.”
I am not as up on Canada’s age of consent laws as you are, and apparently neither are the people who came up with the chants. Either that or they are talking about having sex with girls younger than 14.
The chant on the video is definitely about having sex with an underage girl. There’s no getting around that. The chant at the other school reportedly included the words “no consent” as well.
Good: You yourself mentioned underage drinking. Would you please take those wheels off the goalpost?
You’re very welcome for Pratchett, cloudiah! Small Gods is hilarious, and sweet, and kind, and Constable Visit (he’s an Omnian in other books, for those in the dark) doesn’t deserve the aversion I have towards him for handing out pamphlets.
About angels and pictures: Pfft, what manner of angel is scared of a picture? I can see angels refusing to enter a house that violates the “no graven images” rule as a matter of principle, but those kind of angels would be dicks, anyway.
‘Course, my image of angels has been irrevocably tainted by D&D’s archons, which don’t take no shit.
The first album I ever bought with my own money was a The Simpsons soundtrack. Sorry not sorry.
After that it’s been … eclectic. Last album I bought was the O Brother! soundtrack because I wanted to sing Go To Sleep Little Baby to mi putti and couldn’t remember the words and couldn’t find my first copy.
Cloudiah: I’m currently reading Maskerade, which is “Discworld Does Phantom of the Opera”. It’s magnificent.
We must keep in mind that the entire feminist and progressive programs were based on work by women like Jane Goodall and her followers who told us how nice primates were in nature. When in fact, that entire generation’s work in the study of nature and of anthropology was universally false. Chimps are brutal raping predatory murderers. In fact, the only animal that shares our understanding of intentionality, or our social structure, is the domestic dog.
Feminism, liberalism and postmodernism are simply the names we have given to communism and socialism now that those two programs have failed in both theory and practice
The City Council would like to remind you that angels DO NOT EXIST. If you have been discussing angels, please report to the Sheriff’s Secret Police for reeducation.
The group that is most out of place in my collection is Gorillaz. They just appeal.
Not sure if Greater Good is troll …
@emilygoddess: I was piqued by Night Vale until Fred at Slacktivist said the episodes sound like an audiobook, and I was disappoint. If your series is supposed to be community radio, it should sound like community radio.
Greater Good: nice try, but Goodall wasn’t around for Seneca Falls. Be a dear and fuck off.
@Falconer, yeah, Cecil does tend to sound like he’s reciting rather than announcing. I’ve been able to ignore it, but I can totally understand if others can’t. And sometimes he does bust out some real acting, and it’s pretty good (especially in One Year Later).
Greater Good. Where on earth!!! did you get that idea?
Jane Goodall. Sojourner Truth. Born in different centuries. Rest assured they never met.
We have Good and Greater Good on the same thread. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
@Falconer
@Greater Good
Awww, it’s almost as if you know what those words mean. Too bad you don’t.
@Good
Oh, FFS – the fact that you hear the words differently doesn’t mean that you’re the only one whose right about what the lyrics are. Perhaps your name should be “Arrogant”.
Back to the music- My first music player:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/9a/9c/49/9a9c494a69d5ec7b4af569d8e68ae020.jpg
My first record player. It was pretty lo-fi.
We had a 45 with a Country/Western song on it that my brother would play at 33 1/3 because it tickled him to do so.
I remember books on record. We had a Hobbit tie-in after the animated film came out; a Gremlins tie-in; a Transformers tie-in about a race; and we ended up with a Pound Puppies book after we’d bought it for a birthday party that never happened.
There was a Smurfs one, too, and it was smurfing intense. Two lazy Smurfs dispose of some noxious something or other that Papa brewed up, and it caused a baby vulture to mutate into a monster and start hunting Smurfs.
Whoa, missed that. Wow.
I quoted Falconer without even saying anything. V_V
Anyway, orthodox Islam teaches that houses with hanging pictures and/or sculptures of animate beings are sinful because they encourage idolatry, and that means the angels don’t want to be around such houses. By the way, another reason for angels to not stay in a house is if the owner has a dog in the house. I wish I was making that up.
Shit, sorry, forgot we were discussing orthodox Islam. I know about the prohibition on representational art (I studied art history, fer cryin’ out loud).
I just don’t think through implications and make connections. Like I said, lazy intellect.
The dog thing is just … dickish.
Dogs? Huh?
Most of those old religious laws I can make some sense of (hell, depending context the Jewish ones about menstruation can make sense, blood does attract wild animals after all) but wtf is wrong with dogs? Is that one old enough they weren’t domesticated yet?
——
Greater Good isn’t new?
Islam dates from the 7th Century. Dogs were hella domesticated long before the pyramids were new.
I think dogs are just unclean in orthodox Islam (I think the term is haram?)
probably because they didn’t have flea medicine back then.I sure thought Greater Good was new.
Dogs had been domesticated by then, in the biological sense, but IIRC you were much more likely to encounter a street dog in 7th century Arabia than a clean, well-trained pet like we have here and now. Muhammad (or God, depending on what you believe) considered dogs unclean in the same way that pigs were.
I think I read somewhere that it had to do with the notion that stray dogs feed on carrion.
Dog saliva, in particular. It’s one of the many things in Islam that invalidate the state of bodily purity. If you (as a Muslim) touch any of those things, you are considered unfit for performing major forms of worship like praying and reading the Qur’an, and so you must perform ritual ablution. The rule is so strict that, if a dog licks your shoe, you have to clean it very thoroughly.
Also, if I recall correctly, if you’re a man and you’re praying while a menstruating woman or a dog passes in front of you, you need to redo your prayer. Fortunately, I don’t think this rule is followed very often.
RE: CassandraSays
I always found the preference for adorable cherubs rather than warrior angels kind of odd.
Actually, those are putti. Being renamed cherubs and then blurring into the idea of angels is a recent thing–Victorian era, I think? I guess old ladies nowadays prefer winged babies instead of FLAMING VENGEANCE HORRORS.
RE: Good
The age of consent in Canada is 16, and I doubt that their are many 15 year olds attending that school. One commenter stated that they were referring to underage drinking.
Uhhhh huh. So the song is about grabbing ass, ‘so tight,’ but ‘underage’ is TOTALLY about drinking. Sure, buddy. I believe you.
Also, colleges aren’t fucking islands, accessible only by rowboat. Young people exist around them.
RE: Falconer
I was lucky; I was pit percussion, thus did not have to swelter so much. Our uniforms were likely polyester as well, but whatever it was, it was hot, hideous fabric specifically tailored to look flattering on nobody. What’d you play?
RE: Greater Good
Okay, guys, which one of you left the word salad spinner on? Seriously, Jane Goodall inventing feminism? TROLOLOLZ! I figure it’s a Poe of Good.
Re: marching band — I did orchestra in middle school, for those who don’t know, I play violin, strings don’t play and march so well. So I got to carry the wood stock to a rifle, none of the metal, looked absurd. But our “uniform” for the parade? White shirt, black bottom. You guys make me realize how lucky I was.
Re: dogs — well okay then. That I can’t explain!
RE: Argenti
Yeah, until you have to wear a bandolier and a silly hat with feathers coming out the top, you have not experienced silliness in uniform. (And even that doesn’t compare with being a MASCOT!)
Never underestimate the old lady market. Hence Precious Moments.
Haven’t I said? I played God’s gift to brass instruments, the trombone. My brother played it, too, until the band needed someone to haul a tuba around and the director chose not one of the baritone players but one of the shorter trombone players.
You haven’t heard “Eight Days A Week” until you’ve heard it on tuba.
Our uniform was mostly white, with a black cummerbund as part of the jacket, a pattern of black chevrons on the torso with an orange fill between the chevrons and the cummerbund, orange cuffs with fancy curlicues in black piping, shoulder tabs, a collar that jabbed me under my chin the first year, and white pants with orange and black stripes down the side so the judges could see who wasn’t in step easier.
We had cord looped around one arm, I wanna say the left, and the hat was a plastic kepi with a modest white plume.
There were flashier outfits out there, but we didn’t have to deal with sashes or fake glove hems or broad hats or, god forbid, sequins (well, except for the color guard and the field commander). I mean, we weren’t a drum and bugle corp.
I felt so handsome wearing it.
Nope. Look at the cherubs in Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. The idea goes back at least to the Renaissance. I’d guess it might have started then, with the focus on Roman art and hence seeing the putti.
Also, could we knock off the “old ladies” thing? It’s right up there with calling someone dithery an “old woman”. It’s also irrelevant since it wasn’t old ladies who incorporated the whole putti business into Western art five hundred years ago.
Re: men having to start their prayers over if a menstruating woman passes them:
1) How the hell would they know?
2) If I knew any ultra-orthodox Muslim bloke who was a dirtbag as well, I would LOVE to walk back and forward in front of him just to piss him off.
Yeah, I was going to say, I’m pretty sure the Victorians, much as they loved cutesy crap, can’t be held responsible for the existence of cherubs in religious iconography.
“You can’t assault the identity of half the human race, marginalize and disempower them”
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
“…which is exactly what feminism has done”
*headdesk*
Zimmer: I think the issue is, “disempower”. This guy knows men have power, and is resentful that feminism want’s to rectify the imbalance.