It’s amazing just how quickly a visit to 4chan’s /pol/ board can strip you of any lingering faith in humanity.
Consider the following 4chan “infographic” posted recently on Twitter:
A quick Google search of the language in this graphic led me to an archived 4chan thread, where this particular “argument,” and the graphic itself, seem to have originated, making it exceedingly unlikely that (as per the small print on the graphic) “Prof. Owl” is actually a “married father of four daughters and three sons” and exceedingly likely that he is instead an overgrown adolescent nursing a giant grudge against women.
The good news is that not everyone in /pol/ agreed with Prof. Owl’s reprehensible views; the not-so-good news is that their views on rape were often just as reprehensible.
So let’s take a look at some of the, er, highlights of /pol/’s debate on the proposition that rape is “nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be.”
1) Prof. Owl’s contribution
2) “The true male equivalent of rape is not rape, but rather paternity fraud.”
3) “We live in a cunt overglorification culture thus it’s blown completely out of proportion.”
In case you’re wondering, here’s what this fella’s graphic says:
4) “It is actually more traumatic for men … Getting forced to accept a dick in the anus shows that that man is not able to protect anything. Which makes him unqualified for mating.”
5) “Rape is significantly less traumatic than being jumped by a gang of nigs.”
6) “The violence should be punished of course. But the heterosexual rape itself only minimally.”
7) “If people just stopped their victim privilege and lend a help to someone who is raping them and just went with the flow. There wouldn’t be any rape incidents.”
(I’m really hoping that this guy is being sarcastic, but sadly I think he probably isn’t.)
8) “My female friend told me it was a complete turn off for her if someone asked her directly if she wanted to have sex, which … feminazis completely ignore.”
9) “Maybe I’m just an old fashioned guy with a sense of historical perspective. Rape may not be so bad.”
10) “I was raped once, and it was really unpleasant when it started. But then after I let myself go and loosened up it actually felt quite good.”
11) “There is no such thing as rape. … There is only the fair and equal redistribution of pussy.”
12) “I’d be mad if I were raped, but as long as I wasn’t injured or infected I’d get over it pretty quick”
13) “When a woman is raped her entire identity (her vagina) is being stolen for free, when usually you’d have to buy her shit, date her, marry her or whatever.”
14) “It undercuts their princess status.”
15) “Who /rapist/ here? I’ve raped 7 girls”
Please, please, please let this asshole be trolling.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Such humanitarians. I’m sure they’re also hard at work on such arguments as:
Yeah, I can already see all those dedicated MRAs hard at work to ally themselves with groups like the Innocence Project to address these injustices. I mean, this is about justice and equality, and not just about their penises, right..?
All baby monotremes are called puggles! That’s not a large group, it’s generally only platypuses and echidnas. They are all adorably cute!
It was calculated in the late 90s that a single non-child, non-fatal rape cost society in the United States $87,000. That’s equivalent to $143,000 today.
In aggregate, non-child, non-fatal rape in the United States was calculated to cost $127 billion, equivalent to $209 billion today. It was by far the most costly category, topping fatal crime (mainly because fatal crimes are far less prevalent).
But sure, let’s pretend that there is no benefit to society to reducing these numbers. Sure. Right.
OMG! Platypi! And pandas! And pookies, oh my!
Ze brain, she is a-bleached.
autosoma: Hm, okay, I kind of see the auburn color. I don’t really see the hazel though. Hazel has more green in it.
Alice
Sorry, I’m a bit useless at colours
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/nfTWd.gif
I think we need some baby lynx cuteness too.
https://instagram.com/p/44kUWHTGs4/
Loving the puggles 🙂
@ POM
It clearly would benefit society as a whole to reduce those numbers. However imprisoning people doesn’t actually have an effect (other than some rapists are temporarily removed from society).
Generally speaking sexual and violent offending isn’t affected by either conviction rate or sentence length. So where for instance the police have been removed from a society the level of acquisitive crime goes up (more thefts and burglaries) but sexual and violent offending stays the same.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think rapists should be locked up (in fact I’d go further) but the penal system can’t address the underlying problem.
http://cdn.themetapicture.com/media/cute-sleeping-rats-with-bear.jpg
Rats with teddies awesome
And the Fossa
@Alan
Most rapes are committed by serial rapists. Are you seriously going to claim that removing them from society after their first rape would have no effect on total numbers? Imprisonment is about more than just deterrence. It’s also about removing an offender’s ability to re-offend, which is actually important in cases where re-offence is likely.
Also:
This is kind of bullshit. In conflict zones and failed states, the rate of sexual and violent offense goes through the roof. I have no idea what context you’re talking about here, but a situation where no law exists is not one that sees only an increase in theft.
And cue comments saying nothing on /pol/ is serious. Y’know, like A) aren’t people who legitimately believe this shit and 2) these being “jokes” would be much of an improvement.
With regards to people who’ve actually gone to jail after being falsely accused of rape, aren’t most of those people whose alleged victims actually were raped but by someone whom they did not know, which meant that the police had to try to track down a perp who was a stranger to the victim and use other means to identify him? In other words, it was a case where both side ended up being victims. I ask this because most of the cases that MRAs present where innocent people accused of rape went to jail are cases where the alleged victim actually was raped, was telling the truth, and was convinced by the police that the defendant was his or her rapist.
I really, REALLY hate to say this autosoma, but he probably wouldn’t care about your wife and her struggles. At all. He’d most likely just look at the picture of her and see a vagina with a female-shaped body attached. That would be the root of his argument and chances are he’d spent his entire time with you trying to convince you a) why it was surely her fault she got raped b) she’s probably lying for attention, bro c) what are you doing married to a rape survivor anyway? Don’t you know they’re just broken worthless whores? d) caring for a rape survivor makes you SUCH a mangina.
I also don’t encourage violence, but if you were able to spend more than ten minutes with him before punching him in the face I’d give you a trophy.
Guh, just thinking about the kind of stuff he’d say makes me feel ill.
I think I’d have to agree with Alan, prison and detention centres aren’t much of a deterrent. The first time I spent a weekend in a police detention centre as a teenager it was scary and boring, several times later you get used to the routine and the attitude. My father spent a long time in prison and was a habitual reoffender his take was that the first month was shit and then you got used to the routine.
From having met plenty of old lags in my time, prison us chokka with “innocent” cons, so I’ve got no time for these MRA and channer idiots wanting a project innocence about rape. I’m not that sympathetic to any of their notions
@ POM
Yeah, obviously the incapacitation effect takes some rapists out of commission, for a while, but so few rapes are even reported it makes little difference.
A lot of the research about the absence of law comes from conflict zones. There can be more opportunity for rape. For many ‘soldiers’ this is the first time they’ve got to leave there local area, so there are more potential rapists, but the number of rapes per man is roughly constant. Women were being raped even when there was a legal system in place, there just weren’t as many men.
Alan and autosoma, I’m assuming you aren’t trying to say that anti-rape laws at all, or punishment for rape at all, aren’t effective, right? Because I’ve seen sources that have talked about how the massive upswing in US incarceration rates over the last few decades haven’t been correlated much with the recent decrease in crime across the board, but go on to say that other types of measures are more effective.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_iandc_complex.pdf
This pdf is the source I looked at recently, and page 6 does talk about how, because of the way the incarceration cycle works, increased incarceration alone doesn’t have nearly as strong effects one would think even against serial offenders. But I think the key is that “alone” bit; I would think that a form of incarceration that did more than just throw someone behind bars for a period of time would have a much greater impact.
Unfortunately, the context of this discussion was set by Professor Rapist, who I think is obliquely referencing studies like the above in order to claim that any punishment whatsoever for rape is ineffective…
No, prison isn’t a deterrent to crime. But as POM said, most rapists offend more than once.
https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
Locking up a rapist after one offense would stop on average, 4.8 attempted or completed rapes then.
I’m possibly doing statistics wrong here because I’m really academically rusty. But the point still stands.
I don’t really understand why this conversation is even happening right now. It’s really veering too close to agreeing with the rape apologists/rapists for comfort.
Few rapes are reported because the legal systems revictimizes. If the police actually investigated rape and the courts actually locked rapists up all without treating the victim like a criminal, a liar, or a slut, the rate of reporting would certainly go up.
I don’t think shrugging your shoulders and saying “meh, prison isn’t a deterrent, why bother?” is actually going to do anything to change rape culture.
@ Kirkby
Cheers, I’ll have a look at that when I’m not on my phone.
Certainly not suggesting rape shouldn’t be a crime or that it shouldn’t be severely punished, just that there is little to no deterrent effect, either individually or collectively. If consequences of offending had any deterrent effect then places with the death penalty would have significantly lower violent crime rates.
There have been some modest successes with rehabilitation programmes but that’s mainly been with paedophiles, and in any event there isn’t much opportunity for such programmes in most prisons.
Catching and locking up rapists stops those individuals, for a bit, but has little influence on others.
Sunny.., I wasn’t really thinking of it as an active discussion, I’ve had plenty of chats with rightwing fucknuts to know that it’s just blah blah blah. The thing is this type if guy does realise when he over steps the mark saying derogatory disrespectful shite they suddenly realise they are close to a hiding.
It’s not the best way to deal with people like them and violence is never a real solution, but sometimes just sometimes it’s fun. Thing is a lot of these guys use a threat if violence without any understanding of what it is really like.
See what these guys don’t realise its bloody hard work being a better man
This sounds fair enough, except that there hasn’t been a lot of “catching and locking up rapists” going on in the past decades.
It’s obviously veeeeery slowly changing thanks to the efforts of mainly brave women. But we haven’t experienced a society in which rapists are actually being caught and locked up yet.
I am convinced a real change in rape convictions, as in, it working at least as effectively as convictions of other crimes, will in fact have influence in society.
Not only will rapists face consequences, but victims will not be afraid to come forward, and to denounce early steps of violence which eventually lead to rape (and murder in the case of violent partners).
When considering this, we must take into account that the main source of impunity for rapists is the stigma placed on the victim, and the extremely low rate of accusations due to said stigma (and police and institutions acting based on a stigma instead of a law).
Sorry if I didn’t explain myself properly, I was talking about my general experiences of incarceration. I’m probable going to louse up what I would like to get across. I cannot comprehend what drives a man to rape. Their mindset is alien to me. I also don’t know what works to make a rapist be accountable for his crime. I married someone who was massively affected by the brutality of her own experience, all I’ve ever tried to do is to listen when she wants to talk and presume/say nothing in response. I have no expertise in this area and if I’ve said wrong stuff, I apologise and am happy to be corrected.
This is all I can muster right now.
http://i.imgur.com/4V0Q2rm.gif