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So yesterday I posted about the repulsive, rapey banners that some frat guys hung from the balcony of their frat at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Banners that were so obviously problematic that the school administration immediately suspended the frat to investigate.
Here. as a reminder, are the banners in question:
I also quoted Amanda Marcotte, who noted that, when faced with clear evidence of rape culture like these banners, rape apologists like to
suddenly pretend they are aliens from another planet and only learned human language last week and therefore are incapable of picking up on humor, implication, non-verbal communication and nuanced language. They pretend to ascribe to a form of communication so literal that even the slightest bit of metaphor or implication, to hear them talk, sends them spinning into a state of confusion.
After I put up my post yesterday, several rape culture deniers wandered into my Twitter mentions, as if to prove Marcotte’s point, posting pictures of banners put up by sorority women at the school and demanding to know why I wasn’t attacking these women for their alleged promotion of rape culture as well.
@DavidFutrelle HOW HORRIBL- … wait, what happens if i look to the right? ohhh i see … nice try :^) pic.twitter.com/ViClZV0RBu
— Dragunov (@NkDragunov) August 25, 2015
https://twitter.com/WoolyBumblebee/status/636343927914786817
I suspect most of you are as nonplussed by this as I was. Because these banners don’t actually promote rape culture. And not because the people holding them up are women, not men.
The frat’s banners have a creepy, predatory edge to them. They are addressed not to the incoming freshmen women, but to the fathers of these women. They strongly suggest that any woman who walks through their doors — or is “dropped off” by dad — is going to be shown a “rowdy … good time” whether she’s “ready” for it or not.
They don’t explicitly use the word “rape” but given how completely they erase the agency of the young women in question they might as well just do that.
The rape threat is implicit, not explicit, but it is clear enough that most people seeing these banners can understand in an instant what they “really mean” and what the problem is.
The banners held up by the sorority women are a different thing entirely. They don’t put forth the message: “we are going to do things to you (whether you like it or not).” They are playful, not threatening, and tell prospective dates “we like sex, and if you get with us you might even get to do ‘butt stuff.'”
The first banner only asks that men pull out before they come; no one wants any babies. The second tells men they are “welcome” to use the back door, nudge nudge. Instead of saying “we will do things to you,” they say “you can do things to us.” Presumably in the context of consensual sex.
Just as rape =/= sex, talking about sex =/= talking about rape.
Is it creepy that when new freshmen men arrive on the campus they’re greeted with giant banners aimed at them and laden with sexual innuendo? Maybe, but it’s nowhere near as creepy as banners greeting freshman women (and their mothers) with not-very-subtle threats of rape.
I tried to get this point across to one of my Twitter interlocutors, the antifeminist Youtube gadfly WoolyBumblebee; it didn’t take. Some excerpts of the ensuing “discussion.”
Rape threats, even implicit ones, are rape culture. Mentions of sex aren’t. You’d think this wouldn’t be hard to understand.
Does WoolyBumblebee really not understand that if someone says “you can put it in my butt” they are not threatening to rape you?
It might not be the appropriate thing to bring up at, say, a dinner party. And if you say it repeatedly to someone not interested in sex with you, it would be sexual harassment.
But it wouldn’t be a rape threat.
WoolyBumblebee more or less conceded this point shortly afterwards. And returned to claiming (or pretending) she didn’t see the threat in the banners posted by the frat guys.
Around and around we go!
Or we would have if I hadn’t gotten off the internet to watch an episode of Mr. Robot.
The question I am left with, as I generally am in the wake of “discussions” with those who seem to be incapable of understanding the basics of human language, is this: Are these people really this literal-minded and obtuse, or are they just pretending?
If the former, how exactly do they manage to even work a computer? Did they make bird noises at their laptop or into their phone for weeks on end before someone explained that’s not how Twitter works? Do they understand the difference between filing their nails and filing their taxes?
It’s gotta be an act, right?
@darrensball:
*sigh*
Alan, I think you need to go more in-depth with your “lock up your daughters” thing. Apparently this person doesn’t understand the difference between subverting a cultural view and playing into it.
Listen, there are a couple ways you can “tease a father by telling him that he doesn’t have control over his daughters’ sex lives.” Some are true subversions; they would involve reminding the father that the daughters have their own agency and are their own people making their own choices. Some are just reinforcements; treating the daughters as property being handed off (unwillingly) from the father to whatever boys his daughter might have sex with.
These banners do not talk about the daughters as individuals that can make choices. The second banner basically says that they might as well be dropped off at the frat, because they’re going to end up there anyway. And these are freshmen in college, facing the ability to truly make adult choices for the first time. Saying that those freshmen women are inevitably going to end up having sex with the frat boys is predatory as all hell.
Your minimizing language of “teasing” and the like only serve to blind you as to what message the banners are actually sending.
Well, that sounds like a downright clever little post; my apologies for ninja-ing it.
And you even had a cool playbill image, too.
Gaebolga
You are seeing only one context and basing your inference on that. There are other contexts that equally apply. One is that of the over-bearing father, or the Christian parents believing that they maintain control over their adult daughters’ sex lives.
Of course some frats are misogynists, but individual frats should be judged based upon what they’ve actually said and done, and not on how you’ve chosen to interpret what they’ve said based upon what others have said and done.
I think the whole premise of this blog is regressive – you, not the frats, are denying these women their own agency.
Given the context of the blog you’ve stupidly linked to, I can infer that you’re an anti-feminist “EGALITARIAN!!!” doucheweasel arguing in bad faith. Amazing how context works.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
Whoo, yeah; that’s funny.
Nope, I’m not seeing only one context; I’m choosing the most likely context based on where, when, and by whom the banners were displayed. That’s what reading things in context is all about. Based on the actions of many, many frats around the country lately, I can justify why I chose that interpretation.
What justification do you have for assuming that the frat-boys <aren’t being all rapey and shit?
Kirbywarp,
The banners don’t address the women directly, but the parents. Agreed. From here you extrapolate an intention to rape. It’s absurd.
No, it’s informed.
Sented Fucking Hard Chairs
You have no way of verifying your conclusion and yet you’ve declared your methods accurate. FYI, no I’m not an anti-feminist.
And yet, whenever a fellow MRA says or does anything horrific, they squawk “CONTEXT! CONTEXT!” like excited parrots.
Context: It’s not just a get-out-of-trouble-free card.
[Emphasis mine]
And in the interest of strictest accuracy, I think people on this thread aren’t necessarily saying that these guys are intending to rape people, we’re saying that the banners contribute to and are an example of rape culture.
Gaebolga
The frats coming to your attention via the media may not be typical but instead those whose behaviour is so unusually poor that it attracts media attention. You then view whatever any frat says through the lens of the worst examples seen on your TV etc. Surely you can see the flaw in your method?
As for “What justification do you have for assuming that the frat-boys <aren’t being all rapey and shit?"
I'm not assuming that they're not, and neither am I assuming that they are. They might very well be rapey scum for all I know. But I don't know, and neither do you (not based on this blog, anyway).
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs,
I suggest your take that matter up with MRAs then.
@ Darren
I would argue that it is a reasonable inference from your blog that you are anti-feminist. I’ll stick up my evidence and you can respond if you wish. If you can show me I’m wrong I’ll happily recant.
Let’s take this:
You claim feminism cannot be a force for gender equality because it does not focus on issues as far as they impact on men. Firstly I’d say there are aspects of feminism that do, if only collaterally but let’s put that aside.
You seem to be implying that because feminism does not address *every* aspect if inequality then it can’t claim to be in favour of equality. I don’t thin k you can draw that conclusion from that premise.
To give an example; some of my animal rights friends focus all their activities on anti whaling. They don’t approve of fox hunting but they don’t dedicate any time to addressing it. They leave that to other people.
Does that mean my friends are not actually prompting animal rights? Are they actively impeding the work of the anti hunt people?
I would say, clearly not.
So why do you believe that feminism cannot be about equality just because it focusses on the sufferings of one particular group?
Does feminism’s focus on women inhibit in any way the work of people who want to do something about the male suicide rate for example? Again, I would say no.
Feminism is at worst a neutral force in relation to problems that disproportionately affect men and more likely actually provides some assistance in that some of the problems men face are consequences of issues that feminists seek to address.
I can not think of a single example where feminism actually undermines the concept of equality. I don’t think you have provided any either. So, as your dismissal of feminism is not based on evidence it’s seems a reasonable inference that you are merely anti-feminism for its own sake..
@darrensball:
And this frat’s banners are coming to our attention via the media. We aren’t talking about all frats everywhere, we are talking about one frat and their creepy-ass banners. You’re the one interpreting us as saying they are rapists just like every other frat in the world…
Stop twisting around, leaping into hyper-generalization or hyper-specificity, and focus on these particular banners and this particular frat. Do you agree that these banners do not respect the agency of the “daughters” they describe? Or do you just want to keep arguing in generalities, pretending that we must be wrong simply because we took a “side” and made a judgement?
Everyone do observe how Darren himself is engaging in rape culture, specifically the aspect that says no one is ever allowed to suggest that anyone might be a risk as a possible rapist until he actually rapes someone.
You might have more of a point here if the news reports on the rapey frat shit were the complete antithesis of the image that frats have in society as a whole. But they’re not. Frats have had this sort of reputation for decades.
Which is also part of the context.
And given all the context that would lead one to assume that the banners’ authors are less interested in advancing egalitarian sexual standards and roles for women than in “notch counts” and guides on how to coerce women into having sex that read like rapist “how-to” manuals, I feel pretty confident in my assumption that none of the men involved in those banners were thinking about equality and consent. And given that the context I’m describing regarding frats is both long-standing and pervasive, your attempts at “neutrality” seem pretty artificial and forced.
You know, because of the context.
@darrensball
“You have your first point completely back-to-front. Teasing a father by telling him that he doesn’t have control over his daughters’ sex lives is actually progressive and undermines patriarchal attitudes of husbandry.”
This would be true *IF* the posters directly addressed the women themselves. Something like “Wives and daughters, throw off your old man’s sexual constraints and come get your man meat here” would be “undermining patriarchal attitudes of husbandry”. On the other hand, speaking of the woman’s sexual behavior without including the women themselves in the discussion is *upholding * patriarchal attitudes of husbandry, not undermining it. It discusses what the women want to do (have a roudy and fun good time”) without even consulting them on it. It leaves women out of the loop completely, and simply *assumes* that they will want to do the same things the men want to do.
Now you could argue that seeking the women’s feelings and direct consent is implied by the banners, but because the banners don’t directly address this, it has to be assumed based on nothing but conjecture. Which is ironically what you’re accusing us of doing. We’re just working with what we were given, which was a description of a man to man transaction, no women involved. A man to man transaction of female sexuality removes a woman’s sexual agency, removing a woman’s sexual agency makes it impossible to consent, and sex without consent is rape. Capiche?
You can also argue that the banners are just words, and that words are not the same as actions. This is a common argument, but one that has repeatedly been proven false, by both scientific and antedoctal evidence. Most women have repeated experiences with men whom assume that they know what women *really* want, and ignore whatever an individual woman says she wants. Hell, that probably half the basis of pickup artists; “ignore what women say they want, we know what they REALLY want.” The assumption that women don’t know what they want, and that it’s up to men to assume the power needed to guide them, mansplain to them, or flat out tell them what they want, is a huge leg of rape culture. It’s what allows the man to be viewed as being right and innocent until proven otherwise a day the girl as wrong and lying/mistaken until proven otherwise by *much* (not *all*) of society.
@ Darren
From your site:
So would you accept that your aims cannot be gender equality? That would seem the logical conclusion applying your own test.
I’m morbidly curious to see darrensball argue how the use of “baby girl” and “drop off mom too” wording gives women sexual agency.
“Drop off your baby girl” is creepy as hell because it contributes to college rape-culture” = RIDICULOUS.
“Drop off your baby girl” empowers women” = ALL THE LOGIC.
…WTF??
My last sentence should have read;
*It’s what allows a male perpetrator to be viewed as being right and innocent until proven otherwise, while the female victim is viewed as wrong and mistaken until proven otherwise, by *much* (not *all*) of society.
And I was ninja’d by Kirby. Sorry!
Oh, it’s not a subliminal rape message, it’s a barely-veiled rapey sentiment.
Even if it was meant to ‘tease’ the father’s about not having control over their daughter’s lives, the statement “Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time” completely ignores any agency or say in the matter the daughter might have. It’s saying that the freshmen girls WILL be sleeping with the fratboys, and doesn’t give any consideration to their opinion in the matter. This is an exceptionally egregious example because they’re talking about FRESHMEN, people who they have never met and whose preferences they have no way of knowing. Their consent doesn’t matter, they’re just a prop to be used in a posting contest between two men, you know, the ACTUAL people.
It’s like pointing to some random woman on the street and going “she’s going to be sleeping with me tonight!”, it’s gross and rapey and objectifying and there’s nothing progressive about it.
Now fuck off, troll.
@mrex:
The way I see it, saying the same thing in multiple ways might have a greater impact. Also, saying a similar thing from a different perspective isn’t being ninja’d in my book!
*pissing contest, not posting.
So…he’s not a men’s rights activist, he just runs a blog about men’s issues. I see.