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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?
I don’t think it’s an act. Rather, it’s a completely unexamined double-standard. They apply different rules to interactions with women than they apply to interactions with men. It’s something they pick up from culture: that the correct way to interact with other men is as multi-dimensional subjects, and the correct way to interact with women is as one-dimensional sexual objects. One might even call it … rape culture.
They know that double-standards are bad – this is another thing our culture teaches us – and they believe themselves to be good people, so they must rationalize to make the double-standard seem like it isn’t one. All of this is handled outside of the language center, and without self-examination and the application of logic the process is completely invisible. People who hold these kinds of beliefs generally tend to think of themselves as already perfectly logical without any study or effort, and they aren’t open to the suggestion that maybe they might have something to learn.
So, I have to say that the “are they really this dense or are they pretending” is a false dilemma, and the truth is that their intelligence covers the range of human normal, but they are caught in a stupidity trap of their assumptions about themselves, and unwillingness to examine those assumptions.
Well, the two could be considered roughly equivalent from the point of view where women are spiders who lure men into their sinister webs with promises of sex. You might not even get laid, but you get turned into a withered husk either way. Which is the sort of thing that probably some manospherians believe.
I think saying this is a “rape threat” is overstating it in a way that might make it easier not to hear. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I doubt any of those guys were thinking they were telling a rape joke, or thinking about raping women. What they were doing is thinking about sex as conquest, and thinking about freshmen women and moms like property of their fathers/husbands. What’s ugly about this is not that it’s a rape threat, but that it expresses some really patriarchal assumptions that contribute to rape culture. Maybe splitting hairs here, but I think it’s an important distinction, and one that might help some people understand the problem with these banners.
Cross-posted from Facebook:
After the way her fellow honey badgers treated her, I’m a bit surprised to see Wooly still promoting MRA crap.
But as a plagiarist and a failed AVFM “activist” I don’t suppose she has much else going for her.*
.
* I’d actually hoped she might have learned something. Silly me.
Grettir: Uh what do you call what happens to the women when a man hands over his daughter and her mom over to the boys for sex with the women has no say in said sex? Wouldn’t the sex-act the woman has no say over be rape?
@davidknewton, @300baud, @SFHC, @Dan kasteray, @makingfitzcarraldo, @Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
I’ve given a lot of thought–maybe too much thought–to why people say things are okey-doke when things emphatically are not. Your comments are especially insightful.
What strikes me about the women’s posters is how they stand next to them, all disarming smiles. The guys–not so much.
You can change “with the woman has no say” into either “with the woman having no say” or “when the women have no say.” Whichever makes you feel happier, and we can forget I said anything else.
Double Standard in action.
Frat Boys put up aggressive/rapey/objectifying banners: lol! Boys will be boys.
Sorority Girls put up silly/stupid banners expressing their interest in having sex (maybe even in the butt) and suddenly “They’re rapey TOO!”
It’s like they can’t ever acknowledge that some men might possibly be rapists, without waving their hands around screaming women do it too.
What is obviously being implied by those banners is that there will be drinking and sex, but it honestly seems like this and the previous article on this topic were suggesting that the banners read; “Come inside this house and you will be raped.” I simply believe it is not totally correct to equate drinking and sex with rape, because of course people can drink and have sex and not have it be rape (which I understand many disagree with, but I’m not going to get into that). I do acknowledge that many rapes do occur under these circumstances, but I feel that most individuals would specifically be referring to mutually consensual sex here (which many people in college of both genders agree is “a good time”), rather than advertising rape publicly as fun and a good time.
Would anyone else like to prove David’s point?
There’s a huuuuge difference between “Hey guys/girls, want to come have sex with us? If so, we’re available (including our butts)”
And “Hey, owners of guys/girls, bring us your children so that we may use their bodies, you may have your property back when we’ve had our fun with it”
You can deny that the latter is threatening or rape culture all you want, but no sane human being can deny that it’s incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing and speaks to how they see women as slabs of meat rather than people.
They’re being deliberately obtuse because they don’t actually want to learn anything or be less shitty. They just want you to shut up and stop invalidating (or simply not-validating) them. Kind of like how when someone is told they can’t say a slur they go, “But what if aliens invaded, pointed a gun to my head and ordered me to say it?”
I agree with you on the differences between the frat and sorority messages. I said as much in the previous post, regarding the banners. However, even without the implication of rape, I think this “welcome” which creates a sexually harassing environment for newly arriving students (and their mothers), which reduces them to sex objects for the use of established students, does indeed contribute to campus rape culture. Ignoring the individuals and seeing them as just a newly arrived batch of sex toys on campus, that can be a dangerous thing. The schools shouldn’t be tolerating this from frats and sororities. It may be university, a time to experiment and go wild when it comes to sex, but it’s also a time for personal growth, and some adult behaviour should be expected. This tradition needs to be put away, the students need to learn to act with some respect, and I’m sure they can find less crass ways of advertising their sexual availability to one another.
Tessa, I don’t disagree with you. Although I doubt anyone is getting handed over by the patriarch to this fraternity, it’s a super problematic myth. It’s a really messed up way to joke about sex, with really bad implications. I don’t think it was intended as a rape joke, though, which seems to be what the defenders are latching onto. Like, I assume the people who made the joke would be genuinely shocked that people think they were talking about rape, because they’ve never thought through the implications. That’s what’s insidious about it.
This topic always reminds me of those idjits who think that women should wear less makeup/be mothers/stay at home/whatever because it’s more “natural”.
I always have to bring up that the definition of “natural” is “Something that occurs in nature”. You know what occurs in nature? Females of a species killing and eating a male who doesn’t live up to their standards.
Forgive me for not completely agreeing with you here, and I assure you it’s on the basis of the fact that I am a cisgendered female, and I can see from your icon that you are male, so I am going to have a perspective that you don’t share.
I don’t think you’re trolling, for what it’s worth, but I would suggest to you that you look on the history that frat houses share with rape. Several frat houses have had members who are rapists, and they’ve spouted lots of rape-y, vulgar things. This banner incident is another straw in a massive haystack.
We also think it’s very rape-y because of the way the banners are worded. Several users (myself included) have pointed out that the banners completely disregard the women they’re talking about, instead going directly for their fathers (or husbands, in the case of the last one).
So, yeah, we do believe that there are promises of rape being made.
The reason that “many would disagree” with that statement is that alcohol impairs your mind. You’re not in a right state of mind when you’re drunk. I think what you’re trying to say here is that some people get tipsy and have sex, or some people have a few beers and have sex, and that’s fine.
However, what we are talking about when we discuss alcohol and rape is usually stumbling, passed-out drunken rape. Not “I had a few beers and I’m feeling frisky” sex.
Well, I mentioned this in the last thread too, that we have a negative association with the word “rape”, as we should. However, for people who are prone to “getting sex by hook or by crook”, they don’t like the word “rape”, because they know it’s bad, even though it’s exactly what they’re doing. There was a study done actually that shows that 1 in 3 men said they’d rape someone if it wasn’t called rape.
Naturally, they won’t come out and say “We’re going to rape your daughters!”, because that would be even worse than what they did, which is still pretty bad. And, let’s face it, “everyone knows that rape is bad”.
What they’re doing is, arguably, in their minds not rape. It’s “sexy fun” that these freshman girls want, even though it’s predatory in nature, and also contributes to a larger culture that all but openly supports rapists. Hence why I, and people like me, want better consent education and we want to discuss rape culture. Because sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Tessa,
The Duggar women come to mind.
Jpageusmc,
The implied rape threat isn’t about drinking. There is a debate to be had on how drunk is too drunk to consent and we’ve had it in other threads here before. The implied rape threat is that they’re requesting women be dropped off by their male owner (father in the case of the freshman women, husband in the case of their moms) to be fucked without any agency ever being even slightly hinted at. Even the first banner, it’s threatening. “Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time …” What’s beyond the ellipses? Something along the lines of “because she’s going to get it.” Whether she wants it or not. Again, there’s no hint that they have any choice in the matter. And the words “baby girl” are very creepy. They seem to be attracted to the idea that these young women might be sheltered and naïve. In other words, not practiced in fighting off drunk horny guys that aren’t keen on taking no for an answer.
Funny how most of the commenters who aren’t seeing the rapeyness have tended to be men, but most of the female commenters completely see it. It’s almost like women have had to spend their lifetime honing their senses and reading signals from men because thanks to rape culture, we can’t help but learn many rape avoidance tactics. Maybe men should listen to us when we read a man’s signals as possibly threatening. We’re the ones who have a lot invested in reading men’s behaviors correctly.
In their heads, I’m sure they’re just joking about sleeping with women. The “it’s just a joke man” mentality makes it easy to not understand what story you’re telling.
It’s a feedback loop (or, perhaps better put, vicious cycle) issue. Sexual violence is a gendered issue, so people interpret the fraternity banners in that context, which reinforces sexual violence. There’s nothing inherently predatory about the statements themselves in a vacuum, but the only people who consider that a good argument are libertarians who believe in crazy shit like that inductive reasoning is never valid.
“There are none so blind as the man who won’t see.”
Some of them are rapists covering their asses, and some of them are just people who otherwise profit from rape culture, even if that profit only consists of “I don’t have to feel uncomfortable about the world around me and the views of the people in it.”
For some, I think it’s just a knee-jerk defense of the status quo. “Frats have ALWAYS pulled these kinds of stunts, so they’re normal and not rapey!” “I know people who do this kind of stuff, people who I like, so clearly they can’t be bad or rapey!” “I had to put up with this shit when I went to college, so why should other people not have to?” etc, etc.
Am I the only one who thinks those sorority banners are a little crappy? I mean, it’s clearly not as bad as the frat banners and doesn’t have the same connotations, but did I miss the memo where college was no supposed to be about higher education? I think the “party mentality” in general is what contributes not just to rape but also peer pressure to have sex before the young women are truly comfortable and ready for it, and anything that advertises “there’s lots of parties and sex going on here!” contributes to that toxic environment no matter who is doing it. Obviously the frat’s banners are quite rapey and they generated a strong response, but really any kind of sexually suggestive “advertising” should be banned or discouraged in a place like college. I’m generally sex positive but arguing over “whose immature and overly sexual banners are worse” is sorta missing a big point there.
More on topic, though, people generally react strongly to the “rape culture” term because most people don’t see a visible epidemic of rape, nor do they see any systemic problems with rape prosecution and law enforcement. They see a singular focus on rape as more of a political ploy to take advantage of a problem that they think doesn’t even exist. Many people have many motivations of course, some people may just have genuinely retrograde views and can be hardcore misogynists, others might be reasonable but don’t feel convinced. It’s our job to convince them with evidence, not simply call them terrible and call them misogynistic rape apologists for questioning a single detail or not having the same knowledge base as others.
“Rapists don’t advertise en masse.” So according to Woolybumblebee, a banner that said “We will rape you” would not be a rape threat.
@WWTH
Might be a bit off topic but I noticed that so many biotroofs spouted by idiots are really just ‘women being logical’.
It’s behaviors I would do as well if I had to worry about my personal safety in so many social situations.
Their entire argument hinges on them not understanding. If they acknowledge even a smidgen, their whole house of cards tumbles down.
@History Nerd
Please refer to the comments policy regarding the use of words like “crazy” on this blog. Also:
Nope, even in a vacuum, divorced from cultural context, they’re still ignoring the agency of women in their banners. The only time that “Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time” is a non-predatory (or non-consent ignoring, which is the same fucking thing) statement would be in the case of a daycare worker taking a literal baby girl from her parents to play with the other kids in the day care. And even then, it’s still not a statement or a inquiry about the girl’s desires, it’s about what her keepers deem appropriate for her to experience. Which is generally fine in the case of a literal baby, as they have not yet developed the capacity to make decisions and care for themselves autonomously, but it’s a completely unacceptable, and yes, predatory, way to treat an adult woman.
Here, have a slightly altered quote, with slightly more blatant cultural context:
“Hey Fathers, I hope your baby girl is ready to go for a ride in my windowless van!”
Still think it’s an innocent statement?
My feelings on the BUBBLE or THE GUYS DIDN”T KNOW or whatever else…
It is a rape threat. Flat out.
If you know what you’re saying, and you say it anyway, you shouldn’t be doing that and you deserve to be called out for your shitty behavior.
If you don’t know what you’re saying… you still shouldn’t be doing that — ignorance does not excuse you — and thus you need to be called out for your shitty behavior so that you realize it is shitty behavior.
Either way, the point is, people who do this get called out for it. Whether they “knew” or not doesn’t matter, they’re still doing it. Ignorance of a law doesn’t really excuse you from that law, does it?