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antifeminism mansplaining men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men playing the victim rape rape culture

James Taranto of the WSJ: Drunk women who are raped may be as guilty as their rapists

James Taranto, saying something annoying
James Taranto, saying something terrible

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto is probably the closest thing to an authentic Men’s Rights Activist there is operating in the mainstream media today, by which I mean he regularly puts forth “arguments” on gender issues that are breathtaking in their backwardness.

His latest, er, contribution to the gender debate? A column in which he suggested that drunk women who are raped on college campuses by drunk men are as guilty as their rapists. No, really. Here’s his argument, such as it is:

If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.

Huh. I’m pretty sure we determine the victim of a rape not on demographics but based on WHICH PERSON RAPED THE OTHER PERSON. Much in the way we would charge a drunken person who shot another drunken person with shooting that person, rather than simply throwing up our hands and saying, well, they were both drunk, so no harm no foul, right?

For a longer take on the issue, check out this piece over on Media Matters.

Media Matters has also assembled a nice, and mercifully rather brief, media montage of some of Taranto’s other pronouncements on gender issues. See if you can make it to the end without pulling out all of your hair.

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Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
10 years ago

@LBT: I vote that instead of you going into the corner, we make him sit on the naughty step.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Sam, so you are seriously arguing that two people who are so drunk that they cannot consent to sex because they are too impaired, and neithe one of them want to hav sex at all, those two people are just going to “accidentally” have sex? And then, of course, the woman’s going to “regret” it the next day and “cry rape.” Because women do that all the time, amirite, bro?

Fucking asshole.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

We need a kiddy table that we can send people whose attitude towards sex is too immature for their opinions on it to matter to.

kittehserf
10 years ago

It’ll need chairs with potties, too.

Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
10 years ago

They’ll just play with their faeces anyway, instead of doing it metaphorically.

leatapp
leatapp
10 years ago

Just read about Dallasapple. I’m sorry she’s so ill. I hope for the best and that we all see her around here again soon. 🙁 She seems like a lovely person.

Marie
Marie
10 years ago

@sam

And Bostonian, we are not talking about someone refusing to have sex. We are talking about someone crying rape the next day.

Oh, you mean we’re talking about a hypothetical that barely ever happens? barely as in 0.6% of rape allegations (the prhasing on the article, not mine, but don’t know how else to phrase it. :/) And how your attitude affects a much larger number of women, men and non-binary people who have been raped and have been told they were making it up, or that it was just sex they regretted? Are we talking about that? Cuz that’s what we should be talking about.

And man, it’s been a while since I poked the trolls :p I feel like my link-digging up skills are all lost. I used to be so quick at it…

Skye
Skye
10 years ago

Sam, this is important: http://amptoons.com/blog/2009/09/15/sexual-assault-prevention-tips-guaranteed-to-work/. Just for you, I’ll add a number 11: if you think you might assault or rape someone while drunk, don’t get drunk (you can do this by not drinking or by having your buddy help watch your intake)

LBT
LBT
10 years ago

RE: Kiwi Girl

we make him sit on the naughty step.

What on EARTH is the naughty step?

RE: auggziliary

Sam, are you going to read anything anyone here wrote before? Because we’ve already addressed this.

Reading the comments is MISANDRY!

Bina
Bina
10 years ago

Way to join the chorus of untruths Dave. You know as well as I do what that man said. He said that when a man and woman have sex willingly while both are sloppy drunk, then based on the feminist definition of consent, BOTH participants raped each other. But we know that only one of the two is really succeptable to being accused of rape based on a blatant gender double standard. Drunk women are not held responsible for their sexual behavior. Drunk men are.

That’s really cute, asswipe. Tell that to all the women who’ve ever had their morality questioned because they were drunk (as were their assailants) when a dude raped them. You’ll find them on an awful lot of court dockets.

And the guys typically get off, just so’s you know.

cloudiah
10 years ago

Nynaeve, thank you for letting us know about Lana. Thinking all good thoughts in her direction. Let us know if we can help with donations.

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
10 years ago

In which Sam apparently thinks he’s the first person to come up with these brilliant arguments. Sam, sweetie, don’t bring your tired 101 bullshit into an upper-level discussion. If you want to learn more about the details of drinking and rape, please see pretty much every thread in the universe on which this topic has been discussed, including this one if you’d just bother to scroll up a tad.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
10 years ago

“Succeptable”? I kind of like that new word. Not sure what it means though.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
10 years ago

Oh no, I’m so sorry to read the news about Lana. I hope she can feel our prayers and thoughts and friendship. We’re all gonna be pulling for her.

Robert
Robert
10 years ago

Memory lane – back in uni, I went on a date with a likely lad. So long ago that the movie we saw was My Dinner With Andre. In retrospect, not really a date movie. Significant point – afterwards, in my room, I made my move. He looked at me with his big brown eyes and said, “Can’t we just be friends?” I was drunk AND high. So I looked back at him and said, “Well, certainly.”

It’s not all that hard, no matter how hard you happen to be. We did end up as friends, by the way.

Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
10 years ago

@LBT:

What on EARTH is the naughty step?

Supernanny:

Ally S
10 years ago

Sending good thoughts for lana/dallasapple and her loved ones. Thanks for letting us know, nynaeve.

Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
10 years ago

Well clearly, if it was a corgi then there would be no need for a naughty step.

kittehserf
10 years ago

I was thinking corgi => cone of shame, but there’s a better name for what trolls should wear:

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4049970176/h86F1237D/

Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
10 years ago

LOLOLOLOLOLOL at the picture.

kittehserf
10 years ago

Imagine what it must have looked like when Stoopid Kitteh tried to get out! 😀

Arctic Ape
Arctic Ape
10 years ago

Emilygoddess:

Or consider the famous “I read Playboy for the articles” cliche.

Kinda amusing OT, but I’ve seen some intellectual types claim, “I read National Geographic for the pictures”, because the articles are supposedly so fluffy. Now imagine if someone was hiding an NG between their Playboy…

Dvärghundspossen, speaking of hypotheticals:

Scenario 1: A and B are both so drunk that they’re hardly aware of what they are doing, but they still somehow manage to have sex.
Scenario 2: A is a bit tipsy while B is so drunk that zie doesn’t know what zie’s doing. A and B has sex.

I do think B is more of a victim in 2 than in 1. Yeah, in both scenarios B had a sexual encounter while not really knowing what zie was doing, but only in 2 was there someone who had complete power over zir in that situation. So it’s not like 1 magically becomes completely fine consensual sex just because both were super-drunk, but I do think it still makes a bit of a difference. It’s worse to be violated by someone who knowingly takes advantage of you, than someone who doesn’t know what zie’s doing either.

So this is me trying to claim a middle position between “it can’t possibly be a problem when two drunk people hook up” and “it’s just as much a rape even if both were drunk”.

I would think B is equally victim in scenario 1, but A might have diminished responsibility. Also, in scenario 1, everything goes both ways between A and B. (Assuming both parties initiate sex equally, everything else is equal etc.)

I actually think mutual rape is possible as a concept, at least if the definition of “rape” doesn’t require that the offender be in responsible state of mind. Probably it’s not worthwhile to prosecute either in scenario 1, while scenario 2 probably warrants prosecution on A.

And that’s enough academic wankery on my part.

Kittenserf:

Cretaceous, not Jurassic

/dinosaur pedant

Even Maastrichtian, very late Cretaceous! Why, that’s almost 80 million years more advanced than the gender views of Berriasian MRAs from the earliest Cretaceous.

vaiyt
10 years ago

I can propose outlandish scenarios too. What if the man is falling-down drunk and the woman is high on mushrooms? What if the man is being compelled to get the woman drunk by a Venusian mind-control entity, and the woman has the power to transfer the alcohol in the system to the closest person? What if he is actually an hyper-intelligent aubergine?