The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive is on! Please consider donating through the PayPal button below. Thanks!
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 think saying “better be ready” is a rape threat is a weak argument. (This doesn’t mean that it’s a *wrong* argument, just that it’s not based on 100% solid evidence.)
There are different views of what being “ready” for sex means. There’s nothing wrong with interpreting “not being ready” as meaning “not being able to consent”. There’s also nothing wrong with interpreting “not being ready” as simply having the normal excitement and anxiety that comes before taking part in risky, but still consensual, behavior.
However, addressing the fathers/husbands instead of directly addressing the women themselves? 100% Rape culture. It’s a classic as well; after all, rape was originally a crime against the husband or the father because it reduced his “female property’s” value. The “punishments” for the rapist often involved either having to marry, pay for, or somehow financially compensate the aggrieved male for his “loss”, or having him give over his wife/daughter to be raped as compensation. Rape was 100% about the men involved; the women, their feelings, and their agency didn’t enter the picture at all.
And “jokes” like these banners prove that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
BTW, for some reason, I doubt a rapist would resort to suicide very easily. It’s something in a rapist’s mindset, where others exist for them to dominate. I could be wrong, though.”
Both impulsivity and and history with violence are strongly correlated with successful suicides. Statistically, I think rapists tend to have both.
It’s still solely the individual’s choice to kill themselves. “I’ll kill myself (or they’ll kill themselves) if you do X” is such an abuser’s threat.
Bit more on the ban on that chap not being allowed into the UK.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/lostinshowbiz/2015/aug/27/tyler-the-creator-meets-his-match-in-theresa-the-home-secretary-head-of-the-uk-branch-of-banaholics-anonymous
I have no idea how to make those quotation indentations, so let’s just reply as I usually do.
“Being (rightfully) socially shunned for being a rapist or for other crime =/= being persecuted and murdered for the “crime” of belonging to a marginalized group.”
This is bullshit, in this socioeconomic climate. Also implied in your remark is that there’s not even a need for a police investigation, let alone a verdict in a court of law. Evidence, if one needed more of this, that an accusation must be believed as soon as it is proffered, not as soon as it is held to be valid in court.
“What the hell kind of overtly melodramatic upside down fantasy land are you living in, where people treating others like shit are the innocent victims?”
A melodramatic upside down fantasy land where one at least pays more than simple lip service to THE RULE OF LAW.
“If you believe Cosby to be innocent and that all the women coming forth are lying, why do you think that is? It’s rather telling that you side with the poor, poor rapists every chance you get.”
I don’t think he’s innocent. But it’s not left up to me, and should not be left up to me but to a judge and presumably a jury.
“Try four decades.”
Nitpicking, and you know it.
“And Fatty Arbuckle was never convicted of rape in a court of law, which is why I chose Gaius Marius for that analogy.”
After three trials based on an obviously bullshit charge.
“And incidentally, all those “moral-conservative” folks you were talking about regarding Fatty Arbuckle? They engaged in exactly the behavior you’re describing here: going for his livelihood. So the whole Fatty Arbuckle thing is a huge own-goal on your part, as far as your argument goes.”
And where have I said that I identified with moral conservatism? My initial point, back on the previous comment page, was to show the irony, if not the hypocrisy, of the liberal left (i.e., using my breakdown of political ideology, pretend-leftists with none of the redeeming touches of the real Left) using tactics borrowed from moral conservatives.
“I’ll gladly expand my request to include any instances of prominent feminists calling for illegal retaliation against him as well as Cosby.”
Sounds like a GamerGate argument, come to think of it: the “prominents” won’t do it, because they know their real name/reputation is at stake. And others, well, they can be dismissed at will as “not representative of the movement”. Besides, my point never was about “illegal retaliation” (except, at the most, what could qualify as libel, e.g. filling in bullshit Yelp reviews to destroy a dentist professionally because he killed a lion).
“But you probably shouldn’t give your enemies a free PR boost, because that would be really fucking stupid.”
The people living there are either suffering from the Islamic State (and know what to expect from it) or complicit with it. In other words, I don’t care. If they’re “your enemies”, you don’t play PR with them — you get in and you get them.
“Besides, I’m not arguing that military intervention with ISIS is a bad, I’m arguing that civilian intervention – you know, the kind you explicitly called for – was a bad idea.”
Military intervention was first and foremost in my mind. Civilian intervention comes after.
“You really don’t get this whole “reading” thing, do you? / Not to mention the related “typing” thing. Seriously, what a gigantic mess that post is. It’s so obtusely worded.”
And my main language is not English. But certainly, it’s nice to bask in the Privilege of the Anglosphere while dismissing others as unreadable because they fail to conform to one’s idea of a proper level of English.
But anyway, this whole idea of “rape culture” is really that, an Anglospheric notion pushed through as somehow of universal application.
Vetarnias: Cosby can’t be tried in a court of law. Because there is a statute of limitations on rape charges. Because he lives in a rape culture.
Now, then, there’s something to be pursued: to repeal statutes of limitations on rape charges and all other serious crimes. Which is a lot more constructive in my view than just shrieking and pointing fingers at a guy who’s immune from prosecution.
My favourite was:
“I took my lion to this dentist. I was horrified by the result.”
Wow. How do you pursue such a thing without discussing rape and rape culture, Vetarnias? This should be interesting.
NOPE. If anything, the fact that someone STILL thought it was okay to do this is proof that we’ve been too late and too fucking remiss. Get with the program.
Oh lord, THIS shit again?
Tell ya what, Head-up-Ass, maybe when rape accusations ARE sacrosanct, and not subject to being picked apart by deniers at every turn, maybe then you’ll have a point. But the only thing I get out of all your blahblah is that you think every rape victim-claimant is already automatically believed. Newsflash: THEY ARE NOT. And what happened with the Rolling Stone story is just proof of that fact. Sometimes, somebody fibs — but it’s rare. And the fact that this fib became the stuff of a national/international hullabaloo should be proof to you of how rare it in fact is, but you being the obtuse type you are, you probably just think it’s confirmation of the opposite, and of how women can’t be trusted, and blahblahblah.
WRONG again. The Cosby victims felt they couldn’t come forward in a court of law, and you know why that is? MONEY. He had it; they didn’t. He could buy the best defence lawyers to pick them all apart and make them look like drug-hungry, drunken sluts; they’d be lucky just getting a half-decent prosecutor to believe them. It wasn’t until a MAN came forward (Hannibal Buress, remember him) and slammed Cosby in his monologue that finally the matter gained some media and legal traction. The court-of-law bit is still to come, but people have every right to talk amongst themselves and say “Yeah, he’s a scumbag, and he’s been dropping breadcrumbs to that effect all along.” You do not get to tell us how we get to talk about rapey guys, capisce?
As for your “moral-conservative” and “precocious second-wave feminist” twaddle, kindly shove it back up your rectum. “Nobody talks about that” because it happened nearly a hundred fucking years ago, you irrelevant fuckhead. (Also, the Roscoe Arbuckle rape myth — actually, MANSLAUGHTER, of which he was acquitted — was debunked long ago, in case you were wondering. In a court of law, even. You’re welcome.)
Go fight it yourself, if you really think it’s so much worse than what women face here. You wouldn’t last a day, if your idiotic and deliberately obtuse remarks here are any indication. (I’m not buying your “medical” excuse, because I’ve heard it a bazillion times from chickenhawks in the past. Find a new one, you armchair “patriot”.)
Truth is, everything that happens there, happens here too. We have marauding gangs of patriarchs trying to “take back the country” for THEIR bullshit religion, too. Whose fault is it if you can’t open your eyes and SEE IT?
And fuck your specious argument that “our” rape culture is not “as bad”. Who said it had to be a shooting war, in order for us to fight it? It touches our lives in ways that the Middle East’s conflicts frankly don’t. College women’s educations (and I count mine among them) are routinely blighted by bullshit like this. It is tiresome and energy-sapping, and our brains are meant for better things than trying to figure out how to dodge around some bunch of assholes who don’t believe in consent. It IS a big deal, and the reason you think it isn’t is because it clearly doesn’t afflict YOU. Well, if you’re not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem! We fight rape culture here, they fight the same thing there. Why are YOU not supporting them? Why are YOU not supporting US? Why so fucking ignorant?
And finally, there wouldn’t be any Daesh (that’s the group’s proper name, in Arabic) if it weren’t for interfering Brits and Yanks fucking up the Middle East, instead of leaving them in peace and their oil in the ground. Have you forgotten that Iraq is STILL a war zone after more than ten years? And whose fault is THAT, hmmm?
Seriously, you rapey-heads need to come up with some fresh arguments. Yours are as stale and tiresome as the bullshit culture they defend.
I don’t see why repealing statutes of limitations should prove a big deal. Canada, for instance, doesn’t have any for criminal offenses, with the exception of treason.
Nobody is denying that rape is illegal, and nobody (barring loonies like Roosh V) has suggested it should be legal, so I don’t see why that should be too much of a problem.
OT:
Speaking of rape, Ben Radford is being Radfordy again.
This whole post of yours is just gold, chthonicgames. Just…it’s lovely.
The kind of overtly melodramatic upside down fantasy land where rape victims are pressured to not press charges because it could ruin their rapist’s lives?
Like in Stubenville where most of the reporting done on the subject was talking about how the lives of the football playing boys were ruined because they raped a girl and video-taped it and put it on the internet for all to see?
[I’m not trying to chastise you for anything, but this kind of attitude that our dear rape apologist troll has is actually a huge part of rape culture. “Stop being so cruel to the rapist! Haven’t they had enough! You’re ruining their lives!”]
Please read our comments policy regarding ableism, please and thank you.
Troll,
Innocent until proven guilty exists in the court of law only. There’s nothing wrong with looking at the evidence available to you and forming an opinion based on what you know. This is not some new thing invented by evil feminazis. You’re lying if you say you’ve never formed the opinion that someone is violent, a thief or criminal in some other way.
What does this even mean? There are plenty of women outside of the US, Canada, the UK, Australia etc. fighting against rape culture. There are feminists in India doing it. There are feminists in South Africa fighting the corrective rape of lesbians. Whether the exact term “rape culture” exists in other languages, I don’t know, but women all over the globe are certainly familiar with the concept even if they discuss it differently than English speaking women.
I should also point out, that feminists outside of the Anglosphere are not the ones telling us to stop whining about rape culture. Have you ever seen, for example, Malala Youfazai or the members of Pussy Riot doing such a thing? No. This is merely a silencing tactic employed by men and anti-feminist women to preserve the status.
I also am skeptical of you being a non-English speaker. It’s not like you noted in your first post that English isn’t your first language. You waited until your writing skills were criticized. I think you’re just a troll trying to use our sincere impulses not to be xenophobic and racist against us. But I’ll still ask you to clarify what this meant because I am curious.
*lifts a hand* Finnish here, and “rape culture” is definitely a thing over here in Finnish feminist circles as well. Perkele.
“You do not get to tell us how we get to talk about rapey guys, capisce?”
Oh, but I will tell you, if you do it in public and repeat it as loudly as possible to everyone who would hear you. Like that other woman and her mattress on campus. The guy allegedly involved sued the university over it — damn well he did, because otherwise how would that have ended, you imagine?
““Nobody talks about that” because it happened nearly a hundred fucking years ago, you irrelevant fuckhead.”
Like the US Civil War?
“Well, if you’re not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem! We fight rape culture here, they fight the same thing there. Why are YOU not supporting them? Why are YOU not supporting US? Why so fucking ignorant?”
Because with the likes of you it’s always been “all or nothing”, and the “all” comes with so many strings attached it’s practically a puppet show. In which case what you’ll get from me is NOTHING. I’ll take my own positions because of what my conscience tells me, not because there’s a gun pointed at me, nor because you’ll shame me, or try to get me fired for something that has nothing to do with my job, or outright accuse me of being a “rapey-head” (as you’re doing).
“Have you forgotten that Iraq is STILL a war zone after more than ten years? And whose fault is THAT, hmmm?”
Not my fault, as I’ve always been opposed to the war in Iraq (but OK with Afghanistan). And not even my country’s, which stayed out of it. But just stop looking for who’s responsible and see what the reality is on the ground today. To me it’s like saying that Hitler wouldn’t have happened if the Americans had allowed Germany to win World War I.
“I’m not buying your “medical” excuse, because I’ve heard it a bazillion times from chickenhawks in the past.”
Asthmatic since childhood.
But “rapey-head” — piss off.
“Please read our comments policy regarding ableism, please and thank you.”
OK, Roosh V is not a loonie.
Satisfied?
Not with that passive-aggressive bullshit. I was simply trying to refer you to the comment policy, not bite your head off.
[blockquote]I was simply trying to refer you to the comment policy, not bite your head off.[/blockquote]
And where does the comments policy stand on my being called a “rapey-head”?
[blockquote]I also am skeptical of you being a non-English speaker. It’s not like you noted in your first post that English isn’t your first language. You waited until your writing skills were criticized. I think you’re just a troll trying to use our sincere impulses not to be xenophobic and racist against us. But I’ll still ask you to clarify what this meant because I am curious.[/blockquote]
I am a French speaker from Quebec.
A Canadian trying to lecture us about first world feminism. Thought so.
Vetarnias, why don’t you actually go and read the comments policy to find out?
I would consider that it falls under “gratuitously nasty personal attacks”, yes.
Please do not use the word “Canadian” in reference to me.
You could always do as isidore said and read it for yourself.
Also, I wasn’t the one who called you a “rapey-head”, so, again, why am I getting passive aggressive bullshit?
@Vetarnias
Um, is Quebec not in Canada? Do you not live in Quebec? Are you just visiting from Louisiana or France or, IDK, Belgium so that wouldn’t make you Canadian? Because I’m pretty sure if you live in a country, that makes you a part of the country.