Pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh is not only a terrible, terrible person. He is also an abuser of language.
In a post entitled Culture War Predictions For 2015, Roosh forecasts great things for the “manosphere” in the coming year. Or perhaps the coming 9 months?
Prepare yourself for the most belabored (heh heh) pregnancy metaphor the world has ever seen:
In 2013, we saw a large increase in manosphere readership that began to ejaculate our ideas onto the mainstream. In 2014, these ideas became the morning sickness that left the enemy unprepared and unwilling to respond with logic, reason, and facts. In 2015, you will see the birthing on our side of semi-formalized alliances between various groups that use more organized action to deal crushing blows upon panicked feminists and SJW’s. Media owners will reconsider their usefulness. At the same time, our mob will grow to a frightening size after growing big and strong on breast milk, and they will be lustful for blood.
Obviously, there is nothing in that paragraph that isn’t awful. But I’m a little hung up on that first sentence. Roosh: I know you probably watch a lot of porn, dude, but you are aware that in order to make a baby, you need to deposit your sperm into a woman, not onto her, like certain kinds of squid.
Actually, I’m a little confused about exactly what happens, with the squid in any case; their sex parties get pretty freaky. But I am pretty sure that to make human babies the sperm needs to get inside the woman somewhere in that whole region down there.
Could it be that Roosh learned everything he knows about reproduction from Men in Black?
Michelle, getting people to intervene if they see a rape in progress or maybe even stop one from happening at all would be great, though even in that case, we’re combatting rape culture more than any bystander effect. However, as we’ve all pointed out, lots of people get raped in isolated areas with no one else around. Some do get raped in crowds, true, but that’s not every rape.
Furthermore, as many mammotheers have pointed out, rapists are the only people responsible for rape. Victims are not. Now, I don’t think that you’re intentionally shifting the blame onto the victims, but you are unintentionally blaming women in nightclubs. You are also intentionally shifting the responsibility of preventing rape to people in crowded areas who are not committing rape. Those people should intervene of they can, but ultimately, the rapist is responsible. Also, the best that a random person can usually do is stop a rape already in progress, which is a much less desirable outcome than preventing rape altogether. The focus on the bystander effect distracts from that goal and ignores facets of rape culture that stop people from helping rape victims.
And by preventing rape, I mean focusing on rapists and teaching people not to be them.
Bloody Norah, that went to Hell in a handcart. 🙁
Michelle, your pain doesn’t really justify the way you hurt others, and then doubled-down on it when asked to stop. As a regular, surely you know what was wrong with everything you said in this thread, and why we’re all upset about it.
Putting this in a separate comment because I want it to stand apart from everything else.
What happened to you and to your friend was wrong. There’s no excuse for it, and nothing you did (or refused to do) explains or excuses it. You have both my sympathy and my empathy, because I’ve been in similar situations. I wish you peace and healing as you deal with what was done to you.
If overcrowding is the (or a) cause of rape, then we just have to throw up our hands and give up! Because cities are not going to go away. Anyone who believes otherwise is just naive and doesn’t know why cities exist in the first place.
This idea that we need to find a cause of rape in the environment rather than in the choices that rapists make is deflection and it’s harmful. Rape occurs because at least one person wants to have sex and isn’t fussed about whether the intended partner is willing. The precise motive varies but that’s the core of it: a choice to have sex with a person who has not expressed willingness. Focusing on something other than that choice deflects blame from the rapist, no matter how many “I’m not deflecting blame!” disclaimers one includes. Saying you’re not deflecting blame while you’re in the middle of deflecting blame doesn’t help you.
@gillyrosebee – I would like to echo that sentiment. Nothing excuses rape, and I wish Michelle peace and healing.
Wish I could pitch in something more useful to say, but this has been a regrettable exchange and I’m not very articulate at the moment.
So much this. I have zero patience with anyone who tries to make any argument that suggests rape is some kind of natural occurrence, like the weather, that can’t be helped, so we just need to develop coping mechanisms. Like telling women not to drink, or dress provocatively. It’s an excuse, and it only provides more cover for rapists.
Also, greater urban density is where things are headed, so it’s a good thing Michelle’s theories are just clueless nonsense. As far as I can tell rape isn’t actually on the increase outside of war zones either, it’s just that a. more victims are coming forward and b. we now recognize as rape things that used to just be written off as (insert bullshit excuse for rape here).
I go out for a walk in the sunshine to pick up a parcel from the Post Office and come back to this clusterfuck.
I am sick and tired of hypotheticals, where the underlying point of the hypothetical is to remove some responsibility from the rapist and allocate it somewhere else (victim, upbringing, drugs, peer group).
No, just no.
Michelle – this is me with mod hat on: stop digging, please. Just drop it.
Just realized that I threw quite a few bones to the blockquote monster back there. Yeesh.
… Uh.
Well, it looks like everybody already has this mess covered in way more detail than my half-asleep brain could possibly manage, so I’m just going to add that – yeah, Michelle, you’re in a very bizarre sort of wrong here, and you really should take some time out to absorb what they’re all saying instead of just doubling down all over the place like a kid playing Blackjack on their parents’ iPad – and then nope the hell on out of here.
http://i.imgur.com/RUd3jAz.gif
That was just the Blockquote Mammoth’s way of welcoming you back. 🙂
Just gonna pop in here to say that my great grandmother was raped by a young man who picked her up for their date in a horse drawn buggy. She lived in rural Indiana.
Stranger rape is and has been very rare. Rapists prey on family, friends, and acquaintances and that does not require a large population. In fact, isolation, the good ‘ol boys club and regressive thinking make it even harder for the vicitm to get help or seek justice.
Did this conversation go from squid reproduction to nightclubs causing rape? Please at least let there have been a segue that involves squids in nightclubs.
For some reason the way this thread turned is now making me think of overcrowding in chicken pens.
Maybe I’ll stay away until a new thread. Or the New Year, whichever comes first.
A squids in nightclubs conversation would be worth having.
::hurries off to Google Images::
I am against squids in nightclubs. It’s hard enough to keep sea life alive outside the sea. No need to stress the squids further by having them thumped with music.
I’m with Policy of Madness… squids are kind of sensitive, aren’t they? Humans could wear cool squid outfits, though. Don’t some squids change colors? I saw one in the Waikiki aquarium once that changed colors like it had LEDs inside it.
that would be super cool
Make that “cool squid-INSPIRED outfits.”
Got raped at work, 200 people who saw nothing, got fired for calling the police. Was working in a dimly lit nightclub, had one guy grab my wrists while his friend, seated behind me, reached under my floor length skirt and went under my panties to fully penetrate and 6-pack me with, minimum, 3 fingers. The only thing that would have saved me was to not be around a fucking rapist and his partner. And that’s it. More people would not have saved me. Fewer people would not have saved me. Can we end this bullshit on the bystander effect wrt rape? It’s not merely looking the other way when we can see rape, it’s allowing rape culture to go unaddressed. FFS, I’m sure if anyone had actually *seen* anything (and I legitimately believe no one did), I would have been helped. Most people won’t watch an obvious rape to the best of my knowledge.
Am going to untrigger now. Please sign the petition last page, thanks to kitteh and others who did, and thank you all for healthy wishes. Sending all love.
Speaking of rape in rural areas, I read with great interest and sorrow a very compelling piece on rape in rural Alaska recently. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/rape-culture-in-the-alaskan-wilderness/379976/
I lived in Fairbanks for several years, which, IIRC, has been high on the US rape and sexual assault stats list for a long, long time now. (Alaska in general has pretty bad rape problems. I don’t know if anyone has a particularly compelling theory as to why. When I lived there people just seemed resigned to it; maybe that’s part of the problem, in and of itself.)
Anyway, Fairbanks is “urban” by Alaska standards but… it’s hardly Manhattan. I think it’s a lot more complex than urban vs rural.
I read that article about Alaska too. Yes, Michelle, tell us more about how rural areas where people don’t go visiting as much are safer as far as rape is concerned. I’m sure all the victims in Alaska appreciate your concern.
(Eyeroll)
But if a squid went to a nightclub, it could totally rock out with its chromatophores!
The squid is its own disco ball!