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
Even if a rapist rapes again after he leaves prison I still want him to go there. Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second. Most prisons fail at the rehab bit, so removal from society is the best thing previous and potential victims can hope for.
Their idea that women just shouldn’t make such a fuss about it – well that already exists. It is called not telling anyone, and is very common. Then there is not going to the police – you have told someone close to you, but it doesn’t go further. That is also very common.
I tried to find any evidence that the rape in marriage law in the UK (1991) had led to any convictions, and I couldn’t find any. I read that if you are not separated and living apart from your husband it just is not worth reporting. Somehow I don’t think that the law being brought in acted as a huge deterrent for rapist husbands.
Just one more reason women don’t report.
http://jezebel.com/nypd-sergeant-suspended-after-throwing-semen-on-woman-h-1716509600
The cops are just as bad as the rapists and often are the rapists.
My experience in the (civilian) criminal justice system doesn’t give me much faith in rehabilitation. I think prison is only effective in terms of incapacitation. The only way to use prison to reduce rapes is to lock up rapists (who, as has been pointed out tend to be repeat offenders) for longer.
I’ve had many discussions with friends who specialise in rape cases (defending and prosecuting). The defenders tend to be women so they have a particular interest in seeing the incidence of rape reduced. The general consensus is that there’s little that can be done to improve conviction rates. There have been some efforts, for instance judges now direct juries about rape “myths” e.g. they explain why it’s common for women to not go to the police immediately. . But in most cases the issue is consent and the parties are known to each other so the burden and standard of proof will always mean that where there’s even the slightest possibility that the defendant may be telling the truth there has to be an acquittal. Remember, it’s not enough to prove lack of consent; they just must be *sure* that the defendant knew there was no consent.
There have been some efforts to change the law to shift the burden of proof in some circumstances (where the complainant lacks capacity, where there is evidence of violent coercion etc.) but that doesn’t seem to have made a lot of difference.
So the only way to incarcerate more rapists is for more women to come forward. The main two inhibitors against this though are stigma and the horribleness of the court process. I do some training for people who will be giving evidence (not necessarily as a victim/complainant) and even the most robust of people are terrified at the prospect. Sometimes they can be reassured when the process is explained to them but rape victims rarely get this training. It is permissible to give them some advance indications of what to expect but prosecutors have to be careful to avoid anything that can lead to suggestions of ‘coaching’.
Essentially we need a societal change so that rape victims are seen as unblameworthy as any other crime victim. Not sure how we bring that about though.
#3 is the worst coffee cup *ever*.
@autosoma
Ah now I get you.
So, false rape accusations harm society, because they cause emotional harm. But rape doesn’t cause emotional harm, so prosecuting it isn’t beneficial to society. I guess you have to be considered a real person for your emotional harm to matter to the wellbeing of “society.”
I’ve made myself read the entire post on the second try. And it’s as sickening, if not more, as it was when I tried it in the morning. There are not enough “I can’t even”s.
But let’s remember that these are not just some few profoundly empathy- and humanity-deficient 4Channers who subscribe to this… ideology — this is the reigning paradigm on rape in the whole manuresphere and beyond.
Any public conversation on the subject is proof of that. From the continuing staunch denials of Cosby’s culpability to the wrong wingers’ attempts to re-define rape via semantic maneuvers (“legitimate rape,” etc.), we can see how easy it is for so many men (and some women) to dismiss the suffering of rape victims. The breathtaking callousness with which they do so makes one despair for humanity.
The quote bounced around under one of the previous posts (and I don’t remember the author now, sorry) about women not really knowing how much men hate them is very apropos here, I’d say.
If it offends any tender Misogynist Rape Apologists’ sensibilities, they can always refer to this post and thousands like it littering the web (and/or look in the mirror).
The prevailing societal approach to rape, if nothing else, is what makes feminism urgently necessary still.
I believe leaving victims as the “only” people who can fix it, is not something that helps victims. Like, at all.
You are admitting yourself that victims already have enough of an ordeal for a very slim chance of justice.
I don’t mean to be rude, but this type of statements, even among a very reasonable exposition, are essentially harmful.
How about social protest to have judges who make excuses for rape removed from their offices?
I know this isn’t necessarily easy to achieve, but hey, it’s an option different from placing all responsibility on the shoulders of victims.
How about civil society pushing for accountability of police who mishandle rape victims and their cases?
Again, it’s easier to point and the victims and tell them to fight harder, than to mess with the trained armed guys…
But who has the power to change and is using it to make things worse instead?
Certainly not rape victims, whether they came forward or not.
If the change actually comes from more victims coming forward, then the job at hand is to make it safer for victims to come forward, and THAT’s what I’d like to hear about.
PS: apologies in advance if I was extra-snarky, not the best day for me -.-
@Alan:
You intimated in an earlier comment that you’d be in favor of more drastic punishments for rapists — is that correct?
I happen to believe that if rape was punished swiftly (key word) and severely (with a loss of limb or life, for example), we would see a change; although I admit I don’t know what the data on the relationship between the severity of punishment and rates of recidivism says. One can dream, though, even against the whispers of angels of one’s better nature.
We are too nice to rapists, is the bottom line, IMO. That’s a price to pay, one of too many, for living in the male-normative society.
I used to believe this.
Now, I think it’s not the price but the cause.
@ Aunt Edna
It’s not a punishment thing; I’m not a particularly vengeful type, just a practical solution. I’d be quite happy to see rapists removed from society. I know theoretically prison does that, but it costs over £30K a year for each prisoner (money that could be better spent) and I know that their victims face ongoing torture themselves just knowing the rapist still exists and one day will be released.
Similarly, I don’t have any problem with violence or the threat of violence being used as a deterrent. Again, it’s not a vengeance thing or even some sort of machismo, but I have on occasion had to make it clear to people that if they try to hurt someone I care about there will be consequences. Not as a punishment; just as a practical measure.
@ Luz
No need for apologies, I see your point.
We should obviously do what we can to help people who want to come forward, but our options are limited. What really can we do?
We can not stigmatise victims; that seems to be the main one. There’s a lot of work to be done there though.
Remove judges who excuse rape? Well, in the UK rape trials are handled by juries so there’s not too much scope for judges to interfere. There have been one or two isolated instances of judges *saying* stupid things; and they have been removed from future trials, but fortunately that was a rare thing and judges who have their “ticket” to do sex cases have special training and are usually pretty on the ball.
Improve police practice? Certainly. There have been some steps in that direction and now there are special sex offence teams. It’s always going to be a horrible experience though for any victim as, by the very nature of investigating a crime, they have to relive the experience.
Unfortunately the key witness in a rape case is almost always going to be the victim so the issue is how to help them come forward. For the reasons above that’s always going to be hard.
Let me say something about deterrence.
Deterrence is a weird legal concept. If our goal is deterrence, and deterrence only, then for some crimes it makes no sense to lock up anyone, or even have a law against it, and for others it would make sense to lock up the first plausible suspect we can find and not waste our time and money worrying about whether or not we have the right person. If deterrence works, and deterrence is our only goal, then it will work so long as the general public believes we have locked up the right person, whether or not that person is actually guilty. If deterrence doesn’t work, and deterrence is our only goal, then there’s no point locking up anyone and we might as well not even criminalize whatever behavior we’re talking about.
In any case, we don’t really need a system of justice to determine who is guilty and who isn’t. Just lock up whoever we can pin the blame on for any crime where deterrence works, and don’t even bother investigating any crime for which deterrence doesn’t work.
I hope everyone can see the moral problems with this scenario. I really give a side-eye to anyone who hammers on about deterrence-deterrence-deterrence (I’m side-eying you in particular, Alan) without considering any other goal of the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system cares about more than merely deterrence, and society cares about more than merely deterrence. Deterrence is great, and if we can deter crime, that’s awesome, but to shrug a big ol’ shrug when deterrence isn’t working properly is ridiculously nearsighted.
However:
Punishing crime does have a deterrent effect. What the fuck kind of information are you using to say it doesn’t? I have a journal article in front of me that says that the entire premise upon which you are arguing is bullshit.
Actually, I just googled better man and the first page looked a bit PUA/RSD, do that’s not what I meant… Maybe I should get myself a T-shirt saying
100% Mangina fancy a go
I could definitely pull it off, wearing it that is
Hi POM
I do take your points. I’m certainly not arguing that we shouldn’t lock up rapists (or take other steps to remove their capacity for offending).
Traditionally imprisonment has been justified for 5 main reasons:
Individual deterrence (i.e. puts the actual offender off re-offending)
Collective deterrence (i.e. puts anyone else thinking of committing a crime off)
Public retribution
Rehabilitation
Containment
It’s generally accepted though that violent and sexual offending is less affected by deterrence (as opposed to say acquisitive offending). There are plenty of studies demonstrating this; and whilst anecdotal evidence isn’t worth much from my own experience of speaking to clients it’s clear that they didn’t give any thought to the consequences of their actions.
As I’ve re-iterated, I’m quite in favour of locking rapists up, in my experience containment is the only thing prison is good for and that is one way of incapacitating rapists; but that only deals with the miniscule number who are caught and convicted. We need other solutions for the rest.
Sorry to say that but I just want to meet one of these scum who dare to vomit that on 4chan and beat some sens in them, until my hands get numbs. I’m just angry at that shit!
I’m not vengeful either; I just happen to think that if we removed the rapists’ penises or arms or heads, or maybe all four, we’d see a dramatic drop in the rates of rape. Also save monies on housing rapists, their appeals, etc.
Not being venegful, but also purely practical. Seriously.
Judges however can give lenient sentences with a hand wave of “well she looked older than her years” or “she led you on” or some other bullshit.
Also, regarding deterrence: as much as I’d like to see more rehabilitation in prisons I’ve always felt that the main purpose of jail for criminals like rapists is, as someone else said above, to prevent them from being able to commit crimes. Which is also why I DEEPLY wish UK sentences for rape were longer than a few years. Most rapists are serial ones and five-ish years is just not enough – when they get out they’re going to rape again. No doubt.
You know, this:
and this:
are not equivalent statements. The first one is true, the second one is complete nonsense.
Arrest rates have been found to have roughly twice the impact on property crime vs. violent crime. That does not mean that violent crime is not deterred or that we should just brush off any deterrent effect it has.
Have you noticed that your anecdote set doesn’t include the people who were actually deterred from committing a crime, and therefore never ended up in front of you? This is a sterling example of why anecdotes are not a substitute for data. Your selection is extremely biased.
Gee. I wonder why rape victims don’t report.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2015/07/rape_investigation_jefferson_city_post_dispatch.php
@ sunnysombrera
Actually, if a woman is over 13 that would be an actual defence rather than mitigation, lovely huh?
Sentencing for rape is low. The starting point for a ‘standard’ rape is 5 years on conviction; and of course offenders only serve half that. Judges have been getting better at dealing with (known) recidivists though. They’re handing out much longer sentences and using the life sentence provisions more freely. Obviously life doesn’t mean life in the immediate sense, a person will serve a fixed number of years. However they will be on life licence so if they breach their licence conditions they can be hauled back off to prison fairly easily without the necessity of another trial.
@POM
I have to disagree with you there; study after study shows that to be the case. It’s one of the major issues in penal policy in England so it crops up a lot in the literature as you can imagine.
You’re right as to anecdotal evidence which is why I qualified my remarks. However the data still has some value. It can be compared against that from non violent/sexual offenders (for whom the consequences rom part of the cost/benefit analysis).
As I have said repeatedly though I’m not arguing rapists should not be sent to prison; just that, as the conviction rate is so low, something else will need to be done *in addition* to deal with the vast majority of rapists.
I need a cat chaser stat
autosoma – love that t-shirt idea!
@Alan
Low conviction rate, low sentencing, gee I wonder why rape victims don’t usually come forward? Sigh. This is the kind of thing Luz was talking about. Why would victims come forward to be dragged over hot coals in court, for their rapists to either get off scot free or be out again in a couple of years (and in either case, the victim risks retaliation from said rapist as well)?
This isn’t at you Alan of course, it’s just frustrating that there is so little out there to help stop rape.