Thought Catalog – which seems to be rapidly becoming the go-to site for terrible antifeminist posts – is making a bit of a stir on Reddit with a post bearing the deliberately provocative title “Wait A Second, Did Amy Schumer Rape a Guy?” Spoiler Alert: The anonymous author concludes that yes, she did. The anonymous author is full of shit.
In the Thought Catalog piece, Anonymous takes a look at a speech that Schumer – a comedian with some subversive feminist leanings — recently gave at the Gloria Awards and Gala, hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women. The centerpiece of Schumer’s speech, a bittersweet celebration of confidence regained, was a long and cringeworthy story about a regrettable sexual encounter she had in her Freshman year of college, when her self-esteem was at an all-time low.
The short version of the story: A guy named Matt, whom Schumer had a giant crush on, called her at 8 AM for a booty call, after he apparently had been turned down by every other woman in his little black book. Amy, thinking she was being invited for an all-day-date, only discovered his real intent when she got to his dorm room and he romantically drunkenly pushed her onto the bed and started fingering her.
After several failed attempts at intercourse, and what she describes as an “ambitious” attempt to go down on her, he finally gave up and fell asleep on top of her. Lying there listening to Sam Cooke, she decided she didn’t want to be “this girl” any more, “waited until the last perfect note floated out, and escaped from under him and out the door.”
Looking back on the incident, she thanks her failed lover for introducing her “to my new self, a girl who got her value from within her.”
But Thought Catalog’s anonymous author, noting the extreme drunkenness of Schumer’s stumbling lover, concludes that “Amy’s actions may have constituted as rape in the eyes of her college, Towson University.” (Or at least according to the school’s current policies.)
Anonymous quotes Towson’s current policy on sexual harassment, which states:
In order to give effective Consent, one must not be mentally or physical incapacitated (e.g., by alcohol or drugs, unconsciousness, mental disability).
And adds:
It’s hard to argue that Matt was not mentally incapacitated. In Amy’s words, he was “wasted.”
Actually, the fact that Matt wasn’t too intoxicated to initiate an assortment of sexual acts with her — or to get up and change the music at her request — suggests that he wasn’t “mentally incapacitated,” at least by the standards used by colleges when investigating alleged sexual assaults. The Association of Title IX Administrators’ Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct Model Policy (which sets an unofficial standard for college administrators) defines incapacitation as “a state where someone cannot make rational, reasonable decisions because they lack the capacity to give knowing consent (e.g., to understand the ‘who, what, when, where, why or how’ of their sexual interaction).”
In any case, it’s not clear why Anonymous is looking at Towson’s sexual harassment policy, which is designed to deal with “non-consensual Sexual Contact, Sexual Exploitation, or requests for sexual favors that affect educational or employment decisions,” and which clearly doesn’t apply to Schumer’s story.
As for sexual assault, the school’s official web site states:
Sexual assault is defined by Towson University as forcible sexual intercourse, sexual penetration–however slight–of another person’s genital or anal opening with any object, sodomy, or any unwanted touching of an unwilling person’s intimate parts or forcing an unwilling person to touch another’s intimate parts. Under this definition, these acts must be committed either by force, threat, intimidation, or through the use of the victim’s mental or physical helplessness, of which the accuser was or should have been aware. This includes, but is not limited to, victim helplessness resulting from intoxication or from the taking of a so-called “date-rape drug.”
This definition is drawn from the University of Maryland System Policy on Sexual Assault, which classifies sexual assault involving penetration — the traditional definition of rape — as a more serious type of sexual assault (Sexual Assault I) than those forms of sexual assault involving touching (Sexual Assault II). By this standard, assuming we equate Sexual Assault I with rape, Schumer clearly did not rape him.
Anonymous then looks at Maryland’s state laws and concludes:
In the eyes of Maryland state law, things get a bit more complicated. Amy could be guilty of rape or sexual assault depending on whether or not penetration was achieved. According to the state law, a person may not engage in vaginal intercourse with another “if the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual, and the person performing the act knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual.” Legally, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t rape, at least given the details in Amy’s speech.
Well, actually, yes it is. And not just legally, but by any reasonable definition of the word “rape.”
Because Schumer, at least by her account, wasn’t “the person performing the act.” He was. She was lying there wondering what had gone wrong with her life.
If you read the speech in its entirety, instead of depending on the selective quotations in the Thought Catalog post, this is abundantly clear. As she describes it, he:
Pushes her down on the bed; as she writes, he does “that sexy maneuver where the guy pushes you on the bed, you know, like, ‘I’m taking the wheel on this one. Now I’m going to blow your mind. …’”
Penetrates her with his fingers; as she writes, “[h]is fingers poked inside me like they had lost their keys in there.”
Tries to have intercourse, though his penis is only half-willing; she describes him as “pushing aggressively into my thigh, and during this failed penetration, I looked around the room to try and distract myself or God willing, disassociate.” Even using the “made to penetrate” standard, she’s not raping him, because she’s not making him do anything; he’s the active one.
Goes down on her.
Attempts intercourse again; this time, “[o]n his fourth thrust, he gave up and fell asleep on my breast.”
At no point in Schumer’s story does she describe herself as initiating anything. Indeed, she spends much of the time thinking to herself how much she wants to leave.
He started to go down on me. That’s ambitious, I think. Is it still considered getting head if the guy falls asleep every three seconds and moves his tongue like an elderly person eating their last oatmeal? … Is it? Yes? It is. I want to scream for myself, “Get out of here, Amy. You are beautiful, you are smart, and worth more than this. This is not where you stay.”
If a woman initiates sex with a man who is too drunk to consent, that’s rape. But a woman lying motionless trying to dissociate while a man tries to penetrate her is not a rapist. Even if he is drunk.
And that’s the case no matter how you switch the genders up.
Of course that’s not how they see things on Reddit, where most of those who’ve commented on the story have been quick to agree with the Thought Catalog author that Schumer raped her partner. Ironically, it’s been those outside the Men’s Rights subreddit who have been the most outspoken on this point. In TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit ostensibly devoted to women but in fact overrun with MRAs and other antifeminists, someone calling herself Shield_Maiden831 has gotten more than 200 net upvotes for a comment concluding that “[i]f you really believe in equality, then it seems to be a clear cut case from her own admission.”
Not everyone agrees. Elsewhere in TwoX , one commenter by the name of critropolitan argues, I think quite cogently, that
Unless the full transcript reveals something that the quotes in the article don’t, it doesn’t seem like Schumer exploited this guys mental state to do something to him that violated his will.
He was the one who called her.
He was the one who acted every step of the way and she went along with it.
Assuming that a person who is drunk is, automatically, in virtue of being drunk, without agency, is a mistake. It is moreover a mistake only made with regard to sex – no one thinks the same with regard to bar fights or the choice to drive. Drunken sex might not be the platonic ideal of sex, but it is not automatically rape in every case regardless of the actual state of minds, wishes, and feelings of the participants. …
There is no suggestion that Amy engaged in any sexual contact with this guy while he was passed out, or that she did something he didn’t want to do but he simply lacked the capacity to effectively resist or communicate non consent. Instead he was drunk enough to show significant signs of drunkeness, but not so drunk that he couldn’t not only communicate effectively but take a sexual initiative.
Rapists can exploit the vulnerability of drunk people, but we must walk back from the bizarre and agency-denying position that all drunk sex is rape. Rape is far too serious a matter for this bullshit.
It is.
But of course the MRAs and antifeminists on Reddit now accusing Schumer of rape aren’t interested in taking rape seriously. Indeed, if we look back on how they regularly talk about rape and issues of consent, it’s clearly they’re interested in taking rape less seriously. Their main interest in this case is as a supposed “gotcha” of a prominent female comedian with feminist leanings. In the process they are slandering her, and trivializing the real issue of rape.
This whole blog is full of examples of MRAs being misogynist bigots. Search the AVFM, Paul Elam or MRA tag and enjoy.
Now, about you give me an example of something the MRM has done to help men. Not flooding comment sections or harassing women on the internet. Something concrete and positive out in the real world.
Men’s rights don’t need to be promoted. You already have them. There are times the patriarchy hurts men as collateral damage. That’s why feminism can help men too. But there is no reason we should focus on the needs of men first when men are a privileged group.
Citation very much needed. Feminists argue that culture is misogynistic. We don’t argue that men are inherently misogynistic and controlling. Of course women have agency. As long as patriarchy has existed there have been women fighting it.
Feminism isn’t anti-men. All we want is to be viewed as humans with rights. You are only against that because you don’t like your privilege challenged. You hate that we can say no to sex. You hate that we can say yes to sex. You hate it when we have babies. You hate it when we have abortions. You hate it when we work. You hate it when we stay at home. You hate it that women have more choices. The MRM is nothing but a backlash against the progress we’ve made towards equality.
I believe it’s time for the find a non-misogynist MRA challenge. Normally I’d start off by asking you to name three. Since you’re a noob to the MRM I’ll let you get away with just finding one. If you can do that, I’ll take you seriously. Good luck!
@katz, They looked like plus fours, but they were called knickers. It was a momentary fad in the 1980s in (at least) Los Angeles. I fell for it.
Cloudiah: …I want photo evidence of this.
I, for one, am in favor of plus fours and old-timey casual wear in general. They have unseated puttees and ushankas as my new favorite article of clothing to draw.
Plus fours with argyle socks? Louis Armstrong rocked that look
Huh, and somehow I borked the link:
Louis Armstrong
katz, I may well have destroyed all photo evidence.
Aha, it turns out that in some communities knickers (aka knickerbockers) are the same as plus fours.
Louis Armstrong is sexy and he knows it.
Plucky Mister:
Tell me more about how the MRM is against traditional gender roles.
I love reading fantasies.
Katz: Has anyone here ever worn plus fours? I bet Pecunium has, probably with argyle socks.
Not exactly. Late Renaissance Venetians, with solid hose or knee-high boots.
Really comfy.
Awesome. For a play/reenactment/costume party, or just for the hell of it?
@Plucky_MRA:
I’ll only engage with you one more time. If you continue fighting against straw feminists, I think we can safely assume that you have nothing to contribute.
Read what passes as ”activism” for the MRM. Read what prominent MRAs such as Paul Elam say about women and what rights they should have. Read how they react to men who come to them seeking for help. Start here:
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/01/06/a-voice-for-mens-paul-elam-finally-admits-that-hes-been-pocketing-an-unspecified-chunk-of-site-donations/#more-10832
Sorry to break it to you, bud, but you’re the misguided one here. Take a closer look at your movement before defending it with such vitriol.
Yeah, I guess if your main concern is ”but what’s in it for me?”, then I guess feminism would indeed require way too much empathy from you. Better to join a movement that’s best known for raging against women having any rights at all.
Tell me: What rights are we, as men, denied in society? Note: no oppression based on race, sexuality, class, or any other intersection. As men. What rights do women have that men lack? Go on, give me an example.
Uggggh, I think I know what’s coming next…
First off, we do not have enough information about early human cultures to know when exactly the patriarchy started (if someone has anything besides speculation, I’d love to learn about it), so ”since the dawn of time” are your words, not feminism’s.
Secondly, why is it so hard to believe? Men, as a group, have gained benefits in a system biased against women without all of them actively oppressing women, just like white people have gained benefits in a system biased against POC without actively partaking in the oppression. It is not bigotry to state facts. Look at statistics about, say, the wage gap or sexual violence without instantly claiming they’re biased because feminist conspiracy arglebargle.
Thirdly, if you’re into equality, what’s your beef? Feminists aren’t interested in depriving men of their rights in order to punish them, they are looking for equal rights with men. If you think women and men already are equal in today’s society, then I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re the biased one here.
Fourthly, the straws can only take so much hacking. Try engaging with actual feminists instead of the imaginary straw feminists in your head.
”No, you’re the real misogynists!” Heard it before. Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now.
Again with the straw feminists. Try actually listening to what feminists have to say before making your ridiculous claims. You’re making yourself look more ignorant than you possibly can be.
Ah, yes, the old ”men are oppressed, too!” No, we’re not. Not as ”men”. We may be oppressed as men of color (racism), gay men (homophobia), trans men (transphobia), neuroatypical men or physically or mentally disabled men (ableism), poor men (classism) etc., but not as men-as-opposed-to-women. ”Female privilege” does not exist, no matter how many times you click your heels and say it is so.
In other words: Ooooh, sorry, your answer must make logical sense! But thank you for playing.
What the fudge? Only the MRM claims there is a war between sexes going on. Feminists don’t occupy themselves with thinking about how to deny men basic human rights, whereas MRAs just love to imagine a world where gender rights have been pushed back into their imaginary Middle Ages. They don’t want women to have agency. That’s the main concern of the MRM.
And seriously, as David has asked before: If both men and women are being oppressed as groups, then who the hell is doing the oppressing? Space aliens? No, in a binary situation*, there has to be someone doing the oppressing and someone being oppressed, otherwise the oppression doesn’t work. Which, I guess, is what half the MRM is doing, claiming that there is no oppression. The rest of you apparently claim that both genders are equally oppressed, which is a ridiculous claim as well.
*Only societal ideas of gender are binary; gender itself is not.
Thank you for confirming that you only care about men, not that there ever was any doubt.
Yet only the male experience actually matters, because MRAs claim women are always lying about their experiences. Sound like a sweet deal to me, eeeyep!
And the male experience is not a goddamn secret. We’re the fucking default in society. Our views are constantly being spewed all over the place. We’re the privileged ones, whether you like it or not. This imaginary oppression thing is getting really old now.
Feminists aren’t the ones who are biased, buddy. And if you’re constantly being described as misogynists, maybe you should try taking a long, hard look on your movement and see what all the fuss is about instead of dismissing all criticism as ”bias”.
*Sigh* Men are not oppressed. Misandry not real. Men are not oppressed. Misandry not real. Men are not oppressed. Misandry not real. Men are not oppressed. Misandry not real.
Until you get your head out of your ass and stop with the false equivalencies, you will never grasp the basic concepts of human rights. You will be stuck using meaningless and utterly stupid terms such as misandry, reverse racism, heterophobia etc. The MRM is not a movement, least of all a human rights movement, any more than the KKK is a human rights movement concerned with the oppression of white people by, I guess, little green men. They’re a bunch of bigots trying to give social justice a bad name.
Feminists want women to be treated like people. MRAs want to take away women’s rights. There is no reasonable middle ground. There is nothing to talk about.
Also, tone trolling. It doesn’t matter how polite you sound if your views are horrendous.
Anyway, you already sort of gave yourself away by admitting your primary concern is with the drunk sex vs. rape issue. If that is what you feel is the most important human rights issue your movement is fighting, then you don’t want to sell me death sticks, you want to go home and rethink your life.
You have a lot of patience, Anarchist. And a keen eye for dissecting faux-milquetoast rambings.
I have never worn anything but plus fours. In fact, I’m wearing plus fours with little hearts and unicorns and a chip that plays the “Liberty Bell March” right now. Well, that and a baseball cap.
woops, Anarchonist I mean
@Plucky_MRA
Very few feminists actually claim that feminism on its own will solve men’s issues. What most feminists instead say is that male allies can not only try to act in solidarity with feminists, but they can also address the gender policing that is at the heart of men’s gender issues under patriarchy. It’s your job, not ours – and that has always been the feminist position on men’s rights.
Okay, dude, you really don’t understand how institutionalized oppression operates. Population ratio is doesn’t really determine oppression. The world could have 90% women and still be a patriarchal one.
And this phenomenon extends to race as well: In Oakland, CA, a great deal of gentrification is taking place, and it is negatively impacting people of color communities due to the rising cost in property values and the systematic socioeconomic disadvantages of POC. By contrast, white people, even as an official racial minority in California, are still largely on top and are greatly benefiting from the gentrification at the expense of POC.
@Kim
Well, Anarchonist is in fact an anarchist, so you weren’t too far off! =P
It’s like they’ve never even heard of Apartheid.
Plucky Mister: Did 50% of the sum population of humanity just not participate in the creation of society’s rules? Were they so helpless
Twaddle.
You do realise that for most of history a small class of people have oppressed the larger group? Slaves made up the majority of the population of Rome. Thralls made up a majority of the Norse population. Slaves outnumbered their masters in the US South.
Somehow the minority (usually by access to force) managed to control the people whom they outnumbered; even though slave/peasant revolts weren’t uncommon.
When men are allowed (still) to beat women for being, “uppity” and excused if they kill them for trying to leave, or fighting back, it’s not that hard to see how men (as a class) can oppress women (as a class).
We will make no effort to involve ourselves in discussing what rights a woman should have, so long as those rights do not intersect with those of men.
What rights a woman should have?
Do you think about what you write?
1: If they are rights, they are not something which can be restricted (in a moral sense. Jim Crow, if nothing else, ought to show that they can be curtailed; though it takes force to maintain the curtailment).
2: “Should have”? That requires a client/patron, parent/child, master/slave relationship. Your very language shows you don’t, and won’t, see women as fully-fledged human beings, but rather as a lesser class to whom men grant privileges.
3: so long as those rights do not intersect with those of men. Which of those rights are so sacrosanct they can’t be infringed?
Sex with drunk people seems to be a big one on your personal list. Paul Elam thinks that “bashing” women ought to be on the list. Any number of your Fellow Travellers are of the opinion that having children isn’t really something women ought to have much say in; as well as thinking that abandoning them is a man’s right.
So… which of those are you going to to head off to the Manoshpere to say is wrong? On which of them are you going to let your silence equal assent.
Maybe I’m naive
Katz: Awesome. For a play/reenactment/costume party, or just for the hell of it?
Both.
I worked the Renassaince Faire (California: North and South) for 20+ years, so I had them made for that purpose. I like them, so I wear them; now and again, even though I no longer have that role.
An MRA who’s not a misogynist and actively promotes men’s rights and men’s shelters/support groups? Sage Gerard, or Victor Zen as he’s known on YouTube. He founded KSUM (Kennesaw State University Men), a support group for men on the campus. He was opposed every step of the way by feminists who denied the need for men’s groups on the principle that men don’t have any problems.
A right men lack that women have? The right to genital integrity would be a good start. Mutilation is mutilation, and male circumcision reduces the sensitivity of the glans of the penis, reducing sexual pleasure for the man who has been mutilated. Not good enough? How about the right to abandon responsibility for your child? Women aren’t even obligated to bring their children to term, much less support them if it would be financially impossible to do so. Men, on the other hand, can be criminally prosecuted and thrown in prison for being too poor to pay child support.
Oh, and here are those links to the so-called ‘straw feminists’ you hate so much.
Feminism is misunderstood.
Alcohol voids consent.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/01/07/rape-consent-and-responsibility/
http://gryffindorky.wordpress.com/tag/feminism/
False accusations don’t real.
Misandry don’t real.
http://antimisandry.com/feminist-misandry/feminist-quotes-20106.html
I won’t be returning to this blog, as it’s a den of exactly the type of fringe lunacy that impedes any kind of progress towards an equal society. I hope some day your martyrdom complex clears up and you can climb down from your cross, but I sincerely doubt that will ever happen based on this discourse.
Coercive circumcision is an important issue, but it’s not tied to misandry at all. As a widespread practice in the US, it originated from anti-sex conservative religious doctrines – the man who pushed for the widespread practice of coercive circumcision on children did so on the basis that circumcision could prevent young boys from masturbating.
Uh, no. That article is about someone who was actually raped – it doesn’t say anything about whether all intoxication, light or otherwise, invalidates consent. Obviously drunk consensual sex is possible, and the author of that article isn’t calling that raped. She herself said she was raped, so why don’t you believe her? (Probably because you’re a rape apologist.)
Given how little you understand the workings of oppression, I don’t care much about your judgments.
Wait, I’ve read some of those quotes before somewhere:
Here
And here
You leaving for good? You promise?
Cause, anyone who equates a fetus with a fully developed child or male circumcision with FGM is not too strong in the brains & logic department.
Is this the Victor Zen you’re talking about?
Is this the Victor Zen you’re talking about?
Look, pluck is describing himself —
” I hope some day your martyrdom complex clears up and you can climb down from your cross…”
Otherwise, you won me over with all those false equivalencies above. Now, where do I get my glass of Kool-Aid so I can be just like you?
In addition to this, notice:
Heavily implying that we’ve already fixed the problem of FGM and refuse to extend that fix to men.
Which, no, on every level, that’s not true at all.
Which is just a huge level of dishonesty.